On the Night Before Departing
“Aww, I can’t believe my little sister is setting off on her first official mission tomorrow!” Yang cooed from out of her scroll. “And I’m not there to say goodbye.”
Ruby lay on her stomach on her bed, her scroll held up in front of her face, even as her sister’s face filled up the scroll in front of her. She beamed. “I know! It’s amazing, isn’t it? I mean, I know that we’ve fought before – even when we weren’t supposed to – and I suppose you could say that going after that karkadann in Mistral maybe counts as our first official mission, but this time it’s officially official, if you know what I mean.”
Yang smiled back at her. “I think I do,” she said, “but explain it anyway, so I know for sure.”
Ruby covered her mouth with one hand as she chuckled; it was a habit she found she’d picked up from Pyrrha, who did it for reasons that Ruby hadn’t bothered to ask her about. Maybe it was more ladylike than just laughing. Or maybe she didn’t want to spit on people. It didn’t really matter, she’d gotten Ruby doing it anyway. “It’s like… in Mistral, there wasn’t any other choice. There was no one else around to take care of the grimm. Except for that Arslan girl who’s really mad at Sunset right now. Anyway, there was nobody but her, and I guess Professor Lionheart didn’t know about her because he asked us to do it because there was no one else. But these are our teachers, and they know who we are, and there are plenty of other teams that they could have chosen for this mission… but they chose us.”
That was… maybe not entirely true, considering that it seemed like Professor Ozpin had given them this mission specifically so that they could go to Cold Harbour and meet up with Blake and Team RSPT, but at the same time, it was sort of true since it still showed that Professor Ozpin thought they had what it took to undertake not only this mission but also the plan to capture Torchwick – or someone important from the White Fang – that the two teams had come up with together.
She hadn’t told Yang about that part. Her sister was really supportive about an official mission, but she might not look so favourably upon joining the Atlesians for a secret operation, no matter how cool it was.
“So,” Yang said, “once the repairs to the railway are done, how are you going to get back to Beacon?”
“Well, the repair train is going to carry on north to prove that they actually fixed the line,” Ruby told her, “and we’ll go with it and catch another train back south.” Wow, I can’t believe I actually lied to Yang.
And that it was so easy.
It probably helped that it was all true; I just didn’t tell her that when I say we’re going to get a train, I meant that we’re going to hide in an Atlesian cargo train and hope that the White Fang try to rob it so we can catch them in the act.
“That makes sense, I guess,” Yang said. “Funny how we’ve both gotten missions that involve standing around and guarding other guys while they repair stuff.”
Ruby snorted. “Yeah, I guess we have. So how are you doing out there? What’s it like on the edge of Vale?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Yang replied easily; her picture jogged up and down a little, Ruby guessed that she was carrying her scroll towards the rest of her team. “In fact, we’re all doing fine. Hey, guys, say hi to Ruby.”
“Hi, Ruby!” Nora’s voice drowned out the softer greetings of Ren and Dove, just as her face crowded out of that Yang as well as her two male teammates, even as Yang tried to get all four of their faces into the image. “Did I hear right that Team Sapphire just got a mission too?”
“Yep!” Ruby said. “We’re heading out with some railway workers to protect them while they fix the line through the Forever Fall.”
“Man, they weren’t kidding when they said these missions were going to come thick and fast, huh?” Nora asked.
“Indeed,” Ren murmured. “It appears that Beacon’s reputation for rigorous field training is well earned.”
“Be careful out there, Ruby,” Dove urged.
“Don’t tell her to be careful; it makes you sound like you don’t have any faith in her!” Nora cried. “Kick butt out there, Ruby! We believe in you!”
“Be careful and kick butt,” Yang ordered. “And come back with some awesome stories about your field trip.”
“Sure,” Ruby agreed, a little nervously when she thought about what those stories might involve. “You too.”
“Too bad we don’t have any cool stories,” Nora moaned.
“That bad, huh?” Ruby asked.
“Our mission has been a complete success,” Ren informed. “It’s just that success has also been a little boring.”
“Do you have any idea how dull it is just sitting around watching people build a wall?” Nora demanded.
“At least that means there are no grimm around and everyone’s safe,” Ruby observed, trying to look on the bright side.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I’ve been trying to tell her that,” Ren pointed out.
“What’s it like working with a professional huntsman?” Ruby asked eagerly.
