In Mantle and Atlas, they used rings to propose. It was a human tradition, yes, but it was one perpetuated by Faunus as well. Ilia still remembered her parents wedding rings, woven out of discarded wires. They weren't much in terms of expensive materials as proof of being able to provide for each other, but they had been handmade proof of her parents' love for each other. She hadn't gotten them back with the rest of her parents things when they had died. In a best-case scenario, her parents' rings had been thought to be debris from the cave-in. It was more likely that humans had taken them, though whether out of mockery of Ilia's grief, wanting to claim some sort of repayment with precious objects, or mockery of the materials used Ilia would never be sure.

Ilia and her parents had been cowards, and she didn't want to emulate them or the human-supremacist society she had grown up in. She especially didn't want to emulate them when she proposed to Blake. She promised herself that she wouldn't give Blake a ring… after Ilia figured out how to confess her feelings to Blake, of course.

Faunus had many different proposal traditions, but theirs had been stamped out as they tried to assimilate with humans. The scholars of Menagerie were trying to piece together older cultural traditions, and Menagerie had many different proposal traditions as a result. Ilia wondered what type of proposal Blake would prefer. Out of all the traditions Ilia had heard about, she found she preferred the ones where she would have to make something for Blake. It was what her parents had done, and it felt purer than all those stuffy girls at Ilia's prep school daydreaming about getting an expensive gem-encrusted ring of fine metals.

One of the traditions Ilia liked was one that had originally come from one of the deserts of Anima that she liked most. It had started with some of the Faunus tribes that had inhabited the area and then having spread to humans because it was a useful tradition, only to become frowned upon as one of the pre-Mistrali kingdoms tried to colonize the area with religious fervor. And yet, the tradition had survived to make it to Menagerie, with happy couples giving each other small, intricate blades no bigger than a hand.

Ilia had made Lightning Lash herself, so maybe she would be good at making a blade for Blake. Granted, Blake had made Gambol Shroud all on her own, so it wasn't like she needed a blade from Ilia. Then again, the blades didn't look like they were useful. Well, maybe they were useful for things like cutting small, thin vegetables or spreading butter, but Blake deserved a blade she could defend herself with. Not that she needed Ilia's help with that, since Blake had always been an amazing fighter with a strong, defensive semblance.

Perhaps Blake would prefer the traditions originally held by the Dacia, a nomadic Faunus community that originated in southwestern Sanus. They used hair ornaments, worn at the end of braids. Granted, Blake didn't braid her hair, and she didn't wear any hair ornaments aside from the bow she used to hide her ears whenever she would go into a human settlement for supplies. Ilia didn't like that part about Blake, how she hid and tried to blend in with humans. Still, Blake was doing a lot better than Ilia had in that regard. Even when they went to get supplies, Blake wouldn't stand back when they saw a non-passing Faunus being harassed.

Ilia sighed. Blake was so cool and beautiful, and she was wasted on Adam. Maybe Ilia would finally tell Blake that when Blake came back from the train mission she and Adam were going on tomorrow morning. Maybe. Ilia wasn't sure how she would be able to do so.


New Mantle had become rather prosperous compared to the refugee camp it had been eight years ago. Granted, it helped that the Grimm were finally defeated less than a year after the fall of Atlas. Ilia had felt strangely sad, hearing the news that the cities she had grown up in were both gone. She had hated both of them, symbols of her own cowardice as a bystander, and yet they had both held good memories, no matter how tainted they were. Her parents' graves and the house she grew up in had flooded; her prep school would have been smashed with the impact. And all that strange anguish she had felt at losing places she hadn't planned on ever returning to had only gone up exponentially when she learned that Blake was dead. Or, more specifically, she had fallen. She was technically missing, as no one expected to ever find a body.

Blake hadn't been Ilia's first love, but she had been Ilia's greatest love.

And then she came back. She had changed; she was the first Faunus with magical powers who was not a maiden or a bearer of silver eyes.

And finally, finally, she was looking at Ilia the way that Ilia had always hoped Blake would.

Things had changed in the years since. Ilia and Blake were dating, and Salem had been defeated. The world was not at peace, but it was far closer to it than it had been during Ilia's childhood. The two of them had settled down together in the outskirts of Vale, but right now they were visiting friends. Tonight, they would be meeting up with Neon, Coal, and their daughter Irida for dinner, but that was hours from now. Right now, they were walking through one of the street markets. They had grabbed a light lunch from one of the Atlesian-Vacuan stalls and were now looking for a trash can to dispose of the paper wrappers.

"Oh hey, look!" Blake said, pointing. Ilia turned her head, expecting to see a trash can but instead she saw a stall.

A ring maker's stall. The rings were done in the style of Atlesian engagement rings. It was a temporary stall, which made sense. The spring equinox was coming up, and it was an old Mantle tradition to propose at the start of spring and marry at the start of summer. Ilia still remembered being so shocked when her prep school classmate talked about having attended a winter wedding; the tradition hadn't carried to the city in the sky that promised freedom from Grimm, hunger, and the bitter cold.

Blake looked at Ilia, smiled, blushed, looked away again, and took a breath. "What's your ring size?"

Ilia blinked and then dropped Blake's hand so that Ilia could put both hands in front of her mouth. "I, are you –"

"No, no, not yet. I'd do something at least a little fancier than just picking out rings together and calling it a day. But, we've been dating for years, and I think that it'll be time, soon. And, since you grew up in Mantle, I thought you'd like to follow the ring tradition."

"I mean, if you had asked me a decade ago, I would've been insulted by it. Now, I'm not too sure. How did your parents get engaged?"

"My mom's family is from Mistral, so my dad proposed to her with Mistrali traditions. And, since it's a woven wreath of flowers, and our family name is from a flower…"

"Oh, no, he didn't."

"Yeah, he proposed with a wreath of poisonous flowers. Obviously, my mom accepted his proposal anyways, but I wouldn't want to recreate my parents' proposal."

A woven wreath of flowers, though not of conventional materials. Made by Ghira's own hands to show his love for Kali.

"How would you feel about a non-poisonous wreath?"

Blake smiled at her. "You still haven't told me your ring size."