Un Rose par Tout Autre Nom

"And then there was that time that I was playing guitar for her," Jaune said to Ruby as the two of them sat in team RWBY's room, conversing back and forth.

"Oh yeah, I remember that," Ruby said, nodding. "I'll be honest, that wasn't a very good attempt. I mean, it's nice that you can play guitar, but your singing is rather subpar, you know."

"What's your object of comparison?"

"Uh...Weiss," Ruby said with an excited nod.

Jaune sighed heavily. "Yeah, it is kinda hard with that comparison."

She patted him on the shoulder. "Hey, it's not all bad. Like I said, you can play guitar. That attracts lots of girls."

"Just not Weiss," he replied before he laughed suddenly. "Or you for that matter."

Ruby giggled. "Yeah, no man can get to me."

The door opened, and in came Weiss; she'd been out running errands. She spotted Ruby and Jaune laughing and talking to each other, and she gave the two of them a quick glance, smiling all the while. "Do I even want to know what you two are talking about?"

"Behold, Weiss!" Ruby declared. "We are the founding members of our own club!"

"And today is its first meeting!" Jaune added.

Weiss chuckled. "You two are acting like children, you know that? And what, dare I ask, is the name of this club?"

Ruby and Jaune stood together and struck a pose. "The We've Been Rejected By Weiss club!" they announced in unison. Weiss rolled her eyes. Ruby smiled widely as she continued. "If recent trends keep up, we may have more members than we can keep up with."

"That's not very nice, you know," Weiss said with a slight frown. "I don't reject everybody, you know."

"Really?" Jaune said. "Who was the last person you dated?"

Weiss went to open her mouth to speak, but halted before a sound escaped. Deep in thought, she realized that her social status kept most people from asking her out. "W-well...two cases a trend does not make!" she finally blurted.

"Aww," Ruby said. "Aren't you adorable! Weissy's never had a boyfriend before!" She seemed to bounce towards Weiss before she started patting the heiress's head as though she were a rabbit. "There there," she said.

"N-neither have you!" Weiss grumbled. "You've become very liberal with your words ever since you came out of the closet." After a moment she became slightly irritated by Ruby's petting and she flailed her arms to get Ruby off. "What about you two? For someone who's managed to keep her sexuality a secret from even her own family, I find it hard to believe that you've dated anyone, Ruby."

Ruby hesitated before a nervous smile crept onto her lips. "W-well...when you put it that way."

"And Jaune...well, I suppose I shouldn't really express my opinion on your love life. It would be rude."

Jaune frowned slightly. "Do you even realize when you're being mean to people?"

Weiss smirked. "It's payback for teasing me."

Ruby shook her head. "Yang's been a terrible influence on my team," she whispered to Jaune.

"If it's any consolation, Nora's gonna force us all to get diabetes before graduation," Jaune whispered back.

"I worry about you two," Weiss said. "I dread to know what sort of conversations you two will have about me."

"Only that we find you attractive and how awesome we think you are!" Ruby declared.

"So is it a support group or a fan club? I don't get it."

"Uh...a bit of both?" Jaune suggested.

"It can be both," Ruby nodded.

Weiss sighed heavily with a disdainful look. "Do whatever you want." She turned back towards to door. "I'm going to get dinner. You can join me in the cafeteria when you're meeting is done."

"Ca~n do!" Weiss would never admit it, but a smile crept upon her lips as she left the room. Unknown to Weiss, as she made her exit, Ruby's scroll beeped with a message.

Thus had been the lives of RWBY and JNPR during the past two weeks since Ruby so bravely announced her sexuality to her friends. Not a day has passed since where Weiss didn't feel guilty about rejecting her best friend, but just as Yang told her she never avoided Ruby. If anything, the girls were closer now than they ever were before.

Still, even though Ruby made jokes about it now, Weiss knew that deep down she still hurt. The pain of rejection cuts deeper than any blade or claw ever could. Weiss might not really care for Jaune all too much, but she did appreciate him as a friend, especially now. Jaune and Ruby had become fast friends since the day they arrived at Beacon, and Ruby's revelation made them grow even closer as friends. It seemed that the two had more in common than Weiss ever really knew. Sure, Jaune wasn't gay, but everything else he and Ruby shared in common. In fact, if Ruby had been straight she probably would have wanted to date the blonde knight in training. Weiss laughed inwardly at the mental image of the two of them together. The socially awkward atmosphere of every dinner date would be cringe worthy.

