Okay, so anything in bold italics, (like this), is Blake's journal entry.
As she watched her team mate's attempts at strategizing devolve into bickering, Blake decided to sneak in a journal entry.
Classes begin again tomorrow, and while I'm desperate to begin searching for answers regarding Torchwick and the White Fang, I admit; I'll miss
this. Sparring with
Yang, intellectual debates between Weiss and myself, late night talks with Ruby. I'm sorry to see them end. However, we have a mission to
accomplish. But perhaps I can indulge myself and reminisce, just for a while.
Where to begin…Christmas might be a good place to start. Weiss and I had to stay at Beacon since our families are so far away, but Ruby and
Yang were planning on spending the holiday on Patch with their father. Unfortunately, he had a mission that ran late. Maybe it was selfish, but I was
relieved that they stayed. Holidays back home were always so special. Filled with warmth and laughter. Mom and Dad always took the opportunity to
spend time as a family, no matter how busy they were. Adam refused to celebrate these last few years, saying it was a waste of time. When Ruby
and Yang found out that I hadn't celebrated Christmas since I was 14, they just had to go all out. Weiss informed us that she spent most holidays
doing recitals. She didn't say it, but it was obvious that they weren't pleasant experiences. Cold and lonely is what they sounded like. Their first order
of business had been sneaking a Christmas tree into our dorm room. Ruby insisted we go out and cut one down ourselves, as a team. That experience
was certainly unique, to say the least. She and Yang insisted we all work to fell the tree, and use our weapons to do so. However, Yang and Weiss'
weapons aren't exactly conducive to chopping trees, so we decided they could choose the tree, while Ruby and I cut it. I simply don't know what
constitutes a good Christmas tree, and Ruby said it didn't matter to her, as long as we worked together. Who could say no to that? It was
surprisingly fun, watching Weiss and Yang try to decide on the perfect tree, which of course meant they argued. Somehow, those two have found a
way to make bickering seem amusing. Taking turns hacking away at the tree with Ruby was even more fun. For those few hours we were out there,
we were all able to forget about the dangers lurking it seems around every corner, and how it's our duty to eliminate them. If only I could forget
now. Anyway, back to Christmas. Once we got the tree inside, we had to find something to decorate it with. Being unable to return home to Patch
meant that there were no actual Christmas tree decorations. Instead, we used old jewelry, clothes, and glitter. It worked. Even though our tree was
rather small and adorned with old silver necklaces, gold earrings, and discordant strips of red, white, black, and yellow cloth, it was beautiful. I had
stressed for hours on what to get my team mates. I ended up getting Yang a new pair of boots and having her emblem put on them. Unsurprisingly,
Weiss was incredibly difficult to shop for. Afterall, what do you get the girl who has everything? I know her life was difficult emotionally, but there
was nothing she needed materially. So, I asked her partner. Ruby told me that Weiss is incredibly sentimental, and has few positive memories of
family or friends before Beacon. The two of us thought it would be nice to put together a photo album containing pictures of all our friends, and a few
photos of Zwei. Yang got her a giant stuffed polar bear. Ruby gave me this journal, and Yang gave a new bow. Purple this time. "Just in case you ever
get tired of wearing the black", is what she told me. Weiss found a book containing extremely old poetry with collections from every Kingdom, it even
includes a few poems written by Faunus shortly after the settling of Menagerie. My gift to Ruby was a copy of Faunus Fairytails and Folklore. An old
friend from the White Fang now owns a used bookstore, and he just happened to have one copy. The look on her face when she saw the book is still
perfectly etched in my memory. Ruby gave Yang a beautiful locket with our team's picture in it (we each got a copy of said picture along with our
gifts), while Ruby was given a pin that used to belong to her mother. Neither said much about it aside from that, so I'm assuming it has great
emotional and sentimental value. After opening gifts, we spent the day lounging around, watching movies, playing video games, doing a bit of light
reading. Just regular things that regular teenage girls do. Quiet and uneventful. Calm and peaceful. Hopefully, once we stop Torchwick and the White
Fang, our lives can be that way more often.
Blake closed her journal softly and sighed, so distracted was she that she failed to notice the person next to her.
"C'mon Blake, we're gonna go have dinner before we plan anything else."
"Alright Ruby, I'll be right there." Blake couldn't keep the smile off her face as she followed her leader. Maybe, just maybe, we can actually do this…
(Note: this authors note contains minor spoilers for future chapters of this story, and Volume 6 of RWBY.)
Sorry this got out so late, between finals and the holidays, I'm beat. However, I'm hoping to get a lot done over the break. I'll just get this out here now, I've said I plan on making some big changes to the events in later volumes, specifically regarding the whole gods thing. Here's what might happen: I might cut the religious aspects of the story out entirely, or I could shift some things around, keep all the lore, but make them not actually gods. Why am I telling you this now? Because some of you probably won't like what I plan to do, and I'm giving you the option to stop reading now before you spend anymore time on this story, or get invested any further into it. I want to tell you why I plan to make these changes, but FF might have rules that prevent me from doing so. That's just due to the nature of the topic at hand. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter.