Author's Note: Content warning for emotional and physical abuse.

[/]

Weiss couldn't believe it had all gone so wrong, so fast.

Beacon was gone.

In one day, one horrible, awful day, Weiss's world had fallen apart. Team RWBY and Team JNPR were shattered, and Weiss didn't see how they could ever be whole again. Ren and Nora had been injured fighting Atlesian Paladins, the very machines that her homeland had built to keep people safe. Yang's arm had been severed by the White Fang leader that had been stalking Blake, the two of them barely escaping.

As long as she lived, Weiss would never forget the haunting wail of loss, regret, and horror that had escaped Yang when she had regained consciousness and realized that the traumatic severing of her arm wasn't some horrible nightmare. That sound must have been reverberating in Blake's mind, the soundtrack to her guilt.

Weiss had gone with Ruby to try and save Pyrrha, answering Jaune's desperate call for help. She had used the last of her Aura to summon the glyphs that sent Ruby to the top of the tower, the awful Grimm dragon stalking the grounds like a walking nightmare. And then… a burst of white. Weiss still didn't know what, exactly, went down at the top of the tower, but Qrow Branwen had returned to the base of the tower with a comatose Ruby in his arms, and a bronze circlet.

Pyrrha Nikos fell in battle.

It… it was still hard to believe it was real. Pyrrha had always been the best of them, near-untouchable in a fight, making it look effortless. She was a goddess of victory, and… she was gone. Weiss felt a yawning pit in her gut open, and the chill across her body had nothing to do with the autumn Vale night.

When they had returned to Yang, she had become hysterical at the sight of her sister laying limply like a broken little bird in their uncle's arms. She screamed, she hyperventilated, and she had swung the truncated stump of her arm wildly until she realized that Blake had left them once more. When the full weight of that realization hit her, Yang just… shut down. The last time Weiss had seen her, Yang was sitting next to her sister's body, staring wide-eyed and unblinking, with only the occasional tremble to show that she hadn't actually died of shock.

Weiss had been preparing to head out into the Grimm-infested zone once more. Jaune was still out there, and with a broken leg from his crashed rocket locker. When she neared the exit of the makeshift infirmary and refugee camp that the surviving students and Hunters had set up in Vale, she was met by a group of SDC security goons.

She harbored no illusions as to the character of many of the men who answered to her father. They were hardened, bloody-handed veterans, who carried out their missions with grim efficiency. Their morals were determined by the highest bidder, and no one bid higher than Jacques Schnee.

"What do you want?" Weiss asked warily.

One of them, their apparent leader, stepped forward, hefting a heavy rifle over one shoulder. "Weiss Schnee." If the man looked surprised to see a teenage girl instead of a boy, he didn't show it. "Your father has ordered us to bring you home to Atlas."

"Grimm are still attacking. As a Huntress, my place is here."

"Your compliance is requested, not required."

"Hey, now." Weiss turned at the sound of a familiar, raspy voice, and saw a visibly weary Qrow Branwen stride to stand next to her. "The Princess here says she doesn't want to go with you, so why don't you buzz off?"

The security thug seemed entirely unfazed by the appearance of an adult, professional Huntsman. "Any interference in the course of SDC operations will be met with lethal force." At this, both the leader and the dozen or so of his fellows behind them levelled their weapons at Qrow, the leader's gun barrels beginning to rotate.

"Whoa, hey now, let's not get too hasty." Qrow quickly put his hands up. "There's still a lot of Grimm out there, and we have wounded here."

"Then I suggest you refrain from interfering."

Weiss knew what the man was really saying. Come with us, or we slaughter everyone and say the Grimm did it. Ordinarily, a group this size would have no chance against this many Huntsmen and Huntresses, but they were fresh, while the cadets were bloodied, weary, drained of Aura, and exhausted. Port and Oobleck were the only two in full fighting condition, and Port was quite elderly for a Huntsman, while Oobleck wasn't a front-line combat specialist.

She didn't want to go. She really, really did not want to go. But she also would not stand to have her vulnerable comrades in arms injured further or killed for her sake.

Weiss turned to Qrow. "Mister Branwen… Sir Qrow… there is a young Huntsman out there, in the city, named Jaune. His leg is broken. You'll know him by him being tall, blonde, and scraggly. He wears a black hooded sweatshirt and a white chestguard. He's the leader of our sister team, a friend of your nieces, and… he's dear to me. If you could find him and bring him to safety, I would be in your debt."

Qrow looked at her for a moment. "Yeah… sure thing, Princess."

"Tell everyone that I'm sorry. I won't have them hurt on my account." Weiss took a deep breath to steady herself, and then stepped forward, allowing the men to take her into custody. The last she saw of Qrow before they rushed her onto an airship was the older Huntsman take a deep, weary sigh before he hefted his greatsword and began to make his way into the city one last time.

