'Only people with a bond, fledgeling. And I can't do it willy-nilly like you or your mother. The last time I tried it twice in six hours, I had a heart attack.'

'I'm still here, aren't I?'

'Finish your pull-ups. If I see you kip again, you won't be happy.'

'L-look, mum, uh— I— I didn't mean—'

'Drugs?'

Weiss had winced. 'Y-you must be… F— Ruby's mother.'

Ruby had glared her to ashes for that, but it was probably the smart thing to call her at the time.

Still, Ruby had been preparing to instinctively rebuke her nemesis when mom had hugged her. Raven dove into Ruby and hugged her like she didn't have a fresh, barely closed chest wound. She had buried her face in Ruby's hair and sighed. This had been a shock to Ruby. 'M-mom?'

Raven had wrenched herself away to glare at her youngest daughter, keeping her grip on the girl's shoulders. 'Do you not remember anything I've told you? Your life belongs to me, to Yang, to your family and your family alone,' she had said, her voice actually cracking in her throat in a way Ruby had never heard before, leaving her severely confused, slightly embarrassed, and extremely stressed about what she was going to say next.

'W-well, mom, you see, uh…' she had glanced at Weiss. Weiss had given her a look of abject bewilderment, one which quickly bled with fear as she realized what Ruby was about to say. She had frozen in her crappy shoes when Ruby waved a shaky, mangled hand at her. 'That's… not fully inclusive. This is my partner, Weiss…' she decided (smartly, in her opinion) not to announce her last name. 'She's also my, uh… well, y'see, she… we…'

Raven had cocked her head, leaning towards her daughter with a face of unmasked curiosity— Ruby had never seen her so expressive before, as if something had scrubbed a wire-brush over her pride and warrior-visage, revealing everything beneath before the cover could grow back. She really wanted to hear her. She really wanted to listen. Had she ever looked like that?

The fact that all she'd had to do was almost (or completely yet briefly) die really sucked the wonderment of that moment right out of Ruby's bones. The dread disappointment felt like mum's glare. It made it easier to speak.

'Weiss is my nemesis,' Ruby had declared with much less nervous fanfare. 'Rival. Whatever. She's got death-rights to me,' she had declared, boldly assuming she knew how this worked in her mom's eyes— at least enough for Raven to respect it. 'We've already made formal claims, and she's deserving of it.'

Raven's eyes, already huge and birdike as they were, had gone even huger and birdliker, disbelief wedging her lids open wide like those things from that one movie. Mom's mouth had hung open. Even though they were agape, Ruby thought she saw the corners of her lips quirking into something like a proud dad's smile— that same smile Uncle Tai had the first time Ruby floored him, the same smile uncle Qrow had when Tai still managed to beat her in that footrace (which was the last time he would ever manage that, not because he died, but because she had been 4 years old and got way faster very quickly).

Mum, the buzzkill she was, hadn't even let the moment settle. 'That's asinine,' she had said, which was, like, the most oddly cutting thing ever (lotta records today) and kinda made Ruby feel like a huge piece of shit, but she'd continued as if she wasn't an asshole for that. 'Anyway, what the heck is going on? Is this a train? And—' she had looked around. 'Second's blessing, why's there so much blood in here?'

Ruby had looked at her mother like she was an idiot. It felt weird to look at either of her moms like they were idiots, but mum was definitely being an idiot. Ruby had barely been conscious for a minute and she could already assess that Yang had been nigh-mortally wounded via massive gunshot, meaning she'd most likely confronted Ironwood and been stalled long enough for him to get away. She'd seen the black blood everywhere and estimated that Penny was somehow still not dead, and had taken the Director with her. Even without the context, mum should've been able to tell that the answer was 'a fight', but more importantly was also 'it doesn't fucking matter, everyone's gonna die if we don't figure something out.'

Plus, 'Second's blessing'? Who the fuck even says that outside of church?

Ruby had to carefully explain that the context didn't matter because the train was going to crash. Mum kept demanding further explanation. Ruby had explained, less carefully, that everyone was going to fucking die if they didn't stop the train or figure out some way to bear the crash, because the train— the fucking train, the train they were on— was going to crash, and it was going to crash imminently, and it would probably crash in a populated area, and they would have to survive the crash and survive the Grimm That followed, then they would have to fend them off and save the god-damn city!

'Don't say that,' mum had warned sharply.

