Chapter 4: I Will Show You Fear in a Handful of Dust
"Enough about my racist past, let's talk about my racist future."
— 8 —
Weiss was more familiar with the taste of blood than you might expect from someone of her upbringing. She tasted it whenever the Schnee personal trainers pushed her too far, which was their default. She tasted it on the back of her tongue whenever she sang opera for her family's benefit at whatever charity event would rake in the most in tax write-offs. And right now, as she tried to breathe through her mouth to calm herself down, she tasted it again, as it leaked from the gash over her eye down her face.
The kitchen knife in her hand shook violently as she watched Blake run away, still held out as if it would keep her from coming back. She pulled her Aura, glowing white, over the cut, trying to stem the pain, to stop the bleeding, but hitting the counter that hard from that angle hadn't been an easy fall. Faces, she knew from some half remembered biology lesson, bled more than any other part of the body when pricked or poked. Something about all the blood going to the head to support the brain, and Weiss had one hell of a brain.
It took seconds after Blake had vanished around the corner before Weiss could let herself drop the knife. And seconds after her shadow clone puffed into dust, before she half collapsed onto the kitchen island, holding herself up on an arm rapidly staining with fresh blood. Breathing in through her mouth wasn't working. She wasn't calming down. Her heart raced like the daredevil speedsters driving their souped-up motor carriages down the Andechs Speedway. And despite the numbing pain, all she could think was,
This is ruining my apron.
It was an almost alien thought. Something so ridiculous and petty that she started to laugh. And that itself was an incoherent, rambling noise mixed with suppressed sobs. She held her hand to the gash, and all it did was send the blood running down her fingers and under her sleeve. Another ruined article of clothing.
Slender, masculine arms grabbed her under the arms, holding her up. Shamrock.
Wakashu. A boy this time. "I got you, Weiss. Just what the hell was that about?"
Still making that sound in the back of her throat, the laughter of a mute madman, she reached out and pointed a finger towards her notebook on the counter. Flecks of red dribbled off her fingertip onto the paper. Something else that Blake had ruined.
"Shit, that looks bad. It looks deep," Shamrock said in a panic, unnecessarily.
Weiss managed to take control of her throat. Enough so that she could say, "I'll be fine, Shamrock."
Shamrock laughed mirthlessly. He was getting her blood onto his burgundy suit. "Fine and dead is more like it. Gede's tricks, girl." He made some
Vaudou gesture, contorting his fingers to properly convey it.
She tried to push him away. "I've had worse. I'll survive." Her voice felt shaky in her own mouth.
Shamrock just gave her a look so skeptical that she was forced to look away. But blinking and closing her eyes just sealed the blood in. Made her feel somehow ashamed of herself and her body.
This is what I get for trying to make food, she thought. Sweets and delicacies and baked goods, filled with calories and sugars and carbohydrates that her trainers back in Atlas would have whacked her hand for if they caught her reaching out for them. But only the softer instruments of punishment. It wouldn't do to ruin the back of her pristine hands with scars. She was a proper lady of Atlesian high society. Enough people talked behind her back about the scar over her eye. Her father didn't need any more of that to deal with.
"Uh-huh, cool," Shamrock said, jerking her forwards. Still trying to lean against the counter, trying to see past the spots in her eyes, she wasn't able to resist. She would have stumbled to the ground if he hadn't been holding her. "We're getting you to the doctor."
"No!" she yelled, louder than she had anticipated from herself. "They're probably all gone for the winter break. Probably no one there. Just let me—you know. I can handle this." She intensified her Aura, trying to focus on her face. The bleeding didn't seem to care.
"Alright, you convinced me."
"I have?"
"That everything you have and are going to say is going to be completely wrong," Shamrock said. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"You're making a fist."
"And what card am I hiding in there?"
Weiss blinked. Red and salty blood stung her eye. "Seven of clubs."
"Wrong. Completely empty, see? Why the hell would you think I'm trying to trick you at a time like this?"
She tried to shake her head. "I—I don't?"
"Then why do you think I'm trying to pull the wool over your eyes dragging you to the doctor?"
