Who: Qrow & various people What: December catch-all When: Throughout December Where: Around town, in memories, Trench Silent Hill, etc [ooc: starters in the comments! if you'd like something specific, pls hit me up on plurk or discord to plot!]
[Sudden freak blizzards aren't entirely a new experience, having previously lived in Deerington, but they sure are inconvenient. Qrow had ducked into the nearest building when it had struck, not wanting to mess around with trying his luck in the storm and winding up a popsicle because the town shut his Aura off or some similar nonsense, but he didn't actually expect the whole building would become so heavily buried in snow it'd be impossible to get back out. And then there's that deeply suspicious scratching...
This might as well happen, he supposes. He pulls Harbinger off his back, letting it transform into its proper scythe form as he kicks in the door, expecting some kind of monster to jump out...and raising an eyebrow in confusion when what appears is some kind of tunnel.]
Well, this is new.
[And, he has a sneaking suspicion, the only way out. He sighs, before turning to whoever might be trapped in here with him.]
Guess the town wants us to go spelunking. Might as well get on with it, c'mon.
[Ruby's just as quick to pull out her own weapon. She keeps it in rifle mode though to back up her uncle as they look down into the tunnel that's opened up before them.
Of course, a harmless day out couldn't just go as planned. It was only natural for the Xiao Long-Rose-Branwen family for things to a little chaotic. ]
You want to race to the bottom? Or actually play this a little safe?
Yeah, we kick butts fair and square in this house.
[That is, of course, the last thing on his mind here, but it's nice to joke about it a little. There's very few people with whom he feels comfortable doing so, after all. He climbs on in after Ruby, peering around at the maze of tunnels ahead. It sure does seem real easy to get lost down here, so not racing definitely feels like the right choice after all.]
Dibs, huh? Poor Harbinger'll feel so left out.
[Making him hold back is CRUEL and UNUSUAL gosh!!]
[Okay, so, a lot of things have just happened in very quick succession and now Fiddleford is having to rapid-fire sort through them as he thinks of a response.
This guy he definitely recognizes (they fought, didn't they? In a situation similar to this? Was that real or nonsense bullshit Trench magic?) just turned a giant fucking sword into a giant fucking scythe, kicked a door in, and is now inviting him into an unknown dark tunnel in the same way someone might invite him out to lunch. That's a lot to deal with. He decides to tackle the most pressing part first.]
With all due respect I figure anything the town wants us to do, we ought to avoid.
[Qrow raises an eyebrow. On the one hand, there is a certain moxie in simply thumbing your nose to the Pthumerians and being willing to accept the consequences. On the other, Qrow has been in Deerington and Trench both too long to care for unnecessary trouble. If they stay up here, they are not getting out. He's sure of that much. After a moment, he sighs.]
I mean, if you wanna freeze to death out here, be my guest.
[He's not...moving to leave him behind, though. At least not just yet.]
[When you've got a lot of nose to thumb it sometimes seems like a better option.]
In fairness I don't know if I can freeze to death anymore.
[Is he Ford Pines enough to gamble on it, though? Fiddleford is also the kind of guy who likes to not die, and he can see the sense in taking possible death over definite death. One of his feet taps nervously on the floor. If they fought before either he is misremembering, it didn't really happen, or this guy is being magnanimous enough to overlook it in a life or death situation. Something something gift horse something something mouth.]
The scene within lands in the hallways of a school. This time, the boy isn't alone. There's three others alongside him--a girl with the same dark hair and crimson eyes, a young blonde boy with blue eyes and a laugh that's infectious despite his terrible puns. Another girl with dark hair, but hers has reddish streaks to it, and her eyes are a haunting silver. The latter two are the most outgoing, the type to drag their more reticent friends into conversations and adventures. Right now, there appears to be some kind of arm wrestling match going on between the boys, the silver eyed girl cheering on both competitors as the crimson eyed girl teases her brother not to embarrass her.
