Chapter 2

A Rose Among Weeds

Љ

In the weeks that followed Weiss' chance encounter, in the posh club aptly named for its enchanting performers, the heiress' mind was entirely consumed with haunting images of the Goddess-like woman. Chrysanthemum, the elegant beauty that danced on every waking fiber of her thoughts, was truly, by the heiress' reckoning, beyond worthy of her namesake flower. Lithe and fragile by appearance, sleek and acrobatic in her motions, and a league apart from the previous and following acts.

Indeed, three weeks after that chance encounter, as the sun shined like a rainbow through the stained glass of the classroom windows, Weiss' mind was anywhere but present. As the hollow, chittering sound of pencils scratching paper played the tune of learned minds persisting in their studies, or perhaps finishing up the last of the day's quiz, the young Schnee was, in no other words, preoccupied.

The soft flutter of those golden locks almost seemed to materialize in place of the sun's accented streaks of yellow, given pronounced life by the stained glass through which they passed. Her flawless, snowy-pale skin seemed to replace the nearly oppressing white produced by the fluorescent lamps above. Every sterile, dull detail of the schoolroom was taken and given a different aspect, a new definition, by the heiress' wandering thoughts, spun through the persisting ripples left from Chrysanthemum's performances into an aspect of pure perfection.

Weiss' icy blue eyes were noticeably glossed, lost in her thoughts and daydreams as she was, as they sat locked to the front of the room, upon the lectern behind which a certain professor stood. Noticeable, that is, even to an untrained eye that would not normally pick up such an odd detail from a classmate or coworker. Thus, it goes without saying that the student which sat beside the heiress, a student who, much to Weiss' chagrin, she was partnered with for this free-study time, would not normally be expected to spot such a detail were it not so blatantly obvious.

The woman's silver eyes, the sort of silver of finely polished, display-only dinnerware, danced around her quiz-sheet as she desperately attempted to spot any wrong answers. If the heiress had looked, Weiss could have easily seen that the woman was distressed, most distinguishably by the fact that a cold sweat was blatantly shimmering on the flawless, pale skin of her forehead. The little bit of it that was left exposed under her pixie-cut locks, of a void-black coloration with hues of deep scarlet streaking through the last few inches, held a clear sheen of nervousness.

As the normally bubbly woman scanned her paper, chewing on her tooth-marked pencil in the process, not a thought was spared from the heiress. So much so, in fact, was her aloofness, this alone eventually caught her partner's attention.

By this point, having been joined together for a number of weeks, the two had been exposed to each other's idiosyncrasies and had developed particular reactions in response. When Weiss' aloof manner would become noticeably pronounced, usually during a lecture or lesson which she felt was beneath her, Ruby would garner her attention only to flash a disarming smile or some other such motion of cheerfulness. Conversely, when the heiress' partner would begin chewing on her pencil or pen, usually during a lesson or lecture that was straddling the limits of her understanding, Weiss would be quick to chide or otherwise stop her.

Thus, it struck Ruby as incredibly odd when, upon giving up on finding the errors she was sure lurked somewhere on her paper, she noticed the heiress seemed not to care in the slightest that she had been crunching on the wooden implement for the better portion of half an hour. In fact, as the silver-eyed vixen peered closer, physically leaning toward her desk-mate, two more things struck her as quite off.

The first, and likely most prominent, was that Weiss did not move or twitch in the slightest as Ruby's face inched toward hers. The second, and damningly affirmative, indicator was the barely perceptible slack to the heiress' painstakingly maintained expression, something Weiss had not allowed to drift from professional since the woman had met her. Even in her angriest moments, when Ruby had pushed the heiress' buttons just a tad too far, her expression had never erred from a cold display of utter confidence.

"Hey, Weiss…" Ruby whispered, careful not to alert the professor at her podium.

The woman's face was perhaps only a half meter from the heiress', which had placed her in an oddly tilted posture, as she silently attempted to draw some sort of reaction. Had she known the depth to which the daydreaming had stolen the heiress' mind, Ruby might have given up then and there. Yet, she did not and thus continued.

"Weiss, did you forget something on the quiz?" Ruby whispered once more.

The heiress still did not respond, her head leaning against her perfectly manicured right hand as she seemed to stare into the void itself.

