Chapter 29: Patriarch's Prison

The imposing edifice of the Schnee Family's mansion loomed over Weiss as she stared up at it. It had been some time since she'd last deigned to visit her family's estate. She'd found it was best for her to avoid even the possibility of encountering Father since her confrontation with him many months ago regarding her sexual orientation. However, the unfortunate circumstances Weiss found herself in meant that today Jacques Schnee was exactly the man she wanted to see.

Weiss was standing in front of the mansion's main entrance, waiting for someone to answer the door. She had changed out of her casual clothing and into her best business attire. Her hair was done up in its customary bun with not a strand out of place, and her makeup was appropriately understated. It had actually been long enough since Weiss had done her own makeup that it had taken her several tries before she'd been satisfied with the results. Ruby did a much better job of it than her by this point. It had been difficult for her to not break down crying at Ruby's conspicuous absence, but she'd managed. She'd had to. It was important she look as professional as possible right now. It wasn't that she wanted to impress her father per se; rather she wanted to show him that she was still just as put together as she'd always been, despite embracing her "deviant urges".

A click suddenly came from the mansion's front door as its knob turned. The door slowly opened with a creak. Then the Schnee Family's ever faithful butler, Klein, poked his head out from behind it.

"Miss Schnee?" Klein said. Then his brown eyes turned yellow, and his face lit up. "Miss Schnee! It is you!"

"Of course. I did message you that I was coming, did I not?" Weiss asked, confused by Klein's exuberance.

"You did, Miss Schnee," Klein said. His eyes turned brown again. "But a little bit of hope can be a dangerous thing."

Weiss was concerned about what Klein had just said, but before she could ask him to elaborate, he spoke again.

"Ah! But where is my sense of decorum?" Klein said. He fully opened the mansion's door and stepped out of Weiss's way. "Do come in!"

"Thank you, Klein," Weiss said as she walked inside.

The Schnee mansion's entryway was exactly the same as it had been when Weiss had last seen it, with its vaulted ceilings, grand stairway, and prominently displayed art. Weiss supposed some things never did change, and she was pleased to see that applied to Klein as well. The man was still dressed to perfection in his waistcoat and slacks. His mustache was still impeccably groomed, and he wasn't showing any signs of his age other than his bald head.

Klein closed the mansion's front door behind Weiss. He said, "Forgive my presumption, Miss Schnee, but are you here to see your father?"

"Yes," Weiss said. "How did you know?"

"Your father hasn't been himself lately. He hasn't taken the news of your relationship with Miss Rose well, I'm afraid," Klein said. "I knew his absence from his post as the head of the Company would bring you here sooner or later."

"I see Father told you then," Weiss said.

"Told me what?" Klein asked.

"About myself and Ruby," Weiss said. She was actually surprised Father would trust Klein with what he no doubt considered to be a mortifying secret.

"Oh no. Not at all," Klein said. "But he has taken to frequently muttering under his breath as of late. I couldn't think of anything else that would make him say such…regrettable things other than you and Miss Rose."

"But…" Weiss said. "If father never told you…. How did you know? I certainly never told you."

"Indeed you didn't, Miss Schnee. But give this old man some credit. I have eyes in my head after all," Klein said. He winked at Weiss.

Weiss's mouth hung open a little. Klein had seen her around Ruby twice, maybe three times. She refused to believe that her feelings for Ruby were so blatantly obvious that Klein could have picked up on them from just those brief encounters. May's words about everyone already knowing echoed in Weiss's head, but surely that had been a joke! Weiss refused to accept that May had been serious.

"Just…" Weiss said, at a loss for words. "…take me to my father, please."

"As you wish, Miss Schnee," Klein said with a bow. "Right this way. He's in his study."

Klein began leading Weiss through the mansion. Weiss already knew where Father's study was of course, but she didn't mind Klein's presence. He had been a part of her life from the very beginning. In many ways he'd been a parental figure to her growing up, the father she'd wanted instead of the father she'd had. But sadly, she knew Klein could never supplant her actual father. He was like family to her, but he was also an employee of her family. It was a distinction that made all the difference in the world. Even so, Weiss valued and respected Klein more than she did most of her actual relatives.

"Klein…?" Weiss said. She trailed off once she realized she was about to speak without thinking first.

"Yes, Miss Schnee?" Klein asked.

Weiss braced herself and asked, "Do you think less of me because I'm with Ruby?"

Klein abruptly stopped in his tracks. He spun around and looked at Weiss with a horrified expression. His eyes had turned orange, which wasn't a color Weiss could remember seeing them before. He said, "Goodness no! Why would you even feel the need to ask that?!"

Weiss found herself without an answer, or at least without an answer that she liked.

Klein straightened up and sternly said, "Miss Schnee, never be ashamed of who you are! There's precious little you owe the world, conformity least of all!"

