The Girl on the Cereal Box (New)
The Girl on the Box
Pyrrha swallowed. “This is wonderful, Jaune!” she declared. “I had no idea that you could cook Mistralian food!”
Jaune, sitting next to her upon her bed, smiled bashfully. “I didn’t know I could do it either, until I did. Are you sure that everything turned out okay?”
Pyrrha took another modest bite out of her lamb kofta, having made sure to dip it in tzatziki first. “This is the best I’ve had since leaving Mistral,” she said.
Jaune’s cheeks reddened. “You’re just saying that.”
“I am not,” Pyrrha insisted. She smiled. “Although it certainly doesn’t hurt that this is all made with love.” She leaned across the slight distance between them – very slight, their shoulders were practically touching – and kissed him on the cheek.
“Come on, please,” Sunset begged amusedly; she was sitting at the desk that ran along the wall – the entire team was concentrated in the back half of the dorm room, with Jaune and Pyrrha upon Pyrrha’s bed, Ruby on her own bed, and Sunset sat off to the side – with her chair turned around so that she was facing the others. “Some consideration for the less fortunate. Don’t rub in it.”
Pyrrha chuckled, but nevertheless said, “I’m sorry.”
Sunset waved one hand dismissively. “That said,” she went on, “this really is very good stuff.” She held up her plate, with a pair of courgette fritters piled on top of one another, with a pile of yogurty tzatziki sitting on the side of the plate. “These here are delicious.”
“I was a little worried there wasn’t going to be a lot you could have,” Jaune explained. “So I wanted to make sure that what you could have tasted good.”
“Well, there are no complaints here, so thank you,” Sunset said.
“This is great, Jaune,” Ruby added, in between bites out of her flatbread stuffed with grilled meat, chopped tomato and onions. “And it was a great idea, too.”
“I felt like doing something different to going to the cafeteria or to Benni Havens,” Jaune explained. “Something, a little special, you know. I think we all deserve it, after the last couple of weeks.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Sunset said, which somewhat surprised Pyrrha, considering the way that Sunset had been acting lately. Moreso even than Ruby, Pyrrha would have expected Sunset to be the first one to argue that they didn’t deserve a good time or a good meal.
Since apparently she had felt that what they really deserved – what she really deserved, at least – was to be beaten to a pulp by Bon Bon.
But since she had come back after teleporting away, there had been something a little different about Sunset. Pyrrha didn’t know what had happened to her while she, Pyrrha, had been looking for Sunset, but clearly something had. Her aura, reactivated, was hard at work healing the bruises – it might even grow her a new tooth, this wasn’t a situation with which Pyrrha was intimately familiar – and a few deft touches of Pyrrha’s makeup were hiding the rest of the effects for now.
Pyrrha just wished that she knew who to thank.
Not that she would stop watching. One day of changed behaviour was not enough to put aside all of Pyrrha’s worries – except of course that this was a night for putting aside worries and enjoying what they had.
The fare was what one might call typical Mistralian food – or at least it was a tradition of Mistralian food; Mistral embraced many traditions in culture, fashion, and food, but this was the particular Mistralian tradition which embraced Pyrrha and her family, and Pyrrha found herself rather pleased that he had gotten that right – but the fact that it was the sort of thing that one might find in a taverna in many parts of Mistral and Anima was no slight against it, especially from someone who was not a professional. Fresh fish, grilled whole and lightly drizzled with lemon and oil dressing; whitebait; grilled skewers of pork and lamb, flatbreads, the courgette fritters that Sunset was enjoying, olives and olive oil, and of course the creamy tzatziki and tarasamalata dips that added just the right touch to the meat and fish respectively. There was even a bowl of moussaka sitting on the floor between them, half consumed already as they had spooned it out onto their plates.
“This wasn’t too much for you, was it?” Pyrrha asked anxiously. “Because you probably didn’t need to-“
“It’s fine,” Jaune assured her. “It wasn’t as though I had anything better to do. And besides, me and Ruby had a good time finding all the ingredients, right?”
“My feet might beg to differ,” Ruby groaned. “Is there any reason we couldn’t have just gone to the mall?”
“The meat and fish taste better fresh,” Jaune said. “Although they’re probably not the same fish you’d get in Mistral.”
“Fish are fish, aren’t they?” Sunset asked.
Jaune boggled at her. “I know you’re a vegetarian, but seriously?”
“I’m a vegetarian unicorn from another world,” Sunset reminded him. “But am I wrong?”
