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Back aching, Jaune eased back into the seat he'd been at only a few hours earlier, back in the canteen. By now, other working students from around the Academy were starting to filter in for early dinners, too. Some were dressed in smithing aprons, or in light trousers and shirts that Jaune knew butchers and meat workers wore under their cover-alls and aprons, or simple uniforms with ink-stained fingers from, he assumed, office work. Others still wore dirt-stained trousers and blouses from field work, picked leaves out of their hair from forestry, and cradled bruised limbs and bloodied lips from sparring.
"Strange…"
"What is?" Adel asked as she sat across from he and Cardin, and they all turned to wave one of the serving Chastened over.
"This is an academy for nobility, right?" She and Cardin nodded and he waved at the others filing into the canteen with a shrug. "I see farmers, woodworkers, butchers… I just didn't expect it, I guess."
"Headmaster likes for Beacon to be about as self-sufficient as can be." She shrugged, "And… Well, plenty of us grow up on estates out there, but we usually don't know much about how it all actually works. So they suggest we take courses working out there, doing this and that, so we know how to better manage our own estates when we go home."
"That's why you were foresting?"
"That and…" She paused, flicked him a look, then sighed and shrugged. More quietly, she said, "I just like the work, too."
"Not exactly women's work…"
"Women's work is what women do for work, isn't it, Winchester?" She countered, raising an unamused eyebrow and rolling her eyes when he just scoffed. Ignoring him, she said, "So… You want me?"
"In my cohort, yes…" Jaune answered carefully, earning a long, dry chuckle from the woman.
"Saying I'm not good enough?" She pressed in a bright, airy voice, smiling when he frowned. "Not your type?"
"'My type' is just someone I've known for more than… What, three hours?" Jaune shrugged, waving her off breezily even if he, honestly, felt a spike of anxiety well up at the way her eyes narrowed. "I need people I can trust to help me rebuild my father's cohort. That's all."
"You think you can trust me?"
"I think I have plenty of reasons to, and not a lot of reasons not to. Your service will prove one way or the other, given time." He answered diplomatically, shrugging uncaringly after. Whatever test she was subjecting him to, he seemed to pass well enough, because she just shrugged and he went on. "What do you bring to my new cohort?"
"You could have gotten a lesson list and skill break down from Beacon…"
"We did." Cardin grunted, turning to him in confusion, "Brother, did you not-"
"I don't care what paper and proctors have to say about the measure of a woman, Brother." He cut the man off gently, turning to give him a long look that he hoped the man would understand lacked any heat or anger. "I want to hear what she has to say for herself. Directly. In her own words. Words I can hold her to, because I refuse to hold the words of others against her."
"That… Is fair." Cardin nodded, taking his meaning and leaning back as the serving Chastened came over, carrying a huge bowl of mashed potatoes covered in cheese and three slabs of seared meat.
Simple fare, Jaune knew, but filling - and great after a day of work.
"Well…" Adel hummed, leaning back in her seat while she thought and he took some small satisfaction in having managed to push her onto the back foot. Mostly just because she'd tried to put him on it first. Finally, she said, "You've seen how strong I am yourself. No limp wrist can fell trees, right?"
"Right."
"So… I'm good in a fight, and you know at least half of it since you know I cane swing an axe." She frowned and sighed, chuckling weakly and adding, "Damn, this is… Actually harder than I thought it'd be."
"Is it?" Jaune asked, curious now that she said it. "How so?"
"Just… Not used to selling myself." She shrugged, scooping a hearty helping of spuds onto her plate and grabbing the knife to cut up her meat. "So to speak, I mean. I guess the simplest way to put it is that you know I'm strong enough, but the first fight you see me in will be when I can prove the rest. Short of bringing some Grimm or Faunus in here to fight, somehow, which…"
"Not on the list of things to do, yeah." Jaune nodded, chuckling as he accepted the wooden spoon and spooned some of the potatoes onto his plate. Nodding, he said, "Very well. At least I know you're not just some boastful idiot, when it comes to strength. So worst comes, you can at least hit a Grimm hard enough for it to matter."
"Yeah, and I'm no idiot." She added, gesturing at the wall and, beyond it, presumably the forest. "I know woods. I know the forest. Two years, I've spent here, but back home I was an outdoorsy kind as well."
"So you'd be able to help us travel in the woods?"
"More than that," she smiled, "I know how to fight in them."
"You… Do?" He murmured, thinking back to the first battle he'd been in. Where he'd seen so many Knights fall, ripped apart and cut down by only a handful of Grimm who managed to stay hidden far too long thanks to the woods.
"Mhm." She nodded, smiling widely, "My family has a history of defending the coast, where the forests are thick. I've studied it, learned how forest fighting works. How to scout it, how to lay defences, what to look out for. And I can forage, too. A few hands, and we'll stay supplied."
"I'll take you, if you'll have us." Jaune grunted sharply, the smell of blood washing across the back of his mind.
"Just like that…?"
"Just like that." He nodded, turning to Cardin and adding. "You two will serve directly under me, for now."
"Aye, Brother."
"I guess that's it then…" Coco hummed, chuckling around a mouthful of potatoes before she asked. "Who else have you got eyes on?"
"No one." He shrugged when her eyebrows went up, and smiled as he went on. "I… Wanted to get a handle on my close core of officers. One more, and I'll say it'd good. Then we just need manpower. Uh, right, Cardin?"
"Mhm."
"If you need another guy…" Coco murmured, "I may know someone."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She nodded, "He's, uh… Not proper nobility, though. Just a friend of mine, followed me here when I came."
"Please," Jaune smiled, "introduce us."
