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The Vytal Festival was supposed to be a place where she could show off what a good fighter she was. Her team had selected her for the solo fight, figuring that she'd be able to carry them to victory, carry Beacon to victory. But instead, she'd hurt her opponent, when she'd just been trying to defend herself.
…….hadn't she? Or had she really just…..broken Mercury's legs without any provocation? That's what all of the broadcasts showed, after all. Yang thought he'd lunged at her, that he'd attacked her, but who was she to question the video evidence?
And no one else was going to believe her, not after seeing that footage; not her teammates, not her uncle, not even her sister.
So she ran. She grabbed a few things from her room, and while everyone else was distracted with the rest of what was going on, Yang disappeared.
It would have helped if she'd had any idea where she was going, but truth be told, she hadn't had much of a plan when she left. She considered going back to Patch, to her dad, but if someone wanted to find her, that would be the first place she looked. And she couldn't bear the thought of putting her dad in danger, not after what she'd done.
It was going to be hard, figuring everything out on her own, but she had to. If she had stayed, it would have endangered everyone she loved, and she refused to make their lives harder because of her.
But now she had to figure out how to survive on her own. She was going to have to change her look; with the broadcasts of her, she was too recognizable. Which meant that she was going to have to cut her hair, for starters, a thought that genuinely made her want to cry.
Yang knew she didn't have much of a choice, if she wanted to stay under the radar. So she stole a knife from a distracted merchant, determined to just…..get it over with.
At the first cut, the first locks of golden hair fell to the ground, and Yang let out a soft sob. Her hair was one of her few vanities, and she'd kept it long in homage of her mother, even though she hadn't known her. Her father had once remarked how much Yang's hair reminded her of Raven's, and she had been so proud of that, so proud of her long hair that she'd barely ever let anyone touch it let alone cut it.
And here she was, chopping it all off.
It felt silly to be so sentimental about her hair, but it was one of her only connections to her family right now. Cutting it off felt like she was cutting them out of her life……and the fact that she'd run away only made that thought that much worse.
But she had to, if she wanted to survive. Swallowing another sob, Yang squared her shoulders and chopped off the rest of her long hair, committing herself to this life, to protect the people she card about from her, and to hide herself away from the shame she felt for what she'd done.
It would be months before anyone found her.














