Chapter 4: Tartarus

Atlesian knights stood exorbitant and tall, a small fortune each. The tangled mess of wire and steel always seemed to perfectly reflect, or coldy absorb, all light. Not one balked at the sudden violence. Not one ran, cowered, or cried it's true, but for such a marvel of man's ingenuity, they all crumbled and snapped as easy as any other prey to a huntress. Raven could not help but wonder as she cut down the automated defenses, what a waste of effort. They could not replace the power of a soul, or the force of it reverberating through her blade.

"Bar the doors!" one of her men called out, ordering the others in his attempt to prop every bit of furniture against the nursery's one exit. Bookcases turned to bulwarks and chairs into bricks. Amber assisted, too, the force of autumn winds pulled more from the great hall, and rubble of Ozpin's mechanized army, to set up their blockade.

"I think I hear footsteps! They're trying to break in!" Raven was already sword deep into a knight, the machine sputtering towards stillness before the hard slamming on the nursery door began. They were quick, these lifeless hunks of steel, but Raven put her faith in humans and faunus. "We'll hold it, you get your daughter, huntress!" And they had not yet failed her.

Three in total. The old security forces for Beacon, two human and one faunus chief, Srebro, who Raven had known when she had gone to school there. His hair had turned frayed gray and skin blotched with dark spots since he had been let go. Old and no hunter, he was a natural leader and convinced two others to join their party; both younger security guards who shared Raven's misgivings and distrust. An innocent man had no secrets Srebro had told Raven, and in exchange she relayed him the truth. He never spoke of it, but I could tell with the way he looked at me, looked into my eyes with disgust.

"Raven," Amber whispered, staff pointed down their last stretch, a hallway of dark stone, lined with doors to empty rooms and ending in a large dome. There lay resting Yang's crib and a wall of Atlesian Knights. The baby's nurse was gone, though Raven guessed, wrongly, she was let off for the night.

"Come with me, my portal won't stay without me." The only huntress among them did not wait to argue, she couldn't afford to. Enemies surrounded her child, caged them. They were soulless, designed to kill, nothing but grimm with collars. Die.

The bolts they shot could never hope to graze a maiden, one touched by fire especially. Red was her fire, was the color of her eyes, and burned in her footsteps. The flame of summer heat burned with her forward strike. The blade of her sword didn't cut, it melted. The collapsible odachi extended, dismembered two knights. A third thought to smack her with the butt of its rifle, but Amber's control over the storms let sparks fly, cracking and coursing through the metal. It connected to the remaining guards, each bolt chaining to the other, except for the final two, standing perilously close to the crib. They held their guns taut and carefully, the barrels aimed at both. This scene only then began to feel odd. The number of guards was too numerous, even for Yang.

"Ozpin, I know you're listening," Raven spoke through her helm, a bone white and red grimm mask. It gave her the wild persona of a beast, not a woman, matched with colors of black and blood red. "The fighting is just putting Yang in danger." She and Amber circled the dome, each pulling the bots' focus to the sides of the room and hopefully making them engage. Any attack would risk harming the child, all they could do was prepare, cast in moonlight from the glass moonroof. A crescent that night, shining sickly yellow and cracked apart.

"Raven," Ozpin's voice, distorted by the machines' rudimentary speakers. He sounded so calm, so unwavering, like a sweet father, a facade that worked, and only made Raven's blood boil with a summer's heat wave. She did not know our shaking, our anxiety. Perhaps it would have been better that way. "Please, put down your weapons. We don't need to fight, just talk. I promise there will be no need to punish Amber or the others if you just open the door, and let us in." A threat wrapped in velvet cloth, one meant more for the others than Raven, but it only solidified her hate. That didn't matter, we had already abandoned her to Tartarus in our hearts. She just didn't know she was damned yet.

"Ma'am, they're breaking through!" Down the hall her crew put all their weight and force onto the door, but the Atlesian knights, however stupid, were strong. Metal hands were already smashing through the oak. Thuds reverberated above.

"Damn it, Ozpin! I will cut them down, all of your knights if I have to. All this is doing is putting Yang at risk. All I want is out of your cage, don't hurt a child over it!" More knights were pounding the thick bulletproof glass above. All exits were sealed. All but her own.

"Raven," Ozpin spoke so softly, almost dulled to nothing by the beating of the walls, so sure, so content with himself, "You were always free." Lies, fucking lies. "As for Yang, I promise I would never allow anyone to hurt her, not even you. She's in no danger. Raven, surrender."

