Beacon Days

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Life in Beacon was one he was thankfully prepared for, after his years of Instructors rigors and regimen. Classes started at seven o'clock, and breakfast was only served until six forty-five, presumably as much to ensure that every student had no excuse for being late to courses for the day as to make certain the cooks and cleaners could be reset before lunch break and, after, dinner. The workload they had to handle was similar a swell, minus the Force - and Sith, particularly - centered aspects of course such as the meditations and mind hardening Dark Side rituals. The Academy was split into several departments as well, each different though always related to combating the Grimm in some respect.

Combat courses taught the obvious, in how to fight Grimm and Man alike, and hardened students against injury and pain in a way Instructor would have prided himself on. History courses taught lessons that learning naturally meant dying, along with sharpening the future fighter's wits. Memorization and recitation of information bore one fruit, after all. A mind that could recall information quickly which, he knew, was a useful tool. 'When in Mistral, do as the Mistralians do' only worked if you could remember what Mistralians would do after all.

Then, there was Grimm studies. Which taught a wide variety of subjects and did so intensely, spread between three teachers with Professor Peter Port at the head for… Some reason. From normal, predictable Grimm armor patterns and their weaknesses, how to harvest Grimm plating for Hunt jobs that required trophy evidence - Wyverns and Goliaths for examples - since their corpses could dissolve quickly if their bodies were too damaged, and then...

"But I don't want to write a paper on Grimm herding whatever, Renny!" There was the study of Grimm herds, their naturel movement patterns, and diversionary tactics to divert them. "I smash things, I don't memorize the herding patterns of Beowolves!"

"Huntresses do." Ren pointed out quietly, smiling pleasantly despite Nora's exuberance as always.

"Not on the weekends!"

"I do not believe that Huntresses get the weekends off, Nora." Pyrrha offered gently, smiling as pleasantly as she could as tired as she clearly was from sparring class earlier in the day. In the same voice of polite exhausted, she went on, "In fact, the weekend is the best time to train and study both. No courses to take our time from us."

"True." Jaune nodded, actually considering for a while if they should do some training. Turning to his partner beside him and ignoring the pouting from the partner pair in front of him, he wondered aloud, "In fact, do you think using Saturday for some joint training drills would be-"

"Weekends are for relaxing! Resting! I reject the idea of weekend assignments!" Nora interrupted in her petulant, faux-serious way once the weekend reached them, and they retired with their weekend assignments between them and relaxation. As she had a couple times through the week, she bounced past her partner and his both, stopping in front of him and pouting, "Jauney, it's okay for me to relax this weekend, right?"

"What Ren says goes, Nora." He chided gently, the girl pouting with her arms crossed and eyes narrowing threateningly. Face flat, he shrugged and pointed out, "Unless you want to explain to the Headmistress why you don't have your paper come Monday. Which you know what that will get you, and us. Right?"

"Yeah…"

"I wanna hear it, Nora. So I know you understand." He sing-songed cheerily, smiling at the pouting girl while Pyrrha fought a laugh behind her, sitting on her bed and starting to unpack her books. Nora stubbornly grunted, pantomimed zipping her mouth shut, locking it, and throwing the 'key' away before 'hmphing' and turning to stare at the wall in defiance. Sighing, he rolled his eyes and turned to Ren, "How long do you think the paper will take us?"

"Working together? Thirty to forty minutes." The man answered, accepting the primer and outline folder Pyrrha offered as he stepped by, headed to the desks to open it and skim while he talked. "The assignment is a team paper assignment, and only requires we detail common Grimm migratory passages around Vale's external land. The mostly unclaimed territories, not the more settled, defended ones."

"Nora, you go and get us food. Enough for all of us, not sweets," her smile fell slightly at that addition, but she listened on dutifully regardless, "and drinks, too. Pyrrha, go with her, please. Make sure everything gets sorted right, and help her carry it back. Ren and I will get set up and started skimming the material."

