Chapter Text

Prologue

Cloudless skies, blue as the sea hung over Menagerie. In the heat of the mid-Summer sun, Kali Belladonna laid out on her deckchair, wearing nothing but a pair of dark shades and a violet-coloured swimsuit as her skin absorbed the warm rays from above. Smiling contently, she flicked through the pages of a large, brown leatherbound scrapbook she’d been compiling all season. Since the day she had first taken what was meant to be a surprise trip to visit her daughter at Beacon Academy, Kali had found each day up to this point had been fit to burst with orgasmic pleasure, courtesy of one very special girl whom her daughter befriended, and Kali had fallen for.

A sultry smirk covered her face as she reached for a glass of iced tea on the table next to her, sipping it slowly before peering back over her photo album, and reminiscing over the day she’d first met her precious kitten.

Chapter 1

It was the last day of school, and Ruby Rose sat alone in her dorm room, gazing up at the ceiling from the top of her custom-built bunk bed. She wasn’t feeling like herself, normally so energetic running so fast she could disappear in a shower of rose petals. Instead, she felt miserable and lethargic to the point where she hadn’t moved at all for a good two hours from where she currently lay.

What had her so down you ask? Well, she’d had a falling out with both Weiss and Yang over her schoolwork. With Weiss, it was to be expected, as while she was able to more than get on with the Heiress on most days, the latter could still find a million things to pick apart in Ruby’s work ethic. Normally this alone would be just another random occurrence for Ruby and her partner, but she had received her lowest marks yet since arriving at Beacon Academy, and even Yang had voiced concern over her sister just narrowly scraping a C- grade in her last test of the year.

Needless to say, Ruby didn’t handle the situation well, as she flipped out and told Yang that she had too much on her mind and didn’t need a lecture from her sister or the Ice Queen. Yang simply looked hurt and agitated before storming off, leaving her teammates in stunned silence. Weiss simply gave Ruby a look as if to say, “Now, that wasn’t smart. We were both just trying to help.” Blake on the other hand was more mature and took Ruby back upstairs to their dorm room. She told Ruby not to worry as Yang would calm down soon, and she’d just need to wait and apologise later. Ruby was, however, aware of the time that had passed in which Yang had not returned to their room, and was scared that she might have been too harsh with her sister. Yang had constantly stuck out for Ruby since day 1, and Ruby had always been ecstatic about having her big sister whom she admired on the team. However, when she showed what the Red Hooded Huntress now saw as genuine concern, she felt guilt rising and a soft trickle of water dripping down from the corner of her left eye, and she sniffed.

There was a knocking sound at the door, and Ruby looked up. “Come in”, she called out. The door opened, and in came someone whom Ruby thought for a moment was Blake, but then the woman turned to look in Ruby’s direction, and she saw for a fact it wasn’t. However, the woman in question was indeed a Faunus, and Ruby guessed she could only be Blake’s mother, or related in some way. She had short hair and three gold piercings on her cat ears - two on her right, one on her left. She wore a black hakama and sandals with white tabi socks. Over her outfit, she wore a black shrug with a long right sleeve and a shorter left one, gold leaf trim adorning the opening on the front. As well as long, black arm warmers that extend to the middle finger. The left warmer had a purple band tied around the top and a pair of gold bangles around the wrist. Around her waist is a black and gold sash that trails behind her, with a gold flower-shaped buckle at the end.

“Hello, I’m looking for Blake Belladonna,” she said in a soft and maternal voice. “Is this her dorm?”

“Oh,” said Ruby and she jumped down from her bed. “Yes, this is her dorm. But, I don’t know whereabouts Blake is at the moment. Sorry.” She said this last part in a sadder tone than the rest of her sentence, the Faunus woman picked up on it with her own, eyeing her with concern. “Are you Blake’s mom?”, asked Ruby.

“Yes, I’m Kali Belladonna”, said the older woman. She extended her hand and Ruby shook it. “I take it you’re one of my daughter’s teammates? What’s your name, young lady?”

