Nachwort: Welkende Rose

Epilogue: Wilting Rose


Two years. It was always every two years since Altebrucke that they would meet. The day of the Vytal Tournament.

The first time they met again, it was a breath of fresh air. That pressure in Winter's home was reaching its breaking point, she knew it. Her father was growing ever colder with the rise of this 'White Fang', and her mother was ever more distant. Weiss had slowly lost her bright personality, increasingly turned into yet another perfect doll by their father, just like she had once been. And Whitley... well, he didn't even need to be told to be like his father.

Even on what was meant to be a vacation, she preferred to be alone. Well, she preferred to be around her sister, but half of the time that just left them the target of her father's ire.

So she traveled through Mistral alone, but not for long. The letters traded to and fro between her and her writing companion left her knowing where to go: down to a quaint home on the very border of where Winter would ever consider going alone.

The first thing that had struck her upon seeing Adam open the door was how gangly he'd become. That and how swiftly he had panicked. Much had changed, but it was like two years hadn't passed at all: bar a streak or two of red on his hair and him wearing his father's blues amongst his black attire, he was practically the same. Just taller. Adam was just a normal—albeit lower-class—student with his eyes on Haven.

He was certainly more excitable, though, jumping to show her every interesting speck of the surrounding city that he could and talking fast enough that she wondered if he thought she'd get bored and leave after only a second.

Yet, when compared to the stifling silence and sterility of home, it was something she took well to. There was a certain peace in the chaos. A peace that lasted all throughout the day, walking from neighborhood to neighborhood, landmark to landmark, only stopping to eat or watch the Vytal Tournament. It was one of the better days she could remember.

Come nightfall, she had two things: a promise to see the Vytal Tournament together in person when it was in Atlas, and a new Scroll number. The time for chatter through just letters was over. Perhaps it would be more conspicuous to her father, but she couldn't bring herself to really care. There was only on tiny smudge on that day: the very vizesteiger who once helped protect her. When they had returned home, he was speaking with Adam's mother, but he cut himself off upon them entering. Something was strange about the silence left behind, and even stranger about the look in his eye.

He hadn't exactly liked her before, but there was a flicker of familiarity in his gaze. A hidden anger. Like Steel.

Winter didn't let it bother her, though. She had enough to worry about when she arrived back to where her family was staying. The return home was spent with one hand around her Scroll and her eyes on the lights of Mistral. It was a breath of fresh air. Just that.

She had a feeling she'd be needing a friend soon.

Maybe that was why it had hurt so much when he never answered.


Adam lay in bed that night, Almond's words playing over and over in his head. The men near the lift were there to collapse the mine. The person at the bomb he'd seen was there to detonate it. The pictures. The testimonies. It was a set-up. Altebrucke was a set-up.

And the Schnees were behind it. And as for Winter...

"She knew."

Could Almond have been right about that, too?


The second time they had met, it was by chance.

The first thing Adam thought was that they were the same height now. The second was that this was cursed luck. There were a thousand streets in Mantle and a thousand more in the usurper's kingdom that now hovered above it. Yet it had to be her car he had walked past. Her gaze his had met.

And it had to be her who tracked him down afterwards. So there they stood, in some dark, heated alley. Raven had taught him to hide his emotions well, but he couldn't stop them from clawing at him from within. He stayed silent as she pleaded for an answer as to where he had gone and why he had simply vanished. Were these really the actions of someone who had all but helped murder his father?

Adam clenched his fist. No. When they were rescued, Jacques had sprinted forth and swept his daughter up as if she had risen from the dead. He stood in front of cameras preaching about how the miners had kept his daughter safe when it was all his doing. If he could act, so could she.

But he was young. His will was weak. No, his will was breaking. And when she walked closer, Adam couldn't move. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he could just—

"Schnee." It was Almond who saved him. Kept him from making the mistake of trusting a human. Looming at the entrance, Almond's dark eyes locked onto his. It was a request. A wish he had expressed so often since finding out the truth about Altebrucke. Winter was defenseless: two aura-wielders could crush any resistance she could put up. And then...

"It's time for you to go, Winter." Adam refused to give Almond's unspoken request any more thought. That weakness, he allowed himself.

Almond said nothing. He only stepped aside.

Perhaps Winter was going to reject that. Perhaps she was going to demand answers. But instead, her eyes fell onto Almond's sleeve and the White Fang insignia he proudly wore upon it.

The look of recognition, shock, then betrayal Winter gave him was a dagger that remained in his chest long after she fled. Adam decided to let that fuel him as he walked towards his destination. It was better than letting his emotions lose him this chance. The Vytal Tournament broadcast was too perfect of a distraction to waste. This was his first step, after all.

Adam thumbed over the ode to his mentor in his pocket: a pale, bone-white mask.

The first step towards getting the faunus what they deserved.


Winter watched the news the next morning with heat burning in her eyes, pretending that the raid on the SDC the previous night by the White Fang was just a coincidence.


The third time they met, Winter wished they hadn't.

