A few moons after the incident, Cinder - a fitting name thanks to its new Semblance - seemed eager to prove itself infront of Salem, the Grimm Overlord.

The Nevermore did little in between when Cinder first showcased its new power, and now, unless try and sneak glances towards Salem. It had gained a plethora of information during their first encounter, and many of it it still couldn't understand. Thankfully, the bird's own power (semblance?) seemed to give it some context on what it was.

Like that "her" was a gender.

Unfortunately, it only had bits and pieces of the bigger puzzle, and just knowing that it was a gender didn't really tell it what a gender was.

Still, it was odd that it gained information of everything that the Queen spoke of; even though in every other moment, the information it was given was basic, and very rarely given, even.

Perhaps this next encounter, the bird could stalk again, and gain something more? Though, it may need to leave early... The information was a little too much before.

It had taken a while for the Nevermore to find the Light again, and it was surprised to find them inside, actually. Inside of a dome with a sphere glass roof it could very easily peer into, the bird stared - noticing Cinder, Salem, and... the same taller greying Light as the other day.

"Cinder, Watts," she greeted both. "Is there actual reasoning as to why Dr. Arthur Watts is here?"

When the taller of them all took a step forward, both hands behind its back and with a confident poise, it was stopped when Salem raised her hand. "No. I wish to hear it from her."

Whatever confidence Cinder might've had before, it was gone now, when it realised how fruitless it really was. Why was it even acting so cocky in the first place? Its semblance could do little against the army of Grimm that'll come if the Light tries escaping.

With quickly approaching dread, Cinder opened its mouth, "I... faund mai Semblance."

Salem quirked an eyebrow, urging Cinder on.

"Um... Aiv... Aiv tokt ta Dr. Watts a'baut givin mi a wepan beist an it, sins it's not vari i-fektiv... æs-is, I gues." The Light nodded towards the older greying one - Doctor Arthur Watts seemed to be its name.

The doctor came up, and uncrossed its hands from behind its back, drawing up some sort of crushed material inside a small glass tube.

"A vial of dust?"

"Hevali pulva-raizd lint frægmants wid sam koul em-bedid, jar maedjasti. Cinder's Semblance haz di a-bilati ta tern -eni-din hot, and ta bi eibal ta cheinj its seip. Wid dis, shill bi 'eibal ta kri'eit 'eni'din av sort si di'zaiarz, if si 'kansen'treits i'naf."

Salem nodded, pleasantly surprised, but not impressed. "Impressive. She can create any weapon, just by using a combo of her semblance, and this dust? That must have taken a lot of practice, Cinder." Salem turned to the smaller Light, a knowing look on the queen's face.

"I... I hævant... ik'speramanted wid it jet..." Cinder whispered in response.

Salem didn't respond immediately, but she gave a cruel chuckle after a few seconds. "I suppose we'll just have to see how you fair now, child."

With a step behind, and with Arthur following, it seemed like the Light's battlefield was getting started. Not long afterwards, a low rumbling could be heard from further inside the castle, and a pair of gleaming red eyes could be seen, as an adult Beowulf stalked inside, until it was completely visible to everyone watching - including the other smaller Grimm.

The stalking Nevermore heard the Light's squeak of fear, as Cinder clenched its vial tighter in its hand, and unconsciously started heating it. When the Beowulf had gotten a hold of its senses, it focused on Cinder, snarled, and pounced. All in the span of 5 seconds.

With a scream that triggered the vial's normal glass breaking, the dust broke out in its candy-red hotness, and pierced the Beowulf. Breaking its balance, and instead of piercing the Light with its dark claws, it just knocked Cinder over.

With movement from its hands, Cinder painfully brought the impromptu flying blade (which looked more like a stick) out of its shoulder, ripping it out. With another cry, and with its hands above it head, Cinder brought down the blistering hot weapon it made ontop of the Beowulf.

Very sloppy, very frightened, but Cinder was capable of killing a Beowulf. It had only lasted a couple of seconds, and the seconds after the battle were even more tormenting, or so the bird assumed.

"Sloppy, unorganised, and you let your fears take over... But you managed to kill it... With your semblance."

Salem walked towards Cinder's frantic and shaking form, looking down at it like she'd have the right to do so. "I could tell, from that experience alone, that your semblance did not come from meditation, or not from any deep realisation of yourself. You forced it out. How?"

When it was forced out? Well, the Nevermore had first seen the semblance when it had entered Cinder's, room. Was that it?

