Chapter 47: Maybe once you spend a little more time with her.
Thanks again to boothnat, who helped edit this chapter.
You can find her story The Traveler's Guide to Teyvat: How to not kill people - Chapter 1 - boothnat - 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own] , on her AO3 page: boothnat | Archive of Our Own.
Schwarz had been nice, very nice, incredibly nice when she crushed, utterly, Zama's hopes of getting the job.
"I'm sorry, Zama," Schwarz said, leaning down to look kindly into her eyes. "But the personal security of the Schnee Manor really is a sensitive matter, even an opening position would require a background check into the past twenty years of your history, and, considering you were born yesterday… well, your age just really works against you there."
"I don't understand," Zama blinked. "My combat capabilities are exceptional, and I have proven my ability to synergize very well with the castle security system."
"That was when you hacked it," Schwarz deadpanned, tactfully not pointing out the giant hole in the roof above them, or the water damage that really marred the floor damage which extended for several levels.
"Well, think of how much more I could accomplish if I were given legitimate access."
"It's not a matter of your accomplishments, Zama," Schwarz gently explained, "It's a matter of… stability. Even for a night guard position in an auxiliary tower, that's paramount, and what you're asking for..." Schwarz hesitated to describe the request.
"To be a part of Mister Schnee's personal security team," Zama provided.
"Yes," Schwarz nodded, "that, uh…" Schwarz paused, thought over how to best present her arguments, "just, no," she said at last, voice quiet with disbelief as she shook her head. Still, there was a great element of kindness to her words, and her features betrayed a worry at how the denial would affect the girl.
"I understand."
"What?!" Ironwood yelled.
Zama blinked. "I wish to be transferred to the Fifth Waterfront District," Zama repeated. "I believe the colloquial term for it is 'The Badlands'."
Ironwood blinked in order to, again, process the statement. "No!" he said at last. "What are you even thinking, asking for that transfer?"
"I will need combat experience," Zama replied, "and the Fifth Waterfront is renowned for its high Grimm density and frequent siege opportunities. Besides this, you, and the council have stressed the present need for secrecy with regards to my true identity. The isolation of the Fifth Waterfront allows for-"
"The Fifth Waterfront is not a training ground!" The desk jumped, and Ironwood's fist rose to reveal a wooden crater.
"It is still one of the best places for me to rapidly gain experience. And I believe the council will allow it, once I submit my transfer papers."
"I won't allow it," Ironwood stressed.
"I believe you will lose your veto powers if the election turns against you, which it seems likely to," Zama replied.
Ironwood pressed his forehead against his clenched fists and took a deep breath through his nostrils, suddenly feeling the intense weight of consequences.
"Why are you doing this, Zama?" he asked. "The council doesn't care about you, and, no matter what may have happened when you first woke up, we do."
"I know," Zama nodded, "but, first and foremost, I am Atlas's defender. It's-" she looked down at a hand, clenched it, "- one aspect of me that I've kept from Penny. It's one I treasure. And I can't live up to it in training simulations."
"Then we'll help you," Ironwood promised, leaning forward with eager resolve. "You don't need-"
"I appreciate the sentiment, General, but the fact remains that Atlas is a city, and all the nearby lands are too devoid of Grimm, and too inhabited to allow for any adequate appraisal of my true capabilities. A single plasma beam could burn through a city block, and it would hardly be useful against Beowolves. Thank you for your consideration, but I will be requesting a transfer from the council immediately. Whether it is granted before or after the election is unimportant to me." Zama turned to leave..
"Is there nothing we can do?" Ironwood asked, scrambling to salvage the situation.
"Well," Zama paused in her step, swinging her raised leg about to turn back to face him, "there is one assignment that I believe would give me the necessary experience."
"Name it," Ironwood said.
And Zama almost smirked: this was getting to be too easy.
Unlike Zama, who required no sleep, and Ironwood - who woke up at 4:30 in the morning every day - and Schwarz, who required no sleep, the rest of the cast were privy to more sane schedules.
And so it was several hours before events picked up again.
Yang, who claimed to rise with the sun and generally rose with her whims, actually found herself sticking to her claims lately - it helped somewhat that Atlas had sunrises at 9:00 am.
