#alternative title: Winter and her three weed smoking girlfriends

[shera-dnd]

Here it is, my glorious return from the depression pit. A little silly story in which Winter finds out the Happy Huntresses show affection through being little shits to each other, and then finding out she wants some of that too

Now what is the name of this huge ass polycule? Schneewood Forest Party? VERY Happy Huntresses? Nevermind, let's just get to the fic.

Winter hated Vacuo. From the moment she crossed that portal, a sandstorm raging around her, hordes of Grimm surrounding her, the people of Atlas and Mantle begging for help. From the moment she arrived in that desert she hated that place.

She hated the heat. She hated the dry air. She hated the sand.

Winter also hated that she hadn’t had the chance to dye her hair again. Now stuck with her black roots growing back, knowing that she’d look more and more like her father with each passing day.

But that didn’t matter. She was a soldier - and a Maiden now - so she would not shirk her duty to her people. A duty to every atlesian refugee that now struggled to find a home in a new kingdom.

Vacuo wasn’t prepared for this. No kingdom was prepared for taking so many people all at once, and even though they tried their best to accommodate, many now found themselves trapped in tents and improvised housing outside the walls of the kingdom proper. And many of Atlas’s rich and powerful finally understood what they had put Mantle through for so many years.

But that was far too late to matter.

Winter herself had been offered a place at Shade academy proper, but she had refused, her place was with her people. They may not have the walls or the weapons the main kingdom had, but they had huntsmen and now they had a Maiden.

Of course, she wasn’t the only one who had made that choice. Weiss’s friends had chosen to defend the tent city, and the Happy Huntresses too had chosen to continue their fight for the people of Mantle.

Winter hated the Happy Huntresses too.

Not because of anything they did for the refugees. No, their actions were nothing short of admirable, but it was hard to see them as great heroes when she had to share a tent with them for weeks.

At first it was easy. They all had people to mourn, they all had duties to attend to, they respected each other, they offered each other space, and at times even a shoulder to cry on. But as time went on, and the shadow of the Fall of Atlas did not loom so near, the Huntresses returned to their more annoying habits.

The snark, the banter, the sass, things the trio did as naturally as they breathed and fought. Things that grated against Winter’s nerves and threatened her sanity. But they had a mission and they would work together regardless, even if that meant having to hear May joking about her hair for the hundredth time.

Though that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was when they started dressing more appropriately for the weather. With loose clothes, and exposed skin, sweat dripping after a long day of work. It was proving far more distracting than Winter could have anticipated.

But that wasn’t what made her hate the Huntresses. No, she had other reasons for that. Even when those distractions culminated in a… lapse of judgment, that too hadn’t been enough to make her hate them.

When she felt her back pressed against Joanna’s sculpted body, when she felt her strong arms hold her in place. That too hadn’t been it.

When she felt May between her legs, spreading them apart, her lips finding their way to her neck. No, that was certainly not it.

When Fiona held her hand so softly, kissed it like she was some noble woman she met at a ball, and sang the most gentle praise Winter had ever heard in her life. That had come close, but it wasn’t that.

At the time Winter had loved every second of it. Every last worry had been taken away, and for one glorious moment she allowed herself to relax and enjoy true bliss. Even as she fell asleep she did not have a single care in the world, surrounded as she was by women who had happily showered her with affection.

No, it was the next morning that had filled her with dread. She had shown weakness around them. Worse still, she found she had a praise kink because of them.

The teasing and taunting would be merciless. She wouldn’t know a moment of peace in her life ever again.

But then… nothing happened. They moved on with their days, and nothing happened. Of course, they acknowledged it and Joanna even asked her if she wanted a round two - she did, but she wasn’t gonna admit it - but that was it, no taunting, no teasing, no nothing.

Now that. That is when Winter decided she hated them.

Yes, she was quite aware of how contradictory that was, which only served to infuriate her more. It felt like they were withholding all their jabs and comments, keeping them stored away. And some day when she finally felt she was safe, when she finally let her guard down, they’d hit her with everything at once.

That was the only explanation for this.

This was all part of some master plan to hit her when it would humiliate her the most. Why else would they do it? They clearly couldn’t keep themselves from humiliating each other, so why would they show restraint towards her?

