Cinder
Cinder opens her eyes slowly, she is aware that she is, at least for the moment, safe, there is no real pain in her wrist beyond a dull, throbbing ache, and a steady movement gently taps her head against someone's hair. She wonders, for a moment, if everything in her dreams must have come true if this was to be her rescuer, and then she hears a gruff, rough voice speak.
"You're awake, aren't you, little Kite?"
It is not accusatory, but Cinder for a moment feels as though it is. She straightens up, fighting back a yawn as she stares across the nape of Raven's neck, to the woman's view of the trail ahead. The two are in the snow-covered pines that surround Atlas, the forest that Cinder has seen from over the walls, and the forest she often imagined running away into. She inhales, deeply, and the fresh, powerful scent of the pines overwhelms her limited senses for a moment, a headache growing in the back of her head. That is odd, she does not remember being so sensitive to smells before this, why now? She takes one hand and begins to rub at her temples, before she feels Raven set her down, gently, onto the lightly covered footpath.
"Little Kite, can you walk?"
Cinder nods, dumbly, the flashes of combat, the richness of the day's past events, the dull, throbbing pain in her arm and wrist, and most of all, she feels the tugging of Raven's hand, wrapped firmly around her uninjured arm.
"I need you to walk, ok?"
Raven's voice, while gruff, generally unbothered, and rather coarse, isn't anything other than soft to Cinder's ears, and the girl gently, carefully looks up, finding Raven looking back down at her, her eyes inscrutable and her demeanor unreadable. Her face is carved as if from stone, and Cinder stares at it, those cruel, artful lips, pursed together against the cold as she asked again.
"Shall I carry you to the rendezvous point?"
Cinder shakes her head, she is capable of walking, but she is unsure of what to think about this huntress. This huntress who even after Summer fell and vanished into the ruins of that warehouse, stuck by Cinder herself, and continued to take her, into the forest beyond Atlas, leaving it all behind.
"We're heading for a few days more, tell me, do you have any experience with weapons? Blades? Firearms?"
Cinder shakes her head no, not that she can remember, and she is shocked to find Raven pressing something into her hands, heavy and long, Cinder finds herself staring at the length of wood, with a small spearpoint on one end.
"Take this, for the moment. It will help if you run into a Grimm of some kind and I'm not close enough to help."
Cinder is not sure how a pointy stick is supposed to prevent a Grimm of any kind from doing what…
What…
What Tyrian did to Madame.
At that moment, Cinder doubles over and begins to vomit, heaving as the reality of what happened a scant day before washes over her like spring rains. She replays it in her mind, from the explosion at the warehouse to the fight against the huntresses, to the moment when Tyrian pierced Raven and Summer through the midsections with his tail, through their aura, the grievous, deadly injury surely factoring in how the fight had turned so suddenly.
Cinder is shocked to feel a hand resting gently on her back, and Raven's voice, soothing, strangely, in her ears.
"It's alright, he's gone, and you will never see the Madame again."
Cinder continues to heave, until her stomach is empty of all, and Raven is then sweeping her gently to her feet, tugging her close and smiling down at her.
It's… not really a smile, Cinder realizes, but it's as close as she's ever seen Raven get, a slight, gentle up kick to her lips as the woman stands and turns away slightly.
"When you can, we need to keep moving."
Her statement is delivered as a matter of fact, and Cinder works hard to straighten herself up, clambering to her feet, and turning her amber gaze to the trail ahead. Her small fingers, the left arm snapped, finds the spear and she presses it into her uninjured hand.
Raven's pace is never too much for her, and the older woman's appearance is disheveled, to say the least. Cinder is not focusing on the trail, Raven's footsteps, or the path even. She is inspecting Raven's appearance.
Raven presents the appearance of a woman calm, collected, and fully in charge of her situation, and yet Cinder can tell not all is right; She walks with a very slight limp, and there are thick, heavy layers of bandages covering her midsection. Cinder wonders, subconsciously, if the woman is being strengthened by something or if something else is allowing her ability to stand.
"Little kite… you can ask me any questions you may have. I do not quite appreciate being ogled like the second coming of a god."
The sudden words, the sudden harshness of their content, startles Cinder so evenly that she visibly colors, looking away, only for Raven to turn to the girl and gently kneel in front of her. The crunch of her knee into the fresh snow alerts Cinder before Raven takes her chin and tilts her head up to face her own.
"Ask. Speak to me, I will not harm you."
Cinder visibly tries, opening her mouth, until her voice staggers out a barely there response for Raven.
"I… ah… are you…?"
Raven answers for her, her tone firm and gentle.
