Ruby watched as the people wandered the streets below her, completely unaware of the faunus girl watching them as she kicked her feet over the side of the roof that the young girl was sitting on, while her ears twitched atop her head from all of the sounds that permeated the busy city while she allowed her mind to wander away.
Of course Blake had been absolutely livid and worried after Ruby and Sun recounted their encounter at the Schnee manor, and had expressly forbidden the pair from ever returning to that place. Ruby knew most of the reason for the girl's harsh words at the time had been due to concern over the girl she saw as a little sister in all but blood, and not wanting anything bad to happen to her, but she still didn't enjoy being scolded by the cat faunus for doing something as stupid as sneaking onto the premises of the number one anti-faunus group in the city of Vale with Sun.
Though she felt bad about it, Sun had taken most of the brunt of Blake's anger by claiming that he had been the one to suggest checking out the manor when nothing of the sort was true, and Blake had understandably ordered him to do a few menial tasks around the nest in an attempt to teach him not to do it again, which would have been hilarious in any other situation because of the fact that Sun was actually older than Blake, therefore it probably should have been the other way around in the hierarchy around the nest, though Ruby wasn't complaining about the way things were.
Ruby's own punishment was much less severe with just a scolding to not do it again, and telling the girl not to leave the nest for a few days while the uproar died down from the white fangs attempts at assassinating the Schnee heiress. The good news was that Blake had no way of knowing that the two had gotten themselves involved in the situation, and they would most definitely take that information to their graves, if Blake had responded so badly to hearing about them going onto Schnee property in the first place.
Much as she would have preferred to be out running through the crowds and playing with some of the other orphaned kids that she sometimes ran into in the alleyways around the city, Ruby had too much respect for her older sister to disobey her orders like that, so she instead busied herself by "people watching" as some of the other faunus referred to it. While it wasn't quite as exciting as some of the things that the young wolf faunus could have been doing, she was able to pick up on a few interesting snippets of conversation thanks to her enhanced hearing, including a few things regarding the White Fang attack, which appeared to be the talk of the town and in all of the newspapers that the young girl had managed to scoop up from an older faunus in the nest earlier.
From what had leaked out, it appeared that the basis of the attack had been because of many faunus workers being killed in a reactor going critical in another city of remnant, and the White Fang were attempting to get revenge on the Schnee family for their part in the matter, even though Ruby felt their only contribution was the fact that the reactor had belonged to the Schnee family. She didn't understand things like this in the same way that other people did, so she couldn't really say if there were things that she was missing about the matter, so she just kind of shrugged it off and went on with her own business.
"Hey squirt, what are you thinking so hard about?" Sun asked as he hefted himself up onto the rooftop that Ruby had been sitting on the edge of, and plopped down next to the younger girl with a familiar grin on his face that showed he wasn't bothered much by Blake's punishment for his attempts at "corrupting my little sister" in the cat faunus' own words.
"I'm wondering why the world is such a messed up place," Ruby admitted to the older boy as her eyes continued to follow the people down on the streets below, bright silver not standing still for long before moving on to another target of her attention as her ears picked through different conversations for anything interesting.
"No point in thinking about things that you can't change Ruby," Sun replied to the girl with a shrug of his shoulders, his own eyes beginning to follow some people that were moving around beneath them, before training on a group of school girls that Ruby had also caught sight of, which made the girl roll her eyes. She knew exactly what the boy was thinking about as he looked at the girls, and it was one of the things that made her gravitate towards other girls instead of trying to understand the male mind.
The pair continued to sit in silence for a few minutes before a thought occurred to Ruby, and she turned to face the older monkey faunus "wait a minute, aren't you still supposed to be doing inventory at Blake's order?" She asked, a bit worried that her older brother figure might be shirking duty and balancing on the edge of pissing off Blake again.
Waving his hand dismissively at the younger girl, Sun gave her a wide grin as his eyes returned to the streets as he watched a rich-looking businessman that most likely had a wallet full to bursting with money that he could sneak off to pickpocket for a bit of spending money "Velvet told me she would be able to finish up on her own, so she said that I should come and see what little red was up to." Catching sight out of the corner of his eyes the way that Ruby's eyes narrowed at the nickname, he quickly defended himself "her words, not mine, I swear!"
