I think the hardest part is coming up with a name for the chapter.
The weekend had gone by rather quickly.
Dad had informed me that Uncle Qrow wasn't able to make it back to Patch because he was out running a strenuous errand for a close friend. It was a pity, but nonetheless, it couldn't be helped. It was a shame, because I was really looking forward to see him again too.
Throughout the weekend, majority of our stay was pleasant.
We spent our days at home playing board games and catching up. From my time in Vacuo to my brief stay in Atlas, I told them half of everything that had happened during the last five years.
When I merely mentioned General Ironwood's name, Dad choked on his tea, sporadically coughing. He was completely surprised about my encounter with the general and the errands he sent me on. Though I did exclude a few people out of the picture for the sake of the agreement I made back at Atlas.
By the time Sunday rolled around, Yang and I boarded the bullhead to Vale then to Beacon after we gave Dad a hug goodbye. There wasn't any time to visit Patch again, but dad might be able to visit us at Beacon. Since the Vytal festival was a few months away, he was hoping to come watch us, but there were no promises.
"Thirty lien that Blake is reading a book on her bed and Weiss is doing homework."
"Forty lien that Blake is reading a book on her bed and Weiss is in the library doing homework," I wagered.
Yang and I got off the bullhead and were heading straight to our dorm rooms. It was Sunday afternoon, and not many people were walking freely on campus. They were probably trapped in their confining rooms doing last minute homework assignments.
"Isn't that the same thing?" My sister looked at me, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.
"No, doing homework in the room is totally different than doing it at the library."
"Okay," Yang snorted. "You're on."
I hovered my scroll over the lock mechanism and a ringing chime beeped in successions once it registered. The bolt robotically unlocked, and I creaked opened the door. Lo and behold, Blake was laying on her belly and reading her book with her legs kicked up in the air.
"Hey Blake! We're back," Yang grinned.
Blake's leg fell back down and she actually gave us her attention after she turned over to the next page in her book.
"Hey," she replied, amber eyes scanning us before returning to her reading.
A smirk rose on my lips as I saw Yang frantically looked around. Her smile simmered into a frown when a certain heiress was nowhere to be found.
"Hey Blake, where's Weiss?" I finally asked. I held up my hand next to my sister, curling my fingers back and forth in anticipation
"In the library doing homework," she answered with her usual low, monotonic tone.
"Thanks," I smiled triumphantly.
Yang grumblingly slapped forty liens onto my hands, and I neatly folded it and stowed it away into my pocket. Blake's bow twitched, and she drew her attention away from her book once more.
"Should I be worried?"She asked cautiously.
"Naah," I waved her off, a sappy smile adorning my face while Yang donned the opposite. "If you guys need me, I'm going to the library to finish the rest of homework." I began to assemble my things into my backpack to set out. "How about you Yang? I know you didn't finish. We can struggle together."
"I'll pass. Struggling with you doesn't seem appealing." I promptly thwacked her shoulder for that teasing comment. "I'm kidding! Blake can help me with homework. She can watch me struggle."
The Faunus placed down her book, and looked at her partner with a deadpanned face. Despite her expression, she never refused as she heavily sighed and slapped her book shut.
"Don't give Blake too much trouble then," I casually shrugged as I turned my back against them.
"Oh I will," Yang devilishly voiced out.
Poor Blake.
I departed from our room and routed to the library. It wasn't hard to find an alabaster haired heiress shoving her nose into her book. She stood out like a sore thumb, but that's because her hair was really noticeable.
"Hey Weiss." I pulled out a chair and sat down across from her. Her blue eyes travelled up momentarily from her studies for a brief second before returning it back to her notes.
"Hello Ruby." Her hands continued to scribbled onto her loose leaf paper. "I see that you're back from your trip to Patch. How was it?"
An outbreak of memories flooded through my mind without any straining effort to summon them. I didn't know how to describe half of my time there without sounding too cheerless.
"Eventful," I merely replied. My ears flicked when her pen stopped rasping against her paper in constant successions. The heiress flitted her eyes to meet mine, and she suspiciously raised an eyebrow.
She probably expected me to ramble on about my trip.
"I got to see my family again," I added a little more but the same expression did not waiver.
She placed down her pen and gave me her full undivided attention. "You don't sound too happy," she frowned, a noteworthy concern evident in her voice.
"Well," I droned, rubbing the side of my neck. "A lot of things happened, and in the end, let's just say I got my memories back."
The heiress blinked slowly in surprise. "And you're not happy that you regained your memories?"
"I am — it's just... There's good memories, and bad memories. The bad memories are just really..." I drew a deep breath and my hand effortlessly motioned in circles to emphasize my point. "Really bad."
