Things You Wrote On the Walls

Yang 

Yang walked into the infirmary hesitantly.

It was, thankfully, vacant; she was grateful that it was clearly not often used. There was a rococo pattern of vines and cherubs intricately painted high above, in the lofty rafters. Her partner was in a cot near the back of the room, dark hair fanned out around her. She was bruised from the blow, bandages circling her neck and disappearing into the folded collar of her clothes.

She was here because of Yang. Because she’d chosen to save her.

Exhaling a sigh of— what? What could she even feel right now, besides an overwhelming relief that her partner hadn’t been killed? Yang pressed her forefinger to her neck — Blake’s heartbeat was steady and strong, thank God. The only time she had ever been as scared as she had been last night was when Summer Rose had been killed.

She’d seen Ruby break, burdening a weight that no child should have to bear. That was when Qrow had turned to liquor. When Taiyang had turned into someone she didn’t even know. Her childhood home in Patch was a mausoleum; a family had died there.

“Yang?”

Yang snapped back to the present, eyes widening as Blake stirred, struggling to sit up. “Whoa there, tiger,” she said, leaning gingerly over the cot. “You took quite the hit. Chill out; you’re safe now. I promise.”

Blake blinked, panic filling her eyes. “Where—?”

“We’re in the infirmary.” Yang laid her hand on Blake’s, softly; it felt like holding her fingertips over a low flame. “You’re okay. We’re all okay. We got out of there.”

Impossibly, Blake gave her a sidelong look, eyes smiling. “God, I feel like hell. I see my little stunt wasn’t in vain, seeing as you’re here, and not lying in a pulp on the highway—“

“That was a stupid thing to do, Blake. I would never forgive myself you had—“ Died, Yang thought, swallowing, unable to finish the sentence. The thought of Blake dying felt like someone had driven a blade into her chest.

Blake’s eyes brimmed with gold, reflective and sad. “It’s all right, Yang. I did it for you.”

"You shouldn't have." Yang’s grip on Blake loosened suddenly; she stepped back, holding her a little distance away. "My God," she said, touching Blake’s face. "You idiot, what a thing to do.” Her voice was angry, but the gaze that swept Blake’s face, the fingers that gently brushed her hair back, were tender. "Why don't you ever think?" she whispered.

"I was thinking," Blake said. "I was thinking about you."

Yang’s hand clenched over Blake’s. “I was so scared,” she whispered, before an impossible laugh welled up, born from the lightening of worry. “Blake Belladonna, don’t you know that I can’t be hurt by a few punches?”

“That would’ve been nice to know,” Blake exhaled, turning her face away, the bruises on her jaw looking like shadows. “But I suppose the sentiment of the action isn’t negated by that fact.”

“You would have died for me,” Yang said, swallowing a lump in her throat. “I think… Blake, I think it’s time—”  

Blake struggled to sit up, propping herself on her elbows. There was an ugly looking gash peeking out from a wilting bandage on her shoulder, where the concrete had rained down around her. “I know what you’re going to say,”  was all she said, a note of uncharacteristic darkness in her tone. “You want to Bond, don’t you?”

Yang nodded wordlessly.

“You’re sure,” Blake said softly. “Bonding is intended for eternity, Yang. It’s a very serious act of trust. It’s… it’s forever.”

Yang took Blake’s hands in hers, looked her directly in the eyes. “Aren’t we forever?”

“After last night…” Blake shook her head with a weak laugh, shivering, though it wasn’t cold in the infirmary. “Sometimes your energy astounds me. Do you know the details of the Bond?”

Yang shrugged, chewing her lop. “I asked Dad once. He wouldn’t tell me about it, said I didn’t need to know, blah blah blah. I think it’s because his own Bond— it just snapped when—” She broke off the sentence. When Summer Rose was killed… God, it must have been painful. Blake’s eyebrows rose at her abrupt silence, but she didn’t press; her narrowed eyes melted into sorrow, and the shadow of pain.

“When a Bond breaks,” Blake whispered, “it hurts as if every pain you and your partner has ever had— mental, physical — is rebounded on you with ten times the intensity. Every sorrow, every battle, every heartbreak… thrust upon you in one blow. One concentrated stab of agony. It’s… horrible. I almost think death would be better.”  

A memory flitted through Yang’s mind: she knew; she knew of the Bond’s darker mirror.

