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“It was my understanding that this would not be an issue.”
A handsome man with dark hair just starting to grey at the edges. His pale face was flushed and he shook as he stood, anger radiating out from him even as he held his posture. He turned to look at the doctors.
“It’s very rare to jump a generation like this sir. One in a million fluke.” The doctor held out his hands in a silent hope of appeasement.
“I have made an effort to distance this company and this family from the uncomfortable truths of the founder’s wife. I’ve buried all record of her even convinced my wife to never mention her. Only to have it undone by a… fluke of genetics.” He scoffed in disgust and smacked the wall beside him.
“Most manifest with only a single trait.” The doctor cleared their throat. “It’s possible that your wife’s white hair…”
“Hearing that my wife and eldest daughter might themselves produce such a thing is not comforting.” He huffed, straightened his suit and walked several paces to the left, hands behind his back. Then he turned around again and walked back to the doctors. “Does my wife know yet?”
“She passed out soon after the birth.” A woman noted. “She hasn’t had a chance to see her new daughter yet.”
He nodded then shrugged as he walked toward the door, waving back over his shoulder negligently. “Then get rid of her. Tell my wife there was a mis-carriage or something.”
One of the doctors followed him out the door, catching up to him alone in the hallway.
“Sir, if I may. That might produce a lot of suspicion.”
The man stopped and turned to glare at the woman. “And instead I am meant to accept people assuming my wife has cheated on me. Or that our bloodline is befouled.”
“I have another option for you that will receive a lot less attention.” The woman looked back over her shoulder. “You’ll have to purchase the silence of the team.”
“Hmm, all right, tell me what you have in mind.”
Half a day and the mustachioed man called the doctor into his office. “Well?”
“It worked. The child is recovering now we found someone with a semblance to speed the healing. It will leave permanent scars, but by the time your wife is recovered enough to see her daughter, she is unlikely to notice.”
“And you’ve covered all the signs?” the man asked.
“Only the most obvious. She was born with several milder symptoms as well. Fortunately, those are all easy enough to explain away.” The doctor assured him.
He nodded. “And my other daughter?”
“The tests of your wife and other daughter have both come back human.” The doctor told him. “The trait must have jumped a generation as we first thought. The white hair might be connected but it is not a symptom.”
“It will have to suffice, then. I can still make some use of her then.”
The airship docked and as the doors opened, students began to pour out of the vehicle with their luggage, taking in the central tower of the academy. One of the students held back and waited for the flow to thin out some before stepping out with her luggage-cart carrying the various cases she’d arrived with. These contained her clothing, gear, and a small fortune’s worth of dust, the elemental fuel source used by almost all technology in the world.
A pony tail hung off-center down to her mid-back, blending in with the white jacket with red-lining she was wearing over a strapless one-piece thigh-length dress.
“Miss Schnee, we can take your luggage ahead for you if you’d like.”
She turned to the porter with a smile. “No, that’s all right. I can handle it myself. It’s what the cart’s for.”
The girl brushed a hand through the snow-white hair draping over her ears, fingers brushing past the old curved scar she’d had as long as she could remember. Then she gripped the frame of the cart and started pushing it out of the airship onto the platform, making her way to the building in the back of the crowd of new and returning students.
“...do I need friends when I have you?”
She looked up to see a blonde girl with hair hanging down to her ass dressed in booty shorts and a brown jacket. The blonde was stepping away from a shorter dark-haired girl wearing a black corset with red-threads over a black dress with a long, crimson cloak attached by two cross-shaped broaches at her shoulders.
“Actually my friends are right here and we’re going to hang out. See you bye!” And then the blonde was spinning away.
The black-haired girl twirled this way and that, trying to face each of the people that walked past her to join with the blonde running away. The swift half-spins came with it stumbling and unsteadiness as the girl wobbled and twisted on her own feet.
A white symbol manifested beneath Miss Schnee and then suddenly she was rushing across the platform to be in position to place a steadying hand on the younger girl’s back. In the moment, she forgot to let go of her cart and winced anew with each sound of tumbling luggage.
“Are you alright?” The white-haired girl asked.
“Whoa!” The dark-haired girl spun away from her, catching on the white-haired girl’s nails in the sudden motion. “Ouch.. you’ve got sharp nails.”
“Is it…?” She glanced at the red staining her white nail-polish, then looked up to find herself meeting the uncanny silver eyes of the younger girl. “Is it alright?”
“Oh yeah! It's just a scratch. I’ve had much worse than this visiting my mother.” The dark-haired girl awkwardly. The white-haired girl froze and stared, muscles tightening. “Hey, do you need help with your luggage?”
Miss Schnee whipped around to look at the scattered packs reaching down to pop open one case containing several canisters in a padded container. “Oh no! Damn it. One of them is cracked.”
She removed a glass canister full of red dust and stood up. The dark-haired girl looked at the vial and shrugged. “Maybe it’s only a surface crack?”
“I should have just let go of the cart.” Miss Schnee shook the canister in her hand, without considering the faint red cloud she was producing with her motions. “I don’t know why I didn’t. This stuff could have…”
“Is that…that… that…” The dark-haired girl’s face scrunched up as she struggled with a sneeze that she ultimately lost against.
The wake of the sneeze, floating particles of red dust were violently propelled and collided resulting in an explosion that sent Miss Schnee’s luggage further scattering.
“Arrrgh!” Miss Schnee emerged from the cloud covered in soot and vibrating in anger. “Of all the undignified, stupid things that could have happened on my first day here!”
“Ummm…”
“What?!” The white-haired girl demanded whirling on the younger. “Are you going to make a new attack on my dignity?”
“Hey, sorry princess. I didn’t mean…”
Miss Schnee sighed and forcibly calmed herself down. She reached out and opened her mouth to apologize.
