Chapter 16
History class, (a class open to both huntsmen and the regular students of Beacon,) droned on, as Dr. Oobleck ran through his near hour long lecture on the recent and ripe history of Remnant's extant civilizations.
The Kingdom of Vale, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, had survived in some form or another due to it's location being a natural stronghold against grimm, and man. Steep mountains to the east, shallow seas to the west, narrow coastal passages to the north, and the south being a forest too dense to navigate did much to dissuade rival civilizations from attacking, and kept the worst of the grimm away from the kingdom's center. Politically, it was a constitutional, parliamentary, monarchy for several hundred years before the Great War. Afterwhich, the king of Vale stepped down, relinquishing his power, the position he held being replaced by a chancellor.
The main kingdom had several smaller satellite cities, some physically attached, and others not so. Most ran along the safe southern coastline of Vale, while others, such as MT. Glenn, occupied less hospitable regions in the mountains.
Anima, both a continent and country, was the largest nation in the world by landmass, as it was comprised of several separate states, each with their own governments and state representatives that converged in the capital city of Mistral to govern jointly.
Atlas, the nation at the top of the world, sat on the rocky and barren tundra of the continent of Solitas. The third youngest of Remnant's civilizations, it was something of a middle child on the world stage, and suffered interior struggles nearly every year due to it's two rivaling political ideologies. "Old Town," the original coastal settlement, walled in from the rest of "New Town" was far removed from the sitting government. Depending on who you asked in "Atlas" it was called "Mantle," and this tension between the two was in part created by two separate cultures clashing. Those from before and after the Great War.
Ever since the war's end, Atlas and it's leaders, who'd risen to power from the collapsing government of Mantle in the wake of the war, had control of the two faced kingdom. Al Seus Academy, the kingdom's primary university was up the hill in New Town. The police were all employed from New Town. The Atlas government's economic model favored heavy taxation, none of which ever returned to Mantle, and what major companies could survive the tax rates ultimately would end up either nationalized, or were incentivized to keep "The interest of Atlas" in mind.
Mantle's position would not be so bad financially, and too politically, if their one method of trading with the other nations, being their sea port, wasn't frozen for nine months out of a year. As an aside, they were still better off than the small villages that dotted the rest of the tundra.
Speaking of small villages… Vacuo existed. Less a kingdom than it was a loose union of separate tribes within the arid lands of west Saunus, Vacuo the city, the only one the nation really had, was the union's seat of power. Power mostly owed to the wealth generated by it's location being a halfway point for all the tribes to do trade. The oasis it was built around provided those that lived there relative comfort, but as the city grew, and the economy with it, the central government had become too weak in comparison to the population to impose any kind of law on the city let alone the rest of the kingdom.
Menagerie, the youngest of the world's nations, was created after the Great War. With the conflict itself having led to the worldwide prohibition of slavery, the continent, a former colonial territory of Anima, was set aside for the freed slaves to inherit… Though the settlement did little to quell the long standing feud between the two races, the island nation had come a long way since the end of the war. Menagerie had it's own military, a radio relay and routing tower connecting it to the rest of the world, a seat in the Vytal Union, and academies of it's own, Asylum primary and Anchorage secondary.
Then there was the sixth nation, and the second youngest on Remnant. Vytal. The kingdom for the wayward and the lost. Formed only a month before Menagerie, Vytal Island, became the nation all others converged on regarding international affairs, and was the "ruling government" over all of the little autonomous towns that existed in places unclaimed by the other five nations, and had claim to "The North West Continent." The land might have been hardly habitable because it was a freezing, toxic, wasteland filled with dust hazards, but there were a few villages on the dark land's clear south coast, and eastern island, and so they fell under Vytal's protection…
While the majority of the class was hanging on their teacher's every word, taking notes at a feverish pace in an attempt to keep up with the hyperactive Doctor, Yang, who wasn't much a fan of history, leaned over to look at Weiss's notes, and was confused. She couldn't read a single word the girl had written.
Ruffling her golden locks with her left hand, Yang chuckled. "Wow, Weiss, your handwriting is worse than mine."
