36 The 'Talk'

Ruby remained sitting on the floor, staring suspiciously at Yang. Not moving from her spot.

Letting out sigh of resignation at her little sisters lack of actions Yang commented "Fine then, stay on the floor".

"Ruby, you love Arthur, and I mean love to the point of beating your sister down for getting close to him." Yang said

"You were trying to kiss him!" Ruby angrily retorted jumping up from the ground to a standing position as she pointed her index finger at Yang, rage evident on her face.

"Yes, I did. And I failed because my little sister thinks of Arthur like he's a cookie" she explained to her sister.

"He is not a cookie! He is Arthur! I lo…" Ruby was silenced as yang continued for her

"Love him. Yeah, yeah, you also love cookies, and right now you're treating him like you did with the cookies mom made us before she disappeared." She responded

"Wha!? No I am not! And don't bring mom into this! She has nothing to do with this!" Ruby retorted

"Ruby…" Yang rested her head on her hand her eyes sad and watery "Five years Ruby, five years we thought she was dead, five years we watched dad breakdown, between taking care of us and taking care of the bottles he tried to hide from us" Ruby was silent as she listened to her sister putting her hands on her ears in an attempt to block out her voice.

"You were never good at that Ruby, you know it." Yang said to Ruby, knowing full well she could still hear her.

"It was only supposed to be a week until she came back to us, Ruby you were five, you were told the our super mom was never coming back to us…" Ruby had pushed her hands down harder onto her ears.

Letting out sad sigh Yang continued "I watched my little sister lock herself away from others, she ran away to her room with the cookies mom made you, because she wanted you to have something to remember her by until she came back."

Ruby had turned around and started going "lalalalala" to burry Yang's words

"The only thing we had left of her were those cookies, you took every single one. You slowly ate through them whenever you missed her. If I or even dad got near them you would go for our throats, you were so scared of losing the only thing you had left of mom that you turned on your own family" Yang's voice turned melancholic

"And once you ran out of the, you were lost, I watched you walk around the house looking for mom, whenever we would go out you would be scanning everything searching for her, if ewe even saw a white sheet flapping in the wind you would run up to it shouting for mom, only to fall into tears the moment you realized it wasn't her"

"ut…up…please…just shut,up." Ruby pleaded, tears falling from her eyes.

Biting her lip Yang continued "Then, you found that little birdie that fell out of its nest and gotten injured, you ran back home clutching it to your chest to protect it, you got dad to take it to the vet and when we were told there was nothing we could do for it, you refused to accept it, so you ran away back home, locked yourself in your room and tried to nurse it back to health."

"Not an hour later did I hear your sobs coming from your room, I ran to your room and found you crying over the lifeless body of the bird, still clutched tightly to your chest…" Ruby's sobs had died down now as she resigned herself to listening to Yang.

"And you know what happened when I tried to comfort you? You lashed out. You scratched and clawed at me, I still have the scars from where you got me" Yang lifted her arm showing three small, faded scars along her right arm, Ruby looked away in shame.

"And now Arthur…" Ruby, froze as she heard her sister

"He has nothing to do with this…" Ruby said, her voice cracking, showing not even she was convinced by her own lie.

"Ruby, you helped bandage his wounds when you first met, when he went catatonic you were the one to drag him out of the amphitheatre, when he left the ballroom you followed him and tried to help him" Yang explained to Ruby who had frozen as she knew what was coming next.

"And then the next day, you watched him get impaled, you watched him die. You destroyed both the Nevermore and the Deathstalker with your laser eyes…"

'Laser… eyes?' Ruby thought in confusion

"And you collapsed, you were unconscious for an entire day. And the first thing you say when you woke up the first thing you said is 'Where's Arthur?'. I already see it in your eyes then, you had the same ones as when we lost mom and the little birdie. You refused to accept that Arthur was gone, but luckily, Arthur survived, he was rescued by a Grimm, of all things."

"When I brought you to his side you ran up to him and started shaking him, trying to get him to wake up so he could tell you he was 'okay'. It took me hours to get you to stop, and then, for the next week you stayed by his side, sleeping only when your body forced you to. I had to force you to come to class, and even then we could only distract you when Weiss went up to fight, but once she finished you dashed out of the classroom and ran to Arthur's side."

"An entire week of this, an entire week where I had to coax my sister into sleeping in our dorms, an entire week of glares and arguments between me and Weiss who kept arguing that she deserved to be the leader and not you. Luckily, she calmed down after speaking with professor Port." Yang seeing the confusion in her sisters face added "Yeah, you missed a lot in that week."

"When Arthur woke up you were happier, you started acting like the leader you are."

"Then the whole thing with you becoming his bride, and irremovable ring and an infinite bale of rice happened. You were confused for the longest time, unsure of your feelings, I saw you glaring at any girl who got near him, I saw your eye twitch if they as remotely as touched his arm." Ruby turned her head away griping onto her shoulder.

"You were reverting to your usual state whenever you dealt with death, you become possessive, you try to keep anything of theirs to yourself, and you try to 'protect' it, not letting anyone near them. You refuse to let others near"

"But, unlike with mom and the bird…" Yang's voice turned quiet and happier "you fell in love, at first you had no idea what to do, your mind was arguing with itself between you wanting to protect him and being unsure of your feelings. You watched other girls get close to him, some probably want to get even closer to him, I'm one of them…" she saw Ruby's eye twitch as she said that.

