I am sorry to be taking so long, but I have not given up. Please do not hold back when criticizing this chapter. For posterity's sake, this was published on the 26th of July, 2018, and the previous chapter was published in early March. Four months is an insult to you, Dearest Readers, for which I am sorely remorseful. So as I said, please do not hold back on criticism. I've done as best I think I can. Let me know how good that actually is, or is not.
And once more, without further ado...
Chapter 5
Vertigo
Λ
She fell softly but quickly. In the passage of but a few minutes. Beneath the buzz of fluorescent lamps. It was a small room, and she, in her place there, a small person. An insignificant speck. But without knowing, she stepped into eternity in her own way. Another tiny grain of sand plummeting through the hourglass.
His voice was gruff, as it had always been. He spoke not with malice. He spoke not with disdain. He spoke with neither vexation nor fury…
Yet, his words broke her apart, as an off-course ship dashed against a craggy shore.
Ϭ
The day had already begun in earnest. Monday, first of the second year. The students had assembled later this time—eight rather than seven—and so the sun sat higher, overlooking the grand and open auditorium. Commencement was underway and all gathered within were fit to bursting with pride, relief, and no small helping of trepidation for what yet awaited them. Yes, that first year was over, the MTU having claimed its toll, but so too did the next four begin.
Here and now.
Weiss stood beside Ruby, her mind clear and her heart calm. It was warmer this day, all things considered, but a strong breeze swept through intermittently. That breeze brought a jarring cold with it, as though washing in unhindered from the tundra beyond Constance. She had worn a small coat over her usual attire, and thus thought nothing of that slight nip. Beside her, however, shivering every time that breeze came through…
"I told you to wear your cloak, or anything at all really," said the heiress.
"It was sunny when we woke up," said Ruby, shivering again as another gust came. "I thought you were overreacting…"
"And I had the forethought to check the weather reports. 'Sunny with a high of twenty-three; strong winds, expect chill factor down to sixteen.'"
Ruby said nothing, only looked away and toward the crowd. It fair surrounded them just as the first commencement, but no matter which way she looked, the MTU's toll could be clearly seen. Weiss followed her love's eyes, saw the relieved and worried faces of the students. There might only have been two hundred now, all in all.
"We really made it," said Ruby, still turning her gaze over the crowd. "Weren't there a thousand or so last year?"
"There were." Weiss nodded her head, looked the other way. Up and toward the lectern at the front of the assembly. "Very few can make it. Be proud of yourself, Ruby."
"It wasn't just my effort, Weiss, and you know it…"
Suddenly, the heiress felt weight against her shoulder. She looked Ruby's way. The woman had moved to lean on her, head against her left arm. The first thoughts that met this were to be expected, of course, but the heiress quickly shooed them off.
"Worried someone will see?" asked Ruby.
"Not at all," Weiss lied.
"I would be," said Ruby before standing straight again.
"What I'm worried about," said the heiress, throwing her arm over Ruby's shoulder and pulling the woman close, "is my partner catching a cold because she wouldn't dress for the weather."
The heiress was warm even through her coat. That heat reached Ruby straightaway and settled her chilled shiver. Saying nothing more, she nuzzled into Weiss's grip and let herself be held. None around them seemed to notice this, or even register that anyone had moved.
Yes, the students gathered within the open auditorium—basking under a veritable kaleidoscope, warm and colorful—were relieved, were proud, and were excited. Yet they were also quite nervous over the coming days, weeks, months, and years. The great, grey walls of granite did yet bid feelings of entrapment. The cold stone under them, over them, and all around them seemed to foretell disaster and despondence. And even despite the warm sun, the many colors born from the stained glass above…
Something bade ill.
"I love you," whispered Ruby, unsure she could be heard.
Weiss only squeezed her a bit tighter.
Then, a squeal came from the speakers all around. Both women (and all the rest) cast their gaze to the lectern. There stood the hunched figure of the dean, his long beard as white as the driven snow. Behind small glasses that had fallen down his nose, milky eyes, almost entirely blind, peered at the crowd. He pushed the glasses back in place, cleared his throat, tapped the mic.
"Hello again," he said. "I am most pleased to see as many of you as there are. And now, I hope you have seen the truth of my words to you the year previous…"
There was no rumpus, no din, not even the faintest stir of life among the crowd. All watched with baited breath. All awaited the dean's words, still and quiet as the grave.
"Very good." The dean looked behind himself and nodded to a tall, beanpole of a woman. She stepped forward and stood beside him. "Now then, allow me to give you all a proper welcome to the Schnee Dust Company's Management Training University: This is Anais Haevlyn—Miss Anais to those attending this university—and henceforth, she shall serve as your dean. While I realize the abruptness of my announcement, let this serve as notification that, effective today, I am retired.
"The Schnee Dust Company is, first and foremost, a corporation meant to foster profit. We are no family. We are no comrades or compatriots. Rather, we all work toward the goal of raising the company, as a whole, to ever greater heights of efficacy and efficiency. Come what may, we are the gears that turn and drive this machine ever onward…"
The old man trailed off, his voice quavering slightly at the end. Weiss thought nothing of this, but Ruby could clearly see he held some regret or another in him. Beside him, the tall Anais showed hardly the slightest hint of being alive; she stood as nearly a statue, hands crossed in front of herself and eyes regarding only the direction ahead of her, focusing on nothing at all.
Those eyes, violet and almost looking to glow, were unreasonably beautiful.
"As such," the once-dean went on, "we must all understand and accept that corporations are everchanging. Should a gear be ground down by time, its teeth dulled and useless any longer to turn the rest, then it must be immediately replaced. Lest, of course, the rest be harmed."
He swept one hand over the crowd and said, "I would encourage all of you to bear this in mind. Never let yourselves slip into idleness. Never accept anything less than your best. Perhaps most of all, always push your best to be better. This is the only way you will succeed, both within this university and within the company…"
At this, Ruby could feel the heiress's grip around her tighten once more. Only this time it was no gentle thing, no loving thing. Her grip felt incensed. Her form shook ever so slightly, and Ruby knew full well that Weiss was not cold. She turned her silver eyes up and saw an utterly blank expression upon Weiss's face that she had nearly forgotten to exist. It was, unmistakably, the expression of the woman she had first met at the MTU, whose name was Weiss Schnee and whose station in life was heiress apparent of the Schnee Dust Company.
"I bid you all both a fond farewell and a vigorous cheer," said the once-dean, pulling Ruby's gaze back to the lectern. "So long as you keep these truths in mind, any supposition or illusion may offer you solace. Never accept mediocrity, I implore you, and never cease your forward march."
