She jumps out of her skin, stumbles back into her desk and claps a hand over
her pounding heart.
"Ilia! Fuck you scared me!"
"Sorry," she says, rising from the bed. "I thought - well. Nevermind."
Blake catches her breath, taking in Ilia's presence. It's the first time she's seen
her in months. She looks... tired. There's a washed out pallor to her skin - or
maybe it's just the winter moon.
Either way, Blake takes a step forward and asks, "Are you alright?"
Because she's let go of their argument by now. Because it doesn't matter so
much with Ilia being around. Looking like she used to. Like the world was
weighing on her shoulders with a great burden. Something Blake's always
wanted to help her with, but never could quite put a name to. Nameless burden.
Nameless solution.
"I'm as okay as I could be," Ilia says, shifting into a moonbeam. Her gray eyes
catch the light, but they don't gleam like silver. They're tarnished, and dark,
seemingly devouring the light into her pupils.
Blake's skin prickles.
"...I haven't seen you in a while." Blake says carefully, pressing her palm into
her desk. "What brings you by?"
Ilia turns an unreadable look across the room.
Clothes are scattered in various piles across the room, everything from Blake's
masculine disguise to Yang's dresses and underclothes. It still looks like two
people live here, even though Blake's left Ilia's side of the room untouched. The
sheets on her bed are messy beyond recognition. They probably still smell of
her and Yang.
A cold sweat prickles at Blake's spine. She doesn't like how nervous she feels
around Ilia.
"...I just came to see if you were still here." Ilia says finally. "You were so eager
to leave Paris last year."
Blake's ears pin back. She swallows the lump in her chest, convinced the
tremble in her fingers is just left over adrenaline.
"I...I just wanted to finish what I started, I suppose." Blake says, "Finish the
show. See it through."
Ilia's gaze cuts through the dark, the moonlight turning her expression from
knife to scalpel.
She presses the proverbial blade to Blake's skin and asks, "Are you still in love
with Satine?"
Bleeding cold sweat, Blake takes her first step back from Ilia.
"Why do you want to know?" Blake asks, a hand curling over her chest, as if to
protect the fluttering muscle beneath. As if protecting Yang.
Ilia tenses, then releases in a split second. She straightens, schooling her
expression to neutrality. It's easy to see the difference, now. The Ilia from last
summer was made of soft edges still bleeding. Now, she is a statue of defiance.
Her bleeding edges have calcified into something diamond-like, and Blake can
see right through her, but will never be able to touch her heart again. She can
see how the black rage bubbles beneath her skin. Can see she's reluctantly
given in.
"What happened to you, Ilia?" Blake asks, horrified.
There's a beat of quiet, and Ilia rasps, "I think I should go."
"No!" She leans forward, hand outstretched. "Please! I just want to understand."
Ilia's shoulders could've been made from marble with how still she stood.
But she spoke, then.
"When you came to Paris, I thought I'd met my soulmate." Raw, her voice
scrapes at the dread in Blake's stomach, piling it high enough to reach her ribs.
"I've loved you for... years , thinking you'd never choose me. And-" her marble
visage cracks on the hitch of her lungs, "and I was okay with that. I was content
with the fact I'd never get to be with you like that. At least we were friends."
Ilia's expression twists. "But then I found out what happened with Adam. How
he died in the riots. How you didn't stop to help him. You let him drown in the
Seine, Blake."
Blake's hand clenches into a fist by her hip, and the words like a whip crack out
from her throat.
"Fuck you, Ilia." Blake is shaking. "He only drowned in the Seine because he
tried to drown me first. But you never asked, did you?"
Ilia's visage hardens with every word, but her eyes are darting around the
room. Searching for an excuse.
"You never asked where I got the stab wound on my hip. You never asked if it
was my fault or his. You never tried to understand me at all, how could you ever
say you loved me?"
