Chapter Text

1. Permafrost

12 Years Ago

Weiss Schnee stomped across the frozen tundra. At thirteen and underweight even then, she passed more like a ghost than a person, her steps barely leaving a mark on the snow.

The wind picked up with a howl, snow and frigid air burning at her skin. Face reddening and eyes watering, she grit her teeth and kept walking.

At her side, like he’d been animated from the ice itself, King Jacques Schnee walked like the terrain itself was beneath him.

The soldiers fanned out around them as they crossed the field might have called the frigid, placid stare frozen on his face regal. Weiss saw the small tic of his jaw, though. The way his hand weren’t quite open but not fully clenched into fists.

Jacques was angry.

Jacques was always angry, really. The world had been colder since Winter escaped to go join the academy and Ironwood, where Jacques’s direct control over her was diminished.

Even the king would be… unwise to pick a fight with his General, though nobody would be brave enough to risk airing that thought.

Weiss wished she could leave, too. But Winter had combat skills and magic and a Semblance, her own personal kind of magic that was just hers and nobody, not even King Schnee, could take from her. It insulated her.

And Weiss had none of it.

With Winter at the academy and Whitley, just barely six himself, too young to bear the brunt of the King’s sneers, he’d seemed to settle Winter’s debts upon Weiss’s shoulders.

And so instead of being comfortable, reading the newest rare books that had been delivered to the castle, she was here. Out in the cold, struggling to keep up with men more than triple her age and size, and heading to do a routine mine inspection.

Jacques, in a rare show, had pretended it wasn’t a punishment.

She’d awoken to find a maid delivering a letter, carefully and meticulously scrawled just for her.

As the next Princess in line, it was her duty to start familiarizing herself with the finer minutia and smaller details of Atlas. And she would start by joining his retinue in accompanying him for his quarterly trip to the Blutor Mines.

Or so he’d said.

Weiss was sure it had nothing to do with how she’d slipped and glared at Lord Marigold at Court the previous day.

The man had talked down to her like she was a five year old, never mind that she was positive she’d been better read when she was five than the nearly fifty-year-old Duke was now.

Before Winter had left, Jacques had made minor indulgences when she looked down on those he saw as inferiors. Evidently, those indulgences had ended the moment he’d roughly shoved Winter’s tiara into her hands and told her it was hers now.

It was her mistake, and this trek through frost and misery would be sure it was one she didn’t make again.

She supposed that there was at least some benefit from the carriage carrying them most of the way to the mountain. Even if the ride had been silent, tense, and felt more like she was sitting in an overly large coffin than a luxury.

That solace made for little comfort, though. The horses had gotten scared near the base of the mountain and refused to go a step closer, no matter how much the coach had whipped.

If Weiss sought a swift and fierce punishment, she would have pointed out that it did not, perhaps, seem like the wisest idea for them to then get out and continue the journey on foot.

Animals, by and large, had much better senses than them. The fact that the horses had been so adamant about not getting closer set her on edge.

And yet Jacques had commanded she get out, and so she’d stepped out into the cold.

The tundra was biting at her as she walked. Unlike Jacques, steps hidden in a long and plush blue and white mantle, Weiss’s body was afforded no such protection.

Hers was a simple white cloak embroidered with the Schnee snowflake upon her back. The fact it was made of the finest silk, its expense obvious even from the distance, did little to guard her from the bitter and damp wind.

As always, only the finest for Schnees, even if anyone paying attention would notice only Jacques’s was as much substance as it was style.

She shivered from another gale and fought to keep her arms at her side and not crossed together to give herself warmth.

With knights all around, the show of weakness would be just one more reason for Jacques to somehow make this even worse for her.

Not that she was sure what worse even looked like right then. Every step was a minor agony already.

The aches she’d awoken with that morning had spread through their trek. It had started as minor irritation in her shoulders and neck when she’d managed to work her way out of the bed. But then, though, it had spread to a steady, throbbing soreness reaching from the crown of her head to her toes.

