*000000*

It takes longer than I expected for Ruby to text me about Blake going missing and ask me to help the next day. She doesn't do it until a fair bit after lunch, which might be when all her classes are over, I guess. The entire time, Blake doesn't really say much, she just broods while Sun chatters away at her. I'd get him to stop, but Blake hasn't actively shown that she dislikes it, and they do get along in the show, so I guess she must somehow be fine with it.

It's not that I dislike Sun, but he's just so... chatty and upbeat. Like, don't get me wrong, I get excited about talking sometimes, but like, he's always like that. Just watching him tell Blake about his opinion of the weather here in Vale makes me tired and antisocial. We don't really mesh.

I consider offering to help Ruby look for her around the city, but as expected Weiss isn't willing to look along with them, so honestly it feels like it would be kind of pointless. Maybe I should seek out Weiss? Eh, she still doesn't really like me, I doubt she'd care to listen to anything I have to say right now, or give me a meaningful account of what went down. Not when she isn't even trying to get Blake back.

In the end, I spend most of the day just reading and playing video games while bringing meals to Blake with my inventory so she doesn't have to leave, though her ribbon stays on the entire time regardless. I also leave that copy of The Lord of the Rings trilogy I got next to Blake's bed stand, and I notice her reading it a few times. It's good to have some me time, yet still be around people. Sun mostly does his own thing, which I don't pay much attention to outside of the part where he makes tea for the three of us, which I really appreciate. It's the main thing that helps me and him get along in a confined space.

It's not until evening that Blake actually says anything beyond pieces of small talk with Sun.

"Why?"

"Why what?" I ask back. I'm not a mind reader, for crying out loud. Why do so many people seem to just ask "why" with no context?

"Why haven't you even asked why I'm here yet?"

"Because it doesn't matter why you're here." I shrug. "I can help, so I'm helping."

Blake sighs, her eyes downcast. "It does matter. You can't trust me."

"I'm the one who gets to decide in whom I trust." I say, indignant.

"Yeah, what she said." Sun adds, constructively.

Mirroring my sentiment, Blake gives Sun a weird look before sighing again. "Do you know about the White Fang?" The question is pretty clearly meant for Sun, not me.

"Those stupid holier-than-thou creeps who use force to get what they want? Sure, who hasn't?" Man, I like the guy, and he has no way of knowing better than to say that in this situation, but I really don't understand how his opinion of them is that bad. I mean, the guy goes to school in Mistral, of all places. If any kingdom needs the White Fang it's Mistral. I did some research before, and even Atlas doesn't allow for outright segregation to happen legally anymore, while Mistral does.

"I was a member of the White Fang."

"Ahh..." Sun holds a finger in the air, embarrassed about what he'd just said. "I see. What I meant to say, is that they're... not for me."

"It's fine." Blake says softly, very obviously not fine, but for reasons that probably aren't Sun's opinion of the White Fang. "And I may have let that slip to Weiss last night, during an argument that started after seeing you at the docks."

"Who's Weiss?" Sun raises his hand curiously.

"Okay, you should probably just go over the whole thing from the start, since we both know totally different parts of this whole thing." I suggest, making Blake nod.

She then retells the story of her argument with Weiss, which is basically the same as it all goes down in the show. Even crashing into Penny, which reminds me that I need to see if I can get into contact with Penny, because dang it I really like her.

"Well, Weiss sounds like a... pleasant person." Sun says, completely unconvincingly.

"I could write 99 theses on how stupidly wrong she is and nail them to her front door, but I think she'd just excommunicate me." I groan. It's a lot more painful to hear about from Blake herself than it was to just watch as a scene in a TV show. Especially when I know that Weiss could be doing so much better than this.

"That's a little pessimistic."

"It was a history joke, mostly." I sigh. It's such a shame nobody here can appreciate my Earth history jokes. Not that I'm actually inclined towards making a lot of history jokes. "But she is that wrong." Oh man, I'm going to have to be the one to talk sense into her, aren't I? At least a little bit. At least the logical fallacies will be the easy part.

"But what's the deal with you being in the White Fang, anyway? You don't really seem like the type." Sun asks.

"You could say I was born into it." Blake smiles sadly. "They were founded from the remains of the Red Fang, the militia that fought against the kingdoms in the Faunus Rights Revolution, to make sure that we retained our rights peacefully. It... didn't work very well in a lot of circumstances. They tried to enforce the parts of the Vytal Accords and the Treaty of Argus that were meant to protect Faunus against discriminatory practices in addition to making sure that we had equal rights, but no one actually had any way of enforcing them between kingdoms, even Vale, which does still comply with them."

