After the presentation, we were given directions to the dining hall and then to our room. It's pretty late, so we don't bother unpacking; instead, we just crash on the beds.

The next morning, we wake up pretty early because some fucking idiot is blowing a whistle down the hall.

'Fuuuuuck,' Dove groans. 'It's like when my brother was four all over again.'

Getting woken up at the end of dawn isn't my idea of a good time, either. But since we were, we decide to get up, moaning and bitching the whole way through. Nothing inspires team spirit like shared adversity, after all.

We start to unpack. Soon, Cardin, Dove, and Sky are squabbling over where to put their armor racks.

'Why'd you bring three?' Dove asks unbelievingly, gesturing at the pile of metal in the middle of the room.

Cardin refuses to back down. 'Because I need them.'

'How many did you bring?' Sky asks me.

I look up from the drawers. 'Dude,' I say and tap my spaulder.

'That's all you use?' Dove gapes.

'Yeah, man. Full plate armor in Vacuo? You'd collapse.' I turn back to my bag. 'I'm just gonna hang my armor off the end of my bed.

''Hanging?' Dove says thoughtfully. 'Do you think we can hang the armor on the walls?'

'Maybe if we nail them in,' Sky suggests.

This time, I pitch in to help. Half an hour later, we've gotten the armor racks - they're really just metal bars, set horizontally for the armor to rest on - set up: nailed into the wall at chest height.

'Nice,' Dove says approvingly.

'Really? Because I kind of think it looks like we have dismembered torsos hanging on our walls,' I say bluntly.

Dove shoots me an offended look. 'Where else do you put your dismembered torsos? On the floor, like some sort of savage?'

Against my will, I laugh. 'Whatever.' At least we won't trip over them.

Sky checks the time. 'You guys want to go for breakfast?'

We find the dining hall with ease. We seem to be the only people here from our year, but it's half full.

'Damn, they'll let any freak in here,' Cardin mumbles as he sees a rabbit-eared Faunus leaving the room.

I frown, but I'm the only one. Sky and Dove nod absent-minded agreement.

We help ourselves and eat in silence. We're too new to each other - mostly - to have anything to talk about and it's hard to just provide information about ourselves without making it sound natural. It's not uncomfortable, though.

Finally, Sky checks his watch. 'We should get going.'

We make it to the lecture hall and settle in with ten minutes to spare. Thirty seconds before the start of class - and the professor is staring at the clock in a way that gives me the feeling he's not the type to let any time go to waste - the door slams open, and teams RWBY and JNPR fall in.

'Cutting it close,' Sky murmurs disapprovingly.

RWBY settles into the row of seats below us, and fifteen minutes in, I can tell that they aren't going to be good students. The little one, Ruby Rose, is doodling and not even well. Not that we can point fingers: Sky is paying attention, Dove is playing hangGrimm with himself, and Cardin seems to be napping. I'm just people-watching.

Finally, the white-haired one loses her temper. When Port asked for a volunteer, I thought we were listening to his grandfather, who was a cabbage. - she almost springs out of her seat with sheer frustration.

'That's Weiss Schnee,' Cardin murmurs beside me, suddenly coming awake.

'Schnee? As in the company?' I whisper back.

'Yeah. I met her sister once a couple of years ago.'

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

'Was she cute?' I ask.

'She was a frigid bitch,' Cardin says bitterly. I gather she was cute and also highly uninterested.

'Looks like her sister isn't much different,' I say, watching the look of concentration and rage on Weiss Schnee's face.

'Eh, she's not nearly as pretty as her sister Winter,' Cardin says dismissively.

We watch Schnee kill a Boarbatusk. She's not as good at it as I would have thought, and she actually needs help from her teammates. What kind of idiot doesn't realize to go for the area with the least armor? She clearly hasn't battled Grimm very often. 'Sloppy,' Sky comments at the very end.

'Weird,' I say. 'You'd think she'd be a better fighter.'

~o0o~

We settle into a routine over the next few weeks. I start running in the mornings, and after a while, Dove joins me, though he, Cardin, and Sky prefer to hit the gym and pump weights. Sometimes I'll join them; sometimes not. But as the days pass, I come to a realisation.

My partner is a real asshole.

He's a bully, is the main thing. He has no problem abusing whatever power he has. He doesn't push us around so much, but he genuinely just doesn't seem to see anyone else around him as his equal.

The weird thing is, though, he's not a complete dick. He really seems to like us and is surprisingly good at getting around our individual personality quirks. Dove can be an immature prick, Sky can obsess over the smallest details, and I know I can be a moody bastard sometimes, but Cardin just bulldozes over these things like he's been doing it his entire life. He doesn't even notice. He's just so headstrong that he expects us to do our parts like the possibility of us doesn't even cross our minds, and that sort of confidence sort of tricks you into thinking he's right, that you can't act like an immature brat or an obsessive weirdo or a cranky asshole.

