#marithlizard writing

[marithlizard]

Late night snippet - we’ll see if it turns into a story. 

Qrow Branwen was not, by any definition of the word, a coward.  Even people who hated his guts would admit that much.  He'd faced down the worst things Remnant had to offer.

Which one was the scariest?  Well, if you caught him in a talking mood and maybe bought him a drink, he'd probably tell you about the nest of praying-mantis Grimm with razor arms  and mandibles.  Or that thing in southern Anima with eyes over every inch of its body.  He'd be lying, of course.  No one would want to hear the other kind of stories,  the ones about hiding from adults with knives who blamed you for every bad thing that happened in camp, or waiting for the front door to open so you could tell someone their wife wasn't coming back.

(We share fears with each other to make them smaller,  Oz had mused, even laugh at them together.  And yet our worst fears are the ones we hold close.  We deny ourself that solace because it isn't safe to tell anyone.

Hey, he'd said,  you know you can tell me,  though he knew even then Oz never would.)

But this...he'd never felt fear quite like this.  His head was actually starting to swim; his hands twitched with the urge to grab the flask he wasn't carrying today.  He forced it down,  looked out over what seemed like a sea of faces and said, "....uh.  Hey there."

"Good morning, Professor Branwen,"  chorused nineteen young enthusiastic voices.  

"Yeah. Morning.  Sit down, everybody."

And they sat, obediently.  Just like that.   This was terrifying.

#rwby #marithlizard writing #rwby spoilers

[megashadowdragon]

whitleyschn33 . tumblr . com/post/190331295478/the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee-id-like-to-pose-a

ozcarpins tags to reblog the above Tagged: this, team RWBY would rather let EVERYONE die than make a hard decision, its exhausting to think that the narrative is going to pretzel around them to make them write again,  , .

marithlizard said: I don’t know what the right answer is, but I do think a panicked retreat into a siege is a bad idea. They haven’t prepared for this, embargo or no. The other two relics will fall while Atlas floats in isolation, and Salem will find a way up there. If she destroys the rest of humanity, is that really a victory? Maybe if you know that putting all four relics together will summon the gods and end the world. But James does not know that.

the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee said: @marithlizard​ The point isn’t so much that Ironwood’s hasty plan is a good idea necessarily or one that is sustainable, its that the one RWBY put forth is unviable because they don’t understand that Atlas is alone in this right now. No one can help them and Atlas’s resources are exhausted. They can’t survive another major hit, but RWBY isn’t putting forth a better solution.

marithlizard said: @the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee Yeah, I’m not claiming their plan is viable either. Like I said, I truly don’t know how the right way to turn this around. But once they’ve started on the “commit an atrocity and then flee into a corner” plan it can’t be backed of. Stop that plan first, then think of a better alternative.

the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee said: @marithlizard​ That’d be great, wonderful in fact. Except that they don’t have the time for that. Everything is falling to pieces around their ears right now and Salem isn’t going to give them the luxury to breathe while they figure out something better. She will probably get the relics anyway if they just sit where they are, because they can’t hold her off. They don’t have the resources to.

marithlizard said: @the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee You’re not wrong, but “no time for that” is relative. Ironwood came up with his plan in a state of complete panic, shock and post-battle shakes in what, five minutes? (I can’t see the episode yet but that’s what it looks like). The kids’ counterplan was even more reflexive. No wonder they suck. Actually, what they really need to do this minute is lock down Oscar and the lamp and review security footage in the office (½)

marithlizard said: (2/2) to see who left that chess piece, that kinda thing, and keep evacuating while they do. Then take at least an hour or two to brainstorm. Raising Atlas can’t happen instantly anyway, and not having the two sides at each others’ throats will improve the odds of success whatever plan they go with.

marithlizard said: But, panicked flailing on all sides is what happened and now we’ll see where it goes. :)

the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee said: @marithlizard​ I agree that they should slow down and take some time to hash shit out before actually taking action, but they really don’t have time for that. At least, not immediately. Don’t read on if you don’t want spoilers, but Oscar is MIA with the relic and Cinder has effectively signaled that she’s infiltrated the academy. They have to take care of THAT first before they do any breathing and shit. IF they have time afterwards to plan, thats what they should do.

marithlizard said: @the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee Yeah, I think we may actually be close to agreement here. There are oh-shit-right-now things to do, and then there are need-a-plan-PDQ things after that. (And honestly I don’t think Ironwood is in any shape to be doing either. You know what this place doesn’t have? A cranky McCoy type medic to storm in and point out her patient should be unconscious right now and could someone more sane please take over.)

the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee said: @marithlizard​ I want someone else to take control of the situation because I agree, Ironwood is NOT in the right mindset to be dealing with any of this and the man has been stretched beyond his limits. He needs fucking break.

#rwby spoilers #rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #james ironwood #general ironwood #rwby ironwood #the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee

[swapauanon]

@marithlizard replied to your post:                    My Opinions on RWBY: Volume 4: Chapter 8: “A Much...                

   What’d you think of Qrow’s semblance? That was a big d'oh moment for a lot of people, as all kinds of things from the bartender we saw him with breaking a glass to Winter’s boss showing up at just the wrong/right moment to things falling/breaking during the fight suddenly fit together.  Even the way he cut the visit with his nieces short in v3 takes on significance.    

One thing you need to remember is that my entry point to this series was RWBY Chibi and crossover fanfictions, and I stated back in my Volume 3 liveblog that a lot of the series has been spoiled for me. What I’ve heard about Volume 7 was a huge impetus to watch the show after reading a few crossover fanfics that used the show’s cast. You’ll notice that, unlike my KH3 liveblog, my RWBY liveblog is based more on my opinions and analysis of the episodes than reacting to every twist and turn for that reason.

I try to only comment on details like Qrow’s semblance, Penny’s death, or Blake being a Faunus when they come up and comment on the foreshadowing after the fact because I want to focus on what each of the episodes are actually about, and also to avoid spoiling my followers who might decide to get into RWBY later. The most blatant example of this was me bringing up my confusion at how Blake hides her cat ears back in the Black Trailer, but not explicitly mentioning that it’s ABOUT her cat ears until she takes off the ribbon towards the end of Volume 1. I made an exception for Volume 3 mostly because I’m pretty sure EVERYONE knows that Penny’s in Volume 7 this point and also because I wanted to highlight the fact that knowing that she gets better didn’t make her death any less painful mostly because of what she actually goes through (and also because it makes sense that a robot can get put back together. They’re notoriously hard to kill). When something surprises me (like Pyrrha’s lack of development and screentime prior to Volume 3, for example) I’ll bring it up. There’s a reason each of this liveblog is called “My Opinions on RWBY” instead of “My Reaction to RWBY”.

Also, I originally thought that Adam was in Grimm Eclipse due to him disintegrating the spider droid being mentioned in a crossover fic shortly after Dr. Merlot was referenced. Granted, that would’ve made Blake’s reaction to him in Volume 3 a continuity error, but..

And now the episode I was watching while writing this response has ended, so I’ll be posting my own opinions on it here in a bit.

#rwby #rwby liveblog

[tigerstripedmoon]

Tagged by @gorgeousgalatea and @theladydrgn, two more nerds I adore, it’s: 8 People I want To Get To Know Better! (insert ‘ta-da’ noise here)

Basically, I do the thing, and then you do the thing. OK? OK.

