Amber said her goodbyes to both Cinder and Raven the next morning, although only after extracting a promise from Cinder that she'd write to her at her next opportunity. The morning had dawned bright but cold and Amber had cheerily waved goodbye as she and her horse had headed deeper into the Atlesian forests. After Raven and Cinder herself had eaten, the girl was finally able to enjoy the Winterfruits that Amber had brought with her, and enjoy it she did.

Winterfruits, due to their proximity to geothermal pools, absorbed all sorts of nutrients and salts, this made the external layers of flesh within the multicolored, massive fruit salty. But that gave way to a gooey, incredibly sweet and sour core that in many ways was fully capable of being a meal, and Amber had given both Cinder and Raven a sack of the massive things. The two finished their breakfast, with Raven consuming a cup of coffee and taking the peel of the Winterfruit to treat her wound. Cinder didn't understand exactly what she was doing, but she understood that based on the gritted teeth and the vein bulging in Raven's neck, the process couldn't be anything but extremely painful.

It was afterwards that Raven and Cinder began to walk further towards the coast, towards the small fishing villages that could see them delivered to Argus and from there to Mistral itself. Cinder finds herself openly happy - the Winterfruit is, of course, a part of her joy, but the girl finds herself genuinely tasting the air - and enjoying the sense of freedom that pervades the two of them. It is just Raven and her, just the two of them, and just the forest, the trees, and their surroundings.

She even laughs on more than one occasion, tossing the snow into the air and watching it drift down, she is so far from Atlas that even the lights of the city can't be seen anymore and that sensation is so freeing for her. She's so far from the Glass Unicorn now that they couldn't ever find her, even if they wished to do so!

But… that thought does call another one into question, why did Raven not correct the captain when he believed she'd been kidnapped by Tyrian? Why did she not tell Ironwood that Raven had taken Cinder for her own safety? The desire to ask eventually leads to a long silence, with no real play or dancing, and it must have gotten to pale-faced Raven because the woman eventually speaks.

"What is it, little kite?"

Cinder freezes; She was trying to be discreet again, and she'd failed to be discreet and failed to focus herself elsewhere, instead staring at Raven like the nevermore they'd fought yesterday. She chooses her words carefully and finally gives in.

"Why… why didn't you tell Ironwood about me?"

Raven stops in the snow, turning her gaze to the smaller girl, and then she beckons Cinder closer to her. Raven drops to one knee, and gently cups her hand under Cinder's chin.

"Atlas' laws are unforgiving to orphans and those adopted. Madame and her descendants have power of attorney over you until the day you turn 17. That means they have control over every facet of your life. I do not wish for such a thing to occur, and Summer would not have left you behind. That, combined with your semblance and the horrific living conditions, led me to take the liberty of removing you from their grip."

Cinder stares as Raven closes something in her hands. She can feel the supple, soft nature of the pinions, and the cold, hard center of the ornament.

"I took the liberty of taking this from your former siblings right before we left to fight Tyrian. We couldn't find you but assumed you wouldn't leave this behind, especially in their care willingly. Summer wanted you to have it, and when you fled the hotel, we both assumed the worst."

Cinder looks down at the feathered ornament in her hand and tries her hardest not to cry. The beautiful, blue and black and green feathers, with a hard cut, beautiful gemstone in the center is the first thing she was given as a genuine gift that wasn't food. She remembers when Summer had pressed it into her hands, she remembers when Summer had simply shushed her protests and told her to take it as a gift of her emancipation.

"I am glad, for both her and my own sake, that we can give it back to you. Keep it close, ok?"

Cinder nods her head, shaking and stifling, and trying not to cry. She fails, eventually, as the emotions that the small piece of jewelry evokes overwhelm her mental barriers, and she finds herself sobbing into Raven's shoulders. Happy and sad, relieved and crushed, she's happy that she has this small keepsake, and yet a part of her knows with utter certainty that Summer will never return as she was.

