• Published 31st Aug 2018
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SAPR - Scipio Smith



Sunset, Jaune, Pyrrha and Ruby are Team SAPR, and together they fight to defeat the malice of Salem, uncover the truth about Ruby's past and fill the emptiness within their souls.

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Over the Ocean (Rewritten)

Over the Ocean

The Hope, like all Altesian cruisers, had a long prow stretching outwards like the tip of a spear, enabling the vessel to lance through the sky as it flew from post to post upon its assignments. Most of the ship — CIC, engineering, the great guns, the brig, the canteen, and a large number of the armouries and crew quarters — were contained aft in the wider, boxier rear section of the cruiser; forward, along the prow, were mostly weapons: the mortars that had descended upon Vale to seal the Breach, the point defence weapons bristling upon the hull to engage any flying grimm or missile that got too close, the missiles that the ship itself could launch at anything big enough to need them, they or their launchers were all embedded on or into the prow, although there were a very few quarters and the like built in there too.

As well as being a long, narrow weapons emplacement, the prow was also a great place to stand for a view, especially if one didn’t mind the open air or the possibility of a long drop down, and so it was on the prow that Rainbow stood, looking down at the civilian airship that kept company with them, the faster warship limiting its speed to that of the slower, unarmed craft, like a mother whale shepherding her calf.

Speaking of which, Rainbow Dash thought that she could see some whales down below them. Hopefully, Fluttershy was watching them too; someone was definitely out on the deck of the skyliner, and Rainbow was fairly certain that one of them was Blake, thanks to the way that her black outfit and hair stood out against the metallic sheen of the airship, but as to whether or not Fluttershy was one of the others, she wasn’t so sure.

But hopefully, she was; she’d enjoy seeing the whales. Even Rainbow thought it was kind of cool, watching them go down there in the sea beneath the airships, breaching the water with their backs and tails, spraying geysers upwards, splashing their tails down as they dived beneath the waves again.

She didn’t know what they were doing, but it was fun to watch all the same.

It took her mind off things for a little while.

Mind you, the things that were on her mind were things that bore thinking about, so she couldn’t let her mind be taken off them for too long. At this speed, keeping pace with the civilian airship, she estimated that it would be about three days before they reached Atlas.

Three days before everything began. In those three days, she didn’t have a lot to do, but she needed to start making some progress with Penny. Penny … well, she’d never really gotten over the fact that Rainbow, Ciel, and Twilight had been set upon her by the General, assigned as her teammates, rather than a team forming around her in the normal course of events like what happened for normal students.

Perhaps Penny had just never made her peace with the fact that she wasn’t getting treated like a normal student. That wasn’t something that Rainbow could do much about, but she could do something about the way that Penny saw her teammates. She didn’t know if Team RSPT would survive … correction; she knew – because Twilight had told her so – that Twilight would be leaving them at the end of the year, and honestly, that was for the best. Getting her own lab was a great opportunity and an amazing show of confidence from General Ironwood; she’d get to pursue her own projects, follow her ideas without the limitations or the jealousies of others, and she’d be able to make Atlas an even better place in ways that she would never be able to do as part of their team.

And making Atlas an even better place was the name of the game, wasn’t it? It was what they all ought to be aiming for.

So, yeah, Twilight was going, and good luck to her in the place she was going to, so when Rainbow thought that she didn’t know what was going to happen to RSPT, she really meant that she didn’t know if she and Ciel would be sticking with Penny or whether they would be transferred to other assignments.

She didn’t even know whether the plan was for Penny to go through the entire four years, which, as her team leader, she probably ought to have known, but honestly, she wasn’t sure the General even knew himself. He had been very cagey with his plans for Penny, and Rainbow had the impression that that was because they weren’t firm in his mind yet. General Ironwood — and Atlas — were waiting to see how things played out, how Penny performed, before deciding how much education she needed.

Right now, Rainbow would say that Penny needed another year, at least. She wasn’t without promise, but she wasn’t there yet. Her injuries … they weren’t exactly her fault, but at the same time, if somebody got hurt that bad in their first year, you’d say they needed more experience before you trusted them to go out into the field … out into the field with a license.

Anyway, it would be for the best if she acted as though she and Ciel weren’t going anywhere and made an effort to get through to Penny accordingly.

