A/N- Ugh. Yes. It's been forever. I'm sorry. Now that that's out of the way, who's ready for some angst? Let's go!
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Mistral was not at the top of Ilia's list of favorite kingdoms. Hell, it wasn't even in the top three.
Anyone who knew the chameleon girl might assume she'd say Atlas was worse, and that was valid, but the northern most kingdom was a lot of things to Ilia, very few of them good, but at least it was honest. As a faunus walking down the streets in Mantle, you knew what you were getting into. The taunts, the side-eyed glances, the general distrust, they were almost to be expected. Granted, Ilia herself may have never had much first hand experience with this considering her human-like appearance, but she'd seen it happen far too often growing up in the cold, wintry city.
Mistral on the other hand, a faunus could walk down the cities main streets without any problems. Shopkeepers would smile at them, people would wave, it seemed great, at least on the surface. However, as soon as a faunus turned their back in this city, that's when it's people showed their true colors. Maybe they'd grab their purses a little tighter, or maybe a mother would hurry their children along a little faster,. The mistrust was just as abundant as anywhere else, lurking behind every friendly face. Mistral loved faunus for the same reason it loved humans; for their lien, nothing else. Despite it's appearance, you can bet that the second a faunus stepped out of line, or 'forgot their place', this kingdom would eat them alive, and the lower you went into the city, the thinner and thinner the lie became. Eventually, you realized this place was just as bad as any other that looked down on the faunus, it just had better PR. A juicy looking apple, with a rotten core.
Atlas was cruel, but Mistral was deceitful. That was what made it worse in Ilia's mind.
So the young chameleon girl found herself sitting cross legged on a rooftop in the central market section of the city of Mistral under the early afternoon sun, alone, glaring off into space at the kingdom she'd helped save less than twenty four hours ago. You might ask what exactly this place had done to make Ilia look and feel so bitter right now, and the answer was... nothing really. Instead, it was the events of earlier this morning which weighed heavily on her mind. The pony tailed faunus sighed to herself, struggling to understand how a simple introduction had gone so badly.
(Two hours earlier)
It would come as no surprise that someone who had the ability to fade into crowds or their surroundings wasn't the best when it came to meeting new people.
Ilia sat awkwardly on the long sofa of the house full of strangers. Truthfully, it wasn't a very crowded 'victory party' with only nine guests in attendance, but it was more who had been invited than the amount of people that had the young faunus feeling so uncomfortable. People who considered each other friends, classmates, and family surrounded her, and Ilia was in the middle of them all, not sure where she fit in this mess.
She wished Ghira and Kali had been able to make it at least, but they had their hands full making sure the rest of the Menagerie militia was taken care of. Not to mention all the work it took starting up the chieftains 'New Brotherhood', which was... a problem for Ilia to address another day. Now however, the spotted girl was just trying to survive this situation.
The chameleon faunus eyed the group across the room warily as they laughed and caught up. She watched as Blake talked to the same six humans they'd run into at the end of the Battle for Haven the night prior. The cat girl hadn't left their side all morning, Ilia couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her friend smile so much, and it made her feel... off, if she was honest. Ilia was jealous, obviously, she knew that was all it was, but more than that, she just didn't trust these new people.
Among the group of humans, there was a shorter girl with black hair and red highlights who's mouth hadn't stopped moving the entire time she'd been here, a tall blonde with a golden colored prosthetic arm that was constantly at the smaller girls side, and a girl with her white hair in a off-center ponytail that for some reason Ilia couldn't help but stare at. There was just something very familiar about-
"Sup, lizard girl?" Sun said as he suddenly flopped onto the couch next to Ilia, making the chameleon girl scoot away in surprise. "Why the long face? Not everyday you save a whole kingdom, right?"
Ilia slouched into the cushions, crossing her arms. "Guess I'm not really the party type," she replied despondently.
The tailed faunus had a point, Ilia supposed, this was meant to be a celebration of their victory at Haven last night. They'd won after all, the White Fang's attack had been thwarted. Sure, Adam might have managed to slip away, but his reputation was in tatters now, as was any chance of any faunus ever following him again. He'd abandoned his people to save himself, that was the story being broadcast all over Anima this morning. Now every one of his kind knew what he'd done and would never forget. The once revered 'true high leader' of the Fang had been given a scar on his name that would never heal. Exile wasn't exactly the punishment Ilia had been hoping for, but she was a big fan of karma.
This was a victory, but then why did Ilia still feel so awful inside?
"I guess I'm still a little tired is all," the pony-tailed girl reasoned to Sun, which wasn't really a lie as much as it was a cop out. Her insomnia was still an issue, though the anxiety that triggered it was now coming from a slightly less malicious seeming source.
A snort of laughter from the short red and black haired human brought Ilia's gaze back to the group. She felt her chest tighten at the sight of Blake and the humans interacting. It felt similar to the feelings she'd had the previous night at Haven, when she'd watched her friend drop to her knees and embrace a bunch of unfamiliar humans, and then Blake had just left, walked right by Ilia without a word with that same bunch of humans. It wasn't until Kali and Ghira filled her in later that the chameleon girl learned the identity of these people.
Why hadn't Blake ever mentioned them to her? Sure, things had been hectic since they'd reunited back on Menagerie a few weeks back, but they'd had enough quiet moments together that one would think the fact Blake had made so many new human friends while she was away would have come up. Then again, Ilia hadn't exactly been too keen to ask what her old comrade had been up to over the last year.
Because you were afraid she'd moved on. That she might have been happier without you.
It was true. As much as Ilia hated to admit, it was clear Blake had changed during their time apart. The chameleon faunus had heard rumors about what her cat eared friend had been up to after she'd disappeared from the White Fang, mainly from Corsac and Fennec after Ilia had been shipped back to Menagerie. The fox brothers had reported (before the CCT tower was destroyed) that Adam's forces in Vale had uncovered that Blake had managed to get accepted into one of the most prestigious Huntsmen Academies on Remnant, posing as a human student to blend in. At first, Ilia had written off the stories as her faunus elders trying to get into her head -which, to be fair, was probably also true- but then Kali and Ghira had basically confirmed it, using much politer phrasing, when the chameleon girl had asked them about the humans last night.
They were... Blake's teammates, her friends from Beacon, together forming the huntress team RWBY. Blake had been off playing hero with her classmates while Ilia had been going through the worst year of her life. That had been a bitter pill to swallow going into this little get together.
Blake had changed, but Ilia? She was still the same person she'd been the day she found out her best friend had left her.
"It's nice to see her smile like that again, isn't it?" Sun's question made Ilia realized just how long she'd been staring at Blake and company.
