Weiss wanted to run. She wanted to get out of there and never look back. But the horror of her mistake kept her planted there in the roots of regret. This was not Ruby. The short-cropped hair was pure black and the untinted bangs fell on the wrong side of her face, over one eye. Her one visible eye was lined with scars. It was not silver but an unsettling gold. And she was far older than Ruby. Or at least a noticeable amount older. It was hard to tell. Cinder and her cronies looked enough like Haven seniors when they infiltrated the tournament in school uniforms, but now she was dressed in grey and red rags and with only wooden clogs for shoes.
When Cinder Fall infiltrated the school, the graceful way she carried herself betrayed her as mature beyond her years. Now she acted like a child. Cowering, hurt, and staring up at Weiss with a single, much too-innocent eye. Weiss remembered the words that brought her here. You were once the loneliest, 'tis true. But now there is one lonelier than you. Whatever this world did to Cinder, it brought her off that fucking high horse of hers. She probably deserved it.
Probably.
"Oh I get it now," Called the gaunt sister in the skimpy dress from behind Weiss. "The two beggars want to dwell in their wretchedness together!"
Oh that was enough. "I am nothing like her!"
"Then why did you want to see her so badly?" The tall sister in the plain dress asked.
"She's... she's not who I thought she was!" Weiss snapped.
"Really?" Called the mustached mother, "I think you two are perfect for each other."
"Maybe we should take out her eye too." Called the gaunt sister as they grabbed a poker from the fireplace. "Make them match."
Weiss took her rapier in hand and stood en guarde. Then something grabbed her hand. Weiss's skin crawled when she realized it was Cinder. The pale woman's bare hand burned around Weiss's. Her voice came out like a dying frog. "Don't hurt... her."
Before Weiss could realize who "her" referred to, the gaunt sister screamed and lunged at Weiss. In the mere seconds it took them to cross the room, Weiss considered her options. The family were unarmed and woefully unprepared in those party gowns. Still, the way the tall one squared up their shoulders and the speed that the gaunt one was lounging, tearing their dress in the strides did not raise her prospects. Their minds may not remember how to fight, but their bodies did. And Weiss's aura was still down so one hit was all it would take. One more second and the gaunt sister would be open them. Time to decide now, fight or flight?
The glyph appeared to sweep Weiss cleanly to the right. Except something weighed her down long enough for the poker to skim and burn part of her arm. The poker went flying. Weiss took the opportunity to stare at her passenger. Cinder was still holding her hand, both their arms were slightly singed but the only part that seemed particularly hurt was the bruise on Cinder's forearm. Presumably, that's where the pole of the poker hit before it went flying. Weiss tried to shake Cinder off but the former mastermind was frozen in a death grip. Her face was blank but her body was shaking. The tall sister loomed closer and the gaunt sister had their poker back. One problem at a time then. Two more glyphs appeared under their feet and sent Weiss and Cinder off.
They tore through the mansion one hall at a time. Yet each exit ended with either a hot poker flying at their faces or a tall imposing figure in a dress blocking their way. This happened three times before Weiss realized that the sound of clanking wood also followed them wherever they went.
"Your damn shoes! Do you have anything that would make less noise?"
Cinder had been thankfully silent this whole time, doing nothing but following Weiss with every twist and turn she made, while hanging on like some horrified parasite. Being addressed seemed to make the villainess remember she was even an active player in this story. She loosened her grip for just a second. Weiss wondered whether she could use that as a distraction to break the vice grip and go free. Then Cinder remembered.
"Garden...In the...garden!" Cinder nearly pulled Weiss's arm out of her socket, with the sudden change in direction. They took off down the corridor with Cinder's clogs slapping against the brick floor.
"Not towards them, you idiot!"
The gaunt sister was in the entrance to the kitchen at the other end of the hall. They apparently spent some time going through the knife drawer as they now had two in each hand. They lunged but Cinder opened a closet door in their face.
"In here." She screamed, letting go of Weiss's hand. Weiss wasted no time slamming and locking the door. A pair of knives already slammed through it though, stopping just short of giving her another scar. A blinding light hit her eyes and for a 2nd Weiss thought the knife did hit her eyes. But she was just outside. Cinder had pushed through the paper back wall and created a hole large enough for them to crawl through.
"Come on." And they ran through the forest, twisting turning. Weiss didn't know what plan of evasion Cinder had or how this had switched to Weiss following her in the first place. But eventually, Cinder stopped underneath a hazel tree.
"What are you doing?" Weiss screamed. "Run!"
