Yo! Sorry this has taken so long to come out, I've been very busy.

Start Chapter 6

They emerged outside, back in the forest they'd been walking through. It was quite odd, to Jaune, at least, for their surroundings to go from that almost monochrome gray to the bright and vibrant Ever After.

Still, the thing that stuck out most to him was that it was quiet.

This would not normally have been odd; in fact, a loud forest would've been far more disconcerting.

The problem was that they had had travelling companions, who had, up until what felt like just a few minutes ago, been with them in this very spot.

And now…

Alyx, Lewis, and the cat were all gone.

Winter noticed, too, and she looked around.

"Any sign of them?"

"None." He answered, biting down on his bottom lip. "What…"

Winter clicked her tongue, before launching herself into the air with the Maiden's fire. She looked around from a higher vantage point, and Jaune called up to her.

"See anyone!?"

"I see smoke in the distance!" Winter announced, which was a major deal, given that smoke meant fire, and fire meant civilization… or, well, hopefully. It could've also meant a forest fire, but then, they would just have to hope it didn't.

Winter landed next to him, and immediately, she started setting out a plan. "It's due west. We'll search the immediate area for the others first, but if we don't find them, we can make our way there."

Jaune nodded his head, before trying to get some idea of the time they'd been gone.

"It didn't feel like that much time," Jaune noted. "But by the position of the sun, it seems we were gone a while."

"Two or three hours, perhaps?" Winter noted along with him. "We should hurry. If it's been even a few hours, then tracks will already be growing much fainter."

The two of them set about trying to find anything of intrigue. He dug through the underbrush, occasionally on his hands and knees, in search of anything that might give them some idea as to the twin's location. Winter searched from the tops of the nearby boughs, but didn't seem to find much of value.

In the end, it was Jaune who spotted a few footprints in some nearby mud, which led west; the same direction as Winter's smoke.

And so, they followed them.

They only walked for twenty or so minutes before the scenery around them began to shift. Gone were the lush forests of greens and browns. In its place came a forest, true, but one of dark blues, and glowing lanternfly's. The insects themselves glowed all different colors, and they were huge, far bigger than any that Jaune had ever seen growing up in Domremy.

Despite that, they were of a calm temperament, and Jaune held out his hand for one to land on. It was the size of his palm, and its thorax, which lit up, was actually a light bulb, screwed into the rest of its body. It had a wick inside and everything.

Jaune just laughed. This whole place was ridiculous.

After thirty or so seconds of resting on his hand, the insect flew off, and Jaune realized that Winter hadn't stopped, and was now quite far ahead of him.

He hoofed it to catch up with her, and the two of them kept on.

Their environment now was an odd thing. Mushrooms and other fungi were the largest mainstays. All around them, mushrooms of bigger and bigger sizes were growing, to the point that they were beginning to entirely dwarf Jaune and Winter both in height. They passed a particular fungus that looked like it could've rivaled some of the great redwood trees that grew in the middle portions of Sanus. It towered overhead, and Jaune could see moths the size of cars roosting in the growths.

Jaune hoped – nay, prayed – that they were not carnivorous. He really did not want to be fighting off giant killer moths right now.

Luckily, the insects didn't so much as move from their positions, and so Jaune and Winter passed underneath unaccosted. He couldn't help but marvel at it all, though. How utterly alien this place was.

It was… disconcerting to walk around in a place and not know whether or not he could encounter something dangerous. Surely, out in the forests of Domremy, where he and his sisters had often played as children, they'd been told to watch out for things like Bobcats, Bears, and other such fauna – and Grimm too, of course – but such had become… normalized.

Bears and bobcats, Beowolves and Boarbatusks… they became a fact of life.

And yet, this place obeyed none of those same rules that Jaune had grown used to.

It was humbling.

He said as much to Winter as they surmounted a short, but rather wide fungus that was growing directly in front of them.

"I cannot disagree." Winter stated simply, accepting a hand from him as he hoisted her up onto the ledge. "Were we not in such a rush, I would love to stop and smell the proverbial roses. Alas, we are."

Jaune grunted out under his breath in agreement, and they kept going.

In the end, it didn't take them that long to find the place sending up smoke. It, like a lot of other things in this forest, was a giant mushroom. But it was a giant mushroom that had been hollowed out, and made into a quaint abode.

And standing outside, lounging tiredly, was the cat from before.

