A/N: All of the thanks to actualbampot for proofreading this chapter:)
Vale's mid morning traffic was always a hassle to navigate.
In the name of trying to acclimate to the life of an everyday Valean citizen, Cinder took a bus and train, rather than blasting across the sky among the skyscrapers and railways as they glittered in the morning sun. Despite the hustle and bustle of the kingdom's streets, Cinder managed to make her way to down-town Vale, the Mistralian Moon, her new job.
Swinging open the front door, Cinder was greeted by the monotonous expression of her new boss; Evora Birch.
"Good to know that I can count on you to be on time. A pleasure, Ms Fall."
Taking the extended gesture of a held out palm, Cinder fought the urge to recoil at the contact. Cold bony hands, skin padded with the overuse of any and all ointments and creams in the name of eternal youth and little interference into the physicality of cooking, left the woman's skin oily to the touch. The flowery scent, something akin to the stench of Atleasian hands. Birch's likeness, that of a tall wiry figure dressed in dark greens, gold accented glasses and a bob of silver hair, clashed with the beaming presence next to her.
"This is Phirun Zhu, in charge of all of the Mistralian Moon's pastries and desserts-"
"It's so nice to finally meet you!" Phirun exclaimed, taking the Maiden's left hand in both of hers and cupping it an excitable shake which oozed warmth and excitement right through the leather. If she felt anything off about the Maiden, the woman didn't show it past her excitable chatter where topics changed as soon as Cinder had begun to register them. "It's so nice to have another girl in the kitchen! Well there's Fern, but she's at the front of the house and…" Cinder thanked the gods that, despite all Ruby's attempts to insist otherwise, the Huntress has slowed down as she grew older. Alternatively, perhaps Cinder just learnt to be more patient. "-here or there but you can just call me Phi, everyone does." But not even an endless bound of patience would make working with this… exuberant woman any more bearable.
"Well then." Birch mercifully cut in, "It seems like you and Ms Zhu are well on your way to becoming acquainted. She will be in charge of getting you situated. Now, if you would excuse me," Her words, punctuated with the pointed look at her watch. "I have some work I need to attend to in my office."
Not even a moment later and Cinder Fall was ushered across the dining room. On her way to the back, her keen eye observed the decor, Mistralian calligraphy and jade sculpture as it glistened and shone in the light. The golden adornments and trims around white china and ivory chopsticks spoke of finer tastes and little objection to price. The Mistralian Moon stood out as a beacon of wealth among Vale's old business district. But Cinder could see past its veneer, held in place by dirty streets and greyed out office buildings. Plastic chopsticks, the fading cold paint and chipped plates, none of it should matter. Even if it did, Cinder knew that she was hardly in any sort of position to complain.
The Maiden had looked for other jobs higher on the corporate ladder out of pure courtesy. She knew that anyone with her laundry list of crimes wouldn't stand a chance. So after fifty rejected applications, Cinder felt it opportune to lower her standards without the chance of evoking the Council's biases or Ruby's worry. If anything, the Huntress had been ecstatic to hear that she found a job at a local Mistralian restaurant. What's more it helped that after all these years, for better or worse, Cinder could still recognise the organised thread as it ran through the chaos of the kitchen.
"I'm sure you'll pick it up fast, but if you need any help in remembering what goes where, I'm your girl." Phi piped up, pulling Cinder from her thoughts as she shut the last of the thirty something drawers in the kitchen as one of the cooks shoulder checked past her with a cauldron filled with bubbling stew. Phi looked at her with an apologetic smile as a mentor would do for their flustered pupil. "Don't worry, learning to not step on each other's toes and to work together comes more naturally than you'd think. On my first day I bumped into our sous-chef at the time and dropped a whole batch of kulfi and now I'm literally dancing between everyone when the dessert rush hits."
Cinder sighed. When will this woman give it a rest?