Name: Tiger. Seriously, I think at this point 99% of my RL friends call me that, not to mention online, so. If I thought they’d let me, I’d legally change my name to Queen Tiger I, Smacker of Bitches. 

Birthday: December 19

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius/Capricorn cusp. In other words, I’m a hippocampus.

Height: 5′5.5″ at last doctor visit. I call bullshit. Give me back that extra half-inch.

Hobbies: annoying people Writing fic, drawing, vidya gaemz, scrolling through twitter until my eyes bleed, collecting dumb things, sleep

Favorite Colors: Jewel tones - emerald green and deep amethyst.

Favorite Book: Uhhhhhh... I’mma cheat and list a bunch. Watership Down, Asimov’s Robots series, Leaves of Grass, the sun and her flowers, and I’m throwing in the Soul Eater manga (sans the very last chapter) because I can so :P

Last Song I Listened To: Hairpin Turns - The National (The song is absolutely STUNNING. The music video, OTOH, is super weird. It’s in black-and-white. The band’s all in a stark white room, dressed in jeans and plaid and standing in front of their instruments/microphones, while a girl in a flowered shirt and shorts that look like an adult diaper stumbles around and squats like a baby trying to shit out an epic load. The cognitive dissonance, it burns.)

Last Film I Watched: .... um. I don’t... actually... remember? I don’t watch a lot of movies.

Inspiration or Muse: making ozpin cry Seriously, it boils down to this: 40% “how many people can I make cry today”, 30% “FUCK YOU THAT’S NOT HOW TRAUMA WORKS”, 15% “it’s shitpost time hell fucking YEAH”, and 15% “*insert porn music here*”.

Dream Job: Does ‘filthy stinking rich’ count? I feel like that should count.

Meaning Behind Your URL: Honestly? I like tigers and I like nighttime and lunar things/deities/etc. It seemed like a good fit. (Also, I originally started this tumblr so I could ramble about Soul Eater, so double meaning lol)

TA-DAAAAAA~

Tagging @evil-robot-cat, @bravenurse, @valasania-the-pale, @cheesequeenmiu, @coffee-queen448, @lucidsnake, @marithlizard, and @cinnamon-pineforest Go forth and do the thing! (or not. No pressure. <3 )

#meme #about me

[marithlizard]

Title: A Time To Every Purpose Chapter: 3/5 Fandom: RWBY Chapter 1 Chapter 2 AO3 link The other question in the back of her mind was now shifting from "Why aren't you dead?"  towards "Were you dead?"

It was late afternoon before Soleil found them.

Iris kept on throwing herself at the overgrowth like some kind of avenging garden angel. "We might be here for a while," she said.  "And we'll get tired of gourd, and I - I need to stay busy."

Which left Crystal with the job of talking to - not the thing, she couldn't call him that anymore, she told herself.  The old man.  Their host.

He huddled on the floor of the cabin, never leaving that one spot in front of the door.  When Crystal hobbled over to sit nearby, right after breakfast,  he stared at her so piercingly that she flinched and dropped the canteen.  She barely managed to catch it before all the water spilled out.  If Iris had stopped to notice the clever little mechanism to hold the lid shut...oh well.   She squashed down annoyance with the swiftness of habit.  

When she looked back, he was huddled in a different shape than before, hugging his knees and watching the pile of shredded vines next to Iris grow ever larger.   Crystal made herself study him as she would any newly-met and potentially dangerous stranger:  frail and thin, even more skeletal than their father had been at the end.  Brown eyes that seemed clearer and more human in the morning light.  The unkempt hair and beard could've sheltered entire bird families.  This man wasn't at all well, and yet...she knew the stench of sickbed and deathbed, and could make a guess about long imprisonment.    But there was only a faint musty smell here.  And remarkably little dirt.  In fact he was cleaner than half the men she'd known back home.  

Some lucky people had powers, she knew.  The settlement's guardian warrior could call up a blue crackling shield around him in battle;  his "Semblance", he called it.  But what power could explain these contradictions? 

She couldn't ask "why aren't you dead", and she had to say something.  "Is it really all right for us to be here?" Please don't kill us in our sleep.

Without turning his head he rasped, "It is.  But why are you here?"

"The caravan we were with got attacked, and...we were really lucky.  I only hope my other sisters were too."  She didn't let her voice shake.

"Travel is dangerous, then,"  he mused, as though it wasn't an obvious fact of life.   "Why have you chosen to risk it?"

They'd been asked the same thing a dozen times in the last week.  Crystal gave him the same answer she'd given Kane and the caravan traders. "The settlement wasn't a safe place for us anymore with our parents gone.  We're hoping the city will be better."

She expected "Why not?"  but instead he said,  "And which city would this be?"

What? "The...city.  There's only one. There's only ever been one."  Was he addled?  She stared at him,. trying to gauge if he was just mildly confused like gran, or worse.   Though he kept on placidly watching Iris, she was able to catch a glimpse of the expression on his face by leaning forward and pretending to stretch her hurt leg. 

He was smiling, just a little.  And then one bushy eyebrow quirked up - she'd been caught - and the intelligent amusement in that smile made her feel about five years old. 

"I need to practice walking,"  she said abruptly, and stood up so quickly that a jolt of pain ran down her leg.  Ignoring it, she limped across the yard.

"Iris.  Iris."

"What?"  Her sister crawled out of a tangle of underbrush, knife in one hand, dirt-smudged and glowing with mid-project fervor.  "There's a whole bunch of different plants surviving down here, herbs and vegetables.  I think vegetables.  Once I get the area clear, I should be able to replant the whole thing.  And we can take some seeds with us when we leave."

Crystal mentally crossed the idea of leaving tomorrow off her list of options. Once her sister got invested in doing something,  she wouldn't quit until she was satisfied or someone set it on fire.  (And she'd never forgiven those boys.)  Instead she said, "He's really weird."

"The bad kind of weird?"

"Probably not," she admitted.  "But he's watching us and thinking and...I don't know how to explain it."   It was ridiculous, but she had the strong sense of being a small creature studied by a larger one.   "He's looking at us the way you're looking at those plants."  

"You want to switch places for a while?"  Iris asked with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. 

There were thorns in that overgrowth, no doubt, and bugs and snails and old tough roots.  "Not really."  Crystal sighed. "I'll try again.  Maybe if I had something to do with my hands - Any good fiber-stuff in that pile?"

"Try the brown pods, they've got fluff in them.  Or the vines with the leaves like this.  I'll start saving them for you."  Iris bent to plunge back in, then paused. "And Crystal?"

"Hm?"

"You analyze people like that all the time.  You're just not used to someone doing it to you."  Her grin was smug enough to call for hair-pulling retaliation, if they'd been safe at home.   "Now you know how the rest of us feel."

When Crystal returned to the cabin's front stoop it was with a pack full of plants.  The old man pretended to doze as she sorted out stems from seedpods.  At least she was pretty sure  he was pretending.   She poured more water from the canteen into his cup anyway. 

Strip the stems and set them aside for drying, roll the fluff between her hands until it formed a sticky rope.   The rhythms of the everyday chore soothed her mind.  As sturdy, off-white yarn coiled around her drop spindle,  the observing presence next to her began to feel more familiar.  Listening, silent, nonjudgmental.   Eventually, as though the warm sun was relaxing something in her throat, the words began to come out. 

"Mother was always passionate.  We loved that about her, and so did Father.  She would laugh with Soleil and play games with her in the yard while the other mothers were doing chores, because she said we needed fun more than a scrubbed floor.  And she and Russet would make up the most fantastic stories, epics really, and tell us a new chapter every evening.  Whenever any of us got in trouble with the teachers or the priests, she would go charging in to defend us - even if she knew we were wrong.