"No!" Raven charged the knight, dodging under his shot. The round split the fabric of her shoulder cloth and blackened the wall, but that was nothing compared to what she would do to this shadow of Ozpin. The odachi retracted for close combat, letting her take a rising swipe at its legs. No fire this time, to protect Yang. The machine buckled and fell, the one on the other side began to react. Raven didn't allow it. Her sword extended again, giving that extra reach to let her decapitate the mechanized soldier.

Devoid of its head and central processing, like anything else, it faltered, servos shutting down. The last thing it managed to do before collapsing onto the floor was take the crib down with it. The wood fractured, a heavy snap as its legs and walls tore asunder. "Yang!" Amber cried, dropping to her knees to sort through the rubble. Nothing else cried with her. Machines beat glass, tore through wood, but no baby screamed, or bubbled, or grumbled. Yang Branwen was gone. "Oh god... what did we do?" Amber didn't get up from the floor, her shoulders slumped and spine went limp. She was in tears, still just a little girl.

"Get it off!" One of Raven's men were being pulled through a hole in the door, too small for his body, metal hand clawing at his face. Early knights were perhaps overzealous. He would be the only one of the rebels to not to live past the night.

"Raven, what'll we do?" Amber whined what everyone was begging. This whole plan, dragging everyone here into this death trap was about the child. Where was she? Would they have to strike out at Ozpin? Could they? Two maidens against all of Beacon? Larger question: would she? Easy to leave, but would Amber fight hunters? I imagine Raven faced that horrible realization alone, that just maybe this was the trap.

"Nothing-g," Raven stuttered nervously at the end, head whipping between all the pieces on the board. There was no getting Yang back, if she was ever hers to get back. "Everyone, surrender. Amber!" The huntress dropped to her knee and took off her mask, face to face with her apprentice once and for all. She had done well and would continue to do so as the autumn maiden. "When Ozpin gets ahold of you, tell him you were scared, tell him I was going to keep you from ever seeing Yang again if you didn't help. Tell them I forced the others. Tell him I'm a monster." Amber never did. She would silently give up and walk with heavy shame. I don't think Raven ever learned that. No one ever fingered her a monster until later.

"Raven?" the autumn maiden turned her eyes, stained in defeat and tears, towards her master for the last time in all her life. "Are you leaving?" There was no alternative. I don't know what would have happened if she had stayed, but I can imagine. There is a reason we put birds in cages and coldly clip their wings.

"Yes," Raven stood up, sheathing her sword in the blade revolving lock. The cannister spun to the one best for her short ranged teleport, locking in her choice. They still had the escape boat planned, there was still... well not hope, but a chance of survival. "Goodbye, Amber," Raven whispered as the glass above cracked and the door slipped open. "Become strong, stronger than any of the brotherhood, and trust none if them." She unlocked her blade, the dust needed for portals. In one slice she split open reality, a hole in the world, sickly red and black welcoming her. Guards caught footage of her leaving, shots were taken, but she had already leapt through space by then.

As I had predicted she would.

Ironwood was already emptying the docks of interlopers, her teleport too short range and Vale too isolated for her to go anywhere else. Ironwood, Glynda, and myself all headed separate units with their own droids. Qrow and Taiyang came with their headmaster, to protect me, and to keep STRQ from acting... independently.

Yang, she remained where she had been all night, in Beacon's vault under the care of some of Beacon's most trusted huntsmen and huntresses. Summer was called to be among them. She was supposed to watch Yang.

The record for what followed is clear. Below Beacon the school's small port became a battlefield, though only a handful of people would ever know it. Evacuated under the guise of a grimm attack, Raven clashed against the knights throughout the pier, every one recording the fighting. They were no match. The machines could never land a shot by themselves and they never did. The first to hit Raven was a single handgun round from across the port. Ironwood was always better than his droids.

Video recordings of Raven show her drenched in a mix of oil droplets, blood, and a cold sweat from the wound in her side. Pier seven was her target, though she was without a crew, and the brotherhood made sure her boat was kindly escorted back to Vale proper.

She carved through, blind to this. A flick of her odachi sent one of our recording knights into a crate full of perishables. The partner droid fired, the dust bolts flying right overhead and riddling the warehouses with more damage, all that the school would need to pay for and explain.

