Downfall Brings the Brightest Dawn
Dawn had just risen. The sun had yet shown itself, hidden by stalwart formation of mountain in eastern horizon, but its soft burst of colours had melted into the sky. The bitter cold mellowed into comforting cool breeze and danced with the warmth of sun's diffused rays. Roosters crowed through the silence and people yawned through their slumber. With the grace bestowed to it by the nature, dawn brought the world a fresh start of their day.
For Weiss, however, dawn brought the end of her life.
Dread of the night had been so kindly being her cover to retreat from her crushing defeat. Thick mist, piercing cold and darkness hindered her enemies and their frantic pace while the renegade Princess of Atlas madly pushed forward without mercy on herself or her horse. She didn't need light and warmth to show her ways, nor she needed them to guide those who looked forward to rape and loot her before routing her.
Maybe after enjoying her as the fairest spoil of war, they would cut off her head as a trophy; a fallen Atlesian battle-borne princess was one of a kind bragging right, after all. They wouldn't take her hostage, even if they do, how could they be so foolish to believe the King of Atlas would pay for an untamable royal pawn piece?
When the last veil of gossamer mist faded away and the reddish morning sky became blue, Weiss spurred her worn steed to run impossibly faster.
Clop, clop, clop. Iron-shod hooves kicked dirt and rocks as the overworked beast galloped and trotted trampling through the heath. Until its gait weakened into slow amble and tangled roots and rocks robbed it from its ambling balance. The horse even couldn't spare a neigh as the dying beast let its rider thrown from the saddle and the bulk of tired equine muscles and bones hit the ground.
Weiss writhed, but not for long. She quickly went back on her feet and pushed forward, carrying with her the unbearable pain and unfathomable fear. Her horse had failed her, just like her soldiers and her family. There was no way she would fail herself.
Her wavering consciousness was empty from anything but mindless control over her legs to keep moving and her lungs to take more breaths in. Each stride stung, each inhale burned, but she dared not to stop.
The moment she stopped was when her legs couldn't bear to be slaved by her survival instinct anymore. They succumbed to the painful fatigue, bringing along their master to buckle and crumble down among stalks of wheat. The grassy stalks were too feeble to cushion her and her armor's weight, and she fell down with dull thud rattling her dying body with pain.
Up there, the sky was so blue and the sun was so bright up there, looking down on her near death misery spelled by red of blood blotting her battered gears and blurry vision.
Colours quickly flushed out from her view, then came the amorphous black for her eyes to swim in. Her consciousness had let go of her eyes, but too stubborn to let go of her sense of pain. Blinded by blood loss and bouldering agony in her life's border, it was fate's cruel joke to let her hang on a bit more just to hear one last thing in her life.
"…I'll save you….!"
xxxxx
Weiss wasn't dead yet.
Her heart was still beating, her lungs breathing, and her consciousness slowly getting its grip back to the reality. Throbs of pain welcomed her back to life, colours and shapes fading in to re-paint her pitch-black field of vision.
Weiss was no longer in the middle of endless wheat fields, but inside a humble wood and stone abode. A basin of hot water beside her bed carried aroma of dissolved salt. Sticky and sweet smell was coming from thinly lathered honey on her lacerated arm, swirling softly with fragrant waft of herbal salve and poultice. With her eyes starting to get back to their full function, she realized she wasn't alone; a young woman with silver eyes, with sleeves rolled to the elbows, waited on her.
"Finally! You're awake! I was worried you wouldn't get better and never wake up," said the silver-eyed female, the furrow on her forehead uplifted by a wide smile of relieve. "Please bear with me a bit. It might hurt."
Weiss winced loudly as the peasant girl applied too much pressure on her bruise just to rub some salve. The girl unrolled the old bandage around her left bicep so coarsely, as if not minding the sensitive damaged tissues that might stuck and chafed by the fibers. She swabbed her fingers across gaping wounds, so nonchalantly rubbing on Weiss' injured midsection with stinging salted water.
"What in seven hells are you doing? That's not how you treat wounds! Are you blind?"
She stopped. Her hands meekly retracted away from Weiss. Her silver eyes looked so shaken right before the girl steeled into a scornful frown. She abruptly stood up and left.
It might be just Weiss or the silver-eyed woman really almost walked to the doorframe. Why should she care, however?
She tried to sit up but the pain quickly pushed her back to the bed. Red blots slowly seeped into the bandage on her ribs and she cursed to herself.
Some moments after, someone came. It was a woman with golden hair and spite in her purplish eyes. She eyed the leaking blood on Weiss' bandaged ribs and growled, "How about you get lost and never come back after you're all patched up nice and well?"
"That's my plan all along," Weiss hissed back.
