"What is all this about?" Torchwick had asked, as soon as he had the chance.
"Don't worry about it," Shine said. "They're mad at us--you're just a close second."
"What did you do to them?" Torchwick asked.
"Nothing," Wally said. "Absolutely nothing... But honey, I'm surprised you reined it in there."
"Didn't you want me to?" Shine asked.
"I did think it might just pour gasoline on it, but I kinda thought you'd do it anyway," Wally said.
"I wanted to, but I realized that we've had the same conversation since day one, and it's never going to convince them," Shine said. "At this point, I'm just bringing myself down to their level--and Salem's. While she's not the standard for my definition of evil, she's petty enough. I don't want to be like that."
Neo signed at her: "If Salem is not evil, then who is?" [See video later down]
"You'd be surprised, Neo," Shine said.
"Neo told me you two are quite the odd couple," Torchwick said. "Who are you exactly? When did you join the merry little band of raggedy huntsmen wannabes?"
"You will not refer to them as that again," Shine said.
"Why do you care? They hate you," Torchwick said.
"They hate us, some of them, but they have been through more than you could imagine," Shine said. "And if they are less like their old selves now, it was beaten out of them by tragedy and deception, which you started, may I remind you. I hope you're proud of yourself now."
"Hey, why is this about me all the sudden?" he said. "I've been dead. You can't blame me for that."
"I don't, I just think you're an idiot," Shine said.
Neo frowned at her.
"You say it," Shine said
"It's okay when I say it," Neo replied with her hands.
"To be honest, Shine, I'm only getting a small percentage of what she's saying," Wally said. "Sorry, I guess I don't remember that much of what you showed me."
"I didn't show you that much anyway," Shine said. "Anyway, not even she's doing it quite by the book, but that makes sense. You'll get the idea if you just use your imagination."
"I don't understand that much myself," Torchwick said. "Just from context, really. I didn't even know you could learn it like that."
"Not here, probably," Shine said. "Say, Neo, how would you say Semblance?"
Neo replied, "Soul+shield/protection+power."
[I doubt anyone has given RWBY official signs, but that would be about the literal translation in ASL.]
"Well, if they boot you out, I suppose our deal is off," Torchwick said. "But maybe we can still help each other. One good turn deserves another. You two seem to have some skills. Ever think about going into crime?"
"Does solving it in a lab count?" Wally asked.
"No," Torchwick said. "In fact, I'd say this puts you on my list of least favorite people."
"Along with the 'cop's and the 'dumb cops'," Shine said slyly.
"Yeah, along--wait..." Torchwick paused. "Who told you that? Neo?"
Neo shook her head.
"I'm sure that was just an inside term..." Torchlight said oddly. "Who would even care to repeat that?"
"Probably just me," Shine said.
"I thought it was funny," Wally said. "Oh, do it again, say something else to freak him out."
"He's based off the Jack-Be-Nimble thing," Shine said. "But that wouldn't freak him out... Really, I know very little about him. Most people think Roman Torchwick is not his real name."
"Hey," Torchwick said.
"Well, come on, Neapolitian can't be her real name either," Wally said.
Neo raised an eyebrow.
[Her real name is Trivia, if you want to know. A reference to the goddess of magic's Roman name. Her last name is Vanille. ]
"Danged if I know what it is," Roman said. "And it's none of your business what my name is anyway, kid."
"Kid?" Shine said.
"Hmm, yeah, you're little too old for that." Torchwick scrutinized her. "Well, it has to just come to me, really."
"Like 'Red' was so original," Shine said. "Just call me Shine. You can't do better than that."
"All right, Shiny it is," Torchwick said.
In response to that, Shine took one of the wooden spoons laying along the counter and hit him in the stomach with it--not that hard, but with a purpose.
"Never call me that," she said, warningly.
"Yikes," Wally said. "Wow...that was really aggressive."
"I'm sure I didn't hurt him that much. They have Aura," Shine said.
"Doesn't really make it less aggressive, Sunshine," Wally said.
"Oh...I'm used to it." Torchwick would not admit that Shine scared him in the least by that move. "Touchy, isn't she? Well, I'm used to touchy women. In more ways than one."
"Dude," Wally said. "Not cool."
Neo rolled her eyes.
"That line just screams angry school nerd who wants to be cool now," Shine said.
[Really Torchwick's whole attitude screams that.]
"But what are you two in?" Torchwick returned to the subject. "A ring? A coup? A rebellion?"
