SAPR

Virtuous Lady

As she set the Bullhead down on one of the docking pads, Gilda got up out of her seat and walked into the main section of the airship.

“I’m going to locate the Councillor,” she said. “You lot wait here, and once I’ve found her location, I’ll be back for the rest of you.”

A collection of unimpressed and hard-eyed gazes, sullen verging upon hostile, greeted her pronouncement. There was a time when that would have worried Gilda, but right now, she was — she felt, at least — past worrying. She didn’t care what they thought; she didn’t care whether they liked her leadership or not, she didn’t care whether they went squealing to the High Leader about what a terrible leader she was. She didn’t care. She didn’t care if someone else was made leader of the Vale Chapter and she was ordered to Menagerie to clean the toilets at headquarters. She was done with … she was done pretending that she had any respect for them. She would make use of their muscle, when the moment was right, but until then, they could wait in the car like good children, and they might get some ice cream when she was done.

Because she was done.

They didn’t like being ordered to wait? Too bad. They’d do it regardless.

Or they’d kill her, but that might also be better than having to play nice.

Gilda had rescued them from captivity; the least they could show was a little gratitude and appreciation for that.

She’d rescued them, because they’d been given to her to command, and so it stuck in her craw to just ditch them to face the music, even if that was what they deserved, but that didn’t mean that they deserved anything more than that from her.

Yuma folded his arms across his chest. The visible parts of his arms had bruises on them from the injuries he’d taken, even if his aura had come back in the meantime. “We did not come here to sit and wait in an airship, Sister Gilda—”

“I am not your sister,” Gilda said sharply. “Cut that out.”

Yuma ignored her, continuing in his soft, sibilant, serpentine voice that rubbed on Gilda like sandpaper, “We should search together, or better yet, spread out to search the arena more swiftly.”

“No,” Gilda said flatly.

“'No'?” Trifa repeated. “Why not?”

“Because you lot are about as subtle as a bag of hammers, that’s why,” Gilda declared. “And I don’t want the arena stained with blood. I will find this Atlesian Councillor—”

“Cadenza,” Ilia murmured. “Her name is Cadenza.”

“Fine, thank you, Councillor Cadenza,” Gilda said. “I will find Councillor Cadenza, then I will come back and lead you — discreetly — to her location where we will snatch her and get out without any more fuss or bother and without picking any fights along the way.”

Woundwort’s face — which looked even more gnarly now than it had done before, thanks to Rainbow’s friends — twisted in distaste. “It would send more of a message to the traitors if we were take one or two of those Atlas b—”

“No,” Ilia said quickly, before even Gilda could do so. “No that … that’s barbaric, and it’s not who we are.”

Gilda’s eyebrows rose a little. She wouldn’t have expected Ilia to have a limit like that.

“Are we not the vanguard of the struggle, Sister Ilia?” Yuma asked in a voice that was deceptively soft. “The tip of a spear that will thrust into the belly of a world and system that is set against us.”

“Of course we are,” Ilia replied. “But not … not like that. I will kill anyone who stands in our way, I will show no mercy to our oppressors, but that? We’re talking about children.”

“Human children,” Yuma replied.

Ilia … did Ilia shudder? Did Gilda see her shudder? Or did she imagine it because she wanted to see it? Wanted to think that one of this group might be a little more on her side than the others.

“We’re soldiers, not animals,” Ilia declared. “We do what we must for the sake of our people, not for our own pleasure.”

“And that’s why you’re staying here,” Gilda said. “You’ll sit tight and wait until you’re called.”

“Avoiding attention makes sense,” Ilia allowed. “But I should go with you, or you should stay and I should go; I’m the stealth specialist, I’m the infiltrator—”

“You—” Gilda began, about to tell Ilia that she was also too highly strung and too willing to wish death on other people to be trusted … but she had backed Gilda up just now, and Gilda supposed that she had earned back a little bit of grace by that. “You are going to be in charge while I’m gone; I need you to look after things until I get back.”

“'Look after things'?” Savannah repeated. “We aren’t children.”

Gilda didn’t respond to that except to say. “Stay here; I won’t be long.”

