Coming to an awful racism allegory near you: nuance.
Also, friendly reminder that no one knows that Salem is coming within a mere few weeks. We, the audience, know about her imminent arrival, but the characters have no reason to think that they're on such a tight timetable, which is why they're willing to humor Ruby a little.
Chapter 8: The Pacts of Our Youth
"Down!"
Blake's body reacted faster than her mind and she was dropping at the sound of Nora's voice before she even realized what the order was. Jaune's foot swished through the space where her head had been, but Jaune didn't get a chance to attack Blake from behind again; Nora caught him in a flying tackle and the both of them went rolling away.
"You're open!" Ruby cried from Blake's left, only for her attempted punch to go clean through a shadow. Off-balance from overcommitting, she was too easy of a target. Blake stuck out her foot and Ruby went face-first into the training room floor, which was about as forgiving as concrete.
Above them floated a holographic display of their scores. Blake and Nora's team was up three to two to one against the other two teams, which consisted of Jaune and Ruby in second place and Oscar and Yang in third. Weiss and Ren had been eliminated after the first round and the two were now sparring against each other on an elevated platform out of the way while they waited for the rest of them to finish the unofficial tournament.
"Ow," Ruby mumbled. Blake, feeling guilty about the half-assed takedown, reached out a hand to help her up—only for Ruby to grab her forearm with a triumphant grin and yank her down. Blake fell with a yelp and couldn't roll free without risking a dislocated shoulder, so she was stuck on her stomach while Ruby tried to force her arms into a hold. Unfortunately, Blake was stronger than she looked, and Ruby wasn't mean enough to apply pressure to her wrists.
Calling on her semblance, Blake used a shadow to push herself out of the hold and leave Ruby holding nothing but air. She rose from her crouch and beckoned Ruby forward with a challenging smirk. Hand-to-hand wasn't her specialty, but after so many hours spent working on it over the last couple of days, she was feeling a lot better about it, particularly against Ruby. Considering that their weapons were still being worked on, it wasn't like they had much choice in the matter. Exploring like they were still welcome guests felt a little too presumptuous and, frankly, Blake didn't want to cause Ironwood anymore headaches than she already had. The last thing they needed was for him to reconsider returning their weapons at all.
Her smirk vanished when Ruby did. The storm of petals where she had been dissipated to reveal a befuddled Oscar with his arms still upraised to catch Ruby in a surprise headlock. From five yards straight up and just reaching the apex of her descent, Ruby laughed. "Nice try, Oscar, but I'm—"
"Wide open!"
Ruby could do nothing to stop Yang from using the side of Weiss and Ren's arena as a springboard to launch herself at her sister. Yang got her by the legs, flipped Ruby around mid-air, let go and kicked her in the back to send her plummeting to the floor. Yang herself landed in a neat roll and then spun around to face the rest of them. A buzzer sounded from overhead.
"Ruby Rose's aura has reached thirty percent."
The parameters on the aura sensors were adjustable, but they had agreed that going below thirty percent in the mornings when they planned to work exclusively on their semblances in the afternoon would be putting too much strain on their auras.
"C'mon, Ruby!" Jaune whined from where Nora was battering his upraised forearms with jabs. "We were supposed to be untouchable!"
Ruby managed to raise one shaking arm. "No plan…survives first contact…with the enemy." Her arm dropped.
"Ruby!"
"And the first place medal goes to," Nora abruptly switched from a punch to a brutal sweep of Jaune's legs, "me!"
Jaune's eyes went wide, but he was parallel to the floor and defenseless when Nora's fist decked him in the face, turning his two-foot fall into a devastating crash down to the ground.
Caught by a tandem attack from Oscar and Yang, Blake didn't see if Jaune got up, but the buzzer a moment later answered that question.
Yang alone was formidable in unarmed fights given how her armed style was an extension of the art. Every blow from her took chunks from Blake's aura. It would've done less if Blake could concentrate her defense in those spots, but with Oscar sneaking in for attacks on her weak points, she couldn't be that efficient with it. Attrition was not her strong suit. "Nora, a hand?"
"On my way!"
Yang broke off to intercept Nora, leaving Blake to square off against Oscar. He swallowed and raised both fists. Blake felt a little bad going against someone so much younger, but she wasn't going to go easy on him. This training was for both of them.
She had the advantage of reach and so she kept mobile to prevent Oscar from closing the distance. He struggled to adjust as she constantly stepped around him and kept the fight from staying on a stagnant line. His guard was good but prone to shifting in the moment before he tried to counter, and that second of warning was all Blake needed to avoid his attacks entirely. She tried to slide to his right and take advantage of a hole in his defense, but he stepped back diagonally to compensate.
They were nearing the same wall Yang had kicked off of to get to Ruby. Oscar had his back to it.
Time for a lesson in situational awareness. On his next attempted counter, Blake sidestepped. She got a foot behind his stance, fastened one hand around his wrist and the other just above his elbow, and turned with her whole body. One circle, two, and then she stepped forward once. Too caught up in the spinning, Oscar reacted too late to stop himself from slamming into the wall.
Blake let him go and stepped back. He wasn't down yet but being needlessly cruel wasn't good training. Focused on him getting back up like that, she got her own lesson in situational awareness when Nora crashed into her side and sent them both flying. Too stunned to land properly, Blake skidded and then rolled before coming to an inelegant stop on her stomach next to Ruby, who had opted to stay prone while the fights finished. With how much her body ached through her weakened aura, Blake could now understand exactly why she'd chosen to do so. Aura prevented serious injury and worked quickly to heal injuries that did occur, but it wasn't a perfect shield. Although slashing depleted it faster—a big reason why so many huntsmen, bandits, and mercenaries had bladed options for their weaponry—blunt force had a greater effect on the target's body while their aura was still intact.
Yang's fighting style was a succinct reminder of that principle. The buzzer going off was all the excuse Blake needed to let her head fall to the cool floor. "Ow," she mumbled.
"Yeah," Ruby agreed.
