AN – A crossover continuation of Dust and Motes, set in RWBY (all characters and places are owned by Rooster Teeth), and crossing into the Dresden-verse (all characters and places owned by Jim Butcher).

WARDEN, ARISE. THERE IS AN INTRUDER UPON THE ISLE.

I groaned and sat up. "Oh, for the love of Pete," I muttered, "Can't a wizard get some sleep around here?" Don't get me wrong. I'm an early riser. Being a warden of a prison full of nasties doesn't exactly let you hit the snooze button. Looking out the cottage window, I could blearily see that it was too early, even for me. Grumble grumble grumble.

"Flickum bicus," I said, waving my hand. Candles popped to life. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and fumbled for my running shoes. Alfred had shown me where this intruder was. It was strange though – he couldn't give me a very good visual - Just a golden blob. Whatever it was, it was wandering around in the tunnels. Not good.

I snatched up my duster and threw it on, grabbed my staff and new blasting rod. I made my way down the hill and into the well. I made it halfway down before I started preparing spells. I had to be careful. Well, probably not, but it couldn't hurt, right? Whatever it was walking around the cells, it seemed content to do just that. Maybe it was looking for someone, or some thing specific. It was about to have a very bad day. I like my sleep.

I heard it before I got near enough to see it. Funny thing was, it sounded like a her.

"Hellooo." the girl said. Well hello to you too, miss sneak-onto-my-island. 'Alfred, does she seem hostile?' I sent. Having a telepathic connection did have its uses, after all.

WARDEN, IT APPEARS TO BE LOST. IT IS ARMED AND RESONATES WITH POWER.

Great. Armed and presumably dangerous. 'How armed is she? What sort of power are we talking about?'

IT BEARS GAUNTLETS ABLE TO SLING THE ELEMENTS. THE POWER EMANATES FROM ITS SOUL AS A SHIELD.

Oh. Well it- she has a soul? Maybe this won't be so bad after all. Yeah, right. Like that ever happens. I gathered my will and held up my palm. "Ignus," I intoned. A tiny sun appeared above my outstretched hand, lighting the tunnel up.

"Is somebody there?" She asked. She was just around the bend. I just could not help myself.

In my most appropriate wizardly bellicose voice, I called out, "Fee Fie Foe Fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman!"

"Huh? What's an Eenglish-man?" Bah. No appreciation for the classics. I stepped into view and answered, "Seriously? I give you my best g-" or rather I tried to answer. The snark died on my tongue when I got my first look at her.

She was a short girl, dressed in a canvas skirt-jacket thing that left very little to the imagination. An orange scarf wrapped loosely around her neck. She wore knee-high boots that looked like Nancy Sinatra's favorite kind, and sported a pair of huge bracelets that Wonder Woman would have called overkill. But that wasn't what stopped me cold in my tracks. Her hair glowed bright yellow, as if someone had made strands of sunlight and thrown a huge riot of them on her head.

"Hello." she said, bobbing her head. Those eyes. They were violet in color, and huge, man. Like bigger than silver dollar huge. No way was she human. Summer Fae? I'd never seen any like that. "You know, mister, you might swallow a bug or something if you keep doing that. I'm Yang." I clicked my teeth shut. Sue me, she was weird, but not unpleasant to the eye.

"Hi," I answered. "I'm Harry. Harry Dresden."

"Well, nice to meet you, Harry Harry Dresden." She walked up to me and stuck out her hand. This was going awfully well. I took her hand and shook it. Alfred was right; as soon as I made contact, I could feel the energy. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but I got the feeling that it could be absolutely terrible if she wanted. She seemed friendly enough. Let's see if we can keep it that way.

"You really don't know what an Englishman is?"

"Nope." She smiled when she said it. It was adorable. Down boy. I let go of her hand.

"So, Yang, what brings you to our little island, hmmm? More importantly, how did you manage to sneak past Alfred?" I mean, pleasantries and cuteness aside, someone just popping in unexpected was a problem. Was I going to have to worry about more Fae-not-Fae showing up out of the blue?

She shrugged and held her hands up. "You tell me. I was fighting Mercury and Emerald." Huh? "I had them right where I wanted them and then boom, I woke up here." Oh, those were people names, got it. What? Give me a break, I just got up.

"Speaking of which, where is here, anyway? Am I still in Vale?" She looked at the little ball of light and tried to poke it. "I tried my scroll, but the CCT is too far away I guess." Wow. Definitely not from around here.

"Toto, I don't even think this is Dorothy."

"Huh? Who's Toto?"

