The main lobby had a chandelier.

It was nearly three times Blake's height, all gilt and glitter; a snowflake and a star rolled together into something ridiculous and beautiful. All around, murals covered the panels of the domed ceiling, bearing painted scenes of battles and glory, warriors across the ages fighting legendary grimm. Carved vines wove around it all, down the walls to the timeworn stone of the floor.

It was breathtaking, but a sense of unease stirred Blake's thoughts. On whose back was this built?

She shook off the stray thought as a hand on her side brought Blake back to the present. "Hey," Yang said, pressing close behind her, pressing a light kiss into Blake's hair. "You okay, babe?"

Leaning back into her arms, Blake exhaled long and slow. "Yeah, just… a little overwhelmed, maybe? It's a lot to take in." As she spoke, her eyes drifted to where Ruby and Weiss stood not far away. Ruby spoke animatedly, gesturing up to the paintings as Weiss nodded in contemplation. Blake took her breath back in. "So…"

"So, we should really talk for a sec?" Yang's voice was soft, marred by a mote of worry. Her sight was on the other girls as well.

Blake sucked up her anxieties and faced her girlfriend head on. They both knew where this was going.

"So, the stuff with Weiss…" Yang's eyes got lost and her hands grew tense. "I really am sorry, I got carried away and I didn't even…"

"It's alright," Blake said. "I was surprised, but…" Her shoulders hunched, and she found herself unable to look at Yang directly. "If anything I should really be apologizing for what happened with Ruby."

Yang mulled over the words for a moment, before sagging with an exaggerated groan. "This is silly. We're being silly." The words pulled a little smile out of Blake, before a hand touched her cheek. "Hey, look at me?" Blake did, and Yang's smile hit her face like sunlight. "I'm not mad, or jealous," Yang said, eyes filled with infinite fondness. "And unless I'm getting a lot worse at reading the people I love, you and Ruby both enjoyed that little moment you had. It's a win-win. No guilt required."

Blake's heart tried strained in her chest. "Gods, what did I ever do to deserve you?" she muttered. Yang laughed, wrapping her in a big tight hug. The warmth washed everything else out.

Blake let herself linger a while. Yang was a mountain, solid as stone and warm as magma, and her shoulder was a damn good place to rest one's head.

Still, evaporating tension left subtler questions exposed. "Do you have any idea what's going on with them?" Blake ventured, not lifting her head. "We're apologizing to each other, but they're the ones who initiated things with us . Escalated, even. That's… a pretty odd thing to do on their first date."

"Oh it's super weird." Yang's brow deepened. She brought a hand up, running it gently through Blake's hair, ghosting tantalizingly close to her cat ears. "Ruby getting cozy with you I could shrug off—she's always been huggy—but Weiss is like a flipped switch ever since last night."

"Mmm." Blake nodded, shuddering as the motion brought Yang's hand in brief contact with sensitive fur. "What should we do? Stay the course? Call them on it?"

"I dunno." Yang's hand fell down Blake's hair, down to run circles along her back. "What do you want to do?"

It took a long moment to come up with an answer, longer still to convince herself to give it, but Blake did. She pulled away, looking Yang in the eyes, committing her confidence to the words. "Honestly? I'm having a pretty good time. As long as it's comfortable, let's let it go, see where things go from here. Any objections?"

"Sounds good to me…" Yang trailed off, eyes traveling. "God, I'm so proud of both of them."

Blake smiled, craning her neck to look.

Ruby and Weiss stood together, hands linked, words hushed. They glanced over their shoulders as one, and for a breathless moment all four of them were just looking at one another.

Something burned in Blake's chest, sweet and fragrant. "Yeah, me too."

Weiss's eyes drifted away from the purple and the gold. "Oh hell."

Ruby giggled, nudging her with a pointy little elbow. "Having a big gay feeling?"

"Evidently, yes," Weiss huffed, but her glare was without ire. "I'm sorry about escalating things earlier."

"Don't be." Ruby kissed her lightly on the temple. "I wouldn't have been able to make a move on Blake if you didn't."

"Oh ho," Weiss turned a wicked smirk on her. "So you did do that on purpose. I didn't take you for the aggressive type."

