Bad Dream

The rest of the lessons passed withouttoomuch incident at least. She gave answers where appropriate and offered help where she could until she left around two. A carriage was already waiting for her when she had changed back into her normal dress. She was helped onto the carriage and taken back to the castle. After arriving back, she went into the library where Elana waited for her along with Blake. She glanced at Blake, but she had a feeling it was so Elana wouldn’t have to be alone with her. The much older Faunus did look nervous, her wings twitching a little. Yang smiled as best she could. It was odd to have to deal with someoneafraidof her now that she’d dealt with so many people that simplyhated herfor being human. All she could do now was try to be as gentle as possible and respond in kind to hopefully not freak Elana out even more. Elana was timid through the lesson and Yang felt like not much was accomplished due to that. But she didn’t say any of that, not wanting to upset the poor Faunus even worse. So all she could do was accept the lesson for what it was. By time they finished, it was dinner, so Blake led Yang down to the dining room where Raven, Kali, Ghira, and the younger kids were. The younger kids were off playing in the corner, not paying any heed to Yang and Blake. Yang sighed as she looked at Blake. “I understand why Elana’s afraid, but it’s going to make learning really,reallyhard…” she pointed out. She also glanced at Kali. “Is there anybody else here who understands Valian on an academic level?” Blake sat down and shook her head. “Not to my knowledge.” Kali sighed. “ThereareValian delegates who learned the language on a level like that, but they wouldn’t treat you much better than the rest of the populace. So you have to either learn from Elana who’s terrified or from someone that would hate you.” “Ofcoursethose are my two options.” Yang shook her head. “And you guys are busy all the time, so you can’t teach me.” Kali shook her head. “I have a lot of duties to attend to and Blake has her lessons.” Yang dropped her head onto the table. Another no-win situation. She had a feeling Kalireallyknew the Valian language. Something about herscreamedat the fact that she was a knowledgeable person. But she was queen-consort. She was busy most hours of the day and Yang wanted to learn for a good several hour window in the afternoon. It was going to take hermuchlonger to progress in the language than she really wanted. Elana definitely seemed like a good teacher. She was direct but willing to give some level of criticism…though Yang had seen her reluctant to give it. She really needed somebody more direct, but someone that criticisedevery single mistakewasn’t going to do her any good either. There was really nothing she could do. Ugh. “I hate this.” “I’m sorry,” Kali said. “There’s not a whole lot we can do about this situation… ” “Elanaisa good teacher; I promise,” Blake said. “It’s just, with her past interactions with humans, she—” “I get it, Blake; I really do.” Yang spoke gently. Sheunderstoodwhy Elana acted the way she did. Being around humans and being beaten for infractions would causeanybodyto havesevereissues for the rest of her life. She wasn’t trying to be aggressive with this, but shedidget it. She didn’t remember much of anything about her time in central Mistral, but still… She’d heard enough horror stories from a couple of Faunus that escaped Mantle and had been at her Verana chapel in Vale. She couldn’timaginewhat it was like to be in such terrible conditions… Mantle was a terrible place and it seemed like they wereobsessedwith attempting to break people. Blake’s ears went back. “Sorry. Elanaisa good teacher. I just feel a need to defend her because, without her, I wouldn’t have learned Valian so well.” Yang nodded. “It’s fine. I get it. I want to defend my father even if he’s horribly racist and holds bad views on Faunus. He’s flawed but he’s still generally a pretty good guy…” She frowned. If she’d have stayed in central Mistral…would she have turned out like her father? She really didn’t like the idea but it might have been possible. But she’d moved to Vale young enough that she hadn’t really absorbed much of anything about the views on Faunus from Mistral. Blake frowned. “You can be a good person and still be racist? That…seems antithetical.” “I mean he’s a loving, attentive father that cares about us and provides us with everything we need. He just…happens to be racist on top of that.” She wasn’t sure how else to describe Taiyang. He thought Faunus were lesser than humans, but he rarely ever expressed those views. She really only knew because he’d let it slip a few times while dealing with a Faunus servant and she’d overheard. He generally kept those things to himself. But he was warm, loving, kind, and generous when it came to herself, Summer, and Ruby. He wasn’t an inherently bad person or anything… Blake shook her head. “That just…really doesn’t seem possible to me.” She looked at Raven. “What’syourexperience with him? Aren’t you Yang’s mother?” Raven shifted uncomfortably. “I’d rather not talk about my history with Taiyang too deeply. Yes, he is definitely