Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Kali still dreamed of it.
It had been the Lunar New Year. Their family didn't really celebrate it, but Blake had gotten the week off from school, and Ghira had wanted to do something to celebrate his very recent political win.
So they'd gone for a cruise. A nice, meandering trip with full amenities that'd circle the northern coast of Menagerie and pass through some of their homeland's best beaches before swinging north to one of Mistral's loveliest islands. One that was home to a resort that Kali hadn't gotten to visit since she'd been a child.
It had stood the test of time, she'd heard. From videos on the CCNet, the place had kept up over the years. It had even earned several new awards just last year.
Kali had been so excited to see the place again. To share the experience with her husband and daughter this time. Blake had just entered her teens, and Kali hoped it would be as good an experience for her as it had been for her mother.
The first few days had been a dream. Her daughter had never been on a boat before, and Kali had been more than happy to show the girl around the place while her husband got some much needed rest. Her little girl had loved the pool. Blake had taken one look at the thing and had damn-near jumped straight in the first time, clothes and all. Kali had just barely stopped her from ruining the nice outfit she'd put on for the first night dinner.
Her daughter had just about lost her mind when she saw that the ship had rides. Kali couldn't stop laughing as she fell in line with her girl in tow.
Kali, too, had a great time.
The dinner felt like the balls from her books. And there was no networking she needed to do here. No contacts to make to help advance Ghira's political career. Just good food, great company, and a show to help wash it all down.
She got to sleep in since there was no housework to deal with, and Blake was getting old enough that she could go around the ship on her own. The place was safe enough. And whenever they were too worried, Ghira actually managed to spend some time with his daughter! Something Blake was ecstatic about when she'd told Kali about it afterwards.
This… this was exactly what the doctor ordered, as far as she was concerned. They'd needed this. Badly.
And then it had all come crashing down as the ship was crossing north towards Mistral.
The first of the explosions had rocked the ship enough that it had thrown Kali off the bed. Pain bloomed the side of it as the world came-to and an aching settled right after. She'd bumped her head against the nightstand.
Her husband had groaned as he got up from the bed.
"Kali?"
Fire lit the night sky like it was sunset. The glow came through the porthole of their room and left both faunus looking at it with wide eyes.
"Get- Ugh… Get Blake,"
The man didn't argue.
All three of them had put on warm clothes as they joined the rush of people to get to the top. The staff was handing out lifejackets and urging everyone to get to the lifeboats.
Kali still struggled to remember what was going on, then. She'd felt the ship lurch beneath them. Something large and incomprehensible groaning under the wood-covered floors of the hallways leading to the exit. Every now and then, the faunus found herself barely holding on as the ship listed to the left one minute before suddenly reeling the other way as though struck.
Her head, still throbbing, sent her falling in a dizzy spell.
Many of the other passengers had lost their balance, too. Cries of confusion and no small amount of terror filling the cramped space as they fell to the floor. Only her husband grabbing hold of her arm had stopped Kali from knocking her head against the much less forgiving riveted steel wall of the ship.
"Mom!" Blake was beside them. Both hands holding on to the railing.
That moment, Kali couldn't help but notice how small her daughter looked. Wind was rushing in through the door ahead of them, lifting the girl's thin nightgown enough that she'd thought her daughter might get blown back down into the depths of the ship.
"I'm- I'm okay."
She wasn't. She'd barely been able to get her feet underneath her even with her husband's help, but she didn't want to scare her daughter even more. Not when both she and Ghira were terrified, too.
"What is going on?" Her husband asked to the staff at the door. Accepting the lifejacket and starting to put it on himself before doing the same for Blake and Kali.
Another explosion came. The ship seemed to swell underneath them and now it was Ghira who almost fell down. Down into the steps and back into the hallway they'd just exited from.
"I don't know, sir," was the desperate man's - no, boy's - reply. "Never seen anything like this."
"Pirates?" Her husband grunted back as he fastened the belts around their daughter's vest. Kali struggled to get her arms through the holes of the thing. Her world spinning all the while.
"None I've ever seen, sir," His eyes were wide, terrified, confused. "Never seen them go this loud. Never have they done anything even close to threatening the ship like this."
Ghira wanted to ask more, she could tell just from the way he held himself even as her vision blurred enough to hide expressions.
But they needed to get out of here. Get out of… whatever this was.
Then another explosion rocked the boat, and a roar that couldn't have possibly been human shattered the night as another explosion lit up the night sky.