His command power over their team was, he knew, purely ceremonial outside a mission. And yet with some amount of pride, after so little time together, he watched the three move to do as he told without argument. Not a privilege he'd been easily granted, he knew, but rather one he enjoyed due to what they'd seen him do in Initiation. Faith placed temporarily was, after all, still faith. And he was humbled by it, even as it stoked his ego and fed his pride.

'Balance.' He reminded himself silently, helping his teammate lay out their books in a small circle on the floor for work. 'In all things, a balance. Be humbled by their trust and be proud to have earned it. Breathe the contradiction, accept it as part and parcel of life."

Instructor had taught him as much, and his lessons had not failed as yet.

The girls arrived thirty minutes later, the walk to the Academy kitchens and the wait as their food was made and paid for - Pyrrha was a saint for dealing with Nora's appetite and the costs that bore - before they had to carry it all back to the rooms across the campus. Not that the two women minded much, really, arriving to their dorm with a half-dozen boxes of Beacon brand pizza in one of Nora's hands, the smell of cinnamon and sugar from a brown bag in Nora's other, and Pyrrha holding two little plastic trays of bottled grape and orange sodas one to each hand. The pizzas were distributed along with the little aluminium strays they'd sent along for them to eat off, and Ren explained as they ate.

"Beowolf packs are, individually, typically relatively small. No more than a dozen lesser Beowolves underneath a leading Alpha Beowolf. These patrol what is presumed to be their territory, but don't engage anything except for people when they do. Wolves, bears, other Grimm, the Beowolf packs will walk right by them without concern from either party." Ren explained, his book open while he skimmed with one hand, other carefully keeping the food away from the book while he turned to take bites. "According to this, no one knows exactly why the Beowolf packs move the way they do. But they do know that they tend to rove around a mile from villages, settlements and three miles from the Kingdom's walls. Though it's not unheard of for them to notice people, low flying transports, whatever the case, and come in for a suicidal attack."

"If they don't even know why the Grimm herd the way they do, how are we supposed to-" Ren cut Nora off by kicking the bag of sugary cinnamon sticks closer to her, and she pounced on them with wide, excited eyes. She took one and started chewing on it, waving a hand and murmuring something incomprehensible at them that sounded like 'I have food now'.

Nora's weakness, it seemed, was purely in shoving sweets at her and letting nature take its apparent course. 'Not the worst weakness to have, really… Not like a Beowolf will bribe her attention away with a freshly baked cake or something."

"So the paper is theoretical." Jaune guessed, looking to Ren and lifting a slice of pizza towards his mouth, "They want us to guess based on evidence and offer our reasoning. Right?"

"It seems that way. You and I read the entire section on Grimm herds, herding tactics, and Grimm group psychology. There are others I doubt would be unimportant." Ren shrugged and, for everyone's benefit, offered, "I doubt Grimm trapping or trophy skinning would entail much about why Grimm move how they do, for instance."

"More likely they'd prioritize how to construct traps and kill Grimm such that their bodies do not dust away." Pyrrha offered, herself skimming her own textbook and offering, "It says here that perhaps the Grimm instinctively patrol the peripheries of settled land simply because packs that do not are quickly killed. Maybe such simplicity is the truth of things?"

"Let's just write on that, then." The exercise was probably more a test of their ability to think on their feet and make good guesses based on little information, after all. So the blonde Force wielder felt comfortable making the leap and jumping on that particular topic. "No one knows for sure what drives Grimm to their patterns, nature of the beast. .Literally. But we do know the basic evolutionary paradigms."

"Herds and groups that die do so for mistakes or failings, and other packs that survive do so because they don't make those mistakes." Ren summarised, "Rinse, repeat, add a few decades and a species has adapted somewhat."

"We've seen it in pigeons and dogs, why would Grimm be so different?" Pyrrha added supportively, Nora grunting and nodding aggressively on her other side, laid on her back now while she chewed on a sweet stick. Rolling her eyes and sliding an open pizza box around to rest against the back of Nora's legs to block any accidents, Pyrrha went on, "I agree, let's write on that. A simple enough topic, and once done we can enjoy our weekend together."

