Sitting out in one of the desolate halls of the Schnee manor was Ruby and Emerald. Ruby silently was sat on the floor next to the door with her back leaned against the wall, and her knees pulled as closely up to her chest as possible. The silent hall was nothing but tedium, causing Ruby to feel complete apathy for her surroundings around her since Weiss hadn't been kidding when she said everyone was scattered around the place working diligently and yet at the same time fervently. Ruby laid her chin on top of her kneecap with an enervated sigh, she felt utterly drained from all the events that had taken place this morning, from being woken up so early, getting no coffee to survive it, then to being nearly murdered by an angry Dutch woman for something that she didn't even mean. Weiss had almost caught her earlier, but Ruby had quickly learned two things, one, that the woman apparently wasn't used to running in circles for so long, and two, she tired out easily and didn't have a lot of endurance. So after she had tired out herself out, she just somehow ended up panting a bunch of Dutch words that she was sure were probably insults, but it wasn't long before Pyrrha held the woman still so she could actually finally catch her breath. However, after Pyrrha managed to an extent calm the woman down, Weiss yelled at them to get out the room, and Pyrrha doing her best to calm the woman down, nudged them out of the room, apologizing profoundly to Ruby for everything. Ruby felt as if she was being punished like a kid, but at the same time, she was glad to have escaped the angry woman for a second to catch her own breath.
Ruby let out an audible groan before she leaned her head back in a perceptible manner before repeatedly thumping it against the wall behind her, growing even more tired of sitting in the empty hall that was noiseless, beside for the random servants or maids that would walk by and greet them, ignoring the fact that they were sitting outside the music room, yet those conversations never lasted long before they would continue on down the hall and disappear down another.
Ruby's sudden movements and groans immediately get Emerald's attention, and she finally looks downward over towards her right side where Ruby was sitting balled up and chuckled softly. "Ruby, beating your head against the wall isn't going to do anything, nor is it going to start magically entertaining you, trust me, I've tried it. Now, unless you're attempting to play music by somewhat damaging your skull, continue." Ruby murmurs something that Emerald couldn't understand, but she assumed Ruby was grumbling about the whole issue they were in. "Ruby, just relax, we're just out here to let Weiss calm down and possibly not murder us, okay, well you, but yeah." Emerald used her right leg to slightly nudge Ruby to the side a little and caused the brunette to look up to Emerald with a raised brow. "Hey now, don't look at me like that, I didn't insult the daughter of a pretty big company, now did I? I'll admit you've got balls for doing it though. Men all around the world will remember that ballish moment you did." Emerald got a saucy smirk on her face as she said that.
"I didn't mean it as an insult, I mean, not everyone's going to have a body that's just dipped in glitter, and it got the full rack of decorations! I know my body certainly isn't, and I'm just fine with it! Yet she took it as an offensive thing and then tried to literally slap me, probably with the hopes my face went flying off.." Ruby lifts her hand up slightly so that it was entangled in her bangs before she gingerly ran her fingers through it, causing the hair to rise on her forehead, yet her fingers soon meet the end of her short hair and the hair drops right back down to her forehead. "I don't know, I'm just, not good at complimenting others because it's something I don't regularly do, I'm no good with that, girly admiration stuff, okay? Up to this point, I still wouldn't know what to say Emerald."
Ruby hears Emerald quietly humming a tune that she was not familiar with before she spoke up, sounding honestly sincere. "Sorry about dragging you into that mess, I just hadn't seen any of them ever actually so, what's the word I'm looking for?" Emerald crosses her arms while lifting her right hand under her chin, beginning to rub at it in a pondering motion such as they did in Tv shows sometimes.
"Animate? Roused? Yeah, roused fits this more, but come on Ruby, cheer up, and you've got to admit it is kind of funny now that it's over, and we're just thinking about it right? Did you see the look on Weiss's face? That was classical." Ruby snorts a little before noticing Emerald's hand being stuck out to her. "We're still cool though, right? I'd hate if we were on bad terms now just for one silly incident."
Ruby to an extent, rolled her eyes, but reached her left hand out and grasped Emeralds hand firmly. "You're going to have to try a lot harder if you want to stop being friends with me, I mean, I've been through so much worse, and you obviously haven't met my older sister named Yang." A small smile returns to Ruby's face as Emerald lets go of her hand with another upbeat laugh. "We're cool."
"No, I haven't. However, your sister sounds like the type of person I'd love to meet sometime in the future. If anyone can be worse than me, they are undeniably a person worth my time to meet."
"You say so, and you might be able to handle her every once in a while, but until you've tried hosting for her most of the time, you don't know the half of it. Yang's really cool though, just really, really, ludicrous most of the time. Hey, random question though, well, technically it's not random since we're still sitting out in the hall and it involves us, but how long do you think Pyrrha and Weiss will take to sort everything out so we can come back in? They've been in there for what, 10 minutes? My bum's starting to get a bit numb sitting on it." Ruby sheepishly says.
"Stand up then Ruby, you've been sitting in that same position from the time we got out here, or at least get in a different position? I think in the position you're sitting in right now, you're sitting on your tailbone, and after a bit on anything that can get a bit painful. Does it hurt?" Ruby meekly nods her head to Emerald a bit. "Yeah, happens to me sometimes too, but as to how long they'll take in there, I'm not entirely sure myself. Pyrrha's here this time though, so, they'll probably be done soon now? I hope at least.."
"Wait, what do you mean this time? What would have happened if Pyrrha wasn't here?" Ruby apprehensively questions what Emerald had told her.
"Huh? Oh. Uhm. Well, Weiss could have either chased you until she caught you or just tired out and sat down, but then calming her down would be pretty hard for the rest of us since she'd be distraught and possibly even resentful? Like a tiny Chihuahua that's angry. She'd bite someone's face off probably also? It would have been like you went to the movies to watch Godzilla, but the film gone wrong version. Al-" Ruby raises both of her hands and moves them back and forth a little as an understanding message.
"Okay okay! I get it! Jeez, Emerald!" Ruby couldn't help but let a small grin formed on her face from Emerald naming all the ridiculous stuff since she had the lowest kind of humor that a person could possibly have. She still found the oldest jokes funny, so it was never explicitly hard to make her chuckle or laugh at least a little.
"Yeah, but in all honesty, it shouldn't be too long now before they allow us back in since practice is still necessary, and you know, us sitting out here is majorly postponing that. I've known Weiss since I was 16, so that's roughly 8 years. Some of those years we were far apart, the others we were close by. I know a good bit of Weiss's temper and how it goes, so right now she's probably just now realizing how much time we've wasted." Ruby gave Emerald a look of amusement since she had a few friends herself who she could to an extent predict what was next or how they were feeling. Long-term friendships were substantially all Ruby had in a way, if you thought about it.
"Did you know Pyrrha has known Weiss longer than any of us? But the reason for that is because Pyrrha's family is moderately akin to Weiss's family, technically good friends, so Weiss and Pyrrha met first out of our little group. Now Pyrrha's family though traveled a lot, but those two apparently are the closest of the group."
Ruby lowers her left leg and lays it flat on the floor, modifying her position on the floor like Emerald had suggested. "I inferred that kind of already, since you know, Pyrrha just seemed to be the one Weiss goes to when she's struggling out of the three of you, no offense?" Ruby vaguely said the last part, since she didn't know if what she said made Emerald feel not vital or something, but then again that was for Weiss to decide.
"No offense taken." Emerald solely replied to Ruby with a shrug since it didn't really bother her of whether or not she was Weiss's number one friend, which actually, none of the were Weiss's number one friend, they were just her friends who kept the woman from absolute solitude and encouraged the woman to meet new people which most of the times failed exceedingly.
"You know I also have friends that I've known for a long time.. How I met my friends though are all really crazy and funny stories, but, they are all good people. Now, um, you said you met Weiss at the age of 16 right?" Emerald murmurs a quiet 'yes' since she was actually pretty relaxed at the moment while talking to Ruby. "Cool, so, that means you're one year older than her right..? Meaning you're 23, and you've known her for 8 years, right?"
"Thanks for reminding me of my age Ruby, you just made me sound really old some reason, but yeah, sadly I'm 23 and it's been 'approximately' 8 years since I first met her. I haven't been keeping up the years because if I do that it always makes me remember that I'm aging, and soon I'll be all old and blah, talking nonsense of the 'good days'. Aging sucks. What about you though?" Ruby rocks a little side to side as she poked at the floor.
"I'm 20, I graduated from college a bit ago, and you're exaggerating. That's also a fundamental stereotype of an old person; you'll just get a few wrinkles, your hair will become a bit more white or grayer, but other than that then, you'll still look good in a way? Aging shouldn't affect how you'll see yourself in the future. " Emerald gets a mischievous smile as she raises her eyebrow.
"You hinting at something with that Ruby? I'm flattered by that, but see? Complimenting people isn't tough." Ruby groans stops poking at the floor and looks back up and over to Emerald with a pouting expression, even though she was attempting to go for a bland expression to show she didn't find Emerald's teasing of what happened earlier funny.
"What?! No! I wasn't! I- you know what? Okay.. Fine, whatever, think that you want Emerald. I learned my lesson last time in doing that, and I'm not doing it again." Emerald chuckles more as she reaches down and gently pats Ruby's shoulder.