Raven was the perfect enemy against the knight, she slid right under the stream of fire and slashed with an uppercut. The odachi's variable length kept fooling their rudimentary AI. The robot didn't even attempt to escape. The extending blade caught his leg and cleaved past metal plates, rubber wires, and compact servos. The head mounted camera survived, falling to the floor, recording the grunts of Raven's pain and the pattering of newfallen rain. The view stared into the cloudy sky and blurred with each droplet.

"Damn it!" Raven is heard, somewhere between an animal groan and a very human screech of fury. You can hear her frustration as she reached a pier that ended in just rippling waters. She cursed, me probably. Ironwood, too, if she had managed to see him land that shot. We knew her teleport's limit, the pier pinned her, she would have to get closer to Beacon before she could escape to Vale. She was in no condition to make that swim even if the river grimm weren't thirsty.

Holding the hole in her side, her insides contained by soiled fabric from her torn sleeve, supported by her sword, a bent knee and a desperate look toward the sea, that's how Summer found her. The rain dripped from the end of her mask like tears and the huntress' aura was mute, a flame snuffed out in the downpour. "Raven!"

Still, an ember, however faint and dim, can roar with the right fuel. Betray and scorn, that's more flammable than dust. "You!" Raven trembled in pain as she pushed herself up from the pommel of her odachi. "You turned me in, and now you're even going to bag me for him!" Fire kissed the earth where her blood tripped, maiden's fury steadied her body and pushed away the pain.

"Raven, please, you're injured!" Summer cried out, expression obscured by her cloak, as was her gear. From Raven's view she must have seemed a shadow of the night, a white phantom to take down the weakened huntress. "I need to bring you back to Beacon!" Summer charged her, running with abandon, head on. Why not? Raven couldn't muster a drop of aura, it was running down her leg, warm and sticky. Summer had speed, skill, hell she might have been able to take Raven, even with the maiden at her best.

"How could you?! I loved you!" No one bites down on a raven without a few pecks, the huntress would die before being dragged back to her prison caked in filth to be delivered to us. Better to fight her betrayer and die a warrior. Raven lifted the odachi, both hands tightly clenching the wrap of its handle. She dropped a strike. Fuck it, Yang could have her power. I bet she was thrilled I couldn't use it, stuck in the body of a child, one last fuck you Ozpin.

The attack connected, the red steel rended fabric and flesh cutting deep and jagged from the top of the left breast, down the sternum, and then out under the right. The deepest part chipped the bone itself. What wasn't chipped was cracked by the heft of a huntress' strike. The only thing that saved Summer's life, was the grace of Raven's horror.

We all heard the crying scream of Summer's fall. I don't need the recording for that. She lay on the pier, convulsing and holding the cut closed to no avail. The pain was maddening, sucked out anything close to a thought. To say she could see wasn't quite right, nor could she really feel herself on the floor. She had once sense: pain.

"Summer!" Raven's voice granted Summer some focus, though she could do little more than rock and bubble up bits of words. "Summer?! Why didn't you block it?! Your Aura?! What the fuck is going on?!" Summer didn't notice at the time Raven ripping apart her cloak to make a rather poor bandage, she could only focus on how massive her red eyes looked, how scared Raven seemed.

"I-I did-id-idn't think... I-uh, I," Summer let out raspy breaths and tried so hard to make words, something coherent, "You-u would-uh, ahhhh!" the pain spiked, we assume while Raven tightened the bandage, "Att-ttack me."

"You were suppose to let me leave! Not tell everyone! Not get involved!" Raven ducked her head onto Summer's body, lost on options, lost in her heart.

"I did-didn't, I just, just, I though-ought I co-could ta-ta-talk you o-out of i-i-it." Summer's lucidity was waning and Raven's loathing waxing. "I pro-promised I would-wouldn't, I- fuck, I didn't tell!" Summer screams after that, she remembers nothing that followed. A third of a minute passed, nothing but broken words and crying can be heard by the fallen machines. No one around to give us a proper record.

Summer was not our informate, not till much later were her side of these events even told to me. I have no way of knowing for sure how Raven reacted to this, though knowing her for years, I can guess this was the point of no emotional return. Any dreams of coming back one day to reclaim her family were burning up hotter than the pier was about to be. I do know, better than anyone, how well Raven reacted to Ironwood, that was… clear.

