12:14 AM

It was impossible to sleep like this.

It'd been a little over a week in the dorms of Beacon. A week since she'd seen the other students of Beacon show their stuff out in the Emerald Forest, and partners had been "assigned". A week since she'd made the poorly informed decision to dive headfirst into cooled pools of violet, simmered down from the red they'd burned in reaction to a single strand of gold out of place on her partner's head. If such a dreadful choice needed a sign to herald the misfortune that'd follow, it'd probably take the form of people falling out of the sky and others riding Ursai into battle against Death Stalkers and and Giant Nevermore. Oh wait. That happened.

That should have been a somewhat decent start to her bonding with her partner, but there were a few things in particular that left her feeling a tad embittered. For one, Yang Xiao Long snored. The other two girls in the dorm didn't seem to think much of it, snoozing away in what must have been blissful, content sleep. They were relatively alert and awake the past several mornings. Yang's horrific sounding sleep apnea somehow didn't phase them. They made it look so easy, while Blake had to get up in the morning and fake it. They didn't have to have the blonde snoring directly above them like she did. That, and they had much less sensitive ears. To think that the young team leader of RWBY actually lived with Yang her whole life...

Maybe she should see a doctor about that snore. That couldn't be healthy.

That was only half of the problem though. The woman up there also refused to lie still. That would have been forgivable if it didn't go entirely unnoticed under normal circumstances. Like if, say, the bunk beds were actually bunk beds and not singles crudely pieced together in the name of efficiency. She felt the wood of the bunks wobble where they met the books between them. She had somehow gone from sleeping in dusty hideouts to sleeping in a literal deathtrap in the middle of Beacon Academy's dorms. Her partner didn't even have the decency to let her die in her sleep. The collapse of their harrowing sleeping arrangements was inevitable, and Blake would have to be awake for it at this rate.

All this time she had been haunted by fears that this whole beautiful arrangement at Beacon would come crashing down on her at any time... and now she was faced with the very real possibility of a slightly less beautiful arrangement literally crashing down on her at any time. She hadn't considered the full implications of a positive vote on bunk beds.

To top it off, it felt humid and hot. The heat was all coming from above her, as though Blake's bed rested beneath an oven. How was she to know that her pick for a partner would be some sort of semblance-powered furnace? There was no other way to describe her at this point. Yang was hot (speaking literally here), loud, and liable to end her poor faunus partner's life with an errant toss or turn in her mattress. Blake had chosen a partner that perfectly complemented her style of combat, sure, but by this point, Jaune Arc was starting to look like a preferable alternative. Alas, it was too late to switch. A partner like Jaune would have had its own issues associated anyway.

She'd gotten this far in the week... but something really had to give. She was seconds away from marching out into the first 24/7 convenience store in Vale that she could find if she had to. Earplugs as a concept sounded delightful, but... what were the chances they'd have something for special ears?

"I should be so lucky." She mouthed silently. She'd be better off trying to find a hotel.

The thought crossed her mind that she may have been being a little dramatic - after all, she had literally just contemplated the pros and cons of having Jaune Arc as a partner in place of Yang. Then the bed creaked menacingly once again, and Blake decided that she had every right to be a bit dramatic.

Then, in the midst of contemplation of about Blake's myriad number of poorly influenced decisions, the snoring came to an abrupt stop. Her ears immediately perked up, and silence filled the room...

...followed by an unpleasant, wet sound. Like someone smacking their lips.

Then the bed above lurched to the side with another high-pitched creak of the wood, and Blake felt her heart stop for a moment, her aura bracing tight, eyes snapped closed. Yet, against all odds, the wood did not give. The books somehow seemed to hold the bunks together, as though bound by some sort of inexplicable, invisible magic glue. Blake wasn't sure how this arrangement worked as long as it did, but...

...Yang dropped from the mattress above with an inelegant thud of her feet, followed by a hiss of pain. Blake watched from her spot stiffly, blinking in curiosity as the taller girl hobbled over to the window, resting a hand and raising her foot to inspect whatever damage had been done to her foot.

