February 21st
3792 Rosewood Street
City Of Vale
Vale
4:36 PM

"I'm so glad you stopped by, Chrissy," Penelope said as she embraced her sister tightly. "Ooo...and I was watching the news earlier and I saw that you and Ozpin came public with your relationship a few days ago."

Cristal frowned. "I told you I had something I was excited to tell you."

"I kind of figured out that that was what it was," Penelope said, rubbing her neck. "Sorry."

Cristal shook her head. "Don't be, it's not your fault how fascinated by my life the media is."

Penelope perked up. "Mother's out on a hunting mission for the next few days - she left yesterday - and I was thinking that meant we could spend some time together without her harping about how you're a bad influence on me."

"How am I a bad influence on you?" Cristal asked her, raising an eyebrow. "I don't think that I've ever done anything that's particularly -"

"The night before she left, she told me that while we'll be going to the ball in Atlas in the winter that she thinks that you're a bad influence and that your relationships and startling charisma should indicate that," Penelope sighed. "She cited WIllow's wedding when you ran out and vomited as an instance of 'lack of self control'."

Cristal groaned. "That was an anxiety attack, and she should know that!"

"That's what I said," Penelope shrugged. "I guess she doesn't really understand you because she doesn't like the fact that you've changed since she took off with me."

"What I don't understand," Cristal said darkly. "Is how she and daddy aren't divorced."

Penelope gave her a funny look. "Really? I always thought it was obvious. Maintaining appearances and such."

"How is being an estranged spouse much different or looks much better than actually being divorced?" Cristal countered. "The two of them fought nastily before she left, and I think he'd begun to wonder if she'd had an affair because you have no physical resemblance to him. You're tan, you have curly red hair, you have brown eyes. Daddy, Willow, and I are pale as sheets, have blue or, in my case, grey eyes like mommy, and we all have silvery white hair."

Penelope sighed. "I'm actually glad that I don't have to do the thing you all have to do with the whole 'heavy sunblock or avoid the sunlight at all costs'. It sounds terrible.'

"It's not that bad," Cristal said, rolling her eyes. "I've never particularly liked bright days anyways. I like the clouds, and I really like rain."

"Yeah, well I think I'd probably be miserable if it wasn't sunny," Penelope smiled. "Probably a good thing I don't live in Atlas anymore."

"There are a lot of reasons that it's good you don't live in Atlas anymore," Cristal said, laughing. "I know that includes things like dealing with the family there - and that, regrettably, includes Jacques."

Penelope scoffed. "Jacques isn't family, he married into it. At least I'm a maternal half sibling slash technically an adopted Schnee. Oh, and I've decided it's probably for the best to not do some grand shaming of Soliel for what he did with having me since it would mean shaming mother too."

"You're afraid of her?" Cristal asked, and Penelope nodded. "Figures, she's not exactly a cozy woman. I think she genuinely cares about us, but at the same time she's cold and leans towards being intimidating to the point of fear."

"And it was years ago," Penelope said rationally, breathing a heavy sigh. "I might try and talk to him by myself, but I'm not going to make my relationship with my very much estranged father even worse. Especially since I'm sure it's just going to make you look bad."

Cristal smiled. "You really do care about me, don't you?"

"I'm just trying to make things easier," Penelope said, looping her arm around her sister's. "Considering that things aren't exactly known for being easy in our family."

"I'm just glad that when I told you that there was something exciting I wanted to tell you that you didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that I'm pregnant," Cristal said, smirking. "Which I'm not."

"I think you'd be a great mother if you were," Penelope said, smiling as they continued to walk. "I mean, you're already an excellent leader and I don't doubt that you'd figure out quickly how to be a good mother."

Cristal laughed. "Oz and I have only been dating for a month, don't go getting any ideas."

"You two really haven't even had sex?" Penelope shook her head. "That's not what I expected."

Cristal rolled her eyes. "Penny, we're trying to have something that's genuinely romantic and until I know that he loves me like I do him then we're not doing anything. And this is a really strange thing to be talking about with your sister."

