RoR Chapter 10 Snippet #10

Chapter 10: Machinations

The sun was shining brightly, but the warmth felt dulled.

As she stepped outside the dust shore she just finished shopping in, two bags of premium Dust she never used before in her hands, Ruby Rose couldn’t help but stare at the people around her. The crowds seemed a bit small to her, especially with the Vytal Festival so close by. It didn’t take her long to realize why it might be smaller. Why the warm, sunny day suddenly felt a bit cloudy.

It was because of what she had failed to do.

Ruby's throat went tight, and she stared at nothing, unblinking.

“Ruby?”

Ruby turned her head, and saw Weiss stepping out of the Dust store, her own bag of Dust hanging from her arm. She was frowning as she stepped closer to Ruby, and asked, “Are you okay?”

Immediately, Ruby gave her a tiny smile. “Yeah. Fine, Weiss.”

Weiss lips thinned; not like usual, though. Her expression looked just a bit tighter with emotion she tried not to let show.

“Seriously, I’m fine,” she insisted, widening the smile.  

“I believe you, Ruby,” Weiss said, and if it were anyone else, it would’ve sounded like she meant that. But Ruby had been her partner long enough to know that was her “I-don’t-believe-you-but-I’m-just-being-polite-and-not-saying-anything” voice. And going by the look in her eye, Weiss knew Ruby knew, but still didn’t say anything. Probably waiting for Ruby to admit there was something wrong first.

But there wasn’t. Not really.

Ruby looked away, frowning. After a moment, Weiss spoke

“Do you still have the list?”

Ruby blinked, and turned. “What?”

“The list.” Weiss raised a delicate eyebrow. “The one where you wrote down the new video games Yang wanted us to get for ‘the team?’”

Ruby blinked, and then her eyes went wide. “Oh, right! Yeah, I got it right—” Ruby reached into the pocket of her skirt, and froze.

Weiss’ gaze suddenly went flat. “Ruby,” she said, and it was amazing how much exasperation she could put into her name.

“Wa-wait, hold on!” Ruby frantically looked over the pocket, but found nothing their. She checked the other one just as frantically, but again, there was nothing their. She looked back to Weiss, and a sheepish smile crossed her face. “Ehehehe…so, about that list—”

Weiss let out the mother of all groans, all but smacking a hand to her face as she dragged it down. “Every time. This happens every time, Ruby!”

“I-it’s not every time!”

“That time when I asked you to go pick up a package from my butler since you were in Vale,”Weiss said, and Ruby winced at that. Her stone-cold, unblinking eyes bore a hole as she lifted a finger. And then another. “That time you forgot to pick up Blake’s anchovy pizza”—Ruby winced again—“the time you forgot to pick eye drops for Blake or tampons for me from the pharmacy”—another wince, this one far harder—“the other time you forgot to pick up my package. And the time after that.”

Ruby winced so hard it was like she’d been punched in the gut. “I-in my defense,” she muttered, not looking Weiss in the eye. “That weekend I was really worried about the grade for our history paper.”

“Every time you always forget to pick up your friends’ stuff!” Weiss said, ignoring her. She sighed. “I’m starting to think the part of your brain, who’s only job was to remember to pick our things, was tragically lost during one of the many you used your Semblance.”

“He-hey!” Ruby said, glaring slightly at Weiss, but her friend looked at her like she was Zwei trying to act like he was intimidating. Which wasn’t a fair comparison at all, because she could be pretty scary! “I didn’t forgot I had to pick something up! I just…forgot the list that told me what to pick up.”

“Yes, because that’s so much better.” Weiss rolled her eyes so hard, Ruby was surprised they didn’t fall out of her sockets. She sighed again. “Why didn’t you write the thing on your scroll and not on a piece of paper?”

“I didn’t have my scroll on me when Yang told me what to get!”

“And you didn’t think to write it down when you did get it…because?”

“I didn’t wanna type the list again!”

“So laziness,” Weiss said bluntly. “That’s the excuse you’re going with?”

“Ugh, Weiss, please, scolding me over this isn’t gonna help me remember what Yang—wait!” Ruby sudden shout was enough to make Weiss flinch. Ruby reached for the pocket with her scroll, took it out, and then went to the camera app on it and pulled out a specific photo. “I took a picture of it!” Proudly, she showed the photo of the Yang’s list in all its glory, and smiled. “I didn’t forget it! Hah!”