'Holy fucking shit,' Ruby had cursed, exasperated, because of course mum didn't listen to her, of course mum only hyperfocused on the stupid fucking swear word— not even the worst one she used, just the one that apparently offended her beliefs, as if Ruby had been directly intending to insult her mother's religion and hadn't just been using a common fucking swear word. 'Weiss, pick me up,' she had growled.

Weiss— fuck she was the best partner ever and Ruby would try to kill the shit out of her as a reward— picked her up in spite of the razored glare that one of the greatest Hunters in the world pinned on her.

'Mum,' Ruby had said to her mother, just as sharp as Summer's voice was (and it felt good to stand up to her). 'Let's focus on making sure we all get out of this situation alive.'

She had said it too slowly— too much like she was talking down to her mother— and Summer's lip had curled into a sneer of offense. 'Talk to me with respect, Ruby Rose.'

Ruby ground her teeth to dust. The tablespoon of blood in her body ran so hot that it felt like it was evaporating, making her vision tunnel slightly as her anger threatened to override consciousness. She must have been making an awful face— that, or Weiss had taken bites of her soul often enough that she could innately feel the anger— because Ruby's bicep was squeezed between Weiss' hands. It… it was really comforting, actually, and grounded Ruby enough to take a deep, slow breath and pull herself back from the edge of passing out. 'Of course, mum,' Ruby had said, very experienced in faking an apologetic tone. 'It's just that the context of this situation is… a lot, and if I started explaining it now, I probably wouldn't get through it before the train crashed.'

Summer raised her chin. She narrowed her gaze. She had opened her mouth and Ruby already knew that she was gonna challenge her own daughter again as if Ruby were a real threat to her pri—

'Sum,' Raven had preempted, reaching up with one black-feathered arm and brushing her fingers against her wife's knuckles. 'Let's not die in a train crash, okay?'

Mum, still, had to actually take a moment to consider, which was a clear sign that she didn't take anything seriously and it made Ruby want to yell at her. Weiss squeezed her bicep again, which helped, and it felt even better (for some reason) when Summer noticed what her daughter's partner was doing and glared as if she could melt Weiss' hands off Ruby's arm. 'Okay,' Summer had said eventually. 'I could hew the engine.'

Ruby had shaken her head. 'Can't. There are bombs elsewhere down the railway. When they blow, the cave-in is gonna trap us, kill us, summon a million Grimm, and/or all three.'

Summer had scowled. 'Bombs?'

Oobleck, for some godforsaken reason, had picked that moment to remind everyone he existed and had been standing in the doorway the whole time. 'Do not be so surprised, Miss Rose— why, I remember one of your first missions when—'

'Shut up, Bart, no one cares.'

With six words, Summer had scythed through everyone in the locomotive room, even her own wife. She had turned to the busted windshield as if she hadn't just made everyone flinch, as if she couldn't tell that nobody was looking at her the same anymore. She had continued, turning to watch a dim light pass their speeding train in the tunnel, illuminating words or markings that went by too fast for Ruby to read. 'I've been here before,' she had stated. 'We just passed the ten mile marker. We're doing—' she had looked at the engine and watched it chug, her eyes darting over the cores, both the broken and the intact ones. 'Should be sixty, but it looks like the broken cores leached dust into the ignition chamber,' her eyes bounced to the broken exhaust pipe that was blowing steam at the ceiling. 'Excess steam isn't choking the reaction, heat's climbing unregulated, engine's in a runaway— it won't explode before we get to where we're going, but it's sure to have us at eighty plus— wait, how many cars are on this?'

'Five,' Ruby had quickly answered, her eyes wide at her mother's experience and knowledge. Unwilling to be completely intellectually upstaged (by her own mother, like, ew), Ruby finished for her: 'No freight, all wood, we'll probably be at a hundred twenty plus.'

Weiss, bless her heart, spoke up to help: 'I have ice dust! I can cool the—'

'You're wrong,' Summer had cut her off, scowling with a look of unbridled disgust that Ruby shuffled slightly in the way of, trying to take some of the scorn off her partner who— if a little stupid— had been trying to help. 'Ice dust won't cool it,' Summer had explained obviously. 'Nothing will— at these temps, dust is dust, all they're gonna do is add more enthalpy to the burn.'

Wow. Enthalpy. If mum wasn't being a dick, Ruby would probably be impressed at thermodynamics being brought in, but the way Weiss' fingers sagged off her bicep told her exactly how she should feel about the situation.

