While I was gone, I hope everyone wrote 1,000 words on the graceful geometry of cable-knit sweaters.
They woke to the sound of engines in the air.
Raven's eyes shot open. Birds cleared out overhead, their cries resistant as they fled their canopy home. A dark shadow gathered over the four students, bending the trees. Raven stood and Summer came to her side to help. A bit unnecessarily, she thought.
The ship did not land, but it did throw down ladders that unfamiliar huntsmen and women came down. Together with their help, the four were ushered into the vessel. Together, in a silence broken only by whirring engines, they went home.
—
"How many people know about this?" Team STRQ stood in the Headmaster's office, all of them thickly wearing doubt. Qrow had asked the question and it wavered in the air as Ozpin set his mug down on the table and exhaled, prolonging the unwelcome silence.
"Not many. And you are the most recent additions."
Raven looked out the wide window of the high room in the tower. The school sat below, continuing classes in their absence. And they were here, above it all, chosen by this man to bear witness to some truth they had never asked to harbor. Raven's hand moved to her shoulder, conscious of the ribbon of gauze and bandage that had been tied to the wound. Conscious, still, of the vestiges of pain. Summer stood at her side with a resoluteness she did not share.
Raven hadn't gotten a chance to talk to the team in private after the airship had come to retrieve them from the forest. They'd flown over the remains of the towns, ashes now, and the flow of people returning to homes that no longer stood. The Grimm had all but vanished, the last of their corpses wavering into black smoke as the team passed overhead. The trip had been quiet in the company of the few huntsmen and huntswomen Ozpin had sent after them. Raven had not looked at her teammates. Not even Qrow, whose eyes she could feel studying her, whose anger was likely still kindling ready to spark.
She still had not gotten time with them. They'd all spent the night in the medical ward, cared for by the ever-talkative and attentive Evergreen, a doctor whose semblance allowed him to strengthen others' auras and more rapidly heal their wounds. Time in the man's presence had exhausted her to the point that when Ozpin summoned them all to his office after breakfast, she realized she was ready to scream with the need to be alone for a moment, to process things.
The others, she imagined, felt the same.
But they stood there nonetheless, the bright daylight bleeding across the floor and the gears turning overhead. Ozpin studied them behind his glasses, eyes light and infuriatingly knowing. "I imagine you all have plenty of questions."
"An understatement." Qrow growled.
"The Grimm…" Tai began, looking down. "There were so many…"
"Who is Salem?" Summer looked up and the others glanced at her before averting their gazes again. Raven was the only one to keep it on the girl. Ozpin took another sip of his coffee, which was still steaming, and moved to the other side of the table. He faced the window outside, his reflection faint on the glass.
"The right question, Miss Rose. She is…" Ozpin exhaled. "Someone I've been trying very hard to stop. A woman who seeks nothing less than the utter annihilation of our world." Silence. "The Grimm…she called them to Araval."
Tai shook his shaggy head. "Impossible. No one can control the Grimm."
"She can manage something like it." Ozpin began.
"What does she want with Summer?" Qrow again. His red eyes were dark. Summer glanced at him with a strange softness to her gaze, and Raven felt something bubble in her stomach at the exchange. Shame?
"You possess an…interesting ability, Miss Rose. There are few like you. Salem…fears you." Ozpin turned, carefully considering the words. "But I promise you this. I will do everything in my power to protect you while you attend this institution. And beyond that."
"How is this possible?" Qrow gestured. "What is all of this…the Grimm, this…Salem. What does all of it mean?"
"It is another battle we must fight. One in the shadows. One I imagined you'd want to know existed outside of my telling you. Jack was once loyal to her. When he saw the truth of what she wanted…he fled her services. I wanted you to see what he feared, so that you might know why I chose you." He looked to them all.
"Chose us?" Qrow snarled. It was not his usual anger. It was something born of fear and injury. Hackles raised to an expected attack. "We could have died because of that mission."
