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mercurygray · 5 years

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Got bit by the dead fandom bug after a couple of gifs of Tobias Menzies’ Brutus came across my dash. We never meet Brutus’ wife on the show - one presumes the scriptwriters were trying to cut for time and budget. Here, I’ve explained her absence by making her live at her father’s house under the excuse that Servilia wouldn’t have tolerated another woman in her house and made a joke about how little she sees him.

His world was spinning, and Marcus Junius Brutus wanted very much for it to stop. To say - no, not even to say, to write such things and post them in the street for every freedman in the world to see! And put his name to them - his name, when he had ever considered himself a friend to Caesar. And that the source of such betrayal should be none but his own mother! What god had he offended recently, to invite such a time as this?

The house seemed to be closing in on him, the walls bearing down as they had been since he had come back from Gaul, less a place of strength and more a prison. What had long been familiar seemed foreign, every wall or shadow a potential place to hide. It was useless - he could not sleep here, not while he knew she would still be awake, still plotting. Who was to say that, taking his rest here, he would not wake to find another snake in his bed?

It was short work to find a cloak, take the back gate out of the garden and go down the lane a ways, the house he entered much more modest and - if he was being honest - almost a little shabby. But the house's master never cared for such things. The doorward turned over in his sleep as Brutus stepped over him, helping himself to the man’s oil lamp and a light from the sacred fire near the door. He knew the way, almost as well as he knew his ancestral home, but he didn’t want to wake the house tripping over some lampstand.

Here was the peristyle, and here the master’s study, and here her room, her maid sleeping at the door. He stepped around the girl and drew back the curtain to go inside. Nothing had changed - a happy thought for a man who’d been away too long. Laying aside the lamp and his cloak, he stripped, carefully setting aside his sandals, toga, and tunic. Her maid wouldn’t be used to caring for a man’s clothes, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to chance her father’s valet.

Who would have ever thought he’d bless the day his mother had declared a house could only have one mistress? He couldn't help if the bed creaked a little as he climbed in, the sheets warm from the body already beneath them, a body that shifted and made room for him, turning her face up to greet him, her eyes still half-closed.

“Hello, my love.”

"How now, who's this?" she murmured as he kissed her. "I think I scarcely know him - or he me, for that matter.”

"Oh, I know you excellent well," he whispered, smiling despite himself. "You are my mistress."

She snorted at his joke. “If I were your mistress, I think I'd see you more."

He buried his nose in her hair, breathing deep. She was still using the same preparation to dress her hair - it smelled of frankincense and clove. "And if you were only my wife, I'd love you less."

“Mmm, that’s fair. But show me how much you love me, then.” She drew his hand over her hips, bringing it down between her legs and against her mound.

But he did not feel like sex, not now, though his body throbbed to be against hers again, his hand stroking her almost as an afterthought. He wanted merely to be with her, to be where he knew who he was, and what he was. He wanted her surety, her strength, her reassuring arm - though perhaps he could do without her certain knowledge that something was wrong. And of course she knew - she always knew. Her hand stopped guiding his, drew it away. "Brutus, what's the matter?"

Oh, where even to start? "It’s nothing."

"If it were nothing, Venus would have had her votary by now."

He thought of the place he had just left, his mother and her guests, their plots and plans and his place in them. If she didn’t know already, she’d know soon enough - was it not her ancestor’s name on the deed? If he told her of it, then it was real, and not some bad dream. "It's...complicated."

She snorted, by now fully awake. "First it’s nothing, and now it’s complicated. We have the time.” She propped herself on an elbow and turned to look at him. “Do you not trust me, Brutus? Have you forgotten who I am?"

Brutus withdrew his hand from between her legs and ran his thumb along a scar on her thigh, a straight line the length of a finger. How could I forget?

It had been late in some party, and Junius Paulonius had been deep in his cups - which might have explained why he had been doing something so foolish as challenging Marcus Porcius Cato on a point of philosophy. They had been speaking of marriage, and the ability of women to keep secrets, since it was well known a woman couldn’t handle a broken dish, much less the pain of torture.

But Cato had looked at his daughter, who sat up, took a knife from the table, and plunged it into her flesh without a second thought, her face fixed like a flint, staring at Paulonius as if daring him to defy that she had done it. The hostess shrieked and one guest fainted, and Paulonius himself looked a little green around the gills, watching the blood bead around the blade, but she had not uttered a sound, not even when she rose, knife still in her flesh, and withdrew, limping, to have a servant attend the wound. "What were you saying about emotional women?" her father had asked, almost amused, and Paulonius, for once all evening, had nothing to say.

He found her later reclining in a bedroom with the knife still in her thigh, a servant carefully wrapping linen around it to stem the bleeding and stabilize the wound.

"Some people might call that foolish." He didn’t know why he’d said it, but it caught her attention, and she looked up, fixing him with eyes that looked like they were used to arguing. (How could she not be, with a father like that!)

"Some people have never had to prove a point," she had replied, her face flashing pain for a moment as the knife came out, her now ripped gown fallen back to better show off the long, clean lines of her leg, the delicate bones of her ankle carefully accentuated by her sandals. She looked like one of those barbarian queens you heard about from the frontier, with the bandage around her thigh like she'd just been in battle.

The servant tucked another pad onto the wound and Brutus watched, mesmerized, as she took the bandage and began fixing it into place herself. "Surely there are other ways of proving it."

She laughed. "None that he would have heard."

“Marcus Junius Brutus,” he offered, remembering his manners.