Raven awkwardly holds her for a moment, before the older woman herself tightens her grip around Cinder, and she holds the girl tight to her, picking her up easily and continuing their trek towards the coast. Raven speaks softly, perhaps she thought Cinder wouldn't hear her, but she does.

"It's going to be ok."

Perhaps Raven thinks that Cinder won't hear the way that the older woman cries, perhaps she thinks she will think the droplets cascading from her eyes will be mistaken for snow,but as Raven cries, Cinder feels closer to her in just that moment, than she has up until this moment. Raven is a harsh woman, gruff, uncompromising, but… these moments make Cinder feel welcome, they make her feel as though the world isn't just out to get her.

It makes her feel at home, that Raven feels as though she can finally cry around Cinder. That she can finally express some of the genuine, profound, and painful loss she experienced at the hands of the scorpion faunus, Tyrian.

Tyrian. Cinder's eyes cloud, her face darkening over Raven's shoulder. She feels her lips peel back into a snarl, her sobs giving way to boiling, bubbling, powerful rage that courses through her and makes her squeeze Raven just that much more tightly. Tyrian. This was all his fault, he broke Summer, he hurt Raven, and he nearly took Cinder for some purpose she never knew of.

A part of Cinder wrenches at the realization that if she had Raven's power… she'd be able to stop such a thing from ever happening again. Raven… Raven had saved her, with Summer. Raven had lied to Captain Ironwood, and more to that degree, she'd swear by her protector. Cinder didn't know why she was so willing to defy Ironwood, even with what Raven had said, it felt to Cinder like too much risk, and she didn't like that, but… if she could lessen that risk? If she could make it easier on Raven, then… then the world would be hers. She could lessen the pain that Raven had gone through. She could see it through, and gain power, but that wasn't all, right? Raven had said that just because one was powerful, it didn't mean that they were strong… what did that mean, specifically?

Cinder speaks, her voice trembling from the tears and anger and anguish.

"You told me people who are powerful aren't strong. What did you mean?"

Raven's reply communicates a number of immediate things to Cinder.
"Power is ability, power is my ability to cut grimm down, to murder all who would oppose me, and to defeat my opponents. Strength… is different."

Her voice is strong, composed, and rich, she has stopped her tears. She is answering Cinder's questions as she carries her forwards and answers the girl's curiosity with solid, hard belief.

"Strength is the capacity to live for others over yourself. To live for those whom you care for, to live most of all for everyone you must live for. Such as your family, your friends… and your lovers."

Raven's voice catches towards the end, and Cinder realizes, that Raven and Summer weren't… just friends. She'd not truly thought about it before, but Clove and Iris had spoken of such a thing. They had always been demeaning, always dismissive of others, and the girl now understands that Raven and Summer had something akin to what her parents had. Her face colors a brilliant red as she realizes this, and the flush doesn't fade as Raven continues.

"It was Summer who taught me the difference between the two. Summer was the one who taught me what mattered most, in a strange fashion. Because, little Kite, it is not in one's capability for destruction that they rest strength. It is in their capability to love and laugh. Summer was full of laughter, and I want you to be the same, at the very least around your friends."

Cinder nods. She doesn't quite understand it, how can she? She has not had love or laughter like Raven wishes she had until… until Raven had arrived in her life. Her face was red and blushing as she realized that she'd laughed and smiled not just in front of another person. But that person had seen and acknowledged it.

Cinder is not a girl who has had much in her life. But at this moment, blushing furiously and carried across the shoulders of Raven, she genuinely, quietly realizes that she's rarely been happier than she has been with Raven.

Is that enough of a reason to keep following her? Cinder isn't sure. She doesn't want to trust Raven, she doesn't want to put herself into that position. Should she swear to herself that she'll run at the first sign of any behavior like the Madame?

She's not sure why as she even voices the thought internally, her gut twists and turns into knots. The crimson maiden lied to Ironwood for her, she lied to protect Cinder, to save her from a homelife that she hated. To save her from Iris and Clove being the ones to inherit control over her. Raven had done that for some reason that still eluded Cinder, she'd chosen to put herself into a vulnerable position. Chosen to place herself there, for… what?

