Chapter 8: The Stray

Hazel never considered herself the fangirl-sort, but she just couldn't help but get excited when the Vytal Festival was beginning to get prepared in town. She may have come from Mistral, a place where festivities were very commonplace, but this was a chance to see how a foreign kingdom did things, and it was shaping up to be exciting! Back in Mistral, where all of the celebrations she'd witnessed were formal, this Vytal Festival was casual, which was a big relief to Hazel. She'd rather not have to wear that uncomfortable school uniform anywhere else.

She walked beside Dante and in front of the rest of her team, looking around wildly so much that one might think she was watching a sped up tennis match, as well as occasionally spinning around to get a full view of the area. It was honestly kind of adorable.

"Hazel, I know this is a new experience for you," Skyler stated, though his annoyance came off more as amusement, "But is this really that big of a deal?"

"Are you kidding?" Hazel said as she turned around to walk backwards and talk to her partner, "This is my first time being involved in one of the Vytal Festivals! I'm soaking in all of this as much as I can!"

"Yeah, but aren't you from Mistral?" Dante interjected, "You know, the place that practically invented festivals?"

"Well yeah, but me and my mom never could attend. They were always formal, and we weren't exactly rolling in nice clothes. And that includes the Vytal Festival when it's held in Mistral, which is annoying and, might I say, very exclusive to people like us."

Walker shrugged, "Fair enough. Let's just let her have this, guys. Might as well have her soak it all in now and not sequentially over the next few years."

Hazel grinned at him, "See? Someone gets it."

And with that, she spun back around to keep glancing everywhere, only to accidentally slam into someone who had mirrored her movement.

"Hey, watch where you're going!" Hazel and the person scolded in unison before they both blinked, "Oh, it's you."

Dante helped her up at the same time Uriel helped up Auriel. Apparently, Team ATUM's leader had much too swiftly turned away from a nearby concession stand, simultaneously trying to further extort her teammates for money. Hazel would've called it karma, had that not been Auriel's usual behavior over the past few weeks. The proper word for her was 'cheapskate'.

"So, what're you guys doing out here?" Meta asked them.

"Same as you, I'm guessing," Walker replied, "Though mostly just to satisfy Hazel's curiosity. She's never been to the Vytal Festival before."

"Really?" Tatiana said in her regular timid voice, "Even I've been to at least two, despite... uh, never mind..."

Hazel raised an eyebrow at the remark, but decided not to press on what seemed to be a personal issue, "Yeah. My mom and I aren't exactly rolling in cash."

"Well, I say you're gonna have an awesome time!" Auriel exclaimed excitedly, "The epic fights in the tournament, the delicious food, different cultures, friends with money to mooch off of-"

"Which isn't the point," Uriel interjected sharply, slightly glaring at his leader.

"Which isn't the point..." Auriel repeated, though not nearly as enthusiastically, "Well, the point is, it's awesome! But I guess this'll be all our first times actually participating in one as Hunters in training! Oh, this is gonna be so cool!"

"Yeah, I know, right?" Dante smiled widely, as equally excited as she was, "Fighting other teams in the tournament is gonna be so much fun!"

Then he began to frown, "Oh gods... Am I turning into Yang?!"

While Dante appeared to have a psychological breakdown, Hazel couldn't help but giggle at his antics. Her leader/partner's best friend always seemed to find a way to do that, intentionally or not. What had surprised Hazel about Dante was just how... well, normal he was. Skyler apparently had some horrible tragedy happen to him that he still refused to talk about, Walker, from what she could gather, had a very rocky relationship with his family, and Hazel's own family consisted of herself, her mom, and a father who had walked out on them, taking whatever money they had left.

But Dante was different. He had both a loving father and mother, as well as a five year old little sister named Diana, who the boy would not stop gushing over when given the chance. While Hazel did feel kind of jealous of his carefree lifestyle at first, her heart couldn't help but be warmed when she heard him talking to Diana on his Scroll the first official day at Beacon and telling her about his 'awesome new team'. He was a light that she didn't know she needed in her life.

She felt her face heat up and she patted her own cheeks in futile resistance. No. She would not be thinking thoughts like that now. She was supposed to be training to be a Huntress, not figuring out who was boyfriend material!

Luckily, Uriel's voice broke her thought process, "Hey, do you guys know what's up with Team RWBY?"

Hazel and the rest of her team grew confused, prompting Skyler to ask, "What do you mean?"

"W-Well," Tatiana spoke up, "We saw them just a few minutes ago, and Weiss and Blake were arguing pretty passionately..."