A shadow passed over them both: Nora, ready and raring to go for a two-on-one. Blake wished her luck.
"I thought putting Yang with Oscar would even things out," mumbled Ruby. "I miss Crescent Rose."
"Being able to hold out if you lose your weapon is important," Blake pointed out.
"Ugh, I know." She rolled onto her back. "Uncle Qrow was asking if you visited him yet."
Following her example, Blake shifted so she could stare up at the ceiling. "Adam? No."
"Do you want to? I mean, you wanted him to come with us so I guess I thought it was important."
"He is," Blake said without thinking, and then frowned at her own response. "It's…complicated. Really complicated."
"He never went through with his threat. That's a good sign, right?"
Blake closed her eyes. "I don't know what he's thinking anymore."
"Stay right there."
Adam watched from the far corner, silent and annoyed, while the guards collected his food tray and did a simultaneous sweep of the cell as though he could have somehow smuggled anything in here after his imprisonment. They had already done a thorough check of the clothes on his back before putting him in here initially. It wasn't as though there was anywhere left to hide contraband.
He wanted to crack his neck or at least roll his shoulders, but so much as inhaling too quickly warranted a gun pointed at his face and the wall going back up. If it meant he stayed contained, the person monitoring this whole exchange from behind the camera over the door would absolutely sacrifice one or two soldiers.
Standing this close to the walls had the hairs on his neck standing nearly on end while prickling energy brushed over his skin in waves. It was unpleasant at best, and these two guards in particular always took their time. He'd only been in here for two days but that was more than enough time to figure out that he hated them for more than surface-level reasons.
"Clean," the nearest one declared while he stood up.
"You sure?" the other asked with a smirk. "Just look at him."
He'd heard more creative insults in the mines. This guard only got a scowl as acknowledgement.
"Hoo, scary. Come on, it smells bad in here."
They kicked the tray out of the cell rather than pick it up, spilling the handful of leftover rice grains all over the floor in the process.
"Whoops."
Did they think their little comedy routine was anything more than that? He could gut them both before they even had time to scream.
The wall went back up. Like both times before when these two had been in charge of his meal, they stopped on the other side for even more taunts. How utterly expected that they would find most of their spine when he was unable to reach them. They'd garnered a reaction from him the first time, but never again.
In this glowing prison, the only power he had was silence. It was paltry comfort. Listening to them throw taunts about his failures, about his heritage, about the scars he bore…the rage in his gut simmered, but he kept it tightly contained. It couldn't help him now.
When they were gone, he sat on the bench and stared down at the rice grains on the floor. He got about halfway through counting them before he gave up and threaded his fingers together. Squeezing hard enough to hurt, he bowed his head and let the fury roll through for several tumultuous seconds. It stung as much as it burned to know that he was helpless here. He could profess the power of silence all he wanted, but that was the truth: he was helpless. As helpless as back when he was a—
He cut himself off sharply and stood to pace. How did it come to this, waiting in a cell, waiting to die? He'd expected to be captured at some point, most likely turned in by Blake the second they arrived in Atlas, but in the moment, joining her had been the only reasonable option. The pressure of his semblance hadn't helped with thinking clearly, and now—now, he was here, alone.
Blake wouldn't visit. He knew that. She wanted nothing to do with him, had probably only carried him along when he was unconscious so he couldn't wreak havoc in Argus. The truth was plain to see if he bothered to look. He'd ruined himself.
Again.
The white queen lancer missed Blake by hairs. Her shadow vanished; only its shove had stopped her from getting her aura sheared away by the Grimm's stinger. The summon vanished among the pillars of the training ground. Every sense on high alert, Blake kept herself ready for another surprise attack. Some ten yards in front of her, Yang was similarly braced, hands raised despite her lack of weapons. Her right arm had its minigun attachment, but for the purposes of this training, it was off-limits.
"You should always take your opponents' abilities into account when striking to guarantee that your attacks connect," Winter Schnee said, the speakers carrying her voice to the entire training ground and specifically to Weiss. "And increase your focus; your summons are too unstable."
Across the training ground, Weiss bent her head and pushed her palms harder into the ground. Sweat beaded on her brow from the effort of maintaining her summons glyph with her bare hands. Above them all, Winter Schnee watched from the training deck. Even though she wasn't the focus of Winter's gaze, Blake still felt it like a chill down her spine.
"We're not getting anywhere like this," Yang called.
She had a point, but every time she or Blake attempted to rush Weiss, they were met with a barrage of glyphs and summons. It had to be draining Weiss's strength to use her semblance so heavily, but she just kept pushing herself. They'd already found out the hard way that Weiss was able to call up two partial summons simultaneously—one arm to knock Blake out of her lunge, a sword to cut Yang out of the air. Splitting up wouldn't work across the open ground separating their pillars from Weiss's position. In a battle of semblances, Weiss's was simply the most versatile.
"Behind you!"
Blake ducked, but the sword had been aiming for her legs, not her head. It crunched against her aura and launched her sideways into a nearby pillar. Her aura flickered and pain radiated up from her leg where, though her aura had tanked the brunt of the blow, some of the force had gotten through. It was going to bruise.
"You should have aimed for center mass," sniped Winter while Blake staggered to her feet. "If she had jumped, she would have avoided that strike completely. You should not rely on your opponents' mistakes or luck in battle."
This time, Weiss didn't bother acknowledging her sister's words. Blake exchanged a look with Yang, who nodded and slammed her fists together. Her hair ignited.
Favoring her left leg, Blake limped into cover among the pillars while Yang charged forward accompanied by a shadow of Blake. Blake only caught snippets of what followed but pieced it together as she closed the distance. Bereft of her gauntlets, Yang was still agile enough to dodge the attacks levied at her and strong enough with her semblance activated to tank the ones that got through anyway, which only added fuel to her fire. Blake's shadow disappeared at the first hint of contact, startling Weiss enough to let Yang get close.
