BLACK ICE

01:Salve

Rough breathing was the clearest detail in this patchwork world, which seemed to synchronize with her own, strangled one. Rough breathing, in the darkness, a hungry beast eager to feed. It was an absolute darkness. It seemed to her that she had been buried alive in it. She could felt a great weight on the top of her, crushing her, making it hard to breathe. And that was all she could perceive.

"No..." her faint voice, while hot tears streamed down her face. A prayer that wouldn't reach anybody and wouldn't never been answered. "No, don't… stop this. Don't hurt me anymore."

The darkness ate her hopes and the ritual continued. The breathing seemed to speed up. She became aware that something sharp was poking her face. When she felt it cutting into her skin…

Weiss opened her eyes. She did it slowly, as if she was waking up after dying. She had that dream… again. She pushed the covers off of her and got out of her bed. The sunlight filtered through the windows, half covered by a curtain, dividing her bedroom in two patches, one of light and the other of darkness. She approached her closet, barefoot.

Another morning. Another day. She didn't felt excited about what might happen today, it was all on the same level of breathing or sleeping, something inconsequential that she didn't waste energy thinking about. Playing a role, moving as she was allowed by the strings that bound her, that was what the Schnee heiress had been reduced to, after fifteen years of going through such a way of life.

She finished dressing up for the day and looked at herself in the mirror. She was beautiful, and her elegant clothes only added to it. She knew that. It wasn't vanity. However, there were things that weren't so simply to pretty up.

The face she saw in the mirror was a mask, fake and almost grotesque. She scrunched her face and turned away from her reflection. Her stomach churned.

That's not me.

Today was one of those rare mornings in which the family could have breakfast together. Winter wasn't present, but she rarely was at home in the first place. She had enlisted in the Atlas military, after graduating from the best combat school in the kingdom. She visited mostly on the occasions she was on leave. Her job kept her occupied… and away from this family. For Weiss, it would have been the most important aspect of that job.

The table was already prepared, a banquet for three. A lot of wasted space, if you asked her. Nobody spoke. They ate in silence. The oppressive atmosphere floated between them like a ghost, nothing like a breakfast with family should be. Or at least what she imagined it to be, something she had constructed out of books and movies, and what other people had told her.

And, of course, when they started talking, something instigated by her father…

"How are your lessons going?" father asked. "The recital is only a few days away."

It went straight to business. A normal girl who had lived a normal life would see that as her father showing interest in her hobby's, and would been happy about it. Not her. She saw through that facade. This breakfast… it was also just another layer of his many facades, which formed the image he wanted to present to the world.

"They're going well, father." just having to call him that made her felt sick. "Celes has no complains. My skills haven't rusted, and I'm getting even better."

"I hope you will do an excellent performance. I won't make any promises, but I might be able to attend the recital."

"Of course, father. Thank you."

She kept her hands, which couldn't stop trembling, under the desk. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing that. After that, he turned his attention to her brother, Whitley.

Every time Weiss looked at her brother, she felt angry. They didn't have the best relationship, but it didn't have anything to do with the many things he had done to her. No, it was something much simpler.

When breakfast ended and headed to have class with her tutor… only then she let the mask carved in ice drop, for a single instant.

"Jacques….." She bit her lower lip, unconsciously. Instead of letting go, she bit hard enough to draw blood. She felt it in her mouth. "You disgusting hypocrite."

Then, Weiss put it back on. She was wholly the Schnee heiress again.

It grew a little easier every time she did it.

The tutor went just in time. Celes was good, one of those who taught, she didn't limit herself to throw up her knowledge, simply expecting the student to learn from that. But now she wasn't really listening to her.

She was anxious to start to sing. She kept on with it when she had left so many things aside, but Jacques had managed to dismiss even that simple pleasure, because… he began to go to her recitals. Seeing him in the audience-with a smile full of indulgence, like she was her property-made her stomach spin like it was a washing machine.

"Well." Celes said, dragging her out of her thoughts. "Let's see."

Weiss didn't do anything for a few moments, struggling to unearth what she had said from the deeps of her mind. Then she sang. Her voice resounded in the room, filling the empty spaces. Here, she sang for herself and for her own fulfillment, and that was good. She could lose herself in that trace. Leave the world aside.

About halfway through it, she started to notice something that Celes wouldn't fail to notice: mistakes. A carelessness which wasn't proper of her. Being aware of that, the mistakes started to pile up.

"Stop for a moment." said Celes, before she could reach the end. She was glad for that. "Did something

happen? You hardly make any mistakes and never this many."

"Nothing. I'm perfectly fine." She lied. She wasn't fine at all. While she practiced in her own, in the showers and sometimes, only something, out in the garden, she had recently started to notice something wrong in her voice. Tomorrow… no, tonight, she would have to take off the mask for a few hours. She needed to keep functioning.

To put up with her life, she would unleash the feelings she had been repressing. She needed that release.

James was walking back to his house, stumbling every time she took a step and nearly falling in the process. He had drunk more that he should have. He knew that he shouldn't drink at all, since he didn't have much of a resistance to alcohol, but he ended up doing it, again and again. Humans were excellent in fooling themselves.

He had seen it coming, though not in an entirely conscious way. Because of that, he had left the car in the garage and he decided to go for a walk. At least, he had that small piece of sensibleness. He knew himself well, though sometimes he wished he didn't.

The moon shards were only halfway visible. The streets, in the dark, with so few people, were nearly unrecognizable-sinisterly so, like an image which had come out from a dream. Similar to the real thing, but not entirely the same.

He stumbled against somebody. He apologized in a nearly unintelligible murmur and went on his way. Or that was what he pretended.

"Excuse me." said a young woman. She sounded…. Not worried, but almost. Restless. "Could you listen to me for a minute?"

