SAPR

by Scipio Smith

A Letter Home (New)

A Letter Home

The dorm rooms in Atlas were smaller than the rooms at Beacon, with four bunk beds — two across and two high — situated against the right-hand wall, with the duvet covers in royal blue, matching the strips of that same colour on either side of the midnight blue carpet that covered most, but not all, of the grey tiled floor. The window was high as the room itself, with dark metal lines crawling up it in slightly winding patterns, while desks for working sat opposite bunks against the left-hand wall. As Team RSPT had taken most of their stuff to Beacon, the dorm at Atlas where Rainbow and Ciel were staying — at least for now — was even more barren and austere than it was normally. The doors of Atlas Academy’s dorm rooms were automatic, like so much else about Atlas, and so, the door into RSPT’s Atlas dorm room slid open to admit Blake without anyone having to get up and let her in.

She walked inside, the tails of her new coat trailing slightly after her. “Good evening, Rainbow,” she said. “Ciel.”

Ciel was on the bottom bunk, out of sight of Rainbow Dash, but the latter heard her say, “Good evening, Blake.”

“Hey,” Rainbow said. “Nice outfit.”

“Thank you,” Blake said. “Rarity did a good job helping pick it out for me.”

“Rarity always does a good job picking outfits,” Rainbow said. She hesitated. “Well, almost always. Anyway, how was your tour of Atlas?”

“You have a very impressive city here,” Blake replied. “It’s very … shiny.”

Rainbow snorted. “Yeah, you could say that. But is that a good thing to you?”

“I don’t think it matters,” Blake replied. “I’m going to make my choice based on more important considerations than the architecture or the look of a place.” She paused. “There aren’t very many faunus here, are there?”

“I … wouldn’t say that, necessarily,” Rainbow said. “I mean, there’s me, and Neon. There’s you.”

“I don’t count,” Blake said flatly.

“Okay, there’s … there’s Lycus Silvermane, Fourth year, Team Pastel.”

“Three.”

“Moondancer, who works in the lab and helped with Penny.”

“Four.”

“Specialist Amin, who graduated at the end of last year,” Rainbow said. “Pretty cool guy, too, you should meet him.”

“Five,” Blake said.

Rainbow hesitated. “Uh … Lemon Zest, who used to go to Crystal Prep.”

“Six.”

“That’s more than you can count on the fingers of one hand,” Rainbow pointed out.

Blake raised one eyebrow.

Rainbow grinned down at her from the top bunk. “You’re right,” she said. “There aren’t that many faunus here in Atlas.”

“I didn’t see a single one today.”

“Unless you make great boasts for your eyes, that does not prove that they were not there,” Ciel pointed out.

“Maybe not, but the chances of me missing all of them are pretty slim,” Blake replied.

Rainbow didn’t mention that there were more faunus in Low Town or Mantle; the fact that there were more faunus living in the poor, wretched parts of the kingdom than there were in Atlas was hardly an antidote to Blake’s point. “That’s why it’s important that we do our best,” she said. “We have to keep pushing so we can get faunus into the room, at the table, just like Rudi Antonio says in his book.”

“To what end, if faunus can’t even live in Atlas?” Blake asked.

“How is that ever going to change unless we can get faunus making the decisions?” Rainbow responded. “I like Councillor Cadenza — I’ll have to try and introduce you to her too — I respect her, she’s very smart, and she genuinely wants what’s best for Atlas, and I believe that she believes in equality. And that’s impressive, considering.”

“I’d rather hope it was the norm,” Blake murmured.

“The woman was kidnapped by the White Fang,” Rainbow reminded her, “and she escaped and was still willing to have a faunus at her wedding. I have to give her some credit for that.”

“The faunus aren’t the White Fang and vice versa,” Blake declared. “I’m … a little less inclined to give credit for the fact that someone was able to remember that.”

“There have been times in our acquaintance when you have failed to do so,” Ciel pointed out.

“Cadance is a good person,” Rainbow insisted. “Give her a chance, and I swear she’ll impress you. Of all the civilians on the Council, she is by far the best.”

Blake was silent for a moment. A smile fleeted across her face, and her voice acquired a hint of gentle teasing. “You said that so that you didn’t have to choose between her and the General, didn’t you?”

“I … may have, yeah,” Rainbow admitted. “But my point stands. She’s a good person, she does her best for Atlas—”

“But she’s not a faunus,” Blake murmured.

Rainbow sighed. “But we still have Low Town right underneath the city; most of them work up in Atlas; they do construction, maintenance—”

“I’m a little surprised that isn’t done by robots,” Blake observed. “So much seems to be here.”