"I guess we kind of helped rebel against Atlas," Shine said. "But when the 2nd in command does that, you know it's just gone insane to begin with, so it's not worth much to say that."
"I wish I'd seen that. Atlas are a bunch of snobs. So Ironwood finally lost his marbles," Torchwick said. "Very unpleasant man. I'm not surprised to hear that. He really thought he'd get information out of me, you know."
"It would have ended better for you if he did," Shine said.
"I disagree, lady. Death by Grimm or death by Cinder Fall for squealing both sound equally gruesome," Torchwick said.
Neo made some motions.
"Eh?" Wally and Torchwick both missed it.
"Oh, she said that if you saw Cinder now, you'd think it was even more ugly than before," Shine said. "And she's 100% right about that. Ugh." She shuddered.
"How do you think it's going in there?" Wally tugged his collar. "Are we really going to ditch them if they decide that?"
"What choice do we have?" Shine said. "I go through this often. We can't force them to accept our help. Oscar won't let us go, but he may have to make a tough choice if they do."
"I don't want to make him leave his team," Wally said.
"It's not us making him make that choice. We have rules," Shine said. "We cannot stay when we are told to leave. He is not in the majority. We'd have go if more than half of them wanted us to, probably. At least farther away from them... Still, I'm not sure that many of them will. Maybe I called their bluff. They know we're useful. I hate to be allowed only on that premise, but it's how they think...now."
"I agree, they do seem different," Torchwick said. "You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I think I liked them better before when they were obnoxious idealists. That back there, that was just uncomfortable to watch."
"Are you just worried because they're going to be harder on you because they're angry?" Wally asked.
"Well, that is part of it," Torchwick said. "But even as an observer, you two certainly get an odd reception from them. I swear, it wasn't like I was even talking to the same kids. And they were weird before, but this is just...weird."
"You haven't seen anything yet," Shine said. "If you stick around, you'll see more than this." She winked at Wally.
Neo shrugged, then signed "crazy" to Torchwick.
"Them or the kids?" Torchwick asked.
She shrugged, then signed, "The kids more. Them too. But they're supporting us."
[Support in ASL doesn't mean financial usually. It can mean the emotional kind but also just mean you're helping someone in an idealistic or philosophical way. Or that you are defending them. Neo using it would mean more that they are offering them something in return for their services, not that they are supporting their lifestyle.]
"You know I got that, right?" Shine asked her.
Neo glanced at her. "Do you care?" she asked.
"No," Shine shrugged. "Just keep it civil, all right?... Ah." She looked at her scroll. "I think they're done talking.... Well, I feel like I'm going to be sick now."
"Hang in there," Wally said. "I already was sick earlier from the heat. One of us is enough for one day."
"Ew," Shine said.
"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Wally said.
They walked out.
"Should we run for it?" Torchwick said. "I have a feeling it didn't go well. We can find these two outside the school if we need to. I wouldn't put it past the others to toss us in some cell while they're distracted."
Neo nodded.
They both booked it.
Really, Torchwick would never have considered finding them at all...if he wasn't curious about their powers after that argument earlier.
* * *
Shine and Wally could not have been more shocked when their reception was a bunch of very miserable looking teenagers and Winter glaring at the teams.
Weiss, determined to at least show her sister she could be the bigger person after that lecture, spoke up first.
"We're sorry," she said, "for what we said. We overreacted."
She gave the others a look like "don't leave me hanging."
"Yeah, yeah, we did," Ruby said hastily.
"Yeah, sorry," Blake said.
"My apologies," Ren said in tone that was so insincere that it was a wonder anyone let it pass, but they figured he'd only get more sullen if they pushed him.
"Right." Nora wasn't too happy either.
Team Arkos knew they weren't included in this, so they tried not to make eye contact with the others and make it more embarrassing.
Yang knew she'd have to say it or she wouldn't be let off the hook.
"Yeah, sure," she said very begrudgingly.
"Huh...I'm shook." Wally used a term he'd heard Lumina, Shine's sister, use.
Shine very tactfully did not comment on how surprising it was.
"Did anyone have anything else to discuss?" she asked instead.
Oscar spoke up. "We did want to hear the tip from Neo, if that's all right... Is she, uh...still here?"
Shine had a gut feeling that Neo and Torchwick might try to give them the slip after that display.
She turned away from the teens so they didn't see her eyes flash... Aha...she was right.
She held out her hand and a portal dropped both parties on the floor mid step.
Which scared the crap out of them.
