SAPR

by Scipio Smith


Free Afternoon (New)

Free Afternoon

Pyrrha looked up at the statue that dominated the Beacon courtyard. The beowolf in its cave below snarled into her face, while the huntsman and huntress standing above loomed over her.
She would not claim any great expertise in statuary, but the more she looked at it, the more she felt confirmed in what she had said to Jaune: that these were representations not of two people but rather embodiments of all huntsmen and huntresses, representing the ideals that they should all strive for in this prestigious academy.
Whether or not everyone who walked these halls actually lived up to those ideals was another matter.
Pyrrha headed herself away from such thoughts; it was not for her to cast aspersions on the character of her fellow students. It was not her place, being only a first year student herself, to even consider doing so. There were some people she did not like, but she had no right to claim flawlessness. She was as unsuited to embody the ideals of a huntress as anyone else; everyone here was imperfect, flawed, in need of refinement. That was why they had four years of instruction ahead of them, to make them into that which, at present, they were not: paragons of virtue to shine above all others.
Pyrrha wandered away from the statue, across the lawn that lay in front of the dining hall. It was after lunch on a Friday afternoon, which meant that the courtyard contained more than a few casually dressed students taking advantage of a time without classes, wandering this way or that on their way to somewhere interesting or important. Pyrrha herself sat down in the shade of an oak tree rising above the lawn and took out her scroll.
It was time to call her mother.
She was not particularly looking forward to this. That was why she was out here instead of in the dorm room: she didn't want to speak to her mother in front of Ruby. It was true that in the courtyard there were eyes turning in her direction, but nobody disturbed her privacy, and nobody, as far as Pyrrha could tell, was close to overhear what passed between the two of them.
Pyrrha opened up her scroll and found her mother in her directory.
She swallowed as she pushed the ‘call' button.
There was a pause as she waited for her mother to answer. But eventually she did answer, and the stern face of Lady Nikos, her hair turning grey early, appeared on the screen of Pyrrha's scroll.
Pyrrha bowed her head. "Good evening, Mother," she said, for Mistral was several hours ahead of Vale.
"Good afternoon, Pyrrha," Lady Nikos said, her tone neutral. "So, you have completed your first week of studies at Beacon."
"I have, mother," Pyrrha replied.
"You have been assigned to a team?"
“I… I have," Pyrrha agreed, with a slight hesitation. "Team Sapphire."
Lady Nikos blinked. "Team Sapphire," she repeated. "You are not the leader of your team, then?"
Of course it would come to this. "No, Mother."
"Why not?"
Because I would not wish to be a leader even if I were one. "It seems that Professor Ozpin does not consider me to be the stuff of which leaders are made," Pyrrha said. Which is fine by me.
Lady Nikos did not appear to see it the same way. Her face crinkled with distaste. "And who is this Professor Ozpin and what is his background that he should judge you, scion of the line of Theseus and Juno, to be unfit or ill-suited for leadership?"
"I do not know his background, Mother, but I know him to be the man who saved Vale from the grimm and to be youngest man ever appointed a headmaster of one of the four academies-"
"Over a mere eighty year history," Lady Nikos replied. "Those who were boys and girls when the academies were founded endure in their dotage in the four kingdoms."
"My point, Mother, is that Professor Ozpin's ancestors or lack thereof are irrelevant in the face of the achievements of the man himself," Pyrrha declared. "I have no right to judge him simply because my name is Nikos."
"That your name is Nikos would have assured you a place of leadership at Haven," Lady Nikos informed her.
"Which is one of the reasons I did not wish to attend Haven," Pyrrha replied.
Lady Nikos sighed. "In all places bar the battlefield, you are too swift to retire."
"Perhaps, Mother."
"If you do not lead your team then who does?"
"The name of my team leader is Sunset Shimmer," Pyrrha said.
"And who is she?"
"Sunset is from Atlas," Pyrrha explained. "And has…a commanding manner."
"Is that all you can tell me?"
"I cannot recount her ancestry for you, Mother," Pyrrha sighed. "Ordinary people don't talk of such things casually."
"Hmph," said Lady Nikos. "And your other companions?"
"Jaune Arc and Ruby Rose, both of Vale," Pyrrha said. "All I can tell you of them is that Ruby's mother was a huntress, tragically slain in the service of mankind." Like my father. She decided not to mention that Ruby was only fifteen years old and admitted thanks to the personal intervention of Professor Ozpin; it was the sort of thing that Pyrrha guessed might make her mother jealous.
