Remaining Embers~Jaune x Cinder

Taunted By Dreams

Emerald and Mercury regrouped with Cinder on the hilltop, the latter looking a bit worse for the wear, with noticeable cuts in his pants. It seemed they'd underestimated the Beacon students again, as they'd managed to get through his Aura and targeted him where he was vulnerable. Cinder found herself impressed against her will, that her hated enemy had learned from their last encounter.

"What happened?" Mercury asked, tempering his clear impatience and anger by keeping his tone as flat as possible.

Cinder wasn't sure what to tell them. The truth was certainly out of the question: it would be exposing a weakness to her subordinates at the worst possible time, when they already had ample reason to doubt her. Whatever loyalty they may have had would be outweighed by their self-interest, and they'd run back to Salem's castle rather than remain with her if Cinder continued to suffer defeats.

But how could she explain... this to them? How could anyone understand that the feelings of a dead girl had driven her to embrace a boy she'd intended to kill only minutes before? Moreover, how could anyone understand she'd had an opportunity to remove a major obstacle to her queen's plans... and not taken it? Even going over it in her private thoughts it seemed like madness.

Still, Cinder attempted to provide a more measured explanation, but her words were lower and raspier than ever, and even Emerald had trouble making them out... if Cinder articulated words at all. She feigned frustration, and typed into her Scroll that she'd been sent to the wrong hotel, and had wasted several minutes looking for the quarry.

Emerald looked skeptical, while Mercury, simple and direct as he was, only seemed surprised anyone who'd provided Cinder bad intelligence was still breathing. Cinder encouraged the thought, feigning more outrage in subsequent texts to the two, vowing to kill their incompetent contacts or to get revenge on Doctor Watts if he'd decided to intervene somehow... both plausible lies.

Cinder ordered the two to monitor the girl and not lose sight of the opportunity to be rid of her, and remain undetected. Now that they'd lost the element of surprise, the four students would almost certainly regroup and hunker down until Qrow Branwen was healthy again. If they succeeded in that, Cinder would have to report a failure to Salem, and lose her chance to move two threats to both the queen and herself off the board.

Once they were gone, Cinder tried to summon the troublesome thoughts, so she could combat the impurity with her sane, rational mind. And regrettably, those thoughts were... vivid.

She remembered the day she'd met Jaune, when he was clumsily trying to impress Weiss in the locker rooms before initiation. She'd liked him immediately, because unlike Weiss, he hadn't immediately tried to get on her good side and exploit her talents for his own scheme; if anything, he'd seen past her and his infatuation had been elsewhere. What should've been a tremendous insult to her pride and sense of self-worth had transformed into a fond, endearing memory, because it was the first time anyone had treated 'the invincible girl' like an ordinary person, rather than an asset to be courted.

If nothing else, this provided Cinder useful insight... or would have, if the heiress to the SDC was not still in Atlas at a time they were about to close up their borders, rendering her out of reach. Instead it was just a memory of a foolish teenage crush, and not even one that was reciprocated. It turned Cinder's stomach to think of such foolishness.

Or, more accurately, that was what she wanted to feel. She'd have been more comfortable if such a sight left her feeling discomfort or annoyance. Instead, when she reflected on it, it felt like a treasured memory. When she thought of Jaune, Cinder felt... warm. When she thought of their first meeting, she felt a deep dullness in her chest, pulling her down with a weighty sensation she could not entirely describe.