Velvet realised that this was probably a bad idea about two minutes into the flight. In fact, she had a suspicion that it was a bad idea before she even boarded the bullhead next to Akelarre and started the take off procedures.

But it was too late for her to turn around and fly back, they were already out of Vale and crossing the ocean between Vale and the Lands of Darkness to the East. There was a huge expanse of open ocean and churning waters all around them and absolutely nothing else.

Well, other than the swarm of Grimmsects following their lone Bullhead.

The flight was mostly quiet, and even her uncertainty about her flying skills melted away as they shot across the ocean on a direct course for one of the most foreboding places on the planet.

“Oh look, a school of Leviathans,” Akelarre said as she leaned forward to look out the window. “I don’t like those. Something about them rubs me the wrong way.”

Velvet glanced down and saw the huge forms moving just under the turbulent waters. “We should pull up,” she said while putting actions to words and pulling back on the yoke. “I heard they can jump out of the water and catch low flying ships.”

Akelarre shrugged. “If the ship crashes we’ll probably be okay. And then we can ask the Leviathans to bring us to shore.”

Velvet levelled off their flight a moment later and said exactly nothing. She knew that Akelarre was weird, that she was a little different, but sometimes that difference in perspective was incredibly sharp. It was hard to remember that the Grimm, the monsters that everyone else in the world had to work around and against, were more likely to help Akelarre than harm her.

The flight was filled with a deep, gaping silence, one that Velvet wished she could fill, but the words to do so just weren’t coming, and Akelarre looked just as confused and awkward as she felt.

Then Akelarre rang.

Blinking, the Grimm girl pulled a scroll from her pocket and thumbed the call accept before pressing on speakerphone to be heard over the low whine of the engines. “Hello?”

“Akelarre?” A familiar, young voice said over the line. “It’s Ruby.”

“Ruby! How are you?” Akelarre asked, her mood shifting from awkward boredom to the kind of giddiness that Velvet was used to seeing in Coco when there was good gossip going around.

“I’m... okay,” Ruby lied.

“What’s wrong, Ruby?” Akelarre leaned back into the copilot’s seat, phone resting on an open palm as she listened.

There was a long suffering sigh. “It’s my team. They’re being very... meh. Blake is afraid that you’ll come after her, even if I told her you wouldn’t, Weiss decided that you don’t exist and she’s been screaming at Yang all day as if it’s her fault that she has a hangover, and Yang is all pouty because we saw her at work. I think she’s just embarrassed but is taking it out on us.”

“That sounds awful,” Akelarre said. “I think you should get them all together, sit them down, and have a nice chat. You know, air everything out into the open? Even if you don’t all agree in the end at least you’ll know where you stand. And as for Weiss and Blake, I can probably visit you guys again and promise not to hurt them, if that makes them feel any better.”

“Urg,” Ruby said. Velvet had the impression that the young girl had just flopped backwards onto a bed. “I know, thanks. It’s just so much trouble. I kinda wish that I wasn’t team leader. It’s too much responsibility. But if it wasn’t me, then who else would try to take care of my team.”

“It sounds like you need a hug,” Akelarre said with genuine amusement. “Do you want one?”

Ruby paused. “Right now?”

“Yeah,” Akelarre said.

There was another pause, a longer one this time. “Did you hide a hug bug in my room?”

Akelarre giggled. “No, no, I don’t have hug bugs... yet. And I didn’t hide any Grimm in or around your room. Do you still want that hug?”

“I... how?”

“I was thinking I could describe it,” Akelarre said.

"...You know what? Go ahead."

“Okay, okay,” Akelarre said. “So, uh, I’d have to be close to you, because you can’t give hugs from far away.”

“Unless it’s over the Scroll,” Ruby said.

Velvet held back a snort at the look of consternation that crossed Akelarre face. “Yeah, obviously. Anyway, so I’d have to be close. And it needs to be a real hug, not one of those with your butt sticking way out.”

Ruby giggled over the line. “That’s how Yang hugs Uncle Qrow.”

“We don’t want that. So, I think you’re still a bit shorter than me, so you would be the one who gets to tuck her head in, and I would put my chin on your head so that I can give you a chin noogie.”

“No!” Ruby gasped.

“Uh huh,” Akelarre said with a nod. “It’s only proper. But before that I’d have to wrap you up as hard as I can and pull you into my chest.”

“What chest?” Ruby asked with faux innocence.

“... You know, I can reconsider that whole ‘bugs in your room thing’ at any moment.”

“You wouldn’t!” Ruby said, and in the background there was a fump-fump sound like feet kicking against the surface of a bed.

“I totally would,” Akelarre said. “As soon as I get back, I’m sending a swarm of hug bugs to invade your dorm. Anyway, we both have cloaks, so any hugging would be very coccony. And that just makes them even better, right?”

“Right.”

“Now, if I was a pervert like Neo, I’d probably end the hug by pinching your bum.”

“Akelarre!” Ruby shouted, all indignity and embarrassment. Even Velvet in the pilot’s seat felt her face warming up.

Akelarre giggled into her closed fist as Ruby went on a rant about how her Uncle and Dad were totally against any sort of bum pinching.

“So, are you feeling better?” Akelarre asked.

“Hmpf,” was Ruby’s reply. “Well, yeah, I guess.”

“Good. So it was a successful hug.”

Ruby laughed. “The best hug I got all day.”

“I see, and have you been getting a lot of other hugs? Maybe from cute Beacon students?” Akelarre asked.

“Don-- be sill-” Ruby said.

“Oh no, you’re breaking up,” Akelarre said. “Ruby, I have to let you go, but I’ll call you when we’re close enough to Vale to get reception, okay?”

“-Kay. Bye, Ake--are.” the line turned into a garbled hiss then cut off with a pop.