"There they are," Shine said. "Now, Neo told me she found out quite a lot. Neo, if you'd use signing to explain it it might be faster than trying to type it all out, but if someone would like to take notes as we go, I recommend it, for review."
Winter noted that Shine had let the whole thing go rather quickly considering how angry she was... Well, at least she wasn't petty.
Qrow wondered why he hadn't been expected to say anything there--he figured Winter just thought he wouldn't do it--and she was right. He wouldn't do it because she said to, but if Shine and Wally really wanted to make him, he'd have had to eat his words... Huh...weird.
But he was more interested in Neo's tip than in figuring them out.
Raven came back to the doorway. She'd never gone that far away.
Neo used the photos she'd taken to make it easier on herself to explain, since it would have taken forever to describe the whole thing.
With the help of the pictures, she was able to just say this:
"Found hiding place of science woman (that was Victoria). Saw a lot of machines. One for taking Aura out of the body. Teacher (Headmaster) brought the woman-with-magic (Maiden) in to try it. It didn't work. Need human with magic to test it. Teacher wants all of you to be focused on kingdom and not Maiden."
It took Shine more than one try to get some of this, and Neo had to slow it down, but she nodded to show she had it right by the end.
The picture confirmed it.
"That's her?" Qrow peered at the one of Vara. "But she wasn't the Maiden. She used to be a huntress. I remember she worked here, but I didn't think she knew about any of this or even knew Theo that well. How did she end up the Maiden?"
"It could have been an accident," Winter said. "Or some foul play. It sounds as if Headmaster Theodore is hardly clean. Allow me to faint of shock."
She didn't do a thing.
"No, this doesn't make sense," Qrow said. "Theo ratting us out seems possible after everything, but the guy hates machines and science and stuff. Why would that change just because he's spooked? I can't picture him agreeing to use something like that..."
"It looks like he is," Yang said. "Maybe you don't know him as well as you think."
"We'd better be careful," Shine said. "He could have spies anywhere here. I don't think he's returned yet, but we shouldn't just prattle on about this... We're going to need a meeting spot away from Shade. It's too obvious that he's letting us stay here to watch us."
"Where could we possibly meet in secret?" Winter asked.
"I'd say a bar, but the kids wouldn't be allowed in there," Shine said.
"Oh, no, in Vacuo they don't care," Qrow said. "Only one who might be a problem is the Pipsqueak." He meant Oscar. "The rest, they won't ask."
"I'm not meeting in a bar," Winter said.
"Think of it this way," Shine said, "it's the last place Theo would expect you to go. And he'd think nothing of Qrow being there. In that way, it's ideal...but even then, finding one that Theodore might not find just as easily and spy on us in... Well, Roman can you help there?"
"I suppose," Torchwick said. He didn't quite like being roped into this this fast, but he didn't dare refuse.
"I had him scope out some places earlier today," Shine explained, to the others' astonishment. "He's got friends here, as you can imagine. You wouldn't like them, but they tipped him off. We already know some places Mercury has been. So we avoid those. And Torchwick can have his friends keep a look out and warn him if they poke around anywhere we do meet up. Neo can go anywhere and not be noticed, so if we do need to check out one of their hangouts, she's the perfect person. That takes care of tracking them for now. But approaching them is another story. I'd send Neo back there as a spy, but Cinder no doubt has told Salem some story--I heard her say Neo died. So her cover is blown if she turns up. There's small chance that Mercury and Tyrian don't know about it by now--I'm sure Salem has contacted them. But she's not here yet, so they must be doing this thing with Theo instead. I couldn't figure out why he was going along with it, but now that I see this I understand."
"You do?" Ruby said. "Because I don't get it."
"Well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?" Torchwick said, like she was stupid.
"What is?" Weiss asked.
"Duh," Emerald said. "Your buddy is probably trying to keep the Maiden for himself. She's like his bargaining chip. So he can keep this pokey little kingdom safe."
"We know that Salem won't honor that deal," Qrow said.
"We know that, but he might not," Emerald said. "I mean, heck, she wasn't going to honor the one about Raven's tribe either. We were still going to torch it afterward."
Raven shot her a look.
Emerald backed up.
"I knew that," Raven said. "But I must say, hearing you say it pisses me off anyway."
"Never mind that," Hazel said. "It's true, Salem will show no mercy. It makes no difference to her, and it's one less person to stand in her way later. But she'll want the Relic first. If she attacks now, Rhodes might send the Maiden away. It seemed like he hasn't revealed her location to Tyrian or Black yet. He knows if he does, she's as good as dead when Cinder gets here."
