RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC54: Dolor (Raven's team)--6

"I thought you were just being stubborn before, but I think what they said clued me in.... It's them too? They don't want to be friends," Royal said.

"Look, this isn't Cotton Candy Land," Cinder said sharply. "Maybe in storybooks for kids are people ever friends with their bitter enemies, but in real life, that's not how it works."

"That's not true, you know," Royal said. "In the book you guys all read there was that Paul guy. He was the worst, but then he became tight with the same people he was persecuting. Even best friends with a few.... It did take years though."

"Well, I don't have years," Cinder said.

"You don't know that, and if I may, you haven't given them a chance either," Royal pointed out. "If you'd cut them some slack, they might be able to cut you some slack."

"I don't think you understand. I don't really blame them," Cinder said. "But I know how they feel about it."

"Cidner, to be honest, I don't think you know how most people feel." Royal was getting a little fed up perhaps. "You just project the worst possibility onto them. Maybe you're right--there is still some resentment there. I think they've admitted as much. But they have better feelings too. They have pity or compassion or regret, maybe even some concern. You just don't want to see that part."

"Why would I not want to see it if it was there?" Cinder frowned.

"I think it scares you that you could be wrong about them." Royal hit upon a very real truth. "Maybe it's because you don't want to think that they were really nice people the whole time you did what you did. It's like Nikos, right? Then you'd feel 100x worse...but you know...just because people are jerks doesn't actually make it any better to do things to them that no one should do...and nice people don't get off free from suffering either. I think good and bad people both suffer. And...honestly, all of us inflict suffering on other people when we shouldn't. And sometimes we don't when we should.... Humans are a mixed bag, and that's about the only thing I'm sure of after all this time. But in that mixed bag, maybe some of them are mixed up in a better way than we think at first."

"I don't even know what you're saying now," Cinder said. "And I don't want to hear this. You know it wouldn't matter anyway, whatever I think. The situation is pretty much hopeless."

"I wouldn't say that either."

"Easy for you. You're not in it."

"Did you miss where I was part of that back there?" Royal got a bit more heated. He gestured back toward the club. "I'll be dealing with the repercussions of this for weeks.... Honestly, I could lose more friends because of this incident. I know at least my job isn't in trouble thanks to my superiors knowing the full story, but my coworkers are another story. You're not the only one who can get attacked, you know."

Cinder recalled that he had been, in fact, attacked, and she flushed--from shame.

"Well, I warned you," she said.

"And I really don't care." Royal was still miffed. "Because the fact is, if it was that easy, they weren't really friends. I always knew that deep down. A part of me is relieved. Flushing out the fakes is kind of liberating, even if it sucks to think they were fakes. I'd rather it be this way. The fact is, I like to have an opinion of my own, and I don't like being pressured into conforming by other people."

"Oh, I know that," Cinder said, more heated herself. "From what you told me that's been a thing for a long time. But it's easier to do as other people say."

"But it's not better," Royal said. "I'm sorry you have such a problem with it being about you, but if it wasn't you, it'd be someone else. I've been in this too deep--all my doubts about Atlas were going to come out in some way and piss people off. I knew that, but if I wasn't around all of you, maybe I'd have hid my opinions for longer...and for what? It's better to just get it over with. I'm not surprised this happened, I expected it...but it had to happen. I think my respective mentors would have told me it was a good thing. If I have real friends, I imagine they'll hear my side...but it's true either way."