Blake awoke.

Weiss was in a restless sleep behind her. She grunted, despairingly, every so often, squeezing Blake's waist when she did.

"Blakey," Weiss mumbled, "Blakey don't leave me."

Blake scrunched her mouth; why would Weiss think that was something she could do? But she reassured her human all the same. Or, at least, as best she could.

After breakfast, Weiss pulled Blake into one of the empty rooms. The curtains were still drawn shut, and combined with the silence and emptiness, the ambiance was rather nice, Blake thought. She hugged Blake, and she cried, silently, for a few seconds.

And Blake sighed and hugged Weiss back.

Weiss wiped her eye and eyepatch on her sleeve. "Okay, Blakey, let's play. What do you want to play, Blake?"

Blake looked towards the stack of pillows, in the corner.

Weiss pouted in sympathy. "I'd love that, but the maid pursuing the civil engineering degree isn't here on weekdays, and also, we don't have enough maids to construct it."

Blake sighed in defeat. Weiss comforted her. Or at least, she probably thought she was comforting her.

"How about Patty Blake? That's easy to do and fun, too!" Weiss said.

Blake shrugged. The started playing Patty Blake (tm).

And then the door opened-

And Winter walked towards them, steadily, her footsteps echoing.

Weiss clutched Blake's head. "W-what are you doing here?"

Winter sat down across from them. "Mumsie wants me to hang out with you. So what are you two doing?"

"Ummmm," Weiss said, "I'm just playing with Blake."

"So, what, how does that work? You dress her up and move her around like a doll?"

Blake blinked.

"Well, sometimes," Weiss says, "But usually I sing her nursery rhymes or pop songs, except with some of the phonetically appropriate words replaced with 'Blake' or 'Blakey'." Weiss hugged Blake. "She really loves it!"

Blake blinked again.

"Here, let me show you." Weiss cleared her throat.

"~My Blakey lies over the ocean~" Weiss rocked Blake from side to side. "My Blakey lies over the sea!~ My Blakey lies over the ocean, so, bring back my Blakey to me~!" Weiss gestured grandly. "Bring~ back~ Bring~ back! Oh bring back my Blakey to me~~!"

Blake blinked a few times. So did Winter.

"What happens when you run out of songs?"

"Well, It's actually quite easy; any tune you make up on the spot in 4/4 time with two or four stanza phrases can accommodate a phrase of praise, and you can stretch or condense the total syllables in the lines depending on how many times you make 'Blake' into 'Blakey'."

Blake opened her eyes and shut them, simultaneously and autonomically.

"See, like:" Weiss scrunched her face at the cieling for a moment, "'Blakey is a Blakey, she's the bestest Blake to be! Blakey's such a Blakey and this Blakey is for me!'"

Winter and Blake made gagging motions at each other. At first it wasn't on purpose.

"Okaaaay. I think I'll pass on that." Winter tilted her head to the side. "Do you ever do anything more exciting? Like shooting apples off her head?"

"Nooooo~" Weiss hugged Blake harder. "She's too fluffy for that."

Blake blinked.

"Does she like that you're all over her, all the time?"

"Of course she does!" Weiss nuzzled Blake's head. "What's the point of kitties if we don't get to snuggle them?"

Winter blinked. Blake blinked.

"But Blake's my snuggle-kitty. You're going to have to get your own, sis."

"I think I can live without one, thanks," Winter said.

Weiss brushed Blake's shoulders off. "But Blake's favorite thing to do is for when I hug her, and I ask her to guess what, and she guesses what, and I tell her she's a kitty or something! She really loves it!"

Blake involuntarily shuddered.

"See, I'll show you," Weiss said. She turned Blake to face her.

"Hey Blake, guess what!" Weiss said.

Blake shuddered just one more time. "what."

"You're," Weiss waved her hands in the air, "a cutie!"

Blake blinked. Winter blinked.

Blake cleared her throat. "what about my acuity?"

Weiss winked. Winter chuckled.

"So, um," Weiss began to her sister, "I- I guess you can try, if you want to."

Blake blinked. She was surprised that she found herself annoyed, now.

"But you have to be super careful with her. Like, don't drop or squish or bite her."

