A/N: I lost this chapter to a computer crash. And then I found it again. And then I added a couple of thousand words and then I released it.

This got added to a Community. I am suitably baffled, but pleased.

I'm too tired to write anything else. Enjoy!


It was loneliest in the world at the very top.

That was how it had been for as long as society could remember. Sometimes, it was by design, and other times through ignorance. Individuals would form groups, those groups would form communities, and those communities would soon enough be erecting pillars beneath talented individuals. The rest of their constructs would follow along, and before anyone had realised what had happened, those pillars would be walled off and their mounts forced to suffer the isolation that came with their position.

Once that happened, there was no turning back.

In order to break out, the person atop the pedestal would be risking the integrity of everything built upon them. It went beyond their lives unless they made their attempts early, before the structure had time to grow, and hardly any were ever not drunk enough on their success to understand that. Breaking it on the outside would almost always be due to malicious motives, which would then plunge everything into disarray regardless and leave whoever had been targeted with nothing beyond the rubble they could salvage.

At the top, you would have money, influence, and power. At the top, you could have anything you could ever take from another person, but never would anything they had to offer be genuine. Respect could not be presented or reciprocated, not when it was tainted with blind adoration. Company could not be sustained, as jealousy for he or she whom had managed to climb the pillar would strain any potential relationship, or abolish it altogether.

Sometimes, such as when you had indirectly garnered a reputation as untouchable because you were just that damn good, the reality was that nobody ever truly had the courage to try.

But as Pyrrha Nikos had learned recently, reality in this crazy, messed up world of Remnant was wont to change on a dime. For the better, for the worse, and occasionally for the ultimately neutral.

Her hopes had been high upon enrolling into Beacon Academy. It was in a different Kingdom, a different culture; full of different people who would have different pastimes. It was a chance to make friends. It was a chance to study subjects beyond simply fighting to overcome an opponent.

It was a chance to finally be normal.

Unfortunately, Pyrrha's reputation of being untouchable didn't quite apply to one thing; her reputation. Because that had been touched on the moment she'd stepped out of the bullhead, in the form of a fainting fan and a request for an autograph. She'd smiled, complied, and silently despaired as she set course for Beacon and did her best to ignore everything around her, to not give into the ingrained urge of smiling and offering a wave as people continued to call her name.

Her hope had effectively been dashed against the rocks. Provided she could pass whatever Beacon had set up for initiation (and of course she would, she wouldn't fail after coming all this way), she had practically guaranteed herself close to half a decade of the behaviour she was used to receiving… in close quarters and narrow hallways. It had been a very long time since she had last cried, but upon that realisation, the temptation had been powerful.

But like the Champion she had consistently proven herself to be, Pyrrha had kept her head high in the face of loneliness. Initially, the only person who had been brave enough to approach her on that first day had been Weiss… and no offence to the heiress, but Pyrrha would have much preferred the screaming fans.

And then he had stumbled into her life. He had been… she would hesitate to refer to his actions as bravery, but he had approached, and he had been the first person in years to need to be told her name.

The only indication he'd ever had of her existence had been a cereal box. Wasn't that just ultimately curious?

He'd been easy enough to claim as a partner. He'd shown some aptitude for his weaponry during initiation, though not nearly at the level she would have expected from a Beacon hopeful. He'd warmed her heart, provided her with her fair share of scares, and been her introduction into the first group she could sincerely call friends.

Amazingly enough, he also never gave her the slightest indication of being aware of what he was doing. Such obliviousness to his surroundings would more than likely get him brutally murdered out in the field one day, but he simply lived his life, all the while vicariously granting her everything she had been missing in hers. It would be some time before she could claim to have earned his trust implicitly, what with the many things he still refused to tell her, but he was already more than deserving of hers.

So when Pyrrha walked around a tree to find herself a scant few feet from the edge of a very high cliff, she didn't jump when she heard Jaune calling her name. She simply looked to where his voice had come from, and raised a single eyebrow as he waved a hand that wasn't cradling three full jars of sap to his chest, from the tallest branch of an already tall tree.

"What are you doing up there?" She felt no need to ask him how he had gotten up there, the gouges that were approximately exactly the width of Crocea Mors' blade were indication enough. He smiled down at her, making her knees weaken an infinitesimal amount at the joints, as he gestured to the empty jar sitting beside him on his tree branch.

"Nora said the sap tastes better the higher up on the tree. This was the tallest tree I could find." Leaning forth the slightest amount, Jaune let his arm fall loose, dropping the sap jars into Pyrrha's waiting hands. His intent had been clear enough, as had the fact that he likely wasn't ever going to get out of the tree while keeping three glass jars in one piece each. "Those are for Nora. Figured it would distract her long enough for Ren to fill up his own jar."

