#i also once went to lay flowers at the tree where i scattered my dad’s ashes and when i turned around the field was absolutely COVERED

[weenietowne]

October 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the Quest for Glory video game series, so what better time to write a bunch of words about it?

It was a game that I played at just the right time in my life to embed itself into my psyche. I was already a lifelong devotee to the Sierra adventure games at the tender age of 12. I learned to type by guiding Rosella via text parser around the land of Tamir to save her father. I read the King’s Quest Companion until the covers fell off. I subscribed to Sierra On-Line magazine, and was briefly pen pals with Roberta Williams (and once received a phone call, to the surprise of my mother who did not know why an adult woman was calling her 10 year old daughter). It was in the Sierra On-Line magazine that I first noticed an ad for the Quest for Glory Collection. 

I saw the game one day at the mall with my dad, and casually asked him to get it for me. I wasn’t really expecting much, but hey, it might be fun. Previous references to the series had always looked too grown up to interest me, but now I was a pre-teen! I was ready for cool fantasy action!

I started up the first game in the Collection and was instantly hooked by a deeper fantasy world than anything I’d ever played in before. I could click on anything and get a funny description, I could get lost in the forests of Spielburg, and I could daydream about the bigger world that this little game alluded to. 

And the best part? That bigger world was right around the corner in the next game. My hero and I journeyed together from one land to the next, in each game reading about the other far away kingdoms that lay ahead of us in our adventures. We jumped from game to game together while getting stronger and wiser, and his friends and enemies went on our journey with us, living their lives in what felt like anything but a static game world.

Full disclosure: I found these particular pixels very handsome at 12 years old. 

They were the last games that I played with my childhood best friend before we drifted apart. We would huddle around my computer all night, walking my hero into traps and laughing at all the funny death messages (this is where I learned the word strychnine). We copied the games onto her computer so she could do the other character class paths- I always went for mages and paladins, while she was more of a rogue type. Since then, there has been a litany of people that I have tried to suggest them to, but a 30 year old adventure game series is a hard sell for a lot of people. My first boyfriend, a friend or two, and my husband make up the entire list of people who got through the first game at my behest and then never continued. They just can’t quite see what I see in these dated little games...but then again, they only played the first one. The first in a series is rarely the star of the show. I wonder if they saw the puns scattered liberally about, the fairly straightforward fantasy quest, and decided that was probably all that was there.

They never went through getting the Prophecy at the Temple of Sekhmet, a somewhat fourth-wall breaking event that felt like it wasn’t just judging the character in the game, but peeking out to the player and asking who they really wanted to be. Or being beguiled by Ad-Avis, an unsettling event playing on the dissonance between the hero’s happily altered perception and the player’s own knowledge of the terrible trap they are both being led into. They never even walked around the savannah for days without any rations in the inventory only to accidentally stumble upon the Awful Waffle Walker, saviour of hungry heroes across the land. 

If you know the flame dart spell you can toast him before eating him.

They certainly never saw my hero slowly fall in love with Erana as he finds sanctuary in her gardens, or found themselves befriending monstrous women like the Rusalka, and Baba Yaga - ladies who are as charming as they are absolutely willing to kill you. The women of the series are a standout- and not just for the time that the games were made in. They are varied and memorable and fun, sometimes allowed to be vulnerable in a very human way, and never there just to be a checkbox for the hero to rescue or win (ok, I guess there is one woman who is literally a tree that you can revive, but even Julanar is interesting). A friend of mine remarked several years ago that she never liked being a girl while growing up, because there were never any cool girls in tv shows or video games. It had not occurred to me until then that all of my favorite things as a kid were created by women, and I had never felt left out the way that my friend did. While Quest for Glory obviously had to cater to its most visible audience of young men, the hand of Lori Cole is strong at the helm beside her husband’s. 

...which isn’t to say there’s no romancing cute girls. Hey, who can’t enjoy that?

I said earlier that I played it at the precise age for it to imprint on my brain. When I was in eighth grade, and right after the release of the last entry to the series in 1998, I began drawing my first comic series. It starred my hero (who in my game was named Mir) and a companion, a gnome girl based on myself (also named Mir).

