Blueberries {an RWBY novel}

Melania and Miltia

The bus smelled like gasoline and lavender. When I stepped up the stairs of the door, a brown leather suitcase in each hand, I was briefly overcome by the stifling scents of a floral air freshener, which hung from the front mirror. The driver told me she used an extra powerful one to try to cancel out the stench of the gas. I gave her a half-hearted smile, and quickly made my way to the back of the vehicle, as far away from the source of the stench as I could.

It was six a.m., and the sun was just beginning to rise. The days since my parents announced I would be shipped off to the farm had passed quickly, and I had refused to speak to either of them. I had stopped attempting to control my anger, and it would only take one breathy word from my mother's mouth to set me off. In the morning, when the bus arrived to take me away, I walked past them in the kitchen and got on without a goodbye. It served them right, sending me to the farm without my consent, after years of effort on my part.

Several times, Yang would say that she was always angry about being punished by her father, but knew deep down inside that he was only doing what he thought was best. And I would agree with her, saying I knew that, despite my anger, my parents were trying to look out for me.

As I settled down into the torn gray seat, I didn't feel it. The small recognition that they were trying to help.

They wanted me at the farm. They always had. Just... not because it would be good for me.

I shook the thought away, half bored with it, and half dismissive. As a kid I learned to shut down certain feelings, especially those of paranoia or mistrust, by naming them 'angsty teenage bullshit.' At the time I thought it made me self-aware. I don't know about that anymore.

In a jolt of smooth motion, the bus began to drive, and I leaned my head against the cold window pane, trying to ignore the occasional bumps as they passed me by. There was nobody else on the bus besides me and the driver, and as such it was eerily quiet. No music played over the speakers, and because of the early hour, very few cars drove past on the street. I was still tired, and I knew that the drive would be several hours long, as the farm was out of state, somewhere in rural Oregon. There would be stops along the way, as well, to pick up all the other girls who'd be joining me.

Not entirely in spite of myself, I drifted off to sleep.

-

I have this memory of my mother, standing in the dining room of our house. Her hair was matted, her clothes covered in dirt and grime, as though she had not washed herself in days. She was facing away from me, she was always facing away from me. I called out for her, and she did not turn. Instead, she sat down in the floor, muttering the secrets of the universe under her breathe, and I couldn't explain how, but I knew that, if I forced her to turn and look at me, she would die. So I just walked away. Leaving her there, as she sat, her real self, before ghosts I could not see, speaking with a force unknown to my mind.

-

When I woke up, there were three new girls on the bus. One, with dark black hair and a red dress, sat in the row across from me, next to another girl in white who looked to be her sister. Towards the front, a girl with short, green hair sat. I couldn't see any of her besides the back of her head. Lifting my head from the window, I blinked sleep away, taking a moment to adjust to the brightness of day, now newly arrived and quite forceful in making itself known.

"She's aliiive," the girl in white said, drawing out the 'i.' "Miltia thought you might be dead."

"I was just joking," the girl in red -Miltia, I suppose- replied, not bothering to turn her head to look at me.

"Pardon?" I asked, the hazy buzz of having just woken up still clouding my mind.

"You've been asleep for, like, three hours. And that's not counting before we got here, which was at, like, seven."

"Oh." I paused, "And who are you?"

The girl in white looked at me, her eyes halfway hooded, "I'm Melania, and my sister is Miltia." Miltia continued to look out the window, not acknowledging me.

"Are you guys also-"

"Headed to blueberry hell? Yeah, we are," Melania shifted so that she was turned towards me, "Miltia got us sent on our way after she got in a screaming match with Daddy. He says we have to learn to behave 'calmly and properly,'" she made little air quotations, "'we're ladies after all.' What bullshit," she looked me up and down, "why are you here?"

I hesitated, then answered truthfully, "I beat up a kid at school."

She raised an appraising eyebrow, "Damn. What did he do to you?"

"Talked about somebody I knew in a bad way."

She frowned, clearly looking for a more specific answer, but she didn't press, "Anyways, Miltia is still bitter from her tantrum the other day, so I've had no good company. And that girl up front won't even tell me her name. She's all mysterious and shit. It's been really boring."

"Oh, uh, sorry?" I wasn't sure how to respond.

"You know, for somebody who beat up a kid you seem kind of skittish."

"Fuck off."

"That's better, you should assert yourself." She smiled prettily, and despite my slight irritation towards her, I couldn't help but feel that she'd be good company on the farm. She seemed to float with an air of confidence, the type of girl who you'd admire in school because the world didn't seem to phase her. In a way, it reminded me of Yang.

"So, uh, why are you going to the farm?"

"I already told you."

"You told me why your sister is going, but not you."

"Oh," she shrugged, "we're, like, twins, so out parents always make us do things together. Honestly it's really tiring, because whenever she gets punished I get punished too. My family doesn't know how to separate us."

"That sucks."

"Yeah, it does."

The bus hit a bump in the road. "How long is this trip again?"

"A few more hours," Melania answered, "we have a few more stops to go. A lot of girls across the state get sent here, and they're all, like, super spread out or whatever."

"Damn."

"Yeah. You know, I hear they make you wear uniforms. I hope they're cute, or the place will just be even more hellish."

"I don't think a farm is going to care about being aesthetically pleasing."

She crosses her arms, pouting, "Yeah, probably not. Maybe I can find a way to make mine cute though. Miltia is going to be a fashion designer, I bet she could help me, if she ever gets out of her mood."

"I'm not in a mood," Miltia protested, though she still didn't deign to look at me.

"Yes you are," Melania rebutted, "anyways, she'll get out of her funk later, and then she'll be all friendly again. Ignore her on this bus ride though, she gets rude when she's moody." I wondered how Melania could say all of this in front of her sister like it was nothing, and I wondered more at how Miltia didn't deny or protest what she was saying, just kept her gaze fixed out her window.

For the rest of the ride, Melania talked to me about her old school, the boys she had dated, the girls she had dated, and all the triumphs she'd had on the cheerleading team. She seemed a bit petty, and a slight bit shallow, but I didn't mind, and honestly I wasn't going to be one to judge. More girls arrived on the bus over time. One girl was tall with pastel pink hair, another set of girls arrived in a group, whispering to each other frantically. The final girl, however, was a tan, freckled girl with a dark brown ponytail, who sat at the very front of the bus in the seat behind the driver. She was pretty, incredibly pretty, and I felt my heart beat a bit faster at the sight of her. She caught my eye for a moment, and winked, though she didn't introduce herself. I nearly blushed.

When the bus finally steered to a stop, Melania had just finished telling me about some girl she'd gotten in a fight with at her job. The bus, which had been full of the soft, jumbled noise of groups of girls whispering to one another, went quiet. Next to me, Melania sighed, "Welcome to Hell."