"Good girl, looks like you've proven me wrong here, you learned quickly from your mistakes!" Emerald watches as Ruby turns her head away from her in embarrassment of the now teasing mode she was in. "Aw, Ruby, I was just joking with you! No one can fully understand Weiss because she's technically not a woman, she's literally just Weiss, and the Weiss way of life is that her morning routine is magically somehow managing to give men blue balls without even doing anything besides being in the room and then not to even care about their presence. Also, she has the side of downing the females who admire her stunning looks faster than you can switch a light switch. By the way, I'm just kind of joking about all this,so you know, don't tell her any of this."Emerald was trying to suppress her chuckles as she concluded her listing of Weiss, but after a second, she decided to continue their last conversation since she had gotten sidetracked. "And about what you said earlier, my actual reply to that is I know what you mean, but I wasn't planning to let aging slow my roll down anytime soon anyway."
Ruby haltingly turned her head back over towards Emerald with a faint pink tinge to her cheeks, and she was about to speak up again to reply to Emerald's last comment before she would then try to start a whole new conversation with her so that they weren't just sitting in the silent hall doing nothing again, however, before she could actually have the chance to say absolutely anything, a soft clicking sound resonated in the vicinity that they were sat in, causing them both to inquisitively turn their heads towards the source of the noise that had been right next to Ruby where the music door was, yet as soon as they do that, Ren's head stuck out from the side of the door with a vague expression on his face as normal. "Alright you two, Pyrrha said you can come back in since everything is finally calm again, but please do not cause another ruckus." Ren lets out a torpid sigh before he pulled his head back into the room, leaving the door open for the two women to get up and enter on their own.
Ruby and Emerald stared at the door that Ren had stuck his head out of momentarily before they turned back to each other. "See? Told you it wouldn't take that much longer." Emerald subtly nudged Ruby to her right with her left leg one more time for good measures before sliding her right leg backward a bit so that her foot was flatly planted against the wall. Emerald then leaned half of her upper body forward until she was off the wall she had been leaning against for the past 13 minutes or so. "Come on my partner in musical crime, we've got practice to do." Emerald walks in front of Ruby before she outstretches her arm downward towards Ruby, offering the brunette her hand with an amiable smile. Ruby lets out a long drawn yawn since she had just realized that it was necessary to get up, yet she had been sitting down for so long it actually had been making her a little tired, and the thought of having to get up now made Ruby even more tired oddly. Ruby lifts her hand, yet before she took Emeralds hand, she raised her hand to her face and gently rubbed at her eyes, hoping it would adjourn the tired feeling, but as soon as she had finished rubbing her eyes, she took Emerald's hand and allowed the other woman to help her to her feet once more. "Tired huh?"
"Yeah, it just randomly hit me, and thanks," Ruby grunted as she stumbled a bit forward after Emerald had successfully managed to help her back to her feet, yet her legs had felt a bit numb from her not using them for awhile. Ruby started to stretch her body, hoping it would get rid of the numb feelings, and to an extent it did. Emerald watched as Ruby begin to stretch before she chuckled a little to herself and turned away from the brunette and began to head towards the open music room door that Ren was holding open from the inside of the room, waiting for the two women to come inside imperturbably. Ruby after a second finally felt satisfied with the stretching she had been doing, but looked over in search of Emerald, however, she had been so distracted by the incredible feeling of popping her back that she had imperceptibly noticed that Emerald had reached the door and was already entered without her. "Hey! You could have waited for me Emerald!" Ruby impetuously dashed forward a few steps so that she was in front of the door and quickly entered the room as well, instantly taking note Ren and Emerald nagging at each other a bit at the side of the door.
"Ren screw off, I know that already," Emerald grumbles before she furtively stepped on Ren's foot for him telling her what she already knew. Ruby slowed her pace down as she noticed the thick tense between the two, and soon, Ruby came to a stop beside the two, catching their attention. "Hm?" Emerald question why Ruby looked so cautious at the moment.
"Um. Am I interrupting.. I mean, should I just go-" Ren raises his hand before she could continue since he was quick to catch onto what Ruby was trying to say while it took Emerald a full minute to understand what was going on and she 'oohed' out loud before shaking her head.
"No. Emerald just has a mild temper at times as well, and it's nothing like Weiss's, it's just she's a bit cocky sometimes and someone in the group has to reduce it." Ruby's shoulders slump in confusion since she was trying to understand what was going on here, but she couldn't.
"... I'm going to ignore that for right now because Ruby's confused.." Emerald lifts her arm up and rolls her shoulder blade a bit, trying to pop her neck since it was actually starting to hurt from looking down at Ruby on the floor for so long earlier, but as she did this, she thought of a good way to word what was happening. "Peculiar." Is all Emerald says causing both Ren and Ruby to look at her in confusion of the random word being said by the green-haired woman? Ren was confused about why she used that exact word to trying and explain Ruby's confusion when she had just ignored what he said, yet she hadn't done any better than him, she had actually done a worser job because Ruby looked even more confused than before.
Ruby was confused about exactly why Emerald had just said the word 'peculiar' when she didn't even know how to puzzle that into an answer to resolve her confusion to their situation. "Um. Peculiar?" Ruby asked Emerald, who had finally managed to pop her neck and sighed in content before nodding her head.
"Yup rookie, peculiar, just think of that about everyone's friendships in here. Now come on, practice time you two." Emerald sauntered forward, heading towards her harp station, leaving Ren and Ruby in their disorientation, but a grin formed on her face since she knew she had just left them both hanging on that one word.
"We should just go to our stations.." Ren haltingly said as they watched Emerald finally make it to her station and pulled out her small cushioned stool before sitting down on it, yet as soon as she had gotten settled down, she looked back over to the two at the door and slyly waved to them with a smirk.
"Yeah.. Okay.." Ruby watched Ren trek over towards the back again, however, before she began to head over to the piano in the middle of the room, Ruby finally heard the sound of paper being shuffled more towards her right and she leisurely looked over to the source of the noise and her body instantly tenses at the sight of the white-haired woman who was paying no attention to her which she just figured Weiss was so fed up with her she didn't even want to look at her anymore. The thought made Ruby frown somewhat before she began to carefully begin to walk over towards the piano, hoping Weiss wouldn't acknowledge her presence since she wasn't sure if she was still angry with her or not. Pyrrha had been surveying the trio who had entered the room, waiting patiently for each of them to return to their stations, yet as soon as Pyrrha notices Ruby gawking at Weiss with caution, she coughs a little, getting the attention of the brunette who instantly turned her head in Pyrrha's direction.
Pyrrha nudges her head slightly to her left where the piano Ruby was going to be playing was. Ruby lifted her hand to the back of her neck and rubbed at it in embarrassment for acting in such a way, but she couldn't help but feel anxious and intimidated by the ostensibly spiteful Dutch woman now. Ruby took a deep breath before she fixed her shoulders so that she seemed more relaxed and began to walk towards her piano, but she really didn't know why she was trying to show an act of courage or professionalism. Once Ruby made it to the piano, she heard Emerald snickering in her station since she was able to see easily through Ruby's act. "Hmph…Emerald.." Ruby mumbled as she tried her best to ignore Emerald and grabbed the back of the cushioned bench that the piano supplied for her as a set before she pulled it outward, causing the legs of the bench to scrape against the floor.
Ruby slid herself in between the piano and the bench before she sat down and scooted upward a few times so that she was close to the keys that were still secluded by the covered whitewood that protected the keys from getting ruined or anything of the sort. Ruby reached her hand out and got a good grip on the white wood that needed to be moved and slid it upward to that it returned into the slit that kept it stored when it was being used, and revealed the key layout of black and white as any other piano, beside custom made ones the advance custom made pianos, but Ruby found it ridiculous to change a piano too much now. It ruined the beauty to the instrument itself. "Okay.." She murmured to herself as she got herself positioned and ready for practice like everyone else was doing.
Ruby looked further up on the piano and noticed on the music stand part of the piano a booklet was set on it. Ruby impulsively reached her hand out and grabbed the brochure that had a bunch of piano notes on it, along with the bolded 'P' in the corner, signifying it was most likely the music sheets needed for the piano's parts. Ruby held the booklet by the spine of its cover before she grabbed the back page along with the other pages and slightly pulled the sheets back, causing the pages to flip through the book, showing her all the song names and instruments that would be required. "There are a lot of duets between the instruments and a few trio songs.. Only at the end do they have a song we all play together.." Ruby started to make notes on what was most likely would be needed of her, making notes on the keys, and songs.
Ruby would have gotten lost in the thoughts of notes if not for Pyrrha's voice bringing her out of her trance like state. "Today for our first song we will be playing a song personally picked by Weiss. This song she has chosen will be played at the start of the evening, however, the song is a surprise for the guest and Weiss's father as well." Ruby had lowered the booklet before she brought it back to its stand and to the first page. "That song is called, "Song From A Secret Garden." By; Secret Garden. Now This song is solely for the piano and violin, and this particular song is very special to Mister Niels Schnee as well as Weiss herself Ruby," Pyrrha exclusively addresses this fact out to Ruby since the others had already known this and Ruby nodded her head in understanding. "The song shouldn't be too troublesome, although if you cannot get it right on the first practice that is perfectly fine, we have precisely 4 weeks to teach you the song and for you to learn it. This goes for all of the songs as well Ruby, we are not demanding you frustrate yourself. Okay, everyone, practice will begin now, and we will be working for 3 hours today, just to let everyone get used to a long schedule before we progress to longer times of practice. In Between hours though, we will have 10 minute breaks to relax. Ruby, you're up with me first, so whenever you're ready, start us off."
