Maybe we were just tired of being pushed around!
The words rung through Weiss' mind like a bell. It didn't even feel internal anymore; the noises came from everywhere. Multiple times, the heiress had looked around, expecting to see Blake right behind her. There was no one.
I'm a victim!
Weiss heard herself speak, too, the words sounding as clear as if they had just only come from her own mouth. They filled her with a sense of entitlement, of self-pity. She had lived her whole life in fear of the faunus of the White Fang. They were liars, thieves, and murderers. They were her enemies; they were a group of filthy animals hell-bent on tearing apart her family, a family that was fragile enough as it was, a family that had been warped and distorted into something horrible.
And every day, my father would come home furious.
He had loomed over her like the shadow of a demon, pushing her, forcing her to be someone she knew she couldn't. He took out his rage on her, rage she would never forget. It hurt more than the blade of a sword, stung more than the freezing cold. She instinctively felt the scar on her face, the sign of her weakness, her imperfection. It was like a crack through which the world could see how vulnerable she really was. It was a mark of her suffering, a portal into her cold, dark world.
And that made for a very difficult childhood.
It was their fault. It was the White Fang, the faunus, who had ruined her childhood, her life. They forced her to live in fear, staying awake most nights in constant terror, fearing that she would be taken from her bed, kidnapped, and killed. They turned her father into a monster, and drove the Schnee family into a dark place. Her suffering was their fault. They waged a war, and she was caught in the crossfire.
You are a judgmental little girl!
And one of them had been her teammate. Her friend. She wore a bow and kept to herself, hiding the secrets of her past. Weiss had been sleeping in the same room as a criminal, a terrorist, a faunus of the White Fang. She had helped her, cared for her, became her friend, and she was everything Weiss despised in the world. Yang expected her to simply forgive and forget, to kiss and make up. That would never happen. Because of people like Blake, her life had become a living hell, and she had frozen herself in ice to keep the flames at bay. Ice Queen, they called her. If only they knew. She wasn't just resting on a throne of ice; she was trapped in it. Warmth eluded her. With her discovery of who Blake really was, she was hit with a blast of cold, biting wind that seemed to tear at her skin.
Do you want to know why I despise the White Fang? Why I don't particularly trust the faunus?
They couldn't possibly understand why she was so cold.
"Dammit!" Yang was practically tearing out her hair. It had been twelve hours, and yet Blake was nowhere to be found. She and Weiss walked through the streets of Vale, looking everywhere, and yet there was no sign of their friend. Yang's friend. She wasn't sure whether Weiss really cared what happened to Blake, not anymore.
"It's been twelve hours. Why not call it a day? I'm sure she'll turn up somewhere, just like a stray cat." Yang's eyes flickered red, rage boiling in her head. She whirled around, her face inches away from that of the heiress, a scream of fury crawling through her through and bursting from her mouth.
"If you wanna quit so badly, then get the hell away from me! Seriously, I'm done with your bullshit, Weiss! I'm sick of listening to you insult Blake when she needs our help and support!" It took a few seconds for Weiss to respond, thrown-off by the outburst of anger as she was. When she recovered, however, her tone and her face were both just as intense as Yang's. Size didn't matter. Weiss' will was strong. She rebelled against those who would threaten her, her ponytail waving in the wind as a telltale sign that she wasn't the perfect heiress the world thought she was, that her family expected to be. Even the fiery anger of Yang couldn't stop her, couldn't melt the ice around her. While Yang's rage came in a flash, in an explosion of flame, Weiss' lingered like frost, so cold that it felt hot.
"Maybe I will. Maybe I'll just go, as you clearly don't want me around. I stayed out here because I thought you, my teammate and friend, might like some company, but clearly you don't. I, meanwhile, will go to inform the proper authorities about this situation, as we should have done long ago!" The heiress shouted back at her teammate.
"You're not going anywhere, if that's what you're gonna do," Yang snarled, moving even closer to Weiss.
"Oh, so now you want me to stay, all to defend your faunus friend!" Weiss put emphasis on the word 'your.'
"Her name is Blake, you racist piece of shit!"
"I know her name, dunce, but I felt the need to clarify that she's no friend of mine! She's a terrorist who hates humanity, just like the rest of the White Fang filth!" As Yang opened her mouth to reply, trying very hard not to punch Weiss square in the face, her phone rang. She closed her mouth, picked it out of her pocket, and saw who was calling. It was Ruby.
