Counsellors
"Mother? May I have a word with you?" Pyrrha asked as she stood diffidently before the open door into her mother's study.
Lady Nikos looked up from her screen, which was displaying what looked like stock indexes. "Of course, Pyrrha," she said, taking off her glasses and putting them down on the desk in front of her.
"Thank you, Mother," Pyrrha said quietly as she walked into the study and shut the door behind her.
"How did your teammates enjoy the delights of our fair city?" Lady Nikos asked.
"I wish you could bring yourself to call them my friends," Pyrrha murmured.
"Does it matter whether I use one word or the other?"
It matters to me, Pyrrha thought. They're all so much more than just my teammates.
For a little while longer, at least.
"Lady Terri-Belle found me today," Pyrrha said as she turned away from the door and faced her mother across the room. "She said that she had spoken to you."
"I was able to suggest a few places you might be," Lady Nikos said.
"And you are also aware of the grimm activity taking place across Mistral," Pyrrha said.
"I am as capable of keeping up with the news as you," Lady Nikos declared. "I have engaged Rutulian Security to police some of our more far-flung estates."
"That… is a good idea, Mother," Pyrrha said. "Our tenants will be protected, and the Council's huntsmen will be freed to protect less prosperous communities."
"I am capable of getting a sound notion in my head from time to time," Lady Nikos observed dryly.
"Yes, of course, Mother, I didn't mean to… I'm sorry," Pyrrha said, bowing her head apologetically.
"Don't cringe like a supplicant," Lady Nikos admonished sharply. "Do you carry yourself around Beacon in that servile manner? You are a daughter of the House of Nikos; you might try and act like it."
"Just because I am a Nikos doesn't mean I need to strut around as proud as a queen, acting as though Beacon – or anywhere else – were my fiefdom," Pyrrha replied. "At least, I don't think so."
"Hmph," Lady Nikos snorted. "Your team leader, Miss Shimmer, struts very well."
"I have observed it, Mother."
"I must say, of your three companions, she is the only one to so far impress me," Lady Nikos continued. "You could learn a great deal from her."
"Sunset… Sunset has many excellent qualities, but I would not want to be her," Pyrrha revealed. "I would… I would prefer to be myself." Whoever that may be.
Lady Nikos stared up at her. "My contract with Rutulian Security also gave me the opportunity to speak to Turnus," she observed.
Pyrrha sighed. "Mother, please don't-"
"He is a fine young man," Lady Nikos insisted. "Strong, skilled in arms, wealthy and well-born-"
"Arrogant, entitled, heedless of anyone's opinion but his own," Pyrrha replied; in her opinion, Turnus Rutulus was nothing more than a slightly more capable Cardin Winchester. "Cruel, for all that he wears a veneer of courtesy. Please tell me that you didn't give him any further expectation of my hand."
"He is the most eligible bachelor in Mistral; where will you find a better man?"
A pair of kind blue eyes and a mop of soft, blond hair flashed before Pyrrha's mind's eye. "I'm not sure that we could agree on what it means to be a better man than Turnus Rutulus, Mother. Suffice it to say that I do not want him for a husband, any more than he wants me."
"If he does not want you, then it is curious that he has waited so long."
"He wants the heiress to the Nikos family, no doubt," Pyrrha acknowledged, "but how can he wish to marry Pyrrha when he does not know her?"
"You speak as if you were sprung from a fairytale, not from my womb."
"Do you consider it so childish that I should wish to be loved and wooed for my self, and not for my name and its attendant advantages?" Pyrrha demanded.
"Yes," Lady Nikos said bluntly. And the worst part was that Pyrrha… Pyrrha feared that she was probably right to suggest that she, Pyrrha, had nothing to recommend her but her name and fortune.
After all, it was Weiss he chose, not me.
"But let that pass for now," Lady Nikos continued. "You are yet of an age where your focus should be upon your skills. What did you wish to speak to me about?"
"Do you know why Lady Terri-Belle wished to speak to me?" Pyrrha asked.
Lady Nikos leaned forward just a little. "I confess, she did not venture to confide in me."
"I see," Pyrrha said primly. She felt… she felt very close to being angry with her mother right now. You wish me to be more like Sunset? Then what would Sunset do? "Then… then neither will I," Pyrrha declared, turning and walking out of the study without another word, leaving her mother to stare in impotence at her retreating back.
“Pyrrha!” her mother’s voice cracked like a whip.