“Well, he’s no Uncle Qrow, but he’s still pretty cool, I guess,” Yang replied.
“I’m kind of jealous that we don’t have a real huntsman on our mission,” Ruby admitted.
“You don’t have a professional huntsman coming with you?” Dove demanded.
“Dove!” Nora yelled. “Confidence!”
“What kind of training mission doesn’t have a professional?” Dove demanded again.
“The kind where the team on the mission is so awesome they don’t need a babysitter,” Ruby said.
Yang guffawed. “Oho, big talk from someone on the other side of Vale, Rubes.”
“We won’t be here when you get back!” Ruby cried, sticking out her tongue.
“But you’ll have to come back eventually,” Yang reminded her.
“Yeah, well…” By then, there’ll be other things to worry about. “I’ll worry about that tomorrow.”
“Just worry about your mission tomorrow, and tonight,” Yang said. “But don’t worry too much! But worry enough! Maintain a healthy and constructive level of worry. And pack clean underwear!”
“Goodnight, Yang,” Ruby said firmly.
Yang laughed. “Goodnight, Ruby. And good luck out there. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Ruby said. “Stay safe. Goodnight!”
“Goodnight!”
“Goodnight, Ruby!” Nora shouted.
“Goodnight,” Dove and Ren added more quietly.
“Goodnight,” Yang said again before she hung up the call.
Ruby stared down at the blank screen for a moment. She rolled over onto her side. Jaune and Pyrrha were out training, but Sunset was still here, sitting at the other end of the room with a big, heavy, book resting upon her knees, scribbling in it.
“Sunset?” Ruby asked.
Sunset looked up. “Hey, Ruby. How’s Yang?”
“Couldn’t you hear?”
“I was trying not to,” Sunset replied. “Plus, I was a little distracted by my own thing.”
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, just writing a journal entry,” Sunset said. “Full of anticipation for our success upon the morrow.”
“So you’re excited then?”
“Yes, I’m excited, it’s our third mission.”
“I think it’s our first,” Ruby replied.
“Then what were the karkadann and the White Fang at the docks?” Sunset demanded.
“The White Fang at the docks wasn’t an official mission,” Ruby pointed out.
Sunset seemed to consider that point. “Okay, if you want to be official about it, but the karkadann still counts. What’s more official than the Headmaster of Haven seeking us out personally for a mission?”
“The only one he sought out personally was Pyrrha.”
“Details, details,” Sunset declared dismissively. “Do you know what the important thing about history is, Ruby?”
“It’s old?” Ruby tried.
Sunset snorted. “History is not written by the victor. History isn’t even written by the privileged. History is written by those who bother to put pen to paper, and I can’t see Pyrrha writing a memoir, can you?”
Ruby giggled. “She’d probably be horrified at the idea.”
“Exactly,” Sunset said. “I, on the other hand, have no trouble writing that Professor Lionheart sought out our entire team, on account of how well we’d done against the White Fang at the docks.”
“Is that why you keep a journal? To make up stuff to make yourself look better?”
“I’m not talking about making things up; I’m talking about… massaging the truth a little bit,” Sunset said with a touch of asperity. “But… no, this journal… this is more for my own piece of mind.” She paused for a moment. “So how is Yang?”
“Nora’s bored,” Ruby informed her team leader, “but I think Yang’s taking it pretty well.”
“The boredom?”
Ruby nodded. “It sounds like nothing’s happened except they’ve watched some people build a wall. Which is a good thing. We shouldn’t wish for grimm attacks that might hurt people just because we like the excitement of fighting them off.”
“On the other hand, if there was no excitement at all in this job, then arguably, there wouldn’t be a need for huntsmen,” Sunset mused. “If you know what I mean.”
“I think so. You mean that the only way there’d be no excitement is if there were no grimm?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“That’s true, I suppose,” Ruby replied. “So you are excited?”
“Didn’t I just say that?” Sunset asked. “You?”
Ruby nodded. “Like I said, it’s our first official mission.”
“Why is that?” Sunset demanded. “Why doesn’t the karkadann count?”
“Because it wasn’t Professor Ozpin who gave us that mission,” Ruby explained.
“That’s not inherently a bad thing,” Sunset muttered.
“You really don’t like him, do you?”
“Why should I like him? He hasn’t done anything to earn my affection or my trust,” Sunset said. “He set us up over that White Fang business, almost got you killed, and then he had the nerve to punish us for it!”