Ͼ

Weiss' face still held the flush of anger and embarrassment, a scarlet hue left lingering by the faux pas she had so absentmindedly committed earlier in the day. Her brain was abuzz and swimming with all sorts of heated thoughts: thoughts of her foray into the city, for which she presently busied herself preparing; thoughts of her sister's face, flushed the selfsame scarlet as her own after Weiss' outburst; thoughts of Ruby, the irritating thorn the heiress sorely wished to be rid of.

As she set about the last of her preparations, slipping on a sleek, black top to match a pair of jet-black tights, Weiss duly considered the prospect of having to deal with the annoyingly cheerful classmate for another five years. This thought, which had run through her mind no less than ten times in the last hour alone, knotted her stomach more than she cared to admit.

Pushing the ruminations from her skull, as she bunched up and tied her silken hair, Weiss resolved once more that, as a Schnee, she would persevere through whatever she must to attain her goals. Goals which, even against the watchful eye of her sister, still burned like wildfire in her heart, showing no stutter under the icy shadow.

Once all was done, her hair ready to be hidden under the hood of her coat and her street clothes in order, Weiss crossed her room to the desk upon which a certain box sat. The ordinary make of it spoke nothing of the meticulously bespoke piece which hid within, awaiting faithfully to shield its master's identity from prying eyes. Weiss placed her hands upon it, ready to take it up and leave for her midnight gallivanting, when the day's earlier mishap overtook her once more.

The look on Winter's face, of utter disappointment and contempt. The feigned-innocent grin Ruby had given her after all was said and done. What she had shouted in a moment of unbridled fury after having been rudely pulled from her intoxicating daydream. It all flooded back to her as her hands touched the cold surface of the box, its temperature particularly pronounced due to Weiss' elevated body heat.

She merely gritted her teeth as she pushed the thoughts from her mind, instead turning back to the excitement of seeing her favorite performer again for mental succor. With this and her preparations completed, Weiss turned from the desk and crossed the room in a lively jaunt.

"Ancillary lights, off." She barked, "Door light, on. Time to five minutes."

The room did as it was told, the AI within carrying out its master's orders as the young Schnee nearly flew through the door.

Ͼ

The train ride to the hotel was just as long and uneventful as ever, with nothing of particular note occurring. The same scenery whizzed by in an indistinct blur as Weiss sat in her seat, her mind filled with the same feverish thoughts that had plagued her since the first. Now, those thoughts had some small company, though the impact was by and far negligible.

When the train pulled into the grandiose station of Olympus Heights, its telltale whistle signaling the end of the journey, the heiress' ruminations were halted. She stood from her seat with renewed purpose, crossing the aisle and disembarking onto the platform. Her heels clicked with a pointed hollowness, a distinct sort of sound that indicated one was in somewhat of a hurry.

She crossed the platform quickly, almost robotically, as she headed for the plaza, swiping her ticket upon arrival and heading toward the hotel's massive entrance without delay. There, just before crossing the threshold into the lobby proper, a bit of signage caught Weiss' icy-blues.

It had been posted all along the central station, as well as the small hub near the school, and even within the train itself. Alas, just as earlier when the heiress committed her faux pas, the young Schnee's mind was far away during her journey. She had failed entirely to notice the smaller, less prominent signs scattered all about.

These posters, however, were massive and vibrantly decorated, plastered to the gargantuan doors that led into the lobby. The paper had a metallic-golden coloration with large silver letters raised in a cursive font to catch the eye of any passersby. It had done its job well, the heiress now halted in her tracks as she digested the posted message.

Join the staff of the Olympus Heights Hotel

in welcoming the graduates of the Schnee

Dust Company's Management Training

University! Starting on the 5th, in one week's

time, we will be hosting the Fifth Year's

Goodbye Ceremony on behalf of the

University.

So, come one and all as we bid farewell

to these brilliant minds and send them

off to do the Company proud!

Weiss scoffed audibly as she read the last of it, resuming her eager pace into the hotel. It almost turned her stomach to think on just how far the populace would go to please her father's company. On another day, when such a treat as awaited her was not so close at hand, Weiss might have fully been taken up with thoughts of her father's suitors once more.

The last one had been almost a total joke in the heiress' mind, blathering on and on about his family and company. The man had not stopped talking for even a moment during the entire dinner, one which Weiss had desperately striven to wriggle out of attending. The heiress had merely bobbed her chin, nodding in feigned attention, as the braggart blithered on into the night.

The moment she had stopped paying him any mind at all was when, after twenty minutes at the table, she spied the position the young man's eyes seemed glued to. Despite her better judgement, Weiss had worn an alluringly low-cut dress with a flowing hem, snowy white with scarlet accents. Though her attire had to some degree invited the attention, the heiress was nonetheless appalled by the man's boorish manner.

