Chapter 16


Just beyond the silver gleam of the palace entrance ways, staged comfortably within the warm, ground floor, lighting of the main lobby (where Mr. S had, earlier in the day, greeted the VIPs) sat - there behind the expansive, lacquered table top which served as a reception desk - a very bored looking receptionist: one who seemed, suddenly, to become very much less bored as, down the final curve of the lobby stairwell, Mr. S arrived.

Now, normal circumstances upholding, Farbe wouldn't have considered this visit to be anything of note, but… well, had you seen the news lately?

Springing excitedly up from her slouched repose, Farbe clutched her hands over her desk and paused just a moment to consider her reflection on the transparent glass of her desktop monitor, she elicited in herself an expression of fake genuine cheer at the visit.

And, immediately, she felt the brave smile she'd adopted lose some of its enthusiasm as, following just behind Mr. Schnee, Weiss came into view.

Of course, on any other day, the appearance of the heiress wouldn't have posed the slightest issue, (in fact, it would have been a welcome surprise) but… well, had you seen the news lately?

The rest of the floor was similarly discreet, having little that could be termed decoration save for the small, no-running signs plastered throughout the interior and the occasional focus points of orange-white light that dotted throughout the room

Most of these focus points were congregated in a warped circle that had as its center the large, cylindrical shaft of glass which ran up through the center axis of the lobby, and around which the fluorescent din of light seemed to wrap itself like a brilliant shawl.

"Good morning Mr. Schnee, lady Weiss," Farbe greeted, affording a nod to the approaching pair, turning her attention to them just as they passed by the glass pillar and entered into what she had unofficially termed to be 'her half' of the lobby.

"Likewise," Weiss replied with practiced politeness, her sentiment not inconsiderably diminished by the distasteful glare she fixed steadily at the back of her father's head.

"It's morning already?" Mr. S muttered, looking despairingly up at the wall clock posted behind the reception desk.

Farbe returned her attention back to the desktop, several deft, peremptory motions bringing up her workware, when, up in the high, distant arch of her vision, a spectacular gleam of light drew her interest.

As had developed into a quiet habit over the course of several particularly unstimulating night shifts, Farbe kept an intense, sidelong, glance trained discreetly on the object even as her fingers expertly rattled blindly across the keyboard.

High up in the glass pillar meanwhile, Farbe saw that familiar disk of chrome descend briskly into view, down through the inside center of the glass pillar, which wrapped closely around it like an invisible skin.

The rest of the hovering structure was quite unlike the disk, which, by itself, made up the whole portion of solid metal on the object.

Instead, the object, now clearly revealed to be an occupied elevator car, was composed mostly of a cylindrical cap of glass that sat quite unobtrusively atop the gleaming disk.

What remained quite obtrusive and quite apparent, however, were the car's occupants.

Inside were three girls wearing striking dresses. And, one of them, Farbe recognized by the nervous, panicked sounds she elicited from her: it was that faunus girl! - Blake, she recalled her name being.

Blake was faced away from Farbe's half of the lobby, scanning the floor space below with a ready and catlike skance that betrayed her agitation.

Even from where she sat, Farbe could sense the palpable tension that had built up in the car and was now projecting down onto her as if held aloft in a makeshift chandelier.

Blake's anxiety soon melted when she turned and caught sight of the heiress, replaced, instead, by what Farbe recognized to be relief.

The momentary calm soon died, however, as Blakes cooling eyes drifted forward and caught sight of the man Weiss was following.

A medley of emotions played across her silent face, and an indignant spark and scowling expression as she opened her mouth in a soundless call to the departing audience below, eliciting a startled reaction from the two girls who stood beside her.

A growing confusion prompted her to repeat her words before awareness dawned and she moved her eyes further forward, planting them on Farbe, a demanding look casting shadows on her eyes.

Farbe looked quickly away, hissing nervously through her teeth.

Blake, with an uncharacteristically impatient breath, stood stiff and ready on her spot, tapping her foot soundlessly on the metal disk as she seethed in her confinement; restraint failed her, however, and she was soon face up to the invisible wall, banging her first soundlessly, if energetically, at the soundproof glass that worked to separate her from the unobserved world.

Now, as the purveyor of order and justice in the domain lobby, Farbe of course considered it her duty to go and confront any such delinquent behavior… but… well… had you seen the APD's most wanted list lately?

So, Farbe insisted on looking away, and just in time for Mr. S to arrive.

