Chapter Text
prelude.
Mirror, tell me something.
Tell me, who’s the loneliest of all?
This had to be perfect.
Light glinted off the thin silver blade, almost blinding in its radiance as it caught off the edge of the rapier. Cold, blue-filtered sun streamed through the ornate glass windows, making the hall feel like a palace of ice as those below stood in the center of the empty cathedral.
Head up.
She raised her chin, eyes sharp and focused, confidently meeting where she perceived the gaze of her opponent to be beneath the deep shadows of its helmet.
Shoulders back.
She rolled her shoulders back, chest squared to face the enemy.
Right foot forward.
One foot slid forward, body falling into a perfect form that flawlessly catered to a left-handed Huntress.
Slow your breathing.
A deep breath in, held for three even seconds, then released, slowly, out.
Wait for the perfect moment to strike.
She raised her weapon in her left hand, twisting her body to hold it aloft and pointing it directly forward perpendicular to her chest.
…Now.
Weiss Schnee kicked off the ground with her heel and flung herself into a perfect flip just as the Arma Gigas readied its gargantuan broadsword and cleaved it down through the air to strike her. With a loud, reverberating clang and a gush of wind, the sword smashed against the ground where Weiss previously stood.
Weiss landed nimbly on her toes and sprang upward again in one fluid motion, propelling herself forward and swiftly clashing her blade against the metallic armor of her opponent. It bore little to no effect on the beast, but she hardly expected it to. Instead, she used her weapon to pierce into the chinks in the giant statue’s armor and vaulted herself up it, flying up and over its head with a flip and landing lightly on the marble floor directly behind it.
The Arma Gigas was quick to swing around and aim to strike her again, but Weiss was quicker. She ran a wide circle around it, her opponent unable to keep up with her as she appeared behind it once again and leapt upward, unleashing a flurry of blows upon its back. Finally, the Arma Gigas managed to face her and brought its sword up to deflect, parrying her next blow and sending her skidding backward, heels screeching against the stone floor.
Weiss dashed forward again, striking just as her foe brought down its heavy sword once more. Their blades clashed with a clang of metal, and Weiss was sent flying with the force of it, nearly knocked to the ground but just barely managing to maneuver herself to land lithely on her feet.
It was a dance, and her partner was relentless. But Weiss was relentless, too.
Lifting Myrtenaster at a perfect ninety-degree angle to her body with her left hand and curling her right into half a fist with her index and middle fingers upright, Weiss channeled her Aura. In one swift, sharp motion, she flicked her weapon to point directly at the floor, using her Semblance to draw Dust from Myrtenaster and through her body down to the radiant white Glyph forming at her feet.
In an instant, Weiss was gliding forward. It was like she was on ice, flying across the rink like the figure skating lessons she’d dedicated herself to when she was still too young for battle training.
In a flurry of feather-light movement, Weiss appeared at the Arma Gigas’s side, striking again and again at the chinks between its armor. She darted out of the way before it could strike as she used a Glyph to propel herself upward, flying in a high arc over her enemy’s head and landing nimbly on another Glyph. From there she pushed off, unleashed a whirlwind of blows on her opponent, then rinse and repeat.
She was gaining the upper hand. With every jump, every Glyph, every strike, she was one step closer to wrapping this battle up in a neat, tidy bow. And after that…
She landed lightly on her toes once more atop one of her Glyphs. An upswing of the Arma Gigas’s greatsword had her preparing a perfect maneuver to pull herself back and out of range.
Not perfect enough.
The full brunt of the sword’s immense weight cut right through her Aura, shattering it on impact as the cold, razor-sharp blade sliced up her cheek and pierced her right through the eye.
Someone screamed.
Weiss’s ears rang. Her head pounded. Her throat was raw and burned. Her knees hit the cold floor with a thud, but she didn’t feel the impact— not when her entire face blazed with fire.
“Weiss!”
Her heart hammered against her chest. The heel of her palm was pressed against her left eye. She didn’t remember putting it there. She was too terrified to move it.