The high-pitched chime of the hotel elevator came suddenly and unexpectedly, pulling Weiss back to the present. Once the doors had opened, she stepped out and made her way quickly to her room, now rented for an extended period. With each muffled click of her heels upon the hallway carpet, she pushed the day's less appetizing thoughts from her mind.

Once inside her room, as the door clicked behind her, Weiss spared no time whatsoever in donning her getup. She nearly threw the box onto the massive bed at the center of the suite, retrieving the key from her neckline and opening it immediately. She then withdrew the coat and tossed it over her shoulders, thrusting her arms through the sleeves just a tad rougher than she should've.

At last, her disguise all but ready, the heiress took a moment to slow down. She leaned over, just a few degrees, and looked at the dully shimmering mask in its velvety resting place. The blackened steel surface seemed to eat the light cast upon it, giving off an almost ethereally dull glow. The intricate carvings of fire and storms seemed to dance in the light as she picked it up, tilting it from side to side absentmindedly. Her thoughts wandered once more, straining to imagine the face that rested beneath Chrysanthemum's mask.

"I wonder if men stare at her face…" Weiss hummed to herself, placing the mask back in its box.

Being that time was no object this night, as the weekend had once more come, she stepped over to a nearby floor mirror. It rested on indistinct metal legs, propped up in a corner of the room for the vain to preen over themselves before venturing into the night.

Weiss pulled down her hood, allowing the light to fully caress her nearly perfect visage. There, her reflection in full view, she gingerly brought her left hand to her face. With an almost fearful tenderness, she ran two fingers across the left side, from the center of her forehead to just below her cheekbone.

"I wonder…" she hummed again, tracing her fingers over the deep scar upon her eye twice more.

Ђ

The week came and went, as uneventful as the heiress preferred it to be. Now Friday once again, and with no outbursts to embarrass her having occurred as yet, Weiss sat attentively in her seat as the psychology professor droned on over the day's lesson. His moustache bounced comically with every word, drawing the occasional hushed giggle as his potbelly led his every step.

Every now and again, Weiss' pen would scratch around briefly as she jotted down an important tidbit. For once, her mind was not entirely consumed by the very siren-appeal of the enchanting dancer, leaving her fully aware as she listened to the lesson. It was a hard-fought battle, retaining herself against the assaulting images, but one the heiress won out over in the end.

Yet, as she watched the professor, carefully taking in every word, something caught the corner of Weiss' eye. She brushed it off at first, wanting nothing more to do with the woman who shared her learning-space. It was the odd, almost ticklish sound of a high-pitched snore that fully took her attention, drawing the heiress' gaze from the professor to her partner.

There she sat, head laid carelessly over her crossed arms, just barely drooling as she slept through the class that constituted her major of study. The sight at first revolted the heiress, hitting a spot deep within her that valued dutiful application above nearly all else. Yet, in the few moments she watched the sleeping Ruby, another feeling was quick to take its place, however brief its stay.

Weiss momentarily recalled, just before deciding to wake the woman, a time when her own rigorous studies as a child had overwhelmed her, pulling her into an unintended nap in the middle of a lesson.

"Ruby Rose, wake up!" she hissed quietly as possible, nudging her sleeping partner with an elbow against her ribs.

Much to the heiress' relief, the woman awoke almost immediately. Her head bolted upright with a snort, a nearly imperceptible trail of spittle following her lips, as her hauntingly silver eyes fluttered open. They were crossed at first, pulling lazily into focus as she blinked repeatedly.

"You're supposed to be majoring in this subject, you dunce." Weiss hissed again, this time with a hint of sympathy to her tone.

"I'm sorry, partner…" Ruby whispered in reply, flashing one of her usual goofy grins, "Had some late nights, but I'm trying!"

"You do or you don't, there is no trying." Weiss barked mutedly, quoting an old tutor of hers.

The man's short, balding image briefly flashed across Weiss' mental eye, bringing a tiny smile to the corners of her mouth as she recalled him. At the time, when she was just beginning her first lessons, the girl had drawn no end of amusement from the fact that this man was only just as tall as herself. Even to this day, the image of a little, balding man, hunched over his twisted wooden cane, standing only just as tall as a six-year-old girl, still tickled her.

"Meet me at the café when the break comes." Weiss said, remembering how the little tutor had once treated her.