Still, that was a win in her book, and it was one of the very many little things that had helped to keep her sane over her past few days of isolation in the bullhead in the corner of the garden. It was a nice bullhead, of course- it was spacious, had nice first class compartments, and even a shower and bed. Plus, Schwarz had gone all out with the catering. Every morning, a maid would text her and take her order for the day, and then, at the precise times Yang had asked for, automated trolleys would bring her the food.
The first day, Yang had seen it as a convenience.
The second day, all of Yang's friends had stopped responding to their scrolls and Yang had resorted to drawing faces on the dessert trolley and making conversation with it.
The fourth day, Yang had spent four hours staring patiently at her scroll face… waiting for updates when Weiss suddenly threw open a window and started grilling her about Ruby's autism. This conversation was brief and threw Yang off guard, ending abruptly when Weiss shut the window, ignoring Yang before she could ask why they were ignoring her.
Not that Yang minded, she was a fully realized woman, and she was content not to let stuff like this get to her.
So, with that said, Yang resolved to just carry on with her normal schedule until things evened out… for the first fifteen minutes.
You know what the worst part was?
It was the fact that Yang could have left at any time. At any hour, at any minute, at any second, there was nothing stopping her departure other than the potential consequences to her and her friends. And consequences were insubstantial things when you found yourself pacing over the same, grey, section of hallway for the fourth hour that day.
Yang didn't break the rules, of course. She stayed behind the line. But it did quite a number on her sanity whenever she paced out onto the exit ramp of the bullhead, looked out into the constantly raining weather and unstimulating scenery and just… stood there, trying not to go crazy.
And Yang felt she'd managed to keep her sanity quite well over the past few days. The key to this was developing a consistent habit.
For instance, there was her newly synthesised morning routine- it was one she followed with startling rigidity.
First order of business was to wake up.
Then, silence her alarm.
After that, go back to sleep.
At this point, once these distractions were over with, Yang quickly went over the rest of her morning routine: brush teeth, shower, dry hair, brush hair, tie hair back, shadow box in front of the mirror, trash talk her reflection, win the shadow boxing session, and then move on to her afternoon routine.
Yang was just at this last part when the invitation came.
She was in front of her mirror, Shadow Boxing against her reflection and having a difficult time of it because her opponent was a lefty.
"Oooh, southpaw style, huh?" Yang goaded, hopping side to side and sending insinuating glares at her opponent. "Yeah, that's a nice little gimmick; nothing I haven't beaten before, though," she said with plain boredom.
A jab!
Yang dodged, having seen it coming.
Yang then threw another jab, just at the critical moment when the knocks came to throw her off guard.
Yang, having over the past few days pent up her frustrations like a caffeinated chipmunk, did not manage to suppress her flinch reaction at the undoubtedly exciting news. The knocks came like a shot of adrenaline, sending her hopes soaring!
Human contact!
Were they here to talk to her? Would they be telling her why her friends hadn't been answering her texts? Would they be letting her out!?
Who was knocking?
Her answer to the last question was somewhat delayed, however, as Yang was on her knees cleaning glass shards off the floor when the person opened the door into her personal suite and asked:
"Yang?" an innocent sounding voice came.
Yang immediately perked up. She knew that innocent voice!
"Ruby!" Yang dropped whatever mirror shards she'd managed to collect rushing over to draw her sister into a deep hug.
"Whoa!" Ruby consoled, surprised at the reaction. "Uhm, hey!" she managed to breath out from the increasingly constricting hug Yang had drawn her into. "How have you been?"
"Oh, I've been great!" Yang lied, pulling back with a false smile. Behind Ruby, through the door, she could see Blake and Weiss and half of Mr. Schnee's security team crowded into the plain hallway that stretched in between the cabin and the exit ramp. "How have you guys been?!"
"Oh, we've been alright," Ruby said weakly, depressing slightly and disappointing Yang with the lack of news that could explain their recent, cooler attitudes to her.
"Did... I miss anything?" Yang asked, eyes bouncing between the five of them.
Ruby looked back at her group tiredly, and they all looked amongst one another in silent negotiation.
At last, they settled upon an answer.
"Not really," they said in unison.
"Really?" Yang was somewhat surprised to hear that. "Because, last night, a bunch of guys wearing security armor escorted me to an underground bunker on the other side of town and they made me stay there, alone, for five hours. That seems like it'd be a bit more than nothing-"
By now, Haetzen and Beryl were guiding them down the gleaming, rain washed ramp of the Bullhead.
