Yo!

A lot more to say after the chapter, but for now, I do believe I left you on a cliffhanger, didn't I?


Start Chapter 17


Jaune really tries not to panic as his team, Emerald, Mercury, Salem's agents, and Cinder file out of the dining hall, and suddenly it is only the two of them, himself, and Salem, alone.

It is made slightly easier by the reassuring feeling that Cinder is practically drenching him with through their link, but even with that, he finds himself breathing rather heavily as he watches the woman stand from her throne at the head of the table, and mime stepping towards him, floating as she is.

"I must say, it is an odd thing to hear that one of my agents has, of all things, found her soulmate." Salem says with a mirthful smile, evidently enjoying herself, which, in Jaune's eyes, is a good thing, because a happy Salem seems like a less-likely-to-kill-him Salem. "I suppose the two of you ran into each other at Beacon then? Is that when she turned you to her cause?"

He debated, for just a moment, carrying on with that little lie that Cinder had pushed. That she had turned him and his team during their stay at Beacon, but…

The woman hadn't exactly seemed to buy that before. Not for a moment. And so, he simply says the truth.

"My teammate, Pyrrha, was selected to receive the Fall Maiden's power by Ozpin–"

"Ozma," Salem cuts him off. "A common mistake for most, but I would ask you refer to him by his actual title."

Jaune doesn't have any idea what an Ozma is – or, well, apparently, it's Ozpin – but he gathers it's not at all the subject of Salem's little inquiry. Thusly, he decides he'll save that question for later. Perhaps he'll simply ask Cinder herself.

"Ozma, then," Jaune continues. "She… was put into a position where she felt she had no choice but to accept his offer."

"A rather common tale." Salem says with a roll of her eyes, though she waves her hand in the next moment, gesturing for Jaune to continue.

"During the transfer, however, Cinder…"

It's in this moment, nearly a month after the fact, that Jaune remembers that Cinder had killed that woman in the glass cage. He'd not known her name, never seen her before then, but…

But Cinder had killed her. Shot her through the heart with an arrow without a single moment's hesitation. And… if he'd not been who he is, if he'd been some random student, anyone else, then…

She'd have probably done the same to him.

…These thoughts aren't helping him right now. He resolves to think more on them later, but for now, he sets them aside.

"Cinder interrupted."

If Salem's noticed his hesitation, and given who she is, she likely has, then she does not comment on it.

"It was then that… that we both realized."

"And this was during the fall of Beacon itself?"

"Yeah…"

Salem actually laughs. A rich, full-bodied thing that rings through the now nearly empty dining hall.

"Ah, what unfortunate timing. Well, tell me, boy, what did the two of you decide to do?"

"I… Ozp– Ozma," He corrects, briefly seeing Salem's eyes narrow. "He told me to run away with Pyrrha, and… and the both of us listened. He bought us time to escape. I was… I was a mess. And then Pyrrha decided to go back and fight Cinder…"

"A suicidal decision." Salem says without a hint of compassion. "Your friend is rather lucky to be alive."

Jaune won't admit that he feels very similarly. "And then… then Cinder got burned by a friend of mine–"

"You knew the Silver-Eyed girl?"

"Y-Yeah," Jaune wants, very badly, to not give Salem any information on Ruby. He wants to more than just about anything else in the world in that moment. And yet… he also knows that everything he's privy to is likely something Salem could have this Watts guy find out with ease. Not exactly secret knowledge, and holding back on it will only make the woman angry. So, he talks. "Her name's Ruby. Ruby Rose. She's pretty shy, but–"

"Rose?" Salem's eyes light up in recognition. "Ah. I see. I have met quite a few 'Rose's' in my time. I assume Ozma had already been giving her special treatment?"

Jaune's about halfway to saying 'no' before an awful lot of events fall into place all at once, and he's forced to split his lips and utter "Yes."

"Hmph." Salem hums amusedly. "He is nothing if not predictable. Ah, well, we've discussed unimportant matters long enough. Back to you and Cinder."

