Over a week had passed since what Russel had taken to calling the Torchwick incident, and Yang and Nora still weren't over it. Dove could tell, because the only way they could've smothered their counterparts on team RSPR more was if they'd trapped them inside plastic bubbles. Yang was more blatant about it than Nora—she was surprisingly prone to fussing over injuries when worried—but the signs there in both. It was... weird.

Not weird that they were concerned, exactly, but... well, in the first few weeks that Dove had known, say, Yang, he would have associated her far more readily with causing an injury than carefully dabbing at one with a cotton swab while Ruby squirmed, and made faces, and told her that it didn't even hurt and would she please quit it? Nora had been sticking even closer to Ren than normal, which he hadn't thought was possible. Russel had taken to teasing both of them mercilessly.

Dove didn't poke fun at them—partly because he wasn't that good at it, but mostly because he felt like he should have known them well enough to expect this. Especially Nora. They were partners, or at least academy partners, and... well, he didn't know that much about her. She was friends with Ren, liked explosives, got on way too well with Yang. That was it. No parents, no hometowns, hell, he only had an educated guess telling him that her favorite color was pink.

With that in mind, he decided to bring it up one Saturday at dinner. If nothing else, it would distract them all from Sky, who was slumped in his seat and doing about the same thing to the atmosphere as a belligerent Weiss had the one and only time Jaune had made the mistake of inviting his team to their table. Dove cleared his throat and said, "Nora?"

"Huh?" She looked up from where she'd been cutting a pork chop into a disturbingly convincing imitation of a Boarbatusk to stare at him.

"I was wondering about where you're from."

Ren looked up sharply, and Nora seemed to be speechless. "Why?" she asked, after a moment.

"Well, I thought... um, it would be good to talk about that sort of thing." He shrugged. "We are teammates."

"Oh." Nora glanced at Ren. "Well... we're both from Anima."

Pyrrha perked up a little. "You too?"

Ren shook his head. "A different part of Anima. Not that close to Mistral."

"Yep!" Nora grinned. "We met during a Grimm attack!"

The table went dead. Even Sky looked up, wide-eyed. Ren frowned. "No, we met before that. Remember?"

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't count. We didn't even talk then."

"I suppose." Ren picked at his food for a moment, then nudged Nora. "Go on, if you want."

She nodded. "Well, I didn't have parents before then, and..."

"I didn't afterwards."

"...Yeah. So we stuck together, and we kinda had to get good at killing Grimm. Which meant we could come here!" Nora spread her arms. Silence reigned.

"Way to kill the mood, Dove," Russel said. Yang kicked him. "Ow! Why do you keep doing that?"

Dove winced. "I apologize if that was too personal."

Nora flicked him on the forehead. "I wouldn't have told you if it was, dummy."

"It was a long time ago," Ren said.

"Well, I was thinking of something a bit less... intense." Dove shrugged. "I grew up in Vale, not much to say about it."

"What were your parents like?" Ruby asked.

"They taught me how to fight. My father was a swordsman, and my mother showed me how to use a gun."

"So you're like a combo between the two?" Yang grinned. "Cool!"

Russel laughed. "I'm pretty sure we're all a combo between our parents. That's how genetics work."

"I'm surprised you know that, to be honest," Dove told him.

"Hey! I can be sophisticated if I want!"

"Sure you can," Yang said, patting him on the back. He let out a little huff as the air was knocked out of him.

"What about your family?" Dove prompted him. Russel stared at him a moment, then grinned sheepishly.

"Uh, I guess I have a pretty big family."

Yang perked up. "Ooh! Any little sisters?"

"Yep, one. And three younger brothers." He made a face. "Little gremlins, the lot of 'em."

"They can't be that bad."

He shook his head, chuckling again. "You've never met them. The youngest two? They're twins, and I swear they've been trying to burn the house down on purpose for years. Every time I turn my back on them for half a second—fire!"

Yang laughed and looked across the table at Ruby. Her little sister turned bright red. "That was one time!" she protested.

