"I will allow you two a day and the night to rest. You did almost die and stay dead after all. If I hadn't ensured your Aura acted to heal you, you would have perished."
She picked up the sounds of scuffling feet and a soft, watery sound. She listened quietly, hearing the girl mutter something, sounding sad. Had they not found what they wanted?
Yang bit her lower lip. She wanted to look inside, to make sure her mat-Jaune-was safe. But he wanted her outside, protecting them in case the doors tried trapping them. The sounds started to die down, before a purple light flashed from the room and she could hear evil laughter. The hairs of the back of her neck stood up, and she moved into the middle of the doorway and peered inside, wincing as a blinding purple flash dazed her for a moment.
As she blinked away the spots floating in her vision, she saw Blake hurry over to two figures, the stench of rot oozing off them. Yang watched wearily, blinking in surprise and horror as the figures grabbed Blake and threw her onto the floor, her screams echoing through the chamber as they devoured her flesh. She stepped forward to help her, before she froze and her panicked eyes darted around the room, searching for Jaune.
Then her eyes fixated on his still form, crimson blood staining his yellow hair and pooling around him. A strange woman with pale skin, red eyes and dark veins criss-crossing her dress-clad body stood over him, and her crimson eyes met her and a smirk grew over her face.
The woman smirked as Yang felt her body tremble with rage and fear and grief. Her eyes were fixated on Jaune's corpse, agony shooting through her body, an icy, gaping maw opening inside her chest.
Jaune's eyes were cold and glassy and open but staring at nothing. They should be warm and friendly and kind and loving and safe and alive.
His hair was matted red with the blood pouring from the gash in his neck, spilling against his pale skin.
It was wrong. It shouldn't be happening. It shouldn't be real.
"You did almost die…If I hadn't acted…You would have perished."
Yang was nervous, and the reason why was smiling at her.
"You okay Yang?" Mercer asked, hazel eyes warm and fond towards the girl he'd professed his love for. She'd been visiting him for months now, sneaking out of her mother's cave in the hopes of seeing more of the world and to avoid her father's screams and begging whenever her mother decided she wanted to play with him.
It had made her feel lonely at first, not being allowed to play with her parents, but whenever her father looked at her with deadened eyes afterwards part of her felt glad, if not confused. Mates were supposed to care for each other.
"Yeah…" Yang replied idly, blushing when she realised she'd just been staring at him in the meantime. It had been on her mind for a while now, telling him the truth, but her mother's teachings still won out over her urge. "Do you love me?"
"Of course I do." Mercer grinned. "I'm the luckiest guy in the world, all the guys in the village are jealous of me because I'm with the most beautiful woman in the world. What more could a guy ask for?"
"I…I want to show you something." Yang said nervously, standing up so that she was in front of him. "C-Can I trust you?"
"Yes." Mercer nodded, eyes wide and voice breathless for some reason. "You can show me anything you want. Don't feel like you have to though."
"I want to." Yang said firmly, eyes narrowed determinedly. Mates should not hide things from one another, and Mercer was nice. He'd be understanding, he'd prove her mother's horror stories about humans wrong. "I love you."
"I love you-Yang?! You're glowing!"
"You would have perished."
"This place is making me feel really uncomfortable." Yang sighed.
"We all want to get out of here." Jaune replied. "That's why we need to get this done as quickly as possible so we can move on and pretend we never visited this place."
"You would have perished."
"What in God's name? Dragon!" Mercer howled, staggering to his feet and pointing at her accusingly. "Monster! Liar!"
Yang cooed, knowing he would be surprised. She pushed down the worry she felt at the sheer negativity of his reaction and leaned forward, keeping her eyes at eye level and her head lowered so as to not intimidate him.
He staggered away, pointing his finger like a sword.
"Stay back you beast! You tried to trick me but I'm not going to be some meal for you! You'll die! I'll rouse the village and we'll put you down like the monster you are!"
Then he sprinted away, leaving Yang shocked and still in the same clearing he'd professed his love for her.
"You would have perished."
"Y-You died!" Yang sobbed. "I was alone again. I've been a-alone for so long then you came and then I w-wasn't. You left me. Just like e-everyone else. I was alone again, a-abandoned again, u-unloved again. I hate that I hate you, but I do. I…I loathe you! I love you and you left me!"