"When gran died, she took it hard.  But we knew she was going to, and we were all prepared. Father would sit with her and say, "What's one good thing that happened today?" and keep asking questions until she could find something good.   Iris and I took over most of the chores so she could spend more time with Soleil.  Russet would tell stories from gran's life, and repeat all the fairy tales she taught Mother when she was young.  And I kept asking her to help me practice meditation.  She would do it, every time, even though she knew it was just a ploy.  We got through the first year, and her grief eased.  

"When Father got sick, we tried to do the same thing.  We really tried." Her voice shook with emphasis.  "He helped us plan out what to do, even as he got weaker and weaker.  But none of us deep down really believed he was going to die.  And then he did."  Crystal spread out her hands, helplessly, seeing the callouses and small scabs on them.  "Life is cruel and we have to bend with it serenely, like a tree in the wind, that's what the scripture says.  But Mother was like a tree blasted by lightning.

"She cried all the time, and she didn't care that the neighbors could hear.  Even worse, she cried in public.  And she got so angry.   After the funeral she told the priests she'd prayed and prayed for her husband back, and asked them what point there was in faith if the gods wouldn't listen to her.  They tried to tell her about the balance of life and how loss comes to everyone, but she insisted it was different for her.  It was injustice,  Father wasn't old or weak,  it hadn't been his time to go.  

"Everyone stopped talking to us by the second week.  It got hard to buy things at market.  We started to find tokens left at our door, black feathers, dishes of spoiled food.    The priests warned us to calm her down, and we tried, but she wouldn't listen.  She just didn't care anymore.

"And finally, a month after Father's death to the day,  I came back from gathering in the woods and she was."  Crystal swallowed. "She."  Angrily, she wiped at her eyes - stupid tears - and then caught her breath in surprise. 

 A brown, gnarled hand was close to her arm, the long curving nails nearly but not quite touching her sleeve.  She looked up and met the old man's eyes.  They held more sorrow than she'd ever seen in anyone: not an angry sadness like hers, but resigned and patient.   He nodded to her, once, and pulled back his hand.  That was all.  But her throat felt clearer.

"She was sitting in her chair and the cup was on the ground.  Her lips had green on them and I...just knew.   I held her hands and she smiled at me and said the moon, she knew how it broke now.   The Lady broke it when the Lord died, because the world would never be whole again.  Then she started vomiting and.  It was over by the time my sisters got home, at least. That's a thing to be grateful for."  Always find things to be grateful for. 

Crystal took a deep breath.  Almost done.  "When I brought the cup back to the senior priest he didn't even try to deny it.  He told me they gave her a choice and she drank willingly to protect us.   That we should take comfort in knowing she cared about the safety of her family, if not her community.  And that he expected to see all four of us next week,right up front.  I smiled at him and promised.  We started planning our journey that night. "

If he'd said something sympathetic, she might have given in and sobbed.  If he'd said one word about negative emotions, she might've thrown the spindle at him.   But his words were thoughtful, measured, and once again not what she expected.

"Was it necessary? What they did to your mother?"

He said it like it was a genuine question, one he didn't know the answer to, and that halted the "No" at her lips and made her actually consider. 

"I...want to say no."  Her hands clenched in her skirt, and the neglected rope of fluff broke and smeared her palm.   "The Grimm attacked twice that month, and that's pretty typical. But both times they came over the wall right next to our three-house.  We saw the claw marks. Our warrior said they headed right for us, and maybe he was told to say that.  But maybe not."

"Only one warrior to protect all of you?"

"Well, yeah.  We - they're a small settlement, just a hundred or so,  and he was the only one with a Semblance.   The other men stand guard, of course, and help with the small ones.  Anyone can do that.  Even Russet shot a bird-shaped one once, though we kept it a secret.  But true warriors aren't born often, you know.  They say most of them choose to protect the city, that's why it's so much safer there. "

"Do I?"  The look on his face was distant now,  as though he were fitting pieces into some invisible puzzle.  Did she look like that to other people?  "So the Grimm are a severe and constant danger, and your leaders chose to focus on suppressing the populace rather than bringing out their potential to fight back."

The last thing she wanted to do was defend the priests, and yet she had to ask, "But what's the alternative?  Ordinary people can't fight those monsters, not the big ones.  And they home in on negative emotions."  He hadn't said it,  so she would.  "We're putting you in danger by being here.   Even having this conversation is dangerous.  Why are you letting us stay? How have you not been attacked? "  Oh no, she hadn't meant to blurt that last one out. 

Distant amusement.  "Those are large questions.  As a partial answer, I would say that "ordinary people" have more strength and potential than you were raised to believe.  As for myself, well."   His head turned to take in the sky, the garden, the trees beyond.  "I suppose I haven't felt much of anything in a very long time."

The other question in the back of her mind was now shifting from "Why aren't you dead?"  towards "Were you dead?" Crystal didn't think it prudent to ask either one.  She picked fluff out of her skirt and returned to spinning, and they shared a a peaceable silence until Soleil came running up the path and leaped into her arms with a shriek of joy. 

"I'm so glad you're both okay!  I ran and ran and then I tripped and this faunus found me,  Iris there are faunus out there and they're so much friendlier than we were told, he was so tall and he had these cute deer ears that flicked back and forth and antlers, and..."   Soleil paused to gulp a huge breath.  She was perfectly capable of talking like a normal person, she'd done it at sermon and school, but her preferred conversational speed was full-tilt.  

"I want to hear more about this faunus, but get some food and drink in you first and let me check you over," Crystal told her.  Three out of four. They were almost all safe, and Russet had the best chance of any of them.  Please, gods, I said I'd never pray again but please...

Soleil was in surprisingly good shape after two nights in the wilderness - some bruises, a torn and ragged fingernail, and a shallow scrape on her abdomen that someone had already cleaned and bandaged.   Crystal looked the neat work over with surprise. "The faunus did this?"  

"Yes.  His name was Chamois."  Soleil sighed dreamily.  "We spent the night at his place, and he took me here in the morning,  he said his friends saw a fire and it was probably you.  I wanted him to meet you all, but he said no."  Her shoulders drooped.   "I really liked him."

Crystal and Iris exchanged a look. "When you say really liked..." 

"No, I swear, nothing like that!"  Soleil's eyes were brimming pools of innocence.  "Just a little kissing.  Well, a lot of kissing. Mostly." 

The strange part-animal people weren't  allowed in any settlement Crystal knew about, and she doubted the city would be any more welcoming.  And a human with a faunus child...she hoped the deer-man had been sensible as well as kind.  

"Well."  Crystal sat back on her heels.   "We've been all right here so far,  so just stay put, okay?  No going to look for Russet or anyone else. There's plenty to explore here.  And you can talk to...our host."  She moved out of the way so that Soleil could see the cabin with its open door. 

Her flighty sister and the old man stared at each other.  And stared.  And stared, until Iris began nervously, "Sir, this is our sist-" She was interrupted by Soleil bursting into laughter.

"What is THAT?  He looks like a scarecrow covered with snow!" 

"Be respectful!"  Crystal hissed, but it was hopeless; Soleil was already making a beeline for him. She dropped to her knees and they stared at each other some more, closer up.

"Why do you look like that?"

"How else should I look?" 