'Wait, so… why not cut through it?' Blake had asked, their gaze bouncing between Ruby's moms with visible confusion. 'At least then it'll stop.'

Ruby managed to cut in first, 'Pressure will escape too fast— even if it doesn't explode outright, it'll melt the casing on the way out, blasting us all with molten slag. It's definitely melting it now, but at least it's doing it slowly, from the inside.'

'For the record, I meant I could hew the engine out, not hew into it,' Summer had grumbled, which was super childish of her. 'I could take you all into my Semblance before impact, but the crash will knock us out of it, and there's no way to tell if it'll disperse us safely or right into the ensuing cave-in.'

Snorting, Ruby had confidently claimed: 'Cutting the entire engine out would 100% derail us.'

Yang had groaned, 'So, you're saying we're fucked.'

Ruby had scoffed. Summer had scoffed.

'No, I just need a sec.'

They'd said it at the same time. Maybe, for normal kids, it would feel nice to be so in-sync with your mom. For Ruby, it felt awful.

'Wait, you teleported—'

Ruby shook her head, though the awful feeling of interrupting her partner hit with too much delay to stop her. 'Mom can only port in, she has to take a long break to port back out— it's a one-way trip.'

When she turned back and saw Weiss frown at her, Ruby had whispered an apology, hoping Weiss could tell it was genuine. After a couple seconds of grim collective deliberation, Ruby sighed.

'I think your Semblance is our best bet,' Ruby had decided. 'You can just pick up the ones that don't make it if we're blown into the cave in.'

Summer had scowled. 'Loading six people plus one dog is gonna be too draining to use it again so soon.'

'You can't burn it?'

'I—'

'She will not,' Raven had stepped in to assert. 'We can't be Aura-burning at this age, Ruby. Besides the long-term issues, that much strain would probably kill her before we even find safety.'

Summer had tried to push her aside. 'I could—'

Raven had whirled on her, hissing, 'Do not even fucking try it, Sum— even if you did survive it, I would carve out whatever's left of your heart and shove it up your ass.'

Summer rolled her eyes, speaking with way too much ease for the situation at hand. 'Welp, you heard the wife.'

'Fine,' Ruby had grumbled. 'I'll burn it.'

Raven had whirled again— knowing she had anemia, too, Ruby could instantly imagine why she wobbled a little. Before she could even gather herself enough to speak, Weiss had yanked Ruby fully about-face, growling nearly nose-to-nose, 'Florabel, you useless ingrate,' Ruby had heard her mum repeat the name incredulously from the sidelines. Weiss continued, 'If thy mother wilt not sacrifice herself to do it, whyfor wouldst thy craven, downy brain conjure a solution which sacrificeth thee instead!'

Ruby was extremely touched, unfortunately, because that made it hurt really bad when she had to push Weiss away. She said something that was probably really hurtful, in some way, something that made Weiss get really angry at her and shout stuff about self-respect, telling her to value herself, but it wasn't really something that struck Ruby too hard. She wasn't really too worried about the burn, honestly. Tissue was just tissue. She had six people and a dog to save, plus the chances of her losing something irrecoverable were low at her age. And if she did lose something, well… worst that could happen would be a little brain damage, maybe a little cardiac or pulmonary damage, and if it wasn't recoverable then she'd finally have a good reason to leave Beacon. Plus, Weiss would still be alive and she'd already have the girl's number. Things would be alright.

Weiss had carried her all the way to the hospital herself. It was hard to carry a girl who almost crested six feet while relaxed, even if she was light for her height. It was harder to carry her when she was thrashing constantly, holding her chest and screaming blood out of her lungs. It only got easier when, nearly at the hospital, she had gone limp.

I'm her partner.

They had let her in. Three little words. In Vale, the Hunter-partner relationship was so ubiquitous that it conferred its own visitation rights. Could the same be said for Atlas?

'A Huntress? Ha! Stupid little girl.'

'You'll never be anything.'

'Now go round them up. We have a demonstration today.'

'You will round them up.'

'You are not allowed to be as much of a disappointment as you are! Now go round them up!'

'Your mother weeps at you, thing. She can have no rest while you're being such a waste. Useless little whore.'

She had left the others behind. She knew she couldn't help. She had no weapon. She had no Semblance. She'd hinder them. The only thing she could be good at, in that exact moment, was ferrying Ruby to safety.

