Warmth.
Warmth, and a pleasant smell, like lavender.
Weiss breathed deep, her fingers closing on something silky. Her face was buried in it, her arms around it. A pillow, maybe? She was too muzzy with sleep to care. Whatever this was, it was warm. She hummed contentedly.
Something flicked against her forehead and she blinked her eyes open. It was morning. Faint peach-colored light spilled in through the ripped curtain, illuminating the wreckage of team RWBY's dorm. Books lay scattered across the collapsed bunk on the other side of the room.
Weiss shifted under her blankets. Her arm was caught under the weight of this pleasant, warm thing. Bemused, she drew back a couple of inches and looked down to see what it was.
A velvety black cat ear flicked her nose.
"-!" Weiss flung herself backwards, tumbling over the side of the bed to the floor. Half the blankets got dragged with her and she lay sprawled in a tangle of bed covers on the cold tile, momentarily stunned.
Had that been Blake? Blake Belladonna, in her bed? As the throbbing in her head pushed its way past her dazed surprise, she groaned and pushed herself up on her elbows. Oh, today was going to be just wonderful.
Roused slightly by Weiss's swift departure, Blake curled in on herself, subconsciously lamenting the sudden loss of warmth. She didn't bother opening her eyes - she was comfortable, and for some reason, incredibly tired. Odd, since she didn't really remember dozing off... Opting to think about it later, she drifted back to sleep.
Weiss dragged herself up and looked at the time. The cafeteria wasn't quite open yet. Blake was curled up in her bed. Ruby and Yang were dog-piled together on the mattress on the floor.
At least the sisters' bandages seemed intact, for the most part. Their breathing was steady and even in slumber. That meant that neither of them had come awake in the middle of night with crippling, anti-toxin-induced pain, though they would need to take their medication again probably as soon as they woke up.
Weiss considered taking an aspirin, but instead opted for a shower, and maybe some tea. Weiss chose another set of clothes and began the laborious process of letting her hair down as she crossed to the bathroom. The door clicked shut and locked behind her.
Her bobby pins made faint metallic sounds as she dropped them on the edge of the sink. Weiss searched her reflection, noting her scar; her eyes, blue as ice. There was a dark hair stuck to the front of her uniform's undershirt. She picked it off, too busy calculating to be disgusted.
Yesterday had decidedly been a disaster- a humiliating failure, considering that she really had been trying to keep things under some semblance of control. But today was another day. She cut on the hot water. It was time for a new strategy.
Roughly an hour later, Weiss exited the bathroom, her mood significantly improved. Her hair- now washed and dried- was pulled back in its high, off-center ponytail. Her spare school uniform skirt brushed her knees as she collected her jacket from the back of her desk chair, straightening the collar so the crease was in the right place.
She pulled a lint brush from one of her drawers and used it to remove the dust the dark fabric had collected from her encounters with the floor the previous night before she donned it and did up the bottom few buttons.
Sufficiently prepared for the morning, Weiss collected up the mugs in the room, rinsed them, filled them with water, and set them none-too-gently on top of the half-ruined bookcase.
"Alright, wake up," she ordered her teammates, measuring out pain pills and being very careful to get the correct dosage to the correct person, just in case she had made a mistake with Blake's the night before.
Ruby sat up, her hair a wild nest and her sleeping shirt twisted halfway backwards. Weiss pushed the mug and pain medication into her hands and moved on to the others. "You can sleep again once you take these."
Blake lifted her head at the sound of Weiss's voice and blinked slowly, disoriented for a moment. Once she got her bearings, she froze. Was she... on Weiss's bed? The heiress in question was walking towards her, water and pills in hand, but not looking particularly murderous despite the apparent theft of her bunk.
Ruby also seemed to be awake, barely, but Yang was... not looking particularly well. The brawler was frowning in her sleep, fingers twitching occasionally. Had she taken any of her medication last night? Blake's features settled into a matching frown as she watched her partner grow tense.
