Main theme: The Edge by Casey Lee Williams and Martin Gonzalez
Theme: Outsider No More from the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack
Menagerie was so much different than Nicholas' Folly.
The air was warm and cool, not cold and oppressive. The people around them wore their ears and their tails and animalistic features out with pride instead of trying to hide them in shame. Everyone around her looked so fit and full (so fat and satisfied) as they pranced around with their untorn clothes and their smiling faces that crowded around them as the ship landed on the ground and disgorged its cargo of former prisoners and runaway convicts.
The only ship to escape from the mines. The only people to flee with their lives.
Ilia didn't want to think about the people that had been left behind, the people who's lives had been lost during both the uprising and the escape from that terrible place. She had Stephanie with her. She had her, Twitch, Molly, and Sammy. She was fine. She was fine...
She had to keep telling herself that.
Her eyes wandered over the seemingly alien world that she had stumbled into. A clear blue sky with scant few clouds above. Clean beaches of golden sand licked by lush blue oceans. Wooden homes sat on stilts above shallow ponds and along cobblestone pathways and roads as each house was graffitied in coloured walls and paints that seemed to glow in the sunlight. Away from the shores, a series of fortress towers, connected to each other by wooden bridges and micro-ports, stood out against the glistening waters surrounding them in a mat black formation, standing against the world like a wall of spears and palisade-
(There were six of them, Ilia counted. She would later learn that they were designated as the Maxilla, a series of fortresses first constructed by said Mistralian-sponsored pirates and slavers after the Great War to protect the slave pens on the island, now protecting the central city of Menagerie, Kuo Kuana. They were known as Fort Castle (or Rook or whatever), Fort Bishop, Fort Queen, Fort King, Fort Pawn, and Fort Knight.)
-In the shallow ponds, fish swam amongst Faunus with aquatic traits. They all seemed to be lined with bioluminescent patterns like tattoos, glowing in the waters as if someone had implanted them with pipe lighting and glowsticks. Old gaslit street lamps lined the roads like sentries, adding to the rustic, natural atmosphere of Menagerie against the cold and artificial feelings that she got from Mantle.
And then, right there, in the centre of Menagerie, right in the centre of Kuo Kuana...
The World Tree.
It was massive, the World Tree. Stretching all the way up into the heavens themselves and branching out into the clouds above. The trunk of the tree was bigger than entire blocks of skyscrapers and the roots, stretching out across the city and deep into Menagerie's underground, were as wide as apartment blocks. Buildings and homes had been dug into the wide bark and wood, and lights from homes and the like stretched up the wide bark and all the way up the trunk and into the sky. The tree itself parted the clouds above as it reached up into the sky, its top foliage parting into three main umbrellas, all of them covered in massive leaves and flowers that covered them in colour. They all looked tiny from Ilia's perspective due to how high they were, but even Ilia knew that even the smallest leaves on this tree were the size of houses.
(Ilia would later learn of the mythology behind this tree. According to legend, the World Tree had, in ancient times, been called Yggdrasil, with its three central branches supporting its trio of foliage umbrellas being called Asgard, Midgard, and Niflheim. In the Dark Times, a fabled period of time when the Brother Gods abandoned Remnant and left it as an unfinished melting pot of creation, when the laws of existence, and even death itself, were still concepts that had yet to solidify and take shape as reality itself, it was said that the God of Light's sacred Fountain of Life had frothed and bubbled over, spilling into the trees and forests around it and bringing them all together into a single trunk, causing it to rapidly grow under the lingering residue of the God of Light's power and became the tree that stood before them now.
It was said that the saps and maples and fruits that grew from the World Tree could cure ailments and rid people of diseases. According to rumour, before the Great War over seventy years ago, the four kingdoms were mining the World Tree for its sap as a main ingredient for medicine and antibiotics in the medical and pharmaceutical industry. Most of this was done through slave labour, apparently.
But these were all just rumours and hearsay. No one dared to mine from the tree anymore, and no fruits grew from it. None at all.)
It was majestic, the World Tree. It was magnificent.
(It made the half a day they'd spent flying across the world worth it.)
"I've never seen one before..."
Kali looked down at Ilia with a smile and a raised eyebrow as she and the rest of her group - Steph, Twitch, Molly, and Sammy - stared at the World Tree in wonder and amazement, "A World Tree? There's only this one, so take it in."
Ilia shook her head, "No... a tree."
And not just the World Tree itself. Palm trees between the houses. Moss and plants streaking up walls and covered with flowers under rainbows of shades and colours. Bushes lined with blossoming plants that were covered by buzzing Bees and Wasps that suckled away on the pollen covering them. Squawking birds flew through the air in flocks and droves. Insects buzzed through the air without a care in the world, and Cats and Dogs and all sorts of pets walked alongside their owners and sat at their feet as their masters ran their hands through their fur and petted them affectionately as if they were their own children.
Neither Ilia or anyone in their group had ever seen a tree before. None of them had ever seen any plants or insects like what they saw before them now. Mantle was not a kind place for wildlife. Not much could survive in those conditions, neither from the cold of Solitas' tundra or from the pollution of Mantle and the desperation of those who lived there. Nothing but the Grimm, of course, and even then it wasn't uncommon for some of them to simply freeze to death in the icy wilds.
And even then, Mantle had never felt that... alive. It was always so artificial, so industrial. Nothing but smoke and smog and bad air and horrid smells and cold temperatures and the ever present knowledge that death, in some shape or form of possibility, was around every corner.
Here? In Menagerie? It was warm. It was cool. It was alive. It was like life and existence had taken up shapes for themselves and evolved beyond concepts and theoretical understandings to become manifestations in the real world.
And she was here to witness them in their totality.
It made her want to cry.
People were crowding around them. First it was one, then two, then four, and now a lot more than four. They all looked at Sienna, Kali, and Ghira with sparkling eyes and healthy skin and happy faces that then looked down at Ilia with curious gazes that numbered in the dozens and they all looked at her and looked and looked and looked and it suddenly became hard to breathe and-
Steph's hands rested on her shoulders.
"You're okay," the Cat Faunus muttered to her comfortingly, "You're okay..."
It took Ilia longer than she would've liked before she quietly nodded to Steph and took hold of her hands with her own.
