Hello everyone, I am J. Van A, here with The Princess and the Rose! I know that if some people had clicked on this chapter before, there was a different intro talking about OC stories and how this one wasn't one. I decided that since it's almost been two years since the initial release, I would update this.

So, if you're reading this, you might be thinking, 'Man, this story has over 300k words, which is more than a novel. Why would I waste my time reading this?'

…

I don't really have a great response for that. If you choose not to read this fic because it's long, I wouldn't blame you. I'm barely even able to read a fic half that size.

I will tell you this: this fanfic is a medieval-ish slow burn WhiteRose AU. The writing is a bit rough in the beginning because, well, it was two years ago, and my writing wasn't that great (it can still be a bit bad, to be honest).

This started off as a hobby that I barely took seriously, but eventually, with the support of my readers and friends I made on this site, I was able to make this story a passion project worth reading (for the most part).

I hope you enjoy this story as much as I had writing it.

Running, that was all the hooded figure could do as the creatures of grimm were chasing her through the woods. Eventually, the girl could see a field of wheat ahead of her, which meant farmers, and that meant help. Running into the field, the hooded girl ran as fast as she could, hoping that the tall wheat could disguise her, but grimm had excellent sense of smell, managing to stay a few paces behind her.

"Help!" the girl screamed as she ran through the field hearing the grimm chasing after her. She winced as her shoulder hit a scarecrow post, opening the claw marks on her arm that she thought had closed. "Somebody, help!"

She suddenly burst out of the wheat field to the unusual sight of a silver-eyed girl drinking a bottle of milk while resting a large farming scythe on her shoulder.

"Help!" the hooded girl screamed falling to her knees from exhaustion just as a large beowolf burst through the field behind her.

Immediately, the farm hand dropped her bottle of milk and ran towards the hooded girl just in time to hook the beowolf's claws before it could attack the hooded girl. After redirecting the beowolf's claw, she hit it in the face with the back end of the scythe's haft. Then she spun around, cutting the grimm's head clean off.

Another grimm suddenly burst from the field, so she had to quickly cut off its arm before stabbing it in the chest and pulling the blade up, cutting through the creature's chest and neck. Then the girl slashed into the field of wheat, cutting a large arc of the grain, revealing the bottom half of a grimm that was standing there previously.

"Thank you," the hooded girl said just before falling to the ground.

"Ahh!" the girl screamed as she suddenly woke up, throwing the bed covers off herself. Feeling the fabric under her hands, she immediately stopped panicking. "Wait… bed covers?" she asked herself while looking around the room she was in. She could see the room was rather plain with a nightstand next to her and a small bookshelf with a mirror next to a dresser across the room. In the mirror she could see her reflection and noticed clean bandages wrapped around her shoulder.

She then noticed on a chair next to her was a folded up brown cloak under her white outfit. On top of the clothing, she saw her hairpin and necklace next to her jeweled bracelet. 'All of my jewelry is still here,' she thought to herself as she threw back the covers and saw the bandages on her legs.

"Hello?" the girl asked the open room as she placed one foot down on the ground, immediately wincing from the pain of the claw mark on her leg.

The door slowly opened and the farm girl from before walked in carrying a tray of food. "Oh hey, don't get up," the girl told her as she walked over to the bed. "Uncle Qrow said it's surprising that you weren't injured worse, considering the grimm that were chasing you."

"Where am I?" the white-haired girl asked laying back down on the bed as the crimsonette placed the tray of food in front of her.

"You are on the Branwen Farm, the main supplier of grain to the island of patch and some of Vale," the girl said somewhat proudly. The then realized the white-haired girl was blankly staring at her. "Uhh, anyway, you're in my uncle's house. I brought you here after you collapsed, and my uncle cleaned your wounds. He's not here now because he had to run an errand in Vale, so he won't be back in about a week. My name's Ruby Rose, by the way."

"Weiss," she replied looking at the tray of food. On it was a simple piece of beef, lettuce, tomatoes, a bread bun and a glass of milk. "So, uhh. I should be leaving."

"You're in no condition to be traveling," Ruby told her, picking up the clothing on the chair and placing it on the nightstand before sitting down, "and it's already pretty late. So if you left now, you'd just be attacked again."

"Please, I need to go into town as soon as possible," Weiss said remembering her reason for coming to Patch.

"Well, you should spend the night here to avoid getting attacked by grimm. If you'd like, I could help you go into town," Ruby said causing Weiss to sigh, remembering how she got lost in the woods after the grimm started chasing her.

"I guess," she said, "but I don't really think a farm girl should be going to a blacksmith shop if you have to take care of a farm."

"Blacksmith?" Ruby asked having her attention suddenly drawn to the white-haired girl.

