Colors of Remnant

The breeze outside lingered and swept through the untouched corners of Beacon Academy. The day, long, and the night, cold, but serenity had befallen the spirited school, the silent hour, the hand on the tower would soon strike midnight. And yet still, a sign of life, a churning flame in the darkness danced atop a candle where it was joined by its kin, a circle, pillars of wax, burning away the time. Among these sat a figure, a form less defined in the dimness than it might ordinarily be, a visage of a girl, beautiful in her own esoteric way, a ghostly maiden owed no companion but the flickering shadows that danced alongside her.

She sat in the midst of the bookshelves and the racks, though she wasn't here for them. She'd come for one of the long tables, where she'd set up her station, sitting atop it cross-legged and flanked by candles, humming a chilling tune while she worked. She moved with an alien grace, applying paint to a canvas which was propped up on a stack of books, bringing to life another creation which had no business being unwhole. It was rare, she had thought earlier to herself, that she was in this good of a mood. So, it would seem, she'd decided to capitalize on this fact.

Sable Citrine, eccentric among eccentrics, had found herself a short way in to the library where she performed a ritual of sorts for her own amusement. She was clearly visible from the hallway outside, as she'd chosen the first table from the door; this she didn't mind, as nary a soul would be found this late at night lest they were meant to be here, driven by some sinister fate. She was not worried, she was not afraid. She was content, and as she'd been told in younger years, the true mark of a contented person was shown in dance or song. So, she sang.

"Oh...
Oh, deep water.
Black,
And cold like the night.
I stand with arms wide open,
I've run a twisted mile.
I'm a stranger, in the eyes
Of the Maker."

She paused momentarily, touching the hand which held her brush to her face briefly, examining her painting, determining her next addition, then, in time with her song, she continued.

"I could not see
For the fog in my eyes,
And I could not feel
For the fear in my life.
But from across the great divide,
In the distance I saw a light..."

Her voice was a tiny thing, amplified only by the calm surrounding her. In this solitude, the walls could hear her just as well, and the spirits abound would certainly shiver in delight. It made her... Happy.

It wasn't typical of her to paint like this. The composition of her work was abnormal to her standards. For once, she found herself using the green paints she'd bought months ago. For once, her painting had a background. And, for once, the subject of this painting wasn't a nightmarish creature with evil intent. Not a bad thing, she supposed, but she decided not to read too much in to these facts, because she was enjoying herself centered entirely in this moment, and as far as she knew, the owl she was painting was enjoying himself, too.

Its eyes, wide, head turned toward the viewer, it clutched a mouse in its talons, satisfied with its latest hunt, perched in a tree, the night around it. He felt how she felt. It was perfect. She would call him Flan.

Tp, Tp, Tp.

Nym's boots quietly tapped along the walkways and tiles of Beacon's campus in the moonlit night. Her eyes lazily scanned through the shadows as she walked. Hardly anyone was ever up this late. The campus coursework was mentally and physically rigorous, taxing enough that getting sufficient sleep was made much easier by exhaustion. Exhaustion didn't solve everyone's sleeping troubles. Nym's head was full of frenetic thoughts of days gone by. It was made worse by the half-dreams, half-hallucinations that danced across her eyelids somewhere along the edge of consciousness as she'd been trying to doze off. Now she walked the lonely campus, slinking along in the shadows that her faunus eyes could see as well as if she'd been in daylight.

Tp, Tp, Tp.

Her sharp ears pricked up as she found herself near the library, a familiar sound, an unfamiliar voice. Someone was singing at the crack of midnight. She nearly laughed, realizing it was the sort of forlorn, lost type of thing she'd wanted to do when she was fresh at Beacon's doorstep. If it weren't for her lack of vocal skills, she might have done it. Her ears stayed at alert as she crouched down to silence the sound of her footsteps and creep closer towards the source of the song.

In the distance I saw a light

As quietly as she could, she peered through the library doors, not wanting to interrupt the girl's performance. She looked like she might break into pieces if Nym interrupted her too boldly. Her figure appeared delicate, or, as delicate as any Beacon student could appear. Her attire was all blacks and lace, her skin pale, Nym couldn't help but think she looked almost like someone had brought a doll from a toy store to life. Her horns were especially pretty. No faunus' features grew like that, they had been altered, physically transformed to look spookier, almost like spines.

She was a strange girl, painting and singing and looking bizarre. Was Nym actually dreaming right now? This girl was just strange enough to not quite fit the mold of reality, but nothing else was happening to make Nym question her reality...yet. She shrugged, dream or no, stalking this girl seemed a little rude. She'd have to either move on or-

Whoooosh

A sudden gust of wind blew through, forcing the door to the library to rapidly swing open. Nym lunged forward, gasping in surprise, reaching for the handle to stop it from slamming against it's hinges and telling everyone in a hundred yard radius that someone was in the library. Success! Obviously her reflexes couldn't be beat by an unexpected gust of wind, and with her aura enhanced speed it was trivial to catch the door. Her choice had also been made for her. It had hardly been subtle or quiet.

"G'day," Nym said, stepping into the library and closing the door behind her to prevent any errant air currents from interrupting her. "Er, g'devenin', actually, I guess. Heard ya singin' n' couldn' 'elp takin' a peak, love. Not interruptin' anythin', am I?" Her tone was appropriately apologetic for the sudden appearance, and her expression reflected a small amount of embarrassment for the not-so-smooth entrance.

