Jaune woke up the next morning and checked the time. He decided that he had another half hour before he needed to get up. He thought about the events of the last couple of day and decided to try and put the conversation between his sisters and his brother-in-law out of his mind for the time being. He had fallen asleep shortly after the Kulsa warning and was woken a few hours later by Amber while Jasper and Debo collected their children, and the hired limo took them home. Apparently Debo had put a blanket over him while he gently snoozed.
He instinctively felt that a lot of the problems of Mistral stemmed from people remembering quarrels between their grandparents or incidents which were ancient history. It was hard enough saying what the rights and wrongs were of an argument which started yesterday, let alone one from sixty years ago. There were still families who lived in the same street and even neighbouring houses who did not speak to each other because of an accusation of cowardice during the Great War or the Faunus War from a member of one family to another.
He supposed that he dealt with more Faunus than most humans and the ones he met in the LGDF or running villages and towns seemed much the same as their human equivalents. Perhaps a little more wary at first, but he could understand why. He supposed it helped that he was introduced to most of them by mother and Reynard. He could not understand those people who said that all Faunus were stupid or thieves. He also was puzzled when good people like Jasper said that he did not see how the Faunus could ever forgive humans. Too much dwelling on history was a bad thing in his view.
The subjects Amber, Jasper and Debo had discussed were no doubt important, but there was nothing he felt he could do about them. Well apart from saying to people that the more Faunus you met, the more you realised that the similarities outweighed the differences. He followed his mother's tactic of disagreeing gently. Amber had teased them both in the past by quoting from a book written before the Great War called Exclusive by Evelyn Wisteria. An editor worked for a paper owned by an opinionated Atlas aristocrat. When the editor agreed with the owner he said, "Absolutely, Lord Marigold," and when the editor was talking nonsense, "Up to a point, Lord Marigold."
Mother had laughed and said, "Next time dear, tell me that the problem about sitting in the middle of the fence is that you get splinters in your bum even if you avoid being trampled by the cows." Typical mother. Even Amber had laughed at that.
He had just closed his eyes for a quick snooze when a pillow hit him in the head. "Wake up doofus and get dressed. I need to speak to you before breakfast." She took out a pair of underpants from his drawer and tossed then to him, "You can put those on underneath the duvet if you want."
She said, "I'll go with Lavender to school and talk with the headmaster who has asked to see me. You may as well go to LGDF headquarters and wait for mum to arrive."
As he got dressed Amber said, "I may have to leave earlier than I had planned for Vale. Unforeseen circumstances and all that jazz. If I do then you will need to pass on a couple of things which were said last night to mother and no one else. The warning about establishing a secret depot for the surplus dust is one. Wait a few days before you pass on the Kurohari speculation. With the rest of it just let it inform what you see while working and report to her about. Perhaps hint that the wilder speculations were mine and not Debo's."
Jaune stared at her. "Amber. Surely they were Jasper's?"
"I remember the man when he first moved here. I also know Debo better than any of you. I watched him chase after her until she caught him. They are good for each other but are ambitious in a way I can't manage."
Jaune supposed that he would get no more than that out of her. The three eldest sisters had been a little apart from the rest of them growing up. Debo had been a deputy parent rather than an older sister. Amber had been a subject of worship, even for the twins. Saffy had always been a sweet person, but as the oldest had been remote and had been more secretive.
They went down for breakfast and caught Lavender humming to a tune she was listening to on her headphones while she made breakfast and prepared a marinade for tonight's meal. Amber asked, "Should I look out for more like that one, Lavender?"
"Yes please, Amber." Lavender turned off the music and took out the earplugs. She made them bacon, fried eggs, mushrooms, and Mistral toast for breakfast. The addition of mustard to the frying pan when cooking the mushrooms and the bacon worked well. She finished it off with orange juice and coffee and were well fuelled by the time they were ready to leave for school and work.
Amber warned Lavender that she may have to leave before Lavender finished school and the goodbye hugs and mutual well-wishing were exchanged before they left the house. As they reached the turn off to ACS, Lavender said, "Is that dad?"
Amber stared in the direction of the school gates and said, "I can't tell from here." Jaune caught a hint of tenseness in her voice. She and dad had had an uneasy relationship ever since she had given that interview.
She turned to Lavender. "I need a quick word with Jaune. All the best and see you soon. I'll send you more discs next month. I think you might like Flynt Coal and his Killer Quartets from Mantle. They're young but if you like the big band numbers from Foxy you should also like them."
