Nothing of note happened for a while after this meeting. Atlas remained peaceful, and the rest of the kingdoms began to build up their strength in the wake of the Great War. The white king and the dark queen would gather their pieces, moving them around, but neither would make a move after Summer's clash with Roland. As the years grew by, however, tensions began to grow, and eventually, become a battle which would decide the fate of Remnant forever.
[ROLAND's story]
The outskirts of the kingdom of Atlas was a lawless place. Men and women of all walks of life lived out in the frozen wastes, with nothing more than a bit of Dust and outdated weaponry to eke out a living. Due to the natural cold, Grimm were not often seen, but wildlife and the hostile weather would claim enough lives as is, not to mention roving bandits who wandered the snow, hunting down any settler caught in a small band or alone in the frozen lands. The kinds of people who would move out here were, frankly, not the most pleasant bunch. Whether they were fugitives fleeing the harsh Altesean justice, or merely impoverished faunus not willing to work for the Schnee corporation, they were generally regarded with suspicion and fear from the main Altesean society. Life out here was harsh, and often too short. With the lack of clear communication due to CCT being spotty, they were also a superstitious bunch. Ghosts and strange monsters always were lurking in their consciousness, but one stood above all others in their tales, especially in their influence on their lives: the Winter Lord.
The stories began relatively early: around ten years ago, the roads around the outskirts began to become much more safe. Dangerous wildlife were much more hard to encounter, and bandits were almost never seen on the road. Sometimes, for the more notorious bandits, they were found impaled on stakes throughout the roads, with a stone tablet outlining their various crimes. The ones who were captured reported confusing and strange accounts of a new Huntsman patrolling the outskirts, one who rode a spectral horse, and was either alone or with a small band of similarly mounted knights.
Other stories began to pop up of these knights. One time, when a village was running low on supplies and on its last legs, a young woman had wandered out into a forest, seeking food or aid from other settlements. After a month, villagers thought she had either abandoned them, but instead, she returned with bundles of food, which was crucial for surviving that particular winter. Over the celebrations of surviving the winter, she had recounted her tale.
The woman had been going through a great forest, looking for a animal to hunt or a neighboring village to help. Near a shelter, she had lit a fire to keep warm, when she suddenly found herself face to face with the strange knight. He gestured for her to follow him, and as they walked, the winds eventually stopped blowing, and she saw a great castle in the middle of a forest, and a band of spectral knights tending to it. When she had spoke with him, he had wordlessly handed her a huge cache of supplies, which had to be pulled by a scavenged snowmobile. The knight had left before he within visual distance of the village scouts, and hardly said a single word.
Over the years, they neighboring villages built up a bit of a trade relationship with this knight. Whenever they were in need, a villager, usually a woman, would go into the forest and light a fire. They would return with whatever could reasonably be procured by living in the forest: food, timber, leather, and such. Occasionally, they would return with a request for an item as well. Whatever it was, it was often all over the place: a bottle of fine liquor, a container of dust, and such. Such items would be left outside of the village, and over the course of a night or two, they would be gone.
While dismissed by Altesean nobles as a fairy tale made up by the villagers to cope with living in such harsh conditions or merely an urban legend of a rogue Huntsman, the Winter Lord remained real in the minds of the villagers. He was harsh but fair, and those who sought him out were often rewarded, though few saw him directly. Over time, he became another fixture of outcast life in the edges of Altesean civilization.
Roland was always eager to help, of course. Salem had been relatively quiet recently, and the blinding of Summer Rose had weighed heavily on his conscience. In his time, war with other men was somewhat common, and he never hesitated when fighting the foes of his lord. However, it did pain him to have to fight those who had sworn allegiance to his former master. Even if Roland felt great resentment towards Ozma for leaving him to freeze all those thousands of years ago, the memory of his brothers-in-arms was still fresh in his mind. I will pray to the Brother gods for your recovery, Summer Rose. Had fate dealt us a better hand, I am sure you could've been a valiant ally. Roland thought quietly. He did not have to help the first woman who stumbled into his territory. In fact, it might've compromised his place with Salem, seeing how she would've likely wished for him to remain undiscovered and unknown throughout this region. However, after that first attempt, the nearby villages had been a great source of aid for him. While he could procure timber for fire and building, plants and animals for medicine and food, and stone for the castle, some things from civilization were harder to find. A bottle of his favorite liquor. Some dust for him to experiment with. Those kinds of things were only found in cities, and as of now he was essentially unable to step foot in one. Beyond this, it felt good to be running a little realm of his own, as he likely would've done had he escaped that ambush at the narrow pass all those years ago.
