To Raven, Blake was nothing but a tool. The young faunus and her sob story meant nothing more than a means to an end. They had made a bargain with each other, and being an honourable warrior Raven intended to fulfil her side of it. Their relationship was a contractual one, and nothing more.
That said, Raven was well aware that an orphan and a teenage runaway would have deeply rooted family issues and all the baggage that came with it. As much as a purely professional relationship would be totally preferable, there was a strong chance that if Raven wasn't careful, Blake might come to regard her as a surrogate mother. Of all the things in this world, Raven could hardly think of anything she desired less than that. Her actual daughter had caused her more than enough trouble already without ever having met her, let alone mixing that in with all of the crazy little faunus's twisted ambitions for power and revenge.
That was why Blake's request for information was reasonable on its surface, but also potentially dangerous. Somehow Raven had to figure out a way to explain her own past to her de facto apprentice without giving the impression that this information was in any way intimate.
Now that they were back at their apartment and in near total privacy, the time to think was fast running out. Blake was just taking a shower after the day's exertions, and soon would be out in the living room expecting all the answers she'd been promised. Raven still had no idea how to explain all this.
Even back when she was a teenager she hardly understood girls her own age. Summer had been the talkative one, rushing through every social hurdle and dragging her grumpy partner along behind her. Now that she was a middle aged woman, Raven had even less of a clue how to handle things. For the gods' sake, she'd never even spoken to her own daughter!
She was so caught up in her thoughts that the sound of the bathroom door slamming open nearly made her jump off her perch. The fact she hadn't even heard the sound of the shower stop brought into sharp focus just how nervous Raven actually was. Which was ridiculous, she had no need to be afraid of the opinions of some young brat. Even so, her stomach felt like taut rubber, and nothing she told herself seemed to change that.
The sound of the fridge being opened came from the kitchen as Blake poured herself a glass of milk, and Raven tried to use the moment to calm herself down. There was time for one quiet, steadying breath before Blake came into the living room and took a chair, sipping quietly as she looked at where the ghost was perched.
From her position atop the television, Raven spoke very evenly. "You have questions."
Blake nodded, reaching across the couch to grab a small blanket and pulling it over her lap, settling into her chair. She nursed the milk in her hands as she looked up at Raven. "Maybe you could start at the beginning, and I'll just listen. If I need to ask anything I will."
Great. Story time.
Well, at least the girl was already comfortable. "I'll try to keep it brief. There are other things we must discuss tonight, like your strategy for dealing with Pyrrha, and what we'll do if you lose."
Blake nodded, but continued to look up at Raven expectantly, her straight black hair falling over her shoulders as she brought out a brush and began to work on it.
Raven sighed. Without even a word said, this already was far too snug and intimate. She coughed once, and began her story.
"I come from a migratory clan called the Branwens. We never bent the knee to the four kingdoms, and so we have been at war with them for some time. Or at least we had been, I believe we have now been wiped out in our entirety. Regardless, when I was young the father of my clan, Corvus Branwen, thought that learning the tactics of our enemy was the best way to defeat them and sent me and my brother away to become Hunters through Beacon Academy.
"It was a naive decision on his part, because I doubt he understood how insidious of a threat we faced there. Beacon Academy wasn't dangerous to us because we were at risk of being discovered, but that it could corrupt us. It's a comfortable place, with warm halls and competent, caring staff. Being surrounded by students and friends our own age, and the propaganda of Ozpin, it was easy to believe that it was our home. It was certainly nicer than our real home ever was.
"By the time we were eighteen and ready to graduate, my brother had lost himself to their ways. He was now a fully fledged Hunter and pawn of Ozpin, inside and out. I stayed with him, telling myself I just wanted to bring him back to the clan and our true home, but… I now realise that was just an excuse.
