At the gardens in Vale, the breeze blew a little warmer and sweeter. Frangipanis and Sweet Peas bloomed and followed the sun. Old huntsmen played chess in the gazebos. Children ran and laughed in the fields. Fish leapt from the ponds, and birds harried them for food. A cat perched in a bush and stalked the fall leaves as they tumbled.

An old soldier pushed a wheelchair along the path, until Winter said, "Stop here, Hikari."

The chair halted. Life continued without them.

Hikari said, "Weiss is just ahead. On the other side of the bushes."

"I know," Winter nodded.

Hikari walked around the chair and confronted her. "We fly out in five hours. Don't waste time hesitating. She loves you, and she misses you, and you need to talk to her."

"I don't want her to see me like this."

"This is how you are, Winter. At least for the next few months. Spinal bruising is no joke."

"I'm going to get up."

"What?"

"Just get ready to catch me."

"Winter- what?"

She stood, and Hikari braced to catch her. Winter straightened her posture and hid her pain. She took two authoritative steps.

Hikari looked like she'd seen a miracle. Then she shrugged. "Something, something, Aura?"

"Yes," Winter strained.

"Doctor probably wouldn't like it."

"I won't do it long."

"Go on," Hikari waved. "I'll wait here."

Winter found her sister in the gazebo. Weiss had been mid sip of her coffee. She set the cup down quickly and blurted "Winter! You came!"

Her sister's eyes held all the eager excitement of a child.

Winter snapped back, "I invited you here."

Weiss' enthusiasm faltered. Winter realized, pained, that she'd broken it.

"It's just," Weiss hesitated, "that you cancelled last time."

Winter had forgotten that. She didn't have an excuse- not a declassified one. She sat across from Weiss at the table, and noted a wire and microphone in the bush beside her. It was a blatant reminder from Ironwood.

"So…" Weiss tried, "What have you done in Vale so far?"

Two soldiers patrolled in the distance. Both were looking their way.

Winter said, "Classified," and wished her back would hurt more than her heart.

"But you have some time to do things with me, now, right? Or you wouldn't be here. I have tickets to a play tomorrow. It's a dramatization of the myth of Athena. I'm going to invite Pyrrha Nikos, so we can all sit together in the VIP booths. It's important to be seen with other famous people."

Winter thought a lot of things, and said none of them.

"I'm boarding a flight to Atlas in five hours," she admitted.

And again, Weiss dimmed. Her smile fell to disbelief, then frustration, passed anger, touched despair, and tightened as a disappointed frown.

She asked, "You're leaving?"

Her tone meant, "Again? So soon? Do I even matter to you?"

Six years of neglect were catching up with Winter. She'd wasted her time, and the lives of her adopted family. And she'd wasted the treasure that was Weiss, discarding her at every opportunity- to commit herself to Ironwood.

She looked at the bush again. If Weiss was clever, she'd follow, and see that no one on Remnant was at liberty to speak.

She told the lie Ironwood had prepared. "Yes. I was merely needed to oversee the transport of additional Paladins to Vale. Our last shipment was lost to an ambush."

And there she found a topic to rekindle Weiss' excitement. She looked back to her sister, curling and tossing a mischievous smile.

"I believe you had a run-in with its cargo, actually."

Weiss smiled. "You heard about that?"

"I did."

Weiss sat straighter. She looked away, as if waiting for a kiss on the cheek, or for a swarm of adoring fans to lavish praise on her. "And what, exactly, did you hear, my dear sister?"

Winter felt a deep joy, seeing her own flaws in Weiss. Nothing could tame the Schnee ego.

She answered, "It's fortunate that Paladin was an unarmored prototype. Otherwise, your team might not have fared so well."

Weiss grumbled, "We still would have won."

Winter didn't want to argue. She wanted to spend time with her sister as family. She didn't want to think about the apple charm on Weiss' neck.

Weiss reached for her coffee.

Winter reached across the table and placed a hand over hers.

Last time they'd touched, Winter had slapped Weiss across the forehead. And before that, six years ago, they'd exchanged half a hug. Even through her glove, Winter felt a tingle of love.

Weiss felt it, too. Her eyes softened at the affection, at the touch and understanding its meaning. She looked at Winter and smiled with relief.

Winter said, "Weiss… You've done… You've done well out here. You should be proud. And your team should be proud. Those Paladins defeated every specialist they trained against."

Pain gripped her. She didn't let it show. Forcing through it, she said, "You have a good team, Weiss. Stay close to them."

She hesitated. She didn't want to cross the lines.

She said, "Stay close to Ruby Rose. And to Blake Belladonna. Your team is your family. And, in the end, family is all that we have."

Tears welled up in Weiss' eyes. She stood from her chair, shuffled around the table, and wept in Winter's embrace.

When Winter returned to her wheelchair, Hikari didn't comment on the red in her eyes. She turned the chair around, to return to Eidolon. Qrow Branwen stepped through a bush to intercept them. He had a bouquet of chrysanthemums, to honor Atlas' fallen. He approached slowly, and stopped just close enough to kneel before her.

Kneeling was slow. He grunted in pain. Visible under his collar was the cast he'd been let out of the hospital with.

Winter snapped, "One sideways word and I will get out of this chair."

Qrow chuckled, then winced, then handed her the flowers.

She accepted them with a quiet, "Thank you."

Qrow nodded. His features sharpened, and he asked, "You got her? They don't have a body."

Winter hissed, "They don't have cliffs."

They talked about old times.