It served to make her already foul mood positively black.

Weiss’s steps paused for just a moment as sharp blue eyes flicked to her and pierced. She couldn’t help but wonder if, somehow, even her mood was open to criticism by the king.

Fortunately, he said nothing and looked ahead once more.

Focusing on anything other than her steps and the cold, she instead looked ahead.

There was at least another ten minutes of walking between themselves and the bright ivory gateway of the mine.

Even in the snow, it stood out harshly against the dark grey of the mountain. It practically glowed as the sun reached its peak overhead and cast the five points of the crown-shaped mountaintop in white light.

A deep, sharp sense of unease flooded Weiss’s veins.

It was just a door and a pile of rock, Dust, and snow. And yet it felt like they were approaching a giant’s maw.

The dread sent a shiver down her spine and a pulse of ache in her chest, just shy of her heart.

At last, finally, they reached the gate.

Weiss’s stomach squirmed when, instead of the dwarven foreman, they found a Faunus standing before them.

The woman was a stringy, gaunt creature covered in soot and rock dust. Her arms, exposed to the elements and tinged blue in the cold, bore the burn marks telltale of handling raw fire Dust and ended in blackened, cracked stubs that used to be nails.

The moment she saw them approach, the Faunus whined as canine ears flattened tight to her head. She dropped to her knees in a cloud of snow, her head bowed and her body shaking.

Weiss had been prepared for the unpleasantness of dealing with Glass. For all his beady-eyed, uncomfortable stares since the minor noble had managed to weasel his way into the royal galas, she knew what to expect from him.

It would be a short, clinical report to Jacques with plenty of small barbs and compliments thrown out, both at the pleasure of the king.

Finding a Faunus waiting to receive their royal party promised disaster.

Weiss’s anxiety coiled tighter in her stomach as Jacques’s hands flexed. It felt like a viper was readying to sink its fangs into the woman, no matter why she might have been the one put forward to face the king’s wrath.

“Changeling,” he hissed.

The world fell still and so did the Faunus, evidently too scared to even cower.

Jacques folded his hands together behind his back and approached. His crunching steps may as well have been explosions for how they broke the tense silence.

“I offer you creatures home and hearth after you crawled from your forests and bore your fangs at us. And all I ask in exchange is that you use your natural gifts to repay my people in the fuel used to keep us all alive. Changelings such as yourself belong down in the dirt and rock from whence you came, and I kindly provide you such. So. Tell me why you’re outside of the mine.”

He came to a stop within striking distance and eyed what, to him, was a living sign of disrespect.

The Faunus pressed further into the snow at the door, as though her scarlet and grey skin could ever hope to hide in the pristine white.

“I uhm, uh, that is uhm-”

The king’s glare may as well have been carved from the frozen rock before them. The Faunus shook harder even without seeing that stare.

“Speak clearly if you wish to retain your tongue,” Jacques hissed.

She couldn’t contain the whine as she pressed her forehead to the snow. Weiss wasn’t sure if it was reflex or some way for her to ground herself, but it slowed her erratic breaths down.

“Mister Glass took ill this morning, Your Majesty! A vein of Ice Dust broke last night and, um, we lost four miners. The powder almost took Mister Glass’s arm and he’s been with our healer since then.”

Jacques scoffed and the Faunus whined.

“So, to summarize,” Jacques started.

Weiss’s fists clenched, breaths speeding up at a voice clipped and sharp like cracking ice. She forced her heels into the snow lest she take a step back and draw the frost her direction.

“I give you Faunus a home and a purpose and a wage. And you lot can’t even do that properly.”

“I-I-I’m sorry!”

Weiss wasn’t sure if the Faunus even knew what she was apologizing for.

Dust was an innately dangerous, unstable material made of chunks of rock and buildup of wayward Fae magic and the elements. Experts trained in the handling and refining of it still brokered enough risk that even King Schnee knew the profession needed to be rewarded.

