Chapter Text
The Blacksmith flicked their wrist and wisps of golden smoke puffed from their fingertips. Weiss and her friends turned, watching as the wisps spiraled around one another, faster and faster until they collapsed into a brilliant singularity of light. Then they rippled and expanded outwards and finally shimmered into...
A portal, with gold arches framing a blue-white light. Like the portals that Ambrosius had made to carry them to Vacuo. Weiss felt more than saw Ruby turn and cast her gaze back to the Blacksmith.
"Where will this take us?"
"Not where," the Blacksmith said, stepping towards the portal with their clanking footsteps. They gestured and the blue-white light inside the portal shimmered into a rainbow of iridescent clouds. "When you are needed most."
Maybe now would have been the time for a sarcastic remark. But a frisson ran down Weiss's spine. For the first time in weeks she let herself feel a thrill of excitement. Of hope. Ahead of her Blake and Yang exchanged a look, linked hands, and stepped into the portal. Weiss didn't hesitate, and she didn't look back.
Head held high, Weiss stepped forward and followed them into the light.
—————
Weiss blinked. She found herself in a small pavilion, seated at a wrought-iron table in the corner. Late afternoon sunlight streamed between the arched pillars supporting the roof. To her right, a fountain bubbled away peacefully. A plate of croissants steamed on the table in front of her. A gentle breeze rustled through her hair. And sitting across from her...
"Oh? And what do you think you've learned?"
Weiss stared at her sister, lips parted in a tiny 'o'. Not at the question, but because she knew where she was. She knew this pavilion, this table, this conversation. She stole a glance to her left. White stone pathways swept away from the pavilion, arcing into graceful curves as they snaked across the campus. The trees were just starting to turn red with autumn. The CCT tower still stood in the distance, the pendulums above Ozpin's office shining green. Yes, she knew perfectly well where she was.
Vale. Beacon.
"Weiss?"
Weiss snapped her gaze back around. Winter was frowning at her now—really frowning, the skin between her brows crinkling as she studied her younger sister. And why wouldn't she? Said younger sister had just frozen up in response to a perfectly normal question. An expected one, even.
Winter couldn't possibly know that her sister was... what, reliving the last conversation they ever had before everything fell apart? Was that what this was? Walking through the Blacksmith's door actually just let her have one last normal chat with her sister?
"Where will this take us?" Ruby asked.
"Not where. When you are needed most."
"Weiss!"
"You should stay," Weiss blurted. Winter's frown etched a deeper furrow into her brow.
"You... learned that I should stay?"
"No!" Weiss slapped her palms on the table, her heart racing. Winter arched a brow at her. Her expression faded into something smooth and implaccable as ever—save for the faint wrinkle lingering between her eyebrows. "It's... It's..."
She trailed off, silently groping for something, anything that might get her point across. That might convince Winter to defy her orders, or at least try to convince Ironwood to change them.
"It's dangerous," she finally managed, suppressing the urge to cringe at what a weak sounding excuse that was. "Things are happening—more than just some Grimm or terrorist attacks. It feels... bigger than that. And I just..."
She trailed off. Winter's expression softened as Weiss spoke. Of course, it stopped well short of melting entirely.
"I understand your concerns, Weiss, but the situation is dangerous in Atlas, as well. General Ironwood has to stay in Vale for the Vytal Festival." Winter lifted her chin, her eyes steely. "The Ace Ops are holding down the fort at home, but he still needs someone he can rely on in Mistral."
Weiss's shoulders slumped, gaze falling to the plate of untouched croissants. That... was about what she expected, really. The best she could expect with an excuse as flimsy as, I'm just worried.
"I know," Weiss murmured. It was stupid of her to even ask, but maybe the Blacksmith's cryptic warning was even more stupid. When she was needed most? How ridiculous. Winter didn't need her. Not right now, not in any way Weiss could actually provide. She was just a student in Winter's eyes, better than many but nowhere near the standards required of a Schnee. There was no one that needed her right now.
Was there...?
"You asked me what I thought I've learned," she said, lifting her gaze to meet Winter's eyes. "Two of my teammates, Ruby and Yang, are sisters. And by watching them I've learned a lot about the sort of relationship that sisters can have."
Now it was Winter's turn to lower her gaze. That frown crept back across her expression and her empty hand curled into a loose fist.
"I know... I know that me leaving home was hard on you—"
"No." Weiss shook her head. "Winter, you were doing your best."
"But when I left—"
"You were a child."
Winter looked up, fixing Weiss with a skeptical frown.
"Weiss, I was as old as you are now."
Shoot. Weiss could feel herself flushing all the way up to her hairline.
"W-Well, maybe I'm a child, too. That doesn't matter!" She lifted her hand and settled it on top of Winter's; Winter lifted her gaze and turned her wrist to take hold of Weiss's hand, and Weiss felt something uncoil inside her. "But Winter, you were what I needed. A big sister who wouldn't let anyone or anything stop her from charging straight ahead. Who gave me someone to look up to. A goal to run towards. I couldn't have asked for anything better."
