Chapter Text
Begin Missive. Permission granted to send ships into the city below for evacuations but the detachment of Atlas from the ground will remain the top priority of all mission essential units. Mantle will have to be abandoned but it is a necessary move. Atlas will not fall to Salem. Carry on as ordered. Dismissed. End missive.
- Excerpt taken from 'Recordings of the Atlesian Military Command Room: General Ironwood Addressing Lieutenants' by Atlesian General James Ironwood, Commander of Atlas Kingdom's Ground Forces and Fleet, Headmaster of Atlas Academy
— ❃ —
Shortly after her debrief, the government finally releases the details of the incident to the press.
She learns that the breach was caused by a construction cave in. That the grimm came down from the eastern mountains. That an estimated two thousand people are out of their homes and fifteen thousand are without power. Humanitarian efforts are allegedly underway.
It's on every Atlesian news channel now, twenty four, seven. Ruby lets her own TV run the news in the living room while she goes about her day. It makes good background noise and it's a good practice to keep tabs on how Atlas tries to spin the story.
Good to be aware, to know the climate around you.
She'd learned it from the best.
Shrewdly looking between the lines was never an innate skill for Ruby, it was a trade Weiss had taught her. When they were in Mantle, under the authoritarian state it had become, she pointed out the lies — the gaps in information — as easily as breathing. Growing up amongst the rich elite of Atlas, Ruby figured it was.
Burned into her upbringing in the same way frostbite burned. It's not like fire, you don't see the threat until it's too late; and unlike flames which you can run from and put out, it's the consequence of elements, inescapable.
And it leaves a mark.
Later on, she'd learn between battles when their paths would cross. It was rare, being leadership in a war stretched thin across continents made their latter meetings so infrequent, she could count them on one hand. But during those few times when their units convened against a joint threat, she'd learn then. In ramshackled tents or commandeered, debris filled buildings that were abandoned and riddled with bullets and blacked by fire. There would be a prisoner of some kind, an agent of Salem. Weiss would take Ruby aside, a warm hand on her arm and her lips brushing close. She'd whisper in her ear to watch, to look out for uneven blinks or the twitch of a finger.
Then she'd walk over to the prisoner, and Ruby would watch as her friend turned into frostbite herself. The kind right before death. So painfully frigid then warm, one last lull to pull out the remainder of what they knew, but that warmth meant they were already dead men walking.
Weiss was the best at it. Ruby wishes she didn't have to be.
Even still, she's glad for the ability. She doesn't have that cunning talent Weiss had, and by the Brothers can she miss the more obvious, mundane things in life. An employment offer with dental, for example. Gods, she was terrible at being a normal human being.
But she knows military action and crowd control like the back of her hand.
The TV plays and she barely needs to pay attention to understand just what they're doing.
It seems that they're trying to strike a balance between the severity of the situation — and therefore the excellent response by the military — and downplaying the scope to soothe tensions.
And, if Ruby has to be honest, that's fair. As bad as the situation could've been, it had been handled in less than a day and only two districts had been breached. Some grimm had gone to the nearby harbor that isn't guarded by Mantle's walls, but the quick evacuation of civilians onto ships meant that there was little negative emotion to draw them in.
The aerial footage of the wreckage seems to have been hand picked since the news only shows the parts of the city that have been moderately damaged. They never show the homes that were completely destroyed, like the one Ruby went through in District Eleven. Just a shot of a fallen wall here and a blocked off rode there.
She also doesn't miss how they leave out the number of casualties. Hour after hour she listens, and never do they read out the number. That does leave something ugly festering in her chest.
Ruby understands why, of course. She's been in similar positions before as the war got worse. Sacrifices should be honored but a high enough death toll is bitter. Tensions are high in the kingdom right now; between Mantle and Atlas, faunus and human, the rich and the poor. Politics is not something Ruby enjoys but it is something she was forced to learn, and, unfortunately, practicality dictates that things are smoothed over to preserve the peace. That doesn't mean she has to like it.
Ruby places it on the back burner of her mind and goes about doing her chores. She has to do something with her hands and there's always work to be done in her dinky little apartment.