“Yes!” Jaune cried. “Each fish has its own unique flavour, texture, consistency-“
“If fish has its own flavour, then why is it always either deep fried in batter or slathered in sauce?” Sunset asked, with the air of someone who thought they’d found an unanswerable question.
“This fish is only very lightly seasoned,” Pyrrha pointed out quietly.
Sunset stared at her for a moment. “That… is the exception that proves the rule,” she said, in a voice flooded with asperity.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with fish and chips,” Ruby said.
“Other than the fact that it’s about as good for you as Pyrrha’s cereal,” replied Sunset.
“It’s not my cereal,” Pyrrha murmured.
Jaune began, “Pyrrha’s cereal-“
“It’s not mine.”
“May not be all that good for the body, but it’s really good for the soul,” Jaune concluded.
Sunset’s eyes narrowed. “How can a cereal with far too much marshmallow in be good for the soul.”
“Uh…” Jaune hesitated. He glanced at Pyrrha, his face turning red. “Well… you see, uh… it doesn’t matter.”
“Oh no,” Sunset said, a wicked grin upon her face as she leaned forwards. “You’re not getting away that easily. Come on, out with it.”
“Sunset-“ Pyrrha began.
“It’s fine,” Jaune said, although he didn’t make it sound entirely fine. He twisted his body slightly away from Pyrrha, then glanced at her, a little over his shoulder. His face remained as red as any of the tomatoes he had chopped up to go with the soulvaki.
“I remember, the first time I saw your face on the cereal box,” he said. “You looked so confident, standing there with that smile on your face, and you were dressed like a hero.”
“I thought you didn’t recognise-“ Sunset began.
“Shhhh!” Ruby hissed, gesturing with one hand for Sunset to be quiet.
Jaune didn’t notice the interruption, or pretended not to. “The truth is, that I hadn’t actually had that many Marshmallow Flakes up until then. I… well, Pumpkin Pete’s does a lot of other cereals, and some of them were nicer. I think River only picked up the Marshmallow Flakes that day because it was all they had in the store.” With one hand, he tugged idly at the sleeve of his hoodie; with the armour off, the Pumpkin Pete logo of the mischievous grey rabbit was plain to see. “This hoodie was a top prize, you know?”
Pyrrha could feel her own face heating up a little to match Jaune’s ruddy hue. “Yes,” she said softly. “I remember.” She could not contain a chuckle. “Although I never thought that anyone would actually go for it. Did you really buy fifty boxes of that cereal?”
“Not all at once,” Jaune said defensively. “But, yeah, I bought fifty boxes. I didn’t eat anything else for breakfast until I had all the tokens to send away for the hoodie. My sisters thought I was crazy, eating fifty boxes of kids cereal in a row like that, but I guess… I guess I wanted to finish something, you know. I’d started collecting those tokens, I didn’t want to just give up and drop it like I had everything else. I wanted to finish what I started, for the girl on the front of the box whose proud face inspired me.”
Pyrrha couldn’t keep the smile off her face. She hoped that she would be forgiven for that; she hoped that most girls would struggle to keep the smile off their face hearing this – where they were the subject, of course. Similarly, she couldn’t keep a slight teasing note out of her voice as she said, “Oh, really? I inspired you? Even though you didn’t recognise me when you met me in person?”
“Well…”
“I was even wearing the same outfit,” Pyrrha pointed out.
“Yeah, but come on, how was I to know that I’d actually meet that girl – meet you – for real?” Jaune asked. “I never thought that I’d… I always thought that that girl, that you, were on a whole other level to me, the idea that I’d meet you in person, let alone team up with you, let alone… I never imagined that would happen.” He paused for a moment. “They took your picture off the box just before I got to fifty tokens. It was like… it sounds kind of stupid, but I imagined that you’d had to go, like you were on some other adventure somewhere. I think that a part of me didn’t realise that you were only my age, just a student. In some ways, that inspired me to go to Beacon. The girl on the cereal box wasn’t sitting around in the same place forever, she was going places, having adventures, helping people. I thought that I should probably do the same.” He chuckled nervously, and rubbed the back of his head with one hand. “Plus, you’re totally different in person. You don’t smile all the time, but when you do smile it looks nothing like it did on the cereal box. It’s so much more lively, and it makes your eyes light up.” He looked at her. “That’s another thing that the box didn’t capture, the way that your eyes… I guess what I’m trying to say is that if I didn’t recognise you, it’s because some picture on a cereal box has nothing on the real you.”
