Chapter XXXI - Call it Peace
Weiss
“Ruby, where on earth are you taking me?”
Ruby paused. Her fingers, which were across Weiss’s eyes, concealing her view, twitched in excitement. “You’ll see, I swear. Not much farther now.”
Weiss let out a huff of impatience, raising her hands to remove Ruby’s fingers from her eyes, but her partner slapped her hands away lightly, and Weiss protested, more out of habit than pain. “Hey!”
“Just wait, okay?”
Weiss sighed, frowning, but allowed herself to be led on. She could feel brittle grass brushing her legs, waving stalks of wildflowers perfuming the air; a cool wind whipped her hair back, snapping in silvery waves. The air was brisk and faintly touched with the smell of berries. She got the impression that they were high up— though why they would be, she couldn’t imagine. Ruby had never seemed like the type to stop and appreciate nature, unless it harbored a Grimm of some sort.
Finally, Ruby stopped her, and lifted her hand away from Weiss’s eyes. “Okay, we’re here. You can look now.”
Weiss blinked, squinting from the sudden change of complete darkness to blindingly bright sunlight. The trees all around them were gold and amber, and the sky was a beautiful cerulean, wispy clouds drifting across the great sea of blue. A cliff dropped away sharply about ten feet away, tapering to a narrow point. At the point, a single, solitary tombstone rose like a lonely monolith above the sea of grasses. Ruby was looking at it with an expression of sadness, a bittersweet sadness that tore Weiss to the core; it was a shadowy look that she recognized whenever she looked in the mirror.
She walked closer, bypassing Ruby, close enough to see the words inscribed on the surface that was weathered by years of being there.
Summer Rose;
Thus kindly I scatter.
The detailed image of Ruby’s crest, the rose, was carved below those six words with a chilling starkness. Weiss swallowed with a shudder and looked back at Ruby’s sorrowful face; her partner had her hands tucked in her pockets, posture slouching.
“Is this…?”
“Yeah,” she said, her young voice quieter and more serious than Weiss had ever heard it. Her silver eyes rested on her partner with such an intensity it made her shiver, almost uncomfortable. “It’s, ah, my mom’s grave. A memory, really. There wasn’t a body to bury, but we… I wanted a place to remember her by. My dad calls it the the Cliffside Altar. But to me, it’s really just… a place where I come when I need to think, you know? I don’t think of it, like, as a sad place or a fancy memorial, or anything… it’s just… makes me feel like she’s… beside me again. I don’t know.”
And strangely, Weiss did know, despite their differences. She had never known her own mother, Ivana Schnee; she had died in giving birth to Weiss, and her father, Vincent, seldom spoke of her. When those rare incidents did occur, he was usually surly and restless for hours afterward. And Winter… Winter never spoke of her at all.
Weiss realized, suddenly, that none of them— Ruby, herself, Blake, and Yang— had mothers. They were all on their own. Ruby's mother had been killed in action. Weiss's mother had passed in childbirth. Blake's mother had been murdered callously for knowing too much. Yang's mother had abandoned her.
“I’m sorry,” Weiss said softly, her words open and sincere, and Ruby walked up beside her, leaning over and tracing the words on the gravestone with one lingering touch.
“Thanks.”
“It’s a bit mad, though,” she said, straightening up and passing her gaze over the trees, the sunlight falling through them, highlighting every vein within each leaf. “To think of all that has change that’s happened in these past few months, isn’t it?”
“Like what?”
“Well— becoming a team, going on insane missions, bonding together, Blake and Yang being what they are, the Vytal tournament drawing closer…”
“I’m happy for Yang,” Ruby said, her voice amused. “She’s my big sister. And if Blake makes her happy, then it makes me happy, too. I like Blake. She's a good partner and a good friend, and they're great for each other."
Weiss was surprised to feel herself smiling— albeit a small smile, but a smile nevertheless. “I would say they’re more than happy, but yes, I agree.”
“You know, it’s so funny to think that just months ago, none of us could be in a room together without fighting and now we’re… a team,” Ruby said, her brows crinkling thoughtfully as she brushed strands of dark, choppy hair from her face. “A really good team.”
