Chapter Text
1. Quiet
Frigid Solitas winds howled and whipped faintly glinting snow over the road, the powder brushing past two women as they made their way. A broken moon hung low and barely risen in the sky to cast the world in anemic silver light.
One woman was shorter and, in the darkening sky, could be mistaken for a ghost, if she was seen at all. Against the almost pure ivory backdrop, a light blue dress and pale skin almost made her fade into the snow. As though she were a creature made from the Solitas mountains themselves, even the woman’s hair was a pure, pristine white that blended in.
If someone did manage to see her, they would quickly realize her shorter size gave them exactly zero safety. Anyone worth worrying about in the frozen desolation would be fast to notice the rapier shining with the bright silver of steel at her side. Its light reflected the sparse moonlight into a thin sheet of white scales on her limbs, so fine they looked like ice covered her arms and legs.
A kind soul might marvel at the way she moved through the snow and the cold in summer wear, like cold itself was beneath her attention. A type of clothing which wasn’t even made for Atlesians.
Even kinder souls, the ones truly rare this close to the heart of Atlas, might even wonder if she was a snake Faunus on the verge of death.
The chances of someone seeing her at all, though, were slim. Almost anyone looking their way would be drawn to her taller sentinel, a shadowed figure in a bright red cloak swaying in the wind. Anyone, man or beast alike, would be too focused on the air of power her companion radiated to ever see her own blade coming at their back.
Princess Weiss Schnee… Weiss… stalked over the crunching snow-covered road like a woman on a mission.
Her sworn knight Ruby Rose trailed behind her, guarding her back and vigilant for any danger heading Weiss’s way as always.
Though Weiss supposed she didn’t have a knight anymore. Not officially. Abdicants weren’t entitled to claim a noble as theirs.
Not that she was sure that mattered. Not to Ruby. Weiss had left, and Ruby had followed. Title or no, Ruby had made it clear that her fealty was to Weiss, not King Schnee. As it had always been.
It should have comforted Weiss. Ruby chose her, not Atlas. And she’d known she would, when she’d told her the previous night about her plans to finally leave.
She might have presented a calm face when Ruby had followed her through the castle gates at the crack of dawn, but it had deeply shaken something in the former princess to have her assumptions and hopes so casually proven correct.
Ruby had the chance to make a name for herself that would spread across all of Remnant. Even with Weiss absent, her skills were commended enough that Jacques would likely simply shift her duties over to Whitley.
And yet. Ruby had chosen her. It didn’t feel as good for Weiss as she had assumed. The crimson knight was trailing behind her instead of at her side as had long been customary. And from the moment she’d told Ruby about her plans, Ruby’s ever-present smile was absent.
The world felt cold without her own personal sunspot in it. It was the kind of cold she hadn’t truly felt since she woke up at thirteen covered in budding white scales. She hated it.
Looking for a distraction, she took in their surroundings. And was quickly reminded that Solitas wasn’t going to give her much to occupy herself with between the cities and towns.
Surrounding them on all sides, as far as the eye could see, was an endless sea of frozen ice and snow. Far in the distance, standing out like a throne of jagged, icy blades, snow-tipped mountains stood up over the horizon with the shattered moon just peeking out from behind them.
Atlas stood at the pair’s back, breaking the pristine land with its opulence like a shining diamond in the growing dark. Even hours of travel away, the kingdom of glass and steel still held her attention.
It was once the heart of the region, settled by her grandfather. He’d laid claim with Atlas on the land central to all corners of Solitas, and had offered refuge. A symbol that no matter where you were, no matter who you were or what your status was, you were welcome and safe. Atlas had once been a monument telling all the world that the land was unified as one people in the perpetual fight of man versus the tundra’s frozen grasp.
There was a saying, from long ago. In Solitas, the snow never melts. It grows and it consumes and it buries, grinding forest and stone and man to Dust. And under Nicholas Schnee, the Kingdom of Atlas stood as an affront to nature itself, offering safe shelter and warmth to anyone on the land who could make the journey.
His successor Jacques had made it into an ivory coffin. A stark, sprawling expanse where dreams went to die and hearts froze as solid as the mountains from which no-one in Solitas could truly escape. From which Weiss would never truly escape, despite her claims just the previous night to the contrary. Not while she had her feet in the tundra.
She focused back on the road, her steps light and practically floating her across the hard, frozen stone and brick where Ruby’s boots stomped and crunched.
Her knight could easily be just as quiet as Weiss, if not more so, snow or not. That she wasn’t making the effort, that she wasn’t leaving Weiss with just the silence of the wind and her own thoughts, thawed some of the chill. Even while Ruby, herself, was lost to her for the moment, her knight still had her in mind.