There's an ironing board set up in her living room, and the huntress takes to pressing the wrinkles out of a dress shirt as the TV drones on.
There's a panel of so called experts sitting around a table while a news anchor facilitates the discussion.
"...and a thorough investigation is already underway into the construction company responsible for the collapse." The Mantle police force's Deputy Chief finishes.
She spritzes more water onto her shirt.
"Thank you for the update, Deputy Wilhelm." The anchor says before turning his attention to a woman on his left, "Now, onto you Private Hans. You are, of course, a representative from the Office of Hunter Relations. Can you provide any insight into the work of the hunters who first responded?"
Ruby turns the button-up onto its other side and starts ironing the creases out of the back.
"Huntsmen and huntresses were quick to respond to the threat, arriving on site within minutes and holding off the grimm while our soldiers were on their way. Standard protocol was followed once our forces arrived, with the hunters carrying out orders issued from Atlesian officials. They assisted in evacuations, combat, and maintaining the supply chain."
As she's speaking, footage of the battle starts playing. Small clips, lots of them grainier in resolution, but all featuring a few seconds of a huntsman or huntress at work.
"Some hunters have garnered attention from eyewitness accounts. Such as Lennox Aderne, noted for his initiative in securing parts of the breach with his semblance. Another is team LTNG, Atlas Academy Alumni that were able to push the grimm out of District Eleven. Rumors are that famed hunter Johnathan Arc was on the scene, however, that is not the case."
For five minutes, the representative either confirms or denies the bigger rumors surrounding the actions of several hunters. Ruby pays it little mind, folding up the newly finished shirt instead.
She picks up a pair of pants and starts on those until something said on TV catches her attention.
"...The Old-Giant Class nevermore that was spotted by civilians was indeed killed. The Atlas military successfully shot it with several missiles before a huntress, who has chosen to stay anonymous, was able to finish it off."
Ruby looks up at that, seeing for a brief second a video of herself streaking through the sky in a blur of red.
Then the lady is moving on and the clip is gone.
Satisfied to see that's all, she moves on with her laundry. They had underplayed her part and overstated the military, like usual, but she's okay with that. Atlesians are prideful, they never like to recognize someone too much if they're not from here, and that suits Ruby just fine.
Two more minutes go by before Private Hans wraps up her rather dry report and the anchor moves the segment along.
"...and today we have with us Colonel Shelley. Now, there were several notable figures who emerged from your brigade. What can you tell us about that?"
Ruby has long since found out that how the press treats the hunters from foreign kingdoms, and how they treat Atlesian servicemen, couldn't be more different. Where the report on the huntsmen had been overall grateful, it was still barebones and disinteresting except for a few stand out cases of powerful hunters.
All the hype really went to the military.
"...Captain Marlow responded with quick action and was first on the scene. The man has been in similar situations, such as when he handled the small grimm incursion on Fort Castle back in March…"
Ruby concentrates on her work. She has no need to listen to an hour of propaganda.
Hmm, where were the scissors? She needs to cut off this loose thread.
"...The fourteenth brigade served with distinction, operating the outermost line of heavy artillery defense until the very last moment…"
She's currently trying to iron out a tough wrinkle in another set of pants. It's been slow going.
"...Sergeant Rand worked diligently to maintain the front lines…"
She goes to grab her spray bottle, only to knock it off the ironing board and send it clattering on the floor.
"Shoot…" She mumbles as she bends down to grab it.
"...First Lieutenant Ironwood has proven himself to be an outstanding and up and coming leader…"
Ironwood.
Ruby's whole body jerks up in shock, her head crashing into the board above her.
"Ow!!"
Suddenly, she feels something heavy and awfully hot jab her in her back and she jerks again, this time in pain.
"What the hell—!?"
She straightens up as the thing tumbles down again and hits her on her bare foot. Ruby yowls, her body instantly tensing up and launching away from the burning pain, her hands flying down to grip her injured foot. And gods, she must look so stupid hopping around like this but without her aura activated, that hurt a lot.
