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The orange gloves in Oscar’s lap look wrong to him now. Too bright, too small. He sits with the feeling, the discomfort at the sight of his own hands. In the light of the beginning sunrise, they almost seem to glow in their wrongness.
“Hey.”
Oscar startles. He looks to see Blake standing outside the gazebo entrance. “I hope I’m not bothering you. I saw you sneak out here and figured you could use some company.” Blake knows all too well that sometimes people need a friend around when they least want it. If Oscar left without a word, he had words he needed to say.
Oscar didn’t expect anyone to follow him, and it shows. “Yeah, sure. Uh, come on… in?” Maybe ‘in’ is an odd word to use when outside, he thinks, but oh well, he's already said it.
Blake sits beside him on the curved bench, a couple feet away, so that they’re semi-facing one another. She folds her hands around one knee pulled to her chest and examines the pensive child in front of her. He’s sitting criss-cross, and it only highlights his youth, but there’s an agelessness to his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” Blake ventures. “For what happened to you.”
“Which thing?” Oscar asks, completely sincere in not knowing.
Blake smirks a little. “Good point. I was talking about getting captured by Salem, but I guess you’ve had a lot going on these past couple days.”
With a quarter of a smile and a quick puff of amusement through his nose, Oscar mutters, “Yeah, you could say that.”
Blake doesn’t know how to begin to comfort him. “It’s amazing you’re handling it so well,” she tries.
“I’m not sure that I am, but, thanks.”
“You are,” Blake continues. “You’re still here, aren’t you?” Her ears flatten against her head. “I’ve run away for less, over and over.”
“Not anymore.”
“Not anymore,” Blake repeats. “Running never helps, anyway. You can’t run from yourself.”
Oscar gives a bittersweet chuckle to the floor. “Truer words were never spoken.” Ozpin doesn’t add anything. It seems he’s giving Oscar this moment alone, as alone as he can be, for which Oscar silently thanks him.
“That’s what I admire about you. Even when Ozpin ran, you stayed. It’s impressive when a child shows more wisdom than their teacher.”
“I don’t know about wisdom.” Oscar avoids eye contact at the compliment.
“I do." Blake's words find their certainty. "It’s the willingness to face your mistakes and learn from them. Only you’re not just learning from your own. You’re choosing to be better than those who came before you.”
He sighs shortly. “I’m trying.”
“Exactly.”
The two sit in a comfortable silence, letting the moment rest. They may not talk much, but it’s always easy for them to be around each other. A calming presence.
“I thought about it,” Oscar says. “Running away. Going home to my Aunt, going back to being a farmhand. In Argus, after Jaune… expressed his concerns.”
Blake raises an eyebrow. “That’s a very generous interpretation of events.”
“He’s earned it.” Oscar sits up a bit, and his gaze falls on the horizon. “I knew going back wouldn’t fix anything or help anyone, but, it was nice to imagine it could, just for one night. So I gave myself that, one night.” It was a very short night. He knew the more he lingered, the harder it would be to return. But in that brief time of pretending nothing had changed, he realized just how much he had.
“And then?” Blake prompts.
“And then I came back.” For some reason, he feels embarrassment recounting this. “I didn’t mean to worry you all, I just… needed a few hours to be in a different world.”
“And to get new clothes,” Blake reminds him.
Oscar gives a quick but sweet laugh. “And to get new clothes. With everything else changing, I figured I should change with it.” Oscar recalls the moment on the farm when he looked in the mirror and saw someone he didn’t fully recognize, and the moment he saw someone wearing his clothes staring back at him in a shop window. He needed to change his reflection to something new, a reflection Ozpin had never worn.
Well, until now.
“What stopped you?” Blake’s question comes at the perfect time to keep Oscar from spiraling down this train of thought. “From running?”