In movements that spoke so much reluctance, the blonde continued what was left. Unlike the silver-eyed girl, Weiss duly realized, she was far rougher and more interested in getting the job done quickly while throttling Weiss' comfort to the back seat. Fortunately, her energy was still on the extreme low that she couldn't bring herself to berate the blonde's boorish care.
"I should've just looted your fancy armor and sword and left you to die."
"Oh, you tell me."
No more conversation afterwards, only discomforting silence remained. The blonde seemed not bothered to break the jagged ice between them, and neither did Weiss.
Weiss hated this, being weak and lying helpless, leaning only to the mercy of those hands of strangers that healed her wounds and fed her. Whilst she felt thankful, somewhere inside her conscience, her pride was scathed deeply. She swore to divines above, once she could sit and stand upright enough, she would drag herself out of here.
Weiss never saw the silver-eyed female again, just the same unpleasing blonde coming to fetch her meals and water. Day and night melded into a sludge flowing and ebbing within her muddy consciousness—as if she was in a very long lucid dream, only with real world's pain of flesh.
Somewhere in her limbo of deep sleep and hazy waking, she could feel tender hands reaching to take care of her battered form. Moving somehow janky and graceless, but affectionately gentle. Yet when her eyes were fully awake, she couldn't see anyone beside her. To whom those affectionate hands belonged to?
At some point in the timeline of her ambling awareness, the fallen princess stirred softly in her sleep and slowly woke up. So dark and cold. It must've been in the perfect middle of a night, or just in the darkest hour just before the dawn. Among the virtual absence of light, Weiss could make out faint outline of a young woman working with her bandages. A soft hand laid on top of her forehead and she could hear a small but contented noise from the figure. The woman pulled the thin quilt over Weiss' body and made a gentle whisper of "Get well soon.".
Suddenly someone came with a lantern and Weiss quickly pretended to sleep.
"What are you doing, sis?" The voice Weiss recognized as the brute blonde speaking.
"Just changing bandages and checking her temperature."
"It's like two or three hours before sunrise. Why don't you wait until morning?"
"I just don't want her to see me and feels disturbed —" The other voice paused abruptly—one Weiss recognized as the silver-eyed girl's. "Anyway, it's not like I can see the difference between light and dark, Yang."
The light and the sisters left. Now Weiss was alone with her own pondering, guilt and shame churned her worse than her battle wounds did as she realized something:
That silver-eyed woman was blind.
xxxxx
Roughly a count of seven or eight days passed since she woke up from her near death. Weiss had regained some of her strength back and her head was no longer heavy. Some bruises and perhaps cracked bones inside hadn't fully recovered yet, but not in the level where she couldn't bear.
She slowly tried to stand up and she could stand upright well, even when it took her some seconds of readjustment. She took some experimental paces and she could walk without her legs and body swaddling.
Healed aptly and able to walk straight, what inside her mind now was to leave as soon as possible.
"Yang? Where are you going? Or is that you, Dad?"
Weiss was stopped by the voice of the silver-eyed female sitting beside the dying hearth. A face of gentle innocence but otherworldly awareness smiled at her, her facial movement and small gestures gave almost no hint of the girl's blindness.
Weiss didn't like this feeling of guilt, for she was never wrong. She didn't like this feeling of shame, for her pride was disgusted to be in touch with unnecessary sense of guilt.
Still, how easy a blind peasant girl made the fallen princess felt like the biggest sinner in this world, whereas countless Atlesian noblemen would never able to budge her icy arrogance even the slightest.
The blind female had her smile bent slightly, after seemingly able to recognize who the other was.
"Oh, it's you. Are you sure you're strong enough to get out the bed?"
Weiss couldn't even part her pursed lips.
"Oh, alright. Just… be safe, okay?"
Weiss left as silent as she could. She stopped just before the door and looked over her shoulder, just to find the silver-eyed girl still staring at her direction. Even when she knew the other female in the room couldn't see, it felt like those shining eyes drilled right into her soul.
Weiss willed herself and marched forward without looking back.
The village—Patch, she learned from a random passerby—might be a remote and peaceful haven, but the time was in the middle of turmoil made by war between Vale and Atlas. Fallen or not, she was still Princess Weiss, one of the main figures of the conflict. If she wanted to make it out this village alive, she needed the latest development of state of affairs in the realm to made plans for her next course of actions.
Just what expected from a small farming settlement, however, there was not many travelers to get her information from. The village's largest—if not the only one—tavern was filled by locals and few unimportant outsider stragglers. From idle chattering she overheard, the topics were nothing far from farming, plans for shearing sheep and the same sort. The tides of war seemed to barely touch this village.
