[RWBY] Jaune BS Self Insert

[AndrewJTalon]

I dreamed.

I knew it was a dream the way you knew a sword was coming at your face a half-second too late. The world had that wrong, syrupy weight to it. Beacon's halls stretched too far. The windows showed a sky that was not Vale's. And at the end of the corridor, where Ozpin's office should have been, there was a throne room of black glass and old bone.

And there sat Salem, like she owned the place.

She was beautiful in the way an atomic bomb blast was beautiful-Powerful, all encompassing, and deadly. White hair. Pale skin veined with Grimm-black. Eyes like dying stars. She smiled at me like we were old friends who had simply missed a few millennia.

Salem: "Jaune Arc. At last."

Jaune: "... Yeah. Hi. I'd say 'nice place' but I feel like that'd be lying."

Salem: chuckles, rises. Her gown whispered over the floor like falling ash "I can reach those touched by Magic. Those who register to me strongly enough. You... register." She circled me, slow, almost fond. "You shine. Not like Ozma. Not like the Maidens. Something else. Something that should not be here."

Jaune's Brain: Cool. Cool cool cool. Immortal witch queen in my head. This is fine. This is totally fine.

Jaune: "So this is a sales pitch."

Salem: "A conversation." She stopped in front of me. "The Brother Gods told mankind they made this world. They did not. They held great power in the days of what they called First Humanity, yes. Enough to pose. Enough to punish. Enough to play at being architects." Her mouth twisted. "They were liars. Fallen divine things pretending. Not the True Creator."

Jaune: "... And the rest of the mythos?"

Salem: "The Blacksmith. The Tree. The Ever After's little gods of craft and consequence." She flicked her fingers, dismissive. "Powerful. Old. Still not Him. Still not the One who actually wrote the first word. The Brothers inherited a garden and called themselves gardeners. Then they scolded me for using the keys they left on the table."

Jaune: "You used those keys to rip Ozma out of death and unleash the Grimm upon humanity. You caused the war that destroyed everything."

Salem: "They told me not to. After they had already given me the means. After they let him die. After they leaned down and flicked us aside the moment we disappointed them, after they let us destroy eachother. After they turned my Ozma against me, turned my daughters against me...." Her voice did not rise. That was the worst part. "So I will make mankind like unto the Grimm. No more death. No more gods leaning in to judge. Humanity will triumph over death itself... and then over Them. Why can you not help me? Join me. I would spare those you care for. We could build a world without endings."

I looked at her for a long moment. I had seen this face in fanart and wiki pages and late-night arguments. Standing in front of her was different.

She looked... Tired.

Jaune: "It won't get you what you want."

Salem: "And what is it you think I want, boy?"

Jaune: "To be right."

Silence.

Jaune: "That's it. That's the whole thing. You want the universe to look at what you did and say yes. You want the Brothers to admit they were cruel. You want Ozma to come home and tell you you were justified killing him, that you were totally justified in murdering your children and causing a war that destroyed civilization. That you were right to unleash the Grimm. Ending death is just the excuse." He tilted his head. "What then? You keep climbing? You get past the Brothers. Past the Tree. Past whatever else is sitting between here and the top. You really think you can keep going until you get to God Himself and overthrow Him?"

Salem: smiles, thin and bright and awful "With immortality? Yes. Time is the one weapon they cannot take from me. We can wait. We can learn. We can become what they feared when they first lied and called themselves creators. We can make them pay for their crimes."

Jaune: "Or you could stop."

Salem: "Stop?"

Jaune: "End it. End this war. Realize you can't accomplish this, and end it. Make peace with Ozma. You've had thousands of years to try. Why won't you?"

Her expression flickered. For a second there was something raw under the queen.

Salem: "Because they did this to me. The Brothers made me curse us, it's their fault-!"

Jaune: "No."

The word landed harder than a shout.

Jaune: "You did this. You reached into the afterlife. You dragged Ozma back. That act made you both immortal and it tore the Grimm into the world. That was you. Not them. They were bastards, sure. Liars, sure. Fallen, sure. But you still chose the door. You still turned the key. And you've spent every century since blaming the landlord for the fire you started in the kitchen."

Salem: "You dare-"

Jaune: snorts "It's the oldest story in history, literally. A woman who can't take responsibility for her actions dooms all of humanity."

Salem: "You know your vision of the future is imperfect! We can change it!"

Jaune: "Oh... I'm pretty sure I know what your future will be, Salem, if you get your way."

Jaune's Brain: I can imagine it all too easily...

The dream shifted.

The sun was a red giant, swollen and dying, chewing the sky. Everything else was black. Remnant was ruins. Not dramatic ruins. Just... used up. Cities scoured down to foundations by time itself. Forests gone. Oceans evaporated into space. Even the Grimm had become nothing but dust on the wind-If there was wind, but the atmosphere had long since vanished.

Salem walked through it alone.

She was not a queen anymore.

Her gown was rags. Her hair hung in dirty white ropes. The black veins had eaten further up her throat, across her cheeks, into the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were too wide. Too empty. She moved like something that had forgotten why legs existed and kept using them anyway.

A zombie. An immortal who had seen too much and could not stop seeing it. Would never stop seeing it.

She stopped in the wreck of a city that might once have been Vale. Picked up a child's melted scroll from the ash. Stared at it. Did not recognize it. Dropped it. Kept walking.

Jaune: "No subjects. No Ozma. No daughters. No enemy left to hate. Just you, and a star that will take billions of years more to finish dying, and then the dark after that. And after that... That will be just the first second of Eternity."

Salem: whirls on him from the ruin, wild-eyed, voice cracking into something that was not quite a scream "You're lying!"

Jaune: "Maybe I am." I did not look away from the empty horizon. From her. From the thing she would become if she won. "But you felt it already, didn't you? Whatever put me here. Whatever touched me. It's older than your war. Older than your Brothers. Older than the Tree. So if I'm lying... where does that leave you? Still walking. Still alone. Still waiting for a verdict from a God you intend to kill, after you've already killed everything else that loved you. Forever."

The ragged Salem stared at me. For a heartbeat the queen was gone and there was only a woman who had loved someone and broken the world trying to keep him...

Then the black veins crawled back into place. The throne room slammed down over the ruins like a lid. She seethed at me.

Salem: whisper "This is not over."

Jaune: "Yeah. I figured."

---

I woke up.

The red sun was gone. The ruins were gone. The unused dorm ceiling was the usual plaster. I looked around and saw Yang's discarded jacket hanging off the chair.

Yang was asleep next to me.

Both of us were in our PJs. Her hair was a golden mess across my pillow. One of her arms was slung over my chest like she was daring the universe to take me.

She snored, just a little. It was the most ordinary, stupid, perfect thing in the world.

I held her tighter.

Yang: mumbles "...nngh. Stop thinkin' so loud..."

Jaune: soft "Sorry."

She nuzzled me and went still again.

Jaune's Brain: It was a dream. It had to be a dream. Salem talks through dreams, Ozpin said so, but that doesn't mean that was real, it doesn't...

I stared at the dark window.

Jaune: quieter "... It couldn't be real..."

I pressed my face into Yang's hair, breathed her in, and did not let go.

Outside, the moon hung fractured over Vale, same as always.

I did not sleep again for a long time.