Ilia explodes, "You never paid me a second thought! It's always Adam or writing
or the Moulin Rouge or fucking Satine-! "
" Her name is Yang! " Blake bursts back. Her ears pinned back so far along her
head a headache starts to throb at the base of her skull. She's wound tighter
than a noose, convinced the vapor crawling out between her teeth is steam. She
digs her fingers into the wound a little deeper, spitting, "And yes! I'm still in love
with her! I'd be in love with her ten years from now if I had even an ounce of
bloody luck. I can't fucking believe you."
The urge to pace is a strong one, but something just won't let her move. Her
shoes are digging roots into the woodwork, gluing her in place. Fossilizing her in
real time.
But her mouth moves the same.
"Why can't you be happy that I found someone at all? Is that what you've been
using the White Fang for, Ilia?" Her cheeks are wet. She doesn't notice. "A way
to get your anger out on the people who wronged you? A relief from me? Or are
you just running to revolution because it's easier than thinking about what
you've become? A friend lying about being friendly at all?"
Ilia flinches away from her, finally shattering that stillness in her body. She
glares at Blake, but there's a hint of desperation in her face. "I tried being
happy for you! I tried feeling okay about it, but I just - I can't do it." Ilia breaks
on a sob. Soft and pitiful. "I'm sorry."
Blake sniffs, ripping her sleeve over her palm and rubbing it into her wet cheek
until the skin feels raw. "I'm sorry too."
Ilia shakes her head, turning around towards the door.
The taste of salt lingers in Blake's mouth. Coating her tongue, mummifying her
words before she can set them loose.
She just lets her go, this time.
But before Ilia leaves, she hesitates. Her long ponytail curled above the small of
her back, the profile of her struck in monochrome as shadows and moonlight
clash over her body. Light and dark. Regret and jealousy. Blake aches for the
struggle, but she can't help her anymore.
She finally found happiness. Selfish as it is, she wouldn't give it up for anything.
Not even Ilia.
But that gray eye finds her in the dark. Tarnished metal and a rust colored
heart.
She says, "Don't go to the show tomorrow."
And Blake stiffens.
"...Why?"
Ilia shakes her head, and presses her palm into the door. "Just...don't go.
Please."
Blake shudders, skin prickling uncomfortably as Ilia disappears from the
doorframe. She's alone, once again.
It's suddenly too cold in this place. Too quiet. She needs to leave. She needs to
get back to the Moulin Rouge.
To Yang.
But how would she explain it all to Yang? Would she confess her involvement in
the White Fang? Her history with riots and death? Would she risk the upset it
could cause?
Would she risk losing the one thing that makes her soul complete?
By the time Blake makes it back to the Moulin Rouge, it's far later than she
meant it to be. Zidler had closed the bordello early in anticipation for the show
tomorrow. She slips past the half-asleep security guards mindlessly. She winds
her way through the moonlit ballroom, the walls still and lifeless without the
lanterns lit along them.
Every step brings her closer to the decision she has to make.
It scares her, everything she might lose if she admits the truth.
She pauses in front of the proscenium stage, staring up at the hanging sinew of
curtains. Paint of white gold layering the play area. Cold as bone, empty like a
starved stomach. She feels the yawn of it in her own belly. A gorge ripped open
within her, waiting to swallow her whole.
She sucks in a shaky breath, and moves on. Down to the dressing room door,
deeper into the bowels of the Moulin Rouge.
She knows the path by heart now. Know that Yang never slept in the elephant if
she could help it. There's two small cots tucked away in her own dressing room,
and Ruby's already a lump under the covers in hers.
Yang is reading by the light of a soft oil lamp lit at her vanity. Her bed is
untouched, her nightgown made of silk and tinted pale violet. She looks up as
soon as Blake enters. Even through dim light, she knows how to follow her
silhouette now.
"That took a while," She says, hushed. "I thought you'd changed your mind."
Blake shook her head, a hand lingering on the doorknob still. "I...I got caught
up, actually."