It took a long moment to process that. She kept holding her hand to her forehead, glowing as much as she could from her Aura. She kept imagining that if she grabbed the cut and pulled, she could rip her entire face off. Her stomach recoiled. The spots overtook her vision again.
"You wouldn't," she admitted, the words sliding from her mouth like a dribble of vomit. She wanted to fight him. Handle this on her own. She could cook a cake on her own and suffer the consequences. She could deal with another cut on her face and deal with it.
"Amazing. We've all reached the same page in the book. Chapter one: I'm Bringing You to the Doctor Because I Think You Need Stitches. Let's read along, class."
"Sarcasm. How original."
"Keep talking like that in the next card I'm pulling is straight out of your tits."
She held her arms over her chest protectively. The sudden motion made her nauseous again. Her apron and camisole were completely ruined. Blood didn't wash out of clothing very well, especially white outfits. She knew from experience. Weiss still remembered how she got the cut over her eye, and the butler having to burn the dress she wore. Symbolic as much as anything.
"I can't go outside wearing this," she said. Speaking itself still felt somehow ponderous. The oral equivalent of a newborn fawn getting used to its legs. "It's practically just underwear."
"How many excuses are you going to make, Weiss? Because as much bullshit as you give me, I can bullshit back at you twice as hard. Observe." He started unbuttoning his jacket. A moment later, he had given her the clothes off his back, putting it around her. He was a little bigger than her, and the suit came across as baggy. But given the way Shamrock's body often shifted from moment to moment, Weiss had to wonder if that was on purpose. He still wore his hat, but now just had a loose fitting undershirt and trousers. Weiss felt her cheeks go red from the gesture, which only brought more blood to her face.
"I get it. You're trying to stand on your own two legs. That's how it is in Atlas high society, right?"
For some reason, that made Weiss angry. But it was kind of hard to say you were seeing red when you literally had blood in your eye. It stained everything. "What would
you know about that? About
me?"
Shamrock gave her an infinitely patient look. "High society around the world is all cut from the same cloth. My mother tried elevating her status and selling me off into the Sheikh's harem. I know a thing or two about high court politics and how the girls are supposed to be. You're supposed to be strong, seen and not heard. You're supposed to be able to do everything you're asked to on your own. Held to a higher expectation, to be something that you're not for someone else's pleasure and benefit. Well, fuck that. You don't have to be held to some impossible standard just because your daddy or your lord wants you to be that. All you have to be is you. And all
you have to be is Weiss."
Weiss didn't immediately have an answer to that. She just kind of squinted, confused. She swallowed. "I… gods, that's awful. You couldn't have been more than just a girl, or." She blinked and tried rubbing the blood off her face again. "Does that mean you were born a girl or…?"
Shamrock gave her a look. "Really? That's the question you're asking here?"
"I… maybe?"
He sighed heavily. "It doesn't matter what you were. What matters is who you
are. Who you're trying to be. That's why you deserve a second chance. It's why I'm trying to give you one. Why the hell else would I be doing this? Now let me get you to the damn doctor, you prissy little girl. Because who are you really,
Weiss or the Schnee heiress?"
Weiss felt her chest tighten, cheeks going red as much as they would a lot with the blood loss.
Second chance? Why did she need one? She was doing just fine. She could do this on her own just like always. Even surrounded by her family and servants, she'd been alone. She… she…
She felt her resolve melting away. The icy spine of a Schnee dripping down her back in cold little rivulets of water. Second chances. That was why she had come to Beacon. That was why she was trying to be a Huntress. Trying to learn how to cook and do things on her own like this. Why she had gone to that card game with Shamrock and Jack and Yang.
She was
trying to be a better person. To be
Weiss and not simply the Schnee heiress.
Shamrock was right. Blake was still a bitch, but—now she didn't know. She didn't know anything at all, not anymore. Maybe it was the blood loss. Maybe it was the threat of stitches and another scar to ruin her perfect face. But right now, Weiss wondered if this was all her fault. After all, just giving that disturbing creep Jaune a chance, teaching him to sing on more than a couple occasions alongside her, they had almost become tolerable together. And Blake was just trying to do the same thing. Even if she had completely sucked at it.
Weiss—was just so confused and everything hurt so much and there was so much blood and why did it hurt to think so much?
