07-08-2018, 09:20 AM
The tavern was relatively silent as the trio ate their breakfast. Weiss had gone for something a little closer to what she used to enjoy when she’d lived on Remnant - a cinnamon roll, eggs, ham, something she would’ve been able to smile about a few months ago.
Unfortunately, one of the things hollows didn’t seem to possess - at least in her case - were decent taste-buds. The tea tasted normal to her at least - Weiss didn’t really know the ‘why’ of that - but the food could’ve been paper for all she could tell. Still, she stubbornly stuck the fork in her mouth bite after bite, adding salt and pepper and marmalade and that red stuff she couldn’t really identify in ever increasing amounts after each forkful. She had no idea if there was a limit to this tastelessness, but she was determined to find out!
Yukika was looking at her with a small ‘O’ of utter shock as she kept adding stupid amounts of sauce and spice to each mouthful, but Weiss ignored the incredulous stare. She wasn’t exactly interested in explaining the problem in a camelot tavern - or at all, to be honest - and she didn’t exactly think day 2 of meeting someone is the time to mention you’re technically some soul-sucking demon. Wysteria, on the other hand, was too busy enjoying a few pieces of french toast to care, and the hollowfied huntress couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.
Weiss breathed a long, hard shgh after she’d covered a slice of ham with a full layer of mustard, ketchup, Salt, pepper, and butter, and got exactly nothing from her tongue in response. With a frown on her face, she procured a small, silver pill from her belt pouch - her soul management pill - and swallowed it quickly. Chasing off the ashen after-taste of the foul little thing with the last of her tea, Weiss prepared to get up and wait for the others to finish their meal outside.
As she was standing up, though, something caught the attention of her senses:
The table behind them had been filled with whispered voices since Weiss had sat down, but she hadn’t really been paying attention to the content of their discussion, too wrapped up in her own thoughts. The feeling of their shortest standing up while holding a steak knife by the blade, however, pushed them into her awareness. It took her only an instant to turn around and see that the other two had done a good job arranging the table to conceal the identity of the knife holder leaving her only a small window to see the blade, and their eyes were very carefully situated away from the huntress as the kid took aim.
And it didn’t take long to realize that Wysteria was their target.
Weiss sort of had the gist of what they were doing: They’d only take credit for the attack if it was successful, but they’d set themselves up to create deniability if anyone intervened early by claiming to be the victims. She remembered Blake saying something similar happened with racist humans - or faunus - trying to make trouble in establishments like these.
Weiss held up two fingers, focusing as little spiritual energy as she could into the tips, before firing off a small, before pointing her finger over her shoulder. Firing the shot without looking their way, Weiss sagged her shoulders a little as the tiny bolt of spiritual energy smacked smacked one of the instigator’s knuckles just hard enough to cause a bruise and an unfortunately timed twitch of the fingers, and a cry of “Agh!” followed a twitching hand, a dropped knife and a red cut across the kid’s palm. The bar started to clamor as the kid clutched his bleeding hand, and her two new friends both got up with looks of concern to go check out the situation.
Weiss, for her part, just took another sip of her tea, before sitting up slowly and turning to face the commotion with a neutral expression, one eyebrow raising slowly.
The kid was holding his hand, but judging by the lack of blood spilling out, it didn’t seem like Weiss had given him more than a paper cut. That much was good, at least. His two co-conspirators were making jokes about the shorter kid managing to hurt himself during breakfast, and now that Weiss was properly looking at them she noticed that the teenager was rather innocent looking for what he was trying to do. Lightly tanned skin followed with spiky brown hair, big blue eyes, and a face still covered in a little baby fat. She smirked just a little at the image: It reminded her a bit of Ruby when they’d first met.
The smile faded when she remembered what he’d intended to do to Wysteria, though, and it was replaced with a desire to point a finger right now and punish him for his little attempt.
“Seriously, Dean, your mom’s going to kill you if that blood gets all over your shirt!” the fatter one added, slapping the kid on the back with a heavy hand.
Weiss sighed and prepared to walk past the jerk instead at the statement. It wasn’t really her issue to solve, and the danger had been handled. The group could at least get out of here-
“W-would this, umm, help?”
Weiss looked up in shock at the voice, and realized she hadn’t noticed Wysteria passing her by. The girl was holding up a box of band-aids with one tentacle, and holding a small bottle of sanitizer in the other.
Dean looked at the band-aids, then the sanitizer, as Wysteria slowly shrank.
“I, um, these are called band-aids in, um, my world. NOt that I think you wouldn’t know, it’s just that I’m from another world and, um, I didn’t know if you’d know but I’m a hero - or I mean, I’m a hero in training, and“ The plant-girl added, her face growing darker green with every word as a tentacle rubbed against her shoulder and she looked steadily further away from the injured teenager with each word. “...and I thought that maybe you could use a band-aid.”