Her father had been laughing at some antic Ruby had performed with Zwei. Ruby was about to make a joke, her gray eyes sparkling, before Taiyang had crumpled to the floor with an awful cry of pain, sounding no longer human, but very much like an animal being torn to pieces; like his very soul was being ripped out at the roots — a glow had sparked up, white and gray, before it had died in a great flare of darkness, around his chest. He had screamed and screamed like something was renting his bones apart before his eyes—

And then Qrow had burst into the room, his usual careless demeanor replaced by a newly-woken horror and shattered light in his eyes: that was the day everything had fallen apart, that was the day Yang would remember forever.

“I know what the Bond can do,” Yang said darkly. “Trust me, I know what happens when it’s broken.”

Blake’s eyes shimmered — tears, Yang realized, though they didn’t fall, her face dark as the shadowed side of the moon. “Adam broke it off after the train went out of sight. And he and I were in so many battles together, plus all the anger and energy from the White Fang rallies— all that pain—”

Yang gaped at her; she had forgotten, in her grief, that Blake was speaking from experience. So much sorrow… “You survived that?”

Blake’s jaw set, stony. “When you’re hellbent on anything, pain is inconsequential. I needed to get out alive. So I did. But…” She let a breath shudder from her lungs. “The Bond entails much. It allows you to conduit Aura between you and your partner, to share your strength and skill, allows you to sense where the other is at any time, and allows you to get — in a sense — the other’s emotions at any given moment. It binds the souls. It’s… it’s an act of utmost trust and balance and love.” Blake’s eyes were cast down. “And it can abused terribly in the wrong hands. But.” She looked up, eyebrows set in a determined line. “With all the talk of trust, I made a mistake once in trusting someone with a Bond. But I am confident that I will not do so again. Not with you.”

Yang grinned at her. “I love when you make little speeches. It throws your strong and silent act out the window.”

Blake’s frown mirrored the opposite of her expression, though her eyes danced. “Did you hear a word I said, Xiao Long?”

Yang grew somber again. “Yeah, of course. Blake— Adam hurt you. I can see that within you, every day. But that doesn’t define you. His screw-ups for not loving and cherishing you just as you were— those are his own faults.” She pressed her fingers to Blake’s chin, forcing her to meet her eyes. “But it’s time you recognized I’m not Adam, that trusting me doesn’t mean I’ll change like him. And you’re not the same as you were with him, either! Everyone changes, just as the sun rises and falls. And trust isn’t a one-way street. You can’t be relying on me only to be your pillar, and vice versa. We’re all a team, okay? RWBY — all of us. Not just you and me.”

Blake’s frown faded to a soft concern, her eyes flickering over Yang’s face. “I know it. But some fate brought us together in that forest months ago, Yang. I have to believe that.”

Yang let her hand fall back to her side. She had stopped believing in any kind of Fate a long time ago. “Perhaps so.” She forced on a grin. “Do you wanna hear a pun?”

“Why on earth,” Blake said, looking bewildered at her sudden shift from solemn to chipper, “would I—”

“Nah, you’re right. It wouldn’t be Weiss to tell puns at a solemn time like this, would it? I can tell you don’t like my puns — are they too schneezy for you?”

“Is there a God? What did I do to deserve this?”

“Shh, my puns aren’t that catastrophic. I personally think our Bond is gonna be purrfect.”

Blake’s head thumped into her hands. “I’m rethinking this, Yang. Thank God that Bonding doesn’t consist of telepathy or I’d—“

“See? There we go.” Yang grinned at Blake, whose eyes were sparkling, despite her somberness. “You’re smiling. Mission accomplished.”

Blake’s head fell back against the pillows, her eyes glittering up at Yang. “Amusing. I almost forgot to ask — what happened after I went out?”

Yang frowned. Darkness. Coldness. Dread. “I beat the living hell out of the robot—” Blake laughed, the sound rich enough to bottle, “and I swear to God, I’ve never seen Weiss and Ruby so angry, or so coordinated as when it hit you. Suffice to say, Torchwick didn’t stand a chance. Not against three balls of rage.”

Blake’s eyes were far away. “By chance, was there anyone with him?”

Yang’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah— how’d you know that?”

Blake grinned, that dark, fierce grin Yang loved. “Sun and I saw things in the warehouse. And we need to have a team meeting — soon. We got good information. Let me guess: the girl was diminutive, pink and brown hair, heterochromia iridum?”

