I do not own RWBY. All rights go to Rooster Teeth.

Please see the end for a quick A/N

Daughter of the Gods

Chapter Twelve: An Explanation

After the police questioned us, I sent Ozpin a message letting him know what happened and carried Weiss to the airship while Yang led Blake. It hurt to see the look in her eyes. She didn't know what I was because nobody should've been able to heal from that. I don't even think Jaune could've healed from that.

Ozpin was waiting by the massive doors when we finally arrived. By the look on his face, he wasn't happy but knew it would happen at some point. I gave him a nod, trying to convey that I wanted to handle this alone. He nodded back to me and headed back towards his office, or I assume he headed there anyway.

Trudging up to the dorm, Yang opened the door and led Blake inside. She looked at me briefly, I saw a little bit of fear still lingering, but there was also curiosity. I was still doubting what, exactly, I should tell them though.

Do I tell Weiss and Blake the whole truth, changing their entire view of the world? Or do I specifically tell them about myself?

Laying Weiss down on her bed, I jumped up into mine. I could feel Blakes eyes burning into my back as I laid down. Turning over to her just as Yang jumped up in her own bed, I spoke.

"I know you have questions Blake, I'd be surprised if you didn't. But I'd like to sleep first, and I feel like you do too. I'll explain tomorrow. I promise." I was glad when she nodded her head, Turning over, and attempting to sleep.

"Rubes?" Yang asked into the dark. I cracked open my right eye and looked at her. or where I thought she was. In truth, she was down on the floor walking towards my bed.

"What's up?" I asked as I sat up.

"You gonna be okay tonight." She looked at me with her lilac eyes opened wide, staring at me as if she could learn the answer by staring into my soul. She knows me better than I know myself sometimes.

"I definitely wouldn't be opposed to a snuggle party, but I still don't trust this bed." I said quietly. Yang nodded her head, reaching her hand up and ruffling my hair a little bit. She ducked down and I could hear her slowly shifting Weiss into her arms before she walked across the dorm and fenagled the heiress onto her own bed. She padded over to my bed and climbed up before wrapping an arm around me. I snuggled into her and she pulled me in.

"I gotcha." She whispered.

"You're the best sister I could've ever asked for." I murmured. I could feel her laughing, but I didn't hear it as I was drifting off.

When I woke up, the sun was streaming into the room through the open window shades. Extracting myself from Yang's grip, I shimmied across the bed and hopped down. Everyone was still asleep, which wasn't surprising given last night's 'fun.' Also we were off for the next two weeks until the next semester and so I went into the bathroom and decided to take a longer shower. Slowly washing the grit and grime from last night off, I did my usual business before I just stood still and let the water beat on my face, a smile slowly spreading. It felt good to just relax. Yes, there was still the secret war that the rest of my new team had accidentally found themselves in, but for the next few minutes I was in my own little world.

Stepping out of the shower, I could hear Weiss and Blake talking, Weiss trying to convince herself that what she had seen wasn't real, that it had all been a weird dream. I wish I could tell her it had been a dream, but I knew that she was just denying the truth and that helped no one.

Wrapping the towel around myself, I brushed my hair and teeth. Then I grabbed the clothes I had set up on the sink.

Walking out of the bathroom fully showered and clothed, I immediately felt Weiss' and Blake's eyes on me. Sighing I walked to the door.

"Come on. If we're going to be talking about this, you'll need to see something first." I said. Weiss and Blake stood up hesitantly but still curious. Weiss though still thought it wasn't true.

"I'll go with you but only because everyone else is." She said. I chuckled and began walking. Sending a text off to Ozpin, I said we would be going to the emerald forest to talk and asked if I should exclude some details.

He responded to not say anything about him and Salem, though it was up to me if I told them about the existence of magic, but the other three maidens were off limits. If I wanted to tell them about my silver eyes, that was also my decision. Anything else was also my call.

Blake was the first to ask where we were going.

"To the Emerald forest. There's something there that will help you and Weiss possibly understand, maybe even believe what I have to tell you." I explained. Blake nodded, wrapping her arms around her middle as we walked into the shade of the forest.

