Work Text:
Music and laughter rise from the brightly-lit square toward the starry desert sky above. The excitement of the crowd, akin to the hopeful energy she remembers from her campaign rallies, thrums through Robyn in a way she hadn’t realized she’d missed so much. It’s different from the adrenaline rush she experiences when facing down Grimm or a band of mercenaries—and she’s had plenty of that lately.
The change is more than welcome.
She claps and stomps to the beat of a popular ditty that’s been played at just about every social event in Mantle for decades. Fiona twirls next to her, light on her feet as always, and Joanna forgoes the routine entirely to swing around the laughing children hanging off her arms. Even May is smiling for once, long ponytail swinging as she stomps.
There’s been few causes for merriment since the fall of Atlas and the destruction of Mantle, but for tonight, the quiet desperation that permeates the refugee camp in Vacuo has been transformed. A group of teenagers with hairstyles that had been popular in Mantle coach a pair of men with (albeit ratty) Ateliesian-style jackets through the dance, as a group of mixed faunus and human children run past them, laughing. Robyn catches a glimpse of the former Ace-Ops at one point, Marrow’s wagging tail telling her that at least one of the ex-soldiers is enjoying himself. Even Qrow has joined in, somehow convincing Willow Schnee to join him.
Though the displaced citizens of the two cities have had to learn to live side by side and work together to survive these past few months, Robyn hasn’t seen them come together like they are now: dancing and singing and crying and laughing.
And that lifts her spirits even more than their cause for celebration.
With help from Atlesian engineers, miners from Mantle who found and acquired needed materials, willing refugees from Vale, and the grudging assistance of Theodore and the Vacuan council, Vacuo’s system of CC support towers have at long last been repaired. This afternoon, their fledgling resistance made contact with Mistral. Mistral, in turn, having heard Pipsqueak’s message, is sending updated correspondence to Menagerie. And not only has Mistral promised to join forces against Salem, but much needed supplies for the refugees are en route to bolster the limited resources of the desert kingdom.
It's the single most promising development since Salem’s Grimm entered Atlas airspace―perhaps since the fall of Beacon Academy. From the looks of it, the entire camp has turned out to celebrate, bright fires and lanterns extending all the way to the edge of the desert. Even the pyramid city is lit brighter than usual, with fainter sounds of revelry drifting from its levels.
And yet.
Robyn hasn’t spotted who she really wants to see.
This is everyone’s accomplishment, but it’s Winter Schnee who was the one to conceptualize and coordinate and oversee the whole operation. She’s the one who convinced the Vacuans of the project’s necessity with no-nonsense facts and logic, strong-armed the most bullheaded of the Atlesian elite to contribute through sheer force of personality, and sought out and recruited the necessary experts with absolutely no bias. Robyn may have drummed up support and enthusiasm in the larger population and encouraged teamwork when needed, but without Winter, this feat could barely have been dreamed of, much less realized.
Robyn turns her gaze to the outskirts of the crowd, searching the dimmer sections for tell-tale white hair. She finds her target eventually, well off to the side, beneath the string lights that ring the square.
The song draws to an end, and Robyn claps Fiona on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back,” she says, and the shorter woman nods. Joanna pauses and May moves as if to follow Robyn as she steps away, but she waves them off. A frown passes over May’s face, but the crowd swallows her.
Robyn threads her way through the throng with the practiced ease of a lifetime on Mantle’s streets. Another upbeat song begins, to cheers from the youngsters. She laughs as she passes a whooping Nora and a grinning Oscar, with even the normally reserved Ren letting out an appreciative yell as he punches the air.
They’ve had precious little to bring smiles to their faces recently, and she’s glad this night has brought them a reprieve from their grief.
The crowd thins as Robyn approaches the edge of the square. Dodging past a final couple, she gives a wave to catch her mark’s attention. “Hey, what are you brooding back here by yourself for?”
“I do not brood ,” Winter says immediately, scowling, which doesn’t help her case. She stands like she’s on watch, spine ramrod straight, arms crossed. Her eyes are icy above the new scar across her nose and cheek―the one that wasn’t there before the two of them, Qrow, and Wags all ran into each other at Atlas Command; that Robyn hasn’t had the courage to ask about yet. The twinkling lights highlight the bags under her eyes, but they also cast a warm glow over her white hair.
Robyn rolls her eyes. “C’mon. This would never have happened if it wasn’t for you. Let loose and party!”
“This never would have happened without any of the engineers, miners, and support personnel who contributed.”
“Yeah, and they’re out here celebrating,” Robyn shoots back. “What, are you allergic to crowds? Don’t know how to dance?”
Winter’s pale cheeks color ever so slightly, and her eyes slide away.
“Oh my god.” Robyn grins. “You don’t know how to dance.”
