Juniper Bough Ch. 3 (9/22)

CW: Torture

Ren was a true believer.

He was a man of unshakeable faith. He had to be. After what he’d seen, what the Bough had done for him...

He was a child of Mistral, a refugee, one of so much human debris left behind when the Big Men of the world decided that there needed to be a war. His village had been burned, his parents… His memories didn’t go back to that night. All he had in his life was Nora, but Ren knew that clinging to her was like two swimmers caught in an inescapable current—they were only drowning themselves together. Every night, exhausted from their trek south, he did what he could to keep Nora unaware of how dire their situation was, to reassure her that all would be well.

They had made it to Vale, somehow. All the way to Beacon. A place that should be safe, but Ren had learned that safety was something inside, and neither he nor Nora possessed it. Drug pushers. Slavers. Predators who saw lost youths as useful for the unspeakable. When the men with knives took them, Ren didn’t know who they were, but he knew that he had no chance against them. He didn’t see what specific criminal interest were on the face of the men who took him and Nora… who separated him from Nora.

He only saw the end of the line.

Only for a Goddess to intervene.

What else could he call her? Ren was a believer at first sight, not an act of faith, but merely a statement of fact. She fought blind, her heavy mask surely allowing no sight, but with her crimson hair streaming behind her as she cast herself heedlessly forward upon the men, her blade flashing, the slice and cut of her blade singing as she danced through them, punctuated by the flash and smoke of their useless gunpowder. She was beyond the bite of lead and steel—she wasn’t fighting them, no, but unmaking the men, undoing their being and remaking the world before Ren’s very eyes.

He had been too dazed to know what had happened. He heard her voice, the musical lilt of the language of divinity, but he was a heathen who could make no meaning of it. Others told him, later, that she asked if he was alright, but her compassion was as incredible as her abilities, and Ren simply could not handle the truth of what he was witnessing.

She had touched him on his shoulder, and Ren knew that he would follow her to Hell itself.

That was the night he first met Jaune.

Who told Ren exactly how he could follow her wherever she was going.

Two years later, it had been the highest honor of Ren’s life to be named a Sacristan. That he had been chosen by Jaune as part of Pyrrha’s personal detail, along with Nora… from a single encounter, Ren had been transformed from the lowest of the low to the most exalted in all the world. His end became a beginning. Danger became safety. Desperation became hope. Fear became love.

He knew that Pyrrha, as the Vessel, would birth a new world as a paradise. It was not a matter of faith, just the simple truth of who she was. Ren had glimpsed her power to transform the world once before, and he knew what she was capable of.

But not all were Believers as Ren were.

“Brother David,” he said, his voice calm and measured, “Are you familiar with the sin of simony?”

The bound man did not look up.

Some men protested their innocence. Some begged forgiveness. But the truly guilty were those who said nothing. Those who knew the weight of their sins, and yet, sinned anyway.

“The selling of holy offices… it perverts not only your ordination, but the mission of the Temple itself. But you’ve already been tried for that, haven’t you? Issued your penance by Father Lionheart, which you, dutifully, undertook to the Father’s satisfaction.”

He continued to keep his eyes to the floor, but Ren could see the tremble inside his core, slowly unmanning him, slowly gaining speed until he’d been shook to pieces from the inside out. Brother David was one of Ren’s Order. He knew what it meant to be delivered to Ren.

“Penance…” he smiled, letting his voice soften, “It’s a wonderful thing, the truest miracle of our Faith. That we can, like the world entire, be made better. To have our misdeeds washed away and be reborn in the newness of our souls. I rejoice that you, my brother, have been redeemed of your crime, that your soul is unstained.”

A sound finally came forth from the man, a high whine, like air leaking from a kettle, growing lower as Ren watched, amused, as the man’s head shot up.

“J-Just do it already you-”

Ren’s fist met the offender’s jaw and put a stop to his words.

“Your soul is unstained, Brother David. You have been redeemed in the eyes of the Faithful. But simony… simony is two matters. There is the spiritual one, which you have undertaken your blessed penance for. But there is a material issue. One that I have to take responsibility for, in educating our flock to ensure this does not happen again. Because the condition of your penance,” now Ren’s voice took on a slight rise, the thrill of his power slipping through, “was that you professed ignorance of your crime. And for ignorance, the cure is to be instructed, Brother David.”

Ren crouched down and gently untied the man. This was, after all, no longer a condition of his punishment. Ren had no authority to punish any spiritual offense and, particularly in this case, Brother David had already been forgiven. So the offender was no longer an offender, and Ren’s duty was to teach him, not punish him.

