I feel bad for this five-legged spider limping around on my wall :(
Kali
Blake is young. Not a child, but still young. It leaves Kali scrambling for purchase and suddenly understanding all the wry insinuations of other parents, over the years. Just wait 'till they get to that age...
She never turns mean. Or sullen, or angry, or disrespectful, like older faunus have warned them, though Kali can see why they might think she has. She could call it disobedience, but it'd be a bit hypocritical to complain considering all the civil disobedience she's helped organize over the years.
No. It's not awful because of what Blake is, but because of what she isn't. She isn't the little cub she used to be anymore, and she isn't the young woman she will be yet. All this time she's been changing so slowly that Kali hardly noticed, like vines creeping up a brick wall. Now she is change. She's constantly in flux, and Kali doesn't understand her anymore. Neither does Ghira. Neither, she suspects, does Blake.
It's a little sad, and a little frightening... but more than anything, it's exciting. A new Blake is on her way, and Kali can't wait to meet her. Not that she and Ghira get to do much waiting—there is, as always, work to do. The White Fang is going through a transition of its own.
Maybe it's that, or maybe just a bit of vanity on Kali's part, but sometimes it feels like Blake is the White Fang. Something of Ghira, and something of Kali, and something of Sienna and Tukson and Ilia and everyone else who makes up their strange, sprawling family. And a spark of something else that came from no-one-knows-where, giving them life of their own. Both stumbling around at the same time, learning to walk and then to run. And now, both muddled and confused, getting ready to become...
Well. That's the question, isn't it? What will the White Fang become?
Everyone has an opinion. Sienna's been pushing for more extreme action for years, and most of the organization is starting to echo her. Even Tukson, the mild-mannered schoolteacher who's gone nearly a decade without raising his voice to Blake once, can't keep his temper when Ghira explains their latest strategy.
"We have to denounce these sorts of attacks," Ghira insists. "Whether we like it or not, we're judged as a group. If one faunus kills an SDC board member—"
"All the rest have to bow and scrape or be put on trial," snarls Sienna.
Tukson scowls. "Dignifying this with any kind of response sends its own message."
"And silence will be taken as approval," Ghira reminds them.
And he's right... but a denouncement carries its own hidden message. This wasn't us, it says, which is true. We're not like them, the humans will hear. We're the good sort.
"Maybe we should approve," Sienna says, her face stony.
Kali flinches. She loathes—loathed Sera Saccharine as much as the next faunus. On paper she's no worse and quite a bit better than most of the SDC's board, but anyone who bothers to dig a little deeper will find unofficial policies that wouldn't look out of place in pre-war Mantle. And yet... she's seen the video, and she wouldn't wish that on Jacques Schnee himself.
"The purpose of the White Fang is to build bridges." Ghira stands up from his chair. He doesn't raise his voice, doesn't really need to when he dwarfs the whole room, but his eyes narrow. "Acts of violence like this can only hurt us."
Sienna glares back at him, unflinching. "I had been under the impression that the purpose of the White Fang was to make things better for the faunus. But I suppose it's much better to get a pat on the head from the humans for being such good little pets."
Kali sighs and massages the bridge of her nose. The meeting is effectively over, now—oh, it'll go on for another hour or two, but no one will get anything done.
The frustrating thing is that neither of them are wrong, exactly. It's easy for someone in Ghira's position—or hers, for that matter—to talk about making positive changes. They're not the ones working in Dust mines without so much as a bandana to protect their lungs. They don't have to worry every time Blake goes out that she's going to disappear.
But Kali spent all of last night fighting from nightmare to nightmare, remembering the sound of a woman she hates screaming. The worst thing about it is that there are faunus out there, right now, who recorded that. Who took pride in it. And Kali knows the rage they felt, because she can see it in herself, too. It's bubbling under all of their skins. They're a wounded people, and sometimes wounds fester.
Speaking of which...
She catches a glimpse of him as they all walk out of the meeting, agreeing about nothing except their frustration. The bandages that used to cover his left eye are gone, replaced by a pale white mask designed to mimic the Grimm.
He's been disappearing at night, always with a handful of followers. Ghira hasn't noticed. Kali isn't sure what they've been doing, but Sienna knows. She won't say, though, and Kali won't ask. The secrets he's put between them are bad enough—she won't let them turn into mistrust and infighting. Even united they're fighting a losing battle. Divided, they are lost.
