After a mile of forest road came a mile of farmland, followed by a mile of village buildings that steadily improved in creation and design. Weiss, now astride her dark blanketed horse she had left sheltered in a far flung stable, wobbled in her saddle as she came upon the cobblestone bridge that passed over the moat and through the short wall that ran the perimeter of Vale. Two guards who could not help but to hear the clipping and clopping of the oncoming steed stepped forward with torches, spears in hand.
While the pounding rain had done some work to take off the mud, her white attire had been at least temporarily stained brown and black, even the feather in her tricorn crimped and ruined. With her collars up, red scarf wrapped, and hat down, she could've passed as a short brigand, but the guards were expecting her.
"Stand down philistines, it's me." She was tired, but still authoritative, her words mean, but her tone familiar. It was to her advantage that everyone expected her to be cold, never taking her insults to heart as they believed it to be part of her aesthetic. If only they knew she meant it all.
They eased up, leaning into their spears. They appeared comfortable in the deluge of water, their unflattering cloaks designed around ceaseless rainfall. "Did yer' get tha beast Heir Schnee?"
The slow and steady pace of her horse never faltered, much like the distant stare in her bored eyes. "Indeed. Rescued a peasant too."
As she passed they noticed the body strapped and covered to the back of the steed, seemingly dead, with a loose bloody foot dangling on the side. "How does one rescue someone and they be dead?" asked the other guard.
"She's not dead, just injured," Weiss retorted slowly.
The first guard stepped over to the other, elbowing him with a wide grin. "Oh looky, 'prince bringing home a helpless damsel, maybe hoping to breathe some 'life' into her, how noble." The other guard took a moment to realize what his friend was implying before sighing heavily.
"Have you ever heard of this invention 'soap?' I suggest you try washing your mouth with it." The heiress trotted on, the interaction already on the log of unimportant things to be forgotten promptly.
Weiss waited for the sound of her hoof steps to change as she passed through the gate, the horse shoes clanking against stones to echo off of the gothic homes and businesses and reverberate off into the many dark alleyways. Instead, the patter of millions of raindrops bounced between the edifices so anyone in the street couldn't hear themselves think. It wasn't a new sensation to her, she had experienced that exact feeling many times, but she couldn't help to shiver with a repressed giggle.
Navigating the streets by guard's torchlights, she found the gates already open to her father's estate, a veritable castle in all but name. Her courtyard greeted her with lines of thorny rose bushes and a central water fountain wrapped around a statue of her great grandfather. Staying true to her professional, ingrained, hunting ritual, she steered her colt around the statue and fountain, mumbling to herself about how whoever decided to put a statue in the middle of the path where carriages routinely pass should've been publicly executed along with the artisan's guild that sponsored them.
Stable hands came from cover to grab the reins of Weiss's horse, one of the young boy's face contorting from excitement to confusion to worry once he noticed the passenger's hanging bloody feet. The heiress called to the friendly face on the estate's front door steps for help. "Jaune! Make yourself useful for once!"
The knight who was tasked with waiting for Weiss's arrival had dozed off at some point as he laid on the rain soaked steps. Jolting to attention, he drunkenly tripped his way down to his liege, awaiting further instruction. "I- I- I'm here, I'm up, what assistance do you require?" he stammered along the way.
With heartfelt groans, the horse-rider dismounted, her potentially broken ribs screaming at her to stop walking. For a moment, she rested her head against her horse, dizzy, blacking out even, before Jaune's concerned comments came back to her ringing ears. "Uh, injured villager, carry 'em for me." She helped him undo the straps binding the girl to the back of the horse, Weiss helping to ease the blanket wrapped girl into Jaune's armor clad arms.
The knight noticed how his liege had strapped the girl to the horse as though she was a sack of flour and got a glance at her mangled face, a pit of rage he wasn't quite use to rooting itself in his chest. Through clenched teeth he asked as he bridal carried the girl up the stairs, "What was that for? This is not some boar you hunted, this is a person."
Stepping through the tall decorated double doors reinforced with steel, Weiss let out a sigh of relief as warmth embraced her soaked, bone chilled body. "What was what— what asinine thing are you talking about now?" she shook her head, bewildered and not in the mood for conversation.