"Uhm, okay." Ruby adjusts around on the bench a little bit before she lifts her hands up, sparing a few glances up and down at the booklet that was on the first page showing the notes she needed to play for her part. Ruby then gently presses down on the G5 key, letting it play out for a split second before she began to play into a small Adagio beat, allowing the soft melodious and resonating notes fill the room with cryptic vibes. Ruby's piano intro solo surprised everyone since they hadn't expected the brunette to be able to play the notes and chords correctly on the first go, yet Ruby seemed to be a natural. Pyrrha after a second of when Ruby let one of her notes drop into a decrescendo, gently brought her bow across the strings of the violin in an upward motion so that she could hit the start of her high pitch just right, and joined in on the song as if she had been playing with Ruby from the start, and soon, the duo was playing in perfect synchronization.
Ruby refrained a few of the notes to keep the song going onward for the violin to play its parts, yet it didn't bother Ruby of her little part she was playing, she actually was enjoying herself and the song itself. It was a song Ruby had never heard of, yet it filled her with so many emotions that she couldn't entirely word, she would have to agree after this that the white haired woman had taste in music. Ruby added as much sentiment to the song as possible, trying to give the song the same feelings that it gave her while playing it.
Ruby couldn't help but think as she played the song along with Pyrrha, her brain was wondering of everything around her, the good, the bad, it just all collided into a mass of emptiness, a kind of emptiness that was, calm and appreciated. The song played on with Ruby and Pyrrha taking turns of leading the other in the song, but during that time, Ruby's eyes serenely stray over to the paper as she notices the song coming to coda; how long had she been in thought though? The song was short, and for some reason, Ruby didn't want to bring the song to a close, but she had to, this was practice, this wasn't like at her home where she could freely play as long as she desired, other people wanted to join.. Ruby slowly and forbearingly brought her last note on the page to another decrescendo and after a second later Pyrrha joined in on the closing of the song.
As Pyrrha and Ruby impeccably brought the song to a complete conclusion, Ruby closed her eyes with a complacent sigh before she reopened her eyes and allowed a small smile to show on her face in succession of a song well done, or, at least she hoped she met Pyrrha's standards on the song. Pyrrha seemed to be amazingly good at the violin, and that was one of the reasons she was enjoying the song, but she could never tell by herself whether she did an okay job or not anymore since by the middle of the song she lost complete focus on everything around her. Ruby never knew if that was a habit she needed to drop or not, but then again, when she came back to reality, most of the times, everyone looked satisfied with her songs.
Ruby turned a little bit on the bench so that she could see the three other members behind her expressions and see what they thought of her playing, however, once Ruby turns enough so that the three other members could be seen in view, she noticed Emerald giving her two thumbs up while mouthing over a bunch of stuff. Ruby had chuckled at Emerald a little bit before she looked over to Ren, who was nodding his head in appreciation of the well played song, and Velvet. Ruby tilted head from side to side a little bit, trying to see the woman's expression, but she couldn't see anything since Velvet had her cello hiding her mouth mostly and there were no real body language to trying and decode there, so trying to figure out what the other brunette thought of her playing wasn't happening anytime soon. Ruby was having a hard time trying to understand Velvet since the woman went between being talkative and open to quiet and well, Ruby didn't want to say exactly 'timid,' so she wasn't going to touch that topic just yet.
Ruby felt pleased with herself nonetheless from the satisfied looks on the other musicians, however, now she needed to see if Pyrrha was happy with her playing since she was, well, believed to be, the primary leader of the group, besides Weiss of course. Ruby began to shuffle around a little in her seat before she began to turn her head towards the front where Pyrrha had been standing before, but her eyes along the way catch something that causes her to stop in her tracks. Blue broad eyes stared at Ruby as if in shock of something, but, Ruby felt a bit awkward since Weiss wouldn't take her eyes off her, and the longer the woman stared at her, the more she felt as if she had done wrong. However, something catches her attention and brings her in shock as well. Was, was Weiss somewhat crying?
Ruby felt her throat go parched for some reason at that moment, and a strange feeling swelled up in her chest. Ruby felt like she should have gotten up and checked to see if she was actually crying, and Ruby's body unconsciously began to start pushing the bench back, trying to move faster with her actions, but the quick movements from Ruby causes Weiss to realize that she had been staring at Ruby far longer than was normally acceptable and quickly raised her hand, wiping the few tears that had managed to escape then looked away from Ruby. Ruby opens her mouth, getting ready to speak her concerns and point out to everyone who managed to not notice that the woman had started crying, but Weiss after the whole awkward situation stood up. "That.." Her voice sounded quiet and somewhat shaky, proving Ruby even more right that the woman had been crying, but why? Pyrrha and everyone turns to Weiss with eyebrows raised in confusion.
"That was adequate you two, keep practice going, I have to go work on other stuff, I trust you all can work by yourselves?" Everyone nods their head to Weiss in response, but all Ruby did was utter a bunch of nonsense under her breath in confusion of what was happening again. Her confusion had also managed to spark a small part of her that felt intrigued by the turn of events. Ruby wanted to know, she had to find out soon what just happened and why the woman was randomly crying while looking at her, did she somehow hurt Weiss without noticing again? Was the woman really just 'mean'? No, no one could just be so mean without a reason, maybe she had been misjudging Weiss too many times so far, maybe it was time she actually tried to understand her boss, and hopefully resolve whatever issues that was still between them.
"Uh, yeah Weiss, we'll be fine, go finish up what you need, but if you need me, you have my number." Pyrrha lowers her violin from her collarbone and begins to walk over to the table where she had set her violin earlier along with all her other belonging she had brought with her from her home for that day's practice. Once Pyrrha made it over to the table where her stuff was, she set her violin down gently on it and grabbed her cell phone before she turned it on and unlocked the screen. "Hold on." Pyrrha went to her settings and fiddled around with the vibrations and notifications settings, making it so that it would inform her only if Weiss was to contact her during practice or anything. "Okay, yeah, so just contact me if you need me okay?"
"Mhm." Weiss inarticulately mumbled to Pyrrha as she nimbly tramped transversely over towards the door that led out of the music room, as if seeming to be in a hurry to get out of the room, she wasted no time in reaching out to the door and grabbed the door knob before hurriedly twisting it to the right and pushing the door forward, walking with it until she was out the room, where she then turned around and grabbed the outer doorknob and pushed the door shut, so that their music didn't divert the others from their work she assigned them. As soon as the door was completely closed though, Weiss tightened her grip on the doorknob and mumbled something softly, but it wasn't exactly directed to anyone. "Goed gedaan .. well done.. " Weiss stared at the door to the music room for a few more minutes before she slowly removed removed her hand from the knob as if it sudden was heated in the sun for an extended period of time, yet as soon as her hand was off the knob, Weiss turned around and wordlessly began to walk off down the right wing of the hall, heading deeper into the manor.
Ruby's thoughts were spiraling all over the place, she couldn't understand why the woman was crying and then even tried to hide it, along with the question of why Weiss seemed to despise her when she had only just met the woman a few days ago. Had she met her before or something and did something awful that would have caused her not to like her? Wait, no, that was just silly, Pyrrha said she wasn't in Vale up until a few months ago, and Ruby was pretty sure she hadn't met a white-haired woman and upset her? She had been avoiding her sister's offers to parties and their BMX celebrations pretty well for the past few months, so that was also out of the question, but, Pyrrha actually had only said she learned English a few months ago.. No.. Ruby tried to think of a reason of why the woman didn't like her so much, but for every assumption, she came to another dead end. Suddenly a random thought runs through Ruby's brain from something Cas had said quietly before she left him to get dressed. "Read up on her family? No, no, I still don't have any kind of electronic to do that sort of thing and it'd be creepy if I went into a library asking if they had a book on a person.." Ruby was growing frustrated with all the dead ends she kept hitting on trying to figure out what the woman's problem was. "I'm doing this all wrong aren't I? Maybe the issue has been from the start that I don't know her, I mean, everyone can talk to her just fine, yet I freaking can't even start a conversation with her without upsetting her.. I've gotta fix this somehow.. Maybe one of them can hel-" Ruby gasps loudly as she felt a palm slap directly on her back, causing her to go into a coughing fit. "Ack!" Ruby wheezes as she quickly spun around, ready to confront the person who had hit her hardly on the back when she was out of it.
As soon as Ruby turned around, she saw Emerald looking at her with a brash smirk. Ruby peered at Emerald with her eyebrows scrunched down from the now stinging pain on her back from the rough pat. "Ow, Emerald! Oh, swee-, Emerald stop patting my back already, you've gotten my attention already!" Ruby had cried out for a second time since Emerald had delivered another pat to her already hurting back, causing the pianist to jump to the side a little to escape the pats, however, Ruby had completely forgotten the piano was at her side, and she accidentally hit her hip on the rough edge of it, causing her to yelp again before her hands instinctively reached down to her hurt hip. "Bloody freaking chorus!" Emerald lifts her hands in the air with a jubilant laugh.
"You tend not to curse a lot do you? Chorus though Ruby? Really? Music must run deep in you or something, but anyway, I just came over here to felicitate you, man. Good job on the song! I didn't expect the rookie to do so good on her first go, you should feel pretty good. A job well done on a song is rejuvenating right?" Ruby whimpers as she rubs her hip, but still manages to nod her head to Emerald. "Thinking about something? You seemed out of it also, so, you know, I was also checking on you." Ruby lets out another sigh as she languidly fell back down onto the cushioned bench, but she kept looking at Emerald who was using the side of the piano to lean against as she stared down at Ruby in mild concern.
