Colors of Remnant

Stars, it was late. She'd lost track of how long she'd been out. She raised her scroll and tapped a button to unlock the screen. She let out a soft sigh at the time. 3:08 am. There was no reason for her to be awake right now.

The pink-haired punk flicked the last bit of ash from her cigarette, dropping it to the ground and stomping it out with the heel of her slippers. It was a Saturday night - or rather, a Sunday morning - and for once, Ax wasn't doing much of anything. No plans with Nym, no plans with other friends, no escapades in town at the clubs. Just her and another bout of horrible late-night insomnia. It was a wonder how she could so thoroughly tire herself with all the ordeals of her day and still end up awake all night. She leaned with her elbows propped up on the railing at the edge, bent forward as if captivated by the sight in front of her. It was a serene, pleasantly warm night from atop Ax's dorm building. Pale lights illuminated the grey-white walkways where they carved up the gardens into little sections. Ax's cool blues eyes wandered over the sight over and over again. She'd always thought Beacon Academy looked beautiful from up here.

Far beyond the trees and the cliffsides in the distance she could see the lights of the city. She could wind blowing through the trees. Even in the dark places, she could see all the little details of the academy grounds from up here. She could sit up here with earbuds in, listening to this song all night... just wasting the night away. Maybe she'd drift off. Maybe she'd start to feel better soon. For now, the grounds were almost completely silent, and Ax L. Rose was completely alone.

A bright flash of green would briefly illuminate the rooftop as a white haired girl materialed a few yards away, holding what looked to be a bag of some type of chips, and a can of iced coffee. Her hair was down, more or less, the remains of her signature ponytail still snagged in her scrunchie, which hung near her shoulder, and she was dressed in a long, charcoal grey t-shirt and neon green knee high socks with black and white checkered slides. A wreath of cigarette smoke circled her head, dissipating into the night air. For a moment, her attention was captivated by her can of coffee, which she cracked open and took a long sip from, staring up at the sky while she did so, seemingly unaware of another presence on the roof.

After a moment, she lowered the can and looked around, yawning, and blinking in slight confusion as she finally realized where she was. Or, more accurately, where she wasn’t. This was not where she meant to end up. What building even was this? She stumbled to one edge of the roof to peer over, and, not seeing her signature bike parked anywhere along the wall, groaned in frustration. This was not her building.

Citrine clamped her cigarette in her teeth as she ruffled her already messy hair. What building even was this? As she looked around, trying to figure out where her own dorm building was in relation to whatever place she’d ended up, her green-gold gaze landed on another figure standing by the guard rail of the roof.

“Oi,” she called out, “what building is-” she cut herself off with a yawn, “this is not the freshman dorms…. Where th’fuck is this?” She approached the figure as she spoke, and, upon doing so, realized she recognized who it was. “Ugh. You,” she deadpanned, any semblance of verbal filter completely gone at three in the morning.

She had only interacted with the bird girl once, and it had been several weeks ago at least, but it wasn’t easy to forget someone with a tail like that, especially when it was someone she didn’t like. She figured the girl, who’s name she either never learned or couldn’t remember for the life of her, probably didn’t remember her at all. Good. Then maybe she wouldn’t get yelled at for being on top of the wrong goddamn dorm building. Though Citrine usually liked to make strong impressions on people, sometimes being forgotten about had its perks.

For a brief second, Ax thought she might've imagined it... she was tired after all, just not tired enough to sleep. She started to look around for what caused the strange green flash, only to find that she was no longer alone - her eyes widened at the sight, her back straightening, her body going rigid. It took Ax only a second or so to recognize the girl, and when she did she had the sudden impulse to simply leave. Turn and walk back inside - don't even acknowledge her. She hadn't talked to her yet, after all, and with Ax's earbuds still in there was a fair chance she simply wouldn't!

Ax's hesitation cost her. She had a chance to walk away while Citrine yawned, but Ax faced forward and locked her jaw, losing herself in thought. The music in her ears had been a soothing presence before, but Ax wasn't all there anymore; the sounds might as well have been bouncing off her brain. When the underclassman turned to look at Ax, she'd see the bird in a much different state of dress than before - an oversized white t-shirt that hung off one shoulder, some plain plaid pajama-pants, and her black polka-dot slippers. Her makeup had been on her face way too long, and Ax's hair was not in perfect condition. No gauntlet, but her big shiny metal arm was still very plain to see.

Then Ax heard talking. Muffled talking behind the tones in her ears. Ax closed her eyes and inhaled a soft breath, determined to not let this further ruin her mood. She was already feeling angsty and... generally not super great. Ax was at significant risk of electrocuting this chick if she misstepped. Ax needed to be composed. She rose a hand and pulled an earbud out...