“Portia Catonis.” She rose and tested her leg, bandage disappearing again beneath the dress. "Thank you for the company." He offered his arm, but she only smiled at it. "I think I can manage." And, bandage firmly in place, she went back to join the party while Brutus watched, amazed and, frankly, aroused.

I'm going to marry that woman, he had told himself, watching her leave.

And he had. His Stoic, fearless Portia, who was never afraid of a hard decision, or a knife, or an action that needed to be seen and heard, whose scars would not let him forget what kind of woman he had married.

"Of course I’ve not forgotten," he replied, his hand still atop her scar. You are my rock, my fortress, my staunchest ally. You are the one I turn to when others turn away - the one I run to when the world is going mad. If I could not speak to you, whom then could I entrust? You are the strongbox in which all my secrets and my heart are kept.

She made some noise of assent and turned over, rearranging sheets until their noses were nearly touching, fully awake now and ready for whatever was at hand. Here he was at home - here he was safe.

"Then tell me, my love, and we will think on it together."

---

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Portia asks Brutus if she has ‘ made strong proof of my constancy, Giving myself a voluntary wound Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience. And not my husband's secrets?” Shakespeare makes it sound like the wound is an old one, but Plutarch tells the story slightly differently, saying that Portia wounded herself when she saw something troubling Brutus and didn’t tell anyone about it to prove that she could suffer in silence. I’ve split the difference and gone an entirely different direction. When I first read Julius Caesar, I seem to remember someone explaining that devotees of the Stoic philosophy would voluntarily wound themselves to show their ability to bear physical pain without complaining. While it makes for a compelling scene, as above, I can’t find any evidence now to back up this explanation.

I’ve also taken a liberty with the meeting described here, as the historic Portia (or Porcia) was Brutus’ cousin, as her father, Marcus Porcius Cato (played on the show by Karl Johnson) was Brutus’ mother’s half brother. Cato was reknowned as a Stoic, and his daughter is often given as a exemplary of that philosophy as well.

What both Shakespeare and classical authors all agree on is that Brutus probably really, really loved his wife and their marriage was an exceptionally good one.

#I have written a thing #Rome HBO #marcus junius brutus

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moonsandstar-s · 8 years

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The Final Warning - Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVII - Shackled to Silver

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/22506284 Ruby

She was drifting alone in darkness, completely alone, save for the faintest golden light shimmering far, far ahead of her. She could remember nothing, not even her name, just that she was… here. Alone. Unbound. Wherever this was, this aimless place, in the peaceful, undulating dark that did not ask anything of her. She just existed, untethered and floating, allowing oblivion to rock her to peace.

But the golden light ahead of her beckoned suddenly, calling her name, forcing her to pause and put her thoughts into actual being. She wasn’t supposed to be here! She was needed elsewhere, and she knew it dimly. She was needed back in the world of light… no, that wasn’t right. She was needed awake. She had a name. She had a body. She was— she was—

The thought escaped her, leaving her frustrated and weak, and she sank back into the calming shadows. Who was she? Why did she need to leave her warm, sheltered darkness?

The light shimmered brighter, as if irritated at such a question. Urgency flooded her, pushing away the engulfing shadows. She knew she had go back, but… the call of the darkness was seductive, promising nothing but inky oblivion. That sounded like a welcome relief, after what had happened. She remembered pain, a pain so intense that it had nearly torn her body to shreds. And she could remember grief so great that it had shattered her heart. She didn’t want to feel that again. She didn’t want to risk that pain.

The faintest shadow of agony fell across her awareness as she looked at the golden light, making her recoil. She wasn’t willing to experience the grief that consciousness brought, and she knew that being in the light could bring hurt. Being awake and aware of yourself could hurt, because you opened yourself up to emotions, and those could be violent and agonizing. Inside and out, in the mind and on the body. She just wanted to succumb to this peaceful, warm blackness.

But it beckoned more insistently, refusing to take no for an answer. She had to go back to the light. Had to go back to being alive. I am Ruby Rose, she thought.

Shrinking inwardly, she reached for the light, bright whiteness enveloping her, her head pulsing with an agonizing pressure, and she

burst back into consciousness like shooting up from the depths of the ocean to the surface, light dazzling her eyes, a throbbing, dull pain spreading through her body as she blinked once, twice, and her surroundings swam into sharp focus.

Fairy lights. Scarlet pillows. Quilted sheets. Sunlight streaming through the window onto golden floorboards. Her head feeling as though someone had driven a railroad spike through it. A dusty mirror, reflecting a pale, wan girl with chunks of scarlet, dark hair going every which way. A messy bookshelf lined with Grimm figurines. A chair across from her with a figure, slumped over in fitful sleep. And her mouth, tasting as though something had crawled within it and died.

The latter was the thing to kick her back into full wakefulness, and she opened her mouth once or twice experimentally, grimacing at the taste. At the movement, the pain in her head became more insistent, pushing at the edges of her skull and making her eyes throb, vision going double for a moment. A bright pang of white— no, silver— crossed the edges of her vision, and she let out a tiny groan of pain. It was this that made the figure across from her, sleeping in the chair, jolt upright as if he had been touched with a taser.

“Dad?” she whispered.

“You’re awake!” he yelped, and she shrank back with a flinch.

“Not so loud, please…”

“Right, right, of course. I’m sorry.” He half-fell, half-jumped out of his chair, going to his knees by her side, and looking at her with wide, worried blue eyes. “I just… I can’t believe you’re awake. I was…” She noticed his eyes suddenly fill with tears. “I was so worried, Rubes. We all were.”

