Chapter 79

The clamps were as tight as she could get them. The water bucket was ready. She paused a moment to sniffle, before pulling her welding goggles down off her hair and over her eyes, darkening the work bench and her tools almost black. She picked up the torch in her left hand and yanked it over, making sure all the hoses were free of kinks and not in the way of her feet. She gave both taps a short twist to bleed the gasses into them, closing them off just finger tight. She reached for the striker on the bench and kept it ready in her right hand, slowly opening the acetylene tap on the torch no more than half a turn. She held out the striker, and with a snap of her thumb, lit off the torch.

The plume of flame that burst from the end was impressive, but not very effective. She remedied this by opening the oxygen valve a tiny bit, feeding the flickering flame and pulling it back a little. The more oxygen she added, the more blue the flame of the torch became and the hotter it became, turning far more skinny and pointed. Dialing it in some more, the flame crowned inward, producing a little triangle of white-blue flame that hissed quite loudly. She grinned.

She turned around to the large piece of armour plating she'd layed out over two sawhorses and leaned in. Even through the welding goggles she could see the outline she'd drawn on the metal surface in white paint marker, and she lined up the torch with the end of the little drawing. The metal needed to be hot, really hot before the torch would even begin to cut through it, so she took a moment to braze the steel with the white flame, watching it start to glow red-yellow and soften. This plate was getting on half an inch thick, and wouldn't behave unless coerced by fire, especially considering it was intended for use as tank armour.

The Lightweight Gun Carriage Mark II as used by the Atlesian military was made almost entirely out of half inch steel on all of its sides, since it was designed to pull artillery pieces into position and not actually see use on the front lines. It could still withstand substantial machine gun fire, and did have a fully enclosed driving compartment, it just wasn't the best against larger artillery or Grimm. So when Ruby had seen half of one sitting in a junkyard just outside of town, she knew that this was the steel that would be most beneficial, and cheapest, for her to forge her weapon from.

She squeezed in on the oxygen trigger. This opened up the third, central tube in the oxy-acetylene torch and fired even more oxygen into the flame, turning it from a small, hissing blue welding flame into a large, cacophonous cutting flame. She grinned again, hearing 'Burn Baby Burn' play in her head as she brought the flaming torch down towards the old armour. As soon as the flame touched the surface, it bit right on through, showering the garage floor beneath it with thousands of sparks and molten metal. Few sparks popped up at her, landing on the sleeves of her coveralls and plastering the front of her shop apron. Her hair was kept out of the way in a low ponytail and under her baseball hat, dirty and tattered from years of use.

She slowly traced the flaming torch to the right, carving around the drawing slowly so she didn't wiggle her hands and mess up the edge she was going for. She used her right hand to support the barrel of the torch, carefully guiding around in an arc around the drawing, doing her best to perfect the curve. A bench grinder could fix any mistakes she was going to make, and she still had the rest of the plate to work with should she mess up royally. Sparks continued to rain down below the plate as she switched directions and started the journey back up towards her starting point. The steel-toe boots she'd borrowed from her father already had the leather worn off the caps from all the welding slag, but they were enough to cover her feet and protect her in case the plate fell off the sawhorses.

It was hot. Lava-hot in the garage. The flame torch did more to heat the air than even the wood furnace did in their basement. Something about being mere inches away from a thirty five hundred degree celsius flame, probably. Her dad was always lecturing her about wearing proper safety equipment like safety masks and fire-proof underwear when doing flame welding, but she didn't have time for any of that. All she needed was her apron, a pair of cool, steam-punky welding goggles, and her hat. Safety shields be damned. Well, that and the welding gloves. She wasn't about to burn her hands or anything.

She finished the cut after a moment more of tracing, leaving a vaguely blade-shaped chunk of metal in the middle of the plate, still attached a little by bits of quickly-drying molten iron. She stood up from the plate and let go of the torch trigger, reducing the flame down again. With a twist of the green nozzle, she shut off the oxygen to the torch and carburized the flame, returning it to its orange, flickering original state. She turned the acetylene off next, watching the flame die until it was nothing but a tiny, candle-sized nub on the end of the torch, still burning what remained in the tube. With a deep breath and a forceful puff, she blew out the little flame and set the torch back down on the work bench behind her.

Off came the gloves, tossed over the barrel of the torch so she didn't accidentally grab it without them. She slid her goggles up and onto the top of her head as she mosied over to her toolbox. Fourth drawer down was the hammers, and she reached inside to grab one, a small five-pound mini sledge. She also reached into the top drawer and grabbed a chisel, slipping it into her apron pocket as she turned back to the plate. Her nose itched for a moment, and she reached for a tissue in the box just next to her toolbox. Flame torching stuff tended to throw up a lot of dust in the air. She tossed out the tissue and sauntered back over to the plate, flipping the hammer a few times in her hand to entertain herself.

With a few well-placed hits of the hammer and chisel, the carved blade fell out of the plate and clattered to the floor underneath with a loud bell-like ringing. She set the hammer aside and grabbed the metal tongs out of the water bucket, bending over with a crick of her back and reaching under the plate for the cut piece of metal. The tongs sizzled as the heat of the metal boiled the water on them, steaming a little as she brought it up and dropped it into the water bucket to quench it. She stepped back for a moment and went over to her furnace, pulling the heavy steel door open and holding out her heat gun to check the temperature. The little digital screen on the device showed that the furnace was burning around eleven hundred degrees celsius. That would certainly be hot enough for thin steel, sure. But this thick piece of armour plating would need probably more like fifteen hundred. It would be good enough to start.

She stood up again, groaning, and walked back over to the water bucket. She grabbed a pair of vice grips and cranked them down onto the back of the piece of metal and pulled it out of the water, shaking it off onto the floor. She went back over to the furnace and pulled the door open, and put the piece of metal into the coals, making sure to dig it in to the bottom where the heat was. She let go with the vice grips and closed the door, and yanked open the bottom vent on the furnace. She pulled up a stool and sat down in front of the furnace and put her foot on the foot pedal on her homemade stoker. She cleaned hands on the front of her apron, and started pumping the pedal on the stoker, feeding the furnace from below with fresh air. The noise of the furnace became deafening as the fire in the furnace started raging, heating the chunk of metal and making it glow.

She crossed her arms over her chest and waited. The metal need to get hot before it would be good to use. She stopped pumping for a moment, standing up and walking back over to her toolbox. She yanked open the hammer drawer and sifted through it, finding her forging hammer down at the back of the drawer. She grabbed it, the familiar indentations of scratches and dents in the wood handle feeling familiar under her fingers. She turned back around and shut the hammer drawer with her elbow and moved back to the furnace, kicking the door open again. She used the vice grips to grab the piece of metal again, now that it was glowing and ready to shape, and carried it over to the anvil she'd put just in the doorway. She set it down on the flat of the anvil, on the thin edge of the steel.