[/]

Returning to Atlas, or more specifically, to the Schnee Manor, after living at Beacon for a year was as jarring a shock for Weiss as plunging her hand into a barrel of ice water. The entire building was heavy with an oppressive silence, broken only by the soft clicking of her heels as she strode across the marble floors. It was hard for Weiss to believe that she had really spent her whole life here, and it was only the time spent at Beacon that enabled her to realize what it was that had been missing from this place all that time.

There was no love here. The Schnee Manor had all of the emotional warmth and comfort of a mausoleum. The only one to greet her on her return was Klein, and while she truly was happy to see the butler again, it wasn't the same. This wasn't home. Home was a cramped dorm room with makeshift bunkbeds. Home had a boisterous firebrand, a quiet Faunus girl with a breathtaking knack for getting into trouble, and a zippy little redhead with an enormous scythe and an even bigger heart. Home was right across the hall from a hyperactive orphan, a reserved, refined young man, a champion who just wanted friends, and the sweetest, gentlest, most driven puppy of a man she'd ever met.

Her home was gone, and it was never coming back.

Weiss let out a great, weary sigh as she reached her old room. What she had once considered "spacious" now just seemed… empty. She could have easily fit both RWBY and JNPR's dorm rooms in their entirety in a space meant just for her. Weiss knew that it wasn't from any particular affection or sentimental value that her father placed on her; like everything else about the Schnees, the extravagant excess of space that they could command, even on a floating island, effectively conditioned her since childhood to see such luxury as her baseline entitlement. Where her teammates had had no problem adjusting to dorm life, even solitary Blake, even the spatial arrangement of her daily life prior to Beacon had deliberately instilled her to be above and apart from everyone else.

In retrospect, it was a miracle that Weiss hadn't come to Beacon as even more of an insufferable bitch.

With that pleasant thought in mind, Weiss peeled off the filthy dress and jacket that she'd been wearing since the Fall of Beacon. It was stained with smoke and ash from burning buildings, and the front had a great bloodstain smeared across it from where she had helped apply a tourniquet and bandages to Yang's severed stump. Where she wanted to take a Huntress's shower, the brief, perfunctory ritual of scrubbing the grime from her body, she instead had to deal with a bathtub that was practically a small pool. Where before, she had taken it as her due, the sheer luxury of it all now felt almost grotesque to her. No matter how the expensive soaps scrubbed and exfoliated her skin, she still somehow felt dirty.

It was just so… unnecessary. Her grandfather's exploits had made her family well and truly rich, so why did her father feel that he simply had to squeeze every last lien out of everyone he possibly could? As a minor, her monthly allowance had been enough for a middle-class Vale family, like the Xiao Longs, to live comfortably, even to have something socked away for a rainy day. And those were humans! How much of a difference would that sort of money have made to the many, many Faunus workers whose work made that fortune possible? The SDC could well afford to pay its base workers to live with some dignity, and her family would never feel the difference.

While the SDC wasn't responsible for all of the anti-Faunus bigotry in the world, as the industry leader in the Dust industry… and several industries that utilized Dust in their products… their labor practices effectively set precedent across Remnant. Their influence in the realms of economics, politics, and cultural norms, both in Atlas and around the globe, had dire ramifications for the lives of Faunus everywhere. How much of the White Fang's violence could be explained due to her family's provocations?

How much responsibility did Weiss, herself, hold for the Fall of Beacon?

She stepped out of the bath, her hair and skin clean, but her mood foul. That mood was darkened even further when she saw that her white dress, jacket, and heeled boots had been taken away, probably to be incinerated, and a servant had left a new outfit folded neatly on her bed.

She unfolded blue slacks, a white, button-down shirt, and a blue vest. A pair of silk boxer shorts lay next to them, and a pair of black loafers waited at the foot of her bed. The wardrobe of hand-me-downs that Winter had given to her was gone now, lost in the ruins of Beacon Academy. Winter almost certainly had no more clothes left here, and Weiss rather doubted that she would get the opportunity to enter her mother's chambers to try and find something to wear. She could either dress like a boy or go naked, and somehow going naked struck her as being decidedly impractical.

After quickly dressing, Weiss examined herself in a mirror, one that Winter had given to her long ago.

Ugh.

As her hormone treatments had taken effect, Weiss's relationship with her body had entered a sort of detente state. So long as no one brought up what lay between her legs, she was, in general, satisfied with her appearance. But, she had always taken care to wear what clothes she could that best emphasized her femininity, and these clothes that she was being made to wear now were… not flattering. At all. She recalled what Winter had told her the first time she had put on a dress.

[/]

Then

Winter watched her little… brother? Sister? Her Weiss, she watched her little Weiss carefully as the eleven-year old kid looked at the mirror. Their crystal blue eyes were wide with wonder as they took in the light blue and white child's dressing gown that they had asked Winter to "pretty please" try on.

As Winter looked on, Weiss broke into a wide smile, their little fists clenched happily under their chin before they gave a quick little spin, admiring how the skirt flared out around them. In retrospect, Winter shouldn't have been surprised. Weiss had always chafed at being presented as a boy, Jacques Schnee's little prince. Her little sibling had physically resisted haircuts, trying to grow it long "like Winnie's."