“Nothing stopped me. It was deliberate.” Oscar thinks back to the steps he forced himself to take. “First, I had to acknowledge that my life is finite. That I’m… temporary. And once I did, it hit me that literally everyone is, and I just started laughing at how ridiculous it was, that I was treating myself like I was already gone just because someday I will be. One way or another.” This is so confusing for him to talk about, and it all sounds even stranger out loud. It doesn’t feel like he’s losing himself, not anymore. He used to think that’s what would happen, but now he knows it’s much more complicated than that. Much scarier. “Or, well, maybe I won’t ever be,” he amended. “I guess that depends on us.”
Blake struggles to follow his words, caught up in their weight. “’Us’ meaning?”
“Remnant.”
Now she understands. “Got it.”
Oscar shifts slightly, facing her more as his nervousness fades. She’s taking this really well. “The next step was to decide what to do with my life while I can still be sure it’s mine.”
“Oh is that all?” Blake says it teasingly, but is yet again astounded by the things that come out of this kid’s mouth. “You figured that out in one night?” He’s had to grow up far too quickly. She knows the feeling.
“No, not even a little bit!” Oscar laughs. He still has no idea what to do. Things just happen, and so he happens along with them. “But, I tried to narrow down my options: I could go backwards or I could go forwards.” He realizes how much he’s been talking, and blinks in surprise. “So I stayed,” he finishes.
Blake thinks for a bit and smiles to herself. “You know, I used to give people words – one word that captures the essence of what makes them who they are at their core. It was almost like a game. But that may have been a little naïve. I know it’s not that simple.”
“No one is,” Oscar agrees.
“Right. But, if I were to give you a word, I think I figured out what it would be.”
Oscar looks up at her with almost desperate curiosity. He would cling to whatever identifier she gave. “What is it?”
She looks him in the eye. “Resilience.”
Oscar says nothing, taking in the word.
“You’ve been through a lot these past few months. More than anyone should ever have to in a lifetime.”
Or several, Oscar thinks.
Blake gauges Oscar’s reaction, giving him a chance to speak before continuing. He doesn’t. “But no matter what’s happened to you, every time, you’ve come back from it. And every time, you’ve grown from it; I can tell.” She offers a comforting smile. “And you spread that to the people around you, too. You never seem to give up on someone, even when they’ve given up on themselves.”
A warmth envelops the air as the sun climbs higher.
“Resilience.” Oscar tests the word on his tongue, like it’s the only one that matters. He lets himself smile at the way it feels, and some of the tension in his shoulders releases him.
“I remember what you said,” Blake adds. “Back in Argus. How you wanted to do whatever you could to help with whatever time you had… left.” She falters on the dour words. “That stuck with me.”
Oscar looks up at Blake and she meets his eyes. “It might be the saddest thing I’ve heard anyone say in my life.”
“It’s definitely one of the sadder things I’ve said in mine.” Oscar shuts his eyes, then blinks a couple times, the way one does when dispelling tears before admitting they exist.
She won’t ask him what she wants to. Instead, she waits for his breaths to deepen.
Blake speaks carefully, not breaking the silence, but easing it away. “I once read a book – one of my favorites, actually – about a man with two souls, each fighting for control of his body.”
“Wonder what that’s about.”
Blake smiles a little at his tone, but it feels wrong to laugh. “I’m starting to realize that all fairytales come from somewhere… So I assume this isn't a coincidence.” Hopefully this isn’t too invasive.
“I’d say you’re probably right about that.” Oscar’s trying to be lighthearted, but it comes out in the same wry manner. Nearly every story seems to apply to him these days. “Do I want to know how it ends?”
Blake hesitates. “Do you?”
Oscar thinks for a moment, then nods.
“It doesn’t. Not really. It just… begins again.”
Small laugh. “Sounds exhausting.”
This poor kid. She wants to tell him about a happy ending, but it’s kinder to tell him the truth. “Neither of them really ‘win’ in the end. The souls never learned how to work together, but that didn’t stop them from becoming one. So the man was forever at odds with himself.”
