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Volume One: Winter & Spring

Chapter 20: Regularly Scheduled Programming

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Untitled Document, Volume 2

 

“Okay, I swear I can explain--”

“How incompetent can you possibly be?!”

   

Cinder thinks Crimson failed

 

“Okay, I swear I can explain--”

“You knew I was a spy the entire time?!”

“Guessed! Thought. Suspected.”

   

Weiss is a spy too???

 

“It’s not my fault -- Yang’s mom of all people showed up out of the blue and I was forced to wait ‘til she left!”

“...What?”

“She has some kind of portal Semblance. I think Yang actually arranged to talk with her at that exact time, since she kinda went off into the forest on her own.”

"What?”

 

Yang’s mom = Branwen Tribe leader + teleportation = in contact?

 

“In my defense, you were being kind of obvious.”

“What?”

“Giving us packets to fill out about ourselves, listening way too closely when anything about Yang’s Semblance gets mentioned -- like I said, you were kind of obsessed.”

“Fair point.”

 

Semblance confirmed significant

 

“And how did you get involved?”

“Blake figured it out on her own. I think she deserves to know what’s going on if we’re going to be using her like this. No offense, Blake.”

“None taken.”

 

Crimson will defend me, values truth (exploit?)

 

“So how did you get involved?”

“I barely am. It’s not like they caught me figuring them out or anything -- my sister barely knows more than me. Basically, my father forbade me from going to Beacon, but Ironwood offered me a position here in exchange for these reports about Yang. He said it was because she’s a tribesman and that they’ve had their eye on her for a while, but there’s got to be more to it, right?”

“Agreed.”

 

"Salem" = Atlas project codename? Military wants Yang alive

 

“Look, I was only tasked with killing Yang. I wasn’t told how or when--”

“No, I told you--”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do!”

 

! Cinder has no authority on assassination ! Cinder Crimson’s superior?

 

“Look, I wasn’t expecting to be tasked with protecting Yang. At first, he only wanted me to spy on her, but after I sent Winter your packets--”

“You what?” 

“Sorry, I'm sorry! Anyways, as soon as they saw Crimson they wanted more information about her, and once Yang showed her Semblance in class, they told me someone might try to kill her.”

“So they think Crimson will kill Yang? Because of something to do with her Semblance?”

“That’s the best I’ve been able to infer. They won’t let me know anything else.”

 

! Atlas suspects Crimson !

 

“Why are you supposed to kill Yang?”

“Shut up! Do not tell her.”

“For her Semblance?”

“...Kind of.”

“UGH!”

“Cinder! Where are you--”

“You will be sorry you ever disobeyed me.”

 

Yang’s Semblance = "Spring Maiden" > Atlas intrigue? More "Maidens"? 4+?

 

“Why are you telling me this? Disobeying the military?”

“It’s just like I told you; I’m tired of being left in the dark. I can’t work out what about Yang’s Semblance would make someone want to kill her, or why Crimson would want to kill Yang, and now even whether Crimson is the killer considering she didn’t take the perfect opportunity this morning. And I know I can’t keep doing this all by myself, not when the stakes are getting so drastic and involving the people close to me. So, since you’re the one who led me to this revelation with your observations and logical thinking and loyalty…”

“Tell me more.”

“Ha, quiet. I don’t know, it wasn’t just convenient -- it felt right. I hope I won’t regret it?”

“You and me both.”

 

Weiss is relying on me

 

“Sorry she yelled at you. She’s been kind of… what’s the word?”

“A bitch.”

“Blake! You’re not wrong, I guess. But neither is she. As much as I would love to tell you the whole truth before you figure it all out anyways, I shouldn’t. I can’t disobey orders. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Helping you will only get me to the bottom of this faster.”

“Heh. Don’t let me stop you.”

 

Crimson + Cinder answer to distant higher authority, no immediate consequences?

 

“I’m sorry that I’ve forced this secret on you. They won’t know we’re working together, so you can’t tell anybody about this, understand? If there’s a reason they don’t want Yang to know, I don’t want to find out the hard way.”

“I promise. I’m sorry you’ve been going through all this alone.”

“But now I’ve got your smarts. Don’t disappoint me, Nightshade.”

“As long as you can keep up, Schnee.”

 

No others trusted, only me

 

“But that won’t be my priority. I promised to help you.”

“...yeah, you did. Thanks, I still owe you one. Two, I guess -- for distracting Weiss, and for continuing to help me. I know it was hard for you to sit by today, but I don’t know what I’d do if she’d found me out.”

“It worked out for both of us. May I call in one of my favors now?”

“...sure?”

“Did Yang’s mother really interrupt you?”

“Yeah, they had a whole argument.”

“About?”

“...I’m sorry.”

“More secrets?”

“Yeah.”

“It's fine. I only wanted to know one thing.”

“Shoot.”

“Did you choose not to kill Yang?”

“...Well, let’s just say her mother was gone in two minutes.”

“Alright. Then let’s get to work.”

 

Crimson chose.

 

“Weiss?”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad you told me.”

 

“Crimson?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m proud of you.”

 

 

  • Next steps for Weiss:
    • Lead away from Crimson
    • Learn about Yang’s Semblance
    • Cover up investigating
  • Next steps for Crimson:
    • Lead away from Weiss
    • Learn motive
    • Separate from Cinder
    • “Plan” next attempt
    • SAVE YANG’S LIFE.

 

Deadline: before Beacon falls.