"Most people cut their hair at some point,"  she informed him.  "And your clothes are falling apart.  Why are you sitting on the floor?  Were you out here all alone? Wasn't it dangerous?"  Her eyes widened suddenly.  "Were you dead?"

Crystal put her face in her hands.  

"Not as far as I'm aware,"  he answered seriously, as though it was a perfectly reasonable question.  "If I was, how would I know?"

"Oh."  She appeared to think about this for a moment, and then shrugged.  "What's your name?"     The prudent thing to do at this point would be to pull her sister back and start babbling apologies.  On the other hand, very few people could get angry at Soleil.  She was like summer sunshine personified.

But she didn't think an answer would be forthcoming, and she was right.  "Hmm. Perhaps you could pick one for me.   And what is your name, young lady?"

Soleil got to her feet, brushed down her muddy skirt, and swept him a  curtsey.  "Soleil, good sir.  Soleil...of  the Vale!"  She twirled around in obvious pleasure at her own cleverness. "I am on a journey! And I am waiting for my sister.  You'll like her, she tells the best stories."

"I look forward to it, then,"  he told her.  "The Vale, then, is that where you are all from? You hail...from the Vale?"   Amusement bright in the brown eyes.  

"Yes!"  She beamed.  "You get it!  I mean, it's just another word for valley, but it sounds much grander.  I think it should be our family name, when we get to the city.  Everyone says we'll need one.  Now, show me around. I want to see everything!" 

"I..."  For the first time, the old man looked slightly taken aback. "There isn't much to see,  my dear."

Subtlety was a foreign language to Soleil, but she was never cruel;  Crystal saw her glance at the tiny dilapidated cabin,  and then at the overgrown yard. "So?  You must have a favorite tree and places to sit, and a rock that looks like an animal or something.  And then we can play hide and seek, you've got the home advantage but I'm very good at it."

He blinked at her, clearly nonplussed. "You want me to...join you outside?"

"Why not? You don't stay in there all the time, do you?"

An awkward silence followed,  broken by another silvery peal of laughter.  "You DO! That's ridiculous!  It's so much nicer out here.  Come on. "  She held out a hand.  

He looked,  Crystal thought, even more ordinary when baffled.  She could hardly believe that yesterday she'd seen a cryptid instead of this gentle hermit.   Was it all due to familiarity? 

Perhaps not. Certainly he looked a little more sturdy after vanishing into the shadows of the dark cabin and returning with an ancient floppy black hat. And his clothes, when he finally stepped across the threshold, proved to have no embarrassing gaps or holes despite being threadbare.   They stayed on his emaciated frame through the expedition to look at Iris's garden progress, an interesting bug in the grass, and several flowers.  At that point Iris vetoed hide-and-seek in favor of preparing dinner, and he sank down on a rock with obvious relief. 

"Sorry about that,"  Crystal said to him in an undertone as she cut up onions and mushrooms.  Thanks to Iris' digging, they had more variety tonight.  "My sister is a force of nature.  If she's a bother, we can get her to back off."  

The old man smiled.  "Not at all, she's quite refreshing company.  Despite all you've endured she seems quite happy."  The tone of his voice made it half a question. 

"Everyone has their way of coping.  Soleil has known since she was very small that unhappiness is bad.  So she is always happy, and does her best to make others happy.  No matter what."  Crystal lowered her voice again.  "She's completely sincere, and yet in a way it's an act. We play along because we're afraid of what will happen when it stops."   

Words she'd held inside for a long time, with no one safe to say them to.  It felt good to hear them spoken aloud.  

The old man just nodded, but it was enough; she was understood.  "And yet,"  he said so softly she had to lean in to hear, "I am grateful for her performance."

She let the tilt of her head ask the question. 

"I had forgotten the sound of laughter."

#marithlizard writing #rwby writing #rwby #ozpin

[marithlizard]

This is the first piece of fic I’ve ever written for Tumblr! When I put it on AO3 I’ll have to tag it...and I don’t wanna.  With luck, there will be three more parts.  (No actual RWBY knowledge required.) 

Falling off the cliff wasn't the worst thing to happen to Crystal today.  Not even though her leg twisted painfully under her on landing, and she could tell as she lay gasping on the ground that more running wan't going to happen any time soon.

Worst had been the screams at dawn, Russet's terrified face, the sight of the caravan guard who'd flirted with her all week going down under a snarling Grimm twice his size.  Screams and the movement of dark shapes and blood - she would've died right there, frozen in place trying to understand, if Iris hadn't thrust two backpacks into her hands and yelled move!

The four of them had run for hours.  Well, staggered after a while.  It had been stupid to stay on the road, she thought now, but the Grimm hadn't followed them.  How far had they made it before the growling from the woods?  Ten klicks, maybe less?  It didn't matter; Crystal had pushed Iris in one direction and run in the other and...and this was probably it.   One useless peasant girl ready to be eaten.

But she'd meet her fate standing up.  That was what her family did.  Crystal made herself test the leg, wincing;  it wasn't broken, she thought, but it was going to swell up soon.  She rebalanced the heavy packs on her shoulders, found a stick to lean on, and hobbled grimly towards the patch of brighter green she could see through the trees.   Maybe it'd be a nicer place to die.

It was a clearing, a big one.  And at its center sat...a lone small cabin.   Crystal stared.  Even in the settlements no one lived apart - it would be suicide.  Always build in threes, that was the rule;  three houses in a triangle with sides touching,  two archers, one person always on watch, and the signal fire to warn other groups.  Three-two-one-fire,  gran had said.  If you want homes of your own one day, choose husbands smart enough to count.

Whoever had lived here obviously hadn't been smart.  And they were long gone, judging by the overgrown garden and the state of the roof.  But she could shelter here, and light her own signal fire, and the others might see...

As she limped closer, she heard the sound of rushing water off to the right.  A stream or river,  that explained why there wasn't a well.   This honestly wasn't a bad location - mountains a few klicks away on two sides, a water source,  and soil good enough to grow those orange gourds.  So why hadn't more families come?

The front door was still intact, though grown over with vines.  She let the packs fall with a sigh and reached for her belt knife.  Keep going.  You can sit down for a bit once you've checked out the inside.   It was a lie, but it kept her protesting muscles from staging a full revolt.

A flicker of movement in the side of her vision.  She turned her head to look at the cabin's one window and

something

looked

back

Crystal screamed, turned to run, and then screamed again as her leg gave way.  As soon as she hit the ground she was scrabbling backwards on her butt,  eyes fixed on the window.    Oh, gods,  it can't get out, the door is blocked, it can't get out the door is blocked -

Movement of a head.   Eyes - those were eyes, blinking.   Not a Grimm.  Some kind of cryptid?  She was going to be eaten by the cryptid of Sanus and never see her family again.    Vaguely she was aware that she was panting in terror, whispering "no no no" aloud.

A hand came up and pressed against the inside of the cracked glass.  It looked...human. Five fingers, no claws, a palm the same color as hers.  

Crystal swallowed, tried in vain to slow her breathing.  "H-hello?"  she tried.   Shards were missing from the top of the window, it could probably hear her.

No response. The thing watched her.

"I...my name is Crystal. I don't mean any harm, I'm just traveling through.  I'm...waiting for my sisters. Okay?  When they get here we'll go."

Getting the fire started without turning her back on those eyes took what felt like hours.  She crawled, then lay on her belly to cut branches and thick stalks and a ripe-looking gourd from the garden.  Her pack held flint and tinder;  the other pack, to her astonishment, held several little packets of fire Dust tied up with string. One of their fellow passengers had been able to afford Dust?  

