Yo!

Not a ton to say this week, so let's just get into it!

Start Chapter 6

"So, let me get this straight,"

Raven Branwen, her mother, and the queen of a tribe of bloodthirsty bandits, was currently doing her best to avoid Yang's dead-eyed stare. Sitting just beside her, and looking like she had just been launched out of bed against her will – mostly because she had been – was Vernal. She had, up until about five minutes ago, been comfortably sleeping beside her mother, the two of them cuddling up together.

If they hadn't been fully clothed and obviously not into each another – or, well, Raven wasn't into Vernal, Yang didn't know if that held true the other way around – then Yang's entire vibe would've been more than a little different.

"You captured Weiss Schnee – who is my friend and teammate, by the way – after she crash landed in a bullhead from being attacked by a Queen Lancer and its brood…"

Raven coughed stiltedly. "Sounds about right."

"You then proceeded to lock her in a cage, which isn't cool at all. Even worse is that you didn't even consider the fact that she is a Huntress, and that the bars of said cage were made of wood…"

Raven coughed again, this time with an embarrassed expression. "…Sounds about right."

"Vernal then… played around with a mirror that Weiss had brought with her, which devolved into the entire camp trying to break the mirror for shits and giggles?"

"Wasn't my idea." Vernal crabbily responded. "I just wanted it."

"Okay… so from here… you kind of lose me."

Raven and Vernal both had expressions on their faces like they were exasperated… but that they could also understand why Yang couldn't at all find it in herself to believe what they were saying.

Because…

"You're telling me Weiss was under the employ of the Queen of the Grimm!?" Yang shot her mother a glare. "Like… you honestly believe that?"

"Hey, the figure in the mirror was certainly related to her in some way, and it ordered the girl around." Raven stated, trying to remain calm, but clearly fraying a bit. Even talking about this Salem woman – who Yang had been told about all of thirty seconds ago – had her on edge. "That mirror was magic; I know that feeling. I've only ever felt it a few times in my life, when I– er, Vernal uses the Spring Maiden's power,"

Yang was going to pretend that she hadn't heard that, but she categorized the fact that her mother was the Spring Maiden away for later.

"There's just this… current in the air. It feels just like that. And there are only two people on the face of Remnant who can use magic anymore; Salem, and Ozpin."

"Okay, sure, we'll pretend I'm buying any of this whole 'Queen of the Grimm' crap," Yang shook her head. "But Ozpin is dead."

"He's not dead."

"We saw his body get carried out of Beacon on the news. There was a huge state sponsored funeral. Like a thousand people went."

"His body might be dead. The man you falsely know as Ozpin is not dead."

Yang just sighed. "Okay, we can come back to that later… the… figure in Weiss' mirror… describe it for me. You were kind of flighty about it before."

If it was possible for Raven to grow even more visibly frightened, even more afraid, then she did. Her bottom lip shook, even as Vernal reached across and took her bosses' hand, almost like she was offering her support.

Yang did her best to not be jealous about that even a little. So, what if her mother who'd never wanted her had found a surrogate daughter figure? Why would Yang care? Of course she wouldn't care. That would be stupid.

Really stupid.

…

What had she been talking about again? Oh, yeah, the magical figure in Weiss' mirror.

"Mirror. Explain." Yang spoke rather curtly.

"It…" Raven hesitated. "It was the chill wind blowing on the world's darkest day. It was the promise of death that every living creature goes its whole life trying to avoid thinking of. It was being held beneath the water just as you tried to take a breath, and finding yourself unable to."

Raven looked up at her, and Yang…

Her hands shook.

"It was… fear. Fear made manifest. A being… beyond human."

/

"Art we there yet?"

Weiss Schnee, former heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, did her absolute best to keep her composure.

It was growing… very difficult.

"No." She responded in a monotone, tired voice. "We are not there yet. Much like we were not there yet the last hundred or so times you asked."

"Well, we hath walked a while longer. It felt prudent to ask again."

"It's been ten minutes!"

"Tis a while."

"Is it!?"

"I believe so."

Her eye twitched.

"Still, art thou positive we are not there yet?" Jaune's voice echoed out from her left side, where she had his mirror held under her arm. "We hath been walking for quite a while."

"I am…" Weiss took a breath, doing her absolute best to not chuck the mirror into the nearest stream and allow it to be carried away. "Very positive."

