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At this point, nobody could quite remember why they’d brought Ruby. Perhaps it was that, with the night school out, the three of them spending the evening out without her would have seemed rather cruel. Yang had made it clear from the offset Ruby would be having nothing but Diet Coke the entire night, and Weiss had let that reassure her-but being out with her sister and their friends seemed to be a whole drug of its own for the young Reaper, and Ruby was vibrating and talking a hundred words a minute just staying in her chair. Weiss bitterly wished that had only been a metaphor. Still, Ruby didn’t get to go out very often, casually or otherwise, since Yang had insisted on supervising her slaying. With the scythe tucked away and sunlight departed hours ago, Ruby was just another girl for once.
Talking Blake into coming along had been the other end of the spectrum entirely. The cloaking charm which made it all possible, cleverly bound into a simple platinum ring for an anniversary gift of their meeting, did little to make Blake any more enthusiastic to wear it for an outing “filled with people and sound and eyes”. The last time Weiss had blushed as much as she did suggesting the outing was when she had presented the ring, and she’d hoped that would be enough to convince the Sidhe, but Blake had been running from her past for a few hundred years and no amount of charmed rings were making her a party person. Nevertheless, she’d agreed for Weiss’ sake and even appeared to be enjoying herself a little now. She’d stayed glued to Weiss’ side (not that Weiss had been complaining) but slowly seemed to be slipping back into old, old habits and enjoying herself.
It had been Yang’s idea in the first place, though Weiss had noticed she was having a little trouble remembering she wasn’t at work. She hadn’t tried to set a drink on fire yet, as she’d boasted of many times before, but she had threatened to do it to a customer who was being a little too ‘friendly’ with the waitress. Still, she was clearly in her element, and enjoying being in the atmosphere without the burden of command. She’d also bought most of the drinks, having more experience with cocktails and mixes than the rest of them together-they’d had to discount Blake’s extensive repertoire, on account of most of the listed ingredients not existing outside of Faerie. Yang had also insisted on wearing a dress, claiming it still felt like work without one, but Weiss had literally see the tension sliding from the girl’s shoulders as they talked and laughed together.
Weiss hadn’t been certain what to expect, but she was having the time of her life. She could feel the grins and the laughs and the stories flowing through the air like fish, darting back and forth, and if that wasn’t enough to leave her a bit intoxicated on its own the rum and gin and sambuca she’d been sampling certainly had.
She’d been giggling and smiling like a fool, she was sure, when they left the first pub with the wonderful menu to take the journey to the vodka bar across the street-a trip that would have taken thirty seconds at most if she hadn’t pulled Ruby into a dance on the cobbles, letting their joy mingle and flow. Even then it would probably have been brief, had not Blake chimed in with that deep, beautiful voice (and it wasn’t even the most beautiful thing about her, Weiss was able to admit to herself this night) and given them a tune to follow. Still, they made it the rest of the way across the street, where Blake had piped up with a surprising amount of knowledge regarding vodka and how it could apparently come in all the flavours of the rainbow. Weiss had smiled and nodded, far too entranced by her companion’s lips to register a word said. Still, she’d taken Blake’s hand when she’d paused for breath, and the Sidhe had only stopped and blinked for a moment before continuing.
But Weiss knew she hadn’t imagined the tinge of red in Blake’s cheeks afterwards.
They stayed in the comfy little room at the back, all to themselves, as Weiss worked her way down the ice-cold menu (at Ruby’s insistence, but they were pretty good and Weiss wasn’t complaining). Conversation came easily enough, but Blake’s stories in particular were good enough for them to all go silent to listen every time. Yang jumped to cover Ruby’s ears once or twice, causing laughs and some fussing of Ruby’s own, but Weiss felt after the last one her own ears should probably have been covered, considering how red the three of them were now and how much Blake was laughing.
She was still holding Blake’s hand when the Bartender politely told them they were closing up.