"Alright then." Phi clapped her hands together, taking the moment to catch her breath for the first time she started talking before heading off to the very back of the kitchen and grabbing a pair of clothes on her way before stopping at the backdoor. "So the chef has already finished the prep work so there is a lot for you to start with. Staff bathroom is outside, first door to the left. I'll let you get to it."
Thank the gods.
The woman turned to leave, the weight of her sapphire hair nearly falling out of her hair net as she did so. Only to turn around much to Cinder's frustration.
"You can just put your clothes in one of the open lockers for now. I'll get you a key for it once the boss is done with her meeting. Do you need anything else?"
"No, thank you."
With that, finally, she left her to it.
In the privacy of the staff bathroom, Cinder couldn't help but to feel anxious as she removed her glove and pulled two latex gloves over it, careful not to rip or tear through it even after the nails had been cut. Then the rest of her outfit followed. Black pants, padded shoes and a white jacket. Cinder looked for something in the bathroom mirror, but whether she was hoping to find recognition or alienation, the woman couldn't be sure.
It didn't matter.
"You don't speak unless spoken to. You don't eat until every plate is spotless and you do not sleep until I've dismissed you. Understood?"
It was time to get to work.
When Cinder had told Ruby that she had a job and will start working as early as the next week, Cinder put up a 'it's-better-than-nothing attitude'. If she was honest, the Maiden didn't mind the work in itself. Her job as a mid-scale restaurant's scullion was mindless, didn't require any social interaction and could almost be considered calming in its repetition. Yes, the nature of her post could be considered degrading, but it was only temporary, as Ruby had told her multiple times as if she knew how to bolster Cinder's reluctance that very morning.
All she had to do was keep her head down and she'll be able to come up for air in three months.
As if on cue, the screech of rubber slipping on tile and the clutter of cutlery on the floor pulled the woman from her thoughts.
"Fucking shit!" The Maiden turned around to find a man regaining his footing from where he held onto one of the washing racks to avoid a fall at the hands of what Cinder would deem to be nothing but a few drops of water. Cinder recognised him as the head chef who insisted that he was too busy for 'meet and greets' when Phi went around introducing her to each station and their occupant.
'Busy' it seemed, smelled of fresh cigarette smoke.
Regardless whether he had insisted on looking past her throughout the day, he recognised her as a target instantly.
"Are you trying to get fired on your first shift? Here's a tip; clean your fucking station!"
What should have been a chaotically monotonous job, had been so gracefully ripped from Cinder, at the hands of the head chef. An obnoxiously loud and arrogant thirty-something, who seemed to believe that he was the gods' gift to Mistralian cuisine. Despite the fact that the woman had seen him scraping knives, stirring rice and using wet oven mitts, more times she cared to count.
"I know Ev like pinching pennies but fucking hell, she wouldn't even pay for a whole convict?" The left side of her face and the spreading scars seem to flare up under the unwanted attention. Cinder kept quiet, moving to unload the washer, but her expression betrayed all of the words she had tried to bite down. Micah, hot on her heels. "What, you're just going to ignore it? Going to tell me that you 'missed a spot'? Didn't see it?"
In some ways, work- or really any other social environment, wasn't unlike the hostile environment cultivated by hardened criminals and spiteful prison guards.
Cinder's status as an ex-con, and the newest addition to the team painted a target on her back, naturally. Newcomers are always singled out, nipped and growled at, clawed and starved to see if they are truly strong enough to be of use to the pack. Only, the head chef didn't know that she had been trained to kill since she was the so-called 'underdog'.
But Beowolves do not concern themselves with the opinions of mere sheep. Even if said sheep seemed to enjoy inserting itself in her space, stepping to the side and stopping her as she turned to unpack the crate filled with glasses.
"Don't tell me you're some kind of mute as well. Council is probably paying Ev to get you off their bill." Micah snickered. Cinder felt her thumbs dig into the softening plastic being smelted together by her hot-iron grip. It wouldn't take anything at all. To rip out his tongue and see if he'd still wear that ridiculous smirk of his. Unfortunately, such daydreams would have to wait.