The lesson wrapped up smoothly enough from there, Ruby only nodding off a scant three times more as the professor droned on. When the hollow ding of the bell sounded, the woman was nearly ready to pass out as she leaned her face against her hand. Her silver eyes fluttered open, crossed with fatigue once again, only to notice the heiress missing.

She quickly gathered her books and papers, haphazardly shoveling them into a tiny backpack, before hopping up and making her way for the café.

She walked briskly through the halls, her mind gradually fraying as it began to surmise that she might be lost. Every corridor opened up into an equally bland hall, only a scant few signs hanging here and there to identify certain classrooms. Ruby picked up her pace, not wanting to waste her partner's break time, when a sudden voice caught her ear. The woman nearly tripped over her own feet trying to halt her step.

"Over here!" came the call, almost accusatory in its tone.

Ruby spun around, having barely regained herself from the near fall, and peered through an otherwise unremarkable doorway.

The sliding doors opened up into a modestly appointed, cafeteria-styled room, lit with a warmer color of lighting than the rest of the university. There were inviting-looking tables within, round in shape and arranged just far enough apart to seat six with plenty of room for all. The lights above were an older model of bulb, a thin piece of metal within heated by fire-aspected dust to create a softer light than the surrounding fluorescents.

Weiss sat at a table off in the corner of the room, her seat nearly squished into the wedge formed where the two walls met at her back. Her icy-blue eyes were trained firmly on Ruby, a small hint of irritation glinting behind them. Quickly, the woman crossed the threshold into the café and made her way for the heiress.

"Took your time." Weiss nearly spat.

"Sorry, Weiss." Ruby replied nervously, pulling out a seat across from her and sitting down, "I think I drifted off again…"

Just as her rump found its place in the chair, a young woman seemed to pop up beside her from nowhere. She wore a painstakingly maintained uniform, the sort one would expect of any waitress worth her salt, and had a professional smile plastered across her face. Without a word, she placed a cup of steaming liquid, sitting on a simple saucer, directly in front of Ruby.

"Here you are, Ma'am." She chirped happily, almost too much so, before leaving as quickly as she came.

Ruby looked down at the cup, smelling the slightly acrid aroma of fine coffee wafting from its surface, before returning her gaze to the heiress. The woman wore a clearly puzzled look, unsure of how to handle the situation.

"If you're nodding off in class, you won't do well on your quizzes and tests." Weiss spoke up, very matter-of-factly, "If you don't do well, I won't do well."

Once more, Ruby looked down at the cup and saucer. The liquid within was an almost tar-black color, its scent nearly screaming of its potency. Her silver eyes were reflected with the same puzzled look from the inky, rippling surface as the woman contemplated how to respond.

As she stared at the cup, an idea dawned upon her. Without hesitation, Ruby scanned the table for anything that resembled a menu. Her eyes quickly picked up the only thing with words written on it.

Reaching for the center of the table, where a triangular sign was placed with obsessive precision, Ruby grabbed what looked to be a menu. Her eyes flew across its surface, the woman quickly becoming alarmed as she read the contents.

"You paid thirty Lien for a coffee?!" she yelled, forgetting her manners in her shock, "For me?!"

The heiress turned her gaze, which had been absentmindedly pointed out the window as she reminisced on her childhood, to shoot her partner a sinister glare. Ruby sank in her seat under the ire of those icy-blues, nervously returning the little menu to the center of the table.

"I don't know why you came here, Miss Rose…" Weiss began coldly, "Frankly, I don't really care. However, I do care about my grades and, by proxy, I must care about yours to a degree."

Weiss paused, giving Ruby a moment to straighten up as she relaxed the intensity of her glare.

"Tell me, did you even read the student handbook?" the heiress posed with no attempt to hide her exasperation.

Ruby only nodded a simple 'yes' in reply, eliciting an irritated tongue-cluck from the heiress.

"How well did you read it?" Weiss pressed further.

Ruby's eyes fell to the cup, still steaming as the inky liquid sloshed around gently. She decided to give it a try, feigning deep thought as she took a careful sip of the hot beverage. She almost spat it out, being that it was nearly bitter as soap.

"I read the important-looking parts…" she replied timidly, carefully returning the cup to its saucer.