He followed her up the curving staircase of the entrance hall, banners woven to illustrate noble families' founding moments passing them along the ascent. "I find it hard to believe he's still alive after you toted him carelessly for god knows how long without even basic aide or care. This boy needs healing, he needs the doctor!"
The heiress flickered her eyes left and right, scanning the doorways lining the hallway with a sense of lethargicness that ran counter to her quick stride. A sigh. "That is where we are going you imbecile, and stop fretting. The girl will be fine."
The knight kept pace but his gaze drifted briefly. Shifting his grip on the girl he managed to hold her tiny mass with one arm, freeing his other hand to pull away the layers wrapping the werewolf's face, seeing the same as before in the form of mud and blood. Pulling a handkerchief, he smeared away the mess and realized he was in fact staring at a young maiden, beautiful in her own scared way. Through his fingerless gloves, he pressed against her face, skin icy and white. He looked around to make sure no one would see him lose his composure, his face twisting with a blend of anger and worry. He leaned in from behind Weiss, yelling in a whisper, "She's as cold as ice, mangled, at least show some concern!"
A chuckle. "Had I known you grew a backbone as some point Jaune, I would've had you train to become a real knight. And when you mean concern, do you mean the same concern that lead you to leave your sister to die? Oh but wait, then you wouldn't have been next in line to take your family's mantle of responsibility, and you wouldn't be here right now to assist me assist this girl, so," Weiss cocked her head to look behind her, a single eye glaring at him from under her tricorn, "please explain to me the intricacies of your sudden need for concern."
His face dropped, defeated silence painting his face. Jaune hung his head in a low shame.
"That's what I thought."
A minute passed. "Did you slay the beast?" he asked, quiet. He received no reply.
Weiss lead them to the infirmary, Weiss slamming open the door for Jaune to find his way into a dark room lit only by a three armed candelabra. Doctor Oobleck turned in his seat to look with slight surprise at the three bodies now in his room at such an ungodly hour, but reacted swiftly all the same.
"If you would Sir Arc, lay them on that bed there then get me a pot of hot water. Heir Schnee, anything I should know?" The boy did as told and ran out the door, leaving Weiss alone with the doctor.
She closed the door and crossed her arms, finding herself a comfortable posture that kept a strong presence about her. "That's the beast. The stab wound is silver of course, so she should be returned to her senses by morning."
The tall, tall man all but threw his chair to the bedside of the Wolf girl, his hands flying as he peeled away the wet blankets, swept her brunette bangs away, washed her face, checked her pulse, and started stitching her gaping chest wound. "And just why, Heir Schnee, did you bring the mark you sought to kill to my doorstep to save? Mercy is uncommon to you."
"She used a scythe to fight me, her taint seems weak but she seems to have innate talent, good senses about her. Maybe I could use her."
He at no point slowed in his handiwork, already committed to helping the person brought to his attention. "A bold notion, Heir Schnee, you wouldn't be the first to try, the first to fail neither."
"I don't know what to tell you, strong talents and a weak taint is a rare combination Doctor. No one is going to miss the peasant she butchered, thus her fate isn't sealed. I see opportunity."
"Unscrupulous as ever Heir, unscrupulous and pragmatic, no different from your grandfather's." To hear that made Weiss proud.
They spoke cold and calm, a mutual respect and understanding they had developed over years of business-like interaction, Weiss coming in hurt and Oobleck patching her up, the latter never feeling the need to nag or pester the former about being 'careful', a notion he understood had no place in passing mention to a person whose job it was to hunt monsters.
Done with stitching, he stripped the near motionless girl down to nothing, searching her body for a timeline of events. As he did so, Weiss gazed on at the pained expression lingering on the girl's face, still clearly feeling the silvered wound inflicted upon her. A sigh.
"It seems she was clawed along her neck, just a couple weeks ago, then as her werewolf form began to manifest, she accidentally scarred the inside of her palm with her elongated nails. Both of those are already scarred over, so her natural healing is in effect. If I were to guess, this gash on her cheek and the slice on the bridge of her nose was your silver, correct?"