Well, they probably weren't alive to reclaim it.  She used the flint and tinder anyway;  Dust was volatile, she knew, though she'd never used it.  If...anything got too close she'd throw a packet at it and then throw a branch from the fire at the packet.    Surely nothing could go wrong with that plan.  

Darkness fell and nothing happened.   Crystal ate toasted gourd and tried to watch in all directions,  nervously aware that she couldn't have both the cabin and the approach to it in her field of vision at the same time.    She was also very, very aware of how ironic it would be for Grimm to find her because she was terrified of something entirely different.  Something that had not, in fact, made any attempt to harm her.

Meditation was the key to staying calm in these situations.  Her father had taught all four of them, but Crystal had been best at it; she was the coldly analytical one.  And she was alive tonight, against all odds.  Breathe in.   Her sisters were alive.  Breathe out. They would see the fire.  Breathe in. They would come to find her. Breathe out.

She kept herself calm through the night and into the dawn, sitting cross-legged and still except when the fire needed feeding.  Her thirst didn't matter. Breathe in.  She was perfect tranquility, invisible to Grimm. Breathe out.  In. Out.

Something very old watched her, and envied.

#rwby #marithlizard writing

[marithlizard]

Finally finished! Despite the rating, there ended up being far less smut and more talking than intended.  But the goal was to explore what it’s like to be Oz and to give him and Qrow some happiness before all the doom rolls in - and with that, I’m content for now. 

#rwby #marithlizard writing

[marithlizard]

SFW snippet from this morning’s progress on my RWBY story.  I don’t know where my brain got this, but ow. 

Oz ducked his head away from Qrow's hand, his mouth tightening stubbornly.  "And I am sorry. But there are reasons for the things I do, and I cannot always share them with you.  And...reticence is a hard habit to break.  I can't promise to change that."  

Arrrrgh.   "Will you try? Oz. Please."  What made a guy so determined to self-sabotage?  Was it something learned over centuries?  Or another thing to blame on the voices in his head?

"Very well."  Qrow knew better than to take that as agreement. They'd be having this argument again.   "Are there any more items on your list?"

"Just one. If something happens to me...don't let the kids want for anything.  And don't push them."  He scowled at Oz, who frowned right back, lips still pressed tightly together.

"I know Ruby has the eyes.  But if she doesn't want to fight -"

"She will.  I have never seen a child with silver eyes choose any other path."

"And is that because of what you tell them?"   He heard the frustration in his own voice; damn, he'd meant to be calm about this.  But he saw the sad edge to Summer's smile sometimes when she held her daughter.

"I have tried to stop them! Many times."  There was frustration in Oz's voice too, and something raw.  "Do you think I wanted to bury my own children?"

...Qrow was an idiot.  There was nothing to say but "I'm sorry."

#rwby #marithlizard writing

[marithlizard]

Title:  A Time to Every Purpose  Fandom: RWBY Chapter 2 of 5 Chapter 1 Ao3 link ("Stay calm.  It can't get out.  I don't think it's even tried.")

"Crystal!  Oh, thank the gods, Crystal!"

The voice brought her floating up out of uneasy dreams.   She forced her sticky eyelids open and looked into Iris' crying face.  Oh.  Oh!  

"You're alive,"  she tried to say, but it came out a pained shapeless rasp.  Her mouth and throat were so dry they hurt.   So did her head. She held up her hands, cupped together, trusting that her most practical sister would figure it out.

And she did.  "Okay.  Water, okay.  I'll get some."   Iris fumbled through the pack next to her and pulled out her leather cup;  she hesitated, looking at it, and then reached for Crystal's two packs as well.  Among them they yielded another cup and a hammered-metal canteen, and a sieve-cloth for straining.  

"I'll be right back."  Crystal watched her sister go blearily and tried to wake up more.  It was daytime, midmorning by the angle of the sun.  They were both alive.  The fire was down to a pile of glowing embers and ash.   The cabin - the cabin!   Fear jolted through her and she turned to look, scrabbling for her cane-branch though she knew it was stupid.  The door was still closed and overgrown.  No movement behind the window. 

Had she imagined it? No, no she hadn't.  Unlike Russet's, her memories did not get mixed up with flights of fancy.  Crystal stretched out her leg carefully, said ow, and resigned herself to not walking for at least two more days.  A splint shouldn't be needed if she stayed off it. And, well, if the Grimm - or something else - attacked, a splint wouldn't help. 

By the time Iris came back with a cup in each hand and the canteen slung around her neck,  Crystal was sorting through the spread-out contents of all three packs.   She and her sisters had collected what they could for the journey: bandages, ointment, dried meat and fruit, small tools for each of them.   Soleil had the length of oiled cloth.  Russet had stolen the bow and arrows right before they left. 

They'd never planned for being split up.

"Not bad,"  mused Iris, looking it all over while Crystal forced herself to sip and not guzzle.  "Whoever owned this other pack,  we should say a prayer for them tonight.  Their stuff may keep us alive."

Crystal held water in her mouth for a few moments, savoring the feel of it against her tongue after so long, then swallowed.  "You can pray if you want," she said roughly.  "I never will again."  Not after what happened.

"The gods aren't to blame."

"They didn't help either."

Iris was smart enough not to argue.  Instead she said, "Why haven't you searched the cabin yet?"

"There's something in there."   The water was gone, and Crystal already wanted more.  Patience, she told her body.   "Something really weird.  Not an animal, not a Grimm...it's like something out of Russet's stories."

"That's..."  Iris trailed off before saying impossible.   "If you're describing it like that, then I'm really curious.  And creeped out."   She took Crystal's stick and walked up to the window.  Cautiously, she tapped twice on the glass.

"Aieee!"  She leaped backward,  falling on her butt and wriggling backwards much as Crystal had done.  

"Stay calm.  It can't get out.  I don't think it's even tried."  Crystal watched her sister take deep breaths,  visibly repeating "In. Out." to herself much like she had last night.   She tried to project steady reassurance.  "This is still the best place to wait for the others.  And now there's two of us to keep watch.  We can do this."

"...Right.  You're right, Crystal. As usual."   Iris scrambled to her feet and picked up the fallen stick.   "Actually, I thought I saw something else."  She approached the window again and peered in, this time without tapping.   Then she went very still.

A minute passed.  It felt like ten.   "Iris?"  Crystal said eventually.  Carefully, calmly.  "What do you see?" 

"It's a person."    Finally Iris backed away again, shaking her head.  "There's a person trapped in there."

"That's impossible."   The vines growing through the hinges were years-thick. 

"It's wearing clothes."

There was nothing to say to that.  So they didn't.  Iris cut more branches and gourds out of the garden, and Crystal toasted pieces of the sweet orange flesh on sticks.   Several more trips to the river quenched their thirst and eventually required a latrine trench, dug in the earth with hands and their knives.   They built the fire higher this time.   Neither of them mentioned Soleil or Russet, or the past, or the future. 

For the hundredth time,  Crystal thought about how different life in the city must be.  Behind those great stone walls with hundreds of guards it would be safe to talk about anything.  To scream, cry, rage, shout at each other until you'd both gotten all the terrible feelings out.   To be as afraid or sad as strongly as you needed for as long as you needed it.  

In the city,  their mother would have survived.