Perhaps someday Ruby would find a woman to return her affection. Weiss was sorry that she could not, but the fact remained that Weiss wasn't hardwired that way. Sexuality isn't usually a choice; you're either one sexuality or another with several possible outcomes. Weiss drew what could be considered the "biologically correct" straw in the matter. Nature intended sexual attraction to exist between the opposite sexes. In her mind, homosexuality was a mutation; something happening on the biological level that normally wouldn't happen. However, after getting to know Ruby and learning of her sexual orientation, she now felt that to be a cold, heartless, and thoughtless way to describe homosexuality. While she wouldn't retract those thoughts, she did add to them.

You love who you love, and you should never apologize for it. In that regard, Weiss was very thankful for Ruby's affection, and she honestly hoped that she would one day find such a woman to return the girl's love. She deserves that much.

Ruby stood on the roof of her dorm by herself. The sun had long since set, and the crumbling moon was rising high into the sky, casting a beautiful pale light upon the world below. Ruby bathed herself in the moonlight, lost in her own little world with thoughts of her friends. More than once she thought of Weiss. Though rejected as she was, she couldn't let go of her love for Weiss. Not just yet. She was finding it easier to live with her feelings now that she had expressed them, and given time she was confident that she could move on from Weiss and find another love. But for now, her heart belonged to the heiress, and the thought that she was here tonight, beneath this very moonlight, made her soul soar with happiness. That must be true love, she thought. Even if I can't have her, I'm still happy that she's in my world.

But she wasn't here to be introspective. No, she had received a message from one of her friends to meet up here in private. Why, she couldn't imagine. But, as Ruby would always claim to be a good friend, she dutifully obeyed the request and waiting patiently for the one who contacted her.

"Did you wait long?" came the voice of Pyrrha from behind.

Ruby smiled and turned. "Nah, it's fine. I kinda like it here at night. The moon...it gets me thinking."

Pyrrha returned the smile. "What about?"

Ruby turned again and stared with wonder at the moon. "Remember how I said I like fairy tales?" Pyrrha nodded, though Ruby couldn't see it. "I grew up with tons of them. Many my dad would read to me, sometimes Yang would read them, and occasionally my uncle Qrow would tell me the odd story. But then there was my mother..." Ruby grew somber for a moment before she smiled again. "She ignited my love for fairy tales. But, she was never content to just read them to me. She felt that the same stories had been told too many times. Instead, she'd make them up for me. Every night was a different story that she would adlib. Granted, each story had a lesson or a meaning, she would simply tell a story around the message that she had in mind for the night."

"To this day, I don't remember enough about the stories to confidently tell them again. I get the basic concepts, but that's it. All but one, that is. There was one story that has stuck with me every since I was a little girl. My mother told it to me just one time, but I remember every little word to it." She turned to face Pyrrha again. "Would you like to hear it?"

Pyrrha approached with a smile, postponing the thought that she was the one who wanted to talk to Ruby. "I'd love to."

Ruby nodded. "There was once, in the days long since passed, an archeologists grandson. He was young and naive, but he loved history, and the ruins of lost civilizations. The stories he could learn from them drove him into deeper and darker pits, where he'd encounter evil beasts who lurked the shadows. He didn't care for his own safety, so long as he could find out about the past. He knew that once it was told that mankind had come from the moon, and that an ancient goddess brought them down to Remnant to save them from a calamity. It was that calamity that shattered the moon. He didn't know if it was true, but every ruin he explored pointed in this direction. He had to know the truth, so he hunted and explored even more."

"One day, he saw an ancient spire off on the distance. A shining, ocean blue was the color of its stone, and it pointed directly at the moon. He was about to race towards it when a pale white light erupted from the tower and stretched all the way to the moon above; inside of that light was an even brighter ball of light that descended from the heavens. He ran into the spire to investigate."

"And inside he found a girl. She was the most beautiful creature ever to grace this world, and he knew that she had come from the moon. She was the daughter of the goddess, and she had come to protect Remnant from a calamity, similar to the one that shattered the moon in the first place. He vowed to help her in her quest, and together the two of them stopped the calamity." She looked at Pyrrha. "It goes more in depth than that, but I'm just giving you the basic rundown."