And this time, the world lurched sideways. Kali felt the wind pick up as she began to slip, scream slipping from her lips as she reached out for her husband who'd barely managed to avoid stumbling.
Blake hadn't been so lucky. Her daughter's scream joined hers, joined the chorus of cries and yells that filled the sky around that unnatural roar.
Her baby was falling right alongside her. Confused, terrified.
Kali had done the only thing she could: she'd reached for her little girl and held on. As tightly as she could.
~TtT~
Amber eyes snapped open as she sat up.
Her skin was slick with a cold sweat, her breath fogged up in the cold morning as it came out in rasps. She could feel her hands shaking even as she tried to clutch her sheets close to her.
Breathe. Just breathe.
She looked around. Took in the room. Used it to ground herself.
Bulkheads made of steel were replaced with open rooms made of polished hardwoods. Pillars of rough-hewn stone supported the ceiling above her. Just the amount of space alone was a far cry from the cramped apartments she and her family had been given on the accursed trip.
Kali wasn't there anymore. She wasn't.
"Mom?"
Blake. Her daughter.
Dressed in an oversized shirt and what she suspected was nothing else, her little girl had entered the room. The mid-morning light bounced against her pale skin, especially the expanse of her bare shoulder as the shirt's collar hung to one side. Too big to rest straight on her smaller body.
"I heard you from the other room." Her little girl couldn't keep eye contact, instead she fidgeted with her fingers while her cat ears twitched. Anxiety. "Was… Was it the nightmares again?"
Kali wanted to tell her daughter it wasn't. That it was a completely unrelated bad dream. But she also didn't want to lie.
She'd tried to, before. Tried telling her it was something else, but the look she'd gotten had told her that Blake hadn't bought it at all. How could she? Not when the girl seemed to go through the exact same thing as Kali did every other day, when sometimes Blake was in the room as Kali went through it. What should have been a quiet afternoon nap after helping with the chores had turned into a horror show of fire and shadow before she was dragged out of it by her daughter.
When she'd seen Blake first thing, she'd wrapped her arms around her little girl and refused to let go. She'd almost lost her, then. Lost her as she'd lost her Ghira. She'd held Blake to her so tightly she'd actually started hurting the girl.
"Yes."
So no, she wasn't going to be lying to Blake at all about this.
Blake looked up, her gaze softened before she wrapped Kali in a hug. Her lithe arms pulled the mother down so she could put the older faunus's face against her bare shoulder.
Kali tried not to cry. She'd tried.
She'd failed.
Her daughter didn't complain.
Minutes later, the two were stepping out into the hall then down the stairs. Breakfast was already being served.
It was a hearty spread. Eggs, bacon, good-quality bread. Juices and milk in chilled pitchers that reflected the light off the condensation running down the side of them.
And a pair of ultramarine eyes looking at them as they walked down.
"Good morning, Kali, Blake," Jaune Arc said, nodding. Something like a smile settled on his lips, but the redness in her eyes must have stopped it from fully coming forward, "The dreams again?"
She could only nod as her daughter walked her to the chair.
Jaune pulled it back for her. And once she'd settled down, poured out a glass of orange juice and started prepping a plate for her. A hefty serving of everything followed. Something Kali's hungry stomach appreciated.
"Gotta work on getting stronger, Kali," he said, gently. His smile washed away the memory of the cold sea.
He did the same for Blake before filling a plate for himself and joining the two for breakfast.
Jaune Arc. He'd been the one to find them. The only reason they were alive, really.
Kali held Blake as their ship had been swallowed by the darkness. Eyes and fire and teeth had filled the night, mixed with the screams of the dying while steel and wood groaned and shattered beneath the beast's great bulk. The shadows had overcome her, then. So focused she'd been on protecting Blake that the waves had swallowed them whole.
The mother had been certain they'd died, then. That they'd gone down with the ship just as everyone else had. For not even the life boats seemed to have been spared the fires.
But she'd woken up. She'd woken up in pain with bleary eyes to find that she and her daughter had been wrapped in blankets.
Ultramarine was the only thing she saw. A pair of eyes looking down at her as she was dragged out of the tiny boat and unto the shore of an island she'd not recognized.
A small island. Big enough to have a modest farm, big enough to be comfortable for the lone resident that lived on it, but nothing else.
