Chapter Thirty
Ozpin would be glad to be home. At the bank he'd been able to sign papers to give Ocar access to his account, but apparently over the winter, the Emperor had decided that all citizens of Vale and Vacuo living in Haven should start paying for the war. Half of every account was seized. His savings were now even more meager, and he couldn't help but wonder how he and Oscar were going to keep going. Young Weiss was kind in paying for rents so that Maria still was able to maintain the property and still feed herself, but that wasn't an infinite resource. If her family found out how she was using the money, they might cut her off.
But for now, Ozpin desperately depended on it. He'd have to see Leo at some point as well, see how much rent he owed there or if he even had an office still. Food wasn't as desperate a concern because of the food distributions, plus Oscar's gardens were providing. Even if they would likely be better now under Oscar's care. The back garden had been converted to vegetables and food, and it was likely the rooftop garden was also for vegetables.
That meant that Ozpin was back to buying supplies for charging wreaths.
Except he didn't have a sand reader. Oh, he could give readings without a basin, but it could not be overstated how much a reader took the burden of the magic. To do readings without a basin… He would exhaust himself while he was still recovering from her recurrence of backbreaker. He didn't even have the funds to buy the materials to make a new sand reader. He wasn't even sure what a monthly budget would be…
This was why he had savings. He knew the Grimm would strike him down and all that time he spent teaching at the university, he made sure to put some money away.
...Now he wasn't sure how long it would last.
I choose to be happy.
It would be easy to let his worries spiral him back down into depression. And he did have numerous worries. Finances, if there would be enough food for the winter since Oscar hadn't been planting and harvesting all year, how to get back to work without a basin, if he even had an office, how many clients could he take without a basin before he was exhausted, how negotiations between the revolutionaries and the emperor were going and what that meant, if the Grimm would start effecting that or stay dormant with all the aftershocks still going through his life from the winter….
No. He would focus on the positive. He had Oscar. He had Qrow. He had support, a place to live, a craft he still loved, options even if they were minimal. He had to focus on that first.
He went around the building to the ramp in back. Maria wasn't at the stairs like she often was, but she did have to bustle around to check on things, get repairs if she could, etc. So Ozpin stood at the base of the stairs and took a deep breath.
He'd made it his assignment. He would head out every day for the express reason of needing to use the stairs. This was his practice. He'd eventually have to climb four flights.
Cane. Rail. Hop. Lift.
Ozpin couldn't exactly say he had the relative speed he did before backbreaker. Nor was he anywhere near comfortable or confident. But he could say that every day it was a little easier.
A little.
At least his good leg was certainly getting more muscle to lift himself up all the time. And since it was still early summer, the heat and the work getting up the stairs left him sweating, but that was an aspect of summer in Haven that Ozpin had adjusted to years ago. He just didn't have to like it.
At the top of the stairs he let out a breath and took a moment to collect himself, cool off, and rest. Then it was down the hall. A jingle of keys and finally he was home and could rest. He stepped in and smiled to see Qrow there, cutting vegetables at the table and a skillet on the stove.
Ozpin opened his mouth to say hello, but Qrow held up a finger, gesturing with his head to the back.
Brows raised, Ozpin hobbled behind the privacy screen to see Oscar in bed, asleep.
He retreated to the table and took his usual seat, taking down a knife from the wall and cutting the potatoes.
"I take it," he said softly, "Oscar exhausted himself in the gardens?"
Qrow scowled horribly. "No," he replied. "How do you like your murder, Oz?"
Ozpin blinked. "Murder?"
Qrow sighed, putting down his knife and clenching his fists. "One of the tenants was a complete asshole. From what Oscar was sobbing, he had to explain what it was like in the palace and explain how one of the sayers up there was killed."
"I… what?"
"Oscar wasn't clear, he was too busy being upset," Qrow said. "But one of the soothsayers up there helped him out. She died. He had to explain that to her courter."
"Brothers…"
"Yeah. Asshole didn't take it well," Qrow released and clenched his fists again. "Got physical with Oscar. I found him on the steps, curled around his gunshot wound."
Ozpin sucked in a breath, aghast. "Who?"
"Blond kid upstairs. Maria's currently yelling some sense into him." Qrow looked Ozpin in the eyes. "I get it. Murder's not your thing. It's reserved for your sister just so you can survive. But how should I break his legs?"
