Sorry this took so long, I was racking my brain trying to come up with some way to either extend this or improve it. In the end, though, all I ended up doing was removing some things and correcting a few mistakes and plot-holes.

Sorry, but enjoy anyway.

(^^^^^^)

Beacon was a very big school, that much was obvious; but with Ruby's keen Faunus eyes she could see individual bricks, the very fine details that humans glazed over, and sighed with content. To her, this school was beautiful, and was enough to calm her as she travelled the school's infirmary, following Glynda, who would occasionally look back to see her and smile.

On her travelling with Glynda, she hadn't seen a single Faunus yet, and so began to worry, but soon calmed down as she smelled her favourite flowers blooming; roses- well, she liked them, but they weren't her favourite...come to think of it, she couldn't really remember her favourite. Glynda questioned why she had stopped to sniff the air, but her only answer was a small smile and shake of the head.

Glynda noticed something though; every time Ruby took a step, she would wince and slightly quicken her pace. There must've been something wrong with her otherwise walking would be fine for her. At this, Glynda took a last moment turn to the area known as General Infirmary. Ruby barely managed to follow, but she saw the sign of where they were going, and stopped dead in her tracks, beginning to back away from it.

Glynda turned on her heel when she heard the whimpering, but was met with a scared look in Ruby's eyes, terrified as if the very thing she looked at was something to fear; she followed the area of where her eyes were looking and saw the sign. 'She must be scared of hospitals as well...Poor girl.' Glynda thought as she watched Ruby eye the sign in terror.

"You wait here. I'll go get what I need and be back here in a moment." Ruby nodded and stayed rooted to her position.

Not a moment later, Glynda came out with arms full of disinfectants, bandages, scissors, burn cream and other medical mysteries to Ruby; the last time she was in a hospital was to get treated, but once they realized who she was, they literally threw her out of the front door, leaving her with various uncured and possibly infected wounds. It hurt her to walk, and the pressure her weapon put on her back helped slightly, but not enough to dispel the pain altogether.

"W-What's all th-that for?" Ruby eyed her carefully, waiting for her to make some sudden moves or something that would give her cause to fear humans further. People tended to betray her quite often...like when she lost her arm, for example...

Glynda set the medical equipment down and looked Ruby in the eye for a second before speaking. "I've noticed that when you walk you wince, as if it hurts you. Does it?" while her tone was far from caring, and was a little stern, Ruby could have swore she heard a hint of apology in the tip of Glynda's tongue; why would the woman apologise for something she had no part in? It made no sense to her.

"Y-Yeah... But...I've dealt with it." Ruby tied to avoid Glynda's look, before changing the subject on what the things she had brought in were. She honestly had no idea what any of the things were, and so asked, "What are those?" pointing to a pile of what seemed to be white, thin paper; but her nose picked up a scent of dried alcohol, so maybe they were to disinfect? She'd had to use alcohol more than once to disinfect her wounds, so the chances of such a thing were high.

"They're bandages." Glynda's tone of voice had changed from stern to confused; how could someone not know what bandages were? It was pretty simple, everyone knew...didn't they?

"What are they for?" Ruby let her shyness disappear and allowed her curious side to take over. This question brought a frown of confusion to Glynda.

"They're used to dress wounds; you know that...don't you?" Ruby just shook her head and Glynda let out a sigh. She knew that the girl had it rough, but never knew this.

"Ruby; lift up your corset so I can see why it hurts to walk." Ruby considered going against Glynda in an act of embarrassment, but thought better of it since the last time she went against what someone wanted, she was beaten and left at that previously mentioned hospital.

For the first time in nearly thirty years of teaching and seeing various wounds, most grizzly, Glynda felt like throwing up. As Ruby lifted up her corset, a red bra covering her top half, scars of all sizes, burns, cuts- some old, some new- and even some that resembled areas where a car battery had been used could clearly be seen- the pale skin that acted as a canvas highlighted everything, as if her scars were brightly coloured paint against a dark backdrop; let's just say they were hard to miss. The worse of it was on her back, however, as that had much more serious and possibly fatal injuries dotting it; cigarette marks, slashes from- what seemed to be- a whip, massive unhealed scratches and scars, along with some injuries that simply refused to become scars. On her left arm- which became exposed when Ruby took off her corset- were multiple unhealed bruises, cuts, scabs that won't change from that and even more cigarette burns. The only reason Glynda didn't throw up was because the marks and burns were at least spaced out, so she wasn't covered in them, but they would be noticeable.