"No. I'm fine, and It did, honestly, and the song Weiss picked was actually really a beautiful piece, so of course I feel really good that I got to play it to the end. Although I'm surprised, I've never heard of it." Emerald nods her head to Ruby before she leans forward and grabs the music booklet that was on the music stand and brought it over to her, opening the booklet and looking through it thoroughly. Ruby raised a brow at Emerald since she didn't know why the green-haired woman would want to search through her booklet when she had one of her own at her own station. "Hm, whatcha doing Emerald? Don't you have one of these back at your station?" Ruby's question immediately gets Emerald's attention, yet her head never looks up from the booklet.
"Yeah, of course I've got one back at my station, but it's back at my station, over there, and I'm over here, so it's kind of useless to walk over there to get my own booklet just to see who's up next in practice. If you flip to the back of the thing, there is a list of acts and who goes up next." Emerald closes the booklet in one swift motion before she turned around slightly. "We're up next Rennie!"
Emerald's call for the man instantly gets his attention and causes Emerald to chuckle since he actually had responded to the name. "For the love of-, Emerald stop trying to give people nicknames. This is the worst one yet. And I'm a boy for the thousandth time Emerald. Just go back to your station so we can start the next song." Emerald grimaces at Ren's response before she turns back to Ruby and hands over the booklet back to her.
"Uhm, Ruby, hand me that pencil on the top of your piano that Pyrrha left up there will ya?"
"Uh. Sure, why?" Ruby asked Emerald as she leaned upward a bit on the bench so that the pencil Emerald had asked her to get was in her reach and grabbed it, and lowered back down after she had gotten the pencil, but after she was comfortable back down, she leaned over to her left and handed the pencil to Emerald.
"Well, this is another lesson you see Ruby, right now I'm teaching you how to deal with Ren's quiet yet sassy attitude. Not even up till this day do I understand where he got that sass nor how he managed to be in a way a pro at it, he's brought many ladies to humiliation in sass contest; probably, maybe he's in a secret sass club? I don't know, just, here, let me show you." Emerald took the pencil out of Ruby's hand and held the pencil's end between her thumb and index finger while she brought her other hand's index finger to the point of the pencil. "Pencils Ruby, pencils do the trick in containing Ren's sass beast or something really weird and questionable like that?" Emerald pauses for a minute before she aims the pencil at Ren who had turned his head away from the duo and was now amiably chatting with Velvet who was looking at the booklet for the cello, reading all of her parts and remembering them for when it was her turn in practice, while in addition engaging in the conversation with Ren. "And by all this I mean I really don't know how to correctly sass back, nor do I know sass language, so," Emerald pulled back the pencil back a good bit before she lets go of it and sends it flying across the room only to hit the side of Ren's head, causing the man to grunt and his hand to raise up to his head in confusion of what had just hit him out of the blue. Emerald chuckles once Ren looks over to her with a dull expression. "So yeah, see? Noo more sass! Magic."
Suddenly everyone stops in their tracks when they hear Pyrrha's voice rising up above their chatter. "Everyone settle down, please, we've still got practice to do, but Emerald's right Ruby, you did a fantastic job. Now Emerald return to your station, you and Ren will be playing the song called, Maiden Dance. By Lisa Lynne."
1 hour into practice.
The sound of beeping resonated through the music room that had only the three female musicians in it. Ruby was leaning against the table where Pyrrha's stuff was, facing the direction of all their instruments while also holding a small water bottle in her hand and every now and then taking a swig of the water in boredom. Next to Ruby was Velvet, who had been doing exactly the same as Ruby, however, her water bottle had been set back down on the table a bit ago and she was now just somewhat tapping the tip and heel of her foot back and forth on the floor, making Ruby occasionally look over to her with a quirked eyebrow. The sound of beeping and clicking continued onward from beside Velvet, making Ruby take a deep breath since Emerald had been on her phone typing away for an extended period of time now.
Emerald was the last female in the room, yet unlike the other two who were standing up and leaning against the table, had hopped up on the edge of it and sat down on its surface and was just swinging her legs back and forth, causing the table to somewhat rock side to side. Pyrrha and Ren had left the room as soon as their break had begun since one of the maids had requested her help to fix something on the west side of the manor and she had taken Ren with her in case she needed some extra help, leaving the three other females to do whatever they wanted during the break, but Ruby didn't know what to do, she kind of wished she could have gone with Pyrrha so she could have talked to her and possibly did something useful, but here she was, stuck in the music room doing nothing but drinking a bottle of water.
Ruby took one last sip of her water before she cleared her throat a little and then turned over to her right side where she had set the top to the water bottle on the table and she then leisurely reached over and grabbed it, bringing it over to the top of the bottle where she securely screwed it closed and placed her water bottle on the table next to Velvet's. "So, Emerald, you've been texting that person for a few minutes now." Ruby quietly inquires since she once again was growing tired of the sound of Emerald's phone beeping and her repeated tapping against the screen of it.
"Uh? Ooh, umm," Emerald slightly lowers her phone and spares a glance over to Ruby, who at that point turned around, so that she was facing the other direction that was toward the table. "It's just Cinder," Emerald looked like she was about to say more, but she suddenly becomes aware of something she had been meaning to do and lifted her hand up, slightly reaching out and tapping on Velvet's shoulder, causing the other brunette to turn to her in confusion of why she had just tapped her shoulder. "Hey, Velvet? I keep forgetting to do this."
"Huh? Yeah?" Velvet completely turns around and faces Emerald while Ruby watched the two interact with curiosity of what and who they were talking about.
Emerald lifted up her phone from her lap and leaned over so that her screen could be seen between the two women. "You see, Cinder said she's going to need that laptop she had let you borrow, like, I think last week? I had kept forgetting to tell you for the past 4 days, and Cinder's been pushing the matter about it every time I come back home, something about her job needing it for something important?" Velvet nods her head understandingly as Emerald nervously chuckles while reminiscing about the times she went home with no laptop in her possessions still. "You still have it right?" Velvet nods her head again for the second time and Emerald lets out a long, relieved sigh. "Good, good, well since we've resolved that, and Cinder's phone's off now, apparently, let's do something fun to liven up the place again." A mischievous grin forms on Emerald's mouth as she brought her phone back over to her and slid it back into her skirt's pocket. "We're taking two on the trio of music crime, Velvet, Ruby," Emerald says while rubbing her hands together.
After Emerald had said that she pulled her legs up on the table and crisscrossed them before she turned her whole body, so it was facing straight across the table, Pyrrha's violin and bag in front of her. "Take two? Of what? Ruining stuff Emerald?" Velvet skeptically questioned what Emerald said since she knew better than to take part in Emerald's schemes, and she knew better than to stay longer than necessary when Emerald got that look on her face, but she couldn't just abandoned Ruby and leave her with Emerald. Ruby had already taken the fall for Emerald's ridiculous shenanigans once, but once Emerald closed the case, there would be no escape for her.
"Wait? What are you doing Emerald?" Ruby anxiously questions as Emerald reached forward on the table and grabbed Pyrrha's violin before she brought it over to her, setting it flatly on her lap, and raised a finger, making both of the brunettes look at her in extreme concern of what was about to happen while also mild curiosity.
"Today my minions, we will be blowing up the moon, with this violin!" Emerald watches Velvet and Ruby look at her in disbelief before she chuckled a few times at their reactions. "Just joking, that's for later, but for right now, we should make Pyrrha's violin's pitch higher on all of the strings so that when she plays it for the next song, it'll make a really high pitch noise and scare the hell out of her, you know, jump scare her maybe? Music terror!" Velvet shuffles a little bit around on her feet nervously since she really didn't want to be a part of this since it sounded like another awful idea of Emerald's, but some reason, a little part of her saw some potential in this plan and wanted just to see how it went down. Velvet took a deep breath and decided that she wouldn't tell Emerald whether to stop or not and just not touch anything, that way she wasn't exactly a part of this scheme Emerald had down for them, but at the same time she could see how hard it either A, fails, or B, gives a pretty impressive show.
"I don't know Emerald, but, do what you want, it's just I'm afraid I won't be a part of the actual sabotaging act." Emerald peers at Velvet who was staring right back at her before her grin grew even wider since she understood the witty plan Velvet was trying to play right now, and if she didn't know what Velvet was trying to do, well, then they wouldn't have been the witty type of friends. Unlike Ren and her relationship, Emerald and Velvet were actually more the same. However, Velvet was more secretive about her thrills and kicks while Emerald just went all out with the dynamite with hers, quite literally sometimes too. Velvet was the shrewdest of their group, yet once she wasn't sneaking around the peering eyes of the world, she was actually pretty fun to be around, she was probably just playing it safe around Ruby for a bit.
"Okay Velvs, what about you Ruby, you in or what? It's a harmless prank, and I mean, you've got to prank once while you're in this group of classy nuts." Emerald questioned Ruby as her eyes strayed down to the violin, and she began to tune down the violin while strumming the strings a few times every time she tuned it.
