BOM - BOM - BOM
Yang pounded her fist on the door of Ross's forge.
"You sure he's here?" asked Yang.
"There's smoke coming out of the chimney. If he'd left, any good blacksmith would have put out the forge."
"Well mayb-" The top half of the door opened up. Ross showed himself wearing his goggles and face all black with soot.
"Ruby, right? I thought you'd be back at one?"
"Well, my sister here wanted to 'meet' you, and I wanted to apologize."
Yang was confused."Wait, apologize for what?"
"I'm sorry I threatened to break your legs if I didn't get Crescent Rose back all right." Yang did the natural thing and put her palm to her face in embarrassment.
Ross spoke. "If it makes you feel better, I also care for weapons as if they're people." Ruby and Ross shared a mutual smile. "Anyways, I'm being rude." he acknowledged Yang. "I'm Ross, Ross Festus." He took off his right glove and extended it to Yang. "and your name is…"
"Yang Xiaolong."
"Nice to meet you, well, the two of you are welcome to come in if you want to check up on your scythe."
"That's nice, thanks."
She was doing her best not to barge through the door and check up on her beloved. Ross opened the bottom part of the door and let Ruby and Yang in.
The first thing Ruby noticed were the weapons. On the steel walls hung various weapons. A chainsaw that had a gun barrel on the top side, a spear that doubled as a sniper rifle, arced half-moon blades that attached to the wrists which seemed to have green dust lining the edges of the blades. Ross had an imagination, that's for sure.
The entire cabin was lined wall-to-wall with countertops and cupboards with a sink attached. At the back of the cabin was the forge, an intense industrial fireplace where inside, the fire was controlled to be whatever temperature Ross required. Nearby the forge was two workbenches with various hammers and pliers laid across one of them. On the other…
"My scythe!" Ruby went over to her craft… and then noticed there was no blade... just the gun.
"Where…"
"The blade is being heat-treated in the furnace to your left." said Ross. Ruby turned to see an oven built into the wall. Three rectangular slots were built into the door and they glowed orange with heat.
"The blade's in there?"
"Yeah."
"What are you doing exactly?" asked Yang.
"Well, first I melted the blade…"
"WHAT?!" Ruby yelled and grabbed the closest weapon she could find, Ross's hammer, a good sized ball-pin hammer about two feet long, and rushed at Ross with it. She swung the hammer at him. Typically, one would not swing a hammer this size sideways, but Ruby swung it like she would her scythe, and missed. Ross stepped back to dodge the blow, and Ruby ended up swinging the hammer into the nearby support wall where it lodged itself stuck. Ruby tried to pull the hammer free, but Ross put one hand on the head of the hammer that was sticking out of the wall, and his other hand on the handle where Ruby was trying to pull it. Yang came over and grabbed Ruby from behind her shoulders and put her into a full nelson. Ruby resisted, but it wasn't enough.
"What did you do Ross?" said Yang, particularly frustrated with Ross.
Ross looked Ruby in her angry silver eyes and calmly said: "I melted it, and then I molded it."
Ruby became confused. "Wait...what?"
"I reverse engineered the designs for the blade, made molds for the individual blade components, and then I melted down your blade only to remake it like it was before. In other words, every bit of metal that you gave me, is still part of the blade, nothing was replaced, just remade."
Ruby stopped resisting Yang's grip, and she let her go. "I don't know what to say." said Ruby, almost sobbing. "I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to… I just...please don't be mad."
"It's all right, you're gonna have to try a lot harder than that to make me mad." said Ross jokingly. Having been relieved from her guilt, Ruby promptly walked up to Ross and hugged him, sobbing. "Shh...shh...it's ok, it's ok." said Ross, hugging her back and trying to calm her down. " You're getting your skirt all dirty with soot." Ruby didn't care, she hugged Ruby and pressed her face against Ross's chest, getting the entire right side of her face all black with ash.
"Let it out...Let it out…" said Ross as he waved Yang over to the two of them. During this ordeal, Yang had just been standing there letting Ruby and Ross sort things out. Aside from restraining Ruby when she was out of control, the whole situation seemed too personal for her to get involved.
Yang pulled Ruby away from Ross. It wasn't hard, nor did Ruby resist, but she was still sobbing. She was so concerned and reckless about her scythe, so mad at herself for going ballistic against the guy who was trying to help her, and he simply forgave her? Her tears were those of joy, washing away the guilt and anger she had amassed over her painful, lonely life. She fell to her knees, and looked the ground as she tried to hide her tears from Ross.
Ross went over to the sink and took off his gloves, then he grabbed some paper towels from a countertop and walked over to where Ruby was kneeling. Ross crouched down to her level and said: "Here, let me." Ruby raised her face up to meet Ross, and she stared into his dark yet kind black eyes as he wiped her face. Ruby's sobbing started to stop, slowly at first...and then all at once. She felt the paper towel as it moved across her face, scraping away all the soot that was wet with her tears, until her face was as white and rosy cheeked as they day she was born.
When Ross was done, they both stood up, Ross helped Ruby onto her own two feet. Ruby was looking straight into Ross's eyes and he reacted like Ruby had hoped he would: He blushed.
Trying to keep a straight face, he said: "Tell you what." said Ross. "When the blade has finished tempering, I'll deliver it to your dorm. How does that sound?"
"I'd like that a lot." she said with a smile.
"Good." said Ross, returning the smile.
Yang butted in: "Well, you must be busy…"
"Right, right, I'll err- see you later then."
Ruby started to walk toward the door, and then she stopped.
"Is something the matter?" Ruby ran over to Ross and hugged him, wrapping her arms around him, and nuzzled the side of her face into Ross's chest, this time she took notice of how warm and comfortable Ross's chest was, like a fireplace even though the only thing separating Ross and Ruby was a black and dirty leather apron. Ross returned the hug, putting his right hand on the back of Ruby's head and his left hand on her back.
They stayed like that for some time until Ruby finally let him go, smiling as she left him.
Authors Note: Hello all you lovely people.
This was easily my most emotional chapter, as Ruby starts to fall for Ross.
For those of you who want a physical description of Ross, I'll just sum up what I've got so far since I never really tell all his details at once.
Age: 16, a year younger than Weiss, Blake, or any other freshman save for Ruby.
Height: Nothing specific, but he is a foot taller than Ruby
Hair: Black and curly.
Build: rather muscular, not like that of a body builder, but being a blacksmith demands a lot of physical strength.
Eyes: Jet black to match his hair.
Skin: Caucasian, covered in soot most of the time, but that because we havent seen him when he isn't working in his forge.
Clothing: Jeans, leather apron that covers him from his shoulders to his knees to protect against the dangers of being a blacksmith, a black shirt goes underneath that and finally, Round goggles that he slides up to his forehead when he isn't working.
