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I let Penny walk away from me. I slid Cinder's bow-sword combination into my harness on my back. My skull buzzed with the THC and all the other drugs in my system. I felt myself still on edge and Neo appeared beside me in a subtle shattering of reality. She waved at me.
"Hey Neo," I greeted her reappearance right back. Behind me is the heart of the city of silver and soft blues. A jeweled circlet worn about the neck. It choked me with its aristocracy and sanctimoniousness; so fragile, the glass and gems. Was it always on the brink of collapse? Or just when I really looked at it. The Grimm outnumbered humanity and the faunus. My Mother and the wizard played chess for countless centuries. People rushed about. They made me dizzy.
Fiery reds and oranges like strata lit up the sky and the crystal and glass buildings above the rock. I prefer prink, I think.
Neo nodded at me right back.
"Job's done," I said from lack of things to say. What more could be said? It was over. After so long now. Half of my life had been devoted to this vengeance. Now I had it. I'd done it. The mission was accomplished. I suppose I could go home, wherever that was for me.
She nodded again. Ever silent. Ever mute. I wished that she would talk. To just say something to me. Only the once would be enough.
Then she pumped a fist into the air. That was as talkative as she ever was.
"Celebrate?" I asked. I was trying to interpret her. I'd gotten rather good at it and some things you didn't forget. Like riding a bicycle.
She affirmed me with a wide grin.
"Fuck it. Why not? Ding dong the bitch is dead. I'll drink to that." Maybe that would make me feel better. Maybe it just hadn't settled in that she was dead. Maybe I could hope.
She mimed guzzling a drink.
"Where you thinkin'? You know a place?" We turned back to the crystal city on the rock, like a geode. The late sun hit the buildings with streaks of oranges down to crimson. The sky flashed at me like a knife off of a hundred sheets of metal and panes of smooth surfaces. Gods, this city has no sharp edges. There was nothing to cut myself on. It was so smooth and flat and all the edges were sanded down and smoothed over like seashells.
My friend turned on her heels with a click and I followed her down Atlesian streets away from the academy where all my responsibilities lay. My future, whatever that was, could wait. For now I wanted to kick back and drink with a friend. Sue me. I'm only Cetra. And there was a weight in my stomach that I could scarcely manage to drag around with me. Maybe liquor would lighten my load. Probably not, though. I knew this weight would stay with me. It was in my stomach not my mind where the alcohol would buzz me.
The weight of all the things that hovered over me could stand to be held off a little longer. I wanted them to wait. Today I won. Today I found a victory. I just didn't feel it in my heart yet, but that was okay. I would feel it in time. I just had to let the message really get to me. Cinder was gone. The weight became long and drawn out. It didn't pass. There is no reason for it to pass. It becomes intolerable.
Dead.
Caput.
I walk with one foot in the gutter and I smile at Neo with fragility. It is I who is made of glass and set fit to shatter. And when I do I'll slice everyone that I love.
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I stumbled back to the academy. Neo and I had hopped from one club to the next to the next. We were never still and I danced like a man on fire when I could. I waved my arms in the air and I twisted my legs like they were made of jelly. Loud music, stiff drinks, THC and CBD, the works. I partook in them all. I found all those drugs that I liked. The concoction blitzed me pleasantly.
I had said my goodbyes to Neo and promised to meet her again soon. And I would. She was a close friend and I had missed her. I didn't have many friends. Most came from Beacon and Neo was an exception. I met her at my lowest point and she raised me up. We both helped each other with nothing else to gain for it.
My head swam and my blood felt like lava from the way I had drugged myself. My cheeks were flushed with the drinks and there was an incredible rush behind my eyes from THC and the brew of antipsychotics and other drugs I had in my system. It felt so good.
Here was the thing about antipsychotics. It's impossible to prove that they work because no one knows how the brain works. Instead they give sick people drugs and ask them if they feel better. And if they do so statistically it becomes an antipsychotic. They're happy pills, don't you know?
Still, I felt empty inside. They never fixed that. None of the drugs did. I felt nothing all night long. Just a cold void in my chest that none of the celebrations filled.
In the end killing Cinder hadn't given me any joy. Not a shred of the stuff. Where was the pleasure? Where was the satisfaction? Maybe it was because it was Penny had been the one to kill her but I didn't think so. That didn't feel quite right. Maybe murdering my enemies didn't thrill me anymore. I thought I liked my boot on the necks of my enemies. I thought it brought me satisfaction. But this time, this kill, nothing. There was nothing at all and this was supposed to be my most important kill. The most important one of my whole life and I felt just absolutely empty.
Murder wasn't something I was supposed to like. But there was a part of me that did. I enjoyed killing people. I was good at it, too. I didn't like that part of me though.
Sure, I was glad she was dead. It was another mission accomplished and one load off of my mind. But it didn't bring me anything other than that. Even a night of wild debauchery hadn't helped at all.
Why? What was wrong with me? I mean besides the already discussed and obvious.