“Now kiss,” Sunset said.
Jaune squeaked in embarrassment. Had he forgotten that Sunset and Ruby were there? Pyrrha had almost done that herself, so she could hardly blame him.
She looked away, one hand reaching up to play with the lock of hair that fell down on the right side of her face; she twirled the locks of red around her finger, over and over again, as her cheeks heated up.
And yet the smile remained on her face nonetheless. The smile he found so lively, and so lovely.
It had not been love at first cereal box, or else he would hardly have chased after Weiss the way he had, but nevertheless… it was so, so very wonderful to hear.
“Well… you never know what life might throw your way, do you?” she said. “Put like that, it almost seems like fate.”
Jaune laughed. “Yeah, I guess. Especially when you consider that…”
She looked at him. “Consider what?”
“Well,” he said, “after a while, when I kept on buying and eating that cereal, my sister Kendal used to tease me that it was because I was in love with the girl on the box.”
“Really?” Pyrrha asked. “Won’t she be surprised, huh?”
Jaune laughed nervously. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess she will.”
“When are you two lovebirds planning to leave?” Sunset asked.
Jaune bought himself time by eating some grilled fish. “Not for a little while longer,” he said. “Not for… about another week.”
“I see,” Sunset said. “I’ll give you some time, introduce Pyrrha to your family, have your fun, and then let me know when I can follow you down and research your family history.”
“You’re still going to do that?” Jaune asked.
“Of course I am,” Sunset said. “I made a promise to Lady Nikos. Or don’t you want to find our that you’re really a lord?”
Jaune shook his head. “There’s not a lot of chance of that.”
“You never know,” Sunset said. “Would it bother you, if it turned out that your family was really something special?”
“Everyone’s family is already special, to them,” Ruby said. “Unless… I mean, they should be.”
Sunset smiled. “That’s a very lovely sentiment, Ruby, but you all know what I mean.”
“I don’t think it would make much difference,” Jaune said. “It wouldn’t change who I am, and it wouldn’t change who my family is. Maybe it would change the way some people in Mistral look at me – and look at me for being with Pyrrha – but even then, I’m not so sure. I don’t… I mean, I still wouldn’t have money, or land, or anything else that a real nobleman would have.”
“But you have me,” Pyrrha said, putting a gentle hand upon Jaune’s back. “Something that none of the rest of them possess.”
“No,” Jaune murmured. “No, I guess they don’t.”
Pyrrha smiled. “Jaune… did I… did my picture, really inspire you? I thought that your family-“
“My family lineage… I guess that told me that I could do it, and they left me a weapon to do it with,” Jaune said. “But you… the girl on the cereal box wasn’t always telling me that no, I really couldn’t, or that I shouldn’t bother, or that I didn’t have what it took. You were just always smiling, like you thought I could do it.”
That was very sweet, but it was the first part of what he had said that concerned Pyrrha more, and the first part that made her frown a little beneath her circlet. “Jaune, are you… I mean, do you want to go back and visit your family?”
“Uh, y-yeah,” Jaune said, without much conviction. “I promised my mom that I would.”
“That’s not quite what I asked,” Pyrrha said.
“I’ll be fine,” he told her, which wasn’t what she’d asked either. “My family… I can’t stay away from them forever, right?”
“Jaune,” Pyrrha murmured.
“I want to do this, Pyrrha,” Jaune declared. “I mean… my parents, my sisters, they aren’t… they weren’t… they’re still my family.”
What does that mean? Pyrrha wanted to ask. Then why do you seem so afraid of them? Nothing that he had said about them was particularly endearing the Arcs to Pyrrha, and she was almost beginning to think that she needed to go with Jaune not to meet his family but to protect him from his family.
But she did not push. She had learnt her lesson from Sunset earlier today; it was clearly not something that Jaune felt particularly comfortable talking about, and she had no desire to make him feel even more uncomfortable now. Not ever, but especially when he had gone to all this trouble for her – for the whole team, but especially for her.
Nevertheless, she was glad that she would be there, just as she was glad that they would eventually be joined by Sunset. If Jaune’s family were what he was implying them to be… Pyrrha would always stand by him, but she was afraid that she would struggle to match Sunset’s aggression in the face of critique.
Sunset seemed to also grasp that Jaune wished to change the subject, at least a little bit, because she said, “Here’s something that I don’t understand about your lovely story, well, actually there are two things, and one of them has bothered me for some time: what were you doing on that cereal box anyway? It hardly seems like the kind of thing that fits your… it hardly seems becoming of a princess of Mistral.”
