Help!"
Oscar stumbled over the porch lip on his way out the door. The sun nearly blinded him; the screams nearly deafened him. He blinked and squinted.
A young girl with whiteblonde hair and scabby skin scampered backwards in the soil, screeching. "Somebody, please!"
Is that… Daffodyl? It was — she must've come by to help Aunt Mel with the farm. But what was she sc—
Grimm. A horde of grimm, closing in. Not the little pestlike ones that occasionally peppered the farm or forest, but an entire pack of sabers, heaving their haunches and hungering towards her.
"Daff?" Oscar called. He broke into a sprint. "Daffodyl, run!"
"Hey!" Aunt Mel limped after him. "What do you think you're doing? Get inside!"
"Stay back!" he warned, not breaking his pace.
"I said get inside, now!"
But Oscar kept barreling towards Daffodyl. No, no, no one else, please—
"Oscar?" Daffodyl's eyes widened as she scrambled to her knees. "You're back, holy sh—" Her scream censored the greeting. She hid her face in forearms to the dirt.
At the same moment, a blur of black in Oscar's periphery pounced. Oscar angled himself between the grimm and his friend and swept his cane over his shoulder. The pommel connected with the saber's jaw, whacking it aside.
Oscar spun the cane and lined it up with his hand to execute a strict stab to its gut, but before he could land the hit, another grimm leapt at him from behind. Oscar pivoted and pierced its flank. The grimm disintegrated. Through the calm of its ashes, another saber lurched. It slammed Oscar to the ground.
Shouts of concern drowned beneath engorging growls. Winded, Oscar tried to stand. The individual attackers melded into one mass. Something or things reared at him; he responded with an aimless swipe and missed.
This is too much. Too many grimm to make them all out, too many all at once and all around. Got to get somewhere I can see.
Oscar pushed a hand into the ground and thrust his cane skyward. It must have hit something, because his elbow jolted in its joint and another puff of grimm flecked the air. But the spaces between the flakes filled instantly, blocking out the sun. Oscar jerked away from the mounting black and log-rolled to the side. A creature landed hard in the spot he'd just been. It snarled in dissatisfaction.
Oscar regained himself in a kneeling position, clamoring for breath. Murky undulations eclipsed him; thunderous roaring chorused in his ears. His aunt and friend could no longer be seen or heard, and he'd lost all sense of direction.
This wasn't a situation that called for strategy, but blind action.
Vaulting to his feet, Oscar swung the cane with both hands, crashing it into grimm after grimm. He bellowed and hacked and whirled at the darkness; he armed himself with odds. Each eruption of black granted fleeting light, the strobing display somehow even more disorienting than steady dark.
Bladelike claws shredded at him; he lashed at their owner. Bits of grimm caught in his throat, his eyes.
But something special happened moments before Oscar's strike silenced it: the gleam off the claws sharpened in his focus, and this noticing prompted similar shines to emerge from the dark on all sides. Claws and fangs, white and glistening — waypoints.
Oscar tracked their movements to pinpoint his targets, blocking out the rest so as not to lose sight. His accuracy improved. The dizziness ebbed.
With this slight clarity, Oscar managed to spot something else that seemed inconsequential, but wedged in his mind. Some of these marks were much lighter than others, bigger, more rocklike in shape, and if he wasn't mistaken, translucent. Against his better judgment, he couldn't help but lose focus to this difference, especially since the longer he looked, the more strangely these marks behaved. They weren't slashing like claws or biting like fangs. In fact, they weren't part of the faces or paws at all, but splayed atop the creatures' backs and limbs.
Ice.
Daffodyl's screams cut the haze, words unidentifiable.
Oscar blinked away his vignette and rightened himself.
Hurry up.
Breathing became a challenge as fresh air scarcened. Oscar's attacks grew frantic, desperate, careless — no more ducking or blocking or trying to make sense of it all. Only offense. Time tangled as his body overtook him in a sporadic frenzy. At some point his aura flickered, maybe once, maybe a handful of times. The respites of vision grew longer and more frequent. Flashes of the farm, of his aunt, of his friend — with each kill they formed more and more of a picture, and his head cleared little by little.
Only a few left, come on. Oscar rubbed his eyes of flaky remains.
Something heavy tackled him, and his cheekbone smacked against the ground. He struggled, but it had him tight in its clutch. Oscar wriggled around and jabbed his elbow into its stomach. It hollered out. In his aunt's voice.
"Aunt M?"
She rolled off him, still howling.
"What are you d— get back inside!" Oscar covered her. "I don't need help, just go!"
But instead of arguing, Aunt Mel just lay there, grasping at her leg.
In the fraction of a second Oscar had before intercepting the next attack, he caught a glimpse of the deep, red gash trailing down the back of her calf.
He blocked the oncoming saber with his cane lengthwise. He strained to hold it and his nausea back. "Daff, help her!" She can't hear me. He had to trust she knew what to do.
He impaled the belly of a leaping grimm and unsuccessfully shielded his mouth and nose from the resulting cloud. He spat it off his tongue.
Halfway through the following inhale, a lung-stopping force rammed into his lower back and splintered like glass up his spine.
His aura shattered. He screamed and choked on grimm dust, falling to his hands and knees in a fit of coughs. His wrists snapped on impact.
"Oscar!" Daffodyl cried.
He raised his head to see her with his aunt's arm over her shoulder, the two of them trying to stand.
"Get her inside!" There was no time to see if she'd oblige.
Snarling surrounded. He faced the remaining beasts.
The perimeter gate lay demolished behind them. Fence posts split under heavy paws. Claw-tilled soil rendered the farm a graveyard of carnaged crop. Home uprooted from all ends, mauled beyond recognition or repair.
