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Winter stands frozen in place in the entrance to her bedroom. Her day has been long, watching after her sister’s team and staying on call in case Fria’s health dips. It’s expected to happen any day now, her health deteriorating since Cinder’s appearance in Atlas. The idea of becoming a Maiden is a fate chosen for her, but one Winter has accepted nonetheless. Despite her insistence to Weiss that this is a fate she had made her own, she’s growing to resent her position. Anxiety has settled deep, gnawing a hole straight through her. She’s beginning to think she swapped out one exploitative father figure who chose her future for her just to work under another. She puts all this aside, of course, her duties and responsibilities come first. They always have. She made her choice.
None of this is what causes her current position- hairs on end, tension in her spine, eyes wide, arms raised in defence. Visions of red, of fire and heat, of destruction and consumption, fill her mind. She shakes her head, focuses, tries to stop hyperventilating. Searching the room for any sign of an intruder, coming up empty, she relaxes enough to look at the object of her attention. In front of her, on her windowsill, sits a snowflake made of black glass.
Putting aside all the ‘how’s of the object in front of her, she can only wonder why. Since this all started, the clues and the accompanying fear, the confusion has been growing. Why her? Cinder would clearly be better off intimidating the General himself, targeting him would be the wise choice. So why does she keep leaving clues to her? Why here? She doesn’t know how Cinder would have known where she slept. Just...Why? Was it a warning, just a reminder- an I'm here, remember me?- or a threat? None of these possibilities were remotely calming, but Winter can’t help but entertain the possibility of the second option. She does remember her, of course, and not from the General’s rants or from the Battle of Beacon. From before. Before she had the fall maiden powers. Before all Cinder wanted was power and all she caused was death. Before the world ruined her and she wanted to ruin it back. Before all of it.
***
At the Atlas Academy gym, Winter stands tall at 17. Her years of training have led her here. Her father wanted her to become a business woman, ignore the family semblances, but she worked for this. Getting out of that horrible house was motivation enough, the sense of duty coming second.
There’s a lot on her shoulders, a lot to prove. She owes it to Ironwood, the headmaster, to succeed. He said he sees promise in her, that she could go far in his military. In that promise there was a future, something she never envisioned herself having before. There’s also the need to prove her father wrong. He still views her decision, her dedication, as a phase- repeating that she’ll be returning to the manor soon enough.
Mostly, she owes it to Weiss- who’s already started to look up to her. They have a difficult relationship, fraught with years of protection and tears, but her younger sister has started to look up with big blue eyes and ask about being a huntress. She listens to her stories in awe, asking to hold her sword and fight alongside her. When Winter checks on her at night, she sees the light of glyphs being practiced under the covers. She needs to succeed for her, so her sister can have an example. So one day she, too, can get out.
She snaps back into the moment at the sound of her professor clearing his throat in preparation of announcing the sparring partner assignments for the week. She mentally prepares for her name to be called, hoping it isn’t spoken in combination with one of the boys that have been vying for her attention this semester. She guesses they’re probably interested in the status, the wealth, that comes with her name rather than her. She later knows that excuse was masking the reality that she was truly, utterly, uninterested in men.
“Winter Schnee, you will be sparring against Miss Fall this week,” her professor calls out. Winter looks across the room, unsure of who she’s looking for. She thought she met everyone at the beginning banquet and team assignment ceremony, but apparently not. She meets eyes with a girl around her height with long, dark hair and beautiful amber eyes.
Winter sticks her hand out when the girl walks over, brain still refusing to unlearn the formalities of heiress life. The girl quirks an eyebrow at her, stares at the outstretched hand like it’s foreign. “Hey,” she starts, “I’m Cinder.”
The way she speaks holds power, a fire that Winter’s drawn into immediately. Winter’s always been fascinated by fire, always has the urge to reach for it. No matter how much it burns.
It’s a friendship that shouldn’t work. They are opposites in almost every identifiable way. Light and dark, rich and poor, snarky and polished, one in search of power, the other trying to escape from it. Nevertheless, it does work. They sit together in their lectures, spar together when they can pick their partners, find reasons to see each other outside the classroom.
They talk about Winter’s family. Cinder asks with interest about Weiss, learns the things she cares about most. She talks about her father, cries to her when she decides to stop contacting him. Cinder’s eyes darken when she brings him up, her anger evident. Winter laughs in response to the murder proposal, isn’t entirely confident that it wasn’t genuine.