And the young Sacristan’s eyes seemed like he was quite open to learning what Ren had to teach.

“Simony undermines our efforts in conversion. It undoes our initial work—we need to first establish belief in common assumptions before we can expand the faithful. When people hear that blessings can be bought by corrupt means, we cease to be a Temple; we become yet another street gang running a shakedown operation, replacing the old with the old. And that,” he growled, making Brother David flinch, “is a deep heresy. The darkest of them all. But one, as you know, for which you’ve been forgiven.”

He visibly exhaled. Perhaps it had been unprofessional of Ren to toy with the man like this, but he needed to ensure that this was a lesson that Brother David would never forget.

“We, as Sacristans, are the hands of the Temple. The preachers and the ecclesiastical orders are the mouth and the mind, the means by which conversion is achieved. But the hands must shape the world so that people are open to heed what the mouth is speaking. But when we corrupt the office, you not only stain your own soul, you maim the hand of the Temple. Your actions cost us our power to achieve our Holy mission. And moreso… a maimed hand is a painful experience.” He looked at the man, no longer so sure he had any reason to be relieved. “Brother David? Place your hand on the table.”

Punctuating his order, Ren drew his pistol.

The man froze. He knew he couldn’t fight Ren. Very few could. And even as he clearly knew what was about to happen, he knew even more clearly what would happen if he attempted to refuse.

Trembling, he placed his hand flat on the table beside him, fingers splayed. Excellent. The power to compel a man to participate in his own maiming was the real demonstration here. Brother David, and what was left of his extremity, would make an excellent witness to the power of the Temple.

“REN!”

Cursing inwardly, Ren turned, moments before he was finished with this annoying task. Now he’d have to start over.

“What do you need, Jaune?” he asked, trying to maintain his calm, collected state, but he was already holstering his pistol, knowing the moment, unlike the offender, was shot.

“I didn’t authorize this,” Jaune growled at him from the doorway. He was Keeper of the Keys, so a locked door, of course, meant nothing to him.

Ren shook his head, not even turning to look at his commander. “I did not think a matter like this necessarily rose to your attention. But we need to take a harsher stance, Jaune. We’re heading into a war, and-”

“Pyrrha wouldn’t want this.”

The name was like a bolt of lightning; all three men were shook to hear it. Ren whirled on Jaune at that, a sudden pang of guilt lancing down his side. “You and I both know why we don’t tell her of our operations. We do not sully the Vessel’s mind with-”

Jaune rose to it. “We do not,” he shouted back, “sully her name with mutilations! Scarlet David has been forgiven of his crimes, and he will be released from our Order. That was the punishment he earned, that will be the punishment he receives.”

Eye to eye, they stared at each other, their eyes alight with silent communication. Jaune was a full half of the people Ren considered to be close to, and they had worked together for years. He knew his stance on this as surely as Ren knew his. Were they too brutal, were they letting control slip from their fingers. Ren feared Jaune would let the entire Quarter escape them, just to keep from making a small mistake. Jaune feared that Ren would try to become a warlord. Both saw defeat in the other.

But in Jaune’s eyes, Ren could tell the one thing that neither of them would ever disagree on.

“You can leave,” he quietly said to the terrified man behind him.

It took only the slightest moment of disbelief before Ren heard him bolt from the chair, likely on instinct more than any conscious decision. Ren had hardly been able to see the flash of red hair for more than a second before he was gone so fast, it was like he’d never been there in the first place.

With Scarlet gone, Ren felt his shoulders slump a little—almost imperceptibly, but those who knew him knew that Ren was capable of relaxing. Like, for instance, Jaune, who plopped himself down on the seat, splaying his legs wide as he smirked.

“Poor bastard,” Jaune laughed, “He’s got no idea he’s about to run right into Pyrrha!”

“The old one-two,” Ren said with a barely noticeable grin, “Thanks for the assist, Jaune.”

Jaune nodded. The sheer rush of emotions Brother David had experienced, from the pits of helpless despair, bracing himself for his coming maiming, to the intervention of chance itself to save him… and he would soon see the face of that Providence, soon to be permanently seared into his mind.

Ren was a true believer. But he hadn’t always been. He had been shaped by his experiences into becoming the man he was today, and Ren paid that forward, putting others through the trials of faith and doubt and hope and despair… until they, too, learned what it meant to believe.

LINE BREAK BLAKE

“So we know… what?”

