Yo!
Back again for another chapter of MM. Some updates on the update schedule of this story at the end of the chapter, but for now, let's get into it!
Start Chapter 4
Weiss was still running hot later that evening, sitting alone in her room. The argument with Jaune was one thing, but to say that she was tired of the Schnee Manor, that she was tired of her tyrannical father and her sycophant brother who was fast becoming him…
Well, it was an understatement, to put things lightly.
She ran a hand down her face, before taking a breath. She exhaled over the course of three or so seconds, but it barely helped at all with her mood.
She was on her last legs here at the manor.
She decided to go for a walk around the perimeter, lacking anything else to do, and made her way out to wander the halls. She wasn't doing so with any real meaning or intent, just moving for moving's sake. As she walked, she briefly passed her mother's room.
She hadn't seen her at all – outside of a few second or so long intervals – since being forced back to the manse from Beacon.
She didn't plan on seeing her now, however. Her mother was yet another negative figure in her life; an alcoholic mess of a person. Weiss wasn't in the mood to deal with her.
She passed by, and kept going. She passed the kitchens, and then the main foyer. She continued into the other half of the manor, and then doubled back around when she'd reached the end of that.
She just wanted to move her legs. She wanted to go and accomplish something. She…
She wanted to be out there with the rest of her team, trying to piece together what had happened at Beacon. She wanted to help with Yang's recovery. She wanted to try and get Blake back. She wanted to be there for her leader, to be Ruby's second in command.
She paced the halls for an hour or so. Silence reigned around her, the empty expanses of the Schnee Manor causing her footfalls to haunt the halls.
Weiss was only growing more and more aggravated; enough so that she was growing closer to making an admittedly dumb decision.
And then she was, rather suddenly, pushed over the edge.
"Ah, Weiss." Her father's voice echoed out through the hall, and she turned back to see him with his hands folded behind his back, walking towards her. "So, this is where you were. I had someone come by your room earlier, but you were absent."
Weiss bit down on the immediate retorts that threatened to spill out of her. There were… well, many. She loved her father in a very complicated way, but she also despised him. Those two things were, it seemed, not mutually exclusive.
But in that moment, all she wanted to say was, 'You couldn't check up on me by yourself? You sent someone else?'
She knew why, of course. Her father was a man who spared time for no one. That he wanted to speak with her at all meant that he had something important to tell her.
Likely, he was going to annoy her further, because that seemed to be his greatest joy in life.
"I felt you should be informed that the campaign to cover up your little mess at the gala the other night has gone well. People are rallying to your side; a victim of Beacon Academies fall. They are also taking your disinheritance, to better focus on your recovery, and Whitley's stepping into the position as a sign of him being a good and supportive brother."
Weiss wondered what it was her father wanted her to say? Did he want her to scream and rage at him, to attack him in the middle of the room? Did he want her to smile, and bow, and tell him that she was happy everything was working out for him?
Did he want her to simply stand there, silently burning like a star, as his words washed over her?
It felt like the most likely course of action. That he simply wished to bother her.
"And?" She hissed out through gritted teeth. "Is there anything else you'd like to tell me father, or is that all?"
"Hmph. You would do well to watch your tone, Weiss. I have thus far allowed your little forays out to the library, but I can, at any time, have the windows in your room barred. Do not mistake my inaction for obliviousness."
"So, what, you're just going to keep me in here until this entire thing blows over?"
"That was indeed my intention." Her father spoke evenly, without a single hint of malice leaking into his voice. He had always been so overwhelmingly capable of maintaining his cool.
It aggravated Weiss to no end.
"As long as you continue to sneak out in disguise, and do not attempt to overstep your bounds, I am content to allow you to make such trips. But if you are discovered, I will be forced to pretend I had no idea at all about, and take action. Do you understand?"
Weiss forced herself to breath. Exploding on her father wasn't going to make her life any better. In all honesty, it would likely make it much worse.
