#Though corvids (crows and ravens) have them beat

[a-hell-of-a-time]

((Why Stolas, Octavia and Paimon are OP/S Tier among the Goetia birbs.

Andrealphus could never.))

[otterskin]

Finnesang - Prologue : Two Birds, One Song

All published chapters on AO3 - but here’s Chapter One, just to hook you.

Blurb: Odin is missing a raven. Without Muninn, Odin isn’t quite who he used to be. The only thing more dangerous than a man with secrets is one who can no longer keep them.

After a near-perfect Coronation years ago, Thor's become exactly the kind of king he believes his father would be proud of - if his father were still the man Thor thought he was (if he ever was).

Loki knows his place - servant of Asgard, advisor to his brother, and caregiver to his ailing father. Important roles, defining ones - and yet he feels forgotten. Sometimes literally.

Being forgotten is fatal when all that you are is someone else’s lie.

PART ONE:

UNMADE

ᚲ ᛟ ᚹ

The RAVENS

Once we were ravens, and that only.

To be ravens is a good thing. Ravens can fly. The Sky belonged to us when we danced in it. At night we'd steal the stars away when our black bodies blotted them out. We did not belong to the Earth or the Sea, though we took the bounties of both. Some would call us thieves for that, but we were ravens only, and accountable to no-one.

And yet we were not content. We wished to have more.

We wished to be more.

When we heard it first, we could put no name to it. It was a sound, many of them, wound together in a tangle - and yet it could be followed.

So follow it we did.

We soared through rain and thunder, through blazing sun and piercing wind. Always, it moved forward, as living things must. We followed. We could not bear to live again in silence.

We beat our wings in time with its tempo and our hearts beat in time with its base. There was nothing but the song and the journey to possess it.

We followed it through forests, through villages, through cities and out into the sky again.

We saw a figure walking through clouds. He looked like one of the people who lived below - he was covered in scales like them, had four purple eyes like them, dressed as they did. But at once we saw that he was not one of them. None of them could walk the skies as easily as we flew in them. None of them sang as he did. He was a new thing, and we wanted to have him.

We danced about him, and he laughed in wonder at us.

He paused in his song to call out to us, as raucous as any lowly crow, “What are your names, then?”

We jeered. Play the sounds, creature.

He took up the thing of sticks and strings from around his neck and strummed it.

We ventured nearer, needing to feel the pulse of the tune. One of us landed on his right shoulder. One of us landed on his left. Through our toes, we could feel the rumble of his flesh, the rumble that became the sounds we would soon learn to call ‘music’.

"Hearing, I ask, from the ho-o-ly races

From Norn’s eyes, watching high and low

I will soon relate, to this tree of faces

Old tales remembered from long, long ago…”

We did not yet know what words were, but still we jittered to encounter them. The scales that disguised the singer as one of the people of below fell away, revealing pale, pinky flesh and worm-like toes where wing feathers should be. His eyes were now only two, and they were very, very blue.

"Have you no names, then? I’m between names myself at the moment. A fair number of them just…did not work out. Perhaps you can help me think of the next one.”

Before we could berate him for stopping, he continued to sing.

"I asked for companions, the Norns sent me birds

I asked them for names, but they gave me none

I suppose since I am the master of words

It falls to me to give them both some!"

He reached out to stroke our chests with a finger. It was warm. We didn’t dislike it.

“I may have made those lyrics for you, but the tune is not mine. I really should not be singing it. Yet lately, I cannot seem to get it out of my head…

“My father was a fine singer himself,

Though only when he sang with my mother.

They sang this for me when I was my first self

When I still had a sister and brother.”

The music ended. We looked at the creature. He stared hollowly out across the green skies as if he did not like the colour of them.

“It seems that no matter where I go or what I call myself, I am burdened with memories and thoughts. Not just of what was, but what could have been. Do you know what that is like, my feathered friends?”

He seemed unhappy. That was no good - his song had brought us joy, and it would not do for him to have none of his own. We called his music to our minds and cawed to it best we could, harsh and throaty.

His eyes brightened. “You are very clever, aren’t you? You’re different from the birds on Asheim. Though not so clever that you’ve yet to realize what sordid company you’re keeping now.��� He strummed his instrument with a grin. “I’ve thought of names for you. You shall be Huginn and Muninn - Thought and Memory. But names are not free, my corvid companions. Upon your wings I will settle a burden, so that I might journey lighter…”

He touched a wing-toe to his head. It began to glow, bright and silver. When he withdrew the toe, it came away with a long strand of silver. It broke free from his head, and at once began to wiggle like a worm. We could not help but swallow eagerly in anticipation. He offered the worm to the first of us on his right shoulder. Without hesitation, it was devoured. He put his finger to his head once more, and this time drew out a golden worm. This he offered to the second of us, on his left shoulder. Once again, it was devoured.

He continued in this manner until we were full to bursting. The silver and gold writhed in our guts, hot and cold, filling us with emptiness and sorrow, with warmth and joy, all at once. It was only then that we realized we were no longer only ravens.

Our minds were pulled away from our bodies, away from the green skies of our home. We were taken into another body, under a different sky, in a distant time.

There, we were a boy. There, there was a garden…

It was a beautiful place.

A tall, red-bearded man held hands with a woman. Together they worked the land, pulling and pushing earth and water. Beside them were two children, a boy and girl. The girl coaxed plants from the soil, and the boy called animals to live in them.

The eyes we ravens watched from were distant, hovering far above the scene.

The man looked up at us. He opened his mouth, perhaps to call us down, to join them -

But all that came out was a terrible, wailing scream...

ᚼ

The ravens awoke, groggy with sleep. The baby’s wails echoed down the dark hallway, piercing even the great golden doors meant to shut away the rest of the world.

Thought looked at Memory. Memory looked back at Thought.

“You go,” croaked Thought.

“Muninn went last time,” complained Memory.

The wailing grew louder. It was a noise somewhere between a wolf having their teeth pulled and a crash collision between two speeding metal boats, complete with the two pilots arguing over whose fault it was afterwards. It was the very opposite of music.

“Huginn turn,” insisted Memory.

Huginn huffed, puffing up his feathers and shaking the sleep off of them. He flapped down off his golden perch and onto the bed. There was only one occupant, still slumbering on one side. On the other, the furs were flicked open. Huginn thought to look at the remaining shoes. The slippers were still there, but Frigga's boots were gone. Muninn remembered that she often went to the Garden at night - the only time she really could. She would not be back until sunrise.

Huginn hopped over to the remaining lump of furs. He pulled back the edges of them, revealing Odin’s face. He looked so very different from the creature who had walked the skies of the ravens’ homeworld. The red colour had long leached out of his hair, and his soft face had sprouted a grey beard and moustache to match it. At least his eyes had stayed the same - until a few nights ago when even one of them was taken from him.

Muninn recalled that he���d told them it was a trade of sorts. An eye for a baby. Huginn thought that was a rubbish trade. Odin's right eye had never screamed at them, which made it better by far.

Not wanting to waste any more potential sleep time, Huginn pecked near the newly-empty eye socket. At once the lump of furs erupted with a curse, sending Huginn flying into the air.

Odin attempted to insult his birds again but was drowned out by the baby screaming its boat-crash-wolf-yelp cry. So instead he sighed, beckoning to his birds to follow him as he lumbered out into the hallway.

Muninn tried to hide his beak under his wing and pretend he hadn’t seen the gesture. Huginn circled back and harassed him mercilessly.

“Need both,” Huginn tutted. “Always two ravens.”

Muninn relented, and soon both birds perched on Odin’s shoulders: Huginn on his right, Muninn on his left. As light as they were, Odin still moved slowly. He’d had very little sleep since returning from the final battle. The war itself hadn’t been particularly relaxing either.

Huginn felt the thought bloom in his mind as it occurred to Odin. How easy it seemed when I first took the child. Just seeing a friendly face after being abandoned had been enough to quell its cries.

They entered the nursery. Immediately the cries doubled in volume.

"Shhh-shhh-shh-sh.” Odin attempted, but the child only stopped its tears to hiccough loudly and suck in more breath, ammunition for further cacophony.

Hastily, Odin seized at a bottle waiting in a basket of ice and tried to stopper the babe with the bottle’s teat. Its mouth clamped shut and refused the milk, turning this way and that to escape.

“Still?” Odin asked it wearily.

I thought I saved you. But if you do not eat, all I have done is prolonged your death.

The thought tasted of hopelessness. It was not a favourite flavour of Huginn’s.

The babe reached out, seizing at Odin’s hand even as it ignored the bottle it held. Odin scooped the child into his arms, jostling the ravens as he patted its back. Nothing seemed wrong with it; its changing cloth was clean, its guts clear of gas. It was not even alone anymore - and yet it still would not stop crying.

“Go outside?” suggested Huginn.

“Remind baby of home,” agreed Muninn.

Odin nodded, eye still droopy with sleep.

They stepped onto the balcony. The night was clear and brimming with all the lights of Yggdrasil. As hoped, a chill was in the air.

And yet the baby still cried, digging into Odin’s beard as if trying to crawl away from the cold.

The old god sighed. “What am I to do?” he asked his ravens.

“Always, Odin ask only himself for counsel,” chided Muninn.

“I tried to turn to Frigga,” Odin protested half-heartedly.

Muginn cocked his head in judgement. The raven did not need to remind Odin of what he had done to Frigga. A flicker passed through both their minds: the memories of her face when he’d returned, bearing a strange infant to replace the one she so recently lost. She’d been waiting to share their grief - and Odin had instead asked her to disguise it, much like the false child he’d pressed to her breast.

“Odin did not think that one through,” observed Huginn.

“No. He did not,” agreed Odin, rubbing at the gauze over his socket again. He sighed.

Even Frigga’s reaction had been a friendlier welcome than he’d gotten from his own son.

I don’t know why I expected a warm welcome on my return - how could he even recognize me? He was but a babe when I left. But to see the boy instead glare at me with such suspicion, to insist on standing between his own mother and father...

But was the boy wrong to try and protect Frigga from me?

The first thing I did on my return was to break her heart.

“I am a wicked man,” Odin sighed.

"You are required to be a good king above being a good man. The two are often mutually exclusive concepts.”

Odin turned his head slightly to frown at Huginn. “That voice…”

The babe kicked him hard in the chest, trying again to squirm free of Odin’s grip.

Without thinking about it, he started to hum, bumping the child up and down as he did so.

Miraculously, the tiny creature quietened. Unscrunching its face, it peered up at him and his ravens. It seemed mesmerized by the tune.

Odin would have been glad of it, had he not recognized just what he was humming.

He stopped.

The babe immediately crumpled up again and began to fuss. Huginn, too, dipped his head in disappointment.

Despite his audience’s clear call for an encore, Odin did not pick up the tune again. Instead, he summoned the milk into his hand and tried again to feed the child. “Come on, boy,” he muttered, trying to turn its face back out from his chest. “I know it’s not as good as giant’s milk but we haven’t had any volunteers.”

His attempts jostled the ravens about on his shoulders, causing them to flap and squawk. Huginn wondered how comical they would appear to anyone walking in on the scene. Odin, King of Asgard, Conqueror, feared throughout the realms, encumbered by clingy ravens and an obstinate baby.

“Eat - the damn - milk,” Odin muttered, accompanying each word with the jab of the bottle.

“Baby liked that song,” Muninn recalled.

“Sing next time,” urged Huginn, a spark of independence clashing against Odin’s clear reticence.

“I don’t know that I can," the man muttered. “I haven’t sung in years,”

“Odin sang for many years before,” Muninn said slowly. “Muninn would know if Odin forgot how.”

“See? So sing now!” demanded Huginn.

The other raven looked away from his brother. “Muninn doesn’t like that song. It hurts.”

Huginn looked over at Muninn, scandalized. “We ravens like the song!"

But Muninn just fluffed his feathers again and wouldn’t meet Huginn’s beady eye.

The babe knocked the glass bottle from Odin’s hands. It hit the stone floor of the balcony and broke open.

Odin nearly cursed again, catching the ugly word with one syllable already hanging out of his mouth. Spending years around soldiers instead of the Court and his family had roughened his vocabulary. That was what he used his voice for, crass words and orders to make war. Not song. That belonged to a version of himself he’d long put behind him.

He would go and get a nursemaid and damn the consequences, he would go and fetch Eir and have her diagnose the child, he would go -

The baby detonated with a keening scream, piercing his eardrums and threatening to further shatter the glass bottle with its ferocity.

He would go mad if he didn’t do something right now.

Well, go madder. He must have been mad already to have taken this child in the first place.

It shouldn’t have come as easily as it did. For one thing, his voice had deepened significantly since he last said these words, and it strained at first, trying to hit the notes that used to be within easy reach. But even before he dropped to the next octave down, his seidr was stirred, flowing outwards with the euphony. In many ways, this had been how he’d first learned magic - how he first learned to speak with the air and sky, and all the intricate veins that threaded the universe together. A thousand strings to be plucked and molded into melody.

“Hearing, I ask, from the ho-o-ly races

From Norn’s eyes, watching high and low

I will soon relate, to this tree of faces

Old tales remembered from long, long ago.

Of old was the age when Ymir yet lived

No sea nor waves, nor sand was yet there

Earth was not yet, nor heavens forgive'd

All that was was the gap to nowhere.”

Muninn shifted uneasily. Memories of millennia were tangled inextricably in every bar. But to the babe, it was merely noise, clean and new and without connotation. Spellbound, it fell still in Odin’s arms.

“Lead me home, my mothers of yester

Lead me to my heart and its way

Free me from a body that festers

Free me from the urge to yet stay.

Take me from this o-ode to slaughter

Take me from Hel, though I may belong

Lead me to my sons and my daughters

Lead me home to the heart of my song.

Shield-time, sword-time, we enter the gold halls

Wind-time, Wolf-time, ere the world falls.”

Muninn thought of Bor, Father of Odin. He once said this was a sad song.

But did it have to be so for everyone who heard it? Odin wondered. Could it not be something else for this babe?

It could mean safety, comfort. It could mean that this child had a home…at least for a little while.

“Little while?” Muninn croaked. “How cruel.”

The All-Father ignored him and continued to sing.

“I remember yet the giants of yore

Who gave me bread in days gone by

Nine worlds I knew, Nine worlds at war

Nine voices became one battle cry…”

There were many ways this story could go. If it weren’t for me, this babe’s tale would have ended shortly after it had begun. What could be less cruel than the gift of possibilities?

“Muninn cannot remember the future, only past,” Muninn scolded. “Odin cannot know if saving baby means good or bad. It just is.”

“Even bad better than nothingness,” Huginn dissented. “This good deed.”

“Deeds have reasons why done,” Muninn muttered. “Were reasons good?”

Huginn turned his back on his brother, disgusted with his treachery. “Odin not parley with ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Odin just is. Muninn play silly games.”

“Only one rose from the sea of blood

Broken were oaths, words not what they seemed

Before the breath of liars, we scud

Shaped, like clouds, by forces unseen..."

“Odin make promise by taking baby,” insisted Muninn.

“Odin makes no promises,” Huginn hissed.

“I know the horn of Heimdall, well-hidden

As lost as the things it’s meant to return

What would I ask, if it were mine to be bidden?

Would I make new or ask to unburn?

Alone I waited when the Old One sought me

The Terror of Gods gazed in mine eyes:

‘What dost thou want? What comest thou to see?’

Dost thou look for something living or died?

‘Before thou ask, be aware there is cost -

An eye for an eye, a thought for a thought

If I am to return that which you lost

Be aware that the price is the same as the bought.

'Would you know yet more?

Knowing that wisdom is weight?

Would you know yet more?

Knowing no knowledge will sate?

Would you know yet more?

If you knew that knowing meant a forever war?’”

The babe was staring at Odin with rapt attention as if there was nothing in the universe more awe-inspiring than an old man mumbling his way through a doom-stricken ditty.

Odin tended to be the most powerful person in any room - or planet - or galaxy, really - that he happened to walk into, and so he was used to rapt attention. But there is nothing quite like being the end-all, be-all centre of existence in the eyes of an infant. For one thing, people tended to get nervous when the most powerful person in the galaxy walked into the room. This babe just wondered. It would have marvelled at him just the same if he were a moderately-successful goatherd.

This child knew so little of the world. So little about Odin. Hardly any different from most grown men, in that respect. How precious that ignorance was. How unfair that after all the world had done to this child in his short life that that innocence should be placed in Odin’s hands.

Moved to pity, Huginn bent down to preen at the babe’s few dark hairs. Muninn took off from the other shoulder, heading back inside.

“Lead me home, my brothers of yester

Lead me to my heart and its way

Free me from a body that festers

Free me from the urge to yet stay…

Take me from this o-ode to slaughter

Take me from Hel, though I may belong

Lead me to my sons and my daughters

Lead me home to the heart of my song.

Shield-time, sword-time, we enter the gold halls

Wind-time, Wolf-time, ere the world falls.”

The song was nearly complete now, and Odin was surprised to find himself slowing down, as if unwilling to let the moment go. Each time he returned to the chorus, there seemed to be some strange reciprocity from the babe. Though it could not sing, its fledgeling magic nonetheless reverberated with the melody, like the threads of a spider’s web plucked by the breeze.

"The serpent is bright, but now I must sink

My father of yester is leading me home

The sky becomes light, no more must I think

of old tales remembered from long, long ago.