Everything that had happened to her in the last few weeks, from living in the slums to being arrested and sentenced by the greedy Atlesians, losing Starros and being wrapped up in chains and restraints, living in the mines for Gods' know how long and bearing its torment, the breakout and being beaten by Stratton, being saved by Tanveer and escaping the mines, the madness that had followed in the air, the realisation that almost everyone else in the mines were all gone and oh god they're all gone, she's was beaten and everything suddenly hurt and everyone was gone.
"S-Steph..." she stuttered, "Your... your... mama... and papa..."
Steph blinked, and then her eyes widened in remembrance, in realisation, and then she let out a shaky sigh, "Y-Yeah..."
The two of them hugged, and silently wept. Twitch, Molly, and Sammy quickly joined them, followed by the remaining children that had been able to cram their way onto their escape vessel from the mines as well.
(Adam looked at the display and scoffed before slipping through the crowd and walking away.)
Above them, Ghira and Kali looked to each other.
"Let's get everyone a place to sleep for the night, shall we?"
(Someone would take a picture of Ilia, Steph, Twitch, Molly, Sammy, and all the other children crying together and sent it off to a local Menagerian news publisher by the name of Noticias de la Casa de Fieras Hoy. This image would be in the headlines for two weeks straight. Years later, under new management, the publisher would remove the names and faces of the Humans from all historical articles.)
The Oscura family home was as big as it was inviting. Wooden walls with rectangular glass windows, a sloped roof covered by brown tiles and a stairway up to the emblazoned doors under a giant cover. plants in bowls dangling down from the ceiling and drains above. It stood up on a concrete platform surrounded by bushes, elevated above the rest of the houses on blocks on a wide, grandiose foundation.
(It somewhat irked Ilia.)
Inside, the family home suddenly seemed to be so much more expansive, like it was bigger on the inside. The building was all wood with green concrete pillars and flowers growing in every corner. She could smell sweet scents that she'd never smelt before back in Mantle. There seemed to be all sorts of rooms in the giant manor, from a massive study with rows of books in the walls to a dining room surrounded by round walls to a meeting room consisting of two stories and a kitchen and a living room and a bathroom and-
"S-Swimming pool!" Twitch yelled out as he dived into the wide pool of clear water (clear. Clear! Actually clear and clean water!) and flailed his arms about uselessly with a laugh in his voice, dogpaddling over to the shallow end of the pool and letting his feet touch the ground through the water, "It's so cool!"
Molly and Sammy didn't bother throwing off their clothes as they jumped into the pool alongside their friend. Neither did Ilia or Steph, or any of the other children that had escaped from the labour mines and made it to Menagerie as they all jumped into the pool, splashing water (clean water!) against each other and played and laughed and for the first time in so long acted like the children that they were.
Ilia giggled for a moment as Molly splashed her with a spray of water as they all danced together in the shallow end of the pool, only for her to double down in pain and almost fall into the water beneath her as her aching wounds suddenly flared up. The next thing she knew a large pair of hands wrapped around her and pulled her out of the water. She craned her head through the pain to behind her to see that it was Ghira who had noticed her and pulled her out, gently pulling out a chair on the side and placing her down on it. Nearby, through her swollen and blackened eye, she spotted Sienna and Kali pulling out Sammy and another child who's name she couldn't remember after they had drifted too far away from the shallow end and had begun to panic.
"Best you stay up here until we can get the doctor down here to treat your wounds," Ghira rumbled as Sienna and Kali placed Sammy and the other child (who referred to herself as Etta) onto chairs next to her, "Chlorine tends to irritate wounds."
Ilia looked up to him and blinked (slightly painfully), "What's that? Ch- chl- that thing?"
"Chlorine? It is a disinfectant in pool water. Helps to kill germs."
"So it... it cleans us?"
"No, it just kills germs."
"What're germs?" one child asked.
"Bacteria."
"Oh... what's bat-terror?"
"Can you drink it?" another child asked.
"No," Ghira said kindly yet firmly.
"Well I drank some of it. It tasted weird. Am I going to die?"
Ghira shook his head with a rumble of a chuckle, and Kali quickly said, "No, you're not going to die."
"...So I can drink it."
"No, it's bad for you."
"But I'm not going to die?"
"No, but it's still bad for you."
"Yeah, silly," said Steph as she gulped down a mouthful of pool water, "It's bad for you!" she got a spray of water in the face for it.
One of the children ignored the others as he began to scrub his own skin and clothes in the water, a smile on him as he watched the dirt peel off his skin. Nearby, a few other children began to do the same, and the pool was once more filled with laughter and splashes as they all filled the pool with murky clouds of disintegrating mud and dirt from their skin and rags.
"Best I go fetch them some towels and arrange a proper clean-up for them all," Ghira said as he turned to the door behind them and began to leave, "Could you two watch over them for the time being, please?"
"What do we look like, lifeguards?" Sienna asked, but Ilia could tell that there was no bite to it. The smile on her face was soft, yet disarming. Next to her, Kali patted her on the shoulder, but looked like there was something more that she wanted to say. She didn't act on it, though. Not yet at least.
Ghira left, and Ilia let herself sink into the chair beneath her before she felt a splash of water cover her. She flailed herself about in her chair for a moment before she coughed up some of the weird tasting water and looked to the side to see Steph, Twitch, and Molly looking at Sammy and herself with smug grins as they balanced themselves against the edge of the pool.
"Should get in on this," Steph smiled, "The water's great. Tastes weird, but great."
Ilia responded in a very mature way by pulling off and rolling up one of her socks into a ball and blowing a raspberry as she threw it at them. It softly bonked off Twitch's head and landed in the water, and he picked it up to use as a throwing ball for a pair of children on the other side of the pool. Ilia giggled at all of this, and blew another raspberry at the others in the pool as they splashed her, Sammy, and Etta once more.
Soon enough, the door opened once more, and Ilia looked to the side to looked at Ghira as he walked back in-
Except it wasn't. It wasn't Ghira. It was someone else. It was a girl her age. Not one of the children that came with her first from Mantle and then from the mines. She was too clean, too unblemished. She was all tanned skin, golden hair and eyes, dressed in black and gold robes with a purple belt keeping it together. Sandals adorned her feet, and braids ran through her hair. She looked like an younger version of Kali, almost identical in fact.
