Significant Changes: Some scenes were added onto, others were adjusted slightly. Two new scenes were added. That's about it.

Revisited chapter length: 4,553

"Regular dialogue" [Faunus speech only]

Chapter 33

Standing on guard gave them one thing, time.

Plenty of it.

Hours at a time they kept watch. They needed a way to keep focus, a way to chip away at the feeling of boredom, and conversation had been their way to do that.

Ever since the day Pyrrha had spoken of her feelings, an awkwardness wove itself between them. Idle conversation didn't seem quite so idle anymore. Weiss had always been very careful about what she disclosed to her friends. She had always been meticulous in how exactly she went about doing that. Mistakenly, she had thought Pyrrha was the same.

Although Weiss considered herself to be rather open around her friends, there were some things she just didn't talk about. Silence was safer than spoken word.

How could she possibly detail over two decades of conclusions that had jaded her? How could she justify her own stringent moral failings? Ill-begotten as they were, they were still her crosses to bear, and she protected those personal hells very carefully. It was just a matter of speaking her mind, and she knew that…

Sadly, her mind was a poisonous place to be. She had done damage before unthinkingly, unintentionally, simply by speaking her views.

If she were to explain herself to Pyrrha, she would have to speak using the very foundation of her upbringing as a crutch. A cornerstone to which all of her other conclusions were built upon. Some of those assumptions had been smashed into tiny bits, and buried deep inside along with whatever admiration she had left of her family. That alone was a dark place to think, mentally.

Yet, Pyrrha wanted to know, and Weiss found it quite difficult not deny such an earnest, hopeful request… But, where to start? Well, Weiss knew where, but that didn't make the topic any less uncomfortable.

"My father is an impressive man." Weiss explained as she leaned on her usual slab of brick. "He may not be many things, and the things that you can define him as would be distasteful even in the worst of company. For all of that, for what he is, and what he isn't, all of it is impressive. No matter my views, no matter my station, that was the sort of person I felt destined to become… An impressive person… However, as I am, that's impossible."

Pyrrha frowned deeply, she hadn't expected such a response. The Schnee family itself was prestigious, anyone would be a fool to argue otherwise. "Weiss, that's just not true."

"Yes, it is." Weiss wondered when she had finally figured that out, but it was long before graduation. "There's something you need to understand, Pyrrha. You never truly wanted your fame. For all the power it gives you, you truly don't need it, nor do you truly desire it. I need his power. I need his status. To keep the promises I made to the people I care about, I would have had to sell my soul. I would have had to become a carbon copy of his image, and bend to his willpower. I didn't do that."

"No one wanted you to."

"But I still should have." Weiss gave Pyrrha a sideways glance. "I'd rather not elaborate the point."

"How am I to understand if you don't?"

Weiss bit her lower lip. "How many Faunus die yearly under my father's thumb? How many of my father's personal friends line their pockets with the blood, sweat, and tears from labor forces? How many unknowing people are dragged into his questionable practices, none the wiser that what they're doing is wrong? There are dust shops remnant wide buying from him, they're perpetuating the need for even more underpaid labor… Trafficking… Who knows what else."

"Weiss, your father's sins are not your own to bear." Pyrrha replied earnestly. "You have to believe that."

"You could be right. However, the question comes down to this; how many lives have I thrown away carelessly, all for the sake of my own?"

"I…" Pyrrha nipped on the tip of her tongue. "Weiss, I…" She shook her head. "I don't know what I could possibly say to that."

"Because there is nothing to say." Weiss laminated. "The numbers are staggering, and that's my fault."

"No…" Green eyes closed behind closed lids. "No, it's not your fault."

"It will always be my fault." Weiss pressed, without even a flinch. "I'm not looking for pity, or to be consoled. I'm telling you the truth. I chose to walk away from Atlas. I disobeyed my father, and flagrantly disregard his warnings. I chose to put down the responsibility given to me, knowing that doing so would be the same as claiming that hundreds of thousands of lives were less significant than my own…" Weiss bit her lip then. "I didn't act for the greater whole. Not for Faunus, or for humans… I acted for myself, Pyrrha. I know that what I did has lasting repercussions."

There were millions of words Pyrrha could have spewed from her mouth. Several she considered as they stood at their post quietly. Still, she was not a daft woman. She was not blind to the one simple fact that sat between every word Weiss used to berate herself. When it came to life experience, Weiss had an upbringing that was akin to an untamed foal. One that had been beaten too many times. One that had been too terrified to bolt, and too reliant on the man that kept breaking her until it was too late.

