Weiss descended into the morning fog under her own power. A large number of topics needed to be discussed before breakfast and if they didn't arrive at the dining hall soon, the wrong people would have questions. Hopefully Blake would be able to run interference until then.

A moment after Weiss landed, Yang crashed into the ground hard enough to leave imprints an inch deep. Weiss shot her a withering look.

Yang responded with an eye roll. "Alright, what's so important that you woke us up this early to talk about it?"

"The first of them is you." Weiss pointed at Yang's nose.

Yang blinked at her like a deer caught in headlights. Then she shifted into a silly grin and leaned forward, hands on her hips."Oh really, and why am I so important, hmm?"

Weiss turned a half lidded gaze towards her. "That would be much more effective if you were wearing your combat outfit, not your uniform."

"I can fix that." Yang unbuttoned her collar with a flick of her fingers. Her voice and movements were perfectly smooth, without any flinching or hesitation.

"That's actually a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You're moving with less hesitation and tension than you have been for weeks, with a single exception." Weiss took a moment to glance her scroll, they still had plenty of time. "What did Ruby do to you? You broke down and now all of that stress is gone. That doesn't just happen."

"Yeah, well. She pissed off the demon, so it punished me for listening to her and not doing enough fun things." Yang cross her arms and turned away. "And when he was finished I felt better. No headaches, no random visions, no voices telling me to do things."

"Were those headaches the same as the ones that happened when I was doing something to you."

"Yeah, the demon really, really doesn't like me even thinking about listening to anyone else."

Weiss held her eyes closed for a moment and called up memories of all of the medical texts she'd read. "And this demon can get rid of the stress as easily as he caused it, even though that's not how stress works. It doesn't just go away, especially considering how affected you were."

"I don't know." Yang threw her hands into the air. "Yes? Doesn't yours get pissed at you for that too?"

"No, it's almost completely silent." The only voice that ever yelled at her was her own, but her strongest tool for helping Yang was sympathy that both of them being in the same situation produced. Of course, that also limited the questions she could plausibly ask.

One part of Weiss wanted to know if Yang had ever asked the various other beings living in her head how it worked, but she knew that even bringing up the topic would be unproductive. If she'd already gone this long without asking, then Yang was unlikely to take the suggestion well and the demon would cause more problems for her even considering it. "Fine, all of your previous problems vanished like magic. Why are you being snippy toward your sister?"

"Because she lied to me!"

"That's what's making you mad?" Weiss asked with just enough acid to make Yang flinch. "Everyone lies. If you haven't forgotten, we've all lied to each other about incredibly important things. You've known that she's been keeping secrets since you arrived at Beacon."

"Not secrets about my mother!" Yang slammed her fist into a tree, shattering the bark.

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Isn't your mother dead?"

"No." Yang waved a finger at Weiss. "My mom is dead; my mother is a bit- bad person who abandoned her family to do who knows what in the wilderness."

"Family problems are tough." Weiss laid a hand on Yang's shoulder and squeezed. "What did your mother do?"

"Abandoned me and Ruby. Then, when mom died, she left us alone." Yang grabbed Weiss' hand. "Uncle Qrow came back as often as he could, but she never visited, not once. Even though she's been to the island we lived on since then. I know because people mentioned seeing her whenever I went looking."

"Why would you look for her then? I seems like she's done everything she can to sever her ties to you."

"Because I wanted to know why she did it." Her grip tightened. "If she didn't want me, then why did she have me? Why did she stay with dad for years, then abandon him?"

Weiss returned the squeeze. "There are some people who shouldn't be parents. It sounds like she was one of them and… Maybe she realized this."

"That doesn't excuse her."

"No it doesn't."

Yang sighed, the fight leaving her eyes. "So, besides my bad family, what else did you want to talk about."

Weiss grinned and stepped back. In some ways, this was a more sensitive topic. "Your good family."

Yang rolled her eyes.

"Ruby has a very interesting theory about-"

"The blessed by the gods thing?" Yang interrupted with a snap.