And with that, he merely stepped away, limping along on his cane as he descended the stairs behind the lectern. Once he disappeared from sight, Anais stepped forward. The breeze came again and billowed her hair out to her right. Now seeing it fully, nigh all were amazed. It was black as polished obsidian and surely as long as she was tall. But when she spoke, that amazement—that slight break from the oppressive atmosphere of the commencement—left at once.
"Hello to you all," she said, and her voice was as death made flesh, chilling and biting to the very soul. "I hope you will take the former dean's words to heart. Furthermore, I expect that you will continue to live up to the standard of performance that has brought you this far. As I have been personally appointed by Jacques Schnee, know that no slack of any sort will be tolerated. We are, one and all, the Schnee Company. And we shall, one and all, uphold that name."
Anais looked over the crowd. Pleased to see them as they were, she smiled. It looked so odd, that simple gesture, not unlike a beautiful disaster fast approaching.
"Let us give up a round of applause for the former dean," she said, and so they did. After perhaps half a minute of thunderous clapping, Anais stuck up one hand, palm forward, and hushed them, saying, "You are dismissed," and nothing else.
The commencement ended with that. No other faculty stepped forward. No more was said to the gathered crowd of perhaps two hundred second-year students.
Ϯ
Lucius found himself rather underwhelmed with the commencement. Oh, how furious his father had been upon hearing of his expulsion. How sure Lucius had then been that this changing of deans—per the request of his father, made directly to Jacques—would be more of a spectacle. But the once-dean had made no fuss and Anais, his replacement, had made nothing of it at all. Aside from a call to applause, that is.
How simply trivial a matter it had turned out to be.
Thus, when the commencement ended, Lucius left for the MTU bookstore with a rather dour mood settling in. Clearly Winter was beyond the grasp of his retribution, and so too had the once-dean turned out to be. He walked along the winding concrete path northwards, turning these things over in his head, ruing his lack of persistence in seeing someone punished for his mistreatment. He was just passing the arboretum and nearly to the common area—where the various stores and outlets of the MTU campus were housed—when he spotted them.
Something that might take his mind off the disappointing commencement.
Ϭ
Once the commencement ended and the students gathered began to disperse, Weiss found herself rather reluctant to move. She stood, as she had for most of the ceremony, with her left arm around Ruby, holding the woman close for both comfort and warmth. Of course, she herself was fine with the weather, the warmth being purely for Ruby's sake. But after that scene with the (now-once) dean, the heiress's stomach twisted up in knots and her blood boiled in her veins.
"I don't mind being held like this," said Ruby, "but your grip is a little tight, Weiss…"
"Hm?" hummed the heiress in response.
Then she looked over, at Ruby, and realized.
"Oh, sorry," she said quickly, releasing the smaller woman from her grip. "I didn't mean to lose track of myself."
"That's alright." Ruby offered a small, genuine smile.
"Mm…" Weiss hummed, assenting, turning her gaze back to the empty lectern and stage. That woman, Anais, had had a most unsettling look about her to the heiress. She did not like one bit of what had just happened.
"Are you okay, Weiss?" Ruby asked.
The heiress heard the honest concern in her love's voice and could not bring herself to lie for a second time. She turned to her again and asked, "Would you humor me with a little walk?"
"Of course," Ruby answered immediately.
Weiss said not another word, only took hold of Ruby's hand and pulled her along. They walked down one of the eight paths leading from the open auditorium, going who-knows-where so far as Ruby could tell. Until, that is, trees and bushes and flowering shrubs began to crop up, little by little, as they clearly neared the campus arboretum. It wasn't so magnificent as the one in Constance proper, but it was a sight to behold nonetheless.
The heiress led on, her grip tightening over Ruby's hand and her palm beginning to sweat. They left the walkway only a few yards in, broke off into the trees and shrubbery. Then, ere long had passed, they came to a wide-open clearing. Blooming clover covered the grass. It looked like freshly fallen snow until a slight breeze came along and disturbed the tiny white blossoms, displaying them for what they truly were.
Ruby followed behind Weiss, trying to keep step with her love's haste and not fall over, sad to be trampling the delicate blossoms. When at last they stopped, it was at the center of the open garden. Ruby looked around, panting slightly, and took note that they were entirely obscured from view by the trees.
How had she overlooked such a place existing within the MTU campus?
"I'll be quick about this, I swear," said Weiss, sounding as out of breath as Ruby felt.
"Don't worry," said Ruby. She pulled her hand from Weiss's and placed it on her shoulder, gave another genuine, gentle smile.
"Yes, well…" The heiress cleared her throat, took a deep breath. "That was a rather… innocent display of it, but I hope you see now what this company is like. Most big companies are like this, don't misunderstand me, but the Schnee Company is much less reserved about it. We will prune the numbers without batting an eye, shake on any deal as long as it profits us. We won't hesitate to cut down any who get in our way…"
Weiss met Ruby's gaze. Silver to icy-blue. She was relieved to see only the encouraging, perhaps loving stare she'd come to know so well. But when she opened her mouth to continue, Ruby stopped her.
"Why are you saying 'We' like you're one of them?" she asked.
To which, of course, Weiss could only tilt her head in slight confusion.
"I… I am a Schnee," the heiress answered. "I am one of them."
"But you're not like them," said Ruby.
And then it donned on the heiress; she took a step back and clapped one hand over her mouth. Something snapped—violently—within her, and a torrent held back for years came forth. Tears spilled down her cheeks, over her hand, dripped from her chin like a faucet left going.
"I know you're not like that, Weiss," said Ruby, stepping closer. "I know how kind you are at heart. I've seen it. I don't know what got you so worked up, but you can rest easy about it, whatever it was. I would never think you were like that."
Weiss only stood there, crying uncontrollably in utter silence, as Ruby closed the gap. The shorter woman wrapped her love up in a tight hug and squeezed, burying her face against the heiress's collar in the same motion. After a time, Weiss returned the gesture. She removed her hand from her mouth, wiped the tears from her cheeks and hugged Ruby in turn, laying her right cheek against the top of Ruby's head. The scent of lilacs—powerful from this close—washed through the heiress, calming her.
"Thank you," Weiss whispered. She hugged Ruby a bit tighter.
But Ruby said nothing in response. Rather, she leaned back from the embrace, met the heiress's mournful stare, and then closed the space between them. She pressed her lips to Weiss's. They stayed that way for a time. Beneath them, the snow-white flowers bent and swayed with the wind. A small, hushed symphony played for the two women as the breeze carried through, rustling the leaves in the trees and whistling through their boughs.