Talking to Jaune was almost like talking to a toddler.

A hyper-intelligent, very annoying toddler.

"Hmph." Jaune hummed as if he was offended at the very principle of what Weiss had said. "What is the reason behind things being so spread out? Back in my era, entire countries took up less space than the ground we have covered just today!"

Weiss groaned, realizing that she was carrying around a toddler and a 'back in my day' old man at the same time. "It's not that simple. Back in your time, people could use magic, and there didn't exist the constant threat of the Grimm."

"Not really a threat–"

She took up the mirror, held it in front of her face, and raised an eyebrow.

"Ahem. My apologies. Continue?"

"Right." Weiss hissed out as she slotted the mirror back under her arm. "There's… extenuating factors. Most are based around the Grimm, as I said. The most important thing for modern settlements to have in order to survive are natural defenses that can keep Grimm away. Mistral is built on a giant mountain, for example, where only flying Grimm can reach. Mistrals ground level is also constantly patrolled and protected. Smaller frontier towns are often built in and around Mistral, to try and capitalize on the lighter population of Grimm in and around the city."

"Often?"

"Sometimes people are willing to take the risks that the wilds further out provide in exchange for the benefits; ample land and other such things. For example, a group of people unsatisfied with the price of goods in Mistral, and unable to find homes in even the less expensive settlements directly outside it, might strike out into the wilds to find a nice secluded spot. Provided they got lucky, they might be able to till farmland that's been all but untouched for hundreds of years, erect a town, and, if all goes well, be able to start their own society."

"And if things do not go well, I take it that they're never heard from again."

Weiss grunted. "That is… the darker part of ambition, yes. Many – or perhaps even most – of those people who set out looking to found frontier villages do not survive even a month or two. Of those towns and villages that manage the taxing task of coming into existence, less than five percent survive their first year. Settlements like Patch, in Vale, which is where my teammates Ruby and Yang live, are very rare, and those also mostly come down to natural advantages. Patch, for instance, is a small island, easy to regularly comb and cull the Grimm upon. Aquatic Grimm are also rarely able to operate on land. Thusly, they contend only with migratory flying Grimm on a sporadic basis. This makes it a relatively safe place to live, even if it's outside of the City of Vale itself."

"I see…" Jaune hummed. "I had not thought that the Grimm would have such an effect on your society, but… if it is true that none of your people can use magic, and only have access to a more bastardized form of power in these… what did you call them?"

"Aura and semblances."

"Yes, those, then the Grimm would I suppose be rather terrifying. And that terror…"

"Would only attract more Grimm." Weiss nodded her head, glad Jaune was getting it. "If a few people in a frontier village are killed in a Grimm attack, then chances are the rest are going with them when their families start to wail, and scream, and cry; their negative emotions bringing the Grimm right to them. It's… quite dark to think about."

"I retract my previous statement on the humans of this day and age being pathetic." Jaune spoke, and Weiss was… well, a bit shocked, to be honest. "It had not occurred to me when I first made the comment that most of humanity in this time are powerless civilians. Back in my time, only the peasants and commoners were untrained with magic, and even they often figured out how to utilize their innate magics by simply… well, using them. If a village came under attack, then the people would defend it with summoned fire, ice, and lightning."

"The people of our day have farming implements." Weiss spoke. "Hoes, shovels; if they're lucky, axes."

"Such are of little use against the Grimm."

"Exactly."

It was a rather macabre topic of conversation; the way that villages fell to the Grimm, and the intensely low survival rate of frontier towns and villages. There was a reason there were so few. Weiss could remember a village of a few thousand in Atlas that had been seen as having the potential to start being a major trading post. And then… one day, it had just been gone.

The same could be said of Mountain Glenn, and so many other projects.

The Grimm were fierce, merciless, and sometimes, seemingly random in their decisions. They would leave alone a village for a decade, and swarm it without rhyme or reason the very next day.

Such was life upon Remnant, however.

"I must say however, it is good that thee no longer doubt the validity of what I say."

"Hm?"

"Before, thou constantly claimed that I was telling falsehoods, but thou have accepted that I am who I say I am."

…

…She had, hadn't she.

Ah, shit.

"Ah, look to the west, a village!"