Ilia blushed. She was really pretty.
The pretty not-Kali girl looked at her for a long few moments before tilting her head to the side.
"Hello," she said, "You're not supposed to be here."
Ilia looked at her dumbly, blinked, paused, leaned back somewhat, gaped dumbly like a fish, and then went, "Er... eh-"
"Kira!" Kali called out to the young girl who Ilia guessed was her daughter, "That's a rude thing to say to our guests!"
The not-Kali girl - 'Kira', evidently - looked at her and said, "They don't look like guests."
"Most people rarely do," both 'Kira' and Ilia jumped as Ghira entered the room with towels, followed by two other Faunus in black and gold uniforms (servants? These people were rich enough to have their own servants?) with towels in their hands as well, "But these are guests, Kira. Please keep that in mind."
"They're in our pool," Kira protested with a puffed-out cheek, "They're dirtying our pool. They're not supposed to do that. It's our pool.
"Kira."
Kira set upon Ghira a glare that resembled a Cat being denied a Mouse as a prize, before letting out something akin to a whiny, "Fine," before stomping through the doors and out of the room. Ilia watched her go, but then shivered as she felt a splash of water land on her back. She wheeled around to see Steph, Molly, and Twitch giving her coy looks.
"Someone's got a crush~" Steph teased in a singsong voice.
Ilia looked at her, "What's a crush?" before deciding to ignore her.
She then looked up to Ghira, finally noticing the large gash that covered his forehead. Her eyes widened at the sight.
Yeah. He'd been in the mines with them, hadn't he? He'd suffered through that hell probably as long as she and everyone else had. She suddenly felt sad that she hadn't noticed.
She pointed up to him, "You're hurt," she then noticed that Kali and Sienna were sporting some fresh scars and cuts themselves. Not as many as she could recall from before, though, "You're all hurt," Sienna wiped her hand down her face to get rid of some dried blood in response. Kali sent her a reassuring smile.
Ghira looked to her and let out a throaty chuckle. It seemed parched, "Don't worry about it. Our aura will heal it up fine."
"…What's aura?"
Ghira, Kali, and Sienna shared a brief look of worry between them, and Ilia worried that she had offended them in some way. Call her a coward or something of the sort, but the last thing that she wanted was to offend the people that were housing her.
In the pool, Steph chimed in, "I think it's the forcefield stuff."
Ilia's head turned back to the Cat Faunus in the pool, "Like yours?"
Steph nodded her head, then, with a flip and a burst of blue light, jumped out of the water in a blink of an eye and landed on her feet with a slightly pained grunt, throwing her arm up to show off a part of her skin that was covered in a glowing hue of light, sealing the wound shut and washing away the red and purple bruise covering it, "Yep," she chirped.
The three adults with them, as well as their two servants, seemed to jump in surprise, but it was Sienna who came out with, "Yeah, just like that," she waved a hand to Steph, "But with a bit less flashiness," she grabbed one of the tower, "Now come on, out of the pool. These guys'll get you cleaned up properly."
Ilia decided that she hated baths.
There was soap and bubbles everywhere, washing all around her skin and- "Ow!" -Getting in her eyes. None of the adults around her had wanted to touch them, so they had just helped in instructing the children on how to clean themselves while they were in then.
"Ah, this is nice," well it was good to know that Steph was having fun floating in the tub.
(A tub with warm water in it! In a bathroom that didn't smell bad, with sinks and toilets that worked! What kind of magical world had she wandered into? What kind of dream had she yet to wake from?)
At least the clothes that they gave her after said accursed bath were nice. A splash of colourful robes, the sleeves a big too big for her. She hugged them tightly before putting them on. She suspected that they were donated (considering the rough crowd of visitors outside, the tents filled with refugees, the opened doors and sleeping bags on the floor, that was very much likely), but considering how warm they are against her skin when compared to the rags that she had worn previously, she wasn't going to complain. Not in the slightest.
She looked out through one of the big windows in the walls of the manor (she was in a manor. A warm manor, not just a house. A warm manor that she was a guest in, not a burglar in the night!) to see dozens of people in nice robes handing out clothes and food and stuff to the recently arrived refugees from Solitas, all of them crowding around the Oscura family home, joined by other homeless people from around the city, few as they were. Menagerie was becoming more and more idyllic the longer that she stayed here.
She looked out to the crowd through the window. The majority of them were Faunus, but there were a good few Humans and Techions amongst them as well. She had always figured (from the admittedly biased rants of the soldiers that patrolled Mantle and Nicholas' Folly) that Menagerie was home to Faunus and solely Faunus. To see both Humans and Techions amongst their number... it was not what she had expected.
(Her mind briefly wandered back to the Techion that had helped them escape by disabling the electro-collars. A part of her wondered of he was the one flying the fighter that had helped them escape the prison camp. Another part of her hoped that, at the very least, he had made it out.)
Then again, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to expect. She'd never imagined ever coming to Menagerie, for one, let alone being set up inside a manor.
At least, she hoped that she was being set up to live here. She liked it here. It was warm and smelt nice, as did the food that they gave her. It was basic as all hell, simple bread and water, but fuck if it wasn't better than the crap that she'd been forced to make due with before.
She wasn't keen on the doctors that they brought in to look over them, though. They poked the prodded her, put her on scales, measured her height, things like that. Words like 'Malnourished' and 'Emaciated' were thrown around. Phrases like 'Lack of calcium' and 'Stunted growth' flew above her head and she didn't understand any of it.
She didn't like it when they took her and the other children to the proper doctor's place. She held her breath when they put her on the bed and ran the scanner over her, and she tried her best not to cry when they poked the needles into her skin to draw her blood and inject medicine into her. She was a big girl. Big girls didn't cry.
(She did, though.)
Soon enough, she was out of the horrible doctor's office with all the white walls and sterile smells and Gods above she hated it in there. She much perfered anywhere else, even the slums of Nicholas' Folly, to that place.
But then she was back at the manor, and they were giving her all sorts of fruits and vegetables and other foods. It was a banquet, a feast the likes of which she couldn't even imagine! A feast with food that she didn't need to look and pick over for mould, and water that she didn't have to boil before drinking beforehand!
