A/N: This is a companion work to Stalwart, which can be found on my profile page. This is not a independent story and should not be read as one.
In order for the references to make sense, you will need to have read through to the adjoining chapter of Stalwart, Part 2: Mercy.
All copyright for canon goes to RoosterTeeth. I do not own any characters, their likenesses, nor sell or maintain this work of fan fiction for profit or material gains. All spoilers for RWBY are unmarked. All publicly available canon is used as source material.
This work is rated for mature audiences. This work is not family friendly. All characters, due to the nature of the involved circumstances (war, war crimes including rape and sexual enslavement, trauma, death, PTSD, soldiery and similar themes), are not to be perceived as children. No characters under the age of 15 will be depicted in a sex or sex adjacent act. No characters under the age of 15 will be sexualized in any manner. This author does not support or tolerate pedophilia, or "minor attracted persons". Assume all sex acts that are indirectly depicted are consensual. Violence will not be tagged or trigger marked.
This is your global trigger warning. It will not be repeated. If you are sensitive to the above themes and topics as well as topics on their peripheries such as mental health, crime and general worldsuck, please do not read. Continue at your own risk.
Thank you for reading. Please review.
Wreckage
Everything hurt.
A fire crackled and sparked, the broken moon high overhead. The trees overhead were barren, with red leaves speared on their tips, the smell of syrup invading her sinuses.
"Am I dead? Is this it? Laying in front a campfire for eternity? What am I playing, Grim Spirits?"
Footsteps at 10:00. Dress shoes. Ripped pants. Grumbling. "You're awake, Ice Queen. Good, I've gotten tired of digging holes."
"Qrow?" She pulled herself up, the world swimming around her. "Why? Where? How?"
"Because Jimmy stood there. In the northern forests, at the edge of Forever Fall. I ran to get you. Any more questions?" She held her words, stertorous coughing prolonging any response he could have given.
"How long?"
"A week. Been trying to get to the shoreline. Hard to do that with two sets of dead weight." Bit by bit, she managed to convince her head to rise.
Scavenged rucksacks leant against a log. He sat in the languishing grass, watching the sky, hair either covered in ash or graying worse than she'd remembered. Several yards of old gauze covered over his waist and arms. She looked down, her wounds were bandaged, one gnarly gash in her arm still tender. "We'll leave at dawn?"
"Yea." He tossed another log in the fire, dark circles harsh on his pale skin. "Go back to sleep." Another round of hacking bent him over.
"No," she finished the process of sitting up, joints cracking as she went. "You need to sleep. I can watch. I'll hit you if there's something. Don't argue."
He huffed, pulling the scraggly cloak from his shoulders, and curled up near the fire, resting his head on his arm.
Rosy fingered dawn took her slow ass time reaching for the horizon, she took her time to kneel, to then to stand. Everything burned as she went. After a few practice swings, her shoulders stopped complaining so much. Her hips still strained.
"I'm getting old. Most women my age are married with kids. I'm catching frostbite in the Forever Fall forest with this asshole.'
The sky finally tinged slate blue, enough to fumble through the forest by. She tapped him, and he squawked, rolling to sit up, looking no less tired.
A tree collapsed three meters away. "Well, good morning. Let's go before I get us killed."
"If we keep caden-"
"You are not keeping that up. Don't military dog yourself out. Who knows where we are and how we're going to get out." He hopped to his feet, "grab a pack. We'll stop at dusk."
"Where's Harbinger? Magnolien?"
"They're there. Any more questions?"
"How's Beacon?"
"Gone. Your fleet was shot down by Nevermores the size of airships. And by the way, the Grimm can talk now."
She stared at him, reddish eyes bloodshot. "What?!"
"The bigger they get, the more likely it is that they can talk. They're not up to negotiating. They're still mindless killing machines."
-.-.-.-. * -.-.-.-.
They covered fifteen miles that day. Mostly in silence, with the exception of a family of Boarbatusks squealing through their path.
The Forever Fall forest had better insulation, but the game trails and the Grimm trails were one and the same. They slowed to a crawl, Winter pointing out a outcropping of rock with a overhanging.
He cleared his throat, squinting through the trees. "You know I'm a walking disaster. You really want to be underneath that?" She dropped her hand. "Yeah, I thought so. Somewhere else."
Another five minutes of hiking, Qrow huffing and wheezing on the incline. She looked over her shoulder, his face red and sweaty. "We've got to stop. You look like-"
He retched, bloody cold spattering at the foot of a unfortunate tree. "You're sick. Okay. We're stopping."
'Oh gods, don't let this forest be our tomb.'
She searched around for a absence of Grimm, pulling the wiry man to rest in a clearing, giving him the last of the water and fever reducers. "I'll see what I can find. Don't do anything stupi-"
"Tap the trees for sap. It's not much, but it'll be better than dehydration. Plus, you shouldn't go far anyway..." He coughed. "Sun's setting. Need a fire. Preferably two."
