"H-Hey Weiss." I took a deep breath to calm my nerves while putting up another front. I successively wiped all evidence of my tear stains so Weiss wouldn't notice them. "How did you find me?"

"This." She pulled up a tattered piece of red cloth. Pieces of strings dispersed in all directions from the freshly ripped side of it.

"And," Weiss continued. She pointed her thumb off in that general direction. "I heard your voice echoing from the courtyard."

"Right..." I sighed. That ensnaring death trap of a branch that tried to strangle me to death earlier and my shouts. "So what brings you here," I tried to play it off casually. "School is at the other direction."

"I came looking for you obviously," she strode my way and flicked her eyes down at me. She kept a straight face, more serious than the others she typically carries. "You haven't been yourself lately. Neither have Blake."

How likely of her to go straight to the point.

"Then you should —"

"Your sister is talking to Blake," Weiss beat me to it. "Yang thought it would be better if I talked to you instead of her."

"Why?" I asked her effortlessly.

"She thought you need someone else, not just her. Seeing that Blake wasn't in any position to do so, I was a better choice. So..." Her tone suddenly gone a little softer. She tilted her head at me and looked me with clear-cut concern. "What's wrong, Ruby?"

Her eyes continued to trail after me when I stood to my feet.

"N-Nothing is wrong, Weiss. I'm fine." I turned my back against her and brushed down the grass. The last bit of my words weighed heavily and left a nasty taste in my mouth.

"No you're not."

"I am," I tried.

"No, you're not." Her words grounded firmly.

"What makes you so sure?" I unintentionally raised my voice. My fringes whipped across my face when I sharply turned around. "I've been fine."

Weiss marched towards me with permafrost covered eyes. Despite how she wore heels, it sounded heavy... Heavy like stomping hooves of a demonic horse that resided in the depths of Hell. She grab a fistful of my attire and she yanked me close to her face.

"Look me in the eyes and say it."

With no traces of hesitation, her calculating eyes focused on me and spared no room for me to be invisible. She stripped away any covers for me to hide and left me bare. Her unmoving orbs pierced straight into mine. They were like cold knives. They dug deep down to scavenge the pieces I left buried and hidden away.

I drew a deep breath and managed to look into her eyes even if it was the bare minimum.

"I'm..."

I suddenly hesitated as the word slowly died in my throat.

Why?

"I'm." I said much stronger. But yet, my sentence failed to be completed. The words remained trapped and I couldn't get it out of my chest.

Weiss' eyes refused to tear itself away as it continued bearing into mine. My sentence finished off with silence and my body felt weak. I couldn't lie to her like this. I couldn't look into her eyes and tell her the same pretty little lie. Once already hurt enough. I couldn't do it again.

"I know you're not fine." The iced layer in her eyes instantly thawed and her expression had gone soft once again. Her fist loosened its grip, but the wrinkles it left behind showed how bound and determined she was earlier. "I always say I'm fine, but I never am. Trust me Ruby. I know what it feels like."

"Do you really...?" My head hung low as well as my ears. My bangs fell past my eyes and casted a shadow over them. I stared downward to our feet and kept my eyes hooded. I didn't dare to lift them up because I felt too vulnerable in front of her.

"I do," she whispered as gently as she could. "I've done it many times before. It's easy to put out a straight face and say everything is alright."

"It is," I admitted, agreeing with her. "But I'm not good at it anymore."

It was funny how I could pull myself together when I was struck with grief and sadness back in my own world. I could always put a cold front, making it seem all fine and dandy in front of my guild mates. But now? It was a struggle. One of the most difficult battles I came across. Every expression I forced wavered. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't live up to the detached character I forged. I really couldn't.

"You're really not," her soft stifled laughter came out to a single sniffing noise. Her hand fell back to her side but then decided to reach up. It paused midway before gaining enough confidence to lay at the top of my head.

"But it's better this way," she gingerly reassured me. "Won't you tell me?"

It was the first time Weiss ever touched the top of my head. Despite her being cautious, it was the first time she ever pat my hair and brushed back my ears. They were treading on unfamiliar territory. My ears flinched to her touch, but eventually became at ease. Her hand swept up and down against my locks in movement to my weakly nods.

We didn't move.