Yes, it was completely dreadful. 

I’m still working on it, though. 

The story that I’m writing now is unrecognizable from the goofy gag strips that were so funny to me and my friends, but there is still a character named Erana, and there is still a hero that looks essentially unchanged from the paladin that I traveled around Glorianna with. Anyone looking at it who knew of my love for the series would put the pieces together pretty easily. I finished the first version of it in 2003, at the end of my senior year of high school and immediately started drawing a new version. That one lasted 7 years of working on and off, and I drew 217 pages before I gave up, too frustrated with how the story had rambled on and couldn’t go where I wanted it to. The art got better, though.

I didn’t give up, though. I still loved the characters that I had been carrying around in my head since 1998, and I still wanted to tell the Mirs’ stories in the best way that I could. A few years after I stopped drawing it, I started writing again, determined that if I started drawing it again, I’d have the whole story planned out, at least roughly. That’s where I am now in 2019. I’m not someone who finishes projects quickly (I’m still working on an inktober drawing set from two Octobers ago). I’ve been picking away at this comic for twenty one years.

I won’t say that if it wasn’t for this game, I wouldn’t have made anything- I’m sure that something else would have planted seeds and taken root, eventually flowering into some other fandom passion project that I’d transform into my own. The company I work for was founded by friends who were all brought together by their shared love of Earthbound, and have created incredible things both directly and indirectly inspired by it. But for me, it was Quest for Glory. 

Thank you, Lori and Corey Cole, and all of the other people who worked hard to bring the series to life all those years ago.

#quest for glory #sierra #adventure games #video games

[megatraven]

the stars that touch the earth

Summary: Marinette and Alya go on a spontaneous road trip out of the city to see the stars that don't appear in Paris' sky.

A/N: Finally getting around to posting my Alyanette piece I wrote for PML’s Sky Zine! I forgot about it and I could’ve posted like a week ago, woops.

AO3

Blankets lay scattered across the balcony-turned-garden. Fairy lights were draped across the latticework, a few wrapped around the branches of a small tree that grew there. A couple of plates sat on the edges of the blankets, crumb-covered and forgotten as the hands that had used them just moments before intertwined with each other instead.

Alya and Marinette had their backs on the blankets and their eyes on the sky as they gazed upon the false stars in the horizon made by the city. Their breathing came in tandem as they drank in the night, moonlight illuminating the hope they clung to as they learned more and more about the world they lived in.

Sounds of the nearby river and passing cars filled the air, just barely quiet enough for the radio's static-ridden music to play over it. All of it was almost too loud for Alya to hear Marinette when she whispered, "Hey, Peaches... if you could change one thing about Paris, what would it be?"

Taking a moment to consider her answer, Alya shifted to prop herself up, and stared out across the city she and Marinette both defended. "I think... I think I would love to see the stars again, so, less pollution... more care for the environment. That would be nice."

Marinette hummed in agreement. "I think I'd like the same."

Their conversation petered out after that, they simply laid there, basking in the presence of each other just long enough for Alya to fall into a light slumber. Marinette's gaze moved from the landscape and settled on her partner, her best friend. She watched her during a couple of songs before she grabbed her phone and started to text a certain superhero and model friend of theirs.

[From: Mar You Ready]

[To: Camembert Boy]

hey i need a favor

please

think of it is a way to make up for the day of dead flowers

[From: Camembert Boy]

[To: Mar You Ready]

I've apologized for that like 100 times

it wasnt my fault nino spooked me :(

who puts flowrs that close to the edge anyways

what do yoy need though, my lady? ;3c

[From: Mar You Ready]

[To: Camembert Boy]

can als and i borrow one of your dad's cars tmrrow?

[From: Camembert Boy]

[To: Mar You Ready]

ummm i dont think i can get a car for you :/

but!! the van i use to help nino lug his equipment around should be free

want me to drop it off tomorrow morning??

