Following Traditions of the Ones Before Us

Happy Birthday Dusty

Trevor's P.O.V.

Today was my sister's birthday. We, as a team, decided to throw a little celebration for her. Over the past few days, she's gotten better so to speak. My teammates and I found her walking with mom. I ran over to my little sister, practically squishing her in a hug. She had me worried, she had all of us worried. She just ran off without a word and we didn't know where to look. It was the last class of the day and we had to get everything ready. The plan was to have Luna take Dust into Vale for a little bit just buy us some time to decorate the room and such. Can I say how hard it was hiding our presents from her? It was really hard. Onyx and Richie joined us. They were the only two from our relatives that were here that put an effort into showing up to celebrate her fifteenth birthday. It was better than nothing. Plus, I had a feeling that she would prefer to have it small anyways.

We had streamers webbing the room with balloons in two corners of the room. Aulisor volunteered to get the cake from the bakery not far from the campus. That left three of us to finish decorating and getting everything all set. Someone knocked on the door. "I'll get it," I said. The other two continued preparing everything. One of the faculty handed me a package addressed to Dust. I thanked him and closed the door. It was from mom. Dust is going to be so happy to open this one out of them all.

We each got her one present. I bought her a sketch pad with some art supplies. I knew she had a talent for drawing. Luna got her a gift card for one of the boutiques in downtown Vale. Onyx got her a pair of black fingerless leather gloves to go with her huntress attire. That would be a nice addition to it. Richie got her a few books, mainly fantasy. Then Aulisor, well he went a little overboard in a manner of speaking. He had me tag along to one of the local jewelers in the city so I could help him pick something out. He wasn't used to the whole dating thing it looked like. Two distinct pieces of jewelry caught his eye and I might add expensive ones. But he had the money for them. Both of them were necklaces. One had deep blood red rubies inlaid into the collar and I have to admit, it was gorgeous. The other one was more of a charm necklace. A black satin ribbon that had a charm that was half of the sun and half of the moon, having a clasp in the back. I had an idea of the meaning to it. Dust became the sun and moon of his world which I found to be really cute. After the jewelry store, we went into a store that sold fancy dresses and suits. Together we picked out a dress that suited her perfectly. It was somewhat similar to mom's wedding dress. A strapless raven dress that shimmered in the light, covered with glitter on the bodice. It went to about mid calf so she wouldn't feel uncomfortable in public. She wasn't exactly the "showy" type of girl even though her outfits said otherwise. He really loved her if he was going to this length of a present.

It was quarter after five. Aulisor just made it back before the girls did. We could hear them talking. "Why didn't the guys join us," my sister asked.

"Oh, they had something to take care of," Luna said.

"Take care of wha-" She was at a loss of words when she saw what we did to the room. "You guys really didn't have to do this you know."

"We know but we thought it would cheer you up rather than having it being boring," Onyx said followed by a laugh. We all joined him. Luna shut the door behind them.

"Now, are you going to stay in your boring uniform or are ya gonna get changed into something more 'you'," I teased. She stuck her tongue out at me and grabbed some clothes from the bureau then casually walking into the bathroom. We grabbed the gifts and placed them on her bed by the foot of it. When she came out, there was something different about her. None of us could pinpoint it but right now, we had a birthday to celebrate.

"Presents or cake first," Richie asked with that compassionate smile of his.

"Presents," she said with excitement. We couldn't contain our laughter from her reaction. She sat on her bed, cross her legs, and grabbed the first gift. First one was from Richie. His was followed by Onyx's, Luna's, mine, and Aulisor's. When she opened his, she was at a loss of words. Never in her life has she gotten anything like this. She shot up from sitting on the bed to nearly tackling her boyfriend. He gave her a quick kiss before placing her back on the bed since there was one gift left to open. "Is this one from who I think it is?" I nodded my head with a smile. She immediately opened, but carefully. Inside the shipping box was her neatly wrapped gift from mom. To our surprise, it was fair decent in size. When she opened it, she didn't know what to say. She practically brought to tears. She took the clothing out piece by piece. Mom had made her an entirely new huntress outfit, pajamas, and a regular outfit with a symbol none of us has ever seen. Instead of having her known symbol, a combination of a flaming heart which belonged to Yang and the flower that was Blake's, it was a paw surrounded by a flame. It was quite elegant. We believed that the paw represented her faunus heritage/identity and the flame representing her semblance. Mom wrote a letter to go along with it but Dust decided to read it later. Then we dove into the cake. Made sure that it was exactly how she liked it. Chocolate and red velvet cake with strawberry frosting. It was a tradition for her. Mom always made it for her birthday. Mom, Yang, was the chef in the house but that all changed when she died. Mom learned everything she knows about cooking from mom and granddad.