{You don't remember when it happened. Which moment it was, if it was during your continuously escalating prank war with Tai or the time Summer made you a cape because you mentioned you liked hers or the training mission where you killed a pack of Grimm together. But at some point you realized -- these people were your family. More than the Branwens ever were. You want them to be in your life, forever. You want to be like them, for real, rather than just pretending. You want to be a Huntsman, not just some murderous bandit. Raven feels the same, doesn't she? She has to. You've seen the way she looks at Tai. She...has to.}
A teacher appears in that same hall, a blond woman with her hair in a bun and a sharp sternness behind her glasses. Scolds them all that they're late to class and they scurry off with various degrees of sheepishness, leaving you alone in the empty hall as the memory fades.
The memory brings you to a house. A cozy little log cabin with sunflowers growing in the front yard. The sun shines high in the sky with soft fluffy clouds in the air. Everything seems idyllic and peaceful .... and it's in sharp contrast to the two men standing before it. One with black hair and the beginnings of stubble shakes his head as he reaches the door, expression drawn with grief and resignation. It's enough to snuff out the sole glimmer of hope in the blond man's expression, and he stares down at the ground instead.
"Tai, I....I don't think we're going to find her."
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know."
"When should we tell them?"
"...I can look for her again. One more time. And then--"
Inside, two little girls remain soundly asleep. It's early in the morning, still. And you're deciding how and when to turn their worlds upside down. Even knowing it can't be your fault, it feels like the largest misfortune you've brought yet. It's just not fair.
The memory brings you to an inn, this time. Rain batters the windows as a familiar man sits indoors, staring into the lantern-light lost in thought. A waitress interrupts him with a drink he didn't pay for, and he's confused for just a moment until she says it's from a woman upstairs with red eyes. He looks up, giving the second floor a baleful glance. It's obvious he knows who the woman is, and he is at the least not entirely enthusiastic about going to see her--by the look of him, he expects a fraught conversation at best.
The waitress flirts with him, and he stares after her at first, but once she's gone, he sighs, picking up the glass as he stands, reluctantly heading to the staircase.
A near mirror image of him awaits upstairs, greeting him with an expression perhaps too sharp to really be called a smile.
It starts at the entrance to a large building. A nervous-looking man stands on a sort of dais as Qrow walks in alongside several teenagers.
The man--Leo--starts to act more and more squirrelly as the conversation continues, apparently uncomfortable with both the number of teens present and the fact that they are armed. Qrow, the one adult in the group, looks increasingly impatient with the pleasantries and cuts them off with a crabby demand to know whether or not they would be receiving support from "the council", but Leo doesn't get the opportunity to answer before one of the teens notices a little black bird perched on a railing, and calls it to it as her mom.
Qrow fires a shot to see if he provokes a reaction; indeed, the bird touches down on the ground and becomes a woman -- one that looks practically a mirror image of him.
"If you're going to shoot me, shoot me. That was insulting."
"What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing. You've been scheming, little brother," she responds, that particular cadence to "little" that might be recognizable to one familiar with having a twin, "Planning to attack your own sister."
He doesn't deny the accusation, yet all the same, he looks shocked, turning to face the man on the dais as though betrayed.
"Leo, what have you done?!"
The woman answers for him; he remains silent, as though ashamed. Qrow makes one last ditch attempt to get her to reconsider, to work together--we can beat Salem, he entreats--but she won't have it.
"All that time spent spying for Ozpin, and you still have no idea what you're dealing with. There is no beating Salem."
It's Ruby that interrupts, then, with her own impassioned speech about the impossible things they've all accomplished because they weren't alone.
"Work with us. At least I know we'll have a better chance if we try together. ...Please."
All the woman has to offer in response is contempt. "You sound just like your mother."
And then she opens a portal behind her, a fireball launched at Ruby before four figures emerge from it. Three of Salem's minions and a fourth unknown. A fifth steps in from behind to close the door behind everyone, lock them in.
(This was all a trap. Leo is a traitor...and so is your sister.)
"Sorry, brother. Sometimes family disappoints you like that," drawls her voice, dripping ice and poison.
(There's the familiar burn of exertion in your muscles as your blades clang and clash in deadlock, refusing to lose ground but failing to gain any -- but the more painful burn is in your chest. You were a fool for hoping she might ever come around. Did you ever really know her at all?)
"We're not family anymore."
"Were we ever?"
Maybe not. Maybe it was stupid to have thought they could've built something better than what the bandits had to give them.