"But why hold out on us? We could help," Qrow said. "He's willing to sacrifice all of us, and Remnant, just to save Vacuo?"
"That certainly is getting to be a familiar tune," Shine said. "And you're looking at it all wrong. What is he not willing to lose, even for your sakes? You people ask all the wrong questions."
"What do you mean?" Winter asked. "Not losing Remnant is our top priority."
"You assume Theo knows Salem's full goal is to destroy it?" Shine said. "Ozpin never told him the full story either. Qrow, did you know that part before?"
"I knew she was out for the kingdoms," Qrow said. "I can't remember if we ever talked about it being all Remnant or not."
"I know for a fact that he never told us that she couldn't be killed," Raven said. Pointedly. "So if Theo thinks that this could buy him time, maybe he thinks it's going to save Vacuo. Let it be the other kingdom's problem, not his. That's idiotic, but it's plausible to come to that conclusion without the full story."
"Good point." Shine nodded at her. "I suppose he can't know the full facts, or he'd know that Salem will hunt out the Maiden by whatever means necessary. In fact, Tyrian and Mercury will count on us to do it for them. We're close to Theo--it's plausible that he might end up letting us know where she is in order to pacify us, never dreaming that they'd figure it out. But knowing you people and your penchant for exposing Maidens, it's not a huge guess for Salem to know we'd go after the Relic, and then she'll know exactly what to do. The Grimm will swoop down and finish off this kingdom also."
Up till then her analysis had been one the others had been able to sort of guess also, but it was at this point that she surprised them all, except Qrow.
Raven slapped her forehead. "Of course! That was the point! How could I be such a fool! It's just what her goal was at Haven. I should have seen that from the start."
"At Atlas also," Winter realized. "She never cared that much about the Maidens, did she? She and Cinder just left."
"For the record, I guessed that part already," Qrow said. But no one paid him any heed.
"She was just going to let Watts blow Penny up and the Maiden with her," Wally said, "remember that?"
"Yeah," Raven said. "I remember. She doesn't care about the Maidens. She just wanted the Relics. Cinder is the one who wants the Maiden powers."
"Salem is fine with her having it if it gets her what she wants," Shine said. "The only reason Cinder is not dead currently is because of the Fall Relic. Salem put that arm on her so that she'd be able to control her, if I'm recalling what Oscar told us about it."
Oscar had told them more about what he saw after the fact.
"Not to help her?" Emerald said, looking even greener.
"Does Salem help anyone?" Shine said, with cutting sarcasm. "Furthermore, as we know from that little video Raven got for us, Cinder has disobeyed Salem enough times that we know that Salem would not tolerate her if she didn't need that Fall Relic. I suppose Salem cannot inherit the powers herself because she's too old or she's part Grimm...whichever it is."
"So she'll kill Cinder," Emerald said, "once she has all the Relics."
"Or summon the gods and let them do it," Shine mused.
"I feel as if our place in this conversation has been long over," Whitley said to Willow.
"Where did that girl go?" Willow asked.
"I've been saying that if we sniff out the Maiden it would only do her job for her," Qrow reiterated.
"I remember." Winter finally confirmed that he'd said this. "I thought it was idiotic at the time. But, Miss Likstar, you think so also?"
Qrow shot her a look that said "so that makes it okay if she says it?"
Which she ignored.
"I think it's practically obvious," Shine said, "of course... Qrow, you never mentioned this before. Why not? We could have talked about it days ago."
"We were all a little busy, and no one was looking for the Maiden, I thought," Qrow said. "You went behind our backs again."
"Ah, but I did it in a way that won't get us caught," Shine said slyly. "No one would think Neo would do it--she's supposed to be dead, remember? Unless Cinder wants to out herself. Which she won't. As long as the rest of us aren't seen poking around there, we're fine... But this does complicate our situation even further. How can we do anything without being noticed? Neo, are you any hand at assessing people? What is the attitude of the Maiden?"
Neo tapped her chin, then she signed slowly:
:"Not happy with plan. Teacher is holding some cards close to the chest."
She used the sign for that expression quite literally.
"Ah, I see," Shine said. "Theo is not telling her everything."
"So he wants to screw her over too?" Qrow said. "Great. We needed that again."
Neo said something else.
