Things You Wrote On the Walls

Blake 

When she fell asleep that night, the dreams came. 

She could see a lattice of moonlight across the sky, stars caught in the spaces of darkness. Webs of silver connected them into images. They were different than the stars she knew, constellations of strange figures: a girl running with her bow drawn, a snake curling with a single bright star shimmering for an eye, a deer with stars caught in its antlers. 

As she watched, the wind singing around her, grass stroking at her ankles, the stars shimmered and swirled, silver dust scattering in a curtain of flame. 

And they descended from the heavens. 

They stalked down in a swirling helix of white fire, blindingly bright. Blake, even in the dream, cowered back, eyes narrowed against the glare of white and the streaming of the wind that lashed her face. They came down in strange figures, their eyes aglow, whipped by the howling wind. They carried the scents of frost and fire and all the wild places of the night, unrelieved by any light. 

The first figure who stepped forward left sparks of light flickering up from the charred grass where she stepped. Her eyes were two chips of white fire, her skin a moving galaxy of supernovas. It was impossible to look at her and pinpoint any singular detail; she was a body of intangible light. 

She didn’t speak, the strange entity of stars, but her hand reached out and formed a cross above Blake’s head, like an ancient ritual. A searing pain shot through Blake, right between her eyes, and she collapsed. 

As darkness rose to claim her, the dream changed. 

She was crouching on a spar of wood and a fire raged below her, the flames leaping and crackling hungrily as they devoured the land around her in a frenzy. Pillars of thick black smoke curled off the fire all around her. A black mushroom cloud of molten fire was roiling up in the distance, rippling with flames as smoke billowed out, and metal melted around her in silvery, glowing hot pools. 

A howl of madness that was not her own tore furiously from her mouth, harsh from the acrid smoke, and then she was standing as the wood cracked warningly underneath her, and a blast of heat shoved her from behind. She swayed crazily before losing her balance and toppling, leaping into the flames with her arms outstretched before she curled around herself as the inferno swallowed her up— 

And then cold wind blasted around her, drowning out everything but the sensation of her skin being lashed by a thousand little knives before she blinked her eyes open. 

Two wide gray eyes were blinking owlishly down at her, and as she choked in a breath, throat burning from the memory of smoke, relief filled them. It was Adam, two glossy horns elongating from his tousled mop of hair. “Oh, thank the gods,” he said. “You’re alive!” 

She sat up, breathing in slowly, aching all over. Her skin felt like it was melting off, every bone smarting with pain. Her throat was raw as if it had been scrubbed with rocks, and she coughed, tasting blood as it sprayed from her like a salty-red mist.  

“What on earth happened to you, Lord Ayran? I found you away from the train wreckage, it was strewn everywhere. How did you survive that explosion?” 

Her voice came out harsh, masculine, the sound of it rasping and grating, like a knife dragging against stone. Some part of Blake that knew it was a dream recoiled, recognizing her own voice as Ayran’s, the tyrannical leader of the White Fang. “Taurus. Where— am— I?” 

“I brought you back to base. There are those who would speak with you.” 

“Take me to them,” she snarled, before light exploded around her in a blinding white mist and she— 

woke, hands knotted in her sheets, gasping in air like she was drowning. A phantom pain flickered through her sternum before it vanished, leaving her wondering if she’d imagined it. 

Blake closed her eyes and sank back against the pillow. Ayran. It wasn’t the first time such vivid dreams had haunted her sleep, and she was inclined to think what she’d dreamed had been a real event. Sometimes, the dreams were merely dreams. Sometimes, they were omens, and she rolled over, still shivering. 

Outside, the dawn was staining the sky with burnished streaks of milky rose, the sun peeking in a sliver of molten fire above obscuring gray clouds. She closed her eyes, trying to prolong sleep, but the darkness only brought the image of Ayran’s glitteringly cold smile to her mind, and she gave up with a sigh. Roused, she sat up, and set about getting ready, but the dream didn’t fade like most: fleeting images darted behind her eyelids. A plume of fire, gray eyes, a girl of starlight. 

