'You're done. Take a break. I'll wait.'

Weiss blinked, the voice in her head snapping across her mind like a broken bowstring. She shook her head, throwing her gaze around as the world returned to her. "Whu… what?"

Blake and Qrow huffed deep, beleaguered breaths, both hunched forward onto walking sticks that she'd never seen them acquire. Their eyes drooped along the forest floor, half-lidded and shadowed by thick, dark rings. Weiss looked back down their path.

Red as far as the eye could see, a singular tunnel of cut vegetation flanked by towering maroon trunks, stretching on until it disappeared behind a dusty pink haze.

'Hey. Princess,' snapping sounds in her mind— apparently the sword had fingers to snap. 'Sit and unhand me. Hey!'

Weiss shook her head, but that only allowed the fog to seep into her brain, rapidly flooding her skull with a fatigue so intense that it made her gasp. She stumbled on her legs, barely catching herself on a tree trunk. "What happened?"

'I took the reins. Don't you remember?'

Weiss tried to force the haze in her mind to part, but it fell heavy like a chainmail curtain. She could vaguely remember something. Boredom. An insistent voice. A sore body. Reluctance. A promise.

The exhaustion struck her all at once, forcing her to collapse against the reddish trunk. "That… that was…" she whispered— her throat was dry, as if she'd eaten a bucket of dirt, though the inside of her mouth felt like it had been mud, instead.

'About two days ago.'

She wished she had the energy to express her shock, but it took everything she had to shift herself so her back was against the tree. Blake and Qrow mindlessly meandered on a few more steps before the former noticed that Weiss stopped.

"Oh," was all the fay managed before she fell forward, her stick falling aside as she face-planted directly into the soft, soft dirt. Almost immediately, a light snore rose from her supine form. Weiss watched impassively. She was thirsty. And hungry.

Qrow seemed to manage himself better, though, and only dropped to a knee. "Finally," he muttered, even hoarser than usual. "You okay, Schnee?"

Weiss forced her eyes to stop falling when her name was called. "What?"

"Are. You. Okay?" Qrow slowly repeated, drawing his cape apart. Bottles lay in strange leather sheaths along his belt, though his disdain at each one pulled showed their fullness— that being nonexistent.

Weiss was struck with a hazy flash of memory— her hand around the neck of one of those bottles. "Did I…"

Qrow scowled, and she only just noticed how green he looked. "We all did. I feel sick."

Weiss blinked. Two days on nothing but wine. Crook and bloody cane, how was she still alive?

'You needed liquid. I let you have it. Don't be ungrateful— there are worse ways I could've used you.'

The sword was still in her hand, so she let it fall from her fingers. Its blade sighed into the loam. "Two… days?"

Qrow blinked. "What?"

"Two days," Weiss' voice ghosted. "And we're…"

"Still here," Qrow sighed. "Watcher's fucking gaze."

'You humans seem to say that a lot,' the sword idly commented, its voice muffled through the haze in Weiss' head. 'Watcher this, Shepherd that.'

Weiss was shaken awake by Qrow's hand— she didn't even notice she'd fallen back asleep. He steadied himself with one arm on her tree, clearly not faring much better. "Stay awake, Schnee. Sustenance before sleep."

He said it like he was quoting somebody, but Weiss wouldn't know who. Probably some Huntsman… or something…

"Awake!" He shook her again. "Stay awake! Eat first!"

Weiss groaned, forcing her eyes to stay open. "We don't have food, you drunk."

The insult rolled off of the Huntsman like… like something that rolled. A wheel? Weiss was too tired to think. "There is food," Qrow vaguely insisted.

Weiss tried to muster her best 'are you an idiot' look in response, but she couldn't feel her face well enough to gauge it.

'Don't worry, it's not very good.'

Weiss' head tipped back against the tree. "And just where are you keeping this food?"

Qrow rolled his eyes, then jerked his chin upwards indicatively. He had a small knife between his supporting hand and her tree trunk— one of Blake's, judging by its squat design. Weiss could've been miffed that the fay hadn't used it to cut the plants in her stead, but she couldn't find the energy to be anything but tired. Stupid thing wouldn't have cut much anyways.

Qrow stabbed it into the tree trunk above her, jolting her awake once more. The hand he kept shaking her with had left at some point, and now held one of his many bottles up to the arbor wound. She couldn't see what he was doing from her angle, so she just assumed his mind was finally lost.

A hand tapped her cheek— she'd fallen again into slumber's pull— as Qrow held a bottle to her face.

"Drink." He ordered.

Weiss turned up her nose. The thought of more wine made her stomach curdle. "I'd rather die."

"It's not wine," he promised.

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "What is it, then?"

Qrow pursed his lips and matched her brow. It was a paternal look, mildly scolding, one that tickled memories Weiss had long since thrown into a pit.