Lady Nikos' face assumed a solemn mien. "Then like your father, she is to be honoured for her sacrifice, and commended."
"Indeed," Pyrrha murmured.
Lady Nikos paused for a moment. "Are they worthy to stand beside you in battle?"
"They are," Pyrrha declared.
"And yet you stand above them all?"
"I have not been tested against every opponent," Pyrrha replied. She had the distinct impression that in the early combat classes, Professor Goodwitch was creating a hierarchy in her own mind of where the freshmen students stood relative to one another, as benchmarks against which she could measure their progress, or the lack of it, over the course of semesters and years. Thus, Pyrrha had, as yet, only been pitted against rather minor opponents – the likes of Russell Thrush and Sky Lark – whom she had swept aside with ease. More serious opponents such as Weiss Schnee were waiting in the wings.
"Are there any that you fear?"
"There are many strong students this year," Pyrrha replied.
"That is not an answer," Lady Nikos responded.
Pyrrha hesitated for a moment. She did not wish to appear arrogant, but… "No," she said, after a little while. Ruby's sister Yang was strong, but Pyrrha had fought strong opponents in the past; she could beat Yang as she had beaten Arslan. Nora could do her harm if Pyrrha allowed herself to be hit by the other girl's hammer, but she was confident in her ability to avoid getting hit. Blake would be a challenge, but her use of her semblance was not perfect, and Pyrrha believed that so long as she could hold out against her, then Blake would leave her opening to exploit. Weiss, with her versatile glyphs, would be the greatest challenge, and the one that Pyrrha was most looking forward to, but there would be a way for her to win. There always was.
"I am glad to hear it," Lady Nikos said. "Keep me informed of your progress."
"Yes, Mother," Pyrrha agreed.
Lady Nikos stared up at her out of her scroll. "You are… my greatest accomplishment," she said, before hanging up.
Pyrrha looked down at the now blank scroll in her hands. "I love you too, Mother," she whispered.
She put the scroll away as she got up and began to walk back towards the dorm room.


Jaune stood outside of the Team WWSR dorm room, casually but smartly dressed in his best pair of jeans, an orange T-shirt, and…well, okay, it was his school jacket, but it wasn’t as if he had a casual jacket to wear instead.
On the other side of this door waited the girl of his dreams.
Weiss Schnee. From the moment he set eyes on her, he had felt as though there was something drawing them together, something calling to him. Her eyes were as blue as pools of the purest, clearest water, her face was as fair as cream, and her voice… since he found out that she was a well-known figure in the world, he had done a little research – not enough to make it creepy – and when she sang, by God, she had a voice like… well, an angel. When she sang about expectations, about people not seeing you for who you were, about nobody thinking that you could do it and making you feel small…it was like she was speaking into his soul. It was incredible that he’d never come across her music before, because some of her stuff felt like it was the anthem to his life. If that wasn’t proof that they were fated to be together, then what was it?
There was a red string of fate binding them together.
Sure, she wasn’t only beautiful but rich and from a powerful family, but come on, there were lots of stories about the plucky farmboy with a pocket full of dreams winning the heart of the beautiful princess, even if he had to thaw it out first.
That was why he was here. After a gruelling week of training on the rooftop - to no avail, as he seemed to keep getting his ass kicked in Professor Goodwitch’s combat class regardless - Friday afternoon was finally here, and that meant free time! They could do whatever they wanted. Yes, he could do his homework, or he could get dressed and ask the girl of his dreams if she wanted to go down into Vale with him and see the sights.
He wasn’t sure which sights, since he’d never been to Vale before himself, but he was sure that there were some sights to be seen, and if they wandered around long enough, then they would be sure to see them.
He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
He realised after knocking that he had no way of being sure that Weiss would answer the door and not any of her team members, at least one of whom didn’t like him very much.
The door was opened, in point of fact, by Flash Sentry, the guy who Sunset didn’t like very much. The guy Sunset seemed to hate in fact, although he hadn’t seemed so bad to Jaune. He could kick Jaune’s butt in a fight, but that didn’t exactly put him in an exclusive club, unfortunately.
Sure, Sunset really, really didn’t like him, but Sunset could be harsh. She could be nice – look at what she’d done for Ruby over the changing room thing – but she could be harsh too. She was starting to lose patience with him over the whole ‘sucking at combat’ thing. He could tell by the way she looked at him and by the way she spoke to him in the locker room after the matches. He could hear her voice getting even harsher than it already was.