Where her song had trailed off, Sable's voice became a hum once more, occasionally, additional lyrics bubbled to the surface of the excited brew that was her mind. Some of the lyrics were more sad than others, maybe they didn't quite fit her mood, but the tune certainly did.

"...I'm not a stranger
In the hands
Of the Maker..."

Her work was becoming inspired. She'd taken up mixing the grey she'd been using with a little red, fitting it in to the fur of the deceased mouse that Flan, the owl, was clutching. It needed to look properly half-devoured if Flan was going to enjoy his meal, after all. She dabbed the blood-analog in place while she continued to hum to herself, completely unaware of the nosy fox spying on her from a distance.

"Brother John
Have you seen the homeless daughters?
Standing there
With broken wings...
Well I have seen the flaming sword
There, over east of Eden
Burning, in the eyes of-"

Quite quickly, with nothing to herald its coming, the wind picked up, and blew through the halls of the school from some unknown open entryway. With it came a cacophony of sounds, though slight, and small, they were enough to startle her into a strangled gasp.

"Hh!" she breathed, her head swiveling about, and in an instant something black and thick formed about her hands. Her heart raced, her pale fingers disappeared beneath a thick, inky substance that spread from them when she placed one below her on the table. It flooded outward, threatening to engulf her candles, and her eyes searched the darkness. It wasn't hard, given her racial heritage, to see the culprit at the door, and she worked with some effort to get her fear under control. It had flared quite sharply, as her mind filled with the possibilities. An assassin, a monster, a demon? No... Just a girl with big ears and even bigger... Well.

She clutched her hands to her chest, and just as quickly as the liquid darkness had spread around her, it evaporated, carried away like wisps of smoke on the breeze. Her bright green eyes were glowing momentarily as she looked at the other Faunus, and she remained silent for a moment when the newcomer spoke.

There was a hint of awkwardness in the girl's speech that halted any further inflammatory questions she might've had for herself. This one was definitely another student. Sable had spun about, and was now half-up on her knees, but she settled backward and placed her rump on her feet and folded her hands in her lap. Her cheerful mood was quick enough to return.

"Oh... Hello. You startled me. Have you come to observe? This eventuality is okay. I do not mind," she spoke softly, then turned her upper torso to the side slightly so she could set down her paint brush. The painting was almost finished, anyway. Clearly visible without her arms obscuring it, the painting showed a large horned owl, perched menacingly on a branch with a vacant, haunting stare aimed directly at the viewer, his large, yellow eyes unblinking and full of judgement. The fresh kill he clutched in his talons gave the impression he had hunched over his victim. All about the owl, there were the green leaves of the tree he'd chosen, with scattered, angled branches. Beyond the tree, there was a field, and beyond that, a crude, out-of-focus blotch of paint that vaguely resembled Beacon Academy's skyline.

"What brings you here at this hour? Not many venture beyond the safety of their lairs to embrace the night such as I," she spoke, her voice might've been near indistinguishable from the sound of the wind had it not been otherwise as quiet. Her head tilted a little to the side, giving her horns the shape of a crescent, and upon her lips, there appeared a slight, but definitive smile.

Nym must have really startled her to get the girl using her semblance. There wasn't much other explanation for the strange, viscous darkness that she'd had pouring from her hands. It was gone almost as quickly as it came, though, and it didn't appear if much malice or hostility remained between them. It was a happenstance meeting in the middle of the night between a couple of night owls, right? They could understand that much without words, eh? Or, something like that. Hearing that the girl wasn't going to mind Nym's presence, the foxy faunus moved into the room proper to take a seat nearby. Her stance was all casual as she kicked her boots up on the table and leaned back, appreciating the other girl's artistic handiwork.

What brought Nym out there? Well, she could answer that without too much hesitation. "Couldn' sleep. Figured I'd go fer a walk n' clear me 'ead." With mixed results. She shrugged. "D'nno 'f it's doin' me much good, but it got me 'ere, so it can't all be bad." She winked playfully at the beetle faunus. "Don' think I've run inta any artists at Beacon I didn' care for, n' ya got a pretty voice. Yer paintin's not bad eitha'." Nym nodded at the work in front of them. Might as well make a good first impression with her words if her initial actions were a little suspicious. It wasn't simply idle flattery. This girl had some talent. While her painting was hardly the stuff of museums and masterpieces, it was good. It wasn't the smatterings of a total amateur. It was something she had more than just a little bit of practice with.

Probably! It wasn't like Nym could really tell that much, she was no professional art critic!

Sable wasn't surprised with the answer she'd received. Sleeplessness was a menace which plagued and pervaded all of life itself, she felt, and in her opinion it was far more difficult of an issue to solve than even the problem of the Grimm. How she expressed this was to be defiant of time itself, doing things like sitting in a library until the witching hour and ultimately falling asleep just before dawn. But, this was also something she could easily relate to.

The beetle offered a smile for the compliments, though, one that was at least more apparent on her features than the hint it had before.

"I am gladdened, and certainly Flan here appreciates the sentiment," she said, then nodded to her painting. Yes, she'd named the owl.