Maul recognizes Ruby and Qrow right off the bat in the memory given how much experience he's had with both of them in Trench. Not that he's bothered to speak to Qrow since the last time he was witness to one of the man's memories. (Really, it seems like the only time he interacts with some people around here that he really hates is specifically for memory-sharing.)
It's easy to put together that the woman must be a blood relative of Qrow's given their close resemblance to one another and Maul is already guessing sister as she talks. He watches the conversation go on and shakes his head, anger that's directed towards the woman as she goes on. He can't fathom it, having family betray him like that. (Well, Sidious did, but Sidious was a monstrous sociopath, and therefore was an exception to the rule.)
Maul's family means everything to him. If one of them had betrayed him like this, it would have shattered him to his very core. "If my brother had done this to me, I don't think I would have let him go on living," Maul says softly. Not that Savage will ever do such a thing to his older brother. The two of them have been through too much together to ever think of stabbing the other in the back.
When Paul touches the antler of a Winter Mourning, he winds up....in a place he won't recognize. He stands before a little log cabin with sunflowers in the planters outside the window. It's obviously a rural sort of area -- there are no other houses immediately around, or much of anything beyond the nearby woods.
The stillness is disrupted by the approach of a middle aged man in a tattered red cloak; almost as soon as he approaches the door does a little girl burst from the doorway -- a much younger Ruby, as it turns out. And another, slightly older girl, with bright blond hair stands some feet away. They greet him as Uncle Qrow.
He asks the older one about a man named 'Tai', apparently their father, and upon the answer, promptly changes the subject. It's a beautiful day for a picnic, after all.
Paul knows who Qrow is. He's heard of him in passing, glimpsed him during occasional visits to Oscar's home before it burned, and once, memorably, faced him down with the other students after leaping off a clocktower at the behest of a man Paul still thinks of, vaguely, as their informal House's leader.
He's never seen him like this, and he's never seen Ruby like that - his first thought, before anything else, is that she's one of the most adorable children he's ever seen. It's strange to reconcile her with the merry but fearsome Huntress she's grown into.
Yang. It feels like a name he's heard before. Tai, he hasn't, but it isn't as though he's asked Ruby for her family tree. It took him a while to work out Ozpin wasn't her father in the first place; further inquiry felt risky. All of these fleeting thoughts skate by in less than a second, revolving around the realization that hit him immediately after he noted Ruby's precocious cuteness: something is wrong here, beautiful day or not.
Paul looks between Qrow and Ruby, and decides to start with him. He raises his hand in a silent wave, and for once in one of these memories, he also realizes he hardly looks out of place with his own modified Hunter's garb.
Qrow blinks at first, when the outsider arrives, as though the presence of someone who doesn't belong is what makes him aware that he's within a memory. It takes him a moment to place the face; he's seen Paul around, of course, but they've never actually talked. All things considered, it could be a more awkward introduction. This is far from the most painful or invasive memory he's had displayed, after all. In fact, apart from the quiet grief on display here, it really is a peaceful, beautiful day.
Nonetheless, it does take him a moment to gather himself for the personal questions that are sure to follow, before he raises his own arm in greeting.
[When the sirens clear, what emerges is certainly Trench but it's -- off. The streets were never lined with so many empty alcohol bottles, for one thing. Nor were there burnt rose petals scattered about the place, entirely too many to be sheer, strange, coincidence. Perhaps most eerie of all is the occasional unique weapon laying around in various states of disrepair, bearing strange symbols that have the quality of a signature about them.
If you are not properly armed yourself, though, it might be worth picking one up. Because it's not long before the Grimm appear, tar-black monsters with masks and various protrusions of bone white, accented in bloody crimson. These will attempt to charge at you, to gore you, to rip you apart from limb to limb. They're mindless, powered by sheer destructive will, and drawn to anything with a soul in general and the presence of negative emotion in particular. Most are straightforward to fight, and will crumble into ash when killed -- but some are especially dangerous. The Chill, for instance, which possesses its victims, and the Apathy, which drain your will to live. But take heart; if you are in an inescapable situation with these monsters, perhaps the light of a Silver-Eyed warrior will come to your rescue...though you will never get a good look at them before they disappear from sight.
