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“Are you gonna tell her what you did to her friends?”
Marrow’s words linger like smoke long after he’s gone, back to the battlefield, returning to the fray. The memory of him is bitter on her tongue as he pleaded with wide eyes, bordering on horrified as she told him about her duty and reminded him of his own. Her fingers feel numb as she pulls out her Scroll.
Thankfully the cargo hold of the airship that had brought the bomb is empty, devoid finally of the scientists and soldiers sent to make sure everything was working properly before they played their final card against Salem. Outside there are yells as the battalion clears a path — her orders, their lives, more blood on her hands but she supposes not for much longer — and Winter touches a single picture on her Scroll before bringing it to her ear. It’s hard to swallow around the thickness in her throat, ignore the burning itch behind her eyes.
It rings once, twice. There’s a click as the line connects and she bites down on her lip as Weiss’ voice filters through, distorted slightly and sounding fatigued yet...relieved. Not for long. It makes the pit in Winter’s stomach worse with the knowledge of what she’s about to do, about to say. “Winter!”
She’s going to destroy her little sister by breaking her family. Again.
This time, though, she knows there will be no recompense. No absolution, no forgiveness. She’s loaded this gun and she will cock it, fire it, bear the consequences but not because it’s her duty — simply because she must.
Winter doesn’t realize she hasn’t responded, frozen at the sound of her little sister’s voice until Weiss raises her tone. “Hello? Winter— Winter, are you there? Are you okay?”
She clears her throat.
“We have a plan to take out the whale,” Winter forces out and the way Weiss audibly perks up at it makes her urge to cry soar. She keeps talking even as Weiss asks a question she doesn’t quite hear, knowing if she doesn’t get this all out now she never will and Weiss will spend the rest of her life wondering what happened to her teammates. “Our scientists designed a bomb. I’m to arm and set it, deliver it inside and make sure it does its job.”
Weiss quiets all at once, unnaturally. In her chest, Winter’s heart feels like the conductor of a symphony about to hit its crescendo, blood rushing in her ears.
“You mean…”
She sucks in an unsteady breath. “Yes,” she murmurs and closes her eyes as Weiss’ soft gasp when she realizes pierces through Winter like a knife. “But, Weiss, I have something I have to tell you.”
Her little sister sounds close to tears. She’s guarded, careful, cautious. Winter wishes she could take her into her arms, stroke her hair, hold her close like she did on the nights when the shadows were long and their parents’ screams at each other were so loud it seemed to echo around the manor. But she won’t and she can’t — they can’t go back to how it was even as Winter wishes to. It’s too late. She’s done too much, spent too much.
She can only pray to the Gods that Weiss, even if won’t forgive her, will listen. Despite the fact she doesn’t owe Winter even that baseline allowance after everything she’s done and everything she’s about to do.
“W-what is it?” Weiss’ voice is sobering in her ear, quiet. Barely a whisper.
“Your teammate, the young boy, Oscar, he— he was captured.” Winter’s exhale trembles but she continues anyway. “From what I was told by the other three that were with him, the Grimm that took him spoke and was smart enough to use Oscar as a shield against their attacks before flying off. I...I don’t know how but Ren, Arc, and Xiao-Long swear by it. And they were so determined to get him back they offered to go scout ahead even after we arrested them in the tundra and try to find him before we had to plant the bomb.”
There’s a burst of noise in the background, voices overlapping, phrases cut short and running over each other. Weiss’ own murmur trips over itself, desperate and frustrated with her lack of understanding. “Oscar? Wait, were determined to get him back? Winter, I don’t understand, why did you arrest them, who is we, where are they—”
“I dropped them off as close as I could, gave them a window. They...They haven’t come out. Ir— the General has ordered me to proceed with the bomb. Now.”
The line goes dead silent. Winter’s heart seems to both want to burst from her chest yet also burrow deeper where she won’t have to deal with this ringing stillness. In the almost two decades she’s known her little sister, Winter can’t think of an instance she’s been completely and utterly wordless. It reeks of betrayal, dripping with disbelief.
“Y-You wouldn’t,” Weiss whimpers, dazed as if she’s been hit. Winter squeezes her eyes shut.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no,” her sister cries, “Winter, no! You can’t, they’re still in there, they won’t make it, you won’t make it— please. Please don’t do this. You don’t have to!”
Winter blinks teary up at the ceiling, metal beams swirling. “I don’t have a choice.”
“You ALWAYS have a choice!” Weiss screams and Winter thinks this time she really does stop breathing. Her ear is filled with Weiss panting, every word wavering with barely-restrained sobs and she can imagine the splotchy red ringing her pale eyes, cheeks flushed with emotion. Weiss has never been a pretty crier. “My family's in there! Winter, please...”
