AYangThang: My niece a nephew are coming up from Texas for a prolonged visit with the family. They will be staying with me. It'll be for a little over a month (June 4th-July 10th). When it comes to fan fiction there will be fewer updates during this time. I'm not quite sure of the frequency. The normal Monday schedule will resume once they go back to Texas.

***Oh, also, there's a bit of a dark start to this chapter. It lightens up though.***

Chapter 10
Blake: The Atlesian Way Part 5

Could she really live happily cooped up inside the kingdom's walls? She didn't know.

She held a heavy title as a licensed hunter. The job was a mixed bag of assumptions, both good and bad. Huntsmen, huntresses, vagabonds, wanderers, addicts, survivors.

There was a lot of fun out on the road. Self-discovery itself could be a test a virtue. There could be adventure at every turn. Good friends and meaningful memories. Experiences never found within kingdom walls. It wasn't all glory, though. There were a lot of hard times too. Blistered feet and empty bellies. Rain made mud and the sun could be scorching hot.

More importantly, life as a huntress had a lot of complicated truths.

Backwards logics were sometimes the only comfort she'd find at the edge of that hell. A huntress had to accept some level of isolation. Some measure of withdrawn cynicism. Hope was often distant. Any moral-high ground needed to be lost to the whims of baser desires. She had regrets, revisiting several of them in the realm of her nightmares.

How often had she put dying villagers to rest? How many agonized screams had she silenced in a single bullet when no other help would come? She had lost count. Any hunter that did her type of work would see more than their fair share of carnage. Ruby had insisted on doing the dirtiest of the tasks. Culling Grimm infestations down quadrant by quadrant, searching desperately for survivors in fallen villages.

Reports from these remote locations sometimes wouldn't come in until weeks after the attack. Survivors huddling corners in masses, the dead rotting in the streets. It was an ugly job, sickening to the core more often than not. Yet, it had been Ruby's plan from the start. To help people. That's why she was a huntress. Simply, to help people. That's why they went to every dismantled village. To be there. To help, in whatever manner that they could.

Those that could be saved, were. Those couldn't, they had two options. Fight for life until their dying breath, or have their lives taken swiftly. They'd be buried with the rest of the dead in a mass grave. When the treatments were handed out as best as they could be, Yang and Weiss had always found less gruesome jobs. They patrolled for Grimm, and aided those with lesser injuries.

Both women turned a blind eye to the sights beyond their abilities.

Yang was better suited to fighting off Grimm and empowering healthy villages. Weiss was born to rebuild suffering economies, securing farmlands and trade routes. They weren't made to venture into the hell-scape of a fallen homeland. They couldn't fathom death as a desire. They couldn't imagine loss on such a large scale. They couldn't be of any help, either. Couldn't cure, but, couldn't kill. That sense of worthlessness was crippling. No one could truly blame them for looking away.

Ruby had been the dark horse. The sight was something Blake had drilled into her mind, she could never get over it.

Hands covered in blood, clothes dripping in bile, and silver eyes stained with tears. Ruby coaxed the ailing to fight with everything they had left in them. Begging them to fight until there was nothing left. Hope for Ruby came in the form of seemingly impossibly victory. Of beating the odds, no matter how dire. Although she would plead, even she was not cruel enough to force them to fight a losing battle.

Blake wished she had even half of Ruby's conviction, but at the end of the day, the facts were indisputable.

Her hands were always cleaner, her clothing was less dirty. It was her conscience that became sullied beyond belief. The logic was simple. How they each reached it might have been different. She wasn't entirely sure. She was afraid to ask, and Ruby never spoke of it. In the end, though, both women concluded the same backwards truth.

If an ailing person was so sick or injured that they could not be saved… If that person was too far gone to recover… They would, if asked, bring that person peace… They would lift their weapon, fire a shot, and bury another soul with the rest of the lost villagers.

Life inside the kingdom's fortified walls were a small piece of heaven compared to all of that.