Pyrrha stopped and looked over her shoulder. Lady Nikos stared at her, her expression mingling sourness… but also, unless Pyrrha was very much mistaken, a touch of admiration too.
“I will not ask you to betray the Lady Terri-Belle’s confidence, of course,” Lady Nikos declared. “However, there is one thing I should inform you of before you… leave. Lord Thrax is hosting a soiree in a few days time, and I have procured invitations for your teammates. I expect them all to be there.”
Pyrrha stared at her mother. “A formal function? At the palace? Mother, what have they done to warrant such cruelty?”
“I see nothing cruel about it,” Lady Nikos said. “They may find it… quite enlightening. Will you inform them?”
Pyrrha sighed, feeling defeated in spite of everything. “Yes, Mother.”
Pyrrha sat in the library. Not a public library anywhere in Mistral, but the library in her house; she sat curled up in a comfortable armchair, a leatherbound copy of Virgil's History of Mistral books XV-XX resting upon her lap. Behind her, the curtains were yet undrawn despite the fact that it was night outside, and if she had turned to look out of the glass doors, Pyrrha could have seen the gardens shrouded in darkness. To her left, long stacks of shelves arose, lined with books thick and heavy and many of them quite old, groaning not only with the weight of the history within them but also the history of the tomes themselves.
To her right, upon a small round wooden table upon which a lamp stood and shone, Pyrrha had set her scroll; it displayed the picture that the team had taken at Benni Haven's restaurant after the Forever Fall field trip: the four of them posed around the fake beowolf, Fluffy. They all looked so happy, smiling out at Pyrrha from the screen of her device. She had felt so happy that night. She had felt as if she had found what she'd been searching for.
She had thought that there must be more to her life than what she had known in Mistral, more than winning flawless victories in tournament after tournament. She had thought that there must be another life waiting for her, if only she had the courage to go out and search for it, and at Beacon, she felt as though she had found it: two great friends, and Jaune, whom she thought that she might… that she could…
It was something that she'd never expected. To be sure, she had dreamed that it might happen, but she had never dared to actually hope. She still didn't know if she had any grounds to hope, or was she still just dreaming.
And now she might never find out.
Pyrrha's gaze flickered down to the volume in front of her.
And Pyrrha of the shining helm answered him thus, "All these things are also in my mind, love, but I would be shamed before the great-hearted Mistralians, of the bronze armour and the long robes, were I to shrink from the fighting."
She had to go, that was the heroic theme resounding down from the Mistraliad through all the great poetry of their kingdom down to the histories that had been written of those far-off times. The hero could not shrink from their destiny, no matter how much they might want to. They must go.
And so must I, for I cannot see how I can in good conscience refuse.
"Pyrrha?"
Pyrrha looked up, a gasp escaping her lips. Jaune stood in the doorway of the library, one hand resting upon the doorframe, half in and half out of the dimly lit room – there was only the lamp on Pyrrha's table on at present.
"Jaune," Pyrrha murmured. She spoke up a little. "Is there something wrong?"
Of course there was, there had to be; she had been a very poor hostess ever since her conversation with Terri-Belle, too preoccupied by her thoughts and considerations to entertain her friends as they deserved. She hadn't even taken them anywhere this evening, all thoughts of a visit to the night market driven from her mind as she had hunkered down in the library with histories and epics for company, brooding over her position and… and the unfortunate necessity of saying goodbye.
Jaune smiled softly. "I think I should be asking you that, don't you think?"
"Asking me?" Pyrrha said. "Why?"
Jaune hesitated for a moment. "Do you mind if I join you?"
Pyrrha smiled, if only for a moment. "I'd love you to," she whispered.
Jaune walked in, leaving the door open behind him. He dragged an armchair across the scarlet carpet so that it was closer to Pyrrha, close enough that he could reach out and touch her if he wished. He sat down, his hands resting upon the arms of the chair. "What's going on, Pyrrha?"
"I… what do you mean?" Pyrrha asked disingenuously.
"Pyrrha, come on," Jaune insisted. "You've been acting out of sorts all afternoon, ever since you talked with that woman."
"Lady Terri-Belle?"
"Yeah," Jaune agreed. "You've been… different."