Walking in the direction I had committed to memory since initiation. Yang walked next to me, thankfully allowing me to collect my thoughts as she walked silently. Blake and Weiss stayed off to the side, much to my dismay, but at least they were getting along after last night.

When we finally broke through the clearing, it was Weiss who spoke up.

"Why are we back at the 'temple' Professor Ozpin made us go to for initiation." There was no snide or rude tone, just curiosity.

"Because it really was a temple." I said absentmindedly. Weiss looked at me.

"It might have been, but it's a bunch of ruins now. Especially the larger one near that ravine." She said. Blake walked right up to the one symbol that mattered on the ancient glyphs carved into the stone. My symbol, the eternal rose. She slowly put her hands near it, but didn't touch it.

Could she had already figured it out.

"Is your family as old as I think it is? Is that why you know so much about aura and semblances. All the drills and exercises you've been making us do?" She asked, not taking her eyes off the symbol in the stone and the one on my cloak.

Okay so maybe she didn't figure it out. Then again, who would.

"You could say that." I said cryptically. Just to be dramatic and have a little fun, I used the barest amount of maiden power to cause a breeze. It swept through the forest before tangling itself all around us. Yang laughed softly at my antics, but Blake and Weiss didn't react.

Party poopers.

I walked up to the rose symbol and pushed my fingers through the carving and took a centering breath.

"I don't really know where to start. I guess the best would be…well, the start." I chuckled but became serious. I took a seat on a rock nearby as Yang, Weiss, and Blake all sat down. Yang was closest to offer support, which I was grateful for.

"Before I really start I would appreciate if you kept any comments or questions to the end." I said. Weiss and Blake nodded, but Yang just smiled softly.

"To start, I am old. Very old. Nearly a thousand years. I became aware of my existence shortly after Remnants earliest recorded history. I was created by the two Gods to have ever existed, you might know them in the fairy tales of the brother Gods. They created me to watch over Remnant and its people after they had made several mistakes. In some ways I am Remnants last chance."

Nothing like the partial truth. Even though I didn't like lying, I knew that Ozpin would prefer nobody knew about him. You never knew who was one of Salem's minions.

Or who might say something to one.

"For several years after my creation I wandered, mostly. I helped people, using a sword I had found," Maybe I should tell them about the relics but then again, they were sort of related to Ozpin and Salem. "And what I thought at the time was the only semblance in existence. I wandered for nearly two hundred years, dying and coming back as my 'daughter,' when I met a human woman by the name of Indigo. Indigo Belladonna." I smiled at the memory that was so long ago. I looked over at Blake who looked at me with wide eyes.

"Yes. She is your very great grandmother. Your great grandfather was a faunus, if you were wondering." She looked at me, remaining silent and I allowed her to process the information before I started again.

"She took me to meet several others who had discovered their semblances and were also helping people. Ash Belladonna, Auburn Hess, A young woman who only ever said her name was Sage, and last but not least, Lavender Goodwitch." I paused to take a breath.

"For a year we traveled the continents and helped people, taught some of them how to use their aura and semblances. We traveled together, just us, until Ash was murdered in an act of vengeance. A little while later we discovered that Indigo had been pregnant. An old man lent us his run-down shack for her to use and that night, Flint Belladonna was born." It sucked having to skip around major parts, but I made do. I looked over and saw that I had Weiss and Blake's undivided attention.

"We traveled for many more years after that, staying in more populated places until Flint was old enough to travel with us. The girls and Flint aged but…I didn't. I eventually became Flint's 'sister,' adopted of course since he had his faunus traits, because at the time it would've looked weird for an girl in her late teens to be traveling with four girls and a faunus child." I could see Blake frowning, so I decided to skirt around the issues he faced growing up.

That was a massive can of worms.

"We were in the city of Vale when Auby was killed. A woman who was jealous of Auby set up an explosive to lure her away, except I went instead and left her alone. She killed her. when I found out I killed the murderer and to this day I still can't bring myself to regret it." I admitted. Yang put a hand on my knee and I looked at her and smiled. Talking about this wasn't nearly as painful as it used to be.