She smiled weakly as he gently pushed the hair out from her eyes, his hands infinitely gentle. “I’m okay, Dad.” She studied him, drinking in the unique comfort that only a parent’s presence could bring. The last time she’d seen Tai, he had been bringing them— her whole team— back from Patch, and they had been laughing and talking after leaving Summer’s grave. She’d never imagined reuniting under these circumstances, and tears welled in her eyes, brimming over and streaking silently down her cheeks.

He let out a choked laugh and wiped them away. “Only you would say you were okay after taking a brush with death. Scratch that— not a brush, you smacked right into death, punched it, and came out okay.”

“I know it.” She groaned and settled back against the mound of pillows propping her up. “I feel awful.”

“Anybody would,” he said, looking guarded all of a sudden, “after what happened to you.”

She blinked, casting back in her mind’s eye for the memories of the Fall of Beacon. She remembered watching Penny die, jumping off the side of the airship, hopping onto Torchwick’s, killing him and Neo, seeing how Fox and Neon had died, Yang lying unconscious in the courtyard, kissing Weiss, streaking up the side of the Tower, and then nothing at all, except a dull, static-sort of buzz.

One event stuck out in her mind more than the others, and she felt cold under all the sheets. She looked away from her father, hoping he attributed the sudden flush in her cheeks to fever, or something. She could think about Weiss, and what had happened, later. Another, far more urgent question, pressed on her mind. “Dad… is Yang… is she okay? Is she here?”

His gaze darkened. “She’s… back here, yes. One of your friends was with her on the airship— Sun, I think— and helped her back home, a couple hours after the battle ended. She’s… alive, and conscious, but in what mental state, I… I can’t say. I do know that she’s furious at… at everything, Ruby, and rightly so, with the whole ‘leaving-without-a-word’ thing, since that reopens some old wounds… but you know that already.” It was one of the first times Ruby could recall him voluntarily bringing up Raven, and she absorbed it in a silent, stunned state. They never talked about Yang’s mom. Their family was screwed-up in its own special way, but the family they had now— her, Yang, Tai, and Qrow— was what they held close, and they didn’t bring up the things that had happened in the past. Except, it seemed, now things were all different. Nothing was the same when the world had been spun on its axis, and her reality was twisted into pieces. “Ruby,” Taiyang coaxed, his tone soft with worry, “say something.”

“Why isn’t she in here?” Ruby wavered. “This is our room, we— we share it, and I… is she…?”

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge of her bed. “She asked to be in the guest room,” he murmured. “She won’t talk to me… won’t talk to anyone about what happened to her. She hasn’t spoken in days.”

Ruby’s world spun, and she swayed, feeling her father reach over to steady her. “Oh no,” she mumbled. “Oh, Yang.”

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Taiyang said. “She’s… it’s pretty bad. I’ve… I’ve never seen her like this before.”

“How is she?”

“Angry,” he said, a muscle flickering in his clenched jaw. She got the feeling he was angry— not at his daughters, but at the world itself, really. Angry that he hadn’t been able to save either of the women he loved, and now, he hadn’t been able to protect either of their daughters. “Closed-off. She won’t let anyone go near her. She’s been sitting alone in her room for the past three days.”

Ruby’s eyes bugged out. “I’ve been out that long?”

He nodded. “Three days in which I got absolutely no sleep, I’ll have you know. Not a wink of it.” He gave her a wavering smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “But you’re awake now, which is… more than I’d hoped for, I’ll admit. I love you, Ruby. I was so scared you wouldn’t be the same when you woke, but I’m glad to see you’re fine.”

“And you said Sun brought Yang back here,” Ruby said, fighting off a wave of exhaustion that surged up inside of her. She was determined not to succumb to the seductive promise of rest until she knew what had happened while she was unconscious. “Where did he go?”

“He went back to explore the town around central Patch until they can get him an airship back to Mistral. He said he didn’t want to stay here, not if Yang didn’t want him to, and I don’t blame him. Things have been… tense around the house. It’s all just really— chaotic right now, Rubes. It’s the aftermath of one of the worst attacks in Remnant’s history, next to the Great War… things are going to be messy for a while.”

“Isn’t it always?”

Ruby and Taiyang both looked up as a rough voice broke into their silence. Her eyes widened, sending a fresh bolt of pain through her skull, as she saw that it was her uncle. He leaned against the doorframe, his face looking more haggard than ever, the bags under his eyes very starkly pronounced, the shadow of a beard all along his jawline. “They’re always messy,” he said again. “We should be used to it, shouldn’t we?

He was rolling something between his hands, almost absent-mindedly; Ruby doubted if he was even aware he was doing it. With a jolt of mild surprise, she realized it she recognized it: slender, silver, emblazoned with an curlicued pattern of budding leaves: Ozpin’s cane.

“Where did you—” She began, and then broke off as she saw Qrow and Taiyang exchange a glance that she was very familiar with, having grown up under her uncle’s tutelage and her father’s guidance. Tai and Qrow had both been her parents after Summer’s passing, really, and with Qrow in and out of the house so much, they had developed a nonverbal communication that she’d quickly picked up on. She recognized that look: it was the one that said, How much do we tell her?

“What?” she said, her voice sharp. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, tucking away the cane under his cape with a furrowed look of grief, and straightening up. “Tai, you ought to go check up on Yang. I passed her room. Make sure she eats something, doesn’t matter what, as long as you get something in her. She’s looking gaunt.”