Ozpin didn't answer, trying to work through his anger. "A tenant of this building laid hands on Oscar?"
He took a deep breath.
Then another.
Was this the Grimm? Or more aftershocks? Or random? He didn't have sands to read.
"Oz, breath."
"I am trying," he said with rigidly tight control of his voice to stay quiet, "to work through my anger. I barely know Oscar's side of the story, let alone what the other boy has to say. But right now I just want to shout." He took another deep breath, more slowly and with more rigid control. He got up and started to pace, unable to really contain all the energy that was surging through him.
Brothers.
Brothers of Light and Dark.
He didn't know what to do with himself. He wanted to shout. He wanted to go up to that tenant and give some sharp words and cutting remarks. He wanted to… He didn't know what he wanted. All this feeling was useless because he didn't have the full story, and he refused to let his instinctual reaction dictate that he do something foolish. That might end up playing into the Grimm, for all he knew.
He couldn't think straight.
No one would harm his son.
Qrow put a hand on his shoulder and Ozpin pulled away harshly. Then he took another deep breath.
"Sorry," he said, softly. "You're trying to help and I'm just so…"
"I get it," Qrow replied. "You want to call down the Brother of Light's fye and turn that bastard into the Brother of Dark's filth."
"I don't know what I want," Ozpin hissed. "I won't act without thought. Oscar didn't give you a clear picture. All we know is that he was hurt and retraumatized. That's enough to make me…. Make me…."
Qrow nodded.
"But that might not be the whole story. March off like this would be a very bad idea."
"I can still break his legs."
Ozpin turned. "Is that a Mistralan tradition?"
"Proud street tradition."
Ozpin gave a flat glare. "And here you said you weren't a man of ceremony."
"Tch," Qrow snorted. "I like you sarcastic. But no, breaking legs isn't ceremony. It's survival. It tells the other person not to mess with you. It sets a boundary."
"We will do no such thing. We don't have a full story. And if Maria is with him, it won't be his legs that are broken."
"You've got to do something with all that energy, Oz. You'll wake Oscar."
"I know," he hissed. "But I don't know what to do."
Qrow thought for a second before nodding. "I'll go get Ruby. She can stay and look after Oscar for a while. You need to shout, we can do that in my apartment."
"I.. what?"
"I'm getting Ruby. Oscar won't be alone."
Ozpin said bitingly, "You expect me to climb two flights of stairs."
Qrow gave a shrug and a grin. "It will burn some of that energy off."
Ozpin didn't have the words to respond.
In a few moments Ruby came down, looking serious and nodded. "Go work off that anger, Professor," Ruby said. "I'll look after Oscar. I'll tell him that you're off pacing so that you won't wake him."
He turned to glare at Qrow. "I should be here," he said. "I don't want Oscar waking up without-"
"Come on, Oz," Qrow said, guiding him out the door. "At this point you'll bite his head off when he needs you calm, and you're not calming down."
"I can control-"
"I'd say you can't. You're not doing a good job controlling your volume."
"I beg your-"
"First flight of stairs."
Ozpin huffed and without thought tackled the challenge of the stairs. Qrow stayed a few steps behind him, ready to catch if necessary, but let him do it himself, and through his fury, he couldn't help but love the man.
"I fail to see how going up to your apartment-"
"Trust me, Oz, you need to burn that anger and you'll be screaming in my place."
"Qrow, will you let me finish a-"
"Next flight of stairs."
This flight was more tiring than the last, and for a brief moment, Ozpin felt pride that he'd made it. But then he saw a smug smile across Qrow's face and he just scowled.
"Oh wonderful," he said with dry sarcasm, "you've tortured me by sending me up stairs. Now what are you going to do burn through all this-"
"Let me open my door."
"Qrow."
Once inside, Ozpin resumed pacing, only this time with more room. Given that there wasn't much aside from the stove, the cobbled together table, and a pair of mattresses and a few crates against the walls.
"Now," Qrow said. "I am going to help you burn through that anger."
"Oh, do tell."
"Ever heard of angry sex?"
Everything in Ozpin's mind skidded to a halt. "I'm sorry, what?"
Then Qrow was kissing him fiercely and Ozpin finally had a focus for all the energy he didn't know what to do with.