“I was always more into stories of adventure and fantasy than tragedy,” Oscar says, his voice soft and far away.
Looking at his face, Blake recognizes that he is a tragedy unfolding before her eyes.
Oscar clenches his fists in his lap and brings himself to ask what he needs to. “Who was he?”
Blake blinks out of her thoughts. “He wasn’t given a name in the books... and if it’s based on a specific person in history, I don’t—”
“No,” Oscar interrupts. “I mean… who was he?” His voice gets heavier and quieter. “Afterwards?”
Oh. “I’m... not really sure how to answer that. The man just kept referring to himself as himself, but his memories were as though he had lived them. There wasn't really a distinction.”
Oscar exhales. "Yeah."
“Has that… happened to you?” Blake tries to mask her concern by speaking evenly, but her face gives her away.
Oscar fidgets a bit. “Um, I… I don’t—”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Blake says gently.
“I’m just worried what you’ll think of me,” he admits.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Oscar looks down. “Yes.” A pause. "It's strange. I know these memories are from lives I've never known, belonging to people I've never met, but, people I somehow am." Or was? Or will have been? "But it doesn't feel any different."
"That must be pretty confusing," Blake tiptoes.
"It is. It’s not really new, either. It happened once – or a couple times, sort of? – before I even met you all. But now there are just so many. It used to be mostly vague feelings, like when I ran into Hazel before knowing who he was—”
“Wait, when was that?”
“Oh, right, I never mentioned that!” Oscar laughs. “He got me the train ticket that got me to Mistral. Funny how things come full circle, isn’t it?” Oscar realizes that the irony of the situation isn’t as amusing as it is sad, and he returns to a solemn state.
“You did what you had to do, Oscar.” Blake’s words are trying to reach more than just him.
He looks unconvinced. “I’m not sure I believe in ‘have to’s. It was a choice. But it’s what he asked me to do, and he was already nearly— I don’t know if I could have saved him, but…” The possibility echoes in his mind. “I try to tell myself I gave him the end to his story that he wanted. That I let it be his decision. But no matter what he’s done… to me, to countless others… he still had the chance to be better. And the moment he took it, it was over.” Oscar becomes aware of the cane on his back, the one he used to kill an ally. It likely wasn’t the cane’s first time. His head feels heavy, dizzied by the thought that it might not be its last. He buries his face in gloves that feel foreign, like forgotten friends he wants nothing more than to recognize.
The sound of windchimes twinkles from somewhere above them.
“I’ve done sort of the opposite.” Blake moves to sit closer beside him. “A person who was once good, who fought for a just cause, but became corrupt over time. A person I cared about, who used to care about me. At least… I thought he did, back then.” She takes a steadying breath and crosses her arms tight to her ribs. “He did. But at a certain point I had to accept that I couldn’t save him. I keep telling myself – and so does Yang – that it’s what we had to do. But part of me still wonders if what we did was right.”
Oscar lifts his head and lowers his hands. “You took action to protect others from harm. I don’t think anyone could fault you for that.”
“I can.”
Oscar sighs and looks upwards. “I know.”
Blake observes him. “You’re doing it right now, aren’t you? Remembering?”
“Yeah.” Any reservations Oscar had at the beginning of their conversation are gone. He’s too tired for walls. “There’s so much I’ve done–" He cringes at his phrasing. “So much I remember doing – that I can’t forgive. That I choose not to. But everyone has a chance to be better forward. And even though I – well, ‘I’ as in he – hasn’t always believed it in the past… that includes me. All of me.” A knot somewhere deep inside of Oscar untangles at his words.
“See? Wisdom.” Blake adjusts herself to hearing him talk this way, with these scattered pronouns. “You sound like the man in the book.”