“A lot,” Rainbow agreed. “But you can programme a robot to pick up litter, you can programme a robot to identify grimm and shoot at them, but you can’t programme a robot to be able to guess why you don’t have hot water in your house. Some things you need a person with intuition for.”

“So they get to keep Atlas’ water warm but not live here.”

“I didn’t say it was a good thing; it isn’t,” Rainbow said. “And that’s my point, we need to push forward so that we can get faunus into positions of authority where they can make the decisions that will help the people.”

“Our people,” Blake murmured.

Rainbow hesitated. “I … I don’t know if I have the right to say that,” she said softly.

“Are you a faunus?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“And do you want to help them?”

Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

“Then they’re your people,” Blake said. “You can be Atlesian and a faunus; you can have two tribes, two layers of identity; isn’t that the point of this? Isn’t that what sets us apart from Sienna Khan’s White Fang?”

“And from the Happy Huntresses,” Ciel muttered.

“Who?” Blake asked.

“Never mind,” Rainbow said quickly.

“A certain group,” Ciel explained, despite Rainbow, “who believe that one can either be of Mantle or of Atlas, not both.”

“Don’t worry about them,” Rainbow assured Blake. “They’re not a problem, just a few troublemakers.” That was possibly selling them a little short, but Rainbow didn’t really want Blake to find out about Atlas’ problems with separatist movements. They were supposed to be making a good impression, after all. “But, apart from the fact that there aren’t enough faunus, you liked what you saw?”

“What I saw was impressive,” Blake said, “but as I said, 'like' doesn’t have much to do with it.” She paused. “We ran into Applejack at the memorial.”

“Right,” Rainbow said quietly. “That’s not surprising.”

“There is a saying,” Ciel said. “At some point, you will run into everyone at the memorial.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Rainbow said. She looked down at Blake. “Don’t get the wrong idea about These Are My Jewels, okay?”

Blake’s eyes narrowed. “And what is the wrong idea?”

“That it’s … that they’re the ones who matter,” Rainbow said. “I mean, of course they matter, but they matter because … every face up there, everyone who has ever had their photo put up there, everyone who has ever had flowers left for them there, those are tragedies, every one. They’re not the goal; they’re not what we strive for. We honour them, and we recognise that sometimes, you don’t have a choice but to put your body between danger and those who rely on us … and even if there was another way, we honour them regardless, because it would be … anyway, the point is that if all we wanted to do was sacrifice the jewels of Atlas, we could do that without the ships and the bombs and the androids. But we do all of those things because the aim is not to die for Atlas; it’s to live for her.”

“'No one ever won a war by dying for his kingdom,'” Ciel declared. “'But by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his.' Pardon my language.”

“A quote, I presume,” Blake said.

“General Colton,” Ciel said. “The Valish officer who—”

“I know who General Colton is,” Blake said. She glanced up at Rainbow Dash. “Has he turned up in the book Tukson lent you yet?”

“Yeah, I’ve gotten through the Great War stuff,” Rainbow said. “She doesn’t spend as long on that as I thought she might.”

“Sienna Khan was writing with an eye to expounding on politics; the Great War offered less opportunity to do that,” Blake replied. “And besides, the Mistralian front in the Great War was — thanks in no small part to Ares Claudandus — something of a sideshow, and neither he nor his principal lieutenants were involved in any of the more prominent theatres.”

“Lucky them, considering,” Rainbow muttered.

Blake nodded. She gestured to one of the chairs sitting against the other wall. “May I?”

“Be my guest,” Rainbow replied.

Blake got the chair, dragging it across the floor until she was sitting close to the bunks. “So, what do you think so far?”

“He was an impressive soldier, wasn’t he?” Rainbow said.

“Sienna rates him as great a warrior as the Last King of Vale,” Blake said. “I disagree. I think Claudandus was better.”

“That is quite a claim,” Ciel observed.

“The Last King accomplished great things, but he had a nation behind him and an army that he had had time to prepare for the conflict that he must have seen coming many years before the storm broke,” Blake explained. “Ares Claudandus took a bunch of slaves who had been beaten down, degraded, whose masters had done everything in their power to make them feel as though they were no better than animals, and he fashioned them into an army capable of standing up to any other in Remnant. If you’ve read the section on the Great War, then you’ll already know that they went up against Colton, Vale’s best general after the king himself, leading a Valish army, and they beat him tactically and strategically and sent him home with his tail between his legs.”

“It’s impressive,” Rainbow said. “I’m not sure about all the backstabbing, though.”

“You don’t think it was necessary?” Blake asked.