“She hasn’t been eating in days,” Taiyang said, but he obliged, lumbering to his feet. “But I’ll try to feed her. I'll see if I can get her talking. Did you talk to her?"

"She's the last person I'd want to talk to," he replied, his voice heavy, "among some others."

"You're probably right about that." Taiyang's expression shadowed. "I'll go see her."

“Be gentle. Don't press her. She’s taking everything that happened hardest.” There was an undercurrent of despair in his voice, along with an unspoken something that she could see flash in his eyes when he said ‘everything that happened’. “I’ll… talk to Ruby.”

Taiyang flashed him another look— this one was an expression Ruby often saw them exchange, one that said: be careful— before he leaned down, dropping a kiss on the top of her hair before striding out. “I’m glad you’re okay, sweetheart,” he murmured, the relief stark in his voice.

Of course he’s relieved, a needling voice, in the back of her mind, whispered. After Summer, he would be worried.

“I am too,” she said hoarsely.

“I’ll make you some cookies and milk,” he said, tossing the words over his shoulder, before exiting, gently swinging the door shut behind him.

“Hey, little rose,” Qrow murmured, drawing her attention back to him as he walked forward and brought Taiyang’s chair around, sitting in it backward, so that his folded arms rested on the arching back of it. “How are you feeling?”

“Like someone backed over me with a Bullhead, reversed it, and backed over me again,” she croaked. “I ache all over.”

He let out a soft snort of amusement. “At least you haven’t changed after what you did,” he said, red gaze clouding over. “I was worried about that.”

“What?” she said. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He blinked at her, an expression of wariness abruptly erasing the relief on his face. “Do you… what do you remember, Ruby? Tell me everything you can recall from the Fall; don’t leave anything out.”

She shivered, suddenly cold despite the mound of blankets she was buried under. “I… I remember Penny dying in the arena.” A fresh wave of grief swept over her. “I remember killing Torchwick and Neo… and that Fox and Neon died… and Yang’s arm… and— I remember Ironwood’s ship crashing in flames—”

“I wouldn’t worry about him; Ironwood’s alright,” Qrow said with a half-smile that curled crookedly on his face, “if you can believe it. His thick skin saved him. Old Metalskull’s survived worse than a ship crash, and he’s safe— back in Atlas, with the remnants of his military intact there.”

Ruby felt a pang of relief. “I remember�� fighting in the courtyard.” I remember Weiss telling me she loved me, she thought privately, but he didn’t really need to know that, did he? She could think about it later, sort out how, exactly, she felt after everything that had happened. “I remember going up the side of the Tower, and… and…”

With a sudden shock, the static-cloud of fuzziness that had engulfed her mind and blocked out her memories lifted, letting them come back into her mind’s eye in full color, full pain, full sight. They flashed through her mind in quick succession, and she sank back against her pillows, assaulted by what she had forgotten and what she knew she would never, never be able to forget from this point forwards. A mixture of shame, at having forgotten, and sheer misery, swirled through her.

Cinder, her amber eyes alight in triumph. Pyrrha, an arrow protruding from her chest. The world going whiter than a star into supernova…

“What happened, Uncle Qrow?” she demanded. “What happened to them after I—”

Qrow’s gaze lowered and slid away as he saw the look on her face, and that was all the answer Ruby needed. “They’re dead, Ruby,” he said roughly. “Both of them.”

Hot, angry tears welled up on the rims of her eyelids. “I was too late,” she snarled, more furious at herself than anything, but her fury, she knew, was just misery and guilt by another name. “Too late to save Pyrrha. If I had just been quicker, I could have—”

“Don’t say that,” he snapped. “Don’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could have done to make sure everything turned out perfectly. Life doesn’t work out that way. You damn near killed yourself with what you did, Ruby, and you killed Cinder with it. She would have wrought much more havoc if unleashed after she defeated Pyrrha; you kept that from happening, kept even more of your friends from dying if Cinder hadn’t been stopped. You saved Vale, you hear me? No sacrifices on that night were in vain, thanks to you. Not your peers who died, not Pyrrha,” and here let out a pained huff of breath, fingers running across the back of the chair, “and not Ozpin.”

“How?”

The lines on his face more strained and pronounced than ever in the pale winter sunlight, he looked up at her though his ragged hair. “You’ll have to be more specific. How ‘what’, exactly?”

“I remember seeing Cinder k—kill Pyrrha,” she said slowly, taking a shuddering breath, “but I… I can’t remember anything after that, just… the whole world going white, and my head hurting, like it was about to burst…”

“Ah,” he murmured, a bitter smile twisting his lips. “Ah, so you do remember… I was hoping…”

“Hoping what?”

Silver eyes met red, deep pain reflected in both. “It’s a long story, Ruby,” he replied wearily, “a long legend, in fact, and it’s definitely not a pretty little fairytale, once you look at its implications, even if it seems nice enough at first. It’s filled with pain, and uncertainty, and it is a story that connects to you in ways you don’t know yet, ways that have been determining your future since the moment you were born— and ultimately, it’s a story I should have told you a long, long time ago.

