Blake was the first to emerge, leaving behind a shadow clone in her haste to escape the snowy cocoon of cold surrounding her. Drei popped his head up a second later, shaking powdery white from his coat. At Blake's wide-eyed stare, he wisely did not run to greet her, instead opting to follow his ears and nose, rooting through the snow for his red and white companions.

With the adrenaline high from the rush of combat just starting to recede, a very new kind of panic bloomed in the Faunus's chest to take its place. Ruby and Weiss were here - right here. They had followed them, tracked them, somehow caught up... which, actually was not that surprising given their combined speeds.

She wasn't ready to face them. She didn't know if she'd ever be ready to face them. Not after what she and Yang- Blake whipped around. Yang.

The brawler was easy to spot - steam rising from a large hole in a rapidly melting pile of snow only a few feet away. The horrid vision of that Goliath smashing Yang like a fly flashed through her mind's eye, but there was just no room left in her for more panic. Uttering a low curse, she went to her partner's aid.

Meanwhile, Ruby tumbled down out of the springy, higher branches of one of the pines, landing knee deep in the powdery snow below. She'd taken the liberty of scoping out the area while she'd been up there. All was quiet, except for the echoing cracks and bone deep rumbles of the settling avalanche. The sky arched over them like a star speckled bowl, held up at the edges by the mountain peaks.

Weiss spat and wiped her nose with her hand- it was bleeding, the blood making dark spots in the snow- but she seemed alright otherwise. She recoiled when Drei floundered over and tried to lick her face.

Ruby trudged uphill in the snow to the others, dreading having to talk to them.

"We're clear," she said. An aching, hurting feeling in her heart made it hard to say anything else. She rubbed her hand over it, but it didn't help. For the past week, half of her had been sure that Yang would be okay, but the other half remembered her mom. She'd been sure her mom would be okay too, and now... now... Ruby swallowed, gripping Crescent Rose. She spoke to Blake, who was looking after Yang, "She's—is she—?"

Blake froze, muscles rigid, Faunus ears standing at full attention. With an agonizing slowness, she turned to look back over her shoulder, stopping when the corner of her eye caught sight of Ruby's face. A wild urge to run crashed over her - she tensed, ready to spring.

As if she could sense her intent, Yang's glowing hand suddenly reached up from the snowy bank and gripped Blake's forearm, stopping her cold.

"I'm fine," the brawler coughed out, sitting up. Her hair was drenched from the slush and snow, still glowing bright with latent energy, and even though she looked like a wreck, the majority of the cuts peppering her face and arms were superficial at best and already healing, leaving behind trails of stale red. Similarly colored eyes lifted to meet silver. "I'm fine, Ruby."

"You're fine?" Weiss spat, standing up from where she'd fallen. She flung a handful of bloody snow she'd been holding to her still-bleeding nose into the dark pines around them, "You left us. You left us a week ago, in the middle of this Grimm-infested nowhere without so much as a note, and all you have to say for yourself is that you're fine?"

Yang gritted her teeth, flinching as if she'd been gut-punched, eyes dropping right back to the snow.

Blake however, bared her teeth, rounding on the heiress with unbridled fury. "We left to get help. We left because the only other option anyone could think of was to stick around and wait for the Grimm to come finish us off, while we babysat a village who would rather see us dead anyway."

"Blake, please," Yang tugged on her partner's arm, wincing when the Faunus pulled away, advancing on Weiss.

"Someone had to accept that we couldn't do it on our own. Someone had to go get backup." Blake's fists shook. "I did what had to be done."

"Oh that's a great reason for abandoning us without even telling us your plan," Weiss didn't back down an inch, if anything her temper rose to match Blake's. She bit the words out, "We're a team. At least we're supposed to be. You can't just leave and-"

Ruby let Crescent Rose fall in the snow and caught hold of Yang, burying her face in her sister's shoulder. Her tears were icy cold. She didn't make a sound, but just held on for all she was worth.

"I told you my plan," Blake snapped back, brushing right past a whimpering Drei on her warpath to Weiss, "I told you and you refused to even consider it." She swept her arm wide, nearly clipping the heiress in the face as she gestured to her partner, "Yang was the only one willing to listen-" Blake almost faltered as her gaze flicked over to the sisters. Yang was clutching Ruby like her very life depended on it, her tear-streaked face twisting in anguish as she whispered what sounded like an endless stream of apologies.

There was absolutely nothing Blake could think of say to Ruby that would make amends, so she refocused on Weiss, feeling an extra surge of anger at her own cowardice, her inability to face the second leader she'd betrayed. "What good is sticking together as a team if it gets us all killed?!"

"Fine, then, go!" Weiss shot an arm back to the canyon, "Where's your gear? Where's your map? Do you know anything about the road out of these mountains? The people of James Point had charts and guides to steer travelers away from things like, oh, I don't know, massive packs of Beowolves. Ruby got copies the second day after you left, when she talked to the villagers. Which she had to do alone."

"You mean those same villagers we visited with supplies on our way out? The ones we gave at least some shred of hope to hold on to, knowing help would be on the way? You make it sound like we just skipped out of town without a single care in the world," Blake crossed that final line, stepping right into the heiress's personal space.

