#typeoneninja | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theseerasures · 1 year

Text

no i am not back

but an age ago @typeoneninja poked me for a V9 prediction post that i got a bit into before getting distracted by idk the vicissitudes of life and now i technically Know More but also technically Do We Truly Know Anything, Really

so in lieu of that here’s a collection of musings based on what we’ve seen so far halfway through the season--mytharc and theme related, yes i know Ruby is heading towards impending breakdown yes i know the Bees are gonna have sex in their castle on a cloud yes i know on Remnant everyone has gathered in a circle to throw pebbles at Winter Schnee

the name. Ever After as in happily ever after, as in the way fairytales end--or rather, how we know the storyteller is done telling a story, because “ever after,” in itself, does not convey an end but perpetuity. from an in-universe standpoint and they lived ever after is basically Salem’s curse, and now we have confirmation that nothing really dies in Ever After the place. on a metatextual level and they lived ever after becomes something else: a declaration that the people in a story live on and persist, even after the story is finished and the storytellers--like say, Alyx, or a pair of Brothers who declared a world should be Like So--have left. we already have multiple instances of RWBY going “uh Alyx why did you leave this out/wow Alyx things changed a lot after you left” for that second bit, but to return to the whole nothing really dies thing

Ascension. they don’t die but they do...that, when they break or wear out finish what they were made to do, and through that process remember what they wanted to be and find their purpose, which could be the same or different from before, with memories...in flux, since the heart apparently remembers. i guess we could call it, uh. a Semblance of memory? and not just in a punny way, because the Semblance is also an externalization of the soul and presumably, what the heart remembers and wants to be. i find it interesting is that they call it Ascension but it...sure as hell LOOKS like death, which our heroes even comment on: the Herbalist is buried, which we know most familiarly as a death rite. there’s also the contrast between what they call it and what actually happens: they ascend by going beneath--that is, by descending, and every example of ascension we’ve seen thus far has involved regression. a King becomes a Prince, RWBY is confronted with their pre-Beacon selves. still, whatever pops out after Ascension is a...refinement of identity, however the previous iteration wants to define that. but it’s also not entirely up to the previous iteration as we see with the Herbalist, because

the heart. his heart was too weak to listen, which the Curious Cat fixed. so we have the idea that a weakness of heart is related to stasis and denial, and Ascension being connected to co-existence and communication, but not necessarily equal to it: CC also gave the Prince a lil bit of their heart with no Ascension necessary. the giving of the heart is very reminiscent of the smaller, more honest soul idea, but also interesting is how Ever After seems to run on trading and deals, while CC’s heart is freely given. they don’t seem all that worried about running out, which on the one hand is a very wise and mature way of thinking about things, but at the same time CC doesn’t seem all that worried about ANYTHING, except maybe

the Jabberwalker(s). of which there is supposed to be only one. thanks Neo! according to Curious Cat getting eaten by the Jabberwalker means you CAN’T ascend, which okay: on Remnant there is death, but there are also aberrant creatures who live without souls, led by a queen who never dies. and in the Ever After there is no death, EXCEPT for this aberrant creature who will cut off the normal cycle of rebirth. they’re opposites but also they’re the same, because Ascension or rebirth isn’t possible without leaving something behind even if you don’t call it dying. at what point does consigning a person to stasis mean the same thing as consigning them to life, Ever After? at all points and none, is probably what CC would say, but all this coupled with Ascension being (as far as we know) a kind of going forward by going back means the boundaries between life and death, un-life and un-death, real and not real are blurrier than ever, which obviously brings us to

Summer Rose’s Scabbard Axe Rifle Thing. not sure about y’all, but i’d been working with the idea that because RWBY’s (well. WBY’s) weapons seem to be the ones that fell with them and Crocea Mors is still its broken ass self the part of Floating Array they encounter was also the result of it falling during last season’s showdown. the collection in the Blacksmith’s forge muddies the waters somewhat, because that’s...probably not Summer’s actual weapon, unless Ever After is superhell after all. so fine: this literally confirms what we all kinda knew already, which is that Ruby hasn’t found Crescent Rose yet because she doesn’t WANT Crescent Rose to be found. but what else can be made of the weapons in the Forge? the ones we saw all belonged to people who “left” in some way: Summer and Penny died, and Alyx left the Ever After. so the weapon is the Remnant of one’s identity--what is never truly lost? the Blacksmith offers Ruby a choice of the pickings, so presumably a choice of new (old) identities, which again just sounds like Ascension, especially with the whole butterfly motif. with that offer comes the idea that Ruby can set her burdens down, which read one way means “if you pick one of these up it will result in your burdens being gone,” but given the deal-driven nature of Ever After, it could also mean “you can have one of these, in exchange for your burdens.” it’s possible then that the Blacksmith got these weapons as the result of previous exchanges. or it could be just Rubyvision, since we know she sees weapons as an extension of identity--but not burden, because that can still be exchanged. either way, Ruby turns the offer down on the basis that she already has a weapon, which could have been a proud declaration of her autonomous self, but she hasn’t tried very hard to look for Crescent Rose either, so what she wants is...uh, not-identity. or oblivion. and THAT sounds eerily like what might have happened to Summer.