“I’m a princess without a crown, at best,” Pyrrha reminded her.
Sunset grinned. “Yeah, of course, but you know what I mean. It’s hardly aristocratic, to give out endorsements like that. It’s all just a little bit… commercial.”
Pyrrha chuckled. “You’re right of course. It was frightfully commercial. I was very surprised when Mother let me do it.”
“That makes two of us, I must admit,” Sunset muttered.
“It doesn’t seem right, does it?” Pyrrha asked. “Pumpkin Pete hardly seems to belong in the same world as Soteria or the House of Nikos.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Sunset said. “So what happened?”
“Actually, it’s Arslan who deserves the thanks for that,” Pyrrha explained. “I was… I suppose you could say that I was jealous of her philanthropy. I couldn’t get involved in anything like that – I don’t have the standing, I’m too privileged to stand up for the under-privileged – but I envied the way that she was able to do more than just fight for the amusement of the crowds. She was able to make the world a better place, materially affect their lives.” She paused. “Do you know that last year she actually forced the Council to back down?”
“Really?” Ruby asked.
Pyrrha nodded. “The economy has been… well, I don’t really understand the complexities, but it’s been going down for a while. Or it was, I think it’s getting better now, at least that’s what the journalists say. Anyway, it didn’t affect me or my mother, it didn’t really affect most of the great families, but for people lower down the mountain I understand that things got very difficult. Parents having to choose between feeding their children or feeding themselves, that sort of thing. Appalling. Not the sort of thing that I’ve ever had to worry about, not the sort of thing I could do anything about, but Arslan campaigned to have the free school meal entitlement extended, so that many more children would get a meal at school without having to worry about how they could afford it; she used her prestige and her fame to get the public behind her, and the Council, despite having set its face against her demands, yielded.” She paused. “I felt very guilty beating her that year, because I felt that she deserved to win, after her heroic efforts. She was clearly the better person, and if it weren’t for the fact that she would have known I was throwing the fight and never forgiven me I would have, well, I would have thrown the fight. And I felt especially guilty because Lady Ming was very cruel to her after she lost, telling her to focus on punches instead of politics in future.
“I know that you think she’s doing the right thing in becoming a huntress, Ruby, and I do as well, but I do think that the loss of her activism will be a great loss to Mistral. I hope that she can find a way to keep her profile up and continue to support her pet causes as she intends.
“Anyway, I wanted to do something – or to feel as though I was doing something – so I begged my mother to let me do the endorsement when they asked so that I could donate the money to Arslan’s breakfast charity.”
“You could have just asked your mother to donate some money,” Sunset pointed out.
“I know, but it would have been her money then,” Pyrrha explained. “I wanted to give away my money, if that makes any sense.”
“It’s probably a better reason than most people have for endorsing a product like that,” Ruby pronounced.
“But your mother never really warmed to the idea and let the deal lapse, which is why you got taken off the box?” Sunset guessed.
“I’m back at the moment,” Pyrrha said. “There was a time when, yes, Mother wanted to end the arrangement – she’d been on the receiving of sneers in the salons for, as you said, commercialising me and soiling her hands with the pursuit of money – and they took me off the box during negotiations, but eventually…” Pyrrha ventured a smile. “She’ll never admit it, but I think that Mother secretly enjoys the fact that my fame has reached the point where a Remnant-wide brand wants me to sell their product. It’s not a kind of glory that my ancestors would have recognised, you won’t find it in the pages of the Mistraliad, but it is a kind of glory nevertheless.”
Sunset chuckled. “You might be right about that, but Jaune, that’s why you shouldn’t get too hung up on the fact that you’ll still have no money even if you turn out to have class. Yes, money is important, but equally important is where the money does or doesn’t come from. The fact that you don’t have money will not be nearly as bad as if you’d made money in trade.”
“That sounds kind of dumb,” Ruby said.
“It’s not about wisdom, it’s about standards,” Sunset declared. “Gentlemen – or gentlemares, for that matter – do not do anything so sordid as to work for a living.”
Ruby’s silver eyes narrowed. “No, it still sounds dumb.”
Ruby’s scroll went off before Sunset could reply. Ruby fished it out of one of the pouches on her belt, opening it up to see who it was. “Oh, it’s Juturna.”
“Speaking of Mistralian aristocracy,” Sunset muttered.
