Chapter 1: Eve
"Ozpin's had me drink this shit every night, plus this weird powder stuff in the morning. I feel like I'm the test dummy of some dangerous witch doctor." Taiyang took to the left window corner of the room, opposite of the bed, opposite of Raven. He found a way to shove himself between the metal box fireplace and the small two person dining table. He was shirtless, blonde hair poking out of his chest in confused directions. Not something Raven was unaccustomed to, in her room or his, but the context changed it. This wasn't either one's home. This was, as far as Raven considered it, Ozpin's personal fuck room. Honestly just an extra space for professors unable to go home, but no. To Raven, it was the fuck room, site of unholy rituals. The next coming in yellow, with smiling white teeth, and a lot of nervous shaking.
"If it comes from Ozpin, it'll work." Raven didn't cower in any comfortable pocket. She sat on the bed's edge, nightstand to her right holding a three pronged candelabra as the room's primary light source. The fire bronzed her skin, Raven's body nude, though her black hair and arched forward position blocked the view of anything but the bumps of her spine. Only she was permitted visitation of her body. Her dispassionate breast, her meekly breathing stomach, closed thighs, the dark curled hair below, she found nothing about herself sexy, not right now.
"Am I the only one feeling like a gold lab rat right now?" Taiyang chuckled. Realizing it wasn't funny, he drowned his words with the rest of the concoction of Ozpin's. Together they were a cocktail of drugs promising to insure a girl, insure they'd only have to once. "You know we don't have to, well, you know," he reiterated like she wasn't already regretting it.
"I'm not telling my child her father was a catheter and pumping machine." It was a stupid sentiment. She knew it was stupid, Taiyang knew it was stupid, Ozpin knew, and Summer knew even if she wouldn't say it. All doing it the "normal" way did was put a bit of venom in the veins of their relationship. Maybe that was the point, punish Summer. I don't choose to believe that.
She loved her so much. If that's not true, nothing else I tell you is. Maybe, maybe it was to punish someone else entirely.
"You're all natural kick sure has given me hell. I still can't believe you ride horseback for your missions. People talk about old souls, well yours seems about a century overcooked." Taiyang didn't stop with the jokes. Couldn't really, even if his throat dried up from a silent crowd. It was their connection, and even then, Raven grinned. Hidden by hair, but she did. "Summer really does find it cute though," he laughed in the wrong place, "You sure you don't want her to come in?" Raven's grin vanished.
Summer had offered, offered to come in with them. To hold Raven, kiss her eyes, hold her hand, whisper into her neck and keep her mind off the foreign feelings. Raven refused. Not because she questioned the sentiment, but the memory, she noticed how Taiyang blushed at the suggestion. Raven had ignored his swimming mind, but the suggestion made her sick. "You hoping you could fuck her, too?"
"Raven, that's no—"
"I know," Raven cut off. She fought the urge to bite through her index nail, settling on an uncomfortable nibble. "Have you ever hated me for it? Getting together with Summer, I mean."
"What? I don't hate you, that's ridiculous," Taiyang answered to an entirely different question. Her bare feet patted the rug in soundless repetition, yet Raven could not seem to circle back to what bothered her deeply, about Taiyang, about his place in this strange triangle.
"Do you still love her?" Closer to the nugget inside. Honestly, Raven wouldn't blame him if he did. She never had to watch her dreams flutter away into someone else's bed. She got to be in that bed every night till tonight.
There was a pause, because Taiyang was an inherently honest man. "Yeah, and so what? Raven we both loved her, but you're my best friend. We agreed, if she picked one, we'd support each other. When she told me she liked you, who did I come running to tell?" Raven nodded as Taiyang braved out from his corner, "And who was the designated driver on your last anniversary tear? And who is one day going to be your best man, right?"
"If I ever marry," Raven joked, eyes turning up from the floor and back across the room towards Taiyang's tempered steps. They both chuckled at the thought, even if he did it with a tiny bit more trepidation. His body arched down and pace slowed to reduce noise, like Raven was a snake in the center of the room ready to bite.