She got to work. A gallon of sap put on to boil, twin fires blazing, both of them resting against different trees.
"Qrow, I'll get you out of here."
"Ice Queen, if you have to choose, take Harbinger and leave me. Find Ruby."
"Qro-"
"Promise me that." He glared at her, eyes bloodshot. "The withdrawals didn't kill me. The pneumonia might. If push comes to shove, leave me and a knife. I'll be with you after."
She blinked away tears, grabbing a fist of wool. "Any other depressing messages you want me to pass on to her?"
"Don't be like me. See my mistakes. Don't make them."
"Was saving me a mistake, Qrow?"
"No, you dense woman. I'm too old for regrets."
"And too young to die."
"My father was the same age." She threw a rock at him. "What, I'm telling the truth!"
"Don't get any sappy ideas about going to join him either! You came to get me." She curled up in the itchy blanket. "Not to leave me after two days. You know, I shou-"
He was snoring.
'I should tell you...'
Week One
Another ten miles, with Qrow needing to slow down. Snow fell instead of rain, the blankets did for cloaks. His cough worsened by the hour.
The fire popped and fizzled, set on a rocky knoll, Qrow curled up beside it.
The broken moon rose over the tree line. She circled camp, trying to keep calm. A sick man, and a wounded woman. Perfect for mountain lions. Perfect for Grimm. She clenched Magnolien's grip, rattling with pebbles of dust. '"I'm too old for regrets." Wish I could say he was lying. Winter Schnee, former heiress and military officer, dead to rights in a endless forest. How could I do this to We-"
A growl startled her. Qrow sat up, cocking Harbinger.
'It's too slow to be a beast, too quiet...'
A woman with bear ears looked down at them, her shoulders broad, hair tied up in a leather strap. "Saw Fire. Came." She looked over at Qrow. "Speak small Common. Sorry. Big Town this way. Come." Qrow hacked and coughed, the woman's thin lips bending. "Sick man. Tiny woman. Good timing." She squashed the fire with rocks, picking up Qrow like a sack of potatoes. "Come, human girl. Bring bag."
She hustled behind the stout woman, the game trail unraveling into a road, then more redwoods, then cleared forest, then cottages and houses. "Forest Heights. Is good. Many Fauni. Human Girl, stay with this one." The lady pressed into a huge door, a red cross creaking in the frigid air.
"Urla! What are you-" A graying man with spectacles nearly fell out of his chair, pulling his bedrobe closed against the breeze. "Who is that?!"
She switched tongues to the half breaks and winding paths of Fauni, laying Qrow on the counter, waddling out of the door.
'Is this happening?' She watched the alleged doctor scoot and bounce around, deer antlers knocking into everything. She looked down at Qrow, struggling to breathe, hair black as ash, skin paler than snow, eyes red as blood.
And the wide woman pushed back through the door, holding a bowl of soup and a nightdress. "You eat, Doctor looks at you, then sleep. Do not lay all night worrying for friend."
Week Two
The edge of the Forever Fall forest mixed with massive oaks, the ruddy leaves missing in the chilling air. She could see her breath at dawn, which is when Urla kicked her bed to jolt her awake. The hike to the logging camp did no good for her aching wounds, and nothing prepared for the massive axe that the wide woman threw her feet. "Arm is healed. You work to eat. Eat to work. Chop tree. Keep branch for fire."
She showed her how to fell a tree, hew off the branches, but she left her splitting logs for firewood. "Rich men in city buy lots. Smells nice when burned. Practice form." She pointed at a ten trunk stack. "Do work. Do not rush. Other women come soon." She waddled off into the shed.
"No men?" The older woman blinked, eyes grey in the sun. "In summer, work is hot. Shirt is off. Men see and want more. It is better. Do not worry, they are over barn." She took her chainsaw and headed to work, waving at a metal roof a ways off.
By the time the other woman arrived, her hands were sore. Five of them, muscular and tall, the conversation a creole of Common, Fauni and wherever else they hailed from. They gave her, and the remainder of her white clothes a once over, calling Urla over to explain. She did better in Fauni, the women clucking like hens.
Winter rolled another log down from its stack. Chunks a foot long. Eight wedges each. Bind and tie with twine. Add tag. Throw into bin.
One of the other woman watched her toiling, out of the blood circle, eyes rising and falling with her swing. "Winter Schnee?"
"Aren't I legally dead?"
"Yes and no, your Beauty. You're in the candidacy for sanctification."
She paused mid swing, the log falling over in shock. "...what?! Why? By who?! I'm not holy!"
