Ruby had a habit of being the first to awaken every morning, ready for the next day. And this morning was no different even though she had been the last to bed the previous night. Taking advantage of the early morning quiet, she burrowed her face into the soft, white hair of the girl sleeping in her arms.
Inhaling deeply, she savored the scents of vanilla that perpetually surrounded her bed mate. She and Weiss didn't get to spend much time together like this, so Ruby took advantage of any opportunity she could. Unfortunately, like every morning, the moment would not last for long.
As Weiss began to stir in her arms, Ruby knew she would need to greet the day soon. But, there were a few minutes left. She smiled to herself as Weiss yawned cutely and spun around so they were now face to face. The heiress looked so at peace when asleep, as though she didn't have a care in the world.
"Good morning, Snow Angel." Ruby whispered softly and kissed her partner on the forehead.
The girl's brilliant blue eyes flashed open, catching Ruby in her entrancing gaze. The leader smiled in return. This was one of her favorite parts of waking up, being able to snuggle and stare into each other's' eyes.
"R-Ruby?" Weiss stuttered.
"Yes, beautiful?" The red and black haired girl replied as seductively as possible.
Next thing she knew, she was hitting the ground, completely tangled in the sheets and blanket she dragged off with her.
"What the hell were you doing in my bed?!" Weiss screeched, sitting straight up after shoving Ruby off the bed. Ruby managed to tuck her ears down, avoiding the pain from such a loud sound. Groans came from the far side of the room as Blake and Yang's sleep was disturbed.
"First, that's my bed." Ruby shot back, desperately trying to untangle herself from the bedding. "And second, this is no way to treat your girlfriend."
Weiss froze. The voice was Ruby's but carried different qualities from the girl's normal voice. Less childish, less high pitched, and carried an edge of hardness and command.
Sputtering came from the opposite side of the room. Blake, now completely awake from the commotion, was frozen in a wide eye expression. Yang, on the other hand, was now sitting straight up from her usual position on Blake's bed.
"Girlfriend?!" Weiss exclaimed.
"Did you forget, Princess? You make me feel so loved." Ruby quipped. "Agh! Can someone help untangle me?!" The leader's voice started to show frustration as she continued. "Weiss? Blake? Lil' Sis? Anyone?"
"Yeah, I'm done with your jokes, Ruby Rose." Weiss stomped off towards the bathroom. "I'm taking a shower, then you have a lot of explaining to do."
As the door closed, Ruby stopped struggling. Why was Weiss acting so cold? It wasn't like her at all.
"Lil' Sis, huh?" Yang muttered to herself, barely loud enough for even Blake to hear. Recovering from the early morning excitement, she spoke louder as she inquired to the trapped girl. "Weiss does have a good point. You certainly are acting odd right now. Did you hit your head last night?"
"Can you just help me?" Ruby demanded, frustration continuing to leak into her tone.
"That's no way to talk to your big sis, Rubes." Yang rolled off Blake's bed and made her way over to where ruby lay on the ground. "Hold still." She kneeled and managed to loosen the sheets enough for the leader to free herself.
"Big sis?!" Ruby finally managed to pull the sheets off her head and torso. "Why is everyone acting so odd?"
When she received no response she decided to crawl back onto the bed. If everyone was going to act weird, she was going to lay in bed until everyone was ready for breakfast.
"Uh… Sis?" Yang managed to spit out. Unknown to the leader, both Yang and Blake were staring at her wide-eyed.
"Yes, Yang?" Ruby flopped face first into the pillow.
"Why do you… uh…" The blonde stumbled over her words, not quite knowing how to phrase such a delicate question.
"When did you become a faunus?" Blake spoke for the first time in the morning, notes of curiosity creeping into her typical monotone.
Weiss stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Ruby's antics this morning had pushed her over the edge. And to think, she was having such a lovely dream. Flipping the shower to her customary cold setting, she quickly disrobed and hopped in. Between how she threw Ruby out of bed, and the freezing water she habitually bathed in, she definitely was deserving of her Ice Queen moniker.
As the ice cold water poured over her the heiress tried to puzzle out what exactly happened. She had gone to bed alone. Ruby had not even returned to the dorm by the time she had fallen asleep and it was unlike her leader to even touch her bed without asking for permission first. The only times she had ever shared with the younger girl was the occasional spat of nightmares Ruby suffered from. Even so, that had been a more recent development.
Ever since Blake and Yang had started openly dating, and sharing a bed, Weiss had started to take over for some the brawler's duties for their young leader. Offering Ruby comfort after a nightmare, occurrences of which had increased in intensity and frequency since Cinder's attack on Beacon, was just one of them. Though Weiss doubted that was the reason the dark-haired girl had been in her bed; Ruby alway woke her and asked, rather cutely at times, if she could sleep in her bed for the rest of the night.
The girl may be childish and overactive, but pranks could be ruled out. Practical jokes were not Ruby's style. She was too socially awkward to even think of pulling something like this off. So why was she in Weiss' bed, and more importantly, how did the heiress feel about it?