Yang sat up and stretched with a groan, blinking sleep from her eyes. Judging by the aches and pains present in every single muscle, she had slept terribly. Why was Weiss waking them up so early anyway? She glanced down at Ruby, still peacefully curled up beside her, and raised an eyebrow. She thought she'd heard her little sister get up already. Well, at least one of them was getting some rest.
Coarse scratching noises made her glance around. Weiss sat at her desk, taking notes from an unusually large book. Wait - hadn't Weiss been right behind her? Yang opened her mouth to say something, but a light rustling of pages turning drew her attention to the other side of the room, where Blake sat on her bunk with her back turned, nose buried in a book of her own.
Amethyst eyes narrowed. Was Blake back to normal? When had they fixed the beds? Yang stared for a minute before eventually shrugging and reaching down to shake her little sister's shoulder.
"Hey, Ruby, you heard Weiss, c'mon it's time to get up."
Ruby didn't move.
A spark of panic. Yang tried again, shaking her with a little more force. "Ruby, wake up. You're gonna sleep right through breakfast."
Ruby remained still.
"It's no use," Weiss's ice-cold words cut through the room, sending chills down Yang's spine.
"You can't wake the dead." Blake's lifeless monotone was, somehow, worse.
Dread engulfed the blonde brawler, increasing tenfold as her two teammates finally turned to face her. Gaping holes sat where shining amber and blue should have been.
Before she had time to fully process the sight, a high pitched keening filled the air as black rats suddenly poured forth in an endless stream from her teammates' empty eye sockets.
The swarm covered Ruby in an instant, rising up in a dark squirming mass and shifting to descend upon Yang. The light filling the room darkened to red, reflected in the towering eye of the Rat King looming right outside the window.
"NO."
Yang snapped awake, on her feet in an instant, semblance exploding in a wave of heat. Wild eyes flashing crimson, she blindly lashed out, barely missing Weiss as her fist sailed directly into her toppled bed. The wooden frame shattered where her knuckles landed, splintering into fragments that flew every which way.
Searing pain from the antitoxin shot through her then, dropping the brawler to the ground in a heaving, writhing heap of confusion and flames.
Weiss lunged in, grabbing Ruby's arm and yanking her away from her burning sister. Her hand shot to her jacket pocket to call for emergency medical assistance- but where was her scroll?!
Meanwhile, Ruby cried out, "Yang!" and doused the brawler with the remaining water in her coffee mug.
Yang twisted around on the floor upon hearing Ruby's voice, only to get a face-full of water. She froze and blinked, eyes reverting to amethyst in an instant. The last few flames of Yang's semblance died down as she slowly reached a hand towards Ruby.
Moving hurt - everything hurt. Her fingertips dropped inches from Ruby's foot, but she did her best to smile for her sister, who clearly looked worried. "...hey sis."
Ruby plunked back down on the mattress, taking Yang's hand, "You okay, big sis? It's a good thing you didn't do that to the floor. Or to Weiss," she gave a nervous chuckle and bit her lip, "so... uh... should I move back to my own bed, I guess?"
Blake sat rooted to her spot on Weiss's bunk, wide-eyed and momentarily terrified that she had ever shared sleeping space with a potential incendiary explosive.
Weiss stomped out the smoldering edge of one of the sheets, mentally berating herself for not thinking of using the mug in her own hand to extinguish Yang. Her scroll was probably still on the floor somewhere after last night, among the scattered and thankfully-unsinged books.
She looked at the charred remains of the brawler's splintered bed frame, and then turned to Yang. "Okay. You're going back to the infirmary."
"No! Hey, no, I'm fine," Yang squeezed Ruby's hand as she strained her eyes to look imploringly up at Weiss without moving her head. "You don't need to send me back to the infirmary." Seeing Weiss's impassive gaze, she pulled Ruby a little closer and continued in a slightly more desperate tone, "For the love of dust please don't send me back there it was so boring, all I did was sleep."
Blake rolled her eyes. "Heaven forbid."
Yang continued undeterred, "I might actually die..." she added with dramatic flair, "of loneliness."
"If you do that again," Weiss gestured to what used to be Yang's bunk, "we might actually die period. Given the two options, please excuse me if I take my chances with the former."
