Yo!

Slightly lengthier chapter than normal. Not really on purpose, it just kind of came out that way.

Anyways, let's get into it!

Start Chapter 51

They visit the Madame's room first.

It's the easiest of them; Cinder thinks. No matter what she thinks about the actions she'd taken that night, a lifetime ago, she doesn't regret having slain the Madame. Perhaps nowadays she'd do it more cleanly; more quickly, but that is about her only regret.

The Madame had been a monster, a racist, and a slaver. She'd purchased Cinder through a black-market channel, and had treated her not as a daughter, but as a slave for her entire time in the Glass Unicorn.

The death she'd received for her sins had been mercifully short, Cinder still thinks.

Her room is, unsurprisingly, still quite gaudy, even so many years after the fact.

It's clearly been picked clean by other squatters or thieves over the years; there's an indentation in a wall that seems to have housed some sort of safe, and the bed – which looks to have had a gold-plated headrest and likely silken sheets – had been utterly eviscerated and ransacked.

But even still, despite the way that the paint on the walls is cracking and peeling away, despite the fact that dust covers just about every surface in the room; the dressers, the banisters, the closet doorknobs…

It reminds Cinder of the woman, somehow.

She almost wants to spit on the floor.

"This is the Madame's room, then?" Jaune asks her, looking around and taking the space in himself. "It's certainly… extravagant."

"Extremely." Cinder speaks. "And it was likely quite a bit more so before it was picked to pieces. I don't know if there's going to be anything useable in here; even the bed's been all but taken apart."

Jaune shrugs. "We can check the closets and dressers for anything we can use as kindling."

Cinder almost wants to laugh. "What, you want to use the Madame's petticoats as timber?"

"I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

Cinder smiles, despite the macabre humor.

Still, as much as she's pretty sure Jaune had been joking, Atlas is quite cold, given its elevation, and the clothing that the Madame possesses will actually serve as quite adequate kindling. So, she walks over to the closet and rips a few off their hangers without much thought.

It's only the remnants that others haven't taken; anything that might've sold for a half-decent price has been taken already, which is most of what had likely once been here, judging by the twenty or so clothes-less hangers. Still, she has a good six or seven ugly pieces to set aflame.

Jaune, to his credit, finds that the ensuite had still held some toiletries, and so he'd procured a few bars of soap and a giant container of hand sanitizer.

"Does hand sanitizer expire?" Jaune asks her, and Cinder has to admit that she had absolutely no idea.

By the time they leave the Madame's room, Cinder's feeling… not better, but stable. She feels that she might be able to enter into the twin's room, now.

It's funny; years and years ago when she'd been a child herself, she thinks she'd almost hated the twins as much as she'd hated the Madame. Perhaps more, for their constant torment of her regardless of what she'd done. At least, in her young, childlike mind, the Madame's torture had a pattern; things she could do to avoid it. All she had to do was be on her best behavior, and she'd be fed, and clothed, and allowed to sleep.

In contrast, the twins torment had been random; in her mind, unearned.

But now, looking back, she sees the twins for what they'd been; just children. Stupid, ignorant children, maybe, but then, she looks upon the world these days, and she finds herself thinking that all children are stupid and ignorant. And when she tries to think of what a non-stupid or non-ignorant child would be like, she cannot manage to conjure up anything but the image of an adult.

And that seems unfair.

So, she forces herself to reevaluate, and to realize that the twins had been nearly the same age as her. They had made mistakes; terrible ones. But in the end, they had never done anywhere near as bad as their mother. It is the Madame who had shocked her, denied her food and water and a place to sleep or bathe. It had been the Madame to buy her, and collar her, and work her to near-starvation.

…

She isn't really sure what she's trying to say to herself in the moments leading up to entering the twins room. It's just… she wants to set the record straight even to herself.

They push their way into the twin's room in near-silence, the only sound being the creaking of the likely decade-and-a-half old hinges. Cinder takes a moment to examine the space and just… exist within it.

She does not burst into tears. She does not fall to her knees and wail.

She almost wishes she did. Perhaps then her feelings would be easier to make sense of.

Instead… she feels little at all. Less then she'd felt in the Madame's room. Perhaps it is because so little of the twins remains here. In all actuality, when she thinks about it, she knows almost nothing about them at all.

Beyond that they'd been teenaged, wealthy, spoiled girls… what does she know?

When she considers that… she can't really conjure up anything at all.