Or so she tells herself, until it's Blake that vanishes in the dead of night and doesn't come back until morning. She can trust Sienna to stop him if he goes too far, but she doesn't need to know what he's doing to know that a fourteen-year-old has no place in it.
When Blake was little, Ghira and Kali had a system for keeping her safe. This was in the old days when most of their time was spent roaming from town to town, and they had to keep her in the camp where there were scouts to warn them of Grimm. Ordering her to stop wandering off to read by moonlight never worked. So they sat her down and explained the danger, and their stubborn little cub said that she'd already done it and nothing bad had happened. But even though she grumbled and complained, from then on she stayed put.
That Blake is not this one.
"I thought you said I could leave the camp if I wanted!"
"You can, I only—"
"What? I can't help?" Blake curls her hands into fists. "You always told me you were happy I was getting involved. Now you want me to stop?"
"This is different," Kali insists. "Those were nonviolent protests. I don't want you following that boy into a firefight!"
"But following you and dad into tear gas is fine."
Gods damn Ghira for giving her his gift for debate.
"I don't want you getting hurt, Blake. Or arrested, for that matter."
"You and dad—"
"I remember your father and I being arrested, thank you." Kali sighs. She walked right into that one. "We were both adults by then, Blake."
"You think I'm too young."
In her frustration, Kali forgets something vitally important—Blake is the kind of young that hates being reminded of it. "Yes," she says, and Blake's eyes narrow.
"Am I supposed to sit around wishing things were better until I turn eighteen, then?"
"No, but—"
"So why are you telling me to?" Blake demands.
Kali will have years to think about what she should say, now. She could be vulnerable—Your father and I were lucky. We could have been hurt in a thousand awful ways, and I don't want that for you. She could try to work with Blake instead of against her—I just want you safe. If you really want to do this, I'll go with you. She could shut down the argument then and there—You're not going and that's final!—and maybe Blake would hate her but she'd be safe.
Kali doesn't have the way it all went wrong to guide her. All she can do is say what feels right at the time. "I know you're going to get into trouble, Blake. I did too. But I had friends like Sienna, and then I had your father. People I could trust. And this... this boy, Adam—"
Just like that, she's already lost her.
"He's not a boy. And at least he's doing something!"
Blake storms off before Kali can reply to that. Ghira's conversation with the rest of the White Fang doesn't go much better—they're done begging for scraps. He comes back to their tent with his nostrils flaring and plops down on his sleeping bag. "I can't believe this."
Kali planned on telling him about her conversation with Blake, but he's already halfway from frustration to despair, so she focuses on the problem at hand. "Can't you?"
Ghira grunts. "They're acting like it's been easy building up all this goodwill. And now they want to throw it away because things aren't moving fast enough."
"They aren't. And that isn't your fault—but you can't blame faunus in more precarious circumstances than ours for wanting to try something different."
He groans and puts his face in his hands. "Not you, too."
Kali rolls her eyes. "If you wanted a yes-man you should have married the Albains. You knew what you were getting into."
That gets a chuckle out of him.
"Ghira, I know you don't want to lose what little tolerance we've managed to build up... but tolerance and respect aren't the same. Some things are more important than being liked."
"So you agree with Sienna."
He sounds so much like the surly teenaged Blake in that moment that Kali can't help but snort. "No, Ghira, I don't think we should try stealing. But she has other ideas, you know. More aggressive sit-ins, taking a stand even where it'll be unpopular among humans... and I do think those are worth a try."
"Even now, our members are constantly at risk of being arrested," Ghira points out. "This... I know it's not illegal, but that doesn't always matter."
Kali gives him a little half-shrug. "I have missed Mistral's jails. Do you think they still have the little purple tags on the uniforms? Those were cute."
He laughs helplessly. "Kali... it's a nice thought, but things like that have consequences beyond us. The optics—"
"I know, Ghira. I know you aren't sure, and neither am I. But we're not just deciding for ourselves. How many faunus have you spoken to today who've told you they want a change of direction?"
Ghira grimaces, which is answer enough.
"I think we owe it to them to listen. Don't you?"
Two weeks later, the first major newspaper declares them a terrorist organization.