That... didn't make Blake feel better. Especially since Weiss regularly did those last two, and ocasionaly did that first one.

Winter turned Blake to face her. The older Schnee sister seemed somewhere between perplexed and disgusted.

"Hey, Blake," Winter said, sounding bored, "Guess what?"

"what."

"You're," sister Schnee picked Blake up by the armpits, "adopted!"

Blake's face flattened. She knew that.

Winter then put Blake over her shoulder, so that Blake's front was behind her. Since she had been kneeling, rather than sitting, she could easily rock back and stand up all the way. Which she did.

"Thanks for giving me Blake, Weiss!" Winter cackled.

"Nooooo~," Wiess scrambled to her feet, but Winter was already running away. "I didn't give you Blake! She's mine! Give her baa~aaaack~"

Blake's brow flattened. So now Weiss didn't want to let her go?

"I think I'll just dispose of her for you. Save you the trouble." Winter called out.

"No~ Blakey is my best friend," Weiss called back, "I get to decide when she dies!"

Blake blinked.

"And it's gonna be never, since we'll be together forever," Weiss yelled out, her voice getting slightly more audible as she gained ground on Winter.

Winter carried Blake to the pantry.

Then she stopped. She pulled Blake off her shoulder.

"So are you," Winter's face softened. "Actually that fun to hug?

Blake blinked.

"Wiiinnnn~teeeeer~" Weiss's whining grew closer.

Winter shook her head. "Whatever. I don't- I never needed hugs. They're stupid. You're stupid."

Winter waved her hand and placed a rune on the ground. She jumped on the rune, bouncing high, reaching the apex of her dust assisted jump at the highest shelf.

Winter placed Blake on the shelf, right next to a bag of cereals. Then sister Schnee fell down, out of sight.

Blake flopped and rolled. She didn't find any reason to correct her position, so she lay on her side, her arms flopped out.

"Bla~ake, come down~"

Blake found she didn't really want to. If she was Weiss's doll, then Weiss should take better care of her things.

Winter cackled. "Ahahaha."

"Wiinnn~terrr~"

Weiss whined some more. Blake tuned her out. This was a nice shelf, she decided. Maybe she could come up here to nap, sometime.

There was a lull.

And then there was a crinkle. Blake smelled tuna.

"I have some tuna snakies for you!" Weiss called from the base of the pantry. "Come down and have some! I think you'll really love them."

So Blake ninja parkoured down. She grabbed the bag of snackies from Weiss and started stuffing them in her mouth. They were yummy.

Weiss hugged her. Blake was still slightly annoyed, but the tuna snackies were good.

Then Winter grabbed the bag and threw it up to the top shelf.

Blake blinked.

Then she ninja parkoured up the pantry shelves, to the top shelf, to get the bag of snacks. She cozied up besides a bag of cereals and enjoyed her hard-won snackies.

"Blaaa~aaake~" Weiss whined from below.

Blake ignored her.

Winter cackled and left the room.

- A POSSIBLE FUTURE -

So one thing Weiss notices, after observing her combat partner for a while, was that Ruby keeps sneaking out during the afternoons for something, and the walking funerary flower arrangment was either deliberatly dodging answering any questions to her wherabouts, or her vocabulary wasn't big enough to explain where she was actually going. It was really suspicious, and maybe the reaper was getting up to something Blake wouldn't like. Blake deserved to know, probably.

So the next time that happened, one dark afternoon, when the halls are rather quiet and the weather's rather bad, Weiss follows the fatalistic cookie-reaper, down the halls, into the basement of the school.

Weiss had learned how to be sneaky ever since she'd found out that her father would occasionally send Blake to spy on her.

Maybe that had something to do with how the two of them had drifted apart? Weiss always thought she could trust Blake, and when that appeared not to be true- Weiss could have been more forgiving, perhaps- she could have done more to show Blake that she would always be there for her-

-And that little reverie almost led to Wiess getting caught. She had bumped into a lighting fixture, and she darted around a wall and kept her breathing silent until Ruby's footsteps resumed.

Eventually, Ruby enters the room. Weiss can see the shadow of a woman through the door, but not much else. Weiss flicks her hands to create some sound-channeling runes between her and the door.