Yang, naturally, couldn't see well at all. It was too dark. She reached out to pull the curtain aside a bit, and moonlight made itself known, softly shining into the dorm. Walkways through the grass between buildings outside were lit with faint orange lights, and Blake could see the way they melted into the glow of the moonlight. Yang with her frazzled, messed up bedhead, as well as her plain sleep attire - an orange tank top and scandalously short shorts - stood lit up at the window, and she was, in her own sort of way, beautiful. Sure, Blake doubted a snapshot of Yang in that precise moment would have ended up on the cover of a magazine, but even a strange girl like Yang could look beautiful in a light like that. Blake would have had to be blind to all notions of aesthetics not to think so. It was the way the silvery light enveloped Yang's long locks of hair and gave them a quality like white gold. The soft orange glow of the lights below hit her eyes such that it was as though her soft iris-colored eyes dared to ignite into red flames. Yang did not look the part of a goddess. Well, maybe a very awkward goddess. Her lips parted and widened into a huge, graceless yawn, and the goddess-in-training quietly clapped a hand over her lips in an attempt to stifle it.

Perhaps there would have been more reason to be charmed by it, had the display felt like a true reflection of her partner's qualities. Yang wasn't a candid image of beauty in the light of the moon, though. Yang was luscious hair, sways of the hips, exaggerated features sure to hook the gaze of a few males. Yang was flashes of bared skin and shameless purrs of approval at the boys she spent most of her time staring at on the night she and Blake met. How many strange lovers of Yang Xiao Long would she meet over the course of her years in Beacon? No doubt quite a few, she imagined. As it was, though, the otherworldly view of Yang left her with a bitter taste in her mouth.

Maybe she was being harsh. Maybe if she survived a few more nights beneath the bunk that threatened to smash her into paste, she'd find some redeeming qualities in her partner. Blake certainly hoped there was more to the girl than just her looks. There was a part of her that wanted to like the girl, but circumstances made it hard to look past the snoring, among other things. Yang had played nice since they'd become partners and for a time in the forest it felt like the two were really clicking into place, but Blake wasn't quick to forget her words. Blake was a lost cause in the eyes of her partner, in Yang's own exact words from the day they met.

The bunk above her loomed on in a silent offering to drop on her face and grant her the mercy of a swift end, yet it never quite made good on the deal. Her eyes turned sharply toward it, as though silently daring it to budge, silently awaiting some sort of noise to herald Yang's move back to bed, so that she could ready herself and brace her aura for the death trap to finally go off. A few moments passed without a motion, and Blake's eyes veered back toward Yang, who seemed quite content to stand and stare out at the empty walkways.

The blonde let out a soft sigh. Blake had no words for the expression that began to cross her partner's lips. It was mournful - sad. Not in an alarming way or anything. It wasn't as though the girl looked to be on the verge of tears, but Blake could still feel a small bit of concern bubble in her chest. Maybe she was feeling homesick. Or she was lamenting the partner she'd received. Maybe it was something else altogether. She was Blake's partner, though, and the urge to speak up began to build.

After a bit of pause, against her better judgment, her lips finally moved with a whisper to her partner. "Yang?"

The noise prompted Yang to turn toward Blake sharply, clearly startled judging from the speed of her reaction and the way her violent eyes widened, dancing in the dark in search of her partner. Blake felt her own eyes drawn to Yang's again and again. She couldn't help but wonder just what odd biological or auric phenomenon caused those shining purple eyes to bleed into a softly glowing, violent crimson color when her temper got out of control. She had most definitely never seen any other human or faunus with such a quirk. Those eyes narrowed in Blake's direction still, wandering aimlessly, and realization finally dawned on Blake that despite the way the moonlight beautifully graced her partner's face, it still left her blind as a bat. Yang was human. Yang had inferior vision. There was something entertaining about the fact that Blake could stare straight at Yang and the there was no way the blonde could possibly know it. Blake let it go on for a few long, drawn out seconds before she decided to finally do away with the pointless suspense. It wasn't like Yang was going to suddenly wise up at this rate. "...I'm looking right at you. I haven't moved."

"Oh! You're… you're awake. Hey. Sorry? I didn't mean to uh…" Yang's smile was best described by the word 'sheepish'. An adjective that Blake felt tended to get overused in a lot of the books she read. She wasn't quite sure what or where the root of that word came from. The facial expression had never once reminded her of a sheep, nor a sheep faunus, and she had seen quite a few of those in her time. The latter, that is.

"I can't sleep." Blake said, her wandering thoughts fading into background noise.

"Yeah?" Yang continued to narrow her eyes, squinting as though by reducing the light that met her eyes, she'd see better, as much sense as that made.

"You snore." Blake said bluntly.

"Oops?" Yang smiled sheepishly again, and for a moment Blake imagined her hair as a big golden afro. Some unconscious part of her mind rejected the image as quickly as it'd been conjured - Blake didn't much care for all her partner's traits, but she decided she quite preferred the visual of her partner as a stereotypical pretty human girl rather than an eccentric golden-haired sheep faunus.