"And yet here you are, Mr. Branwen, able to feel that anger. I didn't think either of you feared something as fickle as death, given your past." His focus shifted between the two siblings, long enough that Tai and Summer exchanged a quick look. Raven felt ice in her veins. It was impossible. He couldn't know who they were. But there was something in his tone, in the sparkle in his eye, the slight turn of his lips. She clenched a fist at her side. Impossible.
Ozpin turned from them once again, ever the image of a wizened old man giving sage advice. Raven thought it looked more like cowardice. He didn't seem concerned that they'd done this under his order. He didn't seem to regret sending them out. And he knew things he was keeping from them. Secrets stuck in wax from a flame unlit, and she wanted to burn them from him.
After a breath, he began again. "All of our fairytales have truth in them. From the oldest to the youngest stories, people can't lie when they paint those pictures. Heroes are never without origin. Sometimes those stories are more than fairytales, but we lose sight of what they were as they flow further and further away from where they started. Time has a way of stripping things to their simplest forms, sometimes for the better."
"The point?" Qrow drawled. Ozpin turned back with a smirk. "There is magic in this world, Mr. Branwen, and there are those who seek to control that magic. The Grimm are tools, and so Salem uses them. It is a battle in the shadows, one I entrust to few."
The students were silent in the room as the words washed over them. Raven felt as if she were opening a door better left sealed, and she felt fearful for it. "Why entrust it to us?" She could not take the words back. They were out, curious and serious, and Ozpin scrutinized her.
"Because you are talented."
"That's not good enough." She stepped forward. "Plenty of students here are talented. What do we have that they don't?"
"Summer." Qrow said softly. They looked back at him. "That man—Jack—he mentioned silver eyes. He meant Summer."
"Indeed he did." Ozpin moved back to where he could face them and leaned his back against the table, taking another sip of coffee. Raven wasn't sure if habit made him do that or if it was a nervous way of creating pauses. Or if he simply enjoyed his coffee and did not let the weight of conversations take that away. She had a feeling it was the latter. "Do any of you know what silver eyes are?"
Summer looked away. "My mother told me about them. Said they were a gift."
"A gift." Ozpin repeated the word as if it did not belong. He sighed. "Silver eyes are a tool. A powerful one. One Salem is after, one she has been after for years. It's a blessing that all of you are so gifted, because fate has chosen you whether you like it or not. Salem will hunt down all of those with silver eyes, and Beacon can only keep those attempts at bay for so long. Without stopping her…Miss Rose will always be in danger."
Team STRQ was quiet. Everyone looked away, down at their hands or the windows outside. Raven gripped at her injured shoulder. At least Ozpin had given them that truth. It wasn't just a sort of special syndrome, they had to learn this truth with Summer. As teammates, they were expected to bear that burden together. Raven clenched tighter at the wound to feel its resorting pain.
Dammit all.
"What do you want us to do?" Tai asked. Ozpin's brows furrowed.
"I want you to learn. I want you to fight. And, when the times come, I want you to join me in stopping her in anyway we can. For the future, for the present."
The present. The future.
The future was a luxury, a security she did not have. Every day offered new challenges, new chances. Every day out there she could have died. And yet here she stood, realizing that all of this was leading to a future she did not know she could have. All these kids had likely dreamed of their futures, safe in their parents homes, their comfortable towns. Envisioned it.
Raven drew her hand down from her wound. All this time she'd been following. She thought of Quiver's sneer on the day they'd left, his pat on her shoulder and the grip too hard. Don't get lost in it all, he'd said. Lost in what? Raven had shrugged him off.
She thought of Summer and the town they'd been plucked from, the people moving with their things to recover whatever they could that had not been lost. I'm not a hero, she'd told Tai. His smile had lit something in her and of that, she was afraid.
—
The night fell quickly over Beacon. Team STRQ had walked down the hall in relative silence, afraid of inquisitive passing students, and it was only when they'd finally shut the door to their small dorm that Qrow let out a tight laugh. It did not contain true humor.
"What the hell? What the hell was all of that?"
"I still don't believe it." Tai shook his head. No one had bothered to turn on the desk lamp or the overhead lantern. They all stood in the darkness as if to stew in it, afraid the light would break the spell of the evening.
