The others had tried to stop them. Of course they would. Because they were good.

But they didn't have ears for Yang or Blake, nor for the beaten old Qrow, nor for the bleeding Raven who lagged behind with Whitley's support. They only had eyes for the quirk of Summer's brow, the tilt of her head, the upward tick at the corner of her lip. They only had ears for her laugh, then her question:

"Are— are you—" You snort. "You're serious?"

I have been told a Master here resides. Alas, only does the sight of a Second farmer disgrace me. Surely the title of Master has not been made so lowly, that it is now doled to any with a honed Blade.

"You speak strongly, but my Blade has split as many loud voices as it has wheat."

At this I laugh; such hypocrisy could only come as jest. Perhaps, if you did dress yourself as surely as you put on airs, you would find a more thronely appoint.

Thus falls your face. You make steps to me, your edged tool brandishing. Do you expect me to wither? I do place myself before you, and you may see me as middling; yet here— see? You, gloomy one, are made to kiss the floor: with my leg around your knee, I have undone you.

Breathe, for I have thrown you breathless.

"You—" You gasp and you suck, yourself a sad and virile creature. "Oh, you—" You bring yourself up to kneel, and with my leg I kick you; yet here you catch my shin. You cast me away. Your eyes molest me, and you say, "I like you."

But is it a lie to say your feelings are mine? Yes, quite surely, for you are without tact and you are lacking grace. Do I seem of barley? Or wheat? Does your aspirant Flock make such a lusty gaze for the heft of your tool?

You laugh, and you ask me, "May I make you mine?"

You are bold, yet where is your dowry? Unless here, before this field of Second man and Second beast, is your estate? I give you scorn. Whenceforth does the farmer make demands of the Master?

Your laugh grates me again. "I am a Master, unmatched in the Scythe in Two Hands."

At this I await another laugh. You do not disgrace me one.

I am disgusted at you. I tell you that such Master of the Scythe is called a farmer, and yet again you laugh.

"And you? You are a Master of insults? Or of beautiful women?"

For a Second, you have the gentleness of a First.

"The skill, too."

I am as yet unimpressed. You wield again your saucy gardening tool. Behind your back you position it, braced across shoulder to kidney. You seem immature in this way.

"Then allow me to impress you."

Their voice was the worst of both worlds— Weiss' scratchy tone mixed with Ruby's nasal pitch— but they used it to great effect. "We're so serious: we and thee, to the call of mercy. For the bird-body's boon… bitch."

Oddly enough, it was actually the 'bitch' that killed Summer's cruel mirth. "Don't call me that."

They smirked so hard it hurt. "Bitch, bitch, bitch," they sang. "Mum's a bitch, an asshole, and totally talentless. Your dad raised you to be just as shitty to your wife as he was."

Ruby's mouth scoffed. "I've given that woman everything she could ever want, and I can still make her beg for more."

"Ew!" They gagged. "Couldst thou not make it all horny? That doesn't even disprove my point."

"Implying you had one. We're not duelling; there'll come a time for Ruby to get her body back, and she'll need her soul to do it." Summer tipped her head right, adding, "I mean, probably."

They stomped towards her. "So you forfeit the challenge?"

Ruby's silver eyes— usually such a brilliant moonlight-silver— were more like cold, grey steel with Summer behind them. Her upper lip quirked the tiniest bit. "I didn't say that."

"But if you don't accept, thou dost relinquish triumph to me. That's literally how it works," they turned to look at the audience— teammates and family. "Right?"

Raven, honestly doing such a good job at momming (ignoring that the bar was somewhere south of hell): "Right! She's right, Sum—" she gave the two-part girl a quick glance that told her she knew what she was doing. "You accept my duel but not our daughter's? I thought you said—"

A frenzy burned suddenly across Ruby's stolen features. Summer grit out through her teeth, "I didn't say anything for her pet."

"We— er, Weiss— beat her!" Wuby Ree (God, We Really Have To Think Of Something Better) declared, raising the sword in their left hand. Raven looked at them with genuine surprise, so they added, "And 'twas a fair fight! Which— if thy brain of Second straw can make ends of this logic— doth mean your teachings are dick and piss!"

Summer, growling, flipped Belaflor Reaps Greatest Of The Lands Most Sullied end-over-end in an elaborate flourish, letting it rest behind her in a low, outside guard like a curling cat's tail.

