"So, uh… I've got a sister, too."

Weiss turned just enough to stare at Ruby with her blind eye— it'd be hilarious if not for the fact that it was directed at her. "Forsooth?"

Ruby shut her mouth and looked around the hall, her face warm. They were outside Ozpin's office, sitting in shitty wooden chairs as they waited for their relatives to escape the Headmaster's clutches.

"Thy sword is immaculate; I've been practicing with it," Weiss stated, making Ruby jump. "Hast thou considered such a profession for thyself?"

Ruby cocked her head, expecting some venomous expression from Weiss, only to find her white brows furrowed with as much confusion as she had. "Uh… yeah," she answered truthfully. "I've always wanted to be an engineer— had a plan for it and everything, before…" Ruby made a vague gesture, indicating something unseen but understood. "This. All this."

Weiss hummed, nodding as her gaze turned forward. She brought her wrist around her front— she had a watch, a really bright watch made of blinding cyan plastic with what looked like little white animal ears sticking up off the side of its face. There was even a tiny polar bear charm attached via miniature chain. She had a couple more things: a white, blue, and navy-beaded bracelet (also shitty plastic) that sat around her wrist above a (shitty plastic) braid of cobalt blue and periwinkle. Ruby stared at it, her eyebrows high, gaze darting between it and her partner's face, begging for explanation.

Weiss noticed after a while, then lifted her wrist and smiled at her little ensemble. She was wearing a navy sweater that Ruby wasn't familiar with, though even without touching it Ruby could tell it would be itchy. "I discovered this prize languishing in a 'bargain bin,'" she explained with her stupid dialect, making the beaded bracelet clack against itself as she twisted it around her wrist. "A watch and bracelet set. Less than twenty Lien— a steal, verily."

Ruby blinked at the watch. "You know it's a kids' watch, right?"

Weiss shrugged. "'Tis a watch I can afford, whether it be for children or otherwise— within my schema, as well." She admired the shitty little watch, still smiling at it. "'Tis… cute, is it not?"

Yeah. Yeah, it was damn-near the cutest thing Ruby had ever seen, watching Weiss fawn over her stupid little kids' watch. "Ugly," she lied instead. "And that sweater?"

Weiss shook both her arms, making the sweater's sleeves come unbunched from her elbows and drop almost fully over her hands. Ruby hadn't noticed it looked about two sizes too large until then. "'Twas a thrift," Weiss stated, leaning towards Ruby as she whispered conspiratorially: "The garment smelleth of old people."

Ruby snorted, unable to hold in a quick burst of unguarded laughter that sounded like a goblin or a witch discovering a vein of gold. She covered her mouth, hiding the sound, heat surging up her face. Weiss stared at her in shock. Her thin, nigh-corpselike lips parted slightly.

"Florabel," she must've said accidentally, because she usually preferred agonizing her partner with her real name. "Art thou dying?" she jeered, her delectable schadenfreude warm in the heart she gave Ruby— one word for jokes meant to distract you from frostbite. "Wouldst thou desire I contact a physician?"

Ruby smacked her upper arm, one hand still covering her face. Weiss' lips quirked a little, and Ruby almost spilled out every single thing she'd told her bedframe. Weiss recoiled.

"Th-thy bedframe?"

Ruby froze in her seat, screwing her eyes shut and thinking about her staff, about the disc, about the sword, Weiss' sword, Weiss, her bedframe— "I— I did drugs!" she blurted.

Ruby felt Weiss' whiplash. "Y-you— thou'st partaken with another?" she asked, her bitterness seeping through Ruby's chest. "Not that I would—"

"No! No, not—" Ruby tried to laugh as if that would make anything less jarring, but it only made it worse. "Stims."

Shock and fear, cold, tight, just as visible on Weiss's face as it was tangible through their hearts.

"J-just pills!" Ruby ameliorated, which made Weiss' shoulders drop a single inch. "No sketchy stuff getting 'em, either, they were free from a friend."

Ruby tried not to think about Nora, failing immediately, and her face burned with heat as her throat went hollow with guilt. She remembered getting the stims from Nora, how she 'paid' Nora back, her soul like gurgling rocks and tonguing batteries—

Thwump—

A long, booted leg swung out past the door.

"Tasting terrible! Greasy, grit-sy, string-sy, not the slightest bit a thing you should surviving on!"

Another leg— khaki shorts— stupid tropical shirt— Weiss' sister, sauntering out of Ozpin's office with her arm slung over Qrow's shoulders. Qrow's eyes were wide, his face a little red, clutching the woman's now-sheathed saber like a lifeline— Winter leaned up unreasonably close to his face, exclaiming:

"But that is how I go!"

Her accent was weird, her 'th' a 'd', her earlier 'ing's more like 'ink's. Her legs swung far too much for someone who was supposed to be a general, her giant smirk too easy.