Cinder kicked off her horrible clogs. She knelt adown nd sang a song in a voice too soothing compared to the rasps she was speaking with a second ago. "Oh dear bird in the hazel tree, Oh dear mother let us go free."
Something fell from the treetop but Weiss didn't see. She was too distracted by the ugly figures walking towards them in their overdone dresses.
"I knew you'd come here." Called The tall sister. There was something different about them. Their hazel colored limbs moved stiffly and their voice sounded wooden for a second. But their golden eyes were filled with the same dark determination as his family's. The gaunt sister's eyes' were wide open. Their smile stretched like a knife gash across their pale face. Only the mustached mother seemed preoccupied, lifting their dress and tiptoeing to not step in any mud.
"Anastasia, Drizella, Bring back that stinking one-eye."
Weiss readied her rapier. They were distracted. She could take them. Better yet her hand was free. She could run and leave Cinder behind. They were after her after all, Weiss didn't have to stay. All she had to do was get out of here and leave the villainess to whatever punishment this world had in store for her. Then something happened that made Weiss pause.
A single white bird flew down from the tree and landed on the gaunt sister's shoulder. The two engaged in a short staring contest silently asking each other what they were doing here. Then the bird cocked its head forward as if for a kiss. The screams told Weiss it wasn't.
"MY EYE!"
The tall sister lunged for it but the bird flew over their branch-like arm and embedded its bloody beak into their eye as well. The pair screamed as the mustached mother tried to calm them down, but over the screaming Weiss could hear the familiar chinking of glass behind her. A hand touched her shoulder.
"We have to go, now." Cinder's voice was raspy once more, but more even than her earlier plea. She grabbed Weiss's hand again. As they left Weiss took a moment to look down at the obsidian heels that walked next to her. Black pendants and blue feathers hung on the anklet but the stone next to her feet is what really scared Weiss. The small slab at the base of the tree held no words but only a single emblem. It was an engraving of an eye.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
In the shade of three massive oak trees, a young girl in a red riding cloak pulled the bobbin on an old wooden door. The door creaked open, to reveal a totally barren inside. The bed was unmade but undamaged, and the last few embers were dying in the fireplace. The girl looked behind her again and saw the claw marks ended at the door's edge. They were scattered around the side of the house. A few dents even made their way to the chimney. But as the girl in the red riding hood came to the far side she noticed the empty trough. Instead of water, great black stains lined the bottom. Remnants of whatever beowulf arrived before she did.
The girl turned her head to the open window and the footprints leading out from it. She smiled and bit off a piece from the cake in her apron pocket. Looks like Grannie was at it again.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Cinderella ran through the vast forest in a daze. The green and red and orange leaves danced around her head and crumbled beneath her glass heels. With every step, she thought they might shatter but however the bird in her mother's hazel tree got them, they were remarkably sturdy and even comfortable, at least compared to those clogs. Was the bird her mother's ghost? Did she send this girl? Who was this girl? Cinderella didn't even know her name! But thanks to her she was finally free! The thought sent a new wave of energy to Cinderella as she dragged the mystery girl with her, frolicking through the field of dying trees.
At last, Cinderella halted, her sudden stop nearly throwing the mystery girl into a pile of leaves. Cinderella bent over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. She couldn't remember the last time she had run that fast, or that long. It felt good. It felt right. No more cleaning. No more abuse. No more walls and no more floors. No more lentils and no more ashes. Fall was in the air and Cinderella was loving it!
She looked over at the mystery girl who was currently scraping leaves off the bottoms of her heels. Her hair was white, like mother's used to be, and like the bird in mother's tree. Her dress was slashed and a thin scar wound its way around her left eye. Instinctively Cinderella touched her own eye patch and for the first time in her life, the gesture made her smile. Must've been one heck of a smile too, for when the mystery girl saw it, her eyes went wide like a frightened animal. Cinderella pounced on her.
"Please...Stop. Hugging. Me."
"Sorry!" Cinderella immediately let go of the smaller girl and took a step back. "It's just... I nev.. my step...sisters... were- I nev...er had... a friend... before!" She continued grinning like a lunatic.
"We're not friends."
"Right!" said Cinderella. She could hear her stepmother screaming about how stupid she was but pushed the mental chastisement to the back of her mind. "I don't know... your name."
The girl took a step back, her rapier pointed upwards as if ready to slash out any minute. She was younger than Cinderella, 13 or 14 at the most, But she carried herself with a certain grace and absurdness that Cinderella instantly envied. "My name is Weiss. Weiss Schnee."