"Is, uh, Is there anything I can do for you, sir?" Farbe asked, almost mesmerized by the fact that Blake, now a quarter of the way down the glass, seemed to hang ominously over the pair.

"Yes, we just need some room passes for my daughter and her friends," Mr. S supplied, keeping a bored expression and a casual tone about the whole matter as he gestured to Weiss, who stood very stiffly beside him.

"Of course, sir!" Farbe answered, quickly pulling up the relevant files and, all the while, nervously tracking the impertinent progress of the elevator's descent.

"Uh, I'll just need your master access card to authorize the pass prints," Farbe explained, eyes now openly tracking the elevator - certain she could get the prints, and the Schnees, off her hands, and, thereby, remove herself entirely from this situation, before it ended its journey.

What she failed to notice in her haste, however, was the chilled look that passed over Mr. Schnee at the mention of his master access card. The same master access card that was now with Schwarz, because he'd given it to her, and didn't ask her to return it, like an idiot.

At that, Mr. S made a grand show of searching his pockets for the card he knew he didn't have, taking sweet time as he huffed confusedly, shook his head, and triple checked his left breast pocket, all the while giving Farbe a self abashed smile that seemed to ask for her patience and forgiveness.

Farbe wasn't smiling. Farbe didn't care. And Blake was halfway down the shaft.

"Oh!" Mr. S said suddenly, snapping his fingers and clicking his tongue in manufactured consternation, "I seem to have forgo-"

"You know what, it's alright, you didn't need the master access card, really, anyways," Farbe interrupted, putting on a can-do smile and mashing violently at the print button. "I'll just override the warnings and you'll be on your way!" she finished, again, rapidly jamming at her keyboard and watching as six, identical cards started, with steady mechanical jerks, to rise up from a metal slit on the desktop. Her hand reached out feverishly to take away each new one as it exited it's confinements.

Her complete absence from the coming episode was not to be, however. For, just as the third card began to rise up, Blake's car touched down.

And that following, breathless, second between the landing and the opening of the doors seemed, to Farbe, to lag for an eternity.

Eternity wasn't long that day, however, and the doors did finally open.

"Weiss!?" Just then, a worry-ridden, young voice called from behind the waiting pair; and Weiss, turning around… put on just the most joyful, relieved expression of her life.

"Blake!" Weiss replied cheerfully with a strained falsetto and a hollow smile. Her eyes, wide and full of bad surprise, fell like a guillotine onto Yang and Ruby in inquiry, who could only reply with helpless looks as Ruby shrugged her shoulders and Yang adopted a wild semaphore, with which she attempted to explain just how little of the fault she could be held accountable for.

Her attention was soon diverted, however, as Blake came jogging over, in flagrant breach of the no running signs decorating the lobby.

Weiss, regaining composure, snatched the passes and walked of her own accord towards the group, stopping where their paths intersected on the lobby floor and, by her presence there, holding them from approaching any closer to the reception desk, or to her father.

Suppressing the cold undercurrent that ran through her whenever she resorted to such tactics, and recognizing the inconvenient look in Blake's eyes, Weiss took the opportunity to initiate.

"Why aren't you in the office!?" Weiss asked, a friendly smile obscuring her tense features, "I thought I asked you to stay in the office? Why isn't she in the office!" gradually, over the course of her sentence, turning her attention from Blake to the sisters; all the while, her look becoming sterner even as her tone turned more panic stricken.

"I brought them here, Weiss," Blake answered adding, further, "what's going on?" in a confused, and innocently questioning tone. She glanced suspiciously up at the reception desk, where Mr. Schnee stood chatting with Farbe.

"Look, Blake," Weiss began with a naturally guarded look and an eager tone, "I just need you…"

"Weiss," Blake interrupted again, softly, "what's going on?"

Weiss at last allowed the guilt to show on her face, expressing it in the almost painful and tired arc that weigh on her every feature.

Weiss turned down her rapidly blinking eyes, not willing to meet Blake in her own. The state only lasted for a moment, but it was long enough

"Blake," Weiss said at last, talking very slowly and deferentially, and unwilling to acknowledge any deeper feeling than those she'd already expressed, "I... know, I've put you through a lot, but… I promise, I'll explain everything later," Weiss finished the sentence lamely, as if begging that there be no more questions.

"It's ok, Weiss," Blake rushed to assure, "let's just leave, and we can work it all out later-"

Blake paused at the desperate vice-grip Weiss held her hands in.