“I would appreciate a little context,” Ciel said.

“When the Great War began, the main Mistralian army under Lord Rutulus drove the Valish westward to the mountains,” Blake explained. “There, they were stymied by the Valish defences in the pass, and an attempt by Mantle to break the stalemate by landing in the north of Vale and marching south was also blocked.”

“I am aware of that,” Ciel said softly.

“However, Vale also planned to break the stalemate by sending a relatively small army under General Colton to land in Anima and attack Mistral directly. The plan was to raise the faunus in arms with a promise of freedom,” Blake went on.

“And it worked; thousands and thousands of faunus flocked to join Colton’s army,” Rainbow Dash. “And one of them was Ares Claudandus. He started with about a hundred faunus who had all worked on his master’s plantation, and he drilled them until they were the best unit in the whole army. And then he worked his way up, gathering more and more soldiers under his leadership. And all the while he was fighting for Vale, he was secretly negotiating with the Mistralians; he promised that if they abolished slavery, then he would switch sides and fight for them.”

“And when they did — if only because they didn’t have many other cards to play — he did,” Blake said. “So, from a certain point of view, he kept his word.”

“It does not sound as though he kept his word to General Colton,” Ciel pointed out.

“General Colton wasn’t going to stick around when the war ended, and no matter what happened, the war was never going to end with Vale occupying Mistral,” Blake said. “Some of Ares’ later actions bother me, but I can see why he switched sides like that; as a faunus, he had to do what was best for his people, and that meant putting himself in a position where he could deal with Mistral after the war. He thought that he had a better chance of doing that as a Mistralian general than as someone who had fought for the enemy.” Blake looked at Rainbow. “Like you, he thought it would be important to have a faunus in the room when the fate of his people was decided.”

“It didn’t help; they were all set to ship the faunus out to Menagerie,” Rainbow said.

“True, but…” Blake hesitated. “As Sienna Khan says, Ares Claudandus was a faunus first, but he was also a Mistralian second. I think … I believe he genuinely wanted to fight for Mistral, if they would have him and set his people free.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow replied. “That’s not something I expected when I started reading. The guy was … kind of a patriot, wasn’t he?”

Blake nodded. “Perhaps too much so, in the end.”

“No spoilers,” Rainbow said.

Blake snorted. “Okay, I’ll let you get there by yourself.”

“So, if I may ask, what happened in the war?” Ciel asked. “How did he defeat General Colton?”

“Through sheer guts, by the sound of it,” Rainbow said.

“It’s not quite that simple,” Blake said.

“They deliberately charged the front lines to show how brave they were,” Rainbow pointed out.

“True,” Blake allowed. “But for a good reason. Why don’t you read it?”

Rainbow picked up the book, flicking back a few pages to the point just after Ares Claudandus had switched sides, joining with Mistral against the Valish. “Let’s see … ‘having no other cards to play, the Emperor’ … okay, here it is. ‘Colton, in his dispatches back to Vale, described the effect of the Imperial proclamation as electrifying; that is because he was unaware of for how long, and how patiently, Ares had prepared the ground in expectation of this moment. In truth, the effect was less that of an electric shock and more the eruption of a volcano: the moment when forces long gestating out of sight spring into open view. The faunus troops, evading all efforts to disarm or detain them, deserted en masse, and immediately turned their arms against those who had bestowed them. Colton raged against this treachery, but Ares responded with a scornful letter, reminding Colton that he had not escaped from plantation slavery to become a bondsman to Colton or the King of Vale; he was a free man, and free to choose his own path and that of his people.

“‘General Colton soon discovered that it was far easier to march through Anima as a friend of the faunus than it was as their enemy. At every place one might conceive an ambush, there, Ares had set a trap; the Valish would be harried on the march, yet when they pursued those who shot at them, they found only labourers with their hoes and shovels — yet every labourer was hostile to them now; every hill pass was held, and every fortress defended with a dogged determination that astonished Valish and Mistralian alike. Colton ordered a brigade to capture the fort at Praesentum, but Crixus and a few hundred fighters defended it so fiercely that soon, the entire Valish army was engaged in the siege. One night, a ragged, half-starved faunus approached the Valish line; he claimed he was a deserter, and that many others were contemplating taking that step. The Valish gave him food and water, and then he stole a horse and galloped through their lines: he was no deserter at all, but a messenger with word for Ares.

