Weiss frowned down at the valley floor from her perch on the side of the sled. She'd long since given up finding the missing cans. Who needed more baked beans anyway? She shuddered even thinking about it and went back to frowning.
The landscape below was snowy and overgrown, but she could pick out a series of oddly straight breaks in the snow through the breaks in the scrub trees, as if this particular valley grew a crop of particularly geometrically pleasing stones. More likely it was another set of ruins.
She brushed ice crystals from the edge of the sled. Mountain Glen. The Emerald Forest. How many ruins did Vale have, exactly?
Would James Point be added to the list?
Ruby appeared at the sled's side in a flurry of rose-petals, holding- one of the missing cans!
"Where did you-" Weiss started as Ruby dug through her carefully packed supplies.
Ruby grabbed a can opener and called to her and Yang as she ran back into the way-station, "We found a kid!"
"Wait what?" Yang's head popped up from where she'd been stretched out in the sled, watching for any sign of aerial attack. "A kid?" Ruby had already vanished into the building, so she aimed her look of alarm at Weiss instead, "Like... a kid?"
It was a miracle Ruby didn't crash through the rusted stairs as she raced back into the dark, trying to use the can opener as she went.
"Blake, here," she offered her the can after she'd removed the sharp top.
The savory-sweet smell of baked beans hit Blake like a fist to the face, prompting a raised brow from the Faunus as she took the can and examined it for a moment. How Weiss and Ruby had survived off of these was beyond her.
Still, Ruby's idea was sound, and Blake held the food out, close to the ground. "Hey... here... Are you hungry?"
Ruby stayed back. Now that her eyes had adjusted and she knew what she was looking at, she could make out the girl's shape better. Small fingers- too small to go with the bulky jacket that hid most of the rest of her- clutched at her guardian's clothes.
As Blake held the food out, little girl's whimpering quieted down some. Her hair was a matted mess, crammed down on her head by a thick knit cap. She shifted her head to peek at Blake.
"Hi there," Blake offered a warm smile, setting the can on the ground and nudging it forward. "Come on... this is for you."
The food drew the kid's attention like a magnet. Sniffling, she remained huddled till Blake had withdrawn a bit. Everything was quiet and dark in the basement for a few seconds.
When nothing bad happened, the girl snatched the can and shrank into the corner as much as she could, plainly terrified. Hunger overcame that, though, and she ate with her hands, only pausing to wipe her nose on her too-long sleeve.
Ruby turned to Blake, giving her a thumbs-up even though it felt like someone had put her chest in a vice. Losing a mom or a dad... or both. Ruby knew what that was like, and this kid would too. She couldn't let herself think about it now, though, so she got up from the floor, dusting off her combat skirt as she asked Blake softly, "Well, I guess someone should kind of look through these boxes. You need anything?"
A hug. Blake needed a hug, and she needed to not think about all the other children she'd seen just like this. Menagerie, Atlas, and now the mountains of Vale. Rather than voicing any of this, Blake shook her head, turning a bit to lean against the wall. "Let me know if you want more," she spoke to the little girl, shutting her eyes and letting her ears keep track of her surroundings.
Ruby poked through the boxes in the dark. Some were empty. Some were full of trash and junk. A couple had a can or two of random food- peaches and cranberry sauce, when she took them over to the stairwell to read the labels. She left them for someone more desperate. On a high shelf, she turned up a can opener, which she plunked into the food box, and some equipment for fletching arrows. Too bad no one on Team RWBY needed arrows at all.
Eventually, Weiss's voice came down the stairwell, "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah," Ruby called back, sliding a heavy box out from under a counter and prying the lid off.
Bingo.
Ammunition.
"Yeah, things are okay," Ruby turned to check on Blake and the little girl.
When Weiss had called down, the small girl had crept over closer to Blake, crouched down and holding very still, like she could hide behind her if anyone came down the stairs. She still had the tin can in her hands, even though it was empty.
Blake had opened her eyes at the scraping shuffles of the girl inching closer. The empty can caught her attention first. "Ruby, is there more f-"
"Guys?" Yang's voice called down the stairs, naturally louder than Weiss's, "You need our help down there?"
Ruby watched the little girl shrink smaller against the wall and against Blake. She called up the stairwell, "Hang on a second!"
She plopped down on the floor a few feet from Blake and the girl, "Hey, want to go up and get something else to eat?"
The girl didn't look at her, and also didn't look up at Blake, but she clung to her sleeve.
Blake glanced at Ruby, taking her idea and running with it. She leaned a little bit closer to the girl and whispered with a smile, "Do you like fish?"
The girl didn't say anything, or even nod yes or no.
Well, it had been worth a shot. Worry gnawed at Ruby as she realized they were sitting in what was essentially this girl's guardian's tomb. She caught Blake's eye and mimed scooping the girl up so they could get her out of here.
Blake nodded, eyes darting from Ruby to her sword and back in a silent request for its retrieval. "All right," she spoke to the girl, daring to loop the arm she was clinging to around her shoulders, "It's time to go, okay?" Without waiting for a response, Blake gathered the girl into her arms, whisking her off the ground with very little effort, but extraordinary care.
The girl's arms shifted to cling around Blake's neck. She hid her face in Blake's hair.
Ruby gave Blake two big thumbs up, calling over her shoulder as she backed to the stairs, "We're coming up!"