They told her that she needed to eat as much as she could because of her malnourishment, that she needed to get her calories up and build up her weight once more due to how thin and frail she was and how weak her bones were. They presented all sorts of foods to the children. Yoghurts, milks, and cheeses for calcium, fishes for vitamin D, fruits and vegetables for C and B, bread for starch, meat for protein, so on so forth.
Ilia and the children ate and ate and ate until their stomachs ached and they had to disappear away to puke. It was still one of the best nights of their lives.
And now the children of Mantle all sat together under a starry night lit by gas candles and accompanied by the clicking of night-time insects. A pair of Shimmer Bugs danced in the air above them, fluttering their multicoloured wings in a hypnotic duet above them, glowing as they did in a rainbow display that dazzled their eyes. The hooting of a Firestone Owl accompanied them, lulling them into the comforting atmosphere.
"Is this a dream?" Steph asked out of the blue, breaking the silence.
"...I don't know," Ilia found herself answering.
"I hope it isn't," Molly added.
Twitch rocked in place next to them, "M-Me too..."
"If this is a dream," Sammy chimed in, "Then I don't want to wake up."
Ilia smiled.
"Me neither."
Soon enough, it was time to sleep. Sleeping in a warm room, under a steady building with a warm sleeping bag underneath her, with the lights out and with no reason to keep a single eye open to watch out for threats that weren't there...
And Ilia couldn't sleep.
Her mind was still racing over everything that had happened to her. Going from Mantle into the mines to the escape and everything that went down there. Stratton's beating, Tanveer's sacrifice, everything to do with the Schnee lady... with Winter.
She was all expecting this to be fake. To be a lie, a masquerade, a falsehood. Any minute now the door leading into their shared room would burst open and an Atlesian would storm through and scream at them, waving his gun around and yelling at them before the gun would flash and-
Her hands clenched around the sleeping bag she laid in. She needed to take a minute.
As quiet as a Mouse, she slipped out of the sleeping bag and out of the room. Not a single person stirred in their sleep. She had a lot of experience with sneaking about. Through the door she went and into the main lobby, where she was greeted by-
The same not-Kali girl from before. Kira. She was sneaking about as well.
The two girls looked at each other awkwardly, staring and blinking in silence.
"...You're not supposed to be out this late," Kira eventually said to her.
"...Are you?" Ilia asked innocently.
"...Why are you out so late?"
"Couldn't sleep," Ilia answered, "You?"
"Me?"
"Why are you out so late?"
"Do I have to tell you?"
Ilia blinked, "I was only asking..."
"...Mother, Father, and my Godmother like to have meetings at night," Kira eventually answered, "I like to listen."
"You have a God for a Mother?" Ilia asked with wide eyes.
"No."
"Then why did you call Kali your 'Godmother'?"
"Mrs Oscura," Kira corrected her, "And now, I wasn't talking about her. I was calling Sienna my Godmother."
"So Sienna's also your mother and a god?"
Kira gave her a look like she was an idiot, "No."
"Oh..."
Kira scoffed and rolled her eyes, and went to walk down to the other end of the grand hall. Ilia followed her.
"Why are you following me?"
"I can't sleep."
Kira turned her head to look at her through narrowed eyes, "You just said that."
"Yeah."
"And that's my problem?"
"No."
"Then why are you following me?"
Ilia shrugged, "Why not?"
"Mother, Father, and Godmother are going to be talking," Kira commented, "They'll be using a lot of big words."
"So?"
Kira's stare turned cold, "So a child your age wouldn't be able to understand them."
"Do you?"
Kira didn't answer.
"And aren't we the same age?"
"...You don't look like it."
It was only then when Ilia noticed the height difference between them, how she was, even for her age, shorter than Kira. Scrawnier as well. Thin boned and shallow-cheeked compared to Kira.
"Yeah, well, I've got the excuse," Ilia shot back with, "Sorry that I had to live in the shit rather than in a nice warm home with three meals a day like you."
Kira tilted her head to the side, "You swore."
"Bite me, I've said worse."
"You're rude."
"Bite me, I've done worse."
Kira paused, "'Done worse'?"
"I lived in Mantle, under the big city with all the mean people in the sky. A lot of us have had to do bad things in order to live," Ilia explained, "Living in that place will do that to you."
"Living in Mantle?"
"That and Nicholas' Folly."
Kira winced, "Heard about that place. Mother, Father, and Godmother talk about that place. Say that it's bad. Want to do stuff about it. So do I."
It was Ilia's turn to frown, "Then why didn't you?"
"What?"
"Kali, Ghira, and Sienna... they were in Mantle, marching, protesting, talking," she still remembered Ghira's words, the cries of the protestors. They all rang in her ears like a symphony, "They were there, but you weren't. Why?"
"...They didn't want me there."
"Why not?"
"They said it was too dangerous."
"But they still went."
"They said I was too young."
"And yet the men from the sky still threw me into the pits, along with Ghira, Kali, Sienna, and all my friends," Ilia countered. They'd stopped walking, "They didn't care how old I was. All they saw was a little sewer rat that needed to be reminded of their place."
She let out a scoff of her own and set a glare at Kira.
"You don't know anything. You with your big house, with your warm bed and warm clothes and warm food and shit, you don't know anything at all. You got born into privilege, but me? And them?" she pointed her finger to the door to the shared sleeping room, now on the other side of the hall, "We didn't get that. We didn't get any of that. We were born in the hole, and the only thing that we could do was dig ourselves out. We didn't get good homes, or good food, or even parents."
Kira blinked, "You didn't have parents?" she made it seem like it was alien, like it was something that she simply couldn't comprehend.
Ilia scowled, "Yeah, I didn't. My mother was a whore, and my father was a deadbeat. That's all I know about them, and you-" she pointed a finger accusingly at her, "-Get your parents. You get your parents, and a warm home, and-"
She frowned.
"They spent a month in the hole with us. They came back wounded. Hurt. Injured. Did you even ask them how they were when they got back?"
Kira said nothing.
"Did you even realise that they were gone? Did you ask them about how they had to fight their way out that prison hell with the rest of us?"
"...Godmother Sienna says that we have to fight," Kira said as she turned around and began walking once more, "All the time. Says that words can only get you so far."
Ilia sighed, "She's right about that. Words can only do so much in the face of people trying to keep you down. It's only when the knife's at their throats do people listen."
