wanderer's lullaby

They arrived back at the house a little while later and saw Yang unloading the groceries and organising them. Winter felt a twinge of guilt, looking at the young girl taking care of everything by herself. But Yangwasright; there was really nothing that she could do to help as she didn’t know the system. Everyone had their own ways of organising things and she really wouldn’t have wanted anybody to get inherway in her apartment. Still, seeing a little girl taking care of all of this… It really hurt. All she could think of was Weiss, alone, in Schnee manor and being forced to do so much by herself without her big sister there to help her. “I think I need to go talk to somebody, Qrow,” she said. He blinked but nodded. “All right then. I’ll be here when you want me.” “Very well.” With that, she withdrew upstairs and to Summer’s room. She pulled out her scroll and called Kali, asking for a three-way call between them and Sienna. “Hey, what’s up?” Sienna asked. “Well… I want to light a fire under the Valian government. They need to understand how important it is for me to get citizenship earlyespeciallywith our plans for Atlas.” She still did trust that Kali and Sienna would be able to get at least Weiss into her care. “You’re planning something, aren’t you?” She saw Sienna’s ears flip down. “Not without consulting you first. I don’t want to risk what could potentially happen to Weiss. But Ineedthe government to seewhyI’m here and looking for the protections program as aSchnee.I’ve started applying, but as is true with most bureaucracy, it’s cumbersome. If I light a fire beneath them…they’ll hopefully give priority.” She just… She absolutelyneededto be able to get Weiss and her citizenship. Sheneededto be able to support her little sister. The general was giving her a stipend which would stave off the need to dip into her savings account for quite some time, but still… She wanted to contribute to the household somehow. Then again, after she got Weiss, she would need to be her sister’s caretaker, possibly her brother’s too, depending on what the courts decided. She couldn’t deal with the thought of Weiss being left in Schnee manor longer than necessary. She couldeasilybe betrothed even if the marriage wouldn’t legally happen for a few more years… Shehadto protect her little sister and get her into her custody. “Would you mind if I patched in my friend, Coco? She’ll be integral to my plan.” “Go ahead, dear,” Kali said. Soon, three people faced her and Coco’s eyes flicked back and forth. “Damn, Wint. Kali BelladonnaandSienna Khan? You got somecrazycontacts since moving to Vale.” Winter sighed. “They’ll be vital to making sure I can get Weiss into my custody.” “Oh right, I remember you talking to them a while back. That was a fun conversation.” Kali’s eyebrows show up. “How did you hear that…?” Winter sighed. “Coco is usually patched into my scroll. I honestly didn’t think about it when I talked to you two a while back. I’m sorry; I wasn’t attempting to deceive you.” She looked down and away. No, she wasn’t trying to deceive them. She had legitimately just forgotten about Coco being patched in and listening to most things. Without being around top-secret military issues, not having Coco listen into things just…slipped her mind. She was always cognizant when in the military and around the general, but now? It was her everyday life. She legitimately had forgotten to tell Coco to stop listening when talking to people. She really hadn’t been trying to pull anything over Kali’s and Sienna’s eyes. “I see. Well, people do have strange relationships…” Kali shrugged. “If you trust her, then I see no reason not to. So what would her place in all of this be?” “Mind if I share screens?” Coco asked. “Go ahead,” Winter said. The small windows opened into a much larger one, showing files upon files upon files. “Oh my… What’s all of this?” Kali asked. “They’re the videos I have of Winter and Weiss’ abuse. The plan is to release them to the public to make the Valian government pay attention. I wouldn’t be releasingallof them, just some of Winter’s, but it’d be enough to show the government that Winterreallyneeds to be protected and be allowed citizenship,” Coco asked. “I had her mother, Willow, put up the cameras. Nobody’s going to question why a member of the household is floating from room to room.” “What do you think of it?” Winter asked. The screen shrank and the three squares popped back up. “Well… It would certainly accomplish what you want, I believe,” Kali said. “The problem is that it wouldn’t be admissible in court as evidence most likely,” Sienna said. “That’s why I saidsomeof them. I havegigabytesworth of this shit. I’ve transferred all of it to Winter’s laptop through the AI,” Coco said. “AI?” Sienna looked startled. “Long story short: Summer Rose made an AI of herself. Now isn’t the best time to go into it,” Winter said. Kali and Sienna looked beyond startled, their ears standing up fully and twitching a bit. “But we wouldn’t release any of Weiss’ abuse. Right now, wedon’tneed that for my little sister. She wouldn’t know it was going on, but we need to protect her privacy. The main thing is that I’m worried how all of this would also effect