Blake knows who she is. She is strong and dark and angry and clenched teeth in a discriminatory bar and matted fur and black silk and nothing but empty black holes. There is nothing about her that isn't coiled tight like a spring – training with a White Fang commanding officer has taught her to set her jaw on edge to catch the brunt of a furled fist.
She knows how many times she's spit blood into a night alleyway or kissed a stranger to stop thinking or how many times Adam has slipped into her daydreams and nightmares and fantasies and she knows how many times she's woken up sweating and screaming, the last memory of her dreams, a bone mask stretched tight across a handsome face like a second skin.
There is nothing about her that is soft. There are ravens in her ribcage and they strip away muscle from flesh and guard her heart when someone gets too close. She is a specter; untouchable. She remembers being sweet once, being six years old and kissing a playground boy and holding her mother's hand and hugging her father's knee and coming home after school to a defaced home and robbed rooms.
She remembers the exact moment when her mother wept out of uncontrollable fury and frustration, and she had torn at her Faunus ears – the twins to Blake's – as if she wanted to rip them from her skull. Her father had moved them to the mountains where no one would see them, and Blake knew that they were the hidden shame of a normal society.
She lived with her family and loved with her family and wept with her family and had died eight lives with her family and by some terrible horrible mistake of fate, they had died their ninth lives without her, murdered by a group of radicals while she was out in some forest, smiling like a darling. She can still describe the house, painted in blood, her mother and father's mouths carved into Cheshire smirks, their eyes wide with the permanent horror.
She remembers lighting their home on fire and she remembers being taken in by Adam seven months after living on the streets. She had had a large gaping gouge in her forearm, infected without proper cry and poisoned with a thug's dirty blade. But Adam had sat her down, bound her wounds with a steady, simple hand, and had looked at her, shivering and cold in thin clothes, like she was important.
They had fought next to each other for so long she had never known anything but blood under her nails and stealing and anarchy. It felt normal to strip off stiff, dark clothes and wipe thick ichor off of the blade of Gambol Shroud. It felt normal to scream into the night and shy away from the dawn and to break and enter and kill and swear.
Adam would kiss her on a good night and it felt like drinking death in a teacup; all delicate fine lines but a dark ache when she touched him and nothing else. His hands were strong – she had seen him snap necks with a flick of his wrist and smile, wicked and bright, and when they slipped up the edges of her shirt, the ravens in her chest spread their wings in a terrified flight.
He was everything that she thought she wanted.
He was impressive and sleek and knew what he wanted and did anything until he got it. He was pure power, and when he'd slide across their bed, smooth silk sheets tugged lower down her legs, she'd relent, pull him closer, pull him so that for once he didn't have to push to get what he wanted.
Blake dreams about the train car decoupling.
Forever Fall had been picturesque as she had severed her connection to the only friend and lover she had known. The train car had continued to meander for a while, winding down mountain roads, and Blake stayed the entire ride, leaning against cool steel, and wishing that crying would help her feel any less empty.
Her last option had been Beacon Academy. There was nothing else for her to do, and after months of lingering through Remnant like a forgotten shadow, she was itching to fight. Grimm were easy targets, and she could feel good about herself for a change, and when her application had been accepted with haste, there had been nothing but overwhelming relief.
It was a blessing, she supposed, to have her experience with killing, and it offered her some sort of morbid pleasure, thinking of a few esteemed individuals looking over her application and humming interestedly, pointing out her credentials and qualifications. Grimm needed to be killed, and Blake could do exactly that. She moved quickly and her Semblance was useful to distract some sluggish monster while she worked on the objective at hand.
Beacon Academy's orientation had been nothing short of depressing. It had made Blake a bit apprehensive about the headmaster, in all of his green velvet glory and sleepy, uninterested gaze. Of course, confronting the heiress of a company she had been working against for years had made her feel a teensy bit better about the whole day. When night fell, Blake had chosen to hunker down in a corner with her novel, trying to distance herself from the overall chatter of the makeshift room.
