Part 2 — Chapter 9
Ruby could also see the farm boy staring at her, frozen on the spot from putting his pitchfork down, in a half-turn towards her, probably turning when he heard her jump out of her hiding spot in alarm.
Ruby stalled as she searched the boy from his dark brown hair to his freckles, to his heterochromatic green-hued eyes.
Hay crunching under her foot was the splitting sound that broke their silence as she unconsciously moved towards the familiar sight with her silver eyes blown wide in awe.
She found him. She found him. She found him!
Then he screamed as he tripped over his own feet at her probably being in his barn, seemingly out of nowhere.
Ruby barely heard a woman's voice echoing around her:
"Oscar! You be careful with those tools!"
Ruby didn't think twice before actually dropping Crescent Rose, ignoring the dangerous heavy thud it made as it slammed to the ground as she flew to him to grasp his hand.
She couldn't think of the last time she was that fast outside saving her own butt when a Grimm decided to sneak up on her, as rare as it was these days.
Actually…when was the last time she used her speed outside of fighting…?
"Whoopsie-daisy…!" Ruby strained as she struggled to keep the boy on his feet.
The boy she wandered everywhere to find.
Who…was just flat out staring at her?
Which, fair, since she was being rude as well, staring right back at him, for all he was worth.
Ironically, what bothered her more was that he was dressed differently than what she remembered him wearing.
She remembered him wearing black, while now, even covered in dirt, he was wearing white.
A stark contrast that jolted her uneasily.
Ruby was mentally annoyed that she struggled to right him back on his feet, and even more so when she wasn't entirely sure she had him secured at all. She wouldn't be too surprised if he tripped over again.
Or if she did.
Then, suddenly, he blinked, as if suddenly aware of his surroundings.
"I thought you were a Grimm sneaking around like you were! You scared me!" He exploded — was that his reproachful tone?! — at her.
Ruby made sure to school her expression as she bitterly made her comparison about the boy that she knew to the boy that was in front of her.
…His first remark to her wasn't about her eyes.
He didn't…
He didn't know her.
And she should have been way better prepared for it.
It wasn't as if Oscar suddenly seeing her would he remember he knew her.
Even if magic existed, Ruby highly doubted it would work like that.
"I'm sorry. It really wasn't my intention to scare you." Ruby apologised as she internally flinched.
…Maybe this was a bad idea.
She could tell he was watching her, completely interested in her. If she remembered her conversation in the bar back in the village, not many people came out this way without a reason.
So, he was probably interested in why she was accosting his farm.
What was she supposed to say without sounding like a lunatic?
"What, uh, what are you doing out here, anyway?" Oscar asked her, ironically in sync with her thought process that she brightly ignored her brain supplying as she busied herself picking up Crescent Rose.
He thankfully didn't seem that alarmed at her now, now that she wasn't aiming a weapon at his face.
Ruby was thankful he hadn't held it against her.
Or raised the alarm.
That would be bad.
"I was looking for someone." Ruby answered.
Then immediately kicked herself.
That was a great response! She might've just as well have thrown Nora's Magnhild at her own head while she was at it.
She watched as his expression fell a mile a second.
It wasn't a good thing to say!
It was a bad thing to say!
"Huh. Did you find them?" Oscar asked her, instead.
His tone was not matching his expression.
How he was still interested, still so civil, after her blunder, she had no clue.
But she smiled at him thankfully, nonetheless, thanking whoever had a hand in making him so kind.
"I found you though, didn't I?" She said, still with her smile.
Oscar literally blinked at her, then gave way to chuckling at her.
"I guess you could say that. I'm Oscar, by the way! Oscar Pine!" He greeted brightly as he held out his hand for her to take.
Ruby violently flinched when his words forcibly reminded her that he didn't know her like she did.
It wasn't his fault.
It was hers.
"I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose." She replied as she met him halfway to shake his hand.
It was odd that he was smaller than she remembered.
Or was it that she was that little bit taller than she remembered being with him?
But she felt herself relaxing all the same when he grinned at her.
"Nice to meet you, Ruby!" He answered gently, politely.
And there went her relaxed feeling when she realised this version of Oscar had a different way of greeting her than she remembered.
This was fine.
Totally fine.
It wasn't like she was five breaths away from shutting down.
She drilled it into her head that she left in the first place because the silence, the emptiness of him not being there…was dreadful.
She set out to find him in the first place to befriend him, to get rid of that emptiness, to fill that spot of whatever it was that he took with him when he left that she didn't realise she had.
She could deal with meeting him again.
Totally.
What she couldn't deal with was how awed and innocently mannered he was taking her in.
