"I want that star, I want it now, I want it all and I don't care how

Careful what you wish, careful what you say

Careful what you wish, you may regret it

Careful what you wish, you just might get it."

- King Nothing, Metallica

~0~

"So," Emerald ventured once again, weeks later, helping Cinder make her way down the castle's winding halls. She wasn't being leaned on at the moment, but was still keeping a steadying hand on Cinder's left shoulder. Cinder had only tripped up a couple times on the way, and it wasn't as if she had been keeping count all the other trips here and back, but she supposed it was an improvement. "Does it feel all right?"

Cinder looked down at her still bandaged-up stump, considering the oft-repeated question as she gave it yet another experimental wiggle. The reopened end didn't hurt as much as she had expected it to, though she could thank her pain medication for that, so she looked back at Emerald and nodded. While Mercury hadn't been wrong about her center of gravity being affected (more gods-damned swaying all over the place), it was nothing she couldn't handle, hadn't already been handling. Mostly, the absence just felt so strange.

For the time being, in addition to her regular dose of painkillers, she'd been given more medication for the phantom limb pains that had already begun to sting and gnaw at her. Emerald had immediately noticed how she'd yelp and glare at the empty space every time one hit. So she had attempted to be helpful and read from her stolen book that it had to do with her nervous system getting confused at the loss of her arm, and that it should be only temporary, so she didn't need to worry about it...She had stopped then at Cinder's warning hiss. She wouldn't do anything more than that, now, not for something so minor. But she doubted the girl had any idea what Cinder was feeling, or even knew what she was talking about, so how did she think she was going to help?

Nothing to dwell on, though. Her real help was here, just at the end of this hall.

She nodded Mercury forward, and he picked up the pace, striding ahead. He still hadn't gotten used to the abnormally huge and heavy double doors of the council room, and when his knock was answered with a clear, "You may enter," he emitted a low grunt as he shoved one open.

As always, Salem waited for them at the head of the table, hands folded on the smooth violet crystal. Her smile as they walked in both calmed Cinder's heart and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. "You look well, my girl. Have you been working hard?"

Cinder lifted her head higher, but hesitated for a split second before nodding. Salem had never been given to mocking her subordinates, but certainly what she'd been doing lately couldn't count as hard work, compared to what she was meant to be doing for her master.

"Excellent. Then I'd like you to show me. Stop there," she said, punctuating the order with a gesture. Cinder froze in her tracks a second before Emerald did, and the younger girl bumped into her shoulder with a soft oof. Salem did not break eye contact with Cinder, as she motioned her forward. "And walk to me."

Cinder's heart skipped a beat. All right. This was fine. She could do this. Never mind how very, very far the end of the table suddenly looked from the doorway.

The unspoken on your own at the end of the command was clear, but apparently not to everyone; in order to obey, she had to nudge Emerald off of her and motion for her to stay put. For the first few steps, she tried to shift as much weight as she could to her right side and drag her left leg, as she had to cross her bedroom, moving awkwardly but harmlessly along.

"Properly, Cinder."

She should have known it couldn't be that easy. She paused a moment to adjust herself, gingerly laying her left foot flat on the floor. The instant she put weight on it, pain shot straight up her leg, and she bit her lip to keep from hissing. It ached, and trembled a little, but it held her upright. Now came the difficult part: actually walking on it.

It was even slower work than usual. She kept her eye focused only on the chair, and all her energy focused on keeping her balance, as if her life depended on it.

Don't fall, she told herself, willing her leg to not buckle, fighting the increasingly insistent reflex to try and grab something.

Don't fall. Don't fall. Don't fall.

She did not think that she would be punished, should she fail and wind up on the floor again. The humiliation she would face then, and the fear roiling in her blood now, was harrowing enough to push her forward. There were more things in her life than pride and hate to motivate her; a truth she would not admit even to herself, not without that unblinking scarlet gaze boring into her to draw it out.

One step at a time. Oh, gods, don't fall...

It didn't hurt as much anymore, at least, but every step was too long and too slow and she was painfully aware of that. When she finally collapsed into the chair, it was far enough from tripping into the thing that Salem didn't comment on it, but near enough that she heard a muffled yelp from Emerald behind her. She did not allow herself to relax, even as she got herself into a proper sitting position.

