Location: Steelthorne, Mistral
February 4th
[Iris]
The temperatures were freezing. White flakes fall rapidly from the skies as white snow coats the grounds of Mistral, the skies were a dark, gloomy grey that matched the village's mood perfectly. Most of the homeless people had retreated to live somewhere close to a heater, much like the homeless population within Mantle back in Solitas. Thankfully, some people here were willing to open up their homes to anybody from off the streets, giving them a warm and safe place to stay until the weather calms down.
Weiss was asked several times if she wanted to come inside for a cup of hot chocolate, mostly by women who seemed to sympathize with her current condition; the additional weight had taken a toll on her out of shape body, causing cramps to often form in her legs and hips and sometimes, there was a numbing ache in her back and it was physically stressful for her to even perform the simplest of tasks. In all honesty, she felt like she'd been run over by a loaded Atlas Military truck
It didn't help that she feels like she's been walking for a whole eternity since she discovered that her next stop, a village in Vacuo, was not accessible by train.
Weiss pulls her cloak closer around her to conserve the warmth of her body, her breath comes out as icy puffs and the winds felt like icicles against the bare skin of her face. She stops at the nearest heater and raises her frozen hands to it, relishing in the tingling warmth spreading through her front. She closes her cloak to trap the heat inside and continues down the street, her eyes searching for a hotel sign. The village seems pretty busy, so there has to be one nearby for visitors, right?
"Boy! Get back in here!" Weiss turns around to a young boy sitting outside of his house, happily tossing up snow and giggling as it decorates his dark hair. She lets a small smile tug at the corners of her lips as he ruffles the flakes out of his hair and jogs back inside, taking a cup from the person who looked to be his grandfather. Tired eyes look up at her and the old man scowls at her in disgust, rolling his eyes and slamming the door.
Ah, well, there was always that one person. Weiss shakes her head and starts walking again, wincing as a sharp, throbbing pain forms in her lower abdomen, stretching through her groin and her lower back like a wildfire.
It takes every ounce of her dignity not to scream and she leans back against the pole nearest to her to support her weight. She clutches at her belly and lets out a few pained hisses through tightly gritted teeth, Weiss tilts her head back and a soft breath escapes her lips as the pain quickly subsides.
She opens her eyes and there's a spark of joy in her chest upon seeing the hotel sign across from her, a golden arrow pointing towards the brick building. Weiss pushes herself up off the pole with one hand and she staggers a bit before recomposing herself, she swiftly crosses the snow-covered gravel and heads towards the hotel. Golden lights were shining through the newly installed and polished windows, radiating a welcoming vibe.
Weiss pushes the door open and she's met by a wave of warmth against her skin, she slides her cloak off and allows it to dangle loosely across her shoulders as she approaches the front desk. "Hello! Welcome to Steelthrone Inn!" The man at the counter greets her without looking at her, typing up something on the holographic screen in front of him. "How might I help you?"
She pauses for a moment, briefly deterred by his oddly cheerful voice. There was the genuine, happy voice, and then there was the feigned, creepy one. He sounds closer to the latter.
"I would like to rent a room for a night," he says obviously.
"Of course!" There it was again. She didn't like that voice one bit. "That would be one-hundred twenty lien, please."
Weiss almost wants to retort at him upon hearing the ridiculous pricing. "Excuse me?" She scowls at him and the man's cheerful face becomes blank. "That is way too much, what kind of scam are you trying to pull?!" He raises a brow at her, unfazed by her snappy question.
"Well, it is simple, we need lien to heat the hotel, don't we? We also need to pay our staff. Especially with so many people coming in during this sort of weather…" His voice is calm, almost eerily so. "Now, if you were of a high ranking," she was, she just couldn't tell him that, "or if you were a registered huntress, you would receive a-" Weiss interrupts him by slapping down her huntress identity, he blinks several times and he retrieves a room key from a drawer. "That will be eighty lien, then. Name?" She could do eighty lien.
