The gears turned endlessly overhead, their mechanical rhythm a counterpoint to his thoughts. Beside him, Glynda stood with her usual rigid posture, though her fingers drummed an agitated pattern against her crossed arms.
He watched the holographic display, coffee growing cold in his hands as he observed the scene playing out in Oobleck's classroom.
Time, he mused, was a curious thing - how many students had he watched through these feeds, how many choices had he second-guessed?
"This is a mistake," Glynda stated flatly.
On the screen, young Geas played his hand masterfully - one moment the bumbling student, the next dropping Winter Schnee's name like a perfectly aimed blade. The girl's walls crumbled, her mind confused and her pride soothed by honeyed words before it could even rise. Like chess pieces moving exactly where the player wished them to.
He took a slow sip of coffee. "Perhaps."
"Perhaps?" Glynda's grip on her riding crop tightened. "I've read his files. He's—"
"Insane?"
"Yes! And what worries me most is how well he's learned to hide it beneath that mask of his."
He stared into his cooling coffee, shoulders heavy with memories of too many similar conversations, too many chances given. Too many mistakes.
"It's not idealistic hope that has brought him to Beacon. It is cynicism, Glynda. The knowledge that at least with him here, he will be close enough for me to keep watch."
Through the display, they watched the two students take their seats. Oobleck was already bouncing around the front of the room, his words flowing faster than his coffee. The empty chairs around them made his lips twitch - some things never changed, no matter the generation. The rest of the class would stumble in late, as always.
"He clearly lied about his semblance in his previous schools," Glynda pressed on. "We don't know what he's truly capable of, Ozpin. We fool ourselves thinking we can control him when we can't even understand him. He spent years showing complete apathy toward everything besides fighting, and now suddenly he's entertaining Bartholomew with Grimm theories?"
They watched as the white-haired girl threw another furtive glance at the boy when she thought he wasn't looking.
When does a mask become a face?
The old riddle drifted through his mind.
When the wearer forgets which is which.
"He's never shown interest in anything before..." he murmured. "...including romance."
Glynda all but snorted. "Didn't you just tell me this wasn't about hope?"
A faint smile crossed his face. "Did I? How careless of me to lie."
"He is suspected of murder..."
The smile faded. He who carried humanity itself upon his shoulders for millennia set down his mug, eyes never leaving the screen.
"And so I will watch. One step out of line, one hint that he might harm my students..." The threat needn't be finished.
The gears turned overhead. Salem would laugh, he knew, at his persistent faith in redemption. But then, she had forgotten something crucial about humanity during her long war against it.
Perhaps that was why he kept trying, millennium after millennium. Not because humanity never changed, but because it always could.
They fell into silence again, watching the boy whom kept on smiling.