Fun fact: There was originally a chapter before this one where Ruby and Blake visited Sun, who was sort of an hermit living in the swamp. It was cut because it was pretty much just filler, with no relevance to the plot.
5. Moonshine
"Ruby, can you please stop?"
The huntress ceased walking and looked back at her companion.
"Everything okay? We can take a minute if you need to rest."
"No, everything's not okay! We've been walking for days and you barely talk to me. I can see something is eating you up inside and I refuse to take another step until you tell me what's wrong." There was worry pooling over in her golden eyes.
"I just really want to find the witch. She shouldn't be too far ahead and the more we wait, the bigger the chance she'll slip away again."
"But why? Why are you doing this?"
"What do you mean why? I'm doing this to help Penny!" Ruby was screaming indignantely. Where was she trying to get with that line of questioning?
"And you help her by running away? I understand the sentiment more than you can imagine, but she needs you by her side now more than ever. I could've tracked down the Schnee myself, but you insisted in being the one to do it."
"And let you go alone? You could've been hurt, and had no one to help you. We didn't have Yan-"
"Yang made her choice. And you made yours. You preferred to leave Penny, who is in pain and scared, alone rather than me. I simply don't understand why." Blake cut her off instantly at the mention of her sister's name. There was still bad blood there, for both of them.
Ruby was at the verge of tears yet again. It seemed like every step she took, something tried to test her emotional resolve. She struggled to decide on what to say next, and in that absence of thought she inadvertedly permitted a slip of the tongue.
"I just can't lose her again!"
"Again? But Penny's always been..." The huntress opened her eyes wide and covered her mouth with her hands, trying to prevent anything else from coming out. "You're talking about someone else, aren't you?"
She nodded without making eye contact, and was rewarded with a strange quietness. The lycan shuffled around her satchel and retrieved an object from inside that she proceeded to hand over. It was a bottle filled with a clear pristine liquid that appeared to be water, but she knew it wouldn't be.
"Moonshine. I was saving it for celebrating the successful mission but I get the feeling you could use a drink right now. Might make talking about it easier."
Ruby uncorked it and took a swig. The alcohol set her mouth and throat ablaze, and she started coughing violently, trying not to drop or spill the bottle with the convulsions. Blake took it back and drank some herself, before suggesting they sit down and camp for the day. When the silver-eyed huntress had recovered and they were confortably set up, she began explaining.
"Did Yang ever tell you what happened to our mom?"
"She mentioned that you had different mothers... And that both died a long time ago."
"Yang's mom died giving birth, so I never even met her. But mine lived with us for most of our childhood. Until one day she got sick, and no one knew why." The lycan understood instantly where that conversation was headed, and insisted that both of them took another sip of the bottle. "She died because we didn't know what to do. Because we only stood by her side while she withered away."
There was a deep silence between them, even nature inaudible in reverence to those words.
"So you understand now, right? It's the exact same thing that's happening with Penny. I can't just sit by doing nothing, I can't allow her to die just like mom."
"And that's why you ran... I'm sorry, Ruby. I didn't know."
"It's okay. How could you know?"
The bottle passed around and they both drank generously, leaving it around half. The raven-haired lycan seemed unchanged, but Ruby could already start to feel her head becoming lighter. With all that had transpired as of late, it was somewhat of a welcome change, so she drank some more, much to the bewilderment of her companion. It still burned like the fiery pits of hell, but her senses were getting dulled to the point that the flaming alcohol was the best sensation available.
"Are you sure you should keep going? Your face is getting awfully red."
"So what? Red is my color, it suits me. Maybe I should paint myself entirely red. It would be so creepy, it would look like I was covered in blood. Maybe I could scare Penny like that. Oh no, Penny... Now I made myself sad. Aaaanyway, I'm fine, you're the one who should be drinking more!"
Blake stared at her with an unbelieving look, failing to understand how one could become so quickly affected by the alcohol. The petite archer really wasn't used to liquor, and was evidently uncapable of holding it in for long. It was pretty damn funny, though.
