Chapter 1

Five years after the Fall

Ruby Rose stepped from her front door onto her snow-brushed front steps. She adjusted the duffle bag which hung from her shoulder and locked her front door. The small bungalow was quaint, sweet, and most importantly, affordable. Ruby paused on her porch for a moment and re-tied her red scarf a little tighter around her nose. She walked down the driveway to her prized possession; a vintage burgundy (and slightly resembling a giant brick) truck.

Circling around to the back she unlatched the rear tire carrier, swung it to the side, lifted the rear glass window, and tossed her bag in behind the rear seats. She pulled the glass window back down, but it wouldn't latch. Hrr-mmm, Ruby grumbled as she tried a few more times to shut it, careful not to break the window. A replacement would be hard to find and expensive for a truck of this vintage. Convinced that it was not going to latch, she lifted the glass again and fiddled with the steel catch mechanism. After forty years and countless times the window had been opened, the tiny return spring had become caked in rust. Ruby pulled a small flathead screwdriver she kept in her coat and deftly pushed it into the catch. It sprung back up to attention, and finally satisfied, Ruby shut the glass and pulled the tire carrier back into position.

Walking over to the left-side drivers door, Ruby pulled on the polished chrome handle, and the door briefly refused to open, finally giving way and opening with that classic VHI groan from the all-steel hinges. Ruby clambered up into the four-by-four's driver's seat, a position her father had spent nearly twenty years in himself before passing the huge truck down to his youngest daughter. The red-on-red colour scheme didn't suit Yang anyway. Pulling the heavy steel door shut again, Ruby briefly enjoyed the hearty slam the door made. Her morning wasn't the greatest, as waking up at four-thirty had greatly annoyed the usually sleepy girl. No one should be made to recognize this time. It was just cruel.

Ruby pushed the shiny steel key into the chrome slot in the dashboard and turned the ignition to the 'on' position as she waited for the electric fuel pump to send gas to the triplet of two-barrel carburetors that sat atop the large engine. After a few seconds of waiting, Ruby turned the key all the way over.

The starter motor whined as it struggled to turn the ancient motor to life, the eight paint-can-sized cylinders thumping lifelessly in their sleeves. The engine coughed a few times, but would not start. Ruby growled at the bonnet through the picture-window glass. Grabbing the hood-release lever and a can of starting fluid from the glovebox, Ruby stepped once again back onto her snow-covered driveway. Lifting the gargantuan bonnet, Ruby ascended the heavy steel brush-guard like a ladder, her short, five-foot-two stature requiring her to literally enter the engine bay to work on the large truck. Carefully undoing the wing nuts that held the air breather in place, Ruby sent a long blast of pressurized starting fluid down each of the three carburetors perched on the huge motor while manually opening the throttle valves.

Ruby hopped down from the tall perch and climbed back into the cab before tuning the key again. The leviathan Valean motor struggled once more before thundering into life, settling quickly down into a low idle. Ruby quickly replaced the chrome air cleaner and re-tightened the wing-nuts before slamming the long steel bonnet back shut again. Once comfortably in her seat again, she took a moment to relax and mentally go over the journey she was about to take part in.

It would be a four-day trek across Atlas with her best friend and former fighting partner Weiss, to visit another friend who was hosting a school reunion of sorts. A recent and unforeseen blizzard had closed down the airport. It was usually snowing in Atlas, but this particular storm had been too much for the ground crew to deal with, but not too much for Ruby's truck. Ruby reached up and pulled the heavy column-shift lever into reverse, the old truck shuddering briefly as the huge motor began tugging the substantial mass backward. Ruby was excited to see her friends, of course.

When she had stopped in the road just beyond her driveway, she paused and frowned for a moment when she realized she had to spend four days trapped in this truck with Weiss, a predicament not made any better by her kinda-sorta-not-really, I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it, Yang-cut-it-out-I'm-serious crush on her former teammate. Ruby slammed the gear lever down into drive and booted the accelerator, the rear tires chirping as the truck was shunted down the freshly-plowed road.

Ruby knew she had to try and distract herself from any impure thoughts about the ice princess, so she flicked the radio on. Only to be shouted at by herself.

"Hey, goooood morning Atlas and welcome to Ruby Radio! Your home for all music from the 70's, 80's, and 90's, interspersed with talks about guns, girls, and cars, hosted by everyone's favourite brunette, Me! Ruby Rose! Up first, a little number from Vale's sweetheart, Miss Casey Lee!"