But even so, if he was truly intent on limiting her to the mansion, only allowing her to leave in disguise, where she'd have to maintain a low profile, and not so much as speak to anyone, for even longer than she already had…
Weiss had had enough.
She couldn't stay here.
"I understand, father." She did her best to act the daughter he wanted in that moment. Fully subservient, fully agreeable, nothing more than a puppet to be strung along.
"Good. See to it that you do betray my kindness in this matter, Weiss."
And with that, her father turned around, and walked away.
Curt as always. He didn't so much as look back at her, instead disappearing down an adjacent hallway, likely back to his office. It wasn't like Weiss was informed as to what was going on around the SDC lately. Perhaps he had another socialite dinner to attend?
The thought made Weiss angrier than she already was, and she forced herself to swallow down on that feeling, and ignore it as best she could.
It didn't matter, after all.
She was going to be leaving this place as soon as she possibly could.
/
Weiss could not pack in an obvious manner, of course. She had half a mind to think her room was likely bugged with a camera so that her father could watch her every action, but that was probably a bit much, even for him.
Still, she made her preparations. Myrtenaster was returned to its case, and placed atop her dresser. Several vials of dust, enough to have some of each in a pinch, went along with it. She packed three or four outfits, not enough to make a noticeable dent in her wardrobe that a maid or cleaner might pick up on their absence, but enough to serve her until she could purchase others.
Although, in fairness, her father might very well cut her off entirely for leaving Atlas.
…Well, that was a bridge she would just have to cross when she came to it.
It was only as she was doing the last little bits of her packing, and thinking about how best to contract a bullhead pilot, however, that she thought of Jaune.
She shouldn't have bothered, in all honesty. They'd both said what they had to say, and Jaune had chosen to lock himself away inside his mirror instead of talking to her. She was content to leave things there.
…Wasn't she?
There was this feeling in the back of Weiss' head, one she wasn't very happy with, that seemed to call out to the rest of her. It claimed that whether or not she wanted to admit it, Weiss would want a companion on the journey she was planning on going on.
And was it wrong?
…No. It likely wasn't.
She sighed, realizing that she would much rather have ahold of the… odd artifact – she was still not calling it magic, she refused flat out – than leave it here for someone like her father to discover it.
He would be the exact type of person to abuse the knowledge the mirror might be able to give him.
Or, well, that was one of the reasons Weiss was telling herself for why she was making her way across the manor, back to the training hall, and to that very storage closet from just a few days ago.
She sighed as she found it. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like any other mirror. She turned it around in her hands, and for perhaps the thirtieth time, tried to see if there was some odd trick to it. There were no panels that opened, no seams on its design that looked like they might come apart.
It looked, as Jaune kept claiming, like it was just a normal mirror, one that was somehow… magic.
Weiss cringed. She just… she could worry about the logistics of the mirror later.
For now…
She sung the first line of the chorus of Mirror, Mirror, and suddenly, the mirror burst to life.
"Who dares awaken me, king of–" Jaune saw it was her. "Oh. Tis thou."
"Tis me." Weiss answered, already wondering if this was a stupid decision.
"What dost thou want?" He sniped, and Weiss realized somewhat belatedly that for him, it had been approximately five seconds since their argument had finished. She'd been over it for a few days now.
"I came to take you with me."
"Hm?"
"I'm leaving the Schnee manor. I'm going to go track down my team."
Jaune shook his head. "Thou… art leaving thy life of luxury to tough it out in the wilderness?"
"I am."
"Art thou an idiot?"
Weiss bristled. "I am not an idiot. I am practically trapped in this manor; a doll for my father to show off when he needs me, and then I'm just supposed to stay a silent, good little girl when he doesn't. He pulled me away from my team when the world was falling down around us, and forced me to leave them behind to deal with the fallout all on their own. I'm not going to allow that. I refuse."
"So, thou mean to find thine allies, then? Those who would stand stalwart beside thee?"