"It's sap," he nodded towards the corpse-like, slumbering fay. "Blake said it'll nourish us."

Weiss was proud that she still had enough sense to be cautious. "Then why haven't we been drinking it instead?"

Qrow frowned, a little guilt making his gaze avert hers. "It has… other effects."

Weiss half-nodded, waiting for him to elaborate. Qrow tried to wait her out, but Weiss had no plans on making such a brash folly; she'd rather sleep than accept defeat.

"You could… see things, things that aren't real," the Huntsman cautiously explained. "Blake wanted to avoid any of us, er, acting out."

Weiss scoffed. "Well then I'm certainly not going to drink it."

Qrow took on another fatherly look, though it was less reminiscent of Weiss' oldest memories. It stoked something fresher, more annoyed at her constant insubordination, more innately furious at her simple existence. "Just drink the fucking sap, Weiss!" Qrow scrunched his face tight and schooled his anger. "It's that or die— I sincerely doubt you'll have the energy to wander. If you do, I'll stop you."

"You're drinking it too," Weiss pointed out.

"And leave you two unattended?" Qrow scoffed. "No, I've survived worse for longer."

Weiss didn't really have the wherewithal to question that, but she did have enough to maintain an outright refusal. "I won't. I don't trust this place— I'd rather sleep to death than let some shim thicket have its way with me."

Qrow pressed the bottle closer, gracelessly mashing it into her cheek. "And leave my niece weeping over your corpse?"

All of Weiss' resolve hung in her throat, swinging lifeless like a man in a noose.

"If you two really are… 'courting'," he said with more than a little disdain, though Weiss couldn't pick out which of the myriad reasons that could be for, "then surely you wouldn't want to break her heart. She's a very sweet girl, Weiss. If you did that, I'd have to pry you from the flock myself."

She glared, but quickly took the bottle. He gave it up easily. He didn't even smirk as she'd suspected he would. She held it to her mouth for a long while— it was sap, after all— but the stuff did eventually reach her tongue. When it met her tongue, she nearly cried. It was the best thing she'd ever tasted. Well, second best. She didn't think Qrow would like what the first was.

Gentle, but spiced like hot cinnamon. Thick, but somehow spreading itself over her taste buds like water. Sweeter than the finest cake, rich and full like a refreshing glass of milk, bitter and decadent like cocoa and coffee, deep and herbal like a seasoned lamb, every inch of her tongue was supremely delighted with each coming drop.

Her second hand clutched the bottle as she greedily lapped at its contents, and she found herself furious when Qrow snatched it away again.

"Alright, that's enough," he admonished, "save some for Blake."

Weiss tried to swipe it back, a vestige of energy rapidly surging as if she'd eaten a full meal, but the screaming muscles of her sore back kept her body pinned to the tree.

'Ah, the sap,' the sword's voice was distant and wistful. 'I eloped here, before the war.'

Weiss turned to the fallen blade, her eyebrows drawn high to fight her falling lids. The sword was married.

'I am,' it confirmed.

She fought to stay awake, her freshly-fuelled mind barely keeping her from slumber. Despite the blade's countenance, she'd take whatever she could if it meant it would help free the spirit.

The sword sighed into her mind— an odd sound to hear unaccompanied by a face. 'It won't help.'

"How would you know?" She slurred, the passing breath reawakening her tongue with the sap's delectable aftertaste. Qrow looked over only briefly, then returned to shoving the bottle into an unconscious Blake's mouth.

The sword remained pointedly silent for a moment, then sighed again. 'Why should it?'

Weiss was almost too tired to argue, but arguing was something ingrained within her being. "Attachments have power."

It was a guess, but one made with the supposition that the sword knew about as much about being a spirit as she did. After all, it'd apparently been trapped in a Grimm for ages untold. 'I suppose I could tell you," it relented, "it's the least I could do, considering.'

The sword let hang exactly what was being considered, but Weiss didn't need to be fully competent to figure that much out. Forcibly binding her to a contract, wresting control of her body, constantly pestering her mind, saddling her soul with an impossible task, there was plenty to atone for.

The sword harrumphed— another odd, faceless sound that dropped into her mind like a pebble in the ocean. 'So, which do you want to hear? The wife, or the war?'

"The wife." The answer was instinctual, and not a choice she immediately regretted. After everything that's happened, she wanted a nice story. Something to gently push her ship to the sea. The cold tide, the boundless waves, her body tossed in the waters, pulled to the depths. She sank peacefully down, down, down…

The sword scoffed, the sound jerking her mind to her being. 'Aren't you a romantic. Hoping for advice?'

"Just tell me the damn story," her words were an unintelligible mumble, and not just from her tiredness. Her head was light, hollow but filling with unfamiliar pressure that pushed on her eyes and sucked the marrow from her bones, slowly tinting her vision forever-red, forever-cold, sight flooding crimson aeternum. The world before her ringed dark, but she couldn't feel her lids falling— if they were closed or not, she couldn't tell. Behind the corners of her eyes, colors wept salt over her tongue.