They watched Lavender disappear down the road and join some of her school friends. They heard a couple of "Oh. My. Gods."
Amber laughed then looked around before whispering, "Best of luck, doofus. I will think about the options for getting you to one of the academies and let you know. Keep practising with Lavender here."
She paused, "I'm almost certain that I'm going to have a row with dad and Headmaster Brown now which will end in dad and me agreeing that it will be best if I leave immediately. Don't worry about it, we'll get over it. It's just that he will accuse me of dishonouring him and Brown by trying to unlock your aura and I'll tell him he is dishonouring me by accusing me of that. Just tell mother the truth about what happened and in time she will calm him down."
Jaune wondered why Amber could not stop the argument escalating herself but kept quiet. Instead, they shook hands and Amber headed towards the school.
Five minutes later he walked into the headquarters and saw Marion compiling the morning briefing. She looked at him and said, "Chief Arc is in the office saying farewell to the reporters. Here's hoping that they give us a good write-up and persuade the ministry to give us more resources."
Jaune waited until the reporters had left and knocked on mother's door using the family knock. She said, "Come in, Jaune."
She was looking tired but happy. She thrived on responsibility and responded well to stress. "How was dinner last night? Well apart from the incident with Fuchsia. Headmaster Brown called your father and he's gone to have a word about it with him. I gather he was too drunk to do any harm."
Ah, it sounded as though Brown had not broken his promise and perhaps was only now telling dad.
"Mother, something happened the night before. Don't worry, it was a good thing." He flared his aura as she looked at him.
She gasped and came from behind the table and hugged him. "That's great, Jaune. How did it happen?"
He told the truth. "I was feeling sorry for myself and moaning. Amber told me to stop feeling sorry for myself and count my blessings. She said there was no point in thinking about what might have been. She basically said that she would have one go at unlocking my aura and after that I should make the best of things."
"Sounds like Amber. I used to be like her before I had children. So, she was irritated and gave it a bit of welly?"
Jaune did not think that she had done, but his memory was not clear on the point. He hesitated and said, "Perhaps, but both of were more astonished when it unlocked. She was knocked to the floor, and she said it is an unusually strong aura."
Mother looked surprised but did not ask any questions about that. Instead, she showed why she was running the Ansel LGDF by putting two and two together. "So, when Richard Fuchsia attacked you he ran into your aura? Tell me what happened."
He told her about the incident. She sighed when he told her about the knife and by the policeman's attitude to the incident. "Your father will no doubt have a word with Reginald Fuchsia and smooth things over with Blanche. Well at least remind them both that they'd better think about the consequences before starting a feud with the Arc family."
Jaune said, "Amber said that she will probably be leaving early."
He paused, "She was meeting Headmaster Brown and I think dad may be joining them."
Mother nodded, "Jaune, sometimes it's for the best to let the two of them let off steam at each other. Just because they fight, it does not mean that they don't love each other."
Jaune looked at her. "It seems a pity."
"It is. Anyway, time for the briefing."
Marion briefed them on what was happening in Ansel. Things were mostly under control. The Kingdom Guard was keeping things quiet in Kulsa and elsewhere there was no need for anything beyond the regular patrols. There had been around twenty more requests for house exchanges and today the emphasis would be on getting these underway. Halfway through Reynard walked in and joined the briefing. He looked also as exhausted as mother.
At the end Marion caught mother's eye, "Can we have a word before you catch up on your sleep, Chief?"
"Of course. I'm getting my second or is it third wind anyway."
She led the way back to her office. Marion looked at Jaune and then shrugged, "You may as well join us."
Behind the door of the office, Marion closed the shutters and said, "I had a call thirty minutes ago from a contact in the Kurohari LGDF who I met on the residential course for senior staff last year."
Mother said, "I gather that this was not a purely social call."
"No. Deputy Chestnut's flying a LGDF bullhead and will be arriving in twenty minutes with various VIPS from Ludoyakst on board and the remaining dust supplies from the stores in the town. Reading between the lines she wants us to ensure that the dust supplies stay on the bullhead and not go into the retirement fund of some soon to be unemployed officials. She struck me as someone who wanted to be better LGDF than she was being allowed to be."
"Sometimes a reputation for honesty has its disadvantages. OK have them land here."
