A/N: Hey guys! It's been a while since we posted a chapter for this but here you go, longer by popular request ;3

Thanks as always for reading and enjoy!

Hugs!

D

Within the hour, after Qrow yelled at the boys for picking up trash instead of building a fire so they could eat a decent meal, a roaring bonfire blazed in the area near the medical tent. There was no shortage of flammable wreckage that had been buried in the junk piles around the stadium, and most of it was accessible now thanks to Pyrrha's impromptu tornado. Sage brought a wooden chair down against the ground. It splintered and cracked as he broke it apart and threw the pieces on the fire.

Weiss and Ruby were both still semi out of commission, so neither was sure where the bowls of rice and roast venison that were passed to them even came from, but they weren't complaining. The heiress didn't even care that they were sitting on a roughly bench-shaped piece of metal covered in rust, even though it would surely leave a difficult to remove residue on their clothes.

Ruby ate with all the grace of a starved raccoon. The deer was gamey and a little charred, but she polished her bowl off in the blink of an eye and raised it for Chef Neptune (as he had insisted he be called) to see, "Seconds, please!"

Robin, who had emerged from the safety of a crate full of packing peanuts after the excitement had died down and was currently stationed firmly in Blake's lap, whimpered at her own venison-less bowl and tried to put her face directly into Blake's food to get at hers.

Arching a brow, Blake tipped her remaining food in to Robin's bowl. She wasn't nearly as hungry as-

"Thirds please!" Yang's bowl joined Ruby's in the air.

Blake tilted a smile past Weiss at Ruby and Yang. Understandably, Ruby's big sister hadn't left her side the entire day. Granted, most of that time had been spent crashing and sleeping in an exhausted pile with Weiss, but Blake hadn't minded. She'd left the three to rest while she helped Ren and Neptune prepare the meal their apparently ravenous group was currently tearing through with ease. Ren had mentioned something about it being a while since anyone here had eaten a solid meal like this, but it was still a sight to see.

"Coming right up!" Neptune sang, flitting over to them with his makeshift tray piled high with lightly charred cuts of meat in one hand and a gigantic mixing bowl of rice in the other.

"I still can't believe you guys found a rice cooker in the wreckage, and got it to work." Yang nudged Neptune as he overfilled their bowls, peering over his head to marvel at the respectably sized steaming appliance currently connected to his trident.

"Mm!" Ruby voiced agreement through a mouthful of food. She swallowed and craned her neck to see how the thing was connected to his weapon, "did you have to use a power adapter to make it run?"

Neptune nodded, looking extremely pleased with himself. "It originally ran on small specially manufactured red dust batteries, so it took a bit of reworking to get it to run off of electricity, most of which involved designing a converter-"

Even though Ruby seemed absolutely riveted by the complex explanation, Yang tuned Neptune out by the first word - not for lack of interest, but more out of a desire to keep an eye on the people around her.

Outof everyone present, it was Blake, sitting peacefully with Robin in her lap, who looked the most at home... which, she guessed made sense considering her entire life before Beacon. Going off of all the little details her partner had gifted her over the years, it made sense that Blake was already more than used to living this way. Tents, hunts, cookouts, lookout shifts for Grimm, the whole nine yards...

Speaking of which, Yang could just barely make out Yatsuhashi and Fox up on the rim of the coliseum, both having taken heaping bowls of food with them on watch.

Ruby seemed worlds better already, but Yang couldn't help noticing how Weiss seemed... off. Not that she could put a finger on exactly how or why. She wasn't the only one, either. Pyrrha also seemed off, her head bowed slightly as she spaced out next to Sage, Ren, and Nora, the latter of which was currently pestering Qrow with questions.

Thankfully, there was still no sign of Neo.

"She bridged from a Grimm?" Nora gaped at Qrow and looked across the fire at Weiss in awe and horror. The heiress ignored her and continued resolutely scraping the sides of her bowl clean with her spoon. "A Grimm that was still alive? And that had part of Ruby's soul in it? And Ruby almost died?"

"Whoa, yeah, okay," Qrow put a hand on Nora's face and pushed her gently back to normal speaking distance, "I was going to put this off till after dinner, but hey, since you're all here."

He braced his hands on his knees and stood up, a little stiff with the cold, as the others quieted down. Qrow looked them over, the whole ragged bunch in the light of the flames. His niece's eyes were curious silver again. Ugh, public speaking was never his thing. He ran his hand through his hair, resting the other on his belt at his hip.

"Look, none of you are pushovers. You've survived all this and if you're lucky you'll have half a chance of living normal lives before anything gets really crazy," he shrugged, "not great odds considering, but still. So you ought to know a little more about aura healing than what I bet Oz told you down in that vault."

"Vault?" Ruby lowered her spoon an inch.

Weiss gave a tired half-toss of her hair at Ruby's ignorance, her hands cradling the residual heat of the bowl in her lap, "The special cases ward. Under the school."

Suddenly Ruby remembered. She remembered lying on what might have been a cold, metal examination table but for the carpet of her red rose petals beneath her. Weiss held her hand to try the aura thing and Ozpin stood over them for... some reason. There hadn't been any nurses or anything, just him and Weiss.

