RWBY (c) RoosterTeeth


Rose Above The Clouds


Strained Hospitality

Patch. Raven had forgotten how beautiful and blissfully quiet it could be. Perhaps a bit too quiet for her tastes. Still, sleeping in a proper bed with four sturdy walls in place of tent flaps was a welcome comfort, particularly as winter set in. The snow crunched underfoot as she casually sauntered through the lesser traveled parts of this island.

It had been years since Raven set foot on Patch, walked through its woodlands. Longer still since she'd worn anything beyond combat garb. No longer laden with her combat garb or battle trophies from her many raids, Raven wore a plain maroon shirt, dark grey pants, a grey jacket and laced ankle boots. Even her hair, once so elaborately decorated and styled to match her feral visage, lacked its typical flare. Cut to just past her shoulders and the lack of weight only accented its natural feather-like characteristics.

Mercifully few people lived out here and the fewer Grimm still made their presence known - something that confused Raven greatly given the amount of abominations swarming Vale and Beacon Academy. Seemed like Salem was either still looking for the relic, or gearing up to make Beacon her base of operations in Vale.

Raven had scouted the Huntsmen's blockade more than a few times in the months since she'd hidden in Patch. Vale's capital city and the areas surrounding Beacon Academy, even those outside the Huntsmen's isolation zones. The situation wasn't getting better any time soon, not with that giant Wyvern sitting atop the tower, nor the relic hidden somewhere within that damned place. While shifted into her bird form, Raven watched all of those familiar faces. Old teachers, classmates… - curse her, even old friends - were trying their damnedest to fight a war of attrition. It was… stupidly admirable. Or Admirably stupid.

Exactly what was expected of Huntsmen and Huntresses she supposed. Didn't change the fact that none of them could defeat Salem's hordes. Raven couldn't fathom why they even bothered to try.

But for the time being she supposed she was safe in the grand scheme of things. Salem and her cultist brood no longer had need of her. The only purpose of the Maidens is to unlock and guard relic gates - and the vault of the Spring Maiden was already emptied. In theory, Salem would have no further use for a Spring Maiden.

In spite of that knowledge, Raven would have left weeks ago had Taiyang not taken Omen and hidden it somewhere where she'd quote 'never find it until we've sorted this out' unquote. She cursed and howled at him for stealing her weapon, even going so far as to threaten retribution with her maiden magic, but Taiyang stood firm and wouldn't budge and inch. He never did where she was concerned.

It was moments like that which reminded Raven why she fell in love with him in the first place. Although, a tiny voice in the back of her mind chided her, knowing that Tai was right and if she had her weapon, she'd of ran off without a second thought. She cursed lightly under her breath, mildly irritated at how well he knew her.

It wasn't long before Raven emerged into the cliff side where the solitary epitaph sat. Summer's cursed rose symbol etched beautifully into the white marble with a line from one of her favourite poems written underneath. Raven would rather be skinned alive than admit this wasn't the first time she'd seen the tombstone, but this was the first time she'd stood before it as her human self.

Since she'd returned to Patch months ago to hide away from the world, Raven preferred to avoid this place like the plague. It felt like its mere existence was a stinging wound to her pride. Now? She'd wandered about the island in such a way that she could almost convince herself she'd wound up here by complete accident.

Raven stared at the marble in the morning sunlight then scoffed as she approached. "You know, I never understood why people were so obsessed with markers like this. Talking to these things like they were the person who died. They're just stones. Stupid, useless expressions of vanity that say nothing more than 'I was here'. Its not like the dead can hear us anyway."

Her red eyes glared down at it, but for some reason, she couldn't muster any sort of emotional reaction to it. She was just... tired. Fatigued. Sick of the whole situation. Her fingers curled into tight fists as she scowled.

"I suppose you would've said something like 'Don't worry, mum's got this', right?" There was an edge of bitter accusation carried in her tone towards the memorial stone.

"I always thought you had some idiotic messiah complex... or you just wanted to be a martyr. And look where that got you. Dead, no body found and just an empty grave to remember your existence." Venom dripped from every word and Raven felt anger bubbling at her core, quickly rising to the surface.

"You were better than me," Raven hissed, anger bubbling to the surface. Admitting that fact felt like a knife twisted through her guts. "You were always better than me. So fucking perfect. So perfect you stole my brother. Stole my husband and daughter. Then screwed him to make one of your own. Do you feel proud of yourself?"

She grit her teeth as the simmering rage turned into a blazing inferno. Her tight fist slammed against the epitaph. "You're dead and gone. Dust and echoes in the wind, and I still can't measure up to you!"

The cold marble didn't answer her. Its silence like a mocking sneer.

"Why!?" Raven's fist slammed down again, hard. The stone cracked under her pummeling "Why?! Why?! Why?!"

The epitaph chipped and bulked under her unrelenting barrage. The carved words and the rose symbol lost in the merciless destruction of the marble they rested on. "Tell me, gods damn it! Speak to me!"

