Happy Birthday to Me, (x2)
Happy Birthday Dear ScytheReaper, happy birthday to me.
Well, this is a story that I will probably only continue when we know more about Weiss' life, namely Winter, for I am obsessed with making things as canon believable as possible.
Hopefully this story won't get as dark as my other ones, because it always does for some reason… Who am I kidding; it'll happen because it's me that is writing. I blame modern culture!
This story was written to Mad World by Adam Lambert, along with the aid of Listenonrepeat as well as the piano part of Libera Me From Hell from Gurren Lagann, also with help from listenonrepeat. And All of Me. Because that song is awesome.
"You all should know that around this time, every year, things will… happen."
The statement that would start a revolution for team RWBY was uttered. It was said so silently, barely even murmured, that only the three team members of the speaker heard it.
Ruby's face took on a confused form in response, the expression only strengthened by her open mouth. Yang and Blake, in stark contrast of each other, appeared overtly excited and only mildly quizzical respectively.
"It will most likely be in your best interests to stay away from me; the last thing I want at a time like this is comfort…" Weiss continued, drifting off at the end of her sentence.
The team of teenagers were sitting at their usual lunch table, the only abnormal occurrences being a lack of their sister team, JNPR, and… Weiss.
The whole table went silent, the girl's teammates having yet to react vocally to her statements.
"Weiss… You know you can talk to us right? We can help; remember what you told me after I ran off with Sun?"
"Yeah!" Ruby rushed in, overcoming her shock. "You can tell us anything, it doesn't matter, because we'll do our best to comfort…"
"Rubes, quiet down. She just said she didn't want comfort." Yang scolded her younger sister.
Weiss smiled weakly to the blonde, "Thank you, Yang. I'm glad you understand"
Yang turned back to the heiress, "But still, we can help you; we've all had bad experiences in our pasts and we CAN help each other."
Weiss stood up from her seat at the table's bench both quickly and suddenly. Abruptly enough, even, to topple her team leader, the self-proclaimed "Queen of Speed" only barely managing to stop her tumble inches off the ground.
"No." Weiss said in a cold tone, her face sorrowful, "You can't help me; you don't know what this anniversary means to me, or worse, does to me. I do appreciate the concern you always give me, but please, let it go.
With that, Weiss Schnee turned her back to everyone; walking away, alone, to bear through her pain. She stopped, turning around to speak one more sentence,
"You might also consider "Bunking", as you call it, with team JNPR or CFVY otherwise, at the very least, get earplugs."
Turning once again on her heel, the heiress continued her faintly hurried exit, once again all alo-
"Hey, Weiss! I know what you're going through." Yang called out, ruining the narration.
Weiss let out a half-groan half-sigh before turning YET AGAIN to her team.
"I highly doubt you do, but, as you are not likely to listen to me anytime soon, enlighten me as to what you believe I'm going through." She spoke bitterly, her voice expressing her irritation.
"Hell yeah I know, I had the same thing happen to me."
Weiss raised an eyebrow. The simple action was entirely sufficient to express her doubt to the blonde.
" Hey, don't doubt me." Yang reprimanded, slightly irked. "I've had a lot of experiences with tons of things."
"You know, of everyone here, I did think the person most likely to have a similar experience would be you." Weiss muttered, sighing again.
"Yeah…" Yang winced a bit. "It did take a while after puberty until everything was consistent."
"Wha… What are you even talking about?" Weiss screeched as she recoiled, shock covering her fair face, before she covered her mouth in embarrassment with her hands; everyone else in the cafeteria had easily heard that yelp.
Blake meanwhile quickly pulled a book from her bag before hiding herself metaphorically in its pages, obviously knowing what was coming next.
Yang put it as bluntly as possible: "Period."
To her sister's left, Ruby promptly started turning red and began choking on whatever she had been eating. Weiss had frozen at the sound of Yang's term while Blake kept on "Reading", thus leaving Yang to save the team leader.
"Cheer up Rubes; you'll learn more about this later." Yang spoke cheerfully, before slapping her little sister on the back, hard.
