Here's some cute shit for you all a day early, as a special Halloween treat.

Start Chapter 48

Jaune wakes up in the middle of the night to find their camp missing one of its more important members – at least in Jaune's personal opinion. He looks about for a moment, trying to not let the exhaustion hanging about his eyes lure him back into the warm depths of his sleeping bag.

Instead, even if he wants nothing more than to snuggle back in, he gets up, and looks around.

But he doesn't see Cinder anywhere.

Worry floods through him immediately, and he bumps up against their link in an effort to get Cinder's attention, but receives nothing in response.

His worry only grows.

And yet, a familiar feeling begins to course throughout him. It is one he has not felt in a while, but it is one he recognizes. It is the magnetic pull he'd experienced back in Menagerie; that which had led him to Cinder's room all that time ago.

And it calls to him once again.

He doesn't waste any time. He strolls into the forest beyond them without any concern for his own safety – and he forgets to bring Crocea Mors, which he should probably be more careful not to do.

He walks for a short period of time – maybe thirty seconds – before he begins to hear the rushing of water. Either a river or a stream of some kind, given its not exactly loud. He follows the sound to where his link is telling him that Cinder is.

Finally, he pushes out of the forest, and into a clearing perhaps twenty or so meters across. Immediately, he scans it for Cinder, and he finds her.

There is a problem that immediately jumps out to Jaune.

Cinder is bathing herself.

Which…

Yeah. Huh.

"S-Sorry!" He calls out, despite the fact that Cinder had had her back to him, and had probably not even realized he had been there.

His words, however, cause a spike of panic to lance through their link, and before Jaune can get another word in edgewise, Cinder has turned around with her hand alight with fire, ready to snuff out any potential threats.

Jaune has his own hands in the air, trying his best to look apologetic.

Cinder lets out an aching, piercing sigh as her entire form deflates, and he can feel the relief course through their link as she sinks down in the water so that her chest is no longer visible to him.

"What are you doing here?" She asks.

"Well, I woke up, and you weren't… y'know, in camp. I sent you a twinge on the link, did you not…?"

"I didn't feel anything," Cinder says, looking away from him with some small embarrassment. "I was rather busy trying to get the last week or so's grime out of my skin. I imagine it simply passed me by."

"Ah. Yeah."

Neither of them speaks for quite a bit of time after that. Jaune just stands at the edge of the clearing, and Cinder stares off in the opposite direction, turning herself around so that she can pull herself up out of the water somewhat.

It occurs to Jaune, however, that this is the first time in an awfully long time that he's seen Cinder without her left arm – what remains of it – covered. He finds himself checking it quickly, seeing if the scar tissue around it has healed properly.

And for the most part, it has. Jaune lets out a breath of relief at that, and Cinder turns to look at him out of the corner of her eye with a question clearly in her gaze.

He tells her what he'd been concerned with, and she actually smiles. It's a gentle, small thing, and Jaune finds it looks lovely on her.

"It's just like you to worry over something that shouldn't concern you at all." Cinder says, shaking her head.

"Why shouldn't it worry me?"

Cinder pauses a moment, her next few words clearly caught. "…I suppose because the problem has long since resolved itself."

"Well, the major problem, yeah," He says, indicating towards the whole 'missing left arm' thing, "But that doesn't mean that the scar tissue in and around your arm couldn't have gotten infected or developed some other problem."

"Don't worry about such trifling things."

"Of course, I worry about that." Jaune says, and though Cinder huffs out a breath, he can just see the blush on her cheeks as she turns away from him entirely. "I worry about just about everything when it comes to you."

Cinder nods her head, seemingly on auto-pilot, as she walks over to an upper section of the stream, which is spilling water off of a more elevated section – three or four meters high. It is high enough that she is able to dip her entire body into it, and take a pseudo-shower out here in the wilderness.

"I…"

"Do you… not believe me?"

"No, I do, it's simply…" Cinder runs her hands over her face, both cleaning herself, and trying to figure out what she wants to say. "I don't know. I just… half the time I think that one day you'll just…"

She goes quiet after that, saying nothing at all.

Jaune feels ice filling his gut; because he recognizes the feeling coursing through their link right now, and he hates it. He knows what it is Cinder's feeling, because it's a familiar one.

It's something he felt a lifetime ago, during his childhood.

"–all you'll ever do…" He hears, a fragmented, near-forgotten memory.

