Chapter 6
O Father, Where Art Thou?
Ϯ
"Is this what you want, Weiss?"
Jacques pulled apart his clasped hands, leaned forward just a bit and set something at the center of the table. The heiress hesitated a moment, then picked it up. It was a small, square computer chip of some sort. She turned it over and looked at the back. Nothing different. Rows upon rows of spaghetti-like wiring nearly too small to see unaided.
"That little chip," said Jacques, "is the Schnee Dust Company."
Weiss felt her heart all but stop and, gingerly as a mother laying her newborn in the crib, she put the chip back on the table.
"Why do you have something so important with you?" she asked, already breathless, sweat pricking at her temples.
"To make a point." He took the chip, removed a flask-like box from one pocket and set it inside. "Your Grandfather was a sentimental fool for such grand gestures. A genius of a man, yes, but a sentimental fool all the same."
Whenever a point came that neither of them spoke, the silence in the small accounting room became deafening. Only the fluorescents lighting their palaver made any sort of noise, and theirs was a low, buzzing drone that quickly bled into naught more than background static. Jacques held this particular silence with a defeated expression over his weathered face, his words hanging on the air as the quiet drilled Weiss's head miserably.
"I keep very close tabs on this company, Weiss," said Jacques, breaking that wild quiet. "I know everything there is to know. Anything worth being aware of, I am. All the ticking gears and turning cogs, each worker bee and so on. And I saw your recent rental from the library. I can think of no other reason for you to peruse the company charter than if you have an immediate vested interest in claiming it all."
"Father, I—"
"No!" Jacques slammed the table. Weiss jumped, hard, and sunk into her seat. "No more deception, Weiss. No more hiding things from me. You know how I am—you may be my flesh and blood, but you're a part of this company first. You are the face of her, like it or not!
"Answer me now, and be plain about it. My patience is very limited."
The heiress considered her options, which were woefully few. Her father sat across from her, hands interlaced and chin resting atop them, eyes thin, positively exhausted, and somehow vicious. At last, she sighed.
"You know I have lived and breathed Schnee Dust Company since I was old enough to understand what it meant," said Weiss.
"Yes, I have long assumed as much. But were that the case…" Jacques reached into another pocket and withdrew his scroll, a true masterpiece of functional beauty. "Yes, supposing that is the case, then I cannot imagine how these pictures were staged. Can you?"
He quickly pulled up and displayed the very photos Weiss had dreaded seeing again. Funny that, truly, considering how her heart had been so consoled by the very interaction captured and now accusatorily displayed before her. But whatever consoling had been imparted to her then, it was all smoke in the wind now. She was damned by them. She knew this.
But Weiss did not resign herself to such knowledge.
"I met a woman," said she, reaching as deep within as she could to find strength. What she found, oddly enough, felt warm and silver. The heiress would never be able to explain the sensation of feeling a color inside herself, but she did feel it all the same.
"You met a woman?" Jacques parroted her words, seeming to taste them. "I would imagine you have met many in your travels. Men as well. And perhaps some faunus? How about those new A.I. deployed in places, the ones that we hope to replace some of our own less-skilled employees with? I cannot imagine you haven't met a few of them…"
"I'm sure you know what I mean, Father."
"I'm sure I do."
Weiss stared her father down from across the table between them. After a time, he sat straight and pocketed the scroll. Try as she might, Weiss could not make heads or tales of him, could not read the man one whit aside from the obvious fatigue. Something lay heavy on him—over his shoulders, within his heart, on his mind—but what could it be?
"What you do in your free time is my business as much as anything else, Weiss," he said at last. "Until you bury me in the dirt, you are as much my concern as the SDC stock value. And while I am well aware of the… softer view society has taken on romance since my youth, there are other considerations to be had."
"Are you worried there won't be a grandchild for you to whip around and frighten into obedience?" Weiss quipped, quite without thinking.
She braced herself for the worst…
But it did not come.
"That was a vicious blow, Weiss," said her father. "I could almost be proud of it. However, since you seem to grasp most of the point, I can let it slide…"
The man stood suddenly, and Weiss felt herself lock up, readying for a blow. Perhaps one to scar her right eye, gifting her a matching pair. But he only stood there, scowling, arms crossed behind his back. Weiss tried to look as unimpressed as she could.
"What do you know of the ColdWater Group?" Jacques asked, his voice suddenly a hard whisper full of malice.
"Um…" Weiss choked up at first, then said, "I know my stocks in them have performed exceedingly well. A little over a tenfold return at this point I believe, and after only four years. Why?"
Jacques smiled a slanted, sickly smile. It truly unsettled her to see.
"How would you like to see the legacy built up by your esteemed Grandfather razed to ashes by them?"
"What could ColdWater possibly have to do with us?" asked the heiress. "Is there a merger on the table? A buyout?"
Jacques turned away from his daughter, stared at one of the featureless walls. He said, "Mercenaries have no loyalty, and their value depends heavily on the state of world affairs. Wars make them a priceless commodity; peace makes them a rowdy liability."
"We've been at peace since the Great War ended," said Weiss.
"We have," agreed her father. "But it's been a tenuous peace, and with terror groups like the White Fang and rogue factors like that lunatic in the mask out there… The simple masses have started to wonder and whisper, and fret what they cannot understand. That makes 'security forces' a much more desired commodity."
"Lunatic in a mask?" pondered Weiss aloud. Then, she asked, "Do you mean the one Blazing Sol was after?"
As she asked this, Weiss became sure she remembered another name to go with Blazing Sol. She could not, however, recall it, and quickly became sure it was merely her imagination. The woman had been alone according to everything she had heard and read, after all. Most likely the reason she had died in the end.
"Whoever or whatever it is," said Jacques, "that villain and those terrorists have made mercenaries a relevant topic once more. And that, in turn, has made ColdWater a rather smart investment of late. We may manufacture weapons of war and forward research for that same end, but we neither represent nor offer a proper fighting force."
"And ColdWater is looking to acquire its own source of armaments?" Weiss ventured.
Jacques turned back to her, smiled his unsettling smile again and said, "Very good, Weiss! I'm pleased to see your mind has not been dulled by romantic squander."
The heiress ignored the sting of those words and pressed, saying, "Our valuation passed three hundred billion in the last quarter. How could they afford such a consideration?"
