The Kingdom of Atlas

The three young adults had come to establish a sort of habit when making camp. Weiss, who was typically the pickiest one of them all, would choose a spot and begin to put up their tent while Jaune and Ruby usually saw to the firewood and seeing if they could get their hands on any extra provisions for the night. This usually led to Ruby doing some impromptu hunting alone and Jaune fetching wood and water. Zweii would sometimes accompany Jaune, but for the most part he stayed behind with Weiss as "protection" while they were away. They had tried to stay within shouting distance of one another, but that had proved difficult at times depending on where exactly Weiss wanted to break camp.

A week in and during one such exercise, Jaune had quickly chased after Ruby before she got too far ahead and focused on the hunt. "Hey Ruby, can we talk?" asked Jaune as they finally got deeper into the forest and were reasonably far away enough from the camp for Weiss to not overhear them.

"Yes, Jaune?"

"Who's Weiss?" He was certain he had never seen Weiss in the village before and after a few days of observation he had noticed she didn't act like anyone from the surrounding villages either, let alone the next town or city over. How Ruby had managed to stumble upon her was beyond him.

"What do you mean?" questioned Ruby, stopping and turning to fully face him. "Jaune, what's this about?"

"It's just... You're really nice to her and she's kind of... ungrateful about it," explained Jaune, careful to choose his words with care. One wrong word and Ruby would be quick to defend Weiss and they'd be getting nowhere. He had promised Yang he'd keep an eye out for Ruby when she decided to leave. Their Uncle Qrow had said he'd keep tabs on Ruby, but he and Yang had both known that that would mean a monthly visit at most. Qrow was far too busy with his own work, whatever that was, to reliably be available to Ruby if she ever needed help.

Growing up with seven sisters and being the only boy had meant that his parents expected him to be the "man of the house" and take care of them, even if they were all older than him and looked after him more than he did them. So when Yang asked him to keep an eye on Ruby he had agreed he would--it didn't seem like that different from what his parents expected of him. They were best friends and quite honestly, a part of him already viewed Ruby like the little sister he would never have. . . even if she had a tendency to save him from the village bullies.

"What are you talking about?" scoffed Ruby. "Weiss is grateful!"

"You know, grateful people usually say 'thank you' now and again." He had seen how Ruby would offer Weiss food only for Weiss to take up the whole thing instead of taking some and sharing it with her like any other person would. Ruby would just stare at her empty hands for a moment before looking away and Jaune usually had to share his own meager amount with Ruby. Admittedly he was pretty tired of Weiss getting two portions every meal while he and Ruby had to settle for half a portion each. Sure, Weiss was pretty, but her actions were making her less and less attractive to Jaune.

She still continued to refuse their help and even berated Ruby when she helped her with something. He could still recall when Weiss was trying to put up the tent one night and had Ruby offered to teach her how to do it when she saw that she was struggling and Weiss had snapped at her, saying she knew how to do it and wasn't an idiot. Two hours later, long after the sun had set, the tent was finally up. Sort of. He and Ruby had had to fix it to make sure it didn't collapse on them while they slept when Weiss wasn't looking. She also refused to let him rest inside of the tent, which was fine to some degree since the winters in Vale weren't too bad and it hadn't started snowing yet, but it was going to be a bit of a nuisance later on. He could understand where she was coming from, but it wasn't like he was going to try to do anything to her and if he did, Ruby would be more than enough to put an end to it. He quickly pushed aside the thought that Ruby was stronger than him, with or without her Huntress abilities.

Ruby opened her mouth to protest but found no ready comeback and just stubbornly crossed her arm. "She's not mean..."

"I didn't say she was," sighed Jaune. Ruby hadn't told him much, just that she'd let Weiss spend the night and wanted to help her get home. He suspected it might have had something to do with some of the villagers' claims of hearing people fighting and shouting that one night. The villagers had brought the complaints to his father and his father had made him attend the meetings because as the only male heir, he was supposed to take over some day. There had been multiple cases of hearing swords clanging against each other, an unmistakable sound since the villagers so rarely fought against one another except in festivals. Others had claimed to have heard hoof beats and lots of them.