"Hey, sis," Yang muttered angrily as she answered the phone. Weiss stared at her with cold, piercing eyes, watching her take in what was being said by their leader.
"Wait, what?" Yang looked shocked, but not dismayed. Weiss could only assume that to mean one thing.
"You...you found her?!" Yang's expression suddenly became one of unbridled joy, while Weiss' morphed to one of disgust. After finishing her talk with Ruby, Yang grabbed onto her hand and dragged her away.
"You're coming with me, whether you like it or not." She, of course, did not.
Blake sat on a crate, telling Ruby everything that happened. The dark-haired girl nodded, gasped and almost cried at all the appropriate parts. She was taking everything in, absorbing Blake's past like a sponge. She cared. She truly cared. It was nice, for Blake, to have someone who cared. As she finished her story, with Ruby watching her intently, she looked past her team leader to see her other teammates. Yang looked overjoyed and Blake felt a jolt of happiness herself, but it faded when she noticed the expression on Weiss' face. It was one of disgust. Her usual cold gaze was filled with malice sharp as daggers, and her frown looked as if it had been permanently etched onto her face. She could tell immediately what was going to happen.
"Oh, there they are! Hey, she's alright! She actually stopped a Dust robbery! Pretty cool, huh?" Ruby called out to her teammates, who made their way over slowly due to Yang dragging Weiss along.
"Weiss...I'm done with the White Fang. I left them; I don't affiliate myself with them anymore and I never-"
"Stop." Blake had immediately got up to try and explain to Weiss what her life had been like. She wanted to say that she'd made mistakes, mistakes she'd never make again. She wanted her friend to know that she cared, that she wouldn't slit her throat as she slept. Blake may have been a faunus, but she was not a monster. She wanted to make sure Weiss knew that, but the heiress was hearing none of it. In her eyes, Blake was tainted.
"I don't want to hear any of it. I'm done with you, with your lies and with your defending of that group of faunus degenerates. If you stand against my family...you stand against me." Weiss, as she spoke, hadn't failed to take notice of the police car nearby, with two detectives standing by it. She recognized them. A few days ago, they'd seen the two men at the site of a Dust robbery, one committed by the White Fang. She could tell them what Blake was. She could put an end to this.
"Excuse me," Weiss said to Ruby, pushing past her. Yang immediately recognized her intentions, and dashed forward, grabbing Weiss and hissing into her ear.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"I'm doing the right thing." Ruby and Blake, as well, realized what Weiss was trying to do. The faunus looked horrified, walking towards Weiss in a daze, and Ruby hurried to her and started to plead.
"Weiss, please don't do this! She's not with the White Fang anymore, she's reformed! And she has cute kitty ears!"
"The ears of an animal." At this comment, Blake snapped out of her trance of fear, her terror replaced with anger. She had expected this from Weiss. She was a Schnee, the sworn enemy of the White Fang, oppressor of the faunus. This was what they did. Blake began to wonder whether Weiss was worth reconciling with at all.
"Maybe if you'd listen to me for one second like a rational human being, I'd be able to explain that I've changed. I'm not a criminal anymore, and I certainly don't hate humanity!"
"Listen to you? You!? You're a criminal! Why should I care about what you have to say!?" Weiss asked indignantly, as the two young women rounded on each other. Yang and Ruby stood, unable to enter the argument. It was something they didn't fully understand. Neither of their teammates explained their pasts in full detail, keeping their darkest secrets hidden. In Weiss' case, she kept most of hers out of sight. She and Blake were not only fighting with each other, but waging a war that had gone on for years. They were black and white, night and day, two opposite sides of the same coin. Their struggle ran deeper than themselves. Their feelings were more than personal. They had been molded by their lives, their pasts, the people they'd been with and the things they'd seen and done. And yet, Blake left her life behind, albeit cloaking herself with even more shadows, shadows to hide herself from the world. She hid in plain sight. Weiss still stood by her family, encased in an icy castle. She hid from the world as well, but not in plain view. She hid somewhere no one would ever be able to look.