"Little Kite… ask your question. You've fallen quiet again."

Cinder startles on Raven's shoulders, her legs shifting slightly as the woman looks up at her, those red eyes rolled nearly to the back of her head to meet with Cinder's eyes, even as the girl, embarrassed, flushes brilliantly.

"Why…?"

It takes a moment, and she's faltering, the sheer terror that Raven evokes, even if she's being nice right now, still courses through Cinder, and her mind is cast back to the fight, to the utter detachment on Raven's face. She'd killed before, and Cinder realized that with something akin to startle as the woman set her down on the ground.

Raven placed Cinder down gently, and yet, Cinder's hand ever so slightly grazed the woman's bare wrist as her clothing shifted and her feet hit the dirt. What she felt there terrified Cinder.

Raven was sick, her skin cold and clammy, and running under it was hot blood that was too hot against her skin, her veins looked sickly, dark purple offshoots in the blue. Her eyes widened, instantly, as Raven snatched her wrist back and quickly covered it up. The woman's tone was biting and cold, but present as she hissed.

"No need for concern. I'm fine."

But she wasn't, and that only continued to make itself apparent as Cinder slowly watched the way her impromptu caretaker moved. Raven was deeply ill, her wound continuing to bother her, weren't huntresses supposed to heal faster? Wasn't that something their aura gave them? Fast and effective healing!? Wasn't that how Atlas' prized ACE-OPS units operated? Far behind enemy lines and assigned to tasks the common soldiery never could hope to complete? Why the hell was this happening?

Was it the venom? Shouldn't aura work on venoms?

"I will be fine. His venom is merely a little longer lasting than I expected, is all."

Cinder knows at that moment, from the tightness of Raven's lips to the way she holds her side, that she is lying. She is lying to Cinder right now, just like she lied to Ironwood, trying to keep the little girl from panicking, from losing her mind in the moment, and attracting Grimm. Cinder knows on principle one person cannot be singled out in a mix of thousands. But… that was the density of population, and out here in the wilds? The only other people were whatever scouts the native populations of Atlas had, Amber, and themselves. The grimm would smell them from miles away, would sense them from so far away that they couldn't even remotely expect to hide their presence.

"What about-"

Raven cuts the girl off with an ever so slight motion, her clammy hand locking tight over Cinder's mouth as she tugs her behind the nearest pine. Cinder can feel the ground shaking under them, can feel something coming closer, and she looks at Raven with wide-eyed, utter terror in her gaze as she sees the woman's face turn grim. Something is coming, something big and nasty and Raven isn't sure she can beat it, Raven isn't sure she can fight it at all.

"Little Kite. There is a village to the north, towards the coast. Search for the red lines in the snow. Make your way there on my signal, and do not question me here, girl. You need the time."

Cinder nods, wide eyed. She feels a twist in her gut, a twist that makes an awful truth bear forwards.

Truth. Raven believes she could die here.

Truth. Raven is buying her time.

Truth. Raven is sacrificing herself for her. Just as Summer did for Raven.

Truth. Summer would disapprove of this.

Cinder shakes her head, she isn't sure how she knows that, she just does. It flashes into her head, even as she draws her half spear, the wooden edge of the pole having been filed down even further. Even more pressing was that feeling as it came closer. The steps on the ground, the vibrations radiating up and into Cinder's legs, her instincts screaming at her to run.

She turns to look at Raven, and she sees the woman's eyes light up with a purple-red, brilliant blaze. Extending her eyes outwards as if they had wings of pure flame, Raven activated her maiden powers, and all around her, nature itself seemed to pause.

Cinder watches the subtle motions, as the trees themselves lean closer to Raven, as she concentrates, and then, as she whips around to Cinder and yells.

"RUN!"

Raven is pleased to note Cinder runs instantly, and a part of her twitches at her mercy, at her willingness to lay down her life for this girl. She tells herself that she simply needs Cinder away from this place, she needs her gone, she needs her out of the blast zone of her cataclysmically powerful maiden powers.

