Qrow stared at the bottom of his empty glass before he grabbed the bottle by his side and noticed that it was just as empty.
He could have sworn it had been only half full a short moment ago.
Or had it been half empty?
He sighed and tapped his glass at the table until the bartender noticed.
"The same?" the man asked when he took the bottle away and Qrow only nodded.
While he waited he took a look around and once again noticed how atlesian the design of the interior was.
High-tech, clean and reliable, modern and sharp.
But if he wanted to get some information on the current events, not visiting Atlas was a sure way to be left out of the most interesting parts of the world.
The bar itself had only a few dozen customers at the moment, but then again it was in the middle of the week and the bar had that antique vibe that said that it wasn't gathering that much attraction but had its fair share of dedicated visitors.
It was not like he had chosen the bar as their meeting point on a whim, one of his contacts had told him that she sometimes came here, and the bartender had confirmed that when Qrow had introduced himself as a "friend" of the Schnee family.
And when he had called her only three hours ago Winter had agreed to meet him despite the apparent anger slipping through her voice.
Maybe he shouldn't have asked if she missed him.
"You guys are playing that thing sometimes, or is it just sitting there for show?"
Qrow asked the middle aged bartender while pointing at the piano in the corner of the small bar.
"Yes, mostly on Saturdays thought. Even Miss Schnee is known to perform quiet well on the piano if she wants to, and if her duties let her."
Qrow raised an eyebrow. "Winter Schnee?"
"Yes, of course." the bartender continued to clean one of his glasses as Qrow only nodded to himself.
Now she was also a pianist? But then again, what had he expected, she had probably gotten a good old fashioned education as a child. Playing a classical instrument was certainly high on that list and only helped their family to appear as formal as possible.
He was about to ask the bartender another question since he seemed to know more about the Schnee family than he let on, but he heard the door of the bar being opened and turned around.
Winter Schnees face told him that she wasn't amused to be called into this place on such a short notice and on that time. But despite her obviously trying to shoot daggers at him with her eyes when she found him waving tiredly from the bar the door fell into the lock carefully.
He even noticed that she nodded to one of the patrons on the side tables like she knew him when she approached him, like ever in uniform and trying to stay as strict as possible.
When she wordlessly set down on the stool beside him and greeted the bartender with a friendly "Hi Tomas." she nearly dropped the mask of anger she had arranged for him and a small glimpse of her actual state shone through.
In that short moment her eyes revealed her tiredness and they were the only thing she didn't manage to immediately align back up with her stoic mask.
Qrow looked at her for a moment of uncertainty, he had planned to start telling her that he could have sworn it had been warmer in here only a few moments ago, but it seemed like his plans had changed once again.
"Bad day?" he asked when Tomas dutifully brought Winter her drink without even needing to order.
She only sighed and moved her head from left to right like she was trying to shake a tenseness in her back before answering.
"I had worse." she remarked nonchalant.
"We only had a special mission for the x time this week, like basically every week since Vale fell, and then some bumbling idiot comes around and wants me to go talk to him since he can't entertain himself."
She spat her words out like she was trying to poison him and for a moment he looked down upon himself in case her venom was eating away at his shoes.
"Hey, this bumbling idiot is pretty busy himself. You Specialists are not the only ones trying to put sense into what has happened. Besides, I lost some friends in Vale as well."
He tried to defend himself weakly while she didn't even give him time to set up defences.
"Our enemy's can't even kill the right people it seems."
Qrow leaned back and raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to show signs of doubt about what she implied.
But only when her eyes shot from her glass to her hands and back she seemed to consider to rephrase her last sentence and decided against it none the less.
Then again he had fired pretty well when he had shown her up in front of Ironwood and everyone else the last time they had met back when Vale had still been standing, so it was not like she had no reason to shoot back.
He just hadn't thought that her day had been that bad that she wanted to bring out the heavy artillery.
Once again Winter moved her shoulder like she tried to get something off before she decided to push forward.
"What do you want Qrow? Why are you here?"
"A friend of mine commended me the bar, said that "The Pianist" is a good place to stay. And then I heard our friend Tom here saying that you come here from time to time when you are not so busy, so I thought..."
Winter only shot a short accusing look at the bartender who looked in another direction and tried to act like he didn't hear a thing before she cut Qrow of with a sharp gesture.