Ruby shuffles under the covers, a weak cough wheezed into her pillow. Blake
glances at her, then back at Yang. She tilts her head towards the door, nerves
writhing like snakes under her skin.
"I need to...to tell you something," she whispers, instantly hating the way
Yang's relaxed state stiffens.
She waits for Yang to rise, holds the door open for her, and takes a deep breath
as she passes. She prays this is the right thing to do. That she won't kill
whatever had blossomed between them in the past few months by being
truthful.
Yang finds her standing awkwardly in front of the red door. Their positions
reversed, now.
Panic engulfs her, sends pulses of flight through her veins like it's egging her to
take to the skies - but Blake resists. She likes resisting, she finds. It makes her
feel less like a coward. It makes her feel strong.
So she takes a breath, and all of it spills out.
Ilia, the White Fang, the task she was given and failed on the very first day.
How even the sight of Yang had been enough for her to betray the revolution
she'd spent so long fighting with. It spills out in a mix of panic and shaking
hands, her rising heart rate nearly drowns out the confessional altogether.
But she says it.
And Yang stares at her with a dark look on her face. It flutters between
indecision and uncertainty. Betrayal and hurt.
But eventually she asks - she asks , "Why didn't you say anything before?"
"I thought they'd given up," Blake admits, her ringing ears canting back on her
head, "I thought when Ilia left… I thought they'd found a better target for their
plans. I was a fool and I think - I think it may have put you in danger. I'm so
sorry, Yang."
"...Thank you for telling me."
Black ears flick up, hope threading through her veins. Yang shoots her down
with a firm glare, arms crossed over her chest.
"I'm trying to think of a way to be angry at you and I truly can't. It's very
frustrating."
The tension in her shoulders dips in pure relief. Blake takes off her hat, rubbing
her thumb along the brim to keep herself from reaching out.
"I never wanted to keep this from you," she says softly, "I just...thought the
problem had resolved itself. I should know better by now."
"At least we can tell security to double up, now." Yang sighs, closing the
distance between them reluctantly. "Stop looking at me like that, it makes my
chest want to cave in."
Blake sniffs a quiet laugh, sinking into the embrace wrapped around her
shoulders. She rubs the tip of her nose against the column of Yang's throat,
planting a small kiss there. Feeling the air push up from her lungs, exhaled in a
soft sigh over her ears.
"What am I going to do with you, Blake Belladonna?" Yang murmurs, dropping a
warm kiss to the tip of an ear.
"Love me," Blake sighs thoughtlessly, sinking deeper into the embrace.
Yang's breathing pauses.
Blake's eyes snap open, and she tilts back with a quiet stammer, "Not - not to
pressure you. I..." she trails off, spotting shooting stars in Yang's eyes.
Yang says, soft as a cloud, "I love you. I do."
Blake's body gives an echo of those syllables. Her heart pounds with them. Yang
dips down to kiss her, soft. Familiar.
They go to bed with the anticipation of a thousand eyes finding the stage
tomorrow. Blake wraps her arms around Yang's waist and clings. Knowing full
well she won't feel her arm in the morning. Their bodies woven together in a
now familiar pattern, Blake's head swimming in that pacifying scent of home .
She sleeps.
And when she wakes, it's time to ready the Moulin Rouge.
The entire place is up in such a bustle that no one gives Blake a second glance
for crawling out of the dressing room. She's given a wide berth, dancers
chattering away about their parts, Zidler's booming voice cracking off the top of
the dome as they set the final props in place.
Blake only sees Yang once or twice during the day. She doesn't see the Duke
anywhere. She doesn't see Ruby either - but she sees that white haired girl in
the periphery. Always lingering on the outside, and for the first time, Blake
realises she's never seen this woman dance. She'd always assumed by the
grace in her walk, but she's never actually seen her with the production.
Blake redirects her path to approach her, but the composer leaps in front of her
with a panicked look and she's derailed for the next few hours.
And by then, the woman is gone, and the Duke has arrived.
