Mmm. I love having my hospital appointment cancelled because of strikes. The worst part is I suppose their strikes and the fact they're not being paid fairly after risking their lives during the lockdown, but, argh, it's still horrible.
Cover Art: GWBrex
Chapter 54
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Mistral show true colours as they continue to harbour violent terrorists.
Atlas Times
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First day of Vytal Festival deemed roaring success.
Vale Daily Tribune
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Mistral scrambles aircraft to escort Atlas bomber from airspace. Ambassador summoned.
The Mistral Review
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Gillian Asturias calls for calm. Agrees to delay new law until her return and offers to speak directly with those who are against it.
Vacuo Today
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Menagerie team shows guts to make it through first round.
Kuo Kuana Express
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The second day was more of the first. Teams came out, two strong this time instead of four, and posed before the audience, and then they would fight down in the arena while people screamed and cheered. Jaune understood the value of all this, and the importance of having some good news when the world was sliding into madness, but it still felt ridiculous to be here when Atlas and the White Fang were moving toward open war.
He was sat between Cinder and Emerald, who, themselves were sat a few sets away from anyone else. The two of them had faced a lot of small talk from the other important people in the VIP box, many of whom saw them as an easy way to get closer to him. Cinder had handled it well, schmoozing and deflecting and conversing like a politician, never promising anything and yet somehow managing to come out seeming like she had. Emerald just ignored it all and told people they should talk with him if they wanted something.
If nothing else, it was a nice break to not have people fussing solely over him. He suspected it was because he'd been anti-social yesterday, and they'd probably realised that talking to him was like talking to a brick wall. He was sure they would be criticising him in their heads, making him out to be surly and miserable, or maybe they would frame his unwillingness to talk as a sign he felt himself above them and too elitist. He found he didn't much care what they thought of him, as they'd never cared for what he thought or felt before.
"I can see why you hate this," said Emerald, as the first fight started. Teams he didn't know, and thus didn't care about. "They wouldn't take no for an answer. Kept talking about how we should transfer to Beacon and how they'd be happy to speed up our immigration forms to take away all the uncertainty."
So, that was their plan, was it? Convince Cinder's team to transfer to Beacon, thus allowing them to continue their education while acting as his security. He'd be stuck in Beacon as well as a result, and perfectly within control of the Council of Vale. More weekends spent healing, and likely weekdays once his aura stabilised. He wasn't surprised by it, but he was surprised they'd approach them instead of him. Maybe they'd started to realise he wanted out.
Mistral must have been feeling in a pretty good spot based on his choice of security. They must have felt that the obvious progression would be Cinder's team returning to Haven with him in tow. In truth, he didn't know what the plan was. Or if there was a plan at all. Other than the one which involved running away.
And that was looking more and more tempting as time went on.
"What did you say?" he asked Emerald. The girl shrugged.
"I told them it's not my choice and I don't speak for my team leader or employer."
"I told them that I would consider it," said Cinder, speaking from his other side. "You two really need to learn that the easiest way to deal with these parasites is to let believe they've a taste of your blood. Act impressed, feign interest, and then tell them you have to talk with your teammates about the offer. They'll gladly leave you alone for a few weeks out of fear of pushing you too hard and ruining all their progress."
"And what about when they come back and demand an answer?"
"You come up with another excuse," she said, smiling his way. "That someone else gave you a better offer and you're considering that – which will prompt them to do the same. Or that you're just having some disagreements among your team and are trying to even them out, or, in this case, that we've decided to focus on the tournament first and our options after."
Jaune hummed. "I'd rather just tell them I'm not interested."
"Ah, Jaune, but you're talking to career politicians. No one is interested in them, and yet they're used to pushing bills and campaigns on uninterested masses. Hearing that you're not interested just tells them to keep trying so they can make you interested."
Was that how it worked? Man, he wished Cinder had been around to tell him that before. It would have made life a lot easier if he'd understood how all this worked. And here he'd been thinking people would respect him more if he was honest with his opinions. I should have known that was the wrong answer when politics got involved. He'd have to give it a shot next time.
"How are you so familiar with all this?" he asked.
"I've always kept an eye on politics even back home. Understanding how the political structure works is something of a hobby of mine." Cinder chuckled, eyes ahead and on the fights. "Though I suppose even I'd be less interested if I had been personally embroiled in it for the last few years."
"I'd rather be done with it all."
"That's only going to happen if you're away from every kingdom," she said, making his body lock up. In panic, yes, but not at her. He looked instead to Ozpin and the Councilmembers, worried they might have overheard her. Cinder noticed. "Don't look so alarmed or they'll only pay more attention. Everyone is talking and no one is close enough to listen in. Furtive whispering will only make us appear more suspicious. And, besides, we're only talking hypotheticals."
"R-Right. Yeah. I guess if I was away from every city, and the world thought me dead, that I'd be able to escape it all. The question then is how I'd remain hidden. Hypothetically," he said, and he was sure she knew it wasn't, "What would be the best way to go about that?"