"Why did you want to talk with me? You said something about certain Info's when you called me, remember that part? Or did the alcohol wash it down with the rest of your brain cells."
She had sharpened her tongue since the last time they had met, that much was for certain.
"Maybe I just wanted to check on you?" he asked weakly and with a playful grin to lure her out of her reserve.
She looked at him and moved one of her eyebrows just enough to turn her face from "waiting for an answer" to "not sure if he has a brain".
She didn't even bother to sigh at his stupidity.
"Well okay, basically I am here to ask about how you guys are holding up." he explained with a shrug and was about to continue when Winter interrupted him.
"Why don't you go to Ironwood then, I heard you meet with the same tea-party as him, if I am not mistaken."
Qrow avoided her pricing eyes and looked in the direction of the bartender in a silent plea for assistance, but the guy stood just out of earshot and was busy with his own work, or at last acting like he was.
"Oh, yes, let's visit old Ironboy!
It's not like he is chin deep in some pretty murky waters right now.
I am sure he will welcome me with open arms, since we go along so well, and he is going to offer me a place at his table to drink some tea, while we wait for his house to burns down around us.
Damn A, no way that could go wrong."
Qrow said, doing his best to drown his words in sarcasm.
"So you know at last something about what is happening around here." Winter acknowledged.
"It's pretty much impossible to not hear about all the gossip about Ironwood and what did or did not happen in Vale if you open your ears to the rumours of the street only once." he admitted.
"But that's the point, I don't know what rumours I can bet on and which ones I should throw out of a window. Basically I need a source near the top, and one that I can trust.
Because despite all of our differences, we certainly stand on the same side the last time I checked."
She looked at him with suspicion as if she was trying to figure out how much of his last sentence he meant in earnest or if he would turn it into a sarcastic retort later on.
With a sigh she finally accepted that Qrow probably wasn't trying to lead her into a trap and decided to speak up.
"You are right, the situation is pretty sour at the moment.
There are rumours about a formal trial and the removal of Ironwoods rank as General. Only rumours at this time, but still, his reputation is already damaged."
Qrow nodded, he had expected rumours like this to grow.
"The general went out to assist in the defence of Vale, and he came back with a whole robotic army lost and a heavily damaged fleet." he added on in understanding.
"But still, demoting your best attack dog only because he couldn't fight of a horde of giant gorillas with a dragon all by himself would be such a... lousy move on the part of the guys in charge."
Winters eyes narrowed when she looked at him with her glass in hand.
"Hey, I called him the 'best' attack dog. Emphasis on 'best'." he quickly defended himself.
"So I should take it as compliment that you insulted my commanding officer... Again." Winter asked suspiciously.
Qrow nodded slightly while she drank from her glass.
"Seems like the smartest thing to do really. What's in that glass anyway?"
Winter looked from him to her glass that was filled with orange liquid.
"Carrot juice." she said plainly.
Qrow looked at the glass, to Winter, to the bartender and back to the glass.
"What kind of respectable bar sells that stuff?" he asked with a tint of actual revulsion in his voice.
"It tastes totally fine Qrow." she explained while trying not to roll her eyes.
"But why?!"
"It tastes good, it is actually good for your health and I don't risk getting a hangover in case I have an emergency mission in the morning. Really, it is pretty simple."
"But why?"
Something told Winter that Qrows brain would take some time to process that a bar was serving "healthy" drinks to its customers and decided to change the topic.
"Anyway, you came here to talk about what is happening in Atlas at the moment, remember?"
Qrow shook his head, looked in the Opposite direction for a moment and blinked several times when he turned around again and still saw the orange juice in Winters glass.
"Yea, back to Ironboy, that seems like a much more pleasant subject in contrast. What about the rumour has actually some merit?"
"There is a official investigation on the matter at the moment. Primary on how the enemy gained control of our robots, Secondary they are obviously also investigating if General Ironwood can be blamed for what has happened.
I wouldn't doubt if some of the brass want him to take the fall for the disaster.
On the other hand, the General still has some allies that point out that Vale would have lost even more people if Ironwood and his men hadn't been there to organize the safe-zone and evacuate the civilians.