He then got up and banished such thoughts from his mind. He had a long day ahead of him.
[Summer's story]
Life as a retired hunter was a bit of a disappointment to Summer Rose. Of course, she was very glad to have escaped with her life in that fateful encounter, but domestic life was hardly what she felt she had been destined to do. Team STRQ's leader was one of the best up-and-coming huntsmen in all of Beacon, and their team was the one that caught the headmaster's eye. Before they had even graduated, they were given some of the most dangerous missions Ozpin and the Hunter's association had to offer, and of course, were one of the very few inducted into the truth of the secret war going on in all of Remnant. They were confident that they were equal to, if not better than most of the top huntsmen in service. That was before that one fateful day, where they realized how out of their league they truly were.
"Of course", thought Summer, "I could not call it unpleasant, or even a downgrade from before." She did not remain eyeless for long. Altesean technology was able to construct her a pair of eyes, which lacked the legendary silver sheen, but nevertheless helped her see as well as her original eyes. Better, even, once a few firmware upgrades helped her see in the night, see heat signatures, and even see a small overlay of her nearby teammates' Aura meters. None of which mattered, given that her biggest concern nowadays was that Ruby score badly on her latest test and that Yang got in another fight at school.
This was not the life she had dreamed of, but over a few years, she had learned to appreciate the merits of not dying in a ditch somewhere, like the fate of so many hunters before her. She had a home, her loved ones, and life on an idyllic island. Instead of hunting down Grimm, she spent her time sparring with Ruby and Yang, each of whom had unlocked their semblances and had just received training weapons.
Life was good.
For in the end, legends or powers may shape the future, but it was the unbreakable bonds forged by those who dared to stand together against the storm that allowed mankind to survive this long.
[Ruby's story]
Ruby grunted in pain as she flew through the air, Horizon Rose slamming into her side after she attempted a flanking maneuver. Even without her eyes, Summer Rose was far more than a match for her and Yang. Feeling her Aura drop low, Ruby raised a hand, signaling for a break. As she cleaned off the dust off her cloak, she heard her mother give her some feedback on her last spar.
"You're getting better, Ruby, but you're relying upon fancy tricks again. The fact is, your fundamentals are going to be far more important. You overcommitted with your scythe and gave yourself zero room for defense. One day, you're going to meet somebody who's not going to fall for this kind of thing, and you're going to wish you had trained footwork and spacing more."
Ruby nodded. "Speaking from experience?" she asked. It was a rhetorical question, as Ruby was familiar with the story. Well, part of it. As far as she knew, it was a rogue Hunter who caught Summer off guard all those years ago. She was very young when this had happened, and for all of her life, she was used to seeing her mother with those goggle-like prosthetics. Despite the crippling injury, Summer did her best with raising her and Yang. She was initially against Ruby and Yang becoming hunters (with good reason), but seeing how they were not going to quit, began to personally train Ruby, with Taiyang teaching the fundamentals of boxing and close-quarters combat.
Despite constant assurances denying it, Ruby could see that her mother still missed hunting Grimm, and this only drove her desire to make her proud even more.
Ruby admired her mother's resilience and determination. Despite the hardships she faced, Summer never let her injury hold her back. She had adapted and found new ways to contribute to the world of huntsmen, even if it meant a shift in her role. Ruby couldn't help but feel a surge of pride for her mother, and it only strengthened her resolve to become a great hunter herself.