“Ugh. You.”

...and an almost blinding current of rage rushed through Ax's veins. Her fingers clenched, a little mini-shower of blue sparks lighting up the railing in front of her with a soft glow like a welding torch as Ax tried desperately to restrain herself from simply blasting the bitch off the roof. The teleportation trick was cute, but lightning struck at 186,000 miles per second. She'd like to see some freshman fuck try and test their luck right about now!

Ax knew that she couldn't speak right now. If she did, she'd assuredly just say something cruel, hurtful, or otherwise inappropriate, and the last thing Ax wanted was to verbally spar with the irritating little freshman she'd met out at the airship docks. It'd just end with her baited into initiating violence, and Ax didn't need the headache. She put her earbud back in her ear and tried to just pretend she didn't hear her.

When the woman didn’t reply, Citrine cocked her head with a squint. She’d taken her headphones out briefly, so she definitely heard her. But now she was just ignoring her. What the fuck was up with that? She took another long sip of her coffee, debating just Glitching off to some other building. But, looking around the surrounding area, she realized that all the buildings more or less looked the same. Had she overshot or undershot when Glitching? She couldn’t tell. For all she knew, her building was the one right nextdoor to this one. But in the darkness, they really all looked the same.

With a somewhat exaggerated sigh, and another sip of coffee, Citrine approached the bird faunus, leaning lightly on the railing next to her.

“Look,” she started, setting her can of coffee down on the railing. “If you have some grudge against me ‘cause I like ta ride bikes in places I’m ‘parently not s’pposed to or fuckin’ what, like, sorry for get’n in your hair an’ all that…” she cut herself off with a wide yawn. “But I’mma need to know what dorm this is, I’ve got so much shit I gotta finish an’..... I don’t know where th’fuck my building is.” God she was tired, why didn’t caffeine work faster? She was pretty sure half of what she was saying was unintelligible, that’s what Rosalie had always told her when she got tired, but in her defense she was exhausted, who could be bothered to pronounce words at all when it was fuck o’clock in the morning? Or at any point? Words were so overrated anyways.

She slumped against the railing, loose strands of hair dropping down around her face in an action that effectively knocked her can of coffee over the edge. “Nooo,” she whined, reaching out and Glitching the can back into her hand. She took a sip from it then set it on the ground; in the process of doing so, she decided that the ground was a better place to be than standing up—much less effort required—and resorted to just sitting down, leaning up against the railing behind her.

“Do y’know how much fuckin’ work I have?” School work had never been Citrine’s strong suit, which had worked out fine back in primary combat school, where academics took a backseat in favor of sparring and other combat classes. But here at Beacon, she was expected to not only do all her work, but perform well too. She needed to try extra hard, especially, because slacking off would be an insult towards her sister. But damn she really wasn’t used to putting all this effort into her studies, she was surprised her brain hadn’t just completely melted by the third day.

She opened up her bag of salt and vinegar chips as she ran through the list of assignments she still needed to complete; half of them had been due yesterday.

“Want any?” She held the bag of chips up towards the faunus girl beside her.

Ax's decision to pretend she didn't see or notice Citrine maybe wasn't the most convincing ploy she'd ever committed to, but it did help reduce the flood of rage in her veins down to something at least semi-manageable. The light on the dorm building roof was dim enough where maybe Citrine wasn't picking up the obvious clues that Ax wasn't particularly open to interaction. The decision to put that earbud back in had been pretty deliberate, but the gesture was lost on this chick.

She heard Citrine sigh. A few seconds passed, and she wasn't leaving - she was approaching. Ax begrudgingly slipped a hand into her pocket to mute her earbuds, no longer able to focus on the music. Ax's eyes slowly turned toward the white-haired girl as she spoke, narrow and suspicious.

Ax took in a slow breath, closing her eyes and turning her head away as soon as Citrine finished her first line. You could tell a lot about someone by the assumptions they formed, the conclusions they jumped to. Somehow this chick came to the conclusion that Ax was bent out of shape over Citrine's reckless disregard for the rules the day they first crossed paths or something. She was also slurring her words like a drunk, which Ax was... pretty sure she wasn't doing the first time.

Ax slowly exhaled through her nostrils and her eyes opened again. She reached up to pull out her earbud again to at least acknowledge the girl. She might've laughed at the fact that this chick was lost under different circumstances, but she wasn't feeling quite so amused this time.

A bitter retort, a harsh remark, a comment that would certainly escalate matters was right there, just at the tip of her tongue. She resisted the impulse, watching silently as Citrine did her little trick with the can. So, she could teleport more than just herself. Ax made a mental note.

