"Hey Blake, can I ask you a question?"

Closing her book, amber eyes curiously peered at the caped redhead. "Sure, what is it?"

Ruby shifted in her chair, fingers laced together for a second before breaking apart, the younger teen fingers fiddling with a pencil. "Do you ever wonder what will happen in the future?"

Blake's brow furrowed at the question. "Sometimes, sure." Actually that's not right; I rarely think about it. In all honesty, Blake's plans for the future were vague at best, something that worried her whenever she thought about it. "Yourself?"

"Other than being a huntress?" Blake nodded causing Ruby to shrug. "I don't know, it's kinda all I want to do." From everything that Blake knew about her, it made sense. After all, this is the girl that geeks out over hunter's weapons whenever she gets the chance.

Yet it didn't seem to be the end to it, especially considering that Ruby looked… agitated. It wasn't often when she looked like that. Worried, sure, but agitated not so much. "What's on your mind, Ruby?"

"…" Ruby continued to twiddle her fingers, entirely focused on the action for nearly a minute as amber eyes worriedly gazed at her. Finally silver eyes looked up at her, "After we graduate, what are you going to do?"

"Hmm." Blake tapped her fingers against her chin. "I want to…" The Faunus sighed, this is going to sound stupid to say out loud, but here goes nothing. "I want to make the Faunus be viewed as equals, make it so that we don't live in ghettos or are looked as different… I want to have equality."

"Oh." Ruby's mouth went wide before becoming a neutral line. "That sounds really hard to do."

"It will be." Blake's head gave a slight tilt. "Why do you ask?"

"…" Once more Blake was greeted with silence from the normally talkative girl. She was more than happy to wait for Ruby to speak up however; if she'll give a reason eventually, if she doesn't want to talk about it, then why bring it up? Even if she didn't want to answer, it wasn't like Blake was going to force her to, there was no reason to make Ruby feel uncomfortable. So she waited.

"I've always wanted to be a huntress." Ruby finally stated slowly after several minutes. "My parents were both hunters, Uncle Qrow is a huntsman."

Ruby sighed. "I guess I just always knew I was going to be one. It's just…" Ruby gave another drawn out sigh. "When we graduate, Weiss will probably be doing something with her family's company. Yang's always wanted to go on adventures by herself and you'll be probably not huntressing with me either." The smaller teen frowned. "I just always imagined that'd I'd have these awesome people to hunt with after we finished training… except we're probably going to go our own separate ways, aren't we?"

Blake had never thought of it like that; the reason she'd decided to become a huntress was as a stepping stone towards equality for the Faunus. By being a huntress, it'd afford Blake with certain amount of legitimacy that was unique to the being able to fight Grimm. When she'd signed up for Beacon Academy the thought of what was going to happen was very low on her priority list. Not that she wasn't worried about getting along with them, but post-graduation still seemed very VERY far away for Blake.

"It's not like we're going to abandon you Ruby." Blake gently laid a hand on the teen's arm. "We're still a team, no matter what. Yang is never going to abandon you, you two are sisters. And Weiss is you partner, she isn't going to forget you any time soon… she just…" Blake struggled to find the proper phrase, "…may not be able to go on missions very often is all."

"I guess so…" Ruby's downcast eyes told Blake that the teen was still unconvinced, the worry was still very clear in her posture, far more rigid and stiff then it normally was, i.e. very un-Ruby like. I guess I can only give her the only answer for the person I know best: myself.

"I'm still going to be a huntress too." Blake's voice took on a softer tone. "Just because what I want to do isn't exactly word for word being a huntress, doesn't mean I won't be one." A small smile stretched the corners of her mouth upwards ever so slightly. "Why else would I be here?"

"…you're not wrong." Ruby muttered, looking up, a small smile of her own across her face. "I guess I was just worrying for nothing." Ruby let a sigh, and it looked to Blake like the tension was leaving her body with it. "Thanks Blake."

"It was no problem." Still, that left a question in Blake's head; why was Ruby worried about that all the sudden. "How come you are worried about it all? Graduation is years away still."

"Well, we just finished our first semester, the first big thing for training, y'know? Like we actually got closer to graduation now by a whole semester!" Ruby's hands swept out in a huge arc. "So it just got on mind about the future n'stuff."

"That makes sense, but I don't think you need to worry about it for a while Ruby." Blake couldn't help but raise a single eyebrow as a silly smile quirked across her lips. "Though if we don't back to studying we might not be graduating at all."

The sudden rustle of paper as rose petals floated down across their table forced Blake to suppress a chuckle at Ruby's now frantic studying.

AU: Honestly this was a surprise chapter that came out of the blue. I really wasn't expecting to write this, this morning. Oh well.

Here is the promised Ladybug! I may do a chapter on Friday if I have some time after doing a Spoon Equality chapter! I feel like the concept is strong on this one, but the execution is weak… though I'm discovering I'm just generally feeling dissatisfied with my stuff as of late, oh well, it is what it is.

Two news items today;

First, I totally forgot to mention this last time, but Dilation broke 150,000 views a little while ago, in fact I've just broken 155,000 views a few minutes ago haha.

Second, for those of you who read my other stuff, Acceptance is up for fanfic of the year on the RWBY subreddit, when voting starts I'll have directions in all my updates for that week (next week) on how to vote if you feel so inclined :P

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!