Alright, back again! No chapter next week, as I will be out on vacation! Other than that, let's get into it!

Start Chapter 38

Jaune's legs are shaky, even multiple hours after he'd landed in the snow drifts a good kilometer below Amity.

Nothing's broken, which is a testament to just how powerful his semblance really can be when he pushes it, but he's certainly feeling the impact in his… everywhere.

His legs hurt. His pelvis hurts. His ribs hurt. His spine hurts. Hell, his arms hurt, probably just to spite him. That had been a near-suicidal move, jumping off of Amity. It had cost him nearly all of his aura to tank that fall.

Had he been off in his mental math by even a smidge, had his aura broken due to the impact, he'd be… well, he'd be a smudge on the landscape of Solitas, and little else.

But he hadn't died. He's alive.

His mind is abuzz with thoughts as he closes the last bit of distance between himself and his ultimate destination. Mostly, he's just hoping that Yang and the others will get his message. He's…

Gods, but Jaune wishes he could've simply gone with them.

How much easier his life would be. How much less complicated. He could stick with his friends, and try and fight back against the evil in the world. He had heard enough about the current leader of Atlas – Hawthorne, Jaune's pretty sure his name is – to think that knocking him off of his pedestal would probably be the right idea.

He could be doing that. Instead, he's furthering the goals of the enemy of all of humanity, to try and save the life of one little girl.

Damn him, but he's not about to change his mind, either. He'd not been able to make up his mind before, and had taken a middle ground. Now… well, he just has to hope that Salem won't punish Cinder for his failure.

It's a pipe dream, but he doesn't have anything better.

He crests the top of the final hill between him and his goal, and decides to turn around, looking back towards Atlas, which hangs in the sky. Alongside it is Amity Coliseum, hovering just a bit higher.

…That damned stadium. It's like a curse in and of itself for Jaune. For all of them. Nothing good has ever come of it.

He sighs, before turning and sliding down the other side of the hill, creating a mini-avalanche that cascades down it along with him. When he reaches the bottom, he sets himself up, digging out a small trench in the snow like Clover had once shown them for if they had to survive out in the cold of Solitas for an extended period. Jaune wouldn't be there long, but he would rather not sit on cold snow and ice.

Despite his bodies' protests, he manages to dig out enough of a gap in the snow that he can sit down on the frozen dirt beneath. It isn't any warmer, but unlike the snow, it also isn't going to melt into his clothes as the heat from his body sits atop it.

That will let him retain a good deal of body heat.

After that, he sets up a small igloo using some nearby snow. He's really just doing that to keep himself busy, since it isn't like he can't just sit there and wait. But doing so for potentially hours on end would be grating on the mind, and Jaune really doesn't want to have to be thinking right now.

He'll be doing more than enough of that once he gets back to Evernight; he knows that already.

He finishes his igloo an hour or so after that, as the sun begins to fully set in the sky above. It's dark by the time he sits down inside of it.

It turns out that Jaune's not terribly adept at making igloos, which makes sense, given he had been mimicking a survival tactic he'd been taught one time… twenty-odd years ago? So, yes, Jaune has been working almost entirely off instinct

His instincts on igloos just suck, apparently.

Still, it workably sucks, and he manages to fit himself into the small gap he's filled out in the snow. It's at least a little more comfortable than just sitting outside, and so he doesn't much complain.

He'd not had the time to obtain provisions for a journey back. His stomach rumbles, but he has nothing to remedy that.

So it is that Jaune sits there, cold, hungry, and exhausted, for the next few hours. Darkness settles in, and Jaune…

He finds himself growing more and more distracted by the fact that he's alone. This had been their meeting point; his and Tyrian's. A valley nestled between three equidistant hills, a few kilometers out from Mantle.

But… it's been hours now.

Jaune's brow pulls together.

…Where's Tyrian?

/

By the time Weiss gets back to her hotel room alongside Trivia, she's more than ready to sink into her bed and not get up until sometime around next year.

Unfortunately, that's not really an option. Despite her exhaustion, life doesn't stop. The world just keeps on turning, unendingly, no matter how much Weiss needs a break.

Mostly, that comes in the form of Trivia, who is, seemingly, feeling both sheepish and appalled at the fact that Neopolitan, her alter-ego, had emerged. That Weiss had seen her. She's been asleep for the last three or four hours, awakening intermittently whenever Weiss would need to adjust her.

She has, after all, largely been carrying her around.