So her next few days were spent like this. Always tense, always keeping watch, waiting for the moment they’d finally taunt her, tease her, call her a massive bottom and a pillow princess, but nothing ever came. Brothers, they didn’t even play into this new kink she found out. They all knew she’d melt at the slightest bit of praise from them, and yet none of them had given her anything more than a polite “good job”.

The worst part was that they kept messing with each other. Always joking and trading barbs, always getting on each other’s nerves. And watching them do that was starting to get on her nerves. It only made it more obvious they were planning something. Why else would they poke fun at each other, but not her?

The answer didn’t matter. What mattered was that all of this was starting to drive Winter insane, and after two weeks of this incessant politeness she finally snapped.

“Will you three just stop this!?” She shouted one morning in their shared tent.

The Huntresses could only look at her in confusion.

“Stop what?” Fiona asked, halfway through making them breakfast.

“You have been nothing, but kind and polite for weeks now,” she informed, quickly realizing that she sounded crazy for having a problem with that, “...it’s suspicious.”

May couldn’t keep herself from laughing at that, immediately reverting to the mockery she had been avoiding this whole time, “oh the Happy Huntresses are being too nice to me, that can only mean they’re up to something.”

“Exactly!” Winter replied, choosing to ignore the mocking tone, “I have given you plenty of fuel for your taunts, and yet you choose to remain… pleasant. You’re clearly plotting something.”

“Or consider this,” Joanna offered, “we know you don’t like that shit, so we stopped doing it.”

“That’s-- I--,” Winter stammered. She wished she could argue with that, but Joanna was being perfectly reasonable, which only highlighted how silly she was behaving right now. It also made her blush all the way to the tips of her ears.

Fiona let out an adorable little giggle at the sight of the most serious woman she knew blushing like an embarrassed little teenager.

“Do you want us to tease you?” She asked, causing Winter to make the most undignified scoff.

“Of course not!” Winter shouted, stomping the ground.

She cursed herself as she realized how much of a kid she was acting like, and it only got worse as the trio began exchanging conspiratory glances. Winter didn't like that, she didn’t like that one bit.

“So,” May began, the most infuriating grin on her face, “I guess we’ll just keep being very polite and never tease you again.”

Winter could not explain the feeling of dread she felt in that moment, but she knew she had to stop this right now .

“Wait! No!”

Joanna smirked, and she realized she had fallen for their trap.

“Why?” Joanna asked, sounding so damn smug, as if she somehow knew more than Winter, “I thought you didn’t want us to mess with you.”

Yeah, why did Winter react like that? Why did the thought of them never taunting her again fill her with dread? There was only one possible explanation for this, but she didn’t like it one bit.

She wanted them to mess with her. She wanted what they had, their banter, their arguments, their jokes. Teasing and taunting was second nature to them, but it was also how they showed affection. They poked fun at each other because they loved each other.

And maybe Winter wanted to be loved like that too.

Ugh, why did she have to catch feelings for those three of all people?

“I…” She tried, but what could she even say without humiliating herself? “I want to have what you have… taunting included.”

“D’aww,” Fiona replied so sweetly. The other two were not so kind.

They each came over to one side of her, Joanna hooking her arm over her neck, and May around her midriff. It was hard not to be aware of how much taller both of them were. It was easy to forget that Fiona was the only one there who was shorter than her.

“Welcome to the polycule, princess,” Joanna joked, “it wasn’t that hard, now was it?”

“Like pulling teeth,” Winter grumbled.

“Aww, don’t be so grumpy,” May joined in, “I’m sure we can find some way to lift your spirits.”

“Maybe we can get Fiona to call you a good girl again,” Joanna continued, showing off how their teamwork extended to beyond the battlefield. Not like Winter hadn’t found that out before.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Winter complained, shoving them away, “you’re both deplorable.”

“Alright, you two,” Fiona called, bringing over their breakfast, “leave the poor woman be. She just had a very emotional morning.”

“You’re just defending her because she didn’t call you deplorable,” May argued, but Fiona just glared.

“Thank you,” Winter muttered to her. Things could have stopped here, but there was one last thing she thought she should clarify since she was apparently in a very emotionally honest mood this morning, “I have been meaning to ask. How did you know that would work?”

Fiona blinked a couple of times, confused, “knew what would work?”

