Yo! Another chapter of Familiar!
Not much to say. Maybe more after the chapter?
Start Chapter 4
Blake Belladonna's life had, she would be the first to admit, largely been defined by her own mistakes.
It had been her to ignore her parents' warnings and go off with Adam and Sienna to help start a new era of the White Fang. It had been her to listen to Adam's encouragements that their cause was just. It had been her to run away from it all when she'd realized far too late that the group she'd been a part of was no longer what she'd signed up for.
It had been her to run away to Beacon, never letting her parents even know she was alive. It had been her to flee her team when she was sure she was correct; that the White Fang couldn't have fallen as far as they clearly had. It had been her to drag her team into a battle that resulted in the near totaling of an entire segment of Beacon's docks.
It had been her to bring her own team into her obsession; to risk them in multiple battles against the White Fang when she refused to sit back and allow the authorities to handle the situation. It had been her to run away once Beacon had fallen, unwilling to put her newest connections at risk due to her ignoring her own problems. It had been her to try and reject help, and Sun and her parents to eventually convince her that she should take it.
And that was the first time she'd made a good decision in her entire life, it had felt.
From there, she'd been getting better.
She hoped so, anyways.
But still, she wasn't going to pretend like she didn't understand the perspective that Ruby had presented as she'd told her true feelings to Yang and Familiar.
Oh, surely, she'd been quite a distance away, and any human wouldn't have been able to eavesdrop on the conversation. But the truth of the matter was that Blake had been able to tell something was eating away at Ruby for a while. Surely, she'd had her own distractions – her feelings towards Yang being the most major – and so hadn't been able to grant them the time and attention they likely deserved.
But what Ruby had eventually said, what had poured from out of her…
Yes, she knew those feelings, those thoughts.
She felt many of them herself.
Ruby had been the one to make those calls back in Atlas, but Blake knew what it was like to look back on one's own decisions and regret.
She sighed, running a hand down her face to try and get her mind off this topic. There was no real point to focusing in on past failures, especially when she wasn't in a position to be able to properly reflect on them.
The Ever After, beautiful and strange as it was, had already proven itself equally deadly if underestimated.
She could consider the consequences of their choices back in Atlas once they'd escaped this place.
…If they escaped this place.
That led her to, again, grimace.
And that grimace, it seemed, had summoned someone to her side.
"Ms. Blake?"
She turned to see Familiar gazing up at her, walking step by step along with her. Yang and Weiss both had taken quite a liking to the boy, and while Blake did accept the newest addition to their retinue…
She was apprehensive; she could admit that.
It wasn't that she thought there was something particularly sinister going on. She could admit that she'd been worried about such at first, but Familiar had on multiple occasions had the opportunity to do something malevolent when they'd had to stop and make camp, and through all of them, he'd simply lain his head down and slept.
So, yes, Blake trusted Familiar.
But she did not expressly want to get close to him, either.
It… it was complicated as to the reason why, really.
Or perhaps it wasn't…
She felt like she'd failed Jaune.
It was, in some ways, odd for Blake, of all people, to feel as such, but…
Well, Jaune had been a friend.
When she looked at it in a vacuum, she knew for a fact that she had no real reason to feel guilty over what had happened. She'd fallen into the Ever After much before him, had no idea he was even there, and then spent time trying to bury the dead, or find the living. They'd not known about his presence, and had no reason to suspect him being there, either.
After all, he'd have had to have fallen last. It would have made far more sense for him to land on the Beach after them.
How could any of them have anticipated him landing first?
No. This… it was hard for Blake to accept it, but this had not been one of her many, many mistakes.
This had been no one's fault at all. Simply dumb, bad luck.
One might've been surprised to hear that Blake thought fondly of Jaune Arc. They were not at all similar people. They'd gone through a year in Beacon during which they'd exchanged, likely, four or five sentences that were lengthier than a single word, but still…
They'd played board games together. Read in the library together. Crammed for tests together. In Atlas, they'd trained together, bunked in rooms next to one another, ate together, gone on missions together…
Certainly, those had almost all been team efforts, but Jaune had been there, a figure in Blake's life, through all of it.
And now he was gone.
It felt a bit like the boy next to her was attempting to replace him.
And she didn't like that, even if she knew such thoughts weren't fair to him; he who knew none of that, who was just trying to protect and spend time with people whom he had a strange – to him unexplainable – fascination with.
