Ruby Schnee

There were windows every five metres or so, each one giving a view of Vale even better then the castle could, maybe if she sat on the highest tower it could come close... but the height difference was simply doing this structure too many favours.

The hallway was metal. Designed in every way to try and not appear as purely functional rather then made for aesthetics, though it was a losing battle. Everything about the hallway they were in, and the hallways they had come from, and the hallways they were going to, all screamed function over looks. Ruby had to wonder if this was simply how the whole place looked, or if they were only moving through the parts of the arena only Technicians would see.

Leading her through the winding halls was Glynda, dressed in the same outfit she always seemed to wear which screamed that she was a wizard... Ruby pondered if it was magical or if she simply washed it everyday. Perhaps she just owned multiple versions of it...

"Ruby? Are you listening?" Glynda was saying something, but the redhead was too busy focusing on something else, her curiosity having gotten the better of her as she stared at the woman's clothing.

"Yep... magical."

"Ruby??" Glynda stopped and turned with crossed arms and the Queen Consort froze in place.

"Uhh... hi?" Ruby sounded just as nervous as she looked.

"You best be careful that no one catches you staring at me." Glynda turned and continued walking before Ruby could retort, but she didn't even bother refuting it as she followed behind the woman.

"As if I would ever need or want anyone but Weiss."

"Now, were you listening to me or not?" Ruby was sure Glynda knew that as well. It was nice finally being confident that she could call her teacher a friend.

"Something about the engine?" Ok maybe Ruby didn't know exaclty what had been said, but given her Affinity she was sure she'd be able to work out any problems just by looking at any of the magical components... Hopefully.

Glynda sighed and shrugged. "Pretty much..." Apparently she had also grown used to Ruby's... 'personality'. "In truth, my being here is only necessary so I can show you where the engine is."

"So my eyes will work for checking the magic systems?" She sped up a little to walk next to Glynda.

"Yes... though I'm sure at least Ozpin would appreciate it if you checked more thoroughly then just a passing glance."

"Weiss wouldn't appreciate it?"

"Oh I'm sure she would, but the Queen has full faith in you. All you need to do is tell her it's safe and I doubt she'd need any more information on the matter." Ruby couldn't wipe the smile off of her face as Glynda spoke... even thinking about the fact that Weiss believed in her always made her so happy.

It had been nearly a month since the Queen had become pregnant, and things were moving along pretty well. Weiss was working fine with the necklace Ruby had given her, Ruby herself had practically mastered using Pride now so she herself could pretty easily ignore her instincts when she needed to, and Clover was proving to be a really great bodyguard.

Not that he had actually needed to prove his power yet, but Ruby was taking the whole 'no incidents' thing so far as a sign that his good luck was working.

Weiss called it confirmation bias when Ruby had said that...

They arrived at a break in the hallway, a door that screamed functionality even more then the very functional hallway. It was practically a block of steel on hinges with a handle attached to it. Glynda casually swung the thing open and invited Ruby to step through first. Past the door was a cross section, another door directly in front of her leading to the hallway she had just been in, as it wrapped around the whole outside of the arena. And to her right was a door leading into the centre of the floating structure.

Stepping up to the centre door, she could see the runes on it clear as day even without her special eyes. It was completely sound proof, blocking all noise from escaping the confines of beyond that door. Moreso, it seemed to be a part of a larger barrier that wrapped around the entire engine room which did the same thing.

Ruby opened this one herself, and almost immediately groaned as she heard the whirring of the gravity engine. Stepping inside, she was given a glorious view of the whole engine, and even a view of Vale below. The only thing separating her from falling hundreds of metres being a metal walkway she could see through, and a railing that looked frankly too cheap.

She continued on without worry... she could fly, so heights weren't much of an issue anymore. Funnily enough she actually had a fear of heights before becoming a Dragon... though she wasn't sure if she had simply gotten over it, or it's disappearance was simply an effect from becoming a Dragon.