Of course, that's probably part of what makes him such a bully, I imagine. That sense that his way is the way things should go, and whatever doesn't fit doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of things. Honestly, he's the type of guy I'd have gotten into a brawl with by now back at Recluse, but it hasn't come to that point yet. The things he's asking us to do are the things he's entitled to ask us to do as team leader, so I haven't been too stroppy about it.

He's racist, though, and that's more of an issue for me.

I haven't talked to them about Faunus because it has never come up. They don't realize Blake Belladonna has ears under the ribbon - even though it keeps fucking moving - so there's nothing to discuss. Still, the way Cardin acts makes me realize he doesn't have much respect for Faunus, and neither do Sky or Dove, surprisingly. I think those two just haven't thought about it much. Cardin, on the other hand, actively disrespects them.

Living with them has made things better, but it still isn't perfect. I haven't been waking up depressed quite as often, but it does still happen. I won't sleep well, or I'll sleep too deeply and start to dream, or something will remind me of Violet, and I'll fall into a black mood: grief, but with so much anger, it's impossible to separate and deal with it. Sky has noticed, sometimes, I think, but he hasn't realized why. He's just assumed I'm an irritable bastard.

It's not an excuse for what I did. It's only an explanation.

It was one of the days when I hadn't slept. I lay there, staring at the ceiling until I was out of my mind with boredom. I get up later than the others, don't go for a run, and come into breakfast with only twenty minutes left to eat something.

It isn't a good day for me.

Cardin - and I have no doubt he's behind this - has trapped Velvet Scarlatina at a table. I don't know why. Maybe I'm not the only one who hadn't slept, but he's making fun of her. She's clearly upset: her eyes are full of tears.

As I walk closer, an irrational surge of anger swells up in me. She can kick Cardin's ass clear across the dining hall. Why the fuck is she sitting there taking this shit? Why can't she get off her tail and help her own damn self? Is she waiting to be rescued by that dude with the sword? That isn't his fucking job!

I reach the table in time to watch Cardin grab her ears. I wait for the well-deserved ass-kicking she's no doubt going to hand out with more than a little expectation. You don't touch a Faunus' additional feature without their permission. Murders have been committed over it, and they've been ruled justified by other Faunus. Humans don't quite seem to understand how seriously the Faunus take it; but they do get that it's socially unacceptable.

'Please stop,' she says, bent over almost double.

That's it? THAT'S IT? "Please stop," in that long-suffering voice? She thinks that's going to make him stop. Show some fucking spine! Make him stop! I know for a fact that you can! Do something! Don't just stand there and bear it; fight back! Make him stop! Do something!

'I told you it was real,' he says to us.

I laugh. 'What a freak.'

Immediately, I'm sickened at myself. The words just slipped out. I was so angry. It was like I was being poisoned. I just want her to fight back. I want her to do something. I still do. I just called her a freak, is she going to sit there and take it? She isn't a freak, and we both know it!

I want to hate her, to feel like Cardin felt: that she is a freak, weak and weird, not a person with feelings of her own.

Cardin gets bored and lets go and Velvet walks off. I see her wipe away tears, and I feel like a real dick.

I don't eat breakfast. I wait until Cardin, Sky, and Dove leave for class, and then I go and look for Velvet. I need to apologize.

The older students have dormitories in a different building. I start towards it, then pause as I see Velvet through one of the archways. She's sitting on a fountain, talking with her teammate, the big one with the sword. I can't remember his name.

I take a step towards them, and someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn my head, in time to catch Coco Adel's fist with my face.

See, her name, I know. I know because she's famous. She's the best fighter and the baddest bitch around. She's regularly sent out on missions, and she always excels. The guy next to her is named Fox. He's a spooky-looking bastard, but he's just as tough as she is. Rumour has them as a couple. I hope to God it isn't true. The idea of them reproducing kind of terrifies me.

I hit the ground and slide for several metres. I wasn't expecting it. I stop, roll onto one knee and look up. Coco has lowered her glasses and she's giving me the sort of look that makes my testicles run for cover. 'Can we help you?'

I rotate my jaw carefully and glance over at Velvet. She hasn't noticed. Yatsuhashi - that's his name - has one massive arm around her shoulders. Coco and Fox have put themselves between me and her. She's being looked after.

I rise to my feet. 'No,' I say coldly. Coco isn't the one I need to apologize to. I turn and walk away, wondering whether fetching an icepack would be an admission of defeat.