The sun had already set long before Ruby left the library, replaced by the broken moon that served as her only guiding light through the dark hallways of Beacon Academy as she navigated her way back to her room. Having lost track of time trying while she was studying for more than just coursework, the girl never expected to stay up so late, and thus struggled to navigate the moonlit campus.
Nonetheless, she trudged back towards the refuge that was her bed with a determination that no number of shadows jumping out at her from the corners of her weary eyes could shake her from. The darkness did little to hide the tired, definitely not frightened, expression on her face as she carried the mountainous stack of books she had checked out back to her team's dorm, fully intending to finish what she had started before the weekend, when she had some free time.
Despite the haggardness that assaulted the little leader this late at night, nothing could wipe the faint smile off of her face knowing that she was one of the lucky few huntsmen and huntresses who were able to attend Beacon, like the rest of her family. It was a dream come true for her, even if living said dream entailed far more studying and homework than she ever imagined it would. Becoming the leader of her own team during her first year had been unthinkable, yet it happened all the same. As amazing as it was to be chosen to lead her newfound friends and teammates, it wasn't all sunshine and roses for the gleeful young girl.
Even without her sister occasionally teasing her on the matter in private, Ruby knew she was not the greatest at making friends or socializing with others in general. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have been an issue, as she intended to start small by becoming besties with her partner before slowly becoming more comfortable opening up to others. As the leader of her team, she couldn't exactly stand back and let her teammates do all the talking and leading for her.
Sure, Weiss would probably enjoy being the leader, perhaps a little too much, but that wasn't a position she could simply force onto one of her other teammates. Ozpin had chosen her to be her team's leader and he must have had a reason behind his decision. Ruby still didn't know what inspired the headmaster to pick her, a small part of her doubted his choice even now, but she was not going to let him down. She would do everything it took to be the best leader she could possibly be, even if it meant long hours of studying alone in the library after finishing up her homework and reading tons of long, boring books that had almost put her to sleep multiple times.
Thankfully Beacon's clock tower was as loud as it was big, otherwise she might have stayed up all night long and maybe even missed her first few morning classes! That wasn't to say that she would be getting as much sleep as she would have liked tonight, but that was a problem she would have to deal with tomorrow since there was little she could do now except head to bed as quickly as possible. Rushing through the hallways of Beacon might have been possible with her semblance if she had some more light to see her surroundings with, but unless she wanted to risk crashing into someone unseen as she darted through the darkness in a flurry of rose petals, she would simply need to trudge back to her room the old fashioned way, with a heavy stack of books in hand without any semblance while hoping she didn't trip over anything.
It didn't take her long to reach her team's dorm, although her exhaustion at having stayed up so late did little to make her journey feel swift. Ruby let out a sigh of relief knowing that her destination was close and her nice, cozy bed was only a short leap away once she managed to open up the door keeping her apart from a good night's rest. That relief quickly turned to frustration as walked up to the door and, trying as she might, couldn't quite reach into her skirt pocket to pull out her room key and unlock the only thing separating her from a well-earned rest.
Had she not been carrying a mountain of books taller than her in her arms and delicately balancing them so they didn't fall, the situation she found herself in wouldn't be much of an issue. Instead, what should have been a simple action turned into a comedy act which Ruby was grateful no one could see as she tried and failed to dig into her pockets without dropping anything and creating a racket loud enough to wake up everyone inside again and again. After what felt like an eternity of fighting a futile battle, a pair of soft, slow footsteps echoed from beyond the door as her sister came to her rescue and opened it for her.
"Hey Tough Guy, you know you could just knock instead of…" Yang's whispered reproach faded into stunned silence as, instead of the short guardsman she had expected to see on the other side of the door, there stood a stack of books taller than even her waiting to greet her.
"Thanks, Yang." Ruby said as she peeked her head out from the pile of reading material that had been hiding her.
"Oh, it's you, sis." The older of the two siblings muttered tiredly.
"Did you bring Winston back with you?" She asked as she peered around the tower of books her sister was carrying.