"I do."
"Hm." Jaune was, clearly, cooling down. His voice took on a more even tone. "I see. And thou sought to invite me along because…?"
"Because I figured you'd rather go somewhere then sit in that mirror, potentially, forever."
Jaune grunts out under his breath. "I… suppose that thou art correct on that particular matter. I would very much indeed rather be awake, even with someone like thee, than asleep in my mirror."
Weiss chose to ignore the pointed jab. She had her own faults, and she gave as good as she got. If this was to be their relationship, one of traded insults, then she could live with such.
At least she would have someone to trade insults with.
She took up the mirror, and held it against her side, preparing to make the journey back to her room. Before she could, however, Jaune had called out to her.
"Hold a moment."
She held the mirror out in front of her so that she could see the man directly, and when she did, she saw him…
Looking almost bashful.
"Thou hath my sincerest apologies. The way that I addressed thee was no way to speak to a fair lady such as yourself."
Weiss leveled a glare at him. "Was it how you would address a man?"
"Well, that's… I suppose?"
"Then treat me no differently." Weiss said to him. "I don't want to be coddled by you, thinking I'm some demure maiden who can't handle herself. I've slain monsters thrice my size."
"Even so, it is the principle of the matter." Jaune shook his head. "I allowed mine own anger over being locked within this mirror to overwhelm me, and my fear of never escaping to affect my sense of judgment and reasoning. Even if thine kind has regressed rather harshly from how I remember them," Weiss expression fell somewhat, but she allowed him to continue without interruption, "that dost not mean I had to go out and say it to raise myself up. I am, myself, a king. More is expected of me. I am held to a higher standard, and that I allowed such to slip, even for a moment, is an insult to my station."
With that, the man bowed his head a fraction of a degree forward. "I shan't fail as such again; thou hath my word."
Weiss really doubted that, given that the man had just said her kind had regressed not even five seconds ago, but she had a feeling that he was, in his own, really stupid way, trying to be better.
He and Weiss weren't exactly friends, but…
"I will take you at your word, then." Weiss answered, and the man nodded his head. "Now, I've packing to finish before the two of us can depart. After that, I'll need to find someone willing to take me out of Mistral."
"Ah, I see. And will thou be travelling on horseback, or by carriage?"
Weiss was about to make a snide remark, but…
Well, Jaune had put in some – very small, but some – effort into not being an asshole. Perhaps she could meet that with sincerity.
"We have new methods of transportation in this day and age. I don't believe anyone these days ride on horseback, or utilize them to pull their carts, outside of very small frontier settlements, or farms."
"Truly?" Jaune seemed thrilled. "I must say, that tis great news. Horses have never much liked me."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that they bite at my hair, attempt to kick me in the stomach and groin, and just in general dislike me in every way, shape, or form."
"Hm." Weiss let out. "Well, I myself have ridden horses for sport and recreation, but Atlas, the city we currently reside within, floats a good kilometer or two in the air above Remnant's surface below us."
"Ah, I see." Jaune said, in a voice that very much communicated the opposite. "…What?"
Weiss sighed.
She… had an awful lot to explain, didn't she?
/
"So, Atlas thought the greatest usage of what thou readily admit is a scarce resource in dust was to float their city above Mantle… for seemingly no reason?"
When he said it like that, it did sound a bit weird to Weiss that Atlas would constantly be hemorrhaging gravity dust at all times. It… made her think that there must've been something else going on behind the scenes; something about the whole thing she wasn't privy to, that made such more palatable.
"And thou say Beacon, and Vale by proxy, were all but destroyed?"
"I've heard Vale is doing… not good, but better than they were when I left," Weiss spoke as she found the final few items she'd be bringing, and began sorting them into piles. "When I was pulled away, there were bodies in the streets, Grimm roaming free, Atlas knights that still hadn't been deactivated… it was utter chaos."
