SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Brave New World (New)

Brave New World

Amber stared at the city with eyes wide, turning in place on the sidewalk as she took in Vale as it rose up all around her, the towers of glass and steel, the buildings of stone, the airships in the sky up above, this city that was both modern and antique in equal measure and in equal measure visible around them.

They had just left the Skydock, all eight of them, and seven of them now stood on the pavement leading to and from the glass doors that they had exited, huddled together somewhat, watching Amber as she skipped a few steps on ahead, to where the road from the Skydock joined the street, one of many that crisscrossed Vale like the streams fanning out from a mighty river.

“This … this is Vale?” she asked, her voice a reverential whisper as she regarded Vale much as Sunset had regarded Mistral as she first caught sight of it from the air, as she and her teammates were borne towards it through the skies.

Sunset did not find Vale so impressive, but if Amber did, well, then who was Sunset to argue with that?

“Yes,” Dove replied, a smile upon his face as he watched her and her enthusiasm. “Yes, this is Vale. It’s impressive, but at the same time, I found it a little overwhelming at first. It’s … I could hardly imagine that anywhere so big could exist anywhere in the world.”

Amber looked down and looked at Dove. “It is very big, isn’t it? Ozpin told me that it was vast, but … I never imagined that he meant … it’s so, so big. So big that I can’t see the end of it, or the beginning.”

Dove’s smile broadened. “Once, I told Lyra and Bon Bon that I was going to keep on walking until I reached the city limit.”

Lyra snorted. “Three hours later and without aura, we would have been quite definitely footsore, and even with aura, we were getting pretty fed up with this guy.”

“You went with him?” Amber asked.

“Of course we went with him,” Lyra said, “we weren’t going to let Dove just start walking off towards the Red Line with no idea of how long it would take him to get there. What if he’d never come home?”

“That’s a little bit of an exaggeration,” Bon Bon pointed out. “I’m sure he would have given up and turned around eventually.”

“I don’t know,” Lyra said. “Dove can be as stubborn as a rock sometimes.”

Amber giggled. “Did you make it? All the way to the end of the city, I mean?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Lyra said. “After four hours, Bon Bon and I were willing to call it quits, but Dove wasn’t — so much for ‘he’d have given up eventually’—”

“So these two cheated,” Dove declared.

“We did not cheat, and if we did, you did too,” Lyra replied quickly. “And we saw the edge of the city, what more do you want?”

“What did you do?” asked Penny.

“We got a cab to the wall,” Lyra explained. “Like sensible people.”

Amber’s brow furrowed. “A cab?”

“Oh, yeah, Dove didn’t know what they were either,” Lyra said. “It’s a car that you can pay to take you places.”

“A car,” Amber repeated. She turned around, and with the same wide-eyed wonder that she had had for the city, she regarded the automobiles whizzing by down the road she stood beside. “That’s them, isn’t it, those horseless carriages? I think I’ve been told about them; they’re cars, aren’t they?”

“When did someone last say ‘horseless carriage’?” asked Bon Bon.

“Just now,” Sunset said. “Try and keep up.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes.

“Yes,” Dove said. “Yes, those are cars.”

Amber gasped in amazement. “Oh—”

“Brave new world?” Sunset guessed.

Amber looked back at her. “I’m sorry. I suppose I say that too much.”

“Is it really possible to say anything too much?” asked Pyrrha. “Provided the words are not offensive or insulting, I think not.”

“Although I am a little curious as to where it comes from,” Sunset added. “Assuming it comes from anywhere outside of your own head.”

Amber fell silent for a moment. “I … I don’t remember,” she admitted. “I feel as though I ought to remember, but I don’t. I … it’s gone from my mind. I think I must have read it somewhere, but I don’t remember where, or what else I read alongside it, or why the words stuck with me so. That’s all that I remember. ‘Oh, brave new world.’”

“'Oh brave new world, that has such people in it?'” Ruby guessed. “I think they’re Percy’s words.”

Sunset frowned. “'Percy'?”

“The Swan Knight,” Ruby explained. “She served King Edward at the same time as Olivia; she’s even mentioned a few times in the Song of Olivia, but her story is told more completely in other stories. Like Olivia, she was a country girl, or so she thought; when she found out that her father was actually a knight in King Edward’s court, she set off to find him and to claim her place as his acknowledged daughter. When she arrived in Vale, at the King’s court, she was astonished by … everything, and everyone she met: Olivia, King Edward, the wizard Osfred, Nimue, the other knights: ‘Oh, brave new world.’” Ruby grinned. “You’re not the only one who remembers quotes from stories.”

“Wherever it’s from,” Amber said, “it fits, doesn’t it? This is a brave new world, to me, at least; if I was ever here before, I don’t remember it, and I … I can’t think that I would have ever come here before. And it’s so full of wonderful people, who have made me feel so warm and so welcomed.” She beamed, as bright as the sun that shone down upon them. “So, Pyrrha, where do we go from here?”

Pyrrha was smiling too as she said, “Wherever you like, it’s entirely up to you.”

“Really?” Amber gasped. “But it’s your—”

“It’s entirely up to you,” Pyrrha insisted.

Amber fell silent, once more turning to look around her at the vast city, the enormous beating heart of this kingdom, that sprawled all around them.

“Whatever I want,” she murmured. “What I want…” She laughed for joy. “I want to see the concert hall where the great singers perform, I want to see the library where every book ever written is stored, I want to see everything that Ozpin told me about and more! I want to see all of your favourite places, too! I want…” She held out her hands towards Dove. “I want you to show me the Valish life.”

Dove walked towards her, his borrowed cape bouncing a little through the combination of his movements and the breeze as he approached. He reached out for her, enclosing her hands in his own.

“I’m hardly Valish in that sense myself, but I’ll do my best. And I’m sure,” he went on, looking back at the others, “that the others will help me if I get it wrong.”

“You can’t get it wrong,” Ruby assured him. “Not if you’re seeing what you want to see.”

“You can get the directions wrong,” Dove pointed out.

“Okay, yeah, you can, in which case, we’ll help,” Ruby said. “Assuming we don’t get the directions wrong ourselves.”

“I’m sure we’ll find our way somewhere, somehow,” Sunset declared. “Although seeing the whole of Vale and its life is likely to be a bit of a tall order for one day.”

“But we can start, can’t we?” Amber asked. “We can start, before…”

She trailed off, and for the benefit of Lyra and Bon Bon — the benefit of keeping Lyra and Bon Bon in the dark, at least — Sunset was glad that she trailed off, but Sunset could guess — and probably all of them who knew the truth could guess — what she had been about to say.

“We can start before I have to go away into hiding.”

As Pyrrha had said, they couldn’t stop that; it was Amber’s fate, and would be now for as long as she lived, since Salem knew that she was the Fall Maiden. Even if Cinder died, then there would be other hunters, other servants of Salem who coveted the power of a Maiden. Secrecy would be Amber’s cloak and prison both until she breathed her last.

But not right now. Right now, as Pyrrha said, they had the opportunity to make not only Amber’s stay with them but her life more comfortable, more pleasant, to be a ray of light for her in what would otherwise be a rather miserable existence, otherwise brightened only by the presence of Dove by her side.

They had the opportunity to give her some memories that would last a lifetime, so that when she had to go into hiding and dwell in secret in some misbegotten forest far from the hustle and bustle of the world, she might look back and remember the days when she had such friends as they to keep her company and had seen such sights as Vale and Mistral had to offer.

“As I said,” she said, “we’ll find our way. A concert hall, you said?”