She smiled down at Familiar, banishing away her thoughts. "What is it?"
"You just looked hurt."
Blake supposed that made some sense. "I'm… thinking."
"About what?"
"Many things." She dodged the question, even if what she said was very much the truth. "Where I'm currently at, I suppose?"
"You are in the Ever After."
Blake smirked. "I meant more emotionally, but yes, you're right."
"Oh."
She rolled her eyes fondly. "So, how are you, Familiar?"
"I'm… I'm okay." Familiar spoke, but Blake's brow was drawn down. "Everything's fine!"
Well, it seemed that Familiar had carried over Jaune's propensity to tell really awful lies as well.
Blake had never truly been a nosy person, however, and so where some of her friends might have pushed, she backed off. "Alright. Anything you'd like to talk about."
He shook his head. "Not really. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Then rest assured that I am." She nodded his way. "I heard you talking with Ruby before. Thank you."
"Of course. Ruby's my friend."
"Is she? I don't think the two of you have really talked much."
"Of course, we spent years togeth–" Familiar winced, reaching up towards his head as if to try and grasp the memory that had escaped him. "Dang it. I keep… almost remembering something, and then it just goes right back away."
It was an instinctual thing, then; or at the very least, Jau– Familiar didn't have proper control over it. She wondered if such would come to him eventually; if he would regain his memories given a year, two years, a decade. Perhaps he never would. Perhaps they would always languish there, on the very edges of his psyche, remaining tantalizingly out of reach.
"You'll get it." She told him, despite having no real idea if he would. "Keep talking with the others. They'll help you to remember."
"Okay." Then, Familiar paused. "Do you not want me to talk to you, too?"
It was odd how on the money Ja– Familiar was with those words. Blake wouldn't have thought he'd be able to pick something like that out with how young he seemed, but then, the Jaune who'd ascended here had apparently been years older than the Jaune they'd all known.
It made sense, then, that he had moments like this, where he was able to get right to the heart of the matter.
Because the truth was, being around Familiar brought Blake's spirits down. She could understand how it was the opposite for the others; for Yang and Weiss especially. Ruby seemed to be neutral overall on Familiar, unsure of how to feel, but Blake?
She couldn't look at him without being reminded of those they'd lost.
And they'd lost many.
"It's not your fault, Familiar." She told him. "It's… there's…"
"You look like it hurts whenever you talk to me."
"That…"
"It's okay. I don't want to hurt my friends."
She wanted to question whether or not the two of them were truly friends, after all, they'd not truly been through much, but…
To Familiar, they had. He might not even know why he felt the way he did about them, but feel that way he still did.
"I'm glad. And thank you, really."
Familiar hummed out, and then caught back up with the rest of the group, who were all walking in front of Blake. She was holding up the rear while the others followed behind the Curious Cat.
And wasn't he just the most interesting new arrival?
Blake couldn't help but focus in on the fact that when the cat had first arrived, Familiar's immediate reaction had been one of anger.
That stood out to her. Because while Familiar had shown anger before, the only time he'd done so had been with the Red Prince; a murder-crazy dictator. On meeting quite literally everyone else, he'd been completely relaxed; friendly, even.
And yet with the Curious Cat, his first reaction had been hostility.
That had alarm bells ringing in the back of Blake's head, and she was on alert the entire time they followed behind the seemingly jovial creature. While she didn't expressly like Familiar, and while she held contempt for him that wasn't at all his fault…
She felt he was a good judge of character.
They walked on a while longer after that. Around thirty minutes had passed by the time Yang decided to hang back, and walk beside her.
Blake beamed over at her, and the two walked side by side.
There was… quite a lot that Blake was purposefully not saying to Yang. Now just didn't feel like the time. There was so much else going on, and…
Well, it was a flimsy excuse; just Blake Belladonna again running away instead of confronting her problems for the umpteenth time, but it was all she could bring herself to do when everyone was barely hanging on by a thread.
And then, of course, the Ever After intervened. Clouds billowed overhead. Someone mentioned something called a Punderstorm, which felt, frankly, like something Yang would come up with.
She was almost annoyed that the mere thought of one of Yang's horrible puns brought a small smile to her face. Everything the woman did, she–
And then the Punderstorm caught them.
And things went… well…
Differently.
/
She was suspended above what seemed to be an endless pit, atop a rickety wooden bridge. In Blake's opinion, even if this was metaphorical for something, it was kind of a dick move.
