A/N: All fluff, no plot. You're welcome. Enjoy.

"The Vytal Festival tournament is coming up within a week. Any teams representing Beacon will sign up the day before," Professor Goodwitch said, pushing her glasses back up. "As it is, you all must be on guard. The White Fang is increasing its efforts and may attack unprovoked. Keep your teams with you at all times when leaving Beacon."

The hologram faded, and we headed to get our food, sit down and talk like the old times. Before I let homesickness get me down, it had... been like this. Cardin was going to redouble his efforts to get me out, and I knew it. But, honestly, I didn't care. I had friends here, even if I'd only been here... a month? Time seemed to fly by so fast, it was unreal.

Ruby was talking about entering, and so was Roy. The two of them seemed really excited for the tournament. If only I was, I could've joined in on the conversation. But they talked about it excitedly, and I couldn't help but get infected by the excitement despite myself. The two of them were gushing over what weapons that they'd see and what their names were.

"Come to get you back to trainin'," Jet's voice tore clear through my thoughts. I nodded and got up, leaving Roy and Ruby to talk about the tournament. The training area was different today. In fact, it was Forever Fall. Jet started me on the basic drills before getting back to the althete crap that I knew I couldn't do. Jumps, backflips, twirls... How to carry my weapon during these moves. It was hell, and I always needed a shower afterwards because of how much I was sweating. Afterwards, he had me fight a Grimm to see how far I'd come. I wasn't able to kill it until I shot it with my pistol. But when I did, it felt like training had paid off.

But I still had a long way to go.

When I got back to my room, there were clothes on my bed, folded up and ready to use. Odd. I shrugged and went to shower, coming out after dressing in the clothes. They felt soft..

The dark blue jacket was long, at least to my knees, with intricate designs woven in light blue threads to the back, the white shirt was basically just a normal shirt, the black pants were fitted with two bags, which had Dust in them, and the boots, which were also black, were laced with white strings. There was a place to put my weapon, too. Pulling on my gloves, I put my old outfit in the laundry.

There was a note that simply told me to put the clothes to good use. I stared at it before putting it away in my nightstand and heading out, making sure to take my weapon with me.

I checked my scroll, which had all sorts of messages from Ruby, at varying degrees of worry, two from Yang and one from Roy. I listened to them all before putting my scroll away and kept walking. It was dark out, and I sat at the fountain while severely wishing I had some sort of way to decipher a message. It felt like... I dunno, someone just liked making me feel indebted to them or something?

"Everything's been thrown out of whack since I got here. I couldn't figure out what was happening next. And now... Cinder bought me Dust, I have new clothes, and I'm..."

"A sitting target?"

I looked over, only to see Ruby there. She smiled meekly and waved at me before sitting down with me.

"Isn't it difficult, Ruby? ...Being a leader with no formal training in the subject?" I asked.

"Well, yeah. But look at Jaune. He didn't think he was cut out for it, but Ozpin knew he had it in him," Ruby replied, running her fingers through the water. "He knew you had it in you... You just don't know it yet."

"I see." I looked up to the shattered moon, staring at it. "What if he made a mistake with me, though? I'm not good enough to be a leader..."

"Nope!"

"Huh?"

Ruby grinned. "You're good enough. You just have your ups and downs... Like anyone would, really. You're a great leader, I can feel it," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "There's really no reason you can't be."

"Thanks, Ruby."

"No problem!" She smiled.

I got up off the fountain and pulled out my weapon before turning to her. "Can... we spar?"

"Prepare yourself!" Ruby said, jumping off the fountain dramatically and pulling out Crescent Rose.

And that was the night Ruby kicked my lame ass.

Classes continued the next day, and the first class was Doctor Oobleck's. He talked about the Faunus,and discrimination before assigning us an essay on the pros and cons of Faunus discrimination. Professor Galdwyn kept calling on me, even when I didn't have my hand raised and Cardin got all his answers right... obviously.

Professor Port was easier to handle, and I finally proved to him I could take out a Grimm on my own after all that damn rigorous training. He was happy at that, and told me I reminded him of himself. I blanched, and left class at the bell.

School basically was the same, except for the fact I started seeing Cinder, Emerald and Mercury during lunch between classes. Jet would take me to Forever Fall after I ate something and we would train, and I'd shower and, after classes were over, I'd go to bed. It was basically the same routine.

It was also a good thing, as it prevented me from thinking about home. Weiss still complained that Neptune cheated at Remnant: The Game, though. Still funny, too. Even after we all lost to him. There'd been a time that Ren had almost had him when Neptune took out his army. Nora initiated another food fight at dinner, and this time my team and I participated.

The week went by fast, and I'd had fun. One night, I was out by the fountain again when I heard footsteps close in on me.

"Good evening, Azura. I think it's time you came with us."