The rickety stairs held. Ruby held the door for Blake, which meant being unable to shield herself from Weiss's ire. The heiress stood just beyond the building's entrance, fists clenched so hard she was shaking. "Ruby Rose, do you have any idea how long you've been- don't try to shush me! What's-"
"Hey! Are they back?" Yang cut into Weiss's tirade, popping into the door frame right behind her, nearly impaling herself on the heiress's hair piece in her haste to peer over her head, "Ruby! What's all this about a..." the brawler's words and the energy behind them petered off at the sight of Blake topping the stairs - a sooty bundle of black wrapped in her arms.
"A kid..."
The little girl just clung to Blake, her head hidden against her neck. In the sun, Ruby could see what bad shape she was in. Her hair was matted, coated with ashes till it was gray and streaky black, almost like she'd been sleeping in a fireplace. All her clothes were that way too, though some of the muted browns and blues stubbornly showed through the grime.
Weiss's brows physically couldn't go any higher as she stepped to the side so Blake could get through the doorway.
Ruby followed Blake out, wiping soot from her hands on her leggings. They'd have to check the girl over for injuries, and get her some more food for sure.
"So," she said, "I guess we'll have a passenger for a while."
Even the dog came over to investigate, but Blake said nothing, deftly avoiding Drei's curious sniffing nose as she did her best to soothe the shaking girl in her arms by means of a low steady purr rumbling deep in her chest. She heard Yang grab the dog by his collar and approach them from behind.
"Come on," the brawler rested her free hand on Blake's unoccupied shoulder, watching the little girl with an unreadable expression, "let's get her cleaned up."
Armed with a shorn-off scrap of the ruined sleeping bag, and the small metal soup pot filled with snow, Blake and Yang sat together on the ground, pondering their most recent roadblock to cleaning up their new charge - the little girl refused to let go of Blake.
"Ooh, oh I got it," Yang grabbed a handful of snow and held it out, trying to catch the little girl's eyes, "Hey, wanna see a cool trick?" She called up her semblance, and the snow melted in an instant, dripping from her hand back into the pot. "Ta-daa!"
The girl clung harder and bit Blake on the shoulder, possibly out of fear and possibly as another way to hold on.
Blake's eyes went wide at the feel of teeth clamping down on her - not hard enough to really hurt, but hard enough for her aura to kick in. She raised a brow at Yang. "It seems your magnificent display has succeeded... in getting me eaten."
"What?!" Distress in her eyes, Yang scrambled forward to examine Blake's tiny aggressor, "Hey now, no eating my partner, she's the only one I've got," the brawler placed a warm hand on the little girl's forehead, applying the barest suggestion of pressure to try and coax her away from her quest to become a cannibal.
The girl kept her eyes shut and bit harder through Blake's coat, whimpering.
"You have such a way with children," Weiss deadpanned as she lugged another container of ammunition to the sled.
Yang's eyes rolled in a perfect arc, "Yeah well I don't see you offering much help here, princess!"
"Yang, it's fine," Blake disguised a flinch as a smirk. The little girl's teeth were surprisingly sharp by virtue of their tiny size. "How about we give her something other than my shoulder to eat?"
Yang stared for a moment, then removed her hand to snap her fingers. "Right, food. Hey Ruby!" she called in the general direction of the sled, "Are there any of those crackers left?"
Ruby's head popped up over the side. She'd been filing down some of the rough spurs left from when the metal got punctured by that Goliath's spike. "Is she hungry again? Hang on."
Weiss crunched over through the snow, arms crossed as she frowned warily at the dirty bundle in Blake's arms, "... is she... biting you?"
"Yes." Blake answered with only a half glance at Weiss, she was more focused on trying to move the stray strands of hair out of the little girl's face. The hat was getting in the way.
Yang squinted at her partner, "Are you normally this nonchalant about being bitten?"
Blake shrugged the shoulder that wasn't currently weighed down with teeth. "She's probably just scared." She frowned when her fingers caught in a particularly nasty tangle of dark matted curls beneath the girl's hat. "Weiss, you didn't happen to bring a brush or comb along, did you?"
Weiss glanced at the girl's hair, a look of disgust crossing her features, "... I think Ruby has one she's not using."
"What am I not using?" Ruby crouched down by Blake, a packet of crackers in hand as she patted the little girl's shoulder gently, "Heya, you doing okay?" she smoothed back her hair and hat, "Where's your face? Where- oh, uh-"
In her smoothing, she'd swept the girl's knitted hat off, revealing a patch of hair relatively uncontaminated by the soot and dirt coating the rest of her. It was rusty red, and right at the top a pair of dark colored ears lay clamped to her skull. They were pointed, a bit larger and more pronounced than Blake's.
Blake's own ears flattened in painful sympathy. She could feel the girl shrinking against her at the sudden exposure - a frazzled line of tension drawn taut and ready to snap. Had this girl's guardian hidden her Faunus traits, hoping that if a band of more prejudiced humans found her they might not leave her to die?
"I knew it," Yang whispered, earning a wary glance from her partner. The brawler flashed a grin. "She's a redhead."
At this, Blake finally cracked a smile. She nuzzled the little Faunus girl and held her close, purring for all she was worth.
A/N: Slight pause to load up supplies and look after this kid.
Stay tuned!
- Fiercesomest