Jaune didn't recognise the beautiful blonde woman at first. Her hair was paler than his family's, her skin as well, and she looked almost ethereal, as if she might become see-through at any moment. It was the kind of pale tone of someone who got very little time outside, or who had been born with a health problem. Not quite anaemic, but close.

The fact that she smiled so brightly as she held a wrapped-up babe to her bosom showed the weakness was only skin deep. She looked up at him from the bed she was sat upon, wrapped up in white silk with animal fur across the sheets. Her eyes were a curious turquoise, almost half-blue and half-green, but not like Trivia. It was as if the two colours were swirling and mixing together in an ink pot.

"Come," she beckoned, with a curious excitement. "Come on," she repeated, gesturing him forward. "Come look at her."

Jaune did as he was told. This wasn't Glynda, not unless she'd had a child he wasn't aware of, and it wasn't Yang dreaming about the future. He'd have been able to tell if it were any of his friends aged up. The plan to send Ruby and Yang away for the night must have worked, and his Semblance had reached out randomly.

To whom, though?

Had he reached all the way to Vale, or was this someone dreaming about their mother? The latter seemed possible, and maybe this wasn't the dreamer but just another character in someone else's dream. He doubted it was the baby dreaming of their birth, but maybe it was possible. The human mind couldn't remember such a scene but perhaps the subconscious memories remained.

Can't be Yang or Ruby's moms. Either of them. I somehow doubt Pyrrha's mom looks like this, but I suppose it's possible Nora or Ren's moms could have had blonde hair. But it could just as easily be someone else's.

Walking to her bedside, the woman looked back down at the baby and Jaune took the chance as well, leaning over to see if he couldn't recognise the baby form of one of his friends. It was a long shot. To him, all babies looked alike, and not always as cute as their parents seemed to think. Emotionally, parents – good ones, anyway – felt an immediate attachment to their child, but Jaune had personally thought all babies looked like red potatoes.

This baby was cute, he supposed, in that distantly polite way a teenage boy would say a baby was cute so as to say what he was expected to say. A little girl, with a tuft of brown hair, her eyes blinking sleepily, and, of all colours, silver.

Could this have been Summer Rose...? Maybe she dyed her hair for childbirth...

Ruby's hair isn't brown, though. Unless it was born brown and changed. I think I've heard of babies born with blonde hair and it can turn darker, so no reason it can't work for other colours the same way.

"Look, my love," said the woman. "Isn't our daughter beautiful?"

Well this was awkward. He'd been dreamed into the role of other people before but had thankfully avoided any that might carry sexual connotations – aside from the close call in Blake's fantasies about Adam and Yang. And that's a secret I still need to take to my deathbed. One she'll put me on if she finds out I know. Jaune made to clear his throat and give a polite answer but found he couldn't.

He couldn't speak.

And then something spoke for him, and through him.

"She is beautiful," he said, in a voice that was not quite his own. "She has her mother's face."

"But your hair," she responded. "And your mother's eyes."

"Let us hope she does not inherit everything from us."

The woman frowned, but it wasn't a very serious one. "I'm sure it'll be fine," she whispered. "There were no rules against this. They won't be held to the same fate we are."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one who is technically undead."

"Ozma!" The woman's laugh was rich and hearty. "Don't say that! You make it sound like I lay with a cadaver!"

Ozma.

Ozpin.

Jaune sucked in a breath. "Salem..."

"Hmmm." Salem, the queen of the Grimm who even Cinder feared, looked up at him and tilted her head, allowing her pale golden hair to spill over her shoulder. "What is it, my love? You sound so afraid." Her eyes closed happily. "Does becoming a father worry you that much?"

"Y—Yes," Jaune admitted, his voice once more his own. He almost wished the dream would have continued speaking for him and saved him the concern. He was in Salem's dream, which meant she'd come to Vale. Maybe in pursuit of Cinder, but probably also for him. Crap, crap, crap.

Calm down, he thought. She doesn't realise it's a dream just yet. I need to play along and keep her from realising. Then I can go to Ozpin the moment I wake up. Just let the dream continue and don't act suspicious.