The spot covered girl looked off to the side, trying to hide the despair in her voice, "Yeah, it is." And honestly, that was the truth. Blake seemed happier and more alive this morning than Ilia could ever remember her being. Despite the deep rooted bitterness the chameleon girl still felt towards her friend for leaving like she did, at the end of the day, that's all Ilia wanted, for Blake to be happy, even if it wasn't with her.
"I gotta say," Sun continued, "this is the last place I expected to run into these guys." The monkey faunus wore a proud smile as he spoke, "But I should have figured if there was trouble brewing, they wouldn't be far behind."
It took a moment for that statement to register with Ilia. "Wait, you know them too?" she asked in disbelief.
"Huh? Oh yeah," Sun answered happily, "I spent some time back in Vale, met up with these dudes and dudettes during... well, just before the Fall.." the smile on Sun's face faltered, but quickly returned as he went on, "We kicked some Grimm butt, stopped some bad guys, ate some noodles, it was great! These guys are awesome!"
Ilia glanced back over to the group of classmates, who'd now been joined by the other three colorfully dressed humans from the night before, as an orange haired girl wearing pink was currently simultaneously pouring two large bottles of soda into her open mouth while the others cheered her on. Ilia gave the scene an unimpressed look.
"So has Blake introduced you yet?" Sun asked.
Ilia's frown deepened. "I'm... not really the best when it comes to meeting new people," the long haired faunus reasoned. Her friend had offered to introduce her when the party had started, but Ilia had turned her down in an attempt to delay the inevitable as long as she could.
"Really?" the monkey faunus said, sounding surprised, "I was new once, and I think you did okay meeting me."
"I literally stabbed you the first time we met, Sun," Ilia replied with a deadpan expression.
"... I mean... yeah, but only once. And I didn't even bleed that much!"
If that was supposed to be a joke, Ilia wasn't laughing. The chameleon girl was quiet for a beat, casting another nervous glance at the humans in the room. Sun must have noticed this, as well as the spotted girls obvious hesitation, and he came to the obvious conclusion;
"Wait... it's not because they're human, is it?"
"No," Ilia answered way to quickly to be believed, blotches of yellow starting to creep up her arms before she regained her composure and they shifted back to normal.
As brief as the loss of control had been, it made it pretty obvious that the real answer to Sun's question was 'yes'. As much as Ilia wanted to believe she'd outgrown her own personal biases, she hadn't. She still didn't trust humans, or feel safe around them. Years of self taught distrust didn't just disappear overnight, even after working with their kind to protect Haven.
The worst part though, was that deep down there was a part of Ilia that wanted to like Blake's new acquaintances, if only to appease her friend, but every time she looked at them she felt reminded of the crimes she'd witnessed -and experienced first hand- inflicted on the faunus by humans over the years. It all went back to her childhood in Mantle, how her parents had drilled into her young, impressionable mind that humans were not to be trusted. That they might act like your friend, but that's only because they thought Ilia was one of them, and if they ever found out who she really was, they'd betray her.
Then, when that time came, humanity had proven Ilia's parents right.
Sun was uncharacteristically silent after that. The chameleon faunus' reaction and obvious lie seemed to have actually caught him off guard. Ilia really hoped she hadn't managed to offend the only other faunus here aside from Blake.
"... Hey, Ilia?" Sun said, ending the brief, yet heavy silence between them with a softer tone Ilia had never heard from him before. "I know I'm probably, like, close to the last person you'd want to get personal and talk about this kinda stuff with, but do you mind if I give it a shot anyway?"
Ilia didn't answer, she simply wrapped her arms around herself a little tighter. She felt the monkey faunus prodding at that shell she kept around her, that wall the chameleon girl used to keep her emotions buried deep, but at the same time he didn't seem to want to force it open, Sun was just trying to gently coax her out.
Sun took the reptilians faunus' silence as permission to continue, "I don't know what happened to you before we met, but... these guys, they're different."
Ilia gave the monkey boy a doubtful look. She'd heard that line before, too many times to count.
"All I'm saying is if you were ever looking for chance to get your feet wet as far as trusting humans goes, you're gonna have a hard time finding a group better than this one," Sun reasoned. Ilia still wasn't convinced. "I'm serious! These guys have been good to me, and I think they've been good for Blake too. In all the time I've known them they haven't once treated me as anything less than part of the gang."
That was a point Ilia hadn't considered. Blake trusted these humans, made friends with them, even after they found out what she was. Back during their White Fang days, Blake was just as cagey around humans as her chameleon friend, maybe even more so, but still somehow she'd managed to find a place among these people. Did that make them worthy of Ilia's trust?... No, probably not, but maybe it made them worthy of consideration?
"So maybe you're worried about giving trusting them a shot, but what about me?" Sun said as he stood, "We've been through some stuff, right? Enough to give trusting me a shot?"
The monkey faunus offered Ilia a hand, and the spotted girl studied it for a moment, then looked back over to the group on the other side of the room. The scraggly looking boy with blonde hair was currently, hunched over coughing up soda after having apparently attempted the same guzzling feat his ginger haired friend had just accomplished, with less than stellar results. The rest of the group were laughing as the pink wearing girl was flexing proudly, while another boy with dark hair with a pink streak in it saw to blondie, patting him gently on the back.
"I... guess I could try..." Ilia finally relented.
She didn't know why Sun was making such a fuss over all this, why he seemed to care so much about whether or not Ilia was part of this little group. After all, it wasn't like they were friends or anything. To be fair, it was a little difficult to build any kind of meaningful relationship with someone when your first meeting with them had ended in attempted murder. Despite that however, she could feel Sun was trying his best to ease her into things, not drag her kicking and screaming. Trying to test her boundaries, while also respecting them. Come to think of it, that actually did sound like something a friend would do.
With a groan, and a brief question to herself as to how this monkey tailed nuisance had managed to get so deep under her skin, Ilia took Sun's hand and pulled herself up from the relative safety of the couch she'd rooted herself to.
As soon as she stood, Blake noticed, making eye contact immediately as if silently asking if Ilia was ready. The anxious faunus nodded, answering her friends silent question, despite her quickly accelerating heartbeat as the moment she'd been dreading drew near.
Blake looked to the crowd of humans around her. "So, there's someone I'd like all of you to meet," she said, and suddenly all eyes turned to Ilia.
The chameleon girl struggled to hold back from her entire body from changing color under their gaze. She really hated being the center of attention. Fighting people was always easier for her than talking to them, which said a lot about Ilia's personality. Regardless, the chameleon girl put on a friendly face, hardly the first time she'd worn that mask around humans.
"Ilia," Blake said, commencing with the introductions, "these are some friends I made while I was... away." A hint of guilt crept into the cat girls voice at the end of her sentence, the pointed ears on her head sagging slightly.
You mean when you abandoned me, Ilia held back the scathing remark as she pushed herself to just get this over with.
Blake gestured to the spunky looking girl with the red highlights and wearing a long, tattered cape of the same color. "Ilia Amitola, Ruby Rose."
