At Lantern's Call (RWBY x oc)

ch. 2 : the pin-bearer's madness

As Blake exited the tent, not without a few unnerved backward glances, she kept a firm hold on the pin, even when she tried to rid herself of it. And when she returned to her and Sun's temporary home, she found herself drawn to it.

It was a sinisterly plain pin. A white plate against a red background, with lines through closed eyes, almost like a sleeping version of the masks found within that dreaded carnival.

And that is what she was doing when Sun came back. Just staring at it. Curious and intrigued.

And after she had confronted the White Fang and made peace with her team, she continued to be mesmerized by that pin. She did, however, keep the entire trip through that tent a secret, even after promising to not keep such things from her team. Though it wasn't quite by her own will that she did so, however. It felt as if the pin was telling her to let it be, to let it stay as their little secret.

But she could feel the pin calling to her. Telling her to put it on. She didn't know how much longer she could hold out against that feeling.

That thought continued to plague Blake's mind until she and her team, plus Sun and his friend, decided to chase down Torchwick and the White Fang, and hopefully stop them from accomplishing whatever evil goals they were striving for. She was to go with Sun to a well-hidden White Fang meeting to gain insight into what was planned. And the pin was that perfect amount of simple yet malevolent that the White Fang was styled around.

And so she put it on.

And nothing happened. She expected some sort of eldritch magic to claim her soul or to hear the voices of the damned whispering into her mind, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

And the pin continued to do nothing. When Blake realized that nothing was happening, she soon stopped being wary of it. She didn't even realize that she had yet to take it off when she went to sleep that night.

That next weekend, team RWBY went down to Vale on an outing together. And as it was nearing dusk, Blake thought saw a faint crimson glow from a darkened alley as they passed. When she had excused herself on some pretense or another and retraced her steps to where she saw that glimmer of light, all that met her was an empty alleyway, devoid of life. Regrouping with her friends, Blake dismissed it as her imagining things and soon forgot all about that supposed light.

But that night, her dreams were plagued with images of creatures, shrouded in smoke and recognizable only by the masks they wore, stalking her with torches and staffs that burned with bright crimson flames.

Those dreams continued, every night Blake whimpered in her sleep as those figures watched her, tossed in her bed as she lost herself in those tongues of fire only to wake once more in a cold sweat.

When she was confronted about it by her team, she felt that she should not tell them what she was seeing each night, only that she was having nightmares. By this point Blake could no longer tell what thoughts were her own and which were originating from that pin.

Blake was losing herself.

A week before the Beacon Dance, Blake once again found herself wandering around Vale. And even though she did not have anywhere she was aiming to go that day, she found herself once again standing in front of a red and black tent, the very same one she had gotten that charm from in the first place. This is where it had begun. And now she felt as if she needed to make her way inside. And so she did.

The memories of her first visit here were unnaturally clear. Everything was exactly how she remembered it. The masks lining the walls, the reddish hue that filled the room, the soft hum of Brumm's melody. As she made her way farther inside once more, the minstrel's uneven yet smooth voice rang out once again.

"Ah. You are ready to heed Master's call. He waits for you within."

When she heard those words, Blake felt drawn towards the main ring of the Troupe's circus. Once she stood in the center of that ring, spotlights and smoke swirled once more, and once again Brumm's song came to a sinister halt. Finally, the spotlights settled on a spot in front of the hesitant faunus, standing still as the accordion player's melody resumed again.

The master of the troupe had appeared.