Like she held the answers to his problems.
Like it wasn't the other way around.
Nope.
Too much.
She suddenly couldn't deal with so much, she found out at that moment.
So, she deflected from looking at him, to bottle her emotions to take in the barn, to categorise everything around her that she hadn't been able to label before when it was too dark.
"So, uh, what, what are you doing here?" Oscar asked.
His tone breaking made Ruby privately smile.
At least some things stayed the same.
But, oh, how to answer his question, in a truthful manner, that didn't sound weird or crazy? She couldn't just outrightly say she was looking for him, or specifically, she had spent months — had it been months? — looking for him, to find him.
That would probably frighten the poor boy, who she needed to remember was younger than she was.
He was still an untrained civilian, at all costs.
Any hospitality she still miraculously had with him would go careening out the side barn door to her left.
But truthfully, not only did she venture out to find him.
She left to find him then make sure he stayed safe, safe from Grimm, safe from harm.
"…Hunting Grimm?" Ruby hoped she hadn't taken too long to truthfully answer his question.
She hated lying.
She wasn't any good at it.
She especially hated the thought of lying to someone she knew was someone who would become precious to her.
Ruby still heard their cries outside of her nightmares sometimes, in the darkness when humming that unfinished song of Weiss' couldn't abate the darkness that crept into the hole they left.
"Did you come in from Mistral?" He asked curiously.
She mentally thanked that he at least could keep up half of the conversation.
Ruby just felt herself nod to his question numbly. Before she recognised the warning signs, and she tried to shake herself free.
Come on! She was better than this! She knew she was! She could talk to him!
Not. Apparently.
Especially when nothing came out of her mouth to keep up her side of the conversation.
Words felt like ash on her tongue, and they burned painfully on the way back down where they remained cemented in her gut.
"Well," Oscar started as he picked up his pitchfork from where it fell to. "There's not many sightings of many Grimm out here. I can't really understand why anyone would come out so far." He said as he looked from her once he lent his tool against the stacks of hay. "You might get bored out here if this is your assigned area." Oscar told her cautiously.
Ruby was momentarily confused at his choice of wording.
Assigned area?
She might get bored.
With Oscar around?
Hardly.
And she was paranoid enough currently for them both about the Grimm, so he didn't need to worry about that.
But the fact that he was clueless about her being a Huntress? He didn't know anything. Assigned Area, really, Oscar?
Ironically, him knowing nothing worked in her favour.
So much that she felt herself smiling a smile she couldn't remember possessing, or even when she used it last.
"Don't worry! I'll protect this place with my life!" Ruby told him as she pounded on her chest with her fist as if to solidify her vow.
She would physically prove it if he needed her to.
Prove anything, make herself useful somehow, someway, if it meant that he kept her around?
She would do just about anything.
/
/
Some days…
Some days Ruby would wake up, dazed, and confused as to where she was.
Somehow, she managed to let her guard down and sleep through the night.
More miraculously was that she wasn't attacked throughout the night or woken by howls.
She heard them sometimes. Most times she was only fifty-fifty sure it wasn't all in her head.
Some days she woke up half-dazed and confused and then she'd remember where she was when she saw Oscar.
Then he greeted her unlike what she remembered him to do.
Suddenly it was like the world around her was crashing down back into the void she was trying to crawl out of.
There was no way in hell she would willingly bring Grimm to the farm just because she had an inability to think things through before she did them.
She was old enough long ago to know when she had made the mistake of thinking she was alright or trying to tell herself that she was.
Some nights…
Some nights that song that Weiss was working on before she left didn't help her keep the darkness of night from creeping into her skin.
It was a feeling that numbed her and dragged her feet along the dirt.
"Hey, Oscar?" She asked, five seconds from crashing.
She appreciated that if he noticed her emotions, her near readiness to break down into tears wasn't mentioned.
"What's up?" He asked once he turned to her from some odd job his farm demanded of him.
Damn, how was this boy so kind?!
"I'll be back in two days, okay?" She told him as her vision spiralled.
It wasn't fast enough to cut off his look of alarm. "Is something wrong?" He questioned.
It was never his fault.
It was entirely hers.
And she wasn't about to tell him that, ever.
But she'd be damned if the main reason she sought him out, was the reason he died.
"Just some Grimm." She, hopefully, told him in a reassuring tone.
And she wasn't lying, with her imminent breakdown coming — she would attract them in droves.
She'd rather do that as far away from the farm, as far away from Oscar as she could manage.
Oscar just blinked at her.
"Oh…Okay, then. …You'll…You'll come back?" He questioned softly.