“He did not set us up,” Ruby insisted.
“How do you know he didn’t?”
“How do you know he did?” Ruby countered.
“Because… he knew Blake was a faunus!” Sunset cried.
“So?”
“So… he must have known something like this would happen the moment he allowed Team Rosepetal to come to Beacon.”
“How could he have known that?”
“Because I’m starting to think that Blake is incredibly predictable once you know what her deal is,” Sunset muttered. “And Rainbow Dash even moreso. It was inevitable that bringing those two together would produce a conflagration.”
“Sunset, can I be honest? That sounds like a real reach.”
“He knows about your eyes,” Sunset said sharply. “He knows about your eyes, that is incontrovertible; we have that from your mother’s own hand, not to mention that he specifically pointed out your eyes to you without mentioning what made them special.”
Ruby shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “I’m sure he had a good reason for that.”
“He might think he has a good reason, but it doesn’t follow that it really is a good reason,” Sunset shot back. “Certainly, it doesn’t follow that it’s good for us.”
“My mom trusted him.”
“So far as you’ve read.”
Ruby frowned. “What is it about him that bothers you so much?”
“More than what I just said?”
Ruby’s eyes narrowed.
Sunset looked away. “I’m done being used as a tool of others,” she said. “What I do, I do for myself, of my own will.”
“What if it’s for a good cause?”
“If it is for a good cause, then I’ll decide that for myself, according to my own lights,” Sunset said. “I go my own way.”
Ruby was silent for a moment. “There’s a good reason why he told my mom more than he’s telling me.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I’m not sure,” Ruby said, “but I believe it.”
“You’re too nice for your own good.”
“And you can’t be happy being so suspicious.”
Sunset frowned. She changed the subject, or at least, she changed it back to what it had been before. “Why does his opinion really mean so much to you?”
“Because he’s our headmaster,” Ruby said. “So if he thinks we’re ready to do this, then that means something. Or at least, I think it does.”
Sunset was silent for a moment. “We are ready to do this.”
“I know,” Ruby said. “It’s going to be great. We’ll fix the railroad, catch Torchwick, and put a wrench in all the White Fang’s plans.”
Sunset chuckled. “Yeah, we’re going to kick all kinds of ass.”
Ruby grinned but was distracted before she could say anything else by a text appearing on her scroll.
Hey, Ruby.
“Who is it?” Sunset asked.
“It’s Juturna,” Ruby said. “Do you mind if I-?”
“Be my guest,” Sunset said. “I need to finish up here.
Ruby smiled as she turned her attention away from Sunset and focussed fully upon her scroll. Hey, Juturna. How’s it going?
Great! Bro and Camilla let me go out into the field with them! I knew that persistent and annoying begging would pay off!
Ruby snorted and giggled at the same time. Where did you go? What kind of mission was it?
Councillor Timur’s son has just joined the Survey Corps, and his dad wanted to make sure that his kid was safe on his trip out into the field, so he paid through the nose for Turnus to take him out on his survey personally. Turnus didn’t think there was likely to be any trouble – or at least, with him and Camilla and a load of our guys there, he wasn’t worried about trouble – so he decided that it would be a good chance for me to come too.
How was it?
Awesome! I got to see Camilla take down a giant nevermore, it was the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.
How did she do it?
First of all, she let it get close, like, so close I thought it was about to swallow her, and Turnus couldn’t help because he was dealing with some manticores at the time, but anyway, this nevermore comes right in, and then Camilla shoots it in the face with a exploding arrow, and then, as the nevermore starts to turn away, she shot it with some arrows that turned to ice and wrecked its wing so that it crashed on the ground, and then she drove her sword into its eye and did something with dust that I don’t really know what exactly, but that killed it.
Ice dust on the wing. I’ll try and remember that. So, do you think that you’ll go out into the field again?
I don’t know.
Won’t they let you?
Maybe. I’m just not sure if I want to.
Oh. Yeah. I guess that that kind of life isn’t for everyone. She could not help but feel a little disappointed, although she wasn’t going to let on about that to Juturna. It would have been nice if her long distance pal had been a huntress from another kingdom… but she supposed she already knew a lot of huntresses, or huntresses in training. I’m going out into the field soon myself.
Yeah?
Yeah. Me and my team have gotten a mission to protect some railway workers while they fix, well, a railway.
