Chapter 17: He Was Loved

Azura Thrym, the weeping wolf

"It's ugly," Amarilla, her voice was an unwelcome addition to an otherwise peaceful scene. Before her arrival there was such little sound, a gently whipping wind alone that slid through the mostly empty trees devoid of leaves, mostly dead or dripping in blood reds and rustic oranges. The life here was mostly flowers, daisies, nightshade, and winter wildflowers that bloomed in series of different colors. There was little here to suggest human or faunus hands had ever touched it, a purposeful distance away from Fort Castle, and the neighboring farm land and Faunus villages. It was a place where one might catch a beowolf alone and strangely docile, where deer stumbled afraid of hunters both animal and humanoid. Still it was scarred in what to Azura supposed was beautiful to only faunus sensibilities.

"It's a tombstone. It's not supposed to be pretty," Azura responded, not bothering to look back at her. She stood by the massive marker, a monolith of stone upright with faunus runes carved into it, resembling what was supposed to be Charles' name, though it was not something intended to be transcribed into the dead language. It had little likeness to anything, barely looked unique. More noticeable to it was the mass of weapons. Spears propping out of the grass like poles, line after line of swords and axes, some crusted with rust, soon to be consumed by grasses. Some were long rifles, propped up by their bayonets or buried by their stocks. It went on for a long distance, a traditional gift to a king or queen when they died. Canis promised them their swords, they got to keep them. A Waste, yet oddly beautiful in a decrepit way.

"Should be in the Fort Castle Crypt, with a statue of him, tradition and such," Amarilla had heavy footsteps, her boots caving the floor as she stepped. She wanted him to be put away in a casket, some keep cave, or whatever it is they did. Azura didn't care. This was alright, despite not leaving her happy. Better in the trees. He was a game hunter after all, always was more that than a king.

"They'll just knock it down, better in the woods." Defacers were also an issue, this whole stone obelisk was only going to be here as long as the war, whomever won would likely knock it down.

"I wouldn't let them," the young warrior woman called out with a hitch of hurt in her voice, "I thought you would have more faith in us." Us being fort Castle, or Murray's team, or the Taurus, or humanity? Azura didn't have much faith in anything, besides the past.

"The one-armed wonder of Fort Castle stop everyone herself? You know he had faith, now he's dead." The huntress did not truly know why she was so spiteful, the venom on the tip of her tongue as she taunted the girl's newest insecurity. Despite her power and youth, the human lost her arm the day the faunus lost their hope.

"That's not fair Azura," Amarilla grumbled viciously, the speed of her footsteps picking up, the space between them was growing horribly short.

"And what about this is?!" Azura turned back, voice caught in a howl as she broke the peace, not aware of the intensity of her own anger until now, "Why are you here golden girl?!" She still dressed in her false gold encrusted steel armor, shiny, traditional and horribly impractical, but with only one of her gauntlets, the other arm a stump held together in some light casting, an attempt at hiding her newest disfigurement. It wasn't her sword arm. That's all Amarilla had to say about it, but it had to hurt her pride, to be lesser. She was one of those people obsessed with the lore of the perfect warrior. Now she would never be.

"The faunus warriors pay their respect by leaving a weapon with their king yes? I'm here to pay his respects as was his tradition," she replied in an awkward voice, but fairly honest. She had her own weapon, but also wrapped in cloth, a new albeit more basic sword, not fused with a rifle as was the case for officer weapons, just gold laced. A gift made for the occasion and missing the point entirely in a way only one so ignorant of the culture could miss.

"It's not a faunus tradition it's a Canis tradition," Azura clarified.

"Lot of weapons for just the Canis," Amarilla criticized, missing the poetry in the field, this meadow of lonely swords, spears, guns. Each had a different story over the course of the year, battles, hard moments, loss, they all had a story that ended with the person here. Seeing how many found its way here, how it went on and melded with the forest, leaving only the beaten path to the pillar untouched was a sign of how unalone he was in a way.

"It's a very popular Canis tradition."

"Seems foolish, why is everyone just giving up?"

"My people don't have kings, we run in confederacies, but when the Canis are threatened we nominate War Chiefs to lead us. They command armies, not legislate, it's different from your kings, anyways when they die it's over, their son or daughter doesn't get the funny hat just 'cause a parent they barely knew had a funny hat."

"So back to square one every time?"