"Guys, I'm hungry," Ruby announced, hopping up. She pumped her fist in the air, "We should go to breakfast!"
"No!" Weiss grabbed her partner's arm. Both girls lost their balance and collapsed in a heap on the mattress. Weiss pushed herself up, "Look. If you can not destroy anything for fifteen minutes, I'll go. Blake, here's your medication. Yang, let me get yours," her fingertips barely reached the bottle on the bookshelf. She shook it, inspecting the number of pills, and frowned. "... did you not take any of these last night?"
Yang blinked slowly. "...Nope. I never got the chance, seeing as how someone dropped a bed on me," she winked at Blake, smiling.
Blake froze in the middle of taking her pills. "...What?"
Weiss ran her hand over her face. Ugh. That was right. How could she have forgotten? She really should have expected something like this. "You're all taking these on time from now on, provided I'm still alive to give them to you." To Blake she said, "Oh, so you don't recall? Have you forgotten about jumping on me from Ruby's bunk too?"
"What?" Ruby started up. "I don't remember that."
Weiss rolled her eyes and pushed Ruby's forehead so she fell back on the mattress.
Blake paled, frowning at the medicine in her hand. She was suddenly very unhappy about how foggy her memory of the previous night was.
Unable to see her partner's flattened ears from her position on the floor, Yang laughed, only to slip into a coughing fit from the pain it induced.
Weiss debated for a moment revealing that she'd probably caught most of the fiasco on video, but she didn't really want to relive that particular event, so she decided against it. Maybe she could edit out the embarrassing parts after she actually managed to locate her scroll in the mess.
She also didn't particularly want to have to explain to Beacon's medical staff that Yang had blown up a bed frame because she, Weiss Schnee, had neglected to make sure she took her painkillers on time. Not that it had been completely her fault, but well, still. Furniture at the school did get destroyed now and again- she would just pay the fee when the bill came around.
For now, she crossed her arms, "Yang, pills. Blake, I would be completely fine if you wanted to go with half a dose. Whatever you need to manage your headache. I'm going to get breakfast."
Yang took her pills from Weiss with a muttered, "Thanks," before somehow managing to get the medicine down between coughs.
Blake however stared down at her pills with renewed suspicion. She should have been more careful. General medication was almost never made with the Faunus in mind, so side effects from full dosages could sometimes be... unpredictable. "Just one... should be fine."
Coughs finally subsiding, Yang raised a hand. "Hey can we make requests? Because if we can, bring back pancakes!"
"Oh, yes, of course. And while we're making requests, I have one," the heiress scowled, pausing as she unpacked the papers she had bundled neatly into Ruby's book bag the day before, "Don't. Break. Anything. Fifteen minutes. If I come back and anything is destroyed or on fire, you are going straight to the infirmary," Weiss took the bag and strode to the door.
If she hadn't been positively starving herself- had she even remembered to eat dinner the night before?- she might have doled out more instructions. As it was, she paused, her hand on the door, "I am seriously going against my better judgment leaving you here again," and then shut it behind her.
Blake scowled at the door, then back down at the pain medication in her hand, still trying to piece together what exactly had happened the night before. She remembered talking to Weiss, pulling Yang into the bathroom and talking to her as well... but then things became blurry and disjointed.
The facts available to her didn't paint a particularly coherent picture either. Dropping a bed on her partner? Leaping at Weiss from Ruby's bunk? Waking up in Weiss's bed... with her Faunus ears uncovered. She instinctively raised her hands to cover them, earning a glance from Yang. A blush crept up Blake's face at the vague memory of someone with white hair holding her while she slept.
What. Happened.
She stood suddenly, leaving the two tiny pain killers on the bed. "I'm going to shower." Without another word, she marched herself to the bathroom.
"But what about your -" the door to the bathroom slammed shut. "- medicine..." Yang raised an eyebrow. Blake was acting weird. Maybe she didn't remember anything? Yang frowned. That meant Blake probably didn't remember the awesome pun she made either. She would have to tell her later. For now though...
