There was a shimmering in front of them. Numerous brilliant particles of light, sparkling in the evening sun, hovering high in the air. Distinctly otherworldly. Maybe it was, like, Light, capital L—Ruby had never seen anything like it. She imagined it might have been similar to the blinding silver she'd emitted from her eyes on top of Beacon Tower, though she didn't have the means to compare the two. Just a hunch about magic and miracles.

They hadn't brought Pyrrha back to life, hadn't restored Yang's arm, hadn't helped anyone. If she had to be completely honest, she didn't have high hopes for this new mystery. Still. Even with all the pain and sorrow… Ruby wanted to get back to a happy place. She tried to place that pessimism aside.

"Stay back," Jaune said, speaking before she could. "What is that?"

Behind her, she could hear Ren and Nora shifting about, readying their weapons. Ruby spread her arms wide, making an active effort not to reach for Crescent Rose.

"Hold on, guys. Maybe it's friendly."

The light particles intensified, the densest clusters of them resolving into lengthy strands of white. Hair, bright and blank like Weiss's, done up in a long ponytail. Ruby's heart soared—was it actually? Her bestie, her partner, freed from the gilded cage she'd long maligned?

The threads weaved together into a filthy fabric, dangling from a golden ring. A mere parody of keratin. A block of white bone resolved into what might've generously been a bowl cut. And below that…

In place of a face—in place of everything one might find on a head: mouth, skin, eyes, ears, brain, bone… hovered a simple bronze lock. Ruby gasped. But whatever this… creature (there was no way this was human, right?) was… it hadn't finished forming.

A strange sort of jaw bone finished the bottom half of its head. An armless chest, robed entirely in the same white cloth, shimmered into existence, making up the body. In the middle of its body, Ruby could see right through the tattered strands: innumerable glowing blue strings, glow pulsing like a foul heartbeat.

"What the-"

Still not done. From empty arm sockets sprung long golden chains, and from those chains formed massive metallic hands, each one nearly as large as her. Locks, keyholes identical to the one making up its lack of face were fashioned atop the hands. And throughout it all, black ink dripped down, puddling under its body and hands.

The Light, reconstruction complete, finally dissipated completely. And Team RNJR was left with the mechanical abomination, ink slowly dripping onto the ground and making quiet sploosh sploosh noises.

"It's not like any Grimm I've ever seen," Ren noted.

Ruby shook her head, trying to keep her voice steady. "I don't think it's a Grimm."

Desperately holding onto her optimism like a life preserver, she called out, "Uh.. Hello…weird hand person? Are you…" A friend? Going to fight us? Working with Cinder? Lost? In need of help? She faltered, unable to finish the sentence.

It spoke, a muffled sound coupled with the clacking of keys, like it was typing on an old keyboard and translating it to speech. "Where is the City?"

The City? She could hear the capitalization in that, even though the voice speaking it was perfectly even. "Do you mean Mistral? Mistral City?"

"I cannot hear the City. The will of the City," it said, as if that constituted an explanation. "The Prescripts are the City's volition. The City's volition is my will. And my will is the City's will. But where is the City?"

Ruby was lost for words. The things that that thing was saying… they weren't complicated nor illegible. Simple words in simple sentences. But she felt like she was missing out on a lot of context, so much that it might as well have been speaking in a different language altogether. These things—the City, the Prescripts, the concept of volition—they all seemed very important to this creature. But she couldn't understand it.

Nora shimmied over behind Ruby, whispering in her ear (when had they decided that she was their unofficial leader here? Jaune had just been ranting about team names!), "I think it's an alien robot. Ask what planet it's from."

The silly suggestion (from Nora, no less!) with such a solemn tone of voice almost gave her pause. Still, she managed to say with some degree of seriousness, "Uh, are you from a different planet? This is Remnant, in the wildernesses of Mistral—sound familiar?"

"No."

"Seriously?" Jaune interrupted before Ruby's train of thought could quite catch up to what that response meant for life and civilization as she knew it. "You're not from this planet? How are we understanding each other right now, then? No way every planet has the same language! You've gotta be kidding me!"

"No."

Jaune sputtered incomprehensibly. Ren picked up the thread. "Where did you come from, if not Remnant?"

"The City," it said again.

"Very helpful," Jaune grumbled.

The absurdity of the situation was starting to get to her. The alien(?) robot(?) still hadn't moved from the spot on the road where it had formed out of light. The well-deserved caution was starting to wear away from her teammates, their guards lowering since no threatening gestures had been detected. For all that it was eerie and unnatural, the ink-dripping abomination (she really needed to get its name. Did it have a name?) seemed more lost and confused than anything. Almost pitiful.

"Let's start over," Ruby decided. "Hi! I'm Ruby. This is Jaune," she pointed at each teammate in succession, "that's Nora, and this is Ren. What's your name?"

That actually managed to elicit a physical reaction, a slight rattling of golden chains and the clenching of giant fists. The dripping of ink intensified.

"Unimportant. Can you name the will of the city? The wishes of a billion people? Their desires for succor, for release, for revenge, for justice? The Prescripts know all, and they know I do not need a name. It has been discarded."

Once again, that was a handful, one Ruby didn't want to delve into at this moment. She opened her mouth, planning to move onto other casual conversation topics with the alien… okay, she really wasn't thinking this through as much as she probably should when it came to first contact with an extraterrestrial race. Unfortunately (more fortunately, actually), Nora had other ideas.

"So I dunno about any of your weird alien ways," Nora started. "Dunno about your City or your Prescripts or your obsession with… I don't even know. But what I got out of that was that you do have a name. You just don't wanna tell us."

"It is unimp-"

"I don't care!" Nora interrupted, raising her voice to talk over the muffled keyboard clacking. "Spill! It's getting really annoying referring to you in my head as 'alien inky robot thing!'"

