It was nice to be back in her own home, with all of her little nooks and crannies. Blake liked to hide. It was less out of fear, more out a sense of enjoying her own thoughts peacefully. Even so, when Blake didn't want to be found, she often times wasn't. This spelled trouble for anyone charged with worrying about her, because Blake had thwarted more than one security guard, maid, or butler, that was just trying to be helpful.

Now that she was pregnant, she slowly found the desire to be left alone even more consuming. There were some people that she would always allow around, but the rest of the world could have fallen off the face of Remnant, and Blake wouldn't have batted an eye. At least, not in her current mood, which was anything but pleasant.

"What in the hell is she doing?" Yang asked when her sister had called her.

"I don't know, but she's not responding to any of my texts." Ruby said, looking at Yang as if the blonde might be able to do what Ruby could not.

They both eyed the door wearily. Yang was not quite sure what Blake would want with one of the spare bedrooms. There was nothing inside of it, or at least, there hadn't been. "So, let me get this straight. When you opened the door, she darted into the closet and hid…"

"Yep." Ruby popped the end of the word, leaning on the wall. "I'm trying not to bother Weiss, considering…but…"

"No, you made the right move." Yang just wasn't sure what to do now. Calling Weiss from out of the drawing room was a very bad idea. Father and daughter had locked themselves inside, their arguing a dull roar, something that was not uncommon. It was best to just let everything blow over, as it usually tended to do. They heard rustling, Blake had come out of hiding, and Yang decided to peep through the crack. Among the sea of carpeted powder blue, there was of a mound of black sheets. Blake walking from one side of the room to the other, pacing around.

"Think we should open the door?" Ruby asked.

"Do you want to chase her back into the closet?" Yang asked.

"Yang, this is stupid…she can probably hear us talking." Ruby murmured.

"Trial by fire." Yang said, she no sooner opened the door that Blake hissed at the both of them, a low growl in her voice. Yang blinked, that was not the reaction she was expecting. "Oooookkkaayy then." Yang ever so slowly closed the door, clicking it shut for good measure. Silver eyes met lilac. Equally confused, and neither one of them stupid enough to set a single foot in the room. "Did she just…"

"Yeah…" Ruby was a little dumbfounded herself. "Were her eyes all weird?"

"No…" Yang had wished it was that easy. Blake was wholly in charge of her faculties, and wholly pissed off…or, that was the best Yang could come up with as they heard rustling again. She looked back through the crack. "It almost looks like…but then again, that'd be pretty stupid."

"Looks like what, Yang?"

"Like she's fluffing the damn sheets…" Yang thought, wisely keeping that to herself. "I'm not entirely sure, but we're going to wait on Weiss. I don't know about you, but I don't have a death wish." Yang sat by the door, Ruby doing the same, listening the rustling going on.

A Schnee always got what they wanted. This was a life lesson that had been instilled into Weiss. Ever since being a small girl, she was encouraged to do so. Wilson often times hated the fact that what she wanted, and what he did, were two very separate things. When he first heard that Blake was to be the mother of his grandchildren, he had been hard pressed to believe it.

He was sure that Weiss would decide better, if only for the company's sake.

He assumed that she would realize she needed a human child, go to a sperm bank, and see the matter done rationally. She would mother a child herself, allowing her Faunus of a spouse to play some sort of surrogate role…but the child…the child would be a fully human Schnee. Yet, painfully so, like all things he thought to be absolute certainty in his life, it crumbled like ash.

Instead, she'd used the highly experimental, wholly unnatural, process of infusing her own genetic material with dust.

It was a long held belief that dust was the cause of many mutations in the first place. Forced evolution being what sparked Faunus to become what they were. Animals of particularly high intellect. And, that was what Wilson thought of them, more or less. The argument that humans were also mammals, and a categorically speaking animals as well, didn't matter to him.

Mankind was the first, and thusly superior humanoid creature. That was merely his view. They were, the best of Remnant's races.