In the end its all still up there in the air. Maybe it will all come down like heavy rain and tear him with it, or it will pass and they give him a chance to strike back at our enemy's. We will see what the future holds."
She paused and sighed before she collected herself and continued.
"And there are also quite a few talks about overhauling and updating our current mechs and robots. They have plans for making the Paladin mechs only operational by humans, which is quiet ironic since the complains about the first prototypes were that they could be piloted by basically everyone, possible even terrorists. Connecting them with the battle-matrix of command-ships and similar should have made that impossible, but then the Virus came...
The advancement of robotic Army's from Atlas has been totally called into question. Some hard-liners even want to double the amount of our human soldiers, going completely against everything we were trying to accomplish by putting robots against the Grimm and reducing our own losses."
"To be fair, I never trusted those metalheads. Even if they are only killing Grimm, they are still doing so without a thought. And something about that irks me a bit."
Winter shot him a glare that Qrow answered with a shrug.
"What? You weren't there when they went all "must-exterminate-all-Huntsman," on your ass."
He pointed out and took another sip.
"What about that traitor? I heard one thing that many suspect is that a traitor within Atlas is responsible for your robot buddy's going haywire. Did you guys find anything worthwhile in that direction?"
Winter shook her head and shrugged exhausted.
"We are pretty much in the dark on that end. Of course we had a few missions regarding a spy among our forces and have some of our best men analyse every info we got about the Virus and any possible weak-spots in our software to find out from where the enemy got its source or entrance point. But so far we sadly didn't get any meaningful results."
To Winters surprise Qrow didn't shoot out another sarcastic remark about how her specialist team wasn't really living up to their reputation.
"Yea, the enemy is really good at all that Speed-chess stuff. Wouldn't really be surprised if they hadn't dumped whoever spilled the beans to them in the ocean with a pair of new concrete shoes."
Qrow suggested to which Winter only shook her head.
"Unlikely. Whoever the traitor was or is must have been deep at the core of Atlas. You need high security clearance if you want to get as deep into the plans of the software as you need to pull of what happened.
And an amateur wouldn't be able to do anything with the information anyway, someone with considerable talent had to build the Virus the enemy used.
Which makes it likely that it was one of our men from inside Atlas, and if he has as much talent as we think he is too valuable to simply get killed off."
"Maybe they just extracted him already then." Qrow gave to consider, to which Winter reacted with a frown that clearly said that she didn't like that option.
"Now I need a drink to that thought." she admitted and waved at Tomas, who walked over in less than half a minute and put a small glass of clear liquid in front of her.
She emptied the glass and tapped on the desk for a refill.
Qrow noticed the raised eyebrow of the barkeep as he filled the glass once again and found himself shooting forward another question before Winter could ask for a second refill.
For a while the only thing they did was discussing the fallout of Vale-Citys destruction, the political unrest and the accompanying destabilisation of the four kingdoms' and their relationships.
They went through every contact, spy and old friend they had questioned and asked for information in their quest for answer's about their enemy's next move, but the actual value of the information they shared was scarce and far in-between.
And the later the hours went, with the shared information's becoming nearly insignificant, the more they found themselves arguing, about the other ones methods or questionable choice of allies or for some other reason.
"... and that's why you guys send three fully trained huntsman to capture one bookworm?" Qrow asked as he opened a brand new bottle of alcohol that Winter eyed with suspicion.
"As I said, we didn't know it was only a small hideout, the accountant just happened to be the only one with usable information." she said trough clenched teeth.
He was smart enough to not push the subject further.
But even though both tried their best to remain professional they were unable to completely silence their arguments.
"...all I am saying is that I don't think it would be that smart to trust a notorious gambler and cheater. Especially if it is with highly valuable information." Winter defended her last statement while leaning back to show that she was no longer interested in pushing the subject further.
"Hey! He is a pretty good cheat, and that means he is at last competed at what he does. We know each other for a quiet a while, we are on the same side. And he says I pay him better than any other." Qrow explained with wide gestures before he took another gulped from his glass.
Despite his assurance that "this weak atlesian stuff" did nothing to him Winter thought she was beginning to see a few signs of the alcohol getting to Qrows head.
With the time passing more and more patrons left the bar and by the time both noticed that they had nothing regarding their common enemy or the political landscape worth talking about Qrow had once again opened another bottle of alcohol, complaining that "this god-damn atlesian bottles are to small.".
