#sorry this was in my brain for a while there sdfhjgsdfgjh

[faunusrights]

yeah, all i got is this belly button lint: a happy huntresses short fic

wrote this real quick because i love thinking about the random crap fiona has in her Inventory(tm). also i just like thinking about these clowns in general, so,

=

"Okay, so, what's actually in your Semblance right now?" Joanna asks one day in third year, when Fiona and May have sneaked away to Robyn's dorm to lose at cards and help edit her new batch of flyers promoting union creation in the workplace. Fiona had given a couple a look and accepted them as good enough, but May is weirdly exacting about her standards and is currently trying to convince Robyn to nudge the text headers over by ten pixels to the right. That's why, as she's sat on the floor and wrapped up in the drama of watching Robyn try and slowly fail to ignore May's insistent pleas for her to boot up her editor, Fiona's caught just a little bit off-guard by the question.

"My Semblance?" she asks, and Joanna nods all serious-like from her place on the bunk above Robyn. Joanna often looks very serious, because she suffers from what Robyn calls resting thoughtful bitch face, so sometimes it's hard to gauge how actually serious about something she really is. "I mean, it's probably a mess in there right now."

"I keep forgetting you actually use it like storage space," Robyn adds cheerfully, having now progressed onto shoving May away from her laptop computer every time she tries to creep closer. "Since most Semblances are, y'know, combat-only things or like... special occasions, I guess. And yet here you are, telling people you really don't need a bag for all your groceries!"

It is fun to flex on all the people struggling to carry like six bags to their car or their home, and Fiona preens. "Yeah, it's nice. I mostly keep things in it that I'd wanna have in an emergency, but it's been a while since I last sorted through it, so, who knows what garbage I've put in there."

"Tell me Robyn's braincell is in there too," May says imploringly, still trying to slide an arm around Robyn to get at the keyboard, but Fiona just shakes her head. She can't and won't be blamed for that particular disappearance any time soon. Instead, she rubs her hands together, scrunching up her face as she tests the edges of the Semblance. It's a funny thing, a Semblance like this--she never really has to think about it, but it's always just in reach, like this extra weight in her chest that she can totally forget about. It's strange to think about, so she often just doesn't.

"Okay," she starts, and she goes for the biggest item she can sense, which is an easy one to explain. In her hands materialises an acoustic guitar, worn and scuffed with age, and this attracts to attention of every girl in the room. "Well, this one's easy. This is my guitar, and honestly? If I ever leave it behind in the meatspace and don't pick it up on my way out the door, know that you've just seen my evil clone and you have to kill her."

Joanna blinks, and Robyn seems caught between asking about the guitar, the evil clone, and also the fact that Fiona insists on referring to the physical world as the meatspace. So, she does as Robyn does best, and settles on an expletive. "Shit! You play?"

"Been playing since I was... like seven? Something like that." Fiona shrugs, because she really can't be sure; her first vague memory of even seeing this guitar was a long time ago, her uncle telling her it used to belong to her grandmother who'd never managed to learn a damn thing on it. So, Fiona had taken up practice, if only because it was something for a little lowlands Mantellian Faunus to do during the long, cold polar nights and the endless sunshine of the midnight sun. "But, yeah, this is always on me in some form or another."

"You should've played it whilst we were on watch our last mission," May says, with a certain scowl that Fiona knows is 100% directed at their team leader, who is currently off doing... some sort of bullshit with their partner, no doubt. Gods, this team is a nightmare. "All those hours trying to stay awake so we could stare into nothing..."

"Sorry," Fiona says, and she means it. She'd intended to, but, well, she'd sort of chickened out. The echo in the mountains is kind of insane. "Next time?"

May nods, but Joanna cuts off whatever she's about to say next by waving her hands through the air like she can physically dissipate the conversation. "Okay, okay, cool, but now I gotta else you got hiding in there."

Re-compressing her guitar--and oh, is Fiona thankful that dematerialising and rematerialising it doesn't leave it out of tune--Fiona has a mental root around. "Uh, okay, so, we've got--"

In no particular order, she starts pulling things out: a pair of thick gloves for the brutal Solitas chill, an extra pair of socks (hugely understated by most, but never by Fiona), a ushanka that Robyn instantly cheers for, and a couple of jackets ranging from light windbreakers to thick furred jackets that feel like she's wearing a mattress around her ribs. Her Scroll and wallet are in there too, naturally, as are her keys and some extra ammunition, and she pulls out a load of old train tickets with a grimace. "Hm. I was meant to throw these away years ago."

