Chapter 195: Chat in the Emerald forest

The wind whizzed past like stinging nettles stroking Weiss' cheeks. Her hands clamped tight onto Parc's shirt, panickedly clenching on for dear life in a manner much too familiar to initiation when Ruby had the 'wise' idea to take a giant nevermore for a ride. Having then decided to jump off of it leaving Weiss dangling on to its talon like a curtain in the wind. And she did not want to experience the free fall that came after she lost her grip again.

At their speed sound turned to whistles except for one sound. A steady thu-thump, thu-thump. She knew it came from his heart, her cheek was buried into his chest after all, thus leaving her ear just against his sternum to listen to its powerful melody.

It was calming, all things considered. The freshness of the white fang assault, the explosions and even the still echoing reverberation of her aching earlobes. But listening to that stead beat just… nestled her heart in a warmth she wasn't used to.

Not long later she could feel their speed lessening and their altitude lowering, the air grew thicker and filled her lungs more easily and left her panting slightly before touching the ground like a feather descending. The soil they landed upon was soft and parted beneath the stiletto of her heels, threatening to sink further though was luckily compact enough to keep her stable.

Not that she would fall as even with her safely on earth, her arms did not unlatch from Parc, nor him from her. Fully intent on letting her enjoy the closeness as long as it comforted her.

He could tell she missed such close kindly contact. he could only imagine how stuffy a family like hers could be. A tyrannical controlling father, and arrogant, mischievous brother, and alcoholic mother and a soldier, a specialist sister. To him it sounded nothing like a family but like a company filled with ambition, betrayal and uncaring. He knew it wasn't entirely true, the family was more misguided than anything, there was love there, buried beneath alcohol and regiment.

As his hand slowly stroke her uncovered back, Weiss lightly shivered. The combination of the wind as his hands crafting an unusually chilly feeling on her and woke her from her reverie.

She blinked against his chest a few times and her fingers loosened, coming to linger just above his shirt. Realize she'd released him, Parc too unfurled his hands from Weiss and let their bodies part though not quite stepping away just yet.

Standing in silence, Parc glanced to her cheeks, frowning at the red trails of still wettened blood that had dripped onto her shoulders, staining the straps of her dress. Bringing a hand up, he moved part of her frazzled hair out of the way and Weiss tilted her head away, not saying anything as he inspected the hairline cut where her earrings had been torn out. The bleeding long since stopped but the wound still there, yet to heal.

"Does it hurt?" he questioned wiping away a bit of the bloodied line with his thumb.

Weiss swallowed then shook her head, "nothing I haven't dealt with before." she lifted her own left hand to her face and laid her fingers gently upon her cheek where a scar traced across her eye. Something she'd had since her father's ultimatum to challenge an Arma gigas before letting her come all the way out here. She's won, though it ultimately left her with this mark, luckily not taking her sight though.

"Just because you've dealt with pain before, doesn't mean you can't feel it now." he spoke and from his pouch pulled a small red vial, a dilution of his healing potions he made specifically for the smaller wounds, the things more nuisance in scale than dangerous. Plucking the cork from it Parc lightly guided Weiss to turn her head up, finding a shade of amusement at the faint reddish blush the girls cheek had gone. Bringing the vial to her lower lip he said, "drink this. It'll help with the healing," and waited for her lips to part enough and let him pour the lusciously red liquid into her mouth. Yet as she downed it, something strange occurred, she knew she drank something and yet she felt no water, nothing run down her throat. It was as if upon entering her body it simply faded away into nothing, rapidly absorbed into her body.

There was something else though, the stinging she felt, it was rapidly dissipating, faster than her aura could. Was it some kind of pain killing drug? she thought raising a hand to press her earlobes to test the pain yet when she did, there was no pain. There wasn't even the light ridge of where she was cut, only smooth, though blood drenched skin that left the tips of her fingers a shade of crimson. "It's… there's no wound?" she pinched her lobe, only getting the pain of doing so, nothing like her touching her own nerve endings as she was expecting.

"How?" her eyes curious as she looked up at Parc who was smirking down at her from barely a few breaths away. It was then she realized just how truly close they were, almost like if he simply bucked his knees or she rose to her toes they would lock lips. Her face in turn shot to red that trailed down her neck and beneath her dress and she forced herself to look away. Breathing as steadily as she could to whittle away those indecent romantical thoughts scurrying about in her mind. 'He's my professor,' she told herself yet still didn't step away.

