191

Chapter Text

"So… you and Vernal, huh?" Blake muttered, rubbing her chin as she sat next to Ilia, the now ex- White Fang member shuddering a little bit as they sat out in the cold. The school year would be starting soon, and while it was nice having everyone around for a long while, the house was so much nicer with the vast majority of the guests having gone home, or, in the case of Weiss' mother, gone to Mistral with Ghira, Kali, and Sienna.

Blake really didn't want to know, and Weiss didn't either.

Winter had been… a little shell shocked by that revelation.

Regardless. Everyone else had moved out, so now it was just the Xiao Long/Rose/Branwen family, RWBYP, and CMNE habiting the cabin for the most part- save for Raven, Vernal, Ilia, and Oscar, who had all moved out to Raven's cabin. Blake still wasn't entirely sure about how good of an idea it was to send Oscar, a farm boy, to live with two bandits and an ex-terrorist but… well. He seemed fine with it. 

"... Don't tease me, okay?" Ilia huffed, grumbling and looking away with a flush of shame and embarrassment spreading across her skin in a rippling wave of color as she crossed her arms and tried not to look like she was pouting. "She's cute and tomboyish and we have so much in common and- I mean we were both drunk when we started making out in the bathroom but uh-"

"Yeah, literally everyone in the house heard you screaming and Ruby has already known since the day you hooked up," Blake deadpanned, rolling her eyes as she settled against the roof of the Xiao Long/Rose/Branwen house and laced her fingers behind her head. "I'm glad for you, honestly. Sorta. Vernal seems like a huge bitch but less so when you two are together."

"... She is a… little prickly…" Ilia muttered, clearing her throat and chuckling a little bit at the memory of how Vernal usually acted- all aloof and pessimistic and antagonistic and kind of like a huge piece of shit who'd been pretty much raised to be an individualistic bastard who thought that the only way to get through anything was through one's personal strength alone, and that might made absolute right.

That she was even remotely cooperative was pretty much a function of a talk that Ruby had with Vernal the day that she'd arrived.

Blake had no idea what that talk entailed, but Vernal came back pale as paper and shaking like a leaf and Ruby was her regular cutesy self so she could only assume that Ruby said something off the cuff and then followed it up with a death threat so potent that Vernal couldn't help but fear for her life.

A tall order when the girl was full of the selfsame bravado of any bandit who had nothing left to lose but her life.

Considering Ruby was wearing Augury and not Crescent Rose…

… 

Poor Vernal.

"Prickly doesn't particularly cover the fact that she called us all softies and pathetic losers that'd get destroyed by the Branwen Clan in an instant if they were at full strength," Blake deadpanned, rolling her eyes. "Which, honestly, is kind of a tall order considering that the Branwen Clan was a mid-sized bandit clan and Ruby killed at least seven bandit clans of comparable strength by the time she was eleven."

"... Yeah Vernal kinda needs more training, honestly, but… I dunno, she's nicer when you push past that natural prickliness and figure out that she's kinda like a touch starved stray cat?" Ilia shrugged, chuckling a little as she twirled the end of her ponytail around her finger. "I mean, also, the fact that the little corgi baby somehow managed to murder at least two hundred people by the time she was eleven is terrifying, but let's not talk about that and instead talk about the fact that Vernal is adorable when she sleeps. Clingy too… and also hogs the blankets. Also, super into Guntan stuff, surprisingly. She told me she used to have a really nice collection of Guntan kits before Professor Goodwitch kinda… eradicated their camp and decimated their clan."

"... That must have been a loss of a couple thousand lien," Blake winced, shaking her head at just how much destruction would have come about as a result of Professor Goodwitch's actual temper getting set off like it must have. Apparently Mercury saw the result of her storming into the Mistralian forest at one point and said it looked like a tornado had gone through the area. Uprooted trees, upturned rocks, and corpses . She hadn't even attacked them, the sheer storm of her telekinesis had just flung them into the air far higher and faster than their Aura could handle and the impact killed them. Though, in this case, Blake wasn't so much thinking about what Professor Goodwitch did to the people as she was thinking about the amount of damage she'd done to the poor innocent figurines and model kits that had been part of the camp. "Or more, honestly."

