Yang peeked around the last corner— empty, as expected. With a quick gesture, she motioned the group into the short hall.

Down the stretch of empty corridor was a large double-door, almost as huge as the doors at the front. "I thought we were going to the gardens," Ruby remarked, "why's there a big door?"

Weiss stepped forward, wrapping a hand around one of the ringed handles. "The wall here is shorter, but the door would keep it isolated if we were besieged."

Ruby opened her mouth to ask another question, but the words were stuffed back in her throat as pure magnificence greeted her, courtesy of Weiss opening the door.

Flowers of every shade and hue assaulted her vision, starkly contrasting the vibrant green backdrop of dense plant life. Every surface teemed with flora, save for the outer wall, which aptly fit Weiss' description.

The stones still reached taller than a man's height, but it was only topped by a slightly shorter stretch of wrought-iron fencing. It was considerably shorter than the rest of the palace walls, almost certainly to allow light into the garden.

"We still can't get over this," Blake stated, crossing her arms as she frowned at Weiss. "Did you just bring us here to waste time? Or is this some kind of trap?"

Weiss whipped around to the fay, nearly blurting a barrage of defensive insults before she caught the chastising look from Ruby. With extreme effort, she recomposed herself and addressed Blake with venomous cordiality. "No, Blake, I did not bring you here as a trap. I brought you here because I can get us out of here."

"And how do you know that?" Replied Blake, unmoved.

"This is how I escaped," Weiss nonchalantly answered. "It was quite simple."

Blake rolled her wrist, imploring the heiress to explain.

"Watch," Weiss requested as she kneeled in front of the wall, then slipped her fingers into the dirt. "I can use the plant—"

"Weiss?"

Everybody turned at once, weapons drawing. If Weiss hadn't needed to catch Ruby as the spin made her collapse, it would've been impressive.

Hiding her strain as she helped the smith right herself, Weiss muttered, "Mother."

Even if she hadn't said it outright, it was obvious— this woman, especially when viewed more closely than tourney stands allowed, was the spitting image of her daughter. Save, of course, for the more advanced age and extremely pregnant belly.

"I knew you'd come here," the woman slurred, taking a swig from the dark bottle in her grasp. She cast a slow look back around the garden. Fondness slowly crested her face. "Do you remember our gardens?"

Weiss sighed. Running into her mother was not what she'd planned, but at least she wasn't trying to kill her. "Of course I do," she answered.

The Schnee matriarch didn't seem to register her daughter's answer, and just kept talking. "Frolicking, reading, your little play-fights with Winter… snowmen…" her drunken voice drifted off, "little snowflake…"

"Mother," Weiss felt her heart tug her towards Willow, the memories too touching to ignore, but Ruby's hand kept her still. When she turned to the smith, she was greeted by an empathetic shake of her head.

"Who are your little peasant friends?" Willow asked. When she actually looked at her group, her eyes snapped to Ruby, and she began stomping up to the girl. "You— Rupert!"

Ruby rapidly sheathed her weapon and defensively raised her hands, but Willow didn't immediately attack her. Instead, she merely stood a couple feet from the smith, a dopey smile rising over her lips.

"So you're my Weiss' little toy," she drawled, her hand reaching out to cup Ruby's face. She moved her around, her features scrunching up as she grew pensive. After another moment of observation, her hand suddenly flew down and pulled Ruby's cloak open. "You are! Ha! Hahaha haha! Gods— and Jacques really— ha ha haaaa!"

Ruby watched the woman lose herself to laughter. She doubled over as she backed away, spilling drops of deep wine as the bottle wildly swung.

"You know, Weiss, I don't really see why your father is so worked up about this, you're just having a little fun," she took a gulp that made even Yang shiver, "Watcher knows I've done the same."

Ruby looked to the heiress. She was, as one could expect, mortified. What few ounces of color residing within her skin had long since fled, leaving her paler than a sun-bleached bone.