The sun was smiling down onto them, and so was Pyrrha.
This second phenomenon was vastly more surprising. So much so that Yang tripped over her words, and did nearly the same with her feet as she stumbled down the final quarter of the exit ramp, gawking up at where Pyrrha was hovering silently in the air, a content smile drawn over her features.
Pyrrha, as if just noticing their presence, turned her gaze downward and waved: "Hello there!"
Yang turned questioning looks onto each of her teammates and, seeing that all of them seemed to have grown bored with the prospect, decided she'd hold off on getting answers for now.
At least, that had been her conviction until Zama came crashing down in the mid distance, sending clumps of dirt and shrubbery flying.
"Hello, Zama!" Pyrrha beamed down again, this time sending her greetings to the newest arrival.
Zama responded with a quiet salute. And then she carried on, shadow boxing amongst other training moves that did not in any way make Yang feel inadequate.
"Who's that?" Yang asked, pointing at the girl.
"Zama," Weiss answered with some annoyance, "didn't you hear Pyrrha?"
Yang looked at Weiss, and then back at Zama, who'd just performed a triple side kick and was now hovering several servant robots around herself with Pyrrha's semblance.
"Ok," Yang nodded with a slightly confused look. Still, she wasn't anything if not self sufficient, and so she turned on her charm, activated her friendly- if distant- smile, and turned to wave to the new girl. "Hey, Zama," Yang said.
Zama immediately froze, halfway through executing a crane kick, leaving her leg hanging in the air in front of her.
"Uh," Yang began looking worriedly around her, as Zama paused, frozen for several seconds still facing away from them.
Zama then lowered her foot and turned around. "Hello, Yang," she greeted.
And… that worried Yang. Because this wasn't how normal people greeted each other. This wasn't some casual "Oh, you must be Yang! Ruby's told me so much about you! I have an alibi for knowing your name!" No, this was just a straight up mystery! "Hello, Yang?" Who would say such a thing?
Still, Yang was inoculated to such strangeness by her constant interactions with Ruby, and saw it fit not to hold it against Zama... who was now approaching them… great.
"Oh, nice to meet you!" Yang said, offering her hand.
"It's nice to meet you again," Zama said, shaking the girl's hand.
And there, Yang felt her brain halt with a screech.
You see, Yang was the kind of person that took responsibility. And so, she didn't question the situation- she questioned herself, and immediately started panicking.
Because looking into Zama's eyes, Yang was certain… this girl knew her, and Yang was drawing a blank as to when they could have met.
Yang stood stiffly, smiling and shaking Zama's hand with terrified eyes.
Thinking quickly, Yang finally saw the light.
"Ohhhh!" she said at last, drawing back with recognition, "right!" she snapped her finger several times, as if to contain the torrent of relevant memories that were overwhelming her capacity for efficient speech. "Weeee met at the… bar-"
"Street," Zama immediately corrected.
"Right!" Yang agreed. In fact, at this moment, she agreed with Zama more than Zama agreed with herself. "We met on the street outside of the bar-!"
"By the harbor," Zama corrected again, this time joined by the chorus of team Ruby, who supported her assertions.
"Ohhhh!" Yang was absolutely knocked back by the revelation, "you meant the first time we met! Why didn't you say so! Of course It was at the harbor," Yang nodded, calming down, "yeah," she said, "it was a beautiful night-"
"Day," Weiss said boredly, nearly rolling her eyes.
"Right," Yang said, this time with curt annoyance rather than panic as she looked at the world with half lidded eyes. "Well, it's uh…" Yang paused, trying to find some segue out of the lies she'd been caught illegally dumping into this conversational tributary.
She looked up and down again at the Zama girl, trying to recollect even some faint memory of having met the girl before.
Zama was dressed in her usual attire, with charcoal frills that ran along her black metal exterior clothes.
It was a surprisingly bold outfit, one that Yang was sure she would have remembered.
Not to mention, she would hardly have forgotten anyone that could pull the moves she'd just seen this girl doing...
That, and Yang, having grown up in Patch - a rather ethnically homogenous area - didn't have a single black friend…
This required more investigation she decided at last, and defaulted to her prepared excuse.