"When the founding leaders retired, Sienna Khan was the one who took over, and she changed tactics. We started fighting back when the police attacked our protests, destroying businesses that refused to serve Faunus, sabotaging and stealing from businesses like the SDC that use slave labor with extra steps. Retaliation until laws and business practices changed. It got results."

"But something changed, didn't it?" I prod gently. I already have an idea of what else there is, but I prefer to hear it from Blake.

"Yeah. Lately, things have been escalating more. Losing sight of what we're really supposed to be doing. Here in Vale, anyway, not the other branches. It's because of the local leader, not Sienna Khan." Her shoulders stiffen, and she has to gently clear her throat before she says any more. "I realized that it was going too far, and I ran away. Decided I'd dedicate myself to being a huntress instead."

"It's a good thing to turn to." I smile gently at Blake, trying to convey that none of it bothers me. "I'm glad you're here."

Blake blinks and is motionless for a moment before rubbing the back of her neck nervously. "Honestly, I don't belong here, and I don't really deserve to be here. I might leave."

"Of course you deserve to be here. The only person I know of who doesn't deserve to be here is Cardin Winchester, and probably his cronies." I frown. "I'm sure Weiss will learn better eventually. I'll do whatever it takes, if that's what you need to feel comfortable going back to those three and continuing on."

"It is the best I've got." Blake admits. "I'm not sure what else I could do."

"You should take pride in it." I sit next to Blake, not too close, but close enough that she could get closer if she wants to. "It takes a special kind of person to choose to fight monsters for a living. Whether those monsters are people or Grimm. I honestly wouldn't be doing it if I hadn't just sort of stumbled into it."

"I... no. I don't have anything to be proud of." Blake shakes her head adamantly.

"Blake, you've been fighting to help people for a long time. You can't erase a lifetime of good with one mistake, especially when you're obviously doing your best to correct that mistake." I may not know exactly what's bothering Blake, but it doesn't matter. She's someone I'd wished I could have been like in another life, and I don't want to let her self-deprecate like this. "Please try to be kinder to yourself. As long as you manage to be better today than you were before, that's a good enough start." It feels like sort of a generic thing to say, but I have literally no experience with this kind of thing and it's the truth, so it's all I've got.

"You really think that?" Blake's eyes are tired and wary as she looks at me.

"I do. And I do my best to practice it."

"Alright," a tiny smile brushes across Blake's face before it's quashed, "I guess I might as well see if someone can't talk sense into Weiss."

[+25 reputation with Blake Belladonna(55/100)]

"Cool," Sun chimes in, nodding vigorously, "cool, cool." Now that I think about it I've kind of usurped his usual role of supporting Blake here, so he's probably feeling pretty awkward.

"In the meantime, how do you feel about allegories with sword lesbians as main characters?" I ask Blake, since Sun hasn't really said anything that I could possibly respond to.

"That sounds brilliant."

-----------​

"You seem to have found nothing," Weiss says by way of greeting, her voice icy, "what a shame. I do hope that the terrorist returns to us, if only to ensure that she is taken in by the proper authorities."

"Stop it." If Ruby weren't so tired from spending the last few hours of the day she'd be able to firmly tell Weiss exactly what she thinks of the situation and her part in it, but as it is she's speaking softly because she's sore and tired and has no idea what to do to make things better before all four of them get in trouble for losing a teammate. "Please don't talk about doing something like that when you don't even know what's going on."

"I understand perfectly what's going on, thank you. The violent criminal who was hiding in our midst is unmasked, and now has left. It's hardly our problem, if anything the school administration is at fault for allowing her to enroll in the first place." Weiss huffs, her arms crossed.

"That's enough, Weiss." Yang glares. "We're not turning any of this over to someone else to handle until we know enough of what's going on that we actually know why Blake is here. And if she was in the White Fang, but isn't anymore, I can tell you already that I'm not going to turn her away."

Weiss' response is an indignant and distantly disgusted glare. "Don't tell me that you sympathize with them."

