river. / typhoon. / fire.

          he’s not much for cursing, but he certainly feels some profanity bubbling at the back of his tongue. he wants to make her feel how harsh her words are, he wants to demand respect that he hasn’t earned, which only proceeds to frustrate him further. since when was he such a hateful person? but his emotions tend to overflow when faced with what he would consider an ‘enemy.’ she doesn’t deserve his anger, but he is angry. 

          their downfall. like his family wished for what happened to them. like they were the cause of it, that’s what it sounds like. perhaps it wasn’t a perfect relationship, what little ren has told him has always made his childhood seem a bit…intense, but nothing warranted being slaughtered. she acts is if ren deserved what happened to him.

          “are we done here?” he spits through grit teeth, “because i’m not going to stand here and listen to you belittle someone i love. you don’t care about ren. you hate his family. you know him better. points made. anything else?” his tone is obviously angrily sarcastic there at the end, because he absolutely believes none of what he said. she doesn’t know ren better, at least not the person ren has become now. 

“ oh, come now, why so riled ? ” giggling, acrid toxicity in her saccharine laugh. she was having too much fun. her original point of the visit was supposed to be delivering a personal thank you on behalf of the mistrali military for dispatching the nuckelavee, but this was far more interesting. making ren miserable had been an entertaining past time, as well as those few they considered confidants. “ you’re a special case, mr. arc. wouldn’t you rather be warned if you were about to consume someone else’s leftovers ? ”

“ so what, is unsolicited harassment your go to now, or ? ”

‵   I’M   NOT.   TRULY.   ‵   there was still an echoing growl, welling up in the bottom of his throat. it stroked at his curt syllables, unease distinct and clear to his past making them reverberate with caution. maybe they didn’t know none another very well, but he’d known enough. she had an ulterior motive. she was   COLD,   CALCULATING,   &   CALLOUS.   they were traits the lie family had valued in their monetary and social pursuits. it was why she’d been chosen for his bride. he’d adored her in his youth. why was he only seeing these sides of her now   ?   ‵   it should have been vanquished a long time ago. i’m sure a grimm of that threat level would have been relatively easy for you to slay.   ‵

           she’s doing this on purpose. she has to be, saying whatever she needs to so she can get a rise out of him, right? or maybe she was trying to prove a point vicariously through him about ren? he doesn’t know, knows very little about this woman at all aside from that she knew ren, and they had, at one point, been betrothed. 

           he tries to keep a check on his rising temper but she is a hot fire under him, the mercury in his thermometer unable to stop climbing. he knows most of those answers, at least he thinks he does, but that was beside the point. he doesn’t even know what her point is! 

           “what are you getting out of this?” he asks abruptly, almost cutting off her line of questions, “are you trying to prove you know him better than i do? or just drive it home that you don’t care about him now?” 

          he’s off-put almost immediately after she speaks, more upset now than he had been five minutes ago which he hadn’t thought was possible. she’s…incredibly calloused. he has a hard time relating to and understanding people like that. and, deep down, he knows she’s trying to prove a point. jaune may know the basics, but there is still a lot of the dragon’s troubled past that he has yet to indulge with him. jaune never makes him, they take it in time, but he seriously doubts she will understand that.

           “…it’s not a game.” he responds, “and there’s nothing i have to prove. not to you.” he may not know an’s maiden name, but he knows the drink she used to prepare for ren as a child to help boost his immune system; cream and lotus roots and sugar cane. he knows the middle name he was given, and why. he knows how ren takes his tea, knows how to tell when the dragon needed space. he knows when and how ren liked to be touched, or when he didn’t. he can usually tell how his mate felt just by looking at him, hearing him speak a few words. that was all things he learned through getting closer. all things that you can’t measure with a simple question.

           “…and it was changed to an.”

how could it not be a game? everything that involved the lie family was a game, with a prize at the end. ren might seem have seemed spineless and weak-willed, but that was still the world he’d been born into. dirty politics and lies. though relatively untrained by his extended family’s influence yin had to admit he at least had the capability to rising to his full potential. the old lie way of thinking was why her family had decided to become involved with his.

she made a small scoffing noise, mocking smile never fading, nodding even. “it makes sense… why he chose someone like you.”

no, jaune did not have to prove anything to her, but she was gaining a significant amount of information from his reactions and wording alone. he was entertaining her in the first place, which might’ve been his first mistake. everything yin learned about ren had come from observation, and most from his family, never really from ren himself. “so you know her nickname,” she presses on. “what about where most of his scars come from? why he knows sign language? do you know why his horns needed to be filed down?”