 

How did this happen.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Crimson expected Cinder to just believe that Yang’s mother randomly showed up using an ultra-rare portal Semblance at the exact moment of her assassination attempt? To simply accept that Crimson is only going to postpone it, that that backstabbing Faunus isn’t hellbent on leading her astray? To passively conform to the girl’s dangerously arrogant assumption that Cinder had no power to punish her?

Well, that’s one thing Cinder could prove wrong.

Cinder stormed through the school’s hallways positively seething. Every breath raked in new fuel for the roiling fire that burned away in her chest, scorched dry the inside of her throat, and filled her head with crackling smoke. It had sparked with a thunderstrike of shock at Crimson prancing out of the forest with Yang smiling at her side, and it had spent the long hours returning to the privacy of their dormitory growing untempered and unchecked, and now, as Cinder scorched across campus directly to Leonardo’s office, it had burned away every sensibility in Cinder’s body but the only two that mattered: unadulterated, restive fury… and joy.

See, Crimson didn’t seem to understand that she had just failed.  

She had forgotten that it was Cinder’s own failure that had passed the power to Crimson’s inept hands in the first place. The power that was rightfully Cinder’s.

If Salem deemed it just that Cinder’s failure should make her undeserving of Spring, then surely justice would also favor the other way around.

Crimson had sealed her own fate, and in doing so, had done the one thing that could have put Cinder’s back on the right path. 

Now, only a brief conversation with their master remained between Cinder and her destiny.

That vindicated hopefulness fanned the wildfire of senseless rage within Cinder to a heat that she could barely contain. Each strike of her heels against the floor of the corridor vibrated through the wood paneling with a startling CRACK, sending students and staffers alike skittering out of her path. Cinder would have smiled if not for the burning intensity of the ire that had kiln-hardened her face into a tempestuous scowl, her jaws interlocked so fiercely in opposition that they might as well have been trying to smash the other into dust. Her arms barely swung at her sides, weighed down by the sheer density of her balled fists. She bet that at least one of her buried fingernails had drawn blood by now, but she wouldn’t be able to tell unless she pried her fingers apart with some tool -- the knuckle-whitening pressure had all but numbed them, as if her boiling blood no longer dared travel those violent channels. This was the flavor of fuming excitement she carried with her all the way up until she finally blew through the carved double-doors of the headmaster’s office and planted her panting self across from him with a resounding stomp.

She did not expect to find more than just the headmaster in question. Two older women seated before the mahogany desk turned around in their chairs, while the headmaster beyond them jolted stiffly upright in panicked recognition.

“Ci-- Ah, Miss, um, Fall, you--” Lionheart fumbled, “what a surprise!” He feigned towards the women with overly-high eyebrows that barely guised a signal of what on Remnant are you doing here?  

Cinder spared each of the women a lookover with her hard-set glare, both of whom peered back at her with a mixture of offense and curiosity. One of them wore glasses. Boring.

Cinder gathered with this one look that they didn’t deserve her attention, and so she returned her severity to Lionheart, who had since flown to his feet and now gesticulated frenetically with his pocket watch. “Oh goodness, is it time for our, uh, meeting already?” he hemmed, flailing helplessly.

She let the fire in her eyes answer that. Without a word, she marched right up to his desk and stopped between the two chairs with a thud of her heel.

The terror in his eyes only deepened as he jerked away from his chair like a bird startled into flight and babbled on. “Um, I’m so terribly sorry Councillors, you must excuse me, I completely forgot that Miss Fall here had scheduled this, ah, appointment, it will only a few minutes--”

He briskly swung around his desk and ushered the women out of their seats with flitting waves of his hands. His wide eyes refused to linger on any one spot, least of all the women’s bewildered faces or Cinder’s own glared daggers.

“My apologies once again, I will be back with you very shortly -- please make yourselves comfortable in the lobby!” He continued to ramble as the women awkwardly collected themselves while he attempted to swiftly herd them to the door, muttering pleasantries over their edgewise protests. The one with glasses nearly got her foot caught in the door as Lionheart practically threw it closed behind them.

The doors clattered shut and Cinder could finally give her order. “Bring me to the Seer. I need to speak with Salem.”

Lionheart leaned against the wood, hyperventilating. “You can’t just--” He stammered past her statement in a flash of temper, before shooting a glance towards the door and leaning forward. “Those were two of the most important politicians in all of Mistral!” he whispered harshly.

Cinder bared her impatience through pointed teeth. “Leo. The Seer. Now.”

Lionheart lurched back with a whimper, his spluttering ceasing.

Yet, somehow, the surviving incredulity on his face clung to a spark of their own -- a dissension that flared in his eye. He rose to his full height with a steeling inhale, using its stability to press his eyes shut and his lips into a tense line.

After a moment of quiet, Lionheart’s eyes opened, and met hers firm.

“Cinder,” he said curtly. “Take a seat.”

He set off back towards his desk, hands linked behind him.

She squinted.

What is he up to?    

In her current state of sourness, she didn’t have it in her to begin another argument. Cinder resigned herself to the chair on the right, arms and legs crossed tight.

Lionheart returned to his place in his high-backed chair. He placed his elbows on his desk, resting his chin against his nestled hands. Cinder knew the posture well: Salem resorted to it on occasion. Only when she was displeased.

But Lionheart did not regard her with that sort of malignant judgement. Rather, the furrow that had formed in his brow was one of troubled contemplation, as if he was pondering a piece of music. 

Cinder braced in revulsion. She didn’t like to be studied.