"That, and you move around a lot when you sleep." Blake continued. "Which wouldn't be a big deal if a few stacks of books were the only things keeping your bunk from crushing me between my own." A Blake sandwich. No thank you.

"Sorry. I mean, I'm not sorry, nothing I can really do about it. It's sort of a… 'it is what it is' thing. But I am sorry I'm keeping you up. I uh, wish there was something I could do?" Yang said, venturing a step closer. It did not help her see the faunus any better.

Blake contemplated this quietly for a moment. She realized, with some considerable disappointment, that it was probably not polite to ask Yang to sleep in the hallway. There were precious few things that she could think of to remedy the rampant snoring. It wasn't like she'd been particularly accustomed to sharing space like this. Usually she slept alone. It was quiet. She missed it.

"You could try breathing less." Blake spoke with a small, invisible curve of her lips. "There's also the floor."

Yang snorted - it was an undignified, dorky little gesture and Blake found herself trying very hard to pretend it wasn't endearing. It was hard to remember at times that mere days ago Yang had been writing her off as a lost cause.

"Tell you what, I'll work on that okay? The breathing thing I mean. I like you, Blake, but not enough to sleep on the floor yet. Try again maybe in a few weeks." Yang spoke mirth in her voice growing such that it erupted into a soft, girlish laugh. They'd known each other barely a week, yet Yang seemed to already have a good idea of how rare Blake's attempts at humor were going to be.

Blake, for one, was oddly pleased at Yang's admission. Not that she intended to make a big thing out of it. At least Yang was trying to make this work too.

"If I live that long." Blake sighed.

"The bunks have held for, what, half a week or something now? You're probably fiiiiine." Yang's attempt at reassurance was as effective as a small handgun might have been at warding away an Alpha Ursa.

"Just try and move less, please?" Blake all but begged. Such a display she'd never allow normally, but fatigue pushed her further than she was normally willing to go.

"Oh don't worry, I will. Try, I mean. I can't promise." Yang shrugged lightly, her voice lowering a bit, eyes lowering to the ground for a moment. There was a sound like a sharp intake of breath somewhere in the room, and Blake was fairly certain it wasn't Yang. She made a conscious effort to be as quiet as possible.

"I can tell we're going to be good partners." Blake said with a roll of her eyes, shifting and pulling her covers up further, intent to try at the sleeping thing again. She looked back only once to see Yang, and was greeted with an expression of surprise. Yang looked stunned. Blake fought the urge to groan, realizing that lacking a visual cue, sarcasm would be easily misinterpreted. Yang actually believed her when she said they'd be good partners. There was something heartrendingly innocent about that.

She supposed she wanted to believe that too. Maybe it'd be easier after a decent night's sleep.

"Shh!" Someone on the other side of the room shushed, despite Blake's attempt at quiet. It was ambiguous as to which of the other two girls had woken from the chatter. Yang sharply turned, a hand over her mouth, murmuring a soft 'sorry' beneath her breath before turning in Blake's direction again.

"...I should… yeah. Quiet."

"Yeah." Blake agreed, completely noncommittal and expressionless with her reply.

Yang started to step over to climb up onto her bed - before she could, as though it were an afterthought, she spoke again, much quieter in an attempt to avoid further harassing her sister and the ice queen. "...do I seriously make that much noise when I move though?" As though the bed intended to answer for her, the bunk shook almost violently as Yang resumed ascending the makeshift ladder leading up, and Blake tried not to imagine the sound her own skull would make when the bed frame eventually came down on her head. Her aura was still in overdrive from the expectation of sudden injury or death.

"...no, but like I said, I'm pretty sure if you keep that up, the bed will fall and I'll die, and you'll be down a partner." Blake spoke again in her neutral tone. She was apparently a little too loud this time as well.

"Shh!" It hurt Blake's ears. Funny how a silencing gesture had to be so loud and sharp. How Yang could speak in an almost normal talking voice and get away with it while Blake's whispers offended the other sleeping girls was beyond her.

There was a pronounced silence for a moment following, and the wobbling of the bunks ceased. Blake peered down by her feet where the ladder rested against the bunks only to find that Yang hadn't actually climbed all the way up, stopping at the top.

"...er. Would you feel better if we switched?" Yang asked, ignoring further protests about the noise from Weiss (probably).