It didn’t seem till now...

...so long, long ago."

It was done.

Muninn returned, bearing with him a fresh bottle of milk. He dropped it into Odin’s waiting hand. The babe seemed loose, almost liquid in Odin’s grasp, though its eyes were still bright and alert. It didn’t fight the bottle this time - but neither did it suck at the teat. Odin sighed.

“Did I ever know what was in giant’s milk, Muninn?”

The raven considered, then shook his head.

“Can you think of anything that would convince the child to drink, Huginn?”

The second raven considered, then shook his head.

“Fat lot of good you both turned out to be, eh?” Odin sighed, but there was a smile in it.

The king tried to return the babe to its crib, but its fists had knotted painfully in place in his beard. It was no use; he’d just have to take it to bed and hope it would behave until morning.

When he settled back into his half of the mattress, another pang of guilt crossed his chest.

I should be with her.

Instead, he pulled the blanket back up over himself and carefully tried to lie down without disturbing the infant.

“Give her time,” he said, though the babe was already deep in sleep. “She’s a warm heart and love to spare. She just needs time to say goodbye.”

The babe gurgled. Then, unmistakably, it hummed. Clear as the skies when Thor was in good spirits, it was the song Odin had imprinted on him, already echoing back. He listened to it make its way through the tune. At points it would stop, as if waiting for something; it took Odin a little while to realize that, even in the depths of sleep, it was waiting for a response. He’d hum back to it, sometimes along with it, creating a strange little harmony.

“We’ll make a proper Asgardian out of you yet,” he chuckled, and for a moment he could imagine that Frigga had merely gone to freshen up, that the babe was everything Odin was pretending it was, that his family had been spared their latest tragedy and all was, for that moment, well. He could forget all the inconvenient parts of reality.

The world could just be him and his borrowed boy.

He could stop the crying.

He could make things right.

“Could. What a damning word that is.”

Odin cracked open his eye and saw him in the corner of the room. Wrapped in shadows, and just as immaterial. His beard was a deeper red than it ever had been in life, and the curve of the downward-pointing horns of his helmet outlined his harsh face.

“Could is a word for regrets. Regrets are the stories we wished we lived. You were always too fond of stories. Stories are not real.”

Odin shut his eye. “Neither are you, Father.” He didn’t need to open it again to know that Bor would no longer be there. It was just a passing thought.

But the spell had been broken.

The bed was cold. His wife was still gone to the Garden to mourn over her true son while he coddled a painted imposter in what should have been her sanctuary. And even then, the babe was still sickly, still hungry, and he had nothing to fill him. He had made nothing right, only forgotten that everything was still wrong.

“Huginn - Muninn,” Odin called. “Go to Jötunheim and observe the children there. Learn what they require to suckle and grow, and return soon.”

The ravens bobbed their heads in acceptance of their task. They took flight.

The skies of Asgard roiled with starlight, but the clever birds knew which precise point of light was Jötunheim’s sole sun. Together they flew, side by side, into the ether. Light streaked, sound ceased, space bent around them, and they tore through -

We tore through…

We did, didn’t we? We ravens went to Jötunheim. We did - we saw and learned and we returned…The child lived, thanks to us…So why, why did the light and the sound continue, becoming darker, malevolent, angry? Why did it shout and accuse and become oh so terribly sad even as raging fire swept about us, between us, blackening the blackest of feathers and consuming, consuming, it was in Muninn’s mouth, it was in his stomach, it was devouring him from the inside out and he was in pain, such terrible pain and I, I the raven needed to go to my brother, needed to save him, but the moment we became I it was already too late.

Muninn was gone. A hole where a raven should be. I screamed for him, but a raven’s voice is not music, and it could not call him back.

I flew on.

My thoughts were dark.

Such angry, grieving thoughts.

My blood was dead. Taken from me. Stolen. By an enemy beyond my reach.

But not all my enemies were so.

Where was I going?

Somewhere cold, somewhere far away - and why?

To see the giants, the red eyes in the blizzard.

To Jötunheim, to the giants, to war -

As Asgard had done time and time again.

Yes, to war!

To war!

ᚼ

Huginn awoke with a start. Red light was streaming through the window behind him, courtesy of the sunset. He looked across from his golden perch to the empty one on the other side of the bed. As it had been for decades, it was empty.

So was the bed.

Huginn blinked at it. The sheets had been flung from the bed with force.

The door remained shut, likely still locked. But, as the breeze from the open window reminded the raven, that was not the only way out of this place.

With a flurry of greying feathers, Huginn took flight. He passed out the back of the golden room and felt the wispy touch of shattered spells try to catch at his feathers, to no avail.

The rook circled Asgard, wings straining, searching, searching.

He heard him before he saw him - the whistling of wind around the corners of the city and the low, dull roar of the stars as invisible strings drew from their raging hearts. Footfalls echoed mightily off the golden buildings, and at once Huginn knew they could not be dissuaded from their path.

There was nothing a raven, even one who was not only that, could do.

There was little anyone could do, really, but there were some who would try anyway. Inconveniently, today had to be the day they weren’t on Asgard.

Huginn braced his aching pinions, fixing his beady eyes on a star in the sky the way other ravens fixed on the glimmer of a mussel in the water.

He flew into the sky, following the faintest sounds of a half-remembered melody.

***

This and the rest on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638704/chapters/51598693

[theravenlover115]

So, I decided to make a list of all the major characters in Factory of Darkness so people know what kind of characters there will be in the game. I'll eventually make a list for the minor characters. I am also doing this so I can see on what I can improve and add to them. Let's start with the main protagonist.

- Allen:

A young crow whose family owns a large coal mine. His family wanted him inherit the mines once his father retires, but that got thrown out the window when he had an accident when he was 12. What happened was that he went to the mines without letting his mother know first so he can see his dad. He wasn't careful on what he was doing and one the machines cut his left cheek open. When his father heard the scream, he was horrified on what he saw and immediately to took him to the hospital. That incident left a massive scar on his left cheek and give him fear of machinery. It also made him not to inherit the mines, much to his family's disappointment, but they understand. Since then, he has been wearing a white cloth that covers that his beak and scar. As for personality, he is the type that never speaks at all, to the point that his parents though he was mute, but in reality, he doesn't like to talk at all because he hates his voice. Besides, he is more comfortable with sign language. Despite, most people who hang around him knows that he is really judgemental. He has Aspergers, which he believes is a curse.

Since he didn't took the family mantle, he took a job as a messenger, which sadly isn't working out. He is pretty good at his job, it's just believes he cursed because every time he delivers a message, something really bad happens to that person.

- Amelia:

A young magpie who is a witch that owns a small shop that swells pagan related items. She wasn't always into witchcraft, she actually grew up in a highly religious family. It was one of those families that really took their religion seriously, as they view anything that isn't part of their religion as heresy. They wanted for her to continue they traditions, but it started falling apart when Amelia entered her rebellious phase. It was all about going against everything her family and their traditions, including her becoming a witch just to purely anger them. She eventually stopped her ways when this style of got her almost killed by some Carrions. This pretty much made her drop her old ways and actually take things serious. That's also when noticed that her family's religion and strict ways is actually the reason she became like that in the first place. So for now she just mostly focused on witchcraft and take seriously.

Personality-wise, she is the calm, patient, and crafty type. Really good at magic and tarot card reading just for fun.

- Walther:

A serpent-like creature who owns a large factory with gothic architecture. He is anomaly in how he is a snake person in a world inhabited by humanoid avians. He came to this world when a cult named Red Spade tried to summon their god to this world, but instead, Walther came out. They thought he is the son of their god because he has their symbol in his hood, so they took care of him. They tried to make sure they follow their traditions and rituals, but turns out Walther is actually more interested in things like science and biology, much to their disappointment. It doesn't even help how Walther actually doesn't like what they are doing, so he finds ways to actually do things he likes while making them thing he is doing something else. He eventually escaped from the cult when he finally got tired of the cult and their teachings. He spent a good chunk of time hiding in the shadows and stealing thing for his survival and for his inventions, including a crossbow he made back at the cult. He eventually got captured by a circus and used as an attraction. It was the worst time of his life, and vowed he'll get revenge on them one day. He eventually escaped and returns to what he was doing on before he got captured, but this time he is creating weapons in case it ever happens again. After multiple events that happened that I am still thinking about, he gets recruited by a organization named Blue Heart because they were in impressed by his skills and eventually, he got a massive factory that is focused on creating medicine, weapons, and candy, his favorite.

Personality-wise, he is cruel and calculating in the outside, but he is pretty soft and kind of cute in the inside, especially since he is socially awkward. Deeply loves candy, especially chocolate.

- Esther:

A rook who is majoring in biology and science, she is the assistant of Walther and helps him with his inventions. She had a really normal life compare to the other characters, no paranormal events, no tragedy, nothing. But that changes when she became Walther's assistant. She always wanted to be a doctor when she was a kid, and her dream was fulfilled when she graduated on top her classes. One day she heard that a factory needed some scientists to help them create new medicines, so took the chance and went to the factory. She was amazed by the factory's unusual architecture. But when she finally met Walther and saw the things create aren't just medicine, her spiral out of control. This really started to change from naive nurse to a no nonsense type of characters that is honestly getting tired of everyone's crazy shenanigans.

Personality-wise, she is easily irritated by anything stupid. She also denies the existence of supernatural entities. That changes when the carrions appear.

- Ruben:

A jackdaw with a long history of tragedy and Walther's personal guard. He thought he was going to have a great life. He was in family that super rich and presumably have everything. He has a father that owns a massive business and really cares about his family, a mother that is the best mother in the world, two brothers that got his back, and who knows how many pets they have. He thought he would have a long wonderful life, but that was taken away harshly, and it started with a slap. All of the sudden, his father stopped appearing, his mother started beating him, same with his brothers, and his home started falling apart. At first, he hoped that things would come back to normal, but it only got worse and worse, to the point his mom start to make him sleep outside, give him little to no food, and beating him until he does his chores. It doesn't help how his brothers are not treating the same his mother treats him. Even his newborn brother started lying about him so can get even more beatings. They were treating him like an animal they could hurt when ever they please. Child services eventually came and took him away. He then spent a good majority of his teenage years in a orphanage, where Blue Heart took in order to help with his trauma. That where he met Walther, and they both created a bond.

He is covered in scars and he became a police officer, because he remembers his mother and brothers hated the police. But he ended becoming Walther's personal guard, even getting a special knife.

Personality-wise, the tough guy, really knows his way in a fight. Likes food jokes.

- Quoth:

A raven who is part of Red Spade for his entire life, he is a very well deceiver who will use anyone in order to achieve his goals and later screw them over. When he was only a infant, his mother was right about to kill him because he was an accident, but didn't because she didn't want to feel the guilt, so she decided to just drop him in a orphanage, where he spent a good majority of his childhood in. People he were around would say that he is pretty good kid, but he actually pretty good at manipulating other people so things go his way. He will use anyone to get away with things and later screw them over. This talent attracted Red Spade, who needed someone like that. They recruited him and after a while, he was raising up the ranks so fast that he actually wanted to take over the cult. But when he meet the leader, he lost control of life. Not only that he discovered that he is not a corvid, but rather a creature with a lot supernatural power. The creature made a deal with him, they will let him live and give him powers, but he has to follow his orders for now on. He accepted.

[xxxdragonfucker69xxx]

furry fury

A fursona is a person’s conception of themselves as an anthropomorphic animal, e.g. a humanoid dog or raccoon. This is sometimes, but – and many furries would like me to stress this point – not always, a sex thing.

A deadly battle fursona is a fursona that has tapped into the hyperplatonic essence of that animal, of which the universe is conceptually composed. Naturally, the best use for identifying with a principle of the cosmos is to beat people up with it. This is also sometimes, but not always, a sex thing.

When you create a character, consider your name, the epiphany that led to your first fursona, and what your fursona is. By default, you have a Normal Fursona.

Allocate 4 points between Subtle, Straightforward and Strange. When you use one of these traits, you will roll a d6 and add that trait. Your Fursona grants a bonus to one of these traits depending on its tier: +1 for Normal, +3 for Cool, +5 for God.

The Deadly Battle Fursonas are divided into approximately three tiers, according to the commonness of the animal and power of its style. A master of the Deadly Battle Fursonas must begin with the lowest, and work their way up to the highest tier with spiritual self-enlightenment and beating up other deadly battle furries. The Normal Tier is comprised mostly of mammals, being the animals it is easiest to identify with: great cats, dogs and wolves, foxes, otters, etc. Techniques of the Normal Tier are most suited to straightforward violence. Then come animals with more puissance and mysticism: most birds, reptiles and snakes, many things considered verminous or monstrous. Techniques of the Cool Tier are more unique and niche. The 999 most efficacious fursonas are among the least commonly considered animals: tardigrades, cephalopods, and deep-sea creatures. Techniques of the God Fursonas are esoteric and hard to apply, but of paramount power.

Each Deadly Battle Fursona is interpreted by its master into a Fursona Style, with up to three Techniques. The power of these Techniques depends on the tier, as well as the prowess of the martial artist and the number of Techniques: the more there are, the less powerful each Technique is. When a master assumes a Fursona Style, they may physically transform into an anthropomorphic example of that animal, or they may remain in human form with only the aspect of that animal around them.

Here are some examples:

Normal Tier

Canid Style: Best Friendship Guard lets you protect another. Bloodhound’s Unerring Sniff lets you track someone through concealment or camouflage. Teeth of the Pack lets you make a coordinated attack with other Canid Style masters.

Panthera Style: Night Predator’s Prowl lets you move unseen and make an ambush. Nine Lives Reincarnation lets you shake something off harmlessly. Counter-Clearing Jump lets you climb sheer walls and difficult surfaces.

Rabbit Style: Ground-Thumping Escape lets you run the hell away. Racing Hare Approach grants you incredible bursts of speed, though it is exhausting. Thousand Enemies Awareness lets you hear anything that might be a threat.

Horse Style: Galloping Charge Stance lets you cross large distances to make an attack. Sometimes Horses Fly Approach lets you cross terrain you shouldn’t be able to cross.

Snake Style: Cobra Speed Strike lets you make an attack with unmatchable speed. Viper’s Venom Sting lets you inflict lasting ailments. Python’s Coils Grapple lets you strangle someone inexorably.

Cool Tier

Corvid Style: Beady Black Eyes lets you see things that are valuable to your enemy, as well as other weaknesses. Battle-Crow Cry lets you inspire violence in those around you. Raven-Wine Feast grants you strength when people are defeated, whether or not it was by your hand.

Saurian Style: Thunder-Lizard Stomp causes earth-trembling shockwaves. Tyrant King Jaws lets you chomp like a T-Rex. Dragon’s Breath Roar lets you breathe bursts of destructive energy.

Deer Style: Headlights Paralysis Stare causes you and your attacker to freeze in terror. White Deer Chase lets you lead a pursuer on a nonsense chase. Antler Gore lets you gore someone with your antlers, whether or not you actually have antlers.

Unicorn Style: Virgin-Detecting Purity lets you detect someone’s guilt. Single Horn Gore lets you make an armor-piercing attack. Glittering Rainbow Beauty lets you convince attackers you are too beautiful to harm.

Rat Style: Maze-Navigating Cleverness lets you navigate mazes cleverly. Trash-Detecting Scavenger lets you detect what is poisonous or unhealthy and what is edible or good. Immortal Vermin Endurance makes you hard to exterminate; no matter how hard people try, you always come back eventually.

Cephalopod Style: Flashing Skin Camouflage lets you blend in with your surroundings. Many Tentacled Dexterity lets you manipulate several things at once with your be-suckered tentacles. Deep Sea Genius lets you be slightly smarter than you should be.

Mantis Shrimp Style: Cavitation Claw Implosion is a strike so powerful it produces a small implosion. Sixteen Cone Perception lets you see colors that don’t exist. Reflexive Liquid Jet lets you shoot a stream of unidentifiable fluid when threatened.

God Tier

Tardigrade Style: Cryptobiotic Emptiness Defense can endure against everything from the vacuum of space to the pressure of the Marianas trench and the heat of a volcano to the cold of the abyss. Water Bear Don’t Care renders you impervious to things like heartbreak and the pervasiveness of suffering.

Blobfish Style: Perdurant Suffering lets you endure any hardship, because it can’t be worse than what you’ve already been through. Doleful Gentleman Approach lets you suffer with dignity.

Platypus Style: Implausible Biology Evocation lets you have any anatomical feature you haven’t proven you don’t have, such as webbed feet or the ability to lay eggs. Venom Spur Kick injects its victims with agonizing poison that lasts for five days before killing them. Electrolocative Proprioception Sense gives you a sense for something not normally sensible, like regret or mimes.

Hagfish Style: Slime Invagination Excretion lets you slip free of any restraint, leaving only a mucosal trace. Overhand Knot Convolution lets you tie yourself up to get into or out of any situation, somehow. Burrowing Lamprey Evisceration lets you get all up in someone’s meat, then burst your way out.

Axolotl Style: Perpetual Neoteny Stagnation lets you stay young forever. Infinite Limb Rejuvenation lets you regrow lost limbs. Cannibal King Evolution lets you transform into a more powerful form when you have eaten another Axolotl master.