Weiss was glad for the topic change, so that she didn't have to acknowledge what Jaune had said. She had her doubts for a moment, but sure enough, when she raised her head, she saw a rather sizeable settlement.

It was nowhere near what Weiss would call a 'map worthy' village, in that it likely wouldn't have even been printed on official maps as of yet, but it seemed to be made up of a few hundred people. Weiss had been walking nonstop ever since they'd fled the Branwen camp.

She could really use a break.

So it was that they filtered into the village, and received some rather confused stares because of it.

Weiss couldn't exactly fault the people here, given that they probably didn't see visitors coming into town all that often. One's dressed like her that had weapons strapped to their hips were likely even rarer.

Their first order of business was finding a room for the evening. Weiss wasn't exactly thrilled to be spending time in a village that she'd just talked about having a rather low survival rate, but then, her options weren't exactly plentiful in that moment, either.

And so it was that Weiss Schnee entered into the nearby inn. It was really more a tavern that technically had rooms available, judging by the fact that the clientele started and ended with middle aged men and women drinking around tables, laughing and cavorting.

"A room, please." Weiss asked.

"Ne'er seen you 'round 'ere before." The man spoke with a heavy accent, one that Weiss hadn't heard before. "Travellin' Huntress?"

"Something like that." She admitted. "Do you have any rooms available."

"Yeah, a few. Runs ya' seventy lien a night."

That was… really quite cheap, honestly. Weiss had honestly expected to be gouged a bit on the pricing, given it was obvious she didn't exactly have any other options.

She reached back into her pocket, searching for her wallet…

And then sort of remembered the place she'd just come from.

That being a bandit camp.

And she, having been their captive, had been stripped of all valuables – aside from Jaune, which was pretty stupid of them – the moment they'd brought her to their camp.

So of course, Weiss had no lien at all.

Of course.

Unfortunately…

"Er…" She coughed. "I–"

"No money?" The man asked, sounding unsurprised. "Yeah, we get yer' type every once in a while. Unsuccessful hunters comin' out to the wilds ta' get work. I was actually askin' earlier 'cause I assumed ya'd want a job or somethin'."

Weiss didn't much like the insinuation – okay, it wasn't an insinuation, really, more of a statement – that she was an unsuccessful hunter! Still, she had no money to her name, and she did need some.

So, Weiss sighed, prepared herself to work without any rest, and then asked, "What needs done?"

/

All in all, Weiss had really expected to be doing something a little more… Huntressy.

"Aye', girl, just like that!" One of the other women currently toiling in the small patch of farmland they were working on commented as she pulled up a small, misshapen potato. "Yer' a natural spud puller!"

Weiss couldn't help thinking that wasn't much a compliment.

"How much more of this?" She asked, entirely exhausted after having walked half a day to get there, and then being made to do manual labor. She was not built for such.

"Hm… depends. Prob'ly three hours? Four maybe?"

Weiss was fairly certain she popped a blood vessel in that instant.

"That… how many potatoes are there!?"

"A few hundred? Maybe more?" The woman shrugged. "We don't really count when we plant 'em, girl."

Weiss popped a second blood vessel. Which was likely going to be a problem if such continued.

"That… how much precision do you need these… spuds dug up with?"

"Eh… some people are a bit finicky, but we don't really bother with bein' all that careful. Better to be fed now and have a few smaller spuds than wait and potentially have a blight to deal with in a month. Yer' free to be a bit rough if ya' want."

Weiss nodded her head, even as she took a breath, reached back for Myrtenaster, and then stabbed it into the ground.

"Er, girl, I don't think that's really going to help you dig up–"

In the next moment, Weiss' Arma Gigas appeared just beside her. She looked up at it, nodded, and then stepped back and away from the plot of land.

"W-What in the brother's name is that!?" The woman screamed, but Weiss held out a hand.

"Calm. It is a summon that I have full control over." She spoke, and the woman nodded her head, still seeming a bit startled. Weiss supposed that was sort of her fault for not announcing what she was about to do in any way. "Case in point…"

She focused hard on her next action. The Arma Gigas' giant blade moved into position. It stabbed its sword into the earth perpendicular to the field length-wise, so that the flat edge was facing up. And then, in a move that was entirely too mundane for a giant summoned suit of armor…

Weiss used that giant sword to pull up the dirt, and make the potatoes rise to the surface. Then, she shook the sword back and forth, disturbing the potatoes and making them break away from the dirt and roots that had been surrounding them.

