"I said, 'It is no great sorrow, that quenched my fiery youth in me; But only little sorrows, beating ceaselessly.'"

Embers

Sarah Teasdale

The deep night was still and silent about the heavy gray stones of the embankment. The waters of the Snowbourn flowed smoothly east, gurgling as they merged with the southern current of the Entwash. The air was heavy with the promise of rain.

The young girl curled up on the shore winced and rolled over with a moan, limp hand trailing in the cool water. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to force herself into full awareness, her feet dragging on the rocks as she struggled upright. Running a hand through her golden tresses, she was shocked to find that her locks were coated in flaking, dried blood. Despite this, upon examining her fingers in the dim light, she was somewhat relieved that the wound seemed to have been healed already.

"Hooray for Aura." She muttered, brushing her palms off on her shorts. Deciding on a direction, the young girl hiked up a small hill that gave her an elevated vantage point.

Rolling plains extended as far as the eye could see before her, broken only by identical elevations and great stones pushing up like spires from the coarse grass. The frigid night wind whistled, whipping her hair about. Glancing around, she sighed heavily before cupping her hands to her mouth, "Ugh, hello? Hello!"

Her voice echoed across the barren landscape, fading away into the darkness. She turned her gaze upward, scrutinizing the pinpoints of glittering light above her. While the moon gave her little indication - though, the shattered portion of the rocky neighbor had been visible when last she'd looked - of where she was, the stars were clearly different than those usually hovering in the sea of eternity over Vale.

The girl scuffed the dirt beneath her boots, rolling her eyes, "Hello! Rubes?! Blake?! Ice Queen?! Anybody?!" The blonde flopped down on the slope, crossing her arms, "I'm gonna get so bored, so fast."

Giving her wrist a deft jerk, she checked how much ammunition she had left at her disposal, "Aw, that's just great." She counted only eight cartridges in one, five in the other. "Welp, guess I should get moving…" She knew she had at least six more packs in the pouch on her belt, but they wouldn't last forever, and unless she wanted to get eaten by an Ursa or Beowulf pack or Dust-knows what else, she figured it would be best to find shelter. She could work things out, and find her team, from there.

Something rustling by the water had the young girl turning back to where she'd come from. A light was approaching - a burning torch, by the look of it - but whatever was holding it certainly wasn't human. As the girl watched, the flame bobbed and weaved unnaturally, as if someone with a limp were carrying it. Footsteps soon reached her ears, muted by the grass but still distinguishable.

"Hel...lo?" She raised an eyebrow, hands curling into fists in anticipation of a fight, adrenaline beginning to pump steadily through her veins. "Ruby?"

Then the pack of creatures - and they were just that - came into clear view.

"Nope - again."

Their skins were dark as a corpse and filthy. They were squat, flat-nosed and bow-legged, with wide mouths and slant eyes, long arms and fangs. Even at a distance, their blood smelled so bad that regular people would have fainted at the first whiff. The young girl's nose crinkled in distaste. They were easily two or three feet shorter than her, and despite the sharp, jagged blades they carried in hand, the young girl straightened and grinned confidently.

"Whoo, you guys are ugly! Gene pool was not kind t' you."

"The lil' maggot's mocking us!" One of them whinned in a dry, gravelly tone.

"Shut up!" Another grumbled in reply.

"I'm 'ungry! Can we just kill it already?!" Yet another hissed. The girl's smile became firm and more of a grimace as she realized a fight was inevitable. With a mechanized shifting noise, the bright yellow gauntlets on her wrists extended to cover her entire forearm. She cocked the DRSGs by throwing an arm outward, the momentum clicking and locking the weapon into place. The creatures back off a bit, startled, but it quickly wore off and they ran at her, waving their swords.

But the girl was gone.

Surprised, the beasts looked about wildly, discovering too late that their prey had jumped. How, they couldn't comprehend. The only ones they'd ever known to be that agile were Elves, and this girl certainly wasn't an Elf.

Using the velocity of her descent to her advantage, the girl slammed a gauntlet into the ground. The creatures were knocked back by the force of the blow as the strange girl rose, chuckling good-naturedly,

"You wouldn't happened to have seen a girl in a red hood around here, would you? 'bout ye high." The girl gestured to slightly below her chin. "Oh! Or a girl in white, real prim looking?" Screeching, one of the creatures charged. An ear-splitting explosion rocked the area, a flash of orange and red lighting up the sky. The attacker collapsed, a gaping hole clean through its skull. "Sheesh, a simple 'no' would've worked."

For the blonde, the ensuing fight was all too easy. Pieces of the assailants were scattered about the blood-soaked terrain as she cut through them like butter, being careful to conserve her ammunition.

The only injury she received was from a rusty blade as she was attacked from behind. It sliced into her arm, breaking through her still depleted Aura, and though she managed to turn before her entire limb was lopped off, she cried out in pain. Stumbling back, the girl clutched at the wound in slight disbelief, which quickly morphed into blind rage.

With an angry holler, her Semblance flared around her, and she swung a hard right hook. The creature's head was knocked clean off, and went sailing through the air, disappearing from view.

Unknown to her, a singular beast scuttled fearfully off over the hills, heading northwest.

As silence fell once again, the young girl observed the damage around her. Those creatures, she realized, hadn't had Auras. They hadn't felt like the Grimm, either. They hadn't felt like… well, anything. She wasn't sure why, but that frightened her. It meant that she certainly wasn't in Remnant anymore.

"Ruby?!" She yelled with renewed desperation as she attempted to calm her breathing, "Ruby!" She had to find someone - anyone. Preferably human. There had to be something out here. The girl spared a glance at the wound on her arm. Sure enough, her Aura had already healed the worst of it - all that remained now was a lengthy scrape. Despite this, every muscle in her body screamed for rest. She wasn't sure if she would be able to fight again - not without sleep, first.

"Who goes there?!"

The girl whipped her head up, raising her arms on instinct into a fighting stance. A man on horseback was peering at her through the darkness, a lantern's glow glinting off the tempered steel of a helmet. Recognizing the difference between this person and those she'd just finished fighting, the girl lowered her arms, offering a halfhearted smirk,

"Sup?"