You and all the other Deadly Battle Furries are gathered for the Kingdom Anthrocon Invitational, held every five years so that masters may come together to meditate and beat each other up. Battles may break out at any time when one master challenges another, and may be of any form from a one-on-one duel to a three-vs-three parkour battle to an all-comers wave challenge in front of the hot dog stand. When you fight another, roll against each other. If you can justify the use of a Technique, you may add your Fursona’s bonus. Each roll is not necessarily a single blow, but a whole tactical exchange: a volley of porcupine-quills forces the Vulture Prince to take cover before he can use his Tactical Vomit Experience. Keep track of how many rolls you win; when you have won at least 3 rolls, you may risk it all on one final attack. The final attack allows you to roll 2d6 and keep the higher, adding your trait. If you win this roll, you win the fight; if not, your opponent may make a final attack against you. If both final attacks fail the fight is generally called a tie.

Noncombat scenes may also include walking around the convention center which is also hosting a regular furry convention, or meditating on what it means to be a furry. The primary means of advancing in fursona are personal epiphanies about the nature of the universe: one who reaches enlightenment about the value of things may awaken Rat or Corvid Style, while one who understands the true value of youth or personal growth may awaken Axolotl Style. The other means is to defeat a master with a higher tier of Fursona. You do not have to gain their Fursona: if you defeat a Hagfish master, you may gain Platypus Style.

writing this gave me a legiteral headache and also killed me

dont @ me about fursona tiers

PERDURANT OCELOT has always, retroactively, existed.

thanks and curses to @retroactivebakeries for letting any of this happen

i think my personal evolution would be canid > corvid > tardigrade

[moonsandstar-s]

Nevermore (Reprise)

Chapter I - I Am Damaged 

 He is damaged, far too damaged. Remnant is full of fairytales and legends, but it is just as full of beasts and demons, and his misfortune only marks him out as an outcast. The souls that Salem has taken are lost; they are beyond redemption, as he will soon be.

Team STRQ is shattered. One dead. One lost. One traitor. One damaged.  By watching the turn of the clock, Qrow can see that there's not much time left before the same fate repeats itself on the ones he loves.

                                                             ☨ ☨ ☨

He was born to the wind and sky, a bird in flight. Born to the blood of the tribe, spilled across the pavement, and to his sister, one whom darkness knew well. Melded to a team— to Taiyang, the one of sunshine, and Summer, shackled to silver and murdered by a legend. He brought misfortune wherever he planted his roots, abandoned the ones he loved, created a spot of turbulent darkness in a beacon of shining light.

A beacon, one that glowed like a star, erected from nothing. His home, now an empty shell. He remembers the one who stood apart from the crowd, unencumbered by the troubles of everyday life, untouched by humanity’s strife, the spirit of light.

The man who was devoured by fire and burned to nothingness, swallowed up and spat out into shards, consumed by the breath of autumn.

Qrow remembers this: his copper eyes.

He thought he’d never see them again.

☨ ☨ ☨ He was born to the tribe on the cusp on autumn and winter, when the last of the leaves fell from the trees, along with his sister. The tribe had never been one to celebrate the birth of new stock, but twins were uncommon, and the healer of the tribe predicted enormous fates ahead of them. “The girl,” the healer had said, “shall bring luck and fortune. She will open the closed eye that can see the future’s events. Good luck lies in her path, but it will not be an easy one. She will lead us out of famine and into strength. On wings of darkness, this child will fly us to infamy.”

And they named her Raven, for the bird that followed the wolves, and for the inborn ability of the tribe, the ability to shape-shift.  

“This one will bring misfortune wherever he may tread,” the healer said of the second child, a boy. “His path winds long and dark. It is impossible to see the end of it. The tribe will never make use of him, nor he of us. His path is shrouded in mist, obscured by things I cannot divine, a fate marred by misfortune… the pitfalls along the way will surely kill him.”  

And they named him Qrow, the sign of bad luck, and cast him down while his sister rose in the eyes of the tribe.

When the twins entered the world, the first snows began to fall.

☨ ☨ ☨

“The last survivor,” one of the tribe members croons, his voice taunting. “Your whole village is dead, isn’t it? Pity you’ll follow them. Don’t you know that nothing outside your precious little kingdoms is safe anymore?”

Qrow edges forward in the shadows, his hand on his dagger. The tribe is not kind, and they will punish him cruelly, if he’s found eavesdropping. They’re taunting a little girl from the village they raided last. She’s not much older than he is— only twelve, he would guess. Twelve years old.

She is missing one eye. They’ve been torturing her for a while now, and she hasn’t seen sustenance in days, except for scummy water and food so molded that it resembles dirt. Her hands, altogether, have less than four fingers left. Her skin is gashed up, vicious old wounds layered over newer, red over brown. He can smell the scent of infection, fear, and pain, even from here. Her hair is more tangled than a bird’s nest, and her remaining eye— a terrified green— peers out from between the gaps in her hair. Two tribe members are standing over her, mocking her, and the sunlight shines off the knives they hold in their hands.

“Tell me,” one of the tribe members purrs, “who is the Master?”

The girl shrinks back, silent.

“Who is the Master?” he repeats again, his voice dangerously quiet. “Answer me.”

Again, no answer.

Instantly, they descend upon her, beating her and torturing her, because her will is not broken yet. She will not submit to them. And for that, he knows, she will surely die. It’s not long before she will succumb, he can tell, but in the time between now and then, it will be living hell for her. She screams as they bring out their knives into the equation, and blood mixes with the dirt. Qrow’s hands clench together, and he winces at each scream, a jolt going through his body.

Her howls of agony swarm through the air like birds, flocking in his ears, and he cowers away, hands over his ears. His nails scratch against his temples so hard he almost draws blood, but the agony in them— the strangled pain— tells him that what they’ve done before is nothing compared to what they’re doing to her now.

Qrow scowls, but bile rises in his throat. His hands seem to pulse, and his eyes widen as he realizes his semblance is reacting. One of the tribe members yells, startled, as his knife jerks to the side, misfortune yanking it from his hand, and it plunges towards his foot, point-down. He leaps back, shouting angrily.

“Who in the hell—” He begins, before casting around, eyes roving over the shell of the blackened town. Qrow scrambles back into the shadows, desperate not to be seen by those searching eyes, but he’s not fast enough.

“Damned bastard kid,” the member hisses, stalking towards him with the knife. “Get out of here, you useless, misfortune-causing—”

Qrow jumps to his feet and runs, leaving dust billowing in his wake as fear ignites in his heart, but he’s not fast enough to outrun the sound of the little girl from the town, screaming as they finally kill her.

☨ ☨ ☨

The night he shifts into his crow for the first time, he flies straight for Vale, and never looks back.

☨ ☨ ☨

Life on the streets is hard.

Every day is an uncertainty. Often, he goes hungry, curled in a back alley underneath corrugated tin and dumpsters. The only food he can get is what he nicks from market stands and paws out of trashcans. The only bright side of his life is when he transform into a crow and fly over the city, seeing the true beauty of it, the winding rivers, soaring spires, glittering buildings. He speaks to birds, tells them where to fly. He can hear the songs on the breeze, and for the moment, life is good.

Kids try to fight him all the time when they find him in the streets, like some rat. They aren’t real fighters, just thugs and idiots, and he wins so easily. He always wins. Every time he strikes the finishing blow, he feels like he loses another part of himself.

☨ ☨ ☨

He is seventeen years old now. It’s been seven years since his parents were killed. Five since he witnessed the murder of the little girl. And it’s been only hours since he sustained another wound. He has nothing now— he is still fleeing the tribe, fleeing their cruelty, seeking a better life.

A group of rich kids playing at being gangsters jumped him a while ago in an alley while he was scrounging around— nothing he couldn’t handle, but they’ve cost him precious energy and the sheer amount that attacked him gave him a few wounds that sting like fury. To top it all off, they stole the meager supply of Lien and Dust he had forged. Now, he has nothing. He is nothing but Qrow Branwen, bastard of the tribe, ally to the wind and sky, renegade of the tribe, ex-brother to Raven. There is nothing but the clothes on his back, the wounds on his body, and the knife in his hand.

He walks down the streets of Vale, fresh out of a back-alley fight. He’s pissed off, itching to start and finish another fight. At least in battle, there is nothing but the mind numbing-chill of adrenaline. His anger feels like live wires, twisting and coiling white hot in his veins, and he can see the muscles moving beneath his skin, flaked with white scars.

His chest aches. The puckered, jagged scar there, stretching from collarbone to navel— one he received many years ago— stings like fury. It was Raven’s fault that he ever got it in the first place, but she would never admit it. They’d always promised to have each other’s backs in a fight— until, one day, she didn’t. Now, the scar is reopened, bleeding shallowly from a blow he sustained recently.

Above his head, a bird croaks.

He turns to look up. There’s large black raven perched on the elegant curve of a light-pole, its red eyes fixed upon him with a a beady glare. It would look unassuming to anyone else, but he can see the amused cock of his head, the slight ruffle on the crest of its head, and there’s also the irritating fact that he knows his sister, though it’s been five years since he’s seen her, and he would know her anywhere.

Glancing down the street to make sure that it is still devoid of people— he’d look especially idiotic if someone caught him chattering at a bird— he raises his head to the raven with a scowl. “How long have you been stalking me?”

The bird spreads its wings and spirals to the ground. Midway in flight, it elongates and shifts, and then Raven tumbles out of the air and lands in a catlike crouch, smiling up at him. She’s always been able to shift from human to corvid easier than he has, and she makes it look effortless. Rising, she dusts herself off and tilts her head, studying him— all sharp teeth and narrowed eyes. “Not long, brother. Maybe a week’s time.”

“That’s actually pretty long. I didn’t know you found me so interesting.” Qrow scowls. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any sign of you, Raven. Too long for this to just be an idle visit. I ran away years ago— five, to be exact. What brings you here now, after all this time?”

“I’m on a mission… my first one ever. The tribe believes I’m out scouting out other villages to attack, and I found one swiftly enough to allow for this little… excursion. I wanted to find you before now, but it was impossible without risking them finding out.” She tosses her black hair behind her shoulders, taking a deep breath. “So here we are.”

Qrow scowls at her, and imagines how he looks— gaunt and ragged, every rib showing, his battle-marked skin a harsh reminder of the life he’s eked out in the streets, fighting and stealing to survive. Just as the tribe has— but now, he imagines, he will be able to escape it. He has to. He’s seventeen, after all; that’s the applicant age to enter a combat academy. And his fighting skills are plenty advanced.

“I don’t want to speak to you,” he says at last, dragging his attention back to his sister. “The tribe has a way of sinking its claws into its members… and that’s obvious with you. So if you’re here to drag me back there, beat it. I’m done with them, done with their murdering and thieving and stealing, and I’ve been done with it for years. I’m not going back.”  

Raven looks haughty at his quick dismissal, and he can see her jaw tighten with disapproval. “If you must know, that wasn’t my intention at all, but if you insist on being so prickly all the time, brother…”

He begins to walk, his stride tightly clipped, and Raven moves to his side, her eyes flashing. “You can’t avoid me forever!”

“I can sure as hell try.” He tries to duck to the side and outpace her, but she matches him stride for stride.

“What if I were to make a proposition?” His sister’s voice has the edge of an amused purr. “Your listening ear in exchange for a promise of honesty, little brother. I’ve never lied to you. Never had cause to. You’ve never tried to understand me, nor I you, but we’re family. Shouldn’t that count for something?”

His eyes go to slits. “Your deals always involve some sort of double-cross. Please, don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you’re an innocent little flower.”

Raven’s nostrils flare, and she steps into his path, forcing him to stop. “You act like you’re so secretive,” she snaps, “but you’re an open book, brother. Do you think the tribe didn’t know of your desires long before you saw that little girl murdered? They knew you shifted into your crow and flew out to Vale, to study the Hunters, study their ways. They knew you were growing restless. I daresay they even knew you would leave them, despite everything they gave you. Perhaps you are desperate to play the hero, but it’s a path that will only take you to your own demise. I cannot stop you from running off like a starry-eyed fool, pursuing your destiny. I can’t even keep you from chasing after the malleable idea of destiny, throwing away all the heritage of your past for an idiot’s dream of being a Huntsman. That’s not where you belong. You know that.” She looks pointedly in the direction of the soaring spires of Beacon Academy. “That’s not your home, Qrow.”

“I always knew you were pragmatic,” Qrow grunts, shielding his anger at her words as his hand wrapped around the hilt of his knife. “Though, sis, I’ll admit I never really realized you could be so much of a bi—”

“It’s not your home alone,” Raven interrupts without a trace of anger, “but it could be ours.” She hesitates. “If I came with you.”

He eyes her suspiciously. “No offense, but I can tell you’re lying. Why would you leave the tribe? They’ve always been a bigger part of you than I have ever been. That’s just how it is.” A pang of sadness echoes in his heart. “Why would you leave them behind to come with me?”  

She looks caught off guard for a moment’s instance, but it quickly disappears, replaced by a mask of cool self-certainty. “The tribe means much to me, yes. But you’re my brother… and knowledge is power. There is much that the tribe cannot teach me, of the ways of Remnant— knowledge I could acquire there, at Beacon Academy. The leader of the tribe was grooming me to become the next in line, but I’m not ready. I know myself. Power is something I could handle so easily, but it would be rash to take it now, while there is still so much to learn, so much to change before I shoulder a burden like that.” Her eyes darken, the color of freshly-spilled blood. “And… I care for family, even if you do not.”

“Family means nothing. It’s just something you’re born into.”

“Your heart is filled with bitterness,” she tells him.

She could be lying, he thinks. Raven has always been remarkably gifted at duplication, but her gaze is guileless. She’s either become an extremely good actor in the time since he’s last seen her… or she’s telling the truth.

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” Qrow grunts, before he unsheathes his knife, and looks at it. The sunlight sparks off it, gold and silver, and Raven stiffens. Qrow puts it away, and reaches out his hand towards his sister. “But I’ll give you another chance.”

Raven takes his hand in a firm grip, nodding, her eyebrows forming dark slashes sheltering the depth of her eyes, and what hidden motives might lie there. “And I will be honored to take it.”

☨ ☨ ☨  

They both apply for Beacon.

They find a small coffee shop, ignoring the glances of the patrons as they stride in— they both look scruffy and wild— and find a table near the back to fill the forms out in quiet. Raven frowns down at her paper, and he helps her, ignoring the amusement he feels at it. He’s technically her little brother by mere minutes, but it’s good to know he still has the edge in cases like these. The form is nothing fancy— just printed applicant boxes on cream-colored paper, with lines for a signature. At the top, the headmaster’s name is flourished in a simple script. Professor Ozpin, it says. Privately, Qrow thinks it’s a ridiculous sort of title.

The register with their names, Qrow and Raven Branwen.

They easily fill in the boxes asking them to describe themselves and why they want to be Huntsmen or Huntresses. Qrow’s honest about it— no point in lying, really, if he’ll only be caught— and marks down his motives as being the same as anyone else’s: he just wants a career that’s not as constrictive as others, and one that allows him to help others out, while being an adventurous job. He has no idea what Raven puts, nor does he want to know.

They register with their choice of weapon, or the idea of weapon they might like to forge. Raven marks her down without a hint of hesitation— she’s always fought with a blood-red katana and a few vials of Dust, something the tribe gave her after a particularly remarkable display in a raid— but Qrow wavers, his pen hovering over the paper long enough to blotch. He has no weapon, because he’s never stood out like his sister has enough to earn one. Not unless you count the dagger he carries around— he doesn’t count that.

I request a forged weapon, he writes. I will make it with my own two hands, so long as I can use the material and a furnace. I’m not afraid of hard work.

He thinks a larger weapon would be good. He doesn’t want to use something that the tribe uses, so mentally, he rules out the idea of any maces, or bows, or knives. A sword would be nice— a greatsword, one that’s full of power and promise. He might even fancy it up and include a shift in it, to symbolize how he can shift to a crow… something unexpected, like a gun, or a scythe, like those used to cut down fields.  A faint smile crosses his lips, and he looks around, surprised by the burst of lightness in his chest. This is all so unfamiliar— feeling hopeful, sitting with his sister in a quiet but comfortable silence, applying for a future he knows is right for him. He almost feels happy.  

Under the box that asks them to label their semblances and any additional details, Qrow’s chest tightens. As if on cue, somewhere in the shop, he can hear the tinkle of a glass shattering, and an angry shout.

“Misfortune,” he growls.

Raven’s eyebrows raise in an amused manner and she sneaks him a sly, sidelong glance. “Misfortune, indeed. Just be glad that it’s not you dropping a glass. You know, you might even be able to turn your semblance to your advantage at the Academy, Qrow. Just be sure to hang around those you don’t like, and you’re home free.”

“It’s not funny,” he snaps, and she smiles.

“I never said it was, my brother.” Then she looks directly at him, her good mood fading. “Do not tell them you can shape-shift. That marks us out as different. And what society deems as different, they deem unnatural— they don’t understand what’s different, so they brand it as an outcast, and drive it away.” Her voice is dark and heavy. “Believe me, I know.”

He notices a pale scar stretching from her temple and disappearing into her hairline. She didn’t have it when he fled the tribe, and he is half-tempted to ask what it’s from, before he decides to let it go. “I won’t.”

He marks down misfortune just as she marks down good luck, and he wonders why some people are cursed in life while others are blessed.