Oh, thank the gods! You’re alive. I brought you back to base. There are those who would speak with you… 

She felt like ice was trickling down her back. Swallowing down her fears, she pulled her bow on, securing her ears, just as the splitting alarm of Ruby’s Scroll pealed through the air. 

“Whasat!” Ruby yelped, bolting upright from her sleep before looking sheepish, reaching over, and banging the Scroll to turn off the jangling alarm. Blake stifled a small smile. 

After several hours of boring classes, Blake stifled a yawn, shoving papers in her duffel alongside her sketchbook. The cafeteria was abuzz with laughter and talk already— she rolled her eyes, traipsing in behind her team— and she sat down along the long, honey-paneled table. She was far from hungry, and she pulled out a book as she sat, trying to brush off the cold, sinking feeling in her chest. 

“Look alive, Blake.” Ruby prodded her from the side and grinned at her. “I know Professor Port’s classes are bad, but we don’t have him for another week.” 

Blake rolled her eyes and ducked her head away, but she forced on a smile to divert Ruby’s attentions elsewhere. She opened her book, tuning out the loud buzzing chatter of the cafeteria, but her thoughts restlessly pestered her as she read without absorbing it at all. Her ears twitched behind her bow as the din increased, and then she was roused from her book by a sharp cry of pain from ahead of her, and she nearly dropped it as she saw Velvet, a Faunus and a senior Huntress, surrounded by a smirking team CRDL. She tautened, stiffening as she took in the scene with a growing sense of rage. 

“That hurts— please, stop,” Velvet beseeched her tormentors. 

“I told you it was real,” he sneered, giving Velvet’s ears a violent yank. Blake's teeth ground together she yelped in pain. “What a freak.” 

Anger pulsed hot under her skin, her blood roaring in her ears as she forced herself to remain seated. She longed to get up, to punch that leering smirk off his face, and it scared her how close she was to rising and probably doing something incredibly stupid, before he relented, and Velvet snapped back from him. 

“Atrocious,” Pyrrha growled angrily as she snapped her head back, her eyes dark with contempt, bringing her back to reality. “I can’t stand people like him.” 

Blake’s lip curled, her knuckles whitening as she gripped her book. "You're not the only one.” 

Yang sighed sorrowfully, propping her elbows on the table and gazing after Velvet as she fled, tears in her eyes, from the cafeteria. “It must be hard to be a Faunus.” 

Blake shot her a furtive look, eyes narrowed.Almost unconsciously, her ears quivered behind her bow, and she stared after the doors as they slammed shut. You’re my partner, and I should trust you, she thought, aware that if she would trust anyone, it would be Yang, but in this hardship I bear, you have no idea. 

“And this is prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution, more commonly known as the Faunus War. Humankind was quite adamant about centralizing Faunus population in Menagerie, a deserted area to the southern end of Remnant.” 

Blake tried to discreetly fix her bow, her eyes locked on the board with a sinking feeling. She remembered Ayran relaying impassioned speeches that made the whole of the White Fang eager to slaughter about this very subject. She had been a part of those cheering crowds with all of herself, once. It made her feel sick. 

"Now! While this must feel like ancient history to many of you, it is imperative to remember that these are relatively recent events! Why, the repercussions of the uprising can still be seen to this day!" He raised his eyes to the rows of students, and Blake slowly leaned back in her seat, ears pricking. ”Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated because of your Faunus heritage?"

They can’t hate what they don’t know. Blake sighed as she saw three other Faunus raise their hands, and boiling anger surged in her. Adam was right, in some ways… 

"Dreadful,” Professor Oobleck said, “simply dreadful! Remember, students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds violence! I mean, I mean, I mean—  just look at what happened to the White Fang!” 

Blake’s hands slowly curled in on themselves, stinging her skin. 

“Now, which one of you young scholars can tell me what many theorize to be the turning point in the third year of the War?"

