"So, you're like his slave?" Yang asked, slightly breathy as she ran.

Blake made a noise, half-objecting the Huntress' assessment. "Not by law, but in effect."

"Huh?"

"Slavery is illegal!" Blake shouted as a gust of wind loudly blew over them. "But there are no laws specifying what 'the spoils of war' include, so we're more like trophies!"

"That's fucked up!" Yang yelled in return, unsure of what else she could say to that. "Wait, you said 'we', were there more of you?"

Blake waited for the wind to die down before answering. The relatively small space between Vale and the Palace Schnee was mostly plains and hills, so there was very little barrier from the rolling gusts. "Nine, actually," she answered once she was no longer fighting the wind.

"So why—"

"I was the only one he trusted to gate him to the Shimmer," Blake interrupted.

"Why?"

Blake scowled. "I was the only idiot that wouldn't gate him a mile under the ocean."

"Wouldn't that kill—"

"Yes," Blake stated, resolute.

"Do you have to interrupt me every time?"

Blake let the question hang for a moment. "Not every time."

Yang groaned, but continued running in silence. Palace Schnee drew near; close enough that a pair of horsemen were coming to parley. A pair of guards remained at the gate, watching their coworkers from a distance.

Watching them approach, Blake realized how fragile her plan actually was. She'd never seen the Palace Schnee, and the jail she'd broken out of was in the city. Her plan hadn't accounted for a parley. She began to panic.

"Quick, show your face," Yang insisted confidently, pulling her own bandages down.

"What? Why?" Blake questioned. The guards were encroaching— the plod of hooves was audible.

"Just do it!" Yang exclaimed. "I've got a plan."

Blake wanted to object, but the guards were too close to keep arguing. She pulled the bandages off her face.

The mounted men approached, wielding a thin spear in one hand and a long saber in the other. Wide bands of steel covered their abdomens, plating them down to the knees. Much longer skirts of chainmail stretched down past their ankles, covering every inch most likely to be exposed to a passing blade. From the waist up, though, they bore no such protection. Slashed shirts covered their chests, with puffed sleeves that were tucked into thick leather gloves. Everything bore the Schnee colors of white, blue, and navy. Even their hats, which were like wide floppy saucers, had the same bright pattern.

Their horses were only half-armored too, with great steel plates that hung down around their front halves, and a chainmail hood around the creature's head.

To Blake, they were a supremely odd sight. She imagined they were great riders, but their fully exposed upper bodies left them vulnerable to arrows and long spears. Perhaps that was the point of having them at the palace. They could act as scouts, patrol the grounds, and serve as respectable liaisons.

"'alt!" One demanded, leveling his spear with the pair. "What business do you 'ave in the palace?"

Blake kept her head down, hiding her face. Yang spoke for them both, confident. "By royal decree, I'm here on a Hunt."

Blake heard their armor clank and jingle as they reeled with surprise. "You're what?" One shouted, incredulous.

"Prove it!" The other loudly demanded.

Blake tilted her head, just enough to peek at Yang. She watched the Huntress push her cloak away and pull her sleeve up to her shoulder, revealing an unreasonably toned arm. Blake battled a blush. Humans could not be her thing.

Yang pressed two fingers to her palm, and the air began to vibrate over her bare forearm. Lines of light briefly rose over her skin, then dulled and settled into dark letters. An entire script, so tiny Blake couldn't read it, sat on her skin like a magical tattoo.

One of the horsemen gasped, but the other maintained his composure. "There are no Grimm here," he declared, "we do not need a 'Untress."

Yang scoffed. "I have the right to exercise imperium in pursuit of my quarry. You have no right to stop me."

Blake hazarded a quick peek at the men, and felt a great wave of satisfaction at the way they grumbled and groaned. She didn't know Yang's vocabulary included words like 'imperium', nor did she really grasp the concept, but she chalked it all up to human oddity.

"And your partner?" The first horseman questioned. "Unters work alone."

"Not all of us," Yang stated, crossing her arms. "But you are right. I am alone, this is my bound."

Blake's head snapped towards Yang, who had confidently pulled her cloak aside to show off the chain about her hips. A twinge of anger rose in her chest. How dare she— she wasn't even using the word right!

The horsemen shared a few quiet words between themselves, then sheathed their sabers in unison. "Follow us," one called over his shoulder, "you will speak with the lord."

Blake watched the Huntress visibly repress a smile, which broke free the moment the men turned back around. She shot her gleaming smile towards the fay, then a wink as she sidled up to her.

