Weiss remembers the first time she met Ruby Rose.
She remembers scattered luggage and fiery implosions. She remembers wide, apologetic silver eyes and sharp, cold words. She remembers the deafening click of her heels against stone cobble as she stomped away, and the distant, pleading cries for forgiveness that echoed louder the farther away she got. She remembers annoyance and regret.
She remembers everything.
Becoming Ruby's battle partner had been...unexpected, to say the least, but not entirely unsavory. Forging a team with the little dolt's older sister and her own tall, dark, and brooding battle partner had needed some getting used to, but they'd eventually worked out a rhythm. Understanding each other had been a process, but when all was said and done, it'd been...nice.
Weiss knew her family was unusually cold and distant with others, and even more so with each other. Growing up hadn't been a kind process. The most affection she'd ever received was from Winter, and while she loved her sister - probably more than the girl cared about her in return - it wasn't the same. Winter was tough love and rare smiles. She was icy glares and the barely perceptible gleam of pride in her eyes.
Winter was everything and nothing all at once.
But team RWBY? Team RWBY was...more.
Blake was quiet admissions and an observant gaze. Yang was bolstering loudness and a raging inferno. And Ruby was...amazing. Ruby was childish humor and stubborn insistence. She was sheepish smiles and soft concern. She was happy exuberance and a soothing embrace. On the outside, the younger girl appeared delicate - as if she were nothing more than a doting fool who swung her weapon around like an oversized toy.
Which, admittedly, was something that Ruby did quite often.
But that wasn't the point.
She was so much more than that. And Weiss berated herself, constantly, for ever thinking differently. She wanted to take it all back. All the harsh words and steeled glares. All the denouncing comments and cold indifference. Everything. If she could go back in time - to redo it all - she would. She realized that now.
She realized it too late.
With time came change, and with change came disaster. Ruby's joyful demeanor faded away little by little everyday. Her smiles drifted into frowns like wilting flowers. The shine of her eyes dulled into an eerie blankness like the rot that consumed the gardens every harsh winter. The girl she had grown so closed too peeled away like petals falling from a rose. And from the bed of withered flowers, blossomed something different.
Silver irises became consumed by shadows, and staring into those eyes was like staring into the endless depths of the night sky: dark and vast and empty. Her movements were different too: sharper and crisp. Done were the days of holding back. Her petty hesitance vanished, and where missed opportunities had once been prominent, now every action was taken advantage of.
There was no waste in her movements. Her blows where deadly and her strikes fierce. Anything that stood in her way was mercilessly cut down, and with her ruthless fighting style came a distant persona. The soft quirk of her lips had morphed into a permanent thin line of concentration, and marring her once soft skin blossomed scars and calluses. Her laughs were snarls. Her words were frost. Her happiness was gone.
And now, here they stood.
The wind was cold. The earth was still. The air was bitter. There lied grime and sweat everywhere on her clothes, dirt and dust mingle with the throbbing wounds scattered across her body, and the horrid aches consuming her far surpassed that of bone deep. But Ruby...Ruby looked far worse. Her clothes were drenched in blood, squelching abhorrently every time the wind jostled them. Her cape though, seemed unable to be weighed down. It struck at the air: a whip coated in crimson. She had once asked about the cape, and where the younger girl had got it from.
Still to this day, her response haunted her.
"It used to be white."
Weiss shivered, whether from the remembered words or the chill from the wind she didn't know, nor did she care. She just stood there, watching and waiting. Silence filled the air between the two, and the heiress glanced down, finally taking in what Ruby had been staring at for the past few hours. Headstones littered the dank ground, four in total.
Summer Rose.
Pyrrha Nikos.
Blake Belladonna.
Yang Xiao-Long.
The names of her friends stared back at her, and she looked away. "Are we done here?" She asked, voice raspy. Ruby didn't respond, and for a long moment silence lingered. Finally, the young huntress turned away. Her face blank, her eyes void, and her skin marked by the liquid of her namesake, Ruby walked passed Weiss, and this time the girl shivered, not because of the wind, but because of lost moments and lost memories.
Ruby's voice called from afar, so quiet and sharp that she almost mistook it for the howling of the wind. "Let's go." Weiss followed Ruby back, and then stopped. Looking over her shoulder, she gave the headstones of her friends one last glance. For a second, she imagined Ruby's headstone right next to theirs. Looking back at the girl, alive and before her, she reasoned that it wouldn't be much different from how things were now.
Not much different at all.