"Our poor coffee table..."

"It had it coming! That thing was ugly and you know it!"

"Yeah, it was." Yang glanced at Russel. "I guess having two was a bit of a handful, though."

He groaned. "It wasn't just the twins. They were all getting into trouble, all the time. Wouldn't have been so bad, but they just... took over. Like, every time I wanted to go somewhere with friends, I had to babysit."

The grin slid from Yang's face, replaced with a frown.

Russel gave a helpless shrug. "Not my problem now! I'm miles away and finally getting some peace."

Dove's first warning that something was wrong came from Nora. Her mouth was hanging open, and she was staring at Russel like he'd just... well, suggested riding a King Taijitu.

"Ruby..." Yang had half-risen from her seat. Across from her, Ruby was looking anywhere and everywhere else.

"I'm going to, um... go to the bathoom." With that she made a full fighting retreat. Pyrrha and Ren both scrambled free of their bench to chase after her, while Sky made it halfway across the room before stopping in his tracks. After a moment's hesitation, Jaune followed most of RSPR in a dead sprint.

"What did I say?" Russel stared after them, horrorstruck. Nora stared at him like he was an idiot. Yang...

"You're an idiot," she growled, eyes flashing red. For a moment, it looked like she was going to hit him. Instead she stomped away, leaving little scorch marks on the floor as she passed. Older students had already been staring, but at the sight of a girl literally on fire, their undivided attention was on her. She ignored them, shouldered her way past Sky with enough force to knock him over, and left the room.

"Russ..." Dove let his forehead hit the table. "Maybe next time you could think before you talk?"

"But what did I say?!" he repeated, sounding even more panicked. Dove hit his head on the table a few more times.

"Russel," he said, very slowly, "you just implied that your annoying little sister kept you from being happy and that you came here to get rid of her."

"Oh."

There was a long, horrified pause.

"Oh... oh my god."

"Dummy," Nora said, flicking him hard on the nose.

"But—but what do I do?" Russel turned a pleading look on Dove.

"How should I know?" he demanded. "I'm an only child!"

"Ugh, Russ." Nora prodded him hard in the shoulder. "You apologize. Dummy."

"But—I mean, how do I even do that? And what if she hits me? She's really pissed!"

"Not Yang," Nora said, giving him another poke. "You're apologizing to Ruby."

Russel stared at her for a moment, eyes wide. "Oh."

Nora shoved him away from the table. "Go! Say you're sorry! Grovel if you have to!" He nodded vigorously and charged out of the cafeteria.

Dove stared at her for several long seconds. "I need to stop being surprised when you have good advice," he decided. Nora winked at him.

Ruby really, really wished she hadn't left the table. Or maybe that her excuse had been better. Or—and this was a crazy thought—that she hadn't got so worked up over something Russel hadn't even been saying to her.

People had been staring as she left the cafeteria—not many, but some. More started when her team and Jaune got up to follow her. She ran a little faster, deciding that she didn't want to talk to anyone right now. That meant she couldn't hide in their dorm. Instead she went to the courtyard, reasoning that there wouldn't be anyone around now that it was dinnertime.

It probably shouldn't have bothered her that much. Some people didn't get along with their siblings. That was fine! From the way Jaune talked, some siblings were downright scary, which was also fine. Except that it was suddenly very difficult to think of anything except the times when she'd fussed over burnt toast when she and Yang were little, and that was all her sister knew how to make. Or maybe when she wandered out into the woods without telling anyone, and Yang had to go out and find her and ended up panicking so much that she attracted half the Grimm on Patch.

She scuffed her foot on the cobblestones. Yang had seemed happy when she found out they could go to Beacon together, hadn't she? Only she'd left to hang out with some of her friends from Signal. Would she have been on a team with them if she hadn't been distracted by Ruby? Well, no—that was a stupid thing to feel guilty about, since there probably wasn't anyone in Beacon that could've gotten along with her as well as Nora.