Pyrrha chanced a glance down at the jars; each looked full enough for the lid to have to contest for room. She looked back up to the top branch, raising her eyebrow in spite of the fact that Jaune had turned back to the tree's trunk. "What about you?"

"I still have to fill mine, and this spot's running low on sap." Pyrrha opened her mouth, an offer to wait on her lips. The words caught themselves in her throat when Jaune sent her a wink, cocking his head to the side slightly. It took Pyrrha a second to realise he was gesturing back the way she had come. "I'll catch up, don't worry. You guys are west, right?"

"If you're sure." Pyrrha readjusted the jars in her grip; it was easy enough when there was only three; she'd managed to escape with hers and hand it off to Professor Goodwitch before Nora had gotten it within her sights. Jaune sent her another smile, teetered on his branch slightly as a small breeze blew through the area, and waved off her concern with the hand that was holding his empty jar. "…I'll go give these to Nora, then. Ren will likely want to send his regards."

She could get there and back in five minutes. Surely, that was a time window small enough to not allow Jaune the chance to hurt himself somehow.

…Not that she didn't have faith in her partner. She'd merely seen him seen him wake up one morning, get nailed in the side of the head by a bird that had gotten into their room through the window Ren had left open the previous night, and slam face-first into the bed-post hard enough to almost give himself a concussion, which then lead her to the entirely logical and likely correct conclusion that the universe didn't have faith in her partner.

"I hope so! This tree wasn't very easy to climb." She was already hurrying away when he started talking once more. Not lack of faith, lack of faith in lack of faith. Or… something. "I still don't know how I'll get down without just jumping and letting my Aura deal with it."

"Please do not do that!" Pyrrha called over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes through the canopy above her head at the splash of yellow she knew to be Jaune's hair. She was almost tempted to nail him to a tree to ensure his safety for the second time in the same semester.

Well…

Her hand strayed to the weapon in question, before she slapped it away. How she managed all that while cuddling three jars to her bosom was a mystery for the ages. Turning on her heel, she made her way through the trees with moderate haste, at one point having to turn entirely off course to avoid a group of Ursa that were sniffing at the trees and… whining, perhaps?

A sudden gust of wind blew across her face, mussing her hair and dropping a few strands into her eyes.

She would only find out later exactly why her stomach felt like it had fallen out from underneath her in that moment.

XxX

For the third time in five minutes, Dove tripped over a root. His head hit the tree that Sky had just used to fill his jar, his own thankfully bouncing when he released it to stop himself from falling flat on his face.

"For the love of God, Dove, open your eyes."

Dove rolled onto his back, so he could cross his arms comfortably. A breath released from his nostrils filled the otherwise quiet clearing, sending birds flying from their trees in shock. Red leaves, scattered by the disruption, fell about Dove in a perfect outline of his body, and the stress lines disappeared from his face as a single blossoming flower landed on his forehead.

He would never open his eyes. For it was to be his destiny in the near future to be a wise old master and disperse wisdom upon the younger generations, and to do so while his eyes were open would be an insult to the long held archetype he'd strived so long towards becoming.

Dove shook his head, doing his best not to disrupt the flower that had settled there. Dove had his plans. Dove had his reasons. Dove had his dreams and his ambitions, and to open his eyes would be to taint himself with the sight of the world.

It was when he was but a wee lad-

"You're silently monologuing again, aren't you?"

IT WAS WHEN HE WAS BUT A WEE LAD… that his outlook on life had changed.

"Guys, Dove's monologuing again. Let's just move on, he'll find us later."

HE-! … He… had come from one of the Kingdoms. He didn't know which Kingdom it was, because he had never opened his eyes to look at the signs. He had been the target of bullies, for why would he want to be an old man when he was a young boy? That was madness, but the other children could never understand. They had yet to start planning for their future. They had yet to realise that Dove was the future.

The opportunity to be one with the bullies had arisen, and like any wise old mentor with a tragic backstory and motivation to repent for their past sins, Dove had taken it. He received a sword. He got good at that sword. He killed his first Grimm. He soiled himself a little bit during, but the stain could be passed off as mud and he had jumped into a river before anyone had detected the smell.

Throughout it all, he had never opened his eyes. Because he had been too busy seeing everything.

He had seen people sitting in front of computer screens, reading through his ham-fisted backstory and thinking to themselves how unnecessary it all was. He had seen the future erase itself and be born anew, with only the caffeine supply to a certain building being shut down. He had seen a coffee cup (that had a pretty blue flower on the front) become a new overlord to be respected and feared, mostly feared. He had seen a vibrant red dress make questionable decisions and a pair of glasses standing amidst a burning pyre of green and red.

