Chapter 4

"Wait, wait, wait!" Velvet cracked a wide smile, her long ears standing on end as she hopped in place near vibrating with excitement.

"Huh?" Ilia looked around. "What's up?"

"Nope! Nope! Nope! Stand right there, right there and look up at me." Velvet giggled as she pulled her camera from her hip. "There, that's it."

"What! What are you doing?"

"No, no, don't move. Hey! No frowning!" Velvet coached to subpar results in the form of Ilia's face turning to a dour scowl. "Hey look here!"

"I am-" Ilia broke out into laughter as she spotted the other faunus dropping her left ear and sticking out her tongue in a funny face. "What the hell are you doing!" She questioned through laughter.

Several snaps followed in between Ilia's laughter, each followed with a small hum of contentment from the bunny faunus. "Got it!"

"What! You! You took my picture?"

"Yes, indeed I did." Velvet agreed, proud of herself.

"No! You can't do that! I look horrible!" Ilia pouted, her skin halfway between a dark purple or blue, but closest to black.

"No, you don't."

"Yes I do."

"No, no you don't." Velvet reinforced as she stepped in and raised her hand to Ilia's right cheek. Gently, her fingers caressed Ilia's soft cheek before pushing a stray piece of hair behind the faunus's ear. "There, perfect; Beautiful and perfect."

Ilia brightened and reddened to a bright magenta, thoroughly accustomed to being referred to with such kind words. "I-"

Another sharp click and the bunny faunus burst out into giggles. "See! Look, you are perfect!" Velvet turned her camera around to display the picture.

"Thank you." Ilia's skin shifted to a slightly more muted, but still embarrassed color.

"Much better!" Velvet tilted her head down so her long ears patted Ilia's head gently.

"What's better?"

"You, you're smiling!" Velvet smiled back. "And it's much better.

"I- well, umm… thank you." Ilia forced herself to return to her natural complexion, but even then there was nothing she could do about the burning blush on her cheeks.

"Game night!" Velvet squealed as if it were the first time she had ever heard of the idea. "We've got to get going! Game night!"

"Hmm, yeah. Game night." Ilia smiled and led the way for the both of them.

By the time Blake and Weiss could see the faunus duo coming into view from down the hall, Ilia and Velvet were all but leaning into each other. Shoulders bumping against each other playfully as they giggled and joked about this or that, Blake had a whole moment to smile about how they were getting along like gangbusters, but that was before she remembered who was sitting next to her.

Velvet must have said something incredibly funny, because as they approached, Ilia grabbed and clung to the bunny faunus's shoulder and clung to it as she burst out into laughter. It took long enough that the two were well into the common room and even just in front of the game the two teammates had set out.

"Where's Sun?" Velvet questioned first.

"And what the hell is she doing here. Schnee." Ilia glared with growing disgust by the moment.

"I- I invited her." Blake couldn't believe the words coming from her mouth.

"You invited Weiss?" Velvet questioned, confused.

"What about Sun?"

"Sun was busy, and monopoly is better with four anyways."

"But I thought it was supposed to be a fau-" Velvet's ears drooped as she wondered aloud.

"A fun game night! Hell yeah! And now I have my teammate with me, so it will be even more fun!" Blake tried to move the topic along without letting slip that Weiss wasn't really supposed to be there.

"But! But!" Ilia began to turn a raging crimson, but then there Velvet was, gently wrapping her arm around one of Ilia's.

"It will be fine. This works just as well."

Ilia's skin calmed to a soft pink as the faunus relaxed into the touch, damn near melting towards the other faunus. "I guess it is ok? I- if Velvet is ok with Weiss joining?"

"Yup! We can still have fun! With or without Sun!" Velvet brightened before ushering Ilia to sit down with her on the couch opposite Blake and Weiss's.

The last faunus standing hesitated but followed as Velvet led her to sit. Maybe she even sat down a little closer than she usually would; almost as close as she tended to sit to Blake when the opportunity was available.

"I set up the board! What piece does everyone want? Dibs on the top hat!" Weiss cheered, grabbing her favorite piece.

Ilia scoffed with some snide comment under her breath that only those with two pairs of ears could catch before Velvet elbowed her gently as a reminder to be polite and civil.