"Micah! Table five has been waiting on their two-twenty three, for thirty minutes!"
"It seems like you are wanted elsewhere." Cinder finally spoke up. Her tone, a low warning that he should have heeded were he any smarter. His daring step forward in her personal space was his first mistake. "Or is your time worth less than a disabled convict who knows to exert caution and look where they are walking-"
"Micah!"
It was pure luck that the head chef was as absent as he had been, otherwise Birch might not have stepped in just as Micah dared to reach for her uniform's collar. If her boss noticed, what any other workplace would have considered assault, she didn't make any comment past a cold snarl at Micah.
"On the line. Now!"
It was in his welcomed absence, at the ding which signaled the end of the dishwasher's round, that Cinder became aware of the static buzzing along her left palm. In the moments Micah took to provoke her, the Maiden's nails had grown out, and was now digging past the rubber and into the spark of her aura.
She shook her head, sighed, reigned in her thoughts.
This was not the time, nor was it something she needed to ponder.
The only thing Cinder needed to do was get through this shift, but first, she needed to change her gloves.
Then she needed to load the dishwasher.
Then she needed to wash the more intricate utensils. Dry it with her semblance. Unload the dishwasher. Pack everything away. Wash the floors. Check on the levels of the cleaning chemicals. Prime the dishwasher.
Do everything from the beginning.
Unload the dishwasher. Pack everything away. Wash the floors. Hand wash the more interactive utensils. Dry it with her semblance while she waits for the dishwasher to fill up, nearly blow the glass to bits when she almost loses her temper. Make sure the pantry is clean.
Do everything again.
Load the dishwasher, unclog the washer tray, wash the whisk again after some idiot dropped it right after it's been cleaned. Pack away the loads of cups, plates and glasses.. Clean up Micah's mess. Unload the dishwasher. Clean the bathrooms. Wash the floors, the walk-in, the tables.
Do it again.
One thing after another, melded into a monotonous blur, untouched by the passage of time as it made breaks and lunches a mere afterthought.
Phi had tried to pull her away from her work to join in on their lunch break, on multiple occasions, but Cinder never did take her up on it. It was a half hour she wasted by sitting down and exchanging mind-numbing chit-chat when she could be getting her job done on time. Besides, if she wanted to eat, she could do it standing up. The quicker she was finished, the quicker she could go home, the weeks and months would pass and she would finally be free.
"You did really well for your first week!" Phi exclaimed, Cinder having the misfortune of needing to walk with her exuberant coworker to the same station after their twelve hour shift. The Maiden, tired after the day's work and wanting to get home as soon as possible, was just about to take off when Phi waved her down from across the street. The flight capabilities would have raised too many questions and Cinder would prefer to keep unnecessary conversation to a minimum.
"Not much a scullion can get wrong." The woman muttered with the slightest deprecation that the dessert chef sought to correct.
"You say that but there are enough cleaning chemicals that mixing them wrong would probably kill us all. Definitely learnt that the wrong way," Phi laughed nervously as she looked to the side. "I totally procrastinated cleaning my apartment the day my mother in law was supposed to visit. My girlfriend and I were panic-cleaning. So we probably mixed some things we shouldn't because the next thing my hands were burning and Char had to rush me to the hospital. Not the best way to meet your girlfriend-at-the-times mom but I guess it all worked out in the end." She finished, flashing a modest looking ring with a single diamond in the middle with a gleeful smile.
Wait, no…
Cinder looked closer. It wasn't a diamond but not exactly a fake either. Satordi crystal perhaps… and just as the woman wondered if she could make one by way of her semblance, the woman realised that Phi was yet to stop staring wide-eyed at her for one kind of response.
"You mixed an acid with a disinfectant."