“This is the right time, I guess, where it’s all culminated into the unavoidable. It’s a tale that you’ve known bits and pieces of throughout the span of your life, things that have been hinted at to you, but I’ll try to fill in the gaps between those bits of knowledge so it all makes sense, like a puzzle finally being completed. If you want to hear them, that is.” He frowned. “I’ll warn you: once you hear it, your old life, your old worries… those will seem miniscule. You’ll be thrust onto a path that will seem dark, and shadowed, and terrifying… but you have light to get you through it, now. Ruby, you’re strong. Stronger than you give yourself credit before. But everything changed the night Beacon fell, and whether you like it or not, we’ve got to change with it, or we won’t survive.”

“Don’t treat me like a little baby.” She glared at him, annoyed at the grating pain in his voice. “If I lived, as Dad said, ‘smacking into death’, I think I can handle a little story.”

“I see you haven’t lost any of your acid wit,” he said, rising from his chair and meandering towards the window, “that’s good. But it’s not a little story at all. And it doesn’t have a happy ending, not really. The first is a story Ozpin told me, one from a very long time ago.”

“You and Ozpin were close, weren’t you?” she asked. “Did you— I’m sorry, Uncle Qrow. I wasn’t… I didn’t know him very well… but he reminded me of you. He reminded me of you a lot. He was kind, and he was smart. I’ll never forget him for how he encouraged me to succeed.”

“Yes,” Qrow said finally, his voice hoarse. “He wanted you to succeed, Ruby. He was proud of you, in some ways. I think he’d be proud of you now. But he died trying to stop Cinder. I don’t know when the end came for him. But I remember how he would fight like all of the Huntsmen in the world, for what he believed in. That’s how I’ll always remember him.” He stared out the window, his back to her, but she could faintly see his face in the glass, and his eyes closed in pain at her words, hands gripping the windowsill as if he were afraid to fall. Pity engulfed her at his expression. She had only ever seen Qrow look so wrecked, so torn apart by grief, one time many years ago. On the day he had brought back the news about Summer. “I was… close to him. As close as one could be to someone like that.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, uncertain of how to comfort him.

I’ve known— I knew,” he corrected himself, voice ragged, “I knew him a long, long time.” He paused, weighing his next words. “Longer than your parents, even.”

“That’s years and years you’ve known him… at least two decades, right? Is that why you have his cane? To remember?”

He turned to stare at her, his gaze hard— not quite menacing, but something in there let her know that further questions in that direction would not be welcome. “Remembering isn’t always easy,” Qrow said very quietly, “as you’ve just seen. It can be painful to remember. But we always have to learn from memories, you see, and with what’s happened… Ozpin is gone. He sacrificed himself to buy Vale time, just as your friend did. It seems we both have a responsibility: to make sure they aren’t forgotten, or that their sacrifices aren’t taken for granted.”

Ruby flinched. “Tell me the story,” she murmured.

He glanced at her thoughtfully. “When you first applied for Beacon— or rather, when you were ambushed by Torchwick and met Glynda— you met Ozpin, didn’t you? He took you and talked to you, and accepted you to Beacon. Even though you were only fifteen years old, and the strict age to enter was seventeen years old. Glynda was more dubious about it. But Ozpin was eager to let you in. So eager he overruled her immediately without a word of protest. He didn’t have a single qualm about breaking his rules like that, just for some random fifteen year old girl. Isn’t that all correct?”

“Hey, wait a second!” she burst out, sitting bolt upright and ignoring the spike of pain it induced in her head. “How could you possibly know that?”

He grinned broadly at that, the edges of his eyes crinkling. “If you had looked out the window of his office, you’d have seen a sharp-eyed crow listening in on your conversation that night. I heard everything, and I’m sure he knew I was there.”

“You used your semblance to eavesdrop on us,” she accused him, crossing her arms mutinously and sitting back. “That’s—”

“Eavesdrop is such an ugly word, don’t you think?” he mused. “I prefer gather potentially valuable information. That’s much better.”

“That’s four words, Uncle Qrow.”

“Doesn’t matter. In any case, it paid off. He knew I was there, so he laid off easy on you, and gave you entry to the school at fifteen— virtually unheard of around these parts.” He whisked around, cape swirling out behind him, and directed a piercing stare her way. “Regardless of the circumstances, do you truly believe Ozpin let you into the school— a prestigious academy; takes incredible skills to be granted entry— because you beat up a few half-trained goons with faulty guns, and ran off a cowardly thief who would have fled, regardless of whether you were there or not? Or that he let you in— you, a simple fifteen year old girl— simply because you were my niece, and I was listening in?”

“You know, I thought so at first,” she answered honestly, “but now that you’re asking me… no, I don’t think so.”

“You’re right.” He paused, running a hand over the bristles on his chin. “He wouldn’t have accepted you to Beacon, two years below the age-limit as you were, simply because you were somewhat talented with swinging around a scythe and you had a uncle who was pals with the headmaster. He’d have let you finish up at Signal, and then apply to Beacon, if that were the case. So what do you think it was?”

Deciding to let the comment about being somewhat talented slide, she narrowed her eyes in confusion at him. “I— I don’t— I don’t know why. That’s all there was that was noticeable about me, surely…?” There was a realization burning the back of her mind, malleable and unformed, and she did not want to reach for it, terrified of what it might reveal when it shaped into fully-realized form.

“The night you met him,” Qrow said darkly, “he told you something. The very first words, if you would. What were they?”

She frowned, suddenly feeling chilled, and cast back into her memory. Everything about that time was stark, tattooed in her mind forever, because it had been one of best nights of her life. She remembered the headmaster’s kindly face, Glynda looking disapproving, and then with a mild pang of satisfaction, she pulled the words out of memory’s clutch. “He said… he said I had silver eyes. I thought he… well, I don’t know. I guess he was just trying to make conversation.”