Ruby stalled at the sudden need for reassurance the boy needed.
But she nodded in any case.
"I'll be back." She promised.
She heard the surprised scream as soon as she used her Semblance, and cursed her lack of hindsight, this Oscar was a civilian!
She would need to apologise when she got back for scaring him.
Ruby forgot, just for a second, in her need to get away from him that he didn't know her.
/
/
As soon as Oscar saw her return, he was stalking over to her in a flat second.
"How do you do that?!" Oscar demanded hotly.
Ruby just blinked. "Yeah… Sorry about that…" She muttered in shame.
Oscar just stared at her incredulously, and Ruby had to turn away from him, fearful that he would get scared by her.
./.
Ruby heard the barn door start to grind as it was being closed.
She dropped her full bag on the hay and turned to him.
"Yo! Oscar!" She greeted him since she was asleep when he went to work the farm.
She never woke with the sun like he could on instinct.
Oscar turned at her voice and brightened like the sun.
"Hey, Ruby! Up now?" He asked as he picked up a curious-looking tool to put away with the others.
Ruby nodded, and he grinned at her once he laid his tool to rest and started wiping his glove free of dirt.
"I need to leave for seven days. Might be back sooner." Ruby warned him.
She saw his upbeat attitude immediately turned downcast.
Huh.
"Why are you never up with the sun so I can talk to you more before you decide to leave?" He questioned, sullenly and grumpily.
His tone caused her laughter to erupt out of her surprisingly.
"I'm awake when decent people are, Oscar!" She screeched as she picked up her bag, throwing her hand through the hay to make sure she got everything. She was sure she was missing something she had stashed there.
Ruby couldn't begin to understand why her entire body stilled when he laughed joyfully.
He was still chuckling by the time she was able to look at him again.
Now she was sure she was missing one ammo cartridge.
Oscar still hadn't stopped laughing.
She gave up on searching.
"Ugh! If you find an ammo pack, it's mine!" Ruby yelled as she activated her Semblance and raced towards the train, hopefully, he hadn't stalled her long enough to miss it.
She could still hear him laughing joyously in her mind.
Not that she could understand why it made everything easier.
/
/
Ruby came to not mind how familiar she became to be with the train guards and ticket masters that worked on the route that led her to Oscar.
But she was comfortable in the fact they didn't know her name, nor her theirs.
It never meant a free ride though, annoyingly, but it did mean she knew the schedule by heart.
It seemed she was the only person using the route to go back and forth to Mistral.
When she had first come to Mistral, Ruby had been easily awed by its grandeur and its working mechanics.
Now? Now she kinda hated it.
Too big for anything, it took hours to get to one place, and no one seemed to want to help another.
She hated how she couldn't get a free pass to charge her Scroll — not before she got busted.
She hated that she needed to accept all missions without her Beacon credentials: which meant it lowered the number of missions she could take and increased the danger factor.
Though, she knew that last bit was totally on her. Because she didn't count the days anymore, and she hadn't kept in contact with anyone back in Vale, so she didn't know the state of things, or whether Salem and her cronies had dropped dead yet.
She guessed she could solve that issue: she could go home.
Which meant leaving Oscar.
And that wasn't something she was about to give up.
Speaking of Oscar, she was in two minds about him not recognising her, for its reasons why.
And she hated it.
Hated weighing the pros and cons of him not recognising her.
It was selfish, and it caused her to stalk to forests near the farm in pursuit of the Grimm that howled.
Just to get out of her head, away from him and his smiling face as if she wasn't doing anything wrong.
But she always made sure to make sure she was back at his farm by the end date she set herself. By the time the season changed she could see the not hidden very well stark fear he gave off each time she said she needed to leave.
She wasn't about to project onto others, but it was almost like he was afraid that she would leave, and never come back.
And if that was the case?
Well, she knew that feeling.
And she never wanted to be the cause of that feeling in others.
Because of the length of time that she gave herself, she was able to take on several missions and be paid for each completed one in high compensation for not dying.
She now had replenished her ammo packs, and with Mistral style, no one questioned why she needed so much.
Ruby just hated having so much on her at one time, since while bandits might be dumb, they had eyes for people who flaunted wealth, either in lien or in possession.
At least at Oscar's farm, she didn't need to worry about being pickpocketed.
With loathing, she used the last of her lien on a return ticket — because there was always some wayward Grimm that thought they had a chance against her, and the Howling Grimm was still prowling.
/
/
Ruby had missed being able to see the farm while she was racking up lien just to spend it that she flew up to its highest point to take in its scenery, Grimm watch and see where Oscar was.