A board had been set up on the far side of the wall, starting to develop the rudimentary spiderwebs of meaning as Weiss pinned headlines, scraps of paper, and a few sketches she’d been able to scrounge of the cult’s leadership. She didn’t turn to answer Yang’s question, but continued connecting them by careful attachment of pins and string.

Blake always marveled to see Weiss at work. They had never been like this in her days with the White Fang. Yes, they were careful, they made detailed plans—revolutionaries who didn’t didn’t live long—but Weiss seemed to grasp the underlying architecture of the universe, giving form to the formless and sense to the senseless.

She could see the strings, and then, project them upon the board and show the network of information they had. A scrap of paper with “SUN WUKONG” written on it, containing the notes from Blake and Yang’s conversation, as well as some additional notes of Weiss’s own conclusions. He was connected by a red string to a linotype Weiss had clipped from a fishwrapper journal that had published a quite sensational story of “The Vessel of the Juniper Bough!” and their artists rendition of a masked maiden clad in armor… likely showing quite a bit more skin than the real Vessel. And from there, lines to the mysterious Sacristans, the “Nora” Weiss and Ruby had met, the Elders of the Temple, and an ever-increasing spider’s web of people and information. It was thorough, but moreso, it took the unknown mystery of the world and turned it into something that they could grasp.

And it told them that they certainly had their work cut out for them in untangling this skein.

“What we know so far,” Weiss began, “is that we’re not dealing with our ordinary cult. They’re disciplined, organized, and able to pull off covert work… the kind that suggests they’re not just zealots, but pragmatists, and that combination is not favorable to us. At the same time, they’re putting a lot of effort to keep their Sacristans’ real work secret from the believers—they know this hypocrisy is a weakness. It gives us something to exploit, if it comes to a direct conflict. Not that I think that’s necessary just yet, we were only hired to gather information. But whatever we do, we have,” her eyes darted to where the picture of the Vessel was pinned, “matters we’re going to want to have locked down before we move.”

“Sun definitely sees her as something more than human,” Blake cut in, “Even as he was trying to play it cool, it’s clear she freaks him out. But… I do think that, even if she is some kind of phenomenon, she’s probably getting support we’re not seeing.”

“Can’t rule out that maybe she’s just magic,” Yang said, “Sun’s account had a whole lot of things go right for her, guns jamming, the supports collapsing, a table bursting into flame? Can’t rule out the Cult’s got something to it.”

“Ehhh...” Ruby said, doing some quick calculations in her head, “I mean, what Sun described was impressive, but most of it was all just sabotage-stuff. The gun’d be hard, but if they had access to the club—which, if they had traitors in the Malachites, wouldn't be hard—it’d just be planting charges and having some good timing.”

Blake, who strongly disliked even considering that they were anything more than a trick, nodded. “So the Vessel’s not all that special—she’s just got a really good advance team. Maybe that’s another duty of those Sacristans Sun mentioned?”

Glancing at the board, she saw how info seemed to flow through them—elite Temple guards who knew their way better around organized crime than the litany. A unique twist on the everyday cults and political movements that crossed Vale. And… an uncomfortably familiar reminder of Adam and what he wanted to build in the White Fang. What… what she’d been the prototype for.

“I got an idea,” Yang said, kicking her feet up on the table, “We figure out where she’s gonna be, then, we jump her. Figure out real quick whether she is what they say she is when Rubes and I are putting the beatdown on her.”

Ruby pumped her fist in enthusiasm, and Blake had to admit… seeing Yang smack a would-be divinity around would be a fast way to break people’s faith. “And if she is magic?” she asked.

Yang shrugged. “Only way we can find out if it’s all staged or not is if we can put her in a scenario she’s not expecting. And I like our chances better than trying to send a patsy at her.”

“As much as I’m sure you’d love to jump right to violence,” Weiss interrupted, shaking her head, “I’ve been doing some work with my contacts. Getting lunch with one of my sister’s old friends in the Atlesian Marines who’s… fallen on hard times. I had her ask around with some people in the know, and we’ve got a lead. One that we might be able to save us a risky showdown,” she pointedly did not acknowledge Yang’s pout. “But we’re not the only people who’ve been digging up dirt on this ‘Juniper Bough.’ There’s a Faunus journalist named Ilia Amitola—Blake, what do you...”

Weiss’s voice trailed off as she saw the expression on Blake’s face. An expression of pure, undisguised, ah, fuck me.

Yang, of course, grinned. “I take it there’s...”

“Some history, yes,” Blake snapped back. “Ilia’s former White Fang—and someone I worked with closely back then.”