Ruby grimaced as a loud rock song began playing from the old radio. Ruby had recently taken up a job as a radio producer in Atlas. She had indeed followed her dream of becoming a Huntress, but that line of work paid peanuts, and only had her out on missions a few times a month. The radio job gave Ruby a pleasant sense of routine, and enough disposable income for her to buy a little house and the oil-refinery-worth of fuel needed for her old truck. Ruby turned the radio down, much too tired to want to listen to re-runs of herself yelling about music at five in the morning.

An uneasy bubbling in Ruby's stomach never seemed to dissipate on the drive to the Schnee Manor. God, am I really this nervous? It's just Weiss after all, not like an angry ursa or anything… Actually an ursa would be better. Less scary.

Chapter 2

Weiss had been up since three in the morning packing. Well, less packing, more frantically stuffing clothes into and out of her designer luggage. Was this too much? Would I need a swimsuit, and if so, two piece or one? What matches this, what matches that, and for the love of the Gods, WHICH SHOES?

The white-haired girl was convinced she would turn grey. It was only Ruby, her butler had reminded her, not another one of the horribly crass and despicable suitors her father insisted she date. Of course, Weiss couldn't admit that it was just Ruby to anyone, most especially not to her rather xenophobic father. Her delicate heart fluttered every time her butler, or anyone for that matter, mentioned the red-themed brunette. She would be spending four days cooped up in the cozy confines of Ruby's truck with Ruby on a journey to see their friends. Weiss was externally annoyed that they weren't going to be flying first class in her company's private plane, but she was secretly jumping for joy at the prospect of private time with her former teammate and current crush. Not that she'd tell anyone, of course. Especially not Ruby.

Still in her pyjamas, Weiss left the messy room she had been trashing to venture downstairs. It had suddenly occurred to her that she was absolutely famished. Her butler, Klein, was already in the kitchen when she arrived, the kettle boiling.

"Coffee, my dear girl?" The moustached man asked in his soft voice.

"Thank you, Klein" She responded, a weary sigh escaping her lips.

The morning light had not yet made it's way through the frosty windows. Weiss sipped her coffee, the hot, expensive brew warming her small frame in the cold house. Her hands were shaking a little as she set the bone china mug down. She cast a worried look out the kitchen window.

"I understand how you are feeling, my little snowflake" the short butler said "For I too was once in love..."

Weiss interrupted him, her voice shrill

"I'm not in love! Don't be absurd! And be quiet before father hears you!"

Klein merely smiled at the young girl.

"Dear miss Schnee, you must take me for a fool. For when I was twenty-five, as you are now, I had my heart stolen by a young girl who I pined desperately for. She was charming, beautiful, elegant, yet excellently clumsy. But I was far too shy to ever make a move."

"Did you lose her?" Weiss asked, poorly hiding her own anxiety. The girl Klein had described reminded her of Ruby.

"On the contrary, my dear! The woman I am referring to is my wife, Clara! Sometimes it's best to be a little bold, you mustn't forget this."

Weiss thought about these words for a moment, smiling as she pictured her and Ruby together (together-together, as Nora had always insisted). This mental image was ground to a rather quick halt as she thought of what her father would say. As if he could read her thoughts, Klein spoke up again.

"You really shouldn't worry about what your father has to say, little one." he smiled at her, softer than he had the day she was born "If he really loves you, he will accept you for who you are."

"I'm sorry Klein, but that's a load of bullshit." Weiss retorted, with a humourless laugh. "I'm the Acting Director of the Schnee Dust Company, he wouldn't approve of me being with some girl."

"I hardly think it appropriate to refer to your friend as 'some girl' the way he might. If your father cannot accept those you bring into your life, than he is a disgrace as a father. I've known Jacques for forty years now and I can attest to how much of an arse he really is."

Weiss' eyes widened at this comment, but couldn't help herself from smiling.

"Klein! You shouldn't say such things! The other staff might hear!" she chastised, giggling.

"If Master Schnee has any poor words to say about my precious little snowflake, he can file a report to the complaints department."

The old butler was smiling, raising a balled fist menacingly. Hints of the old man's arm tattoo were visible on the centimetre of exposed skin between his white silk glove and the cuff of his uniform. Once, many years ago Klein had led a band of rogue Hunters against the forces of Grimm all across Atlas.

Weiss' quiet laughter was interrupted by the soft buzzing of the PA device on the kitchen wall, the gate guard's voice coming softly through it.

"Miss Rose is here, Klein. Please alert young Miss Schnee." came the deep masculine timbre.

"Thank you, Antony" Klein replied, before looking at Weiss, who had frozen in her seat. "I do believe your girlfriend is here, snowflake."