Weiss and Blake both stood, neither able to say anything. The terrible realization of the situation had stunned both of them.
Yang was on her knees, silent, leaning over the small body that was lying face down in the blood stained snow. "Ruby..." the blonde gently shook her younger sister "Ruby, c'mon..." The two other girls, glanced at each other nervously, the same worried expression on both their faces. "Ruby! Wake up!" Yang was starting to get louder, loosing her normally cool composure. "C'mon!" She gently flipped Ruby onto her back. Yang's heart stopped.
A pair of glazed silver eyes stared up at her, frozen in terror, and unblinking. There were four distinct claw marks starting at the right side of her neck and going down to her collar bone.
"Ruby..." Yang collapsed down onto her sister, not caring that the large gash was staining her clothes with a dark crimson. Blake stepped forward, gently setting her hand on the blonde's shoulder, silently offering her condolence. Weiss wanted to step forward and do the same, but she couldn't move her legs. She just stood.
The heiress had never lost anyone close to her, and had never gotten close to many, but Ruby was an exception. Her breathing grew shaky as she struggled to hold back tears.
Yang lifted up the cold body of her sister, snow and blood covered her cloak that draped down over Yang's arm. "Weiss, grab Crescent Rose." she said in a dull yet commanding way. "I-Is she-?" Weiss stammered.
There was no reply, and finally forcing her body to respond she grudgingly walked over to Ruby's weapon. She lifted the heavy Scythe and looked it over, collapsed it in an uncharacteristically awkward way, and looked over to Yang who was walking off. She turned to Blake, who was standing next to the corpse of the beowolf that they had fought. Blake nodded in the direction Yang had went and the two girls followed the trail of footsteps and blood.
The three girls had arrived back to their room, after being debriefed and told that classes for the next week were not required. The air was thick with silence, nobody saying a word, just coming into the room and sitting silently. Yang went into the small bathroom, the door clicking behind her. Weiss jumped at the sound of mirror being shattered. She started to lean forward, getting up, but Blake looked at her and solemnly shook her head. The heiress sat back down, but jumped a bit when Yang came back out, a towel in one hand, her other clenched in a bloody fist. "I'm gonna go shower" she mumbled as she left the small room. As soon as the closed behind the blonde, Weiss stood up, went to the bathroom and cautiously peaked in. The mirror had been completely obliterated, multiple impacts, slightly bloody, confirmed what she thought had happened.
Yang decided she couldn't go back to her team mates. She had taken about an hour in the showers, and slowly lingered through the dorm halls. She would occasionally pass by a fellow student who was in their pajamas, rushing to finish something, or head to bed. Yang had mindlessly found that she had wondered out into the student parking lot. She dug into her pocket and pulled out the keys to her motorcycle. She climbed on with a sigh and started the ignition.
She hadn't been to the spot in months, maybe even years, but she had flawlessly navigated the way despite the time passed. She slowly walked through the snowy forest, the dead trees looming over her. She occasionally would see a loose rose petal blown along the ground, and she knew she was heading the right way. She stopped at the edge of the treeline, and her gaze locked onto what stood only few yards away. A small grave-marker with a rose etched in it, and a small bouquet of old roses, petals flying away from it. It must have been from when her sister had last visited, she reasoned. Ruby had made a point of her monthly visits to the cliff side alter, but Yang would rarely go.
"Mom..." She said as she stepped out from the trees. "Mom... I'm so sorry..." she was clenching her fists, her knuckles white and a few of the glass cuts reopening. "I- I promised you... that I'd protect her..." Yang was desperately holding back her tears as she now stood at the finely cut stone. "Ruby... She- I-" She collapsed to her knees, exhausted, clutching the sides of the alter. Tears streaming down her face, she couldn't hold herself back anymore "Oh god mom, I'm so sorry! I'm so so so sorry..." Her head hung as tears continued to come up. "I let you down... I let her down..." She lifted her head, her vision blurred by her tears. She stared up at the shattered moon, and she clutched tighter at the stone.
"...mom... ...I'm all alone now... ...what do I do...?" Her voice was nothing but a pleaing whisper, easily overcome by the wind. For the first time sense she had seen her sister as baby, she had felt utterly alone, and it scared her.
With a small whimper she rested her head and arms on the alter, slowly crying herself to sleep as the snow around her gently flurried, and the breeze would pull another dead rose petal off, and away.