The Other Daughter

Chapter 16 | Part One

"Blake? Weiss?" she said softly, hanging her head. "I didn't mean to- ...I'm sorry for making a scene like this."

Blake shook her head. "Don't apologize."

"I thought you two would never get whatever was going on over with!" Weiss declared, although with less venom in her words than usual. Yang had to wonder if she was actually feeling something underneath that prickly exterior.

Someone needed to take charge before this situation got any worse. Yang grabbed Ruby's scroll from her limp grasp and whispered a quick, "we'll call back" to their father and uncle, whose faces were still frozen in perpetual sadness. Then she held the screen out for Ruby to press the call end button. She ushered her sister back down the hallway with Weiss and Blake in tow, making sure to shield her from prying eyes. "Let's get you back inside."

* * *

Yang placed Ruby down on her bed with care, letting her process her emotions undisturbed. Weiss and Blake left Team RWBY's leader to her own devices and got to work unpacking alongside Yang. Fortunately for Yang, apart from her armor and a few things from home, she hadn't brought a huge number of items with her. Weiss was the polar opposite, with suitcase after suitcase piled onto her bed. She'd had them delivered to the room on a tall luggage cart.

Talk about overkill.

Sighing, Yang cracked her knuckles and neck. Once the school year got into full swing, she would probably be too overwhelmed to make time for much. Unpacking and any other lesser duties would need to be completed by 9:00 AM tomorrow, when they were to attend their first class. Traditional schooling was completely foreign to Yang, so she wasn't exactly thrilled about it. Sure, she knew the basics of what Raven or Vernal had seen to teaching her, but little else.

"Yay, Beacon," she said to herself with a half-hearted rallying fist in the air before getting to work.

* * *

Morning came with a subtle crack of sunlight through a part in the curtains. It struck Yang across the face, its warmth rousing her softly from slumber. She yawned and stretched as she sat up, making her way toward the bathroom through a maze of opened suitcases left in the wake of their night of unpacking. Once Ruby recovered from her slump yesterday, she had thrown herself into the task of decorating their room, but ran out of energy and crashed before she was finished. Half-hung drapes and crooked posters remained as evidence of that unfinished effort. Yang emerged from the bathroom to find her sister and Blake awake now, too, and gave them a quick "good morning" before getting changed.

She'd asked Glynda to order her another uniform to accommodate her breasts, which were much less comfortable in any of the standard sizes. Impressively, a newly-tailored uniform arrived before they all went to sleep the previous night. Even more impressively, it was a perfect fit! Buttoning her vest, she looked around the room and saw Weiss was waking up, too. Fortunately for Yang, she swept the area just in time to notice Ruby inhaling to blow into a whistle. She slapped both hands over her ears fast enough to save herself from a sharp noise assaulting her eardrums. Weiss wasn't so lucky. Ruby leaned in toward her, closer than even Yang thought was reasonable, and blew into the whistle, its shrill cry reverberating around the room. Weiss flailed like she'd been thrown into the shallow end of a pool with no swimming skills, and toppled to the floor in the most ungraceful fashion possible.

Blake, who had been reading until Ruby disrupted her peace with her ear-splitting surprise, rolled off of her bed, appearing unfazed. She set her book down with care. She'd slept next to it all night, even giving the prized possession its own pillow.

"Gooooood morning Team RWBY!" Ruby shouted.

"What in the world is wrong with you?" Weiss demanded to know of a smiling Ruby.