Yang shifted slightly to better face her sister. She had Ruby all to herself. It was time to get some answers... and hopefully impart some sisterly wisdom.
"Hey Ruby, c'mere. I want to ask you something."
Ruby's head felt like it was full of cotton candy, but she recognized Yang's voice. Without opening her eyes or moving, she made a groggy sound that rose in pitch at the end, like a question.
Yang rested her head on top of her hands and grinned. "So, what do you like about Weiss?"
Morning hours saw Beacon's cafeteria in full swing. Sitting quietly beside Jaune with her face in her hands, Pyrrha let the noisy rush of students clamoring to get their preferred pick of the breakfast offerings wash over her as nothing more than white noise.
For once, she was glad at how quiet their table was. She was exhausted – too tired even to eat. Her plate of food remained mostly untouched. It had taken the better part of the night to properly explain what she understood of Weiss's situation to her teammates.
It was, essentially, a pact of secrecy - never mention the heiress's relationship with Ruby, even when asked. Put simply, they would play dumb, because you never knew who might be listening. But of course, Pyrrha still wanted to be encouraging if either one of them needed to talk. It was a fine line, but she made sure to take the time to clarify it to the rest of her team.
Jaune took to the idea of playing dumb pretty quickly, while Ren had remained silent for the duration of her explanation. Mainly, it had been explaining things to Nora that had taken forever. The girl seemed to have no concept of discretion, no matter how she tried to break things down.
After trying and failing more times than she could count, she left it to Ren to explain to his partner. Which, somehow, he did within minutes. Honestly, she probably should have let him deal with Nora from the start.
Stifling a yawn, the redheaded warrior lifted her head to scan the crowds for the heiress's familiar shock of white. Part of her dreaded encountering Weiss again after having seen her and Ruby... on the floor and...
Pyrrha's face flushed. Now was not the time to think about that. Weiss had clearly made a difficult decision that night, judging by how angry she'd been during her visit, and Pyrrha wanted to help support her, not only as a classmate, but also as a friend.
Green eyes finally caught sight of their target - Weiss was going through the line. She tilted her head towards Jaune and nudged him with her shoulder. "Weiss is here. If she comes over here, remember what we talked about yesterday," she leaned in to whisper in his ear, "we didn't see anything."
Jaune cupped his hand around his mouth and whispered back, "Right. We saw nothing. Got it."
Weiss, meanwhile, decided against the use of Ruby's bag. The cafeteria servers had seen fit to load her up with an enormous pile of pancakes that were already drenched in syrup, which would be decidedly messy to shove into a cloth bag.
She raised her brow at the heaping tray. They'd given her enough pancakes for ten people. The trays weren't supposed to leave the cafeteria, but that rule was about to be broken.
She hadn't planned on stopping, but she desperately needed some kind of food that wasn't soaked in liquid sugar and she couldn't very well pick anything up while she was balancing a massive batch of pancakes. Weiss made her way through the crowd and placed her tray at the edge of the usual table as far as possible from Jaune and Pyrrha.
Her color rose at the sight of the pair, but deeming them unworthy of her time at this particular juncture, Weiss schooled her expression into passivity and ignored their existence. She turned on her heel, crossing the busy space between tables to collect a few pieces of fruit from the bowls set out nearer the wall.
Jaune, who had forced a nervous smile and waved, let his hand drop and leaned in the Pyrrha again, "Do you think she's still mad? She seems mad. Also, that is a ton of pancakes."
Pyrrha's face fell. She had expected Weiss to be nervous, but not to the extent of completely avoiding them. "She... probably just needs some time." Green eyes blinked. "That is a lot of pancakes."
Weiss came marching back, Ruby's bag over her shoulder. She'd packed it with a couple of pieces of fruit, extra plates, a few sets of silverware, and enough napkins to wallpaper her team's dorm because goodness knows they would need them. If the dorm was still intact, of course.