Ruby looked around the room. “Do you want me to tell her it’s not a good time? Or I could just not answer?”
“That would be rather rude of you,” Pyrrha pointed out. “And I’ve no problem with you answering, provided that she doesn’t want to speak privately.”
“No, I’m fine too,” Jaune said.
“Same here,” Sunset said. “Answer if you want to talk to her.” She started to dig into her meal.
“I’m a little confused by how it can possibly be a good time for Juturna, though,” Pyrrha said. “It’s the middle of the night in Mistral.”
Ruby shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.” She pressed the green button to take the call. “Hey, Juturna.”
“Ruby!” Juturna cried. “I knew you’d still be awake.”
“Yeah, it’s not even eight o’clock here in Vale,” Ruby replied. “What time is it in Mistral?”
“It’s… gone midnight,” Juturna said. “But I can’t sleep, and I’m bored of lying here in bed, so it was either call you or use my semblance to sneak out of the house and go to a club. And I might still do that, but I thought I’d talk to you first because Camilla won’t be mad at me for it.”
Ruby laughed. “Uh, the rest of my team is here and they can here everything, is that okay?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “That’s the chick with the sword, right?”
“Good evening, Lady Juturna,” Sunset said, hastily swallowing some courgette fritter. “Or should be that be good night?”
Juturna sniggered. “’Good evening, Lady Juturna’,” she repeated, in an exaggerated tone. “Well, aren’t you fancy? Did you decide to start talking like that after Lady Nikos gave you the sword or did she give you Soteria because you had the right voice for it?”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “I scarcely know what my lady means.”
“I mean not even my brother and Camilla talk like that, at least not all the time, and certainly not in the house,” Juturna said. “Hey, Ruby, if your team is here does that mean Pyrrha and her boyfriend are here too?”
“Hello, Juturna,” Pyrrha said.
“Hey, Pyrrha,” Juturna called. “Are you still dating the upstart?”
“His name is Jaune,” Pyrrha said frostily. “But yes.”
“Don’t blame me, it’s what Turnus calls him,” Juturna said. “Anyway, the point is, good job! Keep doing that! Rooting for you guys! So, Ruby… hey, weren’t you in a coma?”
Ruby laughed nervously. “Y-yeah, yeah I was. How did you hear about that?”
“Camilla told me,” Juturna said. “She heard it from Lady Nikos. So what happened?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Ruby said, trying a little too hard to sound casual. “I got into a fight, and ended up getting knocked out.”
“Must have been quite a knock,” Juturna said. “But you’re okay now, right? What am I saying, of course you are, we wouldn’t be talking otherwise. Which we are, which is good! Anyway, you should take care of yourself.”
“So everyone tells me,” Ruby sighed resignedly.
Juturna cackled. “Yeah, I’ll bet. Let me guess, is Pyrrha mothering you?”
“Pyrrha isn’t the worst,” Ruby said, with a glance at Sunset, who responded by rolling her eyes.
“Oh, it’s the sword girl, Sunset, right? Yeah, I know exactly how you feel, believe me, I have a big brother and Camilla, who is even worse, so I get it, I really do. But all the same, you should still be careful, it’s so not worth it.”
Ruby blinked. “What isn’t worth it?”
“You know, dying,” Juturna said. “What were even fighting about?”
“I was trying to protect people,” Ruby said. “We all were.”
“Well, they’re not worth it, either,” Juturna said dismissively.
Ruby’s eyebrows rose. “What do you mean they’re not worth it?” she demanded. “Who isn’t?”
“You know… people,” Juturna said.
Ruby gasped. “That… that’s a terrible thing to say!” she exclaimed. “Juturna, that’s awful!”
Pyrrha had to admit, she was rather surprised herself. It was… it was not the sort of thing one was expected to say, even if you believed it, and it was not the sort of thing that you were expected to believe, either. It was certainly antithetical to the ideals of nobility – the good lord, the shepherd of the people, the benevolent source of authority and justice – but even though those ideals may have become tarnished by the years, she liked to think that they had not degraded into outright callousness such as Juturna was giving voice to. She liked to think that some semblance of the ideals of public service and duty yet remained.
“You’re not going to get all high and mighty on me, are you?” Juturna asked, with a touch of boredom creeping into her voice.
“Yes, if I have to!” Ruby cried. “I don’t understand how you can say something like that-“
“I can say something like that because my father dedicated his life to protecting and serving the people and when he was murdered in the street none of those people so much as blinked!” Juturna snapped. “That’s how I can say that they’re not worth it.”