A sudden burst of clarity pierced through the anger, silencing it. Raven stared down at the ruined stone, reduced to powder and rubble under her, shame lanced in her guts and she backed away from the marble like it would burn her if she touched it anymore. She... she didn't know what came over it. The object was just so viscerally offensive in that moment that she felt the compulsion to destroy it. She bit her lip and swallowed down the lump in her throat while cradling her dust-caked fist. Her next instinct was to run, flee the sight and flee the defilement of her former teammate's memorial.

Before long, her running took her back to Taiyang's cabin where she slumped down on the porch's steps and wept openly into her hands for Gods' only know how long. The tears were dried by the time she heard movement within the house and Taiyang obviously getting up for his morning routine.

"You know you can't hide here forever." The front door opened a short time after that, and with it came the delicious scent of bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs and coffee. She made no acknowledgement as Taiyang stood beside her on the porch, looking down at her expectantly.

"I'm not hungry." Raven lied.

"Of course you are. Now come on. Food's only gonna get cold and I don't have the ingredients to make another back without going to the supermarket." Taiyang ordered, leaning on the porch's railing with his arms.

"You know I could kill you." There was no real heat behind the threat.

"You could, but you won't." Taiyang shrugged, supremely unimpressed.

"Are you sure?" She prompted.

The Huntsman chuckled at this, more amused than irked. "Save the hollow threats for the cronies, Raven. We both know you're here for help."

"I don't-"

"Oh yes, you damn well do." Taiyang cut her off. "You came here after all these years 'cause you wanted help. Maybe even mend some bridges while you still could, even if you burnt 'em all down to the frames. Now get your backside inside, or I'll drag you to the dinner table kicking and screaming."

Raven glared up at him before hoisting herself to her feet. "You're an insufferable pain in the ass, do you know that?"

"And yet, you still came to me." Taiyang followed her inside, closing the door behind them. The table was a modest spread. Toast, eggs, sausage, some beans, bacon and a pot of coffee between the two place settings.

"Yeah, cause it was the only choice I had." Raven took a spot and Tai took the opposite place setting. It was surreal in a way, sitting down to a normal breakfast like this like the last two decades hadn't happened. But there was still a tension in the air. Of course there would be after everything that's happened between them. Raven picked at her breakfast, poking the eggs and bacon with a fork while lost in her thoughts.

"Was your morning walk that tiring?" Taiyang asked, mildly curious. "Or are you just planning on playing with your food until it goes stone cold?"

"I'm sure it tastes fine. Its just..." Raven hesitated, thoroughly robbed of her appetite. She had to start owning up to her mistakes, right? That's what Yang kept yammering on about anyway. And its not like the damned thing couldn't be replaced. It was just a stone, for gods' sake. "I went to Summer's tombstone."

Whatever attempt at jovial conversation died in Tai's throat and his face lowered. He couldn't quite keep the edge out of his tone. "Oh... that's a first. You didn't even show up for her funeral. I'm surprised you-"

"I destroyed it."

Taiyang stopped dead, his mouth slack and eyes disbelieving of the admission. That disbelief quickly turned to an unyielding fury. "You destroyed it?! How could you?! That was Summer's grave!"

"You've got some nerve." Raven growled under her breath,

"Excuse the hell out of you?!"

"You're the one who cheated on me!" Raven spat at him. "How long did you wait before you jumped on Summer's bones after I was gone?! How long did it take you to move on?! Were you seeing her behind my back, because it sure as hell looks like it."

Taiyang grit his teeth, breathing out through his nose in a deliberate measured breath to quell his anger. "I never moved on. You broke my heart Raven! I loved you with every piece of me. You took that, chewed it up and spat it back out."

Raven threw her arms up, "Oh, and I'm sure our dear Summer Rose was more than happy to step into that void and pick you up again, wasn't she?"

Taiyang stared at her with a sudden blank expression. "You don't know, do you...? How could that even be possible?"

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "The hell am I saying? Of course you wouldn't know. You have such a self-centered streak, but I never thought you'd be so completely oblivious. It was right in front of you and you couldn't even see it."

"See what?" Raven growled.

"I never remarried Raven. Summer was never my wife. Ruby isn't my child." Taiyang told her bluntly, Raven recoiled as if physical struck by a blow. "Summer was always Qrow's wife, and Ruby was always your niece. If you took one real look at your own twin in these past twenty years, you would've figured that out on your own."

Caught wrong-footed, Raven tried to turn the tables on the argument but even that was of little success when Tai simply cut her off. "But she -"

Taiyang poured himself some coffee, heart heavy and emotion subsiding. At least, it appeared that way. "Summer stayed to help me because you left me with a child barely a year old. And she was expecting herself. She wanted to be a good aunt, and wanted experience in taking care of young children for her own daughter. She moved in to help me because that's what family does."

"That's why..." Raven whispered to herself, a realisation coming to the fore in her mind. "That's why Qrow refused to come back with me to the Tribe, because Summer dug her claws in and wouldn't let go."