Words wouldn't heal her. Even if they had such a power, they would have to come from elsewhere. So instead of saying anything at all, Pyrrha wordlessly moved closer to Weiss and slowly slung an arm around her and pulled her close. Inwardly Pyrrha hoped the gesture would be enough.

"Nora!"

"Whoops…"

"Why didn't you just use the can opener?" Ruby asked, looking at the can of green beans that had gone flying in every direction.

"It broke." Nora complained, holding the dilapidated piece of machinery aloft. "This whole place is broken."

"It's what we have to work with." Blake sighed slicing up vegetables for the soup pot.

"I know, and it really ticks me off." Nora told her as she pushed the can away as though it had offended her. "I'll be back…"

"Where are you going?" Ruby asked as Nora got her weapon out of the nearby locker.

"To the store to buy a new can opener." She said, already checking her wallet for lien. "This kitchen can't keep going like this. If we can't even make soup, something's gone really wrong around here. I'm going to fix it piece by piece until nothing is broken ever again." Nora slammed the exit door behind her, her self-imposed mission firmly and place. No one was going to talk her out of it.

Ruby just shook her head, smiling softly at Nora's resolve.

The soup kitchen was on its last leg. It had been that way for a while. No funding was coming in, and charity was running low. All of the workers were starting to put in their own funding to help buy supplies. Food, toiletries, and other items needed to me purchased, and everyone had been helping in any way they could. Nora's pockets seemed to be the deepest of all, and she wouldn't accept a 'no' for an answer.

She had already bought a new microwave, a new set of knives, and two new sets of pots and pans to cook with. Now it seemed she was buying a new can opener too.

For Nora, it wasn't just charity. It was personal. Her childhood had been spent in places like this, and she was bound and determined to make sure that it stayed up and running. She had spent more than one night hungry, and she wouldn't dare let someone else go through that. Not if she had anything to say about it. As it turned out, Nora had plenty to say, even when everyone else had almost given up.

She wouldn't stop, wouldn't slow down. She would just keep finding things to fix, using her own hard earned money to see the matter through.

"Well, it's held together with tape and a prayer, but I finally got the hot water working." Ren said, coming up from the basement and closing the door behind him. "Where's Nora?"

"Buying a new can opener." Blake told him, passing the existed man a bottle of water for his troubles.

"Of course." He murmured.

"Maybe you should take her wallet away from her." Ruby told him. "We can't pay any of this back, and it's getting expensive."

Ren merely shook his head as he looked around. "No, it's fine." He said, sitting down on a creaky old stool in the corner. "We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't want to. This is why we became hunters in the first place. If we couldn't at least do this, we'd never be able to justify all of the years we put into getting our licenses in the first place."

"I just don't want you guys breaking the bank…" Ruby said.

Ren wasn't deterred in the slightest. "Too many people rely on places like these. Each one that's shut down displaces a lot of people. We've been in that position before. If we can prevent it just once, Nora would sleep a lot easier at night, and I would to."

"Yeah, but if you keep this up, will you even be able to manage the bills?"

"In a way we're being selfish." Ren told them. "Our household doesn't have money problems. Pyrrha still has some cash in her saving account from all of sponsorships. When we graduated from Beacon, she put our names on the account too. Pyrrha doesn't want to use it for herself, so nobody's touched it. All of the money Nora has been getting came from that account. It would just sit there unused otherwise. Pyrrha understands."

"But, then that's her money..."

"It's not hers. She had never felt that way." Ren said. "In her words, it belongs to the people of Remnant. Faunus are people too. This is where the money belongs, don't ever doubt that."

Being stationed along the wall was easy, but going home was hard. Although they lived directly across from each other, just as they always had, Pyrrha could feel the divide. Maybe it had always been there. Maybe, before, she was content to ignore the fact that the woman she cared about was just out of reach. Even if that had been the case before, Pyrrha was far from content now as she sat on her front stoop.

Looking forlornly at the door to the other household, she wondered if Weiss was thinking about her, too.

"It's a door, not a Grimm you know." Jaune said, shocking Pyrrha out of her thoughts as he hung out of his bedroom window.

Green eyes lifted to glare at him softly. She wasn't truly angry, merely startled, and the stern features melted away when her heart didn't feel crammed in her throat. "How long have you been watching me?"

"I don't know…" He said, scratching the back of his head. "Awhile, I guess. I think that's about the fifth sigh, give or take…" Jaune trailed off. "What's got you so down, anyway?"

"Nothing at all." Pyrrha said, and she knew it to be the truth. "I'm just fine, and things are going well."

