[1-B] Drinking in the Garden

"You're going the wrong way," Weiss pointed out, for the fifth time in the past fifteen minutes.

"It's a maze! I don't think there even is a right way!"

"Of course there is! It's the way that leads away from the study, not towards it! You said you came in through a window didn't you?"

"How am I supposed to remember where it is when the hallways keep changing? I swear, we should be going in circles! We haven't turned left in like ten intersections!"

"The rooms are numbered. Higher numbers mean we're higher up in the tower. Lower numbers mean we're going the wrong way." She'd been over this before—twice.

"I know!" Ruby groaned. "But I can't tell until I already made the turn, and by then it's way too late!"

"How did you even manage to find the opera hall, if you don't have any sense of direction?"

"I had a magic ball of yarn."

Weiss gaped at her. "Then use it!"

"I can't!"

"Why not?!"

Her face went red. "I may have kinda... um... lost it."

Silently praying for patience, Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose and gritted out, "Of course you did."

"Hey! I was busy fighting your guards so I could save you from this warlock guy!"

"They are not my guards."

"Whatever," Ruby grumbled. "It's not like you know where we're going any more than I do."

"Of course I do!" Weiss turned to look around. This corridor was vaguely familiar—she could remember sprinting along it as a child, giggling and flying past all the artwork. She would have wanted to go toward the study then... but would she have turned left, or right?

Frowning, Weiss gestured at the left fork. "It's... that way." She thought she could remember taking the right one. Unless...

"Or is it this way..." She thought she might have gone the other way down that hall when she was young... or perhaps she'd invented the memory altogether. Sometimes she wondered about that.

"If you don't know," Ruby fumed, "then stop backseat adventuring!"

"Pardon?"

"This is my job, okay? Just let me try and figure it out!"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Fine. But we have to stop going down."

Ruby let out a wordless snarl of frustration. "I haven't even seen a staircase since the Paladin! How are we going down?!"

"Magic." Weiss fanned out her hands as if to say, ta da! Her sister always used to do that when she asked the same question. It had been unbearably annoying.

"Ugh!" Ruby started grumbling darkly under her breath. Weiss couldn't stop herself from smirking, but she did her best to make up for it by pointing at the next intersection.

"Let's go right, here." The adventurer didn't answer, but her muttering increased in pitch. Weiss took that as a yes. As they rounded the corner, she glanced at the silver numbers embossed on the doorframes. 1471... 1453... 1409...

"Wrong way," she admitted.

"I hate this place!" Ruby growled—then froze. "Um, no offense?"

Weiss pursed her lips, but said nothing. After all, the tower was working exactly as intended. It wasn't supposed to let a stranger leave so easily. The corridor branched again, and she turned down one hallway more or less randomly—not that she'd ever admit it out loud.

Ruby glanced around, fiddling with the hilt of her sword. She'd insisted on keeping the thing even though it was barely still in one piece. "Um... the numbers are still going down.

"I am aware of that. We just need to keep... trying..."

"Weiss?" Ruby waved a hand in front of her face.

"Shut up," she hissed, turning her head and straining her ears. There, in the distance... footsteps.

Weiss could feel the blood drain from her face. Glancing around, she dashed towards the nearest door. Then she yanked Ruby inside and slammed it behind them.

"What's going on?"

"Listen."

It was far off, but she could hear the click of heels against the marble floor. Each step was slow, methodical—just like the man they belonged to. They weren't coming closer yet. She guessed he was at least two or three stories below them. How that translated into distance, considering the bizarre geometry of the tower, she had absolutely no idea.

"What is that?" Ruby whispered, glancing fearfully over her shoulder.

"Father," Weiss breathed.

"What? Your dad's here too?" Ruby crept closer to the door and put her ear against it.

Weiss did her best to glare a hole through her forehead. Ruby's eyes widened with dawning comprehension. "Oh! You mean the Warlock?"

"Obviously."

Ruby touched the hilt of her sword.

"What are you planning on doing with that?"

"I'm going to fight him?"

Weiss scoffed. "No, you aren't."

"But—"

"No. You'd just be locked up or worse, and I honestly have no idea what he'd do if he found me." She worried at her bottom lip—a frustrating habit she'd never managed to break. "I already tried to leave once."

"Then... what do we do?"

