"So… what's this called? Chamomile?"

Blake poured Yang a hot cup of tea from a portable kettle. Sitting on a picnic table on a highway rest stop, the girls decided to take a break from the 3 hour drive that started from the northern coast all the way to the northern base of the central mountain range. It was a chilly middle of the morning that wasn't as cold as the high altitudes of the mountains but cold enough to cause some misty frosting on the car's windshield. The rest stop was a somewhat popular place for travelers seeking to go up and around to northern edge of the continent in order to avoid the more demanding high altitude routes through the center of the continent's eastern land mass. It was situated in the middle of a forest in the more temperate regions, with coniferous trees lining the sky shedding a multicolored array of leaves on the ground. The highway route was busy this time of year for travelling families as many schools were closed for vacation.

Sipping her tea, Blake took note of the children running around playing while their parents talked on the benches about their respective trips. As a highly wooded and slightly isolated area to the north, this place had a relatively higher population of Grimm. The stop itself had a tall watch tower in the center. She saw a pair of sword wielding hunters, a human male and a Faunus female, chatting just beside a food stall, probably on their break. They were, in fact, holding hands.

"Yeah. Gives the tea a better fragrance. Actually… Yang I-"

"Was wondering what jobs to take after graduation? You've been staring at those hunters for a while."

Blake blushed in embarrassment. She, in fact, been wondering exactly what kind of jobs she'll end up taking when she graduated. She had never even tried asking herself that question since she entered Beacon almost on a whim. This was the first time she had really, really thought about where to put her skills to good use.

"I guess I was kind of the same. Idolized my dad and uncle Qrow for their work since I was a kid. I never really asked myself what kind of hunter I wanted to be. You know… the kind who just protects people, the ones who go out on Grimm culling missions, heck maybe even teach."

"Troublemaker kid growing up?"

"Yeah, but I learned my lesson after that whole disaster with Ruby on the trolley in the woods I swear!"

Both girls had a laugh that mixed with the laughter of playing children. Yang got up to buy some hotdogs at the stall as Blake stared at the kids. One of them was a child with cat ears just like hers, playing and laughing with her human friend who was probably around her age. She was holding a small plastic sword and was trying to hit her playmate with it. Blake then had started daydreaming about herself and what kind of hunter she wanted to be.

It was a fine image up until the point where, inside her own head, she would suddenly hear a scream followed by the sound of a man regurgitating blood and his own mangled innards. There appeared in her mind a small girl, desperately trying to claw herself away from Blake's feet. A dark shadow enveloped the girls face as she tried to get away from Blake, who found herself holding Gambol Shroud which was dripping with blood. A cold sweat dropped down the side of her face.

"Blake? Blake!"

Snapped back to her senses, Blake found herself holding a hotdog in a bun that Yang had just handed her. Yang sat beside her and looked her in the face with a worried expression

"Hey you okay? Is this another one of your 'remembering bad memories' moments?"

"Gah. I guess it's getting quite obvious these days."

"Well you've been having a LOT of those since we left Vale, for obvious reasons."

Blake took a bite of her hotdog. The smoky sour taste of mustard. Her ears curled as the taste went down her throat. She never really liked mustard but had neglected to tell her partner about it. It would be a waste to throw it away so she decided to tough it out.

"Sorry. I never really thought about what kind of hunter I wanted to be. I never really… trained to protect people. I was trained to be more… proactive with my skills."

"Even with a Semblance like yours?"

"Proactive in the sense of striking first rather than second. My Semblance was for… you know, when it was time to get away."

Tea with a mustard-laden hotdog was, surprisingly, a good combination. The bitterness of the tea helped cleanse the sourness of mustard that overstayed its welcome on Blake's tongue.

"Plus… yeah… my skills never really gives the impression that I was protecting anyone. Guess that's what I should've expected given who trained me."

Blake sat back and leaned her back her back on the table. Yang looked on at the playing children. The little Faunus girl was hitting her friend who was a blonde human boy. He had his fists up and trying to block the girl's stick while trying to return playful punches on her. The two were laughing and shouting the whole time. After a while their parents called both kids back into their car as they prepared to leave.

"What exactly… did you do with your training?"

Blake took a deep breath, as she often does when she's about to start a story.

"Like I said, I learned from Adam and other fighters in the White Fang. Since it was the time we chose to take up arms, a lot of us started combat training. Around that time was when my Semblance started to take form. I honed and focused my Semblance. There weren't a lot of people in the White Fang who really had aura's good enough for fighting, so there wasn't a lot of us who could really be the prime fighters in the group."