Ruby had been an enigma to her. Always cheerful and trying to be friends despite their rough start. Even though Weiss had not known it at the time, becoming partners with the younger girl had been one of the best things that had ever happened to her. Now the heiress had friends and people she cared about for the first time in her life. None more so than her cloak wearing partner. Everything changed during Cinder's attack during the Vytal festival. Yang had lost her arm, Blake disappeared, Weiss herself had been forced to return to Atlas, and Ruby, along with Pyrrha, had been gravely injured atop Beacon Tower. The two red-clad girls had been saved by a last second rescue from Qrow, Glynda, and Ironwood.
In the aftermath, everything had seemed hopeless. At first at least. But things eventually showed progress. Cinder disappeared without a trace after acquiring the other half of the Fall Maiden powers, along with the giant dragon grimm. Beacon was repaired and reopened just in time for the new semester; the need for new hunters was even more imperative. The injured girls eventually recovered, albeit with new scars and a new mechanical arm for Yang.
The arm itself was a gift from Ironwood. The prosthetic skin was virtually indistinguishable from real flesh, even to the touch. Though when the brawler went into battle she typically removed the 'skin', claiming it was expensive to replace. The rest of the team had their suspicions that she just preferred the look.
Blake had returned a few days before the start of the new school year; apologizing profusely to Yang and promising never to run again, as long as the blonde let her stay by the blonde's side. Weiss, like Blake, had also struggled with her personal feelings. Being removed from Ruby had been painful for reasons Weiss didn't quite understand.
At first, the heiress thought it was guilt. She had allowed her teammate to climb Beacon Tower by herself instead of accompanying the girl. Like Blake, she felt personally responsible for her partner's grievous injuries. When she realized it wasn't just guilt; there was something else. Weiss' next idea was the lack of proximity to her first and best friend. Escaping her father and returning to Beacon had significantly calmed her anxiety. With school starting up again, memories of her previous feeling were shoved to the back of her mind. It wasn't until Blake and Yang's budding relationship moved into the open that the feelings of longing she felt back in Atlas were once again were rekindled in her heart.
Over the last few months, Weiss had spent a majority of her free time trying to puzzle out her feeling for her partner. Eventually, the heiress decided to take a somewhat passive approach. She became even friendlier towards her leader and allowed herself to get closer to the younger girl.
If Ruby's actions in her bed were any indication, the girl harbored romantic feelings towards her as well. Though the abruptness was quite startling, Weiss secretly enjoyed the few nights she didn't wake up alone. This morning was particularly pleasant. She had awoken from her dreams of rose petals to those warm silver eyes. While Ruby may have been getting a little too friendly, lashing out like she did was a snap reaction she deeply regretted. She needed to apologize to Ruby when she was finished.
A loud bang of someone pounding on the door started the heiress, almost causing her to slip. Cursing loudly, she clutched her chest in fright. "What do you want?!"
"Hurry up!" Yang's voice came through the door. "Ruby's getting hungry. We're going to leave without you!"
"Five minutes!" Weiss yelled back. Quieting her shout to a soft mutter she added to herself. "No patience from these barbarians."
Getting in one last rinse, she stepped out of the shower and toweled off. After dressing all that was left was dealing with her waist length hair. A towel or a hair dryer would take too long. A sly smile graced her face as she found her solution and way to get revenge on Yang for scaring her. After all, the brawler's aura did have a helpful side effect.
The bathroom door swung open to reveal a freshly cleaned and dressed heiress. As she entered the room she took note that only Yang and Blake, both dressed in their traditional garb, were present. Her bed invading leader was suspiciously missing.
"Where's Ruby?" The white haired girl inquired of the other two. "I hope that dolt didn't leave to breakfast already. I have words for her after her shenanigans this morning."
"Nope." Yang replied popping the 'p'. "Wait... Did you just say 'shenanigan'?" Yang's mouth hung open at Weiss' unusual usage of normal human slang.
"Nevermind her. She's just excited." Blake picked up where Yang had left off. "Ruby is just outside waiting for Yang to call her back in."
"Ruby! Get your butt back in here!" The brawler yelled out keeping her eager eyes fixed on Weiss. "Time to knock the Ice Queen's frosty socks off!"
Yang's unwavering gaze was starting to unsettle the heiress. What kind of reaction was the blonde expecting from her? Typically Yang was too protective of her younger sister to allow her to walk straight into a Schnee lecture.
Yang's smile only increased as the door clicked open. Even Blake seemed uncharacteristically curious to Weiss' reaction. Finally, determined to figure out what was going on, the heiress turned towards the door.
"Ruby you have a lot of…"Weiss' stern tone vanished into confusion as her eye fell on the girl walking through the door. "Explaining… to…. do…."
Weiss couldn't understand what she was seeing. It was Ruby, yet not. The girl looked older, as though she was the proper age for a second year, and almost identical in height and proportion to her sister. But the largest difference she noticed was the pair of black and red wolf ears and red tipped wolf's tail swishing happily behind the girl.
"But… how… I mean…" The heiress resumed her sputtering as her mind raced to process the visual information; she could feel a blush start to form on her cheeks.
As she continued to stare, she noticed even more differences. The girl's face was much leaner than the Ruby she knew and was marred by three large diagonal scars reaching from her right temple to her left jaw. Gone was the short tomboyish hair; replaced with almost waist length locks of black and red.