Savannah pushed past Rill and strode towards Gilda. Her hands, at the end of her long arms, clenched and unclenched into fists. With her one golden eye, she glared at Gilda, bearing down on her until the two of them were almost touching noses, like she wanted to go in for a kiss.

Savannah huffed into Gilda’s face before she said, “And what if we don’t?”

Gilda didn’t reply for a second. Her own hands clenched and unclenched, just like Savannah’s had. She waited, conscious of the way that everyone’s eyes were on her, even Ilia’s.

Savannah had asked the question that had been on all their minds.

Time to see who's faster, I guess.

Gilda lashed out with one foot. As close as they were — her mistake — and with the ceiling of the Bullhead hemming her in, Savannah couldn’t do much about it as Gilda cut her legs out from under her. She flailed with her long arms, but Gilda grabbed one arm by the wrist with one hand as she grabbed Savannah by the back of the neck with her other hand.

Gilda twisted in place, making the other members of the squad duck or press themselves against the wall of the airship as she slammed Savannah down face-first onto the airship floor.

Savannah hit the metal deck with a crunch.

Gilda grunted as she lifted Savannah’s head off the deck and slammed it down again.

And again.

Trifa reached for her knife.

“Touch that, and I’ll kill you!” Gilda snarled, baring her teeth. She slammed Savannah’s head down into the deck for the fourth time. Her aura didn’t break, but she wasn’t exactly doing much resisting at this point, and by the soft groan coming from her lips, Gilda thought that she had made her point.

She let Savannah go. The other warrior didn’t move; she just lay there on the deck where Gilda had left her, lying there and moaning.

Gilda got up, her eyes sweeping across the other members of the squad, even Ilia.

“You don’t have to like me,” she said. “You don’t have to agree with me, you don’t even have to respect me. But right now, you do as I say. Wait here; I’ll be back once I know where our target is. Until then, Ilia is in command.”

She ostentatiously turned her back on then, daring them to try anything if they still felt like it.

None of them did. The door on the side of the Bullhead swung upwards, exposing the Amity Arena to view.

It was quiet outside; there was nobody that Gilda could see, nobody to look inside the Bullhead and see a bunch of armed White Fang guys within, which was a stroke of luck. Everyone must have … they hadn’t left, because the news had said that people were being evacuated up to Amity Arena, not off of it, but they must have gone somewhere else, either into the stands, or maybe inside, where Gilda and the others had tried to ambush Blake.

Somewhere that might have felt a bit safer than the promenade, anyway.

Gilda leapt down out of the airship; only then did she look back and see Ilia closing the door behind her.

Gilda turned away once again, listening to the door close with a hum of the motor and a final soft thump of the metal moving into place.

She took a look around the empty promenade, wondering where she ought to start looking?

Well, if I’m right about where people have gone, then perhaps I should start in the stands.

Of course, an Atlesian Councillor would never sit down in the stands with the common people; she’d be up in one of the hoity-toity boxes with Jacques Schnee and the like.

Maybe not actual Jacques Schnee right now, but that kind of guy.

Unless the boxes were too much at risk, what with them being so high up.

A Councillor still wouldn’t want to share space with the plebs.

Still, if I check out the stands first, then I’ll be able to look up and see if any of the boxes are occupied.

That sounded like a plan, at least in the sense that it was something that, when viewed from the right distance, might pass for a plan, and so Gilda headed towards the nearest corridor that would lead into the stands or into the arena itself.

The corridor was dark; all the lights were off, although there was some light spilling out of the door to one of the maintenance corridors, which had been opened. Gilda would check that out next, once she was done here.

Once she passed through the dark corridor, climbing up the steps into the bleachers, Gilda soon realised that that ‘next’ might be a lot sooner than she might have expected because there was absolutely no one here, and for good reason too: the place was a battlefield. Not an ongoing battlefield, mind, but it was plain to see that a battle had been fought here, and it had really messed the place up. There was a gash in the arena ceiling like a wound, jagged and raw, and shards of debris — along with what looked like the remains of some kind of airship — had been scattered across the battlefield, with pieces of metal buried in the floor, sticking up like the ruins of old buildings that you found scattered across Vale, not Mountain Glenn but the real old ruins from days gone by and long forgotten.

There were claw marks on the floor too, digging right into the metal, evidence that the grimm had been here once, although they weren’t here anymore.

