There wasn't much that could be said for Qrow Branwen's apartment. It seemed like crammed into every corner there was a mess, or something that was otherwise out of order. There were empty bottles on window sills, and the blankets and furniture were worn out.

But despite all of that, it felt like a home.

Blake work up on Qrow's couch to the morning sun shining through the window and reflecting off of green glass bottles which spread their color over the walls. She couldn't quite ignore how uncomfortable an arrangement it was, but mostly Blake was feeling lost because she didn't know what she could do in a stranger's apartment, regardless of what had brought her there.

It had been a long time since she'd last been in a proper house. In fact, it had probably been close to three years since she'd set foot in someone's permanent home instead of a tent or a motel room. 'Home' was a distant memory, and nothing was ever going to be enough to match up to the space that she'd been raised in. Nothing was like her father's house.

Nothing was so cavernous or comfortable.

Qrow's apartment was absolutely nothing like the Belladonna manse in Menagerie that Blake had once called home.

It was small and cramped, and definitely not in the best state of repair. It was very obviously the home of someone that didn't have much going on in his life beyond work, or at least wasn't interested in staying in one place. To Blake, it was the obvious home of a drifter, with just the minimal amount of things to make it feel like a permanent home. There were some photographs here and there, and the kitchen was a complete mess, in the best way.

Qrow came into the tiny living room where Blake was sitting awake and trying to relax. It was enough to make her head snap up in attention at the first realization that Qrow was there. She couldn't fight back the way that her heart began to beat too hard in her chest, or the way that she had to fight back the reaction from her ears that made them want to flatten back against her head.

Qrow didn't know that she was a faunus, Blake had to remind herself of that as many times as she had to. It was never going to make her feel all that comfortable, but she had to do her best to keep her secrets safe and secure. Blake was glad for the bow she'd tied over her ears.

"Hey kid." Qrow greeted her, giving her a look as he rubbed at his dark hair. It didn't seem like he was actually going to take the time to groom it down, but that wasn't something that Blake minded so much. Surely this man was a huntsman, and that bought him some freedom to do whatever he wanted for the most part.

"Qrow." Blake greeted him. She glanced down at her hands to make sure that there were no bruises showing that could betray her vulnerabilities to Qrow.

"How's it going?" Qrow asked, dropping down into one of the chairs in the room across from Blake. He didn't dare get close to her, and that was something that Blake definitely found relief in. It meant that she was safe, if even for a little while.

Despite Qrow's kindness, Blake still couldn't shake the feeling that something could go wrong at any turn.

She couldn't make herself feel like she didn't have to be getting ready to run at the first sign that things were turning or going wrong.

Adam hung too fresh in the back of her mind.

But Blake needed to answer Qrow, she knew that fully well. "I'm fine." Blake said quietly, since she was sure that nothing else was going to work. "Why?"

"Just checking in." Qrow answered with a slight shrug. "Figured that's the friendly way to do things."

"Right." Blake said, trying not to grimace as she thought back to the very obvious reason that Qrow would have been asking about things. Qrow was thinking about how she'd mutilated Weiss Schnee's face the day before.

He was probably trying to figure out whether or not she felt anything over it.

"Just fine?" Qrow asked again, leaning back in his seat. He looked a little bit concerned, but Blake didn't want to read into it too much.

"Yes." Blake replied, forcing herself not to let herself show too much emotion or frustration with the situation. "I slept fine, if that's what you want to know."

"It's not, but it's good to know." Qrow answered with a slight shrug. "I was worried for a little bit but-"

"But what?" Blake asked, still resisting that urge to flatten her ears and let things show with her entire body. It was safer to be reserved. Blake knew that.

"But you're a tough kid." Qrow replied with a shrug. "Not much to worry about with you."

"Is that-" Blake cut herself off. "You know that I'm not a kid, right?"

"I do." Qrow answered. "I've got a niece your age. Good kid, her name's Yang. You might run into her up at Beacon. She's a first year, along with her little sister Ruby."