At this, Weiss suddenly stood up, bumping the table and nearly spilling the coffee on Ruby's lap. Her icy-blues were leveled on the woman again, this time with a look of utter contempt. Ruby's usually chipper attitude was so heavily strained by fatigue, she wanted desperately to sink into her seat and disappear. Under other circumstances, when the world was not colored by an exhausted lack of optimism, she might've responded with a disarming grin.

"I'll make this simple, so you can follow along, alright?" Weiss seethed.

Ruby only nodded in reply.

"The handbook states that, as partners, our grades are directly connected. We will be given our final marks based on the performance of our partner, in order to foster a sense of workplace camaraderie. Ergo, if you fail or flunk out, then I fail."

With that, the heiress turned and began to walk away, her heels clacking angrily on the tile floor. A few steps from the door, she stopped in midstride, bringing her foot slowly back to the floor. Ruby watched in faintly frightened silence as the heiress' shoulders dropped a tad, her body language relaxing, if only a little.

"Drink up and hurry back, ok?" Weiss added before resuming her stride, gracefully clacking her way back to class.

Ruby looked back to the cup, not entirely keen on finishing the bitter libation, as her confused mind tried to discern the heiress' intentions.

Ͽ

Weiss' heart pounded hard in her chest as she stepped lively down the sidewalk, her pace carrying her ever closer to the establishment that had seen her patronage so much these last few weeks. The maddened beat in her chest resulted from a combination of excitement, at the commencement of another weekend basking in the glory of her obsession, and relief, at having evaded the crowd of fifth years that were undoubtedly engaged in lively celebration at the hotel. The perfect mixture of these two feelings, both feeding the adrenaline rush the heiress had become nearly addicted to, created a potent stimulant that propelled the taxed organ into overdrive.

So furious was her step, the long tail of her jet-black coat billowing behind her in an arid breeze, Weiss all but tossed over the bouncer as she passed by on her way through the iron gate leading to the Siren's Call. The ox of a man stumbled back a few steps before catching himself, grunting as a tight roll of paper bills struck him square in the forehead. As Weiss crossed the inner courtyard, on course directly for the entrance, the man slowly counted out the cash.

Just as ever, staying the man's justifiable anger at the unknown woman's indifferent rudeness, there was exactly two thousand Lien in the roll. Cursing lightly under his breath, he pocketed the cash as the heiress disappeared into the club.

What met Weiss on the inside was, to say the least, an utter travesty. To her sense of anonymity, which held her together as she enjoyed the glow of her taboo forays, the massive, thronging crowd she walked into was absolute in its terror. She could almost hear her mind as it cracked, ever so slightly, at the sudden veer from the expected course.

The rowdy crowd was, unsurprisingly, made up almost exclusively of men, most of which were likely into their fifth or so alcoholic libation. Reddened faces hooped and hollered at the performers on stage, tufts of paper Lien dancing through the air as they were set free of drunken grasps. The smell of sweat and liquor was pungent and pronounced, amplified by the lights that spun in the ceiling above.

The heiress considered, however briefly, the notion of simply turning and leaving. From a logical standpoint, as she was so fond of, it absolutely would have been the right and proper thing to do. There would be other nights to gallivant in her anonymous solitude, other performances of her obsession to gawk at among less crowded surroundings. Yet, fate has a most intriguing manner of pulling one to the tune of its own harpsichord, tugging one's marionette strings to dance as it pleases.

As the anxiety began to build past the point of pleasure, for which Weiss sought out these hidden sojourns, the thudding beat of the club died all at once. The lights stopped their spin, turning from a rainbow of colors into a soft, unmoving white. All bodies stopped their various motions at once as if on cue, from the dancers on stage to the liquor-addled fifth years below.

The heiress, as well, was caught up in the ethereal lull that passed over the crowd.

"Fifth year graduates of the Schnee University!"

The voice came from nowhere, tearing easily through the odd silence that had descended over the room like little more than cheap tissue paper. The announcer's voice was dry, as though his throat were desperately parched, and held a sense of manic energy behind it.

Weiss' interest was piqued, her trepidation ceasing its assault within her mind.

"We all know why you're here tonight, don't we?!"

The announcer boomed his almost frantic tone over the speakers once more, the energy in his question now infecting the voices of the crowd below. The throng of newly graduated company men, drunken stupor be damned, roared their reply like soldiers in mid-drill.

"She's been the talk of the town these last weeks, bringing in visitors from far and wide to watch her spellbinding spectacle!"

Cheers now, an incoherent wave of haphazard claps and clicks, as the crowd energized under the announcer's commandingly captivating voice.