Still. Another kick at the ground, and she started pacing a little back and forth. On the one hand, Yang never seemed mad about any of that stuff. On the other... Russel didn't seem mad either. Just... like he didn't want to hang out with them anymore. Maybe never again.

That was definitely worse.

"Ruby!" She jumped and whirled around.

"Jaune?" He was huffing and puffing, struggling for breath as he leaned against the nearby statue.

"Hi," he managed, after a moment. "Didn't... hah... didn't think I'd find you here."

She looked around. "It seemed like a nice spot."

"Yep. I hid from Cardin here once." He sat down on a bench next to the monument and patted the spot next to him. She sat. It took him a moment to get his breath back.

"Do you mind if I text everyone, let them know you're here?"

Ruby hesitated. "Um... kind of." She sighed, then let her head droop.

"You, uh... you should probably talk to Yang about this."

"I know," she mumbled. "But what if he's right?"

"He's not."

She swung her legs back and forth a few times. He tried to copy her, but his were too long. "Sorry for freaking out in the middle of dinner."

Jaune laughed sheepishly. "No worries. Trust me when I say my team's done worse."

Ruby cringed. "Yeah, I guess they have. Um... how's that going?" Nice one, Ruby, she chided herself. Way to change the subject to something even worse.

To her surprise, he actually smiled. "They're talking!" he whisper-shouted, pumping both fists in the air."

"Wait, really?!"

He nodded. "Yep. Weiss and Blake. It's... um, you could cut the tension with a knife and it kinda feels like there's a giant anvil hanging over the dorm waiting to fall on us, but they're talking to one another without yelling!"

Ruby gave him a high-five—she just had to. "Go Jaune!" she cheered.

"I just wish I knew what happened..." He shrugged. "But I'm not going to question it!"

"That's so great!" She gave him another high-five, because this was a moment he totally deserved to bask in. Then his scroll buzzed twice. He looked down and blanched.

"Um... are you sure you mind telling them where we are? Because Yang and Pyrrha are kind of freaking out."

Ruby pulled out her own scroll and winced. There were something like fifteen messages from Yang, getting increasingly desperate, and Pyrrha had sent almost twice that many. "Yeah," she sighed. "I guess I should..." She sent them her location.

"Well!" Jaune patted her on the shoulder. "I guess we have, like, a minute or so before everything gets crazy."

"Thanks, Jaune." She mustered a smile. He grinned back.

That was about all there was time for before the reckoning arrived. Yang came charging out of the building and grabbed her in a hug that only barely avoided cracking a rib. Pyrrha hovered anxiously over her shoulder, and Ren heaved a sigh of relief the second he saw her.

"'M s'rry," she mumbled. Breathing was hard. Very hard. She squirmed out of Yang's grip and looked at the ground.

"You scared me."

Again. Ruby cringed, taking a little step back. Her sister caught her by the shoulder. "Hey! I'm not mad, okay? Just... talk to me? Please?"

She tried to make eye contact, but found that she couldn't do it. Instead she drew her cloak around her and shuffled her feet. The others were still there, staring.

Ren cleared his throat. "We'll give you two a minute." Ruby managed so look up long enough to flash him a grateful smile.

The courtyard was silent for a moment, after that. Eventually Yang touched her gently on the shoulder. "Want to sit?"

Ruby shook her head. "Sorry," she repeated.

Yang bopped her gently on the nose. Startled, Ruby looked up at her. Their eyes met.

"Something I picked up from Nora," she explained. "And don't be sorry, okay? You don't have to keep apologizing when you didn't do anything wrong."

"That one was kind of a general apology. For... um, scaring you when we went after Torchwick. And before at Dusk Till Dawn. And all the time, now that I think about it."

Yang laughed and grabbed her in another hug. This one was softer, and kinder to her ribs. "I worry, okay? That doesn't mean I'm mad at you. Like dad—we both scare the crap out of him all the time and he still loves us, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry that got out of hand."

"...S'okay."

Yang nudged her side. "What's wrong?"

