Chapter Text
Weiss Schnee, huntress-in-training, currently without an academy to call her own, hunched over the terminal in the library of Signal Academy, and did what she shouldn't be able to do. She was checking messages left for her by someone in Mistral. There was a back channel that the Atlas radio engineers had set up so they could talk when the main transceiver was off-line. Maybe they had simply forgotten to take it down when the CCTS went up, maybe it was their way to say "sod you" to the idiots who'd thought it was a good idea to cripple the entire network when one of the main nodes went down. It was slow. It didn't carry pictures. And access here in Patch was, well, patchy. Whether the Patch relay station could talk to the Atlas tower or not depended mostly on the weather. Weiss was on a message board called "Danger Shades" that some complete techno-anarchistic nerd had set up at Shade Academy. The place crawled with Anarchists, militant Faunists, White Fang sympathisers, Druidic cults, Doomsday cults, even the odd technician. Usually, when words dribbled onto your screen slowly enough to keep up with reading it, it was done for effect. This poor thing simply didn't go any faster. It made her feel strangely elite and hackerish.
Weiss heard someone walk up to her, and she hid the message board under some other windows. It turned out to be Taiyang, Yang's father. He held out a Signal Academy badge for her, dangling on its blue cord.
"Thanks Taiyang," said Weiss. She looked at her badge. It had a picture of her, with her hair in plaits, wearing a loose fitting checkered shirt of Yang's. She had changed her hairstyle and most of her clothes because her father's agents would still be after her to take her home and clap her in irons at Castle Schnee. The name on the badge was Bianca Nevada. Wearing it, she could move like a shadow among the students at Signal.
"Any news?"
Weiss shook her head. Her friends Jaune Arc, Yang's little sister Ruby Rose, Yang's boyfriend Lie Ren, and Ren's life-long friend Nora Valkyrie had upped sticks and walked off down the road. Ruby's note had said they were going to Haven. Yang had just taken the bird to Ambrosia to have a new arm fitted. One of the nurses in the clinic there was also on the board. Given that anyone could read any message on Danger Shades, Weiss had to be very careful with her words. It was quite possible that her loving family was reading along. So Weiss mainly read all the messages she could, looking for reports of scythe-wielding maniacs and dead members of the White Fang littering the place. So far, none.
"I've been meaning to ask you. How much did you spend on this arm?"
Weiss squinted at a message that seemed to mention a pink girl with a hammer, but the language was so weird that it could have been anything.
"Two million," said Weiss.
"Two million lien?"
"That's correct. That's just the arm, though. The treatment and care are another million."
Taiyang sat down on next to Weiss.
"Weiss, I'll never be able to..."
Weiss turned her head around. "Don't. Don't even think of paying me back. I am sitting on an administrative error of another seventeen million lien. That won't even show up in any report, because Schnee Dust Company doesn't see fit to put certain kinds of transaction in writing. My father could buy the whole of Patch and everything on it out of the contingency fund." She looked back at the terminal. "Maybe at the end of this adventure, lien won't be worth the plastic they're printed on."
"But so much money..."
"Strictly speaking, it isn't even my money. It was supposed to go to some unscrupulous arms dealer, but he ran into some trouble and didn't need it where he was going. I persuaded the carrier to give it to me instead of putting it back on the pile."
"So you gave it to another arms dealer," said Taiyang.
"Heh. More accurate than you know. It is a Martial Arts model, and it is classed as a weapon in certain jurisdictions." She glanced at Taiyang. "Seriously. It is all good. What kind of friend would I be if I had all this money and then didn't use it to help Yang?"
"You can't tell me that your family would approve of you just grabbing twenty million lien. You put yourself at risk, to help Yang." Taiyang put his big strong hand on Weiss' slender shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
"Thank you, Weiss. Thank you from the bottom of my heart."
"You're welcome."
Taiyang got up. "Don't be late for dinner. I'm going hunting."
