There was one cage. A boy lie within.

Whitley. Little Whitley. Stupid, incessant Whitley. Shitley.

"Brother?"

He looked alike to a corpse. Unmoving. Naked. He made only the whines and groans of a creature in death. Weiss reached to him. He shied from her touch.

"W-Whitley, it is me."

He did not even look at her.

His body was bare, skin pocked and red with a carapace of tight, burned flesh. What remained of his hair was wispy and brittle-looking: a tuft of ash-white left an uneven half its boyish length, scant cover for his fire-mottled scalp. He lay huddled on the steely cage floor, a mass of groaning, skinny limbs. His face was tucked under his arms— his tight-skinned arms, patchy with burns like all the rest of him— hidden from sight.

Her eyes remained locked on the boy, though the corner of her vision did catch the extension of Ruby's feathered arm, her cloak whipped from her shoulders and extended into the cage. Weiss left her eye on the girl. Ruby had an oddly absent look.

Whitley— poor Whitley— pulled himself up, febrile. He took the cloak in shaking hand, his shoulders jolting as fabric met flesh. He shrouded his naked form and sat up with crossed legs. Weiss spared a glance for her nemesis.

Ruby's face spoke of trouble. Her eyes were pain, her lips doubt. "I'm… hot," she excused, as though offering a shivering, burned boy a piece of small comfort was something to be criticized for. "Don't need it."

Weiss was not going to object. She could not even begin to picture why she ever would. "Florabel, the lock," Weiss bade, her voice thinner than she realized, her tongue faster. "Please."

Ruby looked at her for a long second before Weiss realized she had asked in Mantell. Ruby seemed to have pieced it together by the time Weiss opened her mouth again, though, and unfurled the ugly mass of scythe that was apparently owned by her now-dead 'mum'. The Faunus— hollow-boned and lanky even with her muscle— swung the scythe with more ease than her body should contend, but the result washed away that niggling point: the locked cage was made unlocked, its latch clean-hewn alongside a section of the door itself. Unhalted, the barred metal door creaked open.

Weiss' body screamed to lunge for Whitley. She wanted nothing more than to throw herself upon the boy and take him to her chest, to pat his withered locks and kiss him on the head, to throw some familiar curse upon him (perhaps for her forever-ruined vernacular). His wavering look told her this would be a poor idea. She stilled outside the cage, all options now left bare to her, none of them correct.

"Uh… hey, kid, look, we're doing a thing— emancipation, I think— so you can come with if you want."

Weiss cast a cutting blizzard with her glare, intent to mince the bird into cubed poultry— this despite the fact that Weiss had no better words and only stared dumbstruck at her brother's captivity.

What the hell did I do?

She did not know what Ruby had done. She simply had no other default. "Whitley," Weiss tried again, more gently this time. "It is me. I am at your rescue. I am sorry."

Whitley finally looked at her. Would she rather he had not? Would she rather he had kept his gaze down, his voice silent? Would she rather not have seen his eye, pink and red and ruined so much like her own, only fresher?

"Sister," he said, halting, in Valish. He had been the first among them to learn it. The best among them to learn it— good enough to trick his sister. "You left me."

The impact made bile rush north. She shut her teeth tight before it could escape, swallowed the disgust. "I—" she tried Valish instead, meeting the boy on his ground. "I— wert thou not spared? Didst thou not curry his favor?"

The answer was already known to her; Jacques had said it himself. Before she killed him. Whitley cocked his head. "You seriously still talk like that? Genuinely?"

He didn't have any accent, save for the dry scrape of a throat screamed raw. Weiss' mouth took all the grace of a parched dune. "I—"

"Omigod, you gave her the stupid speech! You're her— ah!" The ungodly scythe awoke with thick metallic noise as it folded up again. Ruby barged Weiss aside and thrust herself into the cage, making Whitley retreat. Weiss moved with a blood instinct, hand whipping her sword— "You're, like, my hero, dude! That is genuinely fucking great! You have no idea how much we bully her for it!"

Whitley, pressed against the cage, white as a sheet (where his skin could still be white), looked the tall bird of a girl up and down. His eyebrows made a close, tense parley. "We?" he asked slowly.

"Me! And our team!" Ruby motioned between herself and Weiss. "We're partners! Nem—"

Weiss watched the word sap all of Florabel's sudden energy into the aether. The feathered girl stiffened. There was a rolling boil of doubt in her mind again, but the open book of her thoughts had become illegible, marred, pages unreadable past… something. Weiss could only feel the doubt.