He stalks over the production floor in agitation. Blake hears him hiss to Zidler
angrily, but she can't make out the words under the ballroom chatter. She just
knows that Zidler looks increasingly more uncomfortable as the day goes on.
But again time slips right through Blake's fingers. Constantly spinning away
from her, air through her hair, uncatchable no matter the snare. She's helping
the conductor set up while sunset rays streak across the former ballroom floor.
Rows of seats are erected in uniform lines, red like the autumn trees in le
Jardins. The lights glow and flicker ribbons of gold across the pale painted stage
platform.
Glass walls frame the stage and cast fractals of sunlight in a mosaic of various
colours. As people start to trickle in from the street, Blake realises it's time.
Everyone sits down. The chatter dims to a murmur, then silence. The large
doors close.
Spectacular Spectacular begins.
And really, Blake should have known it when the actor for the musician doesn't
appear on stage at first. The first lines come and go on too long of a beat, and
Yang looks around, confused. Zilder booms an ad-lib line, and Blake knows
something isn't right.
She rises from her front row seat, and suddenly Ilia is in the aisle, standing
alone in a dark coat. She's holding a pistol.
Blake catches her eye, and Ilia's expression switches from determination to fear,
then regretful resignation. It goes in slow motion.
The barrel rises, and the room catches her words to throw them at every corner.
" Vive la révolution."
Blake's body is too slow. She pushes forward with a cry, and the gunshot pops
twice in her ears. Everyone ducks in their seats, screaming. Blake looks to Yang
with pure fear.
But she's just fine. She's standing in her queen's garb and shielding a different
dancer.
Ilia's gun is raised at the ceiling. Towards the intersection of tapestries and
crystalline strings. Blake looks up as another pop makes her ears flinch, then
another. She sees a shine over the tapestry that she didn't see before. She
never thought to look up, really. All that's up there is the bench Satine descends
from every night, and the catwalk lit by the oil lamps.
Her eyes widen.
She inhales, and there's a taste of toasted oil.
There's a distinct smell that comes with something burning. Of course there is
the scent of smoke - of burning wood and dreams sent to ash. The acrid tang of
melting glass and copper.
It's only a few seconds, but it feels like a thousand years. Blake watches in
horror as something flickers yellow, and drips onto the soaked tapestries.
All at once, they burst into flame. A flush of heat rushes down towards the
people in their seats. There's a gut-deep whoom as the curtains catch and
ignite. Ink and colour turned to ash in the blink of an eye.
It all reaches Blake in increments of three. Smoke, stinging eyes, heat. Curtains
turning into walls of fire, the stage full of bodies and fuel for the fodder, Ilia
standing in the center of chaos like she owns the pyre.
Yang, in her beautiful attire, already pulling panicked dancers off the stage and
towards the back exit. The Duke, sharing the row with Blake, gets stuck with
the crowd trying to break free through the front entrance.
The doors are locked, and no matter the battering they take, nothing seems to
make them break. The people start to panic.
It's chaos.
It's turning into a riot.
"Blake!" Yang screams as the crystals wrapped about the ceiling start to drip
boiling glass onto the floor. "Blake -"
Ilia is gone the next time she blinks, and Yang is at her side, strong hands
pulling her onto the stage. She gasps in the smoke and lets Yang drag her with
the others to the back.
A side exit, really. One rarely anyone uses except for an emergency.
This one is locked too, but it's smaller than the large door out front.
"Move!" Yang snaps, and everyone obeys.
She and a few of the male dancers move together. They hit it with their
shoulders once, twice -
And finally, the lock breaks.
They all flood out in a rush, running out into the street as smoke pours into the
sky above. Panting, Blake covers her mouth with her hands. She lost her hat
somewhere in the end, but at least she's alive. And so is Yang. The rest of the
show had made it out too - well. As far as Blake knew. She wasn't sure if they'd
gotten the front door open or not.
