Chapter 2: The First Few Days:

Solaris awoke, his mind temporarily confused by his surroundings. He rolled over in the bed…and remembered the rather embarrassing interruptions throughout the night as Yang twisted and turned in her sleep, occasionally knocking his head with her hands and at one point her foot. He wandered if she dreamed about fighting as much as she actually fought.

Solaris remembered the other interruption in the night, as he realised Yang had baited him into getting into this bed under the assumption she had donated it to him. He soon found out that she had been hiding in the covers to ambush him for a laugh, to see how he reacted. Internally, he was mildly annoyed at her, but externally, his long years of self-control managed to make him appear rather indifferent to the whole series of events, leaving the rest of the team to chalk it up to immature hijinks (Weiss), playful banter (Blake) or embarrassing sibling humour (Ruby). After Yang's laughter had died down, he decided not to go back on anything and maintained a side of the bed as his own…for one night only. Yang seemed to enjoy this greatly, though if it was just out of good natured humour or something…else, Solaris did not know.

Slowly lifting himself out of bed, he tip toed over the floor, not realising that the rest of his team probably did not deign to get up at…he looked at his watch…5:00 in the morning. No one except Blake, apparently, as he was about to open the bathroom door.

"If you're having a shower now, don't use all the hot water please" said the voice behind him. Solaris spun around in surprise, swinging his hand in a sudden twirling punch, which fell just short of Blake as she stepped back one. "You must really like your showers" she joked as he looked abashed at his rather aggressive hello.

"It comes from being the wild so long" He replied, trying to muster the grace to look ashamed.

Blake nodded, her eyes narrowing in query of this statement. "Exactly how long did you spend in the wild by yourself?" She asked.

Solaris thought about it briefly. "It must've been a bit over two years. I was found by a hunter and bought here only a few months ago, so I was alone there since…since I was about 15. Even before that, I was still in the wilds, just…not alone" He changed that all though. When he made me lose her. When he took her from me.

Saying none of that aloud, he gave Blake a sad little smile. "It wasn't the best period of my life, let's just say that. But I like life here better" to which Blake merely nodded, before returning to her bed to read. Solaris opened and closed the door behind him, before undressing to turn on the shower and prepare for the day.

Yang:

Yang awoke to the sound of hot water running and the infernal infiltration of sunlight through a crack in the curtains, which, naturally, was positioned just so that her face would be hit by the full force of this most hideous of morning interlopers. That, and noise.

Throwing her covers off her bed, she rolled inelegantly out of bed, hitting the floor with a soft "Thud", causing Blake to look down in concern over the side of her bed.

"Uh…are you alright?" she asked hesitantly, to which Yang replied in a voice which sounded something like a drunke Ursa after it had been hit on the head a few times, with a severe throat blockage to boot. Smiling ever so slightly at her teammates morning drowsiness, Blake returned to her book, as Yang stumbled to the bathroom, still clearing the sleep from her eyes. Blake paid her no heed until she remembered that Solaris was in the bathroom.

Opening the door, Yang didn't fully process that someone was in here until her sleep addled brain combined "Bathroom", "Shower" and "On" with "Person" and, after that, "Person" "In" "Here".

"Whoops, sorry, I didn't mean to-" she begun, until she finally realised who it was.

Solaris was just turning the shower off, and had managed (In a fit of super speed more naturally found in Ruby) to wrap a towel around his waist, covering down to just below his knees, but nothing else.

Yang looked at Solaris.

Solaris looked at Yang.

"Do I have to tell you for the second time that it is rude to stare?" he asked, but with a smile on his face and a slightly raised eyebrow in Yang's direction this time. Yang begun to blush profusely, before regaining her composure.

"Uh, well, you could always lock the bathroom" She snapped, resorting to anger over embarrassment before realising that this was not the right way to go. She thought Solaris was annoyed at her before he looked at the door with a great deal of interest.

"You can do that with these doors? Huh" he said, in a monotone voice as he looked at Yang sheepishly. "Well, that one might've been my fault I guess" he said, laughing it off and patting Yang on the shoulder. She privately rejoiced at his touch, but turned slightly sour when his dripping wet hand left a wet mark on her sleeping clothes.

"Solaris!" She gasped, slapping him playfully on the arm, which felt like iron.

Solaris looked at her in the eye with another sheepish look, which, for some reason, she found extremely endearing. However, this look was soon gone when they heard the excited chatter of someone outside the door.

"Yang? Are you in there? Helllooooo? Yang? Yangggggggg! I want to have a shower now" came a somewhat petulant voice that sounded as if the owner was trying to use a puppy dog look through a solid object to reach Yang. It was, no doubt, Ruby.

Solaris looked at Yang. "Do you want to explain how this happened?" He asked, raising the one eyebrow again. Yang looked hesitant before opening the door a crack and squeezing out. Yang looked at Ruby before smiling.