The girl- 'Ruby', stepped forward smiling cheerfully and outstretched her hand to shake the lizard faunus'. "Nice to meet you, Ilia."
The chameleon girl hesitated, introductions were fine, but did she have to... touch them? Oh don't be such a baby, Ilia said to herself as she accepted the offered hand and shook it twice before quickly letting go.
Ruby didn't seem to notice the reluctance and just continued on, "Thanks for the help by the way, for helping us out last night, I mean. I don't know what we would have done without- What's that!?" The energetic girl's silver colored eyes suddenly locked onto Ilia's hip.
The faunus didn't know what Ruby was referring to, until she looked down and remembered she'd brought -after much deliberation- Lighting Lash with her today. Yes, she'd taken her weapon to what was supposed to be a victory party, for paranoia's sake if nothing else. It wasn't like she was worried one of these people would attack her or anything... well, probably not, but it couldn't hurt to be prepared. Besides, the familiar weight of her long time weapon at her side helped ease her mind during... stressful situations, like this one.
Ilia expected she was about to get a lecture from the young huntress in training about how irresponsible it was to carry around a dangerous weapon so nonchalantly, but instead noticed the girls eyes seem to grow several sizes.
"Can I see?" Ruby asked with barely contained excitement.
Ilia raised an eyebrow at the now bouncing in place teen in front of her. With a shrug, she grabbed Lightning Lash off the small magnetic clip at her side, pressing the release latch and extending the weapons pointed tip in front for Ruby to see. The red and black haired girl's head moved from left to right along the whip-blades frame, seeming to absorb every detail of the weapon as she made various 'ooo' and 'aww' sounds.
"What do you call it?" the giddy girl asked.
"Um..." Ilia said, struggling to keep up with the humans energy output, "Lighting... Lash." Gods, the name sounded so lame when she said it out loud, but she'd never had the heart to change it.
Ruby however, didn't seem to agree. "Wow!" she said as she excitedly continued to take in the glory of Ilia's weaponry.
The chameleon girl couldn't resist a smirk at Ruby's antics. Ilia was proud of her weapon. She'd made it single handed while traveling with the Fang about five or six years ago. Building a weapon of this magnitude from scratch was difficult on it's own, but while constantly on the move? Without proper training or a reliable source for parts and tools? It had been almost impossible. Still, despite the difficulties, the chameleon girl had enjoyed every minute of her weapons creation. There was just something about making a device with your own two hands that the young faunus just found so... exhilarating. Needless to say, Ilia had put a lot of love and care into Lightning Lash, so if someone wanted to fawn over it a little, she was willing to accommodate.
And so fawn Ruby did, the enraptured girl acting like Ilia had brought out a new puppy as opposed to an electrified whip-blade. Speaking of which, the chameleon faunus smirked as she pulled her weapon's trigger, causing the sword to go limp, turning into it's elongated whip form and coiling on the floor.
"Holy grapes! It's also a whip!" Ruby exclaimed loudly.
Ilia's smirk broke out into a full blown, actually rather genuine, smile. She couldn't resist, it was like Ruby had been created in some kind of lab experiment attempting to make the most likeable girl to ever exist.
Suddenly, Ilia found herself on the receiving end of about a hundred, rapid-fire questions from the enthusiastic teenager. The ones she could make out were, "What kind of dust can it use? How much can it hold? How'd you manage to make the metal compress enough to make the whip that long? Is you aim any good with it? I mean, I guess it'd have to be? Can you show me? Do we have anything we could use as target practice? Oh! What about plates! Wait, do you think the owners of this place would be mad if we broke a few? Not a lot, just like, seven or eight? OH! I have to show you Crescent Rose! Hold on! I'll be right back!" With that, Ruby exploded off in a cloud of what looked like rose petals which daintily floated down to the ground in the wake of the hyperactive girl.
All things considered, for her first friendly interaction with a human in a very long time, Ilia figured that could have gone a lot worse. She'd even go as far as to say she kind of, maybe... liked Ruby a little bit. Granted the chameleon girl had maybe said a grand total of three words during the exchange, but anyone who shared Ilia's fondness for weapon crafting couldn't be all bad in the young faunus' mind. So yeah, she was willing to call this one a win.
"Welp," the tall blonde that'd been standing next to Ruby said, stepping up to Ilia as the shorter girl was holstering her weapon, "until my sister gets back and we get to work destroying this house, I guess we should probably keep the intro's going." The giant, lavender eyed teen offered the shorter chameleon faunus a hand, "Yang, Yang Xiao Long," she said with a huge toothy grin.
Ilia had already taken a good, long look at Yang once she'd arrived at the party, it was honestly hard not to notice her. Her long, bright, gold colored hair was eye-catching to say the least, and the rest of her wasn't exactly hard to look at either. Normally, Ilia would never claim to be into humans, but gods did this girl make her come close to reconsidering her stance. More than once did the chameleon girl have to drag her gaze away from the gorgeous blonde while observing Blake interacting with her new friends this morning. It was... embarrassing, not just Ilia's uncontrollable, incessant ogling, but also how she'd originally misjudged the girl in front of her.
When she'd first seen Yang, Ilia had assumed this girl was exactly the kind of human the faunus hated the most. One that was so focused on their looks that the rest of the world and it's many issues slipped past there narrow minded vision. However, all of that initial impression went out the window as soon as Ilia had first seen the hand that was outstretched to her right now. It wasn't some well manicured, painted fingernail, dainty thing like one might expect, it was a cold, metallic reminder that Ilia herself wasn't the only one with scars.
Everyone's body told a story, that's something the chameleon faunus had learned after years of traveling all over Remnant, and to Ilia, Yang's told one of trauma, but also one of finding the strength to overcome that trauma. Something had obviously happened to her, people don't just misplace arms. Ilia couldn't even begin to guess what said 'something' could have been, but it obviously hadn't stopped Yang from fighting to protect Haven alongside the rest of Blake's team. Make no mistake, she didn't know this girl from any other human, but Ilia definitely knew the look of a person trying to move past something, and the pony-tailed girl could relate to that.
Unfortunately, Ilia spent a little too long staring at the robotic limb before finally snapping out of it and giving the artificial hand a one quick shake.
Unlike with Ruby, Yang did seem to notice the hesitation, her deep, purple eyes betrayed a flicker of sadness as the blonde gave a joyless chuckle. "That's okay, I'm still kinda getting used to it myself," she said with a despondent tone.
As an uncomfortable silence began to set in, Ilia's first impulse was to apologize, but Yang cut her off. "So, how long have you known Blake?"