taken as a whole: Ever After may not be tied to the Brothers but is definitely tied to Remnant, and not just in the sense that Remnant’s people keep gatecrashing Ever After’s party--there’s a thematic symbiosis going on here. Alyx and our heroes traveled to the Ever After, ergo it is real. and Ever After is real, ergo Alyx and our heroes can travel to it. that doesn’t necessarily mean Ever After is wholly outside of the Brothers’ purview though; it could be another remainder after the Brothers’ sundering of the world. like Remnant, only this time the Brothers discarded and discounted it entirely. they assumed its death, but the truth is that it lived ever after.

#broke: ever after is the afterlife #woke: ever after is the afterlife of a world #(it's not the same but it also is pyrrha where aaaaaare youuuuu)#rwby #helen writes meta

60 notes · View notes

rontra · 10 months

Note

holding your hand looking into your eyes is the exact energy I intended thank you for picking up on it

🤝

typeoneninja asked: Maybe though do say who powergirl is because I have actually less than zero idea

oh my god i get to talk about my blorbo...okay well you MUST understand i'm still a comics newbie and laser focus on only the stuff i directly care about so it's not like i've read everything about her or anything (and things do vary--sometimes A LOT depending on the character lol--from comic to comic as is DC's dark design). so take everything here as kinda loosy-goosy from someone who's Casually Acquainted. however (LONG POST)

^me.

you know Supergirl right. heard of her. kara zor-el (spelling may wary) she's superman's cousin (usually) and has the same power set. it's me supergirl and i have all your powers

power girl is Also kara zor-el (spelling may vary) from a Different Dimension. two of them.

the details about her backstory vary a little but the agreed upon IDEA for her is that her home dimension has like collapsed somehow or the earth in it is torn to shreds or whatever. she's either like the only survivor of a dimension that went poof or she's been isekai'd here from an earth that was getting blown up by demons or whatever.

and now there's two karas and theyre forced to coexist on the same earth and they can't both show up dressed like supergirl so now power girl has to do her own thing.

that's like generally the gist of whats going on w her conceptually. she got vooped over here and now she's stranded on an earth that isn't hers with castmates that aren't the same people she knew

like i said the specifics of her backstory vary but on top of being Dimension Displaced she usually shares Supergirl's whole "after their home planet exploded she arrived to earth much later than Superman did, due to Space Shenanigans" thing. she's usually older than supergirl. and she DOES have bigger boobs also. NOT sure why that's a dimensional difference between them but i'll take it (what were they feeding her on earth 2?)

sometimes they're drawn basically looking identical. i can understand the impulse (they are both kara zor-el after all.) but i think it's kind of a shame when power girl doesn't look Older than her because i like it when she's older than her. i guess sometimes they either ditch that part or just don't feel like it. F.

anyway when they look identical you can usually tell them apart by identifying which one DC has bequeathed the Boob Window upon and that one will be power girl. works every time

to me i became enamored with her when i was reading some green lantern comic (it was my first comic, they had launched a guy's coffin into the sun and had to go get it back it was wack) and i noticed a boob window girl (my beloved) had BEEN INVITED but didnt get to DO anything. she spent all her time standing in crowd shots while other people did the main stuff. and i thought "wow. now there's a character i need to put in my purse". and the rest is history

it was like this

i felt like bad for her i was like oh honey...you're coming with me... my girl in the ensemble

she kind of struggles in general because she doesn't get a lot of content coming her way. (and when she does it's not usually stuff that i love.) she shares this with supergirl too 🥰

anyway i hope that helps a little. she's supergirl from a different dimension and she's stuck here now. is the gist of it.

