RWBY
RWBY Drabbles
By B.C.E.
Dedicated to Monty Oum
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Title: Gold to Dust, Dust to Gold
Prompt: n/a
Word Count: 1.9k+
Rating: T
Summary: Set in my "Clouds and Farms" AU, sometime after RWBY and JNPR graduate from Beacon. Weiss finds peace over what she's won and lost.
Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY
Notes: I felt rather depressed after I got home -it had been building most of the afternoon, actually-, and listening to "Dust and Gold" by Arrows to Athens [nightcore version, as is normal for me] ...caught me, I guess is the word, so I had to write something for it. Be on the look out for the NGE companion piece. [A good companion song might be "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls]
[No WhiteRose/IceFlower, but if you like those then check out "SoulBound" by xT-Zealot or "Edelweiss" by cowjump. "I'm Not Perfect" by Half-Blind Otaku is also very good, though one-sided Ruby/Weiss, and a favorite along side "SoulBound". Fair warning about "Edelweiss", the author writes long and detailed, focusing on the mental struggles and processes of Weiss as she comes to terms with dating Ruby.]
On an up note: My WhiteGold pic was shared on FB on RWBY Love's page!
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Weiss liked to think she'd always intended to reach this point, free of the pressure of being heiress to a company she'd gradually come to dispise over the years she spent at Beacon with Blake -her teammate and close friend- and other Faunus like Velvet Scarlatina.
But she promised herself, back in second year, to be honest even -or especially- in the privacy of her mind.
She didn't know when things had changed, not precisely anyways. Maybe when she'd begun staying with RWBY at their home on Patch. Maybe when she'd let slip, which she never regretted, to her Father and sister that Blake was a Faunus and one of her friends. Or maybe when she started dating Jaune Arc, for though he was from a long line of skilled and noble Hunters he was not 'of noble blood' like she was.
Regardless of when, she had lost it all upon graduating Beacon when she refused to return home and instead stayed with RWBY -stayed with Jaune and Ruby- to pursue life as a Huntress.
Her Father hadn't even the decency to tell her in person. He simply sent a letter detailing her disownment and a list of her holdings, portions of the company and her own private wealth that would've, in his words, been more trouble to take than they were worth.
She'd stayed strong through the month that followed, quiet and calm as she accepted her friends' -friends, such a powerful thing to her- condolences and words of both encouragement to her and disgust for her father.
But after a long, often life-threatening, mission in which she'd nearly lost Ruby, then Jaune, and last her own life, she'd broken down in the living room of her cabin. Ruby had found her first, adding her own tears as she held her partner and repeated to her they were safe.
0o0o0o0
Ruby opened the door to the apartment, one she shared with Weiss and Jaune, ready to change out of her "Combat Skirt" and corset for more comfortable "casual wear" -Weiss had spent weeks convincing her to expand her wardrobe- consisting of a grey long-sleeved blouse left unbuttoned and red t-shirt underneath, and grey jeans over her black boots.
And, of course, her ever present red cloak.
What she hadn't expected was to find Weiss collapsed to her knees beside the sofa, tears pouring from her eyes with her hands over her face in an attempt to muffle her sobs.
It pulled at her heart and took her breath. She'd never seen her partner cry, not once in four years had she ever showed more than frowns and smiles, but she felt she knew what had managed to draw such a reaction from the stoic woman now in tears on their living room floor.
Moving softly to her partner, Ruby wrapped her in a gentle hug. Weiss stopped, jerking at the unexpected contact and releasing one last hiccup before turning her head to see Ruby.
"Ruby? What are you doing back so soon?"
"It's date night, remember?" Ruby didn't chirp, she didn't smirk at her partner's uncharacteristic forgetfulness. The red-tipped brunette simply gave a soft smile, "What's wrong Weiss?"
"Nothin-"
"Nope." she cut her off, earning a startled blink in place of her partner's normal glare at such interruptions, "You're my partner, Weiss, it's never 'nothing'. I'm always here for you to talk to."
Weiss moved to get up and Ruby moved with her, the two of them sitting on the sofa with the older ice-blonde still in Ruby's arms.
"I nearly lost you..."
"But you didn't."
"That's not the point, Ruby!" Weiss cried, her tears starting anew, "You were both so close to being lost forever! I can't survive anymore without you!"
It touched her heart to hear Weiss say those words. She knew it was always a struggle to ger the heiress, ex-heiress, her mind corrected in passing, to talk about her emotions and relationships. But she knew it took a great deal to make her open up first, just looking at her relationship with Jaune had shown that.
