Yang was screwed. Utterly screwed.
All of the time and effort she spent keeping the truth from spilling out under the wrong circumstances, crafting how she was going to break the news, all wasted.
Her teammates were either showering or getting ready for bed, interacting with her only when absolutely necessary. In her younger sister's case, that seemed to be not at all. Although they had no personal stake in any of the brewing conflict, Weiss and Blake could sense the insanely high tension between the sisters, and kept their distance. Yang couldn't really blame them for their choice.
Interrupting her racing thoughts, Ruby came around the corner out of the bathroom's entrance. Her skin was aglow with a nice, healthy sheen. At least, judging by what little Yang could make out, given the pile of rolled white towels stacked high enough to obscure Ruby's face. Her exposed arms and legs still held beads of moisture soaked up from the steamy showers. In the back of her mind, Yang couldn't help but wonder if Ruby loaded herself up with towels on purpose just to avoid making eye contact. Was she really that upset with her?
Ruby set the towels down on a nearby surface and systematically stacked them in a drawer. A burgundy robe was tied snugly around her small waist over her usual pajamas. She never once turned to look at Yang. Yang sat awkwardly, legs crossed on her chosen bed, still not sure what to do next.
Here goes nothing.
There was no point in delaying, so Yang opted for the quickest, but most uncomfortable, solution. When her sister stood and kicked the drawer shut, she threw caution to the wind and spoke up.
They started to say each other's names simultaneously, paused halfway, then stared at one another. The running water hissing out of the bathroom faucet in the background was the girls' only respite from the silence that claimed them. With considerable effort, Yang managed to level her voice.
"You go first," she offered.
Ruby nodded and cleared her throat. Her thin, petite figure straightening like a beanpole. Yang got the feeling Ruby had practiced this moment in her head. Maybe even dreaded it, like her older sister.
"Yang, like I said before, I needed some time to think about all of this."
"Yeah, and?"
"And I'm done now. I have a question for you."
"Sure," Yang said, stiff-necked with anticipation. "Anything."
"Okay..."
Ruby took careful steps toward Yang and sat at the foot of her bed.
"Who exactly are you to my Uncle Qrow?" she started, wasting no time. "Are you his daughter or something?"
"N-no!" Yang stammered. "Nothing like that."
"Then who are you, Yang?"
Yang quietly observed her younger sister. Ruby's usual meekness had taken a backseat to a more focused, purposeful attitude. She wanted answers. The time had finally come to have 'the talk.' Yang let out a shaky breath.
"I grew up traveling around, mostly on the continent of Anima with my mother and the rest of our tribe. We were always on the move, fighting Grimm and...." Yang pushed past the sinking feeling of guilt welling up in her. She needed to get this all out, or she might lose her chance at mending things with Ruby. "...and collecting resources to survive. We'd set up camp anywhere that seemed safe and out of the way of major settlements. Over time, the Branwen tribe made a name for itself. We were respected and feared everywhere we went."
"Feared?" Ruby's eyes shimmered with curiosity. "But why?"
"Your uncle didn't tell you, did he?" The look on her sister's face spoke for itself, so Yang didn't wait for an answer. "The Branwen tribe gained their reputation by leading Grimm toward weaker villages, then raiding what was left behind."
Ruby gasped. "What? But that's-"
"Wrong?" The blonde nodded solemnly, breaking eye contact. "Yeah, I know. It may have taken me too long to realize that, but a few days ago, something finally woke me up." Yang fished around in a pocket and whisked out the weathered locket her mother had given her. She passed the item to Ruby, who gently accepted it and clicked open the clasp. While Ruby gazed at the old photos inside, Yang continued her explanation. "I found out that I had more family out there somewhere than just my mother and her brother who defected from the tribe years ago. I also had a father named Taiyang, and a younger half-sister."
Ruby swallowed hard as their eyes met. "Me."
The sisters snapped out of a moment of heavy silence when Weiss and Blake emerged from the bathroom, staring wordlessly at their teammates. They'd already put on fresh clothes, but hadn't dared to walk out into the main room, probably for fear of interrupting whatever they thought was going on.
