Hello everyone, it's been a while. This idea has been in my mind for a bit, and I do have to thank a few people in the Discord for helping me flesh this out. It was initially meant to be fluff, but ultimately ended up being this.

"It's important to draw wisdom from different places. If you take it from only one place, it grows rigid and stale."

- Uncle Iroh, 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'

Blake was many things to many people: beautiful, strong, mysterious, a bit of a hypocrite, but hey, eye of the beholder and all that. Several would agree that she was vocal on certain matters, and acted on the wrong ones. Enter stage left, Jaune and Ruby enjoying those pitiful, paperback, second-rate generic comic books! On bean bag chairs of all things! She simply could not understand what joy they saw in them, when half the content consisted of drawings! It was no surprise that she was more mature than those two combined. How could they be leaders of their respective groups?

Whoops, her inner Weiss was showing. Still, this would not stand! Such blatant, uninspired drawings with dime-a-dozen fights do not have a place in the current literary world, they never did. She may not interact with Jaune, but to be fair, both teams wouldn't really do much with each other aside from certain classes or an occasional meal. Back to the matter at hand, she made her way to the duo and proceeded to tear into them, as if it were her life's purpose... or to validate her literary choices.

"What are you reading?" She asked, despite thinking she knows the full extent of the matter, a contradiction in itself.

"Just the newest entry of X-Ray and Vav: Back To Basics," Ruby said in a more subdued manner, which made sense given the environment they were in. Countless books on countless shelves, a nice array of furniture for a somewhat homely feel, this was the Beacon Library, and Idiots 1 and 2 were living up to their idealistic natures by acting like children.

"Of course, why would I expect two children to know anything about literature?" Blake asked, her thumb and index finger massaging the bridge of her nose.

"Well, not every story needs to be walls of text, Blake," the red reaper replied somewhat indignantly.

"Exactly, sometimes we just need a story. No big message or anything. Gods, I've seen people lose it trying to find a meaning in everything," the blonde spoke up, looking away and being haunted by the time his sister lost her marbles trying to find the hidden meaning to Terra's letter... when it was simply a love confession. How come she didn't see that? Oh well, back to the present.

"And that's the problem: the contents of your comic books are simply the kind of action you'd expect from senseless action and flashy colors!"

"I'll take my pretty colors over the boring text that always ends the same. I don't know much about it, but anyone can predict the plot of your filth by page and age five!" Ruby said, promptly earning a swat from a ruler, said ruler properly wielded by a well-learned librarian. "Sorry," the red reaper apologized, the volume of the three students' voices now at an acceptable one.

"In fact, why don't you tell us about the comics you read?" Ruby asked with a smug grin.

"I'm sorry, what?" Blake asked.

"You heard me, what comics have you read. I'm sure you've read enough to form an opinion."

"Why yes I have. What I have come across on my scroll is nothing but garbage of the highest degree, Ruby."

"And what was that 'garbage', hmm?" Ruby escalated. This was becoming a mess, one Jaune felt like he might have to undo by stepping in once more. Ruby however did have a valid point: while the wording was not the best, it was ultimately how he was also curious as to know what comics or comic books she read... especially with certain arcs/continuities that weren't that great.

"Well, a page or panel here and there, which says more about comics than either of you could," the Belladonna princess countered. '*Sigh, game time,' the blonde knight thought.

"Sounds to me like the whole thing with Weiss and the Fang again," Jaune said nonchalantly. Oh, the Faunus was definitely going to tear into the Arc heir now.

"Excuse me?"

"Yep. You go off and form an opinion without hearing much from that side, and then think of yourself as superior. Hell, the only reason you think your choices are better is because of more exposure to your stuff, but you also said you haven't really messed with comics. If I wanted an insufferable group to deal with I'd join team GNGR's metal discussions. Sounds to me like some out-of-context stuff," the blonde said confidently.

Of course it wasn't like the Fang! There was no way something like literature could scale to the movements that were shaping and reshaping Remnant. Especially not with the out-of-context cases, or the gatekeeping, or how they liked to brush certain things under the rug to try and get a leg up against the opponent... humans did it too, but she did suppose Dorks 1 and 2 did have a point. Gods, how did she get so caught up with this discussion? Damn!

"Not like you've read Ninjas of Love either," Blake muttered while looking away.

"Of course not, I don't want to read filth," Ruby replied, crossing her arms and looking away before a very noticeable harrumph left her mouth. And now, the two huntresses-in-training were at a standstill. Great...

"I'll do it. I can read a book from Ninjas of Love, but Blake has to read enough of a comic book series to match the book," Jaune said.