Cinder listens, and for the first time in her life, Winter feels understood. She latches onto their relationship, relies on the way it heals. There’s someone who cares, someone she doesn’t have to hold back around, a future that doesn’t seem restricted for once. It’s alluring in its instant comfort. She falls into their friendship. She falls, she falls.
Cinder doesn’t know why she’s here, she always says. They lay on Winter’s bed talking about their dreams when she brings it up again. “I don’t even know if I want to be a huntsman. And no offense, but I hate Ironwood and his military. They have the ability to help but they just… don’t.” She seems confused, unsure. Like she needs a path, a way out. Winter doesn’t pry, but there’s always a familiarity in Cinder’s eye when she brings up her father.
“No matter the reason, you’re getting stronger. Wherever you end up, you’ll be powerful.” Winter gives as reassurance. Cinder’s smile in return is wicked, the way it curls resting in her memories for years.
She reaches into the fire.
***
The clues began after the fight with Cinder. She and Penny returned Fria to her bed, hoping against the odds that she would hold on. Winter hadn’t realized until that moment how unprepared she was. In all the training, the preparation, she never considered the emotional toll that becoming the Winter Maiden would bring. Winter wasn’t one to focus on her personal feelings, she didn’t see the point in them. What really mattered were the responsibilities given to her, the difference she thought she was making. She wasn’t sure if this is what she wanted anymore. The personal feelings she often ignored were becoming too much to dismiss.
Confused and on edge, needing to be on stand-by the moment Fria might die, she paced around the halls. She could barely walk, but she needed to be out of that room. She needed to breathe. The red sirens were still flashing, guards still lay dead around her, a harsh reminder of Cinder’s forced entry. That’s when she saw the first clue- the outline of a nevermore, the grimm that Winter summoned miniature versions of during their encounter, was burned into the wall. Around the image the wallpaper was singed, falling apart. Winter stared, fascinated by the sparks, the way fire spread along the wall without discrimination. She thought there’s beauty in destruction, the way it consumes. It reminds her of someone. She breathed in the smoke, coughed at the way it burned. That destruction could come for her, she’d let it.
The clues took over her thoughts, spreading into every corner of her mind. It started small. A picture of a grimm she can summon isn’t the most damning evidence that it’s for her. The messages began to surround her, she found Cinder in everything.
One particularly cruel moment came when she found a flower next to Fria’s bedside, an Edelweiss, with half the petals scattered onto the floor, singed around the edges. In a panic, Winter dialed Weiss on her scroll, mumbling ‘please please please’ into the line as if she could will her to answer. She ran out of the room, to get any kind of help, only to see the word ‘kidding’ scorched into the wall, near where the nevermore had been painted over. Nothing hit harder than the conversations in her dorm being turned around as a weapon against her. The security she felt around her isn’t there anymore.
Was she doing this just to mess with her? To torture her? It was working. That night, she was guided to the edge of sleep by her tears, by the monstrous anxiety that’s been coursing through her veins. Why, she wondered, do I hope one of these clues leads to her? She should want her dead, she should want her to pay for what she’s done. A part of her, though, just wished it could be different.
She didn’t tell Ironwood about any of it. The general has been scared, angry. She used to think he was doing what was right, but his paranoia has clouded his judgement. She’s started keeping secrets. She secretly works to give Robyn more support and supplies to help the people in Mantle. She keeps in contact with her sister even though Ironwood is tracking them down. She secretly gets messages from one of their most feared enemies without saying a word.
Staring at the glass snowflake before her, she wonders why she isn’t more scared. Cinder almost killed her last time they saw each other- and she fought back just as hard. She should be shaking, she should have her sword drawn. Nothing explains her response. Her chest tightens, the way it always does with Cinder. A remembrance, a heartbreak, makes its way through her body in waves.
Winter picks up the snowflake, holding it in her palm. Her thumb rubs over an indentation, a number, 513. Without a word, without alerting ironwood, without telling the guards, carelessly, she walks to the elevator, presses ‘5’.
The elevator creaks as it makes its ascent, the eerie pitch echoing the way her nerves betray her, panic coursing through her body. Her hands begin to shake, red sirens flashing in her eyes if not in the world around her.
