Eclipse - Act 1 - The Healing

Chapter 18 - Parents' Arrival

Glynda

She stares out from Ozpin's office with her arms resting on the surface of his wooden table, rebuilt after it was blown apart by Cinder in her battle against Pyrrha Nikos. The Shadow of Broken Promises orbiting the skies Vale and Beacon Academy, like some sort of dark shadow of a monster watching over them with every second that passes every day. And from up here, she can see where the Black Smog are, it looks like they are starting to spread like a plague.

A thick black smoke flowing the trees.

They are gaining more numbers every single day, every now and then they can hear the roars of countless monsters that lurk within those trees. Many of them are so alien that they cannot even recognise them, for the monsters are all changing with every day. Glynda sighs, her desperation for all of this to be over beginning to show on her exhausted soul, taking her glasses off and setting them upon her table, groaning as she buries her head in her hands.

Just as she did Forty Years ago today...

Back then she was only a child, around eight years old, with short blonde hair and tears in her large green eyes, shaking on the floor with blood staining her hands, frail as a twig. She had not eaten in weeks by the looks of things, or been able to take a bath or simply get a good nights' sleep from the bags which hang underneath her large eyes. She sniffles softly, reaching her hand out for people to give her money, but not one of them ever gave her a glance.

One of them though does, stopping and looking down at her, only to reach down to her bowl of coins and liens given to her and stealing them. But she is far too young and weak to even possibly fight the bigger man, who grins as he takes the child's money, she has collected from kind Samaritans. It is hardly anything, barely even adds up to twenty-five Lien. Glynda whimpers softly, reaching up to the man who takes her money from her. "P-Please..." She whimpers, only for the man to kick her in the chest with his booted foot, she cracks against the wall with a yelp, landing on her scabby knees in her moth-eaten clothes.

The fat man spits down at her, the saliva drooling down her cheek as she gasps, feeling the hot pain in her chest where the man hit her. "Tough luck, kiddo – I could get a delicious sandwich with this." He chortles disgustingly as he walks away from Glynda. The young girl begins to sob uncontrollably, finding no hope in the world, for everyone just seems to be against her, to be her enemy with every single one that walks past her.

But then...something miraculous happens down the street from her, causing her to stop crying for a few seconds as she sits there, hugging her scabby knees. She lifts her head slowly to see the source of the hard punches that resounded nearby. A man is beating the living hell out of that civilian that just stole her money and flaunted in her face about it, and he swings upwards and breaks his nose.

A spray of red blood flying up into the air with what looks to be glowing red claret falling and sticking to the pavement. The man wipes the blood from his knuckles, turning to Glynda on the ground and he presses his cane to the floor, using it to walk towards her slowly. She rubs her bleary eyes as she looks up at her saviour, to see him holding the coins in his hand, giving them back to her and putting them back in the bowl.

She gazes past his hand as it lowers, seeing his brown hair and the brown eyes looking down to her. She wipes the tears from her chubby cheeks to see him clearly, as he holds his mechanical cane in one hand, and crouches down to be level with her, resting his knee against the pavement. He gently caresses her strand of blonde hair which hangs over her eye as she looks at him. "I'm sorry, honey...you don't have a home?" The man asks her, she hiccups a gasp and nods her head.

The man smiles as he looks at her then pats her head. "Come on, come with me." He says, holding out his hand so then she can go with him. Reluctantly, she reaches up to his much larger hand and he helps her up, she picks up her bowl and walks with him, dwarfed by his much taller and stronger stature. "What's your name?"