"...Okay," she said, a single, breathy word. It felt like defeat. It felt like giving up.
It felt like a second chance.
— 9 —
"Bleeding was a luxury back home," Shamrock said as she adjusted her hat. She reached forwards to change the rag towel Weiss had been holding to her head. As she replaced it, more red fell onto the snow, part of a pattern that had followed Weiss across campus all the way here. The doctor's office seemed too far away.
"I know," Weiss said, and swallowed. So many spots in her eyes. The bleeding had slowed down from constant use of Aura and keeping pressure on the cut, but it never
stopped. "First time I had my, you know,
that time, I just cried all night in the bathroom. I was so,
so worried someone would find out. That it meant I was
ruined, I guess. No one would ever want to marry me. I kept cutting up my dresses to make it stop until my butler became suspicious how empty my closet was."
Shamrock laughed. "Okay.
Wow. I was just going to talk about the ixodida tick beasts in Vacuo that came up from the ground to drag you away if you got blood on the sand. But, Nameless Thirteenth's love upon you, girl, that just sounds
fucked."
"I… think that's worse," Weiss said, taking the first steps into the doctor's office. "We had to get one of the maids to explain it was normal. I never had to worry about monsters dragging me away to suck me dry, just the monster that was my father saying that he supposed it meant I was an adult and to leave him alone to things that mattered."
"I was trying to encourage you and how I made my weapon from one of the ticks' giant suckers, not bring up bad memories. Sheesh."
"And this is exactly why I'm not allowed to take vacations," the middle aged man at the front desk said with a sigh. Doctor Croaker. Weiss only knew him from a few guest lectures he had done for Professor Port's class about the value of first aid and being able to provide medical care for civilians in need. He was a big man, wearing a white doctor's coat over light black armor, like he was only pretending to be the school's physician. Weiss knew a couple girls in class appreciated his brusque manner and good looks. She wondered if she would age as gracefully as he had.
"She needs medical attention," Shamrock said. "She had a pretty nasty fall onto a kitchen counter."
The doctor stood up, stretching. "Yeah, no shit. Next time try getting delivery."
"Are you going to help or just crack wise, doc?" she snapped.
Croaker shrugged. "I'm not paid enough to be able to pick and choose. But with my assistant on leave—ah, screw it. I'll figure out the paperwork later. Or just forget about it. Either way works. C'mon, kids."
Weiss wasn't sure what she expected. The physician's office in this part of the infirmary was rather empty and poorly lit. Instead of having to fill out paperwork like you would have to in Atlas, Croaker just brought the pair to a back room and instructed her to lay down on the bed. He didn't seem particularly concerned about her injuries, which in some ways made her feel indignant, and in another way made her feel like this was no big deal. The man had a curious bedside manner like that.
Instead, once she was lying down, he simply asked, "You good with the pain?"
"It hurts to think," she said.
"Any sensitivity to light or nausea?"
"I don't think so."
The doctor gave her a skeptical look. "But have you let down your Aura since getting hurt? It might be helpful to me."
"I don't think that would be a good idea, doc," Shamrock said dubiously, rotating her hat in her hands. "Weiss hit her head pretty badly."
He sighed, rolling his dark blue eyes. "Kids like you don't realize that your Aura can help deal with side effects like that. It can make diagnosis harder. It feels good right now, but it can be detrimental to your long-term well-being if it masks more serious issues."
Shamrock rubbed her hands together as she sat in the chair against the wall. It didn't look like she agreed, but couldn't figure out how to properly argue, or if she even had any legs to stand on there.
Croaker turned back to Weiss, holding some kind of surgical equipment in his hands. "I'm going to need you to stop glowing so that I can both operate on you and figure out how badly you're actually hurt."
Weiss just stared up at him. The idea of letting all the pain flood her made her stomach do a backflip. She swallowed hard. "I, I don't know."
"Look, you can just lay there and bleed out for all I care," he said. "I still get a paycheck whether you live or die. Besides, if you're who I think you are, then your teammates stole my cigarettes, so letting you suffer is a kind of catharsis." The man shrugged indifferently.