“The concert hall,” Amber corrected her. “Ozpin … he once told me that I was good enough to sing there, and although he was such a liar, I’d like to believe that he was right about that.”

“He was not a liar in all things,” Sunset murmured. “And not, I think, in this.”

“No,” Dove agreed. “Certainly not in this. Take it from someone who has never lied to you.”

“You know, Dove’s told us so much about your voice that we have to hear you sing sometime,” Lyra said. “I’m kind of musical myself, so I’d love to jam with you.”

“What kind of music?” asked Amber.

“I can sing,” Lyra said, “though I don’t know if I’d have the nerve to try and sing alongside someone whose voice can make a man fall in love just from hearing it,” — she smirked — “but I play the lyre too; I could accompany you, if there’s a song we both know.”

“Oh, the lyre!” Amber sighed. “I love the lyre; it has such a sweet sound, doesn’t it? I had a silver lyre that Ozpin gave me, but … I don’t remember what happened to it. Dove, I don’t suppose that you know?”

Dove shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I remember the instrument — you played for me once or twice, when we sat together beneath the trees — but I don’t know what became of it; I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Amber assured him. “It wasn’t your harp.”

“Professor Ozpin might know,” Sunset suggested.

Amber hesitated. She sighed. “I … I suppose he might,” she admitted. “Sunset, would you mind asking him for me when we get back?”

That was meant as an invitation for you to go and talk to him, maybe start the process of building a bridge between the two of you, Sunset thought, with a degree of chagrin.

But if Amber really didn’t want to speak to him, then … then it wasn’t the place of Sunset or anybody else to force her.

“Very well,” she said. “I will speak to him. But first,” — she got out her scroll — “let’s see if we can’t find the grandest concert hall in Vale.”

She started with the relatively simple search of ‘Concert halls Vale,’ which yielded a modest plethora of results, which she then began to scroll through, looking at each one in turn.

“While we’re here,” Ruby said, “it might not be much fun, but we should also get you a new weapon as well.”

The smile died from Amber’s face. “Do I … do I have to?”

“It’s for the best, as Ruby says,” Pyrrha said gently. “It doesn’t mean you’ll have to use it, but … at least you’ll have it, in case of need.”

Amber embraced herself, putting her hands upon her arms, shivering a little though it was no colder. “I … I suppose,” she whispered.

“Weapons aren’t something that can be so easily replaced,” Bon Bon pointed out.

“Not all of them,” Ruby admitted. “But we could find something, or just get the parts on order.”

“What kind of weapon did you use?” Jaune asked. “Or, I guess 'what kind of weapon do you want' would be the question.”

A staff, Sunset thought, with a dust crystal set in it. But, since she had learned that fact from Amber’s own memories, she kept it to herself.

“A staff,” Amber said. “I learned how to use a staff.”

“Okay,” Jaune said. “I think we ought to be able to find one of those somewhere.”

“We’ll make time to swing by a weapons store,” Sunset said. “But first … let’s see … the Queen’s Hall, the Big O, Fetterley Stadium— ah, the Salvation Hall. Built after the Great War to celebrate blah blah, expanded after Ozpin’s Stand blah rhubarb, has hosted some of the biggest names in music including Weiss Schnee, Sapphire Shores, and Countess Coloratura.” She looked up. “That sounds like the place, doesn’t it?”

“Do you know where it is?” Amber asked.

“Not exactly, but I’m sure I can find it with this map,” Sunset replied.

A drone buzzed past overhead — but not very high overhead, so that it was rather loud and rather noticeable too.

“What was that?” asked Amber, ducking a little.

“A drone,” Bon Bon said.

“That’s a little flying machine,” Lyra explained.

“I wonder what it was doing spying on us,” Bon Bon muttered.

“What makes you think it was spying on us?” asked Lyra.

Because it was, as it happens, Sunset said. Twilight, do you have to fly it so low?

---

“And so they’re off,” Blake murmured as she watched Amber and her large escort set off down the street, having to move in a mass or a column because there wasn’t room on the street for them all to walk level with one another. Even then, they had to shift position, to flow like water, in order to let people coming the other way pass them by.

“Mmhmm,” Ciel murmured. “Hopefully they do not go anywhere it becomes difficult for us to follow them discreetly.”

Blake nodded. “I hope they have a good day. I feel like anyone who has been through what Amber’s been through deserves a good day, at the least. And hopefully more.”

“Indeed,” Ciel said, still speaking very softly. “Amber is not the only one who deserves one and many more good days, but … yes, she does.”

Blake watched the group move off, glancing at Ciel, who was kneeling down beside her. They were stood on the flat roof of a two-storey building — the lower storey was a fried chicken eatery; the upper storey was probably where the owner lived — across the road from the skydock. Fortunately, it seemed that the roofs were all flat in this area, so they should be able to keep pace with the group, or at least continue to follow on after them, letting them get a little ahead, for some time now.

Blake glanced at Ciel again. Ciel herself did not look at Blake; her eyes were completely fixed upon Amber and the others.

Blake wondered if she ought to mention it. It didn’t seem like her place; she might be joining Atlas but she wasn’t actually a part of Team RSPT, she didn’t know Penny that well, and to be honest, she wasn’t too close to Ciel either. Ciel might not welcome her intrusion in this matter.

And yet, at the same time, Blake felt as though it was a third person up on the roof with them, Ciel’s … anger? Sadness? Bitterness? She wasn’t entirely sure how to say it. It had not been there with them in General Ironwood’s office, but then, she supposed that Ciel wouldn’t have wanted to show it in front of Penny.

“Ciel—” she began.

“I do not require your condolences, as appreciated as they are,” Ciel muttered.

Blake’s eyebrows rose. “How did you know?”

“I guessed based on the awkward tone with which you began,” Ciel replied. “You would not have said my name with such trepidation unless you wished to venture upon a delicate matter.”

“I … see,” Blake said softly. She paused for a moment. “But Rainbow’s right, bottling up your feelings—”

“Perhaps I am an old-fashioned girl,” Ciel said sharply. “But I worship at the altar of God and the Lady, not of … self-expression. There are feelings that are fit and proper to be expressed and those which are not; those, I shall keep in my heart and pray for the strength to expunge them.”

Blake frowned. “Does Penny know?”

Ciel sighed. “Penny knows more than I should like. I … I said some things to her before I comprehended the justice of her cause. And her cause is just. I know that, with head and heart, I have accepted that, that is why I spoke in her favour before General Ironwood, that … that is what makes it so unseemly that I…”

“You realise I can’t finish that sentence if you won’t say how you feel, right?” Blake said.

“What makes you think I want you to finish my sentence for me?” asked Ciel.

“You … you’re right,” Blake murmured. “I … I’m sorry; I’m prying into your affairs, and I’m not even your team leader. I shouldn’t have presumed.”

“It is alright,” Ciel said. “Your attempt at kindness is appreciated. As is the aid you rendered to Mantle.”

“Thanks,” Blake said. “Although I wasn’t exactly trying to help Mantle at the time.”

“Nevertheless, you have brought hope to the city,” Ciel said. “It … it takes a kind soul to look at a place like Mantle and see somewhere in need of assistance and not just somewhere to escape from.”

“Perhaps not a kind soul,” Blake replied, “but an outsider’s eye.”

“No, I think you are most definitely kind,” Ciel answered. “It may not express itself in boundless exuberant embraces or an effervescent manner, but nevertheless … you are so full of kindness it rather awes me somewhat.”