She rolled out her neck. And started to hammer. First up was the tang, which needed to be hammered thinner so she could put a bolt through it. As it stood, at half an inch thick, it would be too wide to use in a standard latch mount. She gave the glowing metal at the end of the piece a few solid hits with the hammer. With each impact, the glowing steel started to squish in and become longer, a process known as 'drawing out'. The three inches of steel she was whacking away at was slowly doubling in length as she flipped it over every couple of hits to make sure it was even in the tang. She flipped it again, hammering the spots around the head of the tang to smooth it out to the blade. The tang was close to six inches long now, and just about a quarter inch thick, exactly what she was looking for. She finished the drawing out process with a few more hits to make sure that the tang was fully level, and dropped just the tang into the water bucket to temper the steel and cool it off.

She flipped the piece around and grabbed it in the vice grips by the now-skinny tang instead, and stuck it back into the furnace coals. She continued to pump the stoker and promote the burn, flipping the steel over in the coals to make sure it was heated equally on both sides. She had to stand to the side as she stoked, since the drawn out tang no longer allowed the door of the furnace to be shut, and the blaze inside the furnace was quite badly sweltering. She wiped the sweat off her brow, trying to ignore the heat in the garage, even though most would consider it unlivable.

This reminded her of her time back at Signal. In the forging lab back when she was twelve, they weren't allowed to close the doors on the school's furnaces when they were making their weapons, thanks to some dumbass who decided to put a can of deodorant spray in his furnace and shut it. The explosion of the can had blasted the door clean off its hinges and started a pretty substantial fire from the aerosol. So whenever they were forging steel in class, it would get hot, as if it was some kind of extended punishment from that idiot, even though that incident had happened seven years before she had gotten to the class. What kind of dumb idiot put a compressed can with warning labels into a blast furnace? Unbelievable.

She pulled the part back out of the furnace and carried it over to the anvil again, holding it by the tang and setting it down on its flat side. She picked up the hammer and started whacking again, beginning to flatten out one of its edges. Each hammer strike was quite shocking to her arm, as it always was. She ignored the pain as it shot up her arm like an electric current. This was just what a blacksmith had to deal with. To be fair, she'd never seen a blacksmith who didn't have forearms made of steel. She continued to hammer the edge of the blade. Each strike was creating an edge on the steel, effectively drawing out the edge and creating a thinner knife-ish edge. The metal had cooled a little too much, so she lifted the steel back up and put it into the furnace again, pumping away at the stoker. The flames began to lick out of the open furnace again, tickling around the doorframe.

Out came the part again. The bladed edge wasn't sharp yet, but it was nearly the desired thickness and size. She had started with a half-by-two-by-ten inch chunk of armour plating, that she had now hammered into a quarter-by-four-by-thirteen blank of metal with a four inch tang sticking out the back that was nearly the correct shape. It now needed the correct curvature and point to be applied to it. She held the blank, blade side down, over the end of the anvil horn, and gave the yellow-hot metal a series of much lighter smacks, holding the hammer up closer to the head. She started to shape the blade over the horn, so that the blade would have a shallow curve to it and maintain its cutting surface. She put it back into the furnace after a few hits to keep the blade hot, leaving it in for a minute to let it settle. She went back over to her toolbox and grabbed a smaller, daintier pick and bumping hammer and carried it back over to the anvil.

Out it came again, and she resumed shaping the blade with the smaller hammer, making more frequent hits to smooth out the curve to a more uniform shape and doing her best to not mar the surface too badly and create divots. Indentations in a metalworking part would usually mean starting over, as the only way to fix a hammer divot was to melt the steel down far enough that it sprung back to its original shape. Not easy when the metal in this case was a half-inch thick at its widest. With the blank now in as close a curve as she was going to get, she flipped it on its thin edge and grabbed her forging hammer again and started to shape the point of the blade. This could be done on a bandsaw or with a die-grinder, but there was just something authentic about shaping the point by hand with a hammer that appealed to her. Something old-fashioned.

The point was taking shape. She gave the blank one last pass through the furnace and stoker to maintain heat in the point, and brought it out for its final hammering. The ringing of her ears was almost melodic now, as she finalized the shape of the point. It took skill to turn a square hunk of metal into a pointed, curved blade, and she realized now this was just another one of her skills she could add to her resume, in case she wanted to. Competent Blacksmith. In that moment, as she held up the perfectly-shaped blade, a thought occurred to her to go back to school and get her Red Seal certification in metalworking and machining. With a satisfied grin, she plunged the blade into the water bucket again, turning her face away so the steam and bubbles didn't get into her face as the metal hissed as it tempered, boiling the water in the bucket. She'd forgotten how loud tempering steel was for the few seconds until it cooled.

As the blade came out of the bucket, it dripped quite a considerable amount of water all over the floor, darkened with powdered steel that had been shocked off of it from the sudden change in temperature. She set the blade up onto a towel on her work bench and dried it off, making sure to brush off all of the little bits of metal slag that had collected on the surface. She reached over and powered on her bench grinder, waiting a moment for it to spool up all the way before picking up the piece in her hands, having slipped on a pair of heat-resistant mechanics gloves first. She flipped the guard up on the grinding wheel to expose more of the spinning stone disk, and pulled the little lamp over the wheel and turned it on.

There was a smithing shop in central Vale that used real old-fashioned techniques for sharpening blades. This included hammer-sharpening, which was an unbelievably difficult method of creating an edge in steel, since metal tended to break apart the thinner it got. The only way to hammer-sharpen a blade like that was to use a blast furnace that could exceed nearly three thousand degrees celsius to make sure the metal was malleable enough to become sharp under force. This kind of sharpening apparently created a significantly sharper and tougher blade than regular grind-sharpening, but it meant that the swords and blades created with this method were substantially more expensive, almost remortgage-your-house expensive. So Ruby always preferred regular wheel-sharpening, even if the electric bench grinder was a lot faster and smaller than the traditional stone wheel. She slid on a pair of safety glasses that were up on the close shelf.

Sparks flew as she pressed the metal of the tang into the bench grinder, removing the messy edge she'd hammered into it. The grinder's little electric motor whined as she pressed the steel hard into the spinning disk, removing more and more of the metal slag off the dull side of the blade with smooth, linear passes. She wasn't going to sharpen the back side of the blade, that would be dangerous to hold and sling, but she did want it to have a smooth edge, free of slag and debris that might catch on her fingers and give her metal cuts. Nothing was worse than a slag cut, since it didn't just rip like a paper cut, it put little pieces of metal under the skin that would itch and burn and potentially cause a tetanus-like reaction when the metal began to rust. She switched over to the wire wheel side of the bench grinder for a moment, buffing away at the rolled edge and at the tang, cleaning it from all the little scratches from the stone wheel.

She switched off the bench grinder for a moment, examining her handiwork. The blade was by no means done at this time, she still had a huge amount of work to do. But as a start, it was pretty good. She set the part down on the hand towel next to the grinder to not dent it, and dug around in the little metal tray on the back shelf, pulling out an allen key. The bench grinder was a pretty versatile little tool, but unfortunately for her it didn't have a reverse setting. At least, not by design. With a yank, the power plug came out of the wall and was tossed onto the bench. Using the little torx-head allen key, she pulled the screws out of the cover on the power converter box on the side of the bench grinder and set it aside. Some time ago, she had pulled the whole of the grinder apart and done up her own wiring to make reversing the direction of the motor much easier, complete with little water-resistant quick-connect plugs and new heat shrink on everything. Her dad had wondered why she didn't just turn the grinder around and use it with the switch facing the wall. Well, due to the design of this particular grinder, the permanent guard around the stone wheel meant that it couldn't be used like this, and since the whole of the machine was now bolted to the table, a rewire was necessary.

