Chapter Twenty

The first frost had finally come in overnight, Qrow's breath visible in the predawn light as he entered the aviary to check for messages for the building and feed the crows. He took the crow he had reserved for Oscar and attached the small update he had made the night prior - more of the same: nothing. No word from his old street friends, including Robyn, on finding the white witch bitch.

He sighed, more than used to feeling useless over the course of his life but unable to escape into a bottle no matter how much he wanted. Oscar needed someone. Ruby and Yang needed him. It was exactly like Oz had said, months ago when Yang had come knocking: there wasn't time for self pity anymore. He had to be what they needed, whether he thought he could or not.

Oscar's crow fluffed up in pride at the assignment, and Qrow's fingers warmed as he massaged the bird's mantle between the wings. "Give'em hell," he muttered, and tossed her up into the air; she took off with a bright caw and caught a wind with two flaps of the wings.

Ruby was already awake and bright-eyed, dragging a still half-asleep Yang out of bed. Breakfast was little more than beans and miso - Ruby had unanimously said she'd figured out how to eat every day through the winter if prices stayed where they were, and it was meager fare but better than Qrow at his lowest. Yang slowly came awake as food entered her, and she changed into her gi and zubon for a morning run before heading off to her job. They all went downstairs together, Qrow and Ruby to see what messages had been dropped off overnight at their stand by the back ramp. A person was already at the stand, hunched forward in the cold and wrapped in worn wool. She looked up and her eyes doubled in size.

"... Yang?"

Qrow's niece stiffened, stopping completely and just… staring. "Blake…?"

The two girls stared at each other, the space and the silence between them growing pregnant and tense. Qrow glanced at Ruby, but she shrugged her shoulders. Not a kid from Vale then, but then where…?

The girl, Blake, took a hesitant step forward, one hand lifting and cupping his neice's face. "You're really alive," she said, voice filled with emotion. "I thought… they said you might not make it and…" Her eyes trailed down. "Your arm… Oh, Yang…"

"Hey," Yang said, her voice soft, gentle. She lifted the girl's chin up, forcing her to look her in the eye. "I'm still here. Still fighting. Nothing's changed."

And then, to Qrow's complete surprise, the Blake girl leaned in and kissed Yang, his niece more than receptive, her good arm snaking around the girl's shoulders and pressing her as close as possible. Uh… what?

Ruby, perhaps of course, did the people thing a lot better and clapped her hands together. "Oh, this is so exciting!" she said, hopping from one foot to the other. "Please tell me you already wrote a courtship poem!"

The girls pulled apart, Blake obviously a little hazy with emotion but Yang quickly souring. "Seriously?" she demanded, cheeks bright pink. "That's the first thing that comes out of your mouth?"

Qrow at least had finally had a thought, and slouched forward, hands in his dusty pockets. "You gonna introduce us, snapdragon?" he asked.

If anything she got even more red, straightening as she faced him more fully. "Uncle Qrow," she said. "This is Blake Belladonna. We met at Southpoint. Blake, this is my uncle Qrow and my sister Ruby."

Blake, in turn, managed to come back to her senses, her yellow eyes widening. "You're Qrow Branwen," she asked, "The crowmaster of Nana Calavera's building?"

"Yeah," he said. "What about it?"

"I have a message from Oscar Pine."

Everything stopped, just stopped for several seconds in Qrow's brain because what in fye and filth had just fallen in his lap…? "Come with me upstairs," he said, glancing around the common yard. "We'll talk in private."

Blake took in their hovel of an apartment with wide eyes but no comment, sitting politely on one of the makeshift chairs Qrow had managed to fashion from scrap as Yang pulled a crate immediately next to her, sitting and holding her hand with a defiant stare. Ruby was smiling at all of it but Qrow wasn't here for relationship updates. "What do you know about Oscar Pine?" he demanded.

"Right now I work as one of the servants of the palace," she said, glancing quickly at Yang, who nodded like she understood. Qrow didn't, and he threw a glare at his niece.

"Later," she said.