She looked at Jaune, "See if Jasmine is still around and bring him in here."
Robert Jasmine was a journalist for the Ansel Express and Star who wanted to go to the Big Durian and sold stories to the national papers and magazines there. Jaune went outside and as he suspected found Jasmine flirting with the receptionist. "Robert. The chief wants a word."
Robert quickly joined them in the office. Mother said, "We have a bullhead flying in from north Kurohari. It is a potential exclusive and no doubt your friends in Mistral would appreciate a heads up. You may not be able to publish the story, but.."
"Understood chief. I'd been hearing rumours myself."
"Any chance we can pass Jaune here as your cameraman."
"Fine if you let me have some of the footage if I can publish."
Reynard said, "Chief, best if I do it. They won't notice a Faunus behind the camera. Jaune looks too much like you and they might suspect a scam is going on."
Twenty minutes later together with Happy and another three members of the Ansel LGDF, mother he, Marion, Jasmine, and Reynard were waiting as the transport bullhead circled for landing. Mother and Marion were in their dress uniforms used for greeting dignitaries. Happy was primed to use his semblance if things started like looking ugly.
The mayor of Ansel was also on his way to join them after he had heard the rank of the passengers on the bullhead. A mayor, the chief administrator, two deputy administrators and the chief of police and their families was a high-ranking delegation. It also showed that Jasper and Debo had known what they were talking about last night.
Mother was marching across the small base as the transport bullhead landed and was beside it when the doors opened.
Mother was in full sail as she introduced herself to the mayor and the dignitaries. Marion went to see her acquaintance who had been piloting the bullhead.
One of the deputy administrators made towards Jaune and insinuated that if Chief Arc wanted a slice of the action then that was quite understood. "Sorry sir. Too many people are around. Mr Jasmine is a stringer for the Mistral Guardian. Bad luck he was in the building when you arrived." The Guardian was a notoriously liberal and anti-corruption publication. Jaune was not a good liar, but everything he had said was truthful and his instructions had been to refer them to Marion or mother if they asked him a question which would require a direct lie.
Mother asked the chief of police from the refugees' city to countersign the dust manifest for the protection of the reputations of both the Ansel LGDF and deputy Chestnut when she returned the bullhead and its cargo back to Kurohari. The man looked annoyed but could not really refuse.
Within an hour the refugees had been taken to the Antelope for lunch which the mayor's office was funding and then most of them would fly first class to Mistral City that evening. Deputy Chestnut was also a good actress as she managed to look almost as annoyed as the mayor and the chief of police.
After her passengers had departed for the Antelope (together with Jasmine who was interviewing the families) she had gone into the office with Marion, mother, and him. "Thanks. I may even have a career to go back to. It's just that they are a venal lot even by Mistral City carpetbagger standards and made it easy for the Branwen Tribe and the White Fang to take over and I did not want to steal anything more than they had already done."
"Why fly here?"
"If we'd gone to Kurohari the new administrator has a reputation for comparative honesty and a need for scapegoats. Goodness knows how many lien they have in those suitcases. Kulsa still has the Kingdom Guard in place and so you were the best option. I told them that this was at the limit of my fuel supplies."
Deputy Chestnut closed her eyes. "I don't know whether the rumours are true, but for the last week the town was awash with stories that the White Fang are actually allied with the Branwen Tribe and would be taking over the running of the district and taking revenge on humans."
"Go on."
"Six months ago, we had various refugees from the old Alton Province arriving. They said when thy first arrived that life under the Branwen tribe was not that bad and that after a week at most of disruption things were mostly back to normal. They'd left because they had been demoted and replaced by their old Faunus subordinates. The police told them not to talk about Alton in a semi-positive way and play up the atrocity stories."
Mother frowned, "I wouldn't have jumped that way."
Chestnut nodded. "I can see why they did it. In the end they had the worst of both worlds. The Faunus and enough poor humans latched on to the first version and dismissed the atrocity stories as propaganda. Those who believed the atrocity stories or focused on humans being replaced by Faunus got very scared. Grimm attacks were up, people started selling up, the Branwen tribe took over the surrounding countryside and controlled the roads."
The woman sighed. "My predecessor left two months ago on grounds of ill health, and I took the promotion hoping I could make a difference. Within two days of arrival, I realised how terrible things were. The dust supplies were in reality a quarter of what they were meant to be. Allegedly this was down to recent theft by the Branwen Tribe and the White Fang. Not impossible but highly unlikely."
