Each step was a battle; every foot forward a war.

And it was one Ruby was losing.

She stumbled on the last few stairs, then fell headfirst down onto the living room floor. Luckily for her though, her impact was cushioned by the pile of blankets she was wrapped in. Groaning, she stood, and stumbled her way into the kitchen, where her partner was busy making breakfast.

"Well look who's finally up," Weiss muttered. She reached up into a cabinet and grabbed a bottle of seasoning, then put the finishing touches on a steaming pan of eggs and bacon.

Ruby muttered something incomprehensible, and then suddenly Weiss felt herself being pulled down onto the floor. She shrieked, but Ruby simply opened the cocoon of blankets and pulled her inside. Weiss struggled for a few seconds, then realized the futility of battling the much stronger girl when she wanted cuddles.

Weiss resigned herself to her fate and shifted around, so that she was snuggled up tight against a very sleepy Ruby. "Ugh, the bacon is going to burn if I don't take it out of the pan you dunce."

"This is punishment for making me wake up," Ruby broke off and yawned, "m-making me wake up by myself. Thirty more seconds."

The former heiress groaned, but wrapped her arms tightly around Ruby's waist anyway. The brunette giggled appreciatively.

Weiss pressed her face against the warmth of her partner's chest and sighed. "I'm sorry, I suppose, for making you wake up alone. I wanted to make us a good breakfast since we have a hunt today. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day you know."

"Yeah yeah," Ruby muttered. She opened the blanket cocoon and Weiss stood up, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

Weiss scooped the egg-bacon mix onto two plates while Ruby stumbled her way into a seat at the kitchen table. The brunette promptly let her head drop to the wood and started snoring away. Weiss smirked. Even after almost five years of knowing her, Ruby still did the most adorable things.

The silver-haired woman pushed a plate of steaming breakfast under Ruby's nose, and she watched as the steam from it curled in the air and drifted into the brunette's nostrils. Ruby's eyes snapped open, and she immediately shrugged off the blankets and started digging in.

Her shoulders slumped and she gazed up at the ceiling, and tears were gathering in her eyes as she muttered through a mouthful of bacon. "Ooooh Weissh, thish is sho gooood..."

Weiss started picking at her breakfast. "Thank you, but don't talk with your mouth full. And did you go over the briefing I put together for the hunt we're doing today?"

Ruby looked confused as she finally swallowed her food. "Uh, what?"

Weiss quirked an eyebrow at her. "I left it right on your side of the bed. So that you'd see it before you fell asleep."

"Uuuh..."

Weiss huffed and went back to her breakfast. "I figured as much. Finish your breakfast and I'll explain."

The two women proceeded to eat in silence, although they did occasionally glance at eachother. Halfway through the meal, looking through her silver bangs, Weiss caught Ruby staring at her for a good half-minute.

"You should finish your food before it gets cold," Weiss said.

Ruby looked startled. "Huh? What, uh – oh yeah. Breakfast. Right."

Weiss smirked. "You were staring at me."

Ruby managed to look sheepish with a mouthful of bacon. She swallowed before speaking. "Yeah, sorry. You just uh, like, looked really pretty for a second."

The former heiress raised an eyebrow. "Only for a second?"

"W-Well no," Ruby hurried to explain. "I mean you look pretty all the time, but like your eyes were kind of hidden by your bangs and your hair looks super gorgeous when it's down like that and especially when it's messy because you haven't fixed it yet, and I was just kinda glad because I'm the only one who gets to see your hair when it's not fixed and-"

"Ruby," Weiss interrupted with a warm smile. "It's fine. I think you're pretty too."

The brunette blushed and went back to eating her breakfast.

They finished, and Ruby picked up the plates and put them in the sink while Weiss fixed herself a cup of tea and Ruby a cup of coffee. Cream and five sugars, as always.

They sat back down at the kitchen table with their respective drinks.

"So," Weiss began, "you don't know anything about this hunt then, is that correct?"

Ruby scratched the back of her neck. "Uh, would you kill me if I said no?"

Weiss simply took a sip of her tea. "Basically, there's a village to the north of here called Openfaust, and several of the villagers and local logging crews have been reporting sightings of a deathstalker. The loggers leave their heavy equipment behind at night; they can't afford guards for them. And some of the equipment has been found smashed and destroyed the next morning, and the damage is consistent with recorded deathstalker attacks."