"Heh. Nevermind that. Clearly you are a very long way from home." I paused for a moment. She seemed like a nice enough kid, and I got no heebie-jeebies off her. Mentally shrugging, I decided to lay it out for her. I mean, gotta be a decent host when unexpected guests behave themselves, right?

"You're on Demonreach Island, in Lake Michigan." She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. "Nothing, huh?" She shook her head. "It's in the United States, on the planet Earth." At that her eyes got huge. Huger. If that was even possible.

"Man, that must have been some explosion. Outta this world even." Heh. Smartass. I liked her.

"And right into this one." Two could play that game. But time to get serious. "This is not a good place, Yang."

"What do you mean? Are there Grimm nearby?" What the heck were grim?

"This place is a prison. I'm the Warden. If by grim you mean nasties, then yes." She looked around in confusion. "They're sealed away, but that doesn't stop them from talking at you."

"They can talk?" the look of skepticism she gave me clued me in. Go me, with the reading of facial expressions.

"Something tells me that my nasties aren't the same as yours. Yeah, they can talk." I waved a hand. "Not that they say anything worth hearing. 'Free me for unlimited power,' 'I will flay you alive when I escape,' 'GLABBORGLAGNOKLAH,' etcetera. Come on, follow me." She nodded and skipped up beside me as I turned to leave.

"Sooo... What'd they do?" she asked.

"Bad things. Monsters all, though I suspect at least one in particular is here by choice. He's the least chatty of the bunch." I still hadn't figured out what his deal was. He wanted to be left alone, so I let him be. I didn't like where this conversation was headed, so I changed the subject. Subtle, right?

"So tell me, Yang, where do you come from?" I doubted I'd recognize anything - half of what she said didn't make sense, but it was better than talking about my shop.

"Oh. Well I grew up on the island of Patch, just outside the Kingdom of Vale with my dad and my little sister, Ruby." She deflated a little when she mentioned her sister.

"Something wrong, Sparky?"

"Yeah. Mercury and Emerald hurt her pretty bad before I got my hands on them." She started to glow a little brighter. Maybe it was my imagination, but she seemed to emanate heat. She sure wore her heart right on her sleeve. Literally. "I hope she's okay, but I didn't want to lose their trail, so I don't know how she's doing."

"Was it bad?" I asked. I didn't want to provoke her, but something told me an angry Yang -heh, Yangry?- was more than a handful. Like a pissed off Malk kind of handful.

"Yeah. She lost an eye, and was pretty banged up. We managed to get her to the infirmary on the Striker. She's in good hands, but I need to get back to her." She stopped and looked up at me. I stopped and turned to look at her.

"I have to get back home, Harry Harry Dresden. Will you help me?" Hell's bells, I didn't have the faintest clue where to begin.

"Stars and stones, kid, I don't know if I can." This had trouble written all over it, with a capital T. Her face fell just a little, and she looked down at the ground. Oh hell. Do NOT start crying, pleeease. "I don't know where you're from. You don't look like anyone I've ever met or heard of. And don't take this personally, Yang, but I just met you. I don't know you." She looked back up at me, plainly hurt. I sighed. She was gonna make me do it.

"Not only that, but being warden of the world's scariest prison isn't my only responsibility. I've made plenty of enemies, big and small-" She cut me off with a knife hand.

"I'm not scared of that. You're willing to try and help me get home? Your enemies are my enemies." Her eyes went from violet to red and she flared like a miniature sun. Gulp. I believed her. A wicked part of me thought of how much fun it would be to turn her loose. I bet she'd even give a Denarian a run for their money. I gave myself a mental shake.

"Alright, Sparky, fair enough." I settled a hand on her shoulder. "I have a couple of ideas, but we have to deal with the whole trust thing first." She squinted her eyes and frowned.

"What'd you have in mind? I'm game as long as it isn't gross." Oh wow. What in the hell kind of world did this kid come from?

"Nothing like that!" I all but shouted. "Hell's bells, Sparky, I'm a guy, but not that kind of guy." Usually. Hey, I'm spoken for! She rolled her eyes, which had turned back to their normal color in a blink. "Come on, let's get back to my cabin first. What I actually have in mind isn't something we want to do down here." She let out a wicked chuckle.

"Are you suuuure you're not that kind of guy?" I choked on a laugh of my own.

"Brat." I turned on my heel and did my best huffy walk.

"Lech." She spouted, jogging to catch up.

"Murphy is gonna give me so much hell about this." Actually, she might even clobber me. It'd been almost two weeks since we'd last seen one another. Not really sure how I'd even broach that subject. 'Oh hey, Murph, so good to see you. By the way, had this teenage girl drop in on me unexpecte-' CLOBBER. Yup, that was gonna be fun.