"Exactly! That!" she said pointing at Ruby "Your cheek twitched the moment I said I have an interest in him." Ruby tried to cover her cheek to hide her twitches.

"Ruby, it's okay. Your scared of losing him, and after his story, I'm pretty sure we all want to keep him safe, Blake and Weiss might not show it, but they probably care about him as well, maybe not to the point of you or me, but I can see their feelings growing whenever he speaks with them." Ruby's cheek twitched again, but she quickly moved her hand to cover it.

"And let's not forget about Ashe, although I don't know the whole story between them, they obviously have a love for each other, even if one of them is a ghost within a book. But she was there before you, what are you going to do about her? Destroy her? But what will Arthur think? Will he still like you? Or would he start to distance himself from you?" her questions hit Ruby where it hurt as she turned her head to the ground

"What do I do then? I-I don't want to lose him…" Ruby's voice was weak and quiet.

"Be there for him." Yang simply answered confusing Ruby, who looked up at her sister with watery and confused eyes.

"Become Arthur's first line of defence, help him keep his head straight and be there for him especially around other girls, he has a tendency of getting girls to like him from what I've seen." Yang explained with a chuckle, getting a light giggle from Ruby as well.

"He really does, doesn't he?" Ruby replied calming down and her eyes clearing up. As the room went silent as she began to think "But how do I do that? I-I can't always be there for him… what if he disappears l-like mom did? I-I can't protect him then." She said fear in her voice.

"Ruby, you have something on you at all times that tells you he is okay." Yang said, freezing Ruby for a second until her eyes lit up with recognition as she lifted her hand and stared at the black and red ring on her finger.

"The ring…" Ruby muttered, remembering that it could only be removed if their contract was nullified or if either of them died. Yang nodded to her "Right, no idea how it works, but mom said that there are a few more things about it, but that's only if Arthur puts his one on, I think. Mom didn't say much about it when I asked her" Yang explained.

"I-I will protect him…" Ruby muttered

"Good, that's all I needed to hear" Yang said with a wide smile.

"Y-Yang" Ruby called out

"Yes sister of mine?" Yang jokily replied

"Who else has 'feelings' for him?" she asked her eyes turning stern and authoritative gritting her teeth at 'feelings' sounding particularly annoyed.

Yang with a big smile and a laugh began to answer "Well, for one, me. Never had someone throw my teases back at me so well, it was quite hot." she answered, Ruby twitched.

"Kardia, also seems to like him" Ruby nodded remembering how the professor had been feeling Arthur chest up a few hours earlier.

"Weiss, might, or is unsure herself. Blake is… I don't know what to think about her and to be honest she is scary when she is looking at Arthur, it's like she's staring at a piece of meat, and her book, oh that thing is filled with her saucy fantasy's, you should read them some time, maybe you could learn something" Yang teased

"Yang!" Ruby retorted with a blush, knowing full and well whatever Blake was writing in there wasn't the most 'pure' to say the least if her manic cackles whenever she was writing in it were any indication.

"One day Ruby, one day" Yang kept teasing, getting Ruby red enough that she started steaming.

"Then there is Pyrrha, even though they just met she might start feeling something eventually… If she can ever take her eyes off Jaune that is…" Yang muttered low enough that Ruby couldn't hear her.

"That sounds like everyone" Ruby said, hoping her words held true, but seeing her sister awkwardly turn her head away trying to avoid her gaze she knew that something was wrong.

"Yang" Ruby's voice turned hard freezing Yang still "What aren't you telling me? Who else?" she asked her voice getting even harsher.

"Whaaaaat, Pfffttt, there's no one else…" Yang replied not convincing herself even, especially when her voice cracked.

"Yang, dearest sister of mine. Tell me before I bifurcate you with Crescent Rose" Ruby said menacingly as she pulled out her scroll, opening it up to the 'call rocket locker' app.

"When did you learn such big words?" Yang replied in surprise, her mind more interested in the unusually big word for Ruby than the imminent threat of being halved by a giant scythe.

To prove her point Ruby began to input her code into the pin pad that appeared on the app page.

"Wait, Ruby, we are sisters! You can't just off me!" Yang pleaded standing from the bed and holding her hands in front of herself in an effort to calm her.

Ruby's only response was to lifted her eyes slightly and look at her sister, her finger hovering above the final number of the pin, waiting for Yang to continue.

Yang hesitated for a moment but seeing her sisters finger getting ever closer to the final number took a deep breath and closed her eyes before muttering

"Mom"

____________________________________________________

Meanwhile, in another building

"I felt a disturbance…" Summer muttered feeling a shiver run down her back as she turned towards the direction of Beacon.

"GAH!" Arthur shouted as he was punted out of Pit's gym by a group of humanoid mechs

"I-Is he going to be okay?" a girl with long, light brown hair and bunny ears, watching Arthur fly through an open window.

"Let's hope so, I need my model, and he's perfect for the job. Don't want any bruising on that pretty face." A girl with short dark brown hair, wearing an even darker brown barrette and a pair of aviator sunglasses.

"At least you care…" The bunny eared girl responded with a sigh, staring worriedly at the window Arthur was flung out of.