“I…” Blake hesitated for a moment. She hadn’t set out to awe Ciel, or anybody else for that matter, and to hear that she had … first Rainbow, now Ciel, what was it about her — about her — that people seemed to find awe-inspiring? She didn’t even consider herself particularly inspiring, let alone awe-inspiring. “I … don’t know what to say.”

“Then say nothing and take the compliment,” Ciel suggested.

Blake snorted. “Okay then,” she muttered. Again, she paused, then she said, “I know that I said I shouldn’t intrude—”

“And yet,” Ciel said.

“And yet … I’ve been in Penny’s situation,” Blake said. “I’ve done what Penny did; I left a group of people who…”

“Please do not compare us with the White Fang,” Ciel said flatly.

“It’s not an exact comparison, of course,” Blake said, “but at the same time, if you can’t expunge those feelings, as you put it, then I worry that … they will gnaw at you.”

“As I said,” Ciel replied, with some asperity in her voice, “I have accepted with head and heart that this is for the best for Penny, or at the very least that this is what Penny wants. I have accepted that she is — that she must be — free to choose this of her own volition, that no man has the right to stop her and that is how God would have it. My … sadness has no bearing on that, it will not eat at me, it will not corrupt my heart. It may linger, and it may make me sad, but it will not make me cruel because I do not believe that I am right, not even in my heart of hearts.” She paused. “Will she be happy?”

“Penny?”

“Of course Penny,” Ciel said sharply. “Do you think she will be happy here at Beacon?”

“Nothing is certain,” Blake murmured. “But … yes. Yes, I think that she’ll be happy here. Very happy, surrounded by…” She trailed off, unsure of a way to compliment Penny’s Beacon friends without insulting the Atlesians.

Ciel closed her eyes a moment. “That … that is all that matters. Do you think that Amber will be happy?”

“No,” Blake said at once. “No, I don’t think she will.”

“Indeed,” Ciel whispered. “I fear it will be so also.”

“How can she be happy?” asked Blake. “Leading the life that she’ll live once Professor Ozpin spirits her away somewhere she can be kept safely hidden from Salem.”

“In my faith,” Ciel said, “when it was stronger, when religion as a whole was stronger and more prevalent across Remnant, there once arose a heresy of those who, misinterpreting the Lady’s word, believed that the divine justice was to be found in this world, not the next.”

“You mean they thought that people would get what they deserved in this life, not after death?” Blake said.

“Precisely,” Ciel said. “The truth, the truth as revealed to us, is that God shall judge us in the life to come and that those who were hungry, those who were cold, those who were put down and put upon shall inherit the riches of Heaven. But the Interventionists believed that all of that would occur in this life, that as we sin, so do we suffer. It was not a movement that enjoyed widespread acceptance because so many people could see that it was patently false, or else why is it the innocent who seem to suffer so much: Amber, Penny, Alain … all those people you liberated from the clutches of the Schnee Dust Company? What sins had they committed to suffer so?”

“None,” Blake said. “Or at least, none deserving of their suffering.”

“Quite,” Ciel said. “And yet … it is a cruel world, is it not?”

“All the more reason we should be kind in it,” replied Blake.

Ciel nodded. “What…?”

“What … what?” asked Blake.

“What if Amber did not have to go into hiding?” Ciel suggested. “What if she could go somewhere that, while not hidden, was nevertheless safe, somewhere she could be protected without having to huddle away in the darkness and the shadows, somewhere she could dwell in light and in security—?”

“You mean Atlas,” Blake said. “You mean why can’t Amber go and live in Altas?”

“Was it so obvious?”

“The bit about light gave it away just a little bit,” Blake told her, a smile playing upon her lips.

Ciel chuckled. “You must allow a girl her love of Atlas, surely?”

“Allow it?” Blake repeated. “I do more than that.”

“Yes,” Ciel agreed. “Yes, you do, don’t you? In any case, yes, it was Atlas to which I was referring. It is a great city — she would not grow bored there for some time — a city where she and Mister Bronzewing might live enjoying every modern convenience and amenity, a city where she could hardly feel trapped even if she were forbidden to leave the city limits, a city that is well-guarded and, I daresay, a little hard for any servant of Salem to gain entrance to, what with our sophisticated means of surveillance and identification of visitors. Atlas is not a place one can sneak into.”

Blake thought about the way that she had been recognised upon stepping off the airship, greeted by a hologram that knew who she was and that she didn’t have a hotel booked. “I can see your point, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to infiltrate,” she said.

“No,” Ciel allowed. “But there are no remote places in Atlas, at least not unless you descend down into the lower levels at certain times of day, and why would Amber wish to do that? It is not a place teeming with likely locations to stage a discreet ambush and killing. It is, at any rate, preferable to a hole in the ground or a cabin in the woods, you must agree.”

“Oh, definitely,” Blake agreed. “I think … Amber hasn’t expressed any desire to go to Atlas, but I think that, if she enjoys Vale, then she could enjoy Atlas, even if she didn’t quite come to love it. Like you say, it’s got everything that you would need for a life, including good people to be friends with. That doesn’t mean that it will happen, though; it’s not our call, and … I think the Maidens are supposed to remain in their own kingdoms.”

“Would Pyrrha have been forced to remain within this Kingdom of Vale?” Ciel asked. “One of the most famous living Mistralians barred forever from returning to Mistral, an exile forever from her home, an exile who could not even explain the reason for her self-imposed banishment.”

“Self-imposed or imposed by Ozpin?” Blake asked. “But I take your point, it does seem … but what about the Relic of Choice?”

“What of the Relic?” Ciel demanded. “It cannot think, it cannot feel, it does not want or desire; it simply is. If we are to put Penny’s will and desires above the claims of Atlas, as we should, then how can we place the good of Amber lower than the good of some lifeless Relic?” She took a breath. “I will speak to the General about this, whether you agree or no, that … I did not do the right thing in regards to Penny; I was too concerned with orders and duty, well, though I cannot make that right, at least the Lady shall let me learn from it and do better in this case: whatever duty Amber might have to Vale, whatever duty we might have to Professor Ozpin to comply with his decisions in the disposing of Amber, they cannot override Amber’s own will, her happiness, can they?”

Blake scuffed the toe of her foot upon the ground. “Well, when you put it like that, it’s hard to disagree with you.”

“I will speak to General Ironwood about this alone if I must,” Ciel declared, “but I should like your support. You are well-liked by him, and have a passing persuasive tongue if its effect on Rainbow Dash is anything to go by.”

“You’re being pretty persuasive yourself, at the moment,” Blake murmured, a slight smile upon her face. “So much so that I’d agree to help you except for one thing.”

“And what is that?”

“You haven’t talked to Amber about what she wants.”

Ciel was silent for a moment. “That … is a very good point,” she admitted. “Habits are hard to break, it seems.”

“With the right attitude, I’m sure you’ll get there eventually,” Blake told her.

“I hope so, with … I hope so,” Ciel said. She watched Amber and the group, getting a little further away from them by now. “We should move.”

“Agreed.”

The two of them trailed after Amber and the rest, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, closing the distance between them until they were directly across the street from them, which was also the point at which Amber and others came to a crossroads, with sets of lights to guide both traffic and pedestrians across the two lanes going east west and the other two going north south. As cars flowed east-west and west-east in a river that seemed as though it had neither beginning nor end but which might form an endless loop of growling vehicles circling around Vale before coming back again to this same crossroads, the group waited for the red man to vanish and the green man to show himself. As Blake and Ciel watched, they could see Sunset jabbing the button with her thumb multiple times to no avail.

