Lazula felt the crunching of snow underneath her boots. The air was hazy. It wasn't the morning fog she had grown used to around Sentinel; it was as if the air itself had substance, a milky film floating between her eyes and the row of thatched-roof huts all covered in snow.
She didn't recognize the others in the village. She couldn't. The faces of all who passed and bid their greetings were oily swirls of skin tone and color. A faint glow came from within their forms, a gentle aura accented by the murkiness of Lazula's vision. She waved back to what appeared to be a woman in a washed-out maroon gown.
Her hands weren't her own. She always made sure to take care of her skin, but her hands were calloused and cracked, dirty nails at the end of each broad finger. A carpet of hair and a handful of scars covered her brawny forearm, halfway covered by layers of emerald cloth.
It must have been a dream. Yet everything from the snow beneath her feet to the frigid breeze on her chapped lips felt too real.
A droning sound caught her -or his- attention. An airship flew low overhead. Black, but it was one of Mistral's old models, judging by its fin-like wings and wooden hull. The milky air around it swirled and distorted as the ship slowed and began to lower just beyond the largest hut of the village.
A crowd began to gather.
By the time Lazula woke, Mrs. Kurayami was awake as well, fanning the stream of white smoke rising from the lit kindling. She had apparently seen enough the night before. Team LSLI took over an hour to get their damp twigs and dead pine needles to ignite, and the flame died in even less time. They had gone to bed cold and frustrated, but Lazula was grateful they could at least wake up to warmth.
"Ah, Lazula," Mrs. Kurayami greeted. "You are awake early."
Lazula nodded. "Yeah. I usually wake up around this time anyway," She knelt near the beginnings of the fire, holding her hands in front of it. "It's cold out here, though. I'm not used to it."
"Well, that is why we are here," Mrs. Kurayami reminded. She placed a few twigs on the most vivid embers, adding a couple more as they began to catch.
"That attempt at a fire last night showed we're here for a reason," Lazula joked. "Thanks for lighting this one."
"Ah, of course," Mrs. Kurayami returned with the slightest trace of a smile. "Today will not be easy. I figured I should help some."
Lazula sighed. If even Mrs. Kurayami, who had lived the first eighteen years of her life in the frigid, Grimm-infested mountains of Northern Anima, admitted the day would be difficult, it would be.
"Can I go for a walk around camp?" Lazula asked. "I usually jog around Sentinel, and I can't really wake myself up if I don't get some form of exercise."
"Yes, but do not stray too far. It is easy to get lost in the woods," the huntress allowed. "You have my Holoband number, correct?"
"Yeah," Lazula confirmed. She rubbed her hands together to spread the heat of the fire, then took to the trees.
Ichigo was next to stir. "Ichigo! You are awake early as well," his mother greeted.
"Yeah. I was honestly having some trouble sleeping," he admitted, putting on his glasses and approaching the fire.
"Ah, is something the matter?"
"Well... kind of," he admitted. "We're so far out in the middle of nowhere, I'm a little bit nervous about Grimm." He looked down to the fire. "Everyone from Twilight Crusade tells stories of how fearlessly you fought them, but I- well, I'm terrified of them."
"Ah, Ichigo..." his mother comforted. The fire began to catch, so she left it to grow and sat at her son's side. "To tell you the truth, I am glad you fear them. At least to a degree."
Ichigo's uncertain look prompted her elaboration.
"When I was fearless, it was only because I had not realized the value of my own life," she began. "My tribe held duty, and fealty to our goddess, above all. The oaths I had sworn in Her name came before my life, and I could find no room for happiness. As soon as I found something to live for, I began to feel fear. To fear is natural. To fear is to value your own life."
Ichigo sighed, looking up to the dots of sky peeking through the pine canopy. "Thanks, but... even the animatronics scared me a bit. When the real thing attacked Sentinel, I hid."
His mother nodded. "You were not ready to fight the Grimm just yet, and I am glad you recognized that. Perhaps you still are not ready. But your many other talents aside, you can train and become ready."
"But what if they attack now? We're who-knows-how far away from Vale. Help wouldn't come for us!"
