Last Huntress - Chapter 13
-With Open Hands And Closed Off Hearts-
For the first time in years, Blake's life felt routine again.
She would rise from slumber a few hours before dawn crested over the mountains of Vale, slipping off the couch in the penthouse's main room to stand and stretch her arms towards the sky and release the tension in her joints. Then a quick peek into the bedroom to check on the girl she was caring for, just to make sure Ruby was still asleep and hadn't ruptured a stitch in her sleep. Never once did she awaken the other Faunus during this inspection, a perk of silent footfalls that had been necessary in her profession even before she had abandoned the White Fang and gone to Beacon.
One thing that never felt routine was the myriad of old scars and wounds that littered Ruby's body. She couldn't remember there being a single blemish on the girl's body when they had first met, but now it was hard to go a few inches of skin without finding one. The most apparent, and the one that literally stared her in the face every day was the jagged line that traveled through the right eye, from the top of her forehead to the middle of her cheek. It marred otherwise beautiful features, along the with the scars left from the first surgery that had given the wolf-girl a cybernetic replacement to restore sight. More fresh were the stitched cuts that Dawn had opened to replace the damaged hardware within that socket only days ago, but the lynx-Faunus was a skilled surgeon, and they blended well with the ruined tissue that was already present.
There were also the three lines that had been carved down Ruby's cheek, crossing the scar that cut through her eye. These were by far the most healed of the girl's wounds, the stitching nearly ready to be removed as the skin had begun to knit itself back together. They had been deep, from the side of the other Faunus' ear to a few centimeters from the thin lips that were now perpetually frowning. Far from the most serious of injuries that Blake had discovered as she had fled the 'Jack o' Hearts' with the wolf in her arms.
It was the sleeping Faunus' torso that had gotten the worst of it, nearly the entire right side a mess of stitches and wounds that had closed simply because of the amount of her own Aura that Blake had forced into Ruby's body to keep the girl alive. The hundreds of thousands of lien that she had given Dawn, everything she had saved up from the executions she had done by Adam's orders, had gone in most part to pay for top end cybernetic organs to replace the ones that a Beowolf had cleaved from her old friend. She hadn't really kept track of what it was the good doctor had brought, but it had only been the skill of the lynx-woman that had assured most of the original organs had simply been repaired instead of fully replaced.
A fortune is what it had cost to save Ruby, money that she had never truly planned to use. Those hidden accounts, this penthouse, her plan to run. She was never going to get out from underneath Adam's watchful gaze long enough to enact it, and she had been far too much of a coward to entertain the thought of attacking him. He was powerful, and if she did best him, other members of the Fang would be close by to intervene or avenge. She had been helpless, stuck in a cage with no bars, with only false hopes and fake plans to keep her remotely sane. Even at her lowest point, when she had simply existed as a weapon for an ex-lover to wield against his enemies, death had not been a release she considered.
Which made the puckered ridges that scrawled up Ruby's wrists all the more concerning. The scars were years old, but cut down each forearm from the bottom of the wolf-girl's hands to the crook of her elbows. They had been deep, each inch showing the intent. Curiosity burned at her thoughts every time she saw those, a desire to know what pain had been enough to make a girl she had known as the most upbeat person she had ever met decide to end it all. But there was no need to ask. Blake knew, after seeing the way the other Faunus fidgeted in her sleep and was so terrifyingly haunted the first few days after she had been brought here.
Ruby had sought to escape whatever horrors still pursued her. A sure sign that Blake's silent promise the other night was sure to be a monumental task, to restore to an old friend a life not free of burden, but where those burdens were shared and the weight lessened so that the wolf-girl could smile like she had all those years ago. More than redemption, more than anything, she yearned to see that happiness once again.
Gently trailing back of her fingers over the cheek that had not suffered damage, Blake pulled the warm covers back up over the sleeping Faunus, her inspection yielding a positive conclusion that the wolf-girl remained on the mend. Despite this continuing recovery, the girl had not been awake and lucid for more than a few minutes at time since she had been brought here. With most of that time taken up with helping Ruby to eat, there had been no chance to really speak to her.