☨ ☨ ☨

They are accepted one week and five days later.

☨ ☨ ☨

The initiation ceremony is awful, and the speech is just as redundant and boring; he’s beginning to sweat under his gear and regret all of this. He’s surrounded by a swarm of gossiping idiots who seem to have no idea that this is a school for fighting and battle, not parties and fun. Raven slinks off soon after they enter the amphitheater, and he doesn’t bother following her. He slips to the front of the crowd, eyes narrowed. Behind him, someone trips, falls, and cries out as their nose begins to gush blood, but he doesn’t turn around to look at them. He is past the point of worrying about those whom his semblance affects.

The headmaster, Professor Ozpin, is up at the forefront of the stage, standing silently and observing the crowd. A ray of sunlight falls through the window and illuminates him, bathing him in warm gold. Qrow stares up at him, reminded of a statue carved like an angel. All he lacks is the wings flaring out from his back. He’s way younger than Qrow expected, and flicker of surprise shocks him, for a moment. He’d expected to see some boring old guy, complete with wobbling jowls and absolutely no idea how combat actually worked. But this man meets neither expectations. Sure, there’s a cane balanced under his crossed palms, but Qrow doubts he uses it; Ozpin looks no older than—

Come to think of it, Qrow can’t actually guess his age. He looks ageless, in a way. Like something that’s stood here as long as the school, as long as Remnant itself.

“May I have your attention,” he says into the microphone. Something about his voice— resonating a quiet power— makes the room fall silent instantly, as if holding its breath, put into a trance. “Thank you all for coming here today. While Remnant is full of many excellent professions, the career of a Hunter is, in my mind, a noble one to pursue. You all have one common bond: you have decided you want to aid your world through your skills, and make it a safer place. You have put your duty and your people ahead of yourself, and through careful selection, we chose the individuals who we feel will be the most… suited, per se, to this task.” His eyes rove the room, passing over the shifting crowd, and Qrow takes a step back as they pass over him.

“As you know,” Ozpin goes on, “most of you sent applications within the span of the previous month. The remainder of you entered Beacon with an open application. Now, all of you will be fielded for your unique combat abilities, and narrowed down from there on out. I am sure you have heard rumors of our initiation ceremony. They run rampant through Vale, each one wilder than the last. Allow me to end those rumors right here.”

From the crowd, a kid shouts out, “Is it true that we’ve got to wrestle a King Taijitu and win?”

“Not in the slightest, I’m afraid,” the headmaster replies conversationally, a brief smile gracing his face, and Qrow feels his heart lighten a little bit. “Our process is decidedly less rigorous and exciting, though some of you may find it challenging enough on its own. You will be entered into the forest lying to the north of Beacon; the Emerald Forest. It is inhabited by many of the lesser subspecies of Grimm— Beowolves, Deathstalkers, and Ursai. These, we have deemed, should be manageable for first-years undergoing initiation—”

“He calls Deathstalkers manageable?” Someone mutters behind Qrow.

“—and the exact details of the initiation should be made more clear to you tomorrow morning,” Ozpin continues. “For now, there will be a tour of the Academy, wherein you will learn the grounds of the campus, and be permitted a rocket locker in which you may store your weapon and any personal belongings. Then you will be sent to the ballroom, where temporary sleeping spaces have been arranged for you. After initiation, those of you who are left will be assigned to your teams, and delegated to a dorm room. I wish you all the best of luck. Get a good night’s rest for tomorrow, and listen well to Professor Goodwitch.”

The crowd erupts into speculative chattering as Ozpin turns and vanishes backstage, and his assistant— Goodwitch— turns the other way, walking down the stairs and calling for the massive crowd to follow her. Privately, Qrow thinks she looks way too young to be an assistant, too— she’s got to be only a couple years older than he is, but whatever. Dismissing the thought, he looks around, searching for one dark head of hair in the crowd.

“Don’t look so angry, brother. You might frighten all the children here.”  

Her voice is spoken in the shell of his ear, and he jumps, startled, before whipping around to glare at her. “Don’t sneak up on me.”

She frowns. “This whole initiation ceremony seems rather… foolish, don’t you think? I think the headmaster should simply pick the ones who don’t have their brains in their feet… though to be fair, that seems to be less than half of this room.”

Qrow scoffs. “Don’t tell me you actually stuck around to listen, Raven.”

Her eyes burn at him. “I told you I was going to do this wholeheartedly, or not at all.”

“Fine. Don’t bite my head off, or anything.” He strides off into the crowd that obediently trails Goodwitch— she’s prattling on about the campus’s rich history, or something— and his sister follows him.

When they get their rocket lockers, they get them right beside each other, and he sneaks a sidelong grin at her as she fiddles with the combination, her brows furrowed in frustration. “Need some help?”

She scowls at him. “Yes, I can’t work with all the technology as well as you. Very amusing. Now would you just get on with it?”  

“Alright, it’s fine. You didn’t have to scrounge out your life learning stuff as fast as I did to survive on the streets— not your fault, but whatever.” He leans over and fiddles with her combo, punching it in and typing in the affirming ‘click’. “Tribe didn’t work much with technology, did they?”

She’s obviously nettled, her red eyes locked onto him, and her sentence comes out in a sibilant hiss. “You’re the one that left, not I.”

“I did.” He moves his shoulders in a shrug, but her words hurt him more than he lets on. “But that’s in the past now.” She doesn’t press the argument further, but he can tell she’s still bubbling with resentment over the supposed betrayal of her brother.

Whatever. She didn’t see what I saw… or if she did, she chose to ignore it, and that’s not my fault.

In the ballroom that night, it’s packed with chatter, and Qrow claims a corner near a candle, though he doubts he’ll get a wink of sleep with all these kids going on and on. Someone yells “shut up!” from the western end of the room. The talking abates for a heartbeat before resuming, even more noisily than before, and Raven settles beside him with a soft sigh.

“You’re not used to this kind of life, are you?” Qrow asks her. “All these people and all this entitlement and fun.”

She eyes him jealously, her face shadowy in the firelight. “You seem right at home here, brother.”

He cocks a brow. “No. I’m no less comfortable than you are with these many idiot crammed into a room. Honestly, I hate it. I spent a lot of time alone, Raven. I was always on my own.”

She turns away, curling up in a little ball of shadow, but he knows she isn’t asleep. Unwilling to press the matter further— Raven’s always been an enigma, and he’s long since accepted the mysterious silence of her ways— he snuffs out the candle, plunging their corner of the room into darkness. But after a long heartbeat, he can hear her whisper, just under the chatter of the room.

“Your isolation was self imposed.”

☨ ☨ ☨

In his sleep, an old lullaby from when he was child rings in Qrow’s ears, wearing the voice of his parents, and he tumbles down into nightmares. The words of the lullaby haunts him into the darkness.

“I know the rain like the clouds know the sky

I speak to birds and tell them where to fly.

I sing the songs that you hear on the breeze

I write the names of the rocks and the trees.

Oh, you fool, there are rules

I am coming for you.

Darkness brings evil things, oh, the reckoning begins

I tried to warn you when you were a child

I told you not to get lost in the wild.

I sent omens and all kinds of signs

I taught you melodies, poems, and rhymes

Oh, you fool, there are rules

I am coming for you

You can run but you can't escape…

Darkness brings evil things, oh, the reckoning begins

You will open the yawning grave…”

☨ ☨ ☨

Qrow wakes up, wide-eyed and stiff, to yelling and an authoritative voice rising above the chatter. Raven’s already awake, pulling on her wrist guards and looking distinctly tired, her eyes ringed with blue shadows. As Qrow blinks around the room, getting his bearings, she casts him a sour look. “Excellent,” she tells him, her voice conveying the exact opposite. “You’ve finally woken up. And just in time— the headmaster’s assistant has ordered us to get a move on down the cliffs bordering the northern end of the campus, near the airdocks.”

Qrow makes sure his dagger is tucked on his hip, and tightens the raggedy red material of his cape around his shoulders. “Any idea what they’re planning for us?”

“We’ve been accepted,” she points out. “I don’t doubt it’s some convoluted plan to get us assigned a team and a partner, but…” She gives an elegant shrug. “Who can say?”

Qrow rises to his feet, and sticks out his hand with raised eyebrows to help her to her feet. She scorns the proffered hand and uncurls herself from the ground gracefully, rising up and moving off into the shifting throng of initiates.

“Typical,” he mutters, before rolling his eyes heavenward and trailing after her. They both weave their way to the front of the crowd, where Goodwitch is scolding a kid who is rumpled from sleep, his hair stuck up all over the place.

After she’s done yelling, she sweeps one frigid-eyed glance over the waiting crowd before whirling around and stalking from the room. Obediently, they follow after her, clutching an array of gear and weaponry— Qrow can see sensible weapons, sure, but some of the things he sees look ridiculous. An extendable wooden staff with a spear-blade on one end and a gun on the other, a wristbands that bristle with spiky metal knives, a large sword with two guns protruding from either side of the hilt, a whip ribbed with fire Dust, a bow shaped in the curve of a wing, the endings flaring out to resemble feathers, the arrows fashioned in the form of a bird’s beak and glowing with Dust in their points.

He doesn’t see anything like what he has in mind of what he wants to forge— a greatsword that can change to a scythe with the flash of a button— and he hides a smile.

“Why are you smiling?” Raven asks him.

He cocks a brow at his sister. “Nothing, really. Just thinking about things. Are you regretting your decision to come along with me yet?”

In unison, they both glance to the right as a boy lets out a loud retching noise and suddenly vomits all over the ground, scattering the kids around him like windblown leaves, except with more shrieking and name-calling. Qrow snorts, and Raven gives him a cold, tight smile. “Most definitely.”

The walk to the cliffs is silent from then on. They make it there in less than five minutes. It’s a lonely, wild place, with craggy bluffs and a vast forest of green trees spreading out before them. The trees are already beginning to turn to gold and red as autumn dawns closer, and the coldness in the air only confirms that summer is finally reaching the end of its passage. Qrow stops as the other Beacon initiates fan out in a long line.

There’s already a solitary figure poised on the edge of the cliffs, straight-backed and elegant, his hair silvery and windblown in the gale. Qrow recognizes it as Ozpin. Autumn leaves chase each other around his feet. As the initiates come to a stop, he turns around, his copper eyes surveying them. “Welcome,” he says.

A soft murmur of greeting is echoed back to the headmaster, and he nods to the stone squares that lead down to the end of the cliffs. Each of them have some sort of springboard device rigged beneath them, and they are emblazoned with an emblem of crossed axes and laurel wreath. “Please, find yourself a spot on the springboards and have your weapons at the ready as I explain how your initiation will go. I am not one to waste time, so please, make it swift, and we can begin this as soon as possible. Thank you.”

There’s a mad scrambling for spots on the boards, complete with mild scuffles and name-calling, and Qrow finds himself on one of the stone pads right in front of Ozpin and parallel to his sister. She looks slightly uneasy, and he shares the sentiment. What the hell is their initiation going to be, exactly?

“Now.” Ozpin casts a glance over all of them. “As I’ve said before, I do not doubt you’ve been exposed to several rumors concerning our initiation process here— each one more wild than the last, I’m sure. I’m afraid it’s not going to live up to some of your expectations—” He looks at the kid who asked him about wrestling a King Taijitu, and the initiate blushes— “but rest assured that it will not be your typical entry-level assessment, either. You were all accepted here because I determined you had what it took to survive this sort of test. Today I will see if my expectations were correct.

As you know, today you will be receiving your teams, and your partners. Your teams and your partner will be your counterparts for the remainder of your time at Beacon— they will be who you can count on in fight; you will take your classes with them; you will eat with them, sleep in a dorm room with them, and in every way, they will be your family for the duration of your time here. Therefore, it is in your best interests to find someone with whom you can work well.”

Qrow looks dubiously down the line of initiates, who all seem to have the same thoughts, but Ozpin’s voice catches his attention once more.

“You may be wondering the exact process of how your teams and partners will be selected: allow me to cease your wonderings. You will be placed in the forest. The first person with whom you make eye contact shall be your partner for the next four years. Furthermore, the next set of partners you run into will make up the remaining members of your team. Once you have your team, you will make your way to the heart of the forest together. This forest is home to many Grimm, so do not expect to go unchallenged on your way. Once you have made it to the forest’s heart, there lies an abandoned temple stocked with chess-pieces that will serve as indications to me that you have completed your objective. After you retrieve a single chess piece, it is your responsibility to make your way back to the base of the cliffs. Is that understood?”

A chorus of “yes, headmaster” rings out from the line of initiates. Qrow shivers in the blustery autumn day, complete with a steel-gray sky and biting wind, and and wishes that he had something a bit warmer than his raggedy gear.

Well, that settles it. He’s not going to get paired up with some idiot, and he’s not going to get shoved off on a team full of blockheads either. He’ll have to slink around until he finds someone who doesn’t look like a total washout and settle for them.

“Sir? Professor Ozpin?” Someone asks in a quavering voice.

“Yes?”

“Um, how exactly are we going to get down to the forest?”

“You will be launched from the stone pads on which you are currently standing at a rate of over thirty miles per hour,” he announces. “Your Aura will protect you from any serious harm, but it is in your best interest to devise a landing strategy that will keep you intact. This will also allow me to glean your sense of thinking under pressure, and planning to keep yourself safe in the long run… and it will give me a sense of who to appoint as team leaders.” There’s not a trace of humor in his voice, and a low murmur of shock runs through the line as they all realize he’s being completely serious. “Best of luck, and may you all do well.”

With that, the first stone pad lets out a sharp click, and then with a screech of shock, Qrow watches as an initiate is launched from the cliff and into the air. Another follows, and then another, and then Qrow sees his sister flash him a sharp-toothed grin before she is winging off gracefully into the gray autumn sky.

Then it’s his turn.

Qrow meets Ozpin’s eyes for a single moment, his gaze narrowing, before he is hurled into the air like a bullet shot from a gun.

The air screams in his ears, and his heart thunders in his ears, a deluge of adrenaline firing through his veins. He waits until he’s out of sight of the cliff, and of his fellow initiates, before he shifts midair, the change swallowing him up in a whirl of feathery darkness and spitting him back out in the form of a crow. Cawing triumphantly, he rides the gust of wind that soars through the air, letting himself glide safely down to the forest floor. There, he changes back into Qrow, clutching his dagger and wishing fervently he had a better weapon.

There is no time to waste— he can hear an Ursa howling in the distance, and gods know what else trampling through the brambles behind him— so he speeds off, keeping one ear open for sounds as he dashes through the brush. After what seems like an eternity of running, he hears a crackle in the trees ahead, and he skids to a stop, before suspiciously making his way forward.

He sees his sister, and he swears as their eyes meet, red against paler red.

“Hello, my brother,” she says, not looking at all surprised or displeased. She looks smug, satisfied. “Or, to be more accurate, my partner.”

“Goddammit,” he snaps to himself.

“Pity,” she drawls as she takes note of his crestfallen expression. “Because it’s a terrible fate to be partnered to your sister, is that right?”

“No. I’m just cringing inwardly at the prospect of being forced to have your back and all that sentimental shit for four years, that’s all.” He lets out a scoff. “Let’s get moving.”

They both move off into the forest.

☨ ☨ ☨

After about ten minutes of walking, Qrow can hear yelling and the sounds of thudding impact, followed by an agonized bellow. He charges forward towards the sound, Raven on his heels, and whips his dagger out, and then— as he breaks through the vines and trees of the Emerald Forest— a chaotic sight unfurls before his eyes.

Two initiates whirl around a Grimm, crying out— not in fear, but in excitement. They are attacking an Ursa, one of the more massive kind. There’s a short girl, wispy and petite, who doesn’t look at though she could hurt a fly, but she’s riding the back of the Ursa and whooping triumphantly as she bashes a long feather-staff over its head. Her eyes are bright silver. Her partner is a tall blonde-haired boy, broad-shouldered and weaponless—

That’s not quite right. His hands are gleaming with brass knuckles. His eyes spark like blue fire as he hurls himself at the Ursai and taunts it almost playfully, punching it in the jaw and dancing backward, out of its reach.

Qrow and Raven exchange a glance before they leap into the fray as one, knives and katana flashing. The Ursa bellows in pain, but it doesn’t stand a chance against four, and they all retreat as it dissolves into black smoke.

“Hey,” the girl greets them, looking exhilarated, her hair windblown and her face flushed. “Tai, our team is all together now!”

The boy sweeps a nonchalant glance over the twins, giving them both a crooked grin. He’s broad-jawed and his hair is swept back over his head in a messy flare of blonde. He’s good-looking in a rugged, handsome way, Qrow supposes, if you like that sort of thing— but doesn’t like the way his eyes linger a moment too long on Raven. She seems impervious to the appraising look.

“Hey, there,” he introduces himself, his voice warm. “My name’s Taiyang Xiao Long, but I also go by Tai, if you’d like. This is Summer Rose—”

“But you can call me Summer; I don’t mind,” she interrupts. Her voice is melodic and kind, and Qrow feels himself softening towards her. “I know Summer Rose is a bit of a mouthful—”

“— but it’s no big deal,” Tai finishes for her, blue eyes glittering. He steps forward to shake hands with Qrow. “I didn’t catch your names last night when everyone was getting all gung-ho friendly with each other in the ballroom, but I remember you two well enough— the dark-haired twins, that’s what Summer called you. But what do you want us to call you?”