She wasn’t too happy about the fact that he was often tired during class either. It wasn’t his fault that he was tired from training – or trying to train – on the rooftop, and it wasn’t his fault that their teachers couldn’t hold his attention. He wasn’t like Sunset or Pyrrha - he just didn’t find History interesting - and not even Sunset herself found Grimm Studies interesting; she just forced herself to suffer through it, and… he didn’t have the energy left to do that.
All of which meant that he was kind of looking forward to getting away from Sunset for a little bit and spending his free time doing something fun, but which also meant that he wasn’t entirely sure what to think of Flash Sentry.
Flash seemed to know exactly what to think about him, though.
“You need to go,” he said, firmly but not without some anxiety in his voice.
“Go?” Jaune repeated. “But I just got here. Is Weiss around?”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Flash insisted. “Just turn around and walk away while you still can.”
“If you just let me-”
“Who is it out there?” Cardin asked from somewhere inside the dorm room.
“Uh, no one,” Flash replied, trying to push Jaune away.
“You’re spending an awfully long time trying to get rid of no one,” Cardin replied, as he lumbered into view behind Flash. He loomed over both of the smaller boys, casting a shadow over them both as he blocked out the light from the windows. He glared down at Jaune with undisguised distaste. His gaze flickered down to Flash. “What, did you think that I was going to do something to him?”
Flash turned to face him, a shrug upon his shoulders. “It crossed my mind.”
Cardin snorted. “Not with her highness in the bathroom. What do you want, Arc?”
“I…” Jaune swallowed. His throat felt very dry. “I’m here to talk to Weiss.”
Cardin rolled his eyes. “Let me guess, Friday afternoon, free time, and you want to see if she’ll go out with you into the city, am I wrong?”
“No,” Jaune admitted.
Cardin leaned against the doorframe. “You know, I was going to meet my girlfriend in Vale this afternoon. Do you know why I’m not going to meet her this afternoon?”
“Uh-”
“Because I’m stuck serving detention instead thanks to you!” Cardin snapped.
Jaune guessed that pointing out that Cardin was the one who had chosen to shove him into that locker might not be the best idea. “There’s… always tomorrow, I guess?” he ventured.
“Believe me, the fact that there is always tomorrow is the reason I’m not throwing you out of a window right now,” Cardin declared.
“And nobody is more grateful for that than I am, really,” Jaune said quickly. He then hesitated. “Wait, you have a girlfriend?”
“We don’t believe she’s real either!” Russell called from somewhere inside the room.
Cardin growled wordlessly.
“I’m sorry!” Jaune yelped. “I meant to say that you have a girlfriend and that’s great! Congratulations! I’m sure she’s pretty and nice, and you’re deeply in love because that’s what you want, right? That’s what we all want! That’s why I came down here to-”
The bathroom door opened and Weiss emerged, looking as radiant as ever. The light seemed to shine from her silver-white bolero, and it was if he could see sparkles in her hair as though it was bedecked with diamonds.
It kind of was, thanks to the tiara she wore.
“We have a visitor,” Flash informed her, as though he was the doorman. Both he and Cardin stepped back to let Weiss see him more clearly.
“No,” Weiss said, as she walked towards the door.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask!” Jaune protested.
Weiss stopped in the doorway, one hand upon the door itself. “Were you, or were you not, about to ask me out in some fashion? To go into Vale with you, perhaps?”
“Well, yeah, but-”
“No.”
“Why not?” Jaune cried. “You’re not even giving me a chance!”
“You’re right,” Weiss agreed. “I’m not. Because this isn’t a dating service, this is Beacon Academy, and I came here to learn how to fight monsters, not find a boyfriend. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I intend to devote my free time to being the best student, and huntress, I can be.” Her expression allowed itself a degree of cold contempt. “Perhaps you should consider doing the same.”
She shut the door. She didn’t slam it, but she nevertheless shut it very firmly.
Jaune stared at the closed door for a moment. He sighed, his whole body sagging.
She was right. He wasn’t worthy of someone like her. She was so far above him in terms of her talents and ability. If he was to win her hand he needed to work a lot harder, improve a lot more, manifest his inner potential in outer skill, and… and then she’d make time for him.
Only… right now he didn’t have the energy to go back to the dorm room or to the library and work on his essays. He didn’t even have the energy to go back to the roof and keep training.
He just needed something to make him feel better.