Then came a three-man band of scruffy gears and tacky weapons—low-life mercenaries cum thugs. Common sense would've dictated Weiss to stay away from these war scavengers, but her desperation for information she would never get from hay-brained farmers made her sat in considerably safe distance from them, hoping to get a piece or two about the world outside.
"The little princess who played knight? Words are the King Jacques set her up to lead a battle she couldn't win. Killin' a rebellious daughter while keepin' his hand clean, eh?"
"Some said he paid a Valean officer or somethin' to make sure Princess Weiss is dead whether Vale or Atlas who won the battle." The gruff voice stopped as one of mercenaries talking took a swig of his drink. "She should've stopped playin' tough knight and let herself as useless princess getting married and fucked by one of King Jacques' cronies. That little snowflake would've been sleeping in nice bed with belly pregnant, not lyin' dead with belly speared."
The spindliest one played with his tankard, looking at his companions with a cheeky grin. "But other rumor said they couldn't find her body and believed she survives and hides somewhere."
"If you ever found her, dead or alive, know that her head is worth of golds whether you take it to Vale or Atlas. Just pick who offers more coins!" The largest one bellowed a laugh and snorted. "I prefer her alive, come to think of it. I wanna know how it feels like fuckin' a real princess before we chop her head off, ya know?"
Weiss left the tavern before her stomach hurled out its content. She ran away mindlessly, trying ridiculously and vainly to escape the reality.
Was that really how much Weiss was worth to the world? Her "death" was in vain, if not to be desired by everyone. Her demise was sought after by both her enemies and allies. The remaining real value of her was her body for quick release of pleasure and her dead meat for a bag of gold. How foolish she was, to march into a battle with pride swelling her breast, only to know her own father deliberately set her defeat before everything even begun. Good and honest men and women died speared, gutted and trampled in the battle for their useless liege, who was no longer wanted to exist by her own royal kin.
So much things wasted to get Princess Weiss wiped out from the world. And here the "dead" princess was, back to the humble wooden-stone house where she was revived from the brink of her death.
Weiss took a shaky step inside. The blind girl still sat on the exact right spot, but now she had Weiss' sword on her lap. Her head turned to the direction of Weiss' footsteps and welcomed the snow-haired female with a smile.
"You come back," she said while her fingers caressed the ornate scabbard, her eyes fell to the sword on her lap. "You seemed to forget your sword. Are you here to take it before leaving?"
Weiss stared at her sword and the girl where her sword rested on. Her eyes started to stung from the tears seeking escape.
She had lost everything. If her doltish pride was the only thing remained from her past glory, and it hurt the kind heart who saved her from death, it was nothing of worth to keep.
"I'm sorry."
Silver eyes widened slightly before drooping gently and dulled some of their argentine shine, making her smile somewhat rueful. "You feel sorry for things you did and said wrong. And what you said is the truth, anyways. I'm blind."
"That doesn't justify my thoughtless words to you."
Behind the silence between them, Weiss harshly wiped her eyes before any tears were shed.
"Your sword is really beautiful, and Dad said your armor is really high quality. Are you a knight?"
To say Weiss was a knight was an insult. A knight was one of many other noble titles bestowed upon her, a part of her long winding formal designation of name. And this one was the most compact, omitting many other mundane and far less important titles: Her Highness Princess Weiss of Royal House of Schnee, First of Her Name, Duchess of Forever Fall, High Knight of the Order of Snow Lion.
"No. I'm… Weiss. Just call me Weiss."
"My name's Ruby."
Ruby. The name of her selfless savior she mindlessly insulted for her disability.
"Once again, I apologize for my boorish words, Ruby."
"I told you I didn't mind, right? I'm blind, whether we like it or not." Ruby reached out her arms, offering Weiss her sword. "Well, Weiss, you'll stay for dinner, right?"
Weiss took her sword gingerly and nodded. "I…I'd love to, but I'd like to have my meal in private, if it's possible."
She tried to deny the obvious contentment on Ruby's face when she agreed to stay for one last meal, but it was a hard feat. Not when those beautiful silver eyes waned into a pair of sweet crescent moons, making Ruby's smile charming enough to drive her heart beating unevenly.
She mumbled an excuse before she excused herself to the same room used to nurse her back to health. She stayed there for gods know how long, calming her own flustered form while staring dully at her sword.
Her self-reflection was cut short when the familiar blonde came with a piping bowl of her dinner, now with less hostility compared to the days past.
"I can't believe the dying Atlesian prick we found in the field turns out to be the Princess of Atlas. Don't worry, though, no one knows you're the princess those smelly mercenaries are looking for."
"Words spread fast here, for sure," Weiss mused humorlessly.
