Journey to Altea
"Mmm..." Yawning, Weiss sat up and stretched out her arms. For a brief moment she was disorientated and almost panicked and called out for Sir Gelb, but her memories of the previous night quickly caught up to her and pulled out Sir Gelb's hunting knife. "I promise I won't forget," she murmured, staring at the plain, worn leather sheath of the hunting knife.
"Nngh..." Startled, Weiss pulled the knife only to relax as she spied Ruby against the fireplace. Re-sheathing the knife, she finally got up, only to hiss in complaint as her bare feet made contact with the cold, hard ground. The thin blanket and Ruby's cloak having fallen from her, she shivered in the cold air and grabbed at the covers, wrapping them about her half exposed shoulders and arms. "Mmm..." groaned Ruby lightly.
Blinking, Ruby slowly opened her eyes and locked gazes with Weiss. "Good morning!" she smiled cheerfully. Weiss just stared at her. How could anyone be so upbeat this early in the morning?! "We can have a quick bite to eat before leaving if you want. I think there's some left over venison, otherwise all I've got is bread."
"Okay," nodded Weiss absently before giving out a small shriek as something furry wiggled against her feet. "W-What is that?!" she demanded, immediately moving further up on the bed and pressing herself flat against the headboard.
Turning around and cocking her head to the side, Ruby squinted at the bed and then smiled. "Zweii!" There was more wriggling from the bottom of the sheets and then something small, black and furry popped out. "Come here, Zweii!" cooed Ruby. With a small bark, the little dog jumped down from the bed and ran over to Ruby, whining as he traversed the cold flooring, but his tail waggled happily all the while. "Did you keep Weiss warm last night?" asked Ruby as she picked up Zweii and promptly cuddled the dog. She was met with a joyful bark and a few licks to her face, causing Ruby to start laughing. "Zweii!" There was a whine, and Zweii stopped licking Ruby's face, but he seemed otherwise content with remaining in her arms. Weiss was utterly mortified that she had slept the whole night with a filthy dog in her bed and scrunched up her nose in distaste. "Sorry, did Zweii scare you?" apologized Ruby, taking out a loaf of bread from a basket under a counter and then plopping Zweii into the basket before pulling out a thin strip of meat and breaking off a small portion of it to give to Zweii.
"As if," scoffed Weiss, crossing her arms against her chest. Ruby just stared at her for a moment and then smiled before placing the loaf and meat on the grate inside of the fireplace.
"So where are you headed?" Weiss tried to ignore Ruby, but the girl just kept an intense gaze on her and kept on prodding her for answers. "Come on, Weiss, if you don't tell me where we're going, I can't help you!"
"W-Wait. What do you mean we? I don't need your help," protested Weiss, finally fully awake and realizing she had stupidly given Ruby her real name and that the girl intended to stay with her for whatever stupid reason. She supposed she couldn't do anything about Ruby knowing her real name now, but she was not going to let Ruby come with her. Enough people had already died for her sake, she didn't need another name to join that list, not if she could help it.
Ruby stared at her a moment longer and then laughed. "Of course you need my help," she chortled. "So where are we going?"
"I'm sure your parents wouldn't want you to go off traveling with a stranger," tried Weiss. And come to think of it, where were her parents?
"Nope! My sister's off travelling the world and my dad's a merchant." Not a very good one, judging by how poor the house was, but Weiss was well mannered enough not to voice the thought out loud. "They've actually wanted me to travel the world too, but I haven't had a reason to before."
"Your mother then." She found it hard to believe that the girl's father actually wanted her to travel the world, and she especially doubted the mother would want to part ways with her daughter. As for her sister, she had probably just eloped with some guy she thought she was in love with. Weiss had seen and heard about it often enough. Her servants were constantly complaining about their lives or fantasizing about and swooning over the local squires and pages if they so much as looked at them.
"She's dead. So, where are we going?" Weiss balked at Ruby's bluntness and found herself looking straight into Ruby's bright, silver eyes. "At least tell me a direction."
"Altea," sighed Weiss at long last in defeat.
"Ohh. How come?" Did this girl's series of questions never end?