He had been hurt deeply by the news that Blake was pregnant. There were three unborn babies involved with this little travesty, and that only further served it fuel his ire. Unfortunately for him, Weiss was his daughter, and foul moods ran in the family.

"I mean nothing to you." She said it out of hurt, out of anger, but it was the only thing that came to mind to say. She knew it wasn't true. Her father loved her dearly, strained relationship or not.

"That isn't the case. Don't be so foolish."

"It must be." Weiss said, hands gripping at the edges of her long tea dress. "You've done nothing to support my feelings on the matter, and to me, they do matter. I'm going to be a mother, you a grandfather, and you still won't talk to Blake." Her voice strained. "I clearly mean nothing to you, because if I meant anything…anything at all, you would be trying to keep this family together. For my sake, if nothing more. You. Would. Try."

"You are still young, Weiss, and many of the things you perceive to be true, are quite the contrary." He said to her, trying to juggle his fury with his compassion, failing miserably. "You do not understand what it is you ask of me, and you never will. It was one thing, Weiss, one thing, to bring…this…Blake of yours into our home." He spat her name like a curse. "One thing to take a fancy in her, one thing to bed her…and it was even one step too far to become wedded to her…"

He sighed, so angry, so disappointed, and spurned beyond what he thought possible. "Now, you've truly done it. You have cast aside my one and only wish for you, and this family. You've tossed it, all of it, away."

"I've done nothing of the sort!"

"You have!" He shot back voice raising to meet her own. His voice was hot and cold at the same time. Pain dragging from him so many things he usually refused to say. Stories about his past that he couldn't even begin to find the words for…but it was the sadness in his eyes that did it. Warring so desperately with his daughter's own. "How can I approve this, Weiss? I turned a blind eye when you indulged in this bestiality, but to procreate? To perpetuate the line by sullying our blood with an animal's? How can I even begin to understand this, to even accept it?!"

"Because I love her, daddy…" Weiss said, her voice so strained it cracked as a sob came out. "I know you don't understand that...but I do."

His upper lip shook, fighting his own tears as he bit back a curse. It was always that, wasn't it? Her love for this cat, something that he just couldn't fathom. It was choking him up inside to see Weiss crying over his own rage. Still, she would never understand, she couldn't, not so long as she chose to see Faunus as she did. To live alongside them, as she did. To…love them…as she did.

And to see her so upset weakened his knees every time, cooling his temper and yet burning his insides all the same. "Weiss, I just want you to be happy." He said quietly.

"I am happy." She told him, but the tears never did cease entirely.

"Weiss...this is wrong...so very, very wrong."

She wasn't coming to him now as the head of the family. She was a child, his child, looking for her father's approval. Downright begging for him to understand her side of things. No matter what came between them, Weiss would always be his little girl, and she knew that. "Wrong or not in your eyes, I'm happy." It was what made everything hurt so much worse. "This is what I want. I don't know how I can get you to understand that."

It would have been easier on the both of them if they'd simply disown each other entirely. Cutting ties, and cutting cares, but neither one of them had ever truly been able to do that. Though they came close on many occasions, they couldn't.

Gritting his teeth, he sighed. "I will never understand it." And yet, it was with that somewhat cold concession that Weiss knew she'd cracked his composure. His next words were not kind by far, but, they were the step she needed out of him, the one thing he had always refused to do. "I will speak, she will listen." He finally managed to grouse out. "If she fails to bend to that distinction, Weiss, I will not say a word..."

On the inside of the spare room, Blake really was fluffing the dark colored sheets that she had gathered from the servant's quarters. She had been marking them over and over, for several days in a row. She'd lost count on just how many pieces of bedding she'd taken. Now she was satisfied. The soft and protected place was more than suitable. She slipped into the big fluffy mess, curling into it.