A freshfound boiling blistered in his veins, a vicious, vengeful venom. He dug his heels into what was left of home, and with a cry greater than any one man could have conjured, Oscar unleashed a barrage of merciless stabbings into the grotesque servants of the woman he once loved.
Without aura, each movement demanded an effort too costly to give. And still he gave. He roared at it all, at what she'd done to him, done to his aunt, to his friends, to countless others. He saw nothing but her, heard nothing but screams, felt everything but forgiveness. Adrenaline alone kept him alive, and adrenaline alone struck the final blow.
Sudden silence rang. Black smoke dispersed in the too-gentle breeze. Oscar breathed deeper alongside the clearing air, and leaned his whole weight on the cane. A dying metronome ticked in his temples.
Trampled crops and splintering boards lay defeated in the dirt. Oscar refused to join them. He slid a foot to the side, slowly, in the beginnings of an attempt to orient himself towards the barn. It resisted.
Come on, she needs you.
He forced it to move, then the other. He'd have to lift the cane now to turn. As he shifted his weight, the cane slipped and hooked between his shins, toppling him over.
"Oh, woah! Careful, dummy," said the two arms that caught him.
Daff.
"C'mon." Daffodyl ducked under his elbow and wrapped an arm around his torso.
He followed her movements as best he could. She managed to pull him upright.
"Th—"
"Don't talk. Inside first. And don't nod or say okay to that."
"O—" Oscar stopped mid-syllable, not because he'd caught himself doing what she'd told him not to, but because he physically couldn't finish the word.
They lumbered for a few feet, but it soon became clear Oscar was no help in the situation.
"When did you get so heavy?" She didn't give him time to respond. "Alright, here's what we're gonna do: I'm gonna turn my back to you and put your other arm over my shoulder; you're gonna grab my hands from around my neck and just dangle there while I pull you along like a sack of potatoes. Got it? Don't answer that. We're doing it."
And so they did. How Daff had managed to tow Aunt Mel's plump frame all the way to the barn, he didn't know. For the dozenth or possibly hundredth time, Oscar was thankful she was so strong. He couldn't exactly jump up for a full piggyback ride, but being dragged behind her was faster than him trying to help when he couldn't. How many times had his aura broken in the past three days?
One too many, clearly.
Daffodyl's dirt-crusted hair caught in his mouth, but he couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. The tips of his boots trailed through mangled gourd sprouts and hitched on a board or two, until the scrape of flat wood undertoe and shadow overhead told him he must be in the barn.
Daffodyl dropped Oscar on a pile of hay.
"Thanks, I'm alright, though. Where is—"
And there she was. Sprawled out in reddening hay, emitting weak agonies through a clenched throat.
Oh, gods. "Is she okay?"
Of course she's not — look at her!
Daffodyl's face was ghost-white. "I called my mom, hopefully she'll be here in a few minutes with first aid, but I think…" Her eyes flicked to and away from Aunt Mel. "I think she's gonna maybe need a hospital."
Did this happen last time? And if it had, what had happened without him there to protect them? The thought his aunt and friend might have died months and months ago without him even knowing welled like molasses in his throat.
"You have bandages, right?"
"Up in my room," he said, unable to look away. "Bottom drawer."
Daffodyl hurried to the ladder, and Oscar crawled to his aunt's side. He touched her shoulder. "Hey. Aunt M?"
Her eyes opened, revealing a rabid fear he'd never seen them bear.
"Are you okay? I mean, how not-okay are you? You're losing a lot of blood, we need to get you—"
"Explain," she rasped.
"I don't have an explanation, I have no idea why they're here, I've never seen sabers in the forest. Nothing that big anywhere near here, ever, I don't— you're gonna be okay, we're getting you help. I'm so sorry, I'm so— can I get you— do you need anything? I can—"
"Explain."
It's time.
Oscar looked down at his aunt. Beads of sweat gathered on her forehead; bloody odor perfumed her skirts. Oscar bunched up some of the fabric and pressed it against the wound, leaning on it. Aunt Mel seethed at the pressure but didn't stop him. His own sweat bubbled on his brow and salted the hay.
Above, the door to Oscar's room opened, and Daffodyl left his view.
It's past time.
Oscar braced himself and filled his ashen lungs. He forced eye contact and spoke slowly. "There's a great evil," he began. "One that's walked Remnant since before its name. An evil that for eons has plotted the end of the world, sowing the seeds for its destruction. And with the fall of Beacon, those plans have finally been put into motion."
Aunt Mel stared at him, unblinking and unspeaking.
"Her name is Salem."
Afternoon amber awashed the barn and silhouetted all it touched, giving harsh, thick outlines to the bodies, faces, and assorted discomforts of its inhabitants: a young girl with horror-parted lips and a fear-stricken brow, an aging woman with a bandaged leg and a hand-gripped heart, and a small boy, who could only imagine he looked unrecognizable to them both.
"Okay." Daffodyl breathed twice. "Okay! Okay. Quick recap just to make sure I got this right, because please tell me I got this wrong." She listed on her fingers. "There are gods, they wiped out humanity, stole magic, cursed an evil lady with immortality, humanity came back, evil lady has plans to end the world again, and she's already a quarter of the way there?"
"Halfway when you count Atlas," Oscar said. "But if you didn't get the broadcast from Amity about Salem, it might not have fallen yet."
"We didn't. So, Atlas is fine?"
"For now."
"Um, so, how sure are you about all this?" asked Daffodyl. "You're sure she's real, and not, like— I'm not saying you got sucked into a cult or anything, but I'm not not saying it."