The lilac eyes looked at her with uncanny cordiality, accompanying their owner's lighthearted chuckle. "My baby sister, Ruby, is a kid at heart. Ruby's imaginations were, and actually still is, really wild. She dreamed of adventures and heroic deeds. Wandering out of this boring village, beating up bandits, maybe even get knighted and become a royal guard of some fair princess. Seriously, that kid."
She passed Weiss the dinner of the day, wheat porridge with broth and meagre meat chunks. Obviously something not for a princess' royal palate, but Weiss didn't stop herself from enjoying the warm homely meal. Maybe a little bit too enjoying it, if the blonde's laugh was anything to go by.
"But you can see everything is destroyed already. Years ago, a plague hit the village. She survived, but high fever took away her vision. But how can you be a hero, when you even can't see what's in front of you? She did manage to overcome her grief and learn to get around even without her eyes, but she will never get over how too helpless she is to be a hero." There was a somber sigh coming so uncharacteristically from the previously cheerful young woman. When her lilac eyes met Weiss' blue, however, a mirth of joy came back to her face. "You don't know how happy she was when she found out who you really are. Even in her helplessness, she still could save someone's life, to be someone's hero. And it's a princess, nonetheless."
"You're mistaken. The Princess is dead. There's only Weiss here."
The blonde had her eyebrows quirked slightly before it melted back to a gentle smile. "Nice to meet ya, Weiss. Name's Yang."
Weiss nodded slowly and ate her dinner in silence they seemed to mutually agreed upon naturally.
"Say, Yang."
Yang stopped, just a couple of steps away from the door.
"Why don't you hand me over to your king? The price of my head is beyond your imagination. Your family can thrive well from all the gold coins from it."
Weiss expected a long pause from the blonde. Or maybe suddenly she changed her mind and tied the "dead" princess up before hauling her to the royal castle for the bountiful boon. She expected anything, from bad to the worst, to happen.
However, Yang only stood there with her shoulder shaking softly from her light laugh.
"And make Ruby cry by that? Hell no." Yang smiled. "All that glitters ain't always gold, princess. Tears glitter too."
With the blonde exiting the room, Weiss was left to mull over her empty bowl.
She never expected herself to be this hungry. Maybe this was the time to swallow her useless pride and asked for more useful second helping.
xxxxx
"I shouldn't overstay my welcome, but I won't leave without your merit unreciprocated. "
Taiyang—the blacksmith and father of Ruby and Yang—set his hammer down and gave her a questioning look.
Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, Weiss quickly warmed—or was warmed, in that case—to the whole family. What she thought as her last dinner with them, it turned out she shared some more nights of dinners with them. She was received warmly as if she were a new addition to the family, but she would never able to shake the feeling that she was an outsider, living under their roof and feeding on their meals out of their mercy.
It was her sense of decency and pride that counseled her not to burden this humble family any longer. Of course, she too was well aware about how much money spent for her recovery and meal. Hence she wouldn't leave until she could repay every copper's worth to them.
Though it seemed that the father of the family opposed to her idea already.
"Don't feel you owe us anything, Weiss. Knowing you survived is enough for us."
"Please, sir."
A princess addressing a peasant with "sir"—the famously haughty Princess Weiss addressing a poor village blacksmith with so much reverence. Had the world gone mad?
Nay, the world had not. Just Weiss had been spat out from her sky-high status and her aristocratic privilege to something no better than a hunted pile of bone and flesh not worth much of respect. People with gold for their heart, such as him and his daughters, deserved deep respect from a bag of bogus pride like herself.
The man sighed and shook his head gently. "I see, if you insist. Maybe you can help me with the ledger? I can write and read well, but big numbers and maths aren't my strong suit."
Weiss took the ledger, a thick leather bound book, and the inkpot with the quill. She quickly skimmed over the last months' records and studiously learned the lists of costs, debts and income, although the barely legible handwriting made it harder for her.
"Ruby had keen eyes for metalwork, especially weapons, even when I don't get many orders for it," Taiyang laughed softly, hammering some leather on his workbench to make some saddle. "I won't lie, I miss the times when she would come to stare and pointed me the faults on my swords or scythes."
Weiss paused and set the quill down. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," he smiled. "Life is hard but we've learnt to overcome it and make us stronger."
Ruby came to the workshop, somehow able to navigate her way there with only her ears and an outstretched arm. Really, Weiss was amazed how fluid and normal Ruby moved around. No wonder it never passed her mind that the silver-eyed girl was blind.
"Morning, Dad!" Ruby greeted, smiling to where the sound of hammering came from. "Who's with you?"
"It's Weiss."
"Morning, Weiss!" Ruby smiled and approached the table, groping for nearby chair and sat down. "Dad, can you take the ledger? I'm going to work on where I left—wait, I forgot Yang left for the town this morning…"
"It's fine, Ruby. Weiss is helping me with that."
