Chapter 2

The First Day of Summer

The wails of sorrow and pitiful sobs echoed throughout the tiny cottage, needlessly reminding the young teenage girl curled up on a worn leather recliner just how truly empty it was. For days she had imagined her grandmother's singsong voice coming from the kitchen as she baked her cookies, as well as the smell of roses whenever she walked through a room, but each and every time it was just her mind playing cruel tricks on her.

Her stomach ached as though she had been punched in the gut repeatedly and her throat felt raw like sandpaper. Through puffy red eyes she'd occasionally stare at the ivory handled knife laying on the coffee table with a sense of longing for the first time since she could remember. She didn't care if it was painful or not. She doubted she'd feel a thing anyway. All she wanted was to be with her again. Forever this time...

That's what her grandmother had promised the night she arrived on her doorstep in the freezing rain.

"She lied to me," the girl whimpered.

*knock, knock*

She ignored the intrusive sound coming from the other side of the door. Her grandmother had obviously never knocked, which meant it wasn't her and they didn't matter. She didn't know the exact moment that she had fallen in love with the village of Patchwork and its quirky inhabitants, but now she just wished they would all just go away and leave her be...

*KNOCK, KNOCK*

They like the others would go away if she ignored them long enough. After the first day when Mrs. Aurelia and her daughter had brought her a platter of lasagna, which was sitting untouched in the fridge, she had barricaded the door so no one else could take advantage of there not being a lock.

"Hello?" called a voice. A man's voice...

'Maybe it's him come to take you away again...' a sinister voice in her mind whispered.

"Hello?" No. Curiously this wasn't a voice she recognized.

The doorknob turned as they tried to enter without permission, but the couch and chairs stacked atop it didn't budge. Even if the man could find another way in she didn't care. He couldn't hurt her any worse than they had hurt her in the past, or any worse than she felt now...

She continued staring at the knife and its desert rose crest that both taunted her and made wicked temptations when it began to rattle atop the table. She rubbed her blurry eyes and saw one of the chairs gliding into the kitchen followed by an entire train of them. She turned toward the door but it wasn't the couch walking to the other side of the coffee table that garnered her attention, it was the clock hanging on the wall spinning backward. Or more specifically, the golden circle it was within and the ancient runes that she was able to interpret at a single glance.

It had just faded when the doorknob turned, and she reflexively threw her white cloak's hood up hiding her dark hair and red highlights. The door creaked open and there stood a tall man with silvery hair and a green turtleneck holding a large tray.

"May I come in?" he asked politely, his breath pluming from the sudden rush cold air inside the cottage.

She stared at him speechless and he must've taken it as an invitation as he walked in relying heavily on his cane.

As he approached her hand darted toward the knife and held it out in front of her defensively. The brash visitor didn't seem bothered or perhaps simply didn't noticed as he took a seat across from her and placed the tray on the table. Her eyes widened slightly seeing an empty glass and pitcher of milk surrounded by piles of chocolate chip cookies.

He pushed it toward her disregarding the knife. "Your grandmother told me they were your favorite," he said quietly, staring at her though wiry spectacles with sparkling brown eyes.

"W-who are you?" her voice cracked.

"I was an old friend of your grandmother's."

"Why are you here?"

The stranger continued to stare at her, and she shifted her weight uncomfortably at his soft gaze. "I came to pay my respects to Rose and say goodbye, and also to finally meet her granddaughter and see how she was getting along. News doesn't travel fast out of Patchwork I'm afraid, and I'm sorry I couldn't be there for either of you..."

"I'm fine, now get out!"

"Please, at least let me rest for a little while. I knew her health had been troubling her for some time, that's one reason she moved into the mountains, but I didn't know to what extent, and her passing's come as quite the shock. I've walked a terribly long way all uphill to get here, and as you can see my leg isn't quite what it used to be." He gestured toward his cane. "Baking cookies also isn't as easy as I would've thought. Go ahead, try one. It's your grandmother's recipe."

She glanced down ever so briefly but quickly glared back at the man who wasn't the slightest bit out of breath and had barged into her grandmother's cottage after standing over her grave.

"Who are you!?" she demanded.

"My name is Ozpin. I'm the headmaster of Signal Academy, the combat school on the other side of the island, and your grandmother Rose was a very dear old friend of mine."

"S-signal?" she breathed, her body shaking. "You're here to recruit me, and take me away..."

The man said nothing for a moment. "No," he said finally. "I'm here to visit with you and talk about your grandmother, but I can offer you a home, a place to make friends, and a future if you're willing to hear me out."

"I have a home and I have friends!"

"I see that you have a home. It's lovely in fact, but I'm afraid Rose never spoke of you having friends."

Her lip quivered and her grip around the knife tightened. Ozpin leaned forward slightly. "I can also offer you protection from the people you ran away from, and anyone else who might try to hurt you."

The girl's voice caught. "How did you-"

"Many years ago your grandmother asked that I find you and bring you to her, and I'm terribly sorry that I failed you both, but after you found her she made me promise that I'd keep you safe."