"Oh!" Ruby piped up, copping a nervous smile. "Weiss! Blake! We were just, um..."
"Talking." Yang finished for her, bounding up from the bed and walking to one of the dressers where she'd stored some of her belongings.
"So you two aren't mad at each other anymore?" Blake inquired, adjusting her black bow.
Weiss absently picked at her nails, but her ears perked up, betraying her interest in the answer to Blake's question.
"Mad?" Ruby scoffed and waved off Blake's concern, letting out a weak laugh. "Who was mad? We just, um..." Giving up the ruse, she sighed. "Okay, so maybe we needed to clear the air about some stuff. But we're fine now."
Yang flinched. She was happy to hear those words, but hoped Ruby actually meant them and wasn't just trying to defuse the awkwardness in the room.
"Right, Yang?" her sister's small voice prompted.
Turning to Ruby, Yang decided to trust her and returned her smile. "Yeah."
Ruby wasn't Raven. She wasn't Oz. She was just a simple, innocent little girl wrapped up in schemes she had no clue about. She was every bit as much a victim of circumstance as Yang was, if not more. If anyone deserved the benefit of the doubt, it was her. Still, Yang felt a tinge of doubt tickling the back of her mind that she couldn't quite shake.
Killing the warmth of the moment, Weiss cocked a hip and sighed in exasperation.
"Well, if you two are done bickeri-" at the sight of Ruby's mouth opening to correct her, the young Schnee amended her statement, "-clearing the air, then I'd like to go and find something to eat before it gets too late."
Blake shrugged. "I'll come with you," she said.
Yang rolled her eyes. She'd have to get along with Weiss eventually, somehow. Best to get an early start at trying to figure this infuriating creature out. "Me too," she forced out with veiled insincerity. Weiss blinked twice, staring at Yang with obvious surprise.
"O-okay then," the young Schnee announced triumphantly, turning on her heel toward the door to the hallway. "Let's move, team!"
Narrowing her eyes, Yang said, "You're not the team leader, you know." She didn't need to see Weiss's face to know it was contorting in distaste. She may have had to learn to work with her, but that didn't mean she couldn't take pleasure in getting under her skin from time to time.
"W-whatever!" Weiss retorted. "Let's just go."
Ruby pumped a fist in the air. "Yeah! Team RWBY's first mission!"
Much less enthusiastically, Blake pointed out, "We're just going to get food, Ruby."
"Yeah..." Ruby deflated at her teammate's words before excitedly countering with, "but it sounds way cooler when you call it a mission!"
Weiss clicked her tongue, saying nothing.
"Well," Yang said with a shrug, "can't argue with that logic."
It was at this moment that, for the first time since she'd known them, Blake, and even Weiss, smiled and laughed with genuine amusement. Ruby joined in, leaving Yang to wonder whether the innocent girl realized her older sister's comment was a joke or not. The blonde looked on in disbelief at the rare sight of the three of them getting along. Maybe this team thing really could work out. She joined her new comrades by the door.
"Oh no, my slippers!" Ruby yelped, pausing mid-walk halfway across the room. She was still barefooted from her shower. In an instant, Ruby vanished in a flurry of rose petals, leaving her robe on one of the beds, and did a quick cycle of the room in the form of a red blur. She reappeared in front of her comrades, triumphantly waving a pair of comfortable-looking slippers that were as red as her scythe. She put them on and tapped her heels together in excitement. "Okay, ready to go!"
Yang whistled and shook her head, smoothing out her hair that had been blown in a million different directions by Ruby's semblance. "I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing you do that."
Team RWBY filed out of the room one by one, led by an overconfident Weiss, who marched off without another word. Yang slowed her pace, falling into step with Ruby at the rear of the group. Oblivious to this, Blake calmly strolled along, staying on Weiss's heels as she read a small book she had somehow produced from beneath the folds of her clothing.