“Raven Branwen,” she responds, a note of ice in her voice.

Taiyang grins good-naturedly at her, pushing a hand through his hair. “And your brother?”

“I’m Qrow Branwen,” he offers, letting out a heavy breath and sheathing his dagger to throw his hands in his pockets.

“Qrow and Raven,” Taiyang snorts. “You sure it’s the Branwen twins, and not the birdbrain twins?”

“I bet that’s the wittiest thing you’ve said all week, dirt-for-brains,” Qrow snaps, storming past them, and Summer giggles. “Let’s get moving. We’ve got a relic to find.”

Raven catches up to him as he takes the lead, and they both exchange a glance, not needing words to voice the thought that passes between them. If these two vapid idiots are their team members, it’s going to be a long four years.

“So what do you think we’ll be called?” Taiyang wonders aloud. “Like, our team name, I mean. Professor Ozpin decides them. He seems alright, but I wonder…”

“No idea,” Qrow grunts, flattening a track through a tussock of high grass. “It’s Q, R, S, and T.” Suddenly, a thought occurs to him, and he swears. “Fuck, he’s not going to call us something like Team SQRT, is he?”

Taiyang chokes out loud. “There is something horrifyingly wrong with you.”

Qrow can see Raven bite back a smile, which makes him feel a bit less suspicious about this whole thing. “Squirt isn’t a color, Qrow,” Summer reminds him gently.  

Qrow lets the three of them talk and he leads the way through the forest, over bubbling creaks and tangled brambles. There’s not hide nor hair of any more Grimm, and he begins to suspect that Ozpin’s little speech was just for theatrics and flair.

A glimmer of sunlight on stone catches his eyes, and he pushes through the trees, and is greeted by a buffeting blast of wind. He’s on the edge of a small cliff, and his team fans out behind him as the sight of what lies below spreads out ahead of them in brilliant color. Summer and Tai inhale sharp breaths, and Raven lets out a noncommittal grunt of surprise.

There is an abandoned temple. It’s still mostly intact, but it’s weathered and old-looking. Lichen and moss coats the pillars, and there are several alters ringing the structure; each one holds a chess piece on the top of it. Each one is black as pitch.

“So how do we get down there?” Taiyang wonders aloud. “I don’t really fancy our chances trying to climb down this cliff, and while our Aura might keep us from dying, I don’t really want a broken bone today— or ever.”

Qrow casts a glance at his sister, thinking of the dramatic show he could create by shifting into a crow and soaring down the temple. Besides, he’s never listened to Raven before; why should he do it now?

She seems to know what he is thinking, because her expression shifts to anger as he grins at her. “Qrow—”

He allows the change to swallow him up and spit him out as a corvid. His bones elongate, melting and shrinking, and his skin prickles and aches before the world blurs before him, and he is standing several feet smaller, three humans looming over him.

He doesn’t stick around to hear Raven shout at him for being an idiot; enjoying the sputtering shock of Taiyang and Summer, he spreads his wings and glides off the cliff, down to the temple.

Ten minutes later, Raven, Taiyang, and Summer join him, having traversed the long way around. Raven looks stormy as a thundercloud, Summer looks mildly surprised but happy, and Taiyang is shaking his head and muttering under his breath. “A fucking bird,” he says. “His name’s Qrow and he can change into a fu—”

“Taiyang, please.”

Qrow brandishes the black rook he took from an altar. “I know it must be so interesting to discuss my abilities, but here’s the damn thing we were sent here for, so drop it. I don’t walk about shouting out my semblance for the world to hear, so you shouldn’t, either.”

Raven shoots him a look that’s sharper than a dagger— they both very well know his semblance isn’t shifting into a crow— but they don’t let Taiyang or Summer know that.

“Well, that’s it; we’ve got our relic,” Raven tells the team. “Now let’s get back to the checkpoint as swiftly as we can. Our objective is fulfilled now.”

“Don’t you want to explore?” Summer asks her, eyes twinkling like stars. “After all, surely Ozpin can’t fault us for checking out this area.”

Raven’s cold eyes fall upon Summer. “No, I do not. It’s foolish to hang around here longer than we must.”

Summer’s smile seems to waver and fall from her face. “I— do you not want to be here or something?”

“I think this is all theatrics and a pointless waste of time.” Raven sheathes her sword, eyeing the relic. “Perhaps it’s fitting for fools, but not for I. We should get assigned our teams and leaders and be done with it, the sooner the better.”  

“Hey, you don’t need to be like that,” Summer tells Raven. “Is this because you’re worried Ozpin is going to see your real skills and that you might not be made the leader? Look, I get you might be disappointed in this whole initiation deal, but believe me, it’s fine if you’re not going to be made the leader. Leadership isn’t for everyone, and not everyone is an excellent fighter… I can tell you and your brother don’t seem really accustomed to how all of this works, but it’s no big deal if you don’t quite understand it yet. Beacon will teach you how to fight and lead well, especially if you can’t do it yet. You seem like an okay fighter, but not everyone can be really strong and special… not everyone is cut out to be really good, you know?”

Qrow’s eyes widen at that. His sister stiffens at the word ‘strong’. She sputters, eyes gleaming furious red as if Summer has uttered the vilest of insults— and Qrow knows that, in a way, she has. Then, with a feral snarl, his sister charges at Summer and lifts her hand, her sharp nails flashing brightly in the sunlight as she prepares to rake them over Summer Rose’s face.

At that exact moment, a blonde streak shoots past Qrow and plows into her, throwing her to the side. They roll end over end, coming to a tumbling stop on the moss several feet away. Taiyang slams Raven’s shoulders into the ground, a terrible growl coming from somewhere deep in his throat.

“Get off of me!” she spits, thrashing underneath him. “Let me up this instant, you whelp, you idiot! Let me go!”  

Taiyang doesn’t move an inch. His burning blue eyes remain steadily locked on hers. Qrow knows from bitter experience the strength in his sister’s muscles, and he can appreciate how much endurance it must take to keep her pinned there. “Not until I can trust I can do that without you trying to murder one of your teammates.”

Raven struggles again. “My teammate—”

“We’re all your teammates now whether you like it or not. Capisce?” Taiyang lets out a huff. “Qrow,” he addresses him, without budging an inch to twist around to look at Qrow. “Is Summer okay?”

Eyebrows raised, Qrow glances at his new teammate. Her silver eyes look stricken, and she’s a bit pale, but she directs a shaky smile in his direction, voice managing to be chipper. “I’m right as rain. She didn’t touch me.”

Qrow nods, returning the smile reluctantly. “She’s fine,” he tells Tai. “Pretty face unscratched. Way to dash in there, sport. I’m sure you’re her knight in shining armor now.”

Taiyang visibly sags. “Okay. Brilliant. Perfect. You’re both determined to be sarcastic and bitter at every possible time. Wonderful.” He lets out a deep breath, nostrils flaring. “Look,” he continues to Raven— she has stopped thrashing around by now— obviously making an enormous effort to remain calm. “I get that we’ve all got our differences, and it’s stupid to expect them to go away just because we’re teammates now. I don’t know what part of what Summer said offended you, but it did. I’m sure she didn’t mean to do it— misunderstandings are fine— but it’s done with, so just apologize to each other, because if we throw ourselves at each other every time we disagree, we’ll never learn to work together. Got it?”

Raven goes limp, boneless; Taiyang seems to sense that the fight has drained out of her, because he scrambles to his feet quickly and dusts himself off. Raven gets up on her own, red eyes falling onto Summer, who gazes at her nervously.

“I’m sorry for offending you,” Summer murmurs.

Raven’s mouth thins in a stern expression— not angry or displeased, but guarded. “And I apologize for charging you. It was foolish.”

“And rude,” Qrow chimes in, his voice light. “Don’t forget ‘rude’ too.”

His sister shoots him a dirty look. “Be silent, Qrow.”

While they’re apologizing and making an uneasy peace that’s definitely never going to last, Qrow patrols the border, making sure there are no Grimm lurking around. Everything is silent, though, and he makes his way back to the team, still bearing the black rook. “Let’s head back to the cliffs and get this done with.”

As they move back into the forest, their new truce still heavy in the air between them, Qrow feels— hopeful.

Nothing unfortunate happens to them on that day.

☨ ☨ ☨

Qrow wakes up to the unmistakable sound of snoring.

It’s Taiyang. He sounds like some gods-awful mixture between an donkey, gunshots, and a blender— a droning, strangulated sound that makes Qrow want to wring his neck. Miraculously, Summer and Raven are somehow managing to catch some sleep through the noise, but he can’t. Eyes wide-open, he stares at the ceiling and curses the name of every god he knows before resigning himself to the fact that he’s not going to get back to sleep unless someone punches him unconscious. In fact, he’s half-tempted to do it himself.

Muttering angrily about blonde idiots, he slides out of bed and drops to the ground, silent as stone. Living on thievery has given him an edge on sneaking around— nevertheless, it doesn’t rest easy on him, all this secrecy. As he pads past Raven’s bed, he half-expects her to snap open her eyes and yell at him, but she doesn’t, and he eases himself out of the dorm as quietly as he can.  

Moonbeams fall across the ground in the hallway, and lush red carpet muffles the sound of his steps. He wanders down the hall like a shadow, relishing in the silence that accompanies his solitude.

“Mr. Branwen.”

A sudden voice rings out into the silence, clear and crisp as crystal, and Qrow jumps in shock, whipping around to see Ozpin standing in the middle of the hallway, observing him with raised brows.

“Godsdammit,” Qrow mutters. Caught before I even made it out of the dorm building. Way to go.

Unfazed, Ozpin looks at him over the rim of his glasses. “You are, by the rules, technically out after curfew, and thereby going against a very stringent policy of Glynda’s. I would not advise you to be roaming the school after hours, Mr. Branwen. Count yourself lucky that Glynda was not the one to find you first. She is not as lenient in such matters. Why are you out here?”

“I can’t sleep,” Qrow admits. “Taiyang snores… and I’ve always been a bit of an insomniac.”

Ozpin smiles, lowering his cane to the ground with a clicking noise. “I see. Believe me, you would not be the first student I’ve caught out in the corridors after hours with a case of insomnia… or teammates who have rather bothersome sleeping habits. I have found that a game of chess has always been particularly useful in clearing intrusive thoughts from one’s mind and lulling it into a calmer state for rest. I don’t mind circumventing the rules in some cases, and I would be lying if I claimed that no student ever broke curfew. Would you care to join me?”

Qrow shuffles his feet, but he can’t exactly turn down the headmaster without looking like an ass, and this might be a good chance to get on Ozpin’s good side. He’s long since learned that you don’t survive and get ahead of everyone else without tallying up favors and being in good graces with those in authority. “Yeah, I guess.”

He follows behind Ozpin in silence as he continues down the hall, and then the headmaster launches into what Qrow can already tell will be a long-winded lecture on history, or some shit. “Beacon Academy was constructed many, many years ago, on the principles of courage, duty, and compassion, before you existed. It still holds those morals, and I’m pleased to see that the ambition of Huntsmen and Huntresses world-wide has not waned as the years go by.”

“And before you were born too, I expect,” Qrow says dryly, trying not to sound disinterested. Normally he wouldn’t care, but there’s something about the headmaster that tells him that being standoffish is a very, very bad idea. To that, Ozpin does not reply.

They enter the office amid the same emptiness, and it’s quiet, save for the turning of the gears above Qrow’s head. He seats himself as Ozpin pulls out a mahogany chess set from beneath his desk, opening it and removing the pieces— bishops, rooks, pawns— with a few deft flicks of his fingers. “Black or white?”

“Black.”

He sets up the black and white pieces. Moonlight sparks off the game board. Qrow narrows his eyes, determined to win, and pulls his chair closer to the table as the headmaster takes his own seat.

And five minutes later, in less than sixteen moves, Ozpin has him beat.

“Fuck,” Qrow says as he’s forced to concede. “How long have you been playing chess?”

That earns him a wan smile. “Far longer than I should be, I assure you.”

“Huh.” Qrow sits back, folding his arms with a frown flickering across his lips. “Well, chess isn’t really a huge skill anyways. I bet I could beat you in a straight-up fight.”

Ozpin’s eyebrows slant downward. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. A warrior’s greatest asset is not his strength, or even the weapon he wields— often it is his mind. And while we’re on the subject, Mr. Branwen, do you have your weapon? I remember that you had filled out the box on your transcript requesting one.”

He shakes his head. “Just a dagger. It’s fine, but I don’t think it’ll carry me through the four years. I asked if I could forge one or something.”  

Ozpin nods. “Yes, you’re correct on that count. A more advanced weapon will help you gain an edge in a fight, and it will hone your skills more than a plain one could ever do. In that case, you can begin forging your weapon tomorrow. Head to the furnaces of metalworking on the fourth level of the school, down the hall and in room 3B. Skip your second period class— I think you are enrolled in Grimm studies for that time, I believe, which from my observations thus far, I believe you have that subject well in hand.” There’s a hidden note in his voice that makes Qrow wonder just how much he knows. “And for now, I will bid you a good night, Mr. Branwen.”

Qrow finds himself standing outside the door of the office several moments later, looking up at the vast, shadowy ceiling, ribbed with beams, and there’s only one thought in his mind.

I’m screwed.

☨ ☨ ☨

Qrow splits from his team as they head for their second block class. Raven gives him a parting glance as Taiyang and Summer, chattering excitedly, drag her off. Surprisingly, she doesn’t look contemptuous or unenthusiastic— her expression is unreadable. He doesn’t stick around to ponder upon it, though. He tosses his dagger into a waste bin and heads for the fourth level of the school.

☨ ☨ ☨

“Is your task going well, Mr. Branwen?”

He jumps, the chair clattering as he nearly falls out. “Gods!”

“No. It’s merely me. I apologize for startling you.” It’s Ozpin, looking grave over the rim of his glasses. There’s a cup in his hand, a chipped white mug bearing the emblem of crossed axes.

“I know that’s hot chocolate,” Qrow grunts without looking up. Turning around, he casts an accusatory glance at the headmaster. “Also, quit sneaking up on me.”

Ozpin’s voice holds a trace of amusement. “You and Glynda make up the only two people within the confines of the school who are privy to that knowledge.”

Qrow turns back to the hunk of metal that will soon be his sword, and begins to hammer at it. Its shape is beginning to take form, slowly but surely, and sparks scatter from the clangs of the hammer. “You don’t need to talk so formally all the time, you know.”

Ozpin moves to flank his right side, and Qrow stiffens slightly, the even rhythm of the hammer on the metal faltering slightly. “Would you prefer me to fall into a more colloquial manner of communication, like your friend, Tai?”

Qrow tries to imagine Ozpin’s formal, silvery tones replaces with Tai’s gruff and open words, and fails. “If there’s a hell on this earth, that would be it.”

Ozpin lets out a laugh. “I didn’t believe so. Formality is always simpler, I’ve found, in the long run… it’s easiest to be straight-up instead of twisting and hiding behind evasions and modern-day words.” He pauses. “Are you getting along well with your team?”

Qrow weights the merits of lying against honesty, and decides on the latter; Ozpin has a knack for sniffing out lies. A rough laugh forces its way up from his throat. “I’ve been fighting with Raven since we could open our mouths to form words, so no surprise there. Summer is… alright, I guess, but I’ve yet to see her fight… she seems more like an innocent schoolgirl than anything, with that round face and those innocent silver eyes…”

Something in Ozpin’s face flickers, but Qrow puts it down to the shimmer of the firelight on his expression. “She was not admitted to this academy on uncertain terms. You can trust her skill when engaged in combat. And what about the third member? Taiyang?”

“I don’t like him,” Qrow growls, and the hammer crashes on the metal with vicious force, the muscles in his arm rippling with the movement. Cinders swarm out from the epicenter, and he shakes his head to extinguish them. “I don’t like the way he looks at my sister, I don’t like his holier-than-thou attitude, and I hate that damned honesty… he’s got no clue how the world works, none at all, and it’s going to come back to bite him where it hurts one day.”

Ozpin is quiet for a heartbeat, and then: “Cynicism does not suit you well.”

Qrow glances up, taken aback. Ozpin is not looking at him; he stares deep into the heart of the furnace fire, his expression more ancient and full of grief than words can say.  

“You try not being a cynic once you’ve lived my life,” Qrow responds, turning back to his task.

Ozpin leaves, his pace slowly and unsteady, like he’s bleeding out from an unseen wound— Qrow would know; he’s seen enough people stumbling away in their dying throes from the aftermath of the tribe’s attacks. None of them ever make it far enough to tell the tale of what happened to them. He can see Raven’s eyes, and the red in them is not her irises, but the blood of those they have slaughtered together. It blurs together— the unsteady stride, the blood, the eyes, Ozpin— until he is nearly drowning in memories.

It’s only when Qrow smells the stench of burning cloth that he realizes the edge of his sleeve has caught on fire from the furnace.

☨ ☨ ☨

“Holy hell!” Taiyang exclaims as Qrow meets up with his team, where they’re standing by one of the fountains in the courtyard. He is smoldering with fury, one sleeve of his gear cut off, leaving a raggedy hole from which his singed arm protrudes. “What happened to you? Get into a little run-in with a fire Grimm?”