Hikari watched children run through the park. Her mind drifted from their conversation. She wasn't there anymore. She was in Furburg, after the battle, watching Third battalion roll down main street. They were a klick up the ruins, just close enough for her to hear on the wind, "What the fuck happened here? These people don't have weapons."

Nearby, Cherry and Orchid were making bad jokes with a corpse. White was laughing. She found Gelb sitting against a wall with his rifle in his mouth. She rearranged the corpse and emptied his magazine and receiver- to make it all look nobler.

Walking out of that altered scene, she found an old woman, the same lion-faunus who'd read her fortune and told her to climb the North Mountain.

Hikari was only forty, then. And this woman was a hundred. Despair made her look ancient. She lay on the ground and groaned. Her voice was too frail to weep, and her legs could not carry her burdens. Hikari didn't know what to say. Sorry just didn't cut it.

The old woman's eyes focused on Hikari, and she groaned, "You. You are cursed. Everyone around you will die. It was too late for me when you entered my tent. Woe to those you love."

She coughed blood and lay still and silent.

Hikari was on an engineless train, curled up against White for warmth. She would close her eyes and float on adrenaline in twenty minute naps. The unique chatter of a BCS would wake her. Bullets would tear through the windows and ricochet around the cabin. She'd rise and return fire into fields of blood and snow.

She was in Chernobyl. Agent Soleil pulled her aside.

"You. Name."

"Hikari Oni."

"Have you read Crusade?"

"No, Agent. Not yet. I'm not here for the politics."

"You have no idea, then."

She didn't answer.

Soleil nodded. "Probably for the best. Men who see the future try to avoid it."

"I'm not a man, Agent."

"I know. Now take these explosives and destroy the food."

She was standing in a Spartan office atop Atlas Leadership Academy. General Ironwood looked out the window, murmuring a vague mission description.

She heard, "The world is changing, Agent. And the Retinue has to change, too. If you accept this mission, you'll be working under a Specialist. I've already selected one. Her name is Winter. Now I know this sounds-"

"I'm in."

She was at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Vale. She knew damn well who she was burying. Beside her, Ironwood held a bouquet of Chrysanthemums.

He was giving her murmured condolences.

"They say that on Peak Thirty-Three, you find out what keeps you warm- you realize how precious it is."

It was gone now.

She was sitting on a plane. Winter stared at her from across the aisle, hair down, top button undone, eyes still red.

Two seats ahead, team BLCK laughed and threw popcorn. They'd been eliminated from the tournament early. The businessman beside Hikari flicked open his scroll. Today's headlines: "Threat Level 2. Crisis averted."

Winter asked, "How do you do it, Hikari?"

Hikari turned back to her. "Do what?"

Hikari had never seen Winter so hopeless.

The Specialist murmured, "When I think I can't do it anymore, that I'm going to shatter and scream at the world, I think of you. I can't give up; not if I'm going to lead you."

"You would have been a fine CEO for SDC, Winter."

Winter tightened her emotions and closed up again.

Hikari asked, "Why'd you give it up? Why'd you enlist?"

Winter steeled. She'd found her strength.

She said, "She was fourteen, Hikari. What makes a fourteen-year old throw herself into that city and commit to humanity? I don't know. But I have no right to let Apple's struggle end without legacy."

Hikari smirked. "Good answer."

Takeoff. They levelled over the ocean. The pilot told them that Atlas' Third Expeditionary Fleet was out the window to their left. It was a bright glare on the horizon. Hikari reached across the businessman and slammed the window shut.

She'd drawn Winter's attention again.

Hikari reached into her breast pocket and showed her the cameo.

Winter frowned at it. "When did you get that?"

"Yesterday morning. Qrow traded this for the glass slipper."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"We were cooperating with Beacon on the investigation. All the paperwork was above board."

Hikari held it out, to return it.

Winter said, "Keep it."

Hikari slid it onto her necklace, beside four dog tags.

If they looked out the window to the right, they could see a pod of whales breaching majestically, or something. There were meals, but everything tasted bland.

Hours later, Winter repeated, "So how do you do it, Hikari?"

"Do what?"

"On Peak Thirty-Three: What kept you warm?"

She was standing at a prefab structure, five-hundred meters short of the summit. She hadn't been expecting a structure. The people inside hadn't expected a visitor.

After they warmed her up, the soldiers asked, "What's your name?"

"Hikari. Hikari Oni."

The soldiers looked at each other. Their expressions were strange. They looked back to her.

"No shit?"

She didn't answer. Another soldier asked, "Do you know what this place is?"

She shrugged. "The North Mountain?"

They squinted.

Someone asked, "Civilians don't come up here. What are you doing on Mount Blue Balls?"

"I'm looking for Winter."

They laughed. "Well you fucking found it."

She was sitting on the plane, across the aisle from Winter.

Winter asked, "So how do you do it, Hikari?"

She said, "I have everyone I need."

Winter smiled. She looked exactly as she did in the cameo. Then she swallowed her expression and returned to her hyperborean neutrality. At the same time, Hikari turned away and tightened her mouth. She'd crossed too many boundaries, and was close to jeopardizing something good. The silence that followed was too awkward.

She said, "Professor Oobleck sent you a video. The video Weiss wanted to see."

Winter didn't answer.

Hikari pressed, "The video Apple took in Mountain Glenn."

"I remember."

"You should send it to her."

Winter flicked open her scroll and did. Then she queued it for herself. Her finger hesitated, and she looked to Hikari.

Hikari nodded.

Winter hit play.