As she slipped through and quietly closed the door to the bedroom, Blake drew in a quick breath as the chill of the morning reached her. She was only wearing a pair of white shorts that rode higher on her thigh than when she had bought them, and a thin black top, leaving much of her skin exposed as goosebumps rose and she rubbed at her arms. The velvet fur of her feline ears twitched in agitation as she shivered, the fur there bristling as well. It was far too easy to forget that outside of that bedroom, mornings in this high rise were cold this time of year.
Still, there was the routine. A progression of the day that she enjoyed. With a nod, she set to it.
Only an hour later, the quiet of the penthouse was filled with the muffled beat of the song that filled Blake's ears. The small earbuds leading from her scroll supplied the music that kept her energized as sweat began to drip from her brow to the mat she had placed below. She sunk towards the floor, her nose almost touching the fabric of the mat before she pushed off and rose back into the starting position. Each of the muscles used became tense in protest to her actions as she completed the same maneuver as the last couple dozen times, her early workout a way to burn off that restless energy that had seeped into her limbs from being cooped up in this place day after day.
Panting as she completed one last push up and sunk down to her knees before rising back up, Blake swiveled an ear towards the kitchen, the sound of boiling reaching through the beat of a bass guitar. Touching a hand to the scroll that lay beside her, she silenced the music and rose to her feet, pocketing the device and draping the headphones over her neck before reaching for a towel she had set on the nearby table.
Wiping away the sweat from her face, she set the cloth on the counter in the kitchen as she moved to the stove, where a pot of oatmeal sat boiling. Her cooking skills left much to be desired, but even she knew how to not mess up the most basic of breakfasts. A few friends had teased her over the years for using milk instead of water, stating that of course the cat liked it creamy. The thought brought a small smile to her lips, one that didn't quite register until a few seconds later.
Blinking as her expression slid away, Blake stared into the pot that she idly stirred with a wooden spoon. She felt.. Good. Or at the very least her mind had defaulted to a state that wasn't constant stress. It was a feeling so unfamiliar that it actually shocked her a little to experience it, her time in the Fang had always felt tense, and the masks that covered all the faces ensured that she was forced to endure the brunt of the memories of what had been inflicted upon her by Adam. In this penthouse, after days of caring for Ruby and falling into that routine, all of it seemed a lifetime away.
Her limbs worked on autopilot as she pondered over this, adding cinnamon to the mix as the oatmeal became creamier with each passing minute, and it was only when she moved the pot away from the burner that her ears picked up the sounds emanating from the other room. Soft groans and the creak of the bed as the girl atop it shifted, not awakening, but stirring in the midst of a nightmare. Blake had seen this sort of episode before in the younger Faunus, the ravages of whatever it was that crept in the darkness of Ruby's mind while she lay helpless.
She hurried to dish out the basic breakfast concoction into a waiting bowl, eager to usher her old friend from the nightmare.
It was a nightmare, but it was also a memory.
After years of being repressed, it felt so fresh that it cut through all the defenses she had carefully crafted within her mind against these thoughts. Delusions had become barriers, and attempts at rewriting the scars had become mangled wrecks of actual events. The avenues of her thoughts were those of a ghost town, abandoned and left to be reclaimed by nature in her effort to run from the truth. Years of drink had obscured these terrors.
Now that they were free, now that the haze of constant repression had been forcibly lifted, there were no defenses left to hide behind. The safety she had always fled to in the corners of her mind, those happy memories of a childhood long since passed, of the simple pleasures she had experienced in her years, it was so fleeting now. They had, all of them, become like trying to grasp at smoke that was retreating from her.
The warmth of her mother's cloak, draped over her shoulders.
The earthy scent of her father, and the reassuring weight of his arms about her.
The spark in her sister's eyes when Yang looked at her, a glint in vibrant violet that spoke of pride.
The taste of her girlfriend's lips during their first kiss, an awkward teenage fumbling that had been more of a surprise to her than it had been to Weiss.