"Jaune did
what?" Shamrock asked, before dragging her hand down her face. "Hey, Weiss, remind me to kick his ass later."
Weiss just squinted. "Why is the doctor smoking?"
Croaker made a circular gesture with his hand. "It's the one drug a doctor prescribes himself and forbids his patients. Now are you going to let me help you, or can I go back to my empty front desk so I can pretend I'm in some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland without you kids to give me headaches?"
Weiss took a very long breath. Exhaling it with a shutter, she let her Aura down. And instantly the light in the room was way too much for her. She hissed, covering her eyes with her hands. The sudden motion made her nauseous. Groaning, she said, "Oh god, everything is spinning."
"Mild concussion and a noticeable facial laceration," Croaker said, as if for an invisible audience. "I'm probably going to want to keep you overnight to make sure you recover. But until then, I'm going to need you to hold very still and be a very brave girl for me."
"Why?" she asked, peeking through her fingers. The blood had soaked through them.
Croaker placed a gloved hand on her forehead. "Because I'm about to use a stapler on you."
"Wait!" Weiss cried out, holding her hands up to him. Trying to keep that little white device in his hands away from her. "Stitches. Sutures. Whatever they're called. Just not the stapler."
He regarded her gravely. Although really, he was probably just annoyed. "What does it matter to you?"
"I don't want a scar. Not another one," she said. From the corner of her eye, she saw Shamrock leading forwards, gritting her teeth. "I know staples are faster, but they leave worse scars. I don't care if it hurts more if I or if I bleed more, but I don't want any more scars on my face."
Croaker managed to look mildly impressed. "Funny. Most kids here take on scars as a matter of pride. You've already got the one over your eye. Either way, this is definitely going to leave some scar. Does it really matter so long as I make sure you're okay?"
"
Please?" Weiss asked.
Begged. Her heart was thumping in her chest.
Croaker looked at Weiss for a very long moment. Before he shook his head and stood up. "I guess immediate triage isn't your biggest concern. Don't die while I'm trying to get the proper equipment, alright?" He got out some gauze and gave it to Weiss to hold against her wound to stem the bleeding.
As he left the room, Weiss flared her Aura, focusing it on her forehead. The nausea and light sensitivity subsided somewhat. Now that she was aware of them, she couldn't get rid of them. But it helped.
Shamrock got up and ambled beside the bed. Arms folded, she leaned against the wall, looking down at Weiss. "Is it really that important to you? What's another scar on your face?"
"It's more complicated than that," Weiss said. "It's—I don't want another one on my face. The one I have is already, just, you know?" It felt hard to explain and she knew she was getting it all wrong. Maybe it was the blood loss. But maybe it was just that she had no real ability to put it into concrete words.
"Because that's not what a Schnee is, some battle scarred warrior?" Shamrock said.
Weiss cringed in on herself. For a sudden, inexplicable reason, she wanted to cover her eyes with her hands. Just make some kind of agreeable noise to make the conversation stop. She compromised, feeling out with her Semblance and placing a glyph above the gauze. It kept it steady, pressing against the cut on her forehead, without her needing to use her hands. The gauze remained without her having to consciously think about applying pressure.
"We used to be, our family," Weiss said. "Back when names and bloodline meant far more to people than they do now. Before everything about who I was became poisoned before I was born."
Shamrock arched an eyebrow. "You're actually admitting that?"
"It's complicated. Before Mantle, before the Final Empire gave the entire continent the name Solitas, there were Schnees. We used to be ice itself. The storm that is approaching, and a dozen other meaningful metaphors that I think only I care about. Maybe my sister, Winter, too, in her own way. But we
used to be something noble. Something people could respect, instead of used as a byword for rich, powerful, and morally bankrupt."
Shamrock looked off into the distance, which just meant staring at the far wall. "A name only means as much as it means to you. What you make of it."
"What does Shamrock mean to you?"
She shook her head, running a hand through her red hair. "Just something Valean. It fits in well enough. All it means to me, is who I'm trying to be."
Weiss processed that for a moment. "Is… it not the name you were born with?"
Shamrock laughed. "You really think I was born some white girl named Shamrock? Be real." She examined the back of her hand, up her arm toward her shoulder. Making a fist, she said, "There's nothing for me in lineage. Nothing for me in who I was."
