Yang discovers her talent when she is eleven. She finds it in dog-eared papers, in loose leaf sheets that decorate the home, pinned to refrigerators and bulletin boards and scattered across tabletops. She finds them in doodles on her homework, in the scratchy pen markings that leave ink on her fingertips. Her father's artistic talents, Qrow tells her, weaving their way into her repertoire of skills.
She discovers her talent when she is eleven, and no one speaks of it, not at first. But the proof screams to be noticed, the sound of the evidence drowning out everything else, unable to be ignored when her teacher runs into her long-lost childhood crush at the super market, when the elderly neighbour down the street receives a phone call from each of her children, when luck runs its fingers across the shoulders of everyone in Yang's life.
It's Qrow who brings it up first, Qrow who ushers Taiyang out of the house with Ruby one evening, the father unable to broach the subject himself. Taiyang, the man with large, fumbling hands, the man whose shoulders have been worn down by the world, with the weight of the world upon them – Atlas with an invisible globe. Taiyang, the man who lost his second love to fate, and the first to the very reason Qrow sends him away one evening.
Magic, he says, the word falling off his tongue like a taboo, almost foreign in nature, never mentioned in the home. It doesn't mean much to Yang at first, the only association she holds to it being the definition she learned in school, cast away as a childish dream, a message of fairy tales. Magic, Qrow says, his voice even and slow. Magic like her mother held.
Yang knows of Raven – has known for a long time, resigning herself to the fate of never holding too much information. Her mother is a background character in the pages of her life; a name and a vague description, a story never told, a life never elaborated upon. The name itself isn't spoken of, just as taboo as magic – a name that brings pain to the family, sending the eldest daughter into silence, the father into a stupor. Raven is like a prison Yang can never see, where no keys exist to break out from – but a prison that draws her in, holds her close. A prison that may as well be her ribcage, as inescapable as it is – made of words and ruins, one that clenches when she sees her father smile sadly, when she looks in the mirror and sees herself turning into the mother that left her behind.
And so it is predictable that when Qrow whispers magic, magic like your mother's, Yang feels the prison return, feels the keys rattle along the bones of her ribs like bars, feels the chill that spreads through her veins, chasing away the warmth from her soul. A gift from the mother she would never know – a curse, she learns, as the stories slowly spill from Qrow's mouth, the tales dusty and old from being kept away from her for so long. The amount of stories could fill a library, and for a moment Yang feels cheated of them, before she resents their existence entirely.
For the magic is not a gift, but a curse that binds her soul, wrapping chains around the pyre in her chest, sealing the warmth that gives her the life she needs, the reasons to keep fighting against the world that made her into the mother she had lost. As Qrow's words continue, Yang realizes how cruel the world truly is – the same magic that tore away her mother, sent Raven on a path with no end, is found in the same talent her father gave her, the same talent that keeps her tethered.
Her art, her hands, the ink stains on her skin no longer mean freedom, but a cross to bear. Anger fills her at first, red staining the edges of her vision, bleeding into the world before her. The one thing she held close, the talent Summer had found inside of her, discovered with a stick of charcoal and a stack of paper, was the one thing that could condemn her to the same fate as her mother. And as the realization continues to creep up on her, the prison tightening like a vice – Yang laughs.
She laughs because there is nothing else she can do; the laugh is cold and harsh, everything Yang is not, and somehow that fits even more. Her art, her hands are her burden now; the only thing she had to cope with when she lost her mother, lost Summer, lost her father, is now gone, taken away by the magic that built the ruins of her life in the first place, only to tear them down. She laughs because every day she grows into her mother, the same eyes reflected in the glass, the same fate that she cannot escape, the same woman who causes her father to flinch at the growth of his daughter.
So Yang laughs until her breath is gone, until the anger and the pain has left her, taking the last of her warmth with it, leaving frost on her arteries and a chill that seeps through her bones. And as the laughter fades away, so does the last of the flames in her soul, the pyre of her heart going out with a last bit of smoke, tamped down by the single word, magic.
It is Qrow who lights the fire again, Qrow who watches his niece fall apart before him, the same way his best friend had when Raven had gone, and again when Summer had died, and again when Yang had smiled wide for her tenth birthday, and the only thing he could see was her mother. It is Qrow who remembers his sister, the only one who can without feeling his heart disintegrate into dust, coating his lungs and taking his breath.
It is Qrow who holds his sister's daughter's hand, whispering it's okay to a girl who believes it isn't, it will never be okay again – Qrow who presses into her palm a folded piece of paper; a drawing from long ago. A drawing of Summer and Ruby and her, crude crayon caricatures of Taiyang and her uncle, the family that had died with her second mother years before.
