Lovely Nightshade

Author's note's:

This was a very emotional story for me to write. It's heavily inspired by very real feelings that were whizzing through my head directly following the loss of a relationship with a person I cared a great deal for. As such the characters may seem a bit OOC in some parts.

With that out of the way, the AU in which this takes place has several significant differences from the primary continuity. The most prominent difference is that the teams at Beacon were chosen differently. Blake, Pyrrha, Weiss and Cardin form one team, led by Pyrrha, and Nora, Jaune, Velvet and Sun form another, led by Velvet.

Another key difference is that Blake was born and raised in very different circumstances. She was born human to a wealthy human family and she still stays in contact with her parents to this day. She never joined The White Fang and is a perfectly law-abiding individual.

Other character's histories differ in some ways. Pyrrha, Nora and Sun were born and raised in Vale instead of across the sea. Ruby and Yang never decided to become huntresses since Qrow died before either of them were born. Ruby became a librarian and Yang is the drummer for a rock band. Ozpin vanished mysteriously many years ago so Glynda is the headmaster at Beacon.

In addition, Torchwick never rose to power, and Cinder is a particularly pleasant teacher at Beacon. As a result of this, the time our characters spent at Beacon was mostly uneventful.

If you'd be interested in reading more stories written in this universe you should PM me or write a review.

It was graduation day at beacon. Blake looked to her teammates with pride. Every one of them had been fundamentally changed by the last four years. Weiss had mostly broken out of her shell. She had learned to overcome her prejudices and had become good friends with a rabbit-eared girl from another team. Cardin had certainly changed the most among them. He started at beacon as a bully and a brute. Now no-one could've recognized him. He too had gotten past his prejudices as well as his insecurities. Eventually he had become known as one of the kindest individuals at Beacon. They were both great friends and great friends to Blake.

Her other teammate was Pyrrha, the team leader. Pyrrha was Blake's partner and in time had become Blake's best friend and so much more. When Pyrrha had first asked Blake out on their second year Blake could hardly believe her ears. Her hearing had never been very good so she had asked for Pyrrha to repeat the question. Pyrrha had quickly fallen deeply in love with Blake and, eventually, Blake had come to care deeply for Pyrrha. But no matter how much Blake wanted to, she did not love her partner back.

Pyrrha had made it very clear that she was willing to take it as slowly as Blake was comfortable with but Blake could tell that Pyrrha wanted more. Now they were graduating and it would only make sense for them to move in together since they would both be getting their own places. The only problem was that Blake had always wanted to move to Menagerie after graduation. She wanted to help the faunus who still lived there in poverty. Pyrrha had always wanted to become a full Huntress. She wanted to stay in Vale and fight the local dust gangs.

Blake knew that Pyrrha would move to Menagerie with her and abandon her own dreams. Blake didn't want that. She wanted Pyrrha to stay in Vale and hunt gangs and be happy. She wanted Pyrrha to find someone new one day. Blake wasn't ready for the kind of commitment that would preceed Pyrrha moving countries for her. She was planning to break up with Pyrrha after the graduation ceremony.

Pyrrha loved Blake more than anything. That's why she hadn't pushed their relationship forward even though they had been together for almost 3 years and still had only reached 1st base. She was willing to do, or not do, anything for Blake. She didn't know how much her love scared Blake. She knew that Blake wanted to talk about something. But she thought Blake wanted to tell her that she loved her back.

After the graduation ceremony they met in a quiet corner of the room.

Blake blurted out the words she thought needed to be said "I think we should break up."

Pyrrha froze in shock. She stood for almost a minute just thinking. She thought about her response before giving it "if that's what you want."

Blake shook her head "it's not what I want."

Pyrrha revised her statement "then if that's what will make you happy..."

Blake interrupted "it won't make me happy. But I think it's what needs to be done."

Pyrrha was honest as she had always been with Blake "I can't say I understand, but alright."

Blake lowered her head "please understand. I can tell that this is getting more serious and I'm not sure if I'm quite ready for that yet."

Pyrrha looked directly at Blake "I'm willing to take things as slowly as you want to. My love is unconditional. I never asked for anything from you in return."

Blake nodded "I know. But now I'm moving to Menagerie. You can't follow me and I can't do long distance."

Pyrrha shed a tear "ok"

Blake tried her best to look up at Pyrrha "I know this is such a cliche but we can still try to be friends if you want." Pyrrha felt the tear drop off of her cheek. She remained silent. Blake saw an airship through the window "my ride to Menagerie is here. I need to go. I'll talk to you later, ok?"

Pyrrha spoke softly "alright, I love you, goodbye." Pyrrha silently agreed with herself that she would never contact Blake again. She was Blake's ex now and if she contacted Blake all it could do would be to cause Blake pain. She would do, or not do, anything to stop Blake from feeling pain.

Blake turned away and started to walk as she wiped away a tear. She hoped that one day Pyrrha would find someone new. But deep down she knew that she had just left a permanent scar on both of their hearts.

Pyrrha saw her teammates meeting up with the other team they had befriended. Velvet and Jaune talked with Weiss as Nora and Sun joined a group hug with Cardin. Pyrrha wouldn't tell them what had happened until tomorrow. She wouldn't want to ruin the graduation festivities.

Over the next few months Pyrrha began to recover. She stopped thinking about the breakup as much and she even started finding other people attractive again. But the scar in her heart never truly healed. Her first true love was gone forever. And she would never love anyone like that again.

They both succeeded at their dreams. Blake nearly eradicated faunus inequality and Pyrrha did the same with the dust gangs of Vale. They both eventually fell in love with other people and married them. They got happy endings, just not the happiest one they could've gotten together.