("Back straight. Eyes up. I said look me in the eyes, Cinder.")

Salem was different than him, though.

"Very good. You are progressing; take care not to forget that."

Salem smiled, and her eyes pierced instead of burned. Either way, Cinder could not move or look away if she tried. Her master did not try to touch her yet, just looked her up and down.

"Your wounds are healing nicely, as well."

She reached down to run an ice-cold hand over Cinder's thigh, which was as usual unbandaged for the purposes of this session. The points of her nails did not press down quite hard enough to hurt, not yet. But it was only the years of familiarity that kept Cinder from squirming as they ran over her still-tender burns, brushed aside the skirt of her dress to bare her skin. The fabric was still fairly thin, but the solid crimson dress was the most modest thing she owned, and it still didn't quite cover all of her wounds. The way the left sleeve hung limply off her stump, accentuating her loss, didn't help either.

"Even so...It will take far longer to fix your torso and throat, but I believe it should only take two or three more sessions before your leg is fully healed. Take your breath, and we will begin."

This was all the time she would get to prepare. Cinder did not bother to relax her body or close her eyes, it would do her no good. She took in as long and deep a breath as she was allowed, to brace herself. But as soon as she let it out, the magic hit, and all the air was blown straight out of her lungs, her mouth contorting itself into the shape of a scream.

She barely felt her master's nails digging into the meat of her leg; that tiny sting was drowned out in the ferocious pain surging up and down the rest of her leg. This, too, did not burn, and she thought she would have preferred it to; at least the feeling of fire in her blood would be familiar. This too was cold and sharp as ice, and it grabbed, yanked, and tore at her flesh like claws.

Growing pains, she always thought, the only even faintly clear thing in her mind. Her vision faded in and out of blinding white and swimming red, no sound made it past the mounting pressure in her ears, and she felt nothing of her body but the parts being manipulated beneath her skin. Muscles and tendons stretching and twisting as they were forced back together, forced to work again. Nerves sparking like live wires as they came back to life. Another presence altogether deep inside, that she knew instinctively was separate from herself, like the roar of a storm in the back of her skull.

She didn't know how long it lasted. The first times, she had tried to count, to try and ground herself in reality. But she had abandoned that attempt quickly, after realizing how hopeless it was to try and think through this. But she could feel that presence as it started to slither up past her hip, wrap around her stomach, her lungs, her heart, and squeeze. Something of it was spreading, seeping into her like water into a sponge and making her insides contract, hard, and distantly she was aware that she must be trying to scream.

Sharp and jagged, it slid up into her throat and she couldn't breathe, it ripped into her and she couldn't breathe -

"Enough."

Cinder's mind snapped back to the real world like the band of a slingshot, and she caught the faint scent of cold sweat in the air - how long had it been this time?

She hung in one of the moments of dazed disorientation that always followed this, where she'd sit there with her eye wide and her jaw slack, as if she were concussed. As her vision and hearing steadily returned, some indistinct part of her brain registered that these moments were growing a little shorter each time; at least she was getting marginally used to all this.

Salem had retracted her nails, but her hand still lay cold on Cinder's leg. She glanced down, and just barely caught the last traces of dark...something disappearing into her body. A deep, groaning ache lingered in her muscles, the kind that told her she wouldn't be able to move properly for the rest of the day while her body adjusted. Not that she could move properly as it was, but still. Just a slight delay in her road back to relative normalcy -

But, as if she had heard the thought, Salem's next words were, "Clearly the affected parts of your upper body are still too sensitive to endure the full extent of this method; until you become stronger, you will have to continue taking it in short doses. It will take some more time before this will heal you instead of destroy your throat and organs in the attempt."

Cinder tried not to squirm at the thought, still faintly nauseated. It was made easier, though, by how Salem wasn't fixing her with the stern glare that usually accompanied her not performing up to standards. "However, your limbs seem to bear the treatment well. As such, I think it's time to give you your gifts."

Oh? Cinder perked up. She'd forgotten about that.

"You should be ready to take your bandages off for good soon. Tell me," Salem asked, eying the left half of Cinder's face. "When you can no longer hide behind them, what will you do? Have you given it any thought?"