“‘But Ares knew that if he merely subjected Colton to the death of a thousand cuts, he and his soldiers would be thought little better than brigands by Mistralians eager to dismiss them. He needed to defeat the Valish in pitched battle, and so, he gathered all his strength and marched to the relief of Crixus at Praesentum. Colton withdrew to open ground, where he could better guard against ambushes, and offered battle there. Ares accepted eagerly, drawing up his troops in line of battle; some of his fighters did not have guns, only spears if that; these, he placed in the centre of the formation.

“‘Both captains addressed their men before the battle began. Colton dwelt on the victories that they had won in the north and how, having defeated the pride of Mantle, it would be shameful to be defeated in turn by a rabble of slaves. Still he did not comprehend against whom he fought and what power there is in the cause of liberty. It was a lesson many were to learn in the days and years to come. For his part, Claudandus reminded his fellows of what was at stake in this battle and the rewards of victory that would accrue to them. “How often,” he asked them, “have you laboured in the fields and heard the revels of your masters in the great house? How often have you served wine in the halls of your masters and come and gone as you were bidden? I tell you that if we win this battle, and drive these invaders from our soil, then we shall be free folk forevermore, and those who come after us shall not know the whip or the chain, but they shall dance in the great houses, and they shall drink wine in the great halls, and we shall be the equals of the grandest humans!” Oh, how revealing is this, what Ares aimed at? Not to tear down the society of Mistral but to join it. This was to cause much grief for him and for the faunuskind, but for now, it fired the bellies of the freedmen.

“‘They attacked from the front, advancing at a flat run over open ground. Colton had promised his men that the slaves would break at the first volley, but the first volley crashed home, and they only ran faster towards their enemies. More volleys were fired, faunus fell, but with every faunus that fell, they closed up the ranks and continued to advance without faltering. Boukman, leading the left flank, was killed, and his followers took up his name as their battle cry as they pressed on nonetheless. Crixus, on the right flank, was shot in the arm, but refused to retire until the battle had been decided. Three shots passed through Ares’ coat, but he himself was not struck by any of them, and it was from this that the first stories about the magical plume of his hat that would protect him from harm originated.

“‘The faunus advanced, and the more they advanced, the more discomfited the Valish became. When the faunus could see the whites of their enemies’ eyes, they halted. They were fired upon, the Valish poured shot and shell into their midst. The faunus closed up their ranks, and every warrior who had a gun presented it towards the Valish. They fired a single volley, devastating in its effectiveness, and then they charged, shrieking like devils, falling upon their enemies with bayonets, knives, spears, axes, farming tools. These were men who had lived with the threat of death for every moment of their lives; there had never been an hour, much less a day, when they could not have perished in some grotesque fashion upon the whim of their master. Having lived with the possibility that they might have their rears stuffed with fire dust and then ignited, death by gunshot or bayonet thrust had no terrors for them. Even so, the Valish might have won the day yet by committing their reserves, except that — in spite of all Colton’s caution — Ares Claudandus managed to spring an ambush on him after all, having sent his nephew, Antoninus, with a thousand troops on a long march which brought them behind the Valish lines. The Valish fled in disarray, and Ares soon recaptured for Mistral all which he had helped the Valish conquer.’”

“Impressive,” Ciel conceded. “And yet, as you say, Rainbow, I must confess to a certain unease with the treachery involved. Yes, a free man is free to change his mind, but that does absolve him from censure for it.”

“It’s easy to be honourable when your position is strong and secure,” Blake pointed out.

“And yet, it is when we are at our weakest and most vulnerable that it is most important not to lose sight of those higher qualities that make us civilised people,” Ciel replied.

“But Ares Claudandus was not civilised,” Blake declared. “He had been born a slave, he taught himself to read in a time when he could have been killed if he’d been caught, he never learned to write in his own hand — he dictated that reply to Colton to a secretary. Can someone brought up in those circumstances, who saw what might be the only chance in his lifetime or longer to achieve freedom for his people, really be blamed that he didn’t observe all the niceties in order to reach his goal?”

Ciel was quiet for a moment, down there in the bottom bunk. “It strikes me,” she said softly. “That Sienna Khan might defend herself in much the same way.”

Blake was silent for a moment, before a slight chuckle escaped her lips. “I really don’t know how she’d take that comparison,” she admitted. “On the one hand, to be compared to one of the leaders of the freedom struggle would be a great honour, but on the other, as you’ll see, she doesn’t really like Ares that much. She has a lot of disagreements with him as the book goes on, and when I was with her, she would often talk about the mistakes he made. She’d probably prefer to be compared to Crixus.”

“He’s going to be important later, then?” Rainbow asked.

“Oh, very much so,” Blake replied.

Rainbow nodded absently. “So … how long did you spend with Sienna Khan?”

