If Weiss had a choice, she would kick in the doors. As it was, she had to settle for turning the polished door knob and entering the overly lavish dining hall like a civilized person. She at no point believed that a decedent lifestyle was sinful or even one not worth living. Weiss cherished having people wait on her hand and foot, comfy beds, gourmet feasts, and so on, but everything needed a purpose, and her struggles in the night made the luxury all the more enjoyable.
But her father's dining hall disgusted her.
Decadence didn't describe the pride and greed that suffocated the room. Multiple portraits of her father done by the finest artist with purple curtains threaded at the ends with gold tassels adorned the walls above greco–roman styled stands for other items of fine art. Unused suits of armor guarded the spaces in between the paintings and two, not one, but two chandeliers with too many white quartz gems dangling lit the room. Lion skins that no one in the family hunted laid sprawled in front of a fireplace of polished marble. It looked good, Weiss appreciated that, but she knew her father went out of his way to make sure to buy the most expensive possible marble, regardless of how it looked.
That feeling extended to the whole room. Parts of it looked fine if not great, but it was all an act to portray power and wealth to any dignitary that walked in. Perhaps to prove to Jacques himself that he had more power than he actually did.
"Oh my darling, I do wish you would dress like a proper lady during our dinners," spoke Jacques eloquently behind a crystal glass of red wine.
Weiss strutted passed the empty end of the long carved table to pull a seat to the right of her father and opposite of her sister, Winter. She removed her dirtied white hunter's tricorn and dropped it on the seat beside her, then brushed some of the dirt from her new and freshly dirtied hunting leathers. "I was placing the monthly traps." The heiress looked down to her plate of garnished roast, pre-cut in slices for her on a silver platter.
"A monotonous task, I'm sure, I keep telling you that you should have the help do it."
She mulled over a response while she gently stabbed the meat and delicately placed it into her mouth. After she chewed and swallowed, she answered. "But father, I need to be the one to check them, and I won't know where they are if I don't lay them myself."
Jacques shook his head with a confident smile. The platinum haired man dressed in a white suit that, unlike Weiss's clothes, were always clean and spotless. "I still don't see the point in you hunting the abominations yourself, the men I hired are doing an excellent job keeping the countryside safe. You need to make yourself more presentable for when the ambassadors visit, especially for the dinner party I'm hosting in a weeks time."
Weiss gritted her teeth. The 'men' her father hired were motley to the say the least, and ineffective at large. The worst of them were unconfirmed highwaymen while the most noble of them were under equipped and under trained for the task. Only a duo among their ranks qualified as hunters by Weiss's standards, and they were kept to guard the manor. Worse yet, she knew that the dinner party was set to occur on the night of the fool moon on purpose by her father so she would supposedly have to attend. "Oh but father," she retorted with a falsely gentle and polite tone, "I knew Winter would be lovely enough to be presentable for the both of us," nodding towards her older, stoic, and beautiful sister.
Winter, dressed in a pale blue gown, laid down her fork and knife, eyes set on her sister. "Weiss, we really do worry when you leave each night, sometimes we are subject to think you might not come back."
The younger sister winced. She believed Winter's words, but only in regards to Winter herself. Weiss didn't pretend to know for sure that her father feared for her own life.
"Yes, what would we be left to do if that happened?" Jacques commented, sipping his wine with a satisfied lick of his lips. "I even promised a certain Cardinal from Winchester that the two of you would meet, I can't simply break my promises."
Weiss's eye twitched as she avoided rolling her eyes. "A Cardinal priest? Bishop? Or… is it a deacon?"
Jacques chuckled. "As the expression goes, 'you have three guesses and the first two don't count.' The context for when one typically uses the expression is different, but in this case it works marvelously."
Marriage plans. Jacques may as well have just said that this Cardinal was interested in marrying her and her father promised her to him. Then he would have an in to the church. Weiss took a long drink of wine.
"Oh dear me, father, it seems as though I have lost track of the time," Weiss breathed monotonously. She scarfed down most of the rest of her plate and wiped her dirtied face unceremoniously with a patterned napkin. "I'm late for my etiquette lessons, good heavens."