"Right now I'm in charge of servicing the soothsayers," she said. "I offered to deliver a message for him last night. It took me four hours to walk here, I didn't want to risk taking a horse, the stables for the entire city are too closely monitored." With the wool shawl off she was in an Imperial ruqun, and she reached inside to pull out several pages. She offered it and Qrow snatched it jealously. He knew he wouldn't be able to read it fast enough and he handed it over to Ruby. She opened the letter, silver eyes running up and down to read the script.

While she did Qrow continued to question this court maid. "What made him think you would get a letter out?"

Blake shifted in her seat, eyes darting over to Yang. She mustered her courage, squirming, but she met Qrow's eyes at a level. "I had a reading from Professor Ozma," she said, "When I was much younger. That reading saved my life. His apprentice seemed to understand. I was originally just going to get him some clothes, but he said he had a message for you."

"... clothes?"

"He's refusing to wear the uniform," Ruby said, still reading the letter. "He's been in his apprentice waistcoat since they took him there. He wants nothing to do with what they're doing. None of the soothsayers seem to understand what the general is asking them to do. There's dozens of sand basins in this giant room, and the masters and senior apprentices give reading after reading to captains and lieutenants, the occasional colonel, before they deploy." Then she gasped, looking up. "The professor's sand table was delivered there yesterday."

Qrow's head swiveled to his youngest niece. "What?" he said. "Leo let those bastards in to take his reader? That thing weighs at least five hundred kigra."

"It's beautiful," Blake said. "Everyone was staring at it when it came in. Oscar refused to let anyone use it. He's placed with the junior apprentices, and all he does is read."

"Uncle Qrow, there's a lot of talk about the soothmaker lady," Ruby said, "I don't understand all of it."

Qrow probably wouldn't either, but he wasn't ready to admit that to a stranger. "I'll read it later," he said instead, nodding to his niece before turning back to the girl. "What do you get out of this?" he asked. "Owing the professor is one thing, making it up to him is another, but what do you get out of this?"

"She got to know I was still alive," Yang said, squeezing Blake's hand. "She saved my life last winter." And now Qrow had a whole new set of questions in his head with that sentence. Yang saw it and continued. "I was there at Southpoint when the rebellion started, we - Vale - were there for the treaty talks and-"

"Wait, back up," Qrow said, lifting a hand. "What treaty talks?"

Yang's eyes widened, so did Blake's, and the two looked at each other, confused. Well, until Blake's eyes narrowed and her mind started churning, girl was smart; Qrow could tell.

"We should start earlier than that," she said after several moments. She glanced at Yang and his niece nodded, giving her permission to continue. "It's obvious your news sheets haven't been reporting everything. We already knew that but we didn't realize how bad until just now. The war is over in Vale and has been for over a year. Vale drove out the entire Mistralan army the autumn before last, and they sent two ships of envoys to Southpoint to negotiate terms, exchange prisoners of war, reaffirm boundaries, and sign a peace treaty and trade agreement."

"I was one of the soldiers they sent over," Yang said. "Dad was a well-loved senator and they thought sending his daughter would be a good look. Most of the soldiers there were like that, fighters who had a fancy relative. We'd all seen some action, so we could fight if things went south. The politicians could do their work and we'd protect them."

"Southpoint has been a major staging area for the war, did the papers at least tell you that much?" Blake asked, and Qrow gave a baleful nod. "I'll bet they didn't report that the entire countryside was stripped of almost all resources. All the farms were little more than dust bowls, the town itself empty of all citizens in order to billet soldiers. All the people of the city had been forced to live in seaside caves or killes away in a scrap of forest."

"When they saw the Vale colors of the ships," Yang said, "after six years of abuse from the military and the Imperial Court, they'd had enough. They rebelled."

"Fye and filth," Qrow muttered.

Ruby: "You… really… didn't know?"

"No, half-pint. It was printed like a Valean invasion," he said, turning to look at her. "They tightened the reins up here, the professor had to have his immigrant papers on him at all times and any soldier could demand to see them. They raided all the gardens to feed the army - I see why now - and more and more military started patrolling the streets."

"The rebels won," Yang said, "and signaled us to dock. They begged us for our expertise on how to defend themselves, and we spent the winter training them."