It wasn’t just the battlefield, either; Gilda climbed into the stands to find that a right mess had been made of them; some of the debris had landed there too, and the chairs had been torn up, ripped to pieces — and there were claw marks here also, and bullet holes.

A battle had been fought here, and even though there was no fighting going on here now, and no grimm either, Gilda could understand why it was completely deserted. She was the only person here, and why not? Who’d want to wait around for hours, maybe all night, maybe longer, amidst the detritus of a battlefield like this? Even in a functional space, there had to be somewhere more comfortable to wait around than amidst wreckage, shards of metal, claw marks, discarded rounds.

Somewhere like the boxes maybe? Not exactly. When Gilda looked up from the arena and the stands around her, she saw that some of the boxes had been destroyed, torn to pieces by … maybe by the same thing that had showered debris down on the arena, maybe by the grimm, but either way, some of the boxes were gone — or at least, what was left of them was littering the battlefield or the stands, and there were only holes where the boxes had been, entrances leading out into nowhere now.

There were some boxes still intact, but there didn’t look to be anyone inside.

Maybe she ought to fly up there and take a closer look, just to be sure.

But if they were there, then it would be hard to miss someone flying looking down on them, so—

“It’s Gilda, isn’t it?”

The voice came from behind her. A woman’s voice, older than Gilda herself by at least a few years; Gilda would put it at about the High Leader’s age, only it lacked entirely the High Leader’s hard edge. This voice was soft, gentle even, almost … motherly.

Nevertheless, for all its softness and its gentleness, for all its motherly quality, the sound of the voice behind her made Gilda freeze. It would have been bad enough that someone had managed to sneak up on her, but they knew who she was? Who knew who she was?

Rainbow Dash and Blake, obviously, which meant … nothing great for her.

Gilda froze. Her eyes were wide, even though they were fixed straight in front of her, looking out at the devastation of the battlefield below, unable to see who was speaking behind.

Her chest rose and fell. Her arms were rigid, hands frozen in place. She did not move an inch, not a single muscle.

“It is Gilda, isn’t it?” the voice repeated. “Gilda Swiftwing?”

She knows my surname, too?

Gilda folded up her wings behind her, so that she could turn her head in a halting, juddering motion and look over her shoulder.

The owner of the voice that called her name was … Lady Belladonna. Gilda recognised her from the news broadcast, the one that had told her — and her team — that she was here in the first place, the one that had set the cat amongst the pigeons when it came to those who wanted to kill her and send a message to her husband.

She looked just like she had in that brief shot on the news; she was even wearing the same clothes; Gilda guessed that she’d travelled light from Menagerie, without many changes.

It was definitely her. Gilda had never heard her voice before she had seen her face; you could hardly avoid it if you were a certain kind of faunus, the kind whose parents wanted to go to Menagerie and live out their golden years in paradise.

And she wasn’t alone. Fluttershy was there too, standing just behind Lady Belladonna — as in, a step behind, not as in actually hiding behind her, although…

Neither of them looked the way that Gilda would have expected them to look. They both looked curious, Lady Belladonna especially, even though … didn’t they know that Gilda had tried to kill Blake? And Rainbow Dash? Hadn’t they told them?

Had Dashie protected her?

How could they look at her like that, without anger, without hate?

Without fear?

Not a trace of fear from either of them. They were just looking at her like they were surprised, like they didn’t understand what she was doing here, but they weren’t afraid.

Gilda licked her lips, her tongue flicking out of her mouth as though she’d suddenly become a lizard faunus. Her mouth felt so dry it was as if all the water had drained out of her.

Perhaps it had. She could feel the sweat under her armpits and running down her back.

Her voice was hoarse. She tried to speak but had to stop and swallow before she started again; even then, she thought she sounded a little hoarse.

“My lady,” Gilda whispered. She had to lick her lips again, even though it didn’t feel like it was helping at all; it was just making her lips all sticky and covered in guck. All the same, she couldn’t stop herself, because at the same time, they felt so dry. “Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy waved with one hand, a gentle fluttering of her fingers. “Gilda.”