"Uh. Emerald, you're tuning it the wrong way, and I, I guess I'll just help you, and that's only because I don't want you breaking Pyrrha's violin, she seems like a nice person." Emerald looks to Ruby in confusion of what she had meant by she was doing it the wrong way, but Ruby leaned forward on the table, opening and closing her hand as if a sign for Emerald to hand it over to her so she didn't break it like she mentioned earlier. Emerald hands over the violin to Ruby, who then immediately sets to work on accurately tuning the instrument while Emerald and Velvet watch Ruby with raised brows since they didn't know that Ruby knew how to work with other instruments. "You guys, it's not difficult, you just have to know the tones right, because this one has a really interesting catch to tuning it. I'm guessing she's got an addition on it or something?"
"Ruby, you know, you're actually quite talented in music. You're also quite knowledgeable about music in general, I'm surprised you're just taking the career as a short time commissioner online; I'm sure you could do better." Ruby comes to a small pause and she looks over to Velvet looking a little flushed at the praise she had just received since she didn't know what to say when someone praised her work nor did she know how to compliment, so those two just somewhat fell in the same category and oftenly put her in problems, but after a second she sets back to fiddling with the violin while the other two watched her, and it wasn't long after she finished tuning it properly and handed it over to Emerald.
"A lot of people tell me that, but I don't know, I'm still young, and I'm just wanting to experience how it feels to be able to do music for everyone. What I really want and desire to do with my life is to share my passion for music with as many people as I can, to give them the same feeling that playing music gives me on a daily basis. If I could, to be honest with you two," Ruby places her elbows on the table and fiddles with her thumbs. "I would possibly travel, and go to places I've never been, just playing music like there's no tomorrow. That's my ambition, and for many people are there many ambitions but I'm just doing what I can for the world, and, I'm sure that's all I want for my life.." Ruby had at some point looked down at the table, saying what came to mind of her dreams, but as soon as she realizes she had rambled on about her dreams she quickly straightened back up and looked over to Emerald and Velvet who was looking at her with wide eyes. "I-I'm sorry, I rambled didn't I?" Ruby nervously chuckles while rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment.
Emerald coughs a little as she warmly smiled at Ruby. "It's perfectly fine Ruby, it's nice to hear such innocent and good views on stuff, try to keep it will ya? Too many people abandon their good view of the world and become pigs primarily. It's honestly refreshing to hear stuff like that, that kind of emotion, it can affect others in a really good way." Emerald carefully places the violin back down on the table like
they had gotten it and slyly grinned before her hand quickly shot up in the air. "Alright girls, up top for a job well done in sabotaging!" Velvet chuckles under her breath a bit, but decides to play along with Emerald's sabotaging game and lifted her hand up, giving Emerald's hand a high five. "Ruby? Up top!" Ruby leans over on the table slightly and gives Emerald's hand a good high-five, but as soon as their hand's meet, the door opens, and Pyrrha and Ren walk in, causing Ruby and Emerald to freeze.
"Sorry about the wait you three, the maid had pulled one of the curtains down by accident, and it was one of those long ones that needed to be hung high-...?" Pyrrha comes to a stop in her tracks when noticing Emerald and Ruby frozen in their high-five position and quirked a brow in amusement of the pair. "Okay, hmm, where do I begin to question this? Hmm.. Let's start with why are you both high-fiving each other, and Emerald get off the table, there are chairs all around you stacked." Emerald let out a groan while Ruby hastily pulled her arm back to her side.
"We were high-fiving because we were so excited that you're back, and we're oh so excited to get back to practice, isn't that right Ruby and Velvet?" Both of the girls nod their heads promptly to Emerald as the green-haired woman slid off the table and stood up like the other two, dusting the back of her skirt off.
"Ah. Well, um, Okay? We still have about," Pyrrha lifts up her left arm and then turned her wrist around so that it showed a small digital watch. "Looks like we still have 3 minutes left of break since Ren and I had left for a bit, I suppose since we told you what we were doing, you wouldn't care to tell us what you three were up to?" Pyrrha was mainly peering at Emerald since she didn't fully believe what Emerald had just said, but she didn't know what the green haired woman was up to.
"Oh, nothing important, you know, texted Cinder, talked to these two about life and how pretty the weather is outside today." Emerald continued to list ridiculous stuff that they 'supposedly' did while Ren and Pyrrha had left the room.
6 minutes into the second hour of practice
Ruby was sitting back at her station browsing through her booklet again, trying to make as many notes on each of the pages as possible of techniques that she could try to trifle with so that the dynamics of the songs were more frequent and better planned out, as well as mentally adding small details to each note that could have caused the song to have more verve, yet pessimistic vibes to them with a continuity motioning flow to it as well, and Pyrrha had already given her the endorsement to add as much sentiment improvements to the notes as she liked as long as she hadn't changed the actual song.
Abruptly though, a high pitched deafening sound reverberated out through the music room and interrupted her noting, causing Ruby to intuitively stop skimming through the book and dropped it to the floor before she raised her hands up to her ears and covered them with them. "Oh for the love of Remnant that hurt my ears!" Ruby had at some point closed her eyes from the sudden noise that had filled the once quiet room, but as soon as the noise died out, she peeked an eye open and saw Pyrrha standing back as if in shock, staring down at the floor with wide eyes.
Ruby glanced around at all the other members of the room and noticed everyone was in shock of the noise beside for Emerald, and as soon as Ruby saw Emerald she had remembered what they had done to Pyrrha's violin 6 minutes ago, but she had gotten so distracted by making notes it ultimately passed her mind that Pyrrha was about to be playing her violin for their next part. Pyrrha looked extremely aghast and dismayed at that moment since when she had played a full on note, the violin had been close to her face, so the noise was more startling and piercing for her than it was for the rest of the members. "Wha...What? Tha.. Noise?" Ruby's eyes finally start down to where Pyrrha was looking, and she froze. Pyrrha had thrown the violin away from her when she had gotten startled by the noise, and the violin seemed to be in poor condition now.
Emerald was the first to say anything in the silent room. "Oh, shi-..." Everyone stared at the violin on the floor before Velvet spoke up as well.
"And another prank fail for you Emerald, as well as another poor, and I mean destitute instrument damaged by one of your involvements.." Velvet mumbles from behind the cello, however, what Velvet mumbled had snapped Pyrrha out of her shocked state and she instantly turned to Emerald, lifting her arm so that the bow to the violin was pointed at the green-haired woman who quickly raised her hands in the airs in defense.
"What? Prank? Again Emerald?! You know your pranks are never nothing but fails! Gosh, darn it! Weiss isn't going to be happy that we damaged another instrument. I'm sorry Emerald, but I've got to message her about this now, and I'm disappointed in this Emerald." Pyrrha carefully leans down and gingerly picks up the violin, turning it all around inspecting the damaged done to the instrument to see if it was still usable, and after a minute, Pyrrha sighed heavily since she saw Emerald fidgeting in her seat.
Emerald thought about her options in this situation, now, she could either run out of the room and postpone practice which would then hopefully cause Pyrrha to forget about telling Weiss, but then have Pyrrha walk after her and use her status in the manor against her and turn it into the unfair version of the hunger games essentially. Or, she could just bring Ruby down with her, and they could split the blame since Ruby did touch the violin as well and that was evidence that she was a part of the sabotaging. "Pyrrha, you've got the wrong person here, now I did technically start the prank, but I didn't 'tune' your violin, Ruby did, so you've got to take us both to the Miss jail boss lady." Emerald gives a fake sniffle before she held out her arms to Pyrrha while simultaneously looking over to Ruby and gave a wink to her as if she had done something heroic, but all Ruby could do was look at her in disbelief of the second time Emerald dragged her down with her or into a mess. Ruby couldn't get in trouble with Weiss for a second time, if she did that then she wouldn't be able to fix whatever issues were already there.
"Are you kidding me?! Dammit, Emerald! What kind of friend are you anyway?! That's twice in one day you've dragged me down with you or left me in the cold!" Ruby groaned out loud as she lifted both of her hands up to her face and rubbed at it vigorously, regretting the decision to tune the violin for the other woman. "If I didn't help her, she would have done worse, I'm sorry Pyrrha!"
"I'll tell you what type of friend I am Ruby, I am the best kind of friend, everyone should have replica friends of me! And she's telling the truth there, if she didn't help, I probably would have tuned it too much and broke it worse than you threw it Pyrrha, which, by the way, nice throw, I'm still all for you joining a baseball team."
Pyrrha looks between the two women, one looking remorseful while the other looked as if she didn't care what exactly happened now that Ruby was in the same boat as her." The violin seems playable, so it's fine Ruby, no need to apologize for something that Emerald probably convinced you into doing and thank you for stopping her from breaking it worse." Ruby clearly relaxes on the bench and Pyrrha looked over to Emerald. "You although, are not off the hook, I will personally deal with you sometime later for breaking another instrument."
"Pyrrha's as spicy as ever, but I'm taken. How many times are we going to go over that?" Emerald groaned as she laughed at her joke, but shrugged since Pyrrha would probably just lecture her on Weiss's incomes and how people should not do tricks on other's instruments later. "Fine though."
2 hour into practice.
Standing outside the music room was Ren, Emerald, Velvet, and Ruby. Ruby and Emerald were stood up in their same spots from their earlier time out there while Ren and Velvet were on the other side of the wall, but next to Velvet was a small stool that went up to the brunette's hip before it ended, and sitting on the chair was a tray of cinnamon buns that had been shaped into immaculate squares. The sweet aroma of cinnamon filled the hall around them as everyone was enjoying one of Velvet's treats that she had made at her home for today's practice.