She picked up the tray, cutting her eyes at Jaune and Pyrrha for an instant and lifting her chin in disdain, which was mostly reserved for the blond disaster though she was still not pleased with the way Pyrrha had manhandled her the previous night. She turned without a word and strode towards the cafeteria exit.
Jaune exchanged a helpless, clueless glance with Pyrrha.
Ruby considered Yang's question for a few, fuzzy moments. Yang wanted to know good things about Weiss? She rubbed her eyes with her fist, "Well... I mean, she's good at everything. Except making friends, but she probably just needs practice, you know? And her sword is so cool. She hasn't let me play with it or anything but I would be super careful if she did and she's really nice underneath all that rich, angry whatever it is so I bet she'll let me sometime, just..." here she yawned, "she just wants to... I dunno... be perfect, or something."
Ruby wasn't sure if that was exactly what her sister was looking for so she tipped her head back to look up at her blearily, "So what do you like about Weiss?"
Yang blinked, caught off guard. "I, uh..." Amethyst stared into silver. Was Ruby looking for some kind of approval? Confirmation that her big sister was cool with her dating choices? She thought for a moment.
"Well, let's see. She's a looker, that's for sure. And those glyph things are pretty cool, um, and she's..." Yang searched for more positive descriptors, "...organized?" She winked at Ruby. "She also seems to make you pretty happy, so that's a plus."
"You know what else does?" Ruby gathered up some of her blanket, hugging it like it was a stuffed animal. "Strawberries. Can you bake strawberries into cookies?" her words turned into a sleepy mumble, "That would be the best."
Yang smiled lazily at her little sister, starting to feel herself slip into the medication-induced haze that Ruby was probably already fully suffering. Though, if Ruby was comparing Weiss to strawberry cookies, then that was it - she was set on this girl.
After a few minutes during which she may or may not have drifted to sleep, Ruby roused herself again, "Hey, so what about Blake? And we should clean up these..." her mind didn't quite get around to the word 'books', so she just picked one up to show her sister instead.
Yang blinked again at Ruby's question, glancing at the bathroom door. What about Blake? The question struck her as intriguing, so she humored her little sister. "Blake... is great..." Her face broke into a wide grin. "Ah, who am I kidding she's awesome. So cool and serious, but secretly a huge book nerd, you know? Oh man and her fighting moves are crazy, all ninja style, with those insane clone things. Ohhh, and her eyes are the same color as my hair. And those cat ears are so cute, and -" The bathroom door swung open, revealing a very unhappy Blake. "- and, we should definitely clean up a bit."
"'Sup Blake?" Ruby held up the hand with the book in it, using her free hand on the mattress to keep from toppling over backwards. "Want to clean?"
Blake stood in the doorway, scowling at nothing in particular. She was fully dressed in her uniform for the day with both her bow and eye patch back in their proper places. Her gaze shifted from Ruby to linger on Yang. With a short sigh, her expression returned to neutral. "...Sure."
She headed over to the pair of sisters and kneeled between them, taking the book from Ruby's hands and placing it back on the shelf. Yang made to hand her a book as well, but she raised an eyebrow when Blake ignored the offered literature and reached for a book lying a little farther away. The Faunus discreetly leaned in towards her partner until her lips barely brushed the brawler's ear. "I need to speak with you later."
Yang's eyes widened at the whispered request as Blake pulled away and fixed her with a piercing amber gaze. This was either a very good sign, or a very bad sign. She simply nodded. Seemingly satisfied, Blake turned away to set her book back in its proper place... but the broken shelf was in the way. "We should probably fix the bookcase before trying to put books in it."
"Okay, guys, you do that and I'll get the books from under the bed," Ruby rolled over to the side of the mattress. She was the smallest, after all, and knew her duties well. Something nagged at the back of her mind like she shouldn't really be doing this for some reason. Maybe because of her leg? But it wasn't like she had to walk or anything, so it would be fine.
She pulled herself halfway under the bed and lay still for a second. Her vision kind of swam for a second. Probably not a good sign, but she rubbed her eyes and it went away.