Raven floated towards the sky, turning around the pine tree to face her enemy. The form of a trio of enormous wrath grimm, mammoths, greeted her. Raven smirked, feeling her dry, chapped lips burst and a few droplets of bitter blood meet her tongue. She mentally cursed, the poison must have progressed much further than she'd thought. If it was already circulating in enough density to be poisoning her bloodstream, she'd need more poultice, and she'd need it fast.

A shame, that these grimm had likely tracked her ward's presence by the girl's realization of just how sick Raven was. It was not a concern to the older woman, she'd survived a sucking gut wound and had a limb blown off in the past. Luckily they'd had an actual healer on hand for that one.

Her gaze turned stormy, remembering the most powerful biokinetic she'd ever encountered, a girl who smelled of pine and old stories. A woman who'd died in the mountain Glenn disaster.

The grimm could smell the tinge of sadness she felt, and Raven nods to herself, that will keep them engaged with her, and not the running footsteps of Cinder. Her little kite.

A part of her realizes it is strange to call the girl "hers" after such a short time, but the girl in some ways had been instrumental in combat, she was clearly powerful, and a survivor through and through. She was powerful, and she rang so true of just who Summer had desperately buried beneath her niceness and genuine nature.

Raven draws her blade with a flicker of energy, and she lets the storm sing through her, normal aura makes one superhuman to varying degrees, Raven herself knew her limits. But when the maidens sang with her, when the spirit of spring itself coursed through her blood, it was power and freedom like no other.

The woman flickered forwards, moving at such speed, that the piggish excuse of a brain in the mammoth's skull had split seconds to process what was happening as Raven danced around it, floating through the air and letting her blade carve its hide up like butter.

Bone plating sundered, and flesh that bled pitch parted with shrieks of agony and rage. The mammoths, all disciples of the grimm of wrath, bellowed, and for a moment, Raven is caught in that bestial, primal, murderous rage, for a moment, she indulges it, striking her blade downwards and shearing a limb clean from the mammoth in the lead of the pack. The shadowy limb quickly dissipated into a faint smog that quickly began to choke the battlefield. Rage flowed through her, the kind that had eyes bulging and muscles pumping, the kind that sang in the pit fights of Mistral, and the lynchings of Atlas. The kind that was distinctly, utterly wrong to feel running through you.

So Raven focused, and she purged it, pumping it clean from her system as her blade came up with a flick of her wrist. The mammoth that had attempted to crush her with one of its tusks found itself brutally surprised as the woman appeared with a pitter-patter of feet on the tusk itself. Raven opened her eyes and brought the fury of the storm into herself as she ran forwards. Here, she had no natural storm, no natural fury overwhelming her calm and forcing emotions to the surface, here it was just her and the song of maidens long dead.

Raven soars past one of the mammoth's, her blade drawing a line through its flank, she's breathing hard, the massive creature regenerating its limb and closing the wounds on its flank as it turns to regard her with something coming close to burgeoning respect.

Then its mask cracked, and Raven grimaced as the tusks began to sprout barbs.

Shit. Alpha.

Grimm evolved as they aged, every hunter knew that, and the most dangerous were the alphas, but those alphas were uncommon at worst and typically extremely rare at best. This one must have just hit its threshold.

Raven twists to one side, but she's not fast enough to evade the blow as the two compatriots of the alpha announce their return to the battle with renewed vigor, and cruel, tortuous intelligence behind their eyes.

Alpha's made other grimm smarter. But in what way was specific to the emotion of the alpha? Dread made them more cunning, Obsession made them better stalkers, but Wrath… Wrath made them better combat thinkers.

Raven hated Wrath alphas.

Her form shattered a pine tree as she was slammed through it, and yet, even as she landed she was rolling to the side, a heavy mammoth tusk slamming into where her body was laying not a second earlier.

This fight had just gotten far, far more dangerous. Wrath alphas were directly as dangerous as the beast they'd formed from. Mammoths, already being strong grimm on their own, grew immensely more deadly in a pack, and even more so when led by an alpha.