With the quick-connects quickly re-connected backwards, she replaced the cover and did up the four little screws holding it to the case. Thanks to the robust and simple design of the big direct-current motor, simply flipping the input leads to it was all it needed to reverse directions and spin away from her instead of towards. She plugged the old grinder back in and flipped the switch, happy to see the stone wheel now spinning in the opposite direction. Wiping her nose on her sleeve again, she reached for the blade again and held it out over the spinning wheel. She stopped briefly, and remembered to remove her gloves. Sharpening a blade without being able to feel the metal was a recipe for a dull blade.

The moment she pressed the blade side against the grinder, everything in the world felt good again. The vibration shooting up through the metal in into her bones was a perfect reminder of how good a well-made weapon could be if given enough time and care. The blade edge was becoming sharper and sharper with every delicate pass over the spinning grinder, and she made sure to keep her fingers opportunely placed so the heat of the metal didn't burn them but allowed her to maintain constant pressure. It took a lot of gumption to avoid raising her pinky finger and pretending to be a princess while doing this, even if that would have been more fun. It took a while to put an edge on metal, even metal that had been beaten almost to the point of sharpness. Some of the nicer stone spinning wheels she'd seen for sale at the local weaponsmith had adjustable speed settings to expedite the process, and some even had multi-grind wheels that went from coarse to fine grit stone over a three inch wide wheel that served to sharpen and polish as a blade was passed over them. But this little bench grinder was bought at a hardware store and not a weaponsmith, and didn't have any fancy features or anything like that. So persistence was the key here.

Grinding metal was fun for her. It was a release. It meant that whatever she was holding against the grinder would soon be a useful tool, whether it be as simple as a kitchen knife to slice some tomatoes or a sickle blade that would cut through flesh. The curvature she had beaten into the blade was easy to follow, and became more and more uniform with each pass over the grinder. The blade had an edge that would rend, now. Rend whatever from whatever else. She paused to admire it. The metal would need a lot of polishing before it was shiny, but for now it was at least sharp. The blade had a perfect edge in it now, perfectly along the contour of the arc she had hammered out, with no signs of grinding dimples and no divots in the steel. She held it lengthways in front of the light and peered down the blade to check alignment. To her surprise, the blade was perfectly straight. More than she could have asked for from most professional shops.

She hit the switch on the bench grinder to shut it off and stepped away from the workbench. She carried the now scary sharp blade over to her toolbox again and lifted the hinged lid. She grabbed the serrated pruning saw and wiggled it to get it out of its leather holster, setting the saw back into the toolbox and grabbing just the holster. The sickle blade was a little bit wider than the pruning saw, but it fit rather snugly and left the tang exposed out the top, allowing the blade to be protected. She didn't want anything to mar the blade during processing and ruin that perfect edge. She carried the whole thing over to the back of the shop where the drill press and band saw sat, out of the way and out of sight. The fluorescent lights at the back of the garage came on automatically as she approached, flickering with that old bulb kind of frequency and humming a little. She set the blade and holster down on the drill and briefly paused to cough, grabbing one of the folded instruction pages out of her pocket under her apron.

The documents drawn up by the late Summer Rose didn't have any description of a latching device to hold the blade either in or out, but it had specified that the blade was meant to swing. A free-swinging blade would be difficult to operate, and likely pose more harm to the user than to the opponents the user was attempting to face off against, as the blade seemed likely to swing back and remove fingers rather willingly, actually. Ruby had immediately noticed this and begun planning out a more viable latching option, similar to most folding 'flick' spring-assisted knives sold at hunting stores. She had milled out a handle frame in this style already out of aluminum, making a channel for the blade to fold into and creating a button and spring to release it from the latched-open position. All very simple, all very mechanical. What was left to do was make a wooden handle to go around the aluminum frame and find herself a clock spring strong enough to close the two-pound blade when the catch release was pressed.

She powered on the drill press, having already put the correct size bit in from earlier, and set the blade down on the press table. Carefully steadying it with her hand, she lined up the approximate middle of the tang to the drill bit, and retracted the drill. The bottle of machine cutting oil was just next to her, and she gave the tang a thorough squirting to make sure it stayed cool during this. The last thing she needed was for the metal to overheat and warp, or for the drillbit to snap. Very carefully, then, she brought the chuck and bit closer to the steel tang, until it just barely was above it, before plunging down and starting to bore out a hole. Careful to plunge and lift every few turns, the drillbit started to eat through the armoured plate steel and make a perfectly round three-eighths hole in the middle of the tang. Thanks to the copious use of cutting fluid, the carbide bit didn't even struggle for an instant as she plunged it all the way through the part and into the relief hole in the drill table. She let the press spring back upwards and shut it off, lifting the blade and shaking it off to remove the excess cutting fluid. The hole had a bit of slag on it, but a quick introduction to a bastard rasp took it right off.

The bandsaw was next, shaking itself into life with a loud electric whirring. One of the idler wheels, either the top or the bottom, she couldn't remember, had a nasty imbalance in it that would shake the entire saw at low speed, and even itself out once the motor finished spooling all the way up to cutting speed. It was pretty frightening to watch the old green bandsaw actually shake from left to right and try to rip its own supports out of the concrete. After a moment, like it always did, it settled and she was able to approach it. She put the blade down on the saw table and slid the fence out of the way, cranking the safety guard down so it was only an inch above the table. With two well-placed cuts, she dug a little groove out of the tang on the sharp side, right where the latch was going to grab when the blade was open. The groove didn't need to be big, just a mere quarter inch wide and U-shaped, directly below the pivot hole. Thanks to the leftover cutting fluid and the saw's automatic vacuum, the little bits of slag and the cut off piece all disappeared into the canvas bag at her feet and left the groove clean and clear. She stopped the bandsaw with the foot brake, silencing the garage again.

With a little brush, she cleaned off the dust from the tang and set it aside, moving over to the vertical mill in the far corner. The aluminum frame was still there from the morning, still in its vice and a little dusty from the day of sitting and waiting. She grabbed the air blaster off the wall and pulled it over, delivering a sharp blast from the garage's compressed air system to clean it off and blast away any bits of aluminum shaving still left on it. She hung up the air blaster again and undid the clasps on the part to free it, lifting it out of the vice and bringing it back over to the drill table. One side of the frame was drilled out with a square hole, and the other with a recessed circular hole for a special through-bolt she had made using a three-eighths carriage bolt. She'd taken a standard carriage bolt and cut off the threads so only the shoulder remained, and carefully drilled and tapped the now flat end so she could put a bolt inside of the bolt and create a through-post for the blade to pivot on.