"Oh shit," Cinder didn't know whether Phi looked impressed or horrified. "It happened to you too?"
'It burns! Make it stop! It burns!'
'I can't believe she fell for it.'
'That's what you get for being lazy!'
'If you tell or show Mother she'll know you tried to get out of extra work and punish you again.'
"Common sense typically has me refraining from mixing chemicals I know nothing about other than what they are supposed to be used for."
To Cinder's surprise, for better or worse, and against what she would have expected from a tone that hasn't been any more enthusiastic than her wish for others to stop engaging with her, Phi laughed.
"You're hilarious sometimes, you know that?"
Wwhile the Maiden knew that there were far worse reactions to her existence in general, one she might have appreciated had she not just endured an especially grueling shift, all the woman could care for was the sign pointing them in the direction of the translation. Gods willing they would be going in completely opposite directions from there.
"So now that I've made it obvious that I can be a total airhead sometimes, let me tell you about the time I accidentally booked an airship ticket to Argus instead of Anemoi…"
Cinder sighed, this was going to be a very long way home.
When the Maiden finally arrived at the house she wasn't in any kind of mood to be talking to someone. The Gods seemed to have given her some much needed peace and quiet. However, when Cinder stepped into the living room she noticed that such a luxury seemed to have come with a mess in the kitchen. Mixing bowls, spoons, eggshells and flour littered the kitchen. The culprit was nowhere to be seen and since the woman had been cleaning up everyone else's messes all day, Cinder turned to make her way upstairs. She needed a shower. But then, against her will, feet froze at the bottom of the stairs. The woman gritted her teeth in a struggle to ignore unfinished work while the sight of the kitchen burned at her back.
This was ridiculous!
Then, in an attempt to appease what Cinder deemed as 'overdramatics' the woman turned around and grabbed a wet cloth from the sink. The counter would be easy enough to clean, she'd be done in a matter of minutes. All she needed to do was throw away the eggshells, clean the cutlery, dry them, spray and wipe off the stove-top and clean the rest-
"Cinder! How does finishing your first week feel?"
Rudely yanked from her stupor Cinder looked up from where she was busy wiping down the inside of the oven, because doing it now would only spare her from an even bigger mess in the future, to find Ruby buzzing with excitement.
The Huntress' energy however, was quickly sapped by what must've been the expression on the other's face.
"Oh…that bad huh?" Ruby swayed awkwardly on her feet, thinking of something, anything to lighten the brooding expression kept in place by furrowed brows. "I haven't seen you this grumpy since we had to sleep on the floor at that one motel in Dafeng." The initial bad-memory-turned-entertaining-story only soured Cinder's expression further.
"Yes, well perhaps I would have been in a better mood if I didn't need to spend another two hours on my feet cleaning the kitchen. Which I remind you, we have discussed before."
Ruby winced.
"I know I know, but I was really struggling with my research and then my parts wouldn't fit-
"So you baked pancakes?"
The Maiden got up and promptly examined her handiwork, if not to spitefully wrestle and tug at the guilt, which she hoped would be bundling up in her chest. It only took one look for Cinder to know to await Ruby's, no doubt 'unfortunate' explanation.
"I… I figured I needed a break and I was hungry-"
"-and left the mess as is."
"Weiss called." Ruby finally confessed. The Huntress inhaled deep to steady her resolve because she knew that Cinder's knee jerk reaction would be that of distaste and jealousy. Still, she persisted. "And- and I hadn't heard from her forever and there was the time difference from Vacuo and the signal was bad to I went outside and time just got away from me but I was gonna clean up, promise-"
"And when exactly would that have been?"
Whatever patience Cinder had left, had been spent the moment Ruby entered the house without proof that she had been kidnapped and sold for ransom. Perhaps then Cinder would have the strength to scrape together some semblance of understanding. Not only had she been piling one ridiculous excuse after the other, Ruby had the nerve to answer the Maiden's demand in the way she did.
