It's been many years. Hopefully some of you are still active. Still operating off of ~vol3/4 understanding of the characters, or so, influenced by all the ff I've read.

Appreciate the random reviews, f&f I've gotten over the years. 3

(p.s. got to lil drinky as I filled out what was left of this chapter. Thank ole Jacky D for the renewal of my posting schedule. Enjoy!)

Chapter VI:

Blake sat at the edge of the bar that every Beacon student had been in and out of, over and over, for decades. Junior's Bar, or the J-bar as the students and hunters called it, was the only place on campus where you could buy alcohol legitimately; the only place for miles for some. The drinking age in Vale was the same as anywhere else, but on Beacon's grounds in particular, the age requirement was simply enrollment. For the younger students, this was the best (and only) drinking they'd get for years. Blake found the whole thing ridiculous, but she supposed it was just because she was older now and saw the big picture; send children off to perform acts of war, murder, assassination… and then drug them with liquor, glory, bread and circuses… Blake felt a bit jaded at this point but knew she had little other choice in her life; morbidly, she knew she would live and die by the hunter's sword. Shaking her head, she tapped on the bar with one of the metal pieces chained to each portion of the railing; a large, scruffy man with an apron folded down over his waist looked over and nodded, turning to the array of glass and metal to pull down a bottle.

"She show up yet?" Junior shook his head as he stopped in front of Blake's spot.

"Not that I've seen. Lot of people in tonight though, I could've missed her. She sounds hard to miss, though." Junior chuckled as he poured and reached below the bar with his other hand, scooping a couple of ice cubes into Blake's glass.

"You sure?" Junior set the scoop back in the ice and pulled a scroll out of his back pocket; Blake pulled hers out and tapped it twice to Junior's. Both scrolls beeped and they both stashed their scrolls. Blake held up the drink and Junior nodded back.

"She'll show up, Blake. Relax a little, for once?" Blake found herself smiling as she looked over Junior's shoulder and saw Cinder walk in, dressed in a sheer black top and red skirt, the same shade as her hair, the latter fit snugly around her waist and thighs. Cinder's hair appeared to be restrained in a braid, bouncing off of her hip with each step as Cinder looked around, scanning the bar. Junior looked over his shoulder and back at Blake.

"Don't have too much fun." Junior waved and turned towards another metal thudding down the other side of the bar. Blake locked eyes with Cinder across the bar and the firestarter of a woman began her sashay across the bar, grabbing the attention of patrons both male and female; Cinder made quite the striking figure.

Blake caught her attention and Cinder's eyes lit up in recognition and a smile grew across her face. Blake patted the spot next to her at the bar, but Cinder stepped onto the footrest and then sat contentedly on Blake's lap, draping an arm across the top of Blake's blazer. It was suddenly way too hot to have the jacket on indoors.

"Hey there, kitty cat." Cinder drawled right into Blake's human ear, the cat ears twitching beneath their signature black bow in response. Blake was nearly finished training to be one of the most dangerous individuals on the planet, paired with a brilliant, short, fiery package of a partner who matched her excellence. Every day was full of challenge, trials, tribulations, the fear and face of Death looking back at her in the mirror. Blake told herself she was prepared to die for her people, even if they wouldn't do the same for her, and yet, just four stupid words out of this stranger's stupid mouth made her re-evaluate everything.

"Cinder." Blake managed stiffly, tapping her own drink and motioning for a second at Junior, who was nosily, noisily cleaning up at the end of the bar. Chuckling, he walked around the other side to acknowledge the silent request.

"That's all you've got for me, beautiful? After I spent all this time getting ready, too." Cinder's pout nearly had Blake pledging her life that instant. Cinder's hand had snaked itself along the top of Blake's blazer, picking along the button-down collar's edges. Her thumb brushed Blake's neck as Junior came back around with another highball glass, sliding it with practiced ease to clink into Blake's half-finished drink.

"On the house, lovelies. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Junior chuckled to himself, pointedly loosening his tie as he walked towards a new group at the other end of the bar.

"And what, pray tell, would he not do?" Cinder whispered again, reaching for the new drink and repositioning herself in Blake's lap. Blake had sat in her shell-shocked inactivity for too long. She snapped her hand over Cinder's wrist, the arm that had found itself a home on Cinder's hip suddenly deciding to work again. Blake deftly swapped the new drink with the one she had been nursing, sliding the old to Cinder's hand and draining the new old fashioned in seconds. Cinder spun the other glass around, noting Blake hadn't let go yet, tracing her finger on where Blake's dark lipstick had left marks on the edges.

