Catnip

RWBY

Written from the perspective of Yang Xiao Long

Summary: Vol2-Ep6 spoilers. Yang knows the secret to making a kitty purr. So when a certain kitty isn't sleeping, Yang decides to give it what it wants. Based on an idea from Kegi Springfield.

Listen up. Think you know the answer to this question: how do you make a kitty purr?

Okay, sure. Warm milk and a ball of yarn works. Rubbing the belly helps. But hey, do you the answer to this: how do you make a kitty really purrr? I'm not talking meow, meow. I'm talking… mee-ow with a dash of nyaah, nyaah. Kind of like a cougar but younger.

You feelin' me?

Now I've got a kitty who can't sleep at night. She's a little rascal and quiet but she's got a bookish charm. Kind of like that shy girl that stalks the library all day and wouldn't have a social life if red-hot blooded girls or blonde bombshells didn't try to open her up. She's got a dark coat that says 'do not disturb' but all I see is a green light for 'go go go'.

Did I mention she's soft as sin? Because she's really soft.

The dance is coming up. My sis and Weiss are busting dust to make the whole shindig a big shebang. And Blake said she's not going. If Blake's not going, Ruby ain't happy. If Ruby ain't happy, I ain't happy. You don't wanna see me not happy.

So we happy?

We happy.

When my special order came in, I shoved the baggie in my breast pocket. That took a while because it was pretty tight. Then i went to find the kitty-kitty. Blake's not a hard one to find. She's made the library her own little home away from home. Okay, strategy time. How do I get her alone? Laser pointers? Nah, forget that, not my style. The lack of confrontation and unnecessary aggression isn't for me. I walked up behind her, threw a burlap sack over her head and dragged her kicking and screaming to an empty classroom.

"Yang! What… just what is your problem?" Blake's eyes were bloodshot and her face was red. Probably because of lack of sleep. Her being angry also might have a little bit to do with it. "I thought I was being kidnapped." Blake was clutching her heart like she had a stroke.

"Kidnapped? Here? There's no place safer than Hogw-Beacon. I mean Beacon."

Blake glared at me.

"We aren't safe." Blake huffed and puffed. "Torchwick and the White Fang are still out there. We have no idea what they're planning. We have no idea what they can do. They're collecting enough dust to bring down a city… they-they're-argh! I can't believe I'm wasting time explaining this to you."

I was cleaning out my ear with my pinky.

"Explain away, you're not going to stop them alone, and certainly not like that."

Kitty didn't like that fact. "I can and I will." Kitty kept glaring. "You know nothing, Yang. You know nothing about the struggles I grew up with. The things I've seen. You know nothing."

Oh. Kitty wants to play that game?

"Well, as a matter of fact, I do."

We can play that game, kitty-kitty.

Blake's veins were popping on her head. "For years I've been a part of the White Fang. Protesting… fighting… what do you know about seeing your people oppressed and ridiculed and enslaved. What do you know about growing up terrified, wondering if your parents would come home alive if some ignorant punk with a gun found them walking down an alley?"

"Do you want to stop them or do you want to join them?"

"I know what they're willing to do because I'd do it too," Blake screamed. "There's no limits to the depths they'll sink to to get their vengeance. I know their hate. I know what lengths they'd do and how dirty they'd get. It's an obsession."

"Me too," I said mounting the classroom desk. Crossing my legs, I began to think of summer. "I know what that's like. Obsessing over something."

"What?"

"It takes up every thought in your mind. Soaks up all your energy. Makes your fire burn twice as hot but half as long."

Blake narrowed her eyes. "Yang…"

"And there's no doubt in my mind you'll achieve what you're after. But when you look back at it, all you'll have are memories of that single stupid obsession. No childhood, no friends, no family. You might have felt you've won, but you lost. Big time."

For a while, Blake said nothing, before she asked, "what do you know?"

"I know what it's like to lose someone. To want to know where they are and where they've been. What they've been doing. Do they think of me? When the sun rises, are we looking at the same sun? When it sets, does she wish she was there with me?"

"Who…"

"My mother."

"Your's and Ruby's…"

"Nope. Just mine. Same father, different mother. My old man was kind of a slick one with the ladies… but after my mother vanished, Ruby's mom raised the both of us. After she left us… my old man's never been the same since."