He'd been fishing, he'd told them. Getting the early catch when he'd caught both faunus as little more than specks clinging to flotsam. The only ones from the wreck he'd encountered, and that wasn't for lack of trying for he'd later gone on many a foray into the horizon to find anyone else that might have survived.
No. It had just been them. No one else from their ship had been found. Only the wrecks.
Kali had fainted not long after that. Her vision cleared, and she saw the blue of the sky before the darkness claimed her again.
By the time she'd woken up, several days had passed.
A miracle. There hadn't really been any other way for the two of them to have survived it. And with so few injuries besides. Physically, bruises had been the worst of it. Water battered as hard as any blow from an attacker might, especially if you hit it from a high point. And the waves were not any more merciful, really.
Kali was still surprised that she and her daughter hadn't joined the ship at the bottom of the sea.
First, she'd noticed that she hadn't been in her clothes anymore. Dressed in an old button-down shirt and some boxer shorts, her dress had been hanging to dry outside.
Her saviour had only smirked, shrugging as he explained himself: "Couldn't leave you wet. Nights on the island get really cold with the winds blowing in from the east."
Still, Kali hadn't missed how he'd not met her eyes, then. Instead, Jaune's blue eyes had looked down and taken in her silhouette through the sheer clothing. Kali had been too exhausted to take offense, only thankful to be alive.
Then there was hunger and thirst, and they'd had gotten through the worst of that by now. With the constant big portions they were getting? Blake certainly enjoyed it, growing girl that she was. She was already halfway through the mound of food she'd been served, even.
"Any news?"
But that had been the hard part. Jaune had been trying to contact the coast guard with his radio. See if there was any news. Kali even joined him at the radio station most days, especially when she'd still been too weak to help with any of the house work. At least an hour was spent trying to contact anyone.
Static. Just been static.
Kali didn't say what she suspected had happened to Jaune, but she had a very good idea.
It had gotten to the point that Jaune had even risked sailing out with his little boat. Kali had mixed feelings about it. Whatever it was that had attacked their ship, there was no doubt in Kali's mind that it was still out there. And if it could take down an entire cruise ship, and whatever assets the coast guard had, Jaune's little two-person boat wouldn't be able to handle it.
But she missed Ghira. She wanted to believe that whatever miracle might have saved her and her daughter might have also saved her husband.
So she let Jaune go. She let him go and it was the most terrifying day she'd experienced since the scant minutes of the attack.
Kali had tried to busy herself. She'd already been strong enough, then, to do some of the house work. She'd made stew to last lunch and dinner, cleaned out the living room, the halls, and even done some of Jaune's laundry.
Their laundry, really, because Jaune had been lending the two of them all of his clothes the past few days. It wasn't like Kali and Blake had anything to their name right now.
She'd stayed wearing the same old button-downs she'd woken up in, and two pairs of shorts for her to alternate had handed her a stack of them while his old shirts were given to Blake.
No underwear, and Kali hadn't been sure if she was relieved to not have to wear another man's underclothes. Though, lounging about the house knowing there was nothing else beneath what she was wearing made her a little uncomfortable. The faunus woman had lost count of how many times a cool rush of air from the sea had drafted through the door, nipples stiffening and giving their host quite a show.
And she knew he was looking. Sometimes, his touches would linger a little too long when he'd brush past her in the kitchen, or in the halls. A hand brushing on her sides, teasing the bottom of her breasts.
It'd pull a gasp from her, spine stiffening as a jolt of electricity shot up her spine.
Jaune would say nothing. He wouldn't even freeze, like he hadn't ever planned to do it. And Kali didn't have it in her to bring it up, not when they were dependent on him. His home, his expertise, his supplies. He was host, here. And they were only alive because he'd saved them.
Besides, it might have been unintentional, right?
She'd done her best to think so, at least.
Even when she'd realized that shirts was the only thing he'd given Blake. For none of his shorts could fit, and Jaune, apparently, kept no belts. And he only had one set of suspenders that he needed to use while he worked the fields or fished. Things crucial to their survival.
Kali had no choice but to accept it, only making sure that Jaune didn't do anything… inappropriate. Which, thankfully, he never did.
Not that Blake didn't make it hard for him, though. Her daughter had developed a strong and immediate liking to the man that had saved them, and always came in for hugs. Kali always winced when that happened. Jaune pretended not to see.
But the fear didn't go away. It refused to. While she cooked, while she cleaned, and while she folded, Kali wondered how they would manage if Jaune didn't return.