Normally, Weiss would love the silence and solitude. Out in the snow, she was free from the courtly whispers and games. The knives poised to bury into her back the moment she let her guard drop.
The quiet would be a respite the likes of which she could normally only dream of. Except it was Ruby being silent. Ruby wasn’t a person meant to be silent.
She adored hearing her knight talk.
Ruby being silly and joking to make a bad day for Weiss just a little less bleak had long been one of her favorite things. Ruby, talking at Weiss about all her wild and wondrous ideas for whatever new blacksmithing project she’d been commissioned to build this time, calmed the former princess’s racing mind better than any potion.
On any given day, crushed by the weight of judging stares and pointed words with a labyrinth of meaning to navigate, Weiss would yearn for everyone and everything in her life to simply silence themselves and leave her to her devices.
But not Ruby.
The thought cut Weiss deep. And the loss she’d visited upon her knight drove the knife deeper.
Ruby’s projects, her forge, had been personally funded by the Princess of Atlas herself. Weiss had hand-waved away any questions as all of it being in service to her rapier and any hobbies she decided to partake in for which Ruby’s talents could be of use.
The same blade sat at her side, gleaming under the moonlight. It was as familiar and calming, as comforting as it had been since Weiss saw the kind of works Ruby could create from scrap and a hammer and decided she needed to have her knight’s talents shine for the world to see.
Ruby’s forge had been an organized mess of metal ores, weapons, and the highest quality fire Dust, the likes of which no other blacksmith in Atlas could hope to use. It had taken Weiss almost a month just to learn to safely navigate Ruby’s ever-changing space. And yet it always had exactly what Ruby needed, when she needed it.
More than one courtier or loose-lipped noble had happened upon the knight’s space and talked about the madness and chaos found within. But it had been Ruby’s chaos. Ruby’s refuge when she was relieved of duty in the nights but was too energetically Ruby to sleep.
And now it was gone. Despite the fallout she knew would come, the complications of lost resources she would no longer have at her fingertips, losing Ruby’s forge was, perhaps, the one loss from her decision that hurt.
Ruby losing on her paycheck was unfortunate, but Weiss had enough of her reserves, quietly stored away over months of careful consideration and planning, to make up for that difference. If she needed it; she had no doubt Ruby’s skills and her own savings would get her back up to speed before too long.
But Weiss couldn’t simply replace what she’d built. Ruby’s forge had been the culmination of the knight lovingly building and arranging things to be exactly how she liked it over the course of more than two years.
She knew deep down that Ruby had to have weighed that when deciding to follow her. Her knight almost certainly wasn’t thinking of the loss the way Weiss was.
But that just made it worse for the former princess. Because in a better world, with a better family and a better king, Ruby wouldn’t have faced a choice between her dream and her loyalty.
Weiss quietly scoffed, shaking her head and focusing back on the road. It wasn’t a better world, and she had the hand she’d been dealt. Thinking about it, it was just another thing ruined by the cold, iron touch of King Schnee.
And she was determined to make it the last time he will ever hurt her or the woman she lo- the people she cared about again.
Weiss hissed and ran a hand through her hair. Clearly, her mind couldn’t handle this silence well.
They turned a bend in the road and she breathed a sigh of relief. Up ahead stood the distant shadows of a village.
Seeing the squat collection of shadows and flickering glow of torchlights, Weiss found a new debate raging. If they kept going, they could reach Mantle properly by dawn’s light. They could inform their contacts of Weiss’s new trajectory in life, and then she could be done with Solitas and on the next ship out.
Except, by a brief estimation, Weiss believed they’d been on their trek away from Jacques and his clutches for nearly ten hours. No breaks to speak of, save for a brief pause around midday to feed and hydrate.
While Ruby’s cloak was thick and warm, the cold was undoubtedly taking a toll on her knight. She, herself, was nearly immune to the elements around them. But she was tired, physically and mentally.
It would have been so easy to commission a carriage or horses, even in the dawning light of the rising sun. Easy, but not simple. They’d made the unfortunate but necessary decision to go on foot to give themselves more time before their absence was noticed, and Weiss was beginning to wonder how worth it the sacrifice had been.
As she was going back and forth on the best decision, she unconsciously began twirling her side tail. When it lightly hit her face on a sudden gust of wind, Weiss paused.
Turning, she let her hair drop and sent a thoughtful frown at Ruby.
“Do you think I should cut my hair?”
Ruby’s steps stuttered as her gaze jerked up from the road. Apparently Weiss wasn’t the only one lost in her own mental labyrinth.
