Paralyzed

Liv's Plum colored eyes shot open wide, sweat dripping from her brow to her cheeks as her lungs and heart slammed against her chest. It felt as if every single bit of her organs were compressed, shoved forward against her rib cage and stomach, even her eyes felt pressured as if even her brain was trying to beat its way out of her skull.

Everything hurt. Every digit, every muscle, every joint, even every vein in her entire body felt swollen and raw. Yet, at the same time, she soon found that the pain seemed far away. Bright and vibrant as ever the pain had been, and yet somehow distant, as if it belonged to someone else. As if somehow her own body was in two places at once, really. Like she was remote controlling her own body from a far off place, and the worst part?

It wasn't responding.

Liv found all too quickly that she couldn't move. It felt like an entire building was laid on top of her, like her entire form was encased in a cement coffin. She couldn't so much as twitch her finger tips, her arms locked at her sides and her chest so tight that she couldn't hardly even breath. She felt crushed, her mind rambled and screamed orders that seemingly traveled nowhere and only echoed off of her skull, rattling around like a chained animal in a cage.

Her breaths were sharp and short, her brain becoming more and more starved for oxygen as it raced and she heard the first of her own whimpers break through the deafening silence outside of her mind.

What is this?

Her eyes found only darkness around her, an endless void of nothingness encasing her.

Help, the voice in her head was scared and small. She couldn't even grind her teeth together, the immobility was so absolute. She couldn't struggle against whatever was crushing her at all, couldn't even dig her fingernails into her palms.

Ambur, her mind reached out again as she felt her voice catch in her throat, an extreme sadness washing through her as she choked on the imaginary word. Tears began to stream down her face as she tried to will her fingers, her anything, to move.

Her toes, her legs and arms, every single inch of her body was set as if in concrete. Mydnight, her mind reached out again, hoping and praying that one of her friends would notice her distress. This is just a dream, she tried to assure herself. Just a nightmare, you need to wake up.

Then Ambur was before her, there in the darkness, like a bright sunflower reflecting the sun back at her through the dark cloud her mind had conjured to torture her with.

Ambur

The figure walked closer to her, nearly nose to nose by the time she stopped, the image of the Amazon bent forward to come down to Liv's short stature. Her eyes were slits, the smile on her lips nothing like anything Liv had seen there before.

Liv's eyes twitched downward as she tries to avoid looking Ambur in the eyes. "Guilty as always," the figure said to her. Liv tried to respond, but her lips wouldn't move and the crushing weight around her wouldn't even allow her to gasp for air. "You tried to steal him from me," Ambur mused, and past her perfect face Liv spotted Mydnight walking up to them.

His arms went around Ambur and he pulled her back from Liv, their eyes locking as Liv was forced to watch. "You tried to ruin this both ways," Ambur corrected herself before she pressed a kiss to the wolf's perfect lips. "Tried to steal each of us from the other."

Liv tried desperately to speak but again, it was no use. She could feel cheeks becoming wet now as the guilt surged out of her. She kept it locked up so deep all the time, never let her friends see how truly sorry she felt, and never spoke to them about her feelings. She'd tried once, as they were traveling through Anima to catch up with Ruby and her friends. She'd only really scratched the surface though, and now that Mydnight and Ambur knew that Liv had tried to kiss Mydnight it somehow felt even worse.

It's just a dream, she squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could. Ambur doesn't know I almost kissed her at the concert, it's just a dream! I don't want to watch this! Wake up you idiot!

"You could never measure u-"

"Liv?" Mydnight asked quietly, his attention ripped away from his thoughts. He'd been silently contemplating their situation for over an hour now, and neither of his companions had seemed as if they'd wanted to speak.

Ambur looked up from the table between them, for she had been lost in thought as well, though not nearly about the same thing. "Hm?" She hummed.

"Is Liv…crying in her sleep?" Mydnight sat up and leaned forward across the table. Ambur sat beside Liv on the other side of their booth, her icy white hair pressed against the window of their train car.

After Oz had told them that he shared Midnight's suspicion that Ambur had inherited the powers of the Fall Maiden, things had been put in motion fairly quickly. Ozpin agreed that a short respite for the trio would be only a good thing, they had relented and Olivier had come up with their travel itinerary quite fast. Within the day they were gone, leaving their younger companions behind.

The younger students had resolved to head for Atlas, but only after such a time that Weiss had recovered, so they would probably be stuck in Mistral for at least another week.

Liv had got them each a train ticket in relative silence that night and now, a day later, they were several hours into their train ride across the northeastern coast of Anima. Their ride shouldn't be too much longer, but this route was now express. Not like the Argus line that their younger compatriots were likely to take.

The plan was simple for them for now at least. They were going to meet Liv's family and stay a few days at the orchard. It should be plenty quiet, now that it was winter, and Liv's mother had sounded ecstatic about the idea from what Mydnight had overheard. Liv on the other hand had seemed more down than usual about the idea.

