AYangThang: You'll still be getting a Thursday update, but I wanted to get this one out a little early. That way I can end the year of 2019 with up to chapter 25 posted, and I can begin 2020 strong.

Significant Changes: Enjoy the overflow ladybug content. These are all new scenes that weren't in the original. Let's enjoy Blake and Ruby suffering the daily grind and making a few self-discoveries along the way.

Original chapter length: 3,086
Revisited chapter length: 2,830

"Regular dialogue" [Faunus speech only]

Chapter 24

[Yours.] The little Faunus happily chirruped. She had graced Blake with a flower that had been thoroughly mangled. Actually, it was likely some sort of weed. A single crumpled petal hanging by thread as the flower lay bent in the young girl's hand. Ace had ripped her prize from a crack in the pavement where she found it.

Blake took the gift and placed it in her pocket. She'd dispose of it later when Ace couldn't see her do it. Lifting Ace into the shopping basket, she didn't particularly want such a gift, and would have appreciated if Ace had simply left it alone. Pushing through a set of automatic double doors Blake pointedly avoided the warm deli and to-go department. The thick smell of roasting chicken wafting in the air.

[Kin. Hungry.] Ace mewed, knowing the smell of meat when she found it.

"No Ace." Blake said under her breath. "It's not dinner time."

[Kin?] Ace mewed unhelpfully. [Kin. Hungry.]

[Quiet.] Blake snarled quietly, affixing the little girl with a pointed glare that made Ace wilt her ears in response. Certain that she would begin to behave herself, Blake pulled a stuffed bear from the diaper bag, giving it to the girl in hopes to amuse her.

If there was one thing Blake hated, it was taking Ace with her on errands. Stopping at the store was an awkward affair. There were no shortage of Faunus hating humans walking the streets, and if that were the only thing that Blake had to trifle with, that would be one thing.

Sadly, it wasn't.

Well-meaning humans assumed that Ace was her daughter. They commented on her cuteness, claiming that she must have her father's eyes. Faunus knew otherwise, pointed sniffs and disapproving glares were leveled her way at every opportunity. Why wouldn't they be suspicious? Scent alone told them all that they needed to know. There was no blood relation between the elder Faunus pushing the shopping cart and the child within.

It wasn't common, or normal, for a Faunus so young to be away from her immediate family.

Depending on the Faunus, children were often born in multiples. Cat Faunus like themselves rarely had one child at a time. Twins were most common, triplets following soon after. With no siblings in the cart along with Ace, everything looked more suspicious. With only the implication of friendly scent between them, most Faunus adults would take an issue with it.

After all, for all they knew, Ace might have been kidnapped. Taken away from her family for some terrible scheme.

Those that didn't glare in confusion, looked to Blake with resigned pity. Instinct ran deeply. It was rare that Faunus found it within themselves to adopt a child that was not their own. Females might, if having their own was completely out of the question. If a woman was too ill, unable to conceive, unmated, or simply unwilling to do so, she might find the desire to take in a child, raising it as her own.

The same could not be said among Faunus men. Most males were simply wired differently. They had an inherent urge to spread their own seed, see to their own offspring, and help to raise the offspring of their kinfolk. For those with large families and sparling generations, it was no small effort. They had no time to protect an outsider's little one, and had very little desire to do so.

Blake grabbed the box of cereal off the shelf before moving away from the mated couple beside her. She couldn't take the way they looked at her with sad eyes. There no telling what tragic story their imaginations had cooked up. Ace was blissfully none the wiser as Blake turned the corner.

[Mine?] Ace mewed, little hands reaching for the cat toy sitting on the endcap of the pet supplies isle. The feathery implement attached to a stick came complete with a little bell. It seemed to call to her, and she leaned over as far as she could in an attempt to grab it.

"Absolutely not." Blake groused under her breath, hurrying away to the canned goods before Ace could kick up a fuss.

Blake grabbed what she needed quickly, refusing to loiter around any longer than she was required to. Canned vegetables made their way into the basket along with glass jars of fruit. A sale was on for sweetened condensed milk, and Blake reached over taking a few cans and stuffing them into the cart. Finally, she began making her way to the checkout and escaping the store with dinner in hand.

With a mountaineering backpack now full of groceries, and Ace on her hip, Blake sped home as fast as her skills as a huntress would carry her.

Hobbling home, Ruby returned to the warm smell of beef stew cooking in the kitchen.

"I'm home." Ruby called closing the door behind her.

"Welcome back." Blake returned.

[Kin!] Ace came to her side.

"Hey, Ace." Ruby said, forcing herself to smile as she pat the girl on the head. Even that small action was exhausting. Looking at the bloody gauze pad that covered her right arm, she grimaced as she entered the kitchen collapsed in the chair.