A white glyph appeared under Weiss's foot and she slid away from Yang, only for the glyph to flicker. Weiss's foot caught with sudden traction and she stumbled, twisting at the very last second to avoid Yang's touch. A black glyph spun to life behind Yang and yanked her back, giving Weiss room for a glyph-assisted jump onto the nearest pillar and an attempt at another summons.
Her back was to Blake, who leaped between the walls of two pillars until she was high enough to plant a hand on Weiss's back. Weiss yelped, lost her balance, and then they both tumbled down. An inelegant wave of Weiss's hands summoned more white glyphs for both herself and for Blake, letting them turn an ugly fall into a graceless series of hops to the ground. Blake bent over to catch her breath whereas Weiss tried for a mask of composure while she dragged in gulps of air. All of their uniforms were dark with sweat.
Weiss swallowed and dusted herself off. Her gaze flicked upwards before settling on Yang and Blake. "One more. I was careless; it won't happen again."
"We've done this twice already," Yang pointed out. "You may have the widest range of attacks with your semblance, but stamina isn't really your thing, especially without that fancy sword of yours. We should take a break."
Weiss's eye twitched. "Fancy sword? Myrtenaster is a Dust-infused blade of unmatched quality calibrated specifically to be a catalyst for Schnee semblances. It's the product of decades of research across more than three generations of—"
"Right, right," Yang said. "Sorry. Didn't mean to insult your weapon. I just mean that exhausting your aura mid-training isn't going to get us anywhere. Why don't we do some light hand-to-hand practice while we recover?"
"Weiss."
Winter's commanding tone cast a pall over their whole group. Winter herself was striding over to them, training deck abandoned, expression like stone. She stopped some twenty yards away with the clear expectation that Weiss would walk over.
Weiss moved to do just that but Yang caught her arm with a quiet, "Hey."
Weiss tensed and glanced back. Yang softened her voice. "Nobody's perfect, Weiss. I trust you to have my back as you are, okay? I know you're only going to get better."
Weiss's eyes darted between Yang and Blake, who nodded. Her shoulders dropped a hair. "I…understand. I apologize. Old habits."
Yang let her go. "No worries. Give us a shout when you're ready to give it another go."
"Of course."
Now that it was just the two of them, Blake was uncomfortably aware of the tension that had yet to be addressed between them. Yang's anger from the old training room was still fresh in her mind. Was she going to bring it up? Was it Blake's responsibility to bring it up?
In the end, it didn't matter: a ball of red petals careened around the nearest pillar. Yang braced herself for the hit she couldn't avoid, only for the ball to split in two around her and recombine behind her. The newly reformed Ruby tumbled over the ground until her back bumped up against another pillar.
Yang was quick to offer a hand. "What was that?"
"Trying to see how many times I can activate and release my semblance in ten seconds," Ruby mumbled, swaying on her feet. She let go of Yang's hand, shook her head a bit, and peered at them. "Whoa, things are still a little blurry." She blinked and rubbed her eyes. "That's better."
"Blurry?" Yang repeated.
"Yeah, I think if I don't give myself enough time to reform before going again, things get a little out of sync."
Out…of sync. Blake's expression was not a closed book, and seeing it, Ruby quickly waved her hands. "It's okay, really! It just takes a few seconds longer to recover." She laughed awkwardly. "I mean, it's not as bad as when we were seeing how long I could stay in my semblance state. That was not fun. Ugh. I finally understood how Jaune felt on the ship to Beacon."
"How long do you usually stay in it?" Blake asked. As far as she'd seen, the length of time didn't really seem to affect Ruby, though at a certain point her momentum ran out if she was going against gravity.
"I dunno, it depends. I just go with what feels right. Where's Weiss?"
"Getting feedback from her dear sister Winter," Yang said. "It'll probably take a while. Why don't Blake and I join you and everyone else? We can work on semblance combos."
Ruby's eyes sparkled. "Ooh, what happens if Jaune uses his on you when you take a hit? Can you absorb more that way? Hit harder with less?"
"Let's find out."
"I'll go tell them!" Ruby darted off, leaving Blake and Yang to wave away the lingering petals while they headed over at a comparatively slower pace.
"I'm glad she's excited," Yang said before the silence could get awkward. "Though it's not like her semblance requires her to get beat up."
"I think I would've been more comfortable not knowing about the side effects of her speed," Blake confessed. "She's never carried me, but now I don't know if I ever want her to. Has she ever carried you?"
"Not in a fight, but I dared her to try once when we were younger. It was a pretty rough ride, and I don't usually get motion sick." Yang flicked some hair out of her face. "Are you going with the others to the library after this?"
"Yes." Ren had only agreed to the delay in telling Ironwood on the express condition that Ruby take coming up with a plan very, very seriously. That was, of course, in addition to the caveat that any sign of Salem's presence was cause enough to tell Ironwood immediately. "Are you?"
"Sitting around researching isn't really my thing. Nora and I are going to see if we can get permission to visit Mantle so we can get a better idea of how to keep it safe if Salem really does attack. Knowing your territory and all that."
Adam had always emphasized the importance of being familiar with the battlefield in a fight. "I think I remember seeing holes in its defensive wall when we flew in."
"Yeah, me too."
They joined up with everyone else before Blake could work up the nerve to stop and say what needed to be said.
When the door opened, Adam didn't bother sitting up. He had spent the last twenty-odd minutes trying to get any kind of sleep and had succeeded only in counting up to nearly two thousand. At this point, he was more interested in maintaining his place in the number line than giving whatever guard had just strolled in the attention they so craved.
Then he processed the footsteps: light, separated from heel to toe—and the guards did not have substantial heels on their boots, nor did they walk without a heavy tread. His heart began to beat faster even as he told himself to temper his expectations.
He lifted his head off his coat and sat up. There she was. Blake. Now clothed not in an Atlas uniform but a white turtleneck sweater and long black coat split into tails on the back and belted at the waist. Reinforced fabric covered her elbows, patches echoed in the low-profile kneepads resting over her black leggings. A slim purple backpack rested high between her shoulder blades. The only thing she lacked was the distinct shape of Gambol Shroud. Perhaps the guards had forbidden her from bringing a weapon into this room.