The quadruple group all blithely chatted back and forth from their sides of the wall. "I don't specifically want to say I'm astounded by the fact that you attempted a prank while we were gone on Pyrrha's violin Emerald, but you know none of your tricks ever work, so alternately I'll ask, why did you try to do another prank?" Ren inquires from across the hall audibly as he took a bite into his cinnamon roll, watching as Emerald gradually stop eating her own and groan.
"Well, Ren, fundamentally it did work this time, it just dreadfully backfired on me, so you can knock the 'failing' part out." Emerald grouses from across the hall. "And my trusty partner in musical crime was the one who actually perfectly tuned all her strings to their highest pitches, which I have yet to say 'good job' by the way so, good job Ruby."
Ren took the last bite of his cinnamon bun and carefully licked the remaining substances off his fingertips. "Don't try and drag the virtuous woman back into your crummy 'musical crime.' She explained her part to us honestly, but you're just roguish most of the times." Emerald shrugged somewhat at what Ren had said since they had moderately been over this conversation in the past and every time she never had anything to say as a comeback, so she learned just to accept that one fact about herself since it was actually pretty accurate.
"Fine, whatever, fair enough Ren." Emerald began to lift up the remaining half of the cinnamon and was about to begin eating it again until she heard Ruby next to her mumbling stuff, sounding reticent and apprehensive, but once Emerald notices Ruby trying to speak, she lifts up her hand slightly and points to her left where Ruby was, causing everyone to look at the brunette next to Emerald in confusion.
"H-Hey, um, about earlier you guys, you um, know how Weiss left us all to do practice by ourselves?" Emerald raises a brow in inquisitiveness since she had no clue where Ruby was going with this since she was mentioning Weiss, but the other two nodded their heads to Ruby's question. Ruby felt her stomach churning, and she felt unsure of the thing she was attempting to do, it would have been so easy just to play it off with a 'nevermind,' but she felt compelled to continue. "W-Well.. I was thinking during the first two hours of practice, and I thought about this a lot, Weiss doesn't seem to precisely like me as a person, and, you all are her good friends right? She seems to work better with you guys, but if she keeps disliking me and leaving the room or something, maybe because of my presences, then, that's going to reduce the quality in practice since we need her for our second leader since Pyrrha can't do this alone." Ruby took a deep breath as she prepared herself to ask the main question now. "I want her to see me as a friend like all of you, but I don't understand why she doesn't like me, nor do I know how to become friends with her.."
Velvet turned to the stool where the tray of cinnamon buns were and set hers down on it before she crossed the hall, heading straight for Ruby who's head slightly tilted in confusion of what the other brunette was doing, yet as soon as Velvet made it to her, she made her way to the other side of her and gently placed her hand on her shoulder, offering a warm smile. "Ruby, Weiss left because she had a lot of stuff to do for the party, you had no involvement nor did you do anything wrong. You don't have to force yourself to do stuff either Ruby, not everyone will connect, and Weiss has always been a little hard on people, but she never means it, but like I've said before, it's not your fault." Ren stayed on his side and watched Ruby and Velvet with a neutral expression while Emerald stared at the two with a grin.
"Okay.. But I still want to try at least and communicate better with her, but I don't know where to start." After Ruby had said that she went silent, thinking how lousy and cowardly her actions were, trying to ask other people how to start a conversation with a single woman, it should have been easy, but it wasn't. The last two attempts, she had made to start a conversation with Weiss ended horribly, and she ended up making the woman mad and dislike her more. What was she doing wrong in talking to Weiss, why was the other woman putting up such a challenge? "How, how do I make her less aggressive towards me?" Ruby blurted out, but then she froze at her choice of wording for her question.
Emerald's grin turned to a cunning smirk as she walked closer to the other two next to her. "Could I possibly say some helpfu-" Suddenly both Ren and Velvet cut her off before she even had the chance to finish her sentence.
"No, no you may not Emerald," Both Ren and Velvet say at the same time while giving the green haired woman a stare for her to back off the conversation since the last time she had given Ruby 'helpful pushes' with any conversations regarding Weiss, it ended up in a total disaster for everyone around them and made matters worse between Weiss and Ruby.
"Hey! It was a test the first time! Don't use one mistake against me guys!" Emerald sighs loudly as she crosses her arms with a solemn expression. "Well, I'm going to speak anyway because you two are just being ridiculous, ganging up on me, shame on you two." Emerald shakes her head side to side disappointingly before her arm quickly darted out and her finger poked Ruby's shoulder, causing Ruby to look at Emerald in confusion of why she was being poked on the shoulder. "Ruby! Rookie! Listen to me now, Weiss honestly might not like you, and might even dislike you, but I mean, you're a stranger who she essentially didn't want to be in the manor in the first place."Ruby's shoulder slump at the newly attained information Emerald was telling her and she felt her high spirits slowly get washed away.
"Wha-.." Ruby tried to question what Emerald had just told her, yet before she got half of her first sentence out, Emerald cut her off hastily.
"But my dear new musical friend, you have to be fierce, you have to be courageous! You have to fight the dragon with fire right back!" Ren raises his hand to his face at the awful tips Emerald was giving Ruby while Velvet sighed out loud. "Sorry, flew way off topic, and no I'm not telling you to go and yell right back at Weiss, awful idea." Emerald chuckles to herself at the thought. "What I actually mean is, Weiss is decisive in life, she's decisive in a lot, and that includes friends now. Weiss can and will hate people she doesn't know and is quick to make assumptions, right off the bat, she also can and again will push people off to the side and not care, but, Weiss also can accept people. If it was impossible for Weiss to have a tolerance, then I don't know how the hell I've become her friend. Play your game correctly though, be you, and see." Everyone out in the hall looked at Emerald in bewilderment since they didn't expect her to say something that actually was impressive.
Ruby lifts her hand with a nervous chuckle before she quietly spoke up in response to what Emerald had said. "I don't fully understand.."
"Ruby, the short story is I'm telling you to one, re-grow that pair you had earlier when you insulted her, then two, conversate with Weiss, then see where it leads you, like just freaking get on a raft and free float in the ocean called Weiss, although your safety isn't reassured. No point in lying on that, but I mean, we all took the same 'your security isn't assured' risk when we became friends with Weiss as well."
"But how do I do that? I can't even start a conversation that last a second without making her dislike me even more."
Emerald grabs Ruby's shoulder tightly and stares at her in the eyes with confidence. "Don't you worry Ruby, Harpist Emerald's got your back on this, I've got a cunning plan. You're free this Saturday right Ruby?" Emerald questions the brunette in front of her who apprehensively nodded her head a few times while gnawing on her tongue a bit since she didn't know where Emerald was going with this now, but for some reason she didn't feel like it was a good direction. "Guys, clear your schedules this Saturday, we've got some high-class friend stalking to do, team EVR is in business! Huddle around and don't make excuses to try and not be a part of this, because this, none of you are getting out of. Also, all of you keep this between only us, just for now at least okay?" Ruby gulped as Ren began to approach them, soon joining their huddle.
"Whatever Emerald, I've got nothing to do Saturday anyway, might as well waste it away with one of your ideas." Emerald sighed at Ren since she didn't even feel like responding to him at the moment since she was getting excited about her plan.
"I'm free Saturday, so I suppose I'll tag along in whatever shenanigans you have in store, but if we get caught, I'm afraid I won't save your butt as always." Velvet adds to the conversation.
"Good, good.." Emerald deviously says as she stares at the other three. "Let's discuss my plan then.."
Ending of the 3 hours of practice.
Pyrrha's phone precipitously activated and began to vibrate on the table, causing the table to shake softly from the phone vibrating over and over again against the wood of it, yet after the third vibration, everyone turned over to Pyrrha's phone in perplexity, while Pyrrha hastily walked over to her phone and picked it up, turning the screen on to see what her phone was going off for, but as soon as it turns on, it shows the notification that the timer for their practice was over. "Oooh, well guys, it sadly looks like that's all we're going to be able to get done today, the three hours of practice is officially over." Pyrrha slides the notification bar over to the left, turning off the notification and timer."Good work today guys, now I still want you to remember to come in bright and early tomorrow so we can set everything up and have a little extra time for us to start practice." Ruby let out a relieved sigh since she was now going to be able to return home where she then would probably take a very long nap.
Ruby scooted the bench away from the piano and stood up, sliding herself out from in between the piano and bench before she made her way around to the other side of the piano where she had set her bag earlier so that it didn't distract her during practice and in one swift motion, leaned down a bit so that she could pick it up, and then wasted no time in slinging it over her shoulder with a grunt. Ruby then leaned back up and looked around at everyone else who had packed their belongings and was heading over to her. Ruby sighed as she watched Emerald lead the group towards her and the nervous feeling swelled up in her chest against since no matter how much Emerald explained her plan and tried to calm her down, she couldn't help but feel that this was all a mistake waiting to happen, and what made it worse, was Emerald was now calling her a test subject, and that didn't leave a good feeling in her gut either.
Ruby met the group in the middle and they began to discuss a few things about what was about to go down, with Emerald being the main one talking excitedly about the plan she had set out since she felt like she was getting the first class seats to an amazing, funny friend-fail-ship. She felt like the friendship cupid, and it was pretty entertaining. It was like a 24/7 comedy live drama show almost, and Emerald could appreciate a good drama show every now and then.