for a bonus side-elaboration on what IM doing over here in my AU, my main basis for CTDE power girl is her shenanigans in the n52 where she gets stuck here WITH another extremely normal girl (they get isekai'd together during like a big dumb demon war on their home earth). that's helena wayne she's batman's daughter in the other dimension and no such person exists on this earth. they're both stuck (together) (the only 2 people on earth who know and understand each other) (it's romance) (superbat for girls)

in that story power girl becomes like mildly obsessed for a bit with devising a way to get HOME to her own dimension and earth which is (as far as she knows) still under siege by Planet Fucking Hellmouth. shes building machines. shes using technology

(while helena believes there's nothing to go home to anymore and they should try to make a new life in this new dimension)

what gets me about it is that its SO FUNNY that this specific power girl's setup is basically a supervillain origin story that they just don't lean into because her name is on the book (obviously). (hey why do so many villains build a DimensionFucking Machine that's gonna Fuck Up the Dimensions because theyre obsessed with something on the other side anyway)

but i feel no such restraint obviously!!!!

so anyway my CTDE "Arc 1" is about Power Girl (now almost two decades deep in her desperate fixation) finishing building the ultimate DimensionFucker 9000 to get home. shes been working on this for years. she doesn't care very much about this earth and she needs to go back to her own one NOW

Helena is realizing with horror she's way too late to talk her babygirl out of this one because PG just isn't listening to her anymore (and as a human she would struggle to snap PG out of it by force). she feels she has no other recourse but to betray her most specialest girl and sell her out to supergirl, who's investigating the Weird Dimension Rift Shit that's been going on (and is strong enough to actually fight her)

And Supergirl has to stop PG because what that thing is doing to HER universe is NOT GOOD!!!!!

(Supergirl was like a teenager when her home planet krypton went kaboom--she Remembers it and feels detached from everything because she doesn't Have a home anymore + oh my god the trauma + also no one on earth even really needs her that much. but that doesn't mean PG can DESTROY THE DIMENSION!!!!)

(also in my AU the other earth is actually lost for good, so it's not only a Grief Quest but a FUTILE Grief Quest because there's no one alive and nothing to salvage on the other side of the portal anyway)

It's the "Power Girl As Villain In A Supergirl Book" arc. because i think women should have cute obsessions that endanger other people and i LOVE when the karas interact

this is why i drew pictures of them being very not nice to each other 😔

like it all works out. it's fine. they do some crying and screaming at each other, some kicking and punching, helena gets her piece in, and PG's brain fungus finally calms down enough for her to take the "Protagonist Kara" seat for Arc 2 (when Supergirl has her own issues to deal with)

theres just a lot of "kara zor el screaming At Herself that she can't go home because there is no such place anymore and she has to live with that forever in a place she doesn't belong". you know. girl talk

anyway that's like roughly power girl + what im doing with her in my first arc (helena is here too dont worry) hope that helps. shes my comic blorbo. hope she gets the main stage in a good comic someday. MDGHBJFGM

27 notes · View notes

beautyandthebetes · 2 months

Note

Diabetes asks: 1, 12, 17

I am soooo sorry I never saw this! I usually use the app and I just thought I’d get this as a note but I guess not 🤷‍♀️ so here we go!

1. How old were you when you were diagnosed? I was 22 and in DKA for who knows how long, but it got bad fast after I started working in a hospital and was surrounded by germs all the time

12. What’s your best diabetes story? That’s a hard one cause it depends on the mood of the conversation! But let me tell the sweetest (pun intended): when I was first diagnosed, my boyfriend of five years was getting ready to go to his final semester of college - his car was already packed when he came to see me in the ICU. He was 20, and I had already come to the conclusion that it wasn’t fair to him that he should be saddled to me and a lifelong disease with no cure in sight, when he was healthy and had his whole life ahead of him. When he came to see me and I explained what had happened and how my life was going to permanently change, I told him that even though I loved him more than anything, I loved him enough to understand if he couldn’t handle this and wanted to walk away. And I meant every word - I would’ve been heartbroken, but I didn’t want such a drastic change to come between us and just make it a bitter, messy breakup later if he felt obligated to stay just because we’d been together so long already. He said he understood, but he loved me just as much and said he wanted to stay. He wanted to help me and spend the rest of our lives together, whatever happened. I was so relieved that I wasn’t going to be alone, and he learned everything I did as I settled into my new lifestyle. He’s saved my life more times than I can count, and now he’s my husband ❤️

17. Favorite finger to test on? I use a cgm so I don’t have to often, but my right index or middle finger is my go to. I never test my left hand because if I do it hurts when I play guitar.