“I’d tell you both to get a room but I’ve already seen the cat-bed in Weiss’s,” Yang teased lightly as they made their way back into the street again, Ruby ‘ooh’ing helpfully as Weiss snorted and Blake tried to look dignified. Normally Blake had that down pat, but this time Weiss still wasn’t letting go of her hand. Blake opened her mouth with an offended expression but Weiss patted the back of her hand until she paused.
“Hush, Blake, she’s just jealous. Didn’t the last girl in your room try and eat you, Yang?” Weiss shot back. Yang just coughed, and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘girls’. That got Weiss laughing again, until she was abruptly cut off by Blake shifting her grip to send the heiress stumbling into her side. The sudden solid wall of upright chiselled body did wonders for Weiss’s balance however, and she was quite happy to stay with Blake’s arm on her shoulders as they walked, a deep purr vibrating through their bodies.
It was the neon sign that made her slow, and the others stopped to see what she was looking at. Ruby tilted her head trying to read the abstract font, but Blake gave an approving huff.
“A tattoo parlour,” she said with a note of satisfaction. “What better way to round off a night?”
~
Blake had gone over the subject in one of their lessons on advanced areas of magic, along with symbolism, voodoo, symbiosis, avatarization and a dozen other niche schools. Inscribing magic into tattoos was widespread mostly for being economically viable; gothic and tribal tattoos had gone through a massive resurgence once it became known how little the designs needed to be changed to store spells and rituals within. A rose or a heart were fun, maybe, but a distress signal or fireball forever within arm’s reach was generally rather popular.
They weren’t short of choices-in fact, Weiss had been staring at the board for some time now, trying to weigh first a mana-aiding helix against a reinforcing cross, then a perception squiggle and a “six-coffees-at-once-rune” against each other.
“I’d be failing at my job if I didn’t remind you that you could just get all of them,” the Tattooist teased from behind the chair, his own collection of art pieces drifting over his skin like a living thing as he gently spun a celtic band around Yang’s fixed upper arm. Weiss blinked up in response, motioning at her choices as she leaned back to show them to the man.
“What? Oh, I just-” She fidgeted for a moment before tapping the rune again. “Wouldn’t this one be aided by a binding circle? Surely as it is the energy drain while it recharges could leave numb spots.”
The tattooist’s eyebrows raised in surprise before a wide grin spread across his face. “It would, but the curve of the lower half of the rune follows a fractal pattern-”
“Distributing the drain equally as well as a circle would,” Weiss finished, nodding along in comprehension. At first that seemed to be it, before the man motioned at her other indicated design.
“The perception booster, you wouldn’t want to choose that unless you’re sure you’re not allergic to Lantadyme.”
Weiss didn’t miss a beat, shaking her head and sitting back. “Lantadyme’s a defensive extract, you wouldn’t put that in a perception tattoo. You’d use, ah... gingko leaf. Maybe eyebright extract, though that’s really more of a general focus aide.”
This time the man looked genuinely impressed, and wasted no time fishing a card out of a basket on the side as he finished off Yang’s new sigil. He flicked it across the room at Weiss, who didn’t even flinch as Blake’s hand simply appeared an inch before the card hit her blinded eye, before lowering it for her to take it.
“An advert?” She asked curiously as she turned the business card over, before he shook his head.
“A job offer. Talented Symbologists are hard to find, and I’ve been meaning to take on an apprentice. You’d get all the teaching and experience you could spare, a reasonable wage, and negotiable hours.”
Now it was Weiss’s turn to blink in surprise, glancing reflexively at Blake, still dozing next to her, but she barely shrugged in response, eyes still closed.
“Don’t expect me to take it out of your lesson time if that’s what you’re thinking. Still, if you think you can handle it on top of everything else, experience doesn’t hurt.” Weiss frowned, pensieve, until Blake gave a very un-ladylike snort.
“Plus your father will hate it.”
The four girls smiled as one and Weiss seamlessly tucked the card into a pocket.
“When can I start?”