Overture

Ruby shot up in her bed as if propelled by a blast from Crescent Rose, a shout on her lips that died as she quickly recognized her surroundings. She sighed as she looked around the moonlit room that had been her home for two semesters now, a hand going to rest on her forehead as she tried to collect herself from the nightmare that had just wracked her sleep. After resting there for a few moments she moved to the edge of her bed, the ill secured structure shifting a bit as she softly slid out of the bed and to the floor. It was only then, as she caught a glint of yellow bathed in moonlight near the door, that she realized she wasn't the only one awake.

"Are you alright?" Yang asked softly, sure not to wake the other two team members who were still resting peacefully in their beds. She was dressed in her night clothes, a simple pair of black shorts and her orange tank top.

Ruby nodded and started moving towards the door. "Of course." She said trying to force her usual cheerfulness. "Just gotta use the restroom, I drank way too much milk before bed." She said scratching at the back of her head as she tried to push past Yang through the door, only to be stopped by a hand on her shoulder.

"You're talking in your sleep you know, and it's been getting worse recently." She said looking over Ruby, only noticing then that her sister's form was covered in a light sheen of sweat, reflecting the moonlight. "I know that we saw some things, last week, during the breach. None of us were ready for that, but keeping it bottled up isn't going to make it better." She said softly, her lavender eyes running over the back of Ruby's stock still form in concern.

Ruby shook her head. "It's, not that." She said softly. "The dreams always get worse when it gets close to, you know." She said looking down at the floor, her voice almost a whisper, barely audible with her back to Yang still.

Yang winced, how could she have been so stupid? How could she have forgotten? It was just, with the Breach, and the debriefings, and the preparation for the festival and the tournament it had, slipped her mind. She shook her head as the guilt of forgetting something like that sunk into her heart. "I... We could, see about getting you some medications. I know there are ones out there that help people sleep without dreams." She said squeezing her hand that still rested on Ruby's shoulder. "You don't have to go through this alone, I'm here. We're all here." She added.

Ruby shook her head violently, the force of the motion surprising Yang enough for her to back away and drop her hand to her side. "No, no medications Yang, I, even though the dreams are, I still want them." She murmurs, her thoughts and sentences broken as she steped into the doorway. "The dreams are the only time I can remember her face anymore."

With that Ruby was gone, disappearing into the darkness of the hallway, leaving Yang the only one still awake in the moonlit room. "Ruby..." She called, her voice hardly a whisper as she stood there, staring at the empty door.

The tremendous thump knocked Ruby from her slumber and echoed through the library, causing her to jump and look around confused as she searched for the source of the sound. After some searching her eyes came to rest on the 'procured' binder that she had used for the day before the semester had started, and behind it a smugly satisfied Weiss.

"I finally found it!" She proclaimed, a fist raised to the sky in victory, the loud shout causing Ruby to groan and rub her head while Yang and Blake looked up from their books. They had all decided to meet here to study during their free period as next week was exams and their activities over the semester had left them a bit behind the curve.

"Oh, Weiss, I didn't realize you were looking for that." Ruby said with a yawn, her hand in front of her mouth as Weiss glared at her. "If you wanted more super awesome fun day activities, all you had to do was ask."

Weiss released a hmph, pointing at the crossed out words at the top which read 'Vytal Festival Activities, Property of Weiss Schnee.' "I had plenty of activities in this book already without your help, thank you very much, and now I have to clean out all of yours." She stated, flipping open the rather large binder, papers flying from it in a large cloud as Weiss went to work.

Yang took the moment to look over Ruby as Weiss shouted over some ploy Ruby had once created to have them sky dive off the Vale communications tower. Ruby looked tired, and drained. Gone was the typically cheerful girl who was always happy and ready to go and replacing it was, well a creature that resembled Blake after her White Fang meeting run in with Torchwick.

It was Blake however who brought an end to the argument that had been forming between Weiss and Ruby over whose the binder truly was. "What is this?" She asked slowly, her quiet voice somehow cutting through the argument with ease.

Ruby froze, her arm outstretched and hand placed firmly on Weiss's face. She looked and instantly saw what page it was and blanched, turning paler than even Weiss for a moment. "I, uh, that's nothing! Just diagrams!" She said with a forced chuckle, reaching out and trying to snatch the drawing covered page away from Blake.

"No, that's not what this is at all." She says softly, pushing the paper down on the table where the entire team could see. The outskirts of the page were covered in rather simple doodles, and some were indeed diagrams of odd plans that Ruby had tried to come up with for their best day ever, but the most prominent thing on the page was a very well done pencil sketching of the four of them, standing together, arms over each others shoulders and a smile on every face, even Blake's.

Yang was the first to reach out and grab it, smiling at the picture. "Aww, we all look so cute together, wait why am I the same height as everyone?" She asked, glaring at Ruby for a second before noticing the scribbles below it. "Wait what's this?" She asked before she started to read the poem that had been written in as an afterthought, Ruby buried her head in her arms on the other side of the wooden table they were gathered around.

"Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest

White is cold and always yearning burdened by a royal test

Black the beast descends from shadows

Yellow beauty burns gold"

Silence reigned over the table for a second as Yang stopped, realizing what exactly she had just read. "Ruby, did you write this?" she asked softly, looking worriedly between a hurt looking Weiss, a livid Blake and Ruby's hidden head, the nod coming from the youngest team member barely perceptible.

Weiss was the first to recover from the shock. "What do you mean Co-" Only for her to be cut off by a furious Blake.

"Descends from shadows?" She asked shouting the question as she slamed her fist into the table, causing the entire thing to rattle and for Ruby to lift her head for the first time since the page had been found. "Black the beast! You're just as bad as the rest of them! I thought you were my friends, but here you are just spouting the same anti-faunes rhetoric that you humans are so well known for!" She stopped suddenly, realizing what exactly she had just shouted for the entire library to hear. Certainly enough many heads were turned their way, most close enough to have clearly heard what Blake had shouted. "I, thought you were different but this. This is too much." She whispered, fleeing from the library with tears brimming in the corner of her eyes.

Weiss was the first to react after Blake's outburst, seemingly oblivious to the pained outburst that Blake had let loose moments before. "Cold. You think I'm cold." She muttered "After I spent all this time." She said spinning on her heels and striding out of the library, leaving Yang and Ruby alone.

"Ruby, why would you write that?" Yang asked softly. "You knew, you knew what would happen if Blake or Weiss found that. I'm flattered but you've just thrown a huge wedge into our team when we were at our strongest." Yang added standing as she shook her head. "I know you're younger, but I expected better of you than this. I'm going to go and try and get Blake before she does something rash or disappears again."

Yang made her way to the edge of the library and looked back at the table, papers and books strewn everywhere around it, the only evidence of what had just happened. She wondered where Ruby had gone, only to note a single rose petal falling to the chair where Ruby had just been seated. "Running from your problems isn't going to help sis..." Yang whispered to no one as she set out, determined to find Blake.