Winter was staring at her, eyes shining and throat working as she swallowed—the Schnee equivalent of bursting into hysterical tears.
"But... Whitley. I don't think he has that. I don't think he has anything even like that."
"I know," Winter murmured, her gaze sliding away. "I tried, but—"
"It's not just you. I haven't been a good older sister to him either."
It was a shame she was already back in time, if that was what was really going on, because it meant that the wish to go back in time and strangle herself was a little redundant. But the wish was still there, burning away in the pit of her stomach. Whitley was fourteen, even more of a child than she was now. And like their mom said, he'd been abandoned by them both. He'd been left alone with a mother that hadn't yet started trying to improve, a father that would never try to improve, and a kind butler that could only do so much. How could Weiss ever have been so foolish as to take his bristly personality seriously? What else was he supposed to do but lash out at the only safe target left to him?
"But... maybe now we can start. Both of us."
"Weiss..." Winter shook her head. "Of course I'll try. But please, Weiss. Don't get your hopes up. Father is..."
"Determined to have one obedient child. I know. But I believe in Whitley, Winter." Weiss squeezed Winter's hand until the other woman met her eyes. "And I believe in us, too."
Their conversation returned to something resembling normal, after that. Winter and Weiss agreed to both start reaching out to Whitley, then turned to the subject of Weiss's education. Weiss made herself brag about her grades and Glyphs, though when Winter challenged her to demonstrate her summoning Weiss stepped up with even greater trepidation than she had last time.
What did it mean when she successfully summoned her Arma Gigas? Were all of her memories past this point some sort of strange fugue state? Was she actually, somehow, her 19-year-old mind sent back in time to occupy her 17-year-old body? It was almost a relief when her focus wavered enough to prompt a sharp reprimand from Winter.
Their meeting ended just like Weiss remembered, the two of them making their way back to Winter's airship and parting ways with a pair of polite nods—but this time Winter promised to reach out to Whitley on her way back, and Weiss promised to do the same.
And then Weiss was alone, standing at the empty landing pad and waving up at her sister's departing airship. Her Scroll started ringing. She didn't bother looking at it.
What the hell was going on?
—————
Weiss trudged back to her dorm room in a daze. No one else was there when she nudged open the door, Yang and Ruby presumably gone with their uncle and Blake off... doing Blake things. Maybe spending time with Sun?
Where they were right now didn't matter. What did matter was that it was good they were gone. Weiss took one look at their dorm room, at the posters on their wall, at their fire code violating bunk beds, and promptly burst into tears.
Weiss would have liked to say this was just a bout of dignified weeping, perfectly understandable after the extremely strange afternoon she'd just had. But she could feel her brows drawing together, her nose wrinkling, and her lips twisting into an ugly grimace. She sucked in a stuttering breath and let it back out in a series of choked, hiccuping sobs. Her knees buckled and she hit the floor with a gasp, clutching uselessly at the rug. Her vision blurred until a blink sent hot tears streaming down her cheeks. Every breath she managed to draw escaped her again as a heaving sob, until she was reduced to pathetic whimpery panting.
She was back. She was here, at Beacon, before the Fall. Yang's arm was intact. Blake's stomach wasn't scarred. Ruby had never broken down so severely she was ready to give up on being Ruby. Pyrrha was alive. And Weiss knew everything that was about to happen. That was supposed to happen, maybe, and she had no idea what to do about any of it.
Slowly, the tears dried up and the sobbing trailed off. Weiss became aware of the carpet fibers digging into her knees, the dampness on her collar, and the puffiness of her eyes and nose. The word shower flickered across her thoughts and Weiss finally found the strength to stagger back to her feet. She fumbled her way into the bathroom, wiping at her face with one hand and blindly slapping at the lightswitch with the other. Somehow she managed to get the shower on and her clothes off without knocking over anyone's makeup or Yang's pile of hair supplies. She stepped under the stream without waiting for it to warm up; the cold water wasn't even courteous enough to shock her back into coherence.
Instead she stood in the chilly, slowly warming shower with her thoughts buzzing uselessly between her ears. Her head was pounding, her sinuses were so stuffed she had to breathe through her mouth, her cheeks felt crusty with salt—and yet even after that bout of embarrassing sobbing she still had no idea what was going on.
The actual most likely explanation was that the process of leaving the Ever After was inflicting her with some sort of bizarre hallucination, or that the process had killed her and she was in the middle of a dying dream. But the longer this went on the less likely those possibilities felt. Weiss had never hallucinated or died, but she'd had plenty of dreams. And this was too coherent, too consistent, too real.
But the only other real alternatives of 'I got sent back in time' or 'I somehow gained knowledge of the future' were unlikely. Impossible. Insane.
The water was getting too hot. Weiss reached out to adjust it. She grabbed her shampoo and started the process of washing her hair, slow and mechanical.