"All right, if I'm going to babysit drunk-you, might as well have some fun as well I guess." The bottle was now down to a quarter, and both girls were laughing a whole lot more than usual, even if most of it came from the huntress.
"I like you Blake. You're a fun person. And cute. Especially your ears, they're so frickin adorable! I just wanna pet them all the time."
"Hmm, thanks?"
"You know who else is cute?"
"Penny?" She tried to guess, but, as it turned out, that wasn't very effective against Ruby's innebriated state.
"No, me! Why would you say that? Gasp… Do you have feeling for Penny?" Her silver eyes were wide and deeply insulted.
"No. Do you?
"Maaaaaaybe. I don't know. I like her, but I never really thought about any girls like that. Or boys. Or anything. Does that make me weird? I might be weird."
"No, Ruby, that's not weird at all. Some people aren't attracted to other people, or only very rarely. It varies from case to case I guess. It only matters how you feel about her in specific, not the whole human race."
"Sorry, what are we talking about?"
Blake shrugged, the booze starting to get to her head as well. "Hell if I know."
"Doesn't the sun look pretty today? Don't you just love the sun, Blake?"
"Ruby, that's the m... ah sure, why not, it looks wonderful."
Conversation did not progress much further from that point, but the final stretch for the bottle's contents was travelled soon thereafter. They babbled on for hours on end, some parts more coherent than others.
"And then Yatsuhashi kicked us out because you started to try to pet customers!"
"They looked cute!"
They ended up falling asleep while huddling for warmth, deep into the night, partially blacked out due to drunkeness. Would either of them remember the entirety of the evening was uncertain, and the results of their folly would no doubt come to reap in due time, but joy had to be found wherever one could in those murky times.
Even if that very same joy was fated to inevitably turn to ashes.
Penny walked tirelessly through the dark swamp, confident that she was nearing the destination. No matter how arduous the trip might have been, nothing could make her determination waver. She would no longer be passive and alone.
The inn appeared in the distance, reinforcing her smile. It had taken all her persuasion, and a little bit of begging, to get Blake to provide her with the location, but she had made it at last.
Approaching the door, she was stopped under the plaque that read The White Fang by one of the bouncers, a large man with tanned skin and thick muscled arms.
"What are you doing here, little girl? Did you get lost?" His tone was angry and not at all inviting.
The former-statue almost flinched at the condescending words. Sure, she looked young and innocent, but that was just the face she had been given, and she was far from a little girl. Removing the glove and rolling the left sleeve of her shirt up to the elbow, she made sure the foolish guard bulged his eyes open at the sight.
"Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't know. You can go right on in."
Penny nodded with satisfaction and straightened the sleeve back down before entering. The inside was noisy and filled with more people than she'd ever seen, as well as kinds of people unbeknowst to her. Her green eyes flashed through the room trying to locate the one she had been instructed to meet. As it turned out, the woman found her instead.
"Excuse me, do you need something?" A feminine voice called out from behind, and she turned to find a brunette woman with full leather armor and kind eyes.
"Are you Velvet?"
"I am. And you must be Penny. Follow me."
They walked through the tables scattered throughout the place, and all the way to the farthest corner, where a set of stairs led to a dark basement. Velvet stopped, and offered her a rusted key.
"He's in the last door on the right." The shifter then walked away with a smile, leaving her to face the descent alone.
She climbed down into a moss-splatered hall with many doors, all of which had bars akin to prison cells. She suspected that was exactly what they were. A lone torch sitting in the middle was the only light source around, apart from the feeble glow from within the cells due to their own fires.
The ginger girl reached the final door, and slid in the key, which rotated easily and opened the lock. Inside was an equally ginger man shackled to the wall by the arms and feet, in a standing position that looked quite uncomfortable. Good.
"Hello again, Roman."
"Hey, you're Red's girlfriend! Penny, wasn't it?" He spoke as if they were old acquaintances and he wasn't handcuffed, trying to gain points for good behavior, she guessed.
Girlfriend? Was that really how she talked about me? No, focus Penny! Now is not the time!
"I have a few questions for you." She made a menacing grimace to punctuate the demand. Well, she tried to. It was more of an awkward grimace.
