Disclaimer: RWBY is the property of Rooster Teeth and was made by Monty Oum;
This fic is the property of a bored gamer and unless he tries to monetise it, he can keep it.
I remember I lied a lot at my parent's request. They weren't bad people by any stretch of the imagination, nor were they ever doing anything illegal. In fact, for the longest time they didn't even lie. But time passes, and as it did, their business flourished, and eventually they received a taste of the high society life, a taste they would get addicted to.
As a result, from as far back as I can remember, I had to learn how my parents business worked; how to walk properly, act properly, talk properly, but most importantly, how to lie properly. My parents taught me to round up the sum of our income while emphasizing our achievements, and not mention our failings while downplaying those that got found out.
Most of them weren't particularly big lies mind you, but at that age I had no concept of scale. As far as I cared to understand, I was suppose to lie to everyone about my value. It was during my education that she was born, too young to have to listen to the same lessons as I...I envied her for that.
I remember not liking Glace a lot. Despite being soft spoken she grew up into quite the chatterbox; always asking, always wondering and always dreaming. Although she never said it out loud, I don't think she liked me either, probably because whenever she would ask "Why?", I would have said "Right."
When presented with the rules of high society she would always scoff or snort, promptly asking how any of those rules made sense; they didn't, or if they did I never could figure them out myself. My parents eventually stopped trying to teach or force her to learn, and why should they? They had me to blindly follow their dreams, too afraid to speak up to my own parents.
Her newfound freedom brought with it a period of silence in the apartment we called home. Although she wouldn't admit it, the fact that our parents were ignoring her bothered her a lot. I could tell, because it was at that point she engaged in conversations with me off her own volition; as a result, I was the first person to find out she wanted to become a Huntress. Somehow she got our parents on board with the idea, mostly by pointing out hunters were regarded with a certain degree of prestige; she always was more clever than she let on...I envied her for that.
I remember the first time I heard her scream. It was hard not to hear it really, since we shared the same room. Her face looked pale, a feat in itself given she had such a pasty complexion, contrasting with her black hair so greatly, you could mistakenly confuse her for a sketch. She was sweating profoundly, muttering about "fiery eyes" and "whiffling through the trees", looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She stopped only when she saw my face, before exhaling all the air in her lungs.
It happened around a year after she joined Sanctum, a prestiged junior academy located in the kingdom of Mistral. My parents were informed by a teacher that her school had organized a camping trip, to get the students used to the life outside the borders.
As you can probably imagine, things didn't go well. A pack of Grimm made it into the so called secured area they had settled in for the night and attacked the camp. She woke up to the smell of blood and the sight of Grimm, surviving with barely a scratch because she was one of the few who stirred the least in the chaos the beasts created. She always was a heavy sleeper...I envied her for that.
I remember Glace didn't sleep for days. Whether she couldn't or wouldn't, no one could guess; but even blinking for too long seemed to make her jump or scream, at one point even confusing my shadow for a Grimm. Whenever she tried, she would dream of that night, waking up only after terror settled in her heart.
Desperate not to see the monsters again, she read without stop, barely leaving the house. It didn't matter what she read, she just wanted to keep her mind off things. During this time, my parents gave me a set of sleeping pills prescribed by the pharmacist, and they asked me to be the one to give them to her. I guess they figured Glace trusted me more than she did them. Can't say I didn't agree with them...not that I voiced that thought though, since it would have been disrespectful.
When Glace ran out of books to read, I gave her one of mine, a very specific book that reminded me of her ramblings...or maybe it was her ramblings that reminded me of the book? It belonged to a retired hunter, who claimed to have wrote novels based on the monsters he fought. She didn't reach halfway before I heard it:
"H-He knows..." she said with a dry voice, one that hasn't spoken for quite a while, "Glace, he knows! Who is - where is - I have to - ugh!"
That last word sprang from her mouth when her body hit the floor. Turns out not sleeping and sparsely eating made it hard for someone to stay up straight. Wordlessly, I scratched my messy black hair before I picked her up and dragged her back to her bed, ignoring her weak protests.
It was while she tried to stand up again, that she found herself with a facefull of clothes.
"Put those on while i go get you some food Glace. We're not leaving till you had something to eat."
What I was about to do was nothing short of insane, but despite her state, I knew Glace understood better than my parents what was best for her...I envied her for that.
I remember his stutter. While she was eating I dialed the number of the author, Bruno Curtis. It took a couple of tries, but eventually I got a hold of him by using his old scroll number from during his hunter days. How did I find that out? Well, let's just say the number he wrote in his apartment contract didn't match the one he had on his contact list.
It was a surprisingly short conversation. I quickly explained Glace's condition and he readily agreed to meet her. He refused my offer to pay him for the trouble and even offered to come here as opposed to the other way around, which honestly caught me a bit off guard; can't remember the last time that happened. Still, at my insistence, he agreed to wait for us at Vale's central airport, and I wasted no time leaving. My parents would have not agreed with me placing blind faith in a Faunus, that the public generally agreed had gone a little coocoo with age. Nonetheless, as I felt the unopened sleeping pill container in my suit pocket, it dawned on me that Glace's problem was not that she couldn't sleep, it was that she didn't want to; and these pills wouldn't make her want to.