She shook her head, trying to dislodge the meandering thoughts hanging about her like "why am I floating above an endless pit?" or "hey, is that Yang?".
Actually, one of those was somewhat more relevant.
"Yang!" She called out, and was rewarded by the woman opposite her shouting back.
"Blake!"
It… it was fine. Surely, she was suspended above an endless void that she'd been seemingly teleported to at random, but Yang was there. And because Yang was there, because Yang was alright…
It felt like they could do anything.
She smiled across at Yang, and Yang smiled back. Her cheeks heated up. Her steps felt light. immediately, she made progress on the rickety bridge, the entire thing, almost like her heart, steadying against the harsh winds all around.
And then the moment was sort of ruined.
"Hey guys!"
Blake's walls slammed back into place, and she had to cling to the rope beside her for dear life as she was suddenly thrashed about.
She looked over, and, sure enough, there was Familiar.
He, too, was standing atop a wooden bridge, albeit his looked a lot more solid than hers and Yang's. She wasn't sure what to make of the implication of that.
"Oh, hey Familiar!" Yang waved, but she had what seemed to be an embarrassed flush on her face. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh! We're in a Punderstorm!"
"Well, okay." Yang nodded her head, evidently not understanding what was going on in the slightest. "So, uh… why are you doing here?"
"Oh!" Familiar echoed out again. "I don't know!"
Blake facepalmed.
"I just sort of showed up here, I guess!" Familiar called back. "But I didn't want to interrupt at first because you guys seemed like you were doing something important, but then I got scared because the bridge was rocking, and so I called out to you anyways."
Well, Blake couldn't be mad at that. She sighed, and rubbed at the back of her neck. She felt a bit guilty for being so quick to aggravation with the boy in the first place.
Yang chuckled, and then called out to him. "It's okay. You're safe. Do you have hold of the ropes at your sides?"
"Yeah!"
"Okay. Can you try walking towards us?"
"No."
"…Any specific reason as to why?"
"Oh! Because Punderstorms don't work like that!"
Blake just sighed, consigning herself to being here a little while.
"Could you elaborate, buddy?"
"Well, Punderstorms only really absorb people into them like this when there's tension that needs resolving between them. So basically, something's going on with the three of us that caused us to be pulled in."
Blake blushed almost instantly, given that she knew for a fact, already, what that tension was when it came to Yang. She had a feeling, even if a part of her desperately pretended like it didn't, that Yang was going through something similar on her end.
As for why J– Familiar was there…
Well, that was anyone's guess, really.
"I'll let you guys sort out your stuff first if you want!" Familiar smiled, seeming totally casual about this. "Then we can worry about me."
Blake knew it was completely pathetic, but she shook her head, and called out, "Actually, how about we figure out what's going on with you before anything else?"
If her mother were here, she would've probably put her head in her hands, screamed, and then cried.
Luckily, she wasn't, and so Blake could get away with her obvious cowardice.
"Okay." Familiar shrugged, seemingly having no real issue with that. "Uhm… I think this has probably got to be on one of your ends. I don't really have any grievances or issues with either of you, or any complicated feelings that need resolved. Do you guys?"
Oh.
Well, all of a sudden, the reason that Familiar was here made an awful lot more sense.
Because while Yang might have accepted Familiar…
Blake certainly hadn't.
She winced.
Familiar did not miss this.
"Miss Blake? Is everything okay?"
"…Not really." She admitted, and Yang jumped on the concern train, too.
"What's wrong?" The woman opposite her called out, and Blake just shook her head.
She… were they really going to talk about this now? She'd already been preparing herself to finally lay bare the feelings that had been building inside of her heart for so many months – years – towards Yang, and now here she was, faced with telling Familiar the truth as well?
Yet the longer Blake thought about it, the more she realized that Familiar deserved to know why she could never quite meet his eye. He deserved to know why they all skirted around him, never quite fully comfortable with his presence.
He… he deserved to know who he used to be.
"Yang?"
She looked over.
"I'm going to tell him the truth."
Yang's eyes widened, but a moment later they straightened out, and, with a heavy sigh, she nodded her head.
"Yeah, that's… probably for the best."
Blake looked to see Familiar staring back at the two of them rather confusedly.
"What are you guys talking about?"
Blake swallowed, and then took a step forward.
The bridge beneath her did not shake. If anything, it felt entirely steady. And yet, when she tried to take another, it rocked.