Blake let out a breath to calm herself— you’re not one of them anymore— and glanced over as Weiss’s hand shot in the air. “The battle at Fort Castle,” she answered promptly. 

Professor Oobleck bobbed his head in a sage nod.”Precisely! And, who can tell me the advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces?"

Blake let her gaze rove the room as she tuned out. I am not one of you, she thought as she blinked at her team, and you don’t even suspect it, do you?

A few rows below, Jaune let out a yelp of protest, and Oobleck shot over to him. 

"Mr. Arc! Finally contributing to class! This is excellent! Excellent! What is the answer?"

"Um… The answer... The advantage... of the Faunus… had over that guy's stuff…”—  Blake rolled her eyes, sure that he was going to somehow spectacularly mess his answer up— “Uhh... Binoculars!"

She suppressed a smirk as laughter rang through the room, and Oobleck slunk away, shaking his head. “Very funny, Mr. Arc,” he said in a tone that conveyed he was anything but amused. “Cardin? Perhaps you’d care to share your answer?” 

Cardin straightened imperiously. “Well,” he sneered as Oobleck glared at him, “I know it’s a lot easier to train an animal than a soldier.” 

Blake growled. Why don’t you take that book and shove it up your— 

“You’re not the most open-minded of individuals,” Pyrrha said, dislike in her tone, “are you, Cardin?” 

"What? You got a problem?"

She turned away, eyes still dark. “No,” she said fiercely, “I have the answer! It's night vision. Many Faunus are known to have nearly-perfect sight in the dark." 

Blake raised her voice, knowing she was doing the opposite of not drawing attention to herself. ”General Lagune was inexperienced, and made the mistake of trying to ambush the Faunus in their sleep. His massive army was outmatched, and the general was captured.” She turned to Cardin and gave him a look of utmost hatred and loathing, unable to resist one last jibe. ”Perhaps if he'd paid attention in class, he wouldn't have been remembered as such a failure."

She heard Cardin snarl and the boards creaked as he shot up from his seat, eyes angry, but Professor Oobleck intervened. Blake turned away, biting her cheek. Adam’s slurred voice, inebriated, bounced through her head. 

Why do you think I do this, Blake? Those humans… they don’t see us as equals. They never have… never will. It won’t change. Not yet, anyway. But by us? We’re different, Blake. 

She stared out the windows, to the glitter of the seas beyond. You were wrong. 

Outside, the trees were turning to riots of color, green mixed with cloying browns and golds and ambers. Dead leaves skittered across the ground, tumbling into whirlpools before dissolving along the cobblestones. It was one of those pristine days of briskness, ones that made goosebumps race along her arms. Blake shifted her shoulders, Gambol Shroud sliding in its scabbard, and yawned. The icy air stung her face. 

 She was still seething inwardly, and her anger flared overtime she saw Cardin shove Jaune along the path, making him stumble into the dirt. She had no great love for either of them, and while she found Jaune to be the wheedling sort of annoying, he wasn’t malicious like Cardin. It could have been anyone that he was picking on, but the arrogance and hubris that the leader of Team CRDL possessed was like Ayran, eerily so— he was a symbol of every human who’d ever shoved the Faunus into the dirt and rose to prestige on the backs of their labor. She’d become assimilated with the humans, but it was a dark reminder that she would never truly be one of them every time she saw his sneering expression. 

 Her nails curled against her palms as she fought back a colorful expletive to toss in his general direction, just loud enough for him to hear. She’d welcome a fight, after how pent up she was. Fighting had always been refuge from thoughts— an oblivion that was steeped with all the feelings she’d bottled away so long. 

 She forced the searing anger to smooth away from her face as her team trotted up around her, Ruby already chatting about how excited she was to see Forever Fall. 

Blake looked down to the small scar on her palm, a permanent reminder of the day she had cut a cable and drifted away from a life she’d once loved. Forever Fall was a terrible place to go; it only brought memories she would have preferred to discard. She was more than reluctant to go there.   

“Hey— what’s that?” 

