Autumn Winds

Knock knock knock.  “John?”  Knock knock knock.  “John?”

John had expecting to return from his morning training to find an empty hallway, or maybe Autumn leaving her room.  He hadn’t expected to see her standing outside his door with a backpack of supplies at her feet and her weapon—in sword form, as she thought the spear it turned into was too awkward to carry outside of combat—strapped to her hip.

“John, get up!”  She punctuated her statement with another knock.  “We’re getting our first mission today.  Whaddya think it’s going to be?”

“No one is going to come to the door.”  Autumn jumped slightly and spun to face John, who was now standing behind her. “And we won’t be able to go unless you move so I can get into my room.”

“Oh, John.”  She let out a little breath that might have been a chuckle and smiled sheepishly, “I was gonna wake you up, but I guess you don’t need it.” 

“Just let me get my stuff and then we can head to Ozpin’s office to get our mission.”

“Don’t we have to go to The Agency building to get our mission, like the rest of the members from yesterday?”

John shook his head.  “If you had been paying attention, you would have known that our missions are separate and are given to us directly by Ozpin.  Now, can I get my stuff?”  He looked pointedly at the door.

Autumn scooted to the side, but when John entered his room, she followed after him.

“Wow, it’s empty in here,” Autumn jumped past John and perched at the end of the bed, “You need some pictures or something on the walls to brighten things up.”

Jaune had left his room bland on purpose.  He was only using it to sleep after all.  All of his other possessions had been returned to his family after his ‘death’ during the Battle of Beacon. 

“I like my room like this,” he stated flatly as he put on his armor and weapon, “It serves its purpose.”  He picked up his bag and placed the note that Pyrrha left him that was sitting on his desk in his pocket. “You ready to go get our mission?”

Autumn jumped from her seat on the bed and headed towards the door. “Yep, now come on.”

The elevator ride to the Headmaster’s office was silent, apart from Autumn humming a tune that Jaune didn’t recognize.

The Professor was waiting as his desk when the two entered.  “Ah, there you are,” he stood up from his desk and stepped in front of it, “Have a seat and I will brief you on your mission.” As soon as they sat down, a holographic screen appeared behind Ozpin.  It depicted a picture of a dark-skinned woman with green hair.  “This is Emerald Sustrai, one of Cinder’s known accomplices.  You are tasked with finding her and discovering what you can of Cinder’s location and plans.  Her last known location was somewhere outside of Atlas, so you will be meeting with Ms. Weiss Schnee, who will have more precise information regarding Emerald’s location.”

“Anything else we need to know?” Autumn leaned forward intently, staring at the picture as if memorizing it.

“Nothing of too much use, your scrolls have information regarding her fighting style and what we know about her so far.”  Ozpin pressed a button, and Autumn and John’s pockets beeped as the relevant information was uploaded. 

“John,” he added, “there is something that you alone will need to know for this mission.  The information has been sent directly to your scroll so view it at your leisure.  That is all.”  The Professor returned to his seat, “The two of you are dismissed.”

Autumn spoke up as they boarded the elevator.  “This’ll be exciting.  I don’t think I’ve ever been on a Dust Plane before.  What about you, John?” she asked, turning to face him.  John shook his head.

“We are not going to be taking a Dust Plane.  It’d be too dangerous if Cinder and her followers were to know of our mission.  We will be traveling on horseback for better concealment.”

Autumn pouted, but after a moment, shrugged in acceptance.

“After a few days you’ll have better things to think about than the chance to ride a Dust Plane.  Now come on, it’s a long trip to Atlas is a long way from Vale, but we should be able to make decent time.”

The first few days of travel passed nearly uneventfully, aside from the odd patch of Grimm and a rainstorm.  Their clothes were just feeling dry again the day they arrived at a cross roads to find a cart on the side of the road.

“They look stranded,” Autumn said, indicating the cart as it came into sight, “we should see if they need any help.”

John shook his head, “I know you want to help, but we have a mission and a time limit.  If we deviate too much we will lose our chance to find Emerald.”

“This won’t take long.”  Autumn stopped her horse beside the cart, John following with a sigh. “Hello,” Autumn called out, “do you need any help?”

One of the three men by the cart stepped forward and addressed the two.  “Yea,” he nodded his head, “our horse got loose from the cart and ran off.  One of our friends went off after it.  We just got word that he is on his way back, but there are Grimm around so if you could just hang around until he gets back that would be a big help.” 

“Sure thing.”  As Autumn moved to dismount, the other two men reached behind the cart and pulled out weapons.

“Or,” the man said with a smirk, “you could just hand us all your possessions, and we might not have to kill you.”

“You see Autumn?” John sighed, “Bandits.  This is exactly why we shouldn’t have stopped.”  John hopped off his horse and allowed his armor to extend down his arm, forming a gauntlet.  “These guys don’t look like they have unlocked Aura,” he told her as he drew his sword, “so I guess we shouldn’t try and hurt them too much.”

“Is that a challenge pretty boy?” One of the armed bandits spat at John.  “Don’t blame me when you’re lyin’ on the side of the road in a thousand tiny pieces.” 

The armed bandits charged forward to attack John.  The flurry of sword swings were easily blocked by John’s armored forearm.  He knocked one bandit’s legs out from under him, then followed it up with a heavy right-handed punch to the other bandit’s gut.  The fight was finished before the bandit who had talked to them previously had a chance to ready his weapon.

