Welcome to the intro page of the new story! This isn't chapter one, nor is it a prologue. Instead, this is the summary of the plot's direction, so you can know if you want to follow it or not.

This is a special case. Our story here will be only fourteen(14) or so chapters long, but it is special for a different reason. I have stolen this idea! Perhaps some of you have read the stories of ReticentNinja ? Specifically, the most recent addition to the one-shot series: A Meadow of White Roses, the chapter titled Broken Wings. That. That's what I'm turning into a full story. Yes, I did ask if I could, and no; it won't be a perfect adaptation. But, what it will be is this: a very unique romance with nothing to get in the way of two people falling in love.

Here's my little twist: Weiss takes the most cynical viewpoint of love, and Ruby has to prove her wrong with her unique brand of romance: Asexual romance. (And for those of you who want to know, yes: Asexuals can have romantic feelings, and sometimes even have sexual events. They are asexual because they don't feel sexual attraction, not because it doesn't feel good to them. Weiss will learn this, as well as some other things about Ruby's orientation in this AU.)

I want to show everyone not just a heart-warming tale, but also open some eyes to the world of attraction. There are five kinds I know of, and each one will be very important going forward. Hope to hear from you soon!

Teaser:

Pressing her pillow around her ears, Weiss tried to block out the shouting from downstairs. She'd tried intervening before, and knew never to make that mistake again. Rising to point out her parent's flaws, making sound arguments against them? Suicide in the household. Her father would yell at her, sometimes threaten to hit her, and more than once had threatened to have her thrown out and abandoned if she didn't shut up. But the more deadly return was always when he yelled back. He'd hit her with her failings, and berate her for everything he could, while she had to remain silent, not daring to cry.

Her father claimed she was able to fix herself, to rewire her brain into a more functional state. He claimed she was just lazy when she couldn't do something or fell short of the impossible standards she set for herself. She'd once told him how lazy his comment was when he'd claimed her depression and Asperger's were simply excuses for her slip ups and that she couldn't use them for everything. Weiss hadn't even mentioned either, while he'd been lecturing her for the two or so hours she'd been standing in her parent's doorway, and when he'd said it, she'd snapped.

Well, Jacques had a tendency to snap back. His voice went from angry to yelling, and he decided to get close. He didn't have to hit her anymore, he just had to get within arms' reach and stare at her. She didn't like being touched, and when someone stood in front of her that close, she felt trapped and had to fight back panic. Of course, while there were walls to her left and right, the hallway behind her was free. That made it worse. She "hadn't been excused yet," and so had to continue standing in the doorway, unable to shift her feet or lean against the door frame. No, she had to stand, straight and tall, and look her father in the eye, rather than at the floor where she liked to gaze.

Trapped, between her father, the emptiness behind her that she wasn't allowed to retreat into, and the edges of a doorway. How she'd wished she could have run. Now, she was trapped again. Yelling downstairs, walls all around, and no comfort from the pillow around her. She simply had to ride out the sound, counting the seconds as she tried to keep her mind occupied. It wasn't easy, with thoughts coming too quickly and lasting to long to keep on track for long, but she'd learned how over the years.

When the voices fell quiet, Weiss crawled into bed, and pulled the long, brown body-pillow close, trying to hold it like someone who cared. It didn't hug back, and Weiss simply had to squeeze the soft object as she tried to sleep, a slight dampness spreading across the fabric as she contemplated what sleep would bring, and then tomorrow. It was the first day of the second trimester, and she didn't have any reason to hope she'd make it to number three before she found a very permanent escape.

She'd stopped herself before, using her pride, willpower, and fear of the unknown to keep herself from taking what her parents both agreed was "the coward's way out", but now... now she wasn't sure it mattered. Someone important had said, when asked what happened when someone died, that people who loved the person while they were alive would miss them. Weiss doubted anyone would miss her. Love wasn't real, anyways.