"I'm sorry..." Pyrrha muttered again.
"It's not your fault." Arc comforted his partner as he recovered from the bullhead flight.
"It's our fault, we didn't think about your fame. There are options for celebrities to have a bit more privacy." Weiss added in.
"There are?" Pyrrha's attention had never been so focused on her before, and it should have been obvious why. Spending so much time with Pyrrha made it easy to forget that the woman was famous. Especially when you saw her doing her own laundry. It didn't help that she was so new to fame, really only being superstar for 2 years. She only drew the massive attention with her third victory in the Mistral Regional Tournament.
"High-end establishments tend to protect their clientele from unwanted attention. It's one of the reasons they charge so much."
"That... Might be hard for us..." Arc grimaced.
"RENNY! LOOK WHAT YANG SHOWED ME ON MY SCROLL! IT'S FEARLESS LEADER'S BUNNY PAJAMAS, BUT A SLOTH! IT SAYS ITS FOR GUYS YOU GOTTA WEAR IT!"
"Thats... great, Nora..." Ren said as he gazed at Yang with a look of betrayal.
"We're a bit too loud for those kinds of places." Arc winced as he said it, and Weiss had to agree. Which was odd, she was used to just disagreeing with Arc and being annoyed with him. This was actually nice. It was much better now that he wasn't flirting with her.
"I suppose the point is going out with the team." Weiss admitted.
"WEISS! WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE ANIMAL! WE CAN ALL GET ANIMAL PAJAMAS! THEY HAVE CORGI ONES! I CAN MATCH ZWEI!" Ruby was shouting, and Weiss was not wearing one of those.
"They are really comfy." Arc added with a shrug, and Weiss shot him a glare. She didn't want one of those ridiculous pajamas.
"Jaune, we still have time tonight to get some training in, do you want to join me?" Pyrrha asked, and Weiss held her tongue before she asked to join in. She was fairly certain that Pyrrha was interested in Arc.
"Sure Pyrrha! I'm glad we still have time! Lets get our gear." Arc agreed with his partner and he ran off ahead of her. Pyrrha followed behind, and Weiss couldn't help but notice Pyrrha's face light up at the prospect of training with one of the worst fighters in Beacon. Any doubt that Pyrrha liked Arc was gone.
A part of her was still thinking of Arc as an annoyance, but knowing that he was trying to get out of an arranged marriage and was specifically annoying to make her say no did alleviate it. Also, he didn't flirt with anyone today after the intentional failure that morning.
Weiss looked to see Blake walking away from Ruby, Yang, Nora and Ren, with Ruby and Nora showing pictures of all of the different animal pajamas that would fit Yang. "How long did Pyrrha like Arc?"
Blake turned to Weiss, raising an eyebrow to her question. "You didn't notice?"
"Well can you blame me? He was intentionally annoying me! Why, when did you notice?" She would not let Blake talk down to her like that.
"It was on about our second month that I noticed Pyrrha gazing at Jaune when he wasn't looking, just sighing and smiling at him. She always seems to turn away and hide her looks before Jaune can see it." Blake shrugged.
Weiss was baffled. Pyrrha had feelings that early? And she didn't notice? There was no way. "Why didn't she make any moves? She is Pyrrha Nikos! Who wouldn't love to date her? To just spend time with her?"
"Well, Jaune did seem, at the time, to only have eyes for you. You and Pyrrha are very different."
Weiss paused at that. Well, she wasn't that different from Pyrrha, sure she was a bit more outspoken but she wasn't that different. Weiss looked over to Blake and saw her walking in a direction away from their dorms. "Where are you going?"
"Something might happen tonight." Blake said as she ran off.
"WEISS, pick an animal!" Ruby practically jumped on her, shoving her scroll in her face. "We have polar bear, a white fox, and so MANY white animals!"
Ruby was so insistent on her picking an animal, and Weiss refused to participate. New food was one thing but animal themed pajamas were absurd. She needed to get out of here, and she needed an excuse. Weiss did not want Ruby to guilt her for running off. She glanced around the room and saw that Nora and Blake were missing. If she was going to suffer this than so would Blake. In fact, Blake would suffer more because she was also bringing Nora back!