“Cinder,” he repeated frankly.

She made her irritability known, tapping her foot.

He pressed his lips tighter before he continued, the crease deepening. She felt a beleaguered sigh coming on.

“This is likely about Spring, yes?” he asked.

She released a blast through her nose, tapping her finger in time with her toe. She grunted confirmation.

“And Crimson’s decision to postpone the assassination?”

Cinder’s eyes narrowed. “She filled you in?” When?

“Promptly,” he said, setting his fists down on the table. “I assume you are unhappy with this decision.”

What a childish way of putting it, Cinder grumbled. “Crimson failed, so I’m sending her home,” she stated to-the-point. “I’m sure her failure will convince our Queen to allow me to pursue the Spring Maiden once again. All you need concern yourself with is bringing me to the Seer, and expelling Crimson.”

“Expel her?” Lionheart echoed with a rush of breath. “I cannot.”

Her eyebrows dove with a flare of indignation. “I am ordering you,” Cinder reiterated through grit teeth.

He wavered under her gaze, but oddly, it was colored with more notes of solemn patience than fearful cowardice. That incensed her -- he had no right to think he knows better than her. 

“I understand that,” he mediated, “but Crimson is a well-liked student. I cannot simply expel her without reason; many will notice her absence.”

“That’s exactly why she needs to go,” Cinder belabored, tearing her eyes towards the window. Gods, was she the only one taking this seriously? “She’s become too immersed in the ‘student’ charade -- it’s distracting from our true ends.”

Lionheart then leaned in, gravity bearing much of his weight down onto the table. Cinder recoiled, but refused to yield him her gaze. 

“I don’t think you get my meaning,” he stressed, his affect strengthening his speech. “Crimson has done exceptionally well keeping your ‘true ends’ hidden because of her commitment as a student. Expelling Crimson may lead to your discovery if professors question my actions. In that sense, it is you who has posed the greatest threat.”

Her neck audibly cricked with the speed at which her eyes snapped back to his. “Me?” she balked. “I have been flawlessly discreet -- I have never attracted any sort of unwanted attention the way she has.”

Lionheart’s mouth dropped open at that, the instant flare of disbelief shoving a gesturing hand towards the door. “You just barged in on a meeting with three of the most powerful people in all the land! Every week I have to fend off a new faculty request for disciplinary action against you for unacknowledged late assignments and evasion of mandatory tutoring in classes you’ve continuously maintained a failing average in and--”

“Stop,” Cinder urged, head spinning. “What?”

Lionheart cut off his breath and caught himself. His hands drew in to fidget with his necktie as he sheepishly recoiled from his uncharacteristic outburst. 

Cinder stayed mute, dazed. 

Disciplinary action… 

Mandatory tutoring…?  

He was lecturing her about… school shit?

Was he actually suggesting she submit to the inconsequential minutiae of a world so far beneath her? Was he daring to patronize her? Threaten her?

“Why have you not told me of this before?” she probed slowly.

His eyes stuck onto Cinder with new ruptures of concern. She hated it.

“Don’t you ever check your school message account inbox?”

“My what?”

He choked on a sigh.

“I’m the only person here who knows that you aren’t just a student,” he attempted to explain. “It may seem inconsequential to you, but there are real consequences for ignoring the fact that you are enrolled here. If you fail any of your classes this semester, your team doesn’t qualify for the Vytal Festival Tournament.”

Her blood froze.

They don’t what?

“What do you mean?” her thoughts betrayed through her mouth.

His eyebrows grew heavier. “If it’s any consolation, you’re the only member of your team failing any of your classes. All of them, more specifically.”

Left inside Cinder was only steam.

I’m…

Failing.

No.

No!  

The flame was back, the heat set to blazing. What kind of backwards system was this that her inferior disciples were passing and her superior self was not? This wasn’t her problem. 

“Change my grades,” she barked at Lionheart. “Fix them.”

“Even if I had access to the system, I would not,” he answered.

She gaped at the injury. “But you need to do something!” she cried, her fist lunging forth to meet the desk in a splintering blow. This was ridiculous! Absurd! What did he expect her to do, forgo pursuing her divine destiny only to prostrate herself before his insignificant mortal institutions? She was clever, powerful, the best and the chosen -- she was not the one in error, the one who deserved to have everything she’d worked for ruined by a single oversight like a sandcastle conquered by the surf. If he did not correct this, then she would have wasted all this time hindered by Crimson’s misgivings for nothing, she would not be able to sabotage the Vytal Festival, she would have to rely on the so-called legitimacy of that Faunus and that wretch of a girl who had stolen everything from her simply by naïvely embracing this false construction that now tried to take from her the last thing she had left. Look at her, pleading to someone beneath her, but she couldn’t help but plead, because what else could she do? He was the most powerful ally she had in this whole stupid sham! Fix it!

But he insisted, “I can’t keep taking the fall for you,” his eyebrows steepled in the exact kind of placating empathy she despised, unable to comprehend the hurt it bred. “You and your agents are undercover as students, yet you are the only one that refuses to engage in your classes. Usually by now I would be expected to expel you for your clear lack of dedication, and it’s only a matter of time before your professors become suspicious of me and perhaps call for investigation, which could only lead to ruin for both of us.”

She could barely hear his words over the pounding that kicked her chest. Cinder’s breathing seethed with a new kind of fire. The burning air as it rushed through her teeth made the slightest whistling shriek.

She was failing. At fake school. At being supreme. At everything.

And Crimson was succeeding.