Her knight’s face lit pale red, the slight tinting of her cold nose spreading to her cheeks. Ruby’s face scrunched up like Zwei when Yang put a treat atop his snout. It was, Weiss could admit to herself, adorable.
“Whatza… Could you, uh, repeat that?”
Normally, Weiss despised repeating herself. A lesser mortal would be reduced to naught but a puddle under her glare. Ruby, however, was not a lesser anything.
Lifting her side tail and waving it in Ruby’s direction, she fought down a smirk.
“We’re approaching a village. And on the other side of Mantle, there will no doubt be knights at the ship. Do you think I should cut my hair before we get there?”
Humming, Ruby’s blush faded as she looked at Weiss. Truly looked at her, a general debating the best tactic and examining her with intense, silver eyes lit brighter than the budding moonlight above their heads.
And then the knight blushed again, more intense this time.
“I mean… do you wanna’ cut your hair? I mean! Um, I, uh… I love your hair? But it’s your hair, y’know? I’m sure you’ll look cu- uh, amazing. No matter how you wear it.”
Gesturing wildly around her, Weiss thought her knight might be trying to literally remove the foot from her mouth. She didn’t laugh, but it was a close thing.
“From a tactical perspective, it’s going to be getting colder now that we’re heading into winter proper. Having long hair could help keep you warm while we’re still on Solitas. Not that you need to worry about that, I know you don’t really get cold, but still… I, uh, I don’t know,” she concluded with a strangled cough.
Weiss bit back another laugh. She was not, no matter what anyone else would claim, blushing. There was no denying, however, that her steps had a certain energy to them as she turned around and continued toward the village once more.
Clearing a suddenly dry throat, she jostled her hair.
“It makes me stand out,” she reasoned. “In the unlikely event that Jacques does send a party for us, it will make their jobs easier.”
Level with the former princess’s side, Ruby rocked side to side as she hummed.
“Do you think he will?”
Weiss couldn’t contain the smile that time, almost grinning at the sound of her knight’s voice. Confident and casual, if Ruby had any fear at the prospect of facing down some of the best knights on the continent, she had suddenly developed an astounding poker face.
All the same, it would be a headache to need to evade and hide from them. Especially at the ports.
“He’ll likely see my departure as a favor,” she mused. “Less processing. Less effort to install Whitley like he wanted.”
Ruby frowned, and Weiss sighed as another thought surfaced.
“Assuming,” she continued, “that he doesn’t believe I’m leaving to build an army to uninstall Whitley. If he lets his paranoia get the best of him, we should probably expect a small, well trained force hounding us within the week.”
“The Aces?”
Weiss scoffed, rolling her eyes hard enough she almost felt it.
“As much as it might kill him, they’re still firmly under Ironwood’s control. The general owes Winter far too many favors to ever approve that mission. Besides,” she huffed, “Jacques isn’t likely to jump at the chance to let all the land know I’ve severed ties with him. Not when any move he publicly makes will give Robyn something to spin for months.”
“I mean, is it spin if it’s true though?”
“I’m afraid I’m not qualified to have that debate. Either way, if Jacques decides I’m a problem to be dealt with, he’ll go to less… savory organizations.”
And Ruby laughed, the idea that the king would send assassins after them drawing a series of airy giggles that made Weiss struggle to keep her stern frown in place.
“That would be nice,” Ruby sighed once she’d recovered. “I’d feel bad hurting the other knights.”
Weiss shivered at the cold, unyielding steel hidden beneath her knight’s carefree words. Ruby might act casual about the whole idea, but she spoke with absolute certainty that any forces sent their way wouldn’t be a concern. Not that there was ever a doubt in Weiss’s mind, but the reminder that her rose had some dangerous thorns hidden beneath the surface was calming.
“I agree on that front. I actually like some of your former colleagues. Still, the whole affair would be a hassle. So. Thoughts on my hair?”
With a hum, Ruby casually lifted a hand and ran it through Weiss’s side tail. Weiss shook at the touch and decided her knight would get to keep her hand, another thing she would afford no-one else who did that.
“I love your hair,” Ruby said with a pout.
Weiss sighed, allowing the hand to continue running softly over the strands.
“I don’t want to cut it,” she admitted. “It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make, though.”
In a flurry of quick steps, Ruby was suddenly in front of Weiss. Hands behind her back and a blush brightening her face, the knight stepped backward and kept perfectly paced to Weiss’s own steps.
Silver eyes met pale blue as Ruby hummed.
“You can always just wear my cloak. It’s long and thick enough to hide you,” she continued when the former princess’s eyes widened. “Plus the hood should be big enough for you to just hide your hair inside, if you wear it down.”
