I sigh with relief at the jolt of the airliner's tires hitting the runway. Most people love flying, but I hate it. The sensation of being suspended thousands of feet above the earth, with nothing supporting me but a fragile machine deliberately made as light as possible, disturbs me deep in my soul. My hands unclench from the death grip I've had on the armrests the entire flight. My seatmate, an elderly woman traveling to meet her newest grandchild (Or was it first great-grandchild? I can't remember.) reaches out and pats my hand. "There we are, safe and sound and back on the ground, as my husband used to say." I nod politely and unbuckle my seat-belt as the airliner rolls to a stop at the terminal. We smile at each other and make our goodbyes as we retrieve our carry-ons from the overhead. She has been a wonderful traveling companion, for all that we are strangers; Esme caught on right away that I was a nervous flyer and did her best to distract me, even trading seats with me so I didn't have to sit next to the window.
A surprise is waiting for me at the terminal. Instead of Klein or some other family employee, Father himself is waiting for me. "Welcome home, Weiss." He pulls me into an embrace; not the warmest or welcoming of hugs, but a better effort than he would have given a year ago. Jacques Schnee has always been a hard, unforgiving man, and Mother's death almost broke him. It took Winter and I both threatening to publicly cut ties with him to convince him to finally see a therapist about it. When we pull away, I give him a questioning look. I can tell there's something he wants to discuss, but all he says is, " We'll talk in the car."
As the car pulls away from the airport, he reaches up and presses the control that raises the divider that separates us from the driver, wrapping us in a cocoon of privacy that can be hard for our family to find, at least here at home in Atlas. Father opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it, a look of concentration on his face. It's unnerving to see him at a loss for words. Finally, he speaks, his words halting and uncertain. "Weiss, I, one of my aides told me something this afternoon. Apparently, there's a rumor going around on social media again that you're dating a woman."
Silence hangs in the air. Father doesn't look directly at me, watching me out of the corner of his eye to see my reaction. I'm frozen in place, my mind racing as to how to respond. "This time, the rumors are true," I say simply at last. Time to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, as it were.
"I see." Father leans back, folding his arms and glaring at me. "You know I don't approve of such relationships."
Once his glare would have had me meekly saying, "Yes, sir," and trying to figure how I was going to break off the offending relationship. But no longer am I the teenage girl he terrified so easily. My new life has awakened things in me that I didn't know were there. This time I meet his glare with a level gaze of my own, and there's barely a tremor in my voice as I answer, "I find it difficult to care."
"Is she going to be an… embarrassment to us?"
Of course. The family's reputation is Father's first concern. "No," I answer flatly, my tone discouraging further conversation as I turn my head to look at the cityscape rolling by outside the window.
We fall into an uneasy silence, Father brooding on one side of the passenger compartment, me staring out the window on the other. I miss the easy companionship I've come to enjoy with my new friends. Normally I tend to be rather prickly and aloof, but Yang has a way of bringing me out of my shell. Oddly, my thoughts turn to the man driving our car. I know his face, he's worked for my family for years, but I can't remember his name. Yang would know it already, I'm sure.
As the car arrives at our home, Father clears his throat. "I forgot to mention it, but Winter has joined us for the holiday weekend. She's probably in her room; you should say hello."
I find my sister in the bedroom that was hers before she left for college and then the military. The uniform she's still wearing fits her as comfortably as a tiger wears its skin. Winter has said that she hadn't considered the military before college and ROTC, but I think she's found her true calling. "It's good to see you, Weiss. How have you been?"
"My classes are going well, and one of my professors has suggested I change majors; he says I show a real passion for history."
Winter frowns. "That's not what I meant and you know it. Any new hobbies, new friends, are you eating right, embarrassing drunken shenanigans, perhaps a new boyfriend?"
"Winter!" I hiss, embarrassed. "I don't drink, and you know it. And yes, I've made new friends. Blake, my roommate, is rather quiet and reserved, but a good friend once I got to know her." I drop my voice low and lean toward my sister conspiratorially "And, well, no new boyfriend, but a new girlfriend."
