A/N: First up we have my initial foray into writing RWBY fanfiction, the fluffy series of stories starting with Pink Lemonade. Pink Lemonade (Collateral Damage), Ladybug, and North Pole (Schneekos) represented here. This first chapter is brought to you by the very talented SilvanaCrowe.
Days of Yule
Chapter 1: A Pink Lemonade Yuletide
The sun was warm on her face as she lay in the grass with her eyes closed. A breeze blew gently through her hair, rustling it and whistling in her ears. She felt truly peaceful, and the only thing that could make this moment better would be the presence of her lovely girlfriend.
"Blakey… Blakey…"
The cat faunus shifted, hearing Ruby calling from what sounded like a distance away. She tried to open her eyes but the sun was too bright. Maybe if she blocked it with her hand-
"BLAKE!"
"Oof!" The impact of her girlfriend's smaller body on top of her own jolted the raven haired girl rudely awake. She threw a hand up to cover her eyes from the early morning sun coming through the window and groaned. "Ruby… what is it?"
"It's Yule, Blakey! We have to get up! Today's the day we get presents!" As she continued to babble, Ruby bounced on the bed, causing Blake to let out another sleepy groan. The brunette began gently tugging on her sleepy girlfriend's arm, extracting her from the warm cocoon of blankets on their shared bed. She should be used to it by now anyway, having been coming to the Xiao Long household for winter break since she got together with Ruby. Just because it was their last year at Beacon, didn't mean they needed to change a good thing!
The two young women entered kitchen, passing a sleepy looking Weiss and Pyrrha curled up on the couch in the living room. Taiyang was up and awake, laughing at his eldest daughter as she tried to fend off her excited girlfriend while remaining half-asleep.
"Ruby!" Yang sighed in relief as Nora noticed the brunette girl, giving Blake a sleepy smile as the faunus joined her at the table to watch their girlfriends bounce around the room with Zwei running around their feet.
"Dad, how are you even awake right now? I know you were up forever last night," Yang griped, her head hitting the table.
"You somehow forget, kid, I have two daughters. This is nothing new," he replied with a laugh, though he was nice enough to bring over a mug of coffee for his eldest and one of tea for Blake, receiving a muffled thank you from both of them. "Well," he grinned, planting his hands on his hips. "I guess that since everyone's up, we can do presents now!" The blond man laughed at the cheers from the only other fully awake people currently inhabiting his house.
It didn't take long to get everyone into the living room, though getting everyone to either stay awake or sit still was proving to be more difficult. Nora solved Yang's problem by sitting on her lap, making it easy to poke her awake whenever she needed to, while Blake had woken up to the point that she was keeping Ruby from running around the room in her excitement, though she did let the smaller girl get up from their place on the floor every once in awhile to keep the third couple in the room coherent enough for presents. It helped that Ruby knew how she felt about Zwei and had promised not to leave her alone with the dog that was now napping near the tree.
Ruby received an assortment of candy, cookies, and gun parts, topped off with a little black cat plush toy from Blake. Blake, in turn, had books, new gloves, and a brand new bunch of hair bow ribbons which were from Ruby. Taiyang had been gifted some rather odd gag gifts from his girls, as well as a few kind, if somewhat impersonal, gifts from the others. Pyrrha loved the panda hat that her fiancée gave her, and smiled sweetly at the look on Weiss' face when the other girl unwrapped the blue crystal butterfly hairpiece. Yang got a pair of monogrammed boxing gloves from Nora, as well as something that made her start laughing loudly even as she quickly closed the box again to keep anyone else from seeing inside.
When it came time for Nora to open her present from Yang, the blonde girl seemed nervous. She handed her girlfriend a card, which the pinkette opened to read.
Roses are red, Violets are blue,
No adventure of mine could be complete without you.
Will you marry me?
She looked up in shock to find Yang on one knee, holding a yellow-gold ring with a pink stone. The room was silent as Nora stared at her increasingly nervous girlfriend.
"Well?"
Nora let out a shriek as she lunged for the blonde, who yelped as she was tackled to the floor. As kisses rained on her face, Yang managed to quip, "I guess that's a yes?" She laughed as the shorter girl nodded frantically and gently put the ring she'd somehow miraculously maintained a hold of onto Nora's finger.
Everyone looked away to give the somewhat emotional pair a little privacy, smiling softly at how happy they were. Taiyang was feeling somewhat nostalgic, one of his babies having just gotten engaged and the other being in a loving relationship, both in their last year at Beacon. He hoped Summer was able to see how happy they were now.
Pyrrha and Weiss linked their hands together, Weiss' ring cool against their fingers, as they thought about the wedding they had been planning for after graduation, something so close now.
