Huh. No note here on how you wanted to make Arjun May's father here as on SB. Though in the chapter where May and June talk May mentions she is an orphan and was there when her parents died of illness, so that would have to change. I think it's better off that she isn't related to Arjun myself though.
Love the premise. Looking forward to when the parents meet. Well for those who still have parents. Also looking forward to how different each timeline is, especially since Xia spoiled it a bit to her mom, Yang.
Will some be darker futures than others?
Depends on what Sift Green wants to do since it's his fic and I'm just helping out.
And yes, there will be.
- - -
If someone had told her when she got out of bed that morning that she would be spending a good chunk of her afternoon in the medical wing waiting for complete strangers to wake up she might have looked them in the eye and asked '
Why would Cinder need me to do that?'
Amethyst had wanted to check up on her friend Moses after they had finished lunch, and so Emerald was in the medical wing waiting for complete strangers to wake up. It was fascinating in a way, the stranglehold her daughter had upon her even though they had only met this morning. The small part of her that was still a street rat trying to survive in a big and scary world was telling her that throwing herself into being someone's primary pillar of support when she had just lost her's was a terrible idea, but what else could she do?
Moses groaned and shifted in his bed and for a moment Amethyst and Emerald had their focus completely riveted to the boy, but he didn't wake. With that false alarm over Amethyst went back to designing a new set of rings on her scroll, and Emerald found her eyes drifting across the way to the other patients of the medical wing.
Ash and Ashley, the burned twins.
Cinder's children. Living evidence that her former mistress actually had room in her heart for someone else.
Just not her.
That was a fact she needed to get through her stubborn and bleeding heart. Even now some small treacherous part of her wanted to call Cinder and beg for clemency, to regain the clear direction and purpose of her mistress' plans. Emerald squashed that part with the hindsight blessed knowledge that Cinder always put her own happiness before Emerald's, and that meant any future that ended in her own happiness couldn't come living beneath Cinder.
It honestly hurt to look at the twins and think the thoughts they brought to her mind, and part of Emerald wanted to leave so she wouldn't have to. But Amethyst wanted to be here for her friend, and she needed to be strong for Amethyst.
A welcome distraction then came into the room. Dorothy, the time displaced daughter of Ozpin's right hand woman Glynda was entering the infirmary. The blonde girl waved off the nurses as she made her way into the room, and it didn't take long for her to join Emerald and Amethyst at Moses' bedside.
For a brief moment Emerald felt her hackles rise as Dorothy seemed to size up Amethyst in a way that Emerald didn't like, but that sense of unease was for not. Amethyst looked up from her scroll and smiled at Dorothy, and the taller blonde flinched. Dorothy's countenance was suddenly all sheepish awkwardness, and an uncomfortable silence stretched out as Amethyst's smile went from welcoming warmth to polite confusion.
"Ahh..." Dorothy finally managed, "Can I sit next to Moses?"
"Sure!" Amethyst beamed as she popped out of her chair and went to get another one. In short order Dorothy was in the chair by Moses' bed, and Amethyst was in a new chair right next to it showing Dorothy her current project while whispering in hushed tones to not disturb the sleeping boy.
Listening to her daughter prattle on about goldsmithing to a captive audience was a delight, and it was more than enough to keep Emerald's mind off the burned twins and the implications their existence brought. Or at least it would have if Ash and Ashley weren't just across the way, occasionally shifting in their sleep and muttering barely audible cries for a parental figure. These cries were so quiet in fact that Emerald might not have even heard them...
...if they weren't occasionally murmuring for their
Auntie Em amidst the normal calls for
mama and
daddy.
And with that the small treacherous part of her mind was whispering again, spinning yarn about how she could still be a mother if she contacted Cinder and devised a plan to get Jaune away form the others...
...
THAT idea Emerald crushed with
extreme prejudice. If that was a viable option Amethyst would have come from the same timeline as Ash and Ashley. She didn't. Standing with Cinder could only result in borrowed motherhood via borrowing
Cinder's children. If Emerald wanted to preserve her own flesh and blood she needed to stop entertaining
any thoughts of returning to Cinder's shadow...
...Why was that so hard?
Cinder tried to kill her this morning! This should be EASY!