Slowly but surely, the fifty or so potatoes on top of the Arma Gigas' sword fell to the top of the dirt. They were entirely detached from it, and easy to collect.

The woman across from her, who'd been helping her pick them so far, had her mouth agape.

Weiss continued onwards, doing the same thing for each of the twenty or so rows. When she looked at it like this, the speed she'd been going at before might've very well taken her multiple hours to dig them all up.

Now, she was going to manage that in minutes.

She dug up the final row, and turned back to see the lady who had instructed her piling the potatoes into a great big wheelbarrow. She had a glint in her eye, like she was absolutely thrilled.

Weiss couldn't blame her; she was probably going to be done with work three and a half hours earlier than normal.

"You've got mah' thanks, love!" The woman guffawed as Weiss unsummoned the Arma Gigas, its mission concluded. "Saved me an' ma' back a whole nighta' work!"

"You are most welcome." Weiss curtsied, a figment of her upbringing. "May I report this job as having been finished, then?"

"'Course! I'll 'ave a word with Spencer, he's a bit bitey with strangers, but he don't mean nothin' by it, ya' get me?"

Weiss got what she was fairly sure the woman meant, even if she was a bit confused about the whole affair.

"Then thank you for your help."

"Naw, girl, that's all on you!" The woman slapped Weiss' back appreciatively, which hurt much more than Weiss had expected, given she was in shape to be working fields every day. She had muscles that were a lot more defined than Yang's, even. "Now get ta' bed, ya' look like yer' gonna' collapse!"

Weiss nodded her head, even as she bid the woman farewell, and made her way over to the corner of the plot.

There, she took up the mirror that had been watching her work, and held it under her arm once more.

"'Twas a rather clever application of your enslaved Grimm, I must say."

"It's a part of my semblance; the ability to summon those Grimm I've slain in combat."

"Ah. I see. Still, I must admit, I find all of this rather exciting!"

Weiss eyed the mirror oddly.

"Why?"

"Well, don't you think this is like a quest that might be issued to a hero of old?"

"There were heroes of old in your day?"

"Well, of course. Hath thou not heard of Estral the Gallant?"

"Uh… no?"

Jaune let out a noise halfway between a gasp and a hacking cough.

"Ridiculous! Absolutely, positively–" He huffed. "Estral was a hero of the finest caliber! He freed the lands of light from tyranny at the hands of–"

"Jaune." She cut him off. "Stories that were considered old a hundred thousand years ago not existing now isn't really all that surprising, is it?"

Jaune seemed to consider this a moment. "…Well, I suppose when you put it that way, no. It is not."

Jaune took a moment. "How odd. I had not thought of Estral in… gods, but it has been some time. His was a tale told to me by my mother, whenever she laid me down to rest. She would tuck me in, and then tell tales of Estral, going about the Kingdom of D'Arc and slaying great beasts, or rescuing helpless citizens. He was a gallant figure. A true hero."

"…I wanted to be just like him."

It was said with a strange sort of finality; like he'd uttered something that could not possibly come to pass.

Jaune was silent for a while, but the reason became evident as he spoke again. "This village is… conjuring up memories for me, I find. I can remember finding myself alongside the peasants of the D'Arc kingdom, those who worked the fields outside the castle. It… despite one hundred thousand years having passed, it resembled the scenes you see all around you as if I had been transported back."

Jaune seemed to be in one of his reminiscing moods. Weiss didn't want to interrupt him, because, even if she would never admit it, she found herself fascinated with the stories he told.

"The homes were made of mahogany, not particularly well cut. The people were just the same. He began, his voice taking on a nostalgic tone. "They each oft slept on hay, just like the animals, for crafting a bed was time consuming and difficult work. They ate of potatoes, and stews, and things that were long lasting, simple, and easy to create. To be served such would have been considered insults where I was raised. The first time I saw them, the people of that tiny burrow I first ended up in, I had half a mind to think they'd been misshapen from out of the mold that the nobles I'd been around had been cut from. Yet from those faces, some ugly, some bruised, and some cut, and bloodied… came only kindness."