"No, not particularly. I don't think I know enough about all that stuff to say whether what they do is right or not." Yang grunts as she takes off Ember Celica and tosses it into its case. "But leaving that kind of thing in the past is a part of what Beacon is. Our uncle used to be a bandit before he came here under false pretenses, and now he's a world famous, well respected huntsman. So I'm more than willing to look beyond whatever dark past Blake might have left behind, just as soon as you stop being such a damn drama queen and we have a better idea of what's going on."

"I cannot believe you, you-ugh!" Weiss tosses her hands in the air and turns away, effectively ending the discussion.

Ruby can't help but pace in the consequential silence that fills the dorm room. It's not Weiss' fault, not really. She should have made sure that the argument never got this bad, whether by making them find a resolution, or just separating long enough for one of them to cool down and back off. It's literally the simplest part of her entire job, it's the very least she should-

"Ruby."

-be doing, and if she can't even do that much why is she leading in the first place? What's the point, when she doesn't actually do anything to make sure her team is able to get along and trust each other? Sil was so wrong, she still doesn't even have any idea how to find Blake, or if she can still find Blake, she's such a useless leader, all-

"Rubes. Stop that."

Strong arms wrap her up in a familiar hug that completely derails her train of thought.

"Yeah, you might've messed up over all this, but we're still just students. We're here to learn, and to do that you usually have to make your mistakes first. We'll find Blake, and sort this out, I promise." Yang speaks gently into Ruby's ear, too quietly for Weiss to overhear.

"I guess." Ruby admits with a sigh. "Doesn't change that Blake got scared off because I didn't do anything. It's not just that I didn't stop them from arguing, I wasn't there for her like I should've been." Even then, being in close proximity to Yang is helping her calm down. Yang's always felt like home, more so even than their own home. Ruby can't imagine what it would have been like to not go to Beacon with her sister, and she doesn't want to.

"We both should have done that. Me more than you even, since I'm her partner." Yang sighs, and ends the hug, instead resting her hands on Ruby's shoulders as they look each other in the eye. "But we had no way of knowing that that was why she was so invested in the whole thing, and the only way we would have known is if we'd somehow invaded her privacy."

"Okay, okay." Ruby grumbles, brushing away Yang's hands. Just because Yang is right doesn't mean she doesn't feel bad, but she's still thankful to have her sister with her to at least remind her of this kind of thing. "I get it."

"Good." Yang nods, the same kind of guilt Ruby feels reflected in her own lilac eyes.

-----------​

"Ah, I thought I might find you here." I finally find Weiss in the library, reading a book that I can't identify, but that looks like a textbook of some kind.

"Did you now?" Weiss says coldly, not deigning to look up from her book.

"Okay, no, I've just sort of been wandering around for the last hour and a half up until Coco pointed me this way and now here I am." I admit, resorting to blunt honesty, since that's the thing I figure is most likely to get through to Weiss. "I'd like to talk to you, if you aren't busy."

"Who sent you? Was it Ruby, Yang," her eyes narrow suspiciously, "or was it perhaps Blake? You did seem to quickly recognize her as one of your own when you first met, didn't you?"

"First of all, no one sent me here. I'm here because I choose to be." This is going to be one of those stressful conversations where I have to think really hard about everything I say, isn't it? Ugh. "Secondly, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume by that comment that you mean I could tell she was a Faunus, not that she was ex-White Fang. In which case, yes, I could tell. Thirdly, it doesn't matter whether or not I know anything about Blake's whereabouts, because I doubt she's coming back until she decides to give you another chance at not being racist."

"I did no such thing." Weiss doubles down, glaring up at me from her book in a way that's almost reminiscent of Blake, but that just makes my eyes roll.

"Alright, look, you've got to at least understand that racism is a reasonable conclusion to draw as to why or how someone could possibly make as blatant a mistake as trying to apply a universal qualifier two ways the way you did."

"I'm sorry?" Weiss blinks, and for once she doesn't actually seem to follow.

I do my best to hide a proud smile about the fact that I've just confused Weiss Schnee, and instead explain. "Your entire argument started because you made an assumption that because that blond guy you say was a stowaway, thus a criminal, and a Faunus, he must also have been part of the White Fang. My understanding is that you argued that all members of the White Fang were criminals, and of course implicitly Faunus, which is what justified your conclusion. Drawing that kind of conclusion from details like that is a case of attempting to claim that because all thumbs are fingers all fingers must be thumbs. A universal qualifier can only be applied in one direction, and just because all members of the White Fang are presumably all Faunus and criminals, doesn't mean that it's in any way reasonable to assume that anyone who's a Faunus and a criminal is a member of the White Fang. Do you see where I'm coming from?"

