Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum, not me. This is merely a fanwork meant for entertainment purposes only. Cover image courtesy of Simon Howden. All rights reserved.
"Yo Nikos, where's the music player?"
"I'm afraid I don't quite know...is it in one of the cupboards, perhaps?"
"Nah, nah, only meds 'n stuff go in there."
"Maybe we could just perform a vocal rendition of it instead?"
"Well I suppose it's worth a shot. Oh, shiz, he's waking up!"
As Jaune's eyes gradually fluttered open, he was in no way prepared for the impromptu acapella duet of Edvard Grieg's Morning Mood that assaulted his ears. Well, one part of it did, anyway; the doc's voice was actually quite soothing.
"...what." Jaune said flatly, twisting his head this way and that as he desperately tried to figure out where he was. Clinical white walls, clinical white tiled floor, clinical cupboards, clinical doctor...obviously he was in the-
"It's not a clinic, it's an infirmary!" Doctor Lavender insisted sharply.
"I didn't even say anything!"
"You were thinking it…" she grumbled, narrowing her eyes.
Doctor Lavender, as many students who ended up in her care would vouch for, was a few forks short of a cutlery drawer. Lots of Beacon's staff members were somewhat odd, admittedly, but it was probably Doc Lavender who was the most overtly so. In a clinic- uh, infirmary that was pretty much all a blinding white, she wore a dark blue labcoat, light blue t-shirt, even lighter blue cargo shorts and a pair of pink sandals...apparently they'd run out of blue. People had told her that dressing in the same shade as her eye and hair colour was nuts, and Doc Lavender had agreed completely, smiled sweetly, then proceeded to do it anyway. She did that a lot, really.
"Anyways, yo Arc-man. How're you feelin'? Comfy?"
Jaune shuffled pathetically, hoping desperately that he wasn't the only student in one of the infirmary beds. However, since the two beds either side of him were empty, along with the five on the opposite wall, he had to assume the worst. Lavender was going to start doting.
"Need anything? Food, water, new clothes, a scale model of an angry Beowolf, a bike-"
"No no no, I'm just fine, thank you!" Jaune exclaimed hastily, trying in vain to get up from the bed.
Dust, these covers are on tight! Wait...am I topless right now?
"You sure about the clothes part?" Lavender asked, pointing a tanned thumb over to the ever-patient Pyrrha Nikos, winking all the while.
"...a shirt would be nice."
"Alrighty...there ya go, Arc-man. Mind if I go get a hot chocolate while you get changed?"
"That'd be grea- uh, I mean, not a problem, Doc Lavender!" Jaune hastily backpedaled.
It was with great relief that Jaune watched Lavender pop through the door to his right...not that he'd ever say it to her face. Pyrhha, meanwhile, simply continued to sit on her little fold-up chair by the bed, her weapon carefully propped up at the side of the doorway.
Is she just going to sit there while I...?
"Oh! You'll want to be getting dressed now, won't you? Sorry, I was a little lost in thought…"
Pyrrha politely turned her chair the other way, continuing to whistle Morning Mood off-tune as her team-mate finally put on a shirt. A flannel pajama top, in fact.
It's blue. Eeyup...really should've seen this one coming.
"Okay, you can turn around, now."
Swiiip.
"So...how are you actually feeling?" Pyrrha asked intently, leaning forward on one of the bed rails, "Since I know you wouldn't say anything while Doc Lavender was still around."
Jaune shrugged.
"Eh, I'm okay. Pretty tired, but I guess that's to be expected considering what happened."
Wait a minute. Does Pyrrha actually know?
"Uh, by which I mean-"
"Don't worry, Jaune, you don't need to explain anything. Weiss told me all about it when she got back."
"Really?" Jaune inquired cautiously. He wasn't sure how much Weiss had actually revealed, and he wasn't willing to dispense any information that wasn't his to give.
"Yeah, imagine finding that secret entrance, right in the middle of the Emerald Forest! You must be quite the detective."
"Well uh, we got lucky, really…"
"Shame there wasn't anything down there, though."
Jaune nodded slowly, not trusting himself to speak.
