'Soon' ended up being roughly three hours later, though Yang's return to consciousness still came by degrees. Every inch closer to clarity was a fight against overwhelming exhaustion, the sheer amount of energy spent on recovery muddling her senses to a dreamlike degree.

She always recognized touch first, warmth especially, and it surrounded her, along with the vague notion that her head was in someone's lap. Sound came next, two familiar voices that were coming closer, getting louder, disturbing her rest. Yang grumbled, trying to turn away from the noise but finding her body heavier than lead.

Though a small part of her told her she had been asleep for a good while and she should probably just get up already, she was comfortable, all she wanted to do was sleep even more, and trying to open her eyelids felt tantamount to lifting a Goliath one-handed. Somehow, she managed a few choice words to further her cause. "Shut up... so loud..."

Ruby jumped, dropping Yang's head on the thin layer of pine needles and spooking Drei, who she'd been trying to get to come act as a pillow. "Yang!"

"Don't pretend it was an accident. Y-you knew that stream wasn't completely frozen!" came the shivering, spluttering accusations from a certain Schnee. She came stumbling through the branches hiding their campsite, bits of ice falling from her hair and coat as she stripped the soaked and rapidly freezing garment off.

Blake followed close by, a bundle of plants wrapped with her ribbon in one arm, and the other arm sporting Gambol Shroud, spearing their decently sized flayed and gutted catch of fish. "To be fair, I honestly didn't think you'd be heavy enough to-"

"Too early ughh-" Yang rolled onto her stomach to avoid Drei sniffing at her, pine-needles and grass stuck out of her hair at odd angles.

Blake nearly dropped her haul at hearing her partner's voice.

"I'm gonna assume that's the dog licking my face," Yang mumbled into the ground, too tired to bother pushing Drei away from his current mission of giving her a tongue bath.

"Yep," Ruby got her hands around Drei's collar and pulled him back. Weiss was mad because she was wet? And being wet in sub-freezing temperatures was not good. But Yang was awake! Not quite sure of where to go from there, she blurted out, "You're up just in time for Blake to make us breakfast."

"Does she feel like doing that thing where she's unbearably warm?" Weiss was down to a damp undershirt and pair of pants as she huddled close to the fire, teeth chattering, "because that would be great right now."

Ruby dragged Drei over, but dropped his collar when she saw the true state of her partner, "Weiss, you're soaked!"

"How very observant of you," the heiress glared at her, rubbing her arms over the ice-stiff sleeves of her undershirt to try and keep warm by the low fire, "Also don't go ice fishing with Blake."

Blake rolled her eyes, pulling a fish from her sword and tossing it to the dog to distract him. "What she means to say is, 'Thank you Blake for helping pull me out of the water.'" She looked to her partner, torn between rushing to greet her and starting breakfast as she'd promised. "Yang," she called, setting the bundle of washed plants in the pot beside Weiss and unloading Gambol Shroud's clip, "Hurry up and get over here so I can give you a proper hug."

That did the trick. The brawler immediately pushed herself up off the ground, twisting and making it all the way to sitting before she had to stop. "If... if you insist," she put a hand to her head, but it didn't keep the world from spinning. "Be right there..."

"I want a hug too! Save one for me!" Ruby called after she'd thrown a bunch of wood on the fire. She disappeared in the direction of the sled, rose petals scattering across the frozen ground.

Weiss turned to thaw out her back and get some of the ice out of her hair. "I swear, Blake, if you don't start breakfast soon I'll... ah..."

She tried to smother a violent sneeze, with mixed results.

"Ugh..." she mopped at her nose with her frozen sleeve ineffectually, the picture of misery, "J-just hurry up."

Blake allowed herself a small half-smile with a roll of the eyes for good measure, already holding the fish speared on Gambol shroud near the hearty flame Ruby had built up. She nudged the pot of water and plants closer to the edge of the flame as well, confident that her ribbon could easily withstand a bit of boiling.

"Hey, sweet." Yang's voice stole her partner's attention away from cooking, and Blake looked over to see the brawler up on her feet, stretching out both arms. The holes that had once riddled her right arm had healed up nicely, along with those endless cuts and scrapes, but she was still streaked with an uncomfortable amount of red.

After realizing the futility of trying to brush herself off, Yang made a beeline to Blake, wrapping her in a bone-crushing hug from behind.

"Yang, that's cheating," Blake chided with a smirk, struggling a bit to hold the fish steady, "I'm supposed to give you the hug."

"Yeah well your arms are occupied."

"And sadly they are going to stay occupied until breakfast is ready," the Faunus lightly bumped her head against Yang's, "Anyway there is someone else who could use a bit of warmth right now."

Yang followed Blake's gaze to Weiss, and she released her partner at once, moving to sit beside the shivering heiress and pull her into an embrace.

"I would yell at you for touching me but I'm too cold," Weiss allowed Yang to side-hug her, still sniffling after her sneeze. "I will bill you if you get bloodstains on my shirt. Just so you know."

The torn sleeping bag, now serving as a blanket, dropped over the pair's shoulders, the edges tattered and ripped. Ruby plopped down next to them, checking Weiss to make sure she was getting warm before turning to the fire where she regarded Blake's skewered catch with awe, "You actually got fish? Are they almost ready?"

"Yes, and..." Blake turned the fish a bit, "yes."

Ruby leaned almost into the fire to watch the silver skin crackle. Her stomach felt like it was trying to turn itself inside out. "How soon?"

"As soon as you bring me my sheath to put these on," her smile to Ruby was as warm as the fire, "Unless you want to try holding a burning hot fish in your hands."

"I could do it," Yang mumbled into Weiss's shoulder.

"Or you could shut up and keep me from freezing to death," Weiss hmphed, shifting uncomfortably under the intimacy of having Yang hanging all over her.

