RWBY Through Worlds

134: Calls My Bluff

"Is that possible?" she asked. "Besides...dying?"

"One would assume, if Ozpin ends his quest here, his magic will go with him," Shine said. "I trust you all didn't forget that that is where all of you, and Vara and Cinder, get your magic from. You're like his children, both literally and figuratively, just as whoever receives the same power as us is like our child or sibling, in a symbolic sense--but literally too, almost. And those two powers are in conflict... Surely you see that. This starts with you, with all of you, but even more with those of you who carry the literal powers inside. Is your objection to confronting the gods merely logical? Or was there something else in it?"

Wally winced. "I didn't think of that either. But that can't actually explain how they think...can it?"

The look Shine gave him didn't bode well for the answer.

"Are you saying that this is affecting how we think?" Raven put a hand to her head. "No, that's impossible, because I never liked these powers. They are just necessary."

"That is how it starts," Shine said. "Always. It's necessary... It's harmless... I just want to know what it's like. I'm just curious." She sounded like she was reciting. "I have to do it for the good of--insert name here--. We have a metaphor for this in my world, by one of our writers, Tolkien. With the power. He said that it was like you love and hate it the way you love and hate yourself. I've seen it work the same with addictions, and power is an addiction. I didn't wish to alarm you, because fear only makes this process work faster. I suppose that is why Ozpin always kept things secret...but knowledge is also power. If Oscar's struggle is becoming visible, you were bound to ask us sooner or later how this affects you... I didn't like to bring it up."

"I don't follow," Qrow said. "Unless you're saying that all of us are in the same boat as Oscar."

"Not yet," Shine said.

That was chilling.

"But...we will be?" Raven said.

"I doubt it will work like that," Shine said. "It's not a curse for you, exactly. You're just...joined to it. In a way. The Maiden cycle is because Ozpin's curse is a cycle. You are one part of it, but just like his hosts, it costs your life to be in it. There is a reason that the Maiden powers work the way they do--I talked about this once before. They can only work how Ozpin's work, and he can't help but pass on his curse with them, because they were a part of him, and something of all we are goes into our powers and our works. There is good in it despite ourselves--but it is always despite ourselves, in the case of curses. You all have more freedom than Ozpin because it is a part of his power that you carry, but you all carry it. This much should have been apparent once we began speaking of that at all... I think maybe you didn't want to know."

She was right.

Qrow had wondered, but this was worse than he could have thought.

He looked at his hands.

"But Qrow's power doesn't work that way." Raven was perspiring. "They don't pass on."

"Are you sure of that?" Shine asked. "He hasn't died. But the magic can't just die, can it? Clearly magic doesn't die. It changes forms. Which is true enough, because spiritual entities do not die, they mutate. You actually cannot kill spirits. It's a very ancient principle. That is why we believe in heaven and hell in our faith."

"How do those relate?" Winter sat down. She was looking a bit sick.

"Yeah, how?" Wally asked Shine. "Because you can't die just once?"

"Yes," Shine said. "But also because spirits cannot be truly destroyed. They are eternal, as I said. That is why hell is eternal. Because there is no other way to kill a spirit than eternally killing it. It will go on, otherwise. Either it goes into eternal life or death, but there is no end to it, like an infinity ♾ symbol. The body can die once--twice, even. The spirit never will naturally. That is why we call it supernatural."