Railway workers. So nobody important then.
Ruby couldn’t help but frown. Of course they’re important, they’re people.
You say the funniest things sometimes, Ruby. Do you want to play Warring Tribes?
Sure. It was… better than asking Juturna why she thought it was funny to say that every life was precious and worth protecting. Ruby… Ruby didn’t really want to think about the answer to that.
Juturna was just kidding, she was just trying to get a rise out of me, the way Yang says embarrassing stuff to make people squirm.
Yang never implied anything quite like that, but still.
Let’s just play the game.
Sunset returned her attention to the journal in front of her. Excuse me, Princess Celestia; I shouldn’t keep you waiting like this.
Sunset found that she could almost hear Princess Celestia’s voice, gently amused, as her words crawled across the page in an old-fashioned script. That’s quite alright, Sunset. I take it that something came up closer to home than I?
You could say that. Ruby finished her call with her sister and wanted to talk.
You might have invited her to join us. I would so like to speak to your friends.
Sunset found herself smiling, despite herself; but she was sufficiently in control of herself that her smile had a slightly nervous edge to it. If it’s all the same to you, Princess, I’d rather keep this between us. As far as Ruby knows, this is just an ordinary diary in which I set down my thoughts.
And you wish it to remain so.
I still haven’t told them everything about me yet. Admitting to them all that I have magic was hard enough; how am I supposed to tell them that I’m a unicorn from another world? No offence to everyone back in Equestria, but I’ll sound insane.
I suppose I will have to take your word for that, Sunset, without taking any offence in the matter. It is, of course, your choice what to tell your friends.
Sunset snorted. You know, if I was talking to Twilight instead of to you, she’d probably tell me that consistent honesty is the only way to maintain a friendship.
And she would be absolutely right, but I understand that there are certain times and certain occasions when it is advisable to keep certain things hidden, even from those who are dear to us.
Like a princess’ destiny.
Quite. So, tomorrow you go forth to fight?
Indeed. Tomorrow, we board a train into peril.
You have chosen your path, and I wish you well in it, but nevertheless
I can hear you sighing from all the way in another dimension, Princess Celestia.
She could hear her old mentor chuckling too, as the princess resumed writing. Please forgive me, Sunset, but please also try to understand: as my sisters and I struggled to forge Equestria out of a land of quarrelsome tribes and savage monsters, we sometimes had recourse to battle. I steeled myself for it with the hope that future generations would, as a result of our labours, be spared the need to do so. I cannot deny it grieves me that, for you at least, my hope has been in vain.
I think, if Ruby were to write in this book, she would tell you that she shares the feelings that made you steel yourself to fight. Even if Ruby has no hope of the final victory that will free those who come after from this constant war, I know that Pyrrha possesses it in her wildest dreams and fights all the harder in such a purpose.
And you, Sunset?
So long as we all come out of this in one piece, I will be content.
You are concerned?
Something else I’m not anxious to tell Ruby. Were you nervous before a battle?
With so much at stake, how could I not be? The fate of so many of my little ponies seemed to depend upon it.
I’m not worried about the stakes so much as upon the fate of my friends. Ruby almost died the last time we went up against the White Fang.
So what will you do differently this time?
Sunset’s brow furrowed. The best strategy that I can think of is to put something between Adam and his target. Like a wall or something. Something that forces him to expend his attack. A shield, maybe; I think he would probably cut through it, but in the process, he’d expend that power that he’s built up. It’s the best I can come up with at the moment anyway. The real problem is attacking him without him building up his power again.
There are spells that enable you to attack from other directions.
I know, but he’s so fast that it’s almost impossible to catch him off guard. For me to catch him off guard, anyway. Perhaps my plan should just be to let Rainbow Dash take care of him. She’s had the better of him both times they’ve crossed paths. Princess, can I ask you something? Not about battle, but about something else?
Of course, but what else?
Sunset hesitated, choosing her words with care. You kept secrets from Twilight, didn’t you?
I did not tell her everything I knew, or hoped for her, no.
Did you regret it? Did you ever feel guilty about it?
Sunset, what is this about?
It’s the headmaster, Professor Ozpin. I know full well that he’s keeping secrets from us – Ruby’s eyes for one; he knows what they are, and he hasn’t said a word to Ruby about it. I think that’s only the beginning of it. I think he knows so much more than he lets on, and I worry that he’s using us, although I haven’t quite figured out what he’s using us for yet. The others don’t believe it – they think I’m seeing things that aren’t there – but it is plausible, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you did to Twilight?
