An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
It's the most confusing, wonderful, and annoying feeling she has ever felt. And that is what meeting Weiss Schnee is like.
The first time Ruby sees her, she knows.
Her forehead is slick with sweat and the stickiness of salt scented winds from the sea, her white shirt stained with grease and one strap of her suspender hanging loosely off her shoulder. She curses herself for looking like the street rat she is today of all days, the day where the prettiest person she had ever and ever will see decided to step into the shipyard.
Ruby knows. That this person will haunt her thoughts for the rest of her life. That she’ll visit her in daydreams and nightmares, a wanting visitor distracting her-- blinding and binding her to crystal blue eyes that remind her of glacial ice, fractal remnants from books read long before, of places she has understood and felt but will never see.
And she hates it. Hates-- that this one second on a mundane Wednesday afternoon has dictated what her mind will think of every moment after. And she loves. Loves that her every thought she will have will be painted in blue and frost. She likens it to a feeling she had had reading a book years ago. A single sentence in a story that transforms every page after. That one moment of awakening where you feel the words latch on to your skin like an anchor. The words that ground you and take you to every place you will ever wish to see. Words that shackle you to freedom and let you fly while falling. And once those letters leave the page you will never see them again. They’ll follow you wherever you go though, quiet whispers in the day and loud as a foghorn in the night, like the voice at the back of your head except it’s in front you, beside you and everywhere you look. It’s suffocating but it’s also the gasp of air you breathe in after reaching the surface of the ocean after a swim, it’s like drowning but also the moment you gulp down cool water on a summer day, like jumping in a puddle of mud but also having it washed off—watching the dirt brown fall away from your skin like the waves receding into the ocean.
It's the most confusing, wonderful, and annoying feeling she has ever felt. And that is what meeting Weiss Schnee is like.
It wasn’t supposed to happen. Ruby’s a scrappy kid hanging around the shipyard trying to be bigger and better to anyone that says otherwise –-and Weiss is the daughter of Jacques Schnee. A man with more money than the hairs on her head, willing to sponsor the building of a fleet of carracks, enough to form a flotilla—for what or why no one knows. He pays everyone at the yard which includes her dad, uncle and hopefully one day-- her sister and her as well.
He’s a horrible person, an aura of pomp shimmering around him like hot air in a heat wave. Unpleasant would be one word for it, Uncle Qrow would have many more. But he pays them and Ruby has never had the misfortune of talking to him so she isn’t too bothered by him. Until today at least.
She’s seated on the tree trunk that’s going to be the mast, about thirty meters away from them but she can still see the way he stands in front of his daughter, interrupting her and silencing her—a permanent sneer always directed towards her. She can see the arrogance in his eyes and harshness of his words and Ruby wants nothing more than to walk up to him and give him a piece of her mind. But Weiss is there, facing her father and his rebukes head on, a verbal battle of sorts where Weiss seems to winning—if the silent smirks and muffled laughs her father and Oz are trying to hide from Mr Schnee are any indication, so she watches her.
They’re oceans apart, like the difference between the blues of the waves and the blues of the deep sea. So why she finds herself staring at her from across the floor without shying away as she would have usually done is lost on her. Well no, she thinks Weiss is the prettiest and the most interesting person to ever walk the floors of the Beacon (old man Oz had a funny sense with naming the shipyard) so naturally she’s looking at her. Naturally.
But why oh why was Weiss Schnee looking at her as well? For a split second their eyes meet and Ruby can feel every nerve in her body malfunction.
The sun is high and the air humid—the sound of metal-on-metal rings through the hollow space where Oz is speaking to Mr. Schnee, the distant screech of the birds and the crashing of waves would usually make it unbearably noisy but Ruby can’t hear a thing. She wonders if this what they call a vacuum. She had read about it in a book that was too big for her to understand and a bit too high on the shelf for her to reach.
She wonders if people were supposed to be able to breath after having all the air around them sucked away because she hasn’t passed out yet and she is for sure not breathing so maybe she’s just really special or really stupid. She’s been called both before. Ruby wants to look away—act like their eyes accidently met and avert them and never look at her again. But she can’t and she thinks this is what a compass needle feels like, always facing looking toward the poles, unable to turn away.
Weiss looks away and the moment ends but Ruby still can’t breathe yet she feels so alive because when Weiss had looked at her, she had smiled. Well maybe not smiled but it was different from the scowl she had been wearing a second before and it wasn’t a frown so that counted for something and Weiss is looking at her again now and she is smiling and Ruby feels like someone’s punched her and she’s pretty sure her face is on fire and she’s sitting on wood so now she’s a fire hazard and she needs to get up and do something before everything burns but she’s stuck and she can feel her breton hat slipping off her head and she needs to run now or she’s sure she’ll do something stupid and now Weiss is excusing herself so she must be leaving but no-- she’s walking towards her??
Ruby isn’t sure what exactly transpired in the last thirty seconds but Weiss is standing in front her now and she’s saying something but she cannot for the life of her hear it because her brain is fried. And Weiss is handing something over to her and Ruby can feel a folded piece of paper in her hand and the sensation of folded parchment helps temporarily ground her just a little bit. Enough for her to move her head and look.
It's a crude charcoal drawn doodle of a ship that she recognizes as her own. She remembers sketching it out in the early hours of the day and shoving it in her pocket, the charcoal stencil staining her fingertips. Ruby stares at it, wondering how it managed to escape her pocket and she must have been staring for too long because she hears Weiss clear her throat.
“It’s a good design” she says looking at the piece of paper and then at Ruby herself. And Ruby has so many questions. The first one being what? The second one being WHAT??
So naturally Ruby just stares at Weiss because she’s sure if she blinks Weiss will disappear and she’ll find herself back in the tiny room Yang and her shared on the modified crow’s nest of the grounded sail boat her family lived in.