Yang's thoughts turned to a similar place. Barricaded in a room far beneath the school, Goodwitch standing outside like a sentry. Sitting on the bare floor as her semblance raged in a fit of flame so fierce that anything in the room with her had either melted or turned to ash. Everything but Blake...

"All Ozpin and Oobleck really told us was that it was an old, forgotten technique," Blake spoke up, arching a skeptical brow at Qrow.

"And that we should try to only use it as a last resort," Yang added with a shrug.

"They mentioned the whole dying thing too right?" Qrow crossed his arms, pacing to the edge of the fire to warm up. He gave Ruby a look, "Probably they skipped the part where you might leave a piece of your soul in someone- or apparently some thing- else, depending."

Ruby turned red and shrank into her cape. Yeah, aura healing Drei hadn't gone very well that last time. She knew he was gone, but she tried not to think of what had happened to him exactly.

"It was mentioned that we might perish, as the ones infected with Grimm toxins," Ren spoke up, putting a hand to his chest, "and that those aiding us were at risk of becoming infected as well..."

"Nothing about leaving bits of yourself behind though," Yang added, throwing an arm around Ruby's shoulders and giving her arm a conciliatory pat.

"Okay, gross," Qrow frowned and went for his flask. There was something about the word 'bits'. "Just... don't do it if you can avoid it. Unless you want to risk swapping bodies or getting stuck, or who knows. Mixing semblances. Whatever."

He returned to his seat at the edge of the fire.

Weiss wasn't in the mood to deal with this sort of half-baked after-the-fact explanation. She deposited her bowl on the bench and got up, "I'm going back to the tent."

"Weiss," Ruby turned in her seat, but didn't get up as her partner stalked off. She'd messed up big time, losing some of her soul. To get it back, Drei… well, he was gone. Probably Weiss was mad about that too- Ruby had seen her fawn over him when she thought no one was looking more than once. A fist-sized rock settled in her stomach. She looked back at her uncle, "... we didn't get stuck or anything, though, so it's okay, right?"

Across the way, her uncle shrugged, "All I'm saying is there's a reason huntsmen and huntresses quit teaching aura healing."

"And you know about all of this... how, exactly?" Yang tilted her head at her uncle, a grin slowly spreading across her face, "What, did you and dad swap bodies for a day?"

"Sure, joke about it," Qrow fixed his gaze on Yang and jabbed his thumb at his chest, "I never share auras, and you should follow my lead. Especially after what almost happened to your sister."

Nora broke in with a smoothing double-hand motion, "I mean, that was kind of bad, but what about all the other times when it works? It doesn't seem like such a big deal if you're careful."

"Oh yeah, it's only your soul on the line," sarcasm dripped off Qrow's words and he lifted his flask to his mouth, "'Just be careful'."

"Maybe we can finish talking about this tomorrow?" Ruby grimaced, "It's been... kind of a long day," she gestured between herself and Yang and Blake, "At least, for us, right?"

As Yang nodded in agreement, Blake frowned in thought, amber eyes drifting from the sky, with the sun just passing its highest point, down to their ragtag group. She... honestly wasn't that tired. Hunting down a meal, tracking a Grimm, cooking - it felt like a regular day outside the city walls.

Everyone else seemed at least somewhat placated by the hearty meal, but it was hard to miss the bags under Ruby's eyes, or Yang's faltering grin, Neptune and Sage's thinly veiled exhaustion, Pyrrha's complete absence from the conversations going on around her... At the very least, Ren seemed fine, and the only one harboring more energy than Nora was the little Faunus making short work of any remaining food within her reach. "Tomorrow sounds good," Blake said simply, gently combing her fingers through Robin's hair.

Yang set aside her bowl of thirds. Suddenly she didn't feel quite as hungry. "I guess we should check on Weiss. Make sure she's not shedding rose petals," she nudged Ruby, flashing a smile that didn't quite mask her genuine concern.

Ruby sagged against her sister in relief that everyone was going to stop arguing. "That's a good idea," she mustered a half-smile, rubbing the back of her neck, "She'll be even more mad at me if that happens."

People didn't really mix semblances, though, did they? She couldn't remember any stories about it. Either way, as she got up something about the cold and the campfire, and maybe the pepper on the venison, combined, and she gave a short, sharp sneeze and subsequently wiped her nose, "Ugh."

"Ugh," Weiss searched her coat pocket for her handkerchief. With her free hand, she activated Myrtenaster enough to light the inside of the supply tent with a pale blue glow. The interior looked like, well, like a hurricane had come through. After someone had located the tent itself, the boys had shoveled the rest of the supplies in. Fortunately they'd had brains enough between them to put the blankets and sleeping bags they recovered on top of everything else.

Of course, she could have slept in the medical tent, like they'd done that afternoon, but this promised a touch more privacy and Weiss was feeling far from social. She shoved some boxes out of the way to make space to lay out one of the balled up sleeping bags.

