Ok, lied again about the lemons, but I'm just not really getting in to them, so I just avoided them. This concludes this part, but I plan on having both lemons and new story material.
-Cheers, Holo
It was night, and Blake stood in the dark living room, lit only by the clocks on the kitchen appliances and the light of the almost full moon. Aymie looked at her, her expression inscrutable.
"What do you want?" She asked, making her way to the cabinet o' booze, "Wine, whiskey, aged scotch, bourbon, I got the best of everything."
Blake had never tried any hard liquor, but she decided to take a gamble. "I'll have whatever you're having, I guess."
Aymie laughed. "Scotch it is." She busied herself with the bottles, and Blake settled herself on a chair.
Aymie gave Blake her drink, and after a moment of trepidation she took a small sip. It was awful, like drinking old shoe varnish mixed with cleaner. She managed to get it down, and after the initial taste subsided, it left a warm pulse in her throat. The alcohol warmed her stomach, and she felt a little blush come to her face.
"Not too fond of the taste?" Aymie asked as she ran her fingers around the rim of her glass.
Blake shook her head as she repressed a gag, trying to hold down another sip of the foul drink, only finding any enjoyment in the wake of the taste.
"Look, you love my daughter, I know you do, and I would love to have you in my family, but neither of us can be together as long as there are secrets between us, so I'll tell you about my past, and you reciprocate, does that sound good?" Aymie was serious beyond belief, and Blake really wanted to believe that she could be a part of Yang's family, but her past made her a little reluctant to be forward with Aymie, but she nodded and stayed quiet.
Aymie looked into her lap, smiling sadly as she spoke. "Before you and Yang where born, back when I was barely any older than you, the world wasn't as safe as it was now. The creatures of Grimm were strong, and they had humanity in a death grip. The small towns were all overrun, and the big cities were no safer, breeding grounds for things that stalked the dark, things that hunted us."
Blake had heard all this before, the way the world was before she was born, the world before the last big war, but she listened to Aymie without speaking.
"This was all before the war," Aymie continued, "And you've probably heard all this before, but you haven't heard it from someone who lived through the war as a combatant, have you?"
Blake blanched, there weren't many survivors of the war, the survival rate had been less than one in twelve, and most of ones who came back were never the same, jumping at every shadow, never able to function at night again. The fact that Aymie was a survivor was surprising, and the fact that she had managed to raise two daughters was even more so.
"I was as green as they got, the year before the war. We were fresh recruits just out of the academy, rushed into the streets of the city to hunt down the Grimm that got in, protecting the people mostly." Aymie's eyes were glazed, looking somewhere far away, perhaps at another time. "We weren't prepared for combat, but we made it through, most of us at least. We fought in the streets, became teams, and were the hero's of the people. Than the plan for the war came through. You've head of the plan before of course, the genius plan that went south, how we were to use the night of the lunar eclipse to face the Grimm colonies at their weakest. I was assigned as the head of a 50 man pod, all hand picked by me, most of them off the streets we worked, people I knew, my friends."
"Oh god…" Blake whispered under her breath. She could see where this story was going, and prayed it didn't end how she thought it did.
"We were stationed south of Grenica in the east, and when we got the go order, we slaughtered the Grimm." Aymie laughed morbidly, and drank more. Her eyes were cold, and unattached. "When we heard what was going on back in the cities it was too late for anyone to do anything. When we went on the offensive, it should have been much harder, much more dangerous." Aymie gestured towards Blake's glass, and after a moment of confusion Blake passed it to her. She killed it in one swallow.
Aymie sighed deeply and resumed talking. "The attack pulled every soldier out of every major city on the continent, and while we were gone, the Grimm poured into every major populated area, and killed everyone. When we returned, it was to a blood bath. My unit was the first on the scene, and the first thing we found were the bodies of the few remaining guards at the city boarders, there were no survivors. My unit was almost a mile into the centre of town before we were attacked." Aymie had tears running down her cheeks now, and her face was a mask of anguish.
"No one survived that night, not really. Out of the fifty people in my unit, only eight made it out alive, and only three of us made it out without losing a limb or two." Aymie turned in her chair and pulled down her top, revealing the scar along her back. "I got this getting Lucilia's body out from the teeth of a Grimm. I had decapitated the Grimm, and was trying to pull her out. She was still alive, I think, but when I tried to get her out I was jumped, and got this." She blew her nose into her shirt collar and wiped her eyes. "When I woke up, I was in one of the refuge hospitals, and I couldn't move anything from my chest down. I learned to use my aura to move my legs again, and my brother made it out of my parents house before the Grimm came, but my baby sister died."
Aymie stood and walked to the door, walking out onto the lawn. She stopped, the wind from the ocean whipping her hair around her, and pulling at her cloths. She looked up at the moon, just staring at it. "Lucilia was my sister."
Blake watched Aymie as she walked off into the dark, towards the ocean, and out of sight.
Blake sat in stunned silence, barely able to comprehend the living nightmare that Aymie had gone through. The fact that was still sane was a true testament to both her physical and mental fortitude. Blake felt tears rising in her eyes, but made no attempt to stop them. They ran down her cheeks, and she gasped for breath, silent sobs wracking her chest. It was too horrible, too awful, no human should have to experience that, never.
Blake leaned against the wall for support as she staggered down the hall, her chest felt like it would tear with every sob, and her tears burned in hot rivers down her face. Stumbling into the bathroom, she collapsed on the edge of the tub.
It was all too much, why did anyone have to go through something so awful, why did it have to leave a mark on them. She didn't hear Yang come in behind her, but she felt her arms around her. Yang sat on the edge of the tub with her, and Blake buried her face in her chest, muffling her cries in her chest.
"Why?" Blake hiccupped weakly, "Why does all this shit happen to good people?" She cried into Yang, who cooed softly to her, comforting sounds that weren't even words, just the primal comfort of another person, not trying to stop the crying, just helping you ease your way through it.
After what could have been hours, Blake's tears subsided, leaving her drained off all energy. Yang picked her up, and she clung instinctively to her as she was laid into bed. The sheets lifted around her and Yang's warmth crawled in next to her.
Seeking the most primal of comforts, Blake searched blindly for Yang's breast, nuzzling her face against Yang's chest, she breathed in deeply, smelling clean sheets, bed cloths, and soap. Blake pressed her closed mouth to Yang's breast, and, slowly, sleep washed over her.
The that evening, the three girls packed their bags for the return trip, and the following morning Aymie gave them a ride back to the train station. They boarded the 8:50 train to Beacon, and watched Aymie disappear out of sight, leaning against her car, an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth. Blake leaned over the train seat and watched as she was lost to the turn in the train tracks.