There was a reason the standard issue solution for them was a flyby by a cruiser class vessel in Atlas' navy.

There was an equally good reason such things were overseen by a team of 12 or more huntresses and huntsmen.

Raven grimaced as the tree she'd rolled next to, exploded into a cloud of splintered bark and sap-drowned wood. The debris caked her face as her blade parried the second tusk, shearing part of it off, part of it that rapidly began to crackle and reform.

"Dammit Qrow. Fucking semblance."

Raven leapt backward and cast a brief glance over her shoulder, a thin upturn of lips saw Cinder running like a pack of hellhounds was after her.

That upturn of lips rapidly turned into a frown as Raven noted the shadows stalking Cinder, three, juvenile Beowulf. The experienced huntress's eyes narrow, even as she leaps upwards into the air, only to realize approximately 3 seconds later why that was a terrible idea.

The alpha had thrown a tree at her.

Raven was not an Atlesian cruiser, covered by meters-thick armor plating and hardlight shields. She did not have an array of point defense guns capable of shredding such a thing, so instead, she focused her aura and the storm forwards, charging said aura with an electrical discharge powerful enough to emulate lightning.

It was not enough.

The sheer kinetic force shredded aura and then cut into the flesh beneath it with abandon, even as Raven's aura flickered brightly, absorbing the impact, even after discharging the blast of pure lightning forwards, even after it blew through a section of the trunk, the woman still took the hit.

Raven smashed back first into a tree, luckily, this time she smashed through the bark, and was able to get enough of a handle on herself that she could float free, slowing her velocity and searching for the-

Another tree, torn from the earth and hurled through the air. This one aimed at where it thought she was moving.

Unluckily for the alpha, Raven had already moved there, and this time, her blade flicked up on time and she cut the lump of timber in half with a blow from Omen that send the flaming tree towards the earth at speed.

Gritting her teeth, Raven could feel the rage beginning to course through her again, and it took conscious effort, mixed with frantic dashes in midair to temper that boiling anger down. It took enough effort that she genuinely struggled to control that rage, enough effort that she took another glancing hit from the tusks of the mammoth as she dove back under the treetops to duel it once more.

She'd kill them, she had to do so.

Cinder ran, her footsteps picking up the pace, her eyes finding the places that wouldn't doom her to a nasty fall and a quick death at the hands of the stalking beowulf. She'd seen them the moment she'd broken free of the tree cover, three, young, from Raven's lessons on the creatures, their bone spikes still dulled near the tips, and the red glow in their eyes was tinged with more orange than the deep crimson they would have if they aged significantly.

Cinder ducked behind a rock, drawing her spear, and remembering Raven's muttered lessons over the fire the past few nights.

Beowulf hunted via scent in close proximity, and the same emotion sensing powers in long range. They were drawn most strongly to intense hunger, which was not necessarily hunger for food. It could be a hunger for anything.

They were associated with greed, and they fed off of the gluttony of their kills. The larger the kills hunger, the stronger the beowulf got from feeding on it. They were also fiercely territorial and subordinate to the strongest in the pack. There were three in this pack, and one was larger… it must have fed recently. A thought confirmed when the wind changed and the rank scent hit Cinder like a bus.

It had fed very, very recently. Within the last day, if she had to guess. Which spelled disastrous thoughts for the village Raven had sent her to find.

But. That emotion gave her clarity, she could think. Her lust for power, her greed, would attract them close enough, that would beacon for the young one to reach her. It would be its undoing.

Cinder concentrated on her wants for power, on how it would have felt to have what Raven had, even now, a peal of thunder and crackling wood shattered the air behind her at the forest's edge. On how freeing it would have been, how much she want-

That was enough, the claws curled around the rock, and Cinder struck. She drew on the semblance, drew on the power, and forced it into the head of the spear.

This time, rather than a concentrated object, she'd wanted heat, and fast. The spear levelled forwards and pierced deep into the shadowy flesh of the beowulf.