Her head pounded and swirled, throwing her into something she didn't recognize, a state of being that was beyond her comprehension. She was floating, but she wasn't. Could she even feel her body? Was she even moving? Her muscles felt loose and limber, yet still tight and exhausted. Her entire being was distant beyond measure, but she still felt herself locked within it. She could almost see her tired, exhausted form still slumped against the tree, even as her mind drifted further and further away.

Emotions writhed through her, burrowing in and out of her skull one after another, too quickly to parse. The hand of worry wrenched its nine claws into her chest, raking betwixt her ribs, clutching tight each strained breath in her lungs. Ecstasy flooded her being, hot enough to scorch her with pleasure, a sweetness so delectable that it ached in her teeth and made her gums weep. Fear was a lance that wedged her jaw apart in a silent scream, drowning all sound as it pushed down her throat and speared into her heart.

When thy countenance hast fallen, she could hear in her head— not the sword, but a priest, his holy sermon pushing her to her knees— lift thy gaze, for it is my succor that lendeth ye the strength of nags and mules and a hundred men, such that ye lambs findeth mine amity above thy loss.

And I am thy lantern, and my light wilt banish darkness, and my light shant flicker, and the gaze of my Brother wilt scour the way to my pastures. Ecc. Arches: Ministrations of the Sepulcher, quote 2.

The sword's knowing chuckle was a balm over the sinkhole of her mind, calming the syrupy tides that tossed her like a ragdoll. 'Don't be afraid, Weiss. I'll keep you safe— me and the old man.'

The voice was her bedroom door, parting slow and spilling warm candlelight. She sat wide awake in her bed, waiting for the pristine white mask to stretch through the split threshold, to tempt her back into its viscous maw.

The doorway widened. No mask, no seeping black monster came to embrace her. Just a heavy, dark mustache on a heavy, pink man crossed the threshold, his candle flickering with a thousand warmths and ten thousand lullabies.

'Are you, er… still aware?' He sat on the end of her bed, asking if she had a nightmare, mustache tweaking with every word. His pink-brown eyes swept around the room, checking under her bed, her wardrobe, his light gaze scouring all the dark corners. He set the loving flame on her nightstand, and when she finally felt comfortable, he spoke again.

'I didn't think so. Oh well.' Klein smiled wide, loving. His voice was a hot cup of tea after a long snowball fight with her siblings. 'Once upon a time, there was a very young fay, barely quartering his first century…'

Ruby was sitting in a chair, resting. It was all she did, all she'd done for the past… two days? It was odd; time passed differently here— no skybound ball of light signaled night and day, she only knew when she was supposed to sleep by the insistent press of her fay caretakers. 'Dormi,' they'd tell her, 'dormi, Rrrrrrub-eeeee.'

They thought it was very funny to pronounce her name like that, with the first letter intensely rolled and the 'ee' stretching for ages. Even Yang had been doing it, and she was really starting to hate the sound.

It wasn't even that far from her own accent. She was vaguely aware that she rolled her own 'ar' sounds, but hers were soft and necessary, done to preserve the last memories of her late mother's voice. In contrast, theirs were harsh and rapid, and only so accentuated to irk her. Much as she appreciated the family's care, she wished they weren't so keen on being annoying.

With nothing to do but listen, it had been easy to learn their names over the past couple of days. The two large boys— she assumed older brothers, judging by their similar looks and the way their mother scolded them— were Yoolius and Layo, their little brother was Keekero, and the youngest daughter was Benedicta. She desperately wanted to speak to them, but she hadn't the mind or the motivation to try, and that was disregarding the language barrier between them. So instead, she watched.

The eldest brothers frequented the small house, but they didn't sleep there, and only appeared to tend the animals in the morning before bolting back out the door and returning exhausted for dinner. She suspected they went out to fight, judging by the swords they kept at their hips and the bruise that still circled Layo's eye, though she had no way to confirm that hypothesis. On the other hand, Yoolius was never wounded, but he always looked more generally ragged than his brother. In her mind, she pictured Layo starting most of the fights, even though his skill was certainly lesser than his brother, but the two of them must make a good team if they kept coming home.

Keekero stayed around the house, though he was rarely inside. Even so young— barely past ten, by Ruby's estimate— he did most of the midday chores tending animals, working in the garden, cleaning, and even cooking lovely lunches for himself, Ruby, and Benedicta. He was a wonderful boy, so much that Ruby was growing a little envious. She'd never wanted a little brother before, but Keekero was always very sweet, occupying his free time by chatting with Ruby (he tried very hard, despite the fact they couldn't understand each other) or play-fighting outside with his little sister. He let her win every time, even if it earned him more than a few bruises from the tiny girl's stick.