"Liv?" Ambur asked as she brushed some of her long locks out of her face, and found her small friend's cheeks wet. "Hey," she said gently, worry spilling across her features. Ambur took hold of Olivier's shoulders and shook her gently, Liv's face tightening up for a moment before her eyes finally opened.

"Huh?" She sucked inna breath and found both of her friends faces far too close to her own. She tried to pull back from them and smacked the back of her head on the window she had been lying against. Liv sucked a pained breath in through her teeth and pressed a hand to the back of her head. "Ow."

"Sorry," Ambur sighed and Liv froze up as she felt Ambur wipe her fingers across her cheeks to clear her tears. "Are you alright?"

Liv was silent for a while as she looked back and forth between her friends, and then down to her lap. "No," she admitted. "Had a nightmare, I'll be fine. Thank you for waking me up."

"Of course. Have you been having trouble sleeping lately?" Mydnight asked as he sat back into his seat.

"Not consistently. I just…have nightmares about being paralyzed after the bus crash from time to time." She held back the other details of her dream, not quite ready to share them.

"You have those too?" Ambur asked, her red eyes going wide in surprise. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Liv's plum eyes met her best friend's and she cocked her head to one side. "Too?"

"Liv I…I have nightmares all the time of being in the hospital unable to move cus of my legs."

"Really? I didn't know that," Liv wondered aloud.

"Of course, I wish I had known someone else knew what it was like," Ambur said, slightly more desperately than Liv was prepared for.

"You could've told me…why didn't you?" Liv shrunk back in the seat.

"Everything just started happening so fast," Ambur said softly, her vision sinking to her own hands in her lap. "Your accident, Our Vytal Festival, the Uru, everything just sort of started to blur together after a while," she sighed and turned her palms up. "Now this…"

Her companions were silent for a moment before Liv spoke, "what does it feel like?"

"I don't know," Ambur sighed. "Wrong. It feels like I'm watching myself in a play, rather than acting on stage. And when I mess up, it feels like I wasn't the one who did it."

"I guess that's understandable," Liv said quietly and took one of Ambur's hands in her own. "At least you two can really understand each other now."

Mydnight sighed through his nose, "I guess you could say that, yeah."

"What should I do? Oz didn't really give us any advice?"

"Just be aware of your anger and try to relax. That's what this trip is about for you two, taking some time off."

"Well what's it about for you?" Mydnight raised an eyebrow at Liv. "You seemed pretty down about it on the phone."

Liv rolled her eyes, "I know you don't do it on purpose but eavesdropping really is rude Mydnight."

"Sorry," he shrugged. "I literally can't turn it off."

"I know," Liv took a long breath. "I don't talk to my parents much."

Ambur and Mydnight waited for Liv to continue but it seemed after a long silence that she wouldn't do so unprompted. "You certainly haven't told us much of anything about them over the years."

Liv seemed to snap out of a stupor at that, "sorry," she shook her head. "Look they weren't bad parents or anything, so don't get all defensive on me. They just…" Liv looked out the window and caught her own reflection in it. "They just never really saw anything other than themselves in me."

"Do you need any help with your bag?" Jaune asked as they began to file out the door of the house.

"That's alright, thanks to you I'm feeling much better," Weiss managed a small smile upward at him. "I'm," she hesitated, her smile dropping and her vision settling on her bag. "I'm really thankful for your help you know…I'm sorry for," she started, trying to organize her mental list into something coherent before shaking her head. "Everything, really."

Jaune seemed a little stunned for a moment before he ran one hand through his hair and placed another on her shoulder. Her icy blue eyes met his and she found him smiling. "Thank you for saying so."

Weiss smiled back and followed everyone else out onto the dirt path away from the house. "Do you think they are alright? I don't know if it was such a good idea to split up." She said softly as she caught up to her partner.

Ruby had been about to ask to whom Weiss was referring to until those last few words and her heart sank a little. "I hope so. I agree, I think splitting up was a bad idea too."

"I know they are a league above us but there's still only three of them, and no professionals with them, it seems reckless."

"I know what you mean but," Ruby's eyes met Weiss' and then she looked forward to Oscar who was out in front of them talking with Qrow. "Maybe she really does need the quiet time to figure out how to handle her new powers."

"I still feel like you're leaving something out," Weiss sighed. "Like you forgot to tell me something."

"I really didn't," Ruby shrugged. "Oz and Mydnight think…well, know, that Ambur is now the Fall Maiden. Oz can't seem to tell us why thou-" she started but was cut off.

