Yang could count the number of times she had seen Pyrrha in a less than respectable state. Of those times, over half of them also included the entirety of teams RWBY and JNPR at their worse. Hijinks and youthful stupor being the primary reason. It was because of this, that when the blonde's scroll blared, the last thing she expected to see on the other end of the call was a Pyrrha Nikos who looked like she narrowly avoided being set on fire.

Laughter finally ebbed as Yang wiped her eyes of the tears of mirth. "Please tell me you're kidding, right?"

"I was asking seriously." Pyrrha explained, showing the brand new fist sized hole in one of the hand pads used for training. "Robin landed a solid hit, and it melted on contact. I want to know if she learned that from you."

"Don't blame me for this." Yang has to stifle a smirk once more. "I mean sure, I could set that on fire if I wanted. Thing is, when I light up like a fireball, that's my semblance doing the roasting, not my aura."

"The two go hand in hand…"

"Yeah, but my aura is like everyone else. It only gets really hot like that when I've activated my semblance. Assuming you could supercharge an aura, though, that's pretty impressive. I just don't know if that's something you can teach."

"Well, it has to be, doesn't it?" Pyrrha asked. "I've never heard of an aura flaring up like this of its own accord."

"Hmm." Yang bit her lip. "Guess it depends. I mean, my semblance turns on and off based on my emotions…actually, when you take the time to think about it, semblances can be pretty finicky." Yang said after some thought. "Are you sure that it wasn't her semblance flaring out?"

"I would certainly hope not." Pyrrha murmured to herself, though she knew Yang heard it. She affixed Yang with a knowing gaze. "And you're sure you had nothing to do with this? No showing off, or anything?"

"Totally not my fault…are you sure it wasn't just a coincidence?" The blonde asked. "Maybe some fire dust collected on the leather or something. You punch that stuff, even as a kid, it's going to react. That'd probably melt it."

"Robin would have been injured." Pyrrha explained. "She wasn't even bothered by it. Besides, I'm sure I cleaned them properly after my last round of travels. I know Ren does too. We wouldn't want our cargo to explode during landings and takeoffs."

"Well, maybe it was a fluke." Yang said.

"Terrifying fluke, if that is indeed the case."

Yang rolled her eyes, though inwardly, she agreed. "Maybe her semblance isn't based on skill. It might have just flared up without her knowing…that used to happen to me a lot. Once, when I was a kid, I sneezed and set a tissue on fire."

"It wasn't fire though, Yang it was..."

"Was?"

"I'm not sure how to adequately describe it." Pyrrha trailed off, not entirely sure. "A ball of heat, more like. I've never encountered anything like it."

"Well, if it's not outright fire, maybe it's some form of kinetic energy?" It was the best Yang could come up with. "Come on, Pyrrha, you know aura does weird things before we learn how to control it...it probably is just a fluke, like I said before."

"You're probably right. At least, I hope you are." She looked over to the girls. Robin was busy doing a series of stretches, while Astrid was pushing herself on the treadmill. "Was Ruby this ambitious at their age?"

"Eh, kind of?"

"That was not a comforting thing to say." Pyrrha deadpanned.

"By four, she pretty much was." Yang shrugged.

"So young?"

"Err, well..." Yang sighed, trying to think back. Her training, and Ruby's was a bit of a blur. "Back then, she wasn't formally training yet, or anything. Ruby liked to watch me though, and since I was a cool older sister, I might have shown Ruby a few moves…maybe knocked her around a little bit by accident. We had this really big tree that I would jump off of to practice landings. Ruby climbed up there with me once…or well, she tried to."

"I presume that didn't go well."

"Nope! She fell flat on her face, and I got yelled at for letting Ruby do something so dangerous." Yang explained sheepishly. Thinking about it, letting a four year old climb a tree was profoundly stupid of her. "Anyway, my uncle stepped in after that. He unlocked Ruby's aura, and she started following after me again…never did learn how to throw a halfway decent punch, though."

"Wasn't your father angry about Ruby learning so young?"

"Well, not really like he could avoid it. I was training by then. He couldn't keep Ruby away from it even if he tried…and damn, did he did try." Yang leaned heavily on the table. "Funny thing about siblings. They'll either drive each other completely bat-shit, or they'll be stuck at the hip like glue…and the really stupid ones...like us…they do both."

"You don't think I'm being unreasonable, do you?"

"Huh…" Yang looked away. "You don't want me to answer that."

"I value your opinion, Yang."

"Unreasonable? Nope. Not at all…but you're still fucked…plain and simple." Yang told her. "Might as well lube up now, so it hurts less later."

"That's…incredibly crass, even for you."

"Yeah, but, it's the truth." Yang told her, finger pointing to the screen. "You want it?" She huffed out a breath, thumb pointing backwards to herself. "I got it in spades…I've been fighting this same fight with Ruby ever since she got hurt." Meeting Pyrrha's gaze head on as best as she could through the monitor, she offered the best piece of advice she had ever been given. It had been by her father, after the first match she ever lost. "It doesn't matter how good you can toss a punch. If you don't know when to throw in the towel, you're no good."

