Author's Note
I was asked about a timeline, and while I don't have a definitive timeline with dates and exact amounts of time between events, a rough timeline would look something like this for the chapters and Crimson Snow: 2, 8, 3, 1, 5, 7, 6, CS, 4. That means that this chapter is prior to Ruby and Weiss becoming closer friends, let alone a romantic relationship.
I've watched the RWBY panels at RTX, and since this chapter has dragged on for so long, episode 1 as well. I also glanced at some spoilers for episode 2. From what I've learned of the canon, as well as the time I've spent on the tumblr ask blogs . I've been thinking about the characterizations again.
WARNING POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW FOR REST OF A/N
Ruby's outer persona seems close enough. Her being pretty childish and energetic seems to be mostly universal in the fandom barring a few exceptions, though in the case of my Ruby that's partially a mask for her tragic past and angst and all that. Dunno if a tragic past is gonna happen in canon, from the looks of it, that's probably gonna be just Blake if at all. It sounds like Ruby's parents are alive in canon, and that Yang was adopted as Ruby said "my parents taught us". Oh well, still dead in this fic.
The ask blog Weiss' tend to be a lot nicer and more innocent all the time, whereas mine starts out a lot frostier but becoming nicer over time. I think the canon Weiss sounds rather different compared to both portrayals, more of a sassy/bitchy rich girl thing which I was hoping wouldn't happen. She and Ruby did not have a good first meeting in the second episode. If they're on a team though, I'd expect that to improve with time, and Kara, Weiss's voice actress describes her as generally nice if a bit bitchy sometimes. My Weiss starts more frosty than bitchy, hiding her niceness, but mellows out with time. I kinda hope canon Weiss isn't too prissy.
Learned some stuff regarding backstory and plot. Not a big issue for my stories as I tend to ignore all that stuff anyway to focus on Ruby and Weiss's relationship. It seems that Weiss is the heir to a big company that deals in mining and selling dust though, so she is wealthy, but not royalty. So the princess term is just a nickname I guess and not to be taken literally.
Canonically, Ruby is 15, and the others are 17. Ignoring this piece of canon. Ruby and Weiss are closer in age for the purposes of this fic, and Yang and Blake are a little bit older than them. Maybe just bump down Weiss's age to match Ruby's. This fic takes place over a number of years though, so they're not always 15/17. This particular chapter is probably around those ages though.
Title: Hidden Sides and Fresh Starts
Characters: Ruby and Weiss. (Plus a bunch of unimportant orphans)
Genre: Friendship.
Summary: On her day off Ruby decides to take a walk into the town. To her surprise though, she happens to find her new teammate Weiss doing something rather out of character.
It was a nice day out. The sun was shining and just a few wispy clouds drifted lazily in the sky. Perfectly enough, it was the weekend too, and Ruby had nothing important to do. Thus, she was taking this opportunity to explore the town, finally able to spend some time outside the walls of the academy.
While not as large as some of the big cities, the town was still quite a bit bigger than what Ruby was used to. She had simply been wandering through the streets trying to familiarize herself with the layout of the buildings as well as finding out what kind of stores were available. Now though, it seemed that she found herself in a more urban area.
Seeing a park at the end of the block across the street, Ruby walked towards it. It was a decently large area, taking up an area at least a few regular town blocks across on its own. It seemed to have both small forested areas as well as some small hills. A little piece of nature nestled amongst the housing areas in the surrounding blocks. Spotting a small playground along the edge of the park, Ruby headed in
Seating herself on a wooden bench to the side, Ruby let out a small sigh, she had been walking for quite a while. Her eyes glided over the nearby playground which was mostly empty. The only people there was a man leaving the area with a boy who was presumably his son.
Leaning back she closed her eyes, relaxing in the shade of the nearby trees out of the heat of the sun. The ambient sounds of the park filled her ears. The leaves rustled softly in the breeze, and the chirps of birds in the distance drifted through the air. Ruby sat there for a few moments enjoying the peacefulness of the surroundings as a break from her walk through town.
A few minutes later however, Ruby heard an indistinct noise somewhere nearby. Hearing it come again she cocked her head to the side and strained her ear. It sounded vaguely like crying. Knowing that there was nobody else in the area, her conscience refused to allow her to ignore somebody in distress. With a sigh Ruby opened her eyes and stood up form the bench.
Following the intermittent sounds of crying Ruby walked through the park. As she neared the source of the sounds, the crying became more distinct, even as it began to subside somewhat. The voice sounded rather young, a child. Passing through a patch of trees, she finally glimpsed the form of a small crying boy at the base of a rocky outcropping.
He was seated with his back against a stone formation, his knees pulled to his chest and an arm held up to his eyes. The boy didn't appear to much older than perhaps six or seven. He had short messy brown hair, a t-shirt and shorts with sandals; he didn't look any different than any other little boy. His sobbing had slowed somewhat as he hicupped occasionally amidst a series of sniffles.
Walking up to him, Ruby called out. "Hey kid, are you okay? What're you crying about?"
Startled, the boy's body jolted in shock as he pulled his arm away from his eyes to get a look at who was speaking to him. "I'm... I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," he managed to get out between sniffles.