Kira didn't say anything else, but Ilia hoped that meant that she was mulling over her words. She had never been very good at getting emotions.
Through the hall they went and down a corridor, approaching a room that Kira opened oh so very slightly, allowing the two girls a peep inside at the three figures within. A wide room with shelves filled with books covering the walls, and a pair of desks in their centre. Three people stood around one of the desks, the entire room lit by candles and electronic lamps.
The three figures were arguing, and Ilia tuned her ears in to listen.
"-A month in those mines. A month of hell, and now you're saying that we should do nothing about it!" Sienna seemed to be barely stopping herself from shouting as she glared at Ghira on the other side of the table, "You saw what the Atlesians did to the people in the mines, to the Faunus there! Hell, you experienced it! We all did! I still have the whip slashes on my back and the electric burns around my wrists! We all do!"
"I know," Ghira tried to calm her, "But what you're suggesting-"
"What I'm suggesting is that we start fighting back! That's what I've been suggesting all this time! Words are only getting us so far, and all of this shit? It only proves it, it only prove me right."
"Sienna-"
"Ghira," Sienna narrowed her eyes, "You know I'm right."
"It's not that simple," it was Kali who spoke up this time, putting herself slightly between Ghira and Sienna as she spoke, "It never was, Sienna, and you know that."
"I do."
"Then you know that what you're suggesting... using violence against the Atlesians... it won't work. You know it won't work."
"And trying to offer these fucks an olive branch every time they snip the last one? That's the best thing we've got?"
"It's working, Sienna," Kali retorted, "As much as you may not like it, it's working. Laws are being passed because of us. Faunus are gaining more rights-"
"In Vale," Sienna began, "Primarily in Vale. Mistral's on the fence about it, and Vacuo- well, who the hell knows what's going on with Vacuo, but at least we're not getting much visible pushback from them. Yeah, I know all this," she sounded like she was recounting something that she'd stated enough times before, "But Atlas? Atlas isn't just pushing back on anything that we suggest, it's stabbing us in the gut and leaving us to bleed out."
"Change takes time, Sienna," Ghira added.
"Only if they're willing to accept it. You remember what they did to us in Atlas? What they did to everyone? We tried to talk to them, we tried to 'Use our words' or however you put it, and how did the Atlesians respond to us? They pelted us with tear gas canisters and beat us with batons! They hurt us, abused us, they have been for years! When are we going to stop twiddling our thumbs together, when are we going to stop sticking our heads in the sand and deny the truth?!"
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that we need to accept the truth! Atlas, the SDC, they're never going to bend or break, not for us, for the Faunus, for anyone but themselves. The longer that we refuse to accept that, the longer they're going to keep kicking us down! When are we going to stand up to them? When are we going to fight?!"
Ghira could only look at Sienna in quiet shock, but it was Kali who asked, "You want to go to war? With Atlas?"
"With Atlas, with the SDC, with anyone who tries to stunt our rights as equals, yes."
"You make it sound like a race war."
Sienna looked at Kali with a soft glare, "Not a race war, Kali. I want equality for everyone, Faunus, Human, and Techion alike. Racial genocide solves nothing."
"So that whole 'Anyone who tries to stunt our rights as equals' thing?"
"You think that Atlas and the SDC are the only ones that hate us? We're Faunus. Not all Humans may hate us, but enough of them do. Just enough of them."
"This is starting to sound more and more like a race war the more you speak about it."
"For God's sake Kali, will you just listen?!" Sienna growled, "Did anything that happened to us, that happened to those poor people in the mines - to the children! - mean anything to you, convince you of anything? Atlas and the SDC have no moral boundaries, the mines prove that, and they've got a dozen more of those fucking camps up and running as we speak, more Faunus, more people, slaving away in prison camps while the bastards that put them in their fill their pockets!"
"Sienna!" Ghira interrupted, gaining Sienna's attention before calming himself, "Sienna," he repeated, "I... I understand your anger. Believe me when I say that I understand it, and I feel it too," he took a moment to pause and collect himself, "But what you're proposing... it will lead to violence, the very thing that we started the House of the White Wolves to stop, to prevent. If you try to use violence on the Atlesians, then you'll only be inviting violence back onto you. Escalation."
"That's war, Ghira. It's clear to me that Atlas has been spoiling for a fight for a long time. It's time that we give it to them."
"If you give them what they want, then what will they make of you?" Ghira's voice became forceful, "The Atlesians think of us as monsters, as animals, as savages and beasts! If you go to war with them, then you'll only be proving them right! You'll only be proving that their thoughts are justified!" he let out a breath, "If we lower ourselves to their standards, what will we become?"
"So what are you proposing then?" Sienna asked, a growl in her voice.
"We stay the course," Ghira said, "Progress is slow, yes, but it's steady. Laws are being passed. Vale is our beachhead into the hearts and minds of the people of Remnant. Mistral is on the fence, but with any luck, we can push them over the right way. Vacuo... well, we can try our best. And Atlas? When the other kingdoms hear our words and speak them for themselves, when they believe them, Atlas will hear the cries of all the world and will be forced to listen as well. Change is slow, as is the fight for racial equality, but it will come. Maybe not in our lifetime, but in another's."
He sighed.
"Violence will only set us back. It will only strengthen the convictions of Atlas against us."
Sienna put her hands on the desk, "And what about the innocent people in all the other mines across Solitas? What about the innocent people being thrown into cells over trumped-up charges and a bonus to a soldier's paycheque? What about the people dying from dust lung in the mines, being shocked and collared like animals, being beaten to death and left to rot in the frozen streets, or being thrown into shallow graves? Atlas has committed so many little atrocities against our kind that it's almost laughable, almost unbelievable! What about all of those people? Are they supposed to just be patient while they suffer? Are we supposed to just leave them to die and tell them 'Don't worry, you'll get equal rights after you're dead'?"
She let out a sigh of her own.
"Atlas, the SDC, they've been choking us so slowly that we're starting not to notice. It's about time that we gave them the same back."
"You'll vilify us."
"Not if we keep our efforts on military targets. Prison camps, troop deployments, anyone in the army who spends their time breaking the legs of every Faunus they see, so on and so forth."
Ghira stared long and hard at Sienna, "And once it's all said and done, once this revolution of yours is over, what will we have become?"