Over the next hour they heard the story which the woman told of the fall of Ludoyakst. Marion held the woman who had clearly been longing to tell the truth to someone as she told of receiving the message that the town had already been written off by Mistral City and that resources would be concentrated on Kurohari. The nightmare of trying to motivate subordinates who did not believe that the town could survive and veered between wanting to flee, getting the change of control over with and taking revenge on the fifth columnist Faunus.
"If the Faunus did not want to take revenge three months ago, they probably do now. I sacked about a fifth of my staff because they were making things worse when they dealt with the public."
It was odd but the woman said that it almost made things worse when she had to clean up the LGDF's operations in her area. People focused on the fact that they weren't being trusted and subordinates tried to hide things from her. Mother nodded along at that. She'd been lucky when she took over that most people were glad of a change, and she had been a known quantity.
The end when it came was quick. A week before Chestnut had thought that they had another month at least, but the trickle of refugees turned into a stampeded as those with contacts back in the capital decided to cut their losses and flee. The mayor had been concerned that he had left it too late and so had taken refuge at the LGDF base outside the town and bullied Chestnut into taking him and his friends to safety. The rumour was that the Branwen Tribe were allowing LGDF ships safe passage but were shooting down commercial flights. The mayor had not felt happy about driving south.
It was a subdued mother who walked back home with Jaune. They had sent Chestnut back to Kurohari. Marion went with her to fly the bullhead and oversee the handover of the dust at the other end. She would take a commercial flight back but would stay overnight to observe what morale was like with the Kurohari LGDF. Reynard had filmed the suitcases which the refugees had brought with them. While the LGDF were not police, he had said that he would give Robert Jasmine the option of using the clips to point the Mistral Guardian towards a worthwhile story.
On the way back Jaune relayed the story and predictions about Kurohari province he had heard from Jasper and Debo last night. She nodded thoughtfully. "Don't say anything about what they said about the rest of the province to anyone else, but I will factor it into my planning. Expect to see the twins spend time here in the summer and do a few stints a year with us. I'm also going to encourage the governor and the mayor to keep Ansel in the news if they can. Ansel is an integral part of Mistral and I want people on the record acknowledging that and even better believing that."
Jaune nodded at that but found himself thinking about what was next for him. He wanted to be a hunter.
Still, he was interested in what his mother had been up to and said, "Mother, do you mind if I speculate what you were aiming for today with deputy Chestnut?"
"Tell me what you think I was doing?"
"Preserving the dust for the Kurohari LGDF."
"Yes, but what else?"
"By sending it back quickly you showed them and your bosses that you were not confiscating it for yourself. That they can trust you."
"Mainly did that because it was the right thing to do. Even before she told us about the shortages in her area, I suspected that the Kurohari LGDF needed it more than we do."
"OK. Having Jasmine present was clearly part of the plan. The bod who talked to me accepted that a deal was out of the question when he heard about who he was a stringer for." Thinking about it had she known Reynard would volunteer to be the cameraman? Reynard would have done it if she had told him to do it but having him make the call himself meant it was his choice to play up to the stereotype of the invisible Faunus.
"Of course, Jasmine strings for all of them, but the Mistral Guardian helps focus minds on keeping up appearances. Not so radical as to be capable of being ignored but they will blow the whistle if someone kicks a player in the groin right in front of them."
"It also allowed everyone to pretend that you were not calling them thieves or get into a contest of strength."
"That's the one. Happy helped on that by using his semblance to keep everyone mellow. One day Amber will learn that it's best to have the subtle blow amongst your options. She treats life like fighting Grimm. Take on the strongest alpha with your big sword of justice and turn it to dust and encourage the smaller ones to retreat or at least stop charging. Humans don't disappear so easily and there's always a subordinate who has been waiting for the opportunity to become the new alpha and show he's tougher than the last."
"I'm not certain either mayor believed it."
"Well no. Still accusing me of an excess of honesty is not much of a threat and your father can tell his friends the official story and shrug his shoulders or hint that I suspected a stitch up with a sting operation to entrap me into stealing dust from the Kurohari LGDF. After all Ansel is an odd choice as a bolt hole."
Jaune admired his mother but her matter-of-fact ability to think about so many possible angles at once made him reluctant to follow in her footsteps. He would prefer to be like Amber, even if that involved tilting at windmills.