Weiss didn't entirely agree with Klein's point. As someone born into privilege, she genuinely felt that she did have a responsibility to both the world and society at large, but maybe she owed it to herself to care less about what the world thought of her in return. She said, "I'll take that into consideration."

"I'm sure that Miss Rose would agree with me," Klein said. His eyes once again turned brown. "She's a very lovely girl. You're as lucky to have her as she is to have you."

Weiss smiled, although it was a bittersweet smile given Ruby's current predicament. However, Weiss didn't want to ruin the moment by explaining all that to Klein, so she simply said, "Thank you."

"No need to thank me, Miss Schnee. I'm merely stating the obvious," Klein said. "Now. Let's get you to your father."

Klein turned and began walking again. Weiss followed him. She asked, "How is Father doing? You seemed concerned about him."

Klein nervously glanced over his shoulder. He said, "You'll see for yourself shortly."

Weiss wasn't sure what Klein had meant by that. However, she supposed she'd find out soon enough, as Klein had said.

Less than a minute later, Weiss and Klein were standing in front of the door to Jacques Schnee's study. Without a word, Klein reached for the door and opened it up. Weiss glanced at him, and he gave her an encouraging nod.

Weiss stepped into the study. The door closed behind her. Most of the lights in the study were off, but there was a fire blazing away in the room's built-in fireplace. At first Weiss didn't see any sign of her father, but then she spotted the crown of his head peaking up over the top of a high-backed chair behind the study's desk. The chair was turned away from Weiss, facing the room's back wall.

Weiss walked closer to the desk. She stopped a respectful distance away, mostly out of habit. Then she said, "Father."

The chair spun, and Weiss gasped. Jacques was dressed in his usual white business suit with his double-breasted blazer on, but it looked like he'd been wearing the same clothes for a week straight. Even more alarming, the roots of his hair were showing their natural black color. It had been so long since Weiss had seen her father without a head of entirely snow-white hair that she'd almost forgotten he regularly dyed it.

"Weiss. Hmph. What do you want?" Jacques asked with a noticeable slur. He reached for a half-empty liquor bottle that was sitting on his desk. He poured some of the drink into a waiting whisky tumbler. Then he lifted the glass to his lips and took a long swig from it.

"Father? Are you drunk?" Weiss asked, trying to process what she was seeing.

"Obviously!" Jacques said. "Is that why you're here? To gawk at me?"

Weiss was absolutely speechless. She'd never seen her father in such a disheveled state before, and she'd certainly never seen him drunk at such an early hour. In fact, she couldn't recall ever seeing him properly drunk at all.

Jacques finished off the rest of his liquor. Then he held up his empty glass and stared at it for a moment like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. He said, "I never understood how your mother could willingly bury herself in one of these. I'd always assumed it was a failing of good character, an expression of weakness if you will. And now look at me! Doing the same thing. It seems I was right."

Whatever nascent sympathy Weiss might have been feeling for her father, it instantly vanished the moment he mentioned her mother. Willow Schnee had died three years ago, the inevitable result of decades of alcohol abuse. It still hurt Weiss to think about it.

Weiss said, "I'm surprised you noticed Mother at all. You seemed happy enough to leave her to her drink."

"Happy? I wasn't happy about it!" Jacques said. "What kind of monster do you take me for?"

Weiss had to resist the urge to answer her father.

"I knew where her drinking would lead, I was just…too busy to intervene," Jacques said, managing to sound genuinely saddened. "I do miss her."

"Miss her?!" Weiss asked, incensed. "Why would you? The only thing you ever wanted from her was her name."

"Her name…. Hmph!" Jacques said. He poured himself another drink. "It shows how little you know! As if marrying your mother could somehow transfer her name to me."

"Did it…not?" Weiss asked. She hadn't thought Father was drunk enough to forget his own name.

"I'm not like you, Daughter! I'm not a Schnee by birth! I may have the name of Schnee legally. I may be the CEO of the Schnee Dust Company. But that does not make one a Schnee! I could see it in the eyes of the rest of the Family. I could hear the whispers of my fellow tycoons. They all knew I was a pretender to the throne. An imposter!" Jacques shouted. He lifted his glass and quickly drained it. "To them I was still Jacques Gelé. And they were right!"

"Father…" Weiss said. She had not been prepared for the direction this conversation had gone.

"But then!" Jacques said with sudden dramatic flair. "Then you came along. Winter may have rejected her birthright without even giving it due consideration, but not you! You embraced it. The day you joined the Schnee Dust Company…. That was the day my legacy was forged. That was the day I truly became a Schnee. Words cannot describe how proud I was of you."

Now Weiss was truly taken aback. During her tenure working under Father he had done nothing but berate and criticize her. Had it all been some twisted form of encouragement? Based on what he'd just said, he'd clearly wanted her to succeed, despite the fact that she'd felt the exact opposite was true at the time. But had it really been her success that he had cared about, or had it been his own?