Oh, why was Winter expected to actually say it out loud? “The praise, how did you know it would get to me?”

“Oh that’s easy,” Fiona answered with a little laugh, “you’re a Schnee and you worked for Ironwood. You probably haven’t heard any positive reinforcement since you were five.”

That sounded like such a wild and baseless assumption, and yet it was painfully accurate.

“I see,” was all she could muster.

“Now come on, let’s get you some breakfast, princess,” Fiona called.

Winter hated how much she loved the new nickname.

~~~

Robyn wanted to blame the ace ops for this. She knew they weren’t to blame this time, but after losing her city, being away from her Huntresses, and stuck in this stupid ship for weeks, she was feeling particularly pety. So when the engine sputtered out, and the ship began to dive straight towards the sands below, she decided she was gonna use her last moments to blame the ace ops for this.

Of course she was still trying to survive here. She was still struggling with the controls, yelling orders, trying to get this thing fixed before they all got flattened.

Robyn Hill had not come this far to die like this.

Then there was a loud scraping sound and, against all odds, the ship stabilized. The engines were still dead, but the ship had somehow pulled up and was now flying directly towards Vacuo once again.

“What just happened?” She asked, just as Qrow walked into the room cackling.

“Looks like we owe the Ice Queen one,” he answered, still snickering to himself.

"What 's so funny?” Harriet demanded with her usual level of annoyance.

“Oh you’ll see,” was his reply, his laugh barely contained.

“Let’s just be grateful Winter arrived when she did,” Marrow interjected, slumping on his chair.

You know what? He was right. She was just gonna consider herself lucky, lean back in her chair, and not think too much about this. Whatever got Qrow laughing like an idiot could wait until they landed.

It didn’t even take that long. Soon their ship came gently to rest on the desert sands, just outside the kingdom proper. Robyn could see a massive Manticore summon jump off from the top of their ship, and dissipate before reaching the ground.

So that’s how the ice queen saved their asses. Clever.

Not wanting to stay in this hunk of metal even a second longer than necessary, she casually strolled off the damn thing and onto the desert. This was definitely gonna take some getting used to.

“Hey, ice queen,” she called, not sure where their savior got herself into, “thanks for the save.”

Then her savior decided to have the most dramatic entrance in the world, by flying down from the skies above, surrounded by snow, eyes burning with the flames of her Maiden powers. But that was far from the most stark change to her.

“What the fuck?” Harriet muttered behind her.

“It’s good to see you’re all well,” Winter greeted as she landed, and Robyn could only grin.

Winter Schnee was dressed in what was obviously a Happy Huntresses uniform, complete with an insignia and everything, just like Robyn’s, except hers was a dark shade of blue. More incredibly still was the fact that there was no more sign of white in her hair, instead being almost entirely black, the only exception being the blue highlights that matched her uniform.

“Loving the new look, ice queen,” Qrow laughed, earning him a death glare.

“Next time I’ll remember to let you fall to your death,” she replied, unamused. This did nothing to stop him.

The ace ops remained stunned silent, not sure how to react to the fact that Winter was now both a Maiden and a Happy Huntress, and that her appearance went through such a drastic overhaul. Robyn, for her part, knew exactly what happened and she was ecstatic.

“I see my girls got to you,” she joked, strolling up to their hero, “or should I say, our girls.”

That was enough for Winter to ditch the dramatic entrance, the fire fading from her eyes and the snow melting in the sand. The most powerful bitch in the entire kingdom, and she looked almost embarrassed.

“I--I guess you should,” she admitted.

“Wait! What!?” Harriet shouted.

I should also get you all to Shade,” Winter interrupted, promptly ignoring the shouting, “Theodore and the rest of the council would like to talk to you.”

“Right,” Robyn nodded, knowing that figuring things out with the council and getting up to date on this refugee situation took priority, “but after we’re done we’re having a nice long chat about what this means about us.”

Winter cleared her throat loudly before replying, “I look forward to it.”

“I’m sure you do,” she said, with a wink.

“What!?” Harriet shouted again, even as everyone began to walk off to the academy, “we’ve been worried sick for weeks, and you’ve just been fucking the Happy Huntresses this whole time!?”

Elm just sighed, and placed a hand on Harriet’s shoulder, “just let them be happy.”

Robyn was really starting to love Vacuo.