Cinder seemed to shake a little, but it nodded, and forced its mouth open. "It waz, uh... With a sar'praiz from yourself, Sale- Queen Salem. Sou... I tænk you." The Light stood up, and seemed to bend over towards Salem. As a sign of gratitude?

"When?" Cinder straightened, looking at Salem with a confused expression. "I had been here throughout your every combat encounter with Grimm, and we had yet to be able to obtain your semblance through those means. When was the awakening?"

"Well, I-I... It was tu deiz a'gou, mæm. It was bi'kaz auv a... a... a Nevermore, I tink."

Salem quirked her eyebrow, obviously confused by the Nevermore in question, not knowing that the same one that Cinder was talking about, was right above them.

"Well, I won't ponder on how watching a Nevermore fly was capable of bringing out your semblance. What matters is that we got results."

"O-Okay..."

Afterwards, a few more words were said, Cinder left, and the older Light - Arthur? - seemed to also have some words with Cinder. Pointing at the broken melted glass vial, and the now-cool joined mess that was the dust inside. Seemed like it had retained the shape that Cinder had formed it into, if only somewhat.

Cinder always was a little jumpy when the Nevermore showed up immediately after these encounters, so instead maybe it'll just spread its wings, and fly for a while.

The Nevermore was flying through the sky, the purple sky doing little to contrast against is dark silhouette. But even if its silhouette was easily visible in the contrast of the sky and clouds, the Nevermore was still hidden well, considering it was in the shadow of a much larger and armoured Nevermore.

Its power told it the main differences that the bigger one had to the smaller Nevermore - and that was the size, and the armour it had; the smaller Nevermore didn't even seem to have the advantage of speed over it, the smaller one actually had speed quite a bit, to keep up with the bigger one's lazy strokes.

its feathers also seemed to be similar, although bigger. The power also told the Nevermore its main method of attacking - bashing, and its feather rain.

Attacking. No sort of fire powers like the Light had, but the Nevermore didn't know if anyone of its kind - or anyone else - had the same all-knowing power that it had. Still, whatever power it had, it didn't seem to do it any physical powers, or not yet at least.

The shadow of the bigger Nevermore slowly drifted away, as our smaller bird dipped and dived down to the ground, but its goal wasn't any location, but an action. When it grew close enough to the rocky floor, it flapped its wings in front of itself, commanding its feathers to strike down the earth; the few that came out sticking to the ground.

It was a method of attacking, a method of defending itself, in case what happened to Cinder happened to it as well. Cinder didn't struck first, the Beowulf attacked her; and no Grimm has tried attacking it preemptively yet. Maybe if it attacked first?

So long as it could outfly them, there was no harm done.

Up ahead, towards the ocean it couldn't yet see, there lay a pack of muscular ape-like Grimm, walking on four legs. The Beringels.

The Nevermore caught up easily, floating behind the pack as it prepped its feathers. Without caring much for the consequences, the bird just let them soar through the sky, towards the ape Grimm, striking its back. Some hit the armour, and the few that hit fur, less so stuck; but it's obvious the Grimm felt it when it stopped, and turned around to look.

Somehow, it didn't even see the Nevermore, and the Nevermore knew it wasn't because of some tunnel vision of the Grimm. It was just ignored, as the Grimm quickly went back on its track.

Its feathers didn't seem to do much of anything to it. So, either the Light's opponent was very weak, or the Light's newfound power is very strong.

Could the Nevermore match? Its physical attacks seemed much weaker in comparison.

Well, the Nevermore didn't know much, so maybe it was missing something. Besides, it could just fly away if anything happened, so it should be fine. Still, the Nevermore still has a lot it wants to learn, and Cinder didn't seem to shy away from it as much as it did.

Speaking of, Cinder had most likely already calmed down over its training, it was probably safe to come back now.

Not that there was much else it could do, anyways.

When it grew close to the ruined castle - closer to its usual spot by the Light's window - the Nevermore knew that there was something watching it, and it didn't need to look around too much, as who was looking at it, was in the same room as the Light was.

Salem, the queen of darkness, was there as well, staring at it as its slow descent towards the room became slower and slower with her intense glare. Unlike the other Grimm, the Nevermore didn't really have any sense of obligation towards her. Respect, maybe, but no real command.

Still, the moment hadn't lasted too long, Salem turned back to Cinder and finished whatever it was she was saying.

"To summarise, your understanding of math seems to be lower than even I had anticipated; I'll ask you to re-learn the basics as soon as possible, Cinder," then, she turned her back to both of them, and made her way towards the door. "Be quick. I'm not fond of those who circumvent my orders."