It was the truth, too. Not a single lie woven between the words. Things were going well, far better than she expected, at any rate. Even if she couldn't say for sure that Weiss would take her feeling seriously, the white haired woman hadn't completely brushed her off either.

It would take time, but she was sure she could earn the shorter woman's affections. She had the distinct impression Weiss wanted to give them as well. It merely seemed that Weiss hadn't the slightest idea how to go about doing that.

"Okay, everything is going well. That's good then. So, what's with the sighing?" Jaune asked.

"I just have something on my mind." Pyrrha said, standing, and leaning on the brick wall. "Something that I don't think should be made public quite yet. Honestly, I'm not sure there's anything to speak of, but…" Her green eyes drifted back to the door just down the alleyway. "What would you do, Jaune, if you had a friend with a troubled past?"

"Um…" At this Jaune found himself lost. "It kind of depends on the past."

"What if that friend confided in you?" She pressed. "Furthermore, what if that friend did it in such a way, that you feared doing anything that might hurt them more?"

"What would I do, huh? Hmm..." Jaune seemed to think on this before shrugging. "Beats me." He said as he looked across the street. "Weiss isn't the kind of person to confide in people at all. If she has told you something, maybe that's enough."

"How did you know it was Weiss?" Pyrrha asked, completely floored by the actually correct guess. Normally, his cluelessness was baffling, not to mention borderline offensive. Yet, he had understood the hidden nature of her question perfectly, and she demanded to know how on Remnant that was even possible.

"I don't know how to put my finger on it." Jaune said thoughtfully, squinting at something unseen by Pyrrha. "It's like, this feeling I get. When I see you two together, it just seems like that's the way it should be." He smirked then. "I don't why it comes to mind, only that it does."

Pyrrha smiled sadly at him. "I feel the same way, but, I'm not so sure that Weiss does. I think she wants to, but she's afraid to."

"Well, you're doing better than I ever did…" He deadpanned. "I'm lucky Weiss even puts up with me at all. Think about the way I acted. I was such a jackass looking back on it all, but, there's nothing I can do about that now, is there?"

"You meant well." Pyrrha offered.

"Road paved to hell, and all that." Jaune said, waving the matter aside. "You mean well too, don't you?"

"Was there ever any doubt of that?"

"No, but, I care about you. You'll always be my partner, and you're a really great person…"

"I'm sensing a 'but' somewhere in all of that."

"I know how you are, Pyr." He said in the way only an ex-boyfriend ever could. "You'll do anything you can, and everything you can. Sometimes, you just can't, you know? Weiss can be really rude when she pushes people away. I don't want you to get hurt if all this backfires. I know how much it sucks to be on the receiving end of it."

"However, your heart was in the right place." Pyrrha told him with a soft smile. One that faded a little as she continued. "Besides, if you hadn't taken an interest in her, I would have never seen all of the truly good qualities in you. There's more to you than meets the eye, and I was very fortunate to see that side of you. I know you don't believe me, and that probably you never will, but you're a good man."

"Yeah, well, you're a good woman." He told her. "Not that you need any advice… If it were me, though, I'd go talk to her. If I knew I had even half the chance that you do, I wouldn't be sitting on my front stoop."

Pyrrha rolled her eyes at this. "I don't want to bother her."

"What bother? Go knock on the door." Jaune asked. "Take it from me, the worst she can possibly do is slam it in your face…"

"You would know, wouldn't you?" Pyrrha shook her head, laughing a little bit. "Now, I know I've been a little persistent, but I doubt she would do that."

"Then why are you still just sitting there?"

That, Pyrrha had to concede, was a very good question...

They were sharing a bed, but intimacy itself was a slow process. Blake had tried to be careful when it came to her advances, but truth be told, that was getting difficult. She wanted to make a proper claim on Ruby, one that defined them as mates. In order to do that, they needed to be sexually active, and Ruby wasn't quite ready to cross that bridge just yet. There were times that Blake thought they'd be getting closer to that point, but then the reality would set in.

Ace would take a wayward little sniff of the air, and Ruby would be on edge all over again. It wasn't that Blake didn't understand, it was that she couldn't.

Scent was such an intrinsic part of her life she that couldn't comprehend the way Ruby bristled at the thought. She knew very personal details thanks to scent alone, and those little truths weren't things that humans talked about. For them, it just wasn't proper. Lying in bed together was as much a blessing as it was a curse, because Blake knew that she would not be at peace until she could mark Ruby as her own.

She also knew that Ace would tone down her sniffing if scent finally told her something clear. Something unambiguous to her curiosity. As it was, her little nose simply couldn't put the pieces together, and Blake sympathized with that confusion.