“Don’t know what the latter means, but yes, she did have the weird-ass hair and she was tiny as hell.”

“It means she had different colored eyes—”

Yang plowed on. “She held out her parasol and it deflected the fire and when I punched her, she shattered.”

“Pardon?” Blake’s eyebrows rose.

“Like, I punched the parasol and her and Roman broke into thousands of pieces. I guess that’s her semblance — illusionary.”

“Puzzling. And also… worrisome, that she can defend harm from our foes so easily…” A dark note weighed her voice. “But I suppose there’s nothing to be done about it at the present.” Blake propped herself up against the headboard, swinging her legs free from the sheets. There was a good foot of height between them; from this angle, in the halo of sunlight, as light as spun gold, Yang could see little details of Blake’s face she’d never noticed before: the scars that peppered her skin from a lifetime of battle, the faded band of freckles that spattered the bridge of her nose. All these things that made her partner, the person she had come to trust as much as her own family.

“Vale to Yang. You in there?”

Yang blinked out of her reverie. “Sorry.”

Blake looked down and away, the air quickly sobering. “I’ve only ever done this once. With Adam.” Her eyes darkened before she pulled herself up, her right hand laced with Yang’s left. “And now with you. But this I will do by myself, and willingly.” She glanced up from their hands, eyes locking on Yang’s. “I trust you. Now, please keep silent, and do not let go of me. The Bonding ritual itself… it’s strange, Yang. With this, it will entrust my memories into you. Everything. It’s a monumental example of the trust I place in you, Bonding. Now… there is something else curious about the ritual. When you look back upon memories, they are not sharp with clarity, right?”

Yang nodded, wondering where she was going with her spiel.

“Right, of course. Your memories are blurred— dampened, you could say— by the weight of your emotions. You’re remembering what you felt, moreso than the details of the scene— anger, fear, love, sadness. More emotional people, like you, tend to have blurrier memories. I— my memories are sharper than most. Impassivity isn’t really an emotion that blurs a lot. Whatever is blurred? It is what I felt the most for. Now, to Bond…”

“But you feel like anyone else,” Yang broke in, reeling.

Her eyes sharpened, furtive, desolate. “Of course. Now. Here we go.” Her eyes shut, face smoothing out to a careful neutral. “With this,” Blake murmured, “I give all of my light up to another. I place my trust in my other half; I do this willingly, so that there may always be someone to aid in my darkest hours. I release my strength to show a way through the darkness for my other half; through this, we may become one. I share my soul, and bare my heart to my partner. To the promises that are unbreakable, the Bond that is tempered by fire, I give all of myself to another. For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death.” Blake’s hand touched the side of her neck lightly, and a jolt of lightning lanced through Yang’s veins— not from Blake’s touch, but from the Bond beginning its work. “I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee.”

A queer feeling, corporeal and ethereal flooded her with light, and then a shock went through her—

Yang felt a darkness fall over her, a great crashing wave of despair and soaring hope and light and pain and misery and love— a shining weave of emotions too great to contain, filling her to the brim until she was sure that if she moved, it would spill over like rainwater from a hollow. Gasping, teeming with all the emotions that made Blake who she was, Yang gulped in breaths, still trembling.

And then a heat blazed out, tendrils like fire shooting down their arms to converge where their hands were clenched together. It condensed itself into a ball of white-hot fire. Then a sheer, undulating darkness had crumbled at the edge of her visions and she was falling, falling into—

light.

Light was all she saw: it was in the bright glare of the sun, the emerald seas of grass that rolled away all around her. She was on a high plateau, and the wind swept over her in pulsing, warm breezes, the sweet touch of nectar and flowers thick in the air.

Yang’s eyes widened as she heard a voice over the wind, a melodic, youthful voice that was tinkling like bells, but some part of its happy cadences seemed forced, almost; an imperceptible strain trembled in the words. “See, Brian. I told you she would be here when we returned.”

A rumbling voice replied, low and indistinct. “Of course, Maria. Ayran wouldn’t hurt Blake, not yet, now now. But I fear…” His voice trailed away, worried.