"It sounded like they were debating racial issues," Meta chimed in, "Considering who Weiss is, I figured that kind of argument was bound to happen sooner or later."

"So naturally, we noped out of there," Auriel concluded, "No such thing as a clean political argument, right?"

"That's... concerning," Dante grimaced, remembering his fight with Weiss on the first day of school, "Knowing Ice Queen, she's not gonna let that go easily."

"I'll say," Hazel snorted, "Her ego's bigger than Beacon itself."

The female SHDW member had made her thoughts on the Schnee heiress crystal clear, but not her motivations on them. She knew that she owed her team an explanation for it. There wasn't really any reason to keep it secret either. It was just that nobody had really asked, and Hazel was only given confused looks that hinted that her team at least was curious. But it was safe to say that she was not fond of Weiss in the slightest.

Now that she thought about it, that was probably why Hazel started crushing hard on Dante: he had told her off in the most spectacular way she could have thought appropriate. But anyway, Hazel knew it was only a matter of time before Weiss figured out why the Mistralian hated her so much, and a different amount of time before the two get randomly paired up in Goodwitch's class. And Hazel vowed that she would give Weiss the necessary thrashing.

When someone's family steamrolls your home, leaving your already struggling family of two destitute, you tend to hold a rather large grudge.

It was nighttime when SHDW finally got back to their dorms, just before curfew. ATUM has said their goodbyes just an hour or so earlier and returned to their own room, likely so Auriel could try out this new video game she had convinced Tatiana to buy for her. Ever the cheapskate.

But it was on SHDW's way back to their own room where they passed RWBY's open door, and life just got a whole lot more complicated.

"You want to know why I despise the White Fang?" they heard Weiss argue, "It's because they're a bunch of liars, thieves, and murderers!"

"Well maybe we were just tired of being pushed around!"

Utter silence filled the air. Not even a surprised gasp. And just before anyone could process what they just heard, Blake darted out of her room, shoved past SHDW, and sped out of sight. Everyone blinked a few times, Hazel not sure what to say, so she observed her teammates. Dante and Walker had on a similar expression to her own, but Skyler was... different. Yes, there was shock on his face, but more subdued. It looked as if he was calculating something in his head, but was still coming up just barely shy of an answer.

And leave it to Dante to break the tension, "We... We probably shouldn't have heard that, should we?"

"Great!" Weiss exclaimed once SHDW had been given the context to what had just happened, "Just great! We've been teammates with a terrorist!"

"Weiss, we don't know that," Ruby tried, she really did, but Hazel knew this was not diffusing anytime soon.

"Why don't we?" the heiress persisted, "We all heard her! Not only is she a Faunus, but a member of the White Fang on top of it!"

"You say that as if being a Faunus is somehow a terrible life choice," Hazel glared, "Yeah, we heard her. But do you honestly think that Ozpin would let a terrorist into this school?"

"Oh, of course you'd argue against me!" Weiss snarled back, "You've been against me ever since school started! Just what is your problem?!"

At that, Skyler put a hand on Hazel's shoulder to try and calm her down, but she had finally had enough. A guttural growl left her throat before she stood up, her eyes showing pure rage. Weiss at least had the decency to look intimidated.

"Perhaps it's because I can actually empathize!" Hazel snapped, "I know what it's like to have Schnees ruin your life! Take away everything you've known! Separate you from the only friend you've ever had before! But of course you don't know any of that, Ice Queen. You said before to Dante that we have no idea what you've been through-"

"That's right, you don't!" Weiss interrupted, gaining some confidence, "When you've grown up in a home like I had-"

"Oh, so you had a home."

At that, Weiss flinched as she stared into Hazel rage and tear filled eyes. It was a look that she vaguely recognized, from when she got the rare look from her mother. Of someone who had lost something precious. By that point, Hazel sniffed and stormed out the door. Skyler got to his feet after a moment.

"I'll... go after her," he said, taking charge of the situation, "We'll look for Blake in the morning. Something tells me we all have a lot to think about."

He had said that pointedly at Weiss, who looked away in denial. With that, he left and went after his partner.

Skyler found Hazel in their dorm room, huddled in the corner, hiding her head in her knees. He heard quiet sobs coming from her as he approached, but he hesitated. He wasn't sure if he was the right person to comfort her, despite his position as both her leader and partner. But at the moment, there was no one else better to do so. So he sighed and sat down beside her.

"Well, that was quite the train wreck, wasn't it?" he asked, trying (and failing) to alleviate the mood.