She lays Trivia down in her bed, and then looks down at her outfit, which is, in a word, absolutely ruined. No wonder she'd gotten odd looks from the people on her way up here; Trivia looks like she'd taken a bath in blood.

Weiss herself isn't much better.

So…

Well, Weiss decides that they probably need to clean up.

She rouses Trivia calmly, and waits for the girl to open her eyes. It takes a while of prodding, since Trivia's clearly exhausted, but they can't be sleeping like this.

Trivia does, eventually, come to, and Weiss explains the situation to her.

"I think we should get clean. Would you want to take a bath before me?"

Trivia pouts cutely, but nods her head.

Weiss lets her walk into the bathroom, and figures she can handle herself. It's only when she feels someone tug on the back of her dress that she looks back, and sees Trivia looking down and away, entirely fearful.

Weiss puts it together a second later, and her spirits fall.

"You… don't want to be alone?"

Trivia nods so subtly that it's barely a nod at all, but Weiss understands. She's embarrassed that she's terrified of bathrooms. An irrational fear, and yet, she'd just been kidnapped in one. At a time where such a thing shouldn't have been possible.

It's likely she'll have those same irrational fears for the rest of her life, even if she'll be able to deal with that fear better when she's older.

"Okay." Weiss tells her. "I'll come in with you."

They enter into the bathroom, and Weiss draws the bath. The water is warm, and though Weiss normally likes her baths and showers hot, she's fairly certain Trivia won't like them at quite the same temperature.

Trivia looks around awkwardly, and Weiss realizes what's going on.

"Here," she tells her, before turning around. "Go ahead and get in the tub. You can wear your underwear if you're uncomfortable. I'll just sit on the toilet over here."

Neo shakes her head, and Weiss is briefly confused, before the girl reaches into her pocket and takes out her scroll.

'Can you' she writes, before erasing the words.

In that moment, the thing that Weiss really comes to terms with is how difficult this all is. Trying to take care of Trivia, who'd likely already had a lot of traumas bubbling under the surface, now dealing with the fallout of being kidnapped.

And no matter how horrible she feels for poor Trivia; she can't really show it. Because she doesn't want the girl to feel like what she's going through is wrong. This fear… it's entirely natural.

So… Weiss puts on a smile – a little white lie – and asks, "Would you like for me to sit in the bath with you?"

Trivia seems mortified, but she nods her head. Weiss kneels down, and looks Trivia straight in the eye.

"Trivia, you don't have to be embarrassed, or ashamed."

The girl pouts yet again, before typing something into her scroll.

'Big kids aren't supposed to take baths with their' she stops typing all of a sudden, her face going red. Weiss doesn't quite know why, but before she can think too hard about it, Trivia has put the phone away.

"You don't always have to be a big kid." She smiles at her. "Everyone needs help every once in a while. I think it's a much bigger think to be able to ask for that help than to refuse it outright."

After a moment, Trivia sniffles, but she nods her head, and Weiss takes a little breath of relief. She turns away as Trivia takes off her outfit. She's leaving her underwear on – as Weiss will be.

Weiss wishes that communication between them could be just a little bit easier.

…Well, she'll work on that once they've bathed, and gotten all the gunk off of them. She's probably not going to be getting as much sleep as she'd like to tonight anyways.

Not when she couldn't stop thinking about… everything.

Trivia, Neopolitan, Ozpin, Atlas, Yang, Jaune…

That last one would be the main thing bothering her, after she'd helped Trivia fully.

So, Weiss does just that. She takes off her bloody dress, and gets into the bath behind Trivia. It's a large bath, given they're in a fairly upscale hotel – paid for by Ozpin for Qrow's sake – and so it's not as cramped as Weiss had feared it would be.

Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, the water they're sat in goes from clear to a smudgy reddish-brown color. Weiss can't deny that it's grossing her out. So, they get out, empty the water, and refill the tub. They get back in, and this time, the water never gets nearly as dirty after that.

"Would you like me to wash your hair?" She asks, and Trivia nods her head slowly.

So, she does.

After that, they get out – Weiss feels refreshed, which is a much-needed feeling after the day she's had – and towel themselves down. Weiss turns around so that Trivia can change into new underwear, and then, after that, Trivia does the same for her.

It's clear that while Trivia is embarrassed about it, she still doesn't want to be left alone. So, Weiss won't let her be.

The outfits they'd changed out of are lost causes. Weiss isn't even going to pretend like she can wash this much blood out. She has the funds to buy a few new outfits, and she probably needs to, anyways. She'd only had two or three of them in the first place.