As the sun began to set, Iris left off digging in the garden and pried a board out  of the sagging fence around the clearing.  She laid it down flat by the fire and began to arrange things on it:  her cup, two-thirds full,  several pieces of toasted gourd, one square of hard bread from the stranger's pack. 

"What are you doing?"

"I've been thinking," said Iris, staring down at the makeshift tray.  "To stay here tonight and not be afraid, I have to think it's a person.   And if it's a person, then they need help."

Oh, no.  "Can't we test that theory in the middle of the day? Maybe when I'm able to run?"  

"I can't wait that long.  I'm going to do it now, before it gets dark."   Helplessly,  Crystal watched her sister walk away with the food.  Fear twisted in her gut;  breathe, she ordered herself.  In, out.   She'd been lucky yesterday, when she first saw the thing in the cabin and it had taken hours to get her feelings under control.   They couldn't count on luck holding. 

Iris put the tray down by the door and got to work on the hinges with her knife.  The vines must've been softer than they looked; it was only a few minutes until she took hold of the doorknob, breathed in and out and in and out, squared her shoulders and pulled. 

The door creaked open with a puff of dust everywhere;  Crystal could see it settling on the food, and hoped that cryptids weren't too fussy.  There, framed in the doorway, sat the thing. 

Iris had been right. It was wearing clothes,  a shirt and pants so old they were disintegrating and much too large for it. A vest that looked like leather had held up somewhat better.  The thing had a beard, a long scraggly white one, and a balding head poking out of a  fuzzy halo of pale hair.  It blinked at Iris and said nothing at all.

She coughed, waving away the dust with a hand.  "Sorry.  Um.  Hello,  sir.   My name is Iris.  I'm on a journey to the city, and I'm waiting for my sisters.  This is my other sister Crystal."  She pointed, and the thing turned its head and looked directly at Crystal.   She raised her hand and wiggled the fingers in a tremulous wave. 

I will never ever doubt Iris' nerve again, she thought.

"We made some food for you,"  continued Iris doggedly.  "It's not much, but it's what we could find.  I hope it's okay for us to stay here until our sisters arrive. "  

She moved the tray directly in front of the thing, nearly touching it - Crystal caught her breath - and backed away.   After a few moments it reached out a long-nailed hand, very slowly, and picked up the leather cup.    Iris nodded.  

"Okay. We'll bring you more tomorrow.  Good night, sir."  Iris jogged back to the fire, only a little too fast to be casual,and sat down with a sigh of relief. 

"Crystal, it's just a man. He looks almost starved to death.  He can't have the strength to hurt anyone."

"But that's - impossible."  She'd circled the cabin yesterday and seen no other exit.  "How could he have survived?"

"I don't know."    

They sat in silence and practiced calm breathing until moonrise.   This time Crystal was able to make herself look outward for Grimm during her watch, even if she did occasionally glance back over her shoulder.   She didn't suggest closing the cabin door again, although she wanted to.   

Later, she lay with fingers in her ears, trying not to hear Iris praying.   "Lord of the Waters, Lady of the Broken Moon, thank you for your blessings.  We're grateful for the strangers we meet and the gifts they leave us; teach us to be kind to strangers in our turn." 

Something much older heard as well, and was thoughtful. 

The next morning, when Iris brought more water,  the man rasped out words for the first time. 

"Thank you."

#marithlizard writing #rwby writing #rwby

[marithlizard]

A Time to Every Purpose, ch1

I finished my story!  Which means perhaps I should try posting it here again.  RWBY, though I think (hope) it can stand entirely on its own. 

AO3 link is here.

Falling off the cliff wasn't the worst thing to happen to Crystal today.  Not even though her leg twisted painfully under her on landing, and she could tell as she lay gasping on the ground that more running wan't going to happen any time soon.

Worst had been the screams at dawn, Russet's terrified face, the sight of the caravan guard who'd flirted with her all week going down under a snarling Grimm twice his size.  Screams and the movement of dark shapes and blood - she would've died right there, frozen in place trying to understand, if Iris hadn't thrust two backpacks into her hands and yelled move!

The four of them had run for hours.  Well, staggered after a while.  It had been stupid to stay on the road, she thought now, but the Grimm hadn't followed them.  How far had they made it before the growling from the woods?  Ten klicks, maybe less?  It didn't matter; Crystal had pushed Iris in one direction and run in the other and...and this was probably it.  One useless peasant girl ready to be eaten.

But she'd meet her fate standing up.  That was what her family did.  Crystal made herself test the leg, wincing;  it wasn't broken, she thought, but it was going to swell up soon.  She rebalanced the heavy packs on her shoulders, found a stick to lean on, and hobbled grimly towards the patch of brighter green she could see through the trees.   Maybe it'd be a nicer place to die. 

It was a clearing, a big one.  And at its center sat...a lone small cabin.   Crystal stared.  Even in the settlements no one lived apart - it would be suicide.  Always build in threes, that was the rule;  three houses in a triangle with sides touching,  two archers, one person always on watch, and the signal fire to warn other groups.  Three-two-one-fire,  gran had said.  If you want homes of your own one day, choose husbands smart enough to count. 

Whoever had lived here obviously hadn't been smart.  And they were long gone, judging by the overgrown garden and the state of the roof.  But she could shelter here, and light her own signal fire, and the others might see...

As she limped closer, she heard the sound of rushing water off to the right.  A stream or river,  that explained why there wasn't a well.   This honestly wasn't a bad location - mountains a few klicks away on two sides, a water source,  and soil good enough to grow those orange gourds.  So why hadn't more families come? 

The front door was still intact, though grown over with vines.  She let the packs fall with a sigh and reached for her belt knife.  Keep going.  You can sit down for a bit once you've checked out the inside.   It was a lie, but it kept her protesting muscles from staging a full revolt. 

A flicker of movement in the side of her vision.  She turned her head to look at the cabin's one window and 

something

looked

back

Crystal screamed, turned to run, and then screamed again as her leg gave way.  As soon as she hit the ground she was scrabbling backwards on her butt,  eyes fixed on the window.    Oh, gods,  it can't get out, the door is blocked, it can't get out the door is blocked -

Movement of a head.   Eyes - those were eyes, blinking.   Not a Grimm.  Some kind of cryptid?  She was going to be eaten by the cryptid of Sanus and never see her family again.    Vaguely she was aware that she was panting in terror, whispering "no no no" aloud.

A hand came up and pressed against the inside of the cracked glass.  It looked...human. Five fingers, no claws, a palm the same color as hers.  

Crystal swallowed, tried in vain to slow her breathing.  "H-hello?"  she tried.   Shards were missing from the top of the window, it could probably hear her. 

No response. The thing watched her.

"I...my name is Crystal. I don't mean any harm, I'm just traveling through.  I'm...waiting for my sisters. Okay?  When they get here we'll go."

Getting the fire started without turning her back on those eyes took what felt like hours.  She crawled, then lay on her belly to cut branches and thick stalks and a ripe-looking gourd from the garden.  Her pack held flint and tinder;  the other pack, to her astonishment, held several little packets of fire Dust tied up with string. One of their fellow travelers had been able to afford Dust?  

Well, they probably weren't alive to reclaim it.  She used the flint and tinder anyway;  Dust was volatile, she knew, though she'd never used it.  If...anything got too close she'd throw a packet at it and then throw a branch from the fire at the packet.    Surely nothing could go wrong with that plan.  

Darkness fell and nothing happened.   Crystal ate toasted gourd and tried to watch in all directions,  nervously aware that she couldn't have both the cabin and the approach to it in her field of vision at the same time.    She was also very, very aware of how ironic it would be for Grimm to find her because she was terrified of something entirely different.  Something that had not, in fact, made any attempt to harm her. 