Ilia was caught off guard by the sudden change in topic, until she realized the blonde was probably trying to spare her further embarrassment, so she decided to roll with it. "Um... since we were kids, I guess," she answered, "her parents kind of took me in after-" Ilia stopped there, remembering that these were in fact strangers and that she didn't necessarily want to divulge every detail of her own life just yet, "... after I got in some trouble back home," she finished.
"Awesome," Yang replied, some cheerfulness returning to her voice. The blonde leaned in close to Ilia, cupping a hand around the side of her own mouth as if what she was about to say was a secret. "So then, you'd probably be the go to source for any embarrassing stories about our tight lipped teammate here," she said in a whisper that was definitely loud enough for everyone present to hear. "Am I right?" she punctuated her sentence with a over-dramatic wink.
"No, she's not," Blake said from behind Yang, crossing here arms, seemingly unamused.
Ilia smirked a little maliciously. "Actually...there was this one time-"
"ILIA!" Blake exclaimed as her cheeks went red.
Yang laughed loudly at her teammate's reaction, joined shortly by the rest of the humans, then Blake reluctantly. Much to Ilia's surprise, she even found herself letting out a quiet, brief chuckle at her old friend expense. She couldn't remember the last time she'd shared a laugh with anyone, let alone a group of humans. It was kind of nice, actually. It was like some of the tension Ilia felt in the room was lifted from her shoulders.
The blonde looked back over her shoulder to give Blake an apologetic smile, that's when Ilia noticed the way the cat eared faunus looked at Yang. It was different from the way Blake looked at the rest of her teammates and friends, The chameleon girl almost mistook it for the way Blake had used to look at Adam back in the day, but at the same time, it was completely different. It wasn't adoration or idolization in her golden colored eyes, it was... something else, something Ilia just couldn't manage to put her finger on in that moment.
Before the spot covered girl could dwell on this further, a familiar red blur burst back into the room. "Hey, Ilia! Check this out!"
The reptilian faunus turned her head to see Ruby holding a scythe that looked to be about twice as big as the red and black haired girl herself. The proud looking teen began twirling the weapon effortlessly and quickly around her body a few times before embedding the spear like tip on the bottom into the ornate hardwood floor.
Ruby stared at Ilia expectantly, apparently waiting for the girl's reaction. "Uh... wow..." the faunus finally said, mainly to placate the pair of bright, bizarrely colored silver eyes on her, but also because she was genuinely impressed. The weapon was miles above Ilia's if she was honest, probably the most intricate the faunus had ever seen. Perks of attending a huntsman academy I suppose, the lizard girl thought to herself with a hint of envy.
The hood wearing girl smiled sheepishly, "Heh, thanks. I like yours too, if you couldn't tell," Ruby said, the compliment actually sounding genuine to Ilia, despite her knowing just how outclassed she really was in the engineering department. Still though, she appreciated the girl's modesty, which was a trait Ilia found most humans lacking in.
"Ruby, you are aware we are RENTING this house, correct?" the white haired girl in the blue dress spoke up.
The smile fell from Ruby's face as she looked down at the good sized hole she'd just made with her scythe. "Oh..." she said quietly, "well, maybe we could cover it with a rug or... something?"
The white haired girl gave her teammate an exhausted look, while Blake, Yang, and the rest of the group all looked pretty entertained by the smaller girls antics, all except for Ilia, that is. She was too busy staring side-eyed at the girl in blue to notice what was going on with the others. It was different from the way the young faunus had been staring at Yang, there was something about this person that rubbed Ilia the wrong way. It was almost like she knew this girl from somewhere, but Ilia just couldn't figure out-
The girl in question suddenly turned her head, having noticed Ilia's constant staring, forcing the reptilian faunus to look away, doing her best to avoid eye contact. "Why don't we move things along before our illustrious leader decides to put anymore holes in this poor houses upholstery," the white haired teen said in a tone the lizard girl would describe as... well, "upper class" was the polite way to put it. Ruby sheepishly folded her massive weapon up and tucked it behind her back with an innocent smile.
"That's probably for the best," Blake added in amusement. She turned back to her old friend to continue introductions, "Ilia, this is-"
The cat girl suddenly stopped, the color draining from her face, like she'd just come to a horrible realization. She opened her mouth to stop her friend, but the girl in blue was too quick,
"Weiss."
Weiss, huh? Ilia thought, That's weird, she has the same first name as... the...
The final connection was made in Ilia's head. Weiss stood in front of the faunus, hand outstretched, ready to shake like the rest of Blake's teammates had, but the spotted girl was frozen stiff as the realization of where she knew this person from hit her hard.
The snow white hair, the cold blue eyes, and most notably, that long thin scar going down from her left eyebrow to her cheek.
Weiss Schnee was standing in front of her. Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. The same Schnee Dust Company who owned and operated the mine Ilia's parents had literally worked themselves to death in.
The Schnee family had been the catalyst for every bad thing that had ever happened in Ilia's life, and not a day had gone by in the last ten years that the young faunus hadn't thought about what she'd do if she ever met one of them.
Now, a Schnee was standing right in front of her, expecting Ilia to shake her hand?
Never. Not in a million years.
Ilia didn't even try to hold back from changing colors as her skin, hair, even her irises, all went red. Everyone in front of her took a step back in surprise at this sudden display.
They're afraid of you.
Good.
The enraged faunus narrowed her eyes at the Schnee in front of her.
You lost your family because of hers. Are you just going to stand there and do nothing? Or are you going to finally get the justice they deserve.
Weiss' shock turned to confusion at the girl now baring her teeth at her. Anger overshadowed reason for Ilia at that point as her clenched fist opened and she slowly started to reach for Lightning Lash at her hip. She didn't have a plan, she knew she was completely outnumbered, but Ilia couldn't care less. This was for her parents, and every other faunus life the Schnee name had destroyed.
However, just as Ilia's fingertips brushed against the edges of her weapons hilt, a black and white colored blur leapt out in front of her separating the faunus from her current target.
"Ilia, wait!" Blake shouted as she grabbed the chameleon girl by the shoulders in an attempt to hold Ilia back.
The red covering the reptilian faunus disappeared, and her eyes returned to their normal pale blue. Ilia stared at her old friend restraining her and saw the panic in Blake's eyes. Looking over the cat eared girls shoulder, she saw Weiss staring back at her, defiantly. Yang held an arm out in front of the white haired girl while also glaring at Ilia, though in more of a protective way. Then there was Ruby in front of the blonde, Crescent Rose in hand, not extended yet, but ready to be deployed at a moments notice. Unlike the others though, there was a hint of confliction in the girls silver eyes, but they still dared the lizard faunus to try anything. That wasn't all. The other three humans, the scraggly blonde, the red head, and the one with the black hair with the pink streak in it, had joined team RWBY in their cautious, defensive looks directed at Ilia.