"I…" Jaune swallowed nervously, breath hitching and eyes wide the same way Mercer's were. "W-What?"
Fear ran through her. Memories she would rather forget sprang to mind and overwhelmed her. Mercer's admiring eyes turned into ones filled with hatred. His love turned into revulsion.
His eyes widened before he ran away. Before he left her. Wide the same way Jaune's were now.
The way his charred corpse had smelled as Raven dropped it before her, his village, his home, smouldering behind her large form. The way she had growled, the way she had punished Yang for being so stupid.
The way Raven had forced her to tour the macabre remains of Mercer's village, the small and charred bodies of children Yang had seen playing in fields days earlier, the blackened husks of a couple clinging to one another, horror written on their burnt faces even in death.
"I-I…" Yang's words were caught in her throat, and for a moment she smelled something. Something that made her tremble with fear.
The smell of a Branwen. The scent of her mother.
"Not again. N-Not again!"
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The chilly air was liberating as she glided through calms skies. It cooled her fiery core, lessened the heat of her fire. Or was it Aura?
She did not know. The self proclaimed God had said many things, confusing things, but Yang did not see the evidence or a reason to trust it. It had been locked away in the same tomb as Salem, radiating the same malice and darkness as Salem too, if that was what it was truly named.
Yang did not know what she was doing. Her body was on autopilot. She just needed distance. Distance away from Salem. Away from the 'God' of Darkness. Away from the tomb, prison and temple she had barely escaped from.
Away from Jaune.
Part of her wanted to go back. To make amends. To make her words clear. But she did not know what to say, or what to think.
He had died. If it wasn't for the talking sword, Jaune would be dead. His corpse would be lying lifeless not far from Blake's, and he would have left her behind like everyone else she had known and loved had.
He had ignored her warnings. They were unfounded at the time, little more than unease and a gut feeling telling her something was wrong, but they were warnings all the same. One could call them paranoia, but her warnings had been proven right.
He had left her outside, falling for Blake's little trick. She had been standing around doing nothing as his throat was cut and his life faded.
But he had saved her. Helped her in her fight against Salem, helped her in the fight to avenge his friend the shepherd and helped her by just being him.
It was stupid really. She didn't understand it herself, but by sparing her he had saved her from fading away. He had healed her, treated her as a someone rather than a something or a threat. He had trusted her.
Now she was alone again. Because she had abandoned him. Because he had left her.
Because he hadn't trusted her. Because he had trusted Blake. Because…
Her head jerked suddenly. That scent again…
She had thought it had been her memories, playing up due to the state of fear and sadness and anger she had been after she'd let slip the depth of the feelings she had for Jaune. She thought it had been a trick of her mind, a ruse meant to frighten her.
But it was back again. So familiar, so terrifyingly real.
Branwen. She smelled a Branwen.
Had her mother come back from the dead just to haunt her? Had Raven come back to leave her truly alone by killing Jaune?
The thought frightened her, and she shifted so that she faced the winds blowing in from the north, taking in the scent in full.
It was Branwen.
Her wings wobbled in fear and she descended from the sky as quickly as she could, catching sight of a small clearing and a human settlement not far from it. She could not lead Raven back to Jaune, and if she remained in her armoured form she would be easier to smell and track.
She landed harshly, her body hurting but she wasted no time in letting her body morph and glow and shift. She was no longer Yang the dragon, and instead she was just Yang, a small form in the middle of a clearing.
She hurried to her feet, partially marvelling at the fact her clothes remained intact. Whether the God of Darkness was a god or not, he did give good advice about her fire, her Aura, as he had called it.
She paused at the edge of the clearing, concealed by the surrounding forest. She waited for a moment, thinking, before she remembered a human settlement she'd spotted during her descent. She would have to walk a fair few miles, but she decided it was worth it. She envisioned it in her mind, its location and layout and general sense of being.
Then she started to wander, feet pressing against snow covered grass and eyes swivelling for threats. She saw no tracks in the otherwise undisturbed snow, but she knew now she was being followed by the scent of her dead mother, so she decided not to take risks and directed her fire, Aura, to her hands, where she could enhance her inherent strength despite her relatively weak infiltrator form.