"She finally lowers herself to visiting the prisoner," he said, making a show of smoothing out his shirt. How long had it been? Three days? Yes. He had been in this cell for three days. "How noble of her to bestow her presence upon the damned." Not that he'd expected to see her at all. Her face was a welcome change from the guards trying their best to get under his skin.
For her part, Blake saw right past his empty words. He was backed into a corner and the lofty tone was his way of hiding how much it bothered him. She wouldn't let his scathing comments get to her. For a second, her gaze lingered on the dent in the bench he sat upon before she focused on him. "Why didn't you say anything when you were in Ironwood's office?"
He chuckled. "Why didn't I defend myself? Follow through on my threat?"
She nodded.
"Tell me, Blake: what could I have said that he would believe? As for dragging you down with me…" his mirth fell away. "There would be no one walking free who could believe me." He gestured at his cell. "This was inevitable."
"You're…remarkably calm about it."
His smile was all teeth. "You have new equipment."
The non sequitur blindsided her. "I…do?" They had all woken up to a knock on their dorm door and a big box of new clothes that morning. Their weapons, though, were apparently still works in progress. Ruby, the only one of their group to actively take part in the upgrade process, had assured them all that they were being upgraded, not locked away. "What of it?"
"The finest Atlas has to offer," Adam mused, giving her another obvious once-over. "How does it feel to be Ironwood's pet?"
She frowned just as he'd expected. What he did not expect was a total lack of denial. There was none of the fire he remembered at Haven or even its embers in Argus.
"With all your influence," he spread his hands, "you could get me out."
"I don't think I could convince General Ironwood to do that."
A brief inventory of her body language—bowed ears, rigid shoulders, refusal to hold eye contact—showed him where her fire had gone. He stowed the twist in his chest and chuckled instead. "You don't need to lie to me, Blake. I know you don't want me to be released."
"I—" her voice died. She couldn't refute that, not convincingly, and though they hadn't been together in a long time, Adam could still read her the same way she could still read him. She let the silence drag out.
Adam leaned forward the rest his elbows on his knees and clasp his hands together. He kept his gaze down on his hands to give Blake a bit of breathing room since she looked one loud word from bolting. His façade of nonchalance fell away; maintaining it with her was getting him nowhere. "I have had…a lot of time to think in here. I can get tunnel vision, I knew that, but after you left, I let it take over." He squeezed his hands. "I understood what I was doing all along, but I—" he cut himself off, hesitated, tried to find the explanations he'd been turning over for hour after hour in the hopes of holding this exact conversation, and failed to discover anything besides excuses. He let out a frustrated sigh. "I can understand why you might be more comfortable with me in here."
He raised his head, heart lifting to see Blake still standing there. If she could just understand, just be on his side, then maybe—
Maybe—
"I just want Cinder," he said softly. "I promise, Blake."
Her ears folded even lower. She still didn't believe him? What else did he have to do?
Blake swallowed and raised her eyes to his. "And after you get Cinder? What about all the things you've already done, the people you've hurt? Are you going to try to bring the violence back? Get revenge on the organization that stopped you at Haven?"
Incredulous, he got to his feet on reflex. "Do you really think so lowly of me?"
"You tried to turn tens of people who trusted you into martyrs!"
He winced. He…had, yes. But what did it matter now? "You know as well as I do that the White Fang I tried to create is dead," he said. "And even if I do try again, what are you going to do? Stop me? People joined my cause for a reason, Blake. My methods, even Sienna's methods, worked. We were achieving change that Ghira was too scared to even dream about."
"Only because people feared what you would do to them."
"No. Not only that. Don't try to pretend that peace is our only option. Have you seen the slums in Mantle? I have. The city itself? There are anti-faunus signs and slogans plastered all over it. Peaceful protest hasn't gotten the faunus of Atlas anything but slow and painful subjugation."
"That's not true. Once the borders open, things will change."
He barked out a laugh. "Oh, they'll change, will they? Change how?"
She bristled. "They'll get better. People will have the option to leave."
"That's just rich. You don't even have a solid goal in mind, do you? Here's the thing, Blake. You can accuse me of choosing violence simply because I like it, but you'll be lying to yourself. Back when your father was in control, I went to those protests. I saw the apathy and disdain they invited. I saw all of it, and all it did was make me think about how far we were from the Dust mines. From the factories. How many faunus died while we marched? How many were maimed, brutalized, branded? We weren't reaching them. We never would unless we changed."
"That doesn't mean you kill people."
"They kill us."
"An eye for an eye doesn't make things right!"
"So what would you have the faunus do?"
She set her jaw. "We already have the new movement. The peaceful one."
All he did was stare at her. He was angry, yes, but this wasn't the fury she had come to know. This was older, tempered, almost weary. "Then it's just all the same problems as before. Peaceful protests only work when people are watching, when they see you as equals and sympathize with your suffering. We only made progress through peace when humans put pressure on their own to change—outside forces, our forces, weren't enough for them. You want your peaceful methods? Fine. Keep them. But tell me this: how will your marches reach the faunus kept in chains in the shadows? How will your boycotts punish the humans rich enough to buy entire air fleets? The Great War and Revolution happened for a reason, Blake." He searched her face. "How many faunus will you sacrifice to fight a war with tactics that have already proven useless?"
"They're not useless and you know it. The humans wouldn't push back so hard if they weren't afraid!"
"And what happens when they push back on unarmed, untrained, unprotected faunus?" Adam stepped closer, trying to soften his voice, to tame the inferno in his heart and the burning in his eye. "Regardless of where I am now, I started fighting to protect my brothers and sisters in the White Fang. Once the humans start pushing back anew on your father's faction, this entire cycle will start again."
"You don't know that."
His voice shook from the effort of holding back the storm. "I do."