Weiss gave her a look. "Yes, the blessed by Mars theory."

"It makes sense to me. She's got something special going on and that would explain most of it." Yang nodded and smiled. "Though, she thinks that the rest of us were too and that's obviously wrong."

Weiss watched the lack of realization on Yang's face, keeping her own frustration with that away from her expression. Ruby was getting closer and closer to the truth and both sisters had completely delusional thoughts about how their abilities related to each other. Though, that wasn't very fair to Ruby, who was coming from a place of relative ignorance. "What did you tell her when she asked you about it?"

"That I hadn't talked to any."

"Why?!" Weiss shouted, running her fingers through her hair. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I haven't." Yang's eyes flashed red. "All that I've talked to is a demonic… thing. What did you do?"

"Obviously I didn't tell her the truth." Weiss could remember her confusion on that day as if it were yesterday. She had thought that the man was either a stress induced hallucination or an Amathema Sorcerer, with a very strange Semblance, who had come to warn her of the path ahead. The fight for her life, large amount of blood loss, and lack of awareness of his presence from anyone else there made the former much more likely, until she heard Ruby's theory. "I said something ambiguous that she could take a number of different meanings from. I'm still trying to figure out who to claim."

"I really can't see you as the type of person who'd have faith like that."

"I'm probably not." Weiss would have agreed wholeheartedly if this were a normal situation. But, Ruby's theory made a large number of pieces about the Anathema, or rather the Exalted, all fit together. "However, it is, if nothing else, a very useful lie. Ruby's incredibly close to figuring everything out, if we can pull the wool over her eyes with her own idea, then that opens up an incredible amount of space."

"I really don't feel comfortable lying about this."

"What makes this any different from the other ones? The lies about your very nature?"

"That's different. If I didn't do that, then she'd…" Yang drifted away, unwilling to say what she was certain of.

Weiss watched her teammate very carefully and ran through each of her potential plans. Yang had just gotten back to normal and pressing her too hard would be dangerous when combined with how aggressive Ruby was being. She would need to be broken of some of her ideas soon, but now was not the right time. Especially with Blake's potential support tied up in distracting their friends.

"Don't worry about it. I'll come up with something for both of us." Weiss waved her hand. "I'll be spending a lot of time with Ruby over the next few days and I'm sure she'll bring it up."

"Why are you gonna be doing that?"

"She asked for assistance with rebuilding her weapon and it'll give me time to figure out what she can hear." Weiss took a split second to consider what else to reveal. "It will also let me convince her to pursue less dangerous projects and hopefully relieve some of her pent up aggression."

Yang squinted and crossed her arms. "And what exactly does that mean? What're you going to do to my sister?"

"Oh, Yang." Weiss grinned wickedly and stepped forward. She ran a nail up the blonde's arm while looking right into her eyes, her other hand completely unnoticed. "I can be very distracting when I want to be."

"Y-You…" Yang backed up, sputtering. "You'd better not do anything to her!"

"Despite your similarities, your sister won't respond to the same things you do." Weiss pulled back and turned around, still smiling. "If I give her enough puzzles and interesting things to research, then, with luck, she'll forget about antagonizing our teachers for a while."

"You just did something, didn't you?" Yang glanced around, eyes flashing with a bright glint.

"What makes you think that?"

"Just got a feeling about it… Right here." Yang tapped right above her heart.

"I'm glad someone else can tell that now. Now that I know it's possible, I've wanted to figure it out for myself. But, I have more important skills to develop first."

"Like what?" Yang started looking up and down, eyes passing over what Weiss had done without noticing it.

"A defense against that very ability." She focused on her Aura again, trying to wrap Essence around herself like she had just done to Yang. The veil spiraled inward, but her Aura pushed through the barrier before it could actually form. "I haven't managed it yet, but I feel close."

"That's cool, but… Uhh...Why?"

"My hope is that, if I can accomplish this, I'll find a solution to the glowing problem." Being able to access her full power without risking exposure, like Blake, would be such a boon that it was more than worth trying many other things that she wasn't sure would ever work. "Also, we're not the only ones who can sense Aura. I want to be prepared for the future."