Ruby glanced at Blake, catching her eyes. The warmth in them made her happy, knowing that while neither of them were quite ready for that step yet themselves, when they were they would face it happily together, as they would with anything else life threw their way.
A cleared throat brought everyone's attention back to the newly engaged couple, both looking flushed and ecstatic, as they sat back on their part of the couch with their hands held tightly together. The ring glittered softly in the morning light streaming through the windows from Nora's finger. Before anyone could offer congratulations, the sound of an airship from outside the house alerted them to visitors.
As Taiyang nonchalantly got up, he glanced at the room in general. "That's probably Qrow. He said he'd be a little late. Got tied up with something."
Ruby jumped up with a grin, bursting out the door just before her father to go jump on her uncle as soon as he exited the Bullhead. By the time the others all made it outside, Qrow had Ruby hanging off his back and was conversing with his old teammate.
Weiss stood towards the back of the group with Pyrrha, waiting to go back inside to continue with their day. As she was leaning slightly against her fiancée, she felt as much as heard the gasp emitted. Startled, she looked up at the redhead who glanced back with widened eyes before smiling and gesturing for the other girl to look at the airship. Doing so, Weiss felt her eyes go wide as well at the figure now standing at the side of the ship. She whispered, "Winter?"
The woman looked up at that moment, giving Weiss all the answer she needed. "Winter!" she cried, flying through the group to hug her older sister tightly. "How are you here? Not that I'm not grateful, I am, I'm so glad to see you! But I thought father was keeping an eye on you so you couldn't contact me?"
Winter smiled softly down at the sister she had seen so rarely since the younger had defied their father and extracted herself from his grasp. "It would seem," she began, "that General Ironwood knows Qrow. Someone decided that it would be a good idea to pull some strings. I'm officially out scouting the Atlesian border for Grimm, something that could take quite some time. Some of the areas have rather horrible scroll signal as well, so communication is rare and infrequent. There's nothing that can be done, really, and the General has apologized for having to send me so far away, seeing as one should spend time with family at this time of year." By the end of her explanation, Weiss was standing there shocked. It took a second, but she finally released her sister long enough to turn to the raven haired man standing with the rest of the familial group behind her.
"Thank you, Qrow." Her voice sounded more choked up than she wished, but she was too happy to really care.
"Don't thank me, kid. Wasn't my idea, I just got enough disregard for rules to go through with it and enough strings that I can pull to make it happen. Should be thanking that team of yours," he grumbled back, shrugging his shoulders and sticking his hands in his pockets.
Weiss smiled at her team, who all smiled back at her, thanking them softly before turning back to her sister. "Would you like to officially meet my fiancée?"
"I would love to."
Taiyang grinned, clapping his hands lightly as he started to speak. "Great! Now that everyone's here, we can go do breakfast! Hey Qrow, you should congratulate Yang. She just got herself engaged."
The winter air was full of laughter and voices calling back and forth as the group made to re-enter the house. Weiss couldn't help but think, as she watched her team, her family, go inside, that though it may be a bit crowded, she had no doubt that everyone would feel welcomed and at home, something she had never had with all the space in her old home in Atlas.
"Come. We can speak more inside." Winter gently placed her hand on her sister's shoulder, seeing the tall redhead Weiss was engaged to waiting calmly for the siblings to make their way towards the house. She was pleased to see the love in the gaze directed towards the younger platinum haired woman, though she would still be having a talk with her. She needed to be certain her sister would be safe, especially now.
Later that day, as the sun was replaced by the shattered moon and the house fell quiet while everyone took some time to themselves before dinner, Yang and Nora cuddled up watching the stars while lying on top of the roof.
"I love you, Blondie." Nora smiled down at the ring she now had, unable to wait for the next time that she could call Ren to share what had transpired. Even if he already probably knew this was going to happen. He was weird like that.
"Love you too, Nora. Happy Yule." The blonde bruiser pressed a kiss to the top of her fiancée's head.
"Happy Yule!" The pinkette giggled back, tilting her head up for a proper kiss. And if it went further than that, well; it's not as if they were in the house where anyone could stumble upon them, right?
SilvanaCrowe A/N: Thanks to everyone who read this! It's been awhile since I've had any work I've done posted, so getting to add onto this story was a treat. It was also a lot of fun! I always love a good excuse to write fluff, even if I don't actually, you know, need an excuse. Let the countdown to Christmas commence!
Dongyrn A/N: If you've never read this series of stories, or are of a mind to re-read them, I did compile them into a single, easier-to-read multichaptered story over on AO3, entitled RWBY: The Pink Lemonade Compendium:
archiveofourown dot org / works / 8179202 / chapters / 18738275
Thanks for reading this first chapter, I hope you enjoyed SilvanaCrowe's wonderful little ball of fluff! Next up, we'll revisit my lovely OC ladies from Pearls on a String.
Stay shiny!