"I don't-"

"I'm not going to force it, Blake." Qrow shrugged. "Just letting you know that she's around and I know you aren't a kid. You're an adult, even if people don't let you feel that way." Qrow stared her down a little bit more intensely than Blake would have expected.

Blake paused, more than just a little bit unsure of what to make of Qrow's comment. It felt like he was giving her a vote of confidence in something that was entirely too personal. In fact, Blake couldn't really remember a time when someone had looked at her and treated her like an adult.

Not outside of the White Fang, at least.

But that wasn't like normal society. The group that Blake had been with were all the radicals. They were young and just beginning to cut their teeth on violence. They were running from things at home, while the adults stayed back in villages or in Menagerie doing their best to play politics.

Not that they were any good at it.

But it was different. All of them were adults on the battlefield.

Qrow seemed to understand that, and Blake couldn't have been more grateful for that fact.

She stared down at her hands, not quite sure of what she wanted to do before she finally decided to speak up again. "Is there some reason that you're telling me this?" Blake peeled her eyes up from her hands slowly to see that Qrow was sitting there, looking almost bewildered but at the very least confident.

"Yeah," Qrow answered with a slight shrug. "Oz wanted me to make sure that you came up to the academy."

"Ozpin-"

"You got in." Qrow said, gesturing calmly and relaxing just a little bit more. "I guess Oz wanted to make sure that you got settled in alright down there."

Blake took a deep breath, knowing that it was for the best if she took her things and went with Qrow so that she could start to do her part to fix things.

"Right." Blake commented, shifting slightly on the couch and trying not to move her ears in an attempt to stretch them. "When should we go?"

Qrow didn't answer her. He just smiled at her and got up.

The way that he slipped out of the room said enough. They were going to go when she was ready for it.

Okay then, Blake thought to herself.

She could handle that.

Weiss had slipped into her family's suite the night before without much attention paid to her. Whitley had already been asleep, and when Weiss had gone to bed, her father hadn't even bothered to greet her.

That was a good thing, Weiss decided. If he was too busy with his scroll and whatever business it was that he was conducting on it, then it meant that she was safe, at least for a little while. Weiss wasn't going to rely on that to get her through the day, but she could do her best to fade into the background.

Morning was another situation entirely, though.

Her aura had managed to recover enough that her body had begun to heal, at least slightly. The wound over her eye was beginning to knit itself back together, but it was very obvious that there was going to be a fairly obvious scar left behind.

The more that she thought about it, the more that Weiss became okay with the prospect of it being a permanent mark on her features.

When she got a good look at herself in the mirror that morning, she'd realized that it wasn't wholly unattractive. It was just a new feature that she was going to need time to adapt to.

It was her face. In a way, Weiss almost preferred it with the scar. It was something to be proud of. It was a proper battle scar. It was hers.

Her father hated it .

The cut was an obvious sign of her making a disappointment of herself. It was physical proof of her disobedience.

He stared her down over the morning newspaper, with his eyes so dangerously narrowed and his scowl showing so obviously on his face that Weiss almost shrank back instinctively at the first glance of him.

"Weiss." He spoke coldly, not wavering and not daring to let himself sound kind. That was to be expected.

Weiss realized what was happening, and so she stood up tall and laced her fingers together in front of her as she stood there under her father's scrutiny.

"Yes Father?" Weiss asked, bowing her head just slightly when she spoke.

"What is that on your face?"

Weiss tried to think fast for an answer that would be enough to cover up the reality of what had happened.

Nothing came to mind, other than what she was sure that she was going to end up hearing from her father in the long run of things.

She was waiting for the inevitable comparison to her sister.

"It's a cut, father." Weiss replied, not looking up to look her father in the eye.

"And how would you say that you gained such an unsightly injury?" He leaned in towards her, placing the newspaper down on the table in front of him. It was folded too cleanly.

Her father's rage radiated off of every part of his body.

"It was an accident." Weiss responded.

