Ruby paced.

Six steps, turn, six steps, turn, three steps, turn to Blake, open mouth, turn, three steps, turn, six steps, turn…

She paced for what felt like years, Blake did nothing. She just stood there, staring dumbly at the smith, her hands covered in hues of Valerius and Yang. The wind came infrequently, but hard. It blew the crispy black ends of her hair into her face.

Six steps. Turn. Six steps. Turn. Three steps. Turn to Blake. Open mouth.

"Blake."

Blake jumped. She'd been watching Ruby so long that she lost the girl's shape. She started an answer, but got no sound out. Ruby's eyes closed. She sighed, opened them again, and affixed Blake with an exhausted stare.

"Thank you."

There was silence for a while. Then, "What?"

Ruby's lids fell flatly over eyes. "I mean it, thank you. Now you can release Weiss from that stupid deal."

"Deal?" Blake reeled. "Wait, stupid?"

"Stupid," Ruby confirmed. "Terrible. Dangerous. Now that you've made her betray her oath, you can let her out of it. This is your fault, after all."

"My fault?" Pure disbelief shot roughly out of Blake's lungs. "That man, Adam Taurus, is a maniac! So long as Valerius lives, he can find us!"

"Then we'll…" Ruby pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, shaking her head. "Then we have to kill him, and this will all have been a waste of our time and energy."

Blake slumped, defeated, the wind so casually stolen from her sails by a girl who was at least twenty years her junior."You say that like—"

"Fine," the smith groaned, ignoring her completely. "We'll kill him, but not before you release Weiss from her oath."

Blake snorted. "It's not a contract, she doesn't have to—"

Ruby's mercury glare impaled her again. "It is to her; she gave you her word and she will follow it to her grave— to all of our graves. Our one, big, collective grave. So release her."

"But what about the—"

"We will free Binders! Obviously!" Ruby exclaimed, throwing up her hands. "But with limits! Not like this! We're not going to free people who willtry to kill us as thanks!"

Ruby flicked her hands, trying to shake off her frustration; she continued, "Blake, we'll do what we can, but what's more important is staying alive. We can't deal with Pyrrha if we get killed trying to…" she rolled her wrist, her eyes shut pensively. "Go to war against the nobility, or whatever you thought this thing would accomplish."

Blake tried to respond, but Ruby snapped her fingers as if an epiphany had struck, once again interrupting the fay. "That's what you want, isn't it?" Ruby wagged her finger, pointing at Blake. "I remember in the tournament, you told me you just went to fight nobles! That's all this is to you! It's not some… cause against the treatment of the fay, it's revenge! You just wanted Weiss to take the brunt of it, all the worst parts, so you could go around and kill the Houses while nobody is look—"

Blake slapped her, then snatched that offending hand back to her chest like Ruby's cheek had been aflame. The smith herself was thrust a full step aside, her head turning from the force but undamaged thanks to her Aura, which thrummed over her cheek.

Regardless of if it hurt, Ruby felt like she'd been slapped. Worse, she felt like she definitely deserved it.

When her eyes returned to Blake's, they watered, but she didn't cry. "Sorry," she said quietly. "I…"

Blake's hands fell to her sides and guilt rose sickly in her stomach— not guilt for hitting her, guilt for what she was about to say.

"Your mom's fay," Blake stated. "Was."

Ruby stopped rubbing her cheek and nodded. "Yes?"

"She would've been a slave, too," Blake said, knowing it was a lie, poking even more holes in her gut. "If she'd been captured.

Ruby nodded, unsure. "I suppose."

"You would've been born a slave, if at all."

Ruby nodded again.

Blake raised her brows obviously. "Wouldn't you want revenge?"

Ruby slowly nodded a third time, speaking perfectly candid for a person to whom the subject should be intensely mournful. "Of course I would. Blake, I don't think it's wrong for you to want that— I support it, if anything." She looked past Blake, through the barn doors where Weiss and Qrow and Yang were. "But if you're going to do that, you can't make Weissbear all the weight. It's not her fault she was born into that life."

Blake blinked. "You… support… me?"

Ruby shrugged— so nonchalant, as if her support was nothing more than a fact of life. "Sure. If I had to kill someone, I'd rather it be a slaver than anyone else," she looked behind Blake again, through the barn doors where Valerius lay. "But this… I'm not happy about it. I'll do it, but—"

Blake tried to interrupt. "N-no, Ruby, I'll—"

"No," the smith commanded definitively. "You shouldn't. You two… you and him aren't the same, but you're probably too similar to be doing that. It wouldn't be good for you."

