RWBY - Child Of Light

Chapter 5: Flickering Embers

I wake after only a few hours, slipping in and out of sleep throughout the night.

With sunlight starting to filter through the cracked window, my head feels a bit clearer. I blink away the lingering fog of exhaustion and shift on the worn mattress, momentarily forgetting that I'm sharing it with a homeless catgirl.

Blake.

She's beautiful.

There's a world of difference between seeing someone on a screen and having them right in front of you. Her presence is mesmerizing, her sharp edges softened by deep sleep. Relaxed, with her breathing even and her face calm, she looks delicate, serene. For a moment, I allow myself to simply take it in—to enjoy the quiet satisfaction of knowing I did the right thing for once.

Then reality crashes back in.

Blood.

We're both still covered in it—her clothes, the mattress, even my arms have faint smears dried into the skin. The entire scene reeks of the chaos we barely escaped. One thing's certain: I'm not spending another night in this dump, this time for real.

I glance at her injuries. Her wounds are fully closed now, the healing potion slowly having done its job hours ago. She fell into a deep, dreamless sleep soon after I patched her up, utterly spent. The steady rise and fall of her chest is reassuring, proof she's fine for now.

Letting her rest, I slip into the tiny bathroom to wash off the grime. The shower's water pressure is terrible, and it takes too long to scrub away the stains from my hands and arms, but at least I'm no longer walking around looking like a butcher in a slasher film.

Clean and marginally more human, I dress quickly and head out. There's plenty to handle before I can think about relaxing.

First, the stolen scroll. I sit down with it, going through the messages and files. It doesn't reveal much—just confirmation of what I suspected. A small-time gang, hired to sow chaos in Vale for cash and weaponry. At first glance, the White Fang branding looks like a convenient smokescreen for their antics, but the more I dig, the more it seems their employer had one specific condition: the masks. Whoever was funding them wasn't just interested in violence—they wanted the blame placed specifically on the Fang.

Great. Another fire waiting to blow up.

With that piece of intel stored away, I focus on our other issues: food, shelter, and clothes.

Finding a decent hotel I can afford turns out easier than expected. Turns out I have more money to my name than I thought—not enough for anything fancy, but enough to put a roof over our heads for a couple of weeks without worrying too much. Food is even simpler: I grab something quick for breakfast and keep moving. We can sit down for a proper meal later. She's a catgirl, there's a port nearby—it won't be hard to find something she likes.

Then, there's Blake's clothes.

Her outfit is trashed: bloodstained, shredded, not unwearable but certainly getting close to it. The place we're staying at doesn't have a laundry machine, and as funny as the image of her washing her only outfit in the sink might be, I doubt she'd share my sense of humor. Wearing those clothes again until she gets home, smelling like a murder scene, isn't an option either—not unless we want to draw every thug and Huntsman-in-training within a mile radius.

I sigh, browsing the racks of a discount store for something functional. It's a weird feeling, shopping for someone else. I've spent so long fending for just myself that the concept of considering someone else's preferences feels alien. Yet here I am, holding up a short black hoodie and wondering, Is this her style? Yeah... It has purple at the edges.