Content warnings for mentions of canonical character death and minor (oc) character death.


Sometimes, it feels like everything that happened at Beacon was just some fantastical dream. Sitting here, back in the prison of her room back at the Schnee manor in Atlas, any notion of freedom, of making her own choices, of friendship, seems laughable.

But it did happen, Weiss reminds herself. She'd stepped outside of her father's clutches and attended Beacon instead of Atlas Academy, she'd been allowed to stand on her own two feet and make her own choices and meet people because she wanted to, not just for the sake of "making connections." She'd grown as a person and as a huntress; Winter had even seemed proud of her when she had visited during the tournament. She'd made friends with Pyrrha and Nora and Ren and Neptune and even Sun and Jaune.

And then there was her team, team SSBL.

She'd had a team at Beacon, a group of people that she loved and trusted implicitly, even with her life. Even if they had gotten of to a bit of a—rough start, if you will, at the start of the school year, by the start of the Vytal Festival Tournament they had all been on fairly solid footing. Yang Xiao Long, who Weiss had clashed with at first but had eventually earned her respect for her determination and bravery. Blake Belladonna, who had forced Weiss to look past her own prejudices and first impressions to really see her for who she really was, and who had both the brains and the love of books to potentially rival Weiss' own (not that Weiss would ever tell her that).

And then there was the leader of team SSBL, Stella Arwen, who Weiss had hit it off with immediately. She'd seemed like the perfect fit for their team, with the calm demeanor, maturity, and patience to balance out the occasional clashes of her teammates. To some people, she might have seemed timid, but once Weiss had gotten to know her, it was easy to see that Stella just hated to act impulsively, instead preferring to watch and wait and think before coming up with a plan of action.

Maybe she hadn't been as flashy or as charismatic as some of the leaders of other teams, but Weiss couldn't imagine a better leader for their team.

And now she was gone.

The entirety of team SSBL was scattered, really, with Yang recovering in Vale, Blake having run off to who knows where, and Weiss back at her family's home in Atlas—but Stella was the only one who was never coming back. Deep down, Weiss had known that since the top of Beacon Tower had exploded with both Pyrrha and Stella still up there.

Two good friends, now gone forever.

Sometimes Weiss finds herself regretting not going with the others to safety, and instead venturing back out into the fray—but it's not like they could have just abandoned Pyrrha and Jaune when they needed help. And Stella had seemed so determined to save their friends. Weiss had never seen the other girl so certain about something before.

And now she's gone, and Weiss will never see her again. And Weiss doesn't know what to do.

Stella wouldn't have wanted her to give up, Weiss knows that, but it's hard to know what to do with her leader dead and the rest of her team scattered across Remnant. Especially in this sterile cage of a house, which is just is stifling as Weiss had remembered. Where is she supposed to go from here?

"Weiss?" A knock at the door interrupts her thoughts. "Your father would like to see you in his office."

Weiss sighs heavily. So much for figuring out what to do next, or practicing her summons. "Coming," she calls back, forcing herself to keep the annoyance out of her voice.. It's no use taking her anger at her father out on Klein.

Time to see what her father wants this time.


Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you liked it.

Stella Arwen is the name of my OC who for the most part takes the place of RWBY while the rest of the team while they're at Beacon (since the do still need a leader). SSBL ("sable") is the new team name (Stella Arwen, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long). I would also like to thank Blake for being absolutely useless when coming up with new team names, since her first and last name start with the same letter.