"We run, and we hide." Weiss stood up and looked around the room. It was unfamiliar, probably added since she'd been put under house arrest. That, or it had never interested her as a child. It was empty except for a small window set high up in the wall. She gave it a calculating once-over and decided that even if she could fit through there, she'd probably break her neck trying to get down.

"We need to go lower," she admitted. "Trying to find the way you came in obviously isn't working."

"Weren't you just telling me that down is bad?"

"I know!" Weiss burst out, irritated. "It is, but we don't really have a choice."

Ruby groaned. "This would be so much simpler if it had been a dragon instead."

"Because a flying, fire-breathing monstrosity with a hide like steel plating is somehow better than my father?" Weiss asked testily.

"Yes!"

She folded her arms over her chest and glared.

"Um, no offense?"

Weiss opened her mouth to say something positively scathing, but stopped abruptly when she started hearing the footsteps again. "We can argue that point later," she decided.

"Where should we go, then?" Ruby asked, glancing around. Weiss pointed to the only other door in the room.

"That way, I suppose."

The door was unlocked, and they pushed through it into a long, narrow hallway. Weiss took turns at random, left and right and left again, counting down the numbers above the doors. 1129, 1097, 977...

As they ran, the faint echoes of father's footsteps grew louder and louder. Sometimes they faded as if he was moving away, but they always returned even closer than before. It wasn't long before they were all she could hear, a series of dull thumps coming nearer and nearer...

"This isn't working," Ruby hissed, as they skidded around another corner and nearly tripped over a (thankfully inanimate) suit of armor. 937, read the door it was guarding.

"We just need to get to the bottom," Weiss whispered back. "Or maybe the second floor." She'd take the third, if necessary. They'd probably survive the drop.

There was a muffled clang in the room next door, followed by a high metallic sound—something was heading right for them. Weiss clamped a hand over Ruby's mouth and ducked into the nearest room. The door didn't lock, because of course it didn't, but the two of them shoved a heavy wardrobe in front of it. Without hesitating, she led them through another exit and into yet another hallway. All thoughts of what floor they were on vanished, but the numbers kept ticking down—919, 887, 823...

By the time they stopped for breath, the sound of Father's footfalls had faded into the distance. Ruby collapsed into a sitting position.

"What..." she tried, then stopped, panting. "...What do we do?"

"We keep going."

"Oh, sure!" Ruby threw both hands in the air, then slumped back until she was lying on the floor. "'Cause that's been working just great!"

"We weren't caught, were we?" Weiss snapped. "Get up."

"I can't feel my legs..."

Weiss wasn't doing much better, but she couldn't have laid down if she wanted to. That was the wonderful thing about adrenaline.

"Are you supposed to be a hero or not?" she asked pointedly, nudging at Ruby with one foot. She whined, then struggled to her feet.

"A dragon would've been way easier."

Weiss didn't respond, apart from a frustrated snarl. She strode off down the corridor and dragged Ruby along by the hood.

"Hey!"

Three rights and a left later, the pair of them stopped dead. So did the corridor. For the last dozen yards there was nothing in the hallway. No doors, no windows, not even a suit of armor. Just smooth marble and a spotless white carpet on the floor.

"Why?" Ruby demanded, waving her arms around her head. "Why build this?"

"Magic."

"Gyah!"

Weiss was about to say something else—driving the other girl up a wall was oddly cathartic. Then she heard someone walking towards them. Ruby tensed.

"It's not Father," Weiss said. The sound was too soft, too hesitant.

"Does that mean we fight whoever it is?"

"Unless you know how to walk through walls." Weiss gestured at the empty hallway behind them.

"Finally!"

It was probably for the best that Weiss never got the chance to respond to that. A figure stepped around the corner, holding a wicked-looking halberd loosely in his right hand.

"Hello, sister," he said pleasantly.

Where the Paladin had been gigantic, Whitley was only a little taller than Weiss. It was always strangely quiet considering its bulk, but her brother clinked when he walked. That wasn't his fault, of course—every inch of his armor, from helmet to greaves, was carved from ice.

"What are you doing here?" Weiss snapped, her voice as cold as she could make it.

"You have a brother?"

Both Weiss and Whitley turned to look at Ruby. She fidgeted.

"I don't know!" she burst out. "It just feels like I would've known, you know?"

"You met me today."

"Is that what you've become, dear sister? Running away with someone you hardly know?"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Better a mystery than a known evil."

"Evil? That seems harsh."

"Can we skip this part?" Ruby asked, sounding genuinely curious. "I kind of want to get out of this tower."