Cinder swallowed, hesitantly shaking her head. She'd been trying not to think about having her scarring on permanent full display, and she fought down the urge to subtly tug her dress back down over her slightly bleeding thigh.

"I didn't think so. However, I have." Cinder was even more surprised to see her master reach down under the table and bring up a large black box sealed up with thin tape to set on the table. Seeing her lean forward to inspect it closer instead of taking it, Salem added, "Go on. It's for you, open it."

Cinder glanced over at Emerald and Mercury, who were looking just as puzzled as she felt, before deciding that she didn't need their help for something as small as this. She wrapped her right arm around the box to pull it in, slit the tape through with her thumbnail, and opened one flap to peer inside. When she realized what the contents were, though, all her caution vanished in a flash, and she couldn't contain a high-pitched cry of excitement.

"My, my...You've grown up so well, but in some ways, you certainly haven't changed at all."

Cinder barely registered the words, or the thin but pleased "Ahhh, ahhh!" noises that were coming out of her own mouth. Before she knew it she'd buried half her arm in the box, shuffling through the pile of thick fabrics, all different shades of red, gold and dark metal, even some Dust crystals. After so long, all the new textures felt positively blissful on her bare skin...She hadn't realized until this moment how much she'd been missing the chance to do one of the things she loved most. Already, she could practically feel the stress melting off her shoulders at the idea of these fabrics and a needle and thread in her -

Oh.

"What's wrong?" Salem asked, on seeing her arm go still and her face fall. "You don't like them?"

For a solid few seconds - a few seconds too long - Cinder stared dumbly at the box. She had to be missing something here, but she didn't particularly feel like miming her questions out. So she gestured over her shoulder for Emerald, who came trotting over to listen to her mangled explanation. Mercury, not having been ordered to do otherwise, trailed along at his partner's heels.

"Um...She doesn't think she'll be able to sew anything with only one hand. She appreciates it, though!"

Cinder briefly glared at her over her shoulder; she hadn't added that second half and she would have to educate her subordinate on what a proper translation entailed later.

Salem paid the oversight no attention. "I am well aware, Cinder," she said patiently. "There isn't any way for me to restore your arm to normal, that's true. But I believe this presents a perfect opportunity to replace it."

Cinder blinked. She moved over in her seat to rap her knuckles against Mercury's metal knee, and pointed questioningly at her stump. She'd been told that her nerves had been burnt too badly to attach any sort of useful prosthetic to it, but maybe...

"No, dear, not like that. What I have in mind is much better. No offense to you, boy," Salem added, with a half-hearted hand wave to Mercury.

The split second Mercury realized he was being addressed he stood up ramrod straight, as if given an electric shock. "Uh. None taken. Ma'am."

Salem continued looking at Cinder as if he hadn't spoken. "An entirely natural new arm, far stronger than your original. I have done this in the past, for followers loyal enough to have earned it, so it is a process I know well by now. But let me make this clear to you: I know from that experience that it will be significantly more painful than the rest of your healing, and that you will need to bring your physical strength and mental fortitude to a peak for this to work. Do you still want it?"

Though Cinder wouldn't dare interrupt, internally she was screaming "Yes!" long before her master had finished speaking. And as soon as the question was out of her mouth, she was straightening up and nodding as enthusiastically as she could, without losing her composure and coming off as overeager again.

Salem looked pleased by the response, and abruptly rose from her chair. "Good. Then your teammates can take your new things back to your room for you, and you can come with me outside."

Cinder's insides immediately went ice-cold, and her body instinctively went very, very still. Behind her, a sliver of a yelp escaped Emerald, before the girl could bite it back.

Silence hung in the air for a moment, as Salem looked expectantly at Cinder. Logically, Cinder knew that there was no way she could have heard the instruction wrong. But still, she could not resist looking over her shoulder out the window, at the endless expanse of Grimm and spawning pools, then looking back up at her master and pointing at it in a silent question.

...Outside?

~0~

This was, bar none, Cinder thought, the strangest thing she had been told to do in the past seven years.

She hadn't seen any of her teammates on the way out of the castle, carried like a child in her master's arms, and for that she was thankful. Well, there had been the loud, telltale clattering from the heights of the highest-ceilinged corridors, that meant Tyrian was skulking around in the rafters and walls again and had gotten curious enough to come take a closer look. If she had to guess, he was probably now perched on one of the outcroppings on the castle's surface like a particularly ugly gargoyle, twitching his tail and watching their progress across the red earth plain.