At last, they broke away, leaning back to stare into each other's eyes, arms still wrapped around one another. Still unspeaking. Still basking in that momentary congress of hearts. Still sinking, evermore, down into the depths of their new truth.
Weiss moved to say something first. A dove, white as the driven snow, stopped her when it lit upon her elbow. Of all the things to see—this place being so far from its habitat, surely—that was the last either woman expected. Both turned to look at it. The dove, in turn, only cooed as it seemed to regard they, as well, with its beady eyes. It was so close, the women could see those eyes were a deep, mahogany brown. Then, as quickly as it came, the dove took wing and soared away.
They watched it go.
"Tell me what you're afraid of, Weiss," said Ruby, watching the bird until it was gone over the trees. "Please tell me…"
Weiss squeezed her love tightly to her and said, "Truthfully, I thought I was afraid of messing up my dream."
"Then, what is your dream?"
"Was, you mean?" Weiss half asked, half said. "What was it?"
Ruby turned back and said, "Yeah, I guess. What was your dream?"
The heiress broke her gaze from Ruby's silver eyes, leaned forward and pressed her face to the hollow between Ruby's neck and left shoulder.
"Depose my father," she said at last, muffled somewhat. "It isn't like I want—or wanted—power, though. I only wanted people to think something better of my family's name. I wanted people to hear the name Schnee and not immediately think of shady business deals, or terrible working conditions, or nepotism, or… well, any of the awful things they think about us that are more or less true…"
"You don't want that anymore?" asked Ruby, leaning her head over, hugging the heiress tighter.
"I do."
"Is it still your dream?"
A brief silence, then, "No," said Weiss.
"What is it now?"
The wind blew hard and sudden, almost bowling both women over. It was miserably cold this time and bit with all the deathly chill of the tundra beyond. Neither knew it, but one of the weather stabilizers had just failed. The unseen dome over Constance was gone. All the great fury of the tundra began a slow march toward the heart of the University City.
Weiss shivered mad in Ruby's grasp; Ruby stood stalwart, showing no notice of the cold.
"You," said Weiss at last. "I don't want to lose what we have…"
"Do you think you are losing it?" asked Ruby, calm and serene, smiling warmly.
"We're moving so fast," said Weiss. "On top of that, it's not like… I can't just…"
Ruby moved to stop the heiress with another kiss. This one lasted not so long, but long enough. When it was done she pushed Weiss away, gently, so they stood apart, but kept her hands on Weiss's shoulders. Like that, Ruby looked into her eyes. They were such a gorgeous shade of blue, icy indeed but now red and a bit puffy. The woman clearly held yet more tears at bay. Ruby wondered how long she had been doing that today; had she simply not noticed earlier?
"You said you want this after the concert. When we were at that park…" Ruby kept up her stare. It seemed as though Weiss would look away, but she did not. "But life can't always be about what we want, can it?"
The heiress slowly shook her head, keeping her eyes on Ruby's.
"I told you not to let me ruin your life, Weiss. I meant it too. I mean it…"
Again, a shake of the head was her only response.
"It's worrying me too, Weiss. That you might lose something very precious to you if—when—what we have comes to light. How long has it been on your mind like this? How long has it been eating at you?"
"Long enough," said the heiress, her voice choked.
"Think the new dean has something to do with it?"
"I don't know…"
"Think someone's been talking? Winter, maybe?"
"No." Weiss shook her head fiercely, broke the stare at last. "If anyone's talking, or has talked, it wouldn't be her. It couldn't be her…"
"So, it does matter to you if people see?"
Ruby squeezed Weiss's shoulders a tad, to emphasize. Weiss met her eyes again. The wind blew. The trees sighed, the grass and clover blossoms bowed. Cold, unmitigated tundra air bit at the both of them. Neither paid it any mind, though gooseflesh did prickle fiercely all over them.
"I want to say no, it doesn't," Weiss whispered, "but I won't lie to you, Ruby… It does matter if I still want to be what I've been striving my entire life to be."
Once more, good and strong and affectionate, Ruby pulled Weiss into a hug. Neither knew then that it would be the last they shared so for a good while. The axe had been raised and now stood ready to drop, and when it did, it would strike right for the thin, delicate thread of crimson that entwined them. No, neither knew that the eyes of another regarded them, breath held and heart thumping giddily. But there was that warm hug, at least, to fight both the cold of the unhindered tundra breeze and the days of woe yet to come.
"Too slow, too fast, too much, too little, too soon, or not soon enough…"
Ruby whispered into Weiss's ear, their cheeks pressed together, arms about one another…
"Doesn't matter to me. I've made my choice. I know what I want, and I'll do everything I can to make it so. And I know you think you've made your choice too, Weiss… but you haven't, and that's okay. There's still time, I think. But even if there isn't it's still okay.
"I know you heard me in the crowd, at the commencement, but I'll say it again: I love you, Weiss."
"I love you too," said the heiress, feeling her knees might buckle.
"But love isn't something that follows any formula. It's not some problem that can be solved, or equaled out, or even stated. We've got to decide what we want, what we're willing to give for it, and roll with the punches…"
"Yeah," said Weiss. "Yes, you're right. But Ruby, I'm… scared. I think there's a way I can have both the things I want—a way I can avoid choosing—but I'm terrified to try it."
"Why?"
This time, it was the heiress who pushed Ruby away. And this time, it was not a gentle or soft action. She shoved with a modicum of force. Ruby had to take a few steps to absorb it and Weiss nearly fell over. She did keep her footing somehow, but only barely.
"If I screw it up," said she, shaking a tad and not for the cold, "then I might lose both. I know and believe what you've said, but Ruby, you've never seen the me I used to be… If I try this—if I try to have my cake and eat it—then you will see. A right and proper Schnee, living up to every awful thing said about that name. So, if my gambit doesn't work… If I lose that fight, too, even fighting like an honest-to-goodness Schnee…"
"You'd still be the Weiss I've come to know and adore," said Ruby. She stood her ground, making no move to close the distance.
Weiss looked up and met a resolute silver stare.
"I'd have to act just like my father…"
"But you would still be Weiss."
"There's no going back if I start this. If I start…"
"You'll see it through, and you'll still be you."
Now, ever so slowly, Ruby took a step forward. Weiss watched her approach. She did not back away, but rather, collapsed to her knees. The clover blossoms and soft grass beneath broke most of the impact. Even still, her knees reddened quite immediately.