Blake tapped at her knees with her fingers for a moment. “Three years, almost four,” she said. “From when I left my parents until Adam was sent to command of the Vale Chapter, and I went with him.”

“Do you ever miss them?” asked Rainbow.

“Sienna, or my parents?”

“Either? Both?” Rainbow said. “It’s up to you, really.”

Blake was silent for a moment. “Sienna … no, not really. She was kind to me, indulgent even; she taught me an awful lot, and I get the feeling — I hope, anyway — that she would have protected me from Adam, but… she is the reason it took me so long to break with Adam and the White Fang in the first place; she’s the one who spent so long convincing me that what we were doing was right and just. No, I don’t miss her. Because, if I was with her, I wouldn’t be here, if that doesn’t sound trite.”

“And your parents?” Ciel murmured.

“I…” Blake fell silent for a moment. “I regret the way that I left things with my parents. I wish that I had … I wish that we had parted in a different spirit. They … they didn’t approve of my choices, and I was— I was downright scathing about theirs.” She glanced away. “I don’t regret … I do regret … I do, and I do not regret my choices, I regret the immediate consequence and do not regret the longer consequences which brought me here. I wouldn’t wish myself to Menagerie at their side.”

“No?” Rainbow said. “Chieftain’s daughter? Some might call that a pretty sweet deal. Some might call that a pretty powerful deal as well. I mean, we talk about getting a faunus in the room … on Menagerie, you’d own the room.”

“A little room,” Blake said. “With few visitors. Yes, my father is the Chieftain of Menagerie, but what is that worth? What is Menagerie to the outside world? A little land, unrecognised, not part of the system of the world created after the Great War, a place unthought of and out of the way, and its chieftain someone of little note. I was able to use my real name at Beacon, and nobody guessed who I really was; doesn’t that say something about what little regard my family is held in in Remnant? I could do more good here than I ever could in Menagerie; I could do more good at Beacon than I ever could at Menagerie. But, all the same … I regret that I parted from my parents the way I did.”

Rainbow looked down at Blake, as Blake herself looked down at the floor, but in Rainbow’s mind’s eye, it was not Blake’s parents she imagined but her own, sailing away to Menagerie.

Perhaps Blake wasn’t the only one who ought to wish that they’d parted in a different spirit.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” she said. “I just—”

“It’s fine,” Blake assured her. “You were only … it’s fine.”

“Anyway,” Rainbow said. “You had a good day?”

“I’m not sure that I ought to describe a day in which I visited a war memorial as good,” Blake said. “But it wasn’t a bad day.” She smiled briefly. “How’s Penny?”

“Her father has started working on her,” Rainbow said. “Hopefully, she’ll be up and talking — with her own voice — before too long.” She paused for a moment. “Hey, Blake, can I ask you something?”

“You shouldn’t answer this,” Ciel declared.

Blake’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”

“Because it will not do any good,” Ciel said.

“That doesn’t mean that we should close our eyes,” Rainbow insisted.

“What is it?” Blake asked.

Rainbow climbed down from the top bunk, careful not to leap since she should have easily hit Blake. “Do you think … I know that you’re not that close to Penny, but you know what she is, which makes you kind of objective, I guess, but what do you think…? Do you think that Penny ought to be freer, to live her own life and make her own choices?”

Blake let the silence linger in the room for so long that it started to become uncomfortable. Rainbow shifted awkwardly from side to side, waiting for a response. Blake herself licked her lips, and played with her hair with one hand.

“You do not have to say anything,” Ciel said softly.

“I … wasn’t really aware that Penny wasn’t free to live her own life and make her own choices,” Blake said carefully.

“That might be said to prove that the infringements on her freedom are so minor as to be beneath notice,” Ciel suggested.

“But Rainbow seems to have noticed them,” Blake pointed out.

“Penny was created to serve the Kingdom of Atlas,” Ciel said.

“But she doesn’t want to?”

“She might not,” Rainbow said. “If not right now, then one day. She might want something different out of her life. And I’m worried that she wouldn’t be able to have it.”

Blake leaned back in her chair. “There is an obvious comparison to be made here,” she pointed out.

Rainbow cringed. “That’s what Twilight said, that’s what I was afraid of.”

“An overblown comparison,” Ciel insisted. “Penny is happy.”

“The slaveowners maintained that their slaves were happy,” Blake pointed out.

“Penny is genuinely happy, you know that!” Ciel cried. “This isn’t my claim in the teeth of the evidence; this is the truth!”

“The truth is that Penny doesn’t like you nearly as much as you like her,” Rainbow said. “That isn’t fair, but I do understand it.” She paused for a moment. “You might feel like her sister, but will she ever feel like yours while you’re keeping the keys?”