Blake had to think about that. On one hand, if she was on the top bunk, if it fell, she wouldn't die. On the other, she'd have to deal with the fact that the mattress almost certainly smelled like someone else with whom she still wasn't really all that familiar. That, and she'd have to explain to Ruby that she'd accidentally killed her sister if she happened to accidentally move too much herself, and she wasn't sure yet if that was preferable to a swift death.

Even if she did it wouldn't help with the snoring, but what the hell. Why not? She preferred her odds on top.

"Okay. I'll try anything for some sleep at this point." Blake finally said. With that, Yang wordlessly hopped down from the ladder and stepped back into the moonlight, and Blake began to roll out of bed with all the effortless speed and stealth of a jungle cat - Yang barely heard the girl move before she was seemingly materializing from the shadows in front of her.

Then… there they were. Both of them. Yang in her orange, sticky tanktop and black shorts that had ridden up her thighs a bit as she'd slept during the night. Blake, now hogging up the beautiful moonlight in a dark, elegant yukata decorated with her insignia, her golden eyes framed in silver light.

Yang froze as she met Blake's gaze, and for a moment, Blake felt very uncertain as to how to react as purple eyes bored into hers. The only thing that made sense was to break eye contact as quickly as possible. That seemed to break Yang out of whatever bizarre spell had come upon her. Yang quickly reached up to rub at her eyes and her temples. Whatever had just happened in Yang's mind, Blake was more than content to not pry. She nonchalantly stepped past Yang to clamber up the bunk herself, no longer the model of stealth now that it was her turn to fight the shaking and wobbling of the bunks as she climbed.

"Anyway. Maybe try sleeping on your side to help with the snoring. Your partner will thank you for it after a nice night of sleep when we start pairs practice tomorrow." Blake said between loud creaks of the mattress.

"Right!" Yang snapped to when Blake spoke, as though dazed. Whatever fatigue Yang had been remedying in sleep was starting to rear its head now that she'd been kept up longer.

As Blake tried to get comfortable on the upper bunk, she couldn't help but worry that maybe something was on her yukata - she began to run her hands along the fabric self-consciously in search of anomalies. Yang had given it a pretty bizarre look just then. Or maybe she just liked the design? It was a very nice fabric, and Blake had picked it for a reason. Or maybe her partner was just weird. That still seemed likely.

Regret settled in seconds after she got comfortable. The sheets beneath her were still very warm, almost damp with sweat. It smelled it too. Sweat and a earthy, subtly-scented soap or shampoo laced into the scent that she had associated with her partner. Everyone had one, and most of them were neither pleasant nor unpleasant - they simply were. Blake decided she didn't care for this one. Realization dawned that this was the state of a bed that had mostly likely held a person with a sickness. A fever. She was having enough trouble sleeping as it was without catching something.

"...er, Yang?" Blake whispered.

"...mm?" Yang was still awake, but apparently already halfway into dream land again. She sounded barely conscious.

"Are you okay? Your mattress is kind of uh…" Blake paused, unsure how to communicate the state of it. "Gross."

As Yang spoke, she suddenly sounded more awake, if not a bit frantic in her explanation.

"I uh, my aura. Generates a lot of heat. So it's... always like that."

"...While I'm glad that means you probably don't have a sickness I'm going to catch, I still kind of wish you said that sooner." She was still a bit in the dark about how precisely Yang's semblance worked. It clearly involved heat and fire. Beyond that, she knew nothing. She wasn't sure why that subject kept slipping her mind. She'd have to figure it out eventually.

"Sorry!" Blake could hear Yang move very suddenly as she spoke from the bunk below.

"...well, wish me luck sleeping. Bit too late to switch back." Blake replied, her voice deadpan.

Yang's reply was a muffled pair of syllables that might have been a 'good luck' or something similar. With that, Blake tried her best not to think about her feverish partner and began the process of counting her proverbial sheep, eyes falling shut. She'd definitely had to tolerate worse conditions. At least she wasn't liable to die at any given moment anymore.

Eventually, the black-haired partner began to drift off at last. It was Yang's turn to feel trapped in the waking world.

Her face was buried in the pillow on the lower bunk. The scent was delightful. She immediately decided she was going to steal Blake's shampoo tomorrow.