Exactly how she remembered. Just the right consistency. She pulled a few of the uppermost sheets on top of herself, peering out of the tiny space she'd left open, a contented little purr slipping from her lips.

She didn't know how long she lay resting in the soft bundle of warmth, but the creaking of the door opening drew her attention into high alert. She nearly bolted upright, but the smell of her wife relaxed her instantly. Seeing beyond it, she glimpsed at Yang and Ruby, ears flattening back, discomfort and awkwardness warring at her desire to growl at them again.

This was not a space for extended family. Not yet, not so soon. Sensing her discomfort, Yang reached in, closing the door again as the sisters wisely stayed outside.

"…I owe Yang an apology…" Weiss said, mildly surprised. "You actually did make a nest."

"I wouldn't call it that." Blake said, patting the place by her side. "In a manner of speaking, maybe, but well…" Golden eyes averted. This was one thing she had no reasonable explanation for. "When this is the kind of thing you have for a bed, I suppose, you become quite fond of it." At least, she knew she had. When she was young, she thought it was the best way to sleep. Nestled under a mound of fluffy softness, and hidden well away from view. A place where she could see the world, but they couldn't see her. "This was the sort of place I slept when I was little…"

"I see…" Weiss eyed her quietly, trying to understand what in the world would spark Blake's intent to do this now. Then, arms went around her, and pulled her down into the safe confines of the bedding. "So, this is where you've been going off to hide."

No one would think two people were laying under the mass of covers. Sheltered, but not squished.

"I'm building hiding places." Blake said, almost a bit guiltily. She had never once asked Weiss for any sort of renovation regarding the Schnee household. "I want them close, Weiss, and I don't want others roaming around in their space." Blake didn't bother to mention that she'd be staying with the litter. It went without saying, at least, in her mind. "I need a place I can bring them. Someplace that's away from everyone and everything except us."

"If that's what you feel the need to do, I'm not going to argue." Weiss assured in an attempt to quell whatever it was that was bothering Blake to such extent. "Can I ask, why did you growl at Yang and Ruby?"

Blake licked her lips. It was harder to suppress her nature, and that nature told her that Ruby and Yang didn't belong in the room just yet. One day, when the time was right, they'd be allowed in. Not before Weiss, not before the litter, and not before she satisfied her own completely idiotic paranoia. "It's not theirs." Blake said quietly. The only thing she really knew for sure. "I don't want it to smell like them. Not right now. This room, it needs to smell like us, and only us. No maids, and not them."

"I this one of those…territory things…?"

Blake shook her head. "It's a bonding thing." Blake licked her lips. "Weiss, this is going to sound absurd coming from me, but have you actually seen a newborn kitten?" When Weiss shook her head, Blake continued. "Well, I mean, I remember my time in the White Fang a little. Our cubs can be like that…more like kittens I mean. Faunus traits aren't like our more human ones. Those develop slowly and naturally. Our children will only be able to hear out of their human ears at first. Their other ones will be closed for a few weeks. The night vision is the same. It takes time for them to grow into it. Smell too." She wanted those few weeks to herself and Weiss.

It was selfish, but some part of her knew, she would never get those small moments back. She wanted them to count. She wanted her cubs to imprint her scent, and Weiss's own. She wanted her cubs to know instinctively who their parents were. Choosing to separate her cubs from the world was a distinctly Faunus practice, but it was one she firmly believed in, and she wanted the room fully bathed in her scent before the time came.

All of this only reminded Weiss of just how different Faunus could be. "Blake…I need you to do something for me, and you aren't going to like it…but please, just…say you will."

The Faunus turned to her in concern. She had smelled the salt when Weiss had entered, the scent of tears, and the puffy rim around blue eyes were a dead giveaway. Weiss normally didn't want to speak of her arguments when it came to her father, so this was concerning. "You fought with him again, didn't you?"

Weiss licked her lips and shrugged, she knew she couldn't sugar coat the matter. "He's…not happy…"

"I knew he wouldn't be."