Ruby took a sip of her coffee and flinched. "Ouch, hot!" She quickly set down her mug and looked at it like it had betrayed her. "Um, so just a deathstalker? That shouldn't really be a problem."

"Right," Weiss agreed. "But remember what happened during our first hunt around here? When the ursa were waiting for us when we finished off the beowolves? I just want to take the necessary precautions to make sure we don't get caught off guard again. I've been reading the reports of other Hunters operating in the area, and they all seem to indicate that the Grimm are starting to, well, work together for lack of a better term."

"Well I'm sure we'll be fine," Ruby quipped. "We've got eachother's backs after all."

"That we do," Weiss replied. She took another sip of her tea, then gazed into the cup and frowned. "Ruby, have you been having your nightmares lately?"

"Nope!" Ruby replied with a certain amount of cheer. "I don't want to jinx myself, but I think they're gone."

Weiss smiled. "Let's hope so."

"Are you sure this is the place Weiss..." Ruby trailed off. She spun in a small circle, taking in the forest around her. She wore her hair back in a small ponytail, while Weiss wore hers loose. They were both clad in earth-green cloaks that helped them blend in with the surrounding forest.

The mid-day sun filtered through the dense canopy above them, and a few stray leaves gently floated down to earth. The smell of petrichor and old wood lingered in the air. There was no breeze.

It would have been the perfect scene for a picnic for two, if it wasn't for the graves. They were everywhere: hundreds of simple stone tablets protruding from the forest floor seemingly at random. Some were half-buried in trees, some were sticking out at an angle, and some were collapsed and buried in leaves. They were old, covered in moss, and the writing on them was faded beyond recognition.

Weiss turned to Ruby, her hair sun-dappled and shining. "It is quite... strange, I have to admit. There wasn't anything about a cemetery in the briefing I received."

Ruby made a strange face. "This place is ancient. Look, you can't even read these tombstones anymore. Isn't all the civilization around here pretty new though?"

Weiss frowned. "You're right. All the development around here is fresh. The towns and even Terser itself are all new."

"So who builds a graveyard in the middle of a forest, when there's no towns or cities around for miles and miles?"

Weiss crouched down to examine one of the tombstones, brushing old vines and dead leaves off of it. "Maybe there was a battle here."

Ruby tapped her chin. "Eh, maybe. But don't armies usually just burn the dead in big pyres and stuff?"

Weiss stood and brushed her green cloak off. "That usually depends on the army. Some of the old Theopathic orders used to have elaborate ceremonies for their fallen that lasted longer than the battle itself."

"Huh. Weird. Hey, look at that."

Weiss followed Ruby's pointing finger to a particularly large tombstone that had been cut in half.

"Think a deathstalker did that?" Ruby asked.

Weiss walked over to it, careful to avoid the thick roots and collapsed tombstones on the forest floor. She only needed one look at it up close to confirm Ruby's suspicions.

"Definitely. Those are deathstalker claw marks. It looks like it cut the tombstone in half with its claw."

Ruby moved to stand next to Weiss. "Why would it do that?"

"Didn't you learn anything from advanced Grimm behavior?" Weiss scoffed. "It's the same as a cat scratching a scratching post."

"Well, there are more further on," Ruby gestured. "And it looks like it does it more and more the further into the graveyard we get. This thing has probably been here for a while now. Is it marking it's territory?"

"Probably," Weiss agreed. "Let's move up." She unsheathed Myrtenaster from its scabbard on her hip. "But stay on your guard."

Ruby unslung Crescent Rose and extended it, then rested it on her shoulder. She turned and shot Weiss a smug grin. "Well duh Princess." Then she shot off into the graveyard, leaving behind rose petals that slowly sank to the ground.

Weiss grit her teeth and followed.

"Hey Weiss, look what I found!" Ruby shouted from up ahead, where she was perched atop a fallen tree.

Weiss ran up to her. "Hush you dolt," she hissed. "We don't know where that deathstalker is!"

Ruby grinned. "I don't think it's here right now. But look!" She pointed.