These are far from the only threats you'll face here, though. The outer areas of Trench--Trenchwood, Feed, Ache, and Shiver--have become bandit territory. These people have one rule, and one rule only: the strong survive, the weak die. They are vicious, persistent, and will do whatever it takes to gain the upper hand in a fight, no matter how dirty or underhanded it might be. Sometimes, you might even get ambushed in the commercial districts like Willful Machine or Cellar Door. Those are places that are full of distractions, after all.
But even "safer" districts aren't necessarily safe. In Cassandra, Crenshaw, and especially Prufrock, you may suddenly find wanted posters with your face on them, as soldiers in in navy and white uniforms come after you. These ones are both easier and harder to fight; they are not as vicious as the bandits, but they have more powerful weapons, and there seems to be a never ending stream of them. If you're captured by the soldiers, you will be dragged off to the Gate to be locked away with the Beasts. It's the only way to keep Trench safe, they say.]
( It isn't the first time that Peter's found himself in something like Trench, but different. Wrong. His first thought is that he's right back where he was last time, the version of Trench with rolling black fog and impassioned cries of Riteoir rising from the streets. Beasts prowling too close into the city. He's lucky he survived last time.
However, it soon enough becomes clear that this might be something... different. The little things are there — he stumbles over empty bottles and so many burnt rose petals, but it isn't until a monster comes for him that he begins to think this might be something else. The thing is big and an awful shiny black, and Peter can't run fast enough. The process of being brought into this place must be affecting the demon inside of him, for Paimon doesn't surface to protect him. Not even when Peter cries out his name in desperation, something he's so rarely done; the ancient demon that haunts Peter frightens him almost as much as the beast he faces now.
He's alone. He's alone and the thing has him cornered, and he thinks he's going to die.
And then someone — or something — else is there. Peter barely comprehends what's happening, only sees quick flashes of movement as the figure slashes a weapon at the beast, which crumples into ash. He sees a flicker of silver and they're gone, as quickly as they came, and the young man is left leaning weakly against the brick of a nearby building, panting against the panic that was swelling up in his chest, trying to talk himself down from it.
There's a thought through his horrified daze, and it makes a strange kind of sense. The rose petals. The beast... he's seen something similar to that before. And the silver eyes.
Ruby?
From there, Peter makes his way through this alternate version of the city, something that's even more of a hellscape than it usually is. Is Ruby... here? Was that her? Could he be in one of her memories? He doesn't know where to go, how to find her, what to do. So he just wanders, sticking close to buildings and moving slow and quiet. He keeps huddled down as short as he can, willing his six-foot frame and long limbs to take up as little space as possible, shuddering as he moves.
After a while of moving through the city, he catches movement up ahead and flinches, almost convulsively. Until he realises it's a person, and Peter's eyes go wide, heart pounding in his chest as he calls out. )
[It's not Ruby who answers, but the figure that turns as he's called out to does bear a ... striking aesthetic similarity, not least because he's also wielding a scythe. The kid looks familiar--Qrow has seen him around before, at the rebuilding of his house and at Ruby's wedding--though he can't bring the kid's name to mind, if he ever knew it at all. He raises a faint eyebrow at the boy's terrified expression, though. There's something faintly uncomfortable in it -- when he was young, the fear of others made him feel powerful, useful, even. The strong survive, the weak die. Those were the rules.
Qrow isn't above intimidating others now, if there's a pressing need for it, but most of the time his enemies are unhinged enough that there's little point in doing more than dispatching them as efficiently as he can. To see some kid afraid of him for no apparent reason settles uneasily within him.]
Chill out, kid, I don't bite. [A beat, then a shit-eating grin] Well, not most people, anyway.
[when he first sees the alcohol bottles he isn't as shocked as he should be. it's a fair (if slightly low) blow for trench to take, but the sirens indicate it's not quite trench, it's ...that distorted thing that's not quite a dream either - and that's enough to set him more on edge.
he bends to pick up a handful of burnt petals, pocketing them with a bit of curiosity alongside the dread. lying amongst them is a pistol - though he's not sure what kind of gun it is beyond that - he's not a gun person, not really, but he picks it up (because he's not a fighter, either, and he couldn't begin to fuck someone up with karate) and ...well, just kind of stares at it not knowing where to put it.
wait, what's that?
ah, he has a holster now. cool. he's got a gun pocket, but it's not like he can manifest skill, so he's still shit out of luck, there.
no, he's shit out of luck in a different way. because that's ...not friendly looking, and it's headed in his direction. his first impulse is to hide, and he ducks into an alleyway - smoke bursting from his chest as his omen speeds out and away in an attempt to distract the grimm. she's fast, and she's unafraid, but she's also very small.]