"But…" Weiss swallowed hard. "You need to talk to him, and he needs to tell you the things he refuses to tell me. Winter and I…there are so many things he won't say to us, concerning Faunus…but…" Weiss knew there was something more to it than just the death of her mother. More than just the White Fang.

Blake nodded. "Where is he?"

"The drawing room." Weiss murmured, now feeling a ball twist in the middle of her gut. A cold, icy fear there. This had a very good chance of not going well. She knew that look in Blake's eyes. That golden gazed woman would do anything in her power to comfort Weiss at every turn. She was goal driven to do just that, because her very being dictated it.

"I'll see to it." Blake said, no heat or protective malice in her words. Even so, that phrase was one Weiss had come to learn all too well. When Blake 'saw to something', it was never a small affair…a trait that Blake shared with Wilson.

This had the propensity to blow up in all of their faces. It wouldn't be the first time, if it did.

Weiss never knew her grandfather…not truly.

She knew him as an elderly old man with a love for the finest drinks, the richest smoke, and a soft spot for two little girls. Weiss and Winter were the apples of his eye. He was the man who sang songs to them, and began teaching Weiss on the piano when she was barely two. Well, that is, if one could truly call small palms slapping on the keys, playing.

Still, it was his love of the classics that had harbored hers, and it was his doting nature that brought a smile to her face. Weiss, as a small child had only seen the paternal side of her grandfather. Wilson refused to jade her image of that man, refused to tarnish her happy memories, merely because the truth of the matter would haunt her.

It was with this in mind, that he sat across the table from Blake. A Faunus who was about to hear the rather sickening truth that the family's past harbored. Wilson frowned at this, putting out the tobacco in his pipe. Knowing that in any capacity, smoke would harm those unborn Faunus in her womb. To what extent he didn't know, and he didn't care. He wouldn't be the cause for any ailments.

He didn't wish the worst of them…he merely wished not to share blood with them, something Weiss had disregarded entirely. Then again, what was a Schnee, if not a deviant?

He tossed a photo on the table. There was no reason to mince words. "Before we begin, take a look at that."

The photo was old, crinkled but well protected. It looked as though it had been squeezed one too many times. "A Raccoon Faunus?" Blake murmured, the markings on her face gave her away.

"Blood relative, though she does not look it." Wilson replied. "You are not the first Faunus to carry the child of a Schnee. You are, however, the first to do so willingly." He eyed her with cold calculation. "You think me crude, but I would never spill my seed into anything but my own kind. It seems to me, that Weiss shares her grandfather's interests. The only difference is, you've chosen to do so willingly...the mother of that woman there, did not."

He hated Faunus, what they represented. What they reminded him of. What he remembered of the monster that was man. The demon that was William Schnee.

"She's your half-sister?"

"She's dead." Wilson replied. "Murdered in cold blood by the White Fang. She was nothing to me, favored in this house as one of many born of my father and his concubines. It was never my place to question it. She was only one of many outcomes of his liaisons…she was the only one of Faunus blood, though." He leaned forward then. "As a race, I hate the Faunus. Nothing but animals who'll take anything given to them, always hungry for more. Blinded by their lust to the point that they'll sleep with the very man who kept a collar around their necks…depraved, is it not?"

"We're not all like that…" It was the best Blake could offer, her growl suppressed between her teeth. Her words lodged in the back of her throat.

"It's a matter of perspective, one you do not understand, because you, like Weiss, are of a privileged age." Wilson told Blake. "You're naïve. You do not understand the horrors of the Schnee family. What I've tucked away and protected my daughters from for all of these years. You haven't a clue the game you're playing at…so I will tell you…but you are to never, and I do mean never, speak of this to Weiss."

AYangThang: The moral grey area rises...you'll be getting another chapter this week, if only because this was another one of those ones that I had to cut in half. It won't be today though, the car needs to be taken to the shop before it dies on me again.