Carry You

Winter started leading Qrow up to her office, hands tucked behind the small of her back. She heard him let out a grunt and heard that damnable flask of his open and him take a drink from it. "Hmph. So who's the girl, Ice Queen? That's no normal human girl. I can tell it. Just the look in her eyes and the fact she can keep an advanced aura user as skill as me out without having to think about it... Something's clearly up with her." Winter's insides chilled at the question. Had he really noticed so quickly? He had never struck her as the incredibly perceptive type. Then again, she had only ever really seen him drunk out of his mind. Who knew what he was like when he was sober? He was still drinking, but his words weren't slurred and he wasn't sloshing like he usually was in Atlas. "I don't know what you're talking about." Lie. She hated lying but in this case, she had to lie through her teeth. She couldn't let anybody know about the fae and their existence... Right? It could put the fae in danger. She didn't know much about them, but if they were in danger, then it meant Weiss was in danger. Shecould notrisk her little sister's safety. "Feh, I can sense you're lying through your teeth. Tell me the truth," he growled. She tensed a little bit and swallowed, her hands gripping into fists behind her back. What would he do if she continued to lie to him? She was normally an honest person, but still. This was Qrow. He didn'tdeservethe truth. But she knew better. He would definitely be able to overpower her if he so chose to do. Men were still pigs that would harm a lady if given a chance. She knew half the men in Atlas would attempt to 'tame' her if given the chance. And he was reading her thoughts somehow...? What was going on? "It's aura reading." She heard his flask sloshing around as he walked. It sounded mostly empty... Somehow, even a flask full of alcohol did nothing to slow him down. Just how high was his alcohol tolerance? If he could handle a nearly full flask of alcohol, then just how much did he drink in Atlas? Guh, he was so infuriating. "And chill out, Ice Queen. I ain't gonna hurt ya." Yeah, definitely reading her thoughts... She hadn't voiced any of that out loud. "How can somebody read another's aura?" That made no sense to her. She'd never heard of such a thing before. It had no basis in any scientific literature she'd read. And she'd read a lot of scientific literature around aura. It was mystifying. She had no idea how he was doing any of it. "Advanced aura. You know how Semblances can evolve? Well, aura can do the same, but it's a buncha esoteric bullshit that you probably wouldn't understand or care to learn about. As for the scientific veracity of it, it can't be studied very easily. Like I said, it's esoteric. It's a learned ability, but it requires a lot of self-reflection and shit. Trying to understand that sorta stuff through science just wouldn't work very well." She heard him take another swig from his flask and she sighed. He was disgusting... How anybody could drink was beyond her. "That...does make some level of sense, I suppose, but self-reflection leading to being able to read other people's thoughts? That makes no sense." It really didn't. How did one exactly follow that pipeline? She just... She couldn't wrap her mind around it. "Like I said, it's a buncha esoteric nonsense bullshit that you won't be able to understand. It's a path of techniques and a mindset you fall into in due time. Trauma is your worst enemy though... You wouldn't be able to get high in the Grades. I can tell you've been through absolute hell just through the scarring around your heart... I'm sure if I dug deeper, I could figure out exactly what happened to you. I ain't got no desire to push into your personal life though." Her heart froze at the idea of someone digging into her personal life and finding out what she'd been through against her consent. She really didn't like the idea at all... She had never told anybody but the general and the Ace Ops what she'd been through. "I see." Hopefully he wouldn't press too much deeper. Her heart continued pounding in her chest, though. She really didn't want him to find out. Though...he seemed oddly thoughtful? He was always angry and belligerent while she was in Atlas. Him not pressing her on things and such... What happened to the angry, aggressive Qrow she had learned to hate in due time? Ever since their first meeting, he'd been aggressive and hated her. But here, he was being thoughtful. Well. Far from polite, but definitely a degree of tact she'd never experienced from him before. It felt like night and day. She led him up to her office and sat behind the desk. "Seriously, though, what's up with the girl? A sheltered little princess like your sisteroughtto be really shouldn't be able to keep someone like me out." He sloshed his flask around a bit. "Either we can do this the hard way or the easy way. You can tell me straight up or I can poke my nose around and stress out the little girl." WInter let out an internal sigh. Why, why was it whenever it came to protecting her sister, things seemed stacked against her? Gele had arranged a marriage to her ten years her senior to someone that would no doubt abuse and manipulate Weiss, no doubt rape her and force her to bear children before she was ready to. And