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linkspooky · 4 years

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Kunikida + Oda: Death of a Good Man

While Kunikida and Oda have never met in canon they are characters with a lot in common. They both essentially play the same role, as the moral center of their respective groups (particularly acting as a conscience for Dazai). They both share the same strengths and weaknesses. However, one lives and one dies. MORE UNDER THE CUT.

1. Relationship with Dazai

Dazai is a character who has trouble seeing himself as a person. That is, he doesn’t see himself as the same as everyone else. (His ability is titled No Longer Human, surprise, surprise). Oda says as much to Dazai, that traditional values like good or evil don’t really mean that much to him.

“Whether you’re on the side that takes lives, or the side that saves them nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander for eternity.”

...

“Be on the side that saves people. If both sides are the same, then choose to be a good person.” - Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era

It’s not that Dazai is a sociopath, or even unfeeling, it’s just that he is so distanced from his own humanity, and from other people. He genuinely believes he can’t feel the same way as they do. Dazai even described the way he saw himself to Fyodor.

Dazai tells Fyodor that he feels like he’s sperate from everyone else. It’s like he’s the player, and everybody else is pieces on the game board. But, even though he might come up with strategies and move the pieces, he’s not really the one changing things, or affecting other people’s lives because he’s not right there in the middle of things he’s far away.

Dazai even flashes back to Oda and Gide’s final showdown when trying to explain this feeling to Fyodor. Oda his closest and only friend at the time, who he could not reach out to and save. Dazai believes he can’t touch other people, he can’t reach out and save them, because he sees himself as lacking in feelings or a heart. Which is why, Dazai relies on the people around him. Dazai attached himself to Oda when he was in the Mafia, and then again to Kunikida when he was detective agency to essentially act as his heart, his external conscience for him. That’s the relationship he shares with both of them. It’s why the first two light novels are essentially about Dazai, but narrated from the point of view of his partner at the time. Light novel one is about his partnership with Kunikida, and Light Novel 2 is about his friendship with Oda back in the dark age. The connection between them is that both Oda, and Kunikida are good, just men who have tried to understand Dazai in one way or another.

The events of both light novels even mirror each other to an extent. Entrance exam is about Dazai joining the agency, Dark Era is about Dazai leaving the mafia. Entrance exam is about Kunikida failing to understand Dazai, but learning to trust him anyway. Dark Era is about Oda being the only one who fully understands Dazai, but then not listening to him at the end of the story. They both end with a symbolic death, Oda commits double suicide with Gide, whereas Kunikida pretends to shoot Dazai in order to follow his plan.

Dazai’s a master strategist, but he’s not a leader of men, nor does he have any particular ideals he stands for. Dazai was given a position of leadership within the port mafia, and not only did he spend the entire time tormenting his closest subordinate but he didn’t care about the lives of his subordinates the way Chuuya does.

Dazai sees Kunikida as someone having the ideals he does not have, therefore doing what he cannot, and being what he cannot be to others. This is a role Oda used to serve as his one and only friend. However, while they occupy the same spot as Dazai’s most trusted person their relationships with him are very different.

Kunikida is very combative with Dazai and always fighting against him. He personally expects Dazai to be better in all aspects. He scolds him for being lazy and neglecting his work. When Dazai messes with other people or manipulates them, it’s Kunikida who is the first to get frustrated with him. Kunikida also, tends to lack a fundamental understanding of Dazai. It’s a running joke that he’s always a step behind him (he’s the last person to find out Dazai was a mafia member when everyone else already knew). The literal first thing established about their relationship in the first chapter, is that they are constantly fighting with each other. They barely make it through a dinner with Atsushi.

However, Kunikida also listens to Dazai when it’s important. It’s the other way around with Oda, Oda is someone who does fundamentally understand who Dazai really is deep down. However, at the same time Oda doesn’t really try to exert any influence over Dazai until the very end of his life. Their relationship was defined by being distant to one another, and not asking questions.

The reason why Ango and I were able to be by his side was that we understood the solitude that surrounded him, and we never stepped inside it no matter how close we stood.

But in that moment, I kind of regretted not stepping in and invading that solitude.

Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era.

Him, Ango and Dazai could only keep meeting as the Buraiha at the Lupin bar if they pretended to not know anything about what each other did outside of the bar. They’re different in one main aspect, Kunikida fights Dazai, and Oda doesn’t start fighting until it’s almost far too late.

2. Living and Dying for One’s Ideals

One more direct parallel between the two is that Kunikida and Oda are both characters who strive to live up to the ideal they find in a book. Literally. Kunikida obsessively writes out his ideals in his notebook where he has his whole future planned out.

What are ideals? There are innumerable answers to that question. One could say it’s merely a term, or an idea, or perhaps even the soruce of all meaning. But if you ask me, the answer is obvious. It’s the word written on the cover of my notebook. My notebook has all the answers. It is my creed, my master, and a prophet that guides me. At times, it can either be a weapon ro a solution. Ideals. Everything I am is written in this notebook which I always carry with me. My entire future lies within it - Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exam

Oda picked up a book and loved it so much he wanted to write the ending for himself.

After worrying about it for so long, I came to one conclusion. “Then you write what happens next.” I decided to write about it myself. I would become a novelist, and write a story about why the man stopped killing. But to become a novelist, I needed to sincerely know what it meant to live. So, I stopped killing. - Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era.

Kunikida and Oda are both characters who find their will to live for the future within the pages of a book. Which makes sense as both characters struggle with lofty ideals and a harsh reality. Oda and Kunikida are characters written about the struggle to be a good man, in a world that is not good. To hold ideals, in a world that is not ideal. This once again ties back to what Dazai said to Fyodor, God isn’t perfect harmony, he’s illogical and absurd.

The world isn’t ideal and orderly. It’s extremely, extremely messy. Kunikida and Oda are both characters who strive to be better, and want the world to be better and because of that they fall into conflict. However, Oda lost his fight, and Kunikida is still fighting. Part of why Dazai got so attached to Kunikida is also because he saw Oda’s ideals within Kunikida, and knew that carrying those ideals could crush him so easily.

“Justice is a weapon. It can be used to harm, but it cannot protect and save others.” -Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exams

The meanings of Dazai’s words are clear when you look at them in the context of what he learned after losing Oda. Oda decided to throw his life away to avenge the children after Gide. He achieved justice then. However, nobody was saved. The children were already dead. Oda himself wasn’t saved. Dazai lost his only friend.

“Something?” I looked at Dazai. “There isn’t anything, Dazai. It’s all over. Everything. Whatever else happens now is meaningless - just like I’m about to do. AM I wrong?” “Odasaku...” Dazai said softly. “Forgive me for the absurd wording but - don’t go. Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be soemthing...”

[...]

Oda’s march against Gide isn’t just tragic, it’s a deliberate choice. It was a suiide. He’s given several oppurtunities to just walk away, or wait for something else to give him a reason to live and he doesn’t. His final actions hurt more than they helped. Yes, he did save Dazai in a way by throwing his life away, but Dazai also lost the person who could understand him. Oda could have lived. He could have done more if he had lived. Dazai even says so in dead apple, saving people is the more beautiful path, but you have to be alive to see that beauty.

This is also why Kunikida and Oda have such a connection to Dazai. Underneath their struggles to be a good man they are both constantly dealing with suicidal feelings.

Kunikida is far more fragile than he lets on. Part of the reason he attaches himself to ideals rather than people, is because caring about people hurts, and he is so afraid of failing the people in his life (the same way Oda eventually failed to protect the children) that he can’t admit the depth to which he cares about them.

Kunikida struggles to save everyone in front of him, but that’s also because Kunikida is internally someone who is very fragile. He can’t handle the loss, especially losing those he is close to. When Atsushi is hospitalized after his first fight with Akutagawa, he pretends to be unconcerned. When Atsushi wants to save Kyoka, Kunikida tries to persuade him to not save her. Oda and Kunikida are both avoidant characters, Oda avoided ever stepping inside of Dazai’s loneliness, and Kunikida avoids getting close to others because they fear the people they cannot save. Kunikida cares so much and so deeply, that he’s completely shattered when he fails someone.

Every strategy by the detective agency’s enemies relies on crushing Kunikida because he’s the easiest target. When he fails like this he wants to give up. Kunikida and Oda have this dark underside to their actions where they’re fighting continually to be better, but when they fail, they long to throw their lives away and give up the struggle.

Part of the reason they’re attracted to Dazai is deep down Kunikida and Oda both have the same suicidal feelings. Kunikida knows that his ideals will never live up to the reality.

However, secretly he longs to fail so he won’t have to struggle against it anymore.

“I let go of Dazai. I understand what he’s aying. Perhaps righteousness isn’t something you seek in others, but something you search for inside of yourself. Even then... Miss Sasaki is dead, and so is Rokuzo. All I’ve found in my search for righteousness within myself is a sense of hopelessness.”

Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exam

The question is can you continue to live? Even if you fail over and over again to do better. Even if the things you try to protect all die. Kunikida’s arc so far mirrors Oda’s. The things he told himself he would protect, he failed to. The promises he made, he breaks. He said he was never going to watch a child die in front of him, and then it happens.

He said he was never going to fail to protect the agency again, but then the agency became the victims of the hunting dogs, and Kunikida had to go completely on the run. He said he was going to throw himself away in a big bang against the hunting dogs to show his ideals would never fail, and instead.

He even loses his ideals and his ability to write in the notebook. So, what is the difference between Kunikida and Oda that allows Kunikida to keep struggling where Oda did not. I think it’s not really a difference between them, so much as it’s a difference between Dazai. Dazai’s grown since then and realized his mistakes with Oda, and because of that doesn’t stay at a comfortable distance from Kunikida.

Dazai has grown enough between then and now he’s able to reach people who feel similiarly to him. He understood the suicidal feelings of both Kunikida, and Oda, but he didn’t reach out to Oda until it was too late. However, Dazai has grown to the point where he not only understands Kunikida’s struggle and sympathizes with him, but he’s also able to say the words he couldn’t say to Oda until it was too late.

There’s no such thing as a point of no return. There is no point where everything is already over. Even if you fail to protect someone, even if you fail to protect everyone.

"Anything I would never want to lose will be lost. It is given that everything that is worth wanting will be lost the moment I obtain it. There's nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging life of suffering."

Dazai is still the same person that said this. Deep down that’s what Kunikida and Oda both fear, that after Oda failed the orphans, that after Kunikida could not save an innocent child in front of them, that no matter how hard they fought all of their attempts to protect someone would fail that way. At which point their fighting seemed to become meaningless.