"One day I'll just?" He asks regardless, unwilling to drop this.

Cinder lets out a melancholic laugh; one lacking any mirth whatsoever.

"…Tire of me."

It hurts for him to hear Cinder say such a thing. It hurts worse than nearly anything he's ever felt emotionally, and he's fairly certain he'd rather go through Ironwood's soulmate messaging machine again rather than have to feel what he is right now.

"You – Cinder I'd never do that!"

She doesn't say anything.

"Cinder?"

She can't seem to face him, and that hurts Jaune quite a bit. He knows more than anything that this can't have come out of nowhere. Something had happened, and it had happened quite recently. He feels he'd have recognized this in Cinder if it had happened a few weeks back, for instance, but he'd not seen a thing.

What could have caused this, he wonders?

"Everyone else has." She says with a sad little laugh. "My family, Rhodes, Salem… I just…"

Jaune understands, really, that what he's about to do is kind of dumb. He's only got one outfit out here in the forest; it's a little bit below what he would consider comfortable swimming weather, and he doesn't really feel like freezing.

But before he can think any differently, he's shucked off his armor, and then his hoodie, and then the undershirt beneath it. And without hesitating, he leaps into the water.

The cold hits him immediately – and it's icy. He has no idea how Cinder has been seemingly comfortably relaxing in this water.

Speaking of Cinder, she turns around on a dime, then, her eyes wide with surprise.

"What are you…"

"I'm going to hug you." He says simply.

Cinder's brow furrows. "I'm naked."

"That doesn't matter." He states. "You need a hug. You'll get a hug."

Cinder looks like she's considering protesting, up until Jaune makes it to her, and, without even considering other things, opens his arms up in front of her.

"May I hug you?"

Cinder's gums flap a moment; seemingly entirely unsure as to how she's supposed to handle this.

"…You're an idiot."

"I do believe I'm your idiot, though. Now, may I hug you?"

Cinder breathes out a quiet, almost silent breath of laughter, then, and despite the way her chest is bare for him to see, he will not look.

This isn't about that. No matter how much some parts of him that he's ignoring with every fiber of his will are trying to tell him that nothing has ever been more about that.

Cinder closes the small distance between them in the next moment, and settles against him. Jaune wraps his arms around her in the next moment, and tries to squeeze hard enough to offer supreme comfort without hurting her.

By the contented little sound she gives, he thinks he's struck a good balance.

The hug is nice. It's extremely nice. It's been a few weeks since they've had a chance for a long period of one-on-one time, and Jaune's really, really missed it. Even being away from Cinder for a day feels torturous at times.

Still, the longer he's here, the more a certain aspect of their impromptu shared bathing session begins to grate at him.

He makes his displeasure known as his teeth finally begin to chatter, completely independent of his ability to keep them still.

Cinder snorts below her breath.

"How do you… stand this!?" He complains, shivering in place. "It's freezing!"

"I used to take cold showers all the time back at the Glass Unicorn." Cinder says, her voice quieting somewhat. "Before I had my semblance, I simply got used to the temperature. After… well, I learned I could heat the pipes to make the water warmer. That was, until, I heated them a bit too much, and accidentally melted the shower in the back room. Hah… the Madame shocked me for a long time that day… didn't feed me any dinner either. After that… well, I didn't dare to use my heat on the replacement the Madame had installed. So, I took cold showers for the rest of my time there."

Jaune squeezes just a little harder, trying to offer whatever comfort he can.

Well, that and steal a little of Cinder's warmth, which she somehow still possesses.

"But… ignoring how cold I am," Jaune shakes his head as he hears Cinder laugh into his shoulder. "Can I ask what happened? You seem especially upset."

Cinder doesn't say anything for a moment, and Jaune fears she might try and keep this all bottled up. Luckily, she sighs a moment after, and says, "It's nothing major. It's just…"

"If it made you feel this way, then it's major."

Cinder shakes her head against his neck. "You are such an… hah…"

He smiles, running a hand up and down her back in soothing motions.

"There was something in that vision that I don't think the others really got. Enkidu. He was… he was a slave. Just like me."

Jaune's eyes widen somewhat, but he can't exactly contest the words that Cinder's saying. It's true, after all. Enkidu had been a slave of Gilgamesh even in Salem's telling of the story, and as they'd seen it, that had been true. Gilgamesh might've loved him, but that didn't mean Enkidu shared those feelings.

