SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Arc Talk (Rewritten)

Arc Talk

Pyrrha was not concerned.

Sky Arc had gone back inside the house, somewhat rudely leaving Pyrrha alone on the porch, free to come in or not as she wished. It would have been more polite to have waited with her, but Sky had made it clear that she didn’t enjoy spending time in Pyrrha’s company, and Pyrrha had no desire to enforce any more contact between them than was necessary.

Besides, alone with the setting sun as she now was, she would not have to pretend to take Sky’s threat very seriously.

She wasn’t worried. Assuming, as seemed likely, that what Sky was talking about wasn’t some sort of attempt to kidnap Jaune — which would be very unwise even if Pyrrha hadn’t been there, and would be downright foolish since she was — then she probably had in mind some attempt to browbeat him into leaving Beacon and bidding Pyrrha farewell — and good riddance too, if Sky had anything to say on the subject. Perhaps they would even have him tell her that he had decided to stay home, since this visit had made him realise what he had been missing.

If that was what they thought was going to happen, then, in many respects, it proved Jaune’s point that he would forever be a child in their eyes. The pressure that a group of disapproving sisters could bring to bear might have had some effect on the young Jaune that Pyrrha had never known; it might even have had some effect on the Jaune that she had first met during the early days at Beacon. But Sky was wrong to say that she knew Jaune better than Pyrrha did on the basis of greater longevity of acquaintance: Sky might have known him longer, but Pyrrha had known him more recently, and she had watched him grow up into a fine young man, a man to love, a man who wouldn’t turn his back on her and on his comrades and on the battle to which he had pledged himself.

Though the battle be an impossible one, Jaune was committed to it and to the team and, she thought, to her. The idea that he would simply walk away after all he knew and all that they had been through together … she would have scoffed if it would not have been impolite to do so — and if it were not for the fact that this was still Jaune’s sister, and Pyrrha had not wholly given up hope of leaving the family with a favourable impression of her.

She was not concerned. She knew Jaune Arc; by now, she dared to think she knew him better than his family did.

She felt a little pity for the fact that Sky was doomed to be so greatly disappointed and to be forced to confront the fact that her little brother had changed without her realising it.

Mostly, however, she felt angry.

It was that anger that had nearly led her to break the wooden railing from gripping it too hard. Not anger at her own treatment — after a lifetime of being feted, elevated, put on a pedestal, she was probably about due for some scorn and dismissal; in other circumstances, she might have found it refreshing — but anger on behalf of Jaune.

These people claimed to love him; perhaps by their own lights, they did love him, but it was clear that their idea of loving him did not involve asking him what he thought or wanted, respecting the fact that he had chosen the destiny he wished to work towards, understanding the fact that although this might not be what they had wanted for him, it was what he wanted for himself. Rather, he was, like a child, to be governed for his own good by those who were wiser than he was and knew better.

Why can’t they see that we know what’s best for ourselves? Pyrrha thought, and she was not only thinking about Jaune’s family.

“Are you okay out here?”

Pyrrha looked towards the door. Terra stood in the doorway, half in the house and half out of it, her spectacles slipping ever so slightly down her nose before she pushed them back up again.

Pyrrha straightened up. “Hello again. I don’t suppose I’m needed inside.”

“No,” Terra said. “But neither am I. Being a guest here can mean getting a lot done for you, but it leaves you at a loose end when everyone’s working.” She smiled. “Worth it for the results of Mrs. Arc’s cooking, though, as you are about to discover … unless you planned to slip away.”

Pyrrha smiled thinly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“As much as some people might want you to,” Terra said.

Pyrrha’s eyebrows rose. “How did you—?”

“It wasn’t always a smooth ride for me, at first,” Terra said, as she stepped out onto the porch. “Not everyone approved of Saphron moving to Argus, and they certainly didn’t like it when she brought me back home with her for a visit.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Pyrrha said softly.

“It didn’t last,” Terra said easily. “Once I gave birth to Adrian, the first grandchild in the family, I became untouchable.”

“How did you bear it until then?” Pyrrha asked.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Terra replied. “We weren’t here very often, and when we were… it wasn’t the whole family. It was… the divide in this family is between those who are aware that there’s an outside world beyond the confines of this village and those who don’t, or who would rather pretend that they don’t. One side was a lot more welcoming than the other.” She came to stand beside Pyrrha at the railing. “For me, Saphron was worth it; only you can decide if Jaune’s worth it to you.”

It suddenly occurred to Pyrrha that Terra, finding her standing so pensively out here all by herself, must have thought that she was pondering ditching Jaune in the face of the hostility of some of the other Arcs. “Um, no, I wasn’t… I mean he is, but that… I wasn’t actually thinking about that.”

Terra was silent for a moment. “Oh. I’m sorry; I just assumed—”

“I understand,” Pyrrha said. “I can see how it must have looked. I was just… I was thinking about what Sky said.”

“They want to take him away from you,” Terra said.

Pyrrha looked at her. “How do you know?”

“Because they’re talking about it in the dining room, and not being anything like as quiet as they think they are,” Terra said. “Saphron is trying to talk them out of it, and Kendal looks about ready to scream. That’s, uh, that’s another reason why I came out here. If there’s a big blowout argument, I’d rather not get caught up in it.”

“I understand,” Pyrrha murmured.

“Are you worried?”

“No,” Pyrrha replied. “Do you think I should be?”

Terra shrugged. “I only met Jaune a couple of times. I can’t say I was that impressed. Are you sure that he won’t fold?”

Pyrrha nodded. “He’s grown a lot since you saw him last.”

“I suppose so. I never would have seen him as a huntsman,” Terra said. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, bringing up your reputation. You … didn’t exactly seem pleased.”

“It’s…” Pyrrha hesitated for a moment. “It’s not your fault.”

“I’m the one who said it,” Terra pointed out.

“Yes, but you didn’t say anything that wasn’t true,” Pyrrha pointed. “My accomplishments…” She trailed off.

“Not something you're proud of?” Terra guessed.

“Not exactly,” Pyrrha murmured. “I am proud of my skill, if that doesn’t sound too vain, for I worked to attain it. I wasn’t born a champion; my name did not make me top of my class. I worked, I trained, I studied. Those glories, my victory laurels and my spoils, I earned. Of those, I feel I have the right to be proud. It is what came with them that I enjoy less, the pedestal…” She smiled. “I suppose that won’t be a problem here, at least.”

Terra chuckled. “Wait until River realises that you’re the one on the front of Pumpkin Pete’s Marshmallow Flakes.”

“If she does,” Pyrrha said. “Jaune didn’t recognise me until it was pointed out to him.”

“I can take a hint; they won’t hear it from me,” Terra assured her.

“I feel as though I ought to thank you,” Pyrrha told her, “for not mentioning everything about my reputation.”

“I’m an Argive, remember?” Terra said. “The princess stuff doesn’t carry the weight there that it does in Mistral; your accomplishments count for more than your birth.”

Pyrrha nodded. She recalled that from her time at Sanctum. It had been refreshing at first, not to be the Princess Without a Crown or the Evenstar of Mistral. Of course, it hadn’t taken her very long to become the Invincible Girl, and that had been just as bad in its own way.

“Nevertheless, you have my thanks.”

Terra offered a mock bow. “Any way I can be of service to the Champion.”

“Please don’t,” Pyrrha said, raising one hand in a halt gesture.

Terra smiled. “I’ll try and keep it toned down in there, but you have to allow me a little bit of starstruck enthusiasm. When I saw you, standing in my in-laws’ dining room … I couldn’t stop myself from blurting out your name. You know, I saw you win your first championship. I won a ticket and an all-expenses-paid trip to Mistral in a raffle. Despite your impressive record of wins to reach the final, nobody believed a thirteen-year-old kid was going to take the laurels.”

Pyrrha smiled. “Including you?”

“Oh, I thought you were going to get crushed, but I was rooting for you anyway,” Terra replied. “And the money I made betting on you paid for our wedding, so thank you for that.”

Pyrrha chuckled. “I’m glad that I could be of service.”

That first year, when she was a newcomer to the adult league, was probably the only time that Terra or anyone else could have made money betting on her to win anything. The odds in her favour had shortened considerably in subsequent years.

“I meant what I said in there, you know,” Terra added. “Nobody wanted to see you leave.”

“That is one of the reasons why I had to leave,” Pyrrha said softly. Then it occurred to her that in Alba Longa, she had finally found a place where her reputation carried no weight whatsoever … and everybody hated her. The irony of it made her laugh internally. Is this what they mean by 'be careful what you wish for'?

“Hey, you two,” Saphron said as she appeared in the doorway. “Everything okay?”

“Sure,” Terra said. “I was just making sure your other guest didn’t feel neglected.

Saphron winced. “Sorry about that; things are just a little… anyway, we’re almost ready for dinner, so if you’d both like to come back inside? Ruben and Chester are back, so you can meet the other in-laws.”

“Good luck,” Terra muttered, leaving Pyrrha to wonder just what fresh encounters might be in store for her inside the house.

---

The kitchen door flapped shut behind Jaune as he stepped into a room that seemed narrow due to the great abundance of equipment taking up space within it: three towering dual ovens, each one ridiculously large; two freezers and two refrigerators to match; microwaves; hobs; hotplates; kettles on work surfaces; an enormous sink; everything to supply the dietary needs of a family of nine plus a — hopefully — expanding number of in-laws and grandchildren and possible guests without panic, rush, or incident.

It hadn’t changed since he went away. The tiles were still cracked in that place in the corner just where he remembered; the tiles themselves were the same marigold shade that he remembered; everything was exactly the same to his eyes, and his nose was assailed by such wonderfully familiar smells that, for a moment, he was transported back to his childhood, with grimm and Salem and Beacon Academy all forgotten as he was a five-year-old with his hair in pigtails once again, fleeing into the kitchen to escape the over-eager attentions of his sisters and find shelter with his mother.

He had resisted learning how to cook, at first; his father couldn’t even boil an egg, so clearly, cooking wasn’t something that real men did, and it was bad enough that his sisters had roped him into dancing as part of the Arc Family Dancers. He had been adamant that he wasn’t going to do any more girly things than he had to. And yet, after many happy hours dipping his fingers into pots and pans and sneaking tastes when his mother wasn’t looking, his curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he had wanted to know, he had had to know how his mother managed to create so many delicious tastes and flavours.

And so he had accepted that he would be forever known for his unmanly interests and learned to cook — and a good thing too; just think how many chances to impress Pyrrha he would have missed out on otherwise?

He sniffed the air. “Fried chicken?”

“My special recipe,” Mom said cheerily. “Along with jacket potatoes—”

“And all the fillings?” Jaune asked eagerly.