"You should be careful, I have heard foreigners complain about how our alcohol can take a while to unfold it's full effect." Winter warned with slight worry as he poured himself another glass.
"The drink that is going to keep me down is not yet invented, I tell you that." Qrow said with a playful grin.
""Have you ever considered, like, not drinking?" she asked as he was about to put the glass to his lips yet again but stopped as he heard her blasphemy.
"Well, you know... I could stop drinking but I am afraid if I would, the cumulative hangover would literally kill me." Winter opened her mouth and imitated silent groan while rolling her eyes as Qrow nearly giggled at his own fantastic joke.
Even the barkeeper shot Qrow a testing look and sighed, something that told the Huntsman that the man had heard that joke before.
"No, seriously. Can you not just stop for once? If you keep going at this rate you are going to spend the night under a bridge because you didn't find your way home."
"I'll manage, don't worry Snow Queen." he defended himself.
"Besides, leaving a already opened bottle all alone is bound to give you bad luck."
Winter shook her head but took up her own small glass from the desk and held it high enough for the barkeeper to take notice.
But the barkeeper in turn shook his head as well, which she took as a sign that she had already had enough.
After all, she was coming here every once in a while and by now Tomas knew how much she could take so she was trusting his judgement.
"Anyway, so how is Ruby doing?" Winter asked, moving her shoulder-blades and putting a hand on her forehead as she felt the consequences of a hard worked day returning.
Meanwhile Qrow took his glass form his lips and stared at the desk while he tried to formulate a fitting answer.
"She is doing fine."
He could feel the tiered eyes at him even before he turned around.
She didn't believe him one bit.
"No, really. I don't think there is anything that can keep Ruby down for long."
Despite his assurance Winters look didn't change and Qrow found himself groaning and taking another swig from his glass.
"Okay, she is hurt alright. She lost herteam, two of her friends got killed right in front of her. And Beacon, a place she called home and safe, is now a place to take your Grimm for a walk.
But yes, she is taking it better than any of us would have had we been in her place.
It is actually Yang that is bothering me more, I only talked to her once and...
You know, why do you even care?"
He interrupted himself and looked at her with angry suspicion.
"Weiss is my sister maybe? And she is just as much part of that team as your nieces are."
Qrow managed to bite his tongue and swallowed another sarcastic remark as he saw the hint of a smile on Winters face as she talked about her sister.
It was a smile he recognized.
"So how is your sister holding up then now that she returned to her ice castle?" Qrow cursed at himself inwardly as his tongue escaped him at the last moment.
But if Winter took offence she managed to hide it perfectly
"The fact that her father came and once again had to take her under his wings was already a blow for her, and that's before one takes into consideration that she lost her friends and home as well."
She sighed and put two fingers on her nose-bridge as she recalled something that she would have liked to forget.
"And she told me how that boy called her at the end of the battle begging her to save that girl that went up the Tower of Beacon. I talked with her about it for quite a while, but she is probably still feeling guilty about not having done more."
Qrow took another sip and sighed in defeat.
"Yea, I know, the blond boy Jaune and the 'invincible' girl Pyrrha Nikos. Every once in a while someone keeps brining them up. Damn shame."
For a short while there was only silence between them as Qrow poured himself another glass.
"Why did she even go up there and had to try to fight that dark chick all by herself? Damn fool."
He grumbled with a tint of anger in his voice.
"What would you have done in her stead?" Winter asked bluntly.
For a moment Qrow thought about a fantastic story about how he would have made for mistral since the weather was said to be good at that time of the year and they had actually good bars, but he decided against it.
"Would have probably done the same damn thing. Time was running short.
Sadly, I wasn't there so the Nikos girl did bite the dust instead.
But who said the world was fair hm?"
He was about to take another gulp from his glass when Winter interrupted him with a surprising edge to her voice.
"That's why we fight ten isn't it?" she asked and when he turned around he noticed that her eyes had no longer that tiered look to them, it was more like there was something glinting on the inside.
"The world isn't fair yes. It is also not just, and the Grimm are trying to devour us at every opportunity.
But that is why we need to keep fighting, why we need to defend our friends and the people. The world itself isn't fair, it is as cruel and unjust as it wasn't to be. Only if we keep fighting and moving forward will the world be worth a damn."
