Chapter 17
(Weiss POV)

Deliberations between kingdoms continue after lunch. Blake and I are dismissed from the discussion. The next items on the agenda include a renewal of trade agreements between Menagerie and Vale, and an agreement from Atlas to build new cargo ships to sail the rough waters. Blake is nothing but jovial, we're both happy to escape another handful of hours listening to the drone of trade talks.

We walk the gardens, nearness a luxury provided to us when Yang keeps watch from a respectful distance. Blake is a willing escort, smiling gently as she amuses my curiosity with one of her prized weapons. It is a small butterfly knife.

"That is only a trinket." She says, though she allows me to handle the blade anyway, watching me with care. "It is little more than a way to pass the time during the long hours upon the road. I wouldn't advise you to toy with it, though."

"I'm surprised you would." I says, causing Blake to grin as she holds out her hand. I relinquish the blade. Watching her take a few steps back, she begins twiddling the knife, loosening it into the air before catching it once more, the soft clicking and clacking is as memorizing as the scene itself, but eventually her display is done. She pockets the knife before steeping to my side again, her arm lifted in offering. "You should ask your sister to see her skill with the drawn blade. It's quite impressive."

"She would never practice the art of combat in front of me." I say, having asked several times, only for Winter to reject the idea. "It's dangerous, she tell me. That by observation, I might become drawn to it."

"Fair." Blake says with a small laugh. "You might. I would have likely been raised in my father's image, but my mother's blade captivated me in a way that little else could. Training for battle is one way for parents to bond to their offspring after all. I was so sure I could hold a blade in kindness, above duty, like she could."

"You were unable to?" I could feel the way Blake tensed.

"I become a different person in battle, like so many do." I tell her. "I believe that may be why the queen refuses to train in front of you. It would mean allowing you to see her skill. After you witnessed that, it would be hard not to want that gift for yourself. However, I can tell you that she is right. With the wrong mindset, no good will come of that."

In the small hour we have before dinner, we play a game of cards. Our fingers sneaking brief touches every time we collect the cards to shuffle the deck once more. Winter sits beside us, lamenting the very fact that she's the one keeping watch. Glynda is out, visiting relatives. Yang would, but she has been called away. She has too many other duties while in the Kingdom of Vale.

"Must you do that?" Winter sighs at length when she sees our lingering touches taking longer than they need to.

I can't help but think that I do. As though Blake will vaporize like a puff of smoke in front of me, an illusion. "Were you never so forward with Yang?" I ask, because I often wonder.

"I was, of course, but the circumstances were different. Being out on the march, certain things are almost expected, and there are very few cures for ailments of the mind." Winter says, gathering her cards and studding them. "Blake could tell you, if you stopped playing footsie under the table long enough to maintain a conversation."

"Our shoes merely glanced each other." Blake retorts. "I'd hardly call that playing footsie…"

"No, you wouldn't I suppose." Winter muttered. "I expect your idea of that is much closer to my wife's."

"Maybe, although I thought the vernacular for that was knocking boots."

"Cad…"

"Puritan." Blake shrugs slightly, she put her cards down, watching Winter with a keen eye. I have no idea what has her so transfixed. "I'll admit that you're right about the situation being different. I've been around the block before a few times, same as Yang. With so little personal comforts amidst war, you know just as well as I do. Stability doesn't come cheaply."

"Dignity is a small price to pay, isn't it?"

"I'd continue to pay it tenfold in order to silence my nightmares." Blake tells her. "I have a feeling you would too, which is why I can't understand why you disallow me even simple pleasures."

"Weiss is granting you the pleasure of her company." Winter says, her eyes cutting to me. "That should be enough."

"It isn't." Blake replies and in this she picks up her wine goblet, glaring daggers into the red wine. "Sullied as you were on the sands of Vacuo, Yang gave you a redemption that you neither asked for, or deserved. I saw the atrocities, same as you. Powerless as we were, you received Yang's comfort. Aside from amusing myself with the emptiness of concubines, I went to my bed alone."

"We could have died in those sands. There were nights I feared I would not return to Atlas alive." Winter says softly, her words sharp, perhaps serpent-like. "I make no excuses for it, or the result. Weiss has never once been blooded, and has never experienced what we have seen. Of course I would be more lax on atlesian tradition if she had even a fraction of the experience I do. She is still pure, no lives taken by her hand, and no lovers to have shattered her heart. There are no terrors to haunt her when she sleeps. None like ours. Of course I aim to protect her, because this world is far too cruel."