"..."

The alien inky robot thing did not respond, and it took the assorted teenagers a moment to realize that it wasn't planning on doing so in the near future, resulting in a silence more awkward than Ruby any had ever encountered before. And given how astronomically (hah) bad she was at talking to strangers, that was saying something.

They couldn't stand here like this forever, in this awkward evening standoff. The sun was slowly, steadily dipping past the horizon, the shattered moon rising to take its place. They would need to make camp soon, set someone to keep watch for Grimm—Ruby believed it was her turn? Not all of their time could be spent gawking.

Still, this was, like, first contact! Or something! The unnamed alien showed no signs of movement, simply hovering above the ground, its 'hair'-cloth swaying slightly in the breeze, but that didn't mean they could just leave it there! The Grimm would get it eventually, assuming it didn't move to defend itself.

Or something. Did it even have Aura? It looked mighty menacing—those hands could probably compress a human into a slab of meat without issue.

Ruby glanced around at the rest of her team before realizing that they were all looking back at her, subtly following her lead, waiting for her to do something, say something.

So she did.

"So… okay," she started, mentally trying to align the words in her head in the least painful manner possible. "Like I said. We're heading to Mistral—big city, lots of people there, you know I'm sure! Uh. We're going to meet the headmaster of… uh…do you even know what a school or Huntsmen or anything like that are? Or do you have, like, weird alien education facilities led by hive minds?"

"Yes. The former."

She was doing a terrible job at this. "In that case… uh. Headmaster Lionheart is the person we're going to meet, he's pretty important. If you want to get back to your… uh, home planet—" that felt just plain awful to say, like something out of a terrible science fiction show, "—then maybe he might be able to help you?"

"..."

Ruby took a deep breath. "So… would you like to travel with us? For a while? We're still a couple of weeks away from Mistral, but… it's not safe to go alone. Lots of Grimm and bandits and whatnot. Plus, you don't know the way! And, uh, to be fair, neither do we, exactly, but we at least know the general direction?"

She was rambling. Had to cut this off before she embarrassed herself further. "Anyway. What do you say?"

"Yes. That is fine."

Ruby blinked. There had been absolutely no hesitation in that response. It hadn't needed time to think things over or consider terms or anything.

It must have been truly desperate to get back to its "City".

"Okay then! We're actually done traveling for the day, starting to get a little dark out, you know. We'll set up camp over… here, I guess. Do you need sleep? Food?"

She gesticulated over towards the side of the road, a fairly clear patch amidst some trees. The ink-robot's 'head' swiveled sideways to look at it.

"No, to both. I will stand vigil."

Nora and Ren glanced towards each other out of the corner of her eye. Ruby understood.

"Heh, uh, after we finish making camp and eating, (we do still have food left right)" "(Yes)", "you don't mind if I, uh, stand vigil with you, do you?"

Because even if they were tentatively trusting it not to kill them or attack them right now, they'd still prefer the security that came with one of their own staying on watch.

"No."

Ruby put a smile on her face. "Great! Welcome to the team… uh. Alien inkbot!"

"..."

"Still needs a better name," Jaune muttered.

To… consider fifteen possible ways to kill a person. Execute the thirteenth on the next person you come across.

얀샋ㄷ요무 no longer had eyes. They'd burst out of his skull when he had distorted and he was less miserable for it. The lock over the space where his face had once been could still perceive, but no longer had to truly see. Even his memories were pale shades of what they used to be. Vivid red and blurry filters reduced to ink-stained black.

To… run ten miles without stopping.

The neon stars in the sky, he could sense, were brighter, here. The murky gutter sky was clearer, the moon larger and whiter. Broken, as well, shards scattered outward. The result of a Singularity, perhaps? It must have been normal here, for the girl in red hadn't outwardly reacted to its rising. The greenery around him, from a distance, may have resembled that of District 22, but was clearly different upon closer inspection.

Truly, this wasn't the City.

To… buy and consume a croissant from Dacrois's Bakery.

Back when he had possessed them, when his eyes had been opened, they had seen a reality too present to tolerate. When they had been closed, they'd remembered a past too painful to forget. He'd chosen the latter. For the sufferings—his sufferings never ended, but at least there was hope that he might open his eyes to a brighter future. Or keep them closed as his final breath left him, granting him peace now and forevermore.

There was no hope. He would have no peace.

To… pick up a knife and stab a familiar warm body.

He'd deluded himself with a false belief, trying to reach the City's sky with his dirty hands. His treasured volition was nothing but a single-edged sword, biting back towards him and him only. The Prescripts knew all, saw all. His efforts, in vain. Upon realizing his futility, he'd locked himself away. He couldn't possibly enjoy this nightmare. And he had no power to change it.

To… fully realize the price of silence.

And even here, in this strange new place. Without the City to guide him, the Prescripts will as was the City's will as was his will as was the people's will… he still knew.

That people were cruel. Always cruel.

That he had no more strength to move forward on his own two feet. All he could do was drift with the flow.

That he couldn't go home. Following through was impossible.

That all hope was gone. There was nothing he could do.

To… leave your home. Do not go home until you finish reading the value of e.

"Receive a Prescript... And carry it out…" the being once known as Yan Vismok said, quietly. An unending mantra, for the Prescripts were unending.

Beside him, the red-hooded girl known as Ruby Rose heard him. And responded, kindly, for Ruby Rose was kind.

"So... how are you doing?"

Hello! I was depressed by the lack of Library of Ruina fic, so I wrote one.

I'll keep this short: if you enjoy, please leave a comment! If you don't, please leave a comment anyway! Compliments, criticism, and whathaveyou all appreciated.

Also I guess I could post RNJR's LoR stat sheets? But eh, whatever. Only if people want to see my gratuitous garbage.