With a final cough, a lump of cookie soaked in milk flew out of Ruby's mouth, bouncing once off the table before coming to a slippery stop. Everyone looked at the masticated chunk of oatmeal sitting on the table, milk oozing off it and forming a small puddle around it.
"And anyways…" Yang continued sans loss of enthusiasm.
"You are an unrefined, impolite, disgusting brute," Interrupted Weiss, "if you would dare believe for a second that I…"
"Cool it princess, I was kidding. I DO know why you're like this but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to get a reaction out of you and Rubes." Yang admitted.
The blonde's entire demeanor changed near instantly; her face became entirely serious, not her usual jovial self at all, with an oh-so-faint hint of grief. She spoke, her voice understanding and warm.
"This is about a broken heart and a guy."
Weiss collapsed limply on her bed in the team dorm. Even though she had tried to deny Yang's suggestion of her problem being linked to romance, her abjurations seemed to only convince her team members of its verity. That had inevitably led Ruby to question her partner relentlessly about her "Boyfriend" and his features; His looks and demeanor being the prime inquiries. It had taken both a surprisingly considerate Yang and a book-deprived, grumbling Blake to halt the incessant stream of questions directed towards the heiress.
"Hey, Weiss?"
Speak of the devil. The white themed girl pushed herself into a sitting position, groaning as she did so before settling into a form shockingly devoid of posture. This fact seemed to stun Weiss' team, for Blake and Yang were directly behind Ruby; Yang twirling a lock of golden strands around her finger, Blake wearing a sympathetic expression while Ruby was holding both hands behind her back, rocking back and forth on the heels of her combat boots. Most endearing of all, Ruby's face was such a canvas of innocence- appearing extremely concerned and nervous with her tongue poking out a bit from the side of her mouth.
"Yes Ruby."
"We want to know what we can do to help."
Weiss put a hand to the bridge of her nose to pinch it, "As I've told you all already, you can help me by leaving me alone; it won't help this team if all of you don't sleep merely because of my insomnia."
"Insomnia? Is that it?" Blake deadpanned, "We'll stay with you because no matter how many times you say you don't, you need us."
"Yeah," Ruby added in, "A little bit of insomnia won't stop us from supporting you."
Yang nodded in response, to which Weiss cracked a small knowing smile, albeit one corrupted by sorrow.
"You all don't know how much it means to me that you all would try to help." The smile faltered a bit, "But still, you probably will want to leave once you see…"
The heiress then rolled onto her side once more before letting out a single shaking breath as her team left the room.
Ruby was dreaming, not that she knew what it was about, only that it made her feel warm and comforted against a mysterious chilling darkness. Strangest of all was the fact that she remembered something about snow, and the snow was helping her against the cold shadows. A mysterious white figure had appeared in front of her but just as she was about to see their face, she was woken up by a voice.
"Rubes, you there? Wake up, already."
The young girl was wrenched suddenly from her sleep, the edges of her vision still dark with sleep.
"Wha-? Yang, why'd you do that? I was having a great dream about beating up the dar…" She mumbled disjointedly before Blake rushed to the side of her bed, silencing her with two fingers and a muted "Shush".
Ruby snapped into wakefulness at the sudden contact, nodding as she did so to show her understanding. Blake's face was dead serious and unmistakably worried. She pointed to underneath her team leader's bed with her hand not occupied with hushing the aforementioned leader before stepping back quietly.
Ruby tossed her upper body over the edge of her bed, depending on her legs and grasp on the sheets to keep her from tumbling onto the floor. What she saw made her eyes open wide with concern and gasp.
Weiss was in pain. It was easily visible as the petite girl was curled in a foetal position, making her seem even smaller, hands grasping at nothing and limbs twitching. She was crying out as well, incomprehensible words and sentences. The heiress rolled slightly and Ruby caught the slight glistening of tears, dripping down her cheeks slowly.
"Whoa, what's happening to her?" Ruby blew a stray strand of hair away from her eyes, "She's crying. Is she having a nightmare?"
Weiss suddenly let a shriek, limbs splaying outwards and back arching. She stayed shivering in that position for a second before collapsing, sobbing, back on the bed her hands covering her face.
"I'll take that as a yes. Do you think we should wake her up?" Yang wondered out loud, looking at her team mates in turn. "Rubes? Blake?"