"Ah, you two!" He called out to them, strolling over with the casual lethargy that all cats seemed to possess. "I was beginning to think the storm had consumed you entirely, but no, it seems you're quite alright!"

"We handled it." Jaune said, mostly because he was pretty sure Winter wouldn't want to discuss the situation much beyond that. "Where are Alyx and Lewis?"

"Oh, they're inside, speaking with a friend of mine." The cat said. "He's quite helpful with these kinds of things. When someone has questions about themselves that they can't quite manage to answer, he comes to their aid."

"That's great and all…" Jaune muttered out. "But… did Alyx and Lewis have questions about themselves they couldn't answer?"

"I suspected it was only Alyx," the cat stated, humming. "But lo and behold, it seems as if the other human, too, was questioning himself. They're both in somewhat of a trance; confronting themselves."

"…What?"

The Curious Cat smiled a touch mischievously. "Perhaps you'd like to try yourselves?"

"I think we've gone through enough introspection today." Winter spoke out curtly.

The cat laughed. "Maybe you have. Come, then. They're just in here."

The cat led them through the hollowed-out door in the mushroom in front of them, which was draped with curtains that prevented seeing inside from outside.

"Hm?"

Jaune's heart skipped a beat as he saw who he presumed was the person the cat had been referring to earlier. It was just…

Well, they, like many of the creatures they'd encountered so far in this glade of mushrooms, were a giant insect.

It had three eyes; that was the first thing Jaune noticed. All of them glowing in the low light of the room. Its head had short antennae coming out at the top, and its body was that of a chubby grub. Its upper torso was almost like that of a humanoid mantis, but Jaune found the creature to be rather odd-looking in its totality.

Of course, he would not give voice to this.

"Hmmm." The insectoid creature reverberated outwards. "I am known as the Herbalist. Who are you?"

"Jaune Arc." He smiled, trying to be kind.

"Winter Schnee." Winter, seemingly, had the same idea.

"These two," The Curious Cat stepped around them, and the Herbalist's gaze turned to him. "Are with those two. Apparently, they're their guardians."

"I see." The Herbalist turned back towards another room, and as Jaune peered into it, he noticed that Alyx and Lewis were sat on the floor, seemingly in some deep trance. "They're currently facing themselves. I believe they will awaken soon."

"…Define soon?" Jaune asked.

The Herbalist barked out a laugh. "Impatient, are you?"

"We've simply had a long day already." Winter came to his defense.

"Hm. Well, if you'd like to pass the time, I do believe that you," The Herbalist pointed towards Jaune. "Have a need to face yourself."

"Huh?"

The Herbalists lips, already smiling, turned upwards further. "How about it? Would you like to experience what they are?"

Jaune… wasn't really certain. A need to face himself? What did that even mean?

"What would that entail?"

"I cannot say." The Herbalist shook its head. "It is different for everyone. And I know nothing of your problems. You will simply have to find out."

The Herbalist held out some odd pipe. It was… a hookah, perhaps? Jaune knew of them very vaguely. They'd visited Vacuo when Jaune had been a young kid – Saphron had been thinking about applying for college there – and Jaune had seen a few older gentlemen smoking them.

"Hold out your hand."

Jaune did after a moment's more hesitation. He looked back to Winter, and she seemed… not entirely supportive, but neither was she against what he was doing.

If she'd thought it a stupid idea, Jaune was confident she'd have spoken up.

So… he held out his hand.

The herbalist took its hookah, and took off the nozzle. Then, it produced another from, seemingly, nowhere at all, and screwed that on.

"Take a breath." He said simply.

Jaune had done well his entire life avoiding any sorts of drug or tobacco use, but… well, magical drugs in an alternative dimension probably didn't count.

…Hopefully.

"Remember," Winter spoke, and Jaune turned to see her out of the corner of his eye. "Do not lose yourself. Stay true to who you are; the same as in that odd forest we were caught within."

He nodded in response, took the hookah, and inhaled the smoke.

A second later, he was out.

/

When Jaune awoke, he was no longer in the Herbalists hut.

In fact, he wasn't anywhere at all, it seemed.

He was floating in some sort of endless dark void, with psychedelic colors burning into and out of existence in spots all around him, like smoky ripples on the water.

He stood from off of the 'ground', and tried to get some idea of… well, what he was supposed to do. He'd been told this was going to be about facing himself, which sounded like some sort of therapy, maybe, and Gods knew Jaune probably needed that.

And then, of course, a new figured materialized from out of the ether.