Weiss's head instantly turned to look at Yang. "My handwriting is flawless."
"Your notes seem to say otherwise." Yang said.
Weiss rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised?" Weiss held up her note book, and tapped the page she was writing on with her pencil. "This is cursive, and shorthand. I find it to be the fastest way to write. Perhaps if you learned how to take notes in one form or another, you'd have more than doodles."
Yang looked down at her notebook, and almost scoffed. "Pictographs are a form of note taking."
Weiss hummed to herself, before Jaune turned around in his seat. "Would you two please be quiet, some of us actually have to listen to Oobleck to learn."
The two shared a glance, before continuing to sit in silence as Doctor Oobleck rambled on. "-Of course as a consequence of the anti expansionism expressed by most of the kingdoms today, more and more settlements outside of the Kingdom's borders fall under Vytal's jurisdiction, but without any type of centralized power structure these isolated towns and villages can become extremely soft targets, for two types of enemies. Can anyone give me an example?" Dr. Oobleck asked.
Siniy raised his hand. "Grimm sounds like an obvious answer."
"And you would be right." Dr. Oobleck said. "But besides the grimm who else might attack lone human settlements in the wilds of the world.
"The White Fang?" Weiss asked, half raising his hand.
Dr. Oobleck shook his head. "While I'm certain that an increase in terrorist activity over the past few years would lead many of you to believe that to be the historical answer I'm looking for, there's a much broader label to describe people who attack non-kingdom settlements."
"Oh, you're talking about bandits, aren't ya' Doc?" Nora asked.
"Yes indeed." Oobleck nodded. "Bandits. While some might not see any difference between them and more common criminals, or even Vacuo's tribal people, bandits are those that have been outcasted from civil society for their crimes, usually done as punishment by Anima, Vale, and Vacuo. They officially have no citizenship beyond their own gangs. They are outlaws, who are not granted any kind of legal protections under the Vytal Union, though they endure all the same."
Weiss rolled her eyes. "It's surprising that no one's decided to just wipe them out." She said.
"A few have tried." Dr. Oobleck said. "Huntsmen and huntresses specializing in pursuing bandits can often imprison or kill entire gangs in a month's time, but as it stands, the kingdoms continue to create bandits by exiling it's criminals."
"Then why not just… Put them in jail instead, Doctor?" Jaune asked.
"And overcrowding the prisons, taking up space for those serving a sentence for less egregious crimes?" Oobleck proposed.
"Well the solution is obvious then." Weiss said, sitting up straighter. "The other kingdoms should do what Atlas does. The state has both the authority and the means to sentence soon to be bandits to death. Kingdoms like Vale simply lack the spine to do so."
"Kingdoms like Vale also don't kill people for theft." Clayton said with an eye roll.
"Grand theft." Weiss corrected. "There's a certain point where what's being stolen amounts to someone's time, and someone's time is their life. If a productive citizen can no longer contribute to society because all of their life's savings has been stolen, the perpetrator has made both themselves and their victim a drain on the state."
Feeling like a smart ass, Pale spoke his mind. "Why can't we just go back to dueling? Sounds a heck of a lot faster."
Oobleck coughed as he regained control of the class's attention. "Dueling and trial by combat is only practiced widely in Vacuo still, and it is done under circumstances where there is no evidence to a crime committed, or witnesses, save the alleged perpetrator, accuser or victim. Outside of the kingdoms the Vytal Union clearly outlines isolated settlements can determine their own legal processes, however I've not heard of a legal duel taking place outside the kingdoms in over two decades… Anyways!"
After their classes were over for the day and the teams had eaten dinner, most of the students went about their nightly routines… Two, however, had stayed out late.
Pale had gone up to the roof to smoke a cigarillo, not because he cared if he got caught by the faculty, but because he was being conscientious of the stench offending the two faunus he shared the living space with.
The door behind Pale creaked open, and he turned to face who had joined him, finding Yang looking at him. He took a drag from his cigarillo, and then pulled the paper wrapped tobacco away from his mouth. "Needed space too?" He asked, letting smoke billow out of his mouth.