[From: Mar You Ready]

[To: Camembert Boy]

please!!!! btw dont tell als

and also thanks love u, goin to bed now so i wont msg back :*

sweet dreams, purrfect boy

Dropping her phone beside her, she curled into Alya's side, dragging a blanket over Alya and herself and falling asleep.

When morning came, Marinette woke to a bright-eyed Adrien staring down at her, shaking from silent laughter.

"You guys are the most irresponsible responsible people I know," he whispered with a chuckle. "C'mon, get up." Holding his hand out to her, she took it and was pulled to her feet, careful so as not to wake Alya.

The two went inside and talked quietly about Marinette's plans. Adrien, as supportive of her spontaneity as ever, smiled and nodded along with everything she said.

"...and I was thinking we'd stay out most of the night and bring the van back tomorrow. Is that fine?"

"Yeah, that totally works. Nino won't need it for a couple of days anyways- we're going on a couple dates," he said, waggling his eyebrows.

Marinette snorted and playfully pushed him. "Where're you planning on going?" she asked, getting up to start prepping for the trip.

"I dunno, Nino wouldn't tell me… It's all a big mystpurry," he joked, laughing a little too loudly when she threw a pillow at his face. "C'mon, you have to admit that was a good one. If you do, the keys are yours." He took them from his pocket and held them above her head in a teasing way.

"Alright, fine. That was a purrty good one," she admitted, smiling ear-to-ear.

"I've taught you so well," he said, miming the wiping away of a tear.

"Ha ha, very funny." She rolled her eyes. "Anyways, I hope your dates go well."

"Thanks, I hope yours does too," he replied, stepping forward for a hug before handing her the keys. "Drive safe, alright?"

"Will do, Chaton. Ask Maman and Papa for something on your way out."

He gave a nod, another quick hug, and bid her farewell. Marinette tossed the keys into the air and caught them, glad that Adrien had been so receptive to her plan, and rushed to get ready before Alya would wake.

Thirty minutes went by, and Marinette had managed to shower, throw a few blankets in the backseat of the van, pack some snacks and beverages, and program the GPS to bring them outside the city. She ran inside to her parents, and explained to them her plan. They, unsurprisingly, supported her wholeheartedly, even going so far as to insist she take the fresh batch of pastries they'd just set out to cool. Marinette, thankful, agreed and gave them each a quick hug before going back to her balcony to jostle Alya awake.

"Sweets, time to get up, love," she murmured, sinking to her knees to press a kiss on Alya's cheek.

Alya's dark lashes fluttered at the contact, and soon hazel eyes met blue, one pair sleepy and curious, the other alight with excitement. Marinette shook the keys and smiled widely.

"Get up and shower so we can get this thing started!"

"Get what thing started? And what if I didn't wanna shower?"

"I'll still love you," Marinette promised. "And our road trip, of course!"

"Our.... our what? When did we plan this?"

"Road trip. And not we, I. You said you'd love to see the stars again, so I thought we could do that. How's about it?"

Alya hummed. "Let's just cuddle here for a few more minutes, then I'll get up, 'kay?" Without waiting for a response, she moved so her arms wrapped around Marinette and nestled into her legs.

Marinette let out an airy laugh and set the keys down so she could play with Alya's hair. Alya sighed contentedly and Marinette relaxed further, falling into the soothing motions and losing track of time. Only when her mother called up from her room's entrance did both of them break out of their trance-like state.

"Guess I should get up now, huh?" Alya breathed, holding Marinette tighter even as she knew she'd have to let go.

"That would probably be best," Marinette smiled.

Groaning, Alya started to get up, and Marinette helped her to her feet. "So, you go shower, and I'll double check that everything's ready! Meet you in the car in 35?"

"Sounds good," Alya replied with a yawn as she stretched her arms and climbed down the hatch into Marinette's room.

Marinette grinned and followed after, snorting when she sees a ladybug clinging to Alya's shirt. She brushed it off and made sure it got outside before going through her list of things needed once more.