"No." The little leader said as she started to pitch forward ever so slightly as she struggled to regain her balance on the last leg of her journey, "Hey, can you give me a little help here?"
"Uhh… sure thing." The blonde said as she took the hefty stack of books off of her sister's hands and set them down against the wall inside their room, giving Ruby a moment to collect herself now that she had a huge weight quite literally taken from her.
"So, what were you doing out so late?" Yang asked once her sister was inside as she closed the door behind her, her half-asleep expression slowly taking a more mischievous glint, "Talking to your boyfriend for so long the two of you forgot what time it was?"
"My boyfriend?" Ruby mumbled in confusion.
"Yeah. I mean, you never used to invite any of your guy friends to do anything alone back home~." The brawler teased.
"Yaaaang…" The younger sibling groaned as she tried to hide her face while a flush of embarrassment crept onto her cheeks.
"Relax, I'm just messing with you, Rubes." Yang said as she tussled her sister's head, turning her well kept locks into a mess that resembled her own horrendous case of bedhead.
The two sisters shared a quiet laugh with one another, only stopping when they heard the heiress start to stir thinking they might have accidentally woken her. When Weiss didn't immediately start chiding them for ruining her beauty sleep like they expected her to, they carried on their conversation like nothing happened.
"Anyways, you said you were going to hang out with our Tough Guy after Goodwitch's class, right? He didn't happen to get lost or fall behind you carrying his own giant load of books, did he?" Yang asked, returning to her initial line of questioning.
"No, we kinda…" Ruby trailed off for a moment remembering the brief flicker of fear she felt when the ordinarily aloof guardsman snapped at her, "...well, I kinda finished working on my weapon before he did and decided to go to the library alone afterwards."
She didn't know exactly why he sounded so angry at her, but she knew whatever it was wasn't her fault and that Winston probably didn't mean it. He had been through a lot since his first day on campus, losing his arm and getting thrown on a team with a bunch of people he had never met before, far away from home, and that was before taking anything about what he said happened to him before coming to Beacon. She could absolutely understand how he might be more than a little on edge, especially since that one incident was almost like Weiss' usual attitude towards her.
While she might be understanding of his circumstances, Ruby knew Yang wasn't one to let anyone who messed with her go unpunished. She had no idea what was said in those little 'talks' her sister and Blake had been having with the heiress, but she could make a few guesses and none of them were pleasant.
"And you didn't think to ask him if he needed any help?" Yang asked, a creeping suspicion in her voice suggesting she knew her sister was trying to hide something.
"No, I tried but he made it clear that he wanted to work on his weapons by himself." The younger sister answered honestly.
"Wow, he really is living up to the name 'Tough Guy'." Yang snarkily remarked, "I wonder what got into him to make him more stubborn than an angry Beringel."
"Maybe he's just shy?" Ruby suggested, earning an incredulous look from her sister.
"You think he's shy?" The brawler asked, hoping her sister was trying to mess with her, "You really mean to tell me the guy who fought off a couple of Boarbatusks with a shovel and almost beat Pyrrha Nikos in a fight is shy?"
"Y-yes." The young leader stammered with slight hesitation, "I mean, have you seen him hanging out with anyone else outside of classes other than us? Even then, the few times we did come to class together he never really said much unless we were talking directly to him."
Yang wanted to refute her sister's point, but she made a good argument and one that she couldn't think of a way to refute while still half-asleep. "Okay, sis, maybe you're on to something."
"And then there's the whole way he's sleeping on the floor, talks all stiff like a robot, is really polite to the point that it's a little scary, never takes his armor off and covers his whole body with it…" Ruby listed off, starting with a matter-of-fact tone while reciting some of her new teammate's more eccentric behaviors which soon grew more somber with every addition to that list.
"I think that might be more than just being shy." The blonde interrupted before her sister could move onto the stuff they only heard about from him that, if true, made most of their own personal tragedies look pleasant by comparison.
"Maybe we should try doing something about it." Ruby said, earning a sidelong glance from her older sister.
"Do you have something in mind?" Yang asked, unable to help herself.