"Oh, do you? And what do I have to gain from it?"
Once again, Penny removed the gloves and rolled up her sleeves, this time both of them, stepping forward so he could see. Just like the one before, Torchwick's face grew pale with dread as soon as he understood.
Her left hand and arm were white as milk, far lighter than her skin tone. Because they were not, in fact, skin, but stone. Clear and solid marble, from her fingers to the joint of the elbow there was nothing human about it. Lifting both hands in the air, the flesh one and the stone one, she offered him a choice.
"Well, I could help you get out of here..." She lowered the open human hand, leaving only the clenched statue first. "...or I could hurt you a whole lot."
She prayed he wouldn't call her on that bluff. Despite being created to destroy, she had struggled to overcome that monster inside and become something better, purer. And besides, he was defenseless, it wasn't even a fair fight. Luckily, he wasn't feeling like much of a gambler.
"Ok, I'm all yours. What do you want to know?"
"Why were you after my friends?"
"Easy, I was paid to bring them in. The people I work for wanted a word with them.
"And who are those people you work for?"
"Wrong question, darling. There's something you should be much more worried about than who they are."
"And what is that?" She suspected he was trying to silver-tongue his way out of answering, but she humored him on the off-change he actually had good Intel. Which he did.
"Who they're going to send after your friends next."
"Ma'am? Are you okay?"
Ruby woke up to the booming sound of her own skull attempting suicide. She felt weak, cold, and was lying on the hard dirt ground, but the worst part was definitely the headache. Trying liquor with Yang had never gone farther than a few sips, so she hadn't been ready for the consequences. Attempting to open her eyes let in an overwhelming barrage of light, therefore she opted to close them again. Maybe if she kept lying down she could fade into nothingness, or at least sleep away the pain, even if the thumping in her head threatened to drive her insane well before that.
"Ma'am? Did you hear me?"
There it was, that sound again. Someone was trying to talk to the huntress, and it wasn't a recognizable voice. She endured the blinding whiteness of the outside world, and tried to shuffle to her feet. Her arms faltered when she lifted her torso off the floor, and she fell face first again. In response, the headache became much worse.
"Hey, easy there. Here, drink this."
Ruby accepted the leather flask placed against her lips, praying it wasn't more alcohol. She never wanted to see that wicked stuff again.
Her throat revelled in the refreshing liquid that poured down, the much needed water to soothe her hangover. Feeling reinvigorated, she tried getting up again, and after a few tries managed to succeed despite weakened muscles. As soon as she became vertical, her stomach cried out with nausea, and there was barely time to bend over to the side before her burning entrails started to rage within and forced her to throw up. A hand held her steady, and patted her on the back until the storm calmed down.
Her eyes met her savior at last, starting from the form-fitting white pants to a short and revealing green top that exposed, among other things, her toned midriff, all the way to her disgusted but sympathetic smile. The foreign-looking girl, both in outfit and complexion, had dark-skin, with short green-ish hair and vivid cherry-red eyes.
"Looks like you had a pretty rough night, huh?"
She was only now piecing together the hazed memories of the previous night, when an absence became jarringly off-setting.
"Hav..." Her coarse mouth failed to create clear sound, but she tried again. "Have you seen my friend?"
"The black-haired one? Yeah, we found her a little further up, she's with my partner recovering at our house. Maybe I should take you to her."
The red-hooded archer nodded gratefully, and allowed the other to support her arm over the shoulder. They walked like that, the green-haired girl serving as a crutch to compensate for her vulnerable state.
"So, what's your name?"
"Ruby."
"Oh that's cool, we're both named after gems! My name is Emerald."
So yeah, you guessed it, the title is pretty damn literal. Penny IS returning to marble.
Also I don't mean to make this into an unnecessary cliffhanger, but the next chapter will take a little longer to go up. The next part of the story is having some issues, and I need to work them out before posting any further. Also I started writing a Renora one-shot for MonCon, so that's getting in the way as well.
I'm sorry for the inconvenience, as always feel free to complain about it in the reviews, or to say whatever you wish to. I'm always happy to read input.