"I'm sorry, I-"
"I'm not asking for an apology," Jaune said quickly. "I just… you seemed so happy this morning, and now… what happened? What did she say to you?" He paused. "Maybe it's private, and if that's the case, then just tell me, and I'll back off, but… you've done so much to help me. I know that I haven't always appreciated it – or deserved it – but that never stopped you. So if there's anything that I can do to help…" he reached out for her hand and took it tenderly. "You only need to tell me."
Pyrrha was silent for a moment. She stared down at Jaune's hand on top of hers, tentatively, not closed around her wrist but seeming almost poised to do so. "Jaune, why are we at Beacon? Why am I at Beacon?"
Jaune's brow furrowed. "To learn how to become huntsmen."
"Exactly," Pyrrha agreed, her voice quiet verging upon tremulous. "That is the shared goal to which we are all working; everything else is secondary to that. For my part… it is what I've always desired. My skills suit me for it, and my birth… my birth demands my service to the community that has raised me so high in wealth and luxury and… and in its estimation."
"You're talking about duty," Jaune murmured.
"Yes, exactly," Pyrrha replied. "My duty as a Nikos and a daughter of Mistral." She put the book down on the table and got up, pulling her hand away from his as she walked towards the glass doors. The light of the shattered moon fell down upon her. "Lady Terri-Belle offered to make me a huntress."
She didn't look around to see how Jaune was taking that news, but the fact that he had been rendered speechless said a great deal. When he did speak, it was to say, "Already? I mean, sure, as a fighter, you're probably ready, but I could say the same thing about Yang, or Ruby, or… or anyone except me. You're better than anyone else at Beacon, but if it's only about catching up to you, then what chance do the rest of us have?"
Pyrrha chuckled softly. "I think you might be putting a little more thought into it than Terri-Belle," she said. "As far as Lady Terri-Belle is concerned, I am a skilled fighter, very skilled, and I have a name that people recognise, that they trust. And so, to take advantage of my skill and of the recognition of my name, she will make me a huntress and grant me a place by her side in the Imperial Guard of Mistral. But of course, if I accept, then I won't be going back to Beacon."
She turned around to see how Jaune was taking that. He stared at her, mouth hanging slightly open, eyes wide. "You're not kidding?" he whispered. "You're serious, about all of it."
"I know that it must sound absurd to an outsider," Pyrrha conceded.
"No!" Jaune said quickly. "You're… you're wonderful, I totally get what she wants you on her team. Who wouldn't?"
Pyrrha smiled. "You're very kind, but you don't have to pretend to understand. Although there are still some old families like the Winchesters left in Vale, they don't lord their bloodlines the way we do in Mistral, nor do the public revere them as they do our grand old families here in Mistral. According to Terri-Belle, the people need a hero to believe in, and she thinks that can be me."
Jaune got to his feet. "So… you'd stay here, in Mistral?"
"That's right," Pyrrha confirmed. "If I accept her offer."
"Will you?" Jaune asked.
That was the nub of the matter. Pyrrha held herself, wrapping her arms around her body. "I don't want to," she admitted, in a voice that was rendered quiet by shame. "But… I don't see how I can avoid it. How can I claim to want to be a huntress if I turn away from my destiny for the sake of… so that I can spend the next four years with…?"
She looked into his eyes. Ask me to stay. Ask me to stay, and I will. Tell me that I should stay, with you. That's all it will take. All you have to do is ask.
Jaune looked down at the floor. "I… I don't want you to go," he said, and Pyrrha's heart soared to hear it in spite of the misery in his tone. "You're my partner, and I don't want to lose you. But at the same time, I don't want to tell you that you can't do the thing that matters to you when the opportunity is right in front of you. It sounds like you have the chance to do something important, and I… I can't be the one who stands in the way of that, not after all you've done for me."
Oh, Jaune. Of course he thought that he was being kind and noble, he thought that he was doing the right thing, saying the right thing. Of course he would say that, because he was too good to say anything else, not realising that it was the opposite of what she had wanted him to say. "I… I see."
"He doesn't," Sunset said as she strode into the room.
"Sunset?" Pyrrha said weakly.
"Jaune isn't the only one who can notice that you're out of sorts," Sunset explained.
Pyrrha frowned. "Have you been listening outside the door?"
"Uh-huh," Sunset said without a trace of shame. "Jaune, will you give us the room?" Her jaw tightened. "Please," she added.
Jaune glanced at Pyrrha.
Pyrrha nodded. "Thank you, Jaune, you've been… thank you," she said, not quite able to tell him that he'd been any kind of help to her.
