Mantle was cold in ways that went beyond temperature.The kind of cold that crept into bones, lingered behind silence, and made every breath sound too loud.
Factories filled the horizon — gray towers bleeding smoke into gray skies. Snow fell from the exhaust clouds in quiet sheets, landing on people who didn't bother brushing it off.
Among them was a girl with wolf ears and silver-blue hair, hauling a rusted crate down an alley.
Her name was Senti, and she didn't remember when her hands stopped shaking. Maybe they'd always been like that — thin, calloused, trembling from more than cold.
She worked the lower platforms of Mantle's Dust refineries. The humans never looked her in the eye, and the Faunus looked away. She talked too much. Laughed too loudly. And sometimes she'd freeze mid-sentence, eyes unfocused — as if listening to something no one else could hear.
That was what scared them most.
That morning, the sirens had gone off three times. Someone said a Grimm pack had breached the perimeter. Others said it was just another malfunction.
Senti didn't care. She was too busy trying to keep her hands warm.
"Hey," one of the older workers called out, "get that crate moving, wolf-girl."
She grinned faintly, flashing teeth. "Yeah, yeah, I'm moving it."
The man frowned. "Don't grin like that. It's creepy."
Senti tilted her head. "Then don't look."
He muttered something about Faunus and walked off. She didn't bother listening — because there it was again. That faint hum in her skull.
Whispers.
Not voices, not exactly. Just emotions bleeding into sound — irritation, fear, exhaustion. The air around Mantle always carried too much of both.
She'd heard them since she was little. The sound of thoughts before words. She used to think it was normal, until people started backing away when she answered things they hadn't said aloud.
So she learned to keep quiet. Most of the time.
By noon, the storm hit. Snow turned into slush, the kind that seeped into boots and froze ankles. Work didn't stop. It never did. Mantle didn't care if you froze — only that you finished your shift.
Senti stacked another crate, slipped once, caught herself. Her breath came out as white mist. The hum in her head had been building all day, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Then, somewhere deep in the mine below, a tremor shook the ground.
She heard it before it reached her ears — a spike of panic, dozens of minds screaming at once. The next second, the walls rattled, Dust canisters burst, and alarms began to blare.
"Collapse!" someone shouted.
People ran.
Senti didn't.
The fear around her was deafening — raw, animal, choking. Every scream stabbed into her skull. She pressed her hands to her ears, but the noise wasn't coming from outside.
It was inside.
Her chest hurt. Her vision blurred. And then, for the first time in her life, she screamed back.
The sound wasn't human.
It came out as a pulse — a wave that rolled through the air like static. The world around her seemed to slow. Dust crystals suspended in mid-air shimmered. The ground under her feet cracked in a perfect circle.
The Grimm — small creatures that had crawled in through the vents — turned their heads toward her. Their black eyes reflected gold.
Then they froze.
Their movements twitched, halted, and reversed. They turned on each other without a sound. Claws tore through skin. Black smoke filled the air.
Senti fell to her knees, gasping. The world was still shaking, but not from the collapse anymore.
When the tremors stopped, she was the only one left alive in that section.
She didn't remember how long she sat there — just that everything was quiet again. No whispers. No voices. No thoughts.
Just silence.
By the time rescue crews arrived, the tunnel had sealed itself in. No one found her.
Three days later, a shipping worker spotted movement near the docks — a half-frozen Faunus girl dragging herself onto a cargo freighter bound for Menagerie. She didn't speak. Just curled up between crates, tail twitching, breath shallow.
When she finally woke again, the sea smelled different. Warm. Alive.
She stumbled off the ship barefoot and half-starved, collapsing in the shadow of a lighthouse.
That's where Kali Belladonna found her.
"You poor thing…"
Kali's voice was soft but carried strength. She'd been walking along the docks, gathering supplies for the market, when she saw the girl. Silver-blue hair matted with ice. Ears limp. Eyes half-open but sharp — too sharp.
When Senti looked up, her gaze was animal. Not scared — alert, studying.
"Easy," Kali said gently. "You're safe now."
Senti didn't answer. She just blinked, confused, as if the words didn't make sense.
Kali offered a hand. "Come on, let's get you something warm to eat."
Senti hesitated, then reached out. Her hand trembled in Kali's. The older woman noticed the faint golden shimmer running under her skin — like light trapped beneath the surface.
She said nothing about it.
Later that night, wrapped in a blanket and half-asleep in the Belladonna household, Senti spoke for the first time.
Her voice was quiet, rough from days without water.
"Why… did you help me?"
Kali smiled, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. "Because you needed it."
Senti blinked slowly. "Most people don't."
"I'm not most people."
There was a pause. Then Senti's lips twitched into a faint grin. "Guess not."
Kali chuckled. "What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Senti."
"That's a nice name."
The girl stared at the ceiling. "It wasn't. But it is now."
Over the next weeks, the Belladonna home became something she didn't know how to describe — quiet, but not empty. She followed Kali around, listened more than she spoke, and explored Menagerie's streets like a wild animal testing new ground.
One evening, she met Blake.
The girl was reading by a tree near the market, a book balanced on her knees. Senti watched her for a while before saying anything.
"Why do you read so much?"
Blake jumped slightly, not expecting anyone. "It helps me think."
"About what?"
"About why people do the things they do."
Senti sat beside her, tail brushing the grass. "That's easy. They don't."
Blake frowned. "You don't believe people think?"
Senti smirked. "They feel first. Think later. Sometimes never."
That made Blake pause — not offended, just intrigued.
"What about you?" she asked. "Do you think or feel first?"
Senti leaned back, looking at the clouds. "Depends on who's winning that day."
That was how it started.
Two girls from different worlds — one born into privilege, the other into chaos — finding something familiar in each other.
Blake brought her books. Senti brought her laughter.Blake talked about justice. Senti called it a pretty lie.They argued. They learned. They stayed close.
For the first time, Senti felt… calm.
Not fixed. Not healed. Just steady enough to stop shaking.
But every night, when the lights dimmed and Menagerie went quiet, the whispers returned.
Faint, like echoes at the edge of hearing.
She didn't fear them anymore.
She just listened.
And somewhere inside those whispers, a calm, ancient voice waited — the same one that had spoken in the mine.
"You survived. That means something."
She didn't answer. Not yet.
But she smiled into the dark.
Because for once, the silence didn't feel empty.
It felt like it was waiting.