Once Upon A Time
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there was a princess. Beautiful was this princess, praised in story and song. Her eyes were the blue of the summer sky, and her hair the pure white of winter snow. Her voice was a gift from the gods, and she could move even the coldest of men to tears.
The princess's name was Weiss, and she was sick of being a princess.
X X X
"Stupid father," Weiss grumbled as she climbed down the side of her tower. "Thinks he can marry me off to some stupid prince from some stupid kingdom. Well, he's got another thing coming. I'm going to escape. I don't have to be a princess. I can be an adventurer, or a bard, or... or... or a boot maker!"
Unfortunately for Weiss, her expertise did not lay in tying knots. The rope she'd hastily improvised using her bedsheets was not at all suitable for someone to climb down. She was halfway down her tower when the knots holding it together came undone.
Fortunately for Weiss, her tower was situated next to the moat. Instead of falling fifty feet and turning herself into a bloody smear when she hit the ground, she instead fell fifty feet into the moat.
Unfortunately for Weiss, the moat was hardly the most sanitary body of water in the kingdom. In fact, it was quite the opposite. In between doing her very best to not think about why the water was so brown and murky and doing her best to keep her mouth shut, Weiss managed to haul herself out of the moat.
It was a testament to the cronyism endemic to the kingdom that the guards did not notice a soaked princess covered in moat goo staggering toward the gate. Of course, they hadn't been hired for their vigilance and skill so much as their connections to the current captain of the palace guard.
It would take until morning for Weiss's maids to realise she'd gone missing, and it would take until midday before the guards connected the trail of mucky footprints and the bedsheets floating in the moat to the mysterious disappearance of the princess.
X X X
If anyone asked, Ruby was one of the most skilled adventurers in the kingdom. She had slain her first dragon at the tender age of twelve before proving it wasn't a fluke by doing it again at sixteen. With two dead dragons to her name, Ruby had found herself in exceptionally high demand. Oh, there were plenty of dragon slayers out there, but roughly ninety-eight percent of them only managed to kill one dragon before being eaten/incinerated by the next dragon.
At eighteen, Ruby became the first adventurer in eight hundred years to kill a third dragon and survive to tell the tale. When asked how she had accomplished the deed, Ruby had gone on to expound the importance of planning, of carefully scouting the dragon to identify all of its weakness before launching a precision assault and defeating it before it could bring its overwhelming size, strength, and durability to bear.
What had had actually happened was somewhat different.
Ruby had been enjoying a cookie atop the corpse of a hydra she had just defeated when a dragon had shown up. Like most dragons, it seemed to think it owned all that it laid eyes upon. In fairness, there weren't many people who would argue with a dragon. Being a giant, fire-breathing reptile who could lay waste to entire kingdoms generally made it a good idea for people to just play along.
But the dragon made a critical mistake.
In its haste to devour the hydra corpse, it stepped on Ruby's bag of cookies.
That was its first and final mistake.
Ruby had worked long and hard for those cookies. She had journeyed to the depths of the Unhallowed Mines of Doom, the heights of the Thunder Mountains, and the arid wastes of the Desert of Unending Woe to secure the ingredients before paying the world's greatest baker a literal king's ransom to make them.
And the dragon had stepped on them.
There were no words in the tongues of men, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, trolls, ogres, dragons, mermen, or even tree people for the rage Ruby felt. The fire of a thousand suns would have paled before her wrath, and the ancient scrolls detailing the horrific downfall of the Elves of Anurin had absolutely nothing on the thoughts that ran through her head.
By the time Ruby was done swinging her scythe, it looked like the dragon had been cut into a million pieces before exploding.
Naturally, Ruby couldn't tell anyone that the secret to defeating dragons was to enter a berserker rage induced by wanton cookie trampling.