Ruby, meanwhile, zipped to her pack and reappeared with a meager stack of tin plates, which she presented to Blake, "We've got dishes we can use instead!"

Blake eyed the tin plates, inexplicably touched that Ruby had packed a full set of four. She took them and laid them in a line, placing a fish on each. The roots and greens would still take a little bit, but they could at least start with this. "Well, here you go," she presented the plates without much flourish.

Ruby couldn't remember the last time she'd smelled anything as good as this. Her mouth watered so badly she could hardly eat at first. The fish was gone in record time. She didn't even take off her gloves.

Despite a fit of shivering, Weiss managed to squirm out of Yang's hug and get her frozen-solid pack. One of the pockets yielded a fork, and she cut her food into measured bites, taking pains to avoid the bones. Yang leaned heavily on Weiss, pouring out heat and picking absentmindedly at her food while she tried not to doze off again.

"Don't expect me to force feed you the way you did me," Weiss grumbled to Yang, holding her plate steady for her, "because I won't."

"You wouldn't have to force..." Yang rested her head on Weiss's shoulder, eyes heavy and limbs heavier.

"Okay, Blake, you are officially the camp cook until further notice," Ruby announced after clearing her throat from nearly choking herself on a prickly fish rib bone. She pulled a heavy piece of folded paper from her combat skirt's hidden pocket. The color wasn't faded, but the edges were worn from handling along the folds, and one corner looked like something had been spilled on it. Her grin slipped momentarily as she looked at Blake, "Uh, I mean, you're the cook if you don't mind. Do you mind?" she opened up the creased paper, smoothing it flat on her knee, "Also, here's where we're headed next. I've got a route picked out, but since you've seen a lot of the mountains too, tell me what you think?"

Blake looked up from her fish - she had pulled away its entire backbone in once piece, and was methodically removing the remaining pin bones. "I don't mind at all," she nudged Ruby's shoulder with her own, leaning closer with the movement to get a good look at their surprisingly detailed map. Her team leader's fish-juice covered finger marked their apparent destination, a point on the map that looked like a small house. "What is that?"

"It's a way-station," Ruby wiped her hand off on her leggings, frowning over her own choice of words, "er, way-cabin? It's a place people can stay on their way through the mountains. Travelers or hunters, or huntresses. The villagers told us they sometimes keep a little food and ammunition there, in case someone's in trouble."

Blake perked at the possibility of extra ammunition, but a glance at her drooping partner set her mouth in a thin line. They were definitely going to need that sled fixed. She gave the map another once-over, noting the clever placement of the cabin right near a river, likely the same river that ran through the pond she and Weiss had found. Blake looked to Ruby, giving a small nod of agreement. "That sounds like something worth looking into."

"Yeah," Ruby grinned at Blake and glanced to check on Yang and Weiss (the latter was grumpily spreading her frozen coat and clothes over the former to thaw and dry).

Boy, it was good to have the team together again.

Ruby scooted a little closer to the fire, tracing a path out on the paper she'd laid over her knees, "Anyway, there's kind of a path, but Curtis was saying it's usually full of Grimm, so I thought we could go this way instead..."

It took an hour to finish planning, eating, and repacking. By then, Weiss's clothes were no longer sheets of ice and in fact had a pleasant fresh-from-the-dryer warmth about them, so the heiress was back in good spirits and focused on icing over the hole punched in the bottom of the sled.

"It should hold until at least until Yang's recovered enough to bend it back properly," she said as she checked and rechecked the ropes holding their gear and cargo in the back.

Ruby hunted up Drei, who'd been snuffling around among the pine trees, probably looking for mice or little hibernating critters, and she got him all hooked up to the traces in the front. He was a lot less interested in being attached to the sled than he was in begging Blake for more fish, though.

"Hey!" Weiss yelped, gripping the metal edge of the sled as the large dog pulled the entire thing sideways towards Blake and Yang.

Blake glanced up from her task, dampened cloth paused over one of the final remaining streaks of red marring her partner's face. She nudged Yang, who had dozed off again, gesturing with her eyes to their incoming canine companion. Yang's smile grew as the distance between them decreased. "Hey, hey buddy~" she called, diverting his attention from the plate beside her and into her waiting arms instead. She buried her hands in Drei's fur, pressing her face to his head in a failed attempt to avoid getting licked where Blake had just cleaned.

One of Blake's ears flicked in annoyance. She took the fish remains from the tin plate, a delicate twist and snap removing the fish's head from its spine. "Here you go, bye," she tossed the head over to the edge of the sled, feeling only the smallest amount of remorse at the disappointed sound Yang made when Drei abandoned ear scratches in favor of chasing down the tasty morsel.

Yang's pout stretched into a yawn. She shook her head, looking between Ruby and Weiss. "Is it time to go?"

"Yep!" Ruby said, hands braced confidently on her hips while Drei hauled the sled sharply sideways to get at the fish head, bowling Weiss over in the snow. She rubbed her arm, a little shy of all the bloody rags on the snow next to her sister, "You, uh, feel okay to move?"

"Yeah! Yeah I'm good," Yang pushed herself to her feet, teetering just a bit.

Blake stood and caught her arm, raising a brow.

"Uh, good enough anyway," she rubbed the back of her head, looking sheepish. "Sorry I haven't been able to help out much."

"Don't worry about that," Ruby went to help straighten the sled out, laughing as she helped a slightly less-chipper Weiss out from under it. "Just get better, okay? And let's go! It'll be great to sleep someplace with a roof for once. Ooh, maybe there'll be beds too."

Blake side-eyed Yang, who was already yawning again. Beds sounded like an excellent idea.

A/N: I am also feeling sleepy because egads hiking 7 miles is surprisingly tiring. How do these girls do it?!

Hugs!

D