Weiss stared. Then, she pointed out, “No, you still did. You just knew yourself well enough to bring a backup.”

Ruby’s smile vanished, and her gaze went flat. “Let me have this, Weiss-Cream.”

“Don’t you dare call me that insufferable nickname,” Weiss said, eyes narrowing.

“Okay.” Ruby grinned impishly. “Would you prefer Snow Angel?”

Weiss’ glare was like a blizzard. “Were it not for the fact I left Myrtenaster at school, you’d find yourself at the end of its blade, Crater Face.” Ruby glared.

Weiss crossed her arms haughtily.

Ruby crossed her arms, also haughtily. Or, as haughtily as she could.

Weiss let out a delicate snort. “We both know you can’t pull off the ‘smug rich girl’ look like I can, Ruby.”

Ruby let out an unexpected laugh, one that almost made her drop her bag as she tried, and failed, to stop it. “Y-yeah,” she wheezed out, slowly coming to a stop. “I guess I can’t.”

She smiled at Weiss, and Weiss smiled back. She felt a bit lighter now, more than she felt in a while, honestly. When was the last time she had laughed like that? It was hard for her to tell. Then again, it kind of felt hard to remember things like that, after…

After she had failed all those people.  Immediately, her smile died, and it felt like the ground disappeared underneath her as she was suddenly back underneath the highway. She stood in shock, watching as the flames grew bigger, explosions happening seemingly every second and the screams grew louder. She wanted to help, but Blake was still injured, and she was certain their was something wrong with her Aura so she didn’t want to leave her alone, and so she tried to message her team again; but then Ms. Goodwitch had arrived, ordered her to leave and told her to tell her team to let her handle this just as the paramedics arrived, and so she thought she could, that things would be okay.  But things didn’t turn out okay. Not at all. People had gotten hurt, and some of them had even died. They died because they couldn’t stop Goldie. Because she couldn’t stop him. She had failed worse than she ever could’ve imagined. She remembered that feeling of the world fading to nothing but a buzz in her ears while she waited at the hospital to see what happened with Blake, staring at a television as some news-lady kept reading off the rising fatality count. And she remembered thinking how none of that shouldn’t have happened, how she should’ve stopped this, how she was supposed to be better than this, she was a Huntress now, and she should’ve…

She should’ve been like Mom.

Mom wouldn’t have failed like she did.

Something grabbed her shoulder, and it startled her so badly she jolted upright, whirling around.

Weiss was staring at her, eyes full of concern. “Ruby, are you okay?”

Ruby blinked. When did Weiss get behind her? And why was it so hard to speak.

“Ruby?” Weiss asked, just a little frantically. Weiss never showed as much emotion on her face as she did now.

Seeing that was enough to shock Ruby out of whatever…funk she suddenly got trapped in. She cleared her throat, and said, in a slightly wavering voice, “Ye-yeah. Sorry, I just…I’m—”

“Ruby.” Weiss eyes were suddenly very firm, and Ruby clamped her mouth shut. “Please don’t say you’re fine.”

Ruby looked down. She was fine. She had been fine, it was just…her head just made her feel like everything was…was…

The sun was still out, but everything suddenly felt so cold it was painful, and Ruby shivered.

Weiss didn’t say anything. She just stood by Ruby’s side, hand still on her shoulder. Ruby didn’t so much as twitch. Then, after a moment, Weiss slowly moved her hand off her shoulder, and grabbed her hand.

“May we sit down?” She asked softly, nodding towards a nearby bench.

Honestly, Ruby didn’t. She wanted to just pretend none of this was happening, that they could go about their day and keep being normal. She didn’t want to deal with all the feelings inside her and her head that just refused to let her be fine.

But then she looked at Weiss’ calm, gentle eyes. An expression of honest care she rarely saw from her reserved friend. She was really worried about her; Ruby knew she had been, just like all of her team was, but there was just something about seeing Weiss like this, seeing her express fears Ruby knew was trying to hold back even now for her sake, that made it so much harder to reject her offer. That made it hard to pretend that thing were fine, if she just kept shutting her and everyone else away.

So, she didn’t, and slowly nodded once.