Blake turned on her with fire in her eyes, but Yang held her hands up and preempted whatever she had to say.

"Look, I'm sorry!" Yang innocently waved her hands. "I was thinking on the spot, okay? Besides, you haven't even told me why we've got this thing."

Blake punched her in the arm, but kept walking. This wasn't the time to be fighting, so she just sighed. "You did what you had to. Just… never again, okay?"

Yang seemed surprised by the genuine tone Blake spoke with, but nodded nonetheless.

"I still don't see why I had to reveal myself." Blake lamented, eager to move to a different topic.

"Well, a person covered in bandages is pretty suspicious," the Huntress answered, before her smile turned into a devious grin. "But I just wanted to see your pretty face."

Blake made an odd noise in the back of her throat— something angry and flustered— then pulled her hood further over her face. She wouldn't let Yang see her blush.

They followed the horsemen in blessed silence, all the way to the gate, where they had Yang repeat the song and dance of showing off her magical tattoos. Blake couldn't keep herself from watching the second time. The other guards marveled at the show of magic, completely bewitched, before mumbling among themselves. Blake could hear their poorly-hushed words. Complaining about the brazen Huntress, making lewd comments, complaining more, then finally settling on a simple agreement: this was above their pay grade. They'd have to see the lord.

Their huddle broke, and two guards set off to begin the process of raising the barred portcullis.

One rejoined the horsemen who had escorted them there, but Blake didn't see where the fourth went. Raising the portcullis was slow work, so the men chatted among themselves. The plan worked much better than it had any right to— who could've guessed they'd just be let in the front door? Yang had guessed it, apparently, judging by the smirk with which she lorded over the fay. Blake looked up to give her a nasty glare.

That had been a grave mistake, as the rolling plains of Vale had seen that moment fit to blow a strong gust her way, strong enough to catch her hood like a mast. Her hair spilled into the wind, her face revealed.

A hand grabbed her cloak and yanked her aside, forcing her to come face-to-face with a particularly ugly guard— the one who had escaped her field of view.

"Oy!" He yelled, throwing spittle in her face. "You that fay cunt from the tourney!"

Blake acted on instinct. Her free hand dove beneath her cloak and slipped a trio of knives between her fingers. She barged her shoulder into the one who had grabbed her, forcing him to stumble back, then sent all three of the knives his way.

The first two broke his Aura, but the third sank shallowly into his padded gambeson. "Worthless shim!" He cried. "Kill that bitch!"

Yang turned towards the sound— she'd been regaling the bored guard and horsemen with a tale of her most recent hunt— and grimaced. When she turned back around, she faced three men with drawn swords.

The horsemen reared back with their spears— she was well within their range— but Yang moved before they could strike her. One hand flew beneath her cloak while the other shot out towards the riders.

There was a brief spark in her palm, deceptively heralding what was to come. The sparks coalesced in the center of her hand, tightening and wildly smashing together before ripping the air with a deafening blast and a blinding spurt of sparks and light.

The horses panicked and loudly whinnied in fear, rearing up onto their hind legs and throwing one rider from his saddle. He fell straight back from the horse, and did not get up. While the other rider reined in his horse, the footman ran at Yang.

Meanwhile, Blake ducked underneath a wide slash from the man who'd recognized her. He tried to follow with a knee, but she pushed his leg back down with a pair of short knives, leaving them in the flesh before she scuttled back. The guard howled in pain and tried to chase after her, but stumbled and fell on his stuck leg. Blake acted quickly and kicked him to sleep, then turned back to Yang.

The Huntress didn't have the opportunity to take advantage of her foe's recklessness; the remaining rider had recovered faster than she'd expected. Yang was forced to jump away as his steel-barded steed nearly ran her into the dirt, the sudden scramble leaving her dizzy.

The footman charged her again, this time with renewed sensibilities. Yang drew her cup-hilted dagger in reverse, and reached for her buckler—

No buckler. Ruby had broken it. Damn.

Yang's lament was cut short by her opponent, who lunged at her with a probing thrust. Yang parried it with ease and shot her free palm out. The empty hand sparked and sizzled as magic flowed into it, begging to be released.

A horse nearly struck Yang, forcing her to leap back and roll away to narrowly avoid a stab from the rider's spear. She expected the rider to get more distance and charge again, but she did not expect that giant beast to turn so quickly and advance into her space. It cried and huffed, its steel armor clanking against itself with each stomp of its heavy hooves.

