At last, after 4 months of waiting, I can finally start posting this story! I kept pushing it back so much...

A/N: I'm calling this the Cabin AU. Faunus exist, but huntsman and huntresses aren't prominent figures, and Grimm aren't very much of an issue. Winter is an older sister here.

EDIT: Please note this fic was created long before we knew much of Winter, or anything of Whitley. Hence, he is not in this story, and Winter may be OOC.

I want to dedicate it to some of my friends and people I admire on tumblr: kokkoro, noxypep, dashingicecream, bonpyro, v4xlukamegurine, and a-ravvy (happy birthday!).
And also a big thanks to princessdemoness & dasaethewulf.

I hope everyone enjoys!

If you like my work, you can support me on P-a-t-r-e-o-n as Kiria Alice!

Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.

Strangers I Know

Chapter 1. Through The Woods

Winters were never kind in Vale.

They were always dangerously frigid - the most deadly and deleterious winters that any of the kingdoms experienced.

Ruthless.

Brutal.

Hiking through the forests was tempting suicide, and everyone knew it. Dozens of unlucky or otherwise errant travelers and unattended children perished of frostbite every year. Frozen bodies were discovered beneath mounds of snow, some never revealed until the thaw.

The people feared the winter and tended to keep themselves inside, especially when it snowed.

But there was one sole benefit of the coldest season.

It was the only season in which a certain herb could grow, in dire contrast to the laws of nature. The people called it the frost root. It wasn't particularly rare, but it was no easy feat to collect – a harrowing journey through the winter woods could prove to be nothing short of perilous.

Desperate men would join together in bands to brave the forests on sunnier days, when it wasn't likely to snow. Together, they would hunt for the herbs to gather and bring back to sell in the village market.

A bushel of the herb could earn a hundred lien due to its medicinal stems, so it was understandable why people perked up at the prospect of more or less free money growing out of the ground.

Collecting the plant seemed to be more of a poor man's task, typically for Faunus. The bourgeoisie and upper-class villagers often made enough of a paycheck during the warmer seasons to hold them over through the winter. Many of them continued to work or set up shop even in the colder months, only closing and saving stock on the harshest of days.

However, there was one man who could never bring himself to pass up an opportunity to get an extra lien to line his pocket.

Schnee was a well-known name throughout the village, and notably one of the wealthiest men in all the kingdom. He was famous for the quality products he sold, ranging from food to clothing, many of which were sometimes the difference between life and death for some less fortunate families.

He was also notorious for disliking Faunus, and though he did sell to them, it was always his oldest cloth or stalest produce. He was very begrudging toward them, and wasn't afraid to demonstrate as much.

But those were just the distasteful things the rest of the village knew about Weiss' father; what none of them were aware of was the fact that he took advantage of his youngest daughter's unique abilities.

Weiss had been born with an aura that - when activated - made her more or less immune to the cold, an arguably handier ability that other people didn't have. Once she was over the age of ten, he would send her out every winter on her own, sometimes daily, to collect as much frost root as possible.

He always had the greatest stock of that plant to sell, and it was all thanks to Weiss, though only he and her elder sister were aware of it all.

Winter didn't like sending Weiss out alone, but Weiss refused to let her come along, lest she catch a cold or worse. All Winter could do was make sure her father didn't force her little sister to go out during storms, and to always ensure she was back before nightfall.

It was the eighth year since Weiss had started going out alone in the winter to collect the plant, and she had already gone out several times within the past few weeks. She'd gathered a fine collection of them last week in hopes her father would let her stay home an extra day or two at present.

But evidently, there was a great need for the herbs this year, and her father was making quite a lot of money in bumping up the price and still managing to sell almost all of his stock.

"There's a cold going around," he told her. "We're going to need as much as possible, so get your boots and coat on. You can stay home tomorrow, alright?"

Weiss simply nodded to him before crossing the room to open her closet. After so long, she didn't really mind going to fetch the herbs much anymore. She knew they helped people who were sick, and in turn it helped her father with expenses.

Gathering the frost root made Weiss feel useful, as she wasn't very strong physically. She couldn't help out with other chores like Winter could, so doing this always made Weiss feel like she wasn't a burden.

She slipped her thick, light blue coat over her gray wool sweater, buttoning it up all the way to her neck. She left her hair down and kept it inside her coat so it could shield the back of her neck from biting winds.

Crouching down, she tied her snow boots' laces securely around her ankles, stuffing the ends of her pants into them until she was certain no chilly air could slip through.

She stood and headed for the door, catching a glance from her father where he stood warming his hands near the fireplace. He nodded to her and gave a smile, one Weiss was used to, but felt had lost meaning with its frequency.

"I'll collect as much as I can," she promised, turning away.

"Good girl."

But just before she could open the cabin door, Weiss heard a rush of footsteps coming up from behind her.