A family, Weiss thought. She wasn’t one for sentimentality, but it was true, she knew— truer than anything. We’re a family, all of us. You and I, Blake and Yang. All of us are. And I couldn’t be more grateful for it. But she didn’t voice it out loud. Instead, she looked sidelong at Ruby, feeling as though there were some topic both of them were hedging about, both afraid to be the first one to broach it.
So Weiss did, because she had never been a coward. And perhaps it was true that they all need some bluntness in their lives once in a while. Who was to say that truth always had to end up badly?
“Ruby,” she said. “Have you ever thought about Bonding?”
“Maybe a little after Yang mentioned it to me,” Ruby said cautiously, but her eyes said the opposite, reflecting back silver. “Uhm. Why?”
“You’re aware that it’s not uncommon for partners to do it.” It wasn’t a question, but rather, a statement.
Ruby’s eyes were as round as the setting sun, completely taken aback. “Weiss, I— Do you want to Bond?”
Weiss flushed, and struggled for a reply that wasn’t forceful and sharp, but didn’t sound too vague, either. The wind stirred the grasses with a fluid rustle, making it sound as though a valley of a thousand echoes were whispering through the air. A voice almost seemed to breathe on the breeze, gently cajoling. Say what you need to say…
With a gust of spinning leaves, it was gone, leaving her wondering if it had ever been there at all. Ruby was still watching her, puzzled, and Weiss bit her lip.
“Name of Remnant, I’m going to kick myself for this later.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Ruby, every moment with this team and you has been an— incredibly wild journey. Exasperating, exciting, exhausting— everything I can think of. But I know… I know…” She shook her head in frustration. That wasn’t right, either. “How can I say this? What I mean is that… I trust all of you more than anything. Blake, Yang, and you. And Lord knows we’ve had our ups and downs more than once. Ups and downs… that doesn’t even begin to describe it. But I didn’t come here expecting to be close to you— any of you. And yet, I find myself knowing as surely as I know anything that… that I would risk my life to save any of yours. And isn’t that, at least, grounds for a Bond?”
Ruby nodded. “You’re right,” she said decisively, looking a little taken aback at Weiss’s speech, for she didn’t often make them. “So, uh, Yang… didn’t go over the specifics of how she and Blake, well, did it—”
“It’s all right,” Weiss said, feeling her cheeks heat up at the sudden awkward turn. “I know how. My fa— Winter told me.”
Ruby’s eyebrows rose as her words. “Fawinter?”
“Shut up.”
“Okay, okay, geez.” Ruby bounced on the balls of her feet before looking up. “So, uh… here we go, I guess. What’s gonna happen?”
Weiss looked out over the horizon, the sun stinging her eyes. “The Bond shares my memories with you,” she said quietly, feeling a flutter of fear in her chest. “And because memories tend to be blurred with emotion, dampened by the weight of what you feel… that, as well, will be a curious trait of the what the Bond entails.”
Ruby, for once, seemed to have been struck silent; she merely watched Weiss with wide silver eyes. It was impossible to guess at what she was thinking.
Weiss rolled her eyes. “Hold out your hands,” she said, barely restraining herself from adding on a characteristic ‘you dunce’ to the end of her sentence. Ruby complied, looking nervous; she took Ruby’s hand, closing her eyes and trying to remember the words. They rushed back, and she let out a sigh before speaking.
“I give all of my light up to another. I place my trust in my other half; I do this willingly, so that there may always be someone to aid in my darkest hours. I release my strength to show a way through the darkness for my other half; through this, we may become one. I share my soul, and bare my heart to my partner. To the promises that are unbreakable, the Bond that is tempered by fire, I give all of myself to another. For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death.” Weiss felt something, something deep inside of her, break loose and rush away, spiraling down through her veins and draining away into her fingertips, traveling far, far away from her. “I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee.”
Ruby shuddered as a flare of fire blazed up between their fingertips, a burning flame that felt like the gentlest breeze and the fiercest heat all at once. She heard a great myriad of sounds whisper, for only a heartbeat, in her ears: the sound of waves crashing against a distant shore, a child’s cry, a chiming of bells, grass whispering in the wind, the lamentation of a phoenix— before it was gone, and then all was silent.
