The common room was far from impressive. The soldiers hadn't even moved all the things into it that were meant to be present. There should have been chairs, tables, even a couch. So far, all that had been set up was a coffee maker. Ruby was more or less okay with this, but Jinn was sitting on the floor and complaining about the cold. The three soldiers who were not currently on the job were huddled up in their cold weather gear, the only real sign they were alive being the sudden bursts of frosted breath coming from under their hoods. Ruby hadn't really paid much attention to who was who among the soldiers, but she could read the name tags on their coats. She recognized Lima as one of the soldiers that had accompanied her, Weiss, Jinn, and Ironwood on the drive to the plateau. The other two, Cayenne and Dusker, weren't really names that meant anything to her in particular. Still, conversation was better than silence, so Ruby decided to try and talk.

"Nice weather we're having, huh?" All four of the others, Jinn included, slowly turned to look at her. She shrugged. "Hey, it could be colder, right?"

A feminine voice came from one of the soldiers, Dusker, if Ruby wasn't mistaken. "You're not part of the military, are you?"

"Uh, no. I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose."

"Okay, good, I don't want to get in trouble for airing my grievances."

"Grievances?"

"Yeah. Do you know what maternity leave is?"

Ruby wasn't sure, but she had heard tomatoes referred to as 'maters' and she knew tomato plants had leaves. "I think so?"

"In the Atlesian military, we get three months of maternity leave." Dusker began to explain, her voice wavering from her shivering. "I was two months into mine when I was called away for this mission. I don't disobey orders, but I want to gripe. Griping makes me feel warm inside."

Ruby did not know how one could be two months into tomato plant leaves. "You may have lost me somewhere."

"I have a two month old baby at home."

Now babies was something Ruby understood. "Oh. That's neat. Uh... congratulations!"

"Thanks." Dusker swept right past the formality. "And no, I didn't bring a picture. I value my life."

The door opened behind Ruby, and a blast of cold air swept in, causing them all to shiver heavier than they already were. Ironwood half-entered. "Ruby, Jinn, follow me. You three, we need the medical center up as soon as possible."

"Yes sir." Four voices chorused.

Ruby was a bit slow on her response. "Uh, right. Got it." After helping Jinn up, they ran across from the common room to the command center.

As soon as they were in and the door was shut, Ironwood pulled down his hood. Everyone else who had entered the temple was there already, along with Winter and a few other soldiers who were working to set up the command center as quickly as possible. The general saw that they had done a decent amount and the room was at least minimally functional, so he addressed Winter's selected second. "Captain Sparky, you four should join the efforts to construct the rest of the base for now. This can wait."

"Yes sir." Sparky turned to the others. "Hayden, Seraph, Argent, let's step outside."

Once they were outside, Clover motioned for Elm and Vine to ready their weapons. "We don't know who this is inside, and we don't know how they'll respond to being woken up."

Jinn looked on, surprised. "I don't think she'll be a danger to us."

"But you don't know. Do you?" Ironwood pointed out. "It will be safe to open the Cradle at all, right?"

"Well... yes, it will. The only risk is in closing it with someone inside. She's been perfectly preserved by it, so she will wake up the moment we open the Cradle. She won't be properly clothed for the cold, however." In Jinn's mind, this extra caution they were taking against the person sealed inside the Cradle was highly unnecessary and even a waste of effort. "I'm serious about her not being a danger to us. She'll be confused and scared when she wakes up."

"Very well." Ironwood turned to Winter. "Get some spare cold weather clothes for her. A space heater would be good too, if we have any to spare."

"I'll get them right away, sir." She dashed off for her errand.

Ironwood looked back to Jinn. "I know you said you wouldn't use your power to interfere, but anything you can tell us about this person will help."

"I... don't know what I can say. She was sick, and her brother brought her to the temple. They believed in the old myths at the time that there was a way to heal her within the ancient temple." Jinn walked over to the Cradle, casually placing a hand on the top of the ancient Relic. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to decide what she should do. It came to her, a different way to make use of her powers. It was within her power to impart any knowledge she possessed, which was nearly all knowledge of past and present. She took that moment to do something that would ensure everything would go smoother once the girl inside was awake. She opened her eyes after she was done, determined that she wouldn't tell anyone what she'd done. "I can tell you a few things that you'd find out pretty quickly." She continued. "Her name is Pelka. It would be best if you ask her for her name, though, rather than mysteriously already knowing it."

"Pelka, huh?" Ruby looked thoughtful. "How old is she? ...minus the thousands of years."

Jinn backed away from the Cradle, finding a place on the other side of the command center and leaning back against one of the tables that was set along the wall. "Age... right, at the time she was put into the Cradle, she was nineteen. Her illness is cured now, but at the time it was debilitating. It made her nearly unable to walk. The test she had to pass in order to reach the Cradle required her to endure incredible pain, as it forced her to walk on her own. She wasn't always ill like this. It was a curse placed on her when she and her brother defied one of the young gods."

Ironwood held up a hand, telling her to stop. "You're raising more questions than answers. I think it's starting to sound more like we should ask her." Jinn stopped obediently, but it was obvious that there was a new feeling of worry over the room. One thing she had said in particular was occupying everyone's imagination until Winter returned. She had a large furred coat and pants rolled up under one arm and a space heater held under the other. Ironwood directed her where to put the items, and once the space heater was on he turned to Clover. "Okay, it's time. Open it up."