“Alright man, you win.”  The bandit didn’t seem nearly as confident with his companions lying on the ground, “You two can keep goin’ like this never happened, just don’t kill us.”

“We’re not going to kill you.”  Autumn pressed a button on her scroll that called an Agency Bullhead – a vehicle used by The Agency for emergency pickups or for extraction of criminals that were discovered on Agency Missions – to their location.  “We’re just going to watch you until the authorities can make it out here.”

“DIE!”

Everyone jumped and turned to face the source of the sudden yell.  The fourth ‘friend’ that the bandits had referred to had appeared with a large axe and was sprinting towards Autumn.  She reached for her weapon, but before she could pull it out he was upon her.  Or he would have been, had John not leapt in front of her wielding his own blade.  Before anyone could react the blade had pierced straight through the bandit and his body fell limp.

It was then that the Agency Bullhead appeared on the horizon and John silently got back on his horse and left, Autumn following behind him.  The two rode in silence for hours before John finally spoke.

“The abandoned town of Meadow is up ahead, we can set up camp there for the night.”  No immediate response came. “Autumn, did you hear me?”

Autumn nodded, “Yeah.  We’re gonna camp in Meadow.  Wait, why’s there a town this far out, anyway?”

“You’ve heard of Mountain Glenn, right?  Autumn nodded and John went on, “It was a failed attempt at settling beyond the borders of Vale.  Well, before that, there were other attempts at smaller settlements.  They did alright for a while, but none of them lasted.  There’re plenty between here and Atlas, and the buildings should be intact enough for us to use them as a shelter whenever we run across one.  Actually,” he added idly, “those four we met earlier might’ve been coming from Meadow.”

Autumn actually winced at the mention of the bandits from earlier.  “Did you really have have to kill that bandit?  You said yourself that they didn’t have unlocked auras, so there weren’t that big of a threat.”

As she asked, a cluster of sad-looking buildings appeared on the horizon.  “I’ll answer you after we have set up camp.”  John told her, and the two rode into Meadow. 

When they reached the village, John picked a central building and entered it.  He dropped his bag on the floor with a small thud then emptied his pockets.  “You set up the sleeping bags and start a small fire,” he told Autumn, “I’ll check the surroundings to make sure there are no Grimm still hanging around.”

John left the building and found his way to a small creek that ran just outside the town.  Now that he was alone, he finally let the heaviness from earlier hit him.  The images flashed before his eyes, the life disappearing from the eyes of the bandit and the body that had been full of vigor previously falling limp. Jaune’s stomach rioted, and he doubled over and vomited.  He’d known in the back of his head that he would likely have to take a life at some point in his life—being a Huntsman was a dangerous job, being a Shadow even more so—but he had never expected it to be like that.  He finished emptying the contents of his stomach, he cleaned himself off with water from the creek, then took the time to do the standard patrol around the town before he returned to the building that they were using as a shelter for the day.  When he returned, he saw Autumn bending over his bag and picking up a beat-up piece of paper that was sitting on top of it.  He quickly strode over to her and before she could open the paper he grabbed her wrist and snatched it out of her hand.

“Don’t look at that,” he snapped, shoving the paper back in his pocket, “It’s personal and nothing you should be touching.”

“I’m sorry!” Autumn held her hands up apologetically, “I just saw that you look at that paper every night and I wanted to know why it was so important to you.  I wanted to know more about what makes you, well, you.”  She was fumbling with her words, trying not to make John angrier.

“All you need to know,” John growled, his face hard, “is that my job is to keep you safe while we try to find Cinder and get the rest of the Maiden powers back.  I take that job very seriously and I proved today I’m pretty good at it.”

“Oh, so that’s it?”  Autumn’s hands were clenched into fists at her sides, “I’m just a job to you?  Is that why you look like you’re sitting on a cactus whenever I talk to you?  John,” she stood up straight, looking angrier than John had seen her, “I am the Fall Maiden. I can handle myself.  If you’re so uncomfortable around me, you can leave.  I don’t need you to be my Shadow, I am strong enough to not need any Shadow.”

“No, you’re not.  You just think you are.  That bandit earlier was going to hit you before you could even react, then we would be matching.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

John dropped his sword and armor on the ground next to his bag and swiftly removed his shirt and turned away from Autumn.  “This.”  Across John’s back was a single scar.  “I got this while training with Qrow, the last Fall Maiden’s Shadow.  He was going easy on me.  I thought I was strong enough to handle him in a real fight.  I was wrong.”

Autumn stared at the jagged red scar that reached from John’s left shoulder to slightly above his waist, her jaw dropping.

As John put his shirt back on and turned around, Autumn sighed.  “Alright.  Maybe one day I’ll be strong enough to not need a Shadow, but until then I guess we are stuck with each other.  And maybe we’ll be friends by then too.”

 “Maybe.  I’ll take first watch tonight.  Get some sleep, we lost a bit of time today with those bandits and we will have to make it up tomorrow.”

Autumn hunkered down on the floor, and after a while her light breathing was the only sound in the room.  Jaune was sitting on a chair he’d salvaged, looking out the window.

“I’m so sorry Pyrrha.”  He sighed and rested his head in his hands, “I shouldn’t have snapped like that.  It’s just…I couldn’t keep you safe at Beacon.  I’ve learned so much since then, but it’s so hard…”  Teardrops hit the paper in his lap—the same paper that Autumn had been looking at earlier.  He carefully folded it up and slipped it back into his pocket.