A/N

Warning: I don't actually know how accurate this is. I've never really been great at any type of Science, genetics especially. I kind of just tried to make as much sense as I could with my somewhat limited knowledge of the topic. Still, I'm willing to bet that even if most of this is wrong, it still will make more sense than the World of Remnant faunus lore. Like, how does reproduction work there? Are fauna, like, their own animal? Is that why two completely different faunus species can have an even more random kid? How does that work? So yeah, in this story I chose to describe fauna as a hybrid between humans and various animal species. Please let me know if I was off with anything!

Anyways, I'll go ahead and summarize this chapter real quick. Educational snuggles. Enjoy the chapter!

A pair of redheads sat on the top of Beacon tower, the taller one having her arms wrapped comfortingly around her companion. The sun would dip under the horizon soon, and they'd have to part ways for the night. This meant that they'd have limited time to clear up Pyrrha's curiosity. But for now, they'd just enjoy this moment.

"... Ruby?"

"Mm?" Ruby didn't seem to be fully awake, leaning back into Pyrrha's chest like she did with Yang in their younger years.

"I was actually hoping that you could teach me some things about your kind. I don't really know much about fauna, just rumors and whatever I could find on the internet. Which wasn't a lot; I couldn't bring myself to keep looking through all the racism to find much reliable information. And I've never had any fauna that I was super close too. Not close enough to ask about something like that, anyways."

Ruby felt warmth and giddiness build up in her chest. She's never had a lot of close friends before. She had bonded with some people at Signal but they never tried to understand her the way Pyrrha was right now. She had only come to Beacon a few weeks ago, and she already had people she could trust and rely on. One of them even knew about and accepted her true self! "Y-yeah. Yeah! I'll tell you everything you wanna know!"

Pyrrha seemed less stiff now, and relaxed her hold on Ruby. "Well, if you'll excuse my nerdiness for a second, I was actually wondering how you worked as a whole. Are fauna half-human, half animal? Are they just humans with animal traits?"

Ruby frowned, and looked down in thought. She had spent a good chunk of her late childhood trying to learn about her species, about herself. Still, her brain still struggled to process and understand everything, much less put it into words. "Alright, I'll try to explain as best I can. It can get kind of complicated though."

"I understand. Take your time."

Ruby began her explanation about the science behind fauna. "Okay, so you know how we're split into to categories: human and fauna?" Ruby looked up to Pyrrha, who leaned down to give an affirmative nod. "That's actually the wrong way to look at it. We're all one species altogether. Think of fauna and human as a primary race, and nationality as secondary. You know, like if you're Asian, or white, or etc. Obviously, your secondary race affects a lot of your physical traits. For example, a negro would often have bigger lips, tighter hair, and broader bones than a light-skinned person. You with me so far?"

Pyrrha took a minute to process this information, metaphorical gears turning in her brain. "I think I understand. So that's why fauna have night vision?"

Ruby started twirling Pyrrha's hair with her finger as she talked. "Almost. But it gets a bit more complicated now. Humans have their primary race, which is human obviously. Then they have their secondary race. Fauna, however, have a sort of sub-category race, since we share a good chunk of our DNA with animals. What makes it even harder is that there's a sub-sub-category from there. A person can be labeled as a dog faunus, but they could more specifically be a pitbull or a samoyed, or some other canine breed. In the past, there was a lot of speculation about the origins of fauna, and one theory was that they were the offspring of humans that bred with animals and sometimes even grimm. This encouraged a lot of the racism towards our kind since people saw us as a product of bestiality. Anyways, there's a common misconception that fauna only have one trait from their respective animal. The reality is that the amount of traits we possess from our heritage depends on what percentage of our DNA is animalistic. I'm a white-lipped pit viper faunus myself, and I lean more towards that side of me than the human side. It was believed that if you had even an ounce of animal DNA in you, it would taint your precious humanity and you'd be legally classified as a faunus." Ruby ended that part of her explanation to catch her breath, thinking about what else there was to inform Pyrrha of.

Pyrrha suddenly felt Ruby tense and shrink into her, as if trying to make herself smaller. "Oh, boy... now we get into the uncomfortable part."

"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked, praying that Ruby didn't mean what she thought.

"...Reproduction." Pyrrha instantly buried her face in Ruby's hair. Anything involving 'the birds and the bees' had always been kind of uncomfortable for her. Of course she had urges, but she rarely ever acted on them. She raised her head and tried to be confident. "Alright Ruby. We don't need to be embarrassed about this. Let's look at it from a scientific point of view; it's only awkward if we make it awkward."

Ruby relaxed, feeling a bit more comfortable. "Yeah, okay. I can do that." She looked up into the sky, trying to put her impressive understanding of fauna and human reproduction into words. It was the most complicated part of faunus biology, and there was a lot of it that Ruby wasn't able to understand.

"Let's continue from what I was saying before. About how fauna have human and animal DNA, but tend to lead more towards one side. I assume we both know that human females have a menstrual cycle and female animals have an estrous cycle, right?" Pyrrha gave a somewhat spiteful nod, angry that women had to suffer and men didn't have either of those.

"Okay, good. Don't worry, this part isn't too complex. A female faunus that leans more to the human side will suffer through 'Shark Week'. A female mammal faunus that leans more towards the animal side will go into heat."

The last sentence made Pyrrha stop for a moment. "Wait, a mammal faunus? What about aquatic fauna and reptilian fauna who are more animalistic? Do they just go through the menstrual cycle?"