"The shy beauty that ain't afraid to bare it all!"

Drunken shouts and maddened applause.

"The flower of the midnight hour!"

Slurred shouts of anxious anticipation.

"The one, the only…"

It became quickly deafening as the crowd devolved.

"Chrysanthemum!"

Suddenly, as the crowd seemed ready to degenerate entirely into a rioting mob, the lights were killed in unison. Not a shred of luminescence shone anywhere in the club, shadows and darkness consuming the sight of all. In another time, when her own heart was not so gripped with anticipation, Weiss might've wondered at the cost of insuring such a wild establishment.

As her icy-blues wandered through the fetid darkness, futilely attempting to grasp any vision at all, a sound began to chime from the direction of the stage. Soft at first, it came on slowly and evenly like a lullaby. The chords that plucked the air strummed a harmoniously composed tune, etching high pitches of soft melody into every ear.

Weiss' heart skipped a beat, her mind softening like warm putty as the haunting line carved apart her senses. It goes without saying that, in their besotted haze, the mass of graduates was equally, if not more so, tranquilized by this new sound. It continued in this manner for a good three, maybe four, minutes as there bloomed a dim, lone light above the stage.

Instantly, with some small sight returned, the heiress' gaze was trained to a figure haunting beyond compare. It was hard to discern at first, the dimness of the light teasing its way slowly back to proper luminescence. Yet, it was undeniable as well.

She stood there, wrapped tightly in a clinging dress of silken make, the threads colored the endless black of what surely lay beyond this life. Her head was bowed in a posture of prayer, flaxen locks obscuring her already hidden face. Tiny snippets of snow-white flesh peeked shyly from elegant floral patterns woven into the dress, glowing like a divine spirit in the brightening light.

As the retinue of classical tones reached an even, droning rhythm, the Goddess onstage made the first of her moves. From under the hem of her dress, which pooled on the floor like a mire of hedonistic lavishness, came a foot clad in a shimmering black stiletto. It rested firmly, purposefully in front of her, the long heel clicking charmingly on the stage.

From there and for the next handful of minutes, Weiss' mind was utterly sundered and scattered to the four winds. The flurry of elegant motions and supple contortions, as the Goddess flowed over the stage like divine water, served as only the appetizer for what was yet to come. Even still, it tore down every defense the heiress had raised to keep herself obscured during her debauchery.

The moment Weiss lost all control, the moment fate's puppeteering strings took her undeniably in their grasp, came when the Siren's mouth first opened. It was sealed from here as a melody, the likes of which Weiss could hardly fathom, poured forth in utter perfection from the dancer's lungs.

The heiress' attention was trapped in full by the sound, every note as if a link in a mighty chain that bound her mind in place. Each tonal inflection as the Goddess chanted, the lyrics a compellingly dismal array of emotional fury, sank her consciousness deeper into the trance.

This was it, the feeling she had been seeking with every attendance of this mysterious woman's performance. This was the feeling for which the heiress had been yearning. A state of blissful complacency as her mind was freed of its logical bonds, set loose to roam the vagaries of her obsession's enchanting tune.

As she continued to watch and listen, her mind lost in the ecstasy of it all, Weiss noticed nothing of the resuming vitality in the crowd that surrounded her. During the buildup of the main event, as Chrysanthemum had begun her siren tune, the heiress' feet had carried her unwittingly into the thronging audience.

She stood now, lost in herself, lost in the chanting vixen's vocals, as the graduates all around resumed their lively motions. Most were drunk, sloshed beyond measure, as their bodies pulsed in rhythm with the spectacle. The occasional shoulder or rump nudged the heiress unintentionally, pushed by the unwitting frolicker, but she did not notice. In fact, she likely would not have cared if she had.

This was the moment that fate's strings played true, their grip around the heiress' essence all but absolute. Its envoy, the harbinger of the role she would soon be thrust into, was to be a particularly hefty-built man. Just on the cusp of his twenty-eighth year, living up the last of his freedom before taking up an executive position in the Company, he threw every besotted ounce of himself into his wild dancing.

As Weiss stood enthralled with Chrysanthemum's performance, the angelic call reaching its zenith, this oxen man tripped expertly over his own clumsy feet. In what could only be described as divine comedy, the lumbering brute spun twice in a drunken twirl before crashing into the heiress, knocking her over gracelessly with his massive girth.