“Of course,” Mom said, as if the idea that she would serve anything less was inherently ridiculous. “Cheese, cheese with broccoli, cheese with bacon, beans, tuna with and without mayo, and of course my famous beef chilli.”

Jaune could see the famous beef chilli boiling in a huge cast iron pot on one of the hobs nearby, and just as he had when he was a child, he started to move his hand in that direction.

Mom whacked him on the knuckles with a ladle. “Not until you’ve washed your hands.”

Jaune smiled sheepishly. “Sure thing, Mom.” He squeezed past her in the direction of the sink.

His mother chuckled. “It’s so good to have you back, sweetie.”

Jaune turned on the tap, and waited for the water to start to heat up. “It’s good to see you too, Mom.” He fell silent as the water heated and he ran his hands beneath it. “Listen, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to make you worry, but I did and—”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Mom said. “You’re home, and everything else is in the past now. You’re back where you belong, and that’s all that really matters.”

Jaune blinked. Something about the way that his mother had said that was making his thumbs prick just a little. “Mom … you know I’m only here for Dad’s birthday party, right? You asked me to come back, and so I did—”

“Yes,” Mom said. “You did. And now you’re here; you came back, and everything can be just the way it was. Why would you want to spoil that by running away again?”

“Because I was miserable the way things were,” Jaune said as he turned to face his mother. “I mean … when I called, you said that you understood. You said that you were happy that I’d found somewhere to belong. You put that picture I sent you up on the wall.”

“Of course I did,” Mom said. “I put all the pictures of my babies up on the wall so that everyone can see all the wonderful things that they’ve done. And I’m glad that you made it to that place that you wanted to go, and I’m glad that you were happy when you got there … but even though it was years ago, I still remember what it was like when your father went out on missions as though it were yesterday. I remember how nervous I was; every knock on the front door would make me near hysterical because I was sure it was someone from Beacon coming with the news that Gold had managed to get himself killed in some far-off field somewhere. I don’t want to go through that again with my only boy. What Kendal does is bad enough; I can barely stand it when she’s not here. Please, Jaune, don’t make me go through that again.”

Jaune’s brow furrowed as he looked down on her. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he murmured. “But I can’t just quit and come home.”

“Why not?”

“Because my team needs me.”

“Oh, I’m sure that they can manage without you.”

“Mom!” Jaune squawked, sounding more indignant than he had intended because didn’t she get it? Didn’t she get that this was exactly the point? “Stuff like that is why I left home in the first place!”

“Stuff like what?”

“Stuff like the fact that nobody in this house ever believed in me at all,” Jaune said. “You, Dad, everyone treated me like I was about as much use as a sack of potatoes, like I was such an idiot that it was a miracle I didn’t trip over my own feet, like I was … like you were all going to have to spend the rest of your lives taking care of me, because there was no way that I could ever amount to anything by myself.”

They had been kind about it, for the most part — although sometimes, he would look into his father’s eyes and see such unalloyed disappointment there — but all the kindness in the world couldn’t alleviate the shame of knowing that they thought him so completely incapable even of functioning by himself.

“That was why I left,” Jaune said. “I wanted to show that I could make it, even though nobody thought I could.”

He turned away, and so, he couldn’t see the look on his mother’s face as she said, “There’s nothing wrong with other people wanting to take care of you.”

“I know,” Jaune said. “But my friends … we take care of one another. They believe in me in ways that nobody in this house ever … You say that it was bad waiting for Dad, not knowing if he was going to be okay or not. Well … if I let Pyrrha go back to Beacon without me, then I know that I’d just spend every single day wondering where they were, what was happening to them, what dangerous mission they were on without me; and if…” He swallowed, because this was almost too terrible to contemplate. “And if anything happened to Pyrrha or Ruby or Sunset when I wasn’t around … because I wasn’t around, then … I don’t know if I could live with myself afterwards. I can’t leave them. I can’t leave her.”

“They’re not your family, Jaune,” Mom said. “We’re your family: all of us, here.”

“I know,” Jaune said. “But they’re where I belong. Beacon is where I belong.”

“You belong here with us,” Mom said.

“Doing what?” Jaune asked of her, looking at her once again. “What am I supposed to do once I’ve broken Pyrrha’s heart and broken my word to my friends? What am I supposed to do all day once I’ve proved that I don’t deserve to be trusted?”

Mom was silent for a moment. “Miranda Wells saw sense and came home,” she pointed out.

“I know,” Jaune murmured. “After what happened in Vale—”

“Yes,” Mom replied. “What happened in Vale. Not many people talk about it, of course, but Marian Wells and I got to talking, and she explained that poor Miranda … she has nightmares, the poor dear. About those awful monsters.”

Jaune closed his eyes for a moment. “I can imagine,” he said softly.

“You should go and talk to her,” Mom suggested.

Jaune nodded. “That … I don’t know … there’s nothing that I can do to help, but I’ll go and see her anyway.” It might not help, but it was the right thing to do regardless.

“She’s very pretty,” Mom added. “And you two were always so close growing up. Marian and I often thought that maybe—”

“Mom, I don’t think that Miranda’s going to be in the mood right now,” Jaune said. “This isn’t really the time or the place. And besides, even if that wasn’t true, I already have a girlfriend; I don’t need you to set me up.”

“She’s an outsider and a huntress; do you think she’ll ever belong here?”

“I don’t belong here,” Jaune said.

“Yes, you do,” Mom said. “But that girl, Pyrrha was it? I know she’s terribly pretty—”

“She’s not just pretty; she’s beautiful,” Jaune said. “And more than beautiful, she’s … she’s brave and kind and noble and selfless … she helped me when she didn’t have to, even after I’d given her every reason not to, just because I needed the help. She never asked for anything in return.

“She isn’t scared of anything, and when I see that, it makes it easier for me to be brave too; she was the first person at Beacon, the first person ever to really believe that I could do this, that I could make something of myself.” He sighed. “When she’s upset, there isn’t anything that I want more than to make her happy again, and when she smiles, the way her eyes light up … Pyrrha isn’t just beautiful; she’s one in a million.” He smiled. “I love her, Mom.”

He had hoped … he wasn’t exactly sure what he had hoped for? That she’d tear up and give him a big hug? That she’d tell him how happy she was for him that he’d found the one? That she’d give him some tips on how to treat Pyrrha as she deserved?

He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d hoped for, but he’d hoped for better from her than to hear her say, “I’m sure you think that, honey, but after you’ve been apart for a few weeks—”

“We’re not going to be apart for a few weeks; I’m going back to Beacon,” Jaune said firmly. “Mom, stop. If you don’t stop then… then I’ll go.”

His mother’s eyes widened. “You’ll go? You mean now?”

“Yes,” Jaune said, even though his mouth was still watering from the succulent smells of the kitchen. He didn’t want to say this, but he felt as though he wasn’t being left with very much choice. “I’m not a farmer, and I’m not a baby, and I’m not the same kid who ran away from home. I’m a student of Beacon Academy and a huntsman of Vale, and that’s what I want to be. And if you can’t accept that … I’m not going to stay here while you tell me how wrong I am and try to break up Pyrrha and me to set me up with a nice local girl. I don’t want to go, Mom, but I will.”

Mom stared at him. “Are you really happier at that school than you would be here, with us?”

“Yes,” Jaune said with simple finality.

It sounded strange, borderline absurd really, to think that he was happier at the school being trained to fight monsters; where he had been told that all of the monsters were being directed by an immortal mistress of the monsters who could never be stopped, only delayed; where magic was real and the boundaries of what he had thought were possible were daily being rolled backwards before his eyes, even as the danger and the risk daily increased also. It seemed ridiculous that he should be happier there than he was in the peaceful town where nothing ever changed from day to day, but … but it was true.

He was a part of something at Beacon, a part of something bigger than himself and his own desires; at Beacon, he was useful and needed and wanted, all words that had never been used to describe him when he lived here. At Beacon, he was nobody’s son and nobody’s kid brother; at Beacon, he was Jaune Arc.

“I love you, Mom; I love all of you … but I couldn’t ever be as happy here as I am at Beacon.”

It was clear that his mother wasn’t happy with that answer, but it was also clear that she didn’t take his warning as an idle threat. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she murmured. “I won’t say anything more about it, but … I’m afraid I really can’t say the same for your father or sisters.”

“Right,” Jaune murmured, the word dying as it left his mouth, until it was left to crawl its way past his lips. He dry washed his hands for a moment as he looked around. “I don’t suppose that you need any help in here?”

“No, Jaune,” Mom said. “If you’re only going to be staying a few days, then you’re as good as a guest, so get on out of here and let me work. Why don’t you go and see if your brothers-in-law are inside yet?”

Right. His brothers-in-law. That was something to look forward to. “Okay, Mom,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t sound too strangled.

You can do this. You can do this. He had stood up to Cardin Winchester, he had faced the grimm and the White Fang, he had crossed blades with Cinder Fall, he had faced Salem herself for crying out loud; like he had anything to be afraid of from Rueben or Chester.

Of course, Cardin and Cinder and Salem hadn’t been married to his older sisters.

Nevertheless, he could do this. He had handled way worse than this since leaving home. He wasn’t the same kid anymore. He had found himself, he had grown up, and he was not going to let them push him around!

Those were Jaune’s thoughts as he pushed open the door into the kitchen and stepped out.

Ruben and Chester were already waiting for him in the dining room.

Chester Heatherfield was River’s husband, and he was standing beside her, with one arm around her waist, whispering in her ear. He was a little shorter than Jaune, about the same height as Pyrrha, with most of his brown hair concealed beneath the blue and white bandana wrapped around his head, from which only a little hair descended into view. The stubble on his cheeks had been threatening to turn into a beard when Jaune had left home, but he had shaved since then, and now, his cheeks were disconcertingly smooth — Jaune remembered that River had been complaining he was getting itchy to kiss, so maybe that had something or everything to do with it. He was wearing shorts, revealing a pair of hairy legs between there and his long dark socks. He was the town postman, and he was still wearing his blue postman’s blazer with the crest of the Royal Mail stitched onto his breast pocket.

Ruben Meade was Rouge’s husband and about the same height and build as Cardin, maybe just a little bit bigger. He had always dwarfed everyone around him as far back as Jaune could remember. He had brown hair, close-cropped to the back and sides of his head, with hazel eyes and strong, firm features. His plaid shirt stretched taut over his rippling, muscular chest, and his arms appeared on the verge of ripping through the rolled-up sleeves at any moment, as did his legs through his blue jeans.