Silence descended on the dorm room. Pyrrha, for one, didn’t know what to say. Juturna’s views were, objectively, not particularly pleasant, but at the same time… it was hard to judge her for it, considering where they came from. What had happened to old Lord Rutulus, what had been done to him… it had shamed all Mistral, and the shame had been compounded by how little had been done about it until after Camilla had done the hard work. Yes, the city authorities, the Council and the great families, had acted to make sure that no one would rise up to replace the slain kingpin and his associates, Lady Terri-Belle had mopped up the residuum of Camilla’s vengeance and driven crime back into the lower slopes, but… the fact is it had taken Camilla to make that first and bloody step.
She was not great friends of the Rutulians, but that their family had been wronged by Mistral was… undeniable.
“Juturna,” Ruby said, her voice softening, losing some of its judgement. “I’m sorry, about your father, I really am, but… but that doesn’t mean that… they’re still people. They still… they’re still lives, human lives. They still matter.”
“Do you think they’ll give a damn about you if you die for them?” Juturna asked. “Do you think they’ll know you existed?”
“I don’t care,” Ruby said, solemnly and – Pyrrha believed – utterly sincerely. “I don’t care if they know my name, or not; I don’t care if they care that I died, or why; I don’t care about recognition or glory or any of the rest of it. Their lives matter.”
“And what about your life?” Juturna asked.
Ruby smiled. “Now you really do sound like Sunset.”
“And you sound like…” Juturna trailed off. “I don’t know who you sound like. I should say that you sound like Turnus or Camilla but the truth is you don’t. Turnus would never say anything so… that.” She chuckled, although it was a slightly choked chuckle, as though she might have tears in her eyes as she laughed. It was impossible to say from where Pyrrha was sitting. “Turnus would never say he didn’t care about the recognition or the glory. I mean, he doesn’t care about the money – and after all, it would be really dumb to do this for the money considering how rich we are – sometimes he does pro bono work for villages that can’t afford to pay for protection, but he wants you to know, he wants everyone to know that he’s doing it. I think he likes the fact that people come to him for help, it makes him feel… I don’t know, makes him feel like a lord, I guess? Or perhaps he just likes the fact that some people trust him more than huntsmen. Camilla… actually, I don’t know, Camilla might say something like that. She’s probably the closest thing to a real hero in this house. Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother, and I’ve known Lausus since we were kids and Nisus is like, really hot, and they’re all brave and strong and all the rest of it but Camilla… Camilla is the proper old fashioned real deal. Kind of funny considering that she doesn’t come from any kind of a family, right?” she snorted. “But even she, she doesn’t fight for people, she fights for us. So congratulations, Ruby Rose, you might just be the most heroic person I know!” she paused. “You don’t think I’m a bad person, do you?”
Ruby hesitated. “No,” she murmured. “No, I don’t. I think you’re wrong, but I don’t think you’re a bad person.”
“Thanks, Ruby,” Juturna said. “You’ve got a sister, right?”
“Yeah,” Ruby replied. “An older sister, Yang.”
“Do you love her?”
“A lot, yeah,” Ruby said.
“I love Turnus,” Juturna said. “And I love Camilla. And it doesn’t matter that they keep tabs on me, or scare off my boyfriends, or don’t let me to places, none of that changes the fact that… they’re everything to me. They are the we of me, and I just want good things for them. I want all the good things in the world for them. And I don’t want to see them die for… I don’t want to see them die. I’m allowed to think that, right? I’m allowed to say that? I’m allowed to say ‘I do not care as much about you as I do about my brother?’ That doesn’t make me a bad person, does it?”
“Not as long as you just think it,” Ruby said. “And don’t try to stop people who feel differently.”
“Fat chance of that,” Juturna murmured. She groaned. “Ugh, this killed the mood, didn’t it? I’m so tired. Is there any way that we can maybe pretend that this was all just a bad dream on my part, or that I was talking nonsense because it’s so late where I am and you agree to just forget about it?”
Ruby giggled. “Sure, I can forget it. I didn’t catch what you just said, can you repeat it?”
“Better not,” Juturna replied. She sighed. “I’m going to let you go, before I say something you won’t forget.”
“Are you sure?” Ruby asked. “We could play some videogames?”
“Maybe later, call me tomorrow,” Juturna said. “Assuming you’re not mad at me then.”
“What do I have to be mad at you about?” Ruby asked.
“That’s the spirit,” Juturna muttered. “Night, Ruby, I’m glad you’re up.”