It was then that Yang realized she'd never fought a horseman before. Perhaps it was because she'd ridden many horses, or simply because she thought they were cute, but she had no grasp on how terrifying such a beast could be. It stared at her with those black eyes, huffing up a storm. Bigger than any horse she'd ever ridden, she could feel how heavy it was, how easily it could cave her chest in.

Struck with fear, she was too distracted to dodge the next stab from the rider's spear. It hit her dead in the chest, and she felt her Aura come within an inch of flaring away. The horse chuffed with satisfaction and suddenly charged, its master's saber raised to cleave the Huntress as he passed.

Yang found herself suddenly pushed to the ground as a pair of boots smashed down onto her shoulders, then pushed off. Forced to her hands and knees, Yang was thankfully spared from the long saber's slash. She craned her neck to see whatever had stomped her to the ground.

A dark mass flew through the air, the wind blowing its shimmering violet tresses. Blake had apparently found the moment apt to launch herself off of the Huntress' shoulders and wrap herself around the rider. Yang marveled at the fay as she locked her legs around the man's torso and harried his face with rapid blows from her knives.

With both hands occupied by long weapons, he was powerless to stop the girl as her slashes flared his Aura. A final strike from her pommel dug into his skull, and he fell limp in the saddle.

Yang stared. Blake was a fine lass, if a bit stubborn, but she could've been happy with their one night together. She certainly could've, if Blake had not done that. Yang, who seldom let herself become comfortable with a single bed, suddenly found such a lifestyle unappealing— compared to being with Blake, at least. One night just wasn't enough.

Unfortunately her gawking left her open to the footman that she'd completely forgotten about, giving him a free shot. His shortsword split her feeble Aura, and managed to bypass the leather armor as it lodged into the meat of her shoulder. Yang spun with a hiss, pain clearing away her distractions.

Yang did not fear pain, nor injury— nobody hunted Grimm without one or both— so she did the first thing that came to mind. She grabbed his sword, holding it tight enough to cut her hand, then slammed her head into his face. The guard stumbled back, but her grip on his blade kept him from escaping the boot that sank into his gut and exhausted his Aura. He doubled over, dropping his sword in favor of holding his stomach and dry-heaving. Yang cracked him across the head for good measure.

A loud clang of metal drew her eye, and she found the high of combat suddenly draining out of her body. The sound was from the portcullis slamming closed. The palace, and by extension Ruby, were closed to them. There would be no rescue.

A hand landed on Yang's shoulder, and she whirled on the fay who had exposed their deception. Hot words were on her lips, but Blake didn't even seem intent on speaking to her. She just opened the Huntress' cloak like nothing had happened. "Two hundred paces? Roundabout, should be…" the fay mumbled, almost inaudibly.

"The hell are you doing?" Yang exclaimed as Blake began unwrapping the chain from her waist. "Can't you see? We can't get through!"

"You can't," Blake corrected, unbothered, "we can."

Yang watched her unclasp a section of her sleeve, exposing her scarred forearm. She scowled at the soulless metal, but wrapped the chain around her arm regardless, leaving some still tied about Yang's waist. "The hell does that—"

The world flushed to black, the deepest black, so deep that it swirled with reds and greens and shimmering violets. She fell into an endless pit, an abyss, a crack in the firmament, pulled by the iron links around her waist. Lilac eyes traced their trail, but the chain disappeared beyond the gloom of the infinite deep.

She fell for ages, along an axis with which she was distinctly unfamiliar, plummeting into a deepening pool of nothing. Just when she feared that this would be her eternal fate, though, the endless, undulating darkness burst like an abscess, birthing her once more into a world of crisp air and warm sunlight.

"—mean?" She huffed, on her hands and knees, eyes frantically searching her surroundings. Tall walls, guards with Schnee colors, a closed portcullis surrounded her.

She was in the palace grounds.


AN: sorry for the wait, hopefully the length makes up for that lol. im not getting as much time to write as i used to, and my writing flows arent lasting as long as before.

anyway, man do i love these horsemen. i really wanted to come up with something unique, and the image in my head is super dope- these dual-wielding, half-hussar, half-landsknecht guys... so friggin sick! hopefully i can find an excuse to write them more, who knows. maybe if/when this gets a sequel. and to think i almost missed them, since this chapter was actually going to be a ruby chapter. It didn't fit as well as this and was a little too graphic for this story's tone. i know my other work makes it seem like i love torturing ruby, but i really dont. i promise. i mean, i *do*, but only because i find the intense emotional turmoil to be satisfying and the idea of provoking it in my readers gives me a sick sense of schadenfreude.

anyway, thanks for reading. i love seeing yalls comments, you give me a lot of insight. till next time.