"Oh well...at least you discovered your semblance in the drop. How grand!"
Having already loosened the covers to put the shirt on, it was fairly simple for Jaune to raise his hand over the bed, surrounding its surface with the same hexagonal shield from the mansion.
"I guess so...not that it's that special compared to yours, Pyrrha."
The red-haired girl smiled kindly.
"It's often the semblance that's the most general that has the most utility. Polarity might seem great, but the applications of it are somewhat more narrow than you'd think."
"We're not going to have a 'who's semblance is the least useful' competition over here, are we?" Jaune asked playfully.
"Not unless you want us to!"
For a moment, the two of them said nothing, merely enjoying the feel of each other's company.
Dust, she's beautiful. Wait, what?
"Ding dong!" a hyperactive voice piped from outside, bursting through the door without a second thought. Her constant companion followed close after, his left hand carrying a plain brown box while his right gingerly gripped a lovely tree blooming delicate white flowers.
"Nora, Ren!" Jaune called out happily, "So the whole gang's here, huh? What's with the packages?"
"Well~" Nora began, pulling up a chair from the side and proceeding to stand on top of it, "The stuff in the box is delicious chocolate cake, made by yours truly! With some help from my fantastic assistant chef Lie Ren, of course. Woop woop!"
"I had a question about that, actually." Pyrrha said as she took the plant pot from Ren, "Weren't we making victoria sponge? How did you manage to bake a chocolate cake when we weren't actually given any chocolate to use?"
There was a short pause.
"I have absolutely no idea!" Nora cried happily, beckoning for Ren to pass the cake box over to Jaune. Opening it up, Jaune found his nostrils attacked by what had to be one of the most powerful cocoa smells he had experienced in his entire life. He almost coughed but, not wanting to hurt Nora's feelings, he merely passed the cake back.
"You know, I don't really mind you eating it, Nora. I'm still a little dazed after what happened and, well, I wouldn't want such fantastic chocolate cake to go to-"
NOM
"-waste?"
Well, I know what I'm going to be seeing in my nightmares tonight.
"Did...did she just…?" Pyrrha began, seemingly just as shocked as everyone else. Well, except Ren, obviously.
"That's...an interesting way to eat a chocolate cake, Nora." Jaune noted, his expression assuming something between curiosity and abject horror.
"Mmhm!" Nora agreed, wiping the leftover chocolate from her mouth, "It's my patented Black Hole™ technique!"
"Right...what about the tree, then?"
"Weiss sent it over." Ren replied simply, putting the empty chocolate cake box up his sleeves, "Well, sort of. She said she had to take care of something, so I offered to bring her gift early since we were delivering that cake anyway. It's a myrtle, by the way."
"May I…?" Jaune asked, taking the pot from Pyrrha with about as much care as he could muster…not a lot, in other words.
"The flowers are very...white? Nice, though."
"Mmhm." Ren concurred, "This one's still quite young, but I'm sure it'll grow to be quite something if you take care of it. Strange that she'd send this rather than a bouquet, though."
"I don't know, Ren." Jaune commented dryly, "Maybe she thought it'd brighten up the interior a bit."
Looking a little closer at the plant's flowers, Jaune spotted a cleverly camouflaged white tag, fishing it out to discover some strange looking blue scribble written all over it.
Oh, right. That's Weiss' handwriting, isn't it?
"Um...can anyone read what's on this tag? It's a little difficult to decipher."
Pyrrha was the first to attempt the epic quest set by her leader.
"Rolling around at the speed of sound...got places to go gotta follow my rainbow? That doesn't seem right."
Next was Nora.
"Hm…ooh, I know! 'I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.' Wow, I didn't know Weiss got married!"
Finally, it was Ren's turn.
"Let's see...'Dear Jaune, sorry for all the trouble I caused with our little trip. If you need my help with anything, just let me know and I'll see what I can do.'"
Jaune blinked.
"As much as this is easily the closest to sounding correct, that really doesn't sound like something Weiss would say."
"I wouldn't be so sure, Jaune." Pyrrha cut in, "She's has been acting pretty oddly ever since she came back."