When she had caught Weiss wearing some of her old clothing, Winter had opted to braid Weiss's hair, explaining how to take care of it and style it properly before setting the child in front of a mirror. Most boys would have had some resistance to it, or embarrassment over it, but Weiss took to it like a natural.

"Am I not pretty, Winnie?" Weiss looked to her for approval.

"Yes, yes you are," said Winter carefully. At only sixteen herself, she wasn't entirely sure how best to handle this sort of situation, but it was obvious that Weiss adored her. It would be entirely too easy to hurt them a great deal if she weren't careful.

Weiss reached out and touched their reflection in the mirror. "Winnie, can I… can I be a girl like you?"

She knew that, by the reasoning of Atlas orthodoxy, a cultural philosophy inherited from Mantle and espoused by their father, the answer would most likely have been 'no'. There was an order to things, and the delineation between categories was stark and impermeable. People were people, and animals were animals, which is why their father held the Faunus to be mere beasts. By the same token, men were men and women were women, and if Weiss were to come out as transgender, many in Atlas, too many, would deride her as a mere pervert pretending to be a woman. The was no room for the liminal, the ambiguous, in the ideal Atlesian mindset. The lines simply could not be allowed to blur.

Winter couldn't bring herself to say to Weiss that she couldn't be a girl. There was a fire in Weiss's eyes, one that Winter saw reflected in the mirror every time she resolved to find her own way in the world. She would not, could not, snuff it out. Winter always knew that she loved her younger sibling, but the full extent of just how much threatened to take her breath away, like a hit to the gut.

She knelt in front of Weiss. "Weiss, listen to me. Only you can discern who or what you are, and only you can decide who you are going to become as you grow up. No one else can decide for you, not me, not mother, not even father. There are people out there in the world whose bodies are one sex, but their minds and souls are a different gender. I don't know if that's how you are, but if you truly feel that that is the truth of you, than I can help you. There are therapists that specialize in gender identity, and later down the line, there can even be treatments to make your body more like any other girl's."

Weiss's eyes were huge and guileless, crystalline windows into a pure soul. "Really?"

Winter nodded. "Yes. But I won't lie to you; it will be difficult. Many will not understand. Some will despise you. A few may even attack you. Father will not approve. He will resist, and possibly force you to dress like a boy. It probably won't be until you're a teenager like me that you would be able to strike out on your own."

"Father doesn't love me anyway," Weiss said bitterly, the memory of last year's disastrous birthday still painful to recall. "But Winnie… if I say that I'm a girl… would you still love me?"

Tears streaked down her face as Weiss looked up to Winter, fear and anxiety writ large in her expression. Winter's heart broke, and she pulled Weiss into a tight embrace. "Boy or girl, I will never stop loving you. Never, never, never." She stroked Weiss's hair. "You will always be my precious little snowflake."

"Winnie… " Weiss sounded so small. "I'm your sister. I'm a girl. I've always been a girl."

Winter held her sister, feeling her hot tears seeping into the shoulder of her blouse. "It's all right," she soothed, as she continued to stroke her hair. "It's all right." They stayed that way until all of the tears had run their course. Slowly, Weiss let go of her big sister, and Winter awkwardly rose to her full height. "We will continue to meet in private, little sister. There are a great many things I will need to teach you. I will also talk Father into signing a power of attorney so that I might oversee your treatments. Suggesting you have a behavioral condition will most likely do the trick. But for now, I'm afraid we'll have to get you back into your old clothes."

"Do I have to?" Weiss gave one last twirl of her skirt in front of the mirror.

"I'm truly sorry, but for now, it is for the best. Consider it undercover training for your future as a Huntress."

Weiss pouted as she reluctantly began to pull the dress over her head. Winter just sighed.

"Weiss, just remember that clothes don't make a woman a woman. You are who you are, no matter what you may be forced to wear."

[/]

Now

Weiss felt her resolve strengthen as she remembered her sister's love, support, and wisdom. Of course, she thought ruefully. Winter would look glamorous and feminine in a potato sack, while the unflattering outfit she was stuck with made her look like she had the physique of a board. While she knew that, with her small frame, Xiao Long-class battle breasts would look more comical than anything else, it would be nice to not look entirely flat. Also, while she had always been slender and gamine, the way the shirt hung off of her completely obscured her waist and hips.

Still, just because this was the outfit she was stuck with for now, it didn't mean that she couldn't alter it. Unfortunately, the only alterations she could think of that would work with the material in question were Yang-based. She would cut the slacks down into a pair of short-shorts, truncate the shirt to show how her abdomen curved like any other woman's, and button the vest under the bust to try and emphasize what she did have. Entirely un-Weiss-like, but it would be the best she could do in this situation.

At any rate, she would make sure to at least get some pictures of the results on her Scroll. One way or another, she would speak to her teammates again, and when she told this story to Yang, she knew that the blonde would tease her mercilessly.

And she would love hating every moment of it.