"Y-you just want me to come to your stupid school because of who my family is. Or was! I'm not a huntress and I don't want to be a huntress!

"That's not what your grandmother told me, and any fourteen-year-old girl now fifteen who walks from the badlands of Vacuo all the way to Vale by herself has a place in my school. Rose also told me about your powers, and how you-"

"That I can't control!" she screamed. "I can barely even create a glyph! I know who you think I am, BUT I'M NOT THE SUMMER MAIDEN!" She banged her fist on the armchair and hid her face from the headmaster who adjusted his coat slightly.

"No you're not," he replied calmly. "I've met the Maiden of Summer, as well as the Maidens of Spring and Winter, and it's my sworn duty to protect the Maiden of Fall with my life." His eyes began to twinkle looking down at her. "Unless I'm mistaken, her mother was the one who cooked the lasagna in your fridge."

She glanced up at him speechless.

"You might not be the Maiden of Summer, but she and myself, as well as yourself, know that those powers rightfully belong to you and your family, and I don't mean your cousins up north."

She leaned forward and snarled, the knife trembling in her hand. "She is the reason my mother was murdered, why half the women on Father's side of the family are murdered, and why I've been running my entire life. There hasn't been a Summer Maiden in my family since the monarchies fell and your stupid schools were built. There's nothing special about us! Why can't any of you see that!?"

She burst into tears and a gentle hand reached for her shoulder. Without warning the knife swung wildly and the moment the blade made contact with his skin, her silver eyes gained an emerald hue, just like the faint shimmer of aura around Ozpin as he let out a surprised gasp and recoiled.

"I-I-" she stuttered, watching blood trickle from the knife. He casually retrieved a handkerchief from his coat pocket and pressed it against the long gash. "I'm so-"

"I'm the one who should apologize," he interrupted, looking down and sounding as though he was struggling to contain his disappointment or perhaps even anger with himself. "I know some of what you've been through. I can't even imagine what it was like, and I'm terribly sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Please forgive me..."

The knife dangled from her hand before clattering on the floor.

"All those years," she whimpered. "Mother and I spent years trying to get out of Vacuo, and every night she would read me old letters from Rose and tell me stories of how wonderful she was. We didn't even know where Patch was, but for years I dreamed of this cottage and being with her. And when I finally find her, alone, and she tells me we're going to be a family, she gets sick and leaves me. Why her! She was the one person who never hurt me!"

She cried until no more tears would come, dully aware of the strange man watching her just an arm's length away. She wiped her eyes before looking up at him. His handkerchief was stained red but the bleeding had stopped and the skin likely mended.

"Why are you still here?" she sniffed.

"Because you never gave me an answer."

"I-I can't..."

"Why not?"

"I-I've always dreamed of being a huntress, but I can't be one. Huntresses are supposed to be strong and brave. They're not supposed to be-" She swallowed and lowered her head. "-people like me..."

She felt a strange sensation as he flared his aura, and looked up to see his eyes glowing emerald just like her own had before.

"I can do much more than create time dilation glyphs," he said. "With my powers I can see what a person might become."

"You can see the future?" He shook his head smiling.

"No, nothing that specific. You could say that when I look into a person's soul, I can see their potential and what they might become someday. You are stronger and braver than you'll ever realize, and I don't know how, but somehow someday you're to change the world and make it a better place."

She snorted and wanted to laugh at his peculiar recruitment technique, but the way he said it she found herself honestly believing him.

Slowly, he reached out with one hand and a few moments later she cautiously she took it.

"Since you were born Rose never called you by name. To her you were always her-"

"'Sweet summer child'." A smile tugged on her lip.

"Summer, if you don't mind me calling you that, I'm sorry for everything you've been through and for losing your grandmother far too quickly, but if you'll give me the honor of being the second person to show you that humanity isn't all bad, I can give you all the things I spoke of earlier and more. And if you'll help me, I can make sure those monsters are put behind bars, and that nobody else has to go through what you did ever again..."

Cautiously, she lowered her hood and held out her other hand. A white glyph appeared in her palm followed by a bloodstained knife just like the one laying on the floor. Suddenly breathless, white rose petals began flaking off the knife, her skin, and even the top of her head, floating above them where they turned crimson and almost seemed to drip onto the floor. Her eyes once again gained an emerald hue and she concentrated as his thoughts trickled into her own.

"You're telling the truth," she sobbed, the knife dissipating into petals. She leaped off the chair into his arms and buried her face into his shoulder crying.

"I promise you, Summer Rose, the best is still yet to come..."

(A/N: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. It was a lot of fun writing how Summer first met Ozpin and came to be a student at Signal, especially with all the similarities to how her daughter was accepted into Beacon. I also really enjoyed Summer's relationship with her Grandmother Rose and getting a brief glimpse at her past. I'm sorry that a lot of what's said in this story is going to be somewhat vague and heavily open to interpretation, but I think that's for the best at the moment. As always all credit goes to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has blessed me with this story and all of you. God bless)