He laughs at his own joke, and Qrow scowls, hurling the scorched remains of the sleeve at his face. “Shut up, Raggedy-Andy, and go pant after some girl you have no chance with, why don’t you?” For good measure, he lets his eyes flit to his sister, who looks thoroughly entertained by the whole ordeal.

Taiyang laughs roughly, but his eyes narrow, and Qrow knows he has hit a nerve. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”

Qrow scowls, tosses his hands into his pockets, and tells him to do something with his body that’s anatomically impossible. Taiyang’s eyes flash and he stands up in one smooth motion. Qrow stares back without a trace of hesitation or fear. The air crackles between them.

“Sure, I will. And where have you been, Qrow? Chasing after a certain someone, right?” The challenge in his voice is unmistakable. “So you think I’m the freak for going after a couple girls, but you’re off with the hea—”

Qrow shoves Taiyang in the chest with both hands, sending him lurching back. The brawler has always been top-heavy, and the shove sends him toppling into the waters of the fountain, water surging up and soaking him. Taiyang snarls, just as Raven snaps, “Brother, that’s enough,” followed by Summer letting out a startled squeak. They stand up together, and Raven towers over Summer, but they both stare at Taiyang and Qrow angrily. They make such an unlikely pair, the daughter of the tribe and the innocent girl—

Taiyang comes hurtling out of the fountain in a wave of water and a streak of golden fury, and the force of the punch he throws sends Qrow’s head snapping to the right, his vision breaking apart into jagged flashes of red and black. He goes down, his skull cracking against the pavement, and Taiyang lands right on top of him, shouting something about Qrow being pretentious and deserving every bit of the beating he’s about to get. Fury exploding as his shock finally gives way to retaliation, Qrow flips Taiyang over and strikes him squarely in the nose, rewarded by the crunch of bone and a gush of blood as it breaks. Taiyang retaliates by returning the favor just as savagely. Blood bursts from Qrow’s nose, spraying Taiyang’s shirtfront with scarlet splatters, and then he grabs his arm and snaps it around. Qrow screeches in pain and anger as his bone clashes against its joint, sending burning agony exploding up through his arm— and then he clocks Tai in the eye, a straight punch with all his force behind it, and he knows it’ll bruise later. Taiyang bares his teeth, looking up at him.

“Don’t you ever say that again,” Qrow snarls.

Taiyang’s laugh is cruelly amused. “What? You think we all can’t see it whenever you come back from being around him? You think it’s not obvious? Because it is, and you lo—”

Qrow drives his elbow into Taiyang’s throat, choking the words off with a strangled noise. Taiyang rams his knee straight up into Qrow’s stomach, blasting the breath out of his lungs, before flipping him over and pinning his shoulders to the pavement, fingers digging in viciously. Qrow’s vision goes blurry as his head cracks against the stone once more— now would be a great time, he thinks hazily, for the misfortune to kick in and get Taiyang to magically fall unconscious, or something— but nothing happens to aid him.

And then, someone shouts for them to stop. The voice is familiar, and Qrow’s heart drops all the way to his toes as he makes out Ozpin striding towards them, cane clicking against the pavement, and Glynda is at his heels, looking amazed and stiff with disapproval at the two boys brawling on the ground.

Taiyang scrambles up, but Qrow lies there, oblivious to his sister’s narrowed gaze on him, and Summer’s wide-eyed worry.

“Sir,” Taiyang says stiffly. There’s blood running down his noise, and his eye is beginning to blacken; he looks like a bulldozer has run over him. Qrow feels a vicious sort of satisfaction. The idiot’s no longer cocky and handsome, and certainly in no state to be eyeing up his sister.“Sir, I—”

“That’s enough, Mr. Xiao Long. Quite enough out of the both of you. I don’t know why this happened, nor do I need any explanations for it.” Ozpin’s voice is colder than Qrow has ever heard it, before his eyes flick down to him. They’re devoid of any discernible emotion, except one that cuts Qrow to the chest, hurting him far more than any of Taiyang’s taunts: disappointment. “Glynda,” he announces, each word heavy, “go back to my office and make sure there are no students waiting to meet with me, please. I shall take care of this.”

The assistant scurries off with a nod.

“Miss Rose, Miss Branwen,” Ozpin continues, looking at them in a more kindly manner, “I would advise you to take Mr. Xiao Long back to your dorm— or, if you feel it necessary, swing by the infirmary.”

Summer glances at Qrow nervously, and he looks away, scowling, feeling too close and cornered in his stupid school uniform, with one sleeve still singed off. He cradles his arm close to his chest, feeling it ache. It’s sprained, if not broken, and that’s not even accounting for the state of his face right now, with one cheekbone dented and beginning to swell up with a black bruise. “What are you going to do with him, sir?” She asks, her voice quavering.

Ozpin looks down, back at Qrow. The sunlight forms a soft halo around the silver of his hair, his copper eyes dark. Even with Qrow’s vision blurry with pain, there’s no denying what he sees and the way his heartbeat seems to cease, if only for an instance. “I shall speak with him, and make sure he understands why this behavior isn’t fit for this academy— or, truly, ever. Fighting amongst peers is not something I will permit in my Academy, now or ever, and the rules are most stringent on that policy… but I am sure the four of you were well aware of that before this occurred.” He directs another comforting, patient smile towards Summer, and there’s the headmaster side of him that Qrow knows. “However, I will make sure he is all right before I go about any methods of scolding, Miss Rose. Do not fear about that. The wellbeing of my students is always my priority.”  

“Thank you, sir,” she says, before helping Taiyang hobble off, like some wounded war-hero, and Qrow scowls again. Raven shoots her brother one last look, and Qrow can’t tell what she’s trying to convey, before Ozpin’s hand on his shoulder draws his attention back to the present.

“Do you need help getting up, Mr. Branwen?”

Qrow tries to put his arm down to brace himself and rise, but the lightning bolt of pain that jolts up his arm, nearly making him black out, prevents him from doing that. “Yeah, I do. My Aura is shot,” he growls thickly, trying to hide his shame as he wipes a hand over his nose to stifle the flow of blood. “In case you couldn’t tell.”

Ozpin’s hands loop under his arms, and he helps Qrow stagger to his feet. Qrow shivers, before breaking away and stumbling to a steadier stance. “Thanks.”

Ozpin nods shortly, gripping his cane. “Come with me to my office, and we shall discuss a few matters that should have been cleared up long before today.”

[moonsandstar-s]

Nevermore (Reprise)

Chapter III - Misfortune and Time 

He is damaged, far too damaged. Remnant is full of fairytales and legends, but it is just as full of beasts and demons, and his misfortune only marks him out as an outcast. The souls that Salem has taken are lost; they are beyond redemption, as he will soon be.

Team STRQ is shattered. One dead. One lost. One traitor. One damaged. By watching the turn of the clock, Qrow can see that there’s not much time left before the same fate repeats itself on the ones he loves.

read on AO3 

                                                           ☨ ☨ ☨

The Vytal Festival rushes upon them as the penultimate event to their second year at Beacon. They’re all over eighteen now, and yet the tournament has them all excited as children. This is their chance to shine. “It’s got to be Qrow,” Taiyang says, one night when they’re lounging around the dorm room, plotting out tactics in a half-hearted manner. “He goes in. We win our team round. We send him onto doubles. He whoops ass there. Then, singles. His semblance whoops ass— and we’re home free.”

“It doesn’t quite work like that,” Raven says. “Anyways, aren’t you presuming a lot, regardless, to assume we’ll automatically move on to the singles and doubles rounds?”

“Positivity, Raven!” Summer urges her. “Think optimistic.”

“Right,” she says dryly. “I’m very optimistic. Absolutely.”

Qrow swings himself off his bed. “Delightful as it’s been to be discussed, I’m out of here.”

“Don’t go to a bar!” Taiyang calls after him as he slams the door. “I’m not getting another demerit because you keep drinking shitty vodka!”

Qrow sends back a gesture that heavily relies on his middle finger, expertly slams the door with a flip of his wrist, and promptly runs into a certain someone, almost knocking him right back on his ass.

It’s Ozpin. He stares at Qrow, one brow arched, his cane gripped in his other hand. Qrow rubs his head resentfully, making his hair stick up in spikes. “For fuck’s sake,” he complains, drawing back. “Do you just always wander the halls cryptically?”

“Ah, Mr. Branwen,” Ozpin says, not at all deterred by his complaints. “I was looking for you.”

Qrow’s eyebrows knit together. “Mr. Branwen?”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“I thought we’d kind of, you know, moved past the formalities after you saved me from splattering myself onto your courtyard.” The words are intended to sound sharp, scathing, but his voice cracks a bit at the end and ruins it all.

“I see. What, perhaps, did you suppose we had moved past, and onward to what?” Ozpin’s eyes are piercing and Qrow looks away.

“Nothing. What did you want, anyways?”

“To extend an invitation.” Ozpin tilts his head, eyes flicking back to the dorm’s door. “Are you currently busy?”

“No,” he grumbles. “I was going to go try to threaten a drink out of some idiot bartender, but now that you’re here, I think there’s little chance of me actually doing so. What invitation?”

“I think you could stand to wait and see.” He tosses his hair back in a gesture that indicates Qrow should follow him. “Come, let’s go.”

☨ ☨ ☨

“Let’s get this straight. You want me to spar with you?” Qrow lets out a spurt of harsh laughter. “What are you gonna do, beat me with your cane?”

“Something like that.” Ozpin doesn’t seem fazed. “You’re enrolled in Grimm Studies, Remnant Geography and History, International Communications, and Battle Skills, but ironically, no hands-on combat courses— at least, not formally. I’m aware of your exemplary performance in the Emerald Forest, but this will give me an opportunity to gauge your abilities… better.”

He’s nonplussed. “Fine. But I hope you know you’re going to lose.”

“Arrogance has no place in battle. The only thing that keeps you alive is your own sense of mortality, Qrow.” Ozpin tenses. He sweeps his cane forward, and Qrow’s eyes narrow. It looks less like a cane and more like a disguised weapon, like his sword. “Shall we begin?”

Qrow lets the silence fill the space of three seconds before he lunges, sword slicing downward faster than the eye can follow, but Ozpin suddenly isn’t there anymore. Startled, Qrow whirls around. Miraculously, the headmaster stands on the other side of the room, as if he hasn’t moved at all. He looks barely ruffled, his hands still folded over the top of the cane.

“What in hell?” Qrow mutters, before he hurtles forward again, and it’s then that Ozpin strikes.

Time seems to bend around his form, elongating and stretching, and Qrow barely has time to dodge before the cane stabs where his abdomen was only a millisecond before. Qrow moves like lightning, flashing to one side of the room with his sword up and crossed defensively over his chest, but Ozpin is already there, battering at his defenses and not holding back at all. A sharp grin crosses his face, his copper eyes dancing.

Qrow parries each blow as hard as he can, his feet grinding against the floor before Ozpin retreats, spinning away from him. It feels like a dance— a dangerous dance, one where they are interlocked and spiraling down into chaos. But he doesn’t feel scared or angry. He’s exhilarated, his blood singing in his veins. He hasn’t felt this alive in ages. No one has been able to give him a battle that really tests his abilities like this one.

He swings out his sword suddenly, a streak of silver flashing over Ozpin’s head, but the headmaster twists out of the way and flips off the wall with one agile spring, his cane blurring with speed as he brings it down. Qrow darts out of the strike’s path, backflipping over and changing into a crow midway through the flip so he comes up as a corvid, beating his wings. He swoops up towards the ceiling as Ozpin breathes heavily, looking up at him, and Qrow feels a sense of satisfaction that’s like being high, sharpening his senses and making his veins hum. He might not be winning this fight, but he’s definitely not going down easily.

“Mind yourself, Qrow,” Ozpin calls. “You are only as dangerous as your determination.”

When he’s as high up as he wants to go, he shifts back into himself, plunging towards the ground like an arrow and thrusting his feet out to kick Ozpin down.

Ozpin suddenly isn’t there anymore, and Qrow hits the ground in a shallow crouch, head bowed, before pressing the trigger on his sword and whipping out of the way as Ozpin flashes out of the shadows with his cane hurtling from his hand. Qrow dodges the strike, and the cane bounces off the wall behind his head, returning to Ozpin’s hand in a flash. Qrow slashes out with his sword, now a scythe, trying to trip him up, and Ozpin’s not fast enough to dodge it. Qrow hits him squarely in the side, feeling only a flicker of guilt as the headmaster recoils from the point of contact.

“Slowing up, Oz?”

“I’m just getting started.” The words are barely out of his mouth before Ozpin lunges forward. Qrow tries to duck out of the way, but he isn’t swift enough. His cane catches him around the shoulder with a blow that sends him to his knees. He fumbles for his sword, but another stab from Ozpin’s cane— in and out like a snake’s tongue— stabs him right in the pressure point on his upper arm. He drops his sword with a cry of frustrated pain, and collapses as a starburst of pain radiates out from his arm. He grits his teeth as gold-and-black light flashes behind his eyes. “Fuck,” he says, clenching his eyes shut as he tries to battle back the pain.

“Profanity, Qrow.” Ozpin doesn’t really sound that mad as he chastises him.

“Well, you’re a goody-two shoes if I ever saw one,” Qrow grunts, the wave of pain ebbing from his arm. “That was clever.”

“I have the funniest suspicion that your admission on that matter is made in grudging fashion.” Ozpin, curse him, sounds smug about his victory, and Qrow blows out a heavy breath through his nose. The smug little bastard probably knew he was going to win from the moment they started, especially if he could end it in a single strike. He’s more powerful than he lets on— but then again, he is the master of an Academy of warriors. It stands to reason that he’d be pretty damn skilled.  

“Do you want to cripple me?” Faking resent, Qrow peels open one eye to glare up at Ozpin. He looks amused, the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows and highlighting the edges of his hair to frosted gold. His eyes glow copper, and Qrow feels the strangest fluttering in his chest, his heartrate speeding, though the fight is over. The same startling thought that once came to him— all those months ago at their midnight meeting in the corridors, when Ozpin bade him goodnight after soundly beating him at chess— comes to him again in a speeding rush.

I’m screwed.

“Hardly,” Ozpin says, but Qrow has forgotten what he’s saying it in reply to. His mind is wiped clean of everything except the immediate present.

“Come, let’s get you up.” Ozpin continues, extending his hand with a soft smile. “This training, I assure you, will be beneficial to you in the tournament. My fighting style is unique and not easily imitated, so many students would find it increasingly difficult to counter, especially in the pressure of public eye.”

“Ever heard of the whole ‘modesty is a virtue’ spiel, Oz?” Qrow takes Ozpin’s proffered hand, ignoring the prickling that races up his arm at the contact, and hauls himself to his feet. He sheathes his sword, and trails after Ozpin as he wanders towards the exit, hands clasped on the top of his cane.

“I have full confidence you will do well in the tournament, Qrow. You are unique in a certain way. Smaller people tend to fight with finesse because they are unable to use strength to swing the battle their way, whereas larger people simply batter at their opponent, heedless of tactic, until they win. You employ both styles. You fight with aggression and finesse, and this may be enough to give you an advantage— but you may want to hold off on shapeshifting to try and attack your opponent from the air. It was a unique approach— and not an easily predictable tactic, either— but it expended much of your energy, and it would not be wise to draw such regard to yourself in such a widely-hailed event. Everyone will be watching the tournament for different reasons. Public eye will be trained upon you.” He pauses, his voice concerned. “I know you worry about the tribe tracking you down once more.”

Qrow scowls at his feet. “The tribe are godsdamned cowards. Every one of them. I’d like to see them try to take me now.”

Ozpin seems to hesitate, before he reaches out to brush a curl of hair away from Qrow’s eyes, fingers lingering on his skin. Qrow blinks in surprise. “You have strengthened more than you know. I have witnessed an immense change from the boy who first entered this academy to the man you are now, and believe me, I am honored to have been a part of your path.”

Qrow opens his mouth to reply, and shuts it again, not really knowing how to respond, but it turns out— he doesn’t need to. With an uncertain expression on his face, quiet unlike his usual unfaltering charisma, Ozpin bobs his head and turns to walk away. Qrow doesn’t stop him, just watches his retreating form, silhouetted in the warm, late sunlight. He’s all the colors of autumn, painted in fire and dappled gold. He leans on his sword, completely nonplussed as he watches Ozpin round the corner of the hallway, and vanish from view.

His arm is still pulsing with pain, but the pain in his chest hurts worse— because he’s not an idiot, and the feeling in his heart is familiar. He recognizes it in the way Taiyang looks at his sister, and even in the way Summer looks at Taiyang. He knows what love is— knows that it can crush and kill a person, that it’s a weapon even more dangerous than a gun or a sword. It’s not the soft and gentle thing that everyone makes it out to be. It’s a sickness, a disease that takes over and drags him down into nowhere. He can feel those copper eyes, everywhere and out there, watching him, staring right into his soul.

He remembers Taiyang’s words when they got into their first fight. So you think I’m the freak for going after a couple girls, but you’re off with the headmaster. And then, You think we can’t all see it whenever you come back from being around him? You think it’s not obvious?

Qrow hadn’t let him finish either of those sentences, because Taiyang had been about to reveal a truth that Qrow was in no way prepared to confront, but now it’s here, staring him in the face, and he can’t ignore it any more.