There had just been one problem: there was no evidence. They had scoured the roads and surrounding areas for signs of foul play and prints, but found nothing. No blood, no hoof prints, no discarded weapons, no broken arrows, no dents, no bodies, nothing at all. His father had written it off as the villagers dreaming or being drunk, but Jaune wasn't so sure. He hadn't dared to voice his opinion in front of his father though...

He was well aware of the fact that his father was mildly disappointed in him. Heir to the family, yet still too weak to fend for himself and having to rely on women to come to his aid. Still, it was strange. It couldn't have been a coincidence or been due to being drunk to the moon. Too many of the villagers had claimed to have heard the same thing and their stories matched up. Even the families that had feuded with each other for as far back as anyone could remember had had the same story.

"Look, it's just that... you do a lot of things for Weiss and she hasn't really done anything in return. I mean, she's wearing the cloak your mom made you and you don't even let me touch it!" Ruby couldn't find a retort to this though and just stubbornly crossed her arms, choosing to ignore Jaune. "Just... help me understand, okay?" Ruby still had her arms crossed, but she had slowed down her pace a little. "I know you want to help people as much as you can because that's what your mom did... but you have to be careful. Weiss isn't from here. She--"

"Jaune," started Ruby flatly, coming to a stand still. "If you're worried that I'm going to tell Weiss, I'm not. Even I know better than that."

"But you want to tell her, don't you?"

"..."

Sighing, Jaune ran a hand through his hair. "Why are you going through all this trouble then? You could've just given her directions and a pack and sent her on her way."

"I dunno... I just... It's like there's this connection between us," mumbled Ruby.

"Ruby, you barely know the girl."

"Well... yeah, but... It's hard to explain. Maybe it's because I'm a Huntress? There's just this weird connection with her. I even saved her because I just had this feeling that I needed to get up. When I did, there were these two knights--at least I think they were knights--in the middle of the village. I don't know why, but I just knew I had to help them. That's when one of the knights put her down and I led her away."

Jaune raised an eye at this. "You don't think it's weird...?" He knew Ruby was one to glaze over the details, but knights in the middle of the night coupled with multiple accounts of presumed fighting? "I mean, what if she's someone dangerous?"

Ruby just laughed at this particular comment. "Weiss, dangerous? Jaune, she can't even start a fire!" Jaune had to give her this one though. She was right. Weiss was utterly hopeless. She couldn't start a fire, clean a fish or a rabbit or a bird, let alone cook it, or even knew the difference between poisonous plants and edible ones. If they had actually listened to Weiss and let her go alone she would probably be dead by now. Her ability to ration supplies was also horrendous. As was her appetite. It was the main reason why the both of them tried to find other sources of nutrition whenever they made camp.

"Okay, fiiine," relented Jaune. "Just, be careful, okay?"

"I've only got my super speed," protested Ruby, "It's not like I can actually do anything to really make her suspicious."

Jaune opened his mouth to say something back but wound up closing it and nodding. "Okay. Well... I'll see if I can find any dry wood. Happy hunting, Ruby."

"Thanks Jaune!"

Sighing, Jaune looked up towards the sky. He really wanted to tell Ruby the truth, but he'd been sworn into secrecy by her parents. Apparently Ruby didn't remember anything, and he couldn't really blame her, she was really young at the time, but she was capable of doing more than just running really fast and the boosted physical abilities all Hunters and Huntresses were born with. A lot more. She hadn't shown signs of it again since then, but he and the rest of the Rose-Xiao Long family knew that it'd eventually resurface again. He didn't think it was fair to keep it a secret from Ruby but her parents had said that it was for her own good and as a five year old it had been pretty hard to argue with two adults several times his age using big words and sounding really scary. As he had gotten older it had seemed less intimidating... until the day Yang accidentally burned down Signal because someone had cut off some of her hair by accident. He shuddered at the thought. It had been a complete miracle that no one had died.