Jaune cleared his throat. "Can you blame me for worrying? I've never been one before."

"You've taught squires and practically raised the children of your fallen comrades. It's not so dissimilar."

"But this one is mine."

"Ours," she corrected, lovingly.

"Ours, then. It feels... different. The responsibility—"

Salem interrupted him in the worst way possible. By kissing him. Jaune locked up solid as she touched her lips to his and kissed him with so much raw emotion. It was wrong to accept it, and yet it was over before he could think. Her eyes met his, filled with adoration and love. They slid to the child once more, not losing an ounce of either.

"The responsibility will be one we'll share," she told him. "And it can't be too difficult or no one would ever survive to adulthood. We are in the safest place on Remnant as well. Our children will want for nothing and have entire armies to protect them. Not to mention a legion of uncles and aunties. Your knights will cut anyone who so much as looks at her askance off at the knees."

Jaune's laughter was a little tense. "I guess they will. What... What shall we name her?"

"You decide."

"Oh. Um." Naming your first child was a monumental occasion, but this wasn't his child and he didn't have any idea what Ozpin's first had been called. This must have been thousands of years ago, however, so it probably didn't matter. He said the first name to come to mind looking down on a pair of silver eyes. "Ruby."

"Ruby?" Salem weighed it. "It's an interesting name. I like it. Our little Ruby, our precious little gem. And it's a more feminine name than Diamond at any rate. Maybe we could continue the theme. Ruby, Sapphire, Agate, Pearl, Amethyst."

"It's versatile, that's for sure. But... um... more...?"

Salem giggled. "Don't tell me having one child has scared you off for life. You're not even the one who had to go through childbirth."

Jaune winded. "Yes but—"

Salem's finger on his lips, and her impish smile, silenced him. "Hush now. I'm not saying immediately. We should let Ruby grow a little, let her experience our love without having to share. But we're immortal, darling. We'll be together for the rest of time. I'm not settling for one child every ten thousand years."

"Ha. Yeah, that makes sense. I just don't want to risk it now." He didn't want to be tasked to bed Ozpin's wife in her dream. There were some lines that just shouldn't be crossed.

Also, what would happen if I did? If I came... Could I impregnate someone in a dream?

That was a question he really didn't want to find out the answer to.

The world shifted before he could.

/-/

"Rarghhhh!"

Jaune blinked back shock and caught sight of the blade coming for his face. He brought his hand up reflexively and was rewarded to find a sword in it. It parried the one coming for him with a loud clacking sound.

Wood?

As the transition settled, he realised he was indeed holding a wooden training blade, and that he'd blocked one of the same kind. A girl, maybe between twelve and fourteen, pressed hers down against his in a battle of strength she couldn't hope to win. Though she was older, he could tell it was the daughter from before. Her silver eyes were the only thing left that reminded him of Ruby because her hair was a pale brown and her skin a little darker.

And, most amusingly, she was already taller than Ruby.

"Grah!" the girl yelled, pulling her blade back for a stab. "Hahhh!"

Jaune stepped to the side and let her extend and trip over her own feet. This girl was as bad as he'd been when he started Beacon, and before Pyrrha took pity on him and knocked him into shape.

"Ruby!" cried a worried voice, and suddenly Salem was there. "Ruby, are you—?"

"Mooooom!" the girl whined. "You can't run in like that!"

"Young girl, I am the Queen. I can do whatever I want. Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine. Quit embarrassing me."

Jaune let his wooden sword fall as several men watching, and a few women, broke into chuckles. He couldn't make out their faces, which probably meant Salem didn't care to remember them. They were in a courtyard of some kind, a dusty fighting pit surrounded by a wooden fence and then that again surrounded by tall stone walls. A castle.

"Ozma, I've told you I don't like her fighting with swords—"

"To be fair, I didn't hit her with one," Jaune replied.

There were several laughs from the audience and an embarrassed huff from the girl. Now she was older, Jaune could say she was cute, especially with how indignant she looked. He wanted to ruffle her hair and watch her puff up like an angry housecat.

