A cacophony of feathers rustled in the wake of a black bird, who found rest on an oaken window sill. Its beady red eye scanned the dark inside, bobbing with the crow's inquisitive gaze. Another rustle accompanied its take off, as a tall, lanky huntsman appeared at the front door. He glanced at the pristinely kept façade before opening the door with the spare key, found under its usual potted plant.
"Tai!" he yelled as he entered the house, "you home?" The only reply came in the form of an over excited corgi exploding down the nearby set of stairs. The small dog danced around the familiar face, receiving his due pets along the way.
"Yes, hello Zwei. Nice to see you, too. Do you know where Tai is?" The corgi plopped his butt down before the old huntsman, head tilt included. Qrow rolled his eyes, crouched down, and scritched the dog behind each ear.
"Right… you don't talk. Smart as you are, you're not one of Ruby's. Taiyang!" he shouted once again. Qrow continued deeper into the house, past the hall and into the living area. A slight snoring sound slowly became audible as he neared his target. Qrow spared a woeful once-over before he kicked the recliner Tai had managed to fall asleep in.
"Ah! Who, wha…!" his old friend groggily yelled as he clutched the armrest, a sight that only grew more amusing in Qrow's eyes, thanks to his disheveled look and unwillingness to actually move from the chair.
"You really let yourself go…" Tai focused his attention to the voice, his sleepy mind slowly aligning the puzzle pieces.
"Oh, hey… Qrow. What are you doing here?"
"Oh, nothing… just came to wake you up. You know, for that hunt we were going on? Your first proper job in over ten years that wasn't just 'stay-at-home father?'" Taiyang suddenly burst into action, his mind finally arriving at the same conclusion.
"Shit! How late are we going to be?!"
"Not at all, that's tomorrow. Thought I'd crash over here the night before we head out." Tai stopped in his tracks, halfway up the stairs already, with a fresh set of clothes and towel in arm.
"You… really are a dick, you know that?" Qrow burst into laughter at the pause, drawn out by the disappointed look on his friend's face. Zwei sauntered over to investigate the commotion. Satisfied that all was normal, he ran off to rip the head off a well worn toy.
Eventually, the weary hunter's mirth dimmed, and the two sat around the kitchen table, a plate of leftovers quickly microwaved for the occasion. A manilla folder lay on the table, its contents scattered for easy viewing and discussion. Scout reports, grimm assays, aerial photographs, Dust prospecting data, all paramount to their upcoming mission.
"What's the mission objective, again?" Tai asked, looking over the area maps.
"Search and Destroy. I felt it would be a good starting point to get back into the swing of things."
"Yes… but what is our target? These scout reports are inconsistent." He picks up two specific pieces of paper, no more than 5 pages thick and stapled. "And these two sound like a red herring."
"That's the point of the 'search' in this 'search and destroy.' When I was debriefed on it by HQ, it sounded less like a 'kill this thing' mission as it was 'please for the love of all that is good, give us an accurate report!'" Qrow pulled an aluminum flask from his hip, slowly chugging the sweet, burning liquid to soothe his nerves. A look from Tai made his stop. "What?"
"I haven't seen that old thing since… Summer."
"Old habits die hard, I guess," he shrugged, before returning to his drink. Taiyang continued to stare, and at some point dropped the two reports he had in hand.
"Have you told Ruby? I think she deserves to know, at this point."
"Oh for f—not you, too. I was given this lecture by Ozpin a month ago," Qrow spat, "I spent a year and a half hiding my habits from her, just to keep the secret."
"Qrow. Ruby is smarter than that. She was appointed leader of her team, for crying out loud! Between her natural intuition and three super wolves at her beck-and-call, I think she knows that you drink."
"Then why not confront me?"
"Because she's still a human? She probably doesn't suspect it's more than 'my uncle likes whiskey a lot.' Tell her, the next time you see her. Tell her what happened. She deserves to know."
The unnaturally green grass that was usual for the Emerald Forest made for a wonderful spot to just lay down and think, something which Ruby used extensively during the first month that passed. Her wolves were nearby, chowing down on their latest hunt as she relaxed in her thoughts and the amusing yet childish bickering from the adolescent canines. Amazingly, the wolves kept growing, their height now well above average for wolves with no sign of slowing. At nearly two years old, their growth was expected to have stopped by now. She knew that they were not normal, between the colors of their coats and the bond she formed with them, but their growth really hammered it home.
A gentle breeze blew her hair around; the sun's rays warmed her skin; the smells of nature wafted in from every direction. Ruby nearly drifted away into unconsciousness, and she would have, had Sköll not chosen that moment to step on her stomach. Ruby recoiled around the offending paw. Sköll yelped in surprise, and Ruby yelped back.
"Sorry momma, I was just coming to lay down," Sköll said after a second.
"That's okay, you're just heavier than when you were a pup. You can't step on me anymore." Sköll huffed in acceptance and flopped over against her side. Ruby ruffled his fur, sighed, and pulled her scroll from her cloak, recognizing she still had responsibilities.