"Out you go," Ruby swept a couple of the books out into the open floor before spotting a book with a blinking red light. Huh. She fumbled to pick it up. It wasn't a book at all; it was a scroll. The electronic device slid open in her hands and a notification flashed up on its cracked screen.
'Maximum video capacity reached.'
The words ran together and Ruby knew what they meant but she wasn't sure what to do about them. She bumped her head on the underside of Weiss's bunk as she tried to crawl back out to show the others. "Hey, I think it's... broken?"
Yang turned her head slightly, not really looking up from her self-assigned task of emptying out the broken shelf. "How do you break a book?"
Blake reached over to help pull Ruby out from under the bed, and bent down to examine the item clutched in the smaller girl's hands. "It's a scroll... maximum video capacity?..."
A pile of books dropped from Yang's arms. Weiss's scroll. She whirled around, thankful that her pain medication had finally kicked in. "Blake, wait -"
She was too late. Blake had already reached over and pressed Play.
Weiss sighed in relief, balancing the tray of pancakes using her arm and the doorknob to her dorm room. She fished the key from her jacket pocket, unlocked the door, and shouldered her way into the room.
"... lock you into a person-sized cat carrier for the rest of your life."
Hearing her own voice, Weiss stopped dead. Ruby, Yang, and Blake were gathered on the floor around her scroll.
Her scroll, which contained a very unflattering recording of her in the middle of the previous night's insanity.
"What are you doing?!" She all but flung the tray onto Blake's desk and dove for the treacherous recording device.
"What-? Hey!" Ruby yelped as her partner wrestled the scroll away from her.
Weiss managed to hit the stop icon somewhere along the way, but not before most of the rest of her temper tantrum had played for her teammates.
Yang glanced at her partner, who sat ramrod straight, face passive.
Time seemed to stand still.
Slowly, the Faunus rose from her spot on the floor, and advanced on Weiss. She gently pried the scroll away from the heiress, considering the cracked device for a brief moment.
Features alarmingly neutral, she snapped it in half with her bare hands.
Blake handed the two pieces back to Weiss. "Looks like it's broken."
Bits of metal and plastic sprinkled the floor as Weiss stared at the two halves of her shattered scroll. Her face darkening, she drew herself up to match Blake's neutral gaze, "Looks like you owe me a new scroll."
Amber eyes flashed. "Fine. But only if you agree never to speak of this again."
"Are you bargaining with me over a scroll that you clearly destroyed?" Weiss shoved half of the device at Blake, snarling, "All of my files were on here! Scans of my class notes. Hours of work that you just broke into pieces."
Blake gripped the half piece of scroll so hard it nearly broke in half again. "Oh, I'm sorry," she snarled right back, "Maybe you should just, what was it again? Lock me up in a cat carrier?"
Tap. Tap. Tap.
All eyes turned to the door. Grateful for the interruption, Yang called out to the visitor, "Come in!" She then proceeded to facepalm. Right - this wasn't like Signal - Beacon's doors had locks.
To everyone's surprise, the door unlocked with a familiar click and swung open. Glynda Goodwitch stepped through the doorway, the picture of poise and severity. "Team RWBY, I'm here to check on your..." emerald eyes swept the half-wrecked dorm room, narrowing, "condition..."
Weiss paled the instant Glynda crossed the threshold. She hid the broken scroll behind her back and stood speechless under the professor's scrutiny, mind racing. If she'd had time, she could have cleaned up, or at least reported the damage. As it was, well... here they were. She had nothing to say.
Ruby rubbed the back of her neck, still looking a little unsure of what exactly was going on, "... is this a good time for pancakes?"
"It's always a good time for pancakes," Yang replied, pushing herself up off the floor and tripping slightly as she tried to walk. She came to a stop between Weiss and Blake, offering Professor Goodwitch a sleepy smile.
"Sorry about the room, professor. This medication makes me sleepwalk like crazy!" Throwing an arm around each of her two quiet teammates and pulling them close, she continued with a wink, "Don't worry though, they're going to strap me to the bed next time."
Glynda blanched, eyes drifting from the shattered bed frame, to the mangled book case, and down to shards of what looked to be pieces of a scroll on the floor. "...I see."
