"It's in my eyes!" cried Ruby.
"Stop rubbing it in!" scolded Coco, the dazzling tailor. She wrestled Ruby's hands away to wash away the soap with clean water. "You can't expect me to believe you've never handled soap before darling!"
"Isn't water good enough?" she countered through tightly squeezed eyelids. "Speaking of which, this hot water is nice."
"Look up real quick." Coco dropped her scrub and reached over to the side of the bath.
"Why?"
Ruby let out a shriek as Coco poured a bucket of cold water onto her face.
A short bit later, out of the bath, the tailor had the farmgirl in a bathrobe and in a chair in front of the dressing room vanity mirror. "Ow, ow, ow, ow…" repeated Ruby as Coco brushed her previously shaggy hair.
"So many knots darling, don't tell me you don't know how to use a brush either?"
"My sister uses 'em," she craned her head in a futile attempt to ease the pain, "I never needed one!"
"Well that's where you're wrong honey, you needed them before this if you didn't want this to hurt," Coco pointed out.
Before she knew what was happening, Coco was brushing her teeth for her.
"Ish fish neshmashary?"
"Sorry darling, I can't understand you, your bad breath is too loud." Ruby finally understood that Coco was enjoying herself. The jubilant grin might've been the item to tip her off.
"Are you grinding my fingers!?" Ruby drew away her hands as though she had touched a hot stove.
The tailor waved her file with a natural grace. "I'm trimming your man nails darling. Trust me, we're almost done, you're already looking great."
"Re- really?" she asked, looking up to the gorgeous woman.
"A good tailor doesn't lie to her customer, only the competition."
A few moments later, they stood in front of the room's center dressing mirror, the dresser tenderly holding the shoulders of the dressee. Ruby had basic underwear and garter belts on, her hair in a towel. Lacking the regular amount of clothing she was used to, she shook a little in anxiety over this relative stranger examining her body like it was fine art. Of course Ruby wouldn't actually know if she was looking at art or a canvas used to clean brushes, but the point remained.
Coco pulled a tape from her pocket and wrapped it around Ruby every which way, moving her arms and getting in places that made the girl blush. As she measured, she thought out loud so her 'customer' could follow along, "5 foot 9 inches is a little on the tall side and your skin is pretty smooth, you have been well fed. Still very thin though, I don't have too much for ladies in your height and width, but I am a tailor, so we're covered…" she laughed to herself, her growing excitement rubbing off on Ruby.
"So what are you going to dress me in?" She was allowed to lower her arms.
"Hmmm…" Coco thought. "Oh," she stretched the 'o' for several seconds, inspiration striking her. "Ruby—"
"Yes?"
"No, Ruby, daughter of Rose… it's too easy sometimes."
After some corset tying, some tussling with fabrics and stitching clothes, the farmgirl was delighted by her reflection. Though the towel and scars kept the image from crossing to something out of a dream, she still couldn't believe the item she was wearing. The dress, as a whole, was a glossy red, the bottom a layered skirt that looked like the inside of a rose on one side, a patterned corset breaking up her middle, and the neck and shoulders of the piece was black rose patterned lace. To go with the ensemble was a black, elbow length opera glove for her right arm, and a scarlett georgette scarf that hung like a fabric necklace down below her collarbone, hiding the scarred part of her neck.
"I am good if I do say so myself," gloated Coco, holding Ruby's shoulders again.
Ruby reached up and touched the woman's well groomed hands affectionately. "I feel like a princess, it's like I'm in a fairytale. Thank you."
"Ha," she gave a hearty laugh, "we're not done yet sweety." In front of the vanity mirror again, the tailor removed the towel and worked on Ruby's hair, not letting the girl see the progress as she went. Once done with that, she moved on to makeup. Ruby could feel little brushes feather the majority of her face, a notable focus was spent on masking the cut across the bridge of her nose and the maimed flesh of her right cheek. The last thing was her eyelashes and lipstick. "Done. You can open."
Ruby couldn't believe her eyes.
The mirror showed a princess, not the farmgirl she knew herself to be.
Most of her hair was pulled back into a bun in back that flared out in a fascinating combination of order and chaos, like the tail of a crow or raven, and in front was her bangs. On her left, they were short and neat, but on the right, where her cheek wound was, the bangs reached down as they curved in to her pink lips, drawing the eyes away from the injury. Coco waited on Ruby's reaction.
"As a child, I would every now and again see noblewomen walk in the market. I would see the makeup on their faces, and I would get scared. They looked like harlequins, and I could never understand the appeal. I asked my father, 'why? Why would someone ruin their looks like that?' He never had an answer, he didn't use it. The way you do it, I can barely tell I'm wearing it… It's like, it's as though this is the pinnacle of what I could look like. I understand why people use makeup now. You are a master of your craft." Ruby sniffled with a smile.
Coco reciprocated, hugging the girl from behind. "Thank you miss. Anytime."
"Really?" Ruby laughed, wiping her nose.
"Oh don't cry now honey, you'll ruin your lashes. But within reason, yes, I enjoyed working on you, you're much prettier than most of the sow that I have to deal with."
The maiden laughed out loud, grinning wide to the dresser's frankness.
"Nicer too, and fun!" She pulled away, adjusting the clothes to see if she could improve it in the future at all. "Just keep brushing your hair and we'll be sterling."
