Ruby was 7 when her mother started teaching her how to draw after school, something that they bonded over and displayed around the house. The paintings she grew up seeing were her mother's, which are now kept in the attic, protected with cling wrap as they sat there locked away like the emotions of Ruby's heart. One painting was kept in the living room, one of the whole family with her mother's signature at the bottom. Every morning before she left, Ruby made sure to leave a lingering touch on her mother's name, as if she was telling her she was going off now.
Summer Rose, her mother, taught her various media throughout the years and loved everything that Ruby made for her. Ruby knew this, as one night when she went through her mother's belongings in her studio while she was in the hospital for a reason she wouldn't tell Ruby, she found an entire binder filled with things Ruby had given her. The thought that her mother cherished every small thing she made for her reduced Ruby to tears of love.
Ruby was 12 when Summer taught her how to cook, "Just in case", her mother had said. If only her mother saw her now, would she just smile and nod understandingly, or would she be disappointed? Ruby learned and observed the way her mother moved around the kitchen to a point where even her father had said she was like a shadow, never missing a step. Yang would help occasionally but was clumsier in the kitchen than Ruby was and tended to just watch the two instead. Every dinner was lively and full of laughs and hugs at the end, everyone ate together, and everyone cleaned together.
Every recipe her mother had, Ruby memorized and vowed never to forget. Yet, she did forget one of them eventually. Cookies had been a family tradition, a recipe passed down from her late grandmother was a cookie recipe that filled Ruby with joy. Every Saturday morning, Summer would wake up early and make her special cookies. The aroma would fill the air and wake her two children up without fail, rain or shine, sick or not. They had always filled Ruby up with the warmth of her mother's love for them. It hurt her to forget the recipe, or rather, it hurt her trying to remember it without her mother.
Ruby was 15 when her sister called her to urgently meet her outside of the school, that their dad had checked them both out. From yang's voice alone, fear ebbed into Ruby's heart. Her throat felt like she had swallowed a rock and she couldn't breathe. She ran. She raced down the halls to the front of the school, the contents of her unzipped backpack spilling onto the hallway and she didn't care. Looking at the face of her dad who was holding a crying Yang was enough to tell her that nothing else mattered. She didn't know what else to do except hold Yang's hand and look at her dad, pleading him to tell her what had happened.
The heart-broken look on his face made her gut twist and turn, she hadn't heard a thing he had said before Yang turned around and held Ruby hard as if her life was going to crumble. But it was true, their lives were crumbling around them. Ruby can't remember what they told her, she had shut it out from her head for so long, but she knew what had happened.
She knew her mom was gone.
Summer Rose was no longer in this world.
"Mom died."
Ruby was 15 when she learned that life was fragile, that her sister wasn't as strong as she thought, that her dad could also be a broken shell of himself. Ruby was 15 when she learned that her mother knew her time was short but didn't want them to know.
During the first year that her mother had died, her uncle Qrow moved in to help her dad take care of her and Yang. It was then that Ruby lost herself in the world of expressing her feelings on a canvas rather than with words. Ruby sat in her mother's studio room and stared at the blank canvas in front of her. She didn't leave the room for weeks except to eat or use the restroom. She slept in the room but never fully, as her mind raced a hundred thoughts at a time. Then one restless night, emotions overcame her, the tears that she couldn't shed on the day of her mother's funeral and her frustration that no one could help her came down on Ruby like a tidal wave.
That night she poured everything into a painting, all the love, sadness, and anger she felt at losing her. She poured it all onto the canvas and never stopped. Her heart was full, and she needed to let it go, the overflowing mess in her heart and mind, now captured in one portrait. She never stopped until her hands started getting blistered from the grip she had on the brushes, vision hazy from not having any actual rest for months.
When she was done, she fell to her knees and sobbed. She heard her father yelling for her and Yang asking if she was okay, uncle Qrow asking her softly to come open the door. Ruby couldn't, she couldn't move and every breath she took hurt. She drowned in the sorrow she left herself to dwell in; she couldn't come back to the surface. Her lungs burned yet her hands felt so cold.