"Yeah, I do." The little leader said before stifling a yawn she had been struggling to hold back for a while, "But it can wait until morning."
"Yeah, that's probably for the best. You look as tired as I feel, sis." The older sibling let out a chuckle as the younger of the two pouted at her sister's teasing, "Anyways, why don't you go ahead and call it a night while I stay up and wait to make sure our Tough Guy doesn't get locked out again."
"You don't have to do that, I can-" Ruby tried to argue against her sister, but let out another big yawn before she could finish and staggered back a step as she recovered against her own weariness.
"Maybe… maybe I should get some sleep instead…" The little leader murmured to herself as she started to clumsily climb into her bed, the precariously positioned top bunk she had claimed for herself swaying dangerously as she struggled to get into it.
Yang quickly gave her sister a boost before the tangled web of ropes holding Ruby's bed up could loosen any more than they already had. While a falling bed wouldn't hurt any of them thanks to their auras, the brawler had little doubt as to the kind of grouchy mood Weiss would be in if woken in such a way. For once, Yang wouldn't be able to reprimand the heiress in good conscience because Ruby's bunk bed was admittedly not designed with safety in mind.
The brawler waited a moment to make sure her sister was fast asleep before deciding to start her vigil from the comforts of her own bed, lazily keeping one eye open towards the door as she put years of pulling all-nighters while playing video games or talking to her friends on her scroll to use as she warded her slumber away long enough for Winston to arrive.
Midnight came and went long before the guardsman returned to Team RWBY's dorm room. Although Yang was by no means keeping track of time, intentionally refusing to look at any clocks after she thought she heard a one-o-clock chime at some point, she knew there was no way that anyone who wasn't nocturnal should be up this late at night.
And yet, Winston moved with the same stiff, almost mechanical precision he always carried himself with, completely unaffected by both darkness and the whatever exhaustion he felt from his classes. If anything, he looked more aware and alert than ever this late at night as he glided through their team's dorm room without making so much as a sound as he navigated around the piles of books, a couple of t-shirts and other old clothes that hadn't been cleaned up, and other small personal effects that had been laid on the floor without disturbing any of them.
Upon reaching the small patch of bare wall between Ruby and Weiss' bunk bed and the drawer adjacent to it that he claimed as his resting place earlier, the Korpsman once again shrugged off the kitbag he always carried around with him, lowered himself in between the two pieces of furniture that he could barely squeeze himself between, and fell asleep with his arms wrapped about his kitbag without making so much as a single sound since entering the room.
Or at least, she thought he was asleep. It was impossible to tell since he wore that freaky mask of his all the time, hiding his eyes or even the shape of his face underneath it.
Yang, happy that she was not responsible for Winston being stuck outside their dorm and too tired to ask where he had been before coming back to their room, immediately let herself fall asleep knowing that her work for tonight was done. Had she not been so focused waiting on the guardsman to return and getting to sleep afterwards, she might have noticed both the sharp pair of eyes peering out at the guardsman as her partner's breathing started to steady, or how the lenses of the guardsman's mask were focused directly on the two girls from where they watched him.
"Alright Ruby, what is it that you want us to do now?" Weiss asked, making no effort to hide her annoyance at how the little leader had forcefully organized a team meeting before their classes started, for those who were still present at least.
Their newest teammate was nowhere in sight, and after making a half-hearted attempt to search the hallway outside their dorm room, Ruby decided to hold the meeting without him.
"I'm glad you asked, partner." Ruby cheerfully replied, willfully ignoring her teammate's combative tone and the way she rolled her eyes afterwards, "I wanted to check and see how we are all doing and if any of us think we might need to spend some more time together as a team."
"You called a meeting for that?" Blake questioned, intrigued as to why Ruby felt the need for such a thing aside from a certain arrogant heiress who was in desperate need of a reality check.
The young leader's aura of confidence faltered for a moment at Blake's innocent question, but she didn't let her own nervousness deter her from pushing forward with what she wanted to do.