"The fact of the matter is that they can," said Jacques. "And the issue at hand is that they are already speaking to the board. I own the primary share of Schnee stock, but as you know from reading the charter…"
"The board can overrule you," said Weiss, partly to herself and partly to her father.
"Yes." Jacques nodded, returned to his seat and resumed his forward-leaning position.
Weiss chewed these things over for a moment. It irked her that she had been kept in the dark on this, but she also understood that—preoccupied with Ruby and the MTU—this was partly her own fault. Truly it was a wonder she had not lost a king's ransom in the markets, being so distracted.
But just then, something else dawned on her, and it nearly turned her stomach inside out with nausea.
"Are you seriously considering a political marriage for me?" she asked her father.
"ColdWater is owned much the same as our own company," said Jacques.
Weiss tried to say something more but a sudden blind fury shut her up. All her effort made was a small series of wheezing whispers.
"His name is Lincoln Ansley, and he's only a year older than you," Jacques went on. "For all intents and purposes, he already owns ColdWater. The official handoff is set for the next fiscal year."
"Bastard…" Weiss finally managed to choke out.
Jacques stood.
"You have two choices," he said. The man who was her father looked both foreign and menacing as he stood there, but his voice remained a wearied, unusual drone. "Preserve the company so you have something to take over from me or turn your back and leave. If you are a Schnee, then put your money where your impudent mouth is."
Jacques Schnee gave his daughter no chance to respond. He walked swiftly to the door, disengaged the lock, and left. His footsteps echoed loudly down the hall, even through the door after it shut.
Weiss could not move, could hardly even think.
Ͽ
Two hours passed in the accounting room, the heiress completely stupefied and motionless aside from her slow, uneven breaths. Only her own breathing and the fluorescents overhead made any noise. The room was utterly silent otherwise.
Her father's words played in her head over and over again: marry herself off or leave. And of course, she knew the "or leave" portion meant not only the company, but her own family as well. Take the deal and preserve us or be disowned. You are only a piece on the board. You are only a pawn to be used, perhaps a rook at best. You are no knight, no bishop, and certainly no queen.
Almost at the very mark of the second hour's passage, a timid knock came from the door. Weiss snapped to. She spun about and stared at the door.
"Miss Schnee?" Klein's voice. Concerned, yes, but something else. She couldn't be sure what. "Miss Schnee, are you all right in there? May I come in?"
Weiss tried to speak but failed at first. On her second attempt she managed to say, "Zero, two, two, zero, one, four." She hoped Klein could hear.
"Oh, come now, Miss Schnee." She watched the door open up and the hunched man totter in. "I know the codes to all the locks in this house, save for your father's personal safe." Then he stopped and regarded the heiress with an alarmed, knowing stare. "Dear me, it's worse than I thought…"
Somewhere in the back of her head, Weiss wondered if she hadn't fallen asleep at the table and begun to dream. There was an odd, wobbly quality to the air. Klein as well if she didn't look at him directly. It was only when she felt the first wet drops slick down her cheek, drip from her chin, that she understood.
"Come, come, let's get you a warm glass of cider," said Klein, tottering over and throwing one of Weiss's arms over his shoulders. "You'll feel much better after, I'm sure. Yes, I'm quite sure."
Hunched or not, whether or not hobbled by age, Klein displayed a glimpse of his old prowess nonetheless. With nary an effort he lifted the heiress to her feet, straight from the chair, and dragged her along like a wounded soldier until she started to walk on her own. Before Weiss could fully realize it, they were headed down one winding hall after another. But she was lost in her daze and knew not the destination. Then, the dining hall—more akin to a feasting hall, what with the industrial prep center in the middle of it—opened up before them. Klein led Weiss by the hand to a table and pulled out a chair for her to sit.
She did so.
"I'll be right back, Miss Schnee," said Klein, and then he skittered off.
But Weiss only sat there as the minutes ticked by. Her head was so numb, the feeling all but came back around to seeming as though her skull were in the grip of a powerful vise. Jacques's words squeezed and tugged both her heart and mind, rang her like a bell. Klein set a glass in front of her. It smelled heavily of cinnamon, coriander, hops, and apples. Weiss hadn't seen him return.
"Thank you, Klein," she said, and picked up the glass. She took a long, careful swallow, as if afraid she would choke.
The libation was sweet and savory with only the tiniest hint of bitterness. She knew immediately it was from Klein's personal stores. Handmade by the old man and of a professional quality and standard. Which is to say nothing of the taste and perfectly struck notes it rang off within her, from tongue to belly to brain. She had had no idea her heart was racing, but upon her third sip of the cider Weiss found the frantic organ calming noticeably.
"Would you deign permit this old manservant to know what troubles you, Miss Schnee?" asked Klein.
Weiss looked up from the glass of cider (now half full) to see sorrowful, milky eyes regarding her. She could scarce help but smile at the man.
"Please, Klein," she said, "use my proper name. My mother is Miss Schnee, and though I seem to have acquired a taste for strong drink of late, I would rather not think I am becoming her…"
"Very well then, Weiss," said Klein. "Would you care to share your sorrows with me? I cannot promise a solution, but I can promise my listening ear."
As the cider seeped from her belly to her bones, the heiress calmed more and more. Her mind came back to her. Battered and a bit shocked, sure, but it came back and submitted. She looked around. The dining hall appeared entirely disused for who knew how long. Dust sat in a decent layer on every surface. Utensils were laid out as if for a forgotten party now a year overdue. And even from where she sat, at a point furthest from the cooking station in the center of the room, Weiss could see the unused state of the stoves and furnaces and ovens, the fridges and freezers and pantries, the pots and pans and stacks of dishes.
"It's a ghost town in here," she said.
"Things… have not been the best of late, Ma'am," said Klein.
Weiss looked to the man across the table. His face was long and mournful, his eyes downcast and dejected. She took another swig of Klein's cider.
"Father told me to choose between marriage for the company's sake and leaving it all behind for my own selfishness."
"Is that so?" Klein pondered aloud, but he did not meet Weiss's gaze.
"Not in as many words, perhaps," said she, "but that was certainly the gist of it. Now, would you mind if I asked you a few questions, Klein?"
The old man looked up then, met the heiress's icy eyes.
"Anything at all, Ma'am. I'll answer as I can."
"Has Mother recovered from her fall?" she asked first.
"The Lady Schnee yet lies in bed, Ma'am," said Klein. "Mister Schnee sees her only once a week now, and even then, I have not overheard that they speak much. I would venture to guess she has been taken up by a deep malaise."