And Qrow explains, patiently, quietly, that magic doesn't mean one fate; chasing magic, spells, power will lead to roads without end – but letting it thrive, letting it live without harmful intent does not. And as he points to the drawing – to the woman who found the art skills, and gave Yang the gift that helped her continue on, becoming the mother the world continued to steal from her – he tells her that her magic isn't meant for harm, isn't meant for anger. It's meant for luck. It's meant for hope, and happiness, and healing.
Yang nearly laughs at that – her gift gives her all the things she cannot have. When Qrow looks at her, sadness deep in the lines around his eyes, she realizes she has said it out loud – and feels something else pressed into her hand again.
Ruby smiles up at her, a tiny picture in her hand, faded and worn around the edges. For her, Qrow whispers, and Yang knows what he is trying to say, what the world is asking of her. The curse Raven has passed on to her has one solution – one that once again proves the cruel side of fate, underlining the truth with the ashes of her pyre. The magic asks to be given away – asks Yang to give herself away, to spread the happiness and hope to everyone around her, leaving her with nothing to call her own, but returning it to her all the same. It asks that in giving herself away, she will brighten the lives of everyone around her – and in turn, they will do the same. Yang will belong to all of them, and none of them to her.
It's cruel, and unforgiving, least of all to the girl who has already lost more than enough. But as Yang looks at the drawing, at the picture of Ruby, at her hands with the ink stains on her fingertips, she realizes it is the only way to go, the only way to keep from following in her mother's footsteps. And the second realization that day lights the fire that the first one put out – it breathes life into the embers, catching flame to the pyre in her chest, the warmth spreading slowly, melting the ice that has crystallized in her veins.
Magic, Qrow had whispered. Magic, her fate beckoned. Magic, Yang promises, that will never stop giving the light the world needed, never take it away, like Raven had.
Weiss discovers her talent when she is thirteen. It is welcomed, celebrated, and above all, expected. The bloodline runs deep in her family, the magic winding its way down the family tree, embedding itself in the roots and ensuring the fates of the Schnees who follow.
She finds it herself, hidden away in pieces of glass and gemstone, in wire and twisted bits of metal. It is buried amongst her pastime, woven into the threads she hangs her jewellery upon. The same pastime her father had looked down upon, allowing it on the grounds that she put her life into the company, leaving her enjoyment on the sidelines, accepted only behind the scenes.
The news, expected and welcomed, has no pride in being spoken, no joy in being explained. Her father accepts it with an upturned nose, his head towering above her as he nods in acknowledgment, the most she'll ever receive for her successes, her sacrifices. It is only a tiny bit of light, but she lives in her father's shadow, and she longs to be free from the darkness, taking anything she can find.
Her lessons change after that, her duties warped to include her magic – already accounted for, her role planned as a fate, not a choice. The Schnees have held magic for generations, each more twisted than the last, each casting spells and curses as if throwing pennies towards the poor, not caring where they landed – more concerned with the act itself, the appearance of one who cared. Spells and curses to benefit the bloodline and the company are what are taught to Weiss, who is chastised for her kindness and her reluctance to condemn.
The daughter is no fool; she has lived her life amidst evil, grown up with words of hate and ignorance whispered around her like gossip in the back pews of a church, felt the same temptations that had snagged every Schnee before her, offering an escape to the anger and rebellion that fills her veins, revenge disguised as liberty. The lessons she learns offer a chance to use the anger, to curse and spell with the hatred inside her. But Weiss does not heed the temptations, and instead quells the anger inside her through strength of will – she will find her own freedom, let her rebellion be found through her own paths, not offered by the careful constructions of the life around her.
Weiss knows who she is; she is glass and steel, she is crystal formed around an iron skeleton. She is cold to the touch, and even colder inside – but she is unrelenting, she is strong, she is beauty with a kiss of ice and a core of armour. She is cut from glass, and her edges are sharp and draw blood from those who slide their fingers along her sides, attempting to tempt and receiving injury instead of success. She is not what she is expected to be, but she plays the role that is asked of her, anger seething inside her, roiling close to the surface, but never showing. Never rebelling. The bloodline expects an outburst, expects the inevitable rebellion to come, providing the path that will only seal her fate. But Weiss does not follow, instead biding her time, an underground queen carefully plotting her uprising. She knows patience, and she waits.