"Am I alright? Yes, while I am wounded, and will require rest, I will be fine."
Her voice is too quick, too immediate, and Cinder knows that she is not telling the full truth in that single sentence.
"Lie…"
Her voice startles her, and Cinder looks to Raven, expecting the woman to raise a hand against her.
Instead, Raven looks, worn out, burned, and exhausted in all measures for a moment, before she turns to face Cinder, and gently says.
"I am injured, and his poison is still attempting to kill me. While my aura is strong, I am unable to do much of anything right now beyond forge ahead to the rendezvous point."
Cinder nods, she does not entirely understand how Raven's aura is helping her, and she does not want to, such is to be dangerous, but such would also invite power, perhaps…
"Will you… give me aura?"
The question is frail and weak, and Cinder feels Raven briefly squeeze her hand as she looks up to the sky.
"No. Not yet."
For a moment, Cinder feels anger bubble and boil away within her, and she sees Raven looking at her curiously before she takes another step and asks another question.
"Why?"
Raven studies the small girl in front of her, the girl she has taken to calling "little kite" affectionately, the girl who even now shyly twitches as she feels such a gaze upon her.
Cinder flinches when Raven answers her question.
"Because of what happened in the fight against Tyrian."
Cinder must look confused because Raven does that small, almost smile as she begins to speak.
"The injury that cost us the fight and nearly ended both mine and Summer's lives was because we were too focused on our aura. We were too focused on what we were doing to win, and not on what we were doing to defend. Tyrian seems to have a semblance that nullifies or negates aura. The reason that we have held on for so long is because, Summer and I are the best, and yet we fell for an old trick in the book."
Cinder does not ask more as Raven turns moody again, the woman standing a moment later, and scooping Cinder up with one arm, placing her onto her shoulders, she tells the girl.
"Your training starts now, I want you to pick out movement and Grimm that you can see, ok?"
Cinder freezes, she's being told to do what?
"Yes, I know it seems like a great pain, but look for the red markings, the eyes, and any movement of sudden Grimm. Anything that can challenge me is likely to look elsewhere, and anything that cannot is likely to remain in our shadow."
Cinder looks to the sky, searching, her eyes peeled and focused, she stares into the trees, and the brush, and misses the branch directly in front of her, the branch that promptly slaps the haft of her spear into her face at speed.
Cinder makes no sound as the dull bonk sounds, instead rubbing her forehead with her uninjured hand, and trying to mask that she's just gotten hit by her own silliness.
"Don't quite focus so hard, let your vision spot things for you, don't focus on one thing, sweep the trees, search for a few seconds, then move on to the next place."
Raven's voice is calm and collected, and her guidance is adopted by Cinder nigh on immediately. Cinder, now casting her eyes throughout the forest, quickly spots the difference. She learns even quicker how to see and sense the incoming shape of a small juvenile nevermore, or the cutting motion of a Grimm's claws as it shears through the undergrowth.
Several times, Raven rests a hand on the hilt of her long blade, and Cinder tenses in preparation for combat, and yet, without fail, every single time she releases the blade as whatever the threat is moves away from her. Cinder wishes to exhale, and does so gently and quietly at Raven's behest only when the taller woman does. At several points she feels almost lightheaded from doing so, envious of Raven's ability to hold her breath, refusing to make even the slightest of sounds as Grimm thunder through the underbrush mere feet from their location.
It is not until dawn darkens to dusk that Cinder speaks up, asking a question of her own accord, the tone of the girl's voice gentle, quiet, and careful. It is almost obscured by the crackling of the firewood that Raven has thrown hastily together, swaddled under a thick blanket the woman has pulled from within a pack.
"How come we weren't seen by the Grimm?"
It is clear, at least to Cinder, that the question has caught Raven off guard because the crimson-colored woman freezes with her spoon halfway to her mouth. The pair have settled beneath the boughs of an enormous pine, and Raven emptied some of the dust propellants from a spare bullet to kickstart this fire, which gutters as the wind howls above the two of them. She pauses for a time, before speaking in a calm voice, as though remembering something.
"No one is quite sure how "much" of an emotion attracts the Grimm. You do know that much at least, right? That negative emotions draw the Grimm to you?"
Cinder nods, this part is taught to all, and she herself had seen it, in flashes of nightmares that tormented her in her darker hours. When she was younger, she feared that her sadness might cause a Grimm attack at The Glass Unicorn, and yet, it never came. So at some level, she knew that she couldn't be an attractant.
"So, while we know that the creatures of Grimm are attracted to general areas of negativity, we don't know exactly what can attract them. For example, some people are just sad all the time, and in many ways, that should attract the Grimm, and yet it doesn't."