If she could. Ciel and Twilight — especially the former — had made much more of an effort with Penny than Rainbow had; Rainbow herself had been preoccupied with Blake; she hadn’t ignored Penny or been unkind to her, and she had done her job and protected Penny to the best of her ability — even if the fact that Penny was now immobile on a workbench made that ‘to the best of her ability’ look a little unreliable — and she would even say that she had done some good things for Penny, and Twilight hadn’t even had to her prompt her to do some of them. Letting her stay at Beacon that first semester had been one hundred percent Rainbow’s idea … okay, it had been Penny’s idea, but Rainbow had enthusiastically adopted it, championed it to the General, and nobody had had to tell her that Penny deserved it.

But that had been before she met Blake, before she befriended Blake, before Blake started absorbing a lot of Rainbow’s energies.

Still, the main issue was not Rainbow’s relationship with Blake, because even if Rainbow had been distracted, and even if Rainbow had thought that Blake was a better bet for Atlas than Penny, Ciel had been there to pick up the slack; no, the main issue was that Penny didn’t appreciate Ciel either. She couldn’t get over the fact that they had been appointed to her, which was why she held the friends that she had made of her own choice — Ruby and Pyrrha and now, it seemed, Sunset — that much closer to her heart in consequence.

That was fine, as far as it went; your teammates didn’t have to be your best friends. Yeah, everyone idealised the teams like SAPR that were a family, the ones that stuck together after graduation, everyone talked about friendships that would last a lifetime. But honestly, Tempest Shadow wasn’t friends with Trixie, Starlight, or Sunburst, and it didn’t hurt the effectiveness of TTSS; Team PSTL were reckoned a pretty good team for all that their team leader treated them more like servants than like friends, and while Rainbow had been tight with Applejack in the old days, and while she had gotten on with Spearhead well enough, Maud … Rainbow respected Maud, but she wouldn’t call them friends. Maud didn’t have any friends except for Pinkie, if sisters counted as friends, anyway. The point was that you didn’t have to like someone to work with them, even to work well with them. But it could help, and it certainly helped if you didn’t think of the people you were working with as an imposition that you’d rather weren’t around.

That’s what Rainbow had to make Penny understand, that just because General Ironwood had assigned them to Penny, it didn’t mean… they all cared about her, even if they didn’t all show it very well.

She had to make Penny understand that. She had to try and make Penny understand that, hopefully before they got back to Atlas when it all kicked off, as it certainly would, because God only knew what Doctor Polendina was going to say about the state of her.

He’d probably call for Rainbow to be reassigned, if not kicked out of Atlas completely.

General Ironwood wouldn’t let the second one happen, and Rainbow didn’t mean to let the first one happen either. She’d been ordered to do a job, and she was going to do that job until the job was done. She wasn’t going to quit, she wasn’t going to walk away, and she wasn’t going to take the easy out of letting Penny’s father have her reassigned.

Apart from the blow to her pride, if she wasn’t going to put all of her ambitions on Blake’s shoulders instead of her own, she was going to have to learn how to play politics, and sometimes, that meant surviving people who were out to get you, even if you had to use your connections against theirs.

If Penny wasn’t receptive to Rainbow aboard ship, it occurred to her that maybe her uncle might have some idea of how to get through to her. Yes, he’d been kicked out of the R&D division and was slumming it down in Mantle with the troublemakers, but he was still Penny’s uncle, and he might have some ideas.

And apart from that, she also owed Scootaloo some bonding time, since that had been unexpectedly cancelled when the team ended up staying in Vale; she’d promised Ciel that they’d look for answers about the Lady of the North; she needed to read that book that Tukson had given her; and, since Blake was coming to Atlas anyway, Rainbow should probably check in on her at least from time to time to see how she was getting on.

And she needed to speak to Cadance to see if she’d made any progress looking into that SDC brand.

Yeah … she was going to be busy. Still, at least she wouldn’t be bored.

“Is there a reason you’re standing so close to the edge?” Ciel asked.

Rainbow looked over her shoulder. Ciel was standing a healthy distance behind her, in the centre of the prow, where — even narrow as it was — there was black metal on either side of her. Rainbow grinned. “You can’t see anything from back there.”

“Is there anything worth seeing?” Ciel asked.