The engine 'room' lacked a floor, instead being an almost circuit of metal walkways hovering over a multiple hundred metre drop, connected to the walls of the room and even forming a ring around the outer layer. The centre of the area was largely taken up by the gravity engine itself. A multi hundred-tonne Dust-furnace to be more accurate.

Looking it over... it was actually a really simple design. Gravity Dust goes in, gets activated, then the effect spreads to the whole structure using some runes. The only way it could fail was if either something disrupted the runes, or the gravity Dust supply ran out.

The runes themselves were hidden behind a barrier that was powered by the furnace itself anyway, so in order to even disrupt them, you'd have to either fully cut off the power supply, or destroy the engine. Both of which would result in Amity Colosseum falling anyway.

"Looks fine to me..." Ruby mumbled the words, and wasn't too concerned with whether Glynda could hear her or not anyway. She was more curious about the machinery still... the more complicated parts were far above them, connected to the top of the furnace. Large magical supports made of pure metal connected to the top and likely tunnelled through the whole Colosseum, pipes connecting to the top of the furnace also lay high above them. It made sense that the Dust wasn't fed into the machine here, rather it was dropped off in the docking bay, and someone poured it in through pipes.

Ruby assumed there was a filter for rogue Dust of other kinds getting mixed in with the gravity Dust, but she'd probably have to crawl through the pipes themselves to check without getting a full blueprint of the structure. Not that she was planning on doing that.

The 'struts' that kept the furnace itself connected to the outer room actually had something interesting Ruby had noticed... they were entirely magical, but they were actually consisting of multiple different parts, like they were designed to move...

Ruby stared at one of them for a while... the way multiple different pieces of magical metal made up the same structure, all with different enchantments...

"I wonder if you could do the same thing for a weapon-"

"Ruby?" She nearly jumped as Glynda suddenly spoke from behind her, her brain having been somewhere else entirely and suddenly snapping back to reality as she quickly turned to face the woman.

"Are you alright?"

"O-oh. Yeah. I'm fine... the furnace looks fine-"

"Furnace?"

"The engine." Ruby reiterated. "It's just an overcomplicated Dust Furnace essentially... everything in here looks fine, but I wanna check on the outer Gravity thrusters. Just because this place can keep floating dosent mean it can move anywhere..." She trailed off as she realised Glynda was sporting a smile now. "What?"

"Nothing. Just vindication." She turned while continuing to smile and led Ruby towards the same door they had entered through.

"What do you mean?"

"Both the Queen and myself were confident you would have no issues with this assignment... but certain council members disagreed." Probably Saphron... she didn't really like Ruby for some reason.

"I guess from her perspective I kinda hijacked Jaune's wedding..."

Not that she really cared, Saphron didn't really have an important role in the council anyway.

She blinked for a moment and reassessed that trail of thought... before turning her Pride down just a little.

"Does that mean I've proved myself then?" Glynda chuckled at her words.

"Trust me Ruby, all the people you would need to impress are already plenty impressed. Your work on the Dragon Formula is perhaps the most important thing this Kingdom has done in centuries." Glynda didn't seem to care that saying that also included all of her own work.

"I mean... I could only do that because of my Affinity."

"Which you only have because you are you." They went back and forth with that for a little while before Ruby decided to concede the point. It was something she already knew, but thinking about it was always something one had to attempt to avoid.

"I am my power, and my power is me... we aren't two seperate entities..."

Even the strongest people in the world had to remind themselves of that, or befall a fate similar to Qrow and Pyrrha.

Her uncle would nine times out of ten refuse to use Death's power, and Pyrrha was constantly at ends with the dominating nature of her power.

"I wonder how much stronger they'd both be if they just accepted it..."

Both of them most likely could have done the rescue mission on their own if that were the case. Pyrrha would have too many Affinitys to count while using Conquest, and as far as Ruby was aware, while using Death, her Uncle had the largest mana tank in all of Vale... maybe even all of Remnant.

They returned to the very long and functional hallway, and began the long walk to the first of many thrusters... Ruby pondered about her own power while she walked.

"My power is dependent on the magic items and weapons I carry... I refuse to settle on anything less then perfect when it comes to my weapon."

