As the old, if not questionable saying went, there was more than one way to skin a cat. It was a morbid thought really, though the saying was still often used by many humans who lived in Atlas. Still, if that were true, then certainly there had to be more than one way to affirm one's love for a cat Faunus. Or so Weiss thought after another failed attempted at hand crafting a gift.
After a string of aggravated curses, and some careful thought, she devised a plan.
Her first order of business was to visit one of the bookstores that Blake didn't often frequent. Some only sold books to humans, and while it was a sad fact, they had a much larger supply of newer media at hand. Weiss spent hours picking out a handful of new books that were less lewd than Blake's usual media. These were stories of adventure and daring, some of them based in lore, others in history. Still, they were for the academic mind, one looking for a deeper plotline.
Weiss hoped the slower but deep reading material might give Blake something to dive into that she couldn't read cover-to-cover in a matter of hours.
The next thing on her agenda was to shoo the kitchen staff out of her way. Weiss would never call herself a master of the culinary arts, but like all Beacon students who wanted to subsist on more than cafeteria food and takeout, she knew her way around the kitchen. A simple vegetable and noodle soup made from scratch was hardly an imposition. With a recipe card in front of her, surviving chicken parmesan was also well within reach. She even went so far as to bake a cake, although the buttercream frosting made the rich chocolate underneath seem quite plain, and she didn't dare try to decorate it.
Her father would have berated her, had he seen the table setting. So very plain, and lacking in the usual high class demands. Her presentation on the plate could use a great deal of work, and though the tastes were nothing to scoff at, neither were they up to the standards of the household cooks under her employ. Either way, Blake had appreciated the home cooked meal, and her wife's continuous effort to try and please her.
Weiss continued to do her best. Mixing her gratuitous wealth on outings, and her huntress training to think of ways to make matters work to her liking.
One afternoon, however, Blake stumbled on a sight she never thought she would evert see. Weiss Schnee was on her hands and knees, with tools and wood planks spread around on the floor. The crinkled instruction page had obviously been worried over several times, but if the already assembled bookshelf in the corner was any indication, she was getting creative.
The completed bookshelf was short and slender, probably meant to sit on a desk, or to rest on a setting above a bed. These were the same kind that could be purchased in a student supply stores near the academies. Weiss had taken strips of cream colored corduroy cloth and covered the shelf inside and out.
"Weiss, what is all of this?" Blake asked with a tiny smirk as she stepped fully into the nesting area.
"My guilty apology." Weiss replied standing up and sighing, as she put down the screwdriver she had in her hand. "I can buy you all of the silk in the world, but I just can't make it into anything remotely presentable." She allowed a small, self-deprecating smile to skitter across her face briefly. "I tried, but I keep coming up empty handed."
"It certainly doesn't look like it from here." Blake said, fingers running across the lines in the fabric. Rough to the touch, but not in an unpleasant way. In fact, it was quite pleasurable beneath her fingers.
Weiss swallowed, but nodded. "It's funny, because of Beacon, I have a basic understanding of carpentry. A guide, a couple of nails, a few screws, sturdy fabric, and some adhesive…I can manage that…" She looked at her handiwork, and knew she still had two more to build. The first one took her much longer than she thought it would, but she was glad Blake seemed to like it. "Now I'm glad I took that class on structural stability and architecture."
"Even if it was meant as a means to teach close quarters combat in a limited space?" Blake asked with an upraised eyebrow.
"Yes, well, upon reflection, at least Ruby managed to get extensive training and insight out of the lessons. It serves her well, considering…" Weiss trailed off awkwardly, grappling for the right thing to say. Something that wouldn't sound like an excuse. "Anyway, small children like tactile sensation, or so I've read."
"Small cat Faunus also like to claw at everything at first." Blake said with a small laugh.
"Something else I thought of." Weiss said quietly, not wanting to admit that out loud. She wasn't sure how kitten-like they would be, but she had hoped that they might find the texture appealing. "I don't know if quiet, well-mannered hobbies would be something they would inherit or not. If they did, though, I thought it would be nice for each of them to have their own personal space to keep their belongings."
Blake smiled at that, murmuring her agreeance. The fabric even encouraged her to sink her nails in, though she easily resisted the temptation. "You know, as endearing as all of your overtures have been, you don't have anything to prove to me. I know you're a solid provider. If we turned poor overnight, you'd do anything to make ends meet."
"But Faunus traditions are important to you, and I know there are several we just can't share because I'm not Faunus. This is one I should be able to do. I just don't have the skill it takes to make something that doesn't look like a knotted mess." Weiss shook her head. "It's agitating."