Pyrrha laughed lightly. "That's fine. Do continue."

Ruby smiled. "During their time together, the young man fell in love with the girl. She, however, had to return to the moon once the world was saved. She didn't want to, but she had sworn to her mother, the goddess, that she would patiently await mankind's return to the moon. The boy simply couldn't live without her. He embarked on an epic quest that took him across the globe in search of a way to see her again, until her found another ruin similar to the spire where he first met his love. Through that tower's magic, he was transported to the moon where he would spend the rest of his life with his love."

"And thanks to that boy, mankind did return to the moon," Ruby said with a smile. "I know my mother made it up, but I like to imagine that if it were true, that the two of them are still having their happily ever after somewhere up there." She and Pyrrha both looked up and stared at the moon. "Mother never named it, but I liked to call it The Lunar Princess."

Pyrrha nodded. "It's a very lovely story," she stared into Ruby's eyes. "That must be why you're such a romantic."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Pffft. Me? A romantic?"

"I mean it. I can see it in your eyes. I know alot of people think of sexual orientation at face value of sexual intention...that is to say, who you want to have sex with. They never consider that it's possible to actually love someone. I see that in you. You have no lecherous thoughts towards Weiss. You genuinely love her with all your heart."

Ruby blushed, and added jokingly, "Well...it's not fair to say that I have no lecherous thoughts of Weiss. We're all entitled to our dirty thoughts, after all." Ruby looked to Pyrrha. "Does that have something to do with why you called me here?"

"Sort of," Pyrrha said.

"You're...you're not about to come out on me, are you? Because, I'll be honest, you're really attractive and all, but my heart belongs to Weiss."

It was Pyrrha's turn to blush. "N-no, Ruby, I'm very much heterosexual. But, I did want to ask you're opinion on something."

"Oh, alright. What's up?"

"Would you...would find me attractive? Not in the friendly way either like friends normally do, but actually attractive."

Ruby arched an eyebrow. "I...don't understand the question."

Pyrrha sighed. "Do you think...do you think I'm...er...sexy. As in, assuming Weiss wasn't your goal, would you see me as girlfriend material?"

Ruby froze. "I...uh...really don't think..."

"Ruby, please...just be honest with me. I need to know."

"Well...if you really want to know." She cleared her throat. "As far as your personality is concerned, you are kind hearted and very sweet. You like to help people and you put others before yourself. You'd be a tough girlfriend because you'd be very difficult to simply do favors for and hard to buy gifts for. Otherwise, yes, I think I'd like you as a girlfriend."

"And...physically?"

Ruby blushed. "Uh...specifics?"

"If you can."

"Personally, your boobs are a little too big to my liking, but you have a wonderful skin tone, you have a wonderful balance of body fat and muscle tone to the point where you're a healthy weight without looking like a chiseled statue of godly muscle. Never was too big on overly muscular girls. In fact, I think too much muscle looks ugly on guys too, but that's just me. Your hair is very silky and pretty, the pony tail is to die for, and your eyes are this beautiful shade of emerald. To be brutally honest, if I were a sex fiend, you'd possibly be on my list. Thankfully, I'm both not a sex fiend, and I'm a virgin...so there's that." Ruby blushed heavily with a nervous laugh. "Probably didn't need to add that last bit."

Pyrrha nodded. "Well, I am too, so don't worry about it."

"So...why did you want to know my opinion?"

Pyrrha sighed. "You and Jaune are a lot alike. I mean, you're a better fighter, but your personalities are pretty similar."

"ADHD and social awkwardness will do that," Ruby joked.

"Agreed. But it makes me wonder...if you can view me as a possible romantic partner, then why can't Jaune?"

"Oh," Ruby said. "Oh~~~, that's what this is about." She gave a smile similar to a Cheshire cat. "Is my little Pyrrha working up the nerve to finally tell the love of her life how she feels?"

Pyrrha shook her head. "I want to. I really, really want to...but he's got his eyes on Weiss for some reason."

Ruby scoffed. "I don't blame him." Glancing back at Pyrrha, she immediately gave an apologetic look. "B-but, I mean, you really, really deserve to have your feelings noticed. I know what it's like to bottle those kinds of feelings up for a long time. It starts to get to you after a while."