Yang gave her partner a small nudge with her elbow and her sister a thumbs up to continue, doing her best to encourage whatever it was Ruby had planned. Seeing her sister's approval filled Ruby with the reassurance she needed to hold her doubts back a little while longer.
"Well, we haven't exactly been hanging out with each other much outside of classes and I kinda don't know what it is that everyone else does outside of them. It's a little hard to work together as a team when we don't spend any time getting to know each other." Ruby sheepishly explained.
"That's… actually not that bad of an idea." Blake admitted as she herself didn't know what any of her other teammates did in their free time and was curious to find out.
"If that's really all you want to do, then I'm leaving before we're late to class again." Weiss said as she stood up from her bed and started to make her way towards the door.
"Just wait a minute there, Snow Angel." The brawler said, her use of the nickname Jaune gave her freezing the heiress mid stride.
"Do NOT call me that!" She snapped back.
"Oops, I'm sorry." Yang playfully apologized, "We don't spend that much time together, so I didn't know you don't like to be called that."
"Even though this is not the first time I've told you that?" Weiss glared.
"Yang, please stop picking on Weiss." Ruby pleaded towards her sister.
"Fine, fine." The older sibling said with a smile. "I guess we can just have our meeting with the three of us and think of some new nicknames for Ice Queen."
Weiss let out a sigh as she sat back down at her bed. "Fine, I'll stay."
"No, you can leave if you want to." Ruby told Weiss in an attempt to placate her.
"Not when I'm being blackmailed into staying." The heiress grumbled.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Yang said, unable to hold back a laugh from escaping her lips after seeing the exasperated expression on the heiress' face at her comment.
"You should probably get started before those two get into another fight." Blake spoke up, resisting the urge to pull out a book to drown out the start of one of the many arguments that happened between the two that she had no wish to be a part of this time.
"Uh, right." The little leader said, deciding it would be best to not antagonize either her sister or partner any further than they already had with each other. "Well, you all know I've been spending most of my time in the library studying for our classes and-"
"Wait, that's where you've been?" Yang asked in disbelief, "I thought you were spending all that time helping Tough Guy in the weapon's workshop."
"I only did that yesterday, and I didn't really get to help him since he didn't want any." Ruby explained.
"Aww, look at you. Studying to be as great of a huntsman as mom and dad." Yang said, causing her younger sister to blush at her praise.
"Yaaaang, you're so embarrassing." The young girl sighed as she tucked her face in her arms.
"Ahem, are you two quite done yet?" Weiss interrupted, cutting the tender moment between the two sisters short.
"Oops, sorry." Ruby quickly apologized, "Anyways, that's all I can really think of right now since I've been trying to catch up on my classes after skipping a few years since Ozpin helped me join Beacon early. I haven't really had a chance to do anything else or hang out with you girls yet with how busy I've been."
"Yeah, sorry about that, Rubes. I know I promised to help you with that when I could, but I have been way too busy with my own classwork to lend you a hand." The blonde huntress told her.
"Don't worry, I know. That's why I never asked you to help me out." The little leader said glumly.
"Hold on a moment. Did you say Ozpin invited you to attend Beacon early?" Weiss asked in shock.
"Yeah, don't you remember her telling us that while we were setting up our room?" Blake questioned.
Weiss distinctly remembered her partner said that more than once when they were decorating their room and organizing their beds, but at the time she thought it was just the young girl acting like a stupid kid trying to tell wild lies in order to impress her. After seeing her childish behavior during their initiation test, she had little reason to believe Ruby wouldn't do something as outlandish as lie about getting into Beacon despite being, in her opinion, way too immature to attend such a prestigious academy. She suddenly started feeling guilty about not giving her partner as much credit as she should have. That didn't make her think she shouldn't still be their team leader, though.
"I must have been too focused on holding up her bed while she was taping it to the ceiling to hear her." The heiress waved dismissively.
"Anyways, why don't you go ahead and tell us what you've been up to, Weiss." Ruby told her partner.
"If you must know, aside from working on my homework alone, I've also been walking around Beacon and appreciating the sights since they are a lot different here than in Atlas." The white haired huntress said.