"The only thing that matters is who you're trying to be," Weiss said softly.
Shamrock nodded.
"Well, what if who I want to be is simply the best version of a Schnee?"
"I thought you said you were Weiss first, back at the card game."
Weiss swallowed. Her mouth felt dry. "Why can't I be both? You have your own way of viewing names and background, but I just can't do it. My name is Weiss Schnee. It always has been and it always will. I can't undo the stain the name has on it. But I can, I
will, do everything in my power to redeem it. To reclaim my name as my own, not simply the one my father took."
"And that's what matters to you? How does that relate to you being afraid of scars?"
Weiss cringed. "It's complicated. In a sense, I can see how those battle scars would—I don't know. But I have an obligation to be better. Flawless. Perfect."
"Sounds like you buy into destiny."
She took a deep breath. "Only the one I'm going to make myself. I can't get rid of my name like you, and in any case I don't want to. Who I was born as is a part of me I can't change. What I can change is what it stands for and what it means. The old nobility it represented."
"Noblesse oblige," Shamrock suggested.
After a long moment thinking, Weiss nodded. "With everything I was born with, I have a duty to use it for something. Some people are born poor, some are born rich, some are born fast, and some born weak—some people are born bureaucrats and others are natural Huntresses. I came to Beacon to be something different, but something the same. My Semblance is hereditary in a fashion. It has been for as long as anyone can remember. And if I don't use what I was born with to make the world a better place, then why was I born with it at all?"
Shamrock didn't say anything for a long moment. Just idly held her top hat and tapped at it. "Born. I've had my own little sword of Damocles since about the second trimester."
Weiss made a face, imploring her to continue.
Shamrock's features shifted. Becoming more ambiguous. They said, "Your SDC was a factor back then. It's got a lot of influence here and there in Vacuo, wherever they've got Dust. I used to just think it was part of life. Now I think there's something sacrilegious in it. My mother put me up for service when I was in the womb. By the time I was born, they were already hoping to make me a Hunter, I guess. Lots of Atlesian companies come with the SDC and take advantage of the pretty lax laws around Vacuo to test products and procedures."
"I don't follow. Are you saying you're some kind of genetically modified organism like corn?"
Shamrock laughed. "I think doing that on people is still a couple decades away. More like being born into indentured servitude. My mother didn't really have a choice. You were born with wealth. I was born with some hope and a payday for my mom, because it was either that or start opening her door to clients, so to speak. My father was around infrequently, so there wasn't much hope for a single mother where I lived in any case. It's why, as far as I'm concerned, destiny can go fuck itself. Even if you are born for something, it's your choice to say screw it, and leave."
"Is that why you were in the harem?"
Shamrock held up their hand, letting their Aura wash over themselves. "The Atlas company working on ways to forcefully prompt Aura and Semblance went tits up. Blond-Vysoutis had to let me and a dozen other children across Vacuo go, and with it the paycheck from my mother. One bad turn after another, and there I was. Some tribes raise children communally out in the desert, and others are more traditional. Vacuo really isn't one country or culture so much as it is a geographic description of a complete shithole. So, mom offered me to the Sheikh. A kind of prestige pet that can glow in the dark."
They looked at Weiss. "Everything I was born for collapsed around me. So I said fuck it. I don't have to be what anybody wants me to be. I could go somewhere where I could be myself, just as soon as I figured out who I was. And when I came to Vale, it was J Shamrock under the care of the old
Vaudou people. Before I wound up here at Beacon, and it turns out maybe I didn't have a choice all along."
"That's your Semblance, isn't it?" Weiss asked softly. "It's not about just changing. It's about trying to fit in, isn't it?"
Shamrock smiled wryly. "Scale of one to ten, how am I doing?"
Somewhat embarrassed, Weiss replied, "I sometimes feel like you're not even there. You just blend in like a shadow. Until suddenly you're saying something and I'm always surprised to find you still exist, I guess. I'm sorry. I don't know how else to phrase it."
They shrugged. "How am I supposed to blend in with an antisocial bookworm, one of the richest girls in the world, and a barely functioning alcoholic?"