"Son of a biscuit!! Fuck fuck fuck! That hurt!" She yells, tears beading at the corners of her eye.
Looking down, she sees her iron knocked on the ground. Whipping her head to the side, she sees James on the TV. Back and forth her head goes in some mixture of shock and reactionary pain.
She hisses through gritted teeth as she hurriedly activates her aura. It washes over her in a red shine before fading, feeling like a warm, soothing wave of water washing over her. It still hurts like hell but, ever so gingerly, she finds she can put weight back on her foot.
She snatches the iron from the ground before it can do any more damage to her carpet and shoves it back onto the ironing board with a loud thud. She doesn't care. Her eye is trained on the TV.
There's a video of him directing soldiers. Carefully picked from before his suit had been entirely ruined. Like that, with a strong posture and determined look, dressed in the stark white, blues, and greys of Atlas, he looks every bit like a military leader.
"...The First Lieutenant was at the site of the breach almost immediately with his platoon and was there for the full seventeen hour duration of the fight. When two fellow officers were no longer able to continue, he assumed command of their squads and successfully gained control of one of the major breaches and several of the minor ones. It was his strategy and order that…"
Ruby recites every curse in the book — enough to make her sister blush — because holy fuck, that's James. James from the bar.
"...Ironwood's contribution to the battle is expected to be just the start of an impressive career…"
James is Ironwood. General Ironwood.
The man who taught her. Who tried to arrest her. Who she turned on and fought. Who tried to hold up Atlas even if it crushed the city beneath.
The man who she practically killed. Whose kingdom she let fall. Trading their lives for a chance that got her war and hundreds of thousands of more deaths.
She watches the rest of his segment, dumbfounded. Then the Colonel moves onto another propaganda story of military success. But Ruby has turned deaf to the world.
It's a blank after that. At some point, she had fallen onto her couch. She lies there with her whole body shaking, torn between hysterical laughter and dry heaving.
On top of her living room's muted blue wallpaper, she sees the imprints of smoke and steel and fire. The calm voices coming from her TV are overridden by the ear-rending screeches of metal as an entire city is torn apart, phantom noises that aren't really there, she knows. But gods, does the memory still send a cold sweat down her back.
— ❃ —
Ruby wakes up feeling like she'd run a mile. She kicks off the sheets that are tangling her up and sits up to take stock of her surroundings. She's in her bedroom. From the dull grey light drifting in past her blinds, it's probably morning. She doesn't remember when she decided to crash or when she got into her bed. Most of last night is gone from her mind.
Looking over to her nightstand, she sees a pistol sitting atop the surface. There's two more lying on her bed.
She does remember that.
Just vague flashes of her gathering some weapons around her. As if she were still at war and needed to have one with her at all times, even — especially — while she slept. She can't sleep without having at least one nearby. But…
Reaching over, Ruby grabs ahold of one of the handguns on her bed. Safety still on? Good. She ejects the magazine next, and lets out a breath of relief. At least she hadn't been stupid enough to have it loaded. Checking the rest, she finds the same thing.
And, from the line of small, dimly lit shapes against the opposite wall, she threw the rest of her magazines all the way across the room.
Ruby thanks whatever gods are out there that apparently she'd had the sense last night to unload her weapons. Who knew what the hell she'd do if she lost it with loaded weapons nearby. And isn't that a fucked up thought?
She could start shooting in terror before the fog of sleep even lifted.
Holy shit, she's a danger to society.
It's then that she finally notices the dull pains in her left hand. Looking down at it, she sees several small, red crescent marks along the back of her hand. Some of them had small flecks of dried blood. Flexing her fingers, Ruby winces.
She puts her head in her hands, running her fingers through her sweat slicked hair. She doesn't remember how she got the injury but she can take a good guess. It'd been a few weeks since she'd gotten a night terror bad enough to force her awake. When those ones came, she'd bite her fist to hold back mostly silent screams. Another habit. From when she had to move covertly during the war, where any light and any noise at all could risk giving their position away to the grimm, and then Salem.