If she put down her weapon now, it would mean putting down the responsibility of holding another life in her hands. It would mean knowingly forsaking countless people who called for aid. Never again meeting them face-to-face. Never offering all of the tenderness and mercy she could provide. It would mean setting aside the backwards logics that she had grown so used to.

She would need to think like a civilian, finding new ways to conceptualize the darkness of this world. Building new ways to cope.

Blake had to wonder, could she really live a life like that? She just didn't know.

A brief hour between meetings could hardly be considered long enough for a lunch date. It was laughable, but Weiss had insisted on taking a meal together. Clearing her schedule on this absolutely frigid afternoon hadn't been too difficult, either.

The Faunus and Schnee sat together at a small table in the corner. The remains of a meager looking lunch sat on trays between them. Tomato soup and a few hunks of bread was the cheapest meal that this Schnee Dust Company food court had on the menu for the workers. On this all too chilly day, many of the office workers had the same idea. Several of them abandoned the posh eateries in higher levels of the building. Their bellies in favor of something hardy and warm.

With frost caking the windows, it was the perfect day for sitting down with a hot bowl of soup.

Weiss had carefully selected this menu, one of the few echoes left from her days as a huntress. Traveling the world as she did, she knew what sorts filling meals could be made cheaply. Those were the types served here. Low cost and affordable on the lowest floor, where every lien mattered. It was made for the entry level interns and the blue collar workers traveling from the mines.

Soups and stews, portages and pies, hard breads and aged cheese. These were the meals taken communally, both on the road, and on the poverty line.

Weiss placed her empty bowl aside, ignoring the dull roar on the other side of the room. Confused murmurs reaching her ears, and so she knew they were reaching Blake's too. Her employees outright avoided to table. Choosing not even to bypass the small sitting space. Instead, they watched from afar. Weiss sighed unhappily as they gawked at Blake. Only a select few would sit with a Schnee. Fewer still would even think to do so within the basement level food court.

As a general rule, Weiss never took her lunch here. Today she made the allowance to prove a point.

Blake stood out among the swell of workers, Faunus and humans alike. Weiss ignored that surprised glances as best as she could, but she felt them burning into her back all the same. They'd be attracting this sort of unwanted attention for months, perhaps even years. Blake would have to get used to it, and do it quickly.

"So, as you can see, underwater mines are the wave of the future." Weiss explained as she showed Blake her newest plans for the company, a crash course in underwater mining. "The benefits outweigh the risk. We've already begun establishing ourselves along the coasts of every major kingdom."

"I'd be willing to bet the kingdoms aren't too happy about that…" Blake said as she looked over the detailed map that Weiss had provided.

"Mistral and Vacuo were eager to have mines in nearby waters. Atlas already had footholds on Anima for years. It made sense for Mistral to work with the SDC willingly. Vacuo might not be a fan of Atlas politically speaking, but, that's not a problem for me. The Schnee Dust Company has been free to roam Sanus as we please."

"Why isn't that a problem?" Blake cocked her head quizzically. "The dust company is almost directly tied to the military. You'd think they'd have a massive issue with it."

"The wealthy people of Vacuo value bloodline." Weiss explained slowly. "Ada is at least their kin by half. A viable candidate for future arranged marriages. They see her the same way Atlesian bluebloods do. She's a possible future matriarch, and her father hails from their kingdom. It places her on a higher priority than just another rich outsider."

Blake felt her ear flick against her will. "That's just sick."

"It's just the way things are." Weiss said, although this time her lips thinned out into a tight line. The thought was unsettling, perhaps even a little sinister. "You know, Blake, it's not just Ada."

"You too?" Blake said, jumping to the nearest conclusion she could.

"Yes, as to be expected." Weiss nodded slowly. "It's not just me, either. Rather, it's the way the wealthy view women of a certain class." She could feel Blake's well contained annoyance from across the table. She could see the amber eyes that threatened to slit catlike with each blink. Another token of the Faunus blood in Blake's veins. "Vacuo's upper-crust are just as bad as those born here in Atlas. It's a blessing and a curse."

"Sounds like just a curse." Blake grumbled, her feline appendages slipping further down atop her head.