“So you are Gilda,” Lady Belladonna said. “Fluttershy said that she recognised you, and I … your parents showed me some pictures of you; you’ve grown up, but your wings are still the same colour.” She cocked her head to one side. “You used to have more hair, though.”

Gilda let out a sort of strangled laugh because seriously? Seriously? That was what Lady Belladonna wanted to talk about? Her hair? Yes, she’d had some kind of lush hair, at one point, but then, at one point, she’d wanted to be in a band, too.

One of her hands reflexively went to her head, running her fingers over her close-shaved hair or lack of the same.

“Yeah, I, um … I thought it would make me more aerodynamic,” Gilda murmured. “Also … I thought it would make me look mature.”

“Hmm,” Lady Belladonna murmured. “I can’t speak to the first, but that second one isn’t really working.” She paused. “Why don’t you turn around? Aren’t you getting a crick in your neck standing like that?”

Gilda turned around, obedient to Lady Belladonna’s command — or to her sensible suggestion, anyway. It was easier to face the two of them.

Easier in some ways, anyway. She was still sweating. She would start to smell if this kept up.

“How did you know I was here?” Gilda asked quietly.

“We ran into you by chance,” Lady Belladonna said. “Or perhaps I should say that you walked past us by chance.”

“I’d just gone to see if anyone wanted anything to eat or drink,” Fluttershy murmured. “But it seemed that what Lady Belladonna—”

“Kali, dear, please.”

“What Lady Kali Belladonna really wanted was to come out and talk with some other people,” Fluttershy said.

“Not that I don’t enjoy the company of … my companions,” Lady Belladonna said. “But I wanted to see how other people were doing, while we waited for news. We came out and saw you going down the corridor, having just passed the door that we were using, coming this way.”

“I see,” Gilda murmured. “So it was pure luck, then?”

“Luck, or the will of fate,” Lady Belladonna replied. “Or perhaps it was the will of the gods. Do you believe in the gods, Gilda Swiftwing? Your parents say that they always watch the parade of the Sacred Hart through the streets, every year.”

Gilda gave a faint nod of her head, a little juddering of her chin. “I believe, my lady.”

“Then perhaps the God of Animals meant for this to happen, for us to meet like this?” Lady Belladonna suggested. The corner of her lip twitched upwards in an almost mischievous manner. “I’m afraid if you came here looking for Blake or Rainbow Dash, they’re not here. But I suspect you knew that already.”

Now they were come to it. “I … I thought as much, my lady,” Gilda murmured.

“So you came back here … why?” Lady Belladonna asked. “To kidnap me? To kidnap Fluttershy again?”

“No,” Gilda said at once. “No, I … this has nothing to do with you, Fluttershy.”

“Then it is me?” asked Lady Belladonna. “Or you came here to kill me, or … someone else.”

“You…” Gilda swallowed again. “You’re taking this very well, my lady, I have to admit.”

Lady Belladonna didn’t reply for a moment. “If you were to draw those swords on your back and kill me now, would the blades be to blame?”

“No, my lady,” Gilda replied. “It would be my hand.”

“Just so,” Lady Belladonna said. “I take it Sienna put you up to this?”

Gilda hesitated, silent.

“You may as well speak,” Lady Belladonna said. “It costs Sienna nothing for me to hear from your lips what I have guessed already.”

Gilda glanced down at the floor, unable to meet either of their gazes. “It was the High Leader who gave the command, yes.”

“That you were to kill my daughter, and Rainbow Dash,” Lady Belladonna murmured.

Gilda closed her eyes. “Yes, my lady.”

“Why?” asked Fluttershy, her voice a mere whisper, yet one that, in the quiet arena, nonetheless sounded as loud as thunder breaking.

“Because…” Gilda trailed off. “Because they seem … because they have been … because they were too successful, in Atlas, in what they did with the Schnee Dust Company. The High Leader feared—”

“Of course she did,” Lady Belladonna interrupted. A bitter laugh passed from her lips. “Of course she did. Vain Sienna, proud Sienna, Sienna who could not bear to have any of her scholarship questioned in another professor’s book and so wrote a scathing review rubbishing every single conclusion they had drawn and making them out to be the most incompetent hack that ever lived. Sienna who couldn’t stand not to be the leading voice in her field, she had to cut down everyone who might compete with her, suggesting that they were wrong, they were mistaken, they’d used sloppy scholarship and unreliable methods to draw their conclusions. Of course it’s not enough for the lot of our people to improve; it has to be by her hand, her methods; she has to be the hero, has to be the one leading the parade, or else is it even worth the faunus being free?” She shook her head. “Oh, Sienna, I see that the mantle of leadership has not made you any less yourself.” She glanced at Gilda. “I promised Blake I wouldn’t hurt her, in retaliation for what you tried to do. Blake was worried that I would get myself killed in the pursuit of revenge. Or perhaps I’ll get myself killed here and now.”

