Glynda sat at her desk, staring at the small group in front of her with discontent and drumming her nails on the large desk around the same tempo as the giant clock ticking away.
"Ciri- no, ms.rivia I should say," she mentally smiled a bit at the shift ciri made at the switch to all out professional and not work colleague, "can you please explain why, as the headmistress of this academy I'm the last to know about this?"
Ciri stood as best she could to the headmistress' ire like she'd done with the brotherhood of magic and calmed her chaos like Jennifer had taught her to. But Jennifer was easily the only person who knew where her cracks were and how to help fortify when nerves overcame her.
"Headmistress, I feel no need to explain my intentions further, you heard what my terms were so I'd think no need to run this past you" she said confident and clear as day while standing firm to the coming verbal backlashing glynda possibly had in store for her.
Around ciri stood Ironwood, port, oobleck, salem, and qrow. All five adults -one immortal exempt as one- stood there with varied reactions to what ciri had just said but stayed silent. Ironwood hoped she'd amend her statement, qrow drank from his flask chuckling a bit, oobleck and port both froze at her words and grew fretful the more she'd spoken to glynda like that; Ciri was unbothered.
Salem was the only one of the seven adults in the room that hadn't cared what ciri had said because it was technically her choice and ciri was no one's to order around. In her eyes ciri was unbound and truly free just as geralt was but just physically better that his daughter.
"If you feel the slightest bit more-"
"Headmistress, if your threats are towards my job, I'll quit now and save you the headache, but I will not step through every door allotted to me to get results" ciri interjected placing two binders full of paperwork and stood back where she'd been standing.
Glynda pushed the binders aside and said "as I was saying. If you feel slightest bit more inclined to look into this as Mr. Rivia had been I just wished you'd been more open to us for information; the sigma project was successful but also a failure so to speak"
Salem stepped forward and tapped ciri on the shoulder before whispering "I can give you my darling's exact location along with who reaper is with; baron and his little 'saviors' invade my lands like a nest of parasites and somehow found ways around my grimm so I'd love the lot found and killed and im not forsaking a promise to cirilla here, she deserves all of your help" before slinking into the shadows like an ice cube melting on the summer sidewalk after she mocked them. "Think it all over; you humans are interestingly simplistic arguing rather than just acting like the days of old."
Oobleck and port stepped forward and handed glynda boxes of food (four in total) full of homemade dinners "as odd as it is working with the bane of humanity and faunaskind I believe she's been very helpful" oobleck said giving her a pile of documents pertaining to the usual things she dealt with.
"Thank you, Bart, but I doubt it's because of what's happened to geralt nor ciri; that queen has a hidden agenda," she replied, stamping the first document and moved on to the next.
"Headmistress- glynda I do boldly say, that thing is the very enemy we've fought to bring down," he got close as he leaned in, mere inches from her ear. "She'll cut our lives short if we just trust her on a few whims of comradree; falsehood is her lifeblood I say!"
Ironwood said sighed as he listened to what everyone said and spoke up "I think we should keep you well armed and work harder to rid our kingdoms of baron and his groups spanning almost 68 percent of vale alone; remnant's easy ways of being swayed by silver tongues and sweet words needs to be staunched like a bleeding wound. Worse of all I think is that the old fang members that never resolved their hatred is the bulk of the saviors and atlas is purging grimm easir thanks to the walking beacon of pure evil...off the record I think she's too old to obsess over some dead man as cole valentine" that last bit made qrow choke on his liquor laughing.
Getting himself under control qrow croaked out "we train children to one day sacrifice lives -even theirs- fighting grimm and people alike, and your concerned over her reviving a corpse to fuck and marry; im not one to look gift horses in the mouth, but if we help her and she's happy I don't much care...plus if salem dies grimm still exist, so I guess I'll borrow a page fron Irondick and say, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' or something like that."
