Ruby's feet pounded against worn flagstones. She breathed hard, heart slamming in her chest.
She hit Weiss Schnee.
Weiss Schnee had tried to grope her!
She is a noble lady! She has the right to touch her subjects— that's how it works!
Ruby's head swam as the internal debate raged. Her feet beat the stones.
"Who is he!" Weiss loudly interrogated, finger poking hard into the blacksmith's chest. "She!"
The smith shrugged. "Don't know."
Weiss' face grew red, brows furrowing. "I am your lady! You will tell me who she is!"
"You're not my lady," he corrected, holding up his hand. A golden band adorned one of his fingers. "I've only got one of those."
The heiress growled in frustration, her hand pulling her cloak aside to reveal her rapier. "I will makeyou tell me if I must, I saw you talking to her!"
The smith scoffed. "Oh no, a sword," he mocked, and turned his back on her. "Whatever will I do."
Weiss drew the sword, aiming to threaten him with it. Only, she found that he'd turned in the blink of an eye and wrapped his thickly gloved hand around the heiress' thin blade. The smith wrenched the rapier out of her hand. "Hey!" Weiss shouted. "That is a family heirloom, unhand it this instant!"
The smith gave her a stern look, his gaze brimming with patriarchal authority. "Only if you get out of my smithy."
"I will not! Not before you tell me who she is!"
He rolled his eyes. "She's my apprentice, wanted to make a late visit to help with my order."
Weiss eyes him. She knew he was lying— that girl was Rupert— but she had no way to disprove him. "Tell me the truth before I have you arrested," she threatened.
"As if," the smith countered. "Schnee girl, out this late, hiding under a cloak and wearing a sword? Your father would sooner have you arrested."
Weiss floundered, lips angrily flapping. Not only was he immune to her threats, he had read her like a book! To be outwitted by a simple tradesman… she felt helpless. The heiress' shoulders sagged. Her fingers absently traced the fading red mark on her cheek. "She… hit me."
"You did try to grope her."
"I did not!" Weiss responded, indignant. "I was just…" her words faded and her face turned red. What else could she possibly have been doing?
The smith shrugged and sighed. "I won't judge you. Different people like different tools," he remarked, holding up his own hammer to demonstrate.
"Wha…" Weiss trailed off, eyes moving to the hammer Rupert had left on the anvil. Her voice became absent, her words quiet. "She's… a smith?"
The man snorted. He crossed the smithy with lumbering steps, back to the work area Rupert had manned before. He lifted one of his— her finished nails to his face and examined it with a slow turn of his wrist. A gleam of respect crossed his gaze. "A pretty damn good one, at that. Might've actually taken a good chunk off my work if you hadn't chased her off."
His gaze turned on Weiss, whose blush intensified. She felt lesser around this man, like an intruder. Though, considering she was in his smithy, that was apt. "S-sorry."
"Get out, girl," he commanded. "I've got work to do."
Weiss nearly moved to leave, but her gaze wouldn't leave Rupert's hammer.
"I said leave."
Weiss reached for the tool, but found a thin line of silver blocking her path— Myrtenaster, held in reverse by the smith's gloved hand. She met his eyes.
"Don't forget your family heirloom," he sarcastically intoned, lifting the blade until the hilt was right in Weiss' face. She gingerly took hold of her rapier.
"T-thank you, ser…"
The man didn't meet her eyes as he began setting Rupert's nails into a crate— save for the one she'd gracelessly squashed. "Rainart, and don't call me ser," he said, speaking with unfamiliar somberness. "Don't thank me, neither. Ain't done nothing for you."
Weiss absently nodded, defeat settling in her bones. She turned to leave, deflated.
"Oh, and take this," the gruff voice made her turn again, finding a hammer being shoved in her face— Rupert's hammer. "You're still going to find her, right?"
The heiress blinked and took the proffered tool. It sat heavily in her hand. The head's metal had been dulled from heavy use, but it was free of cracks or chips. She could picture it in Rupert's hand, striking hot metal just as gracefully as it had struck Neptune's jaw. It was heavy for an instrument of labor. If Rupert really was a smith, he would have to be swinging it for hours on end, bringing sweat to his brow and strength to his arms. Her arms.
Weiss stared at the tool. Why was she blushing?
"Girl!" The voice made her jump. "Get the hell out of my smithy!"
Ruby collapsed against a wall, heaving her lungs out. Her legs burned, and her feet were actively rebelling against their continued use. She cast her weary gaze around her; she'd landed herself in an alley with a dead end, flanked by storeys of crusty wooden frames and filthy stonework on all sides.
She slumped against the back wall, letting herself slide down until she sat cross-legged. Ruby sighed, defeated.
Tears pricked at her eyes, which she hastily covered with her arms. Lost, exhausted, and alone in the middle of the night, she sobbed. It was over. She, a simple girl of low birth, had smacked Weiss Schnee. She couldn't go back to the tournament, not if she wanted to live her life outside of an oubliette— assuming they didn't execute her outright.
Even if she could return, how would she? She was exhausted, and Yang and Blake were probably drunker than her uncle. Who's to say that she'd even survive this night? She may not have experienced Vale's nightlife, but she was not so ignorant to assume it was without wandering vagabonds, or worse.
Exactly the kind of people who would love to find her here, tired and lost, with nobody coming to her rescue. Ruby wailed into her sleeves.
Voices. Footsteps, heavily thumping outside of the alley. A spark of hope brought her head up. Had the Watcher guided her friends back to her?
"Fff… fuck'n… shit, mate," the voice stamped that spark to nothing. Not Yang, not Blake. Men. Ruby's muscles seized tight and she pressed herself against the wall, hoping to meld with its stones. "That fuck'n… bitch. The fuck does she think she— hic— is? I'm a paying cus'mer."
"I dunno, Russ, you—"
"Fuck that wench!" The shout made Ruby jump, then shrink even further into herself. She knew that voice. "Sky gave 'er what, ten gold pieces?"
"Dove, he—"
"He had the right!" They were coming closer. Ruby tried to reach for her weapon, but her whole body was frozen solid. "Ten fuckin' pieces! She's just a barmaid, so what if he touched her? She should feel honored!"
"Yeah, honored!"
"I guess…"
The voices encroached, then became clear as their bodies passed the wall. They continued their argument as they walked into Ruby's view, confirming her worst assumption: Dove, the man who had nearly killed her in the tourney, walked drunkenly astride two others, arms aggressively flailing as he defended his friend. Thankfully, they passed Ruby's alley without even looking her way, then disappeared around the corner once more. The smith sighed.
"Wait guys, I gotta piss, I'll just…"
Dread once again sank into Ruby's bones as Dove appeared around the corner in a rush, fumbling for his belt. He glanced Ruby's way as he approached the alley's wall, ignoring her at first, then doing a double-take. He met her eyes, hands freezing at his waist. "You…"
Ruby scrambled to her feet, then fell against the wall as her head rushed with dizziness and her exhausted legs gave out. Bracing one arm against the wall, her other reached for her ham—
Her hammer was gone. Why was her hammer gone? She'd left it on the anvil, of course, because she had slapped a noble heiress and then run herself ragged. Her heart dropped into her stomach, hand reaching for something, anything else on her belt.
"You're Rupert the fucking Red," Dove said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "You fucked me."
Ruby's fingers wrapped around her falchion's hilt.
Dove chuckled, quietly at first, before giving in to loud, uproarious peals of laughter. He craned his neck back to the entrance of the alley, shouting. "Lads! Look what I found!"
AN: yeah hazel never actually left lmao