"Yes, I came to Patch to get a sword made by the legendary blacksmith, Taiyang Xiao Long," Weiss said causing Ruby to immediately burst in laughter. "What?"

"Legendary. Pfft," Ruby laughed, nearly falling out of her chair. "He's not legendary. He's actually pretty average, and he's also my dad."

"What?!" Weiss exclaimed, nearly knocking the tray of food up. "So you're telling me that a petty farm girl like you, is the daughter of the blacksmith every blacksmith in Atlas compares their work to."

"Yeah, I guess," Ruby said still chuckling a little bit. "He helped me make that scythe I used earlier, and even he said that it was better than most things he could make."

"Then why are you working on this farm when you should be starting your apprenticeship as a blacksmith?" Weiss asked her.

"Well, that's because my sister Yang is my dad's apprentice," Ruby told Weiss nonchalantly, as if it were common knowledge. "Anyway, someone had to help Uncle Qrow on the farm."

"Then have the faunus work on the farm. If you can create that strong of weapons, you could easily make a fortune selling weapons to any king's army," Weiss told her, causing Ruby to release a short-loud laugh.

"Why would I do that? I wouldn't want my weapons to be used to kill people," Ruby said leaning back in her chair. "Anyway, my uncle doesn't use faunus labor. I mean, he hires some faunus, but they work the same of the other farm hands. Now that I think about it, most people on Patch don't abuse faunus labor like some places in Vale or Atlas."

"Then how come you people are able to make so many products for the kingdoms?"

"Well, we just do, I guess," Ruby shrugged then stood up from the chair and headed to the door, stopping just before she left. "Anyway, eat up. I'm sure you're hungry." She then left the room closing the door behind her.

"Dirty peasant food," Weiss said to herself as she pushed the tray away from herself. Immediately, she heard her stomach growl, as if to betray her. Weighing her options, she pulled the tray close and started cutting the beef. "If Winter could see me now."

"Weiss, get out of here!" she heard her mother shout just as the younger girl watched the windows shatter, covering the floor in a thin layer of broken glass. Immediately, she saw two dark figures jump in through the open windows.

"Mother!" Weiss screamed as she watched one of the dark figures draw their blood-red sword before stabbing the older woman in the chest.

She screamed at the sight of watching her mother fall to the floor before turning around and running down the castle hall. Without thinking, she bolted into a large room she recognized as her father's study. Looking around the room for a place to hide, Weiss's eyes were drawn to the large fireplace. She ran over to the fireplace and climbed up the chimney just in time to hide as the study's doors were thrown open.

"Damn! Where is that bitch?!" a male voice shouted while walking through the room. She then heard the man let out a frustrated roar before a nearby suit of armor crashed onto the floor.

"Adam, why are we attacking the castle? The king isn't even here. We should go to Fort Mantle and attack him directly," a girl's voice suggested, walking in front of the fireplace so Weiss could see that the person was facing away from her.

"We don't have enough forces to attack the man's stronghold directly. The White Fang just isn't that big, but there is something else we can do," Adam said to the girl. "We can destroy everything he loves. It will eventually kill him from the inside."

"But don't you think we're just killing too many people? Our enemy is the kin-"

"As long as even a single faunus is enslaved, every Schnee is our enemy!" Adam shouted at her. "Come on, we'll check the other rooms." Weiss then winced as she heard one of her father's bookshelves crash into the floor before hearing the intruders leave.

Nearly an hour had passed since she had hidden herself, but Weiss's arms evenually lost their strength causing her to fall onto the ground. Laying there, she didn't cry at the loss of her mother, nor the fact that the White Fang was out to kill her. All that was going through her head was anger and one name, 'Adam.'

"Aah!" Weiss shouted as she was being shaken awake. In her blind terror her fist swung out and struck the young farm hand.

"Ok, that was… interesting," Ruby grumbled, rubbing her cheek. "I was coming to wake you up, so we have time to get to town before all the stands run out of worthy goods, but when I entered you were mumbling something." Turning around, she started walking towards the door before looking back at her. "So, get changed and meet me by the stables. Also, do you know how to ride a horse?"

So, that was the first chapter of this story. The fateful meeting of Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee.

I hope you click on the next chapter if this piqued your interest, but if not, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter anyway.

I do respond to reviews, even though I didn't start until chapter 9. One of the things I thoroughly enjoy is randomly getting review notifications as a person goes through the chapters and reading their reactions. So, I encourage leaving reviews.

A word of warning, I'm going to be updating these earlier chapters every few days, so if you are binge reading this story, you will hit the point where the quality of writing drops. That would be because I hadn't gotten around to fixing it at that time. On chapters I edit, I only plan to fix any spelling errors and bad sentence structures. I may edit some scenes to get rid of plot holes, but otherwise you won't be missing anything.

Have a nice day,

-J. Van A