#schneefall

Hmmmmm. Winter probably doesn’t learn of any of this until the Court Case blows up and her parents are arrested. And Winter has ... Winter has done all she can to distance herself from her family, but it’s still a shock to wake up one morning and find out that your parents have been arrested, that the family company is scrambling to put a new CEO in place to keep it floating even as its reputation tanks. She watches in a blank-minded sort of awe as someone, somewhere drags all the family sins to light, Toward her, toward Weiss.

Toward the little brother who died years ago, but apparently didn’t.

I feel like Winter doesn’t learn about Whitley’s song either until it comes up in the court case itself OR until one of her work friends (she has to have some of them right???) shows her the viral video on a Scroll. And at first Winter is furious. She refuses to believe it. Whitley Schnee died, this is just someone trying to get internet famous because of the case. Except ... the videos are all posted BEFORE the court case happened.

Except looking at that blank face in washed out colors makes Winter feel cold and small and aching, like she’s a little girl herself back in the too empty halls of the manor.

She doesn’t understand. So she buries it. Refuses to think about it. The most she does is extend some worry for Weiss, who she knows still clung to the family name.

It’s a good thing (an intentional thing) that Weiss is safely ensconced in Beacon when the hammer falls. Because it’s- bad. Weiss still clings to the family name, and she knows her father is ruining the company but this early one she doesn’t know- cannot CONCEIVE, just how deeply that poison runs.

Her first warning, not that she knows it, is when Ruby excitedly shows her a viral video that’s been going around, of a boy with white hair and washed out fancy clothes singing a heartbreaking song. And Ruby says idly that the boy looks like a Schnee, but Weiss barely hears her.

She was old enough to remember Whitley, to remember when he vanished without a trace. And she was also young enough that she had not distanced herself from her own family so much as to forget his face and some of his mannerisms. They were never close, but- she remembers.

Whitley?

It can’t be. It can’t be. Her little brother- if he was alive then he would have come home, surely, come back to where he belonged, not run off to a circus.

She sees the part where the boy pulls on a hat and a coat of colors and bright buttons and walks away and feels ... a pull of loss. A shiver of foreboding. Schnee’s are prone to their dramatics, and that- felt like a declaration of something.

A few days later, she and the team are pulled out of classes by the Headmaster, who gently informs them that-

Weiss’s parents have been arrested.

They are on trial for child abuse and severe neglect. Jaques is additionally on trial for corporate corruption, fraud, and criminal endangerment of his workers among a host of other things.

It feels like the world has shattered underneath her, and somehow underneath her denial and confusion and hurt and fear- all she can think about is the song. The boy. Whitley. Walking away in his tattered coat of colors.

And Weiss is safe from most of the fallout, all the way in Vale that she is, but it’s still all over the news, and the other students stare and gossip, and there are rumors that maybe the Schnee company is *done for* and- yeah it’s a good thing Weiss has her team to pull tightly around her, to Throw Hands with anyone who looks at her wrong (there is a surprising lack of bullying, but perhaps that is because the cornerstone of the trial rests not on the corruption of the company but on the abuse and neglect that the Schnee children were subjected to).

Idk how much of v2-3 plot is gonna survive because of all the changes, but if Team RWBY didn’t have an excuse to go running around the underworld yet they do NOW because Weiss is desperate to find the boy in the video and find out if it really IS her long-lost brother.

Meanwhile I feel like- I know it’s more likely that Winter would claim custody of Weiss, but Winter is- not parenting material. At all. Or guardianship material. I’m sorry she’s just *not*.

So instead we shall yeet the problem at James. Because he is a highly respected man with a lot of power AND an “old friend” of the family, so while Winter is going into denial mode over everything and completely forgetting to check on her sister in Vale, James steps in with Oz’s help to claim guardianship over Weiss until she graduates from Beacon. It’s the least he can do, he feels, for not seeing this earlier. He knew ... he knew Willow had a drinking problem, and that Jaques was far from the most fatherly of men, but he never knew (was never allowed to see) just how deeply the problems ran. There’s a difference between liking wine a little too much and NOT SEEING HER CHILDREN FOR ENTIRE WEEKS at a time and a difference between being “busy with work” and “actively abusing your kids”.

So yeah that’s kinda Weiss’s whole deal. Team RWBY is reeling alongside their teammate, trying to help her stay grounded and just- reeling. Weiss was abused. WEISS WAS ABUSED. There is VIDEO EVIDENCE of Weiss being abused.