"Whaaat?" Slurred Willow. "Please, I know you've seen me… sneak off with Leliandre."

Weiss' mortification somehow doubled. "Leliandre? The cook?"

Willow giggled. "Lily, Lily…"

"Mother, stop!"

"Why?" Willow asked.

"I am not…" Weiss fumed, her face going beet red before she stomped up to her mother. She gripped her bottle-hand at the wrist, seething as she spoke. "I am not sneaking out for a bloody tryst, mother. I am leaving. With Ruby. She's…"

"Leaving?" Willow's eyes went wide, then sharpened as she suddenly slapped her daughter. "Leaving me? You're leaving me with him? With this… thing he put in me? You'd leave your own mother, just for the first girl that made you—"

Ruby stepped forward to defend Weiss, but the heiress spoke for herself. "We did not sleep together!" She shouted, making her mother jump. "Gods, you… Mother, I am leaving because you and him have conspired to have me carted off with some brute like that Winchester— I'd be leaving either way! At least this way is on my terms."

"On your own…" Willow slurred, her eyes beginning to swim with tears. "You'll be all alone, Weiss. Stay here with me, please."

Weiss stared at her mother, heart torn. Even as every logical part of her mind screamed that Willow was manipulating her, evident from the sting that still lingered on her cheek, it was her mother. She'd brought Weiss into the world, and she'd been so good for so long. Even now, in those swimming irises so much like her own, she could see a glimmer of what once had been.

"She's not alone," Ruby broke the veneer of Weiss' thoughts, laying a warm hand on the heiress' shoulder. "I'll be with her."

Willow opened her mouth to rebut, but another voice spoke over her— Yang's. She gave a rapturously loud groan, begrudgingly saying, "If Ruby's going to be there, I will too."

Four heads turned to Blake, who rolled her eyes and sighed. "Sure, if it gets us out of this gods-forsaken place."

A breeze crested the wall— surely a phantom of the tempestuous gales the plains had subjected Yang and Blake to— and sent a loud rustling through the shrubs, the flowers, the grasses, and the towering magnolia. Weiss shrugged the hand off her shoulder and turned back to the wall, kneeling down once more to bury her fingers in the dirt. "Goodbye, mother."

"W-Weiss?" Gods, her resolve nearly broke right there, but Weiss kept her mind on her Aura and stretched it deep towards the roots. "Weiss, please, you can't— I… I won't let—"

A thick lattice of ivy rungs shot up the wall, tangling and wrapping together as their forms mingled. Small buds bloomed across the vines. Weiss pulled her hands free of the soil and sighed. When she was the first to step onto the ladder of flora, her mother cried out again.

"You little harlot! Get— Agh, get back down here, this instant!"

Blake was the first to follow, departing the Schnee matriarch with a fay gesture of rudeness; thumb and pinkie extended, she quickly swept them over her face, then continued her climb.

"You're— shim! You corrupted my precious Weiss!"

Yang snorted and followed, getting a few feet up before extending a hand to the beleaguered Ruby.

"Lady Schnee," Ruby said as she clasped hands with her sister, who hoisted her up and held her in place until her grip of the vines was secure. "I don't think you're a very good mom."

Willow let out a cry of rage and threw her bottle. It shattered against the wall, succeeding only in staining Ruby's already-bloodied tunic. As the four climbed, she tried to follow, but was too drunk to even get a foot up. In the end, she collapsed at the foot of the ivy lattice and wept.

Weiss screwed her eyes shut as she crested the wall, pushing tears down her face, but doing nothing to drown out the sound of her own mother's wails. Before she could look back, she threw herself over the fence.

AN: hey i wasnt gonna skip a week and just drop one chapter lol.

in other news TC is going swimmingly, it just takes AGES to get edited. ive got like 4 chapters done right now, maybe 5, just waiting to be edited, so i should be able to push out at least one by/over the weekend. man, i hope yall love this penny, because I fucking do.

as usual, thanks for reading!