"Hey, I asked you out!" Ruby's blush grew deeper, along with her smile. "So much for 'too early,' though. We're kinda hopeless…"

"It's the opposite." Weiss's thoughts drifted back to Yang's laughter, to Blake's blush, and it like she was drifting, full of light. "Last night, this morning, and just a few minutes ago… I have more hope now than I ever have in my whole life." Her eyes fell to land on Ruby's. "And I owe that all to you."

Ruby's eyes glittered, and suddenly there were rose petals everywhere. Weiss's ribs felt like they were going to shatter under the pressure of the embrace. Their auras came alive for a moment, touching like a kiss.

"I love you," Ruby said, her voice shaking. "So much."

Weiss felt tears in her eyes, and saw them in Ruby's. Gingerly, she wrapped her arms around the smaller girl, running her fingers through her hair. "I love you too."

"I want you to be happy. I want to be happy with you."

Weiss's breath caught in her throat, hands trembling as she swept away the dyed tresses, making room to press a kiss on Ruby's forehead. Then, as Ruby tilted her head up, her lips. They kissed for a long moment, until Ruby fluttered off into a sigh, going limp against the collarbone.

Weiss noticed the other two approaching, shooting them a smile even as Ruby refused to break from their embrace.

Blake cleared her throat, "You know… we are here to look at the exhibits."

"Five more minutes," Ruby mumbled from somewhere around Weiss's collarbone. "Besides, she's prettier."

There was no hiding the blush that produced. "You haven't even seen them yet," Weiss chided gently.

"Dun matter. You're the prettiest."

"Dorks," Yang proclaimed, stopping to ruffle Ruby's hair. Then, after a moment of hesitation—

Weiss squeaked. "Yang! Do you have any idea how long it takes to do this up?"

The scenery changed as they finally entered the gallery. The intricate stonework of the foyer was gone, hidden behind stark white walls lined with paintings. Sculptures stood in the open spaces between, styles and subjects varying wildly.

"This wing is the main collection," Yang said, guiding them forward like a tour guide. "There's a big exhibition further in, but I figured it'd be good to start with the classics."

Blake's eyes roved the walls. This section was mostly portraits, pre-war, most of them. Faces stared down off the walls, regal and poised, their hands clasped, or holding books or scepters, marks of noble station sewn into rich fabrics.

And not a single faunus among them.

Blake sighed a bit, shrugging it off as Weiss gravitated towards one of them. It was a rather small thing, all told. Nothing to get worked up over.

She followed Weiss's attentions to a particular cluster of paintings, gathered works of a single artist. From the style of clothing and the decor behind them Blake guessed that they subjects were all Mantellian nobility.

Weiss was entranced. "I didn't know this museum had any Montblancs, much less four. " She leaned in, finger raised to trace the air above the glass cases. "That brushwork."

Blake looked, eyes widening as she caught what Weiss was saying. The brushstrokes layered over one another in an elaborate pattern, layers of almost transparent paint adjusting the colors beneath. It was intricate, so much so that Blake could only imagine it'd taken weeks… months of work to lay down. "That's… incredible," she said, catching Weiss's smile.

"Javiert Montblanc has always been one of my favorite artists," Weiss murmured, her eyes softening. "His grasp of color and light is astonishing."

Blake stepped back, her eyes taking in the painting more seriously. A woman, wearing a sharp-cut blue uniform, her chin lifted in quiet regality. A broad spread of medals glittered on her chest—Blake had to tilt her head to be sure they weren't actual metal pieces set into the canvas. The composition was where the magic was, though. The way the light seemed to slash across her body, the way shadows carved her jawline, the hollows of her eyes, the press of thin lips under a sharp, scarred nose.

Blake shook her head. "There's so much . Who is she?"

"Second Princess of Mantle, Aria Wilhelm," Yang said. "Gotta admit, I'm not usually so into the 'fancy portraits of rich people' section, but Montblanc really was something else."

Weiss nodded sharply, her eyes locked with those of the long-gone princess. "My grandfather was one of his last subjects," she said. "I used to stare at the painting for hours. I believe it still hangs in the library back… home."

Her voice trailed off, her smile gone. "It's a shame, really. Father never uses the library, and Whitley doesn't care for much for art."

Ruby hugged her from behind. "You should steal it!"

"W-WHAT?"

