Qrow Branwen had little down time in his line of work, and most of it was in the field. For now, he had a free day in Vale with Ruby and Yang. Ozpin had just put him on the backburner, since Ironwood assured everyone that he was on top of the whole end-of-the-world thing. Winter was on top of it.

Ozpin had told him to back off and let her handle it. Ozpin had told him exactly that, face-to-face, like he was waiting for a reaction. Like Qrow couldn't be trusted to work with her, or around her, or in spite of her. And Qrow had shrugged it off, because an adult should be able to take this in stride. The best he could do was stay sober and put it out of his mind. So he knocked on team RWBY's door and hoped Weiss wouldn't answer and the girls wouldn't have homework and something would just go his goddamn way for once.

Ruby opened the door. Oh god, did she look like Summer. And then Yang, hunched over a controller at the room's center, furiously mashing buttons and glaring at the screen like the first day he'd met Tai.

"Hey," he said then and now.

Yang lit up and chimed in time with Ruby, "Uncle QroOOOOOOOOOOW!"

Most men would never be as thankful for life as Qrow was in these moments. They sat and talked, learned to play Bloody Ninja Murder from the grandmaster himself, and all enjoyed being children. This was only dampened when Yang called Qrow old, and when they asked about Raven.

For an absent mother, Raven Branwen had incredible presence. They'd just seen Summer in recording. It was natural they'd ask about Yang's biological mother.

"What was she like? Was she always... You know?" Yang asked.

Qrow set down the controller. He tried to remember her in a better light, for their sake.

"Your mother," he said to Yang, "was fearless. And I mean that literally. She told me once... Lemme back up. So we were in Atlas. This was after we graduated. Team STRQ was pretty famous back in its day. Everybody knew who we were. Contracts were lining up. There were biddings just to get our attention. We had," he laughed at this, "we had a reporter embedded with us on one of our missions, just to write a story."

"You were cool?" Ruby asked.

"I still am!" he pointed.

"We know you're cool, Uncle Qrow," Yang smiled.

"And don't forget it. Well your mother was the coolest of the cool. Everybody wanted to know who she was dating, who she was thinking about. She was like… Who's famous nowadays?"

"Pyrrha Nikkos?" Yang offered.

Qrow pointed at her.

"Pyrrha. She was like Pyrrha. Now Raven wasn't on any cereal boxes, but Ebon Merlot proposed to her."

Ruby asked, "Who?"

"They're mostly dead now," Qrow sighed, "But I hear you met the Doctor."

"Doctor Merlot? Oooooooh. Yeah. He blew up."

Yang leaned forward, concerned. "He had a family?"

"Yeah. A big one. They were a big deal in life. And you should have seen Raven thinking about that marriage. My sister..." he struggled through the discomfort of admitting, "was very attractive in her youth. Her eyes weren't red, by the way. They were purple. And she knew how to look dangerous in a dress. Just imagine Mr. Merlot, basically a Schnee, kneeling in front of her, while she looks like the Empress of Remnant. Anyway, she turned him down. Gave a flowery speech, too. Did I mention she's a poet? Was. She said she wanted to marry an adventurer and live her life out in the wild. Industry wasn't her thing. She'd take a range over a castle any day."

Yang was stuck on, "Her eyes weren't red? When did that change?"

"Whenever she was in a fight. No. Not always. Whenever she got hit. Whenever she got hurt, or mad, or once when we watched a sad movie. Actually, I don't think she ever cried in her life. She'd get really serious and focused more. Your mom was always a professional. She'd wait till she had a spare moment, tell us she needed some alone time, and go meditate. Then she'd come back all smiles, and she was her normal self again. Your mother didn't like to dump her problems on other people."

He got lost in the past, and forgot to share it. Ruby poked him.

"Uncle Qrow!"

"Huh? Right. Well, fear is a good thing. Fear keeps you safe. You know when you're about to make a decision, like a really big decision, and you aren't sure it's going to work? There's that impulse to turn around and run away."

"Like when I'm flirting with the guys," Yang said.

Qrow realized that Yang was about that age.

"Eww," Ruby said.

"Grow up, Ruby," Yang hissed.

"No. Don't," Qrow corrected, "But yeah. Like when you're flirting with danger. And suddenly there's that primal instinct to play it safe. Well Raven never had that. And that explains a lot of why she was successful. There was nothing weighing her down. She could look someone in the eye and they'd know that she was about to give it her all. Well, and she was a great fighter."

Ruby inserted, "Like Pyrrha!"

"Yeah. So then we went to Kolyma. You kids remember Kolyma? Too young. Who's your faunus teammate?"

"Blake?"