“no, i’ve been mostly doing odd jobs; small hunts usually creeps or beowulves y’know nothing to harsh, yet.” the blonde crossed her arms a bit sizing yin up and down. “my family and habits aside; how have you been? You’re looking as pasty as always.”

‵   WHAT   DO   YOU   WANT,   YIN   ?   ‵   his voice was a defensive snarl, tryin to hide the clear pain in his eyes with his mess of black hair.   ‵   you never entertained small talk before, has it changed now that i’m the only heir   ?   ‵   they’re clear, warning words that carried with them the devastating implications; there are no other heirs.   my family is dead. where were you when i needed you   ?

“i’m training..so no one has to experience the loss we did, so i can prevent another disaster, i also have a little sister who needs me more then ren does.” She  looked down, her brows furrowing at the thought of her home/ “i don’t think anyone else from my clan survived aside from father and i, and he’s a teacher so in away we’re still protecting, just in a different form.” 

          he may not have known ren when he was a child, but jaune feels privileged to know bits and pieces of the dragon’s history, at least the parts ren was willing to tell him. and nowhere in that timeline did he think being called spineless was warranted. ren’s childhood had been so different from others, and from what he gathered, he had his ripped away too soon. so to blame him for being scared? 

         his jaw clenches, hands by his side following suit because ok, yes, he really didn’t find this woman pleasant at all.

          “then i guess you just weren’t looking.” he comments, the fake pleasant sound of his voice made more apparent by acid on the back-end, “you may have known him when you were kids, but you don’t get to talk about him like that now. you…you don’t know him at all.”

“nope, i wasn’t looking.” she replied, lips pulling back over her teeth to reveal a teasing, malicious smile. “i wasn’t interested in what i’d find.” while it was true that she hadn’t cared for ren at all, she had to admit that she was interested in what he’d been doing in the years since their engagement had been called off. riling up the dragon’s beloved hadn’t been on the agenda, but she had never been particularly compatible with anyone involving the lie family.

she ignored the threat in his tone, red glinting in challenge. “you sound awfully defensive. i’m only here to check on my dear ex-fiance.” the sarcasm in her tone was grating, tilting her head high despite her shorter stature. “okay, if you know him so well, then what is his mother’s name?”

         she’s not…very pleasant, jaune surmises very quickly. referring to love as a weakness is something he remembers the bad guys in kids movies saying, just before the protagonist claims loves was strength instead and wins the day. but this is real life, he’s not going to win anything. there’s nothing to win. he just…feels incredibly judged in this moment. 

          “i’m…sorry you see it as a weakness.” he starts with, “but i’ve never felt stronger than i do now. i wouldn’t have come this far if it weren’t for him. i don’t know about purpose but, …i guess it’s more about finding someone who makes you better than you can be by yourself.”

yin didn’t pay much mind to ren when they were still engaged. he was very quiet, and did very little but attend his charm classes. it was hard to keep up conversation in the rare times she did initiate it. he took verbal jibes from the other heirs like a doormat, like he’d lost the will to keep fighting back.

“there’s nothing to be sorry for. i can’t expect all ideologies to line up.” a soft roll of her shoulder followed a dismissive sigh, “well then. i hope you can make him better. there wasn’t much to observe when we were still betrothed. spineless.” that lack of fighting spirit didn’t exactly inspire any want to protect him.

‵   I   KNEW   IT   was an economic engagement, but i thought at the very least we could have been friends. i understand you were never allowed childlike naïveté, and for that   I   PITY   YOU,   but you don’t get to use mine against me.   ‵

          “…excuse me?” there was a compliment in there, he thinks, but it’s hard to get past the condescending nature of her choice of words; ‘appeal’ and ‘suppose.’ 

         “you don’t…understand the appeal of love?”

favourite animals are birds.

primarily uses wind and fire dust.

the flower in her eye can be replaced with a normal eyepatch, but she decides to keep it there. as for why it’s there in the first place, still a mystery.

aroace.

despises the fact that ren is taller than her now, if only by an inch.

although she seems a terrible person, yin is still quite honourable. she’s blunt and rude, but only malicious in small doses.

in most cases she’s more apathetic and distant, but she is still a good huntress and will move to protect anyone weaker than her.

she’s a good dancer, but only ballroom. any other ettiquette ren learned from charm classes like tea pouring, singing, calligraphy, etc. she would most likely fail at.