"Let's go upstairs," Weiss said.

Blake immediately took on a shocked, and, even hurt, expression as she looked almost fearfully up at the castle around her. "Weiss-"

"Please," Weiss said, simply, and without flourish.

And Blake complied, stiffly turning and walking back into the open elevator, Weiss matched her step, running a hand across the girl's arm as if, by that action, soothing and supporting her.

The glass doors touched together, bringing to bear Weiss' ghostly reflection on their surface. And, looking through the reflection and the double plated glass, Weiss could see, with rising vertigo, her father standing at the desk, talking to the receptionist.


Yang and Ruby had been asked to leave, a request they'd eagerly complied with.

Weiss, stayed.

Weiss knew people saw her as hard and combative. She liked to think that wasn't true. She just wasn't afraid to stand up for herself, and she wasn't afraid to get into an argument if it came to it.

Blake, perhaps her opposite in that regard, was ironically the one person she was least effective against.

The distance she kept couldn't protect her with one so close to her heart, and the indifferent clout she wrapped herself in didn't matter the slightest against one who knew her so intimately.

She couldn't help it. Even as the harshness and cruelties of the word slid off her like water, Blake's whispered word would always strike true and rattle her senses to consideration.

So much the more did it hurt, then, when Blake started yelling.

"You promised me, Weiss! You promised we wouldn't set foot in this place!" Blake flickered her gaze at the surrounding walls, a look of impending claustrophobia sickening her.

Weiss didn't know what to think. She'd walked into this room trembling with shock, from the day she'd experienced or the argument she could feel building, or something else entirely, she didn't know.

Her movements, as the sisters left and she locked the door behind them, even to her, felt jerky and lacking resolution. Every so often her eye would twitch and hopeless fantasies ran through her mind. If only she could just get to a dark, isolated place, where she could scream, where she could break a mirror, crush her scroll, where she could tear her heart out and scratch at her own face.

Even at the beginning Weiss didn't know what to say.

The day wore at her. The arguments wore at her. And every word, every truth stabbed repeatedly at her heart and clenched painfully at her hands.

Even as the first words escaped Blake's lips, Weiss could feel everything that held her together dissolving. Her frantic heartbeat exploding into an electric, nervous shaking that spread throughout her chest and down through her body.

And, Blake, well, Blake knew better than anyone how to make the words hurt, more than Weiss imagined words could.

"We can't go to the city Blake. If they think you were White Fang, it'd be dangerous."

Weiss repeated the words for the tenth time; conserving her words, perhaps, in a vain attempt to hide her wavering voice: a cold, distant part of her analyzed.

The longer she was silent, however, the longer the argument drew, and the angrier Blake became. What had started as calm discussion rapidly devolving into flaring, angry heights she'd never seen the girl reach before.

"You promised me! You promised-"

She was repeating herself, Weiss noted, trying to occupy her thoughts in idle observation, repeating trite remarks to herself as she pressed down against the softly rising tide which now pooled against the back of her mind.

It wasn't a fiery pressure or explosive flash like it was with the harmless, unremarkable emotions that colored her everyday life.

Rather, it was an oppressive feeling that weighed on her, rattled her jaw and saturated her every thought with a light, sensitive suffering which she was sure couldn't have been her own.

She held out vainly against the current, clenching her jaw and wringing her hands, digging her toes into the floor as she tried to keep herself from acknowledging the present facts on any level.

But, eventually, the current won out, and she was left alone with the realization of what exactly it was, in Blake's speech, that had torn her heart out.

It wasn't the anger and accusations. Those were all that Blake could do, considering the circumstances. That was all Blake's own way of coping with herself, now that she'd agreed, if not in words, then in action, to listen to Weiss and stay in the manor.

What bothered Weiss was the blame Blake refused to heap upon her. Blake's words were hurt and she looked on the verge of retching every time she brushed up against any of the manor walls. She was right to be angry with being forced to stay in a palace "built on a mass grave!" as Blake had put it during one, particularly lucid period of her argument.

But, what Weiss didn't hear, was the coming, righteous, condemnation: at having been humiliated in front of the world, at having her secret spilled, at losing all the respect she'd worked to gain, at having her name blackened forever, at, at, everything that had happened! All because the pampered heiress couldn't leave her problems behind without endangering her friends in a pointless, stupid, idiotic, selfish, childish, sociopathically inclined, fruitless, childish, reprobate-

"I know!" Weiss shouted, springing up and taking a vengefully angry voice that halted Blake's own, "I know it's all my fault! So, would you please, please just stop dancing around the issue!"