"It certainly sounds it." Jaune murmured, humming. "Thine era sounds far more complicated than mine own. Thou say that a single woman, alongside an extremist group, was able to do that much?"
"They obviously had help. Atlas is Vale's ally, and General Ironwood himself was down there fighting against his own mechs. Something happened to their programming. Something Atlas didn't know how to counteract."
"Okay. And… programming, thou say… what is that, exactly?"
"Too complicated to explain in a reasonable time frame." Weiss stated, and the man just grunted in acknowledgement. "We'll have time on the flight. I'll fill you in on these more complicated topics then."
Jaune nodded his head. "Art the other Kingdoms doing nothing to assist Vale?"
"Well, their methods of communication were largely cut off with the CCT's fall… don't ask about that," She cuts off Jaune before he can open his mouth. "Again, later. For now, basically, they're isolated, and the rest of the world can't get details without physically sending people into Vale, which is a worrying prospect for any of them, especially when they don't know where else these figures intend to strike."
"Well. It sounds to me that these allies of Vale are only allies of opportunity." Jaune scoffed. "If anything, the Grimm have brought humanity together, but only in the same way that a herd of zebra will band together. Go after any individual manner of the herd, however, and the others will scatter, having never had any intention of protecting the others, and only being a part of that herd to make it less likely that they themselves would be attacked."
Weiss hummed, before asking, "What's a zebra?"
"Oh, dost humanity not have those anymore?"
"I don't think."
"Ah. They were horses, but worse in every way. Less loyal, less amicable, less social, but more prone to biting, kicking, fights among herd members… they truly are just the absolute worst. Oh, and they are – ah, were – striped."
"That seems like a random detail."
"'Twas actually very memorable."
"I'll take your word for it." Weiss stated, even as she checked over everything one last time, and then, having finished packing officially, declared, "Alright. I'm good to go."
"Excellent." Jaune nodded his head, "And where will thou be putting me?"
Weiss opened up her travel bag, where, sure enough, there was a space about the size of Jaune's mirror open and available.
Jaune stared at her.
"…"
"You don't want to go in the dark bag, do you?"
"…Well, when thy say it, it makes me sound like a newborn babe."
Weiss groaned.
/
"Klein, I…"
"There's no need to thank me, my lady." Klein winked at her as he finished filling the pilot in. "What kind of butler would I be if I could not meet my ladies' requests to the letter, hm?"
Weiss nearly teared up then and there, wiping at her eyes, even as she charged forward, and wrapped her arms around the man who'd always been there for her.
"Thank you, Klein."
"You're so very welcome, my lady."
She pulled away, cleared her throat, and boarded into the back of the passenger bullhead that would be taking her to Mistral. It was to be a long journey, and Weiss was planning to sleep a good majority of it.
"Be careful with father. I… he'll be very cross with you."
"Bah, don't you worry about that." Klein's eyes shifted color. "You just focus on yourself, alright?"
"Okay, Klein." She smiled, and then, giving him one last fond look, she closed the door to the bullhead behind her.
The pilot gave her some final information, before saying they were all set, and closing the door to the cockpit.
And then she was left alone, within the back of the hull, as the engine began to rumble, and they began to rise higher. Suddenly, they were above the Schnee Manor, and then above Atlas, and then they were above the very clouds.
There was, also, notably, a horrid groaning coming from behind her.
She looked back to see Jaune bent over in his mirror, hands clutching his stomach.
"What's wrong?"
"I know not," The man muttered, before moaning in pain yet again. "I am… feeling not very good, I must say."
"You're not… getting airsick, are you?"
"I have no idea what that is."
"It's when your inner ear sends conflicting messages to your brain than your eyes. So, your ear believes you're moving, but your eyes can't see that movement. That confusion causes your stomach to–"
"Ugh, stop talking," Jaune suddenly said, sounding quite tense. "I do not believe I can vomit in here, but if I do, and I am trapped with my own vomit for all eternity, then the Gods are going to sorely wish they had killed me when they had the chance."