"We're partners," Ruby finished, voice hunched lame. "I, uh… make fun of her all the time for it. It's great."

Whitley slowly nodded. "That's… good. Exactly what I was hoping for."

The alchemy of Ruby and Whitley was not a compatible thing, nor was it an explosively terrible thing like her and Weiss were. The bird and the boy were simply oil and water; two things fine enough on their own, combining to make something strange, unpalatable, and discomforting when combined.

Ruby turned to her, lips baring her teeth in something that wouldn't even deceive a blind person. It was a helpless look, but bless her godless heart— the girl was trying. The effort was admirable. Sweet, mayhap.

To Ruby's obvious relief, Weiss replaced her partner in the cage. She knelt before her brother, solemn. "I killed him. Florabel spake true— we are leaving, but I intend not to beat such a cowardly retreat as my last. I will leave none behind, especially not thee." She grimaced. "Nor Winter."

"Woah there, princess," Ruby flapped, inviting herself into the discussion. "That's a bit of a leap."

"Did she just call you—"

Weiss whirled on the bird, hissing, "We are not leaving without my sister."

"Uh, yeah, we are," Ruby attempted finality in her tone, though Weiss could hear that her thoughts were less sure. "I'm barely… I'm on board with the Faunus thing, but Winter's gonna try to kill us."

"Thinkest thou'rt an insufficient match?" Weiss goaded, laying pressure on a particular fissure in the girl's personality. "Flor-a-bel, I thought thee better."

The left half of Ruby's face became a twist, the way it was prone to whenever an unwanted tic arose. Ever the egoist, the girl grunted, "I— I could beat her. We just— I might end up killing her. We should focus on escape anyway."

It would be a lie for Weiss to claim ease of mind when pressing on the unpredictable girl's vulnerable spots. Her throat rankled. She continued pressing anyways, "Didst thou not claim the rank of Vytal Champion? Oh, I forget— thy triumph was by default."

She could feel Ruby's full-moon glare on her back. "I would've beaten you."

Weiss stuck her chin high, hand falling upon her sword. "If thou didst lay low a certain General of Atlas, mayhaps—"

Ruby thrust her fists to her sides, her jaw grinding. "No."

Her thoughts slid into Weiss: murky, filmy, clarity breaking through only in snippets:

Manipu—

I shouldn—

But—

Shut up—

Out—

Get out—

Let me in—

I can—

It's—

Ruby's bright eyes were shut furiously behind her lids, her whole face puckering with fire. She ripped the horrid scythe's strap from her shoulder, throwing it down like she had been personally wronged— a huge clank from its form striking the floor— her neck wrenching that closed gaze away from the mass of deadly Huntress' steel. Her shoulders hiked high.

"No," she repeated, voice deep and heavy, words strangled tight in her throat. "You can't— you can't fuck with me on this. This isn't safe— this is stupid— I— I came to get you, you want me to do all this other stuff." She met Weiss' eyes, lids parting to reveal white fire. "But— but you're my nemesis now. Prove you're worth it."

The challenge was a slap to the face— a punch deep in the gut, one that left her sore for breath. "What are—"

Ruby seethed, "Duel. Me."

For someone who had grown up cold, Weiss was unused to feeling it on the inside. "I— but I'm—"

"Like you did with Pyrrha," Ruby added mercilessly, slipping the plated gauntlet of wires from her hand. "Loser does the other's bidding until we're back in Beacon."

Weiss shook her head. "Florabel, now is not the time to—"

Ruby's claws scraped the floor, raking the surface in a way that could not have been without pain. She roared, "I am challenging you, Weiss! Take it or I'm tying you up and dragging you out on your ass!"

Weiss could only stare at the black-hearted girl, eyes wide. Her mouth had no choice but to mutter, "Aye."

"To the death."

Weiss scowled. "First blood. I am not—"

"Eat me for the Aura, then bring me back," Ruby growled, hushed and hurried and hot. "It'll make us even."

"I'm not—"

Ruby's voice became a violent, feral thing, ripping out, her body clenching as if wracked with recoil. "God dammit Weiss! Just do this one thing for me!"

Weiss stared at her, letting the girl's wail fill out the hollow room, the air left doubly vacant as the sound dissipated. Ruby shut her eyes again, turning away, her face cherried with fury and embarrassment. Her fists twitched at her sides.

Maybe there was another route Weiss could take. Maybe there were other words she could say— more fissures to be wedged. More pins for the bird's wings. Maybe.