Sienna stared long and hard at Ghira, "Whatever we have to be."
They looked at each other, deadlocked in a nonverbal stalemate before Ghira broke the silence with a sigh and said, "I... don't know if there's anyway to settle this."
"There is," Sienna responded.
"How?"
"Tomorrow night. We gather everyone, we make our points, we let the people decide on the best course of action."
Ghira gave Sienna a sideways glance, "That'll invite the opinions of extremists."
"We've been doing a good job of keeping them out already."
"If you go through with this, with your plans... if you invite violence into our House, then I can't stand by you."
Next to him, Kali nodded, "Nor I."
"What does that mean?" Sienna's ears twitched as she looked at the two of them.
"It means that if you do this... then we can't be with you when it happens."
Sienna looked at the two of them and let out a mirthless chuckle of disbelief, "Seriously? This? This is where you draw the line? How long have we been sharing a bed for, Ghira? Kali? How long have the three of us been a thing? We agreed that we weren't going to let politics get in the way of us, we weren't going to let our opinions divide us, and now this? Now you go back on it?"
"This is more than just an opinion, Sienna. You want war, the same thing that we started the House of the White Wolves to prevent."
"No, this isn't war, Ghira. It's revolution, and it's long overdue, and I don't care anymore!"
"See what I mean? You don't care, or at least you're trying not too," he shook his head, "Anarchy is a seductive concept, but it openly invites reprisal. You give Atlas any sort of militant response, you will only convince them to double down."
"Ghira, don't do this," Sienna sounded like she was pleading, "Nor you, Kali. The three of us, we've been through so much. We can't let this be what divides us."
Ghira sighed, "Sienna, you don't understand. I don't want us to end it either, but this...? This revolution that you're planning... I can't stand by it," he looked to Kali, and she nodded, "Neither of us can. We've seen too much violence to ever want to invite more."
Sienna's eyes narrowed, "'Seen too much...' I've seen violence, you- it wasn't your family that was hunted down like Dogs when the Hunters came for us! It wasn't your mother and father that were butchered like animals by Human hunting parties and-"
She clenched her teeth and stopped herself.
"You know what? Fine. Fine."
Sienna spun herself around and began to walk to the door. Ilia and Kira ducked away into the darkness, losing sight of Sienna, Ghira, and Kali, but still hearing their words.
"Tomorrow evening at sunset. Central market place. Be there, or I'll drag you there myself."
Ilia's ears perked up as she heard Kali's voice speak up, "You think I'll give you the chance?"
The door swung open-
"You think I will?"
-And then slammed shut as Sienna stomped out, fury writ across her features.
She let out a sigh, swore to herself, and looked down as she heard Ilia and Kira shuffling awkwardly in place.
"...You should get to bed, little ones," Sienna said as she turned around and began to walk away, "Politics are no place for children."
She turned around a corner and disappeared. They heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, and all fell to silence once more.
"...Politics, maybe," Ilia muttered to herself, "But I'm ready for a revolt."
She didn't see how Kira nodded her head, agreeing with her.
(Later that night, Sienna found someone who might be able to help her.
She didn't like him. She definitely didn't trust him. Not completely.
But Adam Taurus was too good to lose.)
The next day, Ghira and Kali told Ilia, Kira, and the other children to stay inside as they left for the central market place.
Ilia and the other children, even including Kira, decided to balk their words and go anyway.
It wasn't hard to find where the central marketplace was. That was where everyone was gathering. The sun slipped behind the massive World Tree in the centre of Menagerie and cast a long shadow over the whole city, dual crescent arcs of light flowing out from both sides of the tree's gargantuan trunks and parting the sky above into twin pink and orange projections, like a screen that had been split in two. The central marketplace itself was a wide berth of stalls and booths that stood around a central fountain with a bronze statue in the middle, depicting a warrior with Rabbit Legs cleaving a sword through a set of chains (Ilia imagined that it symbolised the Faunus breaking the chains of slavery or something like that). Several Faunus with aquatic traits, with fishtails and flippers for feet, swam and sat in a shallow canal off to the side of the market, and hundreds, if not thousands, of Faunus, alongside a few hundred Humans and Techions, gathered within the marketplace and around the central fountain, around the three people standing in the middle.
Ilia, Kira, and the other children pushed themselves through the crowd and to the front, just keeping them out of sight of Sienna, Ghira, and Kali (who stood beside her charge and kept a hand on the pistol at her side) as they stood above the crowds around them. Sienna looked prepared. Kali looked wary. Ghira looked tired.
Everyone stood in silence for a while as a technician quickly worked to jury-rig a microphone stand to a set of speakers, and then ran off as Ghira sighed and took to the stand, tapping the mic to make sure it worked (it did) before beginning his speech.
"My people," he began slowly, softly, "I know that many of you are tired. I know that many of you are wary. I know that many of you are angry, at Atlas, at the SDC, at those who will not accept you for who you are, whether it be because of race, culture, or creed," he paused, gauging the reactions of those in the crowd, "Believe me, I am too. I'm tired of being looked down upon for my race, for what I choose to believe in, and I wish I could do more about it. I can't, but I wish I could.
"But I can't, and I know why I can't. We are on the steady march of progress, and progress always seems slow to those who refuse to see it. Progress always seems like it is being set back with every foul word, every bad act. But that is only because we cannot see through the eyes of those who came before us, of those who have braved worse than us. Look back through the histories of the past, and see how far we have risen from the violence that has painted this world for so long.
"Everyday, our words and ideals reach further and further across Remnant, and each day we open up more hearts and minds to the idea of change. Look no further than Vale, where new laws are being passed that abolish decrees against the Faunus, that push forward our movement, not hamper it. They are the first step to proving to the world that we are more than just what they see of us, that we are more than just their faulty preconceptions of us. Vale is just the beginning, as through Vale, we may forward our ideals into Mistral, and then into Vacuo, and then finally into Atlas. Through our words, through our peace, we will rise above everyone who may say that we are animals, that we are monsters.
"But there may be times that we find that the easiest path to be through that of violence. There may be times where you believe that the best method to settling a disagreement with another would be through the spillage of blood. To that I say: resist them. The path of violence may be the easiest, but it is not the best, it is not the right path. If we spill blood, if we resort to violence as a first and last resort, then we will only be giving those who think us to be animals the excuses they need to treat us as such. We will only be proving them right. We will only be giving them what they want.
