CLMA: A Journey through Mistral

Chapter 6: Preparations

"Do you believe in destiny?"

"Yes."

"Jaune"

"PYRRHA!"

With a gasp, Ruby opened her eyes. She rose from her bed and look around. The sunlight went through the window, letting little light into the room. Ruby was in a top bunk, above Jaune as two other bunk beds was on their right, filling almost half the room, with Nora and Ren in the middle and Grif and Simmons on the other end. With her friends all asleep, Ruby tried to doze off when Grif began the loudest snoring known to man, annoying her. She looked at the clock on the wall, reading 8:00 before looking down at Church's sleeping bag on the floor, empty.

She left her room quietly, carefully avoiding on stepping on her sleeping friends before softly closing the door behind her. She then walked through the hall, tiptoeing to make sure she doesn't disturb any people staying in other rooms. Ruby made her way towards the balcony, wanting some fresh air when right before turning the corner, she heard something: "You just had to push me away again..."

Ruby peeked to see Church resting on the railing of the balcony. He was quiet, definitely contemplating about things as he stared at his scroll. She tiptoed as quietly as she could before looking over his shoulder, asking: "What'cha ya looking at?," Ruby asked.

"FUCKIN HELL!," Church yelped and quickly tried to hide his scroll.  "Don't do that at this time of day!" He shouted as quiet as he could.

"Sorry," Ruby said. "What are you doing up at 8:00 in the morning?"

"Just used to waking up at this time," Church said. "What are you doing up at 8:00 in the morning?"

"Hard time sleeping and well... Grif," she said with her face frowning a bit.

"Yeah, told you there was a benefit in him sleeping in your dad's garage." Ruby wanted to say something but shut her mouth which Church caught. "What?"

"Do you have nightmares... from that day?"

"A little more specific?" Ruby looked at him sheepishly and then immediately he understood, his face dropping.

"Oh.... Yeah, why?"

"Do you have them constantly?"

Church paused. "Maybe once a week..."

"Oh, okay,"

"But that doesn't make you an outlier, what happened at the tower was fucking traumatic as shit and we just process that differently." He was careful to put it in a way where he downplayed it. Ruby hummed as an answer. Both stood in awkward silence, both not wanting to talk about the topic when Ruby thought of another.

"When was that picture taken?"

"What picture?" Church asked. Ruby looked, not convinced, making him sigh and showed the picture to her. "The night we first met."

Ruby now had clear view of the picture. It was a selfie of Church and Tex sitting on the curb, bruised and bloodied all over their clothes. The black eyed former made a peace sign across his chest, and the nose-bleeding latter hiding her mouth by resting her head on her fist with the middle finger up. Ruby then looked up at Church's nostalgic look as she made a concerned one. "Uh... why are you all bruised?"

"The night escalated," Church said. "While we were talking, some blokes came in with bad blood and we kicked the shit out of them, me especially."

Ruby laughed, unconvinced. "Really?"

"Yeah! I absolutely crushed three of them

"You miss her, don't you," asked Ruby, leaning on the railing next to Church.