Incredibly noticeable; you'd have to be blind with your eyes pulled form their sockets not to see the girl's jigsaw-like body.

All she could say was "What happened to you?" Ruby just looked away shyly as an answer, clearly not wanting to approach the subject of the matter. It must've been a painful childhood and clearly she had been tortured; as for the reason...well, Glynda could guess. These marks would fade, but the scars would always be there. What some of those scars were actually from, as it seemed, were Grimm; more specifically, a rare type of Grimm, as the scars were slightly rounded. Glynda took careful note to ask her what she fought to gain these scars, but though better of it since it was clearly a painful subject to approach.

Glynda immediately wrapped bandages starting from Ruby's left wrist and ending at her shoulder. Then, she set to work applying cream to the already healed burns, but doing this would give a way to see if it was infected. Ruby didn't even bat an eyelash at this, which showed another thing she had gotten used to.

Glynda couldn't actually remember a time she'd heard of people being able to withstand these kinds of injuries- hell, she'd be cringing and curling like a ball to get rid of the pain that most definitely is present with said wounds...but Ruby hardly moved a muscle.

She did so on the injury that looked like it was caused by a car battery, and immediately Ruby held in a grunt of pain. Glynda heard this and wrapped the bandage around it carefully but firmly, making sure not to cause her any more undue injury. She finished wrapping the bandages around her stomach and back, and when she looked upon her crafty work to see the results, Ruby looked as if she was just ordered to go and hug a beowolf, then walk naked into a den of Ursa, and lastly play tag with a King Taijutu. The layers of bandages that Ruby wore weren't enough to restrict her movement in any way, but enough to make her feel uncomfortable...but also extremely hot at the same time.

"Ruby; do the corset and dress mean a lot to you?" Glynda had an idea, but it would require Ruby's full support for it to work.

"No, b-but the cloak does." The cloak would work for Glynda's plan, as she had no intention for Ruby walk around with just her idea anyway. A cloak could actually compliment the look she had in mind; call it a look she got from reading one of her student's manga by accident- pure coincidence that her eyes drifted to the page he was reading, honestly. Ruby pulled her corset back down and laced it together almost expertly, fingers looping the laces through their slots before tying it all up, almost robotically.

"Okay, follow me..." Glynda led her to her private quarters to find the tailor that lived near there. He was a big help in fashioning whatever Glynda had asked for.

(^^^^^^)

Ruby finally emerged from the closet of Glynda's, who was stood patiently waiting. When Ruby walked out, she looked like some sort of ancient warrior from the old times when wars were waged with swords, not guns; she wore a black leather jacket with sleeves that stopped just at her wrist. On the sleeves were black straps which allowed for fingerless, black gloves to hook on, making it look as if part of the outfit. On Ruby's request, she had it made with red accents that travelled along the sleeves and stopped at the edge of the gloves, providing a feel that the torso part of the 'suit', so to speak, could be used without the gloves, simply as a piece of clothing rather than battle gear. On her legs were a pair of red and black leather combat pants, made from extremely rare Deathstalker hide, which gave it a natural red glow. Not many people had the pleasure of wearing the protective gear, Glynda being one of them, but if you were to wear it you would describe it in three words; Impossible to tear.

On her feet were black and red combat boots, but they were fitted with red straps and re-made with nevermore leather. Ruby had to appreciate the gesture, but why a human would do this for her is unfathomable, even to her superiorly smarter brain. She was always able to remember things, anything she picked up from the old books and read from ancient scrolls. Needless to say, she loved reading.

Ruby stood before the mirror provided by a smiling Glynda and stared at her image in awe; she looked like a hero, some sort of ancient warrior of light. Her reaction was priceless to Glynda, and in the first time for nearly five years, she smiled; a true, genuine smile that radiated pride. At last the awe stricken girl turned to Glynda and spoke, breaking the easy silence that dominated the room. What she asked though, was not what she was expecting. She was expecting a question of the price, or the materials used to make it, but not this one.

