Li looked around. The familiar white expanse lay out before him. The pure white surrounding was only interrupted by small clouds of black smoke.
He looked down to his body, but nothing was there. No legs, no arms, nothing.
He spun, expecting to see the most familiar part; the maelstrom of black smoke, interweaving, inter-locking, ever daunting and ever-present. What he saw shocked him. It was still a large maelstrom of black smoke, but there was a white smoke too. The two colours never mixed, but they swirled and weaved never-ending.
He noticed the smaller black cloud to the side; he felt himself pull towards the smoke. Li moved his non-hand inside the smoke and he felt fearful, he became doubtful, and there was all manner of pain. Li quickly pulled away from the smoke, noticing a sudden surge in the maelstrom, which quickly dissipated.
Li looked again at the smaller black cloud but a swirl of white caught his attention, it came from behind the black cloud.
He slowly moved over to it, and noticed the incredible size of the cloud in comparison to the black cloud. It was not as large as the maelstrom, but was about the size of an exercise ball, in comparison to the baseball of black cloud.
Li instinctively leant into the cloud; he was instantly blasted by love, joy, hope, and everything else good in the world. He had never experienced so much pure emotion before, and Li jolted back, panting. Li whispered to the cloud, "Thank you." He didn't know exactly what he was thanking the cloud for, but he knew he meant it. The cloud seemed to pulse at the whisper.
Li looked back at the maelstrom, still trying to decipher what it was.
He stayed pondering it for hours, until something far beyond in the white expanse caught his eye. A great black swirl, flaring and fighting with itself off in the distance.
Li drifted towards it, stopping yards away to inspect the situation. He saw a white cloud, paling in comparison to the black void, feeding smoke into the swirl. The smoke funnel was a gradient of grey, Li had seen it often enough. He slipped his hand into the funnel feeling exactly what he expected, pride. He went to the black swirl, and felt the pride mixing with doubt, fear and pity. Pity was odd to feel here, but he understood it. He went to the white ball, but before he could check it he noticed something. A white funnel leading into the cloud, he followed it back a few yards to a white cloud almost equal in size to the swirl he had originally seen.
Next to the larger white cloud was a small black cloud. He felt the white funnel, feeling love, confidence and more pride. Pride was the cause of this imbalance, why would the white cloud feed more into the equation? Li pondered for a while, until he noticed something interesting happen, the large white cloud moved over, shortening the distance of the funnel, he heard whispers, but couldn't make them out. Then he noticed the large white cloud merge slightly with the smaller. The black funnel closed, and the swirling calmed, but not diminishing.
Li had rarely seen two clouds so close, and had never seen one cloud affect another so positively. Li remembered back and realised that he had only ever seen the black smoke before. These white clouds were new, he had no idea how they work, but they were working, all over he started to notice groups and pairs of white and black clouds all feeding each other and working together, there was balance where there was none before.
He left the area, and moved back towards the maelstrom, there he stayed, watching. Although Li did not watch the maelstrom, instead he watched the other clouds next to it. He felt calmed by these balls, and noticed how the maelstrom seemed to be working with the clouds too, not as much as the others he had seen, but just slightly, he could see small exchanges. Everything had changed for Li.
Li woke up slowly. As he always did. The first thing he saw was two brown bunny ears. He smiled and gave the ears a gentle kiss.
He looked to his hands, noticing something out the corner of his eye, there was black smoke falling off his left hand, and a pure white cloud dissipating off his right. His inspection was interrupted by the entrance of the nurse. She tsked loudly, and quickly walked back out the room.
Li felt bad, but nestled his head back to see the beautiful face beside him. He whispered, "Velvet! Velvet its morning, we need to wake up, the nurse is here! She is a little mad!" Brown eyes slowly opened to stare back into brown eyes. "It's Tuesday, classes will start soon, and I don't want you in trouble because of me!"
"My first class is here, I have time" Li laughed, kissed her forehead, and made to leave. Velvet felt the warmth leaving her and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close and not letting go.
"Velvet, your teacher has already walked in on us, we can't keep her waiting!"
"WHAT? She walked in? Did she see me?" Velvet panicked, quickly running to the bathroom with her clothes.
"Is it so bad? She just tsked and left. I think she understood."
"Did she know it was me? You're a patient! It wouldn't be very professional!" replied a muffled voice.
"Well, you do have beautiful big rabbit ears; it's a bit hard to miss!"
Velvet came back out of the bathroom, stood above Li. "It won't be hard to miss your head if I chose to smack you!" she said sternly. Even though he had just been threatened, Li couldn't help but smile at the beautiful faunus girl standing above him; he got up to his knees, cupped her face in his hand and pulled her in for a long kiss.
"That's to last you the day!" Li smiled, kissed velvets nose and lay back down.
"Well, I may come back for a refreshed one later in the day. If I feel like it wore off." Velvet smiled, and winked at Li as she left the room. Li lay there, lost in his thoughts until the older nurse came back in. "You clearly had a good night." She joked.
