Sorry this took so long! I could give you a long list of excuses but I'll just summarize: life and people are jerks.
So here is a longer than usual chapter to apologize!
As usual, RWBY and Princess Bride aren't mine, and if I was making money off of this I would be updating a lot more; but I'm not, so...
When Ruby awoke a few moments later, the first thing she registered was 'Ow…' Her head was pounding! Pushing back the pain in her head, she realized that someone – most likely a woman – was carrying her (given the cushioning she could feel, she hoped it was a woman. It would feel weird to be jealous of a man's breasts). But why was a woman carrying her? As far as she could recall, she was going for an evening ride on her horse and…
The man! The orange-haired man had hit her in the head with his cane! Which means it was probably the blonde woman carrying her (not a man, thank goodness).
Ruby was torn from her thoughts by the sounds of cloth ripping.
"What are you doing?" a female's voice inquired. It wasn't from the one holding her, so it had to be the white-haired woman. Sounded kinda bossy…
"Well, what does it look like I'm doing, Ice Queen? I'm tearing this patch off of this uniform." There was the man. But he seemed to be further away than "Ice Queen." Unable to resist, Ruby cracked her eyes open just a smidge to see what was going on.
Blondie seemed to be standing on the far edge of a dock, fortunately facing her companions so Ruby had a clear view of what they were doing. Ice Queen (the name just stuck) was slightly ahead of her and looking at the man who seemed to be their leader. The man in question was standing by her horse and fiddling with a piece of cloth.
"Thank you for stating the obvious. Why are you tearing up that uniform?"
This time the man did not deign to answer her, causing Ice Queen to huff in frustration before whirling around to glare at Blondie. "And what are you doing just standing there?! Put her on the boat!"
"Alright, alright! Geez, what side of the bed did you wake up on?"
Ruby couldn't help but tense as Blondie stepped onto the boat, the sudden weight on one side making the vessel rock in protest. Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice and just put her down on the deck, her back propped up against the side, before wrapping her in a blanket to hide her dress. While it was just her riding dress, it was still nicer than what any peasant could afford, and would only serve to draw unwanted attention.
"And done!" the man declared, smacking the horse's hindquarters to send it galloping away. He turned around and strutted towards the boat, a self-satisfied smirk stretched across his face. "That, ladies, was the uniform of an officer of Mistral. Once the horse reaches the castle, they will automatically assume that Mistral has taken the princess."
He climbed onto the boat after untying the rope keeping them docked as Blondie moved to raise the anchor and Ice Queen manned the rudder. The boat finally in motion, he finished explaining his plan. "When her body is found dead on Mistral's side of the border, Mistral and Vale will be at war before the week is out, and we will be handsomely rewarded for a job well done."
Blondie dropped the anchor – thankfully on the deck – in shock. "What do you mean 'find her body'?! You didn't say we were killing someone!"
"Sweetheart, we've been hired to start a war, these things tend to be bloody. Besides, it's a tremendous honor. Our actions will change the futures of two great kingdoms, we are making history!"
"And this will be different from all of the previous wars… how?" asked Ice Queen, raising her eyebrow to give the man what seemed to be a well-practiced 'you are an idiot' look that would make many an intended target feel at least a little bit stupid.
Too bad it didn't seem to affect him.
"Well, Ice Queen, this time Vale will have an excuse that all the little people can get behind! And more people means more soldiers. Who knows, maybe someone will actually win this time. But either way, we get the rare privilege of being able to say that we made history, and a rather sizable reward for doing so," he concluded, smirking at Ice Queen as if she was the idiot.
Smug asshole.
Ice Queen just scoffed (she seemed to do that a lot, twice in five minutes already) and turned her nose up. Blondie, however, looked troubled. "But she's just an innocent girl! I don't think – "
"You know, I swear I just heard the strangest thing," the man cut in, his tone taking on an edge. His posture stayed relaxed, but sickly green eyes seemed to pierce through Blondie's frozen form. Like a snake just woken from its sleep, his gaze was coldly assessing the fool who'd crossed him, judging as to whether or not they were worth the effort to kill. "It sounded like your voice, but it couldn't be, because they used the word think. And as you well know, your thoughts are neither wanted nor needed."
Ice Queen quickly came to Blondie's rescue. "I agree with Yang. She doesn't deserve – "
"She is a pompous princess! Her very title implies that she has it coming," the man snapped. "But if it bothers you so much, I will kill her. And until we cross the border and I slit her pretty throat, I highly suggest you spend our time travelling productively. Like remembering just what you were before I took you both under my loving wing."