Blake slapped the glass onto the counter one step short of a slam and looked up to see Cinder slowly bring her old glass to new lips, run a tentative tongue over the lipstick, flick her eyes over to Blake's narrowing ones, take a sip, set it down. Everything about this moment screamed at Blake.

This is why you don't do one night stands. This is why you don't do casual. This is unbelievably dangerous, Blake.

Didn't she live in danger?

"Nothing, Cinder. That's the joke he makes every other hour." Blake found herself saying, her grip having loosened on Cinder's wrist, now sliding up the smooth, pale-skinned arm.

"Oh?" Cinder had finally moved in Blake's full frontal view, the plunging neckline of her strapless dress coming into view. Blake didn't normally feel her eyes change, but every brain cell in her stupid little head was screaming, electric and alive; her senses alive as she found herself nearly vocalizing an actual growl.

"Oh." Cinder's countenance briefly flickered with surprise. A smirk rapidly replaced it, lust pouring off them both. Blake reached for the drink that hadn't been finished, ran her fingers over the ice in the cup, reached up and grasped Cinder's face. An involuntary gasp, a shudder.

"You've reminded me just how willing I am to take what I want, Cinder. A good reminder, I must say." Blake's thumb locked over the front of Cinder's chin as her index and middle finger, still wet with icemelt, scraped hungrily across the edge of Cinder's jaw. She shivered again.

"What I take, I keep, you know." Blake's long ring and pinky fingers had draped down to the side of Cinder's neck, feeling the pulse of life hitch and swallow at the situation she had found herself in. The world around them disappeared as Cinder steeled herself to speak the last words she'd coherently manage that evening.

"...my place is free."

Weiss laughed. That twinkling, haunting melody taunted Ruby; would probably follow her in her dreams. Their dreams.

Weiss didn't stop laughing for a few minutes, tears spilling from her eyes.

"You're kidding, right?" Ruby had risen and moved to sitting on the back of the couch, staring out of the window, her back to Weiss. One look over her shoulder brought Weiss back to sobriety; it was hard not to take the glowing red eyes seriously. Weiss began seriously thinking through the implications of a dragon-form Ruby hell-bent on razing the entirety of Beacon.

"You're serious." Ruby looked back towards the window and sighed, her shoulders drooping as her chin sunk to her chest.

"Yes, Weiss. I wouldn't lie to you… I don't really think I can, anymore. It just feels… weird, now. Yang told me all about the connection dragons could form with humans through marking… but I thought she was exaggerating." Ruby slid off the couch and turned around towards Weiss, stalking over towards her. Weiss suddenly felt as if she was Ruby's prey, Ruby the lioness, Weiss an injured gazelle, predator coming to toy with her prey before devouring her whole. It felt… humbling.

"Don't you… don't you feel it, too?" Ruby was suddenly very close and Weiss swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. Earlier, Ruby had been just as close but Weiss had felt and seen the barely-restrained fury rolling off of her in waves. This felt much more intimate; Weiss felt closer to Ruby than anyone previous… which wasn't saying much for her, but still. Ruby's aura seemed to wrap around her, creating a sphere that gently pushed in all around her. So much aura, so pure and simply overwhelming. Weiss closed her eyes and let her physical senses dull.

Weiss felt her own newfound reservoir of aura reach out tentatively; stretching out like another hand, posing a question for her new counterpart, touching tentatively at the shell she felt she needed to hatch from.

Am I enough? Enough for a girl whose real world experience dwarfs mine, whose power eclipses mine, whose kindness outshines mine…

Weiss felt as if the moment stretched on and on until she felt Ruby's aura pulse rapidly and then begin to fade; the color in Ruby's eyes flickered before returning to grey.

"I-I… Ruby…" Ruby held Weiss' left hand in hers and put a finger up to Weiss' mouth to shush her.

"I know, Weiss. I know." A moment of vulnerability, then walls returning.

"Is it… too much? Weiss scoffed in return, despite the finger on her mouth trembling slightly.