“Blake,” Ciel said, “can you leap across the distance between us and the other side of the road?”

Blake looked over the side of the roof on which they stood across the traffic-filled road. “I think so,” she murmured. “With some help from Gambol Shroud. You?”

“Possibly not; I may have to catch up with you as swiftly as I may,” Ciel said. “Blake, may I ask you something in turn?”

“If you like,” said Blake. “What?”

“Are you happy,” asked Ciel, “that your light has drawn Sun to Mantle?”

“I never thought of myself as being or giving light,” Blake replied, “but yes, I am happy, provided Sun is happy. I am … you say that I awe you, but Sun awes me that he’s doing this in part for my sake, even if he’s also doing this for the faunus and the people of Mantle. I hope … he’s giving up so much, and I … am I worth it?”

“Probably not, but that is not for you to decide; his choice is made,” Ciel said, bluntly and with consideration in equal measure. “Are you happy?”

“I am,” Blake said. “I will be, so long as he’s happy. Do you … think he’ll be happy, in Mantle?”

“That … that depends,” Ciel replied.

“Depends on what?” asked Blake.

“Upon so much,” said Ciel. “Upon what he finds when he arrives — it may be different than he imagines — upon what he does, and the response to what he does, and what is done to him. Mantle is not such a paradise as Beacon is that I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Sun will be as happy there as you say Penny will be at Beacon. But then, I suppose that if Mantle were such a paradise, then Sun would hardly need to go there at all.”

---

“How’s it looking down there, Twilight?” Rainbow asked from where she sat in the cockpit of The Bus, circling in the skies over Vale.

“I can see them clearly,” Twilight replied, her voice coming loud and clear over the comm. “Unfortunately, they also saw me.”

“That’s a risk with drones; don’t worry about it,” Rainbow assured her. “Amber probably doesn’t even know what drones are.”

“Everyone else does,” Twilight pointed out.

“And those who know won’t care,” Rainbow told her. “Everyone except for Lyra and Bon Bon is in on this, and even if they work it out, they’ll understand why we’re doing this. I mean, they know that Amber was attacked, right?”

“Probably,” Twilight replied. “I’m not sure what they were told.”

“I’m going to have to make a list of who knows what so I can keep it straight in my head,” Rainbow muttered. “Anyway, if you can see them, how does it look?”

“They’re having to wait a very long time to cross the— oh, the lights changed, finally; they’re moving again,” Twilight said. “For what it’s worth, everyone seems to be getting along.”

“Awesome,” Rainbow said.

“I’m a little worried about Penny, though,” Twilight murmured.

“Why?” asked Rainbow. “What’s there to worry about with Penny? She’s got what she wanted, she’s transferring, there’s … nothing else to it.”

“Except for Amber,” Twilight said.

“What about Amber?”

“Well, it’s probably nothing,” Twilight murmured, “but Penny was Team Sapphire’s extra friend, their friend outside of their team—”

“Team Sapphire have a lot of friends outside their team,” Rainbow pointed out. “Including us.”

“I know, I know,” Twilight replied, “but I suppose what I’m worried about is that Penny might feel … displaced by Amber in Team Sapphire’s affections. And their attentions; I mean, you saw them at breakfast: they were all focussed on Amber, and she lives with them—”

“And there are good reasons for all of that,” Rainbow said. “Come on, Twi, you know as well as anyone that you can have a lot of very good friends; I didn’t feel jealous when you met Applejack, or Pinkie, or Rarity; I knew that you and I would always share a bond, and I formed a bond with the others right along with you. Penny will make friends with Amber as well, and she’s smart and nice and emotionally smart enough that she’ll understand why the others need to focus on Amber for a bit. No offence, Twilight, but I don’t think you’re giving her enough credit.”

“Jealousy does not always need to be rational,” Midnight declared. “Whatever Penny might know to be true might not dictate how she feels.”

“Maybe not, but Penny isn’t the jealous type,” Rainbow insisted. “There’s no reason for her to become jealous when she and Amber are going to become good friends. You’ll see.”

“You sound very sure of yourself,” Midnight observed.

“I’m sure of Penny,” Rainbow replied. “She’s easy to like, as witnessed by the fact that Team Sapphire likes her so much—”

“And yet her own teammates didn’t like her,” Midnight said pointedly.

Rainbow scowled. “We liked her enough in the end that we were willing to put our careers on the line to help her out,” she said, her voice sharpening. “Yes, we weren’t the best teammates or the best friends, but that was because … there were reasons for that, and they weren’t Penny’s fault. It doesn’t have anything to do with whatever might or might not happen between her and Amber. Who are going to get along, I know it. They’ve got no reason not to.”

Midnight’s holographic form clasped her hands together behind her back and tilted her body a little to the right. “But what if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong,” Rainbow said.

“But what if you are?”

“Then Penny still isn’t the jealous type. Twilight, why is your computer such a downer?”

“Possibly because she’s reflecting my thoughts about this,” Twilight suggested, “and I wouldn’t have brought it up if I wasn’t a little concerned.”

“Or perhaps because I agree with Twilight’s thought processes, though they are no longer my own,” Midnight said. “May I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Rainbow muttered. “You’re here, and I’m here, so why not?”

“Why did you agree to let Penny leave Atlas, though it is not what she was intended for?” asked Midnight. “Why did you agree to take the possible risk for her sake? Why did you not follow your orders?”

“Because it was the right thing to do,” Rainbow said.

“That is an answer that explains nothing,” Midnight pointed out.

“Because … because Penny isn’t like you,” Rainbow said. “She’s not just a computer with a simulation of a personality; she’s an actual person, she has thoughts and feelings, she has a voice, she has a soul, she … she’s a person, not a thing, and because she’s a person, then orders and intentions, none of it matters. If two parents have a kid who they intend should take over their store one day, or study medicine, or become the greatest concert pianist that Atlas has ever seen, it doesn’t matter how long they planned for that or how much effort they put into helping their kid realise that dream; if the store-owners’ kid decides they want to study medicine and the one who was supposed to play piano wants to run a store while the one who was supposed to be a medical student wants to play piano, then, well, so what? That’s their choice, because it’s their lives, not their parents’ lives, not anyone else’s, and so nobody gets to tell them how to live, what dreams they’re allowed to have. And it’s the same with Penny; she’s a living thing, a person, and so it doesn’t matter what anyone wants but her.”

“Because she’s conscious?” asked Midnight. “Or because she has a soul?”

Rainbow shrugged. “She has both.”

“But what if she didn’t?”

“She does,” Rainbow replied. “So what’s the point of asking me that?”

Midnight was silent for a second or two. “I suppose there’s no reason,” she admitted.

“What do you think about Sun going to Mantle?” asked Twilight.

“I did not see that one coming,” Rainbow said. “But … I don’t know, I hope it works out for him.”

“Do you think it will?”

“I … I don’t know; it’s Mantle,” Rainbow replied. “I don’t know the place that well, and the fact that I don’t like it means that maybe I judge it too harshly. I respect the guts that it takes to actually decide to move there, especially to do what he’s doing. It’s not a road that I’d want to walk, and to be honest, it’s not a road that I’d want anyone I was really close to to walk either, but it’s a brave road, and like I said, I respect that. He’s got courage, you’ve got to give him that. Plus, you know, it’s sweet that he wants to move closer to Blake.”

“Do you think that Blake deserves that?”

Rainbow winced. “Harsh, Twi, real harsh.”