Blake poured herself another cup of tea and took the last bite of her hotdog.

"I really liked swords. Don't know why but out of all the weapons I tried I performed the best with them. Plus they worked well with my Semblance. I wasn't really the type to go head to head with people, and we as a group focused more on... being in the shadows, so a lot of my training went to more covert fighting styles."

"Ooohhh like a secret agent!"

"Err yeah something like that… I guess?"

Yang had a slightly starry-eyes look on her face. She had a romanticized notion of secret agents infiltrating evil organizations with style and charm and taking them down from inside with class. She read a bit of those stories growing up. Reality was however quite different, especially upon remembering how the White Fang typically operates. It took a while for her realize exactly what Blake meant by her being in the shadows.

"Wait... you weren't like... an assassin or something right?"

Blake put down her tea and looked Yang straight in the eye. Yang could feel the weight of her stare bear down on her, not knowing if she had just insulted her, or her if her choice of words dug a memory deep in Blake she shouldn't have poked at.

"... Yang... have you ever... killed anybody?"

Blake spoke with a straight, almost deadpan expression. Yang could feel her blood chill like someone had injected ice in her veins. This was the first time she could feel a menacing atmosphere emanate from her partner. Yang fidgeted, unable to answer the question as she felt the beat of her heart like a drum pounding on her chest.

"... No. I wasn't an assassin. Those were... jobs for the others."

Blake took another sip of her tea as the atmosphere lifted between them. Yang felt like she could breath again as the loud thumping of her heart subsided.

"... No I haven't. Maybe almost, but I always managed to stop myself. I guess some people deserve it but... no that's not me..."

Yang took the last bite of her hotdog. Despite what their conversation ended up being, she wasn't one to easily lose her appetite.

"We had the option to choose what missions we wanted and how we went about them. I refused to kill, simple as that. I always took the more covert missions where I could just knock people out or just sneak around. Never the ones where I really had to fight people... but..."

Blake looked her right hand and clenched it into a fist.

"Sometimes you don't have a choice. When it comes down to it... there's no way around what you have to do..."

"What do you mean?"

"For us, for me, to continue what we were doing in the White Fang... we had to truly believe in what we stood for. What we fought for. Once you start questioning those beliefs... you might as well just quit. It all... started for me the moment I realized what fear truly was."

Blake started to laugh. A cold, forced laugh.

"Heh. It's kind of ironic. Everything I went through, all the things I've seen... all the things I've done... even with all of those it's as if I never knew what it meant to be afraid. For your life, your family, all of those things. The moment when I understood fear... was in the eyes of someone else. A human child. Staring at me as I... gutted a man right in front of her."

A regular person would have dropped a cup they were holding if they heard something like this out of the blue. Not Yang, at least not anymore. She's heard enough about Blake's life not to be shocked anymore. A fact that, as Yang would admit, is rather sad to begin with.

"In a small village not too far from here... there's an Atlas relay tower. 2 years ago I was sent by the group to hack the tower and retrieve some data that was stolen from our servers. There was a human family in the village that was sympathetic to our cause so it was arranged for me to stay with them while I prepared for the mission. That family... they had a little girl. She was... maybe 5 years old at the time."

Blake took out a book from her backpack. Inside was a folded picture of Blake standing beside a young man, woman and a small girl in front of house and garage.

"He was a sympathizer who worked for the Atlas Communications Division, in charge of the relay tower security. He provided me with the guard patrol schedules and the access keys to the site. He was... really enthusiastic about helping me. He told me stories of many of his friends were Faunus and how he was one of the few humans trusted to be an unofficial member. His daughter was the same. An idealistic kid filled with her father's stories of how Faunus were wonderful people and how one day humans and Faunus would live in peace. She said she never met a Faunus before but read a lot about them in books and asked all sorts of questions."

Blake stared at the picture. In it she was kneeling on the ground hugging the little girl. She passed it on to Yang, who was also reminded of the pictures she used to take with her parents right before they would leave on missions.

"Me and the kid bonded almost immediately. Probably... probably because she reminded me so much of myself, you know, if I were a human. The entire day I just ended up telling her all sorts of stories. I arrived in the morning after a whole night of traveling and wanted some rest, since I was planning to get into the tower the very same evening but, you know, kids will be kids."

Blake took back the book and placed it in her bag. The picture she left with Yang who was still admiring it.