She sized the whole deal up, sliding the tang into the frame and pushing the bolt through the holes to hold it all together. The bolt may have only been finger tight and the latch may not have had its springs in it yet, but the blade and handle were now one. She held it up in front of herself for a moment in the folded position. She pursed her lips and nodded, turning it over. With a snap of her wrist, she opened the blade and let it latch, just to test the action. It was perfect, even without a comfortable or completed handle. She smiled and brought it back up, thumbing the loose latch and releasing the blade from its position and undoing the bolt holding it together. The two halves came apart again, and she slid the blade back into the pruning saw sheath to protect it and took the handle with her across the garage to the lathe.

The piece of wood she was going to use was still there on top of the lathe, already turned down to the correct size she wanted. She had found a really nice cherry tree while taking Zwei for a walk that morning, and decided that she needed the hardwood for the handles of her new weapons. Zwei had been all too happy to carry a decent sized branch back home in his mouth for her. He always liked a good chunk of hardwood. They carried better when thrown so he could run farther, even if the old mutt didn't particularly run all that fast. She'd made one handle so far, and made a blank for the second, intending to finish it later once she knew exactly what she was doing. The pinkish-tinge to the cherry wood seemed almost too nice to ruin with stain, so she'd used a darkening laquer to bring out the colour and make it really pop and cure the wood to a nice finish. She carried the whole lot back over to the bench and set it down, placing the handle into a vice and securing it softly.

Chiseling a channel in a wood handle was a skill. Even a little bit too far to one side would crack the wood and ruin the part, and there wasn't enough cherry left over to make a third handle should this one go awry. Lucky for her, then, this was also a skill she had. It took no more than ten minutes of careful tapping with the hammer and scoop-like wood chisel to dig out a groove wide and deep enough for the latch mechanism to slot comfortably in. Setting the chisel and hammer down she grabbed the handle's latch mechanism and gently pressed it into the slot in the cherry handle. It was a tighter fit than she had anticipated, but this was advantageous. With a few taps from a rubber mallet, it all went together and felt pretty solid. She did a quick measure with a scribe to line up where the latch button was and grabbed her dremel off the shelf.

It spun the little boring bit up quite quickly and noisily, sounding more like a dental tool than a woodworking one. Following her little marks, she dug out a hole in the side of the handle, right around where the button was going to go. Sawdust was going everywhere, in her face, on her apron, on the floor, it was a real mess. After a minute, the hole was bored and the latch was exposed. She tried stuffing her thumb down the hole a few times to activate the latch manually. It was an easy spring, so the latch moved around with just the right feel for her. It was lovely. She took the little coiled clockspring from inside her apron pocket and carefully laid it inside the opening where the tang was going to meet the aluminum frame.

Back over to the saw she went and grabbed the blade again and took all the parts back to the workbench. She cleared it off with her arm and set all the components down gently so nothing would spontaneously break. She assembled the blade into the handle with the odd carriage bolt, tightening it down with an allen key and some threadlocker this time so it would stay. She had to use a second piece of super-thin spring steel to slide in between the blade and handle and set the coiled spring into place, but eventually it clicked into position and held, maintaining tension on the blade and holding it softly closed. She already had a button in mind for the latch release, and it was at the bottom of the pocket of her coveralls, under the apron. It took a moment of digging but it eventually came out, the little piece of milled Grimm ivory she had made specifically for this purpose. She took the tube of epoxy from her toolbox and applied just the smallest amount onto the back of the ivory button before pressing it carefully into the hole and onto the latch release mechanism. She held her thumb in place so it would set.

After a minute or two of curing time, she let go of the button and let the blade fold closed against the handle. She smiled, realizing the machining work done on the aluminum mechanism was such that in the closed position, the handle and blade only barely touched at the end, meaning no shimming would be required to get everything to seat nicely. She picked up her electric drill and put in a thin bit, no bigger than three sixteenths, and set the handle into the vice again. Careful to keep her hands straight, she sent the drill through the handle about two inches up from the long end. She blew away the little bits of sawdust and aluminum shavings with a hearty breath and reached for the little leather strap and button snap she'd made from her dad's seamstress kit. Having replaced the tiny bolt for a longer one inch long one, she slotted the bolt through the strap and handle and secured it in place with the male end of the button, tightening everything down with a screwdriver. The strap folded neatly over the closed blade and snapped closed, fully securing the blade. It was done.

She grinned down at the weapon in her hands. The majesty of her mother's design, built into a real life working model. She popped the button snap open and gave a hearty flick downwards. The blade swung open and locked into place on it's clasp, becoming a useable sickle. It was like magic. It was a good time for a test. She walked over to the refrigerator at the side of the garage and pulled it open, revealing the five watermelons she had bought the day before specifically for this purpose. She pulled one of them out and carried it over to the anvil, kicking the fridge door closed behind her, and set it down so the fattest part was horizontal. There'd be no cheating her way through this one. She stepped back from the anvil and popped the weapon open again.

She eyed the watermelon. It eyed her back. With a heavy swing, she took a slice at the melon, pointy side of the sickle first. Much to her surprise and enjoyment, the blade went directly through the melon without even fighting and burst it, sending chunks of cold, wet melon all over her apron and the anvil. She paused to laugh and flick a bit of melon off her face. This was nothing short of a complete success. She hit the button on the handle and the blade folded itself back up, neatly out of the way and easily compact. She closed the button snap to hold it in place again, and reached out for a chunk of watermelon.

It was tasty.

Now all she had to do was make another one.

/.../

It was late. Really late by the time she finished the second sickle. Her day had included a trip to the local parts supply store for another block of aluminum and another tool for her vertical mill after the old one had decided that today was the day it was going to come to pieces and eject its carbide teeth into her part and ruin it. That had only been two hours taken out of her afternoon, so it wasn't a huge deal. It hadn't ruined the second blade, which she was proud to say was even better than the first one in terms of edge and sharpness. She had dremeled in some inlays in pure silver into the handle, and relacquered both so the sheen on the cherry wood shone deeply in the lamplight. She was whet-stoning the blades when she was interrupted by a soft voice at the door.

"Ruby?"

Ruby looked up to see her sister, in her pyjamas, standing in the doorway, with a plate in her hands.

"Oh, hey Yang."

Yang yawned.

"Do you know what time it is?"

Ruby shrugged. "Not really. Ten?"

"Honey, it's twelve thirty."

"Oh."

"You haven't come in the house all day. Have you eaten?"

Ruby shrugged and gestured to the exploded fruit on the anvil.

"I had some watermelon."

Her sister paused and blinked at it for a moment.

"What did you season it with, a grenade?"

"Nah, I was testing out my new blades. Wanted to see how sharp they were. Turns out, really damn sharp."

"I'm impressed. You made a heck of a mess, though."

"I'm sure Zwei'll get it. He likes melon."

Yang sighed and approached, setting the tray down on the workbench.

"Well, if you haven't eaten anything all day, I made you some apple slices and peanut butter crackers. I don't want you going hungry."

That was her favourite. Ruby's eyes lit up as she put down her whetstone.

"Ooh, for me?"

"For you, sweetie."

She hungrily dove for the platter. Truth be told, she was hungry, and she hadn't eaten all day. Even her trip into town had skipped the usual fast food joints and candy stores in favour of the tool and die store. She was famished.