Weiss, again felt lost, not knowing what else to say and filling the void with her empty breaths.

Weiss was conscious of being angry. She should have been sad; she'd just been on the verge of tears for goodness sake! But, that all that she managed to show.

The worried, confused, look on Blakes face, and the shame it inspired in Weiss seemed almost cathartic in response. Just another lash to reward her deceptions.

The worried, confused, look soon left Blakes face, however, morphing easily into sad eyes and quivering lips.

"Weiss," Blake said, not getting further into her tear-stained statement before breaking down into violent sobs, managing to cover her face as she collapsed down into a seated position on the opposite end of the bed.

Weiss immediately rushed over, halting rapidly just as she reached the very outer edges of her girlfriends personal space, drawing back the hand she'd reached out to touch the girl as if it were about to make contact with a fire.

Here, she warred against herself, watching, with rising, unfamiliar panic, the still crying Blake and psyching herself up against every instinct that restrained her before, finally, committing herself and diving in, making, what they would both later, looking back, recognize to be the first unsanctioned hug between them.

Weiss kept a still death grip on the stiff figure of the cat-faunus, able to make out, in between the tearful sensations, what she was shocked to discover were apologies!

"No, no, no!" Weiss spoke with rapidity, waving her hands increasingly in front of her. "Blake, I'm the one who should be sorry! It-"

"It was our fault Weiss!" Blake interrupted with a sudden heat. "I'm the one who agreed to it, and I'm the one who got Ruby and Yang to come along! I just never considered you'd be blaming yourself for it, and I… I was just… I just hate this place, Weiss."

"I know, I know!" Weiss agreed, not willing to contradict Blake despite the rapidly spiraling guilt that ate at her, still on edge and now tensely afraid of every motion that might have led to another crying fit. "And, don't worry," she soothed, rubbing the girl's arm in a familiar motion, " I promise we'll be out of here by tomorrow morning!" resolute.

"You promise?" Blake teased, chuffing slightly with a sideways look at the stiff heiress beside her.

Weiss, for her part, was less amused, feeling another shock of guilt rise up at the memory and barely registering her girlfriend's happier tone. "I… won't blame you if you're lacking confidence in me, but trust me, I didn't mean for this to happen. You know I would never lie to you! But…"

Blake interrupted her with their first unsanctioned kiss. "I believe you," Blake said.

Weiss, in a rapid turn of emotion, laughed drunkenly, feeling a lightheartedness come over her as every muscle seemed, at that moment to unwind all at once!

Weiss dropped down onto the bed, taking her side as Blake slid into her own.

And, there, they lay in silence and in their own thoughts.

"But, really, Blake," Weiss said after a while, "I do promi-"

"I know, I know-" Blake yawned, "-let's just-"

"No, Blake," Weiss interrupted with a sudden seriousness that roused the other girl. "Even if… I can't stand myself knowing I made you…" she slammed her fists down onto the mattress either side of her. Flaring images of her father came up into her mind, but she forced them away. "I just want to say that, tomorrow, no matter what happens I'm keeping my promise. I'm not… someone who would take your trust for granted, Blake."

Blake waited patiently for the heiress to think and to finish her sentence, facing Weiss even as the girl looked resolutely up into the featureless ceiling.

"I know," Blake said, speaking true. And she held the girl's hand, breaths slowing until, eventually, she fell to sleep.

Weiss, was less restful. Much as she tried, she just couldn't let that image leave her head, torturing herself with it as she laid stiffly against the mattress, her thoughts turbulent as she fell asleep.


Ozpin and Glynda were surprised when, at the far end of the distant hallway they travelled, they could see Mr. S pass slowly by in a trance-like state, as if already halfway in the depths of sleep.

Eventually, as their paths met, they were again surprised at the polite ease with which he mustered a response to their greetings. This, despite the fact that his eyes, glazed over in unconsciousness, never left that point, several miles straight ahead of him, at which they conspired persistently to stare at.

"I'm no great friend of Jacquez', but he seems to me to be rather… disturbed, as of late," Glynda noted, looking back at the man's still retreating form.

"Yes." Ozpin coolly took another sip from his mug.

Glynda looked up at the man. "I imagine you might be familiar with what's ailing him, then?"

"Glynda -" Ozpin said jovially, looking over at her with a sly, knowing look, " - I have absolutely no idea."

