Weiss Schnee couldn't sleep. It didn't matter how warm her kitten pajamas were, she couldn't sleep.

Sleep was a ribbon cut puzzle, and she was the whimsy piece that wouldn't fit anywhere.

Right now, she was surrounded by eight people, and those eight were surrounded sixteen people, and those people were surrounded by twenty four people, and so on, up to a total of six hundred and forty - barely over half the amount of pieces in a standard sized puzzle - people technically surrounding Weiss Schnee.

And all those people were trained to fight, unlike her. It had been by whim that she decided on applying here, she didn't expect to actually get accepted; she had absolutely zero qualifications, she had just sent in her name and had written please about a hundred times.

'Why are we here? Just how much of this is what you wanted, Weiss?' She asked herself, but she didn't receive any form of answer, as one would expect.

Snores and low chatter filled the quiet air of the ballroom.

Other people were still awake, but they were probably excited for tomorrow, not dreading it like she was.

Flopping around in the cheap sleeping bag she had been provided didn't help her get comfortable, but with her new position she remembered why she had chosen this location in the ballroom.

'Jaune Arc.'

That was his name apparently, so claimed the blonde girl, Yang Branwen.

'She was nice. I wish Winter could be more like her.'

Weiss suddenly dreaded if Winter was like that little sister, Ruby Rose. That girl had made some rather very vulgar claims about what she would do to Jaune, she had also gone into way too many detail about it. She shook head, forcing down the exact words she had heard, and a few she had just learned.

Jaune Arc was apparently a very well known person. He was the sole male child of a royal-adjacent Family of Warriors, he had supposedly graduated a few years early from a prestigious preparatory combat school, he had won some kind of tournament. Really it sounded like he was a very accomplished warrior.

'And there's no way he would appreciate the fact that I didn't even know who he was. You stupid girl you, we can't have anything nice, can we?'

Woefully and wistfully, Weiss gazed at the blond boy. It seemed like he also couldn't sleep, but unlike her, he had a valid reason; a few people were lined up to talk to him. Sometimes she could hear men and women squeal when he signed their belongings.

Suddenly, the people started to scramble away. Weiss blinked as she took in the sight of some red haired girl, dressed in a nightgown, approaching Jaune.

'There's only one person left.'

She observed. That girl was the only person left near Jaune, even the people who had appeared to be sleeping had crawled away.

'Oh, but I can't, I didn't even know who he was.' Weiss told herself. 'Does he know that though? We'll probably be kicked out tomorrow anyways, let's at least get something good out of coming here.' She convinced herself.

In just a few seconds, she had gotten up and started walking towards the pair. Not at all noticing the shocked stares she had gained as she - still wearing a kitten onesie - approached the two most famous and accomplished teenaged warriors in all the Kingdoms.

A giggle was the first thing she heard.

"You jest; you can't truly believe that just any one of these hoplites deserve to be our partners. The Fates must have known our plights, they surely are the reason that the only person I consider to be worthy of-" The girl suddenly stopped speaking, she had noticed that she had lost the undivided attention of the person she was talking to.

Jaune Arc had turned to look at Weiss Schnee as she was almost upon them.

Pyrrha Nikos slowly turned her gaze in disbelief.

'There couldn't be anything here more deserving of his attention than me.'

Her emerald eyes landed on a nervous girl in a cat suit of some kind, and then her burning greens glared down into vibrant reds. "Did you need something?" She snapped, the contempt in her voice palpable.

The girl blinked, then she glanced at the ground. "Oh, uh, no, I'm ju-just waiting until you're done."

"Then why have you flaunted your presence right before me? Did you presume yourself qualified to stand by my side as an equal?"

"H-huh?" The girl's face showed no signs of acknowledging how unworthy she was, only confusion. "I, um, don't under-"

"Kneel." Pyrrha Nikos - the Invincible Girl, the Goddess of Victory, the Undefeated Champion of Hazol, and the Conqueror of War, - Commanded.

The girl's body fell to her knees, and unprepared for the sudden drop, her body collapsed on the ground. "Ahgkuhhiaugihkoh!" She choked out, and tears started to pour from her panicked red eyes, her arms and legs frantically and futility wriggling about on the floor, right now she very much resembled the worm that she truly was.

Pyrrha turned back to Jaune, and with a smile she spoke. "I apologize for my fans, they truly never know when to stop hounding me."

For a second, only choking gasps filled the air between them.

"I think she's my fan, actually." The tone of his voice hasn't changed much from when he told her that he had no plans to choose his partner, that he will just wait and see.

Another giggle. "I'll have you know that I have quite a few female fans too, they just don't throw roses at my feet like yours do." She brought a hand up to hide her giggling mouth, and then in an instant she stopped, and with a nearly frozen voice of steel. "It's a shame that our swords had never crossed in battle. So, I'll retract my proposal, let's see which of us the Fates will favor in the coming days."

'Just wait, Jaune Arc, I'll prove my supremacy to you soon.'

Jaune Arc watched as she walk away, the long braid of her red hair swayed with every step she took.

He couldn't understand why she was here, and he didn't care to find out.

'The politics for why Hazol's Champion was attending an academy under Vila's jurisdiction is something I want nothing to do with.'

When Nikos had walked a distance of approximately fifty feet away, the girl who had gone from choking to whimpering abruptly took in a large breath.

'Huh, I had expected her to pass out.'