At some point, Ruby had started to braid Pyrrha's hair subconsciously. Pyrrha didn't mind; she actually found it sort of relaxing. Ruby's voice was the only thing keeping her awake at this point. "Depends. It differs between avian, marine, and reptilian categories of fauna. They reproduce in different ways, and a lot of them are oviparous. I don't fully understand it myself."

"Aren't you reptilian?"

"Pit vipers are different than most snakes. We don't usually lay eggs." Ruby's voice got continuously lazier as she went on, and she broke off into a high-pitched yawn.

Pyrrha's next question, however, woke the faunus up pretty quickly. "Hey, is it really worth it? To cover yourself up just to avoid being teased? I mean, if you just had ears or a tail you could cover those up without much issue, but to just about give up your ability to speak entirely? It seems like a little much."

Ruby stiffened, and her hand went to her waist, tracing over a scar from a hostile encounter that not even Yang knew about. "It's... more complicated than that."

"You're a traitor to your kind!"

"Human-loving filth!

"Go to hell!"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

Pyrrha nodded in understanding as her left hand ran comfortingly through Ruby's dark locks. "I understand. I won't push. I had another question, but it's kinda personal, so you don't have to answer it."

Ruby looked at her expectedly. "Shoot."

Pyrrha bit her lip, afraid to cross any lines. "Well... if Yang's your sister, then why isn't she a faunus too?"

Ruby looked out towards the horizon; it was getting late. She should have expected this question, but truthfully, she didn't know the answer herself. Her parents and Yang always dodged the question. "I don't know actually. Two fauna of the exact same species will have a kid of that species as well, which is known as a 'purebred faunus.' The offspring of two different fauna will only have traits from one side. This is called a 'half-breed faunus.' This title also describes kids with a human and faunus parent. These couples can have either a human or faunus child, but they're referred to by the 'half-breed' title either way. Lastly, if two fauna of the same main species but different subspecies have offspring, the case would be the same as with half-breeds. For example, a bengal and a calico faunus would have either a bengal or calico child. Despite this, the baby is still labeled as pure-bred since they're both cats."

"So... where are you going with this?"

Ruby blushed, realizing she had gotten lost in the speech that had been burned into her brain off of internet pages. "Oh, well... my guess is that my mother was a faunus with hidden traits. Not hidden as in my eyes and tounge, but traits that are internal. I know neither of my parents would have ever cheated on each other." The last sentence was said with pride, making Pyrrha grin.

The pair sat in silence, with Pyrrha running her fingers through Ruby's hair for a while longer until the sun was completely out of view. Ruby, relaxed by the soothing sensation, had drifted off. She had told Pyrrha to wake her up if she fell asleep, but Pyrrha couldn't bring herself to. Ruby just looked too peaceful. She pulled Ruby's hood down over her face as to not reveal her features, and picked her up in a 'piggy-back ride' style.

When she had brought Ruby to her team's room, Yang had given her a relieved and grateful look. Weiss had scoffed about how inconsiderate Ruby was to just go missing like that, but Blake had shushed her. What had Pyrrha a little intimidated was the glare Yang gave her when she handed over the goggles, which were usually covering Ruby's eyes.

The protective sister leaned in and whispered, "We're gonna talk tomorrow." Then, being careful to hide that Ruby had her goggles off from the remaining members of Team RWBY, Yang placed Ruby on her very flimsy bunk. Pyrrha waved goodbye and strolled back to her dorm, dreading tomorrow's talk with Yang.

"Pyrrha, I really don't think you did anything wrong. Ruby already told me she had her goggles off by choice."

"Then, what did you want to talk about?" Pyrrha asked. What would Yang need to discuss? At first, she was afraid Yang would think that she took of Ruby's goggles while she was asleep. That would be the most logical conclusion, after all, considering Pyrrha had carried a sleeping Ruby back without the goggles on. Ruby had apparently vouched for Pyrrha, though. So what were they here for?

"I just want to clear some things up. You don't mind that Ruby's a faunus?"

"That's correct."

"And you will care for her and respect her, despite knowing this?"

"Y-yes?" That question was a little odd.

Her answer made Yang smile though. "Okay, good. Honestly, I'm so proud of Ruby. My baby sister is growing up. Still, it's scary knowing she won't need me anymore."

Uhhh? Pyrrha thought intelligently. "Yang, what do you mean?"

"Hmm? Oh! Sorry! It's just a bit discouraging that I'm not the most important person in her life anymore."

Wait, what? "I'm afraid I don't follow?"

Yang titled her head, now confused. "What? Aren't you and Ruby dating?"

A loud shriek of "WHAT?" from somewhere across the school interrupted Blake and Ren's peaceful game of checkers.

"What was that?" Ren asked, looking around.

Blake looked up from the game. "Do we care?"

"...No."

A/N

I know I'm not helping my argument, but I promise this ain't a Milk and Cereal story. Pyrrha and Ruby just both happen to be the sweetest people in the entire show so it's natural all their moments are gonna be tender and adorable. Also, since people rarely address this, I'll say it. Yang's the mom friend. Thank you.

A new chapter will be out soon. No specific time, since I don't want to rush myself and throw out garbage towards you guys.

As always, feedback/criticism is always appreciated! Feel free to give me suggestions and let me know if you have any problems with the story and I'll do the best I can to correct them. Hope you enjoyed!