the court proceedings for Weiss.” There would be pressure from probably even the Atlassian government because Vale, Mistral, and Vacuo woulddefinitelybe pressing on Atlas to make sure the younger two Schnee siblings were safe. Atlas didn’t often bow to external pressures, but when it came to the other three governments pushing on them, there wasn’t much they could do about it. Vale woulddefinitelybe putting pressure on Atlas and, with Winter publicly asking for the protection program…this would definitely have effects on the case for Weiss and Whitley. “How about we start making a list of pros and cons?” Sienna suggested. “Can do,” Coco said. The three smaller squares disappeared and brought up a document. With that done, they started making a list of pros and cons about the legality of all of this. With as intertwined as things were, they definitely needed to think things through carefully. They went on for quite a while between the four of them, though Coco was mainly the record keeper. Kali and Sienna were very,verylegally minded and could see things both wide and narrow. Winter knew to expect a lot of cons. In the end, it was pretty much a deadlock between the pros and cons. “Well, in this case, it really seems like it’s up to you and your judgement, Winter…” Sienna said. “I’d personally err on the side of caution andnotdo it, but the cases are yours in the end. It’s your life and your sister.” “Though, one thing that just hit me…” Coco said. “He’ll look for the cameras.” That sent Winter’s insides chilling. “That’s…very true. And he would likely find them. Weiss has a scroll and he may also find that as well… It’dcompletelycut me off from her.” She had to protect Weiss, but playing things carefully was important as well. She wanted to light a fire under the government, but her main priority was protecting Weiss. The cameras and Weiss’ scroll werecriticallyimportant for protecting Weiss. If both were found, then she’d lose access to her little sisterentirely. She took in a deep breath then let it out slowly. “In order to keep Weiss protected, it’s probably best Idon’tdo it, then. It would benefit me in the short term, but it would alert Gelé to what’s been happening in the house for years… He would know I have somebody and attempt to track them down as well… It might very well put you in danger, Coco, as well as Willow.” She had no love for Willow, but she didn’t want to see the woman hurt either. The self-destructive alcohol and sleeping pills had no doubt taken their toll on Willow, but she still didn’t wish for the woman to receive even more hurt from Gelé. To her knowledge, after Whitley was born, Gelé had basically just left Willow to her own devices and actively supplied her with alcohol and sleeping pills because it kept her complacent. Her earliest memory was Willow unlocking her aura… It was the only memory she had of the woman that had given birth to her. “I mean I doubt he’d find me, but yeah, it could put Weiss and Willow in danger,” Coco said. She took off her blue-light glasses and massaged her eyes. “I”m glad I brought it up. Wecan’tact rashly, not with Gelé at the center of all of this. He wants to protect his image atallcosts…and I can easily see him doing something drastic to Weiss. He might even send her off somewhere we couldn’t find her to protect her. Has the suit been filed yet?” Sienna shook her head. “Not yet. I think getting Winter started on the protection program first would be of importance because then the courts would have records of Gelé being dangerous to his children. We’ll have to wait a little while before filing.” Winter’s heart dropped at that, but it did make sense. They needed to handle this all carefully. She wasn’t sure how much evidence could be shared between court cases like this, but she would probably need to hand over as much information in the protection case first, then hand it over to the case for Weiss. Ugh. She hated how inefficient and convoluted bureaucracy could be… It had its reasons, but that didn’t make it easy to accept. “Coco, could you go through the footage and find theworstcases of us being beat possible? It’s probably best to limit the evidence because there are justso manydifferent videos and from multiple different angles.” The worse the videos, the more it’d impress onbothgovernments just how much danger she and Weiss were in. Coco nodded. “It’ll take some time, but I can definitely do that. Do you think the AI could help?” “Just give me a moment.” She moved over to the desk and popped her laptop open. She gave a run down of everything they had talked about and the AI pursed its lips while scratching its chin. “Could you help comb through the videos to find what’s the worst?” “It’ll be a tedious task, but yeah, sure, I can do that. Coco, when you’re ready, just give me what you wanna go through and what you want me to go through. Keep in mind that I can spenda lotmore time going through this stuff than you can since I don’t really have much to do,” it said. “Youwereserious about there being an AI,” Sienna said. Winter turned her scroll to face the laptop screen and showed the little avatar. “That’swild.I never knew AIs were possible.” The AI grinned. “Summer was something