The room is admittedly less opulent than she'd expected. Two twin beds are posted on opposite sides of the room off to Cinder's right as she enters into it, and as she steps up to them, she finds that they are in quite good condition, relative to what she'd expected. Clearly, they've seen some use in the time since the Glass Unicorn had been abandoned, judging by the used needles and cigarette butts on them.

Still, they'd likely serve their purposes for the night if they cleaned them.

Cinder isn't really sure why she does so, but in the next moment, she leans down, and checks under the bed. It feels innocent in the moment, but there's just… something making her do it. something she can't quite describe.

And it's then that she finds something. It's… a pink box of some sort. The kind of thing that would stereotypically be owned by a teenaged girl.

She runs a hand across it, trying to get the dust off. It uncovers some words on the front that are quite a bit faded at this point. Still, she can barely make them out.

'My treasure'

She frowns almost instantly. Some part of her… something inside of her is telling her that she doesn't want to open this. That she doesn't want to see what's inside. That finding out whatever it is that's in there will only hurt her. Can only hurt her.

But the twins are dead. They're dead, and it had been Cinder to kill them.

So perhaps this is due recompense.

The box is locked, but it's a simple thing. Cinder could probably just melt it without much effort but… she finds herself reluctant to do as such. So, she searches the room for the key as she goes about looking for supplies.

It's as she's fishing around in a nearby drawer rather unsuccessfully that Jaune chimes in.

"What're you looking for?"

She explains, and his eyes widen somewhat.

"Actually, uh, I think I might have found that," He mutters, before turning back around, opening the top drawer on the twins old shared dresser, and pulling from out of it a silver, novelty key. "Here, found it under some socks. See if it fits."

Cinder nods, in a bit of a daze. Some part of her knows without even testing it that this is the key; it's the right shape and size, and it being in a location like a dresser makes sense.

She moves back over to the box, unlocks the top, and opens it up.

And within it is…

It's a stuffed bear, and a diary.

Don't. A part of her tries to stop her, even as she reaches down, and picks up the latter item. Don't.

She doesn't listen.

She opens it to the first page, instead, and reads.

'Dear Diary,

Mother gifted me this for the Winter Festival this year, and while I've never had any actual interest in such a thing, I suppose I might as well get some use out of it. Maybe I'll simply write about how my days have gone? Should I date these? Today is the twenty-eighth day of December, in the 68th year following the Color War.'

That would have made Cinder roughly twelve or thirteen years old at the time, given that they currently live 80 years after the Color War themselves.

Cinder had already been at the Glass Unicorn at that point for two years.

'I've not much to say, in all honesty. My sister received a far grander gift in a premium make-up set from Schnee Modeling; which must've cost a fortune, whereas I'm apparently only worth a diary to mother. Typical of her, I suppose. I'm not too terribly surprised.'

There are a few dots on the page, likely from the writer tapping the tip of their pen against the paper over and over again.

'I really do have no idea what I'm supposed to write in this. I suppose for now I'll simply leave this for another time. When next I see you, I suppose, sir diary.'

Cinder, almost in a trance, turns to the next page.

'Dear Diary,

I must confess that I forgot I had received this until this month. It's been nearly four since the Winter Festival. The weather here in Atlas is abysmal, but since that is not a new phenomenon, I shall not speak of it in here.

I further confess that I've only really picked this up because mother was upset with me earlier. I couldn't believe her nerve! I of course stayed my tongue, I wouldn't want to end up like Cinder, but even still, she would not stop heckling me in front of the guests! I was mortified.'

The mention of her sends a shiver down Cinder's spine, despite how casual an utterance it is.

'Who does she think she is? And Mindy refuses to back me up, of course, because she just loves sucking up to mother. Yes, I'm sure she's gotten quite a bit more use out of her Winter Festival gift than I have, given that the acne on her face has 'suddenly disappeared' as of recently. The patrons here are ever demanding, and ever annoying. Cinder is no different. She cannot seem to handle a simple task without slipping, or falling, or tripping over herself. It drives mother up the wall. The problem with that, of course, is that mother can't injure Cinder too badly, or else she couldn't work. So, when she's still angry after punishing her, she takes it out on us! Oh, who am I kidding, I of course mean me. Mindy, as always, gets off scot-free.'

Cinder finds herself pausing a while at this page.

All in all, the writings in here are customary of a teenager. It doesn't seem like an especially redeeming account. The sister isn't suddenly writing about how she'd secretly always wanted to reach out to Cinder, and felt terrible for her. No, she writes as if Cinder had been an unwelcome annoyance.