Releasing a sigh Ruby's thoughts drifted away to other things, including wondering for a moment what her former big sister might be up to since it had been a while since she had last seen her head of blonde hair in the crowded streets of Vale, and it made her body yearn to go looking for her, when she would probably be getting off school right now.
"You know that if you really want to get out of here for a while, I wouldn't mind covering for you with Blake" Sun offered to the younger girl, who gave a dry laugh at the thought of not following what her big sister had told her to do "I doubt she would care that much, everyone knows that you're a ball full of energy, and some of the older faunus have been making bets on when you would finally grow fed up and escape out into the city to play around for a bit."
"You guys have been making bets about me breaking Blake's orders?" Ruby asked incredulously, though she wasn't that surprised to be honest. It was one of the things that the faunus could do to pass some time, making silly bets with what money they had and their cuts of food. Thankfully they all had the sense to keep it out of earshot of the younger faunus, who didn't need to get involved with their games while they had their own things to do.
"Oh don't even try to sound surprised Ruby, you know perfectly well that it's all harmless fun, and that even Blake sometimes gets involved in the festivities" Sun replied casually before lifting himself back to his feet and grinning down at the younger girl, "anyways, I think that I'm going to bounce out of here for a little while, try to get some fresh air and maybe have a little fun with some of the locals. I'm sure that you're itching to do the same, but it's up to you whether you stick around here or go out and try to work off some of that energy we all know that you keep bundled up inside." With that the older boy jumped from the roof and managed to land lightly on his feet at ground level, startling a few people around him before he bolted off and quickly disappeared into the crowded streets.
Sighing again as she got up and dusted off her worn out jeans, Ruby turned to take the safer method down from the rooftops, not that she couldn't just jump like Sun had, but she had a bit more sense than that boy at times, and she'd rather not give Blake another reason to be angry with her while she let what she'd done the other night blow over.
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Weiss' father had been understandably livid when he overheard that the faunus scum had managed to infiltrate his mansion during a party and attempted to murder his heiress, and was now making calls to numerous business partners trying to figure out exactly how this had happened right under his nose, and swearing that the other faunus would pay for this transgression. This usually meant pay cuts for all of the faunus workers, which made Weiss wince, considering just how little they were already paid.
Meanwhile the heiress was all but put under house arrest for the last few days in the mansion while her father's security team conducted interviews with every one of the house workers to try and see if they had been compromised and were at fault for letting the faunus into the building, mostly as a security measure. This left Weiss with little to do other than work on her studies and wander around the lonely building with her thoughts, which mostly centred on the wolf faunus that had all but saved her life on the night of her birthday that she could only see in fuzzy memories.
For the first time in her life the heiress found her thoughts locked onto someone that she had only met for a few minutes, and she yearned to see the younger-looking girl again and actually get to have a conversation with her, even though she knew that her father would absolutely forbid it just for the fact that she was a faunus. It irked the girl that her father's hatred for the second-class race might blind him to the fact that it was actually a faunus that had saved her life, and despite a few attempts at telling him about it, he had ended his call with her in a bout of anger. Weiss had of course done the sensible thing in the matter, and thrown her phone at the wall, shattering it into pieces that she couldn't bring herself to clean up at the moment.
According to what she had heard some of the maids whispering to one another, her older sister was supposed to be coming back to the mansion to take over security measures for a while, which made the white-haired girl's heart leap with joy at the thought of seeing her sister. While her relationship with their father was strained at best due to the older girl's life choices, they both knew that Winter was the most qualified person to watch out for her little sister and her father's precious heiress after such a catastrophic breach in security, and their loss of a lot of public opinion after the story leaked out into the city that Verde Schnee couldn't even protect his daughter and heiress on her birthday.
Wandering into one of the many sitting rooms in the mansion, Weiss was surprised to find one of the maids were in the room dusting, but paid the woman little mind for now as she took a seat in one of the overstuffed easy chairs, sighing as she sunk into the chair and felt at least some of the tension leaving her body, allowing the girl to think more clearly.
Barely paying attention to the maid, she was startled and jumped when the woman spoke up to her "begging your pardon miss, but it seems that there is something on your mind" the woman pointed out surprisingly accurately, helping Weiss to relax once more.