"Gilgamesh, he…" Cinder swallows. "He took advantage of Enkidu. Used his position as king to do whatever he wanted."

Jaune nods, getting what she's saying.

"It… to see him meet such an end after all he went through, it just… it hurt. That his entire life was training, and more training, and having to lie there while some bastard king rutted in him, and then… and then what!? He got his throat slit and bled out in a hallway, all alone. All for nothing."

Jaune just holds Cinder; lets her vent her frustrations, her rage with the world into his chest. It's the only thing he can do for her.

"I just… all too often it is the downtrodden and the put upon that suffer, while those with power, wealth, and complete and utter apathy prosper."

Jaune doesn't argue against Cinder's words, mostly because he himself believes most of what she's saying to be true. The world isn't fair. It's all just luck of the draw.

Jaune had drawn pretty well, all things considered. He'd had a good family who'd loved and appreciated him. He'd made good friends his whole life; people he could rely on and trust. And eventually, he'd met Cinder, his soulmate and the love of his life. And yet even he could see that the way the world treated some of its inhabitants felt skewed.

Cinder… she'd not been nearly as lucky as he had.

For someone like Cinder who'd been dealt a terrible hand, the world likely seemed especially cruel.

Cinder confirms his exact suspicions with her next words.

"It's funny… I've always hated the brothers."

"Hm?"

"When I was young… I heard about them from some of the wealthier patrons while cleaning or making beds. They talked about the brothers who created this world, who had such power, and were paragons of virtue. I prayed to them every night for so long, hoping that they would save me from my plight. And instead… instead they just ignored me entirely. At least, that's how I saw it, when I was a kid."

Jaune nods. It makes sense, certainly. For a child slave to hear of a virtuous pair of gods that could do anything they wanted, and to constantly be met with nothing at all when asking for help…

Well, Jaune himself isn't too fond of the brothers these days, so he gets where Cinder's coming from.

"May I ask you something?" Cinder starts all of a sudden.

"Of course."

"What do you think… we're going to have to do in regards to the Gods?"

"I… I don't really know." Jaune admits. "But I suppose in the worst case… if we wanted to try and free Salem, or try and figure out just what the God of Light was doing, and they were opposed to us… we might have to face them."

"And do you think we could?"

"In all honesty? I don't think so. At least not in a straight fight. Salem says that she had armies of mages at her side when she faced them, and the Gods shrugged off those attacks like they were nothing at all. It wouldn't surprise me if they could do the same to anything that we threw at them."

Cinder nods her head, even as she herself begins to mimic Jaune's own movements with his hands, running her own up and down his back, writing intricate little patterns into his skin.

It's a terribly relaxing feeling. He feels like he could just close his eyes and fall asleep right here.

"Jaune?"

It's odd for Cinder to call out his name, and so when she pulls away from him and looks up into his eyes, he's expecting that something might be wrong.

He's not really expecting the way that her face is beat red, and her eyes can't seem to meet his own.

"Yeah?" He asks, feeling a bit of heat himself.

"If… if the worst were to happen… if we did have to fight the God of Light, and he was as invincible as Salem claims, then… then I wouldn't…" She pauses a moment, biting at her bottom lip. "I don't think I should leave things like this. I would want to know I did everything with you that I could."

Jaune feels his entire chest come alight with a blazing fire. His head too.

"What are you…"

Cinder cuts him off by pressing her lips against his.

It's filled with an energy that's never been there before. Before, there had never been any anticipation, never any idea that it might go beyond a simple kiss. But now…

Now there is a sort of spark between them that grows in power as Cinder pulls away.

"Do you… understand what I'm saying?"

"I uhm…" He swallows on nothing; his throat impossibly dry. "I think I do."

"Then… should we…"

Just about every part of Jaune's body is telling him that yes, they should. Certain parts of him that he'd been able to control for the night leading up to this finally break free, and are mutinying.

But even so… even despite the way that his body desires Cinder's own, even despite the way that he has been, in the back of his mind, looking forward to doing something like this with Cinder for a long, long time…

He can't help but notice the way that Cinder's arm is wrapped around herself, and how her right hand runs up and down her left arm, as if to try and offer warmth to her.

Of course, it could just be from the cold. It could just be the water they're standing in.

But Cinder had not been doing such things before.

And somehow it is that motion that allows Jaune to swallow down his libido; to swallow down the part of him that won't stop being a teenaged boy, and shake his head.

