Chapter 1 – A Quiet Place: First Meetings
Cover Art by Mi Chumi!
Expanded Story Summary (Since FFN has a really limited number of characters available)
Selene, only child of Salem, lived a sheltered life until her only act of quiet rebellion caused her to cross paths with an embittered young Huntsman named Garek. Their growing relationship risked not only her mother's wrath, but the lives of anyone Salem saw as a threat to Selene's safety.
Thrown in the middle of an ages-long civil war between two cursed immortals, they determine to not only survive, but to bring an end to it. But to do so, they will need allies of their own... from an abused child with a dangerous fire-based Semblance, to a Headmaster who had long since lost all hope and courage. From a group of conspiracy theorists, to a brave Huntress whose eyes represent a deadly threat to both Salem and Selene. From a bandit leader, to an entire race striving for justice and equality.
Together, they will find that there is untapped strength in Remnant that wants no part of either side's goals, and who are willing to carve their own path.
[A/N] This is somewhat of a slow-build fic that starts off OC-centric (but not overpowered OCs) beginning before the events of Volume 1. As the story progresses, you will find a growing number of canon characters pulled into the central theme of the story, with some rather dramatic canon-divergent results.
I was inspired to write this epic tale by Coeur al'Aran's excellent work, and this story includes side-characters borrowed with permission from his works, including some OCs (Team November, Pyrrha's parents, etc). Where other author's OCs first appear, I will cite them in the author's notes at the end of that chapter.
So, with all that out of the way, let us begin.
Garek was a Huntsman, and a faunus. He considered himself skilled for his mid-twenties but not, he believed, anything particularly special.
He also didn't have a team. After Haven, Team STAG, already down one member due to tragedy, and barely held together by his team leader, fractured and went their separate ways. It happened, Professor Copperpot had told him, sympathetically. Some teams worked. Some did not. Some bonded in the face of adversity, triumph, and tragedy. Some wanted to put such things behind them with as few reminders as possible.
Garek was a reminder to his remaining two teammates.
And so, he had taken his own path. Four years of solo jobs protecting villages, slaying Grimm, and investigating disappearances across Western Mistral and Northern Vale. Four years of sporadic visits to his parents, gradually less frequently. At first, he had checked in every few months. Then every half year. Now it had been a full year since he'd visited his family. They worried about him. About his loneliness, his issues with trust. His misplaced trust had cost him one teammate, and then he'd been abandoned by the other two.
So, he relied on his best and only truly trusted friend.
Himself.
It was a lonely life. But not one lacking in satisfaction at times. When he succeeded, he did it on his own terms. When he failed, he didn't need to share the blame with anyone else. He found himself, at times, craving both peace and solitude. Something not often found in Remnant. Where there was peace, there were people, seeking to make the most of it. Where there was solitude, there were Grimm, or at least the risk of them.
Until, one summer month, he found a place that gave lie to that rule.
It was an island, and not a large one, off the coast of northern Sanus, west of the much larger Vytal Island. He had first seen it when traveling by air from Atlas to Vale. And he'd later explored it out of curiosity, after being dropped off by local fishermen.
"'Tis haunted lad." The weathered and wiry old fisherman named Tarlech had warned. "Not a safe place for man nor beast.
"You mean Grimm?"
"Nie. No Grimm that I've seen. But somethin'. Old Meg claimed she saw aught there, not two years ago. Wouldn't say what, but 'twas no Grimm, she swore. Left her shaking and landbound for weeks. She passed last month, rest her soul."
It had taken a lot of lien to convince the man to drop him off, with a promise that he'd actually come back in 3 days to pick him up.
He'd found no Humans, no Faunus, no Grimm, and no ghosts. Nor the signs of anything like them other than what might have been a long-abandoned campsite a few hours hike inland. Just a small, heavily wooded island with plentiful game and wildlife, along with enough wild edible plants to easily prevent having to dive into his rations. It was, in a word, peaceful and remote. He spent three days listening to silence and nature, reading, foraging, and thinking on his life. It was perfect.
He left feeling refreshed and able to deal with civilization again for another three months, before the urge to return struck again that fall. He extended his stay a bit longer, with the fisherman becoming less wary of the trip, though he still balked at the idea of lingering at its shores.