Several quick raps on the door announced the presence of visitors. "Are you done in there yet?" called Weiss.
Coco beamed at Ruby. "Let's show them. Come in!"
Jaune held open the door as Weiss strode in. Ruby stood to greet them, Coco just behind her. Both of them smiled proudly to the two visitors. "Well then," Weiss remarked quietly.
The knight grasped at his chest, a pain throbbing right around where his heart should've been. "Excuse me." He had to rip his eyes off of the maiden and almost ran out of the room.
Coco and Ruby giggled to each other, his reaction a high praise to the both of them. Even Weiss snickered, though she attempted to hide it behind her hand as she pretended to scratch her nose. "Careful Jaune," she shouted loud enough for him to hear from the hallway, "I think you may have left your jaw somewhere in here." She focused on the two in front of her. "Coco, you outdid yourself this time, you really did."
"Thank you Heir."
"Splendid artsmanship."
"You flatter me."
"Yes, now I ask, is she going to a ball? A picnic perhaps? A brothel?" Weiss kept smiling.
Coco kept smiling too. "Sorry?" Ruby stopped smiling.
"I needed you to dress her in a war kit, hunter's garb, rain gear, whatever you prefer to call it, she's going to be ripping the gullets from beasts as they try to eviscerate her, not dipping crackers in fairy dust wine."
The smile never left the tailor's face. Instead, her eye twitched as something deep inside her being snapped into a million pieces.
"Start over. She has split ends in her hair anyways, cut it short. Take that make-up off, she needs to look strong, not like she's going to seduce a vampire." Weiss started leaving, but not without making sure she had the last word. "And don't keep the red scarf. If we had matching red scarves, that would just be tacky."
As the door closed, Coco reached after the heiress, hands clenching like a mugger strangling a alleyway victim. Biting her hand, she screamed into it for a long moment before looking to Ruby. "A brothel! You can't say that to a lady!"
Shocked was she to see Ruby silently giggling to herself. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
Coco relaxed. "Well, most ladies don't take kindly to such comments."
"This was more than I ever hoped for. I can only ask that you keep this dress around for maybe a later day."
"Of course. You will have your night to shine darling."
She stroked her new bangs. "I see where Weiss is coming from though, I won't be dressing up, I have dangerous work to do."
"But every lady must be presentable! It's almost the law I tell you!"
"Well that's alright. I'm not a lady," Ruby stated simply.
Coco started removing the dress, starting with the corset. "Oh but you will be."
"What do you mean?"
"Hunters are at the same station as knights and nobles. Yes, you will start out as Weiss's apprentice, learn the ropes of the trade, learn to be a werewolf that hunts beasts—"
The farmgirl stiffened. "You know?"
Coco chuckled. "Of course I know. Heir Schnee wouldn't have the person dressing a person with werewolf scars not know that they were a werewolf. Weiss told me ahead of time and had me swear secrecy. So… don't worry. Your secret is safe."
"Secret…" it sounded weird to her ears. She never had a secret before, never dressed so elegantly, never been important, never stunned a man; today was a day of many firsts for her.
Stripped down, she was sat down at the vanity mirror again, the tailor picking up one of her pairs of scissors. With reluctance, she started chopping away Ruby's black brown locks. "Anyhow, once you have proven yourself to be able of hunting by yourself, you will be dubbed as a hunter. You will be paid per hunt, you will have the right to walk around wherever you wish, go to the balls, you will earn a family name, the list goes on. You'll outrank me by a country mile."
She sighed. "But I'll be able to see you still, right?"
The tailor smirked with a friendly sway of her body. "Anytime sweety, my offer still stands. Besides, you have to see me again. I still have your dress."
Jaune waited in the hallway for a while more, eventually giving up on sitting comfortably and took to sleeping across several mismatched chairs he collected from other rooms. The door finally opened and Ruby stepped out. Dark gray leather everything. A mantle that wrapped her shoulder almost all the way around except for just over her right arm to allow movement. A long coat that had split leg skirts reaching just above her tall boots and belts around the waist to cinch the excess of clothing. Instead of a standard collar, the collar was buttoned up to act as a sock around the lower half of her face, though could be undone to breathe normally. Jaune recognized some of Coco's style in the red linen peeking out from under the top mantle, clearly just there for a splash of color. Ruby took the tricorn in her hand and fastened it upon her short-haired head.
"A little different I see," he commented. He was disappointed by the change, but knew it had to be done. He held out his hand. "Jaune of house Arc. This is our first proper meeting."
She stared at his hand. "Is your hand okay?"
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
"Oh." She held out her gloved hand, of which he took and bowed to kiss. She blushed, but none could see under her collar mask. "Ruby, daughter of Rose."
"I am… Weiss's squire," he said with much pain. "I am to show you around."
Ruby looked down the hallway one way then the other. "I'm honored."
In a dark laboratory, a golden clock ticked at half pace, slow and methodical. Weiss leaned against the messy desk before her. "Will it keep her weakened?"
An older man of silver hair, black blazer and green tie, slid a bottle of what looked like water across the sole, clear space over to Weiss. "Trace silver, otherwise water. I'm starting small so she shouldn't feel it. If she starts acting up, I'll increase the dosage."
"Thank you Ozpin. I trust you'll check up on her yourself?"
"Oh I wouldn't miss this for anything, miss Schnee."
-End Chapter 4-