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hopeandharmonizing · 1 year

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Pain Into Power

Briar + Ruby Rose ( @silveredruby )

“My dear girl,” Briar leans forward; hands grab around the ankles of leather combat boots to hold her weight, as if it all reaches out towards Ruby to get as close as possible, until barely below tipping right over, “Wherever did you get the notion that power equals anger? Do you believe monsters are the only creatures which have power?”

“Power from anger is toxic. Power doesn’t equal anger, but I won’t let it be what motivates me to take action.” Ruby’s attention shifted back to Briar, “...The misuse of that power is what slowly turns people into monsters. The motivations for using it… the intent and the impact... I don’t want to lose what makes me a person just for being strong. I’m here to protect and help people. Things will make me angry, but that won’t be my drive for my actions. It will be something else.”

Ruby’s close, so close, but a person cannot be whole without accepting both the light and the dark in themselves. Just as Briar accepts others in their entirety, she holds back nothing either. Always saying the words no one wants to hear, “…you’re wrong.”

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“ Turn the pain into power. ”

An uncomfortable shudder crept up her spine when she thought about those words. Would it be a coping mechanism? Something to ease her hesitation?

“NO. I don’t want to.”

How was she supposed to do such a thing in a healthy manner? The girl couldn’t figure it out. Her last drive of agony let her commit an action that would be seen as heinous, even if it was to a psychopath. Her eyes were meant to be a power for preserving life. Had she known that a year ago perhaps that would have helped keep those lives from being lost to the beyond.

“I’m not going to become a monster just because I hurt. I’m not going to give myself the opportunity to.” She explained through gritted teeth. “I know what happens when I truly get angry. I know what I did and what I can do when I’m pushed…”

And Ruby had been pushed many, many times.

“I’m not going to let a breaking point, break me.”

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Curiosity cants Briar’s head, eyes blinking, lips parting with a loose jaw as if to say something, but she thinks twice; shuts her mouth; lets Ruby continue. So far removed from when she once was just as young and angry, and with how the girl carries herself, sometimes it’s tough to remember how young she still is.

Sometimes it’s tough to know what goes on in that girl’s head at all.

Not that she has much room to talk.

Many times she says something, and someone hears another. Talking over their perspective solves nothing, reveals nothing, teaches nothing to either. She remains seated at a distance, ripped-skinny-jean covered legs criss-crossed on the floor, arms poking out from sleeves of a cropped t-shirt resting relaxed and open behind her, tail in a gentle curl around one side. Calm. Grounded. Watching. Listening.

Never pushing. …Well, sometimes pushing. Knocking up against. Nudging forward, more like. But never shoving. That’s how people hit those breaking points.

Shoulders square with pride for Ruby’s recognition and determination to avoid that boundary.

For all the young one has achieved, for how much she most certainly walks the right path, she still stumbles through the beginning, at the beginning. Getting angry is good, but only one step of the process. It fuels the fight, but only when recognized, wrestled with, honed, focused. Not raw and let lose to wreak havoc like a rebel without a cause. Is this how she’s been using her gifts thus far?

“My dear girl,” Briar leans forward; hands grab around the ankles of leather combat boots to hold her weight, as if it all reaches out towards Ruby to get as close as possible, until barely below tipping right over. Her chin tilts up to add just a little more length, and concern laces the lashes she looks through over her cheek,

“Wherever did you get the notion that power equals anger?” she shakes her head, black hair swaying along, “Let me ask this. Do you believe monsters are the only creatures which have power? …or are there others?”

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There were many questions thrown her way, but Ruby intended to answer every one of them. Remembering how her own actions were fueled by rage caused her fists to clench and her gaze to shift away for a moment.

“Power from anger is toxic. Power doesn’t equal anger, but I won’t let it be what motivates me to take action.” Her attention shifted back to Briar, eyes a bit darker but still with a trademark gleam. “I’ve done a despicable thing out of fury, when I snapped and couldn’t take it anymore. When I wanted it to stop.”

The important fact of it being against someone who was a psychopath would have factored in very heavily to her argument, but Ruby decided that detail was, in fact, unimportant right now.

She continued with conviction. “Everyone has power. It’s up to them to find it, and to learn how to use it. It doesn’t come to everyone the same way… it’s like if and when people find their semblance. Some people don’t, others do, and it’s a matter of how or when. The misuse of that power is what slowly turns people into monsters. The motivations for using it… the intent and the impact… that’s what can make someone a monster. Make people lose the humanity that makes us different from monsters.”