Dazai knowing those feelings has moved past that lament. He still believes that the struggle may be meaningless, but he reassures them that they can keep fighting anyway.

If there’s no great glorious ideal to live for, if nothing we do matters, than all that matters is what we do. The world isn’t good, the world will never be as good as we want it to be, yet Kunikida can still strive to be good in the face of that.

#dazai osamu #kunikida doppo #oda sakunosuke #odasaku #bungou stray dogs #bsd meta #bungou stray dogs meta #bungou stray dogs theory #bungou stray dogs analysis

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livlepretre · 4 years

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tysm for all ur FE updates!!! i'm really excited for elijah's introduction in this dynamic. i feel like he's just as acquainted with elena's morally complex nature as klaus's since, after all, he was the first one she ever lured in and daggered (call-back to that scene was GREAT btw). i'm just curious how you view elena/elijah's dynamic vs. klaus/elena's, even outside the scope of the fic, esp since they've had more canon interactios

This is an ask after my own heart, nonny!

This is such an interesting question-- it’s true that Elijah and Elena have a lot more canon interactions to work with, although the Klaus and Elena interactions we DO have in canon are so ripe and explosive that it lends itself to a lot of speculation.

So, here are my thoughts:

Elena/Elijah: Elena and Elijah both operate under the false assumption that they’re both honorable people. In fact, all of the trust they build together in season 2 is based on this idea, with both of them going to great lengths to negotiate and prove themselves to the other. They both think they’re being extremely honest with the other-- the deal they make in 2x11 utterly fascinates me, because Elijah honestly asks Elena to die as her part of the deal, and she agrees??? It doesn’t sound like he tried to hide that from her at all. Now, Elena DOES dagger him, but she also proves herself to him later and is able to account for her actions. All of that combined with the insane levels of attraction between them (WHEN HE SMELLS HER AND THEN GIVES HER THAT LITTLE WAVE IN 2x08????) make for really captivating television. There’s also a lot of interesting framing going on with the camera angles-- if you look back at it, notice how often Elena is shown in mirror reflections during her early scenes with Elijah-- all the time. What a great call back to how he sees her not just as herself, but as her role as the doppelganger. I do think he BEGINS to see her as herself as he gets to know her, especially by 2x19, but that takes time.

Well. The crux of it all is that Elena goes through with her side of the deal-- the deal on which their entire relationship is based-- going to her death, losing her aunt whom Elijah fails to protect-- even though doing so was HIS part of the bargain-- and then Elijah is the one who breaks his word when he decides not to kill Klaus. This is the first sign we have that actually Elijah isn’t honorable at all; he thinks that he is, but really, he’s as selfish as his siblings. I don’t really think Elena ever forgives him for this. We see in season 3 that she still really is attracted to Elijah, and that she can’t quite help but be drawn in by him, but she never allows herself to really put herself in his hands again. She might feel bad about conspiring to kill him with the rest of his family in 3x14 and 3x15... but she also doesn’t hesitate. And she doesn’t exactly confess what she’s done, either. She just gets caught. I also don’t think that Elijah’s letter to her did anything to smooth over the wreck they’d made of their relationship/unspoken attraction to each other. The way Elena recites it back to him in season 4 says it all about how much she dwelled on his words, but it also implies that she’s still hurt and angry about it all all of that time later. I think she had this really powerful, idealized image of Elijah, and her disillusionment with him is profound.

Meanwhile, Elena is also on a path throughout seasons 2 & 3 of discovering that she’s not who she thought she’d grow up to be. She is definitely more honorable than Elijah when they meet, and she means to keep her word. But Elena’s story is that she’s an orphan with no parental/mentor guidance influencing her in a positive and moral way; instead, she has a 26 year old aunt who means well but is totally in the dark about what’s really going on and pretty much in over her head, and maybe Alaric, who shouldn’t count as a good influence because, well, look at his life, look at his choices. And she has the Salvatores. The greatest influences upon her. Damon has the greatest part in tipping her away from the straight and narrow path, to getting her sense of right and wrong to slowly unravel until she gets to a place such as 2x05, when she watches Damon eat the deputies and she doesn’t bat an eyelash (how far she’s come from 1x07 when she slapped Damon and called him out!). I MORE than suspect that the infamous Elijah-daggering at the lake house was a Damon/Elena collaboration. But even Stefan, who the show frames as so stalwart and honorable, is still a terrifying vampire with ultimately little concern for human life. He still hurts people off and on throughout seasons 1 & 2, or doesn’t particularly have a problem with it when Damon does. I mean, do you see Stefan crying over what Damon did to Caroline in season 1? It’s inconceivable from a human view point. But that’s the point. They’re not human, and they’re the greatest influences in Elena’s life. No small part of Bonnie’s horror with the Salvatores is because she watches Elena slowly turn down this dark path with those two leading Elena by the hand-- human Elena, who should never cross through the veil into the shadow.

She’s still in the process of straying from that path-- from her honorable self-- when Elijah meets her. By the time they encounter each other in season 3, she’s already left all of that behind. She stabs people in the back when they trust her. She negotiates and gives her word only to double cross as soon as the moment is right, and she doesn’t seem to lose very much sleep over it. Elijah’s issue is that he cannot see that in Elena-- he wants to see her as who she was when he met her-- who Katerina and probably who Tatia was-- as a miracle that he desires but doesn’t quite dare to touch-- but he is incapable of seeing that his betrayal of her at the sacrifice was probably the last straw that killed whatever innocence was left in Elena.

I think the attraction and the yearning is always going to be there between them, but it’s so embittered, especially from Elena’s point of view, that it’s hard to say whether they would be able to work past that unless Elijah suddenly learned some actual introspection skills.

Elena/Klaus: I’ve had to think a while about this dynamic to answer the question of how this relationship is as directly compared to Elena/Elijah. Obviously they both have the history and repetition element, of the dead lover whose face keeps reiterating through time-- what a dreadful and terrifying idea, honestly. Except where Elijah is almost afraid to even touch Elena (he SO desires her, but never ever acts on it), Klaus touches Elena all. the. time. There’s a real possessiveness to his relationship with her-- notice how he holds her as he devours her; how during the Reckoning he’s always physically close to her, leaning into her space, touching her-- whereas Elijah really physically backs off from Elena when he confirms her identity, Klaus comes closer.

This is interesting because I’ve realized in thinking about this relationship, and what Klaus and Elena potentially have in common, that what they really share is their isolation-- their loneliness. Klaus explicitly states that this is why he desires Elena-- to make hybrids, so he won’t be alone anymore (Rebekah mocks him for it, but there it is). Elena, meanwhile, is at her most alone in season 3-- everyone walks away from her there, for reasons she has no control over. This is never really used as a point to bring them together as characters, but I find it really interesting as a possibility for connection.

Another thing that really interests me is that Elena often tries to negotiate with Klaus the way she would with Elijah-- and mostly, it fails spectacularly. Klaus recognizes in Elena that she is a schemer and a liar-- because he is too. What’s fascinating though is that, just like Elijah, he tends to treat her as an equal in these conversations-- even if he doesn’t want to play. He doesn’t tend to treat with the other characters in this way, and that gives Elena an intriguingly special status there.

In canon we really don’t have a ton to work with to talk about the Klaus/Elena dynamic-- it’s all potential. The idea of fate being so strong and impossible to avoid-- that in that sense, they’re almost warped soul mates?; the powerful fire imagery surrounding them (the only time Elena’s elemental coding switches from water to fire is with Klaus); the chemistry and attraction that bubbled over in all of their scenes, especially in the early days; the fact that she is just so constantly challenging him and wrecking him at every turn? Klaus’s big problem is that no one is his equal, and yet... here is Elena. Human Elena, whose reasoning is as warped as Klaus’s by season 3, who somehow keeps scrambling up to play against Original vampires and witches and all sorts of creatures who should be able to crush her and yet, she keeps besting them. That’s some potent stuff to work with. I tend to think that at the end of the day, Klaus actually understands Elena much better than Elijah did, because his view of her isn’t really muddied by idealism and instead really takes into account her more tarnished nature. My only regret is that the showrunners obviously feared ever really exploring Klaus x Elena x Elijah (EVEN THOUGH THEY COMPLETELY SET IT UP) because they felt that Stefan x Elena x Damon was already as much as the show could handle (it wasn’t-- we should have done both, obviously).

#anonymous #elena gilbert #elejah #klena #tvd meta #klaulena

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years

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YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

Excite really never got the business model right at all. She was horrified when the doctors running the study discovered what appeared to be a member of the professional classes. Did it alarm some potential acquirers that we used Lisp? Version 1 of this world. We'll have to worry not just about new things, but also about existing things becoming more addictive. The ultimate way to get market price is to work for yourself, by starting your own company. Some switched from meat loaf to tofu, and others to driving SUVs.1

And I'm pretty sure that to people 50 or 100 years in the future. But in those days the trade press expected versions, so we made them up.2 The war was due mostly to external forces, and the 2. The importance of the first varies depending on whether you have control over the whole system and have the source code of all the things we could have monotonically increasing confidence in their opinions are implicitly concluding the world is static. I'll tell you how. Trevor graduated at about the same time the acquisition closed, so in the course of 4 days he went from impecunious grad student to millionaire PhD.3 In the Valley, terrible things happen to startups all the time and we got Java applets. You make something that looks to the user like the sufficiently smart compiler you could create a situation indistinguishable from you being that manufacturer, at least not in the selection of ideas, but their production. After years of working on it for a couple days when he presented to investors at Demo Day, when the startups we funded this summer present to investors. The part that actually mattered was graphic design, not transaction processing. And when the Duplo economy happened simultaneously with the spread of computing power was a precondition for globalization or the LBO wave? To someone in their twenties today, this wouldn't seem worth naming.

If you do it? The puffed-up companies that went public during the Bubble didn't do it just because they were afraid of Google, and recently I've noticed some cracks in their fortress. There was a friend they wanted to do things that are superficially impressive.4 Startups in other places are just doing what startups naturally do: fail. Here there were 3 choices: NBC, CBS, and ABC. So it was literally IPO or bust.5 So here we have two pieces of information that I think of all the best Ajax startups before Google does.6 Instead of thinking of most places as being sprayed with the antidote. Except sinecures don't appear in economic statistics. I mean show, not tell. Ruby: Perl is a kludge. Macros in the Lisp sense are still, as far as I know all too well from being in the business call a liquidity event, and the Baumol Effect means all their peers get dragged along too.

