Chapter 14 (Remastered)
Due to recent responses, I've decided to heavily edit Chapter 14 repost it. If you like the old version of the chapter, it's still around in the comments of the Spacebattles thread for this story.
"Ah, but there's always unfinished business, these days, isn't there?" Ozpin commented with fading casualty, continuing, "and, it's a rather important bit of business that's brought me to you today," transitioning so abruptly into resolute sincerity, that it almost mesmerized Mr. S fully out of his weariness, leaving the recent, light-hearted memory of their laughter together feeling altogether distant, and phantasmal.
"What is it?" asked Mr. S, needing no effort to sound invested.
"Well," Ozpin sighed with a resigned air, seeming almost indecisive for all the tumultuous gravity his tone bore, "there are two issues. Really, one is a rather minor matter and, officially, it's why I've come to visit you, but the other…"
"But the other?" Mr. S parroted, feeling almost parched as he spoke, tentative.
"The other isn't something to be spoken of outside of this room, not before its time in any case," Ozpin said simply, but sparing Mr. S none of the impact the words could hold.
"Naturally, that should come first, then," Mr. S urged, now unquestioningly eager for the information.
"It's," Ozpin hesitated a moment, sending frantic paroxysms surging through Mr. S, striking a fear that Ozpin would change his mind, and keep his secret, at that.
For what seemed ages, Mr. S held his silence, afraid even to speak lest he drive Ozpin, who still and truly seemed on the brink of indicition, into holding his own.
Ozpin, either oblivious or uncaring about Mr. S's anxieties, held still with an intensely thoughtful air, as a man might when attempting to navigate a perilous topic and dreadfully aware of the complete loss even a single misstep or word could represent.
Finally, however, as if testament to the ineluctable necessity of the subject, Ozpin spoke, saying…
"It's about the Fall Maiden."
Schwarz stood quiet and with perfect ease at the back of Mr. Schnee, unmoving except for the rhythmic squeeze of her fists around the edges of the tablet, the sole outward change which stood, lonely, as evidence of the sudden discomfiture that had taken residence in the hallway.
As people always did when they broached sensitive topics, Ozpin ducked quiet in the resulting pause; Glynda, standing beside him, seemed to quite unintentionally act as his foil, every aspect of her posture advertising, loudly, the great discipline she'd mustered in order keep herself from saying out loud those choice words which she was now attempting to express solely through the glares she directed at Mr. S.
Mr. S held his own silence and maintained his own, softer, glare which seemed to be directed at nothing in particular. None of this was done in challenge, but was rather the sole, outward expression of his immense, and by this point resigned, disappointment.
He'd been certain his opinion of these people had bottomed out when they'd trapped him in an elevator, but apparently there were hot springs at rock bottom, with mineral baths capable of curing even the worst case of optimism or hope for humanity.
When the silence extended, and the critical moment came to pass, however, Mr. S merely replied, with strained courtesy, "What about the Fall Maiden?"
In response to his question, Ozpin responded only with a knowing looked which seemed to say, with the kindest expression he could muster, that they both knew what this was all about, and it would be easier for everyone involved if they simply cut to the heart of the matter.
Mr. S felt his expression grow colder, and his tone more brittle at this turn, as he asked, with all the bewildered honesty of those too tired to lie, "did you… expect me to choose who the next one is going to be?" expressing in that statement the patent impossibility he saw in their having come to him over such a matter.
"Oh, we wouldn't ask you to do that," Ozpin said, quick to recall the previous atmosphere of levity as he chuckled, trailing to a pause and waiting for a beat. Once again banking, expressfully, on the all too obvious nature of request he was asking of Mr. Schnee.
The soft silence once again turned solid and imposing, and once again, it became clear that Mr. S wouldn't be cooperating. Ozpin expressed a somber sigh, hiding expertly the face of a man who didn't want to say his request aloud, as if doing so might highlight the impossibility of it.
"The Fall Maiden," he paused, thinking carefully over his words, "is in quite a precarious situation at the moment, as you well know, and there's no better place for her to be than at Schnee Manor. We request that you allow her to stay here until things can be sorted out at Beacon," relapsing instinctively into that vestigial formality he often forewent in the company of those he'd grown close to.
"Oh, is that all?" Mr. S said aloud, surprised, not unpleasantly, that they hadn't asked him to bribe some judges or otherwise donate money to a good cause.
Of course, to the ears of those who knew Mr. Schnee's opinions, and who, for some reason, expected the man before them to be familiar with Mr. Schnee's opinions, that statement was nothing other than the absurd peak of sarchasm.
Glynda's expression only grew more aggressive at the barb, and Ozpin, for his part, only maintained that stony expression which he'd prepared to face just this sort of response.
"Yes," Ozpin replied curtly, not willing to show his disappointment, "that's all.".
Mr. S paused for the requisite five seconds of consideration such important an important matter required, taking the moment to count out five seconds inside his head as he readied to spit out the answer which, by his calculations, would get them to leave sooner.
During this interval of fake consideration, Schwarz, torn between the apologetic looks she rushed to express to each side of the argument, fell back with a hopeless look, wishing to forge an instant reconciliation, but all too aware that the subject had moved far beyond that the moment Ozpin spoke of the Fall Maiden.