The lizard faunus looked back to Blake, who still had her hands gripped tightly into Ilia's bare, spot covered shoulders as if she was afraid her friend would attack any second. The panic in the cat girls eyes was gone now, replaced by guilt as her pointed ears went flat against her head. That was when Ilia remembered just who these people were to Blake, her 'friends',
She'd befriended a Schnee.
All those years fighting back against a corrupt company that saw the faunus people as tools, expendable, or at best, cheap labor, and now suddenly a daughter of the man running that company was not only an ally, but also someone worth protecting? Ilia couldn't wrap her head around this. She looked at Blake, her oldest friend, someone she considered family, and couldn't even recognize the person in front of her now.
Maybe that was what had happened? Maybe the Blake Ilia had known and grown up with had never come back after disappearing a year ago, and all that was left was this... stranger who'd made friends with a bunch of humans and forgotten all about Ilia.
With a huff, the lizard girl shrugged off Blake's hands and stepped away from her. All the humans were still giving her looks ranging from wary to surprise, as if they weren't sure what the girl in front of them was capable of. Ilia hated those looks, they reminded her of Atlas, of that prep school, when those humans had seen exactly what she really was. Those looks... they made Ilia either want to throw a punch, or flee, and given the odds currently against her, she made the rational choice.
"... I'm outta here," Ilia muttered as she turned away.
"Ilia, please, let me explain," Blake begged, but the lizard faunus kept walking.
Sun -who'd had a spectacular view of the car crash of an introduction that's just taken place- gave Ilia a desperate look. He opened his mouth to say something to her as she walked past him, but was silenced by the sharp glare the pony-tailed faunus gave him as she pushed past the monkey boy on her way towards the exit, slamming the door loudly behind her as she left.
Blake immediately ran out after Ilia, but by the time she got outside the lizard girl had already slipped into a crowd of morning commuters, activated her semblance, and disappeared from sight.
After that, Ilia had just kind of stomped around the city, letting her sour mood guide her until she wandered into one of Mistral's many busy marketplaces. The crowds of humans definitely didn't appeal to the young faunus at the moment, but luckily she found a dark alleyway to tuck into. Then with the help of a dumpster, a fire escape, and a few clotheslines strung between the buildings, the nimble girl made her way to the roof where she currently found herself sitting, glaring off into a city full of liars before her.
The chameleon faunus enjoyed the solitude for about an hour or so before she began replaying the events of the morning in her head. Had she perhaps... overreacted?
No. Of course not. Her anger was justified... but maybe, just maybe, she'd gotten a little... too emotional.
The looks Blake's friends had given her were still etched in Ilia's memory. She couldn't stand it when people looked at faunus like that, like they were some kind of feral beast, desperate and capable of anything. She hated it, but in this case, were they even wrong? These people had offered their hands willingly and peacefully, and Ilia had responded by baring her teeth and snapping at it. Looking at it that way, the chameleon girl could see how her reaction might have been out of line, but still, how had Blake expected things to go? The cat girl knew full well what the Schnee Dust Company and everyone associated with it meant to Ilia, and yet she'd still put her in that situation. So deep down, maybe it was Blake she was angry with most right now?
As the lone teen continued to ponder this, she pulled out her scroll and started absentmindedly browse the photo file she had of Blake and herself. They'd been so close once, like siblings, now it was like they were strangers. Had her friend really changed that much in the short time she was away?
As Ilia continued to swipe through the pictures, she suddenly found herself getting angrier and angrier. All these memories... what was the point of holding onto them if they were just going to make her miserable? Why even bother with them if Blake had apparently just thrown them all away anyway? With a groan, Ilia closed the folder and began dragging the icon across the screen towards the recycling bin in the corner.
She held the folder over the digital abyss. All she had to do was lift her finger, and all these meaningless, painful memories, would disappear. Ilia's hand began to tremble as it remained fixed to the display. She could do this. She needed to do this. After a few more moments of intense deliberation, Ilia finally... moved her finger slightly to the left, depositing the file next to the recycling bin instead of in it.
Ilia sighed. She couldn't do it. She still couldn't let Blake go. Or rather, she didn't want to. After a year of pain and bad decisions, she'd finally gotten her only friend back, and Ilia wasn't ready to lose her again.
The faunus girl pocketed her scroll before lifting her legs up close to her body and wrapping her arms tightly around them. If her goal was indeed to keep Blake in her life, then what she'd done this morning had been undoubtedly a step in the wrong direction. Gods, she was such an idiot. What had Ilia been thinking? That had always been the lizard girls problem, she always seemed to lose her temper in bad situations, and that anger always felt foolish in retrospect, that was a lesson Ilia seemed to be forced to learn and relearn. She was always eager to solve her problems with her fists as opposed to words, which worked fine when their was a fight to be found, but less so in a day to day life.
Even growing up on Menagerie, among her own kind, Ilia had still found excuses to get in fights. Then she'd get sent home to get lectured to by Ghira, for all the good it seemed to do. The elder faunus' words just never seemed to get through to her, though not for a lack of trying. He always wanted to see the good in Ilia, and he wasn't the only one. Blake would always come to her defense once her dad started hounding the chameleon faunus. Saying things like; 'It wasn't her fault' or 'Ilia didn't have a choice,' trying to deflect the blame elsewhere. It was sweet at the time, but it probably didn't do much to dissuade Ilia's more... volatile tendencies. Still though, the memory was the kick the spotted girls conscience needed for guilt to finally set in.
Ilia let out a quiet groan. She was suddenly reminded of everything else the cat faunus had done for her, and how had the lizard girl repaid her? By embarrassing Blake -as well as herself- in front of her friends. Why was it that whenever things were starting to go Ilia's way, she always had to screw it up somehow?
With a huff, the chameleon girl stood up. She knew what came next. Ilia was still pretty upset at Blake about the whole "Schnee" thing, but figured she should at least apologies for almost stabbing another of the cat faunus' friends. As she stood however, Ilia just happened to glance over the edge of the building into the marketplace a few stories down. There she saw a familiar looking pair of black cat ears sticking out in the crowd.
Blake's head darted left and right as she looked around frantically searching for something, or more likely in Ilia's opinion, someone, and the reptilian faunus had a pretty good idea who. As convenient as this was, and as much as Ilia wanted to deliver the apology her friend deserved, things like this were never the spotted girls strong suit. However, she also didn't want Blake to spend the rest of her day searching all over Mistral for her missing friend, making the cat girl worry even more than she probably already was.
Now was as good a time as any, she supposed. Ilia put her thumb and pointer finger in her mouth and gave a quick, sharp whistle that made Blake's cat ears shoot up. It was an old trick, a signal they'd used during their White Fang days to get each others attention, a high pitched sound that faunus with an extra set of ears were very sensitive to. It seemed to do the trick, as Blake, as well as a few other faunus wandering nearby, all looked up trying to find the source of the sound, but only Blake caught a glimpse of the tip of a long ponytail as it disappeared over the edge of the roof of a nearby building.
