Pyrrha Nikos exited the ring sweaty, but with fifteen percent of her aura left. A one verse three endurance test was no small feat, and she was the talk of the stadium as she ignored the roaring crowd. She really didn't care about all the fame and fortune. The flowers being tossed from the stands were none of her concern, and the smile she gave was purely for show.
She didn't know any of these people. They claimed to be her fans, and she respected their adoration of her for what it was. It was no more than blind hero worship. That was a lonely thing.
She no sooner made it into her personal locker room that she shucked her clothes piece by piece. Naked as the day she was born. Ren, in accordance to their usual agreement kept his back turned to her, and stayed in the locker area as she padded towards the showers. He was always the calm quiet shadow. She could depend on him. He didn't expect words of acknowledgment, and he didn't mind hours of silence that sometimes came from her exhaustion.
As an arena fighter, she didn't need a body guard. That was just a formality afforded to a person of her bloodline and station. She did, however, need his unwavering sense of moral support.
And, although she would always thankful for Ren, she wanted to go back home. She missed her husband, and her children. She wanted nothing more than a lazy day by the pool near their home. Alas, it was not meant to be. She could scrub the grime and the soreness away, but she couldn't do the same for her homesickness. After a hot shower, she padded over to the large bath, sinking into it as she heard Ren's scroll ring.
He'd answered, soothing what had to be Nora on the other end. She smiled at the silliness, promising herself she would find the time to visit before the next arena match.
It was only after she was fully relaxed that she got out of the tub. She dried off and went into the back of the locker room, slipping behind a wooden slatted door. Ren followed her after a few moments, glad to see she was already covered with a warmed body towel. "Any place that's bothering you?" He asked, coating his hands in a warm solvent made to replenish aura.
"My hands and legs, as always." She murmured. "I took a strike harder than I would have liked to the right side of my back."
"Mm." He acknowledged this as he got to work. "The battle must have been difficult." The only other man to ever touch her besides Jaune, and obligatory medical staff. "Try to relax. You are rather tense." He had even, much to Jaune's panic at the time, delivered the twins when Pyrrha had gone into labor earlier than was expected.
"I underestimated my opponent." Pyrrha admitted.
"Yet, you were still victorious." Ren murmured, his thumbs working small circles on Pyrrha's left hand.
She accepted the due praise without a word. Ren was one of the few truly genuine people in her life. Her world was a sea of two-faced lairs. There was a professional mask, and a personal one. Most of the people Pyrrha knew, fell into the former category. She laid sill for a long time, Ren paying special attention to her limbs. Claves and feet checked for any minor injuries that Pyrrha hadn't blocked with her aura.
Finally he indicated that it was time she turn over.
"It's low enough that you'll need to remove the towel entirely, Ren." Pyrrha told him. It was one of the reasons Ren accompanied her. They were teammates, and they trusted each other beyond reasonable measure. As teens, they'd shared in battle, rooms, tents, and streams together. She rarely took hunting missions, but when she did, Nora and Ren both were at her side.
She knew, she could trust him with this.
He nodded, and she did so. He adjusted the towel to cover her rear as best as he could, seeing the large purple welt that had already started to form, made worse by all of the hot, yet soothing water from earlier. The aura was already starting to repair the damage, and he helped it along with some of his own.
"It will take some time to mend this." He murmured softly.
"So I feared." Pyrrha sighed.
"Nora watched the battle. She was worried about you being bruised up pretty badly. I'm glad I can tell her otherwise."
"I truly hope the girls weren't watching."
"You know Nora." Ren said with a kind little smile. "If the arena is good enough for you, it's good enough for them." Ren's intentions were always pure, his eyes always clean of lecherous intent. "I know it's hardly a comfort, but Nora wants them to get excited about your job. It's hard on them when you have to be away."
She rolled her eyes at that, not even flinching when Ren's hands moved lower still, finally dragging the ache out of her tailbone. "I suppose its dinner time back home…" Pyrrha considered. "Nora was probably trying to keep the girls busy, Jaune tends to be slow in the kitchen."
"Probably…" Ren allowed. He was as devoted to Nora, as she was to Jaune. It showed in his every action. He moved with ease, with due respect, but ignorant of modesty. "You received a call from Weiss earlier. I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of answering it."
"Why would I mind?" Pyrrha murmured, sighing as the final hints of Ren's aura stopped seeping into her skin. "She's your friend too."
"She had a mission for you." Ren replied as he slowly backed away from the table. He handed Pyrrha a bottle of water, looking away again as she stood up and wrapped a new towel around her form. "Naturally, I knew you would have to decline. In any case, they're still here in Vale. If you wanted to see a few friendly faces, we could go visit. They're near Beacon's campus."
Pyrrha shook her head. "I just want to go home. I know the travel is a hassle, but I just want to see Jaune and the children."
Ren nodded. "I'd like an evening or two with Nora…"
"We could just leave the bags in the hotel, and take the next flight out."
Ren smiled at the hopeful lilt in her voice. "Well it would be a nice surprise, and Nora does love those. We should do it, if it isn't any imposition on your next match."
