Ch. 101 Time moves on
"Are you sure you don't want to stay here with your dad?"
"Not when you're living on borrowed time. I'm not leaving you alone until you solve this." Ruby replied, more than a little cross with Jaune for even suggesting that.
"...plus, everyone else has finally arrived so it's not like he'll be alone. Unlike you, mister!"
"Fine, fine, I get it. I'm your dumbass husband who nearly killed himself. I promised I wouldn't do it again…"
"And don't you go back on that promise." Ruby smirked and left the room.
"An Arc never goes back on their word." Jaune smiled as he called out after her.
He picked up the packed bag with his temporary prosthetic arm and threw it over his shoulder.
"Well, it's time to face the music I guess." he mumbled to himself.
When he exited the house and stepped into the garden he was met with the sight of his family on one side of the garden, together with Cobalt. On the other side sat Ruby's sister, together with Qrow, Ren and Nora. Taiyang stood a little further down the path together with his daughter.
She was wearing her traveling gear along with her duffle bag slung over the shoulder.
Jaune palmed at the box in his pocket. Ruby gave it back this morning telling him to give it to her properly this time. Soon he stood opposite Ruby.
"Friends and family, we're gathered here today to celebrate the joining of two lives. As these two have a habit of attracting the strangest of circumstances, I will keep this as brief as I can." Taiyang spoke to everyone present.
"Do you, Jaune Arc, take my daughter Ruby Rose to be your wife? To stand together, to be her partner on the battlefield and in life?"
"I do." Jaune replied, smiling.
"And do you, Ruby Rose, take Jaune Arc to be your husband? To stand together, to be his partner on the battlefield and in life?"
"I do." Ruby said with a wide grin.
Taiyang nodded before speaking up again "Then please, exchange your rings so that they may be a physical representation of the promise you exchanged on the day of your wedding."
Jaune wouldn't help but lose his smile as he held the box in his left. With a great amount of focus he opened the box without dropping it.
Ruby did the same with her own box. She'd made the ring herself much like Jaune did. It took her a few days and several tries to get it right but eventually the platinum band came out just right. Unlike the one Jaune made, Ruby didn't inlay any stone in it, instead choosing to file a crisscross pattern into it.
"You first, Ruby. Present your ring to Jaune."
Ruby blushed a little before she started reciting the vow she came up with and practiced over and over in front of a mirror.
"With this ring I promise to love you for as long as we both breathe and beyond, to support you in life and to stand beside you against adversity. Please take this ring as a reminder of what we went through and what's to come." When she finished speaking she carefully slipped the ring on the ringfinger of his ring hand, a reminder of the events of only a few weeks ago.
"Jaune, you next. Present your ring to Ruby."
"With this ring I promise to love you for as long as we both breathe and beyond, to set my body and soul alight to protect you from harm, to be a shield by your will and to be a blade by your command. Please take this ring to remind you that I'll never abandon you, that no matter what happens I'll find my way back to you." Jaune slipped the ring on her left ringfinger, meeting her eyes as they linked hands after the boxes found their way back into their pockets.
"It is my honour to present to you, Mr. Jaune Arc and Mrs. Ruby Arc-Rose. You may now kiss."
=O=O=O=
Raven startled from her thoughts as an alarm on her scroll went off. It was about time for her to bring the kids through to Mistral.
That she was disgruntled about having to stay behind was an understatement. After sending Yang through to Qrow she thought she would give the kid a few hours to calm down, come back to pick up her girlfriend and they'd all go back to Vale.
Instead when she opened the portal to Vale she found out that Arc lost his arm, Vale had nearly fallen and Yang's intervention in the defense of Vale opened the Vault. That they sent a known thief inside to take the relic was just the cherry on the cake.
Of course with Arc and Summer's brat wanting to go back to Atlas now, Raven had to stay behind in Mistral for a while longer. It was things like this that really made her miss having her connection in the tribe that she could come back to. With the tribe gone it was mostly her family that she had a connection with and they had a tendency of staying together now.
Raven sighed in frustration but stood up and grabbed her sword. A slash through the air was all it took for her semblance to make a shortcut to Taiyang. She peeked her head through and looked about the gathering of people, idly noting one of the Arc children running away when she saw her.
