Tuesday, the 5th of May, 79AGW.

Plant Studies, Beacon.

“Lima, you better not be trying to look up my skirt,” Lux wondered.

“I don’t want to hear that from our resident peeper,” Lima said.

He received a kick to his rib in retaliation and genuinely considered biting her on the leg for a moment.

“Want me to get Professor Peach to come over and sort him out?” Claire snickered.

“Don’t you dare bring her over here,” Lima said, outraged.

“Lima,” Teak mumbled, “Everyone’s looking at us again.”

“Let them look.” Lima declared from under the desk. “I have nothing to hide.”

“You’re hiding right now,” Lux said pointedly.

“I’m not hiding!” Lima denied. “I’m protecting myself—it’s pretty clear that she’s infected with the plague that’s going around, and I want no part of it.”

“It’s a cold, Lima,” Teak said. “Even if you do get it, it only lasts for like two days.”

“Two days where I’ll be completely defenceless,” Lima argued.

“Why on earth would you be defenceless?” Claire said, knocking on the desktop with a single knuckle. “Are you immunocompromised or what?”

“Compromised?” Lima said, offended. “Are you calling me a spy!?”

Claire dug her shoe into his hip, and when he attempted to bat it away, she just readjusted her attack. They were working together more frequently of late—he’d have to strengthen his bond with Teak in return.

“It means you’re more prone to getting sick, and the effects are usually greater than what most people have to deal with—that’s the simple answer, anyway.” Teak said, clearly holding himself back from explaining the advanced version.

“I already told you,” Lima said, “I’ve never been sick before, but I’ve seen the terrors it brings about—Sage used to get sick a lot, and he was bedridden for days at a time; If I can avoid that by hiding under the desk, then I will!”

“I thought you weren’t hiding?” Lux said, chin resting on her palm.

“I’m not!” Lima cried.

Thursday, the 7th of May, 79AGW.

Forever Fall, Plant Studies, Beacon.

Forever Fall was a sea of red, made up of a million ruby leaves, while rusty brown bark covered the thick trunks that bore them. It stretched outwards to the north and continued long out of sight, supposedly all the way to the northern coastline.

“I told you,” Lima said smugly.

“Everyone knew she was sick, Lima,” Teak sighed.

“Wrong! I totally called it—she’s a snotty mess!” Lima doubled down. “Next thing you know, she’ll be demanding soup and tea at all hours of the night!”

“Is that what Sage used to do?” Claire said, amused.

“Lima, bring me tea, Lima bring me soup,” Lima muttered, “You call that soup boy? It tastes like shoes boiled in saltwater! Make it again!”

Before he could elucidate exactly how much Sage had milked every moment of every day he was sick, they were interrupted by Goodwitch as she attempted to herd them all back together.

“Professor Peach was looking forward to accompanying you all today, but I’m sorry to say she can’t make it in her current condition,” Goodwitch sighed, “So, instead, I will be taking over for her in this regard.”

The scattered students pulled themselves into a tighter group, naturally forming into the same teams of four that they’d been living with since they’d arrived at Beacon. Everyone was dressed for combat, as was required whenever they travelled a certain distance into any of the forests that surrounded the school.

“The area has been preemptively cleared of Grimm to facilitate this lesson, but if you do come back here outside of class hours, be aware that it will not always be so accomodating,” Goodwitch explained, “Now then, our goal here is a simple one—each of your is to take one of the jars we’ve brought along with us, and fill it up with the unique Red Sap that the tree’s here produce.”

Goodwitch raised one of the glass jars and a small metal implement with a sharp tip on one side and a larger, round hole on the other. She demonstrated the process by staking the sharp side into the tree to her left and then uncapping the cover off the other side. The thick red liquid slowly began to drip out of the metal tool, and Lima couldn’t help but compare the sight of it to blood.

“The Red Sap has some unique properties, but it’s most well known for being sweet, nourishing, and completely edible.” Goodwitch smiled, “If any of you have any questions about its other uses, I suggest you ask them during your next session with Professor Peach—I think that’s about it; meet back here in one hour, and we shall return to Beacon.”

Goodwitch returned to filling her own jar, and the students milled around for a bit, hesitant to be the first ones to leave.

“What does it taste like?” Lux said curiously. “Teak?”

Teak’s empty jar looked massive in his hands, and he looked up at his name.

“Um,” Teak said, put on the spot. “I haven’t had it on its own before, but It’s a pretty common ingredient—once it’s been processed, the taste is sweet, like honey? But it’s flavoured more like a berry?”

“Yeah,” Claire nodded in agreement, “It kind of tastes like raspberry jam.”

“Eh, not really,” Lima disagreed, eyeing the trees around them. “Well, they aren’t going to fill themselves.”

Lima strode off without another word, leaving the other three to scramble to catch up. This was the first time he’d actually been in Forever Fall, and he was interested to see if they couldn’t find one of the ruins that Teak had pointed out to them from the airship.

“Lima?” Teak said as he began to speed up. “Where are we going?”

“I bet he wants to go chase Grimm while the professor isn’t looking,” Lux taunted. “Predictable.”

