#imitamenta

     Ruby unfolds the crinkled piece of paper, worn from weather and age alike. It makes her a little sad to see no one has taken up the hunt for this bounty, but it makes sense. Since the attack in Vale, the CCT tower hasn’t been able to be fixed and communication is hard to come by across the continents. Miscommunication breeds distrust, and distrust breeds Grimm, drawing hundreds of them to weaker towns. It’s a death wish to seek out hunts alone when the strength of a Grimm mob can overpower a group of soldiers, or a single huntsman.

     But she is no ordinary huntsman. None of them are. They have fought past their limits living the events of Beacon, and from there on, their fight never stopped. Together, she believes they could make a difference.

     For her hunt this time, Ruby decides to take someone she has yet to become well acquainted with, and the best way to do so, as her dad says, is to fight beside them. Ruby rocks on the ball of her heels, prepping herself to knock on Ilia’s door.

     “C’mon,” Ruby breathes. “Ilia’s nice, she probably won’t say no.”

     Ruby swallows, raising her hand to knock. Right as her knuckles make contact with the wood, the door opens.

     “Ah!” Ruby exclaims, mouth wide open. “Ilia, hi!”

     A hand rested on her hip as she listened to  Ilia’s response.  Of course, she expected this kind  of response, being a human.  “Your soul isn’t what  I’m asking for.  Your talents would be useful and you  wouldn’t be treated any differently than a human.”

        “Hey, Ilia!” 

SEND ME A SHIP AND I’LL TELL YOU

what I think of them AESTHETICALLY

TOL GAY BUTCH AND SMOL GAY LIZARD WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE. no seriously though the height difference actually kills me especially since yang’s gotten to a point where she’s not quite so explosively willing to throw down but ilia is. big gentle lion hold smol furious lizard back from getting herself killed. 

what I think of them PLATONICALLY

it absolutely goes without saying that ilia needs people in her life that treat her like a person who has feelings and needs, and not like a soldier who’s only as good as her performance and infinitely disposable. and yang is super well placed at this point to do that. she’s done a lot of growing since v1 and she’s learned to think before she speaks and acts, and we already know she’s intent to take care of the people around her. see: ruby. i don’t doubt that yang, as loyal and as genuine and caring as she is could be nothing but a good influence on ilia. 

what I think of them ROMANTICALLY

gimme some of that sweet ilia/blake/yang no ship wars only poly this would, i think, be an pretty slow burn kind of thing, with no real ‘turning points’ so much as there would be a gradual progression of events. yang already knows that socially, ilia struggles, so no matter how strongly she felt for ilia, she wouldn’t be pushing her anywhere she wasn’t ready to go. what ilia would find in yang, i think, is safety. she has the same problem as blake in that her life has been filled with toxic people and precious few that actually care and are Genuinely Good. yang might just be able to make her actually feel safe. 

a scenario i’d like to see them handle together

i’m always a sucker for combat scenes in which yang is teamed up with someone with a level of ranged ability. i’d love to see them training together, yang getting used to working around whip cracks and ilia really learning how to fight in a team. then them smashing some enemies together. 

an au that’d suit them

"That isn't true and you know it, Ilia." Blake clenched a fist as she took a step forward, closer to her old friend. Her ears were pinned to her head. "You may have sunk deep, but you're not gone. Not yet. I know that deep down, you hate what you're doing. That this isn't like you."

Taking the risk, Blake lifted a hand to reach for Ilia's shoulder, just to rest it there and squeeze gently. "I know you don't believe that what you do isn't really what's best for the faunus," she said quietly. "But you feel trapped. Like you don't know how to escape. For the longest time, that was me, too. That was why I left without a word--because I knew he would try to stop me, and hurt me in the process." She paused, looking down, before brushing aside the left half of her coat. Her scar stood out on her pale skin. "...he made sure I regretted it the next time we met."

It still hurt, sometimes. After a nightmare, or whenever she was remembering Beacon's fall, it would still ache, even though it had long since healed. No doubt it would, for a while. But Blake was starting to realize that she shouldn't let it hold her back anymore.