"The best of my life!" Li replied.
Li had drifted off for a few hours, his morning routine had drained his aura more than it should have.
Li woke up to the sound of his scroll beeping. He groggily leant over and picked it up. Six messages. He flicked through them all, noting who had sent them. Five from Jun and one from Ruby.
Li hadn't even thought about anything else but Velvet since waking up. He decided he needed to reply to Jun, considering he was clearly worried. "Hey Jun, sorry I haven't replied sooner, I've been a bit indisposed! I'd love to meet up again, but I'm not exactly allowed out, do you have any time off to come visit me?" Li wrote.
Li then opened up the message from Ruby, dated about a week ago. "Hey Li, it was cool meeting you, I haven't seen you around! I'd love to do some combat practice with you sometime!" Li read. Li decided not to reply, but instead he decided to thank her in person.
He lay back down, but as he was slipping away again, he felt the scroll on his lap vibrate. He looked at it, seeing that Jun had replied. "Hey, Li! Indisposed? What the hell do you mean? I'm off today, where are you?" Li felt bad for worrying Jun, but he tapped in his location within Beacon, and half expected Jun to burst through the door as he hit send.
It was however a few hours before Jun arrived, giving Li time to tell the nurse that he had a visitor coming. Jun rolled in, with a clearly worried expression on his face.
"Hey there!" Li beamed, ignoring the concerned looks.
"What the hell happened to you, you muppet?"
"Nice to see you too!" Li quipped sarcastically.
"Yeah, yeah; it's great to see you too, but seriously what happened to you? You look like an almost empty toothpaste tube!" Li couldn't help but laugh at that; he sat up, trying to look a little less helpless.
"I had a combat test go wrong; I've been out for like 5 weeks! I'm recovering well though, the nurse here is amazing!" Li smiled, relishing the memory of Velvet.
"Well, I'm glad you're doing better! Next question; what are those on your head?" Li's smile quickly vanished as he remembered that Velvet had stolen his beanie and kept it from him since.
His hands quickly darted up to his head to try and cover up his ears, hoping that somehow Jun had short term memory loss. Jun doesn't.
Jun laughed and looked into Li's eyes, "So that's how you always heard me coming. You sneaky bugger! Aha! I finally understand your colours!"
Li was still use to having his ears on display, still being so fearful of what others thought of him. Jun's response was great though, he had always feared Jun not accepting him but he did, and it was enough to make Li not worry about his ears. Jun and Velvet were the only people he cared about, and neither one hated him for being a faunus.
"Why did you hide that all this time?" Jun asked, with an irritated tone, "You could have trusted me?"
Li looked to his lap, feeling bad, "I'm sorry, but I couldn't trust anyone. My mum told me that people would see me as the freak I was, and that they would think her 'unclean'. I needed to hide, for the good of the family."
Jun nodded, understanding the relationship Li and his mother had. "I get it, but you are an adult now, a huntsman in training, you can be whoever you want, your mother doesn't own you."
Li nodded, finally feeling free and independent. Jun skirted around anymore questions about Li's mother, knowing that he wouldn't get an answer anyway. It was a few minutes of silence until Li asked, "So why are you still in the wheelchair?"
Jun looked bewildered, "Because my legs were broken in 8 places. Have you forgotten that?"
"Exactly, they WERE broken; they should have healed by now, surely?"
Jun was getting visually angry, "No, they were broken, and I lost my chance. It's over Li, just leave it."
Li was not convinced, nor deterred. "There is a place on a team here at Beacon, they need a support, ranged huntsman, and it's never too late!" Jun fidgeted in his chair, the anger dissipating, and sadness creeping in.
"It is too late for some of us, Li." Jun, wheeled out and headed for the door, "I'm glad you are recovering Li, I will see you around!"
Li knew he should have felt guilty, but he didn't, "I'm glad you have recovered too, Jun! I will be seeing you sooner than you think." Li lay back, smiling, his ears twitching.
A few hours later he heard the door open, and he looked up. His heart started pounding, his cheeks became sore and he held out his hand.
Velvet reached out grabbed his hand and smiled; he pulled her into his arms, lying in the bed, they were both happy. Li mentioned about his friend Jun, told her all about him. Velvet told him about her day, what she did, what she struggled with, and Li gave her some help where he could.
Li mentioned if Velvet knew a girl called Ruby; after getting jealous and then calmed again, Velvet explained who she was. Li asked her if she could help him meet with Ruby, to thank her. Velvet agreed, although was reluctant.
Li looked into her eyes once again, savouring every second. He kissed her button nose and laughed again, but was silenced when she drew him into a deep kiss, for the first time, they explored each other's mouths. They parted, smiling and settled back down for another night in each other's arms. Li opened his eyes to see the white expanse, he was happy to be back there.