Blake scowled. "How would you know?"

Ruby's confidence seeped back behind exhaustion. Her eyes shifted around and she gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I… wouldn't, I guess, but it just doesn't seem right."

The guilt returned, doubly so, poking holes in Blake's gut. She would be guilty for telling Ruby, but she would still feel guilty if she didn't.

Ruby, taking the fay's long bout of silence for agreement, started walking back towards the barn before Blake grabbed her hand. Ruby looked at it, her face simultaneously gaining a sickly, anxious pallor along with light dust of pink, before the girl yanked her hand out of the fay's grip. "Y-yes? What?"

Blake felt so profoundly shitty that she almost vomited. "Your, er… mother—"

The girl's eyes went alight with interest, her minor internal conflict immediately overridden. "Yes?Do you know something? Valerius said he knew her, that she was a monster, but he didn't say anything else…"

Blake's eyebrows skirmished with her hairline. "He…" she shook her head. "He wasn't… wrong."

Ruby leaned in.

"Your mother was a military figure— a leader of some kind, I don't really remember." Blake stated, careful to notsay the thing that would upend the poor girl's life. "She was in both civil wars, and in the one against the humans."

Ruby's breath hitched. "Both civil wars?"

Blake nodded grimly. "There was a big one before the human war, then… another one. After."

Ruby swallowed whatever she was about to say.

Blake looked away with something vaguely resembling embarrassment. "I… wasn't really around, most of what I know is word-of-mouth from my parents. There wasn't much time between Roseus' peak status and the human invasion; I was very young then, so I can't really remember things too well."

"How young?"

"I was about…" Blake looked up, calculating. "Ten years old when I was taken."

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "Ten isn't that young, shouldn't your memory be fine?"

Blake deadpanned at her. "Perhaps the childhood of slavery had some adverse effects on me. Who could say?"

"S-sorry."

Blake waved her off. "Besides that, I heard some stories of Roseus in the army. She killed thousands— fay, human, men, women, children. She did unspeakable things in both realms."

Ruby's face crumpled. "Oh."

Blake frowned, mostly at herself, but a little bit at Ruby's… lame reception of what should be a heartbreaking revelation.

"Is that… all?"

Blake frowned harder. "Sorry?"

"N-no! Not like that, just… isn't there more?"

"I don't know, " Blake admitted, shrugging. "Like I said, I only know stories. She disappeared after—"

Ruby dropped her face in her hands and groaned. "That's…" she groaned again, wretchedly. "That's not enough— that's barely anything! Dammit!"

Blake jumped.

Ruby rubbed her face, tilted her head to the skies, and blew a massive sigh. "You'd think, of all things, I should know at least one thing— my own mother— but no." Under her breath, she added, "Too stupid for that, too."

There was a long silence.

"I'm sorry," Blake said to fill it, "and I'm sorry about Yang."

Ruby hummed.

"Aren't you mad?"

Ruby looked at her and scowled. "Yeah, of course I am." She turned, throwing a dismissive wave over her shoulder. "But she did throw her hand right under it, and I think what I want to say about that would make Yang angry at me, and would probably worsen whatever is going on between you two." She stopped before the barn doors and gave Blake a sharp side-eye. "Which you need to figure out, by the way. Yang's never been good at having normal feelings."

Blake blinked, those words stabbing into her more than if Ruby had simply told her to fall on her own knives. "O-okay. Uh, yeah. Sure. Sorry."

There was no 'it's okay' or 'I forgive you' (not that Blake felt she deserved any), just a drawn-out inhalation from Ruby. "Alright," the smith conceded, sighing. "Let's do it. Wait out here, I'll send Weiss."

Blake was not prepared to speak to Weiss. She didn't want to speak with Weiss, either. With how strange and anxious she felt at the moment, she didn't really want to talk to anyone.

But she wasn't about to piss off Ruby any more than she already had, so she nodded.

The sight in the barn wasn't a pleasant one.

"Weiss, give it to her," Qrow commanded, his fingers still on Valerius' temples.

Weiss was on her knees beside Yang. She held a sap vial uncorked, the tiny philter shaking between her hands. She stared at it possessively.

