Once upon a time is now, long, long gone. For those of you who desire that 'happily ever after' which is due, I am sorry to disappoint. Reading this, by now you should have understood that life is hardly fair.

How I wish I could say that this were not so. How much I desire to assure you that the little boy and the little girl lived long and continued to dream night after night, year after year, living lives of adventure and fulfillment. But this would be a lie. And satisfying it might be for a while, eventually it would be found to pale against the glaring truth.

I would tell you if I could, but the truth is I don't know. What happened after the boy returned home is a mystery. The two would stop being able to see the that marvelous other world except in dreams which were truly dreams. And upon waking, it would bestow them only with a hunger that could never be sated. Slowly, perhaps, wondering if it ever existed at all.

To quell my own dissatisfaction, I sometimes imagine his fate. I like to believe that he made it home with his comrade and partner in tow. Returned in perfect time to enjoy that which he had left behind, the seeds he had sown and the things which had sprouted in his time away.

Both the good and the bad. As a self-appointed caretaker of the world, his garden would always need pruning. Even if he already staved off one plague, he would not let himself fall into complacency. Because by then he knew that death and destruction always lay around the corner.

But also, beauty and illumination which sprout from the ground, incipient to every world. And for that, he would continue to improve himself, cultivating and nurturing the things he loved. And continuing to imagine that castle in the sky at the top of the beanstalk.

One day, perhaps many years later after the little boy had long since become a man, he would look up to that place on high as he heard his name on the breeze. He would blink blindly into the noonday sun and sneeze, as if somewhere out there, someone was talking about him.

Walking by his side would be his teammate, his friend, his spouse, his lover, his family. Sometimes with a plebeian expression, sometimes with a divine grace, sometimes with a fiery temper and a scowl - but never the face of his dreams. She, he, they would look to him and ask: "what is it?"

He would smile and reply softly, lovingly,

"Nothing, nothing at all."

In lieu of knowing, this is what I like to dream happened. If it gives you satisfaction, you may believe it too, and no one will contradict you.

As for the little girl she-

"There you are!"

The author had to restrain his hand from skittering off the page and ruining the passage which had already been solidified. Further restraining it from reaching out and slapping at the disturbance which now loomed over him with a smile oblivious to the interruption she had caused.

"I wasn't exactly trying to hide." Voice snapping instead of the pen in his hand.

"You also weren't exactly trying to pay attention." She admonished, unfettered of the annoyance in his voice. "This is a huntsman academy, what do you think he would say if he knew you were so easily surprised?"

"I have no earthly idea." As he drawled, he noted that his writing had not emerged unscathed, and that a fingernail-long streak crossed through the last line. He issued a mild growl in irritation as she draped herself on his shoulders and started playing with his already messy hair.

"Then how 'bout an unearthly one?"

"What good would that do- and stop that!"

"It entertains me." Explaining both away with a smile, she nonetheless left him to flop on the plushy bed behind the desk, moaning towards the drab white ceiling. "It's the least you could do to indulge me after we spent so long looking for you."

"Yeah, well, no one asked you to."

"Of course not!" The scandalized exclamation lifted him off his seat and had him whimpering as he came down, both from the noise right next to his sensitive ears, as well as the abuse his writing was suffering as it nearly tore in his anxious grip. "You should know by now! Friends help one another without asking. I see you acting down and I have a need to cheer you up!"

"Do I look depressed?" Almost making the question rhetorical with a smile that was visibly bolted on.

"Yup!" She chirped, popping the rivets and causing him to deflate with a sigh.

"What do you want, Ruby?"

"I told you, silly." Gratefully, with a gentle hand she extracted the wrinkled page and set it upon the desk without him resisting, sitting down in front of him on that low corner. "I'm here to cheer you up. You've been working on your writing almost non-stop for the past few days, avoiding people just so that you can work. I know you realize it, and I know you know the things I'm trying to tell you because I've read what you've written, Yin."

"Fine, I might be a little irritated because I've told you to stop calling me that."

"But you also told me to call you that."

"-That was for the disambiguation! My name is Kurama, I'm the only one of us here damnit!"

"Swear jar."

Ready to tear his burnt-blond hair out by this point, he just let his head smack loudly into the table. Groaning again as he realized it smashed right into his current page, further rumpling the precious lines.

The physical pain was nothing, especially when she resumed messaging his scalp. Enjoying her touch, not that he would ever admit that even to himself.

"What I'm doing is important." His defense was muffled by the particleboard table, but that wasn't what made them weak. "Besides, it's not a sad story- I don't think."

"No, it's a happy one." Ruby agreed, humming a tune which should have been familiar. "I think that you're just forgetting that because you haven't been spending time with us. The real people, and not the characters."

"It's only been a few days. I'm so close to finishing. I'll hang out or whatever as soon as I'm done."

"You've been saying that for weeks."

"No, I have not."

"Sure. And I'm not braiding your hair right now."

Nearly knocking into her as he shot up, and then almost falling over as his chair balanced precariously on two feet. While steadying himself on the bedpost with one hand, he checked the back of his head with the other. He glared when he felt the telltale knot near the base.