She wanted to go back to the dorm. She wanted to drop her head against her sad, limp pillow. She wanted to work until her skin was stained with espresso, crystallized in caramel syrup. She wanted to smoke until her eyes bled, and she could only think stupid things and watch videos on her phone. She wanted to wear that stupid hoodie and those stupid shorts, and tie the hood tight to hug her face. She wanted to think of garments to make. Measurements. Maybe a pair of jeans, this time.

But, for once in her life, she did not want to fight Florabel.

"Fine," instead passed her lips. "Whatever."

And that was the way of it.

THUSFORTH WOULD COME DAYS AND NIGHTS OF PEACE; THUSFORTH ARE WROUGHT THE FRUITS OF OURS AND HIS LABOR; THUSFORTH ARE THE BROKEN TIMES MENDED.

THUSFORTH WILL THE LANDS OF MEN KNOW PEACE FOREVERMORE.

"Belaflor Sanguiverdarius was a woman who knew no peace, in spite of (or, by some accounts, because of) how doggedly she sought it. Born in a time where one's livelihood was still mostly based on Archivist dogma, she was victim to one of the last atrocities wrought by Grimm after The Great Reunification, close to the final days of the first (and arguably most successful) Continental Scouring. Some time circa 53 years before the First War of Founding, her village was beset by a Greater Seraphim [apoc.] named"

Ruby Florabel Branwen Rose was a tornado. Every sudden, fleeting assault many-armed with wroth, four limbs fighting in concert: buckler from the outside— parry, step back from the claw-toed slash— retort with a short, warding slash, hanging high guard, lunge in, thrust— but Ruby stabbed back in, a dervish with buckler turned to knife in reverse grip—

Weiss dove back and whipped her shoulder across, pulling point from thrust to instead challenge the raven's blade with her own. She struck it up and away with a burst of scattering sparks, narrowly saving her eye from the edge that instead snagged her temple, leaving a shallow, bleeding rift as the short blade glanced off. Weiss retorted with her own piece, pressing in to angle her sword like a whip before drawing it out for a narrow slice just below the Faunus' eye.

Ruby grunted, reeling, right hand coming up to smear red drops over her pale cheek. She turned her eyes to the evidence on her fingertips, then to Weiss. Her thoughts were static.

IN THIS GREEN AND GOLDEN TIME THE ARCHES DID LIVE OUT THEIR DAYS.

THAT ARCH THE FIRST DID COME TO RULE OVER THE GREATEST SWATHE, HIS ARMS SPREAD WIDE OVER THE LAND. HIS FOLK DID SEEK OUT WHAT BLACK TAINT YET REMAINED, A BAND OF CHOSEN CRUSADERS SET TO STEM THE WORLD OF ITS BLEEDING FISSURES, THE ARMS AND THE SHIELDS OF A NEW WORLD. THESE WERE THE FOLK WHOSE DUTY DID OUTLIVE THEIR ARCH.

IN THESE DAYS DID THE SECOND FORGE ANEW THOSE LANDS ONCE LOST. THOUGH THE FLOCK OF THE SECOND MADE NO HOLDINGS OF ITS OWN, ITS PEOPLE DID SPREAD IN GREAT NUMBERS UPON THE WHOLE OF THE LAND; THEY DID STRETCH ACROSS THE WORLD WITH HAND AND HOE AND SEED; THEY DID SET UPON THE DOMAINS OF MEN WITH ARM AND HAMMER AND NAIL; THAT FOLK DID MAKE PROSPEROUS ORDER OF THE BARREN LAND; AND WITHIN THAT FLOCK DID THOSE SHINE-EYED VESSELKIN REMAIN, YET MORE MAN THAN THAT ONE WHO CURSED THE NAME OF ARCH.

"handful left alive from the village. According to recovered fragments of her own journal, Belaflor struck out from the desolation, her only means of defense being the 'harvest blade'[1] (presumably a scythe) of her deceased father. Most of her journeys are recorded in 'The Tales A-Wandering': [apoc.] legends of Belaflor fighting various Grimm, outsmarting a gang of forest people[2], and one substantive story of being found by Firsts on pilgrimage[1]. Surviving ledgers within the Availed Doctrine Prime Temple list one Belaflor Sanguinarius as a child in asylum[3], and it is strongly evidenced that she was mentored by the Honored Martial of the time: Maria Calavera[3]"

Whitley's voice was surely piercing; Weiss' mind was surely impenetrable: she heard none of her brother's cries.

Ruby thrust low with her weapon— a longsword, now, nimble and red— aiming for Weiss' outstretched leg, but the Fourth suffered not the blow. She instead keeled back, leg lifting, then kicked down upon Ruby's blade to hold it against the floor. There was a rush of satisfaction— momentary— before the static of Florabel's mind let slip two dreadful words:

Knew it.