“WEISS!”
Her gaze snapped up to where her sister was leaning over the edge of one of the balconies with her hands braced against the railing, eyes wide and body tensed like she was heartbeats away from bolting.
Weiss glanced to the side. Her father’s disappointed gaze burned hotter than the pain.
“Come to your senses yet?” His voice chilled her to her very bone.
“No!” Weiss gasped before Winter could take more than two steps in the direction of the stairs to reach her. She tore her hand away from her eye and forced herself, trembling, to her feet, leaning heavily on Myrtenaster as she shoved the point against the ground. “I’m not done!”
Something warm trickled down her cheek. Weiss drew in an unsteady, wavering breath, and let a familiar yet distant bitter cold creep into her limbs. She couldn’t worry about that right now. She must focus on the task in front of her. Her entire future mounted on the result of this assessment. She could not fail. She would not fail. She had to be perfect.
(Would she ever be perfect again?)
With her left eye clamped firmly shut, Weiss stood on shaking limbs, raised her chin, and lifted Myrtenaster to point threateningly at the Arma Gigas once again.
Do your worst, brute.
The Arma Gigas charged forward, its colossal metal feet clanging against the floor with each step. Adrenaline pumping through her veins and blood pounding in her ears, Weiss pulled the trigger on Myrtenaster to channel blue Dust through the weapon.
As her enemy approached, Weiss pointed Myrtenaster toward the floor and plunged it into the ground. In a blast of frigid air, massive spikes of ice erupted from the ground in a straight line toward the Arma Gigas, catching it and freezing it in place. Weiss used the precious moment of time to flick Myrtenaster into a horizontal position, spin the revolving Dust chamber around, and direct red Dust down into the blade. The edge of the rapier began to radiate with a heat so furious it glowed.
The Arma Gigas broke free from its icy restraints with a deafening shatter. Frozen crystals clattered to the ground as it wrenched its legs free from the frost. It heaved its blade downward to strike her again, but Weiss darted forward out of its path. As the greatsword swept through the air where she had just been standing, Weiss took a running leap and landed squarely on the flat of her enemy’s blade. She raced up the length of the sword, thrusting her rapier forward and delivering a sharp stab to the Arma Gigas’s armor before leaping backward and skidding across the floor just as the greatsword’s momentum brought it crashing into the wall of the cathedral.
The Dust Weiss left behind ignited, and fire erupted within the Arma Gigas’s armor, encasing its hand in red-hot flames and forcing it to abandon its sword as it struggled frantically against the blaze. In a fit of rage, the armored statue stomped forward and brought its fist plummeting down toward Weiss. She sprang out of the way, leaving the fist to slam into the ground with a great thud.
With her opponent’s limb planted firmly in the ground, Weiss lifted Myrtenaster, spun the revolving chamber, angled it perfectly toward the ground below the Arma Gigas, and hoped.
With a sputtering rush of energy flowing through her, a white Glyph appeared directly beneath the Arma Gigas just as it began to rise up from the ground. A gale-force gust of wind burst to life from the Glyph, sending the massive suit of armor flying upward into the air above.
Breathing heavily, Weiss raised Myrtenaster skyward, spinning the Dust chamber around once more before pointing with perfect precision at the Arma Gigas, willing five Glyphs to take form around the head and each of the limbs of her opponent to lock it in place midair.
With another Glyph directly below her, Weiss used the energy from it to boost herself straight up into the air above where the Arma Gigas was suspended below. Twisting her body with catlike agility to funnel her momentum downward, Weiss pushed off of one last Glyph and let herself fall, using gravity to drive her blade straight through the hypothetical heart of her enemy.
Weiss’s feet slammed into the ground below, and she fell to one knee. Behind her, the Arma Gigas collapsed with a great crash and a rumbling that shook the entire building.
Weiss turned to look over her shoulder. The Grimm inside the suit of armor disintegrated to black ash, leaving the empty husk of the metal it had inhabited to lie unmoving on the cathedral floor.