[/]

Qrow Branwen made his way down the dirt road that led to Taiyang's place. He looked like hell, and he knew it. It had been three days since he had brought his nieces home, and he couldn't remember such a harrowing weekend in his life. Ruby still hadn't woken up, and Yang had fallen into a depression much like her father had all those years ago. To his credit, Tai was holding it together, as he was mostly just relieved that his girls were alive and safe, if not well.

For his part, Qrow had been doing his part to keep him up-to-date, but with the CCNet down, communication was disrupted all over the world. It was a grade-a shitshow out there, which is why the absolute last thing he wanted to see was Winter Schnee, of all people, waiting for him on the road.

"What, what do you want?" he asked brusquely. In his time having known the young woman, he had seen beyond the cold mask of indifference she normally displayed to the world to see the emotions underneath, ranging from irritation, exasperation, outright rage… but never before had he seen her look so close to full-on panic.

"Weiss," she began. "They said you know what happened to her."

"Ah. Shit." Qrow winced as he saw the panic really set in. "She should be fine, she was alive when I saw her last," he said quickly. "Some of your old man's goons showed up while we were collecting the wounded, demanded she go with them."

"And you didn't stop them?!" Winter surged towards Qrow, grabbing him roughly by the front of his shirt.

"Hey, first of all, she went willing, or at least as willing as it gets when someone's pointing guns your way." Carefully, he pushed her arms down and off of himself. "Said she didn't want anyone getting hurt 'cause of her, and I don't blame her. We had a lot of hurt kids there, including my two nieces."

She wasn't listening anymore, an expression of pure terror and panic on her face. "He has her. He has her! Qrow, he has my sister!"

Qrow had seen this sort of behavior before, but usually only from parents who had been separated from their children in a Grimm attack. Never in a million years did he think he would see such a thing from Winter Schnee, of all people.

"Okay Winter, deep breaths." He waited as she complied, slowly regaining her composure. "Good. Now, why are you so worried? Your dad's a jerkass, sure, but Weiss is the heiress, right? Why do you think he would hurt her?"

"You didn't know?" Winter looked genuinely surprised. "Qrow… Weiss is transgender. And our father was furious when he saw the Vytal Festival and finally found out. I don't know what he'll do to her, but it won't be good."

Qrow sighed. "Well, sounds like you and Jimmy need to get her back. My girls are still down, but when you get yours free, tell her her partner will be headed to Mistral."

"You seem… very sure of that," said Winter.

"Trust me, I know the kid, ain't no stopping her when she gets her mind to something."

"Very well." Winter looked left, then right, and left again, before surprising Qrow once more by embracing him. "Thank you for telling me," she murmured, letting him go.

"Uh, yeah, sure. I know what it's like." He scratched the back of his head, feeling awkward in a way he hadn't since he was in friggin' Beacon. "Damn brats just grow on you, until one day, you can't imagine them gone."

Winter nodded and turned to leave, before Qrow called out to her. "Hey, Ice… Winter. Your girl is going to be okay. Ruby always said Weiss was super smart, so if anyone can figure out how to stay safe in that place, it'll be her. "

He saw the mask slide onto her face once more, the indomitable face of a woman on a mission. The only emotion he could discern from her expression was an unstoppable, glacial fury that sent shivers up his spine.

"... Thank you, Qrow. I'm sure you are correct. And if not, then prepare for a world without the SDC, as I will raze it to the ground."

[/]

Weiss spun elegantly in the open space, Myrtenaster in hand, as she worked to sync her muscle memory to the emotions that had brought out her Arma Gigas summon during the Battle of Beacon. Well, she had partially succeeded in summoning it. Now she knew that it was possible, and that there wasn't anything wrong with her Semblance, only her mastery of it.

That was a state that Weiss would not allow to stand.

It had been over a week since she had been brought back to Atlas, and none of her family had made an appearance yet. Weiss could scarcely stand the isolation. Sometimes, she found herself instinctively bracing herself to hear a high-pitched call of "Weeeeeisss!" coinciding with an impact as her clingy partner found some new excuse to invade her personal space. One night, Weiss had woken up in a mild panic as she realized that Ruby hadn't finished her Applied Dust report, only to remember that Ruby had been in a coma, Professor Peach was dead, and Beacon itself was gone.

There were no more calm, afternoon tea sessions with Ren and Blake. No more ladies' lunches with Pyrrha, or caffeine-fueled cram sessions with Ruby and Yang.

And then there was Jaune.

Weiss never realized just how central a figure he'd become in her life until he was gone. She constantly caught herself mentally noting this thing or that to bring to his attention, whether it was some aspect of training that she thought he could use, or something as simple as poking fun at the waste of space in the Schnee Manor. Weiss would sometimes stop herself from making a half-turn to the left, where Jaune would usually have been standing next to her. She missed his arm around her shoulder, the feel of his presence next to her, and his snarky little comments that he would mutter just loud enough for her, and only her, to hear.