Was I a burden? Ruby didn't really want to ask. She had a feeling Yang would say no whether it was true or not, and part of her was worried she wouldn't be able to catch the lie. A bigger part of her was worried that she would.

"It's just... um... I wasn't hungry."

Yang arched a single eyebrow. Ruby wondered if there was a single human being on the planet that would've bought that excuse.

"He's right..." she mumbled. Yang opened her mouth to speak, her brow furrowing in concern, but this was definitely one of those moments were Ruby's mouth was like a giant boulder teetering on the edge of a hill—you gave it one little push, and it just kept going. "I mean, I know when we were little you had to look after me all the time, and you never really got to be a kid and it's just... it's not fair and maybe if I'd been more mature and stuff I could've handled myself better, and I didn't have to scare you by wandering around in the woods and... and I could've just ate the toast it wasn't like either of us knew how to cook and it wasn't your fault it burned and..."

Yang stopped the uncontrollable gush of words by gently placing a finger over her lips. "I know everything was a bit of a mess back then," she said quietly. "But don't ever apologize for that. You... you were the best part of those years, okay?"

Ruby blinked at her, feeling a bit like an Ursa had just clobbered her over the head. Slowly, she nodded.

"And I told this to Nora, but I think you should hear it too. It's good that you have your own team, you're really coming into your own and I'm so proud of you—but you're always gonna be my little sister and I'll always be here for you. No matter what."

"I feel kinda dumb now," she said, as Yang folded her into another hug. "Overreacting like that, I mean."

Yang grinned sheepishly. "It probably means we should've talked this out sooner."

"Better late than never?"

They laughed. It occurred to Ruby that the others were probably worried. "We should go back."

"Yeah." Yang's expression darkened. "I gotta give my partner a piece of my mind."

"Yang," Ruby groaned. "No! Stop it!"

"What?"

"You get along with Brine so well! Don't mess it up by punching Russel just because he said something dumb." Yang grumbled something not-at-all-reassuring as they stepped back into the school building. Then they stopped short... and stared.

Russel was standing in the hallway in a pink Please Do Nothing to the Cook apron that he had to have borrowed from Ren, a tray of... something in his hands. He tried to grin. The expression looked pained—tortured, even.

Yang took a step forward, already starting to smoke a little. Ruby grabbed the back of her scarf and tugged. She stopped. Glared. He held out the tray in his hands as if it were a shield, sticking his arms out towards Ruby. She looked down.

"Are those strawberries?"

"Yeah. And cream-cheese icing. And some graham crackers."

Ruby gave him an odd look. "Did... did you make that?"

He nodded stiffly. "I, uh... used to give them to my sister when I said something dumb and upset her. So, um..." He gave the tray another little push, and Ruby took it. "I didn't think I'd be making it anymore," he went on. "But I can be a bit of a jerk sometimes. Anyway, I'm not a great big brother, so... you probably shouldn't judge other older siblings based on me." With that, he backed away and fled down the hallway.

Yang and Ruby exchanged a look. "Okay," her big sister managed, after a moment. "Okay. You know what? If you're happy, I'm happy. And I really don't want to know where he got that apron, so—"

"It's Ren's."

She sighed. "Of course it is."

"Hand me that book?" Weiss asked, reaching out. Blake passed it to her without looking up from her own work, and silence fell. Two mugs steamed from either corner of the small table they'd taken over in the library—one decaf coffee, and one black tea with milk. She might be a bit... inexperienced with this whole friend business, but she could remember a favorite drink. The mug containing the tea was—purely by coincidence, of course—purple.

Weiss flipped a page. She was a bit taken aback by how much easier everything seemed now that they had their tentative truce. Coursework that she'd been grappling with since the beginning of the year had started to fall back into the neat, ordered strains of information she was used to. Fights were... well, they were better. The partner battles, at least. Father had stopped calling.

Blake stifled a laugh. Weiss turned to her, raising an eyebrow. She pointed at a small photograph of...

"No." Weiss folded her arms and glared at the textbook. "I refuse."