She's still who Cinder thought she was.

But then, she'd not come in with any idea that she'd be anything else.

It's… hard. Surprisingly hard, to keep reading.

And really, Cinder doesn't know why the fact that she can't remember which of them had been Mindy hurts like it does.

"So yes, she took me into my room and spanked me like I was some child! And Mindy, of course, received only a stern talking to. My bottom still hurts as I'm writing this. It's simply not fair.

Again, there are threads within the writing that seem to indicate that the twin; the one not named Mindy – Cinder can't, for the life of her, remember the name of the other twin – is a spoiled and pampered brat. Perhaps one who had been less appreciated than her sister, but that doesn't make her a good person.

At this point, Cinder would've been maybe twelve or thirteen, which would've made her fourteen or fifteen, give or take a year.

'Writing here has at least given me a chance to speak to someone, even if that someone is a piece of paper. I despise mother, and Mindy as well. I hope they both end up dead.'

On the next line, scrawled in slightly messier writing, are the words, 'I don't. I love them both.'

Cinder stares at that line for some time. Just… she's not really sure. Processing? Allowing herself to feel? It shouldn't surprise her, not really. There had been, scattered amongst the horrible, hellish days, a few times when the Madame or the sisters would do the basest of kindnesses for her.

And she'd felt in her heart then a gratefulness that disgusts her. Yet could she be blamed for that?

She doesn't really think so. She'd been a child, looking, holding onto anything. She'd taken ahold of Jaune's light and cradled it against her breast, and it had been the one thing to carry her through.

But even so… she thinks that maybe, she might've been caught by such easy offerings had she been in a different scenario. And that scares her a bit.

She doesn't necessarily think that this twin had been abused, or neglected, but by her own accounts she'd had a difficult relationship with her family. With the way that the Madame had treated her, that doesn't really surprise Cinder.

She reads the next entry. It's mostly the same. Complaints about her life; the occasional note about an interesting person who'd stayed in the hotel. Cinder has the thought around the fifth or sixth entry like that in a row that she should just put this down and go help Jaune. But…

She doesn't. Something keeps her there.

'Dear Diary,

I've not written here in a while. I turned sixteen yesterday, however, which mother says means I'm to make my debut into high society, and potentially start courting with other nobles. I cannot adequately describe my fury with her at the moment. I understand that mother is desperate to keep up appearances that the Glass Unicorn is still the establishment it was when we were children, and that her family name still means anything, but it is pathetic and sad to see her like this.

Worst of all, Mindy – my older sister, she's never let me forget that, even if she was born mere hours ahead of myself – is all for this debut into high society. I feel like I'm the only sane person amongst a sea of imbeciles!

We are attending a gala tonight, hosted by the Schnee family. Mother won't stop talking about how she spent 'so much' to get us into this, and how we're 'to be on our best behavior'. I'm half tempted to spill a drink on someone just to aggravate her.

I will report back on how the event went. Expect poor news.'

A line is skipped after that, and Cinder reads the next.

'The event was boring. I did very little. Winter Schnee, the Heiress to the Schnee family, was there. She' There are many, many dots following this. 'She is very' dots 'distinguished and poised. We spoke very briefly about not enjoying high society. I found myself' the word enamored has been scribbled out, as have the words fascinated and dumbstruck.

'Diary, I have since meeting Winter come to some rather startling realizations about myself, and I must confess that I may be setting this page alight later.'

Cinder almost wants to laugh.

A moment later she finds herself feeling nauseous.

…She wonders, if she asked her, whether or not Winter Schnee would remember such an event? Who is Cinder kidding, of course she wouldn't. Mindy's sister had just been another name, another face, just another person that the Schnee Heiress had been expected to fraternize with during her time amongst high society.

Cinder has never liked the nobles of Atlas, but Winter Schnee has earned some begrudging respect from her for shirking her family name, and carving her own path.

But…

Cinder flips through the pages, and sees how much more there is in the diary.

There is only a single entry left

…She's seen this through this far, hasn't she?

'Dear Diary,

I decided not to burn the last page, mostly because I do not think I will be using this diary for much longer. Mindy found me writing in it the other day. She has seen me do so on occasion, but I think she did not realize that I was still actively writing in this to this day. She laughed at me and called me a child. I felt small, then. Not to mention Gadot – I should clarify since I do not believe I have mentioned Gadot in these texts, but Gadot is the stuffed bear that I sleep with – also received insult from her. I find her annoying and degrading, and yet perhaps she speaks the truth. I have not heard of many seventeen-year-olds who still write in a diary, or sleep with a teddy bear, even if Gadot is quite distinguished in my personal opinion.