"Grey- Headmaster Skye, rather, is confident in our safety. He claims we are safer out here than we are in Port Cyrreine," Mrs. Kurayami assuaged. "Seeing as all attacks so far have been within the city, I am inclined to agree." She put a hand on Ichigo's shoulder. "But should they attack, you are in good company. I will protect you, and your teammates are all quite skilled."
Ichigo pursed his lips, and finally nodded. "Thanks, mum."
The walk in the woods around the campsite she and her team had set up the night before did little to quell Lazula's nerves. The pine forests were beautiful, and she had never breathed such crisp morning air. But still, something she couldn't identify disturbed her about the place. Some vague nagging feeling that something was amiss. By the time she had returned, Laurel had just woken up and sat at the edge of their canvas tent wrapped in whatever blankets she could find.
"Now all of you are here, I will explain what we are to do today," Mrs. Kurayami announced. She produced a small box from the bag at her side, and set it on the ground between her and the now-roaring fire. "This is all the food we have to eat. So first, we will collect food and water." She looked to her son, then to Laurel. "There is a stream nearby. I will take Ichigo and Laurel to it, and we will collect water, as well as any herbs or berries we can find."
"Sounds simple enough," Laurel responded.
Lazula placed a handful of pine branches on the damp forest floor before sitting. She grimaced, as they still weren't enough to stop the moisture from seeping through.
Mrs. Kurayami turned to her, then looked up to Snow. "I will instruct you two on how to shoot a bow. Then, you will hunt. Rabbits are quite difficult to shoot, but they will provide enough meat for us, without being wasteful."
"Understood," Snow affirmed.
"We'll have to hunt?" Lazula thought. "I've never killed anything apart from spiders, and the ten or so mosquitoes last night." She took a deep breath. "Got it."
The calls of birds and the snapping of twigs with each step were the only sounds in the suffocating pine. It was late morning, and while it was already overcast, the trees shrouded the forest below in the darkness of dusk. The two had seen a handful of rabbits, but as they tried to approach, their prey fled. Animals that see humans less tend to be more skittish, Mrs. Kurayami had warned. But still, they were fleeing before they were any more than a dot among the undergrowth and fallen trees.
Not that Lazula could blame them. She and Snow were completely alien to the area. And, well, they were hunting the poor creatures. But maybe something about the forest itself stirred unease within every being inside of it. She turned to Snow.
"So, feels weird being so far from Sentinel, doesn't it?"
"It is different, yes. I've never been so far from the city."
"None of us have, except Ichigo's mom." Lazula lowered the bow to her side, forgetting the hunt. "Does anything about this make you nervous?" she tested.
Snow blinked, cocking her head and looking up to the branches. "Nervous..." she reflected. She shook her head. "No. This place interests me."
"It interests you?" Lazula prompted.
Snow nodded. "I've only heard about places outside the Kingdom. I never knew I would be able to see them for myself." She looked to a bird that fluttered onto a branch above the two. It was sky blue with white breast and a black band around its neck. "There aren't many animals in Port Cyrreine. I've never seen a bird like that before."
"Oh, I think that's a blue jay," Lazula responded. So, Snow didn't share in her unease. Yet she was happy the permanently melancholic girl seemed to be enjoying the trip.
"You've seen them before?" Snow asked.
"Only once or twice," Lazula responded. "I think they live out in the woods mostly, so I haven't seen many either."
Snow paused. She turned her head away from Lazula, prompting her to look at what had grabbed her partner's attention so suddenly.
A fat brown rabbit hopped out from a thicket about twenty feet away, gnawing on a bundle of leaves. Without a word, Lazula raised her bow. "Feet about shoulder width apart. Shoulders square, in line with the target. Nock the arrow," Lazula rehearsed. Earlier, she managed to hit the trunk of a rotten tree from about the same distance. But that target was at least twice as wide, and couldn't run after her first handful of shots missed. She let out a deep breath. "Aim, then pull the arrow back to your chin, and release your grip."
The bowstring slapped against Lazula's wrist as she let fly, causing her to drop the bow and shout in surprised pain. The arrow flew wide left, scattering the leaves of a bramble behind her target. The rabbit fled.
"Damn it..." Lazula hissed, holding her wrist. She picked up the bow, offering it to Snow. "Here, why don't you try? With your semblance, I think you'd be a good shot."
"I don't want to kill a rabbit."