Still, that was still a rather long road, one she had just barely begun to walk.

"So... why am I reading this?" Not that she was complaining... it was actually a pretty good book, historical in nature and detailing an old Atlas military base she had never heard of... well, before today.

"Because it's one of my favourite books, and I want to talk to you about it." Ruby had started noticing certain details about her wifes expressions when she spoke... the odd twitch or glance away here and there... the odd flexing of the wrong muscle on her face...

"She's lying."

Ruby was eighty percent sure.

But she wouldn't pry for now. Besides, the couch in the Queen's office was actually really comfortable. If this was Weiss's excuse to spend some time together while she opened boring letters, then who was Ruby to question it?

"Anything good so far?" Ruby's question was randomly timed, but apparently luck was on her side as Weiss let out a groan the instant she spoke.

"A surprising amount of these are from the council members... they don't need to send me letters! We see each other multiple times a week! You can just bring it up in a meeting!!" Her yelling was clearly just venting rather then actually getting angry, but Ruby decided to be teasing about it anyway.

"You could always bring that up in the next council meeting." The look her wife shot her was all the reward she needed, and it shifted to even more unimpressed when Ruby laughed.

"You're a butt sometimes, you know that?" Weiss shook her head but couldn't resist smiling from the interaction as she turned back down to the pile of letters strewn about in front of her on the desk. One of them caught her attention and Ruby turned back to the book as Weiss looked over the front of it. "Ruby?" She looked back up just in time for said letter to smack into her face, then very awkwardly and slowly fall onto the open book in her hands. "It's for you."

Ruby let out a half sigh, half chuckle, and closed the book. Picking up the letter she tilted her head as she read the front of it... it was certainly addressed to her... but it was also from Ozpin?

"Yeah I get what you mean... he could have just spoken to me face to face." She opened the letter and read its contents pretty quickly... all in all, it wasn't much to be excited about. She calmly put it aside and went back to her book.

"What did it say?" Apparently Weiss was more curious about Ruby's letter then her own hundred... or maybe she was just looking for an escape.

"Oh. Nothing much. Apparently I'm a Hunter now." She answered without looking up from her book, and casually turned the page as she continued reading.

"What??" Ruby jumped a little as Weiss slammed her hands on the desk when she stood. They awkwardly stared at each other for a while before Weiss continued. "Ruby?? Nothing much? That's great news! You wanted to be a Hunter didn't you?" Weiss moved through surprise, shock, excitement, and worry at a rather incredible speed. Unfortunately the worry was what she settled on as she moved around her desk and approached the girl, sitting next to her on the couch. "Talk to me."

Ruby shrugged. "Not much to say. I kinda already knew I'd be a Hunter..." Being realistic, it was stupid to even think that herself or even Jaune wouldn't be accepted. "I'm a Dragon Weiss... not to mention my wife is the Queen. I don't think Ozpin would even think about-"

A finger over her lips stopped her from speaking, and Ruby turned her gaze to settle on Weiss's eyes... so full of love and belief, like how she always looked at her. "Ruby... even so... why arent you excited? This is what you wanted... right...?" She moved her hand to cup Ruby's cheek.

Ruby moved her hand up and held Weiss's hand gently, giving it a soft kiss then smiling at her. "Kinda? What I really want is to be your equal. I want to be someone that can stand side by side with you proudly."

"Ruby, you already are-"

"No. I'm not." Her smile didn't waver for a second. "Not yet anyway. I want to be a wife you can be proud of, a mother our child... and any other future children we might have, can depend on. I'm not there yet... but I promise you I will be."

Weiss shook her head and leaned closer, resting there foreheads together. "I'm already proud of you."

"I know... and thank you." She gently wrapped Weiss in a hug. "You've given me so much..." Her hand drifted down and rested on her wifes stomach. "You're giving me so much more as well... it's not something you have to worry about ok?" Their eyes met and she kept her smile still strong.

"One day...-"

She moved closer and caught the Queens lips in a gentle kiss.

"-I'll be the best version of me I can be. All for you... and our family."