"When I am finished with him, he will need a happy home. Would you perhaps be willing to adopt him?" she asked. Was this her way of offering to give Nym the painting?

"I do not have much use or need of paintings such as this. He is born of merely this feeling within, a projection of the joyous nature of life and the glorious breath of the forest." She was definitely in a good mood, and company, while rare, was not unappreciated. It had been awhile since she'd had a simple conversation with another student that was mostly without reason. She turned back toward her painting and began to dab at it with her brush again, calm, slow, careful.

Adopt a painting? Nym took a close look at the painting. It was a bit dark for her own tastes. It probably wouldn't fit well among the sketches she'd painted over the walls of her dorm room, but maybe it would make a nice art piece for the bathroom? The tiling in there didn't lend itself well to being worked on. This girl was trying to be nice, too, and Nym couldn't think of a polite way to turn her down. It would probably make for a neat talking piece. "Sure, love, always wanted a pet." That was mostly true. She'd named the owl, but they hadn't named themselves yet. Someone had to start with introductions.

"When people're askin' me who drew this picture I prob'ly oughta tell 'em somethin' other'n a cute, goth lookin' girl who talked like'a poetry book, right? I'm Nym." Nym hadn't been sure if she was imagining things, but this beetle faunus had some bizarre speech patterns. Her whole appearance, her mannerisms, she seemed like something out of a dream. Was Nym dreaming? She didn't exactly remember falling asleep, but does anyone? Dreams seemed pretty real up until the moment you realized you were in one. They also tended to fall apart upon reflection after the fact, but it was anyone's guess if this was a strange fiction she'd thought up after dozing off.

She'd get to the bottom of it eventually.

Sable, after applying a few more finishing touches to her painting, was starting to feel her attention pulled away from it and toward this strange newcomer. Beacon was full of characters of various shapes, sizes, and backgrounds, so it wasn't surprising to her that she'd find somebody with such curiosities eventually, but something about this other Faunus struck her as outlandish. From her accent to her mannerisms, she felt her curiosity piqued enough that the painting wasn't as interesting to her as it had been a moment ago. It was almost complete, anyway.

She inclined her head slowly toward Nym, and gave her a once-over, her bright green eyes reflecting the candlelight in the darkness. The beetle set down her brush, gingerly placing it next to her palette on the table in front of her, then twisted so her legs turned sideways on the table and she was better facing the other girl.

"A painting such as this could be considered far superior to a pet," she stated, "It need not be fed nor will it expire before you, bathing your soul in the momentary sadness of loss. I expect the foolishness of pet-keeping to haunt me when Peat passes on. But a tarantula lives far longer than one might expect. Provided it does not escape first, though Peat has everything he needs and no reason to leave." As she spoke, her eyes trailed upward, without due haste, before they settled downward back on Nym a few moments later.

"Nym, is it? Short for Nymphadora, perhaps? A lovely name. You may call me Sable Noir Citrine, although Sable itself will suffice if you're in a hurry," she stated, with an odd lilt of humor in her voice that didn't quite match her mostly-placid smile. This was her version of a joke, it seemed.

It was impossible to read this girl. Her manner of speech was just weird, and that was coming from someone with their own heavy accent. She talked funny, and acted weird. A pet tarantula? Paintings better than pets? Beacon attracted the eccentric and exceptional alike. The two went hand in hand so often it was more of a wonder to run into 'normal' people here. Nym only shrugged at the assertion of superiority. She'd never owned a pet! How could she make a judgment on it?

Nym, is it? Short for Nymphadora, perhaps?

One of her ears twitched, but her expression stayed the same. "Nah, ain't short fer nothin'," she lied. "Jus' Nym." She wanted to leave that name behind. Her official papers at Beacon had her shortened name, and it wasn't like anyone had done digging into her past just to make sure she wasn't lying about her name. Whoever let her into Beacon must have seen some spark of something in her, right? "Nice t' meetcha, Sable." Her tone did not belie any offence taken. It's not like this girl knew anything, she'd just made a scarily accurate guess! Not even a particularly hard guess to make, all things considered.

"D'you think 'm dreamin' right now?" Nym decided to pose the question, just as food for thought, something for them to talk about. "I was 'avin' trouble sleepin', but...I'unno if I eva' actually fell asleep, and this all feels a little...dreamy t'me, love. Like...a dream that's a little too close t'reality, but I can't tell, eh?" It was a whimsical question, but Sable seemed like a whimsical girl.

As observant as ever, she'd noticed the twitching of the ear, but her mind made no connection. Instead, it generated thoughts about the very nature and existence of ears, tried to conjure up what it might be like to have them where her horns were instead, and all the musculature to facilitate their movement. Then, she thought about what Nym's skull must look like with such obvious and large protrusions, it was certain to be interesting. But, she wasn't really in to live vivisection, yet still it was a curiosity that satisfied a need to fill a void. She pondered other things like this in silence for a moment, though she still managed to catch every word that Nym said, and soon her curiosities about the shape of the girl's skull was replaced by another.

To this question, she thought even harder. She placed one thin finger to her chin, her face and eyes slowly turning upward, denoting the pacing of her mind, but after a few seconds more of that perverse silence, where only the wind blew and the candles flickered, she provided her well-formulated answer.