Ruby tilted her head and ran her hand along the wooden surface of the table, until she found texture of parchment and Weiss' hand under her palm. "Weiss, let me help! I can calculate sales faster than a deer running from a hunter!"
Weiss glanced at the blacksmith and he nodded.
"Can you read them for me? I'll calculate everything and you just need to write the results down."
Weiss read the records for Ruby and the latter could come up with results of gross profit and detailed accounts of weekly to monthly expenditure almost instantly. Weiss was deeply impressed by Ruby's mathematical aptitude—and she had extremely fine memory too, proven by how she could remember some events recorded few months back in the ledger. She could go as far as recognizing and correcting Yang's chicken scrawl handwriting just from how Weiss read it. Such amazing cerebral fortitude only could be rivaled by the brightest of scholars.
It didn't take long for them to finish accounting until the recent record of sales. Weiss closed the book with ink-stained hand and a satisfied sigh, just in time for a blur of black and white bolted from nowhere and jumped to Ruby's lap.
"Woof!"
"Zwei, boy!" Ruby giggled and petted the black and white furry thing—Weiss quickly recognized it as a corgi. The little canine yipped and licked Ruby's face and he was rewarded by a kiss on his nose. "Dad, can I go to take my books from Blake? She should've arrived at Patch today."
"Sure thing, dear. Just be careful with your way there."
Weiss looked at the blonde man, then to the girl and her dog, and blinked. "I mean no offense, but how can you—"
"Zwei helps me by leading my walk. He's a very smart pooch!"
Zwei barked as if agreeing with Ruby. He dashed somewhere and came back with a set of collar and leash. Taiyang collared the corgi and gave the leash to Ruby. "Go with Ruby, Weiss. I can always use a knight making sure my daughter is safe." He patted the snow-haired former royalty on her shoulder.
Weiss mumbled "Sure" out of her confusion and just followed Ruby, with Zwei on the leash, leaving the house. If no one knew better, it would be just like a girl and her friend walking her dog—while the actual circumstance was quite the opposite.
Zwei walked ahead guiding Ruby to the village's…how would Weiss called it? Plaza? Village square? What she knew was they headed to the heart of the humble hamlet where stalls sold anything from green groceries, meat cuts to freshly baked pies. It was nothing compared to the blustering market square of Atlas City, but certainly something more lively than anyone expected from a village in the middle of nowhere.
The corgi hopped around and barked, the exciting smell of meat pies and grilled chicken on skewers seemed to divert his attention from taking his owner to her books. "Down, boy! We're here for Blake, not for meat pies!" Ruby tugged on the leash slightly, trying to rein the excitable fur ball. "Weiss, do you see a woman with black hair and a bow on her head? Zwei seems too excited today and can't smell Blake's scent."
Weiss easily spotted the aforementioned Blake and collected the drooling corgi to her arms before taking Ruby through the crowds. The black-haired woman, Blake, had just finished some dealings with a couple of customers. She welcomed Ruby with a smile, though it grimaced slightly as her amber eyes spotted the dog.
"Good morning, Ruby. Who's your new… friend might be?"
"It's Weiss! Weiss, this is Blake! She and her parents travel around Vale for trade, and she knows how to get best books with best price!"
Weiss smiled and dipped her head politely to Blake. She was replied by same polite gesture, though the way the black-haired woman scrutinized her made her uneasy.
"How's your travel, Blake? Oh! Do you get the books I asked?" Ruby asked, bouncing slightly on her heels.
"Hold on, I'll get your book." Blake rummaged through a trunk and took a stack of leatherbound books, some titles written on the spine were familiar to Weiss. "With war heading towards end stages, the roads become somehow safer and friendlier for merchants. Though I picked up some interesting rumors along the way about an Atlesian princess—"
"It's a lot of books," Weiss commented and nonchalantly dropped Zwei to take the books from Blake. "I'll carry it for Ruby."
"Why, you sure are a courteous one," Blake squinted her eyes slightly. "Though maybe you shouldn't drop the dog just like that."
Zwei whined softly and Weiss mumbled an apology to no one in particular, though it might as well be addressed to Ruby who gave her a small frown for dropping the corgi. She just waited awkwardly beside Ruby, trying not to notice how Blake stole glances at her in between Ruby's cheerful banters. From what it felt like forever, finally Ruby bade Blake goodbye and ordered Zwei to take her home.
"Something wrong, Weiss? You seemed a bit nervous earlier?"
Weiss jerked softly, almost dropping the books in her arms. "It's nothing. Anyways, I see that you like books so much."