"Monster!" James pointed his handgun at the maiden like he would any common grimm, at the time I do not think he even viewed Raven as human anymore. We were just as confused at the time. "Get the hell away from Summer!" James fired no warning shots, three direct to the chest meant to kill, but Raven's blood-drunk sword swatted all three like a storm slaps away a dinghy at sea. James was no fool, he noticed immediately the flickering embers that fluttered off the Summer Maiden.

Raven flashed towards him in a blur of fire and smoke, the side strike nearly lopping off Ironwood's head. The huntsman slid under the blade, keeping his focus on rescuing Summer, not killing the beast, too powerful for him alone. He fired back wildly to distract Raven, but each shot burned up before it touched her, the huntress chasing after him like a fresh warrior right out of Beacon. Hate can animate even a corpse.

James knew his gambit, trusted his speed against her, even if it meant taking a nasty strike to the back. Still shooting, his free arm reached out, reached for the red and white mess panting on the floor, for what he believed to be the future maiden, his next charge.

His hand touched her, but by then the thing was severed clear from the shoulder, the summer flame melting right through his aura, his uniform, muscle and bone. James felt a very similar rush of pain, but his drive kept him clear. He got to see his arm fall into the river and feel a kick send him into a crate.

"Summer," he moaned, rolling onto his stomach. The-soon-to-be general never knew when to lay down and at least pretend to die. Something that both screwed him over and served him well that night.

"James," Raven whispered just a little louder than our footsteps, "You've cursed every part of my life you've touched. You stole my baby, stole my future, my freedom, and now you and your people tricked me into hurting the only thing I love in this world. You're a sick machine. A fucking tin man! Why do you keep showing up everywhere!? Why won't you leave!?"

In perhaps the most aggravating form of bravery, James didn't even notice Raven speaking to him. He crawled, dragging himself with one arm, inch by inch, to Summer. "I'm coming, stay awake Ms. Rose! Focus on my voice!" If Raven ever saw the goodness in James, in his sense of duty, it was at that very moment, and it burned something wrathful in her.

"Die, James." Raven flicked her sword to clean the blood off it, a line of James' own coated him down his wounded side. In one of the most twisted manifestation of a maiden's power I have ever seen, Raven snapped, and his blood caught fire.

Bright and red he burned, the pain gave him the strength to roll his twisted body around and in that ghastly scene we arrived. Just in time to see a engulfed Ironwood fall into the river and the battered Raven watching, flames streaking out of every tear in her clothes and each drop of her blood. She looked so tired despite being consumed by the summer's flame. Looking into her eyes, I remember seeing the red irises of someone near as worn as me.

"Glynda, get James! Tai, Qrow, no sudden moves, she has Summer," I ordered in calculated monotone, never turning away from my former pupil. I clutched my cane tightly, the weapon in my hand could maybe match up to a maiden, maybe. The hunters at my side and the small battalion of Atlesian knights somehow were little comfort. "Raven, please drop your weapon. I can see you and Summer are both in critical conditio—"

"Raven, what the hell happened here?" Tai tried to step forward. I believe he was, until this moment, still under the illusion this would end well.

"Tai, Ozpin," Raven snapped the flaming sword into the changing scabbard, the revolving cylinder preparing something. All the knights took aim at once. Even I rested my hand on the trigger of my cane, ready to leap into the fray. "Go to hell."

"Raven please, you can't just cut your way pas—" Bringing Qrow was a lapse in judgement I have never forgiven. As soon as I heard the greatsword lock and shift form, I didn't even bother fighting it. The scythe was at my neck and I sighed. "Put down the scythe, Qrow."

"Then stop pointing guns at my fucking sister!" Qrow was ill-suited to betraying his kin. I find that an offense easily forgiven, but this, this was foolish. Tai was no help, he dropped his weapon more in shock than fear.

"Alright. Knights, please lower your guns." The AI were perfectly loyal, all of them turning into a docile state immediately, not caring a bit for the robotic corpses strung about. Raven nodded at her twin, taking in one painful breath, spinning the cannister to another form, and swiping. I recognized that red eye, the burning hole in time and space. A teleport. She would hop through the woods, leaving a trail of half mile apart blood spots. If she didn't pass out along the way.

I stayed silent until she hobbled toward Summer, too dizzy and desperate to understand how idiotic that was. "If you try to escape with Summer you'll just kill her." Raven wasn't listening, but the scream Summer made as soon as she tried to move her sure gave the huntress pause. "Summer needs medical attention now. Beacon has the best. She either dies with you, or lives at home where she chose to be."