“Heiress, actually. Miss Weiss Schnee, heiress of the Schnee Dust Company. One of the largest producers of dust in the world.” Weiss and the other girl turned to watch a girl in black and white with her long black hair tied up with a small black bow on the top of her head.
“I’m not actually the heir. But you’re right otherwise. That’s me.” Weiss smiled proudly and turned to look at the other girl, crossing her arms. “You are in the presence of a member of the elite.”
“The same Schnee Dust Company reviled for abusive labor policies and shady back room deals.” The new girl handed over a canister of green dust. “I have to say, whatever I expected you to be like, it wasn’t this.”
“Hmph.” Weiss snatched up the canister. “Why…”
She looked back over her shoulder to see her luggage being gathered up by some staff, she wasn’t sure if they were from the platform, the school, or if there was a difference in staff. She twirled on her heels and stomped off toward the tower.
She next saw the girl in the red-cloak in the great hall talking to the blonde.
“So, sis, how’s your first day?”
“You mean since you ditched me and I exploded?” The red-cloak was asking as Weiss walked up behind her.
“Crash out already? That’s a new record.” The blonde noted.
“No, I mean literally exploded. I got dizzy and there was this girl with white hair and she dropped her luggage and I sneezed. And I exploded. With fire… and maybe some ice. Anyway. Then she yelled at me and I didn’t know what was going on. And then there was this other girl and they got in a fight and… I really just don’t want to be yelled at by beautiful girls again today.“
“What?” Weiss snapped and then shook her head. “Whatever. You’re lucky the both of us didn’t become a smear in the pavement!”
“Oh god, it’s happening again!”
The red-cloak leaped up and landed in her sister’s arms. “Whoa, you actually exploded.”
“Wait. Wait!” Weiss stretched out her hands and took a breath. “I’m sorry. I was distraught and the explosion was my fault.”
“Uhhh…”
“Okay. Maybe the two of you should start again.” The blonde set her sister back on the ground and gestured toward Weiss.
“Right, uh, hello. I’m Ruby Rose. This is my sister.”
“Yo. I’m Yang Xiao Long.” The blonde waved casually at her.
Weiss blinked between them. “Different surnames?”
“Different mothers, same father.” Ruby shrugged with a smile.
“Oh!” Weiss nodded. “Is that… is that why… the…” she glanced around suddenly conscious of being surrounded by several people. Weiss’s voice dropped low. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t bring up your family problems…”
“It’s fine.” Yang shrugged. “Ruby’s mom is dead, mine is just a deadbeat.”
“Oh, you get injuries going to her grave. I see.” Tension eased from Weiss’s shoulders. Then returned as she straightened her posture. “My apologies, I made some poor assumptions. Are you here to keep your sister company on her first day?”
“Actually… I’m starting today.” Ruby laughed and scratched the back of her head.
Weiss blinked. “But you’re… what, fourteen?”
“Fifteen.”
Yang leaned over and wrapped an arm around her sister. “This little girl interrupted a robbery and beat up a bunch of bad guys, so the headmaster advanced her straight to Beacon.”
“Yang, stop it.”
“Oh, a prodigy?” Weiss asked. “Wait… you have taken all the classes from the last year of your primary combat school? Haven’t you?”
“Yep! Tactics, weapon construction, Grimm anatomy… Yang. Let go of me.”
“Math, civics, history, science?” Weiss asked.
“Ummm… “
Yang chuckled. “Nah, she’s like straight Bs in anything not directly related to hunting.”
“Well… you can certainly help her catch up with the stuff she’s been pushed past.” Weiss suggested. Yang laughed uproariously while Ruby chuckled nervously.
Later that night, Weiss sat with all the other first years in the main room laying on various mattress laid out across the ground.
“My name’s Ruby. But you can just call me Crater…” Ruby’s voice trailed off. Weiss looked across to where Yang was apparently shoving her sister at the black-haired girl from earlier. “Actually you can just call me Ruby.”
The conversation awkwardly led to the other girl naming herself Blake as she very clearly tried to focus on the book in front of her. Weiss thought about walking over, but that was bound to create an argument with Blake, so she stayed where she was and tuned everything out until things descended into the two sisters squabbling like… well… sisters.
Weiss pushed up from the mattress and stared across, considering whether or not to head over there anyway, when she noticed Blake set her book down in frustration and reach over to blow out her candles. This calmed or at least quieted the sister’s argument and Weiss started to follow Ruby’s progress across the darkened room when she noticed something.
Blake’s yellow eyes almost gleamed in the dark and had turned to stare at her. Confused, Schnee looked around to see a handful of other people in the room with shimmering eyes. They all looked across at Blake and Weiss. There were slight nods and then people settled back down.
“Huh. I’ve never met someone with eyes like mine before.” Weiss lay back down and settled herself into sleep.
Up until this point, the trial had been going pretty well. Beowulves were nothing new for her, and she and Weiss were on a similar level. There had been some communication issues, admittedly.
It was probably her fault, she was trying too hard. Everybody always said that she was too much all at once. Everybody but her family anyway. Judging by how frustrated Weiss was getting at every turn, she was definitely doing it again, going overboard.
Messing things up.
And that had led to now, her cloak caught by a hail of nevermore feathers as a death stalker made its way to her, tail rearing back to strike. She grimaced and shielded her face, hoping that her aura would absorb the blow and give her space to back off. Yang was trying to push through the small forest of massive feathers to reach for her, but she was too far away.
There was a flash of white, moving almost as fast as she could move herself, zipping past her as the death stalker’s tail surged down at Ruby. A moment later, Ruby was carefully opening her eyes to look up at Weiss standing in front of a small wall of ice currently holding the death stalker’s tail in a dead stop.