"That's not the point, bud, the point is I am on your side. Honestly, I don't know what the hell is going on, why this is happening, why Ozpin's shoving pills down my throat, or why you all suddenly want kids, but you need me, so I'm here," his voice crackled as he spoke like the sparks of a fire. Taiyang was often called a coward, mostly by ignorant hunters or those equally ignorant of the hunter's life, but he wasn't. To the brave, as Raven often explained, courage comes naturally, and then, with much more difficulty, there were the noble few who had to choose courage. "I want you to know, all you need to say is you don't want this, and it ends. I leave, and if the fucking Atlas prick sitting at the end of the hall tries to stop me I'll clock him in the face.."
He had such uncommon resolve. He must have noticed the tears dripping off Raven's chin. "Is this cheating?"
"I don't think so, and most importantly, Summer doesn't either." Taiyang didn't touch her, just sat on the foot of the bed presence, not skinship, required. "We don't have to do this, you know?"
"She really wants the kid, Taiyang," Raven tried to explain without explaining. Ozpin's orders, Taiyang was in the dark. He didn't know what the four maiden's were, much less her membership in that magical circle. He had come to suspect the existence of the brotherhood, but its purpose...how could anyone guess this madness?
"For your information, you can say no to her. She won't stop loving you. She can wait, or have her own damn kid." Raven bit her lip, a flush of air left her nose hot and tinted with rage.
"No, he'll make her hate me, he will," Raven lost her composure, faced with the one opponent she couldn't seem to outmatch in Summer's heart. He was like a father to her, and a father's love and admiration were powerful tools of manipulation.
"Who?" Taiyang asked, but got no reply. Just saying the name put everything at risk. Despite ignorance, to Taiyang, no one had that power. "Summer's not like that." No she wasn't, but fear is an interesting parasite. In bred well and laid eggs throughout Raven's inatiquices and insecurities. The more valuable the person at risk, the more food the larvae had to feed.
Raven was deathly afraid of Ozpin.
"What do you really want, Raven," Taiyang pushed once more, he needed to hear it. Raven wanted a cool lake, colorless and dark aside from the vibrance of a whole moon and the dotted sparkles of light from the poked holes in the night's blanket. Her and Summer on the tall grass bank, hands zipper tied together, listening to the movement of water. Taiyang and Qrow were there of course, but not there. Propped up in the trees perhaps, safe from the wind that could peel away the world, monsters, man, deceit, anything but them, till Remnant was motionless. No one needs them, problems elsewhere, and there is the peace of stillness. Raven nodded with all the gentle motion of a rusted cupboard door. "I need to hear you say it, or it's no. I'm picking that for you."
"I want you to do this." Maybe, just maybe, the dream on a lake bed, clearing through the reeds, could have a girl giggling with frayed black hair and crimson eyes. Maybe, by some miracle, some mad hope, they were silver instead. "Please."
"Okay," Taiyang nodded with the gusto of a bobble head, "Yeah, so how do you want to, you know, do this?" Raven kept the dream in her mind, and fell back on the bed. She turned over on her knees, rear up at a 40 degrees flat angle, face in the safety of the pillow. She brushed her ponytail to the side and slammed the opposite ends of her pillows over her ears. She did not want to hear the sound of a biological factory piston. The lake, she kept thinking, go back to the lake.
Taiyang tried to say something, voice blocked by the pillows. Giving up, his hands touched her skin, the one sense she could not block out doing the communication for him. The hunter warned her, or tried to. He tapped once on her hip before the cold came. Wet lubricant with cutting edge, lab developed, medical properties that would aid in ensuring this child would be a girl. It tingled, cold over her warmest part, but smelled, even through her cloth shield, foul like used factory grease.
He tried to say something again, two hands had grabbed the opposite ends of her hips and perfected this assembly line. Two cold drops sent a chill down Raven's back. The oil, more medicine? Tears? Two taps, a warning. The push came, barely getting an inch in.