“I won’t give up on that idea. I don’t want to lose what makes me a person just for being strong. I’m here to protect and help people. Things will make me angry, but that won’t be my drive for my actions. It will be something else.”

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Gold gaze latches on to the hazy clouds and flashes of light within stormy silver, hoping to offer the steadiness and warmth of a sun waiting beyond the gray. Regret saps away Ruby’s typical beaming demeanor, braces her body against a wrenching pain Briar knows no details about, but wishes she could take it all away, all the while knowing she cannot. Both of them helpless puppets to the present, their current shape carved by a past now written in stone. Eventually Ruby turns her head away and closes her eyes, retreats into her own head, but Briar refuses to shy away from any of it. People are free to be their open and honest selves around her, fearless, shameless, limitless.

Facing these struggles for one’s self never looks or sounds pretty, but cleaning the gunk away is an act of beauty in itself. Briar cannot direct how to clear her mind, what the final picture should look like, but she can be a tool in the process, give her some ideas, plant some seeds.

She lets her finish before she speaks with a nod, “Everyone has power. That’s a very wise answer, Ruby. And I’m glad to hear you’re so determined not to lose your heart. For everything else, however,”

She’s close, so close, but a person cannot be whole without accepting both the light and the dark in themselves. Just as she accepts others in their entirety, Briar holds back nothing either. Always saying the words no one wants to hear, “…you’re wrong.”

She pulls her tail over her lap like a blanket of comfort, eyes finally falling to follow along with palms stroking soft fur. Is that how she sees it? Briar’s technically not even human, to have any ‘humanity’ to hold onto. Frequently named a monster. Often wonders if she indeed aligns closer to the latter than the former because of the effect she has on people, no matter her reasons.

One would think that Ruby growing up with her uncle Qrow - enough good motives for her to deem a role model, yet wholly unintentional misfortune after misfortune trailing each of those footsteps she follows - would have taught her the disconnect possible between intention and impact.

Are we both monsters in some way, then?

But that’s perhaps semantics, and certainly an argument for another day. Briar acts as example, and sits with these thoughts, contains herself from lashing out in word or action just yet, looks beyond her own hurt but transmutes it into further conviction to help people understand. Hands settle flat, and she lifts her head high once more, features firm.

“Just as every person has power, so does every emotion. Anger must be one of your drives, Ruby. Anger tells us when something’s wrong. As you said - when something needs to stop. Anger is useful - it wakes our body up, heightens our senses, sharpens our mind, gives us all the tools we need to stand and fight. If you try to deny it, if you do not make it part of your power, …then it will continue to have power over you instead.”

Now Briar’s fists clench from terrible flashbacks, “and if you ask me, that is when a person can become a monster.”

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Being told she was wrong was a very common occurrence. It didn’t make Ruby angry, but something about the idea of someone blatantly telling you that what you were saying was incorrect brought out a brief flare of annoyance.

Perhaps she got that from her family.

“We’ll just have to agree to disagree then.” She didn’t see a point in arguing. “From my experience, relying on anger as a drive can lead to the opposite: rage, blind fury, a lack of common sense… sure it’s a good survival tool, but it’s a very risky one. A lot of people don’t know how to change it into something more useful.”

Her gaze wandered to some surface, she couldn’t recall. Unfocused eyes were lost in thought, trying to find the right words to explain her side of her perspective. Ruby couldn’t also help but wonder, wasn’t this a more appropriate topic for Yang to be having?

Her words were soft and almost shameful. “The last few times I let myself just… go by way of anger… I look back on those actions and hardly recognize myself. I’ll always be upset by them. I’ll always be unhappy that I wasn’t quicker, smarter, wiser… but I’m not going to let a constant idea of feeling like I’m owed something make me hurt other people who don’t deserve it.”

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Nip it in the bud, they say. Briar never one to mince or waste words. Sometimes you had to use them to shake someone loose from their own head before they can see straight. Ruby, too stubborn to fold at simple statement.

Yang has already learned to turn her anger and pain into power. It’s little sister’s turn.

She-wolf shakes her head in disbelief at these excuses!

In Ruby’s experience? As a teenager?! All of maybe a year’s worth of field practice under her belt?! Just beginning to see the world!

