Hello again! Hope y'all enjoy some more small Blake!
Ilia
Blake is brave.
Ilia's never met someone brave, before. Her whole life's been an endless parade of humans living in terror of miners too exhausted to lift their heads, and faunus who have no room for courage in the daily struggle for survival. It's almost silly, the way Blake shouts at humans twice her size and waves that little sign in their faces like it'll do a damn thing.
Almost.
The White Fang is just a place to stay, when Blake first drags her there. They get her out of juvie, and it's not like she has anywhere else to go. She's thirteen but feels much older. Too old to see anything worth smiling about in a picket line, until Blake changes that for her.
It's not like the thought of fighting back is some big revelation. Ilia knows a thing or two about that, but there's something in the way Blake walks with her head high and her ears perked tall that's nothing at all like Ilia's kind of fighting.
Her kind of fighting is raw. Impulsive. It doesn't make things better—it just vents a little of the pressure boiling under her skin. Blake's kind of fighting makes her feel like they can actually win. Ilia wants to learn to be like that, too, but she isn't brave. She hides instinctively, trapping who she is under her skin while Blake wears it free and proud no matter how many humans sneer at her.
When she realizes she's in love, she hides that, too. Because the last girl she had a crush on laughed with all the others when her parents died. Because the High Leader's daughter couldn't possibly want some piece of Mantle trash. Because Blake is in the vanguard, saving the world, and Ilia has nothing to offer that she didn't steal by pretending to be human. Because, because, because. Because she's a coward.
That's why they meet him. The White Fang goes down into a mine, to recruit protesters for a new child labor law, and Ilia can't do it. She tries, but the whole world presses down on the air inside and she can't breathe and what if—
So Blake takes her by the elbow and leads her back outside, and instead they go to the workers' barracks. It's the middle of the day, so it's empty except for a man lying on his side at the back of the room. He sits up when they enter, and Ilia recoils. There's a bandage across the left side of his face, stained a filthy yellow-red, but it's his other eye that scares her. It's wild and feverish, and it looks too much like her own did in an Academy bathroom mirror, while she scrubbed blood off her knuckles.
Blake isn't afraid. She comes closer.
"Hi," she says. "I'm Blake. I'm with the White Fang."
"I know." He doesn't get out of bed. "I heard the noise."
"Can I ask... what happened to your eye?"
"An unfortunate accident." His laugh is bitter.
"How old are you?"
"Eighteen," he replies, automatically. Then he blinks, and grins. "I've been eighteen for the last five years."
Maybe it's the smile. Maybe it's the thought of being stuck in that deadly pit at her age, and the horrified sympathy that follows. Whatever it is, he's suddenly not so frightening. It's enough for Ilia to get her voice back. "How old are you really, then?"
"Stopped lying last month."
"That's awful." Blake fumbles a brochure out of her pocket. "If—if you want, we're here because of this new law. It's supposed to make it legal for kids to work any job as young as twelve, if they have parental permission. But there's this loophole where guardians can sign off on it too, and employers could count as guardians if there's no one else. It would make it easier for mine owners to do what they did to you to other faunus."
The words seem to put a little life back into him. He sits up straighter, and Ilia realizes for the first time that he's taller than them, even sitting in bed. "You're here to fight them?"
"We're protesters, not a militia. We're still fighting, just... with pickets and signs, not guns."
"Signs."
The spark that just kindled in his eye vanishes, but Blake isn't fazed. "We're not using violence, but that doesn't mean we're not standing up for ourselves. It's about... showing them that we're not what they keep telling us to be. That even if they hurt us, we can rise above it. Because we're better than that."
"I like that," he says. Slowly, like he's testing the idea out on his tongue. "Being better than they are."
She smiles and hands him a brochure. "I hope you'll come out tomorrow night."
"I think I will." He pushes himself to his feet. The injury must be recent—he wobbles a bit, and Blake steps forward to steady him. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," she stammers. And Ilia finally sees it, the way she looks away and fights down a smile.
She thought she had time. Because she can't say it now, but she's been learning how to be brave like Blake. She thought maybe, someday...
Ilia fights the green crawling under her skin. It's stupid to react like this, especially when it doesn't even mean anything. So what if Blake has a crush? He's lived a whole life in these mines, and they're both just kids to him. She'll get over it eventually, and then... maybe. Someday.