A/N: A bit of a short chapter this week. Someday we'll go back through and fix the pacing on all of this, haha. Until then, enjoy the calm!
- Fiercesomest
Standing up from her spot at the campfire, Ruby asked, keeping her voice low, "I'll set out the sleeping bags. Is everyone good food-wise?"
"Already got you covered there, sis," Yang motioned behind her to the sleeping bags she'd haphazardly flung to the ground earlier. They were mostly rolled out.
Ruby smacked her palm to her forehead with a sheepish grin. How could she have forgotten Yang putting out the sleeping bags?
"Yang," Blake whispered, setting the plate of food down and motioning to her partner to bring the pot of warm water and cloth. Maybe if they were lucky, they could give the girl a stealth-bath while she slept.
The Faunus girl slept right through Blake and Yang getting stuff ready. Weiss observed from the sidelines, asking quietly, "What kind of Faunus is she?"
Yang shrugged and shook her head, watching as Blake tested the water's temperature one last time. "Judging by the coloring of her ears... and the shape.." Satisfied that the water was just warm enough to be soothing and not shock the little Faunus girl awake, Blake soaked a bit of water into the cloth and paused, wondering where to even start. "I'm thinking something in the canine family."
"So some kind of dog?" Weiss adjusted the collar of her coat higher, glancing at Blake to gauge whether the question was offensive or not.
The girl was out like a light. They could even clean and brush her hair, if they wanted. Some of the dirt on her sleeves turned out to be crusted blood, but there was no telling if it was hers or someone else's unless they got her out of her torn up clothes. Ruby came back to the fire with an extra sleeping shirt, if the girl needed something clean.
Slowly, carefully, Blake eased the knitted cap off of the little girl's head, taking a closer look at her large pointed Faunus ears currently drooping in sleep. The fur was light and fine, still a child's, but the coloring... red base, black tips. Blake glanced at Drei, who had curled into a tight ball by the dying fire. "A dog doesn't seem quite right."
"Blake, give her here." Shirt in hand from Ruby, Yang held her arms out, motioning for Blake to relinquish the little girl. As badly as she needed a bath, they also needed to wash those clothes of hers, and that couldn't very well be done with her in them. The cold wasn't letting up though, and the dark heavy coat wrapped around the little girl reached down to her knees, providing a barrier of warmth that only Yang could match while they worked.
Reluctantly, Blake let Yang take the little girl from her, helping to slide the coat from her narrow shoulders, gingerly pulling it from around her. The pair froze when a fluffy white-tipped red tail slipped into view. Blake's mouth set in a thin line. An outcast even among her fellow Faunus... It was no wonder her family fled to the outskirts like this.
Without her coat, the tiny girl was even tinier, lying limp in Yang's arms. Her tail had bits of fur missing towards its end, evidence of a near miss not long in the past.
Ruby had never seen a Faunus with two features before. She took the coat as Blake handed it back. What had this girl been through? She was so skinny- how long had she been starving and alone in the mountains? Ruby glanced out into the dark towards the trees, hands itching to draw Crescent Rose to keep the little kid protected.
"... definitely not a dog," Weiss surmised, unsure of what else to say. Faunus with two animal traits—ears and a tail, say—were very rare, as far as she knew, and tended to occupy an even lower rung on the social ladder than their one-traited peers. The general opinion was that they were degenerated degenerates- that much closer to animals.
Blake said nothing at all, a quiet sadness about her as she set to work on the rest of the girl's clothes.
Yang looked like she wanted to say something to her partner, concern flickering behind her eyes, but she dragged her gaze to Weiss instead. "I may as well take first watch, huh? Seems like Blake and I will be up for a bit."
Weiss nodded without turning from the little girl, hesitating before she went to make sure her sleeping gear was in order.
"There's a marker for a settlement not too far from here," Ruby said, collecting a scarf and layers of too-big clothes from Blake, "We'll pass it in a couple of days, if it's still there, and-"
She watched as Blake removed the girl's last layer. The tiny Faunus's ribs stood out, and her right arm was coated in dried, flaking blood from her elbow to her wrist. She curled up against Yang, whimpering in her sleep.
"- I'll get the med kit," Ruby semblanced to the edge of the sled and back almost before she'd finished speaking. The long scratch on the girl's arm had scabbed over, but only just. Ruby unrolled the kit, looking for some antibiotic stuff to put on it.
After the eighth or ninth, Yang lost count of how many pots of water it took to remove the layers upon layers of dirt and grime from the little girl and her clothes. Even Ruby's trips to gather fresh snow began to blur together, though the evidence of their progress was clearly recorded by the impressive pockmarked dent in the nearby snowbank.
