RWBY: FaLSE Tale

Chapter 15: Carn-Elian and Spein-El

Chapter 16:

Spinel: I was out for a few days, a week or so I'd guess. Had a lot of time to reminisce while I was in pain. You ever wonder what bones feeling like shattered ice felt?

Silva: Nega why the fuck would I wonder that?

Spinel: Well- it fucking hurts, and for the first time actually feeling pain, I wanted to die. I just laid there, struggling to breath in my sleep, just like all that time ago... I was never supposed to join the military, not ever in my life did my mother want me to join up, but I guess I kinda kept that promise, because I joined in my second.

~~~~~

In the dead of night just as all others, the pit of Mantle hosts pires of fire dust as road lanterns. There sits in stilts a poor man's shack with a window made of curtains and bars. A single room with a large bed, mother and son sleep on a bed made of planks and sticks, separated by the cardboard box the son sleeps within. Under the moonlight men in rags approach the home and at the door they creep it open to be held back by an old, worn chain. From their coat they take out a pair of hand pliers and cut them, snipping them as if it were wood. The group of rags head on inside, careful on their feet to have the step of a cat.

One stood at the door, holding it down as he peeks to the outside night. Two gave tools of pain. Three took to his position beside the bed. They count up in sync, using their fingers from fist to five, and at the open palm they clasps their hands over the mouths of mother and son. In their hands curved knives glow to red life, steaming in the cold air. They cut deep into the throats of mother and child, letting the flesh sear as the pain jolts the two out of their personal heavens. Unable to scream, just able to shake and attempt to fight off the attacker; the mother punches at the man, kicking at the bed as all the possibilities, all the equations run through her head. Her red aura shatters, and from inside the box of her son, out the edge of her fading sight, a pale blue light emanates and fades from within.

The son bites the hand of his attacker, biting through the flesh of the palm and only continues. Biting and biting all he could do, piercing through the aura with elongated fangs. The two men drag their daggers out, leaving in a deep cut that sent out excruciating pains for only a few seconds. As for the family, lightheadedness drained their fight, the pain numbed itself out of existence, until the two turned cold and still...

In the oldest of mornings, a morning which cannot be forgotten, one that has blocked the past of days before. An urge of knowledge flooded his mind, a familiarity of power as though it was always so. Spein-El wakes with a ringing headache, grabbing his head as he sits up out of his bed, his hand as cold as ice and face as such. Feeling of two souls connect as he holds his head, uncomfort floods from his body into his mind; uncertainty, warriness, and confusion is all that the body feels. Today the birth of a new soul had occurred, the birth of Beta, El. Blood coated his clothes, the rags that could be considered by stretching thoughts, and in his box it pools around him.

Fearful, he turns to his mother, yelling for her... yelling to her body. A young but old woman of dark skin and black striped tattoos lays still, her red tail curled up and stiff; no breath, no motion, no pulse. He yells for her, screams at her, begs for her to wake up and if not her than for him! His screams of horror, of acceptance of being in no nightmare, reaches out far to his neighbors.

~~~~~

Spinel: I hate him, I despise the man that ruined my childhood, I soon stopped feeling the grief... It was short lasting, more so I think it was the shock of what was around me that brought the feelings out, not her actual death. I'm happy, you know? Feeling actual grief now, feeling sad at the thought of this, tearing at remembering this day- I love these feelings.

Silva: Your mother, what'd she look like?

Spinel: Hell if I know, that all happened almost- twelve? I believe twelve years ago, when I was seven or so. Got no pictures of her, just faint memories about her, like her tattoos, her tail, her hair- some of the things she liked. Bah, she's probably in my safety deposit box, she was cremated- too poor for a burial, still went in debt. Honestly, I finally settled my emotions: the past doesn't matter, cause I'm here and I got myself family and love.

Silva: Do you have any regrets though? I mean, you fucking hold grudges forever, so what about regrets?

Spinel: Not exactly, got settled by myself pretty well, had to adapt and grow up. I wish I had more time to play with others, be a child and celebrate birthdays. However, I had to work day and night.

~~~~~

Sitting on a bench cradling a wooden urn on his lap, Spein-El watches with bored and puffy eyes the children of his age play together. They play football, wasting their precious auras to protect them. On him a backpack of his stuff: papers, money, food, and water. His neck is zipped together, sewn around is a zipper from his bag, allowing his head to stay attached.

As he sat in the distance, watching the everyday lives of his former neighbors, an old man sat on the bench beside him. A man of fair skin, wrinkly and scarred, he smiled as he joined Spein-El in the people watching. On his head, a pair of horns grew, curved and spirals like that of a goat, his white hair a fuzzy cloud, he looked through eyes of dull brown. In his hand, he tapped a pack and took a stick, thick and dark brown, he snapped his fingers and made a flame in his palm. He lit the end, heating the paper laced in fire dust, to then draw a long and deep puff from the cigar. Spein-El stares at the man, confused by him, unsure of what to say or do.

The man turns to him and says, "T'is is where y'all live, huh? No-onder we die off so quickly, we take the bare minim' and live off it." Spein-El says nothing, just nodding to nod and pass him off. "I recognize 'ose eyes, the pain inside of'em. Got yo'self a passion?" Spein-El shakes his head, hugging the urn closer to him and scooting away. The old man gained a gentle smile and took out a second cigar, saying: "Come 'ere. Take t'is, it'd help the pain go 'way off."

The man prepares the cigar, cutting off the foot and holding it up to Spein-El, his hand incredibly shaky and the scars on them looking like those of a bite wound. Spein-El takes the cap in his mouth, biting onto it. This causes the old man to laugh, but he lights the foot with his own flame just as before and he narrates how to smoke it. Hold it with the index over the band, support the under with the other three fingers, do not breathe but suck as though it was a straw, then blow out the smoke once the dust ends its spicy flavor. To smoke, an action told off by his mother time and again to never do, and to do it while holding her in his arms... Spein-El realized that he cannot hold onto her lessons to live anymore.

"On't go too fast now- 'ake it slow." The old man warned, gaining a grin as the boy got into the idea. He takes out the pack and lays them on the urn, saying: "Take 'em, n list-n to my advice: 'our puffs, put it down, and think 'ear of m-ind."

Spein-El takes out the cigar, staring at it as it slowly burns, he thinks to himself of what to do next. He leaned back and from looking up high, he knew what to do, what he should've done weeks back then. Atlas. Getting up, he leaves the old man, going to leave the pit for the first time since his orphanhood began.

He ran far, looking, searching for the building bearing the abbreviation of AAFCA, Atlas Armed Forces Combat Academy. At the age of just seven, he signed himself into combat school. The school in Mantle, the former glory that it was now a place of secondary wits and strength. A place for him to strive to live to outshine his strife, a place to fight physically and mentally.

~~~~~

Spinel: I gotta thank and curse that man, he's the whole I reason I'm not just in the pits being a gutter rat. It's clear as day he wanted to get me addicted, to make easy money off me, but I took that pack and ran with everything I had. Started my training, joined combat school through registering into the military, and got an addiction that kills those without aura. Lovely life if I say so myself.

Silva: Okay... So how the fuck did you join a gang!?

~~~~~