He snagged Ice Queen's belt with the hook of his cane and yanked her towards him, grabbing her face to look at him once she'd stumbled within reach. "Poor little girl, without a friend in the world. No roof over her head or even a bed! And you!" He released his bruising grip in Ice Queen and rounded on the now identified Yang. "So much brawn, but not an ounce of brain. You were going nowhere fast, and I could just as easily send you back."
Both girls looked down, knowing that he wouldn't hesitate to carry out his threat.
"Can we at least tell her what is going to happen to her?" Yang asked quietly.
"No need, she's been listening to this entire conversation; haven't you, your highness?"
Seeing no reason to continue the charade, Ruby snapped her eyes open to glare at her captors. The two women were looking at her in shock while the man only seemed amused.
"My apologies if our humble accommodations aren't quite as comfortable as what you're used to. But don't worry, they're only temporary."
"You won't get away with this," Ruby said. To think of it as a fact and not some desperate wish made by a damsel in distress (she threw up a little in her mouth at her new title) kept her calm despite having heard their plans to kill her. "And when you realize that, you will be finding out first-hand just how nice the accommodations are at the gallows."
The man only smirked. "We'll see about that, won't we? Now, if you ladies will excuse me, we have a long journey ahead of us, and I have a book to finish." He started making his way to the other end of the little boat, then stopped to look at her over his shoulder. "Word of advice, your highness. If there's anyone's neck you should be worried about, it's your own." And he continued walking away.
Ice Queen suddenly reappeared at her side. "Time to go back to sleep." She pressed her fingers against Ruby's neck, and once again the world went black.
The next time Ruby woke up, the sun had set and a Waning Gibbous lit the sky amidst a smattering of clouds. A dull ache pulsed from where Ice Queen had pressed her fingers. She shifted with a quiet groan of discomfort, but not so quiet as to not go unnoticed.
"Sleep well?"
Ruby's eyes shifted to look at the man in annoyance. While she had slept, her soon to be murderers had spread out around the boat. Yang was settled in the front while Ice Queen sat on the edge in the back to look over the open water. Which left the man to sit directly opposite her with a gloating look upon his face.
(The man just seemed to constantly have an air of haughty superiority that made her really want to punch him. He just seemed so punchable!)
A quick glance at the sky told her that a cloud was moving to cover the moon soon, and she could feel that her captors had – rather foolishly – left her wrists and ankles untied. Years of playing in the creek as a child had taught her how to swim rather well, though how strong of a swimmer she was after all these years of "proper behavior" she didn't know, but she was willing to find out. All she needed was an opening…
"Are you sure no one could be following us?" Ice Queen asked suddenly.
The man waved her off. "Please, no one in Vale could have possibly gotten here so fast, and no one else knows what we've done, so the very idea is utterly inconceivable." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Out of curiosity, why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason," she replied, checking her fingernails in faux casualness. "After all, it is inconceivable, so my eyes must be playing tricks on me to see something there."
"What?"
The man scrambled to stand and rushed next to Ice Queen, searching the horizon. Yang too had straightened and shuffled forward a bit.
'Come on,' Ruby thought. 'Just a bit further. Let me out of your line of sight.'
"It's possibly just some local fisherman who likes sailing in the middle of the night through shark-infested waters. Bet he's married." The uneasy lit to his voice and Ice Queen's incredulous look revealed just how much they believed that.
Now that she knew that there was something actually there, Yang couldn't resist moving to get a look of her own. The clouds had finally moved to cover the moon and Ruby wasn't about to let an opportunity go to waste. She threw off the blanket and dove overboard, the splash drawing her captors' attention. They rushed to the side of the boat, but Ruby had enough strength and skill to be out of their line of sight (though considering the lack of light, that probably wasn't saying much).
The man turned to Ice Queen. "What are you waiting for, an invitation? Go after her!"
"I can't swim!"
Yang shook her head when they looked at her. "Dog-paddle."
"Of course you do," the man sighed.
Ruby wasn't sure how far she was from land or how far she was from the boat; all she knew was that she had to keep swimming. The currents were jostling her around, the waves making it hard for her to catch her breath… then her heart leapt to her throat as she felt something brush against her leg. She squeaked in fear and jerked away and spun around to try and see what had just touched her, but the dark water rendered her efforts futile.
"I heard her! Go left!"
The boat started heading towards her, but caution kept her from moving away. What could have possibly – hang on. Hadn't the punchable man said something about "shark-infested waters."