Weiss slides over the lien. "Put the name under Violet Rose," she says, grabbing her room key and checking the number on it. She doesn't bother to thank him as she walks away. The pressure in her abdomen was becoming increasingly stronger, and it took every ounce of her strength to make it towards her hotel room, which was thankfully on the first floor.
Her throat tightens with a restrained cry and tears sting at the corners of her eyes, the pain felt like Beowulf's claws embedding into her lower body torturously slow and tearing her open as mercilessly as it could. She wants to drop to her knees and scream in agony until it stops.
Entering her room, she slams the door behind her and sinks, tears escaping from her eyes with choked sobs. She clutches at her stomach in pain, waves of hot agony rising from her stomach and straight up her back. She feels sick, her head thumping and woozy as she pulls herself to her feet and starts towards the hotel bathroom. She just needed to cool herself down, some water on her face would do the trick.
As she pushes the bathroom door open, a warmth suddenly spreads across her legs, causing her to freeze. It takes a few moments to register what just happened. She looks down, the pressure in her stomach only growing more prominent as reality strikes.
Her water had broken.
"Shit," she wheezes to herself, staggering to press her back against the door of the bathroom, "oh Gods." Is this what death feels like? Slow, white-hot pain?
She doesn't know what to do. Weiss hadn't planned to give birth outside of a hospital, fake identity or not. She had planned to at least be in the presence of someone who knew what to do, somewhere clean. She hadn't imagined she'd be giving birth in some dingy, cheap hotel filled with drug addicts and strangers who'd try and sell her on the black market, screaming her lungs out in a bathroom that was anything but clean.
Weiss takes a sharp breath as another pain rushes through her, a loud cry escapes her lips and she grabs at her stomach in pain, tears filling her vision. Weiss didn't know how to deliver a baby. All she knew was what the lady had told her and a few short articles she'd read on the internet, but never had she heard about the process of giving birth.
What if something happened? What if Weiss lost her baby because she didn't know what to do?
She'd heard horror stories of mothers dying halfway through the pregnancy because of problems. What if that happened to her? What if it kills her baby too?
Another white flash of pain and another long drawn-out scream cause the young woman to slide to the floor. She wasn't ready for this. She couldn't do this alone. She needed help, anything. Someone.
"Okay," Weiss says carefully, regaining her breath. Nobody was going to come. She needed to snap out of it or she was going to lose the very reason she'd abandoned everything, and she was not about to call the last several months of street life a waste.
She maneuvers her way out of her undergarments to the best of her ability, pulling them away before another pain surge causes her to tense up and press her back against the tiles. She grits her teeth tightly before gasping for breath, "Gods, why do people have more than one kid-"
The pressure appears again, having moved further down her torso. She cries out again, clenching her abdomen in an involuntary attempt to push. She lets out a tired whimper as the pressure subsides, falling flat onto her back again. Her faded purple hair fell in front of her eyes, sticking to the unruly sweat that clings to her forehead.
Another pain waverers down her spine, like a wildfire running along her back and stopping at her hips. Weiss' nails dig into the grout between the tiles as she tries not to scream.
Suddenly, a knock comes from the door of her hotel room, followed by a concerned, "Miss Rose? We got a noise complaint from your room... Is everything okay there?"
Weiss' heart skips a beat, pressing her hands beneath her as she attempts to stand up. Instead, another pain shoots through her like a bolt of lightning, ripping another loud cry from her throat before thumping back hard on her back.
No, she was not okay.
Why would you ask someone who was screaming out in pain if they were okay? And she couldn't exactly be quiet either! Gods, the idiocy of people these days.
She tries to raise her voice to call back in frustration, however, whatever words she had died in her throat. She couldn't find the strength to do anything else except pant as she tried to overcome the agony she was experiencing.