Magic fills her days, curses and spells learned and secretly placed in a book of taboos, filed away in the corners of her mind, never forgotten but always labelled off limits. Weiss learns the paths not to take, and in time her own, true magic thrives, not the sham she displays for her father's acceptance. The man does not suspect, instead giving the same small nod to Weiss for every spell and curse she learns, giving the same small sliver of light to her. But Weiss no longer collects it, no longer thrives for the hint of light. She resigns herself to living in the darkness, instead of relying on the scraps of light thrown her way – one day, she will illuminate her own world, and not need anyone else to do it for her.
Weiss grows in this way, the metal inside of her growing ever stronger, the crystal appearance more beautiful, more disguising every day. Her father nods without ever noticing her slipping from his shadow, his presence less overbearing as the years go by. She hones her craft in secret, letting her voice speak false curses and spells in the daylight, but letting her crystals and gemstones bind with metal and magic in the dead of night. She speaks for her teachers, her mentors, her family with care – she knows to keep her words empty, to lend the incantations none of the darkness she bears within her heart; she has seen the path her mother has followed, and she knows where it leads.
When Weiss turns eighteen, her rebellion is set, her uprising is ready, and fate hands her the key to the prison she pretends she is content to live in. Her twin, Winter, has been shown to hold no magic – every Schnee before her has gained the gift before their eighteenth birthday, and the turning of the age buries Winter's potential in a casket six feet deep. Weiss pretends to mourn with the rest; but inside she revels in the information, preparing herself for the war that will follow the funeral, and the chance to dance on the grave.
On the day she turns nineteen, she slips fully from her father's shadow, cuts herself away from the roots of her family bloodline. She has read the company's rules enough that the lines are embedded in her soul; she knows the limitations of ownership, knows that her father condemned himself by siring twins. Weiss disowns herself when she is nineteen, and takes away the last trace of Schnee magic from the company forever. By its own laws, Winter is the only heir allowed to take to the helm – and in doing so, writes into the laws of fate that the Schnee Company will never have a magic heir again.
Her father seethes, but Weiss does not care, does not need his light any longer, is unshakable. She has lived in his shadow for years, but has never once cursed her fate; instead, swore to shatter it. And when Weiss turns nineteen, she succeeds, and stops sacrificing herself for a man who will give her nothing but scraps of the light her soul cries out for – she dances on the grave, sets fire to the funeral parade, and leaves the curses and spells she hates behind.
She takes her craft, the art she shares with her soul – the mixture of beauty and strength, the ice and the iron, the crystal and steel – and leaves forever, never looking back on the nineteen years of captivity. Weiss is cut from glass, her edges sharp and unyielding, and her magic thrives on her freedom. Her soul at last finds its own light, reflecting it on her crystal surface and sharing it with the world she greets with open arms.
Blake discovers her talent when she is twelve. She discovers it in the alleyways, in the calm, steady hands that spend days sewing skin. She finds it by accident, in an act of rebellion against herself, against the life she has found herself chained to. The needle that pierces the soft skin of the ears that condemn her brings with it a gift, a source of light to the girl who lives in darkness.
It is arguable that Blake is darkness, is the inky blackness that fills the edges of the souls around her, feeds the anger and hatred in the alleyways, in the secret meetings. But with the light comes the realization that Blake isn't the darkness at all – she is shadow, she is the black that matches the white, the yin to the yang. She is not the anger, she is not the hatred, but rather is the cry for freedom, the fight against the chains that bind her soul to the cruel tricks of fate.
But Blake does not realize this at first; her gift instead is found by Adam a few weeks later, when the blood on her fingertips has been washed away, and its source has taken its feet out of the grave. The gift, Adam tells her, is a weapon – and the steady hands that patched up injuries from rallies and protests are put to work full time, fixing those who Blake could almost believe deserved their penitence. But she does not let the whispering in her soul sway her; does not listen to the voices telling her not to go astray with her magic, and instead follows Adam and pretends she believes his words completely.
Her life goes on as such, her magic woven into skin with the threads that hold the edges of life and soul together, keeping death from stealing her comrades away. She grows adept at her medicine; gone is the girl whose hands shook the first time she tried to save a life with a needle and thread – practice made perfect, but no practice could bring the life lost in her first attempt.
But she moves on anyways, swearing to keep alive the ones she can in place of the ones she couldn't back when she didn't have her gift, all the while ignoring the voices in her soul that rattle her ribcage like hands against prison bars, telling her not to tempt fate, that life and death are never things to be quelled by incantations and hope. Blake grows in alleyways and secret meetings, letting her magic save lives in the argument that by saving people, she counteracts her involvement in an organization that plunders, destroys, murders (murders, she whispers to herself one night, when her hands won't stop shaking as she scrubs away the blood of the man she'd saved, the man who planted the bomb in the first place).
