RWBY Through Worlds

14: Rust and Dust Facade

In fact, Weiss wasn't sure what she thought when Winter showed her the current Maiden, Fria.

She was very frail and old.

Winter said she was the only one allowed to see her.

Weiss put it together. [Again, duh. Who was surprised by that? Qrow? Are you in there?]

Weiss asked Winter if it bothered her that her destiny was chosen for her in this manner.

Winter said at first, but then she began to see it as a privilege to be able to serve her country. That she chose it herself, now, because of that.

Weiss wasn't sure what to think about it.

* * *

The day following this, Ruby, Penny, and Qrow were all going with half of the Ace Ops to deliver dust to Amity Tower's reconstruction site--and they still weren't sure why they needed such heavy security to do what Ruby considered to be such a boring job.

While they were gone, the others had smaller missions, like patrol or training, etc.

Pyrrha opted to train with Oscar. She didn't expect Weiss to join them.

"Uh...Pyrrha," she said, after a few rounds of half-hearted sparring that made Pyrrha feel kind of bored, "can we talk for a second? Privately."

"Sure..." Pyrrha couldn't imagine what Weiss would want to talk to her about.

Oscar wasn't sure why they went off to a different corner of the room, but he was rather awkwardly left alone.

The DJs were doing something else, they'd said studying and worship--he wasn't sure what that meant.

"What is it?" Pyrrha asked Weiss.

"I...have kind of a personal question." Weiss found this pretty uncomfortable now that it came to the point. "And don't take this the wrong way, all right...? But you were supposed to be the new Fall Maiden, right?"

"Yes..." Pyrrha felt a chill run down her spine. She shivered a bit.

"Right... Can I ask, would you...uh, make that choice again, knowing what we know now?" Weiss asked.

Pyrrha looked her right in the eye. "No," she said. "Not now. Not for that reason, certainly."

"Oh..." Weiss looked down. "Mind if I ask why?"

"Because we don't know if it will work," Pyrrha said. "I know that we must keep the powers away from Salem...but I wouldn't try to take them this time. If they came to me by accident, I suppose I would...learn to deal with that. But not at the expense of hurting some else. That was wrong. Did you know that part?"

"No... Uh...what part?" Weiss said.

Pyrrha covered her eyes for a moment. "There were these...machines the General had invented. To try to take the soul out of the Maiden and put it into my body...without being sure of the consequences...what it would do to either of us. Now, it looks as though it might do what it's doing to Oscar--or perhaps something worse...or more instantaneous. I'm glad, looking back, that it didn't happen, though I'm not glad that Cinder has the powers. If there was some other way... But there's no use living in the past now. She just must be stopped."

Weiss hardly heard that part, she was too hung up for the first part.

"Did you say machines...? What did they look like?" she asked.

"Like these...big, metal coffins, as grotesque as that sounds," Pyrrha said, "with tubes running out of them, glass doors. Why?..." She frowned. "Weiss, did you...see something like that here?"