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah. It'd be pretty selfish if we got you to read an actual comic book while we don't have to read what you think is good. I'll have it finished, Arc's promise," the blonde confidently said. Now this was a tricky position: they'd both have to read, but it was ultimately an attempt to compromise. It was stated that the length on both ends would be similar, so any complaints she would have were easily undone. It was a series of 12 comics, something that could easily be covered in an afternoon, maybe two if she needed a breather half-way given training and other responsibilities. It was a dozen comic book issues, what could possibly go wrong?

A dozen issues had felt like nothing, despite it being nearly a full day after she took it up. Sure, there had been sleep, training, and breakfast, but it was almost dinnertime by the time she had read up on Valoman (1), a hero who was said to be as strong as steel. She was so used to the thought of these invincible individuals having to come up with even more absurd entities to try and get them to remain useful, instead of compelling storylines. When it came to Valoman, who was also dubbed Remnant's Strongest Hero, what was there left to challenge him? The answer was death. She was captivated by the story made by an author that resorted to asking this seemingly existential question as opposed to creating a being who was specifically creating to ending the existence of the man with skin as strong as steel... though given the events, this was perhaps an understatement.

As she continued reading, she was intrigued by these varying factors. One was seeing a lonesome teen grow to loathe life to the point they wanted to off themselves. A sentiment that was ultimately countered by this superior being telling them that they are stronger than they think we are. It did leave her thinking: how many times had people given up on themselves out of solitude? How many because help had not arrived on time? How many had she possibly doomed? And yet, it was near the end that the man who was perhaps the richest in the country tried to defend themselves, stating they could have done many great things when being granted powers similar to Valoman himself.

'If you had truly wanted to help, you would have started long ago.' There wasn't a slap, a punch or any other damage done upon the villain, just the truth sinking in. With a sad, somewhat empty tone the rich man said 'I know'. It still intrigued her on how the hero had not considered using their power for anything other than trying to help their fellow man, but it was chalked up easily to 'his ma and pa raising him that way'. She didn't want to entertain the possibility of a man with that kind of power going down a darker path, and found that the values of man could change, no matter how big or small. The humanity in these individuals, and how overwhelming strength, charisma and other factors can ultimately be useless if you don't have the resolve to see things through and/or learn from your mistakes.

It was sobering, really. She had not expected an afternoon's worth of reading to get her to think about her actions till then. The silence was eventually interrupted by a knocking on the door. Making her way to the door, she opened it slowly, only to be greeted by the scraggly blonde leader of team JNPR.

"Hey Blake, I didn't see you at lunch today, and I was a bit worried," he said, genuine concern on his face, a certain novel in his free hand.

"O-oh, I was a bit caught up with this," she replied, looking away with a smidge of shame.

"It's fine, I couldn't make much progress since I did have to wrangle Nora for a bit."

"Oh, well um... what now?" she asked, looking at him.

"Well, I figured we could get a quick dinner, maybe make a rush for the library and enjoy the one place Yang and Nora won't enter."

"When did you get so sneaky?" the cat Faunus asked.

"The ruckus makes you good at finding good quiet spots... that and those bean bag chairs are pretty comfy. I think I fell asleep on one of them once," he awkwardly said.

"Well, I guess I'll have to find out for myself," Blake replied, making her way to the cafeteria.

"Well, that was easy. Also, I know it's a stupid question, but since you know a bit about Faunus culture, how rare is a Faunus with more than one animal trait?" the knight asked.

"Pretty rare, actually," she answered. "The most I've seen is one with two traits."

"How does it work with bug Faunus? I mean, it looks like there's only mammals here."

"We're lucky there haven't been any with insect eyes."

"I do not want to imagine what a fish Faunus would look like."

"You know what? Neither do I," Blake said, after much thought. Despite all this, she could not blame his curiosity. Both came from seemingly closed backgrounds: one from their time spent in the Fang, the other due to being from a small town. She didn't mind really, but as things were developing, she definitely wouldn't mind learning more from this knight. Both had their secrets, but it did feel great having a friend that was not from her team.

(1) Adaptation of Superman from a highly-recommended comic book series 'All-Star Superman'.

So yeah, that was pretty much what I intend on a first chapter of a possible two-parter, probably 3 or 4, but I rather actually get the chapters out and end bad habits in terms of writing.

This one is meant to occur a little before the incident at the docks, but with some things switched around. With that out of the way, I could use some feedback before I proceed but frankly, I'd like to think on how things will turn out. Tune in next time for some more Knightshade (?), or at least tackling these matters with Blake.

- Azrael Voorhees