Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY, that honor goes to the team who made it, living and gone.

This is my submission in honor of Monty Oum, a man who made me laugh at a knight in shining armor and blue jeans, blew my mind away with a little girl with an insane scythe, and taught anime fans that animal-eared girls could be more than sex jokes. I can never do justice to what RWBY means to me here; I'll always find more to say. So, I'll end by saying I enjoyed Red vs. Blue, but RWBY was something I fell in love with from the first time I watched it. Monty had conjured a world so different than anything I had ever seen before, a world filled with so much darkness, but you didn't always see it because there was even more light and color and laughter.

Good night, sweet prince.

Are You There Summer? It's Me, Yang.

Summer Rose was buried on the first day of summer.

Yang remembered that every time she visited the grave. Possibly, because it was seemed like a joke. She probably would have joked about it; said Summer would die in summer because when else would she? She couldn't laugh now. There was nothing funny about saying good-bye to your mother.

The blond-haired boxer knelt down and touched the stone. It was smooth, with Summer's symbol, a rose in bloom, carved into it, along with a line from her favorite poet. Ruby could only remember the stories their mother had read to them at bedtime, but Yang remembered the poetry too: short verses Summer would combine with a simple tune, singing to herself while she cooked or fixed her weapons. Yang smiled at the image, the odd contradictions Summer had made without even trying. Everyone thought her sense of humor came from her father, and it sort of did. But Yang thought it came from watching her mother. Summer Rose: Baker of Cookies & Slayer of Giant Monsters. She should have made business cards.

Yang traced the Rose symbol. Ruby was using it now, and she had taken to wearing the cloak and hood their mother had made her. Yang had been more than a little concerned about her, even taking little sister aside and telling Ruby she shouldn't try to turn into Mom.

"Why do you care? You have your own Mommy! You don't want her anymore!"

Yang hadn't taken Ruby's reply very well; their discussion had devolved into their first real fight, the kind where biting, scratching, and hair pulling was totally acceptable. Yang felt like throwing up when she thought about it; she never wanted to hurt her sister, hoped she would die before she did it again (even though she had sworn that she would outlive Ruby to make sure her little sis never suffered like that ever again). The fight had only ended when their father—now over his depression, thankfully—had burst into the room and pulled them apart. That little incident had gotten them both grounded for a week, on top of the month Yang was already suffering under for her nearly getting herself and her sister killed on her stupid quest to find her birth-mother.

Now, she was free again, but she didn't know what to do. "Mom," she whispered to the stone. "Are you upset? Is it bad that I want to find her? Does that mean I don't care anymore? That I don't," Yang's chest tightened, and she struggled to speak " . . . love you anymore?"

Yang leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the cool, hard stone. She frowned. It felt wrong; Summer had always been warm and soft. The blond wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing her eyes shut. "I miss you, Mom. I don't know what I'm doing. Dad's functional again, but he still has to work, and so does Uncle Qrow. I'm the one who has to take care of Ruby, and—and I almost got her killed." Yang squeezed her eyes tighter as tears fell. "Mom, I just, I just don't know what to do!"

Yang stayed there for a moment, crying softly against the dead rock. Then, a thought entered her mind. "Is this how you felt, Mom, when you held me for the first time? Did you wonder how you were going to raise someone else's baby? Did you . . . did you doubt yourself." That was a strange notion: Summer had always been so confident, so sure. Dad sometimes complained or worried over things the young blond didn't understand, but Summer had always been there when they needed her to take them—Dad, Yang, and little Ruby—into her arms and tell them it would be all right.

Yang wished she could do that now, but then, she wondered, who had told Summer it would be all right? She couldn't have been confident all the time. When grandma and grandpa had died. When she'd seen her teammate leave her family and her behind. Maybe, when she saw the man she loved marry another woman—there was still no one willing to talk to Yang about the time before Summer was "Mom"—and, if she had loved Dad that long, and had to watch someone else take him away from her . . . Who had Summer turned to? How had she made it through?

"I don't know how you did it, Mom, but could you help me do it? Please . . ."

Yang stayed there a moment, resting her head against the stone. She felt the sunlight on her cheek, warm and soft, like Summer's hand. It made her eyes sag; she was so tired. Maybe she should take a nap. Yeah, that's what she'd do. Summer wouldn't mind being her pillow again, would she?

As she closed her eyes, Yang thought she saw white rose petals dancing in the wind, and she heard her mother's voice again in her dreams, "It will be all right, My Little Sun Dragon . . ."

"Mother is the name for God in the hearts and minds of all children." The Crow: Stairway to Heaven.

This is not the story I was planning to write when I first sat down at the keyboard. I wanted to do a kind of anthology of moments at Summer's grave: Ruby and Yang as kids, then a little older, then with Weiss and Blake, then with their own children, and finally, their own child visiting them. But, I couldn't write that;I didn't know what to do, and honestly, it felt like I was using it as an excuse to announce my favorite ships (White Rose and Bumblebee). That will come, but later.

So I finally did something I haven't seen often enough on this sight: the story about the loss of Summer from Yang's perspective. The relationship between Yang and Summer has always fascinated me. RWBY is based at least partially on fairy tales, but here we see one of the key staples of the genre turned on its head: the evil stepmother. Summer is the exact opposite of Cinderella's step-mother, loving Yang just as deeply as the child born to her. Yet, in the show, Yang seems more interested in finding her birth-mother than remembering her lost step-mother. Maybe this was an idea that Monty and company were planning to explore later. Or, maybe Yang misses Summer more than she lets on. Whatever the reason, I wanted to do something that showed Yang remembering that no matter who her mother is, Summer was "Mom" to her.