Ironwood glared at his mockery and ignored the last comment. "True enough, we do fight grimm and people alike. Yes we do have young teens and some are trained even younger, but unlike most assumptions about what I am or am not I believe every single one of the students in the four kingdoms deserve to be kids a bit longer than 4 years; let them know that it's okay to have fun and choose to survive over dying for 'honor' and 'duty' of the kingdoms or deplorable depictions of glory and grandeur" he said before he turned around and left in the elevator visibly more calm but not any less upset at their shitty choices to fight salem and 'the saviors' while preparing the next generation for the war he abhorred they fight alongside children.
"Oz, I'm sorry, but I have to tear down what you built with us," he whispered, clenching his fist with frustration and a resolve reserved for the doctor he'd hunted since Dr. merlot disappeared.
Yang clicked the group on her scroll labeled as 'spy and pry' hit call and not a second after the call was picked up she said as calmly as she could "Weiss and tauras are going to get coffee, we should make sure they aren't interrupted, who's down for helping me?"
No answer. Not a single person said a word for a full minute.
"Yang as your sister I must stress these next few words 'cause I love you but..." Ruby trailed off sighing exasperatedly.
"You won't hurt her feelings, just say it red team leader" nora said with pans clattering in the background "before I say it"
"Me too" ren called our
"Same here" jaune yelled, slashing a droid in half panting hard.
"Fine, yang we're all grown ass adults, none of us are going to help you and honestly it's the most retarded thing you've ever come up with; weiss is a woman with her own life so just stop intersecting and just get a damn life!" Ruby ranted and slammed her scroll closed ending her call.
"Best of luck sunny dragon" nora said cheerily ending her call ren said nothing so he hung up with her.
Jaune took a few steadying breaths in and sighed "I'd love to help but we learned the hard way with interfering where we shouldn't, sorry yang" and jaune hung up shortly after.
In a huff, yang stomped down the halls glaring.
"So...do you want it black with two sugars or do you want a diabetic concoction?" Adam asked, looking at the menu closely.
"I'd like black with three sugars" she said polite as ever just as he stepped forward.
"Feeling adventurous, I see," he teased, she smirked but said nothing as he stepped up to the counter and said placing a 15 lien card down "I'd like a tall black with three sugar cubes and...one tall chili powder chocolate mocha with two bacon breakfast sandwiches"
"Those aren't sold this late sir, it's five in the afternoon" the batista said flat and drone like.
"Then just the coffees" he said giving him a ten lien tip.
Weiss took note of his actions and stared at him like he'd had a third arm and a second head.
"What's that look for schnee?" Adam asked, raising an eyebrow softly smiling.
"Your quite kind for an officer of the fang of old" she joked seeing him confused by her slight giggle.
"I am still capable of being kind and polite princess schnee" he mockingly bowed like her suitors had when Jaques pushed her for marriage. "Not all of us are bloodthirsty,"
Both laughed a good bit and sat down near the counter so they could grab their drinks. To pass the time, weiss grabbed a pen from a cup on the table twirling it around, not knowing what to talk about other than to waste time but she thanked the gods that Adam hadn't let the area stop him from the reason they came to the Café in the first place.
"You want to enjoy our coffee before or after we compare traumatic near death experiences?" Adam broached, hoping to really talk while hiding no impatience or straightforwardness to keep her attention on him.
"I'd prefer if we talked about it during coffee. Some subjects just feel better talked about drinking and eating,"
Adam smiled a bit at that and grabbed their coffee from the counter, motioned to the tables outside. Weiss followed after him with little complaint since she was starting to feel uneasy around people in the Café but couldn't place why.
Picking a spot outside Adam opted for the seat closest to the road facing his back while Weiss got the seat under the shade, "so...who should go first" she asked feeling a bit self conscious about this now.
"If it's not too much, I'll go first," he said, taking a drink of the coffee, 'hmm-ed' then brought out a flask, then dumped the contents into his drink. "Fair warning, this will bring up shared pain"
"What do you mean shared pain adam" she eyed him suspiciously.
Taking a deep breath, he went into his coat pocket and brought out a picture of Blake and him laughing at a party banners in the background and drinks in hand...it was a very happy picture despite the tear stains.
"This was the day we joined the white fang back when it all was about free rights marches and people giving out pamphlets to make the population of remnant see and hear us for the people we were rather than as animals."