"That it does," Pyrrha agreed. "What should I do?"

"Do what I did," the brunette said flatly. "Open up and tell him how you really feel. Don't drop subtle hints like you have been, don't use an excuse to explain away your behavior. Just flat out tell him that you love him."

"But...what if he rejects me?" Pyrrha asked without thinking.

Ruby almost became angry. Almost. "That's the risk we forlorn lovers take, Pyrrha. I don't have Weiss for my own like I hoped I would. She rejected me. But there's an old saying; it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Trust me, regardless of how it turns out you will get absolution from either result. One way or the other, you'll get closure, and you'll feel a lot better for it. Trust me."

Pyrrha nodded. "Th-thank you, Ruby. I'll...I'll think about."

Pyrrha turned to walk away, but her expression seemed kind of sad to Ruby. Ruby leapt to catch up to her. "Hey, Pyrrha!" she called, gaining the red head's attention. Pyrrha turned, and Ruby did the unexpected. She placed her lips upon Pyrrha's and gave her a gentle kiss. Pyrrha was taken aback by the gesture and didn't know how to react. Ruby parted and Pyrrha stepped back with a blush on her face and a hand on her lips. "Sorry," Ruby said sheepishly. "But you didn't look happy. I thought I'd cheer you up."

"R-ruby," Pyrrha said nervously. "That was my first..."

"Ah ah ah!" Ruby said with her finger up, flashing a award winning smile. "No it wasn't. That was just...motivation. Think of it as practice for Jaune. Let's face it; he'd be a fool to reject you."

Pyrrha smiled. "Thank you, Ruby. Good night."

"Nighty night!"

With that, the two girls parted ways. Pyrrha returned inside where she contemplated her options. Ruby remained and stared longingly at the moon. Someday, I'll get my happily ever after, she thought. What's a girl to do but hope. She turned and entered the building, working her way down to her dorm to go to bed.

But neither she nor Pyrrha were aware of Cardin Winchester sitting on his window sill, listening in on their conversation. He hadn't heard their last exchange or their kiss, but he heard enough. He grinned at the thought of seeing Ruby the next day. We got ourselves a queer in our class.

La vie est une fleur dont l'amour est le miel. [Life is a flower of which love is the honey]

Author's Note

Five months since I first wrote the first chapter. I am sorry for the wait. I had toyed and toyed and toyed with continuing this story for ages. I now have a story to tell, and a clear message. Also, when I said I was going to end it with a proverb in chapter 1's update, that's a typo. I meant that each chapter will end with a proverb. Namely a proverb related to love and from the language that the chapter is named from.

I don't know how often I'll update this. I've still got several other fics I'm working on. I swear to God I overwork myself. How many fics am I even writing? I've lost count. Including my original work, I really don't know how much writing I do in a week's time. I write everything. If I had a final word count for everything I've written this year alone I think I'd shit some bricks and build a house.

Anyway, I hope you like this next installment in the Individualism series...that's what I'm gonna refer to this as. Mainly because A Rose By Any Other Name is too damn much to type over and over. And, who's to say that I won't write a sequel when its over with? My message is to preach individuality; there's no such thing as normal, as we are all unique and normal would contradict that truth. Homosexuality is just one aspect of being unique. There are almost an infinite number of possible stories to come from individuality. I heavily believe in expressing our individuality as human beings. I think it comes with the territory of being an author, which is a variant of an artist. I am an artist, imagination is my canvas, and words are my paint. Or is it the other way around? I think it works either way. Am I drifting off topic? Damn, I really do write my author's notes in the same manner that I actually speak.

Fun Fact: I'm looking into getting a tattoo. Why? Well, 'why the hell not' is my question.

Fun Fact 2.0: Forgot the mention this, but Ruby's little "fairy tale" is an actual story, though not in the written format. It was the first story that I ever fell in love with, and I carry it in my heart every day. Everything I say, do, and write can find a root that leads back to that story. It's an old PlayStation game from either the late 90's, or 2000. I can't remember. I was a wee lad back then. The game is called Lunar 2: Eternal Blue. It's actually my favorite game of all time. Nothing in this world will ever beat it in my mind. I admit that there are better games out there...but in the words of Captain Scott from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: "It's like the first time you fall in love. More will come, but you'll never love a woman quite like that again."

Sequentem tempus. [Until next time.]