It was a frantic rush getting Jaune to the infirmary, and an even more frantic team that escorted him there. Ren held a cloth to his neck to stem the bleeding while Nora and Pyrrha carried him. Once there, he was dragged into a bed by the doctor, Tsune, and the cloth was peeled away so she could see his throat. His teammates hovered about in helpless worry as the faunus cleaned, dressed and stitched the cut in his throat closed. Her hands were bloody by the end of it, and Jaune felt positively awful.

"Will he—?" began Pyrrha.

"He'll live," said Tsune. "The wound looked a lot worse than it actually was. Plenty of blood, but his arteries and veins were fine. It's like someone surgically cut his skin open without actually slicing his throat. He might have been fine if you'd just left it, but it was good you brought him here just in case. How did this happen?"

"We don't know!" wailed Nora. "We were all asleep and then Pyrrha screamed and we woke up to Jaune covered in blood!"

"I woke up when he made a sound," said Pyrrha, wringing her hands together. "I don't know why, but he woke up so violently that I did as well. I thought he'd had a nightmare and made to say something, but then I noticed all the blood."

"The door was locked." Ren's voice was calm, though his face was not. It was strange to see him so worried, but then Jaune supposed the idea of someone sneaking in and killing one of your teammates was a frightening thing. "I had to unlock it on the way out, and there was no sign of anyone getting in."

"Could this have been self-inflicted?" asked Tsune.

Jaune made to protest that one but his throat hurt too much from the stiches. He let out an angry groan instead, which drew their attention. Slowly, he shook his head, then winced. That hurt too. He made an x-shape with his hands instead.

"I think that's a no," said Nora, smiling weakly. "And to be fair if Jauney wanted to take his own life with any degree of success then I don't think he'd do it in the middle of our dorm, in bed, in his pyjamas, and then wake everyone up."

"Without a knife, too," added Ren. "Unless he cut his throat open with his fingernails."

They shared a nervous and probably much-needed laugh, to which Jaune rolled his eyes and offered Ren his middle finger. It seemed to calm them down a little – the idea of his self-harm being too absurd to worry about. And it was. Jaune wouldn't say his life was perfect by any means, but it wasn't that bad either. Plus, he'd never do that to his teammates and his family. At least, he liked to think he wouldn't.

"Is it possible he caught his neck on something?" asked Pyrrha.

"It's possible," said Tsune, in a tone that seemed to suggest the possibility was a scientific one – in the same way that it was technically possible to survive a skydive without a parachute. "With little else to comment on, we'll have to assume that until Mr Arc is in a condition to talk to us. His aura is healthy, which is good news. The problems he had with it before don't seem to be related to this, and the fact it's actively working to prevent any further damage now is a good sign." The doctor sighed, and said, "I know this isn't going to be easy to accept, but the three of you should head back to your dorm to rest."

None of them moved.

"I tried," said Tsune, giving up after a single attempt. "You can stay here if you wish, but you'll need to stay quiet if any other patients come. You'll also be expected to attend lessons as normal. I'll file a report to the headmaster for him to see in a few hours. Mr Arc, please do not try to speak. You're not terribly injured, but those stitches in your neck could pull loose or tear if you strain them."

Jaune raised his hand, thumb up, and the doctor nodded back, moving into her back office to file a report. Ozpin would probably realise something had happened when he read it, and Jaune was sure he'd be having a more thorough meeting with him later. He might have to ask for a notepad and pen to write on.

Though what he'd write, he had no idea. His teammates drew up chairs to sit around his bed – and it felt like that had been happening a lot lately. What was it with him that he unlocked a Semblance to see people's dreams and somehow ended up in a hospital bad repeatedly? It felt like a much safer Semblance than Yang's or Ruby's or Nora's.

How could a girl who regularly licked her finger and stuck it in an electrical socket have an easier time than him?

Semblances were really unfair.