“No,” Gilda said at once. “No, my lady, you have nothing to fear from me.” She looked at Fluttershy. “Neither of you have anything to fear from me.”

“Only Rainbow Dash and Blake do,” Fluttershy murmured.

Gilda hesitated. “Well … considering what happened to us the last time I was up here, you might say they haven’t got a lot to fear from me either.”

There was a pause, neither Lady Belladonna nor Fluttershy. Then Lady Belladonna threw back her head and let out a peal of joyous laughter.

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she declared. “Yes, that’s very good. You have a lot to fear from Blake and Rainbow Dash, yes, that…” She wiped at her eye with one hand. “That’s excellent, thank you.”

Gilda raised one eyebrow. “Are you moontouched, my lady?” she asked. “Have you got some of that mass delirium that’s going around Vale?”

“Am I as mad as General Blackthorn is said to be? Well, I certainly hope not,” Lady Belladonna said. “But I am a mother, and every mother likes to hear their child praised to the skies, even if it is for being a fearsome adversary. And, well, you must admit that there is something a little ridiculous about admitting that you’re afraid of the two people that you…” She trailed off, and did Gilda the courtesy of not saying ‘the two people you were ordered to kill’ or anything like that.

Fluttershy took a step closer towards her, so that she was standing level with Lady Belladonna, not behind her. “Do you still want to kill them?”

“I never wanted to kill them,” Gilda replied.

“But you were going to,” Fluttershy said. “Weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Gilda said, in a voice that was as soft or softer than Fluttershy’s own.

“Why?” Fluttershy asked. “Because you were told to?”

“Yes,” Gilda said again. “Because I was ordered to, because the High Leader … there isn’t any shame in admitting that you don’t know everything, is there? That other people — older people, more experienced people — might be wiser than you, know more, know better, is there?” She glanced between them.

“Rainbow Dash would say not,” Fluttershy admitted. “That’s why she follows General Ironwood, after all.”

“I thought,” Gilda began, “I thought that maybe, even though it didn’t seem right to me, maybe the High Leader was right, maybe they did … maybe it was better they were out of the way. And I was worried that if I didn’t do it, then the people that she would send to do it would be worse, more vicious, would care less about hurting … people like you. I thought that I could do it … cleanly, without hurting anyone else, without anyone getting in the way.”

“Only Blake and Rainbow Dash,” Lady Belladonna said.

“Blake carries a sword which is also a gun, my lady, and Rainbow Dash has a shotgun,” Gilda pointed out. “They’ve got no right to complain, nor does your friend Applejack when she came at us with a gun of her own.” She paused for a moment. “If you choose to live by the sword, then you should have the decency to be willing to die by it too.”

Silence fell in the arena, utter silence, no sound at all, not even wind; if the grimm outside were making any noise, it wasn’t carrying in here.

And neither Fluttershy nor Lady Belladonna spoke. They stood there as silent as Gilda herself, watching her. Judging her, Gilda couldn’t help but think.

It was Lady Belladonna who spoke first, who broke the silence. “What is it that you want, Gilda?” she asked. “Why did you come back here?”

“What do I want, my lady?” Gilda repeated. She took a step back, only to stumble over a piece of debris lodged in the stands. Gilda let out a wordless squawk, arms flailing, wings unfurling behind her, none of which served to stop her from falling backwards and landing with a thump on her tailbone. Her aura flared up and sent a jolt of pain up her to make sure she knew it.

Gilda didn’t get up. Somehow, sitting here with Lady Belladonna and Fluttershy looking down on her seemed pretty fitting, all things considered.