"You know what I mean. Ruby shouldn't be anywhere near battle."

"But mom—"

"No buts. You are our daughter, our only daughter!"

"I won't be your only one for long," said Ruby, looking down.

At Salem's stomach.

Oh.

Well... at least it hadn't been him to do it.

"That won't change how much we love you," Salem whispered, tugging on the girl's cheek. "And it won't stop me worrying about you wanting to go off and experience battle. It's not as adventurous as the knights make it sound. People die out there."

"I'll die in here eventually. I don't want to be locked up in a castle for the rest of my life because you're afraid I'll get hurt."

It was a very real concern. Jaune felt a little sorry for her, and for Salem. Being immortal, Salem obviously didn't want to lose her daughter, but she knew she would lose her one day to old age. It wasn't hard to understand why Salem would want to keep her close, to savour every one of the years she was alive. The lifetime of a single person probably didn't feel very long once you'd outlived several of them. To Salem, their child would grow up and die in what must have felt like the blink of an eye.

But to force the girl to live like that because her mother was afraid was just as cruel.

Jaune cleared his throat. "We have to give her some space to grow, Salem." He tried not to wince at her murderous expression, and Ruby's hopeful one. "I'm not saying to send her off to war but... well, she'll want to find her own life. How about I take her out... uh..."

Where would someone take their child in what looked to be medieval times?

"—somewhere," he finished, lamely. "Not a battle but—"

"A hunt!" Ruby cried. "I want to go on a hunt!"

Jaune shrugged. "That's fine with me."

Salem looked unhappy but not against the idea. "I'll consider it if she's good today and does her etiquette lessons to her teacher's satisfaction. That means no hiding away from her or telling her that dance and embroidery are boring. Am I understood?"

"Yes mom! I'll be good, mom! I promise!"

Salem gave the girl a push and Ruby dashed off to her "boring" lessons. A few of the blurred knights came to pick up the blades and get back to their own training, and Salem took Jaune by the shoulder and steered him away. "Are you angry?" he asked.

"No." Salem sighed. "Worried, yes, but taking her out on a hunt isn't such a bad idea. You'll take some knights with you?"

"Of course."

Easier to agree to anything at that moment.

"And you'll make sure she only shoots from horseback? I don't want to hear that you handed her a spear and told her to challenge a boar or a wolf on foot!"

"Absolutely. Our daughter won't come within ten feet of a boat's tusks, deer's antlers or wolf's teeth."

Salem relaxed. "Then I'll let her go as long as she's good. I just..." The woman leaned against him, and Jaune's hands had to close around her waist to keep her up. "I don't want to lose her, Ozma. I know she needs space and I know she has her own life to live, but it's so frightening to think it. At this age she could soon start courting, and then she'll want to have her own family, and I'm thrilled at the idea of grandchildren, obviously, but what if her husband wants to live away from here? What if he takes her away? I don't know that I could handle it."

This was familiar territory. Jaune's mom had reacted much the same when Saphron told the family she was moving out with Terra. There had been crying, anger, shouting, and then more crying once everyone calmed down. All Jaune remembered at the time was sitting awkwardly with his other siblings, all forced to sit through the emotional storm and none of them knowing what to say.

But he'd missed Saphron once she moved out. Even if it was a small thing, the loss of a constant presence in your life felt unwelcome. He'd been old enough not to cry, but Amber, his youngest sister, had sobbed more than once at what had almost felt to her like Saphron dying.

"I'm sure that won't happen," Jaune said, lamely. "And, I mean, you are the queen. You can just demand her husband stay here."

"Hmm. But I always thought she'd marry another king. Only the best for her." Salem paused. "But maybe she should marry a knight instead. Someone who can stay here and keep her happy, and who won't think they can overstep themselves or hurt her and get away with it."

Jaune laughed. From a woman who was apparently responsible for all the Grimm, it was strange to find her plotting to bully a hypothetical future boyfriend of her daughter. It looked like some things were the same even in the distant past.

"Don't laugh at me," she mumbled.

"I'm not. I'm just thinking how good it is you're so worried about her."