“What can I do?” she had asked.

Which is how she ended up here: inside the training center, bright and early the next morning, with Professor Jade staring her down from across the room.

“So,” Jade remarked. “You’re here to beg for a passing grade.”

Cinder’s face roasted.

Lots of tiny little glass knives, Cinder pictured vengefully. In the bottoms of her feet.

“Whatever you ask of me,” Cinder mumbled, head tipped to watch the floor.

“I’m curious as to what you think that might be,” Jade inquired. “You seem terrified.”

Cinder’s chin snapped up, spearing her eyes into the professor.

The sight of the woman made her swallow a dry breath. High bun, though not pale. Long robes, though not dark.

Glowing hot pins, Cinder thought to steady herself. Close to her eyeballs.

“I don’t require a punishment,” Jade went on, “nor an apology. You should not be ashamed to ask for forgiveness, or to want to remediate.”

Spiky metal chain around her neck.

Cinder’s morbid fantasizing was doing the trick -- Jade’s words became formless noise against her ears like breaking waves. Her silent glowering deafened her to any sort of degradation. She shut out the woman’s belittling words, only permitting herself to acknowledge them just to spite their soft delivery.

Not that this endeavor would be difficult for her in any way shape or form, obviously. She could endure far greater tortures than this mere brush past the embarrassment of submission. It just was… unbecoming. All she needed to do was jump through whatever hoops her five professors set to obtain a bare-minimum passing grade; she didn’t have to enjoy it. Only a coward would take this offense lying down. But again, it wasn’t that offensive, get it? It was just stupid. Right. She was making sense.

“Do you understand?” Jade asked.

Cinder begrudgingly nodded, once. Crushing blows against her knees.  

That idea had been a little pathetic. She could do better. Wait, no she couldn’t, she was perfect. What?

Jade returned the nod. Cinder fought hard against the impulse to sneer. “Well, since this class is mostly graded by participation, I’ll only ask two things of you to put you back in good standing,” she said. 

Cinder paused in jamming splinters under her gums and relegated attention, though minimal, to her instructions. What lowly task was she to carry out according to her arbitrary ruling?

“One: it doesn’t take a genius to tell that you are a very talented fighter,” Jade complimented, which threw Cinder off too abruptly to detect the dishonesty it must have contained. “I want you to show that you’re engaging in class more often than just in combat. I know you must have some brilliant thoughts once in a while. Speak them.”

Flattery would not save her from the cheese wire amputating her ear. The assignment made Cinder want to gag. She was already condemned to waste hours of potential planning time filling out meaningless previous assignments that would continue to accumulate until the end of the semester. But now even the lost-cause time already taken out of her day to drag herself to these classes would be demanding something more from her. Jade would award her a middling grade only if she pretended to enjoy her class? This felt like extortion, made all the worse by openly acknowledging its superficiality. 

But while she was already exhausted at the idea of the overbearing irritation this task would generate, it would be possible, and even perhaps easy, for a secret agent such as herself to accomplish.

Inwardly, Cinder took pliers to her fingernails.

Outwardly, Cinder nodded in agreement.

Jade smiled at her. Ugh.

“And two,” Jade continued. “I will now ask you a few questions, and you will answer them honestly, okay?”

Cinder started.

Her eyes darted to the hands folded in front of the professor. An unwanted jolt of fear and flight rippled down her spine, gone before Cinder had the opportunity to choke it out of existence.

Jade must have detected the flicker of weakness, because then she added, “I sincerely apologize for my overreaction last time. I assure you, there are no wrong answers, and I will not penalize you if I catch you in a lie.”

Cinder’s eyes flipped back to her face.

Something like amusement twinkled in Jade’s eye.

A growl smouldered and died in Cinder’s throat. Laughing at her frailty, was she? So confident in her superiority, was she?

Fine. Cinder would answer her questions. What was one more abuse of power against her?

Cinder nodded again, being sure to fully advertise her suspicion all over her face.

Jade smiled at her once again.

Disgusting.

She promptly retrieved her scroll from within a concealed pocket in her drooping sleeves. A few gestures later, a projection spread into the air: some kind of grid of information, each large square cell containing a blurb of text. Cinder did not have time to read it all before Jade spoke.

“Okay, let’s see here,” she tittered, reading off her scroll. “First, please present your weapon.”

Cinder’s brow wrinkled.

Jade looked up, expectant.

Slowly, Cinder raised a hand, and after a shimmer of heat, Midnight’s hilt rested in her palm. Easy enough.

A spark leapt to Jade’s eye as she whispered, “Fascinating.”

She repositioned the blade to her side. Here she was, being studied again.

“What is its name?” Jade interrogated.

“Midnight,” Cinder answered.

Jade muttered a repetition and looked down, entering something into her scroll. In the first row and column of the projection, the letters populated the bottom of the cell: Midnight. “Does it have other forms?” Jade asked, returning a glance to Cinder.

The bunching of Cinder’s forehead deepened as she held out her other hand, burning a second blade into existence. She struck the two hilts together and welded them there, creating and nocking a rudimentary arrow.

Jade gasped in excitement, leaping to type bow and arrow, two blades, one blade into the first cell’s neighbor. “And can you dual wield them?” she asked, a brightness modulating her voice.

Cinder took each sword in a hand and separated them with a gooey crunch, and… flipped one over her knuckles and spun it around, for just a little flourish.

The spark in Jade’s eyes incended further, a candlewick of interest lighting her way. “Incredible,” she commented numbly, almost like a thoughtless echo from her mind.