"It works both ways." Weiss remarked evenly. "Ever since my marriage to Nolan, I've never had a dispute with Vacuo. Since my divorce, I'm also eligible to get married once again. I receive offers from men and women across the kingdoms daily."

"Ah, I guess that makes sense." Blake said, her voice a little uneven at the thought of having to fight with others over Weiss. "What about Vale?"

"The wealthy in Vale have no economic reason to court me, There's no political gain from me, either. For that, they'd have to marry Winter. As for the underwater mines, they'd want easier access to dust just like everyone else." Weiss said as she began to fold up the map. It took some time to put away the large, crinkled black and white paper. "Honestly, the Kingdoms haven't been any trouble. It's been the rulers beyond the kingdoms that have proven difficult."

"What other places could you possibly want to mine?"

"For one example, the bordering waters around Menagerie." Weiss told her, pointing to the location on the map. A dainty finger circling the area. "So long as Menagerie continues to be an independent island, I can't get my hands on any of it without the chieftain's permission." She then folded that area over too, closing away the image and setting her plans aside. "You can take a wild guess as to how well that's going to go."

"It's not my dad who'd have the problem with it." Blake said, watching that black and white island disappear between the folds of the paper until the long rectangle had become small enough to fit into the black leather briefcase at their feet. "It's the islanders who would really start a fight about it." She said, watching Weiss disappear beneath the table for a moment to put the map away.

"Make no mistake about your father. I may hold him in high regard, however, Ghira Belladonna does not play well with the Schnee Dust Company. He never has, and I doubt he ever will." Weiss scoffed, popping back up from her hiding place a moment later. Fingers sinking into her strands of white hair, she carefully pushed it behind her shoulders so it could cascade down her back properly. "You can thank history for that. I'm sure my father made dust acquisition a total nightmare before I inherited the company."

Blake sat there awkwardly, unsure of what she could say about that. Her anger at the insipid little island grew. It was equal to the disappointment she felt at her father. A man who should be leading his people for the better. Weiss instantly noticed her discomfort, mirroring it.

"Perhaps that's too heavy a topic." Weiss murmured. "Let's speak about something a little closer to home, shall we?"

"Like what?" Blake rasped.

"Like us, I suppose." Weiss affixed her blue eyed gaze to amber. She watched the woman across from her nod, that slight tilt of her head something to slowly drink in. "I owe you some type of answer. I believe I've kept you waiting long enough."

"It hasn't really been that long." Blake said honestly, even if every hour that ticked by felt like a lifetime. Every day ongoing seemed like an eternity. "You asked for some time, so you should take it. I want you to be sure."

"I'd be able to think for the rest of my life. I'd still come up short." She said mildly. "Blake, I'm not the most amorous person, you realize."

"That honestly doesn't bother me." Blake said somewhat shyly.

"It should."

"Maybe."

Weiss could only close her eyes and sigh. "There are personal things about me which you will inevitably come to understand as time goes on. However, I still feel it's important to tell you that I'm not an easy person to date. I have high standards, and even higher expectations that those standards be met. It's not just because I'm a perfectionist, it's because the alternatives are often...unpleasant. It's often safer to come off as insipid and untouchable than it is to appear too kind."

"You don't have to warn me about things I already know about." Blake said, finding the smirk across her lips to difficult to subdue. "You have an image, I know that. I also know that image isn't half as true as you want it to be."

"Yet, it is true in many ways that I'm sure you will come to hate." Weiss murmured. "I've taken your feelings into consideration very seriously. My own aren't as clear to me. I just don't know how to feel about you. There's a lot of history between us, Blake. That muddies the water more than I care to admit."

"Well, maybe I can help clear it up, somehow..." The Faunus offered hopefully.

"If only it were so simple." Weiss said, knowing she had to be honest. She still wasn't entirely sure how she felt about the woman in front of her. Then again, navigating her feelings were never her strong suit. "You're more than just a suitor for me, Blake. You're a friend, and that matters. I've been thinking a lot about this… About us…"

She trailed off, finding her eyes flicking away from the Faunus that had held her stare.

