A.N.: The following story is non-canon to my fanfic and is purely an Omake and also purely shit.
Or... is it? *Vsauce music plays*
"...*Sniff* Unnnn….AAAaaaugh...Unnnnn...*sniff*…"
A young girl yawned, still getting over her cold. Her arms were raised up in the air, stretching out her hands clenched in fists. Ready to seize the new day.
"Mornin', Daddy's girl."
A young blonde girl, around 15, was holding a tray, walking into the room. The room itself was a mess of clothes, gun magazines, mangas, and military manuals littering the floor. The walls were covered in boy-band posters, bought by her dad, and assorted anime posters, mostly of Gunsmith Cats, bought by herself.
Ruby, without even thinking about it, rubbing the sleepy out of her eyes, answered "Ohayou, Nee-chan," which made her face even more red than the flu. "And I'm not a Daddy's girl." She pouted and looked down at her bed.
Yang smiled teasingly, but her eyes just showed affection for her little sister. "You are too, you big nerd." She sat the wood tray down at Ruby's blanketed lap, steam rising from the bowl of chicken noodle soup, and then looked around. "Although looking at your room, you're probably right. Here I thought I didn't get the tidy gene. Looks like a boy's room."
Ruby was blowing on the soup in her spoon to cool it down, not even looking up at her sister. "You've never been in a boy's room, Yang."
A vein made itself known on Yang's fore-head. "Don't think that just because you're sick doesn't mean I won't beat you up."
She put the first spoonful into her mouth. "Mmm. This is good. Thanks, Sis." She smiled at her sister.
Yang still was looking angry at her, but her face was fighting a losing battle. Eventually, she sighed, and looked to the side.
'Damn you, Ruby Rose. That's cheating.'
'You were already defeated from the moment you challenged me, fool.'
Satisfied that she had won the battle, Ruby continued to eat her sister's "Home-Made"(technically not a lie, it was made at home, it just came in a can) chicken-noodle soup, basking in the taste of artificial chicken flavor and the faint remainder of salt.
Not from the chicken soup, mind you.
Yang huffed, from the wooden chair she was sitting in, and she leaned down, picking up a manga. She looked at the cover. Had a couple of very oddly dressed and very muscular men looking at each other like a fight was about to break out.
"What's this one about?"
Ruby looked to the side, chewing on some udon noodles.
"Mmm? Mmmph! Mmm-mr-mrta-mke-"
"Eat first, then answer."
Ruby chewed, then swallowed.
"Well, it's sort of like Fist of The North Star. But instead of one guy being able to punch real fast, everybody can do it. Well, not really everybody. It's like if Auras and semblances were people, sort of, and they do most of the fighting for that person. I think you might like it."
Yang flipped through a few pages. "Why is that guy talking into a turtle?"
Ruby shrugged. "I dunno. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense most of the time. I think the guy that wrote it was- aaaa, aaaa… Pa-CHEW! … auuggghhh…*sniff* the guy that wrote it was on drugs."
That got a short laugh from Yang.
"I think you might be right." She shut the book, and stood up. She looked around the room. It really was a mess, although it smelled nice. There was a small boxy television on the dresser across from her.
"Tell you what, I'm going to put on a movie-"
Ruby cut her off.
"It better not be fight club."
Yang scowled. "...that's not fight club." She grit through her teeth. "And you can just sit your sick little butt in bed, eat your delicious soup, and not complain as I clean your room. Think you're up for it?"
Ruby gave a small smile. "Could you put the military manuals in alphabeti-"
Yang smiled back. "What a terrible accident it'd be if someone spilled hot soup all over themselves because they didn't listen to their big sister, huh~?"
Ruby sunk herself a bit more into the bed. "Yes, Ma'am. Sorry, Ma'am."
The kindness returned to Yang's eyes, and she started searching through the drawers, going through tape after tape.
"Teenage Faunus Ninja Catgirls?"
"Animated or live action?"
"CGI. Return of the Shredder's in the living room."
"Yikes. Pass."
A ruffling, heavy, clacking sound.
"Groundhog Day?"
"Hnnn… May… be-actually no. Definitely no."
"Matilda?"
"Too racist."
"Cry of Fear?"
"Let's not bring every grimm in a twelve mile radius to our remote little cabin."
"Legend of The Galactic Heroes?"
"Reinhard is my future husband, but I'll pass today."
"Paladin Warrior: Price of Glory?"
"Well, I do like robots, but..."
"Golgo 13? Halo Vs Metroid? The Coffin Princess? C'mon, Rubes, throw me a bone, here."
Ruby made disgruntled Ruby sounds.
"MmmmmmMMM…. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo…. What's the one under Golgo?"
"Gurren Lagann."
Ruby smiled. "That one."