Raven pauses, spooning some of the canned soup into her mouth, before passing it over to Cinder, who stares at it as though it might bite her.
"Relax, if I wanted to kill you, I would have done so already."
Cinder stiffens at the mere mention of "kill" and if Raven picks up on it, she gives no real mention of such a thing. Instead, Raven chooses to carefully, even exceptionally carefully continue.
"Earlier, I was not watching for fodder Grimm, I was concerned about the presence of an alpha variant."
Cinder shudders instantly. Damaged, half-remembered feelings burst to the front of her mind. Ice cold breath, the sound of crackling ice and shattering glass, and the deathly whisper cries of the monster.
"Yes. With that reaction, I suspected we were in the presence of an Alpha Beowulf, hence the sheer quiet of the alpine forest we're technically inside. Luckily, if it was an alpha, it did not sense us."
Cinder concentrates on the soup, which does taste good, a thick and meaty stew with plenty of tender meat and potatoes that fall apart on her tongue. It is something that Raven likely can make very quickly, and it tastes as good as it lasts.
Cinder has hardly finished her first bowl when Raven places the next one in front of her, this one with a chunk of crusty, rustic bread. It's as filling as the bowl of soup is, and yet Cinder falls upon it like a rabid animal, tearing portions of the bread free as soon as she gets her hands upon it. She casts her gaze warily towards Raven, uncertain if the other woman cares about it, only to catch Raven squeezing the bulb of a purple flower out and into the tea, with small droplets dripping into her soup as the thick, odorous smell of fresh flowers fills the air. Raven answers Cinder's unstated questions about it.
"It's for my own health, and no, you cannot eat it, it would kill you."
Cinder's face lights with shock, and she scrambles backward from the flowers that she is now very consciously aware surround their small camp; She almost tumbles right into the fire, only for Raven's rough, callused hand to catch her by the collar of her shirt and hold her up, the woman's lined face alight with a small grin as she gently continues.
"If you'd let me finish, little kite, it is only poisonous to you, and only if you crush the entire flower into your food and ingest it."
Raven waits until Cinder gains enough balance under her feet to stand. Then she carefully stretches her own hands outwards and sits back down, sipping at her soup carefully, blowing little puffs of air onto the liquid to cool it before sipping it.
"We camp here, are you capable of standing guard?"
Cinder nods her head. She is capable of standing guard and very, very capable of watching. Long hours in the hotel have trained her for staying awake far into the night, and as Raven nods her head, the older woman stands up, stretching her hands outwards, and then she turns to her bedroll and the small tent that shrouds it.
"I'll be awake in 6 hours. Here, when you see the moon reach its zenith, should I not be awake, shake the tent, ok?"
Cinder nods her head, and then Raven zips up the small tent and Cinder is alone with naught but the pile of firewood and warmth to keep herself company.
She watches the forest, training with the vision Raven taught her, scanning each section of the trees looking for movement specifically, and focusing her efforts on those places. In those hours, Cinder is closer to more Grimm than she has ever been in her life. She freezes up on more than one occasion, especially when an Ursa, its titanic form covered in bone spikes chipped with frost and ice, wanders into their clearing, sniffing at the air before it turns away from them. Cinder finds herself clutching that primitive spear and it is not long before her thoughts turn to the improvised weapon.
Experimentally, she stands from the fire and then begins to swing it, first through the air, then at the ground. The point unbalances her to such a degree that it nearly sends her tumbling, and with frustration Cinder sits down, staring at the long blade and longer haft. Raven wanted her to use the spear, but it was too heavy, and her arms, while lean from her physical labor, are ill-equipped to use the unwieldy, slender weapon.
So it is with that frustration, that Cinder finds herself drawing the boot knife Raven gave her, and she cuts at the spear, first without an idea of what she's doing, then… as the shape of the weapon falls away, Cinder begins to carve with more, and more purpose. She gathers a small bit of dirt from the area around the campfire, careful in her motions as she uses the blade of the spear to draw out something much more akin to what she always imagined a huntress would use. The drawing takes hours to create, and by the time Cinder is finished, the moon is reaching its zenith, and Raven is stepping free of the tent, her hand on her blade, she asks Cinder a simple question.
"Grimm?"
Cinder, caught off guard, drops the two spears, one whittled fresh, the other the half-cut length of the spear, with the blade that Raven gave her earlier. They gently rap into the earth with dull thuds, and Cinder swears she sees Raven's eyes land on the dirt drawing, now lightly scuffed, as Cinder stands straight, hands at her sides. She musters the courage to speak and replies to the question of the crimson lady.