He turned towards her, his vision swaying along with him. His heart was pulsating in his chest like a fire alarm. Her clothes and hair were a little plain, but her face was beautiful and… he knew her, right? He was sure that, at least, he had seen her before. But he couldn't remember who she was. Maybe that déjà vu was the alcohol talking. Yeah, that was probably all there was to that strange feeling.

"What do you want?"

The young girl clung to him. At first glance, he judged she couldn't be any older that sixteen. Even so, the feeling of her soft body pressed up against his own aroused him.

"…I seem to be lost." she confessed, in a small voice. "Could you help me out, sir?"

"Just call your parents, so that they pick you up."

The girl grimaced and some peculiarity of her expression made him worry. That was a mistake. She probably just didn't want to be scolded for staying up so late and doing drugs, or whatever she had stayed around for. People her age attributed a weight and gravity to things that didn't really merit it. Even if she was being abused, she didn't have anything to do with him. She was just a stranger he had met on the street. And he didn't care. Of course he didn't.

"Better not." Her unfathomable eyes suggested his first impression of her had been right: she was being abused by her family. But… what did that change? "Sir, please…"

She clutched his shirt with thin and trembling fingers.

Goddammit.

"All right." he breathed in deeply. He was annoyed with himself. "Where do you live?"

She told him.

It was a little bit far from his house, but not that much. It wouldn't hurt to walk her home. He resumed walking and didn't look back to see if she followed him.

"Let's go."

They crossed the streets in silence. He had to admit he felt good when the people passing by saw him walking with such a beautiful girl, side by side.

They stopped at an intersection. He tried to remember the way and suddenly he couldn't. His mind was blank. The girl grabbed his sleeve and tugged him.

"It's in that direction."

He got the sudden feeling than that was wrong, but he would trust her first, rather than his own mind, which was currently busy drowning in alcohol. He abided by the girls words. When he started seeing the familiar sights he usually took on the way to his home, tension flowed out of his body. That nagging feeling had been nothing, after all.

Suddenly, that young girl, whose name he didn't even know, made him stop. He looked up at him. His heartbeat picked up speed. In her eyes, he saw vulnerability and a hint of anticipation.

"Sir, the truth is… I don't want to go back home." she caressed his chest, tenderly. Her face got closer to his. He could felt her breath and it was pleasant like the fragrance of flowers in spring. "I want you."

She wasn't legal, he could get in trouble. But his alcohol addled mind couldn't see any problem with what she had proposed. He understood why the laws were how they were, but to him, the deciding factor was mental age. She clearly knew what she was doing and what she wanted. There was nothing wrong in giving it to her. So he smashed his lips against hers, hungrily. She responded and pressed her body against his.

Weiss looked at the man besides her. She put her hand close to his ear and snapped her fingers a couple of times, to gauge his reaction to the noise. He didn't flinch. That meant he was truly asleep. Her clothes laid on the floor, in a buddle. She was wearing only her boots. He had requested that she kept them on while they were doing it; she had been gracious enough to fulfill his request. She stood up from the bed and took out a hunting knife from the pocket of her skirt.

She was famous as the daughter of the head of the Schnee Corporation, yet that man had been unable to recognize her. He only suspected the truth, if that. It was amazing what a little bit of makeup could do. You could become a different person and blend in the crowd. The alcohol helped, she had no doubt about it, but this wasn't the first time she did something like this. Her methods were effective.

She straddled him, like she had been doing not too long ago, except not quite. The knife gleamed in the murky light of the hotel room. She cut his throat, so that he couldn't scream for help. The second stab went, with cold precision, in the chest, severing an artery. Before the third stab, she admired the look of confusion and pain on his face, then the fear which obscured every other emotion. She saw life and death reflected in his eyes. She came to understand him on a level which nobody else could reach.

Cheeks heated, she bent down and kissed him in the lips while he trashed and bleed. She felt the taste of his blood on her mouth. It gave her more pleasure that he had been able to before, with his clumsy touches. He tried to take the knife away from her.

She gave it to him, right in the heart. He trembled against her, struggling to break free and she embraced that fire, and warmed herself with it until it burned out.

Weiss pulled away. The ruffled sheets were red with blood, and it seemed fake, like from the set of a movie. There was something poetic in that.

"You've been good." Weiss caressed the corpse's cheek and then kissed him on his brow, a mother tucking up his son for the night.

Now, she needed to clean up. She went to the bathroom, turned the tap and stood under the spray of hot water. The blood had splashed over her whole body and stained even her boots. She cleaned herself up, as best as she was able. Blood was hard to get off. During the times she took off her mask, she had learned a lot of things like that. She got out and dressed herself.

The only thing left was the corpse.

Days passed.

Weiss finished putting on the dress for the recital, which had been designed by the best designer in the kingdom of Atlas. She was ready for the show to start. She got out of her dressing room and went backstage. She could hear the noise silence beyond the curtains, the people eager for the recital to begin. Not as much as she was, though. She was sure of that.

The clock did a half turn and finally it was time, her time. The curtains parted. She approached her place in the stage, walking on the carpet. The music accompanied her. Jacques was in the audience, in his usual spot. Looking down on her. It didn't matter. This time, not even he could ruin this.

"Mirror, tell me something, tell me who's the loneliest of all? Mirror, tell me something, tell me who's the loneliest of all?" she sang and it was right, just as it should be. "Fear of what's inside of me; tell me can a heart be turned to stone?"

Weiss was now on the top, dazzling and beautiful, the keystone of this beauty. It flowed from her and it was her, in a way, the purest form of who she was. The man she had killed with her own hands was rotting in dirty, stinking water. Cold. Alone.

The crowd roared, enraptured at having received one of the rare smiles of their Queen of Ice.