The day had finally arrived. It actually had been a long time since last Weiss had looked forward to a specific moment in time, and it was drawing closer rather rapidly. Preparations were underway according to what she and her friends had planned for the 16th birthday of Ruby Rose, especially the surprise part. While Yang provided a distraction by simply dragging Ruby away from the dormitory to 'show her something really cool', the rest of the clique prepared one of the common rooms inside the dormitory for the surprise party they were about to hold.
"Weiss, is this okay?" Jaune asked, while he and Pyrrha were holding a garland, which had 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' written on it in bright, colorful capital letters, against the ceiling. The heiress had planned it to be the very first thing Ruby should see when eventually entering the room, so she went to the doorway, and looked at the display her friends had prepared.
"That is… Exactly how I imagined it. Thank you, guys," she said with a happy smile.
"Don't mention it," Pyrrha replied as she and her partner started to attach the garland to the ceiling, although they had done so about five times by then. Weiss was very picky as far as the decorations were concerned, which most likely annoyed her friends. But the heiress did not mind that, because for Ruby's birthday everything had to be done to perfection; everything. However, she had never been that excited about anything before, and needed the aid of a meditational breather from time to time in order to keep her excitement in check, while preparing the surprise party.
Suddenly, Nora busted into the room, and exclaimed excitedly: "It. Is. Done. BEHOLD!" As she pointed at the door in a presenting manner, Ren appeared with the birthday cake Weiss had asked him to prepare. And behold was actually a good choice of words on Nora's part, because that birthday cake looked just perfectly exact as the heiress had imagined when talking to Ren about it. While it was a simple cream cake at its core, the sugary decorations in form of rose-petals and blooms, the strawberries arranged in between those, and the colors of the sixteen candles on top of it all made it obvious that this cake was meant for the birthday girl – even for someone who would see her for the first time.
As Ren went to the table in the middle of the room to put the cake down, Weiss fetched the circular floral arrangement she had ordered the day before, and placed it on the chair which was supposed to be Ruby's for the occasion. Red roses and a few white ones adorned the circle of sated green, and a red banner in the middle of it had been embroidered with black threads which spelled the number 16 in an old fashioned, but elegant way of writing. The numbers were framed with additionally embroidered golden threads. Jaune let out an impressed whistle.
"That thing looks gorgeous," he commented from above – he was still standing on a ladder, after all.
"Not as much, as you might think, Jaune," Weiss replied, "How's the garland doing?"
"Just finished," he answered, and grinned in some sort of triumph, while looking at Pyrrha again.
"Alright, people, let me double check real quick," Weiss then spoke up a bit louder than necessary, but got everyone's attention this way. "Garland? Check. Cake? Check. Snacks and drink?"
"Potato chips, pizza rolls, cookies, a selection of fruits, soft drinks, beer and other light brewages are all set up and ready," Nora answered, pretending it to be a militaristic kind of report.
"Thank you. I took care of the floral arrangement, so check… What about the balloons, Blake?" Weiss inquired, and had to muster all her discipline not to burst out in laughter at her black haired friend playing with said balloons like a cat would do with a ball of wool. The colorful, helium filled rubber items provided so much of a distraction to her, however, that Weiss had to actually yell her name twice.
"Huh? Wha-? Balloons are ready… I…" Blake simply coughed embarrassedly afterwards, and let the balloons fly. There were about 32 of them rising towards the ceiling, resembling all of the involved students' color schemes – the golden ones for Pyrrha had been quite a challenge to come by. Although most of the others snickered and laughed at Blake for her little distraction, no harm besides a little embarrassment for the Faunus had been done.
"So, balloons… Check. I think we got everything, besides the presents," Weiss then concluded her double checking, and looked at the clock. All went according to plan, and there was still plenty of time before Yang eventually took Ruby into this room for her surprise.
While patience was admittedly not one of Weiss' strongest suits, the anticipation of Ruby's face was more than enough to keep her impatience in check – as paradox as it might have been. However, it became rather difficult to control herself for the heiress, when she could hear Yang babbling about something she could not quite make out through the closed door. And then the door swung open.