Hope you see this @typeoneninja and I’ll reblog the ask post in case anyone else wants to join!

#beauty and the betes #t1diabetes #t1dlookslikeme #t1d #t1diabetic #type 1 diabetic #actually diabetic #answered asks #ask me anything

3 notes · View notes

professorspork · 3 years

Note

If you're accepting non-superhell prompts, I'd love to see a conversation between Nora and Emerald! I've been REALLY loving these microfics, I've subscribed to you on Ao3, I'll read whatever else you write

[Gahhh that’s so nice you’re so nice!! thanks for being patient on this one, finding my Nora took some doing]

It’s occurring to Emerald that she’s never had a close female friend before.

You say that like you’ve ever had any friends before, the voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Mercury needles her, but she brushes it aside. Like—okay, yeah, she’ll concede the point when it comes to Cinder. In hindsight, whatever they’d had going on between them may have been... super intense... but it probably had never been friendship, in the usual definition. But she and Mercury were friends, no matter what the judgy little shitstain version of him who lives in her head has to say about it. They’d always gotten along. Told each other stuff. It’s not like there’s more to it than that, right?

It had always been like that. Been—instinctive somehow, with guys. Before Cinder, on the street, it was always the men who’d been easiest to manipulate; who would empty their pockets for a smile and a sob story. And then she and Merc had been two sides of the same coin for so long, and then... well, Hazel’d liked her enough to die for her, apparently. (Which—that’s a door that she keeps closed, thanks. She shuts it firmly again, now.) Oscar seems fond of her, in a sweet, uncomplicated sort of way that she really doesn’t know what to do with, seeing as he shares headspace with like a trillion year old man and the idea that anything to do with that kid could be “uncomplicated” is batshit. Ren vouched for her once, and then again, and now he keeps doing it, like it’s habit, like she should just be used to the fact that people are going to have her back, to ask her if she’s eaten, to turn to her with a raised eyebrow in conversation like her opinion would be constructive.

Anyway.

Now that she’s noticed the pattern, it seems like the kind of thing she should probably… work on, or whatever. And Nora seems like an obvious place for Emerald to start. They’ve been thrown in together a lot, lately, Emerald and Oscar expected to fill in the gaps of what’s left of the old JNPR by default. Not that they’ve ever really had a conversation about it—Emerald can’t think of the last time Nora said two words to her that weren’t combat warnings like “more Grimm coming” or “on your left,” but. That’s probably just because things have been tense. She remembers Nora being friendly, on the whole of it. Off-puttingly friendly, even, back at Beacon.

How hard could it be?

The answer, it turns out, is absurdly hard. Nora’s barely ever in the temporary barracks they’re all living out of, instead always checking on the refugees, going on supply runs over esoteric requests, volunteering for extra patrols. Emerald used to find that kind of dogged do-goodery gag-inducing, but now that she’s been the helping hand herself a few times, she’s starting to see the appeal. The way people look at you when you’ve been of service, it’s—nice. Really nice. But Nora works utterly thankless jobs, the kind most people don’t even notice, let alone appreciate. And when they have their insufferably long leadership meetings and they’re talking about distribution of resources or whatever, Nora’s a fierce debater—jumping in to advocate for the people from Mantle sometimes even before May can. As far as Emerald can tell, she does this stuff just because... she believes in it. Because it’s the right thing to do, and someone has to.

She can’t imagine what it would feel like, to have the attention of someone like that turned on her. She’s craved it from the wrong people for so long, but now that she has her pick of options... she’s letting herself actually want the right kind, for once. She thinks.

Which is all to say that largely through no fault of her own, Emerald unexpectedly finds herself sitting with a profound, fervent desire for Nora Valkyrie to think she’s cool.

She hates that.

Fighting with Nora is easy.

(—er. Alongside. Fighting alongside Nora is easy. Emerald’s done fighting with these people. Very done.)