"And how has Father been getting along?"
Klein lifted his own mug of cider for a long draught. He then said, "Poorly, Weiss. Poorly indeed."
Weiss felt herself soften a bit. Like the edge were taken off of a terrible headache, and she now sat basking in the respite this offered. Yet, another feeling crept in behind that odd relief. A sort of despair that would not reveal itself but would rather sneak in and hide, forgotten and ignored if at all possible. She knew it came from her lack of attention to the company. She knew it came from the guilt she was quickly beginning to feel for focusing on her romantic pursuits so closely. However, the heiress also knew it would not deter her.
Not one bit.
"Do you still overhear much of the company's affairs?" asked Weiss.
"I do, Ma'am," said Klein.
"Then tell me: how long has Father been hounded by the ColdWater Group?"
Klein leaned back in his chair—which, given the large hump on his back, came as more of a cattycorner list to the left—and scratched his chin.
"I would say since the start of winter last year," he said. "Although, I am not privy so much so as I once was to the inner workings of the company. I'm afraid retirement—whether I like it or not—is fast approaching for old Klein…"
The heiress, too, leaned back in her chair at that. She looked from the hunched old man to a window at the far end of the room. A tall window, perhaps as much as thirty feet, which reached from the floor to perhaps five feet below the ceiling. When she had been but a wee girl, it was that very window through which she had tried to escape the estate, nose bleeding and the tops of her thighs deeply bruised from a belt.
Mother and Father, both, had been quite inebriated that night, the remembrance of which immediately soured Weiss toward finishing her cider.
She sat up straight, nudged the glass away and said, "Thank you. I needed that."
"The cider, Ma'am?"
Weiss grinned gently, said, "Not as much as the friend to converse with, but yes, I suppose the cider helped too."
"Then, would there be anything more I might do for you?" Klein offered.
Weiss thought about it for a moment. Truly pondered whether she could use his help at all, for already she was gathering ideas and formulating plans.
"Not just yet," she said, standing from the table and stretching. "But yes, I think I will need your help before my time here is done. I think I will be staying at the estate for a week or two, perhaps longer if need be."
Klein beamed wildly at this, stood quickly and began to bus the table. Weiss watched him work and found herself marveling over quite a few things as he did. Firstly, was the sheer dedication, drive, and depth of energy the old man seemed to possess. Mostly though, Weiss marveled at the blessing she had never noticed until late, how she seemed to run across such good people when at her lowest points.
"Your room has been kept in livable condition," said Klein, snapping her from her musings. "May I show you to it?"
Weiss smiled at the little, hunched old man and took his offered arm. Klein indeed led her to her old room.
Ͼ
By the time Klein left her—with a bow and a kindly goodnight—Weiss found herself to be utterly exhausted. An ember had alit in her from their conversation, but the words of her father had also shattered her in a manner inexplicable. At the very least she would need a night's rest if she hoped to do aught about her situation. Aside, that is, from simply giving in and accepting one of the two horrid choices laid before her.
It was only a tad after seven in the evening when Weiss Schnee locked the door to her old room, stripped every bit of clothing from her body, and wrapped herself up in the covers of her old bed. They smelled as clean as if they had been taken from the dryer only an hour past. Lemongrass and conifer. Fluffy and thick. Soft and giving.
The heiress drifted off into a slumber deeper than any she had ever had, which would last nearly a full twelve hours. It would be a slumber whose depth found no match until the end, when her last breath was drawn in a field of lilies and monkshoods.
Λ
Weiss Schnee is not the sort of woman to be easily taken up in flights of fancy. She is not the kind of woman to credit Fate any more than as a joke at best, or as an insult at worst. She is neither the kind of woman to be easily misled, nor the kind to be easily conquered. Hers is a will forged in lonely misery. A fire lit by the desire to break free from her destined path. An iron determination built up by derision, mined by way of stoic discipline meted out unfairly, and fired in the crucible of the woeful elite.
Weiss Schnee sleeps deeply, and for all intents and purposes is dead for a time. Sure, her lungs draw breath and her heart yet beats, but her mind is taken away from her and put in another place. Into another Weiss, so to speak, to see what she was never meant to. It is the connection to Levi Ansleif that does this. And it is by that connection that memories—both those past and those yet to come—are shared between them. The heiress will not remember when she awakes…
But this is what happens, and it will become a part of her.
At first, she is only dead. A spirit cut off from its living corse. Down through deep, velvet, violet waters she flies. Up into leaden air she sinks. In a fire, black as the height of dawn and hot as the worst of tundra, she is born from ashes. Flecks of wispy dust assemble into a woman, and her name is Weiss Schnee, and she is at once nothing and everything. She has touched The Beginning and The End. Her mind has been connected to one who has tasted the Fruit of Knowledge.
And she is Alpha…
And she is Omega…
And she knows not either of these words…
But she is both, and she is neither…
But she is nothing, and she is all…
Sensation occurs to her, and becomes her, and overcomes her, and awakens her. The sky above is blue and the two suns are red and orange. Then the night rushes in; the four moons are blue, and pink, and ochre, and a cosmic violet. Then day returns.
"You're early," says a girl.
Weiss looks behind herself and sees the girl. She cannot be more than four feet tall and looks thin as if starved. Her coal-black hair drags the ground, reaches maybe two feet behind her. The girl's eyes are a glowing violet, like the largest of the four moons. Her pointed ears stretch a foot to either side of her head, sagging slightly and bent toward the ground at the tips. She wears only a thin fabric covering which is little more than a sack with holes cut for her arms and feet. The sackcloth covering is burnt almost to soot and her skin is as pale as the driven snow.
"It's alright," says the girl. "I'm already dead. I have been given rites and been burnt, although that wasn't the brightest idea…"
Weiss sees a city within the basin of a deep caldera. To the north, beyond the city of white marble, a mountain reaches to the top of the sky. She knows a grand creature sits atop it. She knows the city has been made rubble. She knows none live there any longer. She knows the girl was laid to rest there, and burnt on a pyre, and that this tore the city asunder. A great reckoning of brimstone and heavenly wrath mourning for a passed deity.
"Don't worry about it," says the girl, who Weiss knows is a thing she does not believe in. "Whatever happened to me is done and gone. But you're still early, and you're alone. Why have you come?"
Weiss speaks, but no sound comes.