It screamed, and Cinder leaped forwards and ran for it. She only barely made out something else over the baleful howling.

A high pitched whine.

That was odd… why was…?

Her eyes widened, the flour in the kitchen, the spark!

Cinder threw herself down, hands rushing to cover her ears.

The loud, shrieking POP announced the detonation of the spearhead. The girl turning back to gaze, with ringing ears, at the remnants of the three beowulf.

One of them twitched, half its side dismantled and left as an exposed mess of shadowy flesh and bone.

The others had simply, ceased to exist.

There was nothing left. Cinder realized as the one that had appeared to survive began to dissipate into the wind.

She cast her gaze back to the forest, and as she took a step forwards, searing, blinding, raging pain soared from her stomach outwards. She fell, her legs turning to jelly instantly, snapping out from under her as she fought to keep her stomach's contents inside her.

A faint gaze at her wrists and arms saw black lines twisting across her flesh, lines of blazing, burning agony that had her jamming her arms into the snow.

She'd burned herself… how was that possi-

The steam from the area, from the detonation of the spear.

Cinder realizes, in that exact moment, why Raven wants her to never use her semblance.

She is immune to the heat, she is immune to the generation, but she is hardly immune to the superheated air currents, the steam, and the side effects. Once such things made contact with her skin, they instantly burned her, because she lacked aura to protect herself.

It made sense now, but it deeply hurt to know that she'd failed once more because of her sheer arrogance. Cinder's confidence in her power, in that knowledge that it would never hurt her directly had been her undoing. The lines that traced her arms, cut deep into her flesh, burned deep into the skin carved her like a butcher's roast.

She had to keep going, had to keep going more, even if the village was dead, there might- no, there had to be medicine there. She could see the faint wisps of smoke rising now, deep in the forests to the north, she could sense the warmth she might find there.

So Cinder picked herself up, ignored the rivulets of blood that ran over her burned arms, and she ran as hard as she could.

Raven flinches sharply as the first of the mammoths falls to its final stand. Omen poised, she delivers the final strike, and the mammoth shudders briefly as Omen ignites the traces of fire dust left behind in the creature's shadowy, patchwork flesh. The tracework lines ignited at once, burning and blazing thousands of paths through the creature, faster than it could regenerate even next to its alpha.

The mammoth collapsed into burned lumps of rapidly desiccating flesh. Raven grimaced at the smell and leaped upwards and above the next Mammoth as it charged into that faint, openly present clearing that she'd lured the first one to.

The second one was damaged, trails of ice and fire dust emblazoned into its flesh that she'd activated too early. But it was slowing it down, slowing it down enough that as the tusks came for her once more, Raven bit down and danced to the left, letting the maidens sing with her, and wincing as she felt the slow, careful siphoning of memory away. She no longer remembered what Qrow's bread pudding tasted like.

Dammit.

The maiden, the performer of spring, and the warrior of the fresh rain and new growth stood tall and leveled her weapon at the charging mammoth. A manic, wild grin formed on her face, and she charged forwards, the blade drawn from Omen's sheathe was a brilliant, viridian green, and as it cut into the grimm, Raven bit down hard enough on her lip to taste blood. Her blade tore free with the tinkling sound of glass breaking, and Raven turned, breathing heavily, to see the second one rapidly fighting against an onset of massive rose vines covered in thorns larger than her head.

"Poor dumb creature. Still weak and pathetic, even with your alpha's help."

Raven's voice held nothing but cold, calculating viciousness as her blade severed the Mammoth's head from its body with a fire dust blade. The brilliant flare of flame scourges it, preventing even the semblance of regeneration from taking hold of its now rapidly disintegrating corpse.

The alpha's trumpeting roar sounded over the trees, and Raven ducked behind one of them, hand clasped to the wound that had reopened in her side. She could feel the warmth cascading down to her hips, and deeper, dying the dark fabric of her long underwear scarlet and black. She lifted Omen, realizing the blade itself felt much, much heavier than it had any true right to feel. The massive weapon wasn't heavy, gravity dust crystals, cut and refracted, had lowered its mass a long time ago, and yet now it felt as though it was as heavy as the day Summer had passed it to her, all those years ago in Beacon.