And before she could act, Weiss was blinded by an armful of black-red feathers, the pinions flashing in front of her face. Her sword was caught in motion, shooting forward into something Weiss couldn't see— something that halted her blade and drove it down just as she had kicked down Ruby's blade— which was now pressed flat and limp to the floor, no longer held— Weiss lifted her foot. Much too little, far too late.

Ruby barged through the blinding black veil, a battering ram that made Weiss' chest shudder from its force. The Fourth was taken to the floor, her lungs desperate, sucking bellows as she struggled to use her too-long sword in the melee, instincts telling her to grip fast on its hilt.

Ruby's hand made a joke of her instincts, however, wrapping around the wrist of her sword-hand like how once she'd taken Wekss' throat. She drove the appendage to the floor, forcing Weiss' hand to open. The sword of raven-make clattered loudly, the sound of it a clarifying bell that made both Ruby and her declared nemesis freeze.

There was a beat. A long, soundless moment, and the circumstances were made abundantly clear: Ruby atop her, pinning wrists to floor; Weiss below, her body still arched towards the Faunus from her now-ceased thrashing. Ruby's eyes were hard and sure, but underneath the silver lay a familiarity that Weiss was all too sure glinted in her own furious gaze.

They had been in such a position before.

Only this was not that. Nor would it be that. It was not a time where heat would pour out into molten kisses, scalding touches, the salt of flesh and the taste of soul. This was wartime.

Ruby leapt away, scrambling. Weiss rolled opposite, her limbs taking much the same desperation before her hands found their intended purchase. Blindly, but knowingly, she swung.

The swords met again: Weiss' sword now in the hand of its maker, Ruby's in the hands of its enemy.

THAT ARCH THE FOURTH DID RISE, AND THAT ARCH THE FOURTH DID FALL; HE AND SHE REBIRTHED THE SAME CURSED SOUL; MANY TIMES DID HE AND SHE MEET FLESH TO THE WORLD; MANY TIMES DID HE AND SHE FACE REBUKE, UNTIL THE GRACE OF LUCK OR THE STING OF SHAME DID MAKE HIS AND HER SOUL RECOIL FROM LIFE; AND THAT ARCH THE FOURTH DID MEET THE WORLD NO MORE; AND IN THE PASSAGE OF EONS, IT WILL BE ONLY THAT ARCH THE THIRD WHO REMEMBERS THE ONE WHO WAS FOURTH.

AND THAT ARCH THE THIRD DID WATCH SISTER AND BROTHER AND BROTHER AND SISTER PASS, UNTIL IT IS ONLY HIS WEARY SOUL THAT STILL GRACES THE WORLD WITH AN ARCH. EVER HE STANDS, AND EVER WILL HE REMAIN, AND EVER WILL HE WATCH, AND EVER WILL HE KNOW.

AND WHEN THAT TIME OF TIMES DOES COME; WHEN THE WORLD DOES AGAIN BECOME BLACK-RIVEN; WHEN AGAIN THAT GREAT VASTNESS BELCHES FORTH ITS DARK TIDE; OUR ARCHES SHALL RETURN.

"so quickly that some suspect Belaflor was hoping to be rejected, because she returned with the dissolving wings of the Greater Seraph before the sun had set[4]. Whether or not she was a Second, the Academy would have been shamed to reject her, so they did not. The learning period then is not well-evidenced, but sources have estimated her time at the Academy between two and three years[2[4[5[7] before graduation. Her fame came naturally: popular among Firsts due to her prestigious mentorship, and popular with Seconds for their shared faith (of which she was famously devout[2]). With her following, she envisioned a prosperous land wrest from the barren waste of"

It was their completion. Their culmination. Weiss had never used a longsword. But now, it was like she'd never used any other.

Florabel was graceless. She knew nothing of forms, hanging guards, fencing theorems. She knew no footwork. More than anything, however, this seemed a benefit for the raven. Her combat was a prolonged, animal flailing, the sword a brush: oil paintings and landscapes in Weiss' hand, insane abstract-expressionist diatribes in Ruby's. The sword moved as if it knew its maker's hand.

Weiss fit against her partner like a puzzle piece. The longsword was nimble and light, its length not so different from her own blade. She could dance just outside of Ruby's reach, her knowledge of fencing fundamentals serving her a saving grace from the bird's reckless abandon of form. Their violence one of clamorous steel and flying sparks, of red paint chipped from blade, of dents and nicks biting into a cup-hilted guard. Ruby was a feathered, drifting thing, her movements inelegant but beautiful— all fast-twitch. Weiss was a dancer, surer of foot, slower of pace, but hers was a flowing form that rolled with each blow.