It was Jaune.

Or, well, it was a Jaune. It wasn't him as he was now, but him as he had been. When he'd been seventeen and stupid, coming into Beacon Academy with nothing but a dream and the idea that he would somehow automatically be good at all of this.

"Well, well," His shadow spoke out. "We've certainly looked better, haven't we? How much sleep have we been getting?"

Jaune wasn't really sure what he wanted to say to that. If this was him – or, well, if it was actually him, as in they shared thoughts – then he would know how much sleep he'd been getting.

So, Jaune tried that.

"Wouldn't you know?"

"Ah, I suppose we do." His shadow laughed. "Not enough. We've been run ragged for months now, but it's really catching up to us now, isn't it?"

It was the truth. Jaune was… exhausted.

"Yeah."

"And frankly, I don't think anyone could blame us. Well, actually, that's not true, is it?"

Jaune looked up at his shadow, and the man – him – shook his head.

"Just about everyone blames us, don't they?"

Jaune's heart stopped, and a chill ran through him.

"After all, what have we ever been able to do?" His shadow questioned. "When our friends and allies needed us, we could never truly be there for them. Always playing second fiddle, always the comic relief, right? The lovable idiot, stuck in the tree while his friends fight for their lives, was that it?"

The line was one he'd almost forgotten saying. For it had happened so very long ago. Two years, in all honesty, but it was a length of time that felt like an eternity, what with how much had actually occurred during their time after Beacon.

"In fact, we've never been able to help anyone. That's the entire reason we're so crazy about trying to keep these kids safe."

"That's…"

"Am I wrong? C'mon, of course I'm not. I'm you. Alyx and Lewis? Please. We couldn't care less about them. What we care about is finally not failing someone. Finally, being able to do some good, no matter how hopeless of an endeavor that really is. We've been weak our whole lives. Never able to figure out what it was we wanted to be until it was too late. We wanted to be, what, a firefighter, then a policeman, then a doctor, then a teacher… isn't being a Huntsman just the newest in a string of crazy ideas?"

It… what the figment of his mind was conjuring before him…

It was his own thoughts. Those that haunted him in the dead of night, when he could not find slumber. Those that dogged down his heels at every step.

His friends… He felt like he'd failed them. That he'd done nothing but fail them. And now… now here he was, faced with a manifestation of himself just telling him outright.

"Do not lose yourself. Stay true to who you are."

Winter's words returned to him in that moment. It was… it wasn't quite a shock, so much as a jolt that his system had desperately needed. For a moment, he'd nearly succumbed to his own shadow; to the darker recesses of his own mind made manifest.

But this…

This was just his shadow. Those parts of him that the light could never touch.

"No." Jaune said, shaking his head. "That's not true."

"Not true?" His shadow laughed. "It's nothing but true! You've always been jumpy, picking the next best thing after you got bored; it's–"

"No." Jaune stood up from where he'd been kneeling, finding his strength coming back to him. "Maybe at the beginning, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I accept that. But… all of those careers, all of those options I thought about as a child… do you know what was the one constant?"

He found a strength in his own words, and he took a step forward. His shadow seemed rather perturbed by the action.

"I wanted to help people."

Those words seemed to settle the entire space around them. It wasn't much, but he could feel the way that the smoke had begun to still in how much it was stirring; as if time itself had begun to slow.

"Even as a child, I knew I wasn't content to sit back and live a quiet life." Jaune said, and in that moment, he looked down at his own open palm, and clenched it into a fist. "I wanted to make a difference from the word 'go'."

"And what a difference you've made." His shadow sneered. "How many people have you really helped?"

"I've helped hundreds." Jaune argued back, and he could see his shadow on the back foot, now. "During the Breach, I pushed back Grimm with my team. During our missions in Atlas, I helped out civilians from all walks of life. During the evacuations, I helped escort thousands of people from what would've otherwise been certain death. Yes… I've failed to save some of my closest friends. Pyrrha, Penny, and in a way, all of Team RWBY as well… but that doesn't mean I've never saved anyone."

His shadow's expression changed, then. Gone was the mocking energy that had hung about him the entire time. Instead, it was replaced by something almost… proud.

"Well?" It questioned. "What more have you to say?"

He took a breath, gathered himself, and then kept going.

"I've done my best. I've… I've come a long way, and I'm not going to stop just because I've made mistakes. You're me, sure. But you don't get to say who or what I am. Only I can do that."