Ruby closed the last few steps quickly then, knelt down beside the heiress and said, "If you think you can have both, then go for it. Don't let me hold you back no matter what, you hear? Even if it's not true—and it isn't, the thought of me leaving you for that—you can't let the fear hold you. Just… do it…"
She took hold of Weiss's hands—left first, then right—in each of her own. She stood. It felt as though the heiress would resist, would try to remain on the ground, but she relented and stood with Ruby's help. And this time, there was no hug. Ruby only lifted their interlaced hands to chest-level and stepped in close.
One short, sweet kiss they shared as the wind billowed all around them, obscuring the synthesized sounds of a few fake shutter-clicks and the hissed profanity that followed them.
"I need to go back to my place to get ready for work later," said Ruby, breaking away from the meeting of their lips. "This will be the only time I have to so early, though, okay? After tonight I won't be bothered with it until later in the evening…"
Weiss sniffled, then asked, "Would you like me to pick up your books while I'm getting mine?"
"Actually, that would be wonderful," said Ruby. "I completely forgot to order them over the break."
"Order them? From where?"
Ruby tilted her head, confused. "From that website, The Jungle. Like every other student does these days."
Suddenly, the heiress's eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed a tad, and she seemed to become visibly miffed.
"Those charlatans have taken quite enough of our business," she said. "If it's all the same to you, I will purchase our books from the campus bookstore. At least the quality will be assured that way."
Ruby couldn't stifle the giggle this brought forth, and just like that, the serious air dissipated. For the nonce, that is. Weiss—seeing her love so abruptly cheerful—could not long resist the infectious chitter. She followed suit and they laughed together for a time, perhaps as long as a minute. When it finally left them, both felt a bit stiff in the cheeks and a bit sore at the diaphragm… But they felt good.
And so, too, did their quickly absconding observer…
Ϯ
Lucius retreated as quietly, and as quickly, as he could manage. He did not let his gaze leave the direction of that insipid Schnee until—looking back a quick glance to be sure—he knew the arboretum had given way to the open area of the commons. Once out of the thickest portion of the trees, Lucius turned tail and bolted.
He ran for five good minutes, until at last his lungs burned too badly and his legs felt fit to lock up. Of course, he had never been much for running before. Why would he? A little light cardio and some simple aerobics to keep in health was all he needed. No sense in being athletically capable when he would never have to do lower-class work.
A quick look around told him he was good and clear. Lucius stood straight, staggered over to a nearby bench, and sat down. Then, like an excited child with a wrapped-up gift, he pulled his scroll from his pocket. By Jove, his hands were shaking and sweating, but he had it! Something to show that bitch, Winter, what for…
Lucius grinned, slight and slanted, as he looked through the few captured images.
α
True to her word, Ruby made straight for her apartment and readied for her first evening back at the Siren's Call. This took her little time at all. With things packed—a change of clothes and little else—she then headed for the train station just nearby and boarded. On the way she read a bit more from one of the books Weiss had gifted her none too long ago. Sure, she knew the journey of Roland of Gilead backwards and forwards, coming and going, but not only did it ever fascinate her, it was also a present from Weiss. She would read them time and again until they fell apart, rotted by time and use, if given the chance. Perhaps that was simply the kind of woman she was?
Upon arrival, Ruby met with Mahogany and the rest of the staff and dancers. They had some little bit of pre-reopening work to do, which he elaborated on at length, that would surely tide them until the doors were flung open. As the short meeting went by nothing came Ruby's way from Mahogany. No askance look or hidden gesture, nothing to indicate they had made any sort of special arrangement or what-have-you. And when it was over she went to work, joining the others until it was time.
The work got done. Ruby joined her fellows in the changing rooms, made ready—a sleek dress of shimmering, opalescent cerulean this night with a ruby-red mask sporting carved tear-streaks of shimmering, golden dust—and did her job. It was no different than it had been before her leave, save for the distinct lack of any shame in her bosom. There remained a hint of embarrassment in her but such was part and parcel of the profession, she assumed. At least they had the masks, and she her evening-donned wig of flaxen locks.
For two hours Ruby Rose was Chrysanthemum, and though she looked across the crowd as much as she could manage—what with the bright lights and general din of it all—she could not spot the heiress's obsidian-black mask or hooded long-coat. But this deterred her none. Chrysanthemum danced her shift away, swaying elegantly and light of foot, turning and twisting and pirouetting to the songs that played. And when it was over, she retreated to the dressing rooms, washed the makeup off, and changed as quick as she could.
Ruby left the Siren's call at two in the morning, jogging for the train and wondering if Weiss might still be awake to text.
Ͼ
Also true to her word, Weiss had gone straight for the campus bookstore, walking slowly there and daydreaming as she went. She had hoped to do the shopping with Ruby but such things as work could not be avoided, this she knew. At least it would be the only foreseeable night her love had to be off for it so early. That little bit made her feel better.
On arrival, the heiress set quickly and methodically to work, scouring the aisles and picking out the textbooks they would need in pairs. She only managed the first three on her own, however, before the weight of the thick tomes (for that, in all honesty, is what the MTU books were) overcame her. Six books stacked in her quivering arms, Weiss started for the checkout to procure a cart.
"Is that Weiss Schnee herself I spy?" pondered a man's voice, aloud, stopping the heiress at the aisle's mouth.
"It is," answered she, "but I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment, so do forgive me for not properly greeting you, whoever you are. If you'd excuse me, I simply must—"
"Get a cart?" offered the man. "Here you go."
Weiss felt the weight of two books leave her arms, and her view cleared enough to see Lucius before her. She gave him an awkward smile, thin and polite but not the slightest bit friendly.
"Oh, hello there," she said. "Lucius, wasn't it?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
Lucius took two more books and placed them on the cart beside him, which blocked the end of the aisle as the heiress now saw.
"I hope you'll forgive Winter her… outburst, regrettable as it was," said Weiss, unable to think of anything else.
"All water under the bridge, Miss Schnee."
"Please, just Weiss is fine."
Lucius stopped as he was about to take the last two books from her. He too gave a polite grin and said, "All right then. Think nothing of it, Weiss. My father has already settled the matter in any case, so there's nothing to be wroth about."
The heiress set the last two books on the cart, then stretched her arms. She had only held the things for a short while but the weight—twenty pounds at the least, perhaps even thirty—had done her a toll, that much was certain. Weiss made a mental note to buy a couple small barbells at some later point. Such lack of endurance simply would not do.
"Finding everything well enough?" Lucius asked.
"Oh, just fine, thank you," said Weiss. "I have three of ten, and I'm sure I know where the other seven are."
Lucius looked from the heiress to the neatly stacked books on the cart. Then he looked back at her.
"I count six there," he said.
Weiss's heart sped up a bit.
"I'm purchasing my partner's as well, if you must know," she said with a slight huff.