"What I do regret is that I let my anger get the best of me. I was sort of the unofficial leader of our little team, so I made the decision to stop going around from town to town. I convinced them it was too dangerous, but they wanted to continue teaching the people. I made them a compromise. We'd set up schools, all over remnant, where people could learn about Aura, the grimm, semblances, and other things. They agreed, and so we went around for five years building schools. Beacon is my favorite, though I am a bit biased since I designed most of it." I chuckled.

Yang laughed before she put a hand over mouth and looked at me with her eyes. I laughed with her for a second before I refocused myself.

"We led quiet lives after that, the girls dying until Indi and I were the only ones left. She died at the ripe old age of one hundred and two. Before she died though, she made me promise to look after your family. I went into hiding, but I did the best I could, always watching over them whenever I came out of hiding off of the island that would one day become menagerie." I explained, changing the part about how menagerie came to be. Now Weiss was looking at me with wide eyes. I could see that she was believing me, but not quite there yet. I hadn't really given any details to conclusively put myself in history.

"For a few hundred years I remained in hiding, Menagerie grew around me and the world moved on. I came out of hiding one day to find that the village the Belladonna family stayed in had been raided. The adults had all been killed but I couldn't find any of the children. Why? Because they were taken for slave labor. I was so angry I decided right then and there that I would change it. You see, I hadn't done anything yet because I believed that humanity would learn, and for the most part they had, it was the northern kingdoms of Atlas and much of Mistral that refused to change. The Kingdoms of Vale and Vacuo were mostly just indifferent to it all. It wasn't against the law there, it just wasn't very popular." I spat.

"So, I did what any sane person would; I started a revolution." I said it like it like it was the most obvious answer. "It took awhile to get everything together, during which time I found the Belladonna siblings. Coal…Coal never had a mind for tactics. For some reason it was always the Women. Preto Belladonna was a military genius, she could run circles around any human general. She took everything they had to throw at her and spat it back in their faces." I chuckled at a few fond memories. Blake was completely enraptured.

"She was a fierce woman, your great grandmother. I admired the hell out of her…loved her, actually. My biggest regret was that we could never be together…I always denied her and myself because it was less painful for me…it still hurt when she died." I confessed. Yang wrapped me in a hug as a few tears rolled down my cheeks.

"Anyways. The war changed after Fort Castle, stupid name by the way, and it didn't take long for the faunus to win their freedom. They didn't have any place to go since no kingdom would take them…so I gave them the island continent of Menagerie. It was a horrible place, but it was a place the faunus could call their own. I helped establish the 'fang, or what it's supposed to be, and hid among the faunus for a year before I had to go back into hiding. My mask had become known throughout the war and I couldn't exactly wear it every day. Despite not being human, I look pretty damn close, so I wasn't exactly the most welcome…Not until I figured out how to mask my scent anyway." I said with a smirk

"So…That's what I've been doing for the last thousand years or so…mostly just waiting in all honesty." I finished my story. It was a rather lame ending, I'll be the first to admit, but I never was much of a story teller. Weiss and Blake both looked like fish out of water until Weiss' face hardened and I could see the denial forming on her face.

"That doesn't prove anything. All it tells us is that you can tell a good story. So what's the REAL reason you survived. If it's some aura trick than you have to teach us." She said. She wasn't wrong. It was a pretty hard story to believe…so I did the only thing I could really think of…well…two things I could think of. Though the first one would only really convince Blake unfortunately….Weiss would require a more…direct approach. Sighing, I pulled out my scroll and dialed a familiar number.

"Ruby! This is unexpected! What's the occasion?" Kali answered. Blake stiffened immediately at the sound of her mother's voice. "Is Blake okay?" She asked with worry.

"Everything's fine Kali. But…Blake is here and…it's time. I've already told her but…I need the picture." I said. I could see Kali's face getting serious as soon as I said it was time, and she nodded when I asked for the picture. She grabbed her scroll and Blake watched with wide eyes as her mother pulled down a box she had never seen before, the side was clearly labeled 'B & M' Though Blake didn't know anybody with the first name starting in M.