"Of course I am. It's our daughter. Our first." Salem pressed her lips to his neck and kissed him once. Her hand took his and guided it to her pregnant stomach. "But not our last."

Jaune felt the kick against his palm.

And the world blurred.

/-/

It was not a happy scene he came to.

Jaune was sitting on a throne, Salem beside him, and before them were several men bloody and beaten, tied up by thick ropes around their wrists. Salem was on her feet, her face stretched into absolute fury.

"—dead! I want them executed! No, torture them first Make them suffer!"

These people weren't real... Or they had been real, and must have died, but they weren't real now and there was no need to save them. Still, Jaune felt afraid. He looked around to try and see if there were any clues as to what was going on, but Salem's memory of people's faces was hazy. Faces were blurred out, so he couldn't pick out emotions.

But Ruby was there, on her knees. Not among the ones being signalled for execution, but to the side, holding onto three smaller girls. There had been more children, four in total, and they were all crying. Ruby was bloody, too. There was a cut oozing it above her eye, and her body was wracked with sobs.

Jaune stood, catching Salem's eye, but he walked past her and to their children. Salem sent him a quick nod as he did. Approaching them, he knelt and offered his embrace, to which the girls rushed.

"They killed him!" sobbed one of the youngest. "They killed him, daddy!"

Who...? Had he had a son as well? It didn't matter. It was enough to tell him the ones behind, who must have been the guilty party, deserved their punishment. If they had killed someone, they were criminals.

"Hush now," he said. "Ruby, tell me slowly what happened."

His – or Ozpin's – eldest spoke in a shaky voice. "We... We were walking in town," she said, stopping and starting at intervals. "We thought it would be okay to go shopping. We didn't realise people were angry. The riot formed before we even knew, and they started throwing stones at us. I tried to protect them as the town guard rushed in, but a rock hit my head. I let go of Brutus' lead," she whispered, choking up. "He... He rushed in and attacked the one who threw a rock at me. B—But they had pitchforks and he... he..." Ruby broke down. "Oh dad, he screamed so loud when they got him!"

A dog. It was a dog which had died. It probably didn't change anything, not when it was clear some riled up people had attacked their children and the dog was just defending them. Jaune stroked her hair as she cried on his chest and did his best not to listen as the townsfolk, crying for mercy, were dragged away to their eventual deaths.

The scene blurred until the children were in bed. He was tucking them in, Ruby having cried herself to sleep. He stepped out and Salem was there, pacing angrily in the corridor.

"With me," she hissed, and pulled him to another room. It must have been theirs. "This is the last straw, Ozma!" she hissed. "I don't care what you say. These ungrateful humans thought to kill our children!"

"Salem—"

"They killed our dog!" she seethed. "Ruby's dog! In front of her! I want every single one of them hunted down and murdered. Every single one of them! Let their children watch as their ungrateful parents are run through in front of them!"

Was this the start of her fall? Jaune felt sick. "Salem, no. I... The people were angry but..." He didn't know the reasons for the riot. "Our laws must have been unpopular—"

"We knew it would be! It's your law, Ozma! You're the one who wanted to open up schools!"

Jaune blinked. "They're rioting about schools?"

"Yes!" she snapped. "Your public education idea." Salem threw her hands in the air. "Those inbred, ignorant peasants see it as us taking away from them the choice on how to raise their own children. No matter how much you try, you'll never convince them an education is a good thing. They prefer to raise the next generation of turnip pickers or fishermen. They don't see the value in mathematics and science. They never will."

He couldn't believe they were rioting over being given what was a basic human right in the future. People should riot if education were taken away, not if it were being given. But, he reminded himself, this was the past. Back in this time, a person was considered a doctor if they told you to bleed yourself and eat dangerous hallucinogenic substances. An actual doctor had as much chance as being called a witch as being listened to.

"But we can't kill everyone," said Jaune.

"We can. This was an experiment, remember? This kingdom. To see if we could make it as enlightened as the original..." Salem trailed off. "It's failed. They're ungrateful, unwashed, ignorant fools and I don't want them anywhere near my children!"