She didn't bother to lift her head and look over Salem's shoulder to check if she was right. The more...interesting spectacle was all around them: flocks of Griffon and Nevermore circling overhead, one Beowolf after another popping up on the ridges around them to stare, the feeling of an entire world with its eyes on her, ready to rush in and tear her to bloody shreds if she showed the slightest weakness. Not too much different of a feeling than normal, if she was being honest with herself. But even so, it was unsettlingly difficult to fight down the flaring survival instincts that screamed at her to run. It wasn't as if she could do that, anyway, with her leg and lungs still loudly and painfully protesting their treatment.

All things considered, she thought she was doing a remarkable job at staying calm -

"Don't be afraid."

Apparently not, then.

She glanced up. Salem looked down at her rattled and confused protégée with an expression that was affectionate enough, but that made something curl inside her stomach, as if she had been caught doing something embarrassing.

"No sense in denying it. Though they will never harm you while you still bear my blessing, the Grimm come because your fear is tantalizing to them. But you have nothing to worry about, Cinder. You do trust me, don't you?"

Well. There was nothing she could do with that but nod obediently, so she did.

"You've been trained better than to cower. But if it's any comfort to you, this part, at least, will be over quickly."

What part? she wanted to ask, perhaps impudently. However, the need for that question quickly evaporated, when she turned her head to see where they were going, anyway, and her eye landed on a spawning pool that they happened to be getting very, very close to.

Cinder froze stiff, her eye widening, as suddenly, everything made perfect, horrible sense.

Oh..Oh, this can't be how...You're not really going to - ?!

But Salem was kneeling next to it, moving to set Cinder down on the strip of land between her and the bubbling edge of the pool. It took a ridiculous amount of her self-control to fight down the urge to recoil, or worse, cling. She could not, however, keep her breathing from speeding up, as she was laid on her back on the warm ground. Nor could she help from looking up at her master in a way that she hoped didn't look too much like a betrayed puppy.

You're going to put me in there!

"Yes, that's right. It won't last long. And this time, it won't hurt. I am here, I have complete control over the process. Are you ready?"

No, absolutely not, I don't want this at all! some small, cowardly part of her shrieked. But at the same time, rumbling in the back of her mind -

("Feel nothing. Fear nothing. Your tears will mean nothing, not to anyone.")

Cinder swallowed hard, and nodded her assent.

She wasn't sure whether she was pushed in by Salem, or dragged in by something else. All she knew was, she thought she saw Salem's smile widen, in the split second before everything went black.

Everything black, everything silent, everything pressing in on her like setting cement. As with the pain of her body's restoration, time and the world seemed to stop around her. She tried to open her eye, her mouth, and felt something thick and liquid, neither hot nor cold, flowing around her sockets and down her throat. She could not hear, she could not see, she didn't know what was up or down.

But, as promised, it did not hurt. She felt no pain, she felt no...anything. She got the faint senses of sinking, of being locked in place, of suffocation. But she couldn't quite feel any part of her own body. Maybe one faint trace of ice, still clinging to her, but...She was nothing, surrounded by nothing, shreds of soul swept away into the silent whirlwind, lost and alone, save for the one spike of fear through what felt like her heart -

you

She felt her jaw drop wider, slow, as if pried open. No. She was not alone down here, sinking faster and faster into -

I could kill you easily, if that's what I wanted.

Dark. So dark. So silent and so loud at the same time, somewhere someone was screaming her life out and floating above it she couldn't tell whether it was her master's voice or her -

That never occurred to you before, did it? With iron-vice fingers to grip her jaw.

No -

Something was dragging itself down her face, all claws and shadow and dread. The bloody handprint, heavy and sticky-warm on her cheek as -

No -

You are terror and desperation, whispered the thing washing over her and saturating her like acid rain, whispered to her without words, you are weakness and flight, a little thing to be consumed, you are nothing -

The hands around her neck -

Feel nothing, fear nothing -

Are you alone now, girl?

Words with no voice, a body with no face, into the black as the red bleeds in, no, please, no - !