“You’re so not ready for this. I don’t know what the headmaster was thinking.” Weiss sighed and reached out a hand. “And I’m not really used to a team either. So I guess we’d better both get ready for this?”
Ruby blinked and looked up at her, squinting. “Weiss?”
Aura lined the body almost exactly. Ruby shouldn’t be seeing Weiss’s aura, but as the white-haired girl leaned over her, Ruby saw the aura divert from the shape of Weiss’s body in faint lines that would have been invisible just half a foot further away. The effect lasted only the space of a breath, but in that moment, the other young woman looked like she had triangular ears and a wagging tail.
“The two of you need to move!” Blake called out sharply.
Ruby blinked and shook her head and reached up to grab Weiss’s hand. “Can you boost me?”
“I can but do you…” The rest of Weiss’s words were pulled away in the wind combined between her glyph and Ruby’s speed as they both zipped away from the Grimm.
Ruby held tight to Weiss’s hand making sure she wasn’t losing the other girl. The thought of the weird aura was put aside.
She had to have been seeing things.
“What is this I hear that you are not the leader of your team?”
The voice came from a chair at least five stories high holding figure who would stand to be at least twice that size. The upper part of his face was dipped into deep shadow, only the faint glimmer of disappointment twinkling out of the hollow sockets that should have been eyes. The great, bushy mustache was the iron grey that she remembered from childhood rather than the white it was now.
“What is the point of allowing you to attend Beacon if you’re unable to stand out as befits your family name?”
The shrill sound of a whistle snapped her awake and a moment later she was tumbling out of her bed onto the floor as Ruby, dressed fully in a red-brown-gold Beacon uniform, stood over her, holding a whistle in her hand. Weiss clutched at her chest panting heavily and trying to ignore the sweat across her brow. “Ruby?! What are you doing?”
“It’s time to wake up and get started on our first real day in Beacon! First order of business…” Blake and Yang flanked their youngest member and all three declared at once.
“Decorating.”
She was scrambling across the room away from the Grimm to pick up Myrtenaster as the creature recovered itself and line up for another attack.
“Weiss! Get it in the belly! There’s no armor at all!”
“Stop telling me what to do!”
She shoved the way Ruby flinched out of her mind as she raised a glyph to block the boarbatusk’s whirling charge and sending it falling backward to the ground. Immediately she saw the belly was exposed and leaped up to plant her feet against a summoned gravity glyph before launching herself forward and stabbing through the creature’s soft-underbelly.
Exactly as Ruby had said, that did the job.
“Excellent, Professor Port declared. It seems we are in the presence of a true huntress in training, but that’s all the time we have today.”
Weiss stomped away out the door without giving her team a chance to even get out of their seats. But of course she couldn’t outrun Ruby. There was a woosh and gust of wind and Weiss was just sure that the other girl was behind her.
“Weiss, what’s wrong?”
She couldn’t answer that. The words wouldn’t form. Instead she whipped around. “Why are you the leader? You’re two years behind everybody! Why did they think you in charge would be a good idea?!”
“I thought we were going to try working together. Didn’t we talk about that?”
There was an awkward pause. Weiss looked away from Ruby’s blank, confused face and set about controlling herself, at least superficially. She whispered. “Ozpin shouldn’t have put me on your team. This was a mistake.”
She avoided looking to see how Ruby took that as she stomped down the hallway.
As she turned a corner, she heard Ozpin’s voice. “Well, that didn’t go so well.”
“Ozpin. Is she right? Did you make a mistake?”
“That remains to be seen…” And that was when the voices got too quiet to hear.
She continued walking, breathing in and out, stilling the post-adrenaline shakes as much as she could. By the time she next saw someone, she was moving with proper decorum and breathing calmly in and out. Her pulse… nobody would notice that from a distance.
Stepping out into the open air she caught sight of Professor Port standing at a railing nearby. Putting on a smile, she walked up to him. “Professor Port!”
“Ah, young Miss Schnee.” The portly mustachioed man turned around to speak to her. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I… I enjoyed your lecture.” She responded.
“Of course you did, you have the blood of a true hunter.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Of course I do.” The professor paused and his great bushy eyebrows furrowed. “You seem troubled.”
Okay, Weiss swallowed, maybe someone can notice the pulse. “Uh, yes sir.”
“Unburden to me your strife.” He declared, hands out.
She took a deep breath and resisted the urge to look back over her shoulder. “I… don’t think I should be in team RWBY. Ozpin should have put me somewhere else.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Preposterous.”
Weiss blinked and straightened up. “I’m sorry what?”
“Do you work well with your team-mates?”
“We haven’t done much together yet, but we did… yes.”
“Do you trust your team-mates to have your back?”
“Of course, they’d have my back. What sort of question is that?” Weiss huffed.
“Then how did you come to this conclusion?”
Weiss shuffled for a few moments, embarrassed. “I can’t work together with someone who I have to compete against. Ozpin should put me with… someone else.”
“Someone you like less and don’t care as much about winning against.” Professor Port crossed his arms and looked down his nose at her.
“If you put it like that.” She shook her head. “I need to be the best.”
“This is about Ruby Rose being named as the team leader, isn’t it?” She nodded quietly. “I see. Miss Schnee, regardless of what team you will be placed on, you will not be able to both compete and cooperate. And you will never be the best if you don’t put aside the competition and work with the best people for you.”
“But I..” she bit down on her lip and swallowed. “Maybe…I should… give it a try.”
“Do so.”
Weiss nodded and turned away to walk back to the tower.
“And Miss Schnee.”
The young woman stopped and turned around. “Yes, sir?”
“You’ve come a far way to stand outside the influence of your family name.” He bent partially at the waist and leaned forward. “Try not to carry it with you.”