Weiss snorted. She thought it had been quiet, but the man had evidently heard her, for he glared up at her, even as she sat down in one of the chairs, and brought Jaune up to the seats as well. She couldn't exactly buckle him in, but she could prop him up on a few cushions from the other seats, and give him a good enough vantage point to see out the window.
"My…" He was suddenly quiet. "But that is a marvelous view."
Weiss looked out as well, and for once, she let other thoughts fade away, and allowed herself to focus purely on what she saw.
It was gorgeous. The night sky, only an hour after sunset. The moon was just barely cresting above the tops of the clouds, and causing a white shimmer to glow along the top of all of them. It marked their billowing expanses, and showed where they dipped, and bulged.
"I remember when it was first reported that clouds were made of water."
Weiss looked down, and saw Jaune looking oddly happy about something. Weiss was content to simply listen to what he had to say, to hear what he wished to tell her.
"I was a young boy; no older than four or five. My father, the previous king, had just received the news from a kingdom neighboring our own. It had come to us from one of the other lords of light. Their name is not important, but this discovery was… up until that point, we had simply believed the clouds in the sky to be decorations placed there by the gods; little more than… paint upon a canvas. The same way that the sky was blue, or in the evenings, black. The same way that dots of white and yellow, and great bands of dark, billowing clouds would appear in the night sky."
"But when we received that notice, it was like… for the first time, so many of my father's scientists began to ask other questions. They began to wonder if the dots in the sky, too, were something else, and not just smatterings of paint. If the night clouds were water, too, or something other."
Weiss decided to ask, "What did they discover?"
"Ah, but…" Jaune's smile dimmed somewhat. "My father was always less focused on those types of things. I hung around the scientists and the alchemists – the thinking men – most of my days. My older brother and my father both were fighters; such was tradition back in the day. The first son would be king, and so had to be raised to know how to ride on horseback, how to shoot a bow, how to wield a blade… I was never interested in any of it, even if I was taught most of it."
"No… the night sky called out to me. I looked up at it, and I asked myself why. Why any of it? Why were there clouds in the sky that only appeared at night, seemingly further away than the daylight clouds. Why were some of the dots in front of the night clouds, but others behind them. Why were some of the dots brighter, and some so very dim? I asked myself these sorts of questions."
Weiss… it was odd, in that moment, the way she fell into Jaune's story. She found herself genuinely interested.
"But I was told that one day I would be king. And so, I knew what I had to do, regardless of what I wanted. Gradually, I began to move away from the scientists, and matters of science, that had fascinated me in my youth. I took up the sword, though I was never terribly proficient. I learned to orate; and that I was quite good at, arguably only surpassed by my brother's prodigious talent to capture a crowd, to sway them to his side. I learned all sorts of things. Yet I cared for none of them."
"I never did learn anything about the night sky. Supposedly other scientists in other lands discovered secrets, but by that time, the lords of light were no longer so tightly knit."
"Had they turned on one another?"
"People always do." Jaune spoke, and he sounded jaded; almost tired. "Eventually, people will long for that which they do not have. No matter who they are. Even the richest of men will seek to grow richer, despite having no true reason to. Humans are foolish creatures." He chuckled. "I am but one example of that. I never even truly desired the throne, and yet I rose up an army to take it back. I don't even know why I did such anymore. I suppose waking up in a world completely different to the one I used to live in has done that; caused me to question my own actions."
He was silent for a time after that. Eventually, he continued.
"The Lords of Light did not turn on one another, but… they ceased to communicate. The fault belonged to no lord in particular. The gods themselves were becoming more and more closed off, less and less open with their designs and ideas. I'm not certain what happened after I was banished away. Perhaps they were corrected, and stood down. Or perhaps they attempted to overstep their bounds, and were punished in the same way I was. They are all long dead. Everyone from that time is."
"I'm sorry."
