Pyrrha’s long ponytail swung into view, and then the hint of a smile, quick and reassuring. “You should try to get some sleep on the way there,” she said, her knee softly knocking Weiss’s as she settled in the seat across from her. “Mistral is pretty far.”

Pyrrha was only looking out for her. She seemed to have taken up a bad habit of doing that. But Weiss couldn’t imagine being able to shut her eyes for a moment, not with something so precious—so dangerous—clinging to the palm of her hand. Not with the blur of unfamiliar faces around her.

Weiss sank into the oversized coat, the collar rising to her ears. “I’m not tired,” she mumbled, though admittedly, after the sleepless couple of days she’d had in Argus, she was starting to feel those first few tugs on her eyelids.

To be honest, Weiss still wasn’t quite sure what to make of her impromptu Mistralian guide. Slash bodyguard. Slash, she supposed, accomplice. Though they did make somewhat of a conspicuous pair—Pyrrha the hometown hero, Weiss the runaway heiress of the Schnee Dust Company. News like that traveled faster than smugglers’ airships, after all.

She counted herself lucky Pyrrha hadn’t dragged her off to the Atlesian base in Argus the moment she’d spied the Schnee family symbol on the inside of what Weiss had thought was her least eye-catching coat. The one she had on now was Pyrrha’s, almost comically too big on her. At least it was warm. It smelled like her, a firewood smell. It only made Weiss drowsier.

She tallied it silently, watching her companion out of the corner of her eye. That was five favors, more or less. A few days’ room and board, supplies, protection, an escort all the way to Mistral. And an ally—if that could really be counted on. All for next to nothing, or so Pyrrha claimed, that it was only her “duty as a huntress.” (Whatever that meant.) Weiss could pay her what was owed, but anyone else, huntress or not, would’ve seized on the opportunity right away to ship her back to Atlas, back to her father, for twenty times the reward.

So…Weiss thought she could be forgiven for her cynicism because, well, that wasn’t how the world worked, was it? Favors didn’t come freely. Everything had a price, even kindness. Or maybe it was especially kindness. But it wasn’t like she had a lot of options.

Soon, the glittering ocean and the city of Argus slipped completely behind them, and the cabin went dark as the train cut through the mountainside. Pyrrha’s eyes slid to hers in the dimness, the expression in them quietly curious, like she’d sensed she was being studied the entire time. For some reason, it made Weiss uneasy, being watched in return, being looked at in the closeness of the dark. She turned back to the window. The next moment, the mountain fell away, too, and only Anima’s steely winter landscape was left, stretching out toward the distant gray fringe of trees. Not exactly Mantle’s bitter tundra, but something about the scene reminded Weiss of it.

“I haven’t been home in a long time,” Pyrrha murmured, her voice almost startling in the quiet. “It feels…a little strange going back.”

Weiss chewed her lip. She wasn’t interested, exactly, but she felt the question leave her before she realized it was: “Why haven’t you?”

Pyrrha smiled. It wasn’t the open warmth Weiss had come to expect but something guarded, a little unreadable. Maybe Weiss was just slightly interested in that. “It’s so lonely in a big city like Mistral, don’t you think?” She leaned her chin into her hand. “Surrounded by people. Argus is quieter.”

Lonely… Weiss squeezed her rucksack to her chest. “I think I know what you mean.”

She thought about the view from the airship window when she was leaving Atlas, the Solitas Sea at night. Churning and endless, something completely unfathomable. The waves had gleamed under the moon like the shine of teeth from shadows.

She remembered looking out at that ocean and, despite all her best efforts, thinking about her father, his icebox of an office, the way he would tap his fingertips against his desk whenever he was annoyed. He used to sigh and lean back in his chair to look at her, used to rub his face with his hand like something pained him. You should be careful where you throw your sympathy, Weiss, he’d say. You know, the world just beneath you is crueler than you can imagine. Waiting to tear you apart. You understand? Here, he would lean forward again, stroke his pale mustache, his listless, beady eyes fixing to her. Like wolves.

Even someone like that, Weiss figured, her eyes returning to Pyrrha just for a moment before they slipped closed. Even someone who smiled gently at you could bare fangs when the time came. Weiss couldn’t quite remember the dream she had when she drifted off, but she recalled this, at least: her own ragged voice, the strange, wet pressure of teeth, powerful jaws closing shut around her throat. And then there was just silence.

~

By the time Weiss stirred awake again, the view outside the window was dark with dusk. “Sleep well?” Pyrrha folded her book over her thumb. “The train’s made a stop in Ajisai.”

Weiss lifted her head. She could feel the red mark the glass had left on her cheek. Actually, she could feel Pyrrha politely holding in a remark over it, as well. People pressed around each other down the aisle, milled around on the platform below.

“I slept fine. I guess.” She took a mug of something warm from Pyrrha—coffee, she realized, once she brought it to her nose. She pressed her palms around it. “Thanks. Um, and you? Did you sleep?”

Pyrrha set her book aside in the empty seat. Weiss was faintly surprised by its cover for a moment—fairytales. She had a vague memory of her mother reading stories like that to her once or twice as a child. That was a long time ago, of course, but the one she still remembered well was The Girl in the Tower. Which, admittedly, seemed a bit uninspired to her now.

“Hm…a little.”

“Is that the truth?”

Pyrrha paused and then chuckled, a little self-consciously. “Well, all things considered,”—she nodded her head to Weiss’s coat pocket, then up at the rifle hidden in the overhead—“I thought it best if there was someone to keep an eye out.”

Weiss frowned, dragging her knees up to her chest. She curled her hand around the vial in her pocket again. It’d become a small force of habit (or was it a nervous tick?) at some point without her realizing it. “That wasn’t necessary. You need your rest, too.”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry—”

“It’s not that I am,” she interrupted, drawing the heavy coat tighter around herself. “Worrying about you, I mean. You’re just no good to me exhausted.”

Pyrrha fell quiet, those shrewd eyes of hers, green as the jade you found all over Anima, softening for a reason Weiss couldn’t quite decipher. “Right,” she said. “I’ll try to get some hours in, then.”

Despite herself, Weiss squirmed slightly under that change in expression. “I can take care of myself just fine, you know.”

Well, in theory she could. Granted that fencing maneuvers were transferrable to, say, scrapes with Atlesian soldiers or Mistralian bounty hunters. Granted the gleaming rapier she’d stolen from her father’s study on her way out wasn’t just decoration, after all.

Pyrrha folded her arms, and for a moment, Weiss thought she’d make some remark, something doubtful—haven’t you lived your whole life being taken care of?