"Weiss, we don't-"

"Hush and let me finish." Weiss bit out, her teeth clicking shut when the tone of her own voice reached her ears. She sighed, shoulders slumping heavily in remorse. She didn't look up to see Blake's expression. Part of her didn't want to. "I still think that a relationship with you is an inherently bad idea. Strictly by virtue of who we are, I..." Weiss paused again, fighting with the words on the tip of her tongue.

Blake waited silently, her expression urging Weiss to say more.

"It won't be easy..." She admitted darkly. "Building a life together is going to be difficult." When she saw Blake's hope begin to fade out of the corner of her eye, it was too much to take. She faced Blake fully again, this time pulling her lower lip between her teeth. "I'd be lying, though, if I said I wasn't interested."

But what did that mean, really?

Among the dull roar of the workers surrounding them, Blake realized that Weiss was waiting for some type of comfort. Her blue eyes rattled ever so slightly, silent and uncertain. Her hesitancy all but dripping off of her.

"But, you are interested, aren't you?" Blake asked, needing to find the confirmation she felt like she missed.

"Against my better judgement, yes, I am." Weiss said quietly. "However, I also stand by what I said before. I'm going to ask you one more time, Blake. Are you absolutely sure that this is what you want?"

Yes…

It was…

Blake had even murmured as much against the ringing alarm that called the end to the lunchtime rush. Those on a fixed schedule hurried off to the elevators and underground railways to continue their afternoon. The wave of onlookers slowly tapering off as more people exited the seating area. The loud eatery had instantly gone quiet.

Too quiet.

Enough so that her sensitive ears could pick up the faint breath of the woman across from her.

"If you're sure…" Weiss said slowly before picking up her scroll and pressing a few buttons. "You're going to need a suitable wardrobe for social settings, Velvet can help you with that. Then you'll need an adequate residence." Weiss looked up from her scroll, seeing Blake's confusion. "You'll need a place to host afternoon teatime, and other minor gatherings. I'll have Klein acquire a list of suitable apartments. We can look at them together if you'd like…"

"We're really doing this, aren't we?" Blake finally asked, voice mystified.

Weiss felt her breath catch. The scroll was heavy in her hand, blinking with Coco's reply. Her thumb unable to retrieve the message as she let Blake's words sink in. "Yes." She finally managed, more surprised than she wanted to admit. "I suppose we are…"

Blake departed shortly after the ringing of the afternoon bell. Weiss saw her off, shooing her down the street towards an Adel building only a few blocks away. She had been completely serious about Blake acquiring some new clothes, and doing it quickly.

Just as Velvet promised, she was waiting for Blake to arrive. Measuring tape in hand, Velvet went to work. She measured once, twice, and then a third time for good measure. She took down careful notes, sending Coco all of the measurements the woman would need. In return, she promised to put together several ball gowns and two tuxedos. As Velvet put the tape away, Blake thought the worst of it was over, but she had been very wrong.

Velvet had plans far exceeding Blake's imagination. Rows of clothes on racks waited to be sorted though, and that was just the beginning…

She gathered what she thought to be an impressive selection. Two power suits, one black and one white. Formal. Two skirt suits, one grey and one cream. Business casual. Two dresses, one midnight blue and the other a rich mauve. Formal. Two tea dresses, one black and one white. Casual.

She was going to be dating Weiss Schnee. Their first official outing as a couple would be later in the week. Blake thought about her selections over and over again. She hoped that Weiss would approve of them, even while Velvet pressed another hanger to her chest.

"Try that on next." The rabbit Faunus ordered gently, her accent drifting delicately from between her lips. "I'll find you a blouse to go with it."

"Do I really need more clothes?" Blake asked, holding the normal looking black pair of slacks.

"Yes, you do." Velvet replied, sifting through an entire rack of green and blue shirts. "Coco's never had a client starting from scratch before…" She paused at a blue one, pulling it from the rack and holding it up. Then she put it away again.