"Is that... a church?" Weiss asked.

"Looks like one," Ruby agreed.

The building Ruby had found was in the center of the graveyard, and looked old beyond measure. It was constructed of four white walls in the shape of a rectangle, and sported a tall steeple in the back. The walls were collapsed in some places and sagging in others, and were covered in moss and vines. The roof was sloped like a v, and had gaping holes in most places.

Weiss had a moment of recollection. "It looks just like-"

"That church we found in the Tural Mountains, yeap," Ruby interrupted.

Weiss elbowed her. "Don't interrupt me you dolt."

Ruby giggled and pecked her on the cheek.

"You dunce!" Weiss shouted. "We're in the middle of a combat situation, a hunt, and you want to-"

The front of the church exploded outward, sending splintered beams and wood paneling everywhere.

Ruby grabbed Weiss and pulled her down, just in time to dodge a spinning wood pillar.

"Now who's the dunce?" Ruby asked. "Looks like you woke up our deathstalker!"

There was a loud roar from inside the church: an animalistic scream of challenge and the promise of death. A giant black scorpion with red markings covering its body scuttled out of the church, heading straight towards them.

"They don't call them deathstalkers for nothing, huh?" Ruby laughed. She stood and lodged the blade of Crescent Rose in the ground, then took aim and fired a barrage of rounds at the incoming Grimm.

Weiss sprang to her feet, mumbling to herself the whole time about dolts and incompetency. She formed a hasty glyph in front of the charging monster, and it slammed into the spinning white barrier with a frustrated roar.

"Wanna do the thing?" Ruby asked as she slotted another cartridge into Crescent Rose.

"The thing?" Weiss shrieked. "What thing?"

"You know," Ruby replied with an infuriating calm. "The deathstalker thing."

Weiss' eyes went wide. "You mean the -ooooh!"

"Yeah," Ruby giggled, as she fired another round from her high-powered sniper rifle. "That thing."

"Yes Ruby, let's do the thing."

Ruby stuck out her tongue. "Ew Weiss, that's lewd. In the middle of this forest?"

Weiss grit her teeth and focused on creating a series of glyphs. Which was difficult considering she couldn't get thoughts of Ruby pressed up against a tree with nothing but her-

She grit her teeth ever harder, and slipped into the mental concentration she called the Heart of Ice. It was a mental exercise she had made up early on, when she realized she needed to come up with a way to properly control her glyphs. Her face became expressionless and her mind became like a glacier, unbreakable and immovable.

Ruby was already fighting the deathstalker up close, using bursts of her semblance so that it couldn't land a blow on her.

Weiss crafted the series of glyphs she needed with all the skill and precision of a gem-cutter. Each needed to be impossible to escape from, or else Ruby could get hurt. That thought more than anything drove her to hammer each glyph in her mind into razor-sharp focus.

She finished, reviewed the sequence once more in her mind, and then began making a complex series of hand signs.

Spinning white circles appeared around the deathstalker's claws, tail, and each of its legs, and the beast roared in confusion as it writhed and struggled to free itself.

Ruby laughed and landed in front of it. She held Crescent Rose out behind her and fired a round, which, combined with a jump, propelled her into the air. She turned into a spinning blade, arcing straight for the deathstalker's vulnerable face. Without it's claws and tail, it could do nothing to defend itself. It screeched in rage.

And then something went wrong. Ruby's body suddenly went limp, like she had passed out in mid-air. Crescent Rose flew out of her hands, and her body slammed into the rock-hard carapace of the deathstalker and went careening off into the underbrush.

Weiss' mind went blank, but her training took over and she reacted in a heartbeat. She wasn't worried; she didn't have time to be. Ruby's life depended on it.

She created a propulsion glyph at her back and used it to fling herself at the creature, Myrtenaster held like a lance to deliver the deathblow.

But without her full concentration devoted to them, the glyphs keeping the deathstalker restrained were dissipating. Thinking quickly, she fired a canister of freeze dust at the monster's tail to keep it from impaling her. It froze solid with a sound like an icicle shattering.

She landed right in front of the creature's face, and all of its eyes glared up at her with a rage and hatred so deep that it almost scared her. Almost. She thrust Myrtenaster forward into one of it's two largest eyes, then discharged a full canister of burn dust down the length of the blade.