"I love you, Yang." she said, forcing three whole apple slices into her mouth. "Mmmfff."

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Ru."

"Frry." she swallowed. "Sorry."

Yang reached out and ruffled her hair, pulling off the welding goggles that were still up there. She sighed a moment, putting the goggles down on the toolbox.

"Your hair's gettin' really long, Ru-ster. You gonna cut and dye it?"

"I think I like it like this. I dunno if I'm gonna recolour it."

"Going for the femme look, then?"

Ruby chuckled.

"I'm not femme, Yang. Clearly I'm butch with long hair."

"Oh, so now you roll with the jokes."

"Makes it easier. Besides, I'm no archetype."

"Says the girl in overalls holding a giant knife."

Ruby paused.

"What… archetype is that referring to?"

"You, silly. You are the archetype. Fit, dorky, talented. You're a catch, honey."

"I don't think so, you're talking out your butt."

Yang just gave her The Look.

"You know, I might not be into women, but I know what women who are into women are into. And that's what you are, baby cakes."

"Oy. Shut up."

"I'm just hounding you, honey. Eat your dinner, don't make me feed you."

Ruby picked up the sickle on the table, unbuttoned the snap, and let the blade flick open with a shing of metal.

"I'd like to see you try."

"You'd threaten your own sister with a weapon? For trying to make sure you grow up big and strong?"

"Yup."

Yang chuckled. "Rude. D'you mind if I have a have a look at that?"

She shrugged and spun the sickle around in her grip, and held it out handle-first for Yang to take. Her sister took it from her a moment, turning it over a couple of times and giving the action a few test swings. She seemed pleased.

"What do you think?"

"It's well-balanced, the latch is real smooth. This is a true work of art."

"That's awfully kind of you, Yang."

"I'm not weapons expert like yourself, but I know a good one from a bad one. This is definitely way up on the good one side. I'm digging the inlays. Is that real silver?"

"Uh, yeah, it was kinda expensive. I thought it would look better with a bit of shiny in the handle instead of just the varnished cherry."

Her sister mused, and pressed the latch button to close the blade back up.

"It definitely does. You gonna paint the blade?"

"Nah, that'll ruin the finish and the edge. I'm just gonna wire wheel it and stone sharpen it from now on. That way it'll always be sharp when I need it to be."

"Kinda wish I knew how to smith weapons like this. It's super neat."

"Eh, it's a lot of work, and none of it is fun or easy. It's a lot of hammering and standing in front of a blast furnace. So no bueno. The learning curve for smithing is too steep for even me."

"Yeah, but you made these wonderful things, didn't you?"

Ruby shrugged again.

"I guess I did."

"I'm proud of you, kiddo." she said, reaching over and ruffling her hair again.

"You know, Yang, you're like, the second best mom I've ever had. And you're not even my mom."

Yang laughed a moment, and set the sickle back down on the bench.

"I certainly hope I'm not your mom. I'm not old enough to be your mom, by probably seventeen years."

"You know what I meant."

"Yeah, I know what you meant, sweetie." she reached over and smooched her on the top of her head and stole a peanut butter cracker. "Besides, your real mom was the actual greatest, so I guess it's fair to say I might have picked up a few things."

"That you did."

"I'm here for you, honey."

Ruby smiled and let her sister hold her cheek.

"Thanks, Yang."

Yang returned the smile, rubbing her cheeks with her real thumb.

"Hey, you know what we should do?"

Ruby crunched through an apple. "Whassat?"

"We should go swimming. Right now, while everyone else is asleep."

She frowned briefly. "Swimming? Now?"

"Yeah, yeah, now. We'll sneak out like old times and go swimming down at the lake."

"But… I don't… know if I have a swimsuit here at dad's house."

"You won't need one, c'mon."

"Wait, I won't?"

"Yeah."

"Do you mean skinny dipping?"

"Is there a problem with that?"

Ruby paused, looking kind of away. "Uh, yes? No? I don't…"

"Hey, if you don't wanna-"

"I didn't say that. Just a little confused as to why you want to. Also, I can't actually swim, remember?"

"It's fine if you can't, the water's only chest deep. We can bring you a floatie."

Ruby rocked back on her heels for a second and put her hands on her hips.

"Alright, let's go swimming. That's a great idea, you know?" She moved over the refrigerator again and pulled it open, grabbing a six pack from the bottom shelf beneath all the watermelon. "I, Ruby Xiao-Long, will go swimming at almost one in the morning, with my very helpful and very loving older sister."

Yang pretended to tear up, wiping at her eye.

"You used our name. I can't believe it."

Ruby rolled her eyes and shut the fridge.

"Yeah, I did. Let's go."

"Right-oh."

She slung the six pack over her shoulder and reached over to turn off the lights above the work bench. They flickered off with a buzzing of old fluorescent bulbs, the sound lingering as she followed her sister back outside. With a hearty yank, she pulled the chain on the garage door down and made sure it was latched. The fire had died down enough in the furnace that she was okay leaving it alone for a while. It was no longer hot enough to melt solid steel and burn the garage to the ground with her two fancy new sickles in it. She almost skipped her way over to the Crusader, pulling open the door and sliding into the front passenger seat as quietly as possible and making sure to not slam the door shut. Yang slid into the driver's seat in a similarly quiet fashion, also making sure not to make too much noise as she slid the key into the ignition and fired the old wagon up.

The car's quiet rumbling wasn't loud enough to wake their father as they backed out of the driveway, but it did alert Zwei, who came padding out of his doggie door with his tongue hanging out. This old dog didn't wake up for the grain truck's air horn, but the sounds of his mothers trying to sneak out late at night got his attention. They stopped at the end of the driveway for a moment, and Ruby opened her door to let him hop up and into the footwell. Once he was sitting comfortably in her arms, he fell asleep again as Yang pulled the car out and onto the street, and pointed them north towards the lake.

"Guess Zwei's coming with us."

"I don't think his consciousness is, though. He's out cold."

"Maybe he'll wake up if you feed him a cold one."

"Yang, you know we're not allowed to feed Zwei anything but dog food. Don't you remember what happened?"

Yang chuckled as she drove, the old car picking up speed smoothly.

"Oh, I remember. I also remember that dust canister being on the floor, and dad getting equally as upset at Uncle Qrow for leaving it there."

"Eh, whatever. The cold ones are for us."

"Arright."

It wasn't a far drive to the lake, only about ten minutes down the road and another two up a gravel path. Yang rolled the car to a stop in the little gravel parking lot next to the lake and shut the car off, pushing in the headlight switch so only the car's amber parking lights stayed illuminated. With a little rub behind his ears, Ruby got Zwei to wake up, and she put him gently on the ground as she stepped out of the car, beer in hand.

The night air was kinda chilly, and the cool breeze of the lake was a little much. The water was going to be cold, but she was well aware of this fact when she had agreed to come. They approached the tiny canoe dock that jutted out onto the mirror-smooth water and stepped on, creating tiny ripples across its surface. Ruby sniffled and rubbed her arms, trying to stave off that little bit of cold that was coming through her coveralls. She took a moment to bend down and pick up a branch that had fallen off an overhanging tree that Zwei seemed interested in. She gave it a good old fashioned toss into the water, making a splash.