Weiss pushed herself to her feet, panting as the dust settled. As the adrenaline pulsing through her began to die down, the insistent throbbing of her eye grew ever more difficult to ignore. Her hands trembled.
Winter was at her side in a heartbeat.
“Let me see,” her steady voice commanded, one hand falling to Weiss’s shoulder and another ghosting over Weiss’s left cheek.
Weiss pushed her sister’s hands away, raising her head to meet her father’s gaze across the hall.
“Did I pass, Father?” Her voice shook. She desperately willed it to stay steady. “Will you let me go to Beacon?”
Winter turned to glare up at him. “Well?”
Their father scowled down at them. Weiss felt his eyes burn into her very soul.
“Fine,” he grunted after a long moment. “Have it your way.”
He strode over to the large double doors, pushed through them, and vanished into the hall.
Whitley stood in the shadow their father left behind. He stared at Weiss with a restrained expression, but his face was paler than usual and his eyes carried a glint of worry beneath them.
When Weiss met her brother’s gaze, he, too, turned around and followed their father out the door.
Weiss’s walls began to crumble. She trembled in place. Her eye was on fire.
Klein appeared at her side, gently guiding her by the arm. “Come along, Mistress Weiss. We must get that eye of yours seen to at once.”
“Can you open it?” Winter asked.
The thought alone sent Weiss gasping for breath. She shook her head vigorously.
“Just hold on,” Klein reassured. “It will be alright.”
Winter’s hand hovered in midair as Klein guided Weiss away from her. Weiss stared at her with a pleading expression. After a brief moment of hesitation, Winter followed them out of the cathedral.
“Everything will be alright.”
Everything was not alright.
Weiss stared at her reflection in the mirror, placing a hand on the glass. She felt sick to her stomach just looking at it. A thin scar, vertical, though slightly slanted, ran across the left side of her face from her cheek to just under her eyebrow. The white of her eye was flooded with red and the iris and pupil were discolored with a patch of grey.
Her perfect face, forever blemished.
She couldn’t see out of it. At all.
She was still getting used to it; didn’t think she would ever get used to it. The doctors said she would with time, but Weiss didn’t understand how that was possible. Every day adjusting to this new normal felt like a cruel and agonizing reminder of her own failures and imperfections.
She had finally gotten her permission to attend Beacon Academy and train as a Huntress, but she hadn’t expected it to come with a cost. Now she was half blind with a massive loss of depth perception she was feeling more and more every day. Everything looked vaguely fuzzy now, and she felt sick each time she tried to switch her eye’s focus too often.
All of her training went out the window while she adjusted to this new normal. It was beyond frustrating. Things she could have done in her sleep before—be it complex battle maneuvers or the simplest of menial tasks, like catching a ball—were suddenly more difficult than walking a tightrope (a metaphor for the common folk; Weiss was certain she was still more than capable of walking a tightrope with little issue. Her balance was exceptional).
Regardless, she would now have to get herself back into top form before she went to school in the spring. Classes at Beacon would commence in just a few short months, and she hadn’t gone through this much to get here just to throw it all away now.
…As tempting as the idea was.
She had no idea how to move forward from this. Everyone kept telling her she would get past it, but nobody ever said how. It was beyond infuriating, and quite frankly, Weiss was exhausted. She didn’t want to live her life like this. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were. She just wanted to be on her way to Beacon Academy with two perfectly functioning eyes and a perfectly unblemished face.
She had never been comfortable with impromptu change. She always hated when the cooks altered the way they made her favorite meals, or when sudden changes to her daily schedule were made unannounced. But this…
How could she have failed so spectacularly? Just one tiny slip-up and suddenly she’d lost her eye? And the way her father looked at her…
…She didn’t need his approval, anyway.
Weiss shut her eyes and pressed her forehead miserably against her reflection’s.
She would… figure it out.
She had no other choice.