By the time night fell, the couple had gotten lost or went the wrong way no less than eight times, not that they cared. Each time the GPS had to reroute, they broke into loud guffaws, tears forming in the corners of their eyes. They also needed to stop for gas once, and they were lucky to be heroes, because the vehicle had ran out of fuel before they could reach the station. Needless to say, the employees were somewhat shocked to see the famed Ladybug pushing the van into the lot with a cackling civilian in the driver's seat. Still, even with all of that, they made it to their destination on time, and Ladybug, who had promptly hopped into the driver's seat and forgotten to detransform as she drove off, pulled off of the road a ways and came to a halt.

"So, Mademoiselle Ladybug, have any time to answer a few questions for your biggest fan?" Alya teased, poking Ladybug's shoulder.

"I dunno," she answered, "are you sure you're my biggest fan?"

"Oh, absolutely, without a doubt."

"Well, if you say so, I'd love to answer some questions for you."

"Great!" Alya unclicked her seatbelt and leaned into Ladybug's side. "Question one... do you love me?"

Rather than answering with her words, Ladybug turned towards her and pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips.

"Second question: if you could be anywhere in the world, where would you be?"

"New York," she said without hesitating, laughing when Alya punched her in the shoulder. "Okay, okay, you're right. I wouldn't want to be anywhere you're not, so right here is perfect."

"Aw, you do love me."

"Well, of course."

They exchanged a small smile.

"Question three. If I asked to kiss you, would you let me?"

"Not until you ask question four."

"You know me so well. Okay, we'll hold off on kissing. The final question I have for you is: will you detransform and reveal to me your secret identity right now, where no one else will see?"

Pink light flooded the van for a short moment, and when it faded, Marinette sat in Ladybug's place, smiling from one ear to the other. "I would do it without an ounce of hesitation, every time," she admitted, so honest that Alya flushed just the tiniest bit.

Not knowing how to go on from there, Marinette leaned in so their foreheads touched. "How about that kiss now, Mademoiselle Reporter?"

"On the record?" she asked, inching closer, leaving just enough space between their lips that Marinette's inevitable response might close it.

"On the record," Marinette confirmed, closing the space without a second thought.

Their kiss was soft and sweet, but in no way did it lack passion, even as it drew to an end as quickly as it began. Marinette pulled back.

"We can continue this interview later, if you'd like, Peaches. But for now, I think we should check out the stars in all their glory."

"Probably a good call," Alya said with a chuckle. "If we don't stop now, I think we'd miss the entire night."

"Probably," Marinette agreed, unbuckling herself and getting out. From the back, she took out multiple blankets, all old projects of hers. It took only a few minutes for her and alya to spread them out on the van's top, and an extra couple of minutes to turn the radio on as well as bring up the food and drinks.

The two settled in, laying down with their shoulders touching and their pinky fingers holding onto each other in an unspoken promise. The stars shone brightly in the sky, twinkling and dancing in the reflections of their eyes, closer just then than they could ever be otherwise.

If Marinette had to pick one word to describe the moment, the only one worthy would be 'perfect.' There was truly no other place she wanted to be, and there was no one she would rather be with.

As if reading her thoughts, Alya rolled her head enough to leave a kiss on Marinette's shoulder and whispered, "I love you, Mari."

"I love you too, Als," Marinette murmured back, pressing closer into Alya and burying her nose in her hair. One thing she had come to appreciate over time was the constant of how Alya smelled. At first, it was peaches and cinnamon. But, as time went on, it became the smell of home, of comfort, of not being alone. Marinette loved how she smelled. She voiced it, and felt Alya's hand cover hers completely and squeeze, putting forth all the words she wished to say but couldn't convey through words alone.

"Als?"

"Yeah?"

"I hope tonight never ends. The stars. You. Us. I don't want any of it to end."

"It won't end."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Thanks, Alya," Marinette said, relaxing fully into her side. Her head lay in the space between Alya's own head and her shoulder.

"No, Mari. Thank you," she replied. "You helped me see the stars again, after mentioning how I missed them just once. And you made sure I wasn't alone by coming along. This is one of the greatest things anyone's ever done for me, and I'm so, so impossibly grateful for it. Again, thank you Mari. I hope I can do something similar for you one day."