"One. Large bear, came in 2 hours after you slept, exited to the direction of the moon's rise."
Raven nods and then she directs Cinder towards the tent, ushering the girl into the canvas. She presses a mug of something warm into the girl's hands and then speaks softly.
"Drink this then sleep, I will wake you when morning comes."
Cinder settles down on her haunches as Raven zips the tent shut, passing Cinder's spears and her knife through to her before she does so, the weapons placed on the ground near the bedroll. Cinder's initial instincts turn towards safety, then the mug in her hands. It is steel, made of a thick and heavily insulated material, the smell wafting out of the warm liquid is a strong odor of apples and fruit, something she only passingly recognizes.
Cautiously, Cinder looks over the mug, spotting the slight condensation and marks on the rim that indicate Raven had drunk from the mug earlier. Deciding that it couldn't really be poisoned if she'd just drunk from it, Cinder takes a single sip.
Flavors of fall fruit, apricots, apples, and spices she can't identify burst across her tongue, the warm liquid seeps into her very bones, and before she knows it the entire mug is gone, and her eyes feel hooded and heavy.
It is then that Cinder places the mug down gently onto the hotplate next to the exit of the tent, and looks towards the bedroll. She is not entirely sure what she expects, whether Raven left her a smaller roll, but instead, she finds nothing other than the simple bedroll.
"Sleep in mine, I didn't expect to have another along, we'll get one for you when we reach the next town."
The gruff voice of Raven is heard through the tent wall and Cinder listens. Snuggling into the thick sleeping bag, the blankets swarming around her, Cinder wraps herself in the body heat-laden form of Raven's bedroll, and before she can even truly process what the strange, rising feeling in her chest is, she is asleep.
She is stirred awake by the gentle, albeit firm, grip on her arms, and for a moment, Cinder nearly panics, nearly thinking she is back at The Glass Unicorn before reality crashes back in with the smell of something thick, salty, and meaty. It is then that Raven finally speaks to her, at least, she thinks so, it's entirely possible that the woman had said something priorly she'd missed.
"Come now, it's dawn, we need to move."
Cinder rolls free of the bedroll, and exits the tent, blearily rubbing at her eyes as the dawn peeks shyly over the neighboring hills. She seats herself at the log, taking in the sight of a pair of sausages searing over the open, fire dust flame growing from the wood.
Cinder reaches for the spit, and tears off a chunk of sausage, promptly spitting it into the snow as the heat burns her tongue, as she winces from the pain, Raven speaks quietly from over her shoulder, accompanied by the rustling of fabric and zippers being used.
"There are enough, take your time. I won't be taking either of those from you. I've already eaten. Besides, you'll need the energy for training."
Cinder looks up, sausage on a spit halfway inside her mouth as Raven flashes that familiarly tiny, barely there hint of a smile.
"What, did you think you could just enter a huntsman academy with a semblance?"
Cinder looks to one side, hiding the rapid flush across her cheeks. She feels stupid now, because, of course, that's not true! She can see the way Raven's arms are bulked up, and she's felt the calluses on her hands.
"Hence, training."
Raven stands up, shouldering her pack over one arm, and extending her other to Cinder as the woman looks down at her.
"We have miles to travel tonight, and you should be able to walk the distance."
Cinder finds herself wanting to follow along with the tall woman, she finds herself no longer looking back at the way they came… at least, the way she thinks they came. She realizes now that she has no real idea where she is, or where Raven is taking her. And for that moment, she realizes that her worry and concern do not stem from the lack of knowing where she is, it stems instead from the fact that for some reason, she trusts Raven.
Why does she trust Raven?
Cinder puzzles over this question, and finds that an answer is not quite so forthcoming, even as the two make their way into the depths of snowdrifts, searching far and wide, for something… and yet Cinder never truly settles on a reason.
Raven wouldn't use her as a bargaining chip, she knew that immediately, Cinder as a person was nearly worthless, and she still didn't even really know why Raven had saved her, the promise had been made… by… the both of them. Raven and Summer, and then Summer had gone into that warehouse, and she still hadn't come back out.
"There. Our destination."
Cinder casts her eyes forwards, and sees a break in the forest. There is a clearing there, and very clearly someone has been there since there is a small structure left behind, constructed and only barely held together against the elements.
The snow of Atlas never truly stopped falling, but Cinder is glad to enter the cabin, away from the cold and the wind, and more glad to see Raven flick her blade out and into the fireplace, a roaring blaze slowly building from the logs left behind.
"Watch the flames, little kite."