"It was a bad winter," Blake said, eyes drifting slightly. "There wasn't anything to eat but fish, winter rains made everything mud, and every building in the town had been used like it was disposable. Like its people were disposable."

"But they took every ounce of training they could take," Yang said. "That winter Blake and I were scouting the surrounding area - we weren't sure what Mistral was going to do with a rebellion on its hands and we didn't know how much time we would have. Then…" Yang closed her eyes.

Blake hummed, staring at Yang now, hand reaching out and rubbing a thigh. Then she sighed, looking down. "Someone I used to know," she said, "he… had a problem with me. And he tracked me all the way from Menagerie to…" She shook her head. "Yang saved my life, but she was very hurt, and he was still chasing us. We kept trying to duck north, thinking we could lose him in the snow… Yang got worse… I couldn't help her… I…"

"She dropped me off in a mountain village," Yang said with a shaky voice. "So I could heal."

"They said…"

"I know. They told me."

A tear slid down Blake's cheek, and she leaned in to kiss Yang again. Ruby got up to hug them both, saying, "I'm so sorry that happened…"

Qrow was still trying to keep up with it all: the Vale assault at Southpoint was actually a rebellion? There was no Vale army? "Then who the hell is on the other side of the mountain?" he asked.

The girls pulled apart, Yang shrugging her shoulders, but Blake answered. "The rebellion," she said. "Southpoint wasn't the only town, village, hamlet, or city that was stripped clean to feed and maintain the war. They forswore all their vows of serenity and peace, and bit by bit the rebellion's been spreading north to the capital. The Valean soldiers, they agreed to act as commanding officers - they have experience the farmers didn't, and the politicians have been visiting every village to ask if they want to be part of the rebellion. A lot have said no, but a lot more have said yes."

Qrow threw his gaze to Ruby. "Do the soothsayers know this?" he asked.

Ruby scanned through the pages quickly. "I don't know," she said.

"Dark Brother's filth," Qrow cursed, dragging a hand down his face. "This is so twisted around and knotted up." He was never meant to be the brains of anything, he was muscle, a fighter. What was he supposed to do with all of this?

Then, a knock on the door.

"Ruby? Is everything alright? Nobody's at the stand outside…"

Ruby perked, jumping to her feet. "Weiss!" she said, rushing to the door and opening it. "You're from Atlas! Your family's really influential, did you know?"

Weiss, coming in in her petticoats and a long overcoat, looked utterly confused. "Know what?"

"Just who's on the other side of the mountain!"

Weiss stared like Ruby had a second head - not that Qrow could have blamed her ten minutes ago, and her gaze flicked from Qrow, Yang, and the new Blake. She frowned at the new arrival, soaking up the Imperial ruqun. "I… assume you mean the Valean army on the other side of the mountain?" she asked, finally returning her eyes to Ruby. "Or is somebody else on the other side of the mountain?"

"That's just it!" Ruby said, bouncing on her feet. "Oh, why does everyone think that! I thought you knew, I thought everyone knew - that's not an army over there, that's the rebellion!"

"Wait… what?"

Ruby turned to her sister. "See? How does everyone not know this?"

"'Cause the papers have been lying to us," Qrow said, his voice low and dangerous as a thought occurred to him. Oz and Oscar both had said that the white witch bitch and her curses had consequences that spread out to all of Remnant, and if that was true he was starting to see how all that bad luck had manifested for the last several years. No wonder the pair had been so afraid of the war, so against having anything to do with it. They probably knew better than anyone why it had been drawn out for so long. Hell, it all started with the assassnation of the King of Vale, right? The destabilization of the country and-

"Filth," he muttered, seeing for the first time just how long the white witch bitch had been working. Twenty years… oh, Oz…

Energy flooded his body and he surged to his feet, pacing. The bitch had cursed Oz right at the beginning - it wasn't just personal tragedy, isolation and misery like he said. The price of it kept spreading further and further, and now there was a five year long war and a year long rebellion and nobody knew anything because the Imperial Court controlled everything so thoroughly… Were they affected by the curse, or were they just that far up their own asses? Brothers, he wanted a drink. He growled, low in his throat and ran his hands through his hair, trying to remember that he couldn't afford to fall right now.