Yang almost laughed. "Can't exactly smoke in my room." She said, before pulling a small plastic bag out from between her breasts. "Got any rolling paper I could borrow?"
Pale looked down at the small amount of weed Yang had in her hand, and scoffed, before he reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out the brown paper he used to roll his cigarillos. "I'm surprised to see you being the team's smoker."
Yang took the paper from Pale, and began the process of rolling a blunt with what little weed she had. "Yeah well, not all of us can practice our vices publicly." She said, rolling her eyes before sitting down on the roof beside Pale, who turned and looked out to the moon, before he pulled out a matchbook, and passed it to Yang before she could take the lighter out of her bra.
Yang looked up at him in confusion, hand halfway in her cleavage. "Preserves the flavor." Pale said, before she took the matchbook.
As Yang lit her blunt, and Pale returned his cigarillo to his mouth, the two inhaled and exhaled in unison. "Your family know you smoke?" Yang asked seemingly out of nowhere.
"My family's dead." Pale said flatly, keeping his cigarillo in his mouth, shocking Yang, who blinked, unsure of how to process that.
"Oh… Sorry I asked, I guess." She said, taking another puff.
"Don't be… I'm assuming you asked because your family and friends would freak out?" Pale questioned.
"My dad mostly. My mom and step mom's not in the picture anymore. Ruby and Clayton know, but they don't care." Yang answered, before she giggled. "Ruby actually tried some with me before, but it made her sick, and I mean, violently sick." Pale chuckled at that. "My Uncle's cool with it too, but I don't know about Blake and Weiss. One seems a little uptight, if she even is my friend, and the other, well, maybe, but she keeps to herself, so I don't know… Better to just hide it from them I guess."
Pale pulled the rolled tobacco out of his mouth, and flicked some ash away. "Afraid they'll judge you?"
Yang took another drag, before blowing smoke directly up in the air. "Who doesn't judge people in this day in age?"
"Sounds like you got something to say about that." Pale said, returning his cigarillo to his mouth.
"How well can you keep a secret?" Yang asked.
"Eh, the best kept ones are the ones no one cares about." Pale said, before he sat down next to Yang, letting his prosthetic leg stick straight out.
"I don't know, it's just…" Yang said. "My dad is super judgmental about everything. Your motorcycle's dangerous. I know you sneak out. Clubbing is bad. Drinking is bad. If I find out you're doing drugs, I'm disowning you. Stay away from other girls. Find a guy your own age. Oh, but don't be a slut." Yang said, mocking her dad's tone of voice. "He says all this shit, but doesn't actually do anything about it… Then with Ruby he's all harsh punishments for being five minutes past curfew."
"You think he's paying more attention to your sister because he's afraid she'll end up like you?" Pale asked.
"Something like that… I guess I'm just more comfortable being all wild and outgoing around people I know less, since they don't know me." Yang said, before she glanced at Pale as the two took another drag.
"It should really be the opposite." Pale said, his smoke cloud dwelling for a second. "People you're closest to should be the ones you're willing to show your true colors to."
Yang sighed. "Maybe I'm not really super extroverted then, and it's a front I put up for strangers?" Testing her theory, Yang waited, pausing the conversation, before looked dead at Pale, and asked a brazen question. "Wanna' fuck?"
Pale turned to look at Yang with a raised eyebrow, finding her expression to seem wholly serious. After only a second the two both began chuckling, before breaking out into full blown laughter. "You had me goin' there."
"Yeah, I know." Yang said, as she calmed down. "I mean, don't get me wrong, you're hot for a brooding loner, but I don't think you could handle all this." She put her hand to her chest.
"Ah, whatever you need to tell yourself." Pale said, before he pushed himself to his feet, dropped the burnt out butt of his cigarillo to the roof, and smothered it under his boot. "Enjoy your smoke." He said, before beginning to walk towards the door.
With a small smile, Yang called out to Pale. "Hey, Pale…" He turned to look back at her. "I don't care what anyone says, you're kinda cool… Have a good night."
Pale tipped his wide brimmed hat to Yang, before going back inside, leaving the girl on the roof with half a blunt and her own thoughts.