Ruben’s father managed the farm for Dad — not that Dad didn’t do any work on the farm, but not as much as he would have had to if he hadn’t employed someone to help him with it — and since he had been married to Rouge, everyone kind of took it for granted that he was going to inherit the farm when Dad died. It was another sign that nobody thought that Jaune would be capable of taking on the responsibility, but it was not one that bothered him; he didn’t want to run the farm; he didn’t want to come back here and take over the family land. This wasn’t where he saw himself, not even in twenty or thirty years' time. If Ruben wanted it, then he was welcome to it.

Ruben was leaning against the dining room wall, some distance away from Rouge, who was still organising the laying of the table. His foot tapped impatiently upon the wooden floor.

It was Violet who saw Jaune first as he came out of the kitchen. “Jaune!” she cried.

All other pairs of eyes turned towards him.

“Jauney!” Ruben cried, peeling himself off the wall, a grin upon his solid features as he advanced upon Jaune. “Good to see you again.”

Jaune cleared his throat. “It’s, uh, it’s good to see you again too, Ruben. Chester.”

“Jaune,” Chester said, with a nod of his head. “Heard you made it all the way to that school.”

“Yeah,” Jaune said. “Yeah, I did.”

Ruben laughed. “You sure you didn’t get lost on the way, spend a few months hiding somewhere before you came back?”

“No,” Jaune sighed. “No, I didn’t. I made it there just fine.”

“And they let you in?” Ruben asked. He raised his fists in front of his face. “Well, if you’ve been to that fancy fightin’ school, why don’t you show me somethin’?”

“Aw, come on, man, you can’t start a fight in here,” Chester said. “The girls are workin’ hard to set this table, and you want to go bust it up? Where are we gonna eat dinner if you do that?”

“Oh, we ain’t gonna fight; we just gonna mess around a little,” Rueben assured him.

“Ruben,” Rouge sighed. “Stop it.”

Ruben ignored her. “Come on, little Jauney,” he urged. “Show me something; put ‘em up.”

“N-no, Ruben,” Jaune said, shaking his head.

He didn’t want to mess around; he certainly didn’t want to fight. If he activated his aura, he was pretty sure that he could punch Ruben clear across the room, big guy or not, but like Chester had said, everyone had worked hard to set the table for dinner, and it would be a shame to ruin it by breaking everything.

“What’s the matter?” Ruben asked. “Aren’t you some kind of hero now? Show me what you got!”

He started lashing out with both fists, not throwing punches, but tapping Jaune on the side of the head.

Jaune squirmed, shrinking backwards, raising his hands defensively, covering his face.

Ruben laughed. “Is that what they’re teaching you at that school? How to cower like a girl?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Kendal spat. “Rouge, Sky, are you just going to let this happen?”

“Yes, and so are you,” Sky declared. “Ruben’s right; how does he expect to survive at Beacon if he can’t handle this?”

Jaune gritted his teeth. So that was it, huh? They were testing him? They wanted to prove to him that he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t strong enough? This was supposed to show him that he was wrong? Well, if this was a test then he’d show them the answer.

He straightened up and activated his aura.

Ruben threw a punch, harder than the others, coming in straight for Jaune’s face.

Ruben’s face struck Jaune upon the cheek. Jaune barely felt it; while being struck by someone using aura hurt despite the lack of real injury, being hit by someone who was not using aura felt … it felt like being touched on the cheek by comparison.

Ruben on the other hand, recoiled with a cry of pain, clutching his hand. “What the—?”

“That’s what they taught me at Beacon,” Jaune said.

Silence fell in the room. Sky’s eyes were wide. A smirk pricked at the corner of Kendal’s mouth. River’s eyebrows rose into her bangs.

“Like Chester said, you shouldn’t be messing around in the dining room,” said River.

It was at that moment that Pyrrha returned with Saphron and Terra.

---

Pyrrha and Terra — led by Saphron, although the way down the corridor was not difficult to find — returned to the spacious dining room to find the table laid out and waiting for them. The long walnut table was covered by a pristine white tablecloth, on which had been set out fourteen places — Pyrrha recalled that Terra had mentioned something about her son getting to sleep and assumed that the child would not be joining them — with blue willow-pattern plates in a faux-Mistralian style sat upon wicker mats with cutlery set down upon either side.

In the centre of the table, Pyrrha could already see that great bowls with ladles sticking out had been set up and down the table, and an aroma of assorted smells wafted out of them to engulf the room in sensations that set Pyrrha’s mouth watering.

Jaune and his mother had obviously finished their conversation in the kitchen, because Jaune was outside with all of his sisters whom Pyrrha had so far met, along with two men whom she had not but whom she presumed to be the brothers-in-law. One of them, a man with a bandana tied around his head and wearing shorts, had his arm around River’s waist. The other, a rather large man in a plaid shirt and jeans, was clutching at his hand as though he had been stung.

He was standing quite close to Jaune, who was standing straight and with the glow around him of having activated his aura.

What was going on just now?

“Is everything okay in here?” Saphron asked.

“Everything’s fine,” Rouge said quickly. “Ruben, Chester, this is Jaune’s girlfriend, Miss Pyrrha Nikos. Pyrrha, this is my husband, Ruben, and River’s husband, Chester.”

Chester nodded his head towards her. “Pleased to meet you ma’am.”

Pyrrha smiled. “Please, sir, call me Pyrrha.”

“Reckon you can call me Chester then, Miss Pyrrha,” Chester said.

Ruben opened and closed the hand he had been clutching, as though he were trying to get the feeling back into it. “Jaune’s girlfriend, huh?” he said. He smirked. “Who would have believed it? I’m still not sure that I do.”

Pyrrha smiled thinly. “Nevertheless, it is the truth, however strange it may seem.”

“Is that right?” Ruben asked. He whistled appreciatively. “You are one lucky boy, Jauney.”

“Don’t I know it,” Jaune said, a touch of nervous laughter entering his voice.

He began to walk around the room towards her, even as Rouge looked away.

Jaune’s mother chose that very fortuitous moment to emerge out of the kitchen, carrying a tray piled high with fried chicken covered in a crispy brown coat. The smell of them only added to the delicious smells that were tugging at Pyrrha’s nostrils.

“Who's hungry?” Mrs. Arc asked cheerfully, oblivious to everything that had been going on in the dining room beforehand. “Sit down, everyone; I’m sure that Gold will be along any minute now.”

“Thanks, Mom,” River said.

“Yeah, thanks a lot,” Kendal added.

Everyone began to sit down: the seat at the head of the table was left open, presumably for Mister Arc himself, while the seat on the left of that was also left vacant, and Pyrrha guessed that was for Mrs. Arc once she was done bringing everything out of the kitchen; Ruben took the seat on the right-hand side of the head of the table, with Rouge sitting next to him; Saphron grabbed the seat next to the empty place left for her mother and held a chair out next to her for Terra.

Jaune caught Pyrrha’s eye as she moved towards the table, and gave her a slightly apologetic smile.

She smiled back and hoped that she was able to convey by it that she had no hard feelings about anything that had happened so far. Rather, she understood much better now why he might have wanted her to come with him in the first place.

Although, when she thought back to Sunset’s blithe assurance that of course Jaune’s family would fall in love with her, it did afford her a certain wry amusement.

If only she knew.

Not that I’ll tell her; she’d probably get quite incensed about the whole thing; I’m not sure an incandescent Sunset turning up at the door with her jacket on fire so that she looks like an avenging fury would do much good.

Hopefully, I can win some hearts and minds by the time she arrives to research Jaune’s family history, or there really will be trouble.

Pyrrha could not think that Sunset would be as restrained as she had been so far.

Jaune pulled out the chair next to him for her, or at least, she assumed it was for her since he was looking at her as he pulled it out; however, before he could actually invite her to sit in it Violet had slipped into the seat.

“Thank you, Jaune,” she chirruped.

Jaune looked at Pyrrha, who gave a slight shake of her head. No need to make an issue of it; it would be as petty as your sister’s being.

“Uh, right,” Jaune said, as he started to sit down. Violet beamed at him, before sticking her tongue out at Pyrrha, leaving Pyrrha to wonder just how old she was.

“Hey, Pyrrha,” Kendal said, from the seat opposite Violet. “There’s a seat free over here.” She patted the seat opposite Jaune, across the table from him, and kept her hand there so that nobody else could take it as Pyrrha made her way over.

“Thank you, Kendal,” Pyrrha said, trying to ignore Violet’s thunderous face as she sat down opposite Jaune.

The pleasure that she felt as he reached for her hand across the table was mixed on this occasion with a frisson of satisfaction, even if that same sense of satisfaction made her feel a little ashamed of herself for how unbecoming it was.

River and Sky took seats opposite one another, respectively to the right of Jaune and the left of Pyrrha, with Chester sitting down next to River at the very end of the table. All the spaces were now filled save three: Mr. and Mrs. Arc’s places at the head of the table and on its right respectively — Mrs. Arc gravitated towards the seat on the right, confirming Pyrrha’s guess, although she did not yet sit down — and one at the bottom, opposite Chester. There was no place laid at the foot of the table, but everything was laid out in that opposite space, so clearly somebody was expected.

Mrs. Arc cast her eye down the seated family. “Now is everyone…?” She sighed. “Now where is—?”

“Coming Mom,” came a voice from the stairs as someone who could only be Aoko, the final and previously unseen Arc sister, tumbled into view. Almost literally tumbled, as she must have tripped on something on the stairs because she emerged with a startled cry of alarm and seemed in grave danger of falling flat on her face. However, she managed to just about keep her footing and, after hopping a few paces forwards, came to a stop. “Nailed it.”

“Aoko, you’re late,” Rouge said primly. “And what are you wearing?”

Aoko Arc was a scrawny young woman, smaller even than Weiss Schnee and with absolutely no meat on her bones at all; Pyrrha could have put her hands around her arms and legs quite easily. She was dressed in an oversized blue t-shirt — very oversized; it was hanging off her — with the word ‘Allegedly’ printed on it in white letters and a pair of black short shorts about the length of Pyrrha’s miniskirt. She was completely barefoot. Her hair was the shortest of any member of the Arc family — including Jaune — cut in a bowl that barely descended past her ears, and she wore a pair of round, thick-framed black spectacles that gave her a slightly owlish look as she looked at her elder sister.

“This is comfortable, and I work best when I’m comfortable,” she said. “Besides, it’s not like we have company.”

“Terra’s been here for three days,” Saphron pointed out, but not unkindly.

Aoko blinked. “Hi, Terra. How’s, um, you know … the little guy with a big head…”

“Our son, Adrian?” Saphron suggested.

“Yeah. Him.”

Terra chuckled. “He’s fine. He’s asleep upstairs.”

