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"You can't be a Huntsman, Jaune!" His father growled shortly, dirty and tired from what had no doubt been a hard Hunt. Capital H for hunt, not lower, since the Grimm were involved. "You're too old to start now."

"You said that when I was fifteen, too!"

"And you were too old to start then, too!" Tired, he collapsed on a low bench inside the wall of Ansel and accepted the bottle of ice-chilled water from a lesser hunter passing them out.

Lesser as in not super powered by his Aura, so no capital 'H'. Even if the man was as good with his bow as his father was his sword. He'd seen the man shot down Beowolves and Ursai himself, from a distance at least, and knew how good he was. Still, no Aura and license meant all he could ever have was that lower case letter.

Taking a drink, the older Huntsman shook his head and sighed, "If you wanted to be a Huntsman, then you would have started a decade ago. More than, even! You're seventeen, Jaune."

He didn't have anything he could say to that. At least not anything that he hadn't already said, bemoaning the unfairness of it all. He'd done that before and his father had usually joined him, offering a comforting arm around his shoulders. He'd also shouted accusations and hate, once upon a time, but he knew his father loved him even as he robbed him of his dream. It was almost even more unfair then him not being able to pursue what he felt in his gut was his destiny, how kind and calm his father was.

Instead of doing anything, then, he sighed and joined his father on the bench, looking up the defensive incline of Ansel.

The first wall was more or less a palisade with dirt mounded up to flatness behind it, elevating the walking area to the height of the wall. Better footing if a fight came, and a better view, the lowest boughs of the pines down the hill below the lip of the wall. Outside the wall was little of the settlement aside from cabbages and potatoes that grew low enough to the ground to not impair vision.

On this level was much the same, albeit with corn and wheat instead of potatoes and cabbages. A road split the two fields which rotated the crops, and farmhouses were nestled against the wall at the end of about a mile of farmland. Beyond it were more houses, as well as craftsmen and lodges for miners and foundry workers whose workplaces even now pumped smoke up and over the mountains that curved around the settlement.

At the very back, at the highest point of the hill aside from the paths that spiraled up into the mountains around the town for the miners, was Arc Manor and the Huntsman Lodge. Each looked the same as the other, long wood and brick longhouses dotted by chimneys and filled with rooms. One for the extensive Arc family, and the other for traveling Hunters in the area. The Grimm kind, that was, with a capital 'H' and everything.

The kind of capital H he wanted so badly to be, to protect this place...

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" His father finally asked, breaking the silence and tugging him from his thoughts. Turning to the man, twice his size and wearing a thick green gambeson, he raised an eyebrow. He snorted and ran a hand through his thick, braided beard, "Ansel, son. It's just the most beautiful damn thing you ever saw, isn't it?"

"Yeah." He nodded, looking at the fields and smiling. "I… Wanted to be a hero to protect it."

"Well…" His father paused for a moment, pursing his lips and taking a deep breath. "Well, son, being a Hunter isn't the only way to be a hero."

"What do you mean?" He asked, watching his father draw and methodically start to clean his greatsword, wiping it down with an oiled rag he'd produced from… Somewhere. When he didn't answer, Jaune prompted him, "I always thought that all the old heroes were Hunters."

"I mean yeah, in them old fairy tales and what not you have up in your room." He bristled at the huge tomes he'd spent so much Lien on being called 'fairy tales' and his father chuckled. Waving him off he smiled and shook his shaggy head, "What I'm trying to say is that your books don't have all the world's secrets locked up in 'em. What, you think 'The Tale of the Seasons' is literal?"

"No…" He wasn't stupid, he knew magic wasn't real. But… "Every old fable has a kernel of truth, dad."

"Hah." The man shook his head again and hefted his sword, Genial Mors, to check its edge for the glint he always took as a tell for it being well sharpened. Sheathing it and leaning it against the wooden rampart beside him, he sighed, "Too many of them games, I tell you what. 'A kernel of truth'."

"Are you going to laugh at me or tell me what you're talking about?"

"No, no, I'll tell you." His father snorted a last laugh, though, as he went and Jaune rolled his eyes. "Second most storied profession on Remnant, my boy, but just as honorable as Hunting. Soldiering."

"You…" His brow furrowed and he chuckled, "You want me to be a soldier?"

"Want? Bah! As if I would want you out there gettin' shot at." His father guffawed and stood, offering his far smaller son a hand to tug him up as he did. Jaune took it and the world rushed by in a whoosh as he was yanked up and off his feet before he landed and stumbled. His father wrapped an arm around his shoulders, dragging him along the path between the farms as he spoke, "No, I'd prefer you settle down here. Learn a trade, earn your keep, marry some cutie and gimme some grandkids."

"Dad…" Embarrassed, he turned his gaze to the path and let the man lead him along.

"You wanna be a hero, son, then I can get you a pass to Atlas." He shrugged and Jaune felt it, his shoulders rising pulling Jaune up along with his arm. As they walked, passing by farmers and hunters headed out for game, the man continued, "You get there with your papers, you enlist, and you get to be a big damn hero. Just like you wanted. Plenty of honor in soldiering, I can promise you that."