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Weiss replied, flicking her rapier up into a more ready stance.

"Really?" Ruby perked up. Then she drew her mostly-broken sword and charged.

Whitley met the attack with his halberd. He stumbled back as their blades clashed, as if he'd underestimated the force of the blow, but within a few swings it was clear that he was nothing like the Paladin.

For one thing, as Weiss soon discovered, his weapon was not nearly as heavy—he had the option of feinting. The flat of the axe caught her in the stomach just as she was rushing forward, knocking her onto her back and sending her rapier skittering across the floor.

"Hey!" Ruby shouted, swinging wildly at him. Weiss scrambled over to her weapon, scooped it up off the floor, and raised it in time to block his next attack.

"You're not leaving," he told her, as he swept aside another of Ruby's blows with the butt of his axe.

"It's none of your business!" He dodged a blow from Ruby and lashed out with his halberd. She leapt nimbly over it, leaving Weiss almost positive that she was, in fact, a gymnast rather than a warrior.

It also turned out that when faced with superior agility, Whitley was not shy about exploiting the reach of his axe. Weiss had already been knocked off her feet once.

"Back off," she warned.

"No."

Weiss rolled her eyes. He should've been more careful about how he'd said that—she had known him when he was still in diapers, and there was nothing less intimidating than a reminder of a five-year-old being stubborn about his bedtime.

Then again, he wasn't taking her very seriously either. Weiss scowled at him, but couldn't do much about it—yet. An idea was forming in the back of her mind. It wasn't a very elegant one, and she wouldn't have tried it in any other circumstances... but it hadn't escaped her notice that he was avoiding hitting her with the sharp end of the axe.

The problem was, she needed Ruby to do her own part, and there was no way of telling her the plan. Weiss decided to hint and hope.

"Go high!" she shouted, "then take his axe!" His head tilted to the side in confusion, but he didn't have time to wonder how Ruby would manage that.

She didn't seem to know either, but dutifully swept in with an overhead slash. When Whitley raised his halberd to block he left his side open. And, for the second time in the same day—as well as in her entire life—Weiss rushed in for a full-on tackle.

Against the Paladin, it wouldn't have worked. Partly because the thing's sword alone probably weighed more than she did, but also because it wasn't squeamish about attacking her so long as it was confident it wouldn't inflict serious injury. Whitley, on the other hand, did what any halfway-human being would do. When faced with even a remote possibility of skewering his own sibling, he dropped his axe.

She slammed into his chest shoulder-first, and Whitley toppled. He was taller than her—something that had annoyed her ever since he'd passed her at age twelve—and he was wearing armor, but she had surprise on her side. That, and his footwork was sloppy. Winter would've thrown a fit.

The pair of them crashed to the ground, with Weiss landing in a kneeling position on his chest. Whitley flailed helplessly and completely failed to dislodge her. His frozen armor leeched warmth from her fingers and knees, but she held on.

Ruby scooped up his axe, planted it on the ground, and looked down at them.

"I might owe gravity a share of the credit for this mission," she said fretfully. "It's been doing most of the work so far."

Weiss glared at her, not sure whether or not she was joking. Whitley made another feeble attempt to push her away.

"You've lost," Weiss told him. "Now leave me alone."

He lifted his head and said, "No." When he let it fall, his full-face helmet hit the floor with a clink. A small crack appeared on its surface, and his breathing sped up. He seemed awfully attached to the thing. Scowling, Weiss yanked it off and tossed it down the hallway.

Whitley's armor wasn't the only thing that was frozen. His head, his neck, even his hair, were all sculpted from solid crystalline ice. Everything was exquisitely detailed except his face. He looked unfinished, with nothing but a jagged plain between his brow and his chin.

"Don't..." he groaned, without a mouth.

"What happened to him?!" Ruby demanded, leaning in over Weiss' shoulder. She didn't answer. Her fingers were numb from cold, and it felt like her brain had followed suit.

"Don't..."

"Don't, what?" Weiss got to her feet. He was free, but made no move to rise from the floor. She towered over him, like this.

"Please... don't leave."

He heaved himself up onto his elbows. "Don't go." He reached for her ankle.

Weiss took a few rapid steps back, then stopped. A chill spread across her back, and she was struck with the urge to check over her own body, to make sure it was still made of flesh and bone.

"We can take him with us, can't we?" Ruby asked quietly.