Alone alone alone, swirling around her, tightening, helpless child, you are me and I am you -

Feel nothing, fear nothing, feel nothing -

A heart pounding about to burst with horror, your heart stripped down and laid bare, sobbing and screaming all around her, a body and soul so fragile about to shatter -

Feel nothing fear nothing feel nothing fear nothing feel nothing fear nothing feel nothing fear -

You are me and I am you and you are me and I am you and you are me -

The scarlet searing her eyes, the fire bright and all-consuming in her veins, and for one wild vivid moment she was so very small and the scent of blood and death in her nose was overpowering and all she wanted to do was lay down and cry, in the dirt next to -

Feel nothing fear nothing -

You are me you are me you are me YOU ARE ME -

- but the blade was in her hands and with everything she was she surged forward and tearing her throat was the primal scream that could shake the world, shatter everything that held her -

"NO!"

And all of a sudden, it was over. Her brain took...Cinder didn't know how long it was before she felt the chill on her skin and her brain caught up with the rest of her. She was out, sitting on the red earth bank and coughing up viscous black chunks. Her whole body was trembling as if it were the dead of winter, which had little to do with the hand on her back again. The scarlet, the fire, that burned away the darkness in one explosive burst...The realization that they were only in the past, had always been, was a slow one. What had taken her was more vicious than any nightmare.

"Be still. It's done."

Salem's voice was not soothing, but it was something solid to hang onto.

"You've completed the first step, and performed admirably, at that. Breathe, now."

She obeyed. Or, at least, she tried her best to, still feeling green and shaky as she hacked up the last of the stuff, spat out what lingered in her mouth. She couldn't keep what she was sure was sheer horror and shock off of her face when she looked up at her master. Her impulsive attempt to ask "What was that?!" came out as a frightened, incoherent whine. Salem seemed to understand what she meant anyway.

"You didn't think that these pools were just dark matter, did you? Everything a Grimm is, all its emptiness and hunger, is in them as well. Everything you fear, it craves, and it latched onto you just as a fully-formed Grimm would."

Well. That might have been nice to know before she'd been dumped into the thing, Cinder thought bitterly. She looked down at herself to see that she was completely covered in the slick black sludge, but it was rapidly beading up and running itself off of her like rain down glass, to rejoin the roiling mass of the pool. It didn't stick, it didn't leave a trail or feel like much of anything, but she still shuddered as it drained from her ears and eye sockets.

"I held onto you the whole time, it was never going to truly harm you. However, it hardly matters now. You proved yourself stronger, and managed to dominate it instead. And look at what you've won."

Cinder glanced down at her body again, and saw that almost all of the sludge had made its way off of her, save for the long stringy thing hanging off of what remained of her arm. She looked at it, puzzled, and gave her stump a reflexive, vigorous shake to dislodge it, too.

But the thing did not move: it was stuck to her, she realized with a start. Thick near her shoulder, then thinning out, and branching into five razor-sharp white claws...She recognized the rough form of an arm and hand, a Geist's to be exact. Stunned, she tried to move the arm a little, to flex the fingers at least. Instead of responding the way she wanted it to, it twitched as if electrocuted, and something inside her screeched in protest, like nails scraping down the inside of her skull.

She yelped, human hand flying to her forehead, while the arm sucked itself all at once into her stump, leaving only a sticky black coating on the end. Aside from a faint prickling at the back of her mind, and the renewed desire to throw up, she didn't feel any different than before she'd been put in the pool. But she couldn't stop staring at the end of her arm in utter shock, trying to process what had happened.

"That's about what I expected," Salem mused. "It isn't enough that you have it bonded to you, now you must work to bend it to your will. Once you've mastered it, not only will you have a working arm and hand again, but it will grant you power beyond anything you've wielded before."

Cinder gave her shoulder an attempt at a roll, and took a shallow, shaky breath. What she had felt down there was...She swallowed hard, and took another breath, forcing back the images that had assaulted her mind. It was easier than she expected; she supposed that's what years of practice did for you. Made it easy to focus on what she needed to focus on: what had made its way into her was powerful. If she could harness that power, channel it, make it her own -

A tiny, startled noise escaped her as she was lifted up again, that she was profoundly glad no one else was around to hear. Not that she didn't

"That will come in time, though. For now, you probably just want to sleep, don't you?"