"That's rather generous of you," said Lucius. "I haven't known the Schnees to be so generous all that often. This partner of yours… is she a prodigy of some sort? Or has she otherwise earned your favor?"
Weiss visibly shook, and inwardly cursed herself for it. Before more shivers could wash through her, she gathered herself and let out a bit of the old Weiss Schnee. An altogether unpleasant feeling and action, yes, but there was nothing for it.
"That really is none of your business, Lucius," said Weiss, now cold, collected, and aloof.
"Perhaps not," said Lucius, "but perhaps it is your father's business, no? I'm sure he would like to be preemptively informed of the… hm, how shall I say it?"
Lucius made a blatantly fake performance of consideration, then suddenly snapped his fingers.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. In a much more hushed tone he said, "I'm sure Jacques would like to know of the dalliances of his company's heiress before such a thing could have a chance to come to light. Wouldn't you think so?"
Unshaken at first, Weiss simply bristled with fury and indignation, and readied to chew out the pompous man before her. In the flight of it all, she really didn't care if she made a scene. But what Lucius did next stopped her cold.
He pulled out his scroll and held it, close to himself, with the screen facing her. A vicious sickness washed through the heiress from her stomach outward, reaching every bit of her very being. A true nausea beyond anything physical. On a timer of maybe three seconds, the scroll played a slideshow of ten, maybe twelve pictures. They had been taken at the campus arboretum. Only two subjects were in them, but the circumstances and events the pictures displayed were damning without doubt.
For Weiss, that is.
"I've already forwarded them to his private mail," said Lucius while Weiss merely stared at the screen, mouth agape and body frozen. "My father gave it to me, in case I needed to complain about your sister's rash idiocy again. I didn't think he had any business seeing these, so I sent them myself. It's only right for the company, wouldn't you say? Sure, Schnees giving each other preferential treatment is only to be expected, but there's no need to bring in outsiders like that…"
She wanted to yell. She wanted to hit him. Ball up her fist and swing, blindly, toward the general direction of his face. She wanted to buckle her knees and sink to the floor. But her mind went blank, her tongue felt fat, her heart began to race, and her stomach lit aflame.
Weiss could do naught but listen.
"What's more," Lucius went on, "an outsider like this Ruby Rose—whether or not she's your partner—really has no business attending this university at all. I didn't pry into her record much, I assure you, but I gave it a glance. Her scores on the entry exam were simply abysmal…"
Without warning, Lucius thumbed the switch on the side of his scroll and pocketed it. Yet still, Weiss could neither move nor respond.
"I seem to have left you speechless. Sorry for that, Weiss. I really meant no harm after all. I merely wished to be an upstanding member of the Schnee Dust Company and alert our company head to a possible issue, ere it could bloom into a full-blown scandal. Nothing personal, yes? Just good business."
Lucius patted Weiss's shoulder, pushed the cart out of the way and left.
Weiss finally regained herself enough to move just as he exited the bookstore. She sank to her knees, then to her rump, and finally sat against the bookshelf behind her. Her world was spinning. Her mind was melting in her skull, she was sure. Little blooms of static popped in and out of the corners of her vision. Then, before she knew it, Weiss felt another hand on her shoulder, this time shaking her lightly.
"Miss Schnee," said a store employee.
She was surely around Weiss's age by the look of her, and had a nametag placed at the top-left of her blue smock and on her visor. However, the heiress couldn't make heads or tails of it. The lights were on, aye, but her mind was down for the count then and there. It felt like she had gone a few rounds of fisticuffs with a professional huntsman, in her head at least.
"Miss Schnee, are you alright?" asked the employee, whose name was Megan.
"I…" Weiss managed, but that was it. She could get nothing more out.
"Did something happen?" Megan pressed. "You're crying… Are you hurt?"
'Oh, something like that,' thought Weiss.
She said nothing at all.
Ͼ
Some way or another, Weiss made it back to her dorm room. All of it had gone by in a blur. The employee—Megan she thought, or maybe Melanie—had helped her up and summoned the campus security, perhaps not in that order, who may then have aided her to her room. She really could not recall. Whatever had transpired, however, Weiss mostly came to around one in the afternoon.
No lights were on, her door was still open, and a sweating glass of water that had had ice in it (which was now fully melted) sat just in front of her on the coffee table. She, herself, sat on the edge of the couch. Afternoon sunlight drifted in and warmed her, lit the room, but Weiss paid it no mind. She paid nothing any mind. Her head was still swimming, her mind blank and dull but mostly aware again. Thoughtless. Numb. Reeling, in no other words, but quickly beginning to ponder the idea of locking herself in the bathroom for the nausea still burning in her stomach.
She must have sat that way for the last hour, Weiss decided, and she then proceeded to sit that way even longer. Could this be what the old military doctors had coined shellshock? Not the persisting effects of a traumatic event, but the immediate disorientation of being under artillery bombardment for the first time? Or maybe it was both and this was just the start…
The heiress drifted off in her mind—eyes open and fully awake—like so for another hour, until at last her scroll snapped her from it with its shrill chirp. She had received a message. Of course, she had no inclination to look at it. Not then. Not there. Not as she was at that moment.
Just a bit after two, Weiss stood on shaky legs and left her dorm room. She walked down the hall swaying more than a little, ignoring her still-open door. The scroll chirped again and again; she heard it the whole way until she exited the building, a singular destination on her mind. Weiss hadn't thought to check but she did indeed have her billfold on her, and almost an entire hour later she would saunter back into her dorm room, finally shutting the door then, with a bottle of overpriced scotch cradled under her right arm thanks to one of the credit cards in that very billfold.
By four-o-clock Weiss was good and thoroughly drunk. By six she was passed out, the bottle three-quarters empty on the coffee table and her scroll still chirping every ten minutes or so. By two-thirty the next morning, when Ruby sent a simple are-you-awake text, the heiress would snap awake and finally decide to check her messages. Her head throbbed and her tongue felt like sandpaper in her throat, but even with the hangover combined, it did not compare to what those messages bestowed upon her.
And yet, still somewhat sloshed, Weiss put it all from her mind, finished the scotch and went right back to a deep, heavy, drunken sleep.
Ͼ
All was still and quiet in Weiss's slumbering mind. She had not dreamed after falling back to sleep, after finishing the bottle of scotch. She had not stirred one inch, moved not a bit. It was a drunken sleep. It was a dead sleep, nearly, that she had fallen into. Until o-nine-hundred rolled around and the world penetrated her nigh-comatose mind, that is.