Peter Port grinned broadly at them from the glossy picture, his hair a wild chestnut-brown and his chest puffed out. His foot was planted firmly on the tusk of a disintegrating Goliath.

The small chuckle turned into a laughing fit. Blake had to clamp a hand over her mouth to smother it, and before long Weiss was having difficulty keeping a straight face herself.

Then, all of a sudden, Blake glanced at Weiss and her expression sobered. She looked back at the tabletop.

"What?"

Blake tensed. "It's nothing."

"It's obviously not nothing," Weiss snapped.

"Nothing worth talking about." Blake didn't meet her eyes.

Sitting back with a frustrated huff, Weiss reached out and took a sip of her coffee. It was stone cold—she shuddered. Getting to her feet, she nudged Blake's shoulder and gestured at the other mug. "Want any more tea?" Her partner nodded.

She may have closed the library door with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. Weiss stalked off towards the cafeteria, glaring at everyone she passed. Then, before she even realized it, her angry stare caught on Dove. He was walking slowly, almost aimlessly. Then he stopped and saw that she was looking at him.

"Hello," he said politely.

Weiss nodded back at him. "Heading to the library?" she asked.

"Back to the dorm, actually." He paused, then raised his eyebrows. "Is it working?"

"Is what working?" she snapped.

"The advice."

Weiss broke eye contact, feeling the tips of her ears reddening. "Yes."

"Good." He smiled and moved as if to walk past her.

"Wait!"

"Hmm?"

She hesitated. "Who... who exactly told you all that?"

Dove grinned. Weiss decided immediately that she didn't like it when he did that—he suddenly looked far too much like his teammates.

"Was it... Ren?" she tried, not really expecting him to say yes.

His grin widened.

"It was Nora, wasn't it?"

A single nod.

Weiss looked at the half-empty mugs like they might bite her. Dove had the nerve to laugh.

"It worked."

She tried to scowl at him, but... "Well, yes."

He spread his hands, as if to say my point exactly, and then walked past her. Weiss was left standing in the hallway, hesitating. She supposed it was working. And she could always stop if things got out of hand.

Her fears thus... mostly dispelled, Weiss made the rest of the trip to the cafeteria's coffeemaker and back without any other incident. Opening the door to the library was harder, once her hands were both occupied by drinks. She set the coffee down on the floor, moved for the handle—only for someone to walk out far too quickly and tip the mug over. Weiss used a glyph to steady it, then snatched it up again.

Blake was standing in the doorway, looking startled. "You should watch where you're going," Weiss said, eyes narrowing.

Her partner winced. "Sorry." Weiss handed her the tea.

"Actually... where were you going?"

Blake looked a bit sheepish. "I realized you might need help carrying everything."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "I was perfectly fine until someone tried to upend my drink." She clutched it protectively between her palms, feeling the warmth, then took a sip.

They retreated back to the same table, still littered with their books and notebooks. The silence felt different this time, a little more awkward. Weiss distracted herself with her Grimm Studies textbook. Its pages were a very dry place to hide.

Eventually, she glanced over at what Blake was reading. "Do you want me to quiz you?" she asked, tapping the cover of Remnant: the Color Wars and Beyond. Her partner tensed.

"No," she said curtly. Weiss was taken aback.

"Why not?"

"I don't want your opinion on history."

"And I'm not offering it," Weiss huffed, feeling rather annoyed now. "I'm offering to ask questions."

Something jumped in Blake's jaw, and she shoved the book across the table. "Fine, then. Chapter four."

Weiss flipped pages forcefully, though she was still careful not to rip any of them. Eventually she found the chapter Blake had indicated—the one about the battle at Fort Castle.

"This was due over a week ago," she said suspiciously, "and I know you haven't been behind on the readings."

Blake's face stayed almost eerily impassive. "You wanted to test me."

Weiss glanced down at the page, feeling as though she was missing something important. "What was the name of the gen—"

"General Legume."

"Don't interrupt me," Weiss snapped. She scanned the page in front of her. "What three critical errors did Legume make?"