"Aye."
"Well that should heal as we get away from the full moon."
Jaune burst into the room with two kettles of water, gasping for air. He had clearly run both ways at full steam. "Where do you want them?"
"Give them to me."
Jaune noticed the girl was naked and averted his eyes to the floor, stomping forward to hand the water to the Doctor. His elbow bumped Weiss in the back as he passed, a pain stricken face replacing her previous stoic form.
"Thank you boy, you may leave."
"You alright Weiss?" the knight asked as he turned to leave, Weiss's expression not escaping his attention.
"Just go," she wheezed.
Accepting her order, he left the room again, a hint of sadness in his step. The heiress slowly waddled, step by step, to one of the open beds, then lowered herself as gently as she could onto her front. She let out a long groan, exaggerated but even more so cathartic.
"Ah, so you were had," mused the doctor, now using a washcloth with the warm water to clean his patient. "What is the damage?"
"I think she cracked the ribs on my back."
"The ribs in your front and back are the same ribs my Heir."
"I was not aware I had asked for your commentary on the matter." She rocked her head against the bed to shift her hat down some more, hiding the grin on her face. Oobleck didn't bother hiding his.
He finished his work on the werewolf, mentioning something about her recovery that Weiss simply didn't hear as her mind went somewhere else, her eyelids like lead. She only came to attention when the doctor pulled off her hat and unclasped her red scarf, muttering something about wetting the bed.
"I do not wet the bed," mumbled Weiss, mildly offended.
"I said you got all the beds wet, your clothes are soaked." He threw the hat to the base of the bed, his attempt at brushing it off fruitless.
"Oh..." she started drifting off.
"You need to sit up so I can take your coat off."
"Hmmmm..." she thought about it, falling asleep for a second until Oobleck loudly cleared his throat. "Oh, uhm, the coat is ruined, just cut it off." She didn't want to bend or move her shoulders at all.
He made an annoyed gesture as he pulled out a kit from a bedside drawer, brandishing a pair of scissors just beginning to rust. "I'm sure someone less fortunate than the crown princess would've appreciated a fairly expensive leather coat that just got a little stained, but sure," he started cutting the back open on the coat, starting at the neck, "sure, let's cut up some money, what do I know about fiscal responsibility."
Having no further need of the scissors, he ripped the backs open on the under shirts she wore, each wet article of clothing sticking to her skin as such things were inclined to do. Eventually he was looking at her bare back, his questions of her injury answered as a cluster of bruises showed themselves for the whole world to see. A finger grazed one of the purple and green spots, the owner waking up suddenly and crying out. "Careful!" she warned.
"Well Heir, I simply touched it. I will have to touch it a fair bit more. I'm sorry about this..."
"Shiiiiiiiiit—"
"Grit your teeth," he pressed his thumb into one of the bruises, Weiss biting the sheets and muffling her screams, him pressing harder until she passed out.
Elsewhere, Jaune sat in a comfy padded chair in front of a fireplace, the guest room decorated in odd trinkets and almost valuables meant to entertain a visitor's imagination. As it was, he poured red wine into the skull of a canary goat and drank from it. The skull was fake of course, carved from wood then dyed to look authentic, and the animal nothing but fiction, but it did its job of arousing the attention of less savvy folk.
Sitting beside him was a woman, short and stout, dirty and covered in ash. She had a large dark steel revolver engraved and inlaid with silver filigree, the casing of the handle opened upon her lap as she filed away at the trigger group, smoothing down a troublesome spot. The ginger haired girl reassembled the gun and thumbed back the hammer, a pull of the trigger and a crisp click putting an accomplished smile on her face. "Done! Now I just have to get it to Weiss before she goes out on her hunt."
Jaune, leaning his brow against his wine-holding hand, revealed the truth. "Nora, Weiss came back from her hunt an hour ago."
Terror filled her visage. "I'm going to lose boozing privileges…"
"It is possible."
-End Chapter 2-
As a person of my word, I was asked to make more. I made more. Happy trails. Reviews or requests for more are appreciated.