In a way, I'm holding back. But I seriously doubt that some random person just telling her off is going to accomplish shit with Weiss. Hopefully, cold logic will give me an opportunity to get in with her, even if it really isn't my thing under normal circumstances. The only reason I'm managing to pull it off at all is because I've got a few months experience of having this kind of discussion with an ignorant family member of mine back on Earth. Not that I ever managed to accomplish anything with him, but still.

"I suppose that it may have been inappropriate of me to comment on a connection to the White Fang because of the events I witnessed." Weiss sighs, actually going so far as to close her textbook and make a Gendo Pose as she studies me. "You're much more... eloquent than you were the last time we met."

[+20 reputation with Weiss Schnee(-20/100)]

"I'm actually trying right now." I shrug, then grin slyly. "I could always be deliberately less erudite, if you want. Like this." I clear my throat and start doing a bad impression of Eric Idle playing a British housewife. "You have green, scaly skin, and a soft yellow underbelly with a series of fin-like ridges running down your spine and tail. Although lizardlike in shape, you can grow anything up to thirty feet in length-"

"Please, no." Weiss tries to hide it and sound all displeased, but I think I can actually see that she's smiling behind her clasped hands.

"Oh, good, I don't think I can really do that voice for very long. It's almost as hard on my throat as my Amon Amarth impression." I take a moment to drink some water from the canteen I carry with me before continuing. "Anyway, since you can admit that that was an inappropriate conclusion to jump to, would you be open to examining your biases?"

"As insightful and reasonable as you may seem to be, I have no interest in attempting to argue with someone who does not know me about whether or not to allow for the continued presence of a teammate who is a potential threat to my life."

"Neither do I. You do have some legitimacy in not wishing to be around Blake, I won't deny that. Certain elements of the White Fang do constitute a danger to you and your family." I stop controlling my tone of voice, letting some of my anger show as I lean forwards. "What I take issue with, is the thought process behind your actions, your blatant lack of understanding of just what people are living through out here in the rest of the world, and a few other aspects of your attitude toward Faunus in the first place. Basically, you don't know a fucking thing about how it is for us, and you don't seem to be making the slightest effort to listen to or understand criticism from people who know about this kind of thing. Admittedly, Blake wasn't doing a great job of arguing with you constructively, but you seem like an actual person. Someone who wouldn't want to lead the SDC the same way your soulless bastard of a father does, and if that's the case you're going to need to learn things he never would have taught you."

Weiss' eyes narrow, her gaze intensifying. It's a good sign, her attention is definitely hooked now, after bait like that. "I assure you, I have no intention of being anything like my father, and in fact hope to undo that which he has wrought. Therefore I'm prepared to listen, in the interest of distancing myself from the kind of person that he is."

I smile earnestly at her. This is a lot less unpleasant than I'd feared it might end up being. "Good. That's always the first step with this kind of thing. But now where to even begin? There's so much I'm sure I could tell you about, but the main question is what you're prepared to believe coming from me against what you're better off figuring out on your own. I'll be honest, my expertise is more in the area of ethics and philosophy than the kinds of things I can show you evidence of, mostly because I only started learning about Remnant's history pretty recently. And you strike me as the kind of person who needs to see proof before you start to change your points of view."

"That is not a poor assessment." Weiss coolly inclines her head in my direction. "It would be best of you to begin with more easily provable claims, rather than things that may be difficult to prove and obfuscated behind statistics."

"Good point. Alright, here's something nice and simple that you probably don't know about. Slavery is still legal and commonly practiced in Atlas, mostly by the SDC." That's a little something I've dug up pretty easily with a bit of research.

"Excuse me?" Weiss derisively raises an eyebrow at me. "The constitutions of every single kingdom expressly forbids slavery. I am aware that they supposedly do not strictly maintain the standards of the Vytal Accords, but that is perhaps the one thing I cannot imagine being argued as being true in the slightest."

"Actually, they all outlaw slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for committing a crime. In less obfuscated terms, it's perfectly legal for prisoners to perform slave labor for the duration of their sentence. As a matter of fact, the Atleasian government has a deal with the SDC where they rent out prisoners to them as cheap labor in exchange for discounts on their dust purchases. This creates an incentive for the government to therefore actively attempt to convict more people and ensure that they remain imprisoned and that they return to prison after leaving, rather than fulfilling the role that a governing body should, which is designing a justice system that seeks to avoid recidivism. This is of course something that disproportionately affects Faunus, since Faunus have far higher conviction and arrest rates than humans do to begin with."