"She's real. I've... met her. Personally." Thoughts of Salem's subtle, strategy-swathing smile scraped the insides of Oscar's skull. He recoiled from the memory; not because it was painful, but because the one that first surfaced was of the moment he'd burst through that tower door and found himself in her eyes.
"You what? When?"
Oscar shoved his own memories of Salem's torture to the forefront to force the first aside. When lightning scorched his chest, the clenching in his fists subsided.
"Just before Atlas fell." He could hear the monotone in his voice, but made no effort to mask it.
Daffodyl blinked excessively, as though hoping to see something new upon opening her eyes each time. "I know you're not lying, you stink at that. But the things you're saying are literally impossible."
"Impossible," Oscar echoed. He was starting to think that was just a word for something with a good hiding spot.
Aunt Mel's silence up to this point unnerved him. Was it out of shock? Disbelief? Fear? Or was she just in too much pain to speak? Oscar picked at his gloves. "Aunt M?"
His aunt shifted and let out a huff as her elbow gave way. She beckoned to Daffodyl. "Sit me up. I want to look my nephew in the eye for this."
Daff propped her up perpendicular, resculpting the hay to hold her back and shoulders in place.
Aunt Mel twisted her leg with both hands so as to avoid hay needling the wound. Oscar was glad to have it out of eyeshot. Then she looked up, and he regretted taking the bloody view for granted. No tears wet her parched eyes, but in them Oscar saw a tempest.
"I promise," he said, "I wouldn't lie to you about this. You're hurt, and I wouldn't tell you distressing things if it weren't—"
"I believe you."
His hands stilled. "You do?"
"When you live as long as I have, you start to notice..." Aunt Mel scrunched her face and slowed. "Most evil in this world comes from regular folk like you and me. The way we treat each other. The greedy beasts we give the reins. But I've seen… heard…" She lilted off to the horizon. "There are things no ordinary person could've made, and no loving god would've."
"Like what?" Daffodyl asked.
Neither answered.
"And the time travel stuff?" She wrung her fingers one by one. "You're on board with that, too?"
"It's about as daffy as you, but no way my scrawny klutz of a nephew learned to fight like that in a fortnight. And if he's been burning daylight training instead of doing his chores the crops'd all be dead. Besides"— she turned to Oscar —"don't think I didn't see that extra notch on the doorframe when Daffy dragged me in. Must've been awhile, since I just chided you about tearing up my walls, and you surely wouldn't have disobeyed if you remembered."
Oscar had notched it the moment he'd committed himself to leaving, actually, a few days before he did. Aunt Mel's scolding hadn't fazed him; the whole barn was already falling apart, and he wouldn't be around for the punishment, anyway.
And it wasn't like he did it often — only to keep a tally of significant moments in his life. Birthdays, boredom-induced insights that felt profound at the time, days he'd seen Aunt M cry.
Several notches shared a latitude. About two years ago he'd added four tiny slits side by side over the course of four months. By the fourth, he realized it'd never been about tracking his height. It was his way of saying to himself, 'I was here for this moment. It happened, it mattered to me, and look: I've grown past it.' Agreeing to entertain the idea of having two souls at the risk of his life more than belonged on that frame. Even if he'd never get to see it through new eyes, even if he forgot what his old life was like, the barn would remember him.
After fourteen years of sparse significance, he wouldn't have managed to leave without that mark. It felt more real than the note. Louder. Something about the poetry of leaving a physical reminder of who and how you were in part of the place you were, as if to prove you'd been a part of that place, cuts you out of it. You're not the same person from the time you touch blade to wood to the time it lifts an inch over.
One bend of the wrist, and Oscar had relegated the person he was to a person he'd been.
"I don't know what brought me back," he said at last. "Or why. But regardless of rhyme or reason, I think this might be a— a second chance. To stop what I couldn't. To save who I can." If I can.
Aunt Mel eyed him with something unnameably personal. "You really do talk like you've seen the world. Maybe too much of it." She stuck out her chin. "So you oughtta know by now there's no such thing as second chances, not in real life. What's done is done, and that's that. Undos are a myth. A fun one to believe in, but a myth all the same. There's do-agains. There's no do-overs."
"An opportunity, then," he said irritably. "Whatever you want to call it, I have to at least try, don't I? If I do nothing…"
Their deaths will be on my hands.
"Don't go shouldering history thinking you can fix it all just 'cause you know what happens next. Knowing and doing may be siblings, but they sure ain't twins, and those siblings got a rivalry: the more you know, the harder to do."
"That makes no sense. If you don't know anything, how can you change anything?"
"Why you, though?" Daff stuffed her hands in the pockets of her overalls. "You never explained how you got roped into all this."
"Yeah." Oscar's pulse crawled up his throat. "That was on purpose."
A jolted whimper escaped Aunt Mel. She sucked in a breath. "Daffy, hon? Your momma on her way yet?"
"I don't know, she hasn't responded. I'll just run and get her."
"You do that."
With a lingered look of terror at Oscar, Daffodyl fled from the barn.
Oscar knelt by his aunt's side. "Are you okay?"
That stupid question again.
"Fine enough. Think the blood loss is making me woozy; pain's gone down." She slumped in the hay.
"Try not to move around too much," Oscar said. "I can get you some water if you're feeling faint. Do you want—"
"Daff'll be back soon. If you got something you need to say to me, say it."
Oh.
Say it.
The bandages on Aunt M's leg sogged scarlet. Oscar wrapped more tight about her calf and propped her foot on his knee. It was good to keep it elevated, right?
"Nothing, huh?"
Say it! Say it, say it, say it!