"I've got eight new outfits already, and you said Coco was making more." Blake complained as she watched Velvet fuss over another shirt, this one a wavy aqua color. "Just how many new outfits are you going to have me choose?"

"Weiss said you needed a wardrobe. Therefore, you are going to get a wardrobe." Velvet reiterated, pushing Blake back behind the curtain to undress and try on the slacks still in her hands. "I assume you haven't amassed any attire for living within the kingdoms, but she's right. You can't just live in the same handful of outfits."

"I can't afford an entire closet full of clothes. I'm just a huntress!"

"Don't be ridiculous. Who said you're paying for anything?" Velvet asked, hands on her hips.

Her question was an abrasive one, lingering for far too long. Blake roughly pulled the curtain back and glared at her friend. Clad in only her bra and the black slacks she'd been given a moment before. "Velvet, how much did she pay you?"

The woman merely tossed a vibrant green shirt in Blake's face. "Get dressed."

"Damn it, Velvet I mean it." Blake grumbled fighting her way through the silky green fabric. "How much did Weiss pay you?"

"She isn't paying a cent for these, and neither are you. These are hand-me-downs from my closets back home." Velvet said as she turned back to the sea of clothing in front of her. "Once they're properly fitted to your body, it won't matter."

"They look new." Blake shot back, fisting the green material in her hand, transfixed by how soft and inviting it was. Then she put it on and buttoned it up. The bold color was striking against her fair skin. "You can't just give me new clothes Velvet."

"They'll waste away in the closet otherwise. There are very few outfits I'll wear more than once or twice." Velvet stated, grabbing a low cut black vest and sliding it over Blake's shoulders. "There, see you clean up well…"

"I don't know about this…"

"The outfit?"

"The whole thing." Blake said. "Look at me. I've never worn designer clothing in my life."

"It's an adjustment, sure. It takes some getting used to." Velvet said, grabbing more pairs of slacks and making a pile at Blake's feet. "I'm mated to a fashion superstar. I can't be seen in the same outfit more than a few times. Even with yearly donations, my closets still end up getting stuffed to the brim. This isn't even half of what I own. These are only the conservative pieces."

"Yeah, but Coco drags you out everywhere." Blake muttered as quietly as she could under her breath. There was no way that Velvet didn't hear the offhanded comment, not with her long ears giving her an advantage. "I can't imagine I'd be leaving the house all that often…"

"You'd be surprised." Velvet sighed at length. "Blake, listen, you're stepping into a shark tank. There are only a handful of Faunus among Atlesian elite. All of them either married or mated into their wealth. We're seen as outsiders. Looking the part can go a long way in keeping things civil at social gatherings. Your weapon was your protection out in the wilds. The way you flaunt your money is your protection among rich people."

"I don't have any money to flaunt. I thought friends were supposed to comfort each other." Blake murmured darkly. "Not try to make each other paranoid."

"You have wealthy friends, and your reputation as a huntress. That's as good as money, sometimes even better. You'll be fine, you just have to be realistic." She said, tossing a few trendy sets of jeans Blake's way. Finally she was satisfied with the offered assortment at Blake's feet. "You're getting several Adel originals, too, since that's what Weiss ordered. However, those are for the up-coming balls and charity events. If you're going to be seen out in public with Weiss, you can't just keep wearing your field gear. You need proper attire."

Blake looked down, frowning at the small mountain of clothes as she dragged them all in the booth and closed the curtain. "Weiss doesn't re-do her wardrobe every year, does she?"

"She doesn't have to." Velvet said with a laugh. "She's in the dust industry, not fashion. As long as she looks the part, it doesn't matter what she wears. Honestly, it drives Coco nuts. Weiss never admits it, but I think she wears the same suit to every Adel meeting just to harass her…"

Blake just sighed, rolling with the punches. "This is my life now…" She muttered, looking down at all the clothes.

"You think that's bad? After this we're going downtown with the charge card to get you some new shoes…"

"Velvet!"

"It's as you said. This is your life now." The rabbit Faunus replied insistently. "You'll just have to get used to it."