Responsibility was the wrong word. She didn't have to do anything. However, as the leader of her team, she felt responsible to make her teammates feel welcome. The only problem was which girl her mind currently focused on. Thanks to a loud argument over her scroll this morning, Weiss had accidentally revealed something huge. The heiress's birthday was this Sunday!
Ruby considered a whole slew of ways to celebrate, including but not limited to: baking a cake with Ren's help big enough to last the whole team the rest of the month, co-conspiring with Yang to reserve a table at a super fancy restaurant for a team dinner, asking Blake to subtly pass the message around for one big happy birthday song across campus, and just asking Weiss out. Not only were each of those ideas impractical, Ruby had a hunch none of them would be well received. Weiss was too practically-minded for a large cake, her anger over her birthday was because of rich snobs, she hasn't mentioned when her birthday is to anyone, and making the day about herself wouldn't help anything.
Instead, Ruby reached in her red cloak for her scroll, and started a group chat between herself, Blake, and Yang. The first message read, "Blake, Yang, I need your help with something."
The courtyard whipped up leaves from the floor in slow waves as eight Bullheads did their final liftoff routines. Each steel behemoth was assigned to a second-year team, the first set of missions for the year. Apparently, many of the student hunters of Beacon had the same idea Ruby did, and quite a few curious civilian attendees also showed to watch the spectacle. Coco easily stood out among the crowd thanks to her glorious fashion sense, and if that wasn't enough, Yatsuhashi towered over the crowd nearby. As the young team leader approached, she heard the edges of an argument between Coco and their pilot. Vulgarities passed between the two before Yatsuhashi brought his leader's attention to their approaching freshie friend.
"Oh hey, Ruby. Haven't seen you in a while. What brings you here?" Coco asked, a little surprised by Ruby's appearance.
"Well, we haven't really talked since you kicked Cardin through a wall, and I heard that the second year missions left today, so I figured I'd come wish you luck," Ruby said, smiling, before her expression shifted, "is something wrong with your pilot?"
"Not yet. Coco found him asleep, though." Yatsuhashi summed up the situation effectively, then wandered off without another word, his eyes tracking motion over the heads of the crowd. Coco harrumphed and returned to Ruby.
"Thanks, but if we need luck on this expedition, something has gone horribly wrong. We were assigned to a simple search and destroy near a small town called Basin. It's not well equipped for a grimm infestation and called in for help. Nobody was brave enough to go out and count the damn grimm, so we're essentially going in blind. Since the town hasn't toppled yet, it can't be very many." Ruby peered around Coco to the bullhead. A fallen pack displayed its contents on the steel floor. Several discrete plastic cubes scattered among the diamond steel flooring. The front of one pointed in her direction, revealing the basic physicality of a camera, albeit a very old one. She pointed at them.
"Why do you have so many cameras?" Coco looked over her shoulder at the appointed object, but shrugged.
"They're meant to attach to the shoulder, so the teachers can still grade us without needing to be there. Eventually missions are graded by completion and professionalism only, but we're still 'fragile teenagers.'" Coco said the last part of her explanation with a bit of venom as Yatsuhashi returned with Fox and Velvet in tow. Ruby said her goodbyes and wished them luck regardless of Coco's sentiment. The bullhead took to flight, the first takeoff to the excitement of the gathered crowd. She turned to walk away, content with her interaction. She walked not more than fifty feet before Weiss's form poked out of the crowd and into Ruby's path. She looked unhappy to say the least.
"Hey Weiss… what's up?" Ruby asked, clearly the wrong question. Weiss narrowed her eyes, brought her fingers to the bridge of her nose, and sighed.
"One of these days you need to explain to me how you deal with your sister. Instead of doing it herself, or better yet, simply texting you, she sent me to find you." Weiss looked up into Ruby's eyes again. "Lunch ended about thirty minutes ago. We saved you some and left it in the dorm fridge, but you need to hurry, sparring is in ten."
Ruby nodded in resolution as the two walked side by side. She silently thanked her sister, then asked "Are you free Sunday?"
"I will be. Why?"
"Me, Yang, and Blake are going to lunch at this new sushi place in Vale. We thought you might want to come along, too… since the rest of the team is going," Ruby said as she very subtly dropped out of pace with Weiss's footsteps as she acted out her plan before its benefactor.
The heiress didn't realize her partner slowed down. She took the information in stride, and with a moment of contemplation, replied, "that would be wonderful, actually."
Caught off guard by how well that went, Ruby opened her mouth to continue to try to convince her partner, her voice hitched on the realization. To save face, she continued, "oh and... er, would you be willing to help me with that paper for Professor Port?."
Weiss sighed, but nodded. The young leader could have sworn she heard her eyes roll.
"Thank you!" Ruby beamed, and hugged the heiress with one arm, before a trail of rose petals left the heiress in the dust. Despite herself, Weiss smiled at the display, though she could not tell why.
AN: I'm... back. Sort of. Releasing this chapter right now is basically admitting defeat. I had another scene I wanted to write for this, but it had been kicking my ass for 19 months... so I decided fuck it. It wasn't too important anyways, since this is basically filler.
Hopefully the next one doesn't take me nearly two more years. That was ridiculous.