now, she feared what would happen if she spoke about the fae… "Weiss is living in a realm parallel to ours with the fae. She was more or less just kidnapped by a fae girl who found her attempting to escape her betrothal." There, she said it. Now Qrow could offer her to the authorities for being clinically and certifiably insane. She was talking about fairies and parallel worlds and kidnapping. "That isn't Weiss; that's Auria, a replacement for her. Weiss is to live with the fae until she dies." That...still hurt so badly. She wanted her little sister back, but she might never see her again. It hurt so much to know she may very well never again see Weiss... But seriously, Qrow could turn her in and claim her hysterical. Atlas would accept that as a reason to remove her from power in the SDC... She'd seen plenty of women removed from active military duty due to being hysterical. Qrow took a look at his flask and sloshed it around before clearly finishing off the quarter or so that was left. "I'd say I didn't believe you...but I've seen plentya weird shit over my years. Magic ain't nothin' new but fae? That definitely is. I'll have to ask my boss about it." He had a boss? She thought he worked alone. She knew he did work with the general but a lot of people did. And he worked for a lot of upper class families... It was weird to believe that he would willingly work for somebody. He didn't seem the type that would get on well with other people and the type to take orders very well... "I mean, if she can keep me out like that, then she ain't human. There are very, very few people on the face of the planet that can keep me out like that." Well... That went easier than she'd thought. But she still worried... "You aren't going to talk to too many people about this, right?" She had no reason to trust him, but his word was all that she'd have. She could only imagine what would happen if someone in Atlas got wind of fae existing... They would try to weapon is everything the fae had to offer. Atlas was far too good making war weapons out of everything they came across. She could only imagine what would happen if they learned about advanced aura... They would probably try weaponise that too. Atlas would attempt to turn anything into a martial advantage if at all possible. "Nah. My job relies on me keepin' basically everything private and secret. I'll just ask my boss about the fae since, well, he's been around the block a time or two with people. That's as far as it'll go. I won't tell my nieces or anybody else." All she had was his word which didn't feel terribly solid. She had never trusted him and felt like such a belligerent man wouldn't be able to keep his word. The general, while imperfect, was a man of honor that would only do despicable things if there was no other choice. She was pretty sure Auria could defend herself if he attempted to hurt her. That seemed a no brainer. Magic against aura would probably be a nasty matchup especially if Auria really was as varied as she said. "I'm not gonna hurt you or the fae girl. Ain't no reason to unless we're sparrin'." Yeah, he could definitely respond to her thoughts... This was so frustrating. The only sanctum she'd had was her mind, yet he cut through it like wet tissue paper with a sharp knife. "Now about we get onto business?" Winter nodded. "Very well." The sooner they could get onto business itself, the better she'd feel to be blunt.

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"You're kinda awkward around people, aren't you?" Yang asked. Auria rubbed the back of her neck. "A bit, yeah." She was used to being clinical and professional with people. Her classes kept things professional between students and she definitely had to be professional with her clients. She didn't really hang out with her classmates after class. They would sometimes meet up for study groups, sure, but it wasn't really to be buddy buddy. It was to go over material and review things before tests. She'd drifted away from most of her friends from childhood at this point so she mostly just spent time around Turi and her family. They weren't like the Lider court where meals were shared between multiple families... Things were kept small on purpose so families could be well integrated with each other. She already missed her family horribly. It'd only be a couple of decades, but that was still a long ways away. "Ah, don't worry about it. Rubes is pretty awkward too. So do you have any interests?" Oof, dealing with humans especially around this age was gonna be awkward as hell. She didn't know what sorts of things that humans this age liked. Weiss didn't exactly have any idea either... She was mostly used to talking needlework with other ladies and that was about it. She had a wide breadth of knowledge on dust, but that was about where it ended. She was highly educated, sure, but she didn't really have much interest in anything else. She learned what was needed to pass her tests so that way she could go to Beacon. "Um. Dust? Sorry... I've been pretty sheltered my entire life." She really had no idea how to interact with humans around this age. She'd gone through her developmental stages like this some years ago back in Koiria. She was pretty much considered an adult now though she was still considered a young adult. So in some regards, they weren't that