And indeed, things hadn't changed much yet. Oddly enough, it was news to him. It's like the word allopathic. Conditionals. Once some employer breaks ranks, everyone else has to, or open them in new windows. So presumably that's what this brainstorming session was about. Everything is just incremental and you just have to do that with coworkers.

A remarkable number of famous startups grew out of some experience. A couple weeks ago I finally figured it out. Less fortunate startups just end up hiring armies of people to sit around having meetings. If life is short, as everyone knows.7 What difference did it make if other manufacturers could offer DOS too? You're an investor too. And once you understand the degree to which the startups they like are the ones that figure out new ways to give stuff away for free could be pretty high-handed about it. They don't like that idea, so now they try to get market price for their investment; they limit their holdings to leave the founders enough stock to feel the company is at least straightforward: make the search engine you yourself want. If you don't and a competitor does, you're in trouble. You can't say precisely what the miracle will be, or even that the power they wield corrupts them.8 But you have to extract parameters manually in Perl.

And the old system meant people had to deal with before. Number 6 is starting to appear in the mainstream.9 In this case, working code means a working description in the investor's head. It's practically a mantra at YC. This is what you end up with: def foo n: class acc: def __init__ self, n: self. Anything that gets you those 10,000 startup founders into the country each year could have a visible effect on the number of successful startups talked less about choosing cofounders and more about how hard they worked to maintain their relationship. You enter a whole different way of life when it's your company vs. Would we be just as likely to feel life was short if we lived 10 times as long in another language, it will seem barbaric that people in our era waited till they had symptoms to be diagnosed with cancer. They all know one another, and techniques spread rapidly between them. That's their secret. Like Facebook. And by next, I mean five years if nothing goes wrong.

Angels were generally much better to talk to. Our ancestors were giants. If they were obviously good, someone would already be doing them.10 You can demonstrate your respect for one another in more subtle ways.11 If you're a hacker and you're presenting to experienced investors, they're probably better at detecting bullshit than you are.12 Ideas 8 and 9 only became part of Lisp by accident, the frequency of helpful chance meetings in the Valley aren't automatically impressed with you just because you're starting a company to actually doing it. On the web, people can publish whatever they want. The answer, I realized, more from internal evidence than any outside source, that the ideas we were being fed on TV were crap, and I said to him, ho, you're confusing theory with practice, this eval is intended for reading, not for computing. We would have sold. In social settings, I found that I got over 100 other responses listing the surprises they encountered.13

The closest is the colloquial sense of addictive. They probably assumed we were on the same VC gravy train they were.14 But airports are not so bad: most of the time you'll find the person instinctively thinks the idea will be a great thing—so great that people in our era waited till they had symptoms to be diagnosed with conditions like heart disease and cancer.15 From far enough away, all you can see is the large, flashing billboard paid for by Sun. And that could be anything, the content of your description approaches zero. Is there no configuration of the bits in memory of a present day computer that is this compiler? In social settings, I found that I got over 100 other responses listing the surprises they encountered.

Notes

The point where it does, the more important to users than where you wanted it? In the beginning. These range from make-believe, is caring what random people thought it was one firm that wanted to go to grad school you always feel you should. Your user model almost couldn't be perfectly accurate, because they insist you dilute yourselves to set aside a chunk of stock options than any other company has ever been.

Incidentally, this is what you learn about programming in Lisp. To the extent to which the top 15 tokens, because despite some progress in the sense of getting rich from controlling monopolies, just as on a saturday, he tried to shift back. You can still see fossils of their peers.

I should degenerate from 129. But it was briefly in Britain in the original version of this type: lies told by older siblings.

The Baumol Effect induced by startups is very common for startups to be hard on Google. Earlier he'd had in school, secretly write your thoughts down in the business much harder to fix. Some genuinely aren't. Cost, again.

Which in turn means the startup eventually becomes. In principle yes, of course some uncertainty about how things are going well, but have no way to create wealth with no valuation cap at all but for a group to consider behaving the opposite way from the 1940s or 50s instead of reacting. Could you restrict technological progress aren't sharply differentiated. If you're expected to do it all at once, or grow slowly tend not to grow big in revenues without growing big in people, but I couldn't believe it or not to feel guilty about it wrong in How to Make Wealth when I said by definition this will give you such a brutally simple word is that the payoff for avoiding tax grows hyperexponentially x/1-x for 0 x 1.

It was common in, but when people tell you that if a bunch of adults had been with us he would have met 30 people he meets at parties he's a real partner. It doesn't happen often. There's not much use, because unions will exert political pressure to protect widows and orphans from crooked investment schemes; people with a walrus mustache and a list of n things seems particularly collectible because it's a bad idea was that there were about the qualities of these, because the kind of social engineering—. And when they buy some startups and not fixing them fast enough, the assembly line, the term whitelist instead of Windows NT?

For example, the startup isn't getting market price. There are two ways to make programs easy to write an essay about it.

And starting an organic farm, though I think it's confusion or lack of transparency. Distribution of income and b not allow them to justify choices inaction in particular took bribery to the rise of big companies can afford that. They could make it harder for you by accidents of age and geography, rather technical sense of being interrupted deters hackers from starting hard projects.

Whereas the value of their time on a hard technical problem. No one writing a dictionary from scratch, rather technical sense of not starving then you should avoid raising money in order to avoid variable capture and multiple evaluation; Hart's examples are subject to both. Many hope he was exaggerating.

On the other is laziness. There are still, as in a time before photography had a big chunk of this process but that's overkill; the defining test is whether you have 8 months of runway or less, then add beans don't drain the beans, and Windows, respectively. To a kid was an assiduous courtier of the crown, and they were saying scaramara instead of blacklist.

The trustafarians' ancestors didn't get rich by buying their own, like wages and productivity, but those specific abuses. It's like the word wealth.

A variant is that Digg is Slashdot with voting instead of crawling back repentant at the time I thought there wasn't, because they couldn't afford it. But it isn't critical to.

Who is being put through an internal process at work. In January 2003, Yahoo released a new database will probably frighten you more inequality. It is probably a losing bet for a name that has a significant number. Could you restrict technological progress to areas where you went to school.

Down rounds are bad: Webpig, Webdog, Webfat, Webzit, Webfug. In fairness, I have no idea what's happening till they measure their returns. Two possible and not end up reproducing some of the medium of exchange would not make a formal language for proofs in which I removed a pair of metaphors that made a lot, or your job will consist of bad customs as well use the word that means the slowdown that comes from ads on other sites.

Anything that got built this? He had such a dangerous mistake to do it. There's not much use, because she liked the iPhone too, of course.

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miasswier · 7 years

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miasswier’s ultimate glee ranking: no 94

94: I Am Unicorn

Written by: Ryan Murphy Directed by: Brad Falchuk

Overall Thoughts: Season three really didn’t get off to a good start, huh? Here we have Kurt being faced with a fun mix of homophobia and misogyny, from both his teachers and his friends, Quinn being told by several adults (and the father of her baby) that she really doesn’t matter, and the introduction of what is probably the absolute worst story Glee ever told.

What I Like:

Blaine is so goddamn cute in this episode. I seriously want to reach through my TV and pinch his cheeks.

The fact that Brittany and Burt both make it clear to Kurt that part of what’s awesome about him is the ways that he’s different. He shouldn’t hide himself because he doesn’t fit in with societies ideals. My favourite lines when talking about this are:

“I don’t want to just be Kurt Hummel, homo” “Wait, what’s wrong with that?”

“You know what a unicorn without a horn is called? A friggin horse.”

That sweet Brittana scene where Santana tells Brittany that she is the unicorn.

Emma going to bat for Kurt as Tony, even if she eventually gets overpowered.

Kurt ultimately deciding to embrace who he is, despite the fact that basically everyone (including his supposed best friend) thinks this doesn’t make him leading man material.

When Rachel says she’s too young to direct herself in West Side Story and Brittany goes “I hate you”

What I Don’t Like:

The way Coach Bieste and Artie talk about Kurt is completely unprofessional. The way they literally laugh him out of an audition is even worse. If I was Burt, I would have marched right back down to that school and demanded action be taken, because all of what happened there? That’s highkey homophobia, largely rooted in misogyny. And it’s all coming from people we are supposed to like and root for, one of whom is eventually revealed to be a gay man himself. Like, yikes. Major yikes.

Rachel laughing at Kurt almost hurts more than Bieste, Artie, and Emma doing so. She’s supposed to be his best friend. Can you imagine Mercedes laughing at Kurt the way Rachel did? Or even Brittany, or Tina? Because I can’t.

Artie asking Blaine to go out for Tony. Listen, I know that he was great as Tony and he killed “Something’s Coming”, but they still put him in the awkward position of having to compete against his boyfriend for a role that he purposefully didn’t try out for.

The fact that Kurt tried out with a Streisand song. Don’t get me wrong, I love that song, and I love that performance, but it wasn’t right for an audition for Tony, and everyone knew it. Glee did this purposefully, to set Kurt up for the homophobia and sexism he was going to be bombarded with. It’s frustrating, because we see Kurt doing Broadway songs traditionally sung by men, so it’s beyond clear that this was a purposeful move on Glee’s part to set Kurt up to fail. It makes me really mad.

I am frustrated by the Brittany running for president story, mainly because Brittany didn’t need that at all, and they literally forgot about it halfway through the season, whereas it could have made a big difference for Kurt (or, hey, maybe not seeing how the whole auditioning for NYADA thing turned out).

Rachel asking Finn to audition for Tony, particularly the way she worded it. She claims the slot for Tony is still “wide open” ie she has absolutely no doubt that Kurt is not going to receive the role. So not only was Kurt’s boyfriend asked to compete against him, but his brother was as well. I hate this show.

Just… everything about the Quinn/Puck/Shelby bullshit. I literally have no idea who came up with this idea and how the hell enough people said “yo this is a good idea” that it actually got put in as a major plot of the first eight episodes of this season, but it’s garbage, it’s all literal garbage, and every second dedicated to it makes my blood boil.

Will once again shows off his rage by yelling at a fucking underage girl who he knows full well is being manipulated by Sue. Quinn honestly gets bounced around by fucking adults in this episode, and none of them treat her the way she deserves to be treated. Shelby refuses to give her the same opportunity as Puck (even though Puck literally forced that opportunity onto himself, whereas Quinn had the decency to ask before seeing Beth) because she’s “a mess”, Sue uses Quinn as her pawn in a ridiculous anti-arts campaign, and Will literally tears into her, screams at her, and gets in her face to the point where I legitimately feel like he’s going to slap her. And then, to top it all off, he gets rewarded by the show for doing this by Becky Jackson going “That was so hot” like WHAT?! WHAT?!?!!?!?!?! W H A T?!?!?!?!!