She missed the feeling of his hand enveloping hers, the soft, gentle touch of his skin on hers. Weiss wanted to feel his lips, his hair, the feel of his hands on her waist as he pulled her in close to him. There was a part of her soul that had grown accustomed to the feelings of warmth and safety that he instilled in her, and it was rebelling against the cold and loneliness that was seeping in from the Schnee manor.

Weiss would see him again, all of them again, even if she had to bulldoze Atlas to do it. And that meant being at the top of her game, moreso than she ever had been before. Her isolation had only been broken by a brief physical examination from a doctor that had come to her room the day before, and that left her with all the time and space she needed to hone her skills to the razor's edge.

Without a knock, her door opened up, and Jacques Schnee entered her room. She spun to a stop facing him, watching as he appraised her in her shorts, truncated shirt, and tightened vest.

"You look like a degenerate whore."

He sneered at her, and left without another word.

Weiss gave her rapier a little twirl. "Well, that went about as expected."

[/]

The next day, she was reading up on reports from Vale when her father returned. Weiss didn't bother looking up.

"Hello, father. Are you ready to be civil today?"

"You will cease this behavior at once."

With a put-upon sigh, Weiss put aside the paper. "So, should I take that as a 'no' then?"

Jacques stood at the doorway tall and imposing, his expression impassive. "Do you have any idea what it is that you've done?"

"Oh, let's see; I passed Beacon's initiation with flying colors, became a part of one of the best teams of our year, if not the whole school, made friends with both my own team and our closest rivals, landed a literal knight in shining armor as my boyfriend, and consistently scored at the top of the class in the most prestigious Huntsman institution in the world. I also pulled a clutch victory for my team at the Vytal Festival, fought the White Fang, fought at the Breach, and fought with honor at the Battle of Beacon." She paused for a moment to dramatically examine her nails. "And I looked amazing while doing all of that."

Jacques' mustache twitched as he visibly fought to control himself. "Young man, you clearly have taken leave of your senses if you think that what you have done has made you anything but a laughingstock. It has made the Schnee name a laughingstock!"

"So now Jacques Schnee cares what people think? I've been out there, in the real Remnant, away from your sycophants and lackeys." Weiss glared at her father. "Father, no one had anything good to say about you. Not a one. Not humans, certainly not Faunus, not the wealthy, not the poor, no one. At best, people endure you, out of economic necessity. But what you've done has done more to drag my family name through the mud than anything I could do in a hundred lifetimes!"

A silence fell heavily through the room. "You will cease this behavior at once," Jacques repeated. "Clearly, I have erred in allowing you the freedom to attend a Huntsman Academy. I underestimated Ozpin's desire to humiliate me personally by influencing my eldest son to mince about like some freak."

"Four years," Weiss said quietly.

"What was that?"

"I've been out and openly living as a girl for four years now. You just never noticed. How does that feel, I wonder, to be so terrible a parent that your daughter has made such a momentous transition in her life, and you only noticed as she took part in literally the most televised event in the world?"

Jacques' gaze narrowed, his eyes cold, predatory shards of stone. "I see." He was barely able to force his jaw to unclench enough for him to force the words out. "You are an even bigger fool than I thought."

"I do love exceeding expectations."

"Shut up and think," he hissed. "This is part of some plot from my enemies, probably that fool Ironwood. He must have promised your sister a position in the military in exchange for ruining my heir! Ironwood is far more cunning than he lets on…"

Weiss stared wide-eyed at her father's raving. His paranoia had clearly taken hold of him, for him to have conjured such a convoluted plot from thin air.

"And how it worked!" spat Jacques. "You've ruined yourself! You've chemically castrated yourself, you idiot freak! No doubt your sister considers this a fine revenge for having to renounce her inheritance!"

She wasn't entirely sure that she was sterile, considering that the doctor's insistent attempts to get her to give him a sperm sample were met with repeated refusals of growing intensity. While the generalities of the effects of hormone replacement therapy were well-known, the specifics varied wildly from person to person. A lowered sperm count was to be expected, but was it enough to render her sterile? Weiss didn't know, and she certainly wasn't about to… emit into a cup to satisfy her father's demand to know for sure. If she even could. She never had before, and wasn't sure that she was even able to. Though she kept it a secret as best as she could, there were times when Jaune was holding her when her arousal made itself known, so she assumed that it was possible, but she wasn't about to volunteer that information to the likes of Jacques Schnee. The way he was acting now, he wouldn't put it past him to try to put her to stud and produce grandchildren, in case Whitley didn't work out.

As for his accusations against her sister's motivations?

No one has the right to make you do anything with your body that you do not want to do.

Only you can discern who or what you are, and only you can decide who you will become as you grow up.

I just want you to be happy and safe, little snowflake.

I will never stop loving you. Never, never, never.

I love you, baby sister. Never doubt that.

Weiss dismissed those accusations without a second thought.

"Have you considered," Weiss began slowly, "that maybe, this isn't about you?"

"What?"

"Not everything that happens in this family, in Atlas even, revolves around you. I came out to Winter. She protected me, taught me, guided me, but I chose to transition because it made me feel happy and complete. Not you, not her, no one else but me. Winter supported me because she loves me. There doesn't have to be an ulterior reason."