“It depends,” Rainbow replied. She turned away and closed the distance with Ciel. “How’s Penny?”

“Bored,” Ciel said. “I half-think we should have put her to sleep for the duration of the journey.”

Rainbow shook her head. “She’d hate that. She’d feel even more broken than she does right now.”

“I’m not sure that it’s possible for her to feel more broken than she does right now,” Ciel said. She paused. “Her father will have harsh words with us when we arrive in Atlas. And he will be right; we have been … we have not been diligent in our duty towards her.”

“You’ve done the best you could,” Rainbow assured her.

“Then results would suggest that my best was not good enough,” Ciel said frostily.

Rainbow was quiet for a moment. “In my position, if you’d been leading the team in that situation, what would you have done instead?”

Ciel was silent for a moment. “Blake—”

“Yeah, Blake, to make up our numbers and form a rearguard, but what else?” Rainbow asked. “You’ve done everything you could for Penny.”

“And you?” Ciel asked quietly.

Rainbow put her hands on her hips. “I split my focus, and I might not have hit the balance right.”

“Have you seen her?”

“Blake?” Rainbow asked. “No. I thought I might pop over for a quick visit, check on Applejack and Fluttershy as well, but I haven’t seen them, no.”

Ciel nodded. “Her beau tried to stowaway aboard the ship.”

Rainbow’s eyebrows rose. “Sun?”

“I hope she has no others,” Ciel muttered.

“On … on that ship?” Rainbow asked. He could have just bought a ticket.

“On this ship,” Ciel corrected her.

Rainbow’s eyebrows climbed yet higher still. “Sun tried to sneak aboard the Hope?” At Ciel’s nod, she asked, “Is he still alive?”

“I found him when I checked the crawlspace under the floor of our airship before we took off,” Ciel informed her. “I told him that he was lucky he had not made it on board the Hope and sent him away. Then I remained on board the ship until the rest of you arrived to make sure he did not return.”

“Thanks,” Rainbow murmured. “I thought he’d gotten past that.”

“He claimed his teammates were amenable to his decision.”

“Then why not just buy a ticket?” Rainbow asked loudly. “I mean, he did realise that Blake was on the other ship, didn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess as to what that young man knows or does not know,” Ciel declared. “If you ask me, Blake would be well-advised to drop him.”

Rainbow frowned. She would have liked to have asked just what Ciel meant by that, and why she meant it, but the truth was that it would have been disingenuous of her to do so, because she already knew exactly what Ciel meant. In Atlas, anybody could rise high, but they couldn’t necessarily do it by being themselves. If Blake meant to commit to Atlas — and Rainbow hoped she did — then she would have to be careful who she associated with: the wrong man — the wrong marriage — could ruin her entire career in the military. Sun was a good guy, and he was canine in his loyalty, but unless he was hiding a lot of polish under that rough and ready exterior, a lot of people wouldn’t think that he was suitable.

He wasn’t really suitable, it had to be said.

“That isn’t for us to say,” she said quietly.

“If you are her friend—”

“It still wouldn’t give me the right to police her love life,” Rainbow declared. “I have put up with watching Twilight date much worse guys than Sun Wukong.” She ran one hand through her hair. “And, you know … he’s not a bad guy. Maybe the fact that Blake should drop a nice guy who’d do anything for her because he doesn’t know which fork to use with the fish course says worse things about us than it does about him?”

“Such things may seem petty, even ridiculous,” Ciel said, “but they are important symbols, and we abandon them at our peril. It is by holding the line for the smallest pebbles of civility that we prevent the undermining of the broader building blocks, the principles that hold a truly civilised society together. A man who cannot be bothered to dress properly, who feels free to behave boorishly in front of his hostess because he knows that he has a good heart and a soul bathed in righteousness, will soon feel free to break his marriage vows with wild abandon and violate the person of his wife because he knows he has a good heart and a soul bathed in righteousness.”

“Sun isn’t going to hit Blake!” Rainbow yelled.

“I agree that he would not,” Ciel allowed. “But my point is that we hold the outer wall of civilised conduct that the citadel of principles may never come under attack.”

“I’m not sure everyone in Atlas would agree with you,” Rainbow muttered. “Anyway, like I said, I’m not going to bring it up to her.”

“I think that is a mistake,” Ciel said.