"The truth was I had fallen in love with a man named Yang; he became Taiyang when we had our child. I gave myself over to him, and for a moment even I forgot who I was. I conceived his child, lived in a small, charming little village, and I worked as a hunter receiving praise and accolades from those around us. During this time, my brother and I had proven ourselves so effective as Hunters that along with the rest of my team, we were invited into Ozpin's direct employ. At that point I think the only reason he trusted us was he knew that we were both so changed from our original intentions, so bound up in love and countless others strings that he thought we could never escape him. He was almost right."
At this point Raven paused, not quite sure how to continue. What came next would either frighten the young girl senseless, or convince her that Raven was completely mad. With nothing else for it, and after reminding herself that didn't really care how the girl felt, Raven continued the story.
"My soul is bound to yours now, so when you die that will be it for me. Ghosts like me cannot linger forever. Ozpin is somewhat like me, in that he's a being who has inhabited the body of another, but the difference is he can take almost complete control if he needs to, and he will live forever until humanity is made extinct. For all intents and purposes, he's immortal.
"Over the course of his countless lives, Ozpin has had a major role in the history of all four kingdoms, and even unknown, unnamed ones lost to the mists of history. Even small scattered peoples like the faunus tribes have been held captive to his interests. The famous Last King of Vale, who signed the Vytal Accord that recognised Menagerie as belonging to your peoples… That was Ozpin."
A look of surprise came over Blake's face, then her eyebrows narrowed and she suddenly looked more sceptical.
"It's difficult to believe, but it's true." Raven assured her, before continuing. "The man has two goals. To unite all humanity, and to defeat all creatures of Grimm once and for all."
Blake looked confused. "I don't understand, that sounds like a good thing."
Her naivety was so thick that for a moment Raven nearly pitied her. "Think, girl. If you're trying to unite all people, what do you do with the people who don't want to play along?"
She blinked at that, before frowning. "I guess… you have to make them."
"Exactly. To unite all humanity means that no one anywhere can possibly live outside his control. It means that no one can be free to choose their own fate." Raven shook her head. "The more I thought about it, the more I realised just how badly I'd been manipulated by him from the moment I stepped into his school. My husband, my child, my brother, my happiness. All of these things were given to me by Ozpin, and all could be taken away by him, too. I was his pet bird, living in a very comfortable cage…
"When I tried talking to Tai about it he acted like I was being crazy. He even talked to my brother. Eventually it got to Ozpin that I was… acting differently, and after some gentle probing from him I stopped. For those last few months, I didn't ask questions, I played the loyal servant and loving mother as best as I could. I thought I'd just fit into it with time, grow used to it. Before I knew it, I was listening to my husband's footsteps as he walked through the house, being careful to make sure he never saw me behaving strangely. I… was afraid of him. I was afraid of my brother and my friends in much the same way. It was all I could do to grit my teeth in their presence and pretend everything was fine.
"One morning, I was changing my daughter's diaper, and I realised that little child was the only thing holding me there anymore. Everything else Ozpin gave me had turned to ash, and the only thing I could find joy in was my daughter. To escape, to be free of Ozpin, there was only one thing I had to do: walk out the door and never come back."
By the end of the tale, Blake was left with many more questions than answers, but somehow this didn't seem to be the right time to ask it. Raven had trailed off, and was frozen atop the television staring at nothing. For a long moment Blake was unsure if interrupting her mentor's ruminations would be appropriate or not. She paused, before shifting slightly in her chair, and the sound caused Raven to blink back awake.
The bird regarded her for a moment before huffing with disapproval. "I can see you're confused."
"A little." Blake admitted nervously.
"Well, ask."
"It's just… if you left your daughter like that, why do you want me to watch over her?"
"I… failed her." Raven admitted with obvious reluctance. "I intended to sever my bond with her completely, but… in my last moments she was all I could think about." They way she said it was strange, like she was confessing to a crime.
