Ruby and Weiss eventually found their way back to their impromptu campsite, the latter bearing most of the former's weight over her shoulders. Both were frazzled to a degree that could certainly be explained by their tussle with a Grimm— and nothing else.

Blake sat cross-legged and alone, her hands extended towards a fresh fire. "Ah, there you are. Yang was about to come searching for you. I told her to have some faith; she said she's getting more wood, but she's probably looking anyway."

Weiss snorted, slowly taking Ruby towards the warmth of the fire. "Well, some extra help would've been nice. This one isn't exactly light."

"H-hey!" Ruby shouted with half-feigned offense.

Blake looked up at the two with an intensely raised brow, her eyes darting between them. A long, dubious hum resonated in her throat. "Somehow, I doubt that."

Weiss gently set Ruby besides the fay, then affixed her with a glare. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Ruby looked between the two with pure confusion. "Guys…"

"Oh, I don't know," Blake smugly drawled, "just seems like you could've used the, er… privacy."

Weiss crossed her arms and huffed. "I don't know what you mean."

Blake smirked. "I'm sure you don't. How about you, Ruby?"

Ruby blushed, buckling the moment the pressure was put on her. "Uh, no!" She nervously glanced at Weiss for approval, but the fencer was busy hiding her face from Ruby's terrible lie. "I, uh… Look, Weiss got a new sword!"

Blake raised both brows this time, her eyes drawn to the weapon still tight in Weiss' grip. Upon seeing its make, however, her curiosity switched straight to rage. She shot to her feet and stomped towards the heiress. "What the hell is that?"

Weiss tried to disarmingly raise her hands, but that turned to an inadvertent threat as the blade stayed firmly in her grip. "I found it, I swear! It was in the Grimm and it came out with me! It's cursed— I can't let it go!" The explanation was rushed and desperate, but it at least made Blake take a step back.

The fay turned to Ruby. "Is that true?"

Glad to have a subject beside what they'd spent so long doing in the dark forest (kissing, mostly— neither of them had realized how easy it was to lose the time), Ruby jumped at the opportunity. "Yeah! She had it when I pulled her out! She even stabbed me with it!"

Blake slowly turned back to Weiss, her amber eyes dangerously sharp. "You what."

Weiss retreated a step, but Ruby spoke up before she could say anything more self-incriminating.

Ruby scrambled up to her feet with a hiss, but managed to grab Blake's shoulder before she could advance on their heiress. "On accident, I swear! She didn't mean to!"

Blake looked at Ruby, then back at Weiss. The edge dulled from her eyes, her tension relaxing only slightly. "Okay… fine. Sure. The Grimm somehow had a cursed weapon inside of it, which Weiss pulled out and used to stab Ruby— totally by accident, of course— after she ditched us in the middle of the Emerald Forest."

Weiss' arms fell limp to her sides, and her gaze turned to her feet. "I'm sorry, I… I acted rashly, and made a grave mistake. Blake… I am truly sorry for betraying your trust, and so soon after I doubted yours. You've done nothing but help me, and all I've given you is… vitriol. And distrust." Weiss briefly met the fay's eyes, then bowed before her. "I know I don't deserve it, but… I hope that you can forgive me."

Blake violently recoiled, nearly sending Ruby tumbling as she backed into her. Thankfully, the girl managed to catch herself.

"Please, Blake. I know you hate me, and I'm sure it's for good reason, but I vow to change." Weiss remained bowed, but slowly raised her eyes to meet Blake's. Honest conviction burned in those icy pools. "Please, give me a chance."

Blake opened her mouth, hot words immediately on her lips, but a tug from Ruby stopped her. She half-turned to the girl, finding her silver eyes desperately pleading. "Please," Ruby begged, "just let it go, okay? Give her a chance to be better."

Blake stared at her for a long time, her emotions unreadable. After a silent moment that stretched for ages, she turned back to Weiss.

"Weiss," she began, her voice dangerously low. "You are a Schnee. Do you know what that means?"

Weiss opened her mouth, then closed it. The question was obviously rhetorical.

