Yang and Murphy spent some time talking back and forth about what sort of training was involved in developing Aura. It sounded an awful lot like what I did for ritual preparation. I spent most of the conversation just listening as I cleared the dishes and washed them up. Yang offered one final surprising bit of information as I sat back down.

"Then, of course, there's the aging factor. It's super rare because being a Hunter is so dangerous, but I once heard of a retired Huntsman in Vacuo who lived to be almost two hundred." Murphy and I shared a significant look. That had been the one thing that bothered her most about us being together – the fact that I was probably going to outlive her by a lot. "I mean, it might not work that way here. I don't really know…"

"Actually, it might. Wizards live hundreds of years."

"Oh, so you're like, what, a hundred and fifty?" Murphy smothered her face with one hand.

"No, I'm thirty-nine!" it came out more defensive than I'd meant to, but only a little.

"So still an old man then, got it." This time I did stick out my tongue. I glanced at the clock and was surprised that it read almost ten. We'd been at this for two hours.

"Look, I'm sure you two want to talk it over." Yang began. I gave her a ghost of a smile – she was a smart kid, and thoughtful, if eager. "My people don't take this decision lightly, and neither should you. Is there somewhere I can clean up?" Murphy moved to grab her cane, but I patted her hand.

"I can show her if you want to think about it for a minute." She nodded her thanks and leaned back. I stood up and started toward the hallway.

"Thank you for dinner, Miss Murphy, it was really good." Karrin smiled and tilted her head to the left.

"It's my pleasure, Yang, but just call me Murphy. I haven't been Miss anything in ages." Yang bobbed her head and followed me to the bathroom. I fished out a couple of towels and my spare robe from the linen closet.

"Soooo," Yang began as I flipped on the bathroom light. "No pressure or anything. If she doesn't want to do it, I completely understand." I nodded and showed her how the shower worked. "Do you think she'll go for it?" She stooped to work the buckles on her boots.

"Too soon to tell, Sparky. We'll probably be staying here tonight. I'll find you something for pajamas in a bit." I pulled the door closed as she gave me a thumbs-up. I stood in front of the closed door for a moment, then headed back to the kitchen. On my way, I heard scratching at the front door, and stopped long enough to open it. Mister barreled into my shin, knocking me back a step. I reached down to give his ruff a good scratching. He purred happily and smeared his face across my hand a few times before wandering off to the kitchen, and I followed him. Murphy had rested her chin in the palm of one hand, absently rubbing her knee with the other. She flicked her eyes up at me as I walked back in. She didn't say anything until I sat down across from her.

"Well, she seems… nice." Karrin was struggling with a place to start.

"Crazy, right?" Genius, you are not, Dresden.

"Yeah, you could say that. Spill it." I spent the next few minutes explaining the events of the day. When I told her Bob's hypothesis about how she got to the island in the first place, she scoffed.

"Someone or something powerful just picks up a teenage supergirl and tosses her onto, excuse me, into your island? Yeah, that has bad news written all over it. I'd bet the farm that your welcoming crew and the other disturbances are related." I started to speak, but Karrin bounced her hand in the air a couple of times. "I'm not saying she has anything to do with it, but you and I both know there's rarely such a thing as coincidence." I couldn't argue with that.

"Yeah, I figured it might be. They definitely weren't expecting her, though. You said there were other incidents?" She shook her head.

"I don't have much to go on, just what I hear from Rawlins. Toughs getting into street brawls, muggings with strange M.O.'s, that sort of thing. No mention of Marcone until you called earlier. Whoever they are, they're new in town and pretty good at getting away before CPD shows up." She was dancing around the elephant in the room pretty well. We weren't going to get anywhere talking about well-dressed mooks.

"What do you think about Yang's offer?" I wasn't about to push her into anything, but I didn't think it was unfair to at least talk about it. Karrin gave me a rueful look.

"Is it that obvious I'm skating around it?" I bit my tongue against a gimp on ice retort and settled for arching an eyebrow. Mr. Restraint, that's me. "I don't know, to be honest. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was a bunch of mumbo jumbo." She said that last with a hint of bitterness. I knew it was killing her to be benched for this long. Sure, she put in plenty of time at the Brighter Future Society, but it wasn't the same as being out in it. "But even if it's true, how do we know it's part of some elaborate scheme?" She let the question hang there, expecting me to respond.

"I soulgazed her, Karrin. It's kind of hard to hide bad intentions from that." She gave me the look. Yes, that look. I put my hands up defensively. "Hey, she showed up out of thin air. It was the fastest way to see what kind of person she was. It's not like I make a habit of it." She kept up the stare for a good minute while I sputtered and protested my innocence. A wicked smile spread across her face while she watched me squirm. Stars and stones, women can be downright evil.

"Have you ever been fooled by a soulgaze before?"

"It's not foolproof. While it isn't possible to hide ill intent or truly bad character, it doesn't always give a complete picture." Murphy held out an upturned palm, indicating that she wanted me to elaborate. "Yang fights against the darkness, but there's an emptiness in her heart. I can guess what that probably is, though." She had talked about her sister, and had mentioned her dad, but—

"My mom," Yang said. I turned around and saw her standing there, wrapped in my robe, hair bundled up in a towel. She had Mister draped, belly-up in the crook of her arm. He looked perfectly content as she rubbed his tummy. I pushed the empty chair out with my foot and she sat down in it. She looked down at Mister and scritched him under the chin while she talked.

