Chapter Text
One Weekend, Early into the Beacon School Year...
Weiss
Late Morning, Team RWBY Dorm Room, Beacon Academy
"Thank you." I say to the Schools' postal agent, letters in hand and closing the door with a subtle smile. From the frown, I think I might have been too subtle with the smile.
"You're Happy." Ruby notes, looking up from the coursework she's been struggling with the past two days. "Oh, we got post?"
I nodded, "Just checking our mail. I think it's all rubbish again." I answer her last, first. "Last night was... good." is all I say.
For all the issues I've had with them... their, discretion, regarding my sleeping has thankfully not been one of them. Not that they've even asked, but... I feel like their lack of verbal acknowledgment has, so far, been out of kindness rather than a lack of interest in my well-being. Lack of verbal, but no lack of concerned looks my way in private anytime it somehow pops up. They even didn't ask about waking up after one of my bad nights to find Nora as seemingly the reason we all at the very least managed to get four hours.
I sit at the desk Ruby and I share, and a quick sort-through revealed that, just like usual, the weekly-delivery of post for members of Team RWBY included a lot of what looks like junkmail for me, a trio of letters for Yang that remind me of just why I recognized her, some more junkmail for me, ooh, Blake's got- oh I recognize that logo, she's been buying more... books. Ugh. Idly, I'm already pulling out from the stack the latest issue of Weapons Magazine for Ruby even as I note another indicator of questionable buying habits for Blake, a-
That's... that's her Emblem. I barely notice the rest of the stack getting split into five piles, nor the sudden presence of Rose petals, as I stare.
"Who's it from?" is what gets asked softly, and I turn slightly, to find Yang in, caring-older-sister-mode (as Ruby calls it), except it's, for once, not aimed at Ruby. Fitting.
I look back. "My older sister." At their looks, I explain. "Winter, she's, much older than me. She's always so busy, I've not seen her in over a year and... not since before she was promoted to Specialist, really. She's rarely able to write to me."
I also don't say that some of her letters oh-so-mysteriously never made it to me. Looking at the team - all three of them are looking, interested, but... not pushing. I swallow. Every... every time I try to resist connecting with this team, they're just... But I think I know their question right now.
"She's twenty-six." I smirk at Yang, "Far more mature than you."
"Really? And a Specialist Already?" Ruby asks, like she knows what that means... which, it's Ruby... she probably actually did know more about the Atlas military than she does about Dust. She's sometimes confusing about which bits she was ahead of her peers for. So, just only mostly behind for the academics, not completely.
I nod. "Promoted a year ago. The youngest Specialist ever." I smile a moment, and with a grin, look at Yang. "Which is even more impressive, since she was actually only eighteen when she decided to attend Atlas Academy, and had to learn how to fight from scratch."
Yang whistled, clearly impressed. "Wait so... Got in at... Nineteen, four years at the Academy, joined the military and in two years was a specialist?"
I roll my eyes. "I'm glad your ability to count is progressing."
Ruby was eyes-wide. "Wait she started learning to fight when we did?"
"You mean when I did, Rubes?" Yang interupts, and-
I look at Blake in commiseration over the the siblings snarking each other about when they started to learn. Yang... I know Signal starts around ten, but it's not far-fetched that some of its students already knew some things.
"Are you going to read it?" Blake simply asks, picking up her probably-invoices and notifications of when books would be delivered or ready to be collected.
Right. I look, and gingerly open the first letter I've received from my sister in many months.
"Dearest Sister-" I see, and cannot help be taken back a moment to my memories of so long ago.
Seven Years Ago...
Wednesday, 4th February, 110 AGW
Winter
Winter's Bedroom, Schnee Mansion.
"Oh, my Dearest Sister" I speak softly, pulling the little girl into my lap.
Outside of our bedrooms, whether or not there is anyone else here, out there we are controlled, we are steady, we are unemotional, we are cold... no... we are ice. But in the privacy of our bedrooms, we are what we rarely get to be.
"You're-" I hear a sniffle, "You're leaving me."