"You're late, Ms. Rose," comes the commanding voice of one of thier teachers.

"[IV:16]-Now rowling, boiles in her tumultuous brest, and like a devilish Engine back recoiles upon herself- "

"Yes yes, you've been very bad. Now, open your textbook to page 44."

Weiss's hopes fall. Ruby just has detention. It figures, with her attitude towards homework and paying attention in class and giving presentations.

Well, Weiss took some comfort in that knowledge. Not that she was one to talk- Weiss had gotten better at the traditional education sysem recently, but she recalls her past struggles vividly. Perhaps she and Ruby could bond over that? It would require Weiss to actually care about what Ruby thinks, though.

Weiss sighs in defeat and turns around-

-And she bumps into Yang.

"H-hey," Yang says. She rubs the back of her head. "What's- what's up?"

Weiss blinks. "What are you doing here, Yang?"

"Oh just -seeing if Professor Goodwitch had counseling hours now?" Yang doesn't sound convinced, so Wiess isn't either.

"Doesn't she always have those in her office, rather than the classrooms? And if you were checking her schedule, that's where it's posted; on her office door."

Yang sighs. "Fine, I wanted to know where Ruby kept getting off to. I'm just- I know there's no reason to worry, but I do."

"She seems fine," Weiss says, "And good for you; It's good that you're being such a caring big sister. More sisters should be like that."

Weiss shares some sister stories on the way up to their dorm.

"So what did you need counseling for, if you don't mind me asking?" Weiss ventures. Is this too personal?

Yang's nose sniffles- Weiss knows what that means-

"Oh, you know," Yang refreshes her smile. "Just some academic advice."

Clearly, Yang was hiding something, but she also, clearly, didn't want to talk about it, so Weiss changes the subject.

"So you and Ruby are sisters?" Weiss asks

"Oh, yeah. Half-sisters, technically," Yang says. She puts her hands behind her head and tilts her head back. "That's why we don't share hair color, eye color, body type, or a last name."

"Oh." Weiss says, lamely, "I- I didn't doubt that you cared for each other, or that you were a family."

Yang clicks her mouth into a smile.

"I was getting at, is, what's she like?"

Yang smirks. "What, you never asked her yourself?"

Weiss makes a smile with the left half of her mouth. "Ah- no."

Yang laughs. "But she's your combat partner, after all."

Weiss intensifies her grimace. "Ah- yes, that is true."

Yang laughs some more. "I know she can be a little unapproachable and intimidating and junk."

"I'm not intimidated," Weiss protests, "Just, a little weirded out."

"And she might be a little undersocialized," Yang says, "She just skipped a couple grades, so being a big fish moving from a small pond to a state-of-the-art pond a few years ahead of what she's used to has been a little hard on her, academically.

"Thus explains the preponderance of ego."

Yang blinks, eyes wide, before slapping Weiss on the shoulder and laughing in a way that seemed more genuine than her previous courtesy laughs. "Oh my Dust, Weiss, I didn't know you punned!"

Weiss smiles at the ground. "Technically that was just internal repetition, but I have been known, on occasion, to pun."

"I mean, you'll get to know her more, over the school year."

"Ah- um-" Weiss says.

"It's okay, I know you don't like her," Yang says.

"Oh!-" Weiss says, "That's- you know, it's fine. She's fine."

Yang shrugs. "Like, I don't take it personally. And she can have her faults. She can be a little nosy, excitable, recalcitrant, and I know it might we wierd that she's team leader over , but like, she's still young, and you'll get used to what she doesn't grow out of."

And what Yang doesn't mention hangs in the air as they continued back to their dorm. "Its okay, you can say it."

Yang tilts her head. "Say what?"

"That I'm just jealous of her being with Blake."

Yang tilts her head to the other side. "Wait, that's was part of the problem."

Weiss bobs her head in indecision. "That was kind of most of it, actually."

"Huh," Yang says. "Well, I wouldn't worry about that too much; Ruby's more into weapons than romance."

"If you say so," Weiss says.

There's seven seconds of silence, and Yang coughs.

"You're a lot cooler than I would have pegged you for," Yang says, "Being the Heiress to the Schnee Dust Empire and all that."