"What are you doing?!" Ruby heard him yell.
Hearing him, she immediately knew where he was.
"Hey! Oscar! I'm back!" She yelled as she waved her hand over her head happily.
Her good feeling was suddenly gone like it was gobbled up by quicksand when she saw his face and felt his emotions flip towards horrified.
No, no, no, no, no!
Ruby appeared as fast as she could in front of him, hating the look of horror on his face.
Though he must have seen her trepidation and just sighed in vexation.
"Look. Okay? I know you can do the petal thing, but seriously, you could fall and hurt yourself!" He was scolding her, again.
Ah.
Suddenly Ruby understood.
She had only scared him.
Ruby had forgotten, again, that he was a civilian.
It had been a while since she reminded herself the first time.
Right. He was just Oscar.
A poignant thought that flooded into her thoughts and she couldn't beat back the sadness that swamped in afterwards.
"Oscar! The petal thing makes sure I don't hurt myself!" She told him, trying to sound cheerful.
It wasn't the first time, wasn't even the second, maybe the fourth time would sink in.
But, by the way, that he was still looking at her, abhorrently, she guessed not.
/
/
Ruby dropped down into her hay pile with an exhausted sigh as she mentally counted how many ammo packs that she had left hidden around her, tallying the days she had left.
She looked over to Oscar and noted he was looking at her with that mixture of annoyance and despair, it was aimed at her frighteningly.
"Why do you sleep here?" Oscar asked her, not for the first time, yet always in confusion.
Ruby immediately sat up and froze in a fear that blinded her wide-eyed.
Was he tired of her?
Was he gonna send her away?!
What did she do wrong?!
How could she fix it!?
Please…!
"…You…? You don't want me here?" She asked as she started to tremble.
No good.
She was no good.
All she could see was him looking at her, his hand stretched out trying, and failing, to get to her.
No, please no, not again.
Oscar, for better or for worse, took her hand as he knelt in front of her at her height.
"No! That's not it! I just thought you wouldn't be comfortable sleeping here!" Oscar near yelled, somehow freaking out just as much as she was.
Ruby watched him nervously, mentally hating that it caused hope to swell in her.
"…I can stay?" She asked in a mere whisper.
He stared at her incredulously. "You can stay! You don't need my permission to use leftover hay, Ruby! I'm just annoyed you're not sleeping on an actual bed." He told her grumpily.
Just as he always was when they argued about the haystack, whenever she told him she was fine where she was.
She was not on any terms, using his bed!
It was his! Not hers! Why he kept saying she could use it was beyond her because if she did, he wouldn't have anywhere to sleep!
No way!
"Your leftover hay is fine, Oscar. I'm not uncomfortable at all. And it is closer to the door." Ruby reminded him.
It was the closest thing to the breakable door that kept the Grimm and all other types of nasties out. If it ever failed, whatever broke through would surely go for her first and not him.
She could keep him safe.
She would.
She promised.
/
/
Ruby came back in an excited rush having been gone five days this time.
Not exactly thinking, she rushed over to the field where Oscar was working.
"Ruby!" Oscar yelled as she reappeared with a salute for the boy.
She immediately flinched. "Sorry, Oscar! I won't do it again!" Ruby yelled.
She needed to get better at the reappearing side of things.
./.
This time he was working in the orchard fields when she came back.
"Ruby!" He yelled before she realised that she had shaken the trees too much.
Whoops.
"Sorry!!" She yelled, immediately stopping, and saving the boy from falling off his ladder.
She was trying to get used to how to tell him without frightening him out of his work.
./.
She walked up to him.
"Hey." She voiced.
Oscar screamed out in fright.
Hmm. She was behind him. Not good. He hadn't sensed her.
Her bad. She forgot again.
"Sorry! I swear I'm not doing this on purpose!" She screamed.
/
/
It hadn't taken her long, though she secretly hated the amount of time it did take to figure it out that nothing she tried previously hadn't worked when telling Oscar that she had returned.
So, she removed it completely from the equation once she realised that he was never frightened when he greeted her in the mornings once she woke up.
So, she started doing that, and the amount of Scared Screaming Oscar was reduced to zero.
He was never scared of her returning anymore, and her problem was solved.
And it was easier.
She just needed to factor her return time, of midnight, into her equation when returning to rural Mistral when planning how long she would need, and how many days she needed to tell Oscar she would be away for.
Though, she did start to wonder why the haystack she hoarded and slept on was always left alone, applied, had not reduced because of her weight, which she was sure would kill its volume.
It always did when she used sticks or hay elsewhere.