Pyrrha was finally avenged. I had brought her justice even against all odds and from beyond that grave she didn't get. So why wasn't I happy? In the end, I found myself just missing Pyrrha. The glow of her eyes. The burn of her hair. The sound of her voice and the soft apple smell she carried. I missed it all.
My eyes burned with tears. My constitution faltered.
I didn't want Cinder dead. Not really. I never did. I never had, I realized.
I wanted my friend back. Or whatever the fuck she was to me. Something which was deeply confusing. That was the truth of it. It made my heart feel jagged in my throat.
That's what I wanted. I wanted her back. I'd known her for half my life and she'd been my partner for that time. My partner.
And nothing I could ever do was going to change that and give her back to me. I still wasn't ready to let Pyrrha go and move on. Killing Cinder didn't change where I was at with my grief. I felt no respite from the agony of my loss. It tugged at me, pulling me down, down, down.
It pulled me from the bottom of one bottle to the next. It blew me along like ash from my pipe on a breeze. I found nothing. No comfort or solace in the drugs which mixed and put me into a beautiful cross-fade. My brain buzzed and the drugs hummed inside me. But still I couldn't forget. I couldn't even decide if I wanted to forget and still I couldn't forgive my own weakness. If only I had been stronger then rather than now. What I wouldn't trade and give for the chance to save her life. It felt like I had no skin.
What was I? What was this heat? What was this chill? I realized I would never truly be happy like this but what could I do to change it.
I found Weiss and Ruby waiting in my room. Weiss was standing but Ruby was sitting with her legs folded on the bed, my bed. I watched them both with parched eyes and a certain thirst.
"We waited for you…" Weiss trailed, her arms folded.
"Sorry. I went out and celebrated with Neo." My voice came out as a croak.
"Make you feel any better?" Weiss asked. There was something judgemental in her tone, but also something concerned. So I told the truth.
"Not really," I sighed.
"You stink. Like a dank stink. And like alcohol," Ruby complained. She walked up and hugged me.
"It's marijuana and alcohol, yeah," I confessed.
"Cloud…" Weiss folded her arms disapprovingly. "On your drugs? Do you really think that's a good idea? Do you like making us worry?"
"Weiss…" Ruby trailed off. Weiss stopped. "What happened, Cloud?"
"I thought I would enjoy Cinder's death," I began. "I wanted to enjoy it. Wanted to savor it. I thought I could finally be free once I had justice for Pyrrha. But there is no justice. If there was she would still be alive. Ren and Nora, too. And my problems… my enemies have only grown in number and power since this time last year. Everything is pretty much as bad as it was yesterday, even my success today with Penny doesn't change that or save my mind. I don't know how I can go on. There's not a drop of hope inside me. The gods are capricious and cruel. Or maybe just apathetic. I'm not sure which is worse. I'm not sure which is true. But I do know this, this planet is godforsaken. In this absurd universe how is there anything but despair?"
They stared at me. Weiss's jaw worked for a long moment. I went on though. I mustered through. I had to tell somebody. Tell somebody anything at all. Tell them, these two, everything.
"I struggle against my evil nature and I think that that is good but in my heart I know I am fallible. I am guilty of sin. In my soul I know sin. And in the end I'm going to fall apart anyways. I don't think I can give you the family you want, Rubes." I rubbed my face hard with my hand. "I don't see any meaning in raising kids. Especially with my Mother still around. It's all fit to collapse and become nothing and meaningless. I have nothing I want to pass along anyways."
It was worse than that. So much worse. It was unbearable. I was in pain just being alive.
"If my Mother looks at me wrong," I snapped my fingers. "I'll disappear."
Ruby and Weiss were quiet for a long time.
"Cloud I love you," Ruby began. "That means something to me. Does that mean anything to you?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes not so much." I looked her dead in her greying eyes. They seemed to lack their usual luster and seemed a dullish hue. The tips of her crimson hair hung low over her face and it seemed like she could hardly look at me. "All I can think about is the pressing presence of my Mother.. Why tremble with emotions that aren't even there? In the end I'm just an empty puppet. I think that I love you. And I think that that is good too, but then I am consumed by this nothingness and despair or my Mother's feelers and suddenly it seems like nothing at all."
Tears ran down Ruby's face at my confession. "You're real, Cloud. You're real. You're not an empty shell. I can see it in your eyes."
"I don't think that I am. When I look in the mirror I see a manikin. I can't keep this up. How do you keep going? Weiss, after everything you've been through how do you have the strength to move on?"
"I have Ruby. She has hope enough for three." Weiss spoke after only a moment's hesitation. "It's easy to give in to despair. With my sister… with my sister I wanted to give up. But I can't. Not yet. I… I have dreams. I have dreams of establishing lasting peace between the humans and the faunus. I even have dreams of having a family one day. With you, perhaps, if you're willing to provide. I want my dreams. I want my future. I want my goals. I want a world without Salem in it. That means something to me. My friends, too, they matter to me. I didn't have that through most of my life but I do now and I like it. I like what I have built up here. Don't you?" She wondered at me. "The relationships I have are strident and true. You can't have thought that killing Cinder would bring you lasting peace. You can't have thought it would be the end to all your problems. You can't have thought that it would bring Pyrrha back. You must have known that," Weiss finished.