"Atlas?" He asked, finally pulling free of his father's grip and looking up at him. The man settled a hand on the back of his shoulders, hand stretching from the curve of one to the other. He'd always been the size of a bear, like that, so he ignored it, "That's a week away. Vale is only a couple days out, why would I go to Atlas?"

"Better army in Atlas." The man answered simply with a great shrug. In a quiet, tired voice, the man continued, "Better armor, better weapons, and better training. Last bit means it'll be hard, of course, but then so would being a Huntsman."

"I can do the work to get there, dad." And he meant it, too. His favorite stories told about how hard the training and life of a hero was, and he wouldn't shirk from it. But… "Do you think that I can do it, though? We've never seen soldiers from Atlas out here. I don't even know what I'd look for, what to expect."

"Well, son, I expect you'll figure it out here in a tick." The man said as they stepped through the iron-reinforced gate into inner Ansel, and the man nodded at the landing pads set just inside it. An airship, Atlesian white and surrounded by armored men and women, sat there, soldiers loading up crates of food and metal, alongside the lesser gemstones Ansel extracted beside the iron.

"What-"

"Your ticket." His father cut him off, holding up a simple piece of paper with his father's signature beside someone else's. He gave the young man beside him a smile, then, and explained, "Ordered freight in special with the pay from the job I just came back from. On credit, 'course, but I knew I could handle it."

"But mom-"

"Would only try and stop you, and you know you could never say no to her. Neither can I but I can handle her going off better 'n you." The man smiled and nudged him forward, towards the airship. Jaune gave him a look and only saw a cheshire grin, eyes twinkling brightly like the cat that had caught the canary, "You'd better get going, boy. They leave and your ticket goes with 'em."

"Thanks…"

"Eh, send me a letter saying that from your trainin' camp." The man laughed and turned, folding his hands behind his head as he left and called back. "Expect some angry letters from your mother, though!"

"Thank you so much!" He lunged to hug his bear of a father anyway, the stiff fabric of his gambeson hard to squeeze. But he wanted him to feel how thankful he was, and so he squeezed anyway. Turning to take off, he waved a hand over his shoulder, "I'll never forget this, dad!"

Only when his son was gone, having handed over his pseudo-ticket and been ushered on by the same soldiers he would soon be, did Nicholas Arc let his smile falter. Pressing a hand to his bruised side he sighed as the craft lifted into the air and began to list off and to the side, angling North. "Never forget this, huh?"

Well, he was willing to wager that was definitely true.

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Atlas was frigid and harsh in more ways than he'd expected, floating high above Mantle like the goliath it was. Standing on the precipice of the exterior landing pads, he had to fight his vertigo to look down at the old city far below, but even with his stomach spinning he couldn't fight back his curiosity. While Atlas was shining, silver and white and sparkling in the sky like a star, Mantle was old, black asphalt and cold brickwork, with great heating pipes crawling along the district's floor and the roofs of the taller buildings, pumping Dust fuelled heat throughout the old city to keep the tundra's chill at bay.

The city was like a great black spot in the expanse of white around it, as though a wound had been carved in the snow of the tundra.

"Arc." He turned at the voice to see one of the soldiers he'd ridden north with, Abraham Brass, coming towards him. In full uniform, the man was an imposing sight, but he smiled politely as Jaune turned to him. "Your father asked me to see you to the recruiting station when we got here."

"He did?" How'd he have money to buy a full trip to Atlas itself, and the papers he needed to travel, and hire the soldier to escort him through Atlas?

"Yeah, personal favor." The soldier shrugged then, armored shoulders rustling metallically as he did. "Not sure when I'll meet the big man again but eh, a Huntsmen's favor is a nice little card to have up a soldier's sleeve. And I have to head near to the enlistment office anyway to file my transitory report."

"Ah, yeah, I get it." So he hadn't paid as much as promised a favor, then. It made sense, really. Out in the frontier, favors were as good as Lien in some cases. Instead of asking about it, though, he asked, "What's a transitory report?"

"Basically, a report detailing my routes of travel, fuel and food usage, and where I stopped and why." The soldier answered, gesturing for him to follow so they could walk and talk, passing by milling soldiers and dock workers as they went about their work and ignored the soldier and civilian in their midst. Seeing him looking around at everything that he could see, especially the soldiers, the man chuckled, "Your father told me you wanted to be a good old Huntsman. That true?"

"Yeah!" He smiled, turning his attention off the grey buildings and marching soldiers to talk to the man properly. "I always wanted to, you know, be a hero. Like in the old stories and stuff, and like my ancestors were. Even my dad is one!"

"Yeah, I know. He paid your way here, remember?" He flushed and shivered as a sharp gust of air blew through from the edge of the great platform that was Atlas. The man chuckled and waved him off, "Don't stress it, everyone wants to be a hero some time in their life. Fame, fortune, men and women, or just thrill, there's a lot of reasons people have to get into it."