"See!" Meeting his glare with her hands on her hips. "You're such a party-pooper. You're acting more aloof that Blake normally does!"

"I resent that." From the shadows of the hallway the woman in question materialized. No longer cutting a ghoulish image with ragged hair and protruding ribs. "I agreed to go along with you and help you find him, didn't I?"

"Yeah!" The light in the room remained the same as she brightened and he dimmed. "Alright then, that settles it! Two against one, Yin, you're coming with us!"

"One: you never told me where. Two: you can't make me. And three: I told you to quit-"

"Oi! I heard voices. Rubes, Blakey, is that you?" Bright as the sun, Yang stuck her head around the corner. "Aha! So he is Yin here! I though someone checked already."

"I did." Blake rolled her eyes. "He must have been actively trying to avoid us."

"Gee, I wonder why?" Wondering in fact if he could still make a break for the window- but his pen and paper were still on the desk with Ruby and now Blake between. He couldn't leave the words to their curious perusal. Plus, and he hated using the electronic scrolls.

"Yeah," Cutting off his grumbling as well as his exit, the busty blonde wrapped him up in a one-arm hug. "I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to hang out with us! We're going to see the new Deadswim movie with JNPR and CFVY, and we need you to balance the numbers. Please? It's got gratuitous violence and nudity!" With physical emphasis, she pressed him further into her chest which apparently had little more effect than when she'd tried with Naruto.

"Actually, the deal was 'buy 3 tickets and get the fourth free.'" Saving him from having to stress-test this assumption, the former resident stick-in-the mud waltzed in and appraised the rest of her team disparagingly. "-So he would still be the normal price. The theater caters to Beacon students after all, who, need I remind, are punctual." Weiss jabbed a finger as sharp as Myrtenaster at the clock on the wall, to illustrated that they had only five minutes to catch the bullhead to Vale.

"But we do need him! Please? It's our last chance before school starts up again."

"Absolutely! How can we function without both Yin and Yang? It's the Zen of partying!"

"Somehow I think you'll managed." Trying and failing to slip away, he shot a pleading look at Weiss whom he hoped was on his side. "And my name is Kurama! Get it right!"

"Nope." As the 'p' popped, his scarlet eye twitched. "You look like a feral version of Naruto and none of us have every met his Kurama, so we have to call you Yin to distinguish you from anyone else."

The freneticism of the room stilled as Weiss expounded this tidbit of logic. It didn't stop the hands on the clock though, and she reminded the stupefied occupants of this with an irritated cough.

"So, are you coming with us peacefully, or do we have to do this the hard way?"

Honesty of the threat aside, he doubted the little reaper could do much to actually make good on it, even with all her teammates in support. But was it really worth his resistance? What was the point in trying to finish it now, anyway? The pages would still be waiting for him when they returned.

But would he be back? Considering what happened every time they went out for a 'normal' recreation, there was always the chance that something would go catastrophically wrong. In an interesting story it always would, and theirs was still being written.

He was just scared to forget. That the rest might be lost before he managed to morph thoughts into words.

"Alright." He relented, covering up his pointed ears to protect them from the deafening cheer. "-Just let me finish this first."

Erased and defaced, written and rewritten, this latest attempt was still the best even though it was barely legible by that point. So he was justifiably horrified when as he reached to put pen to paper, the writing instrument was snatched from his hand. Beyond aghast when the blonde scratched something across the bottom of his parchment, looking up at him with a goofy grin.

"There!" She declared proudly. "Done!"

After the ordeal and with his body incapable of doing anything else, he let the four girls drag him along on their journey where he would be witness and sometimes willing participant to their adventures. Eventually, coming to realize for himself words always fell short, remembering the reason he stayed in their world to begin with.

That secret so well-kept underneath the guise of a rose-colored world.

For now though, he stared unwavering at the chicken scratch across his masterpiece, disbelief doing nothing to remove those two words from the page and from his mind.

The End.

This is it, my friends. Love it, hate it, it simply is. Maybe not the happy ending you were expecting, but one that I feel does justice. Maybe I'm wrong- in fact I most certainly am. After all, this is not just a fantasy of my deranged mind, but a product of my interactions with everyone on Fanfiction and beyond. So, my thanks and apologies. We are still learning.

However,

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.

~Until next time, in the Bardo

Deep within the night, when all hunters were asleep and weapons locked tight,

A shadow stole through the empty room, amber eyes that split the gloom.

Her hackles raise, a sleeper she gazed,

A snore – best she not linger more.

Creeping up to the forgotten desk, where paper and pen lay at rest,

She filched one and then the other, while the owner lay under cover.

A single stroke but one which spoke

Of volumes yet untold. A masterpiece, if she should be so bold.

A silent laugh to avoid his wrath,

She slipped from sight having made wrongs right.

As she traced back through the hall, Blake mused through the nighttime pall.

That there was still light within the dark

And not betrayed by the morning lark

To this end she left behind

A single question mark.

The End?