"Well," Yang said with a excited expression, "It's been real nice catching up, but I've got to go meet with Mr. Schnee-"
"Schwarz," everyone corrected her.
"-meet with Schwarz about something," Yang proclaimed. And was very quickly dragged off, much to everyone's relief.
Schwarz dangled the brilliant gold watch in front of their vacant gazes with a tired sigh, finally getting their attention with the shiny object, having noticed fifteen minutes into her presentation that none of them save for Weiss had managed to remain fully awake. And the fact that Weiss was paying attention was hardly any consolation, because the girl already knew everything about the Schnee Manor's security policy.
And so, Schwarz resorted to show and tell.
"This has embedded into it an interface chip that will track your location relative to the castle," Schwarz explained, holding out the watch to Yang in particular. "It's the same chip the mobile robots use to navigate the caste interior."
"Ok," Yang nodded, "and what am I supposed to do with that?"
"The security team and I have worked out a series of no-go zones," Schwarz explained, gesturing to the powerpoint slide with an architectural view of the manor presented onto it. The map was an overhead view of the first floor, and a series of red and green spaces were speckled randomly all over it, with the general - and misleading - rule being that the closer to the center of the manor one approached, the more red spaces barred access to it. "The red means you're not allowed to go there," Schwarz explained, gesturing vaguely to the center portion of the drawing. "This watch will help you keep track of where you are." She tossed the watch in Yang's direction.
Yang caught it, and looked curiously down at the golden design, watching as the metal bands draped softly over her hand and the sapphire watch face gleamed up at her with plain numbering. "How is this supposed to keep me out of the no-go zones?" Yang asked.
"It will give you an auditory cue whenever you approach too closely to a sensitive area," Schwarz answered. "The no-go zones are extensive, but, given that we only have a rough estimate of your moth- Raven's maximum range, we've done our best to make a clear line of travel to wherever you might need to go in the castle."
"An auditory cue?" Weiss said, aghast. "A beep?" she repeated, blinking. "This is a tracking device! Why don't you just collar her!? You can't make her wear that!" Weiss said, pointing to the watch.
"We've agreed to allow her to stay in this castle on the condition that she doesn't endanger it," Schwarz replied, "so, please understand, this is a necessary component of any scenario in which she will be allowed to maintain a residence here."
"But isn't there some other way?" Weiss asked, relapsing to a more polite stance as she silently reminded herself that she wasn't here to fight, and that Schwarz had been very cooperative, given the circumstances.
And Schwarz continued to prove her reputation, and was immensely cooperative when Weiss asked her for alternatives.
"Well," Schwarz said, pulling out a stack of plastic leaflets the size and thickness of a small book, "here is a memorandum of the safe zones." Briefly, Schwarz rifled through the hundred of pages, and various multicolored maps and charts flickered through their vision. "Here is an approved list of paths and spaces. If she wants to go without the watch, Yang must memorize them and pass a test proving as such."
Yang raised her hand.
"No, it will not be multiple choice," Schwarz answered.
Beep!
The watch called with a short, distinctive noise.
"Damn it!" Yang cursed, stopping suddenly in her path with a frustrated fixture, watching as her friends strolled easily through what, to her, was an impenetrable wall of obligations blocking off the hallway.
Her friends paused after a moment, interrupting their brief conversation and looking back at Yang as she muttered angry letters and glared intently down at the miniature construction map that had been downloaded onto her scroll. "I could've sworn," Yang muttered lightly, focusing on the red marked section that highlighted her current location.
"Yang, you said this path was ok for you," Ruby complained with growing impatience, caging her words with all the lost expectation of the last five unexpected detours they'd been forced to take.
"Look, I'm new to this, okay?!"
"Give me that," Weiss walked back over the invisible line to Yang's section of the hallway, taking the scroll form the larger girl's hands and swiping deftly over the projected map on the screen. "Ok, just go a quarter of a mile in that direction, take the twelfth right, and follow that hallway until you reach the room," Weiss said, putting the scroll firmly back in Yang's awaiting hands and turning back to join the rest of team RWBY on their far more direct journey through the manor halls.
"Aren't you guys-?" Yang began to ask.