Aura…the soul? Her soul. That was what the God had claimed.
She had a soul.
It was a weird thing to be startled by, out of all the things that had occurred over the past few days. For so long she felt meaningless, a mere burden on the world and the people she came across.
But she had a soul.
"Soul's are wonderful things Yang." Her father said, speaking to her gently, lovingly. He was in a rare good mood, something no doubt coincided with Raven leaving to receive tribute in the farthest edges of her domain. "They are bright, radiant and they reflect us, like faces do, but on the inside. They are what makes us good and bad, cruel and kind. They are us, and when we go to the Afterlife it is our soul that guides the rest of us there so we can be whole and happy with all those we love and were loved by."
A pipe dream. A hope that she would be able to go to the afterlife and see her father, and a younger Ruby who didn't hate her, and a mellowed, calm, more kinder Raven. Mercer and the villagers, everyone. Jaune too.
She had a soul. That meant she could go to the Afterlife, even if she was a dragon.
"Missy? You okay?"
Yang blinked, startled out of her thoughts, and turned to see an elderly man looking at her with concern. He was flanked by two boys, both of whom were carrying spears, the sharp iron glinting off of their spiked ends.
"Y-Yes." Yang replied nervously. This was the first human she had talked with since Jaune, and before that Ruby. "How are you?"
"I'd be better if a dragon wasn't snooping around." The old man said, a look of suspicion on his face. "You haven't seen it haven't ya?"
"N-No?" Yang answered, feeling her throat dry as his eyes narrowed. "I haven't seen a dragon."
"That's odd." The old man smiled, though it was not a friendly one. "Because I coulda sworn it landed in that same clearing you must've passed a few minutes ago."
"I didn't see anything." Yang shrugged helplessly, and the old man opened his mouth to continue his interogation when another voice cut him off.
"By the grace of the Gods Tordolf give the young lass a break already! Look at her, she must be freezing." Boomed a loud, jovial voice. Yang followed the sound of it and balked as a large, rotund man strode over to her, throwing his thick cloak off of his shoulders and over hers. "There you are my dear, what is your name."
"Y-Yang." She answered, blinking as the cloak was wrapped over her, weighing her down and making her warm from the thickness of it. "What's yours?"
"Manners girl." The old man, Tordolf, warned. "That right there is the Lord of these lands."
"Tordolf, the girl is a stranger who is clearly lost, so I can forgive her lack of decorum." The rotund man forgave magnanimously. "As to your question my dear, my name is Lord Peter Port, a loyal vassal of her liege Queen Weiss. Come, come, I will take you to my fief and provide you with a warm meal and bed. Perhaps you'd be partial to sharing your tales on the road?"
"O-Of course." Yang replied, letting the large man drag her alongside him to a horse, the sturdy looking best giving her a wary look as she approached. "Thank you."
"It is no problem my dear." Port laughed, picking her up suddenly and heaving her ontop of the horse. She yelped and failed before settling on grabbing the horse's mane. "Sorry about that my dear! I forget many do not know the joy of horse riding and for my familiarity. You look familiar to a very good friend of mine who I'm sure would like to meet you."
"Really?" Yang asked, and Port chuckled as he took the reins and guided the horse along.
"Truly, though I suspect his wife would not be so pleased." Port chortled. "It's a good thing she's still in Vale is it not?"
"Uhm…yes?" Yang replied, after realising he was asking her something. "I guess it is."
"Indeed." Port guffawed, as if she had told the most outrageously hilarious joke. She could only blink. "Anyhow we best be off. I trust you and your boys can keep searching for any signs of that dragon we saw earlier Tordolf?"
"Of course we can milord." Tordolf said, nodding respectfully. "Come now boys, that overgrown lizard isn't gonna find itself."
"What's a lizard?" Yang heard the younger of the two boys ask as Port guided his horse forward and away from the trio who disappeared into the snow smothered forest. Yang was led along an open, snowy field with squat huts jutting out of the ground, and eventually they wound up on a stone road that had snow pushed up against its banks.
Wretched looking people watched them pass by quietly, sitting around large piles of broken, wet wood and soggy plants.