Qrow raised an eyebrow and noticed that he had increased the distance between them without actually noticing as Winter sighed and grimaced when the pain in her back returned.
"You know, I have the feeling that the Nikos girl was thinking roughly the same way."
He didn't add on what it had brought her, that much was obvious.
"At last no one can blame her for a lack of trying." Winter added harshly.
Qrow could see the doubt in her eyes shortly after she finished her sentence and was about to point out the obvious, that the boy she had left behind could have done with a bit more lack of trying, but once again decided to not ask for a fire when he was basically swimming in easily flammable alcohol.
Winter needed some time to settle her own thoughts but knew just as well that it was better to change the subject.
"What about that Faunus girl? Black I think?" she asked when Qrow was about to empty another bottle.
"Blake." He corrected her and made sure that every last drop of alcohol went into his glass.
"She ran away shortly after the battle of Vale. Don't know where don't know when, don't know why, would say I don't care as well, but that would probably be a lie."
He sighed as the last drop created a surface tension on his glass.
"I thought about getting some of my birds to take a look after her, if only so I could tell Ruby and Yang what she was up to and would be fine.
But the way things are working at the moment, I need every ally I can get to scramble the pieces back together Ozpin left me with."
He nipped at his glass and shrugged before he turned around to look directly at Winter.
"Maybe that's why I am drinking." he said and tipped at the glass in his hand.
"Saw a few good things, saw a few bad things, turned out the bad things were too ugly to forget, decided to drown them instead." he added a small singsong which he ended in a slight giggle.
"No really, students and kids getting killed while you can't do a thing about it is probably second on my list of 'things I don't really enjoy'."
"What's on the first place?" Winter asked, despite knowing that the answer would not be serious anyway and certain that it would play right in his hands.
"Admitting when Ironwood is right once in a while." he said with a slight grin that grew when he saw her roll her eyes in annoyance but not before letting out a small laugh.
But her smile faded when yet another bolt of pain shot through her back.
"Was the day that bad?" he asked with slight concern in his voice.
"First you sit trough hours of meetings and planning until you think your back is going to strangle you by itself and then you get send on yet another special mission without a single minute to rest.
No, I definitely had better days. Not that this one is the worst or anything, far from it..."
"What about if I give you a massage?" Qrow offered out of the blue which was met with a suspicious look from the atlesian Huntsman.
"When did you have time to learn how to massage properly?"
"Hey, the lady's like a good massage. It's helpful when you try to charm one.
Trust me I should know."
As soon as the words had left his mouth he knew he had made a mistake as Winter eyes seemed to try and pierce him with willpower alone.
"Not that I would ever try to charm you... I certainly like my head attached to my neck, thank you very much."
For a moment he thought his words might have only worsened his situation but Winter only sighed and shook her head.
"Fine, if you are worth something you can try for all I care. But I warn you, if your little massage is going to leave my backache even worse then before, or something along the line, you can start running to the south-pole."
Qrow was about to stand up when a sly grin appeared on his face that he quickly hid when she looked form her glass back at him.
"Before I work my magic hands, I have one condition... I mean request..."
He was surprised that her eyes weren't shooting laser beams when she looked at him.
Not that he couldn't understand where she was coming from, they had had their run-ins before. And going by how most of them went with both of them antagonizing each other, she was probably expecting some kind of trap.
So he decided to push forward before she had the chance to get all defensive again.
"Nothing horrific, I promise. Just... have you seen the Piano over there?"
Winter nodded perplex about him questioning something that obvious.
"The Bar is called 'The Pianist' you saw the sign outside right?"
Qrow made a dismissive hand gesture and ignored her question.
"Well, it turns out our friend Tomas over there told me that you know how to play it."
"He did?" Winter asked and pierced the barkeeper with her eyes as the man suddenly seemed to over think what part of the ceiling needed renovation.
"Yea, and I thought: 'Hey Qrow, wouldn't it be nice if someone, with the talent for it, would bring a bit life to this ancient instrument over there?'... well, what do you think?"
"I would think you are drunk."
Qrow raised an eyebrow and held up his hands slightly to show how he was pretty defenceless against that kind of argument.
"But I am doing pretty well even, or especially, when I am drunk." he tried to work around it.