"You already have, just by being here with me." She gave a warm smile and turned to face the sky again.

A streak of light flew overhead, and instead of making a wish, both thanked the star for their wishes coming true on the first day they met. Their wishes, which had asked for happiness.

The night went on.

#miraculous ladybug #alyanette #alya césaire #marinette dupain-cheng #adrien agreste #ml #platonic adrienette #background adrino #my fic #fluff #Ladybug #Alyabug

[ruffsficstuffplace]

The Keeper of the Grove (Part 35)

“Ooohh…! Oooh my goodness, this is amazing...” Weiss moaned as she sank into the hot spring, feeling the heat and the minerals soak into her skin, and what remained of her aches and pains melting away into nothing. “Blake? Blake, I am so sorry for cutting your time short last time, no one should ever have to get out of this until they absolutely have to...”

<Weiss is apologizing for last time, and now understands why you were so displeased when she cut our time in the private bath short,> Penny translated as she soaked with them.

Blake smiled. <Apology accepted. I gotta say, I’m surprised your ‘human sensibilities’ aren’t the least bit offended this time.>

“Blake accepts your apology, and is expressing surprise that you are suddenly so comfortable bathing with us,” Penny translated. “I myself am also surprised but pleased at how you’ve gotten over your reluctance of using the public baths.”

“Fuck it!” Weiss said, raising an arm in the air. “Don’t care anymore! Seeing a couple hundred to a thousand Fae naked all at once is worth this...” she murmured as she laid back on the edge, letting all but her head sink beneath the water.

A passing group of Fae recognized her, started talking about her, and snickering under their breath. One of them imitated her terrified screams from her fight with Zwei, but Weiss found she couldn’t care in the slightest. “There’s only so many fucks I can give, and I sure as hell ain’t giving it to them,” as Nick would have said.

“So what’s the agenda today, anyway?” Weiss asked. “More training? Lessons? Crafting and cooking?”

“It’s a rest day for all of us, actually!” Ruby chirped. “Nothing to do but relax, have fun, and recharge!”

“Fae believe very strongly in the importance of rest and recuperation, to the point of mandatory enforcement of shift limits, vacation days, and much offering much incentive for participation in most of our major holidays,” Penny said.

Weiss nodded. “Guess I’ll just stay home and watch HV then, seeing as I’m broke...” she muttered.

Ruby nodded sympathetically, before a light bulb went off in her head. “Actually… we’re all going to go hang out with my sister Yang after this! Want to come join us?”

Weiss looked at her in confusion. “I thought she was banished from all Fae territories.”

“She is! But they let me talk to her remotely, so long as we don’t try to relay messages to dad.”

“What, like through holo-chat?”

“Through the Honey Den, actually.”

“What’s the Honey Den?”

Ruby smiled. “You’ll find out.”

“I’m not going to end up getting scared out of my wits, then puking my guts out like my first time riding the Tubes, am I?” Weiss asked.

“Not if you’re allergic to Dreamer’s Honey!” Penny replied. “Which, going from your vitae vine data and your gut bacteria’s swift adaptation to Valley food and water, I can confidently say you’re not.”

Blake tapped her on the shoulder, said something to Ruby in Actaeon.

“Oh, right! One more thing: whatever you do, do not laugh when Blake tries to say something in Nivian.”

“I won’t,” Weiss replied.

Clean, relaxed, and recharged, the group made their way to a district of the Bastion that Weiss hadn’t been to before:

The Weaver’s Terrace.

The whole place resembled a giant temple to some ancient deities, which judging by the statues and reliefs of Fae lovingly maintained and frequently surrounded by worshipers offering tributes, lighting incense, and praying, it probably was. The architecture was either rocks quarried from the bedrock surrounding the Valley, or carved out of the face of the mountain, the one opposite the Watcher's Roost and the Pits, and the whole place was overrun with plant-life, vines, moss, flowers, fungi, bushes, and even some trees, their roots oftentimes cracking and wrapping around the stone.

