The Stained Festival

I'm Fine, and That Is a Total Lie

Blake sat with her head planted on the table, slowly letting out his breath. One, she was tired enough to consider falling asleep in the dining hall. Two, she was not in the mood for anyone, to which she was thankful that Neptune and Scarlet had steered their energetic and loud team leader to the other side of Beacon; Sage, on the other hand, had gone off, brought her back some food and left.

It was not a good start to the day.

Laying on the table her scroll beeped. Blake scowled as she lifted her head If it was another message from the police she was going to leave Yang in jail.

Taking up the screen of the device was a message, but luckily for her partner, it was not from the police. It was from miss Goodwitch asking if she could come to her office later to report on her teammates. With a sigh, Blake banged her head back down on the table. Definitely not a good day.

"You know, if you keep repeating the same action every morning you're going to end up putting a hole in the table."

Black stifled a scream and shot upright, a look of alarm on her face and hand going for Gambol Shroud currently sitting in her locker.

None of the people sitting at the table, having not been there a second ago, flinched or so much as moved. The person sitting next to Blake, the kangaroo Faunus Ace Williams, leader of Team Alternate, held up his hands.

"Sorry, I thought you noticed we were here when you looked up at your scroll. Didn't mean to scare ya."

"We just wanted to see how you were Blake," Ace's twin, Pastel Williams, said with a gentle smile. 6'1 with a lean build Pastel had soft fair skin, shoulder length blue-grey hair and soft pastel gray eyes. One side of her face and neck was marred with small crisscrossing scars. Growing from the top of her head were a pair of fuzzy blue-grey kangaroo ears, every now and then turning to face different directions. Her feet were longer than humans by half a foot and was slightly thinner.

The Faunus girl wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a red woolen vest, a blue plaid skirt, plain blue stockings and a pair of white sneakers designed to suit her kangaroo feet. On her back was a pastel gray seven pointed star with a love heart cut out of the center and crystal cutouts in each of the points. On her hands, she wore a pair of gray elbow length gloves with three golden spiked bands with a bar connecting them running down the side.

"You look tired."

"I am. Ruby had another nightmare around 3 or 4 in the morning. Took me about an hour to calm her down and get her back to bed. I was just dozing off when Yang stormed in without a word and went straight to bed. I haven't been able to get back to sleep since."

The twin looked to each other with worried glances. This wasn't the first time that the blonde brawler had spent one or more nights away from Beacon only to return in the morning, despite the numerous detentions and even the threat of expulsion. Not that she seemed to care or even notice. Nothing could stop her.

The three Faunus sighed as Blake rested her head back on the table. "Do you have anything planned for today Blake?"

"Ruby has a meeting with Ozpin at 12, then an appointment with Ironwood at 2 for her arm. After that Goodwitch wants to put her through an exercise to see if she can still handle being a Huntress."

The twins shared another glance.

"Why don't you go get some sleep? Ace and I can take care of Ruby."

Blake shook her head.

"I'll be fine."

"Blake, you're exhausted. If I had a Dust to knock you out I would put you to sleep right now."