And he thought he knew where to go.


According to ‘A History of the Four Academies’, the land on which Beacon Academy was built had once been a royal estate, wide lands on the edge of Vale used for hunting in the forest and fishing in the river, until the King had bestowed it in perpetuity upon the nascent academy for the purposes of building a school there. The only part of the estate not granted to Beacon was a hunting lodge upon the edge of the lands, which was instead given to its elderly caretaker in recognition of his loyal service. It had passed through a few hands since then, until coming into the possession of the retired huntress Benni Haven, who ran it with her husband as a restaurant on the edge of her old alma mater.
Benni Haven's, as it was imaginatively named, still had the look of a hunting lodge, the bucolic log cabin with the incongruous neon sign bolted to the roof looking oddly placed so close to the vast, grandiose academy in whose shadow it dwelt. A sign proclaimed ‘Eat in or Take Out' just outside the door as Sunset walked down the gravel path towards the establishment.
On the one hand, she didn't really feel like going to Vale today; she would need to at some point, possibly, but she wasn't in the mood for it. Not after the kind of prejudice she'd gotten from that guy in the dust shop. If that was the standard of service she could expect in Vale, then she wanted as little to do with it as possible. On the other hand, she didn't want to stay on campus, either. She was starting to get a little fed up with certain members of her team, and putting some distance between them, even if it was only a little way, might do her some good.
And so she approached the door, which was made of nine panes of glass, through which she could see that it was still pretty quiet in here. Sunset pushed the door open. The interior design was rustic, harking back to the building's original purpose: the walls were wood-panelled, and the floor was bare floorboard without a carpet. There was a fake ursa head mounted to the wall above a great stone fireplace. A large picture of four huntresses, dressed for combat and posing with their weapons, hung on the opposite wall, alongside numerous smaller pictures of various different huntsman teams. What was supposed to look like a stuffed beowolf stood by the door, snarling at the patrons as they came through the door.
The sign on the beowolf's plinth said 'Fluffy'.
"Hey there, kid," cried a squirrel faunus in a genial voice, her fluffy tail climbing up her back to poke up over her shoulder as she made her way out from behind the counter on the far side of the room to approach Sunset. "Don't think I've seen you around before. Freshman, or has it taken you this long to find your way here?"
"I'm a new student," Sunset replied.
"Always glad to meet the new kids," the faunus said, as she thrust out her hand. "Benni Haven, glad to meet you."
Sunset took her hand slowly, and with a little reluctance. "Sunset Shimmer."
"Team?"
Sunset blinked. "Team Sapphire."
"Which would make you the leader, huh?" Benni asked. She was a tall woman, with a frame that had retained its muscular physique - or some of it at least - although one of her arms was gone and replaced with a prosthetic. Her head was shaved on both sides, leaving her sandy blonde hair in a central strip running down the middle of her head.
"That's right," Sunset said.
"Congratulations!" Benni said jovially. "You know, if you bring your whole team down here, then you can get a picture taken with Fluffy over here. You get one copy, and I'll put the other on the wall, with the rest of my boys and girls."
Sunset looked at the picture wall – there were so many they were starting to crowd out the wood-panelling – with a little more attention this time. There were a lot of photographs, all of full teams and all of them posing with or around Fluffy the Beowolf, whose snarl seemed almost comical when matched with the smiling faces of the students around him.
"I'll… bear it in mind," Sunset said quietly.
"You'd better. Those smiles don't last forever," Benni said, her tone descending into wistfulness. "And not enough people remember these kids… so I try to." She smiled, although it seemed that there was a slightly forced edge to it now. "Anyway, what can I do you for, Sunset Shimmer? Eating in or taking out?"
"Eating in," Sunset said.
"Well, as you can see, you've beaten the rush, so help yourself to a table, and I'll be right with you," Benni told her, before she turned around and walked back to the counter.
She was right about Sunset being able to help herself to a table: at present, there was only one table in the entire establishment that was actually being occupied, and that by Lyra and Bon Bon, both of Team BLBL, and Dove Bronzewing of Team YRDN. The two girls were sitting across from the lone boy, both of them wearing very sympathetic looks upon their faces as they reached around their ice-cream sundaes towards him.
She could hear them talking before they noticed she was here. “You know,” Dove said. “The owner is only the third faunus I’ve seen since I left home; she’s a lot nicer than Sunset.”
“Every faunus is nicer than Sunset,” Lyra remarked. “It’s not hard.”