Weiss, pulled rudely from her blissful trance, tumbled ass over teakettle into the bottom of the stage on which her obsession still sang. In but a moment's time, the furious heiress was on her feet and ready to tear the blithering oaf apart with her extensive lexis. With unbridled rage coursing through her veins, the siren song of Chrysanthemum now far and away from her attention, Weiss leaned into her first step toward the man when a coppery taste stole her awareness.

She lifted a hand, her right to be precise, to her face so as to lift her mask and feel for the source of the bleed. Horror set in almost immediately as her palm came in contact with flesh, no steel façade to be had. In dumbfounded shock, Weiss tapped the flesh of her lips dreamily in hopes she might be suffering a hallucination or something similar.

It was no use, the hiding implement having been lost in her violent tumble. Her icy eyes skittered frantically across the floor, their gaze searching in the low light for the lost object. When it quickly became apparent that she would not find it, Weiss' eyes instinctively, and for a reason she might never know, lifted to the Goddess onstage behind her.

To her shock, sending the heiress into a mental tailspin, the woman was staring back at her from behind her own false visage.

α

Weiss' feet pounded hard on the pavement, the stiletto heels broken off some short distance into her frantic exodus. Her gait was clumsy and ragged, frightened tears streaking hot down her cheeks. Her lungs filled painfully with air as she stamped the ground, placing long, hard steps between herself and the Siren's Call.

Her mind was gone, lost entirely in shock, as she made off into the night. The hood of her coat still hid most of her features from the crowds she bumbled through. Even still, the heiress felt as though she might die at any moment of the feral embarrassment.

Her thoughts blank, Weiss rounded a corner that turned just beyond a closed bank, pushing her rambling form to keep up its flight. The broken heel on her left foot found no purchase as she tried to continue her terror induced sprint, slipping out from under her weight with no semblance of grace. She fell suddenly, painfully, and rolled a few times before coming to a stop just in front of a dark alleyway.

Now, the heiress was no particular fool. Under any sensible circumstances, she would have nothing to do with such a blatantly dangerous place. These, however, were not even remotely normal circumstances, her feverishly scattered mind the epitome of incoherence. With not a thought, only wanting to hide herself from sight, Weiss scrambled into the darkness.

She quickly found some sort of nook within which to hide herself, crawling under an object she couldn't quite make out and hugging her knees to her chin. She sat there for what felt like years, sobbing hard as she imagined the implications of this penultimate blunder.

Weiss Schnee, heiress apparent to the Schnee Dust Company, caught frolicking in a gentleman's club under flagrant disguise. Weiss Schnee, poised to take over her father's massive, military-industrial company, found fawning over exotic dancers in the seedy part of the University City. Weiss Schnee, disowned and dishonored by her own hand, cut loose from the future she had so striven for since her earliest memories.

The tears wouldn't stop, their scalding trails like streams of magma over her rosy cheeks. Her nose clogged, leaving her gasping in shivering spasms for air, as the torrent raged outside of her control. She had been so lost, so utterly disarmed by the siren song, her mind was left as bare as a newborn babe to this attack, initiated by her own hand though it may be.

Quickly, the heiress' mind was shutting down, ripping what little remained of her cognizance from her. As she sat crouched with her knees drawn, under what would turn out to be a leaning stack of pallets, she imagined briefly what the dancer must have thought. It never occurred to her, not in the slightest, that the look behind the elegant mask might be anything other than revulsion.

As she sobbed and hiccupped, obnoxiously loud in the dead-silence of the alley, a dull clacking resounded from the far end of the byway. Were her wits about her, rather than lost to feral humiliation, Weiss would've known that familiar, hollow sound. It was the sort of click-clack of dexterous feet in high stilettos, tapping melodically on the dark cement.

Her reaction was predictable as the heiress sank against the brick wall under which she sat, trying without success to scrunch up and disappear. Whoever, or whatever, was making that noise, she wanted nothing more than to not be found by it. When the sound stopped suddenly, as if the perpetrator had simply vanished, Weiss' heart nearly stopped along with it. She sat there in petrified silence, waiting for whatever might come.

"Weiss!" called a familiar voice, the identity of which was lost to the frantic heiress.

She held her breath, bidding her heart to cease, as the click-clacking steps resumed.

"Weiss, it's ok!" the voice called again, spearing her soul with terror anew.

The click-clack drew closer, the hollow tap accentuated through the acoustics of the alley, until it was just outside the heiress' hiding spot. She was ready to check out, mentally and emotionally, as the anxiety built relentlessly.