Ilia walked over to the opposite edge of the rooftop she'd been moping on, confident Blake had seen her and would be joining her shortly. She took a seat on the edge facing the mountainside leading up to Haven, the streets below a little less crowded than the other side, but still had a few shoppers milling about the stalls of the market below.
A few moments later, Ilia heard Blake's soft landing behind her. Well, this feel familiar, Ilia thought to herself, remembering the rooftop meeting between the two of them on Menagerie a couple weeks back.
The lizard faunus continued to stare ahead as Blake's soft, barely audible, footsteps approached. "Mind if I sit?" the cat girl asked.
"Go for it," Ilia replied without looking at her friend.
Blake sat, dangling her legs off the roof and joining Ilia in staring into the scenery ahead of them. There was a long silence between the two faunus. As it went on, it was like Ilia could feel the distance between Blake and herself getting wider and wider with each passing second, but she still couldn't bring herself to say anything. She wanted to apologize, but a part of Ilia also still wanted to be mad. Blake always did seem to throw the chameleon faunus' emotions for a loop, even with Ilia's adoration of her being gone... for the most part.
In the end, neither party seemed to want to be the first to speak and the silence went on for another full minute until Blake finally spoke, "I'm sorry I never told you about Weiss."
Ilia let the apology marinate in the air a while longer before finally responding, "It's fine." The long haired faunus took a breath, now it was her turn. "I'm sorry if I scared anyone." That was the best Ilia could manage right now. She still didn't regret her anger at discovering the identity of Blake's teammate, but she conceded that her actions were completely out of line.
Blake let out a short laugh. "You don't need to worry about that, my friends have seen a lot worse. They're tougher than you might think."
Ilia finally looked over at the girl next to her and managed to force a smile, which Blake responded to in kind. Moments like this made the spotted faunus wish the two of them could just go back to being the kind of friends they'd used to be, back on Menagerie, before everything in their lives got so... complicated.
The moment didn't last long however, as the lizard faunus finally asked the question that was burning in her head, "Why didn't you tell me about her?" Ilia just couldn't wrap her head around that part. Blake had put the chameleon girl in the same room as the SDC's heiress without so much as a warning, for either side apparently. How had she expected that meeting to go?
The cat faunus sighed as she leaned back on her elbows and looking at the mountainside ahead. "Honestly?" she started, "Weiss hasn't been 'just another Schnee' to me for a while now. I never thought I'd see any of them again after Beacon... and maybe a part of me didn't want to..."
Ilia tilted her head in confusion. If these humans meant so much to Blake, then why wouldn't she want to see them?
"I was afraid of what they'd say if they ever saw me again, that they'd hate me for leaving like I did. So it was just easier to pretend the times I had with them never happened... no matter how much that hurt." Well... Ilia could certainly relate to that. Feeling like it'd be easier to pretend the past didn't exist rather than face it.
"But now," Blake smiled fondly, "for some reason that I'm still trying to understand, they're giving me a second chance. So I guess with everything going on in the last twelve hours, seeing them again after all this time, even with the million to one odds that we'd all end up in the same place at the same time, I'd just been so busy processing all this that I... I just-"
"Forgot all about me..." Ilia finished Blake's thought with perhaps a little too much bitterness in her voice.
The cat faunus looked at Ilia with shock and maybe a little disappointment, as if the chameleon girls comment had come out of nowhere and struck her. "Ilia... Ruby, Weiss, and Yang didn't replace you," Blake responded, now looking slightly hurt by the insinuation.
Then why does it feel like she did?
Ilia's sad gaze returned to the view ahead of them. "...Ilia?" Blake asked, trying to get her friends attention, but the lizard faunus was miles away, lost in thought. Her only response was adopting the familiar curled up pose she usually did. Legs close, head on knees, arms wrapped around herself, and not even acknowledging Blake. "Ilia, don't do this," the raven haired teen said in exasperation, familiar with this kind of behavior from her longtime acquaintance. "If you don't talk to me we'll never be able to work this out."
The pony-tailed faunus just curled herself up tighter, her body language giving off the clear message she was done talking for now. She knew she was acting childish, selfish even, but in reality, Blake was all she had left, and now it was clear to Ilia that cat girl had moved on and found new friends during her time away. Just when the chameleon faunus was starting to make peace with the idea of Blake leaving again, these thought had to surface in her mind. Ilia felt herself starting to fall apart.
Who could blame the reptilian faunus for clinging on like she was? Blake had been her reason for coming back from that dark place she'd been in, but now that Blake clearly didn't need her anymore, what would stop Ilia from slipping back into that same darkness?
Already she could feel the pull. The bitter anger and jealousy she'd experienced after meeting Blake's new friends. Was Blake just not allowed to meet new people without Ilia's permission? Is that what the chameleon girl thought? Did she really believe she had any right to control her friends life? How was that any different from how Adam had treated Blake? No, Ilia knew she had to be better than that. She'd seen firsthand what happened to faunus that lost themselves to these kinds of feelings. So if Blake wouldn't be her anchor, then she needed to find a new reason to stay in the light. Like she had with the Battle for Haven, Ilia had used that as something to focus on, to keep her steady and on the right path.
She needed something like that, she needed...
There was a sudden fit of laughter in the streets below. Ilia uncurled her body and peered down at the the sound, the tone of the voice sounding vaguely familiar. Sure enough, just as she'd expected, the chameleon girl saw a pair of long, brown, rabbit ears poking out above the rest of the crowd.
Her again?
It was that same girl Ilia seemed to keep running into. The rabbit faunus appeared to be just wandering around the marketplace, a large, messy haired ram faunus walking alongside her. If Ilia had looked a bit harder, she might have recognized the giant figure as the same boy she'd seen this girl training with back on Menagerie, but the lizard faunus' eyes were focused only on the rabbit eared girl. Of all the militia members that'd come to Mistral, why did Ilia seem to keep running into this one in particular? And it wasn't only the spotted girls reality that this peculiar rabbit faunus was invading, she'd also been caught running through Ilia's head more than once recently. Even during the attack last night, when Adam had her on the ropes, it had been this person's face that had passed through her delirious mind. For some reason, Ilia couldn't for the life of her figure out, her thoughts were inexplicably drawn to this person. But why? What was so special about her that had the lizard girl so-
"Who's that?"
Blake's voice made Ilia jump. Somehow, she'd forgotten she was even there. The cat girls head was also now craned over the edge of the roof, her yellow eyes focused on the same rabbit faunus Ilia had just been caught staring at.
"Nothing," Ilia said quickly, "I mean, no one." She looked away from the marketplace, off to the side, away from Blake.
"Do you... know that girl?" Ilia didn't have to be facing her friend, she could hear the smirk in her voice as she spoke.