Two figures came into Yang’s view: a tall and a short figure. One figure was a pale woman that held much of Blake in her appearance, with a slim physique and willowy stature; her eyes were a bright amber, and her hair was pale coppery-russet. She was a Faunus, clearly, with a mischievous smile and two ginger, notched ears that rose from her hair. The other was a tall, scary looking man— his Grimm mask adorned his frightening looks— with pitch black hair and scars criss-crossing all over his body. A sooty-colored tail curled out behind him, but there was a softness to his face: Yang could tell at once that he was not a cruel man, Blake’s father. Both of them were misted, dampened by the emotions that clung to them. Blake’s feelings— love, resentment, the ache of loss. They accentuated the brightness in Blake’s mother’s eyes, the softness of her father’s smile.

Blake’s parents, Yang guessed, whom she’d never given word of before. Yang knew the enormous trust her partner was entrusting to her, to show her the parts she’d never revealed to anyone else.

The memory fell away, shattering into colorful shards, giving way to another scene. It showed Blake, watching a lanky young boy who donned a tiny shortsword, ragged at the edges, like it was eaten away by acid. Here, the smudging of emotion was obvious; it made him seem handsomer, fierce and twisted all at once. Hate, sadness, and love; a puzzling combination, but it was there all the same—

“My name’s Adam, and I lost my parents in the battle, too,” the red-haired boy announced, and Yang felt realization crash over her. “I’ll protect you.”

“Really?” Blake was little in this memory, and Yang felt her heart contract at the wretched pain on her face. “You’d do that?”

“Partners,” Adam said gently. “Okay? I’ll teach you to fight, Blake. To protect yourself. The humans can’t hurt us ever again, not while we have each other.”

Blake smiled— it was a wary, beaten thing, too sad for such youth— and took his hand. “Okay. Promise?”

Adam grinned, and poked her before he stuck out his tongue. One of Blake’s pointed ears twitched in amusement. “I promise.”

Then the picture fell to black, like a curtain sweeping into darkness, before dawning on a corrugated room in a what Yang assumed was a warehouse: she could see two amber eyes in the dark— Blake’s eyes— wide and scared, before they calmed. Low, heaving breaths tore through the silence.  

A low, rumbling voice rasped from the dark, familiar, and older. “Go back to sleep.”

Blake glanced behind herself, pupils slitting, before she sat back. A figure was pressed closely against her, in the dark, his dark eyes aglow as he breathed against her. He was only slightly blurred here, dampened by few emotions: fondness, love. “Bad dream?”

“As always,” Blake murmured.

“We’ll fix that,” he told her.

Blake’s eyes flickered with sadness before she leaned heavily against him. “I love you,” she said softly, and Adam glanced at her; in the memory, even Yang could feel her heart skip a beat before plummeting.

“I know.”

It rippled at the edges before falling into itself, like a portrait sagging inward and shattering to nothingness; this time, Yang could feel the dark weight of Blake’s emotions swirling around her, stealing her breath away— shame, sorrow, hurt, a crackling resentment.

Yang’s eyes widened as she saw a corpse— glazed eyes, his throat slit wide open. The emblem of the Schnee Dust Company was bold on his chest, and a bloody Adam was standing over the dead man with triumph in his eyes, a knife in hand; blood coated his arm up to the wrist. Blake was behind him, a mix of horror and fury on her face. A Faunus man— arrogant, imperious, and threatening, his form blurred with a strong pulse of hatred— was purring sinuously, “Good job, Taurus. I knew you could do it.”

“Thank you, Ayran,” Adam said, flicking blood from his hands with contempt. They flew away in jeweled red droplets, spattering on the dead man’s face with a myriad of scarlet— and Yang remembered, briefly, Weiss recounting the disappearance of her family members— and the Faunus kicked the corpse in derisive disdain.

“Another Schnee bastard down,” he spat, sharp, acerbic loathing in his voice. “Wonderful. Belladonna, you’re next.”

“Of course, Ayran,” Blake said, her voice carefully neutral and monotonous, though her eyes burned with fear. “I look forward to it.”

And then—

Blake was standing alone in a room. A dais, a lectern on it, loomed in front of her; Yang gagged as she saw a throne made of fused bones erected on the dais. Everything about the room was indistinct, smudged with the strong taint of hatred and resentment. As Yang watched, the huge Faunus man with the fangs and scarred vulpine ears strode out. There was a look in his eyes as they landed upon the defiant Blake that made Yang’s heart flare with a sudden, violent heat.