“That’s not easy.”
“Worthwhile things rarely are. Maybe your team can help you with that too.”
Weiss pushed the door open to the dorm room quietly and stepped inside. To the right she saw Blake and Yang sleeping on the rather terrifyingly makeshift bunk bed and on the left she saw Ruby, passed out on her chest on the upper bunk, surrounded by books and with a pencil in her hand. She reached over and tapped Ruby on the shoulder.
“Wha! Imma wake!” Ruby flailed around, eyes blinking to focus on the world around her. Weiss leaned back away from the flailing arms until her team-leader fully woke up. “Weiss…uh…I was studying and fell asleep.”
Weiss reached out to place a hand on Ruby’s mouth and a finger to her own lips. She opened her mouth, grimaced, and closed it. The white-haired girl looked over to an empty mug lying on the bed. She picked it up and sniffed it. “Cream and lots of sugar?”
Ruby glanced toward the cup and back. “How did you… whatever, yeah, five sugars.”
“Stay right there.” Weiss dropped down to the floor and quickly returned with a fresh mug of coffee. “Here’s your barely coffee.”
“Thank you.” Ruby accepted the mug and took a sip. “Are you not mad at me anymore?”
“I…” She took a deep breath. “I had a bad dream and I took it out on you.”
“Oh.” Ruby’s eyes widened and nodded. “I’ve…” she tried to point with her hand, almost spilled the coffee as Weiss held out her hands while sucking in her breath. “Sorry. I’ve been there.”
“Really? You...” Weiss started to roll her eyes and stopped. “Right your m…” she stopped herself again and cleared her throat. “I think you can be a good leader. And I’m going to be the best team-mate you’ll ever have.”
Ruby laughed warmly under her breath and carefully cradled her mug of coffee.
Weiss dropped down and walked to the door, turning around. “And I’ve always wanted bunk beds.”
Weiss stepped out of the classroom and checked her scroll, double-checking her schedule. She lifted her head up and started to put the scroll back in her pocket only to find herself tripping over a sudden obstruction and slamming into the floor. Her aura kept it from being too painful, but still aggravating and embarrassing. She rolled up to a seated position and stared up at the two people she’d just walked between.
She wasn’t that surprised to see a pair of faunus a bit older than her, a girl with a long alligator-like tail and a boy with antlers and a tufted tail. “Watch it there, Schnee. Costumes can be hard to walk in.”
“Funny.” Weiss stood up brushing herself off and then gesturing to the school uniforms they all were wearing. “You don’t seem to have trouble with your costumes.”
The deer faunus snarled and started to lift her fist up. “Oh, that’s it, you murderous little…”
A shrill whistle pulled attention from everyone to a pair of third-year students. One a tall brown-haired human girl wearing sunglasses and holding a bag over her shoulder, the other a thin faunus girl with bunny ears.
“Okay the two of you back off.” The tall woman said, pointing to the faunus before then pointing at Weiss. “And don’t think about saying anything Schnee. Everybody back to their corners and get on with their own business.”
“She just better stay out of our way.” The alligator girl said as the two walked away down the corridor.
As they left, the rabbit faunus turned to Weiss. “Hi, I’m Velvet. That’s Coco. I’m sorry they were so rude. Some of us don’t appreciate it when someone wants privacy.”
“It’s fine.” Weiss crossed her arms. “My family doesn’t have the best history with the faunus. It’s actually weird that I haven't had a problem up to now.”
“Yeah, that definitely is making it worse.” Coco confirmed. “Anyway, I think we all need to get to class.”
“Bye.” Velvet smiled and waved as she and Coco walked down the hall.
Weiss smiled and waved after them waiting until they turned a corner before she turned around and let confusion wash over her face. “Privacy? What?”
“Ugh, I hate these kind of assignments.” Yang groaned. “How am I supposed to know what I’m going to be doing ten years from now?”
Blake nodded and looked up from her notes. “The important part is mostly to just get us talking about it. It’s easy with dangerous jobs to just get stuck in thinking about the current mission and it’s hard to make healthy long-term decisions like that.”
Ruby looked over at the black-haired girl and smiled. “You even sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
Blake ducked her head down. “N…no it was in one of the texts, I think. Anyway, what do you think you’ll be doing in ten years? Remember, it’s something other than hunting.”
Their silver-eyed leader sighed and nodded. “Other than hunting… uh. Oh. I know. I’d like to travel to all the great cities. You know? See the world and take trains, and boats, and airships.”
“Well, you can cross one of those off already,” Yang smirked. “We took an airship to get here.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t even half a day.” Ruby rolled her eyes. “What about you, Blake?”
Blake hesitated for a moment and then spoke softly. “I just want somewhere out of the way where nobody can find me unless I want them to. Maybe start a family. Have more books than I could ever read. Yang?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll be famous and go from hunting into action-movie star!”
She posed dramatically, and smiled before guffawing and flopping back down on the ground, leaning against the wall.
“But you know. Find the one … maybe ones.” She waggled her eyebrows and snickered. “Have a family. All that stuff like dad and m-...” she paused, eyes glancing first to Ruby and then back toward the center of the group. “You know, the normal stuff. I bet Weiss has the big stuff here.”
The white-haired girl shook her head. “When I was a kid, I used to think I’d help my sister run the company and we’d fix things… but then she abdicated her inheritance to join the military. And that left me with no way to do that.”
Yang blinked and looked to Weiss. “Wait, aren’t you the heir if your sister dropped her claim?”
“You said something about that on the day we met.” Ruby nodded. “That you weren’t the heiress. What’s that about?”
Blake scoffed and muttered under her breath. “I think I can guess.”