Going back in time might be unlikely, impossible, and insane, but only about as unlikely, impossible, and insane as falling into the Ever After in the first place, or the existence of magic, or a headmaster that reincarnated by jumping into the mind of a random young man and slowly taking over his life. And the Blacksmith had said she would be sent to when she was needed most. But did that really just mean her conversation with Winter? Connecting with Whitley was important, but maybe... maybe she was actually here to prevent the Fall of Beacon?
Something about that thought felt right. Or maybe she just wanted it to feel right. It didn't really matter either way. Unless she was remembering wrong (and she was certain she wasn't) her conversation with Winter meant that the Vytal Festival had just started. Yang hadn't been tricked into attacking Mercury. And Pyrrha and Penny...
Weiss squeezed her eyes shut. Okay. She had time. Not a lot of time, but time to do something. Time to tell someone. Time to change how everything played out.
And time to figure out if she was the only one here. The rest of her team and Jaune had stepped through that portal, too, and they were all just as capable of her as preventing the Fall. Surely one of them had found themselves in the same position she was in.
Her course of action decided Weiss flew through the rest of her shower, scrubbing at her hair and skin and barely letting the conditioner sit before she rinsed it out. It was still relatively early in the evening but she didn't want to bank on the rest of her team getting back late. She stepped out of the shower, hastily towelled herself more-or-less dry, and pulled her pajamas on without bothering to apply lotion first.
She had to brace herself when she stepped back into the dorm room proper. She wouldn't be overwhelmed by a mere glance this time, but her calmer mindset meant she could take in more details this time around. There was a comic book draped precariously over the edge of Ruby's bed. One of Blake's spare hair ribbons was hung to dry in front of the window. A map of the festival food stalls, heavily marked in Yang's handwriting, was tacked to their shared bulletin board. Their desks were each stacked, in varying degrees of tidiness, with their notes and textbooks and weapon maintenance kits.
The word home drifted across Weiss's thoughts and she sucked in a sharp breath. Then she ground the heels of her palms against her eyes. No! Her head was still pounding from her last sobbing fit. She was not going to cry again and make it worse.
Only once she was sure she was under control did she stride towards her bed. She would wait here, she decided, and she retrieved her hair brush from her nightstand. She'd brush her hair, make herself comfortable, wait for her teammates to return, and...
And what, actually? Tell them she came back from the future and wanted to know if they did the same? And then deal with them treating her like she was crazy if they hadn't?
Ohh, she hated this! Weiss threw aside her hairbrush, drew her knees to her chest, and flopped onto her side. She had no idea where to start with any of this. But... she had time. She could figure it out. She just needed to think about it.
Weiss heaved a sigh. She just needed a little more time to think about it.
—————
Ironwood left first, his shoulders still visibly tight with frustration and hurt as he swept out of the room. Qrow departed shortly after, slouching his way into the elevator with a demand that Ozpin call him as soon as he had something. Glynda, as usual, lingered the longest, updating Ozpin on the boring intricacies of daily schedules and Vytal Festival management. Neither of them discussed the task of locating their 'guardian'.
Eventually even Glynda left, and Ozpin was alone.
He sank back into his chair, lifting his hands to massage his temples. The sound of clockwork surrounded him. The rapid ticking of the gears inside his desk. The steady, nearly silent grind of the clocktower gears sweeping in circles above him. The regular click of the clock hands behind him. He let the precise symphony of noises fill his ears and chase away his thoughts.
He and Glynda did not discuss the necessity of determining a guardian before she departed, and he didn't spare any energy for the task now. Even if he didn't wish to avoid the subject, there was no need to mull over a matter that was already settled.
There was only one choice. There had only ever been one choice.
But it wasn't a choice they must rush to act on. He knew with aching, sick certainty that Pyrrha Nikos would accept the task put before her. He knew that their warnings would fail to frighten her off.
And perhaps he could be more thorough in his warnings. He had some idea of what the Aura transfer might do to her. He could describe in visceral detail what it would be like to feel out of place in her own body. The sensation of seeing memories that couldn't be her own from a first person perspective. What it was like to be held prisoner in the mind of someone who despaired at your presence. To have your very being invaded by someone who did not wish to be there. How her friends would stare at Pyrrha like she was a victim, and stare at Amber like her executioner. How those same friends would one day lash out at Amber, and how Pyrrha would have to decide if it was worth it to insist that they were still speaking to Pyrrha. How one day she would realize that the line between the two was gone, and that she hadn't even noticed it vanish.
And still, still, she would accept the task set before her, because it was that very certainty that led him to select her in the first place.
So, no. There was no need to rush. The Vytal Festival would only last for a few more days. They could move forward after it was over. Perhaps not even tell her until after it was over. Let her have those last few precious moments as just Pyrrha. It was the only thing left they could do for her.
The gears turned above him, tracking the inexorable forward sweep of time.