Course Correction

"Every time. Every single time." Weiss said, having taken her seat next to Ruby. Her team populated one side of the table in the cafeteria, Blake easting some fish-centered meal and Yang finishing off dessert. Ruby was talking to Laera, who was next to Sophia and Steven. Or rather, was, as Steven got up and left with a quick goodbye. The heiress only spoke once he was out of earshot.

Sophia sank her teeth into a chicken breast, glancing up and then to Laera. As expected, the brunette was already curious; "What are you talking about, Weiss?"

"Every time we meet like this, or even partner in class, Steven avoids me as much as possible. When he led team Strength, there were a few examples, but now with the two of you and Obaz as his teammates, that hasn't changed –even though we see a lot more of each other now." Laera pondered that for a brief moment.

"That's a pretty weird thing coming from Steve. If something's the matter, he's usually the first one you hear. If there's a problem, solve it. If there's an obstacle, move it. That's him in a nutshell." The statement made a look cross Yang's face.

"You mean like how he's been moving Jaune when the guy flirts with Weiss?"

Laera now developed an odd expression. "What, like pushing him away?"

"Like grabbing him, lifting him up, and taking him back to Pyrrha and the rest of his team. It was the funniest thing to watch yesterday. Weiss probably appreciates it."

There were only so many reasons one could think that Steven would regard Jaune as an 'obstacle', only when flirting with Weiss. It took Ruby the longest to realize what was being implied. "But... but Steven doesn't call her 'snow angel'."

The comment utterly pulverized her sister's funnybone, and even with Yang's hysterics, Weiss was focused on some deep thought she was having. Perhaps she didn't hate the idea of Steven's crush as much as she did Jaune's? Perhaps she was thinking up a way to shut him down before he got anything like his blonde friend? Perhaps adding Neptune into this whole equation?

Whatever thought she was having, it snapped upon hearing Steven's voice. He'd come back... "Oh, uh... Ruby? I forgot I had something to ask you. Mind if we met up later?"

The girl put her chin between thumb and forefinger, humming her mental scan of the day's agenda. "Yeah, I'll be free after classes. What for?"

"Advice, is all." He took off with a bit of a hastier stride yet again, and the many girls at the table all had the same thought swimming in their heads after what they'd been discussing beforehand.

"He's totally gonna ask you about Weiss. Finally break the taboo, go after his friend's dream girl. It's just like a juicy chick flick." Laera's interest was now fully piqued seeing Steven act so strangely, and just the way she was describing it was drawing the others on board.

"I sincerely doubt that he would actually go around Jaune's back." Sophia said, done with her food. Blake shrugged.

"Love makes the male gender do some crazy things. It's the only time animals will sing or dance outside of a circus; for people, you would think the sky's the limit." She sounded like she might have been quoting something. Yang had a feeling that something was about Ninjas of the current topic.

Ruby looked like she was not looking forward to the talk she would have with Steven later. "What am I supposed to do, then?"

"Tell him to ask me himself. Whatever advice he's looking for, it won't help him. He should just man up and tell me how he feels." Weiss said matter-of-factly, earning a knowing look from her friends around her. "What?"

Yang only giggled to herself, having used up most of her laughter earlier in a tangent. "Oh, nothing. You're just keeping your 'ice queen' rep alive pretty well."

"I told you to stop calling me that!" She interjected. "I'm allowed to have a... dissuasive... inclination to suitors. Do you know how many half-hearted attempts there have been? Me neither. I lost count."

Laera, to their surprise, got a rather irritated look at that. "Steven isn't half-hearted about anything."

There was a momentary silence as Weiss and Laera had a stare-down, but Blake piped up. "Well... we could always find out."

Once combat class with Glynda ended, Ruby went to find Steven who had messaged her about studying in the library. He said he would either still be there, or at his dorm. Since he wasn't answering her now, he probably had his scroll turned off, which was common practice in the first of these two options. As she passed through the doors and saw Steven scribbling away, she motioned her teammates and his into the room and towards the shelves where they could hide. They were short one member, Sophia, as she had had supplementary classes yet again. He showed no signs of having noticed, so Ruby went to take a seat across from the boy, who had taken off his blazer and loosened his tie during the time he'd been here.

"Hey, Steven." The words caused him to shut his textbook and put his pencil down, sighing to himself with the relief of having a break from written work. He brought up some smalltalk, such as how her own studies were going.

Laera looked as if she was ready to run over and tell him to get to the point by the time he actually got to it, and the words made the five listeners nearly give themselves away; "... anyways, I brought you here more or less to ask you about Weiss. You ought to know her pretty well by now."

"Called it!" Yang whispered what she wanted to shout, and eavesdropped further as Ruby addressed the statement the same way they wanted to;

"You should probably ask her yourself if you like her... If I had any advice to give on that front, Jaune would already have it." Steven was making a face that none of them really expected, and the meaning of it was anyone's guess until he spelled it out for them; and the way he did so had Yang fighting to contain herself, Blake the same but also helping Laera who couldn't do it alone, and a most dumbstruck Heiress.

