For James Ironwood, it was easiest to think of Ozpin's inner circle as a human body.
He'd learned long ago that the group didn't seem to function quite right when thought of in any other way. There was always something off about them, something that had kept them from getting things done so many times over. The problems that existed between them were too multitudinous to be kept track of so easily.
It was like there was some sort of nervous disconnect, always there to stop them before they could go too far in what they did.
Because of that, If they were a body, they were not a healthy one. The body that was Ozpin's inner circle had fallen ill long ago. Some of their parts hung loosely from the rest, ready to break down or fall off at any second. All that it would take was a small push against one of those atrophied connections to make it all fall to bits.
But if they were a body, James had realized, that came with certain assignments. There were positions to be had, and meanings behind them. They all had their functions, as hard as some of them may have been to find.
His was probably the hardest to find of them all, James had realized that long ago.
Some of them were obvious.
For instance, if their group was a body, Ozpin had to be the head. That was without dispute, and James was sure that anyone else would have agreed with him on that.
Ozpin was the head, for better or for worse. Ozpin was the one that called all the shots, and would refuse to listen when alternate views were brought forward. Ozpin could lead them as much and as far as was needed, and ultimately what Ozpin said was what went forward.
After all, most of the group wouldn't fight against Ozpin's decision making. That was an honor that was all but reserved for James. He tried not to be bitter about it. There were a lot of reasons that Ozpin's status as the head of the group left James bitter.
Some small part of it was the repeated insistence on complacency as their main tactic of dealing with things. Hiding things from the public was important, that was something that James did recognize, but it wasn't that simple. James didn't think that they should have been sacrificing the safety of the world for the sake of secrecy. Not when they waged a war behind closed doors.
Of course, when it came to Atlas, James was used to being the head. He was used to being the same way that Ozpin was- nobody fought him because it was considered a losing battle. Even men like Jacques Schnee that ultimately disagreed with him were willing to work with him and help him in the long run of things.
There was a sort of hard earned respect there. Something that James had scraped up over a lifetime to get him to where he was in Atlas. His men didn't argue against him, and they were more often willing to support his ventures than anything else. If anything, it showed that it was James that was the more effective leader. Not Ozpin. James hadn't needed to surround himself with yes-men to get things done. Everything that he had had, he'd won by the sweat of his own brow and more than a little bloodshed.
The demotion that came with being a part of Ozpin's group stung, but the thing that bothered James the most was the fact that he was the one being ignored more often than not. The lack of mutual trust between himself and Ozpin was another issue that tended to refuse to relent.
But this was James' lot in life now. He was the one that the others fought against, and he supposed that he was proud of that status.
But of course, it took more than just a head for a body to function.
If Ozpin was the head, Qrow somehow managed to pull triple duty in his positions. Qrow was Ozpin's eyes and ears. He was the arms and hands, reaching out into the world so that he could act on Ozpin's behalf. Qrow was the one that actually had the agency to make things happen outside of a meeting room.
Without Qrow, they would fall apart, that was true. But without Qrow, they were still able to function. It became harder and harder, but it was possible, even despite the consequences that came with being close to Qrow Branwen.
It was no coincidence that they could still function without Qrow, James supposed.
After all, James had managed to live for some time without a right arm. He had lost his hearing several times over and relied on the miracles of modern medicine to keep his body working. His right eye had been all but blind immediately following the implantation of the plate in his head.
The group could function without Qrow, for short bursts of time. Eventually he would come back, he'd hiss his secrets into Ozpin's ears, and he'd be back off into the world to make things happen again.
James tried not to be bitter about the fact that someone that followed Ozpin so blindly was held in such high regard. Qrow Branwen would never consider pushing back against Ozpin for any reason. He wouldn't even question Ozpin's thoughts and ideas- he would just inevitably go forward doing whatever their leader wanted.
But it was dangerous to have someone so blind as a right hand man, at least in James' opinion. He knew the games of politics well enough that he could say with full confidence that he didn't trust anyone that simply bent for whoever their chosen leader was. Of course, Qrow wasn't like the Atlesian elites that James was used to.