Blake grows and grows, never relenting on the surface to the violence and the war that has replaced her childhood. But her soul is affected, the very shadows that make up her being convinced they are darkness, convinced they are not ink on old parchment of the books she reads, but rather the slick black oil lit aflame in warehouses. She tells herself it is okay to be so; but her heart aches and the voices in her soul rebel, screaming justice, justice, until finally one day she asks herself what justice really is.
Her justice, her argument, her life falls apart on the day she runs away with Adam, him yelling for her to keep up, his words drowned out by the cries of the injured. The cries of the innocent, she realizes – not just cries of humans, but cries of Faunus, cries of children and adults alike, cries of the innocent – and Adam gives up trying to convince her with words, instead grabbing hold of her and physically pulling her away from the carnage.
Blake sees the people around her, sees her comrades running away, their faces lit up by the orange of flames and the flashing lights of ambulances and police alike – and in the haze of colour and contrast, faces float to the surface of recognition. But it is not recognition of the faces she sees in meetings, nor the faces of those she greets in dark alleyways – it is the faces of those lain on her table, those who are saved by her nimble hands and the magic woven into her stitches.
And the last hope that she was not darkness disappears into the remnants of her justice, as she pieces together the proof before her, stitches together the evidence like they are injuries she is trying to heal. The people who run beside her are the ones she had saved; in the same way they are the ones who have stolen, who have laid fire and wreckage to the world around her, the ones who have murdered. And her world falls apart, her magic lost in hands that refuse to stop shaking, as she tells herself she has played a part in the deaths of thousands – no, whispers her logic, but the voices she has quelled for far too long drown it out.
Blake stops saving people; her magic has died with her definition of justice, and Adam leaves her be, already moving on to more plans of carnage and wreckage and innocent blood. She doesn't stop seeing the blood on her hands; the blood that refuses to wash away, that she soon realizes is not that of the lives she's saved, but rather the lives she's condemned. She pulls away, hides herself in the darkness she believes herself to belong to, and lets the chains of fate pull her under.
She stays that way for a long time, until she finds herself in the same alleyway she found her magic in, drawn there by desperation and a strange anchor in the depths of her soul. There is no red thread visible to her, but she takes the steps as though tethered to one, feet following a path her mind does not know. And when she finds herself in the alleyway, she finds that she once again is not alone – instead, a small Faunus whimpers in the corner behind a dumpster, clenching his bleeding arm.
And Blake's hands stop shaking, the habits of years of medicine returning to her, soft words and whispers of comfort emanating from her as she reaches out to help the child. She is never without her needles and thread – some part of her doesn't feel safe without them, a trauma she will likely never outgrow – and she quickly sews up the cut, though her magic does not return. The child does not leave her side, and she doesn't find the need inside of herself to cast him away, so they sit in silence until the child asks about the piercing on her ear, the cat ear that condemns her to the cruel tricks of fate.
She tells him the story of the tear from years ago, back when she was a scared child pinned in a corner by relentless bullies who pulled at her ears until they ripped, until her saviour with red hair and a pair of horns chased them away. Adam back then had been kind and caring and, once the ear had healed, the tear only remaining in scar tissue, had suggested getting a piercing over the scar, to make it simply a memory, something she'd moved on from. And Blake had agreed and done so, back in a time when the White Fang weren't a part of her daily life, when her world wasn't made up of fire and blood.
When the child asks her to do the same for him, to pierce one of his ears, she doesn't say no – a part of her soul leaps at the chance, a moment of light beneath the layers of darkness that suppress it. And as Blake does so, the needle passing easily through the thin flap of skin, she feels the magic return, wrapping from her fingertips down around the needle. It's the light she has missed, the light that disappeared with her definition of justice long ago – and Blake knows then, from an instinctive familiarity in the depths of her soul, that she has found the right path.
It takes her a long time to find her way back after that – the magic is flitting, and rare, but she traces it back to the needle, to the act of piercing. It does not come from fixing torn skin, but rather from creating a hole for the studs and spacers, from adding on to the appearance. It comes from creation, she realizes, not destruction. Though it takes her a long time – there is no family to teach her, no Belladonna history to learn from, the father or mother she might have inherited the magic from buried long ago – she realizes that her magic is a gift, something to pass on, something to give away to do good in the world.