It wasn't until a delighted, sing-song greeting caused her to peer over her book that her first day got infinitely better. A tall, voluptuous blonde had approached with a smaller, darker companion – that girl who had sneezed a hole into the ground.
Blake smiled faintly at the memory. The brunette – Ruby – was a bit socially inept, but showed promise of being a choice companion in discussing literature later. She was sweet, in an innocent, naïve way. Her sister – Yang – was all untamed energy. She was bright and full and bouncy, blonde hair feathering away from fine cheekbones into gravity-defying curlicues.
Saying that Yang was gorgeous was an understatement. In her thin tank top and short shorts, she looked more like a pinup model than a Huntress. Her teeth were often visible in her wide, amicable grin; her mouth was always in motion, either talking or smiling or puckering and frowning in expressive emotion.
And maybe Blake went searching for her after they're catapulted fifty feet into the air. It certainly wasn't a total loss when Yang shot her a brilliantine smile after she had cleaved into an Ursa Major's chest cavity. Besides, they worked well together. Blake could get in some good, distanced shots with Gambol Shroud while Yang worked on getting up close and personal with a Nevermore's parted beak.
Team RWBY had been a bit of a mess in the beginning, what with Weiss's daily temper tantrums and Ruby's manic sugar highs, but when Blake ran away, it had been a massive wake up call. Torchwick's master plan had been foiled thanks to an incredibly unnerving friend(?) by the name of Penny, who somehow made everyone in a five feet radius feel uncomfortable, and Blake went home with a stronger team.
The rest of her team found ways to pull her out of her shell slowly but surely. Blake would somehow end up covered with flour and a haphazardly iced strawberry cream cake and a beaming, floury Ruby. Weiss would offer her fencing lessons and kick her ass into the ground every time without fail. And Yang would crawl into her bunk on lazy nights, arms wrapped around her knees and hair pulled up high.
Sometimes she'd look older than seventeen, just tired. Yang would rest her head on her tucked up knees and smile at Blake, gentle and warm. Blake would close her book and return her smile, and however tentative and small it was, Yang would give it back tenfold.
"You know what, Blake?" Yang had said one night.
"Mmm?" Blake hummed, knotting her thick hair so that it sat in a bun atop her head. She clamped a hair tie between her teeth and sat up rigidly to get her hair in control.
Yang paused and licked her lips. She looked deep in thought, but in a slow, deliberate way, she leaned forward and kissed Blake. Despite the hair tie in her mouth, Blake sank into the kiss effortlessly, hands falling from where they were fiddling with her hair, and resting on Yang's shoulders. Yang kissed her like she was sweet and she loved every moment of it.
Yang pulled away with the hair tie between her teeth, eyes half-lidded. Blake kept her eyes closed, fingers still light on Yang's skin.
"Yang." Blake whispered, voice impossibly quiet. "Yang…"
"Blake." Yang didn't whisper her name like a secret or in a whisper that needed to be hidden; she said it like a name and like a love letter and Blake leaned closer to her.
Blake reached up and plucked the hair tie away from Yang's mouth, tossing it aside with purpose. The Faunus reached up and pulled Yang's mouth down to hers again, her hand sliding into long blonde hair. Yang pulled away for a split second to laugh breathlessly.
"You know there's no going back now, Belladonna." Yang ducked back to steal another kiss. "I've fallen too goddamn hard for you."
Blake smiled against her mouth before pushing Yang flat against her bunk. She hovered above the blonde, smirking down at her, flushed and breathless.
"Then don't get up."
Blake knows who she is. She is dark and scarred and Yang is light and smiling, and some days when she wants the world to leave her alone to die, Yang will push back her covers and she will let sunlight touch her heart and force the ravens in her chest to scatter because god, Yang burns – untouchable – and she wants to feel warm.