Thirty-two days. Thirty-two days since she had gotten Ruby's tear-stained letter. Thirty-two days of since she'd slipped away from her father's bodyguards, grabbed a hefty chunk of her discretionary spending fund in cash and left Atlas to search for Blake.
It had meant a month of unpalatable meals, of entirely undesirable associations and beds not even the dead would rest on… And places like The Burning Cock.
A picture of a burning rooster hung on top of the door, helpfully illustrating the crass joke.
Weiss had long since reconciled with the fact that her upbringing had left her with a lot of prejudice about… Most things. But this pub was one of those places in which every single one of them seemed applicable.
She scrunched up her nose the moment she stepped through the door. The place reeked of sweat, cheap beer and bad choices. The patrons were commoners - Uh - working class and the sort who seemed to take personal hygiene as a recommendation rather than a rule.
It was a small, cramped place, with pillars limiting the line of sight and poor lighting, partially owed to the grime covering the few windows that had not been boarded up. The floors and walls were of old, none too clean wood and a large faunus man with ram's horns stood behind the counter, brows furrowed into a uniform line as he stared at her.
Weiss supposed they did not get customers of her… Stature very often.
She decided immediately that it would be a brief visit. A very brief visit, she amended, at the sound of a bottle breaking and a brawl breaking out by one of the corner tables.
She'd already fished out the laminated picture of Blake to show to the man when a flash of movement in her peripheral vision made her stop.
Two men, the large over-muscled brutes that were rarely hired as much for protection as to make a statement, were looming over a slender dark form on the dingy floorboards. They were so massive that, for a moment she wasn't even sure why she'd looked over, why she'd cared, and then… Amber eyes. A lilac bow. One of the men reeled his leg back for a kick.
Weiss crossed the fifteen feet of distance, propelled forward by one of her glyphs and Myrtenaster speared clean through the thug's shoulder and pinned him to the wall like a decorative butterfly.
The second thug raised a cudgel of some form and smashed his face flat against a barrier glyph. There a brief, startled silence followed by the scrape of chairs as other patrons stood. Weiss didn't turn.
"If any of you raise a weapon, I twist my blade and your friend will bleed to death within minutes.
Everyone froze and Weiss could feel the violence brewing in the air, thickening until she all but choked on it. The temporary stillness was just that. Temporary. Sooner or later, someone would be foolish enough charge at her back. It was fortunate none of them had medical training and knew she was well over an inch away from the artery that would've bled the man dry. Just as she had intended.
She looked down at Blake's prone form at her feet, to the thugs she'd dispatched and those looming behind her. She'd never seen Blake look so small, so vulnerable. She wouldn't be going anywhere unassisted.
Her fingers clenched hard on Myrtenaster's hilt and she pulled it clear of the man's shoulder in a single smooth motion. He sank down along the wall, moaning, and Weiss turned to face the room, her back rigidly straight.
"I'm taking her and leaving. Stand down or you will all die today."
The words came out cold and harsh and it wasn't until she'd spoken that she realized she meant every one of them.
"Stand. Down."
Her voice rang through the silence and she stared down each man in turn, taking their stock. She had a feeling they could all handle themselves in a fight but she was a trained huntress and not another fellow drunken fool, and that was another matter entirely. Slowly but surely, they backed down, returning to their card games and drinks.
Weiss cast them all one last disdainful look and raised her voice again.
"A napkin, if you please, barkeep."
Blake was stirring but seemed barkeeper approached her carefully, with both hands kept visible. A wise man, it would seem. Weiss accepted a napkin and quickly wiped her sword down.
Her initial target was still on the floor, mewling like a child. Weiss kicked at his leg to make sure he did not pass out. She may have had ulterior motives.
"Keep pressure on the wound," she advised him. "I imagine your love life may take a hit until you regain the use of the arm but you will live."
She turned to Blake.
"Can you walk?"
Blake didn't respond and Weiss swore under her breath; putting Myrtenaster back in its sheath, she scooped her teammate up with a grunt of effort, eyes moving from each other the other patrons in turn. Nobody stood in her way when she left.
"Where am I?"