And again. January marked his third visit, and the longest. The winter had been unseasonably warm. "Seven days," he'd told the fisherman, who had only shaken his head sadly and taken his lien. They would return then, and pick him up where they had dropped him off.
Seven days of bliss.
His second evening, his solitude was interrupted for the first time in his three trips there. It was the barest glimpse out of his peripheral vision of a large object passing overhead, eclipsing the broken moon as it passed over his campsite in the hours after dusk. He went from 'Faunus on sabbatical' to 'huntsman on alert' immediately.
It had been large and quiet. Large enough for some sort of aerial transport, or worse, a large flying Grimm.
He cast his eyes to the campfire. It was too late to douse it. Even if he did, the smell of smoke would give his position away, and make it clear he knew someone was coming. Quickly he prepared for an unwelcome visitor.
Less than an hour later, a person, cloaked and hooded against the cold perhaps, approached the clearing and campsite warily and quietly. They had not expected to find anything here, other than an empty clearing. They had left their own gear several meters back.
They paused at the treeline, hidden eyes scanning the clearing. Noting a single tent. A plate and mug. A single pack. A single figure sitting hunched on a log with its back to them.
They held still for some minutes. Then seemed to make a decision, moving forward near silently, hand reaching out for the still figure before them.
Only to freeze as a soft thump behind them heralded something dropping from the trees, and a lean but strong hand grasped their shoulder.
A sharp presence bit into the middle of their back, just below their ribcage.
"Don't move," a rough voice hissed quietly, "unless you want to make it your last mistake in this life."
Garek felt adrenaline, fear, and anger. Adrenaline was normal. It sharpened the senses. But it could also cloud the mind.
The fear was of the unknown. He had spent minutes posing his bedroll, spare cloak, and other items into a slouched dummy on the log, then used the grapple of Cats Paw to scale a tree at the edge of the clearing, in the direction he guessed intruders would come.
He wrapped his dark cloak around him, and waited.
The fact that he saw only a single person approaching surprised him, but also fed his fear. This could be no mere bandit or fisherman. It had to be someone with power and confidence. Someone who would dare approach an unknown camp with no obvious weapon drawn. Someone who had access to aerial transportation. All of this said threat. He would not be caught over-trusting again.
The anger was for the loss of his solitude. His own personal haven. No longer would he be able to bask in the silence, secure that nothing would threaten him. He would never sleep easily here again.
Ruined.
As the intruder passed beneath him, creeping toward the rough mannequin he had fashioned, he waited until they had leaned forward, reaching out with one hand to grasp his distraction, and then he turned the tables. Garek used his Semblance to Pounce from the limb, drawing Cats Paw and landing immediately behind them with a soft sound.
His right hand gripped their right shoulder roughly, even as his rapier pressed into the small of their back, angling upward to pierce into their most vital organs. Liver. Heart. Lungs. Any of the three would have them bleeding out in seconds or minutes.
"Don't move," he hissed quietly, "unless you want to make it your last mistake in this life." The figure before him froze, and time slowed to a crawl. He heard them gasp. "Don't scream, either."
They did not.
Instead, a quiet young female voice came from the cloaked figure before him. "Pl-please. Do not hurt me. I… I meant no harm," she pled.
It could have been a ruse. A ploy. A similar one had cost him his partner's life. The urge to take no chances. To make this a simple decision, warred within him. But he was a Huntsman. Years older and wiser. And he could feel the shoulder beneath his right hand trembling. No, it was shaking. Her pale hand was still outstretched but frozen in place, shaking violently as well.
One heartbeat. Two heartbeats.
"How many are with you?"
"Please, I beg of you…"
"How many!" He shook her shoulder slightly, his fingers pressing into her flesh. She gasped, nearly buckling but for the threat of his blade keeping her standing. It had already pierced cloth and was pressed into skin. It should have told him something, but he wasn't thinking clearly.
"Alone," she sobbed quietly, "I am alone."
His eyes narrowed, scanning the area. Tawney ears perked, listening and hearing nothing but both of their rapid breaths, and the return of night sounds after her passing.
Gritting his teeth, he forced his hand to remove a little pressure. "Who are you? Why are you here? Tell me the truth, and I won't hurt you." He took a breath. "You can lower your arm, but keep your hands away from your cloak."
