"Wake up!"

Weiss groaned and waved her hand lamely in the air. She recognized the voice and tried to swing her hand to connect with the owner.

"Go 'way Ruby."

"Weiss! Wake up!"

A solid thump followed the words this time, a thump that came from a solid weight landing heavily on Weiss chest.

Now wide awake, a breathless and irritated Weiss tried to sit up. She had to shove Ruby off first as the girl had jumped on top of Weiss' bed and Weiss herself. She rubbed at her eyes and stifled a yawn. The windows were still dark, interior lightbulbs blared brightly in Weiss' sleepy eyes.

"What is going on?" Weiss asked. She kept one eye shut tightly against the beaming lights in the room. The sudden and violent awakening was giving her a headache and the light wasn't helping.

Ruby stood up from where she had been dumped on the floor. Her clothes were disheveled, wrinkled and covered in dark oily splotches. Her hands were blackened and her left cheek bore a long grease stain. Despite this and the dark circles under her eyes, she was positively beaming.

"I finished it." She said proudly.

"Finished what?"

Ruby huffed with annoyance. "Uh, Crescent Rose? The thing I've been working on for like, forever?"

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. Ruby did this every so often. Interrupting whatever Weiss was doing in order to proclaim some project she was working on complete. But over the last few months Ruby had been obsessed with what she considered her 'greatest creation.' Every few days she would beg Weiss to come out to the workshop with her to see it. But each and every attempt to display her work had ended in various levels of disaster. In fact, the last time Ruby had tried to demonstrate her 'complete' work, the scythe-like weapon had jammed catastrophically and flung a sharp blade across the room. It was only Weiss' quick glyph work that stopped the blade from spinning off like a lethal boomerang.

Weiss expression as she remembered that event must have showed as Ruby ran her greasy fingers through her hair with obvious frustration. "No, really. For real this time."

Weiss looked at her pointedly.

"Really really." Ruby added, crossing her heart for added measure. She then clasped her hands together and held them up. Her bright, silver eyes poked over her knuckles with all the pleading power of a box of newborn kittens.

Weiss sighed. The pleading on Ruby's face was all but impossible to ignore. "Fine. Just let me get my ja-" With a rapid rosey blur Ruby disappeared and reappeared with Weiss jacket in hand and a grin on her lips- "cket."

She took the jacket from Ruby's hands and was in the middle of slipping in on when another question crossed her mind.

"What time is it?" She asked.

Ruby bit her lip. "Um… morning… time…ish?"

"Yes, I can see that. But what time?"

Ruby giggled awkwardly and rubbed the back of her neck. "It's uh… three…. thirty? Three thirty?" She looked guiltily at Weiss, who stared back without expression.

"…"

"….."

"I'm going back to bed."

"Wiiiieeeeeess!"

In the end, Weiss lost and Ruby dragged her out of her warm bed and out to the shed-turned-workshop. It was cold at that hour and space heater growled in the corner. Weiss sat in a worn chair by this heater, letting the warmth bleed through her jacket while she rubbed her hands on the mug of hot coffee she held. Ruby clattered around near an anvil claiming she needed to do a last-minute check. Weiss didn't mind. It gave her a chance to wake up, drink her coffee, and appreciate the calm before the storm.

As she waited, she let her eyes wander around the workshop. An armory of weapons lined the walls. Practice weapons; rapiers, gauntlets, swords and scythes. Each, from the wooden ones they used at first on each other, to the bladed ones they took on training hunts with Summer and Tai, were covered in chips and dents. A few were broken entirely, such as Ruby's last scythe, which had shattered on the hard plates of an boarbatusk.

She smiled at the sight. It was a familiar place to her, filled with memories from the last four years.

Four years.

Weiss sat back in her chair as she realized the time that had gone by. She was sixteen now, almost an adult by her own reckoning. Never had she thought that she would be where she was now, living with an excitable gun-freak, a firecracker brawler, a retired Huntsman and Huntress and a rather unusual corgi named Zwei. No one waited on her. No servants. No slaves. No fancy and expensive wardrobe.

It was perfect.

Every day, Weiss was grateful that Ruby and Yang came after her in the woods that cold winter night. She was grateful that she had told Summer everything. The woman had listened so intently, not speaking until Weiss was done. Then, she had given Weiss a tight and sincere hug and said simply, "I won't let anyone take you. Not ever, Snowflake."

That was that. Weiss stayed. She never thought of leaving since.

Now, four years later, her fears that someone would recognize her and bring her Father's wrath crashing down had all proven unfounded. Here she still was. Still with those she considered family. Still sitting in the freezing cold waiting for Ruby to finish whatever she was doing.

Then, as if on cue, Ruby staggered into Weiss' view, bringing her back to the present.

"Sorry that took so long," She said. In her arms was a red box, polished and gleaming, cleaner than Ruby herself. "I wanted to make sure the buffer tubes lined up with the grooves for the hydrol-" She stopped talking as she noted Weiss' expression. "Right. Gun stuff."

She shifted her red box gingerly in her hands, setting her hands purposefully at specific angles. She exhaled sharply to blow some rogue strands of hair from her face. She looked nervous.

"Ready?" She asked Weiss, who nodded. "Okay. Here goes no-"

"Wait!"

Ruby jumped, almost dropping the box. "What?"

Weiss didn't answer as she ran over and hid behind the solid metal anvil. "Okay, now I'm ready." Her lips curled in a smile. "I want to be well protected in case metal starts flying again. Eventually your poorly designed assassination attempts will work if I'm not careful."

"Oh, ha ha jerk face. Your confidence is overwhelming." Ruby grumbled. Weiss couldn't stifle a laugh as Ruby returned to her previous position, box extended out before her, hands placed deliberately.

With the flick of her wrist that turned into a twirl of her body, she swung the box. It clattered and clunked as internal machinery whirred within. The little box split along invisible seams and Before Weiss' eyes, the little box became a very familiar sight, something Weiss now equated as synonymous with Ruby.

A scythe.

Ruby let out an excited squeal. "It works!" She looked over at Weiss and jumped in the air with a fist pump. "It actually works!"

Weiss stepped out from behind her makeshift blade-proof cover and held out her hands. "May I?"

Ruby hesitated before holding out the weapon. Her fingers were tight as if she was afraid that if she dropped it, it would disappear forever. "Sure. But be careful."

"Please, do you think that after all you've done to it that I could even scratch it?"

"…Touché."

Weiss took it from Ruby's hands and nearly dropped it just due to weight alone. She had never understood how Ruby ran around with scythes that were as big as her, let alone fought as she did. It was… admirable.

"It's heavy." Weiss finally said as she handed back the scythe to a Ruby who looked ready to pounce on Weiss if she waited any longer. "Ruby, I'm curious. If you knew it was done, why the surprise that it worked?"

"Oh, right. I um… didn't actually test it."

Weiss sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose as Ruby went to the door and flung it open, "See, Ruby? This is why I don't trust you with nice things. Like my life, for example."

A blast of cold air sent Ruby's cape billowing. She grinned back at Weiss. "Pssh, I fixed Myrteneister that one time remember? Now come on-" She grabbed a box of dust-rounds and rammed a few rounds into a magazine- "It's time to try this out."

Then she was gone, running off into the night without waiting for Weiss' response.

Weiss rolled her eyes and tried to hide the smile that pulled at the corners of her mouth. "Do I even have a choice?" With a shrug of surrender, she grabbed Myrteneister and followed after Ruby.