Though she kind of wanted to snap at the woman that it was none of her business, Weiss held her sharp tongue back for now and thought over her dilemma and weighed the option of telling the maid about her problems. Considering that the woman was paid by her father to cater to their families wishes anyways, she eventually decided that there would be little harm in the matter, so she allowed herself to explain the situation.
Once she was done, the maid nodded her head in understanding as she continued with her dusting, not looking directly at the heiress for the moment, but still paying attention "Well from how it sounds miss, you'd definitely like to see the girl that saved your life again, but she's living somewhere out in the city, and your father has expressly forbidden you from leaving the mansion until he's sure that you're safe once more."
"Yes, that appears to be the situation in a nutshell" Weiss replied with a sigh, the comfort of the easy chair easing some of her usual attitude, and the fact that it felt somewhat cathartic to be able to vocalise her thoughts to someone for a change, instead of keeping it all bottled up inside.
"Well" The maid began, before pausing as though weighing her own thoughts on what she intended to say "if you slipped out of the mansion and went to go and find the girl that saved your life, no one would be the wiser about the matter, what with all of the masters security currently doing interviews with the rest of the help to find out who infiltrated the mansion during your party."
Weiss looked up at the maid incredulously at the woman's words, blatantly suggesting for her to go against her fathers wishes and sneak out to find her saviour "but if they questioned you about it and someone found out, you could be fired on the spot!" She argued, even though the thought of disobeying her father was tempting, years of being the perfect daughter hiding a secret rebelliousness that she hadn't even realized existed before this moment.
"You could say that I have a few other opportunities coming up soon miss, so I wouldn't worry that much about me," The maid replied with a kind smile on her face, "besides, I promise to keep mum on the matter if anyone asks. I'll just tell them that you're in your room and that you don't want to be disturbed."
"How surprisingly conniving." Weiss hummed in thought as she debated listening to the maids idea about sneaking out. It wasn't like she could be in any more trouble out in Vale than she was already in the mansion, after such a drastic security breach the other night, and she didn't want to miss this chance to go and find the girl that had saved her life.
Making up her mind, Weiss fought her way out of the much-too comfortable chair and moved to the door before turning back to address the maid that had given her such good advice "thank you for listening to me, not many of the people that my father employed would do such a thing."
"It's no trouble at all miss, you might say that it's part of what the reason your father pays to keep me around," The maid replied kindly, though Weiss missed the smile that crossed her face for only a moment.
"I don't believe that I ever got your name, of have seen you around before though," Weiss admitted to the woman, sounding sheepish over the matter, "do you perhaps work in another part of the mansion that I don't frequent?"
"Yes miss" the maid nodded her head rapidly "I'm part of the kitchen staff, though they had to move me onto basic cleaning because of all of the interviews that are being conducted leaving the rest of the mansion short-staffed."
"Regardless, thank you very much for your advice, I'll make sure that you are employed here for a long time," Weiss told the woman before leaving the room, shutting the door behind her with a soft clicking sounds. This kept her from seeing the wide grin that appeared on the maid's face as a long tail peeked out from beneath the skirt of her dress.
"Just doing my job miss" The maid repeated with a sly grin on her face before she too left the room behind.
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So sorry about not posting anything in a while for this story, I did start working on another chapter a while back, but I ended up hitting a major block on it and then getting distracted with other things for so long that it looked like I was never going to come back to it.
This plot has ended up with a few revisions in the direction that I originally intended to take it, but I did want Weiss to leave the mansion to go and find Ruby in the first place, and for Ruby and Sun to be punished by Blake for going to the Schnee manor, since neither can keep a secret to save their lives. You would be understandably upset too if you found out your younger sibling went somewhere they weren't supposed to, I would imagine.
I say imagine because I'm actually the younger sibling in my family, but I have a pretty good idea of the kind of exasperation my older sister felt while dealing with me when we were growing up.
As usual I can't say when I'll end up updating this story again, but I'm hoping for sometime in January at the earliest, since I'm expecting to be distracted from writing for the rest of December, especially after Christmas.
Until next time everyone, Ja Ne!