It was on her way to her next adventure – her sister wanted to meet up, so they could pummel some ogres – that Ruby was accosted by some kind of swamp monster. Now, Ruby had been accosted by many swamp monsters during her time as an adventurer. It was basically par for the course whenever she entered a swamp. However, this was the first time she'd ever been accosted by a swamp monster in the middle of a city that was miles from the nearest swamp.
"Back, swampy fiend!" Ruby cried, brandishing her legendary scythe. She had originally wanted to name it Blood-Drinking Ultimate Scythe of Invincible Death, but her sister had convinced her to go with a somewhat less convoluted name. Crescent Rose was the name of her scythe, and it was feared throughout all the world for its deadliness and how it drank blood and was an invincible inflicter of death. "Or you shall taste my scythe!"
What happened was not what Ruby expected. Typically, swamp monsters would posture, maybe throw some swamp goo, and then try to just crush her. This swamp monster did none of that. Instead, it hurled itself at her and screamed.
"I need a bath!"
Two things went through Ruby's mind at that exact moment.
First, swamp monsters should not be able to talk.
Second, this swamp monster had a chest, a nice chest that was pressed right up against her face because the swamp monster had latched onto her like some kind of swampy barnacle.
"Huh?"
"I need a bath right now! Help me find one, or I swear I'll make you sorry!"
Confronted by a swamp monster with feminine attributes that was in need of a bath, Ruby decided to do the reasonable thing. She glanced around, found a trough full of water, and threw the swamp monster into it.
Cue several minutes of mad spluttering before the swamp monster emerged to reveal that it was not, in fact, some kind of female swamp monster with a desire for improved hygiene.
No, the swamp monster was actually a very, very pretty young woman in what was a surprisingly risqué negligee. Naturally, Ruby did the gentlemanly thing. She removed her awesome red cloak, draped it around the woman's shoulders, and tried not to stare too hard while simultaneously trying to get at least a bit of a peek since, well, the woman was the best thing Ruby had seen all year.
"You have my thanks," the woman said. "Now, I need to escape. I don't suppose you could help me with that, could you?"
"Are you in need of aid then, my lady?" Ruby struck her most heroic pose. "Whether it be dragons, bandits, vile sorcerers, or wicked fiends, I, Ruby the Slayer of Three Dragons and Many Other Evil Things, stand ready to aid you."
"..." The woman did not seem to be impressed by Ruby's verbal capitalisation of her title. Hmm... Ruby would have to work on that since it always seemed to work for her sister, Yang. "Okay... um... long story short, my father is trying to marry me off to a jerk, and I'd really rather not get married to someone I don't like, so if you could point me in the direction of the adventurer's guild that would be fantastic."
"Ah." Ruby nodded sagely. This she could help with. "It turns out that I am very familiar with the adventurer's guild. What skills do you possess, gentle lady?"
The woman's eye twitched. "Please, don't call me that."
"What would you prefer?" Ruby put on her most suave smile and came up alarmingly short.
"Just call me... Bianca. As for my skills, I possess the skills of both a wizard and a bard."
"Ah, that does sound useful." Ruby smiled. "Very well, Bianca. I will gladly escort you to the adventurer's guild. In fact, I might even be in need of your services."
X X X
And thus began the epic legend of Bianca the Wizard-Bard and Ruby, the Slayer of Three (Eventually Five) Dragons and Many Other Evil Things.
Countless stories would be told of their deeds and innumerable songs would be sung of their greatness. From horizon to horizon, their names would be known and praised. Eventually.
Their first mission was kind of a disaster which ended in one destroyed mountain, several dead giants, and Weiss learning that she could, apparently, make people's heads explode if she sang a high enough note.
X X X
Author's Notes
As always, I do not own RWBY. I'm not making any money off of this either.
What better way to celebrate Halloween than with an awesome adventure? And who knows what other adventures they might get up to, or what Yang and Blake are doing?
And speaking of celebrating. To celebrate Halloween, you will be able to get my story Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf from Amazon for free on Halloween (October 31st Pacific Time)! Enjoy.
As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.