The smell of stale blood touched Blake's nose. Raising her eyebrow she carefully examined the air. Something was wrong. The smell wasn't filled with hormones that came naturally with a woman's monthly cycle. "What happened?" Blake asked, reeling around, the meal forgotten as the first hints of fresh blood mixed with it, as though something was still seeping.

"A rookie working the lift machine dropped a cargo container full of yellow dust." Ruby told her, peeling back the gauze to see the wound was still trying to close up. Blake was already headed for the first aid kit, and Ruby could only roll her eyes. "It's not too bad. It's already closing up."

Ace had followed her into the kitchen, little claws digging into Ruby's knee curiously. [Kin?]

"I'm okay." Ruby told her, trying to remove the clawed fingers nipping into her skin.

"Dust slows the healing process. You have to get that cleaned out." Blake fired back as she came back into the kitchen. A large white box from the supply closet firmly in hand. "Why didn't your aura protect you from the blast?"

"It was a big blast." Ruby said, Picking Ace up and placing her in her lap.

"It had to be." Blake said as she came to sit down beside Ruby. "How bad was it?"

"Well, the whole container blew. Shrapnel went flying everywhere." The younger huntress said with a sigh. A soft sound of discomfort slipping from her lips as Blake touched the edges of the wound. "Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt."

Blake frowned, already preparing to clean it with a medical grade dust solvent. With a clean rag in hand, Blake upturned the bottle to soak the cloth. "Please tell me this is the only place you're injured."

"More or less." Ruby shrugged, biting down on her lip as soon as the chilly feeling of solvent began to sting in her open cut. "I'm going to be hurting tomorrow though."

"You shattered your aura completely, didn't you?" Blake accused, waiting for Ruby's skin to slowly knit back together. It wasn't happening. Even after the dust was cleared away from the wet edges, the wide gash was there to stay. "That's why you're not healing properly, isn't it?"

"I didn't shatter it, it's just dormant." Ruby told her, catching Ace's little hands to keep her from grabbing at the medical supplies. It was better than facing down Blake's displeased glare, and the edges of worry found within amber eyes. "My aura's fine, just depleted."

"That's one hell of a depletion, Ruby." Blake said with a shake of her head, beginning to redress Ruby's acquired injury. "How did it run so low?"

"I had to use it when my head hit the pavement from the blast." Ruby told her, idly allowing herself to reach for the spot. It felt completely healed, but she had wanted to be sure. "I'm okay, Blake, really."

Blake wanted to believe her. In some manner of speaking, she knew that it was true. Ruby's aura would reach full capacity in a few days, and the rest of the cut would heal overnight. In less than a week, there wouldn't even be a scar. Still, a low aura needed to be taken care of, and there was only one way to treat it.

"Take some aura enhancers, and go to bed." The Faunus ordered, cleaning up the mess upon the table.

Ruby didn't budge, wincing a bit as she examined Blake's handiwork. "I think I'll wait on dinner, if it's all the same to you."

"You're not doing yourself any favors sitting in that chair. Go get in bed, and I'll bring you a bowl when it's done." Blake said, dumping the used supplies in the trash before washing her hands vigorously in the sink.

Blake couldn't stop thinking about it.

Dust was a dangerous substance. It was prone to activation, when mishandled even slightly. There were ways to prevent dust from activating, but that came down to the packaging of the company. The Schnee Dust Company had access to the purest dust in the world, but, very little care was given to the safety of SDC employees. The danger was well known, but, the need for dust was too important to ignore.

Blake hated the company, and hated that Ruby had been harmed by one of the containers. Washing the dishes and putting away the leftovers didn't provide the soothing distraction that she had desperately wanted. She needed something else to do, defaulting to making Ruby some hot chocolate. The calories would be good for replenishing Ruby's aura, but a small mood boost couldn't hurt the matter either.

She grabbed one of the cans of sweetened condensed milk, stabbing a slice into the top so that she could empty it into a small sauce pan. The method was routine as she fished out the rest of the supplies from the pantry. She couldn't count how many times she had done this, even though she would never dare to dry a sip of it herself.

Yang's words were completely ridiculous, but they had a bad habit of cropping up at the most inconvenient times. The blonde had jumped to conclusions, and Blake didn't let herself linger on the matter.

Making hot chocolate was just an act of kindness, nothing more than that.

The sooner Ruby could recuperate her aura, the better, and that was just a fact. Preparing a mug of the sweet mixture, Blake carried it into Ruby's bedroom. There, Ruby and Ace were propped up in bed with a large coloring book in front of them. Green scribbles of crayon messily caking the outline that looked like a pine tree. Ace ran the crayon over the area several times in large circles.

"So much for reading." Blake said as she looked at the haphazard artwork.

"She wouldn't sit still long enough." Ruby replied, picking up a yellow crayon before it got lost in the tangle of bedsheets. "What's up?"