The shame and shock on Dean’s face deepened just as gradually with every word Wysteria said.
His companions weren’t so interested.
“Hey, get away from the kid you tentacle-covered freak!” The fatter one added, beads of sweat falling down his balding head as he went red in the face.
“You goddamn non-humans!” The other one yelled, a brunette male with a long ponytail and a willow-thin figure.
Wysteria shrunk away immediately, and the bald man took that as his cue to attempt to draw out a small dagger hidden in his pocket.
Weiss put a hand over his just as he moved to draw it out of the hilt.
“Hey! Get your goddamn hands off me!” The rotund racist ranted, struggling against Weiss’s grip. Every muscle in the peasant’s thick arm bulged, and Weiss could see the blood vessels outlined by the strain. Weiss looked at him with an unchanging expression, her grip just as firm. It was difficult to hold back that much physical power, but compared to the numb bolts of lightning that shot through her hand every time she crossed blades with Okor, this was easy.
“Take your hand off the dagger, or I’ll break it.” Weiss responded with a casual frown. The long-haired gentlemen on the other side of the tablewent to reach into his vest, a look of anger on his face but his head was yanked back by a small hand with a firm grip on his ponytail.
“I suggest you don’t try to join in.” Yukika’s voice rang through her Kitsune mask, a fistful of messy hair in one hand, and a wakizashi in the other.
“Alright, that’s enough! A booming voice rang through the bar.
Weiss looked over to see the largest man he’d ever seen. Well-tanned skin blended in with a brown, short-sleeved tunic. Weiss hadn’t seen this muscled and huge of a man since she’d tangled with Alexander Anderson, and her body tensed as she got ready to explain herself.
The innkeeper wasn’t interested in them, though. Pointing at the three interlopers, the man raised a large mallet.
“Don’t think I wasn’t paying attention to what you was trying to do. This is the third time this month you’ve tried to make trouble with non-humans in my bar! If you wanna go ahead and get into that stupid political garbage, I couldn’t care less, but you’re gonna have to find somewhere else to tolerate it! I’m sick of losing customers because of your little stunts, so you three have earned a lifetime ban! And Dean, you’re out of a job! And you know what else? I’m telling your mom soon as I can exactly why!”
The teenager shrank back in horror as soon as he heard that, and Weiss had to resist a small chuckle. Wysteria just seemed to be on the verge of tears, and Yukika was stalwart as she continued to watch the two men.
“...You better not expect me to pay my tab then, Rick, you friggin’ asshole!” The Balding man stated, rubbing a hand across his shiny dome, but his grip on the dagger loosened. “Fine, fine, we’re gone!”
Yukika cautiously let go of the other guy’s ponytail, and the stringy man was quick to brush past her. “Don’t you ever touch me again or I’ll show you what a real knife looks like, kiddo!” he swore. That comment got the bartender up and moving, and as both of them looked up at Rick’s face and realized their mistake, they ran out of the bar.
“...I’m… I’m sorry, mister Riordan.” A small voice rang out. The blonde-haired teen shuffled out of the bar with a disappointed look, as he headed towards the door.
“...Just get outta here, Dean.” The burly man sighed.
Weiss took in a breath. “We should be going, too. Sorry for the trouble.”
Rick shook his head. “Don’t be. I’m just sorry you girls had to go through that much trouble in my shop. Listen… Next time you come through these parts, you get a free stay here, on me!”
Weiss gave a nervous smile in response. “I’ll keep that in mind.” she added. Wysteria tried to speak, but it looked like words were having difficulties coming out. Yukika clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get going.” She softly suggested.
Weiss nodded, threw a few orbs of omnilium on the table for the breakfast, and headed to the door.
-
They’d only taken a few steps from the door when a small voice came out.
“W-w-wait! Miss, um, tentacle-girl!”
The group of heroines turned around with a similar shocked expression on their faces, to see a familiar cluster of spiky brown hair.
The kid was kneeling down on one knee, holding both hands up, presenting an opened box of band-aids like he was showing her a wedding ring.
“I, uh, really appreciate that you, um, lent me these bandages, but, um… I don’t seem to need them all, and I, uh, thought I should give them back. Y-you know, since, um, I’ve already applied mine to the, uhh, wound…”
Weiss gave a small smile as the Kid in front of them sweated bullets. She guessed Wysteria wasn’t the only shy one here… though if she were to try giving medicine back to someone who she’d just recently tried to kill, she supposed she’d be pretty nervous too.
Weiss stayed silent, and waited to see what Yukika’s reaction might be.
