A/N

Hello all, gonna write a long fic here with a bunch of one shots that take place in between the major plot points of the show. I will not be summarizing the show, nor will I be novelizing events that have already happened if I don't have to. (Like the scene in V2 where Yang tells Blake about her past.) All that said, let's get this show on the road.

~Rocky Road~

One month after passing the entrance exam and getting into Beacon, Yang found herself in Vale, a list of bookstores pulled up on her scroll.

It had been standard combat school stuff after getting a partner in the Emerald Forest; studying and combat training. But last Friday, a surprise had come her way in the form of a partner interview conducted by their team leader. While the team leader and their partner had been interviewed by one of the staff at Beacon, Yang and Blake had been interviewed by Ruby. It had been unexpected, but Yang at least thought that she could answer most questions about Blake. Oh how wrong she had been. Just to recap some of the highlights:

"What is the name of your partners weapon?" Ruby had asked.

"Uh…" Yet another question she couldn't answer.

"Ember Celica." Blake answered simply.

"Good." Ruby wrote something down. "What is your partners middle name?" She asked, looking between the two, though after failing to provide an answer for the first several questions Yang had noticed that her younger sister was looking to Blake first.

"Xiao."

"..." Looking to the ground, Yang clasped her hands behind her neck, and exhaled.

"Alright, um…" Ruby tapped a pencil against her leg. "What does your partner like to do in their free time?"

"Read!" Yang had all but shouted as she stood up, then quickly took her seat back. "Eight freaking questions without an answer, I finally get to answer one."

"Socialize." Blake said, her tone still even.

"Awesome. Yang, what kind of books does Blake like to read?" Ruby asked, focusing on her older sister. And leaning in with a glint in her eyes.

"Uh…" Yang didn't answer immediately as she tilted her head ever so slightly to get a hint from her partner, whose face remained neutral.

"Don't look at her." Ruby ordered, motioning for Yang to keep eye contact with her. "What kind of books does she like?" She asked again, her voice dipping lower.

"Ohhh what book was she reading that day we met when I tried to introduce her to Ruby?" Yang thought to herself. "It wasn't something I would read, so…" Her train of thought stopped there.

Ruby sighed, stretching her arms over her head. "Alright, let's-"

"It's horror! She likes to read horror books." Yang blurted out, cutting Ruby off and clenching her fists together as she looked at her partner with a grin.

"Not even close." Blake said with a frown.

Yang groaned, covering her face with her hands.

The rest of the interview had been similar, with Blake unable to answer only a few questions about Yang while Yang could answer almost none of the questions about Blake. Even though she didn't talk much, Yang had never found her partner to be unapproachable, but Ruby had opened her eyes to how little she knew about Blake after spending a month together with her. So the next Blake had left the room for a long period of time, Yang had gone through the books that Blake had brought with her from home and stacked into the bookshelf beneath the window. Noticing a lot of different genres (lacking horror, of course), Yang had decided to get a lot of different books to cover all her bases, and then use the gifts as an icebreaker in an attempt to get to know Blake better.

And to serve as an apology. Blake didn't seem particularly upset that Yang didn't know that much about her after all this time, but that didn't make Yang feel any better. So she stepped into the first bookstore, giving a courtesy wave to the cashier who greeted her. "Where do you keep the mystery books?" Yang asked, taking a few steps closer to the counter.

"In the back."

Once she'd gotten to the rows of shelves, Yang scanned the titles, looking for something that seemed like Blake would be interested in. She pulled out various tomes, hardback and paperback, thick and thin, reading the descriptions and putting them all back one by one until a title printed in white on a black spine caught her eye. "The Shadow Over Arehaza," She mumbled, pulling it out and reading the description. "A lone huntsmen investigates the mysterious disappearance of a young man in a small port town…. Okay, how does it end?" Flipping to the back, her eyes widened as she spoiled the story for herself. "Alright, this one it is!" Taking it to the front and paying for it, Yang stored it in her bike then headed to the next bookstore. This process repeated several times over the course of a few hours, until finally Yang found herself unlocking the door to her team's dorm.

"I'm back!" She announced as she kicked the door open, causing it to rebound violently against the wall. "I got you a present, Blake." She said, setting the plastic bag full of books at the feet of her teammate, who was laying down with a novel already in had.