Meditation was the key to staying calm in these situations.  Her father had taught all four of them, but Crystal had been best at it; she was the coldly analytical one.  And she was alive tonight, against all odds.  Breathe in.   Her sisters were alive.  Breathe out. They would see the fire.  Breathe in.  They would come to find her. Breathe out.

She kept herself calm through the night and into the dawn, sitting cross-legged and still except when the fire needed feeding.   Her thirst didn't matter. Breathe in.  She was perfect tranquility, invisible to Grimm. Breathe out.  In. Out.

Something very old watched her, and envied. 

#marithlizard writing #rwby #rwby writing

[marithlizard]

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the best way to make yourself write is to have something else you really ought to be doing instead.  Part 2/4 of a short story about sisters in the world of Remnant. 

  Part 1 is here.  "Crystal!  Oh, thank the gods, Crystal!"

The voice brought her floating up out of uneasy dreams.   She forced her sticky eyelids open and looked into Iris' crying face.  Oh.  Oh! 

 "You're alive,"  she tried to say, but it came out a pained shapeless rasp.  Her mouth and throat were so dry they hurt.   So did her head. She held up her hands, cupped together, trusting that her most practical sister would figure it out.

And she did.  "Okay.  Water, okay.  I'll get some."   Iris fumbled through the pack next to her and pulled out her leather cup;  she hesitated, looking at it, and then reached for Crystal's two packs as well.  Among them they yielded another cup and a hammered-metal canteen, and a sieve-cloth for straining.  

"I'll be right back."  Crystal watched her sister go blearily and tried to wake up more.  It was daytime, midmorning by the angle of the sun.  They were both alive.  The fire was down to a pile of glowing embers and ash.   The cabin - the cabin!   Fear jolted through her and she turned to look, scrabbling for her cane-branch though she knew it was stupid.  The door was still closed and overgrown.  No movement behind the window.

Had she imagined it? No, no she hadn't.  Unlike Russet's, her memories did not get mixed up with flights of fancy.  Crystal stretched out her leg carefully, said ow, and resigned herself to not walking for at least two more days.  A splint shouldn't be needed if she stayed off it. And, well, if the Grimm - or something else - attacked, a splint wouldn't help.

By the time Iris came back with a cup in each hand and the canteen slung around her neck,  Crystal was sorting through the spread-out contents of all three packs.   She and her sisters had collected what they could for the journey: bandages, ointment, dried meat and fruit, small tools for each of them.   Soleil had the length of oiled cloth.  Russet had stolen the bow and arrows right before they left.

They'd never planned for being split up.

"Not bad,"  mused Iris, looking it all over while Crystal forced herself to sip and not guzzle.  "Whoever owned this other pack,  we should say a prayer for them tonight.  Their stuff may keep us alive."

Crystal held water in her mouth for a few moments, savoring the feel of it against her tongue after so long, then swallowed.  "You can pray if you want," she said roughly.  "I never will again."  Not after what happened.

"The gods aren't to blame."

"They didn't help either."

Iris was smart enough not to argue.  Instead she said, "Why haven't you searched the cabin yet?"

"There's something in there."   The water was gone, and Crystal already wanted more.  Patience, she told her body.   "Something really weird.  Not an animal, not a Grimm...it's like something out of Russet's stories."

"That's..."  Iris trailed off before saying impossible.   "If you're describing it like that, then I'm really curious.  And creeped out."   She took Crystal's stick and walked up to the window.  Cautiously, she tapped twice on the glass.

"Aieee!"  She leaped backward,  falling on her butt and wriggling backwards much as Crystal had done.  

"Stay calm.  It can't get out.  I don't think it's even tried."  Crystal watched her sister take deep breaths,  visibly repeating "In. Out." to herself much like she had last night.   She tried to project steady reassurance.  "This is still the best place to wait for the others.  And now there's two of us to keep watch.  We can do this."

"...Right.  You're right, Crystal. As usual."   Iris scrambled to her feet and picked up the fallen stick.   "Actually, I thought I saw something else."  She approached the window again and peered in, this time without tapping.   Then she went very still.

A minute passed.  It felt like ten.   "Iris?"  Crystal said eventually.  Carefully, calmly.  "What do you see?"

"It's a person."    Finally Iris backed away again, shaking her head.  "There's a person trapped in there."

"That's impossible."   The vines growing through the hinges were years-thick.

"It's wearing clothes."

There was nothing to say to that.  So they didn't.  Iris cut more branches and gourds out of the garden, and Crystal toasted pieces of the sweet orange flesh on sticks.   Several more trips to the river quenched their thirst and eventually required a latrine trench, dug in the earth with hands and their knives.   They built the fire higher this time.   Neither of them mentioned Soleil or Russet, or the past, or the future.

For the hundredth time,  Crystal thought about how different life in the city must be.  Behind those great stone walls with hundreds of guards it would be safe to talk about anything.  To scream, cry, rage, shout at each other until you'd both gotten all the terrible feelings out.   To be as afraid or sad as strongly as you needed for as long as you needed it.  

In the city,  their mother would have survived.

As the sun began to set, Iris left off digging in the garden and pried a board out  of the sagging fence around the clearing.  She laid it down flat by the fire and began to arrange things on it:  her cup, two-thirds full,  several pieces of toasted gourd, one square of hard bread from the stranger's pack.

"What are you doing?"

"I've been thinking," said Iris, staring down at the makeshift tray.  "To stay here tonight and not be afraid, I have to think it's a person.   And if it's a person, then they need help."

Oh, no.  "Can't we test that theory in the middle of the day? Maybe when I'm able to run?"  

"I can't wait that long.  I'm going to do it now, before it gets dark."   Helplessly,  Crystal watched her sister walk away with the food.  Fear twisted in her gut;  breathe, she ordered herself.  In, out.   She'd been lucky yesterday, when she first saw the thing in the cabin and it had taken hours to get her feelings under control.   They couldn't count on luck holding.

Iris put the tray down by the door and got to work on the hinges with her knife.  The vines must've been softer than they looked; it was only a few minutes until she took hold of the doorknob, breathed in and out and in and out, squared her shoulders and pulled.

The door creaked open with a puff of dust everywhere;  Crystal could see it settling on the food, and hoped that cryptids weren't too fussy.  There, framed in the doorway, sat the thing.

Iris had been right. It was wearing clothes,  a shirt and pants so old they were disintegrating and much too large for it. A vest that looked like leather had held up somewhat better.  The thing had a beard, a long scraggly white one, and a balding head poking out of a  fuzzy halo of pale hair.  It blinked at Iris and said nothing at all.

She coughed, waving away the dust with a hand.  "Sorry.  Um.  Hello,  sir.   My name is Iris.  I'm on a journey to the city, and I'm waiting for my sisters.  This is my other sister Crystal."  She pointed, and the thing turned its head and looked directly at Crystal.   She raised her hand and wiggled the fingers in a tremulous wave.

I will never ever doubt Iris' nerve again, she thought.

"We made some food for you,"  continued Iris doggedly.  "It's not much, but it's what we could find.  I hope it's okay for us to stay here until our sisters arrive. "  

She moved the tray directly in front of the thing, nearly touching it - Crystal caught her breath - and backed away.   After a few moments it reached out a long-nailed hand, very slowly, and picked up the leather cup.    Iris nodded.  