"...you could try teleporting to a directory, pulling up a map on your scroll or something maybe," Ax suggested lightly. She ignored Citrine's complaining about her work - the freshman was preaching to the choir. She heard the crinkling of the bag of chips before she saw it, but didn't seem very interested. It was way too late for her to be snacking, even if she was a little hungry.

Ax let out a little huff after a moment. Okay, that had been... sort of an olive branch. She wasn't totally sure what to make of some of the mixed messages here. This chick seemed hostile and standoffish a second ago, but now she was seemingly trying to be nice. Ax turned her head to look over at her again as she spoke.

"I'm good, thanks. And just to set the record straight... I don't give a shit what rules you break. You could've planted your ass on the Headmaster's face for all the difference it'd make to me," Ax shook her head slightly, looking back out over the edge. She wasn't sure if it'd be worth it to try and tell this chick what exactly Ax's issue had been. Ax only remembered a bit of their exchange, but the way Citrine had pissed her off had left a pretty distinct impression nevertheless.

Citrine was pretty sure the bird chick was talking to her. What was she saying? God she was so tired. Why did drinking coffee make her more tired? The ground wasn’t that comfortable, and the railing around the roof was digging into her back weirdly, but at the moment it might as well have been a feather stuffed mattress. At least she wasn’t standing up anymore. Even the thought of standing seemed exhausting. She tried to figure out where the sudden extra wave of exhaustion had come from. Most likely, she had been coasting on some type of roll while working earlier, but that momentum had been broken when she had Glitched into town to go get snacks and-

Oh.

Oh.

She was crashing.

Glitching on its own could be tiring. But Glitching while already exhausted? That was just a recipe for further exhaustion. Usually she was pretty good about not Glitching when tired, unless she was Glitching to somewhere she could immediately sleep. But her tired, overworked brain had elected to forget that little detail earlier, too focused on getting coffee and snacks to remember what sleepy Glitching resulted in. No wonder she had missed her destination, she’d already been crashing from the first Glitch to the convenience store. And pairing that with another almost immediate Glitch while she was mid-crash? It was a miracle she was still awake at all. The Glitching itself always gave a slight adrenaline rush, but that rush was fading fast, and here she was just sitting around on a rooftop holding conversation, having been blissfully ignorant, up up until right now, of the fact that she was definitely about to pass out in the next few seconds if she didn’t lie down and take a power nap. Damn a power nap sounded great at the moment. Or just a full night’s sleep. Yeah that sounded really nice.

“I don’t….I don’t even have one of those….” Citrine mumbled, dropping her head against her knees. One of what? What were they talking about? Directions? Yeah she didn’t have any directions. That’s what she’d been trying to get! But this chick wasn’t giving them to her!

The girl continued talking, Citrine turned the—admittedly rather confusing—statement around in her head a few times, trying to make sense of it. If the girl didn’t care about her breaking rules… why did she care about her riding her bike around the boulevard? It’s not like she’d been running into people.

Citrine attempted to voice her thoughts on the matter, but it came out more like “tha’dsn’t make…. anys’nse…” She yawned widely as her words dissolved into incoherent muttering. She managed to mumble something about a ‘catnap’ as the only warning towards the girl before she fully fell asleep, finally succumbing to the crash of her teleportation use. Citrine’s unconscious body slumped sideways, leaning up against the other girl’s leg, fast asleep.

One of Ax's eyelids twitched a little at Citrine's slurred response, but by the time she yawned, Ax was starting to wonder what was going on. Had this chick filled that coffee can with liquor or something? It wouldn't have surprised her at this rate.

"...are you drunk?" Ax asked, wrinkling her nose a bit as if disgusted. She shook her head and glared down at Citrine beside her, mulling over what it'd feel like to snap her foot up and kick this chick under the jaw. She'd have to hope Citrine didn't puke on her or something... ugh, gross.

"Wh-" Ax stared blankly as Citrine slumped over and leaned heavily on the side of her leg.

"What're you... uh... oh-okay. I guess this is happening now," Ax's shoulders slumped and she exhaled an indignant little breath of a sigh. She was going to have to babysit a drunk freshman now. Just her luck.

Should she let her sleep it off? Maybe if Ax moved really slowly and really carefully, she could get away and leave her to crash until the sun came up in a few hours. She'd have to make sure she laid on her belly too, in case she got sick or something probably... how did she end up with this kind of bad luck?

Ax raised her flesh-and-blood hand and snapped her fingers a few times to see if Citrine reacted first.

"Hello? Remnant to... whatever your name is?" Ax rose her voice. Maybe just waking her up was a better idea. She could teleport to bed or something.