"...Glace?" she asked me on the way, her left hand hooked around my neck as I helped her move.
"Hmm?" was my eloquent response.
"...Why are you helping me?" she asked, her icy blue eyes refusing to look my way.
"What kind of question is that Glace? So you can get better," I retorted, my blood red eyes focused on the road to the airport.
"...But you hate me."
"So do you. But hating you and wanting to see you hurt aren't the same thing."
"...Oh...Glace?"
"Hmm?"
"...I don't want to see you hurt either."
One thing we shared in common was an inability to say thank you. Still, she was always better than me at showing gratitude...I envied her for that.
I remember he had a limp. He was a pudgy fellow with with 3 black plumes on each hand, using one of the most bizarre looking walking sticks I've seen in my life. It's handle was shaped like one you'd find on a teapot, and the stick was made out of ice, with some odd scribbles on it I couldn't read.
It wasn't too hard for him to find us. According to him, we were the only duo in the airport that could moonlight as ghosts; for some reason, the sun got along with us as much as we did.
"Glace is one of your biggest fans," she chirped on the way to his residence, "he's got every book you made, and-and some he got on release even."
She was already talking more than she did in days, although the fact she was trying to focus the attention on me did not go unnoticed.
"Calm down Glace. Conversations can't happen if only one person talks."
"O-oh. Right. Sorry."
"Any reason you two call each other Glace?" Bruno asked, seemingly unperturbed by her tirade.
"It's our family name," I told him unabashed.
"Oh...Odd, I thought calling a relative by their family name was considered rude."
"It is," we said in sync.
"Oh...so...girl Glace. I ended the conversion with Naito before I could ask for your name."
"Aisa...I mean...My name is Aisa Glace. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"Oh sure, now she acts polite," I couldn't help but roll my red eyes.
"Shut up!" she whispered loudly.
It wasn't long before we reached his apartment. It looked exactly the same as I expected; a standard junior 4 bedroom with white walls; although the wooden door was replaced with a one i figured was made from reinforced plastic. I was left to my own devices in the dining room, while the two went to have a private conversation in the living room. Originally they were going to chat in the bedroom, but I think Bruno noted I wasn't very onboard with that idea, for reasons I hopefully don't have to explain to anyone. I took the chance to call home; my parents weren't very happy when I did. There was a lot of shouting on the end of my scroll, most of which I ignored; I informed them I would bring her back after she felt better and not a moment sooner, before promptly closing the phone.
I must have stayed there for hours, trying to remember if there ever was a time me or my sister called each other something other than "Glace", before Bruno joined me, my sister not with him.
"She's a smart kid," he informed me in a tired voice.
"Always has been," I responded automatically, "where is she?"
"Sleeping, although I have no idea how long it'll take her to wake up."
"It has been days since she managed to sleep," I noted.
"Not the real problem here, Naito," said the dodo faunus as he ran a hand through his navy blue hair,"come on in the living room. Doubt anything we say will wake her up now."
True enough, there she was, on the sofa, her icy blue eyes closed for the first time in days. She was tossing and turning, almost stubbornly trying to stay asleep.
"What do you know about semblances?"
"Semblances...I only know it was something you learn to do with one's aura."
"Not so much learn as unlock. Every hunter, or hunter to be, have their aura unlocked, turning one's very soul into a shield that protects them from harm. Yet despite all auras functioning the same, no two souls are alike. So semblances are the soul's way of making auras unique. Your sister's soul, from what I gathered, empowers her dreams."
"...and her nightmares," I muttered without realizing it.
"What's the difference?" inquired the faunus.
"What's the...I am not having this conversation again."
"Again?" Bruno looked confused for a second, before his chartreuse eyes rested on the resting lass, "heh, that does sound like something she'd ask."
"You can find out yourself when she wakes up," I said unconcerned. I knew she'd wake up eventually, she never did know when to give up...I envied her for that.
I remember she slept for days, waking up to the sound of of a growling monster, and the sight of me reading some of Bruno's future books. At her confused look, I lazily pointed a finger at her stomach...a pillow might have been thrown at my face that day.
It was also the first and last day I would ever call her Aisa. Just hearing that word come out of my mouth made her freeze, her face taking a bizarre look as every emotion she knew seemed to be fighting over dominance of her features. Eventually, she settled on bashful.
"Can...Is it alright if you keep calling me Glace? I know this sounds silly but...you're the only person that calls me that and...I think I like that now."
Typical. Only she would try and put a nice spin to something we used to use as an insult. Nonetheless, I agreed, and haven't called her that since…yesterday, really, when we chatted on the phone. She was told by the headmaster about a mental condition a first year had and asked to organize weekly meeting in order to make sure everything was fine. Ultimately, she became a psychologist at a hunter school, always making sure to tell me all the crazy things that happens there.
Honestly, from her tales, that academy sounds like some more of a wonderland instead of a school, and the thought of that place being her job location...can't say I envy that.
Can you guess who the three are based on?