They lay together on the mattress, covered in dried sweat and love liquids. Ozpin listened to Qrow's heartbeat as his lover gently traced patterns along his back with a fingertip.
"I didn't realize you had mattresses," he said.
"Sorters are going through all sorts of things from the fires and abandoned homes," Qrow replied. "I've been leaving Ruby with the crows. This is her seventh year of apprenticeship. Normally, she'd be assigned to a different post or given a post of her own. I can't really do that, so I'm either with you and Oscar or out scouting things. I felt it was about time that we had a mattress to sleep on instead of cots."
"Hn." Ozpin stayed in the moment, letting himself just be. It was full evening now, and he needed to get moving. See to Oscar, start getting a better idea of things and focus on helping his son. He idly traced a finger along Qrow's chest before finally taking a deep breath. He kissed Qrow and sat up, stretching what he could and reaching for his clothes.
"Hang on," Qrow said. "I should have a clean towel around here somewhere." He got up with ease, dug around the crates to pull out a threadbare towel and then went to a washbasin in the corner that Oz hadn't noticed and dumped it in and wrung it out.
Feeling more clean and a great deal calmer, Ozpin and Qrow headed back to the hall.
"I should hit you," Oz said lightly. "You've made me climb two flights, commenced with some vigorous exercise, and now expect me to climb down two flights of stairs."
"You didn't mind coming down on my-"
"Qrow."
"Hehe. Sorry." His smug smile was completely unrepentant and Ozpin couldn't really stay mad. It did take two to dance.
The first flight of stairs was difficult. Qrow stayed ahead of him, once again to catch him if he stumbled. Oz was panting by the end of it and for the second flight he just leaned on Qrow and let him do all the work.
Oscar was awake, quiet, and with Ruby by the stove, cooking dinner. It smelled bland without the herbs that no one had thought to plant, so focused on food as many had been, but Ozpin just went over to his son, held out an arm, and even though he was approaching seventeen, Oscar just settled into a hug. Ozpin glanced at Qrow, and his lover nodded, taking Oscar's place to help finish getting dinner. Ozpin guided Oscar to their chairs.
"You can speak of it, or leave it," he said softly. "Whatever you need. The two of us have much healing to do, and not just of the body. We need to heal our minds as well. In Vale, we have healers for that, to counsel those who have faced traumas as we have. I've not seen the like here in Mistral, but your focus on family would likely be what's needed in most situations. Whatever you need."
Oscar nodded, and just stared for a while before sighing. He explained first more of what he'd experienced at the palace, much of which they'd been through before. A horrifying vision of constant demands for saying the war, ignorance of the making that was being done, and the continued restrictions that were placed on them without most being aware of what was going on.
And he explained a young lady named Pyrrha. What she'd done, and the price she had most likely paid.
"James said she'd gone back to Argus," Oscar said, holding hands with Oz. "She hadn't." Oz gave a comforting squeeze. "Her courter is in the building. He didn't believe me."
"Oh Oscar," Ozpin said sadly. "You didn't have to be the one to explain…"
"Who else would?"
"Young Miss Belladonna, any of the other apprentices," Ozpin replied, then sighed. "We can't change that. That young man is hurting, but he had no right to take that pain out on you."
"I'm… I'm not fine, but…" Oscar shook his head. "When he said Pyrrha's name it just… brought up everything."
"That's not exactly a surprise, kid," Qrow said, coming over with plates. Ruby sped by to drag over some small tables to set up an improvised table so that they didn't have to move. "We got you out of there and ever since, you've been focused on getting up and moving, helping your dad, getting home, getting back to any kind of normal. I don't need to be a Valean healer to say you haven't really had to think about that filth at the palace."
"If you wish," Ozpin said, "and only if you wish, we can spend some time each day talking about a piece of what happened in the palace. We can try and face the time in small bursts so that they are no longer so powerful over you."
"I… I'm not sure," Oscar said. "I'm just so numb right now."
Ozpin nodded. "We'll discuss it tomorrow, after you've had time to think and be in the garden."
Oscar immediately paled. "I can't work in the garden," he said. "If he comes out there…"
"You can't let him control your life," Ruby said. "If he forces you to hide away, if he forces you away from what you love, then you're letting him control you like that general did. You're free of that now. It won't be easy. But you can't let him run your life."
"And who said you'd be alone?" Qrow said. "I'll be by your side for the rest of the week. If he's a problem, he'll have to go through me."
