Narrow-beam transmission from the direction of the Draconis system, picked up by a receiver on Patch, the only moon of the planet Vale. Transcription as follows:

I went to a funeral today. I've been to funerals before, of course; Grandma's was the most recent. But this one was different. Have you ever been to the funeral of a man you killed?

His name was Adam. I'll save the full story of how we met him for another time, but I can give you a quick summary. In brief, we took a job from a biologist named Doctor Merlot, things got weird, Weiss and I rode a dinosaur into battle, Blake's ex-boyfriend showed up, attacked us, and then died. I don't know the full story of what happened between the two of them. I might never know, and I think I'm okay with that. There's comfort in knowing someone so well that you can predict what they'll do before they do it. A solidarity that comes with knowing someone else sees the same world you do, even if you have to borrow their eyes to see it. But the danger of knowing everything about someone is that they can no longer surprise you. Blake has an air of mystery about her, and I'll be happy if that never goes away. It's one of her more attractive features.

Whatever mysterious past the two shared that culminated in deadly violence, Blake still felt some connection to him. Enough that she didn't want to leave him out to the elements. Or maybe she just didn't want his face to see the stars anymore. Either way, we buried him ourselves. She didn't speak the entire time we worked, nor did she glance back at his body even once. I didn't want to interrupt her thoughts, so we dug in silence. It wasn't until the hole was filled again, slightly fuller than before, that she found her words.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that FAUNIS are unfeeling machines, because I've held their emotions in my arms and cleaned them from their face. Their emotions are just as wet, messy, and wild as ours.

Blake seemed better after that. There was a party later that evening; we'd saved an entire town at some point during that mess, so they made us guests of honor at their celebration. Blake smiled during the night, and even let me dance with her a bit! There was a huge bonfire in the center of town and the townspeople were playing instruments and singing. After a few drinks I swept her into my arms and we danced around the fire. She laughed the whole time! It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard and, lit by firelight, she was the most beautiful thing in all the universe. A thought hit me as we twirled away: I could do this forever.

I almost tripped as soon as I realized what I'd just thought. Is that what my counterpart, the queen in that other universe, felt when she danced on her wedding night?

I'm sitting in Crescent Rose's cockpit now. Everyone else has gone off to bed, but I couldn't sleep, so I figured I'd come talk to you. Maybe I can work through some of the thoughts these last few days have brought.

The universe is huge and empty. You really get a feel for how big it is when you're out here. We took a job last month to escort a survey ship to one of the nearest stars; it was uneventful, but I'm sure I mentioned it to you in passing. We warped space around us until we were falling through the void too fast for light to keep up, and even then it took weeks round-trip. Lightyears of empty space broken only by a brief flash of starlight up close.

It was a stroke of luck that humans and qedem first found each other, and their later discovery of the materia was just as unlikely. We found each other's radio transmissions and honed in on each other like missiles. But we didn't fight each other; we were too happy to have found someone else, too afraid to risk facing the boogeyman of the unknown alone. Solidarity in familiarity.

Since then we've colonized over a hundred systems and surveyed and explored thousands more, yet we haven't found anyone else. We don't even use radio waves much anymore, so our odds of finding anyone may have actually gone down. In order to get a fourth intelligent species, we had to make them from scratch.

And then there's the grimm. Monsters whose only goal is destruction, not unthinking but also not able to be negotiated with. I don't need to explain the grimm to you; you know them better than most. Some people say that grimm are proof that the universe is actively hostile and doesn't want us in it. That it sees life, or at least intelligent life, as something that warrants stamping out.

I don't think that's true.

There's another theory out there, less common since we found the grimm but one that still gets bandied about. It says that intelligent life is the universe's way of understanding itself. It's a pretty notion that posits some special place in existence for us few, special things whose atoms aligned in just such a way. Those who hold this belief, like their more pessimistic counterparts, also believe that the universe has some sense or intelligence and has noticed our existence.

I killed a man today, watched up close as life left his eyes. Then, a few hours later, I danced and laughed and realized the depths of my love for a woman. And I don't think the universe cared about either of those things. There is no higher power watching us and judging how we live our lives, but conversely, there's no one who cares if we die. We could keep on going.

I could do this forever, and the universe wouldn't care.

It's been said before that nothing matters. But it's also been said that it doesn't matter that nothing matters. You don't need some great, overarching meaning to live your life.

When I first met Blake, she asked me why I wanted to make a life in the middle of nowhere. I told her I wanted to be a hero and she latched on to that part. And it's true, I do want to be a hero. Not because I think it's inherently the right thing to do; I don't believe that there's some absolute value of justice or goodness baked into the fabric of reality. I just want to live in a world where heroes exist. I want to live in a world where people help each other not because they have to, but because they can. And the only way I know of to make that world is to play my part and live by example.

I also told Blake that I was out here to have fun. I think Yang, thrill-seeker that she is, understands that reason better than Blake. Happiness, pleasure, love, joy, these things aren't any more meaningful than anything else. But I prefer them to the alternative. A life spent buried in good books, surrounded by friends, and elbow-deep in the guts of a ship engine, trying to figure out why it won't work this month is just as valid of a lifestyle as someone who spends every waking moment fighting for the rights of people he'll never meet, even if he uses violent methods and intends to benefit himself more than the ones he helps. However, that equality in validity doesn't mean I have to take his actions lying down.