"Ruby, you still need to select something for Blake. I'll go and get her." She was sure that there would be plenty of terrible pajamas for her.
"Weiss! Blake doesn't need one!" Ruby said with a smile.
"Why?"
"Becau-" Ruby paused a moment. "Oh no! We need to get one for Blake!"
"I'll go get her." Weiss said as she got out of the room, ignoring Ruby and Yang as they argued whether it was okay to get her black cat pajamas.
Weiss made her way through Beacon. She didn't often walk through the school at night, it didn't seem that much different. Under the pale light of the shattered moon it did give it an undeniably romantic air, that was immediately shattered by the simple reality that she was alone. Still, as long as she was wandering as an excuse to avoid the pajama nonsense, she could look up a few things on her scroll.
She could look up to see what it is about the Arc family that would result in her father setting up such a lopsided marriage contract that resulted in Arc semi-justifiably harassing her for most of the year. Not wholly justified as she would have helped him had she known, but she couldn't honestly say she wouldn't do the same in his position.
Her first search didn't result in much. Arc, while not a common family name, was not uncommon. There was a hospital in some place called Radian named for the Arcs, where an Isabel Arc pioneered some new medical technologies that has saved many babies from early life illnesses and issues. Weiss had no clue if Arc was related to the woman. They probably weren't related, with all of Isabel Arc's accomplishments Weiss had trouble believing that she also had a family. It was all interesting, but didn't explain why her father set up the arranged marriage. She kept on reading as she walked outside into the warm night air. At least, it was warm compared to what she was used to back in Atlas. Outside in the courtyard, she saw the statue of some great hero, who's identity was lost long ago. She saw the sword and shield, the same sword and shield Arc used, with the same family symbol on the shield.
How did she never notice that until now? It led to new leads in her search on her scroll, on who that statue was made of. Only learning that it was an unknown Arc who never had any descendants, but whose sibling married into the Royal family. Who was close friends to King Ozymandias. Arc had the ancestral sword, she knew that since he gloated about it before she started completely ignoring him. Arc's family could be tied to literal Royalty. Jaune Arc could be a literal damn Prince.
No wonder her father set it up, and he would know that Weiss wouldn't want to be forced into an arranged marriage so he just didn't tell her. It would elevate the Schnee name to literal Royalty.
Weiss stepped away from the statue as she tried to process what she just learned. Perhaps she should just find Blake and deliver her to Ruby so they can get animal pajamas for her.
Then she heard someone stomping through the halls, and she had to satisfy her curiosity. She went to see what the commotion was, and saw Nora running with a bunch of snacks to the roof. Did she want to know what she was going to do? Not really, but she absolutely didn't want to have Ruby demanding to know what she thought the best animal pajamas would be so they could have an animal themed slumber party. She wasn't sure why they needed a slumber party as they were already dormmates.
So Weiss followed Nora to the roof, and saw the girl sneak next to Blake hiding behind the door outside. What was Blake doing up here? Weiss approached the uncommon pair and peeked through the slightly open door and saw...
It was Arc and Pyrrha training under the pale moonlight overlooking Beacon and the Emerald Forest. It was a magnificent view. It looked obscenely romantic. It was a location pulled from some Mistralian romance comic. It did beg a question, "What are you two doing?"
Nora jumped and squeaked while Blake didn't react to her. "I'm hoping we get to see them get together."
"You're both stalking their romance?" Weiss had trouble comprehending the absurdity of these two dolts.
"Look at them! It's like a scene out of Ninja's of Love! Trapped in a love triangle with her superior, but now! Now his arranged marriage to the wicked Daimyo is over, it's the perfect moment for their romance to reach a climax under the pale moonlight overlooking their demesne!" Blake gushed, and Weiss could admit that Jaune and Pyrrha out there looked like they belonged in one of her mother's soap operas.
Though she didn't like that she was the villain in that weird fantasy. "Why are you here Nora?"