"I..." Weiss' eyes lose focus, growing distant with shock for a moment before sharpening again and growing in intensity. "If what you say is true, I... I suppose I may be able to understand just what Blake meant when she claimed that humanity drove the White Fang to become what it is today, even if it hardly justifies their recent behavior."

"That's a good start. By all means, please keep asking questions and digging deeper into the way that the SDC and governments treat Faunus yourself. You're a very intelligent person, I don't doubt that you'll be able to figure things out eventually, even if you need time to come to terms with certain things." I relax a little, smiling. "What do you say that tomorrow you and I take a walk through Vale to help Yang and Ruby look for Blake?"

"I will consider it." Weiss says as she puts away the textbook she had been reading.

"That's good enough for me." I get up as well and start to walk away, only to turn around as I remember something at the last second. "Ah, and Weiss? One last thing."

"Yes?" She pauses in her activities.

"The White Fang isn't responsible for your father's... behavior. He is." I turn around and leave it at that, because I don't know what else I could possibly say about it.

[+30 reputation with Weiss Schnee(10/100)]

I'm going to take a nap, I think.

-----------​

My hopes for a nap are interrupted by the way Blake's head snaps to look in my direction the moment I get back from our talk. Sun is off somewhere else for some reason, so it's just the two of us.

"Did you talk to her?"

"Yeah. It went pretty well, actually. I managed to make her recognize that she doesn't know all that much about the history of the Faunus, the SDC, and the White Fang, and to point out that she has some biases without antagonizing her, though we didn't get too far into the details of that bit." I'm pretty damn satisfied, really. I think I got through to her well, even considering that I know how to push her buttons a little bit from metaknowledge.

"That's... a lot more than I expected, actually." Blake blinks, her head tilted.

"Yeah, it was a lot of work." I say, yawning heavily immediately afterward. "But Weiss isn't a bad person, I don't think. Just... rough around the edges, and definitely more than a bit ignorant because of her upbringing. I think she's going to try though."

"That does sound like good news, when you put it like that." Blake nods contemplatively. "It would be great to make sure the head of the SDC is a decent person, especially someone who actually cares about people."

"That's the spirit! She'll understand the evils of capitalism soon enough, I'm sure." I grin, then toss myself into bed with a groan and a bounce. "Then we can use dust to escape to the only place not tainted by capitalism, space!"

"You say the weirdest shit sometimes." Blake snorts, amused.

"Thank you." I say as I write around in bed for no particular reason. It's stretching, the reason is stretching.

"I've been meaning to ask though, what's up with this book?" Blake says, tapping the Lord of the Rings. "It's got humans and all sorts of fantasy races, but no Faunus? I'm surprised you'd read it."

"The author is from a universe where Faunus don't exist." I go ahead and answer with the truth, since she probably won't believe it anyway.

"So you're not going to tell me, huh?"

"I just told you. Same thing with Utena. Faunus don't exist in most universes. They're unique to Remnant." It's fun to just tell the truth and not actually be believed.

"I guess that would explain why these books don't exist anywhere on the internet." Blake says, peering at me curiously. "Care to explain how you got them?" Okay, maybe I shouldn't have been so blasé about it.

"Sorry, you have to be a level fifty friend before I'll tell you my tragic backstory. It's a pretty big secret." I'm answering in a way that neither confirms nor denies anything about what I said about the book's origin, because I'm hardly prepared to be that upfront about things. It was worth lending that book out though, since I'm guessing having it to read made Blake feel a bit more at home. Hoping, at least.

"Fair enough, although now you're just making me more curious."

"Mmmm, I'm sure we'll get there eventually." I yawn again, more heavily this time. "I'd say you know about as much of my tragic backstory as I do about yours at this point."

"You could tell I was holding out?"

"I don't pry about these things, but yeah. It's a matter of principle. I don't ask people about their pasts because mine sucks, and I wouldn't want people to evoke memories at random like that." While I know that Adam exists, I don't know anything specific about the way that he treated Blake in particular, so there's still a fair bit of personal details about that relationship that I don't know.

"I appreciate it." Blake smiles warmly at me before turning to The Lord of the Rings, effectively ending the conversation.

Too bad I can't nap while cuddling someone. Oh well, eventually.