“Great, sleep is necessary to the proper functioning of the body,” Aoko said as she wandered over to the free seat at the foot of the table and sat down. “Hey, Jaune,” she said, as casually as if he’d just been to the bathroom and it had only been a few minutes since they last saw one another.

“Hey, Aoko,” Jaune said, apparently not finding this unusual.

“I got the cheese puffs myself.”

“Uh, right,” Jaune said. “Sorry about that.”

River smiled even as she rolled her eyes. “You hadn’t noticed he was gone, had you?”

Aoko frowned. “'Gone'?” She blinked. “Wait, there was a message, months ago, Atlesian girl, begins with a … Vesper?”

“Twilight Sparkle?” Jaune suggested.

“Yes, yes, Twilight Sparkle, theories on robotics, very interesting, messaged me, mentioned you. I don’t remember what she said.”

“Is this making any sense to you, Jaune?” asked River.

“Yeah, Twilight Sparkle, I know her,” Jaune said. “She’s an Atlas student who’s been studying at Beacon for this year; she found out that I was Aoko’s brother, and she sent her a message to let her know that I’d made it and I was okay.”

“You knew?!” Kendal demanded. “You knew where Jaune was this entire time, and you didn’t say anything to the rest of us?”

“I didn’t pay much attention,” Aoko said. “When I’m busy, I just sort of skim through my messages.”

Before anyone could say anything in response to that, there was the sound of the front door opening and footsteps in the hallway.

“Sorry I’m late,” a gruff voice announced. “That new hole on the fairway was a little tougher than I’d thought, and then Archie offered me a drink, and it would have been—”

A man entered the dining room and stopped in his tracks. He stared, and it didn’t take Pyrrha long to realise that he was staring at Jaune.

Jaune got to his feet. His hands were trembling slightly, and Pyrrha so very badly wanted to take him by both hands to comfort him, to reassure him that she was here and that it would all be okay, but she couldn’t, not here, not in front of his whole family like this. She could only watch as he shook with nerves.

“Hi, Dad,” he said.

Mr. Arc was a heavyset man, muscular but also starting to bulge a little at the waist. His hair had mostly turned to grey — only a few golden streaks remained — and was in any case very short and mostly gone from the top of his head, but his eyes remained the same vibrant blue of all the Arcs. His face was lined with years or cares or both and covered lightly with a coating to stubble. He was casually dressed, in a t-shirt of dull gold and a pair of corduroys, and the muscle that still corded his arms was the only real clue that he had once been a huntsman.

“Jaune,” he said after a moment. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“No,” Jaune murmured. He looked down. “I should have called.”

“It’s no big deal. Your room’s still here, and it’s not like there’s ever a food shortage in this house,” Mr. Arc said, with surprising ease in his voice; at least, it was surprising to Pyrrha. He took a couple of steps forward. “But you and I are going to need to talk about some things later.”

Jaune swallowed. “Yes. Of course.”

“Now, sit down; you look like you’re about to collapse,” Mr. Arc said. He walked towards the table. “Anyway, hi, kids.”

“Hi, Dad,” chorused the Arc sisters.

He smiled fondly, but stopped as he reached Pyrrha, casting a shadow over her. “Hello, and who might you be, Miss—”

“Nikos,” Pyrrha said, as she pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “Pyrrha Nikos, I … I’m here with your son, sir.” She bowed her head. “It’s an honour to meet you.”

“Please, Miss, none of the Mistral manners,” Mister Arc said. “I was on a team with a Mistralian girl who was always so prim and proper; it used to drive me nuts.” He thrust out his hand. “Gold Arc, good to meet you, welcome to our home. I take it you’ve already met my wife and kids?”

Pyrrha took his hand gently. “Yes, I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Then you’ve met the best parts of the family already,” Mister Arc said, a smile appearing on his face. “So, you’re here with Jaune, huh? I guess he must be doing something right.” He let go of Pyrrha’s hand and turned away, leaving her cheeks to burn unnoticed as he went to the head of the table and kissed his wife. “Evening, honey; sorry I’m late.”

“It’s alright, dear, but if we don’t get started soon, then everything’s going to get cold.”

“And we wouldn’t want that now, would we?” Mister Arc said, as he sat down at the head of the table. “Sky, would you mind saying grace?”

“Sure thing, Dad,” Sky said, as everyone at the table bowed their heads and held out their hands.

It took Pyrrha a moment to realise what they were doing; she only really understood when Kendal tapped her on the right hand and indicated what everyone else was doing: holding their right hand out, palm upwards, and placing their left hands in the open palms of the person to their left. In that way, they joined hands in a chain … except that Sky was very pointedly refusing to offer her hand to Pyrrha, something that either no one noticed or no one wanted to comment on. Pyrrha contented herself with taking Kendal’s hand and placing her other hand upon her knee.

She bowed her head and closed her eyes.

“We give thanks for the food at our table, for the warmth of our fire, and for the shelter of our home,” Sky said. “We give thanks for our family, and especially for the return of our brother Jaune, who has come home after too long away. We give thanks for the fact that we have somewhere to come back to where we will always belong. For what we are about to receive, may we be truly grateful.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Violet said. “Now let’s eat!”

The food really was delicious. Pyrrha probably wouldn’t have eaten so much if Kendal — “Try the chilli; it’s delicious.” — hadn’t been sitting next to her, but she ended up having at least a taste of everything and a great deal of some things. The chilli was hot and spicy in just the right ways, the chicken was crisp without and succulent within, the potatoes crumbled at the touch of a fork.

“This really is excellent food, ma’am,” Pyrrha said.

“Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Arc said, coolly but politely. “I’m glad you like it.”

Excited chatter surrounded the table as the Arc siblings dug in to the meal that their mother had prepared, until Aoko — who looked to be scribbling some equations on a napkin with one hand even while she shovelled melted cheese and potato into her mouth with her other hand — said, “So, Jaune, where did you go?”

The table could not have fallen more silent if she had just announced her plans to go out and commit murder. Chester began a very intense and thorough study of his potatoes, bowing his head and not looking at anything or anyone. Ruben looked down at his hand and opened and closed it reflexively.

Aoko glanced upwards. “Sorry, I know that Twilight’s message probably told me, but like I said, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Kendal’s mouth twitched into a momentary kind of smile. Sky scowled. Saphron looked as though she’d rather be somewhere else.

Rouge cleared her throat. “Aoko, that isn’t—”

“I’ve been at Beacon Academy,” Jaune said, looking down the table towards his sister. “I’m training to become a huntsman.”

“Like Dad?” Aoko murmured. “Cool.”

“No, it’s not cool,” Sky growled. “Don’t encourage him!”

Aoko blinked owlishly as she briefly looked up from whatever she was scribbling. “Does he need encouragement…? Didn’t you just say you’d been there already?”

“This isn’t really appropriate for the dinner table—” Rouge tried to interject.

“He’s been there,” Sky declared. “He’s not going back.”

“I’m sitting right here!” Jaune exclaimed, waving his arms to emphasise the point. “And I am going back, for the next three years until I graduate.”

“No, you’re not!” Sky snapped. “You shouldn’t have gone in the first place, and you’re certainly not going back. You’re going to pack your so-called girlfriend back home, and you’re going to stay right here where you belong.”

Jaune stared at her across the half-eaten dishes. “No,” he said.

Sky frowned. “'No'?”

“No,” Jaune repeated. “I’m not going to break up with Pyrrha, and I’m not going to stay here; I’m going back to Beacon, and you can’t stop me.”

Pyrrha smiled inwardly. She didn’t know for sure, but she thought that Sky might have expected her brother to fold so easily at her first push; she had no idea how strong he had become in the intervening months. That was part of the reason why she did not — and would not — say anything: he didn’t need her help anymore.

The other reason was that she felt that he wouldn’t want it. This was his family and his fight.

And his chance to show them what sort of a man he was now.

“Please be reasonable, Jaune,” Rouge said, using a definition of reasonable that Pyrrha’s mother might have approved of. “Beacon isn’t the place for you.”

“But it is,” Jaune said. “I’m part of a team, I have friends for the first time in my life—”

“Jaune,” Violet said, her tone greatly offended.

Jaune looked discomfited by that. “Friends outside of my family, I mean,” he corrected himself. “People who weren’t obliged to like me, people who didn’t have to give a damn about me … but they do. Beacon is the place for me; it’s the place I’ve found, the place where I belong. It’s … it’s home to me now.”

“This is your home,” Sky insisted. “And we’re your family, and we want you back.”

“And what about what I want?” Jaune said. “This is the most important thing I’ll ever do in my whole life, and you want to just take it away from me? Why?”

“How about you stop being so selfish and think about other people for a change?” Sky demanded.

If there was anything that Sky could have said to break Pyrrha’s resolve to let Jaune fight his own battle on this occasion, it was that. Selfish? Selfish? How … how dare she? How dare she even suggest that she knew Jaune when she obviously had no idea what kind of a person he was? He was one of the most generous, selfless people that Pyrrha knew; the very essence of his soul reflected it; he risked his life to defend the lives of others and support the people he cared about, and for that, she called him selfish.

Beneath the table, Pyrrha’s hands clenched into fists, and she felt righteous indignation rushing up her throat while hastily writing out a very sternly worded speech.

Jaune looked every bit as flabbergasted by the audacity of Sky’s remark, but he was quick thinking enough to cut off Pyrrha before she said anything. “'Self'… I’m training to become a huntsman. I’m fighting to protect the world from darkness.”

“The world isn’t your home; this is,” Sky insisted.

Jaune looked as though he were momentarily rendered speechless. “Do you… do you really think that this town is the only place in Vale, in Remnant, that matters? What about Shion, where we used to go on vacation? What about Vale, where we sell all our crops? Don’t they deserve to be protected? Don’t the people who live there deserve to survive when the grimm come?”

“If the grimm come,” Sky said. “I’ve never seen one, and neither has anybody else that I know.”

There was a grinding sound to Pyrrha’s right that turned out to be Kendal grinding her teeth. Sky didn’t notice.

“I think the threat of the grimm is exaggerated by the people who run the huntsman academies so that they can take people like you away from their homes—”

“Sky, shut your mouth, or you’re going to end up with fewer teeth than me,” Kendal snarled.

River’s eyes widened. “Kendal…”

“Kendal, please, let’s not have any language like that at the dinner table,” Mrs. Arc murmured.

“Kendal, honey, come on—” Mr. Arc began.

“No, Dad,” Kendal said as she stood up. “How can you sit there and let Sky run her mouth off like that? You were a huntsman; you know what the world is like out there, so how can you listen to these … these lies!”

“Maybe the fact that Dad isn’t arguing means that they’re not lies,” Sky said.