The campfire quieted down after RBY took Robin and left for the storage tent. Ren was the first to stand, offering a hand to Neptune and Sage with cleanup and food storage. Pyrrha stayed put, her eyes trained on the ground as the others milled about doing useful things, silent even as someone gently lifted her empty bowl from her hands. It was a solid hand on her shoulder that finally pulled her to the present. Pyrrha looked up to find Ren watching her with a worry-tinged smile.

"Nora and I will take the overnight watch." His tone was as gentle as his touch, but his words left no room for argument. "You should get some sleep."

Pyrrha nodded, idly rubbing the metal covering her arms. "I will." As Ren turned to leave the camp, she looked around, finding the sun already setting over the edge of the coliseum, broken rays of fading light sweeping across the mess her storm had created.

Reluctantly, she looked to the only other person who remained sitting around the fireside.

"...Qrow," she called, dodging his gaze at the last second by looking to the battered medical tent. Jaune was still in there, as he had been ever since attempting the very thing Qrow seemed so dead set against. Pyrrha folded her arms, ignoring the dull ache in her back. "About aura healing..." green eyes tentatively met red, "Just how dangerous is it?"

The fire crackled. It had burned down quite a bit, and the shadows cast by the low, flickering flames stretched out behind them, blending into the darkness.

"You're from Mistral, right?" Qrow asked after a time. He tilted his flask, giving it a wry look. "Ever hear of a place called Shiragiku?" At Pyrrha's silence, he shrugged, "Not the catchiest name. Plus it got wiped out about a century and a half ago."

Pyrrha remained silent a little longer, waiting to see if he would continue. When he didn't she sighed and folded her arms. "Shiragiku, the city lost to sorrow," she watched the licks of flame dancing just above the glowing wood, wondering how many times this particular myth had been shared over a campfire just like this one.

"The legend goes that long ago, before the great war, before the four kingdoms were even established, there was a beautiful, peaceful city called Shiragiku. It's said that a great healer lived there, one so skilled in the medicinal arts that even the injured from neighboring towns were brought to him from time to time. But... even his unmatched skills had a limit. The only person he was unable to help was his own son, who had been sickly since birth. When his son died, they buried him in a nearby field of white flowers, and the father, so stricken with grief, refused to leave his grave. For three days, the man sat in the field of flowers and wept, and on the third night, his grief had grown so powerful it summoned a lone Grimm, one so vicious and powerful that it killed the man and everyone the entire city."

Any Mistralian child who had ever been to a funeral knew the tale. "It's why those white flowers, named shiragiku after the city, are used in our cremation rituals. The blossom is meant to represent the grief of those who cared for the departed, and burning it along with the body ensures that only happy memories remain, granting protection from the Grimm in times of loss." Wrapping her arms a little tighter around herself, Pyrrha looked to Qrow. Some of the dots were starting to connect, but she couldn't quite make out the full picture. "I assume this is another one of those legends that actually happened? Like the Maidens?"

Qrow gave a short laugh and took a slow breath in through his teeth. The Mistral champion knew her stuff. "Not quite like the maidens."

Before Pyrrha could speak again, he continued, "The city got wiped out, alright, but not by some super-powered Grimm. Sounds like your version's still got the guy as a top-notch healer. That was right too," Qrow reached and picked up a broken chair leg from the pile of debris to add to the fire, "Want to guess how he was so good?"

Another dot connected. "He... used aura healing?"

"He lived aura healing. Used it to heal scrapes, deliver newborns, pretty much anything you could think of. And he taught it to anyone who would sit still long enough to learn," Qrow threw the chair leg on the fire."That whole town had strong aura links, at least all of its Huntsmen and Huntresses did. When the link is strong enough and the one you're linked to gets killed..." he shrugged and settled his elbows on his knees, slouching forward in the warmth of the fire. "It's like tripping a breaker switch. Everything running on that circuit just cuts off, easy as turning out a light."

Pyrrha squinted at him, trying to follow his explanation to its logical conclusion. "So you're telling me that... the Grimm killing that man... killed everyone he was connected to as well? Instantly?"

"The ones with a strong enough connection, yeah," Qrow watched the embers at the edge of the fire. They flickered, red slowly fading to black. "and anyone connected to the ones connected to him. With a weaker link, I dunno. Probably they felt it and lived at least long enough for more Grimm to get there after most of the town dropped."

For a while there was no sound but the low crackle of the embers and the dull shift of Pyrrha's hands idly rubbing over her reformed gauntlets. Her arms ached. She had the full picture more or less... and it didn't help at all. Sharing auras led to connections which led to shared experience of injury and potentially even death... It was all very useful information, and likely very pertinent to Ruby and Weiss... but none of it explained why Jaune wouldn't wake, or why she couldn't reach him, so Pyrrha felt her interest in the subject dying out as quickly as the campfire. Though, there was one thing she was still curious about. "How do you know about all of this, anyway?" she asked, arching a brow at the older huntsman. The most logical guess would be... "Ozpin?"

"You need to ask?" Qrow raised an eyebrow. He looked back at the fire a moment and then braced a hand on his knee and stood. "You should get some shuteye. No offense, but you look like you could use it."