“I’m Ruby Rose” Ruby said. “I’m the leader of team RWBY.” Kali was a bit surprised at this, as she gathered from looking at the smaller girl that she was a little younger than her daughter, and she looked younger than all of the students she’d seen on her way up here. She managed to contain it though.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Rose,” she said with a smile. Ruby returned the smile to Kali. “If you don’t mind, Beacon is such a big place and I’d kind of like to wait for my daughter to show up.”

“Oh, uh, sure thing.”, said Ruby hesitantly. “Please, make yourself at home. Sorry this place is a bit of a mess, I wasn’t expecting company and Blake didn’t say anything about any visitors.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s perfectly alright.”, said Kali, walking over to a desk near the window and sitting down. “Also, Blake doesn’t actually know I’m here. I thought I’d just come up here and surprise her.”

“That’s nice.” Ruby felt like she needed to act more like a host given she had company. She also felt like she needed to take her mind off of the spat with her sister.

“Do you happen to know where Blake might be?”, Kali asked. Ruby’s expression became less than happy, and Kali’s maternal instincts picked up on it again.

“Probably still looking for my sister, Yang.”, she said. “We kinda had a falling out, and Blake stepped in as peacemaker.”

“Oh”, said Kali in a sympathetic tone. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks.”, said Ruby glumly. She looked at the wall and sniffed she felt another trickle of water falling from her left eye which Kali noticed. Her heart went out to the younger girl, who looked so sweet and cute right now.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am.”, Ruby lied, not wanting to place all her problems on Blake’s mom when they’d only just met. “I just- I… Yang and I have always been close, and if we ever fought before I can’t remember when even when we were kids.”

“I’m sure it’ll work itself out.”, said Kali, with a reassuring smile, and Ruby felt herself cheer up somewhat. She was starting to like Kali, as she was so warm and sweet the way she imagined any mother would be. Not that she could know for sure, as she could barely remember her own mother. They sat and talked about various stuff, including how Ruby had managed to make it into Beacon Academy two years early due to how she’d impressed Professor Ozpin after chasing down Roman Torchwick. Kali indeed found herself growing quite fond of the girl.

The subject moved on to family, and Ruby found herself explaining how her mother was dead and Yang’s own ma was simply absent from their lives. She had not expected to find herself this willing to open up to Kali about this topic, but Kali was simply able to relax in a way few others could. Kali’s heart once again went out to the girl. She really was an impressive girl indeed, but Kali could see that she was still just a kid who was in desperate need of having an emptiness in her life filled. She also couldn’t help but notice how cute the girl was. Suddenly, an idea came to the cougar faunus and she got up to walk over to Ruby.

“I have a suggestion, Ruby,” she said with a sly smile on her face.

“A suggestion?” Ruby asked, uncertain of what Kali meant.

“You sound like you had a bit of a tough time arguing with your sister, so why not come with me and I’ll show you a little way of forgetting all about your argument? Sound good?”, she asked.

“Uhm, I guess so?”, Ruby said, though phrased as a question. She did not know what to expect, however, Kali seemed pretty nice, and she was looking to try anything that would help get her back to her normal self.

“Good,” said Kali. “Now, let’s pack up your things and we’ll get going. It’s nearly time to go home for Summer Break, so let’s make haste.”

“Wha- why do I need to pack up my stuff?” she asked.

“Because I said so”, Kali stated bluntly. “Now, move it.” Ruby looked taken aback by the older woman stating as she just did.

“But-”

“No buts, Miss Rose. I said to move it.” Ruby, didn’t know how else to respond, so she just did as she was told and grabbed up all of her things and shoved them into her bag. “Good, now we can get moving,” said Kali once everything had been packed up.

“But, weren’t you here to see Blake?” Ruby asked.

“Don’t worry my dear. Blake won’t miss what she didn’t expect to see in the first place,” said Kali. “Now let’s get moving down to where we need to go, as it’s a bit of a trip.” She spoke these words in such an everyday manner that Ruby forgot to question what Kali meant.

With that, they walked down to where Kali had an air shuttle waiting just for her to take what she’d initially intended to be her daughter with her down to the docks to return home to Menagerie. But instead, the Cougar had found herself a nice sweet little kitten that she could take home instead.