"I don't think 'no' covers just how wrong you are. I'd chew a mouthful of nails, slowly, before I would ever try to date that girl." That fast, he tried to move on; "So, what I really wanted to ask was-"

"B-b-but you keep avoiding her! And you keep taking Jaune away from her!"

He gave her an annoyed look. "I don't like being around her because she drives me up a friggin' wall. She's an arrogant, self-centered, perfectionist rich bitch that can't handle being wrong, because heaven forbid her ego loses some hot air. You know how a certain sound pitch can shatter glass? Her voice hits that pitch for my eardrums whenever she whines about something or another." Yang couldn't breathe, and Blake was biting her tongue hard enough to make her cry a little.

"As for Jaune, that's what's called a 'course correction'. From what I've heard, when a ship plays chicken with an iceberg, the iceberg usually wins. Last thing I want to see is my pal split in half because of her, and in the off chance that he wins her over I'd have to hear her a whole lot more. So, instead of the crash and burn, I aim him at a sunny vacation spot." He refrained from explaining that in the metaphor, Pyrrha was ultimately the paradise that the Jaune Titanic should be going to instead of a cold and watery grave.

Ruby found that this all made quite a bit of sense, but that begged to question; "What are you asking me about Weiss for now, then?"

"I wanted to get to that a while ago, thanks." She shrank a little at the snappy comment. "I only just came to lead in place of Regis, and I've never had to give orders to someone who uses glyphs before. Laera and Weiss are pretty different, but I figured you might have something to tell about it. The semblance is strategically awkward, I find, but it's obviously very useful as well."

Rather than start discussing the strategy behind it, Ruby pressed on to a much closer topic to the one they just tried to leave; "If Weiss and Laera have such similar semblances, doesn't that mean they're a lot alike? Why do you hate Weiss, but like Laera so much?"

She had a bit of a point, so he chose not to get mad over the turn she took. "Believe it or not, they're both hard-working perfectionists at heart. Laera's grades are roughly the same as Weiss' without near as much studying and practice... It's the reasoning that makes them different; Weiss probably sees it as a family tradition to uphold, excellence that is expected of her for being a Schnee, and I don't blame her for that. Laera, on the other hand, has only gotten to where she is through that struggle to be perfect, which only got harder when she felt like she owed it to my brother after he died. In a way, you could say she's a huntress today because of me."

Ruby acquired a head tilt with that proclamation. "But you just said it was because of your brother." Steven shook his head with a less than excited expression.

"If she thought someone needed to carry on my brother's dream of becoming a hero, why do you think both of us are here?" He asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "It's because she doesn't think I can pull it off. She thinks I'll leave it behind, just like I did him, so she came here to make sure someone would do it after all. But, ah... to answer your first question, it's because Laera doesn't feel self-entitled to anything because of what she accomplishes. That makes her complain less, and appreciate things more than Weiss. The only time she hits the pitch Weiss constantly drills my ears with, is when she's laughing. It's obnoxious as hell. She gets that from her dad..."

After a moment's thought, Steven began to stand from his seat. "I should tell Weiss all this in person before it gets around. She'll bother me twice as much if she thinks I talk behind her back."

"There's no need for that –I'm right here." Weiss stepped out of the columns, which made Steven cross his arms, get into a defensive posture. He was expecting her to come up and start chastising him over having a poor opinion of her, and that is precisely what she did. "You've got a lot of nerve saying –"

"You need to stop for a second." Steven cut her off, and her look of aggravation over it lessened as he spoke further. "I know I said some pretty harsh things, but I never said you were wrong. Who you are isn't something I would, or could, actually hold against you –and it's not like I think you should change or anything either, since there's nothing really wrong with it. I kept avoiding you because there's nothing for us to say." She had grown progressively more placid, and he finished by saying; "And yes, I know I'm no peach either. I'm simple-minded, loud, paranoid, and you're allowed to dislike me just as much."

After asking that Ruby talk to him later, again, if she had anything to say about handling a glyph user under one's command, he shuffled past Weiss with little space between her and the bookshelf. She still failed to come up with a rebuttal. He was right; there was really nothing else to say about it. She spun around, and tried to have the last word but he was gone by the time she had put together a sentence in her head.

Having come down from the comedy of the situation a while ago, Yang, Blake and Laera joined Ruby and now Weiss by the table. "You definitely have him figured out, Laera." Yang considered how Laera had described Steven in a nutshell, and found that what they just witnessed was a perfect example to go by.

Laera let her eyes wander for a moment before admitting to it. "I know him well, I'll say that much, but there's plenty I don't get." She said.

One such thing she didn't understand was Steven's scroll. It had plenty of music on it, a decent chunk of which was sung by the girl in question...

...

When she brought this up later that night, Steven held up one hand, and said; "Her voice is beautiful when stringing a tune, but otherwise, it makes me want to punch a baby."