A/N: This was from a series of oneshots based on a prompt from one of the whiterose discords I'm in. They're all posted on AO3 under TheGreatWeissShark /works/24222874/chapters/58358428 Please give the other chapters a read and support the other amazing hard working authors who worked on this.
P.S It's not explicitly stated, but this AU is an old west AU, cowboys and dragons y'all
Prompt: Monsters
When Weiss Schnee meets Ruby Rose for the first time, the younger girl is in chains. It's peculiar to say the least, the thick unforgiving chains rattle as she walks, but when she sees Weiss, she smiles. Weiss is told to keep away, that the beast inside such a cute form is contagious, and the heiress wonders what these great big children who masquerade as grown men could possibly have to be afraid of in this seventeen year old girl.
The townspeople keep Ruby locked away most of the time, and it's not until Weiss herself turns twenty that she's told why. Apparently the townspeople believe that the beast within her thrives on sunlight, and without it, the monster will starve. It's preposterous really. Locking a young girl in darkness to starve a metaphorical monster inside of her? Insanity.
Halfway through her twentieth year, Weiss is escorted to Ruby's cell, and she starts to see what exactly could be so dangerous about her. Ruby's grown in the last year, now the picture of young adulthood, save for her sunken cheeks and pale skin. Her wrists are still shackled, sunken into a corner of her cell, she perks up when she sees Weiss enter. All at once she stands, stumbling a bit, and staggers to the bars of her cell.
"Weiss!" She whispers, excitement thrumming in her tone. Heavy silver eyes twinkle in the darkness, and Weiss herself feels her heartbeat thunder in her chest. Ruby's taller now, a head above Weiss at least, with longer hair than Weiss remembers. She nods in response, holding herself back from moving closer to the thick iron bars. "I knew you'd come! The moment I saw you I knew!"
The silver eyed prisoner is nearly bouncing in her cell, the chains at her wrist and throat jingle as she moves. "Why are you happy about this? I'm your new guard." Weiss straightens her back, making herself taller as she approaches the bars fully. "I'm here to make sure you don't get out." The silver eyed captive only smiles brighter.
"I know what you're meant to do, Weiss."
It takes three weeks for Weiss to let her guard down. She's stationed at the door to the cell, and rather than take her normal place outside the general room, she decides to move inside. Ruby is overjoyed by the decision, grinning from ear to ear at Weiss' presence. They say nothing. Weiss simply turns on the radio on her side of the bars and pulls out a book. Things continue on like that for three months, with Ruby excitedly smiling at Weiss, and Weiss herself ignoring it.
The next change to their normal is Weiss' doing as well. She storms in on a particularly rainy day, in a foul mood. Ruby's smile is somber, but still brightly directed in Weiss' direction. She says nothing, content to sit under her only window as the rain trickles through the bars.
"What are you always smiling at!?" Weiss finally snaps, turning on Ruby like a cornered animal. "You're always smiling at me! Like I'm going to make this better for you! I'm not!" She's shouting, but they both know no one can hear. They're far from the main town, and anyone in the area wouldn't care anyway.
"Seeing you makes this easier for me, Weiss." The statement is simple, plain, it makes Weiss' heart stutter with the way it's spoken. Soft and delicate, like a piece of paper thin glass, something easily broken.
"How?" It's a croak as Weiss staggers into her chair, she watches Ruby shift in her shackles, and for the first time thinks of how it feels to have the cool steel around her neck and wrists.
"You know, I used to hate the rain." Her smile is rueful, like she regrets her decision. "Now I only get to experience the outside through the rain." Ruby stands, walking awkwardly towards the barred window on the other side of her cell. The chain and shackle around her neck grows taught, and when it finally reaches its full length she staggers. "I can smell the outside on you too, Weiss."
The statement is punctuated with another somber smile that makes Weiss' breath catch. "So you only-"
"No." Ruby reaches a hand out to feel the rain fully on her finger tips. "You're beautiful, Weiss." Every utterance of her name from dry chapped lips sends Weiss' heart into her throat. "Just seeing you makes my day more lovely."
A dower mood settles over them as Ruby moves back to her normal corner, the rain still flickers against her skin, but now she can watch the clouds moving across the stormy sky.
"Why do they have you locked in here?" Her question is quiet against the silence of the room.
Ruby doesn't answer, she stays silent, watching the rain. Weiss thinks that's all the answer she'll get, but Ruby turns to her, and her silver eyes almost turn white in the darkened room. For the first time she feels actual fear around Ruby.
They don't speak of the event again, sticking to quiet conversation, or opinions on the radio. Weiss learns Ruby had a family before being captured, maybe still does, and that they were quite close. Ruby learns much more about Weiss. The way she's treated at home, and the way her father talks to her. The heiress may not be in chains, but they're both prisoners in their own right.
Three more months pass before anything else changes, but when Weiss storms into the cell chamber with heavy tears in her eyes she sees the white in Ruby's again.
"What happened?" Something in Ruby's voice pulls the answer from her, thick and urgent.
"My father."
"What did he do?" It's nearly a growl and Weiss feels that foreign fear trickle through her chest again.
"He wants to marry me off to some idiot a town over."
The cell gets quiet, and Ruby stops looking at Weiss, like she can feel the fear flicker through her. "What do you want, Weiss?"
Weiss watches Ruby, still the picture of a captive chained and locked behind bars. She thinks about another life, one where she'd met Ruby under different circumstances. Would they be friends? Enemies? Lovers? What would it be like to be lovers with Ruby? Would the thing inside her spread to Weiss? Or would it eat her alive first? Her thoughts swim in the silence of the room, and when she finally looks up Ruby's staring at her again. Silver-white eyes watch her unmoving, still waiting for an answer.
"What do I want?" Chains jingle as Ruby moves closer to the bars of her cage, and nods. "I want… Freedom."
Energy roars through the cage and Weiss feels her fear spike. When she sets her sight on Ruby there's something different about the silver eyes she's gotten to know. "I can give you that." Ruby's voice is hollow, an echo beyond sound. "But if I do, you'll be labeled a monster, like me." There's sorrow in her statement, but Weiss can't find it in herself to feel the same. Freedom was freedom, and freedom with Ruby, well that sounded amazing.
"Anything." It's breathless, and as she says the word she can see horns grow from within Ruby's messy red hair. Her shoulders grow broader, and her limbs thicken as rough scales coat her skin. With a simple flex she breaks the chains effortlessly, sending metal across the floor, before wrapping clawed hands around the bars of the cage and bending.
When the dust clears, Ruby is almost all scales, with big black wings flexing from the expanse of her back. Her face has lengthened into a snout, but her eyes are still the glitter silver-white that Weiss remembers.
Her voice comes out much deeper, but Ruby reaches a hand out for Weiss. "Let me free you from this prison." It's less a request and more a statement, but Weiss nods regardless.
"Let's be monsters together."