"Things have changed. We've changed—humans and faunus."
"It won't work!" Adam roared, slamming his palm into the cell wall. It flared brightly and the shock it created numbed that limb up to the elbow, but that was just fuel for his fire. "Tens of thousands of hours, tens of thousands of bodies marching in the streets and boycotting businesses and organizing sit-ins, and for what? The signs stayed up. The factories stayed open. The humans didn't care. You saw that! You were there!"
He put his face as close to the wall as he dared. "The people who did this—" he yanked the blindfold off his face—"are still out here, Blake. Still alive. No protest could touch them. There are other faunus, other children, suffering the way I did, in camps that would sooner shoot any outside faunus than let them get close enough to spread their message."
"It was just about your revenge," she said, voice small. She couldn't look him in the eye.
"Is that what you thought?" His voice, having fallen to a seething whisper, rose again. "Yes, I wanted to make them pay. I was a child." She flinched. "How can you tell me that doing everything in my power to tear down the system that allowed this is wrong when you know that peaceful protest hasn't gotten us anywhere for decades?"
She couldn't do this anymore. More importantly, she didn't have to. This visit had been a mistake; she couldn't tell Adam the truth, couldn't tell him that she suspected Cinder was already dead, that her story of enacting vengeance against Cinder was just a lie to buy time. He was as dangerous as he'd been at Haven, faked attempts at reconciliation aside. She turned and walked away without another word—but of course Adam wouldn't just watch in silence.
"Yes, Blake, run away. Run away like you always do!"
The door slammed shut behind her. She stood on the other side, breathing hard, and earned concerned glances from both guards. She shook her head to ward off any comments and left at a brisk walk that was only hairs away from being a run. Her escort, a soldier whose name she hadn't caught and who had been waiting for her outside, had to hustle to catch up with her.
The trip back to Atlas Academy was long enough to allow her to get her pounding heart under control. She was sure her face was still a bit flushed but there wasn't anything she could do about that. Leaving her escort at the entrance, she strode through the hallways with the full intention of washing her face and then getting lost in the library until Ruby called them all for a group strategy meeting over dinner.
Her plans were interrupted when she nearly ran into Oscar coming around a corner. An awkward stumble on her part saved them both from a collision, though Oscar still lost his footing.
"Sorry," apologized Blake, helping him up.
"It's okay, I should've been looking where I was going."
Not with the way one of his eyes was blackened and swollen nearly shut. "What happened?"
He touched where she was looking and winced. "I guess it looks pretty bad, huh? I took a punch from Yang."
Her eyes went wide. "She—"
"No, no," Oscar cut in quickly, waving his hands, "it was my fault. I asked Yang to spar with me after I had a session with General Ironwood. I knew my aura was low and didn't tell her. Plus, she seemed pretty distracted the whole time. She already feels bad about it. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt that much."
That wasn't very reassuring, but Blake let her shoulders fall. "If you're sure."
"Really, I'm fine. Um, you weren't at training earlier. Did something happen?"
Now it was her turn to be too aware of how unsettled she still felt. "I…went to visit Adam."
Oscar's mouth made a perfect circle. "Oh. Do you…want to talk about it?"
"No. Maybe." She sighed, then, seeing a group of students walking by, offered a strained smile to them. She then steered Oscar down the hall until they found an empty classroom. Apparently meant for engineering, it was dominated by large worktables while shelves laden with tools and parts lined the walls. Blake fell into the nearest elevated chair and rested her elbows on the table, fingers twining through her hair.
"So what happened?" asked Oscar, pulling himself up into a seat of his own.
"I went down to tell him that Cinder might be dead already, but things kind of got out of control. I couldn't even bring that up. He's…His idea of what the faunus should do and mine don't line up at all, and he's furious that I don't want to do what he does. To him, pacifism is just cowardice."
"There weren't a lot of faunus in the community I grew up in," Oscar admitted. "I never really saw discrimination until Haven, and here. I didn't even really know what the White Fang was."
Blake pursed her lips. Oscar was just a kid; he didn't deserve to be burdened with the mess hanging over her head. He was dealing with enough already. She opened her mouth to say as much and apologize for involving him, only for Oscar to straighten in his seat, eyes wide. His gaze darted to the door to the empty classroom and he swallowed. "Um, I know I'm probably not the best one to talk to about this. But, well. I'm not the only one here."
Her eyes widened. "He's back again?"
Oscar bit his lip. "Only if you want him to be."
The prospect of having an adult to talk to, someone who had seen everything before and could offer her some hint of perspective, was too perfect for her to pass up. Even if he had lied to them about Salem's immortality, he had also been the one to allow her to attend Beacon in the first place. And, if she was being honest with herself, she was lost, overwhelmed, and confused. When this had happened a handful of times in the past, she had gone to Adam or had someone else talk to her before she went too far, but now that Yang wasn't an option and he was the problem—
"Please," she said.
Oscar nodded. His breath caught, his eyes glowed, and his posture changed. Ozpin regarded her coolly. "Miss Belladonna. I hope you can forgive my eavesdropping on your conversation."
"It's fine; we've figured out that you can see and hear whatever Oscar can."
"It is an inevitable part of our condition, I'm afraid. Before we discuss the White Fang, however, I would like to apologize. It's an apology your entire team deserves, but I am...not on speaking terms with most of them, unfortunately." He sighed and gathered himself. "I brought you, your team, and your friends into this conflict without telling you its full scope. I hid important facts from you, and through it was initially out of a desire to build a foundation of trust, it soon took on a life of its own. You all should have found out the truth of her immortality after Haven. I am sorry."
One more thing to add to the pile. Another it's fine lodged in her throat. It was far from fine. "I…need to think about it a little more," she said. He nodded.
"Of course. Now—"
"Wait." Now that she had him, she couldn't stop the urge to get his thoughts on one other thing. Not because she didn't trust Ruby, but because, well: "What Ruby did, lying to Ironwood. We're…basically doing the same thing you did. Do you think that's okay?"