"Yeah. Ask her about it."

"Was she there?"

Qrow tongued his teeth, picking something out of a crevice and dodging the question. He continued, "Kolyma was a little before Mountain Glenn. The Schnees had a refinery underground. The weather there is deadly. They refined the Dust inside the mine. And by the time it got topside, it was usable. And this place was BIG. Well, back then- this was just the way things were- all the miners were faunus. And all the executives, and technicians, and guards, and soldiers- everybody else was human. So when the mine started blowing up, they left the faunus down there and ran away."

"How many people..." Yang wondered.

"Thousands. Maybe ten. Place is huge. It was Mantle's strategic reserve. So they wanted someone to go clear the site of Grimm and see what could be salvaged. And they hired team Strike."

He trailed off again. Ruby was invested in the story. She poked him.

"So we cleared all the Grimm. And we turned on the control room. Only... Nothing was working. The mine had these big blast doors, from the Great War, back when there were bombing runs. And everything under the blast doors wasn't working. Only the stuff topside. So someone had to go down there and test the dust vein."

"You sent Raven?" Ruby guessed.

"Sent? No. She just went."

He sat quietly for a long time, and didn't answer when Ruby poked him again.

Snow crunched under his feet. Black clouds hid the stars behind a placid curtain. Dead trees framed every horizon. Perfect visibility in all directions, save when his breath clouded in his face. Raven followed beside, hefting the power cable, her kit clinking. All else was silent as if muted. The place's curse felt like a tug on his body in all directions. It was shearing his aural shield. He checked his scroll: Fifty percent. The peril gave him a mild high.

On his shoulder, a new piece of equipment rumbled like a vibrator. He squinted at it, and raised an eyebrow to Raven. "Pattern Blue. That's supposed to mean Grimm are spawning."

Raven scanned the horizon, then shrugged. "I can't feel them. Maybe it's broken?"

"Grimm spawning is what powers it. So…"

"We're huntsmen, Qrow. We can already detect Grimm at a hundred paces. That's plenty. That thing is useless."

"Well this thing says there's a swarm spawning somewhere within ten klicks. That's valuable knowledge."

"If it's working."

They reached the blast doors, and the obvious answer struck Qrow. "Maybe it is working. There's a lot of open space right below us."

"You know..." Raven sighed, "You don't have to do this, Qrow."

He'd lost the conversation. "Do what?"

"C'mon, Qrow. You like Summer. Everybody knows it."

He shook his head. "Nah. Tai likes Summer."

"But so do you. You don't have to back down on this."

"Tai's been a little down lately," Qrow mumbled.

"So you're going to let him use her like a crutch?"

"He likes her," Qrow asserted.

Raven poked his chest. "She likes you."

"It's just a crush," Qrow dismissed.

He turned back to the control room and pushed the bead in his ear. On the other end, Tai mumbled, "I just don't want to do anything that makes it awkward, Summer."

Qrow cleared his throat. "We're all hooked up down here, Tai."

"Qrow? Uh… Did I transmit that?"

"Open the door, please, Tai."

"Roger. Opening."

The bore-hole's blast doors had survived two wars. The mechanisms, two dura-steel geartowers, jerked to life with the sound of an entire factory. Their clunky motions slowly heaved the gates up and out.

When the gates parted, the Grimm detector rumbled and jumped from Qrow's shoulder. A second later, the Phantom Dread hit him. It felt like cold hands seizing his throat.

Raven drew her katana.

Qrow peeked over the edge. The elevator platform was stuck ten meters down the borehole. Past it was pure darkness.

"Damn. There're a lot of Grimm down there."

Qrow shook his tension free. "Yeah. That's why they're paying us."

Raven sheathed her blade. "Let's get that elevator working."

She smiled, struck by a thought. "Hey, Qrow. Suppose Tai wasn't after Summer."

"What?"

"If Tai doesn't want Summer, will you go for her?"

He borrowed Tai's line. "I don't wanna make things weird."

"But will you go for her?"

"It doesn't matter, because he is interested in Summer."

Raven laughed. Her head shook. She wore dark glasses back then, to hide the light that always gleamed from her eyes. But Qrow remembered her without them, and saw the way they sparkled, like amethysts dancing on an ocean.

"Oh, Qrow. Men are hopeless."

"Huh?"

"Tai and I are a couple."

"What?"

"Summer doesn't know, and I don't want to break her little heart. So do me a favor and distract her, okay?"

"Why... If you knew she liked him-"

"I didn't! And anyway, someone's gotta go down here."

"Sooner the better," Qrow agreed.

He looked out over the camp. Something about the layout had been bothering him. Standing at the camp's center, he realized it.

