"So…" Yang drawled with an impish smirk. "Are we gonna ignore the fact that Weiss is worth a million lien to her father?"
"That's soooo much!" Ruby yelped in astonishment. "I don't even know what I'd do with a million!" she looked up at the dull wooden ceiling, deep in thought.
"Hm," Weiss scoffed and crossed her arms. "It's pocket change. That much is nothing to him. It's laughable, actually."
From the revelation, the group fell into silence. The Schnee name had a fortune. Of course that was petty cash. The crew only stared at each other, until Ruby nudged Qrow, who was sitting beside her on the couch.
"How much would you pay for me, uncle Qrow?" Ruby asked with a giddy smile. "Would you pay that much?"
With a smug smirk, Qrow leaned back on the sofa like he was giving the question some careful consideration. "Maybe one lien," he finally said, which earned a frown. "That's a hard maybe. I could probably negotiate the price for lower, though."
"Rude!" Ruby yelped.
"You asked," Qrow shrugged. "Considering how much you talk, they'd be begging me to take you off their hands!"
That elicited a few chuckles.
Yang chimed in as she leaned forward. "Especially if you give her coffee."
"Right?" Qrow said after holding in a laugh. Reluctantly, he stood after giving a weak grunt. "I'm gonna go on lookout," he announced. "We should see Juniper's ship any time now. Try not to break anything."
"Have fun," Yang waved him off.
After the hunter opened the door to go out on deck, a calm breeze flowed inside. A hint of the salty sea wafted into their noses, reminding them that they were indeed traveling. Sometimes, it felt like The Howling Thorn was their own world.
Casually, Yang leaned back on the sofa and glanced over her shoulder. Blake had sunken into her side, holding onto her forearm. The blonde was about to say something since her cat ears were droopy, meaning something was on Blake's mind.
Before Yang could ask what was wrong, her girlfriend spoke.
"Hey, Weiss?" the faunus suddenly called, her voice hesitant.
From the call of her name, Weiss perked up a bit. Her hands stiffened in her lap, and in response, Ruby scooted a little closer to her.
"Yes?"
"I need to apologize to you," Blake said as she kept golden eyes locked with blue. There was confusion swimming in them, so she elaborated. "The moment I found out who you were, I had these nasty thoughts. Horrible thoughts. I remembered who your father was, and how I'll always have this hatred for him."
After Blake said that, she clutched her chest like she felt guilty for feeling such emotions. Weiss sighed, knowing how easy it was to at the very least, dislike her father.
"You and I both," the ex-heiress said easily. "I understand your frustration, Blake. More than anyone. It's expected that a faunus would despise the Schnee name. That's a normal reaction as far as I'm concerned."
Relieved, Blake nodded. "I want you to know, I've known you for way too long to actually think you're your father."
From that, Weiss looked troubled. She glanced away, unable to meet her kind gaze across the room. "That's the thing…"
That threw them for a loop. It seemed like Weiss was hiding something as the three stared amongst themselves.
"What's the thing, Weiss?" Ruby asked, holding her hand for comfort.
After a deep breath, Weiss said. "When it comes down to it, I'm no different from him."
"What?" was Yang's immediate reaction. "What makes you say that? It's not like you're the one who's single-handedly taking away faunus rights and treating 'em like garbage."
Determined to smack some sense into her, Blake fiercely met her friend's gaze. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Just as fierce, pools of blue pried into gold.
"That's precisely it, Blake," Weiss stated like she finally understood, causing even more confusion. "I did nothing to stop him."
Her words faded into the distance as multiple creaks lingered.
"All I did was watch and standby idly," the ex-heiress said evenly. "I witnessed the discrimination faunus faced in the mansion every single day. Father treated them terribly. I spoke up once as a child, but…"
Slowly, she gently grasped her left hand. She could still feel the crushed bones. Like a brick wall collapsed on top of her.
Not wanting her to relive the memory, Ruby placed a hand over her own. Her sudden warmth was enough to pull Weiss out of her trance.
"I learned quickly that my best option was to ignore the problem I saw every day and to live with it," Weiss reluctantly admitted. "I did that for my own benefit."
Casually, Yang sprawled her arms out on the couch as she crossed her legs. "Look where that got you."
For a moment, Weiss simply glared at Yang in a challenge. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're hearin' me, but you're not listening," Yang said calmly as she took a deep breath. "You chose to ignore it, and you still got… you know," she said, not wanting to say the word 'abused.' "You spoke up as a child, which is badass may I add, but that got you hurt. So you stayed silent and you still got hurt. There was really nothin' you could do."
In defeat, Weiss frowned. Until Ruby squeezed her hand.
"You were in a lose-lose situation," the captain said. "Anything you did, you'd be punished. And you didn't do much, and that was still more than enough for you to want to run away."
"No one will ever know what would have happened if I did do something and kept fighting for the faunus," Weiss pointed out.