He recounts some of the rest of the story, then. Filling Salem in on some of what the two of them had gone through during Cinder's imprisonment. To Jaune's surprise, the woman laughs and gasps and smiles at what he feels are appropriate moments, and when he mentions that he'd fought off General Ironwood, she even nods her head proudly, saying "That's rather impressive."

Finally, though, he feels he's finished speaking, and so he goes silent, waiting for Salem to lead the next stage of conversation.

Well, actually, he's hoping she'll just let him go with that, but of course, Jaune also knows his luck by now, and understands that he has no hope of getting out of here any time soon.

"Cinder is a rather interesting individual. Even I am not entirely certain what it is that goes on in that head of hers."

Jaune's… not entirely certain where this is going.

"So, imagine my surprise to see such a soft expression upon her face when she looked at you," Salem says, tilting her head slightly. "And somehow, despite everything, you look at her the same."

"I…"

"She is a cursed being." Salem continues. "Someone whose life has only brought hardship, whose life has only brought pain. Being attached to her will only ever bring you the same by proxy, by now you must see that."

Jaune is about to interject, to get in the middle of that, before Salem speaks right over him.

"Would you like me to sever it?" She asks, staring right into him. "That link of yours?"

Jaune finds the breath knocked out of him before he can take another, and for a moment he's floundering there, unsure of how to breathe.

A warm feeling suffuses him in the next second, and he can sense Cinder trying to calm him.

…If he'd had any doubts – and he hadn't – they are banished in an instant.

"It would be a simple matter. A bit of pressure around your soul, just the tiniest snip, and you'd never have to worry about her–"

"No." He says with a voice like steel. "Not a chance."

Salem just smiles. It takes Jaune a moment to realize he has just cut off Salem, Queen of the Grimm, someone who can very easily snuff his life out. He's just about to apologize for that when Salem continues speaking.

"Hah. I can see why she likes you. Everyone else in her life has abandoned her, and yet you stay."

His face contorts slightly at that, at the reminder of what Cinder has already told him.

"No one cares for her. No one has shown her even an inch of compassion. Only ever using her for their own aims." Jaune wonders if she's including herself in that. "And then you come along and are the complete opposite. Kind and gentle, yet clumsy and naïve."

Jaune isn't really sure whether or not to take that as a compliment or an insult. He settles on just nodding his head.

"Somehow, I think that is exactly what she needs."

Silence reigns over the dining hall for perhaps four or five seconds, before Salem gives a tiny flick of her wrist, and the doors at the back of the room shoot open, effectively freeing him.

"You may leave." Salem says, standing from her throne and beginning to 'walk' towards the doors. "This has been quite the interesting conversation, Jaune Arc. I look forward to seeing the ebb and flow of your bond in the coming days."

And for some reason, Jaune does something really dumb then.

"What does it look like?"

Salem stops on a dime, turning back towards him with a raised eyebrow.

"Your soulbond? You would ask me such a question?"

The tone of Salem's voice sounds more puzzled than annoyed, and yet even so, given the woman's choice of words, Jaune finds himself ducking his head, swallowing on some spittle.

"I just… feel free to ignore me. That's fine. I'm not–"

"It is a blazing orange."

Jaune looks up.

"At least, from Cinder's side it is." Salem says, looking at him, at his heart, it seems, and seeing something that Jaune cannot. "And yet from yours, a calm, flowing yellow. One that recedes like a wave with your partners flame, dancing together. It is an attempted harmony, despite her raging so much hotter than you. And yet… somehow you are not burned. Somehow you manage to add heat to the fire, without everything catching alight. I admit, it intrigues me, the sight of your bond. I have seen only a few that match its intensity."

That… Jaune has no idea what to make of that.

Instead, he finds himself asking another question.

"…Ren and Nora's?"

"Hm." Salem smirks. "You are a curious one, aren't you?"

"I uh…"

"Theirs is, as I'm sure you've guessed, a vivid pink. It is like a line of electricity, a powerful surge that is tempered by a soothing element."

No points for guessing who represents who there.

"And… for the others who don't have their soulmates here, what do theirs look like?"