But the words refused to form on his lips. Every time he'd tried to script them, to wrest them into something coherent, he'd found some reason to put it off. The core question remained: which was kinder to give? The false hope he'd come home when all was said and done? Or the reality that already, even now as he sat by her side, he wasn't home. And it struck him more plainly than ever, he never would be again.
Movement broke his musing. Aunt Mel's hand trembled its way to her chest, settling on her breastpocket; her fingers fiddled with the button.
Oscar drained. She hardly looked awake. Gently, he took her hand and set it aside. "Let me."
A paperlike crinkling barred his palm from her heart. He lifted his hand above the jagged lump in her pocket.
"Take it."
Oscar obeyed. His own hands shook as they, too, struggled with the button. He blocked out the stench of dirtied gauze, the prickings of dried hay, the dull prongs of an unseen stare — and drew the half-folded, half-stuffed piece of paper from her chest.
"Now open it."
He did so, and no sooner had he glimpsed the misshapen scrawlings of ink than bile built in his lungs.
His note. The goodbye he'd left unspoken.
"Read it," she instructed. "In your head, please."
Oscar could hardly look at it, but he couldn't put it down, either. The paper rustled flat on his thigh. Sunburst-shaped splotches blurred pairs and trios of letters, dried running ink. Light glowed through these thinned spots, goldening the page.
Dear Aunt M,
I have to leave, and I don't know when I'll be back. I really want to explain it to you, but I can't. And I can't tell you why I can't tell you, either, apparently. You wouldn't believe me and wouldn't let me go. I wasn't even supposed to write a note, so I might throw this out. You'd probably think I'm going crazy. I probably am. But you raised me to always do what I can to help, even and especially when it's hard. Sometimes you have to give something up to give something back. (That's from one of the books you got me.) You taught me to trust my heart. I hope you understand. I'm sorry. I want to write more but I don't think that's a good idea. Thank you for everything you've done for me. I'm going to miss you. I'm sorry. I love you so much.
Your nephew,
Oscar
At the bottom of the note lay the yellow dandelion he'd taped to it, not yet fully wilted. Beneath that:
PS: Please don't come looking for me.
"For two weeks, this is all I had left of you. A request to never see you again."
Oscar wasn't sure his heart worked anymore. Everything in him stopped dead. His thumbs found small rips in the paper's edges, found creases so worry-worn they threatened to tear within the next few folds.
His mouth went dry. If this is what it looks like after two weeks, how much of me did she have left after six months?
He'd leave her with something less flimsy for this goodbye. Something that wouldn't weaken whenever she returned to it. 'Sometimes you have to give something up to give something back.'
Closing his eyes, Oscar lowered the note to the barn floor, pulled out the cane, and held it in his lap. It offered him no comfort this time. He took a breath. "The man Salem fought the gods for—"
"Stop."
Oscar blinked. "What?"
She waved him off. "Changed my mind. I told you I wouldn't pry, I only needed to know why you left. Why you're so bent on leaving again. And now I know."
"But, I haven't told you—"
"And you don't have to."
"I— want to."
"Do you?"
No. "You deserve to hear it."
"You gotta let go of 'deserve,' Dandelion." Her chest filled and fell wheezily. "Trust me, you not telling me how you tie into the end of the world is a better parting gift than a new bushel of worry." She patted his hand. "I know that sounds nutty, but it'll make sense when you're older."
"It makes sense." Six months ago it wouldn't have. "I'm not sure I understand it, but it makes sense."
"Then I'll make it easy for you: do you think me not knowing puts me in any extra danger?"
He thought about it. "No." Probably the opposite.
"Then don't tell me." She folded her hands matter-of-factly. "Not every secret needs to be shared. Some are better kept."
"Like yours?"
Her lips thinned. "Like mine."
Oscar wrestled his curiosity. This isn't the time. Don't be selfish.
But he was. "Is there anything you can share with me? About our family?"
Aunt Mel forced an apologetic shrug. "Truth is, the biggest secret I've got is how little I actually know."
"Then it shouldn't take long to tell me."
Stop pushing her. She's hurt, stop it.
Aunt M stayed quiet a good while, warring behind her eyes. When she eventually spoke, it was in a hush like frost. "You'd be dead if I hadn't taken you, I need you to know that."
Oscar froze. Taken? He tried to even his response. "I thought my mother gave me to you?"
Aunt Mel exhaled slowly. "She didn't object."
"You said she was dying and couldn't take care of me."
"Oh, she was and she couldn't, but she didn't know it. At some point I think she just stopped caring."
"So, what, you just showed up one day and took me away from her?"
"I saved you from the life she wouldn't leave."
"What does that mean? What life?"
"Better named a slow death." Her jaw set. "I've spent a lotta years untying that guilt, but getting you out of there was the first and last choice I ever made I can look back on without any regret."
It was the first admission of doubt she'd ever given him. Oscar softened at this, at her invitation to the truly delicate nature of her resolve. His voice lowered in both volume and pitch to accept the gift. "Do you... spend much time with regret?"
"We used to be inseparable." She smiled up at the rafters. "Got pretty unhealthy at times, could call it codependency. But we've learned to keep our distance over the years, regret and me. Sure, she still comes 'round to visit every once in a while, but now she knows to knock on the door. Up to me whether to let her in."
"Do you?"
"Often as I can."
"Why?"
Aunt Mel handled his gaze as if worried she might break it. A twinkle and familiar crinkling by her eyes forewarned a metaphor. "The past is like tending a garden," she said, proving him right. "You've got to search for the weeds to find 'em, gotta grab hold to uproot 'em, and if you don't keep at it, they'll kill all you've got, and they're all that you'll have. Regret's the glove you learn to wear the first time you shake hands with a pricklyburr."