It’s weird, because Emerald’s finding working with a full team to be a real adjustment. When battles get big enough to merit it, she’s used to keeping to the sidelines to use her Semblance for nefarious purposes, or, in a jam, used to having Mercury’s six—literally, because all the forward momentum from his feet-first style always left his back wide open. Figuring out where to put herself so that Oscar can use her shoulder as a fulcrum as he dodges, or trying to aim for the Grimm Ren isn’t already shooting (ugh)—it’s taking work.

But somehow, it’s not work for Nora. Nora seems to anticipate with perfect ease how Emerald will move or what she’ll be doing; Nora bobs and weaves around their ragtag little band with her war hammer like it’s breathing.

It doesn’t bother Emerald until it does, and she means to bring it up casually but there’s never a good time. So it just… stews, and stews, until she can’t keep it bottled up anymore.

Which means that instead of the earnest question she intends it to be, it comes out like this:

“Okay, seriously? It’s creepy how you do that.”

It’s just the two of them, plus the handful of dweeby Atlesian tech-types they’re escorting back from their foray installing some fancy hydro-filtration modules on the outskirts of the camp. And it’s not like Emerald had felt outmatched by the half-dozen Ravagers that had decided they looked like lunch—she can shoot Ravagers in her sleep, at this point—but still. The way Nora had moved around her, it was like they’d been fighting side by side for years.

Nora just cocks her head to the side. “Do what?” she asks, like she hadn’t just basically read Emerald’s mind in front of the water nerds.

Emerald does a complicated gesture with her hands, wrist over wrist, and then flicking two fingers—trying to evoke the way Nora had flipped over Emerald’s back and then kicked off, just trusting Emerald would reel her back in with a chain in midair before a Grimm could fly away with her sorry ass. “That.”

“Oh!” Nora laughs and rubs at the back of her neck, looking sheepish. “It’s nothing. I guess it’s just not a big deal for me? Like—I was there when Ren built StormFlower. The cables are newish, but we practiced so much back in Atlas… I dunno. It’s just reflex, when your weapons are so similar. Fighting with you, it’s almost like fighting with him. I don’t even have to think about it.”

Nora swallows, then, and makes a face Emerald can’t interpret—disappointed, maybe, or ashamed. Which: good. She probably should be, taking things for granted like that.

“Well—just—” Emerald’s not even sure what she wants to say. Ask, next time? Don’t? “You shouldn’t make assumptions. I’m not your boyfriend, okay?”

The venom she puts behind the word is directed more at herself than Nora—frustrated, again, that she’s put herself in the position of wanting so desperately to be liked.

Pathetic.

Nora just nods, looking glum.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, cheeks pulling in a bitter smile. “You’d think I’d be able to keep that one straight, huh?”

She says it with such pointed irony that for a second Emerald wonders if she’d gotten it wrong somehow, but like—Nora and Ren are a thing, right? That’s—everyone knows that.

“Hey, what—?”

“Let’s just go,” Nora says, and Emerald automatically falls into line behind her.

They make the rest of the walk back in silence.

Sometimes at night, when she can’t sleep, Emerald likes to climb up to the roof of the barracks and look out over the refugee camp.

It’s—peaceful, is all. A good reminder of where she is; how far she’s come. The night sky in Vacuo has more stars than she’s ever seen, and being able to watch over all these people who have somehow become her responsibility… well.

A part of her will always be standing on the rooftop at Beacon, looking down on pure chaos as a queasy, frightened sensation twists in her gut and its noxious voice whispers you did this, you did this, you did this. What did you think was going to happen, you stupid little girl? You don’t get to feel sorry for it now.

But she does.

Weird how the only thing that’s helped is actually doing something about it.

She hears a scuffling noise over her shoulder, and she’s got Thief’s Respite drawn and ready before she can even really register what she’s heard. She relaxes when she sees it’s Nora at the other end of the barrels, unarmed and hands raised—a funny little smile on her face, like yeah, fair enough, I should have known better than to try and sneak up.

“Just me,” she says, unnecessarily.

Emerald holsters her guns. “Can I help you?” she asks, and—what is it about her voice, that makes sentences that would be nice if any other human said them come out straight-up hostile?

Nora shrugs, hands dropping to her sides. “I was hoping we could talk; I figured you’d come up here if I waited long enough.”

Well, see—what kind of lesson is she supposed to take from that? She’s been hoping for Nora to talk to her for weeks, and acting like a bitch is the thing that gets her what she wants? Good guys are supposed to know better.