Unfortunately, one of the things hollows didn’t seem to possess - at least in her case - were decent taste-buds. The tea tasted normal to her at least - Weiss didn’t really know the ‘why’ of that - but the food could’ve been paper for all she could tell. Still, she stubbornly stuck the fork in her mouth bite after bite, adding salt and pepper and marmalade and that red stuff she couldn’t really identify in ever increasing amounts after each forkful. She had no idea if there was a limit to this tastelessness, but she was determined to find out!
Yukika was looking at her with a small ‘O’ of utter shock as she kept adding stupid amounts of sauce and spice to each mouthful, but Weiss ignored the incredulous stare. She wasn’t exactly interested in explaining the problem in a camelot tavern - or at all, to be honest - and she didn’t exactly think day 2 of meeting someone is the time to mention you’re technically some soul-sucking demon. Wysteria, on the other hand, was too busy enjoying a few pieces of french toast to care, and the hollowfied huntress couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.
Weiss breathed a long, hard shgh after she’d covered a slice of ham with a full layer of mustard, ketchup, Salt, pepper, and butter, and got exactly nothing from her tongue in response. With a frown on her face, she procured a small, silver pill from her belt pouch - her soul management pill - and swallowed it quickly. Chasing off the ashen after-taste of the foul little thing with the last of her tea, Weiss prepared to get up and wait for the others to finish their meal outside.
As she was standing up, though, something caught the attention of her senses:
The table behind them had been filled with whispered voices since Weiss had sat down, but she hadn’t really been paying attention to the content of their discussion, too wrapped up in her own thoughts. The feeling of their shortest standing up while holding a steak knife by the blade, however, pushed them into her awareness. It took her only an instant to turn around and see that the other two had done a good job arranging the table to conceal the identity of the knife holder leaving her only a small window to see the blade, and their eyes were very carefully situated away from the huntress as the kid took aim.
And it didn’t take long to realize that Wysteria was their target.
Weiss sort of had the gist of what they were doing: They’d only take credit for the attack if it was successful, but they’d set themselves up to create deniability if anyone intervened early by claiming to be the victims. She remembered Blake saying something similar happened with racist humans - or faunus - trying to make trouble in establishments like these.
Weiss held up two fingers, focusing as little spiritual energy as she could into the tips, before firing off a small, before pointing her finger over her shoulder. Firing the shot without looking their way, Weiss sagged her shoulders a little as the tiny bolt of spiritual energy smacked smacked one of the instigator’s knuckles just hard enough to cause a bruise and an unfortunately timed twitch of the fingers, and a cry of “Agh!” followed a twitching hand, a dropped knife and a red cut across the kid’s palm. The bar started to clamor as the kid clutched his bleeding hand, and her two new friends both got up with looks of concern to go check out the situation.
Weiss, for her part, just took another sip of her tea, before sitting up slowly and turning to face the commotion with a neutral expression, one eyebrow raising slowly.
The kid was holding his hand, but judging by the lack of blood spilling out, it didn’t seem like Weiss had given him more than a paper cut. That much was good, at least. His two co-conspirators were making jokes about the shorter kid managing to hurt himself during breakfast, and now that Weiss was properly looking at them she noticed that the teenager was rather innocent looking for what he was trying to do. Lightly tanned skin followed with spiky brown hair, big blue eyes, and a face still covered in a little baby fat. She smirked just a little at the image: It reminded her a bit of Ruby when they’d first met.
The smile faded when she remembered what he’d intended to do to Wysteria, though, and it was replaced with a desire to point a finger right now and punish him for his little attempt.
“Seriously, Dean, your mom’s going to kill you if that blood gets all over your shirt!” the fatter one added, slapping the kid on the back with a heavy hand.
Weiss sighed and prepared to walk past the jerk instead at the statement. It wasn’t really her issue to solve, and the danger had been handled. The group could at least get out of here-
“W-would this, umm, help?”
Weiss looked up in shock at the voice, and realized she hadn’t noticed Wysteria passing her by. The girl was holding up a box of band-aids with one tentacle, and holding a small bottle of sanitizer in the other.
Dean looked at the band-aids, then the sanitizer, as Wysteria slowly shrank.
“I, um, these are called band-aids in, um, my world. NOt that I think you wouldn’t know, it’s just that I’m from another world and, um, I didn’t know if you’d know but I’m a hero - or I mean, I’m a hero in training, and“ The plant-girl added, her face growing darker green with every word as a tentacle rubbed against her shoulder and she looked steadily further away from the injured teenager with each word. “...and I thought that maybe you could use a band-aid.”
The shame and shock on Dean’s face deepened just as gradually with every word Wysteria said.