A laugh puffed out Oscar's nose.
Aunt Mel's smile sank, adorning her in faraway melancholy. "It's easy, when you try and ignore it, to start rotting from the inside out without even knowing. That sort of damage takes a lifetime of unlearning." An intensity lined her wrinkles, age gouged by knowledge. "Maybe we never do."
"But... what happens if you get too caught up in it?"
"Same thing," she said. "Only difference is you notice it more and fight it less."
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
Aunt Mel chuckled and leaned back in the hay. "Let me know if you ever figure that one out."
Wind whistled through cracks in the wood. Aunt and nephew sat in their foreign company, taking in the rhythm of one another's breaths.
"Aunt M?" Oscar ventured. "In case we never—"
"Nope." She snapped her fingers. "Cut that part out, I don't wanna hear it. Just say the second bit on its own."
He closed his mouth and nodded once. "Is there anything you want me to know? Anything… you'd regret not telling me?"
Before she could answer — if she even would have — Daffodyl burst into the barn, gasping and beet-faced.
Oscar startled back to the present.
"She's almost here! She's just a bit behind me." Daff bent over with hands on her knees.
"Good timing! I'm fixin' to pass out any second."
Is it that bad? The wound didn't look too deep, but any red that usually dusted her cheeks had seeped out her leg.
"Daff, could you give us just a moment, hon? Go on back and help your poor momma carry her things."
"Oh, okay, yeah, I was about to, just— came to let you know." She caught her breath and ran off again.
Aunt Mel skimmed Oscar up and down. "You've gotta get a move on, yeah? I washed your clothes last night, they'll be dry by now. You oughta change that shirt before you leave, doesn't look too comfy. Should be a spare backpack in the closet, I'm guessing you lost yours. Sure you don't want to swap out those bandages? I can—"
"No!" His chest burned at the memory of what Salem and Hazel had… Hazel. A blinding yellow flashed over him. "No, that's okay — I'll pack extra." She doesn't need to see that.
No, you don't want to see that. A part of him he tried to block out told him that if he looked, he might stay. "So… you're really letting me leave?" Two separate parts of him crumpled, both his.
"'Course not." She grimaced. "But you're gonna."
The way she'd said that, without a trace of uncertainty — it killed him. There wasn't a world where she imagined him choosing to stay.
Daffodyl's mother interrupted, barging into the barn with a small tote that must contain a medical kit. "Oh, Mellie, hang on, now!"
"Hah, took you long enough. Have fun on the scenic route?"
It was eerie how quickly Aunt Mel could switch gears.
"How bad is it?"
"I got lucky — grimm left my good leg be. Real thoughtful of them."
"Grimm? How'd those little critters get you so good?"
Aunt Mel waved a hand. "Oh, please, I'm getting to the age a breeze could topple me if it got a mind to."
Daffodyl's mother unwrapped the bandages. "Did neither of y'all clean the wound first?"
Oscar and Daffodyl exchanged embarrassment.
She sighed and grumbled, digging through her bag. "What do they even teach you in those schools?"
Lies and assumptions, mostly.
"Bullshit, mostly."
"Daffodyl, language!"
Guess that's another way of putting it. Oscar smirked over at her, but the unwrapped wound in his periphery stole it. "Is she going to be okay?"
"With any luck, I'll have her fixed right up in a couple days. Sent for Mr. Thistlethorpe to bring over the dolly and trailer just in case. Good thing, too."
Daffodyl kneaded her hands in her lap. "Are we taking her to the hospital?"
"Hospital's closed, but we have plenty at home to keep her cozy and stable in the meantime."
"Thank you," Oscar said. What he'd have done without them, he didn't know.
"You wanna stay with us too while she heals? You can use that old mattress — I swear the only reason Daff keeps it around is for your visits. Been awhile, might as well get some use out of it."
Oscar thanked the stars Daffodyl's father wasn't there to say no. "That'd be—"
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Aunt Mel cut in. "Oscar's headed on a trip to visit his uncle this evening."
"I can delay the departure," Oscar said quickly. "He'll still be there once you've healed; I'm sure he'd understand."
"Train ticket's for tonight. No way am I letting that money go to waste." Her strict brow left no room for disagreement. "I'll be waiting here when you get back, no rush. I know you've been dying to meet him."
"You didn't tell me you had an uncle."
To Oscar's knowledge, he didn't. "I didn't know," he said. "He never contacted me before, but now he wants me to come to the city with him."
An 'oh' formed on Daffodyl's face. "Is that why you went missing? A stranger claimed to know you and told you to go to the city alone and you just listened?"
"When you put it that way, it sounds almost as stupid as it is." Oscar rubbed his neck. That wouldn't be enough to explain why it'd taken two weeks to come back, though.
Say you got on the wrong train. Or got lost, or—
No. The best lies are the closest to the truth.
"That's probably why I didn't tell you I was leaving." Oscar shrugged. "I don't know why I'm not there right now. Something made me come back."
"Fear'll do that to ya," Aunt Mel mumbled. "You should've just asked me in the first place. I would've said yes."
And that's why I didn't ask.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Daffodyl asked her mom.
Oscar stood and dusted hay off his knees. "Me too."
"Yes, if one of you could take—"
"I could use your help, Daffy," said Aunt Mel. "Oscar, you help out Dr. Thistlethorpe, will you?"
The children crossed to help each other's mom and aunt.
"As I was saying — Oscar, can you take this cloth and soak it in some water for me? Bowl of ice, too, if you've got any."
Oscar brought her cloth to the sink and waited for the water to run cold. He vaguely overheard his aunt talking to Daffodyl, but his senses were dulling by the moment. He returned to Dr. Thistlethorpe and apologized for their broken icebox.