"What, you mean...nicer?"
"Kind of? It is a little difficult to describe, to be honest. I think you'll understand once you see her."
Jaune looked out of the window, marvelling at the clear blue sky that seemed so common to Beacon throughout the year.
I wonder what she had to do that was so important?
Knock knock knock.
"Door's open."
Weiss wasn't exactly one to visit other team's rooms particularly often, but given the circumstances, she supposed dropping by CRDL's dorm wouldn't be all that bad. Still, she was glad to discover that Cardin was the only one present in the surprisingly neat room, repetitively throwing a cricket ball in the air as he laid down on his bed.
"Good morning, Cardin." she greeted pleasantly.
The armoured boy frowned while he continued to stare at the ceiling.
"Weiss? Figured you'd be with your team today."
"Yes, well...I thought that perhaps we should talk about what happened in the manor. By which I mean...I wanted to thank you."
Cardin shook his head as he changed to a sitting position.
"I'm not the one you should be thanking. Jaune and Bianca did all the work."
"Yes, well, I'm going down to visit the former quite soon, but before I do…"
Weiss bit her lip.
"May I sit down?"
As Cardin gave the all-clear, Weiss took her seat, gingerly laying Myrtenaster 2.0 across the floor.
"When we were in the manor, you told him you were called Spade. Why?"
"Technically it was Bianca who called me that, not Jaune, but...as for why I didn't tell him the truth…"
The armoured boy sighed heavily.
"I don't know. I guess I just wanted to talk without worrying about what happened before."
"Back when you were a jerk?"
Cardin chuckled.
"Still am, heiress...just a bit more selective as to who I'm a jerk to."
"So why not tell him now? You could come with me to the infirmary, if you like."
"It's...difficult."
"Oh?" Weiss asked doubtfully.
"...Jaune's the kind of guy who doesn't like fighting his friends. When I challenge him at the Vytal Festival, I don't want him to hold back."
"What? Why do you want to fight him so badly?"
Cardin grimaced.
"Look, it's...I really don't feel like talking about this right now. Tell him who Spade was if you like, but I'd prefer it if you didn't. I have my reasons, even if I'm being a dick and not telling you about them yet."
"Hm...I'll keep quiet, then, out of respect for your privacy if nothing else. Everyone's entitled to their secrets, I suppose."
However, just as Weiss was about to walk out of the door, she stopped dead, turning back one last time.
"The sword…"
"Hm?"
"What's it called?"
Cardin's eyes assumed a melancholy expression.
"...Zinnia. It was a kind of flower she really liked."
"You know, if you ever need to talk about it sometime…"
Cardin smiled genuinely.
"I think I'd like that."
As the Schnee heiress departed from CRDL's dorm, her thoughts turned to her visit with Jaune, belting Zinnia to her waist as she walked. She was so wrapped up in her plans, in fact, that she didn't seem to notice the sword's soft glow, nor the faint tinkling of a girl's laughter echoing through the halls.
I ship it!
And so In A Grimm Manor draws to a close. Exams are rearing their ugly head so I'm not sure how long it'll be until I post another story, but rest assured, I will be continuing this stuff. Who knows, maybe I'll experiment a little with new genres along the way?
Anyways, with the end of the fic comes TRIVIA! First of all, title trivia. I've mentioned this before in a commentary, but did you know that all of the chapter titles are references to classic literature? Eeyup, even for the epilogue. Let's run through them, shall we?
The Vital Importance of Being Clumsy - The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde).
Pride and Jaunedice - Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen).
Sense and Liability - Sense and Sensibility (Jaune Austen).
Of Dice and Men - Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck).
The Cakes of Wrath - The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck).
A Farewell to Legs - A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway).
The Girl in White - The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins).
Where The White Mist Grows - Where The Red Fern Grows (Wilson Rawls).
The Mirror of Weiss Schnee - The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde).
Alice in Sunderland - Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Caroll). Side note: If anyone didn't get this one, I will be fairly disappointed.
A Hunter of No Importance - A Woman of No Importance (Oscar Wilde).
Alright, that's your lot. See you when I see you!