For a horrifying moment, Cinder’s confusion faded to something stronger: excitement.

The questions Jade went on to ask her were from the combat presentation all those weeks ago, Cinder soon came to realize. This was the “rubric” she’d spoken of, but it accounted for a shallow investigation compared to the flood of follow-up questions and curious what-ifs the professor seemed to be incapable of resisting the urge to pursue. The topics roamed from her weapon to her fighting style to her weapon again to her Aura to her Semblance back to her fighting style and around to her Aura and over a period of ten minutes, then thirty, then a number by which Cinder had stopped trying to check the clock she was back to herself, powerful and competent and not a failure but impressive and capable and completely willing to demonstrate that in animated exhibitions, summoning and vaporizing her own bullets, shooting three flaming arrows and disintegrating them before they hit the wall, describing the ideas she’d never had the opportunity to give voice with rapid movement of her hands all while the professor nodded and called out affirmations Cinder’s heart swelled to capture as undeniable proof that this really wouldn’t be so bad after all.

And then it was time for class, and the magic ran out.

Cinder was in the middle of a sentence about her localized heat resistance when the jarring mechanical clicking of the door sent her jerking around with a whiplash of her predatory senses so strong it momentarily knocked her vision into darkness.

“Professor Jade?”

The sound of Weiss Schnee’s voice and students’ chatter rushing into the room stiffened Cinder’s spine in an instant, the snap to rigidity firing a bolt of fear through her gut. She felt her face shrivel into its former gloom, like a sheet frantically thrown over her formerly exposed, naked, indecent joyfulness. When Jade invited the students to enter the room, Cinder was sure to have effaced every sign of her revolting display of childish glee under a sulking, ironclad dourness. She refused to even remember it. Had she really -- no, no she had not. She had gotten what she needed, and that was that. Bygones.

Students had begun streaming in, and Cinder noticed that she was being noticed, standing in a spotlight at the front of the room, striking her with the terrible compulsion to flee to a far corner of the planet. 

Just as she hastened herself into motion, Jade called, “Cinder.”

Cinder’s pulse jumped. She spun back around to the professor, who still wore the exact same, completely incorrect expression of calm, pleased understanding.

“If you keep that level of enthusiasm up in class,” Jade assured Cinder without any recognition of the way it made her flinch, “you will have no trouble passing this semester.”

Cinder was loath to celebrate the vile mixture of pride and fear and resentment that declaration stirred within her.

“But I am aware of the status of your other classes,” she was aggrieved to hear Jade continue. She could feel the eyes on her. They braised her face, stoked its withering heat.

“Seeing as your teammates have not provided sufficient support for your academic success, I thought you might have an easier time catching up if I asked the best student in this class to guide you.”

And once again, Cinder circled back around to bitter confusion. 

She had just proven she was excellent. At the very least, she was older than all of them.

Who else could the best student possibly be?

“Who?” she said simply.

Professor Jade glanced back towards the girl holding the door.

 

Weiss was… unsure, about all of this.

When Weiss was much much younger, she had been friends for a time with a girl in her dance class whose nascent personality consisted of three attributes: her favorite color was red, her favorite animal was the deer, and her least favorite activity was dance. This girl liked to dance, the feeling of letting loose and dancing, but she seemed allergic to the concept of dance class because, at her age, it primarily involved standing still and waiting for someone to tell her to move in ways that hurt. It was nothing like ballroom dancing, where both partners decide what they want to happen next and the music plays on powerless to stop them. Besides, it wasn’t like she was bad at dance -- the red reindeer girl was simply good at so many other things that dance class was just a waste of time. And as such, she refused to dance in dance class for the rest of the year, only standing by the door with the raised chin and crossed arms she’d learned from her father as her classmates danced on. It was only when the day that they got their costumes for the winter recital rolled around, and she alone was left empty-handed because she wasn’t deemed prepared to perform with them, that the smugness was finally torn off her face and she was left bawling for three hours.

Weiss’s favorite color was still red. Even though she was proud to have grown past that ugly attitude she had prized when she had been that little girl, her terror of imperfection and tendency towards belligerence would always live within her in the memory of a peach leotard. She was still, if nothing else, a friend to her younger self. So if Weiss had once been the creature Cinder was now, how could she turn her back on a hurting little girl?

On the other hand, she really didn’t like Cinder. Nevermind the fleeting possibility that she was acting as an accessory to murder -- Cinder was resentful, self-important, and most crucially of all, mean to Crimson, rendering her in blatant opposition to Team WYCD’s fundamental philosophy: that no one is allowed to be mean to Crimson, except for Weiss. Furthermore, over this half of their first twelve-week semester together, Team WYCD had fallen into their own extremely particular, rigorously curated study habits that largely consisted of all lying on the floor of their dorm room and just kind of doing whatever as long as they still slogged through an acceptable amount of work at Weiss’s behest by the end of the night. Incorrigible inefficiency aside, Weiss found this routine to be a powerful motivator, even for herself; she would end up racing through assignments just to allow herself to jump into the conversation before it dawdled on to the next vapid topic. But it relied on the special mixture of Weiss’s self-discipline, Dusk’s reservation, Crimson’s distractibility, and Yang’s patience to sustain itself; one factor less and it would never have vanquished the desire for quiet, one more and it would come undone by its own chaos. So if bringing any new person into that space would be like throwing a rock into their serene pond, then introducing Cinder would be a watermelon-sized cannonball of pure potassium. The blame for that potential disruption to their cherished ritual would fall on Weiss, who had brought her into the space in the first place, and she was not looking forward to how that would affect their trust in her as the team leader that was always hounding them to stay on track. In particular, Weiss had fought too hard to win Crimson’s respect to simply throw that away in favor of an antagonistic stranger she was civil with at best.