She smiled at him. "Let's see if we can just celebrate your aura being unlocked tonight and then think about how we can arrange training for you. Nicholas can train both you and Lavender at the weekends and the twins will help when they are around. Let's see if there is any chance you have a shooting semblance. The ability to aim moderately precisely when flying in a bullhead is about the best semblance for our line of work you can have. Thanks goodness we don't have that many forests in Ansel for Nevermore and rapiers to live in."
"Mother I do want to be a hunter."
She turned to him. "Jaune, I'm not going to lie to you. I still think that you can be the most help in fighting the Grimm as a member of the LGDF unless you have a really impressive semblance. I also think that it will be harder than you believe, or it should be, for you to get into one of the academies. Still, it is your life and your choice to make, and I will help you any way I can. Just don't resign from the LGDF until you have a clear route to follow. You do have a lot of untaken holiday left if you need more training or to go for interviews."
"Of course not, mother." He believed that she was telling him the truth as she saw it.
She turned to him, "Jaune, I had scroll messages from both Amber and your father saying that they had argued and that she has left for Vale. I think it will make things easier for all of us if you do not contradict me when I say that Amber probably gave the aura unlocking a bit of welly without meaning to."
Jaune laughed. "It might even be true."
"Of course."
She then turned to him again. "Jaune. I was angry for years that it had not been an option for me to become a huntress. Honestly for me it has turned out for the best. I have eight children whom I love and am proud of and I now have a job which fulfils me and uses my abilities. I do not think that the LGDF is a poor second best for you either. But it is best that you come to that decision by yourself. Amber is not lying if she tells you about the arguments I used to have with your father."
Jaune decided a grunt was the only safe reply.
She winked at Jaune. "When I really want to annoy her, I tell her thar she is more like Nicholas than me."
They arrived home just as a taxi arrived and the twins emerged from it. Nancy shouted "Joannie."
This had been a running gag for years. As a child Nancy had objected to having this male child in the family and had renamed him. Jessica had gone along with it and Lily had early on given up on defying the twins. Debo had tried to clamp down on it and had mostly succeeded. Still the fact that Debo had called it him now suggested that Amber or mother had passed on the news.
The two rushed up to him and gave him a hug. They were just about to start their last term at Haven and become fully qualified hunters. They would be sticking with their team members for at least a year after qualifying and had signed up to work with the Ansel LGDF for two months this summer.
They were both just over six foot tall and while not quite identical, the similarities outweighed the differences. To make it worse they were both wearing sunglasses and were wearing their hunter outfits which included combat skirts.
"Don't worry mother. We warned Lavender we were on our way back and she is putting on more veggies."
Mother laughed. "Ok, get unpacked and freshen up. I suggest you take Jaune to the Antelope and be back for seven. Try not to get into a fight."
Within ten minutes the twins were ready to go. They indicate that they would wait until dinner for the aura unlocking story but asked about the incident with Dick Fuchsia. Nancy insisted on going into the gents to see if they had replaced the mirror yet. As was normally the case with the twins everyone ignored this breach of etiquette.
They then bought a bottle of wine and sat down at a table.
Jessica said, "Jaune, Amber suggested we come home for a couple of days until things calm down. Limp Richard was obviously goaded into attacking you and we are more used to using our aura so as not to hurt idiots."
He laughed at that. "Fine. What are the sunglasses all about?"
"Present from Saffy and Terra. They are Adel-Bans. Good aren't they."
"Certainly stylish. Are they a special brand?"
"Of course. Even though they are modelled by a first year Beacon student."
There was a cough behind them. An older man and three younger men stood there. The older man was Reginald Fuchsia, Richard's father. "Jaune, I wanted to apologise for my son's behaviour last night. I wanted to let you and your family know that there will not be any repeat of it."
Nancy pushed down the glasses so she could look over them at the man. "Reginald. My family thanks you and we know that you had nothing to do with the incident last night. As far as we are concerned, provided that there is no repetition, it never happened."
"I thank you for your forbearance. Richard has decided to take a working absence for the foreseeable future. I have advised him to be more careful about choosing his friends in the future."
There were a few exchanges of embarrassing politeness before the Fuchsia family left. Jessica sighed, "I suppose I should be glad it happened that way, but part of me misses beating up the younger Fuchsias."