Her eyes hardened as she slowed her next step, putting her almost on top of Weiss when she stepped forward.
Slowly, deliberately, Ruby reached out and took a gentle hold on Weiss’s side tail. Bringing it up between them, Ruby ran a gentle thumb over the nearest knot.
“If you’re asking for my thoughts? Not as a knight or a guard or whatever, but just me? I don’t want him taking a single other thing from you than he already has.”
Letting the hair drop, Ruby put a hand on Weiss’s trembling shoulder.
“You’ve given him more than you ever should have needed to. If I can help it, I’ll make it my new mission in life to make sure you never have to sacrifice a single other thing to Jacques-ass and his ego.”
A laugh was startled out of Weiss, eyes going wide.
For all of Ruby’s sweetness and kindness, she often forgot that her knight was raised by Branwens. Yang could drive seasoned veterans to blush, and it was easy to forget that Ruby could be just as unrefined when she chose to be.
Humming, Weiss ran her own hand over the knight’s knuckles as she thought.
The idea of putting Ruby’s cloak on, of being wrapped in her warmth was… attractive. Embarrassingly so. And that was without the practical solution it offered to her problem.
Except for one small problem.
“Thank you, Ruby,” she started with a soft smile that made her companion grin.
“But,” she added with a weary sigh, “as much as I appreciate the offer? And I do. As much as your oaf of a sister loves to point it out, I’m afraid I’m a few inches too short to wear your cloak. I won’t be able to move well if I’m dragging it around every time I take a step., and I’d rather not waste time pinning it.”
She felt her face heating up and pushed through.
“And you’d be cold and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I damaged your cloak.”
“Aww!”
Before Weiss could do anything, Ruby stepped closer and wrapped her in a hug.
“You’re so cute!”
“I am not cute!” Weiss shrieked.
But she didn’t do anything to break the knight’s hold. And her arms, instead of trying to push her away, wrapped around Ruby’s back and pulled her closer.
After a few seconds, Ruby pulled back and put her hands on Weiss’s shoulders.
Despite the grin, her silver eyes gleamed like molten metal and danger.
“You should do what you want to do. If that’s cutting your hair? I’ll help. If it isn’t, if you just don’t want to be hounded, then I’ll put anyone who comes for you into the dirt.”
Weiss was warm. From head to toes, her entire body felt warm, and safe, and lo- cared for. And she came to a decision.
Smiling, she brought her right hand up to the top of her head. With deft, well-practiced fingers, she slipped hairpins loose. And then her tiara was free, and the weight on her head shifted as her hair cascaded down in waves against her back.
Ruby’s face turned as bright as her name and she audibly gulped, drawing a nearly feral grin from Weiss. If Ruby had the ability to think right, she might even say Weiss looked like a dragon sitting on its hoard.
Stepping into Ruby’s space, Weiss reached back and grabbed one of her frozen, hanging hands. Gently pulling it between them, she placed the tiara into it.
Her knight’s brain seemed to reanimate as she looked down at the weight with a raised brow before meeting her eyes again.
“It’s pure silver and dense,” Weiss explained. “I feel that you can do interesting things with it.”
Ruby hummed and jostled the tiara in her hand. And her eyes went wide.
“Weiss, this is a ton of silver. Like, at least a whole ingot’s worth! A-are you sure you wanna’ give it to me?”
Smiling, Weiss reached up and ran a hand through her knight’s shorter hair. The whine Ruby made as her face burned brighter made Weiss shiver.
“I hated wearing it,” she admitted. “My first thought was to simply throw it off the mountain. If I was required to wear it, I decided I might as well irritate Jacques as much as I could with it. But I don’t and won’t need to do that anymore.”
She leaned forward, arms wrapping around Ruby’s neck. Staring into wide silver eyes, she nodded.
“You can do with it whatever you wish. Consider it an investment, for when we get you your new forge.”
Before Ruby could say anything, the former princess leaned in on the tips of her toes and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Ruby went completely rigid, the red spreading to her ears and down her neck.
Grinning, Weiss hummed and nimbly stepped around and past her. When she was three steps away and Ruby still hadn’t turned around, Weiss let herself laugh.
Ruby said she should do what she wants. And what she wanted was to allow herself to be herself and never to be forced back in the mental cage she’d been conditioned to close around herself.
After a few more steps, Ruby gasped and feet crunched as she dashed through the snow to catch up.
And they continued toward the village. Ruby was, once again, silent. This time, she was almost even with her, just a few steps ahead of Weiss. At her side where she should be. And her silence was a blushing, squirming one.
Weiss decided that this silence she could live with…