Just then, Blake wrestled herself free of her partner's grip. She stalked out the front door without glancing back, muttering a curt, "I'll be back later."
"Blake, wait!" Yang released Weiss and stumbled after her partner, stopping after two steps. She turned back for a moment, "I uh, I guess I'll be back too - sorry professor!"
Eyebrows raised into the stratosphere, Glynda called after her haphazardly retreating student, "Miss Xiao Long you are no condition to be wandering about the-" the door slammed shut, "- school..."
Glynda stared at the door in disbelief for a moment before slowly turning to face Weiss again, eyes sympathetic. "Is this what you've been dealing with, Miss Schnee?"
"I..." Weiss hesitated as Blake retreated from the room, Yang in pursuit. She kept her posture formal and straight and nodded a little uncertainly, "I mean, yes, Professor. They've been a little... unpredictable. I can pay for the damages."
Glynda suppressed a sigh. She was all too familiar with dealing with unpredictable companions.
"That won't be necessary." She lifted a hand, sending a pulse of purple light through the room, and with a light flick of her riding crop, the room came to life.
The shattered bed frame righted itself, chunks and splinters of wood flying back together like a jigsaw puzzle before settling down on the books that had just slipped into place underneath it. At the same time, the broken bookcase shelf lifted back into place, books and medical supplies flitting around Ruby as they came to rest in their respective spots on the newly fixed shelf.
Everything finally in its proper place, Glynda adjusted her glasses and stood tall, satisfied with her work. It had taken her seconds to fix the damage wrought by her students... Her eyes narrowed. She would have to have a talk with the medical director about releasing students from the infirmary who were still under the influence of mind-altering medications.
Emerald eyes glanced down at the broken bits of scroll on the floor. Wooden bed frames and bookcases were one thing, but... Her gaze shifted to Weiss, who was obviously hiding something behind her back. "I'm afraid I can't fix broken electronics, though." Glynda crossed her arms then, back to business. "What is the status of your team's recovery?"
Weiss was not exactly trained as a doctor and didn't really have a clear idea of how to accurately assess her team's progress. Somehow, none of them had died yet. That had to be good, right?
She hid all traces of her confusion behind her polished manner, "Aside from the effects of the pain medication and any stress they may have put on their injuries because of it, they seem to be improving. Slowly, anyway. The medical staff informed me that the Grimm rat poison is interfering with their auras' natural regenerative abilities somewhat. The antitoxin should take care of that by the time they finish the course, though. Ruby and Yang are due for their next doses in," a glance at the clock, "thirty-three minutes."
While Weiss gave this report, Ruby sat on the floor with her arms crossed on top of her good knee, doing her best to listen, but really she just wanted to sleep. Or eat. She yawned a wide yawn and put her head down.
Glynda nodded, satisfied with the report. Personally, she had never been a fan of Beacon's policy of releasing patients into their teammates' care after being stabilized. It certainly cut down on overcrowding in the infirmary, and while learning about immediate emergency care out on the field was indeed important, these children were training to be hunters and huntresses first and foremost, not physicians. This particular case seemed especially irresponsible, considering the exceptional nature of some of the injuries present.
Her eyes swept over team RWBY's leader dozing on the floor. It looked as though the pain medication was doing its job well enough. She only hoped the same was true of the antitoxin course. Weiss's report of her teammates' improvement, however slight, was encouraging.
It had been nearly a century since the last medically documented case of Grimm rat poisoning, seeing as how traditional horde extermination methods never involved close combat situations. As a result, the antitoxin the medical staff had given their students was... new. Experimental at best. Designed by Beacon's top scientific minds, of course, but largely untested.
Each of the students affected represented a different possible variable. Lie Ren, Ruby Rose, and Yang Xiao Long - short exposure to a large amount of toxin, prolonged exposure to a small amount of toxin, and an unknown, respectively. None of the medical staff were sure how, these differences would affect treatment, if at all. Presumably because of this, Ozpin had specially requested for her to keep a close personal eye on their recovery, a task she accepted without hesitation.
