BONUS ROUND 1: THROWBACK PROMPTS

[a1c0bb]

In this round, we'll be using prompts from last year's bonus rounds! You can either come up with a prompt based on the previous themes, fill a prompt from previous bonus rounds, or fill a prompt that's been posted this year!

Here is the tag with all the previous bonus rounds!

Fills can be in any format, and you can fill your teammates prompts, but you cannot fill your own prompt.

You can post as many fills and as many prompts as you want!

for your prompt post title, please use the following format:

PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

for your fill post title, please use the following format:

FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

If you're filling from a 2023/2024 prompt, please link to their prompt in your post!

To participate, reply to this post!

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PROMPT: Team OCs

[hamaonoverdrive]

Flower language: White chrysanthemums carry different meanings in different cultures; they are either a symbol of devotion and loyalty, or a symbol of death and mourning.

FILL: Team RWBY

[hopelessgemini]

ship: winter/cinder

fandom: RWBY

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As long as Weiss has known Winter, she’s always been violently opposed to the concept of wearing flowers in her hair.

She’s braided them into Weiss’s hair before — even Whitley’s, once, when he was little — and she’s actually pretty good at it, but Jacques used to make her wear flowers when he was still entertaining the concept of shipping her off to the richest family he could find, and now that he’s dead Winter has picked up the habit of outright refusing to do anything he could have forced on her. It comes at the cost of matching (Weiss is mildly annoyed about the matching) but it makes all of them feel a little better, a little freer, so it’s worth it.

Besides, she reasons, just because they’re close now doesn’t mean they have to match. It’s just — for fun. Winter actually started painting her nails as compensation, and she was shit at it but it’s the thought that counts, so they could all be wearing the exact same shade of blue for the second anniversary of the end of the war.

So Weiss is surprised, and maybe a little bit indignant, when Winter starts wearing white chrysanthemums in her hair.

“They’re a symbol of mourning,” Whitley says when she asks. The two of them are standing on the balcony in Beacon’s newly rebuilt ballroom — since when did they have a ballroom? — and watching Winter in the crowd below, talking idly to Penny and Robyn. She’s holding a flute of champagne, but she hasn’t touched it since one of the waiters handed it to her.

Weiss’s eyebrows shoot up. “Who is she mourning?”

Whitley shrugs, downing his own glass — elderflower cordial; he doesn’t drink either. “Don’t know. It’s been two years. Unless she had a friend we don’t know about?”

“Winter’s entire social circle is our social circle plus Robyn,” Weiss says. “Maybe it’s like, a concept?”

Whitley snorts. “Winter Schnee caught mourning a concept at the end-of-war anniversary.”

“Yeah, it could be a symbolic thing.”

“It doesn’t match her suit at all,” he agrees. “It’s meant to stand out, maybe?”

“She’s not exactly known for her bold fashion choices, but I’ll take it,” Weiss says.

The doors at the end of the ballroom open, and a couple more people sweep in — Neo on Coco’s arm for some reason, Velvet carrying a two speakers and a table, and —

“Well, fuck,” Whitley says, whipping out his scroll.

Down in the crowd below, Winter’s face lights up. Weiss can’t help it; her jaw drops. Winter crosses the room, passing her still-full glass to Penny, who passes it to Robyn, and kisses the hand that Cinder Fall offers her.

“White chrysanthemums also symbolise devotion,” Whitley says helpfully, “especially in Old Mantleian culture.”

“They’re matching,” Weiss says. She can’t quite believe what she’s seeing, but then again, Winter’s taste in women has always been abysmal. Winter wraps her arms around Cinder’s waist and picks her up, definitely creasing both of their suit jackets, and proceeds to spin her around like they aren’t the Winter Maiden and the most-wanted criminal on the face of Remnant —

“Oh, wait,” Whitley says, “Cinder Fall is alive?”

Weiss groans, burying her head in her hands.