Winter would have stepped in. Obviously a vein collapse wasn’t the fault of any one worker, if it was anyone’s fault but nature’s. Especially a worker who was out here, alive and with all her limbs.

Yet Weiss wasn’t Winter. She would never be Winter, brave and strong and willing to stand up to Jacques Schnee. Winter was able to fight back, to make the king hesitate before lashing out for fear she would return the favor with Säbelzahn’s blades.

Weiss was small for her age from too many years with too little food, and had always been relegated to the more academic or performative. And so Weiss could only watch on, shaking and numb as Jacques pressed his boot upon the back of the Faunus’s head and shoved, burying her face in the snow and frozen soil.

Her scream from the cold burn was muffled in the powder.

Around them, the Atlesian Knights stood still and breathless, watching on with eyes buried in the shadows of their helms.

Perhaps they simply didn’t care. Or maybe they, like Weiss, were simply glad they were the ones standing with their feet on the ground.

Weiss supposed it didn’t truly matter.

After far too long, Jacques seemed content that his displeasure was known and released her. Weiss bit back a sneer when he then rubbed his foot in the snow like it had been dirtied.

The woman lifted up and sputtered, tears falling frozen on her face. Terrified, sad brown eyes flitted around and, for just a moment, met Weiss’s.

The princess’s chest ached as the woman stared at her. Silent and pleading with her. As though Weiss could do anything to help her.

Weiss wasn’t sure what force possessed her, meeting that stare. She suddenly felt even smaller than she already was.

Winter would have stopped Jacques from such a pointless display of cruelty.

Weiss wasn’t Winter. But she’d inherited plenty of her progenitor’s anger and that she knew how to wield.

She stepped forward, chest aching as the crunch drew a stare of frigid blue flames to her.

If she faltered, it would be for nothing.

And so Princess Weiss Schnee sneered down at the Faunus, forcing the king’s glare from her mind.

“Stop whimpering and be useful,” she snapped. “The King is here for an inspection. Tell Glass to drag his healer along if he must, but he’s to be out here immediately.”

The Faunus’s eyes went wide and shifted. They lifted and found the silver tiara sitting atop Weiss’s white hair. The hope faded from her stare and looked upon Weiss like she, too, was a monster.

Just like her father.

Weiss glared and with a gasp, the woman leapt to her feet.

“Y-yes, Your Royal Highness! R-r-right away, ma’am!”

She bowed deep, ears flopping, then spun and sprinted for the door. And away from Jacques.

As Weiss watched her go, her side burned under the king’s attention.

The door slammed behind the woman as she disappeared.

“You seem to be feeling quite brave recently,” Jacques mused.

It sounded mild, almost bored. Weiss heard the hiss buried beneath.

Taking a deep breath, Weiss turned and met his stare. It rooted her to the spot, her feet frozen under his eyes more effectively than the ice and snow ever could.

She refused to blink. It took a few moments to remember how to breathe.

“I apologize, Your Majesty. I simply thought that creature had wasted quite enough of our time.”

Weiss hated herself more with every word, but shoved those wasteful thoughts away. They were deeply unhelpful.

Jacques sniffed, hands flexing at his side. Weiss held his gaze.

The king had no love for Weiss, no matter what delusion other Atlesians might be under. But he loathed weakness even more.

“You thought to give a directive to one of my subjects without my blessing.”

Weiss’s fought down a shiver.

The knights wouldn’t step in to help her. He could kill her and leave her fallen in the snow for the elements to dispense, and they wouldn’t lift a finger in her aid.

That she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t set her heart racing.

Jacques took three stalking steps toward her and stopped, his towering shadow falling upon her.

And still their gazes stayed locked. Breaking now would invite disaster.

He bent forward with a kind of fluid grace Weiss couldn’t hope to match, his breath a frigid cloud of vapors burning the side of her face.

“Faunus aren’t the only creatures I can dedicate to these mines.”

Weiss’s heart stopped.

He pulled back just as smoothly and stepped back.