Weiss tilts her head questioningly and the action is so adorable Ruby finds herself with the urge to sketch it. “This fell from your pocket. Is it not yours?”. She’s bemused and a little confused and Ruby wants nothing more than to see her smile again and that’s completely normal right? To want a person you just met to be the happiest they can be? She’ll have to ask Yang about that later.
“Oh no it’s fine” she replies a little too loudly, pushing the paper back into Weiss’s hands and Ruby mentally pats herself on the back because she just replied to a question which means that she has successfully conversed and that’s one social point for Ruby. Until she notices the confusion on Weiss’s face. Her mind backtracks and she’s making no sense and really wants to but Weiss is making it so hard for her to think.
“So it is yours” Weiss says and it feels like a question but she says it like a fact and Ruby feels like an idiot but what else is new.
“This is impressive” she continues and Ruby has the urge to tell her that no—it was not impressive and that Weiss is probably too Weiss to be seen talking to her and she needs to stop but it would be rude to interrupt and she’s never met a person outside her family that’s actually understood her designs and the fact Weiss tells her its good and the fact that she isn’t being yelled at for wasting her time and the fact the sky is blue, the air is salty and she’s alive overwhelm her just a little bit.
“My name is Weiss” she says extending her hand towards her and Ruby knows her name, heck everyone in yard knew it but hearing it from Weiss herself makes it much more tangible. Much more real. Like a present given to her on a birthday. Weiss is a person. Ruby is also a person and she thinks about all the moments that have transpired for this to happen and she knows she’s overthinking it but it feels like fate, it feels like it’s the start of something exciting—the feeling she gets when she starts a new book, ready to meet new characters and places and go on journeys with them but no, the voice in the back of her head is whispering, chiding her for naivety, that this is a random coincidence and nothing more—a universal misstep and she’ll probably never see Weiss again.
The thought sobers her up.
“My name is Ruby Rose” she manages to say, wiping her hands on her pant leg before reaching out to shake Weiss’s other non-paper holding hand and if there are any charcoal stains remaining Weiss does a remarkable job of schooling her face to reveal nothing.
Weiss firmly shakes her hand before letting go and Ruby can see a smidge of black at the edges of her palms and she wants to scream into a pillow and never show her face in public again.
“Well it was a pleasure to meet you Miss Rose.” And she says it with sincerity but Ruby can’t tell which part of this entire debacle gave any semblance of positivity so she just nods and hopes a giant sea-gull will swoop down and whisk her away. And now Weiss is taking a step back and Ruby can feel a giant clock ticking all around her and she knows once the invisible gong rings she’ll have missed her chance at something—she doesn’t even know what that something is but she can feel it’s very important and for once she’d like be on time.
“Which part did you think was good” she shouts breathless and nervous and scared and surprised.
She wonders if time has stopped because everything freezes but Weiss is smiling again and nothing can freeze in the presence of something that warm. It’s different this time. It’s a look Ruby has seen in the eyes of different people for different reasons. Her sister’s when she talks about the places she’s going to visit on a ship of her own one day, her uncle’s when he talks about all his past adventures and mishaps (though his usually carry a weight that Ruby hasn’t had the courage to ask about) and she thinks this might be the look Yang says she gets sometimes, when she sketches a design that feels just right or when she feels the wind blow past the sails and drag her further and further away from the shore.
It’s pure excitement and joy. The spark in Weiss’s blue eyes is almost childlike, a look she’s seen on kids outside the dockyard staring at the tiny wooden carvings that move, or at the festival where the town gathers for the firework display. Ruby has so much to say and is simultaneously speechless so she’s glad when Weiss speaks.
“I’ve actually—” she starts but is interrupted by a voice calling her name. Weiss stiffens and the light is gone and Ruby wants nothing more than to kick whoever it is.
It’s Mr. Schnee. He’s standing at the same place as before, his posture radiating displeasure and irritation and Weiss seems to notice it as well.
“It’s time to go Weiss, enough dilly dallying” he harrumphs adjusting the cuffs to his expensive white tailored suit that looks so out of place from their surroundings Ruby has to squint to make sure she doesn't get a headache. Weiss takes a deep breath and nods and takes a step towards him before pausing--quickly turning around.
“We’ll talk again soon” she says and Ruby can tell that Weiss wants her words to be true as much as she does. She’s still looking at her—expression questioning and apprehensive and maybe a little hopeful and Ruby belatedly realizes that she’s looking for some reassurance from her side as well so she nods back and holds her pinky out for good measure.
“I pinky swear” she says with as much conviction one would have while making a blood oath of some sort. Pinky swears were important to her and Yang had told her to only use them under life changing circumstances and what was more life changing than making a maybe friend? Weiss is startled, looking at Ruby and her pinky before rolling her eyes, her lips twitching upwards ever so slightly.
“It’s promise”. And she says it so silently Ruby wonders if she actually meant to say it but the wind carries her voice and she hears it and their charcoal smudged pinkies lock and she shakes it up and down for good measure. She takes the piece of paper that once meant nothing but now means much more and shoves into her pocket completely forgetting about the hole it fell though in the first place.
Weiss walks away, a skip to her step. And suddenly the air isn’t salty and the sky isn’t grey and she doesn’t feel out of breath chasing the world anymore. Ruby doesn’t know it yet but according to Yang she stood there for thirty minutes after with a grin so bright, nobody had the heart to call out to her.
do you ever feel EXTRA touch starved like you’re just laying around and suddenly it’s just If I Do Not Experience Affection Right Now I Will Die And That Is A Promise
i refuse to verbally say my vows at my wedding, i will give my wife a piece of paper with them written down. My family can mind their own damn business