Nobody had believed him when he told them. The mocking had begun anew. He'd saved himself in due time by admitting that the vibrant red dress was being worn by an extremely attractive lady, a fact that had distracted his fellows from the situation at hand because they were but growing boys and easily malleable to the ways of their hormones. It was entirely the truth, yes, but it didn't change the fact that his friends were kind of idiots.

And if he wanted some true regrets in life to fuel his later motivations, Dove would have to stick with them.

It was only when he got to Beacon that he could make the ultimate mistake. The most egregious error of his life, short of going out of his way to harm another person directly. The illustrious Beacon Academy would allow him to commit the most inadmissible sin available to him-

Alright, so it wasn't that bad. But befriending Cardin Winchester, otherwise known as the biggest dickhead in the school, could only be a good thing for his future students. Yes, people may have looked down on him by proxy of the company he kept, but weren't the most heroic of heroes born from the oppression of the masses?

But it hadn't even reached the end of the first term before the first obstacle and latest in his recent motivations reared its supposedly exceedingly attractive head.

Dove rubbed his hands together and grinned. The woodland creatures that had gathered around him, hopeful that he had died recently so the meat would be fresh, began to leave en mass in disappointment.

Doctor Oobleck, now there was a man who could keep the masses entertained and educated. He'd allowed the man to continue unobstructed, and had lost his main source of events that he would come to rue in time, but in turn gained invaluable information in what it meant to teach people younger than himself.

Besides, if we ended up that desperate for remorse, he could always just feed another student to a Grimm or something. Hell, he could do that anyway, just to really make him feel bad about himself.

It was at this point that Dove would have muttered a quip to one of his teammates, forgetting that he wasn't actually all that funny, and waited in awkward silence until one of them coughed and changed the subject. But he had also recently decided to give up talking, mainly because he didn't like his voice.

I-I mean because it was mysterious! And-and people loved a mysterious mentor who… ah fuck it.

Dove frowned at the tirade, as if someone out there gave a damn about his feelings on the matter, before pushing himself into a sitting position. The squirrel that had been advancing on him from the side quickly waved and darted back into the bushes, prompting the deer that had been about to trample him to panic and attempt an escape.

Dove didn't question why something slammed into the tree in front of him. He sniffed the air cautiously, confirming his team were headed downwind via the B.O that Russel so graciously left behind for him after every shower he forgot to take, and hopped to his feet.

He tripped over an insensate deer on his way out of the clearing. His face slammed into the tree the deer had run into, knocking a squirrel off the branch he had been sitting on. Dove pushing himself back to his feet, shook himself off, and took a step. His foot accidentally connected with the squirrel mid-air, sending it hurtling at something approaching Mach speed into the jugular of the Beowolf that had been attempting to sneak up on him through some bushes.

Dove continued on, unaware as the Beowolf managed to throw the squirrel from its heavily bleeding throat. It lunged at his back, jaws open wide, and the tree that had been slammed into by two different beatings in as many minutes chose that moment to topple over. A pleasant breeze budged Dove a step to the side, the Beowolf's jaws missing him by a hair and the tree that came toppling down on top of the Beowolf missing him by the skin of his teeth.

Doze hummed a pleasant tune to himself as he bounced off another tree, only barely catching the scream from ahead of him and the voices that followed it.

"-a tree? What was he doing in a tree?"

"Collecting sap, dumbass. Ugh, of all the times for someone to fall out of a tree and off a cliff-"

"Did you really just say that sentence?"

"Shut up, Russel, it applies. Just… go get Goodwitch or Oobleck. Sky, you're with me. We're already here, may as well get the body before it gets eaten by Grimm. Dove, you… where's Dove?"

Dove waved his arms above his head, not aware of the sheer drop he was heading towards. He smacked off another tree like a pinball, his flailing limbs evading Sky's attempt to grab him before he could take another step. The ground that had been beneath his feet decided to quit on him, and he toppled over what his team must have been referring to as the cliff with naught a "how-do-you-do?"

Three different exclamations followed after him. One of worry, one of worry and annoyance, and one of inquiry as to why he was still neglecting to open his eyes.

Throughout it all, he never dropped his jar.

XxX

Cuddles wasn't entirely sure how it happened.

Had he been told years ago that he would get into this sort of predicament with a human, he likely would have understood none of the words being directed at him, and made an honest effort to eat whatever was intruding on his territory. Hell, had he been told that he would get into this sort of predicament with a human the previous night, he still would have eaten whoever made it a point to talk to him, but he would have been laughing all the while.