But she did swing her legs, sprawled across the jagged metal debris that she’d tripped over, around, so that they were resting on the battered floor of the stands, knees up. It was all that she could do not to put her hands around them.

“What I want,” she murmured. “What I’ve always wanted is to help my people.” She paused. “I know that you’ve been away a long time, my lady, and they tell me that Menagerie is a wonderful place, but I hope you haven’t forgotten how put down we are.”

“No,” Lady Belladonna murmured. “I remember. I understand that not enough has changed since Ghira and I took our leave.”

“I wanted to help,” Gilda said. “I want to help. I want things to get better, and I’m willing to do what it takes to make that happen.”

Lady Belladonna walked around the debris and sat down on the ground next to Gilda; Gilda was taller, but sat down, they were almost of a height, no distance between them.

“But you didn’t tell your parents that you were in the White Fang,” she murmured. “They think—”

“That I have a nice, respectable job here in Vale,” Gilda said. “I … I suppose it must sound like I’m ashamed.”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Lady Belladonna admitted.

Gilda shook her head. “I … I didn’t want them thinking about me like that, as someone who … killed people. I didn’t want them to know about that side of me.”

“Where I come from, we call that being ashamed,” Lady Belladonna murmured.

Gilda didn’t dispute that. It was hard to argue with, really. “When did you meet my parents? Why?”

“After Rainbow Dash wrote to me, to tell me that Blake was a student at Beacon … and about to be a student at Atlas,” Lady Belladonna said, “she’d written a letter to her parents as well, asked me to deliver it—”

“And you did?”

Lady Belladonna smiled. “Some may call me Lady Belladonna, or the Chieftainess of Menagerie, but don’t mistake me for a Mistralian old blood; I’m not too proud to descend into the streets amongst my people. Especially not when I can learn more about the girl who just wrote to me out of the blue, claiming to know so much about my daughter and where she is and how she’s doing and what her plans are.” She paused for a moment. “Rainbow’s letter to her parents mentioned you; not that you were in the White Fang, but something that they passed on to your parents. We didn’t speak long, but they seemed like good people.”

“They are,” Gilda said in a gruff voice. “They are good people, they … my dad worked for Rainbow’s father, in his electronics store in Low Town. My mom was a maid in Atlas. Not one of those fancy live-in maids; she’d just turn up to middle class houses and do the dusting and the vacuuming.” Gilda paused for a moment. “She told me that the worst houses were the ones where the woman of the house would follow her around to make sure she was doing it 'to m’lady’s satisfaction,' pointing out everything that she hadn’t done. Made a one-hour job take three hours or more. But they both worked hard. They worked hard, and they deserved to get the chance to go to Menagerie, and … I’m told that, in Menagerie, everything just springs out of the ground, nobody has to work for anything.”

Lady Belladonna chuckled. “It’s not quite that much of a paradise,” she said. “But it is a very nice place to live. I imagine it might be even nicer for those like your parents — and Rainbow’s parents — with the chance to relax and take the load off. You know they’re still very good friends, from what I could tell.”

“I’m not surprised,” Gilda murmured. “I … I never wanted to be Rainbow’s enemy. I never wanted to be Blake’s enemy either; I … I always admired your daughter, my lady; she … she always had a lot of conviction.”

“Yes,” Lady Belladonna murmured. “She always had a great deal of conviction. I’d say she got it from her father, but the truth is that she might have outdone even him in that regard.”

“And it doesn’t bother you,” Gilda said, “that she wants to move to Atlas, to join Atlas, to become … it doesn’t bother you?”

“I must confess that I was surprised, at first,” Lady Belladonna admitted. “But Blake believes that she can do some good, and I must also admit that having met a few of her Atlas friends, they seem like very good people.” She hesitated. “Better, I must admit, than some of those she hung around with in the White Fang.”

“You weren’t a fan of Adam, my lady?”

“No,” Lady Belladonna said softly. “No, I can’t say I was.”

“He wasn’t a bad person,” Fluttershy murmured. “He just … made some bad choices.” To Gilda, she added, “I’m sorry, by the way. Rainbow told me that … I’m sorry.”

“'Sorry'?” Gilda repeated. “You’re sorry, after … after everything?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that he’s gone, and I’m sorry that things got to the point where … where he felt he had to do the things he did.”