“The only thing predictable here is your fighting style!” Lima called back.

He sped up again, and sure enough, she thumped into the ground where he’d been only seconds before—now who’s predictable!? They had one hour, which was a long enough time to make quite a bit of ground if they really poured on the speed.

“Lima?” Claire tried.

“We’ve got an hour; I thought we could go check out one of the ruins that Teak was telling us about,” Lima said, deciding not to hold it over their heads any longer. “We won’t make it to the observatory in an hour, but there were some pillars not too far from where we entered the forest.”

“Oh!” Teak squeaked, sounding torn. “We probably shouldn’t go too far, Lima—we’re supposed to be gathering sap.”

“We have an hour!” Lima argued, “Are all the trees going to run away if we don’t do it in the first five minutes?”

“Looks like we’re going exploring,” Claire laughed, “If we get in trouble, I’m blaming you!”

“Same,” Lux said, and he could almost feel her glare on his back.

“No sense of adventure,” Lima pouted.

They dialled back the chatting, conserving their breath for running, and Lima made sure to set a pace that both Claire and Teak could keep. They stopped a minute, barely into their run, as Teak spotted a cracked stone pillar through the trees.

“There’s nothing else around,” Claire said curiously. “It also looks like it’s the top part? See the engravings? They wouldn’t be on a base of a pillar, and with the bit at the top, it wouldn’t sit flat anyway.”

“How’d it get here then?” Lux wondered.

Teak ducked forward with his scroll in his hands, using it to take some footage to look at later, and Lima bent down near the broken side, running his fingers over the damaged part. There were groves and a single larger puncture mark, either a tooth or a talon.

“Grimm might have broken it off,” Lima guessed, “Giant Nevermore could have managed it, or a Griffon.”

“A Griffon?” Lux said, curious. “I don’t think we have them in Vacuo.”

“They aren’t really in the area’s surrounding Vale either, although there have been some outlier attacks—flying Grimm have a tendency to turn up everyone eventually,” Lima admitted, “Solitas has a lot of them, and the north-east side of Anima has a few as well.”

“What do they look like?” Claire asked, “They haven’t come up in Port’s class yet, have they?”

“He mentioned them at the end of the first week,” Teak murmured, still busy studying the pillar. “He didn’t go into details, though.”

“They have a body like a lion, or some other kind of large feline,” Lima explained, “Large wings coming from the back, talons on their front feet, and claws on the back ones—they have a tail too, like a cat, with spikes on the end.”

“What does its head look like?” Lux frowned. “A lion?”

“No, the mask is a large beak—birdlike.” Lima clarified. “They are pretty dangerous, and they can grow even bigger than Giant Nevermore.”

“That sounds annoying to fight,” Lux muttered. “Which of the two predators does it fight like? Bird or feline?”

“Feline,” Lima nodded. “Because the weight of their body is much heavier than a Nevermore, they tend to be slower to turn and are actually a bit clumsy in the air. They will crash down on top of you if they can manage it, but if they miss the first attempt, they usually stick to the ground—they are much more dangerous down here.”

“I’m picturing a massive lion sprinting around and making tight turns at a moment’s notice,” Lux said, narrowing her eyes. “Am I close?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Lima nodded, “You won’t be able to outrun one—not unless you have some kind of speed semblance—and running away will just let it attack you from behind. Honestly, gunning the things down from a distance is the preferred strategy by most hunters, but if it does get in close, you should try to get on its back; if you end up underneath it, you better hope you have backup.”

“They sound terrifying,” Claire admitted, looking at the ground.

“Yeah,” Lux agreed.

“How are we looking, Teak?” Lima called, “Is the pillar made of stone? Or is it a stone shaped like a pillar?”

“It’s a—what?” Teak blinked, turning to look up at him. “Say that again?”

“Want to keep going?” Lima snickered. “There might be more stuff to find?”

It turns out that there was, in fact, more stuff to find—in this case, a large circular platform with a pattern of concentric circles carved into it. Several large circles orbited the main design, and Lima turned his head to one side, trying to put the pattern into something he could actually understand.

“This thing is messing with my head,” Lima complained. “It looks like a picture, right? It’s not just a random pattern.”

It was worn away to the extent that it further blurred whatever it had originally been, cracks and chips dotting the stonework.

“It almost looks like the sun?” Claire said, squinting. “Or an eye, maybe? Those other orbs could be line shines? That thing in the middle could be an oblong pupil, like cats?”

Lima frowned, matching her squint, but he couldn’t really see it.

“Is it a torch—the part in the middle?” Lima wondered. “Those little flecks could be embers? Like the old metal frames that were bolted to walls?”

“Nah, It looks more like a spear or a sceptre?” Lux disagreed. “Stick with a dust crystal on one end?”

“I could see it being a sceptre,” Claire agreed. “The big circle and the radiating lines—I really think it’s supposed to be the sun.”

“Teak?” Lima whined. “Help?”

Teak stopped his cataloguing for long enough to toss him an exasperated look.