Now, however, the world was laughing at him. Because here he stood, on his hind legs, morosely dipping a claw into the jar of sap he had been given by the strange green human, while the human in question stood atop his shoulders, filling another jar that would likely amount to his own breakfast.

It was hardly a bad set-up, all things considered. Cuddles was still getting his breakfast, which consisted of a larger helping of sap than he was ever able to get without whatever tool the human was using. And it was from the top of the tree, too, which was always where the sap was the tastiest. Many an Ursa had damaged themselves to the point of death while foolishly attempting to reach the tasty sap. And Cuddle had just had it given to him.

He'd needed to give the human a boost, of course. Tall as he was, he was nowhere near tall enough to reach the good sap depository on the tree they had met in front of. But he was an Ursa Major, the toughest creature likely to be found in this part of the woods, and damn it all if he wasn't smarter than the average bear. The human could be dancing atop his skull and screaming mating calls in his ear and Cuddles would still be getting the better end of this bargain.

The sap was just that damn good.

Cuddles had already decided that he would let the man go uneaten. It had been decided before he had been fed, because the green human was fucking terrifying, but now he had a reason rather than an excuse.

He honestly couldn't even recall how it had come to this. The two of them had stared at one another for a very long moment, waiting on the other to make the first move. Next thing Cuddles knew, he was pointing out where the tastiest sap was, the human somehow understood him, and then he had a flesh bag on his shoulders, handing him his food for the morning.

He was content to just sit against the trunk of the tree, and let the human have his fun. His stomach was full, his jar only half empty, and he was staring at the startled green eyes of the woman he had seen earlier and oh dear this probably wouldn't end well.

Cuddles wasn't used to feeling helpless. He was used to being around others who felt helpless, because finding any Grimm in these woods that had evolved to the point of being able to think of ways around problems would be a more difficult undertaking than him completing the enrolment process for that school that was situated not too far from here.

Be that as it may, it still gave him no options in the current situation. The human on his shoulders hadn't noticed the interruption, but once he did, Cuddles was doomed. The best exit in this scenario, the one that wouldn't require him to make any turns, was being blocked by the female. Effectively, he was trapped, and probably dead too if nothing came to his rescue.

Cuddles blinked slowly at the woman, rotating his neck to stare at the backside of the man on his shoulders. Turning slowly back to the woman, Cuddles slumped further into the tree, dipping his claw back into his jar of sap. Yep, he was doomed, but he wasn't going to be going out on an empty stomach.

"BARTHOLOMEW!"

Cuddles' claw stilled. That wasn't his name… was it?

The man on Cuddles' shoulders didn't so much as twitch at the interruption, but the way his breath hitched the tiniest bit and the way he was the only other person in the clearing (unless the woman was yelling at herself) was evidence enough for Cuddles. He was in the presence of a Bartholomew. Excellent.

This changed nothing.

"Just a moment, Glynda." The man called back, in a voice Cuddles would call pleasant. He wasn't able to enjoy it, however, due to the stick that had been jabbed in his direction.

Slowly, he withdrew his claw from his jar or sap, and licked it clean.

He then held the jar out to the woman, tilting it to the side ever so slightly and shaking it in a way he hoped would attract her attention. He didn't want to give up his breakfast, but maybe if he did share, the human would feel indebted to him and let him leave her presence without brutally murdering him.

It was a long shot, certainly. And she didn't look like she was going to take the offer.

The standoff wasn't as tense as the first one to take place in the clearing, though that probably had something to do with the fact that Bartholomew was still standing on Cuddles' shoulders, rendering him slightly less intimidating. The two stared at each other, breath held, waiting for the slightest movement to ignite a spark that would only end in victory for one-

Another human crashed into the clearing, out of breath if their panting was any indication. Annoyed, Cuddles withdrew his leg, sullenly sticking his claw back into the sap. The new human looked between everyone present, his eyes landing on Cuddles and his forward momentum dying in an instant.

"Uh…" Seeing the attention he was receiving, the new human began shuffling backwards, perfectly re-enacting his entrance of the clearing in reverse. "Dove and Arc fell off a cliff, but I can see you're busy, so I'll come back… later…"

The clearing fell into an odd silence. It wasn't so much a lack of noise than the existence of a bubble of entropy settling around them.

That bubble was quickly popped when Bartholomew descended Cuddles' shoulders, his jar safely sealed and held in one hand.

"Excellent quality sap, well done Cuddles! Now, Glynda, what was it you wished to speak to me about?"

Cuddles almost groaned. His only shield against the person who wanted to kill him the most right now was the person he currently found the most terrifying.

He was really beginning to regret not staying behind with his meat shields. Friends.

Nope, meat shields.