I stood with my head hung down while her hand passively rested at the top. I didn't meet her eyes as mine stayed glued to the green blades of the grass. I watched them sway back and forth against the wind while I attempt to formulate the right words.

"My mom died when I was young." I confessed out to her.

I recalled that single moment of my life where my emotion fell into turmoil.

It was the first time I told anyone. No one knew except my family members. Weiss was the first to hear it directly from me. It felt odd to reveal my strife. When I think about it, I rarely sought out others for comfort other than Yang and dad.

"Everyone thought I was too young to understand. But, I knew and I understood full well the moment she was gone. It hurts to think about it. I just never showed it — I hid it," I admitted to her.

I didn't sugar anything on top. Everything that welled in my chest suddenly poured out. There was no control over them. I didn't need to force it. Everything just happened to flow out. It just... happened.

"I didn't want anyone to see and I didn't want anyone to know, so I buried it deep down and concealed it despite the void in my heart." I shrugged nonchalantly but it came out like barely lifted shoulders. "I was good at putting a mask on. So good that I fooled everyone including myself. I believed everything was fine — that I was okay. And that's how I lived my life."

"As I grew up, my mom resided in my memories and I deeply engraved her into my heart. I would forget the sadness, but I wouldn't forget about her. She didn't deserve to be left forgotten, so I made sure not to forget."

"But guess what?" I croaked out a laugh. I finally lifted my head to reach her cerulean eyes.

Weiss chose to be silent and her arm went down to her sides. I look straight at her, my eyebrows knitted together and my eyes glistened from the pain. That single thorn in my heart bloomed into a prickling vine. It snaked around my heart and pierced me every single time.

"I did forget," I bitterly spat. My voice raised because I was angry with myself. Angry that almost everything I built with almost everyone in my life became a blur. I never understood how my memories escaped me, but it didn't matter. What was done was done. "I lived a life half-filled with lies after I was taken away. I always thought my mom was alive waiting for me to come back home. But it wasn't just her. I wanted to be with my dad, my uncle, and Yang. I wanted to see them again."

"So..." Eventually my voice broke into a soft sound from my spew of words after words. "I went the distance. It drove me to keep searching. The endless walking and traveling, I kept going to find that warmth to fill the gap in my chest."

"In the end when I thought my suffering finally reached a conclusion and I manage to regain my memories, the truth..." I slowly shook my head. It was more directed to myself. "The truth hurts. I regained the good memories and I regained the bad. Finding out my mother was dead was the bad memory."

When I brought it up, Weiss probably recalled our earlier conversations and how I did not want to disclose any further.

Hesitant, Weiss carefully wrapped me into a hug. Her arms coiled around my shoulders and she reeled me close. She gently rubbed my back with her thumb while I kept my arms attached to the side of my hips.

"I was disappointed in myself for forgetting. But more importantly, I was scared, afraid, and started questioning everything. Like what if I start forgetting? What if the memories I made suddenly disappeared? What if it happened again?"

"But that wasn't the worst of it," my voice trembled. "I had to go through the pain again — the same pain that I hid when I was a child. I thought pushing it down will work again like it did in the past, but it didn't. It only worked if I didn't think of her. But at the day of the docks..."

I paused and Weiss understood. There was no need to emphasize it anymore. She was there to witness it and she was there to hear it.

"The grief resurfaced and came back ten times worse. Whenever I tried to push it down, it would spring back up. I felt like I was on a ship and I was sinking with it. The pain... The grief... It wasn't fading. Nothing was changing. I felt suffocated. I couldn't keep my cool anymore. I couldn't keep the strong front from crumbling behind what I thought I were strong walls."

My tears threatened to break free once more and there was a lump in my throat. Weiss' arms tightened to keep me secured in attempt to be the strong pillars I really needed. The glass bottle that contained everything shattered into little shards. I could hear it breaking in my head and I could feel the pent up emotions flooding out of it.

Everything spilling out from my lips was unfiltered. All the raw emotions... It just came flooding out like a tragic calamity.

"I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to cope. Shutting the world out didn't work. Fooling myself that I was fine didn't work anymore. I felt at lost. Yang told me not to let me emotions dictate me, but they did. It's so hard to keep them from trampling over me Weiss." A raw tear shed down to my cheeks, then another. My voice cracked. "I-It's so god damn hard."