Animals abounded, but unlike the rest of the city, these were clearly running wild and untamed, as Weiss found out when she got pelted with berries by some monkeys, and there was no tender to apologize, or stop them from howling with laughter at her now stained dress.

“Just ignore them!” Ruby said. “They’ll get bored of you, and go away.”

“Don’t you have anyone keeping them in check?” Weiss asked.

Penny shook her head. “The Terrace’s animals are sacrosanct, both culturally and to the local ecosystem.”

Weiss shot the monkeys a death glare; they mooned her back, and started laughing once more as Blake grabbed her by the collar and dragged her off, kicking and cursing.

They ended up in an underground den, lit up by glowing stones on the wall, pulsating crystals scattered about alongside cushions, curtains, and rugs. Uniformed staff patrolled the area, watching over their clients who were all laying down on their backs, sitting in meditative poses, or sprawled out looking blitzed out of their minds.

Weiss expected smoke to be floating about from burning herbs and concoctions, but the air was completely clear, save for a relaxing, calming scent emitting from the flowers growing on the walls and ceiling.

“What’s wrong with them…?” Weiss quietly asked Ruby as they waited in line for the staff to pat them down.

“They’re just in Honey Dreams, they’re fine,” Ruby replied. “The worst that can happen is that you get the prickles from sleeping or sitting on something wrong, but the staff takes care of that—they’ve even got a therapy mender, worst comes to worst.”

“Okay, now what’s a Honey Dream?” Weiss asked.

“You’ll find out soon~” Ruby chirped.

They walked up to the counter. If not for the bags of carefully guarded Shinies and staff meticulously counting recent transactions, it looked more like the tent of a sage from Sekhmet, with the luxurious curtains, the incense, and the woman meditating in the center of it all.

She was large, in every sense of the word: her rotund and generously endowed body was swathed in silky fabrics and scarves worn loose. Her long dreadlocks were decorated with beads, leaves, and feathers, falling around her head like a veil from which only two soft, rounded eyes peeked through, crowned with a massive pair of yak horns. She radiated an aura of authority and strength, but like that of a mother than a dictator.

“Hey Weaver Miko!” Ruby said, waving.

Miko smiled, and slowly rose up. She already dwarfed Weiss sitting down, even if she hadn’t inherited her maternal grandmother’s “vertically challenged” gene; standing up, she rose well over the heads of all of them.

“Hello, Ruby,” she hummed, her voice deep, rumbling, and soothing. “I see you’ve brought your companions as usual—including your newest friend, Ms. Schnee.”

“Just call me Weiss, please, Weaver Miko...” Weiss muttered sheepishly.

Miko nodded slightly, her dreadlocks shaking and the ornaments in them clinking noisily. “As you wish, Weiss. I assume you will be joining Ruby and the others in the Dreamscape?”

“The what now?”

“The place which your consciousness flees your body and arrives to, usually in sleep or with the help of Dreamer’s Honey; it’s a land where anything is possible, a blank slate to be shaped by your mind, or to join consciousness with others in spite of distance.

“It is similar to what you humans call ‘The Trance,’ though more magical than technological.”

Weiss scowled. “Oh, great...” she muttered. “I knew there was something about this place that felt vaguely familiar...”

“You got something against trancing, Weiss?” Ruby asked, curious.

“The act itself? No, but the Trance Addicts are a different story,” Weiss replied. “No offense to any of you guys, but for me, trancing is mostly for people that can’t ever accept their reality, and just want to keep escaping it, no matter the costs.”

“Any cure is a poison with the wrong dosage, and we of the Den are very careful and precise about how much we allow you,” Miko hummed.

“I don’t doubt that, but I think I’m going to back out anyway,” Weiss said. “Sorry, Ruby, I’ll see you guys back at home...” she said as she started to walk away.

“Wait! Weiss! Are you sure you don’t want to give it a try, just once?” Ruby asked as she grabbed her hand and stopped her.