"Hold it!"

Winter skidded to a halt behind her sister, taking Weiss by the shoulders and turning her around. Weiss looked up into her sister's dark azure eyes just as Winter pulled a white scarf from behind her back.

"You almost forgot this." She wrapped it around Weiss' shoulders, tucking it into the front of her jacket so it wouldn't fly away on a breeze. "There's supposed to be a storm coming tomorrow, so make sure you're back a little early tonight, okay? Just to be safe."

"I will." Weiss nodded, savoring the brief warmth of her sister's tight hug. She didn't feel cold when her aura was activated, but she did still feel warmth at all times, and she rather liked it.

Winter pulled away, and Weiss turned back to the door, activating her aura just before she opened it and stepped outside.

"Be safe!"

Winter's call was the last thing she heard before the door shut behind her.

Despite the grievances of others, Weiss liked the village during the wintertime. Sounds seemed to be enhanced, and the air was constantly crisp. There was a charm about seeing the cabins blanketed in thin layers of snow – and there was a simplicity in the colorlessness, something that the other seasons couldn't produce.

The spring was too bright, the summer too warm, the autumn too colorful. Weiss liked the stillness of winter, the beauty of the snow, the thrilling, quiet power it had over humanity.

In moderation, snow made people smile and play, and in above-average amounts, it made them grunt and set to work. In excess, the snow made people fearful, made them shiver, sometimes even cry.

And yet, Weiss couldn't feel it; she didn't have to.

She had gone out a few times without activating her aura simply to discover what it was like to feel what the rest of them felt. But her father had scolded her, telling her not to risk herself, since he needed her to gather herbs for him. He always forbade her from going out in the cold otherwise, and grumbled at her to save her aura only for when he needed her to use it. So naturally, Weiss obeyed and eschewed the unnecessary usage of her aura for the sake of avoiding a lecture.

Still, Weiss found that the only time she ever really got to enjoy the world was when she was out working for her father, so she did the best she could to appreciate everything.

Her family's cabin wasn't far from the forest, so she didn't pass by many other homes before she reached it.

There were only a few other people outdoors, and Weiss offered a small smile to those she made eye contact with. Most of them smiled back; they knew they should be kind to the daughter of the most successful merchant in the village.

In a way, Weiss was the sole person who kept some of the village's people alive during the winter with her dedicated treks through the woods to collect frost root.

There was a path she always took, one that still had the indentations of her footprints from her last visit several days prior. She slipped her boots into place as she walked now, taking advantage of her previous toils to lessen the stress of the present one.

The times when it snowed and covered her tracks, she would need to make the imprints anew, and that always slowed her down. She wanted to get today's task done with quickly, knowing there would be a warm supper Winter prepared for her to come home to.

It took about half an hour for her to reach the clearing where the herbs grew in their most plentiful bushels, and as she walked, Weiss did as she often did to pass the time. She let out her voice in a song, soft and clear like the tune of a tiny silver bell. Her breath rose up before her, swirling in thick white puffs before drifting up and dissipating. Her words became parts of the forest, echoing for brief, transient moments before they were embedded in the barks of the trees.

The forest was shrouded in tranquility, and the addition of Weiss' voice was less of an obstruction and more of a welcomed aria.

Before long, she spotted a herd of deer in a nearby grove and paused to watch them. People had used to think that deer ate the stems of the frost root, but Weiss knew firsthand that they avoided the plants, probably due to their strong scent.

Weiss observed the animals for a moment, making sure to keep her hands in her pockets; she'd realized too late that she'd forgotten her gloves back home.

That was one thing that made her continue on her way with a bit of a quicker pace.

The second thing was the light flurry that started to drift down.

At first she'd thought it was just the top layer of snow in the trees shedding in the breeze, but Weiss soon recognized the persistence of this snowfall. It wasn't wispy nor was it a mere sprinkle, but this was something that promised to pick up before long.

She remembered what Winter had said about there being a storm on the way, and Weiss assumed that was why she saw no smaller animals today – they were probably already hiding in their burrows.

She stopped singing simply to save her breath and concentrate instead on walking.

Icicles clinked together overhead and Weiss hurried on; an incident with the frozen daggers five years ago had given her the scar over her left eye.

It was several minutes later when she finally reached her destination, the clearing where the herbs grew most bountifully.

But Weiss noticed the worrying lack of plants right away.

There weren't many left, and there were significantly fewer now than there had been upon her visit a few days ago. She quickly came to the conclusion that a group of the villagers must have come in since then and ravaged the clearing. Weiss knew that whatever stalks had been left behind were crucial to letting new bunches grow again.

The snow continued to fall as she walked around the perimeter of the clearing, trying to be frugal with the plants. She only took what she needed to, well-aware that it was necessary to leave behind as many roots as possible.