Ciel pursed her lips together. “It is … it is an honourable thing to fight for Atlas, a noble thing and worthy of the highest hearts and of the highest hearts from all the rest; it is no mean punishment to which Penny is…”

“Condemned?” Blake suggested.

“Indemnified,” Ciel insisted. “If you feel that our service is so unworthy of consideration, then why are you here?”

“That’s a ridiculous comparison, and you know it,” Blake said, keeping her voice calm as she did so. “I’m here of my own choice, and I will make a choice. Penny hasn’t had that opportunity. Maybe she would choose everything that has been laid out for her anyway, or maybe—”

“'I want so much more than they’ve got planned,'” Rainbow whispered.

Ciel frowned. “That’s from—”

“Penny said it to me, on the day that we met Sapphire,” Rainbow explained. “Yes, it’s from a movie, from a movie that you showed her. She’s always wanted more. I don’t know if she knows exactly what she wants, but she’s always wanted more.”

“It cannot be,” Ciel declared. She stood up. “General Ironwood has indulged so much, but this? He will not permit it, and her father … it cannot be.”

“The status quo always seems too strong to be challenged,” Blake said. “But it is only by challenge, however forlorn the challenge may seem, that it is ever broken.”

Ciel frowned. “With … with all that we know, and all that is opposed to us—”

“The fact that there’s an actual honest evil out there makes it even more important that we be the good guys, don’t you think?” Rainbow asked.

“Even if it means discarding a vital…” Ciel trailed off before she could actually refer to Penny as a weapon. “I do not find this an easy question.”

“Neither do I, and I hate it,” Rainbow muttered. She ran one hand through her many-coloured hair. “Sorry, Blake, this isn’t your business; you’ve got enough going on without—”

“No, it’s fine,” Blake assured her. “I’m … I’m glad to know what you’re thinking on this. It hadn’t occurred to me, but now that it has … well, anyway … oh, Mrs Breeze said to invite you for dinner, since I was headed this way.”

“That is really nice of her,” Rainbow said. She glanced at Ciel. “But—”

“Please, don’t stop on my account,” Ciel said. “I’ll be fine.”

“In the empty cafeteria?” Rainbow asked. “Is it even open?”

“It’s not completely empty,” Ciel pointed out.

“I’m not going to just ditch you; that would be a real jackass move,” Rainbow said.

“Are you going to stay so that we can argue more about Penny?”

“No, I’m going to stay so that you’re not—”

“Why don’t I call Fluttershy and ask if they mind having you both over?” Blake suggested.

“A generous offer, but I would not wish to impose,” Ciel said. “I don’t know the family at all.”

“Neither do I, really,” Blake pointed out. “And you’ll never get the chance if you turn down invitations like this.”

“You make a very good point,” Ciel murmured, “and I am hardly swimming in better offers.”

“I’ll give Fluttershy a call,” Blake said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Tell her we won’t be over right away; I’ve got something to take care of first,” Rainbow said.

“What?” Blake asked.

“It doesn’t matter; it won’t take me that long,” Rainbow assured her. “I just need a second. And some privacy.”

“And as we are going out, we should probably shower and change,” Ciel added.

“I’ll join you in a second,” Rainbow said. Unlike at Beacon, the Atlas dorms didn’t have en suite facilities, so Ciel would have to go to the shower room down the hall. As would Rainbow herself, but for now, it would get Ciel out of the room.

“I’ll make the call, then,” Blake said, as Ciel gathered her toiletries and a dress — Rainbow didn’t pay much attention to what kind of dress it was — and they both, in quick succession, left the dorm room.

As the door slid shut behind them, Rainbow sat down at the desk. She grabbed a pen and a few sheets of loose paper that were sitting on the work surface and took a moment to think about what she wanted to say.

Having thought for a little bit – but not too long, because she hadn’t got all day – Rainbow started to write.

Dear Lady Belladonna,

You don’t know me, but my name is Rainbow Dash, and I’m a student at Atlas Academy. I’m also a friend of your daughter, Blake.

I know that that probably sounds weird, and you don’t have any reason to believe it, so I enclose this picture to prove that I do know Blake.

Rainbow got out her wallet. Several pictures, some more crumpled from repeated folding than others, nestled in the front section behind her bank card. The picture that Rainbow wanted, the picture that she fished out of her wallet and placed on the desk, was a photo of her and Blake standing on the Beacon cliffs, with the blue sky behind them. Their fingers were intertwined as Rainbow’s hand rested upon Blake’s shoulder.