This is the first time I've truly heard Winter speak frankly of the Vacuo conflict. She brings it up in passing, but never like this. It makes me ponder about it. I wonder what she's seen. What was it that she bore witness to? What was she forced to overcome?

"That, at least, I can understand." Blake relents tipping back the wine goblet slowly, as if savoring the taste. "Allow me to educate you on something that I think you've vastly misinterpreted. Faunus, even those that are by no means celibate, do not sample the suitors they attempt to formally mate. We do like our physical affection, of course, but we have strict and stringent guidelines about what can and can't happen before the day of the mating."

"Perhaps, but, I am not a Faunus." Winter tells her. "Neither is my sister, and I demand you respect that."

"I am, at my core a Faunus, and I have my pride." Blake begins. "So, if you'll start to relax a few of your atlesian customs when it comes to the princess, I'll stop taking every opportunity I get to harass you with my sensibilities. It seems a fair trade."

"I make no promises." Winter merely sighs.

In a few day's time, Winter will return to Atlas. The chieftain and his wife will return to Menagerie. Yang and I will be joining Blake on her travels. I am nervous and excited, but restless all the same. Just as a sit down to pen more replies for proposal letters, Yang pulls me from my room. She begins insisting that I join her in the stables, nearly dragging me there.

I look up to the beast at Yang's side, a carrot resting on her outstretched hand. I have never seen a horse so large, but then, Atlas has no need to breed robust creatures to plow fields. The horse is incredibly gentle as he takes his treat, crunching on it merrily. Yang moves onto the next stall, and I follow her as she provides the next occupant his treat as well.

"Are these the horses we will be riding?" I ask. "I doubt I could sit astride him, or control him. He is nothing like the horses of my homeland."

"No, these are the messenger horses. Letter carriers use them to travel far and wide." Yang tells me, her open palm resting on the snout of the large creature in front of her. Then, she moves on yet again. "I've requested oxen for our journey."

"Won't we be taking any horses at all?" I ask, watching as Yang shakes her head.

"No need." She says, another horse gifted a carrot before the bucket is empty. "The wagon will carry all of us, oxen are the better choice."

"It moves slowly, doesn't it?" I wonder, only to see Yang nod again. "Will we be able to make it to the inns among the villages at a reasonable pace?"

"Weiss, there are no inns out on the open road." Yang tells me, lilac eyes narrowing as she rinses out the bucket and places it to the side. "We'll be eating and sleeping out in the wilds. When night falls, we'll set up camp. When it's time to move, we'll pack away our things and travel once more."

"What about food and water?" I find myself frowning. "What will we do when we grow cold and hungry?"

"Would you relax? You're not going to starve. This isn't like the northern territory. There's food everywhere, and it's pretty hard to get cold around a roaring camp fire." Yang says, scratching the back of her head as she rolls her eyes. She hands me a shovel. Dung clings to the metal.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I ask, crinkling my nose at the smell.

"Even Winter knows how to care for horses, Weiss." Yang just shakes her head, a disappointed look on her features. "She didn't get where she is by sitting on her throne looking pretty. She got there by busting her ass. She knows what it takes to run a kingdom. She knows the jobs of her people. She's experienced the hard work that they do just to make the kingdom run smoothly. It's time you start learning these things too, and you can start by mucking the stalls."

"I find it doubtful that Winter would allow this." I say, opening one of the stalls, guiding the chestnut colored mare over to Yang to be brushed. "She's never let me help the stable masters before."

"This is different. If you want to rule a kingdom, you need to understand the ways of the world." Yang says to me. "You've been eager to learn, haven't you? Now is your chance to experience Vale's customs firsthand."

"Winter would say that this is beneath me."

Yang barks out a laugh. "It is, as far as the people of Atlas are concerned. It isn't the same in Vale."

I made a soft sound of understanding as I enter the first stall. Excrement and bedding wait there to be removed and changed.

"Here in Vale you have to earn your saddle." Yang tells me, rolling in a large wheelbarrow for me to use. "You can ride horses whenever you want in Atlas. All you need to do is ask, and someone preps one for you. It's not like that in Vale. Here, you're not allowed to ride unless you've proven you can take care of a horse yourself. Even the king and queen care for their own animals."

"Don't they have better things to be doing?" I ask. "Vale's court proceedings are even more detailed than Atlas's own."