Wasn't that he was too big. Raven was no "traditional" maiden, and frankly Summer had easily put more impressive things than his first attempt inside her. Yet, even if the heart and mind agreed, Raven's body resisted, pointlessly tensing up. After the next push, he was in and at it with autonomous motorized rhythm. All the clenching did was make it hurt like hell.
Think of the lake, Raven repeated, me, Summer, and a bright smiling girl with black hair and silver eyes.
"You know, you really don't have to walk with me everywhere," Raven complained with half a heart. She couldn't pull the grin from her lips walking through the gardens around Beacon with Summer. "I'm fat, not dying."
"I know, I just use the fact that you're preggers, and not fat, as an excuse to latch onto you." Summer tugged on her partner's arm for emphasis. She matched Raven's slower strides, moving in a rhythmic cross step and hummed as they took the leisurely path through the flower rich park beside the hidden vault. Dirt below their feet, it sucked in the heavier steps of a 27 week pregnancy better than hard white stoned hallways.
"Rather extreme, considering the troubles, for just a little arm action." Raven honestly did want to, no not want, but feared not shaking her off. The discussion was bound to get heated, a necessity, at least in her mind. Such a waste, the day danced sweetly in warm, not hot nor cold, the last fall petals bloomed before them. They called for Raven to lay on the soil, and she should have listened.
"I can be a little more forward," Summer declared, tilting her head closer and dropping just a small peck on Raven's jawline. It was tiny, it was silly, but Raven could not deny, with her ponytail swishing back and forth, the jaunty rush flooded her system.
"You're hitting on old pregnant ladies now?"
"I'm hitting on my beautiful pregnant lady always." Summer said words like always without a bit of remorse or trepidation on her pale pink lips. Raven felt more cautious. Old faunus teachings her master drilled into her head taught of impermanence, an acceptance that those concepts were inherent lies. Yet, Summer could paint that impossible canvas with how she hummed her words.
"You're a liar," Raven contended. A little retaliation, she knocked her hip against Summer's, immediately nauseated by the churning mass of her belly. The process of carrying a child turned out every bit as harrowing as it seemed, even more so for her. The fragility was a shock, even if the bloatedness of her feet wasn't. How easily her stomach knotted was unusual, though the doctor's assured Ozpin it was not detrimental. Summer became acclimated to seeing the signs.
"Have you eaten?" Raven rolled her eyes, not wanting more of Ironwood's pre-planned and regimented diet. Summer dislodged herself from her partner and twirled around to the front of her, hands on her hips, eyes down to thin slits, and lips smashed together in a pout. "Raven?"
"I'm going to eat after," she half lied. Raven planned on trying to escape the campus security and get to some street vender. Such a sight for the students, Beacon's scant robotic guards chasing after an unknown pregnant woman. However, escape to Vale city seemed an unlikely goal.
"No, you need food in you now." Summer found her quick solution in one of the several apple trees that dotted the park."I swear, I need to force feed you." Boot fixed into the heart shaped divot in the dark brown, serrated bark, the sweeter of the two lifted herself up and snatched a riper one of the long hanging treats. The fruit wasn't fully red, still needing more time hanging from its mother's limb, but Raven couldn't refuse. One part due to a shrinking stomach, ironic, and in equal measure to the satisfied look on Summer's face, a sunny little oval of smiles shining out of the hood.
"That an order, leader?" Raven fought with no desire to fight. She took the fruit, bounced it in her hand, and walked along the grassy trail. Summer hopped along with her, previous protests ignored. "Don't have anything better to do?"
"Nope."
The garden was crisscrossed by campus pavement, walkways, short cuts, plazas, and the like. Ozpin stationed himself at the center of four. A symmetrical alcove of the geometrically perfect. He had a table set up, a small wooden thing with a lime and white cover. It was dragged out to prop up an iron coffee kettle, four glasses, a plate of biscuits, and a single leather bound book, not an object more.
The man himself sat comfortably, sipping from his ceramic cup with a gold lined top. He stared up at the orchard trees behind the yellow of his lenses, comfortably distant. He was confident of the afternoon's civility, even if his compatriot wasn't. Ironwood never seemed at ease sitting anywhere, still doesn't. Men of action wither in stillness. James that afternoon stood with the occasional ten second long pace back and forth. The far chair was his, regardless.
