Been a while, hasn't it?
I am currently writing this during the ExtraLife 2018 RT (and continued in the 2019) stream and one thing I have noticed is that the entire community hates Gavin Free; or at the very least loves seeing him in pain. Over 200 Moon Balls launched in total. I know right? (also just found out that the VA of Oscar Pine voiced Alphonse Elrich in FMA... like what?)
So hilarity ensues and here we are again. I have done a lot of editing of the previous chapters to remove most of the hyperbole when talking about Summer and Silva, my OC. As well as tightening up the descriptions and the dialogue between characters, and fixing names of now known characters from my improvised ones.
So here is the latest (incomplete; just wanted to get something out there for once) chapter of The Cursed Rose: Weiss Schnee.
Weiss Schnee.
Many things could be said of her; heiress of the Schnee Dust Corporation, cold-blooded, narcissistic, entitled, and her personal favorite: preppy. If only they could see through the wall of ice she has put up, they would see a kind, caring young woman trying to make her way in this world. One of the first things she insisted on was her enrollment into Beacon Academy in order to continue her training as a huntress.
She sighed. Weiss was about half way through the flight between Atlas and Vale. It took quite some time trying to convince her father to allow her to leave. While he was insistent on her attendance to Atlas Academy, she and her sister Winter were able to talk him into letting her leave Solitas for Anima. With the separation from her duties as the face of the next generation she would be able to finally relax.
"Not that an eight hour airship ride isn't relaxing enough," She thought sarcastically. She had been on these long flights before, but always when it was company business or a "family vacation" to their winter home even farther up north. Those trips were usually boring and no one got along well enough to play any games during the travelling. Weiss was too young to play any real games with Winter before she left for Atlas Academy, so she was used to reading and such for long periods of time. Though after a while even those well run habits become boring, and she is simply left with her imagination. Occasionally one of the bedtime stories her mother used to tell her when she was a child would pop into her head and she would relive the exciting tales full of magic and spellcraft. Being of a younger age she would often think of what it would be like to have such powers; but now, all she could do was chuckle at her immaturity.
"As if there could be magic in this world." No one would ever believe in such a preposterous notion. While yes, there was Dust and people had Semblances, it is still a far cry from the magic Weiss' mother used to tell her about. Strengths that could move mountains; forces that could temper raging seas, powers that could allow one to do anything they imagined.
There was a buzz on the intercom that brought the heiress out of her musings. "Miss Schnee, we will be arriving at Vale in about fifteen minutes. Please make sure you have everything ready to depart."
"Thank you, Simon." She said as she started to glance through her personal belongings. Everything else, from Dust to clothing, was stored in the cargo hold. She made sure she had her Scroll, money, and other accessories befitting a young woman of her stature. After double and triple checking her effects she grabbed her Scroll and decided to look through her old photos. While many of them were of her family, there weren't many of her friends; the only "friends" Weiss had were usually after her father's fortune and influence. Though she found one of her old sparring partner trying to scare their master by trying to jump on her from a tree that made her chuckle.
She gazed out the window and saw illuminated in the night the CCT at the center of Beacon Academy and she knew just beyond that was one of the Four Great Kingdoms, Vale. Soon enough she would be entering the next stage of her life, working her way to the freedom she wanted as a huntress. Despite the popularity of Atlas Academy among the citizens of the same moniker, there was too much pressure to join the Atlesian Military upon graduation. Weiss wanted to choose her own path, the best place to do that was at Beacon. "Here I go."
Since there was still a few days until the start of the school year, Weiss was to stay in an SDC lodging house. Jacques would not let her stay anywhere where he would not have eyes on her; the attacks on his mines and warehouses have made him paranoid to say the least.
"If only the White Fang would leave us alone," Weiss thought, "those bumbling buffoons think that violence is the only way to solving their problems..." The Faunus were not without reason, or so she had hoped in her younger years, but recent events have encouraged her to think otherwise.
"Attack after attack, riot after riot." She sighed, "there will be a day when all their sins will come to haunt them; and I will enjoy watching them burn." Though she knew that there were some things her father could have done better when running his company, she believed there was absolutely no reason to resort to violence. Violence made people bitter, bitterness led to anger, anger fueled hatred, and hatred bred violence. It was a self-condemning circle of destructive impulses that eventually lead more Grimm to the walls of Mantle, which in turn bore fear, creating another cycle that would lead to humanity's ultimate destruction.
Don't misunderstand, Weiss held no hate against Faunus themselves; she even thought some of the wolves looked cute. Though, years of being taught to fear everyone and everything outside of her family and home have led her to be curt when dealing with servants and friends alike, let alone strangers believing she was treating them callously. She wasn't the public speaker her father was nor did she have the commanding presence Winter had, but she made due with what she had. Even if it meant she was bequeathed the title "Ice Queen" and treated even more discourteous than she did others.