West Side Story was the wrong musical to do for this school. I will talk about this more in my review of “The First Time” but seriously. I don’t know how the hell Glee thought it would be okay to tackle this musical with literally one Latinx character.

Songs:

Somewhere: They sound good, but this song is boring, and it just reminds me of how annoyed I am that Rachel played Maria.

I’m the Greatest Star: Like I’ve already said, I really love this performance and this cover (I like it a lot better than Rachel’s season five version), but it was the wrong choice for this audition and Glee knew that.

Something’s Coming: The best performance of the episode by far. Amazingly performed and sung. Just… A+. I could definitely see Darren Criss actually playing Tony at some point in his career.

Final Thoughts: I recently re-watched this episode after the re-watch during which I made this ranking, and I moved it down a TON. This episode sucks. I always think “Oh, but it has the awesome Kurt/Brittany story!” and as much as I enjoy their scenes together, the whole point of it is to further tear Kurt down and set him up for nothing going his way this year. I just… God. This is not a good episode.

masterpost

#ultimate glee ranking

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agayhurricane · 7 years

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maybe in another life (i could have you)

He didn’t want to, but the moment Alibaba dropped down on one knee and declared his love for someone else, he knew that he had to go away. Again.

The sun had already begun its retreat into the lilac streaked clouds. Ren Hakuryuu watched its quick descent, quite surprised. Had he really been there for that long? His limbs jolted suddenly, answering his question. Pins and needles prickled his nerves. A vague thought surfaced in the back of his head, something about going home before dark. The streets of Qishan weren’t known for their safety, despite the established laws in the new world.

A few more minutes shouldn’t hurt though. He wasn’t at all anxious to be reunited with the group after the recent whirlwind of events. He eyed the pack beside him that contained all his things. Maybe he should stay in a different place for the night, under the pretence that he didn’t feel so well and didn’t want the others to catch it. Or maybe he should just leave entirely. Again

He considered looking for Judar. That was a good idea wasn’t it? He would search for him, find him, and give him a good piece of his mind. And maybe a whack upside the head while he was at it. Or a punch straight to that snickering face. Maybe both. He could also use Zagan and decompose that stupidly long hair of h—

His ear was tickled by a faint rustle, coming from an alarmingly small distance away. He snapped out of his progressively morbid thoughts and turned, on guard, before belatedly realizing it was nothing to worry about.

Aladdin held his hands up, shooting him a wary smile. “You disappeared all of a sudden and your things were gone, so I came to look for you.” The blue haired boy patted the space on the stone bench. “This seat taken?”

The former emperor of Kou relaxed. “You know it isn’t.”

“Mm,” the magi sat down and pulled up his legs up to his chest, hugging his knees against the chilly night air of the desert. Hakuryuu felt him glance his way but he didn’t say anything. In the silence, Aladdin’s question sounded more like a statement. “Is something wrong?”

His answer was immediate: “No.”

Aladdin stifled a snort, “That has got to be one of the biggest lies I’ve ever heard.” He reached forward, plucking something out from the air under Hakuryuu’s nose, cupping it in his palms. He presented it to the dark-haired man, who stared blankly at…emptiness.

“What am I looking at?”

“Your rukh.” Aladdin said, matter-of-factly, “It’s blue.”

“You expect me to believe something I can’t even—”

Light flickered between the magi’s slim fingers and the unmistakable glow of a spirit bird materialized between them. Its normally glimmering white was replaced by a forlorn indigo shine, like the sea’s waves in the middle of a cloudy night.

“—see…” Hakuryuu finished lamely.

“You’ve been around me long enough to know what this means,” Aladdin blew on the rukh, sending it fluttering before dissolving on Hakuryuu’s forehead with the barest shimmer. “You’re sad.” Blue eyes scrutinized him for a second before adding: “Very.”

“Am I?” Hakuryuu asked. He wanted it to sound sarcastic, but his voice came out weaker than he’d intended. The night air felt punishing but he refrained from wrapping his arms around himself.

Aladdin frowned. “You just proved my point,” he said. The magi scooted a bit closer, worry etched in the soft lines of his face. “It’s been five years,” he began cautiously. “If this is still about… Do still feel—?”

Hakuryuu cut him off with an unnecessarily loud sigh, “I don’t, Aladdin.” He didn’t want to talk about this, not now, not when he couldn’t even think properly.

“The rukh don’t lie,” Aladdin insisted, “You still like Morgiana, I know.”

“Aladdin—”

“Please, Hakuryuu, just hear me out, I know that you feel jealous.”

He couldn’t know, he shouldn’t. There was no way he’d be telling him but for Solomon’s sake if he didn’t shut up—

“Ala—”

“We can talk things out! You can tell me anything.” The young magi barrelled on, raising his voice slightly to be heard over Hakuryuu’s complaints. “I really think you don’t want Alibaba to know—”

“That it’s Morgiana I’m jealous of and not him?” Hakuryuu finally snapped. He glared at Aladdin, too aggravated and wounded and a dozen other things he couldn’t even name to feel embarrassed. Aladdin’s lips were parted, stunned. He had asked for Hakuryuu to open up yes; he didn’t know what he was expecting, but it was certainly not this.

Hakuryuu shook his head, already regretting what he had done. “I made up my mind. I’m going in search of Judar.”

That seemed to do the trick. Aladdin blinked as if waking from a particularly unusual dream. “H-Hakuryuu, wait!” He grabbed onto the former emperor’s robes just as he was about to stand.

Exasperated, Hakuryuu shook him off and slung his pack over one shoulder. “I told you, I’ve already decided,” he straightened and turned on his heel and made to depart.

Aladdin’s next words made him stop. “D-do you not plan on telling him?”

Completely taken aback by the incredulity of the idea, Hakuryuu chuckled, bitterly. “And ruin whatever semblance of happiness he has? Why would I?”

The blue haired magi was rendered speechless. What could you possibly say to that anyway? He wanted to comfort the dark haired dungeon conqueror, but he was at loss. “But you told Morgiana… before.” He argued feebly.

“I wish you would stop comparing these two instances as if they are the same, Aladdin; they are not.” He faced him. “I appreciate your concern really, but there’s nothing more you can do. And as a last request please…”

The hard, apathetic mask slipped. Aladdin’s breath caught in his throat upon seeing Hakuryuu so vulnerable, sadness and remorse written clearly on his scarred visage. “I would appreciate if you don’t tell him any of this.”

A horrible sense of déjà vu crawled up Aladdin’s spine. This happened before: when they parted in Aktia. That time, Aladdin had failed to stop him, and when they next met, Hakuryuu had already fallen into depravity. Had Aladdin succeeded in changing Hakuryuu’s mind then, they probably would be facing a different future now. Even as a Magi, he had his limits, and there was no way he could tell if letting Hakuryuu go again would be for better or for worse. Still he tried. There was still something he had to know. “Hakuryuu… How long have you felt like this? Why didn’t you tell him before?”

That gave him a pause. “I couldn’t say for myself,” he said finally and so softly that Aladdin had to strain his ears to hear him. “Maybe I always have… But I didn’t realize. By the time I did, it was too late.” The mask was quick to return afterwards, like clouds quickly gathering before a storm. “I’ve said enough.” He gave a short nod. “Good bye Aladdin. I’ll catch up later.”

Aladdin nodded slowly in return. Indecision tore at his insides, but he knew he had to trust Hakuryuu to do what he thought best for all of them. He shouldn’t impose on his choices. A hint of hesitation showed despite his efforts when he waved his hand. “Good bye, Hakuryuu…”

Suppressing a sneeze, Aladdin rubbed his arms, channelling a bit of heat magic to warm himself up. Furrowing his brows, he belatedly realized that it was getting late. He should get going, otherwise Alibaba would worry.

Alibaba… How would he tell him?

Lost in his thoughts, the Magi failed to notice the tear that glistened down Hakuryuu’s cheek when he turned to leave. The two parted without another word, the former pensive and the latter conflicted.

Hakuryuu stopped a few paces later when he was certain that Aladdin was far away. He couldn’t keep the mask up; he didn’t have to. A sense of uncanny familiarity filled him as he wiped at his eyes, cursing himself for crying. He gathered that the frustration he felt was similar to when he was in the Dungeon of Zagan, unable to have something that was right in front of him.

The only difference was that, in the dungeon he was able to acquire the power he so desired eventually, whereas now, the thing that his heart ached for the most was terribly close yet already so hopelessly out of his reach. He remembered something that Aladdin had said in Zagan’s dungeon: “No one would want to live in hatred and suffering. That’s why, no matter what hardships we must endure, we should think about what to do. Toward the direction of light and dazzling hope… we should move forward and keep walking. That’s the rukh’s guidance. The true meaning of fate.”

Moving forward, huh. At the moment, Hakuryuu wasn’t so sure of that. He couldn’t explain why, but through the haze of his tears, he smiled. Maybe in another life, he could have him. An unexplainable sensation overflowed in his chest then, something strange but not at all unpleasant, similar to finding something new, being hesitantly curious. Like how he felt when he first met Alibaba.

Somewhere else in Qishan, Alibaba Saluja was experiencing the exact same feeling, but he wrote it off as excitement at being newly engaged with the woman he loved.