"What the hell am I suppose to do?" I burrowed my face into the crook of her neck, my eyes buried along with it. My arms dangling at my hips quivered. "I don't want to feel like this. I don't want to feel so... Weak."

Weiss continued to hold me. She gave me silence to let me cry. My self-constructed walls collapsed. It was as if someone summoned a phantom beast from an interdimensional rift and tore it down. My shoulders quietly shook from my half-silent sob.

Weiss took a deep breath.

"You are far from weak Ruby," Weiss spoke softly as she stroke my back. Those words held familiarity to me — the same words that I once spoke to her. "What I see is a selfless, confident, and honest to goodness leader. You are kind and sweet, and yet realistic at the same time. But you don't always have to be strong. Even the strong has a weakness."

I silently hiccuped and Weiss took it as a sign to continue.

"My emotions can be fickle and even I admit I don't have a full grasps on them. But I do know for a fact that it's normal to feel this way. It's okay to be sad — to feel grief. It's normal to express them. Human and Faunus, we're all alike. We experience the same emotions and we can't escape it because it's an integrated component in our life."

"But it's okay to feel like this, Ruby." Weiss reassured me again. Her hand went back to my hair and she brushed back and forth rhythmically. It felt warm like Yang's hugs.

"I'm sorry you had to go through it all over again," she spoke quietly. "I can't imagine how hard it has been on you. To live through the past again... I'm sorry to hear that."

A weakened snivel came out. Everything remained pitched black when I kept my eyes shut. They continued to hide into her shoulders.

Weiss paused, appearing to be struggling with her own thoughts. Then, she took another deep and slow breath.

"So, come to one of us," she said with conviction. "If something this big weighs you down or if your world feels upside down, come to one of us. Don't seclude yourself and handle it on your own. It's impossible to shoulder every feeling and every burden yourself, and that's what teammates are for. You have Yang, you have Blake, and you also have me to be here for you."

I heard what she had said and silently nodded to it.

"You said it yourself. No one is perfect, and you're not any different Ruby. If you need to cry, I will lend you a shoulder. If you need someone to talk to, I will lend you my ears."

"But please Ruby," Weiss implored. It cut me deep to hear Weiss plead like that. "Don't lie to me. You don't know how much it hurts me to watch you lie. You don't know how much it wounds me to see you suffer."

"I'm sorry..." Being the first couple of words I have said in awhile, my voice had lost its volume. My apology was quiet and indistinct, but Weiss still heard me clearly as I was right next to her ear, face still buried into her shoulders.

"It's okay," she accepted my apology. "For next time in the future, don't push down your emotions and hope it'll be gone. It won't disappear. I've been there myself and struggle to not make it a habit. We'll be here." She assured me. "At least... I'll be here for you."

I let her last words sink into my thoughts and I nodded again. I finally reached around her waist and hugged her to let her know I took in what she said. I took a deep breath to collect myself, but more to recollect my train of thoughts.

What was once shattered walls were starting to mend back together to something more firm, something stronger than before. The internal struggle mellowed. I could feel it inside and I was starting to feel a little at peace again.

This was nice.

Really.

This feeling is honestly... Nice.

Our shared hugs carried on until I pulled away from Weiss. My eyes flickered from the dirt to hers as it mustered the courage to.

"Thank you, Weiss." The last tears fell forth from the corner when my eyes crinkled into a sincere smile. I wiped them away with the back of my sleeve and sniffled a final time. Weiss looked back at me with a warm smile as well. "Thanks for being there for me."

"Of course Ruby," she replied earnestly. "Do you feel better?"

I nodded my head. "I do. I never knew how much I needed to talk and to let it all out."

I felt more than a lot better.

Talking to Weiss lifted a load off and listening to her console me took a great deal of woe away.

I never knew how talking could make my body feel light like the wind.

"That's good to hear." Weiss flashed another smile.

In her own graceful pace, she walked past me and picked up Thorn from the floor along the way. She sat down on top of the fallen log but not before reaching over to retrieve a piece of wood that I had been shucking earlier. She studied it and tried it for herself again.

"There's something I noticed about you," she said to me.

"Such as?" I took the spot next to her and watched her successfully took a thin piece of wood away.

"You do this when you're always withdrawn in your own thought," Weiss answered, making another successful carve. "Why is that?"