He looked towards the door, a furrow digging itself between his brows. "Miss Rose's intentions are good. I myself withheld the truth from James, though without a promise of telling him at a set point, and I do worry how he will take it. Her plan is part of the reason why I have yet to make a greater reappearance."
"So?" she asked carefully. He wasn't answering her question.
He brought his gaze back to hers. "I'm afraid my judgement on the matter is both compromised and not the solution you seek."
Though the reproach in his tone and words was subtle, she picked up on it easily enough. "I should trust Ruby more."
"Questioning your leader is not necessarily a bad thing. Going above them to make someone else's opinions your own, however, is…unwise."
Ruby's comment of feeling like a kid echoed in Blake's mind. She swallowed. "I understand."
His reassuring smile wasn't as effective as he probably hoped. "Now, as for what you were actually interested in discussing: it can be quite easy to find oneself in your position. All it takes is a singular goal and a bit of morality. In your case, faunus rights and the morality of the methods used to attain and secure them."
"Are you saying it's wrong to want to protect innocent people?" Blake asked, incredulous. Ozpin shook his head.
"Not necessarily. But simply because one way is more ethical by your standards than another does not make it more right. Yours is not a question that has such an answer." He folded his hands in his lap, eyes going unfocused at the far wall. It was a strange expression to see on Oscar's young face. "The faunus have endured horrific treatment for many, many centuries. None of it was motivated by logic; rather, it was an illogical fear of the unknown, of the other, that caused humanity to reject them so violently. It was a weakness in human hearts, one that too few were self-aware enough to fix. Despite all the time that has passed, that weakness remains."
He sighed. "Were this a problem with a logical root cause that could be refuted, were there a single individual or company motivating all of it that could be taken down in one fell swoop, perhaps your return to peaceful protest could turn the tide of public opinion."
Blake's ears dipped. "But it's not that simple."
"Unfortunately."
"So, what? Adam is right?" She squeezed her hands into fists. "It's been years, and I still can't get some of the faces of the people I hurt, the people I killed, out of my head."
Ozpin rested a hand on her arm to bring her back to the present. "As I said, there is no right answer. Merely different means to a similar end. It is your choice, personally, where to draw your own lines and separate what you consider justified and what you do not. Mister Taurus has the right to do so as well."
"But he always hurts innocents," Blake whispered. "His choice gets people killed."
"Very few fights this serious or on this scale can happen painlessly. Your kind fought wars, fought a revolution, to get things to where they are now, and that still wasn't enough. From what I understand, Mister Taurus has suffered some of the worst humanity has to offer, atrocities that decades of activism could not stamp out. Though you are a faunus as well, your experiences, Miss Belladonna," he let her last name and the weight it carried hold for a second, "have been fundamentally different." He softened his voice. "A historical perspective and a cautious bit of empathy may help you understand his point of view more clearly. At times, facing our pasts is the only way we can move forward."
When she could only look away and bite her lip, a confused wave of memories with Adam swirling in her chest and the scar on her stomach burning, Ozpin took his hand back.
"You do not have to forgive," he said. "You do not have to forget. It is your choice whether you attempt to bridge this divide at all. At the same time, you are a Belladonna, and you have chosen to use that name and the weight that it carries in the past. Consider that carefully."
She had gone in search of clarity, but her talk with Ozpin only had her feeling more confused and conflicted than before. Rather than risk running into anyone else, she found an empty balcony—most were vacant, given the temperature—and resigned herself to several minutes of numbing cold until she could actually figure out what she was thinking.
If she considered everything in isolation, it was manageable. Crossing a line with Yang. Using the last of an all-knowing being's questions on Adam instead of an immortal being bent on the destruction of the world. Adam in a prison under her feet. The future of the White Fang. A war against an immortal being bent on the destruction of the entire world.
In isolation, each one of those was fine. Well, except for Salem. Blake was going to be wrapping her head around that for the rest of her life. But she was supposed to be dealing with all of these things all at once. Groaning, she put her elbows on the railing and scrubbed her hands through her hair, ears folding to accommodate her frustration. How had protesting for faunus rights led her to this?
She laid her arms over the railing and pillowed her head on them, staring out over Atlas through the clouds of her own breath. Shining silver towers, ethereal spirals of hard light tubes, glowing climate-controlled domes, and intricate architecture stood as monuments to technological prowess. It was a beautiful city, she wouldn't deny that, but her appreciation was tempered by its long shadow. How many faunus had been exploited to bring this city to life? The SDC had been and still was Atlas's primary Dust supplier. Had…had Adam toiled in a mine just so that an Atlesian could enjoy a picnic in the dead of winter?
And all the while, Mantle lay below: neglected, overcrowded, and besieged by Grimm. Was she supposed to use her name here and now? Start a sister movement of her own to her father's? But how was she supposed to do that and focus on Salem at the same time? Ironwood barely trusted them now and if she began gathering faunus, that might make him think that she was fomenting instability—but the thought of doing nothing at all for Mantle and the faunus in it made her stomach turn over.
She closed her eyes and squeezed her arms. She alone wasn't enough. She was just one person; how could she be?
The cold was starting to seep through her aura. It wouldn't be enough to cause problems until her aura was depleted, but that didn't stop her from being able to feel it. At least her mind was settling. It was exactly what she'd wanted, but it had chosen the wrong thing: Adam. Of all things, she didn't want to think about him. After the horrors he had wrought, it wasn't naïve to think that her father's way was the only way, was it?
Brothers, and Adam would know. His words about the children in the mines turned over restlessly in her head. He was violent and he was angry, but he wasn't wrong.
I was a child.
The door opened behind her and Blake's breath caught in her throat. She spun even though she'd been doing nothing wrong only to see Weiss on the threshold. Like Blake, she had donned her new clothes: a white dress with a deep V-neck and cutout over her legs layered on a shorter light gray dress. A light blue-gray cardigan covered her shoulders and upper arms and was tucked into a pair of elegant white gloves. A single belt stretched around her waist to support two pouches for Dust.