"You didn't do this to yourself, did you?" asked Pyrrha. Jaune immediately pointed his thumb down, and Pyrrha smiled back. "Good. I didn't think you would – you looked just as shocked as me when I saw you, but when Tsune said it... Well, let's not dwell on it. Do you think someone attacked you?"

He pointed his thumb down again. Something had attacked him in Trivia Vanille's dream, but he knew it hadn't been an attack from her. She'd looked absolutely horrified, and it was the job of a nightmare to frighten the dreamer. It was more accurate to say her subconscious had attacked him, but he couldn't possibly explain that to them.

"Do you really think it was an accident?" asked Ren. Jaune made a "so-so" gesture by holding his hand out flat and rotating it side to side. He then pointed to his mouth and neck, then the clock. "You have some idea and will tell us later?" guessed Ren. He got a thumbs up for it. "That's fair. Just tell us, is there any risk of this happening again?"

The so-so gesture came back, along with an awkward expression. Nora translated it.

"You don't know?"

Thumbs up.

"Is it related to the aura issues you had before?"

Thumbs up.

Pyrrha leaned in. "Is this why Doctor Oobleck is having all those special lessons with you?"

Another thumbs up.

And, oddly enough, it seemed to calm them down. "At least you're aware of it and working to deal on it," she said. "I think I'd have been more worried if no one knew what this was all about. Your aura kept draining before, but you've gotten on top of that with his help, haven't you?" He gave her another thumbs up. "And now a new problem has cropped up. Do you think you'll be able to fix this as well?"

Jaune repeated his most useful gesture, and the three of them relaxed. They knew he was keeping something from them, but they took relief in the fact that it wasn't being hidden from everyone. If it was something he'd shared with the teachers, and that they were helping him with, then it must have been something to do with his aura or his health, which they could accept he might want to keep private.

But Jaune knew he'd have to give them something soon. This had been going on for too long, and the side-effects of his Semblance were becoming more and more noticeable. I'll need to know what's going on myself before I can really say more, though.

And for that he needed Ozpin or Oobleck.

/-/

"It seems to me that your Semblance is evolving," said Doctor Oobleck, later that afternoon. Jaune's neck had recovered enough to speak, though his voice was hoarse.

"How?" he rasped. "I thought that took months and years."

"In most cases, it does. However, your Semblance is actively constantly during the night. That's eight hours on average – or a third of every day – spent actively using your Semblance. Even someone like Miss Rose, who regularly uses her Semblance to get around, doesn't use it that much. Though I'm sure she zips to and from class, I expect that if you calculated every second she uses her Semblance in a day, it'd be less than thirty minutes in total."

And Ruby was someone who had a Semblance that could be used regularly. How often did Yang really get hit hard enough to need hers? How often did Blake make a clone, or Pyrrha use her polarity? It wasn't much. Some of them didn't even use it in sparring because they didn't need to, or it wasn't always useful, or they just wanted to focus on training their skills rather than relying on it. Pyrrha went days between using hers, and Jaune hadn't seen a Blake clone this week. Weiss made use of her Semblance much more often in spars and class, but given how varied and powerful her Semblance was, it could be argued hers had already evolved and adapted, and probably because of how much she used it.

Put simply, his usage outstripped all of them, even though he'd had his unlocked for a shorter amount of time. They got maybe one opportunity a day to use theirs, and sometimes not even that, while he was using it for a third of every day whether he liked it or not.

"This adaptation to your Semblance should probably have been expected," said Oobleck. "You're already inside a person's dream, and you've learned to alter and influence those dreams by using a little of your aura. Since the aura is tied to the physical body, the idea that marks left on you in a dream could translate to your physical body is not that surprising. Or rather, it is a surprise, but it isn't a shock."

"It's not welcome either way, sir."

"No, I don't expect it is. You'll need to be more careful in dreams from now on to avoid taking any damage. That may mean expending more aura to protect yourself."