“Oh, now you tell me when you think I’m making a mistake,” Rainbow snapped tartly.

“What do you mean?” asked Ciel.

“I mean that you must have realised that I wasn’t doing the best job leading this team, and you let me carry on regardless,” Rainbow said. “I had to hear it from Sunset!” Her voice quietened. “You must have known.”

Ciel looked away guiltily. “I have not been silent,” she muttered.

“You didn’t say enough,” Rainbow replied.

“I was not hoping to see you fail, if that’s what you think,” Ciel said quickly.

“I didn’t think that,” Rainbow said softly. “I just want to know why?”

“Is it not obvious?” Ciel demanded. “You are General Ironwood’s most trusted … everyone in the academy knows that he favours you, and Atlas … you are not blind. I love this kingdom, I would die in its defence, but we both know the importance of patronage and connection when determining advancement. Or the lack of it.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. “You thought … you thought that if you criticised me, I’d screw you over with the General?!”

“Some would,” Ciel said, matter of factly.

“Yeah, but God, Ciel!” Rainbow cried. “I … we need to get to know one another a lot better, clearly. I wouldn’t… God! You really thought that I would do that? You really thought that I was that thin-skinned?”

She debated whether or not she really wanted to know the answer to that.

Ciel took a moment to reply. “I do not come from a good family,” she said. “My father is an NCO; my mother never rose to any great rank. I have not known the General from youth, I do not count his god-daughter as my best friend, I am not insulated against disaster thus. General Ironwood has given me a great honour with this posting, but one that could just as easily turn out to be a poisoned chalice for my ambitions. And with my … manner, I am not likely to win many friends on the way up; I cannot afford to make enemies. Yet it appears that I may have done so unwittingly.”

“You haven’t,” Rainbow reassured her. “I get it. I … just because I’m a faunus doesn’t mean that I can’t be more privileged than you. I didn’t think that it might have been … intimidating, having someone like me as your team leader. But that’s not who I am. I’m not going to punish you for being right, or even for disagreeing with me, whether you’re right or wrong. Maybe you don’t believe me, and I need to try and prove to you that’s not who I am, and I’ll try, but please … if you think that I’m doing something wrong, then tell me. Because if you don’t … if you don’t, then we really will have a disaster on our hands.” She smiled. “And don’t worry, I’ll make sure that nothing hits you when we get back to Atlas. Don’t worry about Penny’s father, or any of it.”

Ciel was silent for a moment. “That is generous of you, although I am not sure that you can give such a guarantee.”

“I’ll try my best,” Rainbow assured her. “You don’t deserve to be blamed for what happened, not when … not when you’re the one who cares about Penny the most.”

Ciel did not instantly reply. “I feel … I am the eldest of seven siblings, and the other six all brothers.”

Rainbow nodded. “I know.”

“Growing up, watching my mother get with child time and time again,” Ciel went on. “I prayed to the Lady that she would intercede with God to send me a little sister. Either she did not bother to demean herself with such selfish requests, or God took no notice, because my prayers went unrewarded.” A soft smile played across her face. “Until now.” The smile died, and a sigh escaped her lips. “And yet—”

“And yet, she doesn’t love you,” Rainbow said softly.

Ciel bit her lip. “At the risk of sounding unpleasantly jealous, it is a little … Ruby, at least, I can understand; she has a manner easy to get on with, but Pyrrha is nearly as awkward as I am, and yet—”

“She chose them,” Rainbow said softly. “It’s not about who you are, or who they are; it’s about how she came to them, against how we came to her.”

“She cannot still think of us as her gaolers?”

“I’m afraid that’s exactly how she thinks of us,” Rainbow replied. “Which isn’t your fault, but … I’m going to try and get through to her about it. Try and make her … I don’t know, try and make her see that the days when we looked at her that way are gone.”

“I could—”

“I’ll go first,” Rainbow said. “I’m the team leader; it’s my responsibility.” She paused, and the corner of her lip twitched upwards. “Unless you think I’m making a mistake.”

“No,” Ciel murmured. “No, I think it is your right to try. After all, I have not succeeded yet.”

“So I’ll give it a try,” Rainbow said. She stepped back, and let her Wings of Harmony pop out from either side of the backpack. “But first, I’m going to quickly check on the girls on the other ship.”

Ciel nodded. “Wish them well for me.”