"I don't know; it could be traumatic to wake her up in the middle of a nightmare." Blake bit her lip. "But a similar argument could be used to suggest waking her and stopping the nightmare." The black haired girl looked up to the red-haired leader, "I would say we take a vote, mine is yes."
"Yup." Yang agreed without hesitation.
"Well, I was going to vote yes too so we're unan, unanim-im,unanima-ma…" Ruby stumbled over her words.
"Unanimous." Blake interjected before her leader got too frustrated.
"Thank you Blake," Ruby nodded to her teammate, "now who's going to do it? Anybody?" she asked after no one volunteered.
Weiss solved the conundrum for her team by screaming again her left arm shooting in front of her to adopt a fencing grip, her hand twitching from the wrist in quick jolting movements. All the while still sobbing with her eyes closed.
She suddenly drew back her left hand as if she had dropped her mime weapon, her right grasping at her left hip through her nightdress. Fingers managed to move aside the thin blue fabric to hold on to a silver object seemingly strapped to her side.
"What's that?" Ruby asked, seeing the faint flash of metal.
It was answered when Weiss pulled out a short main-gauche, an offhand parrying dagger, stabbing in front of her with the blade, a direction that coincided with up, right towards Ruby.
The blade had a visible reflective sheen showing an edge along the length of it. Made of a similar material to Myrtenaster and about a foot in length, it had a wide snowflake shaped guard with a miniature dust cylinder resting in between the curving metal rods.
Ruby rolled sideways quickly, the dagger jamming itself into the wood of Ruby's bunk bed not an inch from where her eye had been. Yang had jumped up as soon as Weiss brought out the dagger and very nearly screamed when she saw her sister almost get stabbed by her sleeping friend. Blake held her back though.
"Yang," she pleaded to her partner, "Don't get close, she could hurt you like this. Ruby can handle herself."
The blonde growled in her throat but heeded the advice. Weiss twisted her hand sharply, the dust cylinder clicking until it rested on the light blue of ice dust. With a sharp crack they came into being, a conglomeration of sharp ice spikes a foot long. Ruby, already having lost what little stability she had from dodging Weiss' stab, cried out as the bunk bed shook from the explosion before falling forwards in a somersault to land painfully on her rear.
"Ow…" She mumbled before a sharp gasp from behind her startled her.
Weiss had sat up quickly with her left hand over her heaving chest and her right still clutching the dagger buried in the rocking bunk above her. She looked around with her heart still pounding, Ruby looking over her shoulder at the heiress with frost in her hair, Yang looking panicked only barely held back by Blake, and finally the blade and icicles stuck in Ruby's bed.
Glancing around once more she suddenly burst into tears again, the liquid following the glistening trails already etched on her face. She bolted out of her bed ignoring her teammates' sudden cries. She only stopped when she was locked in the bathroom with a solid door between her and her friends.
And then she started to weep. Not just tearing up or crying, Weiss Schnee, the cold hearted ice queen, was letting out all of the emotions she had bottled up. Teardrops dripped to the ground in a measure enough to make a large puddle on the tile floor as she sobbed, the heartbreaking sound echoing around.
"If only he was still here," She sniffed out loud; cradling her dagger like it was a child, holding it to her chest, "everything would be better. It was always better"
She raised the dagger slowly to her face to brush her lips faintly upon it, kissing the blade as her tears dripped onto it. As time passed she fell back asleep, her sobbing fading back into pitiful whines as she curled her body up around the beautiful parry-dagger.
Even later the door to the bathroom clicked open, not loud enough to wake the sleeping heiress as three figures entered. Blake put away the hairclip and file she was holding, opening the door wider for her companions. Ruby rushed over to Weiss and gently slipped the dagger from her hand before Yang laid a blanket over the small shivering form.
As they left, Ruby turned to look once more at her partner, flicking off the lights as she did so.
"What happened to you? I just want to help…" she whispered before walking away.
And the door closed with a faint thump, closing Weiss from the rest of the world.
End of Chapter 1
I welcome any constructive criticisms.
Please note that I do not have much time to write so it could be a while before I continue this.