"I got the dog!" Velvet stole the terrier piece for herself before petting the tin with her finger like it was real.

"Thimble." Blake called out, stealing her preferred piece.

"I'll… take the boot then I guess." Ilia fought against her natural frown for Velvet's sake, the faunus sitting next to her seemed to want a nice and calm game night regardless of the evil Schnee across the table.

For a time things went well, shockingly well when one considered the company of the three faunuses, two of which ex white fang members, and the ever unaware to her privilege Weiss. One could have even seen it as things going too well; in fact, someone did.

Ilia, though calmed by the bunny faunus giggling adorably at every other turn, and occasionally leaning in to her in such a way that left Ilia thoroughly confused by the feelings it gave her. But that proved not to be enough for her and those still lingering rebellious or chaotic leanings she tended to have. "So, Weiss?" She introduced with an evil grin as she passed go and collected her two hundred.

"Yes?" Weiss picked her head up for just a moment before moving to take her turn.

"I've been wondering; wondering what your opinion on something might be." Ilia's mischievous intent shown through just a little too much and both the other faunuses grew tense as their eyes locked on Ilia.

"Hmm? What is it?" Weiss questioned back patiently.

"Well, I was wondering… What might you do if your soulmate were a faunus?"

"Excuse me!" Weiss slammed her piece down as hard as her well-trained sensibilities allowed her.

"Your soulmate, you have one, no? I mean, you are an adult woman after all. Surely you've-"

"Ilia!" Velvet cut off with a gentle elbow jab to Ilia's side.

"Come on, we are all adults. I'm sure it's happened to all of us. You know, mine always seems to go like ten times in a row before she is sated, but she only seems to do it once a month or so."

All three of the other girls who lacked complete control of their whole body's complexion turned a bright red, but Velvet more notably so than the rest.

"What is your point!" Weiss snapped. "Besides just aiming to overshare."

"My point is to know if the wonders Weiss Schnee would humor the idea of her soulmate being a lowly faunus." Ilia intentionally taunted.

"I! 'Lowly faunus'? I never said!" Weiss stammered.

"So, you'd never question it if your soulmate was one of us?" Ilia's smile grew as she knew she had the heiress. "Would you?"

"What do you mean?" Weiss tested the trap tentatively as she straightened her back and presented her most proper appearance.

"You know exactly what I mean!"

"No, not exactly. You could mean would I accept them as my soulmate, would I immediately love them unconditionally, or you could mean would I simply give them a fair chance."

"Would you give them a fair chance?"Weiss hesitated for just a moment, more than enough for Ilia to regain her confidence and strike once more while the iron was hot and the Schnee could be caught off guard.

"You know that myth?"

"What myth!" Weiss questioned reflexively.

"The one that Soulmates aren't permanent. Sure, they can be, but people... souls…" Ilia corrected herself. "Souls are amorphous, they can change and grow over time. Soulmates are precious and all, but that we can outgrow our soulmates?"

"It's an old wives tale." Weiss firmly denied.

"It's not, Blake outgrew hers." Ilia pointed to her crush.

"I! Ilia!" Blake yelped.

Velvet shifted uncomfortable with Ilia's behavior.

"So I ask again, would you give your soul mate a fair chance if she were a faunus like us? Or would you just ignore her, hope your souls will grow on?" Ilia eyed hesitant, feeling that Weiss seemed already all too prepared for this.

"Yes. Of course. Of course, I would have. Being a faunus doesn't matter when it comes to that! But, faunus or no, she's already lost that chance." Weiss huffed, passing the dice over to a dumbfounded Velvet.

"You- but… how could you-"

"Wait, I thought you hadn't met yours yet." Blake questioned, shocked.

"I haven't," Weiss answered all too matter of factly.

Velvet seemed almost broken by the idea. "But- you- How?" She questioned, clearly overly affected by the idea that something she felt to be so special could be cursorily dismissed.

"Because she is horrid! Keeps me up at all hours of the night to just cling on the edge and then just go for it three times in a row. And recently she's been moving her evil schedule to during the day! I can't believe it! I had to kick my room mate's girlfriend out of the room this afternoon while whoever it was went at it for three hours!" Weiss vented, exhaustion breaking down the walls that would have kept her from ever discussing something so personal and intimate even around fellow women.