Weiss didn't question as she nodded understandingly. "I won't pry anymore since you don't seem comfortable to disclose any further." The point of her pen went back to work, serving its sole purpose to write.
"Thank you."
I took out my books and my pencil, laying them out on the table. My tail grazed the back of my seat as I stared blankly at my empty paper. The tip of my writing implement pressed onto the thin sheet of my paper, ink seeping into circular black blotches, until I promptly placed my pen down.
"What would you do if you couldn't remember your family?" My sudden question disrupted the heiress's concentration, and she laid down her pen once more.
"It would be a dream come true," she answered sourly. The resentful expression overrode what was left of her blank face. Her nose scrunched in disdain, accompanied with frigid cerulean eyes.
"I-I'm sorry," I stammered an apology.
I didn't know my question would hit a nerve. Weiss and I never exactly conversed about our families; it was a topic that never sprung onto the table.
"It's fine," she sighed. "I wouldn't expect you to know."
"But even so, is there no one in your family that you wouldn't want to forget?"
Weiss sat there in contemplative silence while she stared down at her paper. She fiddled with her pen as she twirled it between her fingers. It perfectly revolved around in circles without wavering. The more she thought about it, the faster her pen spun.
"Not even Winter?"
The pen slipped away and clattered against the table. It rolled back and forth on top of her paper until it finally slowed into a full stop. The look of confusion and shock interblended, completely thawing out the harden expression that used to be on her face.
Her cold eyes gradually softened, piquing with skeptical curiosity after she got over her initial surprise. "How do you know about Winter?" Her voice remained calm but yet cautious.
"I never told you?" My ears remained straight when I cocked my head to the side.
Her ponytail swayed side to side when she shook her head. I thought I had mentioned it before, but as I delved deeper into my memories, I recalled Yang cutting me off before I had a chance to point out their uncanny resemblance.
"Remember back at initiation when we were stuck all the way down the ravine?"
"Of course," she firmly answered. "You were insane enough to use highly purified dust to blow yourself up."
Her eyes weren't subtle when they traveled down to my burn scars on my hands. I didn't bother to hide the hideous discoloration of my skin as it was just another number to my growing list.
"You've asked if I've been to Atlas before and I told you that I briefly have," I reminded her. "During my time in Atlas, I happened to run into your sister."
The heiress unconsciously leaned into her elbows, trying to get a clear grasp of my story. I have never seen Weiss this engrossed before. It was a tiny bit adorable to see her aroused curiosity spiking to its fullest
"Your sister cuffed me to put it shortly," I wrapped the story up in one vague description. A grin broke out on my lips, muscles pulling on my cheek, when the intrigue look on Weiss's face momentarily faltered in a scowl.
"What did you do..." There wasn't even a sliver of surprise at the tone of her voice. It was dull and monotonous, almost on par with Blake's.
"I did nothing." I placed a hand over my chest, dramatically over exaggerating a hurt voice. The scowl on her face did not waiver to my unconvincing argument.
"Extensive property damage," I finally admitted with an eye roll.
"Why I am not surprised," the heiress dryly responded. "You destroyed a part of the school in our first encounter. I wouldn't be surprised if Winter had to experience the same tragedy I had."
"Maybe it runs in the family," I joked with a lopsided smile. However, Weiss neither laughed or smiled. "Anyways... " I continued. "She didn't get to experience the same lovely explosion like we did. I just blew up a few buildings."
"You — WHAT?!" The heiress disbelieved shout earned a hissing hush from the librarian. After she politely apologized to the library's curator, she stroke her temples to soothe the arising headache comin. "I should've known that it was much worse."
"Your sister was fine," I assured, hoping to abolish whatever absurd imagination coursing through her mind. "She just got soot all over her white uniform that's all. The real reason why she took me into custody was because I —" Two fingers of each hand drew quotation marks. "'intervened' with her mission."
"Intervened?" Weiss deadpanned doubtfully.
"That's the same exact thing I said to your sister!" I waved my hand in disbelief, accompanied with eyes to match while continuing my story, "I just happened to be there by chance. Caught a trace of dust at the town over and turned out there were a few rebels sprinkling dust like glitter. Next thing I knew it, they wanted to add me into their collection of hostages."
"Long story short, I got really irritated, cleared them out, went to their hide out, and blew it up." I finished with a triumphant smile, nearly gloating my successful accomplishment.
"Of course you did." Weiss stroked her temples again, this time letting the back story sink in. "How was —" She hesitated a little, gnawing her lower lips. "Your impression of Winter?"
It didn't take a genius to see how much admiration and respect Weiss held for her sister. I could discern a slight tremble in her voice, as if it was searching for approval of the one person she probably looked up to.