"I simmered in those days; revenge the only thing on my mind. I was unable to accept the fact that my brother had cast me aside, especially after I'd given everything to follow in his footsteps. I was… unwilling to let such go. The people saw me, broiling beneath the surface, and should have perhaps thrown me away. Cast me to the wolves. It is what I would have done in their place. Yet…"

"They found a place for me, at their hearths. They found a place for me, stood beside them in their fields, and they took care of me. They taught me how to do all of those things that others had done for me. I was taught to cook, and to clean. I was taught how to farm, and how to tend to the animals about the fields. Tis… almost humorous. I was there for only a few months. The majority of my time spent away from the castle was spent gathering forces to assault it. But in those days… I think if things had stayed as they were, I would not have risen up against my brother at all. My anger had dissipated. I was… not at peace, but arriving there slowly but steadily."

"And then… all at once, the facts of the world caught up to me. It was announced that one of the couples who had been taking care of me, teaching me the ways of the world, would be having a child. I gave them my best wishes. But the wife expressed worry. They spoke of her mother having died during child birth. Her having been born near death, barely there. I was flabbergasted. The idea that such a thing could happen."

"Never before had I known a noble person to fear the act of bearing a child. Never before had I thought of such an event as a cause for alarm, or worry. Only celebration; merriment. I realized in that moment that when my cousins had been born, there had been people with training; knowledge of how to properly deliver those children, and even magic that could be used to aid in the process, present. It was not healing, as such was incredibly rare, but it was a sort of warming and cooling used to stretch the muscles of the uterus and pelvis."

"And so… I tried to tell them of this. I knew little, of course, of the actual specifics behind such magics, but I was confident I could help them to recreate them. Or… perhaps not confident, but I wanted to be able to reassure them. I wanted to be able to do something for them. But… they did not have as strong a grasp on their own natural magics, and were unwilling to risk such a thing when a mistake could cost the mother or child her life. So, they decided to allow the woman to go into labor without aiding her beyond what was known at the time."

"She died. The child came out stillborn." Jaune's breaths were haggard, then, as if merely remembering such things had him feeling broken. "Her husband wept at the bed where her body lied still. He wept there for an entire day. We allowed him to stay there for the night, thinking it might help. We… came back to find that he'd slit his own throat with a farming implement."

Weiss felt a profound sadness fill her. Such a story… she imagined there were hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of them. But she had heard this one.

And thus, it affected her.

"A week letter, a man from the D'Arc kingdom came to collect the King's tribute. Our village had suffered a great loss. Two of its brightest dead. The man from the kingdom cared not. He asked nothing of their lives. He did not offer to help them with anything. He merely took from those people half of what they'd made that year. They loaded up carriages and carriages of supplies, and offered not a word to them. They left that same day, having given nothing at all. And it was then… it was then that I had an epiphany."

"How could this be happening, I thought, in the kingdom of D'Arc? I had always accepted that my brother was a just king. A good man. Surely, I was furious at him, but in my heart of hearts, I had not thought him evil for choosing Salem over myself. I had thought the decision foolhardy. Idiotic. I had taken such personally. But it was only then that doubt began to emerge as towards my brother's lordship. After all, what I had seen went against the very ideals I had been raised upon. My father had instilled in us the idea that a true king thought of each of his subjects with every decision he made. And yet the men and women I was surrounded by were treated like they were diseased, or filthy. They were anything but. For the first time in my life, I knew honesty. I knew truth."

"Yet they were treated like the dirt beneath the nobles' boots. Like tools to be used, and discarded. Their lives meant nothing. They were a resource, and nothing more. And my rage, then, which had all but died, built up again. A great and powerful fervor roared to life inside my chest. I–"

"Oi! Missy!"

Weiss was wrenched from out of her own head. She'd been so lost in Jaune's story that she'd totally forgotten that she'd been walking back to the inn. Who had called out to her?

She looked up, and sure enough, the man from the inn – probably Spencer? – waved her over.

"Martha' said ya' got the potatoes up already. Not sure how ya' managed that, but well, deal's a deal. Here," He chucked a key – an honest-to-goodness key made of some kind of metal – into her hands. "Ya've got the top room for the week."

"The week!?" Weiss found herself flabbergasted. "But… I only did a single job!"

"Hah. Sure. But ya' gave my wife a night off for the first time in a decade." The man laughed. "And that's worth a bit of lien ta' me. 'Sides, not like I was rentin' to any of the people livin' here, huh?"

