Chapter Text
There was something wrong with Professor Ozpin, Rumi decided as she went hurtling through the air. Not a small thing, either. Who threw all their new students off a cliff as their introduction to the school?
Rumi reached for her semblance, and let her stripes begin to grow blue. The threads around her manifested into the real world.
She’d had a vague notion of using them to catch herself on the trees, until she noticed that she wasn’t actually falling fast enough to injure herself, not since activating her semblance.
Well. That was convenient, wasn’t it?
Rumi landed on the forest floor, just hard enough to make a plume of dust without jarring her knees.
“Useful,” Rumi muttered to herself, brushing off her makeshift combat outfit. Her ponytail swished around as she scanned the forest for movement.
A twig snapped behind her, and Rumi whipped around, the sword of her semblance in her hand instantly.
Another girl her own age fell over backwards in startlement.
“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry,” Rumi dropped the sword back down to wherever it went when she wasn’t using it and rushed forward. “Are you okay?”
Two sets of brown eyes met, and Rumi blinked as the repercussions of that hit her. “Partner?”
“I guess so?” the girl stood up, brushing off her blouse.
“Great!” Rumi smiled at her, “I’m Rumi.”
Her new partner smiled back. “Amber.”
Rumi smiled as she watched the incoming first years trickle in through the gates. Ah, those looks of awe never got old. She was sure she hadn’t looked anywhere near so young and innocent when she’d been an incoming first year.
“Hey!” Lilac, of team LVNR, waved enthusiastically, “Rumi!”
“Hi, Lilac,” Rumi waved back, dragging her luggage behind her as she headed for the fourth year dorm building.
Lilac fell into step beside her, wheels on their suitcases rattling in sync, “Where’s the rest of your team?” Lilac asked, “Maple promised to spar with me when we got back from break.”
“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Rumi asked, “Her dad had a nasty health scare, and she transferred to Atlas to be closer to family.”
“Oh no!” Lilac stopped for a moment in dismay, “I hope he’s okay.”
“Maple says he is,” Rumi assured her.
“That’s good,” Lilac smiled, “Wow. First Nero, now Maple? Team MARN’s down to Team AR.”
“Eh,” Rumi shrugged, “We knew we weren’t going to the Vytal Festival this year anyway. There’s no one to fill Nero’s slot.”
“How is he doing, anyway?” Lilac asked, “He decided to study metallurgy instead, right?”
“Yup,” Rumi pushed the door open for both of them, letting the blast of air-conditioning hit them both in the face, “He’s planning to build and maintain mechashift. Oh, and his girlfriend finally popped the question!”
“Really?” Lilac said, “Good for him. Tell him I expect to be invited to the wedding.”
“But if he invites you, then he’ll also have to invite Rhodey, and that would just be awkward,” Rumi teased, “Here’s my room. See you at the initiation watch party tomorrow?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Lilac waved as she continued down the hall, “Tell Amber hi for me!”
“Will do!” Rumi called after her, and scanned her student ID to enter the room.
“Hey, Amber!” she called happily, “How was your…”
It took a bit of blinking before it registered. The room was empty.
“Weird,” Rumi muttered to herself. Amber was always the first one back from break. Nero used to joke that she secretly lived on campus and hid out in the janitor’s closets when the academy wasn’t in session. Never once, in the years Rumi had spent on a team with her, had she not had the dorm set up and decorated by the time any of the rest of them got back. But the walls were bare, beds made with the generic bedding, bathroom empty of any of her toiletries and closet empty of any of her clothes.
Pulling out her scroll, Rumi whipped off a text asking Amber where she was, and got to work unpacking her things. With only two of them this year, they’d been assigned one of the smaller dorms, and the extra beds, desks, and dressers had already been removed. Rumi took the bed on the left, and got to work.
The very first thing on top of her suitcase ended up being their team photo, the first one team MARN had taken together. Chuckling fondly under her breath, Rumi traced her fingers gently along the glass.
Man, they’d been young. That had been before Amber cut her hair. It had been down almost to her waist before a beowulf managed to grab it in second year and she’d promptly cut it off to the shoulders to avoid having to deal with that humiliation ever again. Nero was missing his scar, the one that would send him away from the path of a huntsman and towards something equally important, but less dangerous. The ram’s horns on either side of his dark curly hair were sharp and well taken care of in the picture. He was hoping that his kid ended up with a different trait, since apparently he’d been a holy terror to deal with as a kid because of those horns. Maple was flashing a peace sign, winking. That had been sarcastic, she hadn’t been expecting the friend who’d been convinced to take the picture to be so quick and she’d tried very hard to delete the image once she realized she’d been caught on film doing something so undignified. Rumi and Amber had passed the scroll back and forth between them for most of a day before Maple had given it up. Once they’d hit third year, Maple had even stopped complaining about it. She’d gotten a lot less self conscious after their first unsupervised live fire mission. And of course, Rumi herself. Still in that cobbled-together combat outfit that hadn’t quite been sturdy enough to survive chasing Professor Port through Forever Fall. It had been lucky that she hadn’t had to do like Amber and cut her hair with how much of a mess they were when they made it back.
With a smile, Rumi set the picture up on her nightstand. Maple and Amber had taken her shopping for a new combat outfit after that. It had been fun to get to have a girls day like that. She still wore that combat outfit to this day, in fact. White sleeveless wrap blouse, crimson combat skirt, and black wraps for her forearms to protect her burn scars, plus black and white boots. Her tiger stripes stood out proudly on her bare shoulders. They hadn’t grown in a while like they had when she was a kid, the edges lingering around her elbows and collarbone.
