Protection
Weiss laments the one thing she can't protect her wife from, the past. White Rose Week starts off with Angst in the post canon. Rated T
Weiss Schnee
Nothing's ever made me feel more grossly impotent than Ruby's grief. Wolves and winter winds, summer swells and grim serpent, murderers and the morose, I can protect against all of that. I know how, I trained in it, I graduated in it. Before I killed stocks, I was first and foremost a hunter of aberrations and threats to humanity. Feeling totally at a loss against a foe is not normal.
"Hiya mom."
It's horrifying.
"Sorry for not visiting in a while, we were busy making a baby. Man that was hard work for weiss. Aren't you glad you only had to carry me? Yang and I were like a two for one deal! Guess I got your luck too."
Didn't matter that Ruby was in her twenties, if it's Summer's birthday, it's time to come to bury her all over again. I had a feeling I'd still be visiting my estranged mother-in-law with Ruby until we were far older than she ever got to be.
"I figured you'd want to meet your brand new granddaughter, right from the factory." She always stands before her on the cliff's edge, hood in the wind vibrant as the green of the rose graveyard.
"Do not refer to my womb as a factory or I promise you the whole district will be on strike for a very long time." I rarely intrude, it feels...blasphemous, but whenever I can hear her voice being squeezed, her body being tugged by the weight of a dead woman's corpse, I just need to. I want to hear her life, see her smile. I want to end her pain, I want to heal her.
Ruby gifts me a forced chuckle and it hurts.
"Weiss came too, she's always dotting on me, and I'm not even the one that had to carry this sucker around for 10 months. I think she's going to friggen lose it when it's my turn. Could you imagine?" Yang tells me that if I had ever known Summer, my mother-in-law Summer, she would have adored me. Taiyang said I would have been her dream wife for Ruby. "So yeah, here she is, she's being sleepy. Say hello to Summer mom." I find that on days like this. I hate both my mothers.
"She's got our eyes! Weiss' hair tho, she's legit like the prettiest baby on the planet, I just love her so much. You'd die if you saw her, you know if you weren't...yeah."
I know it's super immature of me too. She didn't do anything to Ruby, by all accounts she was the ideal mother. Yang, not even her birth daughter, describes her as a saint. She died a huntress, she died insuring a world where my daughter can grow up in relative safety. She built our futures with her blood. But I hate her, I hate her for hurting Ruby, I hate her for making me feel so absolutely inept.
"Hey Sweetheart?" It shocks me sometimes, when the light shatters on Ruby's face at just the right angle, when I can see perfectly the sweetness of her tired, battle tested smile, where I can see how long the crimson tips of her hair have gotten as they flow over her shoulders. The looks she gives me now with silver eyes circled in red, watery with the old grief ridden tears of someone who wants nothing more than to see her mommy and show her what she's made. She's absolutely stunning.
"Yes Ruby?" I nearly stutter while she waves me over.
"Come on, I wanna show her what an awesome family we've made." I take to her immediately. Her arms are tied up holding our daughter's sleepy and slightly chubby body. Ruby leans into my stiff shoulder and my hand jerks up around her. I'm on edge at this lonesome cemetery, completely the opposite of my wife.
"We got the whole shebang." I read the words of the famous poem, thus kindly I scatter huh? I selfishly wish my mother-in-law would. I'm so helpless against her. Possibly the richest woman in the world, master hunter, maiden of winter, governess of Roseland, yet I cower before the shadow of Summer here at the cliff at the end of the world.
"Thanks for always coming with me." She snaps me from my malaise with a cheeky grin marred by sad eyes. She leans even farther into me, ignoring that I am both lighter and shorter than her. I have a hard time resisting.
"It's the least I can do." I offer no protection from the past. I'm just another shoulder here.
"Weiss," she says with a deep sigh of relief, "it's I need."
*** Howdy! So this is part of the White Rose Week hosted by The Heart Alchemist on Tumblr. Every day this week I'll post another short short about the two with the day's theme as the title. This week was protection! Most of these exist in the Summer's Vale A.U. cause it's fun, and because I can. Some of these will be longer some shorter, but considering I got a week to do this, not that long. Tomorrow's First Date so see you then!