"The tribe, the packs, were meant to be united only by threat from something outside, hordes of grimm, or you people." Old stories said that these war chiefs fought against the grimm, but recent memory pit them against human aggressors, an ancient tradition connected to human oppression and the stupidly romantic struggle against them. This was the part of the idea Azura most hated, and most blamed for Charles' death.

"Azura, we fought just as hard, look I understand you're hate, but I have sacrificed for him as much as anyone else." And Azura hated her for it, hated her for being right, for sacrificing more for him than she had ever had the luck to lose. One day someone would talk about the ardenthearted Amarilla and how she lost her limb in the line of duty and no one would mention what Azura had sacrificed, forgetting she had given up a friend, someone she loved for this stupid crusade and gain nothing.

"You lost your arm for what?" It was cruel, but she had no other choice, but to be cruel, what else could calm the rage, set things right? Make the human just leave this place and let Azura mourn and die.

"Following his orders we routed the mercenaries and assaulted the rear, we nearly cut off the retreat, I may have lost my arm fighting the rear guard, but I brought down the warden of Vermillion, that is worth something," Amarilla replied without a hitch in thought, response robotic and something she had clearly remarked to herself quite a lot. It was true though. She lost one arm, but killed the warden with the other. Turned the strategic retreat Weiss had laid out into a near rout.

"Charles is still dead." Azura sounded like she was blaming her.

"I was as fast as I could have been." Maybe she was. Unfair of her.

"I know." Azura growled as she spoke, but only to herself, anger only for herself, "And I hate that worse. If it was your fault I could snap your head off." For years Azura's response to pain was to kill the source. She crushed things, it was all she knew, all she had. There was no one left to kill, no one responsible, no one she could reach at least, "I'm sorry."

"It's alright, you cared for him deeply," Amarilla wasn't an emotional woman, she was trying, but neither was Azura, this would not suffice for either of them.

"Yeah." There was a silence for a moment, a mutual understanding of their failure to connect on any level. The only thing that ever was relatable to the two was their work with blood was similar and directed toward the same people. Amarilla must have thought the same, asking the question that hung over so many conversations Azura had lately.

"Did you kill his murderer? I heard it was you."

"Yeah," Azura answered in a rasp.

She remembered it, but not as it happened, instead as it felt. Night air wasn't cold, there was too much fire, yet the memory was frosted over in ice. The night sky was grey and black, yet the recollection painted everything in deep crimson, a mist of red.

There was a moaning, both man and monster. Other reported it as cracked steam engines emptying their last dying breath as one by one the iron Schnee titans dropped into husks with their skeleton like bodies coated in arrows and bullet holes, but Azura heard moans. Ghastly horrible sounds, like a stuck grimm struggling to get up if only to kill more. The hollow hiss of an acid that had run its course through the body. This was a mocking groan.

None were left, she had personally brought down several, though it left her muscles sore and torn, it was irrelevant. She could not feel it by the time Azura reached the center of that red mist. When memory made clear the only two things that mattered. How the faces of Faunus soldiers blurred and distorted like a painting warps when it burns. Yet memory did not leave him forgotten.

Charles was dead.

On the floor he laid, body shattered and distorted, blood pooled where he had been stabbed and his teeth shattered and face had been partially skinned. Most however had drizzled out of his neck. One cold free hand was still clutched around the wound, as if he could hold his neck together.

He could not.

So his black hair was now matted and caked red, but what next Azura's memory wasn't clear of. She thought she might've screamed, but could not remember. She knew her hand went to brush his face, but couldn't find an undamaged section that could fit her palm. Animals were skinned better, slaughtered cleaner. Humans loved their animals more than him, the best faunus she had ever known. For that alone she momentarily question whether any of them had the right to live.

There was no question for Weiss however.

The Schnee would-be queen was coated in crimson, and not just Charles'. Her pressed white uniform was in tatters, arrows cluttered her back, one spear, broke but not removed, rendered her left arm useless. She had a bullet wound in her leg that shaved a section of calf off, how she could stand was near inhuman. Her rifle sword was now just a blade, the gunbarrel warped from overuse, the revolver canister empty, the Schnee finally ran out of dust. Not surprising considering how she stood on a pile of faunus dead. Many soldiers come to avenge their temporary king, a huntsman or two as well it seemed. None had killed her, now they simply watched her waiting to see if the pig would bleed to death. She was smiling, how every bit of her face would be engraved in Azura's mind. The beautiful blue balls that made her eyes, the shining silver shine to her hair, the patch of pink on the pressed lip's scar, curved now with her grin. Open only slightly, to hold the skinning knife.