"Th-Thanks, so much f-for this...But why do this for me?" Ruby didn't look sad, she actually looked kind of happy. It was the first real thing that had been gifted to her by someone. Her voice was still small and shy, but there was a sounding tone of happiness and relief in it.

"I see you like the outfit." Ruby heard Glynda's mutter, but became wary when Ruby looked at her with a titled head. "I am giving this to you, because I see a girl who hasn't been given anything to call her own since she was born, a girl who has never once had a real possession of her own, and so you can consider this a gift from me to you. Now we really should get going, because otherwise you'll be late to the initiation."

Ruby looked as if this was the first time someone had ever said anything remotely nice to her; unbeknownst to Glynda, it kinda was.

"But first, you should go and rest. It is tomorrow after all..." This brought Glynda to an idea, a questioning but rather valid one, if you will; "Ruby, did you bring anything to sleep in?"

"I sleep with the cloak. It keeps me warm, and I-I am a wolf Faunus, after-after all. I just sleep in anything." Ruby said it meekly, shuffling from one foot to the other with her eyes looking slightly down as if in embarrassment.

Glynda sighed before wordlessly leading the girl to the hall where the other students were getting ready for sleep. Ruby kept her outfit on and raised the hood over her ears as to not draw unwanted human attention to herself, but her eyes constantly flicked from left to right, patrolling the room with every step she went.

That was when she heard something that made her heart stop and blood run cold.

"Hey Ren, guess what!? Oh, Pyrrha, Jaune, guess what too!?"The orange haired one known as Nora Valkiryie shouted overly joyous in her orange and pink outfit. The blonde one, which she could only guess was Jaune, breathed an annoyed sigh, whereas Pyrrha just listened on, nodding for her to continue. The boy in green, which she guesses as well was Ren, just shook his head.

"What is it Nora?" Jaune said, rather exasperated.

"You will never guess who's coming to our school~" Nora sang in a rather high pitched voice, causing Ruby to wince and her ears to flick rather protectively to avoid deafening.

"Well...?" Jaune edged her to continue speaking, and what Nora said next was what made her freeze up.

"A criminal is coming to Beacon!" she shouted it rather loudly, catching the ears of the other students and causing their gazes to fall on her. She continued, unperturbed. "It's true, you know. I wanna meet him..." Ren sighed and Ruby slightly relaxed, before she spoke again and Ren gained an angry look, while all Pyrrha and Jaune could do was collective face palming. "...Then break his legs!"

"Nora, did you actually find out who this person is?"

"Yep!" Ruby's heart caught in her mouth, and immediately she started to back away from them. She had her ribs and an arm broken before, and it hurt; a lot. Of course, Ruby was very protective of her legs because without them her semblance was useless; well, one of them, anyway. She started to pick up her backward walking pace to avoid their eyes, which were all focused on Nora's incessant rambling.

She had also lost her arm, which is why she was so protective of the right arm. Instead of a small stump, she added a robotic replacement, something to allow her to continue fighting with her sweetheart, and with her arm as strong as it was, she could practically grab an oncoming blade without so much as a scratch. Not that she'd tried, but this was all 'in theory'...not that there ever was a theory involving robotic arms in the first place, but whatever.

None in the hall saw her leave and sleep outside in the open air, under the countless stars and galaxies smiling down on her; at least they smiled at her, the others inside probably didn't even notice the exit she made, and probably never saw her, but the stars gave her a comfort no human or Faunus could give her. When in her temple, she shot herself up on top of the roof and slept up there to be consoled by the light that the shattered moon granted.

One thought trekked through her mind when she slept, and it was of peace and happiness for all races; even her, though she'd never admit that she'd happily sacrifice that happiness if it meant others could be happy. Hell, she had been doing so for nearly her whole life, so she could endure it for the rest of her life.

(^^^^^^)

Lava-like eyes lit up, and she sat straight from her throne; well, hardly a throne, but it could be called that since it resembled something a king sat on.

She had a feeling; a feeling so strong it woke her from her peaceful slumber, and caused her chest to burn with an unfamiliar pain and her eyes to water unconsciously.

She blinked back the tears, wondering what had brought them on in the first place.

Her orange eyes closed as she shrugged; probably nothing.