"What the hell?!" was the first thing Weiss heard when Blake unlocked the door and stepped into the room. Yang poked a head in right after, and her happy face melted into a pool of frustration.
"Nooo..! Ruby!" Yang mime strangled her from across the room.
"So I'm assuming you know what this is?" Weiss covered Ruby's mouth with a charred blanket, and a sneeze from Ruby sounded. Weiss pulled back the now smoldering charred blanket husk, batting down the embers. "Because I'd LOVE IT if someone else could take over fire duty. She'd have burned this whole room down if it weren't for me."
Yang rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, I just hung out in a cave till mine wore off. Caves aren't very flammable. Wooden houses are." Yang took what was left of the blanket and sat in the chair Weiss had been in a moment before, watching Ruby carefully.
"Going off of what Weiss said.. You know what this is?" Blake asked, dragging a chair over next to Yang. Weiss took a seat on the bed by Ruby's feet.
"Yeah. Basically. Dragons can't get sick. But.." Yang paused. "Humans can. So if we get sick in human form, and try to change back, ittttt doesn't go over so well." Yang caught one of Ruby's sneezes in the blanket. "Even I wasn't sneezing this much! Or maybe I was, I don't remember that well. I was alone, after all." Yang thought out loud.
"So you were all half dragony too?" Weiss asked, poking Ruby's foot through the blanket. Ruby fidgeted, feeling ticklish in her sleep.
"Oh yeah. Except, when it happened to me my legs were also affected. Ruby only seems to have it in her arms and face." Yang observed, pulling up the blanket covering Ruby for a moment.
"And the wings, horns, and tail." Weiss tacked on.
"Those are a given, they'll always happen. The rest is just random. My uncle said he just became a full on human sized dragon when it happened to him." Yang wave a hand dismissively.
"But dragons are immune to sickness, you said? That doesn't transfer over to your human form?" Blake said, after having gone over her thoughts a few moments.
"Yeah, it doesn't. Its weird how some things do and some don't. Maybe its so we're more authentic as humans? But then again, we've kinda got extra strength and enhanced healing, so that already makes us obviously non human. And don't ask why the healing doesn't work on sickness, honestly, I have NO idea. Maybe it only works on physical wounds? Its like our biology is on drugs and just tosses out facts at random."
"Sounds inconvenient." Blake leaned against Yang.
"Trust me, it is." Yang reached over and gently fluffed her sisters hair. Ruby's eyes fluttered open, and she sat up in a panic.
"Ah! Wha?" She looked and saw Her sister and the rest surrounding her, and calmed down a bit. "Oh. I thoubht that girl from earlier caame back." Ruby shook her head dizzily.
"Girl from earlier?" Blake looked at Weiss.
"Some peppy girl named Nora. She said she was supposed to clean the room while we were gone, but since we were here, she just talked for a little and then left. She didn't see Ruby." Weiss added that last part as she saw Yang's face growing concerned.
"Did this place have people cleaning during the day?" Blake wondered out loud. It must have, Weiss thought, how else would Nora have had a key to their room? If she were a thief or something she'd have been more surprised they were still there.
Ruby scratched at her cheek, it making an irritating screeching sound as her claws scraped the semi formed scales. Blake covered her bow with her hands and her human ears with her arms, glaring at Ruby. Ruby squeaked softly and stopped at feeling the overwhelming pressure from Blake's look. "..please don't do that again." Blake said. Ruby nodded.
Yang folded her arms, leaning back into her chair. "This reeealy puts a damper on our whole 'fly to the next city' plan." Ruby sneezed into her hands, reliving Yang of fire duty.
"I'm sorry.." Ruby mumbled sadly. Her wings drooped.
"You can't always control if you get sick or not. Its not your fault, cheer up!" Weiss comforted her.
"No wait, wait, how did she get sick in the first place?" Yang asked no one in particular. "We can get sick, but its pretty hard to. Ruby?" Yang looked at Ruby. "Have you eaten anything weird lately? Or, slept with the window open?"
Ruby tilted her head. "Not that I can remember?"
Weiss recalled the window being open just a crack the night before.. But, it was just for a little while. Not enough to get Ruby sick. Yang continued grilling Ruby on possible ways she could have gotten sick, in a rather big sisterly tone.