Sunset grunted as she made her presence known. "Menage a trois?" she asked.
Lyra looked up at her. "For your information, Sunset, it's perfectly possible for a boy and a girl to be friends with nothing going on."
"And besides," Bon Bon added, "Dove is spoken for, aren't you, Dove?"
Sunset snorted. "If Dove is spoken for then what does she think of you being here with these two?"
Dove didn't appear to find that particularly amusing. He sat with a dark look on his face. "She's gone," he muttered.
"Who?" Sunset asked, because she had nothing better to do.
"Dove's true love," Lyra sighed.
Sunset rolled her eyes. "Seriously?"
"You should hear the way he talks about her," Bon Bon insisted.
"I'll pass on that," Sunset muttered.
"I promised I'd meet her here," Dove said in a maudlin voice. "But she… she didn't wait for me."
"The grimm probably didn't give her much choice in the matter," Sunset said harshly.
"She's not dead!" Bon Bon corrected her. "She's gone. She… left."
"We wanted to help Dove find her, so we spoke to some of the older students," Lyra added. "She wasn't a student, but Team Coffee remembered seeing her around the campus for a while last year. And then, one day, she just… disappeared."
"If she wasn't a student, then she probably got bored hanging around a school and went somewhere else," Sunset said.
"Then why wouldn't she let me know?" Dove demanded.
"Probably because she wasn't nearly as into you as you were into her," Sunset informed him. "It happens, more often than you'd think." She walked away in search of a different table.
Nevertheless, the voices of the other customers carried across the restaurant towards her. Lyra said, "Maybe we should take a look around Vale? We could stick up fliers?"
"Before we do that, Dove, why don't you talk to Professor Ozpin?" Bon Bon suggested. "Maybe he can tell you something about Amber?"
"Perhaps," Dove agreed. "Although…he'd have no reason to tell me if he did."
There was a pause, before Lyra said, "What are you going to do, if you can't find her?"
"Wait," Dove replied. "She'll come back. If our promise means anything to her, then she'll come back. And when she does, she'll find that I've gotten strong enough to keep her safe."
"We all will," Bon Bon agreed.
Sunset snorted disdainfully.
There was another pause. "What is your problem, Sunset?" Lyra demanded.
"Oh, nothing," Sunset said idly. "Just the thought of you three becoming strong enough to protect anyone, as if you're not wasting your time here."
"Don't listen to her, Dove," Lyra insisted. "It's like Professor Goodwitch said, so long as we work hard and keep at it, then we can surpass all the prodigies in our year and become the greatest huntsmen in Beacon."
No, you won't, Sunset thought. I've claimed that spot, and I'm not giving it up.
Especially not to the likes of you.


The back of the dorm room was taken up with the four beds, neatly lined up against the wall, two on either side of the window. On the other side of the room, on either side of the door, were two long desks bolted to the wall where the students could work.
Pyrrha sat at one of those desks, head bent a little so that her teardrop pendants dropped down on either side of her face from her circlet, and tried to get to grips with her Grimm Studies essay. The subject was how to tackle an ursa, with Professor Port having asked that they should describe how to take on multiple of the creatures for extra credit.
The assignment itself was not exceedingly difficult, but it was made a little tricky for Pyrrha by the way that a pair of blue eyes kept flashing before her eyes. That would have been quite enough, but her thoughts kept straying to imagining Jaune arm in arm with Weiss Schnee, and it made her feel a little queasy in the stomach.
It was wrong of her, she knew. Jaune didn't belong to her: he was her partner, not her husband, and she had no claim on him, nor any reason to believe that he would not be happy with Weiss Schnee. She cringed at that particular thought; she was thinking as if the two of them were about to be wed. That was hardly the way of things in Vale, or even in Atlas. Even in Mistral, to be frank, courtships had gotten longer as the modern age wore on and the cultures of the west disseminated eastward. Jaune was – probably, Pyrrha would not pretend to know his thoughts – not looking to settle down with Weiss, merely to have some fun with her.
But he wanted to have fun with Weiss and not with Pyrrha.
She could not help but wonder if this was because he didn't really know who she was. The name of Pyrrha Nikos meant nothing to him, and so… neither did she.
That was probably very unfair on her part.
But it was a thought that she could not escape, all the same.
"Do you think he has his answer yet?" Ruby asked.