"Are you sure Ruby?" Kali was worried what this might do to Blake, but I knew this needed to happen. Blake was always going to learn, just as her parents had requested of me when I began watching over her.

"I'm sure. This was always going to happen anyway." I said softly. Kali nodded as she pulled out an old picture. The confusion was evident on her face, because she had seen every picture from her childhood and knew every label on the backs of them, but this one was marked 'B & M' again, but with a 'Blakes first birthday' on it. Kali had a small smile on her face as she looked at the picture before she remembered why she was holding it.

She turned it around and I smiled softly as a picture of me holding a baby Blake in my arms. She was wrapped in my then mahogany, as that was my name at the time, cloak. She was smiling up at me with a toothless grin. In my hand was a bandanna that I had given her. It had just a smidge of magic imbued into the fabric. A simple spell, one that made her know she was always loved by someone.

She still has it wrapped around her bicep to this day.

I looked over at Blake who was looking at me with her amber eyes blown wide.

I was afraid that she wouldn't blink, that's how wide they were. Hanging up the call I spoke to Blake.

"I saved you and your parents when they were on a boat heading through Grimm infested waters. I hadn't had time to clear a path yet, so I just hopped on the boat once I got word your father was meeting with several councilors from Vale to discuss a trade agreement. A Grimm attacked, and I saved your family's life. Later, your father remembered the story of the Belladonna guardian, and tracked me down. For a few years I acted as a guard. You wouldn't remember me because I always had my hood up and scent masked. I stopped guarding your family when Ghira stepped down and you stayed in the 'fang. They asked me to watch over you and so I did." I shrugged my shoulders.

Blake's ears flattened against her head in shame at the thought that I had seen the things she had done with the 'fang.

"I do not hold your past against you Blake." I said softly as I put my hand on her shoulder. "You fought for what you thought was right, just like your great grandmother. Was it always the best way to do things? Maybe not. But you Fought for equality, for freedom. Preto would've smacked you upside the head first, but then she would've hugged you and told you to make it better." I said. I smacked her head playfully and she gave a watery smile. I leaned in to hug her and she hugged back.

Behind me, I could still feel that Weiss was a bit hesitant to agree, so I made up my mind on what I had to do

Turning to her and breaking the hug with Blake, I reached my hand out to her.

"I can show you everything I just told you, but you have to relax or else what I'm about to do might hurt you." I explained. Weiss wanted to believe, she really did, so she nodded. Standing up off the ground I walked over to her then knelt down. I took her head in my hands and began to concentrate my magic. This was a trick I had learned centuries ago, but only mastered it during the revolution.

Memory sharing.

I felt the Magic begin to flow from my fingertips into Weiss' temples, where my fingers were resting, and my memories began flashing in quick succession behind my closed eyes. Weiss was able to see everything, and I tried to ignore her tensing up as she flashed through some of the memories of me in more…violent moments.

When it was all said and done, Weiss was panting like she had gone several rounds with an Ursai and gotten hit repeatedly. She leaned over and puked, thankfully not on me, before putting her hed in her hands to steady herself.

"You really weren't lying." She said quietly. It was a statement so I didn't bother answering.

She looked at me eventually.

"You look pretty damn good for a thousand." She weakly joked.

"Well it is all in the moisturizer." I said with a smirk. She gave a barking laugh and quieted down as she accepted everything I had told her and shown her.

"So what happens now?" Blake asked.

"Well…" I rubbed the back of my neck. I couldn't exactly tell them that whatever war was coming would likely wrap them up into it as well. So I went with an easy out.

"I have no idea." I said sheepishly with a toothy grin.

The girls just groaned as they laid back on the grass of the clearing

I

So the holiday season has been absolutely crazy for me. I promised I would cut down on writing during the holidays so that I could spend time with my family and it did impact the posting schedule. Sorry to any of you who look forward to new chapters but what's done is done so we'll move on. Now, I should be getting back on track in the next few days as work returns back to normal.

One more thing. Have a happy new year, everyone.