This story was for the April Reddit MonCon (Qrow and Storytelling), but I wanted to work it into one of my existing AUs. It does take place in the same AU as The Best Cookies, albeit years afterwards. Inspiration for this was one of Jopato's Snake and Eel comics.
The silence permeating the air was broken as a pure white coupe pulled into the courtyard of the Rose-Xiao Long estate. Tires crackled over cobblestone as the vehicle came to a rest next to a sleek looking black and yellow motorcycle. Only moments after the engine shut off the outdoor lights flicked on, illuminating the courtyard and the nearest side of the mansion in bright white.
"Wake up, Qrow." Winter nudged the man in the passenger seat. "We're here."
"Woah, guess I was more tired than I thought." Qrow blinked rapidly trying to adjust his eyes to the stark light pouring in through the passenger side window. "I'm getting too old to be rolling out of bed at 2 am to save my nieces' asses."
"I'm just glad they are your nieces. You have no idea how awkward it would be to be Ruby's sister-in-law, and step-mother." The white haired woman grinned tiredly. "Not that sister-in-law and aunt are that much better."
"I can't believe you actually thought I was Ruby's father." The man shot a smirk back. "As if a man like me would get tied down by a woman… Ow!" He recoiled in pain from Winter's smack. "At least all the pipsqueaks can just call you 'Auntie'."
As the two clambered out of the car into the cool evening air, they heard the door open and a series of squeals peal out into the night.
"Uncle Qrow! Auntie Winter!"
The first four girls came running out of the house and into the arms of the older couple. The eldest two were identical in appearance, with long white tipped red hair, and blue eyes with silver centers. The two younger maintained similar appearances, each bearing amber eyes and cat ears, though one had short blonde hair and golden ears, while the other had long black tresses and ears. Following behind them, already dressed in their combat gear, came Blake and Yang, the latter carrying the fifth and last of the girls. Odd in appearance, with the right side of her head dominated by pure white hair tied up in a side ponytail while the left, crimson side, was set in a low ponytail. Like her hair, each eye was a separate color as well. The right was ice blue and the left was pure silver. Lastly, her skin was composed of swirls of pale and snowy pallor complexions.
As the trio reached caught up with the rest of the children, the girl in Yang's arms reached for Winter.
"Hey there, Ria." Winter took the girl into her arms. Despite being the same age as the faunus girls, she was much smaller. "She still shy?"
Yang responded wearily, obviously still half asleep. "Yeah, as of now. Besides her moms, she only lets me, you, and Hei carry her. As you can imagine, Blake isn't too happy about that."
Winter looked over to the faunus huntress apologetically, only receiving a shrug in response.
"Where is little Eira? The girls were looking forward to seeing her."
"She's at a friends. She'll come join us if you aren't back by tomorrow evening." Winter summarized. "Though, why are all the kids up?
Yang grunted in response. "Since Ruby and Weiss are still on vacation, the girls wanted to have their own 'vacation' slumber party in the living room and I may have forgotten to set my scroll on vibrate."
A series of giggles tore the attention of the huntress to where Qrow was standing with the rest of the girls. The blonde haired faunus had managed to climb onto Qrow's back, where she hid under his cloak, while the twins stood directly in front of him shoulder to shoulder. Apparently, they were playing his traditional 'guessing game'.
"Hey Lil' Win." He ruffled the hair of the girl on his right.
"I'm Summer!" She whined in response, attempting to sulk. But was unable to erase her childish smile.
"Hey Sunshine!" He patted the other twin on the head.
"I'm Winter!" She attempted to copy her sister's act, to the same amount of success.
"I know, I just like messing with ya." Qrow flashed one of his trademark grins. "Say, where did Sunne go? She was just here."
The girls burst into laughter again as Qrow glanced back and forth before spinning in circles like a dog trying to chase it's tail.
"She's under your cloak, Uncle Qrow!" Hei finally exclaimed.
Qrow froze. "Ooooooh!" Reaching his arms up he tickled the giggling mass hiding under his black and red cloak. "Gotcha!"
"Thanks for coming to take care of the kids." Blake spoke up, interrupting Qrow's antics with the children. "With Ruby and Weiss still on their vacation, we were only on limited alert. But there was an incident involving the White Fang that required my and, by extension, Yang's expertise."
"As luck would have it, our uncle showed up just in time." Yang joked, bringing chuckles from the adults and confused look from the children.
"What does Mommy mean?" Hei inquired, black ears twitching.
"It's a great story!" Qrow started ushering the kids towards the house. "Why don't you all get back into bed and I'll tell it to you."
As Yang and Blake bid their final farewells, the remaining group left towards the house. The twins lead the way, sprinting out of the cold and back into the house. Next came Qrow with Sunne still firmly latched onto his back and under his cloak. At the back of the group was Hei, sticking close to Winter as she was carrying Osiria.