“No,” Weiss replied. “First time I tried trancing, 15 seconds after connecting to my first public server, I got dozens of messages from creeps asking if I was really 13 and female or that was just my avatar, among other inquiries I’ll spare you the details of!”

“Ruby’s communications with Yang use a connection analogous to a secure private server, though,” Penny said. “No one gets in without both their permissions, and it’s all but impossible to break into without serious effort, and highly complex infiltration methods beside.”

“We could REALLY use a fifth member for our team, too!” Ruby said. “All this time, we’ve been using a golem, or hoping Ren or Nora’s rest days are the same as ours.”

“Well I wish you luck in finding someone permanent to fill that slot, because I won’t be them! Now please let go of my hand, Ruby.”

Ruby didn’t. “Won’t you please change your mind, Weiss? For me?”

Weiss glared at her. “No.”

Ruby made the Fawn Eyes at her.

Weiss scowled. “Ruby, I said no!”

Ruby’s bottom lip quivered as her eyes began to well up in tears.

“Oh alright, fine!” Weiss cried. “But just this once...”

Ruby brightened up immediately. “Yay! Thanks, Weiss!” she hugged her, pointing her horns away from her face. “Now let’s go—Yang’s probably already waiting for us!” she said as she skipped off.

Blake, Penny, and Miko all smiled.

Weiss raised a finger. “NOT A WORD FROM ANY OF YOU, IN NIVIAN OR ACTAEON!”

The four of them were now lounging in a sectioned-off area of the Honey Den, getting comfortable as Miko personally configured the crystal in the center, before Ruby pressed her palm on it as her “password.” As it began to spin and rise up into the air, an assistant came along to feed everyone but Penny rich, gold-white honey—thankfully, with disposable spoons fresh from sealed wrappers.

The dreamer’s honey tasted incredibly sweet, but not overwhelmingly so, spreading out over Weiss tongue at a slow, even pace. She hummed as she swallowed, enjoying how smooth it felt going down, before her body grew heavy, and her eyes were suddenly locked on the crystal.

There was a flash of light, and Weiss found herself in the same blank, white expanse of her dreams. She blinked and looked around; Ruby was there, as was Blake, and Penny was finishing uploading her consciousness into the crystal, her form becoming more and more solid with each second.

“Well, add ‘talking to the dead’ to my list of ‘Weird Shit I’ve Done!’” she heard an unfamiliar voice say.

Weiss turned around and found herself looking at Yang, much older and vastly changed from the little girl in the picture, but still with that same happy, cocky expression.

“Yang!” Ruby said, running up to her and jumping straight into her arms.

“Ruby!” Yang cried, catching her and hoisting her up to avoid getting butted with her horns.

The two spent a moment laughing and chatting excitedly in Actaeon, before Ruby remembered the others were there, and sheepishly climbed back down.

“Sorry about that! It’s been a while since I’ve been allowed to talk to her, what with everything that’s happened,” she said. “Anyway: Weiss, this is my big sister, Yang!”

“Sup, Princess!” Yang casually saluted her. “So, what’s it like, being dead?”

“It's quite terrible in the beginning, and you lose ties and communication with everyone you knew when you were ‘alive,’ but you leave all the shitty parts behind, and it gradually gets better, so net positive, I suppose.”

Yang grinned. “Probably all thanks to my deer sister Ruby here, right?”

Weiss opened her mouth to reply, before she stopped. “Wait, was that just a pun?” she asked, confused.

“Yep!” Yang said as she walked up to Weiss and looped an arm around her shoulders. “Better hold on tight to the reins, princess, because you’re going on a magical sleigh ride straight to Puntown!”

Weiss stared at her, awful, terrible feelings welling up from deep inside her.

<And now you know one of the many reasons I have issues with humans,> Blake muttered.

Weiss pulled away from her in disgust. “Let’s just get this dream over with! What are we going to do here, exactly?”

Ruby beamed. “The next episode of Rune Rangers: Viridian Vanguard, starring our newest Sapphire Ranger:

“You!”

#rwby #white rose #fanfic #the keeper of the grove