"I've been supporting Pyrrha and Jaune since two weeks after the Forever Fall trip! I gotta see them finally get together! And record it!" Weiss had never heard Nora quietly declare something before. She then noticed that she had her scroll out and was ready to start recording.
Weiss sighed at the two, and the realization that Pyrrha had a thing for Arc for a very long time. She still squatted down next to Nora and Blake and watched Arc and Pyrrha train in the moonlight. It might have been more romantic if Arc wasn't so completely outclassed by Pyrrha.
The pair eventually stopped and went over to the benches, looking out at the school as they rehydrated. The trio took that as an opportunity to sneak out of the stairwell and hide behind it instead, keeping their view on what could be a future couple.
"You did great tonight Jaune."
"I wouldn't be anywhere without you Pyr."
"So, um, you needed Weiss to reject you to end an arranged marriage?" Oh dust why would she ask that?
"Yeah, the contract my dad was tricked into was pretty ridiculous. If I rejected it my family would have been forced to pay a penalty and it would have transferred to one of my sisters. There were a bunch of other small things I didn't really care about but my family did. He literally doesn't sign anything anymore when he learned what he get us trapped into." Arc's father must have been in the same position as her own father, married into a family and taking their name. Of course, Arc's father was probably better than hers. At the very least he wasn't smart enough to be as bad as Jacques. However the lengths Jacques went to was another bit of evidence that Arc had ties to Royalty.
"That's... I didn't even know arranged marriages were still a thing." Weiss wished that they weren't
"It's not common anymore. It's more surprising that he tried to take advantage. My family went through a lot of effort to keep our history secret." She could vouch on what Arc said. She didn't have anything directly tying him to Royalty beyond his sword and shield.
"Well, I'm glad you were able to escape it. Though you always seemed upset when Weiss turned you down." Was Pyrrha still nervous that Arc was interested in her?
"Well, I mean, I'm not interested in Weiss, she didn't really leave a good first, second, or third impression." How did she leave a bad impression on him? What did she do?
"She did?"
"Well, when I first met her in person, she was being mean to Ruby over an accident. Then when I met you she seemed to be making you uncomfortable, and she did leave me pinned to a tree in the Emerald Forest." ...Okay he had a point about the Emerald Forest but there were extenuating circumstances around the other two! "Even then, it is still a bit painful when someone rejects you, even when you're trying to get rejected. I actually had intentionally bad dates prepared in case she did say yes!"
"Well, it's over now. You don't have to worry about anyone rejecting you. Any girl would be lucky if you asked them out." Pyrrha hinted as she toyed with her hair.
"Well, I'm not sure if I'll ask anyone out anytime soon. With how I've been acting with Weiss I'd be worried about people if they actually wanted to date me. I was being so obnoxious. I don't know how you and the others put up with me. I've been doing that all year." Oh no, no nononono. That killed the mood.
"You weren't that bad Jaune. There's plenty of girls who know you're great and would understand why you were acting like that." Weiss was completely focused on the pair. Pyrrha could save this moment, she could fix it. She was the Invincible Girl, she could prevent Arc from throwing this into pure awkwardness!
"I don't know Pyr, I was pretty bad. I don't want to make the same mistake as my dad. If someone was suddenly interested in me after I was so obnoxious and annoying, I'd be a little suspicious." Damn it, Arc.
"Th-that makes... sense."
"Anyway, I'll take your bottle down Pyr. This was just a great day, and training with you tonight was a perfect way to end it!" Arc said as he grabbed Pyrrha's empty bottle. The three observers hid behind the stairwell before he could turn to see them and Weiss could see the raw disappointment on the two.
She practically wanted to slap Arc on Pyrrha's behalf, but she also wanted to slap Pyrrha for not making a move. Weiss heard Arc walk into the stairwell, and she knew she had to do something. She was not as patient as Blake and apparently Nora were.
"Wait, Weiss!" Nora hushed whispered as she stepped out.
AN: What animal PJs should go with each member of RWBY? Ren and Nora will be sloths, Ren has no choice in the matter. Also, one more chapter after this.