Glynda, in contrast, merely deepend her glare, sharp eyes glancing aside at a hidden moment to meet with Ozpin's own, expressing quietly the resolve which they knew wouldn't let them leave with a "no" answer.
"Of course," Mr. S said lightly, tone soft and having come down considerably from that earlier hardness which overtook it, a testament to the great difficulty which Mr. S faced in attempting to maintain his anger.
"I understand how much I'm asking of you," Ozpin began, bargaining with the tone of a man who understood how much he was asking of someone... and then Ozpin stopped, brows scrunched as the answer registered.
Glynda, for her part, was more confused, at first, by the fact that Ozpin failed to finish his prompt, which would have signaled for her to play "Bad Cop", as Qrow had termed it in their planning discussions, and only then by the fact that "Mr. Schnee" had given the wrong answer!
Schwarz, by this point, having made up her mind that she would try to convince Mr. Schnee to help them, looked up at Mr. S with a confused expression that did nothing to mar the delight and awe which expressed itself in her at the undeniable empathy shown by her boss that day.
Ozpin didn't get to where he was by fumbling through opportunities, however, and was quick on the recovery. "I'm glad to see we can still count on the Schnee family, Jacquez," he spoke, in a personal and deeply friendly way which seemed to all but shine through his eyes.
"Always," Mr. S smiled back.
Ozpin, turning his palm inwards as a sign of departure, bowed slightly as he spoke, "well, I'm sure we've kept you long enough," he began.
Mr. S matched the motion, thinking, 'ya think!'
"We'll be on our way," Ozpin announced, and Mr. S, once again aware of the ever deepening, sickening exhaustion that wound through his mind, never imagined that those words could sound so sweet.
Mr. S was aware, of course, that whatever it was he'd just agreed to was likely to be something he'd regret, but, luckily for him, he'd gotten quite used to regretting things at this point, and future Mr. S, who's problem this was going to be, was likely to be even better at it thanks to recent events!
Mr. S consoled himself with these thoughts as he walked them back to the doors. Ozpin and Glynda walked in unison to his left, keeping pace while, on his right, Schwarz trailed slightly behind, working furiously at her tablet.
"...of course, we can discuss the details at another time," Ozpin continued, "I still have that other matter I would like to speak to you about, so perhaps then, if you can fit us into your schedule." Ozpin said, talking languidly and walking languidly as he turned an attentive glance towards Mr. S.
"I've already worked it in," Schwarz responded, not looking up from the tablet as she scrunched her eyes in concentration, light gleaming brilliantly off her snow white skin as the screen reflected prominently in her charcoal eyes.
"Efficient as always, I see," Ozpin nodded in acknowledgement, stepping smoothly through the moving doorways and facing back slightly to where Mr. S stopped at the boundary, departing with the words: "Another time, then."
"See you," Mr. S returned with a gesture, spotting a final glimpse of their retreating forms as they rounded the corner before turning back to Schwarz with a tired sigh, just in time to see her stowing away the tablet.
"Well, sir, that just about finishes our day," Schwarz said, an expectant energy in her voice, "and just on schedule too!" smiling in a way that expressed, all by itself, that she'd been trying to tell a joke. Schwarz did not fail to draw an appreciative smile from Mr. S in turn, if not for her comedic flare, then perhaps solely for the fact that she didn't lock him inside an elevator today.
"That's good to hear," Mr. S replied, breathing in a suddenly relieved sort of way with the departure of what were, by his current estimation, his second and third greatest enemies following Qrow. Tired as he was, however, he was only half successful in preventing that relieved sigh from becoming a tired yawn, moving a hand up to cover his mouth before once again blinking forcefully to draw the lethargy from his eyes.
"Oh, you must be tired!" Schwarz exclaimed, almost bashful at having kept him so long, "I'll, leave you, then. See you tomorrow! Goodnight!" Schwarz cried, almost dashing to the wide, five-flight of stairs, barely giving Mr. S enough time to respond, warmly:
"Goodnight, Schwarz!"
Mr. S reached the wooden door in a daze, having walked the carpeted path from the metal doors with a zombie like stride and empty gaze, as if in attempt to induce sleepwalking. Alas, much to his regret, he was still very much awake when he reached the bedroom doors, extensively aware, through the haze of consciousness, of every particle of time his hand seemed to pass through as it reached for the embroidered door knob.
When his hand reached the critical point, the distorted reflections of his fingers moving in the brilliant gold of the knob, Mr. S was so tired and so sufficiently mesmerized by the sight that, for a perverse moment, he imagined that he could be interrupted now; that, after everything, with literal inches between him and the bedroom entrance, it could all be torn away from him…
It seemed impossible for this to happen in any sane universe. The idea just felt wrong to Mr. S on a spiritual level, as if there were some rule of morality or fairness protecting him from further interruption now that he'd reached this point. But maybe…
Mr. S was piqued for a flashing instant by this idea, so firmly, for that instant, did the horror of it take grip of him that he, at first, thought that he was imagining the rain of knocks coming from the metal doors.
