Chapter 2: The Family

Weiss Schnee did not come from an affectionate family. Perhaps if her mother had lived and Winter had not left they might have been a close and loving family, still in London, still happy. Thoughts like those would only lead to sorrow, she told herself, almost daily. With so much time to herself, as she preferred, it left little else to think about. She welcomed other thoughts, for instance if her father was planning a party to discuss business and trade, she had to think about what best to wear to the event. Or even her position as heiress to the Schnee Oil Company, how numb she felt while being presented to father's partners like a prized mare guaranteed to win gold in some event or another.

She woke up that particular august morning cold, her toes ice as she rose from her bed and fell into her silk slippers. The growing heat of the day did nothing to break the ever present chill of the Atlas House. Weiss had once read in a random book in the library that the Atlas House had been built by a pair of newlyweds seeking a brand new life as they began one together. The husband spent every penny he had building it, constructing it day after day with only his closest friends by his side until it was finished. It never was though, he had been deterred by his growing family, his wife had more children and his life's work had been forgotten in favor of his love for his family.

The house had been no less a disaster when her father had purchased it from the bank. It had taken a full year for the workers to prepare it for the wealthiest family in London, and by the time Weiss had first laid eyes upon the grand manor, she knew right away that all the warmth and love poured into it by its creator had frozen over and faded away. The walls and décor in every room were a dreadful swath of whites and shades of dull blue.

A knock against her bedroom door sounded softly. "Come in." she said, her voice emotionless and frigid as she stared out her window at nothing.

The ornate double doors opened to allow Weiss' personal maid to enter, a well-built woman with long black hair and a lace bow tied neatly on her head pushed a cart laid out with a display of gourmet foods for the young lady's breakfast. "Would you like me to stay, my lady?" Blake asked, the picture of a polite and obedient servant, ready to follow whatever orders her lady asked of her. Weiss absolutely hated that persona of hers.

"Why must you always insist on acting like you want to please me Blake?" she asked, her eyes remaining trained on a mourning dove, preening its feathers as it rested on the gargoyle outside. Blake said nothing, only looking at her lady in what was a poor farce of confusion.

"You are my lady, it is my duty to do as you ask of me." Her words were calm and monotone, as most of the staff in this house had come to be, but her tone of voice spoke the forbidden question. What did it mean to Weiss if Blake wanted to serve her or otherwise. It was not as if she had a choice in the matter.

Shortly after the uprising, the Faunus lower class faced an epidemic of poverty that nearly destroyed them. Children were forced to take jobs from the upper class who had spit on them so recently, and though they had won their rights, it did not change the fact that an indentured servant is by all means the property of their employer.

They had gone right back to being slaves, and Blake had been one of them.

The domestic cat Faunus had come to the head of the family staff one night, covered in dirt and grime, having the audacity to ask for work. Being too compassionate for his own good, Klein accepted and groomed the spunky child into a disciplined housemaid and attendant to Lady Weiss since her youth. While they kept up the tedious face of master and servant, they had become closer than was considered appropriate. Due to their similar yet entire different upbringings.

Blake from dirt and Weiss from riches, they were both entirely alone in this world, and sought small comforts in each other's company.

It was pathetic really; a Faunus maid with nothing to her name was Weiss's only true friend.

"Do you think these new hands father approved will be anything like their predecessors?" she asked, looking her friend in the eye at last. Her hands were crossed over her apron, a smear of red blemishing the white fabric, most likely from preparing the meal that lay between them.

Blake's bow twitched slightly, revealing her curious undertone. "I believe they will be adequate, but only you can judge, my lady." A rehearsed yet genuine answer. She reached out and lifted the tray of food from the cart, carrying it to Weiss's desk and pulling out her chair for her. "You should eat something my lady, your father wants to speak with you in his study after breakfast."

The thread of warning woven through her statement told Weiss everything she needed to know. She would have to leave the safe confinement of her room for the day and speak with her father about business, most likely with one or more of his partners in the room with them.

She hated it when they were there, always speaking to her as the small and weak woman who was nothing without her husband or father and was therefore beneath them. It restricted her opinions viciously, having her agree with whatever garbage they spewed instead of being permitted to voice her own ideas and views to them. Then again, even if she were to speak her mind, she was only a woman. And what does a woman know?

Nonetheless, Weiss rose from her favorite spot by her window, moving to close the curtains when her eyes caught something coming through the front entrance. It was a horse-drawn cart containing people she had never seen before. They were certainly not friends of her father, for their smiles were too apparent on their faces. One figure in particular drew her gaze to them, from her vantage point they had short blond hair mushed beneath an ugly green cap, and a long simian tail that hung behind their legs.

One of these new servants was a Faunus, and quite openly so.

This already prompted Weiss to worry. Blake had only gotten so far in her life as her maid because she was instructed by Klein to hide her feline ears beneath a bow at all times, even when she slept and quite possibly even when she bathed. Her father would never tolerate a Faunus being in such close quarters with his daughter and heir, or to even work for him at all. He absolutely detested Faunus, much like everyone else in his inner circle. For Klein to hire yet another member of the suspicious community was absolutely ludicrous! What was he thinking?!

Just who did this new servant think he was anyway? Flaunting around his deformity as if it were completely normal, Weiss had no personal qualms with Faunus, but the unspoken social law went as if a Faunus were to serve a human they had to hide their animal traits. No questions asked.