"An accident?" He moved, stalking towards her like a lion. He didn't peel his eyes away from her for so much as a split second. When he walked, he kept his arms behind him.

Weiss was sure that she had at least some idea of what was going to come next.

"Yes," Weiss answered. Still no suitable answer that she could give her father about what had happened came to mind, and that was the most terrifying thing of all. She had no way to cover her tracks. "I fell."

"Fell?" Her father replied with a sneer. "And where would you say you fell?"

Weiss didn't need any time to realize that 'my opponent's sword' was a bad answer.

"I-" Weiss tried to speak up, but her words caught in her throat and made it impossible to go any further.

"You didn't fall." He cut her off before she could even get close to giving an answer. He leaned back against the table, all too menacing in the motion as he observed her with dangerously narrowed eyes. "Did you?"

"I-"

"Now, Weiss." He cut her off again, blinking. "You wouldn't want to end up like your sister, would you?"

She wasn't given a chance to answer. Instead, her father decided to keep talking.

"If you've decided to chase after some delusion of being a huntress while you are here with me, you are sorely mistaken if you think that you'll find that working out in your favor."

Weiss looked down at the floor. She was almost positive that she was giving a tell to show that he knew exactly what she'd been up to. This was exactly what she'd been fearing from her father. The only good thing about it was that she'd had the night before to begin healing instead of him noticing the injury when she'd come home initially.

"Father, I-"

"Weiss." He spoke, so calmly that it was almost like the anger had somehow drained out of him all at once. It was chilling to experience, and Weiss had to push back a shiver. "Why would you disgrace me like this?"

Her heart sank further and further. "I didn't mean to-"

"I seriously doubt that." Her father cut her off once more, not daring to let Weiss have a proper way into the conversation with everything brought into situation. "You knew exactly what you were doing, didn't you?"

Weiss swallowed and finally she found herself changing how she was holding herself. No longer did she stand up straight and proud. Now, she shrank back, reaching up to hug herself and looking away from her father in an attempt to make herself feel a little bit safer. It wasn't going to work, Weiss knew that.

But she needed to at least try.

"It was an accident, really." Weiss replied, glancing up at her father for just a split second before tearing her gaze back away. "I'm sorry."

"No," Her father replied, scarily cold. "You aren't, are you?" He paused, raising a hand and turning it in his gaze. Weiss glanced over out of the corner of her eye to see that he had taken the moment to turn his wedding ring on one of his fingers with a thumb. "You think that you won't see punishment for this."

"I don't." Weiss managed to get a word out, entirely too quietly. "I'm sorry-"

"No." Her father cut her off again. Weiss bit her lip, realizing now that he had absolutely no intentions of letting her get a word in, edgewise or otherwise. That wasn't good. "You're too much like your sister, you know that?" He dropped his hand back down to his side, resting it on the table. "Too willing to break the rules and disobey me, and in the name of what-"

He scoffed.

"I should have known that letting you see her was trouble, Weiss." Her father said too calmly. "I should have known that she would have turned you away from me, and yet I still let you see her out of the charity of my heart."

Weiss had to bite her tongue at that. Charity wasn't an object to her father, it was only a way for him to get what he wanted and show himself off as a better person than he really was. Weiss knew how he worked too well to imagine it being anything else.

"How do you think it'll look when people see that my daughter, my heir has such an unsightly wound?" Her father put so much emphasis on the word 'heir' that Weiss had no choice but to pick her head up and make eye contact again. It was too commanding, it was too hard for her to ignore it.

He was waving her position around in front of her face like he thought that it was going to be enough to stop her.

Or worse, he was trying to break her down so that she didn't dare even consider trying to slip away from him again.

Deep down, Weiss knew for a fact that was the case. She just really didn't want to have to think about it in those terms, since it was too painful.

"I don't think it's that bad." Weiss managed to speak up, and surprisingly, she was actually allowed to say the things that she meant to say. This time, he made no effort to cut her off or whittle her down.