“Yeah, well…” Gilda cleared her throat. “That’s very nice of you. I can’t promise you that Adam would appreciate it, but I do. Thank you.” She stared at her for a couple of seconds. “As someone who is from Atlas but isn’t a huntress or a soldier or anything like that, do you think it’s true that Atlas has the greatest military in the world?”

Fluttershy opened her mouth, but didn’t speak for a second. “I … I don’t know,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t even know how to start judging that. Or know what to compare it to. It looks strong.”

“Do you think that they’ll protect Blake?” Gilda asked. “Do you think that they’ll protect Rainbow Dash?”

“Yes,” Fluttershy said immediately. “I know they will.”

Gilda closed her eyes. “Good,” she said softly. “That’s good to know. That means that once all this is over, once they go back to Atlas — once Dashie goes to Atlas, once Blake goes to Atlas — then they’ll be safe. They’ll be protected. The High Leader’s anger won’t be able to touch them.”

“And that doesn’t upset you?” Lady Belladonna asked.

Gilda almost smiled, even though she couldn’t quite bring herself to smile. “No,” she said. “No, it doesn’t bother me at all.”

Now, it was Fluttershy’s turn to approach; she walked around the other side of Gilda to where Lady Belladonna sat and knelt down beside her. “Because you don’t really want to hurt them, do you?”

“Honestly?” Gilda asked.

“Yes,” Fluttershy said. “We might as well be honest with one another, don’t you think?”

“Then honestly, I think that Rainbow’s right, what she said to me before we got taken off to prison,” Gilda said. “She’s done more for the faunus that I have recently, more than the whole White Fang has. If she and Blake can keep on making a difference, can keep on improving things, then … I’ve got no problem with that. That’s all I ever wanted. Maybe they can be the change we need, maybe they can’t, but I can’t say that they shouldn’t get the chance to try.

“I didn’t join the White Fang because I like the killing, or because I want to be remembered as a hero of the struggle. I joined because I wanted to make things better, because I wanted to help. Only maybe I was … even if I wasn’t doing more harm than good, I can’t say that there aren’t others who are helping more right now.”

“Then why did you come back here?” Fluttershy asked.

Gilda snorted. “Because this isn’t the sort of job where you can go back to the High Leader and apologise, but it was all just a bit too difficult. I have to get this done or … or die trying. And then if we do die trying, then she’ll send someone else, but that’ll be fine because like you just said, the power of Atlas will protect them.”

“More than just the power of Atlas,” Lady Belladonna murmured.

Gilda looked at her. “My lady?”

“I’m willing to bet that a lot of people who support the White Fang ordinarily feel the same way that you do,” Lady Belladonna said. “They want things to improve and aren’t particularly concerned by the how or who. How might those people react, do you think, if they found out that Sienna Khan was willing to kill two people who have made one of the biggest accomplishments in recent years just to salve her ego?”

Gilda blinked. “You would … would people believe you?”

“I think Sienna would be concerned by the mere possibility,” Lady Belladonna replied. “Enough to back off Blake and Rainbow Dash.”

Gilda let out a sigh of relief. “I hope you’re right, my lady. I really do hope that you’re right.” She shook her head. “When I wonder if we’ve been going about this all wrong for years, it all feels like such a waste.”

Lady Belladonna laughed. “'A waste'?” she repeated, covering her mouth with one hand. “I’m sorry, but … to hear someone your age saying that, it does sound a little ridiculous, you must admit.”

“I didn’t think so,” Gilda said, quietly and only slightly sullenly. “I was being serious.”

“I think what Lady Belladonna’s trying to say is that it’s never too late to try and do things differently,” Fluttershy murmured, putting a hand on Gilda’s shoulder. “And in your case, you’ve hardly gotten started anyway.”

“Well,” Gilda muttered. “Are you worried about them? Dashie, and Blake? Are you worried about them in this battle that’s raging?”

“Yes,” Lady Belladonna admitted. “Very much so.”

“But…” Fluttershy trailed off. “I don’t know if Atlas has the greatest army in Remnant, but I do know that they’re not alone. They’re with Trixie and Starlight and Rarity and so many others, and they’ll all take care of one another, so … so we have to have faith that they can make it through together.”

