Chapter 2: Burning Question
(six weeks after that day)
She doesn't say anything.
Her weary but hopeful smile faded early on in Taiyang's explanation.
She doesn't look at him - instead, she is fixated on the photograph on the coffee table in front of them.
Her lilac eyes (the most beautiful blend of blue and red) are wide and unblinking, darting between the younger iterations of Dad, and Mom, and Uncle Qrow, and...
That woman. Pale skin, contrasted strongly by the long, wild black locks which framed intense red eyes and a smirk that exuded confidence, arrogance - maybe self-righteousness? Her whole motif seemed to be bloody reds and midnight blacks, conveying arrogance, power, domination, rage - maybe even bloodlust.
Mom?
Mother?
No.
Raven, he had said. Qrow's twin sister, hence "Uncle" Qrow.
It hadn't occurred to Yang before now how, exactly, he was related. He was around infrequently but when he was, he always talked to both her and Ruby like they were adults - like equals. He would match their arbitrary shifts in attitude - their goofiness, their curiosity, their sincerity - with an energy that reminded Yang of Mom... of Summer. He was as genuine and honest with them as he could afford to be and for that they loved him.
What honesty he could afford was subtly but surprisingly limited, as Yang would grow keenly aware. She knew well the acrid smell that followed him around every time he came to visit, and every time he was not entertaining them, and she knew it came from the polished silver flask he kept on his person at all times. She knew well the defeated, jaded look on his stubble-shadowed face, in his eyes, that took over when he thought they weren't looking.
The sights and smells were familiar to her now - Taiyang was the same, except that he had done a poor job of hiding it in the days following the news of Summer. He had stopped putting the girls to bed, and some nights Yang would hear low, slurred mutterings from downstairs before she would close the door to their room and tuck Ruby in. Some nights instead would be eerily silent, and it wasn't until Yang once heard an outside door click shut and watched from their window as a tall figure stumbled down the path from their home into the surrounding forest in the fading light of dusk that she understood why. He had sported a few nasty bruises and tiny cuts and smelled of pine needles and something sour and earthy the next day, but never spoke about it (Yang never asked).
And on any of those nights, when she woke from her increasingly lonesome nightmares, she felt increasingly lonesome in the waking world. Without Mom or Dad to console her, she would curl up under the blankets, squeeze one of her pillows, and cry herself back to sleep as quietly as she could to avoid waking Ruby. To her knowledge, she had succeeded in her unobtrusiveness thus far, and she counted it as a small but important victory. Ruby was too young, too innocent, and Yang could not bear to further burden the sister she knew she needed to look out for more than ever.
So, while Taiyang was much less subtle in those first few weeks, even at Yang's age she knew - either by intuition or observation - that there was more to Qrow, for better or for worse, than the "fun uncle" he tried to be.
But Raven... had just left. Yang had no memory of her. This picture was all she had ever seen that had given her any notion at all of the people Dad had gone to school with. The red-and-black woman had never been more than a minor curiosity to her - an old rival, or estranged friend, perhaps. And maybe those guesses weren't untrue, but how could she have possibly known that this stranger might be so much more?
But she left.
It didn't hurt at first, this news. Raven was a stranger, an unrelated entity who just happened to be... very much related.
But then a spark of curiosity ignited an inferno of dejection and doubt, and the question burning at the heart of it all:
Why?
Suddenly, Yang feels her throat clenching and her head burning and her vision blurring. Hot tears form in the corners of her eyes, and she is frozen in time and space, rooted to the low couch cushions (though her feet still dangle inches from the ground) as she is assaulted by distressed thoughts.
What happened? What did I do? Does she hate me? Why doesn't she want me? Why did she leave? How could she leave me?
How could she leave Dad? How did she leave? Did they fight? Does she hate us?
Why?
A low sigh from Taiyang breaks the silence in the room and the cacophony in her head. He had been staring at her, concerned, for what must have been at least a minute, searching for a reaction to this loaded revelation. He shifts from resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together nervously, to lean back on the couch and find one of his many focal points near the ceiling. His eyes do not grow distant anymore, but he is clearly cycling through the many images and memories he has yet to let go of.