Ruby’s eyes were very round and silver, and she opened her mouth as if to ask a question before Weiss stumbled, a great throbbing light sweeping over her vision. She felt herself go to her knees. Agony exploded in her head as the force of the Bond struck down. Flame washed over her eyes, fading to leave nothing but darkness. A soft, black tide was rising to engulf her; she made one final effort to get up, but her feet would not support her, and she fell back into nothingness.
And then, like she is watching a movie film flicker past before her eyes, a picture paints itself in bright blooms of color across her eyes. She can see herself, very little, a small child again. Her hair is short in this memory, a soft whitish-silver, coming down only to her shoulders, and her face still has a certain youthful softness to it— a softness that, in later years, will be beaten out of her with harsh words and circumstances, leaving her as little more than a shell. She is clinging to Winter’s skirts, watching her sister Summon a baby Beowolf. It frolics around the two of them, leaving behind bright wisps of light, like fireflies. It nudges Weiss’s hand and she laughs before it dissolves, as it had never been there.
Her sister is smudged with feelings of sorrow and disappointment, resentment and jealously, affection and— most of all— love.
“Winter,” Weiss says, “that’s so cool! Do you think I could Summon kittens or puppies like that?”
“Yes,” Winter says frostily, looking down at her with a chill in her eyes. “But to do so, sister, you must kill them first.”
The image spins away in a gust of color, before a new one surfaces. It shows her father pacing like a restless, caged animal, his scarred face twitching with a barely-controlled fury. Here, he is so dampened with emotion that she can hardly make out his true features; there’s a blurring of sorrow there, a blurring of terror.
There’s a blurring of hatred, sharp as knives.
Weiss, younger, only twelve, watches in fear as he kicks over his desk chair, snarling as if he has gone mad; his tuft of a mustache is twitching with fury. Perspiration beads his brow. Suddenly, the phone in his office begins to ring, and he snatches it up in anger, running a hand through his sparse white hair. He listens briefly to a voice on the line before anger flushes his face.
“My Dust trains have gone missing all week, you idiot,” he snaps into the speaker. “Every day, another one is hijacked and emptied. The police claim they don’t know who did it; the Hunstman academies are worthless, useless! Julian, leader of the White Fang, is reportedly missing, with a new and a decidedly less cooperative leader in his place, one who refuses to make peace treaties. And to top it all off, two of my best board executives and business partners are missing! I want answers, and I want them now, do you hear me?”
A low, indistinct voice rumbles in reply, and Weiss’s father roars.
“That’s not good enough, I tell you! I will not have the reputation of my company be tarnished because some mutts can’t stop complaining about their lots in life! They must be stopped, is that clear? I don’t care if you have to kill them all…”
Weiss, in real time, shivered, and the image of Blake’s furious face crossed her mind. Oh, father…
In the memory, her father slams the phone down, the dial tone whining harshly in the air. He picks up a book and hurls it, raging and cursing, at the wall; Weiss ducks out of the way, terror glittering in her wide blue eyes, and runs from the room.
The memory flits away, replaced by a calmer image; now, she’s in her bedroom. Early dusk light bathes the room in a warm red glow, turning her eyes to a light amber, her hair to peach. She isn’t doing much— just standing in front of a gleaming mirror, looking into the glass; she is blurred with disillusionment at herself.
But she doesn’t see herself, not really. She doesn’t know who she is. She sees Winter, she sees Ivana, she sees her father, Vincent— but she doesn’t see herself. She sees…. a ragged puppet of a girl with no substance. She is all these things— a heiress, a sister, a daughter… but who is she?
Perhaps she isn’t anyone at all. That’s all she is… an empty shell of a girl, adopting the personality of whatever suits her best at the moment, like a tempest of hollowness.
It swirls away like pages flipping past, into a scene of a small room, bathed in dusk light. Now she’s thirteen. She sits, back straight with perfect composure, and her fingers skim over the white and black bars of a grand piano, wringing notes from it. They waver out, crystalline drops of music hanging for a moment before fading into nothing. Her voice joins the music, creating a two-part melody that is at once beautiful and terribly, terribly heartbreaking.