"Summer, Raven, good to have you both. Sit and have a morning cup with me?" Ozpin invited with two of his lawn chairs already pulled out and free. Raven's at the far end, Summer's between them both. Not that they were marked, but presentation dictated and the sweet one followed through.
"Of course, professor." Summer skipped to her seat, slid into it, and whistled the tense atmosphere into oblivion. "May I?" she asked, and Ozpin nodded. In one hand she took the espresso pot and poured herself a full glass, the other patted the far left chair. She smiled back at Raven, nodding her over, and Ironwood soundlessly pulled out the chair further to support the added girth of a woman as late as she. Raven noted, as she finally took her position, that her glass was already full of some yellow tinted drink, an herbal tea made just for a young pregnant woman like herself. Ironwood picked it out of a list for the event.
"Afternoon, Ozpin," Raven skipped her preplanned tea, holding up her apple instead, too young, but much more free, "I was hoping to discuss—"
"Raven," James cut her surprised them all at this point, he should have known better. "Is that an apple? You can't eat that, we haven't—"
Raven interrupted him with a crunch, the juice of the apple tasted great as it flooded her mouth in sour rebellion. She waited, slowly chewing the hardy bite until he opened his chiseled jaw one more time. Crunch. He really should have known better.
"Ignoring how much we structure your meals for your health, do you have any idea how easy it is to poison someone with an—"
Ozpin interrupted the growing shout with a heavy cough. When the headmaster made a sound, people shut up and listened. Unsurprisingly, Ironwood followed suit like any other. "James, it's one apple. Grown right here, picked by Summer. I think we can let it go. A minor offense, if any." The Atlesian breathed heavy and hot, but said nothing. Raven added a third crunch to see what would happen. "Raven, do understand James comes from a much more dangerous place in some senses." Plenty of deadly fruit on the dinner plates of a dictator's court.
"Understood." Ironwood did not sit down. His hands gripped the backboard of his unused chair, back tilted over in a hunch above them all. Young, healthy, and to be feared, but Ozpin pretended not to notice.
"How are you? How are you feeling, Raven? Any discomfort?" Ozpin asked. His eyes gleamed just over the bridge of his glasses, with a doctor's compassionate detachment.
"I'm fine," Raven answered, knocked from her mental position, just a little. She never could escape the feeling that the question was directed more at her belly. "There are no complications."
"She hates the food," Summer played advocate for her indentured hunter. "Also, we would really like to get her out more, maybe a trip through the plains of Vytal? I really think we should get some fresh air, not that the school's unfresh, but you know what they say about caged birds?" Raven hadn't mentioned that complaint, but the thought of soil and sands between their toes, the salt in the air, it sounded wonderful. Many faunus vagabonds and nomads to ride with, though maybe Raven was not in condition for that trip exactly. "Anyways, I'm lobbying that my client and I get more dates and top quality food. I'm talking personal chef. That's final."
Ozpin indulged in a chuckle, his eyes locked on Summer as she rested her elbow on the table and chin in her hand like she had already won all her demands. "Is that all?" Ozpin eased back against the wood of his chair. His hands left the muh. One comfortably slapped onto the top of his cane, the other in his lap. "I'm sure we can arrange something in time. I'm surprised you didn't bring this up a little more casually. You're my guests for the time being, I intend to make sure you're comfortable here."
"That's," Raven piped up, fingers grasping on the table edge for some invisible thread of conversation and what it was meant to be, "I mean, Summer's right. I would definitely like more food options, and freedom. I can't help but feel a little caged, but that's not what I really wanted to talk about."
"Yeah," Summer interjected, her light never could be stifled by anyone's sudden seriousness, "The date thing is more for me. I need more time with the wifey or I'm going to revolt." Ironwood nearly choked to death on his own tongue. Too sweet and silly for his meek digestion. Raven turned red and pink in one color overload. She hated being derailed, but the way Summer enunciated the stupid little word and reached over to hold her flinching hand beautifully infuriated her.