Her sense of justice takes a long time to return as well – but when it does, Blake leaves Adam, leaves the organization, leaves her old life behind her and starts anew, footsteps fading in the empty street as she runs in the night. There is no guilt, no nostalgia – only the sense of freedom, the sense of something untethering; and Blake realizes it is the chains that have tied her to fate for so long – chains not of destiny, but of choice, of submission.
Blake grows up as a child with hands stained with blood, her magic dealt into demons, spent on people who do not deserve it. She learns this before she is an adult, disappearing into the night when she is seventeen, taking with her the knowledge that her life and her magic can be used for creation rather than destruction. And with that comes the knowledge that she is not the darkness, not the blackness of hatred and anger that pool in the corners of alleyways, not the ignorance and discrimination that colour their lives, underline their fates with oil slicks instead of ink.
She realizes that she is not darkness, but is shadow – she is the counterpart to light, just as needed, just as important. She might not be the hope in the world, not the glow that lights up the faces of those around her – but her magic is, and she will let it be, supporting it as the counterpart it so needs. It takes her a while to understand it, but light cannot be without the shadow; and she resigns herself to becoming it, becoming the black to the white, the yin to the yang.
She is not the villain, she is not the child sewing up bodies in an alleyway. She is not the injury, she does not cause death, nor try to stop it. She is the thread, the needle – she simply binds together the edges of light and shadow, flitting in between. She does not injure. She binds, she heals.
The three meet years later, an inevitable encounter, one that was woven into fate like the magic intertwined with Blake's piercings, Weiss' jewellery, Yang's tattoos. As though constellations had foretold it, stars spinning together the tale of three witches meeting as artists in a rundown corner of town, the happenstance fall supon a warm Autumn day, when warm days were punctuated by the golden leaves scattered about, underscored by the cool bursts of winds that occasionally ruffled the town of Patch, sending those without sweaters scurrying indoors for cover from the chill.
Yang has lived in Patch her entire life; she'd settled down long ago, content to live in the seedier side of town, in the small shop with the room above, her belongings few, though to her great in value. The small tattoo parlour was her own, bought many years ago as a decrepit ruin of a home, and her father and uncle had both helped her refurbish it, happy to see the young woman finding her own path to walk, one so different from her mother's.
She'd fought her way from the footsteps of her mother her entire life, casting off the image of Raven and building her own from the bottom up. She'd dyed her hair not long after finding her magic, blonde overtaking the deep, dark brown that had made her the spitting image of her mother. Her lilac eyes had come from her father, and she looked up to Qrow as a mentor for self control, holding her shoulders back like him and walking with purpose. For a girl who had so much to carry on her shoulders, she never showed a sliver of the world on her back.
That's how it still is, despite having aged in years – Yang still walks with purpose, still holds herself high. Her palms are weathered, deepened lines running across her tan skin, but she continues to look forwards. Yang's tattoos cross the bodies of many on Patch and beyond – at first, few came to the shop, but time went on and word spread beyond the island, passing on to the larger cities. Fame, small but appreciated, brought customers to the girl, and she shared her talents with them.
Yang never asks for much, though she does ask for stories from those who pass by. Those who live in Patch know her well, and often share – years ago she made peace with the rougher crowds in the area, and even cuts them deals, though gang tattoos are flat-out refused. But people like her, the friendly blonde with the wide smile and kind eyes, and stop by to share stories frequently, trading words of grandchildren and successes, illnesses and laughter. Yang takes them all, listening intently to the words that come her way, replying when needed but mostly just taking the stories in silence. She trades knuckle tattoos for anecdotes, and much of her money comes from donations, rather than the low costs she charges.
The people around come to love her, fondly speaking of her, visiting her often. The boys in the neighbourhood often swing by with scrapes and stories to go with them; the elderly bring her food and tales of relatives; even children come and go, giving her gifts of flowers and hugs, telling her everything and anything they want to. Tourists often come as well, and she asks of their travels as she colours their skin, hearing about the world outside her city's borders. Many people she never sees again; they pass through like ghosts, leaving behind a memory and a couple of stories, all that Yang has to remember them by.
But the people in the city visit her often, and it is them that Yang invests her life in, gives away pieces of her soul, embers of her spirit. She passes her magic on to everyone who comes by – little bits of luck embedded in her designs, small spells to make their lives a little better. But she saves the most of her magic, of her light for those who remain in her life – the boys with scrapes are jinxed to heal quickly, the elderly given gifts of communication, the children enchanted with spells of hope and happiness. They're small spells, but they light up the lives of everyone around her, and Yang's life, in return.