"Okay. We'll bring you more tomorrow.  Good night, sir."  Iris jogged back to the fire, only a little too fast to be casual,and sat down with a sigh of relief.

"Crystal, it's just a man. He looks almost starved to death.  He can't have the strength to hurt anyone."

"But that's - impossible."  She'd circled the cabin yesterday and seen no other exit.  "How could he have survived?"

"I don't know."    

They sat in silence and practiced calm breathing until moonrise.   This time Crystal was able to make herself look outward for Grimm during her watch, even if she did occasionally glance back over her shoulder.   She didn't suggest closing the cabin door again, although she wanted to.  

Later, she lay with fingers in her ears, trying not to hear Iris praying.   "Lord of the Waters, Lady of the Broken Moon, thank you for your blessings.  We're grateful for the strangers we meet and the gifts they leave us; teach us to be kind to strangers in our turn."

Something much older heard as well, and was thoughtful.

The next morning, when Iris brought more water,  the man rasped out words for the first time.

"Thank you."

#rwby #marithlizard writing

[marithlizard]

Distracted myself from medical woes all night by thinking about what I wish Ruby had said in RWBY v6E8, when Jaune attacks Oscar.  (Maybe some of it will get said in v7 - I hope so.) 

In solidarity with @ozpin-defense-squad.   Crossposted to AO3, because why not. 

“How much longer can we trust him? How do we even know it’s really him? What if we’ve been talking to that liar this whole time?” 

“Stop it!  Just stop it!”

Ruby led with her shoulder as Ozpin had taught her, slamming into Jaune and knocking him off-balance.  Oscar slumped down against the wall, panting, and closed his eyes.

“He’s not WRONG, you know.”  said Nora from behind her.  Even without looking Ruby knew the expression that would be on her face:  jaw set mulishly,  eyes sparking as though hoping a thundercloud would materialize right above her head.  

She looked around at everyone. Yang folded her arms and scowled. Blake’s ears drooped.  Ren stood behind Nora, impassive as usual.  Weiss had her hands clenched in her lap, and she looked as though she was biting back whatever she wanted to say.  Oscar was looking from face to face too, flinching a little each time someone failed to meet his eyes.  And Jaune - one of the kindest and most earnest people she’d ever known - looked as though he wanted to throw another punch. 

She was glad the Cotta-Arcs weren’t here to see what was happening in their living room.  She should be glad Uncle Qrow wasn’t here either, with what he’d been like lately. But she wasn’t glad. Her friends and family weren’t on her side right now.  

And that was just dumb. 

“I’m angry too,”  she said.  “We’re all angry, we don’t know what to do next or if we can ever trust Professor Ozpin again, and we’re scared of what’s happening to Oscar.  He’s more scared than any of us.”

Everyone looked at Oscar, who looked at the floor.  His hands clenched on air as though trying to grip a cane that wasn’t there for comfort.  He’d given it to Weiss without a word as soon as they arrived in Argus; now it sat in one of her suitcases.  

“But if, if we don’t stick together and trust each other, we’ll be making the same mistakes he did.”  

“Ruby,” said Ren.  “I admire how you trust and see the good in everyone.  But life doesn’t always make that possible.”  Nora reached back and took his hand. 

“But - “

“If we’d fully trusted Headmaster Lionheart, how would things have worked out?  If Yang had trusted her mother?”  Ren shook his head.  “Sometimes…it hurts, but strategy keeps you alive to win the battle, not sentiment.”

“Well, someone was paying attention in Oobleck’s lectures.”  Yang gave Ren a nod.  “I’ve got nothing against you, Oscar, but that guy’s in your head, and right now I’m questioning everything he ever said to us.”

“Surely that’s going a little far,” put in Weiss, and for a moment Ruby’s heart lifted.  “He created the Huntsmen and Huntresses.   He’s taught us a lot.  He’s not an enemy.”

Yang just repeated, “Question. Everything,”  She and Weiss exchanged a look Ruby couldn’t read.  

“I’ll never forgive him for Pyrrha.”  Jaune shook his head slowly.  “Maybe…I’m starting to think maybe Hazel had a point.”

“I get it!”  Oscar snapped.  “I do.  Where should I go then? You can’t just leave me in Argus, can you?  I might be a danger to your family.”    He’d never even raised his voice in Ruby’s memory, and there was something awful about the edge to it now. 

“That’s not what I -“

“It is what you meant!”

“QUIET, all of you!”

Maria Calavera stood in the doorway, the twinkling fairy lights of the garden behind her, radiating a forceful authority that had nothing to do with her tiny frame.  Everyone shut up at once. 

“Even outside I can hear you all!  Is this how a team of Huntsmen and Huntresses should behave?  If we weren’t in a city, you’d be calling Grimm down on us right and left!”

“Sorry,” said Ruby meekly.  The tension in the air seemed to lighten a little as everyone looked slightly abashed. 

Maria coughed and thumped her staff on the floor.  “Since I had to hear all your opinions,  I think perhaps it’s time you listened to mine.  I don’t know this Professor Ozpin like you do, but after seeing what Jinn had to say I’ve been doing some thinking.  And I’ve thought up a thought experiment for you all to try.”

Nora rolled her eyes, but sat down with a huff.   Ren sat down next to her.  “What is it?”

Even a very short time spent with Maria had taught them all not to cross her.  She could be like a tart version of Glynda Goodwitch; the two of them would probably get along.

“Imagine that you’re out on a mission, and someone you want to protect tumbles off a cliff.  You were able to throw them a rope, but there’s nothing to tie the other end to, and you don’t have enough strength or leverage to pull them up.  No help around. All your powers and fancy school training aren’t enough.  You don’t even have a plan.”

Maria’s eyes clicked and whirred as she looked at each of them in turn.  “Strategy tells you you can’t save this person.  Do you let go?  What do you do, hunters?”

“You’d…hang on and call for help,”  whispered Jaune after an uncomfortable silence.

“That’s right.  You’d call out to anyone who might hear, and somehow I don’t think you’d phrase it as “I need help, but just so you know, it might be impossible.”   Time would pass.  Some people would try to help and give up.  Maybe some would fall over the cliff themselves.  And many more would just…pass on by. “

Weiss flinched.  Blake put an arm around her shoulders, without taking her own eyes away from Maria. 

“This Ozma person has been hanging on for longer than any of us can imagine,  trying to keep the whole world from falling.  From the sound of it he’s made some bad choices. Not given you all enough credit.  On the other hand, his arms are probably getting pretty tired by now.  Harder to think straight, when you’re pushed past your limit.”

“…Yeah.” Jaune took a breath, and Ruby could hear the lump in his throat.  “Yeah.”

“He still hasn’t let go,” said Blake. “He’s still there waiting.  How did we not see?”

“He’s too proud,” said Oscar.  “And kind of a jerk sometimes.”  His eyes were shining, though.

“He’s waiting for us,”  said Ruby.  “We’re going to be the ones to finish this.  Jinn told him he couldn’t stop Salem, but she didn’t say anything about us.”

“Magical creatures are known to be very tricky about their wording,”  said Ren. 

“Well,” said Yang.  “If we’re gonna pull the world up,  we’re gonna need some more rope.”

“A LOT more,”  muttered Nora.  But she didn’t say no. 

#rwby #rwby vol6 #ozpin appreciation #marithlizard writing

[marithlizard]

Four sisters on a journey, and someone they meet.  (3/4 done!) 

#rwby #marithlizard writing