"The first weekend as a team could be enjoyable to spend together." Ren observed, raising his voice slightly, for Nora's benefit and attention, "Maybe we could go see a movie and eat a dinner together?"

"Pruth Bilthis!" The girl shouted, sitting up sharply with wide, almost manically excited eyes. Ren and Jaune both shot her a meaningful glare and she giggled, swallowing hard to force the mouthful down. Finally, she repeated in an excited, sugar high voice, "The new Spruce Willis movie comes out on Sunday! A-And there's that new superhero movie, too-"

"The Revengers." Ren offered quietly, calmly scratching out notes ahead of their work to come. "I believe it's the sequel to Stone Wars from a few years ago-"

"We have got to see that!" Nora crowed excitedly, bouncing where she sat like a child promised candy. Causing very not childlike reactions thanks to physics and her bouncing that had Pyrrha grabbing her shoulders to try and hold her still, the woman still rattling off ideas and trying to bounce all the while, "We could go out for pizza together, or maybe tacos, and grab some donuts on the way to the theater, and watch the movie, and-"

"We can talk out our plans after we're done with our homework." Jaune interrupted, slyly adding, "If you want to go out tomorrow that badly, maybe you should… Help us get done? Hm?"

"Jaune, you are going to regret-"

"The Queen is here to lead her glorious subjects in conquest of the evils known as 'homework'!" Nora crowed, tossing Pyrrha back with a hand and earning a surprised cry from the Mistralian champion fighter. Standing, feet spread and fists on her hips, nora continued in a bright, faux-regal tone, "Lord Jaune, you are in charge of leading my forces into battle! Are you prepared, my general?"

"I don't understand-"

"Just go with it." Ren suggested, the blonde young man rolling his eyes and sighing.

"Fine, yes, I am ready to lead your armies into battle, Nora-"

"Your highness!" She corrected, grinning ear to ear and adding after a moment, with an almost wistful sigh, fanning her face with an invisible but no doubt elaborately crafted fan while she spoke, "But ah, you are new to the grand court of the Queen of the Castle. So I will forgive your transgressions just this once, if you should succeed in your crusade."

With an already weary roll of his eyes, the blonde turned to Ren and they exchanged a nod, and set to work. Before their new 'queen' got agitated or, for the worse or the better either way and he couldn't decide, she got bored of the game and returned to eating and bouncing around the room. Something that the reserved Nikos seemed entirely uncomfortable with given… Basic physics and their application on female body parts, as he chose to think of the issue.

Better to focus on the assignment rather than Nora or… Parts of Nora the exuberant girl didn't deign to consider. Or that she was trying to show off for Ren, he considered, based on the way her bright eyes would sometimes slide to her reserved partner.

'Well that's an intriguing thought…' He noted silently, half-listening to his work partner explain Beowolf hierarchies for him and half-looking at the woman, fairly lost in thought. 'I wonder if the infatuation runs both ways, or Ren is simply ambivalent to her. Or if he wants to remain friends…'

He'd need to watch them, he decided, in case their romance - or lack thereof, both could cause problems - endangered the team's stability. Not that he was seriously worried about that, really. If Nora decided they were dating then Ren would probably smile calmly, roll his eyes good naturedly, and go along with it more than happily. Such was how their relationship appeared to function, at least from a cursory observation, after all.

He put his bets on Nora taking the lead eventually, though, as he turned from his idle musings to finally focus. Not in time for Ren not to give him a suffering, aggrieved look, of course from his lack of helping with the project. He smiled, murmured an apology, and leaned into the project with gusto. He's had enough of getting distracted, even if the long day had him frazzled to the point of that coming a bit easier than normal.

Also, Nora.

Nora tended to frazzle people, to say the least. A fact exemplified when the orange haired woman noted the two men doing the project and leapt for Pyrrha, tackling the woman with a victorious cheer and her muted 'hmph' to get past her at the last of the sweets. She reminded him of his youngest sisters, in fact.