"Yeah, yeah, it was cool, and all that, but… I rather… Be… … …" Ruby said, and seemingly lost track of what was going on about what she saw.
"SURPRISE!" everyone shouted as they emerged from around corners, behind one of the sofas and out of the fridge – an original Nora Valkyrie. While the others started to sing 'Happy Birthday', Weiss was distracted by the little rose being all smiles, while she was giggling and bouncing joyously and happily. The heiress felt just as light hearted over the accomplishment of her planning – she had been tasked with the setup for the party after all.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you SO much!" Ruby cheered, and obviously could not decide who to hug first. As Weiss considered the first to be Yang, the little rose rushed towards the heiress, and dragged her into a somewhat strong, yet still gentle hug of gratitude – much to the white haired girl's surprise. Naturally she returned the hug, thinking about where to put her hands carefully. As Ruby went along to hug each and everyone in the room, Weiss simply watched with delight how happy her partner was. Soon afterwards Yang closed the door.
"So, let's get this party started, shall we?" she then asked, and as if on cue, Blake turned on the music. Ruby immediately went for the presents neatly placed next to each other on one side of the table in the middle of the room, and started ripping apart the packaging in childish greed – to know what was inside, Weiss convinced herself.
The little rose started with what turned out to be a new bag for her Crescent Rose, purchased and modified by Pyrrha and Jaune, and adorned with a little badge, on which there was written: 'Your destiny shall always be in your hands, for you can always choose it.'. That was probably Pyrrha's idea, Weiss thought to herself, as her partner hugged both of them rather strongly in joy and gratefulness. Following that rather practical gift were two pieces of literature. One was a compendium about different techniques involving Foldable Frame technology, gifted by Nora, the other was a collection of poetry from Mistral, gifted by Ren. On top of their collective gift was a teddy bear, which resembled an Ursa to some extent, yet it was so adorable, Ruby immediately named it 'Mr. Biggles'. Both Ren and Nora received an equally grateful hug by Ruby, she with delight, he with a bit less of it, but still happy for the birthday girl. The next gift came from Blake, and was something of practical use, namely a field repair kit for Crescent Rose – and other weaponry as well – packed neatly in a pouch hand made for that kit, which Blake had made over the past week. Another hug and a couple of thanks later Ruby went on to Yang's present: A book about sex education. Ruby was not the only one blushing in embarrassment at the sight of this material, while Yang laughed so hard, she almost fell over. Weiss, however, was not as amused as Ruby's sister, although she could not help but smirk at the sight of most of her friends being unable to cope with the situation – she herself included. Blake, however, seemed not to be surprised, and considering that she was actually a part of that family now, the heiress did not even wonder why.
"Alright, Yang, you had your fun," Blake luckily intervened before her girlfriend fainted because of a lack of oxygen, "now let's put this away, and get on with it."
Ruby just nodded, put the book back inside its wrapping paper and unboxed a new set of headphones, which was, again, something rather useful compared to the prank-gift from before. Though embarrassed, Ruby at least managed to take her sister's antics with humor.
"So, now last, but by far not least, Weiss' present," she announced, and grabbed the box Weiss had put the book and ring into. Why Ruby had to make that announcement the heiress did not know, but when the little rose opened the box, the sheer look of astonishment drew everyone's attention, as did the silent gasp she made.
"W-wow…" Ruby stuttered, and took the small, black box with the ring in it into her right hand, while she set down the gift box with her left. Weiss started to feel a little bit uneasy, when Ruby's eyes widened at the sight of the ring. She could not make much out of her partner's reaction, and when the little rose started to show the ring to the others, they just became as astonished as the girl receiving the gift was. "Would you do the honors, Weiss?" Ruby then asked the heiress.
"Y-yes, sure…" she answered, although she was not sure, why her answer came that quickly – like it was natural to do so. As Ruby gave the ring to Weiss so that she could put it on her finger, the heiress could feel the heavy, excited breaths of her partner on her hands, while she carefully put the ring on Ruby's finger, and adjusted it so that the red adornment in the shape of a flower – as abstract as said shape might have been – would be centered on the top side of her finger, while the icy blue ring itself would be in the background, supporting its adornment in a subtle way.