Crouching down in front of him, Ruby put on a smile and tried her best to appear friendly and nonthreatening. "Well, I'm often told I'm a little strange, but I like to think I'm not a bad person," she joked in an attempt to allay his concerns. "Right now I think the bigger concern is why you're out here all alone crying. Are you lost? Where are your parents?"
Still sniffling he rubbed at his eyes with one of his hands. "I don't have any parents. I'm an orphan."
Ruby's eyes widened momentarily."Oh... I'm so sorry," she whispered sympathetically. "You know what? I'm actually an orphan too. My name is Ruby," she said introducing herself.
"I'm..." hesitating for a moment he tried to decide whether or not he could trust her. Licking his lips, he continued, "I'm Russet."(1)
"Russet," Ruby said testing out the sound of the name. "That's a nice name. Now Russet, why exactly are you out here crying all alone?"
"I wanted to play at the park, so when nobody was looking I went outside," Russet began his explanation. "When I finished playing, I wanted to explore. But now I'm lost, and can't find my way home to the orphanage."
Making a quick decision, Ruby held out her hand towards Russet. "Well, how about I help you find your way back okay? I can't just leave you here all by yourself."
Eventually, Russet ended up grabbing the offered hand, and Ruby helped the boy to his feet. After describing the orphanage and giving an approximate street, Ruby remarked that it wasn't far and the two set off. After finding their way out of the park in short order, the two walked along the streets chatting. Ruby's own childish personality and her descriptions and stories of fighting with Crescent Rose brought forth many words such as 'awesome' and 'cool' from the both of them, and quickly endeared Russet towards her.
Finding the orphanage was no easy task. Ruby was still familiarizing herself with the town herself, and Russet was too young, and hadn't spent much time outside to memorize the streets. Eventually though the two managed to find their way to the place they were looking for.
The moment the two stepped inside the building, Russet darted away from Ruby's side through the halls into one of the rooms where voices could be heard. Chuckling, Ruby followed after him at a more sedate pace.
Not long after Russet ducked into the doorway, a surprisingly familiar voice came drifting out. "Russet! There you are! I was so worried. The matron went out to look for you, where have you been?"
Curious as to just who the familiar voice belonged to, Ruby quietly slipped into the room. Seeing the scene before her, Ruby's brow shot up in surprise, but she chose to remain quiet as she did not seem to have been noticed yet. The room was rather large, and she could see a number of other children spread around in various areas entertaining themselves. The important thing though that caught her attention was who she saw a few feet away from the doorway. It was her teammate, Weiss.
She had met Weiss not long after arriving in town. Their initial meeting was, to put it lightly, bad. Ruby in a fit of clumsiness had knocked over Weiss's luggage, containing dust, a rather valuable substance. Weiss had gotten rather angry at her and even after Ruby apologized, she went off on a tirade that was not entirely proportional to Ruby's mistake.
Soon after, the two found out that they would be attending the same school. Furthermore, they had eventually been assigned to the same team. In the time since then, Weiss had eventually apologized for over reacting. However, Weiss still retained a rather frosty attitude towards Ruby, though to be fair it seemed that she was like that to everyone. She had somewhat of a reputation of being an ice queen, not actively antagonistic towards anyone, but hardly warm or friendly.
All that though, was rather different to the contrasting sight before her. Weiss was kneeling down by Russet and seemed to be fussing over him. A constant stream of questions came from her, reiterating her previous statements such as where he had been, if he knew how worried everyone such as her had been, and if he was okay. All the while she seemed to be patting down the dirt on his clothes, cleaning the smudges on his cheeks and straightening his hair like some kind of mother hen.
Noticing all the commotion, some of the other children seemed to be coming this way as well. While most of them seemed normal enough, Ruby noted that a few seemed rather curiously dressed. Several had towels or blankets tied around their necks like capes. One kid even seemed to have a small bucket on his head. Each of these children and a few others were holding sticks or rods among other things, brandishing them like weapons. Most of these oddly equipped children seemed to be boys, though there were a couple girls.
Eventually, seemingly satisfied by Russet's condition, Weiss leaned back a moment to inspect him, before quickly bring herself towards him again in a hug. "I'm glad to see that you're back safe and sound."
Seeing Weiss act like this brought a smirk to Ruby's face. This was a side of her that she had never seen before, and that she doubted anybody at the academy has seen. It seemed that despite her cold demeanour to everybody else, she had some warmth in her, and perhaps a soft spot for children.
Pulling back with a kind smile on her face, Weiss stood up from her crouching position. As she raised her head from looking down at Russet, her eye caught on Ruby in the doorway. The expression on her face froze as her eyes widened slightly, her body stiffening. Noticing the odd reaction in Weiss, Russet glanced up at her face before turning in the direction she was looking. Seeing Ruby he was startled slightly, as if he had forgotten about her until just then.
"Ah! This is Ruby," Russet said introducing her. Turning back to the other girl he explained, "Big sister Weiss, Ruby's the one that helped me find my way back." Once more turning, this time back to Ruby, Russet continued speaking, "Ruby, this is our big sister(2) Weiss! She's the bestest!"