A day or two later, Weiss would see on the news that a new species of subterranean Grimm had made its debut that day. They called it something confusing— Axle-something, with a sound Weiss couldn't replicate with her tongue. Trying to emulate the sound would bring her to tears.

I'm her partner.

All the doctors had jumped at her presence, but quickly understood. They sat her down. One of the men explained things with numbers. He told her things that slid off her mind: percentages, fractions, diagnoses and symptoms made of arithmetic. Weiss blinked. She felt how blank her own face was. He pinked at his own failure, but retrieved someone else.

The next one was a woman. She explained the situation like Weiss was a child, which she appreciated. She couldn't handle fast things at the moment. Her appetite for haste was quite nonexistent, given the circumstances. She said the words 'loss of tissue', and 'severe' was before or after that. She said 'cardiac', and 'diminish', and 'function', then slowly helped Weiss piece their association together, taking her slow, blank nods as understanding. She said 'dying', and the word was colder than any of the dozens of hyperspecific phrases her mother tongue had for snowfall, or for chill winds, or for icicles that fall through your head, or for lakes that swallow your heartbeats whole, or for blizzards that freeze your feet to your boots. She said 'life support', and Weiss laughed, because it was an ironic couple of words, then she cried because it was not very funny at all.

The woman had held her, and Weiss had wanted to rip all her veins out when she felt the woman's soul trickling into her. That is, until she wanted to hug the woman and kiss her until her eyes rolled back and her meager being faded into Weiss, because she helped her. She helped Weiss realize she could be of use.

'I have somatic animaphagia,' she did not say, 'I can suck out souls and regenerate from death,' she did not say, 'Take out my heart and put it in her,' she also did not say, because these things were scary to hear and would give them pause. They would ask questions, and 'I have to do this, there's more than me at stake' would remain as the last infuriating words Weiss heard from that girl if she had to answer those questions.

I have a regeneration Semblance. Whatever she needs, I can give it. Take it from me and put it in her— if I die, finish taking from me and save her. I will be able to resuscitate myself.

So steady, her voice. So sure. They had looked at each other, silently deliberating, before agreeing that a Huntress should be trusted at her word, especially when her partner was at stake. They took her into a room with that girl, that feathery thing, that thing whose skinny and chitinous feet would rub on Weiss' bare calves, that thing who would laugh when Weiss yelped at the deathly cold limbs on her innocent, warm legs. She would have given her heart to yelp at that chill again. She did give her heart to feel that chill again.

Weiss recovered from her own death when someone touched her— a taste of icy, snappy apples that made her jawbone ache, the sense of it popping throughout her— but Weiss jolted awake and pushed the girl away before she could kill herself again so soon. "Florabel!" she hissed, a million things to say, saying none of them at all.

Ruby smirked at her. "Did you forget you wouldn't be able to siphon one of the nurses while unconscious?" she asked. "Nobody else is gonna kiss your corpse, dumbass."

Weiss frowned at her. She smiled at seeing her. She frowned and smiled, her face contorting, fighting to find an expression, before she eventually had to slap her hands over her face and whine into her palms. "Flor-a-be-he-heeeeeel!"

Ruby blanket her arms just to take her up in safety, her body so warm and strong, every wracking sob buffered in her arms, every sniffle absorbed in her hoodie. "Sh-sh-shhh, babe, I'm here. I'm okay. You're okay. Everything's okay."

Her voice was so warm. The word for 'warm' in her mother tongue only directly translated to 'warm', which didn't seem right. Weiss needed a phrase for the warm feeling of hearing her laugh when her cold and awful chicken-feet froze her legs; she needed one for the fires lit when she told her she wanted to 'take her time', or when she wore gloves just so Weiss could be comfortable during sex, or when she held her hands and told her to squeeze when all the feelings were too much; she needed a word for the gnawing heat in her gut whenever she looked at the feathered creature; she needed a word for the heat that overfilled her skull when it wasn't Weiss that conquered her nemesis.

"I hate you," Weiss said, as if it even came close to summating the inferno between her lungs, greedily sucking up all the air and leaving her with so few words to give.

Ruby laughed— Weiss needed a word for the sound of it— and said, "I loathe you too."

And it sounded so much like something else that Weiss' mind skipped a beat— her heart went blank— her throat went hollow and her hands did too. She could feel all the skin that she had on her body, and it all tingled. She was struck so profoundly that she realized it was a challenge, and the longer she stayed dumbstruck and silent— the air thickening, the thing she said twisting Ruby's own face by the second— the more her nemesis would win. She blurted out, "Thou'rt an idiot, Florabel. I told thee what would happen. Thou wert dead, you know."