"You actually think we'll be around that long."

"I'm going to make sure of it." Weiss snapped her fingers and unwove what she had hidden.

"I- How? Why you little!"

Weiss conjured a glyph and launched herself into the air, laughing as she left Yang to re-button her shirt.

Ruby slid the blade along under the power hammer. Steel rang against steel as it took shape, curving exactly as much as she needed it to. The waves from the excessively powerful strikes curving the metal beyond the impact surface, so it finished much faster. That made two of three pieces complete, she just needed the Starmetal insert to finish them off.

"Ahh, perfect." She slid it next to the finished pile.

"That's still ridiculous," Weiss grumbled from the lathe across the room, a stack of not entirely correct barrels next to her. Each of them was close to what Ruby needed, very close, but she needed her fits to be perfect so they had to be scrapped. "You slide a piece of metal across the machine haphazardly and somehow, in a single pass, you manage to get exactly what you were looking for."

"Aww, Weiss." Ruby dashed over with a burst from her Semblance. "It's not that hard."

Ruby nudged her partner to the side and took over. Another piece of stock slotted in and she spun it up to an irresponsible speed. The vision of her design sang to the strings of the heavens, lending her movements more grace than she naturally possessed. The bit bored into the piece, its edges channeling power through the Dust crystals at the right times to change the inner structure of the barrel while also pushing the melted shavings free. Within a minute, she had a new barrel extension.

Weiss squinted at her and took over manning the machine. She picked up another piece and slid it in. As the lathe spun, she mimicked Ruby's movements exactly. While Ruby couldn't give her the inspiration, she did try to strum the song, but it wouldn't be anywhere near as effective because this piece needed a slightly slower movement to form.

The metal started smoking halfway through the process. Weiss hit the emergency stop before any more damage was done.

"Hmm," Ruby considered the machine and the result. "You needed to be a little slower or have more lubrication."

"I used fifty percent more than you did and also drilled more slowly."

"Mmmh," Ruby nodded. "That's the problem. This particular pattern needed a very fast movement to activate the Dust enough to make the shavings slip out. But it needed to be a little slower than my first one and you went slower than that."

"And how exactly am I supposed to know to do that when it goes against every safety manual and your own instructions about the best way to use the machine? Moreover, it also ignores the fact that all of the extra heat is highly chaotic and would result in changes to the rest of the metal."

"Ahh, well… It's supposed to do that so we can save on tempering time later." Ruby grinned and rubbed her neck. "I guess if you can't see the pattern you just have to lube up even more so you can drill deep without getting stuck or damaging her."

Weiss stared at her for a moment, eyes moving between Ruby's own and her lips. They were quivering from the effort it took not to smirk.

"What?"

"I refuse to believe that you don't know what you just said." Weiss waved a finger in Ruby's face. "You are not that innocent."

"Uhhh…" Ruby made a silly face with a lopsided grin. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Weiss crossed her arms and loudly tapped her heel.

Ruby kept the look until the pressure appeared around Weiss. Then she sighed and shook her head. "You're supposed to laugh at jokes, Weiss."

"How was that a joke? All you did was say an innuendo. There was no setup, no punchline. Thanks to my knowledge of your reading habits, it wasn't even that unexpected."

"Yang would've laughed."

"Yes. Yes she would've."

"Weiss." Ruby looked away. "Do you really want to be here?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Of course I do. I want to see how you do everything."

"Ever since we started actually working, you've been complaining."

"That's because nothing that you've been doing makes any sense. All of the theory was consistent, if different from what the books said. I could understand why you were making the design choices that you were. But this-" she waved a hand at the lathe- "I can't do anything with this. It's like fortune is on you side and a bad idea with a thousand-to-one chance of working, which might save you half of the effort, works every time."

"It's…" Ruby clenched her fists and shook them, but eventually dropped her arms. That wasn't a bad way of describing how it felt. "You're right. I've been doing everything by sound and knowledge of what the future of the piece is. Once I know where to go I just sort of imprint that onto reality and it all works out. I guess I was just hoping it would work for you too."