Okay. Baby steps, then.
"Familiar… you know that as an Afteran, you likely used to be someone else, someone different, in the past, right?"
"Of course. All Afterans know they are the ascended form of another Afteran, and that one day, we too will ascend."
"Mm." Blake hummed out. "Well… we knew the person that you used to be."
Familiar's eyes widened, and he took a step backwards. All around them, gusts of wind howled into existence, and Blake gritted her teeth as she held fast to the ropes on either side of her. Yang was doing much the same.
Familiar wasn't controlling the gusts, but they had come about as a result of his feelings. That was what Blake thought, anyways.
"What do you…"
"I thought you'd have realized by now, if I'm being honest." Blake admitted, looking down and feeling somewhat guilty now at seeing just how shocked Familiar looked. "I assumed that you would have at least realized that a vast majority of the memories you had revolved around the four of us."
Evidently, Familiar had not. It felt odd with how intelligent he had seemed about so many other things, and yet, perhaps that intelligence, too, was merely the occasional stirrings of who he'd once been. The Afteran Familiar had only been alive for a few weeks. How could any of them judge him for not picking up on something as complicated as this?
Instantly, Blake's tone softened. She realized what she'd just said could have, perhaps, come across as quite harsh.
"Forgive me," She bowed her head. "I didn't mean to sound so rude."
"No, you're fine." Familiar shook his head. "I just… you knew me? Or… or the old me?"
"Mm."
Blake looked down at her fist, clenched tightly around the thick rope off to her left, and thought of just how she should go about wording this. It felt like Familiar was far more fragile than she'd anticipated.
Everything these days seemed to be beyond what Blake could anticipate.
"His name was Jaune Arc." She spoke, and in that moment, she felt she was perhaps the worst of the four of them to be giving this speech; if it could even be called a speech.
Her connection with Jaune was far shallower than Weiss' or Ruby's. Where Ruby had been his best friend, and Weiss had been… something equally as powerful, but thrice as complicated, Blake was just the tagalong.
She was just the extra.
But… when she thought about it…
When she thought about Weiss having to give this speech, she could only picture the woman breaking down, collapsing and sobbing. When she thought about Ruby giving this speech, she thought of her leader simply hiding herself away, pretending like nothing was wrong at all.
Perhaps Yang could give it, but…
Blake realized that in the end, they were trapped within this Punderstorm until she and Familiar worked out the differences between them.
Yang and Familiar held no such qualms. If the truth was the only reason they were here, then surely Weiss and Ruby would've been pulled in as well.
No, Blake had been pulled in because she held qualms directly with Familiar.
And she needed to resolve them.
"He was a student alongside the two of us at Beacon Academy." She began her telling, and Familiar listened. "He was a member of team JNPR, and their leader. He was a close friend to Ruby Rose, a complicated figure to Weiss, and a distant acquaintance to myself and Yang. He was not the best student, but there were none who worked quite as hard as he. None who were willing to put in the effort to improve as rapidly as he did. In but a year, he went from someone entirely unable to face a single Grimm to being able to hold his own in a prolonged siege of our school. That very siege took the life of his partner, Pyrrha Nikos. She was killed in the Fall of Beacon, when the entire school was brought down around us by terrorists from the White Fang, alongside the minions of a woman named Salem."
It was clear just by looking at him that familiar was lost. Blake supposed she couldn't really blame him. That was an awful lot of information to suddenly have thrust upon oneself. Not to mention that a majority of that information was entirely alien to him.
After all, there were likely no such things as academies in the Ever After. No such things as terrorists; no such things as death.
But even so, Familiar deserved the truth.
So, Blake would give it to him.
"After that, I don't know the exact details. I was separated from the rest of the group… or I suppose I should say that I chose to separate myself from them."
She looked over at Yang, and saw her partner unable to meet her eyes. That time was still a sore spot for the both of them. Blake did not at all blame Yang for any lingering anger towards her for leaving her after what happened at Beacon. She'd never blame her.
Not for something that had hurt her so much.
"But from what I know, he traveled across the wilds of Mistral with Ruby, and his other two teammates, Ren and Nora. He thought less of himself than the others, and was even willing to sacrifice himself on the off chance that it could buy his teammates victory."
Familiar frowned. "That sounds dumb."