"I have an idea, rather than a movie night, for us." He started, a spur of the moment idea coming to mind as the trio looked to him, "Do you want to visit my mother for lunch? I can make a call, and she's an excellent cook."

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"Most of the girls will be back in Ansel right now, the older ones I mean." He explained as they walked down the Grand Boulevard through the heart of Vale proper.

Like most at Beacon, when they went into town, they did so in their combats, lacking more 'normal' clothes for the moment and more comfortable in them than their uniform. Even if he sometimes got looks for his robes, and Pyrrha left behind people who recognized her attire even with the lacking armor. Her hair and bodice both were recognizable enough, even if she had left behind her armored greaves and only come in her gloves and stockings. Not for the first time, he wondered if they should stop and buy different clothes, but for now this was still more comfortable than their stiff uniforms.

Continuing his explanation for the teeneagers trailing behind him, he went on, "The older girls are trained enough to fight with the Guard, you know? So they're helping patrol the forest and get the Mountain Ranger outposts through the mountains set back up."

"Ansel makes use of Ranger Posts as well, then?" Ren asked, Nora for once silent and looking at him for answers as well, face curious and lacking any mal intent he could sense. The same could be said of Ren, when he reached out with the Force, so the blonde slowed, walking beside the man now instead of leading them all through Vale, "We're from Mistral, where the Kingdom Mountain Ranger Corps was invented. Vale itself doesn't use them, or need them with the way their terrain is, but the region Ansel sits in does?"

"Yes, we do." He answered simply, feeling a very Sith itch to obscure the information for secrecy's sake, to keep their security measures to themselves, crawl up. He quashed it back down immediately, and elaborated, "My mother went to Mistral with my father, a couple years before I was born. Looking for ideas to make Ansel safer with as little overhead as possible."

"The Mountain Rangers were certainly good for that, in Mistral…"

"I never got the chance to learn much about them, really. Back home." He shrugged, the apparently Mistralian couple - as not 'together together' as they might claim they were - giving him a glance at that. Even Pyrrha, on the other side of their little group as they parted through the sparser than normal, lunchtime crowds, gave him a look and he sighed, explaining, "I was… Away from home, for a long time, Pyr can tell you the story. Had a lot of catch up to do, when I got back, and… That all took priority over curiosity."

His priorities rather simply ran his family, working with the Force, and pursuing his goals to be a hero. Somewhere past that, down the line, learning about everything he was curious about came in.

"Mountain Rangers are like a militarized forest ranger, in a lot of ways." Pyrrha was the one to start explaining, loud enough to be heard over the Bullheads buzzing up from a few of the store rooftops, headed off to the industrial zone alongside the trucks and cars that came and went through the middle of the boulevard. "In Vale, throughout the forest, ranger towers with small buzzcraft are placed at good sight ranges to report on fires and Grimm, and move to villages in the path of either using their personal craft."

"The same is the case for the Mountain Rangers, except their jobs entail a more… Military edge, as well. Typically two to three are stationed at each waystation, with room for more scouts ranging between them." Ren added quietly, doing his best to ignore the crowds clustering outside a restaurant, making more than enough noise to annoy as they passed, "If they see Grimm in low numbers, they engage them, and as such are armed and issued armor for the job. Expensive, but compared to buying Hunters for every problem..."

"Kinda pricey to buy weapons and armor, but a lot cheaper on the general than, like, a dozen Hunters just hanging around." Nora summarised for his benefit, the blonde nodding gratefully at the addition and filing it away.

"Using it is a fine enough method to-"

"Oh Dust, is that the Pyrrha Nikos?" He sensed the girl's agitation and turned, looking back at a crowd of younger girls in frilly shirts and skirts, standing a few inches back with their Scrolls up, snapping pictures of the girl's back. Pyrrha turned, a fake little smile on her face, and the one in the middle cooed, "It is! Oh, you're so pretty! Can I have a picture?"