Ruby opened her mouth, but Qrow shot her a silencing look— a 'let me' kind of look. "Weiss," he said, firm but gentle, voice perfectly steady. "You can do this. You don't even have to give her the whole thing— hell, you shouldn't. Just one drop for your friend. You can give that much, can't you?"

Weiss' face twisted. "B-but… it's…"

"It's still yours," Qrow affirmed. "It's yours. You're just letting her have a little. Just a couple drops— that's all she'll need, she's strong enough to do the rest."

The vial hanging above Yang's mouth began to worried more that Weiss would drop it straight down her sister's throat, but she didn't. Instead, she managed to tip the thin bottle just a few degrees. Her eyes devotedly tracked the viscous red as it climbed the glass, pooled over the lip, and trickled two drops into Yang's open maw.

Weiss immediately snatched the bottle back and corked it, thrusting it so fast into her pouch that her arm was a blur. Ruby sighed and started her approach.

"Good job, Weiss," Qrow grunted, his sallow face now sweat-sheened from splitting his focus. "I'm proud of you."

Weiss looked at him like he'd saved her life or handed her a puppy, which made Ruby's heart melt. She made the once-heiress jump when she came close and pulled her into a hug, but Weiss quickly relaxed into her arms. Ruby kissed her temple, watching Yang's Aura tug at her flesh through the corner of her eye. The usual warm colors were hued with a barely-visible pink as they sparked faint lattices over the deepest craters, stoking the flesh of both arms to start filling what they could.

Qrow spoke up again. "So what now? We can try to do what Blake did, but I don't know if they have a hammer and chisel here," he looked around at the old, rusted farm equipment. "Also, I don't know how much longer I can do this. I can feel him slipping deeper into sleep, and if I lose him, he's gone forever."

Ruby straightened, taking Weiss to her feet with her. "We're leaving. Weiss, go outside. Blake has something to discuss with you."

Weiss looked up at her, but the promising look on Ruby's face comforted the duelist's worries.

"Go ahead," Ruby urged. She kissed the shorter girl's head, throwing a hidden, appreciative look to her uncle as she did. "And thank you for helping Yang, I knew you could do it."

Qrow returned her look with worry, but remained quiet until Weiss closed the barn doors behind her. Now it was just the Rose-Branwen family, joined unwillingly by a sleeping Valerius. Ruby approached her uncle. He eyed her suspiciously.

"What're you doing?" he asked.

Ruby shook her head, eyes flickering to Valerius. "We can't help him."

Qrow reeled. "What— what're you saying?"

She looked away. "I think you know what I'm saying."

"No, Ruby."

"Look, we can't—" Ruby rubbed her eyes, pulled her palms down her face, and sighed. "He wants to kill us, and I don't think that'll change after we cut him open without his permission. We've already got Pyrrha chasing us."

Qrow cocked his head piteously. "Ruby, you don't want to do—"

"Of course I don't want to!" Ruby interrupted, raising her voice before it fell with defeat. "But… we have to. Blake said his master can track us if he's alive, and Blake knows his master. We can't just break his chains off, and I don't think you can keep that," she motioned to the unsteady, flickering wisps of ash-colored magic around her uncle's fingers, "going on for much longer."

"Ruby."

Ruby stomped her foot and glared at her uncle. "What! It's either kill him now, or kill him when he wakes up and comes after us." She bitterly threw her head aside, spitting, "He's dying either way."

Qrow scowled. "Well it doesn't have to be you."

The smith took a breath, her head shaking slowly. She straightened, raising her chin high, her hand falling to hang on her longsword. "Yes, it does. I got us into this— all of this. I'm the leader, so it needs to be me."

Qrow stared, his red eyes like gems that'd long since lost their gleam. "It doesn't, Ruby. I can do it. I can do it right now."

Ruby shook her head, voice resolute. "Let me."

The Huntsman looked down at the sleeping man, up at his niece, then closed his eyes and spoke under his breath. "You really are just like her."

"Mom?"

Qrow nodded.

"I hope not too much," Ruby bitterly mused.

Qrow snorted, then did a hard double-take at his niece. "You know?"

The smith half-shrugged. "Some things, not enough. She was in a war, she killed a lot of people, she was evil."

That unambiguous 'evil' made the Huntsman wince. "She was… very troubled," he said, venturing far and wide to pick something more digestible than 'evil'. "She didn't want you to know all this."

"Why?"

Qrow pursed his lips. "So you could remember her as a mother."