Thoughts lingered back to the image of Yang's partner in the light just then. It was true that she and Blake didn't seem to have much in common, at least not on the surface. Or at least not that they'd found out. Blake was a bit quiet, antisocial at times, and generally not the easiest person to get a good read on. Yet, something about the pale skin, the raven-colored hair, the gorgeous golden eyes that reminded her so much of a noctural predator with their unusual, almost alien quality...that lean, almost cat-like grace to the way Blake carried herself... those things along with that mysterious quality that made her so intriguing came together and made Yang realize her partner was totally hot. Yang would be damned if she didn't luck out on one of the cutest girls that had probably attended the ceremony.

Blake had been royalty in that yukata. Yang had felt fortunate to be breathing the same air as her. She was hauntingly beautiful.

It was a bit of a shame that her partner was very private, and probably the only other person than Weiss that might actually dislike her. Even if Blake was by all means easier on the eyes than any of the other girls she'd seen since arriving... well, no, there was Pyrrha too. Pyrrha was flawless. That wasn't just a subjective commentary on her appearance, it was an undisputed fact. Everyone knew Pyrrha was flawless. She was on the front of Pumpkin Pete's cereal boxes for a reason.

Blake came close though, and that was very high praise!

As fun as it was for Yang to mull over her good fortune, the fact remained that nothing would come of it. Yang wasn't here to catch a hot date, even if Blake or Pyrrha or anyone else was hypothetically interested. Yang was here to fight monsters, and she needed Blake with her to do that. Everything else between them simply didn't matter. Not only that, but with Ruby taking her first steps as a leader, she was going to need stability in her team. Ruby didn't seem like she was going to get it from her partner, but Yang couldn't think of anyone better to provide it than herself.

She pushed the image of Blake from her head. With luck, she'd smooth things over with her later on. They'd get on alright eventually. Until then, all Yang could do was sleep.

12:42 PM

"We nailed it." Yang said confidently.

"We're never going to be ready for the Vytal Tournament." Weiss moaned in rebuttal, her fingers thrust into the roots of her white hair.

"...woah, it's our first day of pairs practice. Seriously, bit premature to call it now. Give yourself some credit." Yang spoke, her hands folded behind her head as she leaned back against the lockers, eyes shut in a content fashion. Everyone had a partner, so everyone was expected to prioritize working effectively with said partner.

Judging from Weiss' expression and Ruby's wary attentions directed at her partner, this was not coming naturally to the pair despite the noticeable change in the former's efforts. Weiss' previously demanding and insufferable nature had cooled into a nice, lovely aura of hopelessness instead, but she seemed to at least be trying to behave in a vaguely more constructive way. Thankfully, their fearless leader was undaunted. Ruby stayed right beside her at the bench where Weiss set, bound and determined to inspire.

"Hey, remember in the Emerald Forest?" Ruby asked, arms lifting the folded up Crescent Rose into the locker. Once in place she shut it and spun to mimic her older sister's pose, hands behind her head in a cool, casual, wildly unfitting demeanor. At the last second she slipped against the flat surface of the locker, but managed to catch her footing before another faceplant. She settled for sitting next to Weiss after that.

Yang liked where Ruby was going with that. A little bit of positivity could do nothing but good. Even if she wasn't sure exactly which part of the events in the Emerald Forest she was referring to yet.

"I mean, Weiss, that fight against the Nevermore? You remember what you and I pulled off? We were awesome! We just… gotta try and recapture that same sense of uh…"

"Desperation." Blake contributed flatly, not looking up from Gambol Shroud as she ejected a partially-spent magazine from the gun and set it aside.

"Right!" Ruby smiled cheerfully, gesturing with a wave of her hand to Blake. "At least we kind of know where we're going with this! At least we're not like like Blake and Yang." Ruby had spoken the words before she could really think them through.

"Hey, I don't know what you're talking about Ruby. We did awesome." Yang opened a single eye to peer at Ruby, her eyebrows furrowing.

"I don't mean it like you guys were bad, it's just… you know, you guys didn't really do anything… team-like? No team maneuvers or covering each other, it was just…" Ruby shrugged, but Yang was getting it. Apparently so was Blake.

"It kind of felt more like we were competing than cooperating." Blake admitted, again without looking up. On that note, Blake also knew who won that contest, but she thought better of announcing the winner. Somehow it didn't seem appropriate.

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of healthy competition. You and I are still figuring out what each other can do. I'd rather take it slow and see if we start to come up with something naturally instead of coming up with… I don't know, weirdly-named, contrived team-attacks." Yang shrugged.

Ruby pouted with a frown. "I thought we all liked the team-attack idea."

"I do! I just think… I don't know. We need more time. You know, as a team, and as partners." Yang said. Weiss had looked up and composed herself once again by this point.