Pyrrha looked up and twisted around on her seat to look at her younger, smaller teammate. Unlike Pyrrha, who was casually dressed in a cream sweater and a light pink skirt, Ruby was wearing her huntress outfit; but then, Pyrrha supposed that Ruby's outfit was a lot more suitable for casual wear than Pyrrha's. "Are you talking about Jaune?" she asked.
Ruby nodded. She was sat on her bed, reading a comic. Or she had been, at least. Now she was looking at Pyrrha. "Weiss… hasn't said a single nice thing to him since school started; she just sniffs at him and criticises him. Is that what boys like?"
"I… I'm afraid I'm the wrong person to ask, Ruby," Pyrrha admitted. "My…training regimen hasn't left me with a lot of time for… relationships." That probably sounded a little better than saying that the only boys who had ever tried to get close to her were after her for her name and fame, or at least Pyrrha thought it did.
"Oh," Ruby said. "Right."
Pyrrha frowned, ever so slightly. "Is something wrong, Ruby?"
"No," Ruby said quickly. She hesitated. "Pyrrha, can I ask you something?"
"Of course, Ruby," Pyrrha replied. "What is it?"
"What's it like, being a tournament fighter?" Ruby asked. "I mean, we don't have anything like that here in Vale."
"No, you don't, do you?" Pyrrha agreed. "Atlas does, but as I understand, it's much more low key than it is in Mistral; there isn't the same… media circus attached to it."
"Why is that?"
"Because Mistral is the home of heroic combat," Pyrrha replied. "I'm not trying to say that my people invented heroes, although no doubt, some in Mistral would make that boast, but we gave Remnant the tradition of combat by champion from which, ultimately, the Vytal Festival descends. A small group of fighters, eventually only a single fighter, defending the honour of the school and the kingdom? That is… a very Mistralian thing, or it comes from a very Mistralian tradition, and we have not forgotten it."
Ruby nodded. "So…is it just like Professor Goodwitch's sparring class, all the time?"
Pyrrha chuckled softly as she got up from her seat and wandered over to her bed. She sat down upon it, the mattress crumpling a little beneath her, as she faced Ruby with her elbows resting upon her knees. "I suppose you could say that, in that it is a sequence of one on one duels fought in an arena. But the atmosphere is completely different. The crowds are much larger and nobody – in the audience or in the arena – is there to learn. They're there to win."
"Why?" Ruby asked.
"Why what?" Pyrrha replied.
"I mean, what's the point?" Ruby demanded. "I mean… no offence, Pyrrha, because you're really good. You're absolutely amazing! Nobody's even touched you in sparring class-"
"It's only been a week," Pyrrha said mildly. "Give it time."
"The point is," Ruby said, "is everyone who fights in the Mistral tournaments that good?"
"Not everyone," Pyrrha said softly, "but at the highest level, it is true that all of the best fighters – Arslan, Kurt, Hector, Oceana, Metella – are around my level of skill."
Ruby hesitated, a frown creasing her young face. "So what are they doing it for? Fighting in tournaments, I mean?"
"I… I can't pretend to know all of their hearts," Pyrrha admitted. "Some do it for the prize money, others do it because they enjoy it. All of them, all of us, do it for the glory that accrues to our names as a result of our victories." And that worked out very well for me, didn't it?
Ruby nodded, but she was still frowning. "Doesn't that seem like a waste to you? All these great fighters with awesome skills, and they're, well, they're wasting them fighting one another so that people can watch and have fun."
"You think that they should be fighting the grimm, the enemies of humanity," Pyrrha said softly. She smiled. "Well, you know that I agree with you," she pointed out.
Ruby's eyes widened, and her voice took on a note of panic. "Yes, I know! I wasn't trying to say that you weren't-"
Pyrrha chuckled. "There's no need to panic, Ruby. I know that you meant nothing unkind by it. And you're right, at the end of day, it is all just… empty spectacle. But at the same time, I wouldn't want to speak ill of my fellow competitors, nor would I have the right. When I won my first title and was borne in a chariot through the streets of the city to the Temple of Victory… I'd never felt so… and I must confess there is still a part of me that…" she trailed off.
Ruby leaned forward. "Come on, Pyrrha, you can't stop there!"
Pyrrha hesitated, feeling suddenly very bashful. "When… when I am in the arena, with Miló in one hand and Akoúo̱ in the other and an opponent in front of me I must defeat, then… it's as if my self - my true self - is only born in that moment as I emerge into the ring. Everything else falls away, the rest of the world disappears, and the arena becomes my world. A world that I can live in. I feel as though it's only in combat that I can show who I really am."