Glynda fixed her gaze back on Weiss. "Well then, it sounds like I have 33 minutes to track down Miss Xiao Long." Her eyes flickered back to Ruby. "Keep a close eye on Miss Rose."
She paused briefly, choosing her next words with care. It wouldn't do any good to worry the heiress over the untested nature of her partner's medication, but she still needed to know if any complications arose.
"If... there is any change in her condition, however slight, see that you report directly to me."
"Yes, Professor," Weiss said even as she questioned the direction. As far as she knew, Glynda wasn't part of the medical staff. Why would she want to know? Well, she had fought the rats alongside them, practically single-handedly holding the Rat King back when it turned its sights towards Beacon. Maybe she felt responsible for her students' injuries.
Settling on that explanation for now, Weiss sidestepped a foot over to prop Ruby as the younger girl tipped over in her sleep. The scythe-wielder slept on, leaning heavily against her partner's leg. The heiress's attention to Glynda remained unbroken. "Is... that all?"
"Yes," Glynda replied, cape swishing as she moved to head towards the door. She paused with her hand on the knob, turning her head slightly. "Keep up the good work, Miss Schnee." With that, she left, her concerned expression mostly hidden as she shut the door behind her.
Weiss relaxed. A few shards of metal and plastic peppered the tile floor as she brought the broken scroll back around to inspect. She understood that Blake was upset- and justifiably so- about having a video taken of her while she was under the influence, so to speak, but honestly she could have just deleted the file. Weiss scowled at the remnants of the device.
Her stomach growled.
"Ugh," she pitched the half-scroll in the throw up trashcan and took Ruby by the back of her collar, dragging her a couple of feet over so she was sprawled half-on, half-off the mattress on the floor.
The younger girl woke up a little, starting up and running her hands over her dark hair to smooth it out. "Uh, sorry, Professor Goodwitch, I... oh. Did she leave?"
"Yes, she went to find Yang," Weiss straightened her jacket. Glynda Goodwitch was truly a huntress to look up to- even mundane tasks like, oh, repairing dorm furniture came easily to her it seemed.
The heiress retrieved Ruby's book bag from the desk by the door where she had thrown it in her haste to stop the video from playing. Fortunately, Beacon's dishes were made of high quality plastics- practically unbreakable. The fruit was bruised but intact.
Weiss crossed back to Ruby with two pancakes on a plate in one hand and a bowl of neatly sliced apples and peaches in the other. She handed the pancakes to Ruby and set the bowl on the floor next to her. "Don't eat too fast, or anything."
"Yang says that you're a 'looker'," Ruby informed her after a moment, scooting the rest of the way onto the mattress. Her one leg got tangled with a blanket, but she couldn't quite get it out, so she left it and concentrated on managing a fork instead.
"That's... disturbing," Weiss raised one eyebrow, seating herself on the edge of her bed.
The bed Blake had slept in with her for who knows how much of the night. Ruby had spent a lot of the day there too. Weiss made a mental note to put the sheets in to wash after breakfast and carried the chair from her desk over to sit on instead.
Ruby squinted up at her and said around a mouthful of pancake, "Weiss, why are you so tall?"
"If you weren't drugged out of your mind I would hit you," Weiss rolled her eyes. She took Ruby's fork and turned it around in her hand so she was using the tines instead of the dull end to cut her food. "That's going to be easier."
"It would be even easier with Crescent Rose," Ruby pointed out, mangling another pancake.
With Ruby somewhat settled, Weiss sighed returned to the desk to fix herself a plate of the least syrup-drenched pancakes she could find. Presumably, Professor Goodwitch would be back with Yang before too long. But Blake? Who knew when she would come skulking back to the room.
Weiss set her mouth in a line.
She and the Faunus still had things to discuss.
A/N: So, I'm too excited about the episode that just happened (oh my word Neo is terrifying yes wonderful), and too SAD that next episode is the finale to think of a proper author's note.
In the mean time, thank you all AGAIN for the reviews and follows and just everything, forever, all the time.
Hugs,
Defenestrator