AYangThang: I was told by my family today at lunch that we are going up north to spend some time at the cottage. We leave in the early morning. Internet can be a bit splotchy up there. Anyway, I cannot guarantee any updates while I'm away…but as I always say, family comes first, and this trip is a long time in the making. So, that being said, shorter chapter that I originally wanted to give you this post…but my mind was more focused on laundry and grocery shopping for food to take up there, rather than fan fiction.

Chapter 54

What was it about Atlas that made it seem so solitary? He wasn't really sure what it was that brought him to feel that way. Whenever he was given a moment to himself, he always found himself settling on his heavier thoughts. He didn't have many of them, but they spun around and around, clinging onto his mind.

Sun found himself spending a lot of time off on his own, just exploring the Schnee family grounds. There was a lot to see, but there was even more to think about. He couldn't expect Ruby to be a stay at home mother. He had his pride, and refused to let her be the bread winner…and neither one of them could live in the manor forever, mooching off of their friends.

Blake protested, saying that he wasn't doing anything of the sort, and Weiss insisted that keeping him at the manor suited her just fine. They both flat out told him that this was Ruby's home, and that by extension made it his. It was all very nice, but he struggled with it.

"Look, I appreciate the kind gesture, I just don't like to owe people debts."

Weiss chuckled. "That's just absurd." It was laughable that she would ever need money from Sun. If she were to ever need to ask someone, it would never be someone with such a small amount to his name. "I never once told you there was one to be repaid, did I?"

"No, but there's got to be one. Karma is a bitch like that." Sun replied.

"And you can't see the worth in staying by the house?" Weiss retorted. "Blake values your company, and I value the fact that I don't have to worry about what she gets up to while I'm working."

"Keeping tabs on your wife?" It confused him, honestly. Probably more than it should have. "Don't you trust her?"

"No, I don't keep tabs on her. Don't be foolish." Weiss shot back. "She get's lonely. Depressingly so. Blake lives a hard life here, Sun."

"Doesn't look so hard to me."

"It's harder than you think."

"Uh, how?"

"Everyone is suspicious of her, and she has a very difficult time maintaining friendships new. The maids are weary of her because she's married to me, and I'm their boss. The public struggle to see her as the wife I love…they…put labels on her. She stopped wandering around Atlas on her own, and moped around the house. She didn't want me to feel bad, so at first I had no way of knowing how isolated she felt. Ruby was away, Yang was at the office with me…I had to give Blake a job to do just to put that beautifully complex mind of hers at ease."

"That still feels like you're trying to justify a handout to me, Weiss...she'll be plenty busy once she has three little one to chase after."

Weiss sighed, but nodded, quietly considering what he was saying. It was true, but that didn't invalidate her point any less. Blake would still be lonely without some friends around. "There's nothing wrong with taking it easy, Sun. You've served the people of Atlas for years. Living here, working or not, is something you've earned."

"You don't earn your way in life like that." Sun replied quietly. "I don't want to have it easy…for Zhu's sake, I almost can't live like this."

"That seems like backwards logic to me. I don't follow."

Sun ginned. "I don't think you can…no offense when I say this, but you don't come from the kind of past that I do."

"And you doubt you can explain it to me?" She asked, kicking away a small pile of snow that had fallen into the shoveled and salted path.

"How do I put it into words?" He looked down at the multicolored dust crystals keeping the snow at bay. The tiny twinkling reflections were even more beautiful by moonlight.

Weiss give him an aggravated stare. "One at a time, and unrepentantly, might be a good way to start."

Sun sighed, hands stuffed into his partially zipped jacket. "My dad doesn't speak in human tongue. He can, but refuses to. He said about three or four sentences to Ruby the entire time we were in Vacuo…for him that's a lot…at least for new humans. I'm not the only one in the family who takes human mates, but it take a lot for him to warm up to any human."

"Did he ever speak to Octavia?" Weiss asked.

"Once we were mated, and she was carrying Zhu, he was more willing to say more than a few clipped sentences…they had a special sort of relationship though. Whenever we visited during droughts, she would go down to the lake with us to get water. That's seen as man's work, but Octavia never really believed in gender role. My dad was kind of surprised at first, but he didn't force her to stay behind. That was how I knew he had come to accept her."

"I hate to ask this, but is his…mistrust of humans because of something in his past, or just reluctance?"