Qrow wouldn't be bending the knee looking for political favors at every turn. He wouldn't be trying to win favor or importance.
No, Qrow simply followed Ozpin blindly because Ozpin had given him possibilities for how to live after he got out of whatever his background was.
But still, having someone as a right hand that never questioned was dangerous. James feared that it was going to run them down into the ground at some point.
Glynda had her place as well though. James figured that she was like a spine. She wasn't like James' spine, reinforced with metal and put back together from scraps.
No, Glynda was a spine that never bent or broke, but she was real through and through. At least in James' opinion, anyone that had the chance to reach out to the woman and be a part of her world was lucky. She was the nerve that reached out and connected between them all. Nobody would say that Glynda was the kindest woman alive, but more often than not she ended up being the core of the group in her own way.
When James would need support, Glynda reached out to give him feeling and bring him back.
Glynda was always there, connected to Ozpin and sending commands to everyone else around her.
Glynda was the one that kept them going, and she was the reason that any of them were even able to do everything that they did on the side.
The woman was ultimately much more important to their group than anyone looking at them from the outside would have thought. She wasn't just Ozpin's right hand at the academy- she was the one that was doing her best to hold everyone else around her up.
Even when those people didn't quite deserve it, like was the case with James.
He envied her as the spine. He wished that he was able to put his trust in others and that others were able to put their trust in him for reasons that weren't just his position or rank.
He wished that he had that innate ability to support others, but he did not have it. James had lost the ability to love and support others long ago.
He'd lost the ability to trust.
He'd lost the ability to be anything like Glynda.
Leo and the Headmaster from Shade were also in play. They acted as the legs of the group's metaphorical body. They never betrayed and they worked to keep things moving forward, despite their distance from the head.
Without the two of them, the body could still function. It was better to still have legs, James knew that, but it was still possible to function with only one leg or without legs at all. Loss of contact was a regular problem, but Mistral and Vacuo didn't have the luxury of sharing a time zone with Vale like Atlas did.
It was just harder for them to be able to help when things were falling apart.
And that left him.
That left James Ironwood, never quite sure where he fit.
There was no place for him on the head. That was reserved for Qrow and Ozpin, though in different capacities.
If James had any place there with the head, it was as an often ignored conscience.
James couldn't be the legs, he'd reasoned that long ago. He went too often ignored to be able to help them, with him in such a position, nothing would ever get done. They would never be able to walk, because the rest of the body would fight so violently against him when he tried to make them move.
He had no ability to be the spine of the beast. That honor was for someone that could feel and act the same way that other people did. That was for someone that hadn't learned to push back all of their feelings and connections with only a thought. That was for a human.
No, James could never be a spine.
If James was an arm of some sort, that would require that he was actually able to do something instead of sit there being fought back against. If he was an arm, he'd never be the ever so trusted right arm like Qrow was.
No, James was sure that he'd be the left. He'd be ignored and atrophied, unable to do much of anything in coordination with the rest of the body because the body wasn't trained to use him. He fit wrong and as a result saw little to no use.
But still, that didn't feel correct.
In a way, thinking of himself in the terms of being the left side was a painful thing. It was a reminder of something that he could never get past and could never actually learn to ignore about himself.
Of course, the body was more than just a collection of limbs and appendages- that was something that had been repeated to him by many a doctor over his years. There was more to the person than arms and legs. The body had its organs and its systems. James didn't think that he really fit in as any of those. To say that they had blood or intestines in a body like theirs felt disingenuous.
If they had a digestive track, it was represented by Ozpin and the ability to digest the information before turning it into waste.
But there was no room for bitterness.
Lungs didn't matter.
The only other organ that mattered was the heart, James supposed.
With all things considered, to say that their group and their arrangement had any sort of heart to it felt incorrect. Their actions were too questionable in nature, regardless of what they were trying to do and trying to protect. He'd seen the way that people got bowled over by them time and time again, all because of the greater good.