Raven chewed on it, the fire embers and sparks that ran down her body still flickering against the rain. The air was trapped by the waterfall and grew hot and stale that night. It was a terrible day for all this. "Ozpin, if she dies—"

"She won't, I swear it. No one intends to keep you here, you're free to leave. Summer and Yang will always be safe under my roof. I don't think there is much left between us anymore, anyways." People died that night, those who lived walked away with mental and physical scars that would remain deep even now. Honestly, I don't think Beacon had room for her any longer. Her prison cell was warped and collapsed if it ever existed.

"Yang doesn't have an ounce of me in her," Raven muttered her disownment to save herself more mourning, "but I swear old man, I swear to you and to any god alive, if harm ever comes to Summer Rose because of you, no matter when, no matter the reason, I swear I will burn everything you love. I swear, I will be ceaseless. Your fucking antithesis. I will grind myself to dust destroying every little thing you've built. I swear." The coldness of her curse, Raven's promise, was engraved in blood on the Beacon pier. I have never questioned its validity. She would be the queen of my personal hell, to spite every little thing I have ever done. My good would be her evil and my evil her good.

"I will keep her safe." I tried at least. I did that night, and for many more after it. I protected my pride and joy, the best huntress I would ever know, long past my memory of this promise.

Raven whispered something to Summer, her mask kept me from seeing anything but the red of her eyes. No one will ever know, but I suspect it was a simple loving goodbye, forever. "One last thing, Ozpin. Who told you?" I had intended to lie, but Tai, the fool answered for me.

"Raven, I swear I didn't think this would happen. I thought you'd just calm down in the nursery. I heard you and Summer talking about it. Raven, I promise I just didn't want you to take Yang away. I didn't think this would happen!" He approached, but I snatched him, tugging him back by the shoulder, getting my neck nicked by Qrow in the process.

"Tai," Raven muttered, stepping towards her portal, the fire around the pier already vanishing under the constant drizzle, "you too, then." The last words she had for near twenty years. A threat. Such a regrettable nightmare, the whole affair. I think few are blameless, certainly not I. Considering now, after all that has happened, I think I might regret most of all lowering my cane. The Summer Maiden power was better off in the hands of a baby, and this curse eternal, far too dangerous.

Raven Branwen

The red gave way and my foot stepped down from one plane of space to another. This one soft below the sole, compacted soil and grass, ripe and damp from morning's air. I knew the spot. A cracked piece of earth that formed a bare cliff, one the trees struggled to climb. Here one could look out over the world, feel, wrongly, as if they were above it all. A guardian, not a denizen, of a sick world. I loved this spot, the way it made my heart pound at the edge, melt when the sun drooped down and turned the land gold, or braved the winter blizzards. I showed her this spot. Brought Summer here, our first kiss, well first kiss as lovers happened here, not three steps from the end of the world. Out in the open, not hidden in a forest. I remember it, so long ago and for some stupid reason I still remember it. She was shorter, but I was more clumsy. I muddled around with my hands, tried to be natural. Summer just arched up on her tippy toes and kissed me.

So they tossed her corpse here. At least it wasn't in some ugly city cemetery. They built a slanted little rock for her, all shaped out of gray lifeless stone. The carved rose inside seemed a dull imprint of what was meant to be. I'd like to think she'd have prefered a tree or a rose bush, something that lived, that grew, that changed and breathed, but what do I know. Over half a decade apart. I didn't change, I was frozen in time since then, nothing but a husk of a huntress, waiting and sleeping in hedges, taking odd jobs. She lived, she loved, she had another child, she died.

"Thus Kindly I Scatter." I don't know how much time had passed, walking from the forest line to the grave, I don't remember how long I stared, a stupid rose in hand, red and flush and cut and thornless. The words etched broke the silence. The Last Rose of Summer, her favorite poem. It so didn't match her, so bleak and hopeless, but it matched me. My garden is dead.

'Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;

No flower of her kindred,

No rosebud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes,

To give sigh for sigh. I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!