With a letter of early admission to Beacon, she could not wait to join with her sister.
[Yang's story]
Yang growled in frustration as she looked at the blurry picture of Roland, the only scrap of evidence of this elusive knight besides vague folktales from a superstitious people or corrupted reports long ago.
Unlike Ruby, who was too young to remember those kind of things back then, Yang remembered the day Summer came home with prosthetic eyes. She had screamed in horror, and was inconsolable for the next few days. In the next few months, Summer had put on a brave front, but Yang could see the fear and confusion in the small things. She cursed when the prosthetics glitched out or when she bumped into the table at night. When Summer thought Yang was not asleep, she would have conversations with a "headmaster", asking to be sent on basic missions, only to be denied. When Yang asked about who was it who ambushed her that day, everyone always clammed up around her. It was Qrow who leaked a bit of info, and that was with a bunch of prodding which Qrow was on one of his drinking binges. With nothing more than a name, Yang set out on a one-man crusade to find this man and pay him back for the injury. Her search of the LightNet forums and crime reports had narrowed the man to a mysterious figure located in the outskirts of Atlas, which was distant dream for a mere student at Signal Academy. For now, she would train with her father and Ruby, and one day find this knight.
Roland would not escape justice, as long as Yang was alive and able to wield a weapon.
[Weiss' story]
Life for Weiss changed drastically after that assault on Schnee manor. Her father, who was hardly seen by Weiss, essentially stopped being her father after the assault, and threw himself into his work. The manor, over the years, began to become more and more fortified, until one could mistake it to be a secure compound or bunker. Her mother, deep in the throes of alcoholism, was not very present either. The only people who talked to her regularly were her older sister Winter and a few of the butlers who were around long enough that they had developed a deep relationship with the household, and as such, knew they were too valuable and knew too much to be fired so callously. Weiss had developed her summoning Semblance far faster than the rest of her family, calling forth a bird the size of a great eagle before Winter had begun to practice. Weiss chalked it up to being present during the assault on the Schnee manor all those years ago, given how some Aura theorists say that humans are able to develop their Semblance, or at least progress towards it faster, under instance of great stress and emotion.
Speaking of the assault, Weiss had attempted to find out who it was who had fought off the White Fang all those years ago, but had found no answers. She knew she was onto something. After all, Semblances like his were only kept within the Schnee family. Perhaps he was some kind of family pariah turned huntsman? Her butler Klein was not there, and the servants who were present had clammed up whenever the subject was broached. Winter had discouraged her from looking into it more, saying not to put her effort into chasing myths and rumors, and when she was old enough, enlisted in the Altesean military. Try as she might, however, Weiss could not shake the image of the knight from her mind. His skill with a sword and bravery in the face of danger still shone brightly in her memory, a stark contrast to the dull halls and robotic servants that surrounded her in her privileged life. The Schnees had long boasted of ancient nobility and honorable practices, but as Weiss looked around her, she saw nothing but a dead institution. The grand halls and opulent furnishings were merely a facade, a mockery of the ideals that their father would so proudly proclaim during shareholder meetings and company speeches. Despite her upbringing in this world of wealth and privilege, Weiss was not blind to the truth. Her father and his wealthy associates had carefully hidden the uglier side of their business dealings from her. But she had heard the whispers, the murmurs from those outside their elite circle. To them, the Schnee name was synonymous with sweatshop labor, morally questionable mergers and acquisitions, and all that was wrong with the cut-throat world of industry. It was no wonder that Weiss felt compelled to break free from this corrupt legacy. As soon as she deemed herself capable enough, Weiss made the bold decision to enroll in Beacon Academy. She knew that her credentials were more than sufficient for admission, and it didn't hurt that rumors of a mysterious knight fighting one of the former students at this prestigious school also piqued her interest.
With determination burning in her veins, Weiss set out to find this enigmatic knight. For she believed that with him by her side, they could work together to restore honor and glory to the once-great house of Schnee. And perhaps, in doing so, she would finally find a sense of purpose beyond the confines of her family's tainted legacy.