Cinder barely even registered the amused tone. She sighed deeply, and felt it through every inch of her exhausted body. A hot shower might be nicer, but the rigmarole of needing Emerald to follow her in and make sure she didn't slip and break something else was the last thing she wanted to deal with right now. Her bed, on the other hand...

"You've done well. You deserve rest."

She only heard the first few words before she passed out, head against her master's shoulder.

~0~

Even through all his long years of service, Hazel had never been able to muster up true enthusiasm for his master's cause. But that was all right. It had been Salem's sympathy to his own vendetta that cemented his loyalty to her, and that fostered what he liked to think was mutual respect between them. So he had never had any problem with going where she told him to go, and doing what she told him to do, while he waited for the order that would bring him exactly where he wanted to be.

Taking a brief excursion to Mistral to eliminate a couple of the Huntsmen that Leo sent their way, and exchanging intel with Tyrian as the Faunus continued his search for the Spring Maiden, had been a simple errand for him. He had never delighted in the thrill of the hunt the way his teammates did, he reflected as he made his way through the halls of their home. He didn't think he'd ever fully grasped the idea to begin with.

"You're right...You're more of a persistence hunter," Cinder had mused the one time he had voiced this opinion in front of them. She'd looked at him so thoughtfully when asked to elaborate. "You don't get excited about anything. You don't run and chase. You just have one target, and you're in no hurry to reach it, because you know you will if you just keep going at your nice, steady pace. It can't outlast you forever. So you keep going, until finally you catch and kill it, and then the whole thing starts again."

If nothing else, the girl could be interesting to talk to, when she felt like it.

Hazel rounded the corner towards the training room where he'd been informed Salem was, hoping she would be just finishing up with Cinder's session so he could give his mission report and retire for the night. But no: he could hear the growling of Grimm and hissing of flame from a corridor away, and when he arrived Salem gave him only a nod of acknowledgement before turning her attention back to Cinder. Hazel crossed his arms and leaned against the arch of the entryway, watching her as well while he waited.

Once again, he recalled the countless sparring matches Cinder had fought with him and with Tyrian. Recalled how hard she had trained to get up on their level, to surpass them one day, how she had developed a fighting style that was calm, ruthless, and efficient. Well, here was the girl he had picked out of the Mistrali underground to be groomed into a warrior, all grown up. And it seemed that all at once, those seven years of careful work had all fallen away.

He watched her squaring off with a pack of Beowolves, eye flaming, baring her teeth at the biggest Grimm when it growled at her. She charged at them, fire flying from her her hands, her shiny new claws flashing out at their faces. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead, to the black glass mask now in place over her scar. The dress hanging off of her unbandaged body was clearly half-finished; Cinder could spend months on a new design she wanted to work to perfection, but would never show it off before it was done, especially one this intricate, and Hazel suspected that the fact that it neatly covered the rest of her scars was the reason for the deviation.

"Do you find her lacking as well?" Salem did not look at him as she asked the question, keeping narrowed eyes fixed on Cinder. "Almost two months since she returned to combat training, and still her progress has been...slower than I had hoped."

Hazel considered it. He watched the girl mow down the Grimm, looking just as bestial as any of them. Looking just like that day when the Huntsman had cornered her in the woods, a little girl in rags playing the part of a trained killer, and she'd lashed out like a trapped animal. (And from what little she'd let on, it hadn't been the first time such a thing had happened.) He still remembered the way her eyes had burned even back then, that convinced him that there was something in there worth taking and refining. He still believed that, even today.

"She's not meeting her potential the way she used to. But that's to be expected, if she's starting from the ground back up. I expect it'll take some time, but with the right motivation, she'll be fine. And time isn't exactly something we're running low on at the moment." He paused. "If you're looking for opinions, ma'am."

"I appreciate the input."

Her tone made it clear that no more would be required, so Hazel returned all his focus to Cinder. No sooner had she finished off the Beowolves than she turned around to find a pair of Taijitu slithering up behind her. She did not hesitate, did not think, just rushed them with a strangled attempt at a yell. Hazel couldn't help but sigh.

He'd meant what he said weeks ago: whether the recovery was successful was, in the end, all up to Cinder. But he couldn't be sure she wouldn't end up taking herself downhill again. Even after all this, the girl belonged again to her rage.

~0~