RWBY: Forever Fall

Day One

My original plan was to head back to the tomb. I had a gut feeling that such an old, historic place would be sufficiently meaningful to connect with as a land, and one of my highest priorities on this plane was forging a new bond so that I could return here in the future after I left.

If that didn’t work out, this forest also seemed like a potential option, though something about it didn’t feel as compatible as the ruins had. If I understood what I’d learned from studying my Spark and the motes of mana I drew from Shadowcrest, connecting to this forest would probably give me access to green mana, the color I felt least connected to of the five. That wasn’t necessarily bad––flexibility was a wizard’s best friend––but both black and white, the colors that I believed seemed most associated with the ruins, would be more immediately useful.

Now however, a new option had appeared, one that came with a very short time to make a decision. If we didn’t follow after the vehicle immediately, there was little chance we’d be able to find it again in the future due to the thick canopy of red leaves that covered the entire area like a Gryffindor quilt.

As much as I wanted to bond to a new land, that was not something that fundamentally could not wait. The forest was enormous and I didn’t see too much difference between one spot and another. I could even just apparate back to the ruins at any time if the vehicle eluded our efforts to track it or the people on board proved to be hostile or useless.

This, however, was something that wasn’t going to wait for me. “We’re going after it,” I told Zatanna, already reaching to dig around inside my bag.”

“Well, duh,” was her answer, and I raised an eyebrow at her. “What?”

I sighed heavily and drew the broom I’d enchanted yesterday out of my bag. It was not a particularly fancy broom, nothing like what a quidditch star would fly on, but the materials were of good quality and I’d used a single mote of Blue mana to really tie everything together into a cohesive enchantment scheme.

“Ooooo I’m finally going to get to ride your broomstick!” Zatanna exclaimed, “I thought that was going to be something reserved for the real me.”

I sighed again. “Quietly,” I added. “And stealthily.” A tap of my wand on her head disillusioned the copy, leaving both of us all but invisible. “We don’t know that they’re necessarily friendly, so I’d rather make introductions on our terms, not theirs.”

I mounted my broom and Zatanna quickly climbed on behind me, wrapping both her arms around my waist. She shifted slightly and I felt her lean forward against me, her chin on my shoulder. “Your broom is so big and hard between my legs,” she whispered, her hot breath tickling my ear.”

“Zatanna,” I said warningly, but she continued on regardless.

“Oh, am I being a bad girl?” she asked breathlessly, “Are you going to…punish me?”

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I couldn’t quite fully suppress my physical reaction to her words, particularly combined with the way she was leaning against my back, but now really wasn’t the time. I’d discovered over the past two weeks that my dear Zatanna was an insatiable minx, and it seemed her copy was the same.

“Behave,” I ordered firmly. It wasn’t a tone I would typically take with Zatanna, but this was not my Zatanna, but just a construct created from my magic that simply looked and acted like my beloved. My voice softened. “But maybe if you’re good…” I trailed off, but it was enough. Zatanna immediately sat up, finally allowing me to lift off the ground and slowly hover up past the treetops.

If things went well, then perhaps both of us would deserve some time to relax. I would admit that I had missed Zatanna’s company the past two nights, and a copy offered opportunities to try things that I had not necessarily been willing to attempt with the real Zatanna.

My dearest witch had a scarily large number of ideas for how a couple could enjoy their time together and, while we’d attempted many of them, I’d drawn the line at anything that could potentially cause any real pain or damage. No matter how much some of those ideas appealed to me and how many times Zatanna begged me to ‘just give it a try’, I simply couldn’t bring myself to hurt her in such an intimate way.

However, if it wasn’t the real Zee but a copy…Well, perhaps I could build up the needed confidence to blow Zatanna’s expectations out of the water the next time we met, and if things went wrong I could always dispel and resummon the copy. It was just…practical. Yes, practical.

I shook my head. Such thoughts could wait. Right now, the vehicle was quickly moving away and I would prefer not to lose its trail after having just decided to follow it.

The flying metal vehicle was fast, faster than my broom, but it was also large and rather visible against the vivid red background. I wasn’t a great flier, and Zatanna’s added size and weight would usually make the broom handle awkwardly, but I’d specifically designed it with the idea of a passenger and even I could manage a relatively straight line.

We sped through the air, the tree tops whizzing past beneath. I made sure to stay just above the canopy, my magic rendering both of us little more than a hazy blur that blended in with the leaves beneath us and the sky behind us.

After several minutes of flying, our target was little more than a black speck in the distance, but my supersensory charm ensured I never lost sight of it. Still, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it slowing down and then begin to descend, the odd rods on its sides rotating to point downward. If it had decided to keep flying for ten-or-so more minutes there was a real chance I would have no longer been able to follow it. The thing was fast, rather small, and quiet, making it difficult to track.

No longer needing to struggle to keep up, I slowed down slightly and moved even closer to the canopy, Zatanna and I’s feet occasionally brushing the scarlet leaves. Where before we had looked like a slight blur, now we were all but invisible, our disillusionment charms no longer needing to work as hard to compensate for the rapidly changing backdrop.

It took another few minutes but eventually we stopped about a hundred meters from the small clearing where the flying vehicle had landed and descended back down to the forest floor. Before landing, I cast silencing charms on both of us, ensuring that we wouldn’t make any noise as we crunched through the ankle-deep layer of bright red leaves that covered the forest floor and that our breathing and movements wouldn’t give us away to someone with keen senses.

Then I cast another revealing charm, and this time it came back positive. There were fifteen people within range of the spell, Zatanna and I, of course, plus thirteen other human or human-like beings who were clustered together not far from their landing sight. That was good––it meant that the vehicle actually was a vehicle and not some sort of strange creature or unmanned drone.

I communicated my findings to Zatanna as we finally landed, stowing my broom in my bag. Now it was just a question of how exactly to approach these people, or if I should do so at all.