“I hope you’re right about that,” Gilda murmured. She slowly climbed to her feet, rising like a tide. “When Adam was prepared to get on that train, I think he knew that he wasn’t going to come back. He told me to command the Vale Chapter; only now … I’m not at all sure that I want to.” She looked at Lady Belladonna. “I know that Blake and I weren’t close, but I wish her well on her new path.” She turned to Fluttershy. “I’m glad that I met you. And tell Dash that I’m sorry for everything I said back when.” To Lady Belladonna, she added, “I didn’t take her joining the Atlesian forces as well as you. I was kind of a pill about the whole thing.”

“Why don’t you tell her yourself?” Fluttershy asked. “I’m sure she’d like to hear it from you.”

“I’m not so sure about that, considering,” Gilda replied. “And besides, there’s an airship full of White Fang cutthroats sitting on a docking platform, and I’m going to take care of them.”

Lady Belladonna’s eyebrows rose. “How many are we talking about?”

“Six,” Gilda said.

“And only one of you?” Lady Belladonna asked. “That … doesn’t sound very healthy.”

“Like I said, my lady: live by the sword, die by the sword,” Gilda said. “Someone has to take care of those people, or … I fear that they haven’t been suffering the pangs of conscience the way I have. They’ll just keep hurting people; someone has to—”

“Someone,” Lady Belladonna said. “But not you, not alone. After all, isn’t that the reason why you couldn’t beat Blake? Because her Atlesian friends came to her aid? I think that’s how they do things in the north kingdom: with numerical superiority. There are worse secrets to success than that, don’t you think?”

Gilda frowned. “You’re saying—”

“That there are a lot of people who can help deal with a small White Fang problem,” Lady Belladonna said. “You don’t have to face them alone.”

“They’re my team,” Gilda said. “I freed them from the Valish because I couldn’t just throw them aside—”

“Then why did you leave them on that airship and come here alone?” asked Lady Belladonna.

“Why did you just say that they have to stopped?” Fluttershy asked.

“Because they do,” Gilda admitted. “The things that they say…” I mean, Woundwort hadn’t implied what he wanted to do to Fluttershy and the others before I freed him. “I don’t know whether it’s the White Fang that’s changed, or I’ve changed, or maybe neither of us have changed, and it’s just that I didn’t recognise the White Fang for what it really was, but … the thing that they belong to is not the thing that I belong to, or that I want to belong to. I don’t want to hurt people just because we can, or because they’re standing in our way. And they will hurt people; I … that much is clear to me now. They have to be stopped.”

“And they will,” Lady Belladonna said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to stop them.”

Gilda stared at her. “I tried to kill your daughter, and yet, you’re so concerned about my life.”

“I think Blake would be upset about your death,” Lady Belladonna said.

“And I know that Rainbow would,” Fluttershy added. “She’d much rather hear your apology in person.”

Gilda snorted. “I’ll bet she would.”

“And besides,” Lady Belladonna went on, “your parents are part of my people, on Menagerie, and that makes you one of my people also, in more ways than just as a faunus. I really don’t want to have to tell your parents that you died, or that you were really part of the White Fang and you’d been lying to them this whole time.” She smiled slyly. “I’d much rather bring you to see them on Menagerie, to tell them that part yourself. Don’t worry, parents are very forgiving as a rule.” She winked.

Gilda stared at her. What she had done, what she had tried to do, and yet … no anger? No rage? No revenge?

She was … she was…

Virtuous.

Gilda bowed her head. She did more than bow; she knelt down before her, amidst the debris and the battle scars.

“My lady,” she murmured. “I will be yours, if you will have me. I’m not sure what you’d do with me if you did have me, but—”

“Oh, I’m sure we can find some uses for a brave faunus,” Lady Belladonna said lightly. “More use than Sienna made of you, I hope, or better use, at least. More use than a dead girl, when so many have died already.”

Gilda’s eyes were wide as she looked into the eyes of Lady Belladonna. “You … you will not regret this, my lady.”

“No,” said Lady Belladonna. “No, I don’t think I will.” She picked herself up off the floor so that she was standing over Gilda once again. “Now, let’s see if we can’t take care of your ex-comrades safely, shall we?”