"Ma'am? I'm coming in," the voice calls, holding a tone of more urgency. Weiss takes a breath as the sound of her room unlocking reaches her, followed by the door opening. She hears a surprised gasp from just behind her before a pair of soft hands touch her shoulder. A woman, thank whatever cursed Gods were watching her.
"Miss Rose, how long have you been here?!" She asks worriedly. Weiss growls under her breath. This wasn't the time for twenty questions. She was lying on a probably infectious floor, without any decency, and a baby on its way out!
"Just get me on the bed-" She snarls, grasping the woman's outstretched arm before another wave hits her. She grasps on tightly to the woman, grinding her teeth together. The woman flinches at the tightness of her grip, but she brushes it off and another hand comes up to support Weiss's shoulders.
"Let me get a towel first, sweetheart. Just breathe," She instructs her, letting Weiss lay back as the painful wave ends. Weiss did as she was told, taking heaving breaths of air as she tried to recover somewhat. The woman rushes around to grab as many towels as she could, before carefully laying them across the bed to protect the sheets. Weiss staggers to her knees, desperate to get off this filthy floor. A hand comes to wrap under her arm before tugging her up to a hunched stance.
"Take your time, hun," the stranger cooes gently, one hand around Weiss' back while another rested on her chest, "Where's your partner?"
"The grave," Weiss lies in a growl, squeezing her eyes shut as another pulse kicks at her groin, "I should never have had a baby. She promised she'd be here..."
The lady helps Weiss lay against the bed gently, a sad look on her face, "Well, I promise we'll make sure your baby is safe. Just keep breathing Miss Rose, you're doing great."
"Violet," Weiss whines, pressing the back of her head into the pillows, stifling another scream. "Don't call me Rose-"
"Okay, Violet. I'm going to call for some more help from the desk. We'll get an ambulance and get you to a hospital as soon as..."
"No hospital!" Weiss shouts, sitting up rapidly before another wave follows. She fell back against the bed with a scream, clutching at her stomach in pain. The woman was beside her almost instantly, holding out her hand for Weiss to squeeze as she pushed through the pain.
"Violet, you need a hospital. It's safer there-"
"I said no hospital!" Weiss spits again, "If you bring me to a hospital I will sue you to hell eight times over!"
"Okay, okay," The woman frowns, reaching over to the phone that was laid by the bed and picking it up, "Hello? Yeah, it's Leona Stone. I want to request any free female workers who have experience with childbirth to room 7... No, no ambulance-" the girl looks back to Weiss in concern, "No, it's the woman's request. Ring the local doctor instead…. Yes, please."
Weiss closes her eyes, her strength slowly starting to fade from her. She wants to cry, to hate Ruby for making her go through this alone, but this was still their kid. This is the closest she was ever going to get to her partner ever again. She couldn't give up, not yet, but damn was her baby giving her a good fight before that happened.
Her world starts to become darker, the pain in her belly slowly being replaced by panic.
It wasn't long before a group of four girls and a male doctor came into the room, immediately rushing in to help the mother in labor. Weiss couldn't remember much of what was happening around her, except the two words 'Breathe' and 'Push' that kept coming up.
There were people all around her, and she could hear herself mumbling between every surge. Her throat was sore and hoarse from yelling so much over the last two hours, and she was barely able to stay alert anymore. She didn't even notice the pressure becoming less intense as too exhausted to even realize what had just happened. She lays back, eyes closed, thankful for the rest.
Crying… She heard crying. Her baby was crying. Something clicks inside of her.
A surge of indescribable protectiveness floods through her, reviving her strength, and Weiss lifts her head, glancing around the blurry room. Where was her baby, what was wrong? What's happening? Her baby needs her. . . Weiss weakly placed her hands at her side and tried to push herself up, her eyes frantically looking around the room for any sign of her newborn.
