So that volume 5 soundtrack huh? Naturally "The Path to Isolation", the song that started this all, far exceeded my expectations. Fitting, since the last song of this fic also far exceeded my expectations.
To the person who didn't think this would end well, if it weren't for "This Life is Mine" and canon events, you'd be 100% right. But I think Rooster Teeth wants our girl to make it. I know I want our girl to make it.
So, here it is. Here lies the end, it's been a fun ride looking closer at our favorite Ice Queen. And if you liked this fic, don't worry I'm not done as a whole. I've still got a few other ideas rattling around in this brain of mine.
"This conversation's finally over, Mirror mirror, now we're done."
The sun was just starting to peak over the Atlesian mountains, casting the otherwise cold region in a warm orange glow. She rarely had the opportunity to see a nice sunrise, so as the ship took off and zipped into the ever-lightening sky, she decided she would take this chance to enjoy it. The oranges and pinks bouncing off the glittering snow were simply beautiful, and the first stirring signs of what little wildlife endured the mountains were starting to show. It was serene and peaceful…everything she wanted it to be.
Her hands had finally stopped shaking and she could feel the tenseness she had carried the past two days slowly leaving her body. She had been nothing but a bundle of anxiety and anticipation since lunchtime yesterday. She didn't think her escape would work, nothing as important as that had ever gone according to plan. Not since Beacon anyways. Sure, Klein was on her side, but her father or Whitley were bound to catch her at some point during her flight from the mansion. And when that happened, she didn't have a backup plan. At that point, all she knew was that she would do whatever it took to leave.
She knew for a fact she couldn't stay in Atlas anymore.
Her family and the atmosphere of the land as a whole were driving her mad. Her father's only concerns were appearances and making as much money as he could off of Beacon's fall. Tragedy struck an entire kingdom. People lost everything. His own daughter had suffered losses he couldn't even begin to fathom, and all Jacques Schnee could think about was profit. It was disgusting. And it wasn't like the rest of her family residing in the mansion were any better. She barely even saw her own mother, except occasionally when she was in the garden and enjoying a bottle. And Whitley…well it seemed like their father had targeted and continued to groom him to an even higher degree once she was gone.
Weiss held a twinge of regret at that.
She remembered what it was like when Winter left. It hadn't been something she considered her father would do to Whitley while she was at Beacon. She was still the heiress at the time, there was no need for it, but it seemed she was mistaken. And now…now she knew it would happen. As Klein had said, after this, he and Winter very well could be the only family she had left. She felt bad for it, subjecting Whitely to that was never something she intended for (no matter how much of an arrogant pest he was). But he was as ruthless and cunning as their father, and the obvious favorite of the three children. He would be fine, she had to believe he would be fine because it couldn't be helped.
She needed to leave.
Atlas was suffocating. The people were just as ignorant and affronting as her family, her father's charity ball only confirmed that. Her blood still boiled at the memory of the people there, acting as if it was no big deal. The boy who hit on her without even knowing why he was there. The woman who said Vale deserved it…she didn't regret that night. Not even after her father hit her and disinherited her, she did not regret a single thing. They were all so blind, so insensitive to everyone and everything around them she had to wonder how she once suffered them at all.
After that night, Klein and General Ironwood seemed like the only sane people in the whole kingdom. And after hearing the latter argue incessantly with her father, she even had to wonder about him.
She couldn't take it anymore, that was why she stowed away on board a ship with an illegal dust shipment. She couldn't take the distant indifference of her kingdom anymore, nor their apparent belief this couldn't possibly happen to them. She couldn't take her family exploiting a tragedy for their personal gain. She couldn't handle dealing with her father and Whitley anymore and she so desperately needed to stop pretending to be something she wasn't. She didn't fit in with the upper echelon of Atlas, she never did and she never wanted to. And that was also why she would never regret the night of the charity ball. When her father revoked her heiress title, he cut the last chain tying her to it all.
And now she was disinherited, disenfranchised, disenchanted…and free.
Living for the sake of a name was an awful burden to carry. Weiss never realized how heavily it weighed on her until she no longer had to hold it. For so long she had wanted to be nothing but the perfect image (an image her father dictated) to take back the SDC. It was exhausting and it was frustrating and it had started consuming her. Turning her into something she wasn't.
Not anymore. Beacon had changed her, or perhaps the school and its people reminded her of who she really wanted to be all along. And her return to Atlas only stressed that further. She didn't want to be there, she could no longer pretend that everything was fine. She could no longer be the image they wanted her to reflect. Maybe one day she would go back for her initial dream of returning the company to what her grandfather had wanted it to be. But until then, there were so many other things that were more important. So many more things she could and wanted to do for the current situation.
She was no longer the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, the last shred of that died on her father's tongue. She was not her father's mirror image and she was not Winter's shadow.
She was Weiss Schnee, Huntress in training, and this life was hers to decide. She was a member of Team RWBY, she was Ruby and Blake and Yang's friend and teammate. She was a friend to Team JNPR and Team SSSN. She attended Beacon Academy. She was present for the Fall of Beacon, she saved as many people as she could there and she suffered the loss of friends there. She learned and accepted the world could be cold and cruel in a whole different way than she knew, and she would not sit idly by when there was something she could do to help.
She would find her sister in Mistral and explain the situation. If Winter trusted her enough, perhaps she could get even more information on what was currently going on. And then she would find the rest of her team. Her last images of them still haunted her. Yang lying unconscious missing her arm, Blake a broken, bleeding mess by her side. And Ruby, nothing but a blinding flash of silver on top of the tower and then cradled unconscious in Qrow's arms.
She had to find them. After that, she didn't know what had to be done, but she knew they could figure it out together. They could face anything and everything so long as they were together again, she honestly believed that. They were her family now, they had been her family for a while. If they had each other, then they had everything they needed.
She smiled faintly at the idea of seeing them again and watched the lands passing outside the ship window, staring past her own blue eyes reflected in the glass. Her reflection was staring back at her, but Weiss didn't pay it any mind. She didn't have to, not anymore. She knew who she was, and she knew what she had to do.
The familiar stranger no longer lived in the mirror. Her reflection was her own.
