The Slowest Sunset
The sun hangs low and heavy in the sky as Qrow drives along the winding road back to Patch. Sunset has been his favourite time of day since before he can remember; it reminds him of the peace he felt years ago, when Summer and Raven were still around. Moments like this have become scarce; between the centuries-old war that Ozpin and Salem raged and all the underground intrigue of various criminal elements, he's always running himself ragged, often undertaking more than one mission at a time. The afternoons with his team in their dorm room seem an eternity and a half away, belonging to some now-inconceivable world of certainty and hope and peace. A world that still has Summer, where Qrow's world hasn't crumbled away from beneath his feet.
Their team revolved around her; despite her diminutive stature and the softness of her heart, she was undeniably their team leader, and they all loved and respected her ineffably. She'd always looked at them with a certain pride deep in her bright eyes, laughing as Taiyang and Raven – light and dark manifest, jarring in their contrast – inevitably clashed, while he smiled along, secretly watching her out the corners of his eyes, enthralled completely and irrevocably.
When he grew up with Raven amongst the bandits, some of the most important things he learned was to bury the parts of him that felt, and to not build an attachment to anything, so he couldn't be manipulated or taken advantage of. And even though he was closest to Raven, he knew that if it came down to it, he'd prioritize himself over her – and that she'd do the same. It was simply how things were; beauty and selflessness were some of the first sacrifices to be made for survival on the frontier. Summer, in true form, couldn't have cared less about his carefully nurtured defenses. She tore them down before he even knew what was happening. And he'd very soon realised just how vulnerable she'd made him.
First, it was Taiyang, which felt like a blow then, but was honestly not so bad. Seeing less of her wasn't so bad when every time they met her cheeks were rosy and her eyes alight. Taking care of Yang and Ruby and watching them grow was also incredibly rewarding; he saw early on that Ruby was going to end up one day just like her mother. Secretly, he envied whichever friends she'd make in the future. But the day that frontier town was wiped from the map – a town she'd volunteered to protect – he tangibly felt a part of himself break inside and die slowly throughout the years.
He chuckles dryly to himself as he slows to curve around one of the smooth hills. His life has been a long, long series of wrong turns, too-lates, and half-formed regrets.
Growing up with bandits hadn't taught him very much in the way of love; the closest thing he had was his dysfunctional relationship with Raven, which, as he grew to understand after meeting Summer, was a poor example to lean upon. She'd cultivated an unfamiliar urge to do good in his heart, and gave it a name (kindness, compassion, love). She'd shown him how to live a life filled with light; golden and warm and comforting.
What the tribe had taught him was that a soft heart was weakness, and weakness was death. And while it might have been true out there in the bleak barrens of the wilderness where only the hardest of creatures could survive, it melted before the incommunicably tender love that Summer radiated. She had given it so unconditionally; when he was sure he'd fucked up, she was the first to forgive him. It always struck him with wonder; he'd grown up trying to avoid the attention of the bandits in the tribe, and too often he'd witnessed fights to the death over money and women. But instead, she gave second chances, and third, and fourth, and eventually he grew to know that she'd be accepting no matter what, even if he'd never really understood why.
Summer was his sunset; she illuminated his world beautifully and completely, painting everything in the most vivid of colours, and demanded the attention of his heart in its entirety. And when she disappeared abruptly, like the fleeting last rays of the day flying off to be lost forever in the aching chasm of space, he was left behind in the dark which he once knew as home. Having once grasped the joy and security that seemed so infinite and tangible in their dormitory room, the darkness had never felt so lonely.
There are times when he feels his years weighing down on his shoulders, keeping him from raising his head, clenching relentlessly around the feeble beating of his heart. Years and years of fighting, once with friends and now with the bitter ashes of his too-perfect youth for company, and no conceivable end; he feels like a shipwrecked man, slowly drowning without a speck of land in sight. It isn't an exhaustion of his body, but rather his spirit. On the worst days, he stops to watch the sunset, and reminds himself why he's fighting, fighting, fighting, and never giving himself rest.
He sees too much of her in Ruby, and he knows that he would grab the stars in the sky and pull them down to her if she asked it of him. He makes sure to visit her, partly to check up on her, but also to keep himself together, and to remember why he takes up his sword every day. It isn't lost on him that even after death, Summer is still the crutch to his brokenness, the answer to his impossible troubles.
He closes his eyes for a moment, and with the wind combing through his hair and rushing past his ears, the gentle thrum of the engine, and the sun's golden rays warming his face with the promise of peace and rest, he feels light again, and it's almost like he's soaring in the sky. Are you still out there, somewhere? Do you remember us? Ruby and Yang are so similar to what we were like - do you feel proud of them? Do you ever regret putting 'huntress' before 'friend' and 'mother'? Do you miss me like I miss you? As he drives, he leaves a multitude of questions behind to dissolve in the rapidly cooling air of dusk.
If you only ask the darkening skies above,
The heavens are afire with starlight
And the wind above the clouds –
An expanse of blue more vast, more deep,
Than we could ever imagine