With a tired, defeated sigh, Ruby falls back onto her bed. She's not ready to try to put herself together today. She can't go back to sleep either. So she stares through the cracks in her blinds and at the early morning weather. It's a complete blanket of grey clouds outside, with a few flurries of snow. No surprise there.
She spends some hours with her thoughts turned off and tries not to think too much. But eventually, the memories of what set her off yesterday start trickling back into her mind. And despite all attempts to not think about it, she winds up… well, thinking about it.
So, sometime around eleven in the morning, she finally manages to crawl herself out of bed. Brush her teeth, shower, disinfect her hand, have tea, and eat a quick breakfast of porridge.
The whole time, she finds herself going back and forth in her head about what to do now. Later on, much later on, Ruby would be ashamed to admit she considered skipping the party at Le Pégase — skipping town entirely, actually. It cannot be a good idea to associate with James Ironwood. Too many memories there. And it would be so easy to just leave and never see him again. They'd only met three times and two out of those three times were in work situations where they could barely even talk.
But… But Ruby has such a hard time reconciling the General Ironwood she knew from the James she met at the bar. Partly because the last time she saw the General was a decade ago.
It had been hard on her when she first realized the finer details of her memory had gotten blurrier. Things like faces and how someone sounded. It had gotten worse after the H.G. WLS Project — or just the Wells Project as she liked to shorten it to — succeeded in sending her back. After that, she didn't have any pictures or keepsakes to help her remember her family, her friends. Everyone. Not even the burnt up, dirtied scraps of photos she carried in her pocket.
Never mind a man she only knew in passing acquaintance.
And the Lieutenant is thirty years younger than when she first knew him. Sure, now that she's realized he's Ironwood, she can picture the resemblance. Tall, broad, and black haired. She hadn't remembered that Ironwood has blue eyes but it sounds about right.
She supposes she's never pictured him as anything but an older general, and that throws her off.
But the disconnect is also partly because this Ironwood doesn't act the way she remembers. He's still a military man, a hard worker, dedicated to Atlas if his hours at the breach mean anything. But he was so… casual at the bar, far more open and willing to laugh with her. And when he was inviting her to the party? He had been unsure, hadn't he?
Maybe her memory had made Ironwood look worse than he had actually been. She had only been a child, after all, and — embarrassingly enough — intimidated. But Ruby remembers Ironwood as a very professional, closed off man, and always so sure of his actions. Convinced of his own authority to an unyielding degree.
The dissonance drives her crazy.
So, Ruby doesn't decide to skip town. Not yet at least. Maybe it's for her own sake, but she wants to get a clear picture of James. She's not sure what she wants to find. If she's looking for evidence of the General in him, or looking for its absence, she doesn't know.
Maybe she wanted to stick around someone familiar to her old time, however many decades younger, for just a little while longer. Is that selfish? Masochistic? She doesn't know.
Whatever the case, she's not eager to psychoanalyze herself.
A few minutes after making her decision, Ruby works up the courage to charge into her living room.
She's just about to turn on the TV to hopefully hear more about the Lieutenant but then she pauses, eyeing the ironing on the floor. Right, she should probably clean that up. It would only take a moment, surely? And maybe the routine of her chores would soothe her nerves some.
So she sets to moving the rest of her ironing into the kitchen, which she'd abandoned the previous day. Then she's taking her vase of lilies into the kitchen to fill it with some more water, because it looks a little droopy. Then she's spending an inordinate amount of time looking for the remote, despite having a pretty good idea of where it is. Then she's fluffing her couch pillows because that's surely overdo. Then she— Then she realizes she's just distracting herself.
Ruby forces herself to drop down on her sofa, sitting ramrod straight, and glares at her silent, turned off TV for a few minutes. After an internal pep talk that takes far too long, she wills herself to grab the remote and hit ON.
Despite her initial hesitance, Ruby quickly finds herself aggravated when the news doesn't talk about Ironwood. Because, of course, he's not the famed general yet. Accomplished for a lieutenant but not much more. In the six hours Ruby watches the news, Ironwood only shows up again in one video clip.
"Fine then. If the major networks won't cover him, maybe the smaller ones will." Ruby grumbles.