"I could say the same to you," Pyrrha said as she stood as well, trying to stretch the ache from her spine. She didn't move though, still unsatisfied with her lack of answers. "I did have one last question though." She paused, continuing when no objection came, "Have you..." her eyes flicked to the medical tent, "Have you ever heard... of aura healing putting someone to sleep?"

Qrow adjusted one of the clasps of his cloak and gave her a confused frown, "You got insomnia or something? Alcohol is my drug of choice, but that's not exactly doctor recommended."

Pyrrha shook her head, "It's not me..." she looked to the medical tent.

Qrow followed her gaze and gestured with his flask, "Your boyfriend tried to aura heal someone? And he didn't wake up."

Pyrrha didn't bother correcting Qrow's unwarranted assumptions, the small blip of irritation barely registering on her radar. It couldn't get to her, not when the entirety of her focus was pinpointed on helping Jaune recover - even if it meant dealing with this supremely abrasive old hunstman. "Jaune... tried to heal me."

"... did it work?" Qrow hadn't forgotten the way she's started freezing over earlier. That could have been some side effect of her newfound powers, of course. He was no expert, though.

Pyrrha folded her arms across her stomach and said nothing for a long while, staring off into space as she ran idle fingertips over the lumps and imperfections in her makeshift bracers. "...Does it matter?" She answered at length.

"Maybe," Qrow tucked his flask away, grave with the thought that Pyrrha might be aura linked to the kid. Her aura was messed up enough as it was, what with Amber and all. "Look, I'm not exactly an expert, but if you tell me what you know, I'll tell you what I know."

Pyrrha's lips pursed in thought. After yet another moment's pause, she sighed through her nose. "All right." Unfolding her arms, she passed Qrow on her way to the medical tent's entrance. "Come with me."

"Wait," Qrow said without moving from his place near the fire. He waited till he had Pyrrha's attention. "I'll tell you what I know, but I have one condition."

Pyrrha eyed him warily, but nodded for him to continue.

"Think about what I said this morning," Qrow jerked his chin up towards the top of the arena wall, as if to remind her of where he'd said it. "You need to get out of here. Soon."

Frowning, Pyrrha looked away, but offered at least a side glance back in his direction as she lifted the tent flap. "I'll... I'll do what I can."

"Seriously. You have no idea what's coming," Qrow had intended to try to press the point, but the stars blacked out and a rush of air swept his cloak up into his face. A feral roar echoed across the vast forestland. He fought the cloak down as the stars reappeared and the sound faded into the night. "... well, you have some idea."

Silent as the shadow cast by the hand soundlessly moving the tent flap aside, a pair of bright amber eyes loomed just outside, peering into the tent and watching Weiss work for a moment. A low voice whispered nearby, "Is the coast clear?"

"Yes," came the normal-volume deadpan reply that could only belong to Blake.

If the tent had a door, Yang would have kicked it down. "Hey Weiss!" she jumped past Blake through the entrance, Robin riding her shoulders like the world's smallest jockey atop the world's doofiest horse, "I hope you made room for the rest of us!"

"Yang," Weiss half greeted, half seethed in the icy blue light. She had just laid out her sleeping bag and now Yang was standing on it.

Ruby saw her partner's hackles rising and steered Yang to a stack of boxes, "We'll help!"

She plucked Robin from her sister's shoulders and, before she could squirm too much, passed the little Faunus to Blake.

"Yeah! Blake will help!" Yang volunteered her partner's services as she grasped one of Ruby's hands and dragged her right back outside. "I just, uh, gotta talk to Ruby for a second..."

Blake stared after them, shared a look with Weiss, then shrugged and set about helping to prepare a place to sleep.

Once they were out of human and Faunus earshot, Yang finally released her squirming sister. "Ruby..." she glanced around, making a quick sweep of the surrounding area - they seemed to be alone, "There's something I gotta tell you."

"Ack, Yang," Ruby found her footing and caught her balance. She blew a strand of her hair out of her face as she registered what her sister had said and saw the earnest way she was looking at her, "Oh, uh, what is it?"

Yang ran her fingers through her hair, "Well, I didn't want to mention this around the little one, but..." she leaned forward, placing a hand on Ruby's shoulder and speaking in a low conspiratorial whisper, "That psychopath Neo is here. In this camp."

"Neo?" Ruby leaned into Yang's touch a little. She had to think way back- it felt like way back, anyway- to remember the girl with the parasol Yang had talked about fighting. Ruby had seen her with Torchwick when they fought their first Paladin under the roar of traffic on the supported highways in downtown Vale, and Yang had given them all the scoop after the girl turned out to be some kind of crazy fighter.

It was a lot easier then. Bad things happened- Weiss apparently almost got cut in half with a chainsaw on that ride, and then they crashed into Vale and a bunch of Grimm poured in. That was bad. But after the bad things, they went back to their dorm and to class and Professor Ozpin gave speeches and drank coffee and Professor Goodwitch cleaned up after them.