She didn't know how Jacques somehow managed to find new and innovative ways to deepen the disgust and contempt with which he regarded her, but somehow, he did. "You stupid, ignorant boy. There is always an ulterior reason. Always. Love is a lie used to sway the sentimental and the foolish into acting against their own interests. And no one could ever bring themselves to truly love a deviant freak like you."

[/]

Then

Winter rushed up the stairs to Weiss's room as soon as Klein had told her what happened. There, she saw her little sister crying at the bathroom sink, bleeding from dozens of small, shallow cuts on her face. She held a naked shaving razor in one hand as she dabbed at the cuts with a wad of bathroom tissue.

"Weiss!"

"I'm sorry!" Weiss sounded miserable. "I was… I had hair growing on my face, and I didn't know how to get it off but shave it off but I don't know how and-and-" She broke into hiccups as her big sister gently took the razor from her hand and peered at her sister's face. Sure enough, there was just a hint of fine, white hair beginning to sprout on Weiss's upper lip, and a few small patches on her cheeks.

"Promise me you'll take me to get the pills, Winnie. I've known I'm a girl for years now, don't… don't let me become all gross and manly."

Winter supposed that she had put it off for long enough. Weiss had never wavered from her steadfast belief that she was, in fact, every bit a girl as she was, and at thirteen, puberty would start kicking in in a big way. Winter had read everything she could find about transgender people and especially transgender children, and while the experiences that trans people reported varied, one constant was the anguish of going through the wrong puberty, the feeling of horror as their own bodies turned against them.

Some critics argued that thirteen was too young for a child to make such a decision, but the sad truth was, many transgender people never made it to adulthood. This incident had been an apparent accident, but when Klein had rushed in to tell her that Weiss had been cutting herself with a razor… Winter couldn't bear the thought of her precious baby sister being driven to hurt herself.

"I promise. I'll take you as soon as I can schedule an appointment. Just… please don't hurt yourself, little sister."

Weiss looked abashed as she took in the bloody mess of the bathroom sink. "I'm sorry, Winnie. I didn't mean to scare you."

Winter pulled began to open up a pack of medical antiseptic wipes. "This is going to sting a little, but it will keep those little cuts from getting infected."

The younger sister endured Winter's ministrations without complaint. "Do you think the pills will make the hair stop growing?"

"Possibly. If not, there are certain ways to permanently remove the hair from your face."

"Good. If I grow a mustache like Father's, I swear, Atlas will burn," Weiss muttered darkly.

The idea of Weiss, this little doll of a girl who had only ever sought to impress her, going on a fiery rampage of havoc and destruction, complete with an oversized mustache, pulled a rare giggle out of Winter. She caught herself, but not before her sister had stared at her in shock and surprise, and before they both knew it, they were laughing together, just two young women giggling like idiots.

[/]

Then

"Tag!"

Weiss blinked as she looked up at an expectant Nora, who stood tapping her foot on the grass.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Come chase me!"

The white-haired girl looked left and right in confusion. It had been a beautiful day at Beacon, so she had opted to wait for Jaune to get out of class outside. Her… boyfriend. It still felt odd to say, or even think. Boyfriend. A friend who was a boy. A friend who was her boy. Booooyfrieeeend.

At any rate, she was far from the only one to enjoy the day, as students could be seen kicking a ball around the grass, unfolding picnic blankets, or just lounging in the sun. Weiss had been quietly reading when Nora came up to her, poked her shoulder, and then demanded that she chase her.

"Nora… why would I chase you?"

"Because that's how you play tag, silly!"

"Play… tag?" Weiss was truly mystified, even more so when Nora got that odd, sad look on her face that she sometimes did whenever they spent time together. Almost like she pitied her, but for something besides her gender. Why else would Nora find reason to pity her?

Nora plopped herself down next to her, all gangly limbs. "You know… one of us touches the other, and that person is It! Then whoever is It chases someone else to make them the new It. Tag!"

"Is that… is that a Huntress exercise?"

"Yes. That is what that is." Nora's tone turned sly. "But it's okay if you're not very good at it. I mean, after all, you never even heard of it before today. It's perfectly understandable that you wouldn't be as good as Ruby at-"

"You're on! I, Weiss Schnee, shall become the Mistress of Tag!" Weiss stood, posing dramatically with one hand on her hip and the other pointing towards the sky. Nora loved when Weiss got silly, but she couldn't always tell if she knew that she was being silly or not. That just made it better, and Weiss was able to be silly a lot more since she and Jaune-Jaune had become A Thing.

Nora then found out that her glyphs made Weiss very, very good at Tag.

Weiss had just about declared her supremacy over Nora when she heard a high-pitched call of "Weeeeeeisss!" Sure enough, a streaking cloud of red rose petals coalesced into her partner, who practically had hearts in her eyes. "You're playing Tag!"

"I'll have you know that I am the Mistress of Tag!"

Ruby gasped. "But that can't be, for I am the Mistress of Tag!"