"Right," Jaune said, and there was an uncertainty in his tone as if he was not sure that he'd been of any help either. "I… I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Pyrrha said. "The fact that you tried to help… I appreciate it." She smiled at him, albeit it was a smile that faded swiftly, like a sudden squall.
"Right," Jaune said. "I… goodnight."
"Goodnight, Jaune," Pyrrha whispered as he beat a retreat out of the library, sliding around Sunset who stood as if rooted to the spot, her arms folded as she glowered at Pyrrha.
As Jaune left, Sunset's hand glowed as she slammed the door shut after him.
"He's so not worth it," Sunset said.
Pyrrha blinked. "I… I don't know what you mean."
Sunset rolled her eyes. "At first, I thought you pitied him, like a lost puppy, but I've seen the way you look at him, with those moon eyes begging him to notice you. To which I can only say, in the nicest possible sense… he's a bit of a fixer-upper, isn't he?"
Pyrrha smiled softly. "If I am a sort of princess, then am I not allowed to dream of a prince who'll sweep me off my feet?"
Sunset's eyebrows rose. "You think he's a prince?"
"No, I think he's a nice boy, but with my help… maybe he could be a prince," Pyrrha said.
"Not if you leave," Sunset pointed out. "Or stay. What are we saying?"
"I think of it as staying with you, at Beacon, or else going away," Pyrrha informed her.
"Right, it's good to have that cleared up," Sunset muttered. She paused. Her tail curled upwards. "You know, when I heard you explaining to Jaune what had been said between you and Lady Terri-Belle, I could hardly keep from laughing. I thought it must be some kind of joke."
"It makes sense in Mistral," Pyrrha murmured.
"Then woe unto Mistral," Sunset declared, striding towards her, "that the huntsmen are so few in number that they must add a first-year student to augment their ranks, that the credibility of its rulers is so desiccated that they must borrow the credibility of a girl with a famous name. No offence-"
"None taken."
"-but you're too smart not to realise that this is just ridiculous."
"It's far from ideal, from any perspective," Pyrrha admitted, "but you heard the man ranting in the square, and I suspect he wasn't the only one. There aren't enough huntsmen to defend everywhere, and those that are not defended full vulnerable. You were the one who showed me the news about the grimm."
"If Mistral has need of huntsmen, then graduate the fourth-years early; they won't be missing out on much," Sunset declared.
"None of them have my name," Pyrrha pointed out.
"No, and that's what this is really all about, isn't it?" Sunset asked. "Your name. Your heroic epithets. The only things about you that anyone cares to know. You know what you'll be if you take this offer, don't you?"
Pyrrha nodded glumly. "Not as I was, but worse. To be seen and admired but never known, placed upon an even higher pedestal than I stood on before, not merely a champion in the arena but a… a hero of Mistral, untouchable. It's the last thing I want, but… I don't see how it is to be avoided."
"Easily: you tell her to get stuffed," Sunset said.
"Sunset," Pyrrha said reproachfully, "how am I supposed to do that?"
"You open your mouth, and then-"
"Sunset," Pyrrha said, cutting her off, "you know what I mean. This is what I claim to want, and Mistral has need of me besides-"
"Mistral has need of a doll named Pyrrha Nikos, it seems to me," Sunset growled.
"Is it not mere selfishness on my part to refuse?" Pyrrha asked, ignoring Sunset's last comment. "Am I not obligated to answer kingdom and destiny alike when they call out to me? Must I not go?"
"No!" Sunset declared firmly. "Not if you don't want to. You don't have to do anything unless you wish it so! Nothing at all! You don't owe this city anything, you don't owe Lady Terri-Belle or the Mistral Council or your mother. Nobody owns you."
"I never suggested that they did, but that doesn't mean I have no obligations to them," Pyrrha countered.
"And I say you have none," Sunset said. "None but to act in accordance with your own will and to secure your own happiness."
"Sunset," Pyrrha said nervously. "With that kind of attitude, you'd… oh."
Sunset frowned. "What do you mean, oh?"
"Just that it explains a great deal," Pyrrha murmured.
"My character was at fault; my creed is not," Sunset insisted proudly, and with a hint of defensive hauteur in her voice. "You said it yourself: you'd rather stay at Beacon."
"I would, but-"
"Then stay!" Sunset cried. "You don't owe your life to Mistral!"
"Not even if Mistral should have need of me?" Pyrrha demanded.