Briar has every respect for those who would stick it to authority, but… to not listen to the elders standing on the same side? Nothing but petulance. She, an expert in spirit, walked her path to figure all this out alone, asked to be here to share her wisdom and experience so Ruby wouldn’t have to make the same stumbles along the way, only to be snubbed for what she teaches?

How did this girl ever make it through school? Oh, that’s right. She didn’t.

Ruby waived so many steps, tossed forward like a skipping stone each phase along the way. Extra combat lessons early on, allowing preemptive entry into Beacon; an early license based on merit alone, without completing the process of passing lessons. The girl, shot through life like a canon, for better or worse, and only keeping up because speed is so much of what she does.

Briar stands and steps closer, looming, “No,” insistence holds firm, “There is no agreeing to disagree. This is not a philosophical debate. This is training.”

Furrowing brows above narrowing gold eyes edge out some of their sympathy. If pressing a passive smothering semblance atop Ruby’s is what it takes to get her to slow down enough to listen, so be it.

“A lot of people don’t know how, and they get away with it, sure. You are not most people, Ruby Rose. …You. Must. ”

Hands open out to her sides, head tilts to the side and back, tail hangs straight behind her, “How many more times will you let that happen, then? How many more regrets before you can recognize those actions are as much a part of you as any other and claim them, combine them with other emotions and motivations so you don’t act so blindly? You cannot learn to see if you look back and then turn away from the truth.”

Boot heels dig in, “Face your mistakes, learn from them, and then let them go. Train and master your power, your whole self. Not just the pretty parts.”

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This felt like circles of conversation that wasn’t getting anywhere. Ruby knew she wasn’t the best at explaining her thoughts, but she couldn’t have been this bad, right? Perhaps something had been lost in translation.

She made a T formation with both of her hands. “Okay, let’s just- time out for a second here.”

Training or no, they were having a conversation, and Ruby years ago might have backed down and just taken what they could and went. No, not after everything she had been through. Ruby crossed her arms and stood her ground despite Briar advancing and becoming frustrated herself. She could feel it as well, and the proper thing to do was be diplomatic.

Everyone got their one.

“Let’s clear something up: what do you think I’m telling you? How are you interpreting what I’m saying? We aren’t making any progress here, so why don’t we figure out where this circle started?” No amount of grumpy adult was going to have her falter this time, anxiety be damned.

“Then we will go from there.”

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Gold eyes widen and blink double-time at unexpected response. Ruby neither frightens nor flees, nor counterattacks. She calls a halt, a stalemate, cuts a showing short with simple, assertive hand gestures, and makes Briar all-too aware of her penchant for getting carried away.

Not very good at knowing when it’s too much or too loud or when to stop, even as she preaches anger as a good sign and has her mind set on slowing someone else down. Even when she promised herself to remember what it was like to be young and stumbling. Not everyone is as practiced with their words as she.

Sturdy shoulders sink in shame as Briar takes both a literal and figurative step back. A glance to the ground and then back up to the girl the only glimpse of an apology to show.

Ruby should not have to be the adult in this situation. Pride, a sin which too often gets the better of Briar.

“No… no,” she says softer, with a sigh, and settles her hackles, “I’ve done enough talking for the moment, I think.” To the point of talking over Ruby, perhaps.

“I said to you, turn the pain into power. …Why don’t we start again with me asking instead of telling… Ruby, what do you think that means?”

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The sudden sinking into a quieter tone gave Ruby a moment for pause. The adamant attitude had faltered. At least there was no more aggression, and a quiet was left for them to review. A temporary flickering of doubt flashed in the girl’s chest, but Ruby had the resolve to keep her stance.

Learning didn’t have an age limit.

Closing her eyes, Ruby thought of a calm and concise way to communicate her thoughts. “I’m not my sister, so I can’t turn pain into power literally. All I can do is take the pain, and change it into a drive. That drive to motivate your will, to turn it into the ability to do what you want. Not what the anger wants.

“Anger is a feeling of telling you that you’ve been wronged. It’s a reminder to not be walked over, but it can flare up for the wrong reasons… other negative things get attached to it. It can become toxic, and harmful to more than just yourself.”

Don’t think about it, she would always tell herself since that day. It failed every single time.

“It’s an emotion that is felt. I can’t ignore it, but I won’t let it consume me. It will be a fuel to protect, not to destroy.”

#( turn the pain into power || silveredruby )#( all these years go by so fast || thread archive )#i can't believe i never archived this yet #remember in Sept 2020 when Stabi and I wrote the prologue to Ruby's breakdown??

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