Her outfit differed as well. While she still wore a combat skirt and boots, the skirt was less puffy and she no longer wore tights under it, showing off ample amounts of leg. Instead of a corset, her upper torso was covered by a tight fitting halter top, leaving her stomach and lower back exposed. Completely sleeveless, except for a pair of fingerless gloves. Finally, a cloak, different from her typical, rested on her back split halfway up the middle allowed free motion of her tail. Like her face, much of the girl's exposed skin showed scarring, as though she was overly reckless in battle.
It was all too much for the snowy girl to take. She felt the blush on her cheeks start to spread to the rest of her face as well. The look on her face was noticed by the faunus in front of her.
"I'm guessing you have questions." Ruby's voice snapped Weiss out of her trance. Like her appearance, it was Ruby, but not. Harder, more commanding, and a little lower in pitch. The girl's voice had an odd effect on Weiss. The continued look of stupefaction on the heiress' face pushed Yang into action.
"Long story short, Rubes here is another Ruby that is similar to ours but from another place called Unity. She touched a mirror with a wonky reflection of herself and woke up here. Unlike here, Faunus are the dominant species in Unity. This Ruby is a captain in the Unity military and also being trained to be a huntress," The blonde was speaking rapidly, barely pausing to take a breath in her excitement. "She is also my older sister there… Which, how does that work if we are both 18?"
"Humans are not thought of very highly in Unity, and even less in the Mantle Alliance. Your mother wanted a faunus child, so they wouldn't struggle the same way she did. Unable to go through state-run clinics, she turned to one of her old teammates, our father, for a donation. You were conceived artificially in Bastion, the human country, around the same time as my mother got pregnant." Ruby explained. "Unfortunately, your mother died in childbirth. Her brother helped my parents raise the both of us until he was killed by Atlesian anti-human forces who claimed he was a member of the Iron Fist. That's where I got my cloak. Since we were only a few weeks apart, Summer raised us like we were twins."
"You mean Mom's still alive?!" Yang shouted in surprise. "Can I see her some time… If that's possible." She mumbled out the last part so softly only Blake heard it.
"I would assume so, if you were permitted to travel to Unity, that is." The dark-haired girl replied. "I take it by your reaction that she isn't alive here."
"No…" The brawler looked slightly morose. Ruby's tail seemed to droop in response but the blonde powered through it and turned back to the heiress. "Oh, and the best part is, you and Ruby are dating, Weiss!"
"What?!" The heiress finally managed a response.
"You and sexy Rubes here have been shacking up for…" The blonde glanced at her sister. "How long now?"
"8 months." Ruby gritted out, flattening her ears. "And don't call me that."
"Sexy?"
"No, Rubes. But that's weird too."
"You said a mirror?" Weiss inquired.
"Yup." Ruby's ears perked up once Weiss began speaking to her.
"And we're dating?"
"Also yup." Ruby grinned at that one, her tail began eagerly swishing back and forth again.
The conversation was interrupted by a loud grumbling from the stomach of their resident cat faunus. Blake looked up sheepishly.
"I think I'm hungry."
"Breakfast it is!" Yang declared. "Then to Ozpin?"
Blake grabbed her girlfriend before the blonde could go running off in search of food. "You know, we should probably come up with an alibi for other Ruby here. I think presenting her as another person would probably be a good idea. We wouldn't want to cause a stir."
"That would be prudent." Ruby stated thoughtfully. "Any ideas?"
Yang threw her arm around her sister's shoulder. "We can be cousins. No one besides Ozpin would know that Mom didn't have a sibling, so you can be her niece. You can still go by Rose, as a first name of course. We just need a last name for you." The brawler smirked. "How about Mary?"
The other three groaned at Yang's pun.
"Some things never change." Ruby grumbled, ears twitching. "I'd rather keep my last name as Rose anyways.
"How about Amaranth then?" Offered Blake, her bow wiggling eagerly.
"Amaranth? Don't tell me that is a character from one of your 'Ninjas of Love' books." Yang elbowed her partner, eliciting a small gasp from the excited girl.
"No!" Blake exclaimed. "What I mean is, The Rose and the Amaranth is an old fable. The rose only blooms briefly, but the amaranth lasts eternal."
"You're so cute when you get poetic!" Yang picked the cat faunus up in a giant hug.
"Well, it's better than nothing." Ruby acquiesced. "Unless you have anything better, Weiss?"
The previously quiet heiress looked up in surprise at the question, as though she hadn't been paying attention.
"Uh, sure. Sounds good. Hey, I have to uh…" The blue eyed girl glanced around. "Dry my hair. I'll catch up to you guys in the cafeteria."
"You heard the lady. Let's go before Blake decides to eat one of us!" Yang pulled the other two out of the dormitory before they could ask any more questions.
What could Weiss be planning? Hopefully she doesn't miss breakfast!
Thanks to Nekoyaneko for inspiring her Pseudonym.
Like I mentioned before, this is a slightly modified version of the old chapter two as I have changed the story plan a little bit. Hope you enjoyed!