“I can dance perfectly well, Miss Hill, thank you,” Winter all but sniffs. “Just . . . not to this kind of music.”
Robyn laughs. “This isn’t a fancy dinner party where the dances are choreographed, Miss Ex-Heiress. You just move to the beat.” She demonstrates, swaying and rolling her arms to the music.
Winter’s brow furrows. “You were all dancing together a minute ago.”
“Oh, yeah. Some songs have dances that go with them, I guess,” Robyn admits, hands falling to her sides. “But most don’t, and the ones that do you can pick up pretty quickly. Especially if you have someone to show you.” She smiles, tossing Winter a wink as she steps back. “You look pretty pathetic over here all by yourself.”
Winter’s eyes narrow, but she follows.
They stay on the outer edge of the crowd. Robyn immediately falls into the beat, letting the music flow through her until it escapes as a twirl, a shimmy, a stomp. Winter, on the other hand, simply shifts her weight from one foot to the other as she claps in time. There have been many, many surprises thrown their way the past few months, but Robyn has never seen the confident Winter so clearly a fish out of water. She’s so stiff, movements too tight and controlled. If that’s not a metaphor for her whole personality, Robyn doesn’t know what is.
“I’ve seen you fight, Snowflake, you’ve got better moves than that!” Robyn cajoles. A thought strikes her. “Just do what I do.”
It’s always a bit intimidating, when Winter Schnee centers her laser focus on you, but Robyn’s never let that show and she’s certainly not about to start now . The prickle of ice-blue eyes on her sends a thrill through Robyn, even as she feels a bit silly, rolling her arms around each other and swaying from side to side. Winter copies her, still stiffer than a toy soldier, brow furrowed with the same concentration she has when pouring over real-time maps of Grimm movements.
“You gotta loosen up. This isn’t an academy drill,” Robyn says. “Just don’t break an ankle dancing in those heels!”
Winter gives her an unimpressed look. “I fight in these heels.”
Robyn laughs. “Touché.” She raises her arms and falls into a simple step in, step out combo. Winter follows suit, ponytail swinging. “Yeah! Now add a little shake to it!” Robyn wiggles her foot as she steps, and Winter copies her.
Someone tugs on Robyn’s arm. Surprised, she turns and finds a pair of rosy-cheeked children, one with an armful of flower crowns, the other gesturing excitedly. Where they got so many flowers in the desolate camp, Robyn can’t hazard a guess.
Feeling brave, she picks the pale blue one.
The little boy, giggling with delight, arranges the crown snuggly around Robyn’s ponytail, and she tosses him a coin. Turning back to Winter, she grins with a cockiness she doesn’t quite feel, and strikes a pose. “How do I look?”
Winter glances away, a flush creeping across her cheeks. Robyn never gets tired of that look on her, such a lively, colorful change to her pallid countenance. “It . . . suits you.”
Robyn’s grin widens.
The maelstrom that is Nora Valkyrie explodes into their vicinity, with Ren and Oscar in tow. Ren offers Winter an encouraging smile and briefly clasps her shoulder—he’s the only person other than Robyn who can get away with that and not have his head bitten off—before Nora shoves a pink flower crown onto his head, a bright green garland already perched in her own hair. Oscar has incorporated Ozpin’s cane into his dancing, and Robyn wonders how the old professor feels about that.
Then her girls are upon them. Joanna, arms unburdened, gives Robyn a playful shove that predictably knocks her back a few steps, yelling something about Robyn needing a chaperone. Robyn makes a face at her. With raised eyebrows, May gestures at the flower crown, rolling her eyes when Robyn just winks. Bells tinkling, Fiona starts a dance off with Nora. Robyn can’t smile any wider.
For the first time since that horrid election night, the world feels right .
A little darker, perhaps, a lot more broken, and they’re all still reeling from unfathomable loss, and there’s a long, long road ahead of them.
But tonight, there’s light and laughter and love.
And maybe, just maybe, Robyn can believe it will all turn out okay in the end.
It’s only a few moments, though, before the familiar feeling of something missing tugs at her gut. She glances to her side, then searches between her friends and the teeming crowd beyond, heart sinking.
Winter is gone.
For someone who can control a whole room just by standing in it, the woman is impressively skilled at slipping away unnoticed.
Torn, Robyn looks to her girls. May rolls her eyes again, but there’s a slight twitch to her lips that means she’s not as annoyed as she’s pretending. Fiona gives Robyn an encouraging smile, and Joanna jerks her head towards the shadowy side of the square. “Go get her,” she says gruffly. “You’ll just mope the rest of the night, otherwise.”
Robyn doesn’t have any words, so she gives Joanna a squeeze, ruffles Fiona’s hair, and gives May’s ponytail a playful tug.
And then the huntress is off on the trail.