"Bit of both, but part of it is he just thinks Faunus belong with Faunus, and humans with humans. We lived on the edge of poverty our whole lives. We never went without food, or a roof over our heads. Problem was, clothes were never new, and Vacuo is a dusty place…boys will be boys and all that…well, sometimes we looked like the dirty flea bitten Faunus humans made us out to be. I had a lot of siblings, and though I don't regret my upbringing, getting into schooling tailored for being a hunter was hard. Earning enough money to make my weapon was something I had to work for."

"Living like this isn't easy either, you know."

"I know, I know…" Sun rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm explaining it badly, but there are just some things I want Zhu to learn to love…and you're not going to find that at a place that serves three course meals at dinner. My family are simple folk. I'd like to think I'm a simple man too, and that's the kind of guy I want Zhu to grow up to be…I want him to only need three things in life. Good people, a strong work ethic, and taking pleasure in not having everything…he gets those three things instilled into him, the rest will come in time."

"Believe it or not, Sun, one of the first lessons you grow to learn with the upbringing I had, is that material possessions are lonely things. Most of them lack even memories to make them meaningful. It's a lonely existence when no one can be trusted. When you are raised to look down your nose at everyone, or anything that might stand in your way, it's a sad thing. The hardest thing to learn, I found, was that opposition doesn't have to be a bad thing. The second hardest, was that control is meaningless as a solitary entity."

"You say, though you hold the SDC in the palm of your hands."

"Which is exactly the problem." Weiss shook her head. "Honestly, it's a much easier life to live when I don't have control…which is why I leave my most important branches of the company to the hands of others. I didn't offer you the liaison position out of kindness. I've told you before, I don't hire worthless people…I hire people worth a damn, and those I can trust."

"High praise, coming from you."

"Truthfulness. Don't let it go to your head." Weiss told him. "If something ever happens to me, I need to make sure the company keeps going where I intended it. You just so happen to suite the two requirements."

Working as a liaison would keep him mobile, moving back and forth from Vacuo and Atlas. Though the idea appealed to him, he hesitated to accept. "Ruby wants to be a huntress, if I'm gone all the time too…I can't do that to Zhu. I can't just take him with me, either. Running back and forth like that, that's not childhood."

"You could simply continue to leave him here with Blake and I during your trips. They will be shorter, scheduled properly, planned out...It's unlike a position as a hunter. They cannot predict their jobs, or when one might come along...you will have much more luxuries in terms of planning, preparedness, and above all safety."

"I'm still thinking about it..."

"If I am to understand this multifaceted predicament, it make be that you're considering the wrong options." Weiss replied slowly mulling it over. "You may want to go live up north, instead."

"…huh?"

Weiss ignored Sun's dumbfounded gawking. "This is a long term solution, of course. I wouldn't advise it until long after Ruby has her new arm, and she is proficient with it. However, to put it bluntly, you don't want to raise Zhu around spoiled children who don't understand the value of a single lien. However, that's what mine will be, it's unavoidable. Living the way we do, they'll be looking at lien differently than you would."

"Doesn't that kind of bother you?" He returned.

"Money is merely a tool. My children will come to understand that. Money and power are only means to an end."

"There might be value in teaching them that kind of thing for you…but I don't see it that way. Money makes the world go round, our lives are defined by it."

"Only if you allow it to do so…that's what Blake taught me." Weiss retorted softly. "It's not a terrible way to live, but if you see fault in that, you definitely shouldn't raise Zhu here. Ruby's not suited to mansion life either, and we all know this. So, by this logic, you have two options. Move back to Vacuo, with your family, or move to the northern mining communities and live among other Faunus…Ruby's always welcomed very warmly up there, I'm sure they'd take her in."

"I'm not sure I that's the best choice either." Sun murmured. "I need…some sort of easy medium…I don't want Zhu to be unused to city life…or think that Faunus have to live in a particular way. I just don't want him to be exposed to those streets all the time either. This is the closest thing Atlas has to a safe countryside, though, and that just sucks."

"If a place of your own is also an issue, take one of the smaller cabins around the Schnee premises then, or….choose some land, build your own."

Sun considered it, there was a patch of forest back behind the house he liked. "You'd let me do that?"

"Will you take the position as a liaison?" Weiss returned.

"Think that's really the right thing to do?"

Weiss didn't say anything at first as they slowly turned back towards the manor. The household was huge, not nearly as cold as Weiss remembered it to be. Still, the lifestyle wasn't for everyone, and she wasn't sure she could recommend that he stay nearby. "I don't think, in your case anyway, that there is a wrong choice. It's just a matter of circumstance. It's strange, Sun…I can buy a lot of things, but I can't buy promises, or futures, or anything that really matters. The only thing I can do, is use tools to empower others…but what you do with those tools are up to you."