"Hey, Ruby?" Yang muttered, unsure how to act around her sibling now that the beans were spilled. She hesitated, but was relieved when Ruby spoke without the slightest hint of hostility.
"What is it?" Ruby's silver eyes sparkled like little gems, only adding to her charm.
"Is it true? What you said back there. That we're fine now?"
"Of course it is," Ruby stressed, stopping to face her. "Why wouldn't we be?"
"I don't know. I just, uh..." Yang ran a hand through her long hair, hoping doing this would calm her down like it usually did, but no such luck. "I guess I just assumed you'd be mad. I mean, I kept this from you instead of just letting you know who I was right away."
Yang went rigid when Ruby reached out without warning and gently rubbed her shoulder. Back in the Branwen Tribe, displaying emotion was a rare thing set aside only for mourning the fallen, or for births or marriages. Once her initial shock subsided, something in Yang softened. This gesture didn't feel quite so strange coming from Ruby. If anything, Yang was more concerned by how normal it felt.
"I'm not mad at you," Ruby said, smiling up at her. "It must have been hard for you. You only found out about us a few days ago, right?"
Yang nodded, still trying to figure out how she should react. Ruby was taking this well. Much better, in fact, than she would have expected.
"That's not a lot of time to figure things out. I don't know if I'd be able to wrap my head around that, not to mention travel so far to meet me and dad if I was in your shoes." Ruby dropped her hand from Yang's shoulder and stared at her feet, muttering, "So no, I'm not mad at you, Yang."
Yang couldn't believe her ears. When her sister's words had finished sinking in, she let out a heavy sigh. She'd imagined numerous potential outcomes to Ruby finding out the truth about her. Most of them were terrible and ended with Ruby hating or shunning her. This scenario, however, had not occurred to her in the slightest. "I don't really deserve it, but thank you, Ruby."
"No! Don't say that." Ruby shook her head. Her voice lowered to a bitter whisper. "You're not the one I should be mad at."
"What?" Yang asked. Hearing something other than sparkling positivity from her little sister was unsettling, to say the least.
Several paces away, Weiss and Blake had stopped walking and turned back, standing in uncomfortable silence while they waited for their teammates to catch up.
"Any day now, you two!" Weiss cried from the other end of the hall, the echo of her voice resounding in obnoxious waves.
"We're coming!" Yang said through clenched teeth, turning back to Ruby.
"Shhh!" interrupted a new voice, accompanied by a face peeking out from one of the dorm rooms. Yang instantly recognized Nora's bright orange head of hair. "Some of us are trying to rest here, y'know?!" She vanished, shutting the door behind her. Weiss stood simmering beside Blake, who appeared to be engrossed in the world of her book again, but Yang noted that her free hand was clutching her stomach.
"Come on," Ruby said. "We should hurry so we can get back before lights out. First day of classes is tomorrow!"
"Wait, what were you saying a second ago?" Yang asked in an attempt to stop Ruby from changing the subject.
"Oh, don't worry about it," Ruby reassured. A hollow rumble rang out, making her cheeks flush with red. "Sorry! I'm actually really hungry, too."
Yang couldn't lie. She'd worked up an appetite as well after fighting for such a long time in the forest. It's not like she wasn't used to the fight-till-you-drop lifestyle, but that Deathstalker and Nevermore had been pretty big, even compared to what she was used to seeing back home. Rather, the place that used to be home.
"Alright," she relented, chuckling at Ruby's high-pitched whimper. She would find out what her sister's words meant later, when they weren't all starving. "Let's go."
Their dinner wasn't half as awkward as expected. Weiss actually managed to talk about something other than herself, or how annoying she found Ruby to be. Still, she hadn't quite graduated from "ice queen" status yet. That was what the first years were calling her now. A little over a day in, and she'd already made a name for herself as bitchiest freshman on campus? Yang had to admit it was almost impressive, in a way.