"That's how our life is, Huntresses are never completely safe. We'll always be living life one day at a time." Ruby smiled, giving Weiss a quick kiss to her forehead, "We live every moment to the fullest, because we never know what the next mission has to hold."
"That doesn't terrify you?"
"Nope." Ruby's instant reply to her whispered question drew an incredulous look, and Ruby blushed before continuing, "Well, it does. It's how I lost my mom. But I can't let it keep me from doing what I know is right. We help people every time we push back the Grimm, and that's what I want to do."
"We'll never be remembered for it. It's all just dust." Weiss watched her carefully, "How do you keep going?"
"Like I said," Ruby chirped, hearing the door unlock, "Live every moment, take it in and enjoy it with your friends."
0o0o0o0
Jaune found the two on the sofa. Setting down the groceries he'd brought for dinner with Weiss, and pulled the ex-Heiress into his arms, earning a smile from Ruby as the younger woman left for her room to change.
Innocent she might be, even at nineteen, but Ruby knew the dangers of their life more completely than any of their group barring Blake. Jaune knew she was alright, and it was Weiss who needed the comfort.
0o0o0o0
A whisper.
"Why..."
"'Why' what, Weiss?"
"Why do we risk ourselves like that?"
"It's our duty-"
"Don't give me that tripe!"
Her words slammed into him, more from the tears that tried to drown them and the hurt within than the anger that seemed to spark it.
"Ruby rubbed off on us more than we realize. We do this to make everything better, because we want the world she sees to be real for us like it is for her."
"When did you get so philosophical?"
"Hanging around you two and Blake, probably."
Weiss just took in his words, feeling them reverberate through his chest as he spoke, and gave a nod. She'd sworn to be honest, and honest she'd be.
"It just feels like all that was gold is now dust."
"That's a neat way to put it."
"Hush." a shaky breath, "I just... Everything fell apart, and I've been running on nothing but my old promise to be the best partner Ruby could possibly ask for. And I almost lost her, lost you, and I-"
He pulled her tight to his chest at her sob, running a hand through her now much shorter hair.
"We've all changed." he thought of Cardin, and the rest of CRDL, "Some of us forgot what we're living for, some of us found where the Dust becomes Gold. I like to think you, and all of RWBY and JNPR, are where my dust was turned to gold."
"It's a world of Kings and Thieves." she murmured, "But which are we?"
"Does it really matter? Even if no one else knows us, we know each other. And that's all I need to feel like we're all kings. Well, kings and queens."
Her wet giggle followed his chuckle, and Jaune relaxed into the sofa.
"I never really knew how incomplete I felt until I'd become used to being around my team. And it hit me again when I nearly lost you... both of you."
"Tell me what to say."
"Tell me how to change."
"Keep being who you are: Weiss Schnee, Huntress extraodinaire. We're a team."
"White Gold." she murmured, not quite a question, earning an embarrassed chuckle from him.
"Always, Snow Angel."
"Don't call me that."
"Whatever you say, Weiss. Whatever you say."
0o0o0o0
The world had always seemed, though she ignored it, to be nothing but cold and empty streets. Trapped, she'd felt striking out to Beacon was her way out, a way for her to gain some small freedom from her gilded glass prison.
It had become so much more for her. It became, in just a few months, another home. Her first real home since her mother was lost to the White Fang. The people she was with became friends, people she worked with and helped. People she could admit, in private, that she loved.
Beacon was her refuge, a safe place even with all the danger and trouble she found herself involved in by following Ruby, and by following her heart.
When she was disowned it was both a relief and a deep wound, setting her free and adrift in a world she'd really only glimpsed from her window, both at home and at Beacon. Her future no longer set in stone.
But she'd had RWBY, and JNPR, and specifically Jaune and Ruby. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that without them she'd have been lost, drowning in the uncertainties that suddenly surrounded her. And she loved them all the more for their simple, constant presence.
She wouldn't lie to herself, and not to them either. If she had to live like this, the constant threat of death while on missions hanging over them, then as long as she had them she would be alright. She wouldn't trade a single moment with them for anything. If all they were was dust... Then they were more Gold than she could ever ask for.
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A/N: Inspired by the song, and I obviously used some of the lyrics. I felt much better after a night's sleep, and came back to this to edit it and flesh it out over the next few days.
I was also partly inspired by a quote from Half-Blind Otaku's story "We Were Close", where Nadia replied to the question "...the only memorial of which you may be certain is the likes of this...[points to statue of nameless hunters]...is that what you want?" was to ask in return the question "Would...that really so bad...?"
Everything we do matters, whether only to ourselves, or even just a sinlge other person. As long as we keep going, keep doing what we can no matter how little it seems to be, we leave memories more important and lasting than any speech and monument.