She heard a loud thud echo around her, but she was too tired to understand where it came from, the noise got louder and louder until she heard a crack and felt a draft. Mustering up some energy, she looked behind her to see Yang's bloody fist, probably from punching open the door that Ruby locked. Her eyes glazed over at her father who was at her side and picking her up, cradling her to his body. Uncle Qrow came back into view with car keys in his hand, softly smiling at her.
Ruby doesn't remember what else had happened that day aside from coming back from the hospital and seeing her family look at her with sad yet loving eyes. She walked into her mother's studio room, accompanied by her father who spoke up softly.
"Looks just like her kiddo, she'd be proud of you." She held onto her father with a strong grip as they both look at the lone painting in the middle of the room.
The painting of Summer Rose, of her mother, of her protector.
Without many protests, uncle Qrow took the painting to get it coated with a protective coating and had framed. The painting now hangs next to the family painting her mother made years ago. Every day when Ruby comes home, she always glances over to the two and whispers to her mother.
"I miss you, Mom."
Ruby had just gotten back from Weiss' apartment and trudged her way to the living room to curl up next to Yang who was watching some sports show on the television.
"Heya Rubes, how was she?" Yang ruffled Ruby's hair affectionately before resting her hand there.
"She looked really pale, to be honest." She frowned, "Her mattress still hasn't come in yet and she sleeps on this SUPER HARD couch Yang!" Slumping over onto Yang, Ruby mumbled again, "You can tell she stressed out over something, but she won't tell me."
Yang let out a soft chuckle before looking at Ruby with a raised eyebrow, "You seem super worried about her, am I sensing something else I should know?" Yang wiggled her eyebrows for some added effect.
Ruby jolted up as though she had been physically shocked by Yang. "No! I am just! I am worried about her enough!"
"Your ears are red Rubes."
"You can't even see my ears!"
Ruby got off from the couch and passed by her the painting of her mom, trailing her fingers on the wooden frame and whispers again, like tradition.
"I'm back mom, I miss you."
Ruby opens the door to her room and drops her backpack at a corner near the door, so she'd never forget it, and shuffles her way to her bed and flops down upon it.
It was a week after she locked herself away in this room and painted the portrait of her mother that her uncle fixed the door and her father moved her bed and dressers from the room she shared with Yang into it. Over the years, her mother's studio room became her bedroom and studio, her own personal space. There was an unspoken rule that no one else could come in when she was not in it, something she appreciated.
Ruby's room was never messy, yet it was also never clean. Her bed was always made, her clothes always folded, her guitar was always by her bed where it rested. But her art was everywhere. Papers scattered the floors, books strewn across as if she tried to find something in them but couldn't. Pencils and brushes scattered on top of a tarp by a wall, never wanting to tarnish the wood flooring. The walls were all a pristine white, some walls were covered by either posters, papers holding a series of sketches, a calendar, etc. But one wall was different, the wall that held nothing and had a tarp under it.
Turning over on the bed, Ruby looked straight to the wall the held both nothing yet everything. The wall was covered from the top to the bottom with paint, abstract shapes her formed with various colors and nothing made sense, but to Ruby, they made all the sense in the world. Every time she felt an overwhelming amount of emotion or stress, she'd express it to the wall, sometimes painting over old lies but never stopping until the tidal wave of emotion was thoroughly expressed. It had been a while since she had the ache to take a paintbrush to the wall and let go, probably due to the effectiveness of her new anti-depressants but looking at it had always calmed Ruby no matter what.
A knock on her door snapped her out from her trance.
"Ruby honey, Yang just finished making dinner, come out to eat." Ruby did feel guilty for leaving Yang to do all the cooking, but she felt as though she wouldn't be able to keep her composure if she the one cooking. She opened the door and looked up to her dad, giving her dad a hug before racing him to the dinner table. Dinner was lively as ever, even if her mother was no longer here, they had each other.
A/N: Yes I know it's short but please forgive me, I needed to get SOME backstory to my girl Ruby.