I Want a Cub

A pragmatist sat at the board room table. Her face was in her hands. She tried to push away the annoyance as it bubbled to the surface. A piece of paper sat in front of her. Simple, perhaps, if it didn't mean so much.

But it did.

It meant changes, drastic ones. Upon that paper, the fates of thousands rested between each and every word. She rubbed at her eyes. Trying desperately to come up with the right answer. What she should do. How she should do it. All it would take was her signature. Just her name, that was it. Two words, and she would revolutionize the very fabric of Atlas as she knew it.

As the people knew it.

It was not an easy choice, and, like everything else in her life, she stood at an impasse.

This was what she wanted. It was what she craved. What she had spilled blood for, and begged for. It sat here now, within reach, and for the first time in her life, Blake Belladonna had the power to change Faunus rights forever.

"So then," The eyes in the room seemed to ask her. "Why hesitate? Sign the damn thing in be done with it!"

Golden eyes lifted, a simple blink conveying everything she had no words for. "I don't know if I should."

The bill, on the surface it was ironclad, or so it appeared. "But," Blake thought to herself, "What if it isn't?"

What if it wasn't perfect yet? What if the terminology wasn't as black and white, clear as crystal, as she thought it to be? What then? Would she be the one blamed for every tiny detail she had no control over? She looked around the room. Glancing to the faces she trusted and knew. All of them watching on with a mix of anxiety and a twisted sense of horror.

Maybe it was just because they felt the waves of anxiety rolling off of her. She couldn't be sure. She couldn't do this. "It's not ready yet." Blake said, pushing the paper back to her lover…her wife…and sincerely began to hate herself. "I'm sorry."

"We have to reform this company somehow, Blake." Weiss said as she slumped down in her chair. Hours and hours of doing this, attempt after attempt…and neither of them were closer to a solution. "It's been years since I've overtaken this company, and we've made no strides."

"Yes we have." Blake chastised. "Faunus employees have decent wages now, they're not starving in the streets. We've given them equal access to insurance policies, and allowed them positions of minor authority within the company. We are reforming this company for the better, but we've got to do this carefully."

"Blake, I want you running this company with me…"

"I am, Weiss."

"I mean as more than just my bodyguard on the paperwork." The white haired woman reprimanded. "You are my wife, and you are entitled to help run it at my side…I can't do this alone anymore."

"You don't understand." Blake murmured with the deepest sincerity. "Allowing Faunus to purchase stock from us will set a precedent. It will change how big businesses function, especially here in Atlas. When this company changes, others will follow suit. They'll look to you, Weiss. They'll see the head of the Schnee Dust Company taking action, and they'll bend their standards to be the same."

"That's a good thing." Weiss pressed, hand slapping down onto the paper that had been rejected. "This is a good thing."

It was. It is. Blake admitted that, but her concern rested other places. "Outside of corporate terrorism, which you've always been a target for, you're blatantly asking for wealthy humans to swallow down years' worth of pride and prestige." That wouldn't sit well with financial backers. "You're asking something that the people of Atlas simply aren't ready for."

"I think we'll manage any losses we might take just fine." Weiss said slowly.

"And if we don't?" Blake asked, an honest edge in her tone. "Do you realize what'll happen if we ever have to claim bankruptcy? So many people would be out of jobs, and that's just the start."

"What would you have me do?" Weiss asked slowly.

"Wait on it…" Blake murmured. "Atlas isn't ready for this kind of step, and we've done what good we can for now."

"Are you completely sure about this?" Yang, who'd been fairly quiet up till now removed herself from the door. "You've been agonizing over this for months now. I don't like seeing you so restless." She was the true bodyguard of the establishment. Her longstanding partnership with Blake, and her loyalty to Weiss made her perfect for the position. She would never betray them.

"Cities aren't built in a day. They aren't reformed completely in a handful of years." Blake licked her lips. "Humans are just as capable of a revolt as Faunus are. Changes like these take time. Time Atlas hasn't had yet."

Palms still resting on the table, a long suffering sigh leaving her lips, Weiss nodded. "I'd force the government to see reason if I could."

Blake got up and made her way across the room. "I know, that's why this hurts so much." Blake grabbed onto the door handle. Leaving the office like this seemed so final, but she knew she had to give things more time. "Weiss, I'm going to go lay down."

"If you feel that you need to…" Weiss spoke hesitantly.

Blake nodded, closing the door behind her. She slowly meandered down the hall, her footfalls echoing in the large, empty space. She wasn't alone. Ruby ran towards here, the young woman's boots clanking along the floor the entire time.

"Blake!" The diminutive twenty year old greeted with a bright smile. Equal measures of enthusiasm and affection, nearly toppling the both of them over in the process. "Did you sign it? Did ya, did ya, did ya?"

"No." Blake murmured, ruffling Ruby's hair, still as messily kept as ever. "I didn't. The wording seemed off to me, somehow. I think we need to take a little more time to go over things."

