This was the best day of her life.

That was the conclusion Ruby Rose reached when she entered her room. She had not only managed to stop a dust robbery but she also managed to impress the Headmaster of Beacon Academy enough to get a scholarship there two years earlier.

Throwing the towel, she was using to dry her hair, in the chair, Ruby maneuvered through the organized mess that was her room and sat on her bed.

Taking a deep breath, Ruby closed her eyes, before throwing her arms upward with a victory scream, allowing her body to fall completely in the mattress, only her legs dangling on the side.

Even now, an hour later, she was still excited, how couldn't she? She was a step closer to reaching her dream of becoming a hero, like the ones in the fairy tales… just like her mother.

Ruby took a look at Crescent Rose, at its usual place in her table, where she did maintenance every day. One of her most precious treasures, her baby, and if today proved something, was that it was the perfect weapon.

She was however, sure that there would be better days at beacon academy, oh yes, she could barely wait, she would get in a team with Yang and they would have soooooo much fun. Though the thought of having to get new friends filled her with anxiety.

But she didn't allow that to bother her, not for now at least, right now she would have only positive thoughts, and nothing, absolutely nothing would take away her good mood, not the anxiety of meeting new people, not the thought of not seeing her dad for a long time, neither the black orb of energy in the middle of her roo-WHAT?!

All of her good mood instantly vanishing, she became weary. What was that black thing? Its middle was completely dark with what appeared to be black tendrils surrounding it.

Somehow, it gave her the same feeling that the Grimm did, just more… intense? No that wasn't the right word. Dense, yes, it was denser, she couldn't feel it very well at first glance, but if she focused on it, she was be able to feel it. A darkness unlike any other, it was all concentrated in that thing.

The darkness was, strange and familiar, it was… wrong and yet it was right as if it was always like that, and never supposed to be like that.

A second passed, nothing happened, she wasn't suddenly attacked by a black tentacle, no Grimm appeared around her, nothing. But she wouldn't fall for such an easy trap, the thing in front of her was Grimm in nature, she was sure of that.

Yang wasn't home, neither was her father, they went to pick up dinner after collecting her in the police station. Zwei was sleeping, so no help from him either.

She had to deal with this alone, and she was ok with that, she already proved herself several times today, and wouldn't mind doing it again. It didn't matter if it was a wanted criminal or an unheard type of Grimm.

She started to slowly move in the direction of Crescent Rose, on the other side of her room. Keeping her eyes fixed at that thing all the time. The tension was high, she never heard, even once in her uncle's stories, about anything like this, could she cut it? Why was it floating? How did it get here? She didn't know the answer for any of these questions, nor did the floating thing made any aggressive moves, or anything actually.

If she used her semblance to go around it she could get to her weapon faster… no, she couldn't make curves with her semblance, not yet at least. Neither did she know if it would act if she made any sudden movements.

She wasn't prepared, or expecting, when during the turn she had to make on the corner of the room, a giant, dirty, hairy, disgusting hand leaped out of the thing and grabbed her, a strong bone-crushing grip, and pulled her in before she could even make a sound.

If she had waited for one minute, just one more minute, she would have been able to hear the sound of a door being unlocked, and her sister's eager shouts "Hey Rubes, let's celebrate your acceptance into beacon with fries!"

She didn't know where the hand was pulling her to, but she didn't like it.

She felt sick in here, everything felt so wrong, it filled her mind, corrupted her mind, yet it didn't, it was suffocating. Everything was dark, an eternal dark, and when she looked at the hand which caught her, it was extended at a ridiculous length, like it was being bended and stretched by this place, allowing it to reach oh so much further.

She needed to get out of there. She didn't know how, or why, she just knew she had to, it was the only thing in her currently despairing mind.

She needed to get out of there.

She couldn't get out of there.

Those two lines of though kept repeating themselves in her mind, all semblance of coherent thought was gone, only despair remained.

If only she could think she would have asked herself the really important questions, such as why wasn't her aura active? But all that she could think about was getting out of there.

She started to struggle. It was useless, the hand would not even bulge.

Tears of fear started to creep up in the corner of her eyes. She was scared, she ever felt this much fear once before, when she was told her mother died, and she though she wouldn't feel like this ever again.