A reflection of herself, looking in the mirror as she got dressed for her first day at Beacon, both silver eyes shining back as she grinned and adjusted her own red cloak.
There was a lethargy to these memories now, and moments that had become her bastions against the cold and dark anger of the world were now nothing more than shadows that danced before her enticingly, only to dash away when she reached out for their comfort. In their place were bitter recollections of her life at its worst, taunting her with safety and striking out instead with malice.
Leaves over a grave, obscuring all but the word scatter. No one had been to that place in a long time.
The broken tiles of the waiting room, and the bitter taste of defeat as a doctor droned on that nothing more could be done.
Disappointment in irises of a subdued purple color, and a thought that it had been years since she had seen those eyes burn a brilliant crimson hue.
The sting of a slap lingering on her cheek from a girl in a hospital bed, and an icy gaze that peered out the window, instead of looking to her.
A reflection of herself, looking in the mirror as she got dressed for yet another day hunting down the scum of Vale, one silver eye staring straight through her while the other burned an unnatural reddish-orange color.
Running from these thoughts had solved nothing for her, and instead left every wound has fresh as it had been when first administered. There were no more defenses, the foundation of every refuge cracked and broken by the same tactic she had employed to avoid the nightmares, and she was left naked before the onslaught. As all thoughts took a sharp turn to a day full of blood, of death, and the first true taste of everlasting guilt.
Because it was all her fault. She had killed them, as surely as if it had been her claws, her teeth, and her malice that had carved through their bodies.
Then came a new sensation, a warm palm sliding against her own, and fingers that pressed against the back of her hand. A new sound, a gentle coaxing of her name, rang clear through the dark and drew her towards consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open, and Ruby Rose was greeted not by the light of day, or the smell of cinnamon upon the air, but of the feeling of utter weakness that pervaded every inch of her battered body.
A groan of pain came from her lips instead in the form of a sigh, as she stared upwards into two amber orbs and tried to orient herself to her surroundings for what seemed like the umpteenth time in only a few days. It took time, the seconds passing as her name was uttered once again, but she managed to crawl her thoughts away from that pit they had been stuck in. It took time, but Ruby rejoined the waking world to a small smile set on lips above her. "There you are." The words came from a voice deeper than her own, but one with a distinct feminine edge to it. Her jumbled mind identified the expression on the woman's face easily, it was one she knew all too well. Pity. "You were having another nightmare."
She surged upwards then, pulling her broken body into a sitting position with a rare moment of strength, and she tore her hand away from the warm caress that engulfed it. Those eyes widened as they watched her, but there was an understanding in them. "B-Blake." Ruby's voice sounded unfamiliar upon her lips, hoarse and cracked from disuse. Her chest heaved with effort, trying to suffuse air into her lungs was an alien experience now, as it felt like one side of her chest moved without difficulty. The other side was flawed, but familiar, and did not feel so damn stiff.
On top of this new discovery, each breath caused pain to shoot through her ribs, along the fractures in the bones that had nearly been snapped apart by the force of a blow. But each breath she took in with a surprised amount of fervor, letting the pain wash over her in waves and revelling in the way it pushed aside all else.
It was only when a hand closed about her bare shoulder that she opened her eyes once again, truly lucid and awake this time. The older Faunus was watching her carefully, lips parted as if a question was on the tip of her tongue. It did not need to be asked, as Ruby gave a careful nod. A mental inspection of her body had started with that stiff feeling in her chest that came with each breath, and it turned up the most curious of things.
She realized that she was looking at Blake with both eyes, with no discernable difference between her right and left, a clarity of vision she had no experienced in years.
A hand, slow and lethargic, raised to touch at her cheek. At first the tips of her shaking fingers roughly brushed over stitching that was sewed through her skin, causing her to let out a sharp hiss of pain as she agitated the gashes. But then she moved the pads of her digits higher, and felt fresh stitches around the socket that had been torn open years ago.
Fingers closed about her wrist before she could investigate further, firmly moving her hand away from her face. Her expression must have been something amusing, because a grin broke out over the cat-Faunus' features. "Let it heal. There's a lot we need to talk about."
