RWBY: Prince of Rags

Chapter 1: There's A Semblance

Mantel, the city in the shadow of Atlas, divided by walls of steel that are colder on one side than the other. I've lived here with my father all my life and for all of it, I cannot remember one night when the heat wasn't turned off and a small mountain of blankets was needed to escape the cold. I can't remember a day where my father didn't force a smile, to pretend that everything was going to be all right. With my own eyes, I could see that things weren't good, that he wasn't working as hard as he did because he enjoyed his work nor was school a privilege, but a necessity.

I kept quiet though, even on the nights of the winter season, when there are no Grimm to worry about, but the cold remained. When I spent time studying, wrapped in whatever tattered blankets I had, my hands, as though they were ice, sometimes numb, quietly turned the pages of my notebook, so as not to wake my dad. I knew how little sleep he had, no matter how early I woke to help him in the morning, he would be awake before me, breakfast ready. As to continue the act that everything was fine and we did not risk freezing to death on some nights. Though I reminded myself that that threat of freezing to death is a constant in the Faunus District, I took no joy in thinking that way.

Deep down, I knew he wanted more for me, without a word spoken, I could see that. I never thought of why other than that he was a good man and father. But I remember vividly the look he had when I once brought up who my mother was. His eyes stared off as if looking at the mountains far off in the distance. His smile gone and replaced with a somber expression like looking at old photos from a lifetime ago. He did not speak with energy because he didn't say a word, and I did not press him further about it.

Though it might not have been the best place to live, the people made the best of it. In the spring, before the Grimm returned but the cold air had started to leave, kids would play in the streets. Slipping on patches of ice in the process and falling on their butts, or the classic, licking one of the light poles on a dare. Whatever they did, it made things seem better, more alive. I used to enjoy Slick Ball. Carefully, you'd place a ball in the middle of the road and two teams would slip across the road to get the ball into the opposing goal. Those games left a lot of sore marks.

But in my sixteenth year, I didn't find any time for games. As I neared the end of school, I thought about what I would do next, and I thought of nothing. I could not find nor feel a purpose that guided me, instead, on a spring day like any other, as I stood at one of the crosswalks going home from school, it found me. Kids were playing Slick Ball in the road, the ball missed the goal and went onto one of the main roads. One of the kids went after it, though he tried to be careful, he found stopping to be difficult and tumbled into the road.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a car heading down fast. Without so much as thinking, I had moved to run over and get the kid out of the way. My timing sucked, though if it hadn't, I wouldn't have unlocked my aura and been able to take the car head-on. Thrown onto the ground with the kid protected in my arms, I whined a little and had let go of him the moment after.

"You all right?" The kid was a little startled, but shakenly nodded to my question. "That's good." On my back, I took a breath, stopped short when I looked over to the car. "What the..."

My eyes had to be deceiving me, for a moment, a very brief moment, I could have sworn I saw a glyph beneath me. A glyph of the Schnee's, the family well known in Atlas, for if nothing else, then the fact that they own the vast majority of the Dust mines in the kingdom. As it quickly faded, I felt the road properly beneath me and heard a woman calling for her son. After getting up, apologies were given to the driver, who was a much older man that was more worried about us than his car, and thanks were given from the mother to me.

"It's... it's all fine, everyone's okay which is important."

"It's nice to hear a future Huntsman say that." The woman's comment caught me off guard.