She did, seeming to slump slightly. "I… I am… my name is Selene. This is my… this is my place. My quiet place. I did not… did not think to see another here. I was surprised and wished to see what you were. Please, let me go. I will leave."
Her place? He considered the clearing, with its once-used feel. It made sense. He nodded to himself. "Well then, Selene. I'm afraid I've intruded. But I can't leave here for several days, and I can't let you leave and come back with others, either." He felt her begin to shake again, and she made a small sound in her throat. "Calm. I won't hurt you. But you'll have to stay until it's time for me to leave." He considered. "Unless you have transportation I could use to leave earlier."
She went from shaking to tense. "I do not. Not that you could use, and it would leave me stranded here."
"That's what I was worried about. Where are your weapons?"
"I have none with me."
He paused, surprised by the statement. "What if something attacked you?"
"What would attack me here? I did not believe it needful," she said mournfully. "And I believe it would merely have cost me my life in this instance." She took in a shuddering breath. "May I know the name of my captor?"
"Garek." The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and he found himself reevaluating the situation. Instead of a trained Huntsman removing a threat, he began to feel more like a bandit taking a helpless villager hostage. "My apologies, Selene, the wilds have taught me to be overly cautious." He took a deep breath. Released it. "I'm going to take my right hand off your shoulder, and check you for weapons. Don't move."
The hood nodded, and he used the back of his hand to check under arms, around waist, and ankles for any sheathes or holsters, and found none, unless shaking in fear could be used as a weapon.
"I see." A sick feeling began to pool in his stomach. "I… My apologies again, lady. I'm going to remove my blade. I won't hurt you. But don't try to run. Sit next to my decoy there… please," he added at the end, to try to soften his commands.
The cloak nodded again, and he eased Cats Paw away from her back, half expecting her to spin around and use some Semblance to… wait.
Why hadn't she relied on her aura to protect her?
The ugly feeling intensified. This was no Huntress. At worst, it was a bandit, but even that seemed unlikely. She didn't have the reflexes nor the mannerisms from his experience.
He watched carefully as she slowly made shaking limbs move, stepping over and then lowering herself onto the log, carefully avoiding looking back at him. Probably to avoid being able to identify him in a bid to increase her chances of survival. She drew her knees up, and wrapped her arms around them.
"I have done as you ask."
"Thank you." He moved around slightly behind and to her right, and perched on a stump. Taking a deep breath, he sought to calm his racing pulse. "And again, I apologize. I'm wary, and with good reason. I've seen men killed before because they weren't suspicious enough." Gotten a friend killed, too. "And again, I promise, I don't intend to harm you." He paused. "You said this was your quiet place?"
The hood bowed. "Yes," she sadly whispered. "It was."
Ugh. "Dammit." He shook his head. "It was mine too, though I'm betting it was yours first."
She turned sharply toward him, and he saw a faint reflection of the reddish firelight within the hood. "Ah," She laughed bitterly. "Then it seems we have ruined it for each other."
"Yeah. Life again plays a cruel joke on me."
There was a long silence as her hands played with the hem of her cloak and the fire quietly crackled. She broke the silence softly. "Where are you from? What do you do here?"
He hummed to himself as he considered the question, deciding answering in general terms couldn't hurt. "I'm from Mistral. A small village you've never heard of. Though I travel a lot. I come here when I need to forget how annoying people are." He chuckled.
"Why do you travel?"
"Ah. Well, I'm a Huntsman. I protect frontier villages, mostly across Mistral and Northern Vale."
"So it is your… work?"
"Right."
She seemed to consider. "What do you protect them from?"
"Well lately it's been bandits mostly, though I avoid taking on larger tribes. Last month it was protecting a faunus village from a human-supremacist group."
"Faunus?" she seemed to roll the word over as she repeated it. "What is this?"
He paused. "What do you mean?"
"What I say. What is a faunus?"
Garek blinked and raised a hand, pointing to the two small golden ears on top of his head, "Faunus." There were also small spots that featured heavily on his neck that faded out as they approached his face, but those were actually tattoos. He'd long since decided that if the ears were going to make his heritage obvious, then he was going to lean into it.
The hood turned slightly more. "Oh… I… I had thought you human. My apologies."
"It's fine. I can imagine you had other things on your mind."
"So, you… travel and protect against bandits and… people who hate your kind?"