"And just how many wealthy parents do you know that would do this kind of menial task on their own?" Blake asked, but the question was purely rhetorical. They both knew that no one with the kind of money Weiss made, would sit and put together furniture from a box and line it with fabric. Fewer still would do it three times over. "When I stand here and see how much effort you put into our relationship, I know you love me, Weiss. That's the whole point of the tradition, to prove how much we care."
Jaune and Pyrrha arrived that weekend, and Weiss took a breath of relief. With them around, Blake would be focused on entertaining rather than continually fawning over the nesting area and hiding from Winter's protective watch. Weiss did have other responsibilities though, as the twin girls sought her guidance. She was a hard tutor, crisp and concise in her instructions.
"This is your opponent for today." Weiss said, standing in front of Yang. "She will be fighting unarmed, but her aura is built to take hits. In fact, her semblance encourages it. With every hit she takes, she become more powerful. With opponents like these, overpowering them isn't possible…at least not in your case." She looked them up and down one final time. "Let me be clear. The goal in fighting Yang isn't to win, it's to last as long as you can. One strike is enough to topple you over, so don't even risk getting hit."
"Yes ma'am." The girls agreed.
Blue eyes shifted to the blonde behind her. "Yang, in this exercise we're simulating the unfairness of Grimm battle. The kid gloves are completely off. Pull your strikes, but don't go easy…and don't actually strike at their aura unless you have to. I plan to be here all day."
Yang nodded, Weiss stepped out of the way, and the whistle rang out.
To say the girls failed ingloriously would be the understatement of the century. Astrid was fast for her age, but nowhere near as fast as the bareknuckle brawler they were facing down. Yang grabbed and hoisted the girl roughly into the air before dropping her back down onto the mat with measured restraint. Robin charged after Yang, meeting an elbow in her chest immediately if not sooner, knocking her to the ground.
"Not even fifteen seconds." Weiss sighed more to herself than to the girls who were wobbly picking themselves off the mats. "Unacceptable." She called out. "Astrid, when your opponent charges, don't just stand there and take the full hit. Robin…" Weiss shook her head. "I don't even know where to begin with you..." Instead of offering them a lecture that they may, or may not take to heart, she offered an ultimatum. "You girls need to train harder. Until you can last a full sixty seconds in the ring with Yang, there's no point to training you further…"
"Why that long?" Robin asked, looking up at Yang, knowing that such an ordeal wasn't an easy one.
Weiss sighed at length, why indeed? It was a lesson that she'd learned far too late, and she would be damned not to teach them such a fundamental thing early. "Don't ask questions, get up and begin again." This time, Weiss didn't even wait for them to be ready to give Yang the sign. Like a human battering ram she went for Robin, then Astrid. Weiss said nothing, the girls barely upright again, she gave the order again, this time, Robin barely rolled out of the way, and with a little smirk, Weiss started the timer.
Like before though, the girls were back on their knees in a matter of seconds.
"Do you understand now? You're not asking to fight sanctioned matches with rules and laws that your opponents abide by." Weiss said as she gave Robin a glance. "You're asking to become huntresses. You're asking for unfair fights, where the odds are stacked against you…Yang is providing you precisely what you asked for." Gesturing back towards the ring she gave the girls a nod. "Given enough effort you can increase your time to sixty seconds, and in that effort, you will learn the skills that cannot be taught by rote memorization...without those skills, my teachings mean nothing."
Weiss took a much heavier hand with the girls than Pyrrha would have liked. What was so surprising wasn't that Weiss demanded such harsh training routines, but that Robin and Astrid met those demands. Even so, Pyrrha wasn't sure how she felt about the matter. However, she closed her eyes, knowing she couldn't bring herself to view another match she knew would end in failure.
The expectations Weiss set were high, and would not be easy to complete after only a few errors.
"There has to be a better way." She murmured, frowning as she looked through the double doors of the gym once again. "She's pushing them too hard."
"Or, not hard enough." Blake noted softly. "It depends on how you look at it. They're fortunate to live within city walls."
"Don't remind me…the outside is no place for children anymore, not even among nomadic people." Pyrrha shook her head. "I don't know how they manage to raise their youth with the Grimm becoming more aggressive by the day."
"Probably because deep down, they're just as feral as the Grimm are." Blake mused momentarily. "Most nomads here in the north are Faunus who've rejected the racist views of the cities, and the establishment of Menagerie. There are hunter groups comprised of humans and Faunus alike that are nomadic, I suppose…but they're not the communities we're discussing."
Pyrrha shook her head. "It's futile to try and live outside of the city walls anymore."
"For you and I, maybe..." Blake replied. "But not for nomads."
"How so?"