The shadow smiled.

"And who are you?"

"I'm Jaune Arc, and I'm a Huntsman."

His shadow nodded.

"Well said."

All of a sudden, Jaune's vision blurred. He found himself growing horrendously dizzy, and swaying from side to side. The shadow in front of him melted away, as did the entire space he resided within. Before he knew what was happening…

He was out yet again.

/

He gasped awake a second later, feeling like he'd just gone through something truly bizarre.

"Ah, you've awakened." The Herbalist was the one to greet him, giving him what Jaune could only guess was a smile. Its insect-like features made it difficult to distinguish properly. "Good, good. We were waiting for you."

"We?"

He turned, and as Jaune sat up, sure enough, he spotted that both Alyx and Lewis were awake. Lewis smiled over at him, before giving a little wave, but Alyx continued not meeting his eyes, and sulking.

She was a teenager. Jaune wasn't going to judge her for that too harshly.

He also looked to Winter, and she looked back at him. They shared a brief nod towards one another.

Jaune stood from his position on the floor, before stretching and turning back towards the Herbalist.

"Thank you." He smiled. "I think I've managed to work out some things that had been bothering me by you helping me."

The Herbalist chuckled. "It was not me who helped you. You faced your own insecurities, and you emerged victorious."

Jaune nodded his head, happy to hear that.

"Oh, right," He cleared his throat. "You wouldn't happen to know any way of making it to the tree, would you? We're trying to make our way there."

"The tree?" The Herbalist hummed. "The tree is not something you find–"

"It's something that finds us?" Winter huffed out, somewhat frustrated with this entire affair.

"So, you know the truth. Then you also know that asking for directions is entirely pointless." The Herbalist looked to Winter. "When you are ready, you will find your way to the tree, but not a moment sooner, and not a moment later."

Jaune wasn't exactly thrilled to hear that either, but then, it wasn't like they could force this. They'd definitely tried, walking straight for the tree the entirety of the last few days, without getting any closer to it at all.

There was some magic barring them passage. That meant that, if they wanted to actually end up there, they had to play by the Ever After's rules.

The problem with that was that they were having difficulty understanding said rules. Jaune was pretty sure that they wanted to go to the tree. That he was ready to go to the tree.

So… why weren't they able to go to the tree?

…Such were thoughts for later, Jaune supposed.

"Thank you for your help, then." Jaune nodded the Herbalists way. "And for watching Alyx and Lewis while we were occupied."

"Twas nothing at all." The Herbalist took another drag of its hookah pipe. "And you?" the creature looked to Winter. "Would you wish to face yourself?"

Winter hesitated a moment, before shaking her head. "No. My problems are my own. I can handle them."

"Mm. Suit yourself. Now, go on. You've clearly got goals to attend to. I'll not distract you any longer."

And so, they exited out of the Herbalist's home, and began their trek through the forest of fungus.

They only walked a while before Winter turned around, and fixed her gaze at the ground behind Jaune.

"You're coming with us?"

He turned, and saw that the Curious Cat was whom Winter had been speaking to.

"You've intrigued me." The cat spoke simply. "I have to know what lies at the end of your journey. And if you truly are headed for the tree, then I would have you take me with you when you leave this place."

Winter hummed. Jaune… wasn't entirely certain if they were actually going to be leaving this place when they made it to the tree. Perhaps Alyx and Lewis could leave, and they'd stay behind.

Because there were people waiting for them.

Then again, the cat could go with those two if he wanted to. Nothing was stopping him.

Winter must've had the same thought.

"Alright."

And nothing more, it seemed, needed to be said.

They continued moving. Winter led, and Jaune, after a moment's deliberation, sped up so that he could walk parallel beside her.

She looked to him, nodded, and then they continued on together, in silence.

A mutual respect was growing between them, in Jaune's opinion. He was… a lot less doubtful of that than he'd have been an hour ago, before he'd faced himself.

Hopefully, the sessions they'd had with the Herbalist would help Alyx and Lewis with their own insecurities as well.

And yet, Jaune missed the way that Alyx's eyes narrowed as she walked behind the group, only flanked by the Curious Cat, who was himself none the wiser. Her fists clenched, and her body shook.

For Alyx's vision had not been a happy one.

But she did not say anything. Instead, she simply stewed in her resentment; in her anger at the world. In her suspicion of the two of them.

Regardless, onwards they marched, deeper into the Ever After's boughs.

End Chapter 6

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