"Ruby?"
A petite girl, seemingly to be no older than fifteen turned around from leaning over the divider to the person who called out her name.
"Hmn..?"
She was met with an older girl who looked a bit concerned, although she was repressing show it. Judging from the alabaster hair, automatically it was Weiss, but why would she be up in the middle of the night?
Ruby shook her head, she should be the one telling that to herself.
"What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?" Weiss walked over to the smaller girl and stood beside her before looking up to the same starry midnight sky Ruby was previously looking at earlier, but then landed her gaze at the said girl after a few seconds.
Rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly for being caught staying up late, and by Weiss of all people. Ruby just turned back around and once again stared at the sky as if she was reminiscing something. "Well.. what're you doing up in the middle of the night?"
Weiss crossed her arms and deadpanned. "I asked you first."
Ruby sighed to which the older girl raised a brow at.
"I just.. couldn't sleep." The girl placed her chin on her palms as she stared hopelessly at the shattered moon, when Weiss didn't reply and just leaned on the balcony with her elbows, with a moment of hesitance, Ruby opened her mouth once more. "Y'know.. back at Signal, I used to have a pet bird."
She saw Weiss look at her briefly which Ruby took as a cue to keep talking. The reason as to why the little girl was having trouble talking to the older girl was because even though they seemed to have somewhat grown closer over the course of the months, she was still having trouble communicating to the heiress.
She didn't know why or if Weiss even noticed it but they always had these, constant awkwardness around each other whenever they were done doing things they always do like studying or training together. There was like, some sort of wall between them as being just practically partners than actual people getting to know each other.
Well with Ruby being such a bad conversation starter, most of the time when she tries to initiate something with the heiress she just ends up as a stuttering mess. She felt so nervous that it was driving her crazy as to why.
Weiss had been certainly more civil towards her ever since that Boarbatusk incident, so what was up with her being all so shy all of a sudden? It was a perfect opportunity to actually be friends with her instead of being just strictly teammates so she should've just got on with it!
Ruby groaned in exasperation which Weiss noticed.
"Are you that stressed over your pet that you look so troubled?" The older girl commented in mild confusion and amusement.
"A-Ah no.." Ruby shook her head, but Weiss just looked at her dead in the eye to which the little girl sighed in defeat. "..well maybe, yes."
Weiss took a deep breath and stared back at nowhere, leaving a slightly confused Ruby looking at her. "So, what kind of bird is your pet?"
"A homing pigeon, I used to put random messages on her leg band occasionally so that when she flies away some people could read it.. It was actually meant to I don't know.. inspire some people? Those were just random quotes anyway but they do disappear from her leg band so I guess some people can read them." She was just supposed to answer shortly, but for some reason, more words just unknowingly came out from her mouth and that happened. Though, what bothered Ruby more was the complicated look on Weiss' face, as if she was trying to wrap her head around something.
"Wait so you mean your pet pigeon isn't caged or anything?" Weiss looked at Ruby seriously and seemed to be keen on hearing the answer, what had gotten to her so suddenly? Ruby answered anyway.
"N-No, she wasn't."
"Tell me more about your pet."
Albeit feeling a bit strange with Weiss' sudden change of behavior, Ruby nodded and continued. "Well her name is Fal, I first saw her with her wing stuck in a wired fence and I just had to save her that time. After that we sort of.. bonded, I made her a leg band and all that stuff, but I freed her in the end when she recovered. I didn't want to keep her away from her real home.. Though one day, she came back to my balcony in the middle of the night and that had been a daily routine in my years in Signal.."
Ruby glanced at Weiss who was deep in thought as she leaned on the divider. "Like I said earlier, I put random notes on her leg band, that was just that until she came back with a reply.. it was so sudden I didn't know what to do at the time, but managed to read it anyway. What it said though, made that day one of the best days of my life."
Weiss stared at the smaller girl beside her, more particularly on the girl's gentle smile on her face. It really seemed to be a happy memory. "What did it say?"
"It said; "You made my day, thank you.". I never really thought my notes would be much, but getting that letter was so fulfilling. After that, I wrote her back and wished so hard that Fal would send it to the one who replied. Fortunately it really did happen, and since then, we wrote letters to each other. We were such great pen pals, even though neither of us knew what we looked like in personal. We still went on and on about random stuff as if were long time best friends. It felt really great, I wanted that moment to just last for a really long time." After a second of pause, Ruby's smile gradually faded which Weiss noticed.
"Well.. that was until.. Fal never came back, and there I realized just how much that other person meant to me. But now.." Ruby laid her head on her forearms with a long sigh. "..I would probably never get the chance to talk to that person ever again."
"..to tell that person, how I felt.." She whispered to herself so that Weiss couldn't hear properly.
"I still wonder what happened to Fal though, I just hope she got lost or something and didn't.." Ruby stopped herself from saying that word, and just turned her head to look at Weiss who was looking at her hands for some reason. "Weiss..?"
"Does that leg band happen to be color red?" The said girl asked with her eyes still on her fiddling hands.
"Y-Yes." Ruby raised her head to look at Weiss more clearly. "But how did you-"
"Is that other person's pen name is.. Snow?" The older girl stared at Ruby straight in the eyes, both of their eyes now swirling with little specks of hope.
"..know.." It took the smaller girl to realize everything until it all made sense. "S-Snow..?"
"Well this is quite unexpected, I.. also thought I'd never get to talk to you again.. and I never thought it would be you of all people.."
Weiss looked down on her feet, with an ashamed look on her face, not meeting Ruby's surprised eyes.
"I've been horrible to you... I- I'm so s-"
Just before Weiss could utter those words that she rarely ever used due to her stuck-up pride, Ruby tackled her in a hug causing for both of them to fall on the ground.
"R-Ruby..?!" The heiress didn't know what to do with the girl on top of her, frankly she was still very much ashamed of the things she did to the girl, and she deserved none of this from her. But what was she to do? Was she supposed to hug her back? She still haven't even apologized yet! Ugh!
"It's fine."
Weiss widened her eyes.
"I don't care if Snow is Weiss Schnee the heiress to the SDC or even if you did give me a hard time back then. I forgive you, what really matters right now is that I've finally found you.."
Ruby heard Weiss sniff beneath her and embrace her tightly, to which the smaller girl just responds with a squeeze of her own.
"I'm so sorry.. and thank you.."
She let out a small smile in relief.
"..thank you for everything, Rosie."
"We have a lot to talk about."
"Indeed."