"I live there," supplied Weiss. Ruby's questions were still open ended enough that she could give an ambiguous answer and she hoped it'd stay that way. There was no need for Ruby to learn who she really was. It'd only cause her trouble or she'd end up trying to use her.
"Ooo. Schnee Keep is where the king lives, right? And that's in Altea, isn't it?!" asked Ruby excitedly.
"... Yes..." answered Weiss, not sure where this was headed and getting uncomfortable.
"Oh, oh, it's also where Knights are trained, right?!" Weiss warily nodded. "Wah, have you seen them?"
"Huh?"
"The knights! Have you seen them? My sister visits Schnee Keep sometimes and when she comes back she tells me stories about all the knights there!" explained Ruby excitedly. "Is it true there's a Mistral princess there who's better than Atlas' knights?!"
"Uh..."
"Oh, oh, oh, and is the Atlas princess really a snob? My sister says she's really mean and cold hearted, but she's only ever heard about her. You've probably seen her though, right?!"
Pride flaring, Weiss immediately refuted the idea. "What?! I-Princess Schnee isn't mean!" Ruby continued to stare up at her, giving her her full, undivided attention and Weiss couldn't help but go on. "S-She's really pretty and she's actually nice. She cares for her people and subordinates too, it's just that she's not allowed to show it... o-or so I've heard from the palace servants."
"How come?"
"I... I don't know. I mean, she is a princess."
"Right," breathed Ruby, her breath coming out in a shallow cloud of white as her brows scrunched up in thought. "How long does it take to get to Altea from here?" Weiss paled. She hadn't thought about that. She actually had no idea where they were right now and couldn't even begin to imagine where Schnee Keep was relative to their position. "Oh! The bread's ready."
Zipping towards the fireplace, Ruby quickly dropped the loaf and venison onto the same white cloth from the night before and handed it to Weiss. "Here you go!"
Grateful, Weiss took the cloth from Ruby and took bites out of the loaf and from the venison. The meat was old, stiff and near tasteless, but it was meat and she needed to keep her strength up. The thin strip of meat quickly disappeared and the rest of the bread followed suit. "Where are we, anyway?"
"Signal!" chirped Ruby. "It used to be a pretty big town, but... um... after a fire broke out most of the town got destroyed and a lot of people left, so it's become a small hamlet now."
Well, that probably explained why Weiss had never heard of the place before. "Do you have a map?"
"Mmm, I don't, but I know someone who does!" answered Ruby cheerfully. "You ready to go now?" Weiss nodded and Ruby handed her her shoes. Slipping into them, Weiss now found it far more bearable to walk and followed Ruby out the door, her cloak tightly wrapped about her, hood pulled low over her face for fear of anyone recognizing her.
Ruby had picked up Zweii and was leading the way towards what looked like the biggest building in the village. "This is Arc Manor," declared Ruby as they stepped into the small courtyard through the rotting wooden gate that only fenced in half of the lawn. "Jaaauuuneeeee!"
A few minutes later, a blonde head poked out of a window on the second floor and smiled at Ruby. "Ruby!" he called out, waving. Ruby waved back at him and motioned for him to come down. "Be there in a sec!" His head disappeared back inside and they continued on the small dirt path to the front door. "Hello!"
"Hi, Jaune!" Jaune stepped aside and ushered them inside. "Your Dad had a map of Remnant, right?"
"Yep," nodded Jaune. "Hey, uh, Ruby, who's that?" asked Jaune in an overly loud whisper as he pulled Ruby aside.
"Ohh, right. Jaune, meet Weiss. Weiss, Jaune."
"Hello."
Jaune stared at Weiss for awhile until Ruby jabbed him in the arm and he came back to his senses. "Oh, um, map, way, this. Here. Over."
Giggling, Ruby thanked Jaune and unrolled the map he had pointed them over to in the small study his family had accumulated over the years. "Look, Altea isn't too far away!" pointed Ruby gleefully.
Sighing, Weiss, took the map from Ruby. "No, you dunce, this is just a scaled down version of Remnant. Altea is miles and miles and miles from here!"