"I see," says the girl. "Then, maybe it's because your caretaker did not do his job well. Pity that, but you still have to march along. Go, then, and see the cinders. See where the fire died."
And the girl is gone. And the heiress is nothing again. Then, she is ashes. Then, she is Weiss Schnee once more, a woman whole who stands amid scorched trees and blasted rock. Swords and spears and javelins and axes, and every conceivable weapon of olden war, lay strewn about. Some are poked in the ashen ground. Some are still gripped by the skeletal remains of their owners. But all is ashes, and all is burnt nigh unto ash, and only one thing yet lives.
It is not Weiss.
"You trespass," says a thing, for that is all it really is, and its voice is as sand rattling in hollow steel.
Charred armor warped to the shape of a starved man. A helmet wrought fully from true by who-knows-what, surely a catastrophe of divine proportions. A sword stuck in the ground, in a pile of burning bones, its blade twisted up like a coil.
"This place is for those who would inherit fire," says the charred thing. "You are not an heir of fire. You cannot remain here. Why have you come?"
Weiss speaks, but no sound comes.
"Then you do not seek fire," says the charred thing. "You must seek light and understanding. You must go where three gods fooled men and mer. You must go where Indoril was betrayed. You must see the lady of Moon and Star."
And the field of ash is gone, and the charred thing is gone, and the twisted sword in its bone-fire is gone, and Weiss is no more.
Then she breathes, and the air is acrid and smoky. She opens her eyes and sees a storm of blight. Brown dust as thick as harbor fog at midnight billows hard across all and sundry. A grand wall rises up some two-hundred feet heavenward, far off in the distance. Its face is blue light. Its poles are grand sentinels of bonemeal. Three heads are carved atop each: a woman, a man, and one who is both.
"You are not her," says a woman from behind Weiss.
She turns. The woman she beholds stands on air, perhaps three feet above the ground. She is surely ten feet tall if not a bit more. Her skin is the blue-grey of fresh ash; her eyes are the raging ruby-red of living magma. Her hair is writhing flame. In her right hand is a crescent moon; in her left is the First Star. From her mouth spills the very heavens.
"This land is only a dream any longer," says the woman. "Three tongues lied and a hero fell. Three tongues conspired and became false, living idols. Three tongues were cut out, three hearts were stopped. But the truth ended and we are only dreams now.
"But you are no dream, and you are not she. You have come early to a place you do not belong. You have become entwined with her. You should not have. Now you cannot disentangle yourself, and must follow along in the end, to the end, for woe or weal. This is your truth."
Weiss speaks, but no sound comes.
"I hear your sorrow, my sweet child, and offer you this in turn:
"You will visit a land whose history was writ with tears, whose roots were nourished by blood, whose future was bright and strong until the thousand suns of man burned all to sickly dust. You will visit a world whose people were many, whose stories were limitless, and whose Maker was loving beyond reason. You will go, and when you live again, you will remember not. But you will go even still."
The woman holds out the crescent moon to Weiss. She touches it. She is no more.
Splitting thunder rages. Heat surges. The air tastes of lead and ozone. The ground splits and crumbles and groans. Buildings are falling to pieces all around. The people are already dead but their shadows remain a vigil, burned into every surface yet intact. Not even the dust of their bones remains. Every green leaf has been swallowed by atomic fire. Every drop of water has been lapped up by man-made suns.
Weiss thinks to herself, "The Big Booms," and has no idea why.
She is scared. Her wife and daughter are surely dead. Her world is burning all around her. She hides in a closet, in a basement, ten floors below the streets above. In the Capitol building. Georgia, her home, is being consumed by the Big Booms. Someone pressed the big red button, then everyone else pressed their own big red buttons. All is fire. All is death. All is lost. Hope is a lie.
Weiss looks at a nearby piece of broken mirror. The face that looks back at her is older, and a man's, and his eyes are emerald-green, and his skin is olive. Tears streak down his face. Hope has died within him. All has forsaken him.
All has forsaken her.
The roof collapses and he is dead. Weiss is dead. The world is burned out and dead and lost.
"But that is not the end of our tale."
A voice, gentler than anything she can fathom, speaks through the veil of the beyond.
"I am not Alpha. I am not Omega. I am nothing but the keeper. I am only a battery. Yet, I stave off the end, for this is my task. I fuel the lamp for all. I dream deeply so all may live on."
She is sinking again, fading into the dark. The worlds crumble away. The fires recede. The waters return and swallow all sense. Velvet curtains drape over her, and her flesh melts into them, and her mind resigns itself to blissful ignorance.
"You chose for yourself. That is good. But now, you must see it through. And so must she. And so must you both come hither. Or I must awake, and the dream will end, and all will be for naught. So come, Last Rose of Summer, and forge yourself through the truth."
"However you find it," says Weiss, who is nothing any longer.
Ͼ
Weiss awoke with her mouth tasting of honey. A beautiful morning sun crept coyly through her windows. When she opened her eyes, her first sensation was alarm. She did not know the ceiling above her and wondered why she lay naked under the covers. She sat up quickly, beginning to panic, clutching the thick covers tight to her bosom. As she looked around, memory returned. All of it: the conversation with her father, then with Klein, then the sensation of utter exhaustion that drew her straight to bed.
But she did not recall one bit of her long, strange, deathly dream.
Satisfied to know she was home—as much so as the Schnee Estate had ever been her home—Weiss dropped the cover, stood from her bed, and stretched the long sleep away. Strangely enough, despite the terrible day previous, she felt utterly rested. Like her blood and muscles and bones were completely restored, perhaps even remade.
She recalled her conversation with Klein, yes, and set immediately to thinking on it while retreating to her lavish powder room to dress. Once dressed, she sat herself at her old desk and pulled out a sheaf of paper, took a number of sheets and fished a pen from another drawer. Then, the heiress put herself to the grinding wheel and began to draft her plans.
Her scroll lay beside her all the while, and when the directory and saved messages within it were not enough to continue plotting, Weiss stopped to search her room for the laptop she had left behind. When going off for her first foray into college she had opted to replace the thing rather than carry it along. After ten minutes, maybe fifteen, Weiss found the old thing and booted it up. It was easy enough to access her various emails and marketing sites from there.