It was a good thing, Weiss supposed. It could have been worse, at the very least.

"Don't think it's that bad?" Her father sneered back at her. "Have you seen yourself, or are you just telling yourself that it's nothing severe?"

"Father, I-"

"Weiss." He leaned in towards her closely, bringing one hand up and pointing at her with clear intent. "You are going to tell me what happened to your face, and only then will I decide how to pass judgement."

Weiss had to think hard before she let herself say anything to her father about what had happened. It wasn't going to be a good idea for her to say what had happened the night before with regards to her fight against that girl.

Blake, her name had been.

She'd been brutal.

But Weiss needed to come up with something that she could say to explain herself with.

"I..." Weiss paused. "I was given permission to try one of the combat simulations and I was injured." Weiss explained herself, staring down at her feet and pressing her toes together like she thought that it was going to be enough to make her feel better about everything. It wasn't enough. It never would be.

"Then what you're saying is that you came to Vale armed?" He stared her down, not letting his gaze flicker away from her for so much as a split second. "Weiss, you know that this doesn't look good for the family."

"I thought that-"

"You thought incorrectly." He took the first steps forward. "And it seems to me that you were looking to impress someone in doing what you did."

Weiss' eyes widened involuntarily at the realization that her father had figured out exactly what was going on with her. He knew. That was all that she could think about, and there was absolutely no way for her to begin to peel herself away from that sort of thought. It was too close.

He knew.

Maybe he'd spoken to the General, maybe he'd heard a rumor through the grapevine.

Maybe-

Weiss froze in place, realizing very easily who the most likely culprit for making her situation as it was right now was.

Whitley.

He'd probably heard something from Whitley.

But Weiss still needed to answer him. That much wasn't going to chance.

"I wasn't trying to-"

"Weiss, did you think that this academy would want you?"

Those words were enough. Weiss shrank back slightly, not wanting to get too close or let herself show any more than she was sure she was already showing in that moment. But in doing that, Weiss knew that she'd accidentally told her father everything that he'd needed.

"You did." He muttered. "Weiss, you're going to go to the headmaster's office, and you are going to apologize for him for wasting his time."

"But-"

"Weiss." He leaned in towards her again. "I don't think that you should try to fight me on this. It's for the best if you listen to me, and go and patch up this little problem because you can make yourself more of an embarrassment for me and for our family."

Weiss took a deep breath.

"Is that what you want me to do?"

"I believe that it would make quite a few people happy." He responded, his voice too cold. "Now, I only want to see you again once I know that you won't be worsening the situation already at hand."

Weiss nodded slowly. "Yes, father."

"Good." He said, gesturing to the door. "You're going to hide that thing, and then I'll see you again very soon, I suspect."

Weiss nodded slowly again before slipping out of the room and into the private one that had been hers. She paused while she was in there, feeling a certain flit of nervousness that began to overtake her at the realization of everything that was wrong with the situation.

If she left the room alone, Weiss wasn't sure what she was going to come back to.

What if she came back and Myrtenaster was gone?

She had to make a decision.

Weiss' gaze slipped over to the window, and she thought hard for a moment before everything that she needed to do came to mind. Staying was too risky, but she couldn't risk the possibility of what happened if she left too.

But Weiss had something that she could do, and her semblance offered her quite a bit that would let her get out of this situation in a manner that could at the very least be called clean.

Weiss dressed herself and pushed the window open.

She leaned out of in, looking from side to side and then down as she tried to get a good idea of how far off of the ground she was. They were on the third story of the building by the looks of things. It was going to be hard to do, but Weiss was confident in her abilities.

Carefully, she climbed up to the edge of the window and activated her semblance, hoping that she could make this happen.

Weiss formed a small glyph, just a basic gravity based one. Carefully, she set her weapon on it, and without Myrtenaster there to help her focus, the glyph became harder to maintain.

But that was fine, Weiss thought to herself as she focused hard on that glyph and began to lower it.

She needed to get it down to the ground, and then she was going to be able to get out of this.

