Main theme: Enemy by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D
Theme: Traitor by Lucas King
The group of refugees, Human and Faunus, wandered through the forest almost aimlessly as they trudged past upturned trees and hollow, battered old bunkers dug out in the middle of the wild, abandoned and left to collapse into themselves. The wind blew between the leaves above, shielding them from the flood of rain falling down upon the world from the dark clouds above.
They left what they considered to be an equally dark future behind them, marching onward to its own destruction.
At least with the people that they hoped would take them in, they would have a chance at life.
She said so herself.
The wind blew again, this time into a gale. Was the world trying to warn them, or push them forward? The children in their care cried, only to be hushed by their mothers and fathers. The oldest of their caravan felt an ache in their bones, rattling and painful. Was it just the wind, or something more? Something metaphysical? Something beyond their knowledge or comprehension?
It was too late for them now. They'd burnt their bridges with the people they once knew. No going back now.
Up ahead. A parting in the trees. They moved ahead, marching onward, desperation filling their beings. The sounds of busy bodies moving around filled their ears through the rustling bushes and ceaseless pitter-patter of the falling water from the sky above, as if the Gods themselves were weeping in sorrow, crestfallen at what their world had become.
The busy bodies stopped being busy. They went silent. They could hear them.
The caravan of desperate wanderers and vagabonds pushed through the trees and foliage.
The one-eyed stares of Grimm greeted them.
A camp of Grimm, bearing the banners of the Ascendant Court, taking refugee in an empty swale in the middle of the forest, protected from the rain by the arching limbs of wood and bark surrounding them.
They aimed their guns at the hapless crowd, and they all raised their hands up in the air.
"We... we heard her words... the things she said. She demands no surrender from us, and yet..."
They fell to their knees.
"We still wish to join you."
The Grimm looked at each other, to the banners behind them, then back at each other.
And then their leader, a Baron, marched forward...
And held their hand out, ushering them to it.
"Well then, friends... let us make you anew."
Reviewer response time:
ReDestrobo: Well, that's one or two ways of looking at it, I suppose. Don't worry, though. All will be revealed soon.
Guest: He's... there, I guess. I don't really have many thoughts towards Oscar, honestly. He's kind of just there for me. I don't find him either good or bad, I'm more or less purely neutral about him.
D: You don't know me at all, and yet you know me so well~ :)
I love writing these short stories. I don't understand why other writers don't do this more often. Not only do they help me with keeping up my writing and motivating myself, but they also serve as little slices of worldbuilding and exploration to help Ascendancy feel even bigger than the main story arcs show.
Yes, Jaune is the main character (or at least one of them), but I like showing that there's more going on in the world than what's happening from his perspective. Helps make the world feel bigger and better. Helps make the world feel that much more alive and complex.
As for this short story in particular... well, there was a line back in the first phase, during the last story arc, where Melanie tells Jaune that the Daughter's words would attract a lot of people to her cause, and I felt like it might be good to show that taking place.
Or at least a single incident of it.