Like a woman possessed, she set back to her designs. Mails were sent. Calls were made. Stocks were liquidated and assets moved. Thinking about it, the heiress wondered if she might not attract the attention of some government or another. For, by the time she had been up for but three hours, Weiss had moved a sum of Lien totaling well over one hundred million. Consolidated, so to say, in preparation, and all without so much as looking at her handful of shares in ColdWater.
A knock came from her door. The heiress stopped cold in her tracks, frozen in place with a brief fear. Was it her father? Had he noticed? Had he come to check on her, or to investigate her machinations?
"Miss Schnee?" Klein's voice, fretful but not timid. "Would you like some breakfast, Ma'am? 'Tis past ten. Won't do for you to starve yourself…"
Sighing, smiling faintly, and suppressing a chuckle, Weiss stood. She went to the door and opened it. Klein stood there, hunched miserably, a fine silver tray in his hands. On it lay a small feast of every breakfast food one could imagine offhand.
"Thank you very much," said Weiss, reaching for the tray.
"You're quite welcome, Ma'am," answered the hunched old man.
He handed it off to her and made as if to leave.
"Klein, could I ask you a favor?"
"No need to ask anything," said he, turning back around to face the heiress. "You say and I shall do."
Without a word, Weiss went to her grand desk. She set the tray on one side and took up her pen, found a sheet of unused paper, and jotted a short missive. It took her perhaps five minutes, and when she finished she enclosed it in an envelope and handed it to Klein.
"See to it this reaches Axter Levaleis, please," she said. "And do not let Father see it under any circumstances. Is that too much?"
"I'm afraid I cannot lie to Mister Schnee," said Klein, but there was a mischievous twinkle in his milky eyes. One Weiss knew quite well. "However," he went on, "my memory has been quite awful of late. I hope I do not forget you gave this to me, only to remember it upon making my daily journey for the paper mail…"
Klein gave the heiress a knowing wink, and she, in turn, gave him a short hug. Then he left, closing the door behind himself, and Weiss returned to her desk. Returned to her machinations. Returned to her calls and mails, her wheeling and dealing.
Every now and again she would wonder on the dubiousness of the measures taken—rash and nigh instinctual—to prepare for the battle she had only just begun. When she thought on that, she would then marvel at herself. At the depth of her feelings for Ruby and how they spurred her along. Connections were drawn, then, in her mind, between Ruby and the goals she had had for her own life. Where they had been. Where they were now. Where they might yet migrate to in the days ahead.
"Marry myself off, huh?" said Weiss to no one at all, her voice little above a whisper. "Be careful what you ask, Father. You never know how it might come to you…"
Ͼ
Klein proved himself to be just as perceptive as Weiss had once known him to be. After bringing her the enormous breakfast, he had since not so much as whispered to her door. Weiss assumed, and rightly so, that he had picked up on her mood. That he had understood her drive and will coalescing that morning, that she was a woman on the warpath.
Yea, for seven hours she maintained that warpath. For seven hours that passed in the blink of an eye, Weiss Schnee showed herself to be every bit the recipient of her father and grandfather's blood, the progeny of their mercantilistic wiles. It was six in the evening—for she had taken a few short breaks to breathe and think throughout the day—when she finally let her portfolio rest, signed out of every marketing site she used, and began to take a final stock of her efforts. The results surprised even she.
In raw monetary assets, she now had close to a half-billion Lien ready to go. In liquid assets she retained another hundred million. Lastly, through her shares in ColdWater, she had access to another quarter-billion if she waited for a good sell, or a hundred and fifty million if she would not wait. Yes, the trading had been beyond kind to her (though, her small army of financial advisors might need suicide watch, she imagined) and had exceeded anything she could have imagined.
Yet, where could she go with it? Not quite one billion Lien would be nothing raised against the hundred-or-more ColdWater could surely bring to bear.
"I'll need an angle of attack," Weiss said to herself.
But then, she realized another thing she might need. Or if not need, then it would at least greatly benefit her to have. All of it was starting to look like a complete crapshoot to her. The idea of carving out a third path at her fork in the road, as it were, seemed to be little more than wishful thinking. Then again, was it not wishful thinking and a mere hundred Lien that had built the SDC? Granddaddy Schnee had certainly left her quite the shoes to fill, shoes her father had made a mockery of thus far…
And come hell or high water, Weiss Schnee intended to fill out those shoes until they had to be stretched to accommodate.
α
Ruby awoke to her alarm clock almost as though everything were back to normal. Like things had returned to the lackadaisical days of her start at the MTU. She got up and got ready, made breakfast and ate it in short time. Then she packed what she needed and headed off. The train ride was uneventful; she read from Wizard and Glass the whole way. When she arrived at the MTU cradle, she disembarked and went straight to her muster class. Winter conducted the class as usual, much as before, and made no indication she even noticed her missing sister. Ruby assumed she was informed of whatever was going on and merely did what she had to—listened and learned, noted and jotted, asked questions where and when she needed—for muster and for the classes that followed.
Then, the day ended and she returned to her apartment, ate a small dinner and readied for work. She left for the Siren's Call and, once more, read from her book on the train ride. She arrived and changed, performed until her shift was done. Made ready to go home. Got there and had another small meal, then made ready for bed. It was only when she crawled into bed that Ruby dropped her guard and thought about that short note she had found in Weiss's dorm room, after returning from her brief shopping venture…
'I have to go for a while, not sure when I will return. Keep up your studies and take care of yourself. Will call or text if I can. I love you.'
Short, succinct, and to the point. Just like Weiss. So very, truly like her.
One single tear slid down Ruby's cheek as she drifted off to sleep.
Ͼ
The third day of her return home (or was it really home any longer?) dawned, but Weiss had awoken two entire hours before this and was again busy about her ordeal when the sun finally crested the horizon. Almost the very moment it did, and its first shallow rays washed into her room, an idea struck her. She was hungry. She was exhausted and had not slept well at all. She could sorely use food, coffee, and a bit of a hint, mostly in that order.
The heiress stood from her desk, stretched long and slow, then left her room. She walked the halls of the Schnee Estate for just a short while. Much as she suspected she might, Weiss found Klein beginning his morning rounds of the estate in the foyer. He ceased his speaking to the other household hands upon noticing her.
"Good morning, Miss Schnee," he said to her, and she did not fault him the honorific being that other maids and butlers were present.
"Good morning to you as well, Klein," she answered. Then she said, "I need to speak to you when you have some time. Soon, if possible."
The hunched old man immediately shooed off his subordinates, set them about their duties. He approached Weiss, walked by her, and motioned for her to follow. She did.