"We have to talk with my father, and goodness knows you won't be allowed anywhere near him!" Weiss explained, not looking back as she walked further down the hallway to where Ruby and Blake were already making their way down and sending apologetic looks back at Yang. "Besides, his office is in the red zone," Weiss consoled. "You wouldn't like it there anyway."
"Ruby?" Yang looked over to her dear sister.
"It's kind of a long walk," Ruby said, half abashed, yet still speaking in that tired tone that Yang had noticed after her confinement ended.
Whatever was causing it, Yang wasn't in a position to guilt her sister into walking with her, as Ruby walked out of sight around one of the near corners.
All in all, it had been a fortunate turn of events, that the caste found itself needing to undergo such extensive repairs. Everywhere the three members of team RWBY travelled, they found specialty workers in blue uniforms travelling through the halls, carrying equipment and sometimes driving heavy machinery on their way to and from the damaged lower sections that so inhibited the castle.
That being the case, the majority of the castle staff was currently not in residence- a perfect time to introduce new upgrades and security considerations like Yang. Because, while most of the population was out of sight, the castle was still as well defended from external attack as ever. The dust supplies were still available and deadly, even if team RWBY found themselves pumping water every so often. Ruby's thought turned to the recent anachronisms as she saw a blue-suited woman carrying an electric water pump down one of the side alleys, it brought some hope to her, though she found that she wasn't in the mood to enjoy the good news as she glanced around with half lidded eyes which seemed to take effort for her to keep from closing… she just really needed a rest.
It was during one of Ruby's extended blinks that Schwarz came out from a side hall, neatly avoiding a collision with the smaller girl, though Ruby did leap back in surprise once she opened her eyes.
"Oh! Sorry," she apologized.
"Don't worry about it," Schwarz said, looking between the three of them. "Where's Yang?" she asked, her expression twisting into a light scowl.
"Oh, she's taking one of the green routes."
"Why aren't you with her?"
"Oh, uh, we didn't think we needed-"
"You don't," Schwaz interrupted, "but understand that this isn't a guaranteed arrangement, if she fails to accommodate our security consolations, she will no longer be allowed to step foot in this castle. And, trust me, this isn't a light warning, there will be no second chances, and this is your second chance with her."
"We know!" Weiss smarted, "you made that perfectly clear the last twelve times. And, I don't know how it works in security land, but coming out every second to threaten us with expulsion isn't exactly helping the situation!"
Schwarz sighed, a gentler look creeping onto her features.
"I'm not threatening you," she explained. "But, understand that the new restrictions will be harsh on your friend, at first. They've already taken a toll on her, unless she normally spends hours talking to herself-"
"She doesn't talk to herself!" Ruby sparked.
Everyone looked at her.
"She's muttering, ok?"
"No matter," Schwarz continued, "I won't budge on the rules. I can't. But I don't want to see your sister expelled because she decided to skip past a redzone one day. I think it would help everyone if you kept her company for the next few days, until she adjusts. The rules are there for a reason, but I'm sympathetic to the fact that they can be isolating to Yang, and I think you should be, too."
Schwarz made the proclamation without any judgement or blame in her voice… and that was exactly what made them all feel so bad.
"I… guess we have kind of been cold to her," Ruby kicked her boot, twiddling it against the floor as she looked down, arms crossed behind her back.
"Just try to keep her close," Schwarz said.
"Yes, Schwarz," the three of them droned in unison, trying to hide the dread apparent in their voice.
Schwarz raised an eyebrow at their turn of tone, but didn't focus on it as she went to her next order of business.
"Also, I have a favor I want to ask you," she said, speaking in that perfectly polite way that didn't expect any answer but "yes."
"Yes?" Weiss asked, with a question mark.
Schwarz decided that was good enough and barreled on.
"I need you to take Pinkamena to rehab," Schwarz said.
"What?" Blake asked.
"Why?" Weiss said. "Aren't there other people for that? People that are more qualified?"
"You won't be going alone," Schwarz explained, "Haetzen and Beryl will be going along with you, and they'll be taking care of Pinkamena's rehab. But I want you to join them, and I want you to take Yang with you. Like I said, with the castle under repair, this is a good time to update our security processes, and this will make a good test run for how the security team will engage with you whenever you leave the castle."
"Leave the castle… Leave the castle… Leave the castle." The words echoed powerfully in Weiss's mind, filling her brain like tunnel vision.