Salem pauses for a moment, there, as if pondering her next few words more carefully than she normally would.

"It is like a flag waving in a harsh wind, the energy of their souls. Writhing and undulating as it tries to reach out to its other half. I believe it does point, vaguely, in the direction of whoever it is the link is searching for, but I could not tell you much at all. After all, we are the northern-most section of this little Remnant of ours. All three of their links point south, although to varying degrees of east and west."

Jaune just nods his head. He still has more questions – honestly, this entire lesson on soulmates and soulbonds is fascinating to him – but he also gets the feeling that holding up the Queen of the Grimm is not entirely something he should want to be doing. And so, he stands from his seat, and gives the woman across him from a bow that is as graceful as he can make it.

"Uhm… thank you… Ma'am?"

Salem chuckles. "Oh, how very polite this one is. Ma'am will suffice, yes."

He nods his head as he makes to exit the room, but is stopped by an icy hand on his shoulder.

"You know, I am not above assisting the two of you." Salem says with a glint of something in her gaze. "Perhaps I could arrange some accident that caves in your room? I imagine Cinder might let the two of you sleep in the same bed that way, no?"

Jaune isn't really sure what he's supposed to feel in that moment, ostensibly being teased by the Evil Queen of Remnant, but even still, he can't help but shake his head, blushing somewhat, but sticking to his guns.

"I… no. Cinder's… she…" He swallows. "I want to take things at her pace."

Salem stares at him then. For a long time, perhaps seven or eight seconds. And then, her lips crack into a smile once more, before she steps past him, laughing under her breath.

"Hah. You really are meant for her, aren't you?"

"…"

"How strange, I am feeling oddly… sentimental." And then, once again, Salem waves him away. "Well, then, boy, go on. Don't roam about too far, only the Grimm inside the castle itself are peaceful."

Jaune feels his nerves briefly shoot up in intensity then, but he shakes his head enough to dispel them. He's… he's having trouble getting a read on this woman, on Salem. At times she seems almost motherly, and yet at others…

At others, she is the monster under the bed that the entirety of Remnant fears.

As Jaune steps away, Salem calls out one final thing to his back.

"I look forward to getting to know each and every one of you."

And he allows those words to haunt his steps as he makes his way back towards their rooms.

/

Cinder is not entirely sure how to react to being back in Evernight.

It has been nearly a year since she's seen it. She'd initially departed to hunt down Amber, to extract the Fall Maiden's power, and recruit some of her own agents along the way – even if that last part hadn't exactly been in Salem's initial plans. She'd had to think on the fly for the majority of the latter half, once they'd had to sneak into Beacon.

And then she'd found her little light.

And oh, how things had spiraled from there.

Cinder allows herself to look around her room. It is exactly how she'd left it. Just as empty, as bland, and impersonal as she'd intended long ago. The only difference is everything in it is caked in dust, one of the few normalities of Remnant that not even Evernight is immune to.

A simple bed. A sheet to use as a blanket. A singular pillow. A dresser with six or seven outfits, a few for training, and a few for assignments. And a secondary copy of Midnight is hung up in the back, albeit not lined with the dust that the old model had been.

She'd lost midnight, she remembers. Her weapon had been scattered somewhere around the time that Rose girl had utterly annihilated her. Likely, they'd been flung from the roof in her agony, and sent down into the bowels of the Emerald Forest below.

She'll never see the weapon again. She accepts that, and yet…

There is a tinge of melancholy when she thinks of the blades, of her bow, of the weapon that'd been with her for years now.

…She forces herself to shove such thoughts aside, and instead to focus more on the here and now.

Like the fact that her soulmate has been called out for a private conversation with Salem.

The thought does nothing good for her already fraying psyche, and she finds herself nervously pacing as she watches the minutes tick by on her scroll. It's perhaps twenty or so minutes after Jaune's been called away, after Cinder has been forced to leave him there to her whims, that she hears a knock at her door.

Such does not often happen. If anyone truly needs her in this place, they will not knock, and besides, the only one who'd ever actually bothered had been Hazel.