“But isn’t that… good?” Ruby asked, as always, surprisingly innocent for a contract killer.

Blake shook her head. “She’s like all my old Fang contacts—just as likely wants me dead, but...” she sighed. Oh, she did not like what she was about to say, but it was the truth, wasn’t it? “If you let me talk with her… she’ll work with us. Might not be easy, but with Ilia I can… get results.”

She hated the euphemism. Hated more that she was speaking of Ilia this way, but it was easier to treat her like an asset, a resource to be leveraged, than to have to acknowledge what she really meant to her. But… but they needed the intel. There were too many unknowns to the Juniper Bough, and they needed to get a sense of exactly what the hell they were going up against here.

LINE BREAK PYRRHA

Her world was darkness.

She dwelt in an embryonic space, a vestibule of the coming world, with her feet embedded within the current world, but her Being expanding into what was To Be. And so that meant she was removed from the false light of delusion, her eyes blindfolded and concealed behind a stone mask.

But still, she was aware of the world she dwelt in, as strange and dreamlike as it felt, and she could hear the man before her, gripped in the choking embrace of fear and guilt, her visage alone no doubt striking him with the same force her hand would if it was wrapped around his windpipe.

Because as much as she was aware of the world she dwelt in, but was to ignore, she brought her presence, her might, into the world simply by being in it. She raised her hand and felt the man recoil in fear, but instead of a brutal strike, she merely placed her hand on his chest and whispered in Old Mistralian, “Go, and sin no more.”

He crumpled to the ground, weeping in… in a dozen ways, really. Pyrrha could feel his emotions, not by supernatural empathy, as her Sacristans suggested, but just by carefully listening to his tears. He was relieved she didn’t kill him, of course. But there was also remorse for failing her. Self-loathing. Guilt. Terms Pyrrha understood so well. Mingled in there was the religious ecstasy, the catharsis of his sins forgiven and the plunging fear of what would have happened if the Vessel had not been an overflowing container of mercy.

And in his wails and sobs, she heard the echo of Jaune.

She was the Vessel, the pristine and untouched Invincible Girl, removed from the tawdry matters of this fallen world, but in this area, she failed. She always failed. Knowing that this was what Jaune had become, what the Temple had fashioned him into, it… it enraged her. Brought her to an utmost and strangled fury that made her wish she could commit the darkest blasphemies and rend the whole Temple around her for they had done to him!

They had been raised together in the Temple, before she had been raised to her vaunted office. Innocent children, they knew nothing of what they would become. What they would be made into. Back then, they were friends, but moreso, Jaune was a blessing. She was a refugee girl, one of endless multitudes, whose parents had been lost in the war. She had nothing, until the Temple took her in.

And introduced her to Jaune.

Her playmate. Her friend. Her confidant. Her true love.

Love. An emotion, like all emotions, she was forbidden to feel, a mark of her connection to this “fallen” world she was to eschew. What “Vessel” could she be of the True Apotheosis when she had a hidden deficiency? Would she crack when the time came, her connection to the impure and fallen make her unworthy to bear divinity? Could she let go of the feelings she held for the man who’d always been there for her?

But now… now the Temple had reshaped Jaune just as surely as they had reshaped her. He was her Sacristan, something that had overjoyed Pyrrha when she learned he had applied for that high office, but the duties had changed him. Zeal had replaced kindness, devotion had replaced love. He was closer to her than ever, and yet, she was further from him than she was anyone else. Everything was manipulation now. He was the one who made her into a Living Goddess, using Ren and Nora to set the stage, to make her presence theatrical, but Pyrrha had never wanted that.

All she truly wanted was him.

When the time came, she had made her demand. Her one condition presented to the Temple Elders for her full cooperation. Jaune would be the Key—no other. It was the one thing that made this worthwhile, the knowledge that they would consummate their love, in ritual and misdirection, yes, but she would have him, and that was all she needed to keep going.

But her work was done here. She knew that Jaune had arranged this chance encounter, whatever its purpose was, she was to run into a man in need of a divine apparition, some holy presence to transform whatever misdeeds he’d committed into the holy zeal of the forgiven. That’s what they did for her, after all. Engineered situations so that her legend would grow and grow—this man, stumbling to his feet as he raced away to preach her mercy to the crowds, was just another tool of the Temple’s growth.

Returning to her chambers, Pyrrha felt the weight of the world upon her shoulders. Appropriate—she was to bear all of the world along with her as she transcended the material and brought about the new world, but painful as a reminder of her many, many limitations. The one blessing the Mask truly carried was that none could see the torment she perpetually wore upon her face. Exhaustion and grief and loss… but she would keep it hidden.