There was nothing to be done, she knew it, but she refused to accept it. What kind of huntress submits herself to the Grimm? Her mother certainly didn't.

She looked at the hand, she needed to inflict pain, she needed to make it drop her, she felt like she didn't have much longer before her demise.

She couldn't think at all, so she followed her instinct of survival, she couldn't rationalize if that was or not a good action, but she didn't care, it had to be done.

With a primordial rage, or it was perhaps desperation, she lowered her head in the direction of the hand's hairs, and she bit it.

She started to struggle again, stronger this time, yanking the hair everywhere, almost tearing it off the hand, but she didn't possess the strength nor distance for such.

She was however, lucky, was this beast any more rational it would have ignored the pain and kept its grip strong. But the beast operated in the same instinctual level of the girl right now, and following its primordial instinct of evading pain, it threw the girl away, to a far-off place and age.

And so, the best completely returned to itself, barely acknowledging the failed extraction and continued its search for its lost pendant, no matter when, no matter where, no matter who, it would continue until it had its precious pendant at its side again.

She was having a nice, comfortable dream. One where she achieved everything she wanted, one where she was a hero. Her mother was there. She had tons of friends whom and could talk to them freely without any type of awkwardness.

But such dream would not be allowed to continue, for it was in the nature of dreams to be something fleeting, ever out of reach, and yet continuously strived for.

She was awake, but refused to open her eyes. She wanted to go back to the land of dreams where she had an infinite supply of cookies and strawberries. She started to move around her bed, pulling the covers upwards.

It was then that she noticed, there were no covers, nor was the bed comfortable, the very opposite actually, it was stiff. And so, she noticed, that the bed she was resting on wasn't hers.

Suddenly, it all came back to her, the dark thing, the hand, the darkness, and how she was thrown by the hand. But she could remember nothing more, where was she? Was she kidnapped? was she in the place where Grimm came from?

She opened her eyes and sat up on the bed.

As she started to look around and took note of where she was. A dark, a little bit dirty wooden shed. Not unlike her house, but the more she looked, the more the differences appeared. The first was that it seemed much, much smaller than her own house. And the second was that it seemed more… primitive.

The sound of steps coming from the other side of the door suddenly alerted her. She prepared herself for combat, even if she had no weapons on her she still had her aura and semblance, and she would manage to scape from her captor, somehow.

Who came from the other side was, instead of a big abomination of a Grimm or an intimidating man, a simple guy, appeared to be in his mid-twenties, average height, pale skin, brown hair and eyes, wearing a simple green shirt with pants that reached mid-leg. She also noticed that they were made of a very cheap fabric.

"Finally, you're awake. Got me worried when I found you on the doorstep." The man spoke, fast and with a big grin on his face. Well, at least now she knew he wasn't a kidnapper. She was about to thank him and ask him where she was, but he started to talk before she could. "Anyway, always happy to help when I can. Now come on, you woke up just in time for lunch."

The man said turning around the door and entering the room behind it. Ruby stood up to follow. Finding out her body was stiff and all her joints ached. She stumbled a bit, but managed to catch herself before she fell headfirst into the ground.

Crossing the door what she saw what appeared to be the rest of the house.

It was a room made of the same wood as the previous one, the walls seemed asymmetrical, and when she looked closer some planks appeared to be sticking out and into the ground. On the middle of the room there was a hole with fire, a cauldron being sustained by some wood, inside it what appeared to be some kind of… soup?

Looking around a bit more she saw that all the furniture seemed old and worn out. The only source of light it appeared was the fire pit, alongside some light peering from the holes in the walls and the door. No Dust around, nor advanced civilization, it seemed this place was more primitive than it seemed.

"C'mon, c'mon, sit down. The soup is delicious, that I promise you." The man picked up two wooden bowls and put some soup in them. Handing one of them to her together with a wooden spoon. The man sat at the border of the fire, eating from his own bowl. "So girly, mind telling me what you were doing to get here? What about a name, you have one?" Ruby went to answer the fast speaking man, but was again interrupted by him. "Oh my, where are my manners? Name's Ledo."

Ruby eyed the now named Ledo, he seemed like a nice guy, spoke faster than anyone she knew, but hey, everyone had their own quirks. "I- uh, I am Ruby. Ruby Rose, and I… don't know? All I remember is that a giant hand appeared out of a portal, and I appeared here."