"Or Yang," Ruby added. "Family defends each other. You won't be alone. Not until you feel better able to handle it and tell us so."
Oscar stared at them, his eyes shining. "Thanks," he said softly.
Ozpin smiled.
Ozpin walked Oscar and Qrow down to the garden, as he had every morning since the unfortunate incident with the rude and now grieving tenant. Today, he had decided to walk down and see Leo. It was time to knuckle down and see if he still had an office. If he didn't….
One step at a time. Don't worry over something that might not be.
Qrow had mentioned that Leo was back to being a litigator, arguing with the emperor about draft ages and the like. Oscar had mentioned something similar. So much had happened while he'd been unconscious and fever-racked.
His usual walk was markedly different than how it once had been. Along each block it seemed buildings just were no longer there. Their remnants either already cleaned out or in the process of being cleaned out, with the revolutionaries tilling the empty lots and planting what could grow quickly in the remaining season. Each lot was subdivided and labeled to the surrounding buildings or nearby apartments. Business never bothered with gardens, since most brought meals from home. Patrollers, dressed in revolutionary uniform, would walk by with friendly greetings, despite the fact that Ozpin was Valean, and checking in the stores with simple questions of what was needed.
Reminders were posted for some sort of election that was coming up, and it was just so…
Different.
Many shops were boarded up, owners long since fled from the encroaching war. Including the restaurant at the base of Leo's building. Ozpin frowned. He'd been hoping to ask one of the servers or patrons to go up the four flights to get Leo. In a fury, Ozpin may have been able to climb two flights, but it had exhausted him. He didn't dare try to climb the four that would get him to his office and Leo next door.
Assuming it was still his office.
So he waited in the stairwell, where most residents of the building came through, in hopes of catching one. For first thing in the morning, many people were often coming through. Given Ozpin's complete and utter lack of speed when ascending, he usually was able to greet fellow renters for the start of the day.
It was an hour later that someone came in. Ozpin greeted him politely, standing, and asked if the building manager could be fetched. Almost a half hour later, Leo came hurrying down the stairs.
"Oz! It is you! Brothers, look at you!" Leo's joy was almost infectious. "Oh, the last time I saw you, you were…" then broke off.
"Bleeding and unconscious. I know," Ozpin said gently. "Backbreaker decided I needed to be revisited. I am unable to climb all the way up."
"Oh don't worry about that! Come on, we can talk in the tavern." Leo was still smiling.
"I see that it's closed now?"
Leo nodded, "Yes, well, you're Valean. You know what the Emperor was doing all winter to make life harder."
"Unfortunately I've been learning," Ozpin replied as Leo took down a pair of stools to sit. "Half my savings taken to fund the war, funds inaccessible even if I was conscious, regular searches when on the streets from what I've heard. Thankfully I didn't experience that last one."
"Oh, it's been awful," Leo agreed. "Most Valeans and Vacuoans faced even more penalties for their nationalities. Extra taxes for being foreigners, many were deported. Or at least the Emperor claimed they were deported. Most knew to hide by then."
Ozpin shook his head. "I can both hardly imagine, and yet I can imagine all too well."
Leo nodded, running a hand through his thick gray mane of hair and beard. "They had me paying extra taxes for having foreign businesses in my building. It was utterly deplorable, completely ridiculous."
Ozpin had a rather sinking feeling. "I will admit, I had hoped to reopen. How much do I owe for the seasons I was ill?"
His old friend looked at him, jaw dropped. "Reopen? You plan on soothsaying again? Here?"
"If there's room on the second floor-"
"There is! Oh praise the Brothers, yes, I'll have you back! Forget about back rent. I put a moratorium on that when the Emperor started taxing my tenants here, just so that they could keep surviving!" Leo absolutely beamed. "I barely have anyone still here, and they're all Mistralan. With the rebellion that swept through, I've let them know I was going to start collecting rent again, half price. I've been ignoring repairs from the fire and from the winter just so that those I have can stay. I've got an urchin I've been paying to feed the crows, I'll see if any of her friends would be free to bring down all your furniture and files."
"Feeding the crows?" Ozpin asked. "What of the crowmaster?"
"He couldn't make money off the usual mail, and I couldn't supplement. I tried for about a month but… Then came the new law about taxes for foreigners…" Leo shook his head. "This doesn't even get into the litigation and how things have been since the farmer soldiers moved in."
