Chapter Four, i'll take you there

Yang Xiao Long's soulmate doesn't react upon hearing her name when they meet, not that Yang reacted herself. That night she wakes Blake up and Blake tells her she doesn't want her and Yang is ok with that.

Her parents had been part of a three-way soulmate relationship. Yang doesn't know if they were ever happy, but she knows that her birth mom had left both her soulmates and Yang behind before Ruby had even been conceived. Taiyang and Summer had been happy enough with only each other but Yang connects the dots and figures that Raven had been a constantly missing piece to their family. They'd been planning on having three children, one for each of them and to take their surnames so no child would have to bear three last names, but Raven had left and so Yang and Ruby didn't have a sibling with the last name Branwen.

Then Summer died and Taiyang fell to pieces from losing both his soulmates in less than a decade. Most didn't survive the loss of one soulmate much less two, but her father did. It took a while, but he'd recovered only with and for his two daughters and Qrow.

Yang knows soulmates don't spell a happy ending and she doesn't know why her mom left exactly, but she knows communication is key in any relationship. Especially with soulmates, where so many assumptions are made.

So she communicates with her and Blake doesn't want her as her soulmate in any shape or form and that is okay. Yang'll live and she'll never know what she is missing like her parents did.

Yang isn't certain if destiny is at play or not but Blake ends up being her partner at Beacon. Blake doesn't mind it so Yang doesn't mind it either.

Not having a soulmate to be committed to, Yang supposes she could date but she finds herself unwilling. It isn't really out of any sort of obligation she feels for Blake that stops her, but more a sense of obligation to everyone else's soulmates. Some people like to date before meeting their soulmate and some don't plan on giving a damn about their soulmate when they do meet, but Yang always ends up thinking about their soulmate mark. Some want their soulmate to be their first and only and there isn't any guarantee that both soulmates feel the same in that respect. Yang doesn't want to end up in the middle of anything like that, she doesn't want to be a reason a soulmate relationship ends unhappily like her parents.

(She is scared she already has, with her parents).

Perhaps dating someone like Ruby, who doesn't have a soulmate mark, would be the best and easiest way for her.

Nothing about soulmates really matters when her team and school find themselves at the very center of a war. Especially when Raven Branwen appears just in time to save her from being stabbed right through the heart.

Weiss' family disowns her and Blake is forced to fight the only family she has ever known, all while Yang finds the mother she has never known but has always been looking for. Yang isn't too certain whose side her mom is on for this war but she will have her answers by any means necessary.

Raven's story goes like this: She never wanted a soulmate, much less two. But she did want Taiyang and Summer. She loved them, honestly, just the same as she loved her brother, Qrow.

So they married and had a baby and they moved to Patch and built a home in gray forests , the three of them and Qrow because Raven goes nowhere without her twin. Qrow and Taiyang became teachers at Signal and her and Summer continued their careers as huntresses. When a time-intensive undercover mission is offered that'll get her out of the domesticity, she jumps for it. She never said goodbye, because she never would have been able to leave her team behind if she tried. It was the hardest thing Raven ever had to do.

(Raven says nothing about how hard it was to leave her infant daughter, so Yang assumes it wasn't)

Raven apologizes to Taiyang and Qrow and she howls and sobs at Summer's grave and mourns like Summer has just died. Raven doesn't apologize to Ruby, she doesn't apologize to Yang. Raven only ever wanted her team, never soulmates, never children.

Yang has her answers, but they don't help the ache in her soul, the fear in her bones, and her fears are confirmed.

Her second year at Beacon, Yang still doesn't date anyone. She watches over her team and their friends, supports their relationships, and offers to beat up anyone that breaks their heart. Yang flirts but never anything serious and the only heart she breaks trying to not be her mother is her own. She is happy for Blake and Sun and she is happy for Ruby and Weiss. Yang tries to tell herself that she is happy.

When Neptune and Weiss break up, he tries to make a move on her. Yang punches him hard in the face and then lets him cry on her shoulder.

"She isn't my soulmate, but I, like, loved her," Neptune tells her, "ya know?"

Yang doesn't know.

"My soulmate is Sun, but I don't think I'm his." Neptune tells her after she promises to keep it a secret. "We were friends for, like, a month before I ever found out his name."

(She thinks he might be more of a loser than Jaune, but she doesn't say that out loud)

"I was too embarrassed to ask his name, it wouldn't have been cool. I didn't find out until after we were partners. He's never said anything though." Neptune cries and Yang doesn't know how to relate, so she says nothing and pats his shoulder and feels awkward.