When Ruby told him what happened, she expected him to laugh at her face, but instead he took it all with a straight face, well, as straight as his ever-present grin would allow. "Well, giant hands and portals, uh? I heard about some miracles that allowed for teleportation, but I can't see why someone who has that kind of power use it to prank you or me."

Wait a second, did he just say miracles? Was he referring to semblances? Or perhaps Aura? There were indeed some secluded parts of the world, and religious fanatics, who believed aura to be a miracle. Perhaps she ended up in one of those? As long as she was close enough to one of the four kingdoms and had a weapon she could make the trip, but damn, dad and Yang would kill her.

"But I don't think that was the case, was it?" Ruby looked back up to him. "You were out cold for three days, I don't know why you were dropped in my doorstep, but it was obviously an attack on your person, young noble."

Ruby became surprised at that, she was unconscious for three whole days, that explained the stiffness, but she felt just fine. But what really caught her attention "Wait, what do you mean by 'young noble'?"

To her surprise Ledo snorted, really, he took that she was caught by a giant hand perfectly fine, but snorted at that? "Well, ok, let's just say that I believe you for a second, where would this fellow commoner hail from?" He asked in a sort of mocking manner. She went to ask him what that expression meant, but he interrupted her again. "Oh my, your soup is going to grow cold, c'mon, take a bite."

Ruby looked at him, taking another spoonful of soup, seeing no danger in it she brought the spoon closer to her face, and drank it.

It was terrible, something you would see in some kind of military camp. But seeing as it was the only edible thing, and Ledo offered it to her in goodwill, she gulped it down, offering him a kind smile after it.

After losing all her train of thought, and Ledo not bringing the topic back up, the both of them continued to eat in an awkward silence. Though Ruby seemed to be instantly gulping it down instead of properly savoring it.

After finishing his soup and putting it down on the ground Ledo finally started to talk again. "Coming back to the matter in hand, where are you from, oh fellow commoner?"

Ruby put down her 'soup' just like he did. Now comprehending what he meant. "I'm from Patch, you know, that little island on Vale's coast?" Ruby expected some semblance of recognition, but no, he appeared completely lost to her description, was she in a place that isolated from normal society?

"Hum… never heard of it, where is it? Considering we're a few weeks of travel from Anor Londo to the north… hum, perhaps, is it in the south?" What? Who never heard of Vale? One of the four kingdoms? And who measured the location based on weeks away from something? And more important, what was Anor Londo?

"Hmmm… Anor Londo? What is that? Some sort of major settlement?" It didn't matter how secluded a place may be, at least one settlement must have contact with the kingdoms to survive, and if this Anor Londo place was in contact with the kingdoms she could get home.

The smile on his face was dropped, instead a skeptical and wary look, like he was talking to someone crazy, or who would do something bad at any moment. "uh… Anor Londo? The capital of gods?"

Now it was Ruby's turn to be confused. During her still short life she heard about many religions across Remnant but none of them included a capital of gods, nor did they preach that people could reach it.

Seeing her face of confusion Ledo started to laugh, laugh really, really hard. "I see, I'm not talking to a noble at all, I'm talking to a complete lunatic!" The affirmation somehow offended Ruby. Getting kidnapped by a giant hand? Yeah that was completely fine. Not knowing a religion? A complete lunatic.

"HEY! I will have you know that there's nothing wrong with my head!" She said as she started to pout. That however made Ledo laugh even harder.

"alright, alright." He said, trying to calm his laughter down. "So, while I would love to continue hearing the mad rumblings of a Lunatic, duty calls." He got up and started to dust off his pants and put off the fire.

"Wait, what are you going to do?" Ruby got up soon after him, stumbling a little at the sudden movement.

"I'm going to work, I honestly don't care if you have a way to get home, I helped you and all, but giving you shelter is all I can do before it gets too troublesome, of course, you will have to work since I can't exactly sustain two people on my own."

Ruby paused at that, she didn't know in which direction Patch was, perhaps she could get more information with the people at the village, that is, if they had any information on the kingdoms. Maybe that Anor Londo place could have some information.

Nodding at him she prepared herself for work, it wouldn't be for long anyway, she would get information, set for Anor Londo, and hopefully contact one of the kingdoms.