different in terms of life stages if Yang was about sixteen, seventeen, but Weiss' developmental stages hadn't exactly been normal. She was more akin to a young child than anything else. She could think at a high level, but to interact with peers like Yang? Yeah, she would've been completely stumped and left out in the cold, so to speak. "Oof, that would do it. I mean I'm not against dust since it's useful for weapons, but do you have any interests or hobbies or anything? Like working on motorcycles or cars or riding a normal bike or animals or anything like that?" Well, she did have her own hobbies and stuff, but she needed to conform to what was expected of Weiss to some degree at least. She wasn't sure what all Yang would know about Atlas, but she couldn't stray too far away. She was trying to pass as Weiss to some degree. Plus, Yang could always do research on search engines even if she didn't know anything right now. The collective of knowledge on Remnant would definitely be her downfall if anything else would be… She shook her head. "Not unless you count needlework of different types and reading... But I really only read nonfiction." That was a complete and utter lie. Auria adored fiction and fantasy stories, but Weiss had zero interest in fiction. Why bother with escapism when she could be learning? That was Weiss' mindset behind it. She remembered as much as Weiss could which was quite a lot of information... She couldn't believe just how much Weiss was able to recall from books and such... She had an incredibly impressive mind and the fae world would definitely welcome her for it once she figured out where her niche was. "Well, all of that's no fun! Wanna come out and see my bike?" Yang grinned. Bike? WHat exactly was that? "Sure." She saw no reason not to. She followed Yang and Ruby outside, breathing an internal sigh of relief when she saw nature around them. She wouldn't have been able to stand being in Atlas too long, now that she thought about it... She wasn't sure how well she'd do in Vale in all honesty... She'd need, like, a greenhouse room to be happy. Winter would need to figure out how to handle that. But she really did need to be close to people to be happy too. There was no real winning here apparently. There was no teleportation in this era. She'd heard of it being a thing in past eras, but without magic being a constant here, there was no real way around it. How annoying... She was so used to teleporting everywhere and then just walking around town. She wasn't used to having to use even horses... "Here we are! This is Bumblebee." Yang walked over to an orange, two-wheeled vehicle and patted it. It was incredibly sleek and well designed. It did look very nice though. "Wanna take a ride on 'er with me?" Auria blinked. "I've never been on one before." That at least wasn't a lie in the slightest. Fae didn't have anything like this. They still mostly used horses for longer distances where teleportation wasn't available like way out in the falconry field. It wasn't her area of specialty or interest, but she went out with people once in a while. She just didn't revel in the killing of animals for sport... Sure, it was a natural process to some degree, but even so... She just couldn't bring herself to enjoy it. This bike thing, though, did feel kind of reckless... "Will you go fast...?" She just... Something about it felt like it wasn't great. Yang shook her head. "We'll stay on the property and not go too fast, not above thirty really. Rubes rides on it all the time. It can be more dangerous than a car, but that's more because people don't pay attention. But we're not going on main roads, let alone high-traffic roads in the heart of the city. Just us out here. Okay?" Yang smiled at her reassuringly. Not fast and not on main roads. She'd seen how congested the roads in Atlas city were, coming to the airport with the airships... It was all such a mess. She didn't understand how humans could rely on these weird transit options for so much of their lives and not walk everywhere. She nodded a bit. "All right." She was still in one of Weiss' dresses to her consternation... She was starting to see the utility of pants in this world. She still felt rather exposed without all the extra layers most fae wore, but those layers wouldn't exactly be of much use in this world. If she insisted on dressing like a fae, she'd look weird. She had to try to dress like humans and blend in as much as possible. At least here in Vale, most people wouldn't question her as she appeared or acted. To her knowledge, at least. Yang didn't seem to suspect anything was weird about her so far. Yang got on the bike and patted the spot behind her. Auria hesitated, then got on. "Wrap your arms around me, okay?" Auria did so and the engine revved, making Auria jump inside a little bit. She wasn't used to loud noises like this. Artificial noise was something rare in fae society. The only real artificial noise like this was the ringing of pearls. Sure, blacksmiths used hammers, anvils, and such, but she wasn't around those much... She was a highly skilled worker, working with patients and their mental health, not manual labor. This really felt wrong. She'd heard the engine in the car, but she hadn't been so close to it. Yang pulled out of the garage and started riding along the long