There was something magical about reading a good book.
Reaching over to take a drink of her tea Blake adjusted herself in her bed. Taking a sip of her tea, sweetened with honey, she gave a quiet sigh. The others were out today, making it a rare moment of quiet in their room where she could simply enjoy her book in peace and quiet. Mid-day light filtered in through the window, illuminating the room with natural sunlight.
A flash of white appeared at the center of their room.
"Hi Blake! Are you busy?"
Glancing over at the blue-haired girl Blake lowered her book. "Hello Zeffre… I was reading," she said. Looking closer at her Blake noticed her hair was disheveled, and clutched in her right hand was a well-worn notebook.
Zeffre gave her a strained smile. "Oh. Sorry. Uhh… Blake," she began, approaching Blake's bed, notebook still gripped tightly in her hand. "Blake… the numbers… they don't make sense…"
Marking her place in the book Blake set it down before giving Zeffre a half-lidded look. "What are you talking about?"
Zeffre's eye twitched as she flopped over onto her bed, lying face down on the comforter. "mhnnn mngh mnmghn!"
'She's in an annoying mood,' Blake thought. From the past few weeks Blake had learned that Zeffre liked to be dramatic sometimes. This was one of those times.
"I can't understand you," she said, ears twitching under her bow.
Zeffre lifted her head, disheveled blue hair spread out on the bed. "The numbers! They don't add up!," she exclaimed, throwing her notebook onto the bed. "I've been staring at these pages for the past two hours, and the math doesn't work," she whined. "I've got a meeting in thirty minutes. Please, can you look at it for me?"
Picking up the notebook Blake looked over the page that it was open to. "Zeffre, I have no idea what I'm looking at…," she said, eyes scanning the diagrams and arrows separated by complex formulas that had more letters than numbers. Whatever she was looking at, she was certain that it had nothing to do with schoolwork.
"Just… is there anything obvious that I missed? Please, I've gone over the steps, like, twenty times at this point. I have to be missing something," she begged.
Blake looked over the pages again. From what she could recognize, this had something to do with electronics. She knew enough to recognize the symbol for a resistor, but past that the writing quickly became an incoherent series of terms and numbers. However, she did notice something.
"Zeffre… on this page you define x to be equal to negative twenty-four, right?", she asked, holding out the notebook and pointing to the variable.
"Yeah?"
"Then why, on this next page, did you write x being equal to positive twenty-four?", she pointed to the spot on the next page.
Zeffre stared at the page for a long time before looking back at Blake.
"Blake… You are a genius and I love you," she said, staring directly into Blake's eyes before abruptly hugging her. Tightly.
"Uh… you're welcome," Blake said, awkwardly patting her on the back.
They hugged for a few moments in complete silence.
"Two hours of my life…," Zeffre muttered into her shoulder.
Blake rolled her eyes at her friend's antics. "You'll be okay."
Letting go of her Zeffre sat on Blakes bed and scanned the pages of her notebook. "If that is meant to be negative twenty-four, that means that this equals this, which means this is," she muttered flipping through the pages. "Okay, great. This makes sense now," she said, turning to give Blake a smile.
"Zeffre, if you don't mind me asking, what is that even for," Blake asked. For the past week she had noticed that Zeffre seemed to be working on something.
"Oh, this," she said, shaking her notebook. "I was just making sure the prototype I've been working on did, ya know, explode."
Blake raised an eyebrow. "Should I be concerned?"
"What? No, of course not," Zeffre said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I can promise that it is totally saf—," she paused. "I mean, mostly saf—," she stopped again, arms dropping as she stared at the wall of the room. "Huh… It really isn't safe at all once I think about it."
Zeffre looked at Blake, giving her another smile. "Don't worry about it. I'll probably be fine. Later," she said before collapsing into starlight, teleporting away.
Blake stared at the spot Zeffre had been standing a few moments prior, debating if she should be worried or not. Grabbing her book Blake decided that she would enjoy the remainder of her peaceful time alone read—
Yang barged into the room. "Hi Blake!"
'So… how am I going to make this work?'
Standing outside the door to Professor Ozpin's office Zeffre stroked her chin, deep in thought. Looking through the doorway she saw Ozpin looking at her from across his desk, eyebrow raised.
Zeffre gave him a smile before going back to her predicament.
Picking up the sofa chair from the lobby Zeffre turned it up on its side and tried pushing it through the doorway.
The legs got stuck on the frame.
"Hm…"
Pulling the chair back she unscrewed the legs from the chair, throwing them onto the wooden coffee table next to her before trying again. With a little applied force, the chair was able to pop through the doorway.