"Of course." Pyrrha nodded demurely, giving them an apologetic look before the girls half-dragged her away, wrapping their arms around her and posing with her while they took turns snapping photos.

All the while, around them, he saw the Force darken with despair and aggravation, mixed with sorrowful resignation. Pyrrha's emotions, he knew, clouding the Force so suddenly he choked and instinctively took a step towards them to force the girls away from her.

"Jaune?" Nora was the one to grab his arm and stop him, turquoise eyes meeting his with evident concern written across her face when he tried and failed to pull free from her grip, scowling down at her slightly.

Ren moved to his other flank almost out of his perception, turned towards him with his hand on his shoulder, back to the street while he pointed out. "You looked like murder, for a moment there, Jaune…"

"They're upsetting her." He pointed out dryly, nodding to the cluster of overly touchy girls around Pyrrha a few feet away.

He could tell, sense, it and knew they could see it as well by their frowns and their own agitation echoing into the Force around them. Even in only a week, the difference between her forced laughs and stiff smile was evident compared to her brighter laughs and easier smile. A small difference, but one they all could see easily enough. And their bonds may have still been young and weak, but they were more than strong enough to flare at her being forced into what she so disdained.

"We can tell." Ren murmured quietly, leaning close enough that he could hear them and the girls couldn't. "But I lived outside the Kingdoms for a long time, and know when someone is about to get physical. You need to calm down."

"I didn't mean to…" They were right and he knew it and he paused for the realization, letting Nora pull him back a step and turn him. He, more gently, tried to pull free and she let him and he sighed, forcing himself to relax mentally and physically both. His team members noticed it and relaxed in turn, easing away from him slightly but standing close enough to offer their support. "My… My Semblance makes me sensitive to emotions, and Pyrrha went from happy to agitated so quickly, I reacted."

He'd let his temperance go because he'd been surprised, and the seductive, corruptive aspect of the Dark Side had been quick to latch onto him and direct him, to fan his passion into something dark. Such was the whole truth, and such was what he wasn't ready to share with them just yet. Instructor had warned him of the Force's dangers, and being too trusting was one of those lessons. A Force wielder, Jedi or Sith either way, could very easily become overconfident in their ability to tell people's intentions and be too trusting.

He'd read a dozen Sith accounts that showed where that went…

'In time, Jaune. It will come in time.' He promised himself as Pyrrha finally, mercifully, managed to get away from her fans and rejoin them. 'I will trust them in time, once doing so isn't naive and foolish.'

Even if he already wanted to, he knew it would be silly to. But he set the thoughts aside as Pyrrha rejoined them and smiled apologetically.

"I'm sorry about that." She swallowed anxiously, glancing between each of the and noticing his sour grimace, before her eyes flicked to the ground to avoid it. "I'm famous, of the sort that garners fans rather than yours that garners more professional eyes, so… It will likely happen, time to time."

"It's fine." He nodded, offering her a smile in the hopes of relaxing her and feeling happy when she relaxed slightly. With a jerk of his head he turned, asking, "You guys want to get to lunch or what?

They were more than happy to hurry along at that and, if he used the Force to forcibly and subtly divert people's attentions away from Pyrrha as they walked, well… It's not like anyone would know or could prove it.

The house that had been arranged at first and now existed under Arc ownership proper was a relatively simple design, of a Valean aesthetic. Tall and thin like many houses, the house was made of carved stone brickwork, built by Kingdom Engineers to take advantage of Vale's nearby mountains' supplying the Kingdom with quarried stone regularly and use as much space as possible. Outside, the five-story house had been painted red, resting against a white one to one side and a green one to the other, the sides conjoined and roofs staircasing with the rolling hill the housing district had been built on.

The top three floors, he knew from his sister's descriptions, were separated into bedrooms three to each floor, with a tight turning spiral staircase dominating the middle of the design. The second floor was a kitchen area and the master bedroom, and the bottom was a living room that wrapped around the staircase. None of the rooms were very large, maybe eight feet from the inner door to the wall, but such was middle-class life in the Kingdoms. The Walls offered safety from the Grimm, but caused constriction of space by necessity, while outside them there was plenty of space to spread out.