"The team needs you, too," Sunset said. "Jaune needs you, though he is too misguidedly nice to admit it. Do you think he'll make the cut without you to carry him?"
"He's improved so much," Pyrrha observed.
"Thanks to you," Sunset countered. "The brakes will be slammed on that without you around. I don't know the first thing about sword and shield, and neither does Ruby, and who else would give up their time for his benefit the way you do? He'll be lucky to hold his present level and not fall back. He needs you." She paused. "I need you too. I don't want to lose you, Pyrrha."
Pyrrha bowed her head. "You know that I don't want to lose you either," she said, "but I cannot sit idle in a classroom while darkness rises around my home… not without a better reason than the fact that it is what I want to do."
"You want a better reason?" Sunset demanded. "Okay, since you're determined to ignore your own heart, I'll give you the same reason I gave your-" she stopped, looking away for a moment.
Pyrrha had a good idea what Sunset had been about to say, but one argument was bad enough – and any discussion of her mother might soon be rendered irrelevant anyway – so she ignored it, or affected to.
"I'll give you a good reason," Sunset continued. "This team works well together. We're good. We could be better than good, we could be great. We could be great, and we could do great things if you're just willing to wait and be… be patient. Trust me, I know it's hard; I know the feeling of knowing that your destiny is waiting for you and itching to just sprint for it as fast as you can, to reach out for it. But my impatience cost me my destiny, and you… you could take this glorified PR job with Lady Terri-Belle, or you can stick with us for a few more years, and we can save the world, together, just like we talked about on the roof. The four of us: tip of the spear."
Pyrrha looked up. "Do you really believe that?"
Sunset smirked. "You bet I do."
"And Mistral?"
"Mistral isn't going to fall apart just because you're not around," Sunset snapped derisively. "That's sheer arrogant presumption from someone who affects to be so humble and self-effacing all the time. Mistral will survive; it might involve a little bit of rushing from post to post for the huntsmen, but they'll manage, and people will stop complaining once they realise they're not about to die. They don't need you, not like… not like… not like I do, and you'd better appreciate how hard it was for me to say that!"
Pyrrha covered her mouth with one hand as she laughed. "It is very much appreciated. All of it is."
Sunset snorted. "Professor Ozpin told me that people don’t come to the huntsman academies to learn how to fight, because - with exceptions - they know how to do that already. They come to the academies to learn how to be huntsmen. And as much as the old man kind of creeps me out a little bit, I think he was onto something there. You’re a great fighter, but you’re not a huntress yet, and while Lady Terri-Belle or her father might be able to bestow the title upon you, their power and influence can’t give you what you're missing. You can walk away and be a spectacular solo fighter and probably rack up an impressive kill count along the way, or you can stick with us and be part of something awesome."
Pyrrha sighed as she turned away and once more approached the glass window. She leaned upon it with one arm and, on that arm, rested her forehead as she stared through her own reflection in the glass and into the garden in which the dark lay as heavy as it seemed to lie on Mistral itself. "It would be wonderful to believe you."
"Then believe me," Sunset said.
"I… I will think about what you've said," Pyrrha promised.
"You do that, and while you're thinking, I'll prove that I'm right… somehow," Sunset declared. "You're mine, Pyrrha Nikos, and I don't mean to let you go."
"I'm touched… and a little concerned," Pyrrha murmured in reply.
Sunset stifled a laugh with one hand. "I'd rather not leave you here to brood; is there any way I can persuade you to come to bed?"
Pyrrha hesitated. "Yes," she said, after a moment, turning back to Sunset. "Yes, I think you can." She took a step forward. "Oh, Sunset?"
"Yeah?"
"Please… don't say anything to Jaune, will you? I'd rather… I suppose you can call me very old-fashioned, but I'd like him to make up his mind and… and make the first move, if he will."
Sunset grinned, "Your secret's safe with me, as bizarre as I find the whole thing."
"Thank you," Pyrrha whispered. "Oh, there is one more thing."
"Yes?"
"Apparently, the Lord Steward is holding a soiree in a few nights’ time," Pyrrha said. "My mother and I were invited, and apparently, she twisted the arm of someone at the palace to get the three of you invited too."
Sunset chuckled knowingly. "Did she now? I see."
"Do you?" Pyrrha asked. "Because I'm afraid I don't. What do you think?"
"I think we're going to a party at the palace," Sunset declared. "Tell Lady Nikos that she is most generous to consider us and that we shall be delighted to attend."