The desert stretched endlessly, an ocean of sand beneath a sky too wide, too open. With the sun hung high and merciless, baking the dunes in its golden fire. The wind whispered dry and weary, carrying the scent of distant storms that would never reach this land.
The Rusted Knight rode on.
Juniper, his golden jackalope, bounded effortlessly across the sands, her powerful legs carrying them through the emptiness, past the ruins of old outposts, past forgotten battlefields, past the skeletons of creatures long buried beneath shifting dunes.
Then a glimmer of green.
A place where the earth had fought back against the desert's hunger.
An oasis.
Jaune slowed Juniper's pace, his hand tightening against Juniper's neck. As they drew closer, the mirage solidified into truth, a pool of clear water, no larger than a pond, nestled between jagged rocks and scraggly patches of hardy vegetation.
The water shimmered like liquid glass, untouched by corruption.
A gift, left behind by time.
Jaune dismounted, his metal greaves sinking into cool, damp soil — a stark contrast to the burning sands just beyond the rocks.
This place felt old. It had survived when so many others had withered away.
And now, he would give it something new.
Something that would never die.
Jaune reached into the pouch on his belt, carefully withdrawing a single seed which was small, unassuming, but pulsing with quiet, ancient power.
The Godmother had entrusted him with it.
A seed not meant for warriors.
A seed not meant for war.
But for something more.
Jaune knelt before the oasis, his gauntleted hands parting the soil as he dug a small hole, the earth soft and cool beneath his fingertips.
He stared at the seed for a long moment, watching the way it seemed to pulse faintly, its colors shifting between gold, red, silver, and green, the hues of the changing seasons.
Then, with deliberate care, he placed it into the soil.
And gently, reverently, he covered it.
For a moment… nothing happened.
Jaune sat back on his heels, resting his hands on his knees, watching the earth in silence.
Then the wind shifted.
A deep tremor ran through the ground, like the heartbeat of something awakening.
The water of the oasis rippled, the reflections shifting and warping.
Juniper chuffed softly, ears flicking forward as the air changed, heavy with something new—something alive.
Jaune did not move.
He only watched.
Watched as the earth split open, not violently, but gently, like a child waking from a deep slumber.
And then it grew.
A thin, silver shoot pushed its way through the soil, shimmering in the light, delicate yet impossibly strong.
Jaune's breath caught.
The seed was barely seconds old, yet it was growing faster than anything he had ever seen. It was amazing to see.
The silver stem thickened, branching outward, bark forming before his very eyes, not rough and aged, but smooth as polished marble, glowing faintly as if touched by the moonlight itself.
Then came the leaves.
They sprouted in waves, unfurling like banners of shifting color.
Gold, like the dawn of spring.
Green, like the heart of summer.
Red, like the fire of autumn.
Silver, like the frost of winter.
Each leaf whispered as it bloomed, the tree singing in a language Jaune did not understand, yet somehow knew.
And still it grew.
Faster.
Higher.
The roots burrowed deep, drinking from the oasis, expanding beneath the sands, anchoring themselves to the land like the foundations of a kingdom.
The trunk thickened, twisting into elegant spirals, its bark now glowing with runes that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Then the branches stretched skyward, reaching toward the heavens, weaving through the air like dancers in a storm, their tips vanishing into the clouds.
Jaune tilted his head back, watching as the tree pierced the sky, taller than anything he had ever seen.
It did not stop.
It would never stop.
It would exist beyond time.
A tree that will never die…
The winds howled, sweeping through the desert, carrying petals of gold, red, silver, and green across the sands.
The once-quiet oasis was now a place of power, a beacon in the emptiness, a promise that something would always endure.
Jaune stood slowly, placing a hand against the trunk.
The moment his fingers brushed the bark, he saw it.
Visions, fleeting, distant, yet filled with warmth.
A village forming around the tree.
People gathering beneath its shade.
Children laughing as they ran between its roots.
Stories being told underneath its boughs, long after he was gone.
This tree would outlive him.
It would outlive all of them.
It would stand through war and peace, through destruction and rebirth, through the turning of seasons and the rise and fall of kingdoms.
A gift to Remnant.
A gift to a world that had suffered for far too long.
Jaune let his hand fall away, exhaling softly.
Then, with one last look, he turned toward Juniper.
"Come on, Juniper. Let's go."
The jackalope nodded, lowering herself so he could mount.
They vanished from the continent of Sanus.
The fires of the caravan camp crackled in the cool desert night, casting long, flickering shadows on the sand. The sky stretched endlessly above, a sea of stars untainted by city lights, the kind of sky that made the world feel both vast and empty.
Ruby Rose sat with a casual ease, her long legs crossed, her silver eyes gleaming in the firelight, her long dark hair flowing down her back in loose waves. Her old, short-haired self might not have recognized the woman she had become, taller, stronger, sharper.