Weiss narrowed her eyes into glacial shards. "Then we needs must battle to the death, Ruby Rose, for there can be only one!"

Ruby reached out and poked her on the nose. "Boop. You're It!"

The two of them zipped along at tremendous speed, their Semblances empowering them to play the most high-velocity game of Tag in memory. Eventually, Nora jumped back in, making up for her lack of speed with her effectiveness as an ambush predator, the fearsome Norasaurus Rex. She and Ruby wrestled Weiss to the grass, where she looked up to see her bemused friends.

"Jaune!" Weiss cried out. "Save me from these cretins!"

Jaune played along, puffing his chest out and using his best dorky hero voice. "Never fear, fair princess, I'll save you!" With that, he tackled Ruby off of his girlfriend, putting his "sister wrangling" skills to good use.

Weiss sat down to catch her breath as she watched the rolling ball of wrestling dolts go by.

"There goes a brave and stupid man," Yang commented as she and Pyrrha joined her.

"He's my brave and stupid man," Weiss said fondly, but then she winced as she realized that Pyrrha was there with her. "I'm sorry, I-"

Pyrrha waved her off. "Eh. It still stings a bit, but that's life, you know? But… I was wrong about you two. I was worried you wouldn't be good for him, but he's been doing so well lately. I'm just glad to see him so happy. And I know he's been good for you, too."

"Hey, P-Money, there's always more fish in the sea. If it's a blonde you want-"

"Yang, no offense, but you couldn't deal with all this." Pyrrha interrupted, gesturing with her hand to her body, just as she arched her back ever so slightly, lifting her bust. Yang's eyes practically bulged, and her jaw dropped.

"Wait, what?"

"Sorry, Yang. Even if you could handle me- and you so couldn't, by the way - I'm afraid I just don't feel that way about other girls. Sorry."

Yang's mouth worked as she tried to stammer out denials, denials which came to an abrupt end as Pyrrha stretched her arms over her head. Yang made a sound which was almost words.

"Bye, ladies!" Pyrrha walked off to join Ren in the shade of a tree as Yang slowly got her breathing under control.

"Weiss?"

"Yes, Yang?"

"I think I like girls."

"Yeah, that's… not really a surprise, Yang."

Yang stalked off, muttering something about "stupid sexy straight girls in armor," as Jaune jogged up to Weiss. "Hey Weiss," he said as he sat next to her on the grass. "What was that about?"

Weiss hesitated, then pulled his arm over her shoulder, leaning against him when she saw he offered no complaint. Jaune had decided that Nice Weiss was a great Weiss to be dating. She noticed that he smelled like fresh-cut grass. "You smell nice," she murmured. "Anyways, Yang's teasing finally backfired on her. As it turns out, Pyrrha can out-tease her when she sets her mind to it."

Jaune smiled down at her. "I'm glad you two are getting along. Speaking of which, thank you for playing Tag with Nora. You really made her day."

Weiss smiled softly as she looked around. Ruby and Nora were playing some game with their hands in the grass. Pyrrha and Ren were sitting quietly together in the shade. Yang was animatedly griping to Blake, who was ignoring her magnificently. And she was here with Jaune, warm, safe, and happy. She was part of a group of people who loved her, who valued her for her own sake, and not for what her name and riches could do for them. Weiss couldn't imagine a better afternoon.

"She made mine too."

[/]

Now

"And no one could ever bring themselves to truly love a deviant freak like you."

"You're wrong." Weiss didn't shout, didn't scream, she just denied her father in a calm, measured voice. "There are people out there who truly love me, and who I love in return. I've felt it. I've known it. They knew all about me, and they didn't just love me anyway, they didn't see it as a flaw to overcome. It doesn't matter what you say about me. I deserve to be loved and respected, and I deserve to be with the people who will treat me that way. That is why I wish to leave. I will be of legal age in Atlas in a few weeks anyway."

Jacques stared impassively at her for a long moment. "There are only two ways forward for you now."

"I'm listening."

"The first choice open to you is that you stay here. You will cease indulging this insane delusion that you are somehow a girl, and submit yourself to treatment that will attempt to salvage what can be saved of your…" He struggled to find the right word. "Form. In the interim, Whitley will be the heir until or unless you can prove yourself, to my satisfaction, that you are a good and dutiful son."

"We can file that under 'Never going to happen.' What is the second option?"

"The second choice that I am granting to you is that you persist in your delusions, but you will not do so under my roof and using my name. You will renounce the Schnee name and make your way in the world under a new identity."

Weiss knew that she could technically do it; she even had the Snow White alias and accounts set up, but what she would not and could not do was surrender her name and her family legacy.

"Over my dead body."

"That can be arranged!" Jacques' nostrils flared as he lost the battle to keep his composure. "Do you think you would be the first deviant to hang from the side of Atlas?!"

Weiss felt her own temper well within her. "The Schnee name is mine to uphold! You have no right to demand I surrender it! I am a Schnee, and you are a pretender!"

