I (still) don't own Ruby. And to the regret of some, I don't write for it either.
I also don't own, or even possess, the skill of Paul Harvey, in prose of speaking.
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Oum Made a Farmer
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It's night and the rooftop again, but another night and another time. He's ready this time- ready to accept help, ready to learn.
"So what's first, Pyrrha?" he asks, giving her a smile that puts butterflies back in her stomach. "I'm ready for anything. No matter how bad I am at it, no matter how lowly, I'll do it," he promises, and even if they're not always honest an Arc never goes back on his word.
"A lesson," Pyrrha says. "Before you swing a sword, you should keep in mind why you're doing it."
"Classes?" Jaune whines, clearly wanting to get to the cool stuff from the start. "I don't have to be a scholar or something to be a Hunter, do I? I've never been good at studying." But even though he complains, he none the less sits down and prepares to listen.
"Not quite," Pyrrha says, looking him straight in the eye and pleased to see him looking back, all of his attention on her with an earnest diligence. Tonight she'll have to give thanks not only for having her teammate here and her friend back, but also give thanks for gaining such a willing student with the potential for something more. Because that's what he is to her, is, isn't it? The opportunity for a new start.
"We're going to talk about farmers," she explains, pulling out the old book she found in the library, finding the appropriate passage, and beginning from the start.
"And for his Eighth Hero…"
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And for his Eighth Hero, Oum looked down on his planned blood-stained Remnant and said, "I need a caretaker." So Oum made a farmer.
Oum said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So Oum made a farmer.
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait for lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon - and mean it." So Oum made a farmer.
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait for lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon - and mean it." So Oum made a farmer.
Oum said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So Oum made a farmer.
Oum had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So Oum made a farmer.
Oum said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church."
"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'" So Oum made a farmer.
And Oum looked at his creation, and saw that he was simple and good, and let him go on to become a Hero despite being unsuited for War. Yet Oum had no doubts, because he knew that this one would prove as worthy as the other Seven in caring for the people of bloody Remnant. Why, you ask?
Because Oum made a farmer.
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Fin
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Author Notes:
That's it- for real this time. I don't think I'll touch this one ever again, lest I dirty it.
For those who don't know, the poem here is based on the speach "God Made a Farmer" by Paul Harvey, made most famous by the Superbowl Commercial a few years back. Go look it up on youtube- but that 2 minutes and 40 seconds is some of my favorite prose. When I stumbled across it again by accident recently, I knew I had to use it- even I feel a little bit sacrilegious for changing it just a tad to suit my purposes.
Decided to use the 'Monty is RWBY God' trope for this all because, eh, why not. It fit quite appropriately. I mean, technically I'm the creator of this little thing, but it's a little fandom trope I don't mind appropriating here even if I'd rarely use it in other fics. One of these days I might do a worldbuilding short on the religions of Remnant or something, showing different potential ideas I'd have across the cast.
Posting style was once again post-a-day. Not only did it help this second chunk of the 'Farmer or Something' from overwhelming the first, and I do feel 'Farmer or Something' is the better/more compelling piece than 'Oum Made a Farmer', but the breaks did wonders for the sense of time progression across Pyrrha's story. Since this is probably the one unreservedly 'Pyrrha gets to live the happy ending she earned' thing I'll write, I figured I should let it last.
In terms of plot, the switch from AU to canon-compatible was/will be... I wouldn't say controversial, but it was a deliberate decision to bring this AU closer to canon. Even though Pyrrha is the focus in 'Oum Made a Farmer,' I wanted to show that Farmer Jaune was still Jaune, and that the difference was circumstance and not character. That the Jaune who lived a life of peace as a Farmer was the same Jaune who could have run to Beacon and made the differences he implicitly did. Using a continuation of the poem, and the continuity of the same faith/religion between the two timelines, was the linking device to indicate that Jaune was Jaune in either case, and that with him there Pyrrha could get a happy ending either way, even without going through all the suffering of the Farmer Jaune route.
To answer questions and thoughts left in reviews-
-Did I drop in a reference of 'Arc Words' semblance from Common Criminal?
A: Not really- cameo at worst. I just rather like Jaune's line about Arcs not going back on their word, to the point of seeing it as a family motto.
-Who were Pyrrha's friends/why did Jaune find one of them familiar/was that Weiss?
A: It's deliberately ambiguous, but yes. The visitors are the survivors of Team RWBY- though who is who is up to the reader. The one who asks Jaune if he knows who Pyrrha is is implicitly Weiss, in a parallel to their locker room discussion in canon. Jaune finds her familiar/associates her with the general store because of Schnee Corp, but doesn't know enough to remember why. He might have seen a photo of her once.
-Where did Jaune learn to be a farmer if his parents were warriors?
A: They retired. A bit implied in 'Farmer or Something,' but here the Arc parents wanted their children to have a peaceful life and so found the most peaceful, remote, safest corner of remnant to plop down a farm and raise their kids on. Canon doesn't make clear if Jaune's parents are still warriors, but call it the diverenge point of this AU if they are.
-Why isn't Jaune using trucks or tractors and things considering the technology in-series?
A: Because they're poor and on the frontier and far from the cities. It's easy to forget in the modern world, where first-world farming has access to the same sort of industry and technology as the cities, but industrial farming is relatively new. For most of history that didn't apply. It still doesn't in some parts of the world, including a place I spent the better part of a year.
In most frontier societies, farmlands far from the cities are often downright primitive- and Remnant hardly has an interstate system to conveniently drive down, or powerlines that safely go far into the wilderness. And that's not even touching on that technology in Remnant is implicitly a novel/new thing, considering that warriors went to war with plain sword and shield just a few generations ago. Jaune might know of cars and electronics, but he couldn't afford a car if he wanted and wouldn't have power for gadgets. He wouldn't even get cellphone reception out there. Oh the humanity.
(In short: Jaune is poor, and in the middle of nowhere, and there's no requirement that farmers have to be rich and modern.)
-What's up with Jaune and Pyrrha's kids? What's their story?
A: Never to be told (by me). After my stories of 'Househusband' and 'Affair', I have a headcanon that Jaune, if/when he gets married, will have/raise a set of twins, and another child.
That's all there is, and here it ends. I hope you enjoyed it all. Please leave thoughts with the review.