And, they both continued on their way, thinking, in some way, on the strange meeting with the man.

Mr. S, for his part, failed to remember the encounter even twelve paces beyond where it had occurred.

He was… wretchedly tired. For some reason, the image of the girl, Weiss, flinching away from him when they'd spoken replayed in his mind.

He… felt tired - so much so that he couldn't even comprehend exactly how he felt about that knowledge, other than that it increased his exhaustion tenfold and robbed him of his desire to sleep.

Faintly, now, he recognized the approaching mass of metal that guarded his corner of the palace. Outside of it, Schwarz was standing in patient expectation.

"Mr. Schnee," she began expectantly at his arrival, holding up a glowing tablet, "I'm sorry to bother you, but we-"

"Please, Schwarz," he interrupted weakly, "I'm just tired right now."

Schwarz blinked in shocked surprise, "Of course." She backed deferentially away from the doorway, other words not finding their way.

Burying the pang of guilt that sparked up at the dismissal, he stepped, through the doorway, onto the soft carpets of his inner manor. In the privacy of his little domain, he could feel himself almost physically falling to bits and pieces, every joint hanging loosely off every other. Mustering the last rags of his strength, he made his way painfully off to the inviting sheen of his bedroom door.


As he stepped into the strangely familiar room, a sudden memory, one which could only have been constructed to torment him especially, dawned.

Looking at the darkened room and the freshly made bed, the events of the day rushed back, and he recalled with hazy memory, that he had, just this morning, knowingly held in his hand the chance to reveal himself!

And, despite the confusion and delirium which racked his faculties, he could still understand, clear as day, that that opportunity was now gone.

It was shocking in it's starkness how, eighteen hours ago, an admission ot the truth would have been… insane, yet, by that very insanity, believable. Now... now all such an admission would raise would be rumors and accusations of how desperately he was trying to account for his recent failures.

If there were ever an opportunity to admit himself cleanly, it was gone now, irrevocably gone.

The thought hit him like a hammer, forcing the breath from him in a sort of low, tortured moan. That problem alone, he could have, perhaps, mustered himself against, but the vicious undercurrents, and unknowns and problems it lay piled upon…

He only let out another, self soothing moan, barely heard, even to himself, yet expressing the deepest despair.

And still, at such a time, with so many problems hanging over his head, he could really think only of sleep.

Mr. S felt the sickening, drug-like, beat of his heart strengthen when his eyes made contact with his bed. He swore he could see every stitch on the comforter, even in the sparse moonlight which shone through the window.

There, the carpet passed underfoot, and the bookshelf drew closer and behind him the mirror stood vigil on the night stand.

All the rest of the world seemed peripheral, however, as he approached the vestigial canopy stands, feeling silken cloth under his fingers, and a soft give under his back.

And, sliding unconsciously beneath the fluffy, white blanket he closed his eye, and, in doing so, didn't so much drift into sleep as he crashed into it.


The wreckage was acrid. Smoke obscured the world, and what little he could peer through it was nothing more than a soot covered window and blood stained dashboard.

To his side, and in the back were mangled-

He was stumbling out of the wreckage, screaming, he thought. A broken, unhinged propeller spun endlessly at the front of his plane.

Strangely peaceful, manicured grass and a man-made garden surrounded the burning wreckage, somehow engulfing it in their general serenity.

Cut lawn, geometric bushes, and pastel flowers which shone against the white sky made up this world. No part of it interested him as much, at the moment, however, as the fountain.

Still screaming, he was sure he was screaming, he ran and dunked his burning face into the fountain, splashing the cold water wildly onto his char-blackened body and drinking it down his horrid throat when off to the side, visible even beyond his closed eyelids, a white flash came.

More than that, with the white flash, the presence of something came.

"Opening his eyes," he found that his physical aches were disappeared, and he was now standing straight in a clean, grey suit - looking at himself.

No, no, that wasn't him. He was looking at someone else.

He didn't devote much attention to the phenomenon. His head flickered nervously about in frantic observation. His breathes came hurried and forceful and he tried, again, to focus on everything but his memories.

"Who are you supposed to be?" he asked the figure pointlessly, trying to fill the dead time with words.

To his complete surprise, the man standing opposite him answered.

Snow-white hair glimmered in the sunlight and a silver ring moved with a gesture and the man introduced himself.

"Why," he began, sounding almost surprised at the question, "I'm Jacquez Schnee."