Emerald's self recrimination came to a halt as a large group crowded around the Infirmary's main entrance, and at it's front stood Jaune Arc. Amethyst's Father. A man who helped her get over Cinder in a another time and place, as evidenced by Amethyst.
The crowd piled into the reception area and remained there while Jaune split from them and approached her group around Moses' bed.
"Hey Emerald," Jaune began in a warm yet uncertain tone. "Can we talk?"
Jaune held out his hand and helped Emerald out of her seat, the two of them making their way just a little bit further into the infirmary where they wouldn't disturb the still sleeping patients.
"So I'm not really sure where to start," Jaune admitted with an apologetic tone. "I mean if we want this ting to work we need to get to know each other. We've talked with each other a couple times before, but from what I understand that was you putting on a face so you could spy on my team. How much of the real Emerald was in those conversations?"
"I don't know," surprise filled Emerald's eyes as that answers slipped out from her lips. She hadn't meant to tell him anything like that! But now that she had, she might as well keep going, "For as long as I've known her I've always been the person Cinder needed me to be. I'm not really sure who I am without her."
"Have you been with Cinder your whole life?" The concern in the blonde boy's voice was oddly soothing to the parts of her heart that still ached.
"No," Emerald drooped as old memories came to the surface, "But I wasn't in a good place before she found me. I was a street rat before she took me under her wing." Emerald chuckled darkly, "My semblance lets me manipulate someone else's senses, making them perceive the world the way I want them to, and how was I using it? To pickpocket people who looked rich! With a semblance like mine I could have been living on easy street! But there I was, squandering my talents stealing barely enough money to make ends meet. I was a lowlife with no ambitions beyond my next meal, a nobody going nowhere."
Emerald's voice grew hollow, "Before her I was
nothing. Where does that leave me now?"
"More than nothing," Jaune affirmed, "And I'm not just saying that to say it. I was sick a lot as a kid: there were plenty of days when I couldn't do
anything for myself. The fact that you survived on the streets means you were never that worthless, right?"
Part of her wanted to tell him that he shouldn't be self-deprecating. Another part was latching onto the glimmer of positivity he was trying to push forward like a shipwrecked sailor clutching a life preserver. The two impulses ran headlong into each other, killing any words trying to form and leaving her only able to nod in response.
"And you have a direction you want to go, right?" Jaune went on, "If you have a direction to go you can always end the day in a better place than where you started it. That's what my dad told me when I was feeling down, and he spoke from experience. He started life on the streets but set a goal to be a huntsman. That got him here to Beacon where he met and impressed my mom. He married her and became an Arc, and today he's the beloved patriarch of our branch of the family."
Jaune took Emerald's hand in his and looked her in the eye with more compassion than she had ever felt sent her way before. "Feeling like you're a nobody just means you're free to become anybody, you just need to know who you want to be."
After a pause, Jaune frowned.
"That sounded better in my head."
Emerald snickered. Then she giggled.
"That's... Really silly and cliché," she softly mocked. Jaune winced.
"Er..."
"But... I know you meant it," she said quietly with a blush on her dark cheeks. Jaune beamed.
"Every word."
Her heart was soaking in that sincerity like a sponge. It felt good, and it flowed into all the cracks and rips that had been building up all day. For a moment Cinder's looming shadow was completely gone from her thoughts, and as that moment ended she ached for its' return. Fortunately she could see a path to more moments like it within the blue eyes before her.
"Well I'm not exactly sure about who I want to be, but I have a general idea," Emerald allowed a small smile to grace her lips, "If you're willing to help me figure out the finer details?"
"Definitely," Jaune beamed at her, and Emerald let her heart soak it all in again. Exquisite.
A comfortable silence grew between them, and for a moment all that existed in Emerald's world was the warmth of her hand in his and the tenderness of his gaze.
Then two loud groans caught their attention, and they turned to see Ash and Ashley sitting up in their beds and stretching.
Ashley looked their way and blinked with bleary eyes, "Dad? Auntie Em? Why are you here? Did I wake you up? Sorry, I just had a new nightmare and..." Ashley had been reaching up to rub the sleep from her eyes, and so she touched the scar upon her face, "...oh..."
Emerald took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. The twins weren't their mother. She could be kind to them without compromising her future, or Amethyst's.
She gripped that thought tightly as she followed Jaune to their bedsides.
- - -