"Are you feeling better today?" he asked as they went.
"Much," said Weiss. "Enough so, in fact, that I would like to have breakfast with Father. Do you think that can be arranged?"
Klein stopped dead in his tracks. Weiss very nearly bumped into him, it was so sudden. He merely stood there for a moment, too, before finally turning to her, a suspicious incline to his brow. The heiress meant nothing beyond what she had said, and her poise expressed exactly as much. Seeing this, Klein only sighed.
"Mister Schnee is like to be attending to business by now," he said, "but I will do what I can, Ma'am. You have my word on that."
"Thank you," said Weiss, and she turned to leave.
"If anything comes of it, you will hear from me within the half-hour!" Klein called after her.
With that, Weiss returned to her room, locked the door, and settled back into her machinations. She had a few decent ideas at this point, but the choosing would come down to whether or not she had breakfast with her father. This she well knew, and so she picked a few ideas from each possible branch and began to build on the foundations of them.
Ϯ
Klein managed to pull through it seemed, and by eight that morning Weiss sat in the dining hall at a large, beechwood table across from her father. The rim of the table was banded with brass depicting leaf-shaped scrollwork across its golden surface. The wood was stained a brown so deep it was nearly black. Between them—fixed up by Klein himself—was a veritable feast of a breakfast, though in truth, neither Weiss nor Jacques were particularly hungry. Still, she had come, and so had he, and both were determined (for their own reasons) to sit for the meal.
No others were in the room with them. For all Weiss knew, the door leading out from the dining hall was locked. That unnerved her a tad, but she was a woman on the warpath still. She was there to gather intel, one might say, and would go to any lengths to have it…
"Father," Weiss began, setting down her utensils and looking the man in the eye. "Might I ask you a favor?"
"You may ask," said Jacques. He seemed entirely nonplussed to her addressing him, as if the shared meal were hardly even a formality. "I highly doubt my answer will be what you want to hear," he added, and went right back to eating.
The heiress took a deep breath, calmed herself, and said, "I would like to speak with you as proper adults. Considering my age and our current position—this impasse we have come to regarding my life and the direction of the company—I feel it is only appropriate that we speak so. As equals, I suppose."
Jacques finished his bite of eggs, put down his own utensils, and returned Weiss's gaze. Eye to eye, the two Schnees began a titanic contest of wills that would last the next few months. As many great events of history, it started innocently and innocuously enough. A shared meal and a conversation, from which would be born an upset the likes of which Remnant had not seen in some decades.
"Alright," said Jacques, and the die was cast, "I'll humor you. Let us talk as equals. Now, could I safely assume you would like to spearhead this level conversation?"
"You could," said Weiss, "and you would not be wrong. In fact, I would like to ask you a question to start."
She took a sip of water then asked, "What do you want from the Schnee Dust Company? Surely you know it is no secret that you married Mother to get in at the top. Well, you've had the reins for a while now. What are you still striving for?"
At first, Jacques seemed to bristle furiously, and Weiss briefly wondered if she had not gone too far. But he quickly softened and said, "I want my mark on the world to persist."
"Is it truly so simple?" Weiss pressed.
Her father seemed to honestly consider the question. He leaned back, picked up his steamed cup of coffee, and began to think in this reclined manner. For five or so minutes he did this. Every now and again he would sip on his inky coffee—an import from Menagerie, one which Weiss had little taste for, so bitter was it—and furrow his brow, and make an odd twitch of his moustached nose. The look he wore was thoughtful and unrested and surely anything but relaxed.
"You want to hear that I have some grand machination, don't you?" he said at last. "Yes, I'm sure you'd like me to confirm your belief that I am some scheming villain, looking to take over the world. Is that it, Weiss? Have you brought something to surreptitiously record this conversation, as well? To capture my confession?"
Weiss lost herself there, if only a bit. She slammed the table and all but yelled, "Are you kidding me?! The scar over my eye is not enough to warrant such an opinion of you, then? The bruises I would sleep with through my teens? The tears that would cloud my eyes at night as a child? How you paraded me about like a piece of meat to be sold, no sooner than I turned sixteen…"
"Sold?" Jacques scoffed. "I wished you to have a suitable partner, Weiss. A husband that could meet your value."
"And one that could take over for you, right? Steer the company as you have, perhaps even giving you a grandson in the process?"
The enormous, empty dining hall echoed with Weiss's words for much longer than it should have. Like small speakers were repeating them, over and over, quieter each time but not by much. Jacques picked up his coffee and finished it, then resumed his meal. Weiss inwardly chided herself for veering off topic in such a hotheaded manner.
And yet, it was as though she couldn't help herself…
"Do you miss Whitley?" she asked. "Or do you miss what he meant for your legacy?"
"When I met your mother…" said Jacques. He paused then, set down his utensils and seemed to drift off in thought. Weiss merely watched, breath bated, until he said, "I had to scrimp and scrounge every bit I could to court her. I doubt she would have seen it that way, had she known then. She might even have been angry with me for it—but I felt I had no choice. A woman such as her deserved the finer things in life!
"After we were married, I lost none of that drive. If anything, I only lost my perspective. Maybe that is why I've done what I have. Maybe that is why it's all coming down around me…"
The heiress realized, then, that her father was no longer speaking to her. She only continued to watch him. He went on and on, making less and less sense.
"She hasn't spoken to me kindly in ten years. I've done everything I can—made every dirty deal, broken every rule I could get away with—to keep this company soaring upward. Now ColdWater, and you, and…"
This time, it was Jacques who slammed the table. It surprised Weiss how strong he was. The table was no small thing, but when he brought both fists down on it, the entire bulk of wood and brass tipped toward him. His end hit the ground just before his toes and the other barely missed clipping the heiress's chin as it sailed upward. Plates and glasses, forks and knives, salt-shakers and pepper mills careened through the air. A loud cacophony of clattering, shattering destruction resounded through the empty dining hall.
Weiss lurched back as soon as the table leapt before her—likely saving herself what would have been a jaw-shattering impact—and fell over when her seat tipped from under her. She scrambled up, quickly, only to see Jacques sitting in his chair still, staring at either his hands or perhaps nothing at all. He visibly shook. Weiss briefly considered fleeing the room. The whole thing was quickly seeming a terrible idea.
