….
At least it's not Grimm.
… not that it really helps us much.
Vassa spun and clutched the side of the tower, nearly slipping on the floor in their speed.
"ANYONE STABLE? WE HAVE TWO BURIED!"
"I'm stable."
Vassa looked down to the ground.
"Kuro? How did you get here so fa…"
…You followed me, didn't you?
The man shrugged in his muffled coat, already knowing what she was thinking.
"Yes."
Descending the ladder two rungs at a time was difficult. Vassa ignored the obvious problem with this and continued at a run when they hit the ground.
A small flock emerged from the buildings. The sound of feet crushing snow in unison wasn't that helpful, so the older woman covered her ears and went to the place where the two individuals went under.
It took them four minutes to arrive.
Uncovering her ears, she stomped the ground five times in front of the mound and shouted out "ANY SIGN?"
"-sorry."
Vassa breathed out in relief and called to the others. "We have a sign of life!"
She then began to try to dig out the two men. Shovelling show out of the way, others arrived and they cleared the a sizeable portion of the snow without that much difficulty. It's not that it wasn't hard, it was.
It just that it was so prompt that they even had a chance to get them out. It was easy, because everyone there knew the two men were likely to survive if they went fast.
"Déa! Drunk Bastard! Call out!"
"Raise a limb against gravity!"
"-I'm so sorry."
"Don't be sorry, you daft man! Just get out and you'll be fine!"
Each member of the excavation crowd heard someone drop their implement for digging. The man in question started moving towards the snow to remove… something.
"I have an arm!"
Finally, good news.
The crowd rushed over, and began to remove the pair from the snow.
The bundle that was Déa had been removed seemingly uninjured. This was good. "Who has the drunk? The man's not with Déa!"
"I have someone uncon-"
Pfaff.
...
Vassa watched as one of their group was knocked over onto their back. She couldn't tell anyone apart from all the muffled voices and similar clothes, so she just shouted out their seen situations.
"Flat Back! What happened?"
"There's a person! Still conscious and inadvertently knocked me over with a stick!"
…What? Did the other one grab Déa's walking stick?
The crowd moved as one. Those that were close enough took the unburied into the centre of their midst, and others moved as one while converging on the buried-and-conscious's area of the snow. Flat Back stood, and began to reach for the stick tentatively emerging.
It launched out of the mound, and landed a few inches onto the ground.
… "That's not Déa's walking stick."
The second walking stick… honestly was better described as a staff. It was close to Déa's stick in size, but all similarities ended there. This was a white wood instead of a dark brown, and it was topped with a hexagonal prism flanked by a golden pronged metal like an especially ornate bident.
…
I… know this from somewhere…
They left the staff to the ground and started to move to free the second man. "Are you able to move any more?"
"Tell us when you see the shovel, okay?"
"We're going to dig you out from where you removed your staff!"
…
They slowed, and one of the multitude cried out.
"Say anything! We need to know you can hear us!"
"This is a rescue team?"
"Yes. How are you positione-"
"Step back from the staff."
What?
"Step TEN FEET away from the staff!"
Everyone looked at the white staff mentioned.
"Have you moved? Please move!"
They were alive. Enough to communicate to the people unburied and to launch a staff two feet or so. Vassa, now functioning as an impromptu leader of the group, spoke briefly.
"We are stepping back. What are you planning?"
The crowd hadn't moved, just watched her in confusion.
"I'm forcing us out. I'm sorry for this."
…
Us?
…
A blue glow shot out of the hole, and a pattering noise came from their midst. The staff leaned itself upwards, and the villagers took that as the obvious sign to step back.
"The hell?"
"Huntsman?"
"Damn. That's pretty cool."
So that's why he was arrogant. The drunk was an Aura user.
With as much warning as it first gave, the staff fell back down on it's side, pointing away from the mound once again. As they stilled in shock, the staff moved a second time, skittering along the ground to the right, disappearing behind the mound before coming back around the left side.
"That's going to take you hours to get that thing to get you out! Do you want more hel-"
The snow was flung up into the air and a figure was thrown into the air alongside the debris. The staff revolutions sped up as a trail of blue… somethings floated in the air as a residual trail. After four revolutions, a wind began to pick up from the object's speed.
After eight, the wind became white with the flurries carried within it and the crowd stood back to avoid the cyclone. The snow became an impenetrable cylinder flowing up into the air, and remained that way until a second flash of light shined from the top of the localised storm with a loud crashing thud.
All the snow was launched into the air, and the figure in the centre was briefly seen to twist their staff around their hands in a whirling fashion before the mound's contents were blasted away from the town.