Jacques slammed his fist into her mirror, the mirror that Winter had given her years ago. He grabbed a broken shard of glass and clenched it tightly in his fist, ignoring the blood welling from his hand. He set upon his daughter.

For just a moment, Weiss was once more a frightened little girl, hiding from her father's rages. She gasped as he roughly tore the tiara from her hair, pulling and ripping.

"Stop it, you're hurting me!"

Her father sawed through her ponytail with the sharp glass shard, severing her hair from her head. When Weiss saw him bring the glass towards her face, the adrenaline and her training overcame the natural aversion that she had towards striking her own father, even now. No more was she the frightened little girl, hiding from her father's rages. She would never be that again. Now, she was a Huntress.

Her small fist thundered into his solar plexus, driving the man back and forcing his hands to open from the impact. Jacques looked up in pure shock and fear as Weiss stared at her hair drifting through the air. She focused on the crumpled, ruined tiara, which lay on the floor with so much blood-tinged white hair covering it, like a layer of falling snow.

[/]

Then

"Remember to keep to your training. You cannot afford to be anything less than the absolute best."

"Yes, Winter."

Weiss looked to her sister, the older woman clad in the uniform of the famed Atlas Specialists. Winter's talents had taken her so far, and at such a young age, and yet she still took all the time she could to mentor Weiss. The younger sister would be applying for Beacon Academy in a few months, where her talents would be further honed by dedicated professionals, and where, hopefully, she could blossom fully into adulthood away from their father's control.

Winter felt the very tip of her lip twitch upwards. "I have a present for you, sister."

Weiss curtsied, the very picture of ladylike decorum. "I wish very much to see it. A present that meets your exacting standards must be magnificent indeed."

The older woman held out a small box to her sister. Inside was a jeweled tiara.

"Winter… this was mother's." Weiss picked out the tiara to admire it with reverent awe.

"Yes, which means that now it is mine to give to whomever I wish. I could imagine no one who would wear it with such elegance." Winter indulged her wish to smile at her sister. "Do let your hair down so I can put it on for you."

She struggle to keep from gasping as her sister's long, silky white hair fell and fell and fell, nearly reaching the floor before it had reached its full length. "Maidens, Weiss, I think it long enough to get the point across, no?"

"Well," Weiss brushed a lock of hair nervously with her fingers. "I like it long."

"Good luck keeping it clean in the field."

"I had the best possible teacher to show me how."

Winter could merely sigh as she began to work the tiara into her sister's hair. A rare playful mood struck her and she deliberately styled Weiss's ponytail to the left, giving her a youthful, irreverent touch. "There," she said, stepping back to let her sister admire herself in the mirror.

"Pretty as a princess."

[/]

Now

Weiss stared at the ruins of her tiara, her mirror, her hair. Something inside of her shattered just like the mirror, bursting into a thousand, thousand pieces. She heard screaming, and it took her a moment to realize that it was her. A glyph formed on the floor, and soon, the full, icy spectre of her Arma Gigas stood between her and the man that had once called himself her father. The summon rested the point of its massive sword on against the floor.

"Leave me alone!"

Weiss practically roared at Jacques, a scream of pain, betrayal, and sheer outrage. Jacques turned and fled. Weiss didn't know how long she stayed there, staring at what Jacques had torn from her, but eventually, she heard a man calling to her. She finally looked up to see that Klein had braved the Arma Gigas, and was rocking her in his arms, the way he had when she was young.

"Klein," she wailed into his shoulder.

"It's all right, young mistress. Everything is going to be all right."

She sniffled, then looked to the butler that had helped raise her. "Klein, I need to leave."

"It isn't safe for me here."

[/]

Chapter Endnote:

If you are transgender and in need of assistance, whether it is educational information, legal aid, or suicide prevention, call Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 (United States) or 877-330-6366 (Canada).

Maker's breath, this chapter was hard to research. As bad as the treatment described here was, people in our own world have subjected their own trans kids to much, much worse. Beatings. Electroshock torture. "Corrective" rape. Outright murder. The most common is simple abandonment, which is why a disproportionate amount of homeless children and teenagers are non-gender conforming. Many of these homeless trans youths are forced to turn to crime and/or sex work to survive, further increasing their exposure to violence and STI's.

I need a drink.

The incident with the razor is a true story, by the way.

Not sure how people will feel about the flashback structure of this chapter. I thought it would be artistically satisfying to contrast Jacques' abuse with the love and support of Weiss's true family, especially Winter. I deliberately toned down Winter's physical admonishment of her sister and turned up the emotional connection, to reflect that, due to Weiss's circumstances, Winter knows that her sister is in for some harsh times, and will need all the love she can get.

I'm sorry it took so long for this chapter to come out. I had some job and relocation issues to sort out, and this is just a hobby for me. Also, I put out a one-shot about Jaune calling out his father and learning how to fight like an Arc last month; it was my first attempt at writing action. Metrics say that not a lot of people read it, so check it out on my author page if you feel like. It's titled "The Knight's Code".

See you all in the next chapter!

-Mahina