"How.." It hurt to speak, her vocal chords so unaccustomed to being used that it felt like something had torn in her throat. "..Much?"
Articulating her thoughts proved far more difficult than she would have preferred, but it was lucky that Blake did not seem to need much more than that to know what information she was seeking. The older girl took up a bowl and a spoon, stirring the creamy concoction and filling the air with the smell of slightly singed cinnamon before a utensil was raised up to Ruby's lips. Her pride welled up for a moment before immediately deflating, knowing that she could do little to feed herself. She opened her mouth accordingly, eyes locked on those amber orbs as she did so.
Blake glanced away as she returned the spoon to the bowl, taking a moment to think before speaking up. "One of your lungs was beyond repair. But Dawn, my friend who patched you up, she replaced it with a cybernetic. A kidney, too, part of your intestines.. She fixed everything else." Ruby watched as that spoon came back up, and the other Faunus continued. "Surgery isn't my forte, unfortunately.. But you are still mostly you."
Closing her eyes as she rested back against the headboard, Ruby swallowed her second bite of the oatmeal, grateful for the warmth that slowly filled her as it travelled down towards her stomach. It wasn't exactly the greatest treat in the world, too creamy for her tastes. But when she could barely breath without tiring herself out, there wasn't a lot of room to complain. She sat there quietly, absorbing the information that Blake had shared with her before trying to speak again. ".." Her first few words came out as a scratchy noise, but the point was made with her final one. "..Eye?"
Blake made a noise, setting the bowl aside on the nightstand and retrieving an object. When the cat-girl returned to Ruby's vision, she was holding up a small handheld mirror, with the reflective surface showing a clear picture of her features. Her immediate thought was that both of her lupine ears were accounted for, as they swiveled slowly and deliberately, but what drew her gaze quickly after that was enough to drive any thought of speaking from her.
"Dawn said the circuitry in the old eye was completely burned out, completely unusable anymore.. Apparently this one has a color setting, if you want to change it." Ruby stared directly into her own gaze. Her left eye, the one still made of flesh, was still its brilliant silver color. The one on the right, the socket ruined by a claw four years ago, now housed an unfamiliar construct.
The outer half of the iris was as silver as her normal eye, but the inner half was home to a series of blades that whirled into place as she watched, clearly identifying the eye as machinery. As she watched, the metal plates finished their calibration and settled into a ring, blending with the outer half to create a full iris that looked remarkably close to her regular color.
If she didn't focus on either eye, it almost seemed as if nothing had changed, that the silvery color so reminiscent of her mother had never been clawed from her head in the first place. The mirror was mercifully removed as she felt tears begin to burn at the corners of her eyes, and Blake was silent as Ruby processed this newest discovery.
There was no comforting hand in her own, no pat on the shoulder as she teared up. It seemed the older Faunus understood that closeness was far from what she needed at the moment, and there was a clang as the bowl of oatmeal was taken from the nightstand and that spoon prepared once again.
Even if it took energy she barely had to spare, Ruby raised a hand to press against her good eye, wiping away the tears that had formed there. Her arm all but dropped back down to her lap as she dutifully leaned forward to accept the offered bite of the warm food, the aches that had settled into every bone and muscle doing a wonderful job of keeping all unwanted thoughts at bay.
Remaining gentle and attentive to her needs, Blake mercifully allowed her to preserve some dignity in silence for the rest of meal.
Author's Note: I know that's a rather abrupt end to the chapter, but this one was a bit of a drain to write. So I'm thinking of doing shorter chapters for a bit, just so there isn't a couple of months where you guys get nothing. So I'm hoping to have a new piece commissioned soon for this AU, once Noxy gets things sorted that is, I'll keep you updated on that! Special thanks to all reviewers, forgot how much I loved reading all your thoughts on this! (and a shoutout to Unjax for finally catching up!) And a thank you to all those who follow and favorite, or just read, you guys all rock, and I love to have you along for the ride! Remember to drop a review with your thoughts on this chapter or the story as a whole, let me know what you think! 'Til next time! -Fox