Something told her that she should be happy, relieved, but all she felt was fear. She could hear her baby, but she couldn't see them…
A calloused, unfamiliar hand was placed on her side, pushing her back down to the bed. "Take it easy, Miss," their voice was gruff, she vaguely managed to hear the softness in her words. Her body slowly starts to relax, exhausted from the event.
Another wail catches her attention and sits back up, her blurry eyes swiveling towards the form of a silver-haired man moving across the room with a crying infant in his arms. He was approaching the door.
Her baby… He was taking her baby away from her. She needed to stop him.
"No!" Weiss hollers, dread rushing through her as she forces herself to sit up, attempting to swing herself off the bed to pursue the man. She halts; her vision swimming with black spots and her body, overwhelmed with exhaustion, grows heavy. A pair of hands grab her wrist from behind.
"M-Ma'am, you shouldn't move so much!" The woman behind her tries to soothe her, giving her wrist a light pull. "You should rest-" Weiss jerks her arm away.
"Don't touch me!" Weiss cries, her voice slurred and her words running together from fatigue. The cries of the newborn grow faint and she turns her eyes back to the door, her heart plummeting when she realizes the man has already left the room with her baby.
'No. No!' Incapable of forming intelligible words, she switches to her last option; utilizing each ounce of strength she needs to attempt to break away from the lady behind her, drawing in a deep breath and letting out a scream.
"Urrgghh," Nora groans as she enters the hotel, stretching her arms high above her head and crossing them. "Finally! I was freezing!" Ruby stifles a giggle as her friend wraps her arms around herself, trembling to emphasize her words.
The brunette shakes her head in amusement as her friends bask in the heat, Blake removing the earmuffs from her ears and twitching them to become adjusted to the warmth of the room. Yang, standing right next to her partner, stretches her arms and groans, smirking at the Faunus when her ears perked up.
Ren and Jaune had made a B-line towards the snack machines, leaving only Ruby to approach the counter. She removes her wallet from her pocket, after making sure it was still there, of course, and removes her huntress license, which she had recently earned. "I will be paying for two rooms, please. Preferably close to each other." She'd spent nearly three months traveling with these people, it would be nice to get away from the boys for a while.
The man hands her two-room keys and swipes her card before handing it back to her. "Enjoy your stay!" He says kindly, Ruby offers a smile in response and approaches her friends as the group gathered around her.
"Ren and Jaune will get room 275, the girls and I will have room 273," she says as she hands the key over to Jaune, Yang taking their key and examining it for a second.
"Aw," she says with a light laugh, "I was hoping for some alone time with-" Blake interrupts her by jabbing her elbow into Yang's gut, prompting a guttural cough from her as she hands the key back over. "Alright, fine, never mind. I was joking anyway."
Blake takes a glance at the room key number and starts for the staircase, earning a groan from both Nora and Yang. They were all physically exhausted, cold, and tired, she really couldn't blame them for wanting to take the elevator. Jaune and Ren follow closely behind them, Ren was only half-listening to Nora's complaining and offering a supportive pat on her shoulder as attempted encouragement while Yang throws her arm around Blake's shoulders and whines.
Ruby allows a tiny smile to come to her lips as she watches her friends' antics.
She puts her hand on the railing-
A scream echoes through the hallway and a tremor rolls through her body like aggressive waves crashing onto shore, or a lightning bolt coming into contact with a powerline. Her nerves felt shot as she registers the sound of the eerily familiar scream, she looks down the hall and her brows crease together in disbelief.
"Rubes?" Yang murmurs as she descends the staircase to check on her, Ruby snaps out of her trance and looks at her sister. "You looked like you saw a ghost."
She shakes her head, believing that she may have imagined it. "Yeah, I'm-" A wail grabs her attention and she jerks her head back to see an older man exiting a room with a whimpering newborn in his hands. A cold, resentful feeling settles inside of her stomach that she can't describe. "Hey!" She snaps maybe a little too aggressively, the doctor stops and looks at her. "What's going on?!"