"Oscar mentioned that you were asked to litigate again."
"I sent quite a few crows," Leo said. "To be in front of the bar again…" Leo shook his head fiercely. "I can't do that again. But you should see my office. I've been going over all the laws for the past five Emperors, looking for precedence. We've needed a proper legal codex for centuries now, instead of just the whim of some person on the throne. Litigators have made some progress, at least in terms of civil suits and the like, but…"
"I take it the Emperor never liked being questioned?"
"Ha! That isn't even a tenth part of it." Leo leaned back, looking older and more tired than he had in years. "The laws are so contradictory depending on who's ruling that they have no problem using that contradiction to always rule in their own favor. Don't get me started on that swine of an imperial litigator. Or the fact that the judge is always the Emperor when you can even make it to a hearing." He sighed. "The younger litigators have been talking to the farmer soldiers and their commanders. There's talk of how to run things and they have samples of an actual codex of laws. One of them gave me a copy last Equinox. I tell you, Oz, I just about cried. Clear, easy to follow, room to grow, common sense…."
"Thank you, for fighting on our behalf," Ozpin said, "even if only in terms of research. I assure you, it's appreciated."
Leo gave a hollow laugh. "Not like I've had much else to do with no tenants." He gave a small smile. "So, when are you back? I can probably have your furniture down by the end of the week. You and Oscar take a few days to get settled and organized.."
Ozpin held up a hand. "Alas, my sand basin is no longer with me."
His old friend scoffed. "Oh yes. That. Soldiers coming here first light before I'd even opened the building to demand I turn it over or fire their muskets. No warning, just showed up! No chance at all for me to petition or file a-" he shook his head again. "Sorry, it's just so good to see you again. You don't need me blathering on like back when I was teaching at the university."
"Oh, I'm certain many of your students learned a great deal."
"Hmm, I know they liked the Valean Codex when we studied it, the one from before the civil war. They could never make sense of Vacuoan, since it seems to change with every election. And Atlas doesn't have any kind of codex. Just dictates of the military." Leo ran a hand ruefully through his thick gray hair. "So you can't open?"
Ozpin sighed and made a choice. "I can do mornings. Palmistry is an Atlas tradition, but it is more burdensome without a sand reader. And it is summer. Also, Oscar won't be able to assist me yet."
"He okay?"
"Not yet. But he will be."
"Cursed army," Leo muttered. "What happened?"
"He was shot."
"Fye and filth…"
"So you can see why I do hope to open soon."
Leo nodded. "I'll talk to that urchin of mine. I'll have your things brought down to the second floor by the end of the week. Take all the time you need. I'll start charging when you have your first customer."
Ozpin nodded and wondered where he'd find the money to advertise that he was open. Regardless, it was time to head home.
Qrow didn't trust just anybody to move Oz's office material down two flights of stairs, not after the white witch bitch had found him and pushed him down four flights of stairs. Instead he grabbed Yang, Ruby, Marrow, and Penny to be the brute force of the labor. Ruby took sketches of everything and where they should go, Penny and Marrow taking everything apart and he and Yang lugging it all down. The five of them took two days to move everything down, and Oz came on the third day to point and say what needed to go where. The second floor office was bigger - not in the main room but in the side room, meaning the desk and basin supplies weren't piled on top of each other. The space was flipped compared to upstairs, and Qrow watched his lover turn around, constantly reorienting himself as he remembered the side room was on the right and not the left, etc. He lit incense to clear out the air and charge the space and gave everyone tea blends for all their hard work, expressing his repeated gratitude.
Qrow left him to fidget with his new office and went up to the roof. The access was a stairwell on the far side of the building, different from the one most of the tenets used, and he checked out the aviary the urchins were feeding. The crows there were in a right state, but he checked their tags and saw they knew their stuff. A twenty minute conversation with Leo and the aviary was his.
At home he talked to Ruby. "You're in your seventh year now," he said. "You're supposed to be working solo at a separate branch, see how well you do on your own. You can do that now."
"That's amazing," Ruby said. "Which one should I take?"
That was the question. Qrow didn't want to not be in the same building as his lover, but he also had Oz's son to take into account, and he wasn't sure where his priorities were supposed to be. He decided the two would alternate for a while. Once Oscar was ready to get back to work he'd take over the office aviary - those birds needed a lot of work. Stupid things only ever went to aviaries, instead of going to the person they were supposed to.