Blake lowered the book with and gave a Yang a surprised look. "You… didn't have to do that."

"Ah, nonsense. Now, go on; open it!"

"You didn't even wrap it." Weiss pointed out.

"Where's my present!?" Ruby whined.

"Both of you get out!" Yang said quickly, grabbing both of them by the ear and leading them to the door, closing it behind them. The sound of plastic crinkling caused her to turn around, and she smiled widely when she saw Blake's own. "A-ha! I knew you'd like it!" Yang started walking over to Blake, leaning down until her face was just a few inches from her partners. "Yoooouu're welcome!"

"I appreciate this Yang, but do you remember that talk we had about personal space?" Blake asked, keeping her smile in place though her tone dipped.

Yang nodded, apologizing and taking a step backwards to sit on Weiss's bed. A silence settled on them, and for a second Yang wasn't sure where to go with this. "Sooo… how come you like to read so much?" She asked innocently.

"Well…" Blake's face fell for a second, and her eyes clouded. "I grew up outside the kingdoms, so I spent a lot of time fighting or travelling. And if I wasn't doing one or the other, I was more interested in having time to myself. So, books were how I filled that time." Grabbing another one out of the pile, a smile flitted across her face for a second. "It was easier seeing fictional characters dealing with their troubles rather than dealing with my own, sometimes."

"Well, you're no slouch in combat. How'd you come up with your weapon?" Yang lay out on Weiss's bed, propping her head up with one hand.

"Well, I came up with the blade and sheathe on my own, but it was a friend of mine who suggested I try using it together with a whip."

Sensing a heaviness in her words, Yang quickly tried to steer the conversation back to more positive ground. "It was a good idea; there's no way I could've come up with something so unique." Another pause, the silence more palpable than earlier. "Uh…" Unsure how to continue breaking the ice, Yang pursed her lips together tightly.

"So what's with the gift and the questions?" Blake asked before Yang could come up with more questions to get information out of her.

Sitting up and straightening her clothes, Yang answered, "I was just… I dunno, I felt like I let you down somehow after we went through that pop-partner-quiz the other day." She smiled sheepishly, running one hand through her hair.

"Well, I guess a lot of people are feeling that way."

Blinking, Yang tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

"Yang, pretty much all the first year students couldn't answer most of the questions about their partners. Ruby didn't know anything about Weiss, Pyrrha and Jaune didn't know anything about each other, and the only people who were able to answer those types of questions with accuracy were people like Ren and Nora who've known each other for a long time before Beacon." Blake informed her, trying and failing to suppress a smile.

"Whew! For the past two days I've been beating myself up for being a bad partner." Yang said with a laugh, leaning forward and resting her arms on her legs.

"Well, you're not, so you don't have to beat yourself up over something you can't help."

Yang stood up. "Awesome! Though if we ever have to go through another one of those tests, I'm going to be able to answer all those questions without fail! Mark my words, Belladonna!"

"I'm sure." Blake said, turning her attention back to the books that Yang had bought for her.

"Well, I'll keep Ruby and Weiss out of your hair for a while so you can get to reading! Don't have too much fun while were gone." Yang gave a wave as she opened the door, stepping outside and pulling Ruby and Weiss away with her, both of whom had been awkwardly standing outside the room unsure as to what they should do.

Pulling out all of the books and setting them in a pile, Blake looked over each title, stopping when she saw The Shadow Over Arehaza. For a moment Blake just looked at it, confused as to its familiarity. She looked over the books she already, but the title wasn't among them. Then a lightbulb went off over her head, and she pulled out her scroll. "What are the odds?"

Scrolling through her list of recent calls (which were mostly wrong numbers and telemarketers), Blake found the number she was looking for and re-dialed it. A moment later, a voice on the other end answered. "Yes, I need to cancel an order I had placed… It was under Belladonna...B-E-L-L.. That's the one. No, not at all. A friend of mine just happened to pick it up for me while out shopping today. Okay, thank you. Goodbye."

Stacking all of the purchases into a neat pile, Blake figured she would have to find some way to pay Yang back for all this. It's not like it would be hard task to accomplish; after a month she had a pretty good grasp on what Yang liked and disliked.