To pine on the stem;

Since the lovely are sleeping,

Go, sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I sca—

"I'm glad you came." I heard the crow call as soon as I came. Of course he watched, but I couldn't be mad. Qrow was the only one to find me, to tell me what had happened and where she rested. I couldn't be mad, I was just too tired anyways. "You missed the others, though I don't know how talkative Tai would have been. He's been drinking almost as much as me lately, but without my charming qui—"

"I know, I was watching. I wasn't here to pick a fight." I didn't watch closely, I didn't want to see their faces. Not Qrow's, not Ironwood's, definitely not… Tai's kids, or Ozpin. I just wanted to rest my stupid little rose opposed to the others, theirs were mostly white, like snow.

"I don't think anyone wants to fight you, Raven." I glanced back at my brother, only for a second. His face was poorly shaven and patchy at best, there was a stain on his collar and a worn arch in his back. "I can talk to Ozpin. It's been years now. She would have wanted you to bury the blades—"

"Brother, shut up." I wanted to be alone, alone with Summer. The way we were meant to be, at a wild ridge of the world, staring into a low sun, ready for another tale of adventure. Not begging for pardons, not under a stone slab, not covered in booze stains and god knows what else.

"Raven," Qrow's voice quivered at the 'r', he was like that whenever they met, about once every year or so. It was short, it was tense, desperate, and always so forlorn the way he talked to me. No one would believe that cool headed cynic could get so broken. "Ozpin can go fuck himself, but you have to see Yang."

No.

"She's so good Raven, so much like you, god. Her and Ruby. If you saw that baby, she's like a little Summer, silver goddamn plates for eyes and all. Yang's starting to ask about you, ya know? What the hell am I supposed to tell her, sis?"

"Please." Now I'm begging. It's not even my kid.

"Her eyes are fucking red, Raven. It's like I'm staring at you all damn day!"

"Shut up!" I don't remember feeling it, but I had sunk to the floor. My hands still gripped the flower like a dumb child. I couldn't even give the dead a proper offering, and she had wanted me to pretend I was a parent. "Yang has lilac eyes, gold hair, Tai's complexion, even his curls. Why would you lie to me like that? What the hell is wrong with you, you drunk idiot!"

"Sis, no, I meant," Qrow stumbled back, the thud of a hollow man, just a wasted warrior with a sickle. Did any of STRQ survive her? "Listen, it's purple, but sometimes it's red, I'm not lying. Like when she's real it's red. Please, I wouldn't lie to you."

But he had and he was. I'm sorry, Summer, we really are pathetic. "Qrow." I know she hates me, if Summer didn't she will. "All I want to know, before you leave me alone, is who gave her the mission. It's all I want to know."

"Raven, just listen to me—"

"Qrow, answer the question." In his own way, he already did.

"Ozpin. I don't know the details, all I know is that it wasn't suppose to be like this, I swear."

"For once, I agree," I kept my eyes on the rose, watched the scattered etchings distort and my tears ran silent and considerate. "I never wanted this. None of us will want what's coming." But what else was there to do? Why else should I live? The only two people who ever understood me were dead, one just more animate than the other. Everyone else vilified me. Even Amber. She never sent word, not once after all these years. I'm sorry, Summer, I'm such an awful creature, aren't I? "Go away, Qrow."

He had the consideration to go, to leave me. I stayed for long after that. I mourned, stood vigil, and sharpened my blade. I intended to leave my heart here with her, to turn sullied and cold. Scatter the soul and leave only the butcher. Summer wouldn't understand, she was safe and sound there in her tomb, returned to dust, but a world without her wasn't worth protecting. Summer, I'm a devil, a wild force of nature that causes pain wherever I go. I understand that. I'm sorry you ever met me. So many years wasted trying to calm the storm, you had so precious few to spare, I'm so sorry. The storm is not calm, it's hateful and bitter, and bound for once to something, a promise. You won't forgive me, but I love you.

At least I can't hurt you now.

***Soooo thats the ending. Paradise lost reaches it's conclusion. God this was a bit of an emotional series for me. Very experimental in terms of my writing style and stuff. I hope it came off more fresh than distracting. Thank you all for sticking around if you did. I so appreciate the reviews and the support. For a fic that never took off, this little Rosebird story means a lot to me.

Special thanks to TigerLilly for being a big supporter of this fic and always talking it up to me when I was losing focus, and even bigger thank you to LazyKatze for editing this nightmare of opposing perspectives and non-linear storytelling. It had to be hard and it means a lot you worked hard and never complained.

Well this fic is closing and I have two coming to take its place. A Sci-fi White Rose AU, and a new modern White Rose AU that is basically the inverse of Choice, a bit of a romantic dark comedy. I hope to see you all there!