"I can't speak for humans, but those kinds of Faunus...they're wild, dangerous. Where Faunus like myself have strived to live alongside of humans, the Faunus who live nomadic lives do so among the Grimm. They probably do battle with them every day. They're teaching their children aggression from birth." Blake bit her lip. "I don't like to admit it, but if I let the fur around my ears and my claws grow out, I'd look much more feral too. If you didn't know me, if I looked like that, it might even scare you."
"All the more reason to encourage the girls to stay within the walls…" Pyrrha noted. "Until then, I suppose I'll just put my faith in Weiss. I'm sure she knows what she's doing. She won't let them come to harm…even if it does appear that way." She frowned as she turned and walked at a leisurely pace. Blake followed close behind, hand resting on the small of her back, which didn't go unnoticed by Pyrrha. "Are you uncomfortable? You didn't have to stand with me by the doors for so long."
"I'm fine." Blake said, wincing when she felt the ache in her lower back again. "A little hungry, but nothing that can't wait for lunch."
"I see." Still, that wouldn't appease the redhead. "Well either way, let's go for a snack then, to tide us over."
Out in Vacuo Ruby was acquainting herself with Sun's large family. She came to several conclusions while she was there. Firstly, it was that the hatred of clothing seemed to be a shared trait among the men. Secondly was that sun seemed to be close with all of his cousins, aunts, and uncles. Sun's father was a man of few words, and little regard for humans as a whole, and Sun's mother was the one he took after most.
And while all of these little tidbits were meaningful in their own way, Ruby found that the busy home life was just a little too crazy. She shook her head as Zhu played with the other children about his age, a gaggle of Vacuo's finest, worrying about their rough and tumble playing. While doing so, she grasped a coin in her palm. She had come out here to practice working on her grip, but found the distraction addictive.
If it was an hour or more, she wasn't sure, but there was one thing she knew.
She had grown unusually used to small children leaping off of heights they had absolutely no business trying to scale in the first place. Apparently she wasn't the only one thinking that things were getting carried away when Sun's father stood from his chair, sending low, angry sounds from the pit of his belly, shoulders squared as his bellowing racket carried much farther than it needed to.
"Geeze pops," Sun smirked as he delivered Ruby's scroll to her. "What'd they do to piss you off this time?"
Though he was given a look of annoyance, Sun didn't receive a verbal reply. Instead, the man hobbled around and went inside, his long grey tail flicking back and forth, patches of fur missing where old battle injuries left their marks.
"The kids were getting a little reckless." Ruby explained, which only caused the blonde man in front of her to chuckle.
"Yeah, well, no one's screaming yet, so no one's hurt." He said, watching as the antics started back up. "My old man gets a little over protective. When I was a kid, mom used to chase him back inside, told him to lay off. I think he was afraid we'd hurt the human kids by accident."
Seeing Zhu charge after others his size, easily bowling them over in the tall dry grasses of the yard, it was no question as to why. "Don't they know any nice games? They've just been wrestling around all day long." She shook her head as one of the older girls pushed one of the equally older and larger boys into the creek that was as dry as a bone. Sue to the drought he spluttered dirt as he crawled out of the ditch where water used to be.
"They got a lot of energy, keeping them all cooped up isn't going to help." He said with his usual troublesome smirk plastered across his face. "Besides, we have games and stuff in the house, but it's just more fun to roll around in the grass and dirt."
"I don't know about that." Ruby said, recalling her own upbringing. "Yang and I were tethered to the television more than dad wanted us to be…not all the time, but enough of it."
"Eh, it's just more fun to knock your buddies around, that goes double for siblings and cousins." As he said this, he put his arm around her, pulling her into a sideways embrace. He led her to the rickety old porch swing that had seen better days and needed a new coat of paint. "Can't say I know what it's like, coming from a small family. Wish I did some days, when I was younger. Having a bunch of hand-me-downs never really bothered me too much, but at the same time, we couldn't afford new toys and games all the time. Had to get a job early to pay my way for that kind of thing. Before all of that, this yard was basically all we had to keep us entertained."
"I wanted a large family." Ruby murmured. "More siblings, and a mom. I wanted to be normal, I suppose. Our home just wasn't and sometimes, that bothered me."
"And now?" He asked.
Ruby shrugged, and he leaned over, prying the coin out of her palm. "Seeing Zhu run around out there with so many relatives, I sort of feel bad we don't live nearby."
"Didn't ask you that, babe. I asked what you wanted now." Looking at the coin, he knew what she wanted to an extent. He also knew she was afraid that such a future was no longer within reach. "If you want a big family, we can try for that whenever your ready."
She took the coin back from him, sliding it into her pocket with her good hand. "Right now, I just want to sit here with you and watch Zhu play. Anything else will have to come later."