[The shriek of a Grimm is one Qrow knows down to his very bones, enough so that he could likely tell them apart at a distance like a skilled ornithologist could songbirds. So of course, when Qrow hears one, he's on his way immediately. Mike, having ducked into an alley, misses out on the moment in which an apparently otherwise normal bird touches down as a man and pulls a huge sword off his back which proceeds to transform into a an even more massive scythe.
He does, however, get to experience all sorts of alarming sounds in full clarity, before the creature lets out one final shriek and then falls silent. Should Mike find it safe to peek out of the alley once quiet falls again, he won't see a monster corpse out there, as it has already crumbled into ash. Instead, there's only a scruffy middle-aged man with a massive scythe hoisted over his shoulder peering over at him.
The man gestures with a hand at the omen, which seems to be overall uninjured despite having pulled distraction duty for the first minute or so before his arrival.]
[There are exactly three places in this Other Trench that are safe. One of them is the newly rebuilt Clockhouse, in Gaze. There are still-warm cups of cocoa set up before comfy couches in the study, and freshly made casseroles in the kitchen. The living room has a television playing various ridiculous action movies.
The second is Pandora House, on the outskirts of Trench near the Sanguine Graveyard. The only way in is through a small bird-shaped door, but somehow you fit just fine. There's tea steeping on the stove and bowls of spicy snacks in various locations, and a door scratched with pecks from a bird opens out to a linen closet where you can find fresh sheets for a nice nap in the bedroom. The sound of Disney music can be heard from every room in the house.
The last isn't really a location that exists in the usual Trench, but it's possible to find a random door that leads somewhere else--opening out to a school. There's a cafeteria, a courtyard with a nice fountain to enjoy, and the dorms to catch a nice nap. The auditorium and classrooms aren't accessible, but it's still a comfortable place to rest while dodging monsters.
And the butterflies that lead you to each place? Golden, rather than blue.]
[the chances of mike wandering into a safehouse are slim, and it's with a bit of dread he enters this building - he's had it with buildings - he is suspicious just now of buildings, especially when they're nestled in foggy places that look like a burned out shell of trench proper.
he goes through the door because it is bird-shaped, and this is a silly feelings based decision that would make as much sense as avoiding a wolf-shaped door, but this is what he chooses, and though he flinches at the music ...it eventually seems to be benign. no re-set, no strange lyrics that reflect isolation or dread - just the regular songs, a good many of which he knows, remembers, and which both comfort him and make him sad.
he also helps himself to some tea. tea has become a comfort, too.]
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trapped in the snow - open
This might as well happen, he supposes. He pulls Harbinger off his back, letting it transform into its proper scythe form as he kicks in the door, expecting some kind of monster to jump out...and raising an eyebrow in confusion when what appears is some kind of tunnel.]
Well, this is new.
[And, he has a sneaking suspicion, the only way out. He sighs, before turning to whoever might be trapped in here with him.]
Guess the town wants us to go spelunking. Might as well get on with it, c'mon.
Re: trapped in the snow - open
Of course, a harmless day out couldn't just go as planned. It was only natural for the Xiao Long-Rose-Branwen family for things to a little chaotic. ]
You want to race to the bottom? Or actually play this a little safe?
oops i thought i tagged this already
Mm, looks like it's a bit of a cramped space.
[in other words, prime conditions for Misfortune]
Maybe when we're further in?
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[Ruby gives him a little nudge with her elbow.]
Well I wouldn't beat you because you got stuck. That'd almost be cheating.
[She moves and takes point though as she starts to climb into the opening.]
I'll hold you to that- also dibs on whatever monster tries to kill us first.
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[That is, of course, the last thing on his mind here, but it's nice to joke about it a little. There's very few people with whom he feels comfortable doing so, after all. He climbs on in after Ruby, peering around at the maze of tunnels ahead. It sure does seem real easy to get lost down here, so not racing definitely feels like the right choice after all.]
Dibs, huh? Poor Harbinger'll feel so left out.