"I suppose that depends upon what philosophy you prescribe to," she began, folding her hands back in front of her.

"A best guess of the human or Faunus mind might wager that dreams are a window into our very soul, but the concept of waking dreams dates back centuries. First described in long-forgotten texts discovered in the ancient deserts of Vacuo, where it was said that nomadic tribes, particularly their shamans, would enter trance-like states and wander the deserts for days in a daze only to emerge some time later with otherworldly insights into the problems the tribe faced. But these visionaries and their ritualistic practices died off thousands of years ago, so I have my doubts that you've been imbibing of sacred elixirs as a traveler embarking on a journey of the supranatural sort. There is of course the possibility of sleepwalking, of which I am familiar, but given you have not attempted to put anything abound in your mouth as of yet, this seems unlikely.

Of course, there still remains the notion that perhaps you are experiencing heavy exhaustion and should be confined to your quarters for an extended period of rest, your mind slipping between the ether and the worldly plane in a desperate attempt to warn you of such folly. And then, of course, there is my favorite answer, a notion doted upon by poets from centuries past... 'Life is but a dream,' they'd said."

Finishing her discourse, throughout which her eyes had traversed the room, her head tilting to and fro with each idea she put forth, only to return to rest peering at Nym with an unblinking gaze that certainly proclaimed her attention was firmly now on the Faunus before her.

"I hope this answers your question," she added a moment later, and a small smile spread back to her face. It had been awhile since somebody had asked her such an abstract question, she had to admit, they were always fun to answer.

Nym's eyes started to glaze over as Sable began to give her own mini-lecture into the nature of dreaming. She put her feet down and then placed her elbows on the table, cupping her head in her hands as she lazily watched the beetle faunus go. Her mind had latched on the first thing she'd said. A window into the soul. What did that say about Nym's soul if that was true? Her dream was about wandering around the empty campus of Beacon late at night and running into someone who didn't seem like a person at all, who was so outlandish and strange that she was making Nym wonder if she was awake or not. She was cute, at least, so her mind still seemed to have decent taste if she was sleeping, but did her soul long for loneliness? No. That might have been what she thought she wanted a long time ago, but she just didn't want to get hurt and being alone was the easiest way to protect herself from being hurt. Maybe she felt like she was alone? Sometimes, but she wasn't alone. She had friends now. She had people she could rely on. She...

Nym realized that Sable had stopped talking, and scrambled mentally. Had that answered her question?

"Pfff, yeah, think it did, love. Don' think any brain'a mine'd be able t' come up wif all that, so I don' think 'm dreamin'," Nym said with a hint of amusement in her voice. She didn't know anything about shamans and elixirs and traversing dreamscapes. Dreams were just dreams, right? "You get lonely at all, spendin' time 'ere jus' doin' stuff like this?" The thought of loneliness was still lingering in her head. Maybe her extended periods of time on her own made her more susceptible to feeling lonely. Maybe her home life had left a hole somewhere in her heart that was always seeking affection or attention. Nym didn't know what was wrong with her, or if anything was wrong with her at all in this regard. Lots of people could feel lonely, couldn't they? How did she know she was any different. Nym was probably also making some assumptions about how this girl got on with the rest of Beacon, but were they unreasonable? She seemed weird. She did weird things. She was a faunus. Those things were not conducive to having a wide social circle at a human dominated school.

Sable only started to realize after the fact that she'd rambled a bit, and her guest's mind had perhaps started to wander. Oh well, she thought, it wasn't to be helped. If there was a question that needed answering, she wasn't one to fall short of that challenge, even if it meant she were misunderstood, as that was commonplace for an intellect such as her own. She hadn't expected, though, a follow-up question that was perhaps just as deep as the first one. It seemed her mind wasn't the only one lost in thought at the moment. In fact, that made sense, Nym's zoned-out expression from before could have easily hinted at her own pondering. If she had to wager a guess, actually, Nym had a lot on her mind tonight.

"Lonely?" she repeated, her mind suddenly changing gears, which had the effect of her dropping her hand from one side of her face, her other one touching the opposite cheek now, and her eyes shifting from one direction to the other as her thoughts were brought along with it.

"I suppose loneliness is subjective. I often find that I am not alone, whether or not there exists no other soul within the same confines," she stated, though her mouth pulled down a bit at the corners when she started to feel this wasn't quite adequate. How to explain...? She hated answering a question with a question, but there wasn't any way around it in this case. Her eyes suddenly searched the room, her head twisting about slowly and cautiously, as if making sure they were indeed alone, that nobody was around to hear them. It was a simple gesture with a purpose in mind, and she found what she was looking for.

Behind Nym, in the doorway, there Sable found a face. An apparition with a visage of teeth and empty eyes, a black, dark thing staring at her, watching them. It made a lump appear in her throat, and she swallowed carefully.

"Are you ever... sure you're alone, one-hundred percent?" she questioned back, and began to ignore the thing she'd seen, knowing it wasn't really there. If Nym turned around, she would find nothing in the doorway, not the curious skull of a strange specter staring at her, nothing but the empty darkness of the doorway. Such was her curse, she rarely felt truly alone... Though she often wished she did.