"That's an unclear 'it', you know." Ruby narrowed her eyes as her aura briefly pressed on Weiss' own, a hug showing just how easily it could pop her shoulders out of their sockets.

"But no, Ruby. I may not know much compared to you," another scoff, this one Ruby's, "but I am well versed in… rolling with the punches, as our combat instructor would say. My… whole life has been punches, actually." Weiss trailed off. Ruby hummed thoughtfully at that, her finger sliding down Weiss' lips to tap carefully on her chin before leaving. The loss of warmth snaked through Weiss' entire being. Ruby cleared her throat and turned around to pace again.

"I'm a young dragon, actually. Only somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple hundred years old. Most of that time, I've spent as a dragon; we're nearly immortal, biologically, in that phase. I've only spent probably a total of twenty combined years as a human, and my memory of actually living as a dragon is less memory and more… an impression of a collection of instincts?" Ruby shook her head, trying to find the words. Weiss merely gaped, her lips opening and closing in surprise.

"Oh, hush. You were gonna ask again soon, and it hurts me to withhold things from you, now. I just tried it. Like I said, I'm young; most dragons, as far as I'm told, don't count their time spent "succumbing to basic instincts" towards their sapient age." Ruby repeatedly added air quotes as she paced.

"So, no. In reality, I'm actually "younger" than you, my experience is limited to what I've been told is true, which, at this point, I'm not so sure I can trust anymore, and, c'mon, Snowflake. I'm hardly nice." Ruby spun to a stop on her heel, teeth sharpening in, then out of, her mouth as she smiled a true lioness' grin towards Weiss.

"For starters, I'm having a really, really hard time suppressing every instinct I have that's telling me to stalk over there, rip that prissy jacket off your shoulders and mark your neck properly." Weiss felt the blood specifically leave every joint in her legs and flood her face; if she hadn't already been seated at the kitchentop, she most certainly would have fallen over. Growing up, she had been propositioned by disgusting pigs the moment she even looked remotely old enough (and honestly before) and had heard all kinds of crass, sexual innuendos and jabs, threats and catcalls.

This one felt like a promise. Weiss felt it, felt a brief torrent of passion leak into their shared emotional space before snapping off like a rushing faucet slammed shut. Ruby closed her eyes and exhaled through shortening canines and clenched teeth, a slight trail of smoke following her breath. She instead walked over to the balcony that she had leapt off of earlier and took in the view. Weiss found herself walking over before she even realized.

"I won't, unless you want me to." Ruby mumbled. Weiss chuckled and leaned on the balcony railing alongside her new… new what, exactly? Friend? Partner..? Mate? Weiss blushed through the thought to speak.

"And you say you're not nice." Weiss found the courage to turn to Ruby and actually flick her on the forehead.

"Dolt." Ruby's turn to gape and flop her jaw around like a fish. Her expression settled on a slight smile; Ruby slid over a bit and looped her left arm in Weiss' right. The sun had already began its goodbye ritual; Beacon was always last to whisper sweet nothings into the sun's ears as it left, promising a return tomorrow. Weiss sighed as the sky swirled with sweet purples, peaceful blues, bright oranges. An irregular red pulsed next to her.

"This is gonna be real weird, isn't it?"

"Like it isn't already?" A scoff.

"Point taken. What do we do now?"

"I've always lived my life as the wind takes me, Weiss. Are you… ready for that?" A pause.

"I've had enough credits to graduate for a year now."

"That's not what I meant."

"...Oh. I mean… yes?" A chuckle.

Grey eyes met blue.

"My life, as short as it has been, has never been dull. Never lacked excitement."

"That's fine. I already signed up for it when I chose this life instead of…" Another pause. "I'm ready, Ruby." A pulse of color, warmth, cold: the feeling trailed from their linked arms, circling their hearts.

"We probably don't have more than a month to handle preparations for…" Ruby gestured at the darkening skyline with her free hand. "...all of this."

"That's fine. If I can tell Ozpin, we can do it in two weeks." Ruby stiffened briefly, then relaxed into Weiss again.

"Okay. Can I be there?" Weiss nodded before Ruby even finished.

"Of course. I'll… need you there." Ruby found Weiss' hand at the end of their linked elbows.

"Whenever you need me."

"Not nice, huh?"

"...just for you, Snowflake." Weiss hummed thoughtfully.

"I could get used to the sound of that."