Ascension
They make him happy, and a little bit sad day by day.
Life's melodies connect and disconnect. Harmonious, discordant, and other times they collide to create something big and small, loud and quiet, all which he can't accurately identify, let alone describe in words.
The girls are, Qrow realizes, a jubilant symphony he can't ever let end. An intermission steadily extends through the years with their presence, and he doesn't know whether he should bark in scathing laughter or take another swig of bourbon.
Because the melodies they've made, the symphonies they've conducted, are so similar, touchable, that he barely thinks of anything else.
She's Raven, very Raven, and doesn't know it. And that's the problem, isn't it? Who is Raven? She wants to t know. Where do I come from? She begs to be answered. He and Taiyang can't give her the answers she seeks, not yet anyway, and her knowing this, accepting it as she grows, numbs him.
Taiyang says she'll move on, and Qrow agrees. But that doesn't mean she'll give up. An option too derogatory for her to consider, she is his sister's shade, and it's an impossibility for her to accomplish it.
Raven is an expert at haunting, even though she isn't really dead. What isn't Taiyang is her, and the girl's face shape, natural hairstyle, smooth eye shape are hers she can claim at any time and won't. The way she speaks in low, deliberate tones whenever she's frustrated; the slight mumbling that comes when she's embarrassed. At her eleventh birthday party Qrow's heart slows and clutches at the sight of her. The baby fat starts to ebb away, and Raven's portraits illustrates around the vacant corners, filling in the spaces.
She inherits her father's scheme and colors; golden, glittering, burning. But Qrow knows his sister is laughing where she is at her how she manages to tip the scale of her remaining family members with her seeping presence. Her smiles are lying in wait, bathed in confidence, and when her eyes spark in rage, sprinting into crimson, she barks with similar laughter, tearing through the air with fire glowing punches.
He can't trust the familiarity. Under her scowls, chuckles, the battle cry she emits as she plays with her sister lies an unearthly deception waiting to be unearthed. The fault isn't hers to carry, but he predicts it will be a burden weighed on her shoulders either way. It is that approaching darkness, lying dormant under progress, that pushes him forward to the light.
Their clingy, sloppy embraces are interchangeable from the ones he used to know. Her hands once held him tightly, patting his back encouragingly, and her smiles were genuine and hopeful. It's easy to slip Raven in her place, he in Ruby's, and he's dragged to the pat where things are unforgiving, breathless, and promising, safe under her care.
Yet, she doesn't lie in wait and defies the shades clinging on her back. Unquestionably Raven and Taiyang, she smothers their scorched outlines with lighter pieces proving she is undeniably Yang.
Confidence lies on top of steel humility, and the latter rises as it's summoned. Her brilliant smile, shy and unyielding, teases new people, and knowingly tackles old ones. She dispenses soothing warmth on every person she meets, and turns to an unstoppable inferno the second she feels they're threatened. She (loudly) slurps orange juice every morning, and eats heartily, the size of ten grown men—not Raven in the slightest. Her walks, cheesy grins, loudness, boisterous burps, all those things are irrefutably Yang Xiao Long, and its painful beauty is too much that he can't afford cry but stand in solemn silence, mourning for a past that never reached the future.
His sister's shadow crackles under Yang's sunshine, and if time is ever cruel enough to let them reunite he doesn't know if slicing her with his scythe will do justice in conveying the amount of loathing he holds for her, and the eternal gratitude he carries due to her efforts in bringing this wonderful light into his life.
All he wants is for her to flame to be everlasting.
Summer lives vigorously through Ruby, or so he thinks when she's small and reaches up to his knee. It's an easy, ridiculously common mistake to make, just as it happened with Yang. She's so Summer, and so incredibly not Summer at the same time. It isn't like Ruby, having lost her mother at such an early age, can tell the difference, and Yang, knowing Summer as her mother and not the person (not the Huntress) can't yet comprehend the magnitude of diversity.
Their milky white faces, silver white eyes, hair blushed red and cropped short, except Summer's was longer and wispy appearing, hanging low just to obscure her visage. But I saw, always saw, through her bangs and hood, I saw so much. And Ruby's is short and spiky, reflecting her not yet adulthood-the childish glow she unknowingly clings to, and suits her perfectly. The amount of energy surging through their bodies is a similar way, and although no would, on superficial appearances, would ever associate Summer Rose with energetic, it was the truth.
Soft-spoken, determined, withdrawn, daring, a form of a leader no one believed possible in a woman like her (unmovable, brilliant, strong, compassionate), and he didn't know if she had made a silent vow to prove everyone wrong, himself included, or merely did her job the best of her ability. She had seemed disinterested in such matters.
Ruby, little Ruby, loud and wild is the antithesis of her. Impulsive to a fault, silly, wild, and wise, and kind, and loving, and the list continues. Her energy is contagious, disastrously productive, and aligns in tune with her mother, and had Summer lived—he thinks, together they would have been unstoppable.
It's strange to theorize that their energy is, or could have been, in sync. Still young and lively, Ruby has yet to rein her energy in. Summer was naturally gifted in reining things in, compartmentalizing as she claimed, and to releasing them—letting the energy roam colorfully as she laughed—Qrow's stories are bountiful and endless.
One day, someday soon, Qrow thinks, Ruby will store all her energy. Not let it die, smother it underground, but contain it, compartmentalize it, as Summer has-did, he corrects weakly. One soft, the other rough, and both equally tender hearted, he can't tell whether pain flourishes more at her, or at Yang. But he reminds himself, quite bitterly as the bourbon sears through his throat, one is gone forever as the other has gone into hiding, biding time for the right moment.
"Uncle Qrow?"
"Qrow?"
"Qrow!"
He sees two young huntresses searching with concerned eyes. Yang sits on the floor, legs crossed, with her hands holding the controller loosely; they game they play is momentarily forgotten. Violet eyes refuse to let up, and are determined to pull the truth out of him. Those eyes know he isn't going to give his secrets willingly, or easily; they know he will take them to the grave, burying the truths with him. Ruby's taken to the bed watching eagerly but thoughtfully, and her head tilts in waiting. The next move is his. If it protects them, he swallows and grins, he's willing to put on the face that will make them forget.
The reflect onto him. An old crow's mirror of what is trapped in the past, and they move beyond what's left in the distance, fogged by age and tragedy. More than they will ever know, so much they will never see.
Their best parts as sister, friend, confidante, teammate, comrade, and family resiliently thrive in those girls, refusing to be stomped out by the passing wind, and he can't stop the thin but incredibly proud smile from gracing his lips.
"Heh, don't think you can catch me off guard that easily." He chuckles and resumes the game without further delay, and doesn't think about Raven's piercing smirk and Summer's distant smile.
Yang and Ruby, he promises to the ghosts of the past, will do better than succeed.
a/n: Qrow is a very sad, lonely, drunk, and determined man. I like him. A lot.