I don't own RWBY sadly or somethings would be changed. But oh well. Here we go though A Rose in the Shade of Verdun.
Ruby Pov:
When she comes through she is immediately worried when she feels her arms and legs restrained and the sound of German voices nearby. A horrified thought keeps running through her mind over and over "I am dead, they have captured me and are going to kill me" but a shred of doubt runs through her when she realizes the wounds on her chest and shoulder have been tended to, but she can't shake the fear that maybe they are just keeping her alive so that they can torture information out of her, not that she would have much. She is just a recon pilot for the French army. Most of her intel is about them, so it's useless to the German forces. It is a few minutes before a guard checks up on her and realizes she is awake. He runs off, most likely to inform his officer. Another few minutes pass before a familiar mane of snowy white hair enters the makeshift cell. The Germans whipped up in their medical trench. Ruby recognizes the beauty she grabbed last night as a hostage before she passed out, but she didn't realize it was the commanding officer of the enemy garrison. The fear in her gut flares up again at the realization that she took their leader hostage. She couldn't hope to imagine the torture she would be submitted to for her transgressions. The woman takes a seat next to the bed Ruby is chained down to and looks at her with what appears to be concern and a bit of sympathy. 'That doesn't make sense why would she care about my health when I took her hostage at gunpoint. Ruby couldn't figure it out, but as she is sorting out her thoughts the woman begins to speak
"Who are you and why are you here?" Ruby is relieved that it's simple questions since her German isn't excellent. She had been given crash course lessons of the language in training and had picked up some during her time near and in Germany. She composes herself as best she can and begins to explain that she is just a pilot when she hears a familiar but concerning sound. Clearly her captors hear it as well as they begin to scramble for cover, the unmistakable screech of incoming mortar and artillery fire, normally Ruby would be happy to hear the sound of friendly artillery, but not when she was sitting in the target zone unable to move.
The explosions start going off, shaking the earth, killing people and destroying defenses. And here Ruby was, lying in the open with little cover, unable to do anything except squeeze her eyes shut and pray to whatever god would hear her pleas for mercy when, all of a sudden, she feels her binds being pulled apart. She opens her eyes and sees the officer struggling to get the binds off of her, and it brings tears to her eyes just last night she had held a gun to this woman's head and today, she is braving artillery to save Ruby's life.
Winter's Pov:
'Why I am risking my life for this girl I just met, who held me hostage with a gun no less?' Winter couldn't really explain it, she just couldn't bring herself to leave this gorgeous, terrified girl to her fate at the hands of the artillery. She finally gets the binds undone and pulls the girl from the bed and begins to run with her towards the closest alcove where they could shelter themselves from the rain of steel and explosives She pulls the redhead close to herself as they take cover just in time to see a mortar shell land right on top of the bed the girl had been restrained to only moments before. They stay in the relative safety of the makeshift pillbox they had jumped into with Winter hugging the girl close to her in the hopes of making them as small of a target as possible, but after several minutes of shelling, it stops but to Winter's dismay, her medical trench is in ruins and many of the troops that had been with her are lying dead or wounded. She feels a small tugging on her sleeve and turns to see her prisoner holding a rag over her mouth and pointing to a canister that is sunk into the ground, Winter realizes what a horror she was looking at a gas shell was sitting in the middle of the trench and starting to spew chlorine gas.
"MASK ON NOW, THOSE WHO AREN'T WOUNDED, MAKE SURE THE WOUNDED HAVE MASK ON!" Once she yells her orders, she begins looking for her own mask, but it seems to have been loss during the bombardment. The horror dawns on her that without a mask she will almost certainly die to the gas, but then she felt something being forced onto her at first. She thought her prisoner had decided to take advantage of the situation to kill her and escape, but rather she finds herself staring out of the familiar lens of her mask. Winter turns to see the younger woman had found her mask and secured it on her despite only having a rag for herself. The redhead was clearly suffering from the gas, so Winter decided to take it upon herself to make sure the girl survived and scrambled for the corpse of one of her soldiers. The man had clearly been unlucky, the back of his skull had collapsed, most likely from a piece of shrapnel, but Winter knew this meant he didn't need his mask any longer. The dying girl could live using it.
Ruby Pov:
She was dying. She could feel it. The gas was weakening her. 'At least I saved the woman who saved me,' she thought as she lost consciousness.
Winter Pov:
Winter never knew how hard it was to wrestle a mask onto an unconscious girl until she had to do it under pressure; however, once it was finally secured, she breathed a sigh of relief. Now she can only hope that the damage of the gas is minimalistic. 'For interrogations purposes, yeah that's why it was so important, because she could have valuable information'. But Winter knew deep down she had her ulterior motives. She had no idea why this girl she had just met had such an impact on her. She put her feelings and thoughts aside for the moment. She knew that first of all, the girl needed medical attention. But the more pressing issue right now is that if the enemy had bombarded them, then a charge is coming and she needed to get her forces to their positions and have them get ready for the attack. A few minutes of jogging, carrying her savior and prisoner through the trenches back to her command bunker, she can hear the sound of the British whistles and the roar of their yells as they began their charge through no man's land. Once inside the bunker, she issued the order for all forces to open fire and had a message relayed for artillery support. A few moments later, the sound of German machine guns, and rifle fire began to ring out all along the trench, followed shortly after the the whistle of German and British artillery fire. But the British were prepared for this and artillery began raining on Winter's trenches again. She laid the unconscious girl down near her and took command of her forces. It was difficult to tell what was going on due to the gas that had filled the trenches, but luckily, it also meant the enemy was having a hard time telling where Winter's machine gun crews and snipers were hidden, making them that much more effective. Despite the German forces' quick response, the British force did make it to the trenches. And now the troops in the first trench were locked in a deadly melee in a gas filled trench with artillery raining down around them. She knew that her forces were well led with people, like Sergeant Nikos a greek woman whose family was close with some German Nobility, served as Winter's forward trench commander. They would do fine. Winter could only hope the girl survived and held off the attackers.
*A few hours later*
The fighting finally died down after the British retreat back to their trenches and now where artillery and gas had been pouring down it was now just a light snow. It had been getting progressively colder as the winter months were approaching. The troops had mixed feelings. Some think of a time when war wasn't their day to day. Some were sad and fearful since the cold made the life in the trenches even harder, but at least the attacks were less frequent because of it. Then there were the select few, like Sergeant Arc under Nikos's command, who cracked a joke about the coming weather and his higher ups name, which earned a few laughs and a quick smack to the back of the head from Pyrrha. But most were relieved that at least this meant the war may be that much closer to ending.
Ruby Pov:
Finally waking up and slowly opening her eyes, she quickly realized she must have had some of the gas get to her since her eyes and throat still burned a bit from the effects. But luckily, she was still alive and in a bed no less. Sitting up and looking around, she quickly recognized the insides of a house. 'How on earth did I end up here?' Her thought process was interrupted by the sudden entrance of the German Commander that she had saved. Her white hair now down instead of in the bun she had it in the last few times they had met, framing her perfectly. Ruby's breath hitched for a moment before she realized that she is awestruck by someone, who not only was her enemy, but someone she had almost killed hours before, then saved and been saved by.
"Are you feeling well?" Ruby snapped back to reality as the woman asks her a question for the second time in near perfect french.
"Y..y...you speak french?" Ruby was blown away by the idea of the 'enemy' not only knowing her language, but speaking it so well.
"Yes, before the war I studied if Paris for several months, french is a beautiful language, but first you and I have a lot to talk about."
So that is the first chapter might be a tad bit short but so be it. Let me know what you all think about this story, share ideas, opinions etc.