"Oh…" Ruby soured then, her normally bright eyes downcast. "I was so sure it was going to happen this time."

"You and I both, Ruby." Blake murmured sadly. Somehow, the sentiment bore repeating. "You and I both."

It wasn't just the two of them. Everyone had been working so hard, and that's what hurt the most.

Blake's head ached. Her whole body did. She'd been staying up late for weeks, having nightmares for months. She still couldn't come up with the solution for the problem that was really bothering her. All of this responsibility weighed her. She didn't just get married to a huntress. She got married to Weiss Schnee, the figurehead of the strongest dust company in existence.

However, Weiss no longer held the monopoly. Other companies were cropping up across Remnant, and they were driving dust prices down because of the competition.

Furthermore, Blake got married to a woman. A human woman, and there were sacrifices she knew she had to make for that. It still didn't stop her body from warring with her though. It didn't soothe her instincts that came bubbling to the surface every spring and fall. Blake was not human. She was Faunus. She was subject to things far more primal, more subtle, than any human would comprehend.

Her human friends just didn't understand, but every time she met up with Velvet, she was rudely reminded of what she didn't have. What her body had been telling her it needed to have.

"Shit…" She cursed, more upset with herself than she wanted to admit, as she finally went to her room to lay down.

The whole problem started about a week after her honeymoon. She'd been romantically involved with Weiss for the last year of their studies, but they'd pointedly restricted their level of affection back then. There was a reason for that. A reason that tormented Blake the moment she made love to Weiss the first time. Blake hated to objectify her gender, but she was a female Faunus. Having children was as much a part of her, as her cat ears were.

Once she had sex once, the desire to continue to do so became overpowering. She knew why. Her body was ready to have offspring, and the urge to do so was niggling at her. The only problem was, she couldn't get pregnant naturally. She would have to rely on dust, and medical interference. While she knew that all logically, emotions were never so clear-cut.

"Blake?" Weiss entered their room after a soft knock. Even though it was her room too, she did it as a courtesy, Blake didn't like being startled. "Are you quite alright?"

"I'm fine, Weiss."

"You don't sound fine at all." Weiss came around to sit on the bed, her fingers running through silky black hair. Blake's ear twitched, and Weiss watched avidly, the concern clear in her voice. "You sound rather despondent, truth be told."

"I'm just tired."

"And listless, not to mention depressed."

"It's just mating season is all." Blake murmured sadly, knowing that Weiss was not so in tune to particular times of the year. "Everyone's scent floating around was giving me a headache. I needed some space."

"I don't like seeing you do displeased."

"It's not your fault that I'm jealous of Velvet." Blake replied openly. "I just can't believe she's pregnant again…"

"What?" Weiss balked. "That's her third litter in six years."

Blake shrugged as she sat up. "Large families are fairly common."

"True, but she's prone to multiples." Weiss lamented with a small frown. If Velvet was pregnant, it would mean the worse for Blake's mood. "Does she know if it's twins or triplets?"

Blake shook her head. "Too soon to tell."

Weiss let show a tiny smile. "Well, I'm sure Coco and Fox are ecstatic. They always are, after all." This wasn't a new conversation between them. Weiss needed an heir. That much was plain and simple. She merely thought she'd have a little more time, but Blake was clearly tearing herself to shreds emotionally. "Blake, listen, if you want to have a child now, we can. We don't have to wait anymore."

"It…" Blake sighed. "It won't be human…I didn't take your last name, so by the birth records, it won't even be a Schnee."

Weiss felt her stomach drop sickeningly. "I've told you before, I don't care about that rigmarole."

"The company will." Blake replied. "It's a crucial time, and I know that. We've worked so hard to get to this point. What will it say to the backers of our organization if the first born child is illegitimate?"

"You've been letting the board members plant seeds in your head again." Weiss accused, feeling a low burning rage start to fizzle in her blood. "Who was it? I'll see the matter handled, trust me."

"No, don't you see. You can't do that. Ironfisted power is no way to maintain control." Golden eyes closed as she leaned into Weiss. Her wife could be unfathomably cruel when provoked, and had a propensity to act more like her father under stress than either of them wanted to admit out loud. "God, why do I become such an emotional scatterbrain this time of year?"

"I don't know, but never mind that." Weiss forced herself to set the matter aside. If Blake started crying, things would get ugly, fast. Weiss didn't want that. Though she wasn't the warmest person on the face of the planet, she loved Blake. Weiss knew about dust, about its medical properties, and what it was capable of doing. If Blake wanted to be a mother, it was entirely possible. "All I care about is this: Do you want a child. Yes or no?"

AYangThang: So that was chapter one. Hope you liked it. Please remember to follow, favorite, or review. This fiction's probably going to have a lot of different pairings featured, but for now, the only ones I know of for sure are Blake/Weiss, Jaune/Pyrrha, and the occasional nod to a Coco/Velvet/Fox triad.