So imagine Weiss’s surprise when she had tentatively mentioned Professor Jade’s request that she tutor Cinder to Crimson, and she had responded, “Oh, please do.”

According to her, Cinder just really wanted to qualify for the Vytal Festival Tournament, and Weiss should help her because watching her study would be “really, really funny.” Weiss admonished her slightly for that, but it did create a perfect resolution to Weiss’s dilemma. Sobbing-red-reindeer Cinder did not deserve to be put down, but putting the dance-boycotter that bullied Crimson in her place might be quite the treat.

Wednesday night, five weeks away from their very first final exams, Weiss had ensured that Team WYCD’s study session had commenced exactly in the way it did every night -- like herding cats -- before creeping in with Cinder in tow and silently placing her down at Weiss’s desk in the corner. She noticed each member of her team make a valiant effort to appear as if they had no reaction -- Crimson developed a sudden affinity for marginal annotation, Dusk grabbed a different book to be entirely engrossed in, and Yang chose that moment to beg of Crimson what she thought of this weather they’d been having. Weiss was grateful for their attempt at politeness or civility or whatever they were hoping to accomplish with such conspicuous displays of inconspicuous behavior, because she found it reassuring; it was confirmation that her friends were just as keen on preserving this tradition as she was. However, it became problematic when Cinder, for her part, likewise limited her interaction, vocalizing no more than the occasional noncommittal acknowledgement of Weiss’s instructions and being thoroughly inaccessible through eye contact. Weiss knew all too well the numb sort of discomfort Cinder was experiencing -- freeze, more than flight. She pitied it as much as she guiltily appreciated it for making Cinder so uncharacteristically compliant. 

Despite these promising initial responses, Weiss kept expecting some boiling point to be reached, some threshold to be crossed whereafter her teammates simply wouldn’t be able to bear Cinder’s presence any longer and would suffer an outburst of insults comparable to what used to occur in her household on a daily basis. 

But it did not happen the first night, nor the next, and to keep a surprisingly long story short, the feared heat death of their peace never came in the six weeks between when Cinder first sat down in their dorm room and when they sat down for their first semester of final exams together.

Not to say that the anticipation did not remain palpable for an excruciatingly long time. The fifth week from that of finals, Weiss nearly reached that point of intolerance herself when she had helped Cinder contact all of her professors to see how she could catch up, and discovered that Cinder for the life of her had no idea how to draft a formal message. (No subject line. No greeting or sign-off. Simply, “I need to not fail your class. Tell me how.”) When Weiss informed her this was insufficient, Cinder responded by wordlessly shoving her scroll towards Weiss and folding her arms. Instances like this quickly taught Weiss that Cinder, confidence already maimed and bleeding, seemed discouraged more by her ineptitude at navigating the curricula than their contents -- more out of her total ignorance of the latter, Weiss was soon to encounter. (“There’s math in Grimm Studies, can you -- uh, can you... Do. Math? I mean no offense, there’s nothing too complicated -- no one’s expecting you to do, like, multivariate integration.” “...I can.” “Wait, you can do--” “No, math. Not what you said.”) By the end of the week, Cinder was still failing all four of her afternoon classes, but at least that meant the world was in its usual harmony. No assassins, no spies, and plentiful proof that Weiss was a good student. In fact, for the first time in six weeks, Weiss’s report to Winter contained not much at all.

The fourth week from finals, however, there was a massive robbery of an SDC warehouse in Vale, costing the Company around eleven million Lien in Dust alone, and so Weiss actually found it to be the upside of her Thursday when Cinder reported with poorly-obscured excitement that she had turned in the last of her Psychology reading responses, restoring her grade to a 71 -- still dragged down by her previous low test scores, but a victory Weiss could admit was impressive in both its timeliness and commitment. It was a much-needed proof of concept: that Weiss could indeed transfigure Cinder’s worst flaw of oversensitive stubbornness into her most reliable strength. That first major success that night made Weiss feel bad pushing her onward without some sort of celebratory reprieve, so she dismissed her for the night, and Cinder seemed more than happy to flee their dorm room before she even finished the word. 

And suddenly, Weiss found herself with absolutely nothing to do.

“Chess rematch?” Yang had suggested.

“You’re working,” Weiss grumbled. She had been nursing someone else’s damaged confidence for two weeks; she didn’t need to bust up her own.

“Watch the news?” Dusk offered.

“Had my fill of that this morning, thanks.”

Crimson’s head flipped up. “Listen to music?”

Weiss lingered on that.

A new song had been percolating within Weiss for a while. Last Monday’s events had catalyzed more than just the ultimate choice to commit what could reasonably be considered treason; it had also resuscitated this melody’s clamoring to be heard, that had buried beneath other preoccupations around for weeks long before that, months -- since that fateful day in Ironwood’s office, she supposed. But now, she finally had the time, the support, the safety to bring it back to the surface and kick it around, in a place where no record label could tell her what to make of it. She could write this just for herself, to hum when it was needed. It could be the kind of piece she would never dream of releasing publicly; one that contained emotions far too personal, yet only articulable through song.

Weiss opened her scroll to a new document, with a new smile on her face.