Now that didn't happen. It couldn't happen. Were their professors still alive, even? The weight of everything that had happened since they left on their mission seemed to weigh on her shoulders, heavier and heavier, and that dream she'd had... the one with the woman with red eyes. The food she'd just eaten felt like a rock in her stomach. Ruby swallowed and tried to stay on track, but she couldn't hold Yang's gaze and her words came out in a thick mumble, "What was she doing?"

The gradual slump in Ruby's posture did not go unnoticed. Yang grabbed both of her sister's shoulders and gave them a warm squeeze. "I mean, it's fine, she didn't attack anyone, just that Grimm. And if she shows up again or tries anything it won't be one on one this time," her teeth showed in a confident grin, "Blake saw her too. She was gone by the time Weiss showed up to... to bring you back..." Shaking her head, Yang pulled Ruby into a tight hug. "Don't worry about it though. I'm just glad you're back in one piece."

Ruby buried her hands in the hem of her sister's short sleeved jacket and hung on. Yang was warm and real, and she didn't want her to ever let go. Ruby swallowed again a couple of times to try to keep the tears back. When that failed, she ducked against Yang's shoulder, gripping her jacket harder and choking out, "I'm glad too."

"You could have just slept in the medical tent, you know," Weiss brushed dirt off of her sleeping bag while Blake moved more boxes.

Blake stared off into space for a few seconds before shaking her head. "I would rather give Pyrrha her space."

Weiss huffed. Pyrrha's space. She needed space, and now her teammates plus Robin were all going to come piling into this cluttered space to sleep. Not that she didn't appreciate her team's concern, just she was exhausted and Ruby and Yang were outside talking about who knew what and it would take time to make enough room for them once they were finished...

Something dripped on the back of her hand. Weiss frowned at the droplet and rubbed her eye. It came away wet, and something dripped off her chin. Bewildered, she brushed her free hand across her other eye.

With a nice bit of space now cleared of boxes, Blake turned to Weiss... and stopped short. Tears were pouring down the heiress's face in earnest. "Weiss?..." It looked as though the stress of the day's events was finally taking its toll on her. Blake took a cautious step towards her, not touching, but close enough that she would be within reach if needed. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" Weiss turned, hiding her face and fumbling for a handkerchief from her coat pocket as she stood and re-established the distance between herself and Blake. The tears kept coming even after she wiped the initial ones away. She wasn't even upset- at least she wasn't before these tears she couldn't control. She stared in confusion at her damp kerchief as more tears dripped down her chin. "What's happening?"

Blake held her hands up, "Why are you asking me?" Her Faunus ears half-flattened in concern. Weiss had taken a pretty heavy spill after acting as a conduit for Ruby... "Are you hurt somewhere?"

"You think I wouldn't know?" Weiss rounded on Blake, bristling to hide the little pinpricks of panic that slipped into her words.

Those bristles had stopped impressing Blake by the fiftieth time Weiss had used them on her. She didn't try to move closer again, but she crossed her arms, giving Weiss an empathetic frown that still managed to somehow leave no room for nonsense. "This has been an extremely trying couple of days... maybe it's stress?" Even as she spoke, her Faunus ears twisted towards a new sound, more crying, footsteps headed their way.

The tent flap swished open, held open by Yang as she led Ruby back inside. Yang was watery-eyed herself, but Ruby looked almost as distraught as Weiss...

Eyes narrowing in suspicion, Blake looked between the two tearful partners.

"Weiss!" Ruby had mostly cried herself out with Yang. They hadn't really talked, but just being with her and... well... it had helped, sort of, but she had felt strangely anxious. Now it looked like Weiss was crying too, and Weiss never cried. Not usually, anyway. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and hurried to her partner's side, hands hovering but not touching, "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Nothing happened!" the heiress snapped harsh enough for Ruby to back off. She scrubbed her eyes again, "and I am NOT stressed. I just don't know why this won't stop!"

With a quick swipe at her own still-drying eyes, Yang immediately went to the distressed heiress in her sister's stead. "Weiss, hey, it's okay," she took hold of Weiss's cool hands in her own, lending a bit of warmth, "we're all a bit tired, right?"

"Don't touch me!" Weiss's pitch rose in frustration as she snatched her hands away, "Yes, I'm tired, but that has nothing to do with- with this!" she half gestured to her face, but already something had changed. Turning partly away from Yang, she rubbed her eyes again.

Ruby watched her partner stare at her hand in consternation. She hazarded, "... Weiss?"

"Don't touch me." The heiress dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief again, not quite believing that the tears had just... stopped.

Blake's eyes narrowed further, still bouncing between Ruby and Weiss. "Ruby," she said at length, stepping close enough to tap her shoulder, "would you mind if I tested a theory?"

All Ruby could think about was how to fix whatever had made Weiss so upset- hugging Yang had made her feel better (even though she still probably needed to talk about it), but that wouldn't make Weiss feel better right now. She could still see the damp spots on her jacket sleeve from her tears. They showed dark in the pale blue light. Was she tired? Was it something after the whole aura healing thing? Was it just... everything that had happened? She darted a startled look at Blake when she tapped her, "Oh, uh, sure? A theory? Is it something to help?"