“Will do,” Rainbow promised, and kicked off the prow of the Hope and into the blue skies beyond.


Blake rested her hands upon the cold metal balcony rail.

The skyliner had a large, open observation deck sprawling forward, covering most of the top of the airship’s superstructure, but only Blake was using it at present. Only Blake was up here, standing at the rails, feeling the wind blow through her long, black hair.

The wings of the airship beat up and down, up and down like vast oars driving them through the air. Blake couldn’t see the rear wings from where she was standing — she was too far forward — but she could see the front wings rising and falling, revealing part of the ocean to her and then obscuring it as the great white paddles descended once again. Up and down, up and down. It was almost relaxing to watch them, to let her eyes become captivated by the lazy rhythm of their rise and fall. Blake wondered how necessary it really was; it seemed incredible that such slow motions could be moving them forward, still less keeping their airborne.

But then, if they were not necessary, then why bother with them at all?

Blake glanced upwards for a moment, to where the Atlesian warship kept them company on the way to its home; it had no visible wings — which was one of the reasons Blake wondered if there was a performative element about the civilian airship — only slender engines emerging from the back to drive it on.

Someone was stood up there, on the open prow, looking down … well, looking down; whether they were looking down on Blake or on the airship or anything of that sort, it was hard to tell. She couldn’t make out who it was either; they were too far away and too indistinct against the black of the airship and the blue of the sky.

She didn’t wave up at them; she didn’t want to be presumptuous in case they weren’t looking at her.

Blake turned her eyes down again, looking downwards to the ocean far below. It looked as though there was something moving down there, something … whales. Yes, she was fairly certain that they were whales, although she didn’t claim to be an expert on wildlife, so she couldn’t be sure. She certainly couldn’t say what kind of whales they were, although whatever they were, they looked quite majestic with the way that they rose and fell, their grey-blue bodies partially emerging out of the water, only to disappear again.

It occurred to Blake, watching, that the flippers of those whales were about the same size in proportion to the bodies of the creatures as the wings of her airship in proportion to the ship itself; she began to re-evaluate her opinion of said wings and their effectiveness.

A gasp from beside her alerted her to the presence of Fluttershy, who had otherwise stolen upon her without Blake realising it.

“Humpbacks!” Fluttershy cried. “Oh, this is incredible. I’ve never seen anything like this in real life before!” She pulled her scroll out of the purse dangling from one arm and began to take pictures, the camera built into the device flashing over and over again.

“'Humpbacks'?” Blake asked. “Is that what they’re called?”

“Mhmm,” Fluttershy acknowledged. “Humpback whales.” She stopped taking pictures and smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I’m sorry, Blake; I should have asked if you wanted company.”

“It’s fine,” Blake assured her. She smiled too, although how bright it was, she couldn’t have said; she wasn’t feeling particularly luminous at the moment. “Hey, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy chuckled softly. “Hello, Blake. Are you enjoying the view?”

Blake looked out again, her gaze descending from the slowly-beating wings down to the ocean below. The whales had disappeared out of sight, sinking down into the depths once more. “It’s kind of relaxing,” she murmured.

“Are you sure I’m not bothering you?” Fluttershy asked anxiously.

“I’m sure,” Blake said. “The downside of this view being so relaxing is that … well, while there are a few new things to look at out here that I couldn’t see from my room, it’s still … once you get used to the view, you have a lot of time to think about things.”

Fluttershy reached out and laid her hand on top of Blake’s hand. “You mean…”

“Yes,” Blake murmured, not moving her hand away from Fluttershy’s touch. “Do you…? I … you probably don’t want to talk about it, but—”

“It’s alright,” Fluttershy said softly. “I don’t mind. I understand that … this matters to you, doesn’t it?”

Blake blinked. “I… yes. Yes, it does. I don’t know whether it should or not, but it does.”

“You were close, weren’t you?” Fluttershy asked.

Blake glanced at her, and then looked away. “You … you could say that.”

“He mentioned you,” Fluttershy told her. “He was … he said that he’d had someone that he cared for very much. Someone he thought that he could trust. Someone … someone who meant everything to him.”

Each word was like a dagger through Blake’s heart. Her free hand found that heart, hovering over it, her fingertips resting upon her breast. “And what,” she asked, “and what did he say happened to me? What did he say that I’d done to him?”