But maybe this was because it was in a barn? And not in the elements?
She didn't know, she wasn't a farmer like Oscar.
/
/
Today, by the looks of the things Oscar gathered, and the direction he went in meant it was an orchard field day.
Apples.
Oscar and his apples.
It was ironic that called up feelings of nostalgia for her.
Explaining that to him, though, would be confusing.
"Hey, Ruby?" He called from beneath the tree branch she flew up onto to lie on and huff out her frustrations once she realised that she couldn't figure out how to farm in a day flat.
How did she do it?
How did she know which apples to pick?!
When all she did was pick duds!
"Hmm?" She answered politely as she kept her grumpy feelings to herself.
He wouldn't understand, and she wasn't explaining it to him, either.
"Why do you come back here from Mistral? Is your assignment not over yet?" Oscar asked as he picked the correct apples and not duds like she had.
Ruby paused as his words sunk in and made sense.
He…really didn't know anything about Huntsmen, or what she even did in her career choice.
His choice of words about it, assignment, was ironically a self-given one, at best.
He must have freaked when Ozpin came along to talk into his head.
And, for as much as she knew her headmaster? …He probably didn't explain it very well, or at all.
"Well…I like it here." Ruby ended up telling him instead.
"But why?" Oscar wanted to know.
She stared at him.
She couldn't tell him why.
Ruby felt her throat closing over and her mind go that little bit darker, and she knew, she knew she needed to get gone before she brought Grimm to the boy she was trying to protect.
She knew(!) she needed to tell him something, anything, to get him to talk about something else.
But she couldn't, and she felt her rage bubbling in her stomach at her own inability to do anything right anymore.
She was thankful in the last remnants of her own self she could keep from the darkness as she glared up at the darkening sky that Oscar must have sensed she needed to not be pushed and stopped talking.
She'd apologise when she could breathe properly.
But now she can't remember if she ever did.
/
/
Did Ruby ever mention to him that she hated winter?
All of it.
Everything to do with it.
Hated it.
Well, if she never told him, she'd definitely spit it in his face once she got back.
Goddamn, it was cold!
She hated the snow, and the cold it brought with it.
For whatever reason, Mistral seemed to have worse winters than Patch and Vale did.
Snow just seemed to pour from the clouds above her with abandon she loathed.
Ruby couldn't remember how she got back to the farm.
Or how she got back to Oscar, alive.
But she vaguely thinks she could recall him greeting her, somewhere, somewhen.
By a door, maybe. At night? It was probably night, she always made sure to schedule her return at night.
He shouldn't be up this late. She should apologise.
Again.
Maybe she did, maybe she didn't — she couldn't remember except the feeling of irony that at the time that she was covered in snow and felt like she had dropped off into a volcano.
Everything was a blur of white snow and Oscar's concerned scent. Aside from smelling it, she could vaguely make sure she was at his farm, but where on the farm, whose room she was in…?
Yeah, she didn't know how she got her shoes off, but at least she could see them and Crescent Rose by the only door the room offered.
The window to her left revealed it was still snowing.
It didn't help answer where she was.
Her neck cracked and even that was sluggish to do when she heard the door creak open.
She was never so much as thankful for her sluggish reaction in getting up when the door opening revealed, surprisingly, Oscar coming through its opening.
"Oscar?" She asked, and immediately paused at her own tone.
She barely recognised it as her own.
When did she decide to eat gravel? What had possessed her to eat it in the first place? Gods she hoped not.
"Hey, there, Ruby, are you feeling any better?" Oscar asked in concern.
Oh, well at least he was fine!
It was just her in the blur who had decided it was a great idea to shovel grit down her throat, because damn now she wanted to cough.
His concern didn't help her figure out what had happened.
"The snow…? I got sick?" She asked gravelly.
It would be the only thing that would make sense.
Ruby watched as Oscar shoved the door closed with his foot with enough knowledgeable force that the door latched closed and nodded as he made his way over to sit down on the chest opposite the bed she was lying on.
"Sorry that I had to bring you up here without your permission, but you would've gotten worse if I left you down below. It got way too cold overnight." Oscar told her.
The realisation started to strike her.
Oh no.
Suddenly, it made sense as to where on his farm she was.
And in most likelihood, whose bed she was in.
"I'm in your room!" She screeched exploded from her in panic.
Everything inside her head paused and rearranged when Oscar burst out laughing.
"Yeah! Yeah, you are. I apologise for it, but I wasn't about to stand about while you got worse because the barn below isn't exactly insulated against blizzards." Oscar told her.
She had no choice but to analyse his tone.