“Blake Belladonna, my Blake. You finally grace me with your presence. Mm… it has been awhile. Busy fighting out to avoid what you’ve become, are you?”

Blake’s voice was stiff, her lips hardly moving. “I’m not ‘your Blake’. And I haven’t become anything. Lord Ayran, sir,” she added as almost an afterthought, her voice icy and rigid with disdain.  

“Ah, so we’re going for a definite lack of deference. I see. This should be interesting.”

Blake watched him stonily, silent.

“I have called you in the utmost interest of your loyalties. You see, Blake, they are in question. I grow very curious to know where your heart lies— with your family, the White Fang, or with some farfetched fantasies.”

“Who’s been feeding you rumors and lies?” Blake scoffed, but her eyes shadowed with panic.

“No one.” Ayran grinned widely, manically. “I am no fool, poppet. I know very well when a Faunus shows signs of straying. It’s how I ascended to the throne. You would do well to remember that I am not idiotic.”

“But you’re a megalomaniac,” Blake whispered, but evidently, Ayran didn’t hear her, as he prattled on.

“But that— while a happy endeavor I would venture in, to see where your loyalties lie— I will give you a second chance. You are a stupendous fighter, and clever enough to rule when I am gone. So I have called you here to offer you precisely that.”

“Offer me what?” Blake seemed baffled.

“Power,” Ayran murmured, caressing the word with his whisper as if it was cherished. “Power, dearest. That is what I can give you— that you will lead, by proxy, through Adam Taurus. If only you’ll renounce those foolish fantasies I see in your eyes when we trifle with the humans.”

“Sir, I— why?“

“Because you will never be a Huntress,” he spat, and Blake recoiled, looking like she’d been slapped in the face. “You will never be a human, never part of their ranks. They hate us and they hate you, for you are part of the White Fang, and that is something you shall carry with you to your grave, however soon it may be. If they make us monsters, than indeed we will fit their images.”

“I—“ she began to protest, but Ayran cut her off with an impatient flick of his ear.

“You’re destined for this,” he breathed, eyes alight with a fevered glow. Somehow he was even more terrifying without his insane mask. “It’s fate that you tread in the footsteps of your predecessors, Belladonna. The stars have read it—“

She looked at him with loathing, all her submission gone. “I knew you were crazy,” she growled, the words spat out. “But I didn’t realize you were absolutely, spectacularly out of your goddamned mind.”

Ayran seemed unfazed, his eyes losing their over-brightness, a lecherous leer curving his lips in the mock of a smile. He sounded amused. “Hardly, my dear Belladonna. Now, let us drop the colloquialisms. Julian is dead, and good riddance; he was a softhearted, human-loving half-breed. Your fool of a father got himself killed in war, and your mother got slaughtered in an ambush.” His eyes glittered, and Yang could only think, he’s lying. Can’t she see he’s lying?

Blake froze as he grinned, sharp teeth glittering in the dimness. “You owe undivided loyalty to me now, and whomever I deem an ally, and you are predisposed to supplant Adam, and myself, one day. Diligence won’t save you if you decide to be insubordinate. I grow weary of the ways you fluctuate between who you were raised to be, and the dream-chaser. Absolution isn’t for the Faunus, understand? The humans are going to be slaughtered for dismissing us so flippantly. You can find that ghastly— I can see in your eyes, pet, your revulsion—  Humans are our enemies. Now and forever. They have not raised a finger to defray the hardships we have endured. You can toss superfluous facts around all you like, but the fact remains that you are the heiress to this throne of the White Fang, is that clear?” He leaned forward, his strange amber-encircled eyes burning, like two smoldering coals of feverish, tyrannical passion. “We were hewn from nothing, and we are a force to be reckoned with now. It was a cause your parents gave their lives for, and now, I have taken you from your unorthodox, impoverished beginnings, and given you power. Do not waste it.”

All the fight seemed to drain out of Blake during his winding spiel, and she rocked back on her heels— but a hint of skepticism glowed in her eyes. “Yes, Lord.”

“Now go. Go comfort your partner.” Ayran smiled, fangs glinting through his bared teeth. “You may find that you lose him sooner than you had supposed.”

Before Yang could even react, or see the surprise that flashed across Blake’s face, she was snatched backward and pulled into a crushing nothingness, before—

Yang saw Adam, alone, head in hands. He was completely detailed here, nothing making him indistinct, all the affection that Blake had held gone. And then Blake herself came into the room, her gait stiff and controlled. “I’m here, Adam,” Blake said, face blank. “Like you asked. What do you want?”

