art-alchemist

[ma-lemons]

rosegarden

Ahahaha so my friend @lethiepie had an excellent little thing: Oscar teaching Ruby Portuguese or Spanish, which I adore!! (I kinda imagined him to be Latino sometimes). A little disclaimer: I don’t speak either of these languages so google translate will be my teacher. This takes place at some random point in time. Doesn’t matter too much.

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Ruby couldn’t sleep one night. However, this time it wasn’t due to a nightmare or hearing people’s voices. Someone was... singing.

Her body ached from the position she had thrown herself in last night. She was sharing a room with Weiss and Nora, who were fine roommates. At least, Weiss was. Nora was a loud snorer, and it bothered Ruby most nights. She, on the other hand, liked to argue that Ruby was the loud snorer. Either way, Weiss would shut them up with a pillow to the head before they all returned back to sleep. She stretched out and blinked in the darkness. She could make out the patterns of Weiss on the bed and Nora on the sofa. Once her sight had adjusted, her ears honed in the soft voice.

She heard a voice, one that she had never heard before. It wasn’t a gorgeous voice, but it was one that reminded Ruby of a school choir and a mother’s lullaby. It had been a while since she had listened to music herself, often she forgot what it sounded like. To hear it was refreshing. The voice sounded strangely familiar, like someone she knew. Yet, the voice sang some indecipherable words.

Deciding sleep wasn’t that important, the teen slipped out from her quilt and sneaked out the door. She didn’t bother to tug on her boots, knowing that she might trip and wake everyone up. She passed her uncle’s room that she shared with Oscar and smiled a bit: she was glad that her uncle was starting to confide in her more. She knew that he had lived a long and difficult life, but that didn’t meant she wouldn’t do her best to be there for him.

The young huntress followed the voice until it grew louder and louder. She slid the door open, finding herself outside. It was a windy night, and Ruby felt her cheeks getting nipped out. Hugging herself she moved towards the smallish figure who was seated at the top stair. The lights revealed the figure to be Oscar, who was singing softly to himself.

Ruby grinned to herself and stood there, watching the young boy sing to himself. She wasn’t sure what he was singing, and she had never heard any other language being spoken before. It was beautiful though. It sounded like a rapid fire jumble of letters, but it had to mean something to him. She watched as the young boy swayed side to side, eyes fixtated on the shattered moon before them. A little while later, he had finished, and sat there in silence. Ruby shuffled forward, and propped herself next to him.

“Hey.”

Oscar jumped, further than she had ever seen him before. He was a few feet away from her now, and she could even see the slight pinkish tint his face had taken on. His chest was heaving up and down and Ruby laughed at the sight of it.

“Ruby! You scared me—how long have you been out here?” he asked, his breath shaky. Did she scare him that much?

The huntress bit her lip. “Uh, not that long. I just heard some singing and decided to follow it. That was you, right?”

He nodded, and regained a better posture. He scooted closer to her and nodded. “Yeah... that was me. Pretty embarrassing.”

Ruby shook her head. “Nope. I liked it. I had no clue what you were singing, but I liked it.”

Oscar didn’t meet her eyes. He clasped his hands together and stared at his toes.

“I was singing... a lullaby. My aunt used to sing me to sleep when I was younger, every time I couldn’t sleep. It kind of reminded me of her. Sorry if that’s super childish,” he admitted.

“Oscar, of course not! I think that’s really sweet.” She patted his back. “And I know you miss her. You’ve been so brave and I know you wish you could see you aunt, just to let her know you’re okay. I understand.”

Oscar looked up, giving one of his signature half smiles back to her. “Thanks, Ruby.”

She nodded. “That lullaby was really cute. What language was it in anyway?”

“Uh, Portuguese.”

“Portuguese?”

“Yeah... I’m part Brazilian, so I was taught how to speak Porteguese.”

Ruby had never heard of Brazil nor Portuguese but she decided to smile and nod anyway. She a made a mental note to one day brush up on her geography skills.

“That’s cool. I wish I could speak another language,” she murmured, hugging her knees.

“I... I could teach you. I mean, if wanted of course,” the farmhand rushed out.

Ruby’s face lit up. “Really? Thank you thank you thank you!” she shouted, hugging Oscar.

