Chapter Text
Ruby Rose fell away from her world towards only what she knew could mean death. It was surprisingly peaceful, falling and just letting go. She couldn’t fail anymore, she couldn’t hurt anyone else by not doing what everyone expected her to. Everything could just be let go and she could just be Ruby, the young woman that never got to be a teenager, and not Ruby the Huntress, that always bore the weight of the world on her back. After falling for what felt like hours, Ruby finally fell asleep somehow and dreamt for the first time in almost two years without nightmares haunting her.She first had a dream that she thought of as odd, a yellow and red lily on the back of a rabbit seemingly leading her somewhere with a soft song being hummed. She then dreamt of her mother, but it was just her voice, asking her if she was ok, asking her her name, asking her what she was.
Starting awake and coughing up water, Ruby rolled onto her hands and knees to try and clear her airways. The soft hand patting her back to comfort and help her cough was appreciated and helped her realize just where she was. On a beach, dripping water onto the sand as she stared down and caught her breath before leaning back onto her heel and seeing a massive rainforest just beyond the beach she was currently sitting on. If this was the afterlife, at least it was pretty, was the first thought that came to the young woman’s head as she started to take in her surroundings. The loud lapping of the waves against the beach was calming and, honestly, very peaceful and the gentle humming of whomever was rubbing her back was exactly what the young rose needed at that moment. Turning her head to finally acknowledge this stranger, the first thing that popped into Ruby’s head was the yellow and red lily from her dream.
The young woman had a lovely smile that was as kind as it was oddly familiar and goofy. Her short hair started off a brilliant and bright red and slowly gradianted to a soft blonde. Her hair style was surprisingly similar to her own just a year before and seemed to be well taken care of. This woman’s eyes captured the young reaper for a moment, heterochromatic with her left eye being only able to be described as the clear sky captured in her eye and the right was the very essence of green.
“Are you okay? You are the first person I have ever seen like me before! Well…that isn’t really true, Mom and Dad are like, but that doesn’t count.” The young woman rambles out. Ruby was stunned and confused by her new found companion in the afterlife, if this truly was what was happening.
“I think so?” Was all Ruby managed to come up with as a reply. It all seemed weird to her that some cute girl her age would be her guide through the afterlife, but Ruby wasn’t a stranger to things not working like she expected.
The young woman smiled as she stood up and looked out to the rainforest with an innocent smile before turning back to Ruby and held out her hand. Taking the offered hand, Ruby stood up next to this new person and realized just how much taller the gradient haired woman was than her. Ruby was used to being on the shorter side, but for some reason, this singular detail of the strange woman was interesting. As Ruby started the annoying task of trying to dust off the sand from her soaked clothes, the woman cocked her head in confusion and threw a wrench in what Ruby thought was her final destination. “Why aren’t you using your Aura to dry yourself off.”
“Aura? You mean I’m not dead?”
Her newfound companion giggled softly as she shrugged like that statement didn’t hold mountains of weight behind it. “Probably not I think, but honestly, the last dead guy I met was a lot more,” she paused as if trying to find the most appropriate word, “dead than you seem.”
“What?” Was all Ruby could say in this situation, not only is she probably alive if someone is talking about Aura, but this strange woman has met literal dead people. Reaching out to center herself and feel for the familiar warmth of her Aura, Ruby feels it as if it just started to replenish after breaking. “My Aura broke? What the hell is going on?”
The gradient haired woman smiled and pointed up towards the sky and said as if she was describing what she had for breakfast that morning. “You fell from the sky, I just thought you were a falling star at first, they are great for bargaining with at the bazaar.”
“Okay, first off, what the hell is going on and who the hell are you?” Ruby interrogated as she tried to stealthily reach behind herself for Crescent Rose only to remember that her beloved scythe was gone.
“Don’t know, The Ever After is weird so nothing really ever makes sense until it just does. And my name is Oriana, but my parents usually just call me Ori.” Oriana answered her questions as though the beginnings of what would have been a threat never happened.
Ruby shook her head and started to march away from the strange girl and towards the rainforest to see if she could get her bearings and maybe find out where she truly was. There was no way that this was the Ever After, that place was from a stupid story her mom read to her to get her to fall asleep when she was little before her mom disappeared from her life. Ori had to be either wrong and Ruby was dead and for some cruel reason could still feel her Aura, or she got ejected out to some random and gods forsaken side of Remnant only to be saved by a schizophrenic girl.
“I wouldn’t go that way.”
“Why?” Ruby asked harshly.