He turned, saw the four girls looking at him, Blake looking like she was going to bolt and Weiss pressed very firmly against the wall furthest him. The fear of those two made him suck in a deep breath, holding it before letting go. "We have a problem," he said. "Blake, can you get a message back to Oscar?"

"Yes," she said, the word drawn out and uncertain.

"I can't write for filth, but I have to tell him something," he said. "Ruby, get down to the stand, someone has to handle the customers. Weiss, go with her."

"But-"

"I got it, Uncle Qrow. Come one, Weiss, it looks like I have a lot to explain."

"Yang," he said, "After I send Blake with the letter, follow her as far as you can. You might trust her but I'm still covering my ass."

"Not a problem, Uncle Qrow," Yang said, straightening.

"You know," Qrow said to Blake. "I still don't know how a girl like you ended up in the Imperial Palace."

Blake bit her lip, glancing at Yang, but his niece nodded her head. "I didn't 'end up' there," she said. "I was sent there, to spy on the military high command." She looked down. "I'm the daughter of Ghira and Kali Belladonna, the Faunus Honorum of Menagerie. We were going to be the neutral party in the negotiations."

"Just what we need," Qrow muttered. "Right, I have some writing to do."

If reading was never Qrow's strong point, writing was even worse. Yang couldn't read Mistralan with consistent fluency yet, but Blake helped him with the characters from a safe distance. He worked painfully through explaining who was on the other side of the mountain, tried to summarize what had actually happened in the last year of the war, and just what that might mean for the curse. He still had to read through Oscar's letter about the white witch bitch - or ask Ruby what it said - and he also had to look up Robyn again and get her to come over - preferably with Blake there to corroborate everything but if she was spying on the Palace he couldn't just pull her whenever he wanted. Leo… he was still pissed at Leo for letting the sand table get hijacked, he'd pick a fight later. It took two pages and an hour to get it all down, wounding his pride bitterly as Blake and Yang had to watch his agonizingly slow writing. His hand cramped from it all, but he handed Blake the letter. She stuffed it in her ruqun, wrapping the wool shawl over it to hide her status, and she bowed politely before leaving with Yang at her arm. Yang offered a bright grin and a thumbs up.

It was later that night, after the day's work, that he realized Blake had left a gift to show her trustworthiness. There, on the chair she had sat on, was a piece of paper, folded and well loved. Ruby spied it fist, and opened it, Qrow watching with suspicion.

Ruby gasped. "Yang!" she said, looking up with bright, shiny eyes. "You were so eloquent! I never knew you had it in you!"

Yang turned bright red, demanding to see what was on the paper.

"It's your courtship poem!" Ruby said in a voice loud enough to alert the entire floor. "Uncle Qrow, you have to read this!"

Qrow ended up having a long talk with Yang about what had happened at Southpoint and how she'd gotten up to Haven. They hadn't really talked about it since she'd arrived because Qrow respected her privacy and he knew damn well that talking about painful filth was not worth it. He let her talk about what she needed to and tried his hardest to be there for her. Now he needed to know more. And with Yang seeing that there was a huge disconnect between what she knew and what Haven had been hearing, she was reluctantly ready to fill in some gaps. All of it matched up with what the Blake girl had said, and when he spoke to Ruby separately, she had similar stories of what she'd heard in Vale.

Brothers fye and filth, he needed to message someone to confirm all this. It was just so unbelievable. No rumors had made it through to Haven? At all?

Then Qrow realized. The Emperor controlled the two gates. Haven, being on a mountain, wasn't easy to get to. But there was a major pass through the mountain range that Haven was nestled in the middle of. To enter the pass and get through either to Haven or the other side of the mountains, one had to go through either the North Gate or the South Gate. Qrow had gone through those gates when he was younger and working a longer labor job. The guards at the gates were Imperial. Of course no rumors or pamphlets had gotten through, the guards searched everything.

It was actually rather frightening how much the Emperor controlled what came into the city.

