To Ruby, home was a concept that spun in circles. Something nebulous that, most of the time, meant nothing to her.

Maybe it meant her sister. Hair spilling back like golden fire, fists clenched so firmly that the faint outline of bone would distend the skin, mouth firing cringeworthy jokes as if they were bullets.

It might have meant her uncle Qrow. Head tossed back more often than not, either in biting laughter or to cram booze down his throat. Stubble dotting his chin how craters dot a landscape, or the moon.

Perhaps her father, ever reassuring, ever supportive and proud, and faithful, but tired. So, so very tired.

Her mother, the greatest person she knew.

From her twenty years of being alive, she knew: to keep a home, she had to keep an open mind. It was something forever shifting, moving with her as she wobbled aimlessly from one place to the next.

From one hunt to another.

She thought of all this, of what home meant, as the councilman in front of her talked. And talked and talked.

"And you understand, Miss Rose," he sternly explained, mouth pursed. His face was a perpetual grimace of resting disapproval. "That this is a matter of the utmost importance. Utmost."

She bit her lip to keep from rolling her eyes. Of course she understood. She was the huntsman, wasn't she?

"The Grimm are encroaching," he continued. "And it is only huntsmen like yourself who prevent the worst from occurring. We are at an impasse where, if there's the slightest misstep on our parts, Vale will be lost. Lost, as in gone."

She knew what lost meant. She wasn't a babbling toddler.

"Uh huh," she nonetheless responded, features twisted into some strange semblance of a smile.

"I am serious," he narrowed his eyes. "More and more of the land surrounding us now festers with Grimm. This next attack, I fear, might spell the end. They're coming, and we know it, and we can barely muster what we can to stop it."

Ruby sent her eyes rolling from one corner to the opposite, taking in Vale as she stood in its outskirts.

Once upon a time, it was a kingdom. Sprawling with bustle, streets brimmed with shops, children stumbling, mothers laughing, criminals lurking. Gold spilling from the laps of merchants as they haggled, stars winking from above.

Now no stars winked. A canopy of black shrouded the sky, affecting the likeness of twilight, day in and day out.

Now, her eyes took in the haggard cloaks of frequent travelers, of pubs run down by time and survival. There was so little of what remained of the town, she could crane her neck and see from one end of it to the other.

The man slumped, his posture no longer so pompous.

"Please, Miss Rose," he whispered. "The few of us that are left, we'll blow away like leaves in the wind. The Grimm are closer than they've ever been, and this time they'll eat us alive without anyone outside being the wiser. We won't even be a memory."

She drooped, suddenly contrite.

"I know. I'm sorry, Mr. Oobleck."

Councilman Oobleck sighed, running a hand through greying hair.

"Honestly, it's almost a foregone conclusion that Vale won't make it through the week. Huntsmen are stretched thin as it is, but this coming horde…"

He shook his head. The lines around his eyes seemed to grow more pronounced by the second.

"But there is a slim chance. A one-person job, and it's why I called you here. You're top of the leaderboards, after all."

Right. That clump of wood tacked haphazardly in the center of town. Scrawled across its poster in faded ink were the rankings, there for anyone who wished to see. Personally, Ruby never actually checked, but enough passersby have gushed to her that there wasn't any way she could forget how she measured against the rest.

"Huntsmen hunt Grimm in teams," he said, wringing his hands anxiously. "That's always how it is. The only one who doesn't, and has made it back from hunts alive, is you. No one else can do this job."

She heard what was unsaid. If you don't accept, we're all doomed.

She shouldered Crescent Rose, the scythe's blade delicately pressed along her cheek, and sighed. Of course, she knew from before he even approached what her answer would be.

Timidly, she eased open the swinging doors to the tavern, wincing when the creaking seemed overly loud. It didn't, however, drown out the raucous chatter of men and women scattered about in near-decrepit chairs, amidst tables hinged on spindly legs.

Her eyes, silver like a waning moon, roved the room.

There. It wasn't very hard to find him, considering he was the only one alone at his own table, morosely picking at his certainly cold plate of noodles with a dingy fork.