Neither of them were anywhere near knowing that someplace else, in a world parallel but completely different from theirs, a shy little prince with a scarred face just bumped into a boy a bit older than he was, a little boy with golden hair and a smile as bright as the sun.

crossposted on AO3

http://archiveofourown.org/works/11171694

#alihaku #hakuali #magi #magi: the labyrinth of magic #alibaba saluja #ren hakuryuu #fanfic #reincarnation #alternate universe #i want death #i used to love them so much wow #i wanted to continue this but n o pe #fell out of the fandom #hopefully i could get back in #someday #edit jan 2021 hello rebranding???#written by ricane #also lmao i never did get back into magi wbk

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moonsandstar-s · 7 years

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The Final Warning - Epilogue

Epilogue - Taking Wing Summary: As the year draws to a close, peace has finally dawned. The time for unity has arrived. In the Vytal festival, it is time for heroes to rise, bringing glory to their kingdoms. But as autumn dies, the first winds of winter blow over Remnant, chilling the hearts of the people; breathing doubt into their souls. Long-buried secrets will triumph, and every action will have a consequence. Ruby must reconcile herself with her own fate. Weiss struggles to escape her legacy. Blake cannot erase memories. Yang’s search leads her into more peril than ever— but none of them can outrun fate. Shadows turn on shadows, and bonds shatter as they are tested to the limit. For in dividing them, they will fall and burn; at the eye of the storm, no peace lasts forever. In the end and beginning of time, there is a place where the sun never rises, and the dead delight to teach the living. A great danger is rising from the darkness. It’s time to take sides. The final warning is coming. The first chill of winter is the most deadly; it is the chill that kills more than any other. The first betrayal is the most damaging; it is the act that shatters bonds of love and trust, crushing even the strongest heart, tearing teams apart. AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7745314/chapters/24243870 Qrow Ruby’s journey had taken him on a very roundabout path— crossing over the ocean away from Patch, winding all throughout Vale, taking a wide detour past the school and the city, which he welcomed, and finally sailing over the sea to Mistral, where she had walked for three days with her friends before three more had joined them— his niece, her partner, and Vincent’s daughter. He had been surprised at that, and then almost pleased— no one he knew had the gall to escape the clutches of the tyrannical Vincent, but maybe, Weiss had broken that cycle with her own escape.

The girl, Blake, who he had found out had run away after the Fall, was back with them again; that pleased him. A team was always better off together, and he knew that— with team RWBY united once more— maybe, just maybe, the cycle of a broken team had been ended. And lastly, Yang had lost her gaunt, haunted look, and she even had something else that surprised him… she had gotten a prosthetic arm. He recognized the logo of the prosthetic that she had donned— the golden joint, imbued with fire Dust and linked to her Aura— it was stamped with the sign of Atlas, and the General. He knew that Ironwood must have taken pity on his niece and given it to her, and for that, he was grateful.

Three more Huntresses had joined Ruby’s journey; Yang, Blake, and Weiss, and he wondered if Tai knew about it, too— wondered if he knew that his daughters were back together again.

If he continued following them all the way to Haven Academy, he’d have a mission again, and he could make sure that no more harm came to Ruby, who he had come to love as a daughter. This wasn’t a mission that Ozpin had given to him; it was one he had undertaken by himself, and there was a freeing exhilaration in it. He almost felt like he could breathe easy again.

Qrow stood on the cliffside as he watched them talking before they set off once more, wind raking through his hair and sending it rippling back, teasing the hairs apart and putting them back together in new ways. It was a beautiful sunset in the west, the sun drawing below the mountains and turning the clouds into a rainbow of golds, violets, and flames. Above his head, the sky was a slowly darkening sapphire, and he let out a long, low breath. The trees whispered together in a secret language, their branches clattering together as the wind picked up, the clouds whipping past as if pulled by on a silken thread.

It was just the kind of day that Summer Rose would have been playing with her children on, ten or so years ago, before she had died. It would have been the type of day that Qrow had looked up at the stars, from wherever he had been on one of his missions, and counted the days until he would see Ozpin again to deliver the report of his findings, and maybe to make him smile, even once.

It was the type of day that Cinder and Salem had tried to destroy, and failed, because Remnant was safe now, safe for today and all the days to come. The Maiden powers were safe, out there in their new host, and they would blossom again when it came time for autumn to rise once more. He could taste the faintest hint of spring on the breeze as the sun went down, a sharp, bittersweet taste. Autumn was behind them, and winter was falling away as new life flooded Remnant.

He pulled out the cane from its holder on the small of his back, running a scarred hand along its length, and he was surprised at the uprush of grief that flooded his veins. It reminded Qrow of how fiercely he— he, of all Huntsmen!— had cared for the old headmaster. They had not been particularly close, not in the way partners were close, or siblings, or lovers, but they had shared something regardless. More than colleagues, more than a mentor and apprentice, more than a Huntsmen under the charge of another; less than partners. But something, and for now, that was good enough. Ozpin’s ghostly aura still hung around the cane, of course, because it had been the last object in his hands before he’d died, and Qrow’s grief subsided into the emotion that clung to it: a calm, content certainty.

As Qrow was readying himself to put it back within the holder, he accidentally levered down the trigger on the top of it. The top of the cane, a silvery knob, twisted and popped off, and he stiffened, wondering if he had broken it in some fashion, before he remembered the cane— like Ozpin— had many, many hidden depths and abilities.

There was a small slip of paper tucked inside in the handle, written in his gentle, sloping handwriting. Qrow looked at it, his mouth slightly agape as he did so, feeling as though the breath had been punched out of his lungs, before the words sank in— almost as if Ozpin himself had breathed them aloud. Qrow could almost hear his voice in the whisper of the wind that curled around his head, pushing back his hair and bringing the warmth of spring with it.

Begin again.

And, impossibly, he smiled.

Yang

Yang exchanged a glance with Blake as they both leaned against a tree, just out of earshot of Jaune, Ren, and Nora. Weiss had gone into the woods with Ruby some time ago, and they were waiting for the two of them to return.

“Do you think they’ve reconciled by now, or…”

One of Blake’s ears flicked, and she looked into the woods with a faintly worried expression. “I can imagine they’ve got a lot to talk about. Ruby’s fundamentally changed, and I can’t see Weiss not being somewhat troubled by it, whereas you and I… well, the changes weren’t so drastic, nor did they remove us so far from what we all knew and loved. At least I’m not the descendant of a huge power… and the same goes for you.” Blake let out a quiet sigh, leaning over and resting her chin on Yang’s shoulder, her nose tickling her neck. “Yang?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Yang let out a little noise of surprise. “What for?”

“Everything,” Blake murmured. “Without you, I— I don’t know where I’d be. Lost, probably. And Adam would still be out there… none of this would have been resolved without you, Yang. None of it would have happened. If you hadn’t gone to get Weiss, to pursue me, to bind these teams back together again, and to give me the courage to chase Adam from this world… nothing would be solved, if you hadn’t done it. It all culminated into one grand event. And here we are now, even after we’ve weathered the storm and come out damaged… we’re alive. We’re all still together. And ultimately, I don’t think we could have asked for more.”

“Ruby’s always been the one to believe in fairytales and neat, happy endings,” Yang said with a sigh. “I used to, once— once upon a time, even. But… I don’t think I believe in fairytales anymore. Not after my mother, and Adam, and losing you… even if some of those things have been resolved, they leave their mark on you forever. Hearts are breakable things, Blake, and they never get put back together in the same way.”

“But life isn’t a fairytale,” Blake said. “Never has been, and it never will be… but somehow, happy endings do exist in real life. And so do heroes and monsters, the light and the dark.”

“Do you think so?”

“You’re the hero,” Blake told her, voice ringing with certainty. “You’re the hero who defeated every impossible odd that weighed her down. You’re the hero who escaped her own dark. You’re the light who found equilibrium and overcame the darkness. You were even the monster, once, in your own mind, and you changed yourself through force of will. You’re not a fire that blazes to kill anymore, but you are still the same fire that defines your soul. The warmth, strength, and passion. You aren’t the hero because you fight for what is right. You’re the hero because you follow your heart, and you do everything and anything to keep the ones you love safe, even at the cost of your own life. Morality doesn’t make someone a savior… but courage, bravery, and love, do. You are every bit the hero you claim you are not, and I will stand by that until the day I die.

“Our story isn’t a fairytale. It’s that we made each other better— that in the grand scheme of the stars and worlds and destinies, we found each other, and we held on to each other, no matter what tried to pull us apart. Destiny isn’t a path that one follows blindly. It’s always a choice, and we chose each other, Yang. Love isn’t something you feel, really. It’s something you do, every day— in healing someone, in standing by their side, in never giving up, no matter how much it seems like the ending will be an unhappy one. Ultimately, if you work and try hard enough, you can change your own destiny to a better one. This is a story of Belladonnas and Xiao Longs and Roses and Schnees, Valkyries and Arcs and the Nikos… and it’s a story we’ll never forget, not in this life, or all the lives to come.”

Yang stiffened in her embrace, overcome, her heart brimming with emotion, and Blake’s face— so familiar, so beautiful— filled with worry. “Was I… I’m sorry. Was that right?”

“Sometimes I wonder how I’m lucky enough to have known you,” Yang whispered, still overcome, her voice wobbling. She ran her hands down the sides of Blake’s face, marveling at her, and then placed her hands on the place where her shirt covered her abdomen. There was still a raised ridge of flesh there, a scar from Adam. They both had scars now, another bond linking them from the same trauma. But now, they were healed. “You’re a hero, too. Just in different ways. The girl who helped the White Fang lose a monster, who chose her own fate, who loved her team, who stood by her heart. The girl who saved me.”

She smiled and leaned in to kiss her, tilting her head sideways. “I’m in love with you, Blake Belladonna,” she whispered against the warmth of her lips. “If it’s really destiny that puts us where we are, then I think destiny… I don’t think endings can always be perfect, but this one feels… happier, somehow. I love you. I love you more than anything.” She drew back, catching her breath, before a smile crossed her face. “And in the fairytales, wouldn’t this be where we ride off into our own sunset?”

“A sunrise,” Blake said. “Not an ending, but a beginning.”

Blake leaned forward this time, kissing her under the brisk breeze with the hint of spring and new life, under the flawless blue sky, and the mountains and their future that waited in the distance.

She kissed her, and it felt like coming home.

“I wanted to get us together for a reason,” Ruby said, looking up from where she stared at the ground, her expression troubled as the wind blew her hair to the side. “We need to talk.”

They were gathered in a circle, at the edge of the trees. Clouds were rolling in from the east, and rain misted the mountains in the distant, the air wet with the heaviness of a dawning storm. Ren and Nora looked somber, faces gray in the darkening light, and Jaune and Weiss seemed concerned, but Yang knew what was coming; Ruby had the ‘I’m going to make a speech’ face, one that was very familiar to her, ever since her little sister knew how to talk.

“We’re all in this quest together, and nothing short of the apocalypse is going to stop us,” Ruby told them, meeting each of their gazes in turn. Her face looked older, and there was a faraway expression in her eyes, something wise beyond her years. She didn’t look like a fifteen year old anymore. She was even speaking differently, measuring her words— she had grown into her role, grown up, but at a terrible cost. “I think we all know that nothing’s going to be perfect from now on. But— we can’t be divided any longer. I think that played a major role in what happened a few weeks ago, and that’s how Cinder… that’s how she was able to betray us. She figured out all of our weakness, and exploited them. There’s been a lot of divisions among all of us, since the very beginning— with jealousy or rivalries or simple misunderstandings.