"Well, and attacks by Grimm of course."
He felt the sudden tension in the air. "Oh," she whispered.
"It's okay. It's what we train for. Frankly it's usually safer than facing bandits or bigots."
"Yes. I… I see. And you… defend against attacks."
"Right."
"But what if… what if the Grimm were not attacking… but were just passing by."
Garek frowned. What an odd question. "Well… at least in my experience… they don't. When a Grimm sees a human or faunus, it attacks."
"Truly?"
"In my experience, yeah. And I've never heard anyone else say otherwise."
Selene made a small sound. "But… but what if it did. What if… what if you found a small Grimm," She gestured, defining a shape the size of a small animal, "and it was merely sitting, harming nothing."
Garek scratched the base of an ear. "I… I dunno. I'd have to think about that. It would-"
"But you would think, yes?" She interrupted. "You would not just attack it?"
He felt like this wasn't just an idle question. She seemed too intent. "I… sure. Yeah, I'd have to think about it. It might be a threat later, though. I'd have to weigh that."
The hooded figure turned toward the campfire and seemed to absorb his response. Then he heard her take a deep breath. "And if… if one were to be sitting on a log, in front of a warm fire…" her voice shook as she softly continued, "asking you questions?"
Garek's brain vapor-locked as his body did the same. He could feel his pulse slow to a crawl, breathing pause. The words went round and round in his head. Individually, they all made sense. Combined, they were meaningless. Fantastical. Impossible. His lungs were hurting, so he exhaled, and sucked in another lungful of crisp air.
Selene had not moved. Nor had she laughed at the joke. Or the impossible hypothetical.
He felt dizzy, but he felt she was waiting for an answer. He coughed. "That… that would be impossible."
"But if it were not?"
"Then I'd… definitely have to think… carefully… about that."
"Even…" she took another breath. He saw her hands clench on her knees, "even if you had already promised you would not harm them?"
His stomach flipped several times. He realized his knuckles were white with how hard he was gripping his rapier, point still buried in the ground before him. He cleared his throat. "Selene. I… would you remove your hood?"
"I am afraid," she whispered.
His gut wrenched with how much she sounded it. "I… I won't…" What the hell was he saying? She was implying… Hell, she wasn't just implying… that she was Grimm. That she feared he would attack her. And he was about to tell her that he wouldn't. As if any of this could be possible.
And if it were?
Grimm don't talk. Grimm don't shake in fear. Grimm don't sit on a log in front of a fire next to a Huntsman with their weapon out. They didn't have names.
But if they did… what kind of person would he be, Huntsman or not, to strike them down without justification? Would just existing be that justification?
That sounds like human-supremacist thinking. Or faunus-terrorist thinking.
"I won't… I won't attack a person named Selene." There. That was… that was better. That he could say.
There were several moments where she seemed to consider his words. Then the hood dipped, and both her hands raised toward her face. Her hands were pale, he suddenly noticed. Paler than the moonlight. They grasped the hem of her hood on either side, and slowly pulled it back as she faced away from him, revealing pure white hair streaked with black, running straight and shoulder-length. One incredibly pale ear peeked out from the right side. She sat still, head bowed as she returned her hands to her knees.
Then she slowly turned her head toward him.
He felt his eyes widen and mouth go slack as she revealed her face to him. Pale complexion, bone-white. Black eyebrows only served to accentuate the features that really drew his attention.
Ordinary black pupils, but they were framed by Grimm-red, scarlet irises… and those were bordered by black sclera instead of white.
Grimm a voice deep inside him growled. Dangerous. Deadly.
Defend yourself.
"What are you?" He croaked.
"I am Selene," she tried to smile, but her eyes ruined it. He could see them becoming glassy with moisture. She glanced down and he followed her gaze to find he had lifted his rapier, point toward her. He swallowed thickly and forced his hand down, burying the point back in the dirt of the campsite. He heard her choke and inhale as he did so. "Thank you, Garek," she finished.
[A/N] I hope you enjoyed this introductory chapter. So far, you've seen zero canon characters and should have no indications of where in the timeline we are. And also, who the hell is Selene?
Enjoy and please, I beg you, if you find a chapter that strikes a chord, leave a review. It can make the difference between others picking up the story or not, and stories featuring OCs are often overlooked otherwise.