Mindy keeps saying that these both make me seem like a child, like I'm younger than Cinder, even. But I' There are a few dots. 'It's given me comfort over these past few years. It's like a friend. One that lets me talk, and doesn't expect or ask anything of me. Nothing like the nobles that mother cavorts with – with Winter Schnee as obvious exception – or the patrons of the Glass Unicorn who do nothing but ask of me.

I find life in this place stifling, in truth. Mother intends to pass the Glass Unicorn onto us when she wishes to retire, I believe, but I have no intentions of taking it. I have not shared this anywhere but between myself and my thoughts, but recently, I have thought of perhaps moving to Vale when I am of age, and trying to get into the Vale School of the Arts. Perhaps Winter has inspired me to tell my parents to shove off, and follow my own path?' There are many dots after this. 'I mention Winter quite often given that I've spoken to her but once, for perhaps a ten-minute period. Ah, my Winter, I regret that I could not' several rather inappropriate things are crossed out on the next few lines, causing Cinder to raise her eyebrows. 'On second thought, in case Mindy or mother ever read this, I'm going to cross that out, and hope my shame is never revealed.

If this is my last entry, then I should probably sign this.

Thank you for everything, my one and only true friend,

Aurelia.'

The name sinks into her in a way that Cinder is not expecting.

She knows it, but cannot place it.

It's there, in her head, and now that it's been given to her, she can remember that the second twin had been named Aurelia, indeed. But when she thinks back, it's like there's a block, somehow, on that name. how had she remembered Mindy so easily, but not Aurelia?

Aurelia. Cinder thinks. Where have I–

And then the past hits her like a sack of bricks, striking her across the face brutally and without mercy. She remembers where she had last heard that name. She remembers why she had tried so hard to forget it.

Because–

"AURELIA!" She remembers Mindy screaming as her sister had fallen to the ground, her head nearly split from her spine. That name, and screaming, had been all she'd heard for the next minute or so.

She remembers Aurelia's lifeless eyes staring up at her, her neck bent at a terrible, unnatural angle. At the time, there'd been the briefest moment of fear, and then…

The Madame had screamed, and raged, and flourished the electric collar's controller. But Mindy had held nothing within her heart but loss. There'd been only suffering, agony, within Cinder. Too much for her to comprehend her actions for more than a moment. She'd needed to stop the pain coursing through her neck, and the way her head had been hurting, pulsing.

So, Cinder had killed Mindy, too.

A swift cut across the chest, and Mindy had fallen. But it had not been so quick. she'd screamed, too; pleaded, this time for herself.

Cinder had looked down at her, and, in a haze, felt only satisfaction at seeing such.

Her blade had silenced the girl mere moments later.

She wants to think on anything else, but the only thing that comes to her in that moment is the satisfaction of it all. The freedom she'd felt after she'd killed Mindy, and the Madame. Even Rhodes. The realization that she could go anywhere, do anything! Oh, how it had all felt so grand!

She'd been happy; she'd relished killing them. They'd deserved it, hadn't they? For what they'd done to her, for the things they'd put her through, they'd deserved to be gutted and have their insides strewn across the floor!

And…

–Cinder snaps back to life with a terrible gasp, retching as her empty stomach tries to vomit up the nothingness within it. Gods, but she can feel it; what she'd felt back then.

At the time going down it had been so sweet; now it burns coming back up, and she cannot stomach it. She feels something wrap around her as she jettisons what yet remains of the meal she'd had earlier in the day. She would collapse to her knees if not for the pair of arms holding her up, and even as she herself lets out a ragged, terrible breath.

"Fuck–" She pants, trying not to think on it, but it's the only thing her mind can comprehend. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! FUCK!"

"Cinder, it's okay!" She hears her little light's voice trying to calm her. "You're okay, whatever it is, you're okay!"

And that's just the problem, isn't it? She's okay. She's okay, and she's been given a second chance. She gets to be happy, to keep living.

Aurelia, Mindy, neither of them had been saints; neither of them had even been good people, and yet…

When Cinder thinks about the person she'd been; how she'd been given a chance to repent, to change her ways, and to realize how horrible she'd become for a time…

They'd never gotten that chance. Cinder had ripped it away from them.

Her fault.

It had been her fault.

She retches again, but there's nothing there within her. Her throat makes a terrible noise; like it's trying to turn itself inside-out. But it cannot, and eventually, the wave of disgust at her old emotions' fades.