She keeps the TV on just in case, but she heads back into the kitchen. She has a retro, box radio set up on her kitchen table, for whenever she wants to listen to music. It takes some finagling with the antenna and some time turning the knob to find the right frequency, but eventually the static does turn into legible words.
She spends thirty minutes going through four radio stations that are more or less parroting the same information on TV, although she does get more tidbits about the contributions of hunters. She turns it to another radio station.
"...This is WLTA 108.3 Radio News. Coverage of the Mantle breach continues. We have political commentator, Raleigh Mucor, here today. Mucor, there's been some discussion about who's to blame for the construction collapse. Can you break that down for us?…"
"...The situation is indeed complicated. Although neither confirmed nor denied by the government, there are those questioning whether the break was intentional. You see, the company in charge of restoring the segment of wall is run by Atlesian humans. But their company employs many faunus from Mantle. There has been a history of discontent faunus thinking it is okay to retaliate against private businesses and the government. Especially after the opening of the penal colony: Menagerie…"
Ruby quickly changes the station, a glower on her face. So there are people trying to blame the faunus. And as an intentional act, too, with nothing to base their speculations on. It makes her so sick and angry when she sees the blatant racism of this time.
Moments like these, Ruby realizes just how far back she's gone. Almost forty years into the past. It's like living in a history book. Except so much more, because text on a page doesn't really capture the vivid realness of it all. The Atlesian military has only just been desegregated. The Faunus Rights Revolution wouldn't come around for a few more years yet. And she'll probably be putting up with these attitudes until she dies.
Because, yeah, she'll be in her fifties by the time the 40th Vytal festival comes around and in her sixties by the time she catches up to the year the War of the White Witch ended. If she manages to not die along the way. She'll be old by the time she gets back to the world she grew up in, and doesn't that bring on a bout of terrible homesickness?
Dammit, she'd been trying not to get even moodier.
"Lets… Just see what else is on…" She murmurs.
Interviews with eyewitnesses. Charity fund hosted by the Soleil Foundation for the victims of the breach. Promotions for a government hotline for grimm sightings.
"...utenant James Ironwood…"
Ruby freezes.
She turns up the volume.
"...third generation of an Atlesian military family. His grandfather was a veteran in the Great War and his father served with distinction as a major. Ironwood seems to be living up to the legacy of his forebearers considering his honorable actions at the breach…"
"...His seventeen hour dedication to the battle has made him somewhat of a hero in the eyes of the public…"
"...There has been several reports released to the hall of records. Footage shows him stopping a beowulf with his bare hands from attacking a fleeing Mantle civilian. An impressive amount of strength both physical and aura wise…"
"...Six hours dedicated to rescue efforts during the interim between the two major waves of grimm…"
"...Excellent handle of communication and teamwork with the supply chains and medic units…"
Ruby leans back in her chair and takes this all in consideringly. On and on for fifteen minutes the radio show sings the praises of Gen— Lieutenant Ironwood. She only startles out of her reverie when the announcer of the segment comes back on.
"...We'll be taking a commercial break now. When we return, more updates on the rising heroes of the breach will continue. Private Betulace, the military medic responsible for the treatment of dozens of wounded civilians, will be next…"
A bit of static as the station switches segments.
"...The annual Atlas bridal show is returning to— "
Ruby reaches over to shut off her radio, then, silencing the commercial with a click. Despite all the information she's just gotten, this doesn't help settle her mind like she thought it would. Her head is still swimming and her chest feels empty.
A minute passes before she pushes herself up from her chair and goes back to her bedroom. Opening her closet, she fishes out several layers of her warmest clothes and quickly shimmies them on. On a coat rack at the entrance to her apartment, she finds a fuzzy red beret to protect her head and a knitted maroon scarf to shield her neck and face from the cold. Before forgetting, she ducks into her living room to shut off the TV and then starts heading for the door, snatching a leather satchel off the ground on her way.
She fumbles for her keys before opening her door, stepping out of her apartment, and quickly locking it behind her.