"Tell that to the Grand Council that met after Beacon fell. We're at war with the Grimm. The people needed someone to look up to. You and several others are getting sanctified. If you're wanting to lay low, you might want to do something about that white hair of yours. Come with me after work. I'll dye it black."
"Why are you helping me?"
"You remember good ol' Clementine?" She scanned the woman more closely, frowning at her upright stance.
"She's High General Clementine now. What about it?"
The other woman pulled her scarf from around her head, her ears folded, dense curls made even by the pressure of the scarf, a large C carved into her neck. "She's on her way to declaring martial law. And with that, killing or banishing her opposition. And anyone who looks like me."
Week Three
The sun did nothing to "strengthen his constitution."
'Farty Old Deer. What does he know about a constitution? Someone that runs on sugar and caffeine shouldn't be telling me about a constitution.'
Yet, he sat in the windowed sun as he always did, by the radiator that was hot enough to boil a kettle, in the house Dr. Springfield kept at a swelter.
It was nice. Winter would be coming in soon to check on him, crunch through the snow, lecture him about his skinny legs, sneak him a nip of bourbon and leg it back to the logging yard after lunch.
'It would also be nice if y'know, pneumonia wasn't annoyingly stubborn. I could be in the tavern, whistling at the maids, swindling my way under the bar, having all the granola that I know they're hoarding in th-'
"Qrow." Rough, scraped hands dropped boxes of food on his belly, dragged over a chair and took the top box of food. "There's soup. Actually eat it." Slate grey eyes hung sullen and purple.
"You don't have to work in the logging camp."
"I want to be useful." She knotted her blackish hair out of the way. 'That ain't nothing but a cotton ball on a bullet wound. You've been in three newspapers.'
She glared at him. We'll be outta here in three days""He finally sat up to eat. "We-"
"It's winter." He chuckled. "I'm not being sarcastic. I'm not going anywhere in subfreezing temperatures. I'm stuck with your crazy ass."
"You know you love my shit jokes. Say, what does the paper plate say to the plastic cup."
"Oh gods."
"'Let's get shredded!'"
She shoved the half baguette in his mouth, trying to not to give him the satisfaction of a chuckle. He nommed off most of it. "Stop calling me that. You want to go incognito, call me Onyx."
"Fine, what about me?"
"Aquamarine." He peeled open the soup lid. "Matches your eyes."
Week Four
The hike was longer than she expected and worse by the light of the rising sun. Urla, all but dragging her up the hill. "If you would just tell me what the problem is I could-"
A pack of Minor Beowolves sat in the middle of camp. Urla picked her up and went back down the hill. "I know not what Human call it. Better to show." She plunked her down in front of Dr. Springfield. "Onyx. Come out. I know you hear."
A blanket in the bay window shuffled, a pair of bleary eyes staring over the embroidery. He crawled out of the cushioned and emerged minutes later dressed in a red shirt and dress pants, Harbinger subbed out for a great-sword.
"Alright. We'll go handle it. I hope you haven't gotten rusty."
"What? Where-" She waved at his back where the folded scythe would stick out.
He waited until Urla waddled off.
"Part of the fun of being a world renowned Huntsman is that your weapon is just as renowned. Besides, in the case that it breaks, you're not left trying to convince a Beowolf to play nice. Sure, I can fight bare-handed, but that's just as worse. Magnolien spilts into two? Good, two longswords'll do the trick. When the military comes."
"They're not coming."
"When they come, they can't say, 'HARBINGER LIVES THERE.'"
"But-"
"I'm not arguing with you. Swallow your militarism with your coffee. A few Beowolves shouldn't require your Semblance either. Go get them from the smith. We need to hurry."
-.-.-.-. * -.-.-.-.
The march back up the hill was eased by the breaking fog. Rocks jutted out. Roots bulged. He held out a hand to help her over one. "Normally, you're gnawing my ear off for calling you weak or something. What's wrong?"
"I've never seen you play your cards this close."
"The rumor mill runs all the way south to Forest Hills. Word gets out that we're in the area. The paparazzi show up. There goes our freedom. You want that, sweetheart?"
"Don't call me that."
"Snowball?" A growl burst through the brush, claws nearly catching his back. "You ain't cute enough to be a snowball."
"Die!"
"No."
A tree branch fell on top on the Grimm, breaking its back with a awful snap. Winter grimaced, delivering a mercy kill. "That Semblance of yours..."
"Might get us killed. Come on, there's more talking up there."And they were talking about the things that Grimm talk about. Eating Humans. Killing Humans. How Cold it is. A throw of three aura charged swords ended them with little effort.
"Good. You can get back to work. I'll start at th-"
"Why won't you spend more than twenty minutes with me?"
He put his foot back on the frost covered loam, whirling around to look her in the face. "Because I don't want you to get hurt because of me. That's it. Nothing personal."
And he marched back down the hill.
'I should tell him...'