Clover nodded to Vine, who reached out with his Semblance to take hold of the Cradle's covering. It didn't take much exertion to pop it open, and after that it simply slid open. There was no cloud of dust or smoke, no steam or anything that one might have expected. For all intents and purposes, nothing inside moved at all. The air was clear as it could be, revealing the still form of the Cradle's occupant. The men in the room discretely diverted their eyes, and Winter jumped into action to cover her up with the heavy clothes she'd brought.

Elm, a little confused, looked to Jinn for an explanation. "I don't understand. Why is she naked?"

"The Cradle heals living organisms." Jinn said, simply. "It doesn't heal your clothes or preserve them. She was wearing simple animal skins when she was placed into the Cradle. Those turned to dust a long time ago."

Winter hovered over the girl, making sure she would be properly covered when she opened her eyes. She addressed Ironwood without looking away. "Sir, it might be best if the men left for now."

"Right." The general motioned towards the door. "Let's see if we can help the construction work."

Weiss found herself peering over Winter's shoulder at their guest from the distant past. Once the men were out of the building, she asked Jinn. "How long should we expect to be waiting until she wakes up."

As if to answer Weiss' question, the girl's eyes opened. Winter found herself staring into rose-red irises. With a puff of cold breath, the girl tried to sit up, only to find Winter gently holding her down. She grabbed at the furred coat Winter had placed over her, stopping to take a moment to inspect it. Seeming to realize her clothing situation, she quietly nodded to Winter as though she understood that she was the one who had provided the new clothes. Slowly, Winter stepped back, allowing her to get up and put the clothes on properly. As the girl dressed herself, Winter noticed a few things she thought were unusual.

Making her way over to Jinn, letting Elm take over keeping an eye on the girl, Winter, lowered her voice to talk with Jinn semi-privately. "She's a Faunus."

"Yes, she is." Jinn confirmed.

"She has scales in patches all over her body. I thought little of it, but she has horns on her head as well. They're mostly hidden under her hair at the back, so I almost missed them." Sure enough, as she was speaking, Ruby and Weiss had also spotted the unusual horns. They sprouted from the base of her skull at the back of her head and curled under her ears, coming to a point just alongside her jaw. They were short, and hidden among her shaggy hair, but they were there. Winter looked troubled. "Most Faunus, I'm pretty sure, only have one animal trait. I'm not sure I've ever met any with more than one."

Jinn nodded, understanding the confusion. "They exist. Less common, for sure, but they're still around."

"Okay, but what about those horns?" Winter narrowed her eyes at the girl, who was still distracted with the new pants she'd been given. "What kind of animal has horns like that?"

"That's..." Jinn visibly wrestled with whether or not to tell Winter the answer. Eventually, though, she gave in. "She's a very old kind of Faunus. They're pretty much extinct in modern Remnant society. About three thousand years ago, there were a series of purges to get rid of them, since they were considered to be too dangerous." Winter gave her a look of alarm, so Jinn held up her hands, motioning for her to calm down. "It's okay, they're not actually inherently dangerous. That was just an ancient example of anti-Faunus racism. Nothing to worry about."

Winter didn't look impressed. "I think I'm more concerned with the actual genocide than with whether or not the one singular remaining one of her kind is actually dangerous. But, it's as you said, that was thousands of years ago. So what is she, then?"

"Well... she's a Dragon Faunus."

Winter was taken aback. That Jinn would state something so simply told her it had to be true, but she couldn't just accept that. "A... Dragon Faunus?" Was such a thing even real? How could she just believe that. On some level, it made sense and was reasonable, but it required her to accept something else that was just... not possible. "But the Faunus... their features, their animal parts... They're all parts that can be found on animals, aren't they?" That would mean Dragons were real, beyond whatever Grimm might wind up classified as such. "Real animals."

"That's not entirely the case." Jinn started slowly. She'd already said the biggest part, that this girl from the past was a Dragon Faunus, but there were still several other tidbits of information related to the subject that she wasn't certain she wanted to just give away. "Faunus have features similar to various other creatures, setting aside the Grimm. Dragons are one such creature... but they're not animals. At least no more than Humans or Faunus."

"Excuse me." Winter and Jinn looked back to see the girl stuffing her hair down the back of her coat and pulling the hood up over her head. She let out a relieved breath, now that she was a little more out of the cold than she had started, and addressed Winter more directly, pointing across the room at her. "You're in charge here?"

After a second of awkward silence, Winter straightened herself out and cleared her throat. "Until the general returns, I am. My name is Winter Schnee, Atlas Special Operations." She paused. Though the others remembered Jinn telling them the girl's name, Winter had not been present at the time. This worked out fine, since Jinn had also advised them to ask the girl's name. Winter started back up slowly. "Pardon... well, everything. I know this must be strange for you, but... what is your name?"

She strode across the room to stand right in front of Winter, facing her directly as she answered. "I am Pelka Leganda of the Holy Dragon Army. Tell me now, what is the state of the empire?"