There was no waiting, there was nothing but the red on her knife and the rage. Azura could not have controlled her semblance had she wanted to, though she did not. The wolf in her growled and the woman in her roared. Her teeth sharpened and eyes turned yellow like the glow of the moon before it turned yet. Her muscles grew tight and strong and hands developed into claws. She charged.

Azura needed no weapons, no shields. Weiss countered with the sword stabbing into her adversary. It went deep, but she did not feel it. Right claw struck the Schnee along the head, force sending her back a few feet and the nails carving what would have been new scars along her face. Maybe hours ago, Azura would have died to a bullet doing this, maybe Weiss could have countered. She could have been the better warrior, better huntress, but now she had no arm, no gun, no dust, no aura, no right to live, no right to exist, no right to breath. She needed to die, needed to die, needs to die.

As she fell in the red mud, scurrying to her feet Azura pounced, reaching for whatever she could grab like a starving beowolf. She found a leg, sinking her teeth in to the calf so viciously it was tearing. Weiss resisted as much as she could kicking the beast, but she did not feel it, the boot that broke her nose was like a kiss.

The huntress pulled Weiss to the floor, arm and legs flailing and kicking, leaving bruises and broken bones, yet she felt nothing as she forced the woman down. Biting deep in her good arm and pulling it till the socket no longer struggled. From there, Weiss could not resist. Azura beat her, claws cutting away at her, some told Azura that she ripped out the woman's throat with her teeth, though she could not remember much as the red mist of rage shadowed her mind. The only moment that seemed clear to her was when the Lord of Castle white died, when she pressed her thumbs into the women's eye sockets and crushed the skull and felt it turn to shattered glass.

Then came sobbing. Then came pain. Then loss. Azura now knew what it was to be truly alone. For without even hate to keep her company there was nothing once the high of rage ended.

The story ended there for her. There was no consolation.

"Didn't matter. She wasn't the only one responsible," Azura acknowledged. For all her rage and mess, for what horrible death she gave Weiss it was a rather juvenile and useless thing. She would have bled out and died. It was just an expedited trip. Just a temper tantrum. The world failed Charles, just as it had with Lucia and like with killing Guido, killing Weiss did nothing to end it, if anything it just gave her less of a reason to exist.

"If the Taurus had not abandoned us," the yellow knight said the words that no one dared and everyone thought. Charles gambled with Weiss because with a third of his army gone all there was to do was gamble. Had the Taurus been there Azura would have stayed with him, Weiss might have even trapped them, but not butchered him like an animal.

"She needs to die." The old mindset came back immediately. The void was filled with rage, a desire for revenge, and the hollow reality slipped back into the forgotten, almost. Nihilism was still on the table and knowing the Taurus was untouchable chose that for her.

"She has a Castle now, she took Nördlichste, you'd never reach her," Amarilla countered Azura's thoughts, seeing into the back of her brain knowing what was inside of her more than the knight should have ever.

"I know." the wolf replied, resting her body on the ancestral huntress' great sword, body still stung, the bones still healing, though it was a dull pain now. She looked back at the yellow knight, hard faced. She had more to say, the way she opened her lips almost to speak, but nothing audible ever came of it. "What are you really here for?"

"To see you, I suppose." she replied with a deep exhale. Her exasperation gave it away. She was a messenger, come to wake Azura up, that the world's intrigues and bullshit had not stopped even for a moment. Charles' death did not mean the death of the world nor the ambitions or jealous souls around her. The matter of the child would not wait for her mourning to be over.

"It's about the kid eh?" Azura mumbled knowing it was over.

"Maledetta has decided you will not be permitted in fort Castle for the duration of the conflict. She is concerned for her child's safety." Amarilla sounded convinced of it, though Azura doubted she was stupid enough to believe that this was anything temporary.

"She's concerned 'cause she knows damn well I'm the godmother," Azura could not do more than spit her anger, she had not the energy to yell. Rage reduced to little cuts and complaints. She hated Maledetta, the wife didn't bother coming to the funeral, she called all her little knights home, shut the gates and went right back to the way things were before her husband ever stepped foot in her little castle. Young pseudo-queen turned her back on the faunus as soon as her own fate became uncertain. Leaving only Murray and the Taurus as faunus leaders in the north. Charles should have never trusted her. She wouldn't ever again.

