Ego

The Battle of Fort Castle is commonly believed to be the turning point in the war. The Human Allied Forces, under the command of General Lagune, attempted to take the fort at night and were soundly defeated—

"Ugh...so bored..."

Ice-blue eyes peered over the top of a history textbook, attempting to convey their owner's displeasure. The sight of those pale eyes narrowed in anger or annoyance was often enough to send whoever found themselves under that gaze running for the hills.

Unfortunately, the two latest annoyances to come into Weiss Schnee's life had proven to be entirely immune to her glares.

"Yang."

Weiss's blonde teammate, seated across the table from her in Beacon's library, looked up and met the icy eyes with her own lilac ones. She smiled.

"Yup?"

"Why are you here," Weiss stated flatly.

It wasn't exactly a question. Weiss knew that Yang was ostensibly in the library to do additional research for her overdue essay on the Faunus War. Professor Oobleck had graciously—perhaps foolishly, in Weiss's opinion—given Yang an extension on the deadline after the blonde had concocted a completely nonsensical excuse about how ninjas had set her essay on fire...or something like that. Weiss hadn't bothered to pay attention.

Weiss, of course, had finished the essay several days before it was due and turned it in on time. The nature of the subject, however, intrigued her. Her family had been heavily involved in the war. General Lagune himself had been a Schnee, though the Schnee patriarch had disowned him due to his astoundingly foolish mistakes in the Battle of Fort Castle.

"I need to finish my essay, of course," Yang answered, not really understanding the question's rhetorical nature or simply choosing to ignore it.

"And the reason why you're not doing so is...?" Weiss prompted, hoping the blonde would realize that she actually had a reason to be in the library. Or, perhaps, she would realize she had no reason to be there and promptly depart. The heiress didn't particularly care which.

"I'm taking a break," Yang said with a shrug.

"From what?" Weiss retorted as she started to read again. "You haven't actually done anything except annoy me."

—soundly defeated by the Faunus. General Lagune failed to take into account the near-perfect night vision that most subspecies of Faunus possess, and so was unprepared for their swift and sudden counterattack—

"Fine then. What do you think I should do?"

Weiss lowered her book once more and glared.

"Anything other than complaining about boredom," Weiss retorted disdainfully. "Work on your essay. Read a book. Go elsewhere. Go annoy someone else. Get a haircut, for all I care. Just stop bothering me."

...Silence. Blessed silence. Weiss smiled and went back to her book.

—swift and sudden counterattack, which resulted in his capture and the deaths of most of his troops. This major loss was the first of many for the Humans, as—

Weiss stopped reading once again. Her spine was prickling, and she had the distinct sensation that she was being watched. She lowered her novel and almost leaped back in shock when she saw Yang's face barely a foot away. The blonde's lilac eyes were wide, her jaw completely slack as she stared.

"Y-Yang!" Weiss sputtered, remembering at the last moment to keep her voice down to avoid disturbing the silence in the library. "What on Remnant are you doing?"

"You..." Yang murmured, still staring at the heiress. "You said..."

"What is wrong with you?"

"H-H-Haircut?!" Yang exclaimed.

Weiss stared for a long moment. Yang stared back. Finally, the heiress slowly lowered her face into her hands.

"You and your sister are ridiculous."

"No, what's ridiculous is the idea that these luscious locks should be..." Yang stroked her untamed blonde mane as she struggled to come up with the right word, "should be pruned! Like some kind of...bush!"

"It's just hair, Yang," Weiss felt compelled to remind her. Closing her book and resigning herself to reading it some other time.

Yang appeared to be struck speechless again.

"Just...hair? Just hair?" Now Yang was on a roll. Weiss wondered if she should just get up and leave the blonde to her hysterics. "I'll have you know that my hair is gorgeous."

Weiss sighed.

"You're just like Ruby with Crescent Rose," she muttered under her breath. "I can definitely see the family resemblance there."

"Naw, what Ruby has with Crescent Rose is...creepy," Yang said with a laugh, her mood changing almost instantly. "It's not like that. I just take pride in my good looks. And my hair is usually the first thing people notice about me."

"So you fly into an unstoppable rage every time someone yanks out even a single hair because you're, what, a narcissist?"

"Oh, like you're one to talk," Yang retorted. "You're even more proud of your appearance than I am."

