Maria Calavera/History

Background
During her younger years, Maria Calavera was a Silver-Eyed Warrior. She lost her eyes sometime later and replaced them with prosthetic ones.

Heading for Argus


Maria is seen aboard the train that the heroes take on their journey to Atlas. When they decide to keep passengers safe in the front cars and use the rear ones to fight Grimm, Maria stays on the rear cars unlike everyone else. As a result, she is present when the rear cars crash, and she greets everyone.

Maria then rebukes Yang for calling her "a defenseless old lady", but later concedes her point. She remains silent as the heroes confront Ozpin about his lies, and she bears witness to Ruby summoning Jinn, the being of the Relic of Knowledge. She stares in disbelief as Ruby asks Jinn what Ozpin is hiding from the group.

After Jinn finishes her tale, tensions in the group rise, even more so when Ozpin seals himself in Oscar's mind. At that point, Maria steps up to give the disheartened group direction, shutting down Yang's protests in order to get them moving. Later, Maria rides on Bumblebee while it is pushed by Yang as the heroes find Brunswick Farms and enter to take shelter from the snowstorm.


 * Episodes Covering These Events
 * "Argus Limited"
 * "Uncovered"
 * "The Lost Fable"
 * "So That's How It Is"

Nightmare of Brunswick Farms
After Qrow breaks down the front door of the main house, Maria shouts at the group to close it before everyone searches out the house to find ways to warm themselves. Tension rises for the group when Weiss and Yang find a pair of decomposed corpses in bed in the master bedroom. While Maria and the students gather around the fire in the living room, they learn from Qrow that there are more corpses in beds in the other houses, and they have no other choice but to spend the night at the manor until the snowstorm stops. As the others search for food and transport, Maria takes a book off of the shelf, reasoning that she will find a story for bedtime.

Maria reads more of the books with numbers on them and discovers that they are the diaries of Bartleby, the head of Brunswick Farms. She learns that he and other families founded the estate to try and live outside the Kingdom, and it worked for a while until many hardships, which included the Grimm, slowed down crop production and made life harder. This makes Maria pity Bartleby as he seemed like an ingenious man. She continues to read the farmer's diary until she falls asleep on the sofa.



The next morning, the group is about to leave when Qrow's Semblance flattens one of the tires of the flatbed, causing Maria to comment that they are "beacons for back luck". After Ruby accidentally drops the Relic into the well, Maria continues to read Bartleby's diary as Team RWBY goes after the lamp. She is later horrified when she finds an entry detailing the Apathy. Maria jumps down the well as Team RWBY come across the Grimm. They find a cellar with an exit, but it is locked from the outside and the Apathy close in on them, although everyone collapses from the Apathy's effects, Maria is puzzled when Ruby somehow pushes back the Grimm long enough to save Blake. When the Apathy attack again, Maria crawls over to Ruby and learns that her eyes are silver. She then instructs Ruby to think about the people she cares for and tells the girl that life is beautiful and precious and that it must be protected. This prompts Ruby to unleash her powers once again with more control, and Ruby destroys all of the Apathy within the vicinity, leaving Maria in awe at the extent of Ruby's powers. They then escape from the cellar and find Qrow passed out at the bar, and they quickly escape from the farm estate.

On the road, Maria reveals what she learned from Bartleby's diary - about the Apathy and the farmer's attempt to cut costs on Huntsman by using this type of Grimm. She later laments not being able to see that the Grimm were responsible for the deaths of the farm estate residents. When Ruby asks her about her knowledge of the Grimm and how she guided the girl in using her powers, Maria answers that she once had silver eyes.


 * Episodes Covering These Events
 * "The Coming Storm"
 * "Alone in the Woods"