She didn't know how to run the farm, she didn't know how half of the equipment on the island operated. Jaune had their only boat, and Kali didn't even know how far the mainland was. She couldn't even see it!
By the time she saw the little specks of the island's master coming over the horizon, his form backlit by the setting sun, Kali had been weeping tears of relief.
Once more, Jaune pretended not to notice.
She'd begged him never to leave them again after that.
That left the radio as their only way of contacting the outside world. A radio that picked up nothing but static.
Well… there was a TV. A TV that did get satellite cable. But there had been no word on the attack on the ship, then. And Kali couldn't help but put it on cartoons to keep her daughter occupied. Blake's calm might have been the only thing keeping the mother together, after all.
A calm that was shattered that same day.
She'd been doing the dishes. Very little leftovers were left after Jaune and her daughter's appetites had finished with them, but what did remain was left to cool before being put in the fridge. Even if Kali wasn't that good with the farming equipment, she could still cook. She'd get creative.
"Mom!"
There was a fear in her daughter's voice. It rocked Kali's insides before she'd even turned to look at the look on her little girl's face.
What greeted her in the living room brought the nightmares back and into the waking world.
"We come to you with urgent news. Coastal cities are being attacked."
Footage came in. Taken from helicopters, planes, and from the high ground. Waves the size of skyscrapers crashed into the shores and swept entire neighborhoods away.
And that had been before the creatures came.
It was a tide of shadows. Swelling out of the water and crashing unto land like the smashing waves in slow motion. Arms - if Kali could call them that - harvesting lives like Jaune would his crops. Each stroke leaving scars of fire on the land before it lumbered inward.
"Everyone is advised to evacuate to high ground. Please proceed…"
The reporter rattled off as more footage was shown. Live. All of it.
Every kingdom. Every city. The City of Vale was ablaze. Northern Vacuo's sands had turned to glass while the ancient city seemed to melt into the desert it had risen from. Not even Atlas was spared. Mantle plunged into molten rock while shadows reached up for the floating city. A legendary relic from an almost mythical time taken in the jaws of the apocalypse.
Kali's world spun. The floor fell out from under her.
But she just couldn't take her eyes off the screen.
~TtT~
The world was ending.
Or it had ended. Kali wasn't sure.
After that day, Jaune had stopped trying to use the radio. Kali couldn't blame him.
That had been the last TV broadcast they'd gotten, too. It was just static after that. Not even reruns on the other channels showed up.
Kali had stayed in bed for the entirety of the day that followed. She hadn't even come down for meals. Jaune had brought her food but she didn't touch any of it.
Why bother? Why get up when everywhere else had been destroyed?
Except the end hadn't come.
Not that day, not the day after that, or the day after that.
Three days Kali had remained in bed, and three days the little island that had sheltered them had remained untouched. Shadows did not darken the horizon, fire did not light the seas. They hadn't been visited by those beasts.
So when her daughter came in on the fourth day, Blake's young, amber eyes looking at her mother with no small amount of worry, Kali couldn't help but get up.
Like some strange mirror of the day the news came, she followed the budding young girl to the dining room below.
Blake was even wearing the same shirt that Jaune had given her. Milky legs caught the sunlight as they passed the windows.
Jaune had not been happy with her. He'd served them breakfast like he always did, but they'd exchanged words as soon as Blake had finished. Her daughter had gone to get some sun in the garden out back.
"She needs you, Kali," he'd whispered, voice low and menacing. Angry. "I need you. I can't handle all of this without you."
The woman shuddered. Her breath shook. Briefly, she looked up to meet his eyes. Ultramarine chips stared down at her.
"Why? Why bother?"
He stepped forward. Kali stepped back. And when she felt the edge of the wooden dining table press against the small of her back, Kali suddenly remembered how much bigger than her Jaune was.
"Because we're still here." His breath was washing over her face now. Scorching. "Because whatever's wiped out the rest of the world still hasn't come for us. And I'm not going to lay down and die when it hasn't happened yet. And Blake isn't, either."
Kali's eyes darted to the window. Blake was seated on one of the benches that Jaune had left out. It had been Kali's spot, at first. Now Blake was using it instead of her spot on the couch in front of the TV. It made sense. Kali hadn't been using it as of late, and it wasn't like there was anything else to watch on the television now.