Weiss Wanted to do something nice for Ruby.. It was never fun being sick. "Want me to go out and get you something sweet?" She interrupted Yang for a moment.
Rubys wings perked up and her tail wagged slightly. She nodded enthusiastically before sneezing into her hands again. "Uuhhg. My nose.." She groaned, pulling back her hands that were slimy with snot. Yang gagged and let her use another blanket as a tissue. Oof. They were gonna have to leave some extra cash or somthing here when they left, consedering how they'd burned one blanket to a crisp and were currently covering another in snot. Blehg.
Weiss stretched and stood, walking to the door. Blake folowed her. "I'll come to." She said.
"I'll be alright, you can stay with Yang." Weiss smiled at her.
"Will you now?" Blake raised an eyebrow. Ah. Yeah, maybe it wouldn't be so wise for Weiss to go out on her own when she had 4 stalkers. Good call Blake!
Weiss cleared her throat and glanced away shyly. "Maybe I'll, take you up on that offer."
They made sure to lock the door on their way out, and started for the market place after leaving the inn. Blake walked with her hands in her pockets, exuding a cool calm aura. Weiss wondered what sort of vibes she herself was showing. But she didn't ask. Blake glanced over at Weiss while she was thinking. "'Something sweet' you said. Have anything in mind?"
"Well, I was going to go for a caremel apple.. But if she's sick, that might just hurt her throat. We need somthing throat calming." Weiss thought out loud.
Blake nodded, and they walked in silence a little more. "How'd it go?" She asked.
"hm?"
"Your day out yesterday. First quest together, first day together. How'd it go?"
"Oh! Nice, very nice! We got the quest done, flew around a bit, and layed in the grass together.. But, I don't think it would have gone any difrently even if we hadn't been girlfriends. ...Did I do something wrong?" Weiss accidentally said that last part outloud without realizing it.
Blake let out a small laugh. "Yeah, that's the thing. Sometimes it really ISN'T much different from normal. You don't need feel like you have to make everything extra special now that you're 'official' or whatever. Just being together is special enough sometimes." Blake looked up at the sky and continued. "Take my advice with a grain of salt by the way, I have no idea what I'm saying."
It was Weiss's turn to laugh. "Don't worry, I think I got the message." Yeah. Weiss didn't need to constantly try extra hard or anything. Yesterday was so fun, and she didn't want to remember it any other way. Weiss and Ruby would take it slow, and if things happened, they happened. Weiss felt a small twinge in her heart, making her want to speed up her little shopping trip and get back to Ruby.
Weiss spied a cart selling honey in the market. She remembered Klein giving her warm bread with honey when she sick as a child. "That! Perfect!" She pointed, and pulled Blake over. "Oh.." Weiss said when they got closer. There were lots of different honeys. Some red, some golden, some almost clear... Klein or the maids had always prepared her meals for her back home, so she had no idea what version of honey she'd become acustomed to. It was probably some super expensive brand she'd never find out here.
Blake plucked out a tiny jar from the mess of options, and handed over some coins. "I'll buy." She said.
"Oh no its alright I can–" Weiss tried to say, but Blake pressed a finger to Weiss's lips.
"I know we're the same age, but I'd say I'm probably more experienced in street things. It'd atract the wrong crowd if you accidentally fumbled with gold coins while trying to buy honey." Blake stroed off, glancing back to make sure Weiss was folowing.
Weiss wanted to retort back, but to be honest, she probably WOULD have fumbled every coin she had before getting the right ones out. She had a lot of them at the moment, because of the quest her and Ruby had finished the day before. Weiss followed Blake. She followed her to another cart, which was selling fresh baked bread, it seemed like Blake had caught on to what Weiss was thinking. Was she a mind reader or something? There were times when Weiss thought she must be.
They returned to the inn. Blake opened the door with the key for the room they'd been given when they first got their rooms, and saw Yang hastily covering Ruby in yet another blanket. She breathed a visible sigh of relief when she saw it was just Weiss and Blake coming back. "Can't be too carful." Yang said, as Ruby tossed the blanket back at her in annoyance with a catlike hiss. Weiss chuckled at her actions.