"The baby needs to be in the care of someone who can care for her." The man replies simply, but Ruby moves back in front of him, standing firm when she sees the irked look in his eyes. He was up to no good, she could feel it in her gut, and she didn't like him one bit. "Miss. Please move."
"Unless you are some sort of law enforcer or an authority figure, you cannot take the baby from their mother without legal permission," she frowns at him, and fire flashes through her eyes. "You are retired, aren't you? I can see it in your eyes." He refuses to answer her. "Take the baby back to their mother, unless you want the law to become involved and you want to be taken into custody for child abduction."
The man doesn't budge. Ruby removes her license from her wallet and presents it to him, "It's either you return them to the mother, or-" She's cut off by the man approaching her and begrudgingly laying the newborn into her arms, causing electrical shocks of lightning to reverberate through her body as she gazes down at the baby, who had quieted down and baby blue eyes were staring up at her curiously.
Yang giggles from next to her, "Awe, she likes you." She reaches to stroke the newborn's cheek, but she frowns in confusion. "She doesn't look very old… Not even a week, at the most…"
Ruby clears her throat, instantly getting herself back on track. "Yes, that's why she needs to be returned to her mother…" She looks down the hall, trying to remember what room the doctor had exited from. Noticing a door partially open, she quickly starts for it and Yang follows behind her, making faces at the whimpering, but confused newborn. She is stopped by the door swinging open and a lady rushes out, only to stop and her eyes glance from Ruby to the newborn in confusion.
"Excuse me," Yang addresses her kindly, "do you know where we can find this child's mother?" She asks, a tiny smirk forming on her face. She waves her hand at Ruby dismissively, "Not this one," Ruby glares at her, "the one she's holding."
The woman chuckles a little bit and reaches to take the newborn from Ruby, who steps back defensively, cradling the whimpering baby in her arms possessively. "Ruby?" Yang murmurs, pulling her back to her senses and prompting her to reluctantly hand the infant over to the woman, who thanks them and rushes inside.
Yang laughs a little bit and pats her sister's back. "That was a good thing you did there, Rubes," she tells her, Ruby tells herself to believe her, despite the hollow feeling inside of her chest, "but you got a little possessive there at the end. What? Did it make you reconsider having a child?" Yang chuckles.
Ruby shakes her head upon hearing this. "I changed my mind about that a long time ago."
Her entire life has fallen apart.
The sole reason she's been on the run for the past nine months is gone… She couldn't chase after her baby, she couldn't even hardly move. Her heart aches like hell, tears blurring her vision as her eyes stare blankly at the door. There is a constant ringing in her ears and gut-wrenching grief inside of her belly, blaming herself for not having the strength to get up and rescue her baby. She didn't even have the chance to meet them…
Someone is rubbing her back in an attempt to comfort her, but she can't help but resent them. She physically couldn't stop that man, but they sat there and let it happen, despite having helped her…
A figure approaches her and she lifts her head reluctantly. "She's right here, ma'am. She's okay… " Weiss' eyes flicker open down to see the woman cradling a small child with a white tuft of hair against her chest. Her heart does a flip backward, tears going to her eyes as the lady bends over, presenting the infant to her. "You have a beautiful little girl… "
'My baby... '
Weiss' heart expands as she sits up, her eyes never leaving the form of her baby as the woman hands the crying infant over to her, resting the newborn, swaddled in a warm, pink blanket, into her arms. The sudden weight and the cry of momentary distress causes reality to her like a cold wave.
A sorrowful grin grows on her lips. 'I wish Ruby could see her…' Taking in the newborn's features, she strokes her child's cheek with her thumb. The warmth feels unreal. Her heart beats rapidly within her and the world around her slowly begins to deafen, the only thing in the room that matters was her baby girl.