My sister blinks, shocked. "A… girlfriend? You had better not let Father know."
"He knew even before I arrived. It seems there's a rumor about it on social media."
"I didn't think he knew what that was," Winter answers with a snort. Then her face grows serious. "What was his reaction?"
"One of his aides told him about the rumor." We share a laugh before I continue. "And… I'm not sure how he's taking it. When I told him the rumors were true, he asked if she was going to be an embarrassment, then he got very quiet."
Winter frowns in thought. "That could either be very good, or very bad. He didn't explode in anger, which means he's thinking about it. I can see several outcomes. He is likely going to demand that you either abandon the relationship or stay here in Atlas or both."
"He can try," I say squaring my shoulders, hands balling into fists. I'm not nearly the fighter Yang is, but she has been teaching me to fight, a little. "I'm eighteen now; he has no legal power over me, and now that I have at least part of my inheritance, I've got enough money to stand on my own." Living without my father's influence has required some… adjustments, but my new friends have been very helpful. Learning to cook has been a trial by fire (literally), but I can now prepare a meal of reasonable quality for the four of us.
"Accounts in your own name, not accessible to him, and some hard cash, I assume?" Winter asks, and I nod in answer. "Good. And do you have a plan should this weekend go very badly?"
"I have a ticket to Vale, purchased on one of my own accounts, with a flexible departure date, as well as-"
A knock at the door interrupts us before Klein sticks his head in. "Ah, there the two of you are. Dinner is ready now, and your father is already waiting for you."
Meaning that it wouldn't be in our best interests to dawdle. I wish I'd had more time to freshen up after my long flight, but at least this will simplify things if I need to make a quick exit. I pull out my phone and send my girlfriend a quick message, letting her know I've arrived safely and am headed to dinner with my family.
Thankfully, dinner is being held in the smaller dining room we usually use when it's just family. I can't help but shiver a little as I sit down; I never realized how… cold my family home felt until I returned to it. This isn't a home, not really, it's a monument to the wealth and power of the Schnee name. Everything so pristine, so perfectly neat and arranged. If Father found so much as a cup left idly on a table, he'd probably fire half the maids.
I can't help but frown as the soup course is served. It's one of Father's favorites, a thin, flavorless vegetable soup that serves more as a time for dinner-table conversation than as an actual part of the meal. Neither I nor Father look at each other as we sip our soup, our words in the car an unassailable barrier between us.
Whitley's phone chimes and he pulls it out, thumbing through what it's showing him. I brace myself for the explosion; Father hates cellphones at the table; unless you actually get a call, phones are to be ignored, and a call is to be taken out of the room and answered quietly. "Whitley, put that away," Father orders as he puts down his soup spoon.
"Oh, but Father, I think you'll want to see this. I've been following a story on social media. It seems Weiss has made some interesting friends in Vale, even found herself a girlfriend, if the stories can be believed." Whitley looks up from his phone to give me a smirk, and I know he pulled out the phone to bait Father on purpose.
"Let me see." Whitley hands over the phone to Father, managing to look surprised and smug at the same time. He's got me now, and he knows it. I start wondering if it's possible to murder my brother with a soup spoon. "Hmm. A day at the beach, Weiss?"
"Yes. I'd never been to a real beach before, and my friends decided to take me as a surprise."
Father's eyes glance up at me for a moment before he goes back to scrolling through the article. "And how did you find the beach?"
"Quite enjoyable, though I think I will have to rethink my selection of beachwear. I hadn't gone shopping for a swimsuit before, and I'm fairly certain I asked the wrong person for advice."
He grunts in acknowledgment. "An understandable mistake, especially if the trip was sprung on you with little or no notice. So," Father looks at me, his eyes holding a chilling glare, "I see several young women with you in these pictures? Which one is your 'girlfriend'? Or have you acquired some sort of harem?"