Raven disappears into the house, blade drawn, leaving Cinder behind in the main room. Cinder, curious, watched her motions until she vanished, and the girl realized that she couldn't hear Raven at all, couldn't hear her footsteps, or her movements, not even her breathing.
Concerned, Cinder cast her gaze about and nearly jumped out of her skin when Raven appeared next to her and gently spoke.
"House is clear."
The sheer and utter impossibility of Raven's movement has Cinder on guard as the woman moves in front of her, stripping off water-laden gloves and laying them down at the foot of the fireplace. She turns to find Cinder with a drawn boot knife, and only then, does she see something resembling interest in the face of the other woman.
"So. You noticed that I couldn't have gotten around you, with only the one hallway. Are you curious about how I did such a thing?"
Cinder nods, keeping the blade pointed at Raven, as the woman looks out the windows, and then she's sweeping towards Cinder, her cloak thrown hastily over the girl's head as she whispers.
"Stay down, and do not make a sound if you can avoid it."
The next moments see Cinder clutching tight to her bestowed cape, even as Raven tugs out something from beneath the floorboards. A moment later, Cinder hears an audible click, as something is primed to fire, and then…
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
Thunderous, each knock makes Cinder shake on the ratty couch, and she feels Raven step forward audibly, opening the door a moment later.
"Captain. I'm surprised you came so far out for a simple huntress shack."
A thunderous, harsh voice sounds, and Cinder makes out shouted words flying back and forth from outside.
"Don't play coy. You destroyed a warehouse and half a block with that explosion. Of which, I may add, neither killed! Nor seriously injured the culprit enough to actually get us a capture! The council is demanding your head! General Sol is 4 steps from a nationwide manhunt!"
The voice is furious with Raven, and yet Raven returns the favor tenfold, replying in an icy tone so frigid that Cinder feels her blood turn to ice under the cloak.
"You are trespassing on private property. Property owned by Mistral. Your goon squad, and airship, for that matter, are not welcome here. If you wanted a war James, you should go through the proper channels, not by dropping a surprise attack on a simple huntress."
"And you should have known better before you went about blowing up a warehouse! In the HEART of Mantle!"
"Throw your accusations if you insist. Your criminal has left, and I forced him out of your city. Without your help, and for the price of a half-destroyed building? That is enough."
"Oh? Were the dead civilian and her orphaned and kidnapped children part of your plan too? All for some "greater good"? Mask, you came to me with something resembling a plan. How did you botch it so furiously."
Raven snarls her response.
"None of our intelligence mentioned a semblance that can nullify aura!"
The information is revealed so casually, and yet it strikes like the main guns on one of Atlas' airships. The heavy, pregnant pause in the air feels as thick and crackling as ice. Cinder, for her part, freezes. The dead civilian, her orphaned children, that was Madame, Clove, and Iris. A part of Cinder feels a hole tear itself open in her stomach, a part of Cinder feels as though she should burst into tears. A part of Cinder feels relief, feels happiness, even, and those are dashed instantly as the part about "kidnapped" makes its way into her mind.
Faintly, dimly, a part of Cinder remembers the papers signing her away as a legal daughter of Madame's, a daughter who was now missing in the eyes of Atlas. Cinder felt her gaze hollow, would this be the end? Would this be where Raven flipped over her cloak and turned her over to James? Buying herself some goodwill?
"Get out of this cabin, James. Else I make you do so."
Cinder hears an ever so gentle click, as Raven's long blade is loosened in its scabbard ever so slightly.
"You can't be serious. Turn yourself in and answer a few questions, that's all the council wants, then you can go free."
"What, and be reamed in front of a military whose country I don't even serve? For what conceivable purpose would that serve?"
"It would appease the council."
"What happened the last time Mistral tried to "appease" Atlas, James? Because I remember it all too well."
"That wasn't our fault… the Fang-"
"Were your problem. You made them the world's problem, what was that hare-brained scheme the council of Atlas came up with? Speaking for the other kingdoms? Declaring the White Fang an enemy of every civilized city? Pah. As if."
His hand, or something akin, slams down on a desk, and Cinder flinches.
"You and I both know that wasn't our fault! The council-"
"The council can shove it up their asses. Get out. I will not ask again."
A chair scraped backward, and heavy boots stood up, moving towards the exit.
"You choose to do this the hard way, Mask… what purpose does this serve? You will be hauled back to answer, regardless of whether it's by me or Mistral."
"Mistral won't touch me. My record is spotless, and it would have continued to be spotless had you not interfered with and stymied our attempts by obscuring necessary intelligence!"