Ruby laughed. "Crows aren't supposed to go directly to the person they have a message for," she said. "They're supposed to go to the aviary that person is at. We deliver messages all the time here."
"Yeah," Qrow said, "That's 'cause other birds suck."
Ruby giggled. "We'll have to register our birds eventually, you know."
"Yeah," Qrow said with a sigh. "When the revolutionaries have their filth together and we know even something as basic as what Midsummer Feast is going to look like."
"Oh, you didn't see?" Ruby asked, getting up. They had a complete dining set now, salvaged from Marrow and his new job, as well as an absolutely tiny bookshelf for Ruby to keep their files for the aviary. She moved over to the shelf and sifted through the papers before finding what she wanted, unfolding a flyer of some kind and showed it to him.
Qrow laboriously worked his way through reading it. "Voting?" he said. "For Midsummer?"
"Yeah," Ruby said, sitting back across from him. "I mean, the birth announcements and festival of light, those are fine, but what do the kids swear to for baptism? Who do they swear to? That's the part nobody knows what to do with. Also the list of births for the last year are locked up at the palace, so everyone needs to resubmit their new births so they can have an accurate roster, and it's only like, a month away. The Revolutionaries are running around crazy trying to make it as good as they can."
"Really? And who told you this?" Qrow asked.
"Weiss and Blake mostly. Blake's parents are a couple of burroughs over, she says, as Faunus Honorum they're talking to all the burrough leaders they can find, litigators, clerks, even printers to try and set up a functioning government while the Revolutionaries are trying to negotiate their way into the palace. Things are going bad up the mountain but they don't want that to ruin what's going on down here. So long as the Revolutionaries are in control they want to train as many people as they can to govern so that people can step up once everything settles."
She looked down. "Weiss keeps trying to get a crow into her sister Winter at the palace. She hasn't gotten any replies yet, and she's getting really worried. All anyone knows is what Oscar and Blake said, and…"
"Yeah," Qrow said, nodding. A natural pause drew out before both of them took a deep breath. "Blake's parents are here, you said?"
"Yeah, I guess they're the leaders of Menagerie."
"That nothing-island off the coast?"
"Well, not nothing-enough," Ruby said. "They were at Southpoint when the rebellion - I mean, revolution, started. They were part of the Vale detachment when they met to talk peace-treaties; that's what Yang said. Then they were with the revolutionaries, and now they're trying to help structure a government. Blake says she barely sees them, right now she's just trying to walk around the burrough, get what information she can, and then funnel them to her parents. With Yang working for the patrol now she wants to get a job at something."
"Who doesn't, these days?" Qrow asked, scoffing.
"Not like that," Ruby said. "I mean, the revolutionaries are taking whoever they can get for tilling and farming, sorting and scrapping, cleaning and rebuilding. That's exactly the kind of day-labor jobs everyone wants. Blake wants something that will keep her ear to the ground for her parents."
"She tried joining Robyn and her girls?"
"That's the lady who kept visiting you over the winter, right? The one who was helping you find the Professor's sister?"
"Don't call her that," Qrow said, voice dark. "She's not Oz's family. Not after everything she did."
"Wow," Ruby said. "Oscar was right, family really is everything here in Mistral."
"You're damn right it is," Qrow said, sitting back. "Family is all you get. Abandoning it is worse than murder - especially in the streets. Blood's the only thing guaranteed to stick with you, thick and thin, high and low. Raven didn't do that. Worse, she had no reason to leave outside of her own fear. You've got to go to family when that happens, and she didn't. She's dead to me. The white witch bitch is even worse - she didn't just abandon Oz, she tried to kill him, curse him, ruin him. I can't think of anything more disgusting than that."
"That… explains so much," Ruby said, leaning forward and putting her head in her hands. "So, then, what about someone like Oscar? He's adopted right?"
"Oscar is a miracle," Qrow said. "If your family dies you have nothing and no one to look out for you. Raven and I didn't, Oscar didn't, no one does. Orphaned kids are shunned and left to the streets. You can adopt someone, but if they aren't blood they're not family. Not really. There's a distance there that you're expected to keep. There's a reason he calls Oz by name, or the professor."
"But, he also calls him his father."