“Night Juturna,” Ruby said. “Sleep well.” She hung up.
“That was very kind and understanding of you,” Pyrrha said.
“You sound surprised,” Ruby said.
“You can be a little… strident, in your views,” Sunset pointed out.
“I guess,” Ruby said, with a slight wince. “But it’s different for Juturna. She’s not a huntress, she’s not a mercenary like her brother or Camilla, it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t get what we do because she isn’t doing it. If I get mad at you sometimes, Sunset, if I… if I’m loud it’s because what we do has real consequences. People can live or die because of it. That’s not true for Juturna, so she can think what she wants. I mean, if she started talking like that all the time then I’d have a problem with it, but it’s late and she was tired and… it’s not how Yang or me reacted after Mom died but I can see how she got that way. I feel sorry for her more than I feel angry. She doesn’t… she doesn’t really have anything to aim for, to strive for.”
“She has her family,” Sunset said, “isn’t that enough?”
Ruby shook her head. “You can’t live on love alone, you need a final goal, something to keep working for. Otherwise… that’s how you end up lying awake at night, calling people on the other side of the world.”
“Hmm,” Sunset murmured, looking down at the remains of the food on her plate.
There was a knock on the dorm room door.
“I’ll get it,” Sunset said, putting her plate down on the table behind her and getting up off her chair, walking briskly over to the door. She opened it, and then stepped back, her whole body tensing. “Skystar?”
“Hey,” Skystar said softly. She was wearing a navy blue parka, which covered her up down to the hem of her purple, knee-length skirt, which was all the rest that could be seen of what she was wearing save for her bare legs and brown boots. She stuck her head around the door. “Hey guys, I hope I’m not interrupting.”
She might have been, but after Juturna’s interruption it hardly seemed fair or polite to make a fuss about it. “Not at all,” Pyrrha said. “Please, come in. Would you like something to eat?”
“Are you sure?” Skystar said, as Sunset retreated to admit her into the dorm room. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
“There’s plenty to go around,” Jaune said, with a smile. “I probably made a little too much. I hope you like Mistralian food.”
Skystar smiled. “Oh, I do.” She walked across the room and sat down beside Ruby on her bed. With one hand, she reached out towards some of the grilled fish. “May I?”
“Please,” Jaune said.
“Thank you,” Skystar replied, helping herself. “When my family took a trip to Mistral for the Vytal Festival – ooh, is that tarasamalata?”
“It is,” Pyrrha confirmed.
“Awesome!” Skystar spooned some of it onto her fish, then ate some, and promptly began to talk with her mouthful. “Yes, when my family took a trip to Mistral for the Vytal Festival, Dad wanted to not just fly to Mistral, but to land on the coast and actually take the long way, really make a trip of it, you know. So, although we flew, we only flew as far as Piraeus on the west coast, and we found this delightful seaside taverna and we ate like the ancients did. Like people have done for hundreds, thousands of years. I think that’s part of what’s so great about Mistral, even the food has a sense of history to it. And this food is really good, did you cook this yourselves?”
“Jaune did all of the cooking,” Pyrrha said, unable to keep a touch of pride out of her voice.
“You’re in the wrong job,” Skystar said. “But you’re in the job you want, so don’t mind me.” She paused. “I did actually come here for a reason, not just to steal your food.”
“What reason?” Sunset asked softly, as she sat down.
“I was thinking about what you said,” Skystar said. “About the Vytal Festival, and about giving people a reason to care about it, and about the fact that we need to celebrate in times of trouble.”
“You’re still taking my advice?” Sunset asked.
“Why shouldn’t she?” asked Ruby.
“Well…” Sunset shrugged. “I, uh-“
“Sunset wondered if I’d care, now that my mother has been replaced,” Skystar said. “But Councillor Emerald asked me to stay on as Amity Princess, and I still want to make the Vytal Festival a success, for Vale, and for Mom and… and for Dad, too. But we can’t just pretend the Breach didn’t happen, so I thought that the first step would be to have a proper memorial to honour the dead… and then to have a wake, to celebrate their lives. Because this Vytal Festival is going to be dedicated to them. We’re not just celebrating the end of the Great War and the beginnings of the era of peace, we’re going to be defying everyone who thought that they could break that peace, and celebrating the fact that we’re still here, with the bonds between us as strong as ever. We’re going to celebrate the fact that Atlas and Mistral stood with us to defend Vale, and we’re going to celebrate the huntsmen and huntresses who protected this city by cheering them on in the tournament. We can’t make people forget the Breach but we can show them that it makes the Vytal Festival more important, not less. But first we have to banish our sorrows, and I think we do that by saying goodbye to those we lost – and then celebrating their lives.”