"You know... that was the first time since I left the orphanage that I really had the chance to talk with humans again. All those years I was with Faunus almost exclusively, and with it all those stories on how we should never trust humans and be wary around them. Standard propaganda stuff. It really got rather extreme with all the anti-human rhetoric when the group decided to take arms... but..."

Blake poured the last drop of tea into her cup. The air had gotten more chilly as the rest stop started to empty. Most families had already left in order to reach the next town before nightfall. Most of the people left in the stop were couples and single travelers. They were the only pair of girls left by that time.

"Seeing them... seeing how much they helped me and how close they were to each other... they weren't really any different from my family. At least what I could remember. I ate a late breakfast and lunch with them that day before I left for my mission. That evening the town sheriff was on patrol, working on a tip that there was a Faunus in town working for the White Fang. It was probably me, no idea how news of my arrival came to town. To top it all off I didn't even have a weapon with me..."

Blake took out Gambol Shroud. On the base of the scabbard the initials B.B. were inscribed.

"Those initials aren't mine by the way. The girls father, his name was Eric. His best friend was a Faunus. He was the original owner of Gambol Shroud and had the same initials as me. He was a hunter who was famous in these parts. He... died when he refused to use his weapon to defend himself from an angry mob of anti-Faunus activists. He left Eric the sword before he died in the hospital and told him to give it to a Faunus who will someday need it. That's why he gave it to me because I was unarmed... though he wished I wouldn't have to use it. I made him the promise not to use it unless I really need to."

"You know... Ruby always thought you made Gambol Shroud yourself. Didn't think it had such a... history behind it."

"I didn't actually think I was worthy of Eric's friend's weapon, but I needed one now that people were suspicious of a White Fang operative in town. I left the house once he gave me the weapon and told him that I'll be back as soon as possible. That night I headed for the relay tower which... well to be honest it wasn't much a tower as it was a 3 story building with a radio antenna on the roof. Eric had changed the rotation that night so there were only 3 guards on duty. What I thought would be a complex mission I finished in an hour, with enough time to go back and eat dinner with the family. I knocked out the guard in the back and scaled the wall using Gambol Shroud's chain scythe, a weapon I've used in the past. Beats having to come in through the front door. In one fell swoop I was inside the main comm room. 5 minutes inside the comm room and I got back our data. Even managed to swipe some Atlas encryption keys."

"All's well that ends well right? At least you didn't have to use the sword."

Blake sipped the last of the tea. She didn't respond initially, and Blake again picked up that something in this story was about to go wrong. Very wrong.

"And... how I wished that was true... so much..."

Blake crunched the cup she was using and threw it in the trash. At that time the last of the kids in the playground had left, so Blake decided to have a seat in the swings. Yang sat beside her as Blake pushed herself back and forth on the swing set like a little kid.

"Eric's daughter had a swing set in front of their house kinda like this. I was actually expecting her to be playing with her mom by the time I got back from the comm tower... then again..."

Blake stopped swinging almost immediately. Yang for her part was using her swing so wildly that the chains were shaking and she swung back and forth. It took a moment for her to realize that Blake had stopped swinging and had gone silent. She stomped her feet on the ground and went into a full stop that dug her boots into the soil.

"I saw her mom outside alright. She was sitting on the front porch of their house with a bullet hole in her chest."

It was as if the cold air turned to ice. Yang could feel the air pricking and poking on her skin as Blake nonchalantly described the scene of a human mother laying dead in front of their house. Blake went on about hearing a man screaming about Faunus inside the house as she checked for a pulse that was already gone the moment she was hit by the bullet straight into her heart.

"The guy sounded like the town sheriff, and I could only assume that he shot her. I could hear his screaming coming from the second floor, demanding Eric reveal where the White Fang operative was. I also heard Eric telling his daughter to hide. He knew who I was. I don't know how, but he did, and because of that Eric's wife had to pay the price of... the price of my presence."

Blake stood up from the swing set and climbed atop the jungle gym. Yang naturally followed her as both girls let their hair blow with the wind.

"He was alone as far as I could tell. I slowly went up the stairs and saw them both in his bedroom. Eric was on his knees with the sheriff holding a gun to his head. The door was open and the sheriff had his back to me with Eric looking towards the stairs. I could tell he could see me when I made it up. I took out a piece of paper and wrote down a message. I flashed it to him, saying to give me up and they'll be safe. He... didn't follow. He kept refusing to tell him who or where I was. The sheriff told him that they were allowed to use force against anyone helping the White Fang. It wasn't long until the sheriff finally lost patience... and pulled the trigger."

The cold air was now poking holes in Yang. She could feel it burrowing into her skin like her skin was turning to ice.