I hummed a little, sinking deeply into my thoughts as I recollected our time together during the one week mission.
"Better than my first impression when I first met her," I started. It wasn't a lie. After I got through Winter's dignified demeanor, she was actually a nice person. Of course, it took quite some time for us to warm up to each other. "Winter did mention about her sister — well I suppose you — a few times."
"She did?" Her blue eyes lit up like a sun beaming down into a serene ocean. Our homework was long forgotten as we were too engrossed with our discussion.
"Yeah," I nodded. I basked into her oceanic eyes and I could see those orbs urging me go on. "We made small talks and she mentioned about how she had a younger sister and brother. She rambled a little about how she was quite surprised that you chose to be huntress, quite happy actually."
"Happy?" Weiss questioned, barely tilting her head.
I gave her an unanswered shrug because Winter never went deeper than that. "During initiation, remembered how I asked you why you chose Beacon over Atlas?" The heiress nodded. "So if you don't mind me asking — why Beacon? I mean I understand there's preferences, but preferences always makes you consider one over the other."
Her finger traced onto the library's table, drawing figure eights while casting her eyes down. Those oceanic eyes seemed clouded, blocking out the sun that was once shining. "I wanted to get away," she answered softly. Silence breezed by and I quietly nodded.
"You don't need to go any further if you're not comfortable," I smiled. From her answer and her tone of voice, it revealed a lot about her. Everyone carries bags of burdens, not just Blake and I. I wanted to know more about Weiss, but in all fairness, I never revealed anything to her.
"Thank you," Weiss breathed out. "To answer your previous question, I would be devastated if I forgot about Winter. She was the only one who truly cared about my wellbeing."
"Yeah I getya," I tucked my chin between my arms as I leaned forward, somberly smiling. "I guess I felt like — I don't know... Shit? That I forgot about everyone who cared about me. And I guess that's what made me sprung the question to you. I kind of wanted to get a different opinion and maybe get some ideas."
"I suppose — hypothetically speaking of course — I ever forget about Winter, I guess I wouldn't stop trying." The corner of the heiress's lips dipped into a frown. "I'm sorry if I couldn't be any more of a help to you."
I shook my head. "Don't worry about it." I pushed myself back up from my somber state.
"What did..." She paused again in hesitation. "What did you do if you don't mind me asking?"
I couldn't blame Weiss for wavering, considering this was probably out of her normal comfort zone. This was probably the deepest Weiss and I had ever talked about. Most of our conversation were superficial. The things we talked about were mostly academic, sometimes hobbies, and sometimes painful number of lectures
"Like how you answered before," I responded. "I never stopped trying. I mean there were times where I felt like giving up because I felt like my efforts were fruitless. But five years was enough time to stop and to just think."
"Of what?" She curiously asked.
I drew a deep breath.
"I could either seclude myself away from society and probably be alone for the rest of my life, or just keep searching to fill in that empty hole. So... I chose the latter. Being alone didn't sound appealing and I didn't want to carry that empty feeling for the rest of my life, so I kept searching." I smiled, barely shrugging.
Being alone was sometimes painful, but it was definitely tolerable. Even though I tried to convince myself that lone wolf was the best option, there were times where I craved for human or Faunus interactions. It was hard not to because I was so use to people around, especially living for a 100 something years and counting.
"And you found what you were looking for here in Beacon," she nodded as she recalled my story. "In some ways, I understand what you mean. We are social creatures to begin with. It's only natural to have a desire for some kind of social... Intimacy I suppose."
"But being around people isn't the same as being around with family." I glanced away from her to watch students walk through the aisles of bookshelves as I continued to talk. "It's different. For example, how did you feel when Winter coddles you?"
"Coddle?" The heiress raised a high brow.
"You're right," I murmured before I turned back to her. "Winter isn't the type to coddle. Let me rephrase that. How did you feel when Winter is there by your side to protect you from harm or from the world itself."
Her chin rested on top of her palms and her fingers tapped against her cheek, thinking.
"I/you felt secured and could live freely," we said in unison. Weiss paused and I chuckled.
"I felt the same too with Yang," I explained. "There's no more of that suffocating feeling anymore, just warmth. I remembered that feeling, and I missed it so much that it was the only reason that drove me to keep searching even if it became more and more discouraging by the day."
"It's different from being with people. They can't give you that same closure. And I'm sure that Blake, Yang, and I can't give you what Winter gives you. The concept is the same, but the feeling is different," I finished.
"Indeed the feeling is much different," Weiss nodded in agreement. "Even though the feeling is different, it's a... Good different."
I smiled, glad to hear we were thawing out the heiress's frozen walls.
"Cherish those you care about, because they can be gone in a blink of an eye."