[Making him hold back is CRUEL and UNUSUAL gosh!!]
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This guy he definitely recognizes (they fought, didn't they? In a situation similar to this? Was that real or nonsense bullshit Trench magic?) just turned a giant fucking sword into a giant fucking scythe, kicked a door in, and is now inviting him into an unknown dark tunnel in the same way someone might invite him out to lunch. That's a lot to deal with. He decides to tackle the most pressing part first.]
With all due respect I figure anything the town wants us to do, we ought to avoid.
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I mean, if you wanna freeze to death out here, be my guest.
[He's not...moving to leave him behind, though. At least not just yet.]
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In fairness I don't know if I can freeze to death anymore.
[Is he Ford Pines enough to gamble on it, though? Fiddleford is also the kind of guy who likes to not die, and he can see the sense in taking possible death over definite death. One of his feet taps nervously on the floor. If they fought before either he is misremembering, it didn't really happen, or this guy is being magnanimous enough to overlook it in a life or death situation. Something something gift horse something something mouth.]
Probably shouldn't test it now. Alright. Fine.
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cw: brain altering, lost time, cult shit, you know the drill
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cw: internalized homophobia because 1970s america, unreality/lost time
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cw: arguably self harm, more memory issues stuff
cw: reference to alcoholism
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winter mournings
the coolest team to ever graduate beacon
A teacher appears in that same hall, a blond woman with her hair in a bun and a sharp sternness behind her glasses. Scolds them all that they're late to class and they scurry off with various degrees of sheepishness, leaving you alone in the empty hall as the memory fades.
red like roses
"Tai, I....I don't think we're going to find her."
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know."
"When should we tell them?"
"...I can look for her again. One more time. And then--"
Inside, two little girls remain soundly asleep. It's early in the morning, still. And you're deciding how and when to turn their worlds upside down. Even knowing it can't be your fault, it feels like the largest misfortune you've brought yet. It's just not fair.
family reunion
The waitress flirts with him, and he stares after her at first, but once she's gone, he sighs, picking up the glass as he stands, reluctantly heading to the staircase.
A near mirror image of him awaits upstairs, greeting him with an expression perhaps too sharp to really be called a smile.
"Hello, Brother."
double trouble
The man--Leo--starts to act more and more squirrelly as the conversation continues, apparently uncomfortable with both the number of teens present and the fact that they are armed. Qrow, the one adult in the group, looks increasingly impatient with the pleasantries and cuts them off with a crabby demand to know whether or not they would be receiving support from "the council", but Leo doesn't get the opportunity to answer before one of the teens notices a little black bird perched on a railing, and calls it to it as her mom.
Qrow fires a shot to see if he provokes a reaction; indeed, the bird touches down on the ground and becomes a woman -- one that looks practically a mirror image of him.
"If you're going to shoot me, shoot me. That was insulting."
"What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing. You've been scheming, little brother," she responds, that particular cadence to "little" that might be recognizable to one familiar with having a twin, "Planning to attack your own sister."
He doesn't deny the accusation, yet all the same, he looks shocked, turning to face the man on the dais as though betrayed.
"Leo, what have you done?!"
The woman answers for him; he remains silent, as though ashamed. Qrow makes one last ditch attempt to get her to reconsider, to work together--we can beat Salem, he entreats--but she won't have it.
"All that time spent spying for Ozpin, and you still have no idea what you're dealing with. There is no beating Salem."
It's Ruby that interrupts, then, with her own impassioned speech about the impossible things they've all accomplished because they weren't alone.
"Work with us. At least I know we'll have a better chance if we try together. ...Please."
All the woman has to offer in response is contempt. "You sound just like your mother."
And then she opens a portal behind her, a fireball launched at Ruby before four figures emerge from it. Three of Salem's minions and a fourth unknown. A fifth steps in from behind to close the door behind everyone, lock them in.
(This was all a trap. Leo is a traitor...and so is your sister.)
"Sorry, brother. Sometimes family disappoints you like that," drawls her voice, dripping ice and poison.
(There's the familiar burn of exertion in your muscles as your blades clang and clash in deadlock, refusing to lose ground but failing to gain any -- but the more painful burn is in your chest. You were a fool for hoping she might ever come around. Did you ever really know her at all?)