“It’s probably the sun—it shows up in a lot of older myths, being a giant glowing ball of fire tends to draw some interest,” Teak suggested, “The orbs on the outside are different sizes, so they might be the Moon and Remnant respectively? The smaller one isn’t shattered, so this might have been made before—which puts its date much further back than I originally thought.”

Teak trailed off for a moment.

“The staff in the middle—that’s an icon that’s pretty common in surviving artwork; it’s usually associated with creation and light.” Teak said curiously, “In the tale of the two brothers—the staff was sometimes associated with the older brother, the god of light.”

“So putting that all together?” Lux wondered. “The god of light created the sun? The god of light is the sun?”

“The staff of light is the god of suns!” Lima said sagely before putting on airs. “He whoever shall hold my staff shall command the sun! It’s too hot today; let’s turn it off for a few hours!”

“You’re an idiot,” Claire snorted. “It’s the sun, not an air conditioner.”

Lima just flapped his hand at her as if shooing away someone beneath his attention. Claire scrunched her face up at him, and Lima could almost see the scheming going on behind her dastardly eyes.

“It might be more abstract than that, more literal, or even just a representation of what they knew,” Teak said thoughtfully, “Creation drawing its power from the sun? Perhaps heat energy was seen as the gift that allowed life to form on remnant? It could be an origin story for Human and Faunus both.”

“Wow,” Lux said, impressed.

“I prefer the interpretation where it’s a staff that shoots suns at people,” Lima decided. “It’s more compelling!

“Of course you do, Lima,” Teak said, patting his arm condescendingly. “And that’s why we love you.”

“He mispronounced loathe,” Lux denied.

Lima placed his hand against his forehead and slumped against the shorter boy; the Faunus grunted at his weight, completely unprepared to hold him up.

“Aww, that’s so cute,” Claire cooed, “What about us, Teak?”

“Don’t even think about it, you homewreckers,” Lima interjected, giving them a stern look. “That’s my wife you’re talking to.”

“Anyway!” Teak squeaked, face growing red. “It’s a mural dedicated to creation; this platform may have been a place of worship—stop fluttering your eyes at me!”

“It doesn’t even taste like raspberries,” Lima frowned, “It’s more like—I don’t know, what are those biscuits we had at that café the other day? The ones with the pink jelly on top?”

“The main ingredient for them was literally Red Sap, from Forever Fall,” Teak said, resigning himself to being escorted through the forest. “Despite what Lima said, it does kind of taste like jam—you could just try some?”

“What if I hate it?” Lux said, frowning at the jar in her hand.

“What if it’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted?” Claire countered. “You’ll never know unless you try some—scaredy-cat.”

Lux’s head snapped around, but Claire just raised an eyebrow at her.

“Wouldn’t it be scaredy-snake?” Lima said curiously, “Or shaky-serpent—actually that one just sounds like a sex move; we’ll table that one for now.”

“Shut up!” Lux demanded, turning her attention back to the jar. “I’m not scared!”

Lux twisted the cap off with more force than necessary and then scooped some out onto her finger. The three of them watched as she hesitantly tasted the Red Sap, waiting with bated breath for her reaction.

“That’s actually pretty good,” Lux said, surprised. “Now, I kind of wish we’d brought some jars for ourselves—are we allowed to come back out here with our own? Or is the forest like a private property?”

“It’s technically the property of Vale, and you must be accompanied by a license holder in order to harvest the sap—legally at least,” Professor Goodwitch’s chilly voice cut through their conversation. “Most of the staff at Beacon are equipped with one of those licenses, and we have special dispensation to handle it for education purposes.”

“Goodwitch,” Lima said, fumbling for something to say. “You’ll never believe what happened—”

“Everything is Lima’s fault,” Lux declared, “All of it.”

“Especially the bad parts,” Claire added quickly.

“Lima,” Teak said, groaning. “I told you we should have stayed with the group.”

“Be silent,” Goodwitch interjected, “An Ursa Major has somehow made its way into the cleared zone and attacked the other students—Mr. Arc and Mr. Winchester were successful in defeating it before anyone else arrived, but it managed to give them both minor injuries in the process.”

Lima closed his eyes, feeling a pang of something cut through him—an Ursa Major wasn’t an easy kill, even for two novice hunters. They’d been known to kill licensed hunters that were caught unaware or with their guards down. The fact that Jaune and Cardin had been fighting something like that while he was out in the forest messing around.

“Then you found us missing,” Lima said, closing his eyes. “I’m an idiot—these three were right; I did bully them into it. We should have been there to help Jaune and Cardin. I’m sorry I caused you more problems, I’ll… I won’t do something like this again—that’s a promise.”

Goodwitch stared him down for a long moment before nodding, apparently reading his authenticity and judging him as genuine. It did nothing to assuage his guilt, and he couldn’t help but wonder how this conversation would have played out if Jaune and Cardin hadn’t pulled out a win.

On the night when he’d lost his village, his family, and his friends, he’d hated his own lack of ability to act. Sage had helped him crystalize that hate into someone productive; they’d funnelled it into his training so that he would never find himself without the power to act when he needed to.

What use was any of that power if he wasn’t in the right place to use it?