Blake had no idea what to think of that bizarre sentiment. Was it just a Branwen thing? But she didn't want to upset her by asking. Instead she just swallowed, nodding. "Okay. Okay, so… you want me to protect your daughter from Ozpin. You need me to tell her the truth, so she can decide whether to live free or not?"
"Yes, but also there is a physical danger at work. The forces that came for me will also be after her now. Because we were doing dangerous work for him, Ozpin did his best to conceal much about us from the public, so there's a good chance they don't even know Yang is my daughter yet, but eventually they'll figure it out."
"Who were the people that killed you?"
"Ozpin's opposition. He says they serve Salem, the Queen of all Grimm. I never trusted Ozpin and never saw her personally, but I've seen more than enough to believe she exists."
There was a Queen of all Grimm? And she had human servants?! Blakes head practically spun with that little tidbit. "Uh, okay. How am I supposed to fight that?"
"It will not be easy. As you are now, you wouldn't stand a chance, but you're talented and I can train you. If you dedicate yourself I'm confident that you'll become a remarkable huntress."
Despite Raven's reassurances, Blake hardly felt inspired.
At the look on her face, Raven scoffed. "You asked me for a kingdom, girl! If my desires are truly beyond your abilities, then you should just quit right now."
Blake looked to her feet, feeling almost ashamed of herself. Her mentor was right after all. Watching over Yang until she was eighteen was a much smaller task compared to the one Blake had set for herself. Not sure what to say, silence filled the room for a long moment until it was finally broken by Raven.
"Now, unless you have any more questions, we should look at your strategy for dealing with Pyrrha."
Ears shooting up, Blake looked to her mentor. "I've saved the recordings."
"You prepared them?" Raven sounded approving. "Good." She flapped her wings and quickly crossed the room to sit on the girl's shoulder as she looked at the screen of her scroll. "Now, firstly, I think I have some idea of what her semblance is…"
Three months on from the coup and Kuo Kuana hardly looked different. Sienna Khan noticed the occasional new White Fang banner here and there, but nothing else had changed. The long, winding and chaotic streets still squeezed their way between the cramped wooden residences that sprang up, usually built on stilts for the monsoon season. Most of the settlement didn't have any kind of plumbing, so the cleanliness of the paths and roads varied wildly depending on where you lived.
This part of town used a potting system. Every morning each family would carry their potted waste material to the street, where they'd pay a local filth collector to take it away, and the local council imposed a hefty fine on anyone caught trying to ditch their waste on someone else's property or in the streets. Most of Menagerie's faunus lived like this. It wasn't an ideal system, but it was sufficient for the majority's needs. In many places there were bathhouses, so members of the public could clean themselves fairly easily, usually bathing once every day or two. This meant that there was no reason for anyone to accept a neighbour who couldn't maintain their own hygiene. Again, sufficient but not ideal.
Sienna Khan walked east on her own two feet, coming closer to the Great Dividing Range, a long chain of mountains that separate Menagerie's tropical west from its arid east. In this part of Kuo Kuana, the rich were easily able to afford their own large properties in massive walled and guarded private estates. Despite the absolute opulence of these homes, they were only used when they were in the city itself for business, otherwise they lived out in the countryside where they worked.
The two biggest sources of income on the continent were the scattered dust mines out in the desert, and the farmlands to the north. Of the two, the farmlands were far more valuable. Atlas dust mining relied on robotic labourers, who were much cheaper to maintain than flesh and blood miners and made it difficult for anyone else to compete, especially somewhere as comparatively primitive as Menagerie. Despite that, some of the mine owners did fairly well for themselves by selling domestically, cutting down on transportation costs. Right now they were not Sienna's real concern; today she had to deal with a far more insidious group.
The real wealth of Menagerie resided in its rubber plantations to the north, and cotton fields just east of the Great Dividing Range, which were all owned by the old clans. Cash crops! She wrinkled her nose with disgust at the thought. Land that could be used for food and for the people was instead concentrated in the hands of a few greedy families, many of whom had ties to humans on the other side of the oceans.