racist, but I think it’s because he grew up in central Mistralwithslaves. Would you really expect someone to change their tune as soon as they arrive somewhere where those views aren’t seen as allowable?” Blake sighed. “No, not really… It’s not like the Mantaline delegates change their tune as soon as they get here.” But she kept looking at Raven. “Aren’tyoufrom central Mistral…? Why aren’tyouracist?” “I’m from one of the small, independent tribes that the government doesn’t really control. They don’t bother with us reallyat all, so we’re generally pretty isolated from most places. We are traders and have what we call…” It seemed like she was struggling to come up with a term. “…I guess ‘active season’ would work? It’s when a good chunk of us are away from the tribe and out trading. It’s during the warmer months because the snows that deep in the mountains stop us from being able to make much progress evenwithour horses. Plus, there are lots of things that need to be done in the winter…” “That’s not really the translation, though,” Yang pointed out. She wasn’t themostfluent in Chiri-itak, but she knew some because she occasionally spent a bit of time around Raven and the tribe. “Isn’t it something more akin to…to travel over the mountain?Ruchish-koro.” “Itisa description of what we do… But still. I think the easiest way for someone to understand what we do is to call it ‘active season’ and ‘inactive season’ though you’re right; it doesn’tfullyconvey the meaning of what we’re doing and what it means to us.” Raven raised her arms and shook her head. The tribe was pretty fond of their figurative language, though the name of at least their time away from the tribe was pretty descriptive of what theyactuallydid. She was glad she hadn’t been born there, though. She struggled enough with Vale. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it would’ve been had she been born in the tribe or eventaken thereafter Raven had left Taiyang. “We’re getting a bit off track…” Blake pointed out. “Right. No, the tribe isn’t really racist, at least not in the same way larger patches of civilisation are. We have other tribes wedo notget along with and that we actively hate and that actively hateus.So we don’t allow interaction with them. But between human and Faunus, those lines aren’t drawn. As long as you’re going to be loyal and not an asshole, we’ll accept anybody into the Chiri-poho.” “What doesthatmean?” Blake asked. “Ah, it’s a shortened version of our proper name for ourselves. We call ourselves Aporose Chiri-poho Ekari which, loosely translated, means ‘the chosen bird-children wanderers.’ Chiri-poho means ‘bird-children.’” She shook her head. “Our name isn’t evenpronouncedBranwen or spelled that way; it’s spelledParanwin. But outsiders heardBranweninstead of Paranwin, so that’s what everyone refers to us as. We just got sick of correcting everybody every time, so we just accept it. But, within the tribe, that’s what we use. Paranwin. That’s how we became theBranwentribe even though that’s not what we call ourselves.” Raven raised her arms again in a resigned shrug. “Ah, yeah… A lot of the Mantaline call this place ‘Menagerie’ and it frankly pisses us off.” Blake’s ears went back and Yang flinched a bit. She could definitely understand why that would anger them so much. It was literally calling them a bunch of animals in a cage. Seriously, how screwed up was Mantle? Why couldn’t people just be kind and respectful to others? She really didn’t understand. She didn’t understand what advantages tribalism gave them… People were people in the end, whether they be human or Faunus. Why did people have to be so separated and treat others like they were lesser? She still couldn’t grasp that… She’d spent most of her life in Vale, so she had adopted those particular mindsets over Mistrali ones. “That iscompletelyunderstandable. We want to be called, at least, the Chiri-poho, but they gave us that name, the Branwen tribe, because they misheard what we callourselvesand they havezerorespect for our culture.” Raven sighed. “We have oral tales that tell of us once living on the coast, but we got pushed back so far into the mountains that that Grimm arehuge.Like the Goliaths are as tall as the trees. They can block out the sky. The Nevermores are large enough to block out the sun when they fly over.” Blake blinked, her eyes wide and round. “There aren’t really that many Grimm pools here in Chiole, so we don’t see a whole lot of Grimm… How do youliveout there with such large Grimm? Why don’t they kill you? I thought they just wanted to kill all of the humans and Faunus…” “The older a Grimm is, the more intelligent it becomes. The ones you’ve probably heard about are babies that have only instincts, not intelligence. The Grimm actuallyprotectus instead of attempting to kill us. The government has sent parties to attempt to kill us, but the Grimm intercept them and kill themlongbefore they get to us.” “That…sounds impossible.” “It does, but it’s true. It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I learned that Grimm generally aren’t friends to people. I thought all Grimm were kind and helped protect people.” Blake shook her