Thing about pillow castles is, they're not very structurally sound. Thier fourth walls in particular seem to break easy.

-OOO-

Blake snuck back into the bedroom without waking Weiss. The gaunt maid brought a lantern, though Blake could see in the dark.

Weiss looked troubled as she slept.

"Blakey...~" Weiss mumbled as she squeezed the Blake doll, "You're less fluffy now...It's okay, I'll help you find your fluff...~"

The maid undid Weiss's grip and pulled the doll away. Blake wriggled into Weiss's arms.

Weiss's slight frown turned into a slight smile. It infected Blake's mouth.

Blake rubbed her head under Weiss's chin and drifted off to sleep.

Blake awoke again. Since she was facing Weiss, all she could stare at was Weiss's smooth, perfect neck. Idly, Blake recalled how Weiss's neck had tasted, when Weiss put it in Blake's mouth last Wednesday.

Weiss's eye fluttered open and she gave Blake a squeeze.

"Blakey!" Weiss said. She rubbed her nose on Blake's forehead.

Weiss sat up, pulling Blake up with her. She rocked the pair of them from side to side. "Blakey is a Blakey, she's the Blakyest Blakey~"

Weiss leaned back and put her hands on Blake's shoulders. "The bestest Blake is the Blakest Blake, and that's the Blake for me!"

Weiss hugged Blake.

Blake blinked.

"C'mon! Let's get you an omelette."

Blake nodded. She let Weiss carry her to breakfast.

When the cook asked Blake what she wanted on her omelette, Blake pointed at all the meat, though the cook convinced Blake to get some vegetables. She split it with Weiss at the table, but Blake chewed off the meatier sections.

After breakfast, Weiss pulled Blake by the hand into a large, empty room, smelling of disinfectant and cotton. There were groups of maids examining blueprints.

"Since you broke us out of snuggle prison before we got to snuggle, we're going to have to do it over again."

Blake frowned.

Weiss patted Blake's head. "It's okay, though. I'll be the one in the prison and you can be the one to save me, like you did before!"

Blake then noticed the pile of pillows.

"So I will be the," Weiss touched her medical eyepatch, "the monster princess, cursed with a curse of uglyness." Weiss waved her arms theatrically and turned to Blake, eye open, expectant. "It's a curse, but perhaps it's a blessing in disguise!?"

Blake provided no answer.

Weiss refreshed her smile. "And you can be the dashing prince who has to save me." Weiss said, "We'll have an antagonistic relationship at first, but eventually we will discover we have a lot in common, and shared experiences will bind us together."

Blake blinked again.

The stocky maid approached with a pile of lace and satin. Weiss picked up the pile and went to the bathroom.

Meanwhile, a crowd of maids appeared around Blake. Blake brought her arms up, but her ninja defense skills weren't too developed yet, so she was unsuccessful in preventing herself from getting dressed in poofy pants and some sort of vest and a hat with a feather on it.

Weiss returned dressed in a flowing, foot length white dress with a tan bodice and a lot of bows. Her hair was down in flowing braids. Weiss smiled when she saw Blake.

"Blakey! You're so cute!" Weiss ran up and hugged Blake. Weiss grabbed Blake's forearms. "And thus began the many, extraordinary adventures of," Weiss waved Blake's arms in the air, "The Paw Prince!"

Blake's mouth flattened. "i have hands."

"It's a metaphor!" Weiss said. She giggled.

The stocky maid caught up to Weiss and continued putting makeup on Weiss's face. "For how no matter what Blake does, nobody will see beyond her race?"

Weiss winked. Then she hugged Blake's head and jumped, slightly. "No, for how cute and fluffy she is!"

Weiss released the hug but left her hands on Blake's shoulders. "Okay, Blake, I'm going to the tower now, so don't take too long! I'll miss you."

Weiss reached down to Blake's hands and gave them a squeeze. Then she departed.

Blake was escorted to the base of the castle, in front of a pillow portcullis.

"'ear ye, 'ear ye!" called out the young maid from the pillow parapets, "Our right magic princess, whom we done love an' fear, 'as been transmogrified sometin' fierce, she 'as! Frightful of 'er own visage, dear Weiss 'as locked 'erself inna tower, Fer to remain fer tha forseeable fewtcha."

Blake blinked.

The stocky maid appeared besides her.

"You have to say, 'Oh woe, a princess in need? 'tis a travesty I cannot stand to see! I shall investigate immediately!'."

Blake stared at the maid.

Blake then looked over the tower. She could probably just climb the outside. It was what a real ninja would do.

So Blake did so. Weiss was waiting for her at the window. Blake squeezed through the bars into a nice looking room, with a pillow dresser and a pillow desk and a pillow bed with pillow pillows and pillow blankets.

"Blake!" Weiss said. She put her fists on her hips. "You can't just skip to the end! You have to have the build up and the side-quests and all the fun little parts that don't matter in the grand scheme of things but are still fun! It's about the journey, Blake!"

Blake blinked. "don't you want a rescue?"

"Not if it's not done right." Weiss pouted. Then she walked forward and turned Blake around and she pushed Blake by the shoulders back to the window.

Blake flopped onto the ground.

"Blake!" Weiss reached around Blake's stomach to pull her upright.

"Ugh, fine you can be the princess. They can get away with doing a lot less."

