Compulsively, Weiss found themself running their tongue over their teeth, Aura healing any cuts that resulted from the action; blue-and-blind eyes fixed on the red frame of Urbiaās glasses. Finding themself here⦠Perhaps in another life, Klein had been the one to help them escape the Manor, finding an unscrupulous pilot of a cargo ship to get to Mistral and find Winter. In this life, that wasnāt the way things had played out. Instead of Klein, whose help would have come without even a momentās thought of compensation, it had been Whitley who found them. Maybe that was better, and maybe it was worse, but it was what had happened.
So, a bargain had been struck.
In exchange for information ā how to leave the Manor unseen, how to get to Mantle just as undetected, the contact information for someone Jacques āknewā, and more ā the youngest Schnee sibling had asked Weiss for total and unrestricted access to things the middle child had no use for (mainly any of their dresses without stupidly revealing necklines, and their cosmetics). Whitley had even tossed in a suit or three, seeming oddly inclined to āsweeten the dealā, as it were. The half-blind Hunter couldnāt help thinking that the accord benefited Whitley far more, but done was done.
Weiss was here, in a suit sans jacket that had belonged to their younger sibling an hour or so ago, and it felt like the world was tipping on its axis. The oddest thing about the whole interaction with Whitley, had been the unexpected embrace the two had shared, standing in the opening of the library passage⦠but Weiss couldnāt handle more than one world-altering event at a time. They could deal with it⦠Eventually. Being who and what they were, the shorter Faunus spoke flatly, although the flapping of their hands probably (hopefully?) softened the blankness a bit.
They had set down their suitcase at some point ā which contained the bare essentials, dust, and everything needed to care for Myrtenaster ā in order to facilitate said stimming with their hands. āā¦Youāre a shark, too.ā Another compulsive teeth lick, this time exposing the jagged, serrated points. āI was always told we were hunted to extinctionā¦ā Far too lucrative a commodity to protect ā hunted for eyes, and teeth, and scales, and fins, and blood. The kind of Faunus whose people floated in red waters, bodies sold in parts. Frowning and rocking side-to-side just a little, another stim to accompany their flapping hands, it also came with the ever-present awkwardness that accompanied them ā defined them, some would say ā on land.
Lanky and wiry, bony and far-too-thin, even despite standing at 4ā10ā without heels. A third lick of their teeth, and Weiss half sighed, the deep breath fluttering the gills at either side of their throat; completely uncovered to flex in the open air for the first time in at least ten years. āā¦I probably shouldnāt be surprised Jacques systematically lied to me for my entire life,ā the smaller shark muttered. Although, even Beaconās library had said about the same⦠Not the point. āWhat do you want from me?ā Blunt, certainly, but after the past few months⦠Weiss would probably spend a long while just relearning how to breathe.
The joys of being retraumatized.