Three weeks out from finals, though by now Cinder was only failing three classes, Weiss arrived at one study session relatively furious as yet another heist of a Company shipment led by the increasingly-notorious Roman Torchwick left four people dead in eastern Vale. The report Weiss composed to Winter that evening contained a single mention of Yang and Crimson, buried in the postscript beneath a diatribe about military escorts and willful negligence that she hoped at least her sister would take into consideration with the best of intentions, if not her superiors. She only realized how deranged she had been to send that sort of incendiary demand to somewhere it could very likely be read by the actual leader of the entire military when she found no response from Winter in her mailbox that weekend. It appeared her newfound cahoots with Dusk dramatically increased the rate of spunkiness transferral. Fortunately, Cinder seemed to understand that Weiss’s temporary fury was not inspired by nor directed at her, even going as far as smirking when she delivered her apologies. And the quarter-smile wasn’t all; when Cinder finished her prescribed work for the evening, she did not immediately lunge for the door, but instead lingered in Team WYCD’s dorm room for an astonishing thirty minutes before it was time for her, Crimson, and Dusk to leave for their chess club meeting together. 

With just the two of them left, Yang finally persuaded Weiss to stop working on a rather shouty part of her song and play what was now their third game of chess. Weiss still lost.

Two weeks to go, and Yang retained her boredom. She politely declined to play chess with anyone, hopefully to spare Weiss’s ego but more likely to protect her own.  (“Yang, can I ask a favor?” “You know I would do anything for you, Crimson.” “Can we play chess when I’m finished?” “Nope.”) It irked Weiss to no end how she constantly complained that she was the only one who did her assignments early, failing to recognize that that was the reason she was now isolated in her ennui. To stave off her lackadaisical rambling during everyone else’s study time, Weiss handed her the only non-academic reading material she had at hand: her own profile packet, from those very first days of school. All the others had been shipped off to Atlas long ago, but for a few minutes, just hers did the trick; it was as if Yang was listening for a pin to drop. 

But it was not to last.

“Uh, Weiss?”

She broke off her conversation with Cinder about grading curves with a defeated sigh. “Hm?”

“Your birthday’s the fifteenth?”

Weiss heard the rustling spike of Dusk whipping around in her seat. “Oh shit, really?”

Really. Last Thursday had come and gone just as any other day. It had actually felt strangely refreshing; usually, her birthdays were exhausting functions filled with camera flashes and overly-effusive smiles and obligatory gratitude. She didn’t miss it.

“Yes,” Weiss affirmed. “Five-one-five.”

Yang gasped just as Crimson interjected with “What’s the big deal?”

“Oh no!” Yang yelped, unheeding. “Sorry Weiss, totally blew that. How do you Kingdom people celebrate, is it still the garlands at sunset or…?”

Dusk answered before Weiss could. “That sounds cool, but for us there’s cake and fire.” Yang reacted with “Ooh, awesome” as Dusk went on to say, “We could throw you a party this weekend if you want.”

“No, no, it’s perfectly alright,” Weiss reassured them all, turning around to face their expressions of varying levels of concern. “I wouldn’t want to put even more pressure on you all this close to finals.”

“Are you sure?” Dusk asked, glancing over at Yang.

“Even though I’m super bored?” Yang pleaded.

Weiss smiled. “I’m sure you’ll find something else to do.”

Yet, by just a few days before finals, the rest of Team WYCD had succumbed to the same boredom as Yang. Only Cinder had any assignments left to do at this point in the semester, and no longer needed Weiss’s supervision to rampantly type in the corner while the rest of them goofed off. How things had changed, for Cinder to be working diligently while Weiss mused about in the key of D minor. Weiss almost felt guilty -- Cinder was no longer failing any of her classes, but her scores on her final exams held the power to change that in the crushing blink of an eye, and Weiss would feel that her own dereliction was to blame. Still, the anticipation of the semester’s swift end and her team’s subsequent first break together made Weiss far too antsy to idle by Cinder’s side. It was beginning to affect the others as well.

“Sun’s leaving for Vale tomorrow night,” Dusk announced plainly, looking up from her scroll.

“Just him, not his whole team?” Yang asked.

“No, Sun’s his team’s name,” Crimson corrected her.

“Just him,” Dusk responded to Yang.

“His team is called Team Sun, Dusk, I’m sure of it!” Crimson insisted.

“Settle,” Weiss commanded. Crimson fell silent.

A few minutes later, she paused in writing down a line to call out to the room, “What’s a word to describe oppressiveness?”

“Irritating,” Dusk grumbled under her breath.

“I dunno,” Yang said. “Vvvexatious?”

"How do you know that but not 'synergy'?" Crimson scoffed.

Weiss hummed, considering. She jotted it down. “Spelled with a C? Or is it a T?”

“With an X,” said Crimson.

Weiss ignored her, muttering the line and frowning. Too many syllables.

“Care to share?” Yang requested gently.

She ran a finger across the line. 

She wasn’t quite ready to sing that one. Too loud.

But, she did trace back to the well-worn beginning of the song.

She breathed in and sang just a stanza, barely louder than a lullaby.