The mother didn't know how her little girl was managing through all of this. Between her father being gone and the rest of the world going up in flames beyond the shores of the little island they now hid in, Kali couldn't. She couldn't.
"She's strong, Kali," he told her, stepping even closer. Close enough that his chest was pressing against hers. "Kid's been through a lot in the last few days and she's still going."
"I…" the faunus woman swallowed. A leaden weight settling at the bottom of her stomach. "I can't… I can't…"
She couldn't deal with this. Couldn't think about it. The thought of what could happen - what certainly will happen - just wouldn't leave her be.
A sigh. Amber eyes closed and she pressed her forehead to his chest. She slumped against him.
"Tell me what to do."
A pleased rumble came from him. It shook Kali to her core.
"I can do that."
~TtT~
The monsters never came. Not to them. Not to their island.
And it was their island now. This was home, and Jaune told her that she ought to start thinking of it that way. So she did.
He'd also stopped sailing too far out. At most he'd fish, when the chores were done and they were still waiting for the crops to go. Kali would do her best to not think about what might happen while he was out there, or what might follow him home if he did make it back.
She'd turned into a housewife in all but name. The cooking, the cleaning, keeping an eye on Blake while Jaune worked.
It had been how she'd noticed how taken Blake was with the man that had saved them.
Every chance she got, she was in his arms. Hugging him, climbing him - and her daughter was too old to be climbing anyone comfortably. At least for the person she was hanging off of. It was a testament to Jaune's strength that he could carry the girl.
Not that he minded. No, Kali saw how he held her daughter. Always happy to let her sit on his lap after they'd finished dinner or if they were lounging in the sitting room afterwards. Blake's bare legs - for she still wore nothing but Jaune's shirts - draped over his.
Sometimes, Kali could have sworn she'd seen her daughter squirm.
What she did catch was the way his shorts tented when Blake did so. Ultramarine eyes shining with an all too familiar hunger as he pressed Blake tightly to himself, his covered erection slipping beneath the hem of her girl's shirt.
She'd not missed how pale skin flushed pink, how Blake's mouth hung open and the little whimper that came from between those trembling lips.
Or the stain that marked Jaune's shorts after Blake had run to the bathroom afterwards.
There was no shame in his eyes. Instead he looked at Kali with something akin to smugness, as though waiting to see if she'd do something about it.
Kali didn't. Instead, she cleared the table and did the dishes.
She realized two things: First, was that Jaune was still a man.
And second, that there was no way either her or her daughter would survive without him.
Blake needed him.
So instead of going to her room after the dishes had been finished, she went to Jaune's.
~TtT~
"You want Blake."
It wasn't an accusation. It was a statement of fact.
He was still wearing the same clothes from dinner. And, in the light of his room, she could see it: the stain on the front of his shorts. It had been real.
She reached for it before doing anything else. It was hot, sticky. And he was hard. Perhaps painfully so.
A burst of air came out through Jaune's nose, the sound loud in the almost dead-silence of his room.
"My daughter doesn't know how to take care of you." Yet. "Let me."
Then she dropped to her knees.
Neither of them could live without Jaune. Which meant she had to do her best to make sure Jaune was… satisfied. By any means necessary.
Her daughter's arousal clung to Jaune's crotch. It filled Kali's nostrils, sent warmth down into her lungs and set her mind into an addled haze. Without thinking, she leaned forward, pressed nose to the damp stain and sniffed.
"Hnggghhh…"
Warmth pooled at the bottom of her belly. In that familiar spot that told the catgirl of building arousal. Fleshy insides squirmed as she breathed more and more of it. More of Blake. More of her daughter.
A hand landed on the top of her head, and Kali failed to suppress the keening cry she loosed between Jaune's legs. His shorts muffled the sound, but it also seemed to stimulate him, for suddenly his fingers ran through her hair and gripped.
"Kali…"
It was the same voice from days ago. That rumble. She could feel it even all the way down here at waist height. It seemed to vibrate through the air while her body turned exceedingly hot despite the crisp and cool night on the island.
He'd grown beneath his shorts, the fabric beginning to strain against the inflating bulk of his member. And Kali could feel him as he hardened, feel the way he pressed against her cheek and the twitching as more blood flowed downward to set Jaune's cock alive. Alive for her.
"You must…" she whispered, swallowing the dry ball that had caught in her throat, "You must have been so pent up, Jaune."
"Deal with it."
It wasn't a request. It was an order.
An order Kali would obey.