Weiss stood up and began walking away from the diner table, only to immediately return to her seat to grab the soiled napkin. Before she even did what she planned to do, both Winter and Jacques let out sad sighs. The youngest of them grabbed the napkin and blew her nose into it, then dropped it onto her relatively untouched silverware.
"Pardon me," the young heiress whispered. And with that, she left.
She made her way down the hallway, grabbing her wrist with one hand and in the other she clawed at her palms with untrimmed fingernails, the sound echoing in her mind as she gritted her teeth painfully. Weiss had been told that she had anger issues, and that her feelings of rage and righteous indignation far exceeded any of her other emotions, yet that thought only made her more angry. But not as angry as the notion of her father's perpetual habit of trying to use her.
Within the hour, she was venting her anger on Jaune, whom took the beating in stride.
"Maybe he's a nice guy?" offered the knight, now informed of the dinner talk.
Weiss used her metal saber to blade lock his wooden longsword, then kicked him in the hip, knocking him down. "That's not the point, Jaune!" she almost screamed. She waited as he stood back up, and paced in place. "I am his own flesh and blood!" she grunted, slapping her chest with her free hand, "Just a modicum of compassion would placate me. But no, he just can't help himself."
Jaune took a hanging ox stance, then drew an arc over his head and stuck at Weiss with great force to her 'crown', or rather a side cut to her head. She punched the blade as it approached her with her pummel, not really seeming to put in the effort of style or grace. Jaune punished her lack of attention with a shoulder check, tackling her and pushing her back.
Weiss gasped. "Did you just?"
He recoiled. "Uhm, no?"
"I'm so proud of you! Unlike a certain someone to certain someone else!" she yelled, taking a proper stance. Taking the initiative, she struck at him rapidly, slashing at his arms, but gave him room to repeatedly block, the blade always stopping just short of his biceps. She leaned into his space, forced him back, then feinted into a double thigh hit. The man let out a 'yip' of pain. She dropped her stance, shoulders slouched, and kicked at her feet.
Looking off to a corner of the room, she mumbled to herself. "What am I whining over? I know he hasn't cared about me for a long time. He doesn't care. I'm just a… I'm just a tool to him."
In a feeling all too familiar to him, Jaune stood there motionless, speechless, and helpless. He just stood there and basked in her solemnity.
The doors to the training hall opened, and a formally dressed Ruby walked in, coattails and all. "Good evening, Lord Weiss," she greeted her master. "Sir Jaune," she added, performing something in between a curtsy and a bow.
"Good evening to you too Ruby," the other woman replied, kindly but absent mindedly. She looked to the wolf girl and relaxed her expression. "Did you finish your reading lesson?"
"Uh, yes, I did, but apparently…" she answered sheepishly, "When I said I knew the characters but couldn't put them together, I had overestimated my own ability. I uh… my teacher says I still need to learn the letters first."
The fair skinned heiress looked to her knight with a dour face, then bent her back for a long good stretch. "Well… Rome wasn't built in a day. I hope your ready for more training however." Making her way over to the weapons rack, a spear was drawn. "Because before long, the moon will sit high in the sky, and we will be Rome, and our practice now will determine if we are to face Carthage and prevail, or if we are to face the visigoths, and face massacre."
With skill built over the course of more than a decade, the noble lobbed the spear at lethal speeds passed the knight and almost caught Ruby's arm. Both of them stiffened and shot scared looks at Weiss. "I expect you to catch the next one."
-End Chapter 7-
Thank you for reading this next chapter, I appreciate it really. This chapter was short, but the one after this is going to be... like... three times longer.
If you like my writing and if you like coconut ice-cream, raise your hand.
If you like my writing and if you hate getting WD-40 sprayed in your face, you should read my new story, School life in the Valley.
If you read my previous long stories, thought to yourself "did I leave the oven on?", first check your oven, then read my new story Miracles of Ancient Wonder, which is a soft reboot of my previous works.
If you mentioned Russian dolls in passing and your phone started showing ads for Russian dolls no more than an hour later, uninstall Facebook, burn your computer down, withdraw your bank money, ?, and profit?