Cinder has stopped shivering from terror, and now she listens with rapt attention, had the red lady- Raven, had Raven not intended to go in like she had? What had happened? She'd seen the fight in most of its entirety, and she knew how it had ended, but not quite where or when it had begun, nor what circumstances had led to such an occasion.
"Atlas withheld critical information that could have jeopardized our national securi-"
"Blow it out your ass, James. The man I knew in those Vytal tournaments thought nothing of damaging his own aura and body to present an even fight, in direct defiance of your superior's orders. What happened to him?"
Footsteps, a door swinging open, and a frigidly cold tone asserting itself over the room.
"Reality happened, Mask, much like I remember a certain bird fawning over her teammates. Where did her protective streak wander off to?"
The door slammed, making Cinder shudder as the impact sent vibrations through her bones, and barely a moment had passed before the cloak was torn away from her, and Raven swept her up and sat her at the table.
The tall warrior looked composed on the surface, but Cinder was beginning to see the telltale hints and motions she made to keep herself composed. Small twitches of fingers, smaller motions of her head, and the slight expression of veins in her neck showed just how angry she was capable of being.
Raven's motions were cautious, and she carefully poured steaming stew from a pot hung over the fire into a thick, earthware bowl, which was passed to Cinder's cold hands.
"Eat. We will need to move at first light."
Cinder tries to ignore the food for the moment, studying Raven, even as the woman with blood-red eyes turns her gaze to the single window into the cabin. For a moment, a single beam of light from the dying sun presses itself against Raven's face, and at that moment, Cinder sees a glimmer of water in one of her eyes.
Just as she thinks she might say something, her stomach clenches painfully, and Cinder turns her gaze to the bowl of thick soup, falling upon it a moment later. Internally, she admonishes herself for even thinking of trying to comfort the other woman, Raven does not need her help, nor her assistance, and she wouldn't ask it even if she did.
"I will take the watch tonight, you need your rest…"
Raven paused as she spoke, Cinder realizes right at the end, and now, the silence hangs heavy in the air, as the small, amber-eyed girl turns to face Raven and hesitantly, ever so hesitantly, speaks out.
"I… I can take the first one."
Raven nods, accepting that as a fact before she stands from the table, taking her blade with one hand. She nods to the tangle of cans hanging from the door to the depths of the cabin, and then, tiredly proclaims.
"If something or someone comes, knock on the cans first, before moving to the door, if it is combat… hide."
Cinder nods. She will not fight and both of them know that even the weakest creep would be more than sufficient to overpower her, but… if she had aura… then maybe…?
"Um… Raven…"
She pauses, as the tall woman stops at the door, her head turning to one side and staring back out at her through one eye.
"Why won't you give me aura…? I… could fight, then…"
Raven shakes her head and simply says.
"No. I will answer you another time, but for now, you have your task. Keep the fire bright, little kite."
Then, she was gone, and Cinder felt a familiar feeling starting to churn and writhe at her, boiling up from within. Frustration. Why wouldn't Raven give her that power? She wielded it so mercilessly, so effectively against Tyrian, and she fought that crazed murderer who broke Cinder's arm in as easy a motion as one would snap a twig. How could she look like that? HOW!?
It wasn't fair.
Cinder kicked the foot of the couch, it hurt, a bit, but not that much because she was weak, and the thick cushioning protected her. That made the frustration worse, so she kicked it again.
That was a mistake.
Cinder hobbles forward, grumpy and irritated, she sits down on the couch, nursing her hurting foot, she's not sure, but the pain is pretty bad, though nothing compared to the shocks that ran her life…
The shocks.
The collar.
It's gone.
She freezes as her hand touches bare, scarred, and hurt, but bare skin, for the first time in… she doesn't know how long.
When had it come off? Had Raven removed it?
She'd had it on her when they left Atlas… and some of the wounds on her neck were fresh, so…
When did Raven remove it? When she was asleep in the initial fleeing from there? When she'd slept the night previously? Come to think of it, why had she done so? The collar easily would have kept her close to Raven had she worried that Cinder would run away, so why had she just released her?
Was it like Summer had said? Did Cinder dare to hope that her salvation, her freedom had been granted? She could run anywhere, laugh, cry… she could speak… free from pain?
She tries it, just then, letting out a short snort of laughter that turns into a running laugh that leaves her out of breath. The happy laughter, of a kind she'd not had for years.
Had… Had Raven just… removed the collar? Just because that was what she could do? Had she just done that because she could? Had she freed Cinder knowing full well that she could do so and nothing would stop her?
Cinder's mind flashes through dozens of previous events, and she remembers the conversation from earlier.