"...Maybe," Blake said, gently taking one of Ruby's hands in her own. Without warning she swiftly wrenched Ruby's arm into a tight lock behind her back, cranking it to the point of fairly severe pain, but just shy of the point of injury.

"What-ouch, ouch!" Ruby yelped, hitting Blake on the leg reflexively to tap out. At the same time, Weiss jumped as if stung, her arm jerking to her side and making a fist where Myrtenaster's handle usually rested.

"What's wrong with you?!" she grabbed Blake's wrist and shoulder and get her to let go of Ruby.

"Sorry," Blake released Ruby and stepped back.

Yang practically flew to her sister's side and pulled her into a protective hug, "Um, what the heck Blake?"

Blake raised a hand in apology, but addressed Weiss, "Did you feel anything?"

"Aside from a sudden urge to throw you all out of the tent?" Weiss growled, unconsciously rubbing her arm.

"Ugh, okay, get off," Ruby shook her arm out, squirming out of Yang's hug, her silver eyes darting between Weiss and Blake, "Wait, was that part of the theory?"

Blake frowned at Weiss's supremely unhelpful sass, answering Ruby instead. "I may be putting too much stock into your uncle's tall tales..."

There was a beat of silence.

"... about the aura healing?" Ruby ventured with some hesitation, as that was the only tall tale she knew of Blake hearing. Her elbow was still a little sore, and she rubbed it to try to loosen it up.

Weiss darted a glance at her partner and dropped her hand away from her arm.

A single golden brown arched at Weiss. "Tall tale is a little bit harsh," Yang's shoulders brief ly lifted with her tone as she looked to Blake, "As much as I rag on the old man, Uncle Qrow is usually pretty straight with us when it comes to the serious stuff..." She eyed Ruby, then Weiss.

After a small hum of thought, Yang launched a surprise tickle attack on her little sister.

Ruby was no stranger to tickle attacks and had just been attacked by Blake thirty seconds ago, but all she managed to do to try to avoid it in the cramped tent was yelp and throw herself backwards into a stack of boxes as Yang tackled her and started tickling.

She didn't notice Weiss shriek and jump like she'd been shocked, but she did notice the sharp sound of her glyphs- a dark circle bloomed beneath her and Yang and the next thing she knew they were hitting the cold dirt in the dark outside the tent. Boxes tumbled around them and Ruby pushed herself up from where she'd landed on top of her sister, "Yang, why did- you're not-" she struggled to get her cloak back behind her instead of flipped up over her head, "You're not helping! At /all/."

"Get out!" came Weiss's yelling from inside the tent. Presumably the yelling was directed at Blake, since Ruby and Yang were lying on the ground. "Get out right now or I swear, Blake-!"

"Or what, Weiss?" Blake's voice was a bit softer but carried just as forcefully. The Faunus stood her ground a few steps from the tent opening the sisters had just flown through, though she did take a split second to glance over and see them piled in a relatively unharmed heap before the flap fell shut again. As she eyed Weiss in what felt like a stare-down, Blake felt Robin cling to the back of her leg. Sighing, Blake placed a hand on the little girl's head. "You felt it," she said to Weiss, her Faunus ears half-flattening in concern, "didn't you?"

In the frosty blue lighting it was difficult to tell whether the heiress was paler than usual. Her gaze flickered to the child clinging to Blake's leg and back, wavering. She didn't know what she'd felt, and not having any control over it was terrifying.

Her fear was palpable, but Blake had no idea how to console her. She didn't even really know what exactly was happening, she just had hunches. Not that she had gone about investigating those hunches very well. Blake's ears flattened further with embarrassment - why hadn't she thought of a more harmless method like tickles? "I... promise not to attack Ruby again... if that helps."

By the end of Blake's offer, Weiss had her mask back in place. She met Blake's gaze and her voice came out schooled and even, though she didn't quite unclench her fists. "Just get out so I can sleep."

Just as Blake was about to answer, Yang cautiously poked her head in the tent, a few bits of debris still sticking out of her dirt-smeared hair. "Aw c'mon Weiss, how are you supposed to sleep without the warm and comforting presence of your team?"

"Ugh! Fine," Weiss clearly wasn't going to be able to get them to leave, so she gave up, storming past Blake and shoving Yang and Ruby out of the way as she left the tent. "I'm going for a walk. Alone," she snapped when Ruby and Yang moved to join her. "Leave. Me. Alone."

Ruby grabbed Yang's arm, watching Weiss stalk off towards the fire. A lump lodged in her throat- she didn't want her partner to be alone, or mad. She tried to swallow, but she was annoyed and kind of mad herself at her team for doing... whatever they's just done. "I think... we should let her go for a little bit."

It was dark without the light from Weiss's sword.

Yang bit her lip. Her natural instinct was most definitely one that involved running after people and enveloping them in hugs... but also she trusted Ruby's judgement whenever it came to Weiss, so she held back, watching their icy teammate practically speed walk away from them.

"I could track her," Blake offered once the heiress was out of earshot. Amber eyes cut in a diagonal glance towards Ruby. "She would never know."

