RWBY: Silver Eyes on the Mountains

The Ache of a Warrior's Heart

Kenshi was a man who prided himself on being able to endure hardships, of the physical, mental, or spiritual variety. However, he drew the line at having to do all three at the same time. Having hit a band of the mountains the locals called the Cloud Forest, they were not only hit by biting wind and cold, but the added component of massive storms. He and the men huddled in a cave to try to let the storm pass. Local guides used dried animal dung and dried wood to make fires, as the men took off their armor and clothes to let them dry. Kenshi barely got off his boots when Azura walked in the cave to survey the sorry state of his men.

"Well, brother, I think we finally found a place with worse storms than home." Kenshi said as he wrung out one of his socks, mud brown water coming down like a faucet out of it.

"Come now, Ken. It is not that bad. We have endured worse." Azura replied as he wrung out his haori.

"It was already soaking wet up this high when I got here due to the fog. Never have I gotten armor this soaked, and I never want to have that ever again." Kenshi said, shimming out of his chest plate like a snake shedding its skin.

Azura stripped out of his hakama trousers and wrung them out as well. "Well, at least it-" he began to say only for Kenshi to cut him off.

"Not another word out of you on that. We don't need you jinxing us anymore, brother." Kenshi groaned as he at last freed himself fully from his waterlogged armor.

"Fair enough." Azura replied, hanging his haori and hakama trousers up to dry before beginning to polish his armor.

Kenshi turned to the mouth of the cave, and to his further disappointment, the rain simply came down harder. He groaned as he worked to start a fire. His fingers trembled a bit as he worked, causing him to curse the wetness and the cold. Once they finally got one going, Azura pulled out hardwood boxes from his tall pack and began to start handing them out to everyone until, finally, he handed one to Kenshi.

"Bento boxes? My, you're sentimental today." Kenshi said with a small smile, taking off the top to reveal the best spread of food he's seen in months. "Where did you even get these?"

Azura smiled at his twin. "You didn't think I'd come unprepared, did you?" he asked.

"No. I simply didn't think over these rotten roads we are forced to use that you could get food like this up here." Kenshi said, pulling out chopsticks from his own pack. "I've gone through two horses in two weeks. The roads are that bad up here. It doesn't matter how good the horseshoes we put on them."

"Things will get better soon, dear brother. We simply need to tough it out until then." Azura assured him.

"And when does it get better?" Kenshi asked curiously.

"When we knock these 'Golden Nobles' off of their thrones of blood, sweat, and bone and free these people." Azura told him determinately.

The two brothers gave thanks for the meal before beginning to dig in. However, Kenshi did eat long before he stopped to look at his brother.

"Why are you so obsessed with these Golden Nobles, brother? We have seen tyrants aplenty both back on Anima and in these western lands. What makes them so special?" Kenshi asked curiously.

Azura looked down at his food. "You remember what Father taught us, right? About the duty of those born with strength…?" he asked, sounding a bit somber.

"How could I forget? He hammered it into our skulls hard enough. For those born strong to use it to protect the weak. Why?" Kenshi asked, it not adding up at all to him.

Azura nodded as he looked down at his food before setting it aside, picking up a rock and looking down at it. "That is the duty of the strong. We were born with strength, born more fortunate than others, to protect those who are less lucky than ourselves. Tell me, Ken… what do you look at when you see the lands these 'Golden Nobles' govern…?" he asked, beginning to sound a bit tense.

"What is there to look at, really? All that's left of worth is from who they toppled some… fuck, no one here even knows how long that was ago." Kenshi said bemusedly.

Azura glared down at the rock, his hand beginning to tremble as his increasing rage caused him to clench it while his eyes glowed an electric yellow. "Exactly. These 'Golden Nobles' make a mockery of what it means to be true nobility. They place themselves up on their high horses, acting like they are owed some place atop the world while they strip everything around them down to nothing. Spitting on the legacies of the truly noble people they overthrew and cast down to get to where they are! These bastards are an affront to everything we stand for, everything we were taught that it means to truly be a noble!! All while they act as if they are gods who look down upon and ruin the very lands they say they claim to govern…!!!" He all but roared as his grip crushed the rock in his hand into small pieces.

This surprised Kenshi to see his brother this way and he noticed towards the mouth of the cave the soldiers and guides were quite startled by this. Azura quickly calmed himself outwardly and composed himself, to keep people from becoming uncomfortable. But Kenshi knew his brother better than to know he was through with these tempestuous and stormy feelings of the moment. Like a brooding storm god, he sat on the rock before the fire and slowly at his food, mulling over the topic. At this, Kenshi tried to move the topic along.

"So, what do you think about that old man? For all we know, he could have been a plant for the nobles, or they just sent us on a wild goose chase to get us killed and take our stuff." Kenshi said, scowling at remembering that old bartender that sent him down the path of misery.

Azura took a deep breath. "If that is the case, then we will show them what it means to suffer like the people they have kicked down, beaten to their knees, and kept in the depths of despair. We will survive and tear them down from their golden thrones before burning everything they have built to the ground to start fresh and new. To make these lands ones that the previous dynasty would be proud to look upon." He told his brother, his determination clear and resolute in his voice.

Kenshi sighed and said, "Easy, brother. You're getting hotter than the fire right now."

