#Burdened By Your Royal Test (Canon | Mistral Arc | Weiss)

[ein-schnee-sturm]

“ who did this to you ? ” - Ruby for Weiss

This was why why he never let any of his friends see him anything other than fully clothed. But after the months he had spent with That Man in That Place, after being kidnapped and held for ransom, Weiss was exhausted. So he’d slipped, and now Ruby knew. Having felt secure in the knowledge that the house all of them occupied was otherwise empty, he had emerged from a long shower in nothing but a towel, knee-length white hair and equally snow-white skin still dripping with water. (It was a small mercy that his hair hid what remained of his tail, as he couldn’t have borne Ruby seeing that, on top of everything else.) s it was, Weiss forced himself to keep moving, even though he’d started anxiously stimming. Somehow, he managed to get dressed in his borrowed clothes — boxers, jeans, and a hoodie, the latter two of which he’d never worn before in his entire life — despite the fluttering and jerking motions of his hands and wrists; he’d even started rocking back and forth, at some point.

Once completely dressed, though he continued to rock, Weiss managed to at least look in the direction of Ruby’s face. Silence, and the utter ruin of his body weighed between them. One of the few things he... tolerated about this body, was his rather small chest and equally narrow hips; he would still bind, sometimes, but usually only when the dysphoria was particularly bad. But that probably wasn't what drew the eye. No, from the front, what anyone would notice first were the lurid shadows cast by bones. Though muscle coiled beneath paper-thin and paper-pale skin, it couldn't hide the fact that he was fragile to look at. Ribs protruded from his skin, visible especially when he breathed in deep. In truth, he looked gaunt, the whole picture coming together clearly now. Collarbones prominent, as well as cheekbones, jawline sharp as a knife; hips sharper. He couldn't put on weight if he tried; he would always look frail and weak.

Even juxtaposed against the steel that usually made up his spine and the weight that kept his shoulders straight, it was little wonder people treated him like glass, something to be defended. ...And after the bones, came the scars. Some of the ladder rungs climbing his inner forearms and sides and inner thighs were straight and neat, as orderly as he needed preferred everything else to be. But others were far from neat, others spat on the concept of order. Those were, almost invariably, the worst. A thick rope of scar tissue bisecting the horizontal scars up his right thigh. Haphazard, jagged cuts up the inside of his right arm and curving around to his bicep. Patches of still-rough tissue that looked almost like claw marks inside the crook of his left elbow. Nondescript patterns carved over his hips. Two thick horizontal lines under each side of his chest, almost as if he'd tried to give himself top surgery. Yet the front had nothing on his back.

Even if Weiss had been able to Summon before, there was literally no way on Remnant that he would've been able to cause the ruin of his back on his own... Which left the only other conclusion, the obvious one. Occam's Razor. That they had been caused by someone else — and when it came to the Schnee Family, there was only one person who would have done it. A network of lines, the ropes of puckered flesh that snaked down his back in winding, crisscrossing patterns; still raised and angry and painful, on some days. Or when he thought about That Man. Or when he hated himself. Or most of the time, honestly. Some looked to have been caused by a whip, but the great majority had been from a belt. Comparatively, the four scars on his face — one vertical and three diagonal — seemed almost an afterthought. When Weiss finally spoke, his voice sounded emptier than usual, and his expression was exhaustedly blank; like he’d been hollowed out.

“…I would tell you, but I think you already know.”

@onlyheartaches

[ein-schnee-sturm]

"Why are you worrying? They really care about you, Weiss." Ren, you should not just be tasting people's emotions without warning or explanation. A lot of people have never met a grimmling your age that isn't a threat.

"If you think you did something wrong, just ask them."

Rude though it may have been, tasting their emotions was probably the only way Ren would know what Weiss was feeling; even now — perhaps especially now — expressing what they felt was most definitely not the white-haired teen’s strong suit. Beginning to slightly rock from side to side (when had they become comfortable enough with Team JNPR’s resident empath to openly stim in front of him?), Weiss frowned softly.

Their shaking hands were shoved as deep into the pockets of their borrowed jeans as they could go. “I know — I know they — when Yang and I got here — ” They invited me into the hug like I was family. For a perhaps too long moment, the fox couldn’t find words, and when they finally did… the swordsman sounded more brittle — more fragile — than Ren had probably ever heard them before.

“Neither said anything, and I don’t know how to ask.”

@clockwork---heart