And yet, some things never changed.
She was grinning ear to ear, elbow propped on her knee, chin resting against her palm as she listened intently to the travelers before her that crossed Vacuo and had visited Vale.
"—I swear on my mother's grave, we saw him!" said a rugged-looking man, his dust-covered coat frayed at the edges.
"Aye, we did," another chimed in, his face weathered from the desert sun. "A knight! A real one! Clad in rusted steel, riding this… massive jackalope."
At that, Ruby nearly choked on her drink, coughing into her sleeve before quickly regaining her composure.
"Jackalope?" she repeated, trying her best to sound curious rather than suspicious.
"Aye," the first man said, nodding vigorously. "I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me at first, but I swear to you, that beast was as big as a warhorse,no, bigger. Its fur was golden, and its antlers gleamed like polished ivory. Fast as the wind, too! It moved like—like it wasn't bound by the laws of this world."
Ruby's lips pressed together.
Yeah. That sounded familiar. Very familiar.
"And the knight?" she prompted, her fingers lightly tapping the rim of her mug.
"The Rusted Knight," a woman said in a hushed, reverent voice, her eyes wide with wonder. "That's what people are calling him. A ghost of the sand. A warrior who comes when the innocent are in peril, who fights alone against impossible odds… and then vanishes before dawn."
Ruby had heard this story before.
And she was starting to suspect that it wasn't just a fairy tale.
"Tell me more," Ruby encouraged, her silver eyes glinting with interest.
The travelers didn't need to be asked twice.
"He saved us near the Fallen Cliffs," one of them said, leaning forward. "Our caravan had been surrounded by a pack of Ravagers, big, wolf-like Grimm, with spines down their backs. Vicious things, smarter than normal. We were trapped, running low on ammo, when suddenly—"
He paused, gesturing with his hands as if to paint the image in the air.
"The storm parted. And there he was, riding out of the dust like something out of a dream. His armor was sandy, but it shone like golden under the moonlight. And his sword? It wasn't like any I'd seen before. It glowed with this eerie light, almost like the stories of a legendary sword."
Ruby's fingers tightened around her mug.
"And what happened next?" she asked, keeping her voice calm, steady—but her heart was racing.
The traveler took a deep breath.
"The Rusted Knight leapt from his mount, his sword flashing in the night. He cut through those Ravagers like they were made of smoke, moving so fast that I swear he was faster than the wind itself. One moment, a Grimm lunged at him—next moment, its head was rolling across the sand. It was like watching a story unfold before my eyes, something straight out of the old tales."
Another traveler nodded. "We tried to help, but—we couldn't even keep up. By the time we so much as lifted our weapons, the Grimm were already dead. All of them."
Ruby swallowed hard.
That… definitely sounded like him.
"And then?"
"He said nothing," the man said with a scoff, shaking his head as if still baffled. "Not a damn word. Just stood there, looking at us, like he wasn't sure if we were real or not. Then, before we could even thank him, he mounted his jackalope and disappeared into the dunes."
Another vanishing act. Another ghost story woven in battle.
Ruby sat back, exhaling slowly.
This wasn't just a random vigilante playing hero.
And she had a good idea who it might be.
"You said you saw him near the Fallen Cliffs?" Ruby asked.
"Aye."
Ruby hummed, mentally mapping the locations in her head.
Vale. A tree had appeared there, massive, growing at an unnatural speed.
Vacuo. Another tree, this time in the middle of the dunes, where no life should have been able to flourish.
And now? A ghostly knight riding across the sands, appearing only when people needed him most.
If she was right, if the pattern continued.
"Next is Mistral," Ruby whispered under her breath.
The pieces were starting to fit together.
Someone, no, not someone. The Rusted Knight was moving through the world, planting these miraculous trees, defending the innocent, and vanishing before anyone could get too close.
But why?
Why now?
Why keep running?
Ruby's chest tightened at the thought.
You idiot.
She had mourned him.
She had stood at his funeral, had felt the weight of his loss crush her like an avalanche.
And now he was alive.
Out here. Alone.
Well, not exactly, alone.
But—
Still fighting.
Still saving people.
Still running from them.
Ruby let out a slow breath, staring into the fire, her mind racing.
She had spent years running from ghosts.
It seemed she had finally found one again.
And this time… she wouldn't let him disappear again without a word.
Ruby finished her drink in one swift motion and stood up, dusting the sand from her red coat.
The travelers looked up at her in curiosity.
"You leaving already?" one of them asked.
Ruby smiled, a sharp, knowing gleam in her silver eyes.
"Yeah," she said, reaching for Crescent Rose, her beloved scythe, now aged with time but no less deadly.
"I think I've got a knight to catch."
And she vanished into a shower of red petals.