In the end, Weiss only had three stalks in her hands, hands that were red and scratched with white from the cold. She didn't feel the cold, but her body still experienced it.

The second she got home and let her aura rest, she'd be shivering for hours to come.

But Weiss couldn't put the plants into her pockets, lest the stems bend and snap, consequently losing their vital juices. She needed to hold them outside of her pockets, and so she unraveled her scarf and wrapped it around her hands, keeping the herbs standing tall where she grasped them between her fingers.

A wave of guilt washed over her when she realized she'd be taking home such a pitiful harvest to her expectant father; he was going to let her rest tomorrow, so she'd wanted to bring him a worthy supply.

She was just turning back the way she had come - where the snow had already started filling in her footprints - when she recalled a distant memory from several years ago.

It had been the first year her father had brought her out to collect the herbs, when she had just enough control over her aura to be able to keep it activated over long periods of time.

That had been one of the days her father had accompanied her, and similarly, there had been a lack of plants at the time.

The memory repeatedly tried to slip away, but Weiss clung to it, trying to remember where it led...

Her father had shown her a path... to another spot where the frost root grew. But there was little she could grasp from the hazy images other than a few fleeting details before the memory escaped her completely.

All she could remember was that this other clearing was near a river, but nothing more.

Weiss closed her eyes and tried to listen for the sounds of running water, but all she heard was silence, not even the chirping of birds.

That was truly unusual, but at the time Weiss didn't think anything of the lack of wildlife.

Then, she remembered the deer she'd seen earlier.

Surely they'd need to drink...

She came to the decision that she would search for a few minutes, but if she found nothing would head back home right away.

Holding her bundled hands close to her chest, she set off in the opposite direction of the village, following the path of the deer.

The animals were long gone by now, but she could still make out very slight imprints of their hooves, though most had already been filled in by the snow.

She walked for a few minutes, slowed significantly by the mounds of snow that were up to her calves, painting her boots white; there were no previous footprints here for her to step into, and it was making things rather difficult for the girl.

She wasn't exactly the strongest person in Vale, and endurance wasn't on her list of best qualities either - not under such extreme conditions, anyway. She knew her ears had probably gone red by now, and her hair was icing over. Her mouth was dry and throat parched, but she knew even chewing on a mouthful of snow would do her more harm than good.

Weiss paused to catch her breath, glancing up at the gray sky to find the snowfall wasn't about to let up anytime soon. This was probably just the beginnings of tomorrow's storm.

Her heart sank, and she knew she'd have to turn back.

She gasped in one more breath, feeling a numbness in her chest that sent a flare of alarm through her; she recognized it as one of the first signs that she'd need to give her aura a rest soon.

A sigh passed through her lips, and she turned away.

But she never took a step in that direction.

A small sound reached her ears, and she made sure she was standing absolutely still to ensure it wasn't herself.

It was a very faint splash.

Weiss turned toward it and hurried off, trying to keep her mouth closed as to not irritate her throat and lungs with the frigid air.

It was a few apprehensive minutes later when she came to a stop at last.

Before her was a small creek, most of which had been frozen over, crystalized with thick ice. A small portion of the ice had been cracked, likely by a thirsty animal, and the blue water lapped gently against the snow banks to the sides.

Weiss felt her lips curl up into a smile.

She'd made it this far, now she just needed to find the herbs...

She veered away from the stream, unwilling to walk too close – with her luck, she'd lose her footing and fall in.

This was unfamiliar territory now, and she was starting to slow down; she could feel her aura starting to strain a bit, and her vision was blurring on occasion. But she couldn't give up now.

She pushed onward for a few more minutes, huffing breaths through the falling snowflakes.

It was an incredible feeling when her efforts finally paid off, but it was a feeling she'd soon find was only temporary.

There was another, smaller clearing ahead of her, but it was lined with clumps of the frost root she sought.

The stalks here were much longer than those of the plants in the other clearing, and she could guess that no one else knew about this little secret spot, or if they did, only rarely ventured this far into the woods.

She bent down to pick a few more stalks, deciding just to take back a humble load today after all; in a few days once the storm had passed, she'd come back and take as much as she could carry and relish her father's expression when he saw her spoils.

But for now, she settled for only twelve stalks, holding them tightly in her wrapped-up palms. The strong scent of the stems filled her lungs, and along with it was more numbness.

The snow was falling harder by the time she'd finished.

It was time to go home.

The snow was dragging her boots down by this point, and every step was harder to lift than the last had been. She could feel the glacial winds pushing against her, even though she couldn't feel its chill, and it caused her to sway unsteadily.

The journey back toward the river was painstakingly slow, but her pace was only one of many problems Weiss now realized she faced.

A downward glance resulted in a tendril of fear coiling around her heart.