"Well, of course, I always fold when it comes to my favorite silver eyed little huntress." Ozpin layered his gentry with compliments, though alerted by Raven. He crossed his legs in a position inclined toward command, cane laid above his lap. His intent in this case matched Raven's suspicions.
"Again, I was hoping to talk about another matter." This was why Raven didn't want Summer here. Combined they cut out any hope of confronting the trouble. Ozpin prefered diversion, and Summer applied fear like a shield, deflecting direct accusation, even if she did not know what affect she had.
"Is this about the financials?" An evasive left turn, a hope perhaps to give Raven something else to chew on today beneath the hot sun other than her actual wishes. "The brotherhood has set up a rather sizable collection, I promise, the time you lost hunting will be more than paid back in a permanent stipend. Are you in need of more now?"
"Raven, I can take more missions?" Summer dropped her hood, eyes locking on her girlfriend, lips shrunken in a worried bite. She took the bait. Raven found that behavior low, even for Ozpin. He felt nothing. It was not intended, but not an unwelcome departure.
"I assure you, Ozpin, Raven is in need of nothing. Any request the security team and myself can handle without her needing to dip into her reserves." Ironwood's pride pulled him back into the confrontation. If the headmaster of the brotherhood put him on bird cage duty, he was going to be the best. The last seventeen years have taught him quite a bit of humility.
"James, you have no idea what I need," Raven snapped back. She was totally incapable of not antagonizing the man. They were spirits of two different worlds. They would stumble all over each other getting to a duel neither needed.
"I'm quite confident whatever it is we can get it for you, please send me a list today. James and I will take care of it." Ozpin focused on the material, knowing damn well this was all about another thing entirely. Biting into the truth like her apple. Unripe, not the right time, but she would have it.
"If he can't, I will. I promise, Raven." Summer went along of course, the combined three kicked every single chance down the road. The pregnant huntress felt her blood rise like flood waters, a hard kick of irritation on the walls of her stomach cracked the dam. She breathed to try and settle the storm, but the child kept moving, squirming under the skin. So angry.
"Look, just listen!" Summer pulled away, ducked quick beneath the shielding of her hood. Raven felt a shred of guilt, but the movement inside her ate that feeling. The headmaster, leaned back, tapped his foot and held the end of his cane, eyes obscured behind the gold of his tiny glasses, smile whipped from his face. "I don't want things, Ozpin. You know that. You know a hell of a lot, and get away with telling us none of it. Ozpin, I put a baby in me for your schemes, it's time you stopped treating me like a chess piece."
Summer hid in white clothe. Ozpin did not even shutter. Raven clenched her fist, and Ironwood gripped the top of his chair enough to crack the wood. "I've had enough of your games, Raven. Summer maiden or no, I will—"
"It's alright, James," Ozpin's tongue flicked with ice breath. Cold and guarded. Body unmoved by the show on either end. "I do not know nearly as much as you think," how much of this was a lie, even I don't really know, "but if you must know the details, I have never hid them from you. You are a maiden, Miss Branwen. The secrets of the vault are your own. Follow me." He stood, taller than usual. His hand wrapped well around the cane. "Only Raven. Summer, you can know when you're a maiden."
"Sir—" Ironwood tried to speak.
"James, she is pregnant and it's our vault. We will be fine." None followed them. The walk was sullen and choked out any conversation. They never spoke, though the headmaster offered his hand to the huntress. Raven took it for support. It wasn't until the park melted away, the cold green of the inner cathedral could be seen from the elevators drop, the chill set in, that Ozpin began to speak again. "Remember, the truth is like a bite of any meal. It's not something undone. It becomes a part of you. There is no looking away from what you know. If you are certain you want to know, then please, please remember that not all good is accomplished through cleanly deeds." The vault. It holds all of our secrets, all of the truth, even if below the stained glass, the green flames, one does not see it all. It was a regrettable choice. The apple was not ripe.