It took Princess Celestia such a long time to reply that Sunset began to fear that she had gone too far, said too much, wounded her old teacher too gravely for the conversation to continue. But, at last, words began to appear once more upon the page. I would be lying if I said that I did not understand how you come by these feelings, after what happened between us and after what you have learned about Twilight Sparkle. But I would remind you that, although I hid certain truths and certain hopes of mine from Twilight, I never outright lied to her, nor did I ever force any act upon her against her will. Is it the same with your Professor Ozpin?
He hasn’t blackmailed us, if that’s what you’re getting at. But I feel as though he’s played upon our reactions to achieve his aims; is that not bad enough?
You make it sound so, Sunbeam, but it occurs to me that a more charitable way to phrase it might be that he trusted you and your friends to do the right thing. Quite often, that is all that is required with Twilight: nudging her in the right direction and trusting her to do the right thing.
Have you and Twilight ever talked about how it felt for her to find out that you had behaved in that way?
No, we have not. I suppose you could call it nervousness on my part – you could accuse me of not having broached the subject because I know it will be an uncomfortable one and am not eager to disturb the equilibrium of my relationship with Twilight – but Twilight has never sought to raise the issue either. As much as she defers to me upon occasion, I believe that she is a sufficiently brave girl to speak up if she were genuinely troubled. Of course, you can always ask her yourself.
I might do that, but not right now. Do you think that I'm making much of nothing?
I think you are perhaps being a little uncharitable towards your headmaster.
I do not like feeling used.
Feeling used and being used are two very different things, Sunset; I would go further and say that being used in a good cause and for good reason is a quite different thing from being the tool of ill purposes.
Is there a good reason to keep the truth of Ruby's magic from her?
Perhaps, your world being so very ignorant of magic, he fears what the knowledge of it might do to Ruby. I cannot – at least I ought not – to speculate upon the thoughts of one so far removed from myself, but I urge you to consider that there may be good reasons for all that Professor Ozpin does. One might ask what reason I had to keep Twilight's destiny a secret from her, and I would be justly chided for the lie – by one who did not realise that I had been far more open with you and paid the price for it.
The fault was in my character, not in your honesty. I would take the risk again, without a second's thought, ere I would meekly consent to have a blindfold put over my eyes and fumble along the road another seeks to lead me down. Professor Ozpin is not you. He does not have your wisdom or your compassion.
Do you know him so well to say that for certain?
How can he? He is a mere mortal, just as I am; how can he possess the experience of centuries, the kindness of ages? By what right does a mere man presume to make me the instrument of his ambitions?
He is your teacher.
And because of that, I will learn his lessons. But I will not be a pawn on his chessboard.
I sense that you are stubbornly immovable on this. Very well. I will urge you to look on him – and on all those who attend your school – with charity, but I will say no more upon it. Good luck on your journey, Sunset Shimmer, and come back safe.
Thank you, Princess. Goodnight.
Pyrrha parried so sloppily that her mother would have started foaming at the mouth to see it.
Jaune did not follow up his unexpected advantage. Instead, he stepped back, Crocea Mors falling to his side. "What's up?" he asked, his gorgeous blue eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"Um, what do you mean?" Pyrrha asked. It was the night before they would set on their first Beacon training mission, but Pyrrha had not seen any reason to let that disrupt their nightly routine too much – provided that they completed their preparations and got to bed at a reasonable hour – and so, she and Jaune were out on the grounds, training in the large open space that led towards the cliffs. The moon shone down upon them, the cracked rays of silver light bathing the world.
Jaune gave her a very knowing look. "Come on, Pyrrha; I haven't improved that much, and while I know you pull your punches, it's never to that extent. I nearly had you there."
For a moment, Pyrrha was tempted to tell him that he was getting that much better… but he would recognise that as a lie, and the last thing she wanted was for him to think that she was trying to sugar over his shortcomings. She turned away from him, feeling the hairs of her long ponytail brush against her back as it swayed gently behind her. "You're right," she murmured, her hands – still holding her weapons – falling to her side. "I am a little distracted."
Jaune sheathed his sword within his shield, though he did not yet collapse the shield itself. "What's wrong?" he asked as he took a step towards her.