The door was closed before Cinder could reply, even though it had the time to do so. Cinder sighed as it turned around, its pencil in hand, and getting ready to do what Salem told it to "be quick" about. The Light took a quick glance at the Nevermore, but didn't seem to do much else after that.

Meanwhile, the Nevermore was again hit with another onslaught of information, knowing every word that Salem spoke, and one seemed to interest it very much.

Math. The study belonging to numbers - how they affect one another, and the world.

Was that what the Light was learning?

Math seemed to be what the Nevermore needed, to really understand how much is "too many" when compared to something that is "too little." Yes, it had the general idea, but it still couldn't rationalise how there was more of something.

Could Cinder help? What knowledge Salem said Cinder lacked, the Nevermore lacked more, and if it was learning the basics? It was exactly what the Nevermore wanted.

With that, minutes after Salem had left and Cinder was already doing what it was told, the Nevermore flapped its wings, and flew over to sit by Cinder's desk, Cinder noticing immediately and flinching, its attention clearly on the bird.

Since the Nevermore didn't do anything, Cinder decided to just keep doing what it was trying to do.

It was a few minutes in that the Nevermore - who was failing to understand anything - suddenly caw'd at one of Cinder's gestures, surprising it. Confused at the sudden interruption, the Light looked at it, and saw how intently the Nevermore was looking at its fingers.

Cinder's fingers were up, and the Nevermore knew that there were more fingers up than there were down, and it knew that the Light was somehow reasoning it, it was the basics of math that not even it knew.

Whether it was curious, wanted a break, or just because it lost track, Cinder decided to humour the bird.

Taking out some sort of container, Cinder zipped it open, and brought out similar things it was using to write - a good few, even. It stuck a few between its fingers, and pointed at each of them, saying something about each.

"Wan, tu, tri..."

Were they names? Were names related to math?

Cinder shook its head when the Nevermore quirked its head in question. Again, the Light said the same names, but instead of pointing, it raised a finger for each of its words, making emphasis on the pencils.

"Wan... tu... tri..."

Were they related? Could some fusion of both be the true answer to math?

Cinder seemed to let out a sigh of frustration, as it let the pencils drop down to the floor; it opened up its book to a random page, and just ripped out the papers, scaring the Nevermore back a bit. But it wasn't a sign of (too much) rage, as Cinder ripped tinier and tinier pieces, leaving the Light with a handful in its hand.

The Nevermore watched as Cinder organised its wrapped up paper balls each into a corner - one section had a single, the other had a single more, and the third one had a single more than the one before. If the Nevermore had pupils, they'd be shrinking in realisation, as it slowly realised what Cinder was telling the Grimm, its own power helping.

"One, two, three," Cinder said, as it pointed out each group. When Cinder turned to the Grimm, it saw the bird staring at the papers, and then up at the Light; the Grimm's movements weren't slow, like it was too busy processing, it had figured out what the Light was saying.

Cinder - fascinated - took a hold of some of the papers, and showed a quantity of them in its hand to it. "Four."

The Grimm nodded, there were four pieces of paper in Cinder's hand.

Its hand retracted, as it put more in, and repeated what it just did. "Five."

Before there were four, but now there were five, and this simple act amazed the Nevermore.

Cinder kept doing this throughout the night, even writing the numbers down, the Nevermore immediately cataloguing them, familiar with them the minute they were shown, thanks to its power.

It was some time later that the Light had started slowing down, trying to teach the Nevermore how to count by identifying the correct quantity of numbers, and it had gotten every answer flawlessly. But for whatever reason now, maybe the newfound semblance, Cinder was tired.

With some shooing to the nightmare bird - which didn't do much - Cinder closed the books, left its notebook open, and went off to bed, the surprisingly strong lighting not bothering the Light.

With its defenceless back to her, the Nevermore went back to looking at the numbers. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0," zero meaning nothing. This was the basis of math, and the Grimm had a feeling it'd be using it for a while.

A/N: A'right fellas, sorry it took so long, but I haven't given up on it, it just took me a while to get used to, you know, being in quarantine. Speaking of, I hope y'all're OK with whatever's going on; I wish the best of luck to you.

And on a side note, is the speaking thing getting obnoxious? I've tried giving context to what they were saying, in case people couldn't understand/be bothered to understand, but I can understand how annoying it might be to read it. Please, tell me if I should stop, I'll just have the words the Nevermore doesn't know in standard text, and the ones in BOLD. Then again, this'll only last a few more chapters.