Ruby returned the glance, her hands still buried in Yang's sleeve. Her eyes were still adjusting to the dark. She took a deep breath. "Yeah... actually, let's have a three-quarters team meeting in the tent."

She needed to know what was going on, what Blake thought was going on, and why Weiss had been crying before. Most likely Weiss would stay in camp- they could check on her after Ruby was on the same page as everyone else.

Weiss pushed open the flap of the medical tent and strode inside. It was quiet in the way rooms are quiet when someone's asleep in them- all stillness and soft breathing. Someone snored a little- maybe Sage or Yatsuhashi, from the size of the person under the blankets near the tent wall. A small Dust lamp gave off a soft orange glow over near Jaune's cot. Pyrrha and Ruby's Uncle glanced at her when she entered, and she glared at them briefly on her way to the stack of blankets. She availed herself of a couple of them and bundled up to sleep on the cot Ruby and Yang had used earlier in the day.

Qrow watched the heiress make a blanket nest on one of the cots and settle in. Brow raised, he turned back to Pyrrha, "Yeah, I've never heard of one person waking up and the other staying down- well, staying down in a 'still alive' way-but the whole aura sharing thing isn't exactly a normal situation. You have any weird dreams, or anything?"

Pyrrha watched Weiss a moment longer, her lips just shy of quirking into a smile. Even in conditions that must have seemed barely better than homelessness to a girl of her upbringing and social standing, the heiress looked so comfortable buried in all those blankets... enough that the slightest bit of envy stirred in Pyrrha's heart.

"I actually... haven't been sleeping well," she admitted quietly, finally meeting Qrow's gaze. He was one of the small handful of people actually taller than herself, but with the way he slouched they ended up just about even in height. It gave her an excuse to slouch a bit herself. "At all."

Qrow kept his voice down as he leaned on the blonde kid's cot. "... is that unusual?"

Personally, he could sleep just about anywhere. He had a hair trigger wake-up, but generally after a hard day he didn't have much trouble going to sleep. From the way the Schnee heiress had dropped, it looked like she was in the same boat, or she was good at faking. Either way.

"It is," Pyrrha's hands closed into a fists of their own volition. She wasn't fond of people coming near Jaune while he was in this state. But, she was the one who brought Qrow in the first place, and in the interests of honesty and finding potential answers... "I used to sleep very well. But ever since..." her arms crossed reflexively over her stomach, "ever since becoming a maiden, sleep has evaded me," she attempted to smile, but it came out looking broken, "Ren says it's stress."

"Could be," Qrow allowed. If she was one of his nieces, he might have put an arm around her, but he doubted she'd appreciate the gesture. "Now, when you say 'evaded', do you mean you haven't slept period?"

"I can sleep a little bit," Pyrrha almost sounded defensive, a bright spark in her eyes as she squinted at Qrow, "I've... gotten close to an entire hour. On occasion. ... Well, once." Pyrrha's gaze drifted lower and lower with each word, until it rested squarely on the ground, "It's... usually only for a few minutes at a time."

Qrow went still, his interest sharpened. "A few minutes at a time for the past, what? Three and a half weeks?"

It had to have something to do with Amber. He ran his hand over his face. Ironwood had sure messed this one up. Without any of his fancy Atlas tech, they couldn't even run tests on her to see what was the matter.

Worse, she was messed up when she needed to move. What had happened in the confusion of Beacon's fall was bound to have made its way back to certain channels, and it wouldn't be long before Pyrrha had more than a major case of insomnia to worry about.

"I'll see what I can figure out. In the meantime if you can't sleep, how about finding a way to get your crew packed up for a trip. "

Pyrrha shook her head. She knew they would have to leave Beacon's ruins eventually, their food stores wouldn't last forever, but with that monster in the skies swatting down whatever airship came their way, that left land and sea, and as the only boats in the area were shipwrecks... "What am I supposed to do about Jaune?" Pyrrha could scarcely imagine safely carrying his comatose body across the continent. Was it even safe for him to be moved? For that matter... Pyrrha's voice dropped a few notches, "What do we do about Sun?"

Qrow searched her expression. Dust, she was so young- just a couple of years older than Ruby. All the exhaustion and fear she'd been hiding from her classmates showed plain in her green eyes here in the half light of the Dust lamp. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his words low enough to not be overheard if anyone else in the tent was still awake, "The real question is what do we do about Salem."

Pyrrha finally dragged her gaze up from the ground, fixing Qrow with a resigned questioning look.

Qrow watched her for any flicker of recognition. Any at all. He didn't see one. Shrugging, he gave a rueful chuckle, "Bad time for a joke, huh. Like you need anything else on your plate. Look, you worry about getting ready to move fast, I'll worry about whoever's gotta stay here. I know a guy, more than likely his place is safe. Not quite safe enough for a maiden, at least not long term, but he's pretty close by and probably wouldn't mind helping out with something like this."

He nodded to Jaune, who remained still on the cot under the blankets.

Pyrrha followed Qrow's gaze to her partner. Jaune... how much longer could he last like this... She almost reached for his face, but she didn't dare, resting a hand on his chest instead. It rose and fell painfully slowly. She nodded in agreement.