“Tomorrow then,” she grinned, standing up. Oscar nodded. “Tomorrow.”

————————————————————————

“So, to say ‘My name is Ruby Rose’ you’d say...” Oscar asked.

“Meu nome é Ruby Rose.”

Oscar gave an encouraging smile. She knew the words... but the pronunciation wasn’t too good. In the morning they had started to learn, they had gotten through pronouns and now he was trying to teach her basic sentences.

“Okay, you’re doing good, but it’s meu, not mi. Mi is Spanish. Try to repeat after me. “May-yoh.”

“Like mayo? So mayo?” He could see the frustrating growing on her face.

“Sort of. I mean, you do understand what you’re saying, and we can work on prounociation later. Do you remember how to say “Hello, how are you?”

“Oi... oi... something something...” she mumbled. She threw up her arms and rested her head on the table. “Face it Oscar,” she sighed,“I’m too stupid to learn Porteguese. I can’t think and I don’t understand any of it. I thought it was cool cause I’ve never heard it before, and I thought having a language only you and I could speak would be fun. So we could gossip about Yang behind her back and play pranks on everyone.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. He didn’t know the huntress was so serious about learning the language. He felt bad, when an idea came to him.

“Hey Ruby, let’s stop for today and continue tomorrow.” Before she could get in another word, he ran off. She sighed and sat back. “Meu nome é Ruby Rose.”

“Whaaaat are you doing? I heard you and Oscar speaking all morning,” Yang said, poking her head into the dining room.

Ruby, sulking, faced her sister. There was no point of hiding it. “Oscar was trying to teach me to speak his language and I can’t remember anything. I think he’s mad.”

Yang stifled a laugh. “Ruby, it’s no big deal. You can’t learn a language in a day. It probably takes years to do so. Besides, I imagine he’d never get mad at you.”

Ruby sighed. “I guess you’re right, meu irmão.”

“I think that’s brother.”

“What?”

“I think you said ‘my brother’, not sister,” Yang clarified.

“How... how do you even know that?”

“Oh, when I was at Signal, we had a Portuguese class. We mainly spent the days watching telenovelas. I remember a few things.”

So even her sister could remember a language she learned many years ago? Why was she never aware that Portuguese was a language? Since when did Signal have language classes? Ruby groanerd, slamming her head into her hands.

“Rubes, take it easy. You’ll learn in no time.” Yang grinned and left the room.

You know what made her better when she wasn’t in a good mood? Reading comics. She needed to get her mind focused on something else. And that was how she spent the rest of her day, lying in bed, pretending she wasn’t thinking about learning Portuguese with Oscar.

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The next morning, Ruby woke up pretty early. She sighed and tugged on her boots, before heading downstairs. She figured she could eat some oatmeal (if she didn’t burn it) and practice with Crescent Rose before the inevitable lesson with Oscar.

When she headed downstairs, she was unable to take in the sight in front of her. Wherever she looked, there was a white sticker attached. On the tables, the chairs, the ceiling, the light. Everything had a sticker.

Ruby, in awe, shuffled over to the chair and looked at the sticker. On it, was written “a cadeira”. Below it, “A cadeira é marrom”. She assumed cadeira meant chair. She knew é meant “is”. So marrom....

“A cadeira é marrom. The chair is brown,” Oscar’s voice came from behind her. Ruby turned around, to see Oscar holding a bin of white stickers. He had his dopey smile on his face. “Bom dia!”

“Uh, that means good morning, right?” Oscar nodded. “Yep!”

“Bom dia, then. Oscar, did you do all of this?” she asked incredously. The farmhand nodded. “I spent some of my night doing it. I wanted to surprise you. I...I know how much you wanted to learn Portuguese, and I appreciate it so much. I know it’s hard to learn a new language, so I thought it would make it easier be showing you, instead of just telling you.”

Ruby’s face was blank for a moment and Oscar was scared she was upset. He had worked really hard to make this work. He wanted to see Ruby smile, and he wanted to help her achieve this goal.

Then, her face split into a smile, and she rushed to embrace him. “Thank you,” she murmured in his ear. Oscar’s face grew warm. He had also stickered his room to help her know the bedroom too. He hoped everyone else would be okay with everything being covered for a moment.