"It's… Beautiful…" Ruby whispered with deep red cheeks. Then, out of nowhere, the little rose placed a kiss of gratitude on the heiress' left cheek, which caused the latter to freeze in place. What was that? Weiss thought to herself, as so many different possible reasons for that kiss raced through her mind, it took all of her focus to cast this storm back to where it came from, before she drifted away again completely; that would have to wait.
"Mhm…" Jaune meanwhile nodded in agreement. Weiss just then realized that everyone had gathered around the two very closely, both fascinated and surprised by the piece of jewelry. Weiss was just happy that seemingly all of her seven friends – who were seven more than at the time she started her career as a Huntress – stood in awe of her-
"I KNEW it!" Yang suddenly exclaimed excitedly and rather amused.
"You knew what?" Weiss asked in return. The heiress already had a feeling where this was going, and she did not like it one bit.
"You have a thing for Ruby, princess," the blonde claimed with a sly, suggestive grin. Weiss immediately felt her face heat up quite a bit in anger. As the heiress feared, Yang was continuing her teasing from the day before, when she told the others about the massage so suggestively even Nora's face went red at the thought of how it had not even looked like.
"This is getting old, Yang," Weiss started to defend herself, "And besides: Just because YOU happen to have this kind of interest does not mean others around you have it." Although it was hard for her, the heiress somehow managed to stay relatively calm – she did not want to be the one ruining Ruby's birthday, after all. So she patiently let the blonde have yet another bit of fun on her and her sister's expense, as hard as it might have been. Ruby on the other hand, as Weiss noticed a few seconds later, fiddled at her cloak nervously and shyly, just the way she did right before the massage the other day. "Hey, don't listen to her," the heiress taught her partner, and guided her attention back to the present.
"Oh, something else," Ruby whispered, and unwrapped the book – the actual gift – followed by a happy smile.
"Good thing I chose the repair kit instead," Blake commented from the side lines, and smiled at Weiss.
"You could've bought one for yourself," Ruby replied, while she took a seat on the designated chair – the one with the floral arrangement on it, which now was placed next to it.
"I was very sure one of the others would get you this," Blake answered to that, as everyone else took their seats as well. "And even if I had been wrong, I could've done that afterwards, so you're kind of right, Ruby."
In the meantime the little rose just stared at the cake somewhat greedily, but most of all fascinated by it. The candles had been lit by Pyrrha, Weiss believed, while Ruby was busy with her presents.
"Make a wish, birthday girl," Yang chirped, and winked at her little sister. Weiss did not believe in this somewhat superstitious custom, but let the sisters have their fun with it.
"Oh, I know exactly what I wish," Ruby replied, took in an exaggerative deep breath, and blew out the candles in one go.
"Very good," Yang praised the little rose, "And remember: Never say it out loud, or else it won't come true." And again, another wink at her sister followed the blonde's words.
"You got something in your eye, Yang?" Ruby then asked her.
"Nah, I'm good," Yang answered.
"Okay, then: Cake time!" the birthday girl let out in a war cry like fashion. She insisted to do the first cut, to which no objection was made, and gave the first piece to Weiss very carefully. A sharp glance at Yang from both her girlfriend and the heiress prevented the brawler from making any more remarks of any nature.
However, as that topic died down, and everyone was busy with chatting, eating, drinking and having a good time, Weiss found herself unable to get the thoughts about Ruby and herself out of her head. She had a thing for Ruby, Yang had claimed. Did she mean the heiress was attracted to the little rose? What kind of attraction was she talking about, provided her – most likely playful – assumption was correct? Weiss had shown some affection to Ruby in the recent past, that was true, but it had been done in the framework of friendship and comradeship, and nothing more – on her side, at least. No, that must not be case. Weiss could tolerate, no respect anyone engaged in such a relationship, as she had proven to Yang and Blake many times by then.