This group didn't have any heart.
Sure, some of them may have had their passions about them. In fact, James knew for a fact that Qrow followed his passions more than he did anything else. Glynda was strong in that she had the capacity to love, regardless of situation.
It was something that James had seen Glynda extend to students and adults alike.
Qrow loved his family more than anything.
But in a body where Ozpin was at the head, having a heart was impossible, James guessed. Ozpin didn't feel for people in the same way that the others did.
Of course, James knew that he didn't feel for people the same way either. He supposed that he'd thought that he'd loved someone once before, but it had never felt genuine to him. Perhaps that was a side effect of unrequited emotions, perhaps it wasn't.
To James, he was as cold and metallic as the prosthetics that made up his right side. The heart was an organ, meant to pump blood throughout the body for the sake of making sure that nothing died. The emotional attachment that people felt to the heart was simply metaphor- nothing more and nothing less, James knew that.
He didn't love. If he could have, he would have, but James was sure that it was something which he was simply incapable of.
No, this body had no heart. And even if it did, James knew that couldn't be him. That couldn't be his slot amongst the others, that couldn't be his actual position.
When James put things into consideration, he couldn't find who he actually was, or how he was meant to be like the others.
In the end, they were going to always be in the same sort of status quo positions. Ozpin would always lead, and Qrow would always follow him blindly. Glynda would always be there at Ozpin's side, and the other headmasters would always be present, but only from a distance.
As for James, he would continue to fight against Ozpin when it was necessary. He'd continue to try to be the voice of reason when nobody else dared question their leader, and he'd do his best to be there for the others. He knew that the others didn't listen to him for a reason, but that wasn't going to stop him.
In the end, he figured that being Ozpin's main opposition might have been his place. He had his army, and he had his abilities. He'd become who he was now because of his own efforts and his own labors, and James was secure in that fact.
His place among the group was a lonely one. It was a frustrating one.
But James felt that they needed it, and so James was willing to play that part for the time being. Maybe something would happen that would be enough to change that down the line, but James could never be so sure, nor could he ever be so secure.
They were at war, after all, and if there was anything that James about war, it was that the body was a sacrifice that may have to be made.
In their body, James didn't know what part would be lobbed off first.
He just hoped that it never happened, if only because he was afraid to lose his friends, or to lose himself.
Without Qrow, they would be able to function. It would be difficult, but it would be possible.
Without Glynda, they were sure to fall apart. They would lose the thing that connected them and kept them still working on a personal level.
Without Leo, they might slow down, but they could still function. The same was true for the headmaster from Shade Academy.
As for him, James didn't know how the others would be able to function without him. Maybe they would get bogged down and go down the wrong paths because there was nobody there to question or make them reconsider. Maybe they would take the loss of his army the wrong way.
Maybe they'd be happier with him gone.
James didn't know.
The war eventually took a part of their body, though. The witch reached out and she cut them down in the one place where they would never be able to survive.
Nothing could survive without a head.
Eyes went blind.
Ears went deaf.
The spine could no longer communicate.
Legs and arms stopped working altogether.
The heart broke.
They scattered to the winds. While some stayed at home to fight, Qrow left Vale to do whatever it was that Qrow did.
Glynda stayed in Vale, because that was the best way that she was going to be able to defend the old school.
Leo stayed in Mistral, like the coward he was.
Vacuo was Vacuo, and so contact was lost all but entirely.
As for James?
He was left to Atlas on his own, left to suffer and wonder whether or not he was the one that had doomed them.
In the end, it was easier to blame Ozpin for everything that had gone wrong because that way James didn't have to look in a mirror and remember how little he liked the body that he saw in it.
He hated the person he saw more.
It would figure that James would realize only where he might fit in with the others when his heart began to break in his chest.
If they didn't forgive him for everything that had happened, then James didn't think that he would have blamed any of them for it.
That as their right, and in the end, James was sure that he deserved whatever came his way.
He just hoped that they recognized that he was hurting as much as they were.