Qrow watched her for a second. How much of her was the Mistral Champion and how much of her was Amber? He pushed off the cot, "See you in the morning."

"Sleep well," she replied without really looking.

Team RWBY minus Weiss sat on the pile of blankets the currently-absent heiress had put together.

Yang squinted in the darkness at what was probably Ruby beside her, and Blake on Ruby's other side. Hopefully, the dark lump in Blake's lap was Robin. "So, what's this three-quarters team meeting about?"

"Probably our missing fourth quarter," Blake ventured a guess.

Ruby held up her index finger because Blake was mostly correct. "Question one: did something happen before we came in? I mean, she... doesn't usually cry like that."

Then again, neither of them usually did crazy aura healing stuff and nightmare dreamscape things either. Still, she couldn't remember ever seeing Weiss cry so… well, she couldn't quite say 'earnestly' when the fencer had denied it the whole time. Tears, snot, the whole deal, though. Ruby cried that way when things got to be too much, and today had definitely been too much, but she'd never seen it be too much for Weiss too. At least not too much for her to pull herself together after a couple of sniffles. That in itself was almost scarier than halfway losing her soul.

Blake loosely crossed her arms around Robin, who was a curled up bundle in her lap sleepily placing a collection of rocks and odd bits of metal and plastic one at a time into her pockets. "Nothing seemed amiss. We were simply cleaning up the space in order to sleep."

"Okay but how far before are we talking?" Yang rested her hands on her knees and leaned forward a bit. "Because back this morning when you... y'know... collapsed," she nudged Ruby gently, "Weiss was trying to aura heal you and she kind of... dropped out for a little while." Yang's hands curled into loose fists as she watched her sister, those silver eyes reflecting what little moonlight slipped through the tent flap. "When she woke up she started flipping out about - I don't even know - she said something was in you?"

Red eyes. Black veins. Ruby paled at the memory. I see... one of mine. She darted her gaze away from her sister, "I... uh... in me? Like, she..." she had been telling herself it was a nightmare and it wouldn't come back, but now an icy feeling gripped her chest. Hadn't Weiss been in that nightmare, just for a second? It was all a little blurry. Her mouth was dry, and she tried to follow, "... did she say what it was?"

"She didn't," Yang's voice pitched low with worry, "She just said something was there and that you were hurt and... she was really keen on getting back to you."

Ruby fidgeted, plucking at the ragged cuff of her sleeve. Her question number two was going to be about why they'd twisted her arm and tickle attacked her in the tent, but now her stomach was twisting like it always did when she thought about her nightmares. Yang was looking at her like she wanted to know what had gone on, but it was easier to ignore them than to say anything about them. It wasn't like they were real, and she didn't have to be upset if they weren't real.

This one had been different, though. Different enough that maybe Blake and Yang needed to know about it. She shrank into her cloak, mumbling, "I did have... it was kind of a bad dream."

Yang's stomach twisted in kind. She and Ruby had helped each other through nightmares far more than once in the past... but it never got any easier to see her like this. Yang shifted closer to her sister, sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, and kept her voice even, "How bad are we talking?"

"Nothing really happened in it," Ruby choked out, burying her fists in the edge of her cloak and trying not to lean too much into Yang. "It was just... bad."

She managed to tell her and Blake a little about the fox-dog thing with its tails and red eyes, and how it turned into a woman. It sounded almost silly that it would have been a bad dream- nothing had happened, the fox-dog-lady hadn't even touched her- but the quicksand feeling of ice and dread still crept up on her, prowling like Grimm in the dark. In fact, as she spoke, she became increasingly aware that they were in a flimsy tent in the dark in the forest outside of the protection of Vale's walls. That same... had it been despair? It didn't smother her like it had in her dream. She gripped her fistfuls of cloak close to her chest just below her collar, putting pressure on a warmth that hadn't been there when she'd been lying in the snow in that dark wood.

"I think Weiss was there too," Ruby hunched her shoulders a little more, avoiding looking at her teammates, "For part of it anyway. I don't really remember."

Something about Ruby's description set Yang wholly on edge. Nothing about it felt right. Nothing about any of this felt right. Shaded memories of pitch black flames and burning red eyes clawed up the back of the brawler's mind. Dark tendrils encompassing her body... bony white erupting from her back...

After a spell of silence, Yang finally managed to form words. "Well… that explains why Weiss was in such a rush to get back to you..." She wrapped an arm around Ruby's waist, but didn't try to crush her into any sort of hug or anything. She just needed to know her little sister was solid, and real, and there with them. Anything to combat that shifting-sand sensation of everything good slipping away from her.

Yang's gaze shifted to Blake, who seemed to be lost in thought herself, one hand idly running through her small charge's hair. Amber met lilac over Ruby's bowed head.

Whether it was instinct, or some subconsciously interpreted silent request from her partner, Blake wasn't sure, but she reached around Ruby as well, making sure to rest her arm gently atop Yang's. Together, they quietly held their team leader between them.

They would give Weiss her space for now... and find her first thing in the morning.