Stepping forward, Weiss took one of his hands in hers. The temperature made her flinch, but she tugged him to his feet. He swayed, then toppled.

"Whitley!"

He landed on one knee, barely keeping balance by holding onto her hand. She reached for his shoulder.

There was a crash—the sound doors make when they are opened by someone in a hurry, or someone very angry. She flinched and lost her grip on Whitley's hand. It was wet, maybe melting, and that made it slippery.

Weiss could hear footsteps, now, much too close. She backed away, eyes flickering frantically around. Where were they coming from...?

"Wait!" Whitley called out. "Please!"

"Weiss." The word cut the air like a whip, and before she could think she was running. Grabbing Ruby's hood—it was so convenient she came with a handle—she took off in a dead sprint, keeping her eyes glued to the floor in front of her. The footsteps were so loud they echoed, as if they were just about to turn the corner...

They turned too sharply and Weiss bounced off the wall. Momentarily dazed, she stopped just long enough to catch a snatch of conversation behind her.

"Hello, father."

Weiss dashed down the hall, passing ghostly family portraits and pale suits of armor. Porcelain vases and snowy tapestries lined the corridor, and her ivory heels made tiny imprints on a pristine white carpet. Ruby's cloak flapped behind her, a splash of brilliant crimson.

Clutching her rapier so hard that her knuckles began to ache, Weiss stumbled down another hallway, and another and another. The room numbers dropped steadily. 223, 211, 199...

"This is the second floor." Weiss scanned her surroundings. "There has to be a window..."

"We're just going to leave him? He's your brother!"

"I can't—" Weiss took a deep breath. "He made his choice a long time ago. It's too late, now."

"But—"

"No!" Weiss turned to glare at the adventurer. "I don't like it either, but this isn't a fight we can win. Let's go."

Ruby glared at her for a moment. Then, reluctantly, she nodded.

"Thank you."

After that, it was just a matter of finding a room with a window big enough for them to climb out of. The first one they found was locked, but Ruby still had Whitley's halberd and it worked pretty well as a universal lock pick.

Getting down was more of a challenge. Weiss hung feet-first from the window while Ruby held on to her wrists and leaned out as far as she could. The drop was still a solid ten feet, and her legs buckled under her as she hit the ground.

Ruby just sat on the windowsill and pitched herself into open air, landing in a semi-graceful roll and lurching back to her feet. She grinned, as if to say, "Ta da!" and Weiss raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

There were no alarms when they walked away from the tower, no distant footsteps or shouts from inside. It was eerie, and she looked over her shoulder so often her neck started aching. Ruby hummed to herself as she walked, something Weiss would have found insufferable on a good day.

"Mission accomplished!" she crowed, flourishing the halberd and bowing theatrically in Weiss' general direction. She was tempted to push her over—Ruby's balance was precarious enough that it probably wouldn't be hard—but she was grateful and it felt like it would like bad form.

"We haven't gotten away from the tower yet."

Ruby waved a hand, as if Father bearing down on them in all his wrath was no big deal. "We beat the bad guys—sort of—and got out alive. That's a victory, in my book!"

"Fine," Weiss said, rolling her eyes. "Where are we going, then?"

"There!"

Turning to look at where Ruby had pointed, Weiss found herself looking at a squat, overgrown building that had somehow taken root right in Father's backyard. He couldn't possibly have overlooked something like that.

Cheerfully ignoring how bizarre it was, Ruby skipped over to the front door and knocked. There was a shuffling sound from inside and the door was yanked open hard enough that she almost fell over.

Weiss opened her mouth to greet them. Then, as she looked the woman up and down, her face froze into a rigid scowl. "Mother."

The woman opened her arms as if she expected a hug. Weiss stayed right where she was.

"So, uh..." Ruby glanced nervously between them. "I guess you're good, now?"

"I most certainly am not," Weiss snapped. "What are you doing here?"

"This is my property, too." Mother's expression softened. "It's good to see you." She reached out for her daughter. Weiss slapped her hand away.

"Honey..."

"Don't call me that."

Ruby tried to intervene. "Guys, uh—"

Weiss grabbed her by the sleeve and turned to walk away. Ruby dug in her heels and made a distressed whining sound.

"Weiss!" her mother called out. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Anywhere else."

"You don't have to go anywhere," she said, with a tentative smile. "I have plenty of room. We can be together, just the two of us..."

Weiss stared at her a moment. "Why would I want to do that?"