 Blake jerked back as Yang reached out and lightly tapped the silver scar that tore jagged down her hand. Narrowing her eyes, trying to calculate her motive for asking, she finally muttered, “old fight injury.” 

“Ouch. Looks like it hurt.” 

“Yes,” she said bitterly, letting her hand fall with a tone that didn’t invite further inquiry. 

Yang 

“I’m excited. Are you excited?” 

Yang slouched over the railing, enjoying the sensation of the sheer heights they were topping— unlike Jaune, who was huddled in a corner near Cardin, looking miserable and sick— and smiled. “‘Course. I’ve been to Forever Fall, before, though. So have you.” 

The bridge of Ruby’s nose crinkled. “I have? When?” 

“You were still a baby then,” Yang said. “Summer Rose and Dad were on a mission, and Qrow couldn’t watch us, so we tagged along.” She frowned. “I don’t remember much. Just really colorful trees, the sound of train-cars, and it’s super-chilly there. Though I guess that’s obvious, being fall and all.” 

“It’s one of the top railways for the Schnee company trains,” Weiss said, looking— uneasy? A disconcerted look, unlike her usual coolly haughty disposition, was written all over her face. “Or, it used to be until…” She trailed off, her reflection shimmering as it blurred by in the translucent windows. 

“Until?” 

“The trains started to go missing,” she said quietly, looking out over the forests whipping by below them, and her eyes became guarded once more. Yang could tell that if she asked anymore questions, they’d be met with no answers, so she turned instead to her partner, who looked faintly ill. 

“Blake, aren’t you excited?” 

Blake’s head jerked towards her, as if broken from a reverie. She was pale, gaunter than usual, her eyes even more uncertain than Weiss’s. “Sorry. What did you say?” 

“I don’t know why I asked,” she said dispassionately, before nudging her partner and joking, “I don’t think you know what excited means, grumpy-gills.” 

Blake’s mouth thinned to a hard line, her eyes instantly becoming blank and cool, like a wall had slammed down over her face. “I’m aware of it, Yang. It’s just a trip, not a thrill-seeking outing.” 

 “Oh,” she said, discouraged. “Well, it’ll still be fun.” 

 A grunt. “I don’t know how a Grimm-infested forest is fun.” 

Yang gave a low hum of disapproval and scooted closer, worrying over the look on her partner’s face as she gazed down at the trees, slowly beginning to turn to warm colors as they approached Forever Fall: a transcending sorrow, a wrenching bitter anger. “Blake, are you okay?” 

She looked startled, knuckles whitening on the guardrails. The gray sky cast a dismal look on her face. “Of course.” 

She’s lying, Yang thought, but she let it go, vowing to keep an eye on her partner. She wasn’t stupid; Taiyang had always been fond of the saying that some people were beautiful and yet they were broken inside, and she suspected Blake was one of them. Though… well, it’s only been a few weeks; she’ll trust me later. 

Soon, the massive airship had alighted on a plateau, sending reddened leaves spinning high in the air as the rudders juddered and whirred to a halt. The air was brisk and biting, the wind sounding a lonely song as it moved between trees that were just barely clinging to golden, red, flame colored leaves. The distant howls of Grimm reverberated through the air. That alone made the atmosphere far from friendly, but nothing was so bone-chillingly cold as the look on Blake’s face as she gazed down over the waving red sea of leaves, to an abandoned railroad that cut through the forest like a snaking steel river. 

Ruby appeared to have noticed the expression on Blake’s face— she frowned, gray eyes darkening like before a storm— but she didn’t comment, only raising an eyebrow at Yang. She’s your partner. What’s with her? 

Yang shrugged, trying to rearrange her facial features in an expression that accurately conveyed ‘I have absolutely no idea’. 

“Get out, little huntsman!” 

Yang’s head swiveled around as she heard a grating, sneering laugh, followed by a yelp and the sound of leaves and rocks being disturbed from the ground. She saw Cardin shove Jaune from the retracting steps of the airship, pushing him with so much force that we went flying, tumbling hard into the leaves, and then Blake stormed past her into the congregation, giving Cardin a glare of so much loathing that it made her shiver. 