"Goes the story when I eating Grimm for survival!" Winter's other hand— still leather-clad— patted Qrow brazenly on the chest. "I telling you! You not understanding the word 'devastate' until your gut of making amends for three kilograms of Imp and protein scum of Creep bones!"

It was only when Qrow hissed "Help me!" towards Ruby that she remembered where she was and what she was doing, at which point she blinked in front of the walking pair.

"H-hello!" she tried, summoning her best attempt at an 'I'm sure you're not a racist Fourth bigot just like your sister who I banged!' smile. "I'm your sister's partner. That's my uncle and I haven't seen him in a long time— do you mind if I—"

The woman scooped Ruby fully under the arms, lifting her up much more easily than she looked capable of. "Sister's partner!" Winter turned over her shoulder, towards where Weiss was getting out of her chair and approaching. "Weiss! You are partnered with a faunus?"

Qrow, a faunus, blinked hard. Ruby winced. Weiss stopped in her tracks. "Yes?" she answered slowly.

Winter dropped Ruby back onto her bird legs and patted her shoulders, still talking to her sister, "Incredible! Amazing! Here I thinking of you still massive racist!"

Ruby barked out a laugh. Weiss stormed up behind her and smacked the back of her head, then bowed to her sister. "Blessings of the Four—"

Winter grabbed her, slapping a leather palm over her mouth with an expression of fury. "Sister! You cannot be saying this in front of partner!"

"I-it's okay!" Ruby excused, getting very weird looks from everybody. "I— I mean, it's not, like, okay, but, uh… I… understand?"

"We have reconciled this aspect of our partnership," Weiss (wrongly) claimed. "She judgeth me not for my beliefs."

"She should! Is a terrible thing! Believing such a spiteful things— not good for the mind!" Winter stomped towards her sister and grabbed her hand, tugging her down the corridor with loud clacks of her heeled boots. "Good meeting you, Ruby! Lovely meeting you, Qrow! I come back! Soon! Wishing luck on you in winning of tourney!"

"W-Winter!" Weiss squeaked, helpless as her sister yanked her along. "Florabel! I— sorry!"

Ruby could only watch, confused as her partner was unceremoniously dragged away, leaving her to gawk down the hall with her equally-bewildered uncle. After a long, thick moment, she managed to eke through the side of her mouth: "So, uh… she was gettin' pretty close to ya."

Qrow side-eyed her and returned, "Did that girl call you 'Florabel'?"

Ruby coughed. "No."

"Isn't that your middle name?" he probed, smirking. "Who the hell has ever called you 'Florabel'?"

"Uh… mum?"

"Bull fucking shit."

"She has!" Ruby whinged. "Probably!"

"Ah! Aaah!" Qrow pointed at her. "You pinched your shoulders back! I'm right!"

"That is not a thing!" she lied, pinching her shoulders back again. "Shut up!"

"Like a book!" Qrow hawed, bending double and ruffling her hair, to which she batted at his normal-boned hands. "Ah, I missed ya, kid."

Ruby shook her hair, trying to pat it back down as soon as Qrow's hand left. She grumbled, "Yeah, whatever, I missed you too."

Qrow smirked at her, but his smirk quickly gave way to a real, full smile. Before she could make fun of him for being sappy, he jerked his head and started walking down the hall. "C'mon, kid, show me around a bit."

Ruby snorted, stretching her bird-legs out so she could match his height and lanky stride. "You literally went here. I don't need to 'show you' anywhere."

"Oh, fine, sure, guess I'll just leave then. God forbid I wanna walk-n-talk rather than stand outside of my boss' office."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Fine. Have you talked to Yang, yet?"

"Nope. You were there for my entrance, I've done shit-all else."

"Are you…" Ruby looked her uncle up and down. "Sober?"

He shrugged. "Not really, but I got some sobriety knocked into me. I'll be fine."

For some godforsaken reason— as if the mere mention of sobriety/drug-taking had summoned her stupidest impulses— Ruby found herself blurting once again: "I did drugs."

Qrow quirked one eyebrow at her— curious, not judging, which instantly flooded her with relief. "Oh, yeah? What'd ya do?"

"Uh… the, uh…" Ruby mimed smoking with Weiss. "The smelly one."

"Pulvis? Or green?"

"Uh…" Ruby had no clue. "Pulvis?"

Qrow reeled, then surged forward and grabbed her by the collar. "You didn't! Ruby! Are you fucking cra—"

"Green!" Ruby squeaked. "Green! It wasn't that crazy! It was just kinda nice and made things pleasant and floaty!"

Qrow sagged, sighing. "Thank god. Fucking hell." He flicked a sharp glare her way. "Do not do pulvis."

"Okay," Ruby agreed, nodding. "S-stims, too. I did stims."

Qrow half-glared. "Which ones?"

"The pills?"

Qrow's half-glare turned to a quarter-glare. "Don't do that anymore."