"And that's the hell of it," Qrow said, wistful smile crossing his features briefly. "He managed to find a guy who didn't care about that distance. Any kid in an orphanage would kill to have that kind of luck."
Ruby took a slow breath, processing a part of Mistral culture.
"It's different, I guess," she said, frowning. "In Vale everything is about the community. Orphans aren't shunned, they're raised by the entire village or city. Before apprenticeship we're expected to spend a year working in an orphanage to show them what proper role models are supposed to look like. But then, I guess there were a lot more orphans in Vale compared to here. The civil war, and then the Mistral war, it took a lot of parents."
"War always does," Qrow said, feeling a need to drink. He glanced at the flyer instead. "Do they even have a plan for Midsummer?"
"That's what the voting is for," Ruby said. "They've been doing it since that battle a few months ago. I don't know a lot, because I was holed up at that bolthole with you and the Professor. You can get one of the news sheets, they'll probably know more."
Qrow made a face at the idea of reading for fun, and the next day he was knocking on Robyn's door instead.
"Hey! You're back!" Robyn said, darting up to slap his back and he doing the same. "You survived!"
"More or less," Qrow said.
"Joanna! You've got the front, when May comes back tell her to help Fionna with the next poster - we want them going up tonight! Come on, join me upstairs, I'm sure you've got a bunch of stories. How are your nieces?"
"Wanted to ask about this voting thing. Ruby had a poster but both of us have been below ground for a while."
"Oh, that'll be a quick explanation. You know about Midsummer?"
"That the list of new births for the year is trapped in the palace and no one knows what to do for the baptisms."
"Yeah, that. Okay, so the Belladonnas - they're these bigwigs from Menagerie, don't ask me why they're here, I've given up figuring out how and who are with the Revolutionaries - the Belladonnas made a proposal for voting blocks. I think we've got it down to three proposals now, and the one that wins the most votes is the way we do the baptism."
"Kinda weird to vote on a ceremony as important as baptism," Qrow said, a little skeptical.
"Says you and everyone I've talked to, but no one has a better idea on how to handle the holiday. We're barely going to please the Light Brother if we can't get the birth lists and everyone up the mountain is holding their breath for that. The least we can do is keep all our human affairs vaguely running smoothly, and that means making the twelve year-olds apprentice-ready and taking their vows. Vowing to who and vowing what, well, like I said, we're down to about three."
Qrow was skeptical. "What are the options?"
"Honestly, shadow beard, don't you even read?"
"Not if I can help it."
"You're a crowmaster! Ugh, never mind. Okay, the question is who to swear to: the Revolutionaries, some city official they can find, or still hold to the Emperor. Though why anyone still wants to swear loyalty to that old sack of bones is beyond me. Second is the vows themselves: option one is work hard, work in serenity, work in peace, and work in loyalty to Mistral. That one's stupid, it's just the old vows and replacing the emperor with Mistral. The second takes one vow from each of the four kingdoms: work hard, think critically, work in loyalty to Mistral, and something from Vacuo. It's a nice sentiment but no one's going to like something so cosmopolitan. Third one is my favorite: work in peace, change in strife, and follow rules but don't be ruled."
Qrow snorted. "Yeah, you would like that one."
"Stuff it, bird brain."
The two laughed, sitting and leaning back.
"Still no word on the curse bitch," Robyn said after a pause. "It's been six months since she was last seen. I have to assume she's bolted."
Qrow reached back to the knife at the small of his back. "She'd better not have," he said, voice low and dangerous. "Last thing anyone needs is her breathing more curses into the world."
"How about the guy?" Robyn asked. "The one she pushed? I saw him at the bolthole and he didn't look very good..."
Qrow appreciated the discretion as he answered. "Better every day. He's gained a lot of weight back but he's still rail thin. Got his apprentice back, too, finally. Kid's still healing. Both of them are a sight, the whole building was speechless when they finally came back."
"Healing?" Robyn said, lifting a leg to cross it. "What happened?"
Qrow's look was absolutely dark. "The all-mighty general shot him."
Robyn's eyes doubled in size, straightening in her chair. "That sentence needs a few details, shadow beard," she said, leaning forward.
Qrow snorted. "The apprentice got drafted, and the general learned he was a soothsayer, and he dragged him to the workhouse."
"Workhouse?"