“I hate people like him,” she said a low and hard voice. 

“I know,” Yang said reassuringly. “I do too.” She was surprised to feel a white-hot flare of anger as she saw Cardin’s partner shove Jaune, staggering, into a tree, but it was replaced by satisfaction as Goodwitch saw and started yelling at him. 

“— never seen such insubordination from students of Beacon. You should be ashamed. Do not let it happen again, boys!” 

“Of course, Professor Goodwitch,” Cardin said easily, before rolling his studded mace between his palms. “We’ll play nice.” He leered at Jaune, who gulped, turning a shade paler. 

Blake’s scowl deepened as the group headed further into the forest. She was quiet, walking like an automaton; the pensive and brooding silence reminded Yang of a volcano bubbling, about to erupt at any amount. Yang tried to pay heed to Goodwitch’s teachings on the flora and fauna of Forever Fall, but she kept side eyeing Blake, who looked around with an expression very like fear, or the memory of fear. She would look like a cat pricking up its ears at every distant noise before she relaxed again. 

Finally, they came to a stop at a shady glade, the trees haloing above like edges of flame. The air smelled sweet, the scent stirring a faint ghost of a memory in Yang: she could barely remember her father and Summer Rose laughing, the white flash of Summer’s cloak, before the memory fled. 

“Oh,” Ruby said, looking around as the leaves drifted down in a scarlet rain, settling in great dunes around the twisted, snaking roots of the trees. “It’s—“

“Cold?” Pyrrha suggested balefully, her eyes fixing on a point just past Ruby’s shoulder, on Jaune. Yang suppressed a smirk; so obliviousness went both ways, apparently. She winced as Pyrrha’s look hardened into cold anger as Cardin jeered and slammed Jaune off into the forest, sending him careening into a tree. 

“He’s atrocious,” she said vehemently, before whirling and stalking off to the remainder of her team. 

Yang soon lost track of time: it was a rotation of drilling sap out from the trees, standing guard, and yelling at Nora for getting rid of the sap as fast as they produced it. Weiss and Ruby had diverged to another tree, all the partners splitting up to produce the maximum, and so it was Blake and Yang that were singled on their own. 

Any attempts at small talk were met with unenthusiastic responses and Yang sensed a resounding for the love of God, please stop talking from Blake’s end, so she frowned and quit chattering.

She tried not to be conscious of their proximity, though Blake seemed to jolt back every time their hands brushed, and the steely ice in her eyes… that never wavered. She seemed so on edge, like a startled hare ready to explode into movement at the drop of a feather. However, she had a feeling that Blake wouldn’t welcome anymore inquiries on her mental state, at the moment, so Yang let it alone. 

Crackle. 

Yang’s head snapped up as a terrified wail, followed by a bloodcurdling roar, shook the earth, and then she was up on her feet as the brush rustled wildly and three forms tumbled through, leaving the fronds waving wildly as they charged through the clearing. 

“Ursa!” one cried, wailing like a baby, “Ursa!” 

Coward, Yang thought bitterly, snatching him by the shirtfront as he tried to break past her. 

“Where?” she demanded, shaking him roughly, and he gulped, deciding answering her question was better than trying to get away. 

“Back there. It’s got Cardin!” 

Yang dropped him with a noise of disgust, and he turned and pelted away after the rest of his team. 

Ruby clambered up, all diplomacy. Pyrrha was right behind her, anxiety clear on her face. “Blake, Yang, go get Professor Goodwitch— Pyrrha, Weiss—?”

Weiss had stood, unsheathing Myrtenaster, and nodded shortly, and Pyrrha was shifting on her feet, looking like she was about to burst out of the clearing. 

“Come on,” Yang said, holding out a hand to help Blake up. After she did, Blake let out a startled noise, ripping her grasp from Yang’s before turning and streaking out of the clearing like a blur of shadow, and Yang took to her feet, pounding after her. 