"Hey, you're drifting," Ruby remarked and nudged Weiss a little bit. The heiress just took a relatively large piece of her cake, and almost swallowed it whole.
"I'm sorry, Ruby. Did you say something?" Weiss was a bit embarrassed. She had gained control of her drifting, as she and her friends have grown accustomed to call it, whenever she got lost in thought, so that it only happened rarely, and when the heiress was alone. For it to happen now, in the middle of Ruby's birthday party, there was no excuse – maybe Yang's claim, but that would reignite the discussion, and Weiss did not want that.
"I wanted to thank you for the book," the little rose replied, "I totally forgot that back there… Sorry…" she then excused herself with an adorable smile.
"You-you're welcome," the heiress stuttered nervously, and occupied her mouth with another piece of cake afterwards. Her thoughts kept going to the topic of her being interested in her partner in a much different way than simple comradeship or friendship. How did Yang even get to that conclusion to begin with? Claiming something for the sake of teasing was something the brawler had done from time to time, but the claims themselves always had some sort of basis, and were not far-fetched, at least. So why would she do such a thing to Weiss?
"And that ring is a piece of art," Ruby added after a bite of her own. "Where did you find it?"
"In the mall… 'Bejeweled Jewelry' was the name of the store, I think," Weiss answered, and watched the little rose simply admiring the object in question.
"I think I will take a look at that store myself," Ruby said rather absent-mindedly.
"And what for?" Weiss asked, out of pure curiosity.
"Maybe I'll find a matching necklace to it," the little rose simply thought out loud.
"Since I made this purchase spontaneously, I can't tell you beforehand," Weiss replied. However, the heiress liked the thought of said matching set, admittedly. But just as she started to enjoy the peaceful conversation with Ruby, all had finished their portions of the cake, and activities were demanded: Playing games, to be more precise. Weiss used the opportunity of having lost Ruby's attention to said games to slip away silently, but not without informing Blake she was gone for a quick meditation exercise. The heiress planned on returning 15 to 20 minutes later, and Blake agreed to inform anyone who might be wondering about her whereabouts. She had chosen a nearby roof terrace for her exercise.
Weiss had altered the meditation stance Ms. Grey had taught her over the past few sessions she had held by herself. Instead of forming circles with pointers and thumbs, the heiress simply put her fists on the front side of her thighs, right above the knees. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. However, this session started as a dream, rather than a question, leading to a trail of thought. She found herself in a frozen forest, at the edge of a snow covered clearing. Surrounding it were many seemingly dead trees, while right in the middle of it there was a house – just like back when she found Ms. Grey's hideout of sorts. That house, however, was a different one. This one was a memory of her childhood, for it resembled one of the dollhouses the heiress had had as a child. In fact, it was the one she still had to that day; the one gifted to her by her late mother on her 7th birthday. She remembered the layout, the living room in the center of the bottom floor, the kitchen to its left, the entrance hallway and staircase to its right. The upper floor contained the parents' bedroom, the child's bedroom, and a bathroom. The whole setting of the house was modern Atlesian, like some of the common households in the outskirts of Atlas City could probably have been arranged.
Although Weiss was not cold, the heiress could see a blizzard approaching in the distance, and because of that she decided to enter the house quickly. Curiosity simply got the better of her, as she just opened the door and went directly into the living room. As she had imagined back when the heiress used to play with the dollhouse, it was like she herself was one of the dolls. The difference, however, was no giant child's face looking inside through a missing wall; her mind had added it instead. "A lucid dream…" She whispered to herself, as she explored the house of her memories. Weiss had planned to think and reflect on the subject of her relationship to Ruby, and yet there she was, close to a childhood memory like never before. In her dreams during the past two nights she had been delving into similar occurrences: Memories of a past she tried to leave behind, which had been altered in a way that roses were involved… Ruby was involved, in a metaphorical sense.