There was emotion there that she had heard before, faintly.
With that hard edge cutting into his voice, she knew he wouldn't lax, wouldn't bend.
She was being scolded. Harshly.
So much that she hung her head, defeated suddenly.
"I'm sorry…" Ruby muttered, with no semblance of fight left in her.
She was sorry.
Sorry for walking into his life.
Sorry for taking up his hay.
Sorry for taking too much.
For his bed, his room.
She was sorry she stayed.
Oscar suddenly jumped off his chest so much she flinched away as he came over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.
How on Remnant had this boy remained so kind in a world so unfit for that emotion?
"Why are you sorry?" He questioned as he sat next to her.
Ruby nearly scoffed aloud: there were so, so, many reasons, and yet not one would make sense to him, none of which she could voice would make it better, wouldn't make him confused, wouldn't make him chase her from his life.
He gave her time and must've seen the indecision, or confusion on her face.
"I've told you so many times before that you can take my bed. Hell! If you're gonna stay here: I'm literally telling you, you can have it!" Oscar scolded again.
That sounded alarming.
It sounded so final.
"No! I couldn't do that!" She persisted in alarm as she shook her head.
She couldn't keep his bed from him!
Suddenly Oscar's scolding tone matched his expression as it morphed into being stern.
She wasn't used to seeing Oscar stern. Had no idea he could look stern at her!
"I'm serious, Ruby!" He told her and she blanched at him.
"You were really sick last night! If you're gonna stay here, you need to keep warm! The barn isn't gonna help you do that in the winter anymore!" Oscar warned her.
Alarm bells blared in her head.
That warning sounded even more forebodingly final.
"You don't want…?" Ruby asked chokingly.
Ruby nearly tumbled off the bed as the bed sprung when Oscar launched himself from it to pace the length of the room.
Even through his scolding, through everything, seeing him pace made her smile sadly.
Some things didn't change.
Oscar still paced when he got keyed up.
"That isn't what I'm saying!" Oscar hissed as he looked at her as he passed. "I want you to stay here! But I'm not gonna force you to stay, but I'm not allowing you to stay in the hay — all it's gonna do is make you sick again. You can stay up here with me, or if you're so insistent about that: stay in the local village until winter is finished!" He added heatedly in a hiss as he pointed out towards his door.
Through everything he said, her mind looped as soon as she realised that he wasn't turning her away.
He was telling her he wanted her to stay.
He wanted her to stay!
Oscar ended up sighing when he saw her blank face.
"I don't want you to go, Ruby." He told her quietly as he wrung a hand through his hair.
Ruby looked at him in confusion.
But if he was going to give her a choice.
She knew long ago he would always be the choice she would make.
"…But if I'm not allowed to stay in the barn…?" She asked in a murmur, still not understanding what Oscar was getting at.
How could she stay with him, and be barred from her hay bed below?
"Stay here." He told her.
Ruby almost glared as she stared at the boy.
"Stay here?" She questioned, and he only nodded. "Where will you…?" She added in confusion still.
Oscar just grinned.
"Watch your feet!" He crowed, suddenly, triumphantly.
Oh, Ruby was incredibly annoyed, and maybe a little awed that she hadn't understood what he meant by linens, and especially how he somehow had enough foresight to know which sleight of hand to play with her to get where and what he wanted with her.
Which was how it ended up with him indeed making sure she had his bed to sleep on while he took the linen, which by which he meant a damn foldable futon mattress!
/
/
Ruby wasn't averse to helping Oscar around the farm when she could, which usually meant whenever the wind wasn't raging, she could move him around the farm faster than he could walk.
Especially to the animal's barn which was over the other side of the farm.
"Can I ask you a question?" Oscar asked suddenly when she was amidst very cute lambs that Ruby hadn't been able to resist sitting amongst or even holding one.
But him suddenly talking and breaking the peaceful silence made her twitch.
"You don't need to answer if you don't want to!" Oscar quickly added.
Ah, he must have seen her flinch and thought he was the cause.
Well, he was, but not in the way he probably thought.
Ruby patted the lamb she had in her lap and looked up at Oscar's nervous face.
"Sure?" She questioned, not quite sure what he would surprise her with this time.
"Sometimes you look sad…" Oscar started.
It was all he needed to say for the world around her to darken, and for her throat and ears to close over.
Oh, how she thought she was doing a good job of hiding it.
But he had seen through it like she hadn't even tried her best.
"…Did you lose someone…? Do I remind you of them…?" Oscar's voice was still asking questions.
Ruby couldn't begin to believe she was hearing everything, especially when the sounds around her wavered in and out as well.