Blake was happy to hear that he thought so. "Yes, it was dumb. Because Jaune Arc, despite what he may have thought about himself, was very loved. He carried guilt for what happened to his partner. He carried the feeling in his heart that if it had been anyone else with Pyrrha, she would not have died."
Familiar's expression shifted, then. He looked down and away. "If it had been Ruby, or Yang, she wouldn't have…"
He trailed off, but the damage was done. He grimaced, then reached up towards his skull and let out a quiet hiss. It seemed the memory of that particular day had not come by choice, and it had not left without causing Familiar pain.
"We can't change the past. The things that happened to us, happened to us. There's no getting around that." She spoke, and a pang of guilt filtered through her when she remembered Adam's final expression, the disbelief that had however briefly passed his visage, before it had been entirely wiped away as he spilt backwards into the falls just beyond Argus. "But we can keep going towards the future. And… he did. Jaune kept going. Even when it was hard. Even when he couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel."
"He was the kind of person to keep going even when the odds seemed grim. The kind of person who would refuse to leave someone behind, no matter the situation. No matter if he had to sneak into the center of a giant, monstrous whale, commanded by an evil witch and her army of minions. Even still, he would go. Because that was just who Jaune Arc was. He was… he was brave, and selfless, and kind. Jaune Arc was the best of us. And… and when he ascended, he became you."
Familiar listened quietly as she finished speaking. He seemed to be considering a great many things. Blake felt that was appropriate. It was not the sort of thing that one could process in just a few seconds. Even the thirty or so that he'd taken didn't feel like enough.
"I don't really know why, but…" Familiar looked up at her, and there were tears in his eyes. "That… that made me really happy to hear."
Something caught in the back of Blake's throat. She… She hadn't expected to get emotional. She'd thought that she, of all people, could get through something like this without breaking down. After all, it wouldn't have been her first brush with death.
She'd lost comrades numbering in the dozens during her time in the White Fang. So many names and faces, dreams and hopes, that had faded away entirely on what felt like nothing more than a whim of fate. She had been one of the ones tasked with delivering news of their deaths to their next of kin. She had watched so many people break down in front of her; had watched them cry, and scream, and shout insults, and so much else. Just like she couldn't now with Familiar, she hadn't been able to blame them for the way they'd reacted.
Loss was the worst pain that could ever be felt.
How many had died for the paltry changes they'd managed to accomplish? Hundreds? Thousands?
She forced herself not to think about such things. At the moment, it wasn't going to be doing her any good.
She sniffled, doing her best to prevent the tears gathering behind her eyes from falling down her cheeks. She knew, factually, the crying was in fact a very good way to aid in processing one's emotions. It had been scientifically proven to release chemicals that made one happier. She knew all of that with certainty, and yet even so, she did not wish to cry.
Not here. Not now.
Both Weiss and Ruby were dealing with things far worser than she. She'd taken over as the de facto leader of the group in recent weeks, alongside Yang, being the one to get everyone up in the morning, to help determine their direction, to steer them the right way. If she, too, broke down, then their entire band would grind to a halt.
And that couldn't happen. They couldn't afford for that to happen.
She accepted the fact that it wasn't healthy just as surely as she accepted the fact that if she didn't keep it together, they might not ever leave the Ever After at all.
So, she held it in; whether or not that was smart.
"Thank you." Familiar said as he wiped at his eyes, and suddenly, the bridge between the two of them seemed to grow smaller and smaller, until it was only a single step separating them. "I…"
And then, Familiar lunged forward, and wrapped his arms around Blake.
"I'm sorry." He whispered beneath his breath.
Blake felt chills travel up the back of her spine. "What… what do you… what are you sorry for?"
"I… I don't know." Familiar shook his head. "I just… it felt like what I should say."
He didn't seem to have anything else to say but that. Blake had so many questions, but also an equal number of answers, at least in her opinion.
To her, it seemed obvious.
That… that apology hadn't been from Familiar at all.
It had come from Jaune.
And that…
That did cause a single errant tear to roll down Blake's cheek. One she hid from Familiar, still pressing his face against her chest, sniffling quietly.
He had always been like that, Jaune. Always self-sacrificing. Always too worried about other people, instead of himself.
She… she wished they could've been there for him.
"So…" Familiar trailed off as he stepped back from Blake, still seeming a bit out of it, but smiling somewhat dopily. "I think we've managed to solve our part of the Punderstorm…"
And then he turned, and pointed towards Yang, who was, in fact, still there, and whom Blake had not, in fact, talked to about her own feelings yet.