"The fight that we give them must be through our words. Our revolution must be a peaceful one. If we surrender to our darkest impulses, then those who see us as beasts have already won. If we commit ourselves to war, then we have already lost.
"We must hold fast, hold strong, and hold the line. The line of peace, the line of prosperity, the line of equality. Progress is only slow to those not willing to see it through, but together, we can speed it up. Together, we can create a better world for those that come after us.
"So stand with us. Stand with us in the name of peace. Stand with us in the name of progress, in the name of a better tomorrow, one of peace, equality, and respect for all.
"Thank you," Ghira finished, bowing his head and walking back to Kali's side, allowing Sienna to take the stand.
She ran a hand over her neck, massaging her throat before coughing into her hand. What she was about to say, it looked like it was going to be the most difficult thing she'd ever done.
She let out a breath and began.
"I'd like to call someone from the crowd."
She pointed, and a figure stepped out from the crowd and up the fountain. Kali kept her hand on her gun and tensed, but Sienna waved her down.
Ilia recognised the figure as Adam Taurus, a bandage over his left eye.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Faunus and Human and Techion alike," Sienna said as Adam stood to her side, "I'd like you all to meet Adam Taurus, a survivor of the Compass Labour Camps, a refugee from Solitas," she stood to the side, and handed the mic to him, "Please, tell them your story."
Adam nodded, and stepped forward. His voice was raw as he spoke, "My name is Adam Taurus. I was born in Solitas in a village that no longer exists, that was lost to the Grimm. And where was Atlas when they let my home - a place where only the Faunus lived, where Faunus from across the continent could take refuge? They were letting my people die, and then arresting the survivors. My parents and I were on the run, and Atlas found us and arrested us. For trespassing on territory that was never theirs. I was thrown in a prison camp for years, when I had only just become a teenager, where I was forced to work in the mines of the SDC, where I was forced to dig out dust from the walls day in and day out, all for the corporate overlords that treated us like cattle, like slaves, like property. I was kicked, beaten, burnt, and then-"
He grabbed the wrapping around his head-
"-Branded."
-And pulled it off, revealing the ugly burns in the shape of letters that covered his eye, red and rippled and still raw, his eye discoloured and blurred in a mixture of milky white and red.
The crowd gasped, and Ilia noticed Kira clenching her hands into fists beside her.
"I was treated like cattle, and my parents? And my mother and Father?" he let out a mirthless chuckle, "They were killed, for daring to stand out! Atlas murdered them both because they were an annoyance, an inconvenience, and because they enjoyed it!"
Ilia frowned. She remembered being shocked herself by the guards, Stratton specifically. She was still nursing the wounds from her beating. A sickly feeling overcame her as she looked to the rest of her companions. Sammy's fists were shaking. Molly was looking at the ground, despondent. Twitch was shifting about in place, trying not to remember. Steph simply stared forward, trying to cool herself and her thoughts as she muttered something to herself. Ilia couldn't hear it through the shocked gasps and calls of the crowd, but from the way her lips moved, it seemed to be some sort of phrase that she was saying constantly. A rhyme. There were two books slung under her arm.
(One book was titled 'How to Deal with Loss'. The other was titled 'Aura'.)
It was Kira's reaction that intrigued Ilia the most. Clenched fists, set jaw, shaking arms, her face wearing an expression as if she was enraptured by Adam's words. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with intrigue the more that she listened to him.
Ilia wasn't sure how to feel about that.
"The Atlesians, they don't care about us!" Adam began, almost like he was about to go off on an angry tirade, "They've beaten us for years, bloodied us, and did it all with a smile on their face and money on their minds! They'd rather see us all worked to death than as equals, as anything other than slaves! If they demand from us our blood, then what is it that we should ask of them if not theirs too!?"
Sienna signalled to Adam to withdraw from the mic, and he did so with reluctance. She quickly took to the stand and said, "As we speak, across Solitas and under the thumb of both Atlas and the Schnee Dust Corporation, there are dozens, possibly even hundreds of dust mines operational, all of them running on the backs of Faunus and prisoners. Labour yards and concentration camps in all but names. Compass is but one example, and already those of us who have been there, those of us who survived our grand escape, can remember the atrocities that they inflicted upon us, the brutality that they showed us."
Like she said, Ilia could remember it all.
"We suffered under the yoke of their oppression for but one month, and we have already been witness to the cruelty of those that would consider us lesser. We were driven under batons and whips, shocked and beaten, scarred for life," suddenly, Sienna began to remove her shirt, "those of which we'll carry for all our lives."
She dropped the shirt onto the ground, and held her arms out to see. Deep scars and electric burns covered her arms and body like red-raw spiderwebs. Lacerations and deep purple bruises covered her waist and ribs. She spun herself around to show her back, detailing the still raw lashes from whips and spiderweb burns of electrobatons, deep bruises and torn skin from punches and kicks. She looked like a walking warzone, the bloody red scabs craters and the deep purple marks blast zones.
"This," Sienna took back the attention of the gasping, shaken crowd to herself, "Was only from one month of imprisonment under the Atlesians. Adam, and many of those who came with us? They were there for years, and suffered so much more than any of us could possibly imagine. And right now, as we speak, there are hundreds of people being arrested in the streets of Mantle and thrown into those very same mines and camps, sentenced on trumped up charges by glorified mercenaries who have whored themselves out to corporate fascists, all in the name of their profits. Those innocent people, Faunus, Human, and Techion alike, are slowly withering away under the jackboot of their oppressors, starved and worked until the dust fills their lungs or their bodies give out underneath them. This is their future, this is their life from now on. If the Atlesians are willing to do this to our people, then what promise is there for our future?
"Ghira says that progress is slow, that these things take time. Well what of the people dying in the mines, on the streets, to bigots and hurtful men with hurtful ideals? Are they supposed to just wait for succour, for the distant, faraway chance of equality before their time? Are we just supposed to accept their fates as gospel, as tragic steps on the road to the future? Is their suffering supposed to be a brick on the road to tomorrow, their spilt blood the paint that we use to make a shiny picture of what a perfect world would look like? No! They are our people, bleeding, suffering, all the while we sit here, in our warm homes and our cosy beds and think to ourselves that we are the saviours of the world! We sit still and pretend that we are doing nothing, all the while refusing to acknowledge the agony of our world, of our people! We say that we are playing the long game, but refuse to even face the cost that inaction brings us!