else. There’swaymore to me than meets the eye, but now isn’t the time for that. I’ll be of a lot of help when it comes to examining the video evidence. I have nothing to do, so I can literally just spend days and weeks looking at the videos. The exception is if Winter is using the laptop for some reason.” “All right then,” Coco said. “Anything else you wanted to discuss, Wint?” Winter turned the scroll back to herself and shook her head. “No, I just needed to go over the pros and cons of my idea. Apologies for taking so much time, Mrs. Belladonna, Ms. Khan.” “Oh, no need to be so formal, Winter; we’re all people here,” Kali said with a pleasant smile. “But if you do have any other questions, don’t hesitate to call us.” “Very well. I’ll talk to all of you some other time.” Everyone said their goodbyes and hung up. It left Winter alone in the quiet room, pondering. She definitely didn’t want to endanger Weiss any further than shewasright now… Despite her resilience, she honestly hated being patient and, right now, all shecoulddo was be patient. Kali and Sienna would handle things on their own time. She wished she could do something in return for them, but there wasn’t much. It seemed like they had everything under control, really… They were doingso muchfor her and all she could do was sit with her thumbs up her ass and wait for them to take care of everything. She wasn’t sure what to do next. She sighed and rested her chin on top of her arms in front of the laptop. “That’s an awful heavy sigh, Winter. What’s on your mind?” the AI asked, the avatar looking down at her. She didn’t have the webcam facing her, so far down on the desk, but it was obvious where she was. She just… Ugh. She felt so trapped and unable to do anything she wanted to. She wanted a full-time job like she’d had until now. She hated this entire situation, but it was this or stay in Atlas where she would have to be afraid of men trying to burst into her apartment and deal with dances. Then again… The investor’s dinner waslongover at this point. “I just hate this entire situation. I don’t blame Qrow in the slightest, of course, but it’s just so hard to not have any mobility or freedom and to completely not understand how the world behaves.” Valian culture was justso confusingto her. She had no idea how to handle any of it. She didn’t understand how men and women could be treated equally. How women could do anything men could here. How they weren’t under the thumb of a man their entire lives. It all just made no sense to her. She didn’t show it, but she really had no idea how to handle any of it. She didn’tlikeAtlas, but it was a lot easier because things were so black and white there, not a million shades of grey like they were in Vale. Everything was structured andmade sensein Atlas while Vale was fluid and ever changing. “Youdohave complete freedom here, Winter, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Youdon’thave to stay in the house if you don’t want to.” The AI sat down on the taskbar and looked down at her. “You’re free to go and do whatever you want as long as it’s within your means and not illegal.” She sighed again. “I suppose so, but it doesn’t feel like it.” Maybe it was a holdover from Schnee manor. She’d spent fifteen years of her life completely cooped up in one house. The military’s environment was equally restrictive but in different ways. She was just far,fartoo used to structure. “I don’t like the lack of structure.” “Well, create yourownstructure. There’s nothing stopping you from having some sort of schedule if you want it. You can make your own.” Winter just sighed again. “…You wantexternalstructure, notinternal,huh?” “It’s…what I’ve been used to my entire life. Everything has always been decidedfor me.There were a few months after I turned fifteen where I stayed with General Ironwood that were relatively unstructured, but aside from that… Yes, I’m used to following specific protocols. I really don’t knowhowto make my own structure.” She hated to admit it, but that was the truth. She justwasn’tused to making decisions for herself most of the time. Her life wasalwaysin somebodyelse’shands. Now that it was in her own… She legitimately had no idea how to handle it. She was so lost and adrift. The AI brought up a web browser and the avatar played an idle animation of flipping through a book, but it spoke. “There are plenty of ways you can make your own structure. That’s what Summer did as a stay-at-home mother. Granted, her schedule was hectic because of taking care of two young girls, but you don’t have to worry about that, at least not right now.” The window opened and it looked like… “Planners?” Winter blinked. She was used to schedules but she had never considered a planner before. “There are millions of different planner ideas out there. You needsomesort of structure to your life, so why not try planners? Plan your day out or your week or your month. It depends on how nitty gritty you want to get into things.” There were at least twenty different tabs open. “I found a bunch of ideas and different planner types. There are traditional planners, bullet journals, and more. Bullet journals are more flexible while traditional planners have a similar