"You'd want to find somewhere secluded to stay for at least a few months." Cinder didn't question him, and just started talking. "Somewhere with limited people, or those you trust, so that the world has time to get used to the idea you're dead. Once the world knows and has accepted it, and begun to return to normalcy, that is when you would want to step out again. Altered, in disguise, and with a fake identity. You would want to avoid the four Kingdoms for obvious reasons, and Menagerie as well because the attention will be on them during and after this war. I would choose a small town or village somewhere – perhaps in Mistral or Vacuo. Somewhere you can live a comfortable life. There, you would need to make a fresh live for yourself. It would be no good to lock oneself away as a hermit in some mansion. People will start asking why, and form conspiracy theories about how the reclusive owner is hiding from something, and it would be poor luck indeed if one skirted close to the truth."
Don't be too obvious in hiding away; don't act suspicious; find a job like a normal migrant leaving a city and be sure to fit into the place in a reasonable way. It would be hard because he didn't really have any ambitions toward a certain job, nor qualifications. His education had pretty much been cut in half once his Semblance appeared, and he hadn't had time to think about it since.
Would he become a farmer? Did he want to do that? The work sounded hard, and he wasn't sure he'd need the money if he squirrelled enough away from his accounts. Maybe he could open a shop instead. The actual profit he made wouldn't matter because of his wealth, but he could at least pretend he was running a business, and it'd let him chat with the locals. Or maybe he could become a therapist or an artist – some eccentric painter who came to the countryside for the view and stayed because he fell in love with it. Or maybe he could just become a part of the militia and help defend them against the Grimm. He'd been training for that before, and he'd kept up some since with Winter. He'd never be as good as a real huntsman, but he'd be above the level of the average man with a gun helping to defend their home.
That was the most tempting, and yet also dangerous. He'd see dead people. His comrades would fight and surely die at one point or another, and then he'd be faced with the burning question of whether or not he should resurrect them. Jaune wasn't sure he would be able to hold himself back. Maybe he could do it in secret and claim they survived-? No. The kind of wounds Grimm created would be conspicuous in their absence. A man being disembowelled and then coming back healthy would raise eyebrows, and trust only went so far. It would only take one person blabbing, and then the whole world would descend on him.
I can't be a huntsman. I can't be a doctor, either. It has to be a job where I won't feel tempted to bring back dead people. Something simple. There are plenty of options. I'll just stick with the opening a shop one for now.
If it ever came to this, he reminded himself, even as he was wanting more and more to make it a reality. There was so little left for him here other than his family, and he couldn't ever go back to them anyway. They were in Atlas, and Atlas would use them against him. In fact, once this war was over, they'd probably do just that. As long as he was "alive" his family would forever be seen as pawns in claiming him.
"Deep in thought?"
Jaune glanced over at Cinder. "A little," he admitted. He wasn't sure what to think of her knowing expression. "Call it me thinking up a backup plan if all goes wrong."
"It's our job to help you out, so don't be afraid to share any such plan with me."
"That would get you all in a lot of trouble."
Cinder shrugged. "We're capable of getting ourselves out of any trouble, Jaune. And I dare say we're capable of getting you out of trouble as well. More than you will be on your own." Her eyes met his and she tilted her head down. "Do not try and do everything on your own. That hasn't worked for you ever since you unlocked your Semblance. Don't fall back on what hasn't worked."
"I'd argue it was listening to others that landed me here."
"That's because you listened to them and let them decide. I'm not saying I will choose everything for you. What I'm saying is that we can work with you. But only if you trust us to."
Jaune bit his lip. "Later," he whispered.
Cinder took in his worried expression and nodded once. "Later," she promised. "Now, what do you think of the fights so far? They're still not showing anything too impressive."
Jaune was grateful for the change in topic.
Pyrrha's team won their fight, as did Weiss', and also Cinder's. Mint and Mercury made for a terrifying duo in melee, and Mercury seemed to really be enjoying himself. The same couldn't be said for Pyrrha, for which it all felt like a formality, and Weiss and Yang had been… a trying match. He wasn't sure why, because they'd won in an explosive and one-sided fashion once they got into it, but the first half of the match had been needlessly close.
They'd even fought in an arena of fire and ice, making it perfect for both of them and really working against the orange-haired faunus who had to use roller-skates on terrain not at all designed for it. If Weiss had just started out by making use of all that ice, she'd have won easily, but she and Yang decided to get themselves knocked around a bit first, for reasons Jaune could not understand.
He clapped anyway and sent Weiss a text congratulating her that he still hadn't had a response to a full hour later. She was probably too focused on watching the other fights to get an idea of what her future enemies were capable of, or maybe her and her team were busy going over what went wrong and how to fix it. After a full sixty minutes, Jaune shook his head and put his scroll away. He'd have at least thought she'd have checked since she knew he was watching, but this was evidently just another one of those things he was supposed to be mature enough to see past.
"Has she still not responded?" asked Cinder.
"No. I…" He sighed. "I don't know what to think."
"Is that really how you feel? Or are you just clinging onto something you know isn't making you happy, because you feel you should?"
Before, that would have made him angry.
Now, he was just too tired.