Nym blinked her tired eyes and watched as Sable shifted in her seat. Loneliness was subjective? What did subjective mean, again? She was sure Ax had told her about that word before. It was like how Nym really liked rabbit, but lots of people in civilized society thought it tasted bad. Some people didn't feel lonely when they were alone. Yeah, that was right. Nym didn't always feel lonely when she was by herself. Sable's gaze meandered around the room while Nym pondered, but her eyes locked on to the door behind the fox and Nym could tell that she saw something. Her eyes weren't just searching. They were looking at something. Nym flicked her head to the side so she could see the door, but nothing was there, and she was sure she hadn't heard anyone either. Only someone whose semblance could hide their approach would be undetectable to her ears, and she almost certainly would have been able to smell them. No one was there.

Her gaze turned back towards Sable. "Sure, all th' time. Jus' sittin' in me room I know 'f anyone else's there. I'd smell 'em or hear 'em or see 'em. Ain't like worryin' 'bout some invisible boogey man's gonna do me any good." That was as sure as it got for her. "Pretty well trust me nose, specially. People try t' be quiet n' they try t' stay outta sight, but barely anyone eva' thinks 'bout 'ow they smell." It was simple logic, but it worked for her! "Like right now. D'no whatcha saw behind me, but I know ain't nobody there. Didn' 'ear 'em, didn' smell 'em, couldn' see nothin', I'm a hundred percent certain's just you n' me in 'ere."

Sable did her best not to let her visions make her uncomfortable. She knew better, the thing she'd seen wasn't there, not really. But still, her point rattled about in her mind, and her face turned thoughtful while she tried to think of a way to explain such an occurrence to somebody who'd probably never had the pleasure. Nym gave her a bit of fuel for her thoughts, but she listened to the fox's perspective on things, and tried to solidify her own into words that would make some sense. It was easy enough just to say something like 'I'm never really alone', but that wasn't really correct. She'd been alone before Nym had come here... Right?

"Well... For all your senses, what would you think if just one of those caught something? For example, if you could smell something, but with no identifiable source, and you could not hear it, taste it, see it, or feel it? A phantom smell? Would you believe that it must come from somewhere?" she asked, rather interested in what kind of answer Nym could offer her. It wasn't every day she got to pose questions like this. She had to wonder what life might be like without the rude intrusion of non-real beings into everyday scenarios. Certainly it would make things easier most of the time, but... Wouldn't that be simply more mundane?

"I suppose you sound confident enough not to doubt yourself, but if the odor were particularly strong... If it were simply too hard to ignore?" That would be, in practice, a lot like what she went through frequently. Days like today were easiest. Visions could exist on the edge of her vision without shaking her, but she had memories of much more... Troubling times.

"That a silent but deadly joke?" Nym responded with a hint of snark, but she settled back into a regular sitting position after she said it. This girl was asking some weird questions, and she probably wasn't just looking for a flippant response. What would Nym do if she was seeing things? Or...smelling things? How could she really be sure that she could trust her senses? "D'no, I guess," she said with a shrug. "I mean, f' I can't track down the source'a some smell, it don' really botha' me. I guess if it was somethin' dangerous I'd ask someone else 'f they could see it or smell it, n' if no one else can then I guess I'd prob'ly 'ave t'see a doc or somethin' 'cuz then I'd be sure 'm seein' things...or...smellin' things?"

And at that point, who even knew what would happen next? Not Nym. She furrowed her brow trying to think further, but her sleep addled mind was drawing blanks on what might happen after that. "I'unno, though, I don' think I've eva' 'ad anythin' like that 'appen t'me." She'd been delirious and seeing things a few times before, but it always seemed so obvious that what she was seeing wasn't really there. It hardly affected whether or not she felt alone for sure. "Guess I wouldn' know 'f I'd still be able t' feel like I was really alone 'less somethin' like that 'appened t'me," she said with a final gesture of resignation from her hands. She was wondering if maybe Sable had to deal with something like that, something that made her feel like she was never really alone.

Sable raised an eyebrow about the joke. She wasn't quite sure what that meant. Silent things were often deadly if they had an inkling of danger about them, anything from owls to venomous snakes. She'd worried more than her fair share about the possibilities of assassins lurking through Beacon's halls, seeking to end their enemies in the form of students, before they could gain power and smite those who would do evil.

She wasn't really sure what she'd expected asking a question like this of a stranger, but she received an answer that was all together unsurprising to her. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. The tired fox-girl seemed to really work it over in her brain, though, and that was all she could ask for, some level of consideration to her thought-provoking questions.

"I suppose it's no use worrying too hard over the subject. I could say I've done enough thinking about this sort of strange philosophical scenario enough for the both of us," she admitted, and sure enough it was the truth. The visions she occasionally had, minor or perhaps worse, they were enough to have made her ponder their meaning time and again. Why was she chosen to see such things? What did the apparitions want from her? Even if they were figments of her imagination, was there some aspect of them that made them real? To her, many times, they were real. Vivid, too hard to ignore. But most of the time, they were like that face in the doorway; brief flickers of a creature that soon vanished all together.