"It's not like you're wrong, but the king and queen make the time." Yang says, heading back out to care for the chestnut mare waiting for her. "Following the teachings of the maidens, we are nothing without the flora and fauna in this world. Vale takes those passages literally. Hunting for sport is illegal here. We can only hunt for the sake of utilizing the animal for food or supplies. Really devout families only eat vegan because they see treating animals cruelly as an unforgiveable sin."

"You aren't vegan by far. You aren't even vegetarian." I say over the sounds of the metal shovel scraping against the floor.

"Yeah, well I'm not super devout to the maidens, either." Yang shoots back, her voice quieting a bit as she busies herself with something out of my line of sight. "The maidens have a lot of teachings, Weiss. It's just that most of them are useless after the things I've seen. Mankind truly are the worst kind of monsters to walk this planet, it's hard to stay true to the teachings after you realize that."

When we return from the stables the hour is late, but there is no time for sleep. Instead I am rushed through a bath and hurried into Winter's room. In preparation for the long road ahead, I'm being fitted for my own set of armor. I've been stripped naked, measured from head to toe in every conceivable way possible. I can't count the times I've had this happen in my life.

Being royalty, one grows accustom to being used as a glorified dress-up doll. The finest silks and most elaborate gowns require accurate measurements. I was raised to understand this, complying with the immodest practice of standing nude in front of dressmakers and seamstresses. I've never been fond of this necessity, complying only because I've been ordered to. Then again, it would be slovenly to wear ill-fitting clothes.

Being fitted for armor is a uniquely different experience altogether. There is even less being left to seamstress's imagination as she measures areas around my maidenhood to ensure a proper fit. A requirement, I've been told, if I wish my monthly bleeding rags to fold neatly within any sort of pants.

I can only roll my eyes the measuring tape falls across my bust and I'm told to take a deep breath once again. The seamstress taking down another record as another woman beside her toys with my elbow, checking its flexibility. That is new. An experience I've never had before. She has already played with my toes, feet, ankles, and knees. Just as I grow tired of the woman twiddling around with my fingers and wrist she takes a step back and nods slightly.

"Her flexibility is adequate, your highness." She says to my sister who stands waiting off to the side.

"Enough to be presented with our traditional attire?" Winter queries.

"That'll be too heavy." Yang cuts in, standing beside me just as naked as I am. She's much more relaxed about the process, having needed her armor refitted constantly over the years. "No chainmail, no breastplates, and nothing that'll weigh her down."

"We can't all protect ourselves with scraps of cotton and a prayer, Yang." Winter shoots back. She looks over my body, sighing at my weak musculature. "I fear even standard grieves would be too cumbersome. Weiss, you should not be going on this adventure. You're hardly built to take it."

"Yet, I shall endure, as always." I tell her, scowling when my neck is manipulated without even a warning. "Is this really normal?"

"Yes." Winter and Yang say at the same time. An echo of truth. My eyes cannot help but gawk at the position Yang takes atop a nearby stool, her legs outstretched in a wide arc. "What in the heck do you think you're doing?!" I ask as my hand falls over my eyes at the crude display. "This isn't a peepshow!"

"I'm a boxer, Weiss." Yang says, not paying any mind to the woman taking measurements. "My clothes have to be able to move with me, unless I want to rip the crotch."

I nearly jump out of my own skin as Winter places a hand on my shoulder. "Relax, dear sister. This is the normal way to go about being fitted."

"Yeah, just with a lot less people." Yang states, ducking down into another obscure pose as her legs are measured once more. "You think this is bad? My first armor fitting was when I was ten. I was put in a room with all of the female recruits naked, and I didn't have a girl in the family to help me. Most of us didn't. We just had our dads. Then, I started growing boobs and had to be refitted again six months later. It was a real pain in the ass."

"How barbaric…"

"Father was there for my first fitting, too. I was fourteen, and it was as mortifying as you'd think it would be." Winter tells me, offering me a robe to slide over my body. I've never been more thankful for a piece of silk in my entire life. "Weiss, you must understand, this is the way of the warfront. There is little time for modesty when preparing to go out onto the open road. Yang and I have grown used to this, and so will you."

"I'd rather not, thank you."

"Yet you will, if you wish to accomplish anything. You won't have the luxury to fret over every little detail. I fear that the life you wish to lead will be nothing like you're accustomed too."

It must be standard practice, but even so, I cannot help but feel my ire bubbling in the pit of my stomach. "Am I finished here?" I ask, wishing to forget this moment as soon as possible.

"For now." Winter tells me as Yang completes her own measurements.

"Then I am going to bed. Goodnight dear sister, goodnight Yang." I say, nodding to her and then to her wife. "Pleasant dreams."