Weiss lost the ability to maintain it when the glyph was probably about a floor down from where she was.

She couldn't help the wince over what had happened, but Weiss also couldn't linger there.

The sword was there, lying in the grass.

In theory, she could get out of the suite in time and head downstairs before she had to deal with it.

Time to go.

Weiss closed the window again and stepped away from it. She checked over her clothing one last time before beginning on the way out of the room and past her father. She was careful to slip out once nobody was there to see her.
Almost as soon as the door was closed and she was halfway down the hall and hopefully out of earshot, Weiss broke into a jog for the stairs.

She had to get to the ground as fast as possible.

It was a matter of running, as fast as her feet could carry her down the stairs while she was in heels.

She found herself on the ground floor, and once she was outside, there was already someone waiting there for her.

It was the girl that she'd seen fight a few nights before, the one with the long red hair.

She was taller than Weiss had first imagined, with bright green eyes and a soft smile.

"I think you dropped this?" The girl offered Myrtenaster, the weapon held gently in her hands as she made the offer.

"I... did." Weiss answered, reaching out to take it. "I'm sorry."

"You really should be more careful," The redhead commented with a soft smile. "You could have really hurt someone."

"I'm sorry." Weiss said again, turning Myrtenaster in her hand.

There was no sign that it had even struck the ground.

But even then, Weiss could still practically feel the shame wash over her at the realization that this girl had intercepted her weapon's fall.

"It's quite alright." The girl answered, stepping back and lacing her fingers together behind her back in a way that read as being extremely relaxed. She was kind, and even smiled at Weiss despite everything. "It was really no problem."

Weiss thought fast, since she was sure that she needed to do something to thank the other girl at some point, but she wasn't sure of what she could actually do. "Is there any way that I can repay you?" Weiss asked. Her eyes flicked up to the windows on the building that were above her, checking to make sure that nobody from her family was spying on her. Of course, there was the possibility that she was being overheard, but Weiss didn't want to think about that too much.

She was outside with a weapon, and Weiss was ready to fight, at least on some level.

"It's really quite alright." The girl repeated again. "I'm Pyrrha." She reached out, offering Weiss and open hand. Weiss was about to take her hand when she froze, realizing that she knew the other girls' name.

It wasn't worth bringing up, was it?

"Pyrrha Nikos?" Weiss asked, looking for some sort of confirmation.

Pyrrha's green eyes seemed to soften a little bit at the mention of her name, but Weiss couldn't shake the feeling that there was sadness in it. "Yes." Pyrrha said, shaking Weiss' hand quickly before pulling away. "That's me."

"Right." Weiss said quietly. "It was nice to meet you."

"You never even told me your name." Pyrrha commented as Weiss took the first step away. Weiss paused, knowing that she needed to do something to correct the situation but not able to think of the right way to go about it.

"Weiss." She replied quickly. "My name is Weiss."

"Right." Pyrrha replied. "It was nice to meet you, Weiss."

"Likewise." Weiss answered, bowing slightly and backing away from Pyrrha. She needed to get out of the area and up to Ozpin's office if she was going to get anything done, or if she thought that she was actually going to be able to act like she'd gone ahead and done what her father had commanded of her.

"Will I be seeing you around?" Pyrrha asked.

Weiss froze, her hand going over so that it could linger over Myrtenaster's hilt as she thought over her answer. She didn't really know, and so Weiss was sure to relay that before saying a quick goodbye and finding her way up to Ozpin's office.

When Weiss arrived, there was already a group of people there.

Three other girls, all roughly her age. Two of them that she recognized, in addition to professors Ozpin and Goodwitch.

They all stared at her when she stepped into the room.

Weiss' eyes met Blake Belladonna's and neither of them said anything.

Instead, Weiss held her head up high and tried not to make it look like there was even a shred of nervousness in her body that was going to make things worth worrying about.

Ozpin smiled softly.

Weiss wasn't even given a chance to explain herself to the room before a lecture of sorts began.