"No… let's not."

Cinder's eyes widen as she looks up at him, and for the first time since she'd suggested such an action, she's able to meet his eyes again.

"What?"

"I can tell…" He says as he smiles as gently as he can at her. "You're forcing yourself. I don't want that. I never want that."

Cinder looks away, but Jaune doesn't want to let her wallow in whatever embarrassment she's feeling now.

"We're going to survive; no matter what we get put up against." He speaks. "We're going to get our happy ending. And one day, when you're comfortable, when the two of us can forget about all of this… saving the world nonsense… then yeah, let's. Until then, though… you don't owe me anything, if that's what you're worried about. I happen to think we're just fine as is."

Cinder gapes at him. her lips open and close as she seems to try and force sound out of them, but she can't manage it. It is only after she looks away, and practically slams her body into his, wrapping him in a hug once again, that he hears three words he'd never have expected.

"…I love you." Cinder whispers, like a breeze inside a hurricane.

Jaune's eyes go wide, even as his heart feels so full that he fears he might burst. "You… you said it."

"I've always felt it." Cinder murmurs quietly, burying herself in his chest so as to not have to be seen. "But… I found the strength to say it, I suppose."

"…I love you, too." He says after a while, wrapping his own arms around Cinder again. "I'm never going to stop loving you."

"…How can you be sure?"

"It's the same as whatever's going to happen with the brothers," Jaune admits, feeling a little silly, but unable to worry so much about it. "I guess I just believe it's going to work out. I… just have faith."

Cinder shakes her head, but he can feel her lips turning upwards against his pectoral. "Always the optimist."

"I try my best."

"You're quite adept at it. Almost annoyingly so."

"I try my best."

Cinder cracks, then. She lets loose a tirade of snickers and snorts that make her sound like a snuffling pig; though obviously he'd never convey that thought. It's perhaps the single most endearing thing that anyone has ever done in his presence. He's – secretly – always taken great pleasure in the fact that Cinder's laugh is the least elegant thing about her.

He goes to reorient himself, because Cinder is pushing all her weight against him, but when he does, his foot tries to find purchase on a slippery rock, and before he knows it, they're both tumbling backwards into the water.

Jaune and Cinder both let out little yelps of surprise.

It takes them a good ten minutes just to get out of their wet clothes, given that they're laughing like idiots the entire time, somehow managing to make each other crack every time they're close to calming down. Jaune knows their camp is back a way's from where they are, but even so, he can't quite help the way he takes Cinder in his arms and holds her on the floor, content to sleep right then and there.

She'd somehow managed to snatch his hoodie away from him and don it herself while they'd been trying to get dressed, and in retaliation, Jaune had stripped out of his jeans and thrown on Cinder's leggings.

The poor things had ripped in several places trying to conform to his much fuller legs, but their owner had cackled loudly enough that Jaune had been pretty sure their friends were going to find them and yell at them to quiet down, so he considers their sacrifice worthwhile.

"I think…" Cinder says after a while, in front of the fire she's conjured via the Maiden's flames and some gathered sticks. "I wish every moment of my life could be like this."

Jaune doesn't know how his heart keeps it together after that. It's all he can do to reach over towards Cinder, bring her close to him, and kiss the top of her head.

"It will be, once it's all over."

Cinder smiles, even as she lets out a cute little yawn. "I… I hope so."

"I promise." He speaks. "And an Arc never goes back on his word."

"Oh, is this another one of those life lessons from your family that I've been hearing about from Ren and Nora?" Cinder asks, cocking an eyebrow at him. "What was that one; 'all women look for is confidence'?"

Jaune goes supremely red. "Let's… maybe not talk about that."

Cinder's laughter is a beauteous song; played by the most skilled musicians in a gorgeous venue, and somehow, he's got the whole place booked out just for him to hear.

"I love you." He says, though saying that feels like it's not enough. "So, so much."

Cinder goes red, even if she chuckles somewhat. "I know."

"Oh?"

"Mhm." Cinder hums, a glint of mirth in her eye.

"You've never let me forget it."

Jaune's laughter is all teeth.

"And I don't plan on starting now."

End Chapter 48

Every once in a while I say to myself 'y'know what, Jaune and Cinder haven't had a chapter to just be sweet and fluffy together in a while' and then I write one. This is that chapter.

Anywhoo, I'll see you all next week on Saturday, so a slightly longer break. I think you'll all make it regardless.