"How can we?" Summer took a seat heavily on her bed. "I'm so sorry, everyone." She managed. "All of this…it's because of me. The town, this mission, now this…I should…" She folded her hands on her lap. "I should leave the academy. I'm sure you'll get a better teammate. And Headmaster Ozpin will let you all continue as usual, none of this."
"Out of the question." Qrow stepped forward. "We're a team for a reason, right?"
Summer did not look at them. Her eyes adjusting to the darkness, Raven could read the edge to everyone's faces. The moon outside was dim, a sliver among the clouds. "All this time, training to fight the Grimm…" Tai exhaled. "And they weren't even the real threat."
"They're still a threat." Qrow shrugged. "They're just the cronies."
"Yeah, that's reassuring." Tai spat. He took a moment to reconsider. "Sorry I just…no one else knows about this, do they? Just us? Just us and the Academy leaders and other people way out of our league. It feels like we're too close to a fire."
They were all silent at that. "We can refuse to help." Raven said simply. They all looked to her.
"How?" Qrow asked. "'Nice to hear about this ultimate evil but we've decided to pass on fighting it, thanks.'" He held his hands up. "We chose to fight, we can't always pick our battles."
"We can." Raven said, pinning him with her eyes.
Qrow glared at her, rising to his full height as he stepped away from the wall, fists clenched. "How can you say that, Raven? After all of this? How can you—"
Tai held a hand to his partner's chest. "Hey, not here. We've had enough fighting today. And you two have been at each other's throats for weeks. Look, I've never had siblings, but…"
"There's something the Headmaster said…" Summer spoke into the shadows. "About the both of you not fearing death, because of…where you came from."
Qrow tensed, shocked at the question. Raven snorted. Her patience was a fuse lit. "Because of where we were born."
"Raven…" Qrow warned.
"We've been fighting Grimm for years, before either of you probably ever wanted to."
"Raven…"
"Because we didn't come to this stupid Academy to be huntswomen."
Qrow's fist slammed against the wall, a reverberation that made Summer and Tai flinch. "Raven, enough!" A crack appeared at the impact, spiderwebbing up the wall.
Silence came down heavy. Raven spun from them all. She opened the door into the cool hall. "I just…" She exhaled. "I just need a moment." The door shut on her team.
No one followed her out.
—
Qrow would accuse her of running. He always accused her of running. Ever since they were kids. But sometimes Raven felt that anger in her digging so deep, ripping so far into her mind and rending at her heart that she…she had to leave. Because staying meant something worse.
There had been a time when Qrow had been the runner. Constantly afraid, always not wanting to fight. He was the runt of the kids. He'd been bullied, sure, as had quite a few of them. But his semblance eventually cut that short. It became avoidance which, in some ways, she imagined, was worse. But something in him changed as they grew up. Maybe it was the stories he read, ones he believed himself to be the hero of. Eventually he stopped running away and started running toward. Raven had had to snag a hand around his collar more than once to keep him from getting into danger.
How had she become a coward? Was it even that, cowardice?
Her footsteps in the hall were quick and light but they sounded heavy in her head, too heavy. She walked faster, trying to drown out the sounds of the day. They echoed, the memories. Shouts and screams and the Grimm's teeth under her skin. Blood and worry and panic. Fear. She stopped and clutched at her injured arm, right at the elbow, her hand shaking. She'd been so scared. Why had she done that? Why hadn't she run?
She found her way slowly to the balcony she'd spent nights on before. It was empty, like always. The night was too far along for most students to be up. The moon sat like a claw in the sky, curved against the clouds. She inhaled the sweet air and closed her eyes against the chill. Once, Summer had come to her here. And it was then she almost wanted to girl to peer from the hall, concerned. She wanted Tai to poke his head in, worried. It was a need she tried to smother.
She was so far from that camp in the woods and those warm, soft, insect-song nights.
And she did not know if she wanted them back.
If you having problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems and finishing the Umbrella Academy fixed, like, 87 of them.