Schnee? A strange name but Cinderella couldn't help but feel as if she heard it before. Maybe she read it somewhere. Cinderella was debating mentioning this when the girl lowered her sword. "You didn't happen to snag a couple cushions from that mansion, did you?"
Cinderella's smile fell. "Uh, no."
Weiss's arms dropped at her sides. "Then I guess we're sleeping on this mess. And who knows if we'll even have food!"
"Oh, I'm a... good cook. You find something and... I'll get the...fire started."
"Yea", moaned Weiss. "That is if we can find anything without the Grimm attacking."
Cinderella bit her lip but didn't say anything. She knelled down searching for fallen branches under the hills of leaves. She got to three before Weiss screamed.
"I can't control it!" The younger girl cried.
"It's a... bird." Cinderella said slowly. Could her savior really be this stupid?
"It's a summon." Weiss thrust her saber again and again faster than the eye could follow, and every time the bird flew around it, mocking her. It actually looked a bit like the white bird from Cinderella's mother's tree but its feathers weren't the pallor of that bird's but a snow-white that seemed to glow with its own light. Still, perhaps they worked similarly.
"Try asking...it." Weiss glared at Cinderella as if she was stupid. The older girl lowered her head and mumbled, "That's what I would do."
Weiss looked at the glowing bird again, grunted, and sang, "Find us food or... I'll be rude?"
The glowing bird chirped and took off. With that settled, Cinderella finished gathering the sticks into a leafless clearing marked with a circle of stones. Her right arm stung from the poker burns but it would be fine soon enough. For Now, Cinderella favored her left for assembling the firewood into the nice little ring. Just a simple snap and the fire was going as if by magic. And then Weiss screamed again.
The smaller girl had been pacing around far from the fire's edge, stubbornly refusing to come into its light. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"I made a fire... like I said I...would." Cinderella said in a hushed tone. She was crouching directly over it still, her power relaxing her. It was her one pleasure that her stepfamily failed to ruin. They thought it was useful. This Weiss girl seemed less rational.
"Not like that!" Weiss screamed. "Do you know how dangerous those flames of yours are? People can be hurt, cities destroyed, all because of those flames!"
The flames of the campfire grew small but more intense. It gnawed through the sticks like a ravenous dragon. And still, Cinderella kept her voice low. "What are you talk..ing about? What's your problem?"
"You are my problem."
The flames died. Weiss was no longer on the edge of the light, but now right above her. Cinderella stood up slowly. She was nearly a foot taller than the younger girl but that didn't make her feel any better. If anything she felt precarious, like the small girl could knock her off her stand at any moment.
"I'm not safe with you here." Weiss continued. "I'm not going to become another one of your victims. I'm not gonna kill you right now and fall to your level, you manipulative bitch!"
Cinderella's throat burned worse than the time her step-sisters forced ashes down it. In the same gravelly tone she's been cursed to speak since then she said, "You saved... me."
"I was trying to save someone else! And I'm not going to let you hurt her either!"
A familiar burning sensation rippled from behind Cinderella's eyepatch. Something was trying to force its way through her disfigured tear duct. Cinderella turned around. She couldn't let Weiss see. She couldn't let anyone see. She ran.
On that cold fall night, Cinderella learned what it meant to be truly free. She was alone, weak, fearful, and powerless. So she kept walking until she came upon a house. The door was slightly ajar.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Weiss followed the bird while cursing her luck. Damn thing found something and it couldn't bring it to her? If only she could summon her armor, that thing could've brought a fine meal. Maybe it would've even helped her stand a chance once Cinder decided to abandon her facade like she did at the Vytal Festival. That woman still had all her magic and Weiss could barely summon more than a measly bird that didn't even obey her fully. So not fair!
Still, Weiss abandoned her anger when she smelled the cake. Real oven-baked food, not the berries or any peasant food. The bird took off and circled overhead. So far this dumb thing proved far more useful than the magic mirror.
Weiss squeezed through the last pair of trees to come across a dirt road. The smell was coming from the apron of the road's only other occupant, a small girl in a red hood. She was younger than Ruby, couldn't have been more than 10. Still, the silver eyes that met her were unmistakably familiar, as were the red tips that fell over her left one. Not to mention that huge awkward smile which actually worked better on the smaller face than it did on a teenager's. But it's what the girl said that really got to Weiss.
"Snow White!" She called, and ran up and hugged the older girl.
Weiss instantly stiffened at the remembrance of her last hug. She slowly managed to peel away the child that resembled Ruby Rose. This time she would be more careful. She would make sure. "Uh, do you remember me?"
"Of course I do," Said the girl in the red hood. "How could I forget my older sister?"