"Ooh, I've never been to Atlas. How much prettier do the mountains over there look than Mount Glenn?" Ruby eagerly asked.
Weiss was caught off guard by the genuine enthusiasm behind her leader's question. It wasn't often that someone showed any interest in one of her hobbies, sightseeing being one of the few things she had the limited ability to enjoy back home underneath her father's influence.
"They're not really that different. When you've seen one mountain infested with Grimm, you've seen them all. Besides, I've always liked historical landmarks more than nature and a lot of the buildings here are as beautiful as they are old." Weiss told her partner.
"Oh, that's cool, I guess." Ruby shrugged, "Have you been spending much time with Yang or Blake?"
"I can answer that one for you, Rubes." Yang said with a smirk, "She most certainly has."
"And all of it unwillingly." Weiss muttered, recalling the uncomfortable conversations she had about some of the things she said with the other members of her team.
"What did you say there, Snow Angel? I didn't quite hear you." The brawler's smirk grew a little larger and much more menacing, leaving little doubt as to whether or not she actually heard what the heiress said.
"I said that you shouldn't be calling me that stupid name!" Weiss shouted back.
"Ha, sorry, but it's fun seeing you get all worked up when I call you that, your royal highness." Yang teased back, earning a groan from the heiress in return.
"I guess I'll go next. Other than trying to finish up my homework and trading notes for Oobleck's class since it doesn't seem like anyone was able to take notes fast enough to keep up with how fast he goes through his lessons, I've been swinging down to Vale on Bumblebee every now and then and enjoying what the town has to offer."
"Bumblebee?" Blake inquired.
"Yeah, Bumblebee, my motorcycle. She's been my precious baby ever since my dad got her for my sixteenth birthday." Yang said, "Want me to take you on a ride sometime?"
"Is it faster than going to Vale on a bullhead?" Blake asked, not entirely uninterested in the prospect of riding through the forests surrounding the nearby city instead of taking one of the slow, flying shuttles.
"Oh, brothers no, but it is a lot more exciting." Yang said, adding, "Especially when some Grimm try to chase me."
"I think I'll pass in that case." Blake said, shuddering at the thought of trying to outrun a Grimm through a forest on a motorcycle, of all things.
"Hey, Yang?" Ruby hesitantly asked, "You haven't been going to Vale to blow up another bar, right?"
"Blow up another bar!?" Weiss sputtered incredulously, the questioning glance Blake sent her partner mirroring her own surprise at Ruby's statement.
"Oh come on, it was only one time and I didn't blow up anything. The cops already proved it was the owner's fault anyway." She said dismissively before noticing the incredulous looks half of her team was giving her.
"So, what about you Blake? What have you been up to since the first day of classes?" Yang asked in a hurried attempt to change the subject.
"Not much." Blake shrugged.
"Other than talking with you and Weiss sometimes, I've been mostly working on our assignments from class and reading." She said as she picked up one of the books stacked up beside her bed, careful not to reveal the other pile hidden underneath her bed.
"Are you still not finished with that one yet?" Weiss and Ruby asked, sharing a brief look at each other when they realized what they did.
"Jinx!" Ruby said as the heiress rolled her eyes at her leader's childish antics.
"Just that one?" Yang said, fixing her partner with a knowing look and far too friendly tone that sent a chill racing down the quiet girl's spine.
Yang didn't know about the other books she had… right?
"I… I don't know what you're talking about." Blake said in an attempt to mask her own worry.
"Sure, sure. Just checking. Hope you don't mind me asking to borrow one or two of them every now and then." The blonde said as she patted her partner's back, looking not at her, but rather the spot underneath her bed where she had hidden her private collection.
Crap. She definitely knew.
"So, now that that's settled, what do you want us to start doing more as a team, Ruby?" Blake said as calmly as she could to steer their conversation anywhere else.
"I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't mind working on our homework together if it means we can hang out afterwards." Yang said.