Even now, with all its members having fled her shores, that vile oppressive race still found a way to poison Sienna's kingdom. The idea of it disgusted her. The Belladonna's had long lived in their mansion, a luxurious kennel given to them by their foreign masters. Like the pathetic pets they were, they preached about peace and cooperation, when in reality they were nothing but tools for the four kingdoms to keep their boot on the necks of all faunus.
The old clans of Menagerie were hardly any better in Sienna's mind. Year after year, Kuo Kuana's population grew and grew, and the people's needs grew with it. Rather than pitch in and help out, rather than using their wealth and lands to help their fellow faunus, they instead hoarded it all shamelessly.
Never let it be said that she wasn't a patient woman, though. Of course the Old Clans would be given a chance to redeem themselves.
The gates to the compound were watched by the clan's warriors, who seemed weary of Sienna. She was dressed as she usually was, in a sleeveless robe with a blood red cape, and visibly armed of course. The whip on her hip was all she needed to defend herself. That wasn't what frightened the guards, though.
It was the five hundred battle ready members of the White Fang behind her. All of them were dressed in white, with grey masks and armed with automatic rifles. They marched in formation, each loud footfall accompanied by hundreds of others in a rich cacophony that drowned out the whispered conversations of onlookers. The captain of the group bellowed out, "Halt!" And as one the formation stopped with a final thunderous step, and everything was completely silent for a long moment.
Sienna rather enjoyed it, the fear on the clan warrior's faces. One of them scurried off, deeper into the compound, and without her having to say anything the gates swung open. An old rabbit faunus came out, long brown ears twitched in each direction waiting for threats.
"Sienna." He growled, his weathered face twisted in an upset scowl, though he nodded his head respectfully.
Sienna merely raised an eyebrow, and one of her guards growled at the old man. "That's Chieftain Sienna to you, old man."
He grit his teeth and ground out, "Chieftain Sienna, then. Unless you plan to do to the Caos what you did to the Belladonna's, I don't see what the dogs are for."
"Hm?" Sienna feigned surprise, looking over her shoulder. "Oh, my bodyguard you mean? I was just out for a stroll with them and thought to myself I should come stop by for a chat. Things were discussed in the Clan Commons yesterday that I thought it best to follow up on, Councillor Cao."
"I don't see what we have to talk about." He replied, and though he did his best to hide it, Sienna could see his nervousness. The way his large ears twitched towards any new sound gave him away, whatever his face was hiding.
"Well, I was hoping you might reconsider the issue of smuggling, now that you've had some time to think things over." Sienna smiled, stepping forwards past the old man and confidently striding towards the gates. "I think the tea room would be better suited for this though."
Of course she wasn't invited in, barging in like this was a great insult, but with her personal army right there, not to mention her own talents, the Caos would be stupid to try anything. She almost wished they would. It would be the perfect excuse to deal with them right here and now.
Once again, Sienna reminded herself she was merciful. She would always give a fellow faunus a chance to repent and make amends.
Though she had never been to the compound before, Sienna led the way, the frail old man scurrying along to catch up with her. As with much of the town, the Cao clan drew a lot of its cultural influence from Mistral, with richly carved wooden panels, tiered roofs and small carefully managed gardens of sand and small well managed trees. It was all very tasteful, displaying wealth without sliding into opulence. Sienna didn't mind so much that the old clan was doing well, as much as she minded how little they were doing to help others. One day she hoped all of Menagerie might live in homes rather like this one.
The tea room was just to the right of the main building's front entrance, easily visible. In a nod to the fact the Cao's weren't actually originally from Mistral, the sitting room had comfortable chairs rather than the traditional mats for sitting seiza style, which Sienna happily fell into.
"I'll have black tea, thanks."
The old man stared at her for a long moment, before raising his hand to signal a younger servant of the clan, who hurried off to fulfill the request before taking his chair just across from the Chieftain.