The first half of her third year is spent trying to be there for her team and all of their broken hearts, as well as a confidante to Pyrrha and Sun. Blake avoids her, but Weiss is there for her so Yang just quietly watches over the pair and focuses mostly on her sister.

"I wish I had a soulmate like a normal person, it'd be so much easier" Ruby cries, "Like your stories, Yang. That is all I ever wanted."

"Having a soulmate isn't that easy," Yang confides softly.

Ruby pauses at rubbing her snotty nose and cramming cookies into her mouth, to stare at her eyes wide and red. "Sorry, I shouldn't have –" Ruby stops herself, "You never talk about it. Do you want to? I'll listen. You always listen to me."

Yang scrubs at her sister's face with a washcloth while Ruby whines, "I wasn't talking about Blake and me. She is my partner and friend and I love her and respect what she wants. She doesn't want a soulmate."

Tossing away the cloth, Yang looks at Ruby's ruddy, clean cheeks, "But it wasn't easy for Mom or Dad," she doesn't mention Raven, "or Ren and Nora. Or for any of our friends.

"Love doesn't have to be hard." Yang says and Ruby raises her eyes in question as Yang seemingly contradicts herself, "but I think it is always hard between soulmates. Because the foundation of the relationship is destiny or fate or blood or whatever you call it. You've got to build everything yourself, with a soulmate. Even after the relationship develops, the foundation will always be a superficial start. It isn't easy."

Yang didn't know she thought any of that until she said it – it makes sense, though. Yang might be smarter than she ever gave herself credit for.

Pyrrha comes to Yang to talk about Jaune and her unrequited soulmate mark, as she had since first year because she thinks Yang understands better than anyone else would. Yang disagrees and Pyrrha disagrees with her disagreement. Yang knows Pyrrha would listen and help if Yang would only open up about Blake and Raven and her parents and her fears, but she is scared she'll cry. She is scared if she starts, she'll never stop. So Pyrrha talks and Yang listens.

"I know I'm being silly, hung up over Jaune this long and never even talking about it with him about it," Pyrrha sighs.

"He is still wants a chance with Weiss, because he wants a soulmate. And I know I'd have a chance, because he is that for me. He'd be over the moon for a chance to have a soulmate, even if it isn't Weiss, only… I started loving him because he didn't care about who I am, as a champion. I don't know how I'd feel if the only reason he looked my way was because I'm someone who wears his name on my skin."

Yang braids Pyrrha's hair and Pyrrha exhales in contentment.

"I don't know what you are thinking about Yang and you can talk to me about it, if you wanted. I'd listen. You don't have to hold back. Not just with me, but your team… my team too. We all love you, Yang. I don't know how any of us would have gotten through anything without you. We are ready to help you through anything, if you need it. Truly, Yang. I mean it."

Yang's fingers stop their braiding and she realizes, for the first time, she doesn't feel worth loving, nor deserving.

That night she thinks about Raven abandoning her without apology and Blake's hushed, "I don't want you," her first night at Beacon.

(If Yang hadn't been born, maybe Raven might never have run from her birth daughter and soulmates. Maybe her parents could've been happy and together and alive, if it weren't for her.)

Yang's nails bite into her palms as she tries not to claw herself as she realizes just how much she hates herself.

"This is probably way awkward," Sun tells her and Yang shrugs.

"I dunno. Not really."

Sun falters before continuing, "I really love Blake, even now. I want her to be happy. I think she'd be happy with you."

Yang doesn't answer because that's something for Blake to decide, not her or Sun. Sun groans at her silence.

"I mean, I guess I get it. Neptune's my soul mate, but I'm not his. Soulmate stuff is hard." He keeps talking even as Yang looks up and brackets him on both sides with her arms against the wall.

"Tell me everything."

Yang is almost pissing by the end – Sun had forgotten his soulmate mark's name until after he'd started dating Blake. He'd been planning on being with his soulmate, when they met, but he was going to date other people until then. But it wasn't like he saw the nape of his neck all the time and he'd forgotten all about Neptune Vasilias when he'd met him. By the time he'd figured it out, it was too late to bring it up and anyhow, Neptune didn't seem bothered. Anyway, Blake was great and he fell in love with her and Neptune was a great friend and partner. It is only now that he'd broken up with Blake that he has started pining after Neptune.

Weiss, Yang thinks, is right. Boys are morons.

Yang wrangles Sun and Neptune into talking with her as witness and thanks to her, they've fully realized themselves as soulmates. She tells them that they'd better get someone hot to play her if they sell the rights to their story to be made into a Rom-Com movie.