Qrow rolled his eyes. “Or because he thought you were odd-looking?”

“You have got to stop guessing my thoughts like that.”

He didn’t look amused. “He didn’t mention them for any trite reason, or because he wanted to make small talk,” Qrow informed her. “He was commenting on them to discreetly let me know that he knew who you were, and whose daughter you were, as well. Oz knew Summer Rose. She was a student there too, after all. He was also caught off-guard— now, that doesn’t happen often, let me tell you. Oz is— was— a hard man to surprise.” He swallowed, his eyes darkening with grief. “I am about to tell you a legend, Ruby, and you have to let me finish it through to its end, no matter how many questions you have. Above all, you have to believe it, every word of it. I swear by anything you hold sacred that nothing I say following these words is anything but the truth.”

“O— okay,” she stammered, startled by the sudden sharp edge of solemnity in his voice.

“You’re special, Ruby,” he said quietly, but his words sounded eerily loud in the silence that followed. “Not special in the ‘daddy-loves-his-little-angel’ sort of way. You’re special in the same way your mom was.”

She blinked at him, puzzled, but mostly— afraid. There was an expression on his face that she’d never seen before, one that mixed equal parts relief and anxiety, fear and grief.

Qrow continued, pacing the room. “Back in the dawn of Remnant, when the world was misty and half-formed, as you know, there was Dust. Man was born from Dust, which you’re also aware of. And out of this mist that covered Remnant, four things emerged, each with a different purpose to which they would work to achieve their means: to create, to destroy, to bring forth light, and to fight back the shadows which constantly threatened Remnant.

“These were four things brimming with the energy of life when Remnant was but an infant world. Can you guess what they were, Ruby?”

“Mankind,” she said slowly, turning the words over in her mouth before she spoke them, “and… and the Faunus also count with mankind, I guess… and Dust… and the Grimm. I don’t know what the fourth is, Uncle.”

“I don’t expect you to know.” He paused, the edge of his mouth curling down in a deep frown. His words had the ring of a tale told many, many times, and she had a striking vision of Ozpin telling him this same story. “So I’ll tell you. Mankind and the Faunus were born to create, with their self-awareness, ingenuity, and endurance. The Grimm were made to destroy everything mankind created, so that humanity would never become arrogant and presume what they made was meant to last forever, and so that they would know how fragile life truly was, and what a gift it was to be able to do what they were able to do. The Grimm also were made so Hunters could come about, but that’s another story for another day. And Dust was made to bring forth light to Remnant. This is why we return to Dust when we die, so our bodies may become part of an unending cycle to light the world.”

“You said there were four,” she said. “Mankind and Faunus were intended to create, Grimm to destroy, Dust to make light, and another— one to ‘fight back the shadows that threatened’. Who was meant to do that?”

“There was a special breed of warrior, different from everything around it— different from man, Grimm, and Dust,” he said softly. “This breed of warrior was different, you see, because it was alike everything else in some way. It owed its connections to the other three from which it had been born alongside. This special breed of warrior had the soul and mercy of mankind and Faunus— had the energy and light of Dust— and the strength and endurance of the Grimm. These warriors were the fourth thing made at the dawn of Remnant, intended to banish the shadows from the world. They were the perfect Hunter, designed to beat back the Grimm and protect that which was good.

“These warriors were all marked by one single, pointed trait: only they had them; only them, and no one else. Anybody with this trait was a warrior.” He looked at her fiercely.

She knew what he was going to say a second before he said it, and with an awful pang, she was not at all surprised as he looked directly at her, and said, “The one thing these warriors all had in common, Ruby, was that they had silver eyes.”

As if in answer, her eyes gave a pulse— not of pain, but of a sudden awareness, as if someone she loved, and had not seen in a very long time, had called her name. A warm glow suffused her body, and as if his words had unlocked something within her, she became sharply aware of several things pulsing inside of her: her soul, her mercy, her energy, her light, her strength, her endurance, and the capability she had to use it to whatever terms she wanted: to darkness, or to light.

“Oh,” she murmured, voice very quiet. "You mean... I... I'm not...?"

“It’s a lot to take in,” he said, “but it’s true. These warriors, you see, were made to kill the Grimm, as you can guess. Because Grimm were soulless creatures of malice, of darkness, drawn to negativity. The warriors were light, with souls, intended to protect mankind and the Faunus.”

“And you think I’m…?” She trailed off faintly, vaguely wiggling a hand to indicate the sheer scope of the thing, and he quirked a smile at her.

“Well, take a look in the mirror, and consider this… you killed a Grimm, larger than the likes of any regular beast, in one blow, and you shattered a woman who was able to kill two of the strongest warriors on Remnant— and you’re here, safe in bed, with the worst to happen to you being a mild headache and a three-day… well, a coma. But you’re alive.” He paused. “You’re alive, Ruby. You walked to the brink of death, and came back… and there are four other people who did not do the same. Were it not for your heritage, we would have lost you. You would be another casualty mark along with your other peers who were murdered, and we would not be having this conversation.”

“I remember it now, really,” she said. “I remember seeing what happened, and a pressure building inside my head, and then white light— it felt like fire, so cold it was hot— just bursting out of my eyes, and then I must have blacked out. I— I don’t remember anything at all after that.”