Maybe she would leave this madness behind…
"I'm too old for this," Jacques whispered at last. "I have more money than I could ever spend. I've either lost or turned all my family against me. This company is going to sink, sooner or later…"
The heiress made to say something but could get nothing out.
"Weiss," said Jacques, looking up to meet his daughter's frightened stare. "I won't let this company sink. It's all I have left." He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and said, "You despise me, as I'm sure you should, and that matters not one whit to me now. If I had to sell you today to guarantee the Schnee Dust Company continued on, I would. But I'll tell you what…
"If you can come up with another way yourself, and if I am satisfied it will work, then I won't interfere with you any further. You can gallivant all across Remnant with that woman for all I care, so long as this company suffers not one Lien of loss."
Jacques stood and dusted himself off—smearing the messier bits of breakfast that had been flung on him in the table's flight—then started for the door. His footsteps carried loud in the empty dining hall. Weiss watched him, heart thumping hard in her chest, wondering vaguely how the man had never gotten himself arrested with such a temper.
But he stopped as soon as he touched the doorknob, turned to her and said, "I do miss Whitley, and your sister, and even you when you are gone—despite how you have always incited my ire. So go ahead and take over, if you can. Show me what for. But remember: If I am not wholly satisfied with whatever you come up with, I will hinder you to the fullest extent of my capabilities. The company is all I have left to mark my life as having happened. Not even you will threaten that, Weiss…"
He slammed the door when he left, and the thunderous crack it made shook Weiss to her core.
Ω
Levi Ansleif walked swiftly down the halls of the Schnee Estate, from one corridor to another, irritated beyond reason that he had gotten himself so turned around. Could not have been ten minutes since he stepped off the air pad—and let us not start on how it irked him to use proper transportation, but appearances had to be kept—and he had no idea at all where he was. Jacques's office might be on the other side of the world, for all he knew.
And then, it happened.
Levi watched the ground as he went, fuming. Next thing he knew, something bumped into him and knocked him fully on his ass. He hit the ground, hard, landing right on the tailbone. The cowboy-hatted man yelped for the bloom of pain.
"And just where in the hell have you been?" barked a gruff, perhaps somewhat distraught voice.
Already trying to stand, and rubbing his sore rear, Levi looked up. Jacques Schnee himself loomed over him, eyes all but glowing with fury, his clothes an absolute mess and his mien nothing if not foreboding.
"Lost, I'm sorry to say," said Levi. "Really could use a map of this place. Why, were your summons that urgent?"
"Moreso than I care to admit," said Jacques.
Levi stood fully, dusted himself off and stretched out the fall. He then looked Jacques over, took stock of the man. Oh yes, he was surely quite angry. An awful scowl occupied his features. His eyes glowered fiercely at Levi, and even he was taken somewhat aback. But the man also looked… what, frightened perhaps? Like a vicious animal backed into a corner by something larger, meaner, and far more dangerous. Like a creature simply unwilling to roll over and die, but rather quite ready to fight until its last.
"I take it the young Miss Schnee has arrived already?" Levi ventured.
"We will speak in my office," said Jacques, who then simply resumed walking down the hall.
Not how he had anticipated the summons to go down, but Levi merely sighed and followed. He did his best to memorize the layout of the estate as they went. Yet, with no real baseline to go off of, this proved a wasted effort. They arrived at Jacques's office in short time and Levi still had no clue where he was or how to get back without utilizing one of his special doors.
Jacques walked in first, held the door open for Levi. When the cowboy-hatted man entered he immediately took a seat across the room, just in front of the single, massive desk within. Jacques shut the door, locked it, and left into another side-room within for a short time. When he returned some ten minutes later, in clean clothes and somewhat more composed, he took his own seat behind the desk. He poured up some brandy for the both of them from his remaining decanter, pushed one glass to Levi and fished out a box of cigars from his desk.
"No, thank you," said Levi when offered. "Mind if I smoke a cigarette in here, instead?"
"Hand-rolled?" asked Jacques.
"Of course." Levi pulled out his silver case, proudly showed off his handiwork. "The big-batch shit they sell these days is horrible for you and tastes indicatively as bad."
With a shrug of his shoulders, Jacques picked himself out a cigar and returned the box to his desk. He then bit off the back, lit the thing, and offered a flame to Levi. The wannabe cowboy accepted. He managed only one puff before Jacques spoke.
"You have not fulfilled the terms I hired you under," said he. His voice was accusatory, yes, but also off somehow.
Distracted maybe? Or apprehensive?
"Oh?" Levi pondered aloud. "And how is that?"
Jacques took a long drag, sighed an acrid cloud and said, "My company is falling apart beneath my feet, my family is turning on me one by one, and now the only child of mine I thought had any sense has started seeing some urchin from Vale, of all places. Why did I learn of this from a student of the MTU and not from the sleuth I personally hired to watch over her?"
"Your daughter has started dating a boy?" Levi made his face to seem as surprised as possible. "Why, that's good, isn't it? Or is he of lowly birth?"
"You jest, surely," said Jacques. But he saw a confused look upon Levi's features. "Weiss has started seeing a woman, you buffoon! You really have no idea how to do your job, do you? Are you even aware of the definition of sleuth?"
"There's no need to be rude," Levi said, impetuously, and began to drag on the cigarette.
"Proper courtesy or not aside," said Jacques, "I would like to believe you weren't entirely a waste of my money. Now tell me, did you truly know nothing about this?"
"I knew," was all Levi answered.
"For how long?"
He thought a moment, deciding on how to shape the fib. Then Levi said, "A couple months. Weiss, she's very careful how she handles herself. Keeping tabs on her is enough of a chore—knowing what she thinks is beyond the best. And, loathe as I am to say, I am far from the best, Mister Schnee."
"And yet you came so highly recommended…"
"I have… other talents, let's say."
The cowboy-hatted man stood, opened up his cloak and produced a beautiful gold wristwatch from an inner pocket. He set it on the desk and took his seat again. For a moment, Jacques only looked at the thing, bewildered. Finally, he slowly lifted up his left arm and pulled back the sleeve. His watch was gone.
"I would ask how you did that," said Jacques, taking the watch and putting it back in place, "but I have learned it best not to question common crooks. You do realize such a display is not helping your case, don't you?"