“Please, enlighten us as to the mysteries of my family dynamics.” Then Weiss raised her hand palm out. “I’m sorry, that’s retracted.” She straightened her back, and placed her hands on her knees. “I’m not the heiress because … I can’t have kids. So I wouldn’t be able to pass it on. So I don’t inherit and … I have to hope my brother will be able to fix the company.”
Blake blinked and turned to face her. “Wait, go back. What do you mean you can’t have kids?”
There was a shuddering breath followed by a shrug as if it were no big deal. “When I was a kid, I got… pretty badly sick. And they had to… this is all gone.” She gestured to her stomach.
“I’m sorry Weiss.” Ruby whispered.
“It’s fine. It is what it is.”
“There’s ways around that.” Yang pointed out.
“The family policies rule out adoption.” Weiss bent down and started to write into her notebook. “But I mean, I can have a family at least that way.”
Yang shook her head. “No, it’s that you’re bisexual. Or maybe lesbian?”
“How do you know that?” Weiss’s voice was flat and threatening.
“Come on, I’ve seen how you look at…uh…” Yang's voice faltered as she resisted the urge to look at her younger sister.
“Pyrrah.” Blake inserted quickly. “You very much don’t hide your crush on her.”
Weiss crossed her arms and glared at the two. “So? Women can’t have children together.”
Ruby raised her hand and cleared her throat to get attention. “She means that there’s aura techniques to conceive.”
“Please don’t try and prank me or make me feel better.” Weiss shook her head. “I don’t need it. This is old news. I’ve had most of my childhood to get used to it.”
“We’re not. Honestly, Weiss, we’re not.” Blake shook her head slowly. “It’s harder than the …” she flushed “...more, strictly biological method. But it works.”
“One of Jaune’s sisters has children with her wife that way.” Ruby pointed out.
“For that matter, if you have a husband, you could use a surrogate to carry the child.” Yang shrugged. “You can totally have your own kids if you want.”
“But why wouldn’t anybody tell me abo…” Weiss stopped and shook her head. “You know what, never mind. Let’s just get back to interviewing each other about future plans and please leave this topic out of my interview questions.”
Weiss looked down at the food on her tray, pondering the rectangular piece of “pizza” and cup full of sweet corn and once again considered whether she could get away with hiring a personal chef. She shook her head and looked up to find her team and team JNPR starting to gather at one of the tables.
Weiss smiled and picked up her pace.
“Hey. That’s my desert!”
Weiss paused and turned to look to the left where a bulky young man in heavy armor along with a trio of other thuggish boys surrounding the young woman from a couple of days ago. She recognized Cardin reaching out to steal her cake.
“Excuse me, Velvet, isn’t it?” The entire small group froze in what they were doing and turned to look up at her.
“Yes, Miss Schnee?” The rabbit faunus asked, taking the chance to pull her cake back onto her tray. “What is it?”
“You’re the upperclassman here, shouldn’t I call you Miss… uh… Scarlet?”
“Scarletina. But Velvet’s fine.”
“Do you think you can come with me?” Weiss nodded toward the table. “One of my team could use a tutor and you’re highly recommended.”
“I am?” Velvet blinked.
“You are.” Weiss looked up and met the eyes of the four bullies. “Am I interrupting something here?”
Cardin leaned forward with a smirk and started to open his mouth.
“No!” Velvet said quickly as she stood up with her tray. “Ahem. I mean. No, I’m not busy. Your team’s right over there, right? Let’s go.”
Weiss smiled and nodded toward Cardin as the other girl moved on ahead of her. “Cardin. Minions.” She then followed.
“Yeah, see you later, Schnee!”
Velvet slowed down a bit to come alongside Weiss. “Thank you, but should you really be drawing attention to yourself like that?”
“It’s fine. I owed you one anyway.” Weiss shrugged and shoved down some confusion as they reached the table and set her tray down next to Ruby. “Hello, everybody. Ruby, I’ve found you another tutor.”
“A… what?” Ruby asked, looking up toward the bunny-eared faunus. “Hi there. I’m uh… Ruby.”
“Velvet.” The older faunus girl said as she sat down across from Yang and Blake. She paused and looked at her. “Huh, I’ve never seen silver eyes before.”
“Everybody comments on those.” Ruby noted, eyes furrowing. “Even Ozpin said the same thing when he met me.”
“They’re kind of cute.” Weiss muttered under her breath.
“Huh?” Ruby turned toward Weiss who had immediately turned her attention to her food.
Velvet cleared her throat. “So, what do you need tutoring in?”
Yang laughed. “Everything.”
“Hey. That’s not fair.” Ruby protested.
Blake rolled her eyes and turned toward Velvet. “Ruby was pushed ahead two years on strength of combat and tactical ability.”
“Oh, I see.” Velvet nodded. “Miss Schnee said ‘another tutor’?”
A red-headed woman with a long ponytail, raised her hand and then cycled it between herself, a tall young-man with long black hair, Blake, and Weiss. “We’ve been helping out when we can.”
“But having a fifth person would make the scheduling easier.” Blake said quickly. “Maybe then we can get her all caught up in like… a month?”
“And please don’t call me Miss Schnee.” Weiss looked over at Velvet. “Weiss is fine.”
Ruby groaned. “Can we talk about something else? Please? At least through lunch!”
Velvet perked up. “Oh, I know, have you heard about the Vytal Festival coming up?”
“It’s confirmed?” Several voices spoke up almost simultaneously, Weiss among them.
This started off as just a quick trip to watch the visiting Vacuo students come off the ship and maybe get a sense for how’d they perform in the tournament. Everything went off the rails almost immediately. Dust store robberies, faunus troublemakers, Ruby’s new “friend”, and now…
“I don’t know why I keep letting myself be surprised when you take the worst possible positions in any situation.”