"No, you really seem a bit more taken in by the alcohol than usual." she warned him when she detected the first signs of him staggering.
Then again, he seemed to be staggering even when he was mostly sober.
"The drunker I get, the better I get... usually. Which means that my idea right now is probably one of the best I ever had." Qrow said with a selfish grin.
"Or your worst."Winter warned.
"Anyway, the Piano is usually only played at the weekend, mostly on Saturdays. I don't think Toma..."
"Hey Tomas!" he interrupted her last attempted at a weak defence and waved at the barkeeper.
"Any problem when we use your Piano later on. I think it could use some tuning and your bar would get a better mood."
Tomas looked from Winter who shot him a warning look and slightly shook her head to the enthusiastic stranger by her side who was acting like it was only a matter of formality anyway.
"I certainly won't stand in your way. The Piano is free to everyone who wants to bring us some melody." he said decisively and made sure to concentrate on the next batch of glasses he had to clean to avoid any fallout that was going to emerge from his decision.
Winter was only left with calling him a traitor in her mind as Qrow grinned.
"Well, that's a bingo. Now, how about a deal? I eliminate that back problem of yours, and you show me what kind of melody you can tickle out of that thing. What do you say?"
"I am not drunk enough for this." Winter exclaimed with a groan.
"That's what you get for drinking carrot juice." he pointed out drily.
She sighed again and tried to shrug but once again pain ran through her back.
"For the love of... goddammit, go ahead if you can't do anything better." she murmured some kind of cruse at him under her breath but he didn't mind.
At first she thought he was trying to murder her as his hands touched her shoulders and he began to knead her strained muscles and pain rushed through them.
But she couldn't deny that he hadn't lied as his hands began removing the tension slightly bit by bit.
"Au! Could you be a bit more careful?" she asked as another small bolt of pain ran through her back.
"As careful as I can be snow queen." he answered with a grin as he could feel her basically melt under his hands as she grew more and more relaxed.
Winter pushed the glass in front of her out of the way and put her arms on the desk to use them as a rest for her head when she noticed how well the massage was making her feel.
"Finally something you are good at other then reducing the alcohol inventory." she noticed begrudgingly.
As he felt her relax under his hands he once again ignored the perfect sarcastic remark that was forming in his head and decided to let her have her rest instead.
"I am going to take that as a compliment." he added instead as she closed her eyes.
"Good, then keep on doing that for the next five minutes." she ordered lazily.
Qrow only grinned and kept on going as it seemed like she was nearly dozing off.
Tomas continued to clean his glasses just as much as Qrow continued to massage Winters back which, as the barkeeper noticed, he did expertly.
The Schnee had completely dozed off by the time the barkeeper had continued to his third glass and was he met with a silent shrug from the stranger as he made no effort to wake her, it really must have been a hard day for her.
When Winter finally woke again with a startled look on her face, immediately checking for her weapon and throwing Qrow of, Tomas could have sworn more then only five minutes had passed.
"Did I sleep?" she asked uncertain as Qrow leaned on the desk beside her.
It looked like he was contemplating his options at an answer but he only settled for a simple smile and a friendly "Yes.".
Winter acknowledged his smile with a bit of worry before she yawned slightly and stretched herself to feel the difference form what had plagued her before.
"Feeling better?" Qrow asked blinking as the alcohol was beginning to catch up to him.
"It's not completely gone, but it is feeling definitely better than before. Seems like I actually owe you now." she admitted reluctantly.
Qrow nodded slowly and pointed with a finger at the piano.
"So you are going to play me a song now?" he asked teasingly, only to be met with a glare.
"No, if anything we are going to play a song." Winter made clear.
"Pardon?"
She stood up and grabbed his hand, forcing him to follow her lead and attracting the attention of the few remaining patrons of the small bar.
He stumbled after her and took the seat on the bench in front of the piano she pushed him on before she took the one beside him.
"We are going to do what now?" he asked confused form both, the sudden change in scenery and the alcohol that was finally demanding its tribute.
"I am going to show you how to play a instrument, that's what we are going to do." she explained and put his hands on the keyboard.
"I am not sure how I feel about this..." he said uncertainly, but was met with a determined glare.
"See it as payback for that stunt back in Vale, and all the other times you got on my nerves.