Adam prowled in front of her; he was wearing a black suit, a scarlet design embleming the back of it. He was wearing the Grimm mask, and his presence seemed— menacing, somehow, a safety that could quickly spin into danger.

“I want to know why you’re so— so cold as of late. You’ve changed. You can deny it, but you’ve changed fundamentally, Blake, and I’ve no idea—“

Blake growled. “You’re not just questioning me for Ayran? It seems you’re always begging at his heels these days—“

Adam brushed off the jibe with a wave of his gloved hand. “I consider your wellbeing of more importance than the fealty I render to Ayran, Blake. I care about you, and we’re Bonded; I can feel your anger. It’s there. Sometimes it fades a little, sure, but it’s like hooks under the surface. Always present.”

“I’m not angry, I’m—“ Blake broke off with a sigh, shadows chasing shadows in her eyes. “I’m disappointed.”

“Why?” He looked baffled, even a bit hurt. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s exactly why. You don’t understand. You can’t see what you’ve become. I don’t even know you anymore, but whoever— whatever— you are, you sure as hell aren’t the boy I knew and used to love.” She turned and vanished, and Yang saw that Adam had become blurred with a darker emotion— it turned his slanted eyes cold, his frown into a leer, the sadness on his face into menace: the gauzy shadows of Blake’s broken heart.

The transition to the next memories shivered and thumped like a broken record, bars of light swinging crazily overhead . Yang realized they were the stars in the night sky, bright and unwavering and clear, broken up by clumps of tree branches.

“Oh, Blake. I am very pleased with your work tonight.”

Yang could hardly make out anything. The clinging, blotchy smudges of emotion were like the stains of tears: Yang’s heart contracted at the feelings of self-loathing and pure, unfettered terror that ran rampant, scrawled across the scene like it had been vandalized. Blake was on her knees, shaking, blood dripping from her hands—

Oh, no.

Yang took in the scene with increasing horror. Ayran was there, watching with a look of such cold amusement that Yang longed to tear him to shreds, even though she knew that it was only a memory. Adam was not there. A form was lying— only a feet away— near Blake.

Yang saw in an instant that it was a body, curled around itself, and it was dead. Maybe it was the skewed limbs, maybe it was the way it seemed limp, as though something essential, some spark, had fled from the body. The blurring of horror and shock was strongest there, in the black pool of blood that ebbed out and stained Blake’s feet. She looked pallid and nauseous.

“Well done, Blake, pet. You killed the Schnee bastard.” Ayran’s eyes abruptly darkened, like two torches pitched out. “I didn’t think you would.”

Blake’s whisper was barely audible, whispered only to herself. She was shaking, rocking back and forth on her heels. Blood dripped from wounds scored across her arms, her chest, and her eyes were haunted and huge in the darkness, her whisper showing the glancing flash of an incisor. “Neither did I.”

The memories swirled away, flipping past in flashes of light, color, and sound, like the whipping pages of a book: Yang caught glimpses of two figures closely entwined in a dance of their own, a lecherous smile and two jaded amber-green eyes, towers of bone and seas of blood, before a scene slowly solidified before her.

Blake was backed against a wall and Adam was advancing on her, the white stripe of his Grimm mask glinting like an accusation. There was a scraping ring as he yanked his sword from his sheath and leveled the tip of it to her throat.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

She turned her head to the side and spat blood to the ground, her eyes cold with fury. She did not sound scared. “Cut my throat, then, Adam, if you please. Killing me won’t satisfy you.” She shifted, the sword jabbing further in her skin, the shadowy indention deepening. “Nothing will, will it? Accidents, self-defense, what needs to be done… how far will you go? When will this end?”

The sword moved erratically to the side as he snarled, cursing, and red trickled down the curve of Blake’s throat, pooling red into her collarbone. “Shut up, Blake!”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Then you hear me,” he growled, “you double-dealing, backstabbing traitor. I renounce anything I’ve told you, revoke our Bond—“

“What’s going on here?” A furious voice roared through the harsh breathing and snarls of Adam and the shallow breaths of Blake. Adam’s sword dropped to the floor with a metallic ring as his head snapped around, staring intently into the shadows. A hulking figure emerged, his face uncharacteristically lined and stark. His Grimm mask was in one hand, snapped in two, and his eyes burned as he took in the scene. “There will be no revoking of Bonds while I’m here, Adam. Voluntarily, or otherwise.”