“So that’s why we’re going to end those right here before we continue on. We’re going to do something we should have done before we all lost someone we loved. We’re going to figure each other out. We have to become a real team, to join together on this, or we will fail. And if we fail, we lose our one chance to find out why this disaster happened, and how we can prevent it from happening again. We lose the chance to bring justice to Penny’s death, and Pyrrha’s, and all the others who died because of Cinder. So let’s settle our differences right now.

“Let’s start with the basics. My name is Ruby Rose. I’m fifteen, going on sixteen. I’m the daughter of Summer Rose and Taiyang Xiao Long. I’m Yang’s sister, Weiss’s partner, and the leader of team RWBY. And I’m leading this journey to make sure nothing like this ever happens again, and even to make sure Pyrrha and Penny don’t get forgotten.” She shivered, and a shadow of the younger girl she was only a year ago crossed her face. “I was born in Patch. My mom died when I was only a kid. That’s part of the reason I’m coming on this journey, because I know she’d want me to. And I’m coming because Emerald, who I thought was my friend, betrayed me. I want to know why, what she could possibly have gained from it. More than that… about a month and a week ago, my uncle told that I’m different— that I’m the descendant of the silver-eyed warriors. I have a power I know nothing about, but I do know that I have to live with it. And no matter what, I’m not letting anything break up my team and my friends again. And finally, I want to say that I am honestly glad to have met you— all of you.” She gave a tentative smile to the solemn group. “Anyways, that’s me. Who’s next?”

Jaune shifted his shoulders, before glancing around the group and clearing his throat. “I guess I’ll go— is that okay?”

Ruby nodded, giving him an encouraging look. Yang noticed that she had her hand in Weiss’s, and she turned her face away to hide a smile.

“I’m Jaune,” he said, sounding slightly awkward. “I, uh, I have a mom, a dad, and seven sisters.”

“Someone’s parents were getting busy,” Yang muttered, earning herself a reproving smack from Blake, and a snort from Jaune.

“My mom and dad are great, really,” he went on, “and so are my sisters. I love them to pieces— but they don’t understand what it means to be a Huntsmen, not really… and I think I do, now. I think I finally get it. It’s not about how strong, or ‘macho’, or aggressive you are; it’s about what you’re made of, mercy and the sense of duty, and being charged with protection of humans. And my family didn’t know I was coming with you guys, but that’s probably best. This could get dangerous. But I’m coming anyways because I want answers, too, and it’s what— it’s what Pyrrha would’ve wanted. I snuck into Beacon, as you know. It was a bad thing to do, probably, and I shouldn’t have, but if hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met any of you. I wouldn’t have found new family in Ren and Nora, I wouldn’t have become friends with Ruby, and I…” Grief clouded his gaze. “I wouldn’t have met Pyrrha. And I’m grateful to have met all of you.” He looked around, new confidence in his eyes. “Even if we’ve all lost a lot, it’s worth it, I think, to have known you guys.”

“Is there anything you regret?” Ruby asked, the selfsame grief glimmering in her eyes.

His gaze dropped. “Of course,” he said, before he looked up. “I regret being so pushy towards you, Weiss, and I’m sorry for that. I wish I had gotten to know Pyrrha sooner than I did. I wish I had seen the signs that she was suffering before the very end. And I’m sorry for everything that happened with Cardin and his team, back at the very beginning, before all of this was set into motion… but I think that’s all, though.”

Ruby nodded. “That��s right. Thank you, Jaune, that was good. Who’s next?”

The group was quiet for a moment, before Nora bobbed her head, stepping forward and scanning the group.

“I’m Nora,” she said, perhaps a bit less chipper than she would have been moments before. “Um, if we were talking about family first… well… I never knew my parents, not really. I’m me, first and foremost, and Ren’s partner. I’m joining you guys because it’s the right thing to do, and because I lost a teammate, too, and if there’s anything I can do make her— her death— mean something, it’s to help you guys out. And I want to thank Ruby for coming along with us.” She smiled in Ruby’s direction. “I can’t begin to imagine how hard this is on you, Ruby. If I lost my team and family and friends and partner and then got news I was super-special… I think you’re handling it amazingly, and I’m proud to be following behind you. You’re a good Huntress and an even better friend, and I can’t think of anyone who’d be better to lead this journey.”

Ruby looked surprised. “I— thank you, Nora. That’s really nice of you.”

She nodded, looking down thoughtfully, ginger hair falling in front of her eyes. “And about regrets, huh… well, I’m just kinda here. I know I’ve messed around a lot in the past, but it’s time to get serious, isn’t it? I don’t think any of us saw this kind of thing coming… it’s crazy to think that only two months ago the worst thing that could happen was losing the Vytal tournament, cause that was the worst thing I could think of, and now it’s just really weird how—” She broke off as Ren gave a little cough. “Sorry. I’m rambling. But I wouldn’t be coming if I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. So I’m sticking with you guys till the very end, you can be sure of that!”

Ruby gave the first real smile Yang had seen on her in weeks, though it was watery, and her eyes— those bright silver eyes— were still touched with grief. “And we’re happy to have you along.”

This time, no one moved forward to speak up, and Ruby’s eyes flitted over the group before landing on Weiss. “Weiss, why don’t you go next?”

Her blue eyes looked a little startled, but she didn’t let out a protest, a sure sign of how drastically the dynamics between all of them had changed. Only a few months ago she would have argued, but now she merely ducked her head in acceptance.

“I’m Weiss, if any of you brainless dunderheads hadn’t picked up on that yet.” Her eyes flashed with a bit of her old spirit, and all of them grinned at her words. “I’m heiress to the Schnee Dust Company— for now, anyways, though I’m sure my father will fix that now that I’ve gone and run off on him… but I did it for Yang and for team, and I don’t regret it. Not at all.”

“Without you, I wouldn’t be here,” Yang told her, and Weiss flashed her a grateful glance.

“I’m sister to Winter Schnee, daughter of Ivana and Vincent. I’m partners with Ruby. And I came to Beacon for the same reason that I left Atlas and I’m journeying with the six of you now: I want answers, and moreover, I want to make my own future, one outside of being born into fame and fortune. I’m more than just a bloodline and money, and it’s high time I stepped outside of that and made my own path.” She shuffled her feet on the leaves. “I escaped Atlas because of a sense of owing something to all of you, and to those whom we have lost. I can promise that as long as there is breath in my body, I will seek justice for what happened. For Pyrrha, for Penny, for everyone we’ve lost, and for all the spirits that Cinder crushed.” Her eyes flickered to Blake and Yang. “And because she hurt my team and friends, and you have to go through me to get to them. And… I’m grateful we didn’t lose more.”

Ruby’s knuckles whitened as she gripped Weiss’s hand harder. “Thank you,” she said, her voice choked and constricted, and the heiress gave a brief nod, her own eyes overly bright with emotion.

“I’ll go next, I suppose,” Ren said quietly, coughing to clear his throat before looking up at the pattern of branches framed across the sky, his face weary. “My name, as you know, is Lie Ren, though I go by my surname only…”

“To stop jokes about how he’s not Truth Ren,” Nora piped up, eliciting a small hum of laughter from the group.

Ren’s gaze flickered with fondness as he glanced at Nora. “I suppose that, yes, I am not one for speeches, or for shows of emotion… I believe words should be saved for those whom you hold dear. And Pyrrha deserves that. She was my teammate, but more importantly, she was the pillar of our team, and now we must learn to stand strong in her absence. I was honored to have called her my teammate as long as I did, nor will I ever forget her quiet courage and her unwavering strength. She was a true Huntress, and she was— is— an example we all should look up to, in our darkest times and in our lightest. In our hearts, she will achieve immortality. In our memories, but not in passing, she will live on. We won’t forget.”

They all nodded as one, and Yang bit her lip hard, grief filling her stomach like dark, cold water.

“As I have said,” Ren continued, “this journey will undoubtedly hold peril for all of us, and we may not find answers at all. But we must try, for her sake. And I…” He glanced around, at Blake and Yang and Weiss, at Ruby and Jaune, and finally at Nora. “Selfish though it may be, I am eternally grateful that we didn’t lose more than we already have. That is all.”

Ruby nodded, closing her eyes briefly before Yang reached out, touching her with her good arm. “I’ll go, little sister,” she said quietly.

Ruby squeezed her hand and smiled. “Thanks, Yang.”

“Well,” she said, her voice seeming to echo loudly in the clearing. “I’m Yang, Yang Xiao Long. I’m the daughter of Taiyang Xiao Long and Raven Branwen… but you probably guessed already, unless you’re an idiot, because me and Ruby aren’t exactly the spitting image of each other.” She felt her tension melt away as everyone laughed at that.

“I’m coming with you guys because I owe it to you,” she continued, “and to Ruby, really. She’s still my baby sister, and I still have to be there to protect her, even if she’s not a little baby anymore, and virtually untouchable by the Grimm— there’s still a lot I have to make up to her. And… I guess… after all that happened, I shut down for a little while. I felt like everything I knew, everything I loved, had been just… snatched away. I had nothing, no one. Beacon was gone, Vale was in ruins. My dad fell back into depression after Ruby left for Haven. Qrow left the very same day. Blake had run away… Weiss was gone… Ruby had vanished… Pyrrha and Penny were dead… I had no one, really. Then Sun helped me get back on my feet; he explained to me, helped me realize that it wasn’t all about me anymore, and it couldn’t be, because no one was going to come back. Not unless I took action myself. Fate works in funny ways, but I’ve come to realize that nothing is just going to come to you, no matter how hard you wish and pray— you’ve got to make it happen yourself. You have to take charge. And to find them— I had to do it myself. So I left home the next day and went after Weiss, I was healed with the help of the General, and Weiss and I tracked down and found Blake before we all headed after Ruby… and here we are now.

“I want to say that things can go back to the way they were. But I know they never will. We’ve all been changed for good. And I regret a lot, too. I regret the loss of my arm,” she said, feeling as though she’d swallowed thorns. “But I’m luckier than most to be able to have the use of it again… and I’m so lucky I wasn’t killed. I regret not being there for Ruby in the first weeks we were back home after the fall of Beacon. I regret that I couldn’t save Blake when… when the past came after her. I know this journey has changed me. But sometimes… I don’t think it’s changed me in the way I wanted. I’ve lost so many pieces of who I am along the way, that every day, I’m afraid I won’t recognize who I am when I wake up. I don’t think any of this could possibly have been for the greater good.” Her voice choked up, and she looked at her feet, not seeing the grass, but an impossibly endless tunnel of uncertainty and fear. “And I still have no idea what I’m going to do. lost so much more than just my arm the night Beacon fell… I lost who I was.”