Nodding, Azura continued to eat. However, even as he did, the soldiers and Kenshi looked at Azura with smiles all around. They knew that, despite his harsh words, he only did this because he cared. Because he could not stand by and allow such cruelty to continue any longer.

"You didn't answer my question brother. What do you think of that old man? I don't know… something was off about him. Like so many things growing up back home. Master Yūri always said there was more to this world than what we could perceive." Kenshi said, his tone becoming almost sagely in the moment as he spoke.

Azura nodded as he swallowed a chewed bite of food. "Agreed. Honestly, I have never sensed anything like that old man before. His presence… the air about him… it did not feel of this world. It did not feel like that of a human, Faunus, or even a Grimm." he told his twin.

"Spirit maybe?" Kenshi mused.

Azura nodded. "Perhaps. We are not Shugenja, so it is hard to say." he replied, thinking it over.

"He also mentioned those silver eyed people. I've never met anyone with silver eyes. What's so special about them that the nobles would go through the trouble to wipe them out? With how lazy they are, I am a bit surprised." Kenshi said inquisitively.

"I do not know, Ken. However, I intend to find out. One way… or the other…" Azura ominously told his twin.

"I guess so." Kenshi said, a bit surprised his previously fiery brother clammed up so much. "You sure you are okay, brother? You're not usually like this."

Azura nodded. "I am fine, Ken. The fact of the matter is that letting my emotions get the better of me will not solve anything in this situation. Cooler heads always prevail, after all." he replied.

"God, you sound just like Father. No wonder why you were his favorite." Kenshi said with a sigh as he finished his food.

Azura smiled at his twin. "You know as well as I do that father had no favorites, Kenshi. He was only harder on you because he saw your potential." he replied.

"He tried to dropkick me out the door when we voluntarily went into exile!" Kenshi exclaimed in frustration; a memory being forced back into his mind by his brother.

Azura chuckled. "You know as well as I do that father was simply trying to better prepare you for what is out here. And he was worried about us, especially you." he replied, placing a hand gently on his brother's shoulder.

"He had a funny way of showing it." Kenshi sighed, laying back on the large rock before the fire.

"If anything, Ken, the fact that Father was so hard on you shows that you were more his favorite than I was." Azura replied, going back to his food.

"Oh? So, is that why Momma always made you cry when you were little?" Kenshi asked with a slight chuckle in his voice.

Azura chuckled as well. "Perhaps. And I seem to recall you crying every time Father raised his voice." he shot back.

Kenshi chuckled a bit as the brothers finally began to relax by the fire, basking in its light and warmth. Azura then turned to one of the guides.

"By the way, would you please satisfy my curiosity by telling me what the next village up the road is?" The azure lord asked them.

The guide, a young man barely up to Azura's ribs with scruffy black hair, was startled by Azura's sudden question. However, he quickly composed himself to answer him.

"We are near a fork in the road, my lord. There is a string of villages still along the forest band. They are some of the larger villages on this side of the peak. However, the biggest one is up on top of the peak. They call it Patch." The guide said, his voice muddled by his thick accent.

Azura nodded in understanding. "Then we'll try our luck there when it comes to information gathering and hit every village on the way there," he asserted.

"The Grimm and monsters have forced many to abandon their villages up the road to Patch, milord. Only Patch has survived thus far because of its size and walls. I have not been there myself, but my grandfather always told me it was a place where several trade roads crossed." The guide continued, though it is clear he did not know much more than that with the worry in his voice.

"All the more reason to head in that direction. To liberate those villages from Grimm and monsters for the people and have a better chance at finding information at a potential hub of information for the area." Azura replied.

"But most importantly, we can all sleep in a bed." Kenshi said through a long sigh.

"Agreed." Azura replied tiredly.

"About time you agree with me on something. For a second there, I thought you had become a spirit yourself." Kenshi said, lifting his head up from the rock to look at his brother.

Azura chuckled. "Not yet, Ken. Not yet." he replied playfully, pulling out a book from his pack.

This caused Kenshi to raise his eyebrow. "What book did you bring all the way out here, brother?"

"The elder gave me this upon my request. A book written by the Golden Nobles forces about the local area. To defeat one's foes, one must know them as well as one knows themselves." Azura sagely told his brother.

"Kwan Tao's 'The Nature of Combat.' Really love the classics, don't you?" Kenshi said with a small smile.

"What can I say? The man was a sage when it came to the art of war." Azura replied with a smile of his own.

"Well, let's hope that book is enough. We are stretched thin as it is…" Kenshi said before laying back on the rock again. "Catch you when the rain lets up, Azura."

Azura nodded. "Sleep well, Kenshi. I will take the first watch and wake you when it is your turn." he replied, keeping his ears open for sounds of trouble as he read the book.

As he settled into a nice relaxing read, his ears picked up nothing but the downpour of rain. It was almost peaceful, if he did not know that Grimm could be lurking right outside the cave. However, the words spoken to him were far greater now than they ever had before. Back home when he read it, it was merely for a test. Now, it could mean the lives of his men and the peoples he hoped to free. He had to drain the book of every ounce of knowledge it contained and absorb it well. To ensure that he could rid these lands of the blight that had afflicted it, once and for all. As soon as the rain let up, they would march for Patch.