It was an often occurrence nowadays. Weiss would wake up with a jolt like she was falling, and she would feel as if she had fallen into the desert with the baking sun and a bleak expanse of nothing, and she would be sweating. And she would think of that knight. She would think of the battle that always took place in her nightmares and how it was always the same, and always with the same outcome.

Disorientated, Weiss threw her covers off of herself and sat up. Her bare legs hung absentmindedly off the bed, her feet gently stroking the floor but not quite touching it. Her hands had gripped at her mattress as she thought of that knight – how could she not think of him?

How could she not think of him?

The air around her was cool – she could feel the coldness enveloping her body like a blanket of snow, but the inside of her was burning like the Earth's core. It was a weird sensation, to feel so cold and yet so hot, to be sweating ice droplets.

She heard Ruby snore above her, and almost immediately a ghostly smile pricked at the corners of her lips, but she could do no more than that. Her chest felt far too heavy, and as she sighed her body just seemed to empty itself of all emotion before immediately refilling with nothing but sadness and longing; for what, she did not know.

Weiss let her head falter with sleep, and when her hands met her halfway, she scraped one through her white mane, the gorgeous hair that hung loosely at her sides. She let her hands brush through her fringe and through its knots, sliding slowly down as it gave up in morbid retreat when her cold palm hit the scar on her face.

Weiss hated that it haunted her still; the nightmare that was far too real to be left to crumble into memory – it was reality, it was her reality, and as her smooth finger traced the small remnants of the past she could only sigh again, and wish that reality was as simple as she sometimes naively thought it was.

Ruby, Yang, Blake – they were brilliant; they were her walls that held out against the oppression Weiss condemned herself to. Like Vale, they were the towers that kept the Grimm at bay so no citizen could fall to their eager hunger. The Grimm were the demons she would rather lose herself to, not her wretched nightmares. Not the knight.

She was thirsty and again she felt like she had awoken into a desert, filled with nothing but miles and miles of sand, burning beneath her feet. She could feel its vast expanse consuming her, weakening her, once again, and abruptly stood and pulled herself from such absurd hallucinations.

She pushed herself towards the bathroom, glass in hand, and flicked on the light. She let the cold water of the tap trickle down her fingers and splashed it up onto her face, her hands rubbing at her dry eyes before she clutched at the cup and filled it with water, chugging it down insistently and pouring another. She took it back to bed with her, and the springs of her mattress squeaked as she sat.

"Weiss?" A timid, quiet voice called out into the darkness. It was Ruby. Weiss had always thought her voice was cute when she was tired, unlike her own which she found hoarse and unappetising.

Weiss let Ruby hang in the balance for a moment. She wanted to soak in the dark blue and black silence of the night before succumbing to noise.

"Yes?" she whispered.

"Did you have your nightmare again?"

Weiss felt herself nod as the tears stung at her eyes, and she went to reply but could only manage the sniffle of her nose. She heard shuffling above her and the creaking of wood, and before she could blink Ruby had dropped elegantly to her feet and was sat next to her, shuffling close to Weiss with a concerned look on her face.

"You shouldn't keep doing this." Weiss mumbled, the tears falling freely from her eyes as she wiped them weakly away. "You shouldn't keep neglecting your sleep just to comfort some pathetic nightmare I keep having."

"It's not pathetic." Ruby said. "I keep having a nightmare that Zwei eats all my cookies and Yang does nothing about it – that's pathetic, not this."

Weiss choked on a laugh and wiped the tears from her eyes. "That is pathetic." She said with some amusement.

Ruby took Weiss' hand in her own, felt how cold she was against her own warm skin, and wondered if Weiss was okay. She felt Weiss' eyes look at her and tried to stop the worried frown on her face. "Do you think you're gunna be able to sleep?" she said, to which Weiss sighed.

"I don't think so."

"Well…" Ruby blushed and her body squirmed ever so slightly – so slightly Weiss barely noticed it, but noticed it nonetheless – and Weiss wondered, what was wrong? Why was she nervous? "Maybe I could…sleep with you?"

And then Weiss blushed, a bright, noticeable red, noticeable even in the darkness of their dorm room. "O-okay, dunce. But – only this once!"

Ruby nodded and, then, hesitantly, waited for Weiss to get back into her bed. The covers were hot for Weiss, so she kept them half off of her, but Ruby jumped into the bed like she owned it, snuggled down into the covers and sighed.

Weiss lay perfectly still. She felt awkward and still wide awake; she wasn't too good with intimacy, especially after such a bad dream.

Ruby didn't seem to have this problem, and certainly didn't notice that Weiss did. In a moment of confidence, and partly a moment of worry, she pulled Weiss into her arms and whispered: "I'm here for you."

The hot breath against her ear tingled, but feeling Ruby's body against her own had her immediately relaxed. "Thank you…Ruby…" Weiss whispered, now suddenly tired and withholding a yawn. "You're very…pretty."

And then she fell asleep.

Ruby did not sleep for another hour, when the pounding of her heart finally slowed to a steady beat. "You're welcome." She whispered into the silence, content with the quiet that answered her.