"The storms hit everyone hard." Port said suddenly, seeming to catch on to her staring at the destitute people around them. "My people suffer the worst of it. They lost their harvest and their homes. We're in the process of rebuilding the homes they lost, but the harvest can't just be replaced, and I lack the funds to buy grain from Vale and all my neighbours have hiked up their own prices to a ridiculous degree. I fear what will happen once winter sets in."
"What of the Queen?" Yang found herself asking, vaguely remembering the concepts of how human society worked. "If you are loyal will she not send aid?"
"She has." Port laughed. "That's why we are still alive now. But even the Schnee's don't have access to infinite funding, and sooner or later the Queen won't be able to buy grain and other foodstuffs if the way the merchants keep increasing their prices continues. If only we weren't at war with Mistral…"
The old man shook his head soberly, before perking up and pointing ahead.
"We're almost there now my dear. I hope you won't mind if your food is a little on the small side. I'd feed you fit to burst if I could, but again, the storms have affected all of us sadly."
"I'd be grateful for whatever you could spare." Yang said politely, wincing as a few of the listening people on the side of the road glared at her. "T-Thank you."
"Don't mention it my dear." Port dismissed generously. "Besides, I am not doing this out of mere charity, remember? You truly do look like him."
"Who?"
"My friend, Lord Rose."
Ruby.
"W-Who?"
"You'll see my dear. You'll see."
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Port's fief, Ironford, was a massive stone castle with squat towers and filled with bristling soldiers. Port explained that Vale was at war with Mistral, and before the storms had come he'd been gathering his forces to join the fight against the foreign kingdom.
Yang didn't really understand, but she nodded along and made it seem like was loyal to Atlas, knowing that it would be a bad time to be Mistrali.
"Is that so?" Port wondered, and for a moment Yang feared she'd made a mistake. "Is your mother Atlesian?"
"I don't know." Yang replied, and the man's bushy eyebrows rose before he sighed sadly.
"I see, I apologise dear." Port said, giving her a commiserating smile. "It's the unspoken curse of being children that we witness our parents grow old and die before us. The reverse is something far worse I fear, though I think you are a bit too young to worry about that just yet."
They came to a stop and Port helped her off the horse, which someone took away. She was then guided inside the warm stone chambers of Port's hall, and he took off his cloak from her with a rueful smile.
"I fear my wife will assume the worst if she sees you like that my dear." Port apologised. "I wasn't always a levelheaded, wise old man you know?"
"Yeah." Yang lied, nodding at whatever he was saying as she stared around her with curiosity and wonder. She'd never been inside a human castle before. "I understand."
"Hopefully not all too well I should hope." Port chuckled, waggling his eyebrows again. She smiled back helplessly, before turning back to look at the strange and colourful decorations adorning the walls. "Here we are, just wait here and I'll be back with some food."
"Thank you Lord Port." Yang replied, bowing as she'd seen some of the soldiers do. The man guffawed as he left, making Yang blush a little with embarrassment.
'I really need to get a hand on the whole being human thing.' Yang thought sadly. 'If Jaune was here I could just…'
She frowned and kicked her foot against the floor, a wave of frustration surging inside her. Once she was certain she had lost Raven she'd go back and find Jaune and keep him safe. She shouldn't have left him, she shouldn't have left things so marred and confusing and distant.
But he should have listened to her. What if he didn't believe her concerns about the sword that proclaimed itself a god? What if that led them into another trap? To another world-ending monster they'd unwittingly unleash?
The door opened and voices spilled through, breaking her from her reverie.
"I have never betrayed my wedding vows Peter." Said one of the voices, frustrated in tone but strangely familiar.
"I'm not accusing you of anything old boy, but we both know you could be lively before whatever happened prior to your marriage with Lady Summer." Port replied, stepping into the room. "Besides, she does look quite like the mirror image of you if I do say so myself."
"I'm telling you you're just seeing things…" Taiyang Xiao-Long froze at the door, lilac eyes widening in shock as he stared at her. "Yang?"
"F-Father?" Yang gasped, a storm of emotions from rage and fear and shock and fear whirling around inside of her.