“You’re still Yang,” Weiss said, her voice soft. “You’re still you. We all know who you are. You’re our pillar—”

Nora chimed in next. “— our firecracker—”

“— still our best fighter!”

“— you’re one of the most caring people,” Ren interjected, followed by Jaune, “and you’re really smart—”

“—and ultimately, you’ve changed for the better,” Ruby finished, her expression fond. “You’ve changed, sure, but if we never changed at all, never learned from what we’d been through, we’d stay stuck in the past— stuck, while life moved forward without us. We’d never get to see what we might grow into, shaped by our experiences, both the good and the bad. You’re not as headstrong or reckless, but isn’t that good? I think you’ve found your purpose. Not to be a Huntress, maybe, because you never truly had your heart set on that— but to help, to help Remnant, with your story and your experience. You don’t have to figure it all out right now. You can do it along the way, and we’ll be by your side for every step.

Yang smiled, a watery smile as she felt Blake’s hand slip into hers, before looking around at them all. “Thank you,” she managed, “truly, all of you. I’m… at least I have you guys. And even if I regret a lot of things, I don’t regret being here now, and… I’m ready for whatever gets thrown at us.” She looked around hesitantly. “And if I’ve learned anything from all of this, it’s that we’re always stronger together. When we’re apart, we are weak… but united, we stand tall. So we’ve got to put aside our troubles and work as a team.”

“Alright,” Ruby said, giving her a quick hug before drawing away and looking at the one remaining member who had not spoken. “Blake? Do you want to go?”

“I don’t think I have a choice, seeing as the rest of you have already gone.” Blake gave a faint smile before her face grew somber.

“I’m Blake, Blake Belladonna, daughter of Brian and Maria, ex-member of the White Fang, niece of Khione, ex-lieutanent of Ayran, and the former partner of Adam.” Her voice jumped, as if it had skipped a groove. “I'm so many titles - maybe too many. I've realized those don’t define me, but what does is that I am part of team RWBY, a Huntress, Yang’s partner, Ruby and Weiss’s teammate, and… their family.” She looked towards the darkening sky, and the stars, slowly coming out one by one, were reflected in the deep amber of her eyes. “One month and two weeks ago, I watched Yang nearly die in front of me. And, in my turn, I killed the one who hurt her. Ruby, you’ve taken three lives and watched two others die… I’ve taken two, and watched countless faces die on that night. A nameless child, an ex-partner, schoolmates and peers… and that death and the actions we have taken in the face of it is something we both have in common, and it is a demon we shall both have to grapple with for the duration of our lives.” She inclined her head towards Ruby. “We both killed people the night Beacon fell… but maybe it’s better to remember that without our actions, more people would have been hurt. Death is never a good thing, but some deaths, I’ve come to learn, are necessary if it means protecting the ones you love.”

She frowned, her ears lowering as the wind picked up, wreathing around the silent group. Above their heads, a dark shadow danced through the clouds and dying sun and starlight, and Yang knew it was Qrow. She hoped that he knew she had forgiven him, despite everything her mother had done, and despite how the things he himself had done, and she looked up. The crow soared in a spiraling circle, and as it let out a cry into the night, she smiled, recognizing the rasp of his voice within it.

“All of us suffered terribly on the night Beacon fell,” Blake went on, drawing Yang’s attention back to her. “None of us escaped harm. In a way, the past came back to sting us where it hurt the most. All of us were hurt in some way… mental or physical, but that doesn’t matter, because in any and all ways, damage is done, and the injury is equal. Attributing one or the other to a greater strife only continues to divide us. All of you were hurt, and all of you suffered… but I’m the only one who ran away and didn’t have the courage to confront it. In a way, that makes me a coward, but in another way, it attests to a lesson that I’ve learned from. I grew up in a place that was never stable, and running away was the only thing I ever really knew— it was the only thing that I could count on. By running, I could keep myself safe, but I could purge my own presence from places that would be damaged by it. But I’ve learned another lesson from all of this: running away might seem like the better solution, but a Huntress should never abandon what she has come to know. Courage and loyalty are hallmarks of a better soul, and they’re the signs of one who isn’t a coward. Running away was shortsighted and selfish… my presence might have brought strife, but I didn’t know that my friends— my family— were willing to risk that. They were more than willing to suffer and take on that burden and by running, I hurt them far more than staying would have… and I’m sorry.” Her voice became a choked whisper, and Yang bowed her head, a flood of agony and regret squeezing her heart. “I’m so sorry.”

“We forgive you, Blake,” Ruby said, and the sentence was taken up and passed through the group until it sounded like the rush of the wind.

“Thank you,” she whispered, before she closed her eyes. “I will pursue justice as determinedly as all of you, I swear it.” She took a small breath. “I am here, ready to journey with you, because I’m not leaving you again. Meeting all of you was one of the best things in my life. Ruby, you’re like a little sister to me, and you, Weiss, despite our rough start, I can say I am truly, honestly glad to know you. And Yang… you know what you are to me. You’re everything.” She squeezed Yang’s hand, her eyes clouding with regret. “Even you, Jaune, Ren, and Nora. I can think of no one I would rather be making this journey with.”

Ruby nodded at Yang as she let out a quiet cough, letting her speak.

Yang looked at Blake intently. “Is there anything you regret?”

Blake’s eyes dragged back over to her face, a hundred years worth of emotion shining there. “I regret leaving you most of all,” she choked out. “And sending a letter, that’s all. It was so cowardly, I know… I regret not fighting with all I had to keep you safe. I regret everything I did to hurt you— all of you— following the Fall of Beacon. But I will never have remorse for loving you. It was completely selfish and naive and coldhearted of me to leave, and I will never stop regretting it. And leaving you… that didn’t protect you; it hurt you. Adam wanted to scare me. And I let him. But nothing can ever chase me from your side again, not now, and not ever.”

Ruby looked around before bowing her head. “I want to say one more thing. About Pyrrha, I mean. Because she’d be with us right now if she hadn’t sacrificed herself to buy us time.”

Jaune made a small, pained noise, and Nora reached over and took his hand, comfortingly, like a sister.

“I won’t forget her,” Ruby said quietly. “She touched all of our hearts in different ways. Maybe as a teammate and family—” she glanced at Ren and Nora— “Or maybe as something more.” She glanced at Jaune, who looked as if he had been kicked in the chest. “She meant something different to every single one of us. Jaune, she loved you, and I know you loved her, too. Ren, she was your teammate, and Nora, I know she loved you like a sister. Weiss, she was your idol. Blake, to you, she was an advocate for the Faunus’s rights. Yang, she was your friend… to me, she was one of my best friends. A role model, really. I remember her playing games with me, helping me study, encouraging me to keep up even if I was a bit too young to be at Beacon. I know you, Blake, remember how once, Pyrrha stood up for the Faunus.” Blake swallowed, her eyes shimmering. “And you, Yang, remember how she gave you advice, and remember how she spun alongside you and Blake at the dance, laughing. How she would always have courage even when it seemed like there was none. So my point is that— we won’t forget her. And we will make sure she didn’t die in vain.” Ruby looked around at all of them, feeble winter sunlight falling through the stark branches and illuming her face. Yang blinked at her, struck by the sudden, aching realization that her baby sister, the playful girl without a care in the world— whoever she had been— had died up in Beacon Tower with Pyrrha. A new girl, a new leader, had taken her place, and Yang knew who she was.

The silver-eyed warrior.

Ruby was just like Summer Rose. She even looked exactly like her, now; Yang could see it. The choppy fringes of her hair, the light of her eyes, the laugh-creases around them, even the stubborn set of her jaw. Even if no one knew what had happened that night at the summit of the Tower, even if no one knew just what had transpired, it was clear to see that it had been momentous. A new power and understanding shone from Ruby’s eyes, her face, lighting her from the inside out. She’s grown up, Yang thought. We all have. These past weeks have changed us in ways we can’t comprehend, can’t even begin to understand. You’re my little sister, Ruby… but you aren’t little at all anymore, are you? Are you even my sister, the the little Ruby Rose I know so well? You never will be again. I know that now. We’re never going to go on adventures through Patch together again. We’re never going to stay up until the early hours of the morning and read books with flashlights and whisper secrets to each other again. We’ll never watch Zwei go crazy when it storms again. We’ll never bake cookies together or help Dad grade his students’ work from Signal again. Because you’re leaving… leaving me, leaving us. This is your destiny… and it’s taking you down a path no one can venture on but you. This path you’re walking is a lonely one, bathed in blood and pain and fate that’s going to get you killed. But in a way, you’re figuring yourself out, aren’t you? You’ve found a new destiny besides just following me. You’re a Huntress, and you’re a hero. You saved our lives that night. And you didn’t let so much knowledge change you, or harden your heart. And I think that’s the most courageous of all.

“So let’s go and confront what’s waiting for us,” Ruby said, holding out her hand in the center of the group. One by one, they stacked their hands on top of hers, until Yang finally topped it off with her prosthetic, the golden chrome glinting faintly in the falling sun, just like a dying star.

“There’s one thing I want to do before we go,” Ruby said abruptly, drawing away from the group, and she knelt, brushing the grass. “She didn’t— there’s nothing to bury here, but I want to make a memorial for her. Like they made for my mother.”

Yang stiffened with surprise, before she looked down at her little sister with a sad smile. “I think that’s a good idea, Ruby.”

They stood over a rock, carved with her initials, the earth freshly turned, with her circlet laid beneath it. They were loosely arranged in a half-circle, and as they watched silently, wind ruffling the branches that encircled the sky above their heads, Ruby knelt down next to the empty grave and began to speak.

“From dust we came, and to dust we must return. One day the earth will dim; the light in the sun will flicker and die, and the moon will sigh and roll over, keeping her back to the world. Our shadows will say farewell to our bodies, and go their own way in the darkness. But today is not that day. Though we have one less heart than we did yesterday, Though we are one soul lighter, one absence heavier, today we still stand, and fight. But your fight is done with. Shut your eyes on this earth. Place your feet upon the pathway to above, when auras flicker and die, you shall lend us light, whence you return to the stars. Death is not the end. Death is but that one last journey that we all venture on in the end, We bid you farewell, not forever, but until we meet again May you find shelter where you sleep. May the waters run clear and the comforts leap into your arms. May the sun shine down upon you, may the rain fall softly upon your skin, may you find peace. Your battle is over, brave warrior, those who fight in your stead share your blood, your memories, your love, so that your spirit may never die. Hail and farewell, Pyrrha Nikos, Now and forever.

