It didn't get better.
The next day had started with an empty bunk below Ruby and no sign of the heiress. It wasn't that she had completely disappeared though: in class Weiss sat in her seat next to Ruby like normal, and flashes of white could be seen hurrying through the halls, but it seemed like no matter what Ruby did she couldn't talk to her partner. Passing her notes in class, following her when class ended, even jumping out at her in the hallway, nothing worked. As soon as Ruby opened her mouth, Weiss would rush away. The apology she had prepared that morning turned into saying she'd made a mistake by lunch, and by dinner she was ready to scream. Stabbing her dinner angrily, Ruby tried to pay attention to her friends at the table. Team JNPR was doing their best to cheer her up, and Yang and Blake sat on either side of her, two solid columns of support.
"I'm sure you'll be able to talk soon," Jaune grinned at Ruby, missing the subtle head shake from Yang. "Sure, Weiss didn't show up for dinner tonight, but tomorrow will be better." Ruby smiled back at him, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Thanks, Jaune. I'm sure tomorrow will be better."
"Three days. It's been three days, Yang," Ruby's voice was muffled as she spoke, but she didn't bother lifted her head from her pillow. Looking at her listless sister laying in bed, Yang frowned. "It's official: she hates me."
"Just because you haven't spoken to her, or spent time outside if class with her, or haven't really seen her-" Yang quickly ended that train of thought. "It doesn't mean Weiss hates you." No response. Yang glanced at Blake, pleading for help.
"How about we go talk to her for you, Ruby?" Blake closed her book and stood, hooking her arm through Yang's. The cloak-wearing girl's nod was slight, but it was enough. The two older girls headed out, closing the door softly.
"Okay, so when we find her do you want to hold her while I rip the icicle out of her ass, or would you like the honors?" Yang grinned to show she was joking, but Blake didn't miss the flash of red in her eyes. Motioning that they should head to the library first, she let the blonde brawler vent. She knew how hard the past few days had been on her partner; watching Ruby suffer without being able to do anything was seriously stressing Yang out. Blake bumped her shoulder into Yang's and smiled slightly when Yang grinned back at her. A few minutes of peaceful silence passed while they finished their walk and marched into Beacon's library.
The library was huge, but its dark and muted colors made searching for their missing teammate easy. All they had to do was locate the splash of white, which usually could be found sitting at one of the long tables near the walls. Less than a minute passed before Blake pulled Yang's sleeve, pointing to the far corner. Partly hidden behind a mountain of books, a white ponytail slowly bobbed up and down. Stalking over, careful to stay quiet as to not upset the librarian, they moved to stand on either side of their target. Yang opened her mouth to yell, but one look at the heiress killed whatever she had planned on saying.
"Weiss, you look terrible." Weiss glared up at Yang, dark bags under her eyes standing out against her pale skin. Her hair and clothes were spotless as usual, but seemed to be missing a bit of their normal crispness. Her icy mask slipped, and she cocked an eyebrow at Yang's slack-jaw expression. But as soon as it happened, the mask reformed and Weiss returned to her normal expression.
"Do you need something, or did you just come here to bother me?" Yang blinked, remembering the why she was there, and leaned over the table.
"You need to stop ignoring your partner," she punctuacted her words with a poke to Weiss' forehead. "I don't know why you two are fighting, and I don't care. Knock it off and talk."
"We're not fighting," leaning back in her chair, Weiss escaped the poking finger. "We're just not talking at the moment."
"Yeah, that's not gonna cut it. You're going to go right now and talk to Ruby." Weiss' shoulders slumped.
"I can't. Not right now, at least," she opened her mouth to continue, but closed it immediately. Blake glanced at the piles of books the heiress had gathered: mostly books on Grimm and fighting Grimm, but there were also a number on dreams and understanding them.
"Weiss, what's going on with you?" Weiss looked up into concerned amber eyes.
"I... haven't been sleeping well," standing quickly, she moved to escape her two teammates. "That's all I want to say on the matter. I'll be fine, I just need more time alone."
"Nope," Yang grabbed a pale arm, stopping her escape. A small grin rested on the blonde's face.
"'Nope'?"
"Nope." Shifting her grip, Yang lifted her white teammate off the floor and onto her shoulder. An upset shriek made the grin wider, and Yang took off, racing out of the library and toward the dorms. She didn't need to look to know that her faunus partner was keeping pace next to her, most likely trying not to smile at how ridiculous they must look to passerbys.
It didn't take long to reach their room. Kicking the door open, Yang chucked the still shrieking Weiss onto a surprised Ruby. Waving at them, she slammed the door shut and leaned back, holding the door shut. The noise alerted their nearby neighbors, and Blake moved away to explain the situation to a very confused team JNPR.
"Talk, you two," Yang grinned at the sound of complaints. "I'm not letting you two out until you've settled everything." Listening through the door, she could just barely make out muted voices. Minutes passed and the sounds quieted. Yang smiled at a job well done. Now all she had to do was wait until Ruby told her everything was okay. Finished with her conversation with their friends, Blake took her place next to Yang. Her bow twitched slightly, and she looked at the door.