"...Twelve?"
"Absolutely not!"
Cinder took off…
"What-"
…Walking up and down the living room lest she burn a hole in the wooden floor while Ruby scrambled to follow and keep up at a safe distance.
"The last thing I need is to be kept up at another ungodly hour."
Ruby tried to be optimistic in offering solutions.
"I could do it the next morning-"
"Absolutely not!"
But the Maiden's blind rebuttals could only go so far before the Huntress would push back with rising frustration.
"I'm trying to come up with solutions and you're not exactly-"
"We have a solution." Cinder pointed to the piece of paper on the fridge, a schedule detailing their food and cleaning duties after what was supposed to be their last argument surrounding household duties. None of this was supposed to be difficult. On the field, in combat, they work together seamlessly. Now Ruby prefers to finish all of the house chores at the end of the day whereas Cinder wanted everything done first thing. Ruby likes soft pillows whereas Cinder prefers hot ones. Ruby has the water lukewarm whereas Cinder turns it scalding. It was as if both of them had grown thorns overnight to prick each other witch whether intentionally or not.
Such insignificant things had added up, aggravated by the Maiden's stress and lack of sleep until it all came boiling over.
"You just insist on not keeping to it and I-"
'-I will gladly extend your work hours from six am to six pm, since you have such trouble at simply telling the time.'
Cinder froze.
In the moment where time stood still, all of those little moments and memories once shook off, and forgotten, had crawled their way into her mind at the slightest glimpse of remembrance and they were refusing to let go of their hold on her. Cinder needn't have to think of her… of him, in over a decade. Why now? What in her life could possibly call back to them as if they were ever missed in the first place?
She was out of prison, freer than she had ever before, so why…why…
Cinder shook her head, shutting her eyes against the sting of tears and opening them to the moonlight casting a dim light over the balcony.
"Hey…hey…" Ruby's voice followed her from inside, ushered along by a light breeze wafting in the air to stand in front of her. Ruby's voice was trembling, gentle in the way that she was trying to be soothing but not break herself. "Cinder?" The woman fought to lift her head and look into those shining silver eyes, filled with kindness and concern, that threatened to undo what she was so desperately trying to keep inside. "What's wrong?"
The woman shook her head, chuckling mirthlessly when she held Ruby's warm hands held in her own. As soon as she felt it, that touch running up her arms to soothe all of the strain she hadn't known had been piling on her shoulders, so too did the panic subside. It was… all of it… the thoughts…the memories….it was just temporary. It was her new environment, the stress and sleepless night that came with what was expected of her. Once the months passed and she was reinstated as a Huntress, like her child-self had always wanted, she would forget about those memories once more.
She had to.
It was the kind of certainty Cinder sought in her lover's embrace.
"Something's bothering you. Did something happen today?" Ruby tried coaxing once more with a gentle whisper to Cinder's ear and slow circles over her back. "More than the kitchen which was… shitty of me, yeah… but… work was really that bad?"
Cinder took a shuddering breath, finally able to cast the weight from her shoulders.
"…I'm just tired…More than I anticipated. Something to get used to."
"You could change jobs y'know? No one has to stick with a job they don't like."
"A sentiment the Council will most certainly agree with."
"Forget about them. They don't have a say in any of this."
Cinder lingered in Ruby's embrace for a few moments longer, drawing strength, before pulling back seemingly resolute.
"No, I…I need to see this through."
The problem will not go away by running from it. No, she needed to face this irrational fear head on. But despite her best attempt the Maiden could tell that Ruby wasn't so sure herself. Whatever doubt she did have was consoled by the brush of her lips to Cinder's forehead.
"Whatever you decide… I'll support you." Ruby reached for Cinder's hands, human and Grimm alike before pressing knuckles to her lips as their eyes settled comfortably on one another for the first time that night. "I love you." Fingers intertwined, Ruby swayed their hands from side to side as her hopeful mischievousness made its way back to her smile. "You want me to warm up some pancakes? I could make some eggs and bacon and we'll have breakfast for dinner?"