driveway, occasionally sweeping a turn to go back the way they came. The driveway was incredibly long due to the fact that this was a manor house set behind long walls and gates... She estimated that it had to be several miles long due to how far back it was set. But it did provide her an opportunity to be on Yang's bike without having to go on main roads or anything like that. After about fifteen minutes, Yang returned to the garage and smiled at her. "So what do you think?" She seemed enthusiastic about all of this. "Well. It was...different from anything I'd experienced before." That wasn't a lie in the slightest. It was different from anything she'd experienced before. She was used to riding horses at a gallop at a decent speed, but only for short distances. The ride on the bike had been a lot smoother than a horse, but she could tell Yang was really keeping it tame for how fast it could go. If thirty was tame... She'd hate to see just how fast the thing could get. That felt almost as fast as a horse galloping, though it was really hard to tell without having any legs on the thing. "Is that a good or a bad thing?" Yang rubbed the back of her neck. "Not really either. Just...different." She wasn't fond of cars for how stuffy they were. This felt more familiar, yet totally alien. She had the fresh, crisp air flowing around her, but yeah, it was weird to be hanging onto a person. A horse shouldn't carry two people even as an awakened animal. Aura breed. Right. She was looking forward to tomorrow, though... She could get her animals. Two cats, a dog, and some birds. They'd really have to do some shopping though... Yang nodded a bit. "Well, is there anything you want or need to do today?" "I mean I technically need to go shopping for animals I'm getting tomorrow, but, uh, I need a birdcage..." She doubted that would fit on this little thing. She could see saddlebags (ro what looked like saddlebags) on the bike. She could probably just get it all tomorrow, but she wanted to get it all today... The birdcage would take a while to assemble most likely. Yang frowned. "Well, I do have a driver's license... I wonder if Winter would let me borrow one of the cars here." "We could ask." At worst, they'd get a no. Winter wasn't really one to yell and scream and all of that. She just wanted to do the shopping today to have everything set up for when the animals arrived tomorrow. Especially the birds. And, well, maybe she could get some plants too. The house was bereft of any sort of greenery. Aura breeds at least knew better than to nibble on things that might kill them. She hoped the breeders would've taught them a thing or two... Yang nodded and they headed back inside. "Do you know where Winter is...?" Auria sighed. "No clue where the office is. This place is massive." There wasn't a whole lot she could do about it. She got lost so often. It was why she wanted the starlings... They could help navigate her around the house and teach her the lay of it. She knew her own manor houses, but the ones here? She was just completely helpless. And she was used to having a helper with her whenever she visited someone else's house... "Well, let's start looking." Yang shrugged. Auria nodded and they started looking around. It took about twenty minutes for them to find Winter's office and then they knocked. "What is it?" came Winter's voice. "Um, can we come in?" "Of course, Weiss." Auria opened the door and saw her sitting behind her desk with Qrow on the other side. "What do you want?" "I was wondering if Yang, Ruby, and I could go into the city and do the shopping I need for the animals tomorrow. I'd rather have things ready today than be scrambling to get it all tomorrow. Yang was wondering if she could borrow one of the cars in the garage to drive me there." She would need to figure out where to go... She wasn't sure if there were aura-breed specific stores or not. It was really a good question. She probably should've waited a couple of days before getting the animals, but she didn't want to. She knew plenty about them at least... She had been around animals pretty much her whole life. She had a pretty good idea of what they needed. And her animals were spoiled. They always got fresh-cooked meals from the staff everyday. She wasn't about to change that for the animals she got here. Winter blinked but nodded. "Very well." Auria smiled. "Thanks! I appreciate it." The car was going to beso fulltomorrow when she picked up the animals. But she didn't care. Four starlings, two kittens, and a puppy... Hoo boy she was going to have her hands full, but she really didn't mind. She liked having high-energy animals. How Weiss just sat around all the time, she couldn't understand... She really liked being able to run and move around as she pleased, especially with animals. “Let’s go then!” Yang flashed her a grin and they headed back down to the garage, though they did end up getting lost several times again. Yeesh, she felt like such a fucking failure, but what else could she do about it? She was trying, but she just didn’t have the skills to navigate large manor houses without help. She was really looking forward to the birds helping her out with guiding her around. It’d still probably take them a week or so in order to get used to the place, but she doubted she’d have her routes figured out by then.