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pilot-boi · 14 hours ago

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Got commissioned to draw the most fucked up alternate fusion of the failwives, and also to write a little fic! (Hint hint nudge nudge, I can write for commission now)

The basic premise is that these two fall into the Ever After and are flying around destroying stuff and the Tree merges them into one person to help them understand each other. It doesn't go well at first, but it turns out okay!

Want some art of your own? [Buy Me A Ko-Fi]

(Fic under the cut or on AO3) :]

“Balance is not two forces locked in never-ending battle. True balance finds its own equilibrium. It only requires love, and the patience to see things through to the end.”

-The Blacksmith

Winter remembers flying. And falling. Fire and ice and screaming at someone until her throat went hoarse. She remembers a Tree, for some reason. One significant enough to need emphasis, even in her murky thoughts.

Where is she? Gods her head is swimming. It’s so hot. Why is it so hot?

Someone groans. Someone nearby.

Winter’s military training instantly has her on high alert. She forces her thoughts into order, pulling clarity into her mind by her fingernails. It’s difficult, more difficult than it should be. A burning like frostbite and hunger thrums under her skin, and she wraps mental fingers around the feeling without conscious thought. It’s a familiar sensation, but also not. Like holding hands with a very dear friend.

Holding very still, she listens for any other sign of the nearby person. She can’t be sure if they’re a threat, although with her foggy memories she highly doubts anyone friendly brought her to this situation. So Winter listens, trying to discern the location of the adversary.

Someone is breathing. Soft and shallow, just like her. They’re waiting for her to make the first move, the same as she’s waiting for them.

She doesn’t have to wait long.

There’s a roar of anger and in an instant her body is lurched upwards by her right arm without any input from her. Winter’s eyes fly open and her fingers clench instinctively around the hunger-frostbite feeling. Light flickers past her eyes and ice gathers at her fingertips. She gets a glimpse of fire, a glimpse of dark hair-

-And Winter collapses unceremoniously back onto the ground, her right arm not responding to her movements and very much not supporting her weight. The person yelps, and there’s a coinciding thud when they appear to collapse in tandem.

They both lay there for another moment, clearly weighing their options. The element of surprise is gone, for both of them. There’s no more pretending she’s unconscious, and the other is clearly lamenting the same, based on the litany of curses Winter can hear muttered nearby.

Female, maybe slightly younger than she is. Quick to act, rash, although not stupid. The other woman waited and listened the same as she did. Smart, but impulsive. With a fire-related Semblance, based on the flames she glimpsed before her limbs gave out.

Winter takes closer stock of her faculties, paying particular attention to her physical aptitude rather than mental. She’s felt the effects of a concussion before, and while the pounding in her head and murky thoughts are leading to that conclusion, in everything she knows about that injury there is never any mention of nerve damage severe enough that it would lead to a loss of limb control.

Starting with her left hand, she tests every finger. Sore, but not broken. She bends it at the wrist, rolling it. All in working order, if incredibly sore, which is good as that’s her dominant arm. Winter does the same with her left hand, the one that failed to catch her, and finds it similarly functional.

Then why did it not respond before? The person beside her has stopped cursing.

Winter opens her eyes slowly, and promptly slams them back shut with a wince as bright sunlight stabs her retinas like a pair of knives. More cautiously she tries again, squinting into the blurry surroundings until they focus into something recognizable.

Palm trees, and clear blue sky beyond them. The sun is nearly directly overhead, and when she curls her fingers she can feel grains of hot sand beneath her fingers.

Strange. She should be wearing gloves.

Suddenly Winter feels her right hand clench, grabbing a fistful of sand.

It’s incredibly jarring, she can feel her arm moving, like she’s moving it. She was able to move it before, but once again simple bodily control seems beyond her. It’s like some unseen entity has slipped into her body and is puppeting her like a doll.

The hand and arm lift into the air, and Winter can feel gravity tugging at them both, can feel the muscles strain with disuse. She can feel every grain of sand trickle from between clenched fingers. Each finger uncurls methodically, not unlike how she tested her hands before, but now the disconnect between movement and conscious thought is so jarring that Winter’s teeth grit together.

It’s like nails on a chalkboard, offensive and nauseating. Without conscious thought, Winter puts all of her willpower into wrenching control of her body back from her unseen puppeteer.

Her arm thumps back into the sand, limp. Hers again, for the moment.

“What did you do to me?” a voice half-craks half-snarls beside her. Fully audible, unlike the muttered curses earlier. Deliberate. Full of choked back rage, but in control.

It’s a familiar voice, but also not. Poised but terrified, trying to hide its fear, but failing.

It sounds like her own.

Not trusting her limbs, Winter tilts her head to finally look at the speaker, her adversary.

And Cinder Fall stares back.