"So, if we do this, we can go outside?" Weiss clarified, disbelieving.
"You'll have to leave sometime," Schwarz said; "but, yes, this would accelerate the schedule for when we might develop regular excursion plans for all of you. Besides, the security team will be protecting you, as well, from now on. I think it's a good idea if you started to get to know them."
"Well-" Ruby started.
"We'll do it!" Weiss said, scrambling to overtake the girl.
"So, what if I have to walk alone by myself. It's not like I'm not used to it," Yang said, muttering to herself. "I don't need them anyway," she resolved, kicking the air in her frustration.
"Yang!"
"Yes!" Yang turned around, searching the scenery needily.
And there she found Ruby, stretched out on her tiptoes and lifting a waving arm straight above her like a hinged telephone pole.
Fwoom!
Yang quickly closed the distance between them, sending the younger girl's hair fluttering when she came to a sudden stop in front of her.
"And who are your new friends?" Yang asked, looking Weiss and Blake, as well as to the eclectically dressed tripartite of security staff that followed behind them.
"We'reee part of Mister Shnee's super team!," Pinkamena slurred, slumped forward from where Beryl was holding her rubbery body up with some difficulty and a great deal of apparent annoyance.
"What dear Pinkamena means to say," Beryl rolled her eyes, bringing a free hand up to fix her hair, "is that we are members of his security detail. I don't believe we've had the chance to be formally acquainted. I'm Beryl." She reached out a hand with natural formality, unperturbed despite the careful attention she always paid to where the sleeve of her white coat intersected Pinkamena's likely vomit trails; a necessary calculation, to tell by the terrible condition the sweating, pink-clad, woman seemed to be under.
"Uh, hey," Yang reciprocated the shake. "I'm Yang."
"Heyy, Yang!" Pinkamena said with a suffering voice, looking up at the golden blonde and revealing the harsh, dark coloration of her lower lids, as well as the subtle shivering that brought about a chilled sensation to her pallid figure.
Against her creeping skin, the light pinks and baby blues of her overcoat and outfit seemed to take an overall harsher and less refined color.
And always, the girl seemed on the verge of throwing up.
That, too, influenced Yang's hesitancy when she went to shake hands with the sick woman.
"Uh, hey," Yang repeated, at a loss for what to call the woman.
"Pinkamena," Beryl supplied.
"Pinkamena," Yang called. "Are…" Yang began, unsure whether to ask or not, "are you ok?"
"She's still recovering," the yellow clad woman on the other side of Pinkamena explained. "Oh, and, um, I'm Haetzen, by the way."
"What's happened to her?"
"She teleported too much," Haetzen answered.
Yang whistled, looking down at the terrible condition the woman seemed slumped over. "It takes that much of a toll?"
"Only when she takes enough crack to throw up over my entire wardrobe," Beryl muttered with some bitterness.
Wait.
"Drugs!?" Yang and Ruby said in panicked unison.
"Yep," Pinkamena answered.
"But! But! You shouldn't do drugs!" Ruby objected; "the scientific consensus says-!"
"The scientific consensus is wrong!" Pinkamena woozily blurted out.
"Huh!" Yang breathed in, placing a delicate hand up to her chest, taken aback, eyes fearful in concert with Ruby's own, more curious, gasp.
"And drugs are great!" Pinkamena championed, raising a weak hand up into the air.
Ruby fell back quietly, powerless to defend against such a villainous reprisal. This was just like they'd warned her in health class...
"I can get you some!" Pinkamena offered.
Yang cupped her hands over Ruby's ears.
"No!" she just said, putting on a mean- or maybe just determined- face against the coming onslaught.
"Come onnnn!" Pinkamena teased, stumbling forward out of Beryl's supporting grasp, and looking deciduous in Ruby's direction. "Don't you want to be cool?"
"Of… of course not!" Ruby denied weakly, pausing, "...well," Ruby looked uncertainly back at Yang.
"Uh, No!" Yang said obviously, looking down with slight disappointment at the girl.
Ruby widened her eyes and shook her head, looking back at Pinkamena with new determination. "Um, yeah. No way I'm taking drugs."
"Why?" Pinkamena challenged.