Yang closed the draw and stood up, smiling wide and facing the bed-ridden girl.
"I knew we were related. Cleaning can wait."
"BWAAAAAAAAAH KAAAAAAMIIIIINAAAAAA! DON'T DIEEEEEEE! TAKE MY SPIRIAL ENERGYYYYY! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Ruby blew her nose on her third tissue in as many minutes.
Zwei was licking her left hand, laying on top of that arm as she was watching it. He right was grasped firmly into a fist raised towards the sky. Or ceiling fan, as it were.
Yang was saluting, and sniffling, and slightly pouting. Tears unshed remained in her eyes. "God-Speed, you magnificient bastard."
Soon, the credits for that episode were rolling, and Ruby's outstretched fist became an open palm, the back of her hand and a bit of her arm covering her eyes.
"...I'm done with this show for today. I'm taking a nap."
Yang looked at her sister with a cocked eyebrow. "Rubes, you knew that was going to happen. You always know it's going to happen."
"But it doesn't take away from the pain I feeeeel! AaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA! *cough* *cough* KAMINAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" *cough* *cough* *cough*
Yang sighed. "Fine, get some sleep. You should be resting anyways, you're sick. Quit shouting your lungs out.
Yang stood up and walked to the doorway, pausing and turning her head.
"G'night, lil' sis. If you need anything just yell. I'll be in the living room. Love you, get some sleep."
Ruby smiled. "I love you too, sis."
Yang smiled, and turned the light switch off.
All was peaceful, all was dark. Ruby dug herself under her covers, freeing her arm from the tyranny of Zwei's uncannily heavy dog butt after a minute of struggling.
And so, finally comfy, Ruby drifted off to sleep…
"...*Sniff* Unnnn….AAAaaaugh...Unnnnn...*sniff*…"
A young girl yawned, still getting over her cold. Her arms were raised up in the air, stretching out her hands clenched in fists. Ready to seize the new day.
"Mornin', Daddy's girl."
Ruby, without even thinking about it, rubbing the sleepy out of her eyes, answered "Ohayou, Nee-chan," which made her face even more red than the flu. "And I'm not a Daddy's girl." She pouted and looked down at her bed.
"You are too, you big nerd."
"Although looking at your room, you're probably right. Here I thought I didn't get the tidy gene. Looks like a boy's room."
Ruby was blowing on the soup in her spoon to cool it down, not even looking up at her sister. "You've never been in a boy's room, Yang."
"Don't think that just because you're sick doesn't mean I won't beat you up."
She put the first spoonful into her mouth. "Mmm. This is good. Thanks, Si-"
Ruby Rose dropped the spoon.
That was not her sister.
The sickly yellow hair covered every inch of the monstrously tall being. It was tall. Taller than her house. Maybe as tall as a skyscraper. Yet it was in her room. Space bended around it, stretching, bleeding, tearing, to accommodate, no, to avoid this putrid decaying thing standing where her sister should have stood.
The fibers of hair were flaking, seeming to infect the air like a virus, turning space to the shade of a yellowing, browning, decaying picture. The wood started to grow scratches and dings, the air became a rotting, burning, sweet sort of stale she couldn't identify.
The giant yellow thing bended down, down, down, the hairs twisting and turning and writhing into itself and turning inside out until the behemoth's face, for lack of a better word, was just a few feet above hers. She felt an intense migraine coming on, trying to look away from the beast without reason.
But she couldn't. No, Gods, it was awful. It was so awful. How could she look away, when it was right there?
Her vision was full of it's mask. A color forgotten by man for good reason. Stars shifted in it's visage. She could see the dreams of old being eaten and turned into something else, all leading back to the mask. It ate them. It ate the dreams and it ate them.
Oh God. What if it already ate her? How would she know? Where is she? When is she?
"I know all... the faces... in Carcosa. So who… is this one? … I must ask."
Ruby hid under the covers, hyperventilating.
"All a dream, all a dream, all a dream, all a dream, all-"
She repeated that until she believed it, knowing that she was a good lucid dreamer, and threw the covers off of her, intent on stabbing the thing with a knife half as long as her arm.
But, as soon as she threw them off, it was gone.
And so was the house.
She had torn some yellowing canvas paper off a wall, leading her into a ballroom. There were sickly golden and pallid tiles, everything some decaying color of a natural shade, distorted and reflected into itself until it forgot it once was something real.
Arches and columns carved with masked people in festivities of all sorts, marble turned an ill brown-yellow. There was a brown and tattered royal carpet, leading up both of two ways up stairs to reach a central podium, where presumably a speak or someone important would be. In the sky of the ballroom, for indeed it had no ceiling, black stars circled through the skies of amber.
It was wrong. No place like this existed.