Above Qrow’s head, a light flickers and sputters out, doused by misfortune.

☨ ☨ ☨

Qrow trails one hand through the waters of the fountain, frowning at his distorted reflection in the water.

“You know, there’s been a rumor going around that if you’re gracious enough to place a penny within its waters, that fountain will grant you a wish.” Ozpin’s head appears over Qrow’s shoulder, rippling in the water, but he looks unusually strained. Qrow flicks a droplet of water at him irritably, with a “stop sneaking up on me”, and Ozpin leans to the side, dodging it with ease.

“Now, now. I am only making a joke. Why are you wandering about the courtyards instead of planning tactics with your team? The tournament is drawing nearer day by day. It would be wise to utilize your time in a more beneficial fashion.”

Qrow spins away from the fountain, hunching over with his elbows balanced on his knees, and his hands clasped together. He evades the prying question. “You realize you speak like some twelve-year old Dutch schoolgirl trying to sound fancy, right?”

Ozpin looks off at the entrance to Beacon without replying. There are dark gray shadows under his eyes, and the strain around his mouth is pronounced. Qrow cocks a brow. “Huh. You look brooding. Who has you PMS-ing?”

“Whom,” Ozpin corrects, eliciting a grunt from Qrow. Once a teacher, always a teacher. Then, he sighs. “There is a visitor coming to Beacon today and I am— less than enthusiastic about meeting with him, I confess. He has always been a rather forceful presence, and the stress of organizing the safety procedures of the tournament always shortens his temper. Having the Council’s pressure and eyes upon you can be both a blessing and a burden.”

“Who’s this visitor?”

“The General of Atlas’s military, and a holder of the seat on their Council, as well. His name is James Ironwood— he is young, and desperate to prove himself. Only twenty-seven years old… he was appointed General because he is a mastermind at battle strategy, a proven warrior, but he’s also blindly loyal to the Council. That can make him dangerous. And, of course, he has his own personal reasons for being too foolhardy and desperate to impose his control and will upon his environment and the people in it.” Ozpin runs a gloved hand down the length of his cane. His movements, graceful and controlled, almost like the restrained power of the ocean, mesmerize Qrow, but his next words jar him. “Unfortunately, he suffered a terrible accident several years ago. I do not know the specifics, but I have a network of reliable information, and I suspect it involved a mistake when he was developing the prototypes of his mechanized military…. he lost his left leg, his left arm, his torso, and his ribcage was almost completely burned away. The only reason he was able to survive that was because they immediately got him to a hospital and plugged him into life support, and kept his Aura sustained… and they combined what remained of his body with prosthetics and robotic functions.”

“Jesus,” Qrow says, and that’s all he has time to say, because at that moment, a noise that strongly resembles Taiyang’s gods-awful snoring kicks up. Ozpin and Qrow look in unison at the gates of Beacon. A little fleet of airships— new technology; Qrow’s never seen one personally, and they look a little underwhelming— is descending on the docks. And it’s no secret who’s aboard the largest one in the lead.

“Qrow…” Ozpin sounds uncertain. “Would you accompany me?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure.” He rakes a hand through his hair with a neat flip of his wrist, flicking his bangs back, before rising and following Ozpin, who begins to stride towards the fleet, his cane clicking against the cobblestones. As Qrow rises, His Scroll buzzes. He checks it and rolls his eyes. It’s Taiyang— and what’s worse, he has six missed calls sitting in his notifications.

Taiyang; 10:23 AM— Where the hell are you? I’ve called you like six times. We need to train for the tournament, you ugly bird

Taiyang; 10:23 AM— i know I’m not the only one mad, because Raven keeps pacing around and cursing you out and Summer’s not even telling her to stop

Qrow thumbs back a quick response.

Qrow; 10:24 AM— Tell her to get her panties untwisted. I’m busy.

Taiyang’s answer is annoyingly accurate.

Taiyang; 10:24 AM— Busy with what, jerking off in the stalls or wandering around like some cryptic lapdog with Ozpin?  

Qrow; 10:25 AM— Fuck off

There’s no real venom in it, though, and Tai must know it, because he sends back a laughing face before another message.

Taiyang; 10:25 AM—Raven says, “That’s a bitch of an unsatisfactory answer. Tell him to stop blowing us off to blow someone else.” Sorry man. Her words, not mine. Anyways, hurry up and get back here soon

Qrow; 10:25 AM— Alright.

He stuffs his Scroll away and quickens his pace to reach Ozpin’s side. They’ve reached the airship by now. The door hisses before popping open, and a figure steps out, squinting in the sunlight. His chest is plastered with medals and cords of an officer— he must be the General.

“Ah, Ozpin,” the General cries out, gaily, stepping to the ground and shaking his hand. “It’s been too long.”

“Indeed, James. Too long indeed.” Ozpin’s smile seems genuine enough, but Qrow wonders if anyone else can see the undercurrent of strain beneath it and how rehearsed it looks. “I trust you are doing well?”

The General isn’t really an imposing man, Qrow thinks. He’s not incredibly tall or bulky. The only thing he has going for him is a crafty gleam in his eyes, suggesting that he truly is a military mastermind.. And there is the edge of a burn scar licking up the side of his neck, followed by a metal strap glinting on his forehead that makes Qrow thinks Ozpin’s tale wasn’t exaggerated at all. This man truly is more machine than human— and the dismissive, condescending way he sweeps his gaze over Beacon and Ozpin makes Qrow dislike him instantly.

“Fine, fine,” he says. “There’s a bit of unrest in the ranks with our newest conscripts, but that’s to be expected. Our Dust harvest was better than it has been in ages. The combat academies are flourishing with the new advancements in technology and Aura. Atlas is thriving.”

I bet, Qrow thinks venomously, before a blur of movement catches his eye as a man disembarks one of the farthest aircrafts, and sniffs the air with a contemptuous look on his face. He looks like a weasel, Qrow thinks— a white weasel, with frosty hair and ice-colored eyes, decked out in an excessive white suit with blue lapels.

“That,” the General says, noticing Ozpin and Qrow’s glances at the man, “is Jacques Schnee, your newest proprietor of the SDC, and the man who wields an incredible amount of public influence— besides myself and the Council, of course. He’s a weasel if I ever saw one, but he could be a potential ally, so I’m holding off on out-and-out discrediting him. We shall see how he performs in the public eye, but he’s here to… familiarize himself with Vale, so to speak. Regardless of his motivations to be here, I don’t think he’s very enthusiastic about it.”

“Schnee?” Ozpin’s eyebrows knit together as he studies the frosty-haired man. His expression is taken aback. “What has happened to Nicholas Schnee?”

James’s eyes darken, and he searches Ozpin’s face in confusion. “Hadn’t you heard? He passed the inheritance of his company on to Jacques, and died a few weeks later. The funeral procession was extensive… though I suppose the news would not have been as momentous in Vale.”

“Certainly not,” Ozpin says with a touch of disapproval, “but I was certain that he would have granted his fortune to his daughter, Willow. He didn’t seem the type to go passing out something he spent his life building to just any man.”

“As I said, Jacques was— is— a conniving person. Nicholas wasn’t as sharp as he used to be, in his old age. Jacques conned him out of it, convinced him that he was trustworthy with the SDC, married Willow for extra credential, got her pregnant with the next heir, and Nicholas died. To make matters worse, this all within the span of a month. Public opinion is divided; many despise him, but the rest do not, and things have been in upheaval… the backlash and turmoil is still going on, back in Atlas. I’m hoping the Vytal Tournament can smooth public energy over in a way that I cannot.” He smiles. “But enough of politics and problems. We deal with that enough already, don’t you think? How has Beacon been?”

“Excellent; thank you,” Ozpin replies.

“How is the new year? Are you managing to keep up with all your new students?”

“Certainly. We have a highly diverse entry of first-years, and I am confident they will perform splendidly in the tournament.”

Ironwood’s eyes fall onto Qrow, as if he has suddenly popped into existence between one blink and the next. “And who’s this? Don’t tell me you’ve gone and recruited another student to your staff after Glynda.” His laugh is like a knife scraping against stone. “Though she is qualified, I admit… perhaps more than both of us, hm?”

“Don’t hold your breath.” Qrow’s voice curls with a sneer. Ozpin shoots him a look sharper than flint. “I’m a student. Flattered, really, that you thought I wasn’t.”

“I see.”

Ozpin’s eyes fall onto Qrow. His hands are folded over his cane, white knuckled and stiff, and his eyes hold something that Qrow’s never really seen— or, maybe, never seen directed at him, at least until now. They’re colder than a gust of bitter winter wind. “Mr. Branwen. Would you go back to your dorm?”

Qrow knows a dismissal when he hears one, and he can tell that Ozpin— if he’s not mad— is at least disappointed. Whatever. He’s not going to suck up to this pompous idiot just to look like a star student. They both know he’s not one. Shaking off the sudden resurgence in memories— spinning night skies and howling wind and falling falling falling— he turns and stalks off wordlessly, hearing their quiet murmuring fade away behind him.

He rounds a corner and instantly slams into someone. He backs up, scowling, but he cuts himself off as he realizes it’s just Summer. “Hey!” She doesn’t really sound mad, though. “Watch where you’re going, Qrow!”

Summer looks great. For a moment, everything is okay. Her hair is swept back in black and frosted scarlet wisps. The unusually warm day is evident, because she’s dressed in a Vytal t-shirt with ripped jeans. She’s laughing, her silver eyes sparkling, and they’re just two normal teenagers ready to shine at the tournament.

But then reality kicks in as she sees the black look on his face. “Oh, geez. What’s wrong?”

“Did you know that people from Atlas are pricks?” He storms off and she hurries to catch up with him, casting an incredulous glance back at the gates.

“Is that the General in the courtyard? Oh— right, he’s here for the tournament, sorry. Did you meet him?”

“Unfortunately.”

“I guess he wouldn’t be too nice. Military people usually aren’t. I’m sorry, Qrow.” She sounds like she genuinely means it, and he finds his anger has softened a little, though it’s not really the General’s attitude that has him bothered. “They might not have liked you, but I think you’re lovely. Not everyone can see it, but you’re a kind person, at heart.”

He grunts in response. “Whatever. I’ll just— I’m going to go to the city. Get a drink, or something.”

“Listen to me,” she says sternly, jabbing a finger in his chest. “If you continue doing that, you will die.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fine. I’ll stay sober, then, if it gets you off my back.”

“That’s the attitude I like to hear! In that case, do you want to go spar or something? Taiyang and Raven have pretty much decided that it’ll be you going on if we make it through, but the team rounds are still pretty difficult.” Her voice loses a little of its color and vibrancy at the names of Taiyang and Qrow’s sister, and he frowns.

“Summer,” he says abruptly, “do you have a crush on Taiyang?”

Her face flushes a color even deeper red than the tips of her hair. “I— uh, what?”

Qrow adjusts his sword on his hip so he doesn’t have to look at her. His face is burning red. He hates these kinds of talks. “You heard me.”

She drops the pretense of obliviousness, letting out a deep sigh that rustles from the depths of her lungs. “Is it really that obvious?”

“I doubt it is to him. He’s denser than a rock.”

“Please don’t speak that way about him,” she says quietly. “I know you don’t like him very much, but I… I do. He’s kind, and sweet, and he’s loyal to us. You can’t deny that he’ll do anything for us, because we’re his team.”

Qrow grunts in response. “So what are you going to do? Tell him?”

Summer flinches away. “I— I don’t think so. Tai is a sweetheart, but he’s only got eyes for your sister, you know. I don’t want to do anything to mess up our partnership… he really likes Raven, but I get it.” There is something in her tone when she says ‘Raven’ that makes Qrow feel uneasy, but then she rests her chin in her palm, gazing out over the sprawling campus with a sad expression on her face. “Do you ever feel like you’re just— unnoticed? Like no matter what you do, the person you love will never really see you as you are, without the weight of expectations and who they think you are?”

Qrow looks out, sees Ozpin talking with the General, his straight-backed shoulders and lifted head illumined in sunshine. “Yeah,” he tells her. “Yeah, I do.”

☨ ☨ ☨

The day of the Vytal Festival dawns cloudy and cold. They wake up early— unfortunately, they’re slotted for a morning match— and wordlessly begin to get dressed, still shaking sleep out of their bodies. There’s a sort of unspoken communication among them now. Summer tosses Raven a hairband to tie back her unruly mass of hair. Taiyang leaves Qrow’s sword lying by the door so he won’t forget it. Qrow tosses Summer her Scroll. And et cetera.

They make it out to the courtyards with fifteen minutes to spare; the walk to the airship is made in silence. It’s less of a tense silence than one made out of effort not to expend energy— it’s chilly enough already, and they’re all shivering by the time they make it to the docks. A raw, damp cold pushes its way through Qrow’s hair, slipping under his gear and laying like an icy second skin against his own.

Taiyang is walking close to Raven, close enough to hold her hand. Summer trails them, her eyes on the cobblestones. As they board the airship, Qrow sees Tai wordlessly slip his hand into Raven’s, their fingers linking together. She doesn’t pull away, which makes him flick an eyebrow up, but he doesn’t remark upon it. Summer looks sad enough already, and they don’t need to be infighting before the match.

The silence on the flight to the Amity Colosseum is now a tense one.

☨ ☨ ☨

They’re matched up against a Haven team— Team RVER— which is an appropriate name for a kingdom that’s got more rivers than it has people.

The team doesn’t look special in any way. There’s a tall boy, Elijah, with corn-straw hair and a crooked nose that makes Qrow think it was broken once and healed wrong. One of his eyes glows a bright green, while the other is a muddy brown. Both of them glint with a cruel light. He’s going to be the easiest. Arrogance and cruelty go hand in hand, and arrogance gets you knocked out of this arena right away. The rest of the team is comprised of one boy and two girls. The other boy, Rojo, is a Faunus with reddish-brown hair and dark green eyes, and the slanted tilt of them marks him out as foreign— from Mistral, or the farther corners of Menagerie. He’s a deer Faunus. One antler is snapped off, leaving nothing but a stump with traces of blood— probably broken in a rally, Qrow thinks. Remnant can be cruel towards the Faunus.

It’s the two girls who look like they’ll be the most challenging. Qrow and Raven swap glances as they size up their opponents. Veronica, the first girl, holds a long, barbed sword. That’s going to be a pain to avoid, because he’d bet his scythe that each barb is coated in some sort of poisonous substance, and those would hurt like hell to pull out. She’s short, with a shock of violet-colored hair that flows to her shoulders, and hazel eyes. And lastly, the team leader, the girl named Reyna, scowls at them. A black whip that flickers with golden light is curled around her wrist. Electricity, Qrow thinks, his eyebrows knitting together. That’s going to be hard to avoid. But Ozpin trained him well, and he’s faithful enough own self-taught skills.  

He tunes out as the commentators begin to prattle on, focusing on his own team. Summer looks anxious, her eyes bright, her nails bitten down to the quick. Not good. Nerves are okay in a fight— they keep you on your toes— but clarity is better. Summer looks liable to break down any second, with so many eyes trained on her. Taiyang is better off— his expression is confident, his chin upturned. The crowd probably loves him. It’s Raven who is the enigma, as always, her hair swept back, her red eyes like two chips of ice.

Qrow wonders if Ozpin is watching, if he even cares.

At that moment, the biomes of the arena whir to life, two of them in a half-sphere. One is a swamp, full of muddy patches and cattails. The other is a craggy, treacherous landscape jutting with serrated rocks and obscured pitfalls. Stunted, warped pine trees cling to soil that spills over the crags.

“I’ve got it,” Taiyang mutters out of the corner of his mouth as the three seconds they’re allotted before the round starts begin to count down. “You go for the ugly boy and I’ll—”

He doesn’t get to finish. Right as the word ‘one’ leaves the commentator’s mouth, the Faunus boy stamps his foot against the ground, and the earth tilts sickeningly. Yellow waves of light flash through Qrow’s vision, and the sound of brass trumpets clangs in his ear, a magnified sound that almost stops his heart in fear. He takes a spill, crashing to his knees as his teammates sprawl the ground.

The commentators shout something about a fear semblance and manipulating the tilt of the earth, but Qrow’s head is spinning like a top as the sound still tolls in his ears. His heartbeat pounding in his chest, he closes his eyes and sways, trying to chase away the nausea.

He opens his eyes as he hears the sound of running feet.

Summer regains her feet first, and instantly, Team RVER overwhelms her. Two of them circle around to the swamp while Rojo lunges at Summer, and she sidesteps, but he leaps back. It’s only a feint, and Summer’s eyes narrow in confusion.

At that moment, a snarl rings out as the boy Elijah plows into her. Summer cries out as she’s thrown backward and out of the ring. The buzzer goes off, and one of the commentators murmurs something. Fury crackles through Qrow’s veins as his vision finally stops seeing double. He shoots to his feet and charges the other team, finding that he is backed by Raven and Taiyang.

Right off the bat, his sister is amazing. She whips out her katana, and it blurs through the air in a scarlet streak. She barrels forward, attacking the girl who attacked Summer first, her face contorted in anger. Taiyang charges off, fighting someone else, and Qrow engages the boy Elijah, his sword ringing out in tandem with his sister’s strikes. For a moment, there’s just yelling and applause and commentary, and then things start to go very wrong.