head. “That soundswild…I can’t imagine how it must have been to learn that.” “I mean I’ve known the reality longer than what Ithoughtwas reality. But yeah, it was pretty wild to learn that.” Raven shook her head. “But yeah, my one aunt who’s adopted is actually a Faunus. Ciane is her name. Granted, to us, it doesn’t matter if someone’s adopted or not. Relation is relation to us. As long as they were raised with us and accept our ways, then we count them as members of the tribe.” Blake nodded. “That’s definitely a good way to see it. If only everyone could be that open minded and kind.” If only… Yang really wished the people of Chiole wouldn’t look down on her just because she was a human. She understoodwhythey acted the way they did, but it was stillroughto deal with. She just… It wasso hardto have to deal with all of this. She hated it and she wanted it to end. It wasn’t like she could just go back to Vale and live there, not without there beingmassivepolitical repercussions for both nations. She was stuck. There was nothing she could do about it. She was making the best of a terrible situation, but it just didn’t feel likeenough. And it wasn’t Blake or Kali’s fault either. Kali didn’t seem like the type of woman to just straight-uplieabout something, not with as transparent as she had been and with as honest as Blake generally seemed. She believed that Kali had fought and fought to prevent this arranged marriage, but there wasn’t much anyone could do sometimes. King Ivan was a force to be reckoned with and, with Chiole being so much smaller than Vale… There wasn’t a lot of political weight Kali could throw around in order to prevent her daughter from being married off to some random Valian stranger. “Yeah, if only,” Yang said. Raven squeezed Yang’s shoulder. “It’s still early days. Things will hopefully get better over time.” Yang sighed. “I hope so. I’m trying to do what I can in order to win people over, but I also have to pull out the ‘I’m royalty’ card which probably isn’t helping.” Seriously no-win situation. There was no way she could really win. If she just accepted the racism, then the Faunus would think it was okay. If she fought back, she was only proving their point that humans wouldn’t listen to Faunus and hated them. Even though she wasn’t spewing hateful rhetoric around them. She was just trying to get them to treat herlike anybody else.And pulling the royalty card only showed them that shedidthink she was better than them. No-win all around. Blake took Yang’s hand and squeezed it. “I really am sorry that they treat you so poorly… I wish there was more I could do. But it’s not like I can just stop all of my lessons and constantly tell people to not be terrible to you. I havesomuch to learn in order to take over the kingdom…” “It’s not your fault, Blake. I’m not expecting you to drop everything for me and try to win people over. It is what it is. We’ve done what we can to try to mitigate it.” She really hoped her tiara would be done soon. It would send a clear message that the royal family accepted her and that she was part of them. She hoped that it would eventually stop people for treating her like absolute garbage. All she could really do was wait until it was done. Until then, all she could do was show people the signet ring to try to shut them up and make sure that they knew she was a member of the royal family even if just through marriage. Blake nodded, but her ears went down. “I still wish we could do more.” “Like I said, you’ve done what you can to try to mitigate it. I just wish people were more understanding.” There wasn’t a whole lot more that they could do at this point unfortunately. She was just in a no-win situation no matterwhat.The people wouldn’t like her regardless ofwhatshe did. She was trying her best, but there was only so much one person could do to try to turn the tides of racism in a place where it was just culturally accepted toberacist. Technically illegal, but it was so pervasive that trying to prosecute it would be an exercise in futility. It wasn’t like there was any sort of way to really record anything. That and so many people treated her poorly that arrestingeverybodythat treated her badly would result in the court systems getting clogged. She didn’t want to wipe out a good 40% of the population and put them in prison… That’d justreallyscrew Chiole up. She just…had no idea how to handle any of this. Blake reached over and started to rub her shoulder. She wasn’t entirely certain what to think of it, but she didn’t speak up either. “Sorry.” Blake stopped. Right. Advanced aura. “I was just trying to comfort you…” “I get it. You just want to help. Again, it’s just a little weird since we’re still essentially strangers. I know we’re legally married, but, personally, I still barely know you.” She hoped Blake wouldn’t hate her for it. She was just… All of this was so overwhelming for her. She was trying to take things with as much grace as she could but it was hard when she was so anxious about pretty much everything. “Idowant to get to know you; I just don’t know how to accept physical affection from you yet.” “Sorry.” Blake’s ears went down lower. “But you are right. If we attempted to prosecute people, it’d justreallyupset the population demographics… I wish we could do more, but we can’t afford to put basically the majority of the populous behind bars. We don’t even have theprisonspace for that.” “I wasn’t expecting you to do that. They were just my unbidden thoughts. Putting most people in the country behind bars wouldn’t doanygoodperiod.”She shrugged. She knew it wasn’t reasonable or practical. “Anyway… Iwasgoing to say we do need to get to know each other more… After dinner and before bed, we could probably spend some time together, just you and me. If you want to, of course. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m forcing you.” Yang blinked but shook her head. “Not forcing me at all. I would like to get to know you more… Between you being busy with lessons and me being busy with my acolyte training, it is hard to find time for just the two of us.” She didn’t hate Blake or anything like that; they were just still essentiallystrangerswas all. “Is there anything you’d suggest we do?” “Well, we could maybe go down to the city and get a drink or two and just…talk. There are a lot of unique cocktails that exist only here. Obviously, we can’toverdoit, but two or three drinks wouldn’t be the end of the world. As long as you can hold your liquor, of course.” Yang nodded. “I can put away a fair bit of alcohol. I don’t like getting completely drunk, but I don’t mind a little. A couple of cocktails aren’t going to knock me out.” Well, that would definitely be one way to get to know each other. But it had definitely been a long time since she’d been out drinking. A pang of homesickness went through her heart. She missed the once-weekly benders she and her friends back home would go on. Granted, she was the one that drank the least while the others tended to getcompletelydrunk off their asses.Someoneneeded to be of sound mind to be able to drive the horses back and get everyone home. It was justherthat chose to be the one to do it. Blake’s ears remained down. “This won’t cause you to be upset?” Yang shrugged. “I miss my friends big time, yeah, but if it’s what you want to do, it’s what you want to do.” How could she say no? She wasn’t really used to being around Blake by themselves or anything like that. It would be good for them to be alone, to just sit and talk to get to know each other. “Do you know somewhere we can talk without really being eavesdropped on? I don’t want someone knowing the royal family is down there on a consistent basis…” She hoped Blake would understand her caution. Most people wouldn’t be happy with the human princess-consort in general, and she had a feeling a lot of Faunus would like to take advantage of that. Blake nodded. “There’s a high-end bar called the Sapphire Decanter that has private lobbies that have fairly thick walls. I’m pretty sure it’s also used for…clandestine meetings of all sorts.” “So what, like criminals and stuff?” “Also ladies of the night and their high-end clients.” “And you justletthis happen?” How could the royal family just let all sorts of crime justhappen? “Yang, keep in mind criminals tend to be pretty shifty and hard to capture. Plus, the Sapphire Decanter is all about discretion. We don’tletcriminals just walk the streets; they know how to avoid detection. That and we don’t want to mess up our relationship with the owner. We use it a lot for private meetings with foreign dignitaries and off-the-record talks. Werelyon that place to keep the country running. We definitely could bust the owner for illegal activities, but then we’d have to find another place that we couldtrustto keep our secrets. That would takea lotof time, time wedon’thave. Do you understand?” “I guess.” She just didn’t like the thought of being in the same place as criminals. People who used sex for their livelihood? Whatever. That was on them. But legitimate criminals? With how tenuous her relationship with the Chilese people was right now, she was afraid that some of those criminals would possibly try to use her as leverage. Blake shook her head. “Lysander wouldn’t let that happen. I canassureyou. The Sapphire Decanter isall abouttaking care of its patrons. He would kick outanybodythat would attempt to hurt you. And he would report them to the proper authorities. He takes care of his people, including us. I promise he won’t let anything happen to you.” “All right…” She was pretty much done with dinner at this point. She still didn’t have the highest confidence in this setup, but all she could do was have faith in Blake right now. Blakewasthe princess and would understand the culture of Chiole as well as where she frequented. She hoped this Lysander guy would help protect her. She didn’t want to fall prey to criminals and a potential kidnapping or evenmurderbecause she was now married to Blake. Blake stood up and offered Yang her hand. “C’mon.” Yang placed her hand in Blake’s and stood up. She followed Blake to the carriage garage and climbed in. Her anxiety was through the roof, but all she could do right now was trust that Blake truly understood what was happening and that she knew Lysander half as well as she thought she did…