His companions weren’t so interested.
“Hey, get away from the kid you tentacle-covered freak!” The fatter one added, beads of sweat falling down his balding head as he went red in the face.
“You goddamn non-humans!” The other one yelled, a brunette male with a long ponytail and a willow-thin figure.
Wysteria shrunk away immediately, and the bald man took that as his cue to attempt to draw out a small dagger hidden in his pocket.
Weiss put a hand over his just as he moved to draw it out of the hilt.
“Hey! Get your goddamn hands off me!” The rotund racist ranted, struggling against Weiss’s grip. Every muscle in the peasant’s thick arm bulged, and Weiss could see the blood vessels outlined by the strain. Weiss looked at him with an unchanging expression, her grip just as firm. It was difficult to hold back that much physical power, but compared to the numb bolts of lightning that shot through her hand every time she crossed blades with Okor, this was easy.
“Take your hand off the dagger, or I’ll break it.” Weiss responded with a casual frown. The long-haired gentlemen on the other side of the tablewent to reach into his vest, a look of anger on his face but his head was yanked back by a small hand with a firm grip on his ponytail.
“I suggest you don’t try to join in.” Yukika’s voice rang through her Kitsune mask, a fistful of messy hair in one hand, and a wakizashi in the other.
“Alright, that’s enough! A booming voice rang through the bar.
Weiss looked over to see the largest man he’d ever seen. Well-tanned skin blended in with a brown, short-sleeved tunic. Weiss hadn’t seen this muscled and huge of a man since she’d tangled with Alexander Anderson, and her body tensed as she got ready to explain herself.
The innkeeper wasn’t interested in them, though. Pointing at the three interlopers, the man raised a large mallet.
“Don’t think I wasn’t paying attention to what you was trying to do. This is the third time this month you’ve tried to make trouble with non-humans in my bar! If you wanna go ahead and get into that stupid political garbage, I couldn’t care less, but you’re gonna have to find somewhere else to tolerate it! I’m sick of losing customers because of your little stunts, so you three have earned a lifetime ban! And Dean, you’re out of a job! And you know what else? I’m telling your mom soon as I can exactly why!”
The teenager shrank back in horror as soon as he heard that, and Weiss had to resist a small chuckle. Wysteria just seemed to be on the verge of tears, and Yukika was stalwart as she continued to watch the two men.
“...You better not expect me to pay my tab then, Rick, you friggin’ asshole!” The Balding man stated, rubbing a hand across his shiny dome, but his grip on the dagger loosened. “Fine, fine, we’re gone!”
Yukika cautiously let go of the other guy’s ponytail, and the stringy man was quick to brush past her. “Don’t you ever touch me again or I’ll show you what a real knife looks like, kiddo!” he swore. That comment got the bartender up and moving, and as both of them looked up at Rick’s face and realized their mistake, they ran out of the bar.
“...I’m… I’m sorry, mister Riordan.” A small voice rang out. The blonde-haired teen shuffled out of the bar with a disappointed look, as he headed towards the door.
“...Just get outta here, Dean.” The burly man sighed.
Weiss took in a breath. “We should be going, too. Sorry for the trouble.”
Rick shook his head. “Don’t be. I’m just sorry you girls had to go through that much trouble in my shop. Listen… Next time you come through these parts, you get a free stay here, on me!”
Weiss gave a nervous smile in response. “I’ll keep that in mind.” she added. Wysteria tried to speak, but it looked like words were having difficulties coming out. Yukika clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get going.” She softly suggested.
Weiss nodded, threw a few orbs of omnilium on the table for the breakfast, and headed to the door.
-
They’d only taken a few steps from the door when a small voice came out.
“W-w-wait! Miss, um, tentacle-girl!”
The group of heroines turned around with a similar shocked expression on their faces, to see a familiar cluster of spiky brown hair.
The kid was kneeling down on one knee, holding both hands up, presenting an opened box of band-aids like he was showing her a wedding ring.
“I, uh, really appreciate that you, um, lent me these bandages, but, um… I don’t seem to need them all, and I, uh, thought I should give them back. Y-you know, since, um, I’ve already applied mine to the, uhh, wound…”
Weiss gave a small smile as the Kid in front of them sweated bullets. She guessed Wysteria wasn’t the only shy one here… though if she were to try giving medicine back to someone who she’d just recently tried to kill, she supposed she’d be pretty nervous too.
Weiss stayed silent, and waited to see what Yukika’s reaction might be.
![[Image: 1403536693-tumblr-mnt768ec7u1qcjxmlo2-r1-500.gif]](http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2014/26/1403536693-tumblr-mnt768ec7u1qcjxmlo2-r1-500.gif)