Ruby smiled widely and nodded. "Yup! I love tales of adventures! Cool stories of journey across great fields and forests, great knights and heroes battling evil guys and monsters!" Said she with crisp voice akin of a laugh—which Weiss secretly loved already.
Though, that sweet voice quickly faded into somber flat of a sigh. "But now I always need someone to read it for me, and it always remind me how unrealistic those tales are."
If magic existed, perhaps there was a second chance, or another form of chance, for Ruby to be a hero of her dreams. Alas, real world wasn't as mystical as in bard's epic songs or tales of legends. Weiss herself was a testament how cruel the world was to someone who should've been the center figure of those larger-than-life tales, and Ruby's eyes were the innocent victim of the world's undiscriminating hunger for misery.
With not much chat afterwards, they arrived at home. Zwei barked excitedly and pulled his owner into the house.
"You're strong, just you know. More than those heroes."
"How? I even can't see, let alone fighting monsters."
"A hero doesn't always fight monsters, but a hero will always save lives," Weiss chuckled, setting the books down on the table. "No matter if she can see or not."
She tried not to think much of it when she saw suspicious shades of red colored Ruby's cheeks.
She went to help Taiyang with a rather chatty and cranky customer. Even among endless rant of the customer's complicated order and the blacksmith's exasperated explanation, she still could hear how Yang's mercilessly teased Ruby for blushing around "the princess".
xxxxx
Maybe because she had nowhere to go without the fear of losing her head, Weiss stayed longer than she planned.
However, she wouldn't be an impertinent guest who lived off of the host's hospitality forever. Through subtle but persistent persuasion, Weiss succeeded in convincing Taiyang to let her work for him throughout her indefinite stay. Yang seemed contented enough to have another pair of hand for less strenuous work (of course she was still aware of Weiss' war-torn body that hadn't fully healed), and Ruby was happy to have Weiss stay, perhaps for some sentimental reasons.
In such quaint village, her mastery of sword saw no use, but other sets of her knightly skills let her do many things. Her horsemanship proven to be useful to fetch things out and from outside of Patch efficiently and her eloquence somehow helped Taiyang with troublesome customers—or stopping Yang from whacking said customers.
She often took odd jobs from nearby villagers to provide side income for the family. Later she discovered Ruby used to herd sheep for villagers with Zwei, and the silver-eyed girl admitted it was one of many things she missed from before she lost her eyesight.
Weiss could understand why. Watching sheep bleating and grazing was tedious, but the cheerful barks of the corgi, the beautiful scenery of mountains and stretching fields were something to behold among breezes of cool air. Maybe someday she should try persuading Taiyang to let Ruby come with her next time. Even when the silver-eyed girl couldn't see, the gentle winds and fresh waft of mountainous air would still welcome her senses cordially and Weiss would be glad to be her eye.
Everything had been alright. The weather was agreeable and no wild dogs or wolves in sight. Zwei proved himself to be an intelligent canine yet again, capable of herding the flock even with the most minimal of Weiss' commands.
In the middle of her idling, the corgi ran to her and barked with a wag of his stubby tail. "What is it, Zwei?" she asked and leaned down to rub his ears. He ran somewhere away from the flock of sheep, and it was natural for Weiss to be concerned. Did he find a dead sheep or spotting a stalking wolf nearby?
Yet, it turned out the ruff was circling around a small wild white rose bush. He bit on the thorny stems of the bush as if trying to pull off one of the white blossom.
"Stop it, you're going to hurt yourself!" Weiss kneeled and pried the corgi from the rose bush with a mutter of "silly dog". The yipping bulk of black and white fur yipped nudged her, nagging her for something. "Okay, what do you want? You want me to pick the rose?" Zwei nodded and looked at her with the cutest puppy eyes ever that made Weiss unconsciously cooed and succumbed to his will.
Using a dagger Weiss cut a fine blossom of white rose and cleaned the thorns. She didn't have any idea what the corgi could possibly want from a rose aside from being a chew toy, but what a heartless being she was to deny those hypnotic puppy eyes and whines. The white rose was very beautiful, anyway, and there was nothing to lose to take one with her.
It was sunset when Weiss and Zwei came home. Lanterns and candles were lit inside the house, and the sisters seemed to have a comical bicker over a book just beside the crackling fireplace.
"You read too slow!" Ruby complained with a pout.
Yang rolled her eyes with an exaggerated groan. "Well, Rubes, I'm sorry! That book has too much heavy words and stuffs! You should've asked Blake!"
"But the way Blake reads make me bored and sleepy!"
The sisters (or at least Yang) finally registered Weiss' presence and the older of the two gave her a very strong pat on the back. "Hey, princess! Can you read this book for Ruby? This kind of book must be a cakewalk for you!"