"Oh, so I'm a criminal. All the faunus are criminals, in your eyes, aren't they? That has got to be the biggest load of hypocritical nonsense I've ever heard! Your family abuses the faunus, enslaving them in your Dust quarries, keeping them from the sun, forcing them to live off of pathetic scraps from a table made solely for the pampered and privileged Schnees, and when they try to fight back, to gain even the most basic of human rights, they're labeled as criminals? As degenerates? As pure evil!?" It was at this point that Blake found herself on the verge of tears. Nothing was going as she had, in the back of her mind, hoped. Roman Torchwick was working with the White Fang, helping them to commit petty crimes for a cause they probably didn't even believe in. What was supposed to be a reunion, an apology for leaving her friends, had turned into an all-too-familiar shouting match between her and Weiss. And what was even worse was that she didn't even think Weiss could be called friend anymore. Cold. That was the only word Blake could think of to describe her. Weiss was cold. She was full of hatred and fear. Blake's anger began to, ever so slightly, give way to sadness.
"My family doesn't rob Dust shops. They don't blow up and steal from train cars, and they certainly don't murder anyone they disagree with! Your kind started this war, remember!?"
"Started? It's been going on for ages, as long as the faunus have been oppressed by humanity!"
"Don't you dare play the victim here! You have no idea what my family has been through because of the White Fang!"
"It can't be worse than what your family does to the faunus in those mines! And don't think for one second that the Schnee Dust Company isn't involved in all kinds of shady business dealings. It sounds like you don't even know what your family is really after, much less the faunus!"
"Uh, I'm just gonna go now," Sun muttered, and for the first time, Weiss noticed the monkey faunus sitting nearby, looking extremely awkward. All the members of team RWBY whirled towards him, her especially.
"Oh no you don't! You're a criminal, and there are two police officers right over there. Do the math," the heiress snarled. Sun got up and backed away as she advanced on him. Blake grabbed her arm with more force than she intended.
"Some friend you got there, Blake. You might want to hang out with someone who's not a total racist bitch. Just a suggestion."
"You...You dare call me names!? After everything you've done!? If you think that I'd ever let a horrid, filthy-"
"Stop it! You have no idea what kind of person he is, and yet you're making all kinds of assumptions-"
"I know exactly what he is!" The two young women argued continuously as they walked. No one even noticed as Penny, who had been with Blake and Sun at the docks, was swiftly whisked away in a black car, sad to leave her new friends. No one noticed as Sun slipped off into a nearby alley, looking back at Blake wistfully. Ruby and Yang had hoped that Weiss might see reason, that she might accept Blake as a friend as opposed to a former member of the White Fang. Instead, nothing had changed. As they walked away with their teammates, becoming aware of an airship hovering above them, it felt like nothing would change. Only after the airship landed and Professor Ozpin walked out, requesting to speak with Blake, did the two sisters snap back to reality, a reality just as bleak as the future they pondered.
I really want to just stop writing new stuff, and focus on what I have. I've already got two stories, and I should be writing them. But creativity marches on, and I just can't stop myself from having new ideas and wanting them to be put down somewhere. I can't help but think of Monty and his creative energy, how he was always working on something new. Sometimes that was more of a problem than a boon, as there are so many characters in RWBY and so far, very few of them have gotten any real development, even main characters. But it makes me happy to think of that. It makes me feel like his drive to create is how he lives on even after death, and it really is. The world he created spurred so many people to make new things themselves.
Okay, sappy stuff over. Anyway, this is basically a story that I had the idea for when I read a comment somewhere about how Weiss' quick acceptance of Blake was a disservice to her character, how it rushed what could have been long and meaningful character development. As much as I loved Weiss in episodes 15 and 16 (and as much as I love her in general because she's the best), I can't help but agree. Sometimes, I really wish that the writers had done things differently (no disrespect meant to Monty and the team, just something I think about). Thus, this story is an AU where Weiss doesn't come to terms with Blake's true identity quickly, where she instead continues to dislike her. It will be resolved in the end, but I wanted to see if I could make her development (which, sadly, happened off-screen) into something longer and more gradual.
Until RWBY starts again, and the issue of Weiss' discriminatory beliefs and difficult childhood are brought up in the story, things like this will have to tide me over. Reviews/criticisms are more than welcome, and if anyone has any stories similar to the one I'm trying to write, please let me know!