Blake had her nose buried in the latest installment of Ninjas of Love, a guilty pleasure of hers that she adamantly clung to even though the reality in her life was far superior to anything written, when the door to the dorm room burst open. She glanced up to spy her brunette girlfriend standing in the middle of the room, glancing about frantically.
"Blakey, I need your help!" she whispered harshly.
Sighing, the Cat Faunus marked her page, sat the book to the side, and rolled gracefully to her feet. "What's the matter, little rose?"
Ruby grabbed hold of her wrist and wordlessly dragged her out of the room and across the hall. Team JNPR's dorm room was deserted, which Blake found to be curious considering the shorter girl had been in there previously.
They stopped at the side of Pyrrha's bed, never used by the redhead anymore save for studying or weapon's maintenance. Ruby let go of her hand, tearfully indicating the collection of bronze pieces laid out on top of the covers.
She regarded the pile levelly, trying to ascertain what they might have compromised once assembled, until her eyes grew wide. "Um, Ruby… Was this Pyrrha's headpiece?"
"Yes!" the brunette finally wailed. "I was… I was trying to clean it, since she doesn't wear it much anymore, figured it'd gotten a little tarnished, right? Only…" She sniffled inconsolably. "I think I broke it."
"...Broke it?"
"Well, the parts don't go back together right."
"I… see."
"I've been trying for half an hour now…"
"Well," Blake sighed, curling up at one end of the bed and picking up one shiny metallic piece. It was slightly curved and with joints at each end. "I truly didn't think it disassembled this much."
"Yeah, um… I don't think it was supposed to."
"Oh. Well, between the two of us, perhaps?" Blake opined hopefully.
"Yeah…" Ruby sniffled morosely. "I know how much this headpiece means to her, I mean, she used to wear it all the time, right?"
Blake nodded absent-mindedly as she picked up random pieces and tried to line them up together. "What do you suppose that meaning was?"
"Um, I dunno." Ruby examined an odd piece of chain. "Huh, I don't even remember this one… Yeah, so all I know is how she's worn it ever since I first met her at orientation."
"Mmm." The Cat Faunus regarded the largest piece of curved metal, deciding it was as good a place as any to start. "But she seemed to stop wearing it last year."
"Yeah, I guess she did… like, close to the end of the year, right?"
"It would seem that way. Why is this so difficult?"
"I know, right?" Ruby huffed out irritably. "I mean, I can disassemble Crescent Rose down to every single individual rivet while blindfolded, but this? A simple headpiece defeats me."
Blake sighed and shook her head, bending down to focus on their work.
o o o
Perhaps an hour later, both girls were on the verge of tears.
"I just don't understand it!" Ruby exclaimed, holding up some sort of bronze mobius chain in front of her face.
Blake placed her hands over her face and screamed into them in frustration.
It was at that point that a very frantic-looking Pyrrha entered the room.
"What is wrong?" she exclaimed, seemingly on the verge of a panic. "I was on my way back from town when I felt the two of you, I've been so worried!"
"I'm… I'm sorry, Pyrrha," Ruby moaned, her lower lip trembling as she and Blake held up the pieces of disconnected bronze. "I t- tried to put it b- back together, and it just won't fit!"
The redhead stood there, stunned, before a soft smile formed across her face. "Oh, my loves," she sighed affectionately as she crouched in between the two of them and enveloped both in a warm hug. "Whyever were you so concerned about this?"
"Because we knew how important it was for you," Blake murmured sadly.
Pyrrha leaned back, her smile widening. "It wasn't all that important, really, and certainly not worth so much stress and frustration. Here." She took up the pieces and held them in the palm of her hand. They glowed briefly before rearranging into the familiar shape of her headpiece.
"Figures," Ruby sighed. "Should have just waited for you."
"Fluffy fox," Blake began hesitantly. "Why don't you wear this anymore?"
"Oh, well…" The redhead moved around so that the three of them were sitting against the head of her old bed and with her arms around each of their shoulders. "I suppose at one time it had a certain amount of meaning for me, and I wore it in remembrance of a promise."
"A promise?" Ruby repeated softly, leaning her head against her taller lover's shoulder.
"Mmhmm. A promise to be the best I could be, one made to a very dear mentor of mine from school. I took that to mean the best student, the best Huntress, the best Champion. But then…" Pyrrha smiled softly. "Then I fell in love you the two of you, and I slowly realized that being the best I could be didn't necessarily mean any of those."
Blake closed her eyes, soaking in the multitude of offered emotions from the redhead.
Contentment. Love. Adoration. Safe. Eternity. Warmth.
"Over the summer it became firm in my mind that the two of you are the greatest accomplishment in my life, keeping and being worthy of your love," Pyrrha continued softly, blinking back her tears of happiness. "And now that we are Mated, bound together, sharing in our emotions and love in ways I never knew was possible… I have no need of a headpiece to remind me of this promise. I carry a reminder in my heart, and on the back of my left shoulder."