Weiss fiddled with the back of her bodice. Her dress loosened, and then, In one motion, she pulled her elegant satin princess dress off over her head.

Weiss's body was blindingly pale. Blake had to shield her eyes.

Then Weiss pulled Blake's hat off her head and put it on herself. She pulled Blake's vest over her head, and then in one motion put the princess dress onto Blake. Blake imagined she heard a 'whump' sound.

Weiss then tied up Blake's bodice. Weiss put the hat onto Blake as she wormed into the vest, and then she retrieved the hat and undid her hair and tucked her hair away under the hat. Then she flipped Blake onto her back so she cold pull off the poofy pants. Weiss jumped into the pants, both legs at a time.

"Can we get makeup up here?" Weiss called out the window.

There was the squish-squish of someone running up the pillow staircase. The stocky maid appeared, carrying a black box.

The maid pulled some beauty tools out and fixed Weiss's hair and removed some of the colors on Weiss's face.

"So you're the prince now?" asked the stocky maid.

"Ummmm," Weiss touched her eyepatch. "Maybe I can be the pirate Prince." Weiss made a silly face. "Argh avast and all that jazz! Yarr, Harr, Fiddle-dee-dee!"

Weiss then grabbed Blake, holding the Faunus out to the maid. "But Blake's going to be the kitty princess. She's already so beautiful, but do your best!"

Blake forgot to blink.

The stocky maid then doodled Blake's face with some brushes and powders. After a while, the maid leaned back and looked to Blake.

"Only one more ingredient," the maid turned Blake to Weiss. "What do you think, m'lad- my captain?"

Weiss's face lit up and she looked like she floated. She clutched her face. "Blakey! Now, you're even more of a cutie!"

Blake stifled a blush.

The stocky maid pulled out a hand mirror. "There it is."

Blake looked in the mirror-

And she froze in disbelief. Her cheeks were tinted in the perfect blush- that was just the make-up, Blake concluded- and her eyes weren't sullen anymore, they looked big and cute and curious- and her mouth was opened slightly in an adorable little 'o'.

Black grabbed opposite sides of the mirror and pulled it closer, moving it and tilting it to examine her new face.

"Wait," Weiss said, "do cats pass the mirror self-recognition test?"

Blake glared at Weiss.

"Aww, and there it goes." The stocky maid pulled back the mirror.

Weiss gave Blake one last hug before she bid Blake farewell and left.

Blake then reach for the mirror again.

The stocky maid made an uncertain expression and withheld the mirror. "It's not complete without the feeling of being desired, so perhaps you can recall Weiss's second to last words back then?"

Blake scrunched her mouth to the side.

"Good enough." The maid shrugged and handed Blake the mirror. Blake gazed at her new visage.

"And if I am to be honest, my new princess-" The stocky maid smiled, "Weiss always had an unshakable disquiet during her previous princess games. Maybe the ingredients to make her a princess never came together. Or maybe she was never meant to be a princess in this world. But she seems a lot happier as a pirate, so you've done a lot of good, so far."

Blake blinked.

"And I suppose you're going to be one of the more passive princesses? Only showing up at the end screen to congratulate the hero?"

Blake blinked, a little more wryly this time. She rolled around on the floor. The maid chuckled. "I guess that works."

From outside the pillow castle, Blake heard Grand Pirate Weiss announce her arrival. Blake was escorted to the pillow foyer, where a few of the life-sized dolls were dressed as butlers, serving pillow appetizers. Blake plucked a bowl of pillow caviar and chewed on it. It didn't taste as good as real caviar.

Grand Pirate Weiss entered the foyer. "Arrrg!" Weiss hefted a pillow prosthetic, "I hear there is a princess in this castle! I express my desire to be friends, and perhaps snuggle!"

Blake shrugged. She walked forward to the pirate.

Weiss broke character. "No, Blake! You can't like me right off the bat! We have to start as adversaries, with a sort of belligerent romantic tension but it's still up in the air whether or not we'll end up together, and then over time, shared experiences help us get to know each other better and we grow to like each other! That's the whole appeal, you know! We need conflict!"

Blake's mouth flattened. She flopped backwards and continued chewing on the pillow caviar.

"Ugh," Weiss then refreshed her acting, "Very well. I shall return at a more fortuitous time."

Grand Pirate Weiss bowed and left. Blake returned to her tower.

They went through three cycles of acting out stupid scenes; Grand Pirate Weiss would attack the town and Princess Blake would have to protect the pillow townspeople, or Grand Pirate Weiss would show up to protect the town from giant pillow kraken-grimm but then demand an obnoxious reward from Princess Blake, or Grand Pirate Weiss would show up to sell pillow fish at exorbitantly high prices until Blake could negotiate them down to reasonable levels.

And then, the maids closed the curtains and propped up a pillow moon and Grand Pirate Weiss led Princess Blake in a pillowlight waltz on the pillow balcony. It turned out that Princess Blake, like regular Blake, didn't know how to dance either. So much for the power of acting.

And then, once the maids had finished their musical accompaniment and Weiss was finished twirling Blake around, Grand Pirate Weiss held out her hand. "So how about it, Princess?" Weiss inhaled. "Do you think we can be friends, and perhaps snuggle, now?"

Blake blinked.

Then she shook her head.

"But- Princess!" Grand pirate Weiss pouted, "After everything we've been through? Why not?"

Blake looked Weiss straight in the eye.

"ninjas hate pirates."