"Get it, boy!"

Zwei took off along the dock with a lot more speed than she had seen him use in quite a few years, and flew off the end of the dock into the water with a much bigger splash. Ruby giggled as she watched him doggy-paddle out to the stick, grabbing it in his mouth before turning around and swimming slowly back. He climbed up and out of the water and shook himself off, his old-man ears slapping himself in the sides of the head. He came back over to her and put the stick down at her feet. She squatted down and gave him a scritching behind the ears.

"Good boy! You're a gooboy! Oooohyougooboy!"

Zwei sat down and panted, a happy smile on his little face with his tail wagging profusely. She squeezed his little face in her hands and stood up again and tossed the stick into the lake again. Zwei jumped back into the water again. Ruby grinned brightly at the little dog under the moonlight.

"What a happy dog. I wish I cared as little about life as Zwei."

Yang dropped a towel onto her shoulders and put her arm around them.

"Well, it's not that hard. Just gotta, you know, kick back and let it all out. You gonna get in?"

"Can you warm up the water first?"

Yang smiled sweetly and poked her in the nose. "For you, of course."

With that, her sister kicked off her sneakers and pyjama pants, and peeled off her tank top, leaving her just in her underwear in the chilly evening air. She made sure her clothes were neatly folded and set aside before taking a step towards the end of the dock.

"It's gonna be cold, you know."

She got a shrug in response.

"It'll be fine."

Yang took a run up and jumped into the water after Zwei, submerging beneath the crystal water for a moment. She surfaced after a beat, her hair clinging to her head and water running down her face.

"Hoh!"

"Is it cold?"

"It's certainly refreshing! Oh my god it's crisp!"

Ruby sat down on the edge of the dock and pulled off her boots and socks, setting them aside next to Yang's. She put her feet into the water, wincing as the frigid water gripped her legs a vice.

"May I request a water heater?"

"Yeah, I'm workin' on it, hang on. Your noodle is under my clothes."

She watched her sister start to tread water, her hair beginning to glow a dull yellow. She sniffled, and reached under Yang's clothes and pulled out the deflated rubber circle. She popped the nozzle open and started to puff into it, slowly inflating the red rubber ring. The water around her ankles was starting to get warmer by the minute, the aching cold receding and a soft warmth wrap around her feet. She capped off the inflated tube and set it down on the water's surface just in front of her.

"That's a good temperature for you?"

Ruby kicked her feet a little in the water.

"Yeah, I 'spose so."

"Goody. Hop in, sweet cheeks."

"I can neither confirm nor deny the sweetness of these cheeks."

"Take off your pants and I'll tell you myself."

"Don't be a perv, Yang."

Yang giggled as she swam in a slow circe to churn up the water and evenly heat it all. These were the perks of having a sibling that produced heat through an exothermic semblance. Free warmth. And she never had cold feet. Ruby rolled her eyes down at her sister a moment, and unzipped the front of the thick shop overalls to reveal the dirty hand-me-down t-shirt covered in grease stains and oil. She had to wiggle out of the coveralls as they were a little loose and bunched up around her ankles from all the extra fabric. They were her dad's, after all. She fought with the button on her jeans for a second before sliding them off her legs and letting the chilly November air bite down onto the exposed pasty skin, making her nearly shriek. It seemed a little too cold to be nude, but what did she care. There was brews to be had.

She peeled off her t-shirt and tossed it aside, leaving just her underwear covering her from the cold of the air and brisk wind that cut through her. Yang swam back around and grabbed the little red tube, tossing it up in the air to herself a few times. Ruby shivered and grabbed two of the chilled bottles from the little pack, cracking the tops off on the edge of the little dock. Her sister paddled back around and took one from her, setting her elbows up on the wood.

"I didn't know they made cargo panties along with the utility bras."

Ruby nodded.

"Yep. Special order."

"Why would you need pockets on your panties, though?"

"To hold stuff."

"Like what?!"

"Uh… tools?"

Yang frowned.

"But you own a toolbox. In what world are you doing tool-based repair in your underwear that you need pockets on your skivvies?"

"You never know when the need might arise. Better safe than sorry. I mean, I keep a multi-tool in my bra pocket should I need to fix anything, why not have extra storage for cool stuff on your body?"

"Because it's a little weird?"

"I can keep so much candy in all these pockets, man. And so many tools."

"You know, I don't think you're supposed to mature this fast, honey. When I was your age, all I wanted to wear was sexy stuff. I didn't care about storage and carrying capacities."

"Don't forget built-in gas masks."

"Oh, Ruby. Never change."

"I won't."

Yang floated away on her back, her beer balanced carefully on her abs. Ruby set hers down next to her hip a moment and put her feet into the hole of the floatie. Her sister stood up in the water, keeping her bottle from being submerged.

"A-are you gonna get in, or are you gonna sit on the dock all night?"

She shrugged.

"I dunno. I mean, I want to get in, I just don't want to ruin my underwear."

"What are you talking about?"

"These panties are lycra so they're waterproof, but the paper filters in the bra's gas masks might not be, I dunno."

"Are they machine washable?"

"No, you're supposed to take them apart to clean them. It's a hassle, and I don't really want to do it in the middle of nowhere without any light sources."

"...so you're saying…"

"Hold on, I'll need a drink for this."

Ruby picked up her beer and brought it up to her mouth, and chugged the entire bottle without taking a break to breathe. Her sister seemed impressed. She put the empty back into the box and grabbed a second, and pointed to her sister with the cap.

"But I'm only doing this if you do it, too."

"I think I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down, sweetheart. Girls out."

"Yup."

With no more than a vague prompt, Yang had already unbuckled hers and pulled it off underwater, swimming over and depositing the soaked garment on the edge of the dock with a wet slap.

"And since Mama didn't raise no quitter…"

The other half hit the dock as well, just as waterlogged. Ruby blinked down at both items of sopping wet cotton for a moment.

"Well, I can't have you one-upping me like that, Yang. It would be unfair."

"Go on. Strip."

"Yeah, yeah, give me a moment."

She picked up the discarded underwear and stood, ambling back over to their car and setting them on the warm hood to dry. Out of the direct line of sight to her sister, she sighed and unclipped her own bra and set it down on the hood as well so it would be nice and toasty for when they got back. She shivered again as she went right down to her birthday suit, placing the pocketed undergarments down gently so they didn't get dirty. She could see herself in the reflection of the windshield, her scar illuminated in the dull orange glow of the parking lights. She could see herself grinning like an idiot back at herself. Sometimes a little bit of dumb was necessary to bring the grandios problems back down to earth.

"Hey, Yang?" She called back over her shoulder.

"Yeah."

"If I take a running cannonball, will you be able to catch me and make sure I don't drown?"

"That's literally my job, Ruby. Let me know when you're gonna jump."

She turned and rolled out a crick in her neck, and did a quick stretch of her arms to make sure she was ready.

"I'm gonna jump!"

"Go for it!"