"It's a habit I never grew out of." I shrugged in response. "In some way, it helps me reflect."

Weiss hummed before going soft in tone. "I've been thinking..."

"Of?" I asked her. I watched her hand pale when she applied more force into slicing through the wood.

"We're partners." Weiss halted midway so she can turn her eyes to me. However, they shot down to the floor before it even got the chance to look into mine. "And I barely realized that I don't know you too well."

"You kind of do now," I said with a reassuring half-smile. I casted a quick glance to her before letting my eyes hang low. "Um... What is it that you want to know more about?"

"I'm not really sure," Weiss shrugged her shoulders before sending a contemplating but uncertain expression my way. "How about... Your story?"

"My story?" I was caught off guard. I shifted in my seat feeling uncomfortable — perhaps it was a sudden in the moment overreaction thinking that Weiss somehow discovered my secret in a short span of time. My life was literally an odyssey.

"When you were at Vacuo... You traveled a lot, so I assumed you have a few tales to tell." Weiss found herself hesitating at her own words.

"Oh." I blinked and left a minute of silence bear between us when I tried to prepare a response.

"I'm sorry if I brought up a subject that you don't want to dwell on." She spouted quickly and apologetically.

"I — Uh... No, it's okay." I nodded to affirm that it was really all right. I paused and thought back to those difficult years. Out of the huge chunk spent traveling and searching, was there anything interesting to tell?

"A Beowolf was the first and second Grimm I ever encountered when I was 10 years old," I said at random.

Honestly, it was the first thing that came to mind — my first Grimm encounter. They weren't exactly monstrously terrifying compared to what I've seen in my life. But given that magic was not at my disposal, I could see how they were. Just the sudden feeling of being helpless was dreadfully terrifying enough.

"A Beowolf?" She parroted in surprise. "How did you manage to kill it?"

"Umm..." I thought back harder to recall those days. "One of them was with my bare hands and the other was a scalpel made with a few scrap metals."

Weiss looked at me skeptically. "I don't believe you."

I found myself chuckling. Now that I think about it, a little girl killing Grimm with her bare hands is actually absurd and hardly realistic. Even if it was all true. But it's up to Weiss to be the judge of that.

"Have you ever been to Vacuo?"

She huffed when I strayed off to another question. "No I haven't," she shook her head.

"It's a beautiful place." I stared into space as memories flashed through my mind, a surprising latent smile crept onto my lips.

"Everyone thinks Vacuo is barren," I began to explain. "They're not wrong. Probably more than half of its land is covered by sand, but Vacuo has its pluses." I slowly let my eyes close and pictured that more happy moments during that time period. "There are some jungles still standing. But if you know where to go, there are some parts of the area that is absolutely breathtaking."

"It sounds amazing," was all Weiss could say as she watched me reminisce.

"It is," I agreed with her. Pulling myself back from my memories, I started unconsciously twiddling my thumb. "But living there isn't so amazing. Survival is a challenge for everyone. It's hard to feed mouths with that type of environment. They have to worry for themselves before they can extend a hand to outsiders. Seeing that Faunus weren't highly regarded, it makes it easier for people to turn them away."

Weiss dropped her gaze back down to her lap, probably feeling guilty. "How did you manage through it all?"

"Survival skills I suppose," I answered casually. I mustered a smile to lighten the atmosphere before it gets any darker than necessary. "I guess you can say it was a stroke of luck that it was pretty innate. It had me trying to eat a Grimm."

"You what?" Weiss wrinkled her nose at how revolting that sounds. "I really can't believe you actually did. You don't know how poisonous they can be."

"I didn't know!" I fussed out defensively while barely concealing a smile.

"In my entire life, I never heard anyone silly enough to treat a Grimm like some kind of cuisine" She pinched the bridge of her nose and dragged out a long sigh.

"Spoiler alert." I snickered. "They don't taste good and they're not edible."

"Of course they wouldn't!" She exclaimed, completely dumbfounded. "You know, the closer I look at you, the more you're becoming the dolt you truly are."

I laughed and she broke out of character when she caught my infectious laughter. However, mine trailed off into the wind sooner than hers as my smile disappeared. "Perhaps you shouldn't look too closely." I blew a puff of air and rubbed the side of my neck. Thinking about it, that might be the best option.