"I had to ask what felt like half this academy to find you," Weiss said, hands on her hips just for show.
Blake tried to recover her composure. "I just needed some air."
"Aren't you cold?"
"A little. It's helping. Did you need something?"
"I—well." She drew herself up straight. "I wanted to apologize for my conduct during training these past few days. I haven't been conscientious of your limits and preferences. I thought merely being aware of it would be enough, but evidently, it is not."
"It's okay. We've all been pretty stressed."
Weiss huffed. "That's no excuse. It's not my first time learning under Winter's guidance and I should have known how it could affect me. I really should have gotten a handle on it after Yang talked to me the first time."
"Then I accept your apology. Is that why you were looking for me?"
She went a bit red. "Well, yes. I thought it would take longer. It did with the others."
"Then—"
"Actually," Weiss started, only to stop when Blake spoke at the same time. "Go ahead."
"No, you go. I wasn't saying anything." Just a polite way to end the conversation so she could get back to…what, confusing herself? The last time she'd been this caught up in her own head, Yang had been the one to sit her down in a classroom and force some perspective onto her. Ozpin had more or less done the opposite, so…
"Well, I was wondering if—I mean, since we've all been so stressed, I thought I would offer…" Weiss trailed off, face screwing up in irritation at herself before she blew out a breath. "You know what I liked to do when everything was just too much? A makeover. I know it may not be one of your preferred activities, but—"
"I'd love to."
"I understand, I'll—wait, you will?" She cleared her throat, embarrassment dusting her face with red. "I mean, of course. I have everything we'll need in our room."
As promised, Weiss had gathered an impressive array of beauty products and tools now arranged on their room's odd little desk-vanity hybrid. Blake picked up a tube of thick mascara with a raised eyebrow, glancing at Weiss through the mirror.
"Where did you get all of this? I thought we lost pretty much all of our luggage in Argus."
"I asked around. The students here were very accommodating."
"They just…gave it to you?" Blake tried to think of a tactful way to phrase her question and failed. "I mean, personally, my family got merchant discounts and things like that in Menagerie, but I couldn't really get things for free."
Weiss picked up a brush and began to pull the hair out of it. "Well, no, of course I didn't get them for free. And they're not mine, I'm just borrowing them. I wanted to invite Yang and Ruby to do this too, but they're both gone right now, and with how things between you and Yang have been so tense, I just went down the path of least resistance. After all," she gripped the brush a bit tighter, eyes boring holes into it while her chipper tone utterly failed to deflect from that, "doing it alone would be pretty sad, don't you think?"
She drew in a deep breath, visibly composed herself, and offered Blake a far more genuine smile. "If you really must know, I offered to sing at one of the students' friend's birthday parties. So…that's what I'll be doing tomorrow night."
"I'm sure Jaune would love to see that," Blake offered. Weiss sighed.
"And that's exactly why he'll never hear about it. And no offense to you, but I'd really prefer it if all of you saw me as a huntress first and a singer second. Singing just as a performance…" Her eyes scrunched. The brush shook in her hands. "The last time I had to do it—"
"I understand. It's our secret."
"Thank you. Now," the discarded hair went into the wastebasket while Blake found herself pushed down into the chair, "what would you like to do?"
"Uh."
"You have a lot of hair, but it's very fine," Weiss continued. "Mine is a little thicker than yours—nothing like Yang's, though—but I'm pretty confident in my skills."
"Your…skills?"
"Of course! When you spend most of your childhood and teenage years being handed from hairdresser to hairdresser and makeup artist to makeup artist before your shows, you tend to pick up a few tricks. We'll do hair first. So, whatever you want, I'm pretty sure I can do."
Her mind was blank. "Well, it seems a little unfair to you since I've never really done anything like that—"
"Nonsense," Weiss said as she began to brush Blake's hair. "Tell me what you'd like." She paused. "Do I need to be careful of your ears? Brush them differently, avoid them, or—"
"You can just go around them," Blake said. She went to say more, but the unexpected sensation of the soft brush teasing through the hairs near the top of her head cut her off.
Weiss paused again. "Is something wrong? I can stop."
"No," Blake managed. Brothers, her voice was shaking. "Keep going."
Weiss kept going. Blake swallowed. The last person to do this for her had been her mother shortly before the furious argument that had resulted in Blake abandoning Menagerie for Adam's White Fang. Memories built and built in her threat and squeezed her chest. She'd seen her mother recently, even left on good terms, but she was so, so far from being the small girl fidgeting on that little stool while her mother sang silly songs to keep her entertained.
When Blake brushed her own hair, she was quick to force a comb through knots. Sometimes she held the hair higher up to stop it from hurting, but a lot of the time, she treated it like a nuisance that couldn't be helped. Weiss displayed none of that disregard; her touch was gentle and attentive, the brush never painful. As Weiss got through the last of the large knots and began brushing through the rest to make sure she had gotten them all, Blake's eyes slipped shut. She quickly forced them open, face flushing red at the realization of how much simply having her hair brushed was affecting her.
"Have you made up your mind?" asked Weiss.
She hadn't been thinking about it at all. "Maybe braids?" she offered. "I'm sorry, I really don't know." The most she'd done was the ribbon to hide her ears and a ponytail here or there.
"Braids," Weiss murmured, giving Blake's hair a considering look. Blake watched her through the mirror while Weiss lifted and checked the length of a few sections before nodding. "Yes, I think braids will look very nice."
While Blake sat as still as she could manage, Weiss manipulated her hair with deft fingers. She went light on products, largely relying on a little spray bottle of water—the output of which she was careful to keep away from Blake's ears—and bobby pins to get Blake's hair into position.
"So how are you doing?" Weiss asked while she worked. "Even if we don't have Salem breathing down our necks, it feels like there are a half-dozen new things knocking on our door every time we turn around."