"Uh, not right now, little sis, Solaris is getting dressed. He forgot his clothes by the bed, so I went and gave them to him" She added, before Ruby could interject with some statement about Yang being creepy by going into a room with a guy getting changed in it. Yang didn't want to add any more fuel to the fire of Ruby and her remarks about Yang and guys.

A few moments later, Solaris came out in his uniform, his hair combed back and his blue eyes shining. He straightened his tie and fiddled with one of the silver plated gauntlets he kept under his uniform on his wrist.

"Morning Sol" Ruby said, ever so cheerfully as he walked over to where he put his bag last night. Yang sighed under her breathe. Ruby has already given him a nickname.

"Sol?" he questioned, looking quizzically at her. Ruby nodded vigorously. "Uh-huh. Nickname. Everyone has one. Besides, I am not saying Solaris all the time, it takes like 3 hours to say. Sol is easier. Makes more sense too. What does Solaris even mean?" she said, in one entire breathe. Solaris…no, Sol, Yang corrected mentally, looked as if he was about to short circuit. Yang was hoping he would do that Sheepish grin of his again, but no such luck.

"Right. Well. Solaris is an old name, and it means 'Sun', or 'Solar' depending on the translation used." He explained as Ruby ran into the bathroom. Yang looked over at him apologetically as he looked at her, which caused her to blush slightly at his regal expression. Yang kicked herself mentally. Keep it together, she scolded herself. You've only just met him.

Yang flopped back down on bed, and waited for the rest of her team to finish with the shower before going last. Well, not last. Weiss was still asleep, somehow, with a heavenly look of bliss on her face. As she showered, she could faintly hear Ruby talking to Sol about Dust knows what. Nothing could be certain with her, although she was willing to bet anything on the topic of discussion being weapons. As Yang finished her shower, fixed and prepared her hair (This was a lengthy pursuit indeed, a task of legend and herculean might to accomplish right) she dressed herself, fixed her hair again, and went to see what was being discussed. Sure enough, Blake was reading quietly, whilst Ruby was basically leaping up and down beside Sol as he regaled her with the explanations of his weapon, its design, components, ammunition, and alter form, as the boomerang.

"…the real issue I have been having is with the aerodynamic contours of the weapon getting damaged from the recoil of such high calibre explosive rounds. Slight adjustments in the weapons stabiliser to recalibrate the targeting system to accommodate for the contour displacement and wind resistance factors often delays the rate of fire or alters the spread of the gun, meaning that the weapons shot spread varies slightly with each round, say about a factor of 1.4%, from recent testing, but with a capacity of 30 in the internal magazine, the recoil often completely alters the trajectory of the gun, forcing me to rely upon my gravity manipulating semblance to guide it back to me"

Ruby absorbed this information as a sponge does water, and admired the somewhat easy way she could discuss things with him. Just at that moment, Ruby paused, which Yang knew was unusual-Ruby never paused in a lecture about weapons and armaments-to point at Weiss, frowning.

"She is still asleep!" She hissed at no one in particular, as if the concept of sleeping past 7:30 was something out of the minds of a crazed maniac, and this was some new and unsettling creation unleashed upon the world. Taking it upon herself to wake the sleeping Weiss with a high pitched whistle apparently procured from the depths of hell (for the team's ears, that is).

"What in the world is wrong with you?" Weiss spat as she fell from bed, her expression furious.

"We still need to unpack…"Blake said, tipping everything in her suitcase onto the floor, as Yang prefaced with "Decorating!" (One of her favourite things in the world aside from killing things, flirting with boys, killing things, sleeping, killing things, and eating)

"…And clean" Blake added as she stared nonchalantly at her stuff in a pile on the floor. This was then followed with the three excited girls (Yang, Ruby, and Blake) combining into the ultimate engine of decorating and refurbishing this side of Vale.

Solaris:

Looking at the girls as if his grip on the world of sanity had decided to abandon him post-haste, Solaris..or Sol, as he supposed he would be known from now on, begun to set up his sleeping area. His permanent sleeping area. Which was, for want of anything else, a hammock suspended from two portal collapsible poles he kept stored in his travelling bag, to provide a sleeping spot on any flat ground available, above whatever may lurk on the ground below in the night in the wild. Unless they happened to be Grimm. But Sol had long since devised ways to keep them away from him. Landmines, for instance.

Solaris set up the poles and hang the hammock between them, placing a blanket upon that and then two pillows in a haphazard fashion over that. He then set them up in his style. One on each side, and a third to hide a concealed weapon under the blankets in arms reach at all times. He also made sure that the hidden knife sheathe was open, placed horizontally behind the "headrest" of the pillow. You could never lack in weapons.

He then reached into his bag to pull out the major storage items containing nothing but…books. Piles upon piles of books, full of field notes, maps of the wild, notes on Grimm, and even more piles of adventures, fantasy, sci-fi, historical accounts, and some engineering books. He made great care to hide his prized series, "A Song of Dust and Fire" behind the others. No one was going to get their hands on that without noticing. He then looked around for a book case, and saw Blake stocking it up with her own books.