Cinder raised an eyebrow in question, appeased, but not entirely ready to let the Huntress off the hook. "That depends on who does the dishes."
Ruby, ever reassuring; "I make the food, I clean up and you eat alright?"
And Cinder, almost convinced; "There'd better be maple syrup."
Ruby's laughter rang through the night sky and tugged Cinder's smile along with it.
"I'll make sure of it."
Blood.
Blood covered her hands.
The crimson liquid flaking off under the harsh and incessant scrubbing of a child's trembling hands. Once cleaned, with only the stench of chemicals remaining, Cinder looked up to see the clock striking six. The little girl sighed in relief and made her way through a maize of sterile white rooms and hallways as she left a trail of echoing footsteps which led her to a dead end.
Red cracks sprung from the white, the wall, bleeding to reveal an equally metallic structure embedded in what was to be the wound; an air vent.
With no hesitation the girl bent down and crawled inside, navigating the rusted twists and turns as the passages grew tight before expanding at a moment's notice. It was almost like the structure was breathing and the sound of Cinder's hand- and footfalls, it's heartbeat. The heart's chamber was a solitary storage room packed high with dusty old chairs, broken lamps, desks and plush couches covered with yellowing dust blankets. One of the blankets being repurposed along with the odd cushions and paper thin mattress made for a makeshift bed.
The bed however, wasn't empty as the girl would have expected. A shadowy figure laid atop the covers, upper body hunched forward and surrounded by a dark pool of freshly spilled blood. There was no way to tell who the person was with their features seemingly shifting in and out, but Cinder knew instinctively.
"Rhodes!"
Excited, the girl bounded over to the shifting mass which seemed to solidify in what she had called it to be; her mentor, the Huntsman she wished to model herself after.
"Hey kid..." His words dragged across his tongue like a leaden weight across rough concrete. He shifts, coughs and wheezes with the effort that it took to open his mouth. Cinder beat him to it.
The girl seemed to vibrate in place, barely able to hold herself together as she brimmed with excitement. "I can't wait to show you how much better I got with my swords!" She held her dual scimitars up proudly, admiring the shining metal blade, the rich browns of the leather pommel and the ruby red shine dripping down from the sharpened point.
Rhodes looked at her in the heavy silence that followed. "I'm not here for training…kid." Cinder shifted uncomfortably. Why did he look so sad? "I came to say goodbye. For good." The dread welling up hot in her throat dropped to the pit of her stomach, taking all of the warmth from her limbs. Her lip quivered.
"You're leaving me?"
"It's for the best-"
"That's not fair!"
Rage surged to fill the void to make her feel anything, but near-constant fear, in the only way she knew how. She pointed the bloody blade at his mangled body, hands shaking with rage.
"I trained! I trained and you said if I got stronger I'll be a Hunter like you. You promised!"
Rhodes clutched his abdomen, gritting his teeth against another wracking cough which splattered bits of blood against the cement floors.
"Take a look around you kid. Your hands, the people and the trail you leave behind."
Cinder blinked and a few spots of blood had turned into a massacre.
Furniture lay toppled over and what hadn't been broken fore lay in pieces. Crimson splattered, soaked and drenched itself in vertical swoops, big splotches and smeared hand prints. The girl looked down at her own hands. Red turned to black. Flesh morphed into the solidified tar of a Grimm's claws. She looked down at Rhodes, panicked, desperate.
"But- but you trained me! You turned me into this! This is your fault!"
Warmth gripped at her ankles. The weight and thickness of the liquid trapping them in place like a pit of quicksand would consume unsuspecting predators or prey.
"I only gave you the chance to become what you were destined to be."
It consumed the floors and steadily started to crawl upward. The girl turned to where Rhodes was slowly being submerged, dying and drowning but made no move to fight it past tilting his head above air.