A sinking feeling in Oscar’s chest pulls at him. “Great.” It’s almost reassuring, the sinking. It means he hasn’t yet hit a bottom, if such a thing even exists. Things can always get worse; they can always get better. There’s something freeing in that endlessness. And something else profoundly lonely.
“Not the things you’re saying,” Blake clarifies. Her voice takes on an affectionate tone. “You still sound like you – contemplative and existential as ever.” She can’t help but smile as she describes him. “The man in the book was nowhere near as optimistic. He was jaded, and detached. Just, the way you refer to yourself is very similar.” She holds her breath, worried she said too much.
“I hope I don’t become jaded. Remembering countless deaths and heartbreaks and betrayals…” Oscar trails off, fighting back the flood of memories. “It feels like me. It is me. Part of me, at least.”
Blake knows she can’t understand what he’s going through, but the feeling is one so familiar to her she could call it home. At a time, it was. “So then, what about the rest of you?”
“I’m... not sure what you’re asking.” It isn’t so easy to separate what parts of him are parts and what whole is the whole.
“That’s fair, it’s a confusing question.” Blake considers how to phrase it, but the more she tries, the less of a grasp she has on the concept. “Maybe I’m not sure what I’m asking, either. I guess I mean… If a part of you did those things, is there a part of you that didn’t?”
“Yes. No? I don’t know.” Oscar’s head is dizzy again, and foggy. He starts talking faster. “If a part of me did something, that’s a part of me, right? So I did it. But if I didn’t personally do it, that means a part of me equally didn’t, so I didn’t.” None of this makes sense to him.
None of this makes sense to Blake, either. “Okay, well that only raises more questions.”
Oscar's laugh begins with a snort, and though it's quiet and short-lived, a smile lingers in its wake. “Every answer does, I’m learning.”
Astute. Maybe all of their questions are, ultimately, unanswerable. Maybe they'd spend their lives searching in vain anyway. “Maybe that’s okay," Blake thinks aloud.
“Yeah.” Oscar leans the back of his head against the post behind him and closes his eyes. “It’s kinda nice.”
Neither of them could articulate the feeling if asked, but it’s one they understand that they are sharing, here and now. Blake looks at him with a fond smile. Sunlight falls on his face, accenting his freckles and perpetual blush with gold. He looks so peaceful in this moment. She’ll let it last as long as it can.
It doesn’t.
"Blake?" Oscar opens his eyes slowly. “You once said something… about losing yourself in someone else.”
A pang hits Blake. She waits for him to elaborate.
“Got any advice on how to… not do that?”
Her mouth feels dry. She can’t tell him nothing, she has to give him something, anything to hold onto. But it can’t be a lie. He needs something real. And so does she. “I think… it helps to not let yourself forget who you were before them. Everyone you meet, everything you do, becomes a part of you. But you have to remember they’re parts of you. You’re not a part of them.” Blake can feel the comfort of her own words, and hopes Oscar feels it, too. “Does that make sense?”
Oscar takes a moment. “I think so." He leans forward, forearms on his legs. "But, if every experience is a part of me, and it’s getting harder and harder to tell which memories are mine... Well, I guess they all are, now. I remember them, so they’re my memories, right?”
“In a way, sure.” Blake is delicate in her reply. “But memories are just that – the past. They belong to you, not the other way around.” She can’t bring herself to smile, but attempts a look of reassurance.
The sincerity carries in her voice, and Oscar finds his breath held.
Blake places a hand on his back. “You’re not living a past life, Oscar. This one’s yours.”
Oscar takes a lightly shuddering inhale and a smile comes over him, no longer withholding the tears from stinging his face or the air from filling his lungs. As he lets out his breath, he lets his tears fall, and there’s an unparalleled beauty in that feeling.
Oscar leans his head on Blake's shoulder, and she pulls him closer with a slight squeeze that tells him he's not alone. They watch the tears drop from his face onto the bench, sparkling in sunrise.
“Thanks, Blake.” Oscar's voice catches in his throat. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”