"I don't buy it," Ruby said.
Pyrrha blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I didn't get who you were from watching you in class, although you are amazing to watch," Ruby assured her. "I got who you were from when you stood up for me in front of Weiss on the first day of school."
"Anyone could have done that," Pyrrha told her.
"But they didn't," Ruby reminded her. "You did." Now it was Ruby's turn to hesitate. "I love Crescent Rose, but I don't feel anything special when I get her out. When I fight with her, I don't feel any more me than I did before. Because I'm not fighting for me; I'm fighting for all the people I'm protecting, from the grimm or from bad guys."
"Shepherd of the People," Pyrrha murmured.
"Huh?"
"An old term for a king, found often in Mistralian poetry," Pyrrha said. "It evokes the fact that the first duty of a ruler is to guard his people, as a shepherd guards the flock from wolves."
Ruby's eyebrow rose. "I never said I was a king or anything."
"No," Pyrrha agreed, "but you have a noble heart, Ruby Rose." Nobler than many of the so-called nobles of my home.
A blush rose to Ruby's face. "I... um, I mean I, uh… say, do you want to go into Vale with me?"
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, you're new here, right?" Ruby said. "And while I don't live here, I've been to Vale a few times. I could show you around?"
Pyrrha glanced at her unfinished essay. She could, she supposed, do it tomorrow. It might be nice to get off campus, and it would be nice to have a guide to the city. She hadn't really had a chance to explore Vale before the semester started. "I'd love to join you, Ruby; that sounds wonderful. I… don't know what you have planned, but could we look for a hair salon while we're there? I need to find one to use while I'm in Vale."
"But your hair looks great already," Ruby protested.
Pyrrha laughed as she got to her feet. "That's very sweet of you to say, but it takes a lot of work to keep it that way."
"Oh. Right. Sure, we can do that," Ruby agreed. "Do you think Jaune and Sunset would like to join us too?"
Pyrrha frowned. "Isn't Jaune heading into the city with Weiss?"
"But she doesn't like him," Ruby pointed out.
"Yes," Pyrrha accepted. "I suppose there is that." She does not see his worth. Too few do. Poor Jaune.
"I'll call him," Ruby said. She got out her scroll and swiftly selected Jaune from her list of contacts.
Jaune answered on voice only. "Hey, Ruby."
"Hey Jaune," Ruby called. "How did it go with Weiss?"
Jaune's only response was a dispirited moan.
Ruby winced. "That bad, huh?"
"I mean, she said no," Jaune replied, "but she implied it was only because I'm not strong enough to deserve her yet, so I've still got a chance."
Pyrrha and Ruby exchanged glances. Pyrrha could not help but be puzzled. Was that how they did things in Atlas? Court via strength? She supposed it was as good a way as selecting a partner as by their wealth, the antiquity of their name, or by how venerable their noble lineage was; one could argue that it was better to have a strong man than a rich one.
But at the same time, to judge by physical strength alone… how many ogres then would displace men of good heart and character at the forefront of desirability? What of courage, what of compassion?
She could not say what Weiss was thinking.
"Where are you?" Ruby asked.
There was the sound of a chicken clucking. "I'm at the farm," Jaune said.
"Oh," Ruby said. "Do you want to come into Vale with Pyrrha and me and maybe Sunset?"
"Uh, sure," Jaune said. "I've just got a few things to finish off here first."
"Why don't we come down there?" Ruby suggested. "Maybe we can help."
There was a pause on the other side of the scroll. "Okay," Jaune said, sounding a little reluctant.
"Great," Ruby said. "We'll see you down there." She ended the call.
"Do you want to call Sunset as well?" Pyrrha asked.
"I'll call her on the way," Ruby replied, as she got up off her bed and led the way towards the door. Once they both got out into the corridor, Ruby called Sunset.
Sunset, like Jaune before her, answered voice only. "Yes?"
"Hey, Sunset," Ruby said. "We're just on our way down to the farm to meet Jaune, and then the three of us are heading into Vale this afternoon. Do you want to come?"
There was a moment of silence. "What's Jaune doing on the farm?"
"We'll find out when we get there," Pyrrha said. "At least, I suppose we will."
"Tell Jaune to stop playing with animals, knuckle down, and get some work done," Sunset said. "For that matter, you should think about doing the same."
"So… that's a no, then?" Ruby asked rhetorically.
Sunset sighed. "This is me reminding you that we have homework due next week, and I get punished if you turn it in late."