Whitley chokes as Father hands me the phone. I scroll through the article, looking for the best picture. "That's her, the blonde one is Yang," I say, handing it back to him.
Father peers at the screen. "Not a very good picture of her, I think. Still, most likely shot with a cell phone, and at some distance as well, from the lack of detail. I trust you have a better one?" he asks as he hands the phone back to Whitley.
I pull out my own phone, scrolling through the pictures, looking for one that shows Yang clearly without being too… inappropriate. I finally find one taken by Pyrrha, of us sitting on a wall with Blake and Ruby.
Father nods. "Much better, thank you. She's the blonde, correct? And the other two?"
"The one with long black hair is Blake, my roommate, and the one with the red highlights in her hair is Yang's sister, Ruby."
"I see." He starts to hand the phone back to me, then stops for a moment first. "You certainly seem to be enjoying yourselves here, in this other picture."
Damn. The phone has scrolled to another picture, whether deliberately or on purpose, I can't say. In this one, Yang is holding me in her arms, bridal-style, as she spins around. Her mouth is wide open with laughter. I'm beating on her with my fists and calling for her to put me down even as I'm answering her laughter with my own. It was the day Yang asked if it was okay if she called me her girlfriend. "It was a very happy day," I answer as I put away my phone, a blush rising in my cheeks.
"You'll have to end things, of course."
"Why?" I ask, my hand stopped in mid-air over my soup spoon.
"Because you won't be continuing your education in Vale. Instead, at the end of the semester, you'll be transferring to a school here in Atlas. It's also time you started taking more of an interest in the family company as well."
"No," I answer flatly, taking a sip of my soup. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see my sister shifting position, pushing herself slightly away from the table. Across from me, Whitley's face breaks out in a knowing smirk. This is what he was pushing for when he showed Father the pictures, a final, irrevocable break between me and our father.
"Weiss, I am your father and you will do as you're told." Father's hands are flat on the table now, as if he's getting ready to stand.
"I don't have to anymore. Between my inheritance from mother's death and my trust fund, I've got enough money to finish my education as I please. Or haven't you been paying attention as to who's been paying for my college, hmm? Come to think of it, when's the last time you visited her grave? Or have you, since the funeral?"
"Don't try to distract me, young lady. Our family name-"
"-can stand my having an affair with a woman far better than it can your… mismanagement of the family company." Idly I pick up a breadstick and point it at him. "The only reason anyone still does business with us is that we're just too big for them not to. In the past five years, we've had a seventy-five percent turnover in our board of directors, some members replaced twice. Half of those former members are either in jail or currently on trial for a variety of what they call white-collar crimes, which mostly amount to being greedier than the law allows. Frankly, sister, if you still have any company stock, I'd suggest selling, probably within a year."
"How dare you-"
"Oh come now, Father, I am majoring in business." And art, I add silently to myself. "The writing is on the wall. If things don't change, the Schnee Bank is going under within ten years at the most, maybe less than five. I'm just doing the sensible thing and getting out of the blast radius."
"Don't you dare say things like that. Forget finishing out the semester in Vale, you're not leaving Atlas. You're going to stay right here in this house until you are willing to behave." Now he is standing, his voice one step short of shouting at me."
"No." I stand and start heading for the door, my heels clicking on the floor like gunshots in the sudden silence.
"And just where do you think you're going?"
"Home," I answer simply, and an epiphany bursts in my mind as I realize the full magnitude of the truth wrapped up in that single word. It's not the building or the things in it that truly make a place home, it's the people within it, the lives they lead together. Suddenly home isn't here, it's a little three-bedroom apartment a ten-minute tram ride from campus. I miss the mugs left absentmindedly on the kitchen or coffee table, the soft click-click-click of fingers dancing across keys as we work on our assignments, our friends dropping by to study with us or just hang out. I've only known my new friends for a few months but now I find myself more comfortable around them than I am around my father or brother.
"I'm going home."