The first of what woke her was the ringing of her scroll. It chirped and chimed shrilly, vibrated intensely on the coffee table, shattering the daytime quiet of her dorm room. How long it had been doing so she did not know, only that it made her headache magnitudes worse now that she was aware of it. So, she did what all hungover sorts are wont to do.
Cursing under her breath in the gibberish of the recently awoken, Weiss rose from her bed and snatched up the device. No sooner than she had there came a thunderous knock on her door. She did not remember closing it. What's more, she had not expected the racket to any degree and dropped the scroll in a small panic.
"Weiss!" shouted Ruby from behind the door. The heiress only barely recognized her voice. "Weiss! Are you ok?! Open up!"
Another round of thudding knocks. Another call ringing in on her scroll. The heiress sucked in a lungful of air, sighed, and picked it up without answering. She then walked to the door and let Ruby in. But her world was spinning more than a tad, so she retreated immediately for the couch and plopped herself down, tossed the scroll unceremoniously onto the coffee table and sank into the cushions.
"Geez, what happened to you?" Ruby began. She took two steps into the room—shutting the door from habit—and was hit with the heavy scent of spilt alcohol. Strong alcohol at that.
"Do you believe in Fate?" asked Weiss, all but spitting the last word out as though it tasted foul.
"I believe in moderation when drinking," Ruby answered. She smiled wanly, hoping the jest was taken well.
"I guess I believe in it now," said the heiress. Her gaze was turned to the ceiling.
Ruby decided that her bit of humor either had not been heard or had been roundly ignored. Whatever the case, she crossed the room and sat beside Weiss, tried to snuggle close to her. The heiress seemed nonplussed by it. Ruby sat up straight then.
"Did something happen?" she asked.
"You could say that," said Weiss.
A moment of silence—awkward, uncomfortable, and longer-feeling than it truly was.
"Want to talk about it?"
"Does talking ever really help?" Weiss swiftly quipped.
"Sometimes," Ruby answered. "Not always, but it's good to get things off your chest. Especially if it's with someone… close to you…"
Finally, the heiress brought her gaze down. She turned her icy, red, tear-swollen eyes toward Ruby.
"Pardon my vulgarity," she said, starting to choke up, "but it would seem I've found myself resoundingly fucked as of about noon yesterday."
"What happened?" Ruby asked, her tone serious and not at all like the woman Weiss thought she knew.
The heiress tried to tell. She opened her mouth and all that came out was a croaking, cracking sob. Then the dam broke. Burning, salty, stinging tears rolled down her cheeks in droves. A torrent, in no other words. Ruby moved without missing a beat, wrapped Weiss up in a hug about her head and pulled the woman close. They stayed that way for a time. How long, this observer could not say. It was like the world simply stopped around them. It did not, of course, but the illusion was nigh absolute.
Minutes ticked away. Ruby held Weiss to her bosom. The heiress cried and sobbed, hiccupped and sputtered, like a child who had lost all semblance of control. Ruby stroked the top of her head, soothing and rhythmic, constant. Ten minutes passed. Twenty? Maybe even thirty. Weiss continued to wail. Ruby continued to comfort. And every now and again, the heiress's scroll would chirp to proclaim another message received.
But Ruby said nothing. She would, once in a while, shush or coo to try and calm the heiress a bit. Quickly, though, she understood these things would do no good. So, she simply kept up the slow, rhythmic strokes of her fingers through Weiss's hair. Eventually the heiress fell asleep in her love's arms. Ruby, almost unwillingly, picked her up and took the woman back to bed.
After that, she could little figure out what to do with herself.
Ϭ
The heiress awoke for the third, and final, time that day just a hair past noon. No longer did her dorm room smell of the remnants of a powerful bottle of liquor. Rather, she smelled something delicious cooking. Something she couldn't immediately identify. Along with the smell she heard sizzling and a light singing coming from her kitchen nook.
Weiss sat up and stretched, immediately regretting the decision. Her stomach was empty, on fire, and thoroughly pissed at her for who-knew-what. Took her a few moments to recall the drinking and the long, powerful bout of crying.
"You're finally up."
The heiress looked Ruby's way. She stood at the edge of the kitchen nook, arms crossed and a spatula in one hand. Her face was not the silly or goofy—or just generally happy—face Weiss had become accustomed to. Rather, Ruby looked flat and serious. She looked ready for war.
"You would have made a fine huntress," said Weiss, somewhat unaware of herself.
"I dunno," Ruby answered, turning back to whatever she was cooking. "Sometimes I wonder. Why, do I look scary or something?"
"I'd say 'or something' suits it better," said Weiss.
"Dad always told me I could get a scary face going when I needed to. Called it my 'getting stuff done' face. He also said it didn't suit me."
Weiss watched Ruby work over the small stove. She was not about it long. Maybe another three minutes and she shut the thing off, picked up a pan and scraped the contents onto a plate. Ruby then brought the plate and a glass of water to the heiress. On it were three strips of bacon and a large, seemingly handmade biscuit, judging by the remnants of flour Weiss could see on her fingers and wrists.
The heiress graciously accepted the plate and tried to stand, thinking to eat at her desk.
"No, you stay in bed," said Ruby. She followed her statement up with a gentle but firm hand on Weiss's shoulder, then sat at the foot of the bed and said, "This is good hangover food. Eat up and drink that water, and maybe give yourself a bit before trying to stand. You do realize that bottle was one-forty proof, don't you?"
"I—"
"I assume you bought that sometime yesterday," Ruby interrupted, her gaze rather withering. "Since you missed your first day of classes and all, I mean. Am I right?"
Weiss looked away, but did say, "You are," in a nearly inaudible tone.
"That was a liter bottle, Weiss. Are you trying to give yourself alcohol poisoning?"
This time, the heiress answered not. Instead she bit a chunk from the biscuit and chewed as slowly as she could manage.
"I don't know what happened to throw you for such a loop, Weiss," said Ruby, "but it's got to be pretty bad."
Weiss said nothing. Ruby watched her girlfriend, looking for any indication of response. The woman only continued to eat, slowly and in utter silence.
"Tell me," she said. Well, rather moreso demanded.
Weiss thought about hiding it. Considered dealing with the debacle—however enormous it might get, and it almost certainly would balloon to dangerous proportions ere long—all on her own. She truly was terrified to let Ruby see her as she believed herself to truly be: vicious, cut-throat, merciless and calculated. A right and proper Schnee, stock of her dear old dad…
She swallowed the last mouthful of biscuit and took a sip of water, then cleared her throat and willed herself to be calm. No more tears. No more faltering.
"I've been…" What? She almost couldn't think of how to say it. Then, it came to her. Not the best but it would do. "My father knows about us," said Weiss.