Weiss… she couldn't really argue with that, could she? It would've been both pointless and antithetical to the fact that she very much wanted the room. She was exhausted.

Still…

"Thank you." She told the man.

"Hah!" He barked out a laugh. "Tha's the law of the countryside. Someone does good by ya'? Ya' pay it forward."

And with that, he turned around, and entered back into the inn without another word.

Weiss was left standing there, sort of blankly.

She heard Jaune chuckle at her side.

"Yes… nothing's changed at all."

She didn't say anything in response. She was far too tired.

She made her way into the inn as well, headed to the top floor, opened the door to her room, and practically collapsed into the bed.

She was asleep within a minute.

/

The next few days for Weiss were fairly similar to that one. She built up a bit of a reputation for using her semblance to solve problems in minutes that would take others hours.

Of course, the downside to that was that she could not be nearly as careful as someone could with their bare hands, but no one in the village – which Weiss had learned was called Woodcreek – seemed to mind having a few hours off from Weiss solving their problems for them, even if the work she did was a bit less precise.

Feeding the animals? The Arma Gigas could handle giant bales of hay that would've taken a tractor or, at the very least, a wheelbarrow and several people to move. Chopping down trees for firewood? Again, her Arma Gigas' blade made quick work of them, able to sever multiple trees in a single swing. Hunting deer and other game animals? An Ursa could track their scents for miles.

In the three days Weiss was in the village, they operated at roughly one-thousand percent efficiency.

That was barely an exaggeration at all. If anything, it might've undersold Weiss' contributions.

It wasn't exactly what she'd planned on doing, of course. She'd intended to make a little money, buy enough supplies to make it to Mistral – on account of having no money, and the suitcases she'd packed still being back in the Branwen's camp – and then leave the moment she could.

But…

She was actually enjoying her time in the village.

When the farmers joked with her, she needled them back, and earned laughter for it. When someone showed her how to best go about doing something, she picked it up quickly, and did her best to implement it. When the rancher's daughter offered to let her ride some of their horses around, Weiss obliged, utilizing a skill that she hadn't in nearly a decade.

She had always wanted to be a Huntress in order to become the strongest person she could be. Or perhaps she'd merely wanted to follow in Winter's steps; her older sister had been her idol, after all. She'd looked up to her more than anyone in her childhood, and Winter had been strong above all else.

But it was only then that she found herself understanding the reasoning behind Ruby, and Ren, and Nora wanting to be Hunters.

To help people.

To see the smiles on their faces; to be a part of their lives, to swoop in at the last minute and save the day.

She could see the appeal, even when 'saving the day' in this case was making their lives just that little bit easier.

Even so, the time eventually came when Weiss realized she needed to move on. She found herself… almost sad when she told the innkeeper, and he gave a wan smile in response.

"Ya' sure we can't convince ya' to stay?" The man asked, laughing, already knowing it to be a hopeless endeavor. "We've had just about the best week of our lives out here with you present."

"I'm afraid I've got somewhat of a mission to attend to." Weiss told him, and she decided to just be honest. "I don't know if the news would've reached this far, about what happened at Beacon and Vale?"

"Aye, there was an attack of some kind, right?"

"Mm. I'm here looking to meet up with some others, and investigate some of the culprits behind that."

"Ah." The man chuckled. "I suppose I can't fault that motivation at all, now can I? Alright, girl. Well, if ya' ever want to drop in, at any time, yer' welcome in this village. Far as I'm concerned that room you were stayin' in is yers for free if ya' ever come back'."

Weiss chuckled. "Thank you. I'm happy to hear it. I'd like to return. Perhaps if I get the chance, when all this business is over and done with, I'll come back."

The man nodded his head.

And with that, Weiss was off.

Or, well, she'd thought she'd be, but the moment she left the inn, she found herself practically swarmed by the many people she'd helped over the course of the last few days.

A few lamented that she had to go. Most simply smiled, and offered their best wishes. Weiss was… she was quite touched, in truth, that they had gone to such an effort. This was the first time in all her life she felt appreciated, like her actions had genuinely been good for something. Outside of her brief time with Team RWBY.

And wasn't that a little sad?

She exited out of the town's borders some fifteen minutes later with a skip in her step, and a determined feeling in her heart.