“He said…” Fluttershy hesitated. “He said that Rainbow Dash and Sunset Shimmer had stolen you away.”

Blake let out a noise that was somewhere between a snort and a hollow bitter laugh. “Rainbow and Sunset … they stole me? He still … even then, even at the last, he just … he didn’t get it. He didn’t understand at all. I’d hoped that maybe … maybe whatever it was that you did to him had caused him to see—”

“I don’t know that it didn’t,” Fluttershy offered. “That … the change in him came after.”

Blake turned to get a better look at her. The wind was blowing through Fluttershy’s hair too, the long lilac hair streaming out behind her, exposing her face. It was a pretty face, a soft face, largely untouched by the hardships of the world, and yet, her eyes made it seem a face more suited for tears than for smiles in some strange way that Blake felt but couldn’t really explain. Just as she couldn’t explain why, with this face made for tears, it nevertheless felt wrong for Fluttershy to be sad.

“Tell me,” she implored, her voice breaking. “Please, tell me everything.”

“'Everything'?” Fluttershy asked. “Are you sure?”

“If there is bad along with the good … I know enough bad already, a little more won’t change my mind,” Blake told her. “I just … I want to know.”

Fluttershy nodded silently. She paused for a few moments before she spoke. “He scared me, at first,” she confessed.

“He had that effect,” Blake replied. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“He came in, and as soon as I realised that it was him and not Gilda, I … like I said, he frightened me,” Fluttershy repeated. “Especially since he seemed angry or upset about something. He made fun of my outfit,” she added. “I suppose it was a little much, but Rarity had worked so hard on it, I couldn’t bear to tell her that it wasn’t practical enough. Then Applejack … Applejack said something that made him angry.”

“Not difficult,” Blake murmured.

“He told us that he hadn’t received much generosity in his life,” Fluttershy added. “Is that true?”

“That … that depends,” Blake said. “When he was younger … did he show you the … did he show you—?”

“The mark on his face?” Fluttershy guessed.

Blake winced. “So he did?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Did the SDC really do that to him?”

“So he told me,” Blake said softly.

Fluttershy gasped. “How could anyone … how? That’s … that’s just … that’s just wrong! How … how can you know that things like that happen and still want to come within a hundred miles of Atlas?”

“Because I … because I don’t want to be like him,” Blake replied, her voice trembling. “I don’t want to condemn a whole city or kingdom for the actions of a few. For what I hope are the actions of a few.”

“That’s incredibly kind of you,” Fluttershy whispered. “And you’re not scared?”

“Of it happening to me?” Blake asked, to which Fluttershy gave a mute nod of assent. “No,” she said. “I trust you. Rainbow Dash, Twilight, I trust all of you. And, if it turns out that I’m wrong … other faunus have suffered far worse than I in the struggle for our liberation and will still have suffered more than I, even if I do get three letters seared into my flesh.”

Fluttershy swallowed. “I … I don’t know whether to applaud or be appalled,” she murmured. “Are you sure that you want to sit down with—?”

“Weiss didn’t brand anyone’s face,” Blake said. “I can’t blame her any more than I can blame Atlas. That way lies … you know where that road leads.”

“Did he tell you how it happened?”

“No,” Blake said. “He didn’t like to talk about it.”

“Does … does Rainbow Dash know?”

Blake nodded solemnly. “She … she saw it. She knocked off his mask while fighting.”

Fluttershy gasped, her hands covering her mouth.

“She’s … fine,” Blake assured her. “She … it was some time ago, and I think… I can’t read her mind, and it seemed to bother her at first, but … don’t worry, she’s still your friend.”

“I know,” Fluttershy said. “But that doesn’t mean… I’m still sorry she had to find that out. She … Atlas means a lot to her.”

“And not to you?” Blake asked.

Fluttershy shrugged. “Gilda came in before Adam could do anything,” she said. “She seemed… she tried to protect us from everyone.”

“Gilda,” Blake murmured. “Gilda was never very fond of bloodshed.”

“Adam tried to send her away,” Fluttershy said, “but she wouldn’t go.”

That surprised Blake. “She defied him?”

Fluttershy nodded. “For our sake.”