"Nothing's wrong," Pyrrha insisted. "Or at least, I hope nothing's wrong." Pyrrha bit her lip. She was no good at all with this sort of thing; she'd never… in her imagination, it wasn't this difficult. "Jaune… Jaune, can we talk for a moment?"
Now, Jaune collapsed his shield back into its sheath form, the more easily to fasten it back onto his belt. "Uh, sure," he said, sounding about as nervous as Pyrrha felt. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Could we," Pyrrha glanced at him, wondering how frightened she felt. She put her weapons away; it felt ridiculous to be holding them like this as she prepared to talk about her feelings. She slung Akoúo̱ across her back and wedged Miló behind it as she said, "Could we talk about us?"
"'Us'?"
"Is there an us?" Pyrrha asked, her voice trembling slightly like the first shaking of the ground that presages an earthquake. Words fell out of her mouth before she could stop them. "In Mistral, when we kissed, I thought that you and I would… but then… I mean, after we came back, we… I don't know… I'm sorry, I shouldn't-"
"It's okay," Jaune said, his voice so soothing and so gentle, almost as if he were trying to calm a skittish horse. "I… I should have done something before now instead of… this, whatever you call this."
Should have done what? It occurred to Pyrrha – it had occurred to Pyrrha, more than once – that Jaune might have discovered that there was not much to her beyond her name and her admitted good looks. She fought to resist the urge to hug herself as she turned away from him yet further. "If… if you don't… if-"
"No!" Jaune cried. "No, Pyrrha, that's not what I'm trying to say at all. I… Pyrrha, will you look at me?"
Pyrrha hesitated a moment and then turned back to face him. She looked at Jaune only to find him looking anywhere but at Pyrrha. His eyes darted from here to there like flies never settling on any surface for too long in terror of the spray or the swatter.
"I… I have seven sisters," he said. "Six of them are older than me, and three of them are married by now. Rouge and River had their husbands chosen for them by our parents. Hard-working, reliable boys who could take over the farm." He said that last with a slight but noticeable inflection in his voice, as though he were imitating someone else, perhaps his father. Pyrrha was not blind to the implication that Jaune himself was not hard-working or reliable, or at least, he had not been thought so.
Oh, Jaune. If only they'd been able to see the you that I see.
"Saphron… left," Jaune added. "So I didn't get to see how she and Terra… the point is that I have no idea what I'm doing… which pretty much sums up everything about me since I got to Beacon, doesn't it?"
"Jaune-" Pyrrha began, but he cut her off before she could finish – not intentionally she thought – it was just that he had more to say and wanted to say it.
"And then," he went on. "You… you're you, Pyrrha! You're beautiful and smart and strong, and you turned your back on your mom for me! How am I supposed to… deserve that? Especially when I've got no idea where to start?"
Pyrrha was silent for a moment. Then she began to laugh. She covered her mouth, but the laughter spilled out of her mouth, flowing like water around her hand to fill the night air around them.
"Hey!" Jaune cried indignantly. "What's so funny?"
"We are!" Pyrrha exclaimed. "We've both been so worried that… a fine pair of huntsmen we'll make, afraid of our own shadows like this."
"Come on, it's not like we're scared of grimm," Jaune said. "The grimm can only eat us, after all; this might embarrass us. Or we could-"
"Let each other down?" Pyrrha asked.
A smile passed fleetingly across Jaune's face. "Something like that, yeah."
Pyrrha took a step closer to him. "Jaune, when it comes to… to what I hope this is, I don't know what I'm doing either. I've never… as a result of my position in Mistral, nobody has ever… like your parents, I think my mother would have much preferred to have arranged the engagement that she… lied about, without any reference from me."
Jaune grinned. "Before I left home, my parents were trying to set me up with Miranda Wells."
"Oh, really?" Pyrrha asked, in what she very much hoped was a playful tone. "Do you…? I mean…"
"No," Jaune replied emphatically. "She thought that… she didn't think that I was any better than any of the other guys back home. Having someone who thinks you're an unsophisticated hayseed isn't much better than someone who thinks you're completely useless." He reached out and took her hands inside his own. "You've always believed in me, Pyrrha, and you've always been there for me, and that… I don't know if I can ever show you how much you mean to me… and I guess that's why I haven't been able to do anything: because I'm terrified of it not measuring up to how I feel about you or what you deserve." He paused and took a deep breath. "But… but if we want this to go anywhere then… then maybe we need to both let go of our fears… and our expectations and just… take things as they go." He took another deep breath and squeezed both Pyrrha's hands affectionately. "Pyrrha Nikos, when we get back from this mission, would you like to go… is there somewhere that you'd like to go? With me, I mean?"
