Die

The knock on the front door rang through the silence. Summer and Tai exchanged glances. Who would visit them at eleven thirty? Qrow would visit at odd hours, sure, but he warned them. Nobody ever visited this late.     Summer nodded over toward the door and Tai answered. A blue-haired woman with a mace strapped to her back stood there and Summer’s heart sank in her chest.     Hera.     She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. She sat her book to the side, beckoning her old friend in. Hera sat on the couch and ran a hand through her hair. Her green eyes settled on Summer. “…I really hate to ask this of you, Summer, but…”     “Ozpin needs me, huh?” Hera’s only response was a short nod. Summer let out a sigh, running her fingers through her hair.     It’d been six years since her last mission. She’d retired as a Huntress to raise Yang, only to have Ruby born shortly after. Her abilities had dampened over the years and she knew it. Ozpin would know too. If he had sent Hera, it meant bad things were brewing. Salem was up to something. She dreaded the thought of another mission, but it had to be important.     “Any reports of Silvia?” The thick silence answered the question. Salem’s silver-eyed warrior. This was essentially a suicide mission. She squeezed her hands together, remembering the searing pain caused by the young woman’s powers. She’d barely escaped unscathed. No, it wasn’t essentially suicide; it was suicide.     “…Give me about an hour and a half and then we can leave.” Hera nodded and Summer headed up to her room. Composition notebooks, a music stand, and clothes lay strewn everywhere. She pushed the mess on the desk to the floor, opening the blue composition notebook. Her throat tightened as flipped past the tear-streaked lines of her last entry, but she ignored it. It didn’t take long for the words and notes to flow from her pen. The piece had rolled around her head for awhile, so she really was just recording it now. Since this very well was likely the last time she’d be on Patch, she wanted the girls to have something to them in particular. She sat her pen down and glanced at the clock. Sixty minutes left. She returned to the song’s first page in the upper left corner. To my sweet, sweet daughters. I’ll never leave you no matter what . She’d fight death itself if she had to. She flicked her scroll open and sat it on the desk, hitting the record button after grabbing Battaglia. Her lips quivered but she took in a breath. “Yang, Ruby, by time you see this… I’ll probably be gone. I have a very dangerous mission I need to go on and I know I probably won’t come back. My sweet girls, I’m so sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye properly. I hope this song will offer you comfort in the years to come.” She plucked one of the lyre strings and inhaled before singing. “ Long ago, before we met, I dreamed about you… ”