And there’s the way she said it, too. Like everyone knows Emerald comes up here to brood; like it’s a big open secret. The knowledge sits uncomfortably in her stomach, makes her feel watched. Even now, even here, she can’t get a moment alone. Not really.

“What, so you’re spying on me now?”

Nora’s eyes narrow. “I have a pretty bad track record when it comes to losing people. Makes a girl want to put in a little hustle when it comes to keeping tabs on her friends.”

And Emerald would snark at that, or maybe apologize, or something, only—

Nora thinks they’re friends?

“Well, take a seat, I guess,” she mumbles, scooching to the side as though she needs to make room on the massive, empty roof.

Nora walks over and joins Emerald on the asphalt, letting her legs dangle over the edge. Seemingly unsure of where to start, she stares at her hands. Emerald stares too, but her eyes can’t help but wander—tracing the way scars, silvery in the moonlight, spiderweb up Nora’s bare wrists and forearms to fetter her shoulders, clavicle, neck. Like cracks in a pane of glass, right before it shatters.

(Only that’s not it at all, is it? It’s not a sign of weakness, but a warning of strength. I care this much, her scars announce to the word. You wanna try me?

Hazel’s arms always looked like that.)

Emerald doesn’t want to be the one to break the silence, sure that whatever she’d say would be incredibly stupid.

Luckily, Nora has no such qualms, and opens with: “I really admire you, you know?”

Emerald stares, jaw slack, certain she’s heard wrong. “I—what?” She’d say something defensive, like yeah right or you don’t have to make fun of me, only Nora’s eyes are so wide and so guileless they don’t leave any room for argument.

“I mean it,” Nora adds. “I know we don’t know all that much about each other, but… here’s what I do know: I can’t remember a time I saw you without Mercury right behind. Just like me’n Ren. And the way you fought for Cinder…” Nora smiles a sad, private little smile. “You don’t fight like that unless it’s personal; unless someone means something to you. Just like me’n Ren. And now you’re here. All on your own. And you didn’t have to be. That’s—don’t you think that’s crazy brave? I sure do.”

Of course she fucking doesn’t. Crazy brave would have been walking away the first, tenth, hundredth time she had a flash of panic about what she was doing. Or, better yet, doing something about it. Crazy brave is taking thirty thousand volts to get to your friends; it’s flooding your veins with pure crystalline power and saying Go, I’m doing what Gretchen would have done, it’s—

She closes that door.

“It’s not like I really had a choice,” she sighs, dodging the question.

“Oh, you know that’s not true,” Nora scoffs dismissively, tilting sideways to nudge Emerald with her shoulder.

And Emerald jolts, because—look, it’s not like no one touches her. They have to manhandle each other all the time in battle, and… and Oscar gives her high fives sometimes, which makes her embarrassingly pleased. But what Nora’s offering now, that kind of buddy-buddy casual contact…

… it’s been a while, is all.

“So, why did you want to talk to me?” Emerald asks, overwhelmed and suddenly desperate to find a way to get this conversation over with. She feels like she’s sprinted five miles; like she’s had the crap kicked out of her and she has to go somewhere to lick her wounds. Too much, too fast.

Nora laughs—a chuffing, cynical noise that doesn’t sound at all like her. “Looking for pointers? See, I’m trying this thing where I do things on my own, but I just—I suck at it. Like today; you saw. Even when I’m not with Ren, all I do is… is act exactly the same way I do when I’m with Ren. Like I literally don’t know how to exist without him, whether he’s actually there or not. And I know that’s not fair to anyone; I didn’t mean to treat you like—” She shakes her head, biting her lip. “You’re not just some stand-in. It’s not you at all. I’m just—broken, or something. One trick pony.”

“No, hey—”

“But you figured it out,” she barrels on, which is good, because Emerald doesn’t actually have a clue what she would have said there. “You don’t have anyone and somehow you’re just, like—good to go!” Nora says it cheerily, like it’s a compliment, but has the grace to balk a little when she hears how it sounds. “…sorry. That’s—sorry.”

Emerald shrugs, drawing her knees to her chest and resting her chin there. She feels like an idiot; building it up for weeks like spending time with Nora would solve all her problems when, surprise surprise, Nora’s just as fucked up as she is.

“Hate to disappoint you, but I don’t have any hot tips,” she mutters into the crooks of her elbows. “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. Like—you want to know the really sad part? I was just following your lead.”

“My…?” Nora can’t even finish repeating it, which: Emerald can’t blame her. It’s so dumb. “Huh?”

