A group of 3 stood inside the Rose-Xiao Long Household, idly chatting away while awaiting the arrival of Ruby and Yang.

"Okay, so when they show up we drop the reveal, right?" Neo said to her mother and grandmother in an exited tone.

"Yes Neo, for all they'll know, I'm actually Mom's sister, and you're their cousin." Aurum replied with a small smile. Neo knew that smile, but it was still really weird to see it framed by red hair and silver eyes, Her mother had opted to change back to her natural colors for the reveal to her younger self, mostly to sell the connection.

"Gods this is so weird, my daughter is undercover as my long lost sister." Summer commented

Aurum gave her a deadpan look and replied, "Weirder than the whole being 6 years younger than you due to time travel?"

Summer returned her deadpan look and replied, "Of course not dummy. That will forever be the strangest thing that has ever occurred to anyone close to me ever."

The group stopped speaking after that, mainly due to the sound of Taiyang loudly greeting the two girls outside.

Ruby and Yang entered the house only to be greeted by two more people than they expected, the duo had come to patch for the fall break, as the second trimester of the academies came to an end and the third began, the students were all given a week break, followed by the beginning of the Vytal festival.

The two were surprised to find Neo in their parent's house, but they were especially surprised to find a lookalike to their mother, "Uh... Mom? Why is Neo and a woman that really looks like you here?"

Summer grinned, "Well my little petal, this is my sister, you may have heard of her before, but probably never made the connection because she uses her middle name instead of her last. And Neo here is her daughter."

Ruby's face crinkled in confusion, while Yang's eyes went wide, "But... Isn't Neo Miss Lazuli's daughte-" Ruby's face lit up in realization, "Professor!?"

Aurum laughed brightly at her younger self, "Yeah Ruby, Its me Aurum Lazuli Rose, and my daughter Neopolitan Lazuli Rose, I'm seriously surprised you didn't make the connection, considering our familial trait is quite apparent in our semblances.

Ruby tilted her head in confusion, "What do you mean?"

In response Aurum waved her hand in front of her, turning some air into petals as she did; As the years had gone by, Aurum had experimented heavily with her semblance, and after great effort had discovered most of the reasons why her petals behaved the way they did, including the recoloring of them. You see her petals typically would average out the color of whatever was being transformed, or, if a separate body was transformed, the averaged color of that body would be present as well, making a multicolored set of petals. Therefore, as Aurum waved her hand, clear petals fell from the air surrounding her hand, floating gently through the air.

Ruby watched in awe, "H-how did you do that?"

Aurum smirked, "You're in my class, you were there when your teammate asked me what I'd learned, Didn't I say I know how to change any object into petals? Its Quite handy, as anything not protected by an Aura actually cant reform."

Ruby then looked to Neo, who shrugged and summoned a version of her mother next to her, Still with the hair dye and contacts, but dressed in Summer's clothes. Ruby looked at it in confusion, until she watched Aurum punch the illusion. Ruby then watched as the look-a-like poofed in a cloud of pink white and brown rose petals.

Summer then wrapped the real Aurum in a sideways hug, "Yep, my big sis, she really grew into her own, I saw her for the first time since she left for Vacuo oh, 14 years ago?" Summer said while looking to Aurum, "Actually about 12 and a half, It was the night before the whole thing with Neo happened, that was when she was 5, and she's 17 and a half now."

Yang then made her first comment, "Wait wait wait, so... However long ago, You-" she pointed to Aurum, "Went to Vacuo, and then you two didn't see each other for how long?"

Aurum replied, "Lets see, I left for Vacuo at 17, and when I finally saw Sum again I was 28, so 11 years?"

Summer just nodded along, fine with letting Aurum spin her lies however she liked.

Yang then asked once again, "wait... My mom is 41, how old are you?"

Summer gave Yang a death glare, "Yang you know it's rude to ask a lady how old she is."

Aurum waved her off, "Its fine Sum, I'm 43 Yang, I'll be 44 this fall."

"So you just, went to Vacuo, had a name change and use hair dye and contacts?"

Aurum gave a deadpan look to her sister, "Yes."

Ruby then spoke up once again, "So... why are you telling us all this now... Why not anytime in the past however many years?"

Aurum scratched the back of her neck awkwardly, "That's actually my bad, see I've been in Vacuo for the past uh, 27 years, and I didn't want to take Neo to Vale until she needed to, I've got... Opinions on how Vale has been. So if Sum wanted to visit, She'd come to Vacuo, not the other way around, If she never took you on any of those trips, that's her bad."

Summer then reignited her death glare, this time directed at her 'Sister', "While you may have Opinions on Vale, I have Unrequited Factual Evidence, That Vacuo is far worse, and I would never willingly take my little girls to that sandy he-" Summer brought her hand up to her mouth to stop herself from cursing in front of her children. "Ahem, Sandy Place."

Aurum laughed brightly, "Well Either way, We're telling you now because I cant handle being at Beacon with my daughter, and not having some sort of relationship with my Nieces, or my daughter not knowing her friends are actually her cousins."

Ruby then turned to Neo, along with Yang, "Wait. I totally forgot about that, Neo! You're my cousin!" Ruby gave a playful glare to Neo, "Why didn't you tell me we were family when we met?"

Neo flushed at the attention and shrugged, "uhhhhh, Surprise?"

The seriousness of the conversation died off there, the rest of the day was spent bonding as a newly expanded family, and carefully weaving a web of lies and half truths. In the end, the Lazuli family had spun a ridiculous amount of half true stories and fallacies in order to sell that Aurum was the Sister of Summer, one of which had been Neo using her semblance to give herself Silver Eyes, which looked incredibly strange on her.

Aurum had had Neo try that in the past, but Neo's eyes lacked the spark required to use the mythical abilities associated with the eye color, so the change was purely aesthetic.

Sorry about no chapter yesterday, I got caught up playing video games with the boys, and went to bed without even writing a chapter. Got up and remembered. My bad. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also if anyone is wondering about actual ages, Ruby time traveled at age 18, during winter, she had just turned 18. The Current date is July of 81, Ruby has been around in the past since early 68, so lets assume she skipped the 4 months. That means Ruby has been around for just under 14 years. making her current age 32. HOWEVER. In chapter 8, she introduced herself as 2 years older than Qrow and Summer. Making her 43 in this world's history. In technicality, if you were to look at the public records from this world Aurum would be 43, but her actual age is 32, not that anybody but Neo, Summer, Theodore, and Xanthe know about it.