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The emblem on Ruby’s belt wasn’t hers, not really. It belonged to her mother, Summer Rose, worn over her heart. Until her very last mission, when she’d left it behind. Ruby had clutched onto it in the days after, as if the object could bring her mother back.
Even now, she hadn’t let go. It still sat on her hip, its weight a constant reminder.
A reminder of who her mother had been. A reminder of who she had to be.
It was heavy on her side, the solid metal pulling at her belt. Summer had been everything. An accomplished huntress, a loving mother, an attentive friend and partner. Everyone had stories about her, all of them painting a picture of what Summer had been. She had been perfect.
Ruby was far from perfect. She could kill monsters, sure, she was good at that even, but everything else was a struggle. Her plans were shaky even when they succeeded, always requiring last minute fixes to stop everything from going to pieces. And in Atlas, no amount of fixes had been enough. It had all gone to pieces regardless. Perhaps in ordinary circumstances, Ruby would have been a good huntress, a decent leader. But there hadn’t been ordinary circumstances. Ever since Beacon, the entire world had been on the knife’s edge of oblivion, and all Ruby had done was push on the blade.
Summer could have done it better. Summer wouldn’t have let Atlas plummet out of the sky, wouldn’t have let Salem take the relics. Summer Rose wouldn’t have let Penny die.
Ruby Rose had. At every critical step, she had failed to do what needed to be done, failed to save the people that had mattered most to her. It was those times, when her mistakes were laid bare in front of her, that her mother’s insignia weighed the heaviest.
Now, here, so far away from Remnant and everything she’d ever known, it was an anchor, dragging her feet to a halt. She needed to act– her friends were counting on her. But they had counted on her before, and it had ended poorly. They were making a mistake to trust her with anything.
There was so much to do, and she was capable of none of it. A failure of a huntress, a failure of a leader. Never able to do what needed to be done. Never able to do enough. She wanted to be enough, to fulfill the expectations everyone had built up around her, expectations built in part from her mother’s legacy.
A legacy that sat on her belt, slowly tarnishing as the world burned. Part of her wanted it gone. That if she could not be a proper successor to Summer Rose, she could sever the connection entirely. It could be simple. She could leave the emblem behind, lie and say it got detached when they were running away from another losing fight.
Part of her knew better though. Her mother’s insignia didn’t hold the world’s expectations for her, and throwing it away would do nothing but destroy the last piece of her mother she had left.
Still though, when she did trade it away, a last ditch effort to help her friends, she was hopeful. Maybe with this symbol of Summer Rose gone, Ruby Rose would have a lighter load.
When Jaune handed her Crescent Rose that night, it had never felt heavier.