Taking a deep breath, Ruby took meek steps towards the back, where he was. She worked alone for a reason, and she wasn't looking forward to having to renege on her procedure.

Alas.

"Um…hi."

A bit startled, the man at the table swiveled his vision from his food to the walls and finally to her, his mop of blond moving with him as he stood.

He said nothing as his palms pushed against woodgrain. His eyes searched her form warily.

"Um…" she tried again. "Jaune, right? Jaune Arc?"

Looking into his eyes was a little like plunging into a cross-section of ocean – Ruby flinched, unsettled – the blue of it shimmering with caution. A bit of recognition, too.

"Yeah," he answered, sitting back down, apparently not deeming her a threat. "I'm Jaune. And, uh…you're Ruby Rose, aren't you?"

Hard not to notice when the top ranked hunter decides to look for you in a pub.

She nodded, tentatively taking the seat opposite.

Silence stretched like a canvas of smothering tarp, both parties fidgeting nervously.

"Well…" he offered at last. "What do you want?"

He did not say it unkindly, but more in the manner of someone who didn't know what possible else he could say.

"I…" she sighed, averting her gaze. "Sorry. I'm not really a…people person."

"Yeah, uh," he pursed his lips. "I'm pretty much the same. But, I mean, I guess…spit it out? It's got to be easier than stewing here saying nothing, right?"

"Uh huh," she muttered. "Okay, well. There's a Grimm attack coming. It's not public knowledge yet, but…well, it's gonna be bad."

He suspected as much. He'd run the numbers, and they all pointed to a veritable Grimm-pocalypse.

"Like, really bad," she chewed her lip. "As in Vale probably won't last through the weekend."

"Okay," he nodded. "But why are you here talking to me about it?"

"I-I've been assigned a hunt. By the council. The thing is,"

She faltered, brushing sweat from her fingers to her skirt.

"The thing is that the horde isn't the problem. I mean, it's a problem, but there's a bigger one. The reason Vale's in so much danger is because of one particular Grimm, at the back of the swarm."

She sighed.

"You're a hunter, too, Mr. Arc. You know as well as I do that…that even a single, run of the mill Grimm is a monster that normally takes at least a squad of four or five hunters to handle. They're nightmares. They're titanic, compared to us. As for me, I – oh, and please don't take this as me bragging!" she cried, seemingly horrified at the very idea. "I swear that's not what I'm trying to – "

"Whoa, whoa," his eyes widened, his hands pushing air in a placating motion. "I get it. And hey, I mean, if anyone gets to brag it's you. You're the only person who can complete hunts by herself and make it back to tell the tale."

Still worrying her lip, Ruby continued, albeit a little more at ease.

"Yeah, so, if this big Grimm at the back is allowed to get in after the littler ones, we can count the town finished. But it's near impossible for any large group of hunters to sneak past the horde and get to it. It has to be a covert thing."

"One with fewer people," Jaune caught on, nodding. "So the council told you to go it alone. But still, what do I have to do with…?"

He let the question linger. Let it meander in the air between them like a taste.

But Ruby made certain the taste was acrid.

"It's a Nuckelavee."

She spoke it like bone between her teeth. Like the toll of funeral bells sprouting from her lungs.

Jaune blanched, his knuckles abruptly clenched so tight they were white.

Suddenly it made sense. Suddenly Ruby's visit to his table clicked like a puzzle piece.

"Mr. Arc, you probably know why I'm here now. I…it doesn't matter how good I am. I can't hope to take on a Nuckelavee by myself. Honestly, if I had an army it wouldn't be enough. It's hopeless. But I have to try. Vale has to try."

Jaune seemed at a loss for words. His breaths came heavy.

"I s-still can't hope to do it myself," she went on. "It still can't be a one-person job. No matter the need for stealth, I need someone watching my back. And the word is you're the only person in Vale's documented history who's encountered a Nuckelavee and made it back alive."

He licked his lips, tried to speak. It came out a rasp. He tried again.

"Look, Miss Rose – "

"Ruby's fine," she interjected quietly.