"Uh…Blake?" he called out over Yang's bed, kneeling beside his hammock on the other side of it, holding piles of books in either hand.

"Think you could make room for any of these?" he asked, smiling. Blake looked at him in confusion briefly, not understanding what, then saw the piles of books in his hands. The massive, overflowing crate of books behind him. The huge paperbacks, hardcovers binders and folders full of pages upon pages of blissful ink. She felt her draw drop to the floor as she saw everything that he had in his possession. Moving over to him with preternatural speed, she basically started salivating over the repository of books before her…all unread by her…unknown…untouched. She snapped out of it when she saw Solaris looking at her with the look a person might give a madman, but then it passed, as he leant in and whispered.

"I adore books. Every single one I found on my travels, I kept. Every book in a forgotten home in the wilds, every book in some ruin. Every book I could afford, I got. They kept me company for over two whole years, when there was nothing else to do so." He explained to her. Blake felt like there must've been love hearts in her eyes upon seeing this collection. She was about to reach to pick one up before she looked at him and asked permission. He nodded, and she eagerly begun looking through the piles. Books of fantasy, books of adventure, tales, poems, crime, drama, rank upon rank of the comedic fantasy series "Dustworld" even the odd romance, which she found highly amusing, but this was before she saw one book in particular, buried beneath the others, a book she could not believe she saw when she pulled it out. Could it be. Could it be? IT IS! She cried internally in joy and happiness. Before her she had found an original print first edition book one volume one of "Ninja's of love", one of the rarest books she could think off, with the author's signature on the front cover with a personalized message. It's been signed! Signed! Blake had to calm down to prevent a fangirling induced heart attack.

She was so distracted that she didn't notice Solaris look over her shoulder at what she was so enraptured with.

"Oh" he said in a small voice, seeing the book. "That. I found that in an abandoned bookstore, in a town left to the Grimm. The owner must've been a collector of old or valuable books. I've glanced through the series-" The whole lot, he added internally, but she doesn't need to know that. "I suppose you can have it. Consider it a team gift." He said, not wanting to seem like it was her specifically he was being generous too. Blake nodded slowly, blushing profusely at such a valuable gift, in her mind. She leaned in and whispered to him in his ear-"I own the whole series. Maybe we should…read it sometime. Together" She added, winking. Solaris cleared his throat and was about to respond when Yang, seeing, at first glance, what appeared to be flirting between the two, decided to burst in a separate the two from each other, and get Solaris closer to her and further from Blake.

"Howdy folks!" she shouted cheerfully, moving between the two of them and not-so-subtly using her chest to corral Sol away from Blake and nearer his hammock. "How's it going?"

Solaris sighed as Blake wandered off, to hide her book(s) and, Sol thought, a subtle blush on her cheeks.

"So, uh, decorating over yet?" Solaris asked her, looking around at the room, which appeared to have become subject to a low yield nuclear device when he had his back turned. Beds were piled on top of each other, pictures adorned the wall, shelves and closets had won a war of supremacy with the wall and chairs and desks were engaged in a similar conflict with the beds and floor.

"This…isn't going to work" Weiss said, frowning.

"I don't see a way either" Solaris agreed, joining the girls in examining the room.

"We could ditch some of our stuff…or the beds…and *GASP* REPLACE THEM WITH BUNK BEDS!" Said an ecstatic Ruby, and after that, no amount of complaints from Weiss could deter her, and Yang and Blake joined in. Weiss looked at Solaris.

"Aren't you going to say something?" She snapped at him.

"Not my problem. I'm not sleeping in these beds" he said to Weiss, holding her gaze as she fixed him with a chilling stare.

"I think we should put it to a vote" she finished, breaking off from the stare.

"I think we just did" Blake retorted, and then they charged past Solaris and begun building with such vigour that made him wander why they hadn't raised a fortress of evil from which to rule their kingdoms. This feeling was gone when he saw Ruby use gravity defying ropes to support her bed in the air, and Blake used some hefty hardbacks to support hers. These paperbacks must be her least favourite books, he reasoned.

After this building frenzy, he sat in his hammock and looked at them all closely. This was going to be an interesting year, he thought, as Ruby looked a timetable before being interrupted by Weiss.

"9:00? Did you say 9:00 o'clock? It's 8:55 you dunce!" she shouted at Ruby in regards to class. Solaris shot up.

"To the class mobile!" he said, standing up heroically and pointing a finger in the air as if he was a super hero. His antics went appreciated by Ruby and Yang, yet Blake just shook her head and Weiss looked at him like he was mad. She was beginning to think everyone in this room of hers was.

They all piled out of the door at once, past the JNPR dorm room, where the team was looking out the door in alarm as team RWBYS rushed to class, united in the face of the horrors of the timetable and tardiness.

Solaris smiled to himself as he ran with them. He was beginning to enjoy these people. One in particular.