Benedicta was an otherwise skittish little girl. Ruby saw very little of her besides the time she spent playing with her brother, though she would sometimes catch her watching around corners where she thought she wouldn't be seen. She never spoke to Ruby, always scampering away when the smith noticed her, but she couldn't blame the child. Ruby was a strange girl who exploded their pig, and that probably didn't even account for half the viscera she'd been covered with at the time. She'd be scared, too.

Their mother's name was Mirta. Unlike the others, she'd actually learned it through a proper introduction, since the rest of the family simply called her mama— proper introduction being her pointing to herself and saying 'Mirta' before disappearing from the house, that is.

Ruby had been more than a little shocked by that, leaving the household up to a very young boy and his little sister while they lodged a couple of strangers, but Keekero's ample discipline made it clear that it wasn't an unfounded choice. Besides, she'd been much more shocked when Mirta gated directly into the living room later that day and went straight to preparing dinner.

Of course, she knew in her head that fay could naturally gate around, but she hadn't actually seen either of the times Blake did it. It spooked her a little, but the thing that really made her suspicious was the dark spot of red blood on the wrist of her tunic, which she'd hurriedly changed out of when she noticed. It hadn't been hidden— she was certain Keekero had seen it while they were cooking together— but nobody mentioned it. Whatever the woman did outside of the house, this was apparently a normal occasion.

Yang hadn't been around much, either, but it was for a good reason. She left for hours at a time, but always came back with a handful of small creatures that Keekero would skin and use for dinner, though they weren't any animals Ruby was familiar with. They were vaguely similar in size to rabbits, but with only two spindly legs and long necks supporting sharp, almost canine heads. Strange or not, they made for an excellent stew.

Ruby got up from her chair, bored of resting, though she immediately regretted it. Her body felt like it was somewhere else completely, hollow and raw as if someone had scoured all the inside-parts with a stiff brush, and her stomach tried to flip with every movement. She took a long moment steadying her legs beneath her, muscles sore and protesting the whole way, before she straightened back up with a deep sigh.

She tried tapping into the well of her soul. Nothing. Still.

She felt useless, and she hated it. She'd never faced Aura exhaustion to such a degree, and living without its benefits was like having weights shackled across her entire being. Everything was harder, she felt frail, and all the energy she usually had was sapped into nothing. She couldn't focus on any singular thought for more than a few minutes, all of them constantly rushing past her mind, slipping out of her grasp like slimy rocks in the bottom of a river. Despite the fatigue of her body, there was no silence in her head, no peace, every detail constantly assailing her brain but eluding any deeper introspection.

She worried about Weiss. She worried about Blake. She worried about Qrow. All at once, the nagging paranoiaconstantly nipped at her mind, each passing fear feeding the others in a cycle that was driving her to lunacy. She itched to burst from the house, to tear across the Shimmer in search of her friends, to gleefully lift Weiss in her arms, to see Yang's smile when she reunited with Blake, to hug her uncle and berate him for bringing that hellish creature upon them, but all she could do was rest and rest and rest.

She dizzily stumbled over to the window and parted the shutters, hoping to clear her head with some fresh air. The outside world was lit in a constant almost-morning light, like the sun was teasing just under the horizon, and the sky glowed a half-bright, shimmering teal. No clouds hung, no candle lights flickered in the faux-morning tapestry; there was only an undulating glow hanging past the firmament, like a giant fish stretched over the realm, its scales casting a rainbow of faint sparkles from some sourceless light.

Ruby sighed, scattered and forlorn, and cast her gaze to the acres on which the family's small home lay claim.

The house sat in a long stretch of prairie, their pasture demarcated only by the walls of uncut, man-height reddish grass. The fields swayed in an ever-present, nippy wind— sourceless, like everything else. A pig casually strolled beneath her window, fat and pink and very cute, and she only wished she could reach out and stroke it, then apologize for exploding its kin. Why they had pigs, and not some weird pig-like fay equivalent, she had no clue, but she had neither the will nor the desire to question it. Among the strangeness, it was a welcome familiarity.

She hoped Weiss was okay. She really hoped Weiss was okay. She wanted to kiss her again.

A/N: and thus begins weiss' crack addiction arc. dont worry, it only gets trippier from here and i kinda wrote the next chapter on, like 26 hours of no sleep. hope ya like the little scripture-esque tidbit, it was really hard but really fun to write, and its a little extra bit of worldbuilding that'll come up again whenever weiss trips balls lmao.

oh, and since its not super obvious, ruby does not know how to spell the family's names and only knows them phoenetically. So Yoolius = Julius, Layo = Leo, Keekero = Cicero, Mirta = Myrta, and Benedicta... well, that's the only one that sounds the same as it's spelled. so there ya go. see you guys next time, with more of weiss' sap trip! so fucking hyped!