“You know what I mean though, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow muttered. “Yeah, I know what you mean. But it’s not her fault, it’s … Blake has a road to walk down, and I can’t blame her for that, and nobody else should either. She knows what she wants; it’s not her fault that Sun was standing around still trying to figure it out while she got moving. And now he has, and now he’s moving too, so everything’s okay.” She paused, leaning forward in her seat. “Everything will hopefully be okay,” she said, a little more quietly. “I hope that the two of them can make it work, and I hope that he manages to do some good.”

“Me too,” Twilight said quietly. “If Blake wants to … never mind.” It took her a little before she said anything else. “It was surprising, though; it wasn’t the kind of thing that I would have expected Sun to do. He didn’t seem to really care much about faunus in general.”

“People change,” Rainbow said.

“Yeah,” Twilight replied. “And Sun isn’t the only one.”

Rainbow frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I…” Twilight hesitated. “It’s just that … since we met Blake, since she … since the two of you … over the last year, I’ve noticed that you have become more … faunus.”

Rainbow blinked. “I was always a faunus, Twi; these ears don’t come off.”

“I know, I know,” Twilight said quickly. “I just … what I’m trying to say is … oh, I don’t know, maybe you should … I’m sorry, I—”

“Twilight,” Rainbow said, leaning further forward, holding the microphone even closer to her mouth. “Twilight, come on; there is nothing that you can say that you have to apologise to me for. Whatever you want to say, whatever is bothering you, you can say it, and I will love you just the same. But you do need to actually say what you actually mean if you want me to answer it.”

Twilight chuckled. “I know, I know, I … let me see… you didn’t used to call them ‘your people.’ The faunus, I mean … it used to feel like we were your people, but now … I don’t know; perhaps I’m the one who's jealous and everything about Penny was just me projecting.”

“You are my people,” Rainbow declared. “You will always be my people, you and Pinkie and Fluttershy and Applejack and Rarity and you … you most of all. You will always be my people, but at the same time…” She closed her eyes. “Do you remember how I told you, way back when we first got to Beacon, that you would never be able to understand what it was like to be me, not completely?”

“Yes,” Twilight said. “Yes, I remember.”

“Now, if Ciel were listening to this,” Rainbow said, “you haven’t spoken to Ciel about this, have you?”

“No!” Twilight said firmly. “No, I’d never talk to anyone about this behind your back.”

“No, no, of course you wouldn’t, sorry, I … it’s just that I think Ciel tried to pull me up on this a while back. She didn’t like me reading Sienna Khan’s book.”

“I wasn’t thrilled about it myself,” Twilight murmured. “I mean, it is Sienna Khan.”

“Yeah, but she wasn’t Sienna Khan when she wrote it, if that makes sense,” Rainbow replied. “I mean, that was her name, but she was just a history teacher. Before she got fired for trying to teach. Did you know that Ares Claudandus ruled Mistral for eighteen months?”

“Really?” Twilight asked. “I thought the Councils were established after the war when the monarchs laid down their crowns and sceptres.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Rainbow said, “but after the faunus won the war, Ares Claudandus was invited to become Lord Protector of Mistral for the purpose of restoring the kingdom.”

“'Invited,'” Twilight said, “or invited himself?”

“That’s a very good question; as far as I can tell, it was a bit of both,” Rainbow said. “He wanted to be in charge, they got to decide exactly how they would word it. After about a year, he issued a constitution, which named him Protector for life and gave him the power to name his successor.”

“So he was Emperor, basically, in all but name,” said Twilight.

“Pretty much,” Rainbow agreed. “Which he might have gotten away with, except that he spent — or at least, he seems to have spent — a lot of his time in charge sawing the branch off that he was sitting on. He ordered the ex-slaves back to work on the farms and plantations, made it illegal for them to leave on pain of forced hard labour, and yeah, they got a one-tenth share of the crops they produced, but that probably didn’t make up for giving the landlords the right to beat them with sticks.”

“'Beat them'?” Twilight repeated. “Is it me or does that sound a lot like what Calliope Ferny was doing in the SDC mines?”

“Well, she didn’t bring up the comparison, but now that you mention it…”

“Why would a former slave turn around and impose conditions like that on other former slaves?” Twilight asked.

“For the economy, apparently,” Rainbow said. “They needed to get the farms back up and producing again so they had something to export. You’re right, though; that doesn’t make it okay. It makes it … it was wrong. It was wrong, it was not what people deserved, it was worse than what the King of Vale had wanted for the faunus after the Great War. I mean, what does that say, when the faunus of Mistral had more to hope from a Valish king than from one of their own? And it was stupid too. Like I said, he sawed the branch off while he was sitting on it. They were his army, the freed slaves from the fields and the farms, they’d fought for him, they’d won the war, and he’d betrayed them, or that’s how it looked to them. So, when the lords of Mistral pulled out their knives for Ares, they wouldn’t rise up for him, they wouldn’t fight. Why should they? He fell, and that’s when Mistral got its Council.”

Twilight was silent for a moment. “I … I didn’t know any of that.”

“Me neither,” Rainbow said. “Although … it was a bit off topic, I think, um … the point is … well, there’s a story, about Claudandus; he was being nagged by Lady, um … Lady … I want to say it was Lady Ming, but it might be Lady Yin, or Lady Qing, I can’t remember her name, but she wanted a job for her son, and she kept on bothering Claudandus to give him this post, and eventually, he must have just gotten fed up with her because he let her have it. He told her that she was a fool if she thought he didn’t know that she hated him, if she thought he didn’t know that she would put him in chains if she could, if she thought he didn’t know how much she hated having to beg him for favours. He knew that she would never forget what he was.”

“I’m guessing her son didn’t get the job,” Twilight said.

“No, actually, he gave him a position; he was a weird guy in a lot of ways,” Rainbow answered. “The point is … like, take Ciel—”

“The point is wandering away from the point some more?” Midnight asked.

Rainbow glared at her.

“I’ll be quiet,” Midnight murmured.

“Thanks,” Rainbow muttered. She cleared her throat. “Ciel acts like the best Atlesian, the most Atlesian Atlesian who ever … anyway, you know what I mean; it’s so that nobody will know that she’s from Mantle, or even if they do know, they won’t judge her for it. And maybe it’ll work. She does Atlas very well, so she’s got a good chance, I think. And I guess that there have been times when I’ve tried to do that too, and maybe you preferred it when I did—”

“Rainbow—”

“Twilight, please,” Rainbow said softly. “Let me finish.”

“Of course,” Twilight murmured.

“Even if I could do that,” Rainbow went on. “Even if other people could forget that I was a faunus … I’m not sure anymore if I should. Twilight … you’re an Atlesian; you’re just an Atlesian, that’s your story, the story of how we rose up after the Great War and came back from defeat to become the greatest kingdom that Remnant had ever seen, a military power, a leader in technology, a shining light for the world to look to. That … that’s a great story, and that is my story too, because I’m an Atlesian, but it’s not my only story because I’m also a faunus, and so my story is also the story of slaves who took up arms to claim their freedom, who wouldn’t just let themselves be deported to Menagerie without a fight, who started from nothing and worked hard to build lives for themselves and better lives for their kids. It’s the story … it’s the story of my parents, of my dad struggling down in Low Town to support a family. It’s a story that I’ve ignored. I left my family behind, I watched them go off to Menagerie, I came to live with you, I turned my back on Low Town, and I acted as though I could just put it all away. But I can’t. I don’t have … it’s like Pyrrha’s ancestors, inspiring her to fight and live up to their example, almost like she’s obligated to them, well, maybe I’m obligated too, to go further than my ancestors, to fly higher, to do better, to build on what they worked so hard to leave me.”