She smiled at the memory, that grin widening as the furious roaring of the alpha rapidly grew. If there was one thing hunting grimm hated more than anything, it was any expression of positivity in the fight. So Raven focused on that memory, she remembered everything about that day, from the smudges of soot and faint burns on Summer's arms, to the beautiful shape of the sheathe and the dust blades, to her lover's brilliant gaze as she and Tai stared at Raven with something akin to pride.

The alpha charged her tree, and Raven moved.

She didn't call the Maiden's powers, she could have used them, but they threatened to tear more of who she was away in their song, and from the way, Amber had spoken and looked, Raven shuddered to think of the implications.

Control had been the most important lesson in using the powers of the maiden, Raven's powers manifested like a song, a chorus of every prior maiden before her singing as one. It was all she could do to not be swept away utterly by the tide of such voices.

As she leaped away, the alpha mammoth charging through the tree and once more reducing the bark to so many splinters, Raven flicked her blade out and threw her aura into the center of that ice-cold length of metal and dust.

She felt the sword pulse once and then swept it out in a long, defiant strike at the mammoth. The dust blade vibrated once, and then it detonated in a curving spray of ice and shards, leaving naught but the thin metal core behind.

This time, the roar from the alpha was exhausted and panting, ice dogged its''s flesh, sunken into barbed shapes so vicious Raven almost winced, but instead, she was resheathing Omen and twisting to the side to avoid the blind retaliation from the mammoth's tusks that would have crushed her chest into bloody paste.

Omen clicked and whirred, and Raven felt the weight change as a deep purple and black dust blade locked into the hilt, she ducked and whirled, the tusks of the massive Alpha whistling over her head as she let her arms draw Omen cleanly and then, then she darted forwards and slammed the blade deep.

Nominally, Alpha grimm had bone plating thick enough to flat-out nullify edged blades.

Nominally, what Raven had just done was suicide.

Had she been in Beacon, Summer would have slapped her.

She was not in Beacon, she was not suicidal, and she wasn't using a normal blade.

Omen's customized, gravity dust blade sheared through bone plating, punched deep into the guts of the alpha, and then, with an ominous whine, the blade began the creature's execution.

So much for keeping a low profile and running from Ironwood's spies.

Raven darted away, planting her feet forwards and shoving as hard as she could as Omen detached the blade and retracted into her sheath. Raven ran because she knew what would come next.

Gravity dust, manipulation of density and the force that kept them anchored, and the most utterly dangerous if left uncontained.

She barely made it out of the trees in time as the whine reached a crescendo and then, the shattering sound of broken glass greeted her as with a final, animalistic scream , the mammoth died.

Raven has barely enough time to throw herself into the snow as a second sun momentarily blooms from within the forest. Barely enough time to cover her ears after plugging them, barely enough time to slam her entire body 3 feet deep into a snowdrift pile.

She hopes Cinder has gotten far enough away, or all of this will be for nothing.

Cinder feels the wave of pressure hit her first, causing her ears to snap and pop, then a wave of scorching, searing heat runs over her and knocks the wind from her lungs. The girl half turns towards the forest, before every single instinct she has screams at her to throw herself down.

Cinder obeys and only catches a glimpse of the second sun blooming in the forests of Atlas before she sees the wave of fire and buries her head into the snow. She's screaming, she knows she's screaming, but as the flames wash over her and cool air blesses her blistered, sunburned skin, she staggers to her feet and sees a 50 foot expanse of forest, utterly devastated. In the dead center is, for the briefest of moments, a flicker of pure darkness, and then it's gone, and Cinder can see that a form is straightening up and standing up.

Raven, Cinder knows, and her feet immediately move towards the other woman, running and running and tearing up the snowpack around her as she tears into the woman's side at speed and melts into her grip.