The deathstalker released a death-cry of pain and agony, and gouts of flame erupted from the chinks and cracks in it's armor. A great reeking smell filled the air; she had just flash-cooked its insides after all. Weiss waited a second to confirm that it was dead, but when the creature's struggles ceased she let her concentration slip and the glyphs dissipated.

Not wasting a single second to reload Myrtenaster or check herself for injuries, she sprinted off towards where she had last seen Ruby. After searching the tangled undergrowth for several long, terror-inducing moments in the dim light shining through the trees, she found her.

Ruby was tangled up in a cluster of thorns and half-hidden by a large patch of ferns. Weiss quickly cut the vines with Myrtenaster and pulled the younger girl free of their clutches.

"Ruby! Ruby are you alright? Can you hear me?" Her panicked screeches sounded deafening in the now-quiet forest.

Ruby's eyes slowly opened. "Weiss?" Her voice was hoarse. "Is that you?"

Weiss felt a flood of relief rush through her body. "Of course it's me you dunce, what the hell was that!"

Ruby tried to sit up, but Weiss pushed her back down. "What was what?" the younger girl groaned. "Where are we?"

Weiss was speechless for a few seconds. "W-We're on a hunt, or we were. We were fighting a deathstalker, and I used my glyphs to hold it in place. Right when you were about to kill it, you just went limp, like you had died or something. I was so worried..."

Ruby reached a hand up and cupped Weiss' face. "Hey, don't cry. It's fine, I'm fine. I'm right here. I'm not leaving you."

Weiss took a deep breath to calm herself. "Alright. Fine. You're fine." She reached down and ran a shaking hand through Ruby's hair, brushing out stray leaves and twigs. "Good. But what was that?"

Ruby frowned. "Well I dunno, I remember fighting the deathstalker now, but then when you caught it in your glyphs I..." The brunette's eyes suddenly went wide. "Weiss. I had a nightmare."

"W-What? But I thought they were gone?" Weiss stuttered. "I thought they had stopped?"

Ruby looked down at the ground, but her distant eyes were somewhere else. "I did too... I remember fire, and falling, and then... a church?"

"A church?" Weiss' voice dripped with disbelief. "You saw a church in your dream? Like the one right over there?"

Ruby nodded and looked over at the white church in the center of the graveyard. "Yeah. It wasn't this one, but it looked just like it. I remember now. It was on fire. And then..."

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "And then what?"

Ruby shook her head quickly. "Nothing. It's silly anyway. Oh crap, I need to find Crescent Rose." The brunette moved to sit up again, but Weiss pushed her back down.

"Ruby, what was it?" It was more a command than a question.

The younger girl bit her bottom lip. "I mean... do you really wanna know?"

Weiss simply stared at her, and Ruby seemed to crack under the weight of her gaze.

Then Ruby let out a long breath and hung her head. "Fine. I... I saw you die."

Weiss felt like she had been punched in the gut. "You what?"

"I saw you die okay! We were in this big battle, and you were fighting this giant black, I don't know, thing, and then you turned around and yelled my name, and then it stabbed you through the chest with a claw or something. Is that enough questions for today?"

Ruby pushed a stunned Weiss aside and stormed off, heading back towards the dead deathstalker and Crescent Rose.

Weiss watched Ruby's retreating back, but instead of chasing her, went about checking herself for injuries and reloading Myrtenaster's dust chambers. She could tell when Ruby needed some time to think.

When she finally went after Ruby she found her crouched down, searching through the ruins of the church. She stepped up behind the brunette. "Find anything?" she asked.

"Nope," Ruby muttered. "This place has been abandoned forever. All the markings on the wood and stuff have all rotted away."

"Do you think it caused your nightma- err, hallucination?"

Ruby didn't turn from her search. "Hallucination?"

"It's not a nightmare if you weren't asleep to begin with Ruby."

The brunette frowned and tossed a rotted chunk of wood away. "I guess. But this place is the only thing I can think of that might have caused it. First the church in the Tural mountains, and then one just like it here. I didn't tell you, but my cross was really hot - like burning hot - right before I passed out. It can't be a coincidence."

