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My mother smiled down at me softly. She was wearing a clean white dress. Her blue eyes smiled on her face and her straw blonde hair waved behind her. It was mid-back length. She was also wearing a golden bracelet and a golden neck chain. It didn't enhance her beauty really but it did sparkle softly against her pale skin.

"Jaune, won't you grab your sisters? The cookies are almost done baking in the oven. Gather everyone together for me and I'll serve you all a glass of milk."

I nodded and departed from the clean kitchen with the silver stove and kitchenware. I walked into the living room to see Kolumbine and Juniper playing on the leather brown sofa. They turned to look at me in perfect unison.

"Mom is making cookies," I told the twins. They had the same curly hair and pale blue eyes like mother's. They had her pale skin as well where I was a touch darker and more red in complexion. They both turned and took off for the kitchen. I watched them go before I continued my quarry for my younger sisters.

I went upstairs to the second floor of the house. The tan walls towered over me on either side. I realized distantly that I should be taller than I currently was. And Juniper and Kolumbine should be older too.

I found little Lily in her room. She had darker eyes like mine and her hair was almost white it was so blonde. She put down the book she was reading where she lounged on her bed at my knock of the door. "Lily, mom's making cookies. She wants everyone in the kitchen in five or so," I informed her. She nodded and gave me a little wave. She put a bookmark in her book and crawled out of bed.

Lily was the youngest and she had a special place in all our hearts because of it. I was eager to be the protective big brother in my own way when the time was right.

I walked down the hall.

I found Iris next. She was playing in the little fish tank she had by the windowsill. It was a beautiful red and purple fish. Her deep blue eyes flickered over to me when I entered and repeated the message to her.

"I'll be right down," she assured me. "What's the occasion?"

"No occasion, I don't think so at least. I think she just wanted to make cookies. Scamper on down. Say do you know where Saphron, Violet, or Lavender are?" I asked.

"They're out in the woods. Saphron is leading a hunting expedition…" she murmured as she passed me. She turned and walked backwards down the hallway. "You'll have to search for them."

I sighed but took it in stride. It was sort of my job. In my queer way. I followed down the hallway and down the stairs. I exited through the atrium and outside the tall white house. It was surrounded by acreage. Forests with one strip of road cut into them to get out with miles and miles of forrest around. It would take some searching but I thought I heard laughs and giggles from the direction the sun was setting in. I walked that way. I climbed over a grey rock and under yellow and orange trees. The leaves were turning tremendous shades as fall set in. It would be dark soon but I would find the eldest three girls before then.

"Saphron!" I called out. "Lavender! Violet!"

No response came from my shouting. But I'd turn this miserable rock over looking for them if I had to. What else were big brothers for? If not gathering their sisters, then what?

I walked through an open clearing with tall grass. Wild apples and oaks surrounded me but there was still no sign of their little blonde heads.

I pushed past the clearing in the direction that I heard a happy, wild shriek from. This way. They had to be this way.

When I encountered Saphron's party they were scattered about the trees and rocks by a three meter cliff side. Saphron was standing at the top of the cliff with a stick in one hand overlooking her sisters and I. VIolet was halfway up a tree and Lavender rested at the base of the cliff face.

"Time to come in…" I trailed. "Mother's making cookies and it's time to come in for the night anyways. Or it will be by the time cookies are over."

"It's always when it's just getting interesting…" Saphron jumped from the cliff and landed in a roll. I took a half step forward but I wasn't sure what for. It wasn't like I could have caught her. I was much too weak in this prepubescent body. She landed and brushed her hair out of her face with both hands in a curtain. She had the darkest hair of us all which wasn't saying much. It was darker by dozens of shades than Lily's ghostly hair or even mother's pale straw blonde. It was a dirty blonde in total.

Violet stood and looked at me. She had the darkest eyes out of all eight of us. They were, in fact, almost violet. It was where she got her name. Her dark blue eyes would stand out in any crowd.

Meanwhile Lavender's attributes were the softest of us all in total: pale eyes, pale hair. A round nose. It was very quintessentially Arc-family-traits. She stood out amongst us in the fashion that, excluding me, she stood out the least.

I was invariably the odd one out. I know they didn't think of me that way. But I did. I was the oldest and I was supposed to be reachable in ways Mom wasn't. But there were still ways I was supposed to be beyond them. I was supposed to be the most mature. The most masculine. The most a lot of things which I really wasn't.

I led the way back to the house without a word. But my head was held high. When we walked inside and left our shoes by the door I was the last one in and when we went to the kitchen I was the last one in there as well. All the others were sitting around the kitchen island of granite and dunking cookies in mugs of warm milk. Lavender, Saphron, and Violet took their seats before I did and joined in the cookie crumble.