"She's your mom!" Ruby insisted. Weiss gave her arm another pull, but she wouldn't budge.

"I know I wasn't always there for you—"

"Not always?" Weiss said, dumbstruck. She let go of Ruby and marched up to her mother.

"I made a mistake," she insisted. "But it'll be different now, you'll see!"

Weiss crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I don't see how. You never bothered trying."

"Of course I did!" her mother hissed. "I got you out, didn't I?"

"You told someone else to do it for you," Weiss countered. "And you're too late, anyway."

"Weiss—"

"Come on." This time, she grabbed Ruby's hood and ignored the indignant squawking behind her. She followed without protest, maybe because she had finally gotten it through her thick skull that her mother was the last—well, second-to-last—person Weiss wanted to live with. That, or she was too busy making sure her cloak didn't strangle her.

Her mother stumbled after them for a few paces before stopping halfway down the path that led to her forest cottage. "Please, stay!" she called out. When Weiss didn't respond, she made no move to stop them.

If Weiss had been inclined to give her a second chance, she would have just wasted it.

Ruby stopped cooperating after a few hundred yards. Without turning around, Weiss released her hood and kept walking.

"What was that?" the girl demanded, jogging forward a few paces so that Weiss could see her glaring.

"Our reunion."

Ruby groaned and ruffled a hand through her hair. "I don't understand!"

"I don't want anything to do with her. What's hard to understand?"

"She's your mother!"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "I don't care."

"No!" Ruby shouted, stepping in front of her and giving her a rough shove. "She's your mom, you can't just not care!"

Eyes narrowing, Weiss tried to go around her. Ruby moved with her so that she stayed in the way.

"Ugh! Who said this was any of your business?"

"I never got to know my mom, okay?!" Ruby burst out. "She died when I was little. So... you can't just throw away a chance like this!"

Weiss chewed her lip. "I'm sorry about your mom," she said. "But it's different."

"Yeah! You can go back!"

"Why should I?" Weiss growled.

"She's your—"

"She's pathetic."

Ruby's eyes widened as if she'd just been slapped, but Weiss kept talking. "That's her tower. This is her land. She could have told Father to get out, or she could have just left. She—she could've taken us with her. Instead, she hid out here and pretended nothing was wrong. I don't want anything to do with her."

Breathing hard, Weiss glared at Ruby as if daring her to protest. Instead, she just flipped up her hood and said, "Oh."

"Yes, oh. Now where are we going?"

Ruby blinked. "Um..."

"Where were you going before all of this?"

"I was just wandering around, looking for adventures. It turns out those are sort of hard to find, so... where do you want to go?"

"I..." Now, it was Weiss' turn to be flabbergasted. After spending so long trying to leave the tower, now that she had done it she was completely adrift. Except...

"I want to find my sister," she decided.

"Um, okay!" Ruby chirped. "That's...?"

"South of here."

"Right, yeah." She grinned and flashed Weiss a thumbs-up.

Weiss couldn't help returning the smile. Looking around, she took in for the first time the vibrant colors all around her. A squirrel perched on a nearby branch, chittering at them. Leaves rustled in the warm breeze. A cluster of brilliant orange mushrooms grew along the trunk of a tree. She took a moment to breathe in the free air, heady with the scent of wildflowers.

Ruby stopped abruptly in the middle of the path.

"What is it now?"

"...You have a sister?"

Weiss' opinions on Willow don't really reflect my own. Now, as of the time I'm writing this we've had basically no info on her aside from drinks a lot and hangs out in the garden, so this is 95% speculation on my part. But...

My headcanon is that she fought tooth and nail for Winter when she was young, and then just kinda... burned out. As Winter got older, she turned out a lot like him in a few ways (temper, stubbornness, etc). She wasn't a carbon copy, and she was fiercely opposed to him basically all the time, but she wasn't soft or kind the way Willow wanted. At least, not openly. That made her feel like she hadn't made any difference, despite the fact that she had a huge impact on Winter's life, and one that was passed down to Weiss indirectly later on.

Also... I see her as being lot like Yang when she first met Jacques. Always putting people she cares about ahead of herself, and always willing to forgive them. Then he twisted it so that her most positive traits screwed her over. And she fell head over heels for a persona designed to trick her. Now she sees love as something that other people take from her. It's not a mutual bond, it's a noose around her neck. Yeah, she didn't handle it well, but who the fuck would?