"Yeah?" Weiss says, "What did you expect?"

"That'd you'd be a little less awkward and silly and a little more," Yang gestures in front of her, "and don't mean any offense by this, but, ' Pure Evil.'"

Weiss laughs. "In my experience, most people you think are evil are actually just unsympathetic with poor impulse control and enough power that they abuse. And that doesn't mean they can't hurt you, or that it justifies any of the pain they've caused, but it doesn't mean they're 'evil'."

Yang nods. She glances at the wall and refreshes her smile.

"How about you, Yang?" Weiss says, "I- ah, if i'm allowed to ask that."

Yang looses her smile. "No, you're not allowed to ask that."

"I- sorry-"

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," Yang says, "But I guess I'm pretty easygoing. I try to be friendly, I try to have fun, that sort of thing."

"Ah," Weiss said

And Yang sustained the conversation until they got back to their dorm room.

Once they get back to their dorm room, they decide to work on their Grimm History essays together. It's nice.

It turns out, Yang can be comfortably silent at some times, and she's pretty helpful- not that Weiss didn't think her teammate was smart, it was just, she would have believed it if Yang had been admitted primarily for her combat skills rather than her academic prowess.

And the door to their dorm opens.

Ruby's there, accompanied by professor Goodwitch. They both blink into the room, looking a little surprised.

Ruby flashes a grim grin and bows, "[IV:960]- I am thy captive talk of chaines, Proud limitarie Cherube-"

"Hey Rubles, Ms. Goodwitch," Yang says back. Weiss becomes very interested in her textbook.

"It's, ah, Mz, actually, " Goodwitch says, "And how are you doing, Mz. Xaio-Long, We- Ms. Schnee?" she

Weiss manages a nod to the adult while Yang gives a more substantial

Ruby glances up at the teacher and steps into the dorm,

"Well, I'll leave you to your studies," Goodwitch says. She salutes. ""Study hard and floss daily."

Yang smirks. "Will do!"

And Weiss manages not to make eye contact with Ruby until she finds an excuse to do something else.

- PRESENT DAY -

The clunk of wood on wood accompanied the placement of a ladder, up to the shelf Blake was lying on. Weiss's head appeared.

"Blakey!" Weiss said. She crawled up besides Blake and hugged the Faunus, rubbing her head in Blake's hair, a few times. Blake allowed it.

"I like this hidey-hole, Blake," Weiss said, "But Winter already knows about it, so she can just get us if we hide here, and that wouldn't be fun Blake! That wouldn't be fun at all."

Blake blinked.

"So we're going to have to stake out a new hiding place, somewhere else, next time."

Blake blinked again.

"But if you want to wait here for a while, then I can wait too," Weiss said. Her breathing calmed as she hugged Blake closer.

Blake closed her eyes and decided she was comfortable enough to nap. Weiss wasn't as warm as she would have liked, but the darkness in the room was soothing.

Eventually, someone walked into the pantry.

"Weiss!" called out Mum Schnee. "Dinner's ready!"

"Okay!" Weiss said. She turned Blake's head to face her. "So, Blakey, do you want to eat dinner?"

Blake frowned; did Weiss even know her at all? She always wanted to eat dinner.

- A POSSIBLE FUTURE -

It's lunchtime, and Weiss eyes her healthy food with a little consternation. She knows the importance of eating healthy, now, but a part of her is still cross about it, especially when she's upset in general.

And maybe, she's trying to distract herself from another thing she knows is a good idea and that, theoretically, she should want, but still has some doubts about.

Like, she knows she should just go over and sit with team JNPR. They're friends, and Weiss is trying to be friendly, and she's talked to them before. And it would beat sitting alone, or eating in team RWBY's dorm. And, probably, Yang and Ruby and Blake would sit down with them as well, and two of those people Weiss would enjoy talking to.

Eventually, Weiss gathers up the nerve to sit next to Nora and across from Jaune. Nora's eating breakfast for lunch, Ren's eating some cecropia leaves, while Jaune has dinosaur chicken nuggets.

"Dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets!" Jaune responds triumphantly, with a childish smile that could possibly be considered extremely cute.

