The White Rose wilting

Chapter 3: Weiss's Fears

Weiss walked up the hill, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She did a quick check of the area before sitting under a tree to wait. She sighed restlessly. A lizard skittered through the undergrowth near her causing her to jump up and draw her weapon. When she saw it was just a lizard, she groaned, upset with herself for being so easily startled.  She sat back down and tried to calm herself. She almost missed the days when she was just the Ice Queen, so cold that nothing could get to her. Now she was faced with fear and doubt on a regular basis, and all those emotions that she used to ignore were running rampant and destroying her sanity.

She sighed and stood, holding her sabre before her as she breathed deeply. Her body moved gracefully through each one of the stances as she practiced. This form of training was one she had spent hours on, honing her precision and speed for lightning quick and deadly accurate movement. It was almost automatic for her now, after all these years. The simplicity of the exercise calmed her raging thoughts and returned some semblance of peace to her heart. It felt almost as though she was sent back to an easier age when her greatest fear was not being as good as her older sister. Back to when her biggest doubt was whether she could ever impress her father. She spent the next hour or so gliding gracefully through the motions before she came to a stop, her sword in front of her face and her breathing heavy.

She leaned against the tree and slid down, the bark scratching at her back. With a heavy sigh she pulled out her scroll. One hour down, three more to go. She thought. She looked down the hill towards where they had made camp, wondering what they were dreaming about. Things had been so difficult lately, and they were drowning in divisive bickering. Not to mention the strain that being leader was taking on Ruby... Weiss never said anything but she could tell it was changing her. Weiss thought back to when they had first met, chuckling slightly to herself. She had thought Ruby was so annoying back then. She had been so bright and hopeful and naïve. So loud and excited about everything. Weiss had been furious to find that this dumb brat had been assigned the team leader position. But as they trained together, something had changed. She realized that behind Ruby's bright eyed innocence was a steely determination and a will of fire. Weiss began to understand exactly why Ruby had been chosen. She managed to take this ragtag group of huntresses and turn them into the fiercest team the school had seen in ages.

But since that mission where they had discovered a village slaughtered and crawling with Grimm, the hopeful spark had faded from Ruby's eyes. And now with the maidens, and Salem ever in her thoughts, Ruby's eyes had gone dark and cold. Those shining silver eyes, which had saved the entire Beacon Academy were the eyes of a stranger. Weis hugged her knees to her chest, terrified. She wanted nothing more than to be with the woman she loved, but the longer this crazy mission continued, the more she felt that woman slipping further and further away. Tears flowed freely from Weiss's eyes as the pent up stream of fear and pain burst forward. By the time she wiped her eyes and glanced at her scroll it was nearly time for her watch to be over. She steadied herself and got a handle on her breathing. She brushed the dirt off her dress as she stood and walked back towards the camp. On the outside she looked just as calm and well put together as she ever did, but on the inside she was still falling apart.