"Ah, do not be." Jaune sighed out, and it seemed his airsickness had left him. Weiss imagined that was down to being able to look out the window. "Thou had no hand in it. And I was never one to think things like this before. Hah. Perhaps my punishment truly has served to make me reflect."
Weiss had a question, one she'd not asked so far, but one she couldn't resist. "Why do you look like that?"
"Hm?"
"Well, you're a normal human, are you not?" Weiss asked, and Jaune nodded. "Then why do you have horns, a tail, slitted pupils…"
"Ah, I understand. This form, thou mean? Well, the circumstances behind its creation involve things I'd rather not delve into. Let us simply say that I utilized a dark form of magic in my final battle against Salem and Ozma to attempt to give myself the edge, and to defeat them. It… corrupted my body, and my appearance."
"Did it help?"
"No." He laughed, as if almost amused. "I lost; terribly, even. I wasn't even close to defeating them. The only reason I am here today was that the magics within me defied what should have led to my death. It was that immortality that caused the gods to rise up against me, and lock me away."
Weiss' eyes were wide. "You're… immortal?"
"I am." Jaune spoke, and Weiss couldn't quite fathom that. "I haven't changed at all in a hundred thousand years, have I?"
"Well, you were sealed away."
"I suppose you could look at it that way." Jaune conceded that Weiss' point could have very well been the truth as well. "But regardless… inside of me is still my own soul. If you'd like, I can show you how I used to look; making illusions is not terribly difficult magic."
Weiss could not pretend to not be intrigued. She nodded her head, and a moment later, the image in the mirror began to shift.
It was sort of like looking at one of those pictures that changed if you looked at it from a different angle. What was there before was still there, if she paid enough attention, but it was buried beneath another image.
An image of Jaune as a normal human man. He looked…
Well, he actually looked rather handsome, but Weiss would not have been caught dead saying that.
He was not particularly athletic – Weiss would've called him scraggly – and his frame looked somewhat off without the wings to balance it. He couldn't have been any older than twenty-five, perhaps even younger. But even so…
He had soulful eyes, an oceanic blue in color. His blonde hair had more color now, appearing far closer to a gold than anything else. And…
When he smiled, he looked… kind.
"Well?"
Weiss looked away, not willing to show the blush on her features. "You look adequate, I suppose."
"Why, I thank thee, Weiss. Thou look quite adequate yourself."
Weiss couldn't really complain about that.
"But," He allowed the illusion to slip, and suddenly stood in the mirror once more was the demonic Jaune, with wings and horns and slit eyes with dark sclera. "I'd rather not expend magic to keep up that form if I can help it. And I really would like to know more about the other things thou hast spoken of. Programming and other such matters."
Weiss understood that Jaune was less than subtly saying he was done talking about himself for now. Honestly, Weiss was surprised she'd learned so much about him already.
"First, however, I had been meaning to ask; to where exactly is our heading?"
It took Weiss a moment to extract the question out of the old timey language. "Mistral. Specifically, Haven Academy."
"One of the other Kingdoms? Do you think that wise with the world as it is?"
"I don't see anything particularly wrong with it. We'll want to start out search from somewhere, and if I know Ruby, she'll likely want to go chasing after the last piece of information we had, which was that the people who hit Beacon came from Haven."
"And do you think going to such a place on your lonesome is a good idea?"
"Relax." Weiss rolled her eyes. "Nothing's going to go wrong."
/
Weiss Schnee was sat down in the center of a cage, surrounded on all sides by brigands, bastards, and bandits. Standing in front of her was one Raven Branwen, looking down at her, unimpressed, as she crossed her arms in front of her breasts.
"So… a Schnee, huh?"
From behind her, quietly enough that only she could hear, Jaune muttered, "Nothing's going to go wrong, hm?"
Weiss hissed out under her breath. "Oh, shut up…"
End Chapter 4
We end the prologue, so to speak, and of course, Weiss gets kidnapped. As she must.
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