"Yeah, I know." He nodded, "My dad talked about it a lot. About how Hunters get into the game for the wrong reasons and it never works out."

"Yeah, well, soldiering is much the same in that way. People being dumb and making dumb decisions becaus eof it." Jaune gave him a look as a row of droids, dull grey and holding their rifles, trundled by with a couple Atlesian soldiers trailing behind them. He waited until their heavy, metal marching passed by well enough and went on. "See 'em all the time. In it for the easy pay, in it to get women with the appeal of a man in uniform, in it for the stories and fame. Some are even in it hoping to get a chance to hurt people. Talking about 'getting kills' like people are just… Target practice."

"Not everyone's a good person, yeah." Jaune agreed, knowing of more than one occasion where standing militiamen had been found to be acting out. Risky choices, pressuring women into things with their 'status', and so on. "Mom always said people were the good and the bad, and you had to figure out who was which. Trick was always listening when people showed you who they were without thinking about it."

"Smart lady."

"Yeah, the smartest." And she was proud enough to make it known, too. Sighing, he murmured, "She's going to be so mad at me once dad tells her where I went. And why. And how, oh boy… She is gonna blow a gasket when dad tells her all about the how part."

"Yeah, probably. But that's not our problem for a little while, is it?" The soldier chuckled at his shrug and adjusted the rifle slung over one of his shoulders idly. After a minute of silence, letting Jaune just look around, he asked, "So what's your reason?"

"For…?"

"For eating pizza, Arc. For eating pizza." The man answered sarcastically, shaking his head and chuckling again. In an amused voice, he explained his question for his no doubt younger companion, "Why are you enlisting? What is Jaune Arc after, serving the world's greatest military? Fortune? Women? What?"

"I want to be a hero." He answered quietly after a long moment of thought, trying and failing to find better phrasing for it. "I want to protect people from anything that wants to hurt them. I want respect, too, I won't lie, but… But I want to keep people safe. When I'm around, I want people to feel safe. You know what I mean?"

"I do, yeah. I understand that a hell of a lot more than you'd believe, actually." The man nodded as they came to a tall building buzzing with civilians and soldiers who wore fatigues instead of armor. Above the multiple doors a sign hung that read 'Atlesian Specialist and Mobile Infantry Enlistment Here'. "We go in here and we can get you registered. First will be a series of training camps that will last around a month, and then a final physical and mental aptitude test to decide your department."

"Department?"

"Mobile Infantry like me, men with rifles on the ground. Wet Navy, which serve aboard ships and sailboats out on the water. Dry Navy like the pilots and airship you came in with, and the big flagships you saw." As an addition, he jerked his chin up towards an Atlesian battleship circling lazily around Atlas' perimeter high above the floating city. One look, though, and Jaune's stomach was spinning. It must have been evident on his face because Abraham snorted and added, "You can list preferences and decide not to go Dry Navy, Arc. Lots of people have preferences. And besides, your vertigo would come up in the medical and mental evaluation."

"That's… Good." He didn't have a better word for it and smiled weakly as a result.

"Yeah, I s'pose it would be as bad as your vertigo and motion sickness are." Jaune groaned his embarrassment at the man's smirk and the smirk turned into an outright bark of laughter. Shaking his helmeted head and leading him up the stairs of the building, he added, "And if your Aura readings are high enough who knows. Maybe you'll get slated for Specialist training and get transferred into Atlas Academy."

"Atlas Academy?"

"Like Beacon, except-"

"No, I know what Atlas Academy is. Come on now." He wasn't that dim, darn it. He knew the basics at least, even if he'd never thought he'd end up going. His dad had been clear that that wouldn't come out of his pocket, and there just weren't jobs in Ansel that could let him fund it on his own. "I just thought I was too old to start training to be a Huntsmen is all. That's what my dad always said."

"Yeah, well, you are." Jaune shot him a disbelieving glare and he waved him off, "But you're not too old to enlist and get trained up to be a Specialist. Similar job, but different training. More standard, at least to start, so you can get trained more efficiently. A decade of training streamlined to only a scant few years."

"Really?"

"Assuming you pass basic training, and the physical and mental evaluations… Yeah." He couldn't contain his excited smiled and the man laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. Escorting him along he said a final, simple, "Come on. I'll sponsor your enlistment so you can get straight to training. Who knows, maybe you'll end up in my unit one day?"

Jaune certainly hoped so. He wanted nothing more than to pay the man back for all his help, bringing him here and helping him get registered. The path would be hard, he was sure, and he had no illusions otherwise. But at the end, it'd have all been worth it. And he owed it all to his father and Abraham.

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Not a full chapter, but it's more of a prologue of an experimental idea. This might get added to the rotation, or might never get touched again. Depends on reception and inspiration, but for now, consider it on irregular rotation like The Way and Arclight Foundries both are, getting worked on when I take breaks or the writing bug strikes me down.

Hope you enjoyed the taste~!