The garden was amazing, full of flowers of every color. Benches of masterwork craftsmanship wrought from marble, standing around a single modest fountain depicting a girl in a cloak as the water ran down her form in a veil of sparkling liquid. The water having worn away the statue, in a way that made her unrecognizable, and the thing in her hands (A basket perhaps?) Unidentifiable.
It was an entrancing sight, the colorful flowers dying the world in cheerier taint. The garden a simply brighter tone than the rest of the stoney castle that it called home.
That's why it was so surprising, and so out of place to hear the sobbing of a child twittering from a bench of majestic craft.
Weiss only thought it right, after all she could never quite fit into her role. The emotionless smile of the Kingdoms second princess, never fitting quite right. The dresses never fitting just right, like skin that was too tight.
The Kings platitudes never failing to make her feel like a beast under the knife, as he seemingly dissected her soul and seemingly found her wanting in his ice cold eyes. As if she was a failure so great he couldn't help but act like a bug that just had to be squashed.
The Queens faulty smiles acting like a blade, as she shrugged off any of her concerns and emotions like water off a duck's back. Her every word flowing away from the queen's mind, brushed away as unimportant, and uneeding of attention.
Her sister, the first Princess, tried to heed her words, and pay attention to her achievements. Tried to hold her in the high esteem that family should. Yet her eyes were always filled with expectations that Weiss could never meet.
So she cried, in this garden of perfect things, and mourned the expectations she would never meet, longed for icy eyes that would never warm.
She didn't think about the crunch of leaves, because it was natural. She didn't think about the soft sound of fabric rustling against the bench beside her, because it was natural.
Weiss was however, surprised when the arm wrapped around her waist. She was wrapped in a sort of half hug. With one hand, cloaked in red as it pulled her in another's warm hold.
Weiss looked up to worried that she would perhaps find the disappointed glare of her Mother, or the dispassionate glance of her Father.
Instead she met, eyes of twinkling silver that stared down at her with an almost motherly twinge, and a smile made from the sliver of a star. Shrouded in a cloak of red, brighter and deeper than blood.
Weiss simply couldn't stop herself, as she wrapped her lithe arms around the silver eyed woman with the smile that made the sun seem dim, and the stars brighter.
She rested her head on the woman's shoulder and sobbed, her arms wrapping the girl in a vice.
The wind bristled, and sent red-black locks into the air, even as one hand prevented Weiss's snowy white hair from fluttering into the wind. Fingers curling through the white strands, in a comforting motion.
Weiss had no measure of the time that she spent sobbing into the shoulder, of this beautiful stranger cloaked in red.
Just that the sun was setting by the time she stopped, and that it was time well spent.
Pulling away from the stranger the Princes, rubbed the last remnant of tears from her eyes and smiled at this girl with silver eyes. Something nagged at her mind that the girl seamed younger than a second ago.
That her appearance had lost a wrinkle, and her clothes were of a finer make. That the girl before her had lost the shine of mother and changed into that of an untried youth. Still she stiffened her spine, and apologized to the girl who was no doubt a servant, despite her unfamiliar dress.
"I'm sorry for taking your time miss?-"The Girl just smiled at Weiss her smile shining with a starry glow, and moon-silver eyes. Her figure radiating a mystery Weiss couldn't quite perceive, and her lips making a smirk that whispered a secret Weiss couldn't hear
"I've been called a lot of things, but you can call me Ruby, Miss?" The cloaked girl said her entire body somehow stretching into a easy smirk that matched the one on the girls lips.
Some part of Weiss was insulted at the lack of recognition in the silver of the Girls eyes. Some insignificant part of her was howling like a wolf with its heart pierced, and pride brought low, because how dare this ant of a commoner not recognize the second princess of the land!
It was promptly ignored.
Because the majority of her being was stunned, at the lack of titles spewing from the girls mouth at the mere sight of Weiss.
After all wasn't she the "broken princess" destined to die from birth? The girl born not only under the full moon, but in the month of harvest and during the seven day festival dedicated to death and a month before her predicted birth.
As her mother had told her time and time again that her first cry of life had called death to every fire in the castle. That Death itself had blown into it's way into her presence and left a taunting laugh as a parting gift.
That she was destined to die early. That as deaths many followers said, Death would come to take her one day.
Most (including herself) had been surprised she'd lived long enough to see her fifteenth birthday this year, with her fragile countenance, and unhealthy pallor(at least that's what her mother called it, the healers never seemed to think much of it either).
She knew that several priests had been getting very nervous as her seventeenth birthday came closer, and her early life approached a close.
Somehow this stranger lack of knowledge on the "Glass Princess" and the "Source of the Kingdom's Misfortune" sparked something hopeful, in Weiss like she'd just received approval from someone important to her.
However years of training (it was so sad it would all go to waste when she met her death) prevailed, an irritated glare flexing onto her face as a default reaction. Her lips twisting in the scowl her tutor (What an adorable pout!) had burned into her muscle memory.
"Weiss Schnee, Second Princess in line for the crown." she stated with a form of bland, and bitter anger.
She had been resigned to the strange anonymity that her infamous reputation, seamed to bring. It had been years since the last time someone hadn't recognized her, but she knew very well that the other lands within the kingdom had blown up her "story" to the point she was unrecognizable based upon her appearance alone.
She was however not expecting the way the Girl before her responded.
A smirk of some kind appeared on her face, like she was amused. Before she bowed to a perfect ninety degrees,one hand moving behind her back with a flourish while the other smoothly rested before her stomach.
"I apologize for not recognizing you, Milady Schnee, I would gladly take any punishment you could hand out." the girls voice utterly sincere as she did exactly what etiquette would deem suitable of a commoner insulting a noble, out of ignorance.