Ghira frets. So does Kali, not because of the accusation but because of what it reveals. In those two weeks, they've put out a blistering denunciation of both the faunus that murdered an SDC board member and the human assumption that they had to do so, or else be complicit. They've also been arrested in droves after walking into a council meeting in Mistral and refusing to leave until a recent push to repeal anti-discrimination laws is dismissed. And... that's it. Funny how fast all that goodwill evaporates once they become inconvenient.
Her husband has been an activist for over twenty years, now. He's well used to the fact that it's impossible to please everyone. But all of a sudden he can't please anyone. They're too radical for the humans, and some faunus from the old guard, but Sienna and her followers scoff and roll their eyes and call him timid.
It all comes to a head a few months later, when after a particularly grueling meeting Ghira finally puts his head in his hands and heaves a great sigh. "I think it's time to face it," he says. "I'm not what they want, anymore." Kali doesn't argue. She'll always support him, but she can't lie to him.
He steps down that evening. Sienna bows so low that her ears nearly touch the ground. Then she straightens up and embraces him, then Kali, hiding her sadness under a calm, serious frown. Her twitching ears give her away like they always do.
"I wish you could stay."
"As do I." Ghira puts a hand on her shoulder. "But I can support us better from Menagerie."
Blake doesn't see it that way.
"You're running away?"
"I know it looks like we are." Ghira sits down beside her on the little cot, in the little cabin on the little ship that's going to take them home. He tries to take her hand, but she pulls it away. "It's Sienna the White Fang wants, now. If I stayed, there would always be tensions over who to follow, even if I'm not officially a leader. It would only divide us—and our unity and trust in each other are all we have."
She raises her chin, and... well. Between Kali and Ghira, the stubbornness there is no surprise. "You could lead us, if you weren't too scared to fight back."
Ghira heaves a sigh. "I can't lead us down a path I don't believe in, Blake."
"You are going tame." She says it so coldly that Ghira recoils.
"Blake," Kali snaps. She can disagree with them on this, on anything, but that word isn't hers.
"I can't believe you!" Blake stands up, her fists clenched at her sides and her ears flat against her skull. "After all this time you'd rather act like pets than stop them? What good is—"
"That's enough." Kali is breathing hard, but it still feels like the air has been sucked out of the room. Jeering human councilors and counterprotesters and police say things like that. Not her own daughter. "Where is this coming from? You know language like that isn't okay."
"My language?"
"Is it something he said?"
"So what if it is? Just because you never liked him, doesn't mean he's wrong."
"It's not that we don't like him. He's been through something terrible. That isn't his fault, but it doesn't excuse his actions."
"He's angry." Ghira adds. "Reckless. And he can be... violent."
Blake's eyes narrow. "He told me about that," she says, slowly. "He saved you."
Ghira inclines his head. "He did. But no one needed to die, Blake."
"He didn't mean to. It was an accident, he told me—"
"Accidents like that are why we can't trust this new path, Blake," Kali says gently. "I know you care about him, and that's a good thing, but it shouldn't change who you are."
"You think that's what this is about? That I'm just going along with what he thinks?"
Ghria grimaces. "Are you saying it's not about him?"
"Of course it's about him!" Blake bursts out. "It's about what they did to him! What they did to Ilia, and Tukson and Sienna, and you! I'm tired of asking politely for them to please stop killing us!" She's breathing hard, now, and her mouth is set. "I won't run away from this."
"Blake..." His voice is soft.
Her mouth twists. It's only a flicker as her face turns away from them, as she spits the words, "I'm not a coward," through gritted teeth. But Kali sees it, and the disgust in her daughter's eyes roots her to the ground as she turns on her heel and strides out of the cabin.
Ghira opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a little croak. Kali takes one step and then another, reaches out a hand...
But this isn't an argument with that little cub—it's their daughter in flux, sculpting herself. And it's not about reading in the woods at night with Grimm about. It's Blake's future, and her choice to fight for it the way she thinks is right. It doesn't matter that she might be wrong, or how much it hurts to let her go... if it's a mistake, it's her mistake to make.
Kali runs, not to the door but to the window. Blake is halfway across the deck already. Heedless of the sailors and other passengers, she screams into the growing dusk, "Blake!"
She ducks her head and speeds up.
Remember!
She breaks into a run.
We will always love you!
Her outline is lost in shadow.
Always...