"But I thought any faunas could join...why party to celebrate?" She questioned, drinking her coffee
"The party was because it was my birthday and Blake had set up the whole thing" he replied taking the picture and slipped it in her hands to keep it, "i don't need it anymore."
"Why tell me this, I thought we were here to talk about our experiences?" She pressed, pocketing his picture.
"Simple weiss, because when I had killed out of it being a last resort it scarred me and Blake tried comforting me...but the day she found me with the brand on my face I almost put a dust pick in her neck and I'd already been starved, beaten and worked to the bone so I'd become the monster remnant had seen me for when she finally left the fang and abandoned me...who the hell saves someone the same day only to abandon them just as fast."
"Adam" she sighed "I was on the train headed to vale from mistral the day you tried bombing it, Blake saved my life...albeit at the cost of your relationship with her as mentor and student"
"You knew one side of this already?" He felt the old wounds from years ago start mending bit by bit hearing that.
"I do yes, she told us when that day turned you into what cole had become" Taking a deep breath weiss suppressed a few tears. "I looked into her murder and siena Kahn was the one to kill- no, that monster tortured her and then killed her"
Adam handed her his flask and said "Atlesian vodka?"
She looked at the flask and went into a slight laughing fit dumping the rest into her coffee, "th-Thank you Adam, I apologize for laughing but it's just ironic that the man who hated the sdc, and most of atlas drinks my kingdom's alcohol"
"I'm serious about this weiss, I loved Blake like family, her parents want to forgive me but I can't go back when siena lives while Blake is gone"
She looked into Adam's eye and said putting a hand on his "if you want I can help you still, it just might take some convincing for my mother and sister to help me get you our best doctors. Any other way is on the table"
Adam felt angry at this and pulled away emitting a blood red cloak "am I that ugly that you want to wipe this scar from my face" standing he intensified the aura and clenched his fists, "just fix what is and be done with seeing it?"
Weiss stood up with the same energy and bore into his gaze like a drill going up against a freight train. "Adam, I am going to be giving you your sight back without asking for anything in return because you deserve it, not because I'm ashamed of what the sdc did I swear on this I don't do this for any moral gain!" Her aura once glowing white was now a pale blue like her eyes.
Both stared each other down while auras flared like angry nests of rapier wasps. On one end was the former heiress trying to make steps to amend her family name from the tarnished ruins. On the other Adam was furious she would bring it up like it was a casual topic that he'd agreed to without even going to her mansion to see a doctor for consultation or even a phone call of how it would work or how long it's going to take.
"One sentence, you got one damned sentence to explain why I should get this FIXED" Adam pointed to his left eye and then slammed his fist into the table snarling.
She receded her aura and looked him the eye "because when I see you Adam I swear cole is standing in front of me"
Adam recoiled like she'd just slapped him across the face and lost the threatening aura fast "what are you implying with this?" He asked unable to grasp her explanation.
"What I mean is, cole had scars that he hid from everyone and his most hated were the grey scars from his lightning burns so I did gene therapy and even skin care to try and remove them while he was at beacon but his weren't amendable, but yours is and I can only guess how much pain it's wrought you"
He felt everything in him just vanish in an instant as she spoke. Weiss Schnee, the ex-huntress, former heiress to the SDC company, and now trying to change remnant's perception of her by just being a decent person.
"Fine, but if half my face ends up mutilated more that it was already and this goes horribly wrong I will kill you" he replied downing his coffee and walking down the street with her close beside him.
"I can definitely make your apprehension disappear when my family doctors show you how you'll look afterwards"
On the rooftops a good few hundred feet away yang followed behind them with an ear bud in listening to their conversation the whole time. "This was a giant waste; is her answer to help everyone buying what they don't or can't pay for?" She ranted heading back to beacon to tell everyone in person about this but it now seemed like a waste of their time too, just the curiosity will peak their interest regardless anyway so it was a win-win.
Sometimes things yang hoped for were only that, hopes for a future with crushed expectations, hell her biggest target was still getting answers from raven.