Lit only by the dim, clouded moonlight, Ruby dashed towards the dock, the wind cutting through her very exposed skin. Her feet slapped hard on the damp dock loudly as she closed the distance to the end. With a sharp swing of her arms, she lept gracefully off the end of the dock and sailed through the air. She tucked her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself.

"Cannonba-!"

She hit the water and went under, remembering to shut her mouth so she didn't inhale the lake as the bath-water warmth surrounded her. The only thing she knew about swimming and jumping off docks was to extend her legs down and kick off the bottom to surface faster. So she tried that, and very nearly missed the bottom with her toes, causing a brief panic that was quelled by her sister's mechanical grip bringing her face back to the surface. She sputtered and wiped the water out of her eyes and nose as she breached.

"-ball."

"Nice landing. You some kind of fish, little sis?"

"I am the humble rockfish. I sink like a rock."

"You'd think you'd be good at floating with those life preservers on your chest, babe."

"It's all fat. And a little silicone."

"Fat floats."

"Air floats." Ruby countered, Slipping away from Yang and sticking her head through the inflated rubber ring. "I don't float very well because muscle is denser than water by a pretty big margin."

"It is?"

"Yeah, but I should technically be able to swim better than someone with a higher body fat index because I have good stamina and muscular structure, yet I can't because I never learned to swim. Float me back over to the dock, please."

"Sure thing." Yang pushed off and sent her toward the dock slowly, gracefully front-crawling alongside. "What about mechanical structure, how well does that float?"

The rubber ring bounced gently against the dock. Ruby struggled to get her shoulders and arms through the ring so she could grab her drink, but she managed after a brief moment of rubbery squeaking and grabbed the two bottles of chilled beer. She handed one to Yang and settled herself in her ring to keep her dignity under the surface of the water. Her sister didn't exactly have the same sort of idea, rolling over and floating away on her back, her beer balanced perfectly on her sternum. Ruby kicked off and followed.

"I'd guess not so well in general, since most metals are generally pretty dense. But in your case, carbon fibre is very much lighter than what you're used to, so I wouldn't doubt that it would float better than a dense fleshy arm like your other one. Besides, that arm uses hydrophobic joints and seals so it actually captures a pocket of air inside. It should float like a balloon."

"Neat. Could I use it as a life preserver in an emergency?"

"Oh, no, you'd weigh too much for that little bit of air to keep afloat."

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

"I might be, what of it?"

"Rude!"

"Too bad. I'm naked and drinking, I can say what I want."

"Heh. Cheers to that, Ru."

They laughed as they clinked their bottles together, taking a fair few swigs of the thick brown stout. Ruby grinned and kicked her feet around beneath her, spinning in place in the water and sending little waves out from under the tube.

"You know, this is nice."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, we don't spend a lot of time together. And that's kinda upsetting, because I don't like feeling this isolated. It's nice to hang out with you once in a while, Yang."

"That's sweet of you to say, Rubes."

"I'm serious, though. It's been so long since we got to hang out as buddies. I was kinda mean and restrictive back at Beacon."

"You had every reason to be, hun. It's perfectly okay for you to have felt the way you did. You don't have to 'make up' for it."

"I know, you told me that. But you forget that you're still my sister, and I still sometimes wanna hangout and be buddies again. I miss it. Atlas is a cold and lonely place. I miss the warmth of home sometimes."

Yang reached out with a smile and pinched her cheek.

"I'll be your buddy, Ruby. I'm always your buddy. I know Atlas is far away. I should make more of an effort to come visit you sometimes."

"Wouldn't that inconvenience dad and the farm?"

"Aren't you inconveniencing your radio station and the Entire Atlas Military by being here?"

"...A little."

"We don't work during the growing seasons, really. I just hang out at Junior's and ride my motorcycle. So what excuse do I have for not coming to visit my one and only sister? None. You are already one-up on my sorry butt for coming to see us here, even if it was to cry and hide from your problems."

"I'm gonna try not to do that anymore."

"What, coming to see us? Because, rude, for one."

"No, Yang, fuckin-" she laughed and took another drink. "I meant the crying and hiding part!"

Her sister swam gently over and poked her in the nose.

"I know. And I'm very proud of you for all the progress you've made."

"So am I, Yang. So am I."

"When are you gonna go back to Atlas?"

"Soon. Soon enough. I have a few things left to do, yet. Namely, get dressed. I don't think any airline is gonna let me fly as is."

"What, because you're publicly indecent?"

Ruby smirked.

"Nah, because of these guns I'm carrying."

She brought her arms up and flexed, showing off the well-worked biceps and forearms. Yang scoffed and rolled her eyes, letting herself drift away.

"Ugh, that was worse than one of my puns."

"Doubtful. That one had strength behind it."

"Ruby, stop, you're gonna embarrass yourself."

"I'm well-armed with these jokes, Yang."

That got her to laugh and throw her head back, a very proud smile on her face.

"Okay, full points, Ruby. Full points."

"Thank you. I thought you might be up in arms over that one."

"Gahh! I take it back!"

With that, Yang grabbed the rubber floatie and pulled it up and off of her and tossed it behind her head. Ruby shrieked and sank underwater for a moment, before being caught by Yang's arms and being surfaced again. With a dramatic spin, she pulled her around in the warmed water in a tight circle, making a splash and getting their faces wet again.

It was great.

/.../

Ruby drove them home. Yang had finished the rest of the beer in the box and had fallen asleep again. She didn't blame her sister, since it was almost two in the morning and they'd both been up since seven. Dressing the tipsy woman had been hard, given the sheer height difference and weight difference she hadn't accounted for in the moment. Getting her into the car had been the easy part, as she had just opened the passenger side door and let her fall onto the Crusader's plush front bench seat.

Yang's wet hair was soaking through her jeans and onto the seat, since they hadn't brought enough towels to dry all the way off. The heat of the motor had dried off her sister's undergarments quite well, actually, and she seemed to have appreciated it when she was being dressed, her dull and sleepy smiles very telling. By the time she rolled the huge car back into their driveway, Yang was all the way out and asleep, snoring quietly into her leg as she shut the motor off and brought the darkness back to the yard. She gave Zwei a scratch behind his ears and set him down on the ground, lifting her sister under the arms and doing her best to not drop the unhelpful lump of person as she extricated her from the car.

"C'mon, Yang. Bedtime."

She managed to get her sister up and onto her feet, with her mechanical arm slung loosely over her shoulders. She made sure to keep the woman's hips against her own to keep her stable as she got her all the way upright, and hobbled her towards the front door with a yawning dog in tow.

"Get the door for me, Zwei."

The old dog gave a tired woof as he padded up the front steps and squeezed himself into the tiny doggy door for a moment. With a click, the front door swung open, revealing a snoozing Zwei on top of the boot tray and the interior light on. It was a neat trick that he could open doors, even though he was an old dog, anecdotally incapable of learning new things. She had taught him this trick back at Beacon so he could open the dorm room door for her when she was carrying all the textbooks that her professors insisted were necessary, and it always freaked out her friends how a dog new how to use a magnetic stripe card and open a round doorknob.

"Good boy, Zwei."