"…Ruby. I'm not like you. Those stories about me…they misunderstand. I'm not that great; heck, I'm not even good. I got away, yes. But it wasn't because of any - of any - "

She shrugged, her smile listless, shoulders sagging in a dreary sort of acceptance.

"I've got no one else to turn to."

Hearing this, Jaune swallowed.

"That – "

He sputtered, the memories alone causing the blue of his eyes to sharpen in fear.

"That thing isn't just a monster. It's…it's…."

He struggled for the explanation, his mouth working just as his hands groped at nothing.

Unable to muster it, he shrugged in resignation.

"It's suicide."

Ruby quirked a tiny smile. One tinged with grim surrender. A somber, desperately sad sort of affair.

"I know. Are you in?"

Jaune approached the airship with some modicum of caution. Of course, he treated everything in his life now with some modicum of caution.

"You're early!" Ruby noticed, craning her neck to greet him. She was seated in front of the ship dock, polishing her scythe.

"If we're gonna do this, might as well do it right," he shrugged with a tremulous grin.

Ruby tossed her head, gesturing towards the airship looming in front of her. Pale, stainless steel winked back at her.

"I commissioned one for us. We're going deep into Sanguine Forest, but it'll drop us off a ways away from where we think the Nuckelavee is. Still a three day ride, though."

Said forest sprawled beneath the dock, wide and verdant, lush to the point that one could almost forget it was festering with grotesque creatures. An expanse of green, shimmering nearly emerald due to the shroud of twilight covering the sky.

Jaune always shivered whenever he arrived at the dock. Not because of cold, but because of how far above it was suspended. Below was a terrain teeming with Grimm. Below his feet wriggled nightmares, each more ravenous than the last, each expendable, for a new horror would almost certainly take its place within moments of its death.

Silence trailed him as he walked.

"So…" he awkwardly fidgeted. "Are you sure you can trust your life with just me? I told you, I'm not anything special."

"No," she replied bluntly, but her eyes widened. "I-I mean! Sorry, sometimes my mouth doesn't really have a filter…"

But Jaune was almost relieved. At last, some normalcy. They were strangers, after all.

"Nothing about you, particularly," Ruby hurried to explain. "I just usually work alone. And...well, I don't really know you."

He wanted to tell her that he agreed. That at the very least, they would be in over their heads together. Maybe even some lie about how he wouldn't let her down.

But words had never come easily to him. This much, it seemed, they had in common.

Neither hunter said anything further. Nothing cut across the silence but the lazy whir of the propellers from above.

The tension was palpable. It smothered him.

Eventually, Ruby stood.

The both of them quietly stepped onto the airship's ramp, the silence carved into their bones.

Author's Note: I've just finished watching RWBY season 5 coming back to it after a considerable period of downtime, but I've already had this idea for this fic long before, probably around when I finished season 4, hence the inclusion of Nuckly-kins. I've wanted to contribute to this fandom for a while now because the setting of it is pretty fun to play with, even if I do have some pretty big issues with how the series is written overall (biggest one being how can you have Pyrrha die and literally not have Jaune or Ruby who watched her die talk about it at all except for one obligatory forest scene which was not followed up at all and there's so much characterization potential and baggage there that they just don't touch upon and for what literal reason at this point did she die except for shock factor and gahhhhh pls stop me here I will quite actually rant until the sun has set). But at the least it's a fun time, and has its moments.

This fic is an attempt at a different sort of setting, confining the characters to the nitty-gritty, kinda utilizing the Grimm as they were meant to be in my head: these imposing unimpeachable creatures of sorrow that serve a real, near-apocalyptic threat. In the actual show I feel like they forgot the Grimm were anything other than generic mob hero-bait.

I plan to have this be a sort of series of small stories taking place within this desolate world, all loosely (or possibly not) interconnected. This first one is, obviously, the Ruby/Jaune arc, and is projected to be three chapters, of which I have written two. So the next one should be here pretty promptly, all bets are off for the third but fingers crossed lol. Okay I'm done sorry I'm so longwinded