"But apparently he's not very happy about using the machine at all," Shine translated. "Neo basically isn't sure why the plan is what it is. But it's probably some threat Watts made."
[Neo's dialogue, by ASL Princess]
She motioned at Neo and Roman to leave. Anything top secret was dangerous for them. They knew their place and left.
"Well, we have Watts here," Winter said, once she could. "Someone should interrogate him. I could--"
"No," Shine, Qrow, and Raven all said at the same time.
"No?" Weiss said. "Why not?"
"She's pretty intimidating," Jaune said helpfully.
Pyrrha choked back a laugh.
"Not a chance," Qrow said.
"You could never pull it off," Raven said.
"Watt's is a weasel," Shine said, more evenly than them. "He'd be sure to twist the situation around."
"You could do it," Wally said.
"Me?" Shine said. "I don't interrogate people."
"But you're smart," Wally insisted. "You outsmarted Raven, right?"
"What?" Raven said.
"I mean you made a deal with her," Wally amended hastily. "Not outsmarted. That was a total foul. But I mean, back at home you always handle the smart bad guys. Vandel Savage, Humanite likes you, Darksei--okay, bad example maybe, since he just kind of talked, but all of the other ones. You even got Batman to admit he has feelings, and no one does that."
"Is any of this supposed to mean anything to us?" Winter was impatient.
"The point is Shine is real good at getting around people," Wally said. "If anyone could handle Weasel Watts, she could."
"He might be right," Raven said, surprisingly. "I've seen her do it. I admit, I'm a good planner, but I'm not a people person. I find them too annoying. I'd probably just kill him. But you don't do that, right? Why don't you try to work your way around him, same as everyone else? Get him to talk without realizing he's doing it."
"Oh, getting him to talk is not the hard part," Emerald said. "But he'd double cross you, for sure. Come on, he's not dumb--he'll know you want information."
"Also consider that you can't take him out of that cell, and my father and the General are right next to him," Winter said.
Shine suddenly looked at her oddly, then she smirked. "Winter, you may have just given me an idea... Well, it's risky, but...maybe...I might be able to pull it off... Only, you'd have to give me leave to strike up a deal with him. Watts will only work if he's getting something out of it."
"And you could be quite sure that he wouldn't just do what he did in Atlas?" Winter said.
"Hack Penny?" Shine said. "Well, I suppose he could...if he knew she was here... Has anyone told him?"
"I mean hack the entire CCT," Winter said.
"He shouldn't have the password to this one," Shine said.
"Also he helped build the Atlas system, but the Vacuo one is not quite the same," Hazel spoke up. "I have no doubt he still could hack it, but he'd need more scans of it first, just like we took in Beacon... Still, he's tricky."
"What's his biggest weakness?" Shine asked.
Hazel had no clue.
"I'd say his ego," Emerald spoke up after a moment's thought. "He was always sore about Ironwood not recognizing his genius or something and picking Polendina and the others over him. He couldn't handle that he didn't make the cut, I guess. I think it's stupid."
"Ego never motivates you?" Whitley asked her.
"What do I care who knows me?" Emerald said. "Being famous just means you can't get away with sh--."
"She's not wrong," Pyrrha agreed. "I've almost enjoyed the anonymity of being dead. I suppose it can't last for much longer...and we should talk about that too."
"Later," Shine said. "Do you see how late it is? All of us haven't been resting enough. Look, I'd say this was a productive meeting, but we can't do anything else until we have some kind of strategy to get to our target... If we could bring them to us...I might have an idea."
"But there's more to discuss," Winter said. "The situation is only getting worse out there."
"Maybe something would come to us if we'd actually sleep," Shine said. "You know that's important to your brain functions...and anyway, what are you going to do about it at this hour?"
Winter frowned again. "I don't think--"
"Enough." Shine clapped her hands loudly. "All of you, go to bed. I'm not talking to anyone till tomorrow. Anyway, team RWBY and Arkos have returned--we should be happy about that, not worried about every little detail."
"Little?" Weiss said.
The mouse looked up.
"Go." Shine pointed. "Theo will be back soon if he isn't already. Do you want him to catch us having a secret meeting?"
"I'd like to catch him." Qrow made a fist.
"Qrow, if you blow our cover by getting mad at him before we're ready, I swear..." Shine said.
"What would you do?" Qrow said.
"I suppose find another solution," Shine said. "But you probably wouldn't be part of it. Go."
"You don't tell us what to do," Yang said.
"Miss Xiao Long," Winter warned.