“Come on. You know.”

“I don’t,” Nora says, voice thick with exhaustion. Like she’s sick of herself. “Ask anyone—I’m not the brains of the operation.”

Hearing Nora talk about herself that way makes Emerald’s chest feel tight; like her ribs have locked in place so her lungs can’t expand. She doesn’t know how to explain it; not without sounding like a starry-eyed fangirl or a moron with a crush and that’s not what this—it’s only that—

She chooses to start a different way.

“You wanna know why I switched sides? Like, really why?”

Nora softens, and reaches out to touch the back of Emerald’s left hand, where it dangles over her knee. “Sure,” she says, but Emerald barely hears it; it’s taking all of her concentration not to clench her fist or pull away in response.

“I overheard Oscar—or, Ozpin, I guess, I don’t know—talking to Hazel about Salem, about her goals. And… listen. No one joins under Salem because they’re trying to kill the world, okay? I mean, no one but Tyrian, anyway. We were all just trying to… find ways to get by. And when Cinder found me, she—” Emerald swallows, hard. This cuts too deep, too close. It’s not something she can just say. “I wasn’t trying to be some big villain, or something. I was just—looking out for the people who were looking out for me. And why wouldn’t I? No one else ever seemed to think I was worth it.”

“Of course you are,” Nora cuts in, quiet but vehement. “Everyone is.”

“See, the worst part is that you mean that when you say it,” Emerald grumbles, scrubbing at her face until smears of color kaleidoscope behind her closed eyes. “I figured people like you didn’t exist, and then Cinder and Merc were glad to prove me right, and—I let them. You know? And maybe if I’d just held out a little longer…”

“You’re not the only one here who’s ashamed of her past. Harriet tried to blow up Mantle, like, a month ago.”

“That’s not—forget that. I’m talking about you. Nora.” It’s the first time she’s ever said her name like that—addressing her, in conversation. It feels… astonishingly intimate, for so small a thing. Emerald powers past it. “Every day, I see you do something ridiculous, like double back on a patrol because you forgot you promised some kid a candy bar, or something, and that—matters. To me. It’s so stupid, but it’s not, because… argh! I want—it’s—” She tries to get her mouth to form the words, that’s the kind of person I want to be, but they stop in her throat.

Still, Nora seems to get the message. Her eyes seem suspiciously shiny for a moment—but when she blinks, it’s gone. “I… thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Emerald grumbles. Saying it like she means it: seriously. Don’t mention it.

“I understand what you mean, though. For years, the only person who looked out for me was Ren. And if he’d said…” Nora trails off, then, cocking her head to the side as she works through something. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just. I remembered something. I was about to say that if Ren told me the only way for us to get by was a life of crime, or something, I would’ve taken his word for it, but—the opposite happened. We decided to enroll at Beacon. And that wasn’t his idea; it was mine. I always wanted to be a Huntress. To… to be the one strong enough to help people, instead of always needing the help. He wasn’t sure if we would make it, but I was. We were together, right? How could we lose?” She chuckles, a little, shaking her head at herself. “Get a load of that. He followed me.”

They smile at each other, then. Like they’ve figured out something profound. Maybe Nora has; Emerald hopes so.

“I’m glad you’re here, Emerald,” Nora says, and—there it is again. The frisson of electricity that comes with being referred to by name.

Of course, then Emerald ruins it by blurting out:

“Of course you are, all your other friends are dead.”

Which—“Fuck!” she sputters, because she didn’t mean to say that. What is wrong with her? “Sorry! Sorry.”

Nora only grins at her, feral and incisive. “Yeah, well. Yours are evil, so. Pick your poison. At least I’m proud of mine.”

Touché.

“Still glad I’m here?” Emerald jeers, because her first instinct is still to press on the bruise to see how much it hurts.

Nora laughs, and gets to her feet. “Believe it or not, yes. If putting your foot in your mouth was all it took to get booted from Hero Club, I’d have been kicked out a long time ago.” She reaches down to offer Emerald a hand; Emerald takes it, letting Nora pull her to standing. “Now go and get some rest, huh? None of us can ever sleep when you’re up here thinking so loud.”

“That an order?”

“Advice. Friends give it, from time to time.”

And—yeah. Maybe they do.

#typeoneninja #emerald sustrai #nora valkyrie #rwby #emerald and nora #fic what i wrote

325 notes · View notes