He sent a crow to Robyn. She needed to know and start getting pamphlets out so that the city knew what was coming.

Ruby was confused. "We thought everyone knew," she said. "You're talking about the war, we thought you knew it was a civil war."

"We thought this was the sixth year of the war."

"Well, obviously, we understand that now, but that's how everyone here talks about it. 'The war.' That doesn't exactly specify whether it was the rebellion or with Vale."

"We can talk language barriers later," Qrow grumbled.

Robyn came by in a righteous fury, demanding details about the rebellion. He sat her down with Ruby and Yang and he put an arm around Yang as she went through the difficult memories of Southpoint again. The destitution and depravities that the citizens of Southpoint had faced, what the results were, and how the rebellion had started.

"There has to be some way to confirm this," Robyn said, pacing back and forth between the cots in Qrow's dingy apartment. "We're already seeing signs of this. The requisitioning of food. Soldiers in the streets instead of the patrollers. Fye this is familiar."

"There is someone we can message," Yang said. "Captain Sun. He was a Mistralan clerk when the Imperials up and occupied Southpoint. He joined the rebellion that winter and he's worked his way up the ranks. At the battle of Brunswick he took ten squads and routed the Imperials, surprising their flanks, catching them at an angle and overrunning them."

Robyn turned to Qrow. "My birds will find him. But Robyn, you have to be careful about this. Don't let anyone know it's your pamphlets. The last thing you need are Imperials arresting you."

The blond printer smiled. "If a bunch of posters are around the city overnight, no one will know who posted them. Pamphlets appearing in newsstands will work too. Most of the people I distribute to won't talk, and they'll be distributing to others."

She left to start prepping her deliveries and to start spreading some rumors before anything got printed.

"There's something we haven't thought of," Ruby said, staring at the flickering candles. "If the Emperor is going to treat Haven like Southpoint, they'll eventually have to billet their soldiers."

"Filth, we'll need to let Maria and other landlords know this is coming." Then Qrow remembered that there was one very specific apartment that was currently unoccupied. "Okay you two, we'll talk to Maria tonight. We'll be moving into Oz's apartment."

"Er, what?" Ruby asked. "Isn't that, I don't know, rude? We'd be squatting."

"No," Qrow said. "We'd be stopping soldiers from taking it. You two both say this place is a dump. Let the soldiers have it."

"We never said that!" Ruby was aghast.

"Yang has, and you've thought it."

"Wahh, nooooo!"

"We'll bring our cots and crates. We'll keep that place safe."

"We'll need a bolt hole though," Yang said. "Higher up the mountain. Blake risked a lot coming down here. If the stables are watched so closely, she can't come down this far. Not regularly. I'll head up the mountain tomorrow. A lot of the filthy rich have been running to the countryside to avoid any fight." She gave a feral grin. "I'm sure I can find somewhere that's nice and unoccupied."

"As long as we always have someone living here," Qrow said.

"Why don't we just ask Weiss?" Ruby asked. "She was totally appalled by the misinformation going on. She's been trying to inform her sister, but her sister won't believe her. She just keeps telling her it's Valean propaganda. But her place is halfway up the mountain and spacious. I was crashing with her before I found you guys."

"We can't ask that of her," Qrow said. "She's not Mistralan. She's not invested in any of this. What if she tells her sister? Schnee works for the cursed General who's snatching up soothsayers."

Ruby frowned. "But Weiss is my friend."

"And she's good people, I'm not denying that," Qrow said. "It's her sister I don't trust."

Either way, Qrow was somehow busier than he'd ever thought. He sent Robyn's message off to this Captain Sun person in the Valean - Mistralan - rebellion, sent another message up to that palace maid and another up to Oscar with updates as he could in the small scrolls he could manage. Seriously, crows were meant for quick messages. Invoices, a short letter, not the sheer amount of information that he had to pass on. But his crows were the only way he knew that the messages would get through without Imperial interference.

Maria balked at the idea of billeting and agreed that Qrow would be housesitting Ozpin's apartment.

"Those Imperial filth," Maria swore. "First they freeze my assets, then they steal from our gardens, now I'll have to house them? The Shah would never stand for this nonsense."