Ruby walks with single minded purpose through the streets. She grabs a bus to the central districts of Mantle, the nicer ones better funded by Atlas than the fringes she lived in. In the middle she finds the government buildings and strides up the impressive marble steps and into the grand public hall of records. It reminds her a lot of Beacon's old library. Just four times as large and far more modern than the antique history preserved at her old academy.
She walks in to a building kept somewhat warm, with narrow windows to let in a little natural light but kept small to keep the cold at bay. Artificial light keeps the rest of the building lit in a sterile color. The library is massive, a titan of a building with a ceiling far above her head. From here on the ground floor, she can see four levels wrapping around the open area, holding shelves filled to the brim with both old copies of paper books and newer digital copies. On the ground floor she's on now, is the check in and security, along with rows and rows of CCT terminals.
She flashes the front desk worker her Atlas Visa Card and is allowed in.
It always bothers her a little. Knowing that non citizens and those without visas aren't allowed into these centers of knowledge. But Atlas has always been unwelcoming to outsiders, even in her own time. They're just more overt about it now.
But for now, she pushes those thoughts from her mind and instead finds a computer to claim. Sitting down at the desk, she opens up a query. Clicking onto the search box, she types out some keywords.
Ironwood, First Lieutenant, Breach
Several reports pop up, all well in line with the attributed actions that the news have been talking about. A little less sensationalized and more dry but not without the underlying propaganda that Ruby has become accustomed to in her time living in Mantle.
There's a rough time line, some still images of him captured by nearby security cameras, stills of body cam footage with time stamps, and of course, a brief summary including his last name, rank, and years in the service. Clicking on his name brings up a series of reports going back to his first missions while attending Atlas Academy.
She notes with interest that he was enrolled ten years ago, making him twenty eight years of age.
Ruby spends hours there, clicking on random reports to get a feel for who James was. Her eye scans long passages of text, breaks down what she can see of scenes from the photographs, what's said and not said.
The casualties of his missions are included in the public mission reports more often than not, she takes note of.
Something that, in an odd twist of logic, means something good in Atlas. If the result is deemed safe enough by the censors to be published, then he's done his job well.
Hours pass with her scrolling past report after report. Ruby's eyebrows scrunch up as a headache begins to form, the harsh light of the screen burning itself into her retina. Or maybe that's just the stress. She tilts her head to the side and winces as her neck audibly cracks. Blinking at the dim orange streaming through the narrow windows as she looks up for the first time. She'd gotten here sometime in the early afternoon, when it was still broad daylight.
Looking up from her screen for the first time, her gaze lands on the large, silver clock hanging over the entrance. She huffs in discontent as she reads the time, the hour arm having slowly made its way well past six.
Sighing, she pushes herself up, logging out of the terminal.
There's more work to be done. More stalking— surveillance, to do before she does anything with this… this situation she's found herself in. But until then, it's probably best to take a rest, and grab something to eat, and get some highly caffeinated tea.
Grabbing her satchel and wrapping her coat around her tightly, she makes her way out the library and back into the cold of Mistral. Down the street is a nice cafe she's been in a few times. Marketed towards tired college students who have just finished studying at the library and any passing worker on their way to and from the office. Being a huntress, she'll be a little out of place. Her scars and missing eye are occasionally something to discreetly gawk at, but she pulls her scarf up a little higher and minds her business as she makes her way there and no one bothers her. Mantle has seen its fair share of wounded veterans.
On the way, the voice of a vendor catches her attention.
"Last call, last call, today's paper on the Grimm Attack, last call before closing!"
She slows a little, silver eye shifting over to the kiosk set in the middle of the sidewalk. One among many, although a few have already started pulling down their metal shutters for the day. On the outside, she sees newspapers — and wasn't that an adjustment on it's own, actual paper newspapers — pinned to the shelves. A mixture of headings and photos staring out at her.
Her eye drifts across them, scanning for anything of interest, and, lo and behold, finds something that makes her stop for a moment.
The bold blue script of EAST MANTLE TIMES stands out to her. It's a somewhat local paper that she's picked up a few times.
Below that, the image of General Ironwood takes up the front cover.