Akelarre sighed as she put away her phone. “Poor Ruby.”

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“You sound like you’re close to her,” Velvet said.

The Grimm princess next to her shrugged. “Sorta. She’s a real sweetheart, and I’m sure she’ll grow up to be a great woman. She just has a sort of enthusiasm that I like.”

“That’s cute,” Velvet said. She wasn’t about to pry. Velvet wondered how the half-plus-seven rule worked when one party was thousands of years old.

“That’s the Spire,” Akelarre said, bouncing in her seat as she pointed towards the horizon.

They were skimming over land now, rocky growths covered in crystals that caught the sunlight speeding by under them as they rushed towards the gigantic building in the distance.

Velvet focused on the flight while doing her best to ignore the flocks of Nevermore circling around the tower of the veritable cloud of Lancers that rose out from crevices in the ground and started fling in twisting spirals around the Bullhead like fireworks heralding the arrival of a champion.

Akelarre directed her towards a small building not too far from the tower where a landing pad’s yellow lights stood out from the purple and black of the world around them.

The Bullhead landed with a small lurch and a hiss from its landing gear, but nothing broke, and if she was a little off-centre of the landing pad, Akelarre didn’t comment.

“Welcome to the Grimmlands,” Akelarre said as she undid her buckles in a hurry and jumped out of her seat. “C’mon!”

Swallowing, Velvet turned off the Bullhead and got out of her own seat, feeling rather awkward as she followed Akelarre to the back and watched the Grimm girl opening the side door.

A hoard of Grimm awaited them, millions of red eyes affixed to insectile heads. Here and there, alpha Beowolves and Ursas and other Grimm that she didn’t recognize bumped into each other as if trying to get closer.

Not one of them paid her any mind.

“T-that’s a lot of Grimm,” Velvet said.

“Is it?” Akelarre asked. “Well, I guess, if you’re from the city and all.” She frowned at the crowd, then made a shooing gesture. “Go, go, you have things to do and you’re all in my way. Get going.”

The Grimm, with some reluctance, moved away, clearing a path along well-trod stones towards the tower proper.

It was only now that Velvet was standing in the Spire’s shadow that she really got a sense of its scale. The building had looked tall, but rather squat from the air. On the ground it was clear that it was bigger around than all of Beacon, courtyards and all. Stones the size of houses stacked atop each other made up parts of it, but the majority was a pure black rock that almost glowed a faint purple.

She swallowed. “M-maybe I should stay in the Bullhead?” she said.

Akelarre snorted. “And spend the night in the cold? No, none of that. You’re a guest here. Don’t worry. I won’t let anything eat you without permission.”

Akelarre looked like she was about to go on when she paused, head whipping around towards the entrance of the tower.

“Mom!” she shouted, and it was as if a few years had faded away and Akelarre was a girl much younger than she appeared. She rushed towards the Spire, long legs carrying her towards the person standing by the door.

Velvet took one look at the woman and paused.

Coco had once talked to her about how presentation and appearance were important, about how fashion could dictate how someone decided to treat you. How certain people just had a presence to them.

She had always thought it was more of Coco’s hot air. A bit of exaggeration to explain why some people were just more charismatic than others.

The woman moving out of the arch of the Spire had presence.

The air felt thicker because she was there, colder and with a tang of ozone as though lightning were about to be called down upon Velvet’s head. The Grimm moved back, heads lowering in respect and deference and the very skies seemed to darken as she moved into what should have been the light of day. It was as if the sun was afraid on inconveniencing her.

She was tall, that much was immediately obvious, but she wore her height the way some might wear armour. It was there to tell you that this person was grander than you, and that she would not bow.

Red eyes flicked to Velvet for just a fraction of a second and that was enough that Velvet wasn’t sure if her heart would be able to keep beating. Then the woman’s attention was all for Akelarre and a small smile, like a crack running across a thousand year old glacier, appeared across her fine lips. “Daughter,” she said a moment before Akelarre crashed into her. It was like a train running into a fortress with walls of pure titanium.

“I missed you,” Akelarre declared.

The woman placed a hand on Akelarre’s head, smoothly moving some hair out of the girl’s face. “And I you. It has been far too quiet. Though Tyrian and Hazel have tried to keep me company these last few days.”

“Oh, I haven’t met Tyrian yet. Is he the one with the tail? He’s looking at my bugs right now.”

The woman nodded once, a noise coming out of her that Velvet couldn’t place but that brought a smile to Akelarre’s face. “That’s him. Now, tell me, who is our guest?”

Akelarre finally let go and turned to face Velvet. “That’s Velvet Scarlatina. She’s a friend.”

“A friend.” The word was repeated without the slightest hint of emotion.

“Velvet, this is mom. But, uh, you should probably call her Salem. Or Your Majesty .”

If Velvet had ever thought Akelarre’s gaze was scary, she now knew better. Salem looked at her, really looked, and Velvet felt as though she was naked in front of an entire mob who was out for her blood.

She almost peed herself.

“Well met, Velvet. I do hope you will come to enjoy the hospitality of our little home.”

“Mom, stop it, you’re scaring her,” Akelarre said. “Look, she almost shivering.”

“I, I’m okay,” Velvet said.

Salem’s smile carried very little humour. “Of course. Akelarre, dear, how about you go unpack all your things. I have a few things to speak to our guest about.”

Akelarre didn’t seem sure. “You won’t hurt her?”

Salem raised one delicate eyebrow. “You know me better than that.”

With a shrug, Akelarre acquiesced. “Alright. Velvet, just find a Grimmsect when you’re done, I’ll have it lead you to your rooms.”

And with that, Velvet was suddenly alone with the most terrifying being on Remnant.

“Come,” she said.