They looked … happy, which was important. If Blake had looked miserable to be in Rainbow’s presence, then it wouldn’t have done much good with her mother at all.

My parents, Bow Hothoof Dash and Windy Whistles Dash, both residents of Kuo Kuana, can verify that the other girl in the picture is me and that I am who I say I am. Hopefully, this is enough to prove that I’m telling the truth.

Blake is my friend. I care a lot about her, and although she doesn’t know that I’m writing you this letter, I hope that she’ll forgive me when it all works out in the end. I know that Blake is sorry about the way that things ended between you, her father, and her, and once you read what I have to say, I hope that you’ll be able to forgive her.

Blake isn’t with the White Fang anymore. She quit almost a year ago now and has been studying at Beacon Academy to be a huntress. She almost got into trouble at the start of last semester when the police found out that she used to be part of the White Fang, but the Kingdom of Atlas granted her diplomatic immunity in exchange for her help stopping the White Fang who were very active in Vale at the time.

Although, if anyone asks, Blake was never really part of the White Fang but was actually an Atlesian spy on a long-term undercover assignment. That’s what the Valish Council told the press to save face.

Blake has been a great help to us; with her assistance, we arrested a major criminal ally of the White Fang, stopped a series of robberies, and uncovered a plot to launch a massive attack on Vale. Your daughter is, by any reasonable measure, a hero. She’s also a great person: smart, brave — a little too brave if you ask me, but let’s not get into that. Although she has abandoned the White Fang, she hasn’t abandoned her convictions and never hesitates to call out injustice when she sees it.

I admire her. I admire her a whole lot, and I think that you should be proud of her.

She is considering transferring to Atlas next year so that she can continue serving with us; I hope she does it because I think she could do great things here, but then, I’m sure she’ll do great things whatever she decides to do.

Unfortunately, our victory was not without cost, and although Blake was not hurt, she is sad about some of the things she had to do; with all due respect, I think that a letter from her parents letting her know that there are no hard feelings might lift her spirits.

I don’t know how things went down at the end, when you parted ways, and maybe I’m being impertinent to ask this, but I think if anyone deserves to be forgiven, Blake does, so I hope you’ll consider it.

At the very least, I hope it helps you to know that Blake is alive and well and in good company.

Yours,

Rainbow Dash

PS: I’m afraid I might have had to promise the bearer of this letter that you would pay them on receipt in order to stop them throwing the letter off the boat; I’m sorry to put you out of pocket, but if you can find some lien for them, that would be great.

PPS: Also enclosed is a letter for my parents; if you could deliver it to them, that would be very kind of you. They may ask for the photo of me and Blake for their scrapbook.

Rainbow pushed the letter to Lady Belladonna aside. She had covered all of one side and most of the other; hopefully, she’d gotten her point across.

Now she had to write to her own parents.

It was a little harder to think of what to say.

Nevertheless, grabbing a fresh sheet of paper, Rainbow held her pen hovering over the blank page. What to say? What to say after so long?

She shouldn’t have left it this long, but what good was that now? She had left it for that long, so… what to say?

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to write to you, I have

Rainbow paused before she could write ‘I have been very busy.’ No, that was just barefaced excuse-making.

I have no excuse. I should have let you know how I was doing before now. I’m sorry, but I was just talking with a friend of mine, and she reminded me how lucky I am to have parents who agreed with the path I wanted to take and who supported me.

I’m sorry it took this long for me to appreciate that.

Twilight is well, physically, but she’s had a bit of a tough time this year; I can’t talk about what has happened because it’s classified, but I hope that it’s all over with now and Twi will start to feel better soon.

I have had to retake my first year at Atlas after my team broke up. We were on a training mission and, well, things didn’t go so great. Spearhead was injured; he’s okay now, with the help of a prosthetic leg, but he didn’t feel like returning to school, and he has now opened up an art gallery in Mantle where he is pursuing his passion. I wish him luck, and I should probably check in on him more often than I do.

Maud also decided that being a huntress was maybe not for her after all; she’s studying geology now at the Everton Institute.

Applejack took the year off.

Rainbow debated inwardly how much she could say about exactly how un-relaxing Applejack’s year off had ended up being.

She offered to take Fluttershy on a tour of Vale exploring the wilds and the wonders of nature. They ended up getting into some trouble with the White Fang, but we rescued them, and they are safe home now without a scratch on them. I’m not sure if Applejack will want to come back to Atlas next year, but I think she will anyway because that’s the kind of girl she is.