Penelope shrugged. "I've had weirder conversations with our mother. I remember when we came to Vale and I was sent to public school for the first time that she sat me down and told me every single nasty, dirty word she could think and what they mean so that I wouldn't appear to be sheltered or uneducated."

Cristal rolled her eyes. "That sounds exactly like her."

"Mother doesn't hate you," Penelope told her. "I know she doesn't. She might get annoyed with you, but at the end of the day I'm almost certain that you're her favourite child."

Cristal stared at her. "I don't think that's true."

Penelope sighed. "You're Nicholas favourite."

"I suppose," Cristal said, though she knew that it was true. "Although that's not why I'm going to be taking over the SDC."

"Of course it isn't," Penelope said with a smile. "It's because you can handle it and because everyone knows that you're going to be an excellent leader for the company."

"I'm glad to hear that you have confidence in me," Cristal said, biting her lip. "I'm not always quite sure that I am."

"Why?" Penelope asked her gently, and she sighed.

"I suppose it has something to do with my anxiety," She finally said. "I get so wound up that end up making myself sick and then things are far worse than they actually are."

Penelope hesitated before responding. "You still have to deal with that? I thought it stopped after that whole thing at the wedding."

"I pretended that it had," Cristal said darkly. "In the end, that only made it worse."

"Things will be better when you don't have to worry about Jacques," Penelope assured her. "I know they will, because he's really the only person out there who is a real thorn in your side."

Cristal considered that. "The less I have to deal with him, the better. Thankfully I don't see him very often, because his work rarely directly involves me and I've given him a slap on the wrist for various things he's tried to do more than once."

"Well, he's a jackass," Penelope said stubbornly. "And if someone is going to put him in his place, it should be you."

"Well," Cristal said, her smirk slowly returning. "I do that well."

"Of course you do!" Penelope declared, grinning. "Because you're Cristal Annabelle Schnee, one of the most powerful women in the world."

"Exactly," Cristal said, winking. "And he never quite knows what hits him when it comes to me."

"This is part of why I'm glad to be able to spend time with you again," Penelope said, clutching her sister's arm tighter. "I missed this. All of the joking and the semi light heartedness. Mother doesn't allow me those things, she wants me to be serious all of the time."

"I wish she hadn't left," Cristal admitted quietly. "I know that things between her and daddy would have only gotten worse, but I've wondered about what it would have been like if she had stayed and there's a part of me that wishes I knew what it might have become."

"They probably would have gotten divorced," Penelope said shrewdly. "Mother is actually contemplating going to Atlas specifically for that purpose."

Cristal stared at her in horror. "She wouldn't, not with daddy's health in the state that it is. I know he's on some sort of upswing, but Dr. Quinn said that heavy amounts of stress would be detrimental to that. I don't even have to ask to know that his estranged wife suddenly showing up because she wants to sign divorce papers would be excessive stress."

"Yeah, and the media would be a fucking mess," Penelope said, shaking her head. "Mother doesn't necessarily think that all of her actions have consequences, and she's still convinced that the world views her as almost royalty because of who she is."

"A huntress that had an affair with one of the generals in the Atlesian Military and then years later took off with her love child to a semi nondescript part of Vale only to return a few years later to sign divorce papers," Cristal rolled her eyes. "No one really cares who she is anymore, and she hasn't been brought up by the media in years."

"Then she probably wants attention," Penelope shrugged. "Maybe that's why she wants to go to the ball."

"She wants to go to the ball to rub it in daddy's face that she couldn't give half a damn about him," Cristal said, sounding vaguely bitter. "She's likely only starting to care because she's figured out that he's dying and everyone knows that he's a billionaire."

"That might explain it too," Penelope sighed. "I don't know what to think of her sometimes. I know that she usually means well and cares about her kids, but don't you think that it's possible that this might be going too far?"

"Let me guess," Cristal said, noticing the dark tone in her sister's voice. "You want to publicly defame mommy at the ball because of what she's done. Taking off without another word and coming back after years likely over lien?"

Penelope only smirked with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Oh, well, you never know..."