Taiyang's fists slammed down on the dining table with the sound of thunder cracks, enough to make Raven jump. The surface dented. Despite his temper clearly rising to explosive levels, he spoke in a clear calm voice. "You're become a hell of a hypocrite since you've been away, do you know that? You keep saying how you hate how the old man used people - how Ozpin picked his favourite pieces on a chessboard and moved them about according to some grand scheme of his. But you're thinking the same damn thing. You're mad because Qrow found love with someone else? You're mad that for the first time in his life, he found people who unconditionally loved him for him in spite of his baggage and wanted his happiness? That he found a cause higher than himself and wanted to fight for it?"

"He belonged to the Tribe. We both did." Raven growled in her defense.

Taiyang threw his head back, guffawing as if she'd just delivered the funniest punchline in history. "So, way back when in our second year where you both confessed what your true intentions were at Beacon - and how you both wanted to do something better with your lives? Did you think you 'belonged to the tribe' then?"

"That's ancient history." Raven dismissed bitterly, "Times changed."

"No, I think times stayed exactly the same. I think you changed." Taiyang disagreed with a firm shake of the head. "You went from being one of the most dedicated, eager and bravest people I'd ever met, to a two-faced coward with too much pride to admit that you're scared."

"I-"

"What happened?" Taiyang demanded, arms crossed as he looked at her. "I'll tell you what happened: You choked. You saw a foe that surpassed that little keyhole definition of strength in your head and assumed there was one point in fighting them. And you ran."

"How can you fight her? How could you possibly even think of standing up to her?" Raven asked, her voice frightful and small. "How could she - how could Yang be dumb enough to do that? To take the relic, to stand against Salem?"

"Because the only other option is to lay down quietly and die." Taiyang answered, his tone growing dismissive. "Which is why I'm so surprised. By your own quote-unquote 'ideals', you should just lie down and let Salem kill you. Why don't you just walk up to her citadel and knock on her front door?"

Raven gawked at him, horrified when he shrugged dismissively. "You're clearly not gonna fight her anyway, might as well make things easier for her."

"You son of a-" She grit her teeth.

Taiyang pointed an accusing finger at her.

"You see how fundamentally stupid that line of logic is?" He paused long enough to take a sip of his coffee and another bite of his toast.

The Son of a bitch. He provoked her on purpose.

"Way I see it going forward, you have two options: Stay here with your head in the sand, pray to the brothers this all blows over and then you can run back to being a sad little queen of a sad little hill. Or you can go find your brother, daughter and niece, apologize for your actions and do your damnedest to help them as best you can."

Raven glared daggers through the table, her grip on her cutlery tight to the point of trembling. "They'll never accept me. Not after what I did to them, not after Haven."

"Well yeah - you hung them out to dry like a little bitch. But actions speak louder than words, and if you want to change, you're the one who has to make that first step." Taiyang lectured her firmly. "You're the one who has to take initiative on this if you ever want a chance of getting back into their lives again, if not their good graces."

Raven leaned her forehead on her clasped hands with her eyes closed, a new wave of fatigue crashing over her as Tai made his way out the door. At some point the mailman had delivered the morning post, which probably meant more bills or some crap like that. One of the things she didn't miss about kingdom life was the endless damned bills, leeching on whatever Lien she managed to bring in from one job or another.

A moment later, Taiyang returned sorting through the stack he had in his hand. "Bill. Bill. Bill. Ad. Bill. Ooo, Coupon! And - a letter from the girls."

There was a sense of trepidation from Taiyang. He was mixed parts hopeful and worried it seemed as he focused on the envelop stamped by a seal of the Atlas Academy. Peeling open the envelope, obscene amounts of hand-written pages half-exploded out of the tiny thing.

"Really?" Raven stared at the mess, supremely unimpressed before rolling her eyes and looking away. She couldn't quite hide the way the corner of her lip curled up in amusement. "Your daughters, alright."

"There's one from Yang, one from Ruby, one from Qrow and - wait, who's this from?" Taiyang flicked through the papers, reading the fourth author's contents. His brows furrowed as he continued scanning through the pages, only then did his face go pale as a ghost and his mouth parted in shock.

"Well...?" Raven was morbidly curious after seeing his reaction, frowning when Tai read the letter again in what could only be described as desperate panic. "Tai? Tai!"

"... no way..." He blinked, unable to process what he was seeing. "... No fucking way."

Raven rose from her chair and moved to his side, reading over his shoulder as he examined the contents a third time. The letter spoke of captivity. Of horror, misery, slow methodical healing and a promise to return home. And she was seized by stunned disbelief when she read the authoring line.

... until we speak again,

your loving friend and sister,
Summer

"She's alive..." Tai whispered in disbelief, meeting Raven's gaze. "Summer's still alive, and she's in Atlas?!"


Author's note:

And now for something completely different. Long story short, I basically imagine Tai being a drill-instructor here, he's breaking down all of Raven's misapprehensions and lingering issues that Yang hadn't touched on during their fight so that they can work on building Raven back up again. Sure, she's done some unforgivable shit and she shouldn't be forgive, but she reached out to Tai for help, and that's precisely what she's doing in a language she understands... also, newsflash for them both. Summer's alive and kicking in Atlas.

I welcome feedback and criticism,

Aurora313