After a short flurry of activity, Qrow and Winter finally had the nieces back into their sleeping bags on the floor in the living room. Sunne and Hei were splayed out close to fireplace with their smaller cousin between them. Situated in row further from the fireplace were the twins, heads adjacent to the other three. Qrow himself lounged on the couch to the side, waiting for the girls to calm down before telling his story.
Smiling at Winter as she sat down and handed him a tumbler filled dark liquid and a couple ice cubes, he turned his attention back the children.
"We're ready." Hei announced as Osiria snuggled into her side.
"Alright." Qrow slicked by his hair with his free hand. "Back when Yang and Ruby were your ages, they had decided to go on an adventure to find something that was very important to Yang. Traveling deep into the forest they found an old worn down house. But what they found was not what she wanted.
"Out from the shadows of the forest leapt a hoard of beowolves, intent on devouring the young girls. With loud snarls and gleaming teeth they cornered the children. Escape looked impossible, but with only seconds to spare I swooped in and cleaved the grimm to pieces, saving your moms. To this day, they still say that I showed up just in time. The truth is, I was always following them. For, unlike you girls, they never knew I could turn into a crow."
"Thank you for saving Mommy and Auntie Yang." Osiria squeaked out in her tiny voice.
Qrow managed to chuckle out his response "Since that was so short, how about one where your moms returned the favor?"
Receiving affirmatives for the girls he settled in a little deeper into the couch and downed the rest of his drink before starting.
"A long time ago, during your moms first year at Beacon, there was a very evil person named Cinder that summoned a grimm dragon, hurt a lot of people, and started a grimm invasion of Vale before disappearing. We hunted her, and her White Fang allies, for a long time but they always managed to stay a step ahead of us, always leaving messes for us to clean up. Finally, as months stretched into years, we got the lead we needed. We had found their main base of operations. Though while what happened there wasn't a finishing blow, it definitely put them on their heels.
"I was dropped covertly to infiltrate and extract intel from the base to set it up for a later assault. As you can imagine, it didn't exactly go that way."
"What happened?" The black haired faunus inquired, eyes wide.
"Getting past the perimeter guards was easy enough, no one ever thinks of a crow as suspicious. But there was someone in the base that did know what it meant. Once inside, I stood toe to toe with the bas-...OW." The storyteller recoiled from the flick to his forehead. "What was that for, Ice Queen?!"
"Language! They're just children." Winter retorted.
"Fine…" He grumbled back. "Where was I? Ah yes. Before me was the red haired devil that had cut off Yang's arm. As we began to fight it was clear I was the superior warrior, I was ready to claim victory when the next opponent showed up. A small, multi-colored girl that reminded me of neapolitan ice cream.
"The battle between the three of us raged on for what seemed like hours. Though they knew how strong I was, the two of them together were confident enough in victory that they did not set off any sort of alarm; preferring the personal satisfaction of killing me themselves. Their confidence was misplaced as in one final blow, I managed to summon the energy to finish the demon off, lopping off three of his limbs in the process. With the sight of her ally's bloody co-"
"Qrow!"
"Anyways, she disappeared in a flash. Moments later the alarm sounded and I knew I had only a few minutes to finish my mission. Hitting my panic button to summon a pick up, I sprinted further into the compound, scattering enemies left and right.
"Once I reached the control room I was struck by a sight I thought I would have never seen again. Walking towards me was your grandmothers, my sister Raven, and my old partner Summer."
Qrow paused as Winter placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, and grasped hers with his.
"But it was a dirty trick. Inside were two more of Cinder's lieutenants and one of them could cast illusions. As I hesitated, the other managed to land a strike that broke through what remained of my aura and almost knocked me out. They gloated for some time as I struggled to move. About how we couldn't stop them, and they would kill every single hunter that opposed them.
"But right before they were able to strike the final blow they disappeared. One gone in a streak of fire and the other in a flurry of rose petals." Qrow grinned as the children all clutched at their blankets in suspense. "As luck would have it, my nieces showed up just in time.
"They hauled my sorry ass out of there before reinforcements could arrive. And you'll never guess who was with your other mothers in the bullhead waiting for me."
"Auntie Winter!" They girls all yelled together
"That's right." He smiled warmly towards his white haired partner. "OK, kiddos, time for bed."
"One more, Qrow!" Sunne declared.
"Yes, one more!" The twins followed up.
Qrow frowned into his empty glass and shook his head. "You all need to sleep. Your moms will have my hide if they found out how late you were up."
"Please, Uncle?" Osiria pleaded, staring her uncle down with perfect, albeit mismatched, puppy dog eyes.
"Alright, alright." Qrow acquiesced. "One more story before bed as long as I don't hear a peep from any of you."
The girls all nodded vigorously.
"You kids want to hear about the time I had to meet your Auntie Winter in a bar for a Intel drop? She ended up punching me off my stool."
A little different from what I normally do, but I hope you enjoy none the less! The end is a shout out to Mr. Ilax's MonCon submission, which you should totally read. As always, let me know what you thought!