And she is left in her soulmate's arms, atop Aurelia's bed, staring at a puddle of her own vomit.

"You okay?" Jaune whispers gently.

It's all she can do to shake her head.

"Okay. Then… I'll just stay here with you, alright? We'll just stay here… until you're okay. How about that?"

She doesn't have the energy to do anything but nod. Yet it hurts, the way he's so gentle with her. She doesn't want it. No, that's not true. She does want it, but she knows she doesn't deserve it. How many people… how many had she taken such a happiness from? And now she's allowed it? Why? How is that fair?

She doesn't want to think about it, and yet she does. She starts counting the bodies.

She counts the ones she doesn't regret first. They're so small in number.

The Madame. The slavers who'd originally run the orphanage she'd been adopted from that she'd gone back to kill. There'd been… eight or nine of them that had been on location? She'd not managed to trace their operations back to a higher authority. It is a regret she still carries.

…Is that it? She had killed so many; hundreds, indirectly thousands due to the attack on Vale, and somehow, she can only conjure up ten that had deserved it? And yet, somehow, she deserves to be happy!?

What about Rhodes, and Aurelia, and Mindy, and Amber!? What about the members of Roman's gang that she'd killed to make him fall in line, who'd been guilty of nothing but theft? What about the numerous White Fang she'd thrown to the wolves time and time again, to serve as only fodder? Some served under Adam, and they she had less sympathy for, but how many had been like Blake, or Ilia, just trying to make a difference?

How many families had been eaten alive by the Grimm as they stormed the streets of Vale in droves!? How many children had been left orphaned just like her, with nothing, because of her actions!?

She is a monster; that much is clear.

And somehow… somehow, she's been given a chance to be something better.

She almost wants to ask why, but can't quite bring herself to.

She thinks she knows why.

It's the same reason she'd been in the scenario that she had as a child. The same reason she'd been sold into slavery, the same reason she'd been abused and taken advantage of for five years of her life.

Because the world isn't fair. It never has been, and it won't ever be.

Cinder wipes away at her mouth, and then spits the remaining contents of her stomach out onto the ground. She feels… not better, certainly, but slightly more human than while she'd been collapsing into herself.

"Sorry," Cinder mutters.

"Don't." Jaune shakes his head. "You're fine. You're allowed to be distraught. I don't really care why. Or– of course I care why, I mean more that you don't have to explain yourself to me if you don't want to."

Cinder smiles, despite it all. "I know. You've always cared."

Jaune nods against her.

There is silence a while. It's nice, to feel like Jaune's genuinely not going to ask her why she'd collapsed like that, even if she can tell he wants to know.

So, she'll tell him. Because if anyone deserves to know… it's him.

So, she spills every little thing. She tells Jaune all of what's haunting her; of the visions of the past that eat away at her. She tells him and huddles herself against him, and allows herself to feel weak, and small, and feeble in this one instance.

It's… nice.

And Jaune doesn't make excuses for her. Of course, he tells her that she's doing her best, and that her best is more than enough, but he never tries to tell her that her sins aren't as appalling as Cinder knows they are. He never says what they both know he feels, but even still…

The lack of admission to the contrary is evidence enough.

Still, eventually, Cinder feels like she's recovered enough for them to exit the room. They don't take much of anything from the twin's room, but before they go, Cinder turns back around, and just… takes one final look.

And she finds herself wanting to say something, perhaps for sentimentalities sake.

"Aurelia. Mindy…" Her voice is quiet; weak.

"I'm sorry you weren't given the same chance that I was. I don't forgive you for what you did to me; for what you helped to put me through …"

"But I'm sorry for what happened. You didn't deserve to die for it."

It's her own opinion on the matter. Perhaps someone else might not agree. Perhaps they would feel that because the twins had been cruel to her; because they'd tormented her, and bullied her, they deserved what had happened to them.

But Cinder… she feels how she feels. And that's all that matters, she thinks.

And with that… with that she steps out of the twin's room forever. She exits out of that place, and does her best to shelve those memories. Those feelings don't listen to her, not really, but…

It's all she can do to try.

And perhaps Jaune is right.

Perhaps that is enough.

End Chapter 51

Cinder confronts her own emotions about her actions, and resolves herself as best she can. We'll be shifting away from Cinder POV chapters for a bit, but might return to them sometime soon? Not sure.

Alright, that's all this week. Let me know what you thought in a review or comment please!

See you next week!