No, in fact, he did. He pulled away enough to gaze with his red orbs into her pastel blues. "Shall we talk for a bit?" he questioned, quickly following into speech, "how are you feeling after all of that? might be a little soon to ask, but I still will."

"I'm… tired, I quess." she was slow to respond, "and worried. My father is sure to be furious after being abandoned there. You know who he is right? he's going to ruin your life for just abandoning him. For making me abandon him."

"Your father, can't do jack shit against me Weiss. As far as he's concerned, I don't exist. The most he'll find through his channels is as much as you and Ozpin did. Which is nothing. Plus, he can't ruin a life like mine. I've got nothing for him to ruin." not yet at least.

"He can urge professor Ozpin to fire you. Or even have you arrested for some reason or another."

"First, Ozpin won't fire me. he can't. And second, so what if I get arrested? A prison is a prison. I can break out of it with ease." he had enough on him that meter thick iron walls weren't much of a threat let alone a few robots.

"Still, angering my father isn't a good thing." Weiss shook her head and sighed, "he'll find something, he always does." Glancing around their surroundings, Weiss came to see a thicket of trees with bright emerald leaves dashed in the darkness of night. Her and Parc only illuminated by the moon billowing in rays through the canopy opening above.

"We're in the emerald forest?" she murmured and tilted her gaze back to Parc, curious about how they were here, and more pressingly, how they were flying. "Exactly how did we get here? Your semblance?"

Parc snorted, "nope. My semblance is something else entirely." he said taking a few steps back from Weiss, enough that his form became even more illuminated in the moonlight, his sweat twinkling like stars in the night sky. As he made distance, a shimmer of new light came from his back as a large, dark wing shot from his back, singular, lonesome and speckled in white accentuations. "I used this."

Weiss was understandably left gobsmacked at the sight, "did you just grow a wing? What? how? no, that's not right? I'm tired and seeing things. People don't just grow wings… wing? why is there only one wing?" she blinked through bleary eyes, reasoning that darkness was fooling her into thinking something impossible.

"Weiss, I can assure you this wing is anything but fake." with his wing freed, Parc once again approached Weiss and curled the wing towards Weiss, as if to offer her it.

She glanced between him and it with doubting eyes but soon reached for it, slowly drawing her hands closer until finally pressing her fingers against it and feeling the bird like texture one could only gain from true feather.

'It's real? But, no, that's not logical. It came out of nowhere. It can't be real? Some type of semblance pertaining to solid illusions?'

Seemingly realizing her conflict, Parc rolled his eyes and plucked a feather from his wing and pulled it away from Weiss' soft touches. Leaning down, he presented the feather to her, "if you don't believe it, then by tomorrow, this feather will no longer exist. So why don't you take it, hold tight to it and by then you'll truly know whether its real or not." in saying that, his wing faded from existence, yet left behind his feather.

Unlike those crafted from his Nephilims rush, the ones formed from his real wing were actual and whole and wouldn't fade from existence until they were devoured by the earth. Something he'd only discovered when curious about his feathers he plucked one, forgot about it and found it two days later in the same place he left it.

Weiss took the feather with a dobtful tilt to her brow.

"Anyways, I think we should be get you back to your team." she couldn't agree more, "but, I need you to do something for me. Blake, don't mention that you heard her name today."

Just like that, Weiss jolted, remembering her teammates name being mentioned. And now with Parc saying so, she concretely knew it was the same Blake being spoken about. "She's white fang?"

"No. Not anymore. She left a while ago. I don't know how long exactly but a few months at the least. She's been hiding from them since. I know, I know, it's a little off putting."

"A little!? She's still white Fang. I didn't even know she was a faunus!"

Rolling his eyes, Parc sent his hand out, his fingers curling to a fist and lightly beat down on Weiss' head.

"Ow, hey what was that for!" she wailed.

"Would you calm down. Blake's got nothing to do with the White Fang anymore." apart from her being related to the former leader of the White Fang by being his daughter, "so just calm your britches. She means you no harm, nor your team any. And as far as I'm aware, she's had nothing to do with anything that's happened to you or your family."

"But she's still-"

"No. She's not. And if you try to keep this argument going, you'll tear apart your team more than it already is. You don't need another argument going around."

She was silence thoroughly. The event with Lili still fresh in her mind and made her pale. "Now, shall we head back?"