Weiss moved to stand next to her. "The one on your belt?"

"Eeyup."

"The last time that happened was-"

"When we went to the spot where my mother died, yeah." The brunette scowled and tossed another piece of wood off to the side.

Weiss sighed. "Ruby, are you okay?"

Ruby stood up and faced her with an irritated expression. "Am I okay? Well I dunno, the cross my mom gave me and told me to hold on to no matter what is doing some crazy stuff, I just passed out while fighting a deathstalker, and then I even got to watch my girlfriend die in a pretty freaking realistic dream."

Weiss shifted her weight to her other foot. "Sounds like a rough day."

Ruby looked confused. "Yeah. It was."

"And what about for me?" Weiss questioned. "I watched you almost actually die. If I hadn't maintained my glyphs, that deathstalker would have torn you apart. So take a second to think about how I feel."

Before Ruby could respond, she moved closer and touched the brunette's arm. "I'm just worried about you. That's why I got mad. That's why I wanted to know what you saw in the nightmare. I'm worried."

Ruby's expression flickered from angry, to relieved, to remorseful. She hung her head. "I... Crap. I'm sorry Weiss."

The brunette stepped forward and pulled her into a gentle embrace. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you or stormed off like that. I'm just worried about you too. Watching you die in that dream really hurt, and I don't want to have to do it again. I thought it was real when it was happening. It scared me."

Weiss drew back and kissed her once, twice, three times. "It's fine. We're both just worried about eachother, as we should be. But let's not get so angry next time, hmm?"

A smile lit up Ruby's face. "Yeah. That sounds good."

"Partners?" Weiss asked.

"Yeah," Ruby responded after kissing her once more. "Partners."

Night had fallen and found them back in their house at the top of the hill. Warm lamplight illuminated the room, and Ruby was noisily tinkering with Crescent Rose on the coffee table. Weiss herself was reclining on the living room couch with a book in hand.

"So I've been thinking," Ruby started.

Weiss raised an eyebrow, but didn't look up from her book.

"I think I have to do something about these visions."

"So they're visions now?"

Ruby laughed. "Well you yourself said that they can't be nightmares if I'm asleep. And hallucinations is too long to say, so I'm just gonna call them visions."

Weiss turned the page of her book. "And you feel the need to do something about them now?"

The former heiress watched Ruby turn to stare at her out of the corner of her eye. "You serious? Weiss, who knows when that could happen again? What if I'm in the middle of a pack of beowolves, or, or fighting a nevermore or using my semblance? I mean, I'm not really worried about myself but..."

"Well I am," was Weiss' terse reply.

Ruby nodded. "And that's why I'm worried. Cuz I don't want you to worry."

A small smile perked up the corners of Weiss' mouth. "So what exactly, do you planning on doing about it with me?"

Ruby grinned and went back to working on Crescent Rose. "I knew you'd want to come with me. Well basically, I need to talk to Jaerla."

"Jaerla? The raven faunus from Beacon?"

"Yeap," Ruby replied, popping the p. "She's the one that knew about my cross, she knows all this old lore, she knows her way around the wilderness, her people probably know about those churches, and I get the feeling she knows more about my mother more than she lets on."

Weiss put down her book to fix Ruby with a stare. "Ruby, first off, how are you even going to find her? And if you do, what are you going to say? 'Hey Jaerla, I found these weird churches in the woods and I started having visions, how do I fix them?'"

"Something like that."

Weiss huffed and flipped her bangs out of her eyes, then returned to her book.

"So uh, you'll come with me?" Ruby questioned.

"Obviously," Weiss huffed. "But the moment I come up with a better plan, we're doing it instead."

"Eh, fair enough," Ruby laughed. The brunette shifted to the other side of the coffee table so that she could work on another section of Crescent Rose, and something about her drew Weiss' eye. The younger girl was shadowed just right by the lamplight, and she was sticking her tongue out while she worked, a trait that Weiss found unbearably cute.

It didn't help that the black tank top she was wearing was just a size too small, or that her pants were a little tight around the rear, or that she obviously wasn't wearing a bra.

"You gonna read that book or just stare at me all day Princess?" Ruby asked without looking at her.

Weiss pushed her reading reading glasses further up on her face. "I'll do whatever I want, thank you very much you dolt."