I stole a chocolate chip biscuit off of the cooling racks without taking my seat. Before my eyes it transformed into a Grimm faced spider. It crawled around my hand and I turned my hand over so my palm was down and it hung off the side of my hand near my pinkie. Then it bit down into my right hand.

I woke with a startled gasp and grasped my hand. It was searing with a vibrating pain that wasn't stopping. I squeezed it with my left as I sat up and I heard my mother's voice distinctly and loudly in my ear as I was processing waking up.

"Did you rest well, Jaune?" The voice beckoned. "I have so many surprises for you. You have so much to learn."

I calmed my breathing and my panic. Or I tried to. Ruby was sleeping soundly next to me but as I watched the shadows on the walls started to crawl. Everywhere I wasn't looking were Grimm faced black and white spiders pouring towards me.

I blinked and they were gone, retreating. Then they came scuttling back towards me out of the shadows again. I blinked and they were back in the distant corners of the room. I kept blinking and resetting them until I no longer saw the crawling shadows.

I heard a voice again. My mother's voice once more. But I couldn't make out the words… I listened harder as though I would gain some insight by the hypnopompic hallucinations. There was nothing. I couldn't focus. I couldn't make out the words. My hand still hurt where the spider bit me but there was nothing to do but clutch my hand to my chest.

Ruby still dozed restfully beside me. She was totally ignorant of my panic and I felt like using my voic but for some reason I just couldn't make my throat work like it was supposed to. I would have screamed upon awakening if I could. It was some sleep paralysis that made me only manage a low croaking groan. Besides, maybe it was for the best. I couldn't wake my girlfriend up over a bad dream. It wasn't worth it. I'd just have to manage on my own. Which was fine. I could do that. I just waited with sweat dripping down my brow.

The vibrating pain became… odd. I wasn't sure how to describe it. But it fluctuated and I tensed and relaxed until it was a pleasant sensation rather than a painful one. Or… or maybe I just got used to it. I couldn't be sure which one of the two actually happened. And I puzzled away at my dream. It had been so vivid. Yet so distant. Like a memory I had forgotten but could only grasp in my dreaming state. I remembered days a lot like that one. I remembered gathering my sisters for some reason or another on more than one occasion. Cookies could have easily been one and my mother was the baking sort.

I'd asked her whether she enjoyed cooking or if it was something she did because she loved us. I offered to be the household cook if she told me that she really didn't enjoy it. Instead she told me she did enjoy baking but she taught me to cook anyway. She was… I want to call that two-faced somehow. But it was the opposite. Both sides of her were honest. But she did catch me and trap me. That's how she always pinned me down after I did a misdeed. She'd wait for my lies to catch me up by themselves. Then she'd draw me out and force me to confess and admit my crimes. I remember that I lied once about some kid bullying me at school. He bit me and I smacked him back for it. I lied about smacking him to the teachers and principal and even my parents.

My mother… I suspect that she saw through me from the start. She knew I had lied from the very beginning or at least that was the impression I had now.

"Are you sure you didn't hit him back? I support you if you did. You just have to tell me."

"Yes mom, I didn't hit him back."

I'd lied. Of course I lied. Hell, I lied about everything to this day. I lied about who I really was to Ruby who liked me and was somehow convinced that I wasn't a disaster when I totally and completely was. It was like… it was like I was constantly tricking her somehow.

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Near the start of the trip we'd split into rooms based on gender, later we divided ourselves along what were the developing couples. I happened to run into my old roommate in the hallways of the hotel when I was out getting a drink. My throat was parched and my hand still pulsed with phantom sensations.

"Ren," I greeted.

"Jaune," he nodded back at me.

"So are you going to tell me how you know so much about this Grimm?" I asked.

He sighed. "Not much to tell. It killed my parents."

I raised an eyebrow. "Bruh," I stated.

"Yes. I realized it as soon as I said it." Ren agreed. "There's a lot to tell, actually. My father was a hunter who protected a village near here. Where is largely irrelevant. The village is gone now. Much like GaiLong."

"Because of the Nuckelavee?"

"In part. There had already been a rush of Grimm. Whether the town would have survived if it hadn't showed up is a mystery to me." He frowned. "I'd like to doubt it."

"It's like that sometimes." I thought of recent events but more distantly the Drakon Grimm which was petrified at Beacon tower. Ruby's silver eyes made the ultimate weapon against Grimm. At least that was how she had explained it.