Besides, if you take care you might still be able to learn something."
Qrow didn't look to sure about that but also didn't protest when she explained the keys to him and taught him how to play a simple repeating melody.
It took them a while and many futile tries on Qrows part but when Winter started to play, accompanied by Qrows few notes, the ears of the remaining patrons in the bar turned towards them and listened to their melody.
Qrow missed some keys that caused some strangely forgiving side glances from the atlesian Specialist, but their song was apparently good enough to raise a spares applause and a enthusiastic "Another song!" from one of their listeners.
"Looks like we actually have a audience now." Qrow remarked with a uneasy grin.
"Yes, and they demand more. We don't want them to keep waiting right?" she asked with a disarming smile as she moved closer to him once again to teach him another set of keys for another simple melody.
Soon enough a second song filled the bar with life and Winter found herself enjoying it even more than the first, and even more than she had thought when they had still been sitting at the bar.
If anyone had told her that one day she would be sitting beside the man that was usually irritating her to no end and actually enjoy it, she would have called that person insane.
But right now, she was just playing her melody, and despite Qrows few mistakes, it sounded just as wonderful in her ears as she knew that it sounded to their audience.
After the second song and when the growing applause had faded away she nodded at him with a smile.
"Not bad, for a guy like you. But you should be here when they actually play music on the weekend. One guy will be get the drums out of the back room and there will always be that old man with a harmonica, or that girl with her violin.
They are all pretty great to behold on their own, but once in a while they all happen to be here together. Truly a experience of its own."
Qrow thought he had never seen the Ice Queen smiling as much as she did when she recalled the people that had played in the same room before.
A whistling sound from one of the tables pushed his already staggering train of thought from its rails as one woman in the audience asked for yet another song.
Tomas made himself comfortable behind the bar as the night grew older and noticed gladly how the music changed his bar once again, painting smiles on the faces of his guests.
And even the two Huntsman that had seemed to uphold a entire cold war of their own when they had talked at the beginning of the evening were now sitting in front of his piano and obviously enjoying their music, and the company.
When Qrow and even the bartender couldn't tell how many songs they had played the night had moved past midnight long ago, and despite that Qrow could have sworn that their audience had multiplied.
Then again he was beginning to miss more than half the keys he was supposed to play, so that might just have been the alcohol finally catching up to him.
When he finally gave up and raised his hands in defeat, which the audience regarded with forgiving laughter and slight applause, he had nothing left to do but listen to Winter play.
He could have sworn he had never been the biggest fan of classical music, but she actually managed to make it sound good.
And when he only managed to shrug as she noticed that he had stopped playing she simply smiled at him with a slight eye-roll of played annoyance and began to play even better than before.
As Qrow was watching her, marvelling at her skill and her passion, he could only wonder how it could feel for her.
She basically had the whole room at her fingertips and the bliss with which she played told him that at the moment there was not a single bad thought in her mind.
Which was why, when she finished her melody, he stood up and joined the large applause that their audience spend them.
She shook her head at him and so Qrow turned around so that he could face the audience and instead bowed exaggeratedly which only made them laugh while Winter sighed.
That was until Qrow slipped and landed on his butt, looking confused.
A compassionate laughter emerged and two of the patrons got up to help the fallen huntsman up but Winter waved them off with a appreciating node as she sat down beside him.
"How many fingers do I hold up Qrow?"
He looked at her hand in front of him and tried his best to concentrate, but he already knew that his eyes were betraying him.
"Seven?" he asked more than answered and Winter put her hand down.
"Four. I think you had enough for one night."
"Well then, I am just going to sit over there and go listen to you play. I won't even make a noise, you won't even notice I am there."
But Winter shook her head as she saw Tomas at the bar tapping his wrist.
The barkeeper knew when it would be too late for her to stick around, and since she already knew she lacked sleep it was about time to return home.
"Do you have a place to stay? I could bring you there before you get mugged in the street like the drunkard you are."
"Hey, no reason to badmouth the defenceless. And just let me out here somewhere, I will find a spot. Pretty sure I made it through worse nights before."
She shook her head once again and put a hand around his shoulder to help him up.
"Don't worry, I got an Idea." Winter assured him, which was met with no protest since Qrow was busy keeping his feet straight.