"Who's Murphy? Your boss? Is he hotter than you?" The little fireball was having entirely too much fun at my expense.

"She is my girlfriend. So don't you go getting fresh, or I'll sic her on you." The girl laughed and smacked a fist into her open palm.

"Bring it on! I love a good cat-fight!" She practically grinned her face off at that, but I could tell she was kidding. Probably. We cleared the tunnel and I led her back to my cabin, ducking tree branches and avoiding brambles with ease. To give her credit, she navigated just as well as I did, which was saying something. She must have had woodscraft training.

"Hmmm," she mused upon seeing my cabin. "Nice! A little rustic, but it looks cozy."

"It's home." I said. I opened the door and waited for her to walk in, then followed behind her. I leaned my staff up against the door frame and took off my duster to hang it on a hook. When I turned around, Yang was peering at my bookshelf. She had one hand on her hip and the other running an index finger across the spines. "Can you actually read any of that?" Sue me, I was curious.

"Sort of. The letters are funny." She pulled out a tattered copy of The Two Towers and flipped through a few pages. "What's a hobbit?" She looked over her shoulder at me.

"The little folk of the Shire. Fictional little folk, at that." I could tell she was dithering. "Much as I would like to jabber about awesome literature, we've got something to sort out. Put that away for now and come on over here, eh?" I waved her over by the table and chairs Thomas had brought out a while back. She slipped the book back into its spot and stepped over to stand in front of me.

"Okay, so now what?" She looked up at me, mischief in her eyes. Merlin's bones! I felt bad for the guy she set her sights on. He didn't stand a chance! I shifted my gaze to look her directly in the eyes.

The world faded away and was replaced by a battlefield. A girl in white danced between black shapes, swinging a sword and throwing starbeams. Another girl with dark hair flitted between more shadows while swinging a gun on a ribbon. Yet another girl in black and red flung herself around the field with a scythe, cleaving her enemies as she careened. Blackbirds filled the sky, swooping down to worry the red eyes and claws of the creatures they fought.

Amid the chaos was a shining, burning fireball of a dragon. She was literally everywhere, helping the other girls, brawling with the darkness. She landed explosive blows and pushed back the red mawed creatures, saving her friends time and again, thrilling in the fight. And yet, for all her fervor, there was a hole in her heart that she did her best to hide. The shadow monsters kept piling on, and she kept fighting, like she'd never stop.

When the soulgaze ended, Yang stared back up at me. I didn't have to wonder what she saw. Her face flashed a dozen different emotions all at once. She closed the short distance between us so fast I could have sworn she teleported. The only other being I'd seen (or rather, not seen) move that fast was Mab. I barely had time to register that nugget. She slammed into me, driving the breath out of me with a whuff, and wrapped her arms around my ribcage in a crushing embrace. Holy. Hell. This girl was strong. Like, maybe I couldn't take her in a stand-up fight, strong - full-blown Winter Mantle be damned.

"It'll be okay, it'll be okay," she repeated into my chest. I gasped for air and patted her back. If I didn't know any better, I'd think she was trying to literally squish the sad parts of my life out of me. She eased up, but didn't let go. I inhaled a breath of relief, but returned the hug and stroked her wild mane of hair. No burny of the wizardy, thankfully.

"It's alright, kid." I said. "It ain't all bad, ya know. I've got some good things going for me, too."

She sniffled and looked back up. "But it's so unfair!"

"Heh. Tell that to the bad guys. Hell's bells, talk with your fists enough and they might actually listen." She grinned evilly and stepped back. Thankfully, my spine and ribs seemed to be not crunchy bits.

"What was that, anyway? Does that happen with everyone in your world? Magic is real?" she asked. Oh boy. I held up a hand before she launched an avalanche of questions.

"Of course magic is real, Sparky." I grinned. "That was a soulgaze we just shared, and as a general rule, it doesn't happen every day. Unless the people you meet here are wizards like me, or certain other types of ... people, most just get a really good look at one another." She frowned for a moment.

"Oh. So there's not a lot of wiz- wizards, I take it?" she stumbled over the word, which was kind of cute.

"Not compared to the average person, no. You want some coffee?"

"You have coffee?" she managed to sound shocked and pleased all at once, face all lit up and everything.

"Yup! Best Joe this side of the Mizzipy, ma'am!" I shot back. "How do you take it?"

"Black as night and hot as the sun!" she shouted.

"Can do, Yang, can do." I went to fire up the stove.