Lo, I did stare at you. With some motion of my hands I bade you come, awaiting advance, but you only made eyes to me.

"Did you not see that?"

This made no sense to me. Did you exercise some concealed facet of your Soul? For some Second and First amalgam, where is the dignity of you?

"I… did… I, um… with my scythe, I, um… did you not see?"

You have gone red in the face, stuttersome, you yourself at a lack of daring which you did before wield. Only after a turn did I realize; thus were you made more pathetic. So you are a Master in fanciful flips of your scythe.

"N-no, I just— that's hard to do with a… um… scythe."

And after another long moment, you did finally discover my intent was to fight, and we did make honorable battle. And also, because your form was not so terrible, and your Guard not so loose, and your mind not so unfastened as it did seem, I did place myself into your life.

As such I made reasoning: would it not be moral to make of this farmer a Master?

—-HSHSHSHSHSHSH—-

"Woah, watch out, Coolguy over here doth tricketh yon lawn tool." They snickered. "Yon lawn."

Summer stamped one of Ruby's bird-feet. "Have some respect—"

They snorted. "You're not our mom."

"Wha— you— one of you is!"

"This body was conceived from a mother now twice-killed!" They announced, feeling for some reason almost proud of how easily they could proclaim the death of their mother. "No Summer here!"

Another stamp, but Summer held herself fast and locked her jaw forwards. "You're just trying to aggravate me."

They shrugged at her. "I dunno, sounds like thou art being a huge pussy cuz you're shaken to the marrow." Bowing, the nigh white-eyed girl(s) smirked at the corpse-thief. "Unless this be thine admission that you're just not strong enough for that bod—"

There it was.

My earliest journals would make of me a critic of the Scythe, an irony for which My Lady is unforgiving. My adoption of an offhand Scythe, however, does not make a lesser Master of me, as my wielding yet favors the most noble Sword in One Hand. Contrast My Lady: Mastery of the Scythe in Two Hands shall mark forever the farmer.

"Could you cease calling me that?"

Empty pleas you adore, for it is my knowing alone that late sun and warm bed do make such moniker appreciate.

"And still you call me the dog."

In more ways than your bothersome heat are you canine: you are ugly, and you are short. Further are you a two-legged thing which makes most empty a plate by lavishments of your tongue. Is there a need to mention your humani—

"For God's sake, Lisel, raise your sword."

For once, I deign to you my obligeance.

My Lady, once told me I seem more as retinue than wife. Among even the fellow wives, though I do give them pleasure, and for them I would make gushing rivers of my heartsblood, I myself remain unfit. You see them softly, as befits them. You do not rise against them, as does befit those wives. Nor ever are you ashamed in their presence, as would befit lovers interlinked.

Yet here— when you move upon me recklessly, and with only a single step do I make your advance touch air— I see the death of that smile. Here also: when with swiftness I extend my Scythe's reach to hook it without mercy upon your mistake, I see in your eyes an anguish, and I feel that I have hurt you. Have you shown this face to another? Have they hurt you so? Do you give such pain to them as you give to me, and as I give unto you?

My Lady, once I did think that I was more refined than our marriage— of this I make fast admission. Yet now, even as my Sword does cut your cheek, I am undone. It is my heart that was once so pure, a singular thing of steel edge, that you did make alloyed. In my inhalations I want never again to make red your veins. But, upon my exhalation, I crave what visage you make only for me.

If asked, there was a number of plays Ruby could recite directly from the manuscripts her mum had once made her study. Weiss, who had devoted her life to earning freedom through martial prowess, could do much the same. Only, they had different weapons: the scythe and the sword, what two implements could be more incongruous?

How did they feel so perfect together?

How could they slide the scythe so easily along their palm, catching Summer's own scythe as soon as the woman's slash ended up shallow? How was it so natural to pull themselves with that leverage, using the huge scythe's weight like an anchor as they delivered a lunging thrust that struck hard at Summer's midsection, the blow uncushioned by Aura.

The woman looked down at herself, at the sword in her belly, as if she'd never been stabbed before. They grinned. "First time?"

Summer, being Summer, grabbed the bare blade before they could pull it back. Without further fanfare, she smashed their nose with her forehead.