Raven had stood up to a captain in the Atlesian Navy, Captain Ironwood himself, and she'd not only been furious with him, but she'd also cursed him out and told him to get out of her cabin! She'd hidden Cinder from him! Refused to admit that she'd been kidnapped, not by Tyrian, but by herself!
Cinder's realizations come at the foot of something else. Madame had never let her escape punishment for more than a few minutes, even when she was older and could try to hide. She'd always threatened once, and then electrocuted immediately, but… Raven had said those things to the face of Captain Ironwood, and he'd been forced out of the cabin like a feral mutt with his tail between his legs.
Was Raven that powerful?
She had only asked Cinder to spot any Grimm, not point them out… did that mean she'd already noted them and dismissed them as a threat?
Thoroughly confused, Cinder stares at the fire, before she gets up and heaps another log into the flames, by the time she returns to the couch, the girl has reached a conclusion.
Cinder must obtain the power and confidence that Raven has because if Raven could speak to a member of Atlas' navy like that, a captain if she could get away with such a thing…
Then she was above the law! She had to be so monumentally powerful, that even Ironwood could do nothing to stop her, nothing to curb her involvement with whatever she chose to do. No one could stop her from being a huntress, and… she would be a huntress to surpass everyone else!
If Raven was the strongest huntress out there then Cinder would just have to be better than her, she'd have to chase the power that came with such a position, and she'd earn it by any means possible, provided… that those wouldn't hurt Raven.
That… was a strange feeling. That she wouldn't hurt Raven. Or… even, that she wouldn't have minded having to step on Clove or Iris's heads, hopes, and dreams to do so. Why was that? Why did she feel so… content with the idea that hurting Raven was wrong…?
Madame had never thought differently, so why did Cinder feel as though hurting Raven would be… wrong?
Why did it make her heart ache and her chest squeeze?
It is early morning when Raven relieves Cinder of her watch, and late morning by the time Cinder finds herself tumbling out of the bed in the central room, finding the form of Raven standing ever alert at the door.
"You have questions, and I can answer some… but not all of them. So… to start with aura?"
Cinder nods, numbly, accepting that Raven is giving her the answers evenly and feeling a twinge of something in her stomach as she listens.
"I will not give you aura because huntresses and huntsmen rely far, far too much on it. You saw for yourself in our engagement against Tyrian. We lost because we counted on our aura to succeed, and because he had something that exploited that."
Cinder nods, this makes sense to her, but there's no reason that she can't have aura and still train with that caution, right?
"Why not train with it regardless?"
"Because it will breed a sense of invincibility into you, that will be magnified by the hormones you will receive when you hit the age where you will attend a combat academy."
Raven paused.
"That will foster a sense of confidence that could result in your death. I will not allow such a thing to happen."
Raven spoke with a vitriol that wasn't in her tone, it was in the steel gaze that she focused on Cinder. Sending a chill down the girl's spine as she looked up at Raven with something akin to determination.
If Raven thought she would be confident, and cocky, then Cinder would learn the way Raven wanted her to. She would learn and beat Raven at her own game, and at that moment, she spoke quietly.
"You have two semblances."
It was not a question, and Raven didn't respond initially, choosing to shift her gaze outside to the environment outside, and the steady snow that came down.
"No. I have a power altogether more dangerous than a semblance to both its wielder and its target."
Raven sat down on the bedside, and held up her hand, flickering, spitting, and crackling, a snowflake crystallized out of thin air into her palm, floating upright over her hand. The spires and turrets of the enormous flake looked razor sharp, and Cinder didn't reach out a hand to touch them. Something that Raven noticed, and… if the small quirk of her upturned lips was indeed a smile, then she was pleased that Cinder had noticed… something.
"This is not quite my semblance, although I cannot fault you for believing it as such. My semblance is a form of transportation."
Raven drew her blade, and in one motion, cut open a slash into the air, Cinder watches, with rapt attention, as a violently beautiful, red storm cuts its way into existence, forming around the two of them, one behind Cinder, and one right in front of Raven. The clouds don't link, and Cinder can't see through them, but casually, Raven gently reaches through the portal, resting a hand on Cinder's shoulder from behind her.
Cinder reflects that this is quite possibly the strangest feeling she's ever felt. She whirls, seeing Raven's disembodied arm floating behind her. The hand moves and feels just as warm as Raven always had, and yet as Cinder stares evenly at the thing, her vision is colored by the flush as her brain processes that this arm is a good 7 to 10 feet distant from its original owner, who seems to be fine.
"That… I…"
Cinder feels just a little lightheaded.
Raven cuts her semblance off with a gentle crackling and the portals fade, only after the woman has drawn her arm back through it.