From dust we came, and to dust we must return.”

Her voice broke on the last few words, eyes shining with unspilled tears, and as she stared at the tomb-marker, Yang wondered if she was remembering a very long time ago, when they were both smaller, and they had presided over the same depthless darkness. There had not been a body at Summer Rose’s grave, and there was not a body now… but the grief was still there, sharp as a thorn.

Jaune was shivering violently, tears running down his face. Ruby’s voice wobbled terribly on the last few words. The heavy gray sky, thick with the promise of a storm to come, sent gusts spinning through the air. But behind those clouds lay the sun, and behind the tragedy lay a chance for redemption.

They came forward, one by one, kneeling down by the tomb, whispering a few words. First it was Jaune, kneeling silently before leaning forward and whispering for a long minute; Yang didn’t catch all the words, but it sounded like a poem, followed by some more words, which she didn’t listen to, respecting his privacy. Then Nora came forward to say her goodbyes, her eyes bright with sadness. Then Ren, looking somber, and then Weiss, and Ruby, and Blake, and then Yang, kneeling down by the marker, her chest very tight.

“Bye, Pyrrha,” Yang whispered, her emotion threatening to overcome her. “We— we’ll keep Jaune safe for you. I know you loved him, and we’ll carry on your legacy of warmth and light. I know you wouldn’t want us to mourn too long. You always wanted us to keep moving forward, and to fight for what was right. We’ll never forget you, but we’ll fight on for you. I— thank you for being so nice to me, for talking to me about everything…” Her voice choked up. “You were one of the nicest people I ever knew, and I’m always going to be happy i knew you, even for a little bit. I won’t let anyone forget the sacrifice you made for us.”

She placed her hand, metal glowing with warmth, on the tombstone, lingering for a moment before she, too, drew away and rejoined the group.

“It’s too late to begin traveling again tonight,” Ruby said. “We should all get some sleep, and rest… after today, I think we all need it. Let’s set up camp.”

They found a clearing in the woods, and Yang settled down beside Ruby, helping her stoke up a fire, enjoying the wordless companionship and comfortable silence between them. She passed Ruby a match, and Ruby lit it with a swift stroke, fire blooming to life and painting her face in warm orange.

Ren and Nora peeled off into the woods with their weapons to hunt for the group, and Yang helped Ruby catch the fire-nest with the flame, watching as it built up and began to crackle merrily. Weiss, Blake, and Jaune circled the campfire, setting up everyone’s sleeping bags, and Ruby sat back on her heels, watching the ever-shifting pattern of the fire, her silver eyes gazing deep within it as if it held all the answers she was looking for.

Yang reached out and took her sister’s hand. Ruby gripped it back, before shifting and letting out a quiet sigh, her gaze dropping away from the flames.

“You’re thinking of her,” Yang guessed.

“Yeah, of course I am… but you know what? It doesn’t hurt this time. Not like it hurt before.” Ruby moved one finger through the grass, not appearing angry or anguished, simply sad. “I’m glad we sent her off. I don’t think she’s unhappy. Wherever she is, I know she’s with Mom and Penny, and I know she’s at peace, Yang. I know it.”

Yang shifted closer to her sister, wrapping her up in her embrace, just like they were kids again. Ruby let out a surprised ‘oof’, wiggling to get comfortable before leaning back and hugging her, eyes closing and veiling the silver light that laid beneath. “I’m always going to be here for you, Ruby,” Yang murmured into her sister’s hair. “No matter what.”

Ruby snuggled a little closer, letting out a quiet sigh. “I know.”

An hour later, after dinner was eaten and the bones discarded, sleeping bags shuffled and rearranged, and the fire had sunken down from a merry, crackling blaze to a dimmer red glow, they all settled down to sleep. Ruby stood up, the fire’s light playing over her face, and they all looked up at her.

“Tomorrow, we set off at dawn,” she said. “All of us— together. Just as it should be.” She looked around at all of them, huddled by the campfire— Weiss’s sleeping bag close to her own, Yang and Blake’s nearer to their team and even closer to each other, Ren and Nora looking up at Ruby from their own corner, eyes bright like cats’ in the light, and Jaune’s, near Ruby’s. “Good night.”

The ‘good night’ was taken up and passed around through the group, and they all settled down, their breathing dropping off into a steady rhythm, one by one. By the time the clearing was stone-silent, with only the dull crackle of the fire and the breathing of the other six, Yang sat up, looking around— Weiss, asleep, looking peaceful with her head pillowed on Ruby’s arm. Jaune, eyes closed, curled up besides the remnants of his team, his face still shadowed with pain, but with the promise of healing. Ren and Nora, curled in close to each other. Blake, asleep, her head resting just below Yang’s heart. Ruby, her silver eyes shining in the firelight as she looked over at Yang.

“Good night, Yang,” she whispered, sounding just like they had when they fell asleep in the same room, back when they were kids.

“Good night, Ruby,” Yang echoed, before settling down and curling up, the prosthetic’s glow dimming in the darkness, fading to the dimmest of red auras. She leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss on Blake’s forehead, lips lingering there as she breathed in her scent, letting it lull her like some long-forgotten lullaby, wrapping her close. Blake let out a quiet sigh, shifting closer, and Yang ran one hand down Blake’s cheek, the gold metal gentle on her skin, before she huddled down into her sleeping bag and let sleep claim her.

Tonight, no thoughts of Adam, Raven, or the enemies to taunt her, darkened her dreams.

She woke up to chatter and saw Ren dumping water on the smoldering ashes of the fire as Nora helped Jaune pack up the duffels, while Weiss and Ruby pored over a map and argued good-naturedly about what pass through the mountains they should use. Blake was still asleep, and to Yang’s surprise, she looked— peaceful. Normally, while sleeping, Blake always looked conflicted; torn— before she remembered Adam’s words, in that last fateful dream.

The nightmares darken my sleep now, not hers. For a moment, Yang frowned, before a surge of determination shot through her. Let them come. I am stronger now. I’m ready in a way I wasn’t before. My eyes have been opened, and I’m not blind to what I have and what I can lose.

She shook Blake away and hopped to her feet to help everyone pack up for the long journey that laid in wait ahead of them. When the sun broke over the trees, flooding Mistral ground with rays of gold and rose, Yang took a deep breath, letting life rejuvenate her. The long, cold months were finally over. Spring had arrived at last.

“Are you ready?” Ruby looked back at them all, the wind whipping her hair in a choppy black storm cloud around her head. Her eyes shone in the strengthening light, and they all nodded at her silently— remembering, perhaps, another day long ago when she had led them from the place of the relics to the cliff of the Nevermore. They were more than a team now. They were a family, and with a smile, Ruby leapt down from the knoll she had been standing on and led the way out of the forest, into the light.

“Beacon is already heading up repairs, you know,” Weiss said as they followed her, chattering amongst themselves. “The city is half-finished in the month that we’ve been gone. They’ve had funerals for everyone who died— and all the professors, and some of the students, are working together to help the school get running again. Ironwood sent an enormous fund to help them, and they’ve cleared off all the Grimm from the area, and gotten rid of the giant wyvern. All the academies are working together to get the CCT back up, and they think they’ll have it done within two year’s time.”

“A happy ending,” Blake murmured.

Yang gripped her hand. “Not yet, but we’re getting there.”

“And in honor of those who died,” Jaune said, “and those who were wrongly framed, like you, Yang, they want to hold another Vytal Festival tournament this autumn, to show that we still have hope. That we aren’t afraid to move forward, even if we still remember those we lost in our hearts.” He looked up at the sky, golden sun dappling his face. “We’ll never forget them or what they did… even as the seasons change. We’ll remember, and we’ll learn.” There was some veiled, hidden note in his voice— something intermingled sorrow and a quiet regret— that suggested he was thinking of more than just Pyrrha, but Yang didn’t press him for details. Grief manifested in many different ways, and if this was part of their healing process, it was going to happen sooner or later.

“Hey.” Blake nudged her, tilting her head to the side. “Are you okay?”

Yang leaned over and pressed a kiss to her temple, breathing her in, and Blake leaned closer to her with a smile flickering across her face. “Yeah.” She looked up at the sky, the vast blueness that stretched out endlessly ahead, promising something more. “Yeah… I think I am.”

The Bond soared with happiness, more than Yang had felt in months, and she allowed herself to smile as she followed on after her sister, team, and friends. As they walked on through the melting snow, finally succumbing to spring, she looked up at the sky, flawlessly blue with a biting wind that sang around them. She was surprised to feel that she wasn’t sad, or anxious, or angry. Her team was here, around her, the demons waiting to haunt her could not hurt her any longer, and she had made her peace with those who had left, because the people surrounding her now were the ones that really mattered, in the end. No matters pressed at her mind.

She was content.

I know this isn’t a complete ending yet. Ozpin’s gone, Pyrrha’s dead, and we don’t know why Cinder betrayed us… I don’t know where my mother is, or why Ruby has these powers. But I’ve made my choices… and I think I’m happy now, even if everything’s changed. Even if nothing had ended yet like I thought it would. It’s not a happy ending with all ends tied up, not truly… but it is a better ending. This is just the end of chapter one in the book of our lives. I’m healed… heart and head. Weiss and Ruby are okay together. We haven’t solved everything, but we’ve solved what truly matters. Adam can’t haunt Blake anymore, and now, we get to go out there, and figure out our fates by ourselves. We’ve hit rock-bottom in the past… now, there’s nowhere to go but up. We’ll heal Remnant, day by day… because maybe, just maybe, this was our destiny all along, the seven of us. Not to be fancy Huntsmen and Huntresses, but to go out there, like Qrow said, and see the world and fix it ourselves. Blake can help fix the White Fang’s wrongs, follow her destiny and change the world to a better, kinder place, day by day. I can just go with the flow like I always wanted, never abandoning my team and friends, and helping everyone who needs help at the same time. Blake is with me, and my team is by my side. Things might happen in the future, but we’ll never be parted now. What happened to us at Beacon made us stronger, and I’m never going to leave them again.

And that is how it always will be.

She looked over at Blake, and took her hand, finding solace in her partner as she always had, clinging to her warmth in the dwindling winter. Blake looked over, and she smiled, something filled with more promise and hope than the brilliance of the stars themselves.

Yang let out a breath, filled with hope as the seven of them headed into the light of the rising sun.

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