"I take that as you accepting the deal, anyway I will give you today to get used to the place, though there's not much to see here. There are some spare clothes in the room if you need them, gotta go bye!" Ledo said quickly opening and closing the front door.

The girl was a noble, Ledo was sure of that, the clothes, even If small, are too high quality to belong to anyone but a noble, the skin and hair were too well kept, the hands were calloused, physical labor of some kind, probably some fancy swordsmanship that nobles practiced.

Her backstory wasn't bad, that was, until she faked not knowing Anor Londo, and to be honest, she faked well, but there wasn't a single soul that didn't know Anor Londo, much less a noble.

She probably ran away from home, got in an accident in the way here, from that place, Patch was it? He never heard about it, but hey, he wasn't a walking encyclopedia about all kingdoms in the world, even thought he was quite certain she made the place too.

He looked at the pond he was fishing at, the crystalline water reflecting his face, he stayed home for three days to make sure the girl was ok, and lost the morning of today, so selling fish at the usual time a little before noon wouldn't do. Maybe, if he sold them at sunset he would get enough people wanting fish at dinner.

But damn, he hated his job, it was so monotonous, and the income wasn't nearly as consistent as he would hope. Fishing to alleviate the stress? Sure. Fishing to get money? Terrible idea. Luckily there was nothing bounding him to this job, and he would be able to get rid of it soon.

The girl wouldn't affect anything in the long run, she appeared to be on the run to get to wherever she needed to get to be away from her family, so he was looking forward to housing a noble on the run for a week at max, or so he thought.

He would have to double on his expenses for that week then, considering that most of the possible money she generated would be converted in her preparing for her journey, nothing too troublesome of course, unless he got bad luck in his work, in which case-

The string pulled.

It looked like his time musing would be cut short, after all, he had a fish to catch.

Uncomfortable, if there was a word to describe the clothes she took from Ledo, it would be uncomfortable.

Now, Ruby wasn't one to spit in what could be considered an action of good will, and she certainly didn't want to go around town in her nightwear, but these clothes were itchy and tight.

Normally she would have ignored this itchiness, she would have kept positive, but right now she could be anything but.

This place, she discovered, was even more primitive than she had anticipated, no one knew about Dust nor Grimm, don't even let her get started on aura.

Everything was going perfectly, she would go to Beacon in a week time.

Now she was here, and nothing made sense. Initially the thought she could get a bullhead at Anor Londo, alert everyone that she was okay, but no, apparently the 'capital of gods' was a completely independent place.

She should honestly just get some clothes, perhaps a scythe, or a sword, not that she was any good with one, but that appeared to be the only weapon he sold, because they somehow didn't know what a gun was, and try to find any of the kingdoms.

Everything was going wrong and her frustrations just kept pilling one after the other, making everything awful.

The sun was setting, she didn't have any plans to get home, and she was starving.

Ruby sighed, she should just go back to Ledo's and think things through, the settlement was so simple that getting lost was nigh impossible.

As she went on her way back she thought about Ledo, she didn't give him much consideration before, but he was fairly nice, giving her shelter, food, and taking care of her when she was unconscious. She hasn't noticed earlier, but being unconscious for three days, she was starving, and she wasn't against eating more of that soup, bad as it may be, it was still food.

Suddenly stopping on her tracks, she saw Ledo, on the middle of what she elected to be the park, a bucket at his side and a fishing rod on his shoulder, in his face an exhausted look.

She approached him, he was going to be giving her shelter, and starting tomorrow she would start helping him on his job, there was no reason to not become friends with the man, even if only for a short period of time until she left.

"Hi Ledo!" She said, mustering all the positivity she had, after all, there was no reason to vent out her frustrations on him.

He turned to her, a hopeful look on his face, turning back to an exhausted scowl as he saw that it was just her.

"Hi Ruby, make me a favor? Great! Pick this bucket with the fish I couldn't sell and help me carry it back to my home, unless you still have something to do out here?" Shaking her head, she was going to say something but she was not allowed to. "Great! Now let's get going" Ruby was starting to regret approaching him.

Night came, the fish was good, better than the soup. She was now sitting outside his house, as she wanted to rest under the night breeze.

But now she knew, that every single plan she had devised across the evening was useless, completely and utterly useless.