"That is nice, what you did," Pyrrha tells her later on, a month before the end of their third year, "Helping them get together."

Yang hums, the situation still makes her laugh and she fights a smile. The two sit in companionable silence for a while and Yang starts undoing Pyrrha's ponytail to braid.

"Yang. I think I've gotten over my infatuation with Jaune. It is for the best really."

"I'm happy for you Pyrrha. It's been painful seeing you in so much pain over him."

Pyrrha's eyes are brilliantly green as she pulls her hair from Yang's fingers to face her.

"I'm attracted to you. I think we'd be really great together, if you wanted to try, um. Being together. Dating. Or that is what I'd like." Pyrrha is having trouble maintaining eye contact and her fingers come up to play with her hair. Her eyes are wide.

Yang cries for hours and Pyrrha holds her as Yang tells her everything she has never told anyone and Pyrrha tells her she is worth loving and that she isn't guilty of Raven's crimes. Her hands stroke Yang's hair and she lets her.

"Okay," Yang says, her voice watery and wavering. "Let's date."

"My pleasure," Pyrrha says, smile radiant.

They don't have long together before the last of their upperclassmen's graduation and Velvet finds the two of them there and asks Pyrrha to talk. When Yang tries to leave to let them talk, Velvet asks her to stay.

"You deserve to hear what I've got to say. I don't want to go want to go behind your back." Then Velvet unbuttons her blouse and shows them her soulmate mark, Pyrrha Nikos and Yang's heart stops.

Yang tries to leave again, to let them talk but then Velvet apologizes and says that'll leave instead. She wasn't asking for anything, she just wanted to let Pyrrha know. Yang and Velvet debate which of them should leave and let the other talk with Pyrrha until Pyrrha decides she'll leave and let the two of them talk instead. They sit dumbfounded until a Pyrrha returns a minute later. All three of them talk for a while after that, until somehow they've negotiated that all three of them will date each other.

It is outlandish and reckless and all three of them can't stop laughing at their absurdity.

Yang looks at both of them and thinks she doesn't deserve either of them. She tells them and they tell her different through scroll messages and quick visits all through break until she believes them.

She gets tattoos, soulmate marks of her own creation, inked all over her body, one for every person she loves and loved (Ruby, Taiyang, Qrow, Summer, Weiss, Blake, Pyrrha, and Velvet just to start). She has so much love in her, she is scared she might not have even skin to mark them all. The length of time nor their transience in her life don't matter as much as the love they've shared with her when she couldn't love herself.

When her fourth year starts, Blake tells her she wants to be her soulmate. Yang feels like she could burst.

She never mattered to Raven, but that is ok. She matters to so many more people, to the people that matter to her.

Yang goes on dates with Pyrrha and they bring their scrolls and face-time with Velvet whenever she isn't on actively on a mission but not able to be in Vale with them. She visits occasionally.

It is a bit of a surprise when Nora wriggles her way into their relationship, but not unwelcome and there is more love for all of them.

Before their graduation Yang gets a tattoo for Nora as well. Nora's fingers trace all of her self-made marks and smiles.

"You've missed yourself, silly."

So Yang tattoos a large golden dragon that spans all across her body – her arms, back, and chest – and she feels powerful. She feels loved. For once her confidence feels less like false bravado that she wants to have and more like truth.

Her family and team and soulmate and lovers, her ink and blood and love. She has it all and more.

She parts ways from Nora and Pyrrha to go back home to Patch, but they keep in touch over scroll, same as they've been with Velvet. They'll all visit each other's hometowns when they have the time and they are still discussing who they'll all visit first.

Yang hopes she'll get the chance to have all of her most important people in her childhood home together.

Until then, she is squeezed in with her team and Penny on a sofa that seats three (Weiss grumbling that Yang takes up the most room) and a photo album of pictures of everyone that matters.

Her scroll beeps and it's a message from Nora.

Nora: We will all be there tomorrow evening! Ren is coming too! Hope you've got room! Can't wait to see you!

It'll be a tight squeeze, but it'll be worth it.

It'll be hard, but it will be worth it. They are worth it and she is too. She doesn't know where it is all going to go, but it'll be worth it. It is all worth it, for the feeling she has now. The love she feels for her family, team, soulmate, friends, and girlfriends as well as herself is everlasting no matter what happens next. She looks forward to it.

Thank you to everyone that has been reading this story! I have three shorts based on this universe planned that I'll post as separate stories as I write them. If anyone has any requests about little things I didn't cover, I might add more! Until then, I'm working on another RWBY fanfic series based upon on of my favorite rarely used fanfic tropes~!