She straightens, reminds herself that her life doesn’t matter. She was prepared to go out this way. If this were the end, she’d go down fighting. The world has Penny, Weiss, their team; it has people that will do more good than she ever will.
As she steps out, boots sounding against tile, the sight before her is alarming. Everything has been left untouched. Guards stand at attention, saluting her as she walks past. There’s no hole in the wall, no fire, no destruction. This is somehow more unsettling than the usual- dead guards, fire consuming. It feels cold, unexpected, and Winter’s hairs stand on end.
She swallows, stepping towards room 513, willing her face to show no fear. The guards seem as intimidated by her as ever- a success. She steps into the empty conference room, closes the door behind her. She stays turned to the door for a moment, unable to cope with the knowledge that she could be in the room with her.
Slowly, she turns around. There stands Cinder with no weapons drawn.
***
After weeks of no contact, weeks since her cards were cut off, Winter’s father calls her. She’s in between classes, walking back to her dorm to grab her bag, when her scroll goes off. She looks at the contact picture for far too long, almost letting it ring out, before acquiescing with a sigh.
“Yes father?”
“Your behavior has been ridiculous since joining that vile academy,” he begins, sparing no pleasantries, “Why don’t you just come home, help with the SDC. We all know you’ll come back eventually. You should be here instead of gallivanting across Atlas with some dream of helping people.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“You should see the way your poor mother has dealt with missing you…” She hangs up. She can’t handle him using her mother’s addiction that way, regardless of how true it may be.
This is just what he does, she reminds herself. He guilts, he manipulates, he brings up Willow as a bargaining tool. He wants Winter to move back home, doesn’t care if the only way to do that is guilt tripping. He gives her space for just long enough that when he contacts her again, it's laced with the subtext of “you never talk to me anymore, you owe me at least this”.
It’s all bullshit. She would never win with him. She’s better off here, she’s better off hanging up, blocking his number. She’d be far better off trying to help people than to let herself be manipulated by him for the rest of her life. So she makes up her mind. She needs to prove him wrong.
This is the context with which she walks in her dorm room to find Cinder crying on her bed. Winter rushes to her, her arm stopping halfway to touching her, unsure of how to comfort.
Cinder meets her eyes. Winter catalogues the hurt in them before her expression switches to anger. “I need to get out of here,” she forces out.
When Winter feels any emotion to excess, it filters through her brain to sadness. She’s learned this over the years. Stress, frustration, anger, hurt, it all leads to sadness for her. She internalizes, breaks down. Cinder’s emotions all funnel to anger, Winter has learned. When she’s disappointed or sad or confused, she lashes out. At herself, at the world, but never at Winter. Not yet.
Winter keeps her voice soft, quiet, begging her to slow down, “What happened?”
Cinder stands, paces the room. Winter’s eyes follow but she remains silent, giving her the space she needs.
Listening closer, she hears that Cinder is repeating the words ‘I have to leave, I can’t stay’ over and over again. Winter isn’t sure if it’s being said as a mantra or as something meant to hurt- like Cinder was choosing words she knew would make her sick. Like leaving would bring her pain. Like she had to convince herself it was right.
“I don’t understand,” Winter approaches Cinder.
“Leave with me,” Cinder finally turns to her, meets her eyes. Her tone is manic, her face streaked with tears, hair falling into her face. Shaking hands grab Winter’s, pleading with her. “We can make it together.”
Tears threaten to fall, betraying Winter’s lack of expression. She can’t leave, she realizes. There’s too much to prove. The burden she’s put on her own shoulders isn’t going anywhere. She stays silent for far too long.
“...You want to stay with them, don’t you?” Cinder sounds betrayed, voice rising, “These people don’t care about you, Winter. They hoard power, they stand by while people suffer just so they can benefit. They’re exactly like your father, they’re just like all the people who’ve hurt us. Why can’t you see that?”
Winter doesn’t know how to respond. She looks at the floor, wordless and dumbstruck. Tears fall, despite her best efforts. She’s felt so much hurt in her lifetime, she had to be strong for so long. She doesn’t know if she can take being left.
But she can’t go with her.
Tears falling, face frozen, she drops Cinder’s hands. The loss of her warmth is evident in how Winter shivers- at least, that’s the only explanation she’ll accept at this time.
Cinder takes a step back, rubbing her tears away in defiance. She looks betrayed, almost disgusted, by her. She leaves the room without a word. Winter thinks back to this moment for years to come as the catalyst for her frozen demeanor. Her heart left that day, too.