"Well, you guys have all the time in the world. Ruby, you and I should really sit down and actually talk about what we're going to do next time. The level of effort I have to put into not getting hit by you shouldn't be worse than the Grimm, and the trick that worked on the Nevermore isn't exactly an all-purpose tactic..." Weiss trailed off for a moment before continuing. "This team stuff is really difficult." She punctuated her words with a sigh.

Ruby nodded her head, some of Weiss' sour mood starting to rub off on her at last, her tone veering toward apologetic. "I know. I'm sorry Weiss. I know you're trying really hard to work with me here... I'm trying to be more... precise? I know that's kind of what you need from me..."

Weiss really had been trying harder. Yang wasn't entirely sure what happened but at some point during the week, Weiss had pulled a one-eighty and went from frigid ice princess to actually maybe sort of vaguely resembling something like actual teammate material. She was yelling at her little sister less, and when she started to complain she was still making fair points. The impracticality of recreating the Nevermore stunt being a very good one. Sure, it was really really cool to watch, and it worked like a charm, but there just weren't enough cliffs to rocket up and not all of them were going to let Ruby drag them all the way to one by the neck with a scythe.

"...you and I are going to commit some time aside from standard practice to get this right." Weiss said firmly.

"...yeah." Ruby's crestfallen expression was starting to bother Yang, but then it melted away in an instant. "We can have a brainstorming session! I can draw up some ideas, maybe? Come up with some more team attack names…"

"As long as we're not going with… what was it, 'White Rose'? Yeah, if it's not that, I think I'll manage." Weiss sighed.

"What? White Rose is awesome! Come on Weiss."

Yang's amused expression turned from Ruby and Weiss as they chattered toward her own conspicuously silent partner. As if Blake could feel her partner's gaze on her, she directed her eyes toward Yang.

"We should do the same." Blake said impassively. Yang's shoulders sank, a frown creeping onto her lips.

"You didn't feel like we did okay?" Yang leaned forward and away from the locker to stand upright, folding her arms over her chest. "We totally handled it - the Grimm had nothing on us. Goodwitch even said we showed promise. That's got to count for something."

Blake nodded. "She also pointed out the same thing Ruby did. We didn't work as a team. We were a pair of huntresses-in-training doing our own individual things. In the future, things will get harder unless we start adapting not just to our environments and our enemies, but each other as well." With that, she stood as well, beginning to step away from the rest of the group. Other than a bit of the expected combat fatigue, she was a blank slate. Blake's poker face was something else, but Yang was determined to learn every last tell, ideally by the end of the first year. If not the first semester.

"Well yeah, I'm not saying she's wrong, nor you. I'm just saying… we should look on the bright side!" Yang started to follow without a word. She only gave pause when she heard someone clear their throat loudly behind her.

"We only have like… a half hour until our next class starts. Please don't be going very far away." Ruby rose a hand and tapped her wrist, despite the lack of a watch. She was really taking this team leader thing seriously. Yang liked her enthusiasm - hell, she agreed with the unspoken motive that Ruby had been pushing. Team unity. They were supposed to work as a singular, tight-knit unit. That meant spending as much time together as possible.

Yang also got the impression that her partner could only handle so much togetherness without a break. These things needed to be factored in. Surely Ruby understood that.

"We're not going far." Yang called back. Blake said nothing, causing a worried look to cross Yang's lips as she searched her partner's expression for some sign that she was welcome to come with her, wherever she was going. "...are we?"

"Just wanted to walk off the fight. I wasn't planning on company." Blake replied. Yang frowned, her pace slowing to a halt.

"Oh. Alright, hey, I won't uh, push. I'll just hang with Ruby and Weiss then, and I'll see you when you-"

Blake turned rather suddenly, fixing Yang with a curious look that rendered the blonde silent. An up-and-down surveying sort of look, and then a slight narrowing of the eyes. Yang suddenly felt very exposed.

"...er, you're not gonna tell me I'm under dressed are you? There is a reason for why I dress like this, honest. Beyond personal preference I mean." Yang started. Blake shook her head, though she let out a sound like a scoff, or the start of a laugh that never fully materialized.

"No, no. It's fine. You can come with. We're partners." Blake said, immediately earning a wide grin from her ever cheerful partner.

"Cool." Yang said.

Blake was slow to reciprocate the sunny gesture, but sometimes smiles just happen, without any conscious thought. Yang's was contagious, and Blake wasn't sure if she liked that yet. On the bright side, the hesitation in Yang's body language faded away as she approached Blake again, ready to follow her out.