She isn't sure when she started crying, or how Raven's hugging her tight and close, but she's happy, she's relieved and feeling the sheer rush of survival. Because once more, Raven has survived something that should have killed her.

The crimson maiden looks down at Cinder with exhaustion and care in equal measure, her arm resting securely on Cinder's shoulders and tugging her in close. Then, she speaks, and her words chill Cinder to the bone.

"We are being stalked by the man who killed Summer."

Cinder wants to panic at that moment, and she doesn't understand why he hasn't struck out at them, and once more, it is Raven who answers her questions, the woman's tone firm and gentle.

"He sends Grimm after us, he chooses to make me waste my most potent weapons, blunting my claws before he closes for the kill. We must reach the village."

She nods to the plumes of fire smoke in the distance, and Cinder doesn't have the heart to tell her that she's fairly sure that the village has been overrun and killed by the Grimm. Instead, she clings tight to Raven's hand and lets the other woman walk with her.

She turns to the forest once more, and Raven dryly chuckles.

"A powerful weapon, but ineffective and spares no thought for allies. It merely tears apart anything it is embedded into."

She gestures to the massive blade, and Cinder sees that the mechanisms on the blade are fouled, twisted, and stretched in a form that cannot be natural. Raven herself chooses to simply grimace.

"Gravity dust."

As if that explained what Cinder had just witnessed. She shoots a look that clearly communicates that she feels, and stifles a pained expression when Raven's good-natured chuckling turns quickly into pained coughing, the woman reaching for her stomach.

She's even paler now.

Cinder frowns, but Raven distracts her, scooping the girl up and placing her on her shoulders, and beginning to speak about it.

"Gravity dust is inherently unstable in crystal form. If you bind it to metal that instability can be held in a form of stasis, like ice, that prevents it from doing what you just witnessed. But… the moment that seal is broken, it begins to tear itself and everything around it apart."

Raven points to the twisted, pulled, and stretched mechanisms of the blade's hilt, and Cinder can see where the delicate mechanisms twist, the girl pulls her own spear from her pack, the hilt now little more than splintered and charred wood, even as Raven points to her arms.

"Semblance, hmm?"

Cinder nods, the woman turning her gaze to Raven's own injuries, which mark her form in the twisted and cut segments of cloth, hastily tied around deep bruising and likely shattered bone. Cinder flinches at the realization that Raven's arm hangs limp at one side, and her left leg moves stiffly and slower than it had priorly. She makes a move to get down, trying to slide free from Raven's shoulders, only for the warrior to lock her back up there with a grip like iron before she spoke.

"You remind me of Summer."

Cinder flinches, and Raven continues, unabated.

"You ask me why I do all of this for you, why I saved you, why I took you with me, why I fought an alpha grimm for you."

Raven looks up at her.

"Because you remind me of Summer, and her last request was to keep you safe. To keep you out of harm's way."

Cinder does not have words for such a thing. But she flinches anyway, as Raven's tone darts lower, into octaves of danger.

"I swore to fulfill her requests, and she was the closest person to me next to the father of my child. I won- I can't leave another behind."

Cinder raises an eyebrow, and Raven, as if sensing it, sighs.

"Yes. I did something awful, I will never forgive myself for it."

Cinder's mind conjures a question, shoving it forward.

What if she did?

But the girl does not speak, only listens as Raven continues to tell her stories. Tell her stories of Raven and Summer in their youth, how the girl had been shy and wary, how she'd been terrified of her bloodthirst, and how Raven had been in her own words "prickly" and difficult to get along with.

How she'd felt so insulted by the shy, weakling's presence that she'd resolved to push her to the breaking point.

And when that breaking point had come, how Raven had lost so badly it was the talk of their entire class. How her rating in the classes combat scores had sharply dipped to 4th place overnight.

Cinder doesn't even truly remember when she falls asleep in the woman's arms, only that she does.

A/N: Grimm are far, far more dangerous in this setting, especially with an alpha present~!

Anyways! Comments and the like fuel me, and the next chapter will be live on the 17th~!

Have a lovely morning, dear readers!