The woman keeps her promise, spreading her light, her magic instead of trying to keep it for herself, lest she follow her mother into the dark. Yang gives herself away, and belongs to those around her, her life kept alight by the stories that make their ways back to her. She has a heart with room for all, and nothing left to give – yet somehow continues to give anyways, an endless source of kindness. The people in her life return to share things with Yang, and she loves them all in return.
Her art becomes her salvation, her crafts her pyre. The bonfire in her soul is kept alive by the people in her life, and though the embers in her heart went out from her own bidding long ago, they are kept alight by the stories and magic that make their ways back to her. She gives herself away, asking for nothing in return.
It's that light, that warmth, that endless kindness that draws Blake to Patch years after she has found her gift, stories of the small island with its happiness making their way to the Faunus, who drifts from shop to shop like a ghost. Blake isn't partial to settling down, but something tells her to go to the island off of Vale, like a whispering voice only her soul can hear.
It's how she finds herself in the same run-down neighbourhood as Yang, a few streets over, renting out her own small shop. The rougher crowd flocks to her, and teenagers from the better side of town eventually enter her doors, bringing in a steady stream of people. Before long she finds herself with the tourist crowd as well, though piercings are less popular than tattoos as souvenirs.
But regardless of who enters her shop, Blake lets them all go with more than just a stud or spacer, keeping the remnants of each piercing in the back of her shop, each with its own spell. She passes on good luck to everyone who comes by – she's less inclined to more specific things, least of all health charms, but luck is something she's familiar with. Seeing as how she escaped one of the worst gangs on all of Remnant, she figures she has plenty of luck to spare, and spare it she does.
Eventually, word reaches both sets of her ears through the familiars that swing by her shop. Blake has a good relationship with the young punks running around the streets of Patch, and even the adults who sleep in the alleyways, hiding tattoos and brands under bandages – she knows better than to judge where someone has been. The younger ones take advice and bring stories, their voices hopeful and honest (and Blake hears the call of rebellion in their voices, hears their want, their need to cause change, and part of her cries out in sympathy). The older ones trade stories, and she listens without comment or critique – the seasoned veterans of the street life speak of her fondly: Blake, the girl who understands, who seems to know your story before you tell it to her.
Regardless of who the words come from, Blake hears about the young tattoo artist a few streets over, who also listens well and charges a bit less if you give her a story. Yang, they tell her, one of Patch's own. Blake doesn't meet Yang for a while even after hearing about her – the descriptions of the woman given are enough to paint a portrait, but Blake doesn't catch sight of her until the woman herself walks into her shop, tall and blonde and shoulders that are held back, held back so prominently that Blake immediately knows there is a weight far greater than gravity placed upon them.
Yang strides into the shop with purpose, and they go from there, already starting on the path that constellations might have foretold, their personalities aligning from the start. Yang speaks more than Blake, but much of it is about everyone else, about stories she's heard from others – Blake doesn't notice it at first, but Yang's stories are never about her, never about the blonde woman herself. It takes months, carefully thought out questions, and a great deal of patience to even coax out that Yang has a family – a father, and uncle, and her beloved sister, Ruby.
It doesn't take long before Yang's ears are lined with rings and bolts, and Blake's dark skin is patterned with ink, weaving and winding up her forearms, disappearing behind rolled up sleeves. Time passes slowly, and they grow ever closer, until Blake's rent expires and Yang offers her own shop, proposing a joint parlour for the two of them.
Blake has even fewer possessions than Yang, and fits right in to the spare bedroom above the shop, and without really meaning to, finds a home to settle in with Yang. They don't put a label on their friendship, for that's all it is, yet on a different level – they don't speak of the connection they have, but it's a strong one, and one that keeps them on the same wavelength. They've both gone through a war inside their souls, and they keep it to themselves.
It's about a year before Weiss appears on Patch, drawn in the same manner Blake was. Years later, they'd realize it was the promise of light that had drawn their souls to Patch, though they never realize in in the current moment. Weiss takes up shop in Blake's old place, a jeweller with gorgeous gemstones and crystals, metal woven in between.
She lived on her own for a long time, taking refuge in cities and moving when they learned her name, when the Schnee legacy caught up to her. Her father didn't chase her, but she ran from her name just the same. Patch is meant to be the same – a place to stay temporarily, a refuge from the storm that follows her everywhere, and Weiss is content with it.