As she came nearer, however, Blake stepped up onto her tiptoes, leaning forward a bit and sniffing the air around her partner. Yang paused again, and then rose her arm self consciously, sniffing herself.

"...I can't possibly stink this early in the day. I mean the fight wasn't even that long. We barely broke sweats..." Yang said, wrinkling her nose.

"Did you use my shampoo?" Blake asked rather suddenly. Yang had to admire that. There was something commendable about the sort of person who cut straight to the chase.

"I… er, yeah. Yeah, I did?" Yang scratched the back of her neck. Busted.

"Ouch. Wrong move Xiao Long." Blake quirked her head to the side, her eyes narrowing. For a fleeting moment, Yang thought the ire she heard in Blake's voice was genuine, and she started to flounder.

"I didn't mean- it just smelled really good! I was breathing it in all night because of the pillows and-"

Blake shook her head, her mood betrayed by a faint smirk at the corner of her mouth. "Hah, it's okay, you don't have to explain. Seriously, I don't think I need to hear about how nuts you are about my shampoo. You can even keep using it, just ask before you use my stuff from now on, okay?"

Yang exhaled a sigh as she realized that Blake was messing with her, because that meant she had to try and keep up. "Man, that's not cool, I started thinking you were gonna get upset with me for real and then I was gonna have to write you an apology poem and make you breakfast in bed and…" She glanced aside to see Blake's reaction thus far. Blake had been staring, blinking rapidly.

"No poems please. Not that I uh, doubt your gifts at reciting poetry. I'm sure it's lovely." She blinked. "Do you make breakfast for Ruby when you upset her?"

"No. I was trying to be funny." Yang scratched the back of her neck. "I'm still getting a feel for how this works. You and me, I mean. You seem to kind of operate on… I don't know, a different wavelength than most of the other people I know."

Blake quirked her head to the side curiously, and for a fleeting moment, Yang thought she saw the ribbon atop her head twitch. She wrote it off as a trick of the light.

"Do I?" Blake asked.

"Well yeah. You're… different. I don't know how to explain it. Not yet anyway." Yang shrugged, and the grin that graced her face was again sheepish.

"I see. Well, when you figure it out, I'd love to hear all about it. As for breakfast in bed, I'll pass this time. Next time you slip up though, I'm expecting to wake up to the smell of eggs and salmon." She smiled.

"Well it's a really good thing you said that because salmon would not have been my go-to breakfast meat." Yang said, the smile on her own lips blossoming wider. By this point she didn't even know what was happening. Were they bonding? It seemed like this was too easy.

"You should try it sometime. You might like it." With that, Blake started to lead the way. Yang didn't even know where they were going, or if they were even going anywhere in particular. She just followed along.

Blake was quiet again. Yang struggled to think of things to say. It wasn't until after the two paced down the halls and rounded a corner, that she spoke up, deciding to continue along the same subject as before. A small, mischievous small grew on her lips.

"How do you like your eggs?" Yang asked.

"Yang, come on, I was joking around." Blake exhaled an amused breath. Yang couldn't see it, but she swore she could hear the smile on Blake's face.

"If there's one thing I'm guilty of, it's not knowing when to let go of a joke! Except I'm not joking in this case. Seriously! I'm a mean cook. Just ask Ruby." Yang said.

"I don't doubt it, Yang. I'm easy. I like my eggs scrambled." Blake shook her head slightly as she spoke, slowing her pace a bit.

"You must be yolking. I took you for more of an over-hard kind of girl." Yang spoke, and suddenly the small innocent smile on her lips no longer seemed innocent.

Blake gave pause, and in that instant, she realized that her entire life - years of peaceful protests, harrowing experiences in training as a child soldier, acts of organized terrorism, running away from the White Fang… all of that had amounted to and led to this moment. This school, this hallway, this girl, and that… whatever it was.

"Please never do that again." Blake said, the pun eliciting genuine feeling in her plea. This served only to delight her partner.

"Come on, what's life if you can't take a moment to appreciate the punny things?" Yang beamed.

"...this partnership is spiraling out of control. I'm starting to wish the bunk fell." Blake deadpanned, her eyes turning up toward the ceiling as though begging whatever entity lived in the sky to grant her a swift, merciful release from whatever punishment her partnership with Yang entailed.

She cringed at her own internal monologue.

"Ouch! Okay, I see how it is!" Yang spoke with a laugh. She could work with this newly discovered vulnerability. It'd come in handy on a rainy day. Yang knew it.