She approaches slowly, taking in the details, and then she's there, her fingers running across the page.
It's an action shot of him in battle. Not one from the breach but one she recognized from the database. An earlier mission of his, her eye flitted to the caption written at the bottom.
Pictured: First Lieutenant James Ironwood during the 27th expedition into Northern Solitas.
Ruby remembers that from the files. It was about a year ago, Atlas was setting up another military outpost in the northern regions of the continent and had several units sent to guard construction efforts.
But the article isn't about that. Instead, it's his work at the breach. But as she picks up the paper and begins silently reading the article, she finds it more personal than the other accounts. Written by a journalist who, apparently, had a four year old niece she was separated from during the attack.
"I was terrified, of course I was, I was behind the barricade but I knew my niece was still out there…" Ruby reads quietly to herself.
"There were troops and buildings falling, the shelling was so loud, my niece was stuck out there in the militarized zone. And I kept thinking, what if they don't find her? She's faunus, she can blend in with her environment. What if she's too scared to find someone, what if she's hiding and trying to stay safe the only way she knows how, and the hunters miss her?"
And Ruby knows the girl must've turned out fine, had to for this to get published, but it still sends a pang through her.
"But then he came through the smoke and dust, carrying my girl. I didn't realize he was military at first. He was covered completely in grey. I lunged as far against the perimeter as they let me. Against all odds, he saw me and delivered my niece to my outstretched hands. Tear trails smudged the grey that covered her as well, and as I brushed away the smudged ash from her cheeks, I saw the blue of her terror warring with the bright purple of relief on her skin. The relief was winning, and my own colors matched it. It was a life shattering feeling, having her back in my arms."
"I was a blubbering mess as I tried to say my thanks, and the military member, the Lieutenant as I later learned, nodded for just a moment before he was drawn back into the breach."
"I was so busy at the time, getting us on an evacuation transport and to safety, then through medical, and getting back into contact with our family. It was only later that I learned who Lieutenant Ironwood was, and I wondered if he knew from the bright purple of our skin just how must he—"
"Ma'am, are you buying that or not?" A gruff voice suddenly cuts her out of her thoughts.
Ruby looks up, looking at the vendor watching her with one eyebrow raised. He raises a pen in his hand and taps it against the hours sign.
"We're closing soon. If you're not gonna buy that, I'm gonna need to take it in for the night, but we'll be open tomorrow if you want to pick up a copy then. Yesterday's papers are always at a twenty percent discount."
Ruby looks back down at the story, more than a little distracted as she waves his sales pitch away, "I'll just grab one now…" She mutters as she reaches into her pocket, grabbing her wallet and placing a note on the counter.
The vendor hums as he opens the register, pulling out a few coins, "Your change."
"Keep it," Ruby says, already walking away, her eye still glued to the story.
— ❃ —
She grabs a croissant left over from that morning and some tea to go with it before promptly sitting herself outside. It's almost dark, even moreso from the shadow Atlas casts over the cafe. But the residents of Mantle have adapted and large light posts arc over the outside seating area, keeping it lit well enough, and the heaters radiate warmth to keep customers comfortable. She enjoys the chatter, the clink of dining ware from the small crowd still out at this hour.
At a small table in the corner, she claims her spot and stretches out her legs, opening the newspaper once again as she takes a sip of her tea. The warmth of the drink helping settle her nerves as she reads the rest of the article, and is pleased to find the author had found other residents who'd also encountered Ironwood, each one putting in their own small story, crammed into the sides of articles and ads. Even a few accounts of what he's been doing post battle. And there was a lot of it. Extra rescue efforts, perimeter checks, shift after shift making sure the district was safe again.
"Hmm, looks like he's been busy." She says as she flips a page, because what else could she say?
These are all things she found in the library's documents but somehow, they're more meaningful when delivered through the words of an onlooker.
And as vintage music — new music of this time, she muses — plays in the background, she comes to terms just a little more with this reality.
At least in the here and now, to the people of both Mantle and Atlas, faunus and human, rich and poor,
James Ironwood is a hero.