"You're basically carrying around a wardrobe in there, then?" May asks in a way that'd maybe be a little teasing if she didn't look about as jealous as she sounds, but it becomes a thoughtful expression when Fiona shakes her head again.

"Bold of you to think I haven't got a whole pantry in here too," she says, and now Joanna looks very interested. "Check this out."

The first thing she pulls out is a gallon jug of clean water--endlessly fucking useful, she's found, especially when you're in some situation where you can't sit on your ass for an hour waiting for the water purification tablets to do their job--before pulling out a whole host of Atlesian MREs that she keeps around just in case shit really does hit the fan. Atlas rations are... not good, in a phrase, but she's owed them her life more than once, so, whatever.

"What dates are on those?" May quickly interrupts with a critical eye, trying to make out the printed numbers on the snow-patterned packets, and Fiona tosses her one if only to distract May's hands from trying to puzzle out Robyn's password when Robyn isn't directly paying attention.

"Things don't really degrade in my Semblance," Fiona admits. "I've tested it before on stuff with a short shelf-life, like cheese and milk, and honestly I can leave it in there for months and have it come out just as fresh as when it went in. Something to do with a sort of... internal stasis, I guess." Then, she adds, "One thing in my Semblance is a goldfish in a bowl, but he's part of a practical theory I'm running, so I can't materialise him for another fifteen years or so."

"That sounds very normal," Joanna says, and Fiona is glad she agrees as she barrels right over the inherent sarcasm.

As May agonises over finding the date, though, Fiona continues to unveil her pantry--there's plenty of snacks, like dried fruit and nuts and energy bars and chocolate, and when she reveals she carries extra for every member of her team and then some (then some in this instance being Robyn and Joanna, not that she'll admit it), Robyn looks delighted. "That's so sweet! Look at you, making sure nobody goes hungry. You're one in a million."

That's cute and very gay, but Fiona has a lot of stuff to be working through and so she keeps on going--there's a flask of coffee that, thanks to the maybe-stasis, is eternally hot, a bottle of dark Mantellian ale she keeps as, uh, moral support, and she blushes when she pulls out half an uneaten tuna sandwich. "I wondered where that went. Whoops."

May looks up from the MRE for a second, and then does a double-take as she takes in the sight of the very limp and sad-looking sandwich, made courtesy of the Atlas Academy cafeteria. "Wait! Isn't that the sandwich you accused me of stealing last month?!"

"Anyway!" Fiona says with a forced grin, quickly making it disappear back into the void where it can safely continue not existing. "I think the final thing in here is... wait."

She blinks, and suddenly in her hands are at least a hundred little booklets entitled The Pocket Guide to Communist Outreach, scattering right over the floor. Robyn yelps, and then reaches down the side of her bunk to pick them up. "Oh shit! I forgot I asked you to hold onto these! I thought we ran out, nice."

Joanna's face is in her hands, and May sighs long and hard before tossing the MRE back to Fiona with a distinctly pained expression.

"It goes out of date in a month," she notes with distaste, and Fiona just sucks it up without a word. She'll be thankful for it when they end up down a dark cave with no backup, but Fiona figures she'll sit on that one for a bit before being able to make the greatest told you so call in history. She can wait.

"So," she says, watching as May takes advantage of Robyn's momentary distraction to try and access her computer again. "I guess... do you wanna hear me play a song?"

Joanna watches as her partner leans too far over the side of the bunk, yelping as she nearly slams her head directly into the hard vinyl of the floor, and she grimaces. "Please do."

Grinning, Fiona finds her guitar again--somewhere buried, she mentally notes, beside the gallon of water but under the coats--and she slings the broad strap about her shoulders before settling it on her lap, crossing her legs tightly beneath herself before finding her place on the fretboard. After having not played since being back home, it relaxes her more than she'd ever realised it did. It helps to be surrounded by friends, though. Helps to be with family.

"I don't take requests," she adds, flatly, and Robyn laughs from her place on the floor before music fills the dorm, soft and deep and achingly familiar of a place far, far below.

But she's okay with calling this place home, too.

#is the title really a spongebob refer-- #rwby #happy huntresses #fiona thyme #robyn hill #may marigold #joanna greenleaf #my writing #sorry this was in my brain for a while there sdfhjgsdfgjh #BUT ITS OUT NOW. ITS FREE. #what else would you have called this #fiona doesn't mention this but she also has emergency condoms and a literal handgun. just in case. #JUST IN CASE...