Turning the corner, Winter leaves the bright square behind. The music and the noise of the crowd still float on the warm air, but it’s blessedly muted now. She takes a deep breath and slows, hand tracing the side of the wooden shack for support. She’s not . . . entirely sure why she left so suddenly.
No. She takes a deep breath. Take responsibility for your actions.
She is sure. She just doesn’t want to admit it.
Robyn Hill is very charismatic, Winter has reminded herself over and over again. Robyn has a knack for getting people to listen to and believe in and like her, because she’s genuine and kind and actually cares . It’s how she won the hearts of Mantle. It’s how she did so much good for her people when no one else would. It’s how she encouraged and motivated the citizens of several different kingdoms to come together to get the Vacuo CC relay towers up and running again, and how she convinced Mistral to send them aid.
But Winter’s not sure she can delude herself that’s all it is, anymore.
On either of their parts.
Winter leans against the wall and pinches the bridge of her nose. She doesn’t have time for this. She is the Winter Maiden, and both she and Robyn are key players in the resistance against Salem. Winter needs to atone for everything she'd done at Ironwood's side, for her role in getting the people she had sworn to protect into this predicament.
She needs to keep her focus on her duty. They both do.
Winter groans in frustration, driving her palms into her eyelids.
And yet, she can’t get Robyn’s smile out of her head, inviting her to dance. The sound of her laugh as she joked with the other Happy Huntresses, the way she moved so fluidly, so confidently to the music. The slight uncertainty on her face as she’d turned around, flower crown perched atop her hair. The way the pale blue contrasted her brown skin, complemented her olive scarf. Her violet eyes warm and bright and alive .
There's been a shadow behind Robyn’s eyes that hadn't been there at the Dinner Party From Hell, or outside the elevator at Atlas Command. But it's haunted her since she landed in Vacuo, in the way her gaze slips over the camp, the way her eyes unfocus when someone mentions the Fall. Tonight is the first time Winter has seen it recede.
But she can't . . .
How can she explain, to Robyn “would-shoot-the-Brothers-if-they-threatened-her-friends” Hill of all people, that everyone she’s ever allowed close, she’s lost?
Her grandfather. Her mother, to endless wine bottles. The general, to paranoia and pride. Fria.
Penny.
Weiss .
Winter exhales, shaky, and forces herself to straighten. The warm night presses in around her, ramshackle shelters looming, drifting cacophony hounding her. She needs to get out of here, get away, clear her head.
Beyond her own unsuitability, it wouldn't be fair to Robyn. Winter's not naive; she knows Maidens have targets on their back, whether or not Salem has their relic. She can’t forget how her two predecessors died within mere days of each other. Winter herself should not be alive; she should have fallen to the general’s hand at the vault. She’s on borrowed time, and she needs to give it back.
It wouldn’t be fair to pull someone else into that.
Footsteps sound around the corner. A shadow falls across the packed sand. “Snowflake?”
Winter squeezes her eyes shut, inwardly berating herself. Too slow .
“Are you all right?” Robyn asks, and Winter feels a hand rest on her shoulder—
“I’m fine.” She steps away, leaving the gentle touch behind.
“Wanna try that again, with my hand actually in contact with you?” Robyn says.
Winter pauses, glancing back over her shoulder.
There’s a wry twist to Robyn’s lips, but her eyes are solemn. The flowers still rest atop her hair. “I don’t think you’re fine,” she says, “but if my hand lights up green when you say so, then I’ll leave you be.”
Winter can’t help it; she barks out an empty laugh.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Heaving a sigh, Robyn leans against the wall, crossing her arms. “It’s just . . . you worry me. You’re hurting.”
“Everyone’s hurting,” Winter scoffs. “Did you forget we lost our home? That our nation is nothing but rubble?” Robyn flinches, and Winter nearly bites her tongue. Robyn doesn’t deserve this. But if it gets her to leave Winter alone . . . she’ll be better off for it. “That we’re refugees on the outskirts of a kingdom that’s historically hated our people even more than we hated each other, while an eldritch being plots our extinction?”
Robyn’s lips tighten into a line. “I know,” she says. “Believe me, I know. But you’re alone.”
Winter is silent; she has nothing to say to that.
“You’re running yourself ragged, and you’re holding yourself aloof. Not above, like I would have assumed a month ago—like maybe you would have, a month ago. Just at arm’s length. Even your family.” (Winter almost laughs again.) “Whatever it is, you don’t need to handle it alone.”
Brothers. She cares too much.
“I know . . .” Robyn trails off, uncharacteristically hesitant. “I know you don’t know me that well, you don’t have to talk to me. But talk to someone ? Qrow?”