***
“So he chose you, huh?” Cinder starts, looking Winter up and down. “He wants you to become the Winter Maiden.”
“You make it sound like I haven’t trained for this. Like I haven’t worked for it.” She crosses the room to her, drawn by a force unnamed. The urge to reach for fire, the desire to be burnt.
“But do you even want this?” Cinder’s eyes flare up. “You Atlas elites get everything handed to you. Yes, you’ve trained. You’ve been his puppet, but where’s the passion? Where is any sign you actually want to do this.”
Cinder reaches up, Winter flinching at the sudden movement, frowning at the ‘ relax’ thrown her way. Straying so far from anything she could have predicted, the woman standing over her just pulls her hair tie out, letting the white hair cascade over her shoulders. Winter’s look of astonishment is received with a laugh, “Now this is the Winter I remember.”
“I’m not the one that changed here,” Winter’s eyes turn dark, the anger in her own voice surprising her. They’re so beyond communication, so beyond being able to be in the same room with each other. Still, they don’t fight. Still, they defy expectations.
“I can set you free.” The words are a promise, spoken like a threat. Winter’s head is reeling, her expression giving away nothing. Was this a game, a trick? After all this, does Cinder actually want her to leave with her? Does she even want her alive? When she doesn’t respond, when she’s silent once again, Cinder lashes out, “Well you want power, don’t you?”
Cinder’s smile is almost cruel. Winter’s heart breaks, once again, trying to reconcile the dissonance between the woman standing in front of her and the girl she fell in love with at the Academy. She never let herself say those words - never let them to the top of her thoughts - and definitely won’t let them stray past her lips now.
“I think you’re confusing our motivations,” Winter spits back. “I’m trying to help people. To protect them. I thought that’s what you always wanted too. What happened to not hoarding power, to not becoming the people that hurt us? When did that dream die?”
Cinder meets her eyes, flames sparking around her remaining eye. Warmth emanates around them in defiance of the cold settling into Winter’s bones. The anger that always seems to be behind amber eyes turns to hurt, and Winter recoils. The knowledge that her words made their way into Cinder didn’t come with the satisfaction she expected; it just cuts into Winter, makes its way to her lungs. Somehow this hurts in a way the anger, the pain, the scars never did.
Winter reaches her hand in her pocket, relying on the distraction of Cinder’s eyes meeting her own. She holds down the side button on her scroll, counts down the seconds.
5: She looks into Cinder’s eye, searches for the brown speckle she loved to look at in their training- the one “flaw” she could find at the time. She wishes that’s where the list still ends.
4: She focuses on the warmth, the heat between them. She knows that won’t last, that none of it will. Still, she drinks it in.
3: She wonders if Cinder noticed the new scar across her face, sitting pink and jagged across her nose. She wonders if it made her feel remorse, regret, anything other than the anger that consumes her.
2: In the corner of Cinder’s eye, a tear threatens to fall. The pain spreads further in Winter’s core- eating away at her. Why does she feel so bad for hurting someone that has hurt her so easily? Why is this the one time anger doesn’t take over?
1: The alert on her scroll sounds off, accompanied by the echo of boots hitting the hallway floor- soldiers coming their way. Cinder doesn’t look surprised, the hurt expression never dropping. Gods, how Winter wishes it would.
Winter watches as she steps backwards, the flame around her eye fizzling out. She watches as she turns to the open window, pauses for a moment. A breath sits, caught in Winter’s throat, at the possibility of her turning around. She knows it would hurt more, doesn’t care. Instead, she lets the exhale out as Cinder opens the window and wordlessly jumps out. She tries, and fails, to prevent her tears from falling as she sees the glow of fire through the curtains blowing in the wind- a sign that she’s flying away. A sign, again, that things would never change. She doesn’t know what she expected, why she came up here. She doesn’t know how she stands unscathed. She doesn’t know if she wants to be.
Guards pour into the room, at attention, guns drawn. They look around the room for a threat, find nothing but their feared commander with tears down her face. Her walls fall down despite how the world around her stands tall. She tries to find words for the way she feels. The guards rush around her frozen form, visions of fire and ice compete for her attention. Her body’s working against her, shuts her down from feeling anything but numb.
She’s left- again. She carries the burden- again. She’s alone- again.
And again, she starts anew.