"Yeah, well, we're not in Vacuo."

"Tch. Don't remind me."

Either way, Qrow kept running around.

One day, he was at the general store, balking at the price of a slab of salted pork that could last them for easily a month. "You realize," Qrow haggled, "this is robbery."

"Please," the clerk growled. "The military came through here last week and grabbed everything off the shelves and they won't pay. The guild sent a litigator up the mountain, but they aren't listening to anything."

"Hmph. You know what I heard? I heard that the army over the mountains isn't actually Valean. It's Mistralans fed up with the Emperor."

"I'll believe it when I see it," the clerk said. "No one stands up to his Imperial Mightiness of Stupidity and Theft. Now do you have the lien or not?"

Qrow growled and bought half the slab. The sun was starting to set and he knew he was going to have to hurry to get back before full dark. The long shadow of the mountain was already stretching out over them, letting the temperature drop to miserable. If it got any darker, Qrow was going to have to worry about hungry thieves and cutpurses. And he was saving the knife he kept in the small of his back for a white witch bitch.

One of his crows ghosted down, fluttering onto his shoulder, and Qrow reached up, scratching at the throat gently. Really? He couldn't even head out for errands without messages? Also, what right did he have to complain when all these messages were going to keep meat on the table, minimal as it was. It took a minute to shift the slab of pork in his arms enough to have his hands free to read the message.

Uncle Qrow, I've been watching more soldiers in the neighborhood. Looks like something might happen soon.

Great. At least with Ruby up in the aviary, she could watch the block. That's normally what Qrow did since his people skills were somewhere between lackluster and nonexistent. He rubbed the crow's throat again, giving a soft thanks and the bird affectionately nipped at his ear.

He was halfway home, warily looking at a pair of Imperials who were doing the patrol rounds instead of the patrollers. What he wasn't expecting was to see the sergeant with the pink streak in his hair, in civilian clothes, sitting on the front steps.

"Oh look, the military," Qrow growled. "You gonna prevent me from entering my home now?"

The sergeant looked up, eyes widening. "You?"

Qrow sighed. "Look, you've taken food already from us. What more do you want?"

The sergeant frowned, and looked down. "Look, we're just trying to defend-"

"Don't give me that filth," Qrow retorted. "You say you got nothing in the army. Fine, whatever, but we don't have enough to survive on either. You're the one taking from us."

Frowning, the sergeant stood. "All I've known is having nothing. I'm just an orphan from the middle of nowhere. I'm not smart enough for anything other than fighting. So I follow orders because decisions that I make get people…" he cut off, looking away, pink eyes flashing pain. He shook his head. "I don't ever want someone I care about hurt again."

"So you'd rather hurt people you don't care about?"

The sergeant shook his head. "I don't make good decisions. So someone else should."

"Giving up your right to choose also means you give up your will," Qrow said. "I gave up and sank into a bottle. But that meant when I was ready to climb out of the bottle, I could choose to." Qrow remembered when he had finally chosen to make that choice to be sober. Coming home drunk after losing another job and Ozpin offering words that Qrow didn't really remember, but was enough for him to start cutting back. He went from cutting back to trying to stay sober at Midwinter. Ozpin had quietly offered for him to be family for a few days to not be alone. He'd spent the feast with them, reminiscing, talking, dancing, watching the fire, cleaning out the ashes. And he'd ended up in bed with Ozpin. That moment, a family in bed, falling asleep after celebrating… Qrow had made a choice the following morning. He was going to put in an effort to be sober. Not just because being sober tended to get him work, but because being sober might mean he'd have a chance at a family. If he was lucky, the one he'd shared Midwinter with.

His nieces arriving reminded him that he had a family and he'd have to work at it even more, but he had already been on the path by then. And then one morning, he'd watched Oz with a mortar and pestle, joked around with him, and then Qrow realized that the family he wanted might actually be an option.

"I still had the ability to make a choice. Now I'm out of that bottle. It still calls me, but I have reasons to resist." Ruby. Yang. Oscar. Ozpin. "You giving up decisions means you won't ever get that choice."