After they had gotten Professor Goodwitch, and she had rocketed away in true stern-scorn fashion with a shimmer of violet-colored air, Yang stopped as Blake took another look at the rusted tracks of the railroad that rippled away into the trees. 

She was quiet, but it wasn’t her usual silence, nor a tense one like she was a volcano about to erupt. This was deep, dark, like she was buried under something.

Yang watched the way Blake stared after the undulating path of the railroad, her angular visage steely, expression deeply contemplating and inhumanely cold. Her jaw was jumping, a muscle flickering in her cheek, like she was holding back a diatribe she longed to hurl out to the still air. Ignoring her initial fear of asking Blake about her personal life, she took a chance after nervously drumming her fingers against the jerkin on her thigh. Taking a jaded, admittedly trite approach, Yang curled her fingers around her gauntlets, fingers pressing white. “So, er, this place… is it, you know, in your history?”

The question instantly made Blake stiffen and Yang wished she could take it back as she saw the look on her partner’s face. She swallowed hard, releasing a smoking breath that plumed out in translucent fingers in front of her face. “You don’t have to answer that, Blake, I’m sorry. I was just wondering— ”

 “Yes.” Blake’s eyes clouded, her fingers traveling down the length of Gambol Shroud. “It is. I don’t…” She faltered, eyes two chips of violet-amber, both pupils holding tiny images of the blurry scarlet forest that spiraled out around them, like they were the images struggling to get free of the amber. “I can’t talk about it.” 

Silence wedged between them. Yang watched her toy with her weapon, winding it into coils before it slackened, swiping circles along the barrels of the gun with the pads of her fingers. Then, with her jaw set, she started to sheathe it again, the metal clicking against metal. 

“I’m sorry,” Yang said after awhile, not being able to come up with anything else.

Blake’s shoulders, sharp in the dark and light of her outfit, like a painting done in all the right colors to confuse the eyes, rose and fell. “It’s not of any importance, Yang. I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” It came out before Yang could stop it, honest and soft. She wasn’t Bonded with her, of course— that took immense caring and trust, to do such a thing with someone else— but it was impossible to miss the slow pulse of sadness that radiated from Blake, not just now, but all the time. She expected Blake to lash out, to say something cruel to her, but she just gave a slow blink and swallowed before looking over at Yang. Her eyes were deep, a thousand thoughts coming to life and then dying again in the pools of light, the two orbs of gold striped with black.

And then she said in the air of someone surrendering and admitting defeat, “You’re right, Yang, I’m not,” and Yang was pretty sure that was enormously out of character for her, to even admit vulnerability. She didn’t know Blake terribly well, but she wanted to— and now, she wanted to heal the sorrow on her face.

 “You’re gonna be okay. We’ll be okay. We’re at Beacon Academy, remember? We’re the very best, on the best team.” Yang’s hand reached out, tapped her arm. Touching Blake felt nice; reminded Yang that she wasn’t all glass and ice and cold angles. It made her seem more human than she had ever been. Instead of stone, she had flesh and blood and veins and all of the things Yang did—  lungs and a brain and parts of her that hurt, just like hers. Blake had a heart, and it was throbbing in her ribcage like a wounded bird. “I promise.”

To her surprise, Blake's eyes abruptly hardened. “Yang, don’t.” She ripped away from her and paced a few steps down the cliff, her eyes unreadable once more. “Don’t make promises. Don’t ever promise me anything.” Her voice was sharp as broken glass, cutting the space between them in half as she spun away from Yang. “They aren’t worth anything.”  

Yang stared at her back. Blake’s top was close, and she could still see the lines of her shoulderblades slicing across her back like jagged wings. She remained where she was. “They are with the right people.” 

“No they aren't!” She whirled, a thick link protruding in her neck. Her eyes were narrowed to dangerous slits— a supernova flaring into an eclipsed explosion. Her hands were curled into fists at her sides, walls slamming between them. “I have learned the hard way not to put my faith in people, let alone people like you— ”

“People like me? What’s that supposed to mean?” Yang tried to keep her voice calm, but unlike Ruby or Summer Rose, she had never been able to keep a level head.