She couldn't keep her own speech consistent, anymore. She thought Blake's lessons would snap in, but now the 'est's and 'eth's stuck themselves where they wanted and didn't stick themselves where they didn't want, and the 'you's and 'thou's jangled around like dice behind her teeth. Ruby Florabel Branwen Rose had confused her so thoroughly; she'd shifted the Weiss around until she didn't know where the pieces for 'SCHNEE' were supposed to fit— were they there at all? The whole jigsaw was red, now.

But the awful girl— the thing with the most beautiful feathers in the world; the thing whose legs were so pretty in the light; the thing with a nose like someone else had put it there by mistake, accidentally discovering the perfect face to fit it— said the most awful words that Weiss should have known she would say:

"I had to do it. Everyone was in danger."

There was a word for the feeling when you realized there were bodies under the snow, and the only way you'd ever find them would be if you joined them.

There was a word for the chill numbness that robbed your fingers and toes even on a mild day.

There was a word for the special pain of ice growing in your lungs.

There was a word for the act of suicide in favor of death by freezing.

There was a word for the fog of your breath.

There was a word for a cold day.

There was a word for the chill of morning that makes you do something painful.

There was a word for sex in the snow.

The word for sex in the snow was only a few syllables away from another word: one which started with something like a 'k' sound, only it was made further back. It had a mix of 's' and 'tch' and 'y' and 'ie' and 'v' sounds, but they all mixed together in a way that Weiss could tell would never come out of a Valish mouth. The 'r' rolled hard and fast like metal combs rubbing against each other.

The word— which was only a few syllables away from sex in the snow, and it had all of those sounds that girls with pretty feathers and pretty legs could never make with their pretty noses and warm lips and hot tongues— was for something that other people probably did all the time in her homeland:

Breaking up in the snow.

Weiss Schnee almost curled her lip. She almost tightened her fists. She almost opened her mouth and screamed at Ruby Florabel Branwen Rose for what an idiot girl she was. She almost screamed for how much that girl had hurt her. She almost screamed for how that awful feathered thing had made her feel when she didn't listen; when she not only didn't listen, but did the exact opposite; when she threw herself away like her life was so cheap— like she had no value— like she took the prestige that Weiss granted her and thought of it none! Like she was a joke! Like she had any right to make Weiss feel in the way that she made her feel— when she could treat her like she was made of glass and gold— but in the next moment she could toss herself into the wind!

Almost. There were three words for hearths that didn't give any heat. There wasn't a word for burning up so fast that you turned to ash.

"You really think so little of yourself."

Sometimes, Valish felt hard. Sometimes it felt easy. This was the latter.

"I gave you my heart. I gave you my heart."

"I—"

"Shut up!"

It hurt so much to say that.

"I thought you deserved it. I thought you were my nemesis."

One word for a tear that froze on your cheek. None for the warmth of it leaving your eye.

"I thought you understood what that means, but you don't."

Nothing for how hot your face feels when you hurt someone.

"You don't deserve to mean that much to me," Weiss told her. "I don't deserve to be so disrespected."

Ruby faltered, and Weiss learned that she was a falterer, because she only made things worse. "I— I didn't— I— what'd I do wrong?"

It was the second time Weiss had seen her cry. She wished she had never seen either. "You haven't done anything," Weiss said, hurting her. "Who saved you from the Grimm? From the Fourths?"

It felt so awful to hurt her. It felt so wrong.

"From your own girlfriend?"

She was saying too much.

"Why don't you do something for yourself!"

Oh, god, she was hurting her so much.

"I respected you! I made you my nemesis! I made you mine!"

She made her whimper. She hurt her.

"You won't even respect yourself! You sully what I give you! You won't do anything that someone else—"

"I didn't even want to be a Huntress!"

Stupid Valish saying— the one with falling shoes. She didn't even know there was another shoe until it hit the ground.

No words for how warm feathers could be when they were wrapped around your shoulders. No words for letting the room get cold, just so you could get warm with someone else beneath the blankets. Funnily enough, there wasn't actually a word for the coldest thing in your life, for the feeling of it clawing out of your chest, leaving your throat frostbitten, numbing your tongue as it danced out of you and killed someone else.

"Then why are you still here?"