The two who had shared smoke, heat, mind, and body, graced wounds unto one another. They struck with sword and flesh: a cut, deep in Weiss' right shoulder; feathers leaking droplets of blood— hewn, mangled, or otherwise broken; a pinkie on Florabel's left, its tip cleft a bleeding red stump; horrid, rough lacerations around nearly the whole of Weiss' right thigh, her artery left intact only by some Arch's blind grace. Both of their faces were marred with blood and bruises, Weiss' white shirt now mostly red, Ruby's scarlet dress turned to dark, bloody rust.

Ruby was panting, swaying on her feet. Weiss could barely hold herself up on her injured leg.

Weiss fled another flurry of wild blows, body moving on instinct rather than sight, but ground her backfoot down the moment Ruby's swipe grazed only a shirt-button. Weiss drew up from her low stance, aiming to split Ruby Rose from hip to clavicle, but the girl knew her partner too well and met Weiss' blade with the hard scutae of a grasping claw. She turned, lips a foul taunt of smug satisfaction, but Weiss acted without pause. Grunting, she pulled back with arm and waist, claw still locked around her blade, wrenching Ruby off the surety of her own footing. She stumbled; Weiss kept pulling down and aside, but charged bodily unto the heathen beast until their bodies collided— hers, the advantage in mass if not volume, took Florabel to the floor.

It is her heart and lungs, the parts of her sharing blood and flesh and spirit elsewhere, those parts which knew best another body (now so much like her own), that informed her instincts of their perfect play: to fall upon Ruby before she can raise the sword, her fingers acting with knowledge that wasn't hers, forearm a hard bar against the girl's pale neck. There was a rustle of cloth, a sharp pressure, and a choked exhale.

A longsword no longer, now a cruel and brutish knife swallowed up to the hilt, its wielder's knuckles graced by the blood-hot kiss of Ruby Rose's pierced ribcage. There are talons just as deep in Weiss' side.

WHEN FINALLY COMES THAT DARK AND BLEEDING TIME, I PRAY TO HAVE KNOWN YOU. I PRAY THAT I DID GRANT YOU WHAT STRENGTH MINE DID GRANT UNTO ME. I PRAY TO HAVE LAID YOUR BRICKS TALL. I PRAY TO HAVE MADE YOUR TEETH LONG. I PRAY TO HAVE GIVEN YOU ALL THAT I AM. I PRAY TO HAVE LEFT YOU THE STRENGTH TO BE RID OF ME. I PRAY TO HAVE LOVED YOU. I PRAY TO NEVER AGAIN FORGET.

I PRAY TO SEE MY SIBLINGS AGAIN.

"proved impossible in the long run and, although she staunchly resisted joining any of the dynastic coalitions at war, there were some among her personal council who were not so steadfast[13]. Among them was one Silace Whitetail, who took a massive bribe[16] from the Valerian Dynasty to 'let sleep long the whims of young ignorance,' which was a code referencing a popular play at the time— one which Silace had not seen[16]. This miscommunication led to Silace assassinating Belaflor's three children, who the Valerians had hoped to take into their own influence[17] rather than Belaflor herself. The shock and stress of this event caused some sort of sudden upheaval in Belaflor's health— a stroke, most likely[18]— which led to a rapid scramble for her favor in leadership[18]. Her consorts and concubines devolved to bloodshed almost instantly, vying to claim an heir and kill any other claimants. Silace, likely in a panic at the cascade of violence, murdered Belaflor in her sick bed, executed the consorts and concubines for 'degeneracy', and positioned himself as the next in line for Belaflor's position[18]. However, his bribe had been discovered by another committee member, and he was promptly seized by a lynch mob at his first public"

"Wei— khaff—"

"Ah—"

"Oh, that's— that's right in your eye— sor— khakh—"

"Don't apologize."

"Sh— shit, I— I d-died super quick… l-last time—"

"You're going to be okay."

"I'm— ow, god— I'm d-dying, dude, I'm not gonna—"

"Here! I'll patch—"

"Stop— talking— stupid—"

"But I'm—"

"Talk your normal!"

"I— I shall fix thee!"

"Don't! Let me— just lemme. To the… d-death."

"Be not a fool, Florabel!"

"I— am— a fool! Let— don't y-you dare—"

"Relinquish mine—"

"Ah!"

"Flora—"

"Bell?"