"I just don't want them getting hurt…"

"You're preaching to the choir on that one." Yang said with a roll of her eyes. "Fact is, if they really want this, you've already lost the fight. Trust me, it's not a road you want to cross. It hurts. Ruby was just my sister…hate to see what it would be like for you, since you're actually their mom. Don't make it hurt any more than it's already going to, Pyr, trust me. It's not worth the heartache."

Baby showers were a distinctly human custom that Faunus never participated in for a number of reasons.

Their instinct to nest demanded complete and total control of every object to enter into the nesting area. Blake was no acceptation to that rule. That didn't mean, however, that Faunus didn't share their own unique set of celebratory customs. Quite the opposite in fact. Although as Weiss had come to learn, these customs were no less exhausting. After much consideration, she decided that it might actually require more planning than a baby shower ever would.

Sometime during the third trimester, the mated pair would resort to celibacy. There was no hard and fast rule as to when, but, it did eventually happen.

During this time, the mated pair would rekindle old romantic overtures and new alike. Going on dates, countless hours of shared grooming, and sleeping in the nesting area were just some of the changes that had begin to crop up. Not that Weiss was complaining, her hair had a silky shine to it, and her nails were never without a fresh coat of paint. Blake was also a lot less restless ever since massages and a few hours of shared reading material became part of their nightly ritual.

All in all, Weiss could say that she enjoyed these changes to their routine. However, there was one little problem.

It was a well-respected practice for the father to give the expecting mother gifts. Unfortunately for Weiss, normally they were hand crafted gifts instead of those of a purchased nature. As a woman with more money and power than she often knew what to do with, making her own gifts was not a practice she considered herself adept in...and her frustration mounted quickly.

"This is absolutely ridiculous."

"It's not so bad."

"It's an abomination!"

"It is not…"

"You know what, Coco, you're right. That's exactly what it is." Weiss protested. "It's a knot, and not even the good kind."

"I told you before, pretend you're braiding hair." Coco said, picking up her friend's newest failure of the silk variety.

"That's what a hair dresser is for." Weiss sighed, untangling the three sheets of fabric she'd managed to crumple into disarray. "There's got to be a better way."

"If it makes you feel any better, that's a good first try. The first one I ever made, I ended up stapling together." Coco admitted with enough self-deprecation to be disarming. The glacial stare in blue eyes softened, and Coco continued. "Faunus aren't masters of this overnight…and I've met Velvet's brothers and sisters, not all of them are able to string fabric together to make it look good. In fact, her oldest one mangles pretty much anything he makes."

"Then why have such an idiotic tradition!" Weiss huffed. "I can't give this to Blake…look at it."

"Because at the time that this custom was made, most Faunus were poor, Weiss. Think about the history." Coco explained, setting her work aside. "They were slaves with not a pot to piss in. Cloth is a very durable substance. It could be made into anything from clothing to accessories. That it carried scent well was only an added bonus. In fact, some of the earliest scent markers were made of cotton or hemp that they'd gotten from their old, worn clothes."

Weiss said nothing to this, her head bothering her more than she wanted to admit, and that went double for her heart. She looked down to the anklet she had been working on. It was Coco's suggestion. The thin pieces of silk tangling and crumpling in on themselves to make a rather ugly pattern, if one could call it a pattern at all. "This is a complete and total failure."

"I wouldn't say that..."

"How could you not?"

"Because you have something to give her tonight when you see her, and that's what's important." Coco pressed, seeing a frustration that she understood perfectly well. As a woman who prided herself in all things fashionable, she held her appearance to a higher standard than most. In fact, it was probably much higher than even Weiss would understand. "I'm not saying you couldn't buy Blake gifts. She wouldn't think less of you for it…but if she's anything like Velvet, she'll like these knotted messes a whole lot better."

Weiss gave her something of a look. "There have got to be classes for something like this."

"Probably, but where would you find the time to attend one?"

"The same place I would be forced to find my dignity." Weiss replied sourly, grabbing her scroll and browsing the internet. "Alright, I'm resourceful and intelligent. I'll just have to improve on my own merits. There's got to be some sort of easy tutorial out there somewhere, I'll just follow that."

Coco let out a long suffering sigh. One that was a testament to the truths that Coco had suffered through because of multiple litters. "Weiss, we're corporate leaders, not magicians. We don't have the time, or the resources, to aim for perfection. In fact, once your litter is born, good luck finding time for every domestic affair that will crop up in your life. Every hour you spend sitting here trying to be perfect, is an hour Blake would rather spend with you."

"I know you're probably right."

"No probably about it." Coco laughed, an evil little bit of knowledge tickling her fancy. Soon Weiss would also know the hells that came part and parcel with parenthood to a litter of Faunus. "Take the time now to enjoy being a couple, because being a family is completely and entirely different."

"I fail to see the humor."

"Oh, that's the beauty of it. You won't until about a week after their born. Then you'll know exactly why I'm sitting here snickering to myself, and I'll bet my every lien you'll be mentally cursing me out when you do."