Ruby winced. "I… might."

Qrow pursed his lips and huffed, but straightened up and continued their walk, a 'welp, I did what I can do' attitude sitting on his hunched shoulders. "You and your sister doing okay?"

"Uh… yeah? I guess. We don't really have many classes together, so our hangout time is kinda limited." Ruby pinched her shoulders. She hated when her body knew she was lying before her mind did. "I dunno. We just never really have to interact, so we mostly just… don't? Is that bad?"

Qrow shrugged. "Better than me 'n Rae, only time we spent together outside the team was when we didn't trust ourselves to get high alone— and lemme tell ya, that was rare."

Yikes. "Okay, well… yeah, that's pretty bad, I guess."

"What missions have y'all done?"

"Uh…" Ruby tried to remember what she'd read for the one she didn't go on. "Pack tracking?" Then she felt like an idiot as she realized: "Oh, it's literally all been pack tracking. Well, two missions of pack tracking, I guess."

"How'd they go?"

'I didn't get to go to the first, I got kidnapped and almost ritualistically sacrificed instead;' 'Well, the second had a terroristic Fourth plot involving a bomb-train that we had to foil. I died (twice, technically), but my soul-vamp partner gave me her heart so I'm kind of an animaphage, too, but everything seems to have ended up okay besides me and Weiss breaking up, which is kind of the worst thing ever and the current zeitgeist of my mental anguish, but I gave her a sword and I might be kind of in love with her, but I also want to kill her, and also I ate her thumb, like fully bit off and swallowed her thumb, and I think about that and her and that all the time.'

Ruby shrugged, perfectly sane and normal. "Fine, I guess."

Qrow eyed her, but she didn't pinch her shoulders. Things technically did end up 'fine' in the end. "Hm. Well, that's good."

"Yeah."

They walked in silence for a couple moments, but Qrow wasn't sparing her quite yet. With a sly glance that slowly slithered her way, he smirked. "So, how many weapons you break so far?"

Ruby scowled.

Every weapon Ruby Rose had broken up until that very moment:

Barbed wire whip ('created' at 8 years of age): taken and destroyed by Summer.

Grandpa's lever-action rifle with an axe blade on it ('created' at 8 years of age): did not fire, which made her cry and throw it into the sea.

Throwable hand-sickles (created at 10 years of age): thrown into a Beowolf on her first outing with mom. It was probably still in that Beowolf.

Wrist-mounted switchblade (created at 10 years of age): recycled after a demonstration in which Summer had grabbed the blade and twisted her wrist until it sprained.

Claw-mounted blades (created at 10 years of age): recycled after a demonstration in which Raven had stepped on the blades to immobilize her and given her a twenty-minute lecture on the importance of unfettered mobility.

A dead fox ('created' at 10 years of age): used to fight off a lesser nevermore (don't ask what she'd been doing around a dead fox), then left to decay in the forests of Patch.

Throwable blade-discuses (created at 10 years of age): carried her through the rest of her first year at Signal until they were taken after a particularly violent confrontation with a school bully.

Gun-sword (created at 11 years of age): exploded as soon as she shot it, blowing her index and middle fingers off (they were found and subsequently reattached).

Breech-loaded glaive (created at 11 years of age): her second attempt at a gun-weapon, serving her well through her second year at Signal. Repeated use had subtly warped the barrel over time, causing catastrophic failure during the first mission of her third year.

Unreasonably large cleaver (created at 12 years of age): made as a joke and recycled after her first swing dislocated her left shoulder.

Double-bladed staff (created at 12 years of age): managed to endure her third year until Summer (for reasons Ruby still didn't know) tossed them into the ocean and told her to make a scythe.

Scythe (created at 12 years of age): lasted through her fourth and fifth years, gradually being built upon until it was an over-engineered SMG/shotgun/medium-caliber sniper-scythe, at which point one of the myriad intricate pieces failed and caused her entire receiver assembly to undergo rapid & explosive deconstruction.

Crux (created at 15 years of age): created during her sixth year at Signal, taken for evidence after she had been accosted while walking to public transportation and killed the accoster. Accostee?

Flexing Multi-Weapon Discus Platform (created at 15 years of age): her stalwart and reliable friend through the rest of her time at Signal, blown up (technically) by Weiss Schnee. She still had shrapnel in her; they said she could keep it; it was still with her.

"Aw damn, the whipsword?" Qrow grumbled. "I liked that one."

Ruby didn't include the part where some of the shrapnel was still in her body. That would be an insane thing to say. It would also be insane to deliberately keep shrapnel inside your body, but Ruby ate a human thumb less than a week ago, so it's whatever. "Yeah. Wait, does losing a weapon count?"

Qrow cocked an eyebrow at her. "Uh, yes?"

Ruby should've kept her mouth shut. In the vaguest terms possible, she started to recount the loss of her wires.