Weiss started searching for any hints pointing towards the little rose. This was a dream, after all, so there had to be at least one such hint inside the dollhouse. In the living room, there was nothing, but the furniture made of plastic, including the fireplace. The kitchen, though rich witch dummy food, tableware and everything else a modern kitchen required, was empty as well. Her search of the upper floor provided nothing, until the heiress entered the child's bedroom, and found herself inside her dorm room instead, as if she had entered it from the hallway. There, Weiss found a little red rose, bloom closed, standing on her end table close to the window, with the flower being placed in a rather beautifully crafted vase. Upon taking a closer look, the heiress realized the rose had not been cut, but potted in it, so it would not wilt away, provided one would take care of the flower. She knew it was hers from the moment she had laid eyes upon it, and that it was probably the answer to her question, although it was very metaphorical, to say the least.
In the meantime, the blizzard had enclosed the house, with winds howling outside. Weiss noticed that through the window, which then was blown open by the raging ice storm. The wind howled deeply and threateningly, as Ruby's bed above started to swing, moved by the howling blasts thrown into the room by the storm. Weiss immediately grabbed the vase with the rose in it in order to prevent the storm from damaging it. She held the bloom close to her chest, and turned away from the window, so her body would shield it from the icy currents of air rushing into the room. These icy currents of air, however, rushed around her, and created rime on the bloom almost instantly. Weiss had to do something about it, and decided to close the window, before the blizzard could do any actual harm to the fragile flower. To that end, the heiress put the little rose under the covers of her bed, in order to get her hands free, so that she would be able to close the window against the howling currents of icy wind blasting against her, while the little rose was protected against the cold. It was a struggle that took almost all of her physical and mental strength, but at last Weiss managed to lock the window.
When Weiss turned away from it, she looked at a desolate room. Blake's books had been strewn around by the wind, some of them even damaged. The desks had been thrown over, as well. The real shock came to her, however, when she noticed that Ruby's bed had fallen on hers – where she had put the rose in order to protect it from the blizzard. "No!" Weiss exclaimed, and catapulted the bed away from the rose via a large, white propulsion glyph. The only thing that mattered in that moment was the flower, which miraculously survived the incident almost unscathed, although the vase had been cracked. There was still the rime on the petals of the bloom, which made them appear to be whitened instead of pure rose red, but despite that, the bloom started to open. A beautiful, white rose bloom was revealed, and the red petals, which acted as its shield while the bloom was still closed, simply fell off, as if they were not needed anymore. Weiss looked at the flower for a long moment, and took a deep breath afterwards. This image, this metaphor in her hands was the hint she was looking for inside this lucid dream. She closed her eyes slowly, and exhaled, while opening them back on the roof terrace she had been meditating.
"Well… That was intense…" Weiss heard Yang speak up right of her, about two and a half meters away.
"What… What do you mean?" the heiress replied a bit confused.
"You were all clenched fists, grit teeth, and shaking like in a fever," Yang explained her statement, while she sat down on the stone bench next to Weiss, two bottles of beer in hands. "What was going on inside your pretty head?" The question came out of mere curiosity, and yet Weiss asked that exact question herself.
"You do realize I'm sitting here, because of you?" the heiress asked Yang harshly in return. To that, the brawler simply offered one of the bottles.
"And I wanted to apologize for that whole thing," the blonde replied, which clarified the intent of the beer as a gesture of peace. Weiss accepted the bottle, which had been opened beforehand, and took a sip, as she was getting up from her meditation stance, just to sit down on the bench, next to Yang.
"Yang, can I ask you something?" Weiss enquired, tasting the common brewage for the very first time in her life while doing so. It was a bitter mixture, and left that taste in her mouth – the heiress quickly concluded she did not like it, but would empty that bottle regardless, out of courtesy.
"Oh?" Yang showed a bit of surprise, and took a much bigger gulp of the stuff – the brawler obviously liked it. "Ask away, princess."
"How did you manage to get together with Blake?" the heiress then asked bluntly direct, much to the brawler's surprise. And yet she was not sure where that question came from. Mere curiosity was most likely the case, however, so Weiss did not give a second thought about it.
"Uhm," Yang started her answer rather badly, "it was a day before our mission to the north east. You know, this had been going on for a while up to that point, on her part, and I just… Went full offensive mode as soon as I learned it was mutual."