“I just wanted to tell you.” Winter chokes on her own sob, cutting her off before she’s even done. “I’m sorry but I have my orders. If we don’t destroy this Grimm, we’ll lose Atlas—”
“You’ve already lost Atlas! Just like you lost Mantle! But please, Winter, it doesn’t have to be you, please, don’t make me lose them—”
She’s already shaking her head, so hard her ponytail whips against her cheek. Winter knows she’s crying now, unabashedly, tears streaming silently down her face. She’s grateful she’s alone. “We a-all have to make sacrifices in this war.”
Muffled, Winter hears went after Oscar, bomb and still inside murmured. She flinches at a loud gasp that distorts through the line from one of her companions, a name. Yang?
Weiss is still pleading, hiccuping, weeping. She thinks she hears Ruby and Blake, Weiss’ teammates, her family, wonders for a split-second where they are, if the three of them are safe, if they’re together even as she’s actively ripping them apart in a way that promises to be swift and permanent.
She remembers Weiss’ letters to her, after the fall of Beacon when Father had confined her to the empty halls of the Manor and the cold interior of her room. I can’t imagine what Jaune is going through, her sister had written and Winter thought it penned absent-mindedly like she hadn’t been fully conscious while doing so. I can’t imagine losing my partner. I can’t imagine losing my team as he has. I hope he’s okay. I hope they all are.
Isn’t Winter subjecting her to that pain, now? Ruby’s sister, Blake’s partner, Weiss’ friend is still inside the Monstra somewhere. Unreachable, allowed in by Winter herself. And Winter can’t do anything but play her passive role in Yang’s fated demise even as her sister begs her for a chance at her life. They're all begging.
Winter looks down at her hand. Watches it curl into a fist, finger by finger, brand-new navy leather creaking. Weiss’ cries are starting to jumble inside her head like radio chatter static, drowning her in the white noise, numbing her to even the hot drip of her tears dripping down her chin. She has a job to do.
She has a job to do.
What was it she said to Penny not even two days ago, falling through the sky? What was it she said as she was rescued, saved, lifted? My life doesn’t matter!
Penny’s eyes had flashed, the set of her jaw clear. Winter wonders if Pietro meant to build her as loyal as she was strong, passionate as she was kind.
I disagree.
But Penny isn’t here now, she’s somewhere in the tundra outside of Atlas, unreachable, Winter has failed two missions, and she is no longer of use. Running from her father — from the Schnee name — to Ironwood has gotten her nothing in the end except an empty title and even emptier hands. Once again she is alone.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when we were kids,” Winter whispers, resigned. She closes her eyes again but it isn’t to discourage her tears but rather to invite them. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you from Father, I’m sorry I’m not there for you now. I love you, Weiss.”
“I HATE YOU!” Weiss screams and there’s the sound as if whoever around is grappling for the Scroll but her little sister’s voice is clear and sharp as a spear. Winter’s never been impaled but thinks this is how it must feel. “I HATE YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME? I’LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU! YOU’RE DEAD TO ME, DEAD—”
Whatever she’s going to say peters out into a violent howl and Winter nods, once.
“I know,” she murmurs in defeat, in surrender. She brings the Scroll from her ear to press the End button and her sister’s screeches mixed with her companion’s overlapping, panicked voices cuts off cleanly. The cargo hold, once full to the brim with Weiss’ voice, seems gaping and empty now.
Winter allows herself one singular sob that shudders through her and threatens to bow her back. “I know,” she whimpers to herself before sighing raggedly. Straightens. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
There’s no answer. She has a job to do, and this time she will not fail.
Even if it feels she already has, even though it’s not the Ace-Ops, or Ironwood, or Atlas; it’s her sister.
Weiss.
There’s a bang on the side of the airship; someone yells in Clear! as Winter trails a hand over the top of the bomb. It’s large and unwieldy, the Ace-Ops will be the ones bearing it in before hightailing out as she’s responsible for setting the timer. They all know the plan.
Her final act as a good, loyal soldier will be to make sure their goal is achieved. No matter the cost; no matter who they lose. Even if it’s herself. She’s as expendable to the man she once thought her mentor, a savior, as a common foot soldier. She’s nothing more than just another kid lost to a war they have no hope of winning.
Elm grunts as she picks up the bomb, situating herself on one of the four posts she and the other Ace-Ops will use to carry the weapon. Though she already knows the route, Winter scans the plans again, one last check, pretends not to notice how Marrow is looking at her like he knows. But why wouldn’t he?
In the end, they’ll both be carved names on a plaque somewhere cold, bodies six feet under if they even get that luxury. Winter wonders if, in that end, they’ll be anyone left — willing or not — to mourn them.
Will they deserve it?
She lifts her eyes from her Scroll, meeting Marrow’s open stare before pausing. Nods. He lowers his own eyes in a kind of acquiescence and Winter clears her throat, tucking her Scroll away before unsheathing her sword. It’s a miracle her fingers don’t tremble the way the rest of her aches to.
Squaring her shoulders, Winter steps off the airship and into the inevitable, gaping jaws of death. She vainly hopes Weiss won’t waste her grief on her.
She knows she doesn’t deserve it.