Kendal’s mouth contorted into a snarl. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!” she yelled, as spittle flew from her mouth to land on Pyrrha’s cheek. “You have no idea. … Do you think that this town is safe because it’s special? Because the world isn’t that dangerous after all? Because we’re lucky? This stupid town is safe because people like Jaune and Pyrrha put their lives on the line every day to keep it safe, and sometimes, they die!”

She gasped, covering her mouth as though she were about to throw up. There were tears in the corners of her blue eyes, and Pyrrha wondered if this was the first time she had really understood the risks involved in the life that Jaune was leading. She shook her head.

“Worry about him if you want,” Kendal said. “I worry. But don’t talk to Jaune like he’s an idiot because he’s not. He’s the bravest of us all.”

She turned away.

“Where are you going, Kendal?” Mrs. Arc said. “We haven’t finished dinner yet.”

“I can’t,” Kendal said. “I … I can’t sit here.”

She started to walk around the table, and although Mrs. Arc looked as though she wanted to say or do something more to stop her, a hand on her arm from Mr. Arc and a shake of his head prevented her.

Kendal sounded as though she was sobbing as she walked up the stairs.

Mr. Arc sighed. “Sky, at some point tonight, I expect you to apologise to your sister.”

Sky gasped in outrage. “'Apologise'? She’s the one who’s acting like a big baby.”

“You’ve upset her, and you’re going to make it right.”

“I didn’t—”

“I want you to make up with her,” Mr. Arc said heavily. “Do you understand?”

Sky wilted under his gaze, looking down at her hands rather than meet his gaze. “Yes, sir. I’ll say I’m sorry.” She glanced at Jaune. “How come Jaune doesn’t have to apologise for running away? Or for breaking Crocea Mors?”

“Sky!” Jaune squawked in a strangled voice.

That, Pyrrha thought, was a blow so low that it would be illegal in most tournaments.

“Your brother and I are going to have a full and frank talk about everything,” Mr. Arc said. “But that doesn’t excuse the way that you’ve been behaving.”

“I want Jaune home!” Sky exclaimed. “I want our family back before we have to bury our brother; I want him here where he belongs instead of embarrassing us in front of the whole town playing make believe with this outsider. I want things back the way they were before, is that so wrong?”

“And you say that I’m the selfish one?” Jaune asked. “Come on, Sky, the way things were before was you treating me like a pet who had to be watched all the time unless I burned down the house.”

“Well—” Ruben began.

“Hush, Ruben,” Rouge said. She paused for a moment. “If you wanted to prove to us that we had misjudged you, then perhaps you were right to do so. Perhaps we did underestimate your competence. But now that you have proven yourself, can you not come home? We can be better than we were before. What you’re doing at Beacon … it just isn’t done around here, and it’s so dangerous too.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Jaune said. “I’ve already spoken to Mom about this, and … if you guys can’t accept my choice, then I’m not going to stick around here to be lectured about how wrong I am. Because I’m not. I’ve seen what’s out there, Sky; it’s not a myth, it’s not exaggerated, it’s real, and it’s dangerous, and it’s evil—”

“You’re doing a great job selling this,” River muttered.

“But I’m fighting it,” Jaune said. “I’m fighting it alongside my friends, and together, we can make a difference. We’ve made one already; we helped defend Vale when it most needed defending. We did that, Pyrrha and my friends and I; we stood in the Breach and we didn’t let the grimm pass. We did that. I did that with them. And I won’t turn my back on the people who are counting on me. No matter what you say; you can think I’m stupid or deluded or anything else … but I know what I am, and I know where I belong, and it isn’t here. Not anymore.”

Saphron smiled. “Since when did you get able to stand up to Sky and Rouge put together?”

Jaune raised his head a little in pride. “Since I found a cause worth taking a stand over.”

Pyrrha smiled too, to let him know how proud she was of him.

Sky, on the other hand, looked as though Jaune’s words were upsetting her nearly as much as her own words earlier had upset Kendal. “You talk about turning your back, but you’re turning—”

Mister Arc’s hand slammed down into the table with a solid thud that stilled all other sounds. “Okay, that’s enough,” he said. “Absolutely enough. The dinner table is no place for arguments. You’re insulting your mother and all the work that she’s put in to get this dinner ready for us. Jaune and I are going to talk later, and until then, I don’t want to hear a single word about this from anyone while we’re seated at this table, understood?”

Everyone obeyed him, with the unfortunate side-effect that the rest of the dinner passed in a rather cold and frosty manner. The silence was only really broken when Sky’s scroll started to go off.

“Sorry, I’ve got to take this; it's Sprout,” she said apologetically, as she got up from her seat and walked towards the windows to take the call. “What? … And you can’t … I know that you’re having dinner with your Mom, so am I!” She sighed. “Of course you can’t. Sure, fine, I’ll go check it out.” She snapped her scroll shut. “Sorry, Mom, Dad; duty calls.”

“Is everything alright?” asked Mrs. Arc with concern.

“There’s a report of a disturbance at the McKinley farm, on the outskirts of town,” Sky said. “I’ll just go out there, tell them to keep the noise down and stop whatever it is they’re doing, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Just be careful,” Mrs. Arc said.

Sky grinned. “Come on, Mom, you know this place; what’s there to worry about?”

She stepped quickly out of the dining room; Pyrrha could hear her pulling on her shoes in the corridor outside before she heard the door open and then close again shortly after.

The rest of dinner passed in a frosty silence as the plates were cleared; nobody disobeyed Mister Arc’s prohibition against raising the matter of Jaune’s return to Beacon, but that same prohibition seemed to have stripped anyone of any desire to find anything else to talk about. What little conversation there was was brief and to the point. Rouge looked ashamed of herself, while Violet spent much of dinner glaring at Pyrrha.

Pyrrha herself, although glad that Jaune had taken the stand that he had, found herself wishing that things would be a little less awkward.

And she found herself rather glad when dinner was over, although she wasn’t sure what would come next.

“Miss Nikos,” Mister Arc said, “I suppose my son promised that you could stay here for your visit?”

Pyrrha wondered if she was about to be thrown out onto the street. It wasn’t an insurmountable problem if she was — although she might have chosen different outfits if she’d known that she would have to camp out — but the fact that she trusted Jaune to withstand the pressures of his family didn’t mean that she wanted to leave him completely alone to face said pressures.

“Yes,” she said. “For the duration of our stay.”

Thankfully, Jaune’s father seemed to have no desire to turf her out of his home, for he said, “I’m afraid we don’t have any guest bedrooms free right now, but there’s a camp bed in Kendal’s room; you can sleep in there. River can show you the way.”

“Dad,” River murmured. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea? Kendal seemed pretty upset.”

Pyrrha was glad that River had said it and, thus, spared her from having to say it herself and presume a knowledge of Kendal Arc that her father didn’t possess. She had seemed very upset; would she want the intrusion of a stranger into her privacy at such a time?

Would I? Probably not.

Nevertheless, Mister Arc said, “Just show Miss Nikos the way; this is for the best.” He rose heavily to his feet. “And as for you, Jaune: come with me. It’s time for us to talk.”

Looking at his face then, Pyrrha almost asked if she could be a part of this talk if only so that Jaune wasn’t alone, even if she didn’t end up saying anything; almost, but did not. It wasn’t her place, and Jaune had no need of her to hold his hand every step of the way.

You can do this, Jaune; I know you can.

River pushed her chair back as she got up. “I’ll show Pyrrha upstairs, then come back to help with the dishes, okay Mom?”

“Don’t worry, dear,” Mrs. Arc said. “I’m sure that Rouge, Saphron, Violet, and I will be fine.”

“I’ll be quick,” River said regardless. “You going to be okay by yourself, honey?”

“I’ll make do,” Chester assured her.

“Great,” she said. “Pyrrha, you ready?”

“Of course,” Pyrrha said, as she too got up. “That is, if you don’t—”

“You’re a guest, remember?” Saphron said. “Guests don’t do housework.”

In my family, family doesn’t do housework either, Pyrrha said. Which I suppose means I should stop asking to be given chores that I’ve never had to do in my life.

It would be a fine thing if she were to break Mrs. Arc’s dishes, after all.

She allowed River to lead her out of the dining room and up the stairs. They were dimly lit, making it easy to see how Aoko had managed to trip and nearly fall down them, although Pyrrha did not trip herself. As they arrived at the top of the stairs and reached an equally dimly lit landing, River stopped and turned to face Pyrrha.

“I never thought I’d see that happen,” she said.

Pyrrha frowned. “See what?”

“Jaune stand up to anyone like that,” River said. “Especially not Sky and Rouge together. He’s … he’s not the same as when he went away.”

“No,” Pyrrha murmured. “I can believe that. He’s not the same as when he first arrived at Beacon either.”

“Did you have something to do with that?”

Pyrrha felt her cheeks start to heat up a little. “I … I’d like to think so, a little,” she said. “But the truth is, I think that we’ve all had a little to do with it.”

“'We' … you mean the girls in that picture?”

“His teammates, yes.”

“Are they all as nice as you?”

“Um … more or less,” Pyrrha murmured. “Uh, River … can I ask you something?”

River snorted. “Do you want to know why I picked you and nobody else did?”

Pyrrha’s face was definitely burning by now, she could feel it. “I … that is … I know it sounds pathetic, but—”

“Nah,” River said. “I’d probably want to know as well. But the real answer is … I don’t know, really. Maybe it’s just this weird thing where I’m certain I know your face from somewhere. I’m sorry, that wasn’t a great answer, was it?”

“It’s the truth,” Pyrrha said. “I can’t ask for more than that.”

River sighed. “I’m sorry about my twin sister. She’s a bit … she really does love Jaune; she just…”

“She wants what’s best for him, even if he doesn’t agree,” Pyrrha said.

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

“And you?” Pyrrha asked.

River was quiet for a moment. “Growing up, Jaune was always the sweet one. I don’t know if that was entirely because he was sweet or because he was scared to be anything else. We didn’t … we kind of wanted another sister, and sometimes, we treated him like one anyway, and we didn’t exactly care what he thought about it. But he never got mad, and he never did anything, so we thought … we all love Jaune. We all love our family; it’s probably the one thing that we can all agree on: we love our family, and we love our baby brother. And I’m not going to lie: the thought of him dying scares me. I can see where Sky’s coming from, and Rouge; a part of me wants to agree with both of them. But Jaune isn’t the same kid whose hair we used to put in pigtails, and I’m worried that if we don’t accept his decision … then we’re going to lose him.”

Pyrrha said nothing, although based on what Jaune had said, she was absolutely right.

“Do you take care of him?” River asked. “You and your friends?”