The next several minutes Oscar spent mindlessly handing Dr. Thistlethorpe items from her bag and fetching supplies from the barn or the kitchen. He rushed about with little thought, except the one that kept dazedly defaulting to his aunt's face, the intermittent twitchings of her patient, closed eyelids. He kept his hands busy. Every so often he'd prompt her to speak, just to make sure she was still conscious.
Let her rest.
But he couldn't.
"Are you—"
"Next time you ask me that I'm not gonna answer."
True to her word, she didn't speak for the remainder of her time in the barn.
After who knew how long, a rumbling engine and the squeak of rusted wheels sounded from outside. Daff's father backed his old tractor to the barn entrance — lucky how the grimm had opened up the path for him — and he, his wife, Daffodyl, and Oscar hoisted Aunt Mel into the trailer.
"Careful," she said. "Precious cargo here."
"Yes, you are." Oscar smiled. So she was awake.
"Daff, hon, you get what I asked?"
"Uh, yeah. Here." Daffodyl unslung a backpack from her shoulder and handed it to Oscar. "All packed for your trip."
Oscar took it slowly, knowing what accepting it meant. "Thank you." From the look on his friend's face, she did, too.
"Um, so, see ya." She shuffled on her feet. "That sounded stupid, sorry. I know you don't like hugs, so—"
Oscar stepped forward and hugged her, pinning her arms to her sides. "See ya."
She laughed her feather-light laugh. When he let go, she just said, "Cool." And that was it.
As Daffodyl and her parents loaded up on the tractor, it started to set in; the visit to his old life was ending.
It had to, right? He'd known it would.
The sun suspended in the liminal space between afternoon and evening — too late and too early to be called either. Where had the day gone?
"You had her pack for me?"
"Just a few odds and ends. Clean bandages, some food for the train, a hairbrush I'm sure you'll never use. Oh, and don't forget to grab your jacket off the clothesline. I stashed some lien in the inside pocket in case you left while I was sleeping."
The clothes she'd laid out on his bed took on a new meaning.
Oscar bent over her body and gripped her shoulder and knee. Bone clattered cold beneath. "I can't just leave you like this now. I need to know you're going to be okay."
"Oh, I will be." She ruffled his hair and let her arm fall back to her stomach. "Nothing's ever kept me down for long."
Not yet. Daffodyl's mom had assured him she'd be fine, but how could she know that? Grimm this big never prowled the countryside.
"Don't you have a train to catch?"
Just hours ago he'd been trying to convince her to let him leave. But now, standing on the trail and looking at her like this, he had to wonder if she was right. That there was a choice here.
And maybe there was. Ozpin was gone. Still somewhere, but not in Oscar's head. Wherever he was, he'd keep fighting without him. It wasn't Oscar's job anymore. The others were far more capable — if anything, it might even be easier for them without having to worry about his safety all the time.
The burden and fate he'd spent the last six months grappling with had been miraculously lifted, and he hadn't even stopped to think about what that meant for him.
So… maybe he could choose. Maybe he could stay here, and tend the crops, and care for his aunt. He'd make apple cider with her in the big steel pot when autumn chipped, plucking spices from his windowsill and stirring while she peeled. He'd accompany Daffodyl to the market on the second weekend of each month, bartering with the neighbors and comparing their hauls. They'd go mulberry picking, always forgetting to be wary of the thorns and eating most of them before making it back home.
Whatever the cause, whatever the reason, Oscar had been handed a second chance at normalcy. He could be a child again. His aunt could be happy again. He could return to one place, day after day, and re-learn what it is to be home. He could live without a voice in his head, a pastful of shame, a half-owned future. He could live, here, as Oscar Pine, as a boy with one soul.
"Oscar."
"Please let me come with you. At least until you're better. I can stay a few more…" No, he thought by force. I can't.
Shouldn't. Not can't. Shouldn't.
But could.
"Oscar." Aunt Mel stated his name resolutely. "Do you really believe the world's in danger, honest to gods, and that you might be able to help protect it?"
Oh. His self-indulgent 'maybe's withered. It may not be his responsibility anymore, but she was right. What he knew could make all the difference in the world. "Yes," he said. "I do."
"Then don't sacrifice it for me."
Oscar's lungs contracted. "But… you're so much of it."
Aunt Mel's shoulders drooped and her brows gathered upward. She looked at him the way she used to when he was little, before every forehead kiss goodnight. She reached up and held aside the hair curtaining his face. "You say you're not the same child who left me. You say he's gone and never coming back."
Sunlight stole shadow from her skin. Her eyes became mirrors.
"But I still see him." She smiled. "Right now, right there in those big ol' puppy eyes, clear as day. Can't come back, can't go away. He's in there forever."
Oscar said nothing. There was nothing true worth saying.
"I'm a tough gal, Dandelion. I can survive if you leave me." Her warm smile faded cold. "But I'd just about die if you left him."
A passing cloud dimmed the sky.
That's not true. Oscar held her hand to his cheek, and tried not to think that if it were, she'd be limp in his arms.
He ran his thumb over the backs of her knuckles; she played connect the dots with his freckles. Both were acutely aware that this quiet they shared would likely be their last, and handled it with the reverence it deserved.
But moments do not last.
The engine started up with a jarring stutter.
"What if more grimm like that come back?" Oscar asked. "And I'm not here to protect you? What happens then?"
"Wasting worry on 'what happens then' never did anyone any good. What matters now is what happens now." She took his hand loosely. "One thing I need you to swear to me."
Oscar looked at her, imagining a world where she'd try and make him stay. Where she'd tell him she needed him. Where she'd put herself first for once in her life.