While all was well in Vale, the same could not be said for Atlas.
Work at the esteemed SDC was at an all-time high. Weiss was letting her attendance slip to an all-time low. She made the travel when she could, which was a lot more often now that Blake wasn't slowly losing her mind anymore. Even so, it wasn't at all smooth sailing. There was an angry Ursa terrorizing a mining town that Weiss had come to love dearly.
She had kept a watchful eye on it over the years, trying her best to help when and where she could.
"You want me to go down into a mining shaft without Ruby?" Sun asked from his room in the inn. His small boy was trying, and failing to hang from the curtain rod. Mastery of his prehensile tail would come with time. Sun lifted his gaze to Zhu as the little boy fell to the floor again. Tiny feet pattering across the floor as he gave it another try. "Have you forgotten that I can't navigate those underground mazes worth shit?"
"Something that never ceases to amaze me, since you can see in the dark." Weiss sighed at length. "Look, Sun, if you do this for me, it will be a huge help. You have no idea."
"What's in it for me?"
"I will pay for you and Zhu to come visit." Weiss bribed, praying that would get Sun to agree to her mission offer. "Plus, double you usual pay."
"It's just one pissed off Ursa, right?" He asked skeptically.
"Judging from the reports, I'd say it's an alpha." Weiss told him. "Large, and seasoned to have lived so long."
"You do realize Grimm like that are highly aggressive, bloodthirsty, and more than a little dangerous, right?" Sun squinted at the video feed in earnest. "And you want me to kill it…"
"That would be the idea…"
Sun tested the offer again. "If I get that thing out of the mineshaft, you'll pay me double the usual? As well as pay for me to come see Ruby?" He watched Weiss nod. "Okay, so, what's the catch?"
"There is no catch."
"Sounds too good to be true." Sun half growled in contemplation, his tail flicking as it reached for a hot mug of something warm to drink. "There's a catch."
"That stupid thing has stopped production, bringing everything to a screeching halt!" Weiss didn't even want to guess at how much that venue was losing by the day. "I need someone who won't screw it up."
"Plenty of hunters better suited than me..."
Weiss rolled her eyes. "That mining community is Faunus only." She went on to say, trying to sway him. "It's hard enough to get willing hunters in Atlas to go fight in a mineshaft…let alone a mineshaft that doesn't have any human employees."
Sun bit his lower lip. Even he was hesitant. That kind of fighting wasn't easy. There were a lot of risks, and he wasn't anywhere as used to those mines as Ruby was. "You sure there aren't more of them? That's one hell of an offer to be making. One ticked off Ursa doesn't give that kind of payoff."
Blake leaned into the screen. "Sun, this isn't about the Ursa…it's about the possible displacement of a whole faunus mining town. If they don't have that dust, they'll be dropped back into poverty."
He gave them both something of a look. He wasn't a business man by far. "Isn't that SDC's problem for not giving them the means to live?"
Blake shook her head again. "No, Sun, you have to understand…freeing forced Faunus labor has far reaching repercussions. Those Faunus now have free will to do as they please. The SDC no longer provides them with the basics, because they don't have too. Freedom means independency."
"And, independency means no protection…well fuck." Sun sighed.
Blake nodded. "They're not owned by SDC anymore. They're freelance business partners now. Weiss lets them keep the mine free of SDC control, and they sell seventy percent of all procured dust to SDC at the lowest marketable average. They have to survive based on proper wages."
Weiss sighed, this was the crux of the issue. "I can't pay them from SDC's coffers if they're not selling me anything."
"And if they can't even get to the dust in the first place, they'll have none for the community traders to sell, either." Blake continued.
Sun cringed. "That sounds pretty bad…"
"They're miners, not hunters." Weiss replied, rubbing her forehead. "They need help that they can't afford to pay…I can't send Ruby or Yang away right now. I need them with me. I can't send out one of my SDC sanctioned hunters, either. The written agreement states that since they aren't under SDC control, they cannot receive help from the SDC directly…the best I can do for that town, is hire a freelance hunter like yourself, and pay you out of my own pockets."
Sun considered it. The mission wasn't a safe one. "Let me bring Neptune in for this kill, and I'll do it." Sun told her. "I'm not going to pick a fight with that thing alone. You good with that?"
"It's not even a question." Weiss said. "Go get it done."
"You just make sure I get myself a night or two uninterrupted with Ruby when I get there." Sun grinned, cutting the feed.
While Sun was dealing with that idiotic Ursa in the north, the other shoe dropped in the south.
Blake knew what Sun wanted. He wanted to have Ruby, and he wanted to make his claim. Blake had been considering it off and on for a while, but she decided to relent. "Ruby, can you come in here for a bit, we need to talk." Blake called from the bedroom as she finished her own little project. She put it off to the side before fishing an armband of her own out from the bedside drawer, tying it on snuggly.
"Yeah, is everything okay?" Ruby asked.
"Close the door."
"Err, okay?" Ruby did, and then sat where Blake invited her.