It's as they're finishing getting dressed after that, and Weiss is planning on laying down, that the phone in her room rings. Weiss eyes it with some small annoyance, but eventually makes her way over, and answers it.

"Hello?"

"Hello, am I speaking to Ms. Weiss?"

"You are."

"Excellent. Someone is here to see you at the front desk."

Weiss' eyes narrow. Not necessarily in suspicion. More… well, she'd just like to know who it is she's going to be faced with ahead of time.

"I wasn't expecting anyone. Who is it?"

"Ah, give me a moment." Weiss hears the sound of barely audible talking just out of range of the phone's mic, and after ten or so seconds, the person speaking to her comes back. "He says he's here representing the Schnee Dust Company."

Weiss' eyes go as wide as saucers.

"…Oh."

She hesitated for three or four seconds, before letting out a pained sigh, and then saying, "I'll be down in a minute or two."

"Excellent. I'll let him know."

The person on the other end then promptly hung up.

Weiss looks to Trivia, who's watching her cautiously, uncertain as to what's going on.

"I'm going to go down to the front desk." She tells her. "You want to come with me?"

Trivia doesn't so much as hesitate to nod her head.

So it is that the two of them step out of Weiss' hotel room, and make their way downstairs to the lobby. It's not a long journey, but Weiss feels horrible every time a door opens, or something bumps inside one of the rooms they're passing, because Trivia jumps at every single one of those sounds.

It hurts to see Trivia so antsy, but she can't blame her.

…She should probably take her to see a psychologist, or a doctor, or… whoever can help with what Trivia's going through right now. She'd already had many issues stemming from her abusive childhood to deal with, alongside Neo…

Well, perhaps Neo is something she shouldn't be making any blanket statements about until she's gotten the opinion of a doctor.

They emerge into the lobby to find a well-dressed man in a suit, with black glasses, stood just in front of the desk. He turns towards her, and a smile is immediately plastered onto his lips.

"You must be Weiss." The man steps forward. "My name is Gato; I'm an aid to the Schnee family."

Weiss knows. In fact, she knows him. Gato had been one of her father's most trusted aids for many years.

He'd died during the White Fang attack on the mansion when she'd been just a little girl. One of the few dozen or so people who'd perished that day.

She'd all but forgotten about him until this moment, but it's… kind of nice to see him again.

"I am here on behalf of Willow Schnee." He takes an envelope – adorned with an elegant wax seal with the insignia of the Schnee family – and holds it out towards her. "I carry with me an invitation to the Vytal Gala, which is being held at the Schnee Mansion in two days' time. This invitation has been personally addressed to you. Such is an honor reserved for very few."

"I… see."

She reaches out and takes the envelope, opening it there and then. That might be considered uncouth, but frankly, Weiss isn't really feeling like pretending to be some upper-crust socialite at the moment.

She reads through the note within. There's nothing personal about it. It's a standard invite. Her name is nowhere on it.

The only thing about it that looks like it might be her mother's is the writing on the back of the envelope, which simply states 'To the White Lady'.

"Who's 'The White Lady'?" She asks the man himself, flipping the envelope over so he can see it."

"Ah, I suppose you must be busy," Gato smiles. "The video of your stopping those kidnappers has gone viral rather immediately, if I am to understand. Some few million people have seen it already. However, you yourself are an unknown, but an unknown that almost everyone in the world wishes to know more about. In lieu of an actual name, given that yours has not been made public to anyone, people of the world have begun to call you 'The White Lady'."

"And does that go for Willow Schnee as well?" It feels odd to address her mother by her full name. "She, too, is curious about who I am?"

Gato nods. "She is indeed. For the first time in a long while, she seems to have stirred from her usual routine. She has taken quite the interest in you, for rather understandable reasons."

Her mother thinks she has a long-lost sister, evidently. It's a fair conclusion to come to. After all, while her grandfather – Nicholas Schnee – had been a brilliant man, he'd also been filthily rich, friendly, and had, for large sections of his life, ventured out into the wide world to find dust deposits and other such resources in the field, stopping in frontier villages and other small towns.

Her grandmother, also, had died young, just after Willow's birth.

To put things bluntly; it's not so crazy a thought to think that Nicholas Schnee might have had a few dalliances with women that hadn't expressly been made official.

So, yes, even though Weiss isn't the result of such a coupling, her mother's suspicions are fairly well founded.

But still, she's earned quite a bit of attention within the last day or so. She's a Schnee, and the world knows it.