Her face flashes with a raw pain before she smashes her hands down— lovely, slender hands, unscarred for now, with pianist’s fingers and perfectly filed nails. In years to come, they will become a warrior’s hands. But now, they are as unremarkable as the rest of her. They make contact with the ivory bars of the instrument. The piano wheezes out a discordant, jangling noise; echoes, groaning, a dissonant complaint through the empty shell of a house.
“Weiss? Are you all right?”
In the past, she looks up as Winter enters the room, her military uniform swishing with the click-click of her boots.
“I am fine.”
“Then what on earth is all the noise for?” Winter must see the unspoken anger behind her eyes, for she sighs wearily and crosses the room, kneeling and taking Weiss’s hands from the piano and holding them in her gloved grip. Her sister’s eyes watch her, tranquil and sorrowful. “Sister, I have told you time and time again not to let Father get under your skin. He expects much of you, you see, that’s all. After I depart for the military… he’s written me off as his child, as his blood, you see? I’ve not followed his orders and so he tries to act as though I don’t exist. It’s part of the Schnee bloodline and you must accept that. The sooner you do so, the better, because it will not change, now or ever.”
“It’s not fair, Winter. He expects so very much of me. To use my semblance already, to Summon, to fight, to sing, to always maintain my most formal composure, to be intelligent and perfectly composed at every moment… to be so much. It’s impossible.”
“He sees our mother within you,” Winter tells her with a touch of despair. “And it upsets him a great deal, that is all. Whatever Vincent’s faults, he did love Ivana, and he lost her because she died so you could live. It’s not your fault,” she adds, forestalling Weiss’s protest, “and you should not see it as such, but in turn, you mustn’t blame him for it. Ivana died for you. Perhaps, in all regards, Father should not resent you for it… but it has soured your relationship, and it likely will always be strained because of that.”
Weiss looks away, a muscle jumping in her cheek. “It’s not fair,” she repeats.
Winter laughs softly, humorlessly. “Nothing ever is.”
The memory falls away, shattering; a new one surfaces in its place. It is a dark room, high windows lighting the steel floor. Two figures stand in the center, in a pool of the faint silver light, one of them towering over the other. It is Weiss and her father.
“Father,” she says, a note of steel in her voice, “I want to be a Huntress.”
His eyes blaze with pale blue fire, betraying a true anger. “Is that so?”
“I don’t want to be receptionist. I… I appreciate your generosity, Father, more than anything. But being a Huntress calls to me more than… more than this. It is an honorable job,” she pleads as he watches her inscrutably. “I have been practicing privately, with Winter— practicing to fight and defend myself against the darknesses of this world, like the Faunus and Grimm. Won’t you let me…?”
“Let’s truly see how capable you are, my daughter,” her father says coldly. His blue eyes rest upon her, as unforgiving and icy as a winter wind; there isn’t a single shred of paternal warmth inside them. “If you so desire to become a Huntress, and not to pursue a job in the family or the military such as your sister, then you must prove yourself worthy of an exploit, and worthy to have my support in the endeavor.”
“Of course. Anything.”
He unsheathes Myrtenaster and hands it to her, blade outstretched. It catches the faint moonlight, sparking like a star, and he looks down at her before turning away. His angular features, his eyes like chips of ice, his hawklike nose, the unforgiving slash of his mouth— she wonders briefly, despairingly, if she will ever be enough— enough to please him, enough to gain his praise. “You will fight an opponent of my choosing, then,” he says quietly, his voice like knives sliding together. “If you are victorious, then I shall not protest your decision further. But should you fail, then I will hear nothing more of this foolish fantasy of yours.”
“Yes, father,” she says, her voice meek. She takes the rapier from him, and it feels right; she feels a surge of determination, hard as stone.
But then he brings in her opponent and she falters.
It is a huge, towering robot, made of steely chrome and shining metal. The face shimmers like a disembodied skull, two dark eye-sockets glowering down at her. It draws a massive broadsword that catches the light, glinting dangerously; she feels her heart give a pang of fear, of terror— she has practiced fighting, yes; she is more advanced than most… but this? Can she handle this?
I must, she thinks coldly. I must. I have to. I will.
Her father leaves the room, though she’s sure he will be monitoring somehow— but he will not intervene. Her fate is in her own hands now, her own to mold and shape. She will never depend on anyone. She will never get close to anyone so they can hurt her. And, in turn, her failures will belong to her in full, as will her victories.