She really didn’t have time to reminisce for the rest of the day if she wanted to make the party, though, so Rumi buckled down and got to work putting everything away where it belonged. It was strange to know that she was doing this for the last time. Even stranger to be doing this without Amber’s windchimes in the background and her cheerful presence on the other side of the room. Maple had always been the kind to work in silence, and Nero had been gone for a while anyway, but Amber…
Where even was Amber? She had never, never not been the first one back to school. She’d talked about a riding tour of Eastern Sanus, but she’d promised to be back before school started. Rumi had even been texting her just the other day, and she’d been on her way back.
Had something happened?
Rumi scoffed to herself, shaking her head vigorously. Of course not! Team MARN had been one of the top teams of their year! Amber, in particular, had been an absolute powerhouse. There was no way anything she could have found along the main roads she was travelling could even pretend to be a threat to her.
Still, it was… kind of lonely, unpacking alone.
There was a pounding on the door. “Rumi, Amber, you in there?” Rhodey called, “Team LVNR is heading down to the cafeteria, you want to come with?”
“Just me,” Rumi called back, “I’ll be along in a bit.”
With one last glance at the empty bed on the other side of the room, Rumi quickly finished unpacking and headed for the door. Amber would be along soon enough, and then Rumi could make fun of her for being late.
Watching initiation was always hilarious. The entire room leaned forward breathlessly as Professor Ozpin explained what was going to happen and blithely ignored how nervous his students were getting.
“So, what exactly is a landing strategyyyyyyyyy….”
Rumi snorted cream soda out her nose, and the whole room roared with laughter. Even with aura that burned…
“Man, we’re gonna get a first week drop out again,” Poppy complained to her boyfriend at the next table over, “I had money on that not happening!”
“You’ll get them next year, tiger.”
Sadly, Rumi knew from experience that the funniest part of the watch party was already over. What would come next was a bunch of teenagers high on independence bickering and struggling through the forest for several hours, then everyone would move into the auditorium and sit through a million names being read off before coming back here for the second half of the party.
“So, Rumi!” Lilac slid into the chair next to her, “Are you planning to throw one of your parties?”
“In a week or two, maybe,” Rumi laughed, “Give the newbies a chance to settle in before I make them sing on stage in front of their peers, you know?”
“Ah, yes, the infamous Rumi party haze,” Rhodey drawled, leaning over Lilac’s shoulder, “If it’s your first time, you have to sing.”
“Personally I don’t know why you’d come to a karaoke event if you weren’t planning to sing,” Rumi reflected, “That’s like, the whole reason you have karaoke.”
“Right?” Lilac laughed, but Rumi caught a glimpse of the screen and completely lost her train of thought. That hair, that weapon…
“Blake?” Rumi whispered, as the girl in black and white was partnered with a blonde hand to hand fighter.
“Hmm?” Lilac twisted around to see, “You recognize one of the first years, Rumi?”
“I think so,” Rumi said, leaning forward. The picture quality and angle was honestly not great, but Rumi had shared a tent with that girl for most of their lives. She’d gotten weekly updates on her from her Mom the entire time they lived apart. That was Blake’s hair, Blake’s weapon, Blake’s color scheme.
Except… that girl wore a big black bow on the top of her head, where Blake’s ears should have been. What on earth would make Blake Belladonna cover her trait? For that matter, what on earth could make Blake Belladonna separate from the White Fang, even temporarily? She’d made herself quite clear on what she thought of that five years ago.
“What does what on earth mean?” Lilac asked curiously.
“Huh?” Rumi snapped out of it, blinking at her, “Sorry, was I saying that out loud?”
“Mumbling a bit, maybe,” Lilac shrugged, “My question stands.”
“Oh,” Rumi shrugged with one shoulder, “It’s just something I’ve always said. Couldn’t tell you where I picked it up.”
Wild cheering broke out on the other side of the room, and Rhodey perked up like a bloodhound scenting chaos.
Within moments, her two friends from LVNR abandoned her, leaving Rumi sitting alone again. She stared at the screen, watching maybe-Blake intently.
“What is happening here?” she murmured to herself.
The watch party went about like the other two she’d attended, although there was some more-impressive-than-usual grimm fighting on the screen. Rumi couldn’t pay attention. Her attention was all fixed on the girl who might just be her foster sister, on the same continent as her for the first time in five years, or who might not be, and was instead some kind of uncanny lookalike.
When initiation ended, and everyone filed into the auditorium for the long, dull ceremony of the team naming, Rumi couldn’t settle. Her knee bounced restlessly, and the strings of her semblance twined around her in agitation.
Then Professor Ozpin called for Blake Belladonna, and the girl with the bow climbed the stage to receive her team name.
Rumi sat straight up in shock, and stared. So it was Blake. That just caused more questions. Luckily, Team RWBY had been towards the end, and as the students all filed back into the party, this time with the first years in tow, Rumi was able to keep an eye on Blake. The stiff black bow on her head made concern rise like the tide.
Upon entering the ballroom, Blake glanced over her shoulder, and caught Rumi’s eye.
Rumi saw that golden eye widen, then Blake vanished into the crowd. It was almost like she’d never been there to begin with.