"Okay…" Blake sighed at length. "So, it's time we have a little chat, Ruby." Blake said slowly, feeling a little awkward for having to give 'the talk' to a human…much less an adult human. "First, and I really do need to ask this, how much do you know about Faunus claiming practices?"
"I don't really think I know all that much. Weiss and I used to talk about it every now and then. Not in detail, so maybe like little bits and pieces?" Ruby said with a shrug. "I never really had to worry about it before."
"Right…" Blake said awkwardly. "So, crash course on the basics it is…" She licked her lips, unsure where to start. "So, as a Faunus, there are three types of people. The leaders, alpha. The ones lower than that, beta. The ones lower still, omega. Now, among humans, that means nothing. To Faunus, it dictates our every move around each other. In my home, in my territory, any place that is mine, I am an alpha…are you with me so far?"
"Yeah…" Ruby said, a bit unsure of where this conversation was going. "But, why exactly, are you telling me this?"
"Because it applies to Sun, and his relationship to you…more importantly, it applies to the friendship between Sun and myself." Blake stood, pacing slowly back and forth before she finally decided to just show Ruby what she meant. She went to the other side of the room, pulling out a hand-carved wooden box. Weiss kept it protected at all cost. She sat back down. Opened up the box, showing two scent markers protected by a layer of red velvet lining.
One was an armband, the other, a small silk choker.
Both of them lovingly hand woven by Blake herself. "As a human, these are pretty trinkets. To you, that's all they are. You'd never be able to fathom the sort of messages I'd be able to leave on these for other Faunus." Blake lifted the both of them. "The armbands are exchanged among kinfolk. Sworn vows…promises…between family, between friends, or between potential mates. We use them to mark our social groups."
"I remember when Weiss used to wear the necklace." Ruby said more to herself then to Blake. "One day, she stopped, and when I asked her about it, she just said she didn't need it anymore."
"She doesn't."
"Why not?"
The Faunus shrugged. "The silk choker is an announcement that a beta is considering an alpha's courtship. Faunus view the neck as a special place. A scent marker there means the beta is considering mating. During this time, the beta will hide their neck from everyone, lover included. If the beta accepts the alpha's offer, then they will ask the alpha to remove the scent marker and mate with them." Blake said, her ear flicking at just the mere thought. "Weiss and I have mated, in our home that means she's an alpha too. She has a different marker, she doesn't need the necklace."
"What kind is it?" Ruby asked. "The new marker?" It was a seemingly innocent question, but unfortunately for Ruby, the answer was not the same.
"Her body, Ruby." Blake said pointedly. "I mark her directly every single time we're intimate. Our pheromones mix and linger. That's why she doesn't need these anymore." To prove her point, Blake reached out, taking Ruby's hand in her own. "Any time I touch you, even like this, I can leave behind my scent. Faunus mark everything in passing, but we only mark our mates with inherently sexual pheromones."
"So, if he wanted, Sun could just scent mark me everywhere?"
"Yes, and in doing so, he'll cover my scent that's on you."
"And that's a bad thing?"
Blake made a non-committal little shrug. "There's a difference between rutting, and mating. You and Sun do the former, Weiss and I do the latter. Every time we do, I leave my calling card all over her. We use the same scented toiletries and laundry detergent to further mingle it. Sun could do that to you if he wanted, but that's not exactly considered appropriate. At least, not until after a formal wooing period."
"And, it's communication for you…sooo" Ruby crinkled her nose. "Err, so, you would know if he did…" Ruby flinched. "That's kind of creepy."
"For a Faunus, it's normal, Ruby, I promise. But in a word, yes…I'd know." Blake nodded. "That marker of yours, is only the first step in his process to properly woo you…and, thusly, there's a problem."
"I thought you didn't mind me dating him."
"I don't."
"Then what's the problem, Blake?"
"He doesn't smell like one of my betas...one of my kin." Blake rolled up her shirt sleeve, a band of woven dark brown, mocha tied around her arm. She put it on strictly to explain the practice to Ruby. "For example, this is Velvet's armband that I wear around her territory. It's her claim on me as a subordinate member of her family. Wearing it means three things. One, I'm submitting willingly, and mingling ours scents. Two, it allows her to scent mark me properly as she sees fit. Thirdly, and most importantly, I'm allowed to scent mark in her territory."
"So, you need to give Sun an armband too…so you don't get mad at him?"
"Actually, you both need to wear one…you can put mine on your other arm. Zhu will wear one too." Blake had already woven three bands, and had already carefully marked them. She handed the finished products to Ruby. "If you're going to be with Sun romantically, I shouldn't be marking you any place on your body. So long as you live in my territory, I'm your alpha…similarly, if he wants to keep marking his place in my territory, he must also submit to my reign as the alpha…"
Ruby frowned. "This sounds so weird..."
"Don't worry too much about it, Ruby. I know this probably seems invasive, but, for us it's just a way of life." Blake assured her. "Just go along with this, for our sake. I promise, it's normal. I won't have an instinctual urge to overpower him, and he'll be able to express himself the way he really wants to."