When they left the cafeteria, Ruby told the others to go on ahead without her, then peeled off from the group to find a spot to make a quick call. Meanwhile Yang, who had overdone it a bit gorging herself on the amazing spread of food and beverages available in the cafeteria, almost didn't wait for the other girls before rushing off to pee. She cursed her foolish decision to down more than her share of a tangy drink she hadn't learned the name of yet.
On her way back to the dorm room, she spotted Ruby, who was staring at her scroll in the middle of an open space just beyond the main corridor. A face at the center of her scroll's backlit screen grabbed Yang's attention. She didn't know him, but something about him drew her in. Against her better judgment, she slowed her pace and tried to get a better look. Ruby took notice of her.
"Oh, hey," she said, and waved Yang over to stand with her. "There's someone I want you to meet."
Yang screamed inwardly, hiding her thousands of objections behind a plain expression.
Damn. I should've just held it.
Tentatively at first, Yang took steps toward Ruby and the man on the screen. Jet-black, spiky hair, slight stubble around the chin, and eyes that were a deep, wine-red awaited her. In some strange way, he was familiar, but also not. Then it hit Yang who she was looking at, and who was looking back at her with the very same astonishment.
"Yang," Ruby said with a smirk, "meet my Uncle Qrow. Uncle Qrow, this is Yang."
"Yang?" croaked the man's hoarse voice. His eyes remained fixed on her. Try as she might, she couldn't look away either.
"Yeah," Ruby replied, raising an eyebrow. "The friend I told you about in my letter that you just read yesterday. Have you been drinking again?"
Qrow looked away sheepishly, averting eye contact with Yang. "Not in front of the kid, Ruby," he whispered, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.
"That's not a no," Ruby said with an accusatory pout.
"So, um..." Qrow said casually, drowning her out. His eyes darted back to Yang, full of knowing, but conveying just as much discomfort as she felt. "How are you and my niece getting along, Yang?" he asked. She wasn't sure if he was trying to lead her, or how she ought to respond.
"We're managing," she said flatly, letting the conversation deadpan.
What was his story? Was Qrow really a traitor, or had that just been another one of Raven's lies? Yang needed to feel him out first, but for now, she just hoped she could make it through this video call in one piece.
Ruby's scroll buzzed. Qrow vanished from sight. The word 'Dad' appeared on screen, taking with it all hope Yang had of surviving this call. Ruby expertly tapped a couple of buttons, and her uncle's face faded back into view.
"Hey," Ruby said, "Dad's calling. Of course he's late, again. I'll put him on too!"
Although Yang wanted very strongly to object to the way this situation was unfolding, everything was happening much too fast. In an instant, Taiyang's face took up half of the screen, which Ruby quickly turned sideways. Yang was in awe of how the screen adjusted to give ample space to both callers' faces. She'd hardly touched her scroll at all since the moment Glynda passed them out to the students who survived the Emerald Forest test. In only a few short hours, Ruby appeared to have become very skilled at using hers.
"Hello-uh..." Taiyang trailed off, gazing at the unexpected companion at his youngest daughter's side in stunned silence. He collected himself and smiled, redirecting his attention toward Ruby. "Hey! How's my little rose?" he asked, lighting up with enthusiasm. He threw a nervous glance her way, so brief that the less discerning eye could easily have missed it, then returned to smiling at Ruby.
"Just grabbed some food with my team. This is Yang, who I wrote to you about."
Taiyang gulped and nodded, a wooden smile plastered across his face that Yang knew hid layers of a multitude of emotions. All of which she, too, was feeling and had felt for the better part of a week.
"Oh, that's great!" he replied.
"We were about to head back to our dorm," Ruby said, gesturing to her sister, but then her expression changed to one Yang hadn't seen before. One that was almost entirely unemotional, save for the half-lidded eyes that were staring daggers into the electronic images of her uncle and father. "But first," she added, "I want to ask both of you something."
"S-sure?" Taiyang said slowly, clearly confused by this sudden shift in atmosphere. Qrow agreed to hear his niece out too, but it was easy to tell by his nervous laughter that he was on edge. Ruby, on the other hand, looked unamused.
"Why have you been lying to me?"