"But I think it's your guys' turn now, right?"
"Oh." Blake murmured out, her cheeks going red once again.
"I…"
And she laughed, because how could she not.
"I guess it is our turn, isn't it?"
/
It was later that same day, long after they'd escaped the Punderstorm, long after Blake and Yang had shared their first kiss – and then long after they'd shared many, many more while doing their best to pay attention to the path they were walking on – that they arrived in a familiar locale.
The Curious Cat had led them back to the village of the Genial Gems; towards Jaune's final resting place.
"Ah, but this place really has gone to the dumps!" The Curious Cat said, and then he laughed, but it was a cruel sounding thing, at least in Blake's opinion. "Well, I suppose being humans the four of you will need to rest for the night, correct?"
Team RWBY shared a look, but decided that yes, that was probably a good idea.
In the middle of the night, Blake awoke with Yang's arm around her, cuddling her from behind. She was tempted – incredibly tempted – to simply lie back down and allow herself to sleep.
But…
She saw a shape out of the ruined remains of Jaune's old home. A shape that was sat directly in front of where they'd erected Jaune's grave.
Blake wanted to stay there, in the warmth.
But she felt someone else needed it more.
She pushed her way out of bed, put her shoes back on, and walked outside. It was chilly, surprisingly so. It had been quite warm that day, and most nights were warm as well, but perhaps due to the fact that the Ever After didn't really seem to have weather patterns or seasons, it would just get cold sometimes.
There was likely some rhyme or reason to it, although Blake couldn't really find it in herself, at that moment, to worry at all about it.
Instead, she quietly walked over so that she was beside the figure knelt in front of Jaune's grave, and then sat down beside them.
She waited a while, probably a minute or two. She could hear the sounds of what she thought were insects, but what could've really been anything, echoing out from all directions around them.
"I don't trust him." Familiar eventually muttered. "The Curious Cat."
Blake hadn't expected that, but…
"Okay. Do you want to do anything about it?"
"I don't know."
It was the kind of honesty that Blake found refreshing.
"Okay." She repeated, and again, the two of them faded into silence.
Familiar stared at the rusted face of Crocea Mors' shield; at the way it reflected the light of the moons hanging above them. They were oddly colored – in greens and blues and yellows. Even so, their light made the blade and shield gleam.
"This… was my weapon, wasn't it?"
"…Yeah. It was."
More silence. Insects chirped. The wind rustled through the threes around them. Yang's snoring echoed out from the remnants of Jaune's home, where they'd set up to sleep.
"I could tell from the moment I saw it. It was like…" Familiar looked away. "It was like I hadn't even realized how light my hip felt. Like I hadn't even realized that there was supposed to be something there."
Blake smiled, but she was sad, too.
"It's yours. Take it with you if you want to."
Familiar frowned. "Is it mine? I'm not… when everyone else looks at me, they see… they see him. But I'm not him, I'm…"
"You're… maybe you're not him." Blake admitted, but she reached over, and patted the boy on the shoulder. "But even so, you remind us of him. And I don't think Jaune would've wanted Crocea Mors to sit here and rust away entirely, never helping anyone again. We only left it here because having it with us would've hurt too much. But… if you're the one carrying it, then…"
Familiar nodded his head. "I see."
Blake wasn't sure if he did.
"It's okay to not understand all of this. To not have an answer. All too often in my life, I rushed into things, thinking I had to make an immediate decision, but…" Blake looked up at the moons, and let the cool air of the night wash over her. "I think there's some value in just… letting yourself feel. Letting yourself think, and reason, and come to a natural conclusion. Don't rush yourself, Familiar. Take as long as you need."
Familiar… he nodded somewhat, but it was an oddly wan thing. Blake wasn't sure what to make of it until he scootched to the side, and then leant his head on Blake's shoulder.
Neither of them said anything after that. They just sat there, the two of them, as the moons in the sky gradually set. As the insects surrounding them quieted down.
They sat there, and for just a little while, the past did not burden them.
End Chapter 4
Alright, that was Chapter 4!
We're closing in on the end of this story I think! In theory it's only going to be around two or three more. I've really enjoyed this fic, actually! I'd like to thank the commissioner (who still wishes to remain anonymous!) for commissioning me to write it. Very unique.
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Alright, that's all from me! I'll see you all when I see you!