As she looked to the sky and saw a complete, shining moon.

At that point she noticed, she hasn't been thrown to one of the uninhabited continents, or some isolated part of the world. No, she was sure that she hadn't been kidnapped by a giant hand either.

And so, the obvious conclusion came to her, how she didn't think of this before, she didn't know, but now it was obvious. She was dreaming.

She probably fell asleep in her bed as soon as she sat upon it, the day had been long and exhaustive after all, and she was sure that when she went to sleep she would wake up in her bed, in her house, and continue her life normally, with this weird dream fading into oblivion.

And so, she started to laugh, after all, this was a dream, she had complete right to everything that happened here, if she wanted she could have a mountain of cookies appear, actually, she would do just that.

She willed that the west session of the village was replaced with a mountain of cookies.

.

.

.

Nothing happened, the city continued there and the city continued completely without cookies.

Well, maybe dreams didn't actually work like that. Not that it mattered, everything would come back to normal after she went to sleep, she was sure of that.

Ruby barged through the front door of Ledo's house, scaring the poor man.

"AH?!" Ledo, scared, threw a series of attacks into the air as if trying to repel an invader that wasn't there. After a second, finally calming down, he looked at her and took an annoyed face. "By all the gods in Anor Londo, do not scare me like that!"

Getting close to him and using her elbow to lean into him she said with a lax voice. "Ledo, Ledo, Ledo, can't you see, my dear figment of imagination? This dream is ending soon, so you must enjoy the rest of it while you can, you may never get another chance."

Ledo looked at her with a completely confused expression, something that appeared quite normal today. "Dream? Ruby, what are you talking about? Is this some king of elaborate prank?"

Ruby just kept nodding at every word said "Ledo, can't you see? This is all a dream I'm having." She said getting really close to him. "And well, while it was fun and all, I have to get back to the real world and all, y'know? No hard feelings, believe me. Sooooo, where can I sleep?"

Ledo looked at her, blinked once, his face morphing to one of bewilderment. "Know what? I'm completely sure that you are a lunatic now." He paused his fast speech for a second, then two, and finally. "Anyway, you can sleep right in that corner I set up for you."

He pointed to a little corner of the room, not to close, nor to far from the fire pit, sure, it would be put off eventually, but the residual heat would be enough hopefully. There was a blanket on the ground. Basically, it was a glorified dog bed, the kind Zwei would like.

Not that it actually mattered since she would wake up in a few minutes.

Getting comfortable in the little corner, and not bothering to switch back to her pajamas Ruby wished Ledo a goodnight and went to sleep, after all, he was a figment of her imagination and there was no reason not to be cordial with herself.

It was however, when she woke up and saw that she was still at Ledo's, with the young man greeting her good morning in his energetic way, that she wasn't so sure if she was actually dreaming anymore.

Author Notes: Thank you for reading this.

I will try to update this as soon as I can, but expect irregular updates.

(This next section is to clarify something for those that know Dark Souls Lore, if you don't there's no need to risk spoilers, but you can read If you want)

Yes, this is the same Ledo that invades you at Ringed City, Yes, I know Silver Knights are not humans, Yes, I know that Gwyn made the ringed city because he feared the darkness of men. Yes, I know that humans composed the ringed knights and slave knights.

However, if you look closer you will see that there is more to it, and look no further than Ciaran, yes, the knight of Gwyn that hates humans. If one were to look at her size they would simply say that she is smaller than the average silver knight and not human, but that all changes when you factor in that she is affected by the dark hand, the one weapon that works only on human enemies by sucking their humanity.

Also consider that just like Gough, she doesn't drop a soul, while Ornstein and Artorias do, what a coincidence that the two members of that race that composes silver knights drop souls but the giant and the supposed human don't. Of course, we can't forget that silver knights just don't drop unique souls when you kill them, alas we remember that Ornstein soul describes that Gwyn gave a shard of his soul to his four knights, so, if you are of the silver knight race and has a Gwyn soul shard you will drop a special soul, while if you are a human or giant you can't, even with his shard.

Based on all of this I can assume that human Silver Knights were trained in Sen's Fortress, and the knights of our size (and affected by dark hand) are humans, while the bigger unaffected by Dark Hand are of the same race that composed the originals.

So, both Ledo and Ciaran can be considered humans.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.