"The power you saw me use first, is something that I inherited a long, long time ago."
Raven sits down on the couch, beckoning Cinder closer to her, and pointing to the floor before she asks the girl.
"Did you see the fight? How the weather seemed to obey my commands and bend to my will?"
Cinder nods gently. She remembers Raven twisting ice and winds into her weapons, she remembers how the storm itself acquiesced to the will of the crimson maiden seated on the couch in front of her.
"These, or rather, this power allows me to control the weather, sharpening it into my weapons. However, it is limited."
Raven concentrated briefly, narrowing her eyes at the snowflake, which shudders viciously, before expanding into a spear of ice nearly 4 feet long and razor sharp.
"Normally, creating weapons such as this is a trivial matter. But the exception to that is the storm systems that dominate the world."
Raven looks outside and as she does so, Cinder sees the violet and brilliant flames licking at the corners of her eyes.
"The weather affects my powers, the stronger the storms, the less control I have over them, but… by inverse, they are much stronger. One of these spears, for example, could be much, much stronger. Or the localized storm could intensify even further, using myself as a conduit."
Raven finishes speaking, and Cinder realizes that this power, this power might be the key. If she could achieve such a power, then… then she would be strong, right!?
"Little Kite, this power is dangerous, it makes you a target for others. It is not as safe as you think, and… it weakens you in certain ways."
She smiles, but this one is hollow and fake, and Cinder sees Raven almost… sigh as if the energy leaves her all at once.
"I am unwell, Little Kite, this power is not for you. I hope you never suffer from its curse."
Cinder… wasn't really listening anymore, her eyes instead filled with stars and thoughts and dreams. If she had that power… the power over the storms themselves, if she had that ability, if she had that power… the world would be hers!
She could do anything! Float above the clouds, soar through the air, eat candy, and stay up late because she wanted to, not because she had money, she could just… do whatever she wanted! She could just stay with… Raven? Did she want that…?
Cinder looks back up at the other woman. Raven meets her gaze, the flames having flickered out of her gaze, as she looked upon the smaller girl. Raven stood from the couch before Cinder could say anything, and then she said.
"Come on, we have a long way to go, and part of that means we're going to be hiking through the snow. I was able to find a few leftover things from the last time I used this place, and they should fit, albeit a bit loosely."
Raven nods her head to a box she set on the kitchen table earlier, and when Cinder approaches it, she takes note of varying thick, fluffy articles of clothing. Several will be too small, and several will be too large, but they will work. The girl quickly strips from her clothing, only pausing when she hears Raven take in a sharp, albeit soft gasp from behind her. Cinder turns to look, and… in the reflection of the mirror, her back, the scars upon its flesh from lightning, the scars twisting into a vaguely heart-shaped mark on her upper back. The scar tissue remaining from her much more rebellious attempts at leaving Madame's employ.
The oversized tunic is clearly Raven's, from the deep burgundy color to the feathers splayed about it in iconography and the like, but Cinder feels… warm, as she dons the tunic. She feels something welcoming and happy about it and feels a sense of calm come over her.
The coat is puffy, and would be too small on Raven, but, based on the emblem stitched onto the shoulder, this is Summer's coat, and now Cinder feels its heavy weight settle comfortingly across her shoulders.
"I… thank you, Ma'am."
Her voice trips over the first syllables. And Raven's gruff tone replies evenly.
"She would have wanted you to be clothed in the best she could, I've never seen better than that one."
Raven turns away from Cinder, and when the girl turns to look at her from the corner of one eye, she sees Raven hurriedly wipe something away from her face, before the woman marches to the door and turns.
"Quickly now, little Kite, up on my back, we have a great distance to walk in order to reach the ground you can walk safely upon. The snows are deep here, and the ice underneath is more treacherous than anything."
As Cinder clambers onto Raven's back, the other woman wraps her arms around Cinder's feet and pulls them taut against her upper stomach.
"Hold on tight, and… Little Kite?"
Cinder looks up, meeting eyes with the taller huntress.
"No more usage of your semblance. Not until we have you trained, ok? It's dangerous and out here, we can't treat things easily."
Cinder nods. Acquiescing to the request immediately, this woman governed if she lived or died, she owed it to her to listen, especially for such a simple request.
The snow pressed down, and the wind howled overhead as the two left the cabin, and yet, somehow, a part of Cinder had never felt warmer.
Another ember sprouted to life inside the small, amber-eyed girl's chest.
A/N: More conversations! What does Ironwood want? What does Raven mean when she calls her powers a curse? I'm excited to see you all next time!
Next Chapter: July 9