“Cause the Hunter Mice are in that forest and, while I am confident in my abilities to get you out of there, I don’t think June would be happy if she had to go get my mom or dad to save us from them.” This obviously crazy woman spouted out more nonsense. Suddenly Ori lit up and smiled that oddly familiar goofy smile. “I could guide you around! Maybe that is my story!”
Shaking her head, Ruby sighed and tried to collect herself, this woman was obviously not mentally well and probably should not be left unsupervised. “Fine. First tell me where we are and then we can just get off of this beach and somewhere that isn't here.”
Oriana cocked her head quizzically, as if worried about Ruby. "We're in the Hunter Acre….you know? One of the ten most dangerous acres of Ever After?"
Ruby couldn't help but feel frustrated as if this girl who obviously was not okay kept insisting they were in a story book world. Shaking her head, she motioned for Ori to lead on so she could get off this beach and through the rainforest in front of her. Once they were out, Ruby would try and orient herself and then find other people. A woman like Ori was safer with a Huntress than alone, but needed professional care. Even if the woman could access her Aura, Ruby doubted she had much of it. The only hitch in this plan, she realized, was that Ruby didn't have a weapon and probably would end up getting them both killed if Grimm showed up due to her sour mood.
The two walked for only a couple minutes before reaching the treeline and Oriana put her fingers to her lips and let out a loud and sharp whistle. The sound startled Ruby and just as she was about to chastise the woman for possibly drawing Grimm to them, she heard a thundering sound. Coming fast was a sound she could only describe as a gallop but was far too disjointed to be a horse or even something like an elk. Readying herself for the possibility that the crazy woman with her just summoned a Grimm, Ruby took a wide stance to use her semblance to grab the idiot in front of her and run. Ruby was shocked when instead of a Grimm crashing through the forest, a rabbit the size of a war horse elegantly slipped out from between the trees. The beautiful saddle on its back held a simple black and gold saber but what caught Ruby's attention the most were the prominent antlers on the head of this rabbit.
"Hey June! Sorry to leave you behind like that." Ori said in a loving fashion, like one would to a sibling as she scratched the side of the jackalope's face. Moving around to the saddle bags, Ori started to dig through them and pulled out a white hoodie, a crimson and black breast plate with gold trimming, and a pair of matching bracers. The woman seemed to have a lot of experience donning her gear as it only took her a couple minutes before turning back to Ruby and smiling softly. "Sorry about that, Mom and Dad insist on me wearing my armor if I'm wandering without one of them."
Ruby finally took a look over the woman and noticed that she looked like a Huntress. The white hoodie was worn underneath the simple breastplate and was short sleeved and her bracers were worn over a pair of simple gloves. Oriana's jeans seemed to be a little looser to help with mobility probably and a pair of hiking boots ended the outfit. If Ruby didn't know better, her first thought would be that this woman could easily be one of Jaune's sisters with how much she looks like him when they first met. Remembering seeing the picture of Jaune's sisters when the group met Saphron though, Ruby knew that this girl couldn't possibly be an Arc kid.
The two women started walking and, after what felt like an hour, Ruby finally spoke again. “Tell me something.” Oriana hummed in affirmation to Ruby’s request so the Reaper continued. “You said that your parents are the only other people you have seen like yourself until you met me, what does that mean?”
“Are you from Remnant?” The question was way too simple for the connotation behind what could be the meaning. Ori asked a question that implied the existence of other worlds, realities, planes, or whatever you wanted to call them. All Ruby could do was nod as the pair kept walking side by side.
The feeling of discomfort spread through Ruby as she kept glancing at Ori. “Of course I am, that is where we are. Isn’t it?”
“No.” Ori stopped and her eyes widened as both she and the rabbit horse creature started to look around for something. “Something is here.”
Chaos erupted around the pair in an instance causing Ruby to yelp in fear as she reached for her beloved scythe only to be reminded one more time of her absence. A monster that looked right out of the story of The Girl who Fell Through the World roared in pain and rage as it crashed out into the path in front of the two women. The chanting of PAIN HURT KILL HUNT REVENGE KILL HURT PAIN HUNT made the caped woman fall back a step. She did not even notice at first when Oriana launched forward to create a barrier between the monster and Ruby. Ruby has faced down hundreds of Grimm, the Atlesan army, the Queen of the Grimm herself, but there was something about this monstrosity that made Ruby feel like she was a little girl waiting on her uncle to save her from certain death again. This monster had no face, only what looked like a carved ritual mask as it started to stalk towards them.