“That sounds like a very good idea,” Pyrrha said. “But why are you telling us?”
“Because I want you to be there,” Skystar said. “Partly, I have to admit, because you’re the heroes of the Breach and if you’re going it will attract interest, but also because… well, I suppose I wondered if you might need this too.” She looked at Sunset. “I can’t imagine what it was like for you down there. You’re all my age and you’ve already faced so much, stared death in the face.” She looked at Pyrrha, then at Jaune and Ruby. “It makes me kind of ashamed of myself.”
“There’s no need for that,” Pyrrha murmured.
“Not everyone has to be a huntress,” Ruby assured her. “Not everyone wants to be and not everyone should be. We each have our own ways of helping people, and being a huntress is just one of them.”
Skystar smiled down at her. “I won’t ask if it was bad. Partly because if it was really bad you wouldn’t want to talk about it but also because… because I kind of know the answer already.” She glanced at Sunset again. Had Sunset been talking to her? Pyrrha felt a twinge of jealous irritation that Sunset might confide in Skystar but not in her own teammates.
Perhaps she’s afraid that we have enough on our shoulders.
Sunset, you really should know better.
“Anyway, the point is that I think this might help you as much as anyone,” Skystar said. “Help you move on.”
“That,” Sunset said hoarsely, blinking rapidly. “That is very kind of you. That is… very kind. I… I don’t know what else to…”
“Sunset’s right,” Pyrrha said. “It is kind, and a good idea too. I, for one, would be honoured to attend.”
“Me too,” Jaune said.
“And me,” Ruby added.
Sunset gave a silent nod of her head.
Skystar smiled, and as she helped herself to some of the moussaka Pyrrha couldn’t help ponder one question: what did she know that they didn’t?
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It's always during dinner. People always call or stop in during dinner!
11212316
In his review of Sword Art Online, Digibro once complained that it was far too full of exposition scenes in cafes, and I feel that way about my own writing sometimes. Everyone's always eating.
I think a lot of it is that it's simply an easy thing to have people be doing/reason for them all to be in the same room together when the call or interruption happens.
It's good to see Sunset smiling again, at least. This is the wisdom of Pinkie Pie's Element of Laughter, about how the treasures of friendship and loving the simple joys of life are the greatest balm for the soul.
And in light of this chapter, Sunset's guilt is still something to be admired in a way. She may value the lives of her friends above all, but the truth is that this wouldn't bother her so much if she didn't care about the people. Juturna may have her reasons, but Sunset is still better than her.
11212389
During the break it's as fair a reason as doing schoolwork to pair students up together, in fairness. It makes sense, and can lead to some easily explained groupings. Regular downtime works too, of course, but is less common the larger a group pgets.
Overall loved Juturna and glad to see her character fleshed out, especially in regards to her relationship with Ruby. However, something about her reaction here is still leaving a poor taste in my mouth. I think her take she comes across as too flippant. I get why she feels the way she does, and it is hard to not feel for her given the circumstances, but there is still a disconnect for reasons I cannot directly pin down. Perhaps I expected more sorrow? She seems to have been close with her father, so perhaps I expected her to take the perceived slight more personally? Either way its a good counterbalance to Ruby and hopefully they can both grow by viewing each others perspectives on such issues.
11212942
To me more than flippant she seemed defeated. Her father's death is definitely a sore point for her, she got triggered too easily at the mere suggestion that Ruby's death would be worth it if people were safe.
But after that she folds easily, even if she still clearly doesn't agree, and asks Ruby to forget about it. The subject is important to her, but she prefers to cut her losses over fighting her point, and that behavior would be easily explained if she is just used to losing all the time.
She must have conversations like this all the time with her brother and sister since both of them do go out and fight in the field, even if for less selfless reasons, and she has clearly lost them all considering that they keep doing what they do. Ruby is WORSE than them and so Juturna would prefer to drop the point and ask for forgiveness than fighting a fight she knows that she will lose and that risks making her lose Ruby's friendship.
How dare you take Ruby and make them British.
Sunset's fear of loss comes in one form or another, fearing her friends dying, or rejecting her based on a difficult decision she had to make.
Cinder Fall, I hate you. Why must you ruin Sunset like this?