Blake’s eyebrows rose. She wouldn’t have thought that anyone would have had the courage to defy Adam, and certainly not Gilda Swiftwing; evidently, things had changed since she left. “But that’s not why he let you go, is it?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “That was when I told him what we’d been doing in Vale in the first place: studying the wildlife.” She smiled sadly. “Did you know that he liked birds when he was a boy?”

Blake looked down at her feet. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, he told me about that. Colourful canaries down the mines and fat—”

“Fat pigeons in the streets of Mantle,” Fluttershy finished.

Blake nodded. “He always… he was always angry,” she said softly. “He always had so much rage in him, but … when he talked about the birds they had down the mines, or about the football that they used to play once they came up from the mines to unwind before bedtime, about the songs the work gangs sang … all that anger would seem to leave him, for just a little while, and instead…”

“Sadness,” Fluttershy murmured.

Blake thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” she acknowledged. “Yes, he became sad, and solemn, but not angry. Not the way that he usually was.” She paused. “I’d like to say that it was the sadness that drew me to him, not the anger, but the truth was that it was both. It was … the first time I met him, he’d just returned from a successful mission. Successful, but not without cost. Everyone else was celebrating their victory, but he … I found him outside, in the dark, crying over his fallen comrades. He cared then, he cared so much about our people and our cause, and his anger, it … it was a righteous anger, then; a rage against the injustice of the world. But then, later, as time went on, he … it was like he was deliberately trying to put the sadness away, somewhere where it wouldn’t weaken him, and his anger came to seem less righteous and more … indiscriminate. And I could see it happening to the rest of the White Fang around me too. That’s why I had to leave, leave them and him; it was nothing to do with Rainbow, it was nothing to do with Sunset, it was … it was him, and what he was becoming.” She closed her eyes. “And yet—”

“It’s not your fault,” Fluttershy insisted.

“So I’m told,” Blake murmured. “And I’m sure that everyone who tells me that is right, but … what right did I have to judge someone who had suffered so much more than I have? What right did I have to judge any of them, to take up arms against them, to let them die in that tunnel? What right do I have to be here when Adam and so many others have given their lives for our people?”

Fluttershy was silent for a moment. “I’m not a faunus,” she said, “and I don’t have the right to talk about what the White Fang is fighting for or what you’ve suffered, but I do know that all life is precious and not to be thrown away lightly. After all, it’s only by living that things can get any better, isn’t it? For us, and for the people we care about.”

“I know,” Blake said, “but—”

“Sometimes, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it,” Fluttershy replied. “But we have to, all the same.”

The door opened onto the observation deck, and Applejack ambled through. “Howdy, girls,” she said, greeting them both with a wave of one hand. “I hope Ah’m not interruptin’ anythin’; I just thought Ah’d come up here for some fresh air 'fore dinner.”

“You’re not interrupting,” Blake said, “and even if you were, there’s plenty of room.”

Applejack laughed as she looked around the otherwise empty observation deck. “Yeah, Ah guess you’re right about that, ain’t you?” She paused. “Feel that wind blowin’, Ah’m glad Ah left mah hat back in mah room. Not much chance of gettin’ it back if it went overboard, huh?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t this windy the last time we came this way,” Fluttershy said.

“Probably 'cause summer’s drawin’ to a close,” Applejack said. “Autumn’s on the way, so we get that autumn weather. Still, it ain’t too cold, and as far as Ah’m concerned, it beats spending all day in that cabin. I don’t like to be cooped up too long.”

“You missed some majestic whales passing beneath us,” Fluttershy said. “They were beautiful.”

“Ah’ll take your word for it,” Applejack said as she wandered over to the railing to join them. She leaned against the cold metal rail. “You’re probably sick of folks askin’ how yer feelin’, sugarcube, so I’ll ask you how you feel about gettin’ to Atlas?”

Blake took a few moments to consider her reply. “I feel … curious. I’ve only ever heard about Atlas — and not in the sense that everyone has heard about Atlas — I mean like … I had a friend who lived there for a while, she went to a school you know, Crystal Prep.”

“Yep,” Applejack said heavily. “We know Crystal Prep alright, don’t we, Fluttershy?”

“They weren’t that bad,” Fluttershy said.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, sugarcube,” Applejack replied. “Although, I must say, Ah’m surprised to hear about a faunus goin’ to Crystal Prep. Ah don’t remember seein’ any of them when our schools met up.”