"It means you've got bastions to your name— four of them, at least, doing whatever sickening things your people can conjure with complete impunity in another realm. Men, women, children, forced to do… unspeakable things, all to repent for a war that started before they were even born." Her words were hot and venomous, but delivered with that same cold expression that she always wore. "Could you imagine what my people have become?"

Weiss dipped her head low. "I… no. I couldn't."

Blake scoffed. "You're damn right you couldn't, yet you've abused that fact all the same."

Weiss looked up immediately, her own voice sharpening. "I have not—"

"You're Atlesian, right?"

Weiss blinked, the question so sudden that it set her back on her heels. "Y… yes?"

The flickering campfire grimly highlighted the disgust on Blake's face. "And how did you get here?"

Weiss' eyes widened. "I— I don't know—"

"Yes you do, Weiss. You just don't want to say it." She briefly looked over her shoulder. "Not with Ruby here."

Weiss' heart dropped into her gut, along with all the conviction she'd started with. She sharply inhaled, her guilty face turning down so Ruby wouldn't see. "We… we used a Binder."

Blake's low chuckle was merciless. "Of course you did."

When Blake looked again and saw Ruby utterly confused, she felt her lips curl into a cruel smile.

"Go ahead and explain to sweet little Red here exactly what a Binder is. And please, don't try to embellish. I know you people like to… downplay your atrocities."

Weiss bit her lip and mumbled something, much too quietly for them to hear.

Blake cupped a hand over her ear. "Do speak up, princess, Ruby is very confused and she needs some… enlightenment."

"They're slaves," Weiss bit out. "Fay slaves. Prisoners of wa—"

Blake loudly snapped her fingers, breaking the heiress' words as she tutted. "Embellishment, princess."

"They are!" Weiss argued. "I… I know it's not right, but they are prisoners of war!"

The fay curled a dangerous smile, like a cat before a cornered mouse. "I wasn't."

"Y— you… what?" The statement was apparently enough to rattle the heiress' impeccably manicured Vale accent, sharpening her 'w' into an Atlesian 'v'.

"My parents weren't either, but we were Binders all the same. Good ones, too— please, if you ever find yourself back in Palace Schnee, take the opportunity to go through your ledgers. Three Belladonnas, sold to House Taurus around the turn of the century." Her voice, if not her face, belied the pleasure she took at imparting that knowledge. "You'd think this wouldn't be so shocking— I'm sure you've seen my arms."

Ruby watched her roll up her sleeves to illustrate her point, displaying the gnarled scars that climbed up to her shoulders.

"Tell me, Schnee, what exactly does a Binder do?"

Weiss was at a loss for words, and Ruby feebly attempted to fill in for her. "B-Blake, please, I think we get—"

Blake whirled on her in a flash, so quickly that the girl stumbled onto her injured leg and toppled to the dirt, her cloak nearly falling into the fire. "No, you don't get it! Day in and day out, forced to gate these pompous cunts until our fucking bones melted into the Chasm! Do you really think we were just slaves? We were trophies, bandied around like a fucking circus, just to humiliate our ancestry! I know— I know what our people did was wrong, but at least we don't act with such fucking barbarism!"

By the time her tirade was done, she had turned to loom over the heiress, with both hands tightly wrapped in the girl's smock to force their gazes to meet. Weiss' eyes were wide, her hands were raised, and every inch of her being was silently begging for mercy. Blake threw her back to the dirt, disgusted.

"I don't care if you want to be better, that'll never change what you are. That blood will never wash away." With that, Blake turned and began to walk away. "Now leave me alone, I'm going to sleep."

"Wait!" Weiss called, desperately reaching out, even now. "What can I do? What could I do that would convince you that I'm more than the name I was born to?"

Blake halted her stride, looked up at the sky, then turned back towards the heiress. With one swift movement, she threw a knife into the dirt beside Weiss. "Take that, and jam it in your neck."

Blake turned back around, but her last words were spoken just loud enough for Weiss to hear.

"Good night."