"At least he's still alive."

"A drunk who does nothing but obsess over the past," I said closing my eyes. "In a way, I've lost three parents. One vanished, one dead, and one an empty shell. But that's the thing. One of my parents only vanished."

"Why did she go missing?"

"Don't know. But if there wasn't a dead body stuck in a hole somewhere, then there was still a chance she could be alive. That thought kept me awake at night. Ruby would knock on my door and ask if I'd want to build a snowman with her. All I could do what keep looking at maps of the island we grew up on. I'd spend days just searching, crossing off the parts I've searched."

Those memories felt bad.

"But you've given up," Blake stated. "Got tired?"

"Given up?" I climbed off the desk and leaned close, nose to nose. "Every day I think of about it. Every day the thought never leaves. Always nagging me, always in the back of my mind." I gritted my teeth, the thought wouldn't leave my mind. "Every moment that thought…"

"What thought?"

"Do I deserve any of this? If I'm having fun and playing games, shouldn't I spend that time searching? Shouldn't I be doing… something? Anything? Even if it's just making stupid little maps with red X's over every stupid little tree… it was better than nothing, right?"

This was more exhausting than I thought. I took a seat on the lecture desk again and rubbed my temples. A splitting headache came to me.

"I didn't know you had that side to you. You're always so carefree and flippant," said Blake as she took a seat beside me. "But I have to do this."

Placing my head on her shoulders, "and I'll help you. So will Ruby and Weiss. But if you keep pushing yourself without resting, you'll break yourself before you get a chance to wreck the enemy's face in."

Blake sat beside me. Her eyes looked distant. "The thought won't go away."

"I know, but I've got a cure."

I pulled out a small plastic baggy. In it was a small tuft of some special herbs and spices I managed to collect. A perfect blend of all natural wild grown produce. Harvested straight from Patch.

"Is… is that…"

"Yep. Nepeta cataria."

"Catnip."

I tossed Blake the baggie and it fell in her hands. "Figured you might like some, since I heard some faunus go wild for it. It helps them relax."

"You know that's an urban legend."

"Oh? So catnip really has no effect on you?" Blake pulled the tuft of it out and sniffed on it. She shook her head. "Well that figures. Guess you're more beauty than beast, eh?"

Blake smiled for the first time in a while.

"Is it really okay to rest?"

"You don't win wars by trying to force every battle. You win wars by resting, training, knowing when to fight and who to fight and on what day's good for you. Not them." I picked my nose. "Some famous general said that I think. It was in one of your books… hey! What's with that look? I can read too, you know."

Blake gave a small laugh. "So is this dance going to be fun?"

I stretched my arms out and laid my head on Blake's lap. "Ruby and Weiss are planning it. It'll be great. However if Ozpin wasn't such a scrooge and let me be in charge, it'd be a blast." All those ideas, never to be realized… ah well, there's always the next dance.

"Strippers, I imagine?"

"Don't you know it! Strippers with an indoor snow machine."

"What's the snow for?"

I closed my eyes. "I'm a summer gal, but I love winter. A nice, gentle snowfall. A few flakes every minute. Not too few that nobody notices. But just enough that when people are dancing and they feel a tiny drop on their nose, then maybe, just maybe, they'd stop and think and realize: this is a moment to remember."

Blake ran her fingers through my hair. "That sounds romantic."

"Does it?"

"Yes," said Blake before her bow perked up. "Which reminds me, I don't have anyone to go with."

"What about Sun?"

"Maybe next time."

It was hard to hold back a grin. "So you already got someone in mind?"

"Yes. Ruby."

"Hey, wait. Wha-Leave your filthy paws off my sis!"

"Joking, Yang. Joking."

"Why you little…"

"So Yang. This dance sounds kind of lame. But you, me… we can make it less lame?"

I smiled. "We can definitely make it less lame."

"There's one more thing…"

"What is it?" Blake's lips curled into a sort of smile I've never seen her had before. "Um… that smile is making me a bit uncomfortable."

"So Yang… I need some help re-enacting some scenes from this novel I've been writing…"

Author's Notes: This probably deviated way more from the original idea than I intended and half of it was basically re-telling the Ep6 scene. ;_; How does one even write Bumblebee or White Rose?

Catnip Fin