Everyone nods their head in the group before Emerald turns to Pyrrha who had been packing up her stuff that she had during practice scattered out on the table and called out to her while waving her arm in the air a little. "Pyrrha! Before you go, do you know where Weiss is? I tried calling her earlier, but she wouldn't pick up for me, and I think she might still be a little upset with me, what about you? I've got something important to tell her about tomorrow." Emerald manages to get Pyrrha's attention instantly, and she turns over towards the group with a raised brow as she slowly put the last item back in her bag.
"No, sorry Emerald, but a little bit ago, about 20 minutes ago to be exact, I had tried to contact Weiss to tell her practice was almost over, but her phone went straight to voice message, I'm assuming she's either out or dealing with something imperative, so if she doesn't pick up the first time, try again later." Emerald slowly lowers her hand back to her side with a slight scowl on her face at their awful luck, but before Emerald could ask anymore, Pyrrha spoke up. "Well, if that's all Emerald, I'll see you guys tomorrow at practice, I've got some other stuff to attend to as well." Pyrrha slid the backpack over both of her shoulders before she gripped the straps, pulling them forward a bit and started walking over to the door before she opened it and left, heading off towards the front of the manor while everyone else stayed in the music room in silence.
"Damn guys.. I bet Weiss had left the manor earlier, which would explain why she left in a rush, and her phone's probably on silence, so remind me tomorrow to seriously talk to Weiss about that because she does it too often and I once was left hanging on a random street because she wouldn't pick up." As Emerald was talking Ruby couldn't help but somewhat frown since that wasn't the real reason Weiss had left earlier, and she was the only one who had seen it. Ruby's suddenly pulled out of her thoughts as she heard Emerald calling out her name. "Hey, Ruby? Pyrrha said Cas brought you here earlier, is that true?" Ruby meekly nods her head a few times to Emerald.
"Um, yeah, Cas picked me up this morning in what I'm assuming was the manor's limo, then he dropped me off here and left for other matters." Emerald looks back over to Velvet and Ren, who was listening to the conversation quietly, but Emerald mouthed a few things over to the other two who shrugged a little before Ren nodded his head.
"Well Ruby, you know Cas isn't here yet, want to ride home with me? I can drop you off at wherever your place is since you're from the inner part of Vale's City, it said so on your page that Weiss and Pyrrha hired you off of before those two showed us your profile. We live pretty close by, I'm just about 3 neighborhoods down from yours, you know the neighborhood called 'Helms Run'?" Ruby nods her head again while she adjusted the straps of her bag around on her shoulder since for some reason when her strap sat in the same place for an extended period of time it started to hurt. "That's where my place is down, and you live down 'Hope Brook,' so we're not far off from each other."
Ruby shook her head. "I appreciate the offer Emerald, and I might take you up on that offer some other time, but for today I'll have to pass since I kind of want to use the restroom before I go and Cas not being here yet gives me time to do so," Emerald looked like she was about to object to what Ruby said about the time thing, but Ruby raised a finger and shook her head a little harder. "I don't want to hold you up Emerald, it's been a tiring practice day, go home and relax, I'll just wait for Cas. I'll be fine."
Emerald peered at Ruby skeptically for a few minutes before she felt Velvet's hand lightly pat her shoulder. "Emerald she said she was fine, but guys we should really start heading out of here so we can lock the place down." Velvet reaches into her pocket and pulls out a silver key that had a musical note on it. "Everyone herd out, we can say our goodbyes out there, and try not to get emotional because of everyone's departure Emerald." Velvet said as she walked forward towards the door not even sparing a glance back since she already knew Emerald was pouting about practice being over, and her having to leave her new music friend. Everyone follows Velvet out of the room with their stuff, and as soon as everyone was out of the room, Velvet grabbed the doorknob and inserted the key, turning it to the right until she heard the door click lock. "Well Ruby, It has been quite the enjoyable day with you, and It's been a pleasure. However, I'm afraid I must be on my way."
"As well as for me, you have proven me wrong today, you are a very intelligent individual in the view of music, and I look forward to working more with you tomorrow, but until then, I'm heading out as well." Ruby says her goodbye to Velvet and Ren and the pair turn around and heads down the hall towards the front of the manor to leave while Emerald stayed behind a little bit longer.
"Okay, well, I suppose what they said.." Emerald groused. "But remember our phone numbers we gave you earlier and if anything changes, don't be afraid to give any of us a call. We are glad to think of you as a friend, as well as I am, even though most of the day we've been causing destruction." Emerald and Ruby chuckle a little.
"Today was kind of interesting to say the least, and for some reason, as crazy as it seems, I'm glad to call you a new friend too Emerald, as well as the others. Hopefully, once the event is over we can all stay in contact, but anyway, go on Emerald, I'll see you tomorrow." Emerald stares at Ruby a little bit longer before a smile forms on her face and she turns around and jogs off down the hall to try and catch up with the other two before they left, but just as she made the turn out of the hall, she turned around and hollered from the end of the hall.
"You better come in earlier tomorrow Ruby! I want to start my plan as soon as possible and make sure everything's in the bag, so I'm going to hold an invisible promise against you! See you tomorrow Rookie!" After Emerald had said the word rookie, she took off and vanished from Ruby's point of sight. Ruby lifts both of her arms up and places her hands behind her head with a sigh before she spun around and started to walk off further into the manor in search of the bathroom.
"Such a crazy day and crazy 3 hours of my life. Looks like finding the bathroom is going to be hard." Ruby's eyes strayed left and right at all the doors that showed words that she couldn't understand. "Maybe I should try sticking my head through each door. But wait, wandering always made me strangely paranoid because I actually have no clue what I am doing." Ruby drops her arms back to her side and looks all over the place since she hadn't taken the time actually to admire the inside design yet. "I regret not taking that course, and the thing of life was always to be prepared, but yeah, that hasn't happened in this place." Ruby was walking in the middle of the hall spinning all around, trying to take as much of the view as possible in. "I wish bathrooms could walk like animals because then I could just call it to me man." Ruby chuckles at the thought and just as she finishes one of her spin around, she spots Weiss not too far ahead and freezes completely. "Oh.. Oh..Oh..oh no, no, please." Ruby noticed Weiss wasn't moving from where she was standing, and the woman was just staring out one of the good sized windows that were placed every 5 feet down each hall separated.
Weiss hadn't noticed the brunette gawking at her from about 16 feet away and Ruby some reason held her breath, afraid that if she breathe that it would have somehow magically alerted the other woman and caused her to think she was a stalker or something when she was actually only really wandering around looking for the bathroom. "Oh, um, I thought she left the manor?!" Ruby's brain was being sent through panic since she didn't want to be alone when around Weiss, not when the woman clearly didn't like her and possibly wanted to still murder her. "E-Emerald's plan.. What..Um.." Ruby licked her dry lips a few times as she tried to remember what she was supposed to do. "Cool, I'm cool, this is just a woman, a really, really intimidating woman that might be small but could destroy me.. Okay.. I'm not cool.."
Ruby decided to do something finally and tried to follow the steps that Emerald had discussed with her earlier on how the plan should go. Ruby's hand slowly moved up and over to her bag that was dangling off her shoulder since she hadn't cared to correctly put both straps on her shoulder earlier, and once Ruby's hand makes it to her bag she begins to reach into it, digging all around for anything that could help her, however, one the first attempt to pull out a random item with the hopes that it would magically help her, she accidentally pulls out her hard wooden case of different pencils since for some reason Ruby had been trying to work on her calligraphy as a side hobby, but the pencils were also for in case she randomly thought of a new tune, she could then write it down. Ruby tried to catch the box of pencils, however, she was not fast enough and the wooden box of pencils drop to the ground with a thud, ultimately causing the white-haired woman to spin around in shock of the noise behind her. "...I'm so not cool..Nope, nope, I don't want to live right now, please allow something supernatural to happen." Ruby chanted over and over in her head.
Weiss repetitively stared at Ruby, who was frozen in the awkward position like a deer in headlights. Ruby slowly straightened her back before she took a deep breath and nervously jogged over to Weiss with a cordial smile on her face, although if it was a real smile or not Ruby could not answer, although her face did hurt, so that kind of told her that she was forcing herself to hold the smile. "Uh, hey there Weiss, um, fancy meeting you here right?" Ruby came to a stop in front of the woman who raised a brow at the suspiciousness that Ruby was displaying unconsciously, however, for Ruby she felt herself growing more and more self-conscious about herself under the glare of Weiss.
"I live here, but what are you doing back here?" Weiss bluntly says while seeming as if she wasn't interested in talking to Ruby at all, and it was causing the small amount of confidence that Ruby was trying to show to sink even more than it did when she first saw Weiss in the distance.
"Eheh, you're a straight to the point type of person huh..?" Weiss stared at Ruby unemotionally, and Ruby decided that the jokes weren't working out in her favor."W-well, I was, I was um, looking for the bathroom since you know, practice is over, but the.." Ruby pauses for a second. "The doors do not make sense.." Ruby watches as Weiss lifts her arm up and uses her index and thumb to gently rub between her eyes.