"You're just saying that to get us to do your homework for you." Weiss accused.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Yang defended half-heartedly, "And besides, you should be all for it. You can do my history homework since you seem to be into that sort of thing, Blake can do our literature homework, Ruby can take care of Grimm studies and our weapon maintenance for us since she loves that, and I can teach you all how to fight with only your aura. Everybody wins that way."
"Really? Getting your own sister to do your work for you?" Blake asked, feigning disbelief at her partner's antics.
"No, she has a point. We would be able to spend more time together if we all focus on what we love." Ruby said as she entertained her sister's idea for a moment.
"I, for one, refuse to cheat while working to become a proper huntress." Weiss declared.
"Come on, it's not cheating." Yang said placatingly, "Just think of it as just making the most of what each of us are best at."
"I'm not doing that and frankly, I'm ashamed that I'm the only one who is speaking out against such a ridiculous idea." The heiress disappointingly condemned.
"I did not agree to do anyone else's homework." Blake quickly spoke up, "Although I wouldn't mind helping out if you asked."
"Et tu, Blake?" Yang gasped as she theatrically clutched at her heart.
"We would get into so much trouble if we got caught." Ruby said as she added her own thoughts.
"Ah well, it was worth a shot." The brawler sighed, giving up on her plan to get out of her homework. "I wonder if I might be able to talk Winston into helping me out some time."
"Speaking of which, why isn't that jerk here with us?" Weiss asked.
"Oh, that's uhh… another thing I kinda wanted to bring up when we had a moment." Ruby stammered.
"What, are you worried that he might be up to no good?" Her sister playfully teased.
"It's not that, it's just…" The little leader struggled to find how best to describe what she did mean, "Well, I guess I am worried about Winston since he's our teammate and I don't know how he is adjusting to Beacon. Ozpin did choose us to help him, but we haven't exactly done anything to help since he joined us."
"Who says he wants our help? I think he's made it obvious that he'd rather be alone." Weiss said, shifting aside her dress to expose the faint burn mark on her shoulder that had yet to fully heal since her match against him.
"Ouch, that's a little harsh." Yang winced at the heiress' remark.
"Is it though? I for one haven't seen him try to act like a decent, normal person once since we met him", the white-haired huntress ranted.
"Hey, watch it. Just because you don't like him doesn't mean he still isn't our teammate." Yang warned.
"Oh please, do you really think we forgot that you were the one who was the most eager to have him join our team after Ozpin bribed us with some extra credit?" Weiss snapped back, silencing the boisterous brawler as she winced at having that particular comment used against her.
"Can you knock it off?" Blake chided the heiress as if she were speaking to a spoiled brat, "I don't remember you turning down that 'bribe' when Ozpin made it."
"Funny you should say that, because I remember we all agreed after hearing what the headmaster would be offering us for our help." The heiress reminded them, causing the other girls to wince at the reminder, "If I had known he was going to be more trouble he was worth, then I would have never agreed."
"Wow, nice to know I won't be able to rely on you if something ever happens to me and I end up feeling like giving you the cold shoulder." The brawler grumbled.
"What a generous thing to say, Ice Queen." Blake snarked back.
"Hey, come on, let's stop fighting." Ruby pleaded, "I'm sure Weiss didn't mean anything by that."
"Oh, no. I meant everything I said about all of you and especially that freak who is on our team." The heiress said before storming out of the dorm room.
This time, no one made an attempt to stop her.
"What a bit… of a brat." Yang grumbled after Weiss' departure, barely stopping herself from swearing before Ruby had a chance to try and reprimand her.
"That's an understatement." Blake said in agreement.
As much as Ruby wanted to defend her partner, there was nothing that could be said about Weiss' intentions or feelings about the rest of their team that hadn't been made clear already. A small part of her hoped it was simply from the stress from getting used to their lives at Beacon, but a growing ache in her heart said otherwise.
"I'm sure she'll change her mind eventually." Ruby half heartedly said.
"Oh, forget about her. Instead of trying to talk some sense into Snow Angel, why don't we try helping someone who actually deserves it." Yang told her sister.
"Yeah, that is probably for the best." Blake agreed.
"So, lay it on us sis, what are your plans to have Winston open up to us?" The brawler asked.