"We have all weekend to work on that," Ruby protested.
"You could do your homework first and then go into town later," Sunset pointed out.
Ruby puffed out her cheeks. "You're kind of a buzzkill, you know."
"I'm your team leader; that's my job."
"So you really don't want to come with us?"
Sunset made a sound that was almost a growl. "No," she said, before the call ended.
"She does have a point about our homework," Pyrrha conceded.
"Come on, Pyrrha!" Ruby whined. "We deserve a break. Besides, don't you want to see what Jaune's up to?"
Pyrrha did, indeed, want to see what Jaune was up to, and so she followed Ruby out of the dorm and across the broad and spacious campus to the farm, where they found Jaune, repairing the fence around the chicken enclosure.
He looked up at them as they approached, smiling at the pair of them. "Hey, Ruby. Hey, Pyrrha, you look nice."
Pyrrha felt her cheeks heat up a little. "Oh, thank you. What are you doing?"
"When I got down here, I found that the fence was broken," Jaune explained, "and there were fox prints on the ground."
Ruby gasped. "Oh no, did they get anyone?"
"I don't know," Jaune admitted. "I'd have to know how many there were supposed to be and then count them. But I saw all this wire lying around, and there were tools in that shed over there" – he gestured to a wooden shed not too far away – "and I thought that I'd take care of it.”
"You know how?" Pyrrha asked, curious.
"I have many talents," Jaune declared proudly; his pride lasted all of a moment before he appeared to deflate visibly. "None of which relate to the thing I actually want to do with my life."
Pyrrha sensed it would do no good to protest that he had some talent in what might be called the ancillary skills of a huntsman; she feared he would draw only further despair from the fact that they were, in fact, ancillary, and she did not want that. Instead, she changed the subject. "Did you learn how to do this at home?"
"Yup," Jaune confirmed. "We had our own chicken coop round the back of the house; keeping the foxes out was a constant battle, but we managed it."
"There you go then," Ruby said. "You're already a huntsman, Jaune; you've spent your whole life protecting the innocent and keeping the monsters at bay."
Jaune looked at her, his face crumpling with amusement as an incredulous laugh escaped him. "Thanks, Ruby, but I think if huntsmen ate the people they protected for dinner every so often, they'd be a lot less popular in the kingdoms."
Ruby put her hands on her hips. "You know what I meant, Jaune."
"I do, and I appreciate it," Jaune replied. "Jaune Arc, the Chicken Huntsma- oh, no, please don't either of you repeat that."
Pyrrha covered her mouth with one hand while she giggled.
Jaune laughed. "I'll be done in a little bit, but…do you guys want to help me feed them?"
"Sure!" Ruby chirruped.
"That sounds delightful," Pyrrha said. "Although I've never done anything like it before."
"They'll love you as long as you bring them something to eat," Jaune said. "Come on in, both of you."
As they joined him in the enclosure, Pyrrha asked, "So, did you grow up on a farm?"
"In a farming village," Jaune clarified. "We didn't actually have a farm per se. We grew our own vegetables, had some chickens and a goat, but there were bigger, well, actual farms around too. But it was the kind of place where everyone helped out at the right time of the year: with the gathering come harvest time, with the sheep shearing in spring, there was always something to keep the village busy." He sighed wistfully.
"Do you miss it?" Pyrrha inquired.
Jaune shrugged. "Doesn't everybody miss home?" he asked back. "Or is it just me?"
"No, it isn't," Pyrrha assured him. "I'm sure that Vale is a wonderful city, and I don't regret my choice of Beacon instead of Haven, but Vale… it's not Mistral. It looks different; no doubt, it will feel different, too. The tower, impressive and imposing as it is, is not the same tower that I could look out the window and see every day."
"This place is a lot more crowded than home, or even than Signal," Ruby admitted. "But it's like Yang said: Beacon is our home now, and I think it can be a pretty good one, too."
Pyrrha smiled as she put a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "I'm sure you're right, Ruby; as long as we keep trying to make it so."
In the end, they didn't go into Vale; they spent their afternoon on the farm, the three of them. Pyrrha, for one, didn't object or mind at all. It was calming and relaxing in ways that the hustle and bustle of Vale probably would not have been, for all that they would need to go into the city at some point. But that could wait until later. For now, she could appreciate time spent in the company of her two new friends and a small host of hungry chickens. For now, she could appreciate the fact that things were off to a pretty good start.