Ruby groaned to consciousness, her face equal parts sore and aflame. She tried to pass a word through her lips.

"Oh, you're awake," a vaguely familiar voice came from nearby.

Ruby's eyes sluggishly peeled open. A dingy wooden interior greeted her, dimly lit by an iron rack of candles mounted on the wall. The room was shamefully small, and seemed in similar repair. Her gaze crossed the room again, towards the source of the voice.

She blinked at what she saw. A tall, lithe woman stood nearby, wearing nothing but an off-white tunic that was untied around her pale neck and chest, covered both arms, and ended just above her knees. It was worn very loosely, like a sleep garment, and altogether unremarkable, if not for the woman it was attached to. Her hair was the first thing Ruby noticed, mainly because it was an extremely vibrant purple that mesmerizingly shimmered, even where the meager light wasn't hitting it. It spilled over her shoulder in ethereal waves that ended in gentle, loose curls. The sight was so captivating that the woman's voice startled Ruby. "Red?"

Ruby immediately felt the memories surge back to her— Running away, the ship to Vale, the tourney, Blake, the fighting, cutting that boy's arm off— her gut twisted and wrenched.

Blake scrambled back with a yell as Ruby spewed. "Shitting hell!"

Ruby held her head and groaned, her whole body now shaking. She fumbled for words, voice catching on itself as the rest of the tourney's events found her mind. Her trembling hands slowly moved over her face, feeling at her right ear. The flesh was split along a distinct line, the area stinging as she gently traced across her face, all the way to the tip of her nose. "M-my… I…"

Her hands moved to find the next one, but a mirror was suddenly thrust in her face, courtesy of Blake. She gave the girl an attempt at a grateful look, then took the reflective square of polished metal. The reflection made her gasp.

A thin, red line split the right side of her face from ear to nose, creating a noticeable, though small, gap in the edge of her ear. The left side of her face, however, was much less cleanly marked. Her dark eyebrow was split into halves by a long line of thick, gnarled red flesh that crossed her forehead almost up to her hair. She barely remembered the longsword running across her face, but she vividly recalled that spur running up her skin like a farmer's plow. Her fingers tightened around the mirror.

"You should go back to sleep," Blake insisted, her smooth voice startling Ruby for the third time, "it's nearly midnight, you'll need your rest for tomorrow's round."

Ruby blinked. She had completely forgotten that more of the tournament was ahead. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for her things.

Blake seemed to pick up on her. "They're under the bed."

Ruby's head dropped back onto her uncomfortably limp pillow. "Thank you," she muttered.

Blake shook her head. "It's the least I could do. I'd probably be dead if not for you… or worse, I suppose."

Ruby eyed her. "Worse?"

Blake scoffed. "You saw. We… aren't really welcome here."

Ruby cocked her head. "We?"

Blake seemed taken aback at the girl's ignorance. She pulled her shimmering hair behind her long, pointed ear and pointed at the latter appendage. "We."

Ruby's confusion doubled. "People with pointy ears?"

Blake stared at the girl for a long moment, letting her hair fall over her ear again. "You… Where are you from, exactly?"

Ruby hesitated to share, but figured Blake deserved to know about her after what they'd been through. "Patch, a little town on Vale's island. I'm a blacksmith."

"Not a lot of worldly knowledge, then?"

Ruby frowned. "No. I'm a churl with straw for brains."

"S-sorry," a light purple color rose over her cheeks, "I'm not really used to people who aren't awful to me."

Ruby's frown softened until her lips were just slightly pursed. "Well?"

Blake became noticeably more sheepish. "I'm, uh, not from here."

"Menagerie?" Ruby supplied.

Blake smirked. "Further than that."

Ruby racked her brain for a minute, then looked at Blake with concern. "B-but… that's… there's… what about the edge?"

Blake blinked hard, eyebrows rapidly shooting up her forehead. "Shepard's fucking crook, you…" she pinched the bridge of her nose, "there's no edge, Red."

Now it was Ruby's turn to scoff. "No edge? If there's no edge, then why do all the maps have edges?" She gave Blake a look like she'd posed an impregnable point.

Blake opened her mouth to argue, then realized she was talking to a girl who thought the world's shape was dictated by a piece of parchment. "Okay, then, I'm…" Blake tapped her foot, trying to conjure a way to explain herself that the girl could understand, "I'm not from Remnant."

Ruby guffawed. "Not from Remnant! Then where are you from, huh?"

Blake frowned, frustrated at the girl's staggering, confident ignorance. "I'm from a different realm."

Ruby gave her a smug, disbelieving look, as if she was in on Blake's joke.

"I'm serious," she deadpanned, "I'm from the realm of fay. The Shimmer."

Ruby stared at her for a long moment, the notion dawning upon her that Blake may not be lying. Her gaze moved to Blake's hair, then her ear, then over her sharp, almost inhuman features. "Either way, I don't know what that is."

Blake sighed. Finally, progress. "It's another world, quite identical to this one, except for all the fay." She pointed between herself and Ruby, "we generally don't get along well— us and humans. That's why we mostly stay in our home realm."

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "That's… it? No other reason?"

Blake shook her head. "Crossing the realms isn't hard for us like it is for humans, but there's really nothing for us here. Like I said, our worlds are parallel, most just don't have a reason to risk their lives by coming here."

"Then why are you here?" Ruby couldn't stop the question from pushing past her lips, even though she knew the fay girl would probably want to keep her reasons to herself.

Blake pursed her lips and stared at Ruby, a look of intense consideration briefly crossing her face before disappearing under a deadpan mask. "I have my secrets, I didn't go prying into yours."

Ruby squinted at her, as if an interrogating look would eke the information from the girl, then decided to drop it. She followed that with a shrug and a small smile. "Oh well! You'll tell me soon enough, since we're friends now."

Blake recoiled as if struck. "Friends? I never said—"

"No you didn't," Ruby agreed, "but I am!"

Blake blinked at the declaration, which was punctuated by an emphatically pointing finger from the cleaver-wielder.

Ruby took her silence as an agreement. She held her hand out to the girl. "My real name is Ruby."

"Ruby," she tried the name on her tongue, "Ruby…"

The girl in question smiled. "Rose, after my mother." She wiggled her outstretched hand, beckoning the fay.

Blake's eyes darted between the outstretched hand and the girl's innocent, joyful eyes. Perhaps, she reasoned, an ally wouldn't be so bad, especially in a world like this one, especially now that people knew what she was. She stared at the hand for another long moment, then met it with her own.

Before their hands could meet, Ruby lurched forward and clasped their palms together with a resounding smack. She pulled Blake close to her bedside, a beaming smile on her face.

After a moment, Blake shakily matched her grin.


AN: yeah ruby cant read and she thinks the world is flat