Smiling as a stray thought crossed her mind, Weiss remembered some of the antics she got into when she was younger. Both she and her sparring partner snuck around Schnee Manor with arms full of snowballs, aiming to get to her father's room; not his study, never his study. Back in those days he was a kindhearted soul for his family, taking his children's pranks in stride, and even getting back at them at some points. "But no longer... Father would not take kindly to that type of tomfoolery from me these days." Many things have changed for the worse since her combat teacher disappeared. The once warm home had changed to an icy domain full of hate and cruelty.
It hadn't helped that her mother had turned to drinking to be able to cope with her father's increasing frustration and anger. Living with her parents had become so insufferable she had to leave the "drunken rage" behind in order to live her life. Yes, she regretted leaving behind her siblings, but for the sole reason of stepping out of familiarity. She would have nothing and no one to rely on if something were to happen outside of her expectations. "Like a certain cloaked figure." But she had no reason to believe that anyone would be as childish as to wear one of those things.
After a few days acclimating to the Kingdom of Vale, Weiss began her trip up to the cliffs above. She was very restless in her family owned airship, not unlike a certain scythe wielder, but not just for the sake of excitement. The flurry of emotions whirling around made her want to go hunting, "Either that or go straight to the cafeteria." For some reason a full stomach always made her calmer, and it surprised everyone how much she could eat as well. For such a tiny thing as she was, she had a voracious appetite. Something she was hoping to never show anyone in Beacon. Her image as the prim and proper princess of the corporate conglomerate would be shattered as easily as ice.
"But to be fair, I have heard of the colorful nature of Beacon's students, an indulgent heiress such as myself would be nothing compared to them." And in truth she was correct, Beacon Academy was full of weird and wild natured individuals to the point even wild Faunus would be considered normal. The stories she heard from Winter pertaining to some of the curious characters had been enough to foretell of Weiss' own upcoming adventures in the Kingdom of Vale. Though it wouldn't compare to her mischievous exploits as a child, she hoped her time at the school would at the very least not be as boring as the lectures of her home tutors.
Weiss sighed, it had been way too long since she had such an enthusiastic teacher as the one who taught her creativity. Every other educator that had come in to the Schnee Manor had sought to stamp out the creativity that oft lead to new ideas and schools of thought, of which produced some of the most ingenious minds the world has ever known. Those ones had tried, and ultimately failed, to keep her thinking inside the box, so to speak. She would more often than not come to the same ideological thoughts as her predecessors through an entirely different process, and provide counter arguments and antitheses that broke apart such thinkings. Weiss was repeatedly showered with praise from much of her family and servants for her level of intellect, but was unsure if she should accept it. After all, she was competing against some of the greatest teachers in their respective studies, even those of philosophy, and winning.
Granted, this was a year ago; so it wasn't like Weiss was a child prodigy akin to Profes... Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck, as he so emphatically wished to be called. The very same Doctor who was at the leading edge of research into Grimm habits and habitats at the age of fifteen. Her family had offered him a significant amount of money to come educate her daughter, but he refused on multiple occasions for multiple reasons; more often than not were frivolously outlandish and increasingly so. Ultimately escalating to one Weiss would not believe had she not overheard him say it in her father's office. "Mr. Schnee, unless you have enough expenses to cover thirteen thousand five hundred eighty-seven different instances of trial and error to enact a working hand held coffee thermos combination flamethrower combat machine do not contact me again! Thank you and goodbye."
She still chuckled at that one every time the memory came to mind. Weiss had heard the the grand doctor was teaching at beacon these past few years so she was excited to finally meet the only man outrageous enough to make her father sputter a nonsensical retort. She had seen Jacques speechless a number of times but not often after contact with Silva had stopped. He started growing more stern...
Weiss sighed and shook her head, she had already been down that line of thinking many times before. Questions like, "what would have happened had they kept in touch?" and, "who would we be if Sensei was still around?" swirled around her head on many a sleepless night. She had drifted off into countless daydreams in the middle of teaching sessions thinking about a hypothetical situation and how the many different variables in the strings of time would lead to a divergent, and yet unique, outcome. Of course, she would be brought back to reality with the smack of a yardstick on the back of her head, but that didn't keep her from lapsing toward her fantasies after her tutor had gotten into expounding whatever topic she was supposedly learning about at that point in time.
Even now she was on the verge of going into one of those delusions of times long since fated to never be. Of how she would one day meet the daughter of her favorite teacher, become friends with her and go gallivanting around her house with arms full of snowballs, throwing them at each and every target they saw walking through the halls; just like she had done with one of her closest confidants.
An abrupt jolt throughout the airship drew her from her musings; she looked out the window. The airship was already sitting on the dock in the outskirts of the academy grounds. One of the servants walked to her seat, "Miss Schnee, we have arrived. Please prepare to disembark."
Knowing her belongings were being taken care of by the attendants, she stretched and took one last look out the window. She saw several applicants walking towards the main courtyard and even further to the main campus itself. "And I'm about to be among them." she thought as she stood. Leaving her seat a flash of recognition registered in her cerebral cortex, she spun around and looked for the source through the window. Faster than she could even think, she muttered:
"Silver..."