Now she was fighting with Blake again.
“Worst possible position? What possible other position can you take on the White Fang? They’re pure evil!”
“There’s no such thing as pure evil! They’re off the rails now, but it got to this point because of people like Cardin. Like your family….” She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, opened them again and pointed. “Like you.”
“Like me?” Weiss scoffed. “What have I done?”
“You collaborate. You say nothing. You just keep hiding!”
Weiss frowned and shook her head. “Hiding? I am doing the opposite of hiding. If I were hiding I’d have stayed in Atlas in my family home! And you know why I hate the White Fang? Because ever since I could remember, they’ve been at war with us. Family friends, board members, people would just … be gone one day.”
She slowed down and glared.
“And then my father would come home furious and that… didn’t make for the best childhood.”
“Not everybody can just pass, Weiss! Did you ever think we just got tired of being the victim?”
Silence laid down over the scene for a long second. Weiss stepped back from Blake. “We?”
Blake looked between the three of them nervously for a moment before bolting from the door.
Two days later Blake hadn’t come home. Two days and some hours later, and they had started looking for her.
“Hey, Weiss! Wait up.”
She looked back to see Yang catching up to her. “Shouldn’t you be keeping an eye on Ruby and... her?”
Yang waved dismissively back over her shoulder. “Ruby can handle herself. I’m more worried about you.”
Weiss scoffed. “Me? Why are you worried about me? Aren’t I the villain here? Bigoted, ignorant spoiled brat, Weiss. Doesn’t understand the trials of a poor, misunderstood terrorist organization.”
“Okay, stop it there.” Yang moved around in front of her, hands out. “I’ll admit, I don’t know a lot about the whole deal, but can I ask you something?”
“Can I stop you?” Weiss asked.
“What do you think about your father’s company?” Yang asked.
“First of all, it’s not my father’s company.” Weiss lifted her finger up and leaned forward. “It’s my grandfather’s company. My mother inherited it and my father runs it.”
“Okay, right, and what do you think about the way your father runs it?” Yang watched her as she tensed up. “Because I remember you saying something about ‘fixing things’.”
Weiss grimaced and walked around Yang, further down the street. “I don’t know anything. My father doesn’t tell us anything. But I have to attend parties and… his people say things. And they laugh about cruel things.” She shook her head and turned to look at Yang as the blonde caught up alongside her. “Why are you bringing that up?”
“So, the White Fang now are terrorists, but…”
“You’re saying that they might not have started that way.” Weiss said as she walked along.
“I’m just saying we should hear Blake out before we make any decisions. Without the yelling, okay?” Yang asked. “Let each other talk.”
“I’ll … let’s just find her first, okay?” Weiss sighed.
“Right. Ruby and Penny went that way, so I guess we’ll go this way…”
It would be another few hours before they saw the smoke on the horizon and by the time they reached the site of the explosion, everything was over and done with. Police were everywhere, while Blake and Ruby were sitting on boxes with two other people.
One of them was that blonde monkey faunus that had come off of the ship two days ago when this whole thing started. The other was the rather strange red-head in a green dress that had latched upon Ruby as a “friend” out of nowhere. Weiss gave them a passing glance before focusing on Blake.
Ruby stood up and rushed ahead to meet Weiss on the way. “Weiss, she explained everything. And she doesn’t wear a bow, she actually has kitty ears and its very cute.”
Their team leader trailed off as Weiss walked past her and up to where Blake stood. “Okay, Weiss. I want to tell you that I’m no longer associated with the White Fang and…”
“Do you know how long we’ve been looking for you?” Weiss snapped. “Twelve hours just today. And you’ve been gone for almost three days. So I’ve had a lot of time on my hands to think about this and you know what I’ve decided?”
There was a long pause as her team-mates exchanged nervous looks.
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t care?” Blake asked.
“You said you weren’t with them anymore, right?” Weiss asked.
“Yeah, when I was…”
“Buh buh buh!” Weiss lifted her hand up and waved it back and forth, cutting Blake off. “That’s fine. Done. My father and the White Fang can have their thing and leave us out of it. Sound good? At least to start?”
Blake shook her head, lips pressed together in a poorly suppressed smile. “To start. It’s a good place to start.”
“Just next time something this big happens come to your teammates instead of…” Weiss looked over at the blonde man. “Someone else.”
“I’ll do that, thank you.” Blake laughed.
It was late by the time they got back to the dorms. Yang entered the room ahead of them, stretching out and yawning.
“You know, something I haven’t figured out?” Yang said.
“What’s that?” Ruby asked.
The blonde turned to look at Weiss. “What was Blake talking about when she told you that ‘not everybody can just pass’?”
Blake’s eyes widened as she turned toward the white-haired girl. “Oh, damn. Weiss. I’m…”
Weiss shrugged. “I don’t know. I was too focused on … everything else to figure that out.”
The cat faunus blinked and stared at Weiss. “You don’t know what I meant?”
“No. Why would I?” Weiss shrugged and glowered through the combination of fatigue and stress.
“You… you don’t know.” Blake repeated.
“That’s what I said.” Weiss agreed. “What am I supposed to know?”
Blake’s eyes widened slowly as the situation clarified in front of her. She shakily pointed at Weiss. “You don’t know.”
“Yeah, I think we’ve established that. Are you okay, Blake?” Yang moved forward to look the cat faunus in the face.
“Is something wrong?” Ruby asked.
Blake nodded fervently. “Yes. A lot. Uh, Weiss, just… uh sit here. Don’t go to sleep yet. I’ve got to go find Velvet.”
The cat faunus darted back to the door.
“Hey! We just found you!” Weiss shouted.
“I’ll be right back. Just a few minutes.”