Her footprints had been fully filled in by the falling snow, or the breeze pushing other layers in. She looked up in front of her, but these parts of the forest didn't look familiar; she hadn't been here for eight years.

She was dizzy. She couldn't remember which direction led back to home.

There was a throbbing beneath her coat, and Weiss knew she needed to give her aura a rest.

But if she did that here, out in the middle of the forest amidst a small blizzard...

She tried, just for the sake of letting her aura rest for a moment. Only for a second, she suppressed it.

She yelped aloud at the results.

It was unspeakably cold.

It must've been far below freezing by now, surely nothing that a human being could brave by any means, especially without the assistance of shelter. She felt every shiver that tore through her, the suffocating cold and the consuming numbness.

Immediately, Weiss called her aura back into effect and the cold vanished, but the straining pulse aching throughout her body did not.

She didn't know what to do.

But she knew for certain she wasn't going to make it back home.

And yet, she was a Schnee, and stubbornness ran in the blood. She wasn't going to give up until she had absolutely no other options.

Swallowing down the fear, she clutched the herbs and scarf to her chest as she chose a direction, veering off from the river. She knew if she simply continued going she would get out eventually and more likely than not end up back in the village or somewhere near it.

But distance and time weren't working in her favor right now.

There was an unsurmountable enervation that weighed her down with each new step, making every breath an endeavor to take in and release.

Her vision had already clouded over, making the world seem even whiter than it already was. The sky above her had melted into dark gray, leading her to believe the storm her sister had warned her about was coming earlier than expected.

A particularly strong gust of wind crashed into her, and Weiss stumbled, her left side slamming against the nearest tree. She scrambled for balance, knowing that if she fell now she'd never get up.

By now it was almost impossible to walk. The snow was up to her shins, and every step she took was using energy she couldn't afford to spend.

She glanced around again, but nothing looked familiar – none of the shapes of the trees were ones she recognized, and she had no landmarks to go by.

She'd...

She'd done all she could, right?

She... deserved a rest now...

Her head rolled forward as her eyes closed, but a spark of defiance forced them open again.

She shook her head, and just that was disorienting. But as she did so, she caught sight of a shape off in the distance, a bit behind her current position.

Squinting past the snowflakes, she tried to focus on it.

It was large and appeared to be stationary, colored like the trees but stretching horizontally rather than vertically.

Which meant it was made of logs.

She'd never heard of a cabin out here in this forest before. No one had never spoken of it, and she'd certainly never seen it before.

That's because I've never come this way, she reminded herself. I must be hopelessly lost...

Or worse - hallucinating. She'd heard about similar situations before, but with the desert, the oasis that came into the vision of those poor souls who were losing their minds.

With the way her head kept spinning and her body shaking, Weiss didn't think she was too far off, in a sense.

The cabin – if that was even what it was – was still so far away, and she knew she'd never make it that far.

But... I'm a Schnee... we're stubborn... Won't give up until the end...

With those thoughts in mind, she directed herself toward the blurred image of the cabin.

Her steps were terribly slow and small, each one taking her about twenty seconds to complete and requiring a break afterward.

She'd been trying not to breathe through her mouth all this time, lest her lungs freeze over faster, but one simple inhale through her lips led to every one after that being the same way. Each breath was needy, and she sucked them in deeply, and even with the last shreds of her aura in activation, she could feel the way her lungs trembled, just as badly as the rest of her was.

But it was incredible how far the sheer adrenaline and willpower brought such a physically inept girl.

She could tell the cabin was real – that was how close she got.

It didn't keep moving further away from her, but stayed in place, growing in size and enhancing in detail as she neared.

She was only two dozen or so yards away when she fell.

She wasn't sure if her boot had gotten caught on something, or if that had simply been the last of her strength, but Weiss tumbled forward into the snow, rolling once to lay partially on her side.

The snow threatened to pile up on top of her, and she was helpless and immobile now, forced to wonder if she'd freeze or suffocate first.

Both terrified her.

Everything terrified her now.

A sob escaped her, but her throat was too dry to produce much sound.

She felt her depleting aura slipping beyond her control, and the cold seeping in by the second, curling icy claws around her pounding heart.

She was hopelessly helpless, and bitterly alone.

Everything was white.

Everything was cold.

There was only one small bit of warmth out of it all, and that was the brief roll of the tears down her cheeks as her eyelids fell shut.

But it was only seconds before those froze over as well.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed chapter 1. See you next week!

Ch 2 preview: Winters were tough sometimes, but with experience, she'd learned simply to take them easy. She'd build up her stock and supplies over the rest of the year so that during the winter she rarely even needed to step foot outside, save the necessary trips into the village to get to market.

But if there was anything Blake had learned from the world in her life of seclusion, it was to obey nature and take things easy every once in a while.

Especially when there was a raging snowstorm outside her windows.

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