"Suuure you will," Ruby mocked. "Not that I mind you staring though." The brunette bent forward at the waist while she worked, giving Weiss a perfect view of her shapely rear.

Weiss blushed and buried her face in her book. She had just started to read again when suddenly Ruby was on top of her, pushing the book aside. Rose petals swirled around them; Ruby had used her semblance.

The brunette giggled and gingerly removed Weiss' reading glasses, then tilted her head and silenced the former heiress' protests with a soft kiss.

Ruby's lips tasted like the strawberries she had eaten for dinner, and Weiss gave up pretending to fight and slowly circled her arms around the brunette's back. She lost herself in Ruby's warmth, and their auras blended together in a way that was incredibly comforting and familiar. They fell into a familiar pattern, keeping the kisses slow and luxurious, taking the time to simply be together and try to express the love they felt for eachother.

Almost half an hour passed like this, and then Ruby drew back and rested her head on Weiss' collar. The older girl scoffed, but pulled the brunette closer to herself anyway. They shared a silence between them, one that was neither awkward or uncomfortable.

Weiss had just started to fall asleep when Ruby lifted her head and stared at her with a knowing smirk. "Oh c'mon Weiss, I know what you wanna do. You can't fool me."

The former heiress fought down a blush. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Ruby smirked. "Oh yeah? No idea huh?" The brunette leaned down and brushed her lips across the shell of Weiss' ear. "Noooo idea at all?"

Ruby gave her ear a soft lick, and Weiss' mind went blank. She moaned and moved her hips upward so that Ruby's knee was resting in just the right spot. Catching the hint, Ruby started sliding her knee up and down, and Weiss' moans deepened. The brunette leaned forward and started pressing gentle kisses to Weiss' neck, and when the former heiress arched her head back and fully exposed it, Ruby changed tactics and started devouring the exposed skin.

Weiss writhed and moaned lower. She grabbed Ruby's rear with one hand, and tangled her fingers in the brunette's hair with the other.

Suddenly Ruby stopped moving her knee and drew her head back, then stared down at Weiss with a predatory grin. "No idea what I'm talking about still?"

Weiss' face was hot and her breathing was quick. She grabbed Ruby's chin between her thumb and forefinger, forcing the younger girl to meet her gaze. "Shut up and finish what you started, before I finish you."

Weiss hoped the menacing glare she put on was suitably threatening. Apparently it was, because after only a second Ruby gulped loudly and bent back down to start kissing her again.

Weiss held her back with hand. "Uh uh uh. You first," she said, pointing to Ruby's tank top. "You're about to find out what happens when you tease me."

Ruby grinned, sat up, and lifted it up and over her head. Weiss sat up and moved her mouth to Ruby's ample chest, lazily flicking an areola with her tongue. Ruby moaned, the first of many times that night.

Weiss flicked her fingers, and Ruby gasped in surprise as she found her arms restrained behind her back by a series of slowly spinning glyphs.

Weiss put her mouth on Ruby's ear. "This," she whispered, "is what happens when you tease me."

Almost an hour later they lay on the couch together in a warm tangle of limbs and blankets. The brunette rested her head in the crook of Weiss' neck and breathed softly. The former heiress was rubbing slow circles onto her partner's back, and Ruby was humming a gentle tune.

"You know I love you, right?" Weiss asked, her voice no louder than a whisper.

"Duh," Ruby replied. "You wouldn't have given up your whole future for someone you didn't care about."

Weiss was thoughtful for a moment. "Actually, I didn't give up my future. I think I finally just made one for myself, and that's probably the greatest gift you've ever given me. Thank you."

Ruby grinned and leaned up to kiss her, then said: "what about kisses?"

"Yes, well, those are nice too," Weiss replied with a smile.

"Mmm. Thought so," Ruby said. She sighed, and Weiss wrapped her arms around the naked brunette and pulled her close.

When Ruby fell asleep, their auras were so inextricably intertwined that they pulled Weiss asleep too.

Their hearts beat as one that night.

Sorry this took so long to write; I've been writing a ton of one-shots lately to get them all out of my head. Expect more regular updates to this story now. Drop a review if you had a particular part you liked.