"Still, it is curious, is it not? The idea that, lurking just around the corner, might be some unknown, some creature, some specter or alien, whether you'd seen them or not? When I was a little girl, I used to simply assume that this might happen on occasion. After all, there is so much around you that you cannot see at any given moment, how would you ever know if something hid just outside your door? There, under your bed? Watching, waiting, scheming..." Her voice trailed off, and then after a brief moment of silence, she laughed, a gentle, rolling chuckle of amusement, like somebody had told a good joke.

"Why, it's enough to frighten a child, that much is certain," she said, self-assuredly.

"You 'ave? Good. Don' really care too much fer thinkin' anyways," Nym said with a cheeky grin. Philosophy had never been her cup of tea. She'd never had time to think too hard about the moral ramifications of anything, and she didn't want to. The thought of confronting her past actions and their morality was scary. The best thing she could do was tell herself that she'd done what she had to to survive and not go any deeper than that, promise herself that she would do the best she could to be a better version of herself than before.

Her eyebrow raised at Sable's musings on what might be scary. Was this what sheltered kids thought about to scare themselves for a thrill? Real people had hidden in wait for her. She didn't need to use her imagination to envision something lurking in the dark. What was so funny about that? "Eh," she said with a noncommittal shrug. "Neva' really needed t' worry 'bout make believe monsters under me bed or in the closet. Met 'nuff real ones t' know it ain't yer imagination that's gonna do ya in if ya ain't careful." That was about as specific as she felt like being on the subject. She couldn't exactly blame Sable for not having the same life Nym had had. Stars, actually, Nym didn't even know what Sable's childhood had been like. She could have had it worse than Nym for all she knew. A sudden pang of guilt hit her for mentally dismissing her. No more thinking like that. Benefit of the doubt. Neither of them knew each other well at all.

"That's a fair point, I suppose the Grimm don't care what you think you saw." She tapped her chin with a finger, turning her gaze upward again in thought. She'd only had a handful of experiences with the Grimm so far, since she was still in training and all, but the ones she had seen were all but the most terrifying thing she could've been exposed to. True monsters, living ones, not the ones that skulked at the edge of her vision or the faces in the dark which plagued her intermittently. These monsters took one look at you and charged. The memory of it alone was enough to make her shudder a little.

"Well, at any rate, you sound sure of yourself. A good quality to have in battle, so I've heard. I cannot say I have such luxury about me at all times, but I suppose I've had my moments. Have you been in many battles?" she questioned, though she got the feeling she already knew the answer to this one. Nym had about her the general feel of a warrior, somebody rough and tumble which didn't shy away from a fight. It was either that, or her judgement needed some work.

Sable took a second to look back at the painting that sat on the table beside her. The paint was starting to dry, courtesy of the candles flickering about it. It wasn't her best work, sure, but she liked it. It had just the right amount of color here and there, and the haunting gaze of an owl always put her oddly at ease. They were the animals of wisdom, apparently. She looked back at Nym. Her traits were interesting, too. A bushy tail and alert ears, golden eyes and a strong physique. Maybe she'd wind up painting Nym some day? Perhaps, if she'd seen her at hunt, too...

Have you been in many battles?

Nym's eyes trailed away from Sable's face, meandering over the table, the books, unfocused. Her thoughts weren't as well bound as when she was more well rested and they started to wander through her memories of battle. Oh, she had fought many, many battles. Ever since she was little she'd been fighting, hadn't she? It was hard to call those battles when she did little more than survive. Her opponents were always bigger, stronger, faster than she was. She'd gotten used to the taste of blood and dirt in her mouth, the taste of defeat. Until she'd met the man that had warped her life into the twisted shape it now took on. She'd met him and her battles changed. He'd taught her how to fight, how to wield a weapon, not just how to defend herself but how to claim victory. Surviving wasn't all she was doing anymore. Dirt started to become a memory and the blood wasn't hers anymore. How sweet it had tasted to win, to be valued, to be something.

And then it had all disappeared. Overnight she'd gone back to the dirt, and it had been nothing but battles from there until the night that she and Sable were sharing together.

Nym blinked and looked down at her hands. They'd balled into tight fist with white knuckles. She coughed, unclenching them.

"Yeah," she said, her tone was deflated. "Yeah. I've...I've fought a lotta' battles. I've k-..." She hesitated, but her hesitance wasn't unwavering. This girl wasn't anyone that could hurt her. If she felt the need to spread the things that Nym was talking about, would anyone even believe her? Would she even want to do that? "I've killed people b'fore. Torn 'em in 'alf. Hacked off limbs. Shot 'em, stabbed 'em, beaten 'em till..." She trailed off, her stomach feeling a little queasy bringing the words to life. It felt like another life, someone else's life, until she talked about it. They were just movies she'd watched. They were only pictures in her imagination. They were packed away in the darkest recesses of her mind in little boxes that she could safely ignore. It wasn't something that could affect her day to day life. It was all just a bad dream. Until it wasn't. Until she shared them, and it came back to her. The blood wasn't just spattering against a camera, it was all over her, wet and hot. The screams weren't just playing from speakers, they were in her ears, in her head, until they were drowned out by her chainsaw or cut short. They weren't just actors. They were people. They were men and women who'd come from somewhere. They could have had family waiting for them to come home. They could have had some kind of future before Nym had cut them down.

But it was her or them, right? It was okay, wasn't it?