The figure, now fully visible, slowed the spinning of the staff, and looked to face the crowd. They reached down, and picked up the man lying near them. Upon reaching the crowd, the villagers momentarily surged back, then paused, as if the last motion was just a unified mistake.
"Hello. Could I ask a question of you all?"
…
They moved Vassa forwards and a select few took the drunk and Déa back to the town. She turned and pulled up a few of their more sober and competent people with her.
After managing to drag two allies with her, Kuro, one of the repairmen, and Ivaldi the fisherman, Vassa turned to face the new arrival.
The first thing the trio noticed was how young the girl was. Mousy brown hair was poorly brushed over her rotund face. Vassa noticed that one of her group crunched the ground with his movement. She assumed it was from the outfit.
You couldn't not notice the outfit. All she wore was a white dress with a blue scale hem on the bottom. The girl's shorts were the smallest little scraps of fabric she had ever seen in her life. The feet had socks and black shoes, and the right arm had a fabric bandage on it.
Nothing else.
She… wore nothing else.
Vassa did not need to remind people to wear proper clothes in this horribly cold weather. Everyone had grown up having at least once deciding to not wear a mask alongside their scarf and hood, or didn't bring a second undershirt on a hunt, or failed to dry their boots.
Nobody ever did it twice.
The adults stared at the girl in horrified looks of unified astonishment. Without anyone saying a word, they each checked the girl for signs of frostbite, or lesser injuries, or…
"How are you feeling?"
"Follow us, child. We need to get you inside."
She held up her hand to try to pause their talk. "My question, please?"
The three adults began to walk around her, shepherding her to the town."Fine, fine, just come inside the town with us. Come along now."
"Is the Great War over?"
Vassa stopped speaking.
Kuro choked on the cold air.
Ivaldi replied briskly. "Yes. It's over now."
"Good."
The young girl started to walk alongside them. Her eyes looked straight ahead, and her posture never slackened in the wind.
When they were a short distance away from the town, but not close enough for their conversation to be heard, she spoke quickly.
"Have you ever heard of Taurus?"
The three surrounding her replied with twitches and shakes.
Is the girl unwell?
Too familiar.
Taurus. A few thousand miles away… and I have to hear that.
Vassa questioned her. "Are they a friend of yours?"
"No. No, they're not."
"Ah. Let's hope they're nowhere near this place. I'd hate you to find them dead somewhere out in this weather."
… Although, it could be a place. Maybe I'll get them to talk to Déa. He knows weird place details.
...
In the end, the girl was brought into the town, and given a quick examination for anything in the way of injuries.
Vassa was, yet again, put in charge, now of dealing with the young woman.
..
"Now, you idiotic girl, you need a warm soaking for at least an hour or so. Get in."
She tried to sputter a refusal, but the older woman was having none of it. The girl was forced up the wooden stairs and prodded along to a bathroom, where a rather old metallic bathtub laid, currently cold and empty.
She pointed to a small alcove with a few stones. "Now, girl, I need to you get one red Burn Dust, and three blue Water Dust from that alcove as I-"
The woman looked at the pitiful amount of stones in the alcove. It also had a noticeable lack of no red stone whatsoever.
Vassa cried out, "What the-" and turned out the door.
…
She darted her head back in and muttered at the girl.
"You are going to be stripped and in that tub before I get back. This is your health on the line."
...
The girl glanced after the elderly woman, and grabbed three of the blue stones. A quick pulling lesson to shorts and shoes being removed with ease, but she had some awkward trouble with her dress, struggling to an unnecessary level to get the simple dress off.
Shouting came from the floor below, with a loud woman's voice echoing up to the small room.
"Slits, damn slits." she muttered frantically, ignoring anything said from below.
She tugged at the dress, and started as the older woman began to boom up the stairs. Hearing the sound of footsteps get closer, she pulled her dress back on, and started to fiddle with a trinket on her dress.
The trinket was a small golden outline of a square, with an unlit metallic "X" connecting the corners. The girl tapped it frantically, clearly trying to get some kind of expected effect. The tapping ended when the gold colouring flowed inside the central shape, causing a consistent color across the entire surface. The object made a quiet sound like a bell on the completion of its path, and the girl's face contorted in pain as the sound rang through the room.
"Did you hurt yourself on the bath or someth- Ach, what's wrong with you?"
The older woman looked over her, and crossed and eyes disappointed. "Off with the dress, girl."
She looked up, and began to remove the dress smoothly. As she did so, she folded her square inside her dress, letting it go last.
"What's with you young kids? I always thought I raised you all better." The woman muttered.