"When I was little, my sister and I lived in Patch, a tiny island off the coast of Vale, with our mom and dad. Summer Rose was amazing; baker of cookies and monster-slayer all wrapped up in one. She went on a mission when I was seven, and never came back." She looked up at us; Murphy was transfixed. "Dad kind of fell apart, so I did my best to take care of Ruby. That went on for almost a year. I got frustrated a lot. I wasn't super-mom, and dad just wasn't all there."

"It wasn't much longer before I found out that Summer wasn't the first love he'd lost. Before her, he was with my mom, Raven." This sounded like a bad soap opera, but for some reason my tongue had cloven to the roof of my mouth. It hit kind of close to home. "She'd left me with dad not long after I was born. I don't know why, and I got into trouble a couple of times trying to find out whatever I could."

"Did you ever find anything?" Murphy asked, breaking the tense silence. Yang shook her head and let Mister slide off her lap. He wandered off to another part of the house to do Mister things.

"No, not really. I caught a glimpse of her a few months back. I'd gotten into a pretty bad situation, and she saved me. Then she left without saying a word." Yang frowned and traced her fingers across the table. "It wasn't until a week ago that Uncle Qrow told me that she'd saved me, but that I shouldn't expect that kindness again." What the hell kind of crappy woman was this Raven? I got the feeling there was a lot of missing context.

"That's one of the many reasons I need to get back home. I've always gone along with whatever life throws at me. If there's something going on here, if I'm involved somehow…" She trailed off. So, she'd heard that. "My family and friends are counting on me, but I won't leave if there's work to be done, or," she looked at Murphy intently, "people to help. If they—if you want it." Something in Yang's tone offered a challenge, and a hint of steel.

Whatever doubts Karrin had evaporated; she stood up and came around the table to face Yang, nodding once. Yang stood and unraveled the towel from her hair, which glowed like sunlight. I don't mean it gleamed from the kitchen light. I mean it glowed brighter than the bulb overhead. She placed her right hand over Karrin's heart and told her to close her eyes and focus. She reached her left hand to wrap around the back of Karrin's neck gently. Yang's body limned in a yellow glow, and the words she spoke made the hair on my arms and neck stand on end.

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."

Fuck me. I've seen some shit in my day, but this was a whole new level of... I don't know what. Karrin started to glow a cerulean blue, brighter and brighter, until it made my eyes water. I vaguely recall hearing Yang utter the words, "Oh, shit!" right before a loud bang and flash of light blew out the windows. There was a metallic clang and a grunt of surprise that sounded reasonably Yang-like. I didn't have the presence of mind to wonder about that – the vision before me just wouldn't allow for it.

Karrin Murphy was glowing. She was, in fact, the only source of light in the room. Her outline crackled with little bolts of electricity and she stared in wide-eyed... something. Awe? Horror? It was ten heartbeats before I could muster enough will to speak.

"Karrin? Are you okay?" Nothing. Crap. You better not have broken her, Yang. "Murphy!" I raised my voice. That seemed to get her attention. She looked down at her hands and her mouth dropped wide open. She looked up at me and said, "I'm fine." The fact that the pitch of her voice had gone up was not completely convincing, but she didn't give me time to double-check. "Yang!" I looked across the room; there was a sizable dent in the refrigerator door. Yang stood, bent over at the waist, hands resting on her knees as she panted heavily. Something was wrong with her though, she was hard to see.

I held up my hand and called a light spell to hand, thinking that it was Karrin's glow dimming down. My spell brought the room to a more normal level of light, and I saw what Murphy was worried about. Yang stood up, still panting, and I could see the dent she'd made through her. She'd gone partial ghost. When she spoke, the words had a hollow, ethereal quality to them.

"Holy smokes, Murphy! You've got more Aura than I've ever heard of anyone having. Not even Professor Goodwitch has that much. It almost wiped me out." I walked over and gingerly reached out to touch Yang on the arm. She felt solid enough, but I was freaked out enough that I steered her by the elbow to the chair Murphy had picked up off the floor. I took a second to affix the light up by the shattered bulb and crouched down to look Yang in the face.

She was looking at – through her hands, and for all of the world like a scared teenage girl. Murphy knelt down on the other side of the chair and put a hand on Yang's knee.

"I've... never done this before. Am I gonna be okay?" Yang asked. I didn't have an answer for her.

-

A/N - Hey guys! I was able to get this written a few days early, I hope you enjoy it! I also wanted to warn you all ahead of time, but November is rapidly approaching, and that means I'll be making my yearly attempt at NaNoWriMo. I will still be writing Dust and Motes, but I'm attempting to finish the first Arc before v4 starts up. In other news, I'll be starting a separate, but related story focusing on Penny after her reconstruction. The working title for this is The Twelve Swords of Penny Polendina (though I am open to suggestions). I won't go into too much detail, but think RWBY meets GitS (kind of).