"You know that for sure?" Ruby pressed.
"I do. Tell me, do you remember Lucius? The one my sister expelled?"
"He did it?"
It unnerved Weiss how sober and sobering Ruby's demeanor was.
"He admitted as much to me," she answered. "Cornered me in the bookstore and showed off some pictures he took of us in the arboretum yesterday. Said he sent them straight to Father…"
"How bad is that going to be?"
"Bad," said Weiss, and there really was nothing else to add.
For a time, Ruby fell silent, seemed to lose herself in her own head. Her silver eyes were locked to the heiress—she could feel them like icepicks—but they were only parked, so to speak. She truly wasn't looking at her or anything at all. Weiss picked up one of the strips of bacon. It was flimsy, almost like it had not been fully cooked, and nearly put her off of wanting to try it. But she took a bite all the same and was not disappointed.
Weiss had had many of the delicacies to be found across Remnant; few of them held a candle to that bit of bacon. She finished all three strips (and downed the last of her water) in hardly a minute.
"You need to talk to him, Weiss," said Ruby, suddenly.
"Are you daft?" the heiress quipped hastily in return.
"Maybe, but it's true. There's nothing else to do but talk to him." Ruby fell silent again, but just as Weiss was about to protest she said, "Lucius told you he sent them straight to your father. Right?"
"Yes."
Ruby stood and walked to the coffee table, picked up the heiress's scroll and returned to her seat on the bed. She held the device out to Weiss and said, "Call him or text him. Set it up and go talk to him."
But the heiress simply looked away. Ruby did not move, continued to hold the scroll out to her.
"You don't know the man like I do," said Weiss, voice barely a whisper. "He's…"
"He's your father, Weiss."
"Sometimes, I wonder."
"Unless the man's a monster, I'm sure there's something to talk out."
Weiss fell completely silent. She pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face. Ruby continued to hold the scroll out to her. Seconds passed, then minutes. Weiss felt her heart begin to race, as though a panic were setting in. She squeezed her knees tighter. Ruby did not budge.
Then, finally, the scroll began to ring. Weiss jolted up to meet Ruby's stern silver gaze, then looked at the scroll. It rang a second time. Just before the third ring the heiress took it…
"Hello?" she said, answering on the cusp of the third ring.
Ϯ
Jacques had been pacing his office in the Schnee estate for the last hour. Flares of temper had come and gone since the previous day and were now mostly settled and fizzled out. Oh sure, the man was right and properly livid, but it now existed as more of a smoldering thing and the outbursts were all but done with. That was a good thing at least for his office. No less than half the ledgers kept on his desk were strewn across the spotless marble floor. Two of his three crystal decanters lay in a thousand pieces at the far corner of the room, near the door, in a puddle of priceless libation. A curtain had dislodged and his head still ached from the knock it had taken in an earlier fall, the result of the feral and impotent rage of the moment.
When he first received the message, of course.
Jacques sat down and scooted his chair in, sighed and opened his personal laptop. Three more notifications blinked in the bottom-right corner. Three more messages to his personal mail. This incensed him, knowing they were most likely Winter asking after Weiss again, and he decided to ignore them this time. He looked at the time display. It read fifteen-til-one.
Again, he sighed, leaned back in his posh office chair. All sorts of things were running through his mind, ranging from hither to yonder. But it all came back down to his last chance at progeny, to securing his legacy. Winter was the errant daughter and his son had up and passed away years ago. Now there was only one, and if that snot Lucius were to be believed…
"The king is dead," Jacques whispered to himself, "but who will we cry to live long after him?"
He sat up, turned the chair sideways and kicked his feet onto his desk. The door was locked and he worried not that any might bumble in to see him like so. After maybe five minutes of sitting and thinking, brooding and contemplating, Jacques decided to try one more time. He reached into his left pocket and pulled out a true art of a scroll, slid the thing open and fumbled through the directory.
This time, the call was picked up spot-on the third ring.
α
"I'm going to leave you to it," said Ruby, quietly, as she stood from the heiress's bed. "Gonna do a little shopping, will be back in an hour or two."
And with that, she did exactly so. On her way she said a quiet prayer to nothing in particular that the call would go well. She loved Weiss, and knew it well, and truly hoped this romance would not bring the heiress harm. In any shape or form.
Ͼ
"Hello Weiss," said the gruff voice on the other end of the call.
She watched Ruby leave, watched her door slowly close. For a moment it seemed her words would not come. Yet, Weiss did find them, and duly used them also.
"Hello Father," she said.
"Care to tell me what's going on?"
Weiss thought a moment, then asked, "What do you want to know?"
Silence.
Then: "All of it, Weiss, and right this moment," said Jacques.
She knew that tone good and well, and knew it bode nothing pleasant.
"If you want all of it," said Weiss, running mostly on instinct, "then it would be best if we discussed it in person."
"I truly couldn't have said it better myself," said Jacques. "Very well then. I'll have a chartered airship at the faculty port in half an hour. We will speak at home."
And there it was, exactly what the heiress had feared to hear. Oh, she was no child any longer, no young girl to be knocked around, commanded, and kept under thumb. Yet, the only other option would be refusal, which was tantamount to a self-imposed excommunication. The last card he could hold over her. Weiss swallowed the lump in her throat, quiet and inconspicuously.
"See you there, Father."
"Yes. See you soon, Weiss."
With that, the heiress hung up the call and set to finding some paper. She penned a brief note, then took a short shower and changed into fresher clothes. Once all was good and ready—as much as she felt it could be—Weiss left her dorm room, headed for the MTU faculty's tiny air pad.
α
Ruby did her best to take her time at first. The weather had gotten miserably cold as the day wore on though, and by one it was close to unbearable. She sorely wished she had not chosen to leave her apartment without at least a coat and maybe even her cloak to go over it. But that was that. There would not be enough time, she decided, to head back for either or both, so she moseyed around as long as she could stand the biting chill before making for the large building housing the campus stores.
Once there, Ruby entered and went directly for the small grocer. Just outside of it she spotted a small rack displaying many heavy coats. The sign on top showed the prices to be rather reasonable. An employee nearby spotted her looking and walked over.
"If you have your student ID with you, I can mark your pick down another ten percent," he said.
Ruby looked toward the addressing voice to see a short, lanky, pale young man. By how he carried himself and greeted her, she wondered if he wasn't headed for a public relations career. There lay a shine in his green eyes that told her he would excel for sure, should he pursue such a path.
"Oh really?" Ruby answered. "That'd be awfully nice of you…" She looked at his nametag. "That'd be great, Mark."