'Plenty of Grimm too.' He pointed out for his own benefit, leading the trio behind him up the short stairs to the door and raising a hand to knock. After a moment of silence, he called out, "Mother? I came for a visit with my team like I-"

"Jaune! So good to see you, sweetie." The door swung open and thick, strong arms grabbed him, pulling him against his mother's shoulder in a tight hug and then tugging him inside before he could attempt to escape. Dragging him bodily to the side, a hand tousling his hair while he flushed and let her hug him, she beamed a motherly smile at his team, "You're the rest of Juniper, hm?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Pyrrha was the one to answer, Ren too busy keeping Nora from either rushing off to explore the house or saying something they'd regret. She stepped forward and offered her hand to the woman, smiling at the familial display, "I am Pyrrha Nikos, your son's partner."

"Oh my, pretty and beautiful. You have excellent taste, Jaune, just like your father." His mother complimented, Jaune able to sense his partner's embarrassment as her face flushed to match her hair. The woman chuckled at seeing that and released the blonde, grabbing his partner's stiff hand before she could recover, "I'm only teasing, Pyrrha."

"A-Ah." The woman coughed into her fist when his mother released her hand and, fighting her embarrassment now and giving him a sour look at his smirk, she gestured to the other two with them, "These are our team members, Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie."

"Hiiii~!" Nora waved excitedly and bounced on her heel, Ren laying a hand on the small of her back to subtly tell her to calm down. The woman glanced up at him and then back to his mother without comment, asking instead, "You're Jaune's mom? But you're so pretty, and Jaune's so… Meh!"

"Oi!" Jaune chimed in playfully, smiling at the roll of her eyes.

"Oh my, aren't you the sweetest little thing…" His mother turned to him and stepped aside at that, smiling mischievously. "Speaking of sweet little things… Jade! Hazel! Your brother came by for a visit with his team!"

"Oh no… I hear incoming." He heard the little footfalls of the youngest two of his sisters thudding down the stairs and turned, in time to catch the two wiry little girls slamming into him at full pelt. Muscled and backed by the Force, he only staggered back a few inches, chuckling and hoisting the two girls into the air, spinning them around in a hug while they giggled. Kneeling he let them go and they staggered back, grinning wide, childish grins while he asked, "Now how have you little gremlins been, hm?"

"We're fine!" The sisters chorused brightly together, smiling brightly and looking like miniature copies of Saphron, sans scars. The oldest, with slightly shorter hair, asked for them both, "How have you been? Killed any monsters?"

"Yep! A lot of them." Hazel had always been one to look up to Hunters, always wanting to fight Grimm herself once she got a few years older than their current ten. Grinning, he put on an air of confidence, kneeling on the floor and flexing a bicep jokingly, "Why, just a day ago, I killed a dragon."

"Liar!" She giggled, her younger sister adding a chorus to that after a second.

"Nuh-uh!" He childishly imitated, standing and gesturing to Pyrrha with both his hands, grinning the same grin his mother had given him moments ago, "Just ask my partner! Pyrrha Nikos."

The two gasped and turned to look up at the woman, who blinked and had just enough time to meet his eyes. After a scarce second, she murmured, "This is cruel…"

Then the two were on here, hugging her legs and hammering her with questions faster than she could stammer out answers. One of them grabbed her hips and the other a knee and Pyrrha fell with a startled, gentle cry of surprise. She landed on her rear and, the clever little goblins they were, the girls seized on their successful plan and grabbed an arm each to hug, battering her with more questions. Pyrrha, ever patient and ever kind, tried her best to keep up but two young girls were not something she'd been trained to handle.

"Girls." His mother finally chided in the way only a mother could, the two immediately turning to her and letting the Mistralian go. Pyrrha tried to hide it, but she stood up quickly to escape tiny hands while his mother chided them, "Be nice to Jaune's team, now. You're not being polite."