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes. “Am I … am I making any sense with this at all?”

“Yes,” Twilight said. “Yes, now that you’re talking about it, you make a lot of sense. At least, I think you do.”

“But,” Rainbow went on, “if it’s bothering you, I can try and tone it down.”

“No,” Twilight said, “no, I don’t … I don’t want to be the friend asking you if you can’t be less of a faunus sometimes, I would never do that, that … that’s not who I want to be. I suppose … I just didn’t want to lose you.”

“And you won’t,” Rainbow assured her. “You won’t. You never will. No matter what else I am, I’m still an Atlesian. And I always will be.”

“Right. I shouldn’t have doubted that,” Twilight said. “So … we’re good, right?”

“Come on, Twilight, we’re always good, we’re better than good,” Rainbow replied. “You … you will always be a part of my story.”

Twilight chuckled. “And you’ll always be a part of mine.”

Rainbow smiled. “What’s going on now?”

“They’ve stopped to get coffee from one of those street vendor places.”

“Lucky them.”

“You know the new mass production models of the Paladin have a coffee machine included?”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. “They do? Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Twilight said. “Apparently, you can also use it to boil water for instant soups and things like that. I think the intent is that the pilot never has to leave the cockpit for any reason.”

Rainbow frowned. “'For any reason'? But what—?”

“Yes, there’s a toilet as well; it’s under the seat.”

“That … okay,” Rainbow said. “Okay, but … lucky Paladin pilots, I guess.”

---

As fall was well under way, the air in Vale had grown colder even as the trees in the parks and planted along the thoroughfares had turned to red, amber, and gold, shedding their leaves upon the pavements and the grass. The air was cold, but the polythene cups were warm in Sunset’s hands as she took the last two cups offered by the guy in his little van and handed one of them to Amber.

“Tea, milk, no sugar,” she said, “here you go.”

“Thank you,” Amber said, smiling gently as she took the mug out of Sunset’s hands. She looked at the black plastic lid with a slight degree of suspicion, but was nevertheless able to work out without prompting that she ought to drink through the little hole in said lid. She sipped experimentally, managing to drip just a little bit down onto the pavement beneath her feet, and winced at the heat of it.

“It’ll cool down fast enough in this weather,” Sunset assured her, “and if you twist the lid around a little bit, it might not drip.”

Amber nodded and twisted the lid on top of the cup a little, although she did not drink from it.

“Thank you, sir,” Ruby said, to the man in the van who had just had to make nine drinks at once.

“Any time,” said the man, who probably didn’t make so much at once usually.

“And thank you for paying, Pyrrha,” Dove added, as the group resumed walking. “It was very generous of you.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Pyrrha assured him. “Nothing at all.”

Sunset got her scroll back out again, bringing up the map that would show them the way to the concert hall. Because she had the map, she led the way, with Ruby walking beside her, then Amber and Dove with Pyrrha and Jaune beside them, and Penny on the other side of Amber. Lyra and Bon Bon brought up the rear.

“So, Ruby,” Sunset asked as they walked down a street that was a little wider than some, wide enough that Pyrrha, Jaune, Amber, Dove, and Penny could all walk more or less side-by-side without either being too crammed together or blocking the way for other people. Autumn leaves crunched beneath their feet, breaking apart in some cases or turning into a mush that covered the ground. “Tell us more about this Percy person.”

Ruby looked up at her. “What do you want to know?”

“I’d kind of like to know why she was called the Swan Knight,” Sunset said.

“Because she could talk to swans,” Ruby answered. “The stories never use the word, but I think that must have been her semblance. Also, she wore a helmet with like swan’s wings on the side and had a black swan on a white field upon her shield, but I think that was just a continuation of the fact that she could talk to swans.”

“That doesn’t sound like the most useful semblance for a knight,” Penny pointed out.

Ruby looked back at her, grinning. “That’s what the Giant of Tar Mulber said before she sicced, like, fifty swans on him. He wasn’t laughing so much after that.”

“They are supposed to be able to break someone’s arm,” Jaune said. “That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”

“There are swans in the ornamental ponds of the Imperial Gardens in Mistral,” Pyrrha said. “They look very beautiful, but people are supposed to keep their distance, especially when the swans have young.”

“'The Imperial Gardens,'” Sunset murmured. “I don’t think you showed us that when we were there.”

“No,” Pyrrha agreed. “There wasn’t time to show you everything, especially with how we had to cut our visit short.”

“Why did you have to do that?” asked Amber. “Did something happen?”

There was a moment of slightly awkward, somewhat uncomfortable silence.

“Perhaps—” Sunset began.

“You see,” Pyrrha explained, “my mother did not approve of Jaune, or at the very least, she did not approve of him as my boyfriend, and so, when she saw that we were … growing closer,” — she slipped her hand around Jaune’s arm, holding him by the elbow — “she lied to Jaune to pretend that I was engaged to be married to another. When I found out what she’d done, I had to leave. I couldn’t stay in that house any longer. We all came back here to Beacon.”

“That sounds awful!” Amber cried. “How could anyone do such a thing?”

“Ozpin did, to Dove,” Lyra pointed out from the back.

“Professor Ozpin was driven by a little more than snobbery,” Sunset said.

“Although I wouldn’t be amazed if there was some of that,” Dove murmured. “Amber’s mother didn’t care for me very much.”

“Really?” Amber asked, looking at him with wide eyes. “You never told me that. Or … or did you tell me, and I … I don’t remember it.”

“No,” Dove said. “I didn’t want to turn you against your own mother, I didn’t want to give her any more reason to dislike me than she already had, as she would have done — with good reason — if I’d tried to drive a wedge between you. But, after I took you into my village and she caught the two of us together, she was very clear with me: I was not for you, nor you for me; you were meant for greater things than to be a crofter’s wife.”

“Oh, Dove,” Amber murmured. “I … I’m so sorry. She had no right, no right at all, to—”

“It’s fine,” Dove said, “it’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t fine.”

“It’s done,” Dove insisted. “And in the past, and … and anyway, it may have spurred me on a little because … because I told her that I meant to be more than a crofter myself; that’s when I told my mother that I was definitely going to Beacon.”

“You hadn’t made up your mind until then?” Ruby asked. “When was that?”

“I was sixteen,” Dove said, “and don’t get me wrong, I’d thought about it before; ever since I’d read the Song of Olivia, I’d thought about it; my grandfather had given me some training, and I picked up scraps here and there from huntsmen passing through the village; I persuaded one of them to test me and certify me as having equivalent skill to a combat school graduate … but I wasn’t certain. My … my mother didn’t really want me to come; she would have preferred me to stay home, become a tanner like her. I wanted to be … I wanted to be more than that, but I also didn’t want to disappoint her or make her worry, so … I was stuck. I couldn’t make my mind up. Until Amber’s mother talked to me like that. It made up my mind. Maybe it shouldn’t have, but it did. I knew what I wanted to be. Someone worthy of Amber, in her eyes, and everyone else’s too.”

Amber smiled, and as she smiled, she wrapped one arm around his waist and pressed herself against him, closing her eyes.

“I don’t need you to be worthy,” she said, ever so softly. “I just need you to be mine.” She paused a moment, and then opened her eyes again. “Did your mother ever apologise for what she did?”