My last few words sat in Weiss' mind as she processed what I had just said. "Why...?"

"The more you do, the more you'll see that I'm not the person who you think I am."

She did little to hide her bewilderment. "What do you mean...?"

"What comes to mind when you think of Ruby Rose?" I turned the question around. "I mean other than being a Faunus attending Beacon with a sister who's a total opposite of race."

Setting Thorn to the side, Weiss closed her eyes and leaned back into her palms. "A dolt." She confessed in her most brutal and typical dry tone.

We both erupted in another fit of giggles. It was a cross between a fail stifled laughter and a snort.

"I think we established that earlier," I reluctantly acknowledged. "Who knows. This dolt could be a ruthless murderer who slaughter hundreds of people."

I grinned at her to back up my point which further fueled her amusement.

"Strangely, I don't doubt you as much as I would've thought." Weiss softly chuckled. Though, I could obviously tell she wasn't convinced. She probably passed it as part humor. I guess I look too young and too innocent to pass some harbinger of death.

"But would you believe me if I said I was?" I studied Weiss, my expression did not waver when I did so.

I watched her face slowly fall into a perplexed frown when she caught how serious I appeared. "I'm not following."

I opened my mouth, but instead, I found myself silently shrugging one side of my shoulders. I left it at that, not daring to clear anything up as I suspect she would start questioning even further. But my silence spoke loudly for itself.

"What do you mean, Ruby?" Weiss asked again when she didn't accept silence as an answer.

"Exactly what I mean Weiss. The more you know about me, the more you'll start realizing I'm not the person you think I am. Perhaps you might not even accept me."

Letting my head drop, I mulled over the possible scenarios of their reactions if anyone did discover who I was. The idea itself was hard to believe. I expected mostly everyone to be taken by surprise. If not, then shaken with doubt. But I was more afraid that they'll consumed with fear. Fear of magic and how dangerous it was. To be able to cast something that could split land, that was more terrifying than a Grimm.

But in high hopes, the likelihood of someone suspecting anything should be close to none. The only way they would catch on was if I had access to magic. However, that was impossible. The opportunity only rose once and never again I was able to cast any magic.

"What makes you believe that?"

I glanced upward and Weiss marginally tilted her head to the side in the most endearing manner. Her eyes hung loosely on me, slowly blinking as if it was trying to compute what was going around in my head.

"A gut feeling." It was a weak response, but it was the only appropriate answer I could give to her.

Weiss remained quiet for fairly some time now. She sat there and stared at me with those distracting but impassive eyes. It wasn't like those intentionally cold ones. It was warm, but it leaned closer to those completely blank stares that were unreadable.

"I think your 'gut' needs to be reevaluated," she said frankly.

I stared dumbly back at her since I didn't anticipate such reply. "What?"

"Ruby, you've accepted me regardless of my upbringing. My family took advantage of the less fortunate and evoked a lot of pain and suffering. I can't be any different than you are." Weiss placed her hand on top of mine, but within a split second, it quickly retreated away to cling the side of her arm. "I-I'm certain I can do the same for you as well."

Can she really...?

She wouldn't be terrified of who I really am? She wouldn't reject me because I am different than everyone else? She wouldn't be angry at me for keeping it away from her? Can Weiss really accept me unconditionally?

How about the others?

"Do you doubt me...?" I could see the hurt behind Weiss' eyes when she brought up the question.

"N-No. I just..."

I just what? Wasn't all these questions that is currently springing to my mind considered doubt? It's been stuck in an endless loop, suspended between one question to another.

I shook my head.

I need to stop.

"I'm just taking it all in," I told her with a smile to boot. "It makes me feel better to know that you'll look at me the same. Thanks Weiss."

"Of course," Weiss nodded. She revealed to me a soft smile. The pain behind her eyes dissipated into happier relief.

Side by side, we sat together in silence and enjoyed each other's company. But the midst of the quietness, Weiss began to hum.

I leaned back into my palms and listened to it as it sounded almost close to the hums of Yang and Summer.

I am super late with this. Even more late with my other stories. I got so busy because I ended up finding a job and I come home tired due to extremely heavy traffic. But better late than never! Sorry, I don't know when the next update will be but hopefully it doesn't take decades.