"I am a Schnee," Weiss growled. "Of course I'm proud."

"Right," Yang sighed, "sometimes I forget why you try so hard to be all prim and proper. Must be nice, being rich and getting whatever you want."

"It's not like that at all," Weiss stressed.

"So here's a question I've been wanting to ask," Yang went on, not caring to listen to Weiss's protest. "What are you doing here? Why are you even training to be a Huntress at all? You're rich! You have everything you could ever want. You're set for life! Why are you here instead, tormenting my sister and being a huge pain in the ass?"

"Money can't buy everything!" the Schnee heiress hissed, so annoyed with Yang that she couldn't help but speak her mind. "It can't buy strength. It can't always buy loyalty. My family is rich and wealthy and powerful and that means we have giant targets painted on our backs. Do you want to know why I chose to train as a Huntress? It's because those who sell their strength for money cannot ever be trusted. Security, body guards, even soldiers...anyone could decide one day that working for me isn't worth what they're paid. But my own strength, my own skill, will never turn against me."

Yang, who had been planning to continue annoying her sister's irritable partner, was brought up short by that admission.

"You have no idea what it's like to be a Schnee," Weiss concluded. "You have no idea what kind of pressure I'm under every day, the stress I have to deal with. My father runs our family like he runs our business, and he does not tolerate the weak."

Finally becoming aware of what she was saying, Weiss clamped her mouth shut and tried not to blush. She hadn't meant to reveal as much as she did, and certainly hadn't meant to mention her father at all.

The silence stretched on as the blonde stared at her.

"So...we were talking about hair, right?" Yang said awkwardly.

"Right," Weiss agreed smoothly, grateful for the abrupt change in topic even though she tried not to show it. "I still think you're a narcissist."

"Says the girl who spends at least as much time in front of the mirror as I do."

"As I said," Weiss retorted, "I am a Schnee, anything less than perfection—"

"What surprises me is that there's one thing about you that isn't perfect," Yang interrupted, "and you don't seem to want to fix it."

Weiss's thoughts immediately went to the scar across her left eye. She had received it from a gigantic sword-wielding automaton during what should have been a training match but ended up becoming a no-holds-barred fight to the death. She had chosen to keep it, to let it serve as a reminder not to make such a critical mistake as underestimating her opponent ever again.

"Oh?" Weiss murmured, trying to act nonchalant. "What is it?"

"Your hair."

The heiress blinked, filled with a strange mixture of confusion and relief. She wouldn't have to explain why she'd kept the scar, but...

"My hair?" Weiss repeated, unsure whether to be bemused or worried about Yang's Cheshire-cat grin.

"Your ponytail," Yang clarified. "If you're so proud of your perfection or whatever you want to call it, why is your ponytail always off-center?"

Weiss rolled her eyes.

"I'm taking a break," she parroted Yang's earlier words. "I can't do something like this at home, so..."

Weiss abruptly stopped speaking again, wondering if somebody had spiked the iced tea she'd consumed with her lunch. There was no other rational way to explain why she was revealing so much personal information to her least-favorite teammate.

Yang smirked at her, as if she knew exactly what Weiss was thinking.

Oddly enough, Weiss couldn't find it in herself to be annoyed. In her teammate's lilac eyes, she saw something dangerously akin to approval.

She scoffed at such a ridiculous notion and reopened her book to continue reading. A smile appeared on her face without her say-so, and she hoped that the large textbook adequately hid it. She had an image to maintain, after all.

A/N: So I set out to write a oneshot about Yang and Weiss being, if not friendly, then at least civil towards one another. Which is hard. How to put them in a room together without it ending in tears, bloodshed, and millions of dollars of property damage? Especially since I wanted to set it some time before The Stray.

The answer? Hair.

So I started writing a silly oneshot about hair. And ended up writing a not-so-silly oneshot with character development and hints of Freezerburn, which still baffles me because it's the only Team-RWBY-centric pairing that I have absolutely no interest in but hey, it all worked out somehow.

I welcome criticism so do please speak up and let me know what you think.

There's two more oneshots to come in the Bonds series! If you haven't read the previous three...you should! Especially since they all take place in (roughly) chronological order, though the next one I write will actually be an exception, as it's set several years before RWBY.