Many months later...

Ozpin strolled down the streets of Vale, deep in thought. Places came and went. Before the people even settled in Vale, it was the hunting grounds for a quaint hunter (of animals, not the Grimm). An odd fellow, quite fond of his trinkets. He supposed oddness was relative; relativity was a point that shifted all the time. And time changed everything, except him. It couldn't change him anymore.

He stepped up to the small coffee stand. He looked through the menu, deciding on having just his coffee for this afterno-

"Wait a minute… You're... You're… You're Headmaster Ozpin of Beacon Academy!" The man operating the stand exclaimed.

"Ahem…" Ozpin cleared his throat, "You would be correct, may I have a medium coffee with milk and three sugars?"

He grinned, "Coming right up! And it's on the house for the man who trains our heroes!" Ozpin frowned, pulling out his wallet.

"No, I would rather pay for th-"

Then he felt it.

A faint pulse.

He couldn't believe it, there was no way. But he was sure of his senses.

He wasted no time, quickly reaching into his pocket to grab his wallet-

That's strange.

Wasn't he just… holding it?

He knew he didn't drop it. His reflexes- fine-tuned over the eternal millennia- would have kicked in if he got pick-pocketed. No matter, he had a tracking device in it for the once-in-a-lifetime moments like these. He took out his scroll, the nearest contact he had near his wallet's location was… Qrow on his break. Well, his salary at Beacon more than made up for it, although he figured it was better safe than sorry to figure out why it wasn't on him. He opened up the scroll and prepared to send him a message.

Ozpin smiled gently at the man holding his coffee, "If you wouldn't mind, I think I'll take you up on your offer."

As always, he was hanging out with his best (and only) friend, Ruby. She had… matured (kinda?) over time. Well, she didn't go on any more cookie rampages (which didn't exist because the rules said that anyone who talked about these supposed "cookie rampages" got five smacks from Crescent Rose and a scratch behind the ears in public), so that was nice. She didn't really hang out with anyone but him and her family anymore. Call him selfish, but he didn't discourage this behavior like he probably should have, since it meant more Ruby. And more Ruby was good.

A couple of times, Ruby had offered to let him stay at the island she lived, Patch. However Wynion didn't think that her family would be too welcoming of his personality-

"Why do these things stay so soft? Even when your hair gets all dried up or greasy, your ears are so soft." Ruby wondered. They were both on a bench in the park, Ruby sitting absently petting his ears with one hand, and Wynion lying directly next to her, taking up the rest of the space.

It had become something of a routine, although it was still quite embarrassing. Wynion still hated his ears, but didn't mind as long as they were being useful. It felt nice too. Unfortunately, his ears became something of a defense mechanism for Ruby. If she discovered he did something she didn't like (such as pick-pocketing), she tended to give him a scratch behind the ears. And it just was embarrassing for her to call so much attention to his faunus ears.

Ruby fingered the cut on his right ear. It had scarred up-

"Hey! Are you listening?" Ruby pouted.

"You don't need me to listen to know that your version of the hamster-ball great-sword is a terrible idea."

"NO IT ISN'T! I TOLD YOU THAT THE STRUCTURAL INSTABILITY…" He listened and his mouth moved on autopilot as he talked to her. Ruby had infected him with a deep curse throughout the times they spent together. A love of weapons. It wasn't something he chose to bear, but something he had learned. God have mercy on him.

They talked about weapons as the evening light waned. The birds were chirping, crows crying, Wynion and Ruby were in another argument about weapons. The end to another great day.

"-OH YEAH? WELL, SERVO MOTOR THIS!" Ruby was… argh… he needed a defense against the dreaded ear scratching.

"Ruby? The hell are you doing here?"

He was drunk. Well, he was always drunk, but he couldn't believe that his nephew wasn't lying when she said that she had friends outside of her family. They always assumed that she went into Vale because she wanted to check out the weapons there and was too embarrassed to admit otherwise.

Huh. The more you know.

He was even more confused because he thought that Ozpin had sent him here to retrieve his wallet. Not to get the brat. He checked his scroll to make sure.

...

Yeah, it was to retrieve his wallet (Oz couldn't just admit that the damn thing fell out of his pocket).

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby stopped… doing whatever she was to the poor faunus boy and ran to hug him, "What are you doing here?"

"You first. Tell me if I should be concerned with you hanging out with a boy." Ruby blushed,

"It's not like that you miserable drunk!"

"Oh…? Then what is it like?" He turned his attention to the wolf kid, an evil grin splitting across his face, "Has he been taking advantage of you?"