"You never asked why or how, in my defense," Oz's glowing yellow eyes glanced back at her from Oscar's face. He turned his head front and continued to talk loud enough for the group to hear. "I don't enjoy speculation without facts, but I'll give you my only guess. What Ambur doesn't know is during her teams Vytal Festival we actually allowed the other Amber, the Fall Maiden that Qrow and Mydnight rescued, out of stasis for just a few minutes to see what her condition was and if she was getting any better."

"And?" Yang piped up.

"She was not in fact any better. If anything while being out of status for only a handful of minutes she crept closer to death's door. When it became obvious that there was no way to save her, we resolved to coach her on who to picture in her mind, should the machine not work as planned."

"Not work as planned?" Blake asked. "Did you not test it?"

"And how would you propose we test it exactly?" Ozpin raised an eyebrow at her. "The machine was new and we had never had an opportunity to try it before. Judging by the way that Miss Nykos reacted to it I can't say whether or not it would have worked or not, even given more time."

Team JNR's faces all seemed bleak then, but Ozpin continued talking anyway.

"I had Qrow use his scroll to show Amber what Miss Magnaria looked like, coached her on her personality as fast as possible, and we put the Fall Maiden back into stasis. It is unknown what each Maiden actually sees or feels while they die and pass the power to the next host, as clearly none of them live to tell about it. However as far as we know, Amber was the first to have the powers ripped out of her while she was alive. My only theory is that somehow, her consciousness was preserved within Cinder while she wielded the Maiden's power, and upon Cinder's death, Amber was finally able to rest, and was able to choose her successor as she should have been able to in the first place."

"That's a big assumption but," Yang scratched the back of her head, "I guess we'll probably never know, and it probably doesn't matter anyway."

"Correct," Ozpin agreed. "The point is that Miss Magnaria is now even more capable of protecting her group than she ever was before. Combined with her inherent strength she could likely be the most durable human being on Remnant right now. Once they have a few days to get their heads on straight I am confident Ambur's fits of rage will subside and she will be ready to start learning to use her newfound abilities."

"In her defense," Weiss started, "most of her outbursts have been," she paused and tried not to look at Yang of Qrow.

"Warranted," Yang confirmed with a sigh.

"I won't argue that," Qrow murmured.

"Yeah," Weiss breathed.

"Still," Ruby cleared her throat. "It's easy to see that something's been eating at her. Something more than what we've seen anyway. I hope they're okay."

Ruby felt Weiss' thin fingers slip into her own and their eyes locked, Ruby a little surprised by the sincerity of the gentle smile on her partner's face.

"They will be, I know it."

"What happened?" Salem demanded, darkness engulfing the room around the ragtag party.

"Ma'am," Hazel choked up bravely, "Rosaria is in critical condition, surely that's most important right now."

"Is it?" Salem raised an eyebrow and eyed Rosa's unconscious body, her arm limp and clearly broken. "I should think with such a failure I may as well wipe you all out and start fresh," she bit furiously. "You've failed me spectacularly this time. Where is Adam?"

"Gone ma'am," Hazel bowed his head. "He ran back to the White Fang I'm sure. All he cares about is that-"

"Do I look like I care what he cares about?!" Salem shouted. "Where is my Fall Maiden?"

"Cinder picked a fight with Raven Branwen alone," Hazel admitted. "She went where we could not assist her, and she lost."

Salem's eyes widened slightly at that. "So let me be sure I've got this, crystal clear," she turned to face away from them and began to pace around the room. "After gaining only one of the Maiden's we've now lost everything I've worked so hard to accomplish? And that," she stopped and pointed at Rosa. "Is all I've got left to show for it?"

Hazel went silent and refused to answer, Mercury and Emerald stone silent behind him as well. Bronzine was the only one who stepped forward to speak up.

"We gained information, I know it isn't much, but it does matter." Salem stopped and turned her scowl toward him. Bronzine swallowed hard and balled his fists, trying to find his resolve. "Now we know that Raven is the Winter Maiden, and we know that their group has the Relic, and we know that Ambur Magnaria is now the Fall Maiden. We at least know who we are after and where they are likely to be."

"Hm," Salem almost smiled, a wicked sarcastic smirk, if anything. "And how could I forget about you, our sweet Amnesiac. Whom," she hummed as she walked up to him and pressed her hands down onto his shoulders and held his vision with her glowing red eyes. "I suspect has learned a great deal about himself on our little catastrophe of a mission."

Bronzine swallowed hard as her long nails dig into his shoulders, into flesh that hardly anyone knew the location of, but she did. "I'm still here," he said, trying to sound confident. "They told me things and I'm still here. It doesn't matter what they said. I'm loyal to you now and I won't leave."

Salem almost seemed a mite surprised by his words, but her suspicious smirk did soften into an almost motherly smile.

"Well if anything good came out of this mess, I suppose there is at least that," her right hand moved up to his chin and he did his very best to stand completely still and show no fear as her thumb brushed across his half metal and half flesh cheek. "One competent scout is better than none."