His gaze flashes to the side as lowers his sword, having thrown off Elijah to the side, where he crouches to catch his breath. His sister is still battling against Reyna— but then she bows her head, and it doesn’t take an idiot to see that she’s activating her semblance. Qrow can see her body shudder, a shiver running through it, before a blinding flare of light— brilliant as the sun— radiates out from her. He squints, looking away, before he hears his sister scream.

His eyes shoot open.

Raven is hurtling out of the arena in a blaze of golden light, and as he watches, she hits the energy barrier and falls to the dirt track of the ring-out area. Shock, followed by fury, crosses her face, and her gaze locks onto him. He sees her mouth move— eyebrows slashing down over her eyes. He can’t hear her, but he can see what she’s saying.

Finish them.

It’s the words of a tribe member, and it sends a chill through his blood.

“No!” Taiyang cries, bringing Qrow back to reality as he leaps at Reyna. Now it’s two against four, and Qrow’s blood crackles with anger as he watches the girl flick out her whip and stab him with the hilt, send Tai careening to the side. He’s thrown off, his face bloodied, where he collapses with a groan. His Aura hasn’t expired to fifteen— not yet— but he’ll be out for a good five minutes at most. Qrow isn’t sure if it’s five minutes he can afford, because now he’s alone, and the crowd is filled with jeering and caterwauls of mocking laughter.

Hoping Tai has enough sense to plan some sort of ambush when he regains his senses, Qrow charges back into the battle, his scythe brandished before him. The roaring of the crowd deafens him to everything else. He ducks low and rolls, his scythe sweeping out before him. Elijah is too slow, and Qrow catches him with the curve of the blade, his gear tearing as Qrow flings him out of the arena into the ring-out area with a roar of exertion. As the buzzer goes off, his other teammates jump Qrow, trying to bury him under their combined weight and beat the Aura out of him. He remembers Ozpin’s words.

You are only as dangerous as your determination.

Letting anger flood his veins, he grips his scythe harder before spinning on his feet and exploding outward in a blur of black fury. He’s a tornado, a hurricane, rocketing off a wall and blasting back through his opponents as silver flashes all around him, scarlet blood spinning away from him as he rages outward. Everywhere his scythe touches brings his wrath in a burning flood of fire, a sharply-honed blade, ready to cut and kill. His weapon is no longer a scythe or sword. It’s an arc of pure destruction.

He knocks away Rojo first, catching him by his broken antler and using it to kickboard off of his chest and knock him backwards. There’s no time to relish in the victory, because Veronica slides into Rojo’s place with one swift movement, her face contorted in a snarl. Her sword thrusts towards him in a jab, and he blocks it, sidestepping to slash out at her. She parries the blow and darts low under his defenses. He spins his scythe around and yanks the trigger, folding it back up into a sword for more speed. With a yell, their swords meet, straining against each other. Her sword slowly bears down, inexorable, forcing its way towards his throat, the edge shining in the sunlight—

— and Taiyang comes out of nowhere, plowing into her side and smashing her face into the mud. Qrow gasps in a clear, cool breath, lungs expanding, before he remembers that Reyna is still in the fight. It’s just in time that he whips around to scan the arena. She is creeping up behind him, and as he spies her, she strikes. Her whip flicks out, quick and deadly as a flickering snake’s tongue. She tries to wrap it around his ankles, and he spins out of the way, unscathed, letting it recoil.

Misfortune. The back of his neck tingles in a rushing buzz and his semblance reacts, flaring out to send Reyna tripping facefirst into a mud puddle.

He capitalizes on the advantage, pouncing on her as she staggers back to her feet, but he lets out a snarl of pain as she drives her elbow into his stomach and throws him off. Vision swimming, he shakes his head, but then she’s on top of him, her whip burning into the side of his wrists, and those old scars. He thrashes, but she punches him in the face, catching him on the cheekbone, and as his head snaps around, she grabs at it. Her hand grasps clumsily at the side of his face, clawing his temple. She grabs his ear, wrenching his face around to expose his neck. Anger surges through him as he realizes she’s trying to get him vulnerable, to humiliate him before she eliminates him from the round.

He can either get himself eliminated, or pull himself out of her vicious grip and risk losing the ear, so he chooses the latter. Hopefully, his Aura will protect him. Ripping himself away and leaving a good-sized chunk of his hair bristling from her fist, he brandishes his sword and directs a patronizing smile at her as she crouches there, eyes narrowed at him. “Thanks for the haircut, sweetheart.”

The word she hisses back will surely be censored out on the national broadcast. “You think you can beat me, Vale trash?”

“No,” he replies with a crooked smirk. “But he can.”

She only has time to blink in surprise before Taiyang plunges down from a muddy spire with a roar, and lands feet-first on her shoulders.

The crunching sound that follows makes Qrow wince. The force of impact knocks her out instantly, and her eyes vibrate in her skull like a gong. She crumples like a felled tree, and Taiyang rolls off of her. “Thanks for breaking my fall!” he chirps at her unconscious form, before sweeping around and flashing a sunny smile at the outburst of applause that thunders up from the spectators.

“Gods,” Qrow says, sheathing his sword and clapping Taiyang on the back. “Good timing, idiot. You couldn’t have jumped in before she ripped out half my hair, could you? I know you got, like, stabbed and all—”  

“I was lightly stabbed! Lightly!”

Taiyang is grinning, though. Ignoring his protestations, Qrow scans the crowd, his eyes dancing over where Summer and Raven are clambering back into the circle of the arena, over a shifting ocean of faces, when he sees the one he is looking for.

Ozpin is there. His copper eyes are unreadable in the sunlight. But as Qrow watches, he nods his head in approval, the faintest smile crossing his face— and somehow, that’s worth more than every bit of applause that soars up from the audience.

☨ ☨ ☨

Second round is about as easy as the first, with the same narrow victory. He and Tai are victorious, but Qrow’s semblance makes him faceplant into a wall on one occasion— he looks at the crowd. Summer is laughing, silver eyes bright. Raven is looking at him in a softer expression than he’s ever seen her wear.

But he knows it is the final round that will be the true test.

☨ ☨ ☨

The day of his final round swings around a day that’s uncertain if it’s hot or cold.

Chilliness and warmth wage war in the temperature, and it wavers, plunging up and down erratically. It’s not unprecedented— they’re in that weird passage of spitting, odd weather between fall and winter. Clouds scud across a sky bluer and stiller than the surface of a pool. Qrow wakes up to Taiyang smacking him upside the head and shouting at him that he’d better get his ass out of bed and get moving, because his round starts in less than an hour.

Feeling less than dignified, Qrow slips out of the sheets, returns the slap, and ducks into the bathroom as Taiyang hollers at Summer to go get him breakfast. Qrow barely reacts as his semblance gives a half-hearted sort of shiver, and outside the bathroom door, someone shouts. There’s the sound of a loud crash followed by a loud ‘OUCH’ from Tai, and then heavy swearing, directed at Qrow’s semblance.

Qrow grins, splashing cold water against his face. Dark shadows encircle his eyes, and his hair spikes up all over the place, like a storm-cloud struck through with static. Nothing has ever been able to make his hair lie down tamely, so he settles for smoothing it down with a damp hand, making some spikes lie flat while more bristle out in the back. He sweeps his bangs off his forehead with a flick and pulls on his gear, tying his cape on with one hand while he staggers into his socks with the other. He’s got a long way to go before he acquires the smooth control Huntsmen have over their own forms.

Someone begins to bang on the door. “What are you doing, getting dressed or jacking off?” Taiyang sounds irritated. “Let’s get a move on. You a bird or a turtle?”

“I’m not an annoying little bitch,” he mutters.

Taiyang’s voice sharpens through the wood of the door. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Qrow pushes his hand through his mess of untidy hair before slamming open the door, almost flattening Taiyang against the wall.

Summer’s left a plate of something that vaguely resembles breakfast food on his coverlet— you can never be sure what passes for edible in the school cafeteria— and his sheets look like a mole has tunneled through them.

“You thrash around in your sleep like a dying whale,” Summer informs him sweetly as he sets aside the plate with as much as precision as he would a bomb about to detonate. “Make your bed. That’s an order. I’ll kill you if we get another demerit because of your sloppiness.”

She probably means it. Scowling, he begins to yank up the covers as she bounces towards Raven like a demented fairy godmother to wake her up.

Ten minutes, a spilled plate of food, and a string of swearing from both Raven and Tai later,  they make their way in a disoriented group to the courtyard, flanking Qrow. Summer’s the leader, but today he’s the pinnacle of the team.

He tries to ignore that the only reason he’s important for now is because of his semblance. To their right, a student slips and falls in a puddle.

The Amity Colosseum is packed by the time the airship docks at the side, and it’s Raven that goes first, her stride dangerous and compelling. She’s the type of person that people get out of the way for. Qrow’s trying to be that type of person, too. He catches up to his sister, unsheathing his sword so people will clear to the sides faster. “What’s the real reason you sent me on to the singles round?”

Raven looks amused, not at all taken aback by his bluntness. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Cut the shit. I know you didn’t just convince Summer to send me on for whatever crap reason you gave her— semblance, right? You’d have done just as fine without a bad semblance.”

She snorts. “Well, my dear brother, luck isn’t quite the type of thing I would like to bring into the arena to bestow upon my opponent. You do have a better chance at a victory for us.” Her gaze narrows, going over her shoulder, to where Taiyang and Summer are bickering good-naturedly. “Better than the pair of them, in any case.”

“Yeah. But you’re just as good a fighter, if not…” He swallows his pride and it sticks in his throat like thorns. Curling his lip, he manages, “if not better than I am.”

“I bet it kills you to admit that. Just say it, brother. You hate that you’re not as skilled.” She shakes her head. “Regardless, I convinced them to send you on for the same reasons that plague your dreams at night. I have no desire to be focused upon in a national scope… so I made them take you instead.”

He scowls. “Shitty thing of you to do.”

“I care nothing for this tournament and the foolish implications it brings. There is no such thing as true alliances or peace, not in a world that has blood soaked into its core.” The look on her face is wholly tribe— savage and edged as a knife. “But victory is something I understand. So go out there and win it for us, my brother.”

☨ ☨ ☨

That’s how he finds himself standing in the gray arena with no biomes and no distractions. A line, six people long, stretches away to his right. There’s two kids from Shade, three from Haven, the girl that they fought in round one, Veronica from Atlas— and, of course, Qrow.

He’s not at all surprised when he’s chosen first and his opponent is Veronica.  

The count off is a quiet affair, made silent by tension— you can almost hear the bated breaths of the spectators, the gripping hush that engulfs the stadium, and as soon as the word “one” leaves the commentator’s mouth, Qrow explodes into action.

Swords ring against each other in the stillness, and he slides his blade down. Sparks spit out as the edges grind together, and Veronica spins away, her own sword flaring out at her side as she drops into a crouch. A crooked smile unfurls across her face. “Nice to meet you again.”

“Wish I could say the same. You’re still as ugly as ever, though.” He’s barely finished the sentence before he pounces, a hundred and thirty seven pounds of pure force swinging out from his sword as he goes for her throat. She manages to roll out of the way, diving between his feet and popping up behind him.

Smaller people, Ozpin had said, tend to fight with finesse because they are unable to use strength to swing the battle their way, whereas larger people simply batter at their opponent, heedless of tactic, until they win. You employ both styles. You fight with aggression and finesse, and this may be enough to give you an advantage.

Use it.

His fists clench together. As Veronica lunges towards him again, quicker than the tongue of a snake, he jumps straight up. She lets out a cry of frustration and he drops directly onto her shoulders. She crumples with a shriek and he rides her body down, hearing the satisfying noise of her Aura level dropping on the display board above them.

“Bastard,” she snarls.

He spits back a reply equally as venomous and she throws himself at him again. It’s dance. He parries, and she darts low, her sword jabbing out for his abdomen. He blocks it and she sidesteps, flashing her sword towards his jaw in an uppercut. He left-hooks the blow, sending her staggering away, near the edge.

Determination is key. The only answer.

He stares into her eyes, and knows that if he loses now, he can sink back out of public eye without a trace. Ozpin will know he didn’t even try to go the whole mile. He won’t be mad, Qrow knows. But he’ll be so— disappointed. The applause from the audience rings in his ears, and he can see copper.

It’s time to end this.

As Veronica dives for him again, he waits for the last second before sidestepping. As she whirls in confusion, he plows into her, broadsiding her and sending them both skidding towards the edge of the arena.

They both go over the edge, and she slips out of his grip and goes hurtling towards the ring-out with a screech of fury. He only just manages to grab the edge of the arena before his body falls, and even then, the momentum is nearly enough to yank him down anyways.

He could shift into his crow and fly back up without batting an eye. But that option, he knows, is one that is denied to him. He’ll die before showing that ability here for everyone to see. Snarling a curse, he grips the edge by the tips of his fingers, pain flaring out from the joint of his shoulder. The rest of his body dangles precariously from the brink. Muscles screaming in protest, he manages to haul his arm back up, throwing one elbow over the side. Tossing his sword onto solid ground, he struggles, his feet churning through empty air, before he hauls himself up and over the edge. There, he collapses, inhaling a shaky breath. His Aura is completely drained and his muscles burn with exhaustion.

“And that ends our first match,” one of the commentators declares, a note of clear surprise in their voice. “Qrow Branwen of Vale wins by ring-out.”

That’s all he hears, because then there is the sound of clattering footsteps and the rest of Team STRQ plunge into the arena, running for Qrow. They surround him, congratulating him and chattering in equal measure, their words barely audible over the roaring of the audience. Qrow opens an eye, looks up at them. Taiyang looks uncertain but pleased, the sunlight forming a blurry halo of gold around his head. Summer is grinning down at him, her hair scattered in wispy feathers around her forehead. Raven— Raven is smiling, albeit not much, but it’s there. To his surprise, she extends a hand to help him up, her eyebrows raised.

He takes it.

“Brother,” she says into his ear as he stands. “Good job.”

☨ ☨ ☨

Seven months later, it’s drawing near the end of their third year. Qrow and Raven are nineteen years old, going on twenty, and so is Taiyang. Summer is eighteen, still— she’s young for a team leader, but damned if she hasn’t earned her spot. For every time that one of them falls, she’s there to pick up their slack. For every bad mood and temper, she is there to encourage and keep up morale. Whenever someone is suffering in a class, she helps them study for the exams. When one of them is sick, she is the one to collect their notes and homework from the classes they miss, and point out where they need to pay attention, and where they can skim the work. She has boundless energy, infinite loyalty, and Qrow knows Ozpin chose well to appoint her to her position. One day, she will be an excellent Huntress, and she will leave her mark on the world. Qrow knows it.

And him? He’s not sure what lies in wait on his own path. He still has bad nights, where he wakes up from nightmares, wide-eyed and stiff. Most people wake up screaming or terrified. He wakes up silently, lock-jawed, his veins flooded with a chill like ice-water. Sometimes, he still feels like he’s swaying on the brink of Beacon and insanity, life and oblivion. The darkness hasn’t gone away. You can’t get rid of your demons as easily as that— you can just keep them at bay.

And he has.

☨ ☨ ☨

Qrow is wandering the campus on a dreary day, when the mountains are visible in the distance and everything feels lonely and hushed, the faintest chords of music hanging in the air like crystalline drops. Before the sun has risen, when the world is still and silent, in the foggy and misted twilight of dawn— he finds himself wandering. Past the courtyard, the fountains splashing water into the foggy stillness. Past the gates, hanging open to admit no one to the quiet school.

Out in front of Beacon, there’s a long stretch of moor— burnt heather and gorse lifting spiny branches to embrace the white mist— and then a drop-off; the cliffs. Qrow wonders if he should shift to fly up and look around, but he can’t find it in his heart to do so. Not that he could see anything through this damned fog anyways.

There is a solitary figure that slowly comes into view as Qrow nears the cliffs. The fine spray from the rivers that cascade off the brink and go disappearing into a misty nothingness dust him in silver. And from the back, the set of his shoulders, the tilt to his feet— like a bird about to take off— Qrow wonders if this is how he looked, back in the then. When he took a step and fell off into nothing.

“Ozpin,” he calls softly. But he doesn’t turn around— so Qrow goes to him, looking him full in the face. Ozpin’s eyes are closed, and his skin is sprayed with a constellation of silver droplets. His face is old in a way that Qrow has never seen. His hair curls at the tips with dampness, his shoulders slumped down. The wetness around his eyes, streaking down his cheeks, isn’t from the river, though.

“Oz…”

Ozpin flinches. Then he does something that really surprises Qrow: he reaches out and pulls him into a tight-gripped hug.

Qrow, uncertain of what to do, embraces him. He feels light. Delicate. Like the downy, hollow bones of an angel’s wings. Qrow’s heart is heavy in his ribcage, beating against the bones like they’re prison bars. They stay like that for a long time. Something has changed, a tilt in the axis of everything Qrow knows to be normal. But he can’t even begin to identify what it is.

This feels like dangerous ground.

“Qrow,” Ozpin whispers, his forehead resting against the sharp curve of Qrow’s collarbone. His voice is young and aching— a weightless, wind-torn thing, rising above the sound of the rushes and the trees, the ocean that surges against the shore. “Please, please stay.”

Qrow is so full of an unnamed longing he can hardly bear it.