As of right now, there's a dragon AU craze going around on tumblr in the RWBY fandom. This is my attempt at making a story with it.

It was a sheer cliff-side, the edge of the rocky formation dropping off steeply almost straight down the forest that lay roughly a mile below it. The constant wind blowing against the grooves in the stone wall made sounds like animals howling before gusting upwards and over the top. Given that there was nothing to stop a person or animal from falling right over the edge if they slipped, it was hard to feel comfortable at all while looking off the rocky top of it. Especially if you had your claws right on the curved edge where it dropped off.

"Do we really have to do this Yang?" The smaller dragon asked. Roughly the size of a horse, the crimson dragon might have seemed large compared to most animals or people, but in their terms she was tiny, small even for a young juvenile. Although even if you couldn't tell by the size, other features made it easy to determine how young she was. The slightly crooked obsidian horns had only grown out of being nubs a while ago, her tail little more than a triangular stub, and the frills on her neck yet to grow in. Even the spikes along her back and tail had yet to fully grow out, each bump along her spine looking more like rounded halves of dark pebbles, with red streaks just visible on them.

The air blowing up into her face made her blink repeatedly before she pulled her head back from over the edge, trying not to let grey eyes water. Her wings tucked in close to her back, she peered up at the much larger dragon next to her. "This doesn't seem quite safe." They had been there on the cliff for a handful of minutes now, her tail shifting from one side to the other as she tentatively glanced at the drop below.

"It'll be fine Ruby." The voice of her sister was underlined by a constant purring growl that came with each word, much like how any dragon would sound, speaking when transformed. "Every dragon has to learn sometime how to fly. And this is one of the best ways!" Whereas Ruby was horse sized at best, Yang was just reaching past the height and width of an elephant, and her horns were more developed, curling down towards her chin. Her gold scales shimmered with the light of sun as it moved towards the horizon. "Besides, you can't ride around on my back all the time, you have to learn to fly on your own soon enough. Might as well be now."

"But from here? Jumping off a cliff?" The younger's voice ended in a squeak as she dared to peek over the edge once more. Moving one paw, her claws brushed against a loose pebble, causing it to jump and fall off the edge. The hesitation bubbling inside of Ruby only increased as she watched how long it took for the stone to reach the trees. It became too small for her to even see any more before the time it was three quarters of the way down. "I don't know if-"

Another loud squeak came out as a large paw pushed against her hindquarters, giving her a shove strong enough to go right off the edge. Pulling her paw back to herself, Yang watched intently as her sister fell down, certain that it would come to her like instinct to open her wings and start flying. This had been how she had learnt to fly herself, even if it had been accidental that time. However, as the seconds passed and the scarlet dragonling kept dropping further down, she grew worried.

"Hmm... maybe she needs some help?" Spreading her own wings wide, tanned webbing showing between the ridges of bone that separated segments, Yang dived forward, dropping down swiftly thanks to a few pumps of her wings, and catching up to where Ruby was flailing with all fours desperately, trying to find something to stop her rapid descent.

"Ruby!" Yang had to yell to be heard over the wind rushing past their ears, keeping one eye on her sister, and the other on the approaching ground. "Open your wings!" Petrified at finding herself falling suddenly, the younger hadn't had enough presence of mind to remember to do that much.

"I can't!" Ruby's response was a kneejerk reaction to the fear of falling. A glimmer of tears could be seen in the corner of her eyes that had been scrunched shut in her fear, though they soon disappeared as the rushing air tore them away, her continued flailing barely disturbing the rate at which she was plunging.

"Yes you can!" The older shouted back, growing ever more concerned at the forest fast coming up to meet them. "You know you can do it! So open those wings and start flapping!"

Peeling her eyes open, Ruby tilted her head down to see trees lurching up towards her. Those eyes welded themselves firmly shut once more with another shrill squeak at the sight, almost certain that she was about to feel immense pain. The seconds ticked by, and the lack of forest and earth smacking into her got the dragon curious, slowly opening one eye to peek out.

The trees had stopped their movement up to her, now seemingly bobbing up and down. Curiosity replacing her fear, Ruby swivelled her head all around, trying to figure out why she was now hovering in mid-air. Looking over her shoulder, she spotted her pair of short wings flapping furiously, their motion having kept her from dropping any further. The realisation of what she was doing sinking in, elation flowed through her, squealing out loud as she bounced in the air.

"I'm flying! Yang, Yang!" She called out as the yellow dragon flew back over to her, having been forced to glide away to take care of her own momentum from falling. "Look!" Ruby twisted around, managing to do a whole turn while keeping herself aloft.

"I can see." Yang's fangs were gleaming white against her contrasting scales as she gave the dragon equivalent of a grin. Although her exterior might have only appeared happy for now, inside her heart felt like it was swelling from the pride of her baby sister taking her first steps to learning how to fly.

"You did great for your first attempt! If you keep this up, I might even be able to teach you how to do your dragon breath soon. Like this!" Turning her head out to face open air, she opened her jaws wide, taking a large gasp of air inwards to inflate her chest before letting it out as a rage of lightning and sparks that flew out a dozen meters before ending. Smoke curled out from around her fangs as it eventually stopped, jaws clicking shut as Ruby watched on, slightly awed and curious as to what her own would look like.

But they shouldn't stay floating along here for much longer. Ruby was trying hard, but she wouldn't be able to keep it up for long, not on her first try. Keeping her own self aloft with a few consistent beats of her wings, the older sister glanced around for a place for them to settle in for a rest, spying a tiny clearing but a handful of yards away. "Come on, let's take a break before we head back home." Taking the lead easily, Yang drifted over to the spot, slowing down to make sure that Ruby wouldn't be that far behind once she landed.