"Our children."

Salem winced. "That's what I meant, of course. Ozma, please, we can do better. We can start again. We shall take those that are loyal and strike out. The rest... They're not good enough, Ozma. They're failures. We would be better off killing them."

For the first time since the dream began, Jaune's mouth moved outside of his control.

And spoke words he didn't understand.

"Much like they did to us, you mean? What makes us any better than them if we kill off those who fail to satisfy us? This would make us as bad as the ones that cursed us."

"There are worse things to be compared to than Gods, Ozma." Salem touched his chest. "And that's what we are."

"No, it's not." Jaune took her hand, again moving outside his own control, and pulled it off his chest. "We are human, Salem, and we should never forget that. Gods are unfeeling monsters. Our children deserve better. And if you cannot understand that, then I wonder if you should be around them at all."

Salem's face showed absolute panic.

A panic so powerful that the walls warped and melted inward, and so sudden that shadows crept everywhere. The nightmare was fracturing, and Jaune realised why with a sudden jolt.

Salem was having a panic attack.

The nightmare had pushed too hard, and Salem's physical body was suffering an extreme attack.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head. "No, no, no." Her hair turned white, her skin white, her eyes red. It flashed and then returned to pale, golden and turquoise. "Ozma no," she pled. "You'll kill them! I'll kill then! We'll kill them!"

The voice controlling him had fled.

Leaving Jaune to deal with the backlash.

"Calm down!" he told her, clutching her shoulders. "Salem, calm down! Stay calm!"

The world ended in a bright flash.

And the terrified screams of four children.

/-/

Jaune awoke with a gasp of his own, clutching a hand to his wildly beating chest. The Team JNPR dorm was quiet but for Nora's almost-silent snoring. The dream had ended, which probably meant that Salem was awake.

But that had been real—

An explosion rocked him.

Ren, Pyrrha and Nora woke with their own surprise, as the ground under their feet trembled as if gripped by an earthquake. Jaune ignored the questions and raced to the window, threw back the curtains and looked outside.

There was a fading green light, as if the flash that had caused it was slowly vanishing.

And a huge crater in the middle of the Emerald Forest.

Ozpin was going to kill him.

OMAKE:

Beacon trembled. The Grimm pounded upon the walls and the defenders had fallen back to the cafeteria. Ozpin, as Oswald now, stood before the students alongside Glynda, Peter, and Port, all of whom had their weapons trained on the shaking door.

It was barricaded by cafeteria benches, but the Grimm were throwing themselves at it.

It would not last.

The students tightened their holds on their weapons.

The door crashed inward with a mighty explosion of wood. An Ursa burst through and took a hail of fire, dying and slumping to the floor. More stood outside, but none entered. The strange moment of quiet had none of the students firing, either. The two forces stared ominously at one another.

And then Salem entered.

Many gasped but Jaune did not, having known of her. His team had been told as well and all held their ground.

"Salem..." Ozpin whispered.

"Ozma," Salem replied, but distractedly, as if she were just acknowledging to a person that she had seen them but didn't really want to engage in longer conversation. Her eyes roamed. "Where are—" And found him. "You!" she snapped, pointing. "You... You... You prick!" she yelled. "You absolute rotten jerk!"

Every set of eyes turned to a nervous Jaune Arc.

"You son of a bitch!" Salem yelled. "You did this to me. Look at what you did!"

Her hands cupped her belly.

Which, now what everyone was looking, was swollen quite a bit. Several sets of jaws dropped, including Ozpin's, and Jaune wilted even further.

"You had better take responsibility for this!" Salem roared. "I'm not raising this alone!"

History would later remember the day as the "calm", the moment where the Grimm halted their assault and left Vale remarkably unharmed. Some would talk of great bravery, others of great sacrifice, but one image became synonymous with it.

That of the brave hero Jaune Arc being carried under the arm of the Grimm Queen, tied up and gagged with a "JUST MARRIED" sign hanging from his midriff, and with several confused students throwing confetti alongside Grimm doing the same.

A day of brave sacrifice.