But his knocks are rather obvious, given he is roughly seven and a half feet of solid muscle.

This is more… dainty.

She breathes out a sigh of relief as she makes her way to the door, and opens it to see her little light smiling at her, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Hey," He says with a tiny chuckle. "Uh… I lived?"

"Do not–" She hisses, before reeling herself in, remembering that the two of them are talking out into the hallway at the moment. She pulls the boy inside of her room, before she rounds on him angrily. "Do not joke about such things!"

"S-Sorry," Jaune holds his hands up, wincing. "I didn't… I just wanted to defuse the tension a little. Besides, she wasn't that bad."

Cinder practically spits. "She was in a rather good mood today; I think you'll find. I came back bearing the Fall Maiden's powers. Both I and they are likely things she had thought lost to her. But…" Cinder shakes her head. "I… you… her calling you out like that was… unusual."

"I'm sorry."

"Why apologize?" Cinder looks up at him, raising an eyebrow. "It is not like you could've turned her down."

"I guess more that I'm sorry for worrying you." Jaune says a bit sheepishly, and Cinder turns away, huffing. "I felt you try and keep me steady, by the way. Thanks for that."

"It was nothing."

"Well, I still appreciated it."

Cinder nods her head, effectively cutting off that line of conversation from proceeding any further.

"So uhm… what do we do now?"

"Hm?"

"I mean…" Jaune gestures a bit helplessly. "What do we do? Like… what's our gameplan?"

"There isn't one." Cinder says, shaking her head. "We wait for Salem to give us an assignment. Until she does, we're on standby here."

"Oh…" Jaune seems… well, disappointed seems apt. "Uhm… does this place have like… running water or–"

"There's a bathroom on every floor," Cinder cuts him off, "Along with a bathtub fitted with a shower head. Though only the first-floor shower ever gets hot enough to be satisfying."

Jaune's eyes narrow slightly. "How do you guys have running water exactly?"

"I've never asked." Cinder admits. "Salem is… well, she has lived an awfully long time. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she simply had a previous member of her inner circle with experience in these matters set something like this up."

"That, or it's magic." Jaune provides.

"Yes, that is about as likely." Cinder says, turning away and moving back towards her dresser, where a small piece of cloth sits. "Before I forget, here."

Cinder holds the thing out towards Jaune, and watches as his eyes widen somewhat as he takes it in.

"Is that… my Pumpkin Pete's patch?"

Cinder had forgotten it had been called something that inane.

"You're giving it back to me?" Jaune asks, looking up at her with a bit of confusion – and something else – in his gaze.

"I am."

"Why?"

"Because we're…" Cinder hates the fact that she can't continue speaking.

"Together?"

Cinder growls, but does not refute the boys' words.

"Well… hold onto it for me. I certainly don't need it."

Cinder huffs a bit annoyedly. "I don't require it either."

"Just trust me." Jaune says, smiling in that sunshiny way he sometimes does. It never fails to make her heart flutter, and she hates it. "Besides, I plan for my dashing knight to do much more in my service."

Cinder raises an eyebrow. "Are you likening yourself to a princess again?"

"Hey, like I said, I rock a dress." Jaune winks, and Cinder hates that she finds herself smiling once more. "In all seriousness, though… I guess I gave you that so you'd think of me. And… well, it wouldn't really do anything in my hands. So… I want you to keep it." He smiles, before said expression dims somewhat. "Or, well, you don't have to, or anything, but–"

Cinder stuffs the infernal piece of cloth into her pocket before the boy can speak himself into a corner.

She tries to ignore his bright smile. Really, she does.

It doesn't work.

"So uhm… I guess I'll head out, then?" Jaune mutters, pointing with his thumb behind him towards the door.

Cinder says nothing. She knows what she wants to say, but she has always been too headstrong, too stubborn, to ever really say what it is that she wants to. Even way back when, in the Glass Unicorn, she'd never been able to tell her sisters she hated them. She'd never been able to make the Madame understand the depths of her fury.