"Sure." She nodded, "After food. He's always meditating out in the gardens in the evenings, so he'll be easy to find."
Jaune nodded and, stomach rumbling, turned to tuck into his food.
The gardens were actually more of greenhouses, according to Coco, with curving roofs ten feet tall made of clear glass like he'd never seen before. Rows of stone planters had been built, dug ever so slightly into the ground, with pipes that ran over them and joined at doors on either end of the long half-cylinders of metal and glass. Water towers were built between each of them, with their sides protruding in at the center where water buckets were waiting to be filled, so that water could be put into the 'drippers' at either end, which were more or less small water tankards themselves, which connected to the pipes and, through pressure, kept them full so that a simple lever could open them to water the vegetables below whenever was needed. Rain water and melting ice from furnaces built beside the towers, in turn, filled the water towers between them, all allowing Beacon to keep some growth going year round.
The work area in the center was kept more or less clear, aside from shelves of gardening tools, and that was where they found the man kneeling in the dirt.
"That's… Him?"
"Yep." Coco chuckled, shaking her head as the giant rumbled, acknowledged her with a nod, and slowly stood, towering a head over all of them. Smiling, she said, "Hey, Yats. I brought friends."
"Indeed." He nodded, turning an eye on Jaune, "You are the new, young Lord of House Arc…"
"And I have come here looking for people to rebuild my father's cohort of the Preying Eagle." He nodded, putting aside the nerves that ran up his spine when the man's dark eyes narrowed on him. Gesturing at Coco, he said, "Your… Friend has agreed to join, and suggested you as the last of what will be the core leadership of my cohort. If you are wiling, of course."
"Four is hardly a cohort…"
"Maybe," Cardin grunted, crossing his arms, "but once Arc has his core, he can just call for recruits. No one is liable to refuse House Arc's call."
"Why not do that to recruit us, as well?"
"I want to know the people I'll be working with." Jaune answered with a small shrug, "At least directly. I'm not foolish enough to expect to be on first names with all two dozen people I'll have under me, but…"
"I understand the idea." Yatsuhashi rumbled, nodding his head, "If Coco has accepted, then as do I."
"Just like that…?"
"I trust her." He answered simply, turning to returned to his spot. "If that be all, I shall return to meditation."
Slowly, Jaune turned to Coco who just shrugged and said, "He's a bit strange, sure-"
"I am not strange."
"-but he's honest. If he says he's with us, he is." She went on, ignoring him entirely as she turned to leave. "Now, if you don't mind, I know a handful more people I can get on board with you before the night's over. Friends of mine, sorta."
"How many?"
"Oh, a dozen or so." Coco shrugged, "They may grab a couple others. I'll get all their names and get them to you for filing with the Headmaster."
"A-Alright then…" Jaune blinked, slowly, trailing along behind her and sighing, "Alright… So, that will about do us for a start, I guess?"
"Yep." Coco nodded as they stepped out into the chill wind of evening finally creeping in properly. "You two alright if I head back? I have some people to talk to, now.
"Mhm." Cardin rumbled as Coco waved them off and left, headed back to the Academy canteen with a wicked smirk stretched across her face. Why, neither knew, so Cardin ignored it to say. "We should get some rest. Once she's got her little knitting circle of friends together, we should march."
"Yeah." Jaune nodded, "We should."
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By noon the next day, Jaune was once again in his uniform, sitting in the Headmaster's office while the man approved the transfer requests from twenty five of his students, including Coco and her giant friend. It wasn't an army, to be sure, but twenty five armored Knights could array in two rows of twelve, with Jaune, Coco and Cardin at the back, and hold well enough. They'd need support for larger engagements, of course, but that was how his father had conducted the Cohort as well.
And, of course, it was a cohort - not an army.
"I am glad your business was well concluded, Lord Arc." The Headmaster said as he set the stack of signed papers in a wooden box Jaune had brought, sealed with a simple lid and lock.
"I am as well." He nodded, flicking the wooden box a look and asking. "What happens now?"
"I have these," he tapped the lid with a finger, "sent to my scribes, where they will be copied three-fold. One will be sent to your House, for safekeeping. Another to the Archives, for yet more copies to be dispatched to each House they belong to. The last will remain here, in the Academy's own archives."
"Redundancy." Jaune nodded, "Smart."
"Indeed." Ozpin smiled thinly, turning and reaching behind his desk. He produced a letter and laid it on the table for him, smile tightening as he did. "Orders from the capital, arrived this morning for me to relay to you."
"So soon…?"
"War is many things, but rarely patient." The older man sighed, shaking his head. "Villages along the coast are losing caravans of food and goods bound, predominantly, for the capital."
"Grimm?"
"Possibly." He nodded, "Or Faunus raiding parties, disrupting our supply lines."
"Hmmm…" Now would be a good time for that, with the cold weather creeping in. Most of Vale was temperate enough for some farming, he remembered from Ember's lessons, but not all of it. And northern fishing dried up almost entirely over winter as the shoals migrated south and east, towards Mistral. If they could hamper food distribution ahead of it…
"I can see by your face you understand the importance of your new assignment, my young Lord." The headmaster's chuckle stole his attention back and Jaune turned to him and, embarrassed a bit at having been caught out, nodded stiffly. "Good. Then see your cohort supplied and see yourself off. You have work to do, and interesting friends waiting for you. Or, at least, to see what you do next."
"Interesting friends…"
The headmaster only nodded, smiled knowingly, and waved him away with a dismissive hand. Jaune felt anxiety pool in his gut, but forced himself to just smile and stand. Nodding his goodbye, he turned and left without another word.
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