Those words threatened to spark something mournful in Ruby's mind, so she dropped bitterness upon them like a falling portcullis. "Well, she was also a liar."

"Ruby…"

The smith glared knives at him. "Don't baby me, it's the truth. Was she even a Huntress? Or was that a lie, too?"

Qrow shook his head slowly, mournfully. "She was. Summer was the greatest Huntress I've ever seen; I think it was her weapon, it really did do something with those Grimm souls."

Ruby didn't like just how relieved that made her. Thankfully, a spark of curiosity gave her a way to ignore that. "How'd she get into Beacon? Did they really accept fay? And why'd they accept her, of all fay?"

Her uncle laughed, and it was nice to hear him laugh. "They don't accept fay," he confirmed. "But Summer was insane, she—"

"Cut her ears?" Ruby finished, making him deflate slightly. "Even then, wouldn't they recognize her? I thought she was infamous."

Qrow nodded. "Oh she was, but… something happened to her. I don't know." He motioned over his own face. "I couldn't recognize her, even after she told me. She just… looked different."

Ruby squinted, but let it pass. "What… happened to her?"

The Huntsman scowled deeply, threatening to double his frown-line wrinkles. "I… I don't really know. After she had you, she just started… falling apart. She panicked all the time, she left at strange hours without explanation, she stopped going on Hunts. She stopped talking with me and Tai, but she got close with my sister— of all would disappear for days at a time." Qrow looked down at Valerius, his voice quiet and heavy. "She never came back with Raven in tow, and she never came back happy."

"What did she…" she wanted to ask what she did with Yang's mother, but it was clear that Qrow had no clue. With her curiosity cut short, guilt wracked her. "So it was me? I made her leave?"

Qrow's head whipped to her, his face curled with horror. "No! No, no, Ruby, never think that!" It was painfully clear he wanted to hug her. "Summer's issues were her own. She was centuries old, Ruby, we could neverhope to understand how many problems weighed that woman down."

"And what if I was all she needed to be tipped off the edge?"

Qrow took too long to rebut, so Ruby drew Valerius' longsword from her hip. It made a sound that rung familiarly in Ruby's mind, centering her, focusing her.

She turned her flat gaze to her uncle. "When I tell you, wake him up."

Qrow watched her climb up onto the table, place her feet on either side of the slumbering fay, and level the point of her sword with Valerius' windpipe. "Ruby, I—" Qrow started.

Ruby wasn't listening.

She kept her eyes on Valerius', waiting for the moment they'd open. They'd be red. They'd look at her and know. They'd see right through her. So red. Like blood. Like rubies.

Her hand started to shake and her mind reeled, painting the front of her thoughts with memory:

Her cleaver sliding through flesh, then bone, then flesh again, a noble hand flying. Her hammer smashing another hand to gory bits. The spur, the punches, all the teeth she no longer had, the branches, Pyrrha, her mother… the nails.

Of all things, it had to be the nails that were the worst. The deprivation of her being didn't come from the Chasm, it wasn't some spell; it was simple human cruelty, devised by simple humans for a simple purpose: to hurt.

She remembered those spikes so well— even if all the other memories were like looking underwater, she could picture the nails as clear as they were pitted cast iron. How long they were: from that terrible man's bony index knuckle to the white of his wretchedly unclipped fingernail. How they were as broad as his thumb. How dull they were, as if the gallery of bones they'd penetrated had left their tips blunt.

Whoever had made them was not a smith. They were uneven and kinked like thin carrots. She could've made them better. Thinner, shorter, evenly turning them on her anvil to— tang, tang— hammer their bodies into— tang, tang— perfect, even squares. She wouldn't even need to— creak, ssssss— pump her bellows and reheat, just— tink— set it on the anvil once, get to work, and it'd be done. She'd made so many nails that she could do it blind, directed solely by the sounds of her forge.

The longsword in her grip went still.

Tang-tang, tang-tang, creak, ssssss, tink…

Valerius had such a familiar face. She could almost see the way he smiled, how high his lips rose, how his cheeks creased, how his mouth was never even, always lopsided.

Tang-tang, tang-tang, creak, ssssss, tink…

Ruby inhaled. Burnt hair, burnt flesh, blood.

Tang-tang…

Orange coals, hot metal, sweat.

Creak…

Ruby exhaled through her teeth.

Ssssss…

"Wake him."

"Ruby," Qrow said, as if he'd been saying her name for hours. "I can't."