"Right. You don't eat meat, huh?" Lazula recalled. She sighed. She would have to do it after all.
"I don't like the idea of something being raised just to die."
Lazula nodded. "I know. At least this way it's more natural. We're just predators, hunting for our prey." She looked down to the weapon in her hand. "Still, I've always liked rabbits..."
Ten or fifteen minutes had passed before the two found more prey. Snow alerted Lazula, who once again rehearsed Mrs. Kurayami's instructions in her head. Bows -most ranged weapons, really- seemed so unwieldy and awkward.
She lined up the arrow, and let fly. It sprung forth with blinding speed, and struck its target savagely, casting up a cloud of debris from the forest floor. Lazula felt none of the satisfaction she thought would come after the long, difficult hunt.
"It's dead," Snow reported.
Lazula breathed out, and began to walk to her quarry. "Okay. Let's get it back to Mrs. Kurayami. Hopefully she'll skin it for-"
She froze upon seeing the lifeless creature. Blood leaked from both sides of the wound, saturating the dirt. She began to feel lightheaded, as a cobblestone road stretched out beneath her in her mind's eye. The trees vanished, and she was once again in the village of her dreams.
The rabbit had vanished too. Replacing it was the body of a man, his green robes soaked through with blood. Lazula fell back.
When she opened her eyes, she was once again in the forest, with Snow kneeling next to her.
"Are you alright?" the white-haired girl asked.
"Yeah, fine," Lazula claimed, pushing herself back to her feet and brushing pine needles from the back of her pants.
"Does blood nauseate you?" Snow continued.
"It hasn't before," Lazula responded, recalling the bloody noses and other minor scrapes of her childhood, before she had unlocked her aura. "Forget this happened. I'm fine."
Snow nodded, and looked down to the rabbit. "I can carry it back."
Night came. Snow and Lazula returned to camp with their lone rabbit, to meet the water canteens hauled in by Laurel, Ichigo, and Mrs. Kurayami, then boiled. The huntress thanked the rabbit for its life before adding a handful of herbs she had gathered and cooking it on the open flame. It provided a surprising amount of meat, but not enough to tide them over for the next day.
The rain held off through the evening. Lazula and her team huddled close to the fire, and each other, for warmth. Mrs. Kurayami sat a few feet back on an old stump, telling stories of her days with Twilight Crusade.
"Would you be willing to tell us more about... up North?" Lazula prodded. "The time you were all framed. My mom and dad don't talk about it much, other than calling it the worst nine days of their life."
"Ah, yes..." the huntress said, nodding slowly. She paused as if reciting to herself a memory she had long tried to forget, or deciding what parts should be left out. "Well, we planned a trip to the mountains North of Mistral, so I would be able to visit my tribe," she began. "When we arrived, we found a village destroyed. It looked to have been done just before our arrival. One of the many poor souls among that village was still alive, but just barely. Before passing onto the stars, he told us the Church of Awakening had done it."
"All a ploy to get stronger or whatever, right?" Laurel recalled.
"Yes. Their semblances all fed off the souls of those they killed. The son of the family, Vladimir Garnett, was most powerful. Their souls fed directly into him, and gave him immense strength."
"Parasites," Laurel spat.
"We left soon after, but were spotted by a Mistral military patrol. Before we were able to speak to our innocence, they opened fire on our airship," Mrs. Kurayami continued. "It was a miracle no one was injured severely in the crash. Yet it became the least of our worries. We were lost in the middle of Winter, being hunted by the military. And as you know, Professor Corvis-Braun is an awakened faunus. I do not know whether she can still use her semblance, but it feeds off its host's negative emotion, much like Grimm. We have never blamed her, but she lost control over her semblance, making our condition much worse."
"Speaking of Grimm, you probably had trouble with them too," Lazula added.
Mrs. Kurayami nodded. "A great deal of them came after us," she affirmed. "We are lucky we had so many skilled huntsmen among us."
She opened her mouth as if to continue speaking, but paused. A quizzical look flashed across her face as she looked down to her Holoband. She was being called. She stood up from the stump, leaving the campsite with an unnerving urgency as she raised Holoband to her chin. After a minute or two of hushed speech, she returned with her katana at her side.
"The nearby village has been attacked."