And yet Weiss found her eye twitching, as the entire thing came off as mocking. The Girls eyes sparkling with innocence, but the amusement radiating her form gave the girl away despite being the picture of purity.
Weiss wasn't exactly the picture of grace under fire, in fact many would attest just how badly she took criticism. Usually by tearing the offender to pieces with a word or two. Her reaction to mocking however made the courts tremble.
However instead of the bonfire of anger that usually roared when face with such a situation, barley a flicker of irritation made itself known.
Instead Weiss found herself fighting down a guffaw of laughter.
It was strange and out of character (and yet somehow completely Natural, and in character), but somehow this seemed like routine.
Like this was idle banter that they had been doing for years, somehow Ruby bowing made all the comical. (And strangely awkward, like this girl should never bow before anything, or anyone.)
However being ever composed, Weiss showed no hint of her strange reaction. With the exception, of the smallest, softest, quirk of her pale pink lips.
"Stop that." she called out. The girl named Ruby, rose her head to look at Weiss in the eyes, but didn't change her posture other wise. Her silver eyes wide with a childlike innocence, even as a tuft of blood tinted black hair, slipped from the Girls Cloak.
Her face mixed into an expression of confusion, as if she didn't know exactly what she was doing, pale skin shining brightly under the fading sun.
"Stop what Milady Schnee?" Her voice a sweet crackling of leaves, tinged with a hint of undefinable, and undetectable mockery. "That right there! Stop mocking me!" The girl in white said with every spark of anger she could gather, and yet her lips still twitched into an attempt at a smile.
"Why, I would never mock Milady Schnee. Such a thing would mean Death for one such as I!" Ruby said one hand above her heart, as if she'd just been insulted with something unbelievable.
Her form radiating such purity and innocence (Along with some undefinable thing she had no doubt the priests would call holy(Too bad it was Black as the void and tinted with the blood of armies)) that had Weiss almost contemplating apologizing for the accusation.
It was an 'almost' for the sole reason that despite the sincerity of her words, it all struck Weiss as an absurd statement. ("Oh poor Weiss-y you should know by now that something like this couldn't kill me!" "Your head was cut off!" "Oh don't exaggerate so much! It was still attached.")
It also came off as so natural that Weiss found herself moving in a way she knew she never had, but was so familiar she felt she'd done it a thousand time before.
Her hand stretched out in a smacking motion, that seemed to hold all too much force, yet came off as far too harmless. Her lips giving a quiet cry "Stop mocking me!"
Ruby spun in flurry of red, her hair whipping out as she ducked the sudden attack. All pretense of innocence gone as she giggled madly, her lips turned into a breathtaking smile that came off as a far to amused smirk.
Eyes glittering with the sparks of the falling sun, yet out shined by the burning amusement they contained. Spinning into position with a hand in front of the lips that were just as red as her name, in a coy manner as her laughter trailed off.
"You'd have to catch me first!" the Red girl announced before spinning of into the garden of colored flowers.
Weiss, discarding any pretense of decorum, shot off after the girl in blur of white.
Dashing and dancing through the flowers, with a flourish of red, and a glance of white.
For some reason it struck Weiss as ridiculous, for the entirely wrong reasons (Shouldn't Ruby be chasing her?) as she chased the girls silver eyes throughout the maze of colored petals. She couldn't help but feel like someone was laughing as she played this strange game of tag. Like this situation was unique in someway, and utterly comical in another.
But she found she couldn't bring herself to care, as she brushed through petals of all color and shape.
A burst of triumph shooting through her body as she made to tackle the red blur with silver eyes. Their bodies colliding with far more force than she thought, her thin arms wrapped around the cloaked mystery. Laughter scattering from her throat, as the Princess found herself tumbling along Ruby into a bush or thorny roses. (Yet not a single thorn cut her dress, or pierced her skin.)
Their little spin ending with Weiss's hands on either side of the Silver eyed girls head, as she looked down upon the litter red wonder as she held the girl to the ground.
Weiss's breath was labored as she felt the toll of several hour of running (Yet no sweat shined from her skin, and dirt had found no purchase upon her from the many times she'd fallen in her attempts to get this little red girls, fluttering hood)
Her mouth moving without much thought, "I caught you." (Again) she breathed her blue eyes shining with triumph, unmatched.
Though the call from the girl, set her blood on fire with a different kind of triumph. "Oh Weiss," the girl said in a breathy gasp. "You caught me a long time ago."
The moon shined down bubbling within the Silver Eyes of the Red Mystery as she leaned up, and the fire burned within Weiss's blue eyes as she leaned down.
(their lips met and sky cracked with a sound like music, the earth crumbled to the sight of wolfs howl, the sun exploded into a glittery gold as it rose before it set, and the moon fell to the earth in exasperation, as lightning cackled between them like a pack of Jackals.)
Yet once the eye's Weiss didn't know she closed opened, she found herself smirking at the rose bush beneath her. Yet the memory of ruby lips, hers were about to meet spoke of a different story within her eyes. ("RUBY! What did you Do!")
The smile never left her face as she climbed to her feet, nor as she made her way through the gardens.
A feeling churning like a great storm within her chest, (the thought of it being a dream never crossing her mind) As the feeling tells her, whispers, that despite this being the first memory she had of Ruby, it was in no way the first time they'd met.
And far to soon to be the last.
("Oh you know Yang, Just broke few rules.")
A/N this was Inspired by the A Dose of RWBY by Raziel12 oneshots where Ruby is Death, all Credit goes to him for the Idea.
Read them they are amazing.