"He tried to ambush Faunus in the dark," Blake replied instantly. "He'd assumed they wouldn't be able to fight back when they were half asleep, but all he did was blind his own army."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "That's one, yes. And?"

Scowling, Blake answered, "Lima Gladiolus was able to lure his cavalry into terrain where their horses couldn't maneuver properly, and when that happened Legume chose to move forward rather than retreat. He was surrounded."

"Yes." Weiss smirked a little. "Little wonder that he lost."

"His army was three times their size." Blake's eyes had gone hard. "He was arrogant, and he overstepped, but even so it's incredible that the Faunus were able to beat him."

This was the real test. Weiss had long since learned to recognize tests, ones that weren't announced ahead of time or even after the fact. She straightened up and raised a single eyebrow. "I don't think anyone is arguing that he wasn't an idiot."

"No. But it wasn't just that he was an idiot. A lot of people on the other side had a lot of brilliant ideas that turned the war in their favor."

Weiss was getting annoyed now, mostly because she still couldn't tell what the point of this was. "I hardly think it was their idea to be ambushed in the dark, as well as it worked out for them in the end."

"And there it is."

"Oh, for the love of—What?"

"Your opinion."

"My opinion." Weiss gritted her teeth. "If you want to say something, then say it."

"This battle wasn't just some lucky break for the Faunus, happening to be pitted against an idiot general. It was won because of their tactics and their strengths."

"You're being ridiculous," Weiss pointed out. "All I said was that the main factors that went into their winning the battle can be tied back to Legume. He had all the advantages going in, and he squandered them. That was lucky for his enemies."

"Is it really ridiculous to want to credit Lima Gladiolus? The one who thought to exploit all those weaknesses? The one who won a seemingly impossible battle, and went on to help win the war? Did you even know her name until just now?"

"Ugh." Weiss massaged the bridge of her nose. "Pause."

"Why?" Blake was staring her down, her whole body tense.

"Because it's nearly curfew," Weiss said slowly, tapping her scroll, "and we're arguing over something that happened close to a century ago. It doesn't matter."

"It does matter!" Blake stood up to her full height. Weiss glanced around, but found that this late on a Saturday the library was empty. No one around to stare.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Yes, fine—learn from history or be doomed to repeat it. Don't try to ambush Faunus in the middle of the night. But it's late and we should drop it."

"It's not just a story. Real people died in this battle fighting for equality, only to be told to ship off to a Grimm infested island and make do."

"You can't seriously be telling me that the plight of historical figures that have all been dead for years is more important than not being caught out past curfew by Professor Goodwitch."

"Yes, I can!" Blake leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose. "Because it matters that the peace these people died for, the peace they were promised after the war, still isn't here! It matters that there are Faunus working in Dust mines that are slaves in all but name. It matters that eighty years later we're still fighting."

We.

Blake hadn't realized it had slipped out. Weiss stared at her a moment, her hand finding the table behind her, the mug of cooling tea. Fighting—she'd said fighting. "You're with the White Fang, aren't you?"

The wide-eyed stare was answer enough. Weiss drew back and hurled the mug at Blake's head. It missed, smashed against a bookshelf. She jumped.

"Well?!" Weiss took a little step back, ran into the table. Her hand was shaking. "What are you going to do?"

Blake drew away, still staring. Then she turned. Fled.

It was like a bucket of cold water had been splashed over her. Weiss had been gearing up for a fight. She'd been ready to shout, to demand answers, maybe to run herself if Blake attacked her. Instead she was left standing in an empty library, watching a puddle of tepid tea spread around the shattered remains of a purple mug.

Weiss jolted out of her reverie, then rushed from the library. That lying, traitorous little—she passed someone, and only after shoving him out of her way hard enough to bounce him off the wall did she realize it was Sky. She passed him, stalking down the corridor with a righteous fury that built with every step. Just when she seemed close, just when something about Beacon had almost seemed worth it, it turned out she was being deceived. Deluded.

"Idiot," she seethed.

There would be a reckoning for this—she'd see to it. Personally.