"I made you some hot chocolate." Blake said, setting it down on the bedside table. "It'll help with your aura."

"Thanks, but you don't have to worry about me so much. I'm fine, it's just a scratch." Ruby said softly as she looked down at coloring book.

"It would have already completely healed if your aura was back to full capacity." Blake sat down on the side of the bed, watching Ace pick up an orange crayon nearly smashing it into the top of the page where the sky should be. "She's really into that stupid thing, isn't she?"

"Yeah, but it's a mess." Ruby said, picking up flakes of crushed crayon that hadn't been smooshed into the paper. "At least it's not paint."

"Are you sure you don't want me to take her?" Blake asked then. "You should be trying to sleep."

"To be honest, I'm not that tired." Ruby told her, reaching for the warm mug of hot chocolate. "This is relaxing enough."

"Alright." Blake murmured dubiously. "If you're sure…"

A knock came at the door the following mid-afternoon. Nora was grinning with a box of pizza in hand. "Hey Ruby, feeling better?"

"Yeah, I'll be benched for a few days though. Low aura, and all that." She shrugged, letting the electric powerhouse through the front door. "We're going to have to keep it down, Ace is in the middle of a nap."

"I'd say enjoy the time off. You'll be back out there soon enough lugging everything around again in no time." She said, nearly tossing the pizza onto the coffee table. "So, where did Blake wander off to again?"

"She's teaching a class. It's a Faunus thing." Ruby told her with a little shrug. "You want something to drink?"

"Water will be fine." Nora said plopping down grabbing the first slice of pizza. Ruby nodded, grabbing two glasses of water from the kitchen before returning and finding a seat on the sofa. Reaching for her own slice she asked a question of her own. "Where's Ren?"

"Getting our mission orders."

"Oh.. I didn't think there were any Grimm sightings in the area."

"We're heading to re-supply another village with some of yesterday's kingdom imports. I would have gone with him, but you know I never have been on Glynda's good side."

Ruby nodded at that, a soft hum coming from the depths of her throat. That was all she could manage as she chewed her bite of food. "Careful, that dust is really caustic."

"Yeah, it'll take a while to repair that warehouse. There are six teams issued on cleaning detail, it really is a mess." Nora said, having nearly inhaled the first slice of pizza and moving onto her second. "Heck of a blast, I'm surprised you were still standing."

"I don't have as much aura as Yang, but I can take a dust explosion to the face." Ruby chuckled before sighing and leaning back on the sofa. "I worried Blake though. I practically had to push her out the door this morning."

"Personally, I'd be more worried if Blake wasn't worried at all."

"What do you mean?"

"Honestly, those of us down at the mission site were all a little worried, actually." Nora said, her tone casual as ever. "One second you're standing there issuing orders in the cargo bay, and then the next a load of dust nearly falls on you. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little freaked out."

"Yeah, I get that, but every time Blake thinks I'm overdoing it, she gets a little…" Ruby paused, thinking. "I don't know I don't really have a word for it." She could only shrug as Nora eyed her curiously. "Like for example she patched me up again, wouldn't let me help with dinner at all, then she end up bringing me hot chocolate in bed. It was nice and all, but, I was fine."

Nora nodded, toying with some pizza crust before popping it into her mouth. "Maybe you were fine, but so what?"

"I don't like thinking that Blake worries about me like that. I'd like to think I'm way more capable has a huntress." Ruby told her. "That I don't need her to worry, you know?"

"Hmm, I know you can take a lot." Nora said. "I'm pretty sure Blake knows it too, but that's probably why she does worry about you. You're certified for leading teams. You have a way harder job than we do. When things go south because of planning, you're the one that's got to answer for it. Yesterday could have been really bad…"

"That's what happens when rookies get involved with dust shipments." Ruby sighed, glaring down at the half-eaten slice of pizza in her hand. The cheese and sauce melding together. "I try to keep newbies away from unloading dust, but I have no control over what Cardin does about mission orders before I get there."

"He shouldn't even be in charge of those orders in the first place." Nora complained. "There's a reason you're usually in charge of oversight for warehouse B. Those are critical supplies. All the food that was being stored in there is completely ruined, and we're down two weeks supply of yellow dust besides."

Ruby just laughed, self-deprecatingly at that. "Weiss drilled everything I could ever need to know about dust into me. I only know more than other people because she insisted on teaching me. Otherwise, I'd be just as clueless as he is."

"Yeah, but you aren't. You left notes for him, and he didn't even read them."

"He never does."

Nora shook her head. "Hey, you know, I'm just really glad you're not seriously hurt, and I'll bet Blake feels the same way. Besides, if she came home all bloody like that, I'd be you'd treat her the same way."

"Maybe..."

"There's no maybe about it." Nora told her. "You guys are like family, and that's what families do. It doesn't matter if you can take care of yourself or not."