Blake wasn't even surprised to hear that she wasn't the only one dealing with too much. The Salem issue was universal, but for Weiss, she had just returned to the kingdom she had fled not even six months earlier. Her father, if he didn't know she was back already, would find out eventually—and their bad relationship was obvious.
"It's hard not to feel overwhelmed," Blake admitted. "This downtime is probably the only thing keeping me sane."
It was difficult to see exactly what Weiss was doing, but clearly, she was pulling the hair on top of Blake's head into one large and relatively loose braid that accommodated her ears. "I swear, if Ruby wasn't so preoccupied with her planning and helping with the weapon upgrades, we'd have another three-ring-binder's worth of 'activities' to participate in, mandatory escort or no." Blake watched the melancholy fall over her face in the mirror. "I do think it would be fun to do those kinds of things again."
As Weiss's touch drifted down towards Blake's shoulders, it felt like she was pulling the hair tighter. So…one large braid? But no, after it felt like Weiss finished that part, she started on a braid just below Blake's right temple. "Do you think Salem will attack Atlas?"
"I think she has to, eventually. Though this is the best-defended kingdom on Remnant, it also has two relics at once stored within it. She needs all of them for her plan, right? I don't know whether someone like her would even care about risk, but Vacuo is undoubtedly the easier target. She might wait for us to let our guards down."
Blake's stomach sank. "She could be attacking Vacuo right now."
"She could be." Weiss began mirroring the smaller braid on the other side of Blake's head. "Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about that besides hope that Neptune and the others are safe. If we hear word that they're under attack, then I know we would do everything we can to help."
"If." Was Sun safe? Had he made it safely back to his team?
Weiss sighed. "Uncertainty seems to be the only constant lately. It's just one more reason to restore global communications."
She then deployed more bobby pins and hair ties to presumably fasten it all into place and finally stepped back with a proud grin. She passed Blake a small hand mirror with a gesture for her to spin the chair around. "What do you think?"
Most of the hair on the top of her head had been pulled into a large braid down the center of her back. The two smaller and tighter braids wrapped around the sides of her head to connect with that larger braid, simultaneously tightening it up for the last third of its length. The rest of her hair was left as a wavy curtain not unlike how it naturally rested.
"It looks amazing," Blake said, and meant it. "Thank you, Weiss."
"You're very welcome."
She stood from the chair, one hand running over the braids. It was the most she'd ever done with her hair. "I really don't think I can match this with yours."
"It's not about matching it," Weiss dismissed while she sat down. Her hands went up to remove her hairpiece and take her hair out of its ponytail. "It's just about doing something different."
Something different. After one last glance at her own reflection, Blake grabbed the brush. She had to take her own hair out of its bristles first—it would be very obvious on Weiss's white hair if she didn't—but that didn't take very long. "So…do you have an idea of what you want to do with it?"
"Stylist's discretion."
Well if she'd known that was an option from the start, she could've saved Weiss some trouble earlier. She wasn't completely helpless here; though she never wore her hair in a braid, she did know how to do it. Not well, per se, but passably. Doing it on someone else's hair had to be easier, right?
Pursing her lips, Blake got to work brushing out Weiss's hair while she formed a plan. Weiss never wore her ponytail centered; she always had it off to one side. "So how about you?" she asked while she worked. "How are you holding up?"
Weis let out an explosive sigh. "Oh, you know. Returned to the kingdom I spent a hefty sum to escape, dreading the day my father discovers that fact, coping with my sister and that entire…situation. As you noticed during training, it hasn't been going well." She folded her hands in her lap and closed her eyes while Blake brushed out her bangs. "Of course, it could be worse. Perhaps having all of this time to think is exactly why it feels like so much more than it used to."
"I hope so, or when things get bad again, we're going to have a serious problem." Though her tone was joking, she realized as she spoke that she meant it more than she'd realized.
"Right." Weiss opened her eyes again and stared at herself in the mirror. "I certainly don't want to pile onto the issues you're facing right now, but."
Blake paused. "But?"
"The way I've been acting with you—it's not just about Winter, or my father, or Salem. It's about Adam Taurus."
Blake's stomach sank. Of course. She'd been so preoccupied with Yang's reaction that Weiss's—arguably just as important given the White Fang's actions against her family in the past and Adam's well-known hatred of that family—had fallen out of focus. Forgetting that wasn't just being selfish; it was being a bad friend. "Weiss, I am so sorry."
"It's all moot now that he's locked away, but it has been weighing on me." She held up a hand to forestall Blake's next words. "I'll have you know that I have dedicated far too much of my valuable free time to this matter already. My mind is made up: I forgive you."
"You…forgive me?"
"It was either leave him in a city in the midst of a Grimm attack or take a chance. You know him best, and I trust you. If you believe that he might help us, then I believe that too. My judgement of faunus and White Fang faunus in particular has been horribly compromised in the past, after all."
"Weiss, I—" she didn't even know what to say. "Thank you for trusting me. I'm not sure I deserve it."
"Fortunately," Weiss said airily with a self-aware smile, "it is not your opinion on my trust in you that matters."
Blake echoed her smile but it didn't last. "I'm still worried about him."
"Why? Do you think he could fight his way out from the middle of Atlas's military headquarters?"
"I don't know." She braided the last of Weiss's hair and used a hair tie to finish it off. A little white flower attached to the tie sparkled in the light. She stepped back to give Weiss room to examine her handiwork. "He's so focused on Cinder, and he doesn't give up easily. What if he finds some way out and—and what if she's actually already dead? If he thinks I lied to him, he'll—"
Weiss examined her reflection in the hand mirror. "This looks really good. The flower is a nice touch."
She'd been rambling. Swallowing, she collected herself. "Thank you."
Weiss set the mirror down. "As for Adam, he won't do any of those things." She stood, squeezed Blake's shoulder, and offered a reassuring smile. "He can't hurt you anymore."
Blake wished she could believe that.
Who here thinks that Blake not telling Adam the truth (as far as she suspects) about Cinder is going to end well? Anyone? Anyone at all?
Please review.