"Blood gushed out from the hole in his head as he fell to the floor. What was it? Rage, anger... hate? All those emotions boiled in me as I began to remember all the stories of human cruelty told to me by my White Fang mentors. I readied my sword the moment he fired and prepared to draw but... another sound stopped me. A scream. It was her. It came from the bathroom."

A tear came down Blake's cheek and fell down from her face. It froze before it even hit the ground, hitting it with an almost inaudible thud.

"He rushed for the bathroom as I made my way into the bedroom. The girl was hiding under in the closet under the sink. He dragged her out and pointed the gun at her. She was... scared, obviously, but she was also... trying to be brave. She made a tough face as tears streamed down her cheeks. The sheriff tossed her to the wall and demanded answers. She was... as stubborn as her father, and I'd be damned if I was letting her end up like her parents. I was about 10 feet behind him when he pulled back the hammer on his pistol. I rounded the corner ready to knock him out when she saw me. The little girl screamed my name. He turned around and fired. In... a split second my training and instincts kicked in as my semblance took the bullet and... I ran Gambol Shroud clean through his chest."

For a moment its as if time froze for both of them. The leaves stopped falling in midair. The cars seemed to stop in the middle of the road. Water stopped flowing down the fountain. For a second nothing moved, in that pause in Blake's story.

"For a moment I felt... almost happy. An almost elated and sadistic feeling. I... didn't mean to kill him but he deserved it. When I did, when I heard Gambol Shroud rip through his rib cage and straight through his lungs, when I heard his heart beat stop as his body slump on my shoulder... for a moment I felt... satisfied, if only for a moment. And then... a scream. A loud, terrified shriek."

Blake's pupils constricted as she pictured in her head the image forever burned in her mind.

"The little girl looked at me in absolute terror. I saw myself in the mirror as I dropped his corpse on the floor. I was... I was smiling. That image of me smiling after I killed my first person snapped me back to reality. I looked at my hands. They were covered in blood. At that exact moment countless images flashed through my mind. Blood on my hands during that fateful massacre. Blood on my hands from beating up neighborhood bullies. The blood dripping from the bodies of my parents as they hung lifelessly from that tree. All that suffering, that anger, that hatred..."

Blake gripped the steel bars as tight as she could, so hard that it shook the play set. Yang instinctively placed a hand on her shoulder.

"All of those I felt in my life, I saw in her. I... by being there and doing what I did... I did to her what they did to me. And on her face, for the first time... I saw fear. The fear I should have felt as the lynch mob dragged my parents away. The fear I should have felt when Atlas mechs cut down my friends. The fear I should have felt when I ran my sword straight through the sheriff. The fear I never felt... that moment in time I finally felt what had eluded me all those years."

"Blake... you didn't kill her parents, and you saved that girl's life!"

"I... know... but if didn't come to that town they would still be alive. I wouldn't have killed a man. And that girl... she wouldn't have been scarred for life... like me."

Yang tried to reach in for a hug, but Blake evaded it and dropped down from the jungle gym.

"I was a coward. When I came back to my senses I ran from the house. I ran from the village. I ran to the outskirts and climbed up a large tree. I was running on adrenaline and, when I ran out, I just fell asleep. The next morning I called in to HQ and reported everything that happened. When they picked me up a few hours later... I just... tried to put it all in the back of my mind."

"And then... what did you do?"

"... nothing. I just... like I said I put it behind me. I never saw that girl again. I tried to forget, I couldn't but I tried. I just blocked it out until today. I couldn't let it hinder me and my work. Heh. To think I was just as old as Ruby then..."

Blake headed back to the car as Yang jumped down from the play set. The air was getting a bit warmer as more people started arriving in the rest stop. Yang could see the downcast eyes on Blake as she buckled on her seat belt, eyes that had become common on her face for the past few days.

"If you don't mind me asking... what was the girl's name?"

"... Erin. Erin Belvedere...why?"

"Have you, you know, tried contacting her?"

"And open up old wounds? Remind her of the reason she's an orphan? No thank you. I don't even know where she is now... don't even know if she's okay..."

Despite all the tea they drank, Blake was fast asleep seconds after getting in her seat. Yang had already pulled into the highway when she noticed her partner purring in her seat. She saw this as her best chance as she pulled out her phone.

"Weiss? How's Rose?... she's awake? Wow... thank goodness. Thank you for taking care of her I really appreciate it. Listen ummm... I need another favor. Your company works closely with Atlas right? I... need some info on the location of the daughter of a... deceased Atlas employee. It's for Blake..."