Telling herself that, Ruby Ros turned her head to walk back the way she came, but the ballroom was still there.
Ruby Ro started to breathe. That wasn't right. Space did not work like that.
In fact, everywhere she turned, she saw the same image. It was like the world was turning with her, or she had some picture ingrained into her mind. No matter what she did, she couldn't get away from the ballroom. She tried running, walking, crawling, forward, reverse, sideways, hell, she even tried jumping, hopping, and skipping. Ruby R could not move. No, she would move, but nothing else did. She stayed in that one place, in a mirror, in a ballroom.
Ruby felt robbed. Felt imprisoned. Felt completely helpless.
Rub curled up into a ball, and started crying. Ru closed her eyes. Better to not see at all, than to see a lie.
"Come now, Cassilda, the ball is only just beginning. Compose yourself. I shan't see you cry anymore."
R looked up. "B-but my name's not Cassilda. My name is… I-it's..."
A man in a tattering gold-yellow suit and a mask was offering a gloved hand to her. The eyes of the mask were hard to spot, it was expressionless, and cold. Yet something familiar, long forgotten, nostalgic, was in the smile. It looked exactly like a man. It was like a human grimm.
"Don't be silly, my Cassilda. This time, this dream, you can only have one name. Keep as many faces as you wish, but keep your true name. We can't have this dance, otherwise."
Cassilda felt the memories of the King carried by the wind whisper into her ear, and the room was not actually empty. It was filled with dancers, in many masks, in many lovely dresses, in many snappy suits. She was all of them. He was all of them. They had danced a million times before.
Cassilda took the King's hand, and he raised her to her feet.
"You still look just as beautiful as the day I laid my eyes on you."
Cold tears made their way down Cassilda's cheeks. The masked figure wiped the tears off. The wet specks dried and died unseen.
"Don't cry, my Cassilda, please, don't cry. This is all for you."
The dancers moved in perfect synch around them. Or, more accurate to say, they were moving in perfect synch in themselves.
How many times? How many times had they done this?
The shapes shifted into blurs, and the blurs into colors, the colors into sounds, the sounds into a touch, the touch into a feeling, the feeling into a soul, the soul into a shape. It was all a reflection, smoke and mirrors. When did her reflection begin and herself end?
Cassilda looked at herself, she was wearing a beautiful dress. Tattered, frayed, yellow-gold, beautiful. Yes, this was her. The other times wore not this mask.
"Cassilda, please, don't think of anything else. Tonight, I want you to think only of me."
Cassilda, finally, stopped crying.
"W-what is this place? Why is it all dead?"
"Just the song of the Hyades, my dear. But is it not beautiful? Your song? The rise of stars? The beautiful whispers in the wind?"
Cassilda closed her eyes. She looked around. It was beautiful. She could not hear. It was the greatest song.
She opened her eyes, smiling shyly, eyes not quite meeting his, but not off of him, either.
"It was kind of sudden, but… this place… is pretty cool."
The Man In Yellow smiled a warm and earnest smile. "I knew you would love it."
They danced long into the night. Twirling, side-stepping, and spinning, the ball would last an eternity.
But even eternity had to end sometime.
Eventually, the guests started to filter out, and leave. Leaving only Cassilda and The Man In Yellow.
Cassilda gazed longingly into the Man In Yellow's eyes, as they were slowly dancing in the spacious podium.
"You know, it's been all this time, and I haven't even gotten a look at the face behind that mask."
The man laughed in a baritone that made her knees wobbly. "A mask? I wear no mask. I am The King In Yellow. And you, Ruby Rose, have been a most excellent, Cassilda."
Cassilda was desperate. "Your Name, then! Please, something, anything to remember you by!"
The Man stared lovingly into her eyes.
"Forgive me, I lied earlier. It is now, at this moment, you are most beautiful to me."
The King in Yellow leaned in closer to her, making Ruby's heart almost go into cardiac arrest.
The perfect features of the Yellow King came closer and closer until she could feel his hot breath on her skin. His lips were not even an inch from hers, the scent of decaying dandelions and rotting bone intoxicating.
He whispered, making Cassilda get shivers all over her back.
"My name is Hast-
"Mornin', Daddy's Girl-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Ruby screamed and threw every object she had in range at the door. Alarm clock, spent .50 caliber casings, and pillows alike all hit the door.
Yang went right back the way she came and shut the door.
"...Told you watching B-movies and eating all your birthday Schneekers right before bed was a bad idea. But hey, dumb blonde, right? What do I know?"
She yelled at Ruby through the door.
Ruby yelled back, "I SAW THROUGH TIME! TIME, YANG! AND IT WAS AWFUL!"
"Yeah, well here's your annual post-birthday 'I told you so.' I definitely told you so."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"