Disclaimer: I do not own, in any part or whole, any of the characters, weapons, design implements, or other associated works of RWBY. The series and its parts are all owned by Rooster Teeth and were created by Monty Oum. I just wanted to mess with it a bit. This will be the only Disclaimer in the entire story, and most likely the only Author's Note, I hate these things. They break up the story, and are honestly too personal. I will be uploading as is convenient. This is not my best work, I admit. I may or may not read reviews and comments.

For reference later into the story for Tai and Summer's weapons here is a drawing I made during the writing process: go to imgur dot com slash a/ 5NdkX Delete Spaces

I suggest saving it, as you won't immediately need either for visual aid, but may need them later.

Also, while I don't own the characters, or Rooster Teeth, I do own those drawings/weapons designs and this story. Please, don't steal either.

Chapter One:

In Which We Learn That Secrets Do Keep… For a While

There were a lot of things Qrow was ashamed of. He was ashamed of the fact that sometimes he allowed his selfishness to put others in danger, let the very human desire for companionship to jeopardize missions, friends, and family. Raven had once blamed him for a freak "Tree Attack" on the tribe's compound during a visit "home". The damned thing had crushed half of the tents, freed two hostages, and nearly killed the man who was leading the tribe at the time.

He regretted that he had once gotten too close to Tai in a fight against a Nevermore their second year at Beacon and caused the young man to fall and be impaled on a protruding bit of rock. Tai still bore gnarled a scar on his abdomen from the incident. Qrow had felt the tactical error deeply, and had since always remembered to do his best to physically distance himself from his allies in battle.

Yes. Qrow had a lot of regrets. However, his involvement with Summer was not one of them. She was so positive, so full of energy and life, that it made him forget that he was royally messed up. She made light of his semblance, his bad humor, and the fact that he could not seem to "keep it in his pants". He could remember one instance when they had fallen into bed together, not the first or last time, and not only had the bed broken, but the floor under had buckled and they were discovered by Raven.

Summer, personally private and shy, had taken off so quickly that Raven couldn't have actually seen her. That didn't change the fact that through this action alone, Raven knew definitively who had been with her brother. She tried to catch Summer off guard with a comment about it, but Summer had just laughed and said "Nah. I just didn't want both of the Branwen twins to have seen me without my armor on."

If it hadn't been for the fact that he'd been ahead of her when he glanced back, he wouldn't have noticed the blush she was hiding behind her hood. Tai had just coughed, said "Anyway…" and kept walking.

Summer never expected anything of him that he could not give. Like a defined, exclusive "relationship". Like public affection, not that her bubbly but shy self would have wanted much of that anyway. Summer was a great strategist, a fearsome warrior, happy, optimistic, and occasionally loud. That did not change the fact that she was reserved. Qrow still had no idea what they were to each other, and they had been "indulging" in each other, as he liked to think of it, since their second year at Beacon.

It came as a surprise when, after they left Beacon, he started not having so much trouble keeping his pants on. It was frightening to him when he'd start thinking of her, rather than the task at hand.

He sat down, once, to think about what exactly had attracted them to each other to begin with. Summer was small, tiny, even. But she was sturdy, strong arms and legs. She wore light armor, almost always wore black under her cloak, and he had thought her hair was dyed for the first three years he had known her. She was one of the few women he knew to use a heavy weapon, two, if you counted the axe and the rifle as two separate weapons. She was strong, and he never was afraid he'd hurt her by accident.

She also knew when to tell him no, whether it was to chasing an opponent, taking another drink, or anything else. She knew him better than almost anyone else, except his sister.

He left on a mission once for a year without warning, and when they ran into each other a few times along the way, she never mentioned it. It was just part of the job they both chose to her, another bit of understanding she gave him that many others, Hunters and Huntresses included, could not seem to give to their significant others.

They'd fall into conversation, or bed, or both. Discretely, because, well, she knew Qrow wasn't the kind of Hunter who tracked only Grimm. It was nice to be able to sleep in an Inn without the risk of having to be obvious when his quarry may be near.

Coming back at the end of that year, Raven was pregnant and scared, and Tai was ecstatic. They had apparently eloped right before Qrow had left. They had not run into him before Raven became pregnant, and so had not been able to tell him.

He had flashed his(admittedly unreliable) flip-scroll at them and said "See that? That's called the call button!"

Later that same night, Oz and Summer had pulled him aside. Raven was already in the know, but Tai was still blissfully ignorant that Summer had taken on the title of one of the maidens.

It wasn't considered imperative that he know which maiden. However, later, while he was bumming food from Summer at her place, he mentioned that she had never seemed very close to the previous Fall maiden, a very young girl from Mistral that had been untrained when discovered just a couple of years before. Qrow had been in charge of retrieving her.

"Amber is fine, Qrow," Summer had said. "Though I have been helping her with hand to hand every once in a while."

Qrow wondered who else Summer may have been in contact with. Maidens did not become elderly, even if they lived long lives, and while Oz endeavored to keep track of them all, he knew that the summer and spring maidens were elusive. Honestly, he hadn't been paying too much attention to conversations concerning the maidens. Now that Summer was one, he regretted it.

"Then?" he asked.

