Treatment of Faunus

Do you remember that confrontation you and your team had with me the other day?” asked Cardin.

“Which one? Narrow it down,” Ruby bit back, with sass.

“The time where I was just playing around with that Bunny Faunus.”

Velvet, of course. He had his talons in her for too long.

“I remember you picking on her, yeah, and then we stopped you.”

“She was fine, I wasn’t hurting her.”

“She was not fine. And it does hurt her when you pull on her ears like that. She hates it.”

“It’s true that Faunus hate it when you treat them like animals,” Cardin stated.

Ruby scoffed back, glaring daggers at the bully.

Yet, what escaped from her mouth was, “Um, actually, Faunus love it when you treat them like animals.”

Her eyes widened, breaking their contact with Cardin’s and staring downwards, in surprise, flounderingly placing a hand to her confused lips. It wasn’t unlike her to mince her words or say the wrong thing, here and there, but why that? She had wanted to take Cardin to task on the way he calls Faunus animals all the time, but there she was, calling them animals herself and saying that they loved being treated like them, too.

But- but they do, don’t they?

It seemed like a widely known fact that the Faunus, while not animals (of course they weren’t; that would be racist), did enjoy being treated like them from time to time.

Once her team had found out about Blake being a Faunus, it had suddenly become very clear how much she enjoyed the quick rub behind the ears and the occasional kissy face, accompanied with phrases like “who’s a pretty kitty? You are. Yes, you are.”

Blake herself had no idea why she absolutely adored the animal treatment so much, considering her stance against the mistreatment and prejudice of the Faunus, but it was undeniable. She had spent months posing as a human and the cat girl had not realised just how much she would miss being petted, pampered, or ‘cat’-called. It reminded her of being home with her parents, who would always treat her like a little kitten and with all the love and adoration a cat parent would give.

Once her team were in the know, Blake had jumped at any opportunity to be treated like a cat from her team.

To be honest, Weiss, Yang and Ruby had not realised just how true that was until Blake had revealed her feline ears to them. They had assumed it was a myth or a half-truth, having never really known many Faunus personally until Blake.

Ruby gathered that all Faunus were alike in this aspect. Still, being treated like an animal does not equate to being abused or picked on. Ruby was still firmly against Cardin’s treatment towards Velvet and the other Faunus body.