A flicker of satisfaction lights in Cinder’s stomach at the look of bewildered rage that crosses Schnee’s face before her mask slams back down. But that satisfaction is nothing compared to the anger and fear roiling in her mind like a firestorm.

Cinder is no stranger to her own limbs not listening to her. Ruby Rose all but burned away her left arm, and Salem’s offered alternative only obeyed if she made the Grimm flesh fear her. And even then, it would always heed the orders of her Mistress over herself, seizing in pain and flailing out of her control at a thought.

Not that Cinder isn’t grateful. The arm grants her power, and the ability to steal the Maiden powers. Salem gave that to her. It’s because of Salem that she has it. Without her, Cinder is nothing.

But this… this is a step beyond.

“What are you…” Schnee starts to snap back, and then clearly she sees what Cinder noticed as soon as she woke up.

Her body isn’t only her body anymore. She has a passenger, a parasite. Two arms, and two legs, blotchy skin running up the middle like paint smeared together. Two heads on one set of shoulders, and one is very much not her own.

Cinder sees the moment Schnee puts it together. “That place! The Tree, and that woman and-” Her eyes narrow sharp and cold as icicles. “What did you do?”

Cinder scoffs. “So like a Schnee, taking no responsibility, always assuming it must be someone else’s fault.”

“Well forgive me for blaming you, but only one of us is working for a woman hellbent on destroying the world.”

“Oh did the dear General have a sex change? I didn’t know.”

“Don’t play games with me, Fall! ” Schnee pushes herself up on one arm, leaving their shared body awkwardly tilted as she looms over Cinder. Her blues eyes blaze to life, and Cinder subtly melts the sand beside her into a blade. “I understand punishing you, but why that woman decided to drag me into this I have no idea. So what did you do?”

Cinder scoffs. “Don’t act like you’re so innocent, so blameless, you can’t hide behind your shining Atlas exterior. We all saw what Atlas stands for, what you’re complicit in. You can thank your dear General for that.”

“I’m not hiding, I know my crimes,” Schnee responds, cold as a glacier. “But what I’ve done is nothing compared to you. If this is some sort of divine punishment, then I certainly am not the one to blame.”

“And I am?!” Cinder lurches upright as well, her temper boiling to the surface as she feels the fire-hunger swell. This woman, the nerve, the audacity. Ordered to kill an entire Kingdom, and would’ve followed through while hiding behind her precious orders. And she dares to claim she has a moral high ground? “What have I done that’s so horrible?!”

“You killed my sister!!” Schnee roars, the air turning noticeably colder around them.

Cinder rolls her eyes. “She’s alive, you moron. If we’re alive after falling then your precious sister is.”

“Penny, not Weiss! And it’s only by sheer luck that her blood isn’t also on your hands.”

“Penny?” Cinder barks out a laugh, and tightens her grip on the glass blade beside her. “You mean the General’s synthetic brat? How could she be your sister she wasn’t even-”

“Don’t you dare, don’t you dare say that Penny wasn’t alive!” A cutlass of ice is at Cinder’s throat before she can blink. Cinder wonders if Schnee even realizes the sword she’s wielding is at her own throat as well. “She was more alive, more human than you could ever hope to be!”

“Look who’s talking!” The blade at her throat begins to melt. “Perfect prodigal Winter Schnee!” Cinder snarls, spitting the woman’s name like it’s the worst swear she can think of. “Up in your Academy with everything handed to you on a silver platter.” The fire-hunger swells in her stomach, and flames spit from between her teeth. “Your perfect life, your perfect city. You can’t even fathom how rotten Atlas really is.”

And it’s just for a moment, a fraction of a moment, but Schnee’s mask falters. “I know better than most the corruption hiding behind the facade,” she admits, the sword lowering just barely. “You don’t know anything about my life.”

“Neither do you!” Cinder’s eyes narrow. “You call me a monster, but you don’t know the first thing about what I’ve had to suffer.”

“I know enough.”

“Jumping to conclusions about perceived enemies, how very Atlesian of you! The General would be proud,” Cinder spits, and again the woman’s mask slips. Cinder glances down at the sword still hovering by her throat. “Now drop your weapon before I do it myself.”

Winter’s eyes narrow. “Fine, but only if you relinquish the blade that you’ve been hiding behind your back this whole time.” Cinder bares her teeth, but in a distant part of her mind Winter can feel her hand loosen “her” grip on the glass weapon.

With a thought, Winter dissipates her ice cutlass. Anything to avoid that unnatural puppeting sensation of her limbs following someone else’s orders. How could Penny experience that and remain so cheerful afterwards?

No. She can’t think about Penny. It hurts too much.