"How many times I told you don't call me that!" Weiss chided, earning herself a cheeky grin from the blonde before the latter joined Taiyang in the kitchen to fix some dinner.
Ruby looked up at Weiss with a smile that came along with her soft greet of, "Welcome home, Weiss."
Weiss knew it was a betrayal not to reply Ruby's smile, but somehow she couldn't do anything besides stealing a shy glance at Ruby.
Weird. Lately Weiss became easily flustered around Ruby, especially when she smiled.
Zwei yipped and nipped Weiss' heel and she yelped, "What the—Zwei!" Her reflex almost made her kick the dog, but the agile corgi flitted just in time and cuddled her lower leg innocently.
"Zwei, don't annoy Weiss!" Ruby called out with a small frown. "What did he do to you?"
"Don't worry, it's nothing," Weiss waved it off, trying to get Zwei off of her legs. The little canine's perseverance was praiseworthy, though. He kept nudging the white rose in her pocket before running and flopping to Ruby's lap.
"Sorry for his antics. He can be too playful sometimes." Ruby shook her head and reached to pet the corgi.
Zwei barked at Weiss, as if taunting her...or telling her to give the rose to Ruby?
"Ruby, give me your hand. I have something for you."
Ruby tilted her head curiously and reached her hand out. Weiss put the white rose on her palm and she brought it closer to her. Her fingertips curiously mapped the outline and her face morphed into one of a happy amusement. She cautiously smelled the rose and that was when she let out a full blown smile.
"A rose!" Ruby beamed and took another whiff of its fragrance again, her brows knotted slightly. "But I feel something different from it. What's the color of it, Weiss?"
"It's white."
"Really! I never knew if any white roses grow around Patch!"
Weiss allowed herself a little helping of chuckle, half-consciously playing with some strands of her snowy hair. "You have Zwei to thank for that."
"Thank you, Weiss. This is really beautiful," Ruby gently caressed its pristine petals, her eyes closed into the shape of sweet crescents accompanying her smile. "It reminds me of you."
Even when Ruby wasn't able to see it, Weiss still looked away to hide her blush. She was glad the blonde father and daughter were still in the kitchen, or she would be in for a figurative hell.
"It's just like your name. Weiss means 'white' in Old Atlesian, right?"
"It is. It's a very generic name in older times, though it's hard to find someone with that name nowadays. Maybe it has something to do with a living Atlesian royalty named as such."
Ruby giggled, playing with the rose on her hand and looked up at Weiss. "White knight-princess in shining armor! I bet you look so cool!"
Weiss felt her face was too warm for its own good, and certainly the blazing fireplace wasn't the reason. She definitely wasn't going to picture herself in her best suit of armor and best destrier, presenting the purest white rose for Ruby. "D-Don't take this to any further context. It's not that I want to give you flowers, but I can't just throw it away."
"What flowers?"
The blonde father-daughter duo asked in perfect sync.
Just like Weiss predicted, as the dinner went on she received endless brunt of teasing from the blonde, while the blacksmith only gave her some bouts of meaningful smile. While superficially Yang was the more "violent" one, Taiyang was the one who gave Weiss real chills. With the kind of smile too enigmatic to be deciphered, she would never know what was inside his head regarding her, his daughter, and the white rose.
The dinner ended peacefully. Weiss was glad Yang toned down her teasing and Taiyang didn't get her into a private eye-to-eye talk.
She picked up the book left on the corner table and read the fading letters on its spine. Canterbury Tales. No wonder Yang had difficulty reading this.
While the half of the household had retreated to sleep, Ruby was still there, seated beside the fireplace. The beautiful shine of her silver eyes made by the fire distracted Weiss for a while. "It's not like I'm interested with what you read," Weiss breathed under her groan. "But I know this book like the back of my hand. It's a shame if you don't have the chance to experience what beautiful tales this book has."
Ruby tilted her head slightly to Weiss' direction. "So you will read the book for me?"
Weiss smiled lightly and flipped it open at the page where Yang left it—marked by the infuriating fold on the corner of the parchment. "I will." She dragged a chair as close as possible next to Ruby and sat down, letting the light of the hearth's flame fall on the brownish surface and inked alphabets.
"…And in a tower, in anguish and in woe, this Palamon and his fellow Arcite…"
And so Weiss recited the tale singing about two dear cousin and brother-in-arms, imprisoned together in the king's tower after their defeat. They were inseparable, until they both fell in love with the king's sister-in-law. They both freed at different time, but at the instance they met again they fought in front of their beloved lady for her love. The king, benevolent and wise he was, separated the fighting cousins and suggested a tournament to decide to whom the lady's heart belonged to.