Nihilism isn't an excuse to be an asshole. We wouldn't have made it where we are today without empathy and cooperation. Without that we'd still live in a world where the stars were out of reach, and I don't want to be stuck like that. I want to run the length of the universe and see every speck of light it holds.

I will fight for the world I want to live in, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't matter. Because I am here. Not in spite of the universe, and not because of it either. I just am.

I wish you were here too, mom.

…

Do me a favor? Don't tell dad anything I just said. I don't want him to worry about me. Oh! We've decided to pay a visit to civilized space, so we'll be stopping by when we hit Vale. I look forward to seeing you and dad again soon, and introducing you to Blake in person.

Until then, this is Ruby Rose, captain of the Crescent Rose, signing off.

I love you.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

CGT transmission, pre-recorded video sent from node 72.97457.4452.4698 in the Draconis system to node 55.13896.3481.7774 in the Menagerie system. Transcription as follows:

Hi mom, hi dad.

I know. I haven't talked to you in years, and now, when I finally reach out, I send a video instead of calling. I'm sorry.

I wanted to let you know that I'm doing alright. I left the White Fang. Actually, I haven't been with them for a couple years now. After I cut ties I went and got a decent job on Vale that paid for food and an apartment. I made friends and started making a home for myself.

Then I threw all of that away for a woman I'd only just met.

God, you should meet her. She's amazing. She's smart, strong, cute, funny, heroic; basically everything I wanted Adam to be, way back when.

You were right about him, by the way. Of course you were. You don't have to worry about him anymore, though. No one will have to worry about him ever again.

Anyway, the woman. Her name is Ruby Rose and she's human. When I first met her, she offered me the opportunity to live in a tiny room on a small ship, where I could enjoy an inconsistent workload that occasionally involved fighting for my life against hordes of grimm. For some reason, I said yes, and it might've been the best thing I've ever done with my life.

I've since upgraded to sharing the captain's room with her. Actually, we knocked down the wall between our rooms to make one big room, but same effect.

Life isn't perfect, but I'm happy now. I haven't been happy in a long time. I was angry for so long, and then I was mostly scared. I thought I didn't know how to be happy anymore, but it's so easy here. I woke up this morning and Ruby was laying there next to me, curled in a ball and snoring, and it was the most perfect thing ever. If I could wake up every day and have her face be the first thing I saw, I think that'd be enough.

…

Oh god, I can't believe I just said that.

I've been living only in the present for years, but now I'm starting to think about the future again, and every picture in my head has her in it. I can't imagine my life without her anymore. There's a part of me I lost, carved out bit by bit by a hundred different hands, that I've managed to find again. She's given me some of her hope, to fill in the gap where mine used to be.

When I was young, I used to believe in a higher power and concepts like right and wrong. I thought that there was some cosmic scale to be balanced, and if we just did enough good things, the universe would tip in our favor and everything would be okay. But everything I've seen since leaving Menagerie suggests otherwise. You can fill your life with one good deed after another, and you're never guaranteed to get good things in return. So after a while, I stopped expecting good things to happen to me. It seemed like all the cruelties I faced, whether from strangers or from people I trusted, were just an inevitable and unavoidable part of life.

I kept trying to help people anyway. It wasn't until the White Fang started going too far, hurting the people we were supposed to be helping and hurting strangers as collateral damage, that I realized I couldn't keep considering myself a good person if I stayed with them. I was lost for a while, not sure where to go or what to do, and then Ruby was there, like a life preserver in a storm.

When I'm with her, it's easier to believe that things might be okay someday. It might not ever be perfect. Maybe we can only ever trade one inequality for another. Maybe society can't function without someone on top, and someone else crushed beneath their heel. Maybe no one deserves more than they can fight for and grasp with their own two hands. But that doesn't mean you don't try to make things better. There is value in the effort. Perfection isn't a goal but a direction you choose to march in, and what's important is that you keep marching.

I can carve out a place for myself where I can be okay, and then I can use what energy is left to help others carve their own place. I don't have to fix the world, I just have to try. I just have to be okay. And I think, someday soon, I will be.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to drop all that on you like that. I just wanted you to know that I'm in a good place right now. I may not be changing the world out here, but I'm helping. There are people who would be less happy and less healthy if I hadn't come out here. I'd like to tell you all about them some day.

We're going to be taking a break soon, heading back into better-charted space. If it's okay with you, I was hoping to pay you a visit. You could meet my crewmates and I could see what you've done with Kuo Kuana since I left.

I love you guys. Hope to hear from you soon.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

A/N: *dies*

So, for those unaware, this story was written in response to a ladybug week prompt challenge over on tumblr. I wrote all of it in a month, at a rate of about 1000 words per day. It was the largest single writing project I've ever completed, and I'm really glad to know that I can do it. Despite the nature of the challenge not being aimed at singular narratives, I still managed to write something cohesive, showing the development of the couple's relationship over time, and I'm really proud of what I've done.

That being said, I very much plan on cutting back my daily word count following this, because that was exhausting to do. I'm not done with this world, though, and I hope to revisit it before the year ends. I've got some work to do in the background, worldbuilding and what-not, as well as other projects I'd like to work on, but I've got ideas that won't quiet themselves easily. Specifically, I want to do another eight-chapter story focusing on the freezerburn couple, and then maybe something later that's more plot-focused, as I do have the beginnings of a large-scale plot in mind.

I don't like making promises or deadlines, I'm horrendous at keeping both, but keep an eye out for more of The Last Frontier if you're interested.