"Peter, please give us the room." Taiyang said, eyes never leaving Yang's. Port nodded wordlessly and left the room, shutting it behind him with a quiet click. "Is…Is that really you?"
"Is that really you?" Yang counter-asked, taken aback by the small smile that sprouted on her father's face.
"It is." He said, eyes shimmering with tears and warmth and fear and something else she couldn't place. "It really is you. How? Summer said you died?"
"She tried killing me. So did Ruby." Yang whispered, voice weak with emotion. "They killed Raven. But I managed to escape."
"They died?" Taiyang gasped, and she nodded wordlessly. "That wasn't the plan! You have to believe me you were supposed- It was Raven I wanted dead! Not you, never you!"
"Why?" Yang asked heatedly, tears falling freely now. "You always hated me. Always looked at me with disgust. I…I know you didn't want me. You didn't want Raven. She…She forced you to. B-But I never-"
"I know, I know." Taiyang soothed gently, taking a half-step forward before staying where he was. "I didn't hate you. Your mother, yes, but never you. It…It was hard to distinguish between that for a while when you were younger, but by the time Summer rescued me I realised you weren't anything like your mother. It's why I pushed Ruby to meet you when she was young…she really tried to…you know?"
"Murder me in cold blood? Yes." Yang snorted. "She did the same when she ran across me not too long ago."
"What?!" Taiyang gasped. "What? Where? How? You…You didn't-"
"No!" Yang hissed angrily, eyes flashing red. He stepped back with fear in his eyes. "I'm not like Ruby! Not like Summer! Not like Raven!"
"Okay, just calm down sweetie, I believe you." Taiyang tried reassuring, but his words only fueled her anger. So did the fear with which he looked at her.
"You dare act all fatherly after the gods know how long it's been?" Yang snarled. "I've been alone for years. I've been chased off by dragons seeing me as a burden or threat. I've been hunted down by humans who hate me for just existing. I've been bitten, scratched, burned, stabbed and harassed across land after land after land. I've starved, suffered, froze, crashed and all of it. Never once did you try to find me. Didn't you? Didn't you!"
"That's enough." Port ordered, barging into the room suddenly and giving the trembling, hyperventilating Taiyang a worried look. "Old boy? Just what have you done girl? Wait…your eyes…you…"
Yang blinked, realising her body had been changing in her anger. It was covered in scales and her wings had started to sprout from her back, her eyes red like blood and her fingers curving into talons.
"Dragon!" Port gasped, as the realisation set onto him. "Trickery! Dragon, sound the alarm!"
Yang stepped back, hearing the pounding of armoured feet that sounded so familiar to her by now. Knights. Swords and spears and other weapons that hurt and hurt and hurt.
"Run." Taiyang gasped hoarsely. "Run Yang!"
She turned and jumped out of the window, screaming as she started plummeting to the ground, her body half-transformed and incapable of flight. The glow of her changing form was blinding, and the fear of death made her do it quicker, her armoured form landing in the clearing at the bottom of the keep with an earth rumbling boom.
"Dragon!"
"Monster!"
"Kill it! Kill it!"
Yang roared, trying to scare them. Some of them ran, but many of them were charging at her with their weapons. She could see archers on the walls, and she rushed forward over the courtyard, toppling over knights with her sheer size before jumping onto the stone walls surrounding Port's fief. She used it to propel herself upwards, her wings flapping madly as she tried to gain as much distance as possible.
Arrows could not pierce her hide, but the flesh of her wings were much weaker than her body's hide and if damaged too much she could lose her ability to fly. She'd never be able to escape Raven, she'd never be able to find and help Jaune and make things right.
Then it washed over her.
The scent from the north. The scent of fire and brimstone and blood. The scent of a Branwen.
A roar tore through the air, and she managed to keep calm enough for a few moments to look northwards, to see the dark shape soaring from over the peaks of the mountains there, to see the monster gliding out of the heavens and out of death to haunt her one last time.
Fear robbed her of her senses. She forgot how to move, how to breathe. As she battled to stay airborne, something slammed into her side and she howled in agony as she was sent spinning out of the air and into the forest, trees cracking and the ground tearing open as she slammed into the ground.