"What is this, Sienna? Marching your army to my gates is naked coercion, the council won't stand for it."
"Why, I'm offended." Sienna replied, lightly scowling. "It's nothing of the sort. Don't you know the humans are after us? There's no way they can stand to let our kingdom thrive, and so they target me, your Chieftain. There's been half a dozen attempts on my life already!" Staged ones, obviously, but that hardly mattered. Any good work of fiction contained a true message, after all. "Of course I have to travel with security."
It was obvious he didn't believe her for a second, but even so he had no choice but to pretend it was true. To challenge the Chieftain on such a thing would open him up to new avenues of attack, ones through more official channels.
Instead Councilor Cao grimmly set his jaw, did his best to feign politeness, and took a seat. "So, what is it that you want to discuss, Chieftain?"
"Somehow human influence is still coming to our shores, Councilor." Sienna didn't need to feign anything, she was utterly disgusted. "I still see human products being sold in our streets: atlesian phones, mistralian rice and other foodstuff, even valish bands are popular here! Worse still, I see no reason many of these things can't be made here on our shores."
"Well, I think you're most of the way to solving that problem already." Councilor Cao huffed. "The human merchants have been driven out already. They've sold their homes and taken their business with them when they left."
Sienna smiled thinly. "It was for the best."
"For the best, indeed! In one fell swoop you've driven wages down, and the costs of goods and services up! I dare say that soon no one will be able to afford any of these foreign goods, anyway."
Sienna felt her nails digging into her palms, and made sure to check her temper before speaking again. "Yes, well you don't seem to be suffering too badly. I see your clan is doing very well for itself. I wonder if your business partners are doing just as well?"
Immediately the Councilor froze, looking at Sienna with disbelief. "Is that what this is about? You've ruined everyone else's livelihoods and now you've come for ours." He looked shocked at first, then angered. She went to reply but he rushed to speak over her. "Who we sell to is not yours, or the council's business."
"Isn't it?" Sienna challenged. "You and your family are sending products to our enemies, and getting rich doing so."
"They're not our enemies!" Cao snapped back, angrily. "They couldn't care less about us. Do you have any idea how small and remote this kingdom is?!"
"The assassination attempts prove otherwise."
"Yes, well I dare say you'll find your own organisation is most responsible for those."
Immediately a chill descended on the room, and Sienna hissed. "What are you implying?"
Councilor Cao stared at her for a long moment, eyes narrowed before growling out. "You can hardly claim there's no violence amongst your own ranks, given how you became chieftain."
"How dare you."
"How dare I?" He laughed in her face, contemptuous of her outrage. "We all saw the video. The Belladonnas dragged into the street, a thirteen year old girl beaten half to death by your pet beast, all the while your thugs bayed for blood. Sickening, truly sickening."
Not for the first time, Sienna wondered what had possessed Adam to transform what was meant to be a quick and clean raid into a public execution. The sheer brutality of it hadn't only shocked international observers, but also the more moderate sympathizers to her cause in Menagerie. In response she'd been forced to publicly defend Adam, excusing his acts as overzealous but well earned, but privately she'd had no choice but to exile him, sending him off to head the White Fang chapter in Vale.
On the current topic though, it was clear that no further negotiation was possible. "Let me speak plainly, then." Sienna leaned forwards, both hands placed on the table as she growled. "There are those who are on the side of the Faunus and the White Fang, and those who are on the side of the humans and the Belladonnas. Your clan should choose in whose footsteps they follow wisely."
Cao's ears straightened up, outraged at the obvious threat. "Enjoy your tea, Sienna. I'm sure you know where the exit is." He spat, standing and walking away. "Rest assured the council will hear of this."
Sienna didn't wait for her drink to arrive. Without hesitating she stood and hurried out the door, not quite running but wasting no time.
There was work to be done if the Caos were to be put in their place.