She could barely feel the lamb on her lap, or it head butting her for more attention.
Ruby could barely look at him.
Which made it worse, since his expression was distorted into devastation.
Ruby couldn't trust her own senses on whether Oscar could see she was broken.
Had been broken since well before she got here.
"I did…I did, sort of, lose someone, recently," She barely voiced, and Oscar flinched, she looked to him pleadingly. "But! But it's not your fault! I'm sorry if I made you feel that way." Ruby told him.
And there went her mouth, exposing more than it should.
She had said something like that already.
Oscar just shook his head at her.
It didn't help her self-loathing.
"You haven't. I just wanted to ask so I knew how to not make you so sad in the future." He explained to her.
Ruby couldn't help but stare through her pain.
He said something like that too.
With it, she knew if he kept talking and expecting her to respond, the next thing out of her mouth would be to tell him she needed to leave before the Grimm nearby sensed her pain.
/
/
Ruby eventually got him back for the whole bed thing.
It was well after winter had flown, but now she had more reasons to protect this damn farm.
With each Grimm, she heard prowl closer, with every howl she heard, made her more and more anxious.
"Three days!" She promised him.
She only had to hope she could clear out the nearby Grimm nests, maybe even the Howling Grimm in that time, or at least make a big enough dent in their forces the Elders thought twice about coming nearer.
"And since I'll be coming back, and since a certain someone has banned me from the hay downstairs, and most likely I'll be coming back at night: I'll trip over you, so you can take the bed!" She crowed.
Yeah, she was trying not to gloat, but the way his eye twitched.
Yeah, she was totally gloating.
./.
From what she could hear being near, she suddenly couldn't find them as near as she heard them previously.
The howling stopped as well, as soon as she left the farm, and it made her nervous about going far out enough that her senses left Oscar.
She was getting good at sensing him from further and further away.
Ruby wasn't completely sure whether if the Howling Grimm was taking out the pockets of Grimm, and whether it was a good thing for her.
Or they were being drawn away by the Howling Grimm, or something more serious that they would all wander away from unprotected farmland.
She had yet to find it.
But she could count Oscar lucky that a larger point of negativity was drawing all the nearby pockets and nests of Grimm away from him that his farm had been left alone for the most part while she was here.
./.
Ruby eventually wandered back into Oscar's room, come two days later, and happily noted that he was still up reading when she got there.
"Ruby!" He was calling out once he looked up to see his door opening by itself. "You're back early!" He added as soon as she reformed and shoved the door closed with her boot.
She just laughed in relief.
"So, I can't catch up with a friend?" She asked him mischievously.
She really did need to keep her smugness to herself since she was way too proud that she was able to get back to him early without dragging Grimm with her.
/
/
As soon as Ruby realised that the bird that she was eyeing critically wasn't a crow, seeing the white feathers she immediately pulled out Crescent Rose and shot the damn thing.
She immediately knew she had made a mistake and sighed when she heard Oscar, who was next to her, yelp out in fright.
"Why do you hate magpies?" Oscar asked sounding incredulous.
Ruby turned to him in confusion.
"Wasn't it heading for your crops?" She questioned in confusion.
Oscar blinked at her. "So is every other bird!" He told her.
Ruby blinked.
She couldn't exactly tell him that her uncle was named after the crow, which was why she detested harming them.
Ravens, on the other hand…
"I can't distinguish between crows and ravens unless they're really close up. I don't mind crows, but I have a dislike for other birds." Ruby told him.
Hopefully, he would leave it at that, but she was trying really hard not to giggle at the facial expression he pulled at her answer.
./.
"Hey, Oscar?" Ruby called from behind him.
She mentally did a jig when he didn't jump a mile in the air this time.
All he did was pause in his work and turn to look at her.
"Yeah, Ruby?" He asked as he speared his pitchfork into the nearly turned-over dirt so it wouldn't move while they talked, and he wiped his brow with his other arm.
"I need to head out, 'kay? Won't take more than five days! And I'll be back!" Ruby promised.
She hoped he understood with the amount of back and forth she did between his farm and its outskirts that she would be running low on her ammo.
She smiled when he nodded.
"Alright. You have what you need?" He questioned.
Ruby mentally groaned, since that one time she forgot her ticket, he never let her be, never let her forget it.
She turned sidewards and drifted her cloak to the side so he could see her bag. "All set!" She told him happily.
Oscar smiled at her. "I'll see you in five days, then." He reminded softly.
She nodded and got ready to set off. "Ah! Wait! Ruby!" Oscar called and it caused her to pause in dissipating completely.