"O-of course not!" Ilia denied loudly. She never was the best liar, and unfortunately, Blake was all too aware of this fact. Finally mustering the courage to look back at her cat eared companion, the chameleon girl felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her at the cheshire like grin Blake was now wearing.
"Are you sure?" the cat faunus teased, pointing at Ilia's hand, resting in the reptilian teens lap. Ilia looked at her wrists to see her spots were now a light shade of pink.
The chameleon girl let out a growl of frustration as she willed her skin to return to it's normal color. There was no use denying it now. "She's from Menagerie," Ilia relented, "she was at the Battle for Haven... also... she might have kind of... saved me from getting stabbed by some White Fang grunt."
"Aww..."
"Shut up," Ilia snipped back as the rosy color briefly returned to her features, before fading just as quickly.
"But I think it's sweet that you're making new friends," Blake said genuinely.
"She's not my... friend," Ilia rebutted, a little sadness sneaking into her tone. "I don't even know her name..." she added quietly. "A-and more to the point, what's it matter to you?"
Blake's smile seemed to grow as Ilia became more and more flustered. "Oh, no reason," the cat girl said, moving her dangling legs back and forth innocently. "She's cute, you should go introduce yourself."
Ilia's whole body flinched. "I'll pass," she said, trying to hide the fact that deep down, she kind of did want to talk to that rabbit girl again, if only so that maybe she could learn her actual name and stop referring to her as such. It wasn't that easy though, at least, not to Ilia anyway. Let's just say that when the lizard faunus mentioned she wasn't the best with new people, she didn't necessarily just mean humans.
"Why not?" Blake asked.
"I don't know, I just..." Ilia struggled to come up with an excuse, not really wanting to get into this topic right now. "She's... got a friend with her," the chameleon girl grasped at the first vaguely believable thought that came to mind, "and I'd hate to interrupt their-"
"Looks like her friend just left," Blake said, shattering Ilia's only hope of escape. Sure enough, down in the market, much to the reptilian faunus' dismay, the rabbit girl was now waving off the ram boy as he left. Then the long eared faunus went back to browsing the stalls around her.
Blake stood from her spot. "C'mon," the cat girl said as she walked across the roof to the side the two faunus had climbed up on, "let's at least get a closer look."
Before Ilia could stammer out a protest, Blake hopped off the roof and out of sight. After briefly considering not following her friend and instead staying on this building forever and becoming some kind of "roof-hobo", the spotted teen huffed before running off after Blake.
The nimble girl quickly descended into the alley, then Ilia hurried to Blake's side as she peeked out into the small crowd of shoppers. The lizard faunus cautiously poked her head out from behind her cat eared friend to see the rabbit girl examining an overpriced, piece of handcrafted jewelry.
She looked so... carefree, an effortless smile on her face. It was an expression Ilia hadn't seen this girl wear before. Was this what she looked like normally? When she wasn't training, or fighting, or suffering from severe nausea? Which to be fair, were the only other looks Ilia had seen her wear. The chameleon girl tucked herself back into the alleyway, leaning against the brick wall behind her. Blake was right, this girl was cute. Not that Ilia hadn't already noticed this fact, but without the Battle for Haven hanging over her head, without the ability to say noticing such things were a "distraction" from the impending fight, the fact became all too prominent to the chameleon faunus. In a lot of ways, this made the current situation Ilia found herself in far more stressful.
"Okay, you ready?" Blake suddenly asked.
"Ready!? For what!?" Ilia whispered sharply. "Why are we basically stalking this girl now!?"
"We aren't..." Blake stopped, looked around the dingy alleyway they were hiding in, then out to the girl they'd been watching in secret from said dark alley, "Well... now that you mention it I suppose this does look a little bit like stalking..."
Ilia gave her friend an exasperated look that screamed 'You think!?'
"Well, in that case," Blake reasoned, "we should probably go introduce ourselves before this gets any creepier." With that, Blake went to step out from the shadows of the alley and into the sunlight. She got about halfway out, her mouth opening to call out to the rabbit faunus, when suddenly a pair of hands grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back into the crevice between buildings.
Ilia pressed the cat eared girl up against the wall. Blake stared back, she saw the fear and genuine panic in her friends wide eyes, not to mention the yellow spreading across her face and up her arms. After a few awkward seconds, Ilia released Blake, taking a few steps back and wringing her hands together nervously.
"Ilia..." Blake said softly, realizing she may have pushed a little too hard, "What's going on? I mean, it's clear to me you have some kind of connection with this girl. Why are you trying so hard to avoid talking to her?"
Ilia sighed and leaned against the opposite wall, crossing her arms tightly. She'd love to just deflect like she always did, but after they way she'd behaved this morning in front of Blake's friends, the lizard girl felt like she owed the cat faunus an explanation.
"It's... complicated." Everything was with her, wasn't it? Ilia wished she could at least be semi socially competent, but she'd just been through too much. "I've heard you say before that because of my chameleon traits you think I could have lived a normal life outside the White Fang," the lizard girl looked down at her palms as she spoke, "but the truth is, I don't think I ever could have," she turned her hands over, revealing the spots that covered her wrists as well as parts of her body, the only hint as to her true lineage, "and it's because of the way I look."
Blake tilted her head in confusion. "No matter where I've lived my life, no matter how many times I've tried to to appear human or embrace my faunus heritage, I've never really fit in. I'm always stuck somewhere in the middle, never really feeling accepted by either species." Ilia closed her hands into fists, "When I'm with humans, I'm forced to conceal my true self. My heritage, my abilities, even my emotions, everything about me that's... different. All the while knowing that it only takes one bad day for it to all fall apart."
Ilia continued staring at the spots on her arms as they started shifting colors. "Or, when I'm with faunus," As she spoke, the spots went from red, to orange, to yellow, and beyond. She effortlessly displayed her level of control when her emotions where stable, "And they say things like; they accept me, or I'm safe with them, but... I've found that's not completely true either." The reptilian girl stopped her colorful display and let her hands fall to her sides. "When other faunus look at me, they don't see someone they can trust. They either see an asset they can use, someone who can get close to humans without being recognized. Or worse, they just see the face of a human, a reminder of the people who look down on them. Someone with no business being around faunus."
Blake chose that moment to chime in, "Ilia, my family and I would never-"
"I know," the chameleon faunus cut her off, "and for what it's worth, I believe that." A small smile graced Ilia's lips, "I... really don't know where I'd be without you, Kali, and Ghira taking me in like you did... I don't even want to think about it." The smile faded, "But, the rest of our kind, they... well, you remember all the fights I got in as a kid. What the other kids said to me that would always set me off?"