Nancy laughed, "Into each life some rain must fall. Still mother will prefer it that way."
Jaune said, "Mother will likely ask you about Team Blood tonight. She's thinking of hiring them as interns this summer. Probably based in Kulsa."
The twins exchanged glances and then Jessica said, "Thanks for the heads-up."
Nancy laughed, "Saw them on the TV yesterday. They are good enough people themselves…"
Jessica said, "She won't be with them. She will have her own internship to go to."
"Suppose so."
"Sorry Jaune. Academy gossip. One of them has a crazy ex-girlfiend – sorry girlfriend."
"Is it so ex?"
"At the moment yes."
They finished the bottle and returned home. Mother opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate Jaune's unlocked aura and father proposed a toast. Nothing was said about Amber until towards the end of the main course just after everyone had complimented dad and Lavender on the marinaded beef stew and saffron rice.
Mother said, "I was telling your father that, despite what she might say, Amber gave it some welly two nights ago."
Dad said, "She won't admit it." He looked sore about it.
"Well, she was telling the truth the way she saw it. She was mildly irritated with Jaune and pissed off at Ansel and although not expecting anything to happen, she never does anything by halves. She may have been expecting that she was going through the motions but threw her all into it."
Dad grunted, "What do you mean? Well, I know what you mean about her not doing things by halves. I've always told you all that if you do something you do it properly. She listened to me about that." Although Jaune had seem his mother do this trick before, he still liked seeing her in action.
Jaune said, "Well she certainly flew across the room after unlocking my aura and she had not been expecting it."
Mother said, "If I were her I would have been annoyed. After all she had just done the job she believes she was placed on Remnant to do. While she does not expect adulation, being told that it was for the best if she disappeared before anyone had to be embarrassed by having to thank her, is not the message I wanted to give to her, or she deserved to hear."
Father grunted, "I see what you mean, dear. While she could be more tactful with other people, she always does her best. She does not know her own strength most of the time. After all, not all of us are Vytal festival runners up."
The twins took this as their cue to fake indignation at being looked down on as mere quarterfinalists.
Lavender smiled at him as they watched the twins and father banter away. Lavender had spotted this pattern before he did. Mother and dad would go part of the way to dealing with a disagreement. Dad would decide he wanted to think some more about it and throw up a distraction to change the subject. The twins, in particular, could be relied on to take their cue to give him cover.
Dad did agree to train him and take him to the gun range more regularly. He also agreed to hand over Crocea Mors. This shocked even mother, but no one commented.
At the end of the meal mother announced that she needed to catch up on her sleep deficit and dad joined her. The twins loaded the dishwasher. Lavender mentioned that when she had got home from school, Debo and Jasper had arrange for a case of mixed wines to be delivered and the twins decided to open one of the ones which they recognised.
They commented that the unsolicited and totally above the board gifts Jasper must be getting nowadays were clearly on an upward trajectory. All four of them decided that they did not want to venture upstairs for a least an hour after their parents had announced an early night. There was reason that there were eight children in the family.
Jessica said, "I suppose dad's not wrong to suggest that we did not train as hard as we could."
Nancy said, "So what? We made the quarter finals twice and won one of the three matches each time. Neither of us would have lasted five minutes against the chosen singles choice of the teams which did get to the semi-finals no matter how hard we had trained."
"You're right. We had more fun than anyone else did."
Jaune raised the subject which was dominating his thoughts, "Nancy, Jessica, do you think I could go to Haven Academy?"
Nancy said, "Why not?"
Jessica, who had had a little bit less to drink, said, "Let's have a talk in the morning when we are sober."
Lavender said, "I'm told that it's very tough this year. Perhaps next year might be doable."
Nancy nodded her head, "Look, Jaune we'll help you out. We know Professor Pink quite well and he'll let us have an honest opinion as to the practicalities."
Jessica said, "Amber says your aura is enormous. I want to have a look at it when we spar tomorrow."
Nancy said, "You can get locked up for that, Jessie." The twins collapsed into giggles and Lavender raised her eyebrows at him. She was sensibly drinking lemonade.
Monster King. Many thanks for the support and encouragement. It is appreciated, especially for a story mostly consisting of OCs and world building.
The next chapter will include a jump in time. By the way, this story is written from Jaune's POV and there are times when he will see things and not realise their significance. It's not that he's stupid, he is just a little more innocent than most of the rest of his family.