The look on Winter’s face must be priceless, because Robyn actually snickers a little. “Okay, not Qrow. Your brother is, well, a teenage boy, so probably not, right? How about that friendly man with the color-changing eyes? Or your mother?”
Despite a lifetime of practice, Winter barely keeps her face from spasming.
She hasn’t shared more than a few curt words with her mother in nearly a decade.
“That’s not necessary,” Winter says shortly. “I have my duty to our people, and to the world as the Winter Maiden, to focus on.” Straightening her spine, she clasps her hands behind her back and lifts her chin. “I appreciate the concern, but there is no need to worry for my welfare. I will not allow any emotions or feelings to cloud my judgment or interfere with my performance.”
“Dammit, Winter, I’m not concerned about your performance , or how useful you are.” Robyn actually sounds angry. “I’m worried about you .”
“And I’m telling you that you don’t need to be.”
“Then prove it,” Robyn says flatly, and holds out her hand, violet eyes stormy.
Winter just stares at it for a moment, and then a wave of anger washes over her. Well, if it’ll get the insufferable woman to leave her alone—
She steps up and clasps Robyn’s forearm. Amethyst energy rises from Robyn’s skin, swathing their grip in her aura. Locking eyes with her, Winter says, “You don’t need to worry about me.”
Robyn’s aura glows red.
Winter grits her teeth. “You shouldn’t worry about me.”
Still red.
“I don’t want you to worry about me,” she says, desperate.
At last, green.
“Why not?” Robyn challenges.
“Because I don’t want you to get hurt!” Winter explodes. Robyn’s aura stays green. Winter yanks her hand back, stung, betrayed by her own feelings.
Again.
Robyn plants her hands on her hips. “So you’re allowed to worry about me, but I’m not allowed to worry about you?” Her words are teasing, but the frustration is plain on her face.
“It’s different.”
“Care to elaborate?”
Winter shakes her head.
A long, heavy moment passes before Robyn sighs again. “Have you considered that seeing you like this hurts me?”
Winter looks away. “It shouldn't.”
Robyn snorts. “Sorry, Snowflake, but that's not how it works.”
Winter’s shoulders sag. She wants nothing more than to retreat, to hide, to tend her wounded pride; but she gambled, and she lost. Fair’s fair. “What do you want?”
“I want you to dance with me.”
Stunned, Winter’s head snaps up.
Robyn raises her hands. “We don’t have to go back out there,” she assures, smiling softly. “I want you to teach me the dances you know.”
As Winter stares at her, she becomes aware of the music drifting over from the square. It’s changed again: a cheerful, but markedly less rowdy, Atlesian song. Robyn waits, watching her, face open and kind.
Winter takes a deep breath.
Fair’s fair.
She steps forward, coming within a pace of Robyn, whose eyes widen in surprise. Even in her heeled boots, Robyn is still a few inches taller than her, and standing so close, Winter has to look up to meet her gaze. “Just mirror me,” she directs.
Winter begins the steps: back, to the side, forward, twirl around your partner. Robyn copies her movements with the expected poise and grace of a huntress. Step back, step up, bring your hands up—but don’t quite touch—circle around.
There’s multiple variations of different Atelesian dances, most of which can be paired with almost any song played at the typical ball. Some require whole lines of dancers, some require switching partners partway through, but all the dances Winter had been taught never allowed the partners to touch—for propriety, of course. The one Winter has chosen is a relatively simple repeated sequence. Robyn picks it up quickly, and by the third repeat throws her own flare into some of the moves: a shimmy with a step, an extra twirl, a hair toss. She’s grinning, clearly enjoying herself, and Winter can’t help but smile.
As they continue through the song, Winter can feel the tension slowly leave her body. Falling into the moves she knows so well, her movements become more fluid, more streamlined. She adds one of Robyn’s extra twirls to her own steps, and Robyn laughs .
When the song ends, they come to a stop facing each other. Robyn’s cheeks are flushed, messy ponytail even messier than usual, and her eyes are shining.
If this helped keep Robyn’s shadows at bay, it’s worth it, however much Winter’s own heart aches.
Reaching up, Robyn removes her flower crown and nestles it gently in Winter’s hair. “Thanks for indulging me, Snowflake,” Robyn says, stepping back. “Just . . . think about what I said?”
She turns to go.
Winter stands frozen for one heartbeat, two―and then, before her courage fails her, she steps forward and grasps Robyn’s hand. Robyn looks back, startled, eyes wide.
For one terrifying moment, neither of them move.
Then her fingers tighten around Winter’s. A smile spreads across Robyn’s face, brighter than sunlight on snow.
Winter lets out a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She squeezes her eyes shut, feeling tears leak out from the corners, and hopes she’s not crushing Robyn’s hand.
She's been so, so afraid that if she lets anyone close, her icy heart will shatter.
But maybe, just maybe, it will melt instead.