"I'm not staying around here anyway," Yang huffed. "Why would I want to? Just saying, you're not my boss..." She stalked out of the room.
"I guess we should all go," Blake said. "I'm exhausted... I didn't even sleep in that other world...but weirdly, I didn't feel tired till we got back."
"Really? That lag always hits me right off," Wally said.
"Well, how would you know?" Raven said.
"Because--" Wally stopped.
"And we have to talk about that," Ruby said. "Tomorrow..." Seeing the look in Shine's eye.
All the kids left.
Qrow frowned at Wally. "What was that?"
"Nevermind," Wally said.
"I suppose we might as well tell all of them," Shine said. "It's a wonder they don't know already. I ended up letting it slip to team RWBY, but really, they were being so snippy about that portal, I had to tell them why I was right."
"What is this about?" Hazel asked.
"If you think they're ready, " Wally said.
"I mean, the ice is broken. They already know it exists," Shine said. "And Raven knows already."
"Why does she know?" Qrow asked.
"Because she was there when Ozpin told us the rest of his story...and that should come out too," Shine said. "But he's not here, so I'll leave it till tomorrow. But in short, Wally and I are also other worldly people."
Blank stares.
Raven looked so smug about knowing that already.
"You're serious?" Hazel said finally.
"Yeah," Shine said. "Is it really that hard to believe?"
"Maybe not that it's possible, but you seem...normal," Hazel said.
"They seem normal to you?" Qrow said. "Wow...I really might have guessed it."
"Not you, Qrow," Winter said dismissively, "but I feel I should have... You practically spelled it out for me before with that business about Nikos... But why did you keep it a secret for this long?"
"Because up until it happened to your own, you'd have thought it was unnatural," Shine said. "Face it, it's frightening. You already didn't like us--why should we make it worse? But that's why we just appeared, that's why we don't have ID, that's why we don't know a lot of things that seem simple but know a lot of things that we shouldn't be able to know. We have ways to know, because of where we're from. Too much to explain now, but that's the reason--and why our powers are different than yours, though it's not the only reason, but even how we express them is different... We are adjusting to your world more and more though. At first we didn't generate an Aura, but now we do. I find my powers are getting more and more external, like a Semblance. Wally and I both keep feeling drained after we use them, much like you do, physically, not just emotionally. Some of that would happen at home, but it's been getting more intense. At the same time, I've never had such flexibility. Bringing people back to life so easily never happens at home. In fact, it never happens at all. Here, it's nothing. Your world is extremely open to miraculous events."
"I have no idea what that means," Winter said.
"Clearly it means that each world has different rules," Raven said. "Like in the one the girls were in, animals can talk. They don't here."
"Very good, Raven," Shine said.
"And Oz knew about this?" Qrow said.
"As he'll be happy to tell you tomorrow, he's already met one of us," Shine said.
Silence.
"A long time ago," Wally added. "We're new."
"What happened?" Winter asked.
"He...sent them away," Shine said gravely.
"You've got to be kidding," Qrow said. "He just sent them...and they left?"
"She left...and she had no choice," Shine said. "I guess she didn't cast a wide enough net, but who am I to criticize her? Perhaps it was as wide as it was meant to be, but it is a choice on the Guide's part. Oh, the Guide is the principal person a World Walker (that's what you call it here) meets and connects with. Ours is Oscar, here. Her's was Ozpin. He wasn't Ozpin at the time though."
"So that's why you were so cozy with that kid right off," Qrow said.
"It was his choice, Qrow," Shine said, firmly. "We were direct with him. Usually it's the first person we meet, but not always. I met Jaune first, but I knew he wasn't a Guide...a friend, yes, but not a Guide."
"What is the qualification of one?" Winter asked.
"Usually a certain depth of understanding of reality that is just uncommon to other people," Shine said. "You might call it intuitive, but that's just another word for people who know things with their hearts that can't be explained in your head, because we're all foolish, but some of us have wisdom under it that is just there for whatever reason. But Guides are not alike in any other way. Mine have been anything from queens to rebellious teenagers."
"Well, good talk," Wally said. "But I'm super tired. Can we call it a night?"
"Yeah," Shine said. "I'm sure they have plenty to think of anyway. But by the way, Winter, thank you."
"For what?" Winter said blankly.
"I know perfectly well you are the one who brought them around," Shine said. "No one else could have. So thank you. Good night."
They left.
"Again, she's a little too clever," Raven noted. "Well...d---."
[Yep, that about sums it up.]