The girl silently held out the dust, and showed it to her.
...
At least she had that part right.
"Get in." Vassa ordered, tossing in the four Dust crystals into the tub, and pulling out a small pronged device, clicking it softly while holding it flush to the red stone. Damn. The thing's dead. Now they're going to get even colder.
"Kid. Go warm yourself up. Run down and go get me one of these sparkers. Any of them will do. Then we'll get the bath going, all right?"
The girl knelt up, and looked at her from the corner of her eye. Vassa saw the girl reach out for her staff blindly behind her and start snapping like the sparker.
Is the young girl not that right in the h-
… No. What am I saying? The girl's just tired.
"Hey, girl. It's not going to work like that."
... please, don't do it.
She lightly pushed the girl, smiling slightly. "Can you do get me a sparker, dear?"
I beg you. Just go down and do it.
The girl's finger touched her small staff, and her fingers snapped one last audible time.
Snap.
Then the steam flew out of the tub in a burst and water started sloshing around inside the metal bath.
Vassa's smile widened slightly. "Oh, isn't that nice. Now to get you into the bath."
The girl froze at seeing her gaze. The old woman watched the young maiden and calmly spoke once.
"Get into the tub."
The girl got in and surrendered to her cleaning.
Vassa hummed, and spoke quietly as she helped check the girl over for anything bad.
"Hmm. This is inte-"
...
"This is young girl's completely untouched. Gods must've had some mercy on such a small thing in this kind of storm."
"Didn't expect you to be religious, Vassa!"
Vassa's fingers stilled her thoughts.
She found no scars, blemishes, frost burns… Nothing.
"…"
"It's like the dear's blessed by the gods! Carried her here myself like a personal luck charm!" Vassa laughed alongside the crew at the miraculous escape of them all. "The young girl's fine, really. Healthy as me, even!"
"You sure your kid's okay?"
..
"Is something wrong?"
Vassa muttered quietly to the girl. "No, nothing's the matter, dear."
They were done with relative ease, and Vassa went to grab the girl's clothes from her folded pile.
"-Ah! Ple-"
Vassa picked the soft dress up, and looked down as a small bell-like clattering came from around her feet. "What's this?"
"Please don't touch it."
The girl was quickly standing in front of her, blocking her path to the small metallic object. "Put your dress on, and I'll hand it to you-"
Her eyes glistened as she repeated her demand.
"Don't. Touch. It."
Vassa was not in the mood for any of this young girl's demanding. She held out the dress, leading to the girl clutching it in her hands. With a deft swipe, Vassa slid her feet in between the girl's legs, kicked her foot back, leveraged her adult strength to launch the little trinket into the air with her toes, and caught it in her hand.
She smiled.
"See, that wasn't so ha-"
Her eyes opened to the girl cramped on the ground in obvious pain, compressing her teeth closed and clawing at herself like her sanity depended on it.
She was struggling to keep her mouth closed and when it broke, she screamed out "DROP IT!" before locking her voice back into her throat.
Vassa dropped it, the square now landing with an un-resonant tik.
She stood back, and was brushed in the face by a brush, probably held by the now furious girl. Vassa stood still, blinded and perplexed. She sneezed, and had to keep her eyes closed as a small light danced across her eyelids.
...
...
"I'm sorry."
"Don't look at me."
"Are you hurt?"
"I am fine. Just don't look at me."
"I am going to open my eyes and try to help you deal with any injuries you have. You are not from here, so you are not able to navigate-"
"No. Don't look."
Vassa clenched her eyes closed in annoyance. "What is so wrong about your appearance? All I saw was a young, foolish girl with average brown hair, awful clothing tastes, and a rather high chance of frost damage from being a fool. I'm an old woman who's seen all sorts of young girls that judge themselves too harshly. Either you are going to tell me what's so hideous about yourself, or I'm going to look at you myself, and tell you you're being ridiculous."
The girl froze in place, feet still, but her hands were still brushing against the wall.
"Go on, dear. What's the problem?"
"—n-"
"No? No? You don't want to talk?"
"—ng—-"
"Nnnn-Not Going to talk? Okay the-"
Flickering lights shined across her shut eyelids as she heard the girl frantically shout out at her.
"WINGS."
….
"What?"
"WINGS. I have wings."
…
So what? I know a man with three eyelids.
"Heard you the first time loud and clearly. Now, why is that a bad thing?" Vassa asked.
She stared, absolutely gobsmacked at the woman's nonchalant attitude.
"That's not NORMAL." she spoke quietly.
"Look at my face, girl. Look long and hard at it."