"I…" The sergeant shook his head, looking away. "My CO has informed us that we'll be billeting in this borough to be closer to any incursions by the Valeans this winter."

Qrow scowled. "Taking from people who have nothing. The filthy rich up the mountain are all off to hide in the countryside. They're leaving their lavish villas that would have the space for the army and then some. Billet up there."

"My CO has made it clear we are to be at the foothills for faster deployment." The sergeant snapped to attention and saluting. "I need to report back by nightfall."

"Tch," Qrow scoffed. "Next time you're having a moral crisis, don't just sit on someone's steps. Make a decision and live with it. Like the rest of us."

The sergeant winced. "I am Lie Ren."

"And I'm Crowmaster 'I Don't Care'."

"I… Sir, yes sir." The Sergeant… Ren, saluted again and headed off.

"Oh, and Sergeant?" Qrow called. "Thanks for the warning."

Ren's face was still impassive, but Qrow thought he saw a smile.

He headed up the steps to warn Maria.

As it turned out, moving into Ozpin's place was definitely a good decision. It seemed that Ren was in charge of the building for his squad. With the advanced warning, Maria had been running up and down the halls, pounding on doors to warn her tenets. Some, terrified, left. Those behind, like Qrow, took the opportunity. The Browns took a second apartment, so that their six family members finally had a touch of space. They all shuffled within two days when Ren's squad arrived. Qrow firmly told his nieces to stay in the apartment and he stood by Maria's side as the squad came in to take rooms.

"We are commandeering five rooms of this building for my squad," Ren said formally. "You will provide the rooms without compensation by decree of the Emperor."

"Well I hope you aren't expecting repairs," Maria grumbled. "I won't be able to pay my repairman. You'd better take care of those rooms."

Ren nodded. "If possible, I'd like our rooms to be on the fourth floor. That way we will be out of everyone's way."

"Oh, so now you're principled and trying to help. Chupamedias."

"Ease off, Maria," Qrow said, glaring. "Let them figure out what they're doing on their own."

"That's all well and good," Maria sassed, "but if I'm not getting rent, I'm not providing a damn thing."

Qrow offered a flat stare that his landlord couldn't see. "Like you provide a damn thing for the rest of us?"

"Hmph."

And ten soldiers were billeted up on the fourth floor.

"Ruby, Yang, you two are not to interact with those bastards."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Do you take the two of us for children? We know to stay low. We can't exactly let them know we're making a bolthole."

"That's right!" Ruby smiled, pulling from Ozpin's jars of spices for the broth she was making. "Weiss has been taking things from us to set up if we need to crash. And she's been sending us Atlesean cheeses."

"So that's why the food has been edible."

"I also found a place," Yang said quietly. "It's about three milles from Weiss, but Blake can use it as a drop off when she's visiting the city on her days off. It'll be a hike to get up there, but we're just the nobody citizens. I've got more freedom of movement than she does."

Qrow looked at his eldest niece. "You realize that Ruby will be the one meeting her, right?"

Yang balked.

"Snapdragon, you have one arm. That's noticeable. You're Valean in your coloring. That's also noticeable. Ruby is half Mistralan and she won't be noticed in the streets. She can also send a crow faster if something goes wrong."

She scowled at him.

Qrow rolled his eyes. "Fine, if you want to tumble with her, get up there long before she does and leave long after she does so no one knows you're there. And don't forget to clean up the mess."

Watching Yang go scarlet was worth the fist she planted in his shoulder.

After that, Yang said flatly she was going to stay with Weiss to be closer to the bolthole that Blake would be visiting. Honestly, that was probably for the best. Qrow loved Yang dearly, but she did stand out in a crowd. Weiss, being the prim and proper princess, might be able to bang some subtlety into her stubborn head. Ideally, Qrow would get Ruby up there too, so that he didn't have to worry about the soldiers finding either of them. As far as Qrow was concerned, he wanted to be the only one left in the building. He wanted his family safe. Ruby and Yang would be safe with Weiss and her money. Qrow would keep Ozpin's place safe. And somehow, they'd get Ozpin and Oscar out of Imperial hands. Then they could leave.