Jacques inadvertently answered Weiss's question when he sullenly said, "And then you betrayed me. As you once aptly put it, you are my heiress. And you were, Weiss. Until you abandoned me."

Weiss's mood sank again. For just a moment she'd dared to hope that she'd found a scrap of genuine love in Father's heart. But no matter how badly she craved it, it just wasn't there. Father was the center of his own universe. Weiss saw now what Klein had meant about a little bit of hope being a dangerous thing. She wondered if Father knew that she'd been dismissed from the Company. She suspected he didn't.

Jacques continued his drunken rant, "You walked into my office and flaunted your…girlfriend in front of me. Generations of pedigree thrown away for a cheap thrill."

Weiss's eyes narrowed. She quietly said, "How dare you, Father."

"How dare I?" Jacques incredulously spat out. "How dare you! You stripped me of my legitimacy! My true claim to the Schnee name! You were my last hope."

"What are you talking about?" Weiss asked, although she didn't think she cared anymore. She couldn't believe Father had driven himself to drink over something so petty and pathetic. He was trying to ward off demons that he himself had invented.

"Three children. Three chances," Jacques said. "And they all rejected me."

"Don't fret, Father," Weiss said dryly. "You still have Whitley."

"Whitley? Whitley! Don't be absurd," Jacques said. "He's run off to that silly little art school of his. What a waste of potential."

Weiss recalled last summer when Whitley had surprised and scandalized the entire Family when he'd revealed that he had not only been secretly studying the art of sculpting, but that he'd been accepted to a prestigious conservatory. Weiss had seen some of his work. It was impressive. It would never be to her taste as she preferred abstract art whereas Whitley was wholly aligned with the neo-hyperrealist movement, but his technical skill couldn't be denied. Weiss still didn't like her brother, but her respect for him had risen tremendously that day he'd declared his intention to forge his own path.

"No, no," Jacques said. "Winter, Whitley, you. There's no one left to carry on my flame. At least your brother didn't join the military like your sister. I won't have to watch him die piece by piece."

Jacques's last statement had been something dangerously close to what a proper father might say, but Weiss realized she'd been entirely distracted from the reason she'd come here in the first place. She was wasting time she might not have. She decided that with Father in the state he was in, the direct approach would be best. She looked at him and asked, "Father, did you have anything to do with Ruby's kidnapping? Anything at all?"

"What? What are you talking about, girl?" Jacques asked.

"You haven't been working with Jaune Arc?" Weiss asked.

"The huntsman?" Jacques said. "Why would I have anything to do with him?"

"Thank you, Father," Weiss said.

Weiss turned to leave, but then she paused. She glanced over her shoulder. Jacques was pouring himself yet another drink. Weiss's memories of the guilt she'd felt when Mother had died drifted through her head. She knew she wasn't really to blame for her mother drinking herself to death, but she'd always wondered if Mother might still have been alive today if she'd made some kind of effort to help her. Father didn't garner the same level of empathy from her, but spite would do in a pinch. Father was a wicked, flawed man, but despite that, Weiss decided she wouldn't allow him to drink himself to death on her account. He hadn't earned the privilege of putting that on her conscience.

Jacques was finishing off his latest glass when Weiss marched back over to his desk. She grabbed the bottle of liquor off of it.

Jacques asked, "What's the meaning of this then?"

Weiss carried the bottle over to the fireplace and tossed it in. The fire briefly blazed even brighter as it hungrily consumed the liquor.

Jacques sighed. He said, "That was pointless, you know. There are hundreds more like it in this mansion."

Weiss turned to her father and said, "I am going to get you the help you need. But there's something more important I have to take care of first. You'll be hearing from me soon. Try not to kill yourself in the meantime."

"Hmph," Jacques scoffed. "Do you really think so little of me?"

For her father's sake, Weiss didn't answer. She turned and walked toward the study's door. Despite everything, she was glad she'd paid Father a visit. The last of her doubts were gone. She knew what she needed to do. She knew who the guilty party was. Now there was nothing left to stand in her way.

Author's Note: You've got to hand it to the Schnee children. They've all found their own unique way to disappoint their father. I don't really know where the idea of Whitley becoming a sculptor came from. It just popped into my head one day and I liked it.

I don't believe it's canon that Jacques dyes his hair. He did originally have black hair, but I believe it naturally turned white as he aged. I could be wrong though. I don't pay attention to any of RWBY's paratext like social media posts or things the crew has said in Q&As. I do, however, like me some symbolism.

(Looks like Ruby won the bet from the original story about Klein already knowing. Too bad she's not there to collect.)

As always, I welcome constructive criticism. Please feel free to leave a review. And if you like what you've read, taking the time to favorite and/or follow really helps me out. You can also find me on tumblr (electronicyarn) if you want to send me a message or be notified of updates.