“She was passing for human at the time,” Blake explained.

Applejack blinked. “You mean … your friend was the one who—”

“Yes,” Blake said. “I understand you’ve heard of that too.”

“And she’s your source about Atlas,” Applejack said.

“For what it’s worth, she was actually very complementary,” Blake said. “Sort of. She said it was a city of dreams. A city where she had to hide what she really was in order to fit in.”

“All the same,” Applejack muttered, “Ah don’t know if you want to go takin’ her word for it.”

“I’m not taking anyone’s word for it, Ilia’s or Rainbow Dash’s,” Blake replied. “So I suppose that what I’m feeling is … curiosity, to find out for myself what Atlas is really like.”

Applejack held her hand up to her eyes, shielding them from the sun as she looked upwards. “Speakin’ of Rainbow Dash,” she said.

Blake looked up too, in time to see a figure descending through the air towards them from the cruiser up above.

She and Fluttershy sidestepped nimbly out of the way as Rainbow dropped onto the deck.

“Hey,” Rainbow said. “How’s everyone doing?”

“We just saw some wonderful humpbacks in the water below,” Fluttershy said.

“Oh, is that what they were?” Rainbow asked. “I thought they were whales.”

“Humpback whales,” Fluttershy explained.

“Ah, okay, that makes sense,” Rainbow acknowledged. “But are you three okay?”

“Ah’m about as well as could be expected,” Applejack said. “But Ah think Blake might be gettin’ a little tired of folks asking her if she’s okay.”

“Right,” Rainbow murmured. “On the one hand, I’m sorry, but on the other hand, it isn’t my fault if everyone else has gotten to you first.”

Blake smiled a little. “It’s fine,” she assured her. “It’s not a problem. I … am okay. I’m as well as could be expected, as Applejack put it.”

“Are you—?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Blake said, before Rainbow could finish her inquiry. Although she then felt the need to add, “Although I am a little apprehensive about dinner with Weiss and Flash tonight.”

“You’re having dinner with Weiss and Flash?”

“We all are,” Fluttershy said. “Flash thought that it would be nice, and Blake didn’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Blake said. “I just … it’s Weiss Schnee, you know.”

“Weiss Schnee,” Rainbow said. “Not Jacques Schnee. We’re none of us our parents.”

“I know,” Blake replied. “But you can understand why I’m a little … I don’t know what to expect.”

“Expect some nice food on a ship like this,” Rainbow said, with a grin. “Do you think there’d be room for one more at your table?”

“Aiming to stick around?” Applejack asked.

“Not me, Twilight,” Rainbow said. “I’ll fly her over this evening and then pick her up again when you’re all done.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Fluttershy declared. “But are you sure that you can’t join us too?”

Rainbow shook her head. “I’m having dinner with Penny tonight.”

“How is Penny?” asked Blake.

Rainbow scratched the back of her head with one hand. “Defeat bothers her more than her injuries, I think.”

“Tell her that she oughtn’t let it get to her,” Applejack said. “We all take some lumps from time to time.”

“Yeah, I know,” Rainbow said. “But Penny … Penny’s been told that she’s really awesome, and now she’s finding out that, well, she doesn’t feel that way right now.” Rainbow paused for a moment. “But she’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay, right?”

“Ah hope so,” Applejack said.

“I’m sure we will,” Fluttershy added.

“And … and so do I,” Blake said, after a moment. “It might not be instant, it might take a while, but I hope, I think, I’m sure that we’ll get there.”

But before that, there was dinner with Weiss Schnee to get through.

Author's Note:

So, the way the story is going to be structured for the next little bit is sequentially rather than attempting sort of chronological order cross-cutting. So, we're going to stay in Atlas, with a bit of Penny and her father and a little Sci-Twi, but for the most part focussing on Blake as she heals and temporarily teams up with Weiss for a brief side-plot tying into the Grimm Eclipse storyline; then we'll go to either Jaune & Pyrrha or Ruby & Yang, then whichever of those two I didn't do first, then Grimm Eclipse.

Rewrite Notes: A complete rewrite of this particular chapter, take account of changed circumstances and the like. Trying to think of more to say than but struggling, I suppose I could say that this chapter is spiritually similar, but textually different. Also, they don't reach Atlas at the end.

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