“When I was young, if I just closed my eyes then I could go anywhere…”

Finals passed as fleetingly as a sunset. Each test flew by, yet the four days over which they were administered stretched into long, slow fugues on themselves. Weiss nearly forgot to eat lunch on one day, and accidentally ate five meals on another, and on the last day woke up from a nap after their combat practical at a few minutes past midnight. Rather than emerging from her last exam with a sense of relief or reflection, she ran straight into the aimless, vaguely-defined period of waiting around for her final grades, feeling as though she had awoken from a dream more vivid than her real life. Evening came, and Weiss was sure that when she got back to her dorm room, Cinder would not be there. Of course she wouldn’t, she had no work to do. But it seemed like Weiss had only just stopped being unsure about this, about her. Since when had Weiss accepted Cinder as the norm? Why would her absence make her feel just a tad forlorn?

Maybe because when she opened the door to a dorm room awash with red streamers and to Cinder awkwardly cradling an armful of white and blue balloons, she nearly cried from how much she was smiling.

It was close to the most perfect birthday Weiss had ever had. Apparently she had told Dusk that red was one of her favorite colors when they were working out together, surely in one of her early attempts to get her to open up. The fact that Dusk had remembered nearly ten weeks later made the haphazardly-strung decorations all the more perfect. Dusk claimed they couldn’t buy a monogrammed cake on such short notice between their last exam and now, but Yang had suggested the improvised blueberry pie that now sat before her with eighteen little white candles staked unevenly into the lattice crust. So many years of frosting-free vanilla angel cake made this store-bought refrigerated pie garnished with overripe strawberries the sweetest pastry Weiss had ever tasted. Yang and Crimson had to be taught the song, so they were consigned to Semblance-induced candle-lighting and pie-carving swordsmanship respectively while Dusk and astonishingly Cinder sang for her, a sound she’d never heard before and one she’d never forget. She showed her appreciation by passing the strawberry from her slice to Cinder’s paper plate. Weiss never found out whether Cinder had asked to be involved or Weiss’s teammates had simply known Weiss would want her to be there and had dragged her along, but either option made Weiss’s heart soar far too close to the warmth of the sun that that imbued in her chest. And the gifts, oh, the gifts. Not priceless crystals or snow-white horses, but a single pair of glass earrings, dangling cobalt teardrops laced with just the faintest glimmer of water Dust. Her teammates -- who was she kidding, her friends -- apologized and explained in their communally-signed glittery post-office card (reading “Our little princess is turning ONE!” followed by a hastily scrawled “-ty-eight” ) that they could only pool enough money to buy one gift that was fancy enough for her tastes, as if the crooked decorations and the chilled pie and the dissonant singing were not going to be gifts Weiss would cherish as long as she lived and, yep, now she was crying, all over the card, Dusk moving it before it could get wet and Crimson handing her her own handkerchief and Yang deploying her healing laughter to soothe any hesitation as Cinder merely looked on, caught in an unseen state of wondering.

It was close to the most perfect birthday Weiss had ever had.

If only her scroll hadn’t buzzed.

Still misty-eyed and smiling widely, she pulled it out without a second thought, sparing it only a glance.

WS: Check the news.

“What is it?” she heard Yang ask.

Her smile had vanished. In its place, burgeoning, bitter fear.

“It’s… from Winter,” she mumbled numbly, fingers scrambling to navigate to the news on her scroll. It was never from Winter. The sky had to have been falling for Winter to message her directly. Which channel, Winter? she thought feverishly, mind outrunning the racing of her heart. All of them, right now? Is it about the Company? The military? Another heist?  

In her distraction and Yang’s worry, neither of them could have noticed the stares of stunned, baleful reproach that both Crimson and Dusk pierced into Cinder, nor the way she avoided their gaze.

With a twitching gesture, Weiss flung up a projection of ValeNetwork’s live broadcast, eyes scrambling to ingest the words and noises and images that swarmed across the translucent screen before her: “--of this scale in eighty years, we’re trying to contact our Atlas ambassadorial correspondent Azure Filigree for comment as--” DEVELOPING: White Fang Spotted at Third Grand SDC Theft ...chwick among 20-30 armed accomplices in WF uniforms… “--question the origin of the numerous Atlesian Bullhead-model airships that were witnessed aiding the operation--” BREAKING: Gen. Ironwood Announces Military Deployment to Vale ...response to repeated paramilitary terror strikes against SDC cargo, now with over Ⱡ600 mil…

“...Gods.”

Another notification ping in the corner of the display drew her dizzied gaze.

WS: General Ironwood formally requests your… (1 attachment)

Her fingers grabbed for it all too quickly.

 

Winter Schnee: General Ironwood formally requests your presence at Beacon Academy ASAP. HA to BA airship departure times listed below. (1 attachment)

 

Her friends’ faces peered through the cold blue apparition. Stunned, angry, ashamed. Weiss hadn’t the wherewithal to interpret them, only to stare, and to think: I’m the leader of Team WYCD. They’re all looking to me.

The cold blue shined across her face.

“Well,” she uttered.

“Let’s go to Beacon.”

 

Elsewhere and later, he hears a notification ping, and looks up.

A corner of his desk is illuminated -- a message from Glynda. He reaches one hand over, curious, and the image expands.

She’s snuck him a photo from her post at the sunny airdocks this afternoon, where he had stationed her to greet the airship arriving from Haven. The image captures four girls crossing the gangway in step, and the moment he lays his eyes on them, his heart jumps. He recognizes Team WYCD instantly, from his hours of poring over their identification photos, their profiles in the school directory, anything he can get his hands on -- and now they’re finally here.

Glynda’s caption said it all. James wasn’t kidding.

Indeed.

Ozpin stares at the picture, and Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose stare back.

Notes:

Thank you so much for reading! See you in Volume Two ^u^

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