"Well, you did join our crew," the blonde reminded with a soft smile. "It's not like you didn't do anything. I'd call that an awesome win in a lose-lose situation. You found a way to continue on."
In an impossible life, she somehow found a way.
"I suppose," Weiss admitted and sighed as she looked at the faunus. "Blake, your apology isn't accepted because it isn't needed. Although I do appreciate you not associating me with my father. I know how difficult that might be, so that means a lot. More than you'll ever know."
For a moment, Yang whipped her head from her girlfriend to Weiss with a skeptical expression. "Was that a compliment? Did the ice queen just compliment you?"
"I think so," Blake said as she crossed her arms. "Hell must be freezing over."
"Hey!" Weiss yelped. "I can be nice!"
"Rubes, what the hell have you done to her?" the blonde teasingly asked, and then suddenly adorned a mischievous grin as she recalled a memory. "Besides try to kis-"
In a rush, Blake covered her mouth to save them some embarrassment. This left Weiss and Ruby blushing madly. Too late. Based on Blake's lightning reaction, it was safe to say that Yang blabbed about how she walked in on them to her. That was expected, but they didn't want to think about it.
"Would you shut it?" the faunus harshly whispered. "There is a time and a place- ew!"
They'd never seen Blake recoil so fast, and that was the highest pitched squeal they'd heard from anyone. Sounded like the tiny noise came straight from a squeaky toy.
"So cute…" Yang mumbled.
"Why?!" Blake yelled as she wiped the saliva off her palm and on her girlfriend's shirt. "Why do you always lick people?!"
"You know that's my natural reflex when people get too close to my face!" Yang yelped as she waved her hands. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!"
"Eeeeeew," Ruby drawled in disgust.
"Oh shut it, Ruby," Blake said, but not too harshly. "You do the exact same thing like it's some weird sister trait."
"Eheheh…" Ruby faintly laughed, not able to retort that.
Intrigued, Weiss asked. "Do you?"
"Yeah," the captain admitted in defeat.
"But why?" Weiss asked. "That's the strangest habit to develop."
Like she'd been waiting her whole life to answer that question, Ruby smugly grinned. "For some reason, people like touching me and Yang's cheeks. We found this out quickly when we were younger. And what do you do to make people stop touching you? Lick them."
"That's unsanitary," Weiss said in disgust.
"So's touching people's faces!" Yang yelped.
"I even had a stranger touch my face one time," the captain recalled. "I licked her hand out of habit. She looked horrified."
"She shouldn't have touched your face in the first place," Weiss pointed out.
"Exactly!" Ruby chirped. "You saw how well it worked just now."
That earned several giddy laughs. They could've sworn they heard a hiss.
"I must know," Weiss began like she'd been waiting forever to ask the question. "What's Juniper like?"
"Hmm," Ruby hummed with a bright smile. "You'd love Pyrrha. She's probably the only sane one on that crew."
"The red-head, right?" Weiss asked.
"Mhm," Ruby confirmed.
"Any I should watch out for?"
In unison, all three of them said. "Nora."
Blake sighed, thinking of how energetic she could be. "She can be a handful sometimes, but she means well."
Yang nodded in agreement. "If you wanna keep up with her, you gotta be well-rested."
Expectantly, Weiss looked to Ruby. "I'm assuming you two get along since you're also always energized?"
"You betcha!" Ruby gave her a thumbs-up. "She's scary good at combat, too. Super strong. Don't make her mad. You'd regret it."
A shiver rocked Yang's spine from the memory. "Her hammer… ruthless…"
"You don't have to worry about Jaune," Ruby mentioned, thinking of his personality. "He's the kind of guy who opens bags of chips with scissors."
That earned several snickers.
"You hit the nail on the head with that one," Yang fake wiped a tear. "Nora totally has a thing for Ren, by the way. It's fun to watch them interact, but don't say anything about it. They get all awkward."
"Because you need to let them go at their own pace," Blake said like she was frustrated with her girlfriend.
"They live together and still aren't together," Yang replied. "It's takin' too long!"
"They have all the time in the world," Blake reminded.
"I just want to…" Yang put two fists together and jammed them repeatedly. "Make them…"
Weiss jokingly scoffed. "Let's calm ourselves, cupid."
Before Yang could retort, there was a long, echoing howl that roared through the ship.
Excitedly, Ruby hopped up.
"Juniper's here!"
Wow. I went a whole semester without writing fan fiction. That was painful, but it was to mainly focus on graduating college. Now that I have graduated, it's go time. This particular chapter was on-hold for a whole semester and now it's May 30th, 2019. Woooooah.
This chappy is titled after Spice and Wolf: Tabi no Tochuu.
"I was once alone. No place to call home. And i had lost my way. With this heart I hold, I was on my own wandering endlessly. But I found a way to continue on. Now there's no place too far."
Stay dandy,
~Toto