People flock to her quickly, drawn by the glinting of glass in the window, the wires and warped metal catching the light as well. Young adults come by frequently, as do women of all ages, admiring her work, and men needing gifts for their loved ones. Children even come, and Weiss makes sure to have small stones for them, shined and polished with strains of minerals streaking through them like lightning, like veins.
Weiss doesn't trade stories the same, but rather snippets of conversation, taking away snatches of lives instead of tales. She learns about her customers through the shared tidbits – of romances and friendships, of hard times and good ones, of education and work and everything in between. She takes commissions and conversations together, going from there to cast specific spells on those who need them – focus for the students, charm for the lovers, and so on.
She doesn't need much in return, but people give her stories anyways, returning to thank her for the jewellery (they don't thank her for the magic, but the mentions of sudden good luck mean more than they know). And Weiss with her glass edges and metal core smiles and thanks them in return, listening to their words, letting them convince her leaving her family was the right choice.
Yang and Blake are mentioned to her offhandedly, but nothing particularly descriptive nor catching, which is why Weiss has no idea who they are when they walk into her shop months later. She's heard of the two friends who live nearby, the tattooist and the piercer, but didn't really think much of them. The pair themselves had heard of the gorgeous jewellery of the nearby woman, and had come to see for themselves.
It takes longer for them to bond – but Blake stops by frequently to talk to Weiss about materials and techniques, their crafts closer to each other's than to Yang's. The blonde herself comes by often as well, often bringing food and other assorted gifts she'd been given, as well as jokes at Weiss's expense. The three continue to grow closer as time passes on, months fading into seasons, which blend into one another in snowstorms and rainfall, sunny days and cool nights. They gather in each other's shops, spending more and more time together, as it almost feels natural, almost feels right.
Weiss doesn't feel compelled to leave, feeling almost welcome in the small town, no one recognizing her for whom she is, who she used to be. It remains that way for nearly a year, until one day Yang offhandedly mentions that she kind of looks like Winter, and everything falls apart.
Weiss's heart stops, and for the first time her metal bones are fragile, her crystal skin far too vulnerable, making everything within her visible. When she looks at Yang, she sees only confusion – but then she looks at Blake, and she knows that Blake knows. Blake, whose life isn't known by the companions she has found on Patch, but who will know the Schnee name to her death – and mentally kicks herself for not having noticed sooner.
The words, spoken at first, turn into a yelling match immediately – and Yang can't catch what's going on at first, conversation lost in the anger that spills over words. Weiss's voice is filled with glass, shattered and sharp, her only defense against the name that chases her everywhere, anywhere. Blake's voice is the most aggressive Yang's ever heard it, words flooded with anger and coloured with hatred, darkness practically dripping from her words.
Things reach a breaking point, the tension tipping over, scales being shattered instead of overturned – and within an instant, Yang is holding Blake back for reasons she doesn't understand, Weiss screaming for the both of them to leave, leave now. There are many things Yang doesn't understand, but there are many things she does understand – and one of those things is the knowledge that if she lets Blake leave, both the Faunus and Weiss will be gone by morning. And if there's one thing Yang knows for certain, it's that she's had enough of people leaving her behind.
So it's with a tremendous amount of force that Yang all but shoves Blake into a nearby chair, bellowing at the both of them to shut up. And they do, because Yang is usually sunshine and warmth, but she is currently a fire that is raging out of control, and the anger she has fought off has resurfaced all at once.
It takes them a long time, and a lot of patience, to work things out – but after hours of talking, until their voices are hoarse and worn down, their words tired and weary, things come to a close. It is with Yang's everlasting balance that Blake and Weiss come to a point of understanding, acceptance, and even similarity – the fact stands that both of them are not the same person they used to be. The Schnee name has been abandoned, the White Fang left behind, and neither Blake nor Weiss is the girl they were at the time of belonging to either.
Things aren't perfect right away after that – days and weeks pass, and tension lingers, occasionally rearing its head. But Yang tamps it down every time, her patience stemming from what seems to Blake and Weiss to be an endless kindness, but what the blonde knows to be the paralyzing fear of losing those she loves. She gives away her heart without qualms, but somehow cannot stand to lose either of them.
Time passes, and things get better – and the bridge is rebuilt between Blake and Weiss, high above the troubled waters, stronger than before. The relationship between the trio grows ever stronger, and neither Blake nor Weiss feel compelled to leave, something that hasn't happened for a long time. Eventually, Weiss moves in with the pair – her rent expires, as Blake's had, and the option of finding a new place isn't even spoken of.