There was something that made Weiss distracted enough to pause her reading. "I-Is there something?" she stuttered when she realized how blasphemously close their face was.
"You have really nice voice," Ruby hummed gently—if not sweetly for Weiss' ears. Her fingers probed the surface of the parchment and stopped just before she touched Weiss' hand. "I like the way you read. It sounds like you sing every lines in the book."
Weiss did well in fighting her unknown impulse to reach for Ruby's hand and waiting patiently to whatever waiting to be said behind the girl's pout. Turns out it took her double the effort not to lean and kiss—
"I wonder if you were in their shoes, will you fight in the tournament, Weiss?" Ruby asked and followed with a yip. "But wait, a princess isn't supposed to fight in a tournament! But you're a knight too, but uhh…"
Now Weiss wondered if on blank canvas of her blind vision and wild imagination, Ruby drew an image of Weiss fighting for some highborn lady's favor—or maybe for her own. It was a flattering yet flustering imagery, and somehow Weiss wouldn't mind to be a princess who deliberately broke some sweat to win a certain silver-eyed peasant's heart.
Chasing that wild thought before her face competed with the heat of the fireplace, Weiss asked, "Should I continue?"
Ruby nodded with a squeak of adorable noise and huddled closer to Weiss—perhaps to ward off the night's growing cold. The snow-haired former royalty was glad Ruby wasn't able to see how her face rivaled a tomato's colour.
Enduring her own woe, Weiss went on with the story. The two former brother-in-arms facing each other in the tournament. One is armed with the blessing of the war god for his assured victory, the other was armed with the grace of the love goddess for his wish to have the lady as his wife.
Before Weiss could move to the details of the story's climax, she felt some weight slumped into her shoulder. Soft snores coming from beside her was enough to tell her how Ruby had been fast asleep.
With a soft sigh Weiss closed the book and put it aside. She carefully lifted Ruby to her arms and carried her as secure as her body could. Ghosts of her wounds made her strength quickly buckled under the girl's meager weight, but she endured. Just in time for her to laid Ruby on the bed before her arms gave up.
It was unbecoming of her, but Weiss couldn't help adoring how serene Ruby in her sleep. A humble girl with her vision lost and her heart full of thirst for adventure in the great open world. Maybe in her dreamscape, her silver eyes saw her own epic heroic journey, or colourful tournament where knights rammed against each other to woo their sweetheart. Who knows, the knight was with argentine eyes, holding a white rose for the snow-haired princess feigning a look of haughty disinterest.
Weiss grimaced in rue. Now her bed was occupied, she had nowhere to sleep. On the chair, a night of sleep full of soreness was waiting.
Ruby stirred softly in her sleep and opened her eyes softly. "Sorry I fell asleep, Weiss. I swear you're not boring, it's…just…"
Weiss smiled and shook her head. "It's nothing. The night is growing late already. Just sleep."
"You should sleep too." Ruby scooted to make some meager space beside her and patted the bedding.
"R-Ruby, you know I shouldn't sleep on your bed."
"Why not? You've been sleeping in my bed for weeks, so why should I mind?"
Weiss blinked and began connecting the dots. She looked at the bed, then at Ruby, then blinked again. "Wait. T-this is your room?"
"Yep!"
"All this time I've been sleeping in your bed and I didn't even know that!" Weiss gasped. "But where do you sleep all this time then?"
"Well, Yang doesn't mind me crashing to her bed," Ruby shrugged. "What's the matter, Weiss? I'm okay with sharing my bed with you."
"It's just…wrong, Ruby."
"It's more wrong to make you sleep on the chair."
In an instant, Weiss knew she was losing the battle to the pleading look of the blind girl. Defeated, she sat on the side of the bed before hesitantly laid herself beside Ruby. "...Fine. Just don't get too active in your sleep. Your bed isn't exactly for two."
Ruby made some small sweet noise before huddling closer to Weiss under the thin blanket. The girl was fast asleep, but the girl's arm strength was really deceiving and there was no way for Weiss to sneak away without waking her up.
Trapped in a blissful warmth she desperately tried not to enjoy, she was lost in the thoughts she always repressed.
She never got a chance to thank Ruby for saving her. Or actually she got a myriad of chances to do that, just her prideful self held her back. For Princess Weiss, the words of "thank you" was a shame, a testament of her dependency for others, a little gesture that insulted her pride greatly.
Princess Weiss had long been dead, yet she still had no courage to tame the last remains of her royal arrogance to say those two words to Ruby.
Still, even a coward can do something when people were asleep, when she closed her eyes, right?
So she closed her eyes, like a coward she was, and whispered, "Thank you."
Then Weiss fell asleep with hazy reminiscent of warm hug snuggling so close to her.
If