"Why would you even think that?"

"The way I see it-" Ruby started counting on her fingers- "you've gotta be blessed by someone too. The techniques that I'm using should be able to be taught. They're just like weapon forms, martial arts, or probably spells. At least, they feel like those."

She held her hands out and focused on the different energies. They rang out to her own ears and while she could hear Weiss' Aura doing something, she saw no recognition of the loud music on her partner's face. "I thought that if another one of the Maidens blessed you, you'd be able to pick them up."

"Why would you assume that I received something that potent?" Weiss stepped away, walking back towards their workbench. "Assuming your theory is right, it's far more likely that a minor god took notice of me than a being that powerful."

Ruby couldn't really argue with that, so she went back to the machine. Yang was the only one with an exceptionally loud Aura; it drowned out anyone else nearby whenever she did something big. It also sort of hurt to listen to Yang too deeply. Blake's was barely a whisper, even during sparring class when she was definitely using it, and Weiss' sounded like a normal person's. Which was not how she sounded several days ago.

That was one of the many mysteries that she didn't have the time to figure out right now. Her dreams were full of Crescent Rose and how beautiful her darling scythe would be once she and Weiss finished. Oh, she could barely wait until she made her own dreams come true. With renewed vigor, she went back to her machines.

For quite some time, she worked at them without paying too much attention to anything else. Shaping metal like this was something she missed so much. The turning of the gears, the vibrations in the floor, and the smell of Dust in the air. Forging weapons was soothing in a way that nothing else was. Though even it couldn't relieve all of the tightness that she felt. It was like her muscles were coiled, ready to strike at any moment, even if she didn't want them to be.

As soon as the largest pieces were ready, Ruby turned back to Weiss. She'd been working on something else on her scroll. It was something unrelated to building Crescent Rose, so she probably could've done it somewhere else, but she still stuck around the lab despite all of the noise.

Weiss glanced up, caught Ruby's eyes with her own, and smiled. Then she went back to her work. Ruby held her mouth tightly shut, she knew Weiss would yell at her again if she cheered, but she wanted to so badly. Even if they were no closer to figuring out what her blessing meant, Weiss still stuck around. Though that did remind Ruby of one of her other questions.

She closed her eyes and focused, making red light spill from her forehead. When she opened them, the bugs were there again. They flew through the room in a chaotic swarm, passing through the machines and Weiss. They would have gone through Ruby as well, but they gave any burning Dust a wide berth. Besides flying around, they didn't seem to really be doing anything.

"Hey."

Ruby jumped at the sound of Nora's voice. She looked over her shoulder to find the girl standing behind her with Jaune's shield in one hand.

"Um.," Nora rolled back and forth on her heels. "Are you almost done? I've got a bunch I need to do."

"Pretty close." Ruby held her face very still because one of the flies went through Nora's eye and flinching would be super weird. "What're you working on?"

"Oh, well…" Nora held the shield up. It had a large dent on one side. "I kinda hit Jaune too hard while we were sparring and now it doesn't fold right, so I need to fix it. Normally I'd have Ren do that, but he's busy doing something much more important."

Ruby quirked her head to the side.

"He's making us special dinner pancakes with duck gravy syrup!"

"That sounds tasty."

"Ohh, it's the best. Well not completely the best, that'd be breakfast pancakes, but it's pretty close to the best. Having them a few hours later for dinner that is, or maybe it's a few hours earlier… I guess it depends on how you look at it. Anyway I don't want to rush you, but those pancakes don't last long. So..." Nora gave the workbench a sideways glance.

"I've got two more pieces to do, then it's all yours." Ruby slid another blade section in and started it up. As she worked, she kept the red glow going so she could watch the bugs fly around. They avoided Weiss' scroll just like the Dust lamps in the ceiling.

Nora hummed along from behind her, not getting in the way while she worked. A couple of times, the other girl whistled as a big spark shot from the blade piece.