“But you know Oscar, Qrow’s gonna have a fit when he sees this. Weiss too.”

“Weiss likes me.” Oscar couldn’t say the same for Qrow. “You think I’ll be okay?”

“We’ll find out later, I guess,” Ruby shrugged. “Onward to the lesson!”

Well, as Oscar found out later, Qrow was furious. He had to dodge um livro e uma caneta being thrown at him.

————————————————————————-

Months later, and Ruby was doing excellently. Oscar would record things for him and sing her little songs to help her remember things.

“To say you love someone, you say ‘eu te amo. Eu te amo. Eu te amo. When I say I love you, I mean ‘eu te amo. Eu te amo,” the girl sang to herself, while firing her weapon at a target.

“Hm, seems that someone is getting a little fond of a language,” Yang grinned. “I’ve heard you say “I love you” to Oscar more than you ever have to me. I’m wounded, Rubes, truly wounded.”

Ruby’s eyes widened. “Shut up, Yang!” She fired Crescent Rose at her sister, who easily dodged it. Oscar was sparring with Jaune, and he could’ve heard what she said. She glanced over to him and said, ‘Mantenha o bom trabalho!’” (keep up the good work!).

Oscar nodded back in approval, before striking Jaune in the knee. Team JNPR’s leader fell back but returned, parrying the farmhand’s next attack. Jaune was getting much better, Ruby was proud.

She had finished her trainings and went inside to get water when she found a note that was written completely in Portuguese on her sleeping mat. She translated some of it, and got the basic idea. Oscar wanted her to meet him in the living room for a “final test. She giggled at it. Over the weeks, Oscar had started treating his teaching like real school. He probably got it from Ozpin, and he would scold Ruby teasingly if she was late to lessons. A final test seemed okay. She wasn’t so good with writing, and her pronunciation was a little bad somemtiems. But she had to admit that she couldn’t believe she had made it so far in a matter of months. She’d have to thank Oscar sometime.

———————————————————————-

Around 10 pm, Oscar sat on the sofa, waiting for Ruby. He had to admit, the first time he had offered to teach Ruby Portuguese, it was just to spend more time with her. He thought he did a pretty good job of concealing his feelings. But over time, he realized it just made him happy to see Ruby happy. She was doing something new that she started to enjoy, and he was simply glad to be a part of that.

Ruby walked in moments later, no hood and no boots and took a seat next to him. “I’m going to ace this test, by the way.”

Oscar laughed. “I sure hope so. It only has one question.”

“Aw, yes!” she exclaimed. “What is it?”

“Technically it’s not a question. But do you think you could sing the lullaby I sang to you a few months ago?”

Ruby’s eyes widened. She had only heard Oscar sing it a few times and always skipped it on the recordings because it made her want to cry.

“I don’t remember it all,” she admitted, disappointed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll sing it with you.” Oscar gave a supportive smile and started to sing.

A linda rosa juvenil

juvenil, juvenil

a linda Rosa juvenil

juvenil

Ruby started to smile and started to sing along.

A linda rosa juvenil

juvenil, juvenil

a linda Rosa juvenil

juvenil

She glanced at Oscar, and grabbed his hands. “Come on, get your dance on.”

“Yang said you hated dancing,” Oscar laughed, standing up. Despite how he behaved, he was very very nervous. He realized how close he was to her, and he felt the air becoming quite warm then. Ruby shrugged. She took his hands and swung him around, as they sang the song at the top of their lungs.

Vamos fazer a roda assim,

bem assim, bem assim

vamos fazer a roda assim,

bem assim.

“Shut up!” a grumpy voice, most likely Qrow’s came from upstairs. Ruby giggled and lowered he voice, before starting it again.

“This song is about a rose, right?” she asked.

He nodded. It wasn’t a typical lullaby that told children to go sleep, but it helped him as a child.

“Hey Oscar?” Ruby murmured, after twirling him around.

“Yes?”

“Obrigado.” Her voice was warm and sincere and they continued to dance and sing—until her uncle came downstairs, yelled at the sight of the two dancing, and dragged Oscar back to their room.