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“WEISSSSSS”
The last sounds of her sister's scream trailed into nothingness and then it was dark, not anything at all just dark. Weiss Schnee was dead she knew it; this was the darkness of death. It was only as her mind ticked through moment after moment that she began to question her own certainty. The darkness was absolute and unyielding but here she was still thinking.
Buh-thump
She could still hear her heartbeat!
Buh-thump
She was alive but in a blank void, a darkness without end well that was hardly an improvement except now there was something. The blank expanse before her eyes suddenly wasn’t empty but tiny specks of light came in to view. Not really illumination but something, like stars over the ice plains of Solitas on a moonless night neither truly illuminating the world nor leaving it in shadow.
Buh-thump
As her heart continued to pound she realized she was breathing…the stress of combat the death and hurt she had felt was only just beginning to break through and let her even think. Still she was Weiss Schnee, huntress, and damned if she would not begin to take stock of her surroundings.
She finally felt alert enough to look around, seeing the points of light now floating all around her, and something, cloud-like but vaguely so at best in front of her (below her? above her?). She could feel herself breathing but couldn’t feel the air; she could feel that she was moving but not why. Suddenly one of the light specks came frighteningly close and every hair on her arms stood up as she felt it charge past her.
“So that’s down at least”
So she wasn’t dead, she WAS falling and that cloud-like something was getting closer.
Buh-thump
What could she do now, her aura was all but spent, certainly she didn’t have enough to summon even a simple barrier glyph to try and alter her path. The cloud was now close enough that she could see wisps of it starting to rise around her.
Buh-thump Buh-thump
Gods damnit she was not going to crash in to some ethereal mist without at least trying something, anything to get some control.
**FLASH**
What had been the thinly illuminated space was now blinding white, closing her eyes did nothing it seeped right through and seemed intent on boring right into her brain. It hurt, it was the force of the sun pushed into every optical nerve she had, with nothing to stop it she screamed as it bored itself into all of her senses her ears practically ringing with how strong the light was invading her….
*Gasp*
Buh thump
She was awake again…the light was gone and she was awake and breathing. Slowly she unclenched her eyes and let what was now a normal amount of light in. It didn’t help that much as what she saw was most definitely NOT Remnant, at least she was pretty certain Remnant hadn’t suddenly gained a second Sun in the sky. Still she could feel something solid beneath her and as she stretched out her hands grasped what felt like sand, thick and cloying but sand nonetheless. She was somewhere solid and permanent after that fall through the void. Slowly pushing up on aching muscles and rising the scene shifted as her eyes found a horizon and then the water at which she was the edge of.
A beach?
She had fallen through a starry void into a cloud of blinding light and wound up on a beach as if taking a vacation when she was a child. Laughing seemed to be the only thing she could do, that the universe had conspired to deliver her to a dust damned beach vacation after the ordeal of the last few days all she needed now was Klein to bring her a sweet fruit drink and…
Klein…
Whitley…
Mother…
WINTER…
…
RUBY…
“RUBY!”
She had fallen just as she had seen her partner fall…so she HAD to be here, damn the odds of what that crazy void might have meant for separating them if she fell and Ruby fell then Ruby must be here
“RUBY!”
Standing was still an agony of tired limbs and exhaustion but with a goal in mind now and a target she had the energy to do that much at least.
“RUBY!”
The adrenaline rush of her realization was leaving Weiss now but at least she knew she had something to focus on so a search for her partner was in store
“..iss”
Please Gods let that be Ruby calling her name, give me this one small thing.
“RUBY”
Her shout was the loudest yet, she might be exhausted and half broken but her partner was here, that had to be her and she was going to find her.
“..eiss…”
Her heart burst up a little bit, there was no mistaking that lilt, the tone the cadence, she had heard her name called out ten thousand times with that voice it was
“Ruby!”
Looking around at the beach she was on there were a maze of shells and what appeared to be giant starfish but so far no red caped partner. The sound seemed to be coming from off to her left near where the beach began to run up towards a tree line and a cliff beyond.
“weiss?”
Still faint but definitely closer now and definitely towards the tree line. If Weiss could somehow avoid falling over the shells scattered about she would at least have them to lean against. Her heart was still pounding away and in a corner of her mind she knew that meant she was a lot closer to a final collapse than she would like. Her body was telling her to slow down but here she was shouting out searching for silver eyes and sunshine in human form. Gods she was exhausted for sure if she was letting herself say that even in the comfort of her own mind, she needed to find Ruby now.
“Ruby!”
“Weiss, Weiss where are you?”
“I’m here,” a delightfully vague response she knew. “Ruby I’m here”
Finally movement, a blur on the edge of the forest. Something was definitely moving near where the trees met the open beach. Hauling herself forward with the strength left Weiss shouted again praying to all she had left that it was in fact Ruby.
“Here! Ruby I’m over here”
“WEISS!”
It was her. The blur became a shape and the shape became a person and the person became a blur again as she burst into a thousand rose petals and positively flew towards Weiss. Clearly heedless to the other girl’s own state because she blasted into her sweeping her snowflake up and crashing them both back down amidst the sand.
“Weiss, you’re here, you’re still alive, you’re here with me, oh Gods Weiss I thought I lost...EEEP"
Weiss couldn’t help herself. Crashed in to the sand a second time in as many minutes and now so close to her partner she did the only thing she think of. She kissed her, swift hard and sure she kissed her. Just crashing her lips in to Ruby the way she had been crashed in to, pushing back all the hope, fear, relief, dread and love in one motion. It wasn’t long, just long enough to feel Ruby relax in to the kiss, to lose herself in the moment. Breathless they sat lost in a strange new place.
“I’m here with you Ruby, no matter what.”