"Yep!"

"I was just teas- Wait what?"

Ruby panicked when she saw the expression on his face starting to form, "N-no, not like that! I just pay for the food! UNCLE QROW IT WAS JUST A J-"

"Yeah yeah, I got it." His dark expression didn't change when he looked at the kid. He could talk about this later.

So this was her uncle Qrow huh? He was literally everything he expected, except being a bit younger than he imagined.

"So kid! What's your name?" The drunk approached him.

"Wynion," He didn't bother to get up from where he lay.

"So how long have the two of you been friends?" He had an easy grin, but something about it felt… dangerous. Ruby's apprehensive look didn't help the boy's nerves.

Wynion decided to take this a bit more seriously and sat up, "A bit less than a year." For some reason Qrow looked a bit surprised at this information, but his expression didn't change much.

"I see, how did you two become friends?"

"Can… Can you just ask her? It's a long story and I don't like telling it." The drunkard narrowed his eyes, but let it go.

"Do you know who I am?" Qrow was right in front of him now, and Ruby herself just a short pace away.

"Qrow Branwen, Hunter. Teacher. Uncle of Ruby. Drunk." Qrow shook his head, and gave Wynion a good whiff of his breath leaning in.

The stench of alcohol and regret.

"Nah," he whispered, "I'm the guy who's telling you, if I find out you hurt my niece, nobody's gonna find your body."

"Gotcha." He resisted the urge to push the huntsman away.

Qrow smiled, and gave the faunus some breathing room. Looking at them both his smile softened a bit. "Now uh, neither of you would have happened to have seen a wallet belonging to-"

Oh dear god. Ruby was giving him that look. That disappointed look she always gave him whenever he took out someone else's wallet. He could salvage this, the man was drunk. "Nope, haven't seen any…"

Oh no. Ruby… please don't.

And she walked right up to him with an open palm. Handing it to her would be an admission of guilt. As would running. However, he might be able to escape long enough for her to calm down. He had gotten pretty good at dodging her, it was time to put those skills to good use.

He darted forward-

And didn't even get a chance as he tripped on a rock and fell. The wallet slipped right out of his pocket, and he quickly snatched it back. He rolled on to his back to see Ruby giggling, "C'mon Wynnie! Give me the wallet!" She leaned down and tried to take it from his hands, so Wynion gave her the puppy eyes. He moistened his eyes, flattened his ears and stared into her soul.

Unfortunately for him, she had built up a good resistance to it. His secret weapon did absolutely nothing to his foe. The two wrestled for good a few seconds before he relented and let her take the wallet.

The red reaper finally got off and handed Qrow the wallet, who had a raised eyebrow watching them. The drunken huntsman ruffled Ruby's hair and put his scroll away, "It's getting pretty late, let's head back kiddo."

She smiled, "Okay! Bye Wynnie!" Ruby waved. Her demeanor was cheerful, but her silver eyes promised that the next time they met, he would severely regret having the audacity to run from her.

Wynion waved back, and decided to get a consolation prize. He gathered up the aura from his surroundings, and aimed it at Ruby's uncle. As he did so, he felt something, not the tell-tale sign that his aim was on his target's wallet, but something else.

It was some kind of weird influx of aura, different from the natural ones emanating from his body. He felt like he could just reach and take it from him, but Wynion knew better than to experiment right now. He located the drunk's wallet, and took it. He pocketed his loot and took a quick turn into the nearest alleyway, right into someone.

He fell back onto his ass, looking up to see the face of a man with silvery hair like his own. The eyes behind the rims looked amused.

Very amused.

WOO! I MANAGED TO WRITE THE ENTIRE CHAPTER OUT FOR ONCE. YEEEEEE!

So... I still have to re-watch the series. I haven't seen anything past Volume five I think. I've gotten to re-watch up to the middle of Volume three. I have a long fucking way to go.

Oh. You may have noticed a change in the listings with the characters. Huh. That's weird. What do those brackets mean?

Mmmph. I feel like there was something I was gonna say. Ah, well. I'll be editing this chapter a lot knowing me. I'll add it in later.

Oh right! I remembered just before I published this chapter. You may be wondering why the hurt/comfort tag was given since there has only been a minimal amount of that. Well, I am a practitioner in the school of belief that the late Monty Oum appeared to follow. Your characters need to build something up to lose first... Hehe...

Don't worry, I won't be wrecking everything or screwing everything up. It's just that I'm saying that the story will get rougher on the characters as it progresses. It's gonna be a story of ups and downs. Not only of ups and not only of downs.