Being of age, she was fully expected to take part in company dealings now, and that included listening to businessmen trying to get her attention while she was still 'malleable'. Like she was the child, not her little brother sitting beside her to observe. An unexpected call was not unusual, and so when a faunus servant interrupted to bring her Scroll, she didn't give it any thought as she raised it to her ear.

"Hello, darling."

The servant reached behind him. The lights shut off.

The next minutes were a blur of screaming, flashing lights and gunfire. By the time she could catch her breath, it was when she was already tied to a chair right back where she'd started, rope haphazardly gagging her. She was already sporting a few nasty bruises, courtesy of her two new 'guards' and the hulking faunus leading them. He may have worn a mask that covered his entire face, but she could recognize that stature and that voice of gravel anywhere: the vizesteiger.

She wasn't still for a moment before she was thinking of ways to escape, but when a line of bright crimson raced across the door and left it decaying into wilting petals, her thoughts left her mind.

Grinning like he'd stolen all the wealth in the world, he stepped into the room. Adam. Recognizable only from his horns. Certainly not from the many streaks of red through his formerly-brown hair, the mask she'd grown to despise as much as fear, nor the glowing blade in his hand.

"It's been too long, Winter." He didn't even sound familiar anymore."A shame. I could have sworn I had told them not to harm you." It was only now that she even figured out that it was him who had called.

Adam came closer, only to scowl and shove the corpse of one of the stockholders from his chair. "Even them."

Almond stepped forward. "Commander Minie—"

Adam gripped his blade tighter.

Almond snorted. "Commander Taurus. The demands are ready to send on your order."

There was a response. Orders given. The room cleared until it was only her, Adam and the corpses of the stockholders his men had left behind. But she didn't even remember that happening. Her mind locked onto only one thing: Adam was in charge of this. Her former friend wasn't just a foot soldier. Not even the spearhead. The leader. Did he plan this?

Did someone she had nearly died protecting—who she had killed for—plan this?

A flicker of red, and the gag dropped away. It hadn't even hit the ground before she was screaming at him. The reason didn't matter. Nothing did. All that did was that betrayal, and Winter made sure he knew just how horrid, how despicable he really was. Even that didn't last long before what little decorum she had left was scorched away, leaving her saying anything and everything just to get a reaction out of him. To make him hurt, no matter how 'un-noble' it was.

And yet despite—or was it because of—her tears, Adam smiled, strolled through the office, dragged out a chair and took a seat beside her. All throughout her tirade that echoed off the walls, he watched her with a knowing smile, head on his hand.

"Did you think I was that stupid, when we first met?"

And asked the one question she wasn't expecting.

Winter didn't understand. And it was in that confusion that she asked the single question burning most within her.

"Why?"

And he was glad to show her. The only light in the room came from the flashing lights of police far below: the power was still gone. So Adam used his Scroll and talked. He talked and talked about... Altebrucke. In that moment, Winter could almost see his old self in the excitement and energy he went over it with. A twisted perversion of who he was. Instead of talking on about grades and Huntsmen, it was signs of sabotage and the agents of the SDC spotted around the very lift that had collapsed. Motioning not to screens and landmarks but to maps brought up in hologram of how the second collapse would have been impossible from their escape plan alone.

Winter couldn't understand. That kind of conspiracy was ludicrous! Not to mention that her father, as cold as he was, could never be so evil.

He took that as a challenge. Stripped away her bindings. Gave her his Scroll. Told her to look.

And look she did. Planted agents in the records she never remembered seeing afterwards, not just in the guards but the miners as well. A report directly to Jacques that the collapse had been too early. Hadn't her guards been checking their watches when it happened? A faunus with a scrubbed record personally transferred to the Fire Dust shaft by Jacques himself. Safety measures brought up and dismissed by higher-ups. Faces of humans she could remember that defended her most in the mines. A new guard she'd had who had a Huntsman license, assigned the week before by Jacques, but killed in the collapse.

By the time Adam was leading her out, the ransom lien carried by Almond behind him, her head was swimming. He took it as a sign of surprise or guilt. Why wouldn't he think that she was in on this? What kind of monster would have done that to their own child without them knowing, after all?

She couldn't bring herself to speak. She didn't even recognize that Adam had left his Scroll with her until she was brought away by Atlas Police. The last thread of their connection.

One full of the reasons why it was destroyed.


Jacques told her the truth with a smile: were it not for that meddlesome animal trying to get them out on his own, the guards he'd planted would have kept her safe and sound like they were supposed to. Altebrucke was his pride. To keep the nascent White Fang from continuing to bring bad press while ensuring his shareholders didn't mind a bone or two thrown the faunus' way. All on top of a PR coup certain to keep him shielded from foolish, 'false' claims of discrimination.

He said keeping her safe was proof he cared for her.

She didn't bother leaving a note when she enlisted in Atlas Academy. Nineteen was later than average to do so, but she couldn't stay there any longer.