"No one else saw you, Weiss!" the voice chimed again, a hint of moroseness behind it, "Please, come out! I can help you!"

It was simply too much for the poor heiress' strained mind to cope with as her limbs began to move on their own. What little faculty might've remained had fled in exodus, leaving the woman little more than a frightened shell as she quit her hidey-hole.

The form that met her was beyond unexpected.

"Weiss!" yelled the gorgeous siren, Chrysanthemum, her back turned to the heiress.

Her arms and legs went suddenly numb, spilling her onto the dirty concrete with a muted thud. As her chin touched the covered earth, a faraway pain coursing through her skull, Weiss' eyes were glued to the woman.

Her dress was torn off, midway down the thigh, exposing her pale legs to the scant moonlight that now drifted into the byway. Her hair was disheveled but, somehow, unnaturally so, laying at a noticeably odd angle. As Weiss stared in complete shock, her embarrassment replaced with twisted curiosity, a tuft of something dark seemed to poke out just above the siren's left ear.

The woman turned, perhaps thinking to further explore the alley in search of the heiress, when a girlish yelp suddenly escaped her lips. Chrysanthemum stumbled back a few steps before falling to the ground as well, landing squarely on her rump. Yet, as this happened, the only thing Weiss noticed was the woman's missing mask.

Silver eyes, reflecting borrowed moonlight like finely polished jewelry, stared in shock at the heiress, their gaze returned in like manner by those icy-blue orbs.

α

"You…" Weiss whispered dully.

Ruby made no reply, her face a mix of shock, relief and, somehow, shame. The long, fake hair atop her head had tilted further during her fall, exposing a large portion of her mostly-black locks. Now that Weiss could clearly see, in the exposing light of the full moon above, the woman was an utter mess.

The two sat there in stunned silence for a time, each as unsure as the other about how to proceed. The heiress' frantic mind had calmed significantly under this revelation, though the how and why was entirely lost on her. What now consumed her thoughts, aside from the horror that she had been fawning over this person in particular, was why the woman would give chase.

"Here…" Ruby muttered weakly, holding something out to the heiress.

Weiss snapped from her ruminations, her eyes drawn to the intricately carved masked that had only recently been affixed to her partner's face. Its surface was flawless, entirely untouched by whatever the pursuit had visited upon the rest of Ruby. The glow of the dust, inlaid expertly in the deep carvings upon its surface, lit the heiress' perplexed face.

"Why?" she croaked in reply, lifting her icy gaze back to the woman.

"You'll probably get in a lot of trouble if someone spots you, so take mine." Ruby said, with a tad more vigor as she pushed the mask closer, "I'll look for yours later and don't worry, I can borrow one from another dancer."

Weiss had no words, nothing from her vast mental lexicon, with which to respond at first. Her dumbfoundedness was all but absolute.

"I was kinda flattered that someone like you, so sophisticated and fancy, would keep coming to see me dance…" Ruby mumbled, fidgeting with her knees, as she continued to offer the mask, "I don't know why you did, or why you kept coming back, but it was sorta… comforting, even if you didn't know it was me. It made me feel like I wasn't totally screwing up…"

As the woman rambled on in her shy gratitude, the heiress had entirely stopped paying her any mind. Her focus was once more, unsurprisingly, on the apparent fact that she had been known for some time. Once again her heart began to race, her stomach flipping and turning knots, as the implications flooded her mind.

"How long…" Weiss whispered, almost imperceptibly.

"Huh?"

"How long?!"

The heiress stood violently on her shaky, exhausted legs, ripping the offered guise from Ruby's fragile grasp. She cocked her hand up, mask tightly held, as though she were going to strike the woman. At the apex of her swing, however, Weiss' entire form went numb once more, her emotions a wild torrent within her. She fell upon her knees, listing rearward and sitting gracelessly on her heels.

"I kinda figured it out after the first week…" Ruby mumbled her response, guessing the heiress' meaning, "You have a certain style to your step, something of a dead giveaway to anyone paying close enough attention."

The woman paused, watching the heiress as she sat in odd silence.

"With the way you stared holes through me, I couldn't help but notice…"

Weiss' icy gaze glazed over as she relinquished whatever hope she'd retained of pulling out of this mess, which was little enough in the first place. She stood on her quivering legs once more, the pain of their overexertion coursing through her, and slipped the mask over her still-bleeding face.

Without a glance, without a word, she pulled up her hood and sauntered away, leaving Ruby to stare in worry as she went.