"Oh?" Ruby asked with a bemused smile. "The bestest is she? Well, Weiss and I actually already know each other. We go to the same school." At this, Russet turned to Weiss with an enquiring gaze, but she was still frozen in place. After a moment he seemingly took her silence and lack of a rebuttal as a confirmation of Ruby's words.
Seeing that their 'big sister' apparently knew this new girl, the children relaxed a little. Ruby cocked her head at the bucket-headed child with a cape holding a crude wooden sword. "So, what's going on here anyway?"
Brandishing his sword the boy answered rather loudly, "We're a group of huntsmen and huntresses on a quest!" Several other boys and one girl standing by his side also raised their weapons at his proclamation. "We're battling to save the princess from the evil villains who kidnapped her." At this, the rest of the children participating in the game formed in a group surrounding Weiss, trying their best to appear menacing.
Ruby's eyes glinted as she smirked deviously. "So you're all fighting over the princess. Would this princess happen to be Weiss?"
"Yup! She's the nicest, prettiest princess in all the land," confirmed one of the girls who was wearing a large floppy hat and holding a stick of some sort as a wand.
Before Ruby could open her mouth to say anything else, Weiss finally seemed to snap back to attention.
"Ah, excuse us children. I need to...talk...with Ruby here for a moment."
A few sounds of disappointment came from the children, particularly those involved in the game. Weiss assured them though that she would be right back and to continue playing nicely without her which silenced them easily enough. Marching towards Ruby she grabbed her sleeve and continued out the door, dragging the other girl with her.
Weiss practically stomped through the hall as she dragged Ruby by the arm behind her. Ruby just smiled bemusedly as she followed along. Practically shoving Ruby ahead into an empty room Weiss turned around and shut the door firmly. Turning around she glared at the other girl.
"What are you doing here?" Weiss asked straight to the point.
"Weren't you listening to Russet? I found him lost in the park and brought him back," Ruby answered easily. She narrowed her eyes a bit playfully, "I think the real question is, what are you doing here?"
"W-what?" Weiss seemed to be taken aback for a moment at having her questioning turned back on her. "I just volunteer here sometimes, that's all!" she managed to stammer out.
"Only sometimes?" Ruby teased. "The kids sure seem to like you well enough 'big sis'. I'm rather surprised, playing around with orphans doesn't seem like something you would do, princess.(3)"
Weiss's face seemed to flush red with either anger or embarrassment, Ruby couldn't quite tell which. "Do not call me that in public. Better yet, do not call me that at all," the red cheeked girl hissed out.
"Why not?" Ruby pouted. "Do you not want the people are school knowing how nice you actually are? You don't seem to talk much with people normally."
Weiss's eyes flashed. "Are you...blackmailing me?" she asked somewhat unsurely as well as incredulously.
The accusation seemed to surprise the darker haired girl. "Blackmail? Blackmail is such an ugly word," Ruby commented. "No, I wasn't trying to blackmail or threaten you. I just thought you looked kinda cute(4) with all those children. Seems a shame nobody else seems to know this side of you."
"C-cute?" Weiss stammered, surprised for a moment at Ruby's choice of wording. Composing herself she continued. "All the same, I'd prefer if you kept quiet about this," she stated firmly.
Neither found anything else to say after that. Weiss was still blocking the closed doorway, and Ruby made no move to try and exit. An awkward silence slowly settled into the room. Although the two were on the same team, they were not really friends. They weren't enemies either, but they rarely talked much outside of what they had to.
Ruby was the first to break the silence. "You know, I don't think we really got off on the right foot." Weiss just stared back at her silently, raising an eyebrow. "If we're going to be on the same team, we should get along better. How about we start over from the beginning?" Ruby held out her hand sideways in front of her. "Hi, my name is Ruby Rose, let's be friends!" she said with a smile.
Weiss stared for a moment at the offered hand. Eventually, after a few seconds in which Ruby's grin did not wain in the slightest, she chose to grab it with one of her own and shook Ruby's hand. "Weiss Schnee. Nice to meet you," she offered in return.
"Great!" Ruby cheered. "I'm sure the kids are tired of waiting by now. We should get back to them." Still holding Weiss's hand she dragged her out the door.
1: Supposedly every name in this world has to be related to a colour. Russet is a shade of brown.
2: No relation at all. The kids all just look up to her.
3: I have decided that this will be the origin of her nickname. The others just picked it up from Ruby.
4: Ruby isn't actually implying anything romantic. She's just wording it poorly.
Author's Note
Man, I've been dragging writing this chapter out for like three weeks, but here it is finally. Not sure if I want to start on the next chapter of this or continue working on the one-shot. Next chapter of this I'm thinking is some fluff, and then maybe some sad stuff in the chapter after.
Since the series premiered, I've had three consecutive days of record breaking views. Perhaps the release of this chapter will push for a fourth day, but I'm kinda releasing it a little late in the day so maybe not. A bunch of new RWBY fics are popping up as well. As of the original posting of this chapter, this fic has: 1633 views, 10 favs, 14 alerts, and 14 reviews.