When you find willing your pride to take its inevitable loss, you are left haggard. You are unsteady upon your own feet; you, swaying, heave so great a sigh that your light is made dim— and you are My Lady, so I catch you. It is upon your falling on my arms that you release some squawk of consciousness.

I think that with quickness you will leap from me, as you have done before. Yet you are instead made still. Once the ebb of life flows once more in your gaze, you sink further into my hold. Another breath escapes you, though with nonesuch haste as last— only the relief— and it is this softness of you that I do fear in my heart.

"Lisel," is your word, for I have given you its shape in exchange for your own, and you tell me, "I am afraid."

They are words that I did want unsaid, but their presence makes surety in my heart. My fear is cast off— by what right may I fear, when first My Stubborn Lady lay bare her own? With your small body across my two arms, fear should find difficult purchase.

"You have such a way with words."

Surely have the other wives heard such appeal.

"They haven't."

Whyever do you look upon me so?

They hopped back, air slicing by their shoulder as the scythe nearly gored them, Summer wielding the ungodly weapon as if this was the body she'd sculpted for such purpose. She didn't even bleed anymore, her Aura having snapped the stab wound shut soon after the blade was evacuated. She fought like a woman dead.

But the Two were Blade and Scythe. They were as Martial Manuscripts in perfect concert— one page for the lunge, the perfect middle thrust— another page for the whirl of their Scythe, the ring of it deflecting its larger kin. They didn't even need their other eye to know how their body moved, to feel where the Scythe needed to be.

Do You Ever Wonder If

We've Done This Before?

Belaflor Sanguiverdarius, My Lady, what more can I give you?

It is my body that which I have given you— my body from which I have wrought those you call heirs. It is my body which only you have made marks unto, for none other has tasked my flesh with the weight of their blade. It is my body which you, Moonlight, have treated as sacrosanct.

My mind also, I have lost in your grip. Yet has come a wakeful hour— scarce even a restful one— when I am spared the image of your golden hair. If ever I thought of our wives as I do think of you, then let the Farmer be the Master, and let the Scythe in Two Hands reign. If even once I have lied, then let my quill through this page bite.

I am dying, do you know? I am dying. It is a horrible thing. From every cough I do burst with red, and I have endured many weeks with nary a lung's fullness of breath.

Has it been so long since I did move with a gait full of swagger? Of vigor? My Lady, my body is a lifetime aged, yet I have surely not been afflicted even a year.

I am ragged, My Lady. My Lady, I did try to lift my sword, and from my fingers— the weight, fell sad to the floor! My Lady! I am in pain! The sick is in my joints, and from my bed I am blistered, and yet— My Lady, I would endure every day to pass if it brought you to me, My Lady, My Saint, My First and Second, My Wife.

You, Farmer, have killed me— and by this I mean, it is my heart which shall have a final failing, and what have you done? You, who would hold that heart in your hands; You, to whom I have given it; You, for whom I have dedicated every one of its beats— could you give me some of yours, then, Moonlight? I cannot lie, I wish to see you.

My love, at this page I fear I must conclude, for I know that no force in the world could haul you before me, now, when already I am cast beyond salvation. It is our children which knock now upon my door, and it is our eldest with whom these pages I entrust your receipt. For it is between these boiled covers, among these pages which you did once bind for me, that I hope you remember evermore who is the Master of your Heart, My Love.

And— forgive me, I mean not overlengthen my scrawl, though a hundred thousand pages would yet capture the surface of my heart, but My Lady, this is of import: I did read that draft of your 'Codex', and I have found it wanting severely. Inspire yourself of mine own draft, which you, Farmer, shall wet your eyes to see, for it is surely resplendent. And on the doubled sum of pages make note, for I have spent scarce a month, sick to the heart, and in your entire life you will produce not a word so wise as therein held, for it is I who was the Master, before ever I was Yours.

And further still— again, forgive me— if you dare lay my body in the hard and frosty soil, I will return to tear you wholly into my grave. So, perhaps, you should do that, for I would love to see you make that face one last time.

Oh, My Lady, I miss you.

With my love, and the final beats of my heart,

Signed, Lisel

RECIPIENT:

BELAFLOR G.V.E.L.R.S. SANGUIVERDARIUS

STAMP OF BURDEN:

MARIA ROSE