There wasn’t much left before the Ceremony, after all.

But as she took to her private quarters—little more than a bed, a table, and some chairs—she could feel Nora’s presence, where that serene joy and bubbling confidence that surrounded her like an aura never failed to improve her spirits. Jaune was her personal retainer and truest love, but Nora was close to Pyrrha in the way no other was permitted to be. She helped her unlatch the Mask, though Pyrrha remained, as always, blindfolded.

“I take it something grim and tragic happened on your way back?” Nora asked with a chirp in her voice.

“I encountered a sinner,” she explained, “Some arrangement of Jaune’s, no doubt, to make him expect my wrath and, instead, find my mercy.”

Nora tsked. “They really need to stop doing that. Honestly, it’s just creepy… You know what? We should get back at them! Next time they do this, you break his legs and-”

Pyrrha struggled to muffle a laugh. “I don’t- I don’t think that would help, Nora.”

“Those two are always getting ahead of themselves and trying to run the show. You’re the Vessel, you’re the one who decides what that means!”

“The Elders wouldn’t like that.”

Nora leaned back on her chair, the squeak of the legs on the stone floor confirming it. “They’re not the ones who decide for you either...”

Pyrrha could feel the mood of the room shift. Nora’s implications were obvious, her gentle and compassionate tone making her words cut even deeper. She was Pyrrha’s confidant, the only one outside the Chamber who knew that Pyrrha had demanded that Jaune serve as the Key, or she would refuse to go along, even at pain of death. Nora knew in advance, had told Pyrrha that she was right to demand it, and her support gave Pyrrha the confidence to inform the Elders who they would choose. They had been shocked, had attempted to talk her out of it, but they knew… Pyrrha was their Vessel. It would take years, if ever, to find someone as skilled as her, as loyal as her, and for the time to be as right as it was now. So they’d acquiesced. Not even begrudgingly—it was, in truth, a minor concern, the appointment of what was, to them, a ceremonial role.

But to Pyrrha, it meant everything.

“I… do not think it’s wise to continue to assert myself against them,” Pyrrha said, knowing that this uncertainty could not be shown to anyone but Nora. “They will not tolerate willfulness, both for my spiritual duties, but also-”

“Cause they’re scared of you?”

Pyrrha couldn’t help but smile. “Because they have the power to win any contest. And as you know, I don’t think I’ve had a fair fight in years.”

“Ha!” Nora laughed, “Figured you’d bring that up… but hey, if you’re looking for a challenge, I think you might regret wishing for it. Now that we’ve secured the Quarter, the interest is starting to creep in.”

Appreciating the change in topic, Pyrrha asked, “Oh? Just as we expected, or do you have some personal news here?”

“Met some people in a cafe. Info brokers, but I didn’t see much to impress. Rich girl playing games in the city because she thought she was so good at sniffing out drama between Daddy’s business partners and their mistresses. But… she tipped me off, we’re definitely on the Constabulary’s radar, and her sidekick definitely knew how to read a murder scene, so even if her employer was out of her depth, they’re bringing in the real heat.”

Pyrrha nodded. Nora was perceptive, even if she seemed too boisterous and unserious to be taken as a serious operator. But while Ren and Jaune typically handled the subtle and covert stuff, Nora was no slouch. And she was glad to hear it; Nora’s information was what she knew to expect. They knew that the Bough’s rising would bring a response from all corners—whether from the law or from the various power-brokers of the city, or more so, the various and strange oddities that would sniff out what they were really up to—and Pyrrha was looking forward to facing them.

It gave her a challenge, but more so, a distraction. She didn’t have long before the Ceremony, but ever day felt twice as long as the one before it, the dread of knowing what was coming, the total end of her own self as she ushered in the New… but more so, it was a day closer to her and Jaune… becoming one. But that brought its own heartaches, that she would have Jaune so dearly, so intimately, but only for a moment… she couldn’t bear it.

So she turned to fighting. She was good at fighting. In fighting, she worked with Jaune and Ren and Nora, the four of them a team operating in perfect synchronization, her martial skill paired with Nora’s, Ren’s unparalleled stealth setting up the victory as engineered by Jaune’s brilliance. In those moments, following her instincts and guided by Jaune’s plan, Pyrrha could lose herself in the sheer rush of action and not think… not even remember… how utterly trapped she was.

“Tell me more about this Broker,” Pyrrha said, “Might be good for us to be proactive as everyone lines up to fight us.”