"Sorry, that...that prob'ly sounded...way worse'n I meant it to. I jus'...I jus' came from somewhere where you were eitha' tough, or dead n'..." She trailed off, taking another deep breath in and trying not to let the rising nausea in her stomach overtake her. This was a mistake. She shouldn't have said any of that. Why did she think this was a good idea? Obviously no one would want to hear about how she was a cold blooded killer! What the fuck was she thinking?!

Sable hadn't expected where this conversation might lead her. Then again, they were in a place where many folk from all over the world gathered, and each of them with their own distinct stories... So she supposed she wasn't entirely surprised when something about what she'd said seemed to have struck a nerve. Similarly to how Nym's questions had sparked in her a bit of a reminiscent, somewhat unpleasant chain of memories, it seemed she'd done the same back at her.

So it was many. This girl, this simple Faunus before her, was a veteran in her own right, and so very young. She could see it in the way she stared off to the side, now noticing the way she held herself, the callouses on her hands. If she had to venture a guess, this one belonged her at Beacon perhaps more than she did. Not a combatant by nature, Sable had merely come of her own will to do good, not any proclivity for battle, however...

The gruesome descriptions that Nym began to rattle off seemed to barely phase Sable. She'd seen such things on her own. The gore wasn't offputting to her. It was merely meat torn from bone the way one might eat the leg of a chicken; the interesting thing here was that Nym seemed to not think very highly of such acts. She was in regret, perhaps? Or was it more than that? Disgust, anger... There was more than a simple story behind her sudden change of mood. There was an entire lifetime of woes, just as any veteran of any battlefield anywhere might experience. Traumatic. Seemed she might not be the only chronic sufferer of insomnia and nightmares in this room.

"Please, relax your anxieties. I will not shy away from horrors of reality. I intend to be a Huntress, after all," she said softly, and tried to offer a small, reassuring smile as best she could. She wasn't the best at expressing things.

"I apologize for hitting a nerve. Mayhaps I might remember not to walk carelessly with words in the future. But tell me, your demons, do they haunt you tonight? Is this why you are not safely tucked in bed, sleeping, dreaming? Anxiety is the true killer of men, as my mother always said," she offered, her voice gentle, calm, perhaps reassuring. She didn't want to pry, so much as soothe. She didn't enjoy seeing other people experiencing such agitating thoughts. It was these very things which had made her take up the mantle of Huntress. To end the suffering of others, to see to it that nobody under her care experienced the trauma, the horror of reality, that none lost sleep to their anxiety.

The girl hadn't immediately recoiled. Her stupid idea to open up about being a living, breathing murderer hadn't blown up in her face just yet, aside from giving her a wave of anxiety induced nausea that made her glad she hadn't stopped for a midnight snack before leaving her room. Sable might have been weird, but it was a good kind for this conversation. Nym's tired eyes hovered on Sable's for a few quiet moments.

"Yeah." Her voice was lacking in energy. "S'been year since I did anythin' like that, but...it don' eva' leave you. The..." She trailed off, swallowing, forcing herself not to spew. "The faces. The sounds. It lingers like stains on yer clothes or scars on yer skin. S'always there. Might be able t'forget about 'em fer a while, but the right time comes...the wrong light...and s'there, clear as day." Clear as day, even in the middle of the night while she tried to sleep. Those times were always the worst. She didn't want to ruin anyone else's evening when she could usually just tough it out herself, go for a midnight stroll and wait until the feelings subsided.

The small smile she'd been wearing had been replaced by a small expression of concern. Her emotions weren't very expressive on her face, though, so this manifested as only the barest hint of her brow furrowing, her mouth just slightly turned downward. She didn't expect that Nym had much to say about this, but in fact, when she went on, her words were almost poetic... And they sounded very unique and interesting in that accent of hers. Sable enjoyed things like that, although the content of her words was a bit upsetting to say the least.

She pursed her lips, then looked back at her canvas. She grasped it, and flipped it around, the paint dry enough by now in the candlelight that it would be fine. The backside was another canvas, stretched all the way around the frame, but just as white and blank as the pristine front had been before she'd started. She reached out and picked up her brush, then held it out toward Nym.

"Have you ever considered painting?" she asked, her voice still gentle and soft, nearly a whisper.

"I find that there is no better medium for exploring the images burnt within the mind than to remove them, personify them, and place them as an image upon the plate of a fresh canvas. You are not required to attempt this, but it might assist your emotions," she offered, and scooted back a bit, making room for Nym in her little circle of candles. Painting was ubiquitous; even if one had no skill in it, the colors, the strokes of the brush themselves often held a power to express what one was feeling. She patted the spot on the table next to her, hand still outstretched with the brush, which currently had forest green paint on it, still wet. There was a palette next to her with many different colors, and a cup with water to rinse the brush, they had everything they needed.

Nym eyed the brush and the blank canvas. Sable was trying to be helpful. That was nice. Weird as she may have been, she did have a heart and could tell this wasn't an easy topic for Nym to talk about. She was doing her best to offer a solution or a distraction from what was on Nym's mind, but she had already explored this particular possibility. Putting those images on a page did nothing but reinforce the image in her mind. No, when she wanted some kind of catharsis, there was something else she liked to paint. The fox faunus stood up from her chair and wordlessly moved around to take the brush and begin to dab little trees into existence on the canvas. She'd discovered the joy in painting a long time ago. Her technique wasn't complex, but it was well practiced. Trees began to take the shape of a forest. Mountains came to life in the background as she worked. A lake reflected the blue of the sky and the white of the mountain snow.

