Chapter Text
Once upon a time, a lonely girl lived in a castle in the clouds. The girl wanted for nothing material; what food she craved she was given, what riches she demanded she was provided. But the girl felt aimless, hollow, alone.
What the girl wanted more than anything was a family. So, one cold winter night, the girl left the castle in the clouds to find her long lost sister.
In the heart of Schnee Manor, Weiss sat lost in thought in her room. Mother was somewhere in the manor, probably drunk. Father was presumably in his office thinking of how to make money, leaving Weiss thinking about the quiet, the stillness of this place that almost felt more like a museum than a house.
She’d never minded the quiet when she was young; she’d preferred it, because it meant no one was bothering her. Now it felt hollow, empty. Alone.
Was this how Whisper felt? She wondered as she gazed out her bedroom window at the gleaming buildings and spotless streets of Atlas. Alone? Lost and cold?
She missed Vale. More importantly, she missed her team. Her family. She missed Ruby’s childish joy and exuberance, missed Yang’s bold and brutish swagger, Blake’s calm, silent presence… and Whisper. She missed her sister’s smile. Her sass. Her kindness and helpfulness, her delight at simple joys of life and freedom.
Weiss sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She… wasn’t sure she believed her father. Wasn’t sure she could trust him when he said Whisper was dead. It sounded possible, sure, but thinking Whisper could die felt unreal, unnatural; it felt like it fundamentally violated some law of the universe. So she chose to remain hopeful. She chose to believe Whisper was alive…
All she had to do was survive Atlas, survive her childhood home, survive her parents and find her way out. And she swore she would be reunited with her.
No matter what.
On the way, the girl met other people, wise people who knew the world beneath the castle in the clouds well. These people saw the girl was naive, ignorant of many things including herself, and so they taught the girl.
They taught her of struggle and hardship, but also of love and kindness and friendship. They helped her learn about life beneath the clouds, and when they found the girl’s long lost sister they helped the two of them know each other.
She was running away.
Blake didn’t want to admit it, but she was running away like a coward, even if she had a good reason. Multiple good reasons, if she was being honest: Sun. Yang. Ruby. Weiss. Whisper. The thought of getting them hurt, getting them killed by staying around them was unbearable.
She’d already cost Yang her arm. Nearly got Brom killed when he tried to save them. And from what Brom told her before she left Whisper had managed to put herself on Adam’s radar, which was terrifying to consider since the girl was a Schnee and a civilian, which meant Adam would’ve already relished murdering her without having been put under the girl’s semblance.
Which… was something she was still running over in her head. She’d thought Whisper would just wind up with Glyphs like Weiss, but instead she wound up with something that had frozen Blake’s ex in place and sent Adam into a ranting rage; her friend was on the chopping block, and the last thing Blake wanted to do was add fuel to that fire by letting Adam know Whisper was one of her friends too.
So here she was, running away. Again. “Just like he said I would,” Blake muttered as she shut her eyes and took a deep breath.
She just needed to get home. Get to her family. Even… even if she wasn’t sure they’d love her anymore. Then she’d figure things out from there.
Assuming she got over that feeling that someone was watching her before she decided to jump off the boat and try to swim to Menagerie.
The girl even found a father, and this father clad her in steel and spirit that she could stand against the ravages of the world. The father and the friends taught the girl valor and bravery, how to stand on her own feet and remain unmoved when the world came and demanded she move.
The girl had a family. She had a home. And while it was no castle in the clouds her life felt like a paradise.
A weapon was a huntsman’s friend. A weapon, like their semblance, was a reflection of their soul. For Brom Bruin that reflection had always been a fairly obvious thing; he was a big guy, strong and unbreakable, and his weapon had been built to match. Broomstick had been based off the Valean trench sweepers of the Great War; it had suited his grandfather when he’d carved a bloody path through Grimm and soldiers of the other kingdoms alike.
It had also suited Brom’s bastard old man for the brief period he’d been a huntsman, but when Brom had made his own weapon that made it feel all the more appropriate; he would never be the kind of bastard his old man was, and he would use his strength, his fury to save people, to protect them.
Now Broomstick was broken into pieces before him, destroyed by that punk from the White Fang, and as he looked down at those pieces he wondered whether he wanted to just go back to the old design or make something new.
He thought of his life. Of being a humble shopkeeper. Broomstick fit that life too, but what he needed now was a weapon for leaving that behind, because his kid was out there in the world, out there waiting for him, waiting for her dad to come stand by her side and keep her and her friends safe.
Broomstick was his grandfather’s weapon. His father’s weapon. The huntsman’s weapon. What he made now, what he forged to carry him towards his kid needed to be more than any of that: it needed to be a protector’s weapon, a sword and shield that would protect his kid, his kid’s friends, and anyone they were fighting to keep safe.
So Brom huffed, dusted off his hands and grabbed a pencil and some blueprints as he muttered, “wait for me kid… I’m right behind you. I swear. Just wait for me, stay safe for me.”
But paradise rarely remains paradise. An ill wind led by wicked travelers carried monsters and villains to the paradise, and that ill wind swept up the girl’s family and scattered them across the world.
The girl was alone again, this time with no treasures or luxury to stave off that loneliness. The girl wept, cursing the gods for taking so much from her; not the wealth and gold and delicacies, for there were always more of those to be found, but her family could not be so easily replaced.
It felt like an insult that they put Whisper’s old name on the plaque. Honestly, the entire monument felt like an insult to Winter.