When they made their way back to the bar their audience was congratulating them and somebody even gave Qrow a thumps up, which he tiredly returned.
But as soon as they reached their destination he slumped back on his stool as Winter approached the barkeeper.
"I know you still have one or two rooms that you can rent out to him Tomas, I don't want to have to drag him to the next best hotel and all that."
The barkeeper nodded and reached below the desk to pull out a set of keys and hand one of them to her.
"The first room on the right, you can't miss it."
She nodded and helped Qrow of his stool, who didn't even bother to protest, and supported him when they walked past a back door one of the guests held open for them and up a pair of stairs.
When they reached the room they were searching for Winter had problems opening the door and keeping her staggering companion on his feet, but she managed and soon ended up in front of the bed.
"Come on you old donkey! Could you be a bit more cooperating?" she asked as she tried to put him down but caught a glimpse of clock on the wall while doing so.
"Damn! How could it be that late?" she wondered out loud.
"How early?" Qrow asked as he tried to make out what the clock was displaying.
"Nearly one after midnight, I am going to be so dead tomorrow. Or rather today. I didn't think time would pass that fast." she said and sat down beside him.
"Hey... they say time moves faster when you are with someone you enjoy your time with... or so I have heard... and they say I can be a pretty fun guy to have around... sometimes."
Qrow pointed out teasingly while fighting to put the words in the correct order.
This time it was Winter that needed to swallow down a sarcastic remark.
"Don't ruin it Qrow, this evening ended to nice, I could do without one of your sleazy comments."
He tried to raise his hands in defeat but only caused himself to get off balance and fall back on the bed.
She sighed and stood up to inspect the small bathroom on the side.
"Did I ever tell you about that fancy staff I got?" he asked as she returned with a bucket.
"I put this beside the bed, if you feel like throwing up. Do Tomas the favour and puke in there instead of the carpet." she said cautiously, but he only grunted disapprovingly.
"It got all this wood, and some say it even got some magic..." he hesitated as he realized that it probably wasn't smart to talk about Ozpins cane while he was drunk like this.
"Well, that probably sounds a bit strange anyway." He thought out loud and Winter nodded in agreement.
"What about this, you go and sleep over it, and when this staff is still so important when you wake up, you can call me and tell me about it if you really need to."
He opened his shirt with unstable fingers as he felt that Winter was trying to remove his shoes, obviously so that the bed wouldn't get to dirty.
When he finally had thrown a bunch of his clothes on the ground he saw how her scheme was moving towards the door and raised a hand.
"You know, you are not so bad, even with all the ice... and stuff." he called out to her, not exactly knowing what he was trying to say, only that he had to say something.
"And you can be actually pretty nice if you want to be." Winter returned the notion and was about to close the door behind her when she turned around once again.
"Take good care of Ruby and Yang. And don't drink yourself to death." she said, almost expecting that Qrow had dozed of already as he didn't move at first, only for him to raise a finger when she was about to turn around gain.
"Same." was the only thing he was able to get out, but they both understood what he meant.
When Winter got back into the bar room Tomas and two volunteers of his guests were busy cleaning the room and putting the chairs on the tables as she approached the barkeeper.
"What do I owe you?" she asked but was met with a determined head shake.
"You played enough to breath fresh live into my bar for several drinks more worth then the ones you owe me. And as far as the other huntsman is concerned, his drinks and his stay are on the house.
Consider it a investment."
Something told her that her old friend wasn't necessarily talking about money but she was too tiered to argue and only nodded.
So Winter said goodbye to Tomas, the other two patrons, and stepped outside the bar.
The broken moon of Remnant was shining down onto her and reminded her once again that this short evening had only been a small refreshment.
The enemy was still out there, and he wasn't going to rest, so they couldn't either.
Still, tonight she had felt alright just for a short while, and that had to be worth something.
Note: Well, this was actually going to be a bit more professional between the two, but somehow the bar ended up having a piano and it all went on from there.
There was also this small art strip I stumbled upon that seemed to fit the topic even if it was in a different direction:
post/141603205138/with-oz-gone-ill-have-to-pick-up-where-he-left
Whoever finds out what song got me to put the piano there get's a imaginary cookie.
Hopefully I did their characters justice and it turned out to be an enjoyable read.