"Yes, and you are, but Maledetta is still alive and well." That was the one solid point they had, but it was always intended that the child not be removed from its people. Maledetta wasn't afraid of Azura thinking she was going to steal them away. It was more...cultural.

"And I can't even see them? Why? 'Cause I'll tell them their funny little ears come from faunus blood? I'll make them savage?" Maybe she would have. Taught them things she had taught Charles. How to hunt and fight, how to avoid grimm and string a bow, how to swing a sword, fire a gun. Lessons she had neglected to teach Charles. How to detach from others, that there was nothing loyal about people. That any kindness is a demon in disguise.

"Look you might not agree with it, I don't even agree with it," Amarilla wasn't afraid to be loud, to approach Azura, to stand tall, proud, and stupid. It was consequently the most redeeming feature and irritable quality of her. "but the Queen is clear, my cousin, the mother, will raise them as she sees fit."

"Of course," the wolf near whispered looking away and down, too angry to look at her and know there was nothing she could do.

"If you wait, you'll see them, after they're born, when things are less tense, I can convince my cousin, I know you mean well," Amarilla did mean that, she wasn't that apt at lying. "Azura I respect you." It would have made more sense as a lie.

"Yet you came to my best friend's grave to tell me I can't see his kin," Azura turned to look at her, eyes flashing gold for a moment, unable to shout, but words dripping out like hot steam, boiling in the new winter air, "'cause I got to say that's really fuckin' confusing girl."

"I also came to see you, if you're okay, everyone says you quit. I'm worried," Amarilla worried was a concept that had never even crossed into the threshold of Azura's mind. It was odd, disrupted every thought running through Azura's head leaving her star struck, "What are you going to do now? Go back to fight?"

"No reason to," that answer was easy, easier to say then she had predicted. There was nothing that attached her to this conflict anymore.

"Your people?" Nationalism, a human pastime Azura supposed and a growing faunus sentiment, but not her own. There was nothing inherently better for her when it came to the humans or faunus people. Horns didn't make kin, or ears. It was shared meals, memories, homes. All else was ginned up by some sort of fallacy.

"I had two people, they're dead now."

"Home?" Amarilla asked again, hoping to hit something more concrete. She did not.

"I don't know where to find it," Azura laughed, "probably a burned down shack somewhere. I've always lived where I've camped. A faunus Huntress is not exactly the most excellently paid people around. Charles home more likely than else, but that place is gone now."

"What then?" Amarilla) thought there must be something. Simply there was not. There was nothing.

"I'm going to head east, into the mountains, hunt," Azura answered with a small groan, lifting herself off the support of her weapon, eyes looking up the Eastern mountains, Vale's natural defense. Mostly unmapped black rocks dotted with troughs of snow and scattered trees. It was there where the grimm flourished and the races of the light rarely went. Somewhere in there was a place she could go in the shade of scattered trees, in the snow, a place to quietly drift away.

"You're not leaving him your sword?" Amarilla asked.

"I am," Azura answered.

"Getting a new one?"

"I have my hands."

"No, no, no I will not let you do that." Amarilla closed the gap between them, grasping the metal pauldron of her armor and spinning the faunus warrior right around, tearing her away from the peace of her grimm mountains, her silent disappearance.

"I'm a huntress, it's my job," Azura barely murmured a reply, knowing it would ring false. Hell if she ever cared about her job anyways.

"I will not let you commit suicide!"

"It's not suicid-"

"It is!" Amarilla shouted, voice tugging at something inside, as to what she had no idea, a one sided connection perhaps, something she could see that Azura could not "You are going to commit death by grimm! That's your plan! Charles wouldn't want that!"

"Too bad he's fucking dead!" Azura shoved her off, the crippled knight barely moving despite the wolf's outrageous strength. The huntress thought she could not be angry anymore, could not yell, but telling her what Charles wanted, "Lucia committed suicide by hanging, Charles suicide by profound idiocy, why not add mine to the bloody list eh?! It's fucking poetic right? Tell me why I can't just fucking die somewhere!"