“We take care of each other,” Pyrrha said. She hesitated. “Yes, I try to protect him.”

“Good,” River said. “Terra says you’re something awesome so that … that makes me feel a lot better. Thank you and, once again, I’m sorry again about Sky.”

“You’re welcome,” Pyrrha said. “And there’s no need to apologise.”

“Come on,” River said. “I’ll show you the rest of the way.”

“I have to say,” Pyrrha murmured. “I’m a little surprised at a house this size not having any guest bedrooms.”

River laughed. “Yeah, I can’t really argue with that. The truth is, there was a time when it would have; you would have had a really nice guest room to sleep in, one of the bigger rooms, actually, even though it barely saw any use. But then—”

“You started getting married?” Pyrrha guessed. “I mean, you and your sister do still live here with your husbands, don’t you?”

“Yep,” River confirmed. “Are you surprised?”

“It is a slightly more traditional arrangement than I would have thought to find in Vale,” Pyrrha replied.

In Mistral, it would have been far from unusual; in high and lowborn families alike, it was common for the spouse of the higher status family to move in with their in-laws. Certainly, now that the situation with her mother was mostly resolved, she expected they would live in the family mansion in Mistral once they were wed and graduated both — when they were not in the field, at least. But sufficient Atlesian and Valish entertainment had penetrated Mistralian culture to make it clear that in other kingdoms, the opposite attitude prevailed and that children were expected to move out of their parents’ homes and start new lives upon their marriages.

“This is a traditional place, in case you hadn’t noticed,” River pointed out. “We like to keep the family close. Mostly. When Saphron wanted to move away, see a little of the world … the arguments nearly brought the house down. Perhaps Jaune had the right idea, creeping off in the middle of the night without saying anything. Maybe when Dad dies, Ruben will kick us all out, and we’ll have to fend for ourselves, but for now, we all live here, and so do Chester and Ruben. And so will Sky’s husband if she ever finds one, and Violet’s.

“But, to answer your question, that’s not it. There is one guest bedroom, but Saphron and Terra and little Adrian are using that one. Saphron’s old room wouldn’t have been big enough for the three of them even if I hadn’t soundproofed it and turned it into my radio shack — that’s my job, by the way: I’m the town DJ, all the music, news, and talk you need.” She grinned, although her smile swiftly faded. “There is technically a second guest bedroom — at least it’s still called the guest bedroom — but Rouge sleeps there most nights.”

“Rouge?” Pyrrha repeated. “Doesn’t she share a room with her husband?”

“Sometimes,” River said, with a slight sigh. “Since Ruben works and gets in late sometimes, it makes sense for Rouge to sleep alone so that he doesn’t disturb her coming home and getting to bed at unsociable hours.”

Pyrrha was no expert, and a stranger here, but that had the feel of … not a lie, perhaps, but an excuse. There was some sense in it, but … well, if that were the case, then shouldn’t Ruben be using the guest room? He was the one getting in late, after all.

He was also the one doing a hard day's work.

Pyrrha wasn’t sure; something about the way that River had said it, the sigh in her voice … did she find that explanation entirely convincing?

But Pyrrha was no expert, and a stranger here, so all she said was, “I see.”

“And the last guest room that we had is currently being refurbished,” River announced. One hand went to her belly. “As a nursery.”

Pyrrha’s eyes widened. “Oh my, congratulations!” she gasped. “How…? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking, but it doesn’t—”

“Show? No, I know. We only just found out. Doc Herring reckons I’m about ten weeks along.”

Pyrrha smiled again. “Congratulations once more. Have you told Jaune?”

River chuckled. “In all this excitement, I haven’t found the right moment.”

“I think almost any moment at dinner would have benefited from some happy news,” Pyrrha murmured.

“Is it too bad if I didn’t want it to be overshadowed?” River asked.

“No,” Pyrrha assured her. “No, not at all. But I’m sure he’ll be very happy for you.”

“Of course he will,” River said. “He’s a sweet kid. But anyway, that’s why you have to room with Kendal. That, and I don’t think Mom is ready for you to room with Jaune just yet.”

She led Pyrrha down the corridor, to a room where a light could be seen from under the crack in the doorway. A faded sign, decorated with hand-painted trees and cartoonishly-proportioned bunny rabbits in all the colours of the rainbow, proclaimed that this was Kendal’s Room. Another sign, newer but no less faded by years, ordered everyone to Keep Out.

River knocked on the door. “Kendal? Are you okay?”

“What do you want?” Kendal snapped from the other side of the door.

“Dad says that Pyrrha is to sleep in that camp bed in your room,” River said.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Pyrrha said.

There was a pause. “It’s fine,” Kendal said. “You can come on in.”

River winced. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “I don’t know what’s up with her but … good luck.”

Thank you, Pyrrha thought, not entirely sincerely, as River headed back down the corridor towards the staircase.

Pyrrha stared at the door for a moment, before deciding that there was really nothing for it but to go through it and see what would happen on the other side. She really didn’t want to disturb Kendal when she wanted to be alone, but she didn’t have to stay long, only long enough to set down her things. She could go as soon as that was done.

Gingerly, she pushed open the door. A portable lamp, of the sort that were carried by campers or sometimes huntsmen on field missions, sat on a window-facing desk, illuminating the entire room. A large map of Vale covered one entire wall, with red circles and arrows scrawled on it and the entire southeast quadrant around Mountain Glenn scribbled over in thick black lines. There was very little else in the way of decoration; indeed, there was very little else at all, just a wardrobe and a couple of trunks and a half-packed duffle bag. The room was austere; indeed, it looked almost as though nobody lived here at all.

Which was just as well in some ways, since it was not the most spacious place in the house. Indeed, in many ways, it was positively small, although that might have been because, strangely, the camp bed was already set up and indeed made up ready for someone to sleep in. Kendal was sitting on it, her elbows resting on her knees. She looked up at Pyrrha as she came in, and Pyrrha could see at once that she had been crying: her eyes were red and her cheeks blotchy.

“Hey,” she said.

Pyrrha stared at her for a moment, until she remembered how rude she was being. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude; I just—”

“It’s okay,” Kendal said. She wiped at her eyes with one hand. “You’re okay.” She sniffed. “You can take the real bed.”

Pyrrha looked at the fully made-up bed on the left-hand side of the wall. “I couldn’t turn you out of your own bed.”

“You’re not; I sleep on this,” Kendal said, patting the camp bed. “It’s more … closer to what I’m used to.”

Pyrrha, who didn’t really understand but also was deeply uncertain of her right to pry, contented herself with saying, “Oh. I see.”

Kendal got up off the camp bed and walked towards the desk facing the window. She leaned upon it with both hands, her head bowed down below her shoulders. “How did you manage to sit there and not get angry?”

“At Sky?”

“At the way she was talking such garbage about everything … including everything you stand for,” Kendal said. “Doesn’t it make you so mad?”

“I don’t want to get into arguments with Jaune’s family; quite the reverse,” Pyrrha said softly. “And besides … her opinion on what I do isn’t all that important to me.”

Kendal snorted. “Lucky you.” She fell silent for a moment. “They don’t get it. Sky, Rouge, Violet, River, not even Aoko. Saphron kind of gets it, but even in Argus, she lives a pretty safe life.”

Pyrrha nodded slightly. Between Sanctum Academy at one end of the city and the Atlesian military base at the other — she had always found that placement slightly ironic, the old way and the new confronting one another with the city in between — Argus was about as well-protected as any city could be, not to mention the high walls and the seaward-facing shields. “But isn’t that a good thing?”

“Yes,” Kendal said quickly. “I didn’t mean … it’s just that even she doesn’t really understand. Understand what it’s like out there, understand what you and Jaune have to deal with every day, understand … understand how dangerous it is.”

“But you … do,” Pyrrha murmured.

Kendal straightened up, though she kept her back to Pyrrha as she pulled her green tank top off and threw it roughly onto the camp bed.

Pyrrha couldn’t help the gasp that escaped from between her lips. Kendal’s back was a morass of scars, broken up only by the concealing line of her bra; they were angry, ugly scars, long and thick and rising in undulations as they descended diagonally from her shoulder towards her hip.

“A beowolf did this,” Kendal said. “I was told afterwards it was only a young one. That I was lucky. I didn’t feel lucky at the time, or afterwards.”

“I don’t understand,” Pyrrha murmured. “I thought grimm never came here.”

“I wasn’t here,” Kendal said. “I … I am a member of the Survey Corps.”

Now Pyrrha understood, at least in part. Every Kingdom had a corps of surveyors, people whose job it was to explore the untamed and uninhabited regions that lay on the fringes of the kingdom’s controlled territory or in the spaces between the major settlements; their task was to find places where new settlements could be erected safely, considering the defensive suitability of the location, the climate, health, accessibility, and everything else that might make a settlement viable or otherwise. Their judgement was not always impeccable — witness Mountain Glenn; witness Oniyuri — but a number of thriving towns across the kingdoms of Remnant bore testament to their skill.

“Your aura—” she began.

“I don’t have very much of it, apparently,” Kendal muttered. “I hope that doesn’t say anything about my soul, but it broke after one lousy hit — even if it is the reason that one lousy hit just gave me these scars instead cutting me in two. And the kingdom won’t pay for combat training for surveyors; it’s not considered worth it, since we aren’t supposed to seek out grimm. No, if I see a grimm, my only response is to run like hell. Or have a huntsman escort to … to…”

Pyrrha walked up behind her, and placed a hand upon Kendal’s shoulder. She could feel the scars. “Who were they?”

Kendal sniffed. “His name was Manitou. He was from Mistral, but after graduating from Beacon, he’d decided to stick around in Vale. He said … he said he liked the people here. I didn’t always work with a huntsman — it costs money, and my superiors don’t always appreciate it — but after I got these scars, I got a little bit … nervous, you know. Grimmshy.”

“I quite understand,” Pyrrha said softly. Honestly, she wasn’t sure that she would have the courage to do what Kendal did and walk into grimm-infested territory without either arms — and the training to use them — to defend herself or aura of any significant strength to protect her. Being a huntress was dangerous enough, and the risk of death present enough without taking away both the sword and the bulk of the shield. “There is no shame in wanting to be protected.”

“I guess,” Kendal murmured. “Anyway, I put out a job, and I got Manitou. He was … he was nice. Charming, obliging … he had a way of making me feel like there was nothing to worry about. My next assignment, I put out another job for an escort, and there he was: Manitou. And the next job after that. I asked him if he was stalking me, and he said, ‘No, but I do keep hoping to see you again. I guess I must be pretty lucky.’ I asked why he didn’t just ask me out, and he asked me if I’d say yes. I told him I would, and so … and so, he asked.” She laughed. “He asked if all these missions counted as dates up until this point, and I told him, no, our first date would be after we got back from my assignment.”