“Not in as many words,” Pyrrha murmured, “but she has changed her mind about Jaune, or at least, she has accepted that I am not going to change my mind and made her peace with it as best she can. I … I was willing to accept that. I didn’t really want to fight with her, as much as she might have deserved it.”

Amber nodded. “I don’t think I could have forgiven my mother, if I’d known what she did, what she said to Dove. I don’t think … why can’t they let us be happy?”

“Because they become so concerned with what they want, with what they’ve planned, that they forget that we have wants and needs of our own, and that those might be different from what they intended,” said Penny, quietly.

Amber looked at her. “You too, Penny?”

Penny’s smile was soft, and a little sad. “My father wanted me to be … a great hero for Atlas. He wanted me to be the greatest Atlesian soldier that there ever was. But I … I didn’t want that. I suppose that all I really want is to have friends, at least right now, people who like me for me, who care about me as myself, and not for what I could become or do or mean for Atlas.”

“Love, and be loved,” Amber said, her voice soft and gentle. “That’s all that really matters.”

“Well, maybe not all that matters,” Ruby said. “If everyone thought like that … we have obligations to one another, according to our…” She trailed off, as if she had been about to say ‘according to our abilities’ but had then remembered that Amber was forbidden from using her abilities by Professor Ozpin, a secrecy with which she was broadly in favour. Or maybe it had occurred to her that by that logic Penny should have stayed in Atlas.

“We can’t just ignore the people that we don’t love, is what I mean,” Ruby clarified. “That’s what it means to be huntresses and huntsmen after all: fighting for the people, even if we don’t know them, even if they’re strangers to us.”

“Like the knights who went forth at the king’s command, to fight for the lords and common folk far off,” Dove said, “in lands the knights had never been to before, places that were not even names on a map to them, but which needed aid nevertheless.”

“Exactly!” Ruby agreed enthusiastically. “We are the knights of the modern day.”

“But without a king,” Sunset murmured; although Ozpin came close to kingship, he lacked some of the essential qualities of monarchy, not least a crown or diadem, and the acknowledgement by realm and people of his regal dignity and temporal authority.

He lacked immortality as well, of course, but that was something even unicorn kings had managed without in the days of old.

“Or a castle,” Jaune added.

“Beacon is sort of a castle,” Penny replied.

“It’s not really, though, is it?” asked Lyra. “It doesn’t even have a wall.”

“What would it need a wall for?” Bon Bon asked.

“To be a castle.”

“Okay, but we don’t need a castle or a king or a court,” Ruby said. “So long as we have the spirit of those knights of old, to be sworn to valour and protect the helpless, like Olivia and Percy, Sagramor, Elyan, Leodegrace, and all the others. Apart from the bad ones.”

“I think … is there a story,” Amber began, “I don’t remember it very well, but … talk about swans reminded me, stirred something in my memory … isn’t there a knight or a princess who is turned into a swan?”

“Yes, that happened to Percy,” Ruby said. “after she failed in her quest to recover the Great Crown—”

“The Great Crown?” Sunset interrupted. “How was it better than all the other crowns?”

“This one is … I think it’s the crown from the Indecisive King, or at least, it’s supposed to be,” Ruby replied. “At least, I think it is. It’s never confirmed, but I’m pretty sure. It was lost, but in the time of King Edward, the wizard Osfred called for all the knights of Edward’s court to quest and seek it out.”

“Did they all get turned into animals?” asked Penny, a trifle anxiously.

“They didn’t all fail,” Ruby said, “although most of them did. But Elyan the Pure recovered the Crown, though they died delivering it into Osfred’s hands.”

“That must have been a hard battle, to wound them so,” Pyrrha said.

“No, they didn’t die of their wounds; they just died,” Dove said. “Like dropping dead.”

“I never liked that part of the story,” Ruby said.

“They had just completed their greatest quest,” Dove said. “What else would they have done?”

“Lived?” Sunset suggested.

“Yeah, I agree with Sunset on this,” Ruby said. “Think how many other battles they could have won, people they could have helped, if only they’d survived. But anyway, back to Percy, she actually saw the Crown, in the castle of Arthur, and if she’d only asked about it, then she would have gained the Crown and healed the master of the castle from his cursed wound. But she didn’t; she went to sleep, and when she woke up the next morning, the castle and the Crown were both gone. And so, Osfred cursed her foolishness and turned her into a swan, a curse that could only be broken by someone asking her who she was.”

“Who would ask a swan who they were?” asked Penny. “Except, perhaps, someone who could speak to swans.”

“That would be ironic,” Sunset agreed. “The one person who could break Percy’s curse was Percy herself.”

“But it was broken,” Ruby told them, “by Prince Tristan, the son of King Edward. She … served him, I guess would be a way of putting it, as a swan, and with the help of the other swans who still served her. She pulled his boat down the river into the Forever Fall, where he met Lady Elsa, and swore to serve her on condition that she not ask who he was, and when she eventually did ask, Percy pulled his boat away again. And in between, she spied for him, fished to feed him, fought with him as best she could; she really does absolutely all the work in Tristan’s stories. It's kind of ridiculous. Eventually, he realised that she wasn’t an ordinary swan and asked her name, and she was transformed back into a knight again.”

“And they fell in love,” Amber murmured contentedly. “At least, I think they did. I’m sure they did.”

“They did,” Ruby agreed, “but it was a cursed love, a forbidden one. Tristan was supposed to marry someone else, a princess chosen by his father, but unlike Edward and Olivia, Tristan and Percy weren’t able to put their feelings aside for the sake of duty. It … caused a lot of trouble.”

“Frankly, if what you say is true, I think that was the least she was owed,” Sunset said.

“For her, maybe,” Ruby said, “but the kingdom deserved better.”

A momentary silence fell, broken by Penny saying, “If you didn’t get the chance to see the Imperial Gardens the last time you were in Mistral, maybe we can see them when we’re all there next time?”

“Yes,” Pyrrha said enthusiastically. “Yes, Penny, that sounds like a wonderful idea.”

Over the course of the day, they wore out their feet somewhat heading around Vale. They took in the great concert hall, which was more geometric in design than Sunset had been expecting but which was, nevertheless, an impressive sight, every bit as impressive as Amber had been led to believe by Professor Ozpin. And after that was seen, they took in some other notable Valish sights and monuments that Amber had been told of by the headmaster — some; with Vale being as large as it was, there was no way that they could see all of them, still less all of the city. Nor, Sunset though, would it be accurate to say that they showed Amber the Valish life, rather the Valish tourist experience currently being shared with the new arrivals descending on the city from Atlas and Mistral for the Vytal Festival: the extraordinary buildings, the parks, the scenic spots. That was not a criticism, mind you: Amber was, in many respects, a tourist here, even more than the Beacon students were tourists, for while they would be living here for a while longer, Amber would be gone soon, into whatever life awaited her after this. Why not, then, see the good parts of the city only, and leave the bad parts out of her imagination? Why not let her think that Vale was every bit and only as marvellous as Professor Ozpin had painted it for her?

Sunset continued to hope, though it was a somewhat diminished hope at this point, that it would give them something to talk about.

“Uncle Ozpin, Vale was just as wonderful as you said!”

I wish. I thought she might be open to seeing things his way, but now … she cannot bring herself to love him.

And I dare not push too hard.

At Amber’s request, they called in at an arts and crafts store, where Amber bought — or had bought for her, at least — drawing pencils of various sizes and levels of fine detail and some books of drawing paper.