And, for a moment, Ruby was stumped, stifling her next words with a squeak as her eyes rattled about, searching for answers. It wasn't long before a sure look overcame her, however, and she said:
"Because drugs destroy the mind's ability to reason, and reason is the only absolute! And drugs repel productivity, which is our noblest activity. And drugs break down our capacity for happiness, which is our moral purpose in-"
"My gods this is dumb," Weiss interrupted, head shaking with her face in her palm. "Look," she said to Ruby, looking pointedly at the girl, "nobody's giving anybody drugs!" Weiss exclaimed, looking all around at everyone. "We're here to take Pinkamena to rehab, so would you stop confabulating with the memories of your school and help us help her already!" Weiss pointed back at Pinkamena, who was once again in the helpful grip of her two teammates, and standing neatly up and smiling as if not noticing their supporting figures.
"Hey!" Yang proclaimed, "don't talk to my sister that way!"
"She's your half-sister!" Weiss shot back. "I'll talk to her however I like!"
Yang glared back with her own, hurt, look, "You don't know anything about my family!" she yelled. "So stop talking like you do! I am related to her, and you're not! And I'm tired of being treated like a fourth wheel somehow! So tell me already: what have you been doing! And what happened to my sister!?"
"Nothing!" Weiss and Blake immediately answered in unison.
Yang gestured wildly at Ruby, who stood still in the distance, seeming depressed and detached from the new, more taxing, turn of conversation. She looked back and forth between the two squabbling teammates, like a lost child who was sad about something and considering drugs as an alternative.
"Nothing happened to her!" Weiss repeated with a protective note to her voice, supported quietly by Blake and even managing to draw some weak support from Ruby.
Yang only crossed her arms, and glared menacingly down at the three shorter girls.
They stood strong by their deception.
Yang squinted her eyelids ever more, constricting the violet light that was now pouring suspiciously from her iris'.
Ruby immediately buckled, held back from spilling the beans by a meaningful look sent to her via Weiss.
Yang eased her glare, and looked meaningfully down at them. "Why are you lying to me?" she asked softly, a hurt look taking her features.
"We're not!" Ruby blurted out, obviously lying.
Yang looked down sadly, off to the side. She breathed in with a teary edge to her voice. "I… I can't imagine what I could've done to get you treat me this way."
Ruby immediately took on a guilty look, as did every one of the girls. Still, they held strong.
Until she pulled out the big guns, that was.
"You're," Yang held up a hand to her heart, fluttering her eyes closed, "you're killing me with these lies, Ruby."
And the dam came falling down.
"I'm," Ruby sniffled, coming partially out of the uncharacteristic silence that had befallen her as of late. "I'm sorry!" she cried, coming forward to take Yang in a painful hug. "I never wanted to hurt you!"
"Shh, shh," Yang petted her hair, "It's alright. But why were you hiding whatever was making you sad?"
"Because you always make such a big deal out of everything!" Ruby cried. "You're gonna try to fix everything! But this can't be fixed!"
Weiss winced at the wording, and Blake laid a hand on her shoulder - giving a quiet reminder to the heiress, who with some effort had managed to maintain a respectful silence throughout this.
These developments did not go unnoticed by Yang, who sent curious looks over to the pair as she, with one hand hugged the sobbing Ruby.
Despite her calm exterior, Yang felt her insides rocking with every loud sob. This… this wasn't about the guilty theatrics Yang had been pulling earlier. Ruby was hurting about something that had happened while she was gone!
Something had happened to Ruby! The thought came in a flash, and Yang felt herself drowning in horrid feelings. Here she was, kicking around the halls and complaining about her own problems, yet she didn't even consider what her sister must've been feeling like!
"What happened?" Yang asked, speaking with a generous, quiet, tone that promised understanding and patience. Ruby had said this couldn't be fixed, but that didn't deter Yang. "I… know it's hard, Ruby," she said with a sadness to her tone, "and, maybe there's nothing I can do. But I can promise that I'll listen, Ruby. I promise that, even if it's not fixable, I'll understand, and I'll do whatever I can to help you get through this. I will understand, Ruby," Yang promised earnestly. "No matter what, I will understand."
Ruby, still in the midst of her mad sobbing, could barely cry out the words: "It's about Zama!" Ruby yelled, and Yang winced. "She doesn't care about me anymore, Yang! She doesn't care about any of us!"
"Oh," Yang said, looking sadly all around her, confused and not understanding. "Right."