Blake's cat ears fell low, she did remember. Looking like Ilia did in a school full of faunus? It'd been easy for the chameleon girl to stand out, and not in a good way. More than once the cat girl had to practically drag Ilia off another student, some even about twice her size. Every time, as the teachers guided the young reptilian girl away to the principals office, she'd always claim the same thing;
"They said I looked human."
Sometimes kids could be even crueler than adults, but never would Blake have imagined how heavily all this had weighed on her friends mind.
"And with the Fang?" Ilia continued, "It was just even angrier people looking at me with distrust. And like an idiot, I thought I could... I don't know, earn their trust by going along with them, with the violence. In the end though, when he showed his true colors," the chameleon girl's fists started to shift to red as her back ached, "I was thrown away, sent back to Menagerie and forgotten."
The crimson washed away, returning to the girls normal tanned skin tone as the anger faded and Ilia crossed her arms again, adopting the same pose as when she'd started her explanation. "I don't know... I don't know where I belong sometimes, and that makes trusting new people, even faunus... difficult, I guess."
The pair of teens were quiet for a moment after that. Blake was processing what she'd just heard, while Ilia was feeling very exposed and vulnerable right now after having just divulged a lot of her own personal feelings she'd kept bottled up for a long time.
"I had no idea you felt that way," Blake said, "I'm so sorry, Ilia." The cat girl slowly approached her friend, gently embracing the chameleon faunus.
Ilia winced a bit at the hug. It was nice, and of course, appreciated, but the lizard girl still wasn't a fan of people touching her back. The scars concealed under her body suit had healed a long time ago, but still ached in more of a psychological way than physical, but Blake wouldn't know, since Ilia had never told her about the scars, or where she'd got them.
"It's fine," Ilia said, slowly returning the gesture. "I guess we can add talking about stuff like this to the list of things I'm still not great at."
It was true, this whole situation was well outside Ilia's comfort zone, but she was glad to get it off her chest. It was nice to be able to remind herself that at the end of the day, no matter how mad she might still be deep down, Ilia trusted Blake, probably more than anyone else on the planet, and she could still confide in her longtime friend if she needed to.
There was a buzzing sound from the pockets of Blake's white duster, along with an electronic 'beep', and the cat faunus released Ilia to pull out her scroll, but rested one hand on her friends shoulder. The continued contact being used to remind Ilia that while Blake's attention was elsewhere, she wasn't abandoning her.
"Hey," the cat girl said into her device, "yeah, I found her," Ilia raised an eyebrow at this, "could you let the others know?... Okay... Thanks, I'll see you guys back at the house later."
"You had your friends out looking for me too?" Ilia asked, surprised Blake had managed to convince her teammates to want anything to do with the lizard faunus after their last meeting.
"They insisted actually," Blake answered, putting her scroll away, "but I kind of figured I'd be the one who'd find you." she added with a smirk. Ilia was a little stunned by this at first, but then let out a small, quiet laugh. Her friend really did know her all too well.
"Ilia?" Blake said softly, "I won't belittle what you just told me by saying I completely understand what you've been through, but I do know about loneliness, and how hard it can be to open up to others you don't know. But if I've learned one thing in my life, it's that there are good people out there, ones worthy of your trust and friendship, and more importantly, ones that don't care about how you look or how many ears you have." Blake wiggled her cat ears a little for emphasis. "I didn't think people like that existed either, but somehow I've been lucky enough to meet quite a few."
Ilia gave a doubtful look. Deep down, she was a cynic, she knew that was what the world had made her into. At the end of the day, it was just easier to stay in the safety your shell than accept that the world outside it might be safe.
"And when I talk about good, trustworthy, people I've met," Blake went on, "I'm not just talking about the ones I met at Beacon."
The lizard faunus wasn't sure who the cat girl meant, until she felt Blake give her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
Oh.
"You're a good person, Ilia, I've never stopped believing that, you're just-"
"Making all the wrong decisions..." the chameleon faunus finished her friends thought, thinking back to the night of the raid at the Belladonna's. That was when she came to realization she hadn't before.
Ilia had said she wanted to change, to be good, or at least better than she was, but she was still acting the same way she had before all of this: closed off, distant, unwilling to cooperate with others. That attitude wasn't going to change anything, it just left the chameleon girl right where she'd started. Saving Haven had been a good first step for her, a chance for Ilia to prove to herself and others that she could change, but she hadn't really planned any progress beyond that. Maybe the second step was for her to learn to trust people? Or at the very least, give them another chance?
Ilia was still afraid, but if she was serious about wanting to change her ways she had to confront that fear, and now was as good as time as any to start. The chameleon girl looked out into the marketplace, at the rabbit girl who was still excitedly going through the jewelers stand.
With a deep breath, Ilia stepped away from Blake, towards the exit of the alleyway. She stopped just short of stepping out past the shadow the buildings cast around her, looking back over her shoulder at her cat eared friend. Blake seemed surprised at first by Ilia's sudden boldness, but then she smiled and offered her longtime acquaintance a supportive nod.
Emboldened by this, Ilia finally turned forward and stepped out into the sunlight, making a beeline towards the long eared faunus ahead of her. She wasn't really that far away from the girl, but the distance felt immeasurably longer than it was, almost infinite to Ilia. It was like she had weights shackled to her body, and someone was trying to pull her back to the relative safety of the alleyway. That voice in the back of her head screamed for her to stop, that this was a terrible idea and would only end badly. The urge to just activate her semblance and disappear into the crowd was overwhelming, but Ilia's mind was made up, she had to at least try. Honestly, a part of the chameleon faunus hoped this actually didn't go well so that she could use it as an excuse to give up and crawl back into her comfort zone. However, it was overshadowed by the thoughts of 'what if it does go right?' Just what that could mean for her was all the motivation Ilia needed to keep pushing herself forward.
Finally -but at the same time, all too quickly in Ilia's mind- the lizard faunus found herself standing right behind the rabbit eared girl. Ilia took one final, silent, deep breath. She could do this. It was just talking to a person, everyone else in the world did things like this everyday. It wasn't like it was a marriage proposal or anything, right?
Unsurprisingly, that thought only seemed to add more unnecessary stress to the already overwhelmed feeling Ilia, so she decided 'screw it' and was just going to stop thinking so much and take the plunge.
"Hi, I-" Ilia got about a word and a half out before the rabbit faunus spun around quickly and the two of them collided into one another.
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A/N- Okay, okay, okay, hold back you pitchforks, this is just part one of this two parter. Part two is almost done, just needs a little more tweaking and then I'll post it.
Also I went back into my previous chapters and replaced my old name for Ilia's weapon with the canon one. I will miss 'Abhorrent Argot', but Lightning Lash is good too, I suppose.
Anyway, if your excited for the next part, or just want to curse my families name for the next five generations for leaving this on such a lame cliffhanger, maybe right a review? They are my life blood and get my writing hand moving!
See you soon!