Her legs felt like they were both rooted into the ground and jelly at the same time, she felt like she could no longer be the strong woman she needed to be and was about to die. In that instance, Oriana stood before her in a simple saber fencing stance with one hand behind her back and her beautiful saber in the other. The sound of the world seemed to bleed away and was replaced with a silence that was filled only with the sound of her blood pumping in her ears. The green eye of Oriana glanced back with a fire behind them that she has only ever seen once, a fire that mirrored the fire of a woman she watched die trying to save her and her friends once before.
The monster lurched forward to charge at them but did not even move an inch. As it looked back, Ruby saw that there was a black sigil on the ground holding it in place. Weiss stood proud as she pointed her rapier at the monster and used her semblance to hold it in place while a golden blur rushed forward to crash into the beast and threw it into a tree. The burning form of Yang stood before Ruby and Ori with her eyes a brilliant blazing red. A gunshot rang out as a ribbon screamed forward to snag the arm of the demon as Blake appeared next to Weiss. The three teammates all grabbed the nearly indestructible ribbon of Gamble Shroud and yanked the creature towards them.
When that happened,Oriana launched forward in a massive burst of speed and slashed at the creature’s arm with a precision that Ruby had only ever seen from trained Hunters. One stroke from the black, gold, and white saber cleaved the arm of the monster completely off as though it were made of paper. The shriek of the demon pierced through whatever fear had paralyzed Ruby and her hearing, causing her to need to cover her ears and close her eyes to try and escape the pain. When she opened her eyes, she saw the monster was gone and the arm was left behind. Ruby’s panic slowly started to ebb away as she looked and saw her sister, her sister who she thought she lost forever looked at her with horror.
Her sister turned towards Oriana with an aggressive stance, her eyes still red but her hair no longer on fire. “Who the hell are you and what did you do to my sister?” The question was more of a demand as Oriana flicked the blood of the demon off of her blade and moved to sheathe it.
“My name is Oriana, I am going to assume that Ruby is your sister?”
Ruby finally noticed that Yang’s prosthetic arm was missing and felt the bile rise swiftly as the memories flooded back in. Memories of all the people that got hurt on the bridges, the body parts left behind by Tyrian’s rampage, the rotting corpses at the farmstead, the bodies of the victims of the Fall, Pyrrha’s body disintegrating after Cinder murdered her. Everything started to fade, the only thing that grounded her was a warm hug from a woman whose skin was always so cold. Ruby didn’t know whe Weiss came over and started holding her.
“Yang.” Ruby managed to softly speak out, taking the fire out of Yang. “She pulled me from the water, she also just protected me. Please, just stop.” Yang visibly deflated upon looking at her sister, Ruby knew she was not okay and knew that she was falling apart at the seams. Ruby knew that she needed to pull herself back together so she could lead her friends and sister again, but everything was just so hard.
“Fuck, Rubes, I-I’m so sorry. I shouldn't have yelled.” Yang rarely apologized, but when she did, she meant it from the bottom of her heart. “My name is Yang Xiao Long, I am so sorry for yelling. I just-I was hoping that my sister made it out and wouldn’t be dead with us.”
Oriana cocked her head as she looked at the brawler. “Why do you think you are dead?”
This time, Blake stepped forward, “Because we fell from the bridge Ambrosius made us. He said that if we fell, we would die.”
“Well, you four are probably not dead. This is The Ever After, my home for all my life.” Oriana smiled softly as she tried to keep the tension that hung in the air from rising.
Blake’s cat ears perked up as Weiss scoffed at the idea. “We are not, definitely not, in a fairytale world.” Weiss stated in a condescending tone.
“Why not?” Blake stated as she looked over at the heiress still holding her leader. “It makes more sense than us all being dead and having our Aura still.”
“Can I interrupt?” Oriana asked before continuing, “The Jabberwalker we just fought will hunt us down if we stay in this acre long enough for it to heal. I would rather get to the Herbalist’s Acre, my parents are waiting for me there.”
Blake and Weiss looked at each other, a nonverbal conversation quickly occurred as they nodded in agreement with Oriana. Yang, on the other hand, seemed to get irritated as she held up her stump. “My first priority is finding that raccoon that stole my arm, then we can go find your parents or whatever.”
“Jinxy? Has a large cart full of junk?” The gradient haired girl asked only for Yang to nod in a hesitant confirmation. “If he passed through this acre, that means he probably will be in the Red King’s Acre. If you are willing to barter with him, you could definitely get it back.”
Ruby spoke up finally and untangled herself from Weiss and took a deep breath, they needed to get their shit together and act rather than argue if they were or were not in a fairytale. “If Ori has a heading on getting your arm so we can find other people and work on a plan, then let's do that.”