"Truth is, you should never have been born."
Tears stung at her eyes, blurry vision turning him into a shapeless mass once more.
"That's not true."
A draw of breath filled the Huntsman's lungs with blood. He wretched, gurgling and choking through his words. "No matter…what you do, how much you want to become a Huntress… you'll still end up here…as someone who will never be able to wash the blood from their hands…kidding yourself into thinking otherwise."
"You're lying!"
"Whe…ush comes to-ove…of taking respons- or your actions. -ill always…choose -path of the murderer."
Cinder struggled her way to the man, sloshing at the blood as it weighed down on her knees and fought her in turn.
"No I- you attacked me first!"
"Good…bye kid…"
She was so close. Reaching out her hand Cinder could almost grab hold of him, but it was too late.
"No, stop! Don't leave me."
As he disappeared beneath the sea of red Cinder frantically scrambled to find him as she reached for the bottom, but it was as if he had melted into the crimson abyss. Drenched to the torso the girl looked at her reflection as it sneered back at her.
"Come back!"
Submerged to the neck with no way of keeping afloat past kicking which grew all the more erratic as fear and dread filled her lungs, Cinder screamed for all of those who could hear.
"Or… or I'll kill you. I'll kill you!"
But her threats fell on deaf ears and soon she couldn't hear at all, couldn't see past the warm nothingness which surrounded her. She was sinking…lower and lower and to the pitch black until she could see a small glimmer of light rising from it. Suddenly she was no longer drowning, but ascending, being lifted higher and higher. The current rushing in her ears started to subside, turning into incoherent whispers until a voice spoke above the white noise.
"And that is precisely why I need you by my side."
As the light grew so too did recognition…
"For all of your valiant efforts you shall be rewarded."
…Turning into something else…something more concrete. It reminded her of…a hospital…an… operating table.
"Now… let me bestow upon…the gift of a new hand, a new arm and soon a new body through which I will give you all of the power you had worked for so long. Never tire. Never grow content with what the world can offer. For as long as you remain hungry I will be here to provide."
Above, red waters bobbed and churned, marking a surface within reach. Cinder held out her left hand as if she were lost at sea, begging to be found. The air was cold. Unbearably cold. It burned at her flesh and turned it from pale white to red to black. From human to Grimm.
"Now… eat. And let it consume you in turn. For that is what it means… to be my Fall Maiden."
As she breached the surface, gasping for the air that set her lungs ablaze, the rest of her body followed in turn. She turned. From human to Grimm.
Cinder awoke with a gasp, frightened by something that slipped her mind as soon as the world came into focus. Whatever had been hunting the Maiden in her nightmares was quickly chased far away by the soothing sight of her lover.
Ruby laid facing her, face near covered entirely by tousled hair. The tell-tale signs of deep sleep, showed itself as the drool running down the side of her mouth and so graciously missing the Maiden's hand, held tightly in Ruby's own. Cinder's natural body heat had them sleeping on opposite edges of the bed, but during the night Ruby would always find her way to the other, close enough so that she could feel those slow breaths tickle the back of her hand. A smile twitched at Cinder's lips. Careful not to disturb the other, she reached out to brush those strands out of her face… and mouth.
Cinder had a feeling Ruby knew how she spent these morning moments. Especially after she had caught the Huntress pretending to remain asleep and catching her in the act of gently running her fingers through her hair and the back of her fingers along her cheek. The initial moment was nothing short of embarrassing but Cinder only ended up loving her all the more for it.
How she wished they could stay like this, in ignorant bliss, forever.
But the moment wasn't to last. The sun had slipped past the shadow of Mountain Glenn and was fast approaching its zenith. Birds, cicadas, passing cards and the city's distant bustle were called to wake and Cinder had no choice but to release herself from Ruby's comfort, and rise with it.
It was time to go to work.