"We're not family anymore."
"Were we ever?"
Maybe not. Maybe it was stupid to have thought they could've built something better than what the bandits had to give them.
"I thought so, but I guess I was wrong."
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It's easy to put together that the woman must be a blood relative of Qrow's given their close resemblance to one another and Maul is already guessing sister as she talks. He watches the conversation go on and shakes his head, anger that's directed towards the woman as she goes on. He can't fathom it, having family betray him like that. (Well, Sidious did, but Sidious was a monstrous sociopath, and therefore was an exception to the rule.)
Maul's family means everything to him. If one of them had betrayed him like this, it would have shattered him to his very core. "If my brother had done this to me, I don't think I would have let him go on living," Maul says softly. Not that Savage will ever do such a thing to his older brother. The two of them have been through too much together to ever think of stabbing the other in the back.
closed to paul
The stillness is disrupted by the approach of a middle aged man in a tattered red cloak; almost as soon as he approaches the door does a little girl burst from the doorway -- a much younger Ruby, as it turns out. And another, slightly older girl, with bright blond hair stands some feet away. They greet him as Uncle Qrow.
He asks the older one about a man named 'Tai', apparently their father, and upon the answer, promptly changes the subject. It's a beautiful day for a picnic, after all.
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He's never seen him like this, and he's never seen Ruby like that - his first thought, before anything else, is that she's one of the most adorable children he's ever seen. It's strange to reconcile her with the merry but fearsome Huntress she's grown into.
Yang. It feels like a name he's heard before. Tai, he hasn't, but it isn't as though he's asked Ruby for her family tree. It took him a while to work out Ozpin wasn't her father in the first place; further inquiry felt risky. All of these fleeting thoughts skate by in less than a second, revolving around the realization that hit him immediately after he noted Ruby's precocious cuteness: something is wrong here, beautiful day or not.
Paul looks between Qrow and Ruby, and decides to start with him. He raises his hand in a silent wave, and for once in one of these memories, he also realizes he hardly looks out of place with his own modified Hunter's garb.
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Nonetheless, it does take him a moment to gather himself for the personal questions that are sure to follow, before he raises his own arm in greeting.
“Yo. Paul, right?”
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trench silent hill
atmosphere/monsters
If you are not properly armed yourself, though, it might be worth picking one up. Because it's not long before the Grimm appear, tar-black monsters with masks and various protrusions of bone white, accented in bloody crimson. These will attempt to charge at you, to gore you, to rip you apart from limb to limb. They're mindless, powered by sheer destructive will, and drawn to anything with a soul in general and the presence of negative emotion in particular. Most are straightforward to fight, and will crumble into ash when killed -- but some are especially dangerous. The Chill, for instance, which possesses its victims, and the Apathy, which drain your will to live. But take heart; if you are in an inescapable situation with these monsters, perhaps the light of a Silver-Eyed warrior will come to your rescue...though you will never get a good look at them before they disappear from sight.
These are far from the only threats you'll face here, though. The outer areas of Trench--Trenchwood, Feed, Ache, and Shiver--have become bandit territory. These people have one rule, and one rule only: the strong survive, the weak die. They are vicious, persistent, and will do whatever it takes to gain the upper hand in a fight, no matter how dirty or underhanded it might be. Sometimes, you might even get ambushed in the commercial districts like Willful Machine or Cellar Door. Those are places that are full of distractions, after all.
But even "safer" districts aren't necessarily safe. In Cassandra, Crenshaw, and especially Prufrock, you may suddenly find wanted posters with your face on them, as soldiers in in navy and white uniforms come after you. These ones are both easier and harder to fight; they are not as vicious as the bandits, but they have more powerful weapons, and there seems to be a never ending stream of them. If you're captured by the soldiers, you will be dragged off to the Gate to be locked away with the Beasts. It's the only way to keep Trench safe, they say.]
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However, it soon enough becomes clear that this might be something... different. The little things are there — he stumbles over empty bottles and so many burnt rose petals, but it isn't until a monster comes for him that he begins to think this might be something else. The thing is big and an awful shiny black, and Peter can't run fast enough. The process of being brought into this place must be affecting the demon inside of him, for Paimon doesn't surface to protect him. Not even when Peter cries out his name in desperation, something he's so rarely done; the ancient demon that haunts Peter frightens him almost as much as the beast he faces now.