Once Qrow's knife met the white witch bitch's guts. Then they'd be safe to leave and let the country sort itself out.

In the meantime, as the days got shorter and the weather got colder, Qrow stayed up with the aviary, looking after his birds. People were still coming to him to send messages, and since they used the post at the ramp instead of coming up, none of them had to deal with the soldiers billeted here and settling in for the winter.

Robyn stopped by once, but Qrow took her out for a walk, explaining the billeting. Her pamphlets were spreading and she was getting requests for more prints, meaning that the people of Haven were starting to take notice. Robyn was regularly sending crows to Captain Sun and Captain Neptune, asking all sorts of questions and getting as much information as could be crammed into what a crow could reasonably carry.

Unfortunately there was still no sign of the witch bitch. She wasn't anywhere in Qrow's borough, nor Wind Path. But finding out more up the mountain was more difficult for Robyn. She was still trying.

Leo stopped by all of once, saw Sergeant Ren, then never returned.

Qrow was fine to ignore him.

One morning, before the sun was up, Qrow was in the aviary, laying out seed, some treats, checking feathers and legs, making sure nests were comfortably warm. Later in the day, he'd send an update up to Oscar, with any winter sun to make it easier for his crows. Blake was usually able to get more information out, but a quick update for speed as an option was better than waiting.

"Excuse me?"

Qrow stepped out of the aviary. "Sergeant Conflicted," Qrow greeted.

Ren stood there, uniform on, and looking tired. It was clear that the more hostile nature of the residents wasn't fun to go through. Likely part of the reason he kept his squad in their rooms, leaving for drills early in the morning to avoid disturbing anyone.

It was also clear that they were getting hungry. Ren had a thinness in his face that didn't look good. Light Brother's fye, they confiscated the food, how were they still hungry? Where was all that food going?

Ren grit his teeth. "I understand that your birds get to anyone? Regardless of aviaries?"

Qrow stilled. The soldiers weren't supposed to know about that. His birds were unregistered and not tagged, so nobody really knew where they came from or how they got everywhere. "I lucked out with some smart birds," he said. "They can find where they need to be."

"I…" Ren hesitated. "I'd like to send a message to someone. I don't know where she is."

"Lover?"

Interesting flare of red across the cheeks. "Friend."

Qrow held back a chuckle, seeing why Ozpin might enjoy courting poems. If there was a poem, there wasn't any doubt of interest.

"No promises."

Ren let out a small sigh of relief and pulled out some of the dirtiest lien Qrow had ever seen. They looked like they'd been plucked from muddy streets. He looked to the thin sergeant again, knowing that they clearly didn't have food. Plucking from the street might just have been a necessary option.

Author's Notes: And lo, a huge shakeup in the fic. Sort of. While it doesn't immediately affect Qrow and Oscar, knowing who exactly on the other side of the mountain is an enormous shift in perspective and changes the meaning of everything. A foreign army is now a bunch of fellow countrymen, which makes the idea of fighting a lot harder and recontextualizes just what anyone is fighting for. And as we do that we learn, through Ren, that even the people who are supposed to benefit - i.e. the soldiers who confiscated all the food to eat - are just as miserable as everyone else. More so because the citizenry they're trying to protect hate them. Like, we're not THAT interested getting into the political minutia of how Mistral works, but some of it has to bleed through and if it gives us an excuse to subtly find a soapbox to stand on... well, it probably bleeds through as a result.

Also Ren. He doesn't quite make it to supporting character the way RWBY is starting to, but he is a side character running around the fic. We start to see that Qrow is using his nieces: he gets Ruby to read for him since he's functionally illiterate and uses Yang as one part courier, one part tail, one part scout - stuff she's been doing for the Valean army for a while now and a role she can easily slide in to. She's also extra motivated because Blake :)

And Blake is now officially part of the cast. She'll be more with Oscar for obvious reasons, but just about everyone has a part to play. We also get the glorious pun of Faunus Honorum - you have no idea how much that entertained us when we were writing.

In short we have a lot of set up. We should probably start twisting those screws.

Next chapter: Midwinter Feast.