"Yay," she said quietly to herself, giving a small clap.
Turning to her right she then grabbed the small coffee table, also taken from the lobby, and flipped it sideways before dragging it through the doorway.
Looking at Professor Ozpin again Zeffre gave him a grin before she went about re-attaching the legs onto the chair.
Neither of them said anything.
Task complete, she crossed the sparse office over to Ozpin, chair and table scrapping on the floor behind her.
Across, she silently replaced the metal chair that was there with the nicer one she 'borrowed' from the lobby and placed the coffee table in front of the viridian sofa chair before sitting down and putting her feet on the table.
"Wassup Oz?", she chirped.
Zeffre's smile widened when she saw that Ozpin was giving her the faintest hints of a smirk.
"Taking it upon yourself to be my interior decorator, are you," he asked.
"Oh, well, you know… It was bothering me that an illustrious gentleman, such as yourself, would be content without having even a humble coffee table in his office," Zeffre lamented, swooning over the green sofa chair. "After all, what if you had a meeting where someone brought a drink with them? What ever would they do, put their drink on your desk?," she continued, horrified at the thought.
"Hm… and what about the chair?"
Zeffre grinned at his smirk widening. 'So, you can smile?'
"Oh, this?", she said, patting the armrest on the chair. "Just something I liberated from the lobby downstairs."
Ozpin rested his head on his arm, smiling. "And did you get permission before performing your little 'liberation," he asked.
Zeffre shrugged. "I mean, nobody stopped me."
Ozpin took a sip from his mug. "Weren't you the one who asked to have this meeting?"
'Time for the pitch.'
"Right!", Zeffre exclaimed, snapping and pointing a finger at Ozpin before abruptly standing up. "So, a few days ago I was walking around, exploring, right?", she begins, pacing back and forth in front of his desk. "And one day I find a board. This board, however, is no normal board, but a mission board. Now, when I found this board I had one thought. Do you know what that thought was," she said, before turning to look expectantly at Ozpin.
Professor Ozpin stared back at her, raising an eyebrow.
"Exactly! Money. I like money," she began, going back to pacing. "So, I find a board that has missions where I can kill things for money and, luck me, those are my two favorite things in the world. But!", she exclaimed as if happening upon a startling revelation, "When I tried to engage with said board I was rejected! Neglected even," she said, dramatically collapsing into the chair, lying sideways on it.
Reaching into her uniforms jacket pocket Zeffre retrieved her Scroll, covering her eyes with her other arm. "The source of my sorrow? My Huntress License," she lamented, pulling up on her scroll her License. At the bottom of the license, it said 'Restrictions: All'.
Professor Ozpin took another sip from his mug. "Yes, because you have only just started your training as a huntress," he said as if stating the obvious.
Zeffre gave an exasperated sight. "Yeah, I know, but, like, come on.", she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm here to mostly learn about the more dangerous stuff, and how things work on Remnant in general. I already know how to fight."
"Besides," she added, sitting up straight in her chair, "while sparing is fun, it is way too controlled compared to actual field work."
He closed his eyes in contemplation for a few moments.
"And is it safe to assume that if I were to decline your request, that you would figure out a way to go out on missions anyway," he asked, looking her in the eyes.
Zeffre at least had the decency to look ashamed. "Uh… Yeah. I already had a few ideas, but I wanted to ask first anyway," she said, sheepishly scratching her cheek.
Professor Ozpin silently stared at her for a few moments.
Zeffre stared back, partially because she refused to lose a starring contest.
"…I will lift the restriction on your Huntress License—'
"Hell yeah!"
"Let me finish."
Zeffre blushed. "Oh… Sorry."
He gave a small cough. "As I was saying, I will lift the restriction on your Huntress License if you can complete a probationary mission that I get to choose. You will be supervised for the entirety of this mission, and ultimately it will be up to me to determine if you pass or fail. Is this acceptable to you?"
Zeffre immediately nodded her head. "Deal."
"And will you respect my decision regardless of what I choose after you complete the mission?"
Zeffre enthusiastically nodded her head.
"Very well. It will take a few days for me to make the arrangements."
Zeffre jumped out of her chair. "Awesome! Great! Thank you!", she said, ecstatic at the chance to finally do something useful.
Ozpin gave a small laugh. "Yes, well, don't thank me quite yet. This won't be an easy mission after all."
Zeffre gave him a smile back. "I'm going to hold you to that."
Author's Note:
I sort of wanted to title this chapter "Meanwhile, back at Beacon", but I thought "Hi Blake!" was funnier. Some more character interactions, a prototype, and an upcoming probation mission. Thanks for reading!