For just a moment, his passive mask cracked and and bent with a smirk.

The cold sweat on Weiss’s neck told her she hadn’t recovered quickly enough. His message was a quiet one, yet it struck her like the thunder and lightning of an angry god.

He didn’t want another Winter.

“I-I will be sure to not make that mistake again,” she managed to hiss.

The door creaked open and pulled their attention from each other at last.

A portly dwarf, his grey skin tinted purple and black from the marks of frostbite, staggered out. As he came to a stop, he swayed in place and blinked, one eye slightly slower from the other.

The Faunus woman from before cowered behind him next to a Faunus with tusks hanging from her lips.

Amoncio Glass flashed a glare of fire Weiss’s way. If he was hoping he could intimidate her, she would be glad to prove how foolish that thought was to the wastrel.

“Marigold gives you a great deal of leeway, Glass. It would seem my confidence in his judgement is misplaced,” Jacques growled.

The dwarf nearly scoffed before remembering who stood before him. She watched his brow pinch as he swallowed whatever stupidity had nearly gotten him executed then and there.

Maybe he wasn’t quite as dim as Weiss thought.

“I do apologize, Your Majesty,” he simpered. “Unfortunately, animals can only be so useful. The ones responsible have already been quite heavily punished, so-”

“Do you think I’m interested in your excuses?” the king sneered.

Glass wheezed and bowed his head. Wisely, he did not speak.

With the king’s attention off of her, Weiss let the anger flow through her.

The aches in her body had gotten worse, now that she was paying attention. They had grown to a steady, pulsing pain that stayed in tune with her racing heartbeat.

From her sweat, cold spread through her spine and clamped down. Her limbs felt frozen and numb.

She’d already felt awful, and like everything else in her life, being in the king’s presence had made it worse. Nigh unbearable.

It was as Weiss reflected once more upon how much she hated Jacques Schnee that she heard the first growl.

Wide-eyed, Weiss turned from the king.

Jacques was forgotten as she backpedaled away from the mass of thick black fur creeping from the side of the mountain. As it stalked forward, six more followed.

Claws raked across the snow and scratched at the ground beneath.

“Knights. Do your jobs.”

Weiss couldn’t comprehend how bored Jacques sounded. Her own mind was a roiling storm of primal panic screaming to run.

These were what the horses had sensed. The Grimm had been there the entire time, hidden and waiting in shadows.

Their knights drew their swords and formed a wall between the royal family and the nightmares given form.

As five more beowolves joined the pack rapidly crossing the tundra, Weiss realized their knights were badly outnumbered. That this many Grimm, monsters drawn to negativity and mortal misery, had been drawn to the mountain spoke of horrors she couldn’t begin to guess at behind those pristine white doors.

As the first wolf snarled and pounced, knocking one of the knights into the snow, Weiss realized she had likely bolstered the beasts.

The knights charged forward, scattering the pack. And chaos ensued.

Weiss backed further away from clanging metal and bone-rattling roars. Her back met a stone wall and froze her heart still.

Already, the pristine white snow had been stained black and red.

A knight cleaved a greatsword through two of the beowolves, scattering their broken bodies to ash upon the snow. Another wolf leapt up from his blindspot as he was finishing his swing and sunk its fangs through his arm.

Three more made short work of him before he could properly scream.

Another knight fell with his spear through the head of one wolf and chest of another while two more attacked his legs.

A whimper sounded next to Weiss and drew her eyes.

Glass and the woman with tusks were gone, the gate shut. The dog Faunus was cowering against the same wall.

She shook as badly as Weiss’s legs were, canine ears twitching rapidly.

A puff of too-warm, rancid air ghosted across Weiss’s neck and drew her attention back.

She couldn’t hold down her whimper. Royal dignity was forgotten as a beowolf loomed before her.

It was on the smaller side compared to its pack, perhaps the runt of the lot. And yet, standing before her with obsidian fur rippling and throat rumbling in a growl that made her ears ring, Weiss felt like it was at least twice her size.