"You need a reason to live well how about failure!" Amarilla pushed back, one armed fury that she was it tripped up Azura, near knocking her to the floor. "You were supposed to protect him, and he's dead. You doomed us all by your own insane standards. If you are so obsessed with this then fine. Fight grimm till your body breaks, but with a fucking weapon." Amarilla tossed her gold colored long sword, an ornate little thing worth more than Azura's house, right at her, crashing against the armor and dropping to the dirt with a muted thud. "It's barely a sword, but with it kill them all, cut them down until all that guilt you have is gone, smother the mountains in their blood, do whatever you need. Return to being an honorable huntress, win back your soul if you need to, but die because you fought, not because you gave up." Amarilla did not cry, but her eyes were doused in tears that would not drop, would not suffer the indignity, "If you survive all that, you become a huntress, maybe then we can get some revenge. The Taurus will not go unpunished while I live, and if you want to help me, we need to play the long game."

"Why do you care? About me? About Charles." She was human, she had no stake in this, no reason to seek out vengeance with her, but the rage that trembled in her voice was real. It reminded her of herself.

"Charles was my King, he tried to be a good king, I never liked him, but that was enough. You, you are a Huntress. When I was a little girl, I looked up to your kind, the women with their armor and weapons fighting for something more real than the petty squabbles and politics. For that little girl, I'll help you." Azura remembered feeling that way long ago, looking at her mother before the first year of the war took her mother through an wound infection, before a beowolf slashed open her face, before she met Charles, she remembered that child. That little girl seemed so far away now. To think she was a child too.

"One day," Azura mumbled making it into a promise, not just a suggestion.

"One day," Amarilla replied, hand out. They shook on it and that was the end. The yellow knight whom she should have made friends with so much sooner began to walk away, her locks flowing in the wind. Scattered leaves and a field of swords swirling around her.

"But the offering!" Azura shouted after her, picking up the gold sword, so wrong in a field full of cheaply made weapons worn from use. Such a human like thing compared to the rest.

"You can keep the sword, I'm not a faunus. Don't need a faunus tradition!" she yelled, turning to smile only for a moment.

"Canis tradition!" Azura shot back, earning a groan from the knight in the distance.

"Same thing!" She let out before disappearing into the brush and thicker stretching out of the heart of the mountain woods,

"Bloody racist," the Huntress mumbled in reply, a momentary grin on her face, temporary, but meaningful.

Azura was alone now, though gifted with a touch more desire to live; she still had to make her last peace, to part now and forever. She reached out and touched the obelisk and it was cold, much like Charles was under the earth. It was not the comfort she hoped it was. So much she wanted to yell at him, scream at the fool for not listening, for trusting, for believing too much in the myth they spun about him, but she was wordless. This was not the warmth she yearned for in Charles' home, a small little hovel, the three of them hanging around the fire, each competing for affections of Lucia, both being scolded for their stupidity.

Their childhood had died twice, but no more. She lit the small torches around the rock pillar, an offering of smoke made only by those closest to the deceased. No one touched them before her, and too much heartache, no one would likely touch them again besides his brother, if the fool was still kicking about.

It was time. Amarilla gift fit well on her belt, but the family great sword could not follow her. She promised it to Charles, promised it to his protection. It was spoken for. Her body ached, but Azura managed to lift the massive blade up straight, pointed to the soil, right in front of his tombstone. A soundless moment, remnant was pierced, the ground impaled deep by her sword, standing near as tall as the monument and forever at its side.

She had to turn away, for she could not lie at his grave forever, there was still hope for vengeance, though it would be years. She could cry elsewhere, pay her dues in grimm blood till she could feel right again. Until forever. The only comfort as she walked the path was the vestiges of weapons that endlessly stood with hers. So many. So many promised to him kept their word. He was loved. For all the uselessness in that sentiment. At least he was loved.

*** So this chapter came at an unusually difficult time. I had to write it and started right before Monty passed away. It was too much to write about a dead man when he was still being mourned. Though that process has certainly not ended. As silly as it is, waiting any longer would not be the kind of thing he desired of people. He was never one to excuse inefficiency. So I'm back on track. This is a shorter chapter and certainly a difficult one to write if it feels off.

Thank you to TCR who edits AV for the patience. Thank you everyone for reading. This marks the last chapter for Azura and the official death of Weiss. Weiss is named after Weiss, there is no other structure for that sorry. Azura thrym is named after Azure blue and the king of the Frost Giants Thrym, whose death to thor was the source of red riding hoods story. I hope you all enjoy, keep loving the RWBY universe and remembering the great work Monty did. Have a good day to all of you.