As for me, I was given a special assignment by General Ironwood, although I can’t say what it is. It was a great honour to be chosen, and although I haven’t always done the best job, I think in the end that I’ve done a pretty good job. I kept my teammates alive, which is the most important job that any team leader could have, and we helped save Vale from the White Fang, which would otherwise have done a lot more damage than they did and probably hurt the reputation of faunus everywhere.

As part of this assignment, I have two new teammates. Ciel Soleil is uptight and always argues with me, but I like her anyway. She keeps me honest and on my toes, and when she gets on my back, it’s usually for a good reason. She’s earnest, honest, dutiful, and disciplined; she’s what every Atlas soldier should aspire to be.

Penny

Again, Rainbow paused, wondering just what she could say about Penny.

Penny is sweet and innocent and seems very young. She’s very eager, but I worry that that’s more because she doesn’t really know what she’s eager for half the time. I let her down. I made a bad call in the field, and Penny was injured because of it. She doesn’t blame me, but that kind of makes it worse.

I want to protect her.

I feel kind of the way that I feel around Pinkie, that this is someone who needs somebody to look out for them, except with Penny, it’s even more so. I’m not sure that her father has her best interests at heart, but he’s plugged into all the top people in Atlas, so there’s nothing that my word can do against his reputation.

I want to keep her safe, but I don’t know how.

I want to show her that I care, even if she doesn’t think I do.

Sorry, this doesn’t mean anything to you, does it? The first letter you’ve gotten from me, and I’m just rambling on about stuff that you don’t care about and couldn’t do anything about even if you did. Sorry.

One thing that will interest you: I’ve been in Vale for most of this past year, and I ran into Gilda there. She is in management already, so she must be doing something right. She seemed healthy and happy, and I wish her all the best. I’m sure if she knew I was writing this, she’d send her love.

I also made a new friend while I was in Vale: Blake Belladonna, the High Chieftain’s daughter. She is also a huntress in training, and I had the honour to fight alongside her more than once. I’m not sure we could have saved Vale without her help. She’s inspired me to write this letter to you, but also to think about the way that the faunus are suffering down in Low Town where we used to live. I haven’t been back there in some time, but I realise now that I can’t ignore what’s going on down below. I’m a faunus too, and I have to try and help make things better, as we all do. We’ve quit the field and left it to the White Fang for too long.

I’ll try and write more frequently, although being that you live on Menagerie, it might take a while for the letters to get there.

Regardless, I will keep doing my best, and I hope that you keep living your best lives down by the beach.

Say hi to Gilda’s folks for me.

With all the love that you deserve,

Your daughter,

Rainbow Dash

Author's Note:

Art by Seshirukun

Comments

[Mastermind4892]

This story never fails to amaze me with its creative innovation for history and culture. Not to mention so much included artwork.

[Web of Hope]

Awwww, a Rainbow scene where she isn't a huge pain in the ass. So sweet

[Aemon Targaryen]

A bit of Ares’ story remind me of Toussaint Louverture.

Toussaint allied himself with the Spanish during the slave uprising in exchange of them recognizing they freed themselves, but then joined France when the French promised to keep them free.

[Kiue Jin]

11164731
I'm guessing as time goes on Ares will continue to follow Toussaint's example a bit... through it does seem like Ares didn't follow the tradition of the Slave Generals of Haiti of negotiating deals that benefited the generals alone and fucked over everyone under them.

[_CheckMate_]

One thing that will interest you: I’ve been in Vale for most of this past year, and I ran into Gilda there. She is in management already, so she must be doing something right.

Ah yes, 'management'. That's certainly one way to describe being basically the #2 person in charge (and currently temporary leader) of the Valish White Fang. I forgot for a moment that RD was covering for her with her parents. Good to know that despite being enemies, their friendship can still continue in minor ways like that.

[Scipio Smith]

11164731
That's exactly it. Not too long ago I read C L R James' The Black Jacobins, the seminal work in English about Toussaint and the Haitian revolution, and it's a big influence not only on the actual Faunus rights history but also on the way that Sienna's book is written (the anecdote in 'Through the Clouds' about Sienna getting money to go to Mistral from a friendly cafe owner, is exactly how James got the money to go to France and start his research).

[Raul]

“'No one ever won a war by dying for his kingdom,'” Ciel declared. “'But by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his.' Pardon my language.”

I do love me a Patton quote.

And I do also love me some world building and expanding upon characters.

[Stet709]

I have a feeling there's gonna be a trip to Menagerie in the future with Rainbow and Blake. Sunset has no connection to Menagerie so it wouldn't make sense, unlike Equestria.

[Luviere]

Omg, so cute! However, i do have one complain. Where is the fluff on Rainbow's ears? Where fluff?