“Black out you did,” Qrow told her quietly. “I found you amid the rubble at the top of the Tower. Everything up there was shattered, and frost covered it all. The coldness of that light stopped the Grimm’s heart, and it was so devastating in itself that it killed Cinder the moment it touched her. Hell, you almost killed yourself with that blast. Unlocking the power expended so much of your energy that it exhausted all of it, and had to draw on the reserves of your spirit itself. If you’d unleashed even the slightest bit more of the power, you would be dead. I’m not telling you this to scare you, Ruby,” he added gently, forestalling her protestation as she opened her mouth, “but you have to know how big this is. And that you mustn’t underestimate it, or yourself.”

She gaped at him, the importance of his little speech finally clicking. “So I’ve got this power,” she said, her voice slowly increasing in volume, “a huge power, one you and Dad— don’t tell me he doesn’t know; you would’ve told him right off, because my mom had it too— knew about my entire life, and neither of you thought to tell me about it?”

“Ruby—”

“You lied to me my entire life,” she hissed. “My. Entire. Life. You made me think I was someone I wasn’t, and now you’ve only told me the truth when it’s unavoidable. Who does that? What kind of a parent hides that sort of secret from their own child?”

“You aren’t my child by blood,” he said levelly, “regardless of whether I’m a parental figure to you or not. I don’t morally owe you that sort of honesty. If you asked me to prioritize your feelings, or your safety, I would prioritize your safety every time. Believe me when I say this: knowing about your power would not have helped you, Ruby. In the long run, it would have caused you far more hurt than harm. You would have been isolated, separated by the unescapable knowledge that you were fundamentally different than everyone else.”

“You lied, Qrow,” she repeated, her voice cold. “Both you, and my dad.”

“We did,” he said steadily, and somehow that soothed her anger more than protestation or or explanations or excuses would have. “There’s no excuse for it. We lied. And I’m sorry for it, I’m sorry that that’s how things had to go, but they did, and nothing I say or do will change that. But you know now. You know what you are. There’s no other secrets. No other hidden truths. I’ve told you everything— everything I know, everything Tai knows, everything Ozpin told me.”

“Promise?” she whispered.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he replied, and the honesty flickering through his eyes made her believe him more than anything. Suddenly exhausted, she sank back against the pillows, before a sudden thought struck her so fast it felt like she had been brained with Magnhild.

“Where’s my team?”

“Your team,” he said hoarsely, turning around as if he’d been expecting it. An expression of guilt and sadness crossed his face as he inhaled a deep breath, cheeks hollowing out. “I… you shouldn’t worry about it right now. You need to rest, not learn more after everything I’ve just told you—”

“I’m their leader,” she said sharply. “I have a right to know. And it’s more than that. I care about them— so much, Uncle Qrow. Weiss is my partner, I— Yang’s my sister, and Blake’s one of my best friends in this whole world… I can’t not know. I need to know, whether it’s good or bad or—”

“It’s not good news, Ruby,” he whispered.

Her heart sinking, she blinked at him, and with a soft swear, he jammed his hands into his pockets and turned his back to her, unable to look her in the eye. “Vincent Schnee has legally sworn his daughter back into the manor at Atlas,” he said. “She’s gone. She can’t come back, not without breaking the law, and I don’t think that’s something she would dare to do.”

Forcing out the next words, though her heart was shattering in her chest, Ruby asked, “And Blake?”

“That Faunus boy, Sun… he says she vanished after the last of the airships took off from Beacon,” he said. “She disappeared into the wilderness beyond the Tower, and efforts to track her down have proved fruitless. No one’s seen her since.”

“But Yang,” Ruby said desperately, her voice very small, grasping at any shard of hope she could find, “Yang would have… she would have been able to track her down… their Bond… wouldn’t she? We could still…”

Qrow scrubbed his face with both hands, his tired voice emitting from between his fingers. “Yang,” he said quietly, “has shut down her Bond, and she refuses to speak to either me, or your father, about what happened to her three nights ago. Blake, for better or for worse, is gone, and unless she comes back voluntarily, I would advise you to… bid your goodbyes. Without the CCT, there’s no chance of tracking her down, and with the attitude in Vale right now, I’d say we had a better chance of flying to the moon then of reaching her.”

“How is Yang?” Ruby asked, afraid of the answer. “Dad said she’s… not okay. At all.”

“I won’t lie to you. That’s the understatement of the century.” He paused, raking a tired hand through his hair and disheveling it further. “Well, she’s finally reached her breaking point. The toll from being framed at the tournament, being abandoned by both her mother and her partner, losing her arm, losing her fighting style, losing her team, losing her whole world that she was used to all in one strike…” He shook her head. “Tai is losing sleep over it, but what can I say? It’s not unexpected. Everyone’s got a point where they just can’t bounce back. Everyone’s got a tipping point, when it’s too much, and you go over the edge. Nobody is unbreakable. Some of us just break a little more easily than others, that’s all. She’s endured so much— I’m just surprised that this is what it took to make her give up. You can try to talk to her if you want, but… be gentle. She’s not in a good state of mind right now.”

Ruby covered her face with her hands, complete despair and failure making her stomach sink. She felt desperate to return to the darkness of oblivion, where nothing troubled her— not missing teammates or injured sisters or latent powers, but she would never do so again. This was reality, and she had to face it.

She peered up at him through a haze of confusion, fear humming through her whole body. “Qrow…”

He blinked down at her. “Yeah?”

“I— what happens now?”

He looked bemused, and then bewildered, and then simply lost. “I don’t know, Ruby,” he said softly, shaking his head. “I… I really don’t know.”