Already, there are likely news programs talking about whether or not her existence sullies her grandfather's name, if her mother – and hell, her father, too – now have to compete with her for ownership of the company…

There are just so many things to think about that Weiss wants absolutely nothing to do with.

Beyond her own lack of interest, however, there's Trivia to think about. She can feel the way that her daughter has been shirking away from this man, given his intimidating stature. Obviously, he's just an aid to her father, but Trivia…

Well, she probably doesn't have much of a concept of what's going on. After all, she likely has no idea who the Schnee family really are. Doesn't know its members, its internal politics, why her suddenly showing up out of nowhere is as big of a deal as it is.

She's dealing with far more important things.

And Weiss isn't going to let her deal with them alone.

So… for the time being…

"My apologies," She bows her head. "I'm afraid that I will not be able to attend the Gala."

Those words are, rather clearly, not the ones that Gato had been expecting. His eyes go wide, and he almost chokes on his own breath. "W-What?"

"I'm not sure if the circumstances of why I was forced to reveal my semblance is known, but I was trying to rescue my daughter." She looks down at Trivia, who's looking back up at her with wonder, and shock.

Weiss realizes in that moment that she's never actually called her 'daughter' to her face before.

Well… she'd like her to know how important she is to her, regardless.

"She had been kidnapped by a group of men. I dealt with them. But my daughter is currently getting over the trauma of that kidnapping. I don't want her to have to deal with a crowd of people, or the impacts of high society, at the moment."

Gato shakes his head, before clearing his throat, seemingly trying to get himself back on track.

"Your daughter need not attend. If you'd like, she can be watched over by–"

"She is getting over being kidnapped." She stresses this again, because apparently, it hasn't gotten through the man's skull. "She will stay by my side until she is comfortable not being there. If Willow Schnee still wishes to meet with me, then I will be more than happy to see her in a one-on-one setting, where I can keep Trivia close to me, but also not stress her with a crowd of people."

Gato has, rather clearly, not been given any kind of power to make an arrangement such as that. He's likely just been told to come here, give her the invitation, and accept what they'd been sure would be a confirmation that she'd attend.

That is not what's happening.

The man is not taking it particularly well. Weiss would normally be a bit more receptive to such a thing, but Trivia is her main – and, truly, only – concern at the moment.

She can't find it in herself to care much about anyone, or anything, else.

"Turning down an invitation from the head of the Schnee family is most unwise." Gato speaks, his lips turning down into a thin line. "You should reconsider this."

"I have considered it plenty, and you have my answer."

"You do not seem to understand the effects that this could have on–"

"You do not seem to understand," Weiss takes a step forward, then, well and truly done. "That I have provided my answer. I will speak with Willow Schnee, if she wishes to, in a one-on-one setting. If she agrees to those terms, then come and find me again; I will be here. Until then, however, you go back to Willow Schnee, and tell her that I will be spending time with my daughter. Perhaps she could consider doing the same thing for her own children. I'm sure that would be quite a novel experience for her."

And with that, she turned on her heel, took Trivia's hand, and left the lobby altogether.

/

"I would like to offer you an apology, darling. I'm afraid the men I sent after your daughter were either captured or killed to the last."

The knuckles of Carmel Vanille's fists are white, but she exhales, and keeps herself as calm as she can given the situation. Regardless of what had happened, she can tell by Miss Malachite's tone that this is, indeed, a failure that she is not taking lightly.

"I saw the news, the same as everyone else." She pushes out. "I know… who has her. Who has my daughter."

"If you'd like, I could send another round of men after her, but unfortunately without Ricard's semblance – may the brother's give him rest – I don't know how easy–"

"No!" Carmel hisses out, before steadying herself. She can't afford to let the situation get to her! Not even…

Not even when her daughter's life is potentially hanging in the balance.

Her entire life, she's been taught control. She's been taught discipline, and to never show your true emotions. She's been crafted – honed – to a razor's edge, until every ounce of remorse has been sheered away from her.

She is not going to dull now.

Not when that edge will be the key to gaining her daughter back.

"I've left this to others enough…" She speaks out darkly, moving aside a hidden panel in her personal closet, and reaching towards a long-forgotten relic of her past.

"I'll go and save Trivia myself."

End Chapter 38

Okie dokes. We get closer and closer to the end of Part 2, and the start of Part 3. I do not know how many parts this story will be, but I'm leaning towards 6-7. So that should give you some idea how far along we are.

Not a ton to say besides that. I am, again, going on vacation for a week, so no chapter next week. Will return the week after that! See you all then.

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