I slumped against a wall and rubbed my hand around my face and through my spiky hair. "I did and I didn't. I thought that it would be something, at least. I thought it would mean something after all this time I dedicated to revenge. But I just feel empty inside. What am I supposed to focus on now? For… a half of my life killing Cinder has been my main target and now that I finally got it, and I feel so empty, I don't know what to think. It feels like some sort of sick joke the universe is playing on me. It gave me what I wanted, or what I thought I wanted, at least, and then it snatched happiness from my jaws."
"Don't you want to defeat Salem and be free? To save the planet?" Ruby asked. "Don't you want me? Don't you want Weiss?"
A low shaking breath left me, "yes. I do so badly. I want to live. I want to have my life."
"Dilly-dally shilly-shally. Then have those things you want with us. Don't hold back and act like you're doing it on our account," Ruby protested. "Because we want you. We still want you anyways."
"I'm not fit to be with anyone. Not you. Not my friends. Nobody."
"Dilly-dally shilly-shally! You're here with us but you're not letting yourself just be. You can't let your fears rule over you. Then you're as much a slave as if you gave in to Salem," Weiss murmured. "We're all doomed. That's the Cetra condition. It's what it means to be a person. And the world is absurd but that doesn't make it hopeless. It just makes it unreasonable, and that is all. You can still have meaning and you can still not give in to despair."
I said nothing. I just leaned against the wall and rubbed at my skull.
"Cloud? Would you let me have your kids even if we don't defeat your mother?" Ruby asked. Her voice was small and it had a pleading note to it. "I don't want her to stop me from leading my life. I want my family."
"No," I brutalized. My voice was fit to break. Like a log in a fire. It was brittle and nearly crackled. "I can't do that to some kid. Especially not my kid. It's too dangerous."
She was crying. I knew it would break her big ol' Ruby heart to hear me say it. But I had to be honest with her. I believed in honesty. I couldn't look at Ruby and lie to her. It was impossible. It burned me to do it, though. Like I was staring into the sun. The glare of it all was immeasurably intense. I wanted to give her what she wanted and I even could want to have a kid with her. I could see it. It wasn't at the top of my wants but a family… it sounded nice. It seemed like a pleasant thought experiment but that's all it was to me. That was all it could be.
I couldn't do it. Not with my Mother around who could just infect an infant and control them right underneath my nose. She could torture my child. My child. My children. With Ruby. Ruby's children. Her babies. My babies. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't do it.
I couldn't. How could I do that to somebody?
"I'm sorry. You should find somebody else. Somebody who isn't a hopeless cause."
"I want you!" Ruby shouted at me and I flinched like I'd been smacked in the mouth by a goddamn tree branch. "I'll save you! You'll see!" She vowed. "And we'll have our family. And even if you die… I'll raise them in your memory. A part of you will be with me. Always."
She ran across the room and wrapped her hands around my waist and squeezed me tightly. I reached down and put my arms around her. I cried a little too. Weiss came over and I wrapped an arm around her as well. My wide frame was large enough to wrap up both of their petite ones. Their shoulders were so narrow and so small.
"I'm sorry. I know you both want more from me. I want to give it to you too but I just can't. Not yet. And… and I'm still not over Pyrrha's death. I thought I would be now but I'm just not." Her sash was still tied tightly around my bicep. It was a dirty, browning thing. The bright red fading to a duller color.
There was silence as we all held each other and swayed slightly on our feet in unison.
"Ruby was right. You do stink. You're not going to make a habit out of smoking, are you?"
"I might. It feels so good. It's like salt. Imagine going the rest of your life without salt on anything else ever again. Only this stuff is salt for the mind. Every experience is all the more intense."
Weiss sighed. "It messes with your usual smell. In a bad way. I'd miss your usual smell."
"Would you now?" I grinned.
"Oh knock it off." She did that thing I loved where she hit me but her hand lingered on my chest.
Ruby reached up with her hands and touched my face. "It'll be hard to kiss you when you're all stinky."
"I suppose I could give it up. If it's for kisses I wouldn't mind. Maybe just as a rare thing, then."
"You really shouldn't do it at all on your meds," Weiss grumbled.
"Yeah well life's not perfect and I feel like I need to abuse substances to get through the day."
"Fine, just as long as it's not every day. I'm not marrying an addict." Then she blushed beet red at what she said.
"Marriage?" I leaned back.
"Keep up." Ruby ordered. "We want you. You want us. Why play games?" She demanded.
"I suppose I could do that. Just so long… so long as you're ready..."
"Gods you're so pessimistic. Just let us all have this moment," Weiss sputtered.
I did.
It was nice.
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-WG