The shift in the room dulls Yang's stormy thoughts, and she finally looks away from the photo, blinking forcefully as the warmth of her tears spreads in matching lines down her cheeks, and she tastes salt when she licks her dry lips and attempts to swallow the sadness. She tries to follow Taiyang's gaze, to see what he is seeing. Her imagination attempts to fill in some of the blanks as she pieces together their conversation.
Dad loved Raven. Then I was born, and she left. Then Dad loved Mom... Summer. Then Ruby was born, and everything was okay. Then Mom...
She sees the spotless white cloth and the eternal smile and the bright silver eyes. She feels the soft, warm hands and hears the pure, joyous laughter and smells the sweet, secret-ingredient-infused cookies and tastes the warm, soothing honey and lemon water that calmed her after even the worst of the nightmares.
Summer is gone.
This did hurt at first. And it still hurt. It hurt when she suddenly pieced together why Dad had collapsed to his knees, eyes wide and mouth agape slightly as if winded, after having read from a small, simple letter from their mailbox, signed by Qrow. She did not have to see the contents of the letter to make sense of why Dad had fallen to all fours before crawling over to the nearest photo of their happy household and began stroking the image of the white-hooded woman with the eternal smile and the bright silver eyes. Even at her age, her deduction skills were developed enough to cause her to break in that moment nearly as badly as her father.
That was when the screaming started, and then the collateral damage was done. Ruby, for all her innocence, could not ignore or contend with the extreme upheaval of emotion in the house, and while she did not seem to fully comprehend what Yang told her (Yang wasn't even sure what to say), it upset her at least as much as the rest of her family. The clear sky and sunny morning of that day were clouded over by anguish and grief and desperation and confusion that hung over the house like a thick fog, even after Yang gave up on Taiyang and tucked herself in with Ruby.
Today's revelation did nothing to ease the memory of that first night. Suddenly the tears are at it again, and Yang tries to bury her face in her knees, hands behind her head and back heaving in silent, shuddering sobs.
But a hand on her back, hesitant but firm, startles her to a stop. She jerks her head out of her lap and looks timidly towards her father, who for the first time in weeks is...
Smiling?
His sad blue eyes accompany the faintest of upward slants to his closed mouth. It is a look of sympathy, of love - of apology?
Suddenly unfrozen from her seat, Yang launches herself into his embrace. She catches him off guard and he falls back into the corner of the couch with his small, elder daughter clinging to his torso. He is stunned for a few seconds, but returns the gesture. It is different; not the same. But he is still holding her and she still has him for a moment, two moments, ten moments.
The sobs return, fuller than before, but she manages to squeak out the burning question, her voice muffled by his chest.
"Why?"
He simply strokes her back, brushes her hair back and sighs. The calming motions of his hands continue for what seems like hours before he responds, unexpectedly, with one of Qrow's favourite lines, which he would state so plainly, so innocently, whenever his nieces would ask about anything "bad" that any reasonable adult would consider beyond their years.
But the way Taiyang says it, the phrase suddenly feels a lot less innocent. It sounds as if he still dons his sad little smile, but his voice rings with melancholy and... anger? Something about it gives Yang a sick feeling in her gut, and she is more unsettled than comforted.
"Sometimes bad things just happen, Yang."
Hello again!
This worked itself out a lot quicker than I imagined, and while I would definitely consider this a short chapter, know that it was going to be a lot longer but has since been separated into at least one other part - meaning the next update will, once again, be coming soon! Sooner than I expected, anyways.
There's a lot of what you might consider "semi-novelization" going on in this story right now, and I really am doing my best to stay as canon as possible (at least for now), so if something seems off to you, please say so! There's some more explicitly original content coming up in the next chapter (and some maybe-not-entirely-depressing stuff), so look forward to that.
You'll notice we've now settled into third-person narrative, which was in response to a helpful comment from CPEcho13. Chapter 1 has since been revised as well. I think I'm on the straight and narrow with regard to the rules now!
Please let me know what you think! Stay tuned for Chapter 3: "For the Birds".
-kms