Pompier carriages scream from the distance, the wail of them echoing and
echoing.
Blake just watches the fire rise, ears ringing. Head spinning. Yang is silent
beside her, until she starts looking around more frantically. She sucks in a sharp
gasp and leaves Blake's side, running to Nora.
"Have you seen Ruby?" She asks hastily.
Ice drips into Blake's veins. She looks back at the smoke filled exit. Flames
flickering in the blackness like a great, belching monster.
Nora answers a faint, terrified, "No."
And Yang is suddenly sprinting towards the exit. Towards the monster.
Blake is after her before she even knew she was running. She reaches her and
catches the back of her dress, pulling it so hard the costume rips. She wraps
her arm around Yang's waist, pulling her strong body back with every fiber of
desperation in her chest.
"No!" Blake gasps, "Yang you can't!"
"If she's not here then she's in there I have to -"
"Are you crazy!?"
Yang is crying, truly struggling to get out of Blake's grasp and nearly
succeeding. "I need to get her Blake, she's my sister-!"
"I know baby I know," Blake sucks back a sob, Yang's struggle losing its steam
slowly.
She pushes halfheartedly on Blake's head to try wiggling free, but while Blake
isn't as strong, she knows how to hold someone down.
Yang takes a deep breath, and her body hollows itself on a scream.
"RUBY!"
Blake withers under the desperation, crying as she pulls Yang further and
further away from the Moulin Rouge. Out to the street, where they collapse
together and Yang breaks apart into pieces.
Blake isn't sure how long they sit there. She knows the pompiers arrive to put
out the flames. She knows the other dancers are also crying. She knows Ruby
still hasn't replied.
But her awareness hones itself when a pair of heels clip beside her. White,
framing dainty pale feet, when she looks down.
Her and Yang look up together, and Blake croaks, "Oh, it's you."
The pale woman with long silvery white hair stands stiffly beside them. Wrapped
in a fur coat, it helps Blake realise it's freezing outside.
Well, it should have been, if they weren't close to the world's largest bonfire.
The flames cast long orange shadows over the woman's pink scar, her blue eyes
sharp and cold as the snow soaking into Blake's knees.
"...I heard you calling for Ruby." She says, her voice clipped and far too proper.
"You must be her sister?"
Yang stands up abruptly, looming over the small woman with her eyes near red
in the glow. "What do you know about my sister? Have you seen her?"
The woman doesn't move, despite the way Blake also rises and gives her a
suspicious look to top Yang's glare.
She replies, evenly, "Yes. I-"
"Where is she?! Who-"
"If you would shut up and let me explain!" The woman's prim visage snaps in an
instant, in an irritated snarl of a thing. "Your sister is safe. She's currently at my
estate."
"Your-" Yang blinks, taken aback. "What?"
"Who are you?" Blake asks, her voice raw and scraping.
The woman's eyes glance at Blake's ears, but that's the only reaction she gives.
She lifts the corner of her coat in a far too formal curtsy. "Weiss Schnee. Heiress
to the duchy of Atlas Commons." She looks between Blake and Yang with sharp
eyes. "I'm sure you know of my father."
Blake scowls. "Well enough."
Weiss' responding smile is just as bitter. "Yes, well. Perhaps we'll know of him
no longer. I haven't seen a single hair of his outside of the Moulin Rouge since
he entered. I'm not confident that he made it free."
Thrown, Blake frowns. Exchanges a confused look with Yang.
"Shouldn't that...you know, upset you?" Yang asks carefully.
Weiss' smile disappears, and she says evenly, "Perhaps. I haven't tried to
process it, and I don't think I shall till much, much later. As it stands, my
personal investigation into his financial debauchery has ended on a high note if
he is dead."
"Investigation? Is that why you've been lurking around the Rouge?" Blake asks,
her eyes widening.
Weiss nods, gesturing for them to follow her. "Come, I'll explain everything on
the way."