“Lord Ayran, I—“

The White Fang leader held up a hand swiftly, cutting Adam off mid-speech. “You,” he said, pointing to Adam, “Right now. Get out, immediately.”

“But I—“

“Adam,” Ayran snarled, his eyes slitted and deadly as a cobra’s, so full of danger and a thinly veiled madness that Yang shivered. “You heard me.”

Adam backed out with barely controlled deference, not before shooting a venomous glance at Blake. Ayran swung his glare on Blake next, and she flinched.

“The inexorable anger of one so foolish… both of you, you should be ashamed.” Ayran looked with contempt at the blood on Blake’s neck, his eyes once more going cold and dark. “Go clean yourself, pet. Don’t let this kind of bickering happen again, is that clear?”

“Crystal,” she said lowly back at him, sidestepping Adam’s glimmering sword and disappearing into the shadows before the images fell into a screaming darkness that gradually lit onto one sharp image, bright and shining against Yang’s eyes.

It showed her an older looking Blake. Scars marred her arms, and her eyes seemed darker, stained with shadows. She looked quite like the huntress that Yang knew, that she had devolved into this.

As Yang watched, she unsheathed Gambol Shroud and slashed it through a cable, separating her and Adam. “Goodbye,” Blake whispered, and there was pain in her voice, a pain that was indomitable and crushing, wretched and horrible. The red leaves of Forever Fall whirled through the widening abyss, and then everything shattered into darkness.

But the memories didn’t stop, to Yang’s surprise; she had thought Blake’s story was over, after she had cut the train car. What else was there to tell, that Yang didn’t know?

But surprise flashed through her, perpetuated by the memories that Blake was showing that swam into her view.

Yang saw herself.

She saw herself as Blake had: herself, dragging Ruby over to befriend her. Herself, looking down at a grinning Blake from the back of a slain Ursa. Herself, fighting side by side with Blake. Herself, eyes hot with anger as Blake fled. Herself, smiling as she embraced her in the shipyard.

Every image was different, but there was one things they all held in common.

In every single one, she was beautifully, impossibly, lovingly blurred.

The girl she saw looked like her, and yet was completely different. This Yang that Blake saw— she was graceful, her semblance suiting her well, rather than making her unwieldy, as Yang felt. This girl had a gracefulness, a sweetness about her that Yang was sure she didn’t possess. This girl— she was beautiful.

And that was how Blake saw her, somehow. Beautiful.

The memories seemed to rush away around her, her body dragged down into crushing darkness and a harsh whining ring blasted into her ears before she was—

slamming back into her own body, Blake watching her with trepidation. Their hands were still twined together, and the bonds of fire still coiled down their arms, glowing like red-hot wires.

“Blake?” Yang said, the thought of how Blake saw her still fresh in her mind— the thought of it sent a thrill through her, a foreign feeling.

“The Bond is almost complete,” Blake said softly. Her hand clenched over Yang’s, a light, almost imperceptible thing. “Watch.”

And a circle of light shone fiercely from within their interlocked hands, beams of light shooting out from the shadows of their laced fingers, brighter than a star. An amber aura wrapped around them in an iridescent veil, and Blake was looking at her with a light in her eyes brighter than the pillars of thin fire that swirled around them.

When they let go, the light instantly vanished, but the tingling feeling remained in Yang’s chest. Blake looked sad, still, but this time, Yang could sense it instead of merely seeing it on her face— like she shared the sorrow, too. She was a part of Blake. And Blake was a part of her. That was the Bond, that you were never truly alone.

Blake sank back onto the pillows, eyes closing. Yang felt a pang of alarm race through her. “Blake?”

A small, weary smile flashed across her partner’s face, though she didn’t open her eyes. “It’s all right, Yang. I’m just exhausted. The Bond saps my strength and gives it to you. It’s preliminary for what’s to come, in a manner.”  

“I’ve taken your strength.” Yang sat back, processing that. “Do you— need it back?”

Blake’s eyes opened, flickering like flame, like an inner fire had been ignited somewhere within her. Light, Yang thought, she’s lighter. Like me. “I always need your strength, Yang.”