"Twas' a rather rewarding experience." Jaune spoke at her back, where she'd decided to wrap his mirror with some straps. "It has been quite some time since I have done such. I did not get to actually assist, of course, but…"

Weiss nodded, smiling subtly. "Mm. I know what you mean."

There was a brief silence, then. Weiss interrupted it.

"You said when we first met that working alongside peasants and rabble was 'unfortunate'. It… doesn't sound like you felt that way at all."

"Ah…"

"Why lie?"

"I…" Jaune hesitated. "Because it is in my nature to tell falsehoods."

"You've been honest with me thus far, I feel."

"Thou hath earned it."

Weiss… didn't really know what to say to that.

And so, in silence they walked on, along the path that would, in a few weeks, eventually take them to Mistral.

Little did they know that they'd left at the perfect time.

Little did they know that they were being hunted down.

/

It was only a few hours later that another figured entered into the town of Woodcreek. This man was treated with far more wariness than their previous visitor.

This made sense. The first had been a five foot or so tall girl.

This man was easily eight feet tall.

Hazel Rainart walked with an utter assuredness to his step; a complete lack of concern for any of the figures he passed by. He gazed around, seemingly attempting to locate a landmark of some kind.

His eye caught the sign that indicated the villages' inn, and he made his way inside.

He had to duck to avoid smacking his head on the arch of the doorway, and as he entered into the room, all conversation died. A few tried to continue their talks, but it was clear all were nervous about what this newcomer wanted.

Hazel approached the front desk, where the man named Spencer was stood, looking quite nervous.

"New 'round here?"

"I am." Haze; spoke, his voice commanding a certain level of respect immediately. "I am looking for someone. I do not know their exact description, but they should be carrying a silver mirror, with lapis lazuli gems inlaid within it."

Instantly, the expression on the face of Spencer changed. Hazel knew enough to recognize that this man knew of his quarry.

Whether or not he would admit to such now… that was the question, wasn't it?

"Well… I'd ask what you need 'em for."

So, he wanted to know whether or not Hazel meant this person harm. The way the other villagers within the inn were staring at him semi-threateningly said to him that the person carrying the mirror had been a rather well-liked individual. Was she in this very village as they spoke?

"I'm looking to meet with her. That mirror she's carrying is an heirloom of the woman who's hired me. She is looking to purchase it, and is willing to pay any sum in exchange."

Spencer's eyes widened somewhat. "Did W– did the person steal it?"

Their name began with a W, then? There were many that did, which unfortunately didn't narrow things down.

It gave him a direction to start from, however. A method through which he might gather further information.

"No. My mistress was not aware that it still existed. It had been lost to her long ago. Whoever has it now must have found it somewhere. She does not think them a thief. She merely wants the mirror back in her hands."

"Ah, that's good." Spencer sighed out. "Well… if that's all ya' need 'em for, then…"

He gestured for Hazel to follow him out of the inn, and Hazel did so. He led him to the western edge of the village, and pointed down a path that led that way.

"Said she was lookin' to head to Vale, she did." Spencer told him. "Stayed long enough to earn some lien and supplies for the journey, and then took off. Left first thing this morning. If you're quick, you'll probably be able to catch her by the end of the day."

"I see." Hazel nodded his head, before reaching to his back pocket and bringing out roughly fifteen thousand lien. It was more than Spencer had ever seen at one time before in his life, almost three times more. "For your trouble."

Spencer nodded blankly as the innumerable cards of money were dropped into his hand.

"T-Thank y–"

But the giant of a man was already gone, running at a pace that would've surely exhausted him in just a few minutes.

Or, well… it would've exhausted a normal man.

And while Spencer didn't think his instincts were perfect…

He knew that had been no normal man.

He'd gotten a bad vibe. A real bad vibe. And that was precisely why he'd told him that Weiss had gone the opposite way she had.

She's mixed up in somethin' awful, ain't she? He wondered, biting down on his lower lip. Said she was investigatin' the fall of Beacon, and Vale… now someone comes lookin' for 'er?

Spencer shook his head, even as he looked to the east, the direction Weiss had actually gone.

You stay safe, girl. Run, and keep runnin'…

Cause there's somethin' on your tail.

End Chapter 6

Alright, that was chapter 6!

Here we see some of the ethos of the story coming out. Jaune's character is being revealed little by little. It's fun to write these commissioned stories because of how much practice I get in writing characters I normally wouldn't.

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