Red Like Roses

Chapter 1: tattered bonds

It was Winter. Almost two months after the attack on Beacon, and yet the nightmares kept coming. Ruby could still see the dead, soulless eyes of a shattered Penny and the moans from agonizing pain and disintegration of Pyrrha. The gruesome images haunted her as she slept, that is, if she could even get to sleep. So many questions and concerns left unanswered, most of them for her sister. As far as she knew, Yang hadn't even moved sense they last spoke. When Ruby passed by her room, Yang was a mess. She was exhausted and starving, yet the apple on her table was within her grasp. She just stared out the window. Half starved, half asleep.

Ruby finally had the courage to talk with her sister. She walked over to see Yang. Staring out the window, dusty apple on the table. "Yang, what's wrong?" Yang saw her sister in the window's reflection but said nothing. "Yang?" Still no reply. "Come on, Yang! Where's that carefree, perky, take-on-the-world sister I know and lo-"

"She's dead"

Ruby was shocked. She couldn't believe what she had just heard. "She's dead. Gone. And she's not coming back. So why don't you just forget you came in here?" There was no restrain in her words. "Yang...things will get be-"

"NO THEY WON'T!!!!" Yang yelled at Ruby with a fist and scarlet eyes. "Pyrrha's dead, Penny's destroyed, Beacon's gone, Weiss was taken, and Bla-" She stopped. Her fist collapsed, and her eyes shut. Tears emerged from the closed eye lids. "And Blake ran. No warning, no waiting, no goodbye. She left me without my arm. SHE DIDN'T EVEN STAY TO HELP!!!" Her voice was a painful hybrid of sorrow and anger. Ruby stepped toward her. "Yang...no. She felt terrible. Worse than anyone there. She cried and pleated 'I'm sorry' over and over. She didn't want to leave you, Yang. She had a reason to leave. We just don't know what it is yet."

    Yang's eyes widened. Ruby could see her expression vividly. Realization, guilt, sorrow. Her eyelids shut again to block the monsoon of tears approaching. Ruby went to her sister and gave her a comforting hug, Yang let it all out. "Ruby...I'm...I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have yelled..I just...I"

    "I know. I miss her too."