"Some of us don't need maps and gear to make it through the wilds," her voice dropped as she glared down at Weiss, using their slight difference in height to her fullest advantage. "Some of us were raised outside the safety of the kingdom's walls. Why do you think I volunteered myself for this trip in the first place?"

"I don't care why you volunteered," Weiss jabbed her finger at Blake's collar, "I care that you left us behind, right when we needed-"

Ruby couldn't listen anymore. She scrubbed her eyes on her sleeve and pushed back from Yang.

"Stop fighting," she ordered, following Blake's path in the snow to physically separate the two girls with a hand on each of their shoulders. Weiss started to protest but Ruby repeated, "Stop." and Weiss gritted her teeth but kept her mouth shut.

Ruby turned her attention to Blake, but didn't have anything to say so she spoke to the whole team instead. "It's dark. It's cold. We're tired. Let's set up camp."

Like a hand closing over a spitting candle, Ruby's touch snuffed out Blake's fire, leaving her cold and wary. Still, she heeded Ruby's call and stopped, shooting Weiss a dark, parting glare and pivoting on her heel to stalk back through the snow. Yang stood and caught her arm again when she passed by, questioning her with a simple look.

"I'm going to get firewood," Blake announced, more than a bit defensive.

Yang's grip loosened a bit, but she held fast. "Gotcha. Sorry I can't come with you."

Amber eyes narrowed in confusion, "What-"

"Blake listen to me," Yang gripped her partner's arms and held her gaze, using Blake to steady herself as the glow surrounding her started to fade, "I don't know how long I'll be out, but please, you have to be here when I wake up. Don't..." she took a deep breath, trying to finish her request, "Don't..." Don't leave.

Blake's ears flattened as she watched her partner's eyes fade to amethyst. "Yang, this is really not the best time to- Yang?!" The brawler had already slumped forward onto her partner, the rush of dead weight nearly throwing Blake's balance for a loop.

"Yang!" Ruby's rose petals tumbled among the trees as she appeared next to the two, catching Yang's arm. She got it over her shoulder to take some of the load from Blake while Weiss slogged through the snow after her. Yang's knees dragged in the snow as her semblance's warmth bled away. Ruby searched for a more sheltered place to lay her down. A few yards away, the trees were thicker. It was darker, but it looked like their branches and needles kept a lot of the snow off the ground. She nodded towards the place, looking to Weiss over Blake out of habit, "Over there?"

Weiss panted, burying a hand in Drei's fur to find his collar as she caught her breath.

"Go on. I'll get the sled," she straightened up, giving Blake a scornful glance, "and some wood to start a fire."

Blake glowered right back, refusing to speak a word in response as she helped Ruby drag Yang to a thoroughly covered space between a cluster of pines. She worked in silence with Ruby to clear the area of its thin coating of snow before finally laying the brawler down on her back.

The sight of Yang lying motionless in the dirt had an eerie sense of finality that didn't sit well with Blake, but she couldn't take her eyes off of her, mainly because the only other option would be to face Ruby. So, she sat on the ground beside her partner, head bowed as she took hold of Yang's good arm, carefully reaching inside Ember Celica to hit the small switch that retracted the gauntlet. She hesitated to reach for Yang's other arm, noting Ruby standing right nearby.

Apprehension coiled inside Blake like a spring, Faunus ears flattening with each passing second of silence. Weiss's burst of anger had been textbook, but Ruby... The younger girl was entirely unpredictable, just like her sister, and all Blake could do was stare at her snow-crusted boots.

Why wasn't she saying anything? Was she just going to stand there?

Gripping Yang's cooling hand for some semblance of support, Blake braced herself and lifted her head to look up at Ruby, only to find her focused on the clasps of her red cape, trying to get them undone in the dark. One had gotten caught on a thread and it took some time to get it untangled.

"There," the word was muted in the stillness as Ruby swept the garment from around her shoulders, spreading it out so half of it covered the shallow bed of dry pine needles they'd cleared of snow. She crouched down to position Yang's arm so they were crossed over her chest and wouldn't drag on the ground when they moved her to the makeshift bed, only looking up at Blake when she moved to hold both of Yang's boots under her arms. "I'll get her legs, you get her shoulders, okay?"

Anxiety burned hot in the back of Blake's throat, thwarting her ability to speak, so she simply nodded, moving behind Yang and slipping her arms around the brawler. Holding her hands in place, she lifted in time with Ruby, frowning at the loose way Yang's head lolled back against her shoulder.

Somehow, their combined strength was enough to successfully shift Yang over onto Ruby's cloak, and gingerly, with the utmost care, they set her on the well-worn fabric. The bright red backdrop brought out all the matching streaks of red still marring the brawler's face, each one a sharp reminder of what Blake's decisions had put her partner through.

Blake tried to wipe one away, but it had already dried. She flinched back, biting her lip.

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. They had been making great time. Their trip had been fine until that Beowolf pack, and Blake refused to believe that something as simple as a map could really have helped them avoid such a large, moving threat.

Unable to look any more, Blake sat back, knees up, ears flat, and face buried in her hands, trying to shut everything out.

A/N: Hahah well they're back together now! Sort of! Oh gosh.

Until next time~

HUGS,
D

Double A/N: 100 favorites! Shucks, guys. You're so nice.

- Fiercesomet