Despite herself, Weiss gave a little laugh. "I'm still trying to figure out that part myself. Want to brainstorm with me?"
"I think your brain is leaking out of that hole in your head."
She grit her teeth. "I… yeah. I still can't believe what happened, but, maybe it's just the bloodloss, but I'm thinking maybe—I don't know. Like I had some part in this. I was trying to be strong and independent and do things on my own, and when she tried to help me, I just flipped on her. I still don't know why she thought punching me was the right idea. I'm probably going to have to punch her back to make things even. But…"
Shamrock laughed. "I like it. Friendship through violence."
"I don't really think we are friends. I mean, I think she's friends with Jaune, and he and I can pretend to be civil sometimes."
"Are we friends?"
The question stabbed a lance of ice through her heart. In a bizarre way, Weiss had never really considered that. Friends
. Her. Even though she knew it was completely stupid to let people blindside her like this. She and Shamrock had been able to play cards on several occasions, and she was really learning how to do it now. The tricks were still slow to come, but they were coming. But then again, could she say the same thing about the couple of times she and Jaune had practiced singing? She wouldn't really consider him her friend by any real stretch exactly. But it was just the same kind of thing she was doing with Shamrock.
So what was Shamrock to Weiss? They were her partner. Someone she was doomed to spend the rest of her time at the school with. And honestly, they were one of the few people in the world that Weiss didn't exactly mind. And also one of the few people on her team who hadn't assaulted her or sexually harassed her at some point. But if that was her gold standard, her standards were depressingly low. She and Shamrock played cards together and gambled and did other non-Schnee stuff just for the fun of it. She had learned dozens of new little tricks and talents she never would have even considered trying to learn if not for her time with Shamrock. Hell, that was why she was a friendly acquaintance with a damn Communard now and whatever a Yang was supposed to be. All because her desire to make things right with her partner had brought her so incredibly far out of her bubble of comfort that she'd found new things to take enjoyment from.
"I don't know," Weiss admitted. Then, summoning one of her glyphs with a conscious will of effort, she produced a fake and vaguely glowing Jack of Hearts. The power of her Semblance in action for a really dumb reason. "Is this your card?"
Shamrock covered their eyes, biting back laughter. "Holy shit, girl, that is the absolute dumbest answer I've ever heard. Is this how they teach you to be personable in Atlas?"
Weiss bristled. "Well, I thought it was a clever metaphor!"
Shamrock took the card, still smiling. With a flick of the wrist, they produce their own card. Four of Diamonds. "No, it's not my card. But." They gave Weiss a sly expression. "Anything's possible when you lie. Who's to say this isn't a Jack of Hearts?"
For the first instance in what felt like a long time, Weiss smiled. The drying blood on her face crackled with the expression. But for the moment, she didn't care.
Very consciously, she looked up at Shamrock. Using her left hand, she tapped over her breast three times quickly, and then raised her fingers to her partner, bending them to make a particular
Vaudou gesture for
ça ira, an old Valean term for
it will be alright. She had learned the gesture from Shamrock and Jack. It was why you had to use your left hand. In their religious beliefs, the right hand was for taking, and the left hand was for giving, because that was the way the ventricles in the heart pumped blood. Your left hand was closer to the fresh blood from your heart. While she might not buy into the sky gods stuff, it didn't mean she couldn't pay attention, couldn't give it its proper respect.
Shamrock playfully slapped the gesture away out of her hand. "Gods, that's so corny. Way to culturally appropriate my religion." But they were smiling, no heat or malice involved in the least bit.
"The next thing I'm going to culturally appropriate is giving people a second chance," Weiss said. "I… I want to talk to Blake. Maybe punch her in the face too, but I want to know what happened. Without things getting stupid again. Is that crazy of me? Am I losing my mind?"
Shamrock shook their head. "Everyone deserves one. Sometimes, you deserve two. If you want help or backup, I've got you." They looked up suddenly. "Although I suspect it might be a hot minute if you need to stay overnight for concussion watch."
Croaker entered the room, carrying a bevy of medical supplies. "Alright, no more having fun. It's local anesthetics and painful stitching time."