Disillusioned. The most generous of descriptors. Perhaps Raven was just destined for that slowly, but inside the vault, all she had heard and seen turned paranoid theory into half truth. It was a mistake to let her know, she was not ready, was not old enough to understand. If there was any vestige of faith in Ozpin or his world, it was suffocated on the marble floor on the vault.
But it wasn't just Raven to her at the time, as odd as that may seem now. She stayed for Summer, for the child she was having. They could be her justification if Ozpin failed to provide any other. For that future, the vision on a lake in the reeds, the three of them, Raven simply behaved. At peace, maintained through hope. It came to a painful head three days early.
The delivery went into a second day, child coming in just a few pounds over the average for a girl. There were no complications, no dramatic coils around the neck, she was quick to cry, and no deformities. Nothing terribly irregular aside from the length of the delivery.
Raven was used to the pain, combat was her life, and did not take pain meds. She regretted that decision. It wasn't the potency of the pain that killed her, but the never ending aches, the pushing, the fight. It drained her very life. She felt aged, and the moment the crying started, her body shut down. Raven was greeted by a dreamless sleep. No reeds, no moon, no Summer, just restful darkness.
Summer dragged her back from the abyss. "Love, are you okay to wake up? Someone wants to see you." Her red eyes fluttered in darkness. The white of the room dulled down. Evening had encroached. Sounds of footsteps, but few words polluted the air that carried Summer's voice. The moon shadowed her, it was cracked tonight, and the street light drowned out the stars. The air tasted stale on her dry lips, and her lower body all vibrated a singular ache.
"She's healthy and wants to meet her mama." Summer embraced the child against her heart, a bundle of yellow cloth wrapped so tight the poor thing probably couldn't move. Summer kept her hood down for once, the red lined hairs of hers over the baby, she was so engulfed.
"She's looking at her." Raven groaned. The young huntress felt deflated, barely able to move, but also wracked by an odd flavor of fear. She had yet to see her baby. Would the child look up to her and see her mother? Or was Summer already in that position. Such an odd thing to think, Raven even noted. They were both the mother, right? "Can I see her?"
"Of course!" Summer's voice cracked with her declaration, sliding over to the hospital bed, the baby still coiled against her body. She was so protective.
"Hand her over, I need to see...god, we need a name." Summer did as she was bid. The bundle of fabric with a baby within switched hands. A slight adjustment, and Raven could see all that she brought into this world, and tears dripped from her eyes full of sudden mourning.
"For a name, I thought we could go for Yang Branwen, like the sun? Taiyang deserves a little credit, right?" Raven got it. She got it, looking into the creamy lilac eyes of the child, between its new short bouts of tiny wails. What hairs stuck to its head were thin gold strings. Once the fussing ended the smile on its little mouth had a sleepy infectious touch. Raven was sure this baby was going to grow up a lovable creature of the sun. She got it. Got why Taiyang's touch had felt like venom pumping into her. Summer took the child in her arms. "We can figure it out later. Oh damn, I'm gonna start crying, too."
Was there anything, any piece, ribbon, stitch, or digit of this child that was Raven? Taiyang's child, the living ash of her abortive dream. Her little girl with silver eyes and black hair, her reeds and her full moon. The lake, the stupid hopes, it all died on the birthing bed. They warned of sudden bouts of depression that came after birth, but this was cruel, cruel to all of them. The child was such a little thing, she deserved the love of her mother. Raven believed that, I know she did, she had to.
They held Taiyang's baby and all three of them cried together on that summer night's eve. One out of fussy exhaustion, one out of love, and the last out of mourning for a twin that never was to begin with.
***Wow I am so sorry this is so late. First finals happened, then my editor took a much deserved trip to Ireland, then I was a lazy piece of shit. Anyways, chapters done! Expect others with more frequency.
So far I haven't gotten much feedback on this fic, but I do hope you enjoy it. This chapter was kind of the original piece of the idea, and honestly I think it's kind of powerful in some ways. Hope you all are enjoying it.
Also rosebird is cute.
Thank you to cat