"I-I assure you, they were not in any way a-"

"Not what she meant." Jaune interrupted with a smile, giving the girls a look, "How could you welcome my partner but not my team like that? That's so unfair, right girls?"

"Jaune you absolutely son-of-a-" Nora's half-serious insult was interrupted when Jade slammed into her with a wide hug, and Ren blinked before Hazel did the same to him. With a Grimm-like roare, Nora scooped up her little girl and spun her, giggling, in her arms, "Ahhh, I love kids! Delicious snacks for the Nora!"

"Jaune, your friends can play with the girls." His mother murmured, laying a hand on his arm, "You mind helping me set up for dinner?"

"Sure." He shrugged, following the woman up the stairs and into the kitchen, setting to work under her instructions efficiently. She didn't need the help, he knew that for a fact. What mother could after years with over half a dozen kids?

She just wanted the company, and he didn't mind providing it.

"Do they know about your, ah… Religious tendencies?" She finally asked, minutes later as they were setting the table in the opposite end of the bottom floor, the girls busy with the rest of his team across the way. "I know you're wanting to keep the information under control, so… You know, I need to know."

"I've been saying it's a Semblance, and avoiding any questions when I slip up and mention the Force by name." A mistake he was getting better about not making now, having adjusted to spending time with people he needed to get to know. As opposed to his family, and people they paid, the latter of whom he hadn't spent much time around. "Once I know them better… I'll tell them the rest. For now, though…"

"Trust is earned." His mother nodded understandingly, calling out after a second, "Girls. Wash your hands for dinner. You older children as well."

He rolled his eyes and turned to do as she said while the girls disentangled themselves from Nora, who they'd been playing with. The other three stood and followed, trailing behind towards the bathroom sink and echoing a pleasant, happy mood into the Force around them. Enough that, for once in a week, he relaxed in his seat fully and let himself smile just as much while his mother set out the potatoes and ham she'd decided to make when he said he was coming over.

'Today was a very, very good day…' He decided, watching Pyrrha slice the ham at his mother's suggestion and smiling even wider. Now for a nice dinner to round out the Saturday, and relaxation tomorrow in his dorm. With a good book, hopefully.

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Special Author Explanation Thingy -

To note, the description I use of Vale is built out over most of my stories. In essence, for here so I don't have to integrate the description and bloat the word count, the city is split as such.

A grand boulevard - think Time Square for function, but much longer, about ten miles, and a bit wider as well - splits the city from north-west to the south-east, where the ocean is. Around the natural bay of the Valean harbor is a large warehouse, shipping and industrial zone full of production for everything from firearms and domestic goods, to Bullhead parts, orders to repair the Wall with, and naval ship production for trade between the Kingdoms and travel.

Closer to Beacon and past a large swathe of wealthy housing districts, for obvious reasons, at the northern region of the Kingdom past the Grand Boulevard, is the Government District. With large bureaucratic buildings, liaison offices for military and Hunter duties, and the grand Council Chambers in the center, with diplomatic halls and dormitories for dignitaries from other Kingdoms adjoining. As well as housing for representatives elected by the populace of Vale and the largest settlements outside it, as few of them as there were.

At the opposite end of the Boulevard is a span of several blocks curving with the natural harbor, with nicer, middle-income housing towards the shopping districts, administrative offices and skyscrapers flanking the Boulevard's. Imagine New York's nicer housing, and you're good. A few blocks at the edge of the warehouse districts and the industrial zone has the poorer housing, mainly populated by malcontent Humans that don't fit in and Faunus, or people of either species unable to get a career outside the industrial work. The only exceptions are the three larger transport roads leading to the docks proper, flanked by more of the nicer houses owned by merchants and explorers that work there, though many foreman and dock owners have homes built into their warehouses.

A bit long-winded, but here you go. Would have been worse adding the flowery description to the story proper and integrating it in. I've built it up a lot over the years, and doing it again… Feels like cheating, I guess.