"I don' really like t'...paint stuff like that," Nym explained as she worked. "Makin' it real...jus' reminds me of it. I'd ratha' paint stuff like this. Simple. Calm. Sometin' I'd...somewhere I'd like t'go someday." Though the image she was creating didn't exist on any maps. It was fictional, drawn from her imagination. She already felt better, though. Imagining the shapes and colors was a meditative process. It forced her to think and plan around the canvas and didn't leave much room in her head to worry about anything else.

Sable watched when the other Faunus took her brush and began her work, she watched with all the curiosity of a child, a light smile on her face, her eyes big and green, and perhaps full of wonder. She enjoyed the silence on any day, and she didn't mind it that Nym took the time to express herself like this. In fact, it was a joy to behold, somebody working away their emotions through an expression of the soul, like massaging a ball of dough until it took the desired shape. She admired the trees of Nym's forest, she delighted in the beauty of the two-dimensional mountains, the blue of the lake reflected in her eyes with the light of the candles, and all the while she sat with her hands folded in her lap, occasionally tilting her head one way or the other. It didn't take her long to figure out that this wasn't the image of anything horrible, so when Nym spoke, she wasn't all that surprised.

"The palace of your mind but a beautiful construct," Sable admitted with a small shrug, "What where which we find peace welcomes us when." She turned her head to the side to give Nym a bit of a smile. It didn't reach her eyes, as things often didn't, but it was genuine none-the-less.

"You have considerable skill with the brush," she added, turning her head back to the painting, enjoying the sound of the brush hissing against the canvas. It was a wonderful sound. The calm silence of the night around them seemed to agree.

Eventually Nym reached a point where she was satisfied with her work. The canvas hadn't been filled to the edges, the picture faded as you got closer towards the borders, but it was still a nice piece of imaginary scenery. The blank portions lent it a dream-like quality that seemed fitting for the evening she was having. She set down the brush, moving to sit on the table nearby the two of them.

"I spent...a lotta time alone b'fore I came t' Beacon," she said, a small smile coming to her face at Sable's sincere compliment. "Paper n' pencils, paint n' brushes, it was all pretty easy t' come by on a budget." Art supplies could be cheap at the right places, and especially so if you could get a five finger discount. "I 'ad plenty'a time t' practice. Didn' 'ave anythin' else I could do t' pass the time. And...it 'elped me not t' think too much 'bout stuff I didn' know 'ow t' think about."

The beetle-girl regarded the fox with a tilt of her head, listening to her words and occasionally glancing for some small yet prolonged period to the painting, as if comparing the two. She could think of many similar moments in her life where she'd been alone, perhaps for an entire day, and had taken it upon herself to paint something lovely in the interim. Though Sable had grown up within the relative safety of the Kingdom of Vale, it didn't make others so easily attracted to the idea of spending the day with her, doubly so when weird black spiders had begun to pop out of her head, soon as her Semblance had become apparent to her. She was glad that there seemed to be some kind of ease between them, her utter lack of nervousness with new people was fairly uncommon. She made the observation that Nym was likely easy for anybody to talk to, because of this. A genuine friendly person... How curious.

"I understand entirely," Sable responded, "I find that affairs of the mind are best settled on the battlefield of art. Affairs of the heart, however, must be dissimilar by nature. Fits of passion and rage have no place on a canvas in my opinion, and yet any deep thought may manifest itself as a colorful portrait of life anew." She nodded slowly, then began to blow on the canvas for a little while, creating a gentle breeze to help dry the paint somewhat, enough she could move it without smearing the colors.

"And consider this," she added after it had dried a little to her satisfaction, "T'would appear you and I have seemingly created something quite unique..." She grasped the painting gingerly in three fingers, then flipped it to the back side, upon which sat the owl, still staring at them as though they had invaded its privacy.

"This will make a lovely addition to your wall, night..." She flipped it back again for emphasis to the landscape, "Or day." The two-sided painting offered two perspectives of nature, rather than one... It was a unique piece indeed.

Affairs of the mind and affairs of the heart, both domains that Nym felt out of her depth trying to solve. Even her art wasn't truly an attempt to settle them. It was a distraction. It was a way to let the problems fade from consciousness and into the background. The problems she'd been dealing with were beyond her ability to solve, or so she thought. She had eventually found a solution by coming to Beacon. Her loneliness didn't eat at her the way it used to. She had a consistent place to sleep and friends to spend her time with. Her life was so much better that it still sometimes felt like a dream.

As Sable flipped the painting back and forth, Nym grinned and then laughed. "Wonda' if we'd be able t' find any two sides frames t' hang it in," she mused. It was a whimsical thought, but she did like the painting. "Think there's any symbolism in there? Somethin' 'bout 'ow, uh...even the darkest night's followed by day? Somethin' 'bout inner calm?" She'd never been very good at reading between the lines when it came to visual arts. Songs, poems, words could be read and re-read and interpreted, but how did you do that with a painting? It was a lot harder to imagine what the mountains could represent when there was a mountain right there. It represented the mountain!