Pyrrha smiled up at him. "I would love to go anywhere with you, Jaune," she whispered.
"That," Jaune said with evident relief, "is good to hear."
And then he kissed her, and the question of where, precisely, they would go became of no import at all to Pyrrha, because where they were, right here and now, was wonderful enough.
"That," she said, gasping for breath a little once it was over and Jaune took a step back. "That was… that… is probably enough for tonight." If she hadn't been able to focus properly before, she certainly wasn't going to be able to now. "We should head back."
"Sure," Jaune agreed. Pyrrha noted – with more than a hint of restrained glee – that he only let go of one hand. He kept hold of the other as they began to walk side by side back to the dorm room.
It was all she could do not to keep looking down at their held hands to make sure it was really happening.
"So," Jaune continued. "Our mission starts tomorrow."
"Indeed," Pyrrha murmured with a slight sigh as the discussion turned to more prosaic topics. "Our second official mission. I'm glad that we've moved to sanctioned missions instead of just getting ourselves involved in situations."
"Well," Jaune replied, "how much the train job coming back is official is… kind of up for debate."
"Yes, I suppose you're right," Pyrrha admitted. "How do you feel?"
"Honestly?"
"You can always be honest with me," Pyrrha declared. "Please… I never want you to think otherwise."
Jaune was silent for a moment. "If it was just the training mission that we were given, I wouldn't be worried at all," he said. "Protecting some guys from the grimm as they repair the railroad line, that's fine. We can handle the grimm. We've proven that, in practice and in Mistral." He grinned. "Even I can take care of an ursa now."
"You certainly can," Pyrrha agreed.
"But… the other stuff," Jaune continued. "The White Fang, Torchwick… that worries me, a little bit."
"I see," Pyrrha said softly. "You're thinking about what happened to Ruby?"
"I'm thinking about what could happen to all of us," Jaune said. "What if that Adam guy shows up? What if there are others in the White Fang who are as strong as he is? What if you get hurt this time, and I don't have enough aura left to-"
"Jaune, stop," Pyrrha insisted, coming to a halt even as she bade him quiet. "I understand, I…" she hesitated, but having urged him to be honest with her, she could hardly refuse him the same respect, could she? "I'm worried too. Down at the docks was my first time fighting someone who was trying to kill me. It's part of the life of a huntress, I know that, but that doesn't mean that I enjoyed it or that I relish the prospect of a repeat." She closed her eyes for a moment. "The grimm are creatures of darkness driven by instinct – however malevolent – to snuff out the light. That makes them dangerous, but it also makes them predictable; we can understand how they behave and, with that understanding, make them our prey. But the White Fang, the criminal Torchwick, these are people like us who have chosen a path of hatred, of violence towards their fellow men, who seek to take life, knowing that it's wrong. I… I find it easier to understand the grimm. I find it safer to understand the grimm."
"I know," Jaune said. "I can't imagine how someone could ruin lives, could take lives, with a smile on their face. I'm not sure that I want to know how they do it."
I'm not sure that I want either of us to know either, Pyrrha thought. "The thought that brings me comfort," she said, "is that the risks to us are no greater fighting the White Fang than fighting the grimm. I do not believe that they have a whole army as skilled as this Adam Taurus that hurt Ruby."
"But he still hurt Ruby-"
"And for that, he will pay, if our paths cross in battle," Pyrrha declared. He had gotten away from Rainbow Dash, but he would not get away from her if destiny brought the two of them together; for matter, she would make it her destiny to come to grips with him if he showed himself in this battle to come.
"Be careful," Jaune urged. "I… I guess I'm just thinking about our photo on the wall of Benni Havens'; I don't… I don't want our smiles to die, not yet."
"Nor do I," Pyrrha assured him. "Nor will they. I wish that the grimm were the only danger that we had to be concerned with, but the White Fang are the danger to Vale, and we cannot turn away from that. But we are strong enough to overcome this challenge."
Jaune nodded and seemed to try and make his tone more resolute. "Right," he said. "Strong enough."
"Strong enough."