"Oh, uhm… I didn't really have a plan." The little leader admitted, "I was kinda thinking that we should start trying to see what it is that he's been doing without us and trying to help with things he can't do so easily because of his… you know…"
Ruby shuddered, unable to bring herself to mention her teammate's missing arm. She didn't know how he was able to live like that, let alone prefer continuing to work on his equipment alone instead of accepting the help she had offered him, but she hoped she could find out if she tried to learn a little more about him, starting with what exactly it was he did outside of classes. It wasn't exactly much of a plan, but it was better than just hoping things would change for the better without doing anything about it.
"Well, I guess that's as good a place as any to start." Yang said.
"Might as well if no one else has any better ideas." Blake sighed, lacking her partner's confidence.
"Then I guess we're decided. As our first official act as a team, our mission is to help out our new teammate and get him to open up to us!" Ruby triumphantly declared.
Special thanks to Doc43Souls & Tireless Traveler for beta reading this chapter!
Author's Corner:
Better late than never, right? I'll admit, I should have had this chapter out a lot sooner, but with FFnet shitting itself for this past month and a half, a few books I've had an eye on coming out, and a couple of DLCs releasing for certain games my attention has been focused elsewhere recently. So long as none of these become an issue once again, expect updates to resume at their usual schedule.
Comments:
To Everyone Mentioning the 'expected 15 hour survival' statistic:
Thank you for the fact check, but I am aware that this particular statistic was given for one specific planet or is another example of GW being bad at numbers. Either one is equally likely. I mentioned this grim life expectancy to highlight exactly what kind of high casualty rates the Death Korps, who specifically request to serve in the bloodiest battles possible, typically expect.
BlueMinnow and a "Guest": (On Winston's age)
You see, that's the funny thing about campaigns in W40K. Sometimes they can last decades while others end in weeks or even days. It all depends on who is getting massacred and how fast. The Death Korps also have a habit of approving underaged recruits as guardsmen too, presumably because they meet or exceed the standards adults of other regiments pass. Adding some more fuckery into things is warp travel, namely the possible mistranslation Winston believes his regiment suffered from, which could shift his chronological age a century in either direction as far as he knows.
I, of course, already decided on his age a long time ago so there is no need to worry about any asspulls in that department.
The Same "Guest": (On Winston's suspiciously sparse diet)
I'm glad to see someone else asking the right kind of questions here. It is strange how he believes it is acceptable to survive on such little sustenance while carrying such an excessive amount of ammo, isn't it? Maybe some of the other items he carries or other unusual behaviors could give some more insight behind this oddity.
Teo Char: (A whole frakking essay)
First and foremost, I do my best to acknowledge certain memes without treating them as canon. As many comments can testify, this can be hit or miss at times.
As for the Faunus issue you described, I wholeheartedly agree with you that your bog standard Imperial Guardsman would absolutely go on a murderous rampage to exterminate the faunus. The Death Korps are not your average guardsmen, being suicidally loyal to people of authority and a little more pragmatic than your average Imperial zealot. Unlike how most mass produced soldiers with a martyr complex are portrayed, they're not stupid. Much like Ogryns, Ratlings, and other sanctioned mutants such as psykers, I imagine the faunus would be tolerated like civilians or other nominally useful tools and employed in ways that make the most of their unique advantages they bring. Well, that, or outright ignored if possible and treated as an occupational annoyance like the native populace of the world they are defending at worst.
Alzar: So jealous at how broad your "wordly" dictionary is and how you use it. 'Eloquently loquacious on necessities' is the best that I can do. How did you get/become so good?
I have a small library shelf built into my bed's headboard, two storage containers, and three milk crates overflowing with books in addition to those fics I read on this site. I enjoy a wide variety of literature including classical, contemporary, fantasy, sci-fi, low quality guilty pleasure reads, and whatever else catches my interest. As such, I suppose you can say I might have picked up a few words here and there from each of them.
Having a beta to help point out any excessive repetition or misused words is also a tremendous help.
Well, that's it for me. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all again soon.