"You just keep in touch with me this time. Alright?" There was a desperation in her voice Oscar hadn't prepared for.
"I will." He swallowed six months of guilt. "I promise."
Aunt Mel squeezed his hand, and for a tender-kept time, Oscar saw home. In her touch, in her eyes. And for half a beat of his heart, he thought he saw it reflected in his own.
He squeezed back. "Goodbye, Aunt M."
She answered with only a smile and a shake of her head, and when the cart finally rolled down the road, she was the first to let go.
The train station was as barren as he remembered it, the one time he'd been. It creaked lonely greetings under his dry-muddy boots. The thunderstorms that'd ended a few days ago still hung damp in the air.
At least it's not raining this time.
It'd surprised him back then to find the train station he'd dreamed about was smaller than his own barn, and just as run down. The ticket machine's metal and plastic body stuck out from the wooden everything else. It belonged here about as much as Oscar did.
At least I have money this time.
Oscar heaved his backpack on top of the machine and fished for the card in his pockets. The bag slid partway into a dent roughly the size of Oscar's head.
Or Hazel's fist.
So Hazel had been here already. Had punched the machine to get Oscar a ticket.
"Huh. Does that mean… what does that mean?"
It at least confirms I already left for the city, he reasoned. And that Oz found me in this time, timeline, wherever — too. But what does that mean now?
Maybe time really did move differently here in the countryside, and the rest of the world was normal. That would mean the others would still be in the right time in the right places with the right memories, and he just had to find them.
But maybe since he'd been sent back to a point in time after he'd gotten on the train, the incident with Hazel had happened, and then a couple weeks after, he'd disappeared — or been teleported from Mistral back to the farm. Just… with new memories. And clothes.
Does that line of logic even make sense?
"Does any of this make sense?"
He should probably get out of the habit of arguing with himself out loud. When Oz was around he at least had an excuse.
Oscar scanned his lien and the screen displayed a short list of destinations.
Oh. He gritted his teeth. I'm an idiot.
Shockingly, this train station did not have a ticket option for Vacuo, a kingdom on the other side of the ocean.
Now what? He hadn't really thought through any sort of concrete plan, hadn't even stopped to consider why he'd envisioned going to Vacuo when there were so many other options. Retracing his steps seemed as good a strategy as any.
Rationally, the others would either be at Haven or in Vacuo; that was his only lead. Or maybe it'd be smarter to prioritize warning world leaders about what was coming… He could try for Argus, figure out some way to hop a cargo ship to Atlas, or at least send a note to Ironwood. Whatever the course, it'd be hardest alone; it all depended on where his friends had wound up.
If I was sent home, maybe the same goes for the others? Weiss would be at the mansion, Blake in Menagerie, Ruby and Yang in Patch…
Then the dozenth 'oh' of the night hit him. Oscar hadn't been sent back until a good while after team RWBY, Jaune, and Penny had fallen into the void — it'd been hours since the portals vanished, the Staff changed hands, and Winter became the Maiden. Even if by some miracle any of them were alive here, none of them would be the same.
Unless... Maybe Winter had been mistaken, and someone had survived.
They didn't. They had no way of escaping once Cinder used the Staff.
But before that? If I can just find—
He dug his nails into his palms. She's dead. Okay? She can't help you, she's dead. They're all dead, you know it, you need to get past it. Oscar had only lost six people. Far more were sure to die if he traded their lives for his hope. It's my turn. He looked out to the mountains. Move forward.
The sign above the station chimed; Oscar peered back to read it. Next train came in five minutes.
Okay. Oscar paced to keep his wallowing at bay. Argus or Mistral. Argus gave him more travel options, and would let him warn as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Ironwood should already be working on Amity with the plan to tell everyone about Salem; urging him to expedite the project might help organize Remnant against Salem, or at least prepare the academies for her attacks. But he doubted Cordovin would hear him out, and stealing an airship would be hard to pull off on his own. Sneaking on board could be easier. But all that for the chance he could get Ironwood's help? And would it even be a good idea to ask for it, after all he'd done?
He could take the route to the connecting station and head for the coast, try to find a way to Vacuo from where the continents met closest, but trying to find the others stranded in a desert would be foolish. Their only chance at a reunion in Vacuo would be in the city itself.
Mistral was a much shorter trip, but more dangerous at the moment, being Salem's next target. That alone might be good enough reason to stay here in Anima, going after the soonest threat rather than the largest. But if the others were in Mistral, would they even recognize him? How am I supposed to convince them without Oz to prove I'm not lying?
The timer clicked. Four minutes left.
Judging by the dent in the machine, they'd have met him by now, right? So at best they'd just be worried about where he'd been the last day and a half. Unless him being sent to the farm meant he actually hadn't met them yet, like he'd been erased from two days ago and thrown into two weeks later? He groaned. What does that even mean? He abandoned the thought for the time being.
It stood to reason the other survivors could've been sent back as well... Maybe Winter could help. He could try contacting her instead of James. I still don't know if she's in Atlas or Vacuo, though. If she were in Vacuo, she might still be in the middle of a sandstorm with the refugees, unreachable. If she were in Atlas, either she'd be in the same boat as Oscar, or her memories would've been reset like his aunt's.
Did everyone who went through the portals get sent home? Is that it? He imagined thousands of refugees who'd just fled their kingdom's destruction, only to be inexplicably back with the majority of Atlas not believing them.
Mid-pivot, Oscar's elbow bumped into a communal scroll dangling from a cord on the wall. "Oh, thank gods." Finally, something he could use.