"Hm…" Levi seriously pondered the situation. Then, he produced another item, this time from an outer pocket of his coat. Jacques stared at him, stunned beyond words, and Levi said, "This works a bit better, doesn't it? Now please, take the thing back. You drool when you smoke, I see, and much more than most…"
Jacques began to bristle with wide-open fury. He quickly reined himself in and calmly reached across the table for the cigar he had, until only a moment ago, been holding between his teeth. He had not seen Levi move one bit besides reaching into his pocket.
"Which school did you train with?" Jacques asked.
"Hunter School?"
"Yes."
"Why, none at all," Levi said with a grin.
Jacques sighed, said, "Assuming you know more than those parlor tricks, I am brought back to my earlier question: Why did I learn of Weiss's dalliance from an MTU student and not from you?"
Levi leaned back in his chair, satisfied he had placated Jacques. He said, "I did not think it bore any significance on what you wished me to look out for. As I recall, and I quote, you wished me to 'ensure Weiss Schnee has not been won over by some other corporation' during her time attending another university. You worried she would turn on you for another, yes?"
"Do not quote my words to me," was all Jacques said. With his forefinger and middle extended, he rotated his hand in a motion to say go on.
Levi obliged.
"Well, through all of my observations, no such thing has happened. And since I learned of Miss Rose, I have looked into her as well. As, I'm sure, have you. I have seen nothing to be worried about. She's lowborn, to be sure, and a bit of an imbecile, but if anything at all it seems she has helped your daughter reaffirm herself as a Schnee Dust Company exemplar…"
He dragged away the last of his cigarette, squeezed it out with his left hand and stowed the butt in a pocket.
"No, Mister Schnee, I decided it was nothing to worry you over," Levi finished.
"Try to bear in mind I did not hire you to decide a single thing for me," said Jacques, and he stood then, began to pace a small area behind his desk. First to a bookshelf nearby, then to the window, and back and forth again. "On that note," he went on, pacing slowly all the while, "I believe it is time to make proper use of you. And perhaps some of those odd talents of yours, as well. Tell me, Levi, have you been to the ColdWater Group building in Constance?"
"I have."
"What did you make of it?"
Levi sat up straight and thought. He did not make attempts to delve into Jacques, mind or soul, but rather thought instead. Tried to recall the layout of the place, the sorts he had seen inside. All he had observed of the building.
"A secure place, to be sure, looking from the outside," he said at last. "Saw some noteworthy hunters in there. Not many huntresses, though. And not much obvious security on the interior. Too many doors, elevators, stairwells and the like. A couple of guards at lobby level? Then, on the dispatch suite—where I had to meet another client—they had only one guard station, a single camera, and two detectors of some sort to get in or out of that floor.
"Is that enough for you?" Levi finished, reclining once more.
"Oh, yes, fine enough for me," said Jacques as he at last returned to his seat. "I wonder if it will be enough for you?"
The cowboy-hatted man cocked one eyebrow at the Schnee across from him.
"See, Mister Ansleif," said Jacques, "I would like you to reconnoiter the place. It was a rather lucrative deal they made with us just five years past, to build one of their dispatch sites in the heart of Mantle. And what's more, to have it in such a famous city as Constance. That being said, I happen to know they keep some sensitive information onsite regarding contracts…
"You will go in—under the direction of no one, keep in mind—and you will find anything that links them to… less than legal contracts. The severity matters not at all. Get a hold of anything and everything you can, and once you have you will deposit your findings with a contact at Constance Memorial Park."
"How am I to know this contact?"
"Ask Winter when next you see her," said Jacques. "She will know all about the blind date I will have, by then, arranged for you. A thank-you for a job thus far well done."
Cloak and dagger nonsense had not interested Levi since he died in Georgia, who knows how many eons ago by now. He would play the games he had to all the same, of course. And so, he accepted Jacques's new assignment and left politely enough. It only took him half an hour to find a maid, who then saw him quickly to the air pad.
Λ
Levi left to fulfill his new obligation to Mister Schnee at two in the afternoon, on the dot. Jacques, in turn, set about his own machinations. The Schnee Estate was alight with scheming the rest of that day and for many days after. Weiss set her own contacts out into the underbelly of Constance, in search of every miniscule bit they could find about ColdWater. Klein at last managed to find some time alone in the mailroom, where he passed off the letter he had been given the previous day—along with a considerable tip—to the Schnee mailman himself.
Off in Constance, Qrow Branwen feared he had nowhere left to turn but to his most recent employers, who he had not taken a contract from in two years, in hopes they might have something for him about the masked man or the other parading around in a black cowboy hat. Discussion of contracts handed out to others, no matter how long ago, was of course frowned upon but he had found nothing for nigh three weeks. He felt himself running out of options.
As for Ruby, she did the best she could to keep herself on track: she attended the MTU during the day, studied when she could, went to work and earned her keep, and all the while she thought about Weiss. Wondered if what they had—dear and special though it be—might be folly after all.
For all actors involved, things went on like this for an entire month.
α
Ruby kept close count of the days since Weiss had left. Kept a near-constant eye on her scroll, as well, but she had heard not one peep from her beloved Schnee. Thirty-five days that had been by now. Complete and total radio silence. Of course, she had not sent a text or called either. She knew little and less of the Schnee ways but felt she could imagine how ugly it might get. She did not want to stress it any further for Weiss.
A pair of teary silver eyes looked back at her from the well-lit dressing mirror. Ruby wiped the tears away and began to tie up her hair. Once she had it done just right, she affixed her mask and donned her wig. Flaxen locks situated perfectly, she stood and looked herself over. All was right so far as she could tell. Save, that is, for her heart. It felt like a block of lead in her chest, weighing down her feet and all but paralyzing her lungs. Even still she would dance tonight, to the leering, cheering, hollering crowd of onlookers. It had begun to make her sick again, at the bottom-most pit of her stomach, to be so ogled and lusted after.
But still, she would do it.
Ruby turned away from the mirror and started to mentally prep herself, walked up to the door and took hold of the handle. A loud chirp caught her ear and she froze. All was quiet in the dressing room. She strained her ears, heard naught more, and twisted the handle. As the door opened up the raucous roar of the crowd beyond greeted her, yet a shrill chirp did pierce that cacophony.
The silver-eyed, masked vixen spun on the ball of one foot. She stood before her locker in barely the blink of an eye, twenty feet across the dressing room. It seemed the damned lock would never come undone. But at last, Ruby managed it and flung open the locker door.
Her scroll, vibrating wildly, chirped one more time. She snatched it up and answered.