Pyrrha hesitated. It was fairly clear that this story didn’t have the happiest ending. “What … what happened?”

“You’re a huntress; you can probably guess.”

“The grimm,” Pyrrha said softly.

“He told me to run,” Kendal said. “He told me that he’d hold them off, and I did what he said … I ran … and I never saw him again. Nobody ever saw him again.”

“You never told anyone,” Pyrrha said.

“How could I?” Kendal demanded. She turned around, and Pyrrha retreated back a step. “He was a huntsman and an outsider; you saw how Sky treated you. I didn’t want to … I couldn’t hear them talk about him that way.” She wiped at her eyes again. “None of them really get it, not even Saphron … but you get it, don’t you?”

Pyrrha nodded. “The world needs good people like Manitou, and like Jaune.”

“'Like Jaune,'” Kendal repeated. “I … I know that it’s a worthy path he’s chosen, and I want him to be able to follow his dreams, but I … as his sister, I’m terrified that one day, Jaune is going to have to be the one to hold off a pack of grimm so that someone like me can run away, that he’s going to be the one who never gets seen again.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Pyrrha declared.

Kendal looked her in the eye. “Does it bother you that he might die?”

“Yes,” Pyrrha confessed. “There are times when … when it terrifies me, too.”

“Then how do you do it? Why do you do it? Why don’t you ask him not to do this?”

“Because he’d never forgive me,” Pyrrha said. “Because the moment I stop believing in him is the moment that I lose him. I … I’ve nearly lost him already.”

Kendal waited a moment for elaboration that did not come. “How?” she asked. “I mean … are you talking physically or—”

“Emotionally, for the most part,” Pyrrha replied, her voice soft and quiet. “I … on our last mission, there was a woman. A dangerous woman. An enemy. I … I wanted to prove that I could beat her.”

Kendal frowned. “Prove to who?”

“To myself, mainly,” Pyrrha answered. “And to her as well, I think.”

“But you couldn’t?” Kendal guessed.

“No,” Pyrrha confessed. “Her marriage of skill and cunning was greater than I had anticipated; I was … there was a moment when she had me.”

She sank down onto the bed, clasping her hands together in her lap. “Jaune … I’d left him behind. Even though I’d promised him already that I would not do so. I so badly wanted to prove myself, to prove that I was stronger than her. And I was fearful; I didn’t think that Jaune was any match for our enemy. He was not, he is not, she is so very strong, but … but when he heard me scream, he came to my aid. He didn’t hesitate; he didn’t care that he was outmatched. He ran to help me. That’s … that is when he broke his sword. It’s my fault.”

“There are worse things to break,” Kendal said, with a dismissive wave of one hand. “What happened?”

“Jaune bought me time,” Pyrrha explained. “I got something of a second wind, and our enemy retreated.” She paused for a moment. “I think that … if he didn’t love me so, he would have left me for breaking my promise to him. Gods know that he would have cause to do so. But he didn’t, because, I think, I hope, I hope so very, very much, that he does love me so. And so he demanded a new promise from me, one that I cannot, dare not, will not break. I will not fight without him again.”

“Even if it’s dangerous?”

“Especially when it is dangerous,” Pyrrha replied. “The danger is precisely the reason for the promise.”

“That … is romantic and terrifying in equal measure,” Kendal said. She took pause a while before she went on, “You know … Jaune’s lucky in a lot of ways. I hope he gets how lucky he is. My family weren’t thrilled when I told them I wanted to be a surveyor, as you can guess; I had to promise that I’d come home regularly, even though I … I don’t really enjoy it a lot of the time, the way they talk, the things they think. Jaune’s lucky to be away from all of that at Beacon, he doesn’t have to put up with this, he doesn’t have to wonder if there’s something wrong with him because he doesn’t have to belong anymore … and he doesn’t have to be alone. Huntsmen are lucky to work in teams. Do you love him?”

Pyrrha was momentarily thrown by the abrupt change in subject. “Yes,” she said. “I do love him.”

Kendal smiled. “I’m guessing that your aura is a lot stronger than mine, and that you’ve got at least one deadly weapon somewhere in that luggage, so I won’t bluster empty threats at you,” she said. “Just … don’t break his heart, okay? He deserves better than that.”

“I’m well aware,” Pyrrha assured her. “And that is why I have no intention of being anything but absolutely faithful to him.”

Kendal chuckled. “He’s the best of us, in a lot of ways. You’re lucky to have him.”

“Oh, I know,” Pyrrha said sincerely. “I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”

---

Jaune felt as though his gut had turned to ice as he followed his old man outside into the back garden. It had been easier than he had expected to stand up to Sky — he just had to remember everything that he’d been through since he arrived at Beacon. Even though he couldn’t tell them about half of it, the knowledge that there was a truly terrifying world out there and that someone had to protect people like his family from that world had been enough to see him through the contest.

But this … this was his father they were talking about, and even if he’d stepped in to stop the argument between Jaune and Sky, that was no guarantee that he was going to be on Jaune’s side now.

Jaune couldn’t remember the last time that his father had been on his side. His greatest impression of his father was rather that he, Jaune, had been a disappointment to him. And now, Jaune couldn’t even count on his achievements at Beacon to earn his father’s respect, because he’d tarnished all of that by both stealing Crocea Mors and then breaking it.

He had no idea what was going to happen now, and he had no idea how he was going to react to it.

His Dad opened the back door and gestured to the wooden step beyond. “Sit down,” he said, with a gesture of his hand. “I’ll be back in just a second.”

“Okay,” Jaune murmured, his voice trembling even if his body wasn’t. He sat down and waited.

The sun had gone down by now, and only a pale light lingered at the fringes of the eastern horizon while the sky went dark around them.

He wished that he’d gotten the chance to apologise to Pyrrha before this. He shouldn’t have brought her here, to be insulted by his family and gawped at by his neighbours. She’d forgive him — he got the impression that she’d forgive him just about anything — but the fact that she would forgive, that she would not be upset about it, in a way, it made him feel worse about the fact that he had got her into this. The fact that she would suffer a lot didn’t mean that it was right of him to inflict suffering upon her.

He shouldn’t have brought her here, and yet, he couldn’t deny that he was still glad that he had. Having her here, being able to look across the table at her, had been a great help in reminding him what he was fighting for when he was trying to fend off Sky’s demands.

“Here,” Dad said as he reappeared behind Jaune holding two cold bottles of beer in one hand. “Take one.”

Jaune looked up. “Dad?”

“You’re old enough to kill monsters, you’re old enough to have a drink with your old man,” Dad said gruffly, and he pressed one of the two bottles into Jaune’s hand before he settled heavily on the back step next to his son. It was a wide step, much wider than the door which it led up to, and there was room enough for them to sit together without being pressed together.

Silence prevailed as Dad dug a bottle-opener from out of his pants pocket and cracked his bottle open. He put said opener on the wooden step between himself and Jaune and took a swig.

Jaune opened his own bottle and drank. It was harsher than he had expected, and more bitter. He spluttered a little after swallowing.

“You’ll get used to it,” Dad said. “Or not. You might not care to.”

Jaune didn’t say anything. He didn’t really understand what was going on here. Hadn’t he been called out so that he could be reamed out? Then why wasn’t his father yelling at him?

“So,” Dad said, still not raising his voice, “you broke the sword, huh?”

Now they were coming to it. Jaune hung his head. “Yeah, I mean yes. I broke it.”

“How?”

“Dad?”

“How did you do it? It’s a simple question,” Dad said. He didn’t look at Jaune, but instead kept his eyes pointed towards the horizon where the pale glow of the sun was dying.

“I…” Jaune hesitated, wondering how to describe it. “My opponent, she grabbed the blade, and … I think she must have used her semblance on it, because it was like the metal … it almost melted where she was holding it, and everything about that fell away.”

“So it was in battle?”

“Yeah,” Jaune said.

“Well then,” Dad muttered. “Stuff like that happens sometimes.”

Jaune blinked. “Wait … that’s it?”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know, not that,” Jaune said. “I thought you’d be mad.”

Dad looked at him. “You had your mother in tears for days, and you upset your sisters, but it’s my great-grandpa’s sword that I should be mad about?”

“When you put it like that…” Jaune trailed off. “I thought that if I told you what I was going to do, then you wouldn’t let me go.”

“And you were right about that,” his father said. “We wouldn’t have let you go. Your sisters would have told you to not even think about it. And unlike tonight, you would have listened to them.”

Jaune took a deep breath. “Things have changed since I left.”

“Have they?” Dad asked sceptically. He was silent for a moment. “So, what’s it like? Is it everything that you imagined?”

“No,” Jaune said. “It … it’s not like that at all.”

Dad snorted. “I could have told you that.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Jaune said. “Dad … why didn’t you tell me any of this? You were a huntsman, but I hadn’t even heard of aura until Pyrrha explained it to me in the middle of initiation. I had this whole romantic idea about what it was going to be like because you never talked to me about any of it.”

“Of course I didn’t talk to you about it; do you think I want to remember all the times that I almost died?” Dad said. “I don’t talk about it, my grandpa didn’t talk about what he went through during the Great War, and if you ever have kids, you aren’t going to talk about the things that you did either, because you’ll be as glad to put it all behind you as I was.

“And besides,” he continued. “I didn’t want you to follow in my footsteps. I thought that if I didn’t talk about it, if I didn’t do anything to help you … you’d give up.”

Jaune dreaded to ask the next question, in part because he was fairly certain that he knew the answer, but at the same time, he knew that he had to ask. “You didn’t think I could do it, did you?”

“Of course I didn’t think you could do it,” Dad declared. “You couldn’t even rewire a plug, but I was supposed to think that you could fight the grimm? I didn’t think you could do it, and I didn’t think that you were serious. Being a hero. I thought it was something that you’d grow out of. I mean … why would you want to leave a place like this and risk your life out there?”

Jaune sighed. “You’re right,” he admitted. “It was stupid. I was stupid. But now … the things that I know, the things that I’ve seen … I can’t turn away from it. Not now. I won’t. I’m not a hero, but I fight alongside people who are, and I won’t abandon them.”

Dad snorted.

“What’s so funny?”

“You just reminded me of something grandpa used to say,” Dad said. “Like I said, he wouldn’t talk about the war much, but when he did, he used to say ‘I wasn’t a hero, but I served with guys who were.’ I think he meant the ones who didn’t come back.” He drank some more from his beer bottle. “Your sisters want you to come home, your mother wants you to come home … I’d kind of like you to come home. But it’s not going to happen, is it?”