She carried her sleeping sister over the threshold and into the house. She kicked her shoes against the wall so they landed behind the old mutt instead of on his back and moved Yang down the hallway to her bedroom down on the left, across the hall from her own. She deposited her sister onto the bed on her bum first, gently laying her down onto the soft sheets and setting her head on her pillow. It was lucky that Yang was already in her pyjamas, meaning she didn't have to change her while she was sleeping.

"Sweet dreams, Yang. I love you."

She pulled the covers up and over her sister, rolling the edge and tucking it up under her chin. Yang's long blond hair was splayed out over the pillow like a sunrise. Ruby smiled down at her for a moment, brushing some of the long blond locks away from the sleeping girl's face.

"Thanks for being there for me."

She leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her sister's forehead. Just the same way that Yang would always smooch her on the head and cheeks when she was proud of her. It always made her feel safe and warm, no matter how much she protested and tried to get away. But when it came down to it, she liked it. It was a sweet gesture.

"Take care of dad and Zwei for me, yeah?"

Yang's chest rose and fell very softly under the comforter. Ruby took a moment to sit down on the edge of the bed and caress the rosy cheeks presented so perfectly for caressing.

"I'm sorry. I have to go. I have places to be right now. I might not be ready, but I know that it's time. I'll be safe, I promise."

She sighed, looking out the window to the moon, hanging low over the fields.

"I'll return when I'm done. Thank you for everything you've done for me. Nobody will ever compare to you, the perfect and most helpful sister anyone could ever have."

She stood slowly, squeezing Yang's hand gently as she did, and turned towards the door again.

"I love you."

She left the room and shut the door with a quiet click of the latch. She kept her head high for a moment, and crossed over the hallway to her own room for her bag, which she had stuffed under her dresser out of sight. She slung it over her shoulder and left her bedroom, closing the door for the last time in probably a few months. She shook out her head to dispel any negative thoughts, and pushed on through the house. As she passed by the open door to their dad's room, she paused a moment to stick her head in. As he always was, laid out on his bed in his boxers and an old graphic t-shirt, the news channel still playing silently on his TV and a few empty beer bottles on his nightstand. Ruby sighed and reached behind the TV for the power button, darkening the room again. She blew her dad a kiss and departed, sneaking into and through the kitchen.

She stopped at the back door only briefly, scribbling a little note of her departure on the penpad by the microwave and affixing it to the fridge. It didn't say much, just that she was leaving and would return as swiftly as always. Flipping the latch, she pushed her way back out into the night air of the backyard and slid it silently closed to not wake any of the sleeping occupants of her house. She crossed the yard to the garage with a sniffle, hopping over the fence and slipping in the side door. Her sickles were still on the workbench where she left them, neatly folded and latched closed. She grabbed them and stuffed them carefully into her bag on top of her clothes, and zipped the bag back up again.

On the back side of the garage there was a cabinet. One she never opened. One that held something of incredibly high value and permanence to her and her little disjointed family, and something that hadn't seen the light of day since she was three years old. She crossed the dark garage over to the cabinet and stood before it in the din, reaching out to touch the wood surface. The dark venir glimmered back in the moonlight, putting her at ease. It was time to open the cabinet. She was twenty-four years old, this cabinet hadn't been open in more than two decades, and she needed in it for the first time. And tonight, it was the time.

She pulled the doors open. There, staring longingly back at her, was the cloak. White silk fabric on the outside, warm, inviting red velour on the inside. The bottom seam was still just a little bit tattered, but it was still as clean as it had been when it had last been worn. She reached in the cabinet, and ran her fingers over the soft red liner of the old cloak, sending little bits of dust all over the inside of the cabinet. It was just as soft as she remembered, from all those years ago.

It came off its hook quite easily, and she slung it over her shoulders with a dramatic flick to get the rest of the dust off. It didn't buckle in the front like her red one did, having instead of a key and hole clasp, just a hole in the top to stick her head through as the cloak was all one piece of fabric. She had to wiggle her head through the hole and corral her long hair up and out so it didn't get stuck, and flipped up her hood. She reached back into the cabinet for the framed picture that was hung above the coat hook, another relic she hadn't seen in quite a few too many years. It was a picture of her mom in her favourite tank top and cargo shorts, from when her and Yang were no more than toddlers, flexing her biceps and letting the two of them sit up and on them. It was a nice picture, and a nice memory from when the woman who owned the old white cloak was still around.

Ruby smiled down at the picture and opened the frame, and slid out the paper inside. She folded the picture carefully to not wrinkle the image of her mother and put it into the pocket of her coveralls. She put the frame back into the cabinet and closed the doors, stepping back for a second to reflect on her actions. With another shake of her head, she turned around and snuck back through the garage and slipped out the side door again.

It wasn't far to the rail line at the back of her property, only a five minute stroll through the woods behind the garage and a quick hop of a tall-ish fence. The old tracks traipsed all the way across the continent to the border, but she wasn't planning on going quite that far. The trains that passed behind her yard had a stop off in Patch before continuing through the channel tunnel to the mainland, and there was a prominent airport just next to the docks that she was going to end at. She stood wearily at the edge of the rails, listening as hard as she could for the deep rumbling that usually accompanied approaching trains. She had her passport, her wallet, her new cloak, everything she needed to make it to her destination. All she needed was the transport to the airport.

Off in the distance, a whistle blew. She turned briefly to look up the tracks, catching sight of the tiny little dot of light that signified the train's approach. She shivered, remembering how difficult this maneuver was going to be, watching carefully as the locomotive started to get closer. The island of Patch still used antiquated diesel locomotives to move cargo around instead of the all-electric and hydrogen powered trains that travelled across the mainland and into the bordering countries. This meant they were limited to a top speed of seventy kilometres an hour, and made them reasonably easy to get onto and off of when they were moving. However, this was still going to be the equivalent of getting hit by a train traveling at seventy kilometres per hour. It wasn't exactly going to be comfortable.

The whistle sounded again. The train was now rapidly approaching her position. No more than thirty seconds behind her. She turned away from it and started to jog along the middle of the tracks. The rumbling of the big diesel was getting louder. The whistle started to blow as it bore down on her position. She picked up the speed of her run, trying to pace the train as it closed in on her. While she could have easily used her semblance to keep up with the train, she didn't want to make a spectacle of rose petals that might cover the tracks and identify what direction she had gone. Old school physical exercise it was, then. The engineer leaned on the horn as the massive headlight turned the dark tracks back to daylight. She timed each footfall carefully, and then finally, jumped.

With a harsh twist of her back, she flipped backwards and landed on the roof of the locomotive, just behind one of the cooling vents. The punch in the ribs from the steel roof had nearly taken the wind out of her, but she managed to stay on the train as it rumbled along beneath her grip. With a wince, she twisted off the roof and landed on the running platform next to the engine and dashed backwards, away from the driver's cabin.

As she continued backwards along the train, she gave the night air another deep inhale, savouring the sweet smell of the fields and the freshness of the air. This probably would be the last time the wilderness would smell this sweet.

She finally saddled up on top of a boxcar about halfway down the train, sitting down and facing the wind, and enjoyed her last few moments of freedom.

Soon, she would be in Mistral. And soon after that, she would find what she was looking for.