“I used to love drawing,” Amber explained. “No colours, just black and white, but I could spend hours drawing the goat in the garden, the chickens feeding, the sheep in their little paddock. Mother would let me sit and draw her shearing the sheep for their wool, even though I probably should have been helping her. Sometimes, I would go out into the woods and draw the trees, how old and tangled they looked, the way their branches stretched out like arms. Or I’d draw the ruins in the woods, the remains of the walls, the statue in the chapel.” She smiled. “Or I’d draw Dove. Do you remember all the times I used to make you sit absolutely still so that I could capture you just the way I wanted? And you were so good; you never complained.”

“I did complain once,” Dove admitted. “When I was talking to you; I wasn’t looking at you for … some reason, I was asking you if you thought that I should go to Beacon or not, and I thought you were listening to me, and then I looked around, and you’d just been drawing me the entire time.”

Amber blinked, tilting her head a little to one side. “I … I don’t remember that.”

“No?” Dove asked. He paused for a moment, and then said, “I’m glad. I don’t think I really want you to remember me upset.”

“I can’t even imagine you upset,” Amber said.

“And that is the way that it will stay,” said Dove.

Amber looked around. “Do you mind if I draw all of you? You’re all so pretty, I’d love to have pictures of you. Pictures that were mine to … to take with me.”

“I would be flattered,” Pyrrha said.

“It’s fine by me,” Sunset said.

“Sure, if you want to,” Ruby agreed.

“I mean, I see myself as handsome, rather than pretty,” Jaune said, “but yeah, I don’t have a problem with it.”

“You’re pretty handsome,” Pyrrha said.

Ruby groaned. “Ugh, Pyrrha!”

“Oh, was it that bad?” asked Pyrrha.

“Yeah,” Ruby said. “Yeah, it kinda was.”

And they found time to go a weapons dealership, not a blacksmith's — there was no indication that the weapons were made anywhere on the premises — but a place where the windows were covered with wire so they couldn’t be easily broken into, a place with what looked like armoured shutters ready to descend over the door, a place where the well-lit interior was filled with swords and spears and guns lining every wall.

Amber did not look especially thrilled to be there; she shied away from the weapons somewhat and huddled closer to Dove, or to Pyrrha, or to Sunset herself, as though the weapons themselves might come alive and hurl themselves at her, gasping for her blood or her soul. She walked in with a slow, reluctant step, walking upon her toes, her heels barely touching the floor, glancing here and there, looking as though it would not take much to get her to bolt from the store.

Nevertheless, she went in, and however tentatively she moved, she did move, to the back of the store where there were a few different kinds of staves on display. They were fewer in number than the swords or the guns — or even a subsection of guns, like the pistols or the automatic rifles — but there were some there, from simple wooden sticks to a metal staff of shining steel that looked as though it collapsed in on itself.

Amber walked closer and closer to the staves on display, her mouth open a little, her eyes just a bit wider than normal. She glanced over the weapons on the wall.

“Now, the things you want to consider about your weapon,” Ruby said, “are first of all what kind of weapon, but then also how complex you want it to be, how much maintenance your willing to do on it, whether you want something that converts for a ranged option, are you going to use dust—?”

“This one,” Amber said, and as she spoke she reached out and laid one hand upon a simple wooden quarterstaff, a shaft of wood about six feet tall — a little taller than Amber herself, about of a height with Pyrrha or Jaune — that had been rounded and smoothed out by the plane and the lathe until there were no gnarls, no barky edges, no roughness to disturb the hand that held it — or, in fact, to make it harder to keep a grip on in the heat of battle. There was a slight crookedness near the tip of the staff, where the wood split up into four thick wooden fingers, like a crown, or the receptacle for a dust crystal of decent size.

“Well, don’t just pick the first one you see,” Ruby said. “You can consider your options; we could go somewhere else—”

“This one,” Amber repeated, her voice no less soft, no less quiet, but quite firm all the same. She closed fingers around the dark brown wood, and as her fingers closed, so did her eyes, her head descending forwards an inch or two as though she were speaking to the staff, or making communion with it.

“It’s made of wood from the Forever Fall,” she murmured.

“How does she know that?” asked Lyra quietly. Everyone ignored her.

Is it the magic of the Maidens that lets her hear its story so? Sunset, for her part, remembered Cinder telling her what ought to have been obvious, that the Forever Fall was a magical place, and all the trees within it touched by magic. That being so, and Amber also touched by autumn’s power, the two were suited for one another as if by fate.

“It has hoped for a gentle owner, who will use it only at need, and not for sport or pleasure, but only … only for safekeeping.” Amber kept her eyes closed as she lifted the staff off the wall. “Stand back, please.”

Everyone shuffled backwards, clearing some space on the shop floor as Amber, eyes still closed, retreated somewhat from the wall, until she had room to hold the staff before her, gripping it in both hands.

She turned to the right, the tip of the staff presented outwards, the butt in parallel with her lower legs. Then she began to move, advancing, swinging the staff in swift arcs, making circles with it, causing the air in the shop to whip sideways as she twirled her staff forcibly.

And as she moved, Amber was transformed before their eyes, the shaking, the trembling, the nervousness leaving her, all of Amber’s seeming weakness falling from her, and in her place, there was a woman who had been trained by Professor Ozpin himself, who had been blessed with a formidable tutor and the talent to take advantage of their skill and knowledge.

She was fast. She was faster than Jaune, faster than Sunset — the way that she was moving, she would have either knocked Soteria out of her hand or just gotten into Sunset’s guard before Sunset could react — and though Pyrrha would have given her a fight, it would have been just that: a fight. Sunset glanced at Pyrrha and could see her nodding approvingly, a smile playing upon her lips as she watched Amber strut and prance before their eyes, showing the skill that had lain dormant, hidden, the skill that Sunset would never have suspected had she not been into Amber’s memories. Lyra and Bon Bon watched with astonishment, eyes wide and mouths open, and Jaune, too, looked as though he could scarce comprehend it. Dove watched her intensely, but his expression was guarded and inscrutable. Ruby was bouncing up and down upon the balls of her feet, hands clenched into little fists.

Amber turned, whipping around on her toe, lashing out with her staff to strike an imaginary foe in the throat. She brought it down, straight down in a slashing stroke upon the crown, then upwards with the butt. Her movements were elegant, circular; they flowed into one another like water, putting Sunset somewhat in mind of Pyrrha’s style with the spear when she held it in two hands, minus, of course, any use of or reliance upon the tip. But it was similar in the way that there was no staccato to it, there was no stuttering succession of attacks, it was all one, like a woven tapestry, every motion, every strike, every assault blending together in a seamless story.

Doubtless, it would be different in a battle — real enemies would interrupt things somewhat — but as an ideal, as a thing to watch, it was quite, quite beautiful.

Amber came to a stop, her whole body shuddering as she opened her eyes.

“Whoo!” Lyra whooped. “Go Amber!”

“That was awesome!” Ruby cried.

“Don’t,” Amber said, her voice quiet but sharp at the same time. “Please don’t, I … I have done nothing to be applauded for here.” She let out a long breath, not quite a sigh in manner but close. “This one,” she repeated.

“As you wish,” Pyrrha said, taking a step forward. “We’ll get that one for you.” Her smile broadened. “You will need to give some thought to a name.”

Amber looked at her. “Forever Fall,” she said. “Its name is Forever Fall.”

Comments

[Mastermind4892]

So many cultural backstories!

[Stet709]

For someone who doesn't like to fight, Amber is one heck of a fighter. I just finished rewatching Volume 3 and she would've killed Emerald if it weren't for Cinder.