❝ The simple solution would be to tell the truth and let the chips fall were they may. ❞ [Weiss]
the sun hangs low in the costan summer sky, blindingly brilliant even as it slowly sinks beneath the waves. outside people are laughing and bright, eager to party well into the night. they're here to monitor a potential situation (and dear professor hojo, who has been uncharacterizacally disinterested in them as of late, according to the other department heads) and nothing more.
nero hates it with a passion.
he's hot and sweating and considering that if this is where weiss thrives, then perhaps icicle inn would paradise. they're opposites on so much, so of course nero would somewhere cold, frigid, and far removed from nosy tourists asking him to take their picture.
his pale skin is already burnt despite barely being outside at all. but his brother was built for sunshine and brilliance. weiss will come out of this detour looking like a bronzed adonis. while nero will be a sullen, peeling lobster.
perhaps weiss believes that he's upset by this fact. nero's been quiet all night, quieter than he usually would be when they've been given a chance to be so free. and perhaps he is. they will probably never have an opportunity to 'vacation' like this again and he could barely enjoy it.
but a little (a lot) of sunburn is not the reason why.
his thoughts are instead on how simple it would be to chart a course for the sea. to go to wutai and ask to be hidden, biding their time until they've gotten enough to return and burn it all to the ground. or perhaps go further and further still, to where no man has set foot before. its a fantasy - for all their training, they don't know the first thing about surviving the sea - and he knows someone would haul them back. but the idea is there. he's thought about bringing it up more than once today, only to consider all the ways he could lose weiss to the unforgiving waves. he could pray to gods for a miracle.
but he already knows the answer to that prayer isn't the one he wants. and so he merely sighs, tossing the bottle of soothing skin balm over to his brother without looking
"wear sunscreen," he says instead, nose wrinkling as he pulls the band of his watch up and notes just how ugly a red his skin has turned in comparison. "lest we both return sporting complexions worthy of stealing Rosso's Crimson title."