"Distinction noted," Weiss ventures. She pulls the banana out of her lunch and starts cutting it into bite-sized pieces.

"You don't like dinosaurs?" Yang asks. She and Blake and Ruby sit down, at some point. They were in a group, apparently.

"If Jurassick-ing me, I can say I'm a fan." Yang smirks. Weiss shoots Yang a small smile.

"Well," Weiss states. " I have to say my cene's more 'Halo' than 'Paleo'."

Yang's smile widens to encompass her whole face. She looks impressed. Weiss stifles her smile. "Haha! That was definitely a pun."

"I- yes." Weiss rubs the back of her head.

"That pun was unwarranted!" Nora yells, exasperatedly, "Nobody was talking about scenes before you brought it up!"

"I apologize if the material was too obscure for you, Nora," Weiss states, "But you don't have to be so dino-sore about it."

Weiss feels conflicted that that pun got more laughs. Like, Yang is laughing, and Weiss feels strangely happy. Ruby's also chuckling, and Weiss feels conflicted. Blake smiles grimly- but Weiss pretends not to care. Jaune, however, is still laughing and sputtering.

And now he's coughing- violently, his hands to his mouth. He has tears in his eyes while he learns to breath again.

"You okay?" Yang asks.

"I just inhaled- some dinosaurs-" Jaune wheezed.

"I wouldn't recommenced that," Weiss states. "Nor would I recommend nasally ejecting them."

Yang nods. "Yes, it was quite the Cambrian explosion from your nose, just then."

Weiss nods in approval. It doesn't help Jaune's choking situation though.

But afterwards, eventually Jaune recovers enough, but his face is still a little off color and his breathing is irregular.

And the whole time, Pyrrha, had been staring, looking slightly stunned.

"That's it," Pyrrha says. She stands up and walks over to Jaune, who looks at her with a bewildered expression. "You're just too cute, Jaune. I'm taking you now."

"What do you- ~uwa~!"

And Pyrrha lifts Jaune up by his armpits and places him over her right shoulder, so that his top half is behind her. She starts walking to the dorms.

"P-Pyrrha! Put me down!"

"I'm taking you for myself. It'll be faster if I carry you."

"People are going to see up my skirrrt~"

Pyrrha smiles. She pats Jaune's bottom twice, eliciting another squeak from the shorter human. "It's okay; you're wearing cute panties today."

Jaune's blush intensifies. "P-Pyrrha!"

And Weiss looks around. Nora and Ren are wearing poker faces.

Ruby looks amused, however. "[II:790] He fled, but she pursu'd, (though more, it seemed, inflam'd with lust than rage), and swifter far, she over took and in embraces forcible and foule ingendring him-"

Yang and Blake look like they're trying not to get involved. Maybe this was normal?

"Help!" Jaune cries, from halfway across the cafeteria. "Somebody help me~!"

Weiss looks around again. Nobody reacts. Ruby continues chuckling and chanting.

Then Weiss sighs and gets up. She follows the amazon and intercepts her. "Pyrrha- wait."

Pyrrha smiles at Weiss, predatorily, and Weiss then intimately understands what Jaune was worried about. "What is it, Weiss?" says Pyrrha.

"You can't just take Jaune." Weiss states.

"Why not?"

Weiss opens and closes her mouth. "Because he's not yours and he clearly doesn't want you to?"

"Well, he says that now." says Pyrrha.

"That- yes, that is exactly it. So you can't take him."

"But I bet I can change his mind."

"But-" Weiss is worried that she is having to explain things. "You have to do that first, if you truly cared about his feelings."

"Oh, what, so the entire discipline of persuasion is invalid? I'm not allowed to change anyone's mind, once they decide they don't want something?"

Weiss scrunches her mouth. "You're not persuading him, right now. You're assuming you can, and then skipping to the end, but his feelings haven't changed."

"And...?"

"And there's an order to things! It determines if he's going to enjoy it!"

Pyrrha smiles. "Hey, I guarantee that he'll enjoy it."

Jaune squeaks.

Weiss rubs her brow. "Okay, my mistake; it doesn't matter if he enjoys it, I shouldn't have said that. It matters if he wants it, and he doesn't, so you have to respect that."