Blake cracked up, even as Ruby enthusiastically dug herself deeper. "It'll be great! We can stake out the house, learn all the guard rotations and block the security cameras, then sneeeeak into the library, stuff the painting into a suitcase, and board the airship we conveniently booked earlier! It's perfect. "

"There… there are so many flaws in that plan." Weiss stared at her partner aghast, but she couldn't keep the smile off her face. "You don't need to stake anything out, I grew up in the house. There aren't any guards, and the security drones won't activate if the cameras see that I'm with you. We'd still have to wipe the recordings somehow…" She brought her hand to her chin in quiet contemplation. "Actually… we could avoid them entirely if we used the secret entrance."

"Your house has a secret entrance?" Ruby looked ready to bounce off the walls. "Oh my god, we're definitely stealing this painting."

Blake's ears pricked up. "Uh, Ruby?"

Ruby's spine went rigid, and she turned a sheepish smile on the security guard giving her a hard look from the doorway. "N-not these ones!" she said, gesturing at the wall frantically. "Um, that's, I'm sorry!"

The guard gave her a hard look for a moment longer, before rolling his eyes and muttering "huntresses" under his breath and waving them off with a good-natured smile.

"Well, that was fun," Yang said, giving her sister a noogie for good measure. "But we've got a lot of museum left to go, and one of my favorites is up next."

She led them onward, skipping a few smaller pieces, to stand before one of larger paintings in the whole room. It was wider than Yang was tall, a landscape spread of a stark white cliffside over an icy sea. Huge cranes extended off the bluff, long ropes extending down towards a ship moored at the base, the tiny flag of pre-war Vale flying above it.

" The Clarion and the Cliffs," Yang intoned. "Also known as 'the most badass thing in the museum's permanent collection.'"

Ruby was practically vibrating in place looking at it. "Ooooooh it's as big as I remember! She grabbed Weiss and Blake by the hands, pulling them closer, oblivious to the blushes on both their faces as she did. "Look! Look at the ship!"

Blake eyes squinted, then widened in surprise. "Are those people?"

"Yup." Yang pointed back to the painting tracing a line from the sea to the cliffs. "Now check out the angle this is being painted from, how the viewer seems to be standing on the sea? Story goes, Zarri sat out on an ice floe for six hours to lay this out. Bad. Ass. "

Weiss swallowed, looking back at looking back at Ruby and Yang in astonishment. "Kovacs, you said? I don't believe I've never heard of them. Who…?"

"They were actually a student of Montblanc's, if you can believe it." Yang shot her a smile. "But the two ended up hating each other. They dueled like six times. Neither ever won."

The enthusiasm in her voice tugged at Blake's smile. "Hm. Fun."

"Dueled?" Weiss gave Yang an astonished look. "What could have driven them to…?"

"A whole lot of reasons." Yang shifted, setting her hand on her hip as her voice fell into a softer tone. "See, Montblanc was classically trained. And I mean classically— Mantellian portraiture is older than Mantle is; the tradition split off from Valish art around five hundred years before Montblanc was born. But Montblanc was good. So good that he was regarded as one of Mantle's greatest artists ever —while he was still alive. He gained enormous power in the art world, founded his own school, and overall kinda just… won the game. Nobody could touch him. Almost nobody tried."

She gestured up at the painting. "But Kovacs tried. They looked Montblanc, at the whole art world in Mantle and saw a decadent, insular community who served the political elite and had no interest in the rest of the nation. Mantle was undergoing an industrial revolution at the time. The first industrial revolution in recorded history. Kovacs grew up poor in the wharf district—they'd seen firsthand how fast the world was changing, and they wanted to document it, leave a record for the future.

"So, once they broke with Montblanc's school, they refused to do portraiture for the upper class. They took inspiration from Valish and Mistrali landscape artists, and used their portraiture skills on ordinary working people. And they were good at it. Their exhibitions were wildly popular, drawing huge crowds and travelers from all across Remnant."

Yang's face fell, her voice growing somber. "But, that didn't sit well with the ruling elite. The Labor Movement was growing in power, and Kovacs was seen as glorifying their cause. They were blacklisted by all the major art institutions, and a few years later a gang of thugs broke into their home, destroyed all the artworks stored there, and beat Kovacs almost to death. They survived, but they never painted again…"

Blake had a hand on her mouth, her heart pounding in her chest. Weiss looked ill, her hands clenched tight. Ruby just… looked less.