"It shouldn't be too hard. I can fly, teleport and just about do anything I want in a dream. I just didn't expect it'd be an issue so I didn't bother really defending myself." If this had existed back when he was in the nightmare where Blake was a serial killer who gutted him then it'd have been a much bigger issue. "That's going to make keeping my aura at a healthy level a little more complicated."

"I will speak with Glynda and have her exclude you from any combat spars until we're sure how well this can be handled. On the other hand, there is a possibility that the damage might be two-way."

Jaune gulped. "You think she's hurt!?"

"No. No. No. I mean that if you were to cause serious harm to someone in a dream, then you might be able to harm them as well. I don't know how much, but it may be possible. And I expect it would need to be a conscious decision on your part, imparted with aura. I don't think any incidental harm they take from their own dream would translate over."

He hoped not. A lot of nightmares were dangerous and involved monsters and Grimm, and if he made every dream he entered real then people would start dropping like flies. The fact they hadn't been was a good sign he couldn't do that.

"I will look into theories on Semblance evolution," said Oobleck. "You focus on getting some rest, and if your team ask then simply tell them that I say you've begun to unlock your aura, but it's not an easy or simple one, and we're working on understanding it. That should be enough. Not everyone's aura comes with a manual. Some immediately find themselves running faster like Miss Rose, but for every person like her who has an easy to understand Semblance, there are ten people who have to slowly figure out what theirs is. Qrow Branwen, for instance, took quite a lot of time to realise his was even active, let alone what it did."

"Right. I'll tell them that. Can you... Can you look up a girl called Mint?" Jaune mentioned the team she was on, and the classes they shared. "It was her dream I was in, and I just want to make sure she wasn't hurt by this."

Doctor Oobleck smiled. "I'll do that, and I'll see if she wants to visit you. I've spoken to Ozpin and he's offered his support if you need it. We've not yet informed General Ironwood, and we may choose not to. The man's heart might be in the right place, but I worry he might come up with some rather worrying applications for your Semblance, especially since you entered the dream of a wanted terrorist before."

It wasn't hard for Jaune to connect the dots when they were lined up for him.

"You think he'd make me into some kind of hitman?"

"You have to admit you'd be a very good assassin if you could pick and choose your dreams and murder someone in them, but I don't think it would be that extreme. He'd probably have you flown over the Emerald Forest and used to wound or incapacitate Taurus so they can capture him, though if you had been a part of the Altas military when you unlocked your semblance, I'm sure they'd already have you in their secret services. You'd make just as valuable a spy as you might an assassin." Oobleck chuckled. "But don't worry about that. I'm only throwing out examples. You're a student of Beacon, and you will become a huntsman in time. I will find this Mint girl for you."

"She's mute!" Jaune blurted out. "Can't talk, so don't be surprised."

Oobleck nodded his head and departed, leaving Jaune to rest on his bed and check a few texts from his friends and Team RWBY. Even Weiss and Blake had messaged him to ask how he was and encourage him a quick recovery.

His Semblance might have been a pain, but it had helped him connect with them as well, turning them from acquaintances into good friends. Jaune smiled and sent some replies. There was a lot to complain about, but he couldn't say he regretted unlocking it.

/-/

Trivia did show up as soon as lessons were out, poking her head through the doorway to the infirmary with a sad, soulful look on her face. Her eyes met his and she leaned back, as if she expected him to scream profanities at her.

Jaune smiled instead and waved. "Hey."

A tiny, nervous smile appeared and she waved back.

"Are you going to come in?" he asked. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Trivia glared at him and stomped in, then strolled up beside his bed and planted her hands on her hips, looked at his neck and raised both eyebrows. The message was clear.

"I know I'm not okay, but I was worried my Semblance might have affected you in some way. You weren't hurt, were you?"

The small girl shook her head and then, without hesitation, vaulted up to sit on his bed, sitting on his hip as she poked around the wound in his neck. She was clearly agitated and kept looking back to his eyes inquisitively.

