Shadows [BUMBLEBY]

1 - Late Night Sky

She remembered seeing her on the schoolgrounds, fighting off a plethora of boys much older than her that were picking on her younger sister. Blake had always watched from afar by herself, the only friends she had being Sun and Ilia, and even then she kept her safe distance from them. Blake always watched from afar, she was a 16-year-old shadow. However, she particularly liked stepping out of the shadows to watch Yang Xiao Long, the daughter of the famous Taiyang Xiao Long, war hero and now an older history teacher at Beacon Acadamy. She had been curious about Yang since she had been accepted into the academy the year prior and saw her in the freshman dorm area. There was something about her that she couldn't quite pinpoint.

Blake had always liked to distract herself from the many problems she had; like the fact that she was practically homeless (having little money and too scared to go begging to her parents after running away), escaping from an old enemy and hiding a huge secret about her biology. She was a fighter, a faunus, and a frantic avoider of everyone.

And so there she was, sitting on the top of the roof of her room at Beacon, staring out at the sky, gripping onto the thin and ragile fabric that held up her security. She let the soft breeze flow through her dark cat ears, listening to the hums of faraway crickets with her sensitive ears. This was the only time she could let herself go. The only people that knew she were a faunus were her roommates Sun and Ilia, as they too were apart of the faunus. It was mere fate that Blake had met them through Menagerie beforehand and got to choose to room with them when she started her journey at Beacon.

She was a shadow at Beacon Academy, no one knew her name apart from a select few of people, but Blake didn't mind. She liked being a shadow, being a shadow meant she wouldn't be found by her old demons.

That was until she ran into Yang Xiao Long, the tall, loud, bubbly blonde with an incredible skill for fighting. It had shocked her originally, as Yang had gone up to her first, had known her name, and had given her the widest and happiest grin she had ever seen. She was so... friendly, even though Blake had given her the most blank stare she could make up in her shocked state. The black haired girl was just so flustered that someone even bothered to remember her name.

Yang's aura reminded Blake of her childhood days before she made the biggest mistake of her life. It was comforting in a painful way. It was slightly annoying to an extent with all the obnoxious optimism, but it was nice to see someone being happy.

It was strange, as even though Yang's father Tai was an incredibly famous fighter all around Remnant, participating in boxing, MMA, the lot of it, Yang was never really looked upon by anyone, almost as if people merely cared about the 'original' Xiao Long. Even though the girl practically trained more than her dad, was in the best shape someone could be in and had the natural beauty to lure in all types from all genders, she did not have that many friends from what Blake had analysed during her lunchtimes.

Yang had a relatively small friend group consisting of her younger sister Ruby, Ruby's best friend Penny, Nora, Ren, Jaune and Pyrrha. The only other people Blake had witnessed Yang communicate with thoroughly were people that used her to get to her father for an autograph. It almost annoyed Blake at the thought, at how absentmindedly rude people could be without realising it. 

Turning back to her class memory, it turned out Yang had merely asked for a pencil for her younger sister Ruby, that seemed a bit too embarrassed to ask herself for whatever reason, but it still somehow struck a string inside of Blake in a way she had not felt for a long time.

The faunus snapped herself out of her state, deciding she could not get any closer with the talented young woman. Anyone that associated with Blake was in immediate danger, she had decided that a while ago, long before she moved to Beacon.