"Ghira says that we are reaching the hearts and minds of the people around us with our words, but what about those that refuse to listen? What about those that stick their heads into the sand and deny our every word? They are the people with all the power in the world, those that sit atop their lofty thrones in their glass castles and drown themselves in their stolen riches, in their blood money and gold. They are the people that will never hear our words, that will refuse to hear, that will look down onto us and laugh and mock us. They hold the keys to Atlas, and they hoard them jealously, possessively. They hold the keys to chain, and they'd rather melt them down to make gold than to even consider any other possibility. Our words can only reach so far until they are defiled and denied by those who hate us, who refuse to hear us. Our words can only go so far until they become hollow, and shallow.
"Words without action, words without the strength and will to back them up, are meaningless in the face of those who refuse to listen. The time has come to make them listen, to force them to listen.
"Ghira... Ghira says that a revolution is coming... well, he's right about that at least. A revolution is coming. But he forgets about one simple fact: no rebellion is without a battle. No revolution is without blood. When our mothers and fathers rose up against those who would enslave them, when they revolted against the noble families and the fat old men that kept them wrapped in chains, in cuffs and restraints to use as labour, as cattle, as their personal breeding stocks? NO! They rose up against them with tooth and claw! They showed the bastards that would keep them down their fangs like Azul Primus' White Fang of old, and spilled the blood of the guilty to pave a new future of their children, for us! And now we sit here, pretending that this is not how a revolution is fought, how a rebellion is won?!
"The Rights Revolution! Never! Ended! It never even came to pass in the minds of those who sit in power in Atlas! While we splay ourselves out in the sun and celebrate a victory that only exists in the history books, Atlas and the Schnees continue to make a mockery of our past, our sacrifices, and keep us in bondage, in chains, in cages and in their grasp! If they are so willing to make a whore of our present, then what fresh rape will they have for our future!?"
The crowd was cheering her words, roaring her agreement. Ilia was amongst them. So was Kira.
"That is why we are hear now, to hear your desires for our future!" Sienna began to cap off her speech with, "After all, how can we call ourselves the spokesmen and women of the Faunus, of our kind, if we do not hear it from you? How can either of us, Ghira or myself, claim that our opinions, our desires, are that of your own as well?
"So we ask of you now, what is it that you want? What is it that you desire for our future? Should we sit in silence, preaching empty words while the monsters in Atlas call us as such? Or should we fight for our futures?
"What. Should. We. Do?"
A silence fell over the crowd for what felt like an eternity, stretching from one moment to another, then to another, then to another.
Then, finally, someone spoke up.
And Ilia realised it was herself.
"We should fight!" she called out, her voice still scratchy, let as loud as can be. Everyone around her looked at her, but they were beginning to get riled up by Sienna's words as well.
Then, it was Sammy's turn as he called out, "Yeah, we should fight!"
"Y-Yeah!" Twitch.
"Me too! I want to fight too!" Molly.
"Yeah!" Trifa not too far away.
"I'm ready to fight!" Yuma next to her.
"Me, me as well!" Steph, with much reluctance.
"Fight!" Kira, which earnt shocked looks from Ghira and Kali.
Soon enough, everyone was chanting a single word.
"FIGHT!
"FIGHT!
"FIGHT!
"FIGHT!
"FIGHT!
"FIGHT!
"FIGHT!
"FIGHT!"
Then, someone (she wasn't sure who) called something remarkable out.
"Ghira should abdicate!"
That was a surprise to Ghira and Sienna if the looks on their faces were any indication-
"Yeah, Ghira should abdicate!"
"He doesn't speak for me! He doesn't speak for anyone!"
"Sienna Khan for leader!"
"Yeah, Sienna Khan for leader!"
-But now the ball was rolling, and it just wouldn't stop.
"ABDICATE!
"ABDICATE!
"ABDICATE!
"ABDICATE!
"ABDICATE!
"ABDICATE!
"ABDICATE!
"ABDICATE!"
Ghira looked to Sienna, a look of betrayal on his face so obvious that even Ilia could make it out. Sienna only looked away, an expression of something that Ilia could only describe to be resignation.
(Behind them, Adam looked on to the chanting crowd, and saw only opportunity.
The child of the Oscuras would prove very useful.)
The next day, Ghira Oscura resigned from his position as head of the House of the White Wolves. Sienna took his place, and sent out, across all channels, a call to arms.
Hundreds of Faunus, Humans, and Techions responded to the call, arming themselves to take the fight to Atlas and the corporate overlords that ruled over them.
Ilia and the other children had been eager to join up, but had been told that they couldn't. They were too young, apparently, and most of them didn't even know how to read. There was no way that they were going to let them fight.
But they were wrong. Ilia and the other children? They knew how to fight. They had been born and raised in the cold streets of Nicholas' Folly. They had been fighting to survive for as long as they could remember, and longer still before then.
They snuck onto the first ship back to Solitas, back to Mantle, back to Atlas. Even Kira had joined them, fire in her eyes and heart.
But, on the way back to that terrible place that they had once called home, Steph had approached Ilia.
"Let me try something."
"What?"
"Just close your eyes and let me try something."
Ilia looked at her in confusion, before giving her a nod and closing her eyes.
Steph's hand planted itself on her shoulder.
"For it is in our struggles that we achieve freedom. Through our hardships, we gain the power to shape our futures. Infinite in possibilities and boundless in potential. Through our battles our chains are broken, I release your soul, and by my hand, free thee."
Ilia was about to ask about what all of this meant, before she felt something wash over her. A flash of light and warmth, like someone had draped a blanket over her next to a fireplace. She opened her eyes and looked down at herself to see a soft yellow glow covering her. She could see her bruises fade away, feel her cuts scab over and seal.
She could feel something flowing through her veins. It felt like power.
Steph's forcefield stuff. She'd found a way to awaken hers.
"How did you do that?" Ilia asked.
Steph smiled, "I read it in a book."
Ilia could only smile back (as Kira looked on with something akin to envy.)