She moaned weakly as she tried moving her hurting body, seeing a wooden spike jutting out of her side. The humans must have shot her with some sort of new weapon, and she couldn't heal herself until she took it out.
As she leaned to wrap her maw around the edge of the spike, horns blew and her eyes widened as knights rushed out of the forest around her, some mounted and some not. She unleashed a wild blast of fire in their direction, burning arrows that soared towards her. There were too many of them however, and they manoeuvred around her easily, jabbing their weapons into her unprotected flanks and wearing her down.
She fought with talon and tail, swatting those that got too close and unleashing fire in wide arcs to try and keep them back. But there were too many, and she found herself unwilling to hurt them too badly. Their armour reminded herself too much of Jaune's, of the way he had found her and the mercy he had shown.
She doubted she would receive such mercy now.
A fresh wave of riders appeared, lead by Port. They thundered towards her, armour gleaming in the sunlight, and she found herself too weak to unleash her flame, her energy -her Aura- too busy healing too many wounds and cuts across her body, the knights having struck in between her armoured scales to cut at softer flesh.
A shadow passed overhead, and it roared angrily.
Yang was frozen in fear as something landed behind her, and she turned weakly, seeing a black scaled dragon with crimson eyes looming over her. She wanted to close her eyes, let her mother finish her, but she found herself pausing. The dragon was small, comically so, and despite its small statue it had the horns of an adult.
But it was the scent, the smell. It smelled of Branwen, like her mother, but it couldn't be her mother because it was too small. If not for the horns, she would've thought it a junior helping her out because it was too young to realise dragons were selfish.
Fire poured over her, and she winced as the flame bathed over her damaged scales and flesh. Then she blinked, realising the fire was helping, healing.
She rumbled weakly, confused and still hurt. The dragon stared back at her, a softness in its eyes for a moment before it looked murderous and howled said murder at the knights, who were rallying under Port.
"For Atlas and for Ironford!" Port declared, spurring his horse on as an example. The act emboldened his remaining knights who hadn't fled, and they followed after him, echoing his cry.
Fire washed over them, toppling them over and making them scream as armour and flesh and steed were melted. Yang closed her eyes, the sight of it too similar to what she had seen after Raven had razed Mercer's village, though their screaming was just as terrible until they mercifully fell quiet.
The black dragon looming over her watched the flames with a sense of triumph, before it's body glowed and shifted. Yang watched quietly, unable to do the same on account on the stake in her side, and she gasped when she saw who the dragon was.
Or rather, she gasped at what it was.
"Hey." The man chuckled, smiling sheepishly. "Surprise huh? Imagine my mother's reaction."
It was male. He was male. But dragon's couldn't, the God of Darkness had seemed to think so, and she had never met a male dragon, never even had tell of one before.
"Don't worry, I'll explain later. I'm gonna take that stake out of your side so you can heal, after that I'd like it if you'd transform so we could talk properly, okay?" The man asked, and Yang nodded, watching him closely, before the sound of blowing horns drew her attention. "Looks like we'll have to stick to introductions for now. Let's make it quick huh?"
Yang growled as the man yanked the spike out of her side, true strength hidden in his lanky infiltrator form like hers was. She healed the wound it had left with her fire, her Aura, and she sighed as she realised the spike had torn apart a scale. The flesh would heal, but the scale wouldn't, leaving her with an eternal chink in her armoured form.
"Yeah, ballista's are a right pain." The male said, giving her a curious look. "Though I assume you didn't know that when you tried…raiding that castle?"
Yang shifted quickly, feeling annoyed at how bad her day was going and how low her Aura felt. She would have enough to turn back at least, but she couldn't afford another fight soon, meaning she'd have to be diplomatic.
"Thank you for your help." She offered, glaring at the bloodied stake the male casually dropped onto the floor. "My name is Yang, Yang Xiao-Long."
"Not Branwen?" The male asked curiously, and Yang glared up at him, the male being only slightly taller than her in his infiltrator form.
"No." Yang bit out, annoyance growing at the male's cocked eyebrow. "Who are you?"
"Me? The name's Qrow." The male said, smiling a strangely fond smile at her. "Qrow Branwen. I'm your uncle Yang, and it's about damn time I managed to find you."