He tapped his lien on the cracked screen; it flickered to life and presented him with a number pad. Oscar took the scroll.
His finger hovered over the numbers. If the Vale CCT fell, this'll only reach other Mistral towers. At least that narrowed things down for him. But who else had homes in Mistral?
The Branwen tribe typically roamed central Anima, but Qrow hadn't made it through the portal. Oscar considered those who had. Ren, Nora, Emerald, Winter. She and Whitley would be in Atlas. No idea where Emerald's from. Ren and Nora— huh. Oddly, all he knew about their past was that they were orphans who'd stuck together. They would've had to find their way to Beacon on their own. Oscar didn't doubt they could've made it overseas, what with Ren's stealth and Nora's scheming. It was wholly possible they'd come from villages here and crossed to Sanus where the sea narrowed.
The timer clicked. Three minutes.
Already? Oscar checked his own scroll, but it was unresponsive. Figures. He'd only memorized four numbers: Jaune's, Ruby's, Qrow's, and Nora's. Jaune's because he'd insisted his team be able to contact him, Nora's because she'd made him repeat it out loud daily ever since he'd gone missing in Argus, Qrow's because Ozpin had a catchy little tune to remember it by, and Ruby's because he'd spent so much time... he just liked looking at it. It was a nice number.
A 'nice number?'
It has three threes. Shut up.
Of the four, Nora would be the only one who… The only one who'd be able to pick up. The space between his ribs and stomach swelled with poison. Poison poison poison. Something about the acrid sting was too familiar, in much too literal a sense. He bit it back.
The timer clicked. Two minutes.
He dialed Nora's number.
Now hit call.
His finger didn't listen.
You're running out of time, waiting won't change what happens. He forced it to press the button.
Old-fashioned rings chased one after another. He couldn't help but hold his breath. Pick up pick up pick up…
'Please leave a message for—'
"Hello?"
The voice whiplashed Oscar's heart up his throat. "Ruby?"
What? How— what? Words failed him. She's alive?
"Oh, yeah, sorry, Nora's asleep, she left her phone on the—"
"Ruby," he repeated in awe. "You're— how did you—?" No time. "Where are you?"
"I'm downstairs," she said. "Where are you?"
Her voice. Her voice. He'd all but resigned it to memories. "At the train station by my farm. I'll be on my way soon, where should—"
"Oh, it is you! Sorry, it just said unknown caller, but it sounded like you, I should've asked— wait, you went back home?"
"Y— no, I didn't come here, I just am here." She knows me. How does she know me? "Did you get sent back somewhere, too?"
The answer hardly mattered. She was alive. She was alive and she recognized his voice. It was all he could do to keep from floating away.
"Sent?" she echoed. "Wait, is that where you've been? I thought— who sent you home? Was it Oz?"
"Maybe not 'sent.' I don't know how I got here, it's—"
The timer clicked. One minute.
"I can explain better in person. Where are you?"
"I told you, I'm just at the house, downstairs."
"Weiss' house?" Did she get through the portals before it was too late? "No, right — Mistral call. CCT."
"Huh? How could we be in Atlas after what happened with Ironwood?"
"I don't know, how can I be here after— wait, you remember?" She remembers?
The train whistled in the closing distance, covering whatever Ruby said in response.
"The house by Haven, then, right?" he clarified. "Who all's there? Who else made it?"
A far-off muffle sounded from Ruby's end.
"Just a second!" she called back. "I have to go, sorry! We can talk later, okay?"
"Okay, I'll get there as—"
She hung up.
"—soon as I can."
Oscar returned the scroll to its holster in a daze. She's alive. And she knows me. She's alive and she knows me and she remembers what happened. This was, all things considered, the best case scenario. What more could he have wished for? The wind picked up and wove through his hair, carrying the scent of mountain laurels. He filled his lungs with the cleanest air he'd ever tasted. This must be what Ruby had experienced watching Penny descend from the Atlas sky, what she'd felt at the familiarity that sparked the second their eyes locked. Even having never known Penny, Oscar could see it — that rushing relief, that reckless suspension of the impossible, that wild joy too willful for logic. Nothing compared. The only difference was that in Oscar's case, as much as he'd tried, he hadn't truly been able to accept Ruby's death as final. And now I don't have to. Logic poked its head up, uttering something about how death is a wound not even time can heal, but joy bopped it on the head and shone ever brighter.
So did the others know about the time thing yet? Or did they just think they'd fallen through and been transported to Mistral via magic? Actually, what if they had?
The clock chimed, announcing the Haven-bound train's approach.
Shit. Oscar raced to the terminal, slapped his card on the sensor, and with a conviction like never before, jammed his finger into the button labeled City of Mistral.
The machine spat out a ticket, and this time he caught it before it fell. He smiled. Things were already changing.
The train chuffed into the station. The light flashed, and the bell dinged.
Oscar tugged his bag up his shoulders and waited at the platform, bouncing on the balls of his boots. He examined the ticket, thumbing over the words 'One-Way.'
How many of them made it? He beamed. Nora's there, Ruby said so. And someone else who was awake had called out. If Ruby was alive, maybe she'd found a way to save everyone else — she always did.
With a great burst of steam, the train hissed to a halt. Here we go. Don't look back. It was a very similar thought to when he'd left the first time, only now he knew a lot more and understood a lot less.
Oscar straightened his posture and held his weapon as a walking stick. She's alive. Ruby's voice had yet to leave his ears. And she knows me. He could just about cry. She's alive and she remembers.
The doors opened. They're alive. They're alive. He glued the thought to the backs of his eyelids, returning to it with every blink. They're alive. He climbed aboard the train. They're alive.
In a rare turn, Oscar allowed himself to hope.