"…That is, until the Queen and Parliament of Mantle passed a decree outlawing all forms of art." Yang's grin split wide. "At which point Kovacs—who's like seventy at this point, for the record—suddenly bursts out of retirement and joins the resistance." She held up a hand, gesturing them towards the next set of paintings. "Which leads us to this."

Blake's eyes traveled, and then screeched to a halt.

The works in question were so much smaller, she hadn't even realized they were part of the same section. Posters, framed in glass for the gallery. Faded, printed color on tattered and frayed parchment.

The imagery was… violent. A body, twisted and broken, facing away as blood pooled beneath it, draining into a cobbled street. A man standing naked atop a scaffold with his eyes aimed skyward, an arrow sprouting from his chest. A child standing alone, her eyes cast down, her hand extended as she tossed a knit doll into a roaring fire.

Above each, huge block text, old characters Blake didn't know.

But Weiss did. "Butchered," she breathed. "Martyr. Sacrifice. My word. "

"A lot of artists protested the art ban." Yang chuckled. "Because obviously, right? But Kovacs went hard. They worked with underground newspapers and print shops to put stuff like this up all over the city. Supposedly, they were also at most of the major protests, got beaten up half a dozen times. Again: seventy years old, no aura, no semblance. They did that for eight whole years, never stopping."

Yang's voice shifted again, turning wistful. "They lived just long enough to see the end of the Great War. All four monarchs signed the Vytal treaty, giving up their sovereign power over their kingdoms. Mantle ceased the art ban and broke up the slave economy. The world turned upside down."

Yang's eyes shifted, and she turned once more to face the huge landscape. "And, as the world turned, the last King of Vale visited Mantle, arriving at the Great White Cliffs of the southern coast of Solitas aboard his flagship, the Clarion. Four months later, a carefully kept package arrived at the royal castle in the heart of Vale. Inside was Zarri Kovacs's last painting, and it's been here ever since."

Yang closed her eyes, letting out a long breath.

There was dead silence for ten whole seconds.

Then, someone started clapping.

Blake's ears spun. She hadn't realized it, but somehow they'd attracted a crowd. About thirty strangers, patrons and a few guards, drawn in by the story. The one applauding was a teenage boy, a faunus with a long brown cat's tail swishing behind him, but soon others joined in.

Blake turned back to find Yang taking a bow , and the whole moment clicked into place as something she'd remember for the rest of her life.

Weiss and Ruby were clapping now, and Blake joined in as well. "Bravo," she called, blushing slightly at the grin and wink Yang sent her way.

"Encore!" Ruby cheered. "Do another one!"

"That's all for today, I think," Yang shot a smile and a wave at the crowd before shifting her attention fully back to her team. "Gotta leave something for the paid tour guides to do, y'know?"

As the crowd slowly broke, Blake stepped in and kissed her, savoring the softness before pulling away for propriety's sake. "I sometimes forget just how good a storyteller you can be," she said, looking her girlfriend deep in the eyes.

"Well, y'know…" Yang grinned, her face glowing at the praise as she stared just as deeply back. "I had a lovely audience."

A/N

WE FINALLY GOT TO THE MUSEUM WOOO

I wanted to have another scene in here but I ran out of time and also this is a pretty good ending note for the chapter. Little more worldbuilding coming in for Atlas/Mantle here. I'll probably use the next chapter to get in a little more about Menagerie and/or Vacuo.

Overall, I think we've got 2-3 chapters to go before the end of this "arc," so to speak. I've gotten a couple comments about the general lack of stress Team RWBY has going on right now, and I think I'm kinda leaning into that for now. I have some fun and nasty plans for the future (I haven't forgotten about team JNPR, don't you worry), but this fic has turned out to be mostly fluff at its core. Which, honestly, is a nice change of pace from my other long-term projects.

Regardless, current plan is to keep this pace until the end of the arc and then drop back to once a month for whatever comes next. Real life is quite complicated right now; I'm looking into various education-y type things and probably gonna be shifting a lot of writing time to original projects/stuff I can get paid for. I'd love to write RWBY fanfic forever, but... capitalism. u_u

Thanks to Sgt. Chrysalis as always for the beta! Making my whole life easier. And thanks to everyone who's read kudoed and commented!

A/N/N

Hey readers! As of now the Ao3 and FF versions of this fic are synched! I'm going to do my best to keep it that way for the future, thanks for your patience while I put all this together!

I'll be posting the same authors notes on both versions from now on as well.