If the stone statue on top of the pedestal was meant to portray Whitley Schnee it was too relaxed, too casual; the brother Winter remembered was stiff and structured, like someone had tried to make a younger version of her father that was only marginally more polite. And the sister Winter remembered was far happier, far more free with being herself; Whisper Schnee was a girl who’d found home, found a family, found actual happiness.
The person Father’s statue portrayed wasn’t the repressed boy Winter remembered, wasn’t the vibrant girl she’d wanted to know better. This was a statue of a stranger dressed in her baby sister’s face, and she felt she could be forgiven for being upset about it on her day off.
If Whitley never left Atlas, or if Winter had dragged Whisper home, then her youngest sibling would have turned 16 this month. Instead, Winter was left unsteady on her feet as she stared up at a mockery of the girl she’d never taken the time to know.
Winter took a pull from the bottle in her hand and grimaced. How mother stomached the stuff she’d never know, but she had to admit the way it left her mind spinning and unable to focus was nice in the moment. At least until she found she was suddenly furious enough to throw the bottle at the statue and scream. She wasn’t even screaming words, it was just a sound of fury and pain and regret and guilt and..
And she felt a hand on her shoulder. Winter wiped her eyes as she turned and found General Ironwood standing behind her. “General… apologies. I didn’t hear you coming,” she slurred as she straightened up and stood at attention while the General sighed.
“We’re off duty. Call me Ironwood if you insist on formality,” he said, and Winter slowly loosened up and cradled her face in her hand. “You don’t look like you’re doing well, Schnee.”
“My baby sister is dead, sir,” she said as she finally looked up at the General. “The last time I saw her she was… struggling with her semblance. I told her, told her she shouldn’t have been near the fight, that she should run if anything happened… and now she’s dead, and we don’t even have a body. We don’t even have a proper memorial because Jacques Schnee is a bastard who couldn't even give his youngest the courtesy of burying her under her chosen name!”
She was crying. Yet again Winter wondered how mother put up with being drunk so often; she felt like a wreck standing here weeping over Whisper. “She… she was fifteen, sir… fifteen, and… and when I saw her in Vale, dirty with grease and tinkering with a weapon it was… it was the first time I’d ever seen her looking genuinely happy, and…”
“And you’re grieving.” Ironwood said softly. “Schnee… Winter. I won’t tell you that you can’t cry over Whisper. I won’t tell you not to process your grief in your own way, but I will say that there are still people who need you. Atlas needs you. The council needs you. Weiss needs you…”
Winter looked up, and it felt like the General was staring deep into her soul as he spoke. “I need you. I can’t fight this war without my right hand… can’t avenge what we lost or protect what we still have without you at my side,” he said, and Winter found herself nodding in agreement. “So cry. Scream. Drink if you have to, hell, tear down that statue if it makes you feel better… and when you’re ready? I’ll be there to point you at our enemies so we can keep any of this from happening ever again.”
A sharp shuddering breath. In. Out. And then Winter wiped her eyes and stood up straight. He was right; the war wasn’t over. Casualties happened, and this one was a loss she’d carry with her for as long as she’d live, but she had people to protect, people to avenge.
“… give me until morning sir,” she said firmly as she girded her resolve, steeling herself to follow this man to the darkest ends of Remnant. “And I’ll be ready.”
Ironwood smiled and gave her a nod. “Good. Good. I’m glad to hear it,” he said before holding out a hand she clasped tight. “Not another Beacon. Never again.”
It was an oath Winter could get behind. For Vale. For the fallen. For Atlas. For Weiss.
For Whisper.
“Never again.”
But the tears ran dry eventually, and when they did the girl from the castle in the clouds rose to her feet. “I will find them,” she declared, and garbed in the steel and spirit her father had gifted her she set out onto the open road. The path was dangerous; the monsters and villains the ill wind brought had also been scattered by its departure.
But she would not stop until she found her family once again.
When she’d first been taken on as an apprentice to the man who’d become her dad, Whisper had been taught the art of smithing by hand. She’d already known a number of smaller aspects from when she’d made the laser pistol that became her Fond Promise to Weiss, but Brom had taught her the width and breadth of the craft, every trick and skill the retired huntsman turned shopkeep and weaponsmith could teach her. She had made weapons, everything from swords and axes to rifles and handcannons, but she had admittedly never worked on armor before.
But the metals were good; solid and strong as she shaped them carefully to work with the mechashift components she and the small town’s blacksmith had forged to control it. The design was straightforward and simple- a shield that could transform into a sheath- but the metal they were using to reinforce it… there were lingering traces of aura about it, a trace of the previous owner’s soul.
So Whisper refused to let this be anything but perfect. The hammer came down as she worked, sweating and huffing as she shaped the shield, poured her own heart and soul into what she could only hope would be a masterpiece. She thought of what this shield was meant for, who it would protect and who that person would protect.
She thought of her sister in Atlas. Yang in Patch. Blake off on the wind. Brom in Vale.
And Ruby. Her friend. The friend she’d packed up the new life she’d built for to follow on her quest to stop a repeat of the tragedy of Beacon from happening in Anima. The girl she’d follow to hell and back if needed. The girl she’d arm. The girl she’d stand by through everything that would come.
The hammer came down, and Whisper paused to look over her work with a smile. Not perfect yet, but closer with every second. She would arm Ruby, arm Ruby’s friends, and work to make something even more perfect to show the girl how she felt about her.
The hammer came down.
And the girl from the castle in the clouds smiled amidst the smoke and heat of the forge.