"Some lady returned her to you," the woman tells her with a kind smile, "I suppose there are still good people in this broken world…"
Weiss pays her no attention, focused on the infant cradled in her arms. She blinks in disbelief, unwilling to believe that the baby she holds so close to her heart is her own. She thought she'd been prepared to welcome her child into the world, she thought she'd know how to feel and what to say or do the very moment her baby was placed into her arms.
Now, she was speechless.
Tears sting at the corners of her light blue eyes as she gazes down at the newborn cradled gently, letting out a wet laugh when the baby's face wrinkles up in confusion, unfocused eyes darting around in perplexity.
"Hello..." She murmurs, her chest warming with love as she holds her baby close, supporting her head and leaning back against the pillows that were set up behind her. "Look at you…" Weiss giggles as she brushes the soggy, shimmering white locks out of the infant's face.
"I love you," Weiss whispers affectionately. The newborn child's moans subsided to delicate cries of disarray; Weiss swore she'd gone to paradise when baby blue orbs flicker up at her, brimming interest and bewilderment. "You need a name, don't you?"
"How about Iris?
"For what?"
"For when we have a baby."
Weiss lets out a soft breath, "Iris it is… Iris Rose."
The infant's temples wrinkle together and her pudgy little hands reach up, Weiss pauses for a long moment before cautiously bringing her hand up, watching in awe as the newborn's soft hands wrapped around her index finger. An electrical spark courses through her veins and tears prick at the corners of her eyes. The newborn lets out a quiet coo as her forehead wrinkles again in distress.
"What is it, Iris?" Weiss asks, her grin never faltering as she gazes down at her little girl. "Are you hungry, little Flower? Hm?"
There were a few moments where Weiss had broken down in private, regretting having fallen in love with her partner, regretting being so willing to have a family with her. She'd been scared of what the future would hold, something she'd never worried so much about before. Despite being absolutely terrified, Weiss stood up and faced the world alone, wanting to somehow create a stable life for her baby.
That's exactly what she was going to try her best and do.
"Miss Violet?"
Remembering that there were people in the room, her tired mind flashes back to the picture of the doctor exiting the room with Iris. Weiss instinctively cradles her baby close in an attempt to protect her.
The woman's eyes move between Weiss and Iris, "Don't touch my baby…" Weiss threatens cautiously, despite knowing she's unable to do anything.
"It's alright, ma'am," the woman says sweetly, "we won't touch your baby. We just need to get you to another room…"
Weiss scowls at her, cradling Iris against her chest as she cries. Her baby was hungry, but she couldn't feed her until she knew she was safe. "How can I trust you?"
The woman sighs and a small, tired, but honest, smile forms on her lips. "I understand your concerns," she explains as another woman approaches her, "I lost my baby last year," the other woman's hand is placed on her shoulder and she reaches up to take it, "I would never wish any ill-will on someone else's… We only want to help."
Weiss doesn't falter.
"I promise." The woman whispers.
Reluctantly, Weiss accepts, unable to see any malice in her eyes. "Okay…" She's quiet for a moment, "What's today?" She murmurs. Time and dates have become nothing but a blur for her, but she wanted to remember her daughter's birthday.
The woman sends her a strange look. "February 4th, ma'am…"
I have three things to say here:
1.)
RUBY THAT'S YOUR KID, WEISS IS INSIDE THAT ROOM! SHE'S ALIVE! JUST GO! GO IN THERE! TAKE THE BABY TO HER! AAAAH!
2.)
Why was the man taking the baby?
It's more than obvious that Weiss is by herself. If she had a home, she wouldn't be having a child in a place like this. If she had a partner, they would be there. So this man, in his old, delusional mind, thought 'I'm gonna give this child a better life', blaming Weiss for allowing herself to be put in a situation like that and assuming she would not care for the child as it would need to be cared for. In other words, he was a man with good intentions but executed these intentions very poorly.
3.)
Iris is literally so cute, she's precious, a baby, she could do no wrong. Weiss begs to differ, though.