Capturing the Schnee heiress. His greatest triumph. It was the talk of the world for weeks. Sienna was sure to see him as a worthy subordinate now, Adam had thought.

Yet when he received the prestigious order of starting the Vale branch of the White Fang, Adam couldn't help but feel like it was an exile in disguise. Still, he had Blake. That was all that mattered. His mother would understand that he needed to leave, even if it would need a white lie to cover his reasoning.

The further away from Atlas he was, the better. There was something about Winter's reaction that struck him as wrong. She was fiery. Easily-angered beneath her tough shell, but it was a shell he had not once seen crack in Altebrucke. He expected retorts, furious refusals, the reveal of her true character, not... stunned, dazed silence.

Adam pretended that he didn't doubt himself. It was better that way. There was no turning back now. Even if he was wrong, the SDC was his enemy.

And so was every Schnee.


The fourth time they had met, they didn't speak a word to one another.

The train was silent now, long since halted. The clashing of blades, cracks of guns and constant footsteps had halted as well: there were very few left alive.

Adam's intelligence was wrong. Tukson had told him that this train was protected only by machines and Vale police, but Huntsmen-in-training were never mentioned.

Atlas students were a strange thing to find on the border of Vacuo and Vale, but Adam supposed it was fitting, considering the Vytal Festival in Vacuo. The three wilting away from his blade in the train car were nothing to him but payment for the White Fang that had died taking over this train. His only remorse was their age, but he made a special exception for students following Atlas. They were already gone from his memory when he heard the door behind him open.

Ilia was thrown in, already unconscious, maybe worse: a streak of red marked the ground where she landed. She didn't stir.

The whip-cane Ilia inherited from her father skid to a halt at his feet, mangled and broken in half.

Adam's hand clenched around Wilt hard enough for it to tremble. Were Ilia to be dead, those who died on this train would be only a drop in the bucket for the retribution he would have. Yet, seeing the person frozen at the door, he decided only one death might suffice, after all.

Winter.

The blood of their companions dripped from their blades. His a blazing red, hers a pristine white. Were he not standing beside a friend that might have been dead, he might've laughed. The prim and proper girl was going to become a Huntress now, was she?

Her eyes held nothing but hatred for him as they left the vanishing bodies. Her team. Former team. And yet, she pulled her saber up into a fencer's salute.

He raised his blade in one of his own.

Only then, after paying their last respects to a friendship years dead, did they advance.


She didn't follow through. That was why she had lost, and Winter knew it. Atlas had taught her about the common failings of Huntresses, and fighting to expect aura to break and end a match was one well-known to her. She needed to fight with the intent to kill: the same intent she had mustered against the others that had helped do the same to her family.

Yet she failed to keep that in mind against him.

The first leaves of fall drifted to the ground around them, the battleground of the train long abandoned for the forest it ran through. Adam's blade glinted in the dusk sun. Its edge laid against her throat. Her own was embedded into another tree out of reach. His mask was cracked, lines of blood trickling down from his hairline. Their auras were both gone, and if she had just followed through with the strike that shattered his, she wouldn't be in this position. Wouldn't be about to die.

She refused to show weakness, glare leveled at him and her lips drawn to a thin line. His hand twitched. She felt the pinch against her skin from his blade moving. Winter winced.

No pain came. She cursed herself within for cracking, but such thoughts abruptly halted: Adam pulled his blade away. His face was unreadable as he sheathed his weapon, unchanging from a small frown even as he backed away.

Her gaze flicked to her weapon, but by the time she rushed for it, he was already gone.


"She's barely even a Schnee anymore: there was no point in killing her."

That was the reason he gave to Ilia as they were flown back to their base. It was a lie. A lie he was desperately trying to force himself to believe. There was no other reason why he would fail to kill her when she was at his mercy. He refused to believe it was.

That was momentary weakness, Adam decided. Nothing more. Nothing less.


Her teachers were impressed, none more so than the general himself. Even a single survivor from her team and preventing the train's theft was a miracle against a full-scale assault that included two Academy graduate-level assailants. She tried to tell General Ironwood the truth, that she was defeated, but he refused to accept it.

"No one is perfect."

He had her fast-tracked to graduate based on her performance, despite her protests. Fast-tracked to to become one of his own Specialists, even.

Specialist Schnee.

The title felt hollow without anyone else beside her.

Winter decided then that she would prove Ironwood wrong: she would become perfection.

Her failure then would be only a momentary weakness. Nothing more. Nothing less.


Adam would come to know the name of Specialist Schnee. A terror to the White Fang and faunus. Ruthless. Cold. And always took any chance to damage the Vale Branch.


Winter would come to know the Vale branch of the White Fang. A terror to the SDC. Destructive. Spiteful. The spearhead of the White Fang's operations, and the iron fist they used against any who did not submit.


The fifth time they met, they decided, they wouldn't make the same mistake.

There would be no sixth time.

It was a promise.


ALTEBRUCKE END


A/N: And to those who thought they were cute, I'm so sorry.