"Okay, listen closely, because I will only be saying this once. The bathroom is in the front, not the back, and once you enter one of the doors on either side of the stairs leading up that you are not allowed to do. You will take the first two halls straight down then make a turn to the right where a shorter hall is, from there you take a left and the bathroom should be on the left side of the wall with a bathroom sign as standard bathrooms have. Now If you excuse me, I have things to attend to, return to the front at once." Weiss turned away from Ruby and took one step away from the brunette, however, she comes to a halt when she felt a hand grab her wrist in a clumsy manner, holding her in her spot thus not allowing her to leave. Weiss's eyes stray downward to her wrist where she then saw Ruby's hand gripping her wrist, yet as soon as Weiss peers at the hand that was still holding her wrist for a few seconds, she gazed upward to Ruby again with a cold glare.
Ruby after a minute later realizes what she had just done to Weiss and instantly jerked her hand back with broad eyes. "I-I'm sorry! I just, that's not all I wanted to ask.." Ruby gulped since Weiss had yet to stop glaring quietly at her as she brought the wrist that she had just grabbed in panic to her chest where she there somewhat and used her other hand to rub gently at it since when Ruby's hand had darted out, she roughly grabbed her wrist. Ruby had never felt so intimidated in her life, and she felt her heart pounding so hardly in her chest that she could hear it somewhat in her ears.
Weiss scoffs at what Ruby had said a second ago before she spoke up. "What else is it that you need? Hurry up, you are wasting my time again. If I find it not significant, enough, I will fire you and then write the poorest review on your page under the name of my father so that it is ensured everyone knows how much time wasting you can be." Ruby's eyes widened since she wasn't sure if that was a threat or not, but at the same time some part of her thought Weiss was joking with her when she had said that and she nervously laughed, hoping that Weiss would just magically join in on the laughing, however, Weiss did nothing of the sort.
"... W-well.. You know, I feel we've gotten off on the wrong term too many times now, and this Saturday, I've um. I've got nothing to do.. So.. I was wondering if you could give me a new chance to start over with you and maybe we can get to know each other a little more?" Weiss raises a brow at the sudden question and offer.
"And you stopped me for this? Is this some sort of joke? Me, give you, the person who insulted me, another chance?" Ruby felt her heart pounding even harder than before, since she didn't know what to do, she was starting to lose hope on Emerald's plan, actually, this was already flying off plan, they were supposed to be here to give her tips on talking to the white haired woman. Curse her luck for running into the woman now, all she really wanted to do was run away and give up, get the job over, possibly avoid the woman the entire four weeks, and then relax at home with her piano.
"I'm.. I'm sorry.. I just, I didn't mean to say that earlier, I'm just not 100 percent a good social person, so giving compliments isn't, a thing for me.. You do look pretty, I just, I'm not used to saying this stuff, excuse me, am I rambling? I am, I mean, you, Saturday?" Weiss checks the time on the watch she kept on the same wrist that Ruby had grabbed.
"Clearly."
"I'm sorry.. But yeah.." Weiss crosses her arms as she watches the brunette look at the floor, seeming down now, and she waited for Ruby to try and start another conversation, but Ruby stayed quiet after she had said that looking flushed. Weiss huffs a little since she now felt a little awkward with having a saddened person in front of her and was growing agitated with Ruby for letting the silence go on without doing anything or saying anything besides looking all sad and depressed. Weiss thought Ruby was trying to make her feel sorry for her, and as much as she tried to ignore the feeling, she couldn't, she just wanted the other woman out of her face for the rest of the day.
"You know what? Fine. I'll play along with you, but if you mess up once, I will leave, and you must make a deal never to waste my time again. Saturday is it?" Weiss notices the reaction to Ruby was almost immediate and the brunette perks up and looks back up to Weiss with excitement clearly showing on her face now, and Weiss gritted her teeth a little since she knew Ruby was only playing her into agreeing to see her Saturday.
"O-Oh, um, Yeah! Saturday! I, I um, I have a car so if you'd like I could drive up here and then pick you up?" Weiss didn't really want to do this, but she was assuming the brunette wouldn't drop the issue of them 'trying a start' over until she showed the girl that they were on two different levels and that she needed to stay on her level. She was going to show Ruby just how different they were and hopefully scare the woman off more so that she could finally have peace.
"Fine. You will call me before you show up though, correct?" Ruby nods her head quickly, so quickly, that it slightly hurt her neck, but she felt a little happy that she was being given a chance to prove to Weiss that she wasn't rude or, just anything bad Weiss thought she was. She was making a new friend, so of course she was excited.
"Yeah, sure, I'll call you since I still have your number on my history." Ruby smiled happily at Weiss, who still was staring at her neutrally before she let out a sigh.
"Alright then, you've asked what you've wanted now, now leave me alone, goodbye Ruby." Weiss turned around for a second time and began to walk off down the hall, leaving Ruby alone to quietly cheer of her success of managing to talk to Weiss before she as well turned around and sprinted off in the direction that led back to the front of the manor, completely forgetting her real objective of going to the back of the manor in the first place.
Ruby pushed out through the door next to the side of the staircase and saw Cas standing at the main set of doors, holding one of them open while he looked all around most likely looking for her. Ruby grins as she lifts her hand up and waves to Cas, who spotted her walking towards him looking cheerful and waved back. "Hey, Cas!" As soon as Ruby makes it over to where Cas was holding the door open she comes to a stop.
"Ah, there you are Miss Rose, I was looking for you, where were you?" Ruby rubs the back of her neck guiltily since she had been sprinting through the halls looking for the door that led back to the front of the manor.
"I was in the halls finishing up something."
"Ah. Well, how was your first day at the manor Miss Rose? You seem happy." Cas raised a brow at the brunette's profusion of joy for something, but he couldn't understand what could have made her so happy.
"I am happy, and today was surprisingly really fun with the other musicians." Ruby walked out of the door that Cas was holding open for her and after she walked completely out of it, he shut it behind them and began to walk towards the limo that was parked in front of them just as when he had brought her. "I strangely look forward to tomorrow." Cas reaches his hand out and opens the car's door for Ruby, allowing her to get in and get settled down in her seat with a chuckle before he shut the door.
Home
Ruby stood in her open doorway waving to Cas who was pulling out of her driveway turning the car to the right, so that the car was turned back in the direction that headed out of her neighborhood, yet as soon as Cas had gotten the car straightened out, he beeped the horn a few times for her before he put the car in drive again and began to drive forward. Ruby chuckles quietly to herself after the limo was out of sight and turned around and walked further into her home, making sure to shut the door behind her as well as lock it.
Ruby squinted a little bit since the house was pretty dark, and it most likely was because Yang shut all the curtains that were scattered through her home as well as turned off all the lights before she left this morning. "Ah.." Ruby tosses her bag over on the stand that it usually was on before she began to walk down the hall that led her to the two back rooms which were her bedroom and her piano room.
Ruby halfway down the hall realized she had forgotten to take her shoes off, and she groaned. "Forgot.." Ruby leans down slightly and brings her foot up a little and pulls off each of the shoes before she placed them on the side of the hall, deciding she would put them back at the door later, but for now she wanted to relax and revel in the happy feeling that was coursing through her for a successful day. Ruby intended to head to her bedroom for a nap, however, once she made it to where the two doors were, she walked over to the door that lead into the piano room, but as soon as Ruby opens the door to check on her piano, she notices on top of the piano was a plate with a sandwich. "Yang.."
Ruby walks further into the room that had the lights still on and over to the piano where the plate was. "Hmm." Ruby hums as she notices a note on the side of the sandwich that had Yang's handwriting and a smiley face on the front of it. Ruby picks up the sandwich and notes and begins to eat the sandwich while she unfolds the note and reads it.
'Made you a sandwich too before I left, and there's nothing really on it since I don't know when you're going to be home, and if I would have put anything else on it I'm sure it would have been disgusting by the time you got home. Oh, I forgot to mention before you left earlier, hope you had a good day little sis.' Ruby smiles at the note, and she sets it down on the plate.
"I was going to go to bed, but," Ruby looks down at her piano and the note. "Playing a few songs to myself wouldn't hurt. I'm in a good mood." Ruby pulled her piano bench out and slid in between the two. "I'm home.."
I'm late again.. Okay, we're back on a semi schedule though, updates will be faster than this one again, I went on vacation for a bit and that postponed so much. It was awful trying to catch stuff up again.
Emerald is such a troll. Also, I know Weiss left earlier in the chapter, but, it was needed. See? You make little sacrifices for some real juicy whiterose. Next we're focusing on Yang's P.o.v since Ruby's going to be just doing practice, and no real Major whiterose is going to happen during practice. You all won't be missing anything trust me. Also I've switched my writing system again for this, I hope the change isn't bad? I'm not sure if you'll be able to notice it though, but I've got a different system going down and it makes writing go faster, although I feel my writing is losing quality? Is that normal for writers? Uhhh.. What's Ruby's problem with Weiss? Nothing yet at the same time everything. She's SCARED of Weiss in a way, but at the same time she's curiously poking her head into Weiss's matters.
I really, really, and I'm not saying this to be modest or something either.. I really gave up on some parts during editing because looking at the same paragraphs for 2 or 3 hours is when I get frustrated. At the end I completely gave up on everything, it was pretty funny. Take my trash writing!
I'm not going to be exactly answering any question of the tear shed in during their first song. It will spoil too much that will be important for whiterose later and just literally everything.
Okay guys, you know the deal! This was chapter 5. Next look forward to chapter 6 because wolves don't know when to stop playing with bumblebee nest so! Yeah! What do I require of you? Easy! Sit back, grab some more tea or coffee, and wonder till you can't wonder anymore: what's next in this song of hearts?