"What?" Ilia lost all color to her cheeks as her whole body slowly went an almost gray pale.

"Today, whoever it was has been going crazy. Woman'd be lucky just not to have a rug burn at this point. Thank god she stopped ten or fifteen minutes before I ran into Blake and she invited me here."

"You- you're…" Ilia slowly came undone, her eyes darting between the monochrome pair.

"When. When did it start?" Blake broke her silence on the topic.

"I don't know. I can check if it matters all that much to you." Weiss half scoffed, not understanding the reason Blake had asked at all.

"Check!" Blake demanded with an urgency rarely ever found in her voice.

"Alright! Alright! Alright!" Weiss rolled her eyes as she pulled a small notebook from a pocket in her dress's frills.

"Uugh, a little before one in the afternoon."

"You- you-" Ilia's voice wavered between fear and anger.

"I- and it ended at four fifteen?" Blake rarely kept track of times associated with such subjects, but she remembered the clock reading that as she left her bath.

"Yes, how did yo-" Weiss's mouth paused as her brain caught back up. "You! You! You are the vile bitch who's been doing this to me!"

"No! I-"

"You!" Weiss screamed, leaping from the couch she had been sitting closer to Blake than ever before in. "You have been doing this! Embarrassing me every other day! By! By-" Weiss grew ever more shrill with each word escalating her fury.

"No, I- I wasn't-" Blake tried to explain, growing frustrated and confused by the evening's either revelation or coincidence.

It was that moment, amidst the heat's height in the argument that a dastardly blonde meandered down the hallway with a fresh apple in hand. Recently kicked from her dorm room so that her sister and Penny could go at it and do things she wished never to know any more of. For a whole half moment, she thought the idea of a game night amidst the Beacon dorms common room would be a delightful idea, but the moment she saw her fellow teammates breaking into what seemed to be a true brawl of an argument. Seeing that, Yang decided it best to pull a full one-eighty and simply head back in the other direction and find something else to do with her evening. Maybe a little more personal time was in order?

"I should have known! Uugh! I can not believe it! Of course my evil soul mate was someone dressed like a trollop!" Weiss huffed with a derogatory glance at Blake's open robe revealed a tank little more than a tube top.

"I! Bitch! I didn't-" Blake went to retort, but it was too late, Weiss was already storming off with no intent to reply or continue the conversation at all.

Things were silent between the remaining three for a number of moments. They all sat there, unsure what to say or how to say it, every single one of the some combination of hurting and confused.

"I- I have to go." Velvet stood on weary legs, weighty with truth.

"What- no! Velvet! This is perfect, it's just us now, just faunuses." Ilia grabbed Velvet's hand for a moment but the other woman quickly shook herself free.

"Nothing about this is perfect." Velvet glared back hurt in a way neither Ilia nor Blake understood the reasoning of. "You just ran off our friend and started all this drama. And for what! Just because you are longing over your first crush? Because Weiss has a certain last name?"

"Velvet wa-"

"Goodnight Ilia. And I am sorry for all the drama Blake, I hope you and Weiss work things out. Soulmates, permanent or not, have a right to be happy together."

Then there were two. The group divided, in an all too literal sense, left Blake and Ilia sitting there alone and silent as they tried to formulate something to say to each other despite the way their stomachs turned, turbulent and equally upset as them in the wake of the evening.

In time, Blake was first to find the courage in her heart to speak out. "He lied." She whispered, almost sounding broken.

"What? Who?" Ilia lifted her head confused.

"I- well, I guess I've lied now too." Blake coughed up, defeated.

"L- lied about what?"

"Adam was never really my soulmate. He lied, tricked me, made me think… I was young, stupid, and I believed him. Then… after everything ended, I was too ashamed to tell anyone. So, there it is." Blake let it sit there between them for a moment. "I'm not your soul mate Ilia, and I never will be."

"I- I-" Ilia stammered.

"I'm sorry Ilia." Blake finally stood. "I am going to bed. Goodnight."

End of Chapter 4

So! As has been the trend with this fic, I am posting one extra chapter ahead for free elsewhere, and then there are another 4 chapters beyond that that you can find on the web somewhere... hint hint, the links will be on my Tumblr: hopefulbadgerjunara