"How's it going?" Yang gave her a thumbs up.
"Perfect! They've really quieted down, so I bet it won't be long before we can let them out."
"Mhmm. And you made sure that the window was locked, right?" The grin froze and slid off Yang's face. Opening the door, she stepped into an empty room. Staring at the open window, her eyes flashed red. Blake sighed as Yang threw her upper body out the window.
"RUBY! WEISS! GET YOUR ASSES BACK HERE!"
Ruby shivered. The distance made understanding the words impossible, but there was no denying that the angry yell had definitely come from her older sister. Glancing at the girl running beside her, it was obvious that Weiss had also realized that there'd be hell to pay when they went back. Slowing down her mad dash, Ruby looked around and pointed toward a bench under a tree nearby. Nodding silently, Weiss followed her to the seat, hidden from the school's view by a few large rose bushes. Plopping down, Ruby let out a sigh of relief. Carefully sitting on the opposite end of the bench, Weiss let her tense shoulders relax.
"So, how mad do you think Yang is? On a scale of one to ten."
"A scale of one to ten? At least a twelve," Ruby giggled at the response.
"Aw, it can't be that bad. By the time we go back, Blake will have calmed her down to at least an eight," looking at each other, they smiled before Weiss quickly turned away. The smile fell from Ruby's face. "I give up. I'm sorry Weiss, what did I do to make you hate me?" Weiss' head whipped around to face her partner, mouth hanging open.
"I don't hate you, Ruby. Just the opposite, I-" Weiss bit back her words, wringing her hands together while she thought of how to explain. "You're the best partner, the best leader, I could have hoped for. And I want to be the best partner you could want, but lately I just... I just..." Ruby sat perfectly still, waiting for Weiss to continue. The silence stretched on for minutes, until Weiss held her hands out, palms up, beseeching Ruby to understand her unfinished thoughts.
"... So you don't hate me?" Weiss violently shook her head, making Ruby grin. Scooting closer, she leaned her head on the stiff girl's shoulder. "Then everything's okay? We can go back to how things used to be?" A tense nod was all Ruby needed to throw her arms around her partner in a giant hug. Knowing Weiss' aversion to public affection, she slowly started to pull away, but a thin arm wrapped around her back, holding her in place. Smiling, Ruby replaced her head on Weiss' shoulder and gave her another squeeze. they sat there, holding each other peacefully, for what felt like hours before a small whisper broke the silence.
"I've been having trouble sleeping the past few days." Shifting her head, Ruby looked up to see Weiss' scarred eye was gazing forward sightlessly, her mind somewhere else. "I keep having the same dream... well, I guess it's more of a nightmare. We're out of a mission, and at first everything is great, but then it all goes wrong. We mess up, and no matter what I do someone gets hurt," Weiss shifted, quickly wiping away a stray tear. "No matter what I do, I can't protect my team. I can't protect you." Ruby leaned closer, holding her tighter.
"It's just a dream. I'm fine," taking her partner's head in her hands, Ruby forced scared blue eyes to look into her calm silver ones. "We're going to be huntresses. That means that we'll end upon dangerous missions and that at some point we'll get hurt. All we can do is work together to keep each other as safe as possible." A small smile crossed Weiss' face, and Ruby smiled back. Taking a deep breath, Weiss stood, leaving the safety and comfort of her partner's arms. Tuning around, she held out her right hand to the still sitting girl.
"Shall we head back to the dorms?"
"Yeah," Ruby took the hand, smiling brightly. "Hey, I bet Yang won't be nearly as mad now that we've made up." Weiss glanced over at the cheery girl walking next to her.
"In that case, I'll let you explain to Yang that it was your idea to jump out the window." Horror filled Ruby's face for a second, before she saw her partner's shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
Laughter filled the garden as the two girls walked towards their almost certain doom.
Thunder rumbled and the fat dark clouds threatened heavy rainfall. Tall giants of stone reached upwards, forming jagged rows that separated a small section of Vytal from the rest of the continent. Large black creatures stalked the rocks, hunting for any unlucky victims who stumbled into their lands. A hunched figure paused, looking for landmarks in the unforgiving mountains. There, a rock that looked a lot like an ursa doing a headstand. Shifting direction slightly, the figure headed east until coming across a small cave.
Entering the cave, the figure stretched and scratched at dirty hair. No one said that being on a mission would be glamorous. Flipping a switch on the radio and grabbing a chunk of hardtack, the figure sat down and waited to find out if there were any new mission details. Popping static signaled that there was indeed a message. Just not an expected one.
"...? It's Glynda. I'm at Beacon..." A stone struck the broken radio and a voice raw from self-inflicted silence swore at the machine's inability to record just one message completely. "... I need you... Ozpin's orders are to come to Beacon as soon as possible... Please... hurry..." The radio sputtered and fell silent. The figure stood and gathered a few belongings before easing out into a sudden downpour. A grin broke out across the figure's face, caked on dirt cracking and falling away.
It looked like life was about to get a lot more interesting.
A/N: Finished another chapter, huzzah! Hmm, I thought I'd come up with something clever to put here, but all my brain is telling me is, "write the next chapter! We don't need sleep!"