RWBY Through Worlds

50: Close My Eyes

She felt filthy, she noticed with distaste. Dust everywhere...

She surveyed herself in one of the window's reflections. This uniform was not going to suit Vaccuo's weather; it was too layered.

"No wonder I got heat stroke," she said. "It's just the climate. A few adjustments and it'll be fine. All of us should adapt."

Of course she knew in the back of her mind that thrusting a settlement's worth of people adapted for extreme cold into extreme heat was a recipe for illness, but there was nothing for it now.

It occurred to her that Theodore really could have helped alleviate this if he'd cared to do so, and where had he been all day?

Straightening her hair as much as possible, Winter went down the hall and stairs to the lower level of the school.

A scorpion skittered around the floor in front of her, making her jump back.

The insect ignored her and scuttled up the wall.

"Hideous, isn't it?" Coco from team CVFY walked past her and nodded. "But you get used to it. No way to keep the bugs out of here in this sand. But mostly if you don't bother them, they don't bother you. Getting stung isn't a huge concern if your Aura is up. You'll probably just feel ill for a bit. Fox had it happen when we arrived here in the first week, but he was all right after a few days. Unless you're allergic to it, I suppose."

"Lovely," Winter muttered.

"The spiders are almost worse." Coco adjusted her shades, that for some reason she didn't take off even inside, and kept walking.

Atlas didn't even have bugs outside the protected garden areas because the cold made it too hard for them to live. Winter and the other Atlesians had lived in blissful, bug-free homes for most of their lives. Even seeing a mouse would be rare, even in Mantle.

Still, Winter could resign herself to the vermin themselves as a part of the environment, but not if they went around stinging people... That would lead to yet another problem on top of the heat...

She rubbed her head.

Coco had headed for the mess hall, but Winter was not hungry. She felt nauseous, so she just went in search of the other older team members.

Robyn had refused to camp in the school when the citizens were outside, as part of her usual annoying nobleness...even more annoying because having the team leaders close enough to confer after dark would really have been more useful than her showing off how she wasn't pampered.

But some of the Ace Ops were around, and Ren and Nora, who both looked exhausted. Nora probably really wasn't recovered enough for this either. She looked flushed.

"Maybe you should take it easier tomorrow," Ren was even telling her.

"There's not enough of us for that!" Nora voiced Winter's own thoughts. "I can't slack off."

"Geez, we won't die if you take a break." Emerald was sitting in one corner, polishing her blades. "You people ever get tired of being so noble all the time?"

"We are huntsmen." Ren still didn't quite like her being there.

"Sure." Emerald rolled her eyes.

Hazel was standing along one wall. "Killing ourselves by overexertion won't solve anything either," he said.

Oscar was sitting at one table, looking dejected--more so than usual.

"What about you, Teach?" Emerald said to him. "Any brilliant ideas yet?"