"Haah, huuh, haah, huuh." Loudly she breathed in desperate gasps, then in an instant she snapped up to her feet. "S-sorry that you had to see that." She said nervously, and not a hint of any other emotion.

'…What?'

Nervously, the girl scratched at her neck. "It, uh, was just a panic attack, I, um, have them all the time, today was the first time I've talked to people who weren't my family - or employed by them - it's the first time I've had them outside of my house, and this was the seventh attack today, the first was just after I had woken up, the second was when I left my house, the third was on small airship, the fourth was when I reached Vila, the fifth was when I got on the airship, the sixth was when I got off the airship, and the seventh was now." An almost incoherent ramble.

'Is it weak to be plagued like that? Or strength to keep going through it?'

Jaune couldn't know; he had never been overwhelmed by emotions, so he had no idea what kind of struggle she was experiencing. He supposed a concussion could be comparable, but it had been twelve years since he was five, the last time he had one. He couldn't recall what it had felt like.

"Anyways, um," she swallowed and screwed her eyes shut, "T-thank you!" She screamed, her face nearly matching the color of her eyes. "I forgot to say it earlier, but I wanted you to know that I'm grateful for your help!"

'…' Nothing. For the first time since he could think, did his brain not process information. After a few seconds of getting his brain back in order, did he realize. 'Is this really the first time? Did no one else ever thank me?' Just as he wondered, he almost wished someone would ask him that question.

His Semblance allowed him to use everything he had for a single purpose. A powerful ability, sure, but it had a substantial limitation: Jaune needed a reason to activate it, a reason that he didn't disagree with. Since he was young, he had relied on his Semblance, when his instructors told him to learn, to fight and to win, he would let his Semblance burn the information into his brain and body.

Earlier today, he had been lost and he hadn't wanted to go back, so he couldn't use his Semblance. Then he met this girl, who had also been lost at the time, and there was a reason he could always use: To Help.

And since Jaune had hardly cared about anything, he could rarely use his Semblance by himself. Most matters just didn't elicit anything within himself, he had no reason to affect the outcome.

However, right now his question appears to have been qualified.

'Why? I don't care if it was or wasn't.'

Even though he thought so, he still activated his Semblance.

His entire life flashed before his eyes, from the first words he heard all the way to this very moment. He had always obeyed requests, he had always accomplished what he was told to do in an excellent manner. Yet today, when he had used a lost girl as an excuse, he had received gratitude for the first time in return.

Jaune blinked, the girl was staring at him with wide eyes filled with admiration, he blinked again, for some reason his eyes felt irritated and his mind was foggy. He guessed he was tired. "It's no problem." The words felt unfamiliar on his tongue. "Let's both do our best tomorrow." He ended the conversation.

'He did it again! He glowed!'

Weiss thought as she rolled around in her sleeping bag, after her conversation with Jaune, she just had more reasons not to sleep.

"Was it magic? Was magic real?" She mumbled, she had been told that magic was just the stuff of fairy tales, but how else could she explain what had happened.

'And Dust, Blake had said all those things it could do, that didn't sound like something that could actually exist, it's too… fantastical to be real.'

Almost everyone had fallen asleep, she had even seen a few suddenly drop as they were standing, as if their exhaustion had caught up to them or something.

Weiss still wasn't tired, but her throat did itch for some reason, and she could faintly smell cinnamon.

With only her thoughts to keep her company, her fingers playfully traced the spiderweb patterns on the large carpet that had been laid out throughout the entire ballroom.

'I wonder how fast he could do a puzzle. Maybe he would like to do one with me. I could show him my collection, I bet he'll be surprised by how great my puzzle skills are. Oh, Weiss, this is so much fun… where are we?'

Darkness had surrounded her at all sides and she was paralyzed, her body wouldn't respond.

"How much could you save?"

"Barely enough… but are you sure you want to do this? You know she'll never be the same."

"That doesn't matter, I'll make sure she's better this time."

'Mom?' Weiss thought she could recognize her mother's voice, Willow Schnee's voice, but her words had been spoken with a coldness that was foreign to her. Before she think a question once more, her brain froze.

"Mommy?" Weiss asked as her small hands grasped on to her mother's dress. "Can you read-" She didn't get to finish her request; Willow had jerked her dress away.

"I told you to not touch me, didn't I?" Her mother asked coldly as she stared at the small girl who had fallen to the cold floor and started crying.

"The fairies giggled and snickered, they thought it was funny to show people what their twisted reflections looked like in their Magic Mirror. And so the fairies flew up high into the sky, higher than the clouds, and they spotted a bird flying. The fairies giggled and snickered as they showed the bird its own twisted reflection, and the angry bird pecked at them in return, which knocked the Magic Mirror from their hands. It shattered into unthinkably many shards of glass when it hit the clouds, and then like snow, it fell over the town. And when the glass-like snowflakes got into people's eyes, then all they could see was the world twisted into something ugly by fairy magic. Soon their hearts froze stiff like ice from their sadness and their anger at the twisted world." Her mother's warm voice spoke from the darkness.

"Is Mom's heart frozen?" Weiss looked up, she was sitting in the lap of J@(*#&, her f@#%)r, he smiled down at her without a face, and static answered her question.

Weiss stood behind a glass wall as she watched a child who looked like her, talk to a man she couldn't recognize.

Her brain unable to form thoughts, could barely comprehend what was happening.

Thanks for reading.

Reviews appreciated.

The next chapter has been outlined already.