Of all the people I would have wanted to run into here, Qrow certainly was the last of them.
My mother, thankfully, decided to come with me (much to father's dismay) which, at the very least, lessens the irritation of the situation but the fact he is here serves only to drive me mad. Even worse, he started laughing once I finally explained why my mother and I are here. How is bailing my sister out of jail amusing? She and Anna were, by the sound of it, with people who could have killed them and all of whom got away. I would not be shocked if they were with rogue huntsmen and huntresses. I suppose the only consolation is knowing Lynn would never get involved with the likes of the White Fang. Still, it does not look good by any means. From what we have been told so far, she and Anna were so intoxicated that the operatives that arrested them were shocked they were not passed out or, at the very least, vomiting. It is unbelievable. I always had a feeling that father would push her too far and she would snap, but I had not imagined it would look like this when she finally did.
Though I probably should give her a bit of a break. She has been struggling with the new reality of being the Winter Maiden, to say the very least.
"What are you even doing here?" I finally ask, scowling at Qrow. My sister is much less loopy than I imagine she had been when she had been first arrested, but she can barely walk on her own and, thus, I have to support her. "You didn't get yourself into trouble again, did you?"
He smirks. "I didn't, but one of Beacon's best students did."
"And who would that be?" Mother asks, sounding almost amused.
"Anna," Qrow starts laughing, presumably because I know there is absolutely no way for me to hide my disbelief. "Ozpin sent me to come get her. He's gonna send a formal apology to the Atlesian government and leave it at that. Besides, it's not like what she and your daughter did was that bad."
"They robbed a bank!" I have no idea what to say to him. "And attempted to shoot police!"
"Nah, that was just your big sister," Qrow keeps laughing, so much so that it is utterly infuriating. "But I say just let that go. The cop was probably being mean to her."
"Unbelievable," With the only free hand I have, what with the other supporting my sister, I probe my forehead, utterly exasperated by him. "Do you not understand how beside the point that is?"
"Eh, well, if she were my sibling, I'd be proud of her," Qrow grins, and I absolutely hate how infuriatingly attractive he manages to be despite how obnoxious he is being. "Really, she probably could be a damn good huntress if she wanted to be."
"Lovely," Mother frowns, eyeing him critically. "But I have to ask: why did Ozpin ask you to come here and retrieve one of his students?"
"'Cause he knew I was in Atlas already, thought it'd be easier," Qrow shrugs and, of course, starts clapping the second Anna steps out. She looks far more put together than my sister and, much to my annoyance, kisses my sister, who is far too willing to accept. "Hell yeah, Anna! You really are going to graduate at the top of your class at Beacon!"
"Oz sent you to get me," She sighs. "How much trouble am I in this time?"
"Let's just say that you two are going to have a lot to answer for," Qrow chuckles. "You did protect that girl, didn't ya?"
Anna's eyebrows shoot up. "Of course I did!" She squeezes Lynn's hand. "Why do you think I stayed with her even after the others ditched us?"
"What I want to know is why you two were involved in a bank robbery to begin with," Mother puts in with a frown. "It doesn't make any sense."
"That's because we were trying to steal money from dad's bank account," Cate puts in. Mother drops her purse in shock and, to be completely honest, I cannot blame her. "Well, they have an entire vault of just his assets! We were trying to steal about two million lien from his vault and we were going to give hundred thousand lien packages to workers in the mines and refineries down in Mantle."
"It would have gone great if we hadn't been caught," Anna adds. "Everyone with us was either a worker or family members. A lot of them were actually related to people who had died in that deadly mine collapse just last year."
"So the two of you thought the best thing to do would be to…" Mother trails off and then shakes her head. "It's admirable, the sentiment of what the two of you were trying to do, it really is, but there had to have been a better way to go about it."
"I don't even remember what happened beyond the plan," Cate mutters. She is definitely hungover, by this point. "But maybe that's a good thing."
"Well, on that note, I have to take this huntress back to Beacon," Qrow stretches out his arms and winks at me. "Call me, Win. You and I both know you want to."
The second he and Anna are gone, mother tightly embraces Lynn and I cannot help but feel bad for her. I have no idea what to think now. The police report, too, was disturbing, what of it they have let us see. Mother was terrified when she saw what it entailed. General Ironwood had a lot to say about it too. I still cannot believe that he had evidence to prove she had only attempted to shoot in self defense. To think that both of the officers who apprehended her tried to physically (in the case of the first officer) and sexually (in the case of the second one in the hospital) assault her is almost too horrifying to imagine. Even worse, according to the General, the second officer had not even been a legitimate officer and was likely, based on the video footage, Arthur Watts. It is probably a good thing that Lynn cannot remember any of what happened. I am not even convinced it was the alcohol that caused her to forget either, but, then again, I have no proof either way. I simply was not there.
Either way, I hope no one ever forces her to know what happened or appear in court over this. Jacques knows full well that it would cause a scandal if he were to try and prosecute his own daughter and he is the only one who would have been a victim because of the attempted heist. He is so damn concerned about how things look these days that I cannot imagine him going after her for this. The other people involved, the officer and Watts? All of them I can see facing the brunt of a lawsuit from him, but not Cate Lynn. He has his moments of cruelty, but never when it does not suit him. This would not suit his narrative, it would not help him in any manner. It would be awful for all of us. Then there is mother, who broke down upon the General revealing that there was "substantial evidence to conclude that the officer - who I suspect to be Arthur Watts - in that hospital room attempted to sexually assault her, and she dove for and managed to grab his gun, attempting to shoot him out of real fear for her life which, I believe, was very much warranted."
What the General - my father - does not know is why mother was so upset to hear that. By rights, I should not know why either. Blake Adel, technically, is the only person who knows. The night my mother found out she was pregnant, she was with him. He was worried about her, and she revealed that she was pregnant. What she revealed after left me more angry than I ever have been, and part of me still wants to fight Jacques for it. A few nights after the ball, he and mother got into a brutal fight. It was about Weiss, because, at this point, it always is, and it ended him beating her. Two hours later, after she had thought it was over, Jacques had gotten a terrible report regarding a situation in the company. From what I heard, he was so infuriated by it and mother's refusal to "help him forget about it" that he raped her. Blake wanted to report it, but she refused to let him. She was incoherent, kept saying things about how the baby is the only reason she has left to live and that she thinks they are more of a victim than her. I only told Glynda….and she did agree to privately and anonymously report it but I doubt anything will come of it because nothing has yet and she has been persistent.
My family is too damn fucked up to be repaired, now, and my mother and all of us are suffering because of it. Jacques does not deserve any of the praise and sympathy he gets. Hell, people are probably painting my sister to be a terrible, ungrateful brat right now when she is damaged, upset, and in a terrible position over which she has no control as the Winter Maiden. She did fuck up here and should not be praised by any means for what she tried to do, but what happened to her surrounding and after her arrest made her a victim in those circumstances. I am so done with our lives and the media. I want nothing more than to fade from public view, to run away, and start a new life. I want to be able to simply be a military official, to serve the kingdom. Yet I cannot. I am as trapped as I always have been.
That trapping is exactly what has always been the worst truth of being a Schnee.