"Raven," he breathed.

Her coy smile faded. "You too, huh?"

"This place is a cage. I don't think these people…"

Raven folded her arms. "That's not our job, Qrow."

He nodded. "Let's get this done."

They looked down the mine shaft. The wind in Kolyma was stale and cold, the kind that rattled bones and stripped leaves from trees. Passing through the blast doors and winding down, it made a faint wailing sound, as if the dead were calling up to them. Qrow didn't feel fear. He sensed it in there, waiting for him like a trap. Why couldn't Raven?

"Uncle QROOOOOOOOOOOOOW!"

Ruby waved a hand in front of him. "You gotta tell us what happened!"

"Ruby," Yang cautioned.

Qrow spared them the details. "So someone had to go down. Well, your mother hopped onto the elevator... And it gave out under her weight. Fell five-hundred meters straight down, walls on all sides."

Yang and Ruby gasped.

Ruby blurted, "Was she hurt?"

"No."

He dropped prone and shouted into the darkness. "Raven!"

She found the wall and made sparks, digging into it for friction. Her aura burned where she would have lost skin.

The elevator crashed with an echoing roar, and Raven thudded into the darkness. She was on her feet a second later, spitting fire from her sheath and slicing shadows with her katana.

The flames faded, and she panted at empty darkness.

"Qrow?"

Qrow tapped his ear bead. "Raven. Raven, you alright?"

"There's something down here."

"Yeah."

Raven pivoted on her heel. "No, Qrow. Something's off. This isn't what a swarm feels like."

She cracked a chemlight and held it up.

Qrow stood and waved at the tower. "Tai! Summer! Get down here! We've got a problem."

Their answers were lost in static. He growled his frustration. But as his growl faded, the static persisted. Someone's mic was open.

He looked down the hole. "Raven?"

"Qrow? Are you whispering?"

He listened. He heard it, a soft voice, smooth and monotone, but clear.

"-there will be no rest there will be no love there will be no hero in the end who will rise above and when it ends the good will fall-"

Raven's chemlight illuminated only her silhouette.

She was rigid, save the tremor at the tip of her blade. "H-H-Hey. Qrow."

He heard the smile in her voice.

"What's up, Raven?"

"Qrow, I think… I think I'm scared."

She left her mic open. Her breathing accelerated to ragged gasps. The static rose like a wave and drowned her out. The wind rose, and damned howling swirled up from the cave. Darkness crept up her silhouette, consuming her, until the chemlight flickered out in her hand.

In the dorm, Qrow said, "It was pretty dark. We had rappelling gear, but we didn't need it. Your mom brought the elevator up to meet us."

Raven sat curled in a ball, her eyes dark and crimson. Where her face had been plump and her complexion flushed, she was now and forever harrowed and pale white. She didn't answer when Qrow talked to her. She retracted from Summer's touch. But she wrapped her arms around Tai and whispered, "I want to go home."

"We had some explosive satchels," Qrow said, "So we sent those down the elevator and got the hell out of there. About nine months after that, you were born," he nodded to Yang, "and then she disappeared."

He reached for his flask, but remembered with some shame to not do that in front of them.

"And that was the end of team Strike," he finished.

Ruby frowned.

Yang asked, "Do you think… She regrets having me?"

Qrow thought about it. He pulled his flask and drank. He wished a better man could take his place in this moment.

"I went looking for your mom. So did Tai. So did Summer. We found her trail sometimes. She kept up with her work. She didn't want anything to do with us. She didn't want anything to do with anybody. Never went to the same places twice. But... Well, I called in a favor from someone I know in Atlas. At the end of last semester, a Specialist spotted her-"

"You know a Specialist?" Ruby gasped.

Yang leaned in, her eyes wide and intense. "Is it true they can teleport at will and have infinite auras?"

Qrow cocked his head. He'd never herd that one before. He smiled.

"Girls, Atlas' Force Specialists are Huntsmen- just like you and me. They're not any more or less spooky. But yeah, I know one." Qrow grumbled, "And she found Raven in Atlas. And she... Uh... Well..."

She was dressing up with Grimm bones and drinking human blood, he didn't say.

"Well, it was right when you got on that train in Mountain Glenn, Yang. You said Raven appeared and saved you? Well twenty minutes before that, she was on a hunt in Vacuo. She crossed the whole world, went into Mountain Glenn alone, and rescued you on that train. Then she tracked me down in Mistral, same night. Woke me up, and told me to keep a closer eye on you."

Yang didn't look any happier. She didn't know what to make of that.

Qrow sighed. "Look, she isn't a good mother. But... If Raven didn't want you, you'd be dead."