notes: this is the 'winter is the winter maiden au'
"I don't want to think about you when I die."
He hated when she talked like this. Her inevitable death was a very common conversational subject and Qrow remembered the drawn out meetings he had been forced to sit through. Her successor had been spoken about more times than Qrow could count on his hand and while he knew it was a necessary discussion he hated talking about it. He hated how they talked about her life as if it weren't hers, as if she were expendable.
In a sick way, she was.
"So don't think about me. It won't do anyone any good."
It was so like him to dismiss her like this. To brush her off like they didn't matter when he knew- he knew he wanted her. Needed her. The entire situation was too messed up for words. For one, he had broken some ancient, incredibly disgusting rule for even touching a maiden. He remembered Ironwood's stern voice when he had said, "Maidens are supposed to stay maidens."
It was an unspoken rule, one that was never made official or documented.
"That's the problem, Qrow, I don't think I can stop myself from thinking about you even if I tried."
She wasn't supposed to love anyone. Maidens were supposed to be unattached and he had ruined that for her. There had been rules in place to prevent things like this from happening. There was a successors chosen already, young girls with the potential to be heroes, with their entire lives in front of them. Winter was instructed early on to decide on a candidate, had been coached through what to do should she ever die in the field. She had been so sure, then, that her final thought would be her sister.
"A war is coming, Amber is dying, we're binding her soul to a kid- we don't have time for this." he was pushing again, trying to get her to talk about anything else.
"Don't you think I know that? A maiden was attacked mercilessly, Qrow, I understand how dire the situation is. Which is why I need you to understand that if I am to die at any point in this war-"
"Damn it, shut up!"
She always did this. He wanted to strangle Ironwood for ingraining it in her that she was just title, just another successor in a long line of maidens. She had lived for so long under Ironwood's control, under his 'guidance' that she had adopted his way of seeing herself.
"Qrow."
"You'll have James and the entire freakin' Atlas army backing you. And you'll have me."
That was what made her laugh, the notion that she needed him to shield her from whatever was coming.
"I am the holder of an ancient, extraordinary power. Whoever is coming for us already has the partial ability of a maiden. Even with half of that power…I'm afraid that no amount of hunters or soldiers will stop them."
She was right, he knew she was right.
"So if I die," her voice wavered, not because she was afraid of dying, but because she was afraid of what she would leave behind, "I don't want my last thought to be of you."
He swallowed down the thickness in his throat, tried to quell whatever it was the drew him to her over and over. She reached first for him, her fingers ghosting over his knuckles, white with tension from his fists curling so tightly.
His fists uncurled at her cool touch, allowing their fingers to thread.
"So stop acting like you don't care and let me think of you now."