“No,” Jaune said. “I can’t.”

“Because of the girl?”

“Because what I’m doing is the right thing to do,” Jaune said. He smiled sheepishly. “But, yeah, because of Pyrrha too.”

“She must be more than a crush; you brought her to meet your family,” Dad said. “I’m sorry that she hasn’t had a great reception so far, but … do you love her?”

Jaune nodded. “I do.”

“But you’re still going to risk your life a half a dozen ways each day?” Dad asked. “Jaune, do you know why I quit being a huntsman?”

“No,” Jaune said. “You never told me that.” Or anything else.

“My mind was made up when Rouge was born,” Dad told him. “Your mother gave her to me to hold, and I looked down, and I thought ‘I don’t ever want this girl, my little girl, to grow up without a Dad.’ And since I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t die on the job, the only thing to do was to walk away from the job. My family was just … more important to me.”

Jaune didn’t say anything immediately. As he listened to what his father had said, as he thought about what his father had said, he couldn’t help but think of Ruby and her mom. Had Summer Rose been so sure in her abilities that she hadn’t believed that she could die, or had she just believed that there were more important things even than ensuring that she’d be there for her daughters?

Probably the second one. She knew about Salem, after all; she probably thought that she was making sure there was a world for Ruby to grow up into, even if her mother wasn’t there to see it.

“So you’re saying I should quit so that Pyrrha doesn’t have to watch me die?”

“I’m saying that if you love her, you won’t make her mourn for you.”

“And what about me mourning her if something happened to her?” Jaune asked. “She’s not going to quit, I don’t even need to ask her to know that, and I … no, Dad. I get what you’re trying to say, but no. What I’m doing, what I’m involved in … it’s so much more important than you know. I’m protecting Vale, I’m protecting my friends, and I’m protecting Pyrrha. And I’m going to keep doing all of those things for as long as I can.”

Dad stared at him for a moment. “That school really made a man of you, didn’t it? I’m sorry, Jaune.”

Jaune’s mouth hung open. He apologised? His father had never apologised to Jaune, for anything. “What for?”

“For not thinking that you had it in you,” Dad said. “Nobody is going to bring up your leaving Beacon again; I’ll make sure of that.”

“Really?”

His father nodded. “I can’t say that this is what I wanted, but … you’re making something of yourself, and that is what I wanted. And if you had to steal from me and run away to do it, then … that’s just how it goes sometimes. What are you going to do with the sword?”

“I … I don’t know,” Jaune admitted. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want me to do with it.”

“It’s your sword now,” Dad said. “Not mine, certainly not your great-great-grandfather's. Reforge it, or throw it away and get a new weapon, it's all the same to me, but if an old huntsman can give you one piece of advice: whatever you do, make sure that your weapon fits you, not the ghost of your ancestor. Don’t just make it exactly like it was, make it a sword that’s yours. Take my advice and thank me for it later.”

“I can thank you right now,” Jaune said. “I don’t really know what a weapon that fits me would mean right now, but … thanks, Dad.”

“Right now, you’ve got no one to thank but yourself,” his father said, reaching out to pat Jaune on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you, son.”

Author's Note:

Rewrite Notes: The only major change here is the addition of Jaune's brothers-in-law, added in because it felt strange that only Saphron would be married yet in this rather traditional family.

Comments

[RolkFlameraven]

Very nice, felt real. Glad to see his father was like that, hopefully their relationship can become stronger from this.

Sky is going to find out just why the world needs her brother and his girlfriend though, isn't she?

[Anachronon]

“There’s a report of a disturbance at the McKinley farm, on the outskirts of town,” Sky said. “I’ll just go out there, tell them to keep the noise down and stop whatever it is they’re doing, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Just be careful,” Mrs Arc said.

Sky grinned. “Come on, Mom, you know this place; what’s there to worry about?”

I say bandits or Grimm, but most likely Grimm. Also, deathflags everywhere! This is the kind of situation where the ignorant person in question ends up getting killed, or heavily injured.

[alfonso_rd_33]

So adorable! But I would worry that they are going to try to jaunenap Jaune nonetheless... Also, would be nice to see sky face the Grimm instead of a rowdy neighbor

[Pinklestia]

I hope we get back to Sunset soon, I find Jaune boring when he isn't with the others.

[Lazruth]

“Right now you’ve got no one to thank but yourself,” his father said. “I’m proud of you, son.”

Man, the entire conversation with Gold was the best part of this chapter (though really, the WHOLE chapter was amazing) but that line? That line right there? Gods that carried SO much weight and power in it.

[Falx_of_Lume]

Considering how his sisters were treating him in the past chapter, I had a feeling Jaune's dad would react in this way.

#lovingeverysecondofthisstory

[JMP]

Figures. The most reasonable members of the family are the ones that have seen what's out there. That know the threat of the Grimm. That know that there's a world outside their village. And I do like Gold Arc. Sure, he didn't believe in Jaune, but he's apologized for that, and his viewpoint makes sense. He's seen what's out there and decided that family was the most important thing to him. Not everyone so completely selfless as Summer Rose. I get that. Sure, I wish he'd have stopped Sky's nonsense sooner, but he's not unreasonable. I'm really happy that Jaune's able to stand up for himself like this. There is one small thing I wish would have been mentioned in dialogue, and that's Jaune's semblance. Especially when Sky called him selfish. Sure, call the guy who shares his aura, his soul, with others to heal and empower them selfish.

[kyubbiman]

Wonderful chapter, this author has character interaction and character growth mastered.

[geomease]

Right in the feels, that was beautiful!

[Arkonfleight]

This has been an interesting... arc.

*rimshot*

[Mastermind4892]

It's strange, isn't it? On Pyrrha's side, everyone thinks that Jaune isn't good enough for someone like her. What an interesting type of contrast to find on Jaune's side of the family.

Above all, does everyone remember Rainbow Dash's parents? Always cheering for their daughter. Their reckless enthusiasm aside, there are children everywhere who wish they had parents like that. Parents who cheer and support you every step of the way, regardless of what you're doing. Parents who drop everything and travel all the way to the opposite end of the country just to see their kid perform in a concert. So despite their unrestrained enthusiasm, Rainbow Dash's parents never doubted her. That's what real family means.

[Mastermind4892]

9681180
It's the fact that this 'disturbance' is at the outskirts of the town that worries me.

[Pat_Hoof_5000]

9681180
Oh I agree completely, the deathflags are overwhelming.

[HowMuchWood]

“Come on, Mom, you know this place; what’s there to worry about?”

SHE SAID IT! SHE SAID THE WORDS, EVERYONE!

[Drevagon]

So you don't want Sky to die? No I do not want her to die but she just kicked Murphy in his sunshine so a light maul or scars like Kendal to drive the point home. What point? Duh, the point that Jaune's choice to be a huntsman was the right path and that unless you have all the facts you should not belittle someones life choice. Um yeah thanks Nora, that is the points. (ok the belittle part was not in my thought process.) I also agree with others on the author's ability with character development and overall make them feel real. It flows like it would in real lfe so to you good sir (or ma'am?) I applaud your skill.

[TristanWE]

9681338
This is the first time I'm calling a chekov's gun.

[ItsDaKoolaidDude]

9681466
Yep, we're doing this again, everybody! Got the confetti saved up!

[reader238]

speaking on that last part, it is a really good thing that Jaune is friends with ruby, and on the middle I hope Sky's hubris doesn't bite her in the ass

[AnimeGamer13]

9681180
If it is a Grimm, what kind do you think it could be?
Old and intelligent, able to travel between towns without notice and aware of the town's defenses
Or
Young and possessing a set of unique abilities, if it is then I see it giving Jayne and Pyrrha a harder fight

[AlanSmithy]

Oh for a second there I thought Pyrrha was going to help Kendal unlock her aura.

[lordelliott]

Do you have a headcanon of how Adrian was conceived? I googled it because I haven't seen that volume, and it sounded like the show doesn't say, but in this chapter it says Terra had the baby?

9681180
9681466
Yeah, my first thought was, "Well, she's dead," but I hope not. I'm hoping Kendal hears about Sky leaving and gets worried about it, since she has a map of grimm movements. Then maybe help will arrive in time. She might be saved some other way, but only one person here knows for sure.

[Scipio Smith]

9682417
My headcanon is that Terra was artifically inseminated using that new three-person baby technique that's just been pioneered in the US (considering Remnant seems to be technologically ahead of Earth in many ways, they probably have this too) so that he shares DNA of both Terra and Saphron plus an unknown male donor.

[The Scarlett Mare]

Aoko blinked owlishly as she briefly looked up from whatever she was scribbling. “Does he need encouragement…didn’t you just say you’d been there already?”

It's official. Aoko is my favourite character at this moment. She has huge Twilight Sparkle vibes it's incredible

[Mastermind4892]

“Great,” Aoko said, as she wandered over to the free seat the foot of the table and sat down. “Hey, Jaune,” she said, as casually as if he’d just been to the bathroom and it had only been a few minutes since they last saw one another.

“Hey, Aoko,” Jaune said, apparently not finding this unusual.

River grinned. “You hadn’t noticed he was gone, had you?”

This clip right here sums up Jaune and Aoko's completely chill relationship quite nicely.

[Mastermind4892]

That expansion with a few brother-in-laws was good, and yes it does make sense. It was also good for the family to see more of a demonstration of Jaune's new abilities with Aura. Jaune standing there and taking the hit without flinching is quite symbolic.

It makes me especially curious for when Sunset visits. It would allow more character interaction and be the biggest expansion for the rewrite to address Jaune's reunion with.

Also, this is what I meant a few months ago. Jaune visiting his family is not filler; it is very important development and insight for Jaune and Pyrrha's character. Had Pyrrha not died in canon, she would have undoubtedly visited the family of the man she loved.

[Kiue Jin]

For what it's worth, I feel like if Jaune's family heard what Pyrrha's mother tried to do to break up Jaune and Pyrrha's relationship and the fact that Pyrrha stayed with Jaune anyway... I feel like that would be a strong bonding moment. It might not make them like her, but respect her... definitely. Because it's one thing for them to think little of Jaune and sell him short, it's another for someone else to do it.

[ShadowLDrago]

“Right now, you’ve got no one to thank but yourself,” his father said, reaching out to pat Jaune on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you, son.”

Good. That’s the most powerful thing one can say to one’s own children.

[Stet709]

OK, it's official, Jaune's dad is awesome! And so is Kendal. Sky? Take your selfish, controlling attitude and shove it! You may be sheriff of this town but you don't control Jaune's life! Jaune's old enough to make his own darn decisions!

[Luviere]

Yooo, Mr. Arc is chill af. I like him.