She will make sure the latter trumps the former.
The robot charges. Most opponents would give a battle cry, some grunt of exertion; but this enemy is utterly silent, except for the clash of metal against the floor. She spins away, reaching deep inside herself. She twists and summons and pulls and then a glyph is whirling in front of her, delicate and precise and graceful. It glows blue and she uses it to propel herself to land a flurry of blows on the robot. It doesn’t even falter, swinging its broadsword out and knocking her down. She regains her feet swiftly, adrenaline obliterating any fear or pain she might have. In its place is only a cold determination.
The robot wheels back around, and Weiss cries out as the broadsword flashes towards her. She can’t run; time slows, and she is frozen— all she sees is dark silver before a pang of anguish shakes her, ending in a heart-stopping jolt of bloodred light. Agony explodes across her skull.
Weiss staggers from the sheer force of the blow, losing balance for a moment. When her head lifts, the moonlight grants visibility to the blood running down her face. Her eye is swollen shut, a bloody gash running diagonally across the skin. In present time, Weiss felt Ruby’s shock and sympathy run over her like a crashing wave. For this is where her scar comes from, the only visible one she has.
In the memory, Weiss launches herself at the robot again. It takes her time and it’s a bloody battle, but she overcomes it eventually. And as she pants beside the still heap of metal, her father emerges back into the room, watching her with a faint flicker of surprise in his icy eyes.
He stares her down menacingly, his pale eyes unblinking and baleful. “Do you not see what path you are going down, my daughter, my child; do you not see how it pains me to see you throwing away your life this way?”
“I know, Father,” she says, and her voice is high and cold like the splintering of ice. She feels very detached, very different, like the Weiss that started the fight and finished it are two different people. She has changed. Changed forevermore. “And, as so, it is my fate to do with as I please.”
His eyes narrow, and he lifts his chin. “Very well.”
The memory fades to darkness, and the darkness is unrelieved by the smallest gleam of light, like the deepest heart of night. Weiss could feel, presently, Ruby’s fear and uncertainty at the darkness of her past.
In the memory, a figure emerges from the gloom, blue eyes flashing. “Weiss?”
“Winter.” Weiss’s eyes glow from the shadows. “Have you come to say farewell?”
“You have changed immensely, sister.” Winter watches her somberly. “And now you’re leaving to get away from Father; however much you claim it is to train as a Huntress, half of your decision lies with your desire to escape Atlas. Do you deny it?”
Weiss sucks in a breath before shaking her head mutely, her eyes flickering away, unable to meet Winter’s stern gaze. “I have. I will not lie. But the circumstances, well, you cannot blame me for wanting to—”
“The only one to blame is Fate, sister, and that is hardly fair at all.” Winter pulls her into a hug. “You’ll be safe at Beacon, you swear? Learn and grow. Make him see… make him see this is more than a foolish decision of a child. The life we lead has forced us to grow up and mature far sooner than most, and I wish for you to become a full-fledged Huntress on your own terms.”
“I swear it,” Weiss says, her voice muffled as she embraces her sister, speaking into the solid warmth and presence of her shoulder. “I promise.”
The memory rushed away, this time, but it was not replaced by another. Weiss briefly felt a rushing presence over her body, like the touch of someone’s hand, before she was
slamming back into her own body, panting hard as a rush of euphoria crashed through her veins. She felt like she could run a thousand miles, fly into the soaring blue heavens, swim a thousand oceans. Her strength and Ruby’s, combined— all of it flowed into her blood, and she saw the world in enhanced colors, felt every emotion Ruby had, whisper through her: every pang of joy, sorrow, love, and trust.
Ruby’s silver eyes were clouded with weariness, opposite of Weiss, but she still looked wondrous as the new sensation of being Bonded washed through her. “So this is what it’s like,” she said. “It’s… it’s…”
“New?”
“Yeah,” she said in wonder, looking at Weiss with a touch of disbelief, as if she were really seeing her for the first time. “Really, really new.”
Weiss turned to look out over the cliff, to where four hawks were wheeling in harmony, soaring through the impossibly blue sky, and the wind whispered over a tomb-marker and two partners giving life to something new. “Perhaps,” she said softly, “newness is just what we all need.”