Though the crying seemed to have stopped, Hazel refused to lift her head. Too many memories had come flooding in, and she was too busy trying to push them all back. The Mistralian no longer had the energy to do much right now. Skyler picked up on it and sighed again. This situation was awfully familiar to him. He remembered himself in her position, and Dante in his not too long ago. But this situation was different. Maybe... maybe now was the time to finally open up.

"Hazel..." he started, "I'm not gonna pretend to know what you've gone through. From what I was able to deduce from what you said, I at least know the circumstances you've gone through, but I'm not you."

He then heard a quiet snort and a muffled, "I would certainly hope not..."

Skyler smirked at that, but a frown quickly returned, "We've all gone through stuff. I know you may think Dante's the exception, but honestly? I pity him the most. He may not have any similar experiences to people like us, but he's always been there to pick us back up. I'm surprised he doesn't have back pain by how much he's carried all of us. When Yang's mom left, when Ruby's mom died...

"And when my parents were murdered by the White Fang."

That got Hazel to lift her head, her eyes wide with shock, "You... You what?"

Skyler couldn't help but slightly smile at the dumbfounded response, "I figured since you pretty much opened up to all of us in there, why couldn't I open up to you? I mean, seriously, what kind of partner am I, not being able to tell you why I am who I am?"

"You... You didn't have to... Not after-"

"Oh, save it," he waved off, "Been meaning to discuss this with you and Walker for a while now."

Hazel was again quiet, but not for long, "How... How do you deal with it?"

"I don't."

Would the surprises never stop coming? Hazel was dumbfounded. Despite what she could gather previously about his past, her leader was one of the most sane, stable guys she'd ever met. Not even Walker seemed as stable as her partner was. And here he was, telling her that he just... doesn't handle trauma?

"I learned a long time ago that dwelling on the past isn't exactly healthy," Skyler continued, "My cousin actually went through the same thing. He never really was the most stable individual to begin with, but after his parents were killed, something in him just... snapped. Now I don't know where he is. But I guess that did teach me a lesson."

He turned and looked at his partner in the eyes, "My parents wouldn't want me spending the rest of my life grieving for them, or vying for revenge against their killer. So I've decided to live life how I want, and not let the past control. And though I won't deny wanting revenge, it's more like I want closure. I don't even know why they were killed. I at least deserve to know that much..."

There was a moment of comfortable silence before Hazel looked down and spoke up, "...My mom and I used to live in a town up in northern Mistral. Can't even remember the name of it, it was that long ago. Despite poor living conditions, we were happy. I had a best friend who lived there, her name was Pamela. She was the only friend I had growing up. But then some people discovered a hidden Dust mine in the area, and you can take a wild guess on what happened next.

"Next thing I knew, my mom and I were homeless, and our town was renamed Argus. Now it's the largest non-capitol city on the planet. Shame on how it got there."

Hazel looked back up and smiled a bit, "I don't think we'll really be able to understand what each of us has been through, but... I think we'll be alright, don't you think?"

Skyler smiled back, "Yeah. I think we'll be fine."

"Well, I'm glad for that!"

The two jumped to see that their two teammates had just walked into the room, the more boisterous of the two having just spoke.

"How long have you two been standing there?" Skyler asked.

Walker shrugged, "We heard all about Hazel. I suppose that does explain a lot."

"I'm just glad our team didn't end up like Ruby's," Dante added, "Speaking of which, I have an idea on how we can help search for Blake!"

"You?" Hazel chuckled, "You came up with a plan?"

"Hey, don't knock it until you try it!" Dante retorted with a goofy grin, "So here it is..."

After he explained it, the rest of the team just blinked at him. Walker and Hazel turned to their leader with pleading eyes, silently begging him not to accept it. Skyler's response?

"That is a terrible plan... Let's do it."

After explaining the situation to their consultants (not including the Faunus bit), Skyler wrapped up with, "Basically, we need your assistance. Will you help us find Blake?"

"Oh, no!" Auriel said rapidly before the rest of ATUM could even consider anything, "Nuh-uh. No way. You aren't roping us into this mess. This is a 'you problem'."

Skyler then pulled some money out of his wallet, "I'll give you fifty lien."

Auriel immediately swiped the lien and replied, "Time to find a classmate!"

No matter how not-personal a situation is, Auriel shall always be pursuing money. She's like Anna from Fire Emblem. I only wish I could've gotten into Fire Emblem earlier than I did just so I could request that H20Flame name Auriel "Anna" instead. They literally have the same mannerisms. That in particular made her really easy to write. Because I both love and fear Anna. But in any case, next up ends RWBY Volume 1, and then onto RWBY Volume 2! Till next time guys!