She still had no idea how to control the damn things in that regard so I wasn't planning on throwing her against the Nuckelavee. Although…

Mystery eye powers aside, Ruby's abilities were awesome. It made mine, Ren's, and Nora's look lackluster.

"I had hoped-well- I'd hoped to be the one to kill it." Ren confessed.

"Ren, Ruby wasn't even powerful enough to kill it. Therefore no one in our party is."

He grinned sideways at me. "You underestimate yourself. As always."

I sighed. "Not you too."

"Jaune, your power is fantastic, if only underdeveloped. You'll only grow stronger from here. Yours is the kind that manifests all sorts of other abilities. Like Ruby's invulnerability. It isn't… raw. Like Nora's or mine. There is space for it to be refined and honed into something truly special."

"Limit is limit." I said it like it meant something. However, Ren nodded along like it did. "Maybe I'll grow but not soon enough. The point is you can't do this alone, Ren. You didn't tell me about its howl. People died." People probably would have died even if he had told me. Even if he told me everything. Still every loss was on us. We were supposed to protect the people of Remnant so every time we failed was on us.

"You're right. Of course you are. You have a mind for such things."

We walked in brief silence through a courtyard past a guard house and up the steps of the North wall. Like I mentioned, they were much more militarized here than at GaiLong. Perhaps that was the way to resist the Grimm. "Maybe we should be more militarized. Like Atlas. Like here. Maybe that's how we are supposed to be. You know what I mean? Weddings and parties and celebrations are nice and all but they aren't the same as having boots on the ground."

"I don't think so." Ren whispered. "You and Ruby make our decisions together. You two keep making the right decisions, even. You do so together. That's what makes you two strong. Not your ridiculous powers."

"You think us getting together was right?" It was on my mind a bit.

"Yes, even when you ask stupid questions." Ren smirked. Damn him. "I, on the other hand, keep making poor choices. Choices which get people hurt. I do so because I'm making them alone."

"Then don't. Talk to Nora. She talks to Ruby, who talks to me."

"I'd rather, I think, just talk to you when I need to. Cut the girls out when I should. That would be much more rational."

"I doubt I'd be rational about anything concerning my family." I forgave. "Can you tell me anything else about it I should know."

"It'll be fully healed when next we encounter it. Your landmine strategy won't work unless the explosives kill it outright. Its healing factor is so."

I chewed on my cheek. I mulled that over.

"I keep…" Ren tried. I listened curiously. "I keep pushing Nora away. For no real reason," he managed to confess.

"Huh?" I wondered. "Are you just… scared?"

He breathed and leaned against a wall. He stretched his hands over his head then, after a moment, he pulled himself back up. "Yes. I'm terrified of ruining what we have. That she'll find out I'm not what she really wanted."

"Huh?"

"Please. Take me seriously."

"I am. I was afraid of the same thing with Ruby. Still am."

"But she wanted you before..." He trailed off. "Oh I see."

"Yeah."

"Huh," he said. "It's that simple? She wanted me before."

"Yeah."

"Does this go away?" He gestured helplessly.

"Getting kissed helps. It helps a lot."

"I see."

"But no. Your insecurities won't vanish. You'll probably still make mistakes too. I think… I think that they just don't really care about our mistakes. You know what I mean? Or our flaws, maybe. They're willing to see past them."

"Like what?" He asked.

"Well… I killed some people. I've hit two now. One was an accident. Two was self defense. But I'm eyeing three even now. That's murder. And Ruby just… she doesn't see it. I'm planning on killing Vernal and Cinder and she doesn't see how that's murder or she just doesn't care."

"Oh? Is that what this is about? You feel guilty."

"I don't though. That's the thing. The real kicker. I'm hungry for it in an odd way. I want that power over life and death. I want to hold it over Cinder and let it simmer. I want her to know it was me and I want her to know why."

"And that makes it murder?"

"It's definitely not not murder."

"Cinder has to be stopped…"

"That's what Ruby says. Maybe I'm not explaining it right."

"Then try again. I don't understand. The way I see it you seek justice and vengeance. Sure vengeance is certainly a motivation for you to push yourself on so many late nights. But you're also defending the common good."

"But I'm not doing it to defend the common good. I'm doing it because I want her to die. I want her stone cold dead. Same as Pyrrha."

"I see… well you never paint yourself in a flattering light. You always seek out the flaw in yourself and fixate on it. I think that's what you're doing here too."

"I want to kill," I whispered.

"You don't get to choose how the world perceives you and you are a hero, Jaune. You fight for the common good. You hunt Ruby's enemies. These are good deeds you can't erase that you seem blind to. I see them. Nora sees them. Ruby certainly sees them."

"So…?"

"Have a little faith in yourself."

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-WG