Ruby reached the door herself and turned to look at Weiss. “I’ll follow her! Don’t worry.”
Then the room held just Yang and Weiss. The white-haired girl turned to look at the blonde. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Yang shrugged.
The sound of thudding on the door was quickly answered by a tall, irritated lesbian pulling the door wide open.
“Do you know what time it is? Some of us have classes we care about tomorrow.” Coco asked as she glared at Blake and Ruby behind her, shrugging.
“Is Velvet here? I need to talk to her.” Blake insisted.
“And why do you need to talk to my girlfriend in the middle of the night?” She leaned on the doorframe and watched them as a tall, broad-shouldered man stepped into the frame behind her, looming. “Team RWBY right?”
“Yeah, that’s us.” Ruby waved nervously. “And sorry, I don’t know what’s going on either.”
“It’s about Weiss. It’s important. Is Velvet here?”
Coco frowned and turned back to look into the room. “Velvet. Do you want to come out and talk to team RWBY?”
“Yes. I’m almost dressed.” Velvet’s voice drifted faintly out of the room and a moment later the rabbit faunus was moving around the tall broad-shouldered young man and then Coco. “What’s this about Weiss?”
Blake looked nervously around at the other people then faced Velvet. “Weiss doesn’t know.”
“Weiss doesn’t know… what?” Velvet asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Ruby threw her arms up.
Blake looked back to Ruby with a glancing glare and then turned back to Velvet, pointing first to the other faunus’s second set of ears and then reaching up to rub her own cat ears. “Weiss doesn’t know about this.”
Velvet blinked. “Wh…what? She doesn’t know?” Velvet gasped. “Are you sure?”
“Okay, there’s two of them now.” Ruby commented. “This is getting out of hand.”
“Ruby, not right now.” Blake snapped sharply.
“This is serious.” Velvet agreed. “How can she possibly not know?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet her family has something to do with it.” Blake spread her hands wide.
“Care to clue the rest of us in?” Coco asked wearily.
“Maybe… We’ll have to see.” Velvet whispered. She turned to look directly at Coco. “It’s kind of a faunus thing.”
“Something to do with the argument we interrupted?” Coco asked.
“I think this is something different.” Velvet responded.
“Does this have to do with why Weiss’s aura has a tail and extra ears?” Ruby asked.
Everyone turned to look at Ruby. After a moment, Blake closed her mouth. “Can you please elaborate on that, Ruby? When did you see that?”
“Back when we first became a team. She stopped the death stalker’s tail?” Ruby shrugged. “I thought it was weird.”
“Her aura has tail and ears.” Velvet started pacing. “Does Weiss know any other faunus?”
“As friends? Just you and me.” Blake shrugged helplessly.
“So just her team and me?” Velvet whispered. “I’ve done this with sexuality but, this? It’s absurd. Should we find Ms. Goodwtich? We could use an adult.”
“You’re an adult, technically.” Ruby offered.
“I think we should keep it to just her friends and team right now.”
“This could be very bad. Are you sure?”
Blake shook her head. “I’m panicking. Okay?”
“Fine. But if this goes bad, I’m getting Ms Goodwitch.”
Ruby and Coco exchanged a look and then both looked back to the equally perplexed tall broad-shouldered man and the white-eyed red-head standing impassively deeper into the room.
“Um, Coco, I… I don’t know this might be a while.” The rabbit faunus slipped her shoes on and stepped out into the hallway. “Okay, let’s go.”
Blake half-pulled Velvet along as Ruby followed, clearly still confused.
After they left, Coco turned back to look at the blank-eyed red-head. “Fox, did you mind-read any of that?”
“Mostly, but I’ll wait to hear it’s fine to share.” He shrugged and walked back into the room.
“Fair enough, I guess.”
The door opened again and Weiss looked up to see Blake stepping in with Velvet and Ruby. She met Ruby’s eyes and the other girl shrugged helplessly. “Okay, the party’s all here now. What’s this all about? What is it that I don’t know?”
Velvet looked to Blake and then back to the white-haired girl. “Weiss, do you have any old scars? Maybe about here or here?” She covered the base of her ears and then shifted the hands down the skull a little bit further. “Or at the base of the spine?”
Weiss shifted uncomfortably. “How do you know about that?”
“So you do have scars?” Blake asked.
“Yes, it was some sort of complication when I was born.”
“A complication.” Blake stumbled to the side and sat down roughly on a chair, alarmingly boneless.
“What’s going on?” Weiss snapped. “Will someone just tell me?”
“Blake.” Velvet said softly. “Um, Blake. It.. it might be better coming from you.”
The cat faunus nodded and gathered herself up. She stood and paced back and forth a couple of times.
“Blake for goodness sake, just tell us what’s going on.” Yang insisted.
The black-haired huntress turned around and nodded. “Umm… Weiss. You’re a faunus.”
Yang blinked and toppled off her chair while Ruby’s eyes widened and looked between Weiss and Blake.
Weiss stared and blinked a few times. “Excuse me? What kind of joke is that?”
“It’s not a joke.” Velvet leaned down and hesitantly reached for her hands. “You have claws, Weiss.”
Weiss slowly pulled her hands out of Velvet’s. “I just drink a lot of milk.”
“Ruby, can you show her your hands please?” Blake asked.
“Umm… sure.” The younger hunter stepped over hesitantly and held out her hands.
“Look at those nails and look at yours,” Velvet pointed. “In fact, here’s mine.” The rabbit faunus held out her own hands next to Ruby’s and then looked over to Yang and Blake. “You too.”
Blake immediately came over and kneeled down, putting her own hand next to Velvet’s and Ruby’s. A moment later, Yang was leaning in with her own hand.