It's cramped and small, but homey and cozy, and feels to each of the three women like everything is as it's meant to be. None of them speak of the relationship between them – it isn't friends any longer, but it isn't lovers either; it's something that can't be put to a name, and they aren't willing to try. Things are fine for a while after that – until suspicions come to light, and they each begin to realize that they share something far greater than painful pasts.
Yang notices it first – Blake's collection of leftover piercing parts; Weiss's careful, ritualistic manner of melting metal and cutting glass. Both are familiar to the blonde, who has her own habits to bear, her careful lines and runes encoding spells into the tattoos. Blake and Weiss catch on shortly after, and for a while, the air around them hangs heavy with unspoken suspicions, a secret that they don't know they all keep.
The realization comes to all with a single customer, who asks for each of the girls' crafts – a piercing from Blake, a tattoo from Yang, and a ring from Weiss. He mentions on his first visit the need to move on, the need to let go – and his wish that he has better luck in Patch than anywhere else. Unknowingly to him, each of his bestowments comes with a gift – a good luck spell, embedded within each.
He returns weeks later, spouting about the good luck they'd given him, about his life turning upside down. With his departure comes a stunned silence – suspicions all but confirmed, when Yang starts the conversation. No way, comes out first, just as Weiss follows up with you both, and Blake finishes with you too? And the silence that follows is an entire conversation in its own right, before all three burst into laughter at the sheer hilarity of the situation.
Three witches, crammed together in a tiny shop, brought together by fate itself. There isn't another way to even think about it – something had aligned, something had decided this out for them. The instinctual draw to Patch is brought up, the need to break free, and eventually their pasts even come to light, spoken of in full, of the magic that had woven their fates together. They talk for hours, letting the sun fall and rise, the need for sleep overtaken by the need for knowledge, for information, for understanding.
And when it is all over and done, the three women remain, each in their own way understanding just how well they fit together. Warmth, Weiss and Blake realize, is what brought them to Patch – the warmth that Yang gave to all, her gift of life filling the needs in both Blake and Weiss. Yang's light reflected off Weiss's glass surface, bouncing off to those around them; Blake became the shadow around the blonde, her light providing the counterpart Blake needed.
And for Yang, Blake and Weiss gave her back everything she'd given away for so long – they were her heart, they reflected back the light she gave them, filling her with the love she gave away endlessly, feeding the flames of the pyre of her heart. They completed one another, made up for the things they had each lost, loved one another when they could not love themselves, and understood the struggles they'd each faced.
Magic bound them together; magic had destined their meeting from the start, and everything prior had simply led to their being together. They still didn't place a name on what they had, but they were grateful for it anyways, loving and being loved in return. They shared themselves with one another, letting the pain of their pasts be held by others, the weight of the world shared across three sets of shoulders, no longer only one.
They still had bad days, still had hard times, but they were there for each other when it happened. Weiss would sometimes fall apart when her name passed through the shop, the family she'd separated herself from always finding its way back to her. Weiss was built from metal, and while her iron core did not rust, her outside was made of glass, made to shatter – and sometimes it would, leaving Blake and Yang to put the pieces back together, to convince her that she had a new family, one that would never hate her or let her fall.
Blake woke screaming in the night sometimes, and she had days where her hands would shake uncontrollably, where Weiss would find her in the back washing her hands, endlessly washing. Those were the days Yang would hold her tight and let her play with her hair, when Weiss would bring her tea and books and blankets, and they would both remind her that she was not the hatred and anger in the world, not the ignorance and violence, never the darkness, only the shadow.
Yang wouldn't tell them when she was hurting, but they always figured it out anyways – for a girl who had spent her life giving parts of herself away, it only made sense that she would run out sometimes, would have nothing left to give, no way to hold the weight she forced herself to bear. On days where not even Ruby – who Blake and Weiss had both come to know and understand as Yang's first tether to the light – could be enough for Yang, both Blake and Weiss would draw her in, keep her close, whisper words of love and encouragement, convince her that she wouldn't become her mother.
It was hard, sometimes. Magic wasn't always a blessing, but they did their best to make it so, leaving their anger outside of their work and giving away what they could through their crafts. People came and went, but the familiar ones came by often, giving Yang and Blake their stories, giving Weiss their compliments. Patch became happier, the rough side of town a little easier to bear. They talked about moving, about setting up shop someplace else, passing their magic on in another town. Blake and Weiss were used to moving, but Yang had spent her entire life on Patch, and they would wait until she was ready to leave.
Magic wasn't always easy to bear, and it had put them all through their own wars, given them their own fights. But it had given them their crafts, and most importantly, it had given them each other. And that, they knew, was magic in its own way.