"I really did love her, you know? I was madly in love with her. Or at least I think I was. I don't want that all to be for nothing."
"First love always hits hardest," said Cinder. "There are studies into it, and no one is quite sure why, but ask any person on the street and I'm sure they'll be able to talk for hours and hours about their first love, even if it was as early as twelve years old. Ask them about their second or third and the details will be much sparser."
He couldn't disagree. Jaune could remember his first time seeing Weiss up on the stage with the glitter on her cheeks, and also their first meeting as she shyly stumbled over a hello. He could remember their shy looks, and how he'd wanted to spend more time around her at her birthday, and he could remember their first, tentative kiss like it was happening at that very moment. He could remember the emotions he felt too, and he could contrast those to the fatigue he felt now and say, with cold certainty, that he and Weiss were no longer in love.
But, if he could say that, then why was he hesitating still? Why did he keep wanting to make it work? Was it to try and reclaim that magic? Was it because he didn't want to feel like it was all for nothing? Or was it because he kept holding out hope that something would change and they could go back to that magical time when even looking at one another would cause his heart to swell? Jaune sighed and sank back. It simply wasn't going to happen.
"Did you ever love someone, Cinder?"
The woman stilled. "Yes," she said, eventually. "I did." Her eyes closed, and she gripped her armrests tight. "He was an older man – not so unusual for younger women, I'm told. We obviously never dated, and he saw me more as a little sister or perhaps a surrogate daughter, but I was in love with him. He was a huntsman. Strong, skilled, powerful. All the things I wished I could be. He saw me when others ignored me, and he offered to train me. I latched onto him," she admitted, freely. "It was one-sided, obviously, but he represented everything I'd ever wanted. Someone who cared about me, someone who would listen to me, and someone who was strong and free and able to take whatever they wanted in life." She sighed. "His name was Rhodes."
"What happened to him?"
"He died."
Jaune winced.
"He…" Cinder let out a long breath through her nose and sank into her own seat. "I have spent many long nights wondering if things could not have been different somehow, if his death could have been averted. Perhaps it could not have. Perhaps… Perhaps there was never a choice." She shook her head, and opened her eyes, only to stare out into the distance ahead of her. "I have accepted that my love was childish infatuation, but that doesn't mean I'm any different to you. I remember his face, his eyes, the way he talked and… and more. Even now, years later, there are times I'll remember him in my dreams or stay awake wondering if things could have been different."
"Could they have been?"
"Probably not. I was around thirteen, and he was over thirty."
"Oh…"
Cinder glanced his way and laughed. "Not quite what you expected? My childhood was a bit of a mess, and there weren't many boys my age that visited where I lived and worked. Most of the men that did were lecherous sorts, though they never looked at me that way. I suppose that's why I fell in love with Rhodes. He saw me, even if it was only as an overworked child. In many ways, I think what or who we come to love is a representation of what we want most in life. I loved Rhodes because I wanted someone to care about me and he did. You loved Weiss because she was a bright star in an otherwise boring life. And Pyrrha loves you because you represent freedom from fame and are someone who can see her for who she really is."
Jaune grimaced. "I didn't need to know that."
"You already knew it. Don't act like I'm telling you anything new. As for Weiss, I suppose she loved you because of what she saw you as."
"A hero…" He sighed. "Weiss wanted a hero, and I was… I was the most heroic person in all of Atlas. The one who had saved thousands of lives, the one who worked tirelessly in the hospitals. An unambiguously good man who never complained, never took days off, and who would never stand by while someone was in need."
Unlike the father she disliked.
He'd said before that it felt like Weiss loved the narrative of him more than the reality, but now, thanks to Cinder's words, he understood why. It wasn't that Weiss loved him but had gotten his real personality confused. It was that Weiss fell in love with his heroic persona, and that she'd always loved that.
He'd just been an unwelcome addition she hadn't accounted for.
One that she spent her time trying to stamp out so she could make him more like what she wanted, and more like the perfect man she'd fallen in love with. I'm not her first love, am I? I'm more like the man who woke up in her love's body after he fell into a coma. It was a clumsy analogy, but it fit. Weiss had fallen in love with the heroic saviour of Atlas, the boy who beat death, and had then unwrapped the packaging and found someone inside that she didn't feel the same way for.
But, in the same way he was doing, she tried to make it work through mediation and negotiation.
They were both trying to force the wrong shape into the wrong holes.
In a way, they'd both lost their first loves.
Maybe the kindest thing to do would be to let her move on.
/-/
Jaune stood in front of Cinder and her teammates, back straight, fists clenched at his sides and teeth gritted. He took a breath, as he had been for the last few minutes, struggling to centre himself and find the right words to say, or the right place to start. They had been patient with him, understanding he needed time. They gave him that. One of the few peoples who did.
Cinder let him find his words.
And, after a few more minutes, he found them.
"I want to run away from Vale. I want to escape the kingdoms. All of them." He locked eyes with her. "Help me. Please."
Cinder's returning smile sent shivers down his spine.
"Gladly."
It's done. Jaune has cracked.
Next Chapter: 27th July
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