Weiss scanned the hands in front of her and then looked at her own, comparing the thick and sharp nails she’d had all her life. She’d never really thought of it before, if you weren’t looking for it there wasn’t much difference and the nail-polish made them fit in even more, but it was increasingly harder with each passing moment to accept that the difference that was there only came from drinking a lot of milk.
“You also have tapetum lucidum.” Blake pointed to her eyes. “It’s what makes our eyes shimmer in the dark. You’d have seen it in your reflection?”
“I don’t think I’ve seen that.” Ruby leaned in further, laying her hand on Weiss’s knee.
Velvet turned to look at Ruby. “You usually wouldn’t. It’s not as much as a cat’s. But other faunus would definitely have seen it.” The rabbit faunus cricked her neck. “Which… is why, every faunus in school knows Weiss is one of us.”
Weiss blinked, breathing heavily in and out as she looked at her hands and tried to keep them from shaking. Ruby reached up to grab hold of them and steady them. The white-haired girl swallowed and nodded, staring down at Ruby. “And… my scars?”
“You…” Blake took in a breath. “You probably were born with animal ears and a tail.”
“Complications.” Weiss repeated.
“The ears are vestigial.” Velvet explained. “You can lose them pretty easily. Some faunus do that as adults.” Weiss nodded weakly. “Tails are usually more difficult, but if you were a… baby when you … Lost them. Maybe you would never notice?”
“I never did.” Weiss said. “But there are medical tests that should have told me.”
Blake grimaced and looked away. “Who arranged your doctor’s visits?”
“My father.” Weiss blinked. “Oh. I see.” She started to stand up, Ruby rising with her and the other girls in the room reached out for her. “I’m fine. I… I just think I should lie down. It’s been a long day.”
Velvet nodded. “If… If you want, I can let the other faunus at school know…”
“Know that I’ve been living a lie my whole life?” Weiss laughed once. “Sure. There’s no point in not saying anything. Everybody but me already knew what I was.”
“I thought you were human.” Yang shrugged. “If that helps?”
“Yeah, me too.” Ruby agreed.
Weiss looked between the two of them. “It actually does. Thank you.” She shook out her head and turned to Velvet and Blake. “Thank you.”
It took less than a day for word to get out across the school. At least judging by when the looks faunus… the other faunus, gave her started to change. Conversations stilled and then started up again with quick sharp tones. Through it she kept her back straight and looking straight ahead, schooling herself into a proper disdainful mask and avoided making eye contact.
“So, your next class.” Ruby matched her pace and kept her hand close enough to brush against her own now and again, temptingly available to grasp.
“Blake and Velvet are in it.” She spoke, sounding bored. “I’ll be fine. It’s history class.”
“Oh? What are you studying right now?”
“The…” she cleared her throat. “Faunus Rights Revolution.”
“Uh, maybe ask Professor Oobleck for to be excused?” Ruby suggested.
“I am not hiding away.” Her voice was sharp and she turned to look at Ruby expecting the other girl to have flinched away. But Ruby was there with her cloak, hand still very close, and watching her. “I’ll be fine, really.”
“If you need anything, you can scroll me.” Ruby held up her scroll. “Or Yang. Or Blake. Or Velvet. Or whoever.”
Weiss snickered. “Blake and Velvet will be in the room with me. So will Jaune and Pyrrha for that matter.”
“Yeaahh. But scrolling can be done quietly without the teacher getting upset.” Ruby pointed out.
Weiss slowed to a stop next to the door to Professor Oobleck’s class and turned to Ruby. “Don’t you have your own class?”
“Uh… right. See you later.”
Weiss walked in and nodded at Velvet then Blake on her way up to her seat. Pyrrha caught the interaction and leaned in to whisper to the cat faunus.
“Is something up with Weiss?” Pyrrha asked.
“Ask her later.” Blake returned.
Weiss frowned as she passed the two and thought about her hearing in the new context and resisted the urge to slump. Every minute she noticed something else that in retrospect should have been obvious. But she didn’t let the renewed sensation of realized stupidity show on her face. She calmly folded her hands over each other and tried to listen to Professor Oobleck.
“Have any of you been subjected to discrimination or oppression for your faunus heritage?”
Weiss had not been prepared for the question, but she realized she should have been. She watched one hand raised up, and then below her, Velvet and Blake did the same. Already she could see eyes on her from the other faunus in the room.
If she raised her hand, all the humans would think she was being crass… and did she really deserve to say anything when she’d only known about it for less than twenty-four hours? What had she done to earn a place to say anything? Maybe she should see a doctor first to confirm it. Confirm what all the physical traits should already be confirming.
And it would probably get to her father.
She reached for her scroll shakily and started typing into it.
“Shameful. Absolutely shameful!”
Oh look at that. It was too late. Professor Oobleck had already passed on to the next topic. Speaking out now would be worse, she’d look like a grandstander.
She finished her message.
Weiss: I might be reckless.
Making a display like this would definitely get back to her father. And if he’d gone to such an effort…
Slowly she raised her hand.
Professor Ooblek paused in his speech and turned to look at her. “Yes, Miss Schnee, what is it?”
“It’s about your question before.” Weiss spoke smoothly and properly.
“About suffering discrimination?” He repeated. “What about it?”
Ruby: What's going on?
Yang: What do you mean reckless?
Blake: She’s about to out herself.
Ruby: Are you sure about this, Weiss?
She didn't have time to type a full response so she just quickly liked Ruby's question. Below her, Velvet and Blake were watching, bodies tensed.
“I might….” she cleared her throat. “I am in that category.”
Professor Oobleck’s eyebrows met together. “And that category is…”
She sighed. “I’m faunus…" Voices rose around the room in spates of excited gossiping. "Probably.”