This boy would not last long with such audacity. Her father would make sure of that.

"My lady?"

Blake's voice pulled her eyes away from the new arrivals at her doorstep, prompting her to straighten her gown and take a seat at her desk. "Thank you Blake, you are dismissed." She kept her voice low and clipped, as was expected from a human to a Faunus. Her maid's bow twitched once more as she gave a curtsy and left her lady in her solitude once more.

She did not eat much, noshing on a few sugared berries before abandoning her meal to prepare for her meeting with her father. Jacques Schnee was never known for his patience, especially those he considered his pawns, Weiss included. She adjusted the silver comb in her hair before smoothing out her skirts and exiting her bedroom, strolling through the seemingly endless hallways of ivory and cool blues until she reached the heavily decorated doors of her father's study.

Within those doors, she knew a coiled viper lay waiting for her to open them, there always was, whether it came in the form of a business man too big for his britches or Jacques himself. Whenever she walked into this room, something was asked of her that she would have stepped and spat on if given the choice.

That was just it though, she had no such luxury.

"I believe you must turn the knob to enter, sister."

Weiss's face melted into one of scorn, that ever annoying smirk plastered onto her younger brother's features so similar to her own. Even if he was standing there completely still and silent, Whitley always found ways to get under her skin, taking root and draining her energy like an alabaster-haired tick. "I'm fully aware of the process of opening a door, brother." She snipped, nowhere near in a good enough mood to brush him off like she normally did.

The slim and slightly gangly youngest child of the Schnee family chuckled at his elder sister's disdain. "I've just come to wish you the best of luck with father, I hear he wants to speak with you on matters other than business this time."

Her eyebrow quirked at this revelation. What could father possibly have to talk about other than her usefulness to him? "Pray tell, why do you suddenly care so much about what father and I discuss behind closed doors?"

She hated the way his smirk twitched slightly, and the way his eyes mocked her for not knowing something that he clearly did. It was his favorite game to force upon her, dangling information that could help her withstand Jacques and ripping it away when she so obviously needed it most. He loved torturing her so, as ways to display his resentment for being the only son of the Schnee name and being denied the company he felt he deserved.

Weiss tortured him with this in return. He hated always being one level below her even when one step ahead of her, just as she hated having to grasp at the straws he continuously threw into the wind.

"Perhaps I am just bored, and looking for something more entertaining." He taunted. "I also couldn't help but notice Klein bringing our new maid and stable hand to the servants quarters earlier, how truly plucky for a Faunus to flaunter their disfigurement so boldly, I believe their presence will be quite enjoyable."

Weiss felt a stab of pity for the very same boy she had seen outside, knowing that Whitley planned on manipulating them into doing whatever he wanted by holding their Faunus identity over their heads. Holding flames to the stake they were tied to by his lying and deception, licking and burning until nothing remained. She had seen it before, when his previous personal butler had quit after an incident the other servants did not speak of in fear of angering her father.

"Here I thought your butler prior was enjoyable enough."

Whitley's playful smirk turned down into a distasteful frown for a moment before he simply shrugged his shoulders, seemingly apathetic towards the subject. "He was… unsatisfactory, but I have faith that this new maid full of spunk and spirit will be a much more intriguing toy."

His words did the opposite of put her at ease. Her brother was a boy who was not fond of the female gender, often blaming herself, their wayward older sister Winter, even their deceased mother for his blights. If his new personal hand was a woman, then she was sure to fall from cheerful to miserable by the end of the week.

"Besides, it's not the help you should be worried about sister, earlier today I heard father conversing rather loudly with someone in his study."

"Is that so?" she inwardly rolled her eyes.

"It sounded rather heated, I wouldn't put it past General Ironwood to be so bold as to challenge father."

General James Ironwood of the Queen's military force was a powerful figure in England, as well as her godfather. He and her mother had supposedly been good friends in their school days, their friendship lasting through the years up until her marriage to Weiss's father and the birth of herself and her siblings. When their mother died, Jacques was all too quick to take advantage of the close relationship between his wife and her majesty's trusted general to weasel his way into the queen's close-knit circle.

Despite their constant butting of heads, James Ironwood had remained a part of his godchildren's lives, even if Whitley wanted nothing to do with the general. To know that he was very possibly in her father's office was enough to settle her nerves if only a little.

Her brother turned up is nose and turned to go spread misery elsewhere. "Try not to anger father too much, as you tend to do so frequently." He did not have to look at her to know she was trying to burn a hole in his head with her glare.

Weiss returned her gaze to the handle of the door of her father's study, the glinting silver making her eyes ache as she refused to blink.

She suddenly envied the husband and wife in the records of the house, feeling contempt and jealousy towards their warmth and happiness that had been meant to fill this manor. Instead the walls were washed in ice that numbed her to her very core.

The Atlas House was truly a place of freezing cold woe.


Hello again! I have to say I am getting really into writing this, making theories and twists and all sorts of fun stuff. Please let me know what you guys think in the comments so I can keep writing! Also, did anyone pick up how prickly Whitley got when Weiss mentioned his other butler? Hmmmmm... also let me know what you guys thought of that. I love hearing fan theories and making up my own. Although doing it to my own story is kinda lame and irrelevant huh? XD Anyway, hope you guys are liking it! Ciao for now!