"I'm not Fall, Qrow," she had sighed. "I didn't want this. Between this and the eyes… I don't know what else Ozpin is going to ask of me."

It seemed a lackluster statement for someone already stretched so thin. Their entire team had been dragged into Ozpin's secret war before they left school. Some of the other Academy Headmasters had expressed concern over their involvement. Oz used Summer frequently, with her ability to stop groups of lesser Grimm or an exceptionally large Grimm in its tracks. She was useful, staving off Grimm attacks and preventing Salem from having the distractions she needed to progress her vendetta against Ozpin.

Glynda and Summer made for a unique team. Glynda was able to use her telekinesis to redirect the Grimm and clear a path for residents, and if the Grimm didn't move, they died. Summer was ruthless on the battlefield, stopping Grimm and ripping them apart faster than any other Hunter or Huntress could. Qrow had heard rumors that she could even destroy certain Grimm from the get-go, no weapons necessary, just eye-contact. He'd also been on her team all of his adult life, and had never once witnessed this, so he was rather certain it was an exaggeration. Tai may have been the heaviest hitter on their team, Raven the most graceful, and Qrow may have been the most observant, but Summer was the most deadly. It would not surprise him to learn that they had simply seen her ruthlessness and confused it for invincibility.

Once Summer had destroyed the Grimm, Glynda would proceed with cleaning up, and it was like the battle never happened, returning the status-quo so quickly and limiting the negative emotions from the residents to the point where there was diminished return of Grimm activity afterward.

He was pulled from his thoughts by Summer continuing.

"I didn't want this, but it chose me, and now I have to figure it out. The world can't end just because the things ahead look impossible."

Qrow chuckled. "So what is the plan?" he asked. Summer always had a plan. Summer made plans to make plans. She could know someone for a week, and already have observed them well enough to be able to make strategies of their abilities blended with hers to maximize effect. He admired it, though he worked best alone, personally. Harder to put your allies in jeopardy with your semblance if you didn't have any allies nearby.

"I need to get this under control, first of all," she told him. Her mouth smiled, her eyes were sad.

"Under control?" he asked.

"I may have caused… a bit of elemental damage when I first displayed the abilities," Summer mumbled. She was looking anywhere but at him, embarrassed.

"Displayed? How does it even work?" he asked.

"It goes to whomever the last maiden is last thinking of," Summer told him quietly, "unless they're elderly or male. There are certain people who are also ineligible. It sounds strange, but the magic has to trust them. Not to listen to Ozpin or anything silly like that, the magic does not care about politics. It has to trust the person to defend what they believe in, to protect who they cherish. That sort of thing. I think. I don't fully understand it. Oz created it, and even he doesn't fully understand it."

It grew silent for a while, Summer and he sitting on opposite sides of her little round table, drinking, and just existing.

"So you were in the last maiden's thoughts?" Qrow asked.

Summer shrugged. "I don't know…"

"Why?" he asked.

"I don't know. I don't even know who she was." Summer seemed troubled by this. "Ozpin says it may have happened randomly, or that she knew us, but we didn't know her. Silver-eyed women are more likely to inherit the power, when the previous maiden's last thought wasn't an option."

A thought struck Qrow. "Wait, so how long have you been a maiden?"

"Nobody really knows," she said. "The silver eyes give me certain… affinities, like when it comes to Grimm. I freeze them in their tracks for a few moments, or at least slow them down. It's not a semblance. It's not Ozpin's magic. It's just a thing. That I can do. It's a...fear-thing, an intimidation tactic that was bred into women like me. I don't know my mother's family, Qrow, so I don't know if they were all like this. Dad's dead, so I can't ask him if my mother had silver eyes, and I never wanted to pry and ask her name. Ozpin says that the silver eyes also make it more likely to become a maiden. He says that in the past, a girl who had silver-eyes petrified a maiden who was abusing her abilities. Turned her to stone, and absorbed her maiden ability."

"You can absorb a maiden's ability?" Qrow asked.

"I can't," Summer told him. "I'm already a maiden. To absorb two maidens' abilities would be dangerous. I think Ozpin is over-dramatizing and that the girl just happened to be the last person in the maiden's thoughts because they were actively in battle. Besides that, I have never felt like I can turn someone to stone. The most I've ever done is get so scared I passed out and all the Grimm and 'evil-doers'" Summer used air-quotes at this phrase, "stopped, like they were frozen in time. Mostly, if I put effort into it, if I concentrate on keeping an eye on them, they slow down or hesitate. Maybe the girl just turned to stone after she lost her maiden powers. To absorb someone's maiden abilities, you would have to absorb their aura, and that's just… sick."

Qrow shuddered. "If someone wanted to take my semblance, though, I'd give it to them," he muttered grumpily. "I was helping Glynda out with a training exercise just before I left for this last gig and some kid slipped in his teammate's ice and stabbed himself on his own weapon because they were teamed with me."

"Qrow…" Summer warned. "Your semblance is useful. Your opponents lose their footing, they lose their weapons, they get caught. Don't wish it away, it's a part of you."

Qrow chuckled humorlessly. "Yeah. I guess you're right," he said, "it's just a part of me to be the world's worst lucky charm."