Chapter Text
"I didn’t steal your scythe," the woman said, cautiously lowering her hood to meet her eyes. Ruby got a good look at her for the first time, unsettled by a sudden rush of deja vu. She looked familiar, somehow, though Ruby couldn’t match a name to the face.
She wasn’t going to be swayed by just that. Talk was cheap. “Then who did? All the signs point to you!” Pointing an accusing finger at her, Ruby began to advance, bristling with energy. She wasn’t as good a hand-to-hand fighter as Yang, but she wasn’t about to back down now that she had finally caught up to her. “You were sneaking around campus the night it went missing, and you’ve been slipping past us ever since! If you didn’t take Crescent Rose, then you know who did, and I’m gonna get that information one way or another!”
"Ruby!" How did she know her name? The woman took a few steps back, holding her hands up to show she was also unarmed. "You don’t understand. I didn’t take Crescent Rose— I am Crescent Rose!"
Ruby’s face scrunched in confusion, pausing mid-stride. The woman kept going, encouraged. “You built me in your second year at Signal! The way I was designed was to be strong enough to carry you, but light enough for you to carry me. When your crafts teacher saw my final design he said I was the most impractical weapon ever built in his shop, and Yang said if people should only use things that were practical, why hadn’t his wife divorced him yet?”
Despite herself, she snorted in laughter at the memory, holding both hands up to her face as she remembered. Not liking how encouraged this made the stranger look, Ruby did her best to frown, though she was more curious than anything else. “Lady… You’re crazy. And… Anyone could have over heard that!”
She fell quiet, looking at the floor. Searching for something else to prove who she was. And to be honest, Ruby wanted to know what she would find. When she met Ruby’s eyes again— they were gunmetal grey, not quite as silver as her own, but close— she said, “Your first night alone at Beacon, you went out to one of the rooftops and cried because you missed your mother.”
Shock, like a bucket of cold water, hit her and dragged her down. “Th… That doesn’t prove anything.”
"But it does!" Sounding pained, the woman— Crescent— held one hand over her heart, taking a few steps closer to Ruby. "Because I was the one who held you upright! Who you used to prop yourself up and walk back down the stairs! And I was the one at Summer’s grave, when you took on more beowolves than you should have, and you notched a mark on my haft for every kill that night." Pulling up the hem of her shirt, she displayed her bare ribs. It was too fast for Ruby to count how many marks were there, but she could recognize her own handiwork anywhere.
Staring at the woman in wonder, she let her continue, knowing more and more that, while impossible, what she said was beginning to sound like the truth. “And it was me who’s always been there, Ruby! And I don’t know how this happened, but I was scared and I ran away because I thought I could fix things.” Holding herself with both arms, she closed her eyes, bowing her head in shame. “But I should have known better than to think I alone would be better than the two of us, together.”
"…Crescent?" Ruby tested, and the woman snapped at attention, focusing on her with a cautious smile. Closing the distance between them and carefully taking her hand, Ruby could hardly believe the words that came out of her mouth. "My Crescent Rose?”
"Yes," she said, exhausted, but beaming with radiant happiness at finally being recognized.
Joy. Pure, unfettered joy filled her as she squeezed the woman’s hand, feeling now what she should have known from the start. “My scythe!”
Pulling her into a tight hug, Crescent rocked her from side to side. “My huntress,” she sighed, with obvious adoration.