"'Full offensive mode'…?" Weiss recited Yang's wording, the intention of wanting to know the meaning of that expression obvious in tone and facial expression, raised eyebrow included.
"I," the brawler scratched the back of her head somewhat embarrassedly, to which the heiress simply smirked to herself, "I went up to her, placed a kiss on her lips, and saw what happened."
"That was it?" Weiss could not believe what Yang was telling her.
"It was a bit sloppy, 'cause she tried to get away at first, but I held her… Took about five seconds for her to calm down and respond to it in kind," Yang gave a few details about the way she got together with her girlfriend Weiss did not even want to know.
"But she didn't smack you in the face for that assault?" Weiss inquired further, although she was sure she already knew the answer to that question.
"Yeah, or rather no," the brawler replied after another gulp of beer. "High risk, high reward maneuver, I'd say, and it paid off. I think it's kind of like in one of her love novels, so maybe that's why she actually fell for it… I'm just happy it turned out that way."
"As we all are," Weiss remarked, and both agreed silently to leave it at that. They returned to the common room, where the party was in full swing, as everyone enjoyed the good time they had. Someone had turned on the gaming console provided, and Jaune was dominating Ruby in a fighting game the bunch had decided to play – relatively quick matches, so nobody, who wanted to play would have had to wait long for their turn.
"Hey, not fair!" the little rose complained about the situation. Jaune had achieved a 'flawless victory' in the first round of this best-of-three setup.
"Just 'cause it's your Birthday doesn't mean I've to let you win," Jaune remarked, and even was right in that regard.
"At least be a sport and let her out of the corner," Weiss intervened nonetheless, with Pyrrha agreeing. "It's not like something important depends on it."
"Oh, sorry. My bad," he replied, and all of a sudden the match became a more even one, for Jaune let her win the second round, so that they were on even footing again. Ruby won the final round with a little bit of luck, but mostly because she outmaneuvered him. After everyone had a go at the game, even Weiss and Pyrrha, who both were exceptionally bad at it, compared to the others, provided some entertainment for everyone in the room, although neither of them knew what they were doing, exactly.
Eventually, Ms. Grey entered the common room, and watched the group of eight students sitting around the table, having drinks and eating snacks, engaged in idle chatter about something, while Weiss was not really paying attention, until the tutor opened the door.
"Good evening," she greeted, and everyone greeted her back more or less comprehensible. "I hate to be the party pooper," she then said, "but the time is half past midnight." A sudden gasp of surprise went through the group. The agreement with Prof. Goodwitch said that lights would be out at midnight.
"Sssorry," Yang slurred her speech. She had had a bit much to drink, everyone would agree on.
"We forgot the time, Miss Grey," Weiss took over the conversation, and Yang protested that she was going to say just that.
"It appears so," the relatively young tutor confirmed, "and the first complaint just rolled in. So, off you go, into your rooms. You'll clean up after yourselves at…" Ms. Grey took a brief look at her wristwatch, before continuing, "let's say half past eight – at the latest."
"Yessir, ma'am, whatever," Yang mumbled, got up, and immediately staggered towards the door. She definitely had too much to drink, Weiss was certain, after watching Yang almost fall over her own feet twice in the course of merely eight steps. Ms. Grey just smirked at that, and saw to it that teams RWBY and JNPR arrived at their respective dorm rooms without any drunken shenanigans happening along the way.
Luckily, the next day would be a Sunday, which meant more than enough time to deal with a hangover, in case such a thing would happen to anyone involved, and more importantly with cleaning up the common room. However, as the others fell asleep rather quickly, Weiss just thought about the dream she had had during her meditation. She could not get what the many metaphors she had encountered inside her mind meant, and eventually decided that she would not be able to during the night. So she cast aside the thoughts for the time being, but would deal with them the next day, when her head was clear and sober again.
The next chapter: Field trip
Hello dear readers
As it turns out, the symbolism of dreams can, and more often than not will be very cryptic. I hope the dream sequence did turn out the way it was intended to, but that would be for you to see, and comment on it.
Sincerely
Erythreas