bolstafir | flowers for cynthia

You are seventeen years old.

You are seventeen years old, and this is your first day at Beacon Academy. You’ve decided you already hate everyone here, with their bright perky smiles and their vain ideals of becoming heroes. You know better. You know that the world is a harsh and cruel place and only the strong survive. That’s why you’re here, after all. You need to learn how to become stronger than these huntsmen and huntresses, or failing that find the weaknesses in their strength so they can be taken down.

The students and teachers are annoying, but the worst is the headmaster. He smiles at everyone with a soft and knowing gaze, never raises his voice, and laughs off any teenage rebelliousness and disdain leveled his way. You really hate the sound of his laugh; it’s clear and crisp like a bell ringing out in the air, nothing like the sharp and discordant hoots and hollers of the tribe, the derision-filled hyena cackles. The sound is infuriatingly pleasant. You think he’s an arrogant bastard for thinking he can run this place when he’s barely a few years older than the graduating class, and all you think about for his entire welcome speech is how stupid he is to let you and your sister come here without vetting them, what a rude awakening he’s going to get when they learn enough to wreck the graduates he’s so proud of.

You are eighteen years old, and you and your sister consistently rank toward the top of the class in practical skills, though more than one teacher has threatened detention for your less than stellar efforts elsewhere. Even Headmaster Ozpin has taken notice of you and your team, enough so that you and Raven wonder if he’s getting suspicious. He never tips his hand one way or the other. Your classmates think you’re cool, and you even (despite yourself) get along with your other teammates, Summer and Taiyang. You’re still going to destroy them when you graduate, of course, but maybe not right away. There are plenty others who deserve it more, like the pissant who tried pulling one of those wire trip traps on you as a prank without realizing how paranoid you’ve been for years over anything that can be tripped over, knocked down, or broken. Ruining his fun was good enough for today, though. The murder can wait.

(You find yourself thinking like that more and more often. It’s embarrassing.)

But your luck was never meant to last long; the instructor of one of your combat classes says that the focus of the day’s lesson is semblances, and suddenly you feel like you can’t breathe. You distract your teammates with something you know they’re likely to argue about, and sneak out the moment the teacher’s back is turned.

Ozpin is the one that finds you. You know he doesn’t buy your excuses for a second but he pretends he does, and you wonder what game he’s playing. You wonder why he doesn’t drag you back to class or lecture you or anything and instead follows you to where the supposedly faulty weapons lockers are so he can take care of it himself. He’s infuriatingly patient with the whole thing.

Parts of the school have undergone recent renovations; a few of the ceiling tiles are loose. You have learned over the years not to doubt your intuition—you hear a strange shifting sound from up above and shout for Ozpin to watch out, and he neatly steps back just as a tile suddenly crashes and shatters on the ground. He does not get angry or yell at you. Instead, he thanks you for the warning, and you feel like you're going to be sick.

You avoid him for weeks after that.

When he tracks you down and asks for a moment to chat after class, you think that’s it. He’s going to realize what happened to him and you’ll be kicked out of the school and go back to the tribe a failure. Instead, he sits you down with cocoa in his office and asks you if there has been anything on your mind recently. But you cannot trust him to be genuinely curious. Remnant is a cruel place, and you cannot really trust anybody in this world. You have to take care of yourself. (The strong survive, the weak die.) He probably wants you to admit out loud what you did to him so it can be that much more humiliating when he kicks you out.

For an intense, blinding moment, you consider picking up your mug of hot cocoa and throwing it in Ozpin's face, because if you're going to get kicked out you might as well earn it. Pitifully, your hand shakes when you reach out for it. How embarrassing to realize you were starting to like it here when it's all over--

"I assure you, Mister Branwen, you are not in trouble."

You're not sure how such a warmly spoken statement can freeze over all of your insides. It pisses you off how gentle his voice is, the way he hasn't stopped smiling at you once. If he knew the truth, he wouldn't look at you like that. You hate him. You can't wait until the day you can wipe that patronizing kindness right off his face, when he regrets ever letting you step foot inside this school.

"I simply thought to let you know that my door is always open, should you wish to talk. Otherwise, you are free to return to class--"

He gestures with a hand, and accidentally tips over his own cocoa mug, soaking across a few books and papers set neatly nearby, and the guilt wrenches so sharply in your chest you can't take it anymore. You admit your cursed nature to him at last, and brace for judgment that doesn't really come. He has seen a great many dangerous Semblances, he says, and you wrinkle your nose like you always do when he acts like he's old, but listen intently. He is the first not to be angry. He is the first to tell you that there is more to your capability, your potential, than an unfortunate Semblance.

(When the time comes, maybe you'll just leave any Beacon Huntsmen alone. The tribe operates more in Mistral than Vale anyway)

You are nineteen years old, and you would do anything for Ozpin. He tells you about the war with Salem and asks you to become his spy. He offers you real magic, and just like that, you become a bird. Flight is not as graceful or elegant as other birds make it look. You tumble down in an awkward heap of feathers more times than you can count, but Ozpin laughs good-naturedly and offers you cocoa as you return to being a boy. You love the sound of his laugh, these days. It makes you feel safe and warm, and for the first time in your life, you think you might actually belong somewhere. You think (hope) Raven might feel that way, too.

. . .

You are twenty-one years old, and you are no longer a bandit. You shake Ozpin's hand at graduation as he hands you your diploma and activates your Huntsman license.

The tribe taught you that the strong survive, that the weak die. Those were the rules. Ozpin, Taiyang, and Summer taught you that the rules were bullshit. You've never been more sure that this is where you belong. You're going spend the rest of your life with them, and you know you're so much stronger for it.

You're strong enough that you could die for Ozpin's cause without being afraid. You're invincible.