"So, umm…" She hoped back and forth, not meeting Ruby's eyes. "You were kind of looking at Weiss a lot while you were working."

"Uhh…" Ruby gulped. There wasn't a good way to respond to that. "Yeah."

"Do you… like her?" Nora looked toward Weiss, who hadn't reacted.

"Of course I do." Ruby held a hand to her chest. "She's my partner after all."

"Oh…" Nora's cheeks went bright red. "Ohhh. I… I need to tell Jaune so he stops."

"Tell him what?"

"That he should stop going after Weiss because you two are together-together and-"

"Woah, what? Hold up." Ruby waved her hands frantically, barely not hitting anything while her face burned."We're not… That's… She's just my partner and…"

Nora stared at her, confusion all over her face.

Ruby groaned. "Nora. Do you know what my name is?"

"Nope!" Nora smiled far too widely. "You do look really familiar though so if you and Weiss are hanging out a lot, well I guess that makes sense."

"Nora, take out your scroll and navigate to-" Ruby relayed the path to Blake's note and waited for Nora to finish reading it… again.

"Ohh, you're her team leader and team partner… Umm, my bad." Nora giggled and looked away. Ruby joined in, giggling awkwardly. Both slowly increased their volume until Weiss looked up and shook her head at them.

"Yeah, that's it." Ruby stepped back to the machine and put the finishing touches on her final piece.

"So… While you finish up… We were all kind of wondering, what exactly happened in Professor Ozpin's office." Nora flinched away when Ruby snapped her head back to her. "Uhh, but you don't need to tell me if you don't want to."

"Nora." Ruby reached out towards her with a soft voice. "I…"

"You were terrifying back there. Like, I don't even know when I last felt like that and… Actually, no, I do. It was when Weiss did her big speech in the dining hall and I thought about what would happen."

Ruby dashed forward and wrapped her arms around Nora. The girl tensed up briefly, then joined in. "I'm sorry. I just… I just wanted to actually get him to talk to me and that was the best way to do it and I… I wasn't thinking about how it might feel to anyone else."

"What was so important that you'd do that?"

"I want them to stop the investigations." Ruby whispered and Nora tensed up more. "The way they're done is wrong and even though I know Professor Ozpin can't stop them himself, he's the one who can open the doors to the people who can and then I can-"

Weiss coughed very loudly, not looking up from her scroll.

"Umm, anyway. That's why and I'm really sorry if that reminded you and Ren of… well you know…"

After a long breath, Nora mumbled into Ruby's shoulder. "Was that one of your goddess powers? I mean, that still sounds kinda crazy, but Ren and Pyrrha both vouched for you so..."

"Yeah, it was." Ruby paused, trying to figure out how to describe exactly what she did. Weiss' typing hadn't slowed down, but she did turn her ear towards Ruby. "I made something out of… destiny? I'm not really sure how to describe it, but it was like a bundle of energy which could only be used for specific things. Being scary was one of them and, uhh, I've never done that before so I had no idea how strong it would be."

"Do you still have it?"

"Nope, it's all used up. I could make another one, but it kind of took a long time to get the first one formed."

"Oh…" Nora pulled away and looked at Ruby's hands. "Can you give one of these things to someone else?"

"I don't know." Ruby couldn't see a reason why she couldn't, though they probably wouldn't be able to use them the same way. "Do you want me to try on you?"

"No!" Nora jumped away and crossed her arms in an x.

"Okay, okay."

"Sorry, it's just… I'm not really comfortable with anyone doing stuff like that because-"

"Yep, yep. I get it." Ruby couldn't imagine what being under Anathema control would be like, but it sounded awful.

"Do it to me then," Weiss called out, looking up from her scroll.

"You'd just let her do that to you?" Nora gaped at her.

"Yes, I trust her."

"Aww, Weiss." Ruby clasped her hands together and cheered.

"You dolt." Weiss shook her head and stood up. "We still have etching and wire laying to finish."

"You want to help with those?"

"No." She smiled. "I want to see how you decide to do them."