He's alone. He's alone and the thing has him cornered, and he thinks he's going to die.
And then someone — or something — else is there. Peter barely comprehends what's happening, only sees quick flashes of movement as the figure slashes a weapon at the beast, which crumples into ash. He sees a flicker of silver and they're gone, as quickly as they came, and the young man is left leaning weakly against the brick of a nearby building, panting against the panic that was swelling up in his chest, trying to talk himself down from it.
There's a thought through his horrified daze, and it makes a strange kind of sense. The rose petals. The beast... he's seen something similar to that before. And the silver eyes.
Ruby?
From there, Peter makes his way through this alternate version of the city, something that's even more of a hellscape than it usually is. Is Ruby... here? Was that her? Could he be in one of her memories? He doesn't know where to go, how to find her, what to do. So he just wanders, sticking close to buildings and moving slow and quiet. He keeps huddled down as short as he can, willing his six-foot frame and long limbs to take up as little space as possible, shuddering as he moves.
After a while of moving through the city, he catches movement up ahead and flinches, almost convulsively. Until he realises it's a person, and Peter's eyes go wide, heart pounding in his chest as he calls out. )
H-Hello?
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Qrow isn't above intimidating others now, if there's a pressing need for it, but most of the time his enemies are unhinged enough that there's little point in doing more than dispatching them as efficiently as he can. To see some kid afraid of him for no apparent reason settles uneasily within him.]
Chill out, kid, I don't bite. [A beat, then a shit-eating grin] Well, not most people, anyway.
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omg he's precious...
He has some Canon Sad Uncle Feelings ;~;
awww cuuute ;;
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atmosphere/monsters
he bends to pick up a handful of burnt petals, pocketing them with a bit of curiosity alongside the dread. lying amongst them is a pistol - though he's not sure what kind of gun it is beyond that - he's not a gun person, not really, but he picks it up (because he's not a fighter, either, and he couldn't begin to fuck someone up with karate) and ...well, just kind of stares at it not knowing where to put it.
wait, what's that?
ah, he has a holster now. cool. he's got a gun pocket, but it's not like he can manifest skill, so he's still shit out of luck, there.
no, he's shit out of luck in a different way. because that's ...not friendly looking, and it's headed in his direction. his first impulse is to hide, and he ducks into an alleyway - smoke bursting from his chest as his omen speeds out and away in an attempt to distract the grimm. she's fast, and she's unafraid, but she's also very small.]
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He does, however, get to experience all sorts of alarming sounds in full clarity, before the creature lets out one final shriek and then falls silent. Should Mike find it safe to peek out of the alley once quiet falls again, he won't see a monster corpse out there, as it has already crumbled into ash. Instead, there's only a scruffy middle-aged man with a massive scythe hoisted over his shoulder peering over at him.
The man gestures with a hand at the omen, which seems to be overall uninjured despite having pulled distraction duty for the first minute or so before his arrival.]
Gonna guess this is yours?
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the safe rooms
The second is Pandora House, on the outskirts of Trench near the Sanguine Graveyard. The only way in is through a small bird-shaped door, but somehow you fit just fine. There's tea steeping on the stove and bowls of spicy snacks in various locations, and a door scratched with pecks from a bird opens out to a linen closet where you can find fresh sheets for a nice nap in the bedroom. The sound of Disney music can be heard from every room in the house.
The last isn't really a location that exists in the usual Trench, but it's possible to find a random door that leads somewhere else--opening out to a school. There's a cafeteria, a courtyard with a nice fountain to enjoy, and the dorms to catch a nice nap. The auditorium and classrooms aren't accessible, but it's still a comfortable place to rest while dodging monsters.
And the butterflies that lead you to each place? Golden, rather than blue.]
pandora house
he goes through the door because it is bird-shaped, and this is a silly feelings based decision that would make as much sense as avoiding a wolf-shaped door, but this is what he chooses, and though he flinches at the music ...it eventually seems to be benign. no re-set, no strange lyrics that reflect isolation or dread - just the regular songs, a good many of which he knows, remembers, and which both comfort him and make him sad.
he also helps himself to some tea. tea has become a comfort, too.]