Rosey one shot

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"Come on, Ruby!" Weiss urged as she led the young dog Faunus through the barrios of Menagerie, her cat ears twitching with excitement, "You'll love this, I swear!"

"...ok-k-kay," she nodded, following along. She wasn't sure what her friend wanted to show her, but it had to be pretty amazing if Weiss was willing to brave the crowds of humans that were currently flocking the streets of Vale. She herself normally wouldn't be doing this, but all the other Faunus were somehow busy, and she didn't really want to spend the day by herself.

While the Faunus were technically allowed to come and go from Vale as they pleased, they were forbidden from going to certain areas, and everywhere else they'd get the cold shoulder, if they were lucky. You really only came into the city if you were desperate and needed a means to support your family. (Though there were plenty of Faunus who'd rather starve than wound their pride by working for a human.) Often times Faunus would avoid the official checkpoints and find ways to sneak in, because pride be damned, the stuff the humans threw away was usually better quality than what was made available in Menagerie.

Today was the first day of the Vytal Festival, when the humans brokered some peace accord or something - it didn't really have anything to do with the Faunus, so it wasn't essential knowledge to hold on to - and as such there were more humans about than usual do to the vendors who lined the streets, the amateur performers, the games that were set up, not to mention everyone who partook in them.

Ruby didn't do so well in normal crowds, much less crowds of people who rarely needed more than a shallow reason to lynch the nearest Faunus if given the opportunity. She clung to the back of Weiss's shirt as she lead the younger girl through the streets.

"Wh-what's so imp-portant here?" she asked, tugging her good further over her face.

"I saw this thing in a magazine and I wanted to know if it's still there," she explained, squeezing past a couple of colorfully done up women facing in differential directions, forcing Ruby to do the same. "I figured everyone would be too distracted today to care about a couple Faunus window shopping."

It sounded smart, at the very least; none of the humans they passed seemed to pay them much notice, being too enamoured with whatever else was holding their attention.

The two of them continued making their way through the streets until they reached an area where a bunch of humanoid robots were patrolling, walked back and forth in a preprogrammed pattern, occasionally passing each other. Past them were trendy boutiques, all with elaborate window displays for what was presumably the hottest fashions. In a storefront close to the patrol border of the robots was a trio of mannequins that were dressed up in three different outfits, all of them very, very white. On the one farthest from the entrance was a short jacket that cut off at midriff length, left undone, that looked like it was made of a soft looking fabric, lined with red velvet. It's hems were trimmed in a wavy pattern.

"It is still here!" Weiss exclaimed, peeking out from behind a lamppost, "Doesn't it look awesome?"

"Y-yeah, awesome…." Ruby answered not really paying attention to the object of her friend's desire. She was instead focused on the people that walked by, regarding them warily on the off chance they happened to notice the two Faunus slinking around the city. It was basically instinct for her at this point, and she couldn't fathom how Weiss wasn't fidgeting with nervousness being here.

As she watched the humans pass by she made note of each of their faces, should she and her friend needed to hide. Everyone looked happy, going to and fro, but she knew that humans' were fickle and could change if your tail swished the wrong way. Occasionally a child would ask another adult about them as they passed by, only for the adult to not so subtly usher them in the opposite direction. She'd kind of accepted that as normal by now, but it was still disheartening when it occurred.

Weiss was currently lost in her own little world, going on about much she wishes she had a jacket like that and how she wished people would treat Faunus better so they could have the same rights as humans, but Ruby tuned most of it out. She'd heard it many times before, and right now her survival instincts were the more important voice she was hearing.

After a while she noticed a young girl with short blonde hair walk by. She slipped on a soda can someone left lying on the ground, falling onto her hand and knees; not ten seconds later the girl's mother, a petite woman with auburn hair, rushed to her side and immediately started fretting over her, checking her for injuries. The girl shook her head 'no', tears shimmering in the corners of her blue eyes, and her mother picked her up and held her close, saying how much she worried about her daughter.

As they walked away Ruby fought to keep her own emotions from spilling over. Seeing the human mother and child reminded her of her own dead family and how much she missed them, the last memory of them threatening to turn her into a blubbering mess.

"...I w-want to go b-back," she whispered, tugging lightly on Weiss's shirt.

"...and then we could all- huh?"

"I want t-to go b-back home," she repeated, "p-please?" She tugged a little more. "We sh-shouldn't even be here a-anyway…."

Weiss looked like she wanted to protest, but she managed to restrain herself.

"...OK, we'll head back." She once again took the younger Faunus by the hand and led Ruby away from the vantage point. "It's not like I can't just look at the picture, anyway."

As they headed back into Menagerie Weiss asked, "Hey, how about we get some coffee? You said you wanted to try some, right?"

"...mhmm," Ruby nodded.

"Then let's go find that old guy! You know, the one with the feathery hair?"

She nodded meekly.

"OK then, let's go!"

fin.

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And that's a little peek into Rosey's life pre-Mirror Images. If it hasn't already been made clear by the story proper, she didn't really have a happy life.

Since this isn't a very long chapter there's not a lot to unpack here. I'd say this is more akin to foreshadowing for events that more immediately precede the main story (see Rosey's character summary), not to mention a bit of practice focusing on "Ruby" as opposed to her friends so much. Does that make sense?

I guess it was fun to help expand the world a little, even if it's not a particularly nice world. (Same goes for Ruvys and RJ's chapters, though without the oppressive totalitarianism.)

Anyway, next chapter we're going to jump ahead to after the end of the main story and see what Cress has been up to after getting sent back.