The ache was now a full-body agony, her vision swimming from the agony ringing in her skull.

Her entire body trembled as the wolf’s fangs parted in a grin.

Fire exploded across her face with a scream before she even understood what had happened or why she was screaming. Everything blossomed in agony the next second. As she tilted, the world turned into an overwhelming, choking stench of copper.

Only when Weiss fell to the snow did she understand. The world was half black, the other half shimmering before her. The snow she could see was dark red and so was the beowolf’s claw as it dripped crimson where it stood.

Hellfire stretched from the left side of Weiss’s face, her body becoming a breathing mass of agony. Everything turned to a haze. The Grimm’s growl, the crunch of its steps as it approached to finish its kill, faded into the ringing whine filling her ears.

In the shrinking pinhole of darkness, she watched the Grimm approach. It was going to kill her.

The world flashed bright, solid white. Weiss’s body grew damp and numb, her every sense dulling.

The monster opened its jaws and Weiss could only hope that one single bite would do the job quickly. It was all the hope she had left.

A pulse of black caught her eye. The beowolf’s head exploded in shadow and ash as the crossbow bolt pierced through its neck and embedded in the soil on its other side.

Weiss’s senses were wrong. She felt the boots racing toward her more than heard it.

The world was dim and shrinking into the black more by the second.

A woman with bright blonde hair dropped and slid across the snow on her knees.

Dimly, Weiss thought she was strange to behold. A human, maybe Winter’s age, with skin the color of tanned leather and bright purple eyes. She was covered in green and black and red.

She was viscerally un-Atlesian in every way, and Weiss couldn’t begin to guess what she was doing at the Dust mine.

The woman’s mouth moved, saying words Weiss couldn’t comprehend and touching her with hands she didn’t feel.

Dimly, she thought the woman’s hair was pretty. In the sea of violent white and red and black, it was like a golden beacon for Weiss’s faltering mind.

The ground vibrated against Weiss. Or maybe it was her. She wasn’t sure where the ground and blood ended and she began.

The woman said something else. And then the world burned gold.

For just a moment, the whine cleared from Weiss’s ears.

The Grimms’ roars were much quieter now, and so were the screams. Dimly, Weiss heard Jacques barking some order or another.

In a field of blood and bodies, he stood tall. Dimly, Weiss realized he hadn’t bothered to move from the spot where he’d stepped on the Faunus.

Somehow, he was the only thing left pristine in the bloodshed.

Before Weiss could think further on what may well have been a hallucination brought on by pain and blood loss, the pinprick of light disappeared and everything finally faded to blissful nothingness…

When Weiss’s eyes opened, her first thought was to marvel that she was opening her eyes.

She had died.

She’d been sure of it.

And yet the white light above her was the soft glow of slowly bobbing witchlight orbs, rather than any afterlife she’d ever read about. They floated just shy of touching a roof.

Her roof.

She was in her room.

She nearly made the mistake of thinking that, somehow, it had all been nothing but a very vivid nightmare. Except half her vision was darkness. And there was an unusual kind of pressure on her face where her eye would be.

She reached up to experimentally touch the source of that pressure. Something soft and scratchy brushed her fingers.

Her eye was bandaged, from her cheek to her forehead.

The mine had been real. The Grimm attack had been real.

A door opened and her head ached as she looked toward the sound.

Jacques Schnee stepped into the room and sneered like he was disappointed to find her awake.

With a flick of his wrist, her door shut and trapped her in with the king.

Despite the throbbing ache it sent her, Weiss forced herself to sit up properly in her bed. Her legs’ numbness ensured she wouldn’t brave trying to stand, but she wouldn’t be caught lying completely flat and helpless.

A white mustache twitched and blue eyes narrowed. Jacques’s steps were muffled in plush carpet as he stalked toward her, yet each step still thundered in Weiss’s ears.

“Your lessons will be relegated to your room for the foreseeable future. It won’t do to have your curse besmirching my name even worse than your sister.”