The connection dropped, and after a few tries, Weiss gave up and turned off the terminal. She looked at the clock. Her eyes grew large, and she grabbed her things and sprinted out of the library, out the gates and onto the path to Taiyang's cottage. The front door was not locked, and she ran in. The place smelled of cooking. Weiss' family was beyond filthy rich. She hadn't gone hungry a day in her life, and food was prepared for her by highly skilled chefs. Even at Beacon, food arrived in the form of ladles full. Until she'd arrived at Taiyang's place, she'd never seen a potato turn from a root vegetable into mash on her plate from start to finish. Taiyang had spared her the same process for the sausages. They just grew naturally in the larder. She had followed him into the garden, watched him pull a plant out of the ground, cut it to pieces, and boil it. She'd eaten it, and it was unlike anything she'd ever had.
Weiss put her boots on the side, and walked into the kitchen on her socks. Taiyang smiled at her.
"You're just in time. Set the table, will you? Three bowls."
"Three?"
"We have a guest."
Weiss walked into the living room. Sitting at the table was a mostly dark-haired man who was pouring himself a drink from a bottle, and not the first one from the looks of it. His eyes traced a meandering path round her, and finally settled on her with a winning smile.
"Hello Ice Princess."
"You."
Qrow raised his glass at her, tossed it back in one gulp and put it on the table. His grin was revolting. "You know what I really like about you Schnee girls? It's the way the sun breaks through in your eyes every time you see me. That makes the trip all the way over from Mistral all the more worth it."
"You're drunk."
"I am?" Qrow picked up the bottle and looked at the label. "Damn you Tai. You said this was water. You lied to me!"
"Oh ha ha. What are you doing here?"
Qrow raised a finger, then pointed it at her. "You remind me of your sister. I was planning to check up on my niece. But she's vanished. Flown off to Atlas, to get fixed. So now all I can do is give Tai some news of his other daughter. And help him with his brandy."
"You've seen Ruby?"
"Yes I have. They actually made it to Mistral. Took some friends along. She was always the smart one."
Weiss stood up, looking down on Qrow. "And who am I, then?"
"You're the one who forgot what she came in here for."
Weiss sneered, and walked over to the cupboard for bowls and spoons.
"So is Ruby okay? And the rest?"
"They're fine. Ruby's holding up like a champ. She's not getting it all her own way, but she's good. So are her friends. Even that sorry bunch of noodles that used to be Pyrrha's team leader."
"Jaune."
"Yeah. Looks all damp and useless, but there's something more about him now. Good for him. Didn't he use to have the hots for you?"
Weiss put the spoons down and went into a cupboard for some bread. "Who doesn't? But I can't compare to Pyrrha. I never got a chance to talk to him before Father swept me up and took me home."
Qrow leaned back in his chair and looked at Weiss. "And then you swiped a fortune in lien from the petty cash, gave the whole of SDC the slip, and got my niece some of the best hardware money can buy. You did good, girl. Winter should be proud of you."
"She'd better be," said Weiss, oddly pleased.
Taiyang walked in with a large pot of stew.
"Eat up folks. Long day tomorrow."
"Where are you headed next?"
Weiss, Taiyang and Qrow were sitting by the fire, drinks in their hands. Taiyang was half way down a mug of ale. Weiss had been tempted into a small plum brandy to help her sleep, and it looked like it was going to work. Qrow, who could drink a whole bottle of brandy and not fall asleep, looked at his empty glass.
"First, I'm heading back to the smoking crater that is Beacon. I've found out something that could help us tell if that bitch Cinder is properly dead. The way Ruby got rid of her didn't exactly leave a nice corpse. I don't want her popping up when we don't expect it. Then, follow up on a few hints and hunches on where Ozpin went." Qrow's eyes wandered to the cane leaning against the armrest of his chair. "I've got something that belongs to him."
"Professor Ozpin is alive?"
"From the way our enemies are searching high and low for him, I'd say yes. But what do they know? He's a crafty old bastard. Ten lien says he's hiding up somewhere, nursing himself back to health."
"Just ten?" Weiss smiled, finished her drink. It was nice, and she was feeling wonderfully rosy.
"We're not all made of money, Ice Princess."
"Ice Queen," said Weiss. Her eyes closed. She vaguely noticed strong arms picking her up, carrying her to her bed and putting a blanket over her.
"Good night, Weiss."