As all four paws hit the ground with enough force to make it vibrate beneath her, Yang's form started to shift as she walked forward. Her front pair of legs rose up as if she reared back, golden scales turning swiftly into tanned skin as that pair of legs turned into arms instead. Shrinking as she took another step, a long mane of blonde curls appeared down her back, although the horns stayed. Clothing appeared on her, a leather tunic over an orange cotton shirt with a round scarf wrapped over her neck, along with tight tanned pants and a pair of black boots. Other than her horns, a few other signs remained of her other, reptilian, form, such as a patch of her golden scales on her collarbone, hidden under her scarf and its edges fading into her skin, and the fangs replacing certain teeth in both upper and bottom jaws.

Blinking her lavender eyes as she finished changing into her human form, Yang glanced back over her shoulder to spy Ruby struggling along, almost to the clearing. The poor little dragonling was huffing and puffing as she pushed herself to keep her wings going, taking a small drop when she missed a beat, recovering but her flight becoming more wonky as she came in to land.

Panting for air as her claws brushed against the ground, Ruby started shifting as soon as she could manage to. Much like the transformation that Yang had gone through, she was soon turning into a human girl, although in her case there was less of size reduction during the change. Dark straight hair with its ends tinged with red appeared around her horns, and a black dress with long sleeves soon flowed down to her knees, a hem of red ruffles to the skirt's end.

Before she could do much more than sigh happily at being back on firm ground, strong arms were wrapping themselves around her waist, drawing her in for a bone squeezing hug. Ruby let out a distressed squeak along with the air involuntarily leaving her lungs as Yang continued unabated, even picking her bodily off the ground during the hug, grinning broadly.

"Oh, I'm so proud of you!" She announced as loud as possible, swinging Ruby from one side to the other repeatedly. Yang had been waiting a while now to do this (it was hard to pull off hugs in dragon form and in mid-air) and now that she had her chance she was taking it. "My baby sister's growing up so fast!"

Leaning back too far as she lifted Ruby up, Yang stumbled as too much weight was placed on her upper body, making her fall onto her back with her sister landing on top of her. Despite that, she couldn't help but laugh happily as she let the younger roll off of her and to one side of her.

"I could have done without being shoved off, you know." Ruby complained, though she was still elated over finally being able to use her wings. "You almost gave me a heart attack!" That earned a louder laugh from Yang, who simply reached over with one hand to ruffle her sister's hair.

"You were stalling for too long, I just gave you a little push." She played off the incident, leaving Ruby to grumble to herself as she fixed the messed up hair. "And it worked out, didn't it? You managed to hover all by yourself, and then over a few yards on your own."

"It's not much compared to what you and the others can do though." That was true, but Yang and the others all had years on her when it came to flying experience. She could remember a lot of the others that had started learning to fly when she did doing only as well as hovering for a minute or two. For a first attempt, Ruby showed great potential for the future if she kept up that learning curve. "And my wings are still so small."

"They'll grow." Yang assured her as they both laid back on the grass, staring up at the dimming sky as the sun set, streaks of orange and purple overtaking the bright blue. "And practice will make them stronger, you just have to keep at it. A few weeks, and you'll be able to start doing trips to the other town and back all on your own just fine, I'm betting." Her confidence was likely to boost as well when that happened, being able to do what everyone else older than her had been able to do as they please for a while now. It must have sucked, being the youngest in their small community.

Opting to enjoy the peace and quiet of the forest for a while before heading back, the both of them fell into a comfortable silence, watching the sky as it continued to darken overhead and listening to the chirps of insects and calls of birds echoing all around them through the trees. It was so peaceful, that Yang let herself be lulled into a doze, the soft grass underneath them helping.

"Yang." The call brought a slight crease of her brows, obviously not wanting to open her eyes just yet. "Yang!" Ruby was more insistent this time, a tinge of panic slipping into her words. The elder opened her eyes back up, finding that not much time had passed since she had closed them, if she was judging how slight the changes to the sky were right. "Yang, who is that?"

The girl was pointing one hand up straight to a point overhead, having sat up sometime while her sister was asleep. Sitting up as well and following with her eyes up to where it was pointing out, Yang quickly spotted who Ruby had meant. A large dragon, far bigger than either of them, was making its way through the sky, its wings flapping every few seconds to keep it in midair and on track to where it was headed. Onyx scales were making it harder to spot against the darkening sky, and the carmine hue to the underside of its wings didn't help matters either. But the glowing gold embellishments along its sides, those did stand out. A tail slithered through the air behind it, ended with a jagged spike to its tip.

Just looking at them gave Yang a sense of dread that sunk low into her stomach and sat there like a heavy stone pressing down on her. There was something off about the dragon, as if they had an aura of danger to them. Luckily, it seemed that it hadn't noticed the girls resting in the clearing by themselves, and was ignoring all else as it flew along gracefully. The best plan would be to err on the side of caution by waiting a while under cover for them to be good and gone, and then to take Ruby home.

"Okay." Whispering in hushed tones despite the fact that the dragon overhead shouldn't be able to hear them anyways, Yang leaned over to her sister, placing one hand on Ruby's shoulder as she continued to watch intently, her mouth opened slightly as she stared. "Ruby, we need to move to the trees and-"

"Yang." She was cut off by her sister, stopping despite the quietness of which her name was spoken with. A flicker of fear had made its way to Ruby's silver eyes as she seemed to pale. "They're heading towards our town."

A warning: If you like this, and want more, you may want to prepare yourself for sporadic updates at best after the prologue is finished. I've got other series going on, so I can't promise that I'll be able to keep updating this as regularly as the others, at least until I finish one of them. I'll try to do once a week at least like the others, but I really can't promise for sure. Hope you liked it anyways! If you did, as always, please consider leaving a review.