"It's not as bad as it looks. The doctor said it didn't sever any arteries or veins and was just a nasty cut." Trivia's response was to make a jabbing motion at her own neck with her finger. "I know," he said. "In the dream, I had a sword all the way through my throat, but the damage was only a cut on my skin. We're not sure how that works."

Trivia's shoulders slumped and she pointed at herself.

"It wasn't your fault—"

Trivia slapped his arm.

"It wasn't!" he insisted. "Trivia, I'm almost always in people's nightmares. They're all like that. It's always negative thoughts and terrifying moments. Normally, it's terror aimed at themselves, but I guess this was different because it was a lucid dream." Jaune smiled impishly. "And you had a nightmare about me being hurt. Does that mean you—"

Trivia blushed angrily and began wailing on his chest with her fist, banging her small hand up and down until his laughter began to hurt. Jaune caught her hand, but she only raised her other in clear threat, still bright red.

"Okay! Okay! I'm sorry. Ahah. Laughing hurts. No, no, it's fine," he assured her when her embarrassment turned to panic. "It's just uncomfortable. And, you know, you're not as light as you are when you're a child in your dreams."

Her fist rose again, along with her eyebrows.

Jaune sweated. "Uh. Mercy? I mean, you're very small." The fist rose higher. "Petite? Adorably packaged?"

The girl huffed and rolled her green eyes.

They caught his attention.

"Trivia... Your eyes aren't green in your dreams. And your hair. Is it dyed?"

Trivia froze, then smirked and nodded. She turned her head away and covered her face with one hand, then turned back to him and blinked. Instantly, her eyes were mismatched pink and brown. Familiar, but still different. In her dreams Trivia had brown eyes and her sister, who he still didn't know the name of, had pink.

But they were closer like this.

"You use contacts? Why?"

Trivia shrugged and turned back, pressing her hand to her face. It was a very swift and practiced motion, but Jaune didn't see any contacts. When she turned back, her eyes were green again. He preferred her natural look but didn't say it. She had her reasons.

"Can I ask something?"

She nodded.

"Your sister..." He was worried he might be intruding on a dangerous topic, but Trivia's smile at hearing him mention her was nothing short of ecstatic. Her head bobbed up and down eagerly. "Your sister," he continued. "I didn't see her in this latest dream. Was she just not at school that day?"

Trivia poked her chin, tilted her head and made the same so-so gesture he had before. She adjusted her legs so she was sitting cross-legged on his stomach and yanked his notepad and pen off his side-table. He hadn't needed them once his throat recovered, but she quickly scribbled something down.

It wasn't words, though. It was a drawing. A sketchy, stick-figure drawing.

On it, a girl with an unhappy face was stood at the entrance of a building, while two unhappy bigger figures, parents he assumed, stood off to the side. They had huge, upside down smiles. Then there was another, shorter figure with an angry, zig-zagged mouth and slitted eyes off to the side, covered by vertical lines.

"Your sister is in prison!?"

Trivia giggled silently and connected a box around the bars.

"A cage?" he guessed, and she nodded, then drew a line from it to her parents. Jaune was aghast. "Your parents locked your sister up and wouldn't let her go to school with you!?" Her solemn nod had him horrified. "That's awful!"

The girl bounced on his stomach, pleased that he agreed, nodding wildly. She then drew what looked to be two small tablets next to a glass of water.

"They drugged her?"

Trivia paused, tapping his pen on the paper, then shrugged and nodded, as if to say he wasn't 100% accurate with his guess, but that it was functionally close enough for her not to bother correcting him. Maybe she was saying her sister had a problem her family wanted to treat with medicine, and that they'd kept her away from school against her will as a result. It was close enough to "drugging and caging" her that Trivia didn't argue it.

"I hope it's okay if I say your parents sound like awful people."

Her smile said she was pleased he did mention it, and she did some angry lines scribbling them out.

"You don't deal with them anymore?" A nod. "That's good. Is that why you've dyed your hair and changed your eye colour?" Another so-so motion. "I won't tell anyone," he promised. "It'll be our secret."