"So… are you two ready to step through? Cause I'm tired of being used as a glorified taxi service."
"Yeah, we're ready. Sorry about making you do this."
"Eh, it's not like Oz didn't abuse this power of mine for years. You're on thin ice though… and you still owe me a fight."
"About that…" Jaune began with a wry smile but Raven interrupted him with a shake of her head.
"Get your arm back first Arc. I won't be satisfied with beating a cripple."
"Hey!" Ruby exclaimed at the rude name-calling.
"Yeah, yeah." Raven waved her off as she motioned for them to walk through into the guest room in Mistral.
Once they were through Raven turned to leave but decided to remind him one more time. "Remember, once you get your arm back I want that fight alright?"
"Sure. We'll have to sort out the CCT in Atlas first though. Beacon can't seem to connect to the network properly and Atlas refuses to help for some reason."
Raven shrugged the new info off "Guess you'll have to do that then, or just travel back to Vale. I don't care."
Qrow would fill her in on the happenings around Vale whether she wanted to or not and seeing as she wasn't a bandit queen anymore she might have to take a mission or two if she didn't want to rely on Taiyang for money.
As Raven stepped into the Arcs front yard she was briefly surprised to see the kid she saw running away sprinting straight at her while clutching a sword to her chest.
The adult Arcs scrambled to stand and catch her, but Raven just stepped to the side to avoid collision. As the girl ran through the portal she looked to Taiyang.
To her surprise he just smiled and motioned for her to close the portal. The familiar gesture he last used before she broke up their team and left surprised her enough that she didn't question it and just did it.
It was a second later that Doré Arc dived through where the portal was just a moment ago.
"What are you doing. Open it up again!"
"Not with that tone I won't." Raven snarked back.
"My daughter ran through there to who knows where!"
"She was armed and seemed to know what she was doing. Also she jumped through to a guest room in Haven academy where your son and daughter-in-law are."
Doré's panic seemed to abate for now but he still insisted "She's a child."
"She took her fate into her own hands… I wonder why." it was Taiyang who spoke up afterwards, to almost everyone's surprise. "Say mister Arc, has Lavender approached you about training recently? Perhaps after she had a close encounter with the Grimm?"
"She nearly died then, I won't let her risk her life again."
"The way she saw it, she was unprepared. She doesn't want to be unprepared next time."
"What would you know!?"
"I'm a teacher at Signal. Your daughter knew that when she approached me. Mind you this is the second child of yours that did something reckless to try and get training after you told them no. I just told her to ask her brother… and to perhaps wait until after they leave for Mistral to do so."
"You! You told her to do this?" Doré grabbed Taiyang by the collar of his shirt and Raven nearly lashed out at the larger man.
Taiyang however stayed perfectly calm. "Again, I'm a teacher at Signal. Angry parents confronting me like this is unfortunately more common than you'd think."
This pushed Doré over the edge. As he threw a punch he suddenly lost his footing though. His view spun and his back suddenly hit the ground as Taiyang used his attack against him and kneeled on his chest.
"I say, let her travel with Jaune and Ruby for a while. If she changes her mind, well there's her sister's family in Argus. I'm told Ruby has a letter to deliver to Argus anyway. If Lavender doesn't change her mind by then, I say let her try, let her train. I'm sure Ruby will keep her safe and I'm sure you know Jaune will do the same."
As Taiyang stood up and Doré took a deep breath it was the faunus man Doré respected as a friend that offered Doré a hand. "Let her go with the lad. You know you can't stop the Arc blood in her veins."
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
O hope you liked the wedding finally happening. I think it's on point for these two, that the wedding that was supposed to be more planed failed completely so they just gave up on planning and grandure and opted to simply exchange vows in front of their family before moving to deal with things threatening their wellbeing.
As for me? Another week, another chapter written as far too many things go wrong around me. While this week should be a little less strenuous, that only means I'm going to be putting out fires that have been smoldering for a little too long.
Thank you so much for reading and thank you for getting this far. If you want to support me you can do so on P a treon . com (slash) OlympianScribe
Anyway I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch. 102 Unplanned guests