Weiss looked up from her scroll. They were in a small motel at the edge of the working class areas of Vale. It wasn't exactly comfortable or sanitary, but it was quiet and discreet, which was more important for the time being.
Blake's voice sounded raw, as though she hadn't spoken for some time and her eyes darted from Weiss, to the door, to the window in search of an escape route.
"Safe," Weiss said, making sure to speak slowly and calmly. "Settle down."
"How did you find me?"
All of her teammates were intelligent people, no matter how many things implied otherwise, but they did all have their bouts of supreme idiocy.
"Money," Weiss said. "You'd be surprised how much people will tell you for the right price."
Blake snorted. It sounded like it hurt.
"Not really." She shivered and pulled the covers all the way up to her chin, then frowned. "Weiss. Why am I undressed?"
Weiss rolled her eyes.
"Don't flatter yourself. You were injured and I had to see how badly." She fetched a thermos from her bag and put it by the bedside table. "Your ribs are bruised, maybe even cracked, and I could probably play them like a xylophone. It's no wonder those buffoons were able to take you down."
Anger flashed somewhere far back in Blake's eyes, but she opened up the thermos and sniffed at its steaming contents. The smell of fish soup - the good stuff, Weiss had made sure of it - filled the room. The faunus girl set the food back on the table, scowling.
"I'm fine on my own, thank you."
She made to sit up but didn't get anywhere before Weiss put a hand on her shoulder and flattened her to the bed, staring down into her dull amber eyes.
"You will eat, or so help me, I will pour it down your throat through a tube."
The words came out hard, more so than she'd intended, and Blake blinked. Her stunned expression only lasted for a few moments before turning into a belligerent stare.
"You wouldn't."
Weiss held her gaze.
"Try me."
She offered the thermos again and after a few moments of deliberation, Blake accepted it. The faunus girl sipped at it carefully and Weiss took advantage of her silence to continue.
"Why did you run away, Blake?"
Blake looked away from Weiss and towards the window where wan afternoon sunlight still poured in through the drawn blinds. Weiss settled on the bedside. She'd come prepared to play dirty.
"You made a promise to me - to us - that you wouldn't do this again."
Her friend winced at the words and seemed to visibly shrink. Her ears lay plastered along her dark hair and Weiss squashed the instinct to reach out and stroke them in some foolish attempt to sooth her.
Despite what her friends may think, she was not made out of stone… Or ice, as it were, but she couldn't afford to show Blake weakness now.
Minutes went by in silence and Weiss waited patiently until Blake finally whispered:
"He would've hurt you, too. He'll hurt anyone I get close to."
Weiss' hands clenched into fists.
"Hurt?" She spat. "Have you seen Yang since you ran?"
Blake avoided her gaze and Weiss couldn't stop the words from pouring out of her mouth.
"She is a wreck, Blake. She would barely acknowledge me, let alone talk to me."
Tears were running down her teammate's cheeks but Weiss forced herself to go on. The memory of Yang's father was still fresh in her mind. Of the brief flash of hope when she'd seen on his face she'd arrived with a top of the line prosthetic arm and his heart visibly breaking once more when Yang threw it aside.
"According to the private investigators I've hired, Yang has crawled up in a bottle ever since and Ruby's looking for whoever is behind this mess, so tell me: How is your plan working out thus far?"
Some of the fire returned to Blake's eyes as she rounded on Weiss.
"But they're alive! Which is a lot better than if I were around."
"We're huntresses!" Weiss snapped back. "Odds are good we will die young, doing something stupid and heroic, but I expected to at least have you there at my back when that day came. That's why you have a team."
Weiss wasn't sure when she'd started crying, but it seemed to startle Blake.
"I'm sorry," the faunus said, sitting up in her bed. She reached out but Weiss slapped her hand away.
"I didn't think it would be this easy to divide us," Weiss said. "I didn't think I'd be alone again."
She didn't stop Blake the second time and warm, slender arms embraced her and pulled her close. It was nice. Blake smelled of stale beer and sweat, but she was warm and Weiss gladly took what comfort was offered.
"You need to stop, Blake. You're family... And family doesn't run."