“People that make promises they can’t possibly keep.” All the fight seemed to abruptly drain out of her. “A promise that everything will be okay. The real world doesn’t work like that, Yang, and it never will.” 

Unfortunately, the real world isn’t like a fairy tale, Blake’s voice seemed to spin and echo tauntingly in her head. That seemed like it had occurred a lifetime ago. Who had hurt Blake to make her this way, who had made her this tough, sharp-edged? She was a locked book with a strong spine; surely she, too, had a story to tell? 

“You’re right, it probably won’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try— to let someone help out every once in a while. I’ve been nothing but nice to you since we met—“  

Her eyes flashed. “I don’t need your kindness!” 

“Then why did you choose me in the forest, then, out of everyone, knowing how I was?” Yang straightened, too, and their eyes met on the same level. As Blake opened her mouth, Yang's eyes went to slits. "Don't even dare deny it. You chose me, Blake. You could have run away long before making eye contact. But you didn't."

A sound caught in Blake’s throat, as if Yang's words had more effect on her than she could gauge. Her arms were shaking. She didn’t know, and she didn’t have to say it for Yang to understand that— she could see it in her eyes. Slowly, she approached Blake, as wary of her as she would be a venomous snake. Extending her hand, the golden gauntlets glimmering the same dull gold as the trees that wreathed the sky above them, Yang watched as Blake darted her gaze between her eyes, fingertips brushing the length of her arm.

“Okay, so maybe it was wrong of me to promise something I don’t know will come true. I get that. I get having bad stuff you just don’t want to talk about, and we’re partners, so even if you don’t trust me, that’s still okay, too. I won’t promise you things. But I do believe you’ll be okay if you give yourself time and stay optimistic about the situation.”

Blake’s expression was something between pity and sadness. “You really don’t know a lot about having demons, do you?”

Yang studied her. Blake was brimming over with shards of a broken heart and sorrow—  and Yang didn’t understand that absolute misery that allowed for no hope, couldn’t place herself in Blake’s place. But she did know about demons, and so she nodded, “I do, actually.” Summer Rose, her heart beat, while it thumped on the next, Raven. My mother. “But I know about other things, too.” She tried to play it smoothly. “Like … like partnership, and helping people out, and trusting, and I want to do that with you, Blake. I want to be your friend. And I know—  I know you act like you don’t want to have friends, but maybe, maybe I could be, you know? Maybe you could try to, you know, befriend and trust people more?”

 Blake gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and pressed her back to the tree behind her, her eyes guarded, like a castle with barricades and sealed drawbridges. “People can be very awful.”

“I know. People have hurt me, too. You forget that I have the same feelings you do.”

Blake stared at her in silence. Yang let her, because she could see thoughts circling through her eyes, and then she thought that maybe - maybe - even the most fortified castles could be busted, shaken wide open. 

 Finally, with a slight incline of her chin, Blake said, “Okay.”

“Okay …?”

“We’re friends, Yang.”

Yang beamed. Without thinking much about it, she spread her arms. Had it been Ruby or Taiyang or any other of her friends around Beacon, they would have understood the universal sign for ‘let’s hug’, but Blake just stood there and stared at her uncertainly. Yang tried to brush off the awkward space of time by coughing low in her throat. “Um, we hug now.”

Copper eyes rolled, but not without the smallest hint of amusement. “What is it with you and hugging?”

“Friends hug. It’s a rule.”

Her lips pursed, but she didn’t refuse Yang. Instead, Blake stepped into her arms, her own crooking around her back. She felt soft and pliable in Yang’s hands— and she didn’t want to change Blake, necessarily, but she wanted to change the way she thought of other people. Not everyone broke promises. Not everyone was going to leave her. Yang knew she wouldn’t, and she didn’t say it out loud, but she promised Blake that.