The woman's worn face squatted down slowly to line up with her. "You see this? This face here?"
…
"Yes?"
Her eyes flew open and glared into her brown eyes with a sudden vivid look of pure…
"This, dear, is the look of 'I don't fucking care so stop your pitiful nonsense.' Okay?"
… She nodded in affirmation. Okay, that is the look of an elderly woman giving no fucks.
….
Vassa looked over the cringing girl, noticing the large butterfly-esque wings. White, with small accents of blue and gold. It matches her dress and gold trinket.
Or, the dress is meant to match her wings.
"Hmm. Never met a winged Faunus before, but am I shouting in horror about it? Look in awe at how calm and composed I am. This isn't weird."
It's just… different.
The girl started whispering quietly in an argumentative manner and reached for the small square-
"Girl? How did you hide it with that thing? What was all the hollering for?"
-The girl flinched at her question, but responded at a low pitch.
"It forces them away. It makes me appear more normal."
Vassa furrowed her eyes. "Why. The. Screaming?"
The girl faced her eyes slowly.
"Because they hurt."
She sighed. "What do you need to repair them? Do I need to start performing stitches or something?"
"Ho-"
"…"
"My medicine. There should be a vial in my shorts. I need to drink it."
Vaasa handed her the things that barely qualified as shorts. She slipped out a glass vial, stoppered with cork and rimmed with yet another gold accent. The girl swallowed a third of the vial and returned it to her pocket.
Vassa waited patiently.
… The two female creatures sat there in silence.
"How long until it starts to work?"
The girl pressed on a wing, muttered some numbers, then looked back at her face. "It's healed. You can go now…."
She looked up questioningly at the older woman.
Vassa gave her current name. "Vassa."
Vassa chuckled. "No way in the world does anything heal up an injury that downs you screaming in a second. You should go rest." With that, she stood up and pointed to the left side doorframe.
"That room will be yours for the duration of your stay. I'm going to call you down later to talk with some people, all right?"
The girl slipped on her clothes and glanced out the door, slowly focusing on the worn door at the end of the dimly lit landing.
She shuffled over to the door in an uncomfortable scene, and Vassa went downstairs to have a short talk.
…
"What insanity are you drinking?"
Kuro set his pint onto one of the empty bar tables and looked up at his partner.
"I'm drinking water." he replied.
Vassa raised an eyebrow at his clear drink. "Are you positive that's just water?"
He raised a hand and patted her shoulder. "I am entirely sober. What do you need?"
Kuro watched her slump down into a nearby chair and stare at him. "I need you to get every currently sober Faunus we have and tell then they need to have a good long conversation with our new arrival."
He fiddled his thumbs together and tilted his head a few degrees. "Why? They'll want to know what's going on."
Vassa stared at him, then slid her hands to her brow. "The girl thinks something's wrong with her."
"She finds herself around people and the first thing she asks is if the Great War is over. Something is wrong with her."
Kuro watched her start laughing. It uncontrollably went on for a minute or so, until he interceded on her conversation's behalf.
"Heh… That's true. I meant more the fact that she's hurting herself trying to hide her… other parts."
"Kid's a Faunus?"
"We aren't going to force her to show it. The girl SHOULD BE CURRENTLY BE RESTING."
Kuro looked up at the ceiling. Vassa was glaring in the direction of the last door on the hall above.
Some things never change, do they.
Kuro rose and went to dress in his outdoor clothes. Before he left, he returned to the table, silently setting a cup down.
His hand rested on the table, and left behind a small pouch.
"I'll get back to you soon."
Kuro left to the outside through a small opening of the door, creaking faintly as it closed behind him.
Vassa grasped the pouch and tore it open, shaking small scraps of a paper-like substance across the table. Most of the contents barely ended up in the cup.
She didn't care, and swallowed the water in a few seconds, coughing when a it went too fast.
Now all she had to do was wait.
"HEY. You settled in?
Feet slowly fell above her, and a door opened. "Yes, Vassal."
This was followed by a cup breaking on the floor.
The door slammed closed as Vassa turned with an astonished look in the direction of the stairs.
..
No. This.. this shouldn't be happening.
Vassa looked down at the floor and spoke far to loudly for trying to call someone.
… "Curses, guess I have to clean this up. Lucille! Can you get me some new glasses?"
…
I must have misheard that. It's not her-
"I don't know where you keep anything! I've never been here before! How would I remember something like that?"
She stood still over the broken shards of the glass.
"Lucille? Are you feeling fine?" she called.
…
…
Vassa let out a low whispering before finally making a coherent sentence.
"Welcome home, kid."
...