Ruby saw Weiss was there and tried to pretend she didn't just literally hiss at her sister. "You're back!" She said cheerfully. Cheerfull as she was, Weiss could tell from her voice that her nose was stufy.
Weiss hummed an agreement and nodded, taking a seat on the bed. She excitedly took the still warm bread and spread some honey over it, offering it to Ruby proudly. Or more like shoving it towards Ruby. Weiss was acting almost like a child come home from school, trying to show their parents a clay bowl they'd made in class. Ruby accepted it and immediately took a bite. You could almost see little hearts flying around her as she chewed. She gave Weiss an enthusiastic thumbs up, and Weiss did the same back to her. Blake and Yang were very amused at their cute interaction.
Weiss blushed a little when she remembered her and Ruby weren't the only one's in the room, but Ruby was enjoying the warm honey bread to much to care about anything else at the moment.
"You're gonna need some new clothes sis." Yang huffed, flicking her finger at the tattered dress Ruby was still wearing.
Weiss quickly asked a question she'd been wondering about for weeks. "I was wondering about that, actually, the clothes. Where do they go? When you turn dragon? When Ruby first turned she was naked, but after I put something on her, whenever she went back and forth it would stay on her in human form, but disappear in dragon. How?"
"That–" Yang raised a hand with her finger pointed up. "–Is an excellent question." She pointed the finger at Weiss. "I'll just tell you now though, I have NO idea. Maybe it just gets stored inside us as pure magic energy? Kinda similar to how my arm thing works?" Yang shrugged. Arm thing? What did she mean by tha–
"If it is like that, then would overusing your magic to the point of exhaustion in dragon form use up the essence of the clothes and make them disappear?" Blake asked curiously.
"Aw no don't tell me stuff like that!" Yang clasped her hands together and looked into her lap despairingly. "Noooo now I wanna test it out...!"
Blake smiled and poked Yang's shoulder. "Lets test it together when we don't have a friend with four stalkers on her heels."
Weiss's mood visibly perked up at hearing Blake use the word friend. Ruby had a similar reaction. Yang hid a smile at seeing their reactions and mumbled to herself. "So simple~"
"Hey wait..." Ruby said. Everyone looked at her. "Weren't we planning on leaving tonight? You guys even brought the blankets! Can I leave the room like this? I'm, I feel totally better! So good! But I can't turn back yet!" Ruby explained.
You just remembered that now? Weiss thought a moment, then went and picked up Ruby's red cloak from across the room to wrap it around Ruby. "If you keep your arms in, and are very carful about the position of your wings and tail... And maybe also keep your head down a little, you could probably walk around like that. At least enough to leave the room I think." Weiss observed, fidgeting and fussing around Ruby's cloak. Ruby sneezed fire again. She just narrowly avoided getting it on the cloak. "Shoot. forgot about that." Weiss cursed the fire sneeze, taking Rubys treasured cloak back to a safe distance. "No one just sneezes fire naturally!"
Yang raised a hand. "I do."
"What?"
"I do. I sneeze fire. Weather I'm sick or not. I usually tell people it's because I'm a 'fire mage'." Yang said. Weiss stared at her. She didn't recall seeing Yang sneeze since she'd met her... "I'm just more fire oriented then most dragons." Yang shrugged. "It crosses over to my human form I guess. Our biology is on drugs, remember."
"She almost burned my face off the first night we slept in the same room together." Blake grimaced.
"Nothing I do is ever going to get you over that, is it?" Yang glared slightly in a playful manner at Blake. Blake stuck her tongue out at Yang.
"Ok but, back on topic. Could Yang carry all three of us?" Weiss asked.
"Yes, but I don't think we want miss fire sneeze wrapped up in a blanket with two flammable people." Yang folded her arms and thought hard.
"The way I see it, we've got two options." Blake said. "Either we wait out Ruby's sickness, which could take anywhere from a few days to 2 weeks, or we have Yang and Weiss go ahead, and me and Ruby catch up later." Blake looked at around. "What do you guys think?"
Ruby spoke up quickly. "You should go Weiss!"
What? Weiss looked at Ruby, her chest tightening. Did Ruby, not want her here..?