Trivia paused, smiled, and then held out her little finger to him, curled outward. It was such a childish gesture, and her hands were so small that it felt even more so, but he knew what she wanted. He linked his little finger with hers and they both bobbed them up and down.

"Pinky promise," he said, and Trivia mouthed it silently.

She then pointed to him, her head, and repeated the pink promise.

"You're saying you won't tell anyone about my Semblance?"

The girl nodded, pleased he understood.

"Thank you. I'm trying to learn to control it but I can't pick where I end up. And now there's a very real risk of me getting hurt if I'm not careful, too. That didn't happen before," he explained, and Trivia listened intently. "Doctor Oobleck says it must be my Semblance evolving because I'm using it so much."

Trivia frowned and made some gestures with her hand.

"Ah, it's because of the time I use it for." He quickly explained the analogies Oobleck had given, and Trivia listened and nodded along. It was nice to have someone he could talk to about this, and it made him feel like he should tell someone among his friends.

Who, though? His team deserved to know most of all, but then didn't everyone whose heads he had been in? He'd seen such trauma from Yang and Ruby that they deserved an explanation, but he shouldn't tell them before his own partner. But to tell Pyrrha would mean telling her that he knew about her feelings for him, and that would make things so awkward, if not break her heart entirely.

He ended up confiding in Neo instead. The girl listened with a tilted head as he explained his problems, and she adjusted herself to lay down beside him to listen. Two people sharing a bed might have seemed romantic, and yet the way she shared his pillow somehow felt different. It was like if one of his sisters had been laid beside him.

She nodded along to him and poked his cheek whenever he said something she disagreed with, and pursed her lips and brows whenever he posed a difficult question, sometimes chiming in to hold up one or two fingers whenever she agreed with one suggestion over the other. For someone who couldn't speak, Trivia was oddly chatty, but maybe that was the point. How many people had actually deigned to sit down and engage with her? Conversation with someone who couldn't speak was hard and involved a lot of having to figure out her expressions and hand gestures since he didn't know sign language.

A lot of people would just not put the effort in. There were so many other people you could talk to, and that was so much easier, so why bother with the strange, mute girl? Trivia had probably gotten used to people just posing her questions that she could nod or shake her head to, and they probably thought they were nice doing that. That they were accommodating her disability, even as they casually ignored her attempts to be involved in actual discourse.

Because, as he soon realised from her bright smile and constant, energetic hand movements and the repeated tactile sensations of her tapping her fingers on his shoulder, Trivia was a girl with a lot to say.

If only someone would listen.

"I need to learn sign language," Jaune said, after a while. Trivia's eyes brightened and she quickly made some symbols with her hands and fingers. "You know it?" A proud nod. "Can you teach me? I'd love to be able to talk to you properly."

Her smile was beaming, and she excitedly gestured to him and her head, in what he assumed was an invitation to come into her dreams more often so she could teach him. "It doesn't work that way, but if I do end up in your dream again then I'll let you know as soon as I can. Deal?"

Trivia nodded.

"I wish I could bring your sister into it as well..." Her smile, rather than turning sad, grew even brighter, and she leaned her cheek on his shoulder. "You know, I don't think I even got her name. You're Trivia, and I know your last name is Vanille. What's her name?"

Trivia grasped for the notepad and wrote down a name, in blocky and clumsy writing. He got the feeling she wasn't a skilled writer, or that she didn't do it often. Either way, he took her pad, noting the two smiling girls holding hands. One had angry, slanted eyes, but they were both obviously happy with one another. Under the happier girl was "Trivia" and under the angry-but-happy girl was "Neo".

"Trivia and Neo," he said, and he felt her breathe out onto his neck, a long, satisfied exhale, as if just hearing the two names together was a pleasant experience. "If there's anything I can do to help you get your sister back, just let me know. The two of you shouldn't be separated."

Her smile at that simple comment could have lit up the darkest night.

Damn it, Neo. Stop being so cute. Anyway, let's see if this chapter even shows lol.