Oh.
"Oh, Princess~! Did you know that sharks can go into a frenzy if they smell blood? So how about we make a deal: you come back to the boat now, and this dagger in my hands doesn't slip and get blood in the water. I'll even throw in a couple more hours of life and a painless death! A better deal than anything the sharks will offer, I bet."
'He's bluffing,' she thought. 'He needs me, or my dead body at least, in one piece.'
"He's cut his hand," Yang announced. Sure enough, a few moments later, the sharks went into a frenzy.
Ruby spun around as fast as she could in the water, praying that she wouldn't see any dorsal fins. A prayer that went unanswered, as more and more started coming up out of the water.
"She's not going to die," Blake said.
Sun blinked a couple times at being rather abruptly yanked out of the story. "W-What?"
"The story is called The Crimson Bride, and there are plenty of pages still to go. Do you really think that the heroine will die this early?" She looked down at where his hands were clutching the edge of her jacket. "So you can let go now."
He jerked his hands back like her jacket had burned him. "I wasn't worried," he refuted her implications.
Blake just raised an eyebrow.
"… Just get back to the story, already."
Then the moon came out.
"I see her!" the man called. Ice Queen adjusted the boat's course to sail right beside her, close enough for Yang to reach out and pull Ruby back in to the relative safety of the boat. As soon as Yang had set her down, the man was there with a length of rope to tie her wrists together. "There is brave and then there is stupid, Princess. It's a very fine line between the two." He sat back on his haunches once the final knot was tied and eyed her critically. "I bet you think yourself brave, don't you?"
"Certainly more than some," she said coolly, the ice in her eyes letting him know just who it was she meant by some.
The man's lips curled into a sneer and he stood, never taking his eyes off of her while addressing his cohorts. "We will reach the Cliffs near dawn. I want at least one of you to keep an eye on our royal escape artist here. Do not bother me for the rest of the night, or there will be consequences." He strode towards the front of the boat, grabbing a rag on his way to tie around his cut hand.
As soon as he'd sat down with his back to the rest of the boat, the two women converged on her. Yang held a blanket in her hands while Ice Queen held a clean rag.
"Here," Yang said, crouching down to wrap the blanket around her shoulders. "We don't want you to catch a cold, now do we? I'm Yang."
"R-Ruby." What on Remnant?
"Weiss," the titled Ice Queen stated, using the rag to gently squeeze out most of the water in her hair. "And a word of caution, don't push Roman too much. He can get pretty cruel when he is annoyed."
Ruby couldn't help but glance at the small bruises that littered Weiss' jaw from Roman's harsh grip. If this was how he treated his underlings, how would he treat his captive?
"Why stay with him then?" she couldn't help but ask. "Surely there is something better you could do?"
Yang's gaze turned sad. "Not really. My options only ever involve my muscle or my cleavage, mostly the cleavage. Apparently being a physically strong woman in this world of men makes me a freak."
"My options are limited too," Weiss added, throwing the now wet rag to the side and settling to sit beside Ruby. "Having white hair makes me circus-worthy. I'm sure it helped sell our story when we met." Ruby fought to hide a flinch at being caught out. "I actually was part of a circus for a while. I thought my appeal was in being a female swordsman, as good as any man! But it was my looks that got the attention, not my skill. It… It hurts, for people to laugh at you for things beyond your control. Working for Torchwick has been the best gig I've had in a long time."
Yang moved to sit on Ruby's other side (which Ruby appreciated because the woman was putting out some serious heat and she was freezing). "We're not bad people, Ruby. We're just trying to survive."
Ruby sighed. These girls had gotten a rotten lot in life, and were trying to make the best of it. She could certainly understand that, since the entire reason she agreed to marry the prince was because she lost… him. Curse her bleeding heart!
"I believe you," she said softly. The girls looked at her in surprise before smiling. Weiss' smile was small and soft, while Yang's was big and bright.
"Well, we have a long night ahead, so why don't we talk to pass the time?" Weiss suggested.
"Won't you get in trouble?"
Yang waved her off. "Nah, Torchwick did tell us to keep an eye on you after all, since you've been, you know," she gestured to Ruby's bound hands, "knotty."
"Uhh…"
"God damnit, Yang!"
"What? Torchwick usually never lets me talk, but now he's away and I can talk all I want! I even have a captive audience!"
"Yang, no."
"Oh, come on! Ruby already has one wet blanket, she doesn't need two!"
Maybe she should have taken her chances with the sharks…