She'd never been able to tell Rhodes that she saw him as a fa–

Cinder growls almost animalistically – like a deranged dog – as she forces herself to cut that particularly line of thought off. She has travelled down this road before, been locked in a mental war with herself for nights upon nights, imagining what she should've done, what she should've said, if maybe, just maybe, she'd confessed the deepest pieces of her soul, then perhaps she'd have been–

"Cinder?"

She snaps from her mind with a start, turning to see her little light hovering a few inches from her, a look of concern etched onto his face.

"Hey, you alright?"

"I'm fine." She says, even though she's not sure she believes it. "Weren't you leaving?"

She regrets the words the moment she says them. As always, Cinder is too stubborn to admit what it is she actually wants. That her little light leaving is the opposite of what she desires. And yet, even so, she's gone and sent him away.

She bites down on her bottom lip as she turns away, prepared to be alone, and–

"I don't think you want me to leave."

Cinder's eyes widen. She fights with herself not to turn around – and then fights with herself to turn around, Cinder often wishes she understood herself sometimes – even as she asks Jaune what it is he means.

"I mean that I don't think you want me to leave. Despite what you said."

She hears as the boy steps towards her, his footsteps echoing lightly off of the cold stone of Evernight, and for a moment, Cinder feels the weight of that. Of the fact that the two of them stand here, at the end of the world, in the very crucible of evil, and how could she do that to him, to such a beacon of the sun, to a being of light, to her light, when she–

"Cinder?"

She is brought from out of her reverie again by the sound of his voice, and though she doesn't turn…

"What?"

"Can I hold your hand?"

She hates the way that the simple statement, effectively nothing in the world of romance or intimacy, has her face burning.

"…"

"It's okay if you don't want to. I just think it might help you to calm down a little. I'm right here, okay? Nothing happened to me."

"Why are you saying that?"

"Because I can tell you were worried about it." Jaune says, sounding a bit awkward. "I can feel through your link your… I guess your regret, and your fear." That regret had not all been for him, but she doesn't want to talk of anything else right now. "I just… I came here of my own volition, okay? I wanted to come with you, no matter where you went."

Cinder appreciates the sentiment, but it isn't true. He'd not followed her that first time, when she'd first meant to leave, when Ironwood had brought her back. He'd not followed her then–

Because she'd asked him not to.

…Is it… can it really be that simple? Is it truly as simple as simply… asking?

Just… just coming out and…

She tries to find the words, tries to push air out of her lips, but in the end, the only thing she's capable of doing is reaching behind her, and pushing her hand closer to his, brushing against it.

And her little light takes that signal for what it is, wrapping his hand around her own.

She turns her head and sees him smiling her way, and feels a bit of petulant shame well up within her.

"Thank you." Jaune says, smiling, and it's all she can do to resist gagging on how infernally sweet the boy is. Almost sour.

"You're awfully stubborn." She murmurs under her breath. "In your own way."

"Hah, yeah, I've been told that before."

And yet… despite that, she pulls Jaune with her to the floor, allows him to sit across from her on the cold, violet stone of Evernight. And secretly, as the two of them discuss nonsense for the remainder of the evening, until the time comes when they must separate, retiring to their own rooms…

Cinder finds herself more at peace than she's been in a very, very long time.


End Chapter 17


Yo.

Alright, so bad news (well, bad news for you), I have recently gotten into learning coding (Specifically C# for Unity) for a career, and that's a hella fun thing to do. Along with that, I've started up on After Happily Ever After, another Jaune-focused story set after the end of RWBY's main story. And even beyond those, I still have that personal project I'm working on in between weeks as well.

So, for right now, I'm afraid this story will be moving to update bi-weekly, and it may eventually move to more sporadic, less planned updates.

Now this story IS NOT going to be abandoned. I will be finishing it. I just want to give myself some time to finish the eight loose ends i currently have on my plate, and this story is the least far along of all of my fics (AHEA is only going to be 7 chapters, Paved is probably about halfway done, whereas this might end up being close to like 40 chapters honestly)

Sorry about that! I hope you all aren't too upset with me!

Okay, I'll see you all in two weeks!