It's going to be a long, long time, before I will get to just be sister. And whilst I cannot make up for that when we are together... I know I will always try my best to. "I won't be here in body, dearest sister..." I reach between us and place a hand over her heart, "but take heart, for I shall always be in here in spirit."
Eventually, her cries settle down, and I just hear a mumbled, "Why are you leaving?" Why? In some ways, a difficult question to answer. 'To Defend the Kingdom' is a what. 'To Join Atlas Academy' is the means to that what, not the why.
'Because father is an asshole' is perhaps, part, of the what I'm trying to leave behind, or perhaps, a why to what I'm leaving behind, but she's not just meaning my exit from these premises and giving up my as-yet-removed status of primary Heir. And given what I'll be doing, it will result in him removing me as Heir, he's that much of an asshole. I won't be doing what he wishes for my future, so he will try to make sure I won't have any part of that.
If only I could take Weiss with me... but then, It's Atlas Academy. I doubt he'd make motions against me alone, but if I did take Weiss, and the school did make allowances for me as effectively her guardian, he absolutely would make motions against me and the school. And legally, he'd have the technically-rightness of it, though not be in the morally-right. But as it stands, the school absolutely would see it as kidnapping, even though she is my own sister. That, and it's a Combat College, which is no place for a child.
Because I want to defend the Kingdom? It's actually not that great of a motivation for me, more... a benefit they would see of the what I'm doing, rather than a why I'm doing it, itself.
I look around, and sigh at the fact that, contrary to what Weiss or Klein thought, I've not actually packed much, beyond one case of supplies and one case of clothing. I think they imagined my leaving with a train of luggage carried by servants, rather than so little that I can carry it all myself.
I've already prepared for my excision from the family finances by regularly drawing out lien from my personal allowance. Not all at once, never the same value twice in a row, and I tried to avoid a pattern of what days and how much. Not so much I couldn't explain some of the withdrawals as 'a few vendors in Atlas that prefer Lien', since some charge fees for those paying by card and father, as the old archaic phrase goes, is ever the penny-pincher and was so pleased that I seemed to be frugal even though I really, really, wasn't.
I have enough lien drawn out and not even on my person, but Colonel Ironwood himself ensured that it was safely stored in the safe of my future quarters. Even the first workings of my future weapon are there, so all I need to take with me, really, is just the initial set of clothing I can stick to for a few weeks, underwear, and personal hygeine products. I don't even know if I'll be a dust-user, I've only been learning the basics so far so haven't gotten a style figured out yet, so no need to take any dust.
Anything else can be bought.
No. Enough dillydallying with my thoughts. I know exactly why almost a year ago, despite being into my second year of college, I suddenly up and decided to learn to fight and join Atlas Academy. I just... I can't tell Weiss that reason.
Even though she should already know.
Father is just that fucking much of an asshole that his idea of therapy was paying some multi-degree-hack to convince Weiss to forget rather than fucking process that she had been kidnapped by those fucking terrorists, held hostage for over a fucking week and it wasn't that she was released because our loving father gave into demands, but rather was lucky to instead survive, as the White Fang's camp was assaulted by mercenaries who didn't even have any orders about Weiss surviving!
She survived because some faunus kid fucking well recognized the situation, didn't want an eight year old to be tortured, no matter whose daughter she was, and so had already removed Weiss from the camp.
And here I am, a year on from that incident, almost a full year of training in secret with the assistance of tutors provided in secret by a man that father still believes - and will believe until tomorrow - to be a family friend, and Weiss at this point, I believe... has already forgotten what happened a year ago.
'Because I wish to punish those who tried to harm you' does not come to even closely encapsulate the full breadth of the what I'm seeking to accomplish, yet... 'because those assholes kidnapped my eight year old little sister' really is the why of it.
And it hurts I can't admit it.
All I can do, is, for as long as I can, tightly hold onto my little sister, here in the privacy of the room I will soon leave in the dead of night, and hope to hell that Klein and Mother can keep him in check enough, that I won't have to eventually come here as a soldier to liberate my sister from the home that shouldn't feel like a prison. It's still home to her, so at least there is that.