"Really?"

"Yes, really!"

"Then," Pyrrha looks slightly annoyed. "What's the point of a gendered double standard if we don't get to abuse it?"

Weiss opens her mouth. She blinks a few times. "Your statement implies that you are well aware that what you are doing is wrong.

Pyrrha flashes her teeth at the wall as she looks conflicted. "I meeean- he's just so cute~."

"It doesn't matter how cute he is. You can't just take him home and do whatever with him, if he doesn't want you to. He's his own person."

"Y-yes," Jaune says.

Pyrrha sighs. "Very well." She puts Jaune down.

Jaune closes his eyes and sticks his arms out and runs to his savior. "Weissss~" Jaune emits.

"Well, Jaune," Pyrrha holds her hand out, and Jaune tries to hide behind Weiss. "Sorry about that. I'm going to claim cuteness-proximity-based insanity."

"That's not a real thing," Weiss says.

"What, you never just saw something that was just so cute your ethics shut down?"

Weiss blinks. And she remembers something. A lot of somethings, actually.

A whole lot of things. She turns to where Blake is sitting, and sees that Blake is looking at the far wall, with a pained expression on her face. Weiss and Pyrrha's conversation hadn't exactly been quiet...

Weiss steps back and clutches her chest, "I- Oh dustdamnit."

Pyrrha rubs her head. "Well, Jaune, maybe someday I'll get to persuade you and do the proper order to things or whatever."

Jaune squeaks.

Pyrrha smirks and turns to leave. "Now, if you'll excuse me, there's something I have to take care of. Aha. I'll be in my bunk."

Weiss doesn't pay attention to the other two. She brings her hand to her mouth and tries to make eye contact with Blake.

Was that what Blake was on about? Was that was why Blake didn't think she respected her-

Blake is getting up to leave, and Weiss tries to hurry- she looks at Blake- how sad Blake looks, and how much Weiss must seem like an insensitive jerk to her-

Before Weiss can throw herself at Blake's feet, Jaune intercepts her.

"Jaune, can we table this for a mome-"

"I knew I wasn't wrong about you," Jaune grabs Weiss's hands and clasps them in front of him.

Weiss blinks.

Jaune inhales. "Ever since I first saw you, I knew- I knew you were perfect- you're so kind and smart and beautiful-"

Weiss realizes something. "Oh, no-" She steps back, but Jaune steps forward. "No no no Jaune please don't do this-"

"I love you, Weiss!" Jaune clutches Weiss's hands higher. "I love you, so much, since the first time I saw you."

"I- Jaune-"

"Please go out with me?"

"Jaune." Weiss breaths. "No."

"But-" Jaune lets go of Weiss's hands. "I love you-"

"Jaune, we just met this semester. We don't know anything about each other."

"I know you're beautiful, and kind, and smart, and you aren't very social but you're trying to be, and you like puns-"

Weiss frowns. "That's really superficial, and based off incomplete information."

"Then we can get to know each other! After we date!"

Weiss forces a smile. "Jaune. No."

Jaune looks like he's going to cry. "Wont- won't you just give me a chance? Please?"

Weiss thinks of all the reasons that it might be fun- and all the reasons why she doesn't have any desire to, but maybe part of that's just because it came out of nowhere-

Jaune wipes his eyes on his wrist. He looks down. "Is it- is it because-"

"It's not because of how you express yourself, no," Weiss says. "I just don't like you in the same way, and I'm already in love with someone else."

"Whaa~" Jaune says. "Is- is it Pyrrha?"

"What? No, it's not Pyrrha!" Weiss blinks a few times. "You really can't tell?"

"I-no?"

Weiss sighs. Figures the only person who can't tell is someone who has a crush on her.

"Blake and I were childhood friends, and I've been in love with her my whole life. Maybe I just realized that, recently."

"I - wow." Jaune coughs.

"So, you can see that I don't think I'm ready to date, right now. I expect we'll still hang out, though."

Jaune pouts. "O-okay." He sniffles.

He turns to leave, but when he's almost but not quite out of sight, Jaune covers his face with his hands and sobs and runs to the dorms. Weiss sighs.