“I want answers,” she forced out through gritted teeth. “Why Cinder attacked Beacon, why Roman did, why Pyrrha had to die— I need to know, or I’ll never make peace with it. I’ll never be able to make peace with what happened! Emerald and Cinder were my friends, and they betrayed me. I can’t be okay with that without answers and explanations, don’t you get it?”

He inclined his head. “Cinder and her crew— they claimed they were from Haven, if you remember,” he said. “I can’t hold you back anymore, you know, and I wouldn’t want to. You’ve grown. Perhaps, if it is answers you seek, that is where you might find them.” He nodded to her slightly before bowing out of the room, and his last words came in softly, just before the door clicked shut. “I’ll see you out there, Ruby.”

She laid there after he left, her entire body aching from the effects of what her incredible power had done, letting the icy chill run through her veins, numbing her from the inside out. The aftermath had finally sunken in, truly, and for all she had pretended to be okay when Taiyang and Qrow had been around, she wasn’t okay in any sense of the word. She abdicated her sense of calm, letting everything rush through her, all her pain and fear and confusion, relinquished the control and let it crash through her with the force of a tidal wave.

Two of her friends were gone, they were dead, they had been erased entirely, and part of her wished for the same. The entire Fall of Beacon and what had happened afterward had broken her down, bit by bit, piece by piece. Everything she knew was a lie. Her mother wasn’t just her mother, but the wielder of the same power that had almost destroyed Ruby atop the Tower; her sister was not the light sister she knew anymore, but someone calcified in regret; her friends were dead; her team was gone; and she had killed three people remorselessly. There was no such thing as happy endings, not even if you tried as hard as you could, not even if you made up for your wrongs, not even if you redeemed yourself. There was nothing but pain and betrayal and loss, in the end, whether it was caused by fate or destiny or some other power she could barely imagine. Everything she knew and believed had been wrong, had been shattered entirely, every attempt she had undertaken to save those she loved had been a failure seeped in lies, every choice she had made had caused things to grow worse.

There was nothing left to do. All her life, she had always had a path forward, even when things seemed terrible. When her mother had died, Ruby had seen her path as becoming a Huntress. When Yang had been framed, Ruby had known that she had to lead her team with confidence and certainty. When Beacon had begun to fall, Ruby knew she had to try and kill Torchwick. But now, she could see nothing, no options left, no path forward, nothing lying in wait except a deep, unending darkness that promised nothing but pain and fear.

There was nothing left for her here, or Beacon, or anywhere in the whole world. That was abundantly clear. Weiss was someplace Ruby could never reach her, Blake was missing entirely, and Yang was— mentally— somewhere more distant than the stars. Ruby lay there, and let memories overwhelm her, running over her head like waves, and she let the world fade away as she succumbed to the silver that had been coloring her life in ways she had never noticed before.

She creeps down the hallway on barefoot, sticky toes, the floorboards creaking slightly and bending with her weight. She flinches. It’s not far to the kitchen, and once she’s there, she can nab as many of her father’s snickerdoodle cookies as she wants, and abduct them to her and Yang’s room for them to share. Her sister won’t be mad; she’s sure of it. No one can say no to her dad’s baking. She’s just got to make it past the slightly ajar door of her parents’ bedroom—

“We won’t be able to hide it from her forever,” Taiyang’s voice says suddenly, floating out from the door. Ruby freezes in the shadows edging the hallway, pressing her back to the wall, and hopes that he won’t emerge from the room and spot her. “Summer, you know that we won’t. Qrow says it’s only a matter of time, but Ozpin says we’ve got to wait—”

“And since when, pray tell, have Qrow and Ozpin ever agreed on anything, hmm? They’re like an old married couple; they bicker all the time, and you know it. Except they lack the rings and the relationship.”

He sighs heavily, and Ruby leans forward, despite herself, curious as to what they’re talking about. She’s never heard her dad sound so tired— and, for all the world, defeated. He’s usually vibrant, always ready to play a game or tell them a story. “It’s not funny. I’ve never trusted him, but this is something I can’t help but worry about.”

“Him, or Qrow?”

“Either of them. Oz has always been… secretive, to say the least, and Qrow… sometimes I get the idea that he’s content to follow Ozpin’s lead in prioritizing ‘the greater good’ more than he is to look out for the best interests of his family and team.”

“Tai, they’re both good people, despite whatever they do. Remember that. I know you’re worried about her— believe me, I’ve been worried since the day she opened her eyes. I’ve never wanted her to endure what I have, with something she can’t help, that lures her intro trouble like moths to a flame… but really, there’s nothing we can do in the end.” Summer’s voice becomes fierce. “I won’t let my daughter’s memories be marred by us burdening her with what she can barely understand, do you hear me? She has the right to a normal childhood, just as much as Yang does, and I won’t let that be taken away from her, no matter what.”

Ruby surfaced from the memory, her heart beating loud in her chest, memories twining together and connecting and revealing her past in a new, frightening light. She had been marked out, outcast, from the moment she opened her eyes. From the moment she murdered three.

Alone, she thought. I am completely, absolutely alone now.

And so, alone in her room with the wavering winter sunlight striping across her childhood bed, Ruby finally allowed herself to cry.

#Ruby Rose #Summer Rose #Qrow Branwen #Taiyang Xiao Long #whiterose #white rose #Weiss Schnee #Bumbleby #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #Cinder fall #Pyrrha Nikos #my writing #the final warning #RWBY #RWBY V3

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