Blake mumbled in her sleep, apparently half awake, but unable to hear what Yang was talking about on her phone. Yang navigated down the twists and turns of the forested highway while talking to Weiss. Blake was simply too exhausted emotionally to pay any mind.

"... where exactly? Let me check on the car's navigator... wait... wow the town's actually pretty close by. Thanks Weiss. Say hi to my sister for me!"

Yang put the car into high gear as Blake again fell into a deep sleep. Leaves made soft thumping sounds as they fell on the roof and windshield. Yang quietly hummed to herself as her partner lay on her reclined car seat. For an hour after that the car was essentially silent as it weaved through the north of the continent. The tall hardwood trees in this area was protected by the government as mass deforestation had reduced much of the continent's prized hardwood trees, with the central mountain range being the only area where tree cutting for lumber was still allowed. The trees became progressively shorter as Yang drove on, signalling that they were about to exit the forest. It would only be a few more minutes before Yang would start seeing grey smoke billowing from the stone chimneys in a small rural town a few miles away. Yang looked in her phone for the details that Weiss had sent her as she parked the car by a small house.

"Rise and shine kitty!"

Yang incessantly poked Blake on the cheek to get her up. She tossed around in her seat before she finally stretched her arms.

"... wow... how long was I out... where are we?"

She looked outside the passenger side window. A dozen houses sitting along an intersection and a stream a few meters off the main highway exit. At the center was a refueling station with a large antenna, a small grocery doubling as a convenience store, and a small mechanic's garage. It was quite literally a small town in the middle of nowhere that was basically like the rest stop they were in, only with people actually living there.

"This is where she lives now. Erin."

Blake's eyes narrowed as a scowl emerged from her face.

"...Goddammit Yang... I didn't tell you one of my darkest secrets just for you to drag me back into it. Can we please get out of here?"

As Blake raised her voice, and this she rarely does, Yang tossed her Scroll onto Blake's lap.

"Just read this first, then decide what you want to do."

Blake picked up the Scroll. On it was a local newspaper article about a human girl, aged 7, who was helping set up a small halfway house for local Faunus with her adoptive Faunus family. It was in the town they were in. Reading on Blake learned it had become an issue as it was unheard off for a Faunus family to adopt orphaned humans. The article itself stated that the young Faunus couple were friends of the girl's deceased parents. Yang slowly drove the car to the last and largest house by the end of the street as Blake read on. Outside the 3 story house were a pair of old Faunus men cutting the lawn as a young gingerly Faunus woman came and brought them some cold drinks. Yang parked the car on the opposite side of the street.

"Two years is a long time for someone that age. Do you think she'd be able to live with a Faunus family, much less help with taking care of strangers, if she had come to hate them for what happened?"

Blake couldn't even muster a response as she stared out the window.

"Blake... the last time she saw you was when you stormed off after saving her life. I can't disregard the horrors that little kid saw that day... but do you think she could live in a peaceful place like this if she wasn't able to deal with it?"

Still no answer.

"You said so yourself, you felt like the two of you were very much alike. If she really is, then I think she's been able to live with herself two years from then. Just like you when you lived in that orphanage. I think it's time for both of you to put some closure to what had happened that day, or at least put both of you towards it."

No answer.

"Look... I won't blame you if you don't want to. If you can't, or won't, then I'll drive us on out of here. You'll never have to see her again."

Yang and Blake sat in the car with a near deafening silence between them. Yang, thinking that Blake was adamant, readied to drive them back to the highway. Before she could shift the car into first gear, Blake clumsily got out of the car and approached the young woman outside.

"Umm... excuse me? Miss?"

"Yes? Can I help you?"

"Does... does Erin Belvedere live here?"

The young woman had a slight hint of suspicion in the corner of her eye as she looked at Blake from top to bottom. Blake had the foresight to leave her weapon in the car.

"Yes she does. You are?"

"A friend of her father's. Eric. May I... see here?"

The young woman, feeling a sense of kindness from Blake, called for young Erin from inside the house. After a few moments a young girl, wearing a yellow dress and holding a black and white cat Faunus doll that itself was holding a sword, stood at the doorway. There, the young girl and Blake stared at each other for what must have felt like an eternity. In reality it lasted for barely two seconds.

In an instant the young girl dropped her doll and ran towards Blake, hugging her waist with tears streaming down her face. Blake, finally realizing what the last 2 years meant fro both of them, got down on one knee and hugged her back. Tears streaming down her face.