Yang looks at Blake, a question in her eyes. Blake already knows that where
Yang goes she goes, and where Ruby goes, Yang follows. So she nods and starts
to follow Weiss through the snow.
Though Yang lingers for a moment, looking back at the mass of fire. The red
mill still spins in a light breeze, the wings aflame and rolling still. Even in
devastation, the wheel keeps turning.
Yang gives it a quiet, mournful sigh, and turns her back to it. Walking away.
"My father has been siphoning money from my mother's estate for years,
unchecked. When I came to the Moulin Rouge, I meant to gather evidence of his
financial partnership with Zidler - but in the process I ended up running into
your sister." She tilted her head towards Yang, approaching an expensive black
and white carriage set along the street. Two gorgeous stallions of white and
chestnut snuff clouds of hot breath at the head of it, one of them ticking their
head at Weiss' approach.
"If it wasn't for her, I'm sure he would have caught on much sooner and the
effort would have been in vain. Hence, why I wished to help her with her
condition, when it became clear to me it wasn't just a 'passing sickness' as she
had claimed." Weiss scoffed, incredulous. As if she couldn't believe Ruby had the
audacity to lie to her about it.
Weiss opened the carriage door herself, despite the man with cheerful caramel
eyes and a thick mustache sitting at the top seat, holding the reins. He nodded
at them cheerfully, and Yang entered the carriage first, looking around at the
clean interior as if it had a danger underneath the cushions. Blake slid in beside
her, and their palms found each other then on the seat between.
"Help her?" Yang squeezed Blake's hand, trying to strangle the hope in her
chest. "What do you mean?"
"I had my physician give her a look. She has a horrific respiratory infection. I
assume from the cigar smoke in the Moulin Rouge."
Yang pales beside Blake, but she soothes her with a brush of her thumb over
those scarred knuckles. Weiss' eyes flick down to it, but she doesn't comment.
"It is treatable, though. I brought her to my estate this morning for the first
treatment." She looks out the carriage window, at the fire spreading over the
elephant in the courtyard. "...Perhaps by a stroke of fate."
Yang swallows hard. She almost looks lost.
"I...I don't know how to thank you. Or repay you. Our - all of our belongings are
gone." Yang's jaw clenches. "Our savings too."
Blake squeezes her hand again, murmuring, "I can help. Mine are still in my
apartment."
Weiss interrupts, "You're both welcome to stay with my family while Ruby
undergoes her treatment."
Blake shoots her a glare, ears pinned back. "... Both?"
But Weiss doesn't flinch. She hasn't flinched once, and honestly Blake doesn't
know what to make of it. She can't tell if she hates it or admires it. Maybe both.
"Yes, both ," Weiss sniffs, leaning out the carriage window and waving at the
driver. "You'd do well to avoid lumping me in with my father."
Her eyes lock on the pair of them, cold and calculating. But perhaps, a bit of
something else in there too. "I am much more than you think I am. And there is
no need to repay me."
Weiss shifts in her seat for the first time. She glances out at the street as the
carriage pulls off into an alleyway. Away from the panic and traffic. Away from
the column of smoke obscuring all of the sky. The moon and her children blotted
out by the death of a corpse remade.
She says, voice going quiet, "Ruby is my friend. It's only reasonable that I
should share the benefits of my position for her better health. That is all."
Yang leans back against the carriage wall, murmuring softly to Blake, "I really
think I'm dreaming. Will you pinch me? Is a noble really being nice?
Voluntarily?"
Blake humours her and pinches a bit of skin on her forearm, Yang flinching from
her with a gasped ow!
Weiss rolls her eyes to the Parisian skyline, and Blake follows in kind.
"You're the writer Ruby spoke about," Weiss says, "Is your last name
Belladonna?"
Blake stiffens. She glares at Weiss. "Why do you ask?"
"There is a prominent faunus family by that name in London. I was curious."
Weiss' eyes flash in the passing lamp posts.
"I think we may just have something in common with each other, after all."