Time passed and the wound from Yang's horrendous sense of humor healed into a proverbial scab. In time, the pair had started to walk beside one another. It was an unconscious thing. The halls were scarcely populated, thus the walk was a quiet affair that led to a small circle around the block, and back toward the lockers.

"Where are you from, Blake? Did you have any partners in your school?" Yang asked. Blake turned her head, looking at Yang for a moment while she pondered how to best answer that question.

"I'm…" She wasn't going to answer the first question. Hopefully an answer to the second would suffice. "...I didn't. I didn't exactly go to a school. I'm not formally trained."

Yang whistled. "Damn. Could have fooled me."

"Hah. Thanks."

"You learned how to fight well enough to get into Beacon and you didn't even go to a combat school. Man, I lucked out, I got probably one of the most hardcore partners possible." Yang mused, grinning at Blake. Her dark-haired partner wasn't easily flattered, that much was clear. "How many times did you have to try out for the entrance exam?"

"Only once. And I don't know about that bit about me being hardcore. After seeing what some of the other students can do, I'm impressed. It makes me wish I had been trained formally. Like… Pyrrha, Ruby, Weiss? It's really impressive to watch them all in action. Pyrrha fights like she's done it her whole life. Ruby wields that scythe like a maniac…"

"Okay, first up, if you did it first try, you are hardcore. That's not up for debate." Yang had actually stopped in place, surprised at this revelation. "And well, Ruby kind of is a maniac, but if you think she's bad you should see our uncle. He's her uh, inspiration."

"I can only imagine. Weiss too - I mean, she makes it really hard to like her but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think the way she fought was really impressive." Blake didn't want to get into a discussion about Weiss, so she immediately tried to change that subject. "There are others too. What was his name, Ren? His girlfriend Nora?"

"They're not together-together." Yang corrected, raising her hands to gesture the quotations with her middle and pointer fingers.

"You know what I mean." Blake shrugged, and the two began to walk again.

"What about me though? I'm starting to feel a little left out. Don't tell me I'm totally failing to impress." Yang stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout. She was a bit surprised when Blake stopped walking again and turned to inspect her again in the same fashion as before.

"Er, I mean, combat wise, not my fashion sense. I get it, it's not for everyone." Yang rose her hands in an almost defensive gesture. Blake nearly laughed, but resisted the impulse.

"You're alright, Xiao Long. You can dress however you want - I'm not about to make a fuss." With that, Blake started to walk again. Yang was a bit slow to follow, simply watching her leave for a moment before starting to move to catch up.

"...thanks?" Yang said, but she knew to take it as a small victory. She wasn't sure how much of Blake she was really getting to see, but on the surface she was just a girl. A girl with an odd tendency to sleep with the ribbon on her head. Yang couldn't judge. Everyone had their quirks.

She let out a quiet sigh as her eyes lowered down Blake's form. The girl was lithe and fit like some sort of god-tier athlete. She looked like maybe a runner…? A swimmer? She seemed so slim and unimposing but when you got a good look at her there was just so much more to her…

...and the subtle sway as she walked, the way her narrow waist and lovely hips came together... Toned, fit thighs, delightfully long legs…

No checking out your partner. Yang shook her head. She did not heed her own advice. There was no harm in looking.

Beacon was full of beautiful people - people who'd trained for combat most of their lives, all very physically gifted. Strong, quick, muscled and carved from steel. The crowd full of boys prior to dorm assignments was one thing but she had to go and get a totally hot partner too. Blake was unaware, oblivious.

That was fine by her. It'd definitely make things less awkward going forward.

"You two have a good walk?" Ruby asked when they returned.

"It was swell." Yang said.

"Swell." Blake echoed, glancing aside at Yang.

Weiss seemed to have cooled off, her pessimistic expression having turned to her usual expression - mind, said expression still looked pretty annoyed, but for some people, that was just their face. The four ladies stepped out into the halls.

"Where are we off to, Ruby?" Yang asked.

"I…THINK I left our schedule back at the dorm." Ruby realized, shock on her face.

Weiss stared wide-eyed at her partner. "You did what?"

"Well, we don't have much time to change into our uniforms." Blake said with a sigh.

And thus, they ran.

Trying something different. This story is going somewhere, honest. If you reached this point, thanks for reading. I hope you'll consider leaving me a comment below. I'm out to make you happy.

Edit - 03/29/2016: I have revised this whole first chapter to address some problems I've had with it. I am still working on this fic!