"Ohhh," nodded Ruby as if she completely understood what Weiss was saying.
"Argh... It's at least a two week journey, if not more depending on weather and road conditions, not to mention sailing conditions!" Surely even Ruby would understand what several days of travel meant.
Eyes bulging, Ruby looked at Weiss and then the map. "Oh my gosh, really?!" Jaune just laughed lightly in the background, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. "Is what she's saying true Jaune? I mean, you know your letters and everything!"
"Ah, well... yeah..." nodded Jaune, a little embarrassed.
"You... don't know your letters?" questioned Weiss in disbelief. Everyone knew how to read! ... Didn't they?
Ruby merely shook her head. "Nope! Jaune's been teaching me, but I don't get it at all. Like, why do you need a 'k' in front a 'nee'? That's just silly."
Weiss started to retort something back, but Jaune quickly stepped between them. "Ahahaha, Ruby, why don't you go ask my sister for some money for supplies. Weiss and I'll go over a list of things we'll need since it'll be such a long journey." After Ruby had left he quietly explained to Weiss that arguing with Ruby over the matter would just be wasted effort since he himself had tried to explain it to her before and failed miserably for several hours.
Weiss bit back her retort, attributing it to his poor teaching skills. These people were going to help her get home, so maybe if she just tried really, really hard she could put up with their stupidity. Maybe. Pulling out a piece of parchment and ink, Jaune carefully began to make a list of things they'd need. Weiss watched him for awhile before taking the quill from him and doing it herself. The boy knew his letters, sure, but he was painfully slow at them. "Just tell me what we need and I'll write it down."
"Ah, okay." He seemed a little dejected until he saw Weiss' handwriting. "Whoa! You're really good at this."
"Of course I am," snapped Weiss. "Now, tell me what we need. I want to get home as soon as I can." She was sure her would be assassins were restless and out looking for her, probably retracing their steps and going over everything with a fine tooth comb. It wouldn't be long before they found traces of where she'd been if they were really the White Fang.
Atlas and Vacuo was at war with one another, not very openly or publicly, but Vacuo was always undermining Atlas and in retaliation, Atlas was making things as difficult as they could for Vacuo. The White Fang were their most elite units and special forces. Several important socio-political leaders had already been assassinated or apprehended by them and Vacuo was slowly moving towards outright open warfare. Vale was stubbornly refusing to aide either side and trying to remain neutral. That only left Mistral and so far, it looked like the kingdom would align itself with Atlas if her marriage to Prince Neptune went through. Her stay at Mistral had been pleasant, but she had yet to actually meet the young prince. She had only been told that he fancied her to a point and had agreed to the marriage proposal. No doubt, that was the reason why the White Fang had their sights set on her. Her death would mean Mistral would remain more neutral in the war for the time being.
She wasn't supposed to have come back if the marriage proposal was agreed to, but her father had sent word for her return and she'd been forced to leave. Mistral was by far more pleasant to live in. It was warm and sunny most of the year there instead of Atlas' icy sheer cold and freezing blizzards. She had left with the same knights who had escorted her to Mistral along with a handful of Mistral's own warriors, and it seemed none of them but her had made it.
The memory of the fire and explosions made her stomach uneasy and she focused on the ink staining the parchment. Jaune, despite his overall dorkiness, seemed to have a relatively decent head on his shoulders and she only needed to make slight additions to the list. When Ruby came back with a small purse of gold coins she had swiped the list from them only to stare at it blankly and ask Weiss what was written. When she read the list out loud to her, Ruby had promptly pouted and declared that they needed more things--mostly unnecessary stuff that she and Jaune both vetoed. In the end she had somehow convinced them that at the very least they should buy a bag of sweets for the road... only for her to hoard the bag to herself and give them each one piece and say that it was their share and they'd have to make it last.
Weiss also wondered how the two of them had managed to convince her to let them travel with her too. She had been so intent on going alone, yet in the end both Jaune and Ruby had wound accompanying her. Just what in the world was going on? Every time she tried to ditch them and leave them behind they somehow wound up catching up to her or catching her in the act. She was stuck with them, for better or for worse it seemed.