For a while Yang found herself draped in the girl's wet clothes, acting as a dryer, and a space heater, and a boiler, and keeping her semblance running hot for such an extended time was exhausting. Especially when no one on her team could really muscle through her aura to punch a bit of extra energy into her without getting weapons involved. Not a great idea having a scythe rifle swung at you when holding a little kid in your lap, as Blake so helpfully pointed out after Ruby so kindly offered.
What felt like hours of diligent work later, they finally finished their task, and Yang finally let her semblance cool a bit. The little girl's clothes were... as clean as they were going to get, and the little girl herself had transformed from a soot-caked dirtmonster, into a sleepy cuddlemonster. Much like Ruby, who had fallen asleep at her side, still holding Crescent Rose, or Drei, who had curled up behind her in favor of the dying embers of their campfire.
Blake, the natural night owl that she was, was currently running a brush Ruby had brought them (one that looked mysteriously like Weiss's) through the Faunus girl's tail, having just finished taming her hair, which after a proper washing turned out to be a brilliant shade of red, lighter than Ruby's, but darker than Pyrrha's. ...Not quite as dark as the circles under Blake's eyes though.
"Blake." Yang frowned when she got no response. "Blake she looks great. You can stop now."
"But I need to-"
"You need to sleep," Yang cut her partner's protest short with a hand to her shoulder.
Blake nearly dropped the brush in surprise when Yang gently shifted the girl back into her arms. "But-"
"The only 'but' I want to see is yours heading to those nice warm sleeping bags," Yang nudged Ruby awake before Blake could protest further, "Hey sis, drag this girl to bed with your team leader powers. She's being unruly."
Blake scowled, but there was no edge to it. She held the little girl close. "I am not being unruly."
"Blake? Not being unruly?" Ruby had started up, but now she relaxed her shoulders and faked a yawn, teasing Blake, "Who is this impostor?"
Scrubbing her eyes and levering herself up to her feet, she blinked at the newly transformed little girl. Bundled up in her ash and soot colored clothes, her red hair and fluffy white-tipped tail stood out all the more. She still looked small and too thin, but she was clean, and that was definitely a step in the right direction. Pride surged in Ruby's chest- they could help the people at James Point, and they could help this girl.
She made a fist, "Alright team, let's go get some sleep," she tipped her head to her sister, who she knew had been running her semblance non-stop pretty much the whole evening. "Yang, it's about time for you to switch with Weiss, if you want."
Yang stretched out, groaning in delight at the small cracks and pops that cascaded down her spine. "Yeah actually, that sounds awesome. Guess I better go wake the princess," she said with a heaving sigh that did not match her toothy grin in the slightest.
Blake knew that grin and it's devious intent, and thus she shot her partner a warning look, which Yang caught and heeded with a lilting, "I'll be good~" as she pushed herself to her feet and lazily strolled in the direction of the campsite's lone occupied sleeping bag.
Amber eyes rolled, making a quick detour to the empty sleeping bag and the girl in her arms before coming to rest on Ruby. "Ready for a game of sardines, then?"
There was a shriek from Weiss's side of camp, followed by furious, prickling lecture sounds, probably about the proper way to wake someone for their turn at watch.
Ruby looked from that fun time to the sleeping bag and ran her gloved hand through her hair, "Yep."
Blake got in first with the girl and Ruby worked her way in afterwards. It was tight. Really tight.
Ruby glanced down at the little girl between her and Blake. All that showed above the edge of the fabric and its weatherproof shell were her pointed Faunus ears and the red of her hair.
"Think she can breathe okay?" Ruby whispered across the tickly, fuzzy ears to Blake.
The little girl's breaths tickled Blake's neck, slow and steady enough that she felt perfectly confident answering, "She'll be all right." The warm air might even do her a bit of good - help her sleep.
Not keen on continuing her own battle against sleep for much longer, Blake let her eyes fall shut, oddly comforted by the familiar background noise of Weiss's very vocal ire. "I don't know about Yang, though," she mused, pressing her face between the little girl's ears, liquid limbs shifting around Ruby's back, those few extra inches of closeness paradoxically giving them more room to breathe. "Hopefully we won't wake to find her skewered by Myrtenaster."
Ruby hummed, snuggling into Blake's embrace. She spoke softly, "She'll be fine. Weiss was really worried about you guys, you know? She's just being prickly to make up for it."
Sure enough, the lecturing quieted down and branches scraped against each other as Weiss built the fire back up.
We worried about you too. The words teetered at the tip of Blake's tongue, but she bit them back, not wanting to dwell on the separation she'd caused for any longer than absolutely necessary. At least, not verbally.
Instead, she feigned sleep, her mind naturally drawn to wandering those well-traveled back alleys of what-ifs and other dreary hypotheticals until the lie became truth, and she drifted off to the sounds of light breathing and crackling flames.