There was, of course, the usual anger that he dared claim their name. Her name. Like he had any right to it. Though this one time, the rage paled in comparison to her confusion.

“…What curse?”

The simple question brought a rasping, harsh cough as her throat burned. Her hand shot up to soothe at the fire and froze.

Her hand felt different.

The thump of her heart grew faster and louder as she forced herself to stretch out her arm.

Her skin, pristine and soft white as recently as when she’d woken up that morning… or however long ago the mine visit had been, was gone. Her arm, from the start of her knuckles up to at least her shoulder, was covered in thin ice.

Frowning, she flexed and watched the ice bend and warp under the witchlights. There were cracks, in a clear repeating pattern.

…Not ice. Scales.

Slowly, as though taking her time would change reality, she lifted her other arm and found much the same.

“Once I select those who will know to keep their mouths sealed, you’ll comply with any procedures or rituals needed to find and fix whatever curse those White Fang curs have enacted upon you.”

Weiss’s head throbbed and, heedless of her rough new skin, she grabbed at the spot.

“It… It was a beowolf,” she rasped.

The full force of winter settled on her in King Schnee’s glare.

“The White Fang seem to have sabotaged the mine and infiltrated in the confusion. There may well have been Grimm, but no Grimm can make someone sprout scales. Wild, untamed changeling magic while your admittedly already pathetic guard was down, however?”

He blinked and Weiss at last gasped for air.

“Rest assured, whatever manner they used to make you a Faunus, whether it’s a curse or some effort to reawaken Fae blood dormant in your mother’s side of the family, we will uncover and reverse it.”

With a sniff, he took a step back toward the door.

“I expect,” he hissed, “that you can at least manage to be better than the beast you appear. In the event that this isn’t quickly solved, you will work to act with a grace your new kin lack. You’ll act as a proper Schnee.”

With one last scoff, he shook his head and stormed from her room.

Weiss stared at her door for a long time.

Finally, she blinked and rose to her feet.

There was a voice telling her it was best to not know. But surely, it must be something truly heinous to warrant such a harsh treatment, even from the creature who sired her.

She came to a stop at her mirror and forced her gaze up from the floor.

The scales curled up further than she’d thought, reaching from her shoulders into her dress. She felt the fabric upon her back and most of her front, so at least they weren’t entirely consuming her body.

With a frown, she reached down and ran her hand over the other arm. They may have been scales, but they felt more like rough skin than anything. So on top of everything else, they didn’t even grant extra protection, because of course they didn’t.

Dropping her arms to her side with a watery sigh, she revealed a foot to herself. Like her arms, the tops of her feet were also covered in pale blue, reaching up and then around on the outsides of her legs.

Her covered eye throbbed. Looking up with a wince, she took in her own eye for the first time and felt her breath drain out.

Her eyes had been a vibrant, bright blue like the deepest of oceans. The eye looking back at her now was pale white-blue, even lighter than Jacques’s. Her pupil had stretched and thinned, much more of a serpent’s than a human’s.

She wondered if the difference was why every color in the room reflected behind her looked sharper than she remembered.

A hand shook as it rose and grabbed at the white cloth wrapped over the other side of her face.

She needed to know. Despite every instinct telling her the damage was already quite more than enough.

Her fingers curled and pulled. The bandage came away. And as it fell from a loose grip, Weiss found her left eye with a jagged, sawtoothed scar running through it from brow to the top of her cheek.

Weiss could only stare as the last hope she’d had for her path back to normalcy died.

There had been no White Fang at the mine. That dog Faunus had been as terrified of the Grimm as Weiss had, and she’d been the only one who’d been close enough to even attempt such a thing.

And it truly didn’t matter.

Jacques had a troupe of dead knights and his own word for the people. Without a better explanation, she stood no chance to correct that record, especially if she truly was a Faunus now.

She watched as a silvery tear fell, glistening like ice from her scarred eye. Weiss knew it would be the first of many her room would bear silent, solitary witness to in the years to come…