Ruby sighed contentedly as she burrowed in closer. "I just kinda wish Blakey had a Mark too," she murmured.
"That's not how it works, little rose," Blake reminded her. "Only a Faunus can create the Mark."
"Oh, I know, kitty cat, not complaining really. Believe me, I'm more than happy being Marked as yours."
"As am I," Pyrrha added softly.
The three of them sat like that on an unfamiliar bed in a room they rarely visited much anymore, just content in savoring the bond that they shared.
"If I may ask," the redhead spoke up after some time, "why was it you disassembled my headpiece?"
"Um, heh heh," Ruby chuckled in embarrassment. "I cleaned it?"
"And that required taking it apart?"
"Well, it works that way for weapons…"
Pyrrha laughed softly, pressing her lips onto the brunette's forehead. "I love you two so much," she sighed indulgently.
A/N: I decided to create a new headcanon on the headpiece as an explanation for why I don't really mention such an iconic piece of Pyrrha's outfit much. So there we go. Just a short little ditty to end the week.
But wait, there's more! Thanks to the very excellent NobleMETA who came up with an alternate ending to the last chapter, I now present you with another omake!
"Ren!" an irate orange-haired hammer-wielder barked out as she strode into the cafeteria. "We need to talk!"
The raven-haired boy paused in the process of taking a bit from his lunch. "Yes, Nora?"
She plopped herself down next to her boyfriend, eyeing him with some degree of suspicion. "What's the deal with the pool?"
"Which one, love? The one regarding Ozpin's mug and what it contains?"
"Nope!"
"Glynda cracking by year's end?"
"Again, nope, though we're making some progress there." Her turquoise eyes lit up with glee. "The posters of her and Oz together with hearts drawn over their heads seemed to have worked, Jaune passed her today and he could have sworn he saw her eye twitching!"
Ren nodded calmly, taking another bite of his sandwich. "How long did she leave it up?"
"Oh, y'know, only the half hour it took until she saw it." Nora snickered merrily as she swiveled around in a full circle on the bench, knees upraised. "She used her semblance to make confetti outta it, was pretty hilarious. But anyways! I'm talking about the sex pool!"
"Is that what it was called?" Ruby called out humorously as she approached the table with her lunch tray, the rest of her team and that of JNPR in tow.
Blake hummed quietly as she sat down next to Ren, Ruby next to her and Pyrrha directly across. "Not very creative."
"And it sounds more like a midnight activity over in the gymnasium," Pyrrha added, her emerald eyes twinkling with humor.
Both Ruby and Blake shared a giggle at that. "Why, fluffy fox, that sounds like a proposal to me," the brunette replied coyly.
"It's really not all that," Yang mumbled around her triple-stacked sandwich. "Too slippery."
Weiss' face flushed a bright scarlet. "Yes, anyway, what were we discussing about the betting pool?" the heiress hastily interjected. "Because I have not heard who the winner was."
Ren nodded sagely. "They lasted the two weeks," he replied, as if that explained everything.
"Riiight," Nora drawled. "And yeah, we were all more shocked at that than when Jaune actually scored a girlfriend, but then who won?"
Ren swallowed his bite before resuming, ignoring his blond team leader's irritable huff. "Out of the entire student body, only three individuals picked for them to not break before the end of the two weeks."
"So then who…?" The orange-haired girl leaned over, open-mouthed, to gape at Ruby, Blake, and Pyrrha, all of whom wore very smug looks on their faces.
"You three?" Weiss exclaimed in disbelief.
Pyrrha had the grace to look slightly abashed. "Well, yes, there were no rules against us participating."
"It was a lot of lien," Blake added, grinning widely.
Ruby giggled as she leaned over to give Blake a kiss on her cheek. "And we have so many fun ways to spend it all!"
I know, right, two omakes in a row?
As another aside, I noticed this line in my user stats: "Total words archived : 1,800,029 words." HOLY FREAKING KITTENS I CAN'T EVEN… Ahem. I seem to have a problem in that I can't stop writing. (Though a fair chunk of that is a story written by another that I merely host. Still, 1.5 million words I've actually written...)
Many fluffy fox snuggles for my lovely reviewers! So glad everyone liked the last couple of chapters, I had a lot of fun writing them. (Poor Coco.) Foxinstrazt, Gorsouul, Jack Inqu, lkdog, Nicodemus Cain, Herofire, kaiju62, Boombox94, Marauderby, THB4, Dragonsoul1, DeamonHunter, growlscout, SamuraiShippo, Reaper Whisper, The Reader of Fanfiction, MakaS0ul, NobleMETA, yosai. Hugs!
Stay shiny!