Winter sighs and lets her half of their shared body flop back onto the sand. With the adrenaline fading, all the aches and pains are catching up to her. She groans softly as the hot sand eases just a little bit of the pain. Cinder doesn’t relax, even though she lays down, pulled by Winter’s half of the body. The Fall Maiden is still tense, like Winter might strike her at any moment.

“I’m not going to attack you,” Winter says.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Not exactly fair, since Cinder was the first to strike. “Do you have any idea where we are?” Winter asks.

“No, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

“What am I going to do with the information?! If you haven’t noticed, I can’t exactly go anywhere without dragging you along.”

“Whatever.”

The sun is starting to set overhead, and in the branches above them Winter spots the animals coming to life now that the heat of the desert is fading. It’s peaceful, or it would be if her sister’s murderer wasn’t parasitically attached to her body.

No. Still can’t think about Penny.

“If you could shut up, that would be fantastic,” Cinder says.

“I wasn’t even saying anything.”

“I can hear you thinking.”

Winter grits her teeth and resists the urge to strangle Cinder. “Well I can’t exactly stop doing that, can I?” She can feel Cinder roll her eyes, and wonders if the other woman was telling the truth about hearing her thoughts or was just trying to get under her skin. How merged are they?

“Look,” Winter says eventually, staring up at the color streaked sky. “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me.”

“Finally, something we can agree on.”

“But unless you know some way back to the Tree dimension, we’re stuck like this for the foreseeable future. So we’re going to have to work together.”

“We need to get out of the open,” Cinder says by way of a response, moving to sit up. Winter reluctantly does the same, and they awkwardly get themselves upright. “Whether we’re in that Tree place or Remnant, I don’t want to be around here when it gets dark.”

Winter raises an eyebrow. “We’re both Maidens. What could the local wildlife possibly do?”

“We can’t just be strong, we have to be smart,” Cinder snaps. “We don’t even know if we can stand up let alone fly, this is not the time to try our chances in a fight.”

Winter can’t stop the look of surprise. Cinder Fall, impulsive and brash as fire itself, recommending caution and thinking through before acting? Maybe Winter does know less about her than she thought. Cinder didn’t answer her proposal, but the suggestion of shelter implies protection for both of them. A truce of sorts, in the face of adversity.

Glancing around, Winter sees nothing but palm trees, sandblasted stones, and waves of desert beyond, nothing that could be used as a shelter. A patch of shadow catches her eye. “Past that clump of palms, there’s an outcropping or an alcove maybe.”

Cinder turns to where she’s looking, without her needing to point, and again Winter wonders just how connected they are. The other woman is silent for a moment, appraising. “We’d at least have our backs against something solid.” She nods. “I don’t see anything better, it’ll do.”

From Cinder Fall, this might as well be a cry of jubilation. Despite their agreement to work together, moving in tandem proves to be more of a struggle than Winter would like. After several failed attempts at standing that all ended with them landing flat back on their faces, the merged Maidens resort to half-crawling half-dragging themselves to the outcropping.

It’s not much of a shelter, nothing more than a nook in a pile of boulders, but it’s better than nothing. They lean gingerly back against the stone, even that short journey wearing them out more than it should have. Winter’s mouth is dry, and her stomach aches. How long has it been since she ate or drank? Will she need to eat and drink more or less now that she’s sharing a stomach?

“We should look for potable water,” Winter suggests, rubbing a crick out of her neck. “It wouldn't be wise to go another day in that heat without hydration. Or food, judging by how rapidly our body is using energy.”

“I’ve gone longer, it will be fine.”

Winter frowns. “You’ve gone longer than a day without water?”

Cinder shrugs, running fire-warmed hands over the aching muscles in their legs. “And food. It wasn’t fun, but I lived.”

Winter knows what it sounds like to speak from behind a mask of your own making. Cinder may sound casual, but its a facade. There’s a story there. One Winter isn’t sure she wants to poke into. You don’t know the first thing about what I’ve had to suffer, Cinder had said.

“Did you live in Atlas?” Winter asks. Cinder’s motions still, and then she continues more slowly. “The way you talk about it, it seems like you’re more familiar with the city than the average visitor.”

“I am,” Cinder says shortly. A bedroom on the floor in a storeroom, sisters more like torturers, a mother more like a slaver. And Rhodes, the biggest hypocrite of them all. “I lived there a long time ago, I hated it. Then I left and never looked back.” She’ll never have to. The city must have crashed by now, the Glass Unicorn a crumbled mess in the ruins of a destroyed city.

“I did the same,” Schnee admits, and Cinder looks at her in surprise. Amber eyes meet blue, and Schnee holds her gaze calmly. “My father, Jacques Schnee, was a father in blood alone. I joined the military to get away from him, to become strong enough that he could never hurt me again.” She laughs ruefully, her expression darkening. “I can’t believe I actually thought James was better than him.”