"That's what the kid called it. I showed you some of the crows, right? Had all of them in this big room doing readings for the soldiers to tell them what to do. Now I barely understand soothsaying, but both the professor and the kid said the general was doing it all wrong, forcing the sayers to break some pretty big taboos. The kid didn't want any part of it, kept refusing to do anything, and the general finally got fed up and put him to trial in front of all the soothsayers. Shot the kid, opened fire on the soothsayers, and all hell broke loose."
"Fye and filth," Robyn cursed. "When did this happen?"
"Day of the battle."
"Dark Brother's filth, is that why the palace was on fire?"
"Don't know," Qrow said, "But that's my guess. You know what's going on with the soothsayers up there? Like if they're in prison or something? I know Oz is worried, some of his former apprentices are up there."
"Qrow, I didn't even know they were shot at," Robyn said, leaning forward. "What do you mean by breaking taboos?"
"Oh, I am not the person to ask," Qrow said. "They keep explaining it to me but it never makes complete sense. You ever had a reading?"
"No," Robyn said. "Never needed one - it's just fortune telling, isn't it?"
"We all thought that before the war, didn't we?" Qrow said with a smile, shaking his head. "The professor gave me a reading, back when Yang first showed up. Damnedest thing I ever saw. Those sand bowls and fulcrums, you just sort of assume the weight of your hands make the string move, but then you watch it be made for real and you realize it's so much more than that. I just wanted to know what job to get to keep Yang fed, but I've seen copies of some of their other readings - beautiful as fye, let me tell you. The professor says it's not a fortune, it's a story. They read the story and then tell you what you need to hear to get the best ending. Something like that. That's not what the general was doing."
"Then what was he doing?"
"Fortune telling, and not in the good way. The professor's the better one to ask. The kid, too, he's got the gift. Instead of reading a story they were being used as calculators or something. That's not the way to soothsay, and somehow that crosses a line somewhere and makes it taboo."
"Doesn't sound too bad," Robyn said, trying to follow along.
"That's 'cause I'm filth at explaining this. But crossing that line makes the taboo a curse. The almighty-general has been throwing curses around, either accidentally or on purpose, and both the professor and his apprentice say that's why the war went as bad as it did."
"You can't really believe that," Robyn said, disbelieving.
Qrow shrugged his shoulders. "You explain why the revolutionaries were revolutionaries, all while we were told it was a Valean invasion. You explain how the imperials lost every battle and ground all in the span of a season until only Haven was left. You explain why the emperor did so many stupid things over the winter. He's an idiot, sure, but his advisors aren't. So why?"
"That's… that's too convenient. There's no way a handful of soothsayers cursed the war."
"I've seen what those curses look like in the sands," Qrow said. "It isn't pretty. And the white witch bitch started all of it."
"You… you really believe all of this," Robyn said, disbelieving.
"Have a reading," Qrow said. "Ask him the most personal question you can think of, something no one would know, something with a story to it, and watch him pluck it out of the sands. Then see if you don't believe him or the kid that the general is breaking all of Remnant to win his war."
"Okay, hold on, back up," Robyn said, hand raised as she reached over to grab a bit of paper. "So there's the stuff soothsayers do, and there's the stuff the general is making them do. It's two different things, and the general thing is creating curses and perpetuating all the fye and filth we've been dealing with? Where does the white witch bitch fit in? What do you mean she started it?"
"Ask Oz," Qrow said. "I really can't do it justice."
"... I think I will," Robyn said, frowning. "You got my attention."
Author's Notes: And now there's a new prong in the recovery - on top of healing Oz and Oscar, now Robyn can maybe heal the reputation of soothsayers. More on that next chapter.
I feel like 90 percent of this fourth arc is just healing our boys after roughing them up so much, but it works out if you get scenes like Qrow poking Oz upstairs and then doing stuff. That's a thing people do in relationships, right? We also get another big of cultural difference between Mistral and Vale. We've touched on how families are the most important unit in Mistral but here Qrow spells it out via both Raven's abandonment, Salem's deeds, and Oscar's pure luck. Ruby, by contrast talked about how a village is the most important unit in Vale and everyone does their part to lift the people around them up. Maybe it's just us, but we liked it.
Also, Leo. We don't really give him a lot to do, but he always makes an impression of a full life.
Next chapter: Midsummer Feast. How different is it from last year?