She paused. "Yes?" She called.
Only to watch that he dug into his pocket and threw an apple at her.
"Take this!" He said as he threw it.
Ruby was amazed she caught the object and grinned once she realised what he tossed her.
"Thanks! I'll see you!" She yelled then engaged her Semblance and took off towards the train station.
/
/
Ruby needed to go to Mistral in order to pick up missions that could pay her way back, by replacing all the ammo she had used up as soon as winter finished.
It was suddenly a time that the Grimm decided to wake up as if the creatures hibernated in the winter or something.
She snuck her way into the bar, into a booth, and slammed her dead Scroll into the charge point, in the hopes that she could get a little charge out of it before someone noticed she hadn't ordered anything, or that she wasn't of age.
Once her Scroll had enough charge to boot up, the missions boards popped up with the limited CCT connectivity and immediately an alert for a Huntsman appeared on her screen.
Asking for one immediately in Vale.
Vale.
Ruby immediately tapped to see its requirements since it was the only posting.
With it being the only one it was the only one she could do, she couldn't wait a night to see if any more came in overnight.
Its requirements finally popped up, and she saw annoyingly that one: it was in Vale, and two? It required a contract-bases from Beacon Academy.
While she was, but it meant the only mission available to her was one she couldn't do anonymously.
If anything, the only thing going for it was that it was up there in lien price and that it would be dead simple.
With it being completely simple, the time it would take her to get to Vale and back to Oscar, she would be well back in her estimate she gave Oscar, and with the lien it gave she would be stocked in ammo for a long time that she wouldn't need to leave for the foreseeable coming months.
As soon as she weighed up the pros and cons, she decided to put in her details for the contract to identify her as a Beacon Huntress.
She was immediately accepted, and the details were forwarded to her Scroll.
"Hey! You!" Someone meanish yelled in her direction.
Oops.
Time to go.
/
/
Ruby really should have expected that there would be complications based on the fact she had no issues getting back into Vale, to where the mission was, and that her Scroll had enough power to show her where she needed to go before it died.
But no.
The Grimm? They were easy to take care of.
The unexpected bandits? Not so much.
They weren't in the job description.
Ruby got the feeling they were after her for some reason, based on the fact they had left the village alone and seemed to have been waiting for her in the wings.
She would have asked had she not been so keyed up about any delays meaning that she wouldn't get back to Oscar in time.
It just had to be bandits! Why not just send more Grimm her way?! She could deal with Grimm!
Why did it need to be bandits!?
Something finally within her snapped.
For some reason, her head started to feel like it was doing a good job of splitting in half with her emotions on a spiral.
Everything within her snapped, then she felt groggy, then sleepy.
Scroll…
She needed her…
She wasn't…She wasn't going to get back to Oscar on time.
/
/
Ruby didn't know where she was.
But she was floating.
./.
Where was Oscar?
Was he going to be okay without her there?
She hoped so.
./.
"Miss, then your first name, huh?"
That! That voice sounded like Oscar's?!
Maybe he was alright after all…
./.
"Am I really that similar?"
Similar? Similar to who?
Who was he talking about?
./.
"In that case… Miss Ruby…I apologise."
Oscar?!
How?!
./.
"I won't apologise for the time I was able to spend with you, Miss Ruby."
How!
She was struggling through the darkness she had just realised that had bogged and suffocated her.
./.
"You do need to wake up and tell me if you want me around though. I'd hate to cause you any more pain than I already have."
What on Remnant was he talking about?! Why wouldn't she want him around?!
./.
"I need…to give this back to Ozpin now. …I'll, I'll see you soon."
Oscar! Come back!
She couldn't lose him again!
Give what back!? Not the echoey–voices thing! He couldn't leave! Not again!
Ruby's eyes flew open urgently as the gasp of air she didn't realise she needed to take.
She rocketed up to sit with a panicked-urged whine when she looked around the room and noticed it was empty.
She was alone.
Oscar?
Where was…?
She was then yanking on any wire she was connected to as she tugged and pulled until they gave way.
As soon as they were all out of her, she was off the bed, out the door and into the hallway.
She didn't know where she was.
Ruby looked both ways and saw two figures standing there at one end.
The smaller one was enough to cause her to rush off down the hall with a panicked whine.
As soon as she came in closer, she saw it was Oscar.
Oscar!
It was Oscar!
She could care less for the adult next to him at the time, or that she was crying rivers down her face for the moment, all she could think of was joy as she slammed into him, in her rush to wrap her arms around his neck.
"Oscar!" She yelled in joy as she ran into him.
"—Miss Ruby!"