Cinder drops her gaze, moving back to mechanically easing the aches out of their shared muscles. Running away to become strong enough to never be hurt again. She hates how it sounds so familiar. She hates that she almost empathizes with Winter, that she understands.

It’s not the same, it’s not the same. Winter is a Schnee, born into privilege and promise. She got to become a Huntress, ran away into the open arms of the Atlas military on a whim. She didn’t have to claw and bite her way out. Run into the open arms of Salem, who used her and lifted her up and hurt her worse than the Madame ever could.

“Did you make him pay?” Cinder asks quietly, “For hurting you?”

“Did you make them pay?” Winter answers with a question. “Whoever hurt you?”

Cinder’s hands still. The blood on the storeroom floor, the Madame’s neck crunching under her fingers all while her veins sing with electricity. The first betrayal she’s ever experienced, and the one that hurt the most. Born again at the stroke of midnight.

“I killed them,” she says, once again meeting Winter’s eyes. She expects to find hated pity there, expects to scream at her for perceived weakness, but she finds only cool understanding. “My sisters, the Madame, and the Huntsman who trained me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Cinder’s eyes narrow. “I’m not weak.”

“I never said you are,” Winter responds. “Were they the ones who kept you from food and water?”

“Yes. I was their servant, if I didn’t work, I didn’t eat.”

There’s a flare of anger in Winter’s cold eyes, and it takes Cinder a moment to realize the emotion is pointed at the Madame. Winter Schnee is angry on her behalf, at a woman she never met, just because she hurt Cinder. Where’s that Atlesian delight in putting down her inferiors?

“Can you make other things out of glass?” Winter asks suddenly. “Other than weapons?

Cinder blinks. “Probably. I’ve never really tried.”

��Can you make a bowl?”

“Why?”

“Just humor me.”

A bit dumbfounded, Cinder scoops a handful of sand from beside her and melts it into glass, slowly shaping the liquid into something resembling a bowl. It’s difficult to keep the edges smooth, different from the obsidian blades she’s so fond of, but eventually she’s left with a lopsided bowl in the palm of her hand.

“That’s perfect, thank you,” Winter says, taking Cinder’s hand and moving it closer to herself. It doesn’t feel as unnatural as before, the autonomous movement mitigated by the added visual of someone physically moving her hand. Or possibly by the simple act of human companionship as Winter holds her hand.

Winter’s eyes flare to life, and Cinder’s hackles immediately raise. This was all a trick, an act to lull her into complacency. Winter is going to attack her now, in her moment of weakness-

“Calm down,” Winter murmurs, running a thumb over the back of Cinder’s hand. Cinder hates how the action does actually calm her. “Just watch.” The Winter Maiden inhales and blows a white cloud into the bowl, and when the mist clears it’s full of clean white snow.

Without even needing to be prompted, Cinder knows what to do. Fire flickers past her eyes as she slowly heats up the palm of her hand, not enough to melt the glass, just enough to melt the snow. In just a few moments, all the flakes are gone and clear water sits in the bowl.

“Drink it,” Winter prompts. “It’s for you.”

“You mean it’s for us,” Cinder counters. “My body is your body, don’t pretend this is an act of charity when it’s benefiting you as well.”

Winter rolls her eyes, almost fondly. “Just drink the damn water.”

Cinder stares at it for a moment. Water created from nothing. Ice and fire, both death in their own regards. Diametrically opposed, but combined to create the bringer of life itself.

Eventually she looks up, meeting Winter’s gaze. Why did you do this? Why are you helping me, after I hurt you? Why do you even care? Why are you aiding your enemy? Why you, why me?

Cinder’s mind roils with all of the questions and more, but can’t vocalize more than a single word. “Why?”

Winter is still holding her hand, and the ghost of a smile crosses her lips. The ice queen’s hand is strangely warm. “Because the people who hurt us are gone. So why should we continue to torture ourselves for them?”

There’s no reason Winter should care. Winter doesn’t even know her. And yet she does, a runaway in her own right, running to power out of fear and falling into the same horror she was fleeing from. Cinder and the Madame and Salem. Winter and her father and the General.

She created water from her very soul, just so Cinder wouldn’t have to be thirsty.

Cinder raises the bowl to her lips, with Winter’s hand still steadying hers, and drinks. It’s the cleanest water she’s ever tasted, cooling and refreshing on her parched throat. She doesn’t have to look to feel that Winter is smiling.

Fire and Ice. Dark and light. Maybe they’re not meant to destroy each other, not meant to be locked in a battle forever. Water in a glass bowl, two opposed forces combined to create something beautiful.

Maybe even they can find their own balance.

#rwby #cinder fall #winter schnee #cinwin #my art #my writing #commissions #kofi stuff

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