structure, but some can be different.” It closed the window a bit, climbed up the side of it via a ladder, then went along the tabs, and clicked one with its hand. “Then there are all sorts of things about goal setting too. You like goals, right?” Winter nodded. “I do, yes…” “Well, maybe read some stuff on the psychology of goal setting.” It pulled up a page on that, then clicked another tab. “You also have roles in life. Maybe try organising your day like this?” Winter rubbed her chin. Well, this wasn’t what she had expected her day to become, but finding her own structure to the day would definitely be nice. She hated feeling so lost and adrift right now. “This may well be worth it.” “Then there are also SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Action oriented, Reasonable, Timely. You could maybe combine all of this into your own planner idea if you don’t find anything that fits your needs.” Winter frowned. “But I’m not a designer.” “You don’t have to be. Here, give me a minute.” The AI used a slide animation to slide back down to the taskbar and it opened a word processor. The computer’s fan kicked up and operations were being performed almost as quickly as Winter could perceive them. Within about ten minutes, a planner page had been created from scratch. It looked…very fancy with different colors and such. “See? You don’t need to be a designer to make things look nice. This is literally just a bunch of tables. If you read some stuff you like, just tell me and I’ll put it into a design.” “Well, give me some time to read these things, then I’ll give you some ideas.” “Sounds good to me.” The AI grinned but fell silent as Winter started to read. She took out her tablet and marked things down in the notes app that she thought could be of use. She read for a good hour until sending the notes from her tablet to the computer. She opened the email and downloaded the file to the computer. “Those are my ideas. Can you read my handwriting?” The AI opened the file, looked over the side of the window with a clear reading animation, then looked back at Winter and nodded. “I do have a custom-designed OCR program built in, though it’s a little undercooked. However, your handwriting isincrediblyneat, so it’s not hard for me to figure out what you’re saying. How about I start designing some things for you and you give input?” “That sounds reasonable.” “First off, though…” The initial browser window closed, then it opened another one and windows opened insanely quickly until about twenty tabs were open. “I found some calendars that you could use as a basis for the rest of your planner. They’ll be blank, so you would have to fill it in yourself, but I don’t think that’s something you’d be averse to right?” Winter shook her head. “I wouldn’t be.” “Though…would you prefer a paper planner or a digital one? Because I can do both.” “That’s…a really good question.” She wasn’t entirely certain. “I could probably try a physical planner then see where things go.” “You’d just need to go into town and look at the different sizes of paper. I’d suggest A4 or A5.” “What…does that mean?” “Basically, there are different paper sizes that are standard. You know how there’s printer paper that’s pretty standard?” Winter nodded. “Well, there are other standard paper sizes. A4 is printer, A5 is half of that. I wouldn’t go to A6 for a planner though, nor would I go to A3. A3 is double the size of A4, so it’s big. A6 is half the size of A5, so it’s absolutelytiny.It definitely has its uses, but I wouldn’t suggest it for a paper planner unless you’re doing a bullet journal.” “Bullet journaling didn’t sound appealing to me. It was too…open ended.” “I thought as much which is why I’m designing it this way. I’d suggest going to a stationary shop and seeing what they have to offer. I’d suggest going today if you want to start scheduling for next week.” Winter sighed. “I suppose I should. Well, are there any you recommend?” “No. Summer was a big note taker, but she wasn’t picky about her paper. Give me a few minutes and I’ll bring some up on your burner.” Winter nodded and took out the burner which had several GPS coordinates pulled up. Of course, most were a decent ways away from Patch which was more than a little annoying, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. “These are the ones with the best reviews. Do you want to take public transit or a taxi?” “A taxi would be a lot faster… I’d rather not spend two hours on a round trip.” It was ludicrously expensive to take a taxi, but it’d be the most direct way there and she wanted to be gone and back as quickly as possible. She was so thankful for the general’s kindness in offering her a stipend until she could get a job… He didn’t have to do that, but he was essentially the father she’d never had. He was forever in his debt for how he treated her… She would never,everforget his kindness and compassion. “All right then. Feel free to bring me up on your burner if you need to.” The AI clicked and gave finger guns before going back to the taskbar. Winter nodded and then headed to the ferry where she leaned on the railing and looked down at the sea. What a strange turn of events… She really had no idea how to take any of this…