"Honestly, I told them the things wouldn't move," said Mark, walking her over to the rack of coats. "Anyone with sense would be out and about in their heaviest covers, I said. But then you walk in wearing next-to-nothing at all."
Ruby thought about that a moment. True, she had worn shorts and a t-shirt, coupled with a pair of boots that barely passed mid-calf. Not exactly cold-weather gear by any stretch.
"It was like the end of spring just a few days ago, though," said Ruby. "And earlier it didn't feel anywhere near this cold…"
"Yeah, well…"
Mark motioned toward one of the longer coats on the rack, which, on Ruby, would likely come at least a third of the way down her thigh. She picked it up and removed the hanger, slipped one arm in and then the other. It was thick and immediately warm. A bit of a splurge to be sure, but…
"No one knows what happened exactly," said Mark, grabbing her attention. "All I know is that one of the weather stabilizers croaked recently. Some are saying it died a week ago, but I think it couldn't have been longer than yesterday."
"Weather stabilizer?" parroted Ruby.
"Yeah. How else could a city like Constance have been built in the middle of a tundra? But, from what I understand, the things are as old as the city herself. I guess you can only upkeep stuff so long before it up and craps the bed, huh?"
Ruby nodded her agreement, focused once more on the coat as she tried to suss out her opinion of it and whether it was worth the expenditure. It didn't take her long—thinking about how cold it had gotten and now knowing about the dead weather machine—to decide that, yes, it was well worth it. At least she would have something to cover her today, and perhaps even an extra to go over her smaller coat.
"Thanks for the info," she said, pulling off the coat and reaching for the hanger.
"You can wear it to the register if you want," said Mark. "When the tundra storms really hit, it's going to be below freezing inside and outside. Just… make sure you do pay for it, yeah? Oh! And make sure to show your student ID."
"I will, and thank you again," said Ruby, smiling politely, before entering the grocer. Mark waved and went back to his own business.
For the next half an hour, Ruby made herself busy picking out ingredients to make a few meals. Perhaps she was getting ahead of herself, but she already planned to try and stay over with the heiress for at least a night, if not more. The way Weiss had acted earlier truly had her on edge at this point. Even as she meandered down one aisle after another, picking out this and that and putting recipes together in her head…
Ruby worried immensely for her love.
Ͼ
Weiss arrived at the faculty air pad with five minutes to spare but the sleek Kaze-class looked to have been landed and waiting for some time. It stood there, imposing and predatory, engines spinning on idle. A heavy gust came through and chilled Weiss to the bone. She wrapped her arms about herself, pulling tighter the coat she was so glad to have brought.
Without ceremony and certainly without gusto, Weiss Schnee stepped one foot onto the short boarding ramp. She turned to take one more look out over the MTU—for the faculty air pad stood a decent five stories, easily giving a view of the entire facility—then finished her ingress aboard. It took her no time at all to pick a seat from the lavish choices within.
No sooner than she had, the heiress felt the lift of the Kaze-class corvette's engines as it rose and swiftly tugged into flight.
The trip across Mantle took little time at all. Maybe another half an hour. Weiss shuddered to think on the speed of the craft.
When it landed, she quickly disembarked and took a long gander over her childhood home. The Schnee Estate stretched on beyond the point of opulence and nigh unto the point of corpulence. Very nearly in a physical sense too, as the smooth contours of the various buildings of the estate had once been described precisely so. But between the color scheme, the familiarity, and the frozen chill of both the design and the weather…
It was, nonetheless, her home.
Weiss took a breath and headed inside. Her amazement at remembering the layout did not last long. Sure, it had been eight years (nearly nine now) since she stepped foot in the place, but she had spent eighteen years there growing up. And she was Weiss Schnee for crying out loud; the more amazing thing would be if she had forgotten.
Ten minutes after disembarking from the Kaze-class, the heiress arrived at her father's office. A tall pair of ebony doors gilded with platinum and embossed with brass scrollwork stood before her, the ever-imposing sentinels she remembered them to be. She thought to simply enter at first but decided to observe proper decorum instead. When she knocked—gently though she did—the echo reverberated through her very bones. Then, a minute passed.
There came no answer.
"Miss Schnee? Weiss, is… is that you?"
The heiress looked to her left and very nearly missed the voice's owner.
"Sorry, Miss Schnee. Do look down just a bit, if you please."
"Klein?" said Weiss on seeing the hunched man.
"So I am and do remain," he answered her.
He was the same faithful old butler she remembered, to be sure, but the last handful of years had clearly not been kind to the man. Klein stood straight as he could manage, being rather happy to see her, but with the gnarled hump on his back he was a good foot-and-a-half shorter, if not a bit more. Then there were the milky eyes looking up at her from behind drooping lids and thick glasses. Tears stood in them, barely withheld.
"Oh, Klein, it's so good to see you again!" Weiss exclaimed, hunching down to give the man a hug.
"Likewise, Miss Schnee. I'm pleased you decided to return."
Klein returned the gesture, then pushed the heiress away.
"Sorry for being gone so long."
"Think nothing of it, I say!" But he looked away from her. "Although, I assume this isn't a friendly visit?"
"I wish it were," said Weiss, also looking away.
"Mister Schnee is just down the hall in the accounting room. He… did not seem happy, last I saw him."
"I could venture a guess toward that, I'm sure," said the heiress, trying to chuckle. The effort fell flat and nearly came out a cough.
She decided it best to leave there and started off down the hall. Before she could take a third step, however, Klein stopped the heiress with a tug on her sleeve. She turned to him. He looked up at her, face scrunched in either pain or thought or perhaps even both.
"I do know my place, but…" he began. "Let me just say, you really should think more about yourself, Miss Schnee. Companies come and go, last generations or fizzle out in a decade—but living is once-in-a-lifetime…"
Weiss smiled, wide and true, and thanked Klein with another hug before setting off down the hall once more. This time she walked with purpose and no small confidence, though the thought of what awaited her still shook her very bones.
The accounting room was just as small as she remembered it, when Weiss walked in. No knocks this time. She knew that, if her father had picked such a room, decorum had been taken entirely off the table. Fluorescents buzzed loudly overhead. Jacques—his face nearly a study of masonry, so stoic and emotionless—sat in a small chair on one end of the ledger table. Weiss turned and shut the door, engaged the locking system, then pulled the only other chair from against the wall and sat down.
Jacques brushed a pile of ledgers aside, leaned over on his elbows and leveled his steely gaze on his voice was gruff, as it had always been. He spoke not with malice. He spoke not with disdain. He spoke with neither vexation nor fury…
Yet, his words broke her apart, as an off-course ship dashed against a craggy shore.