Blake sighed as she pressed a kiss to Ruby's neck. She smelled heavenly, but there was something else, too. The very same something else that had put a cold stop to their make out session and frustrated the absolute hell out of both of them. Worst of all, Ruby's shirt was still on the floor, and a pair of panties were the only thing that kept her from being completely naked under the covers.

It was enough to drive a Faunus mad, and Blake inwardly cursed herself for letting things get that far to begin with.

"Blake?"

"Hmm?" She asked lazily, trying not to sound nearly as turned on as she was. It wouldn't help to put any more pressure on Ruby than the woman already put on herself.

"I'm not like other people." Ruby told her. "You know that, right?"

Blake considered this before setting aflame the notion in her mind. "I have no proof of that." She replied instead. Quite frankly, all of Ruby's body language said no, but her scent was thick as any normal person. It seemed to say yes. Calling attention it itself in a way few other scents did. Arousal was funny like that. A pure bodily response to stimuli, and not something that could fully be controlled.

A thought came to Blake's mind. One she didn't want to consider, but it had managed to stay there anyway. "Ruby, does the idea of sex itself gross you out at all?" Blake had considered that might be the case. Sexual repulsion wasn't exactly common among Faunus, but she wondered if it was different for humans. Asexuality seemed to be the term, but she had never personally met someone with such a distain for sexual encounters.

"I don't know." Ruby told her.

Perhaps it was simply because the act of mating took precedence over any dislike a Faunus might have on the subject. Marking mates by scent required the act, it was plain and simple. She had never met a Faunus who refused to mark things, it simply wasn't in their nature. Humans didn't require scent marking to make a claim, and she wondered if that might play a role in determining how making love was done.

"I don't think about it enough to really care one way or the other about it." Ruby went on to say, pulling Blake from her thoughts.

"But, it doesn't sicken you, right?"

"Not really…" Ruby murmured. "I'm just broken that way."

"I sincerely doubt that…"

"How do you know for sure, though?"

Blake groaned inwardly. Well, if she told Ruby the truth, it might as well be the entire truth. "Because my nose can tell that you're a healthy and normal human female. If something was wrong with you, you wouldn't smell the way you do. I've known you long enough to know that you have a regular cycle, and you don't smell sickly or anything when you release pheromones into the air. If something was wrong enough to be a problem, my nose would certainly tell me that."

"But what if I'm not?" Ruby asked her, rolling over to look Blake in the eyes. "What if I can't be like you and Yang?"

"You're obviously not like either of us." Blake deadpanned softly. "Not all women have the same libido, and if yours is lower than mine, that's not an issue."

"It feels like it should be."

"That's the problem." Blake told her. "That, right there, is what your problem is. You can't force yourself to enjoy something that you don't, and you can't force yourself to be something that you aren't. Your body is only your body. It's not mine, and it can't be like mine. Being a female Faunus comes with certain circumstances that you could never aspire to. A human never could."

"But I know you want that…"

"Want what, exactly…"

"To have sex?"

"Honestly, Ruby? I don't care about that so much. I can entertain myself in that way if I need to." Blake told her. "I'd still be happy with you, even if we never had sex for our entire lives. Sex itself isn't what I'm after. What pains me so much is that I can't mark you. Marking a mate is a rather intimate thing, though. It might be considered sexual in nature, which is why I haven't done it."

"So? Just try it then…"

"Ruby… I…" Blake had no good retort for that. Either way, she wanted Ruby to like it. She had no idea if that would be the case or not, and the idea that Ruby wouldn't was terrifying. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"You've never tried to before, right?"

"Well… No but-"

"Not buts." Ruby interrupted. "I'm nervous, I won't lie about that. I don't know what I'm doing. All I know is that I care about you, and I don't want you to suffer because of me. I can tell you keep holding back. As nervous as I am, I hate that more." It scared her too. It made her more nervous than usual. She didn't like thinking she could be hurting Blake. She hated wondering if Blake was truly alright with everything, or just sacrificing herself for the sake of their relationship. "I wouldn't still be here if I didn't want to be with you. If you feel like you have to mark me, then just do it. You have my permission, no matter what that means."

Ruby couldn't possibly have been any more blunt about the subject, not even if she had beaten Blake over the head with a sledge hammer.

Still, the mood had to be right. Right here, right now, seemed like the worst possible time. Blake swallowed hard, knowing that she still needed to be careful. "Tomorrow then." She murmured, pressing a kiss to those pouty lips that were so addictive it boggled her mind. "I'll mark you tomorrow."