"Yeah… but she also said half of them were stolen so, like… she should be able to get more. I'm gonna help rebuild her collection… once Sienna sends me my paycheck," Ilia finished, shrugging again and leaning back against the roof and snuggling into her winter jacket with a mild huff, watching the mist of her breath rise slowly into the air before fading. "But yeah… Vernal's surprisingly nice once you get past that prickly asshole exterior. She's surprisingly understanding of faunus problems, plus a bunch of the other, smaller political organizations that came in the wake of the White Fang. Plus, y'know… we're both orphans and we lost a lot due to Atlas' bullshit and we both really liked living in Mistral… stuff like that."

"Seems like there's a lot to talk about then," Blake nodded gently, scooting a little closer and patting Ilia on the back with a small smile. "I'm glad for you. You deserve happiness. I'm sorry that I left you and that we never tried anything together, but… still. I'm glad you're happy now."

"... well… more or less happy I guess," Ilia muttered to herself, crossing her arms. "I'm still pissed that I missed out on my shot cuz you ran away before I could stop being a coward. And that you hooked up with a Schnee… but after hearing Willow and Winter and Weiss complain about Jacques, I can say I pretty much just hate the one bastard instead of their whole family now. Mostly."

"... You do get really twitchy around Winter…" Blake mentioned quietly.

"Yeah, I'm glad she's gone now, honestly. She scares the hell outta me," Ilia answered, shuddering at the thought of Weiss' older sister. "In a hot way, but like, not the fun hot way?"

"... Is it the hot way where she could beat the shit out of you and you'd thank her or the hot way where you think she's hot but if you said anything you're afraid of her beating the shit out of you?" Blake deadpanned in response, raising an eyebrow at her turbo lesbian disaster of an ex-best friend.

"The latter. Military girls are hot but also… whoof…" Ilia shook her head, making a face. "But yeah. Vernal."

"Vernal. How'd Raven take it?" 

"She threatened to stab her sword so far up Vernal's ass she could roast her on a spit if she managed to, and I quote, 'fumble a cute girl like Ilia'. Somehow I thought that she'd be giving me a shovel talk, but apparently she's doesn't think I'm dangerous enough to break Vernal's heart," Ilia sighed, grumbling a little as she sat up and buried her face in her hands, her skin rippling with color as her recollection of the event brought embarrassment and schadenfreude to the front of her emotional spectrum. "Honestly, the look on Vernal's face was too cute…"

"I mean… I can't say I agree with the punishment but, yeah, I do think Vernal has the higher chance of fumbling the bag with you than the other way around. You're sweet, nice, and just a really good person, Ilia. Vernal's kind of a huge piece of shit sometimes, even with Ruby having threatened to do something horrible if she keeps acting like that," Blake shrugged, patting Ilia on the back as they continued to sit there on the roof.

Seriously, why was the roof of the house so damn comfortable to sit on? Perfect angle, perfectly heated by the house, and it even had a bunch of ease of access areas and safety features too! What the fuck. 

"... That's rude to Vernal! She's also really sweet!" Ilia protested, unconvincing even to herself.

"Only when she's drunk, and only when she's with you," Blake deadpanned.

"... Yeah… but half the other time she's also super quiet and curled up in my lap. Almost like a cat… but not."

"... She does somehow remind me of a cat… but… not like me cat but…"

"... No, she's kinda like you, but also with some of Adam's shitty worldviews."

"... Ew."

"Yeah, we're working on that part."

"... Still an ew from me."

"She's getting better!"

"Uh huh."

"She is!"

"Hey! Are you two talking shit about me! Don't make me come up there and bite you, bitch!"

Blake blinked slowly at Ilia, who suddenly pulled up her scarf and buried her face into it, completely hiding any trace of her neck from showing while Vernal shouted up at them from the snowy porch below.

"... I don't want to know."

"I'mgonnagonowbye!"

"... Bye."