And when Weiss turns back to their lunch table, Blake's already gone.

"Dustdammit Jaune," Weiss says.

- PRESENT DAY -

"Yum yum dinner!" Weiss said, after depositing her best friend in the chair next to her, "Blake's so excited for this!"

"Yeah, I'm sure Blake is." Winter said.

"Yeah, look at how hungry she is!" Weiss shook Blake for effect. "She's starving!" Blake blinked.

"Oh, you think you know what starving is?" Winter said, pointedly.

Blake blinked. The other Schnees blinked.

Winter stood up and gestured with her hands. "When you're up in the freezing mountains for a six week training exercise and the coldness from the cold and ice is nothing compared to the chill of the silences that separate you from your squad-"

"Schnee's don't get cold, Winter-" Mum Schnee said without looking up.

"And your radio's broke and your blankets are all too thin and you just have to wait until the scheduled extraction but it's getting harder every day. You've scavenged all the rats and birds. Had to eat them raw. And it's too cold for insects to live, so we can't even scavenge bugs."

"And there's Donna. Her parents love her; send her snacks with little notes of encouragement. She hasn't shaped up quite yet- hasn't been to boot camp long enough to lose the baby fat. But it's cool; we joke about it, and she smiles about it, wider and wider as the times go on, until maybe we're friends."

"And she shares whenever we ask- like after our food runs out, and as the nights get colder, we divy up her home-made cookies and make games of finding out what supplies were edible; batteries were definitely not; they give you ulcers, but the grease baked inside the stove keeps us alive for three days, and the leather off our boots keeps us alive for another two."

"And it's one more week until extraction, but we know we won't all survive."

"So do we do what's fair? Or do we do what's right? Do we draw lots and accept the vicissitudes of fate!? Or do we try to save as many people as possible, and eat only the meatiest one?"

"So we made it quick. It was the least we could do for Donna."

Winter patted her stomach. "And evermore, the frozen lumps of flesh in our stomachs are reminders of a sacrifice we'll honor forever. That's what starving is, Weiss."

Blake blinked. All the Schnees blinked. The members of the staff that had been in the room blinked.

Winter sat down and leaned back in her chair. "And then it turned out the radio wasn't actually broke; it just didn't have batteries, so we could have gotten out any time if we'd put them in. "

Blake blinked three times.

Winter shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. "So yeah. We failed that training exercise."

There was silence. Blake looked around, wondering if anyone was going to ask if that story was actually true.

It looked like nobody was. Blake cleared her throat. "weiss has tried to eat me, before."

Weiss's face devolved into blushes and mouth wobbles. "N-no I haven't!" She hugged Blake. "She's too fluffy for that!"

"Yeah," Winter said, "The hair would get stuck in your teeth."

"Well," said pa Schnee, "It's a good thing that the food got served while you were telling that story, yes? So we don't have to do any of that? Ahahaha..."

Winter stares at her food, Blake noticed. Nobody else seemed to notice, though.

"So Weiss, sweetie," mum Schnee said, without looking up, "Why don't you tell us how school's been going for you?"

"It's- it's been going okay," Weiss said. She listed a few monotone events, listlessly.

Then Weiss looked up and seemed excited, "But in more exciting news, Blake's got another loose tooth, so I'm making sure to take extra good care of it, for the tooth fairy."

Pa Schnee smiled at Weiss and Blake. Mum Schnee nodded, but still didn't look up from her papers. "Thats very diligent of you, Weiss sweetie," she said.

Winter frowned. "Let me tell you, I got some 'loose teeth' from the bar on base."

"Now Winter, we've told you; Schnee's work hard for what we get. Unless you knocked them out yourself you have no buisness bragging about them."

Winter stuttered just a bit. "S-some of them, yeah."

"Oh, that's very interesting, then," mum Schnee said.

Winter brightened up, the first time Blake has seen her do so. And she shot Weiss a smirk, though Weiss didnt notice. And then Winter started talking about some sort of bar fight she had been in.

Which left Blake to tease Weiss, then. Good; Blake did that much better than Weiss's parents or sister.

Blake stole a piece of meat off Weiss's fork, right before her human was going to put it in her mouth.

"Bla~ake~!"