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“Hey, I wanna ask you something, and feel free to say no! I just… thought I would ask, and Nora suggested that I come talk to you ‘cause- But again, you don’t have to, I don’t want to-“
“What is it, Jaune.”
His mouth snaps shut. Being alone for decades going on centuries have given the already talkative Jaune Arc a tendency to ramble. She is more than happy to cut him off, though.
“It’s just kind of a weird question…”
Jaune isn’t the first person in Vacuo to ask her to make them hallucinate something, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. Families wanting to see their lost loved ones, Atlesian and Mantlese children missing their homes, and Whitley Schnee once, very bluntly, proposed using her Semblance to help him better organize the refugee camps and supply chains, as she could help him “visualize” what was going on.
It feels nice to use her Semblance in a way that isn’t just tricking people. So him proposing this use of her Semblance isn’t what makes her hesitate.
She’s just never had a request so… ambiguous before.
“If I described something, do you think you could make me… ya know, see it?”
Emerald blinks. “From just a description? You don’t have a photo or something?”
“I couldn’t take one,” he admits, somewhat despondently. “My Scroll was dead by the time I would’ve wanted a picture, and there wasn’t any Dust down there.”
Ah. Down there. The place Jaune refuses to name except when prompted, like the Ever After will swallow him back up if he utters its name. Emerald wonders if he even knows he’s doing it.
“Are you sure? No photos. None?”
“I don’t think so. Not even on Ruby, or Weiss’s scrolls. Or Blake and Yang’s. There’s nothing.”
“Damn. That’s unfortunate. I don’t know…” Her hesitation is all it takes.
Jaune crumples slightly, somehow seeming small despite towering over her. “If you can’t do it without a photo, then you can’t do it without a photo. It’s okay, really.” He smiles, but he’s trembling. “Thanks anyway, I’ll… I’ll just go. Sorry for bothering you.”
He says that it’s okay. But he also looks like he’s about to dissolve into tears at the prospect of not being able to just see whatever it is he’s missing from storybook land.
“Hey, wait.” Emerald snags his wrist and stops his whimpering retreat. He stares at her, truly looking like a kicked puppy. She sighs. “Okay. Fine. Describe the thing you want to see. I can’t guarantee it will work, but I’ll at least try.”
“But… if you don’t have an image, will a description even help? I appreciate it, but you don’t have to waste your time on me.”
A giver he may be, and a staunch believer in the good of people, but she’s also learned that Jaune Arc has the worst luck and the self esteem of a wet mop. Improved not at all by however long he spent in nonsense land.
She takes a leaf out of Xiao Long’s book and lets go of his arm, instead using that hand to slap him upside the head.
“Hey!” he yelps. “What was that for??”
“You were being stupid,” she says, rolling her eyes. He actually pouts at her. “Arc, if you were wasting my time, I would’ve kicked you out already. So just cool the self loathing for a literal second. I want to help you with this.”
“You do?” He frowns. “Why?”
Like being helped is a foreign concept. Gods that place really fucked him up, in ways that Emerald is neither qualified nor emotionally vulnerable enough to address. Where’s the guy who looked at her like she was from another planet when she asked this same question?
Maybe he just needs to be reminded.
“Because you’re a person. And a much better person than me told me that needing help is the only reason necessary to give it.”
His eyes widen, recognizing his own words even though for him they must’ve been said a lifetime ago. Then he smiles. A real smile, not the one he plastered on before while trying to hide that he was probably about to run to the nearest closet and have a meltdown.
“Thanks, Emerald. I think…” He rubs the tears from his eyes and gives a watery laugh. “I think I really needed to hear that. You’re a good friend.”
“You keep saying that.”
“That’s ‘cause it keeps being true.”
Emerald’s heart definitely doesn’t swell. She’s not emotional. Shut up. “Yeah, well shut up. Tell me what it is you want me to make you see. Be as detailed as you can. And I’ll try to make it happen.”
His smile is still shaky, but it’s real. And for the first time since stepping through that portal, Emerald thinks she can see past the rust to the man who offered to heal his enemy without a second thought.
“So I uh… I had this jackalope…”