During the time that Raven and Summer were spending together Tai began to grow rather bored in his classes. It was always fun to pester his partner with the most mundane of things, but ever since this punishment that Ozpin forced between her and Summer she now hung out with him less and less. Without his partner around he would need to find someone else to be a source of entertainment. As Tai yet again, for the umpteenth time since the punishment began, watches Raven help Summer eat her food, he drags his eyes over to the only other person who was also sitting at their table. Qrow was just enjoying his lunch while looking out into the distance at nothing in particular. Tai however mistakes this for boredom as well as he assumes that him and Qrow were in similar conditions.

'Wait a minute... Qrow looks just as bored as me.' Tai begins to hatch an idea in his head. 'Maybe I should try hanging out with Qrow. He seems pretty chill. Plus I don't really know all that much about him either.' Making up his mind Tai nods to himself which does catch his partner's attention.

"What's up with you?" Raven asks as she begins to eat her own lunch.

"I just thought of an excellent idea." Tai proclaims goofily as he points in a random direction for dramatic affect. Raven rolls her eyes, Summer giggles at his antics, and Qrow just ignores him.

"I can't even imagine what a fool like you would even think of." Raven tries to insult Tai, but Tai seems unfazed.

"What's your idea?" Summer asks as she eats more of her own meal.

"Me and Qrow are going to have some quality bonding time." Tai answers out proudly.

This causes Qrow to choke on his food as he starts to cough immediately. 'Damnit Misfortune! Why must you activate at the worst of times?!' He internally panics. Everyone looks over to Qrow in shock as Tai quickly hits Qrow on the back a few times before Qrow spits out his food. Qrow breathes heavily for a few moments as Summer is the first to respond.

"Qrow are you alright?! That looked pretty serious." Summer worries as her eyebrows furrow in concern.

"Yeah... I'm fine now... was just not expecting to suddenly have plans is all." Qrow responds through his breaths.

"Just be sure to be more careful next time alright?" This came from Raven as she tried to look uninterested, but Qrow could tell by her eyes that she was concerned for her brother.

"Is hanging out with me really that bad?" Tai jokingly asks.

"Kind of. You're kind of my last pick to hang out with from this group if I'm being honest." Qrow admits.

Tai deflates a little at this as Raven smirks to herself. "So you'd even hang out with me over Tai?" Raven asks.

"Yes Rave, I'd even hang out with you over Tai." Qrow plainly states. Qrow then focuses back on Tai. "Why would you even want to hang out with me anyways? I'm not exactly the life of the party you know."

"That's because Raven and Summer hang out all the time. I think us bros need to do something together as well." Tai answers.

"Tai you do remember that Raven is forced to spend time with me right?" Summer questions.

"Even so I feel like I don't even know my bro that much even though we're in the same team. That's why I want to hang out." Tai explains his reasoning.

"I don't know Tai, I'd rather just stay inside and polish Harbinger instead of hang out with you." Qrow taps the table with his fingers as he looks around every where but at Tai.

"What if I let you pick what we do?" Tai offers with a hopeful smile.

Qrow thinks about it for a moment as Tai and Summer give a hopeful look while Raven smiles wickedly as she knew what Qrow was going to choose. Qrow then smirks. "Alright. We have a deal. Pack a bag cause we'll be leaving immediately after class on Friday."

Summer and Tai both give Qrow a questioning look before Tai asks. "What will we be doing?"

"We're going on a hunt." Qrow responds.

"A hunt?" Tai repeats not understanding.

"We're gonna go into the great outdoors to hunt and camp out in the woods. Heck we may even do a bit of fishing if we find a body of water." Qrow explains.

"That... sounds... so manly! I didn't think you would pick anything cool, but it looks like I was wrong." Tai energetically responds.

'I was not expecting that kind of reaction.' Raven thinks in surprise. 'Most people would find it boring and just decline.'

"I know. This is how I used to have fun back in the tribe. There's nothing like hunting down your next meal and cooking it yourself." Qrow states with some confidence.

Summer then interrupts the two with a question of her own. "But where are you two even going to find the proper equipment for a camping trip?"

"Easy, we'll rent them out from the school." Tai states.

Qrow nods his head in agreement. "He's right. We can rent out a tent, some guns, and some fishing poles. Hell, we might even be able to rent out an airship for the weekend so we can find a good spot to hunker down during our little camping trip."

"Alright just making sure." Summer responds with a smile towards her partner. Summer was happy to see Qrow talking with Tai as the two usually seemed distant.

"This weekend is going to be so much fun!" Tai exclaims as a few other students look over to their table in slight irritation at all the noise that he was making.


The rest of the week went by pretty normally as Tai waited patiently for Friday to come. Once Friday arrived Tai had his bag packed and ready as he looked towards Qrow who also had his bag ready. "It's finally time!" Tai exclaims in Team STRQ's dorm.

"Come on, let's get going." Qrow waves towards Tai.

"Wait!" Summer calls out to the two as they freeze in place. "I hope you both have a good time." Summer tells them. "Also bring me back some of that meat as well." She adds on. "Oh! Also if you shoot a really good buck please get it mounted. It would be a cool trophy to have in here." Summer follows up once more.

"You got it boss lady." Tai responds with a salute.

"I'll be sure to remember." Qrow waves to his partner.

As the two close the door behind them Raven turns to face her leader. "Didn't really strike you as the wilderness type."

"I literally grew up in a tribe like you two." Summer responds. "Plus I'm a gun wielder, of course I'm going to know a thing or two about hunting wild game. Now come on we've got more target practice to get to."

Raven sighs. "Yes Summer."


"So did you get everything ready?" Tai asks as he walks with Qrow towards the front doors of the school.

"Sure did. I was able to rent out a few rifles for just the occasion along with fishing poles and some other supplies." Qrow responds as they exit the main building.

"So then where is all our stuff then?" Tai asks.

"It would all be over there." Qrow gestures both arms to the side with a confident smirk.

Tai turns to face the direction Qrow is gesturing as he sees an airship parked off to the side. "Oh no way dude! You actually got your hands on an airship?!" Tai excitedly exclaims.

"Sure did." Qrow smirks as he walks up and pats on the airship. "Normally us first years aren't allowed to rent out airships unless it's for missions, but it just so happened that Ozpin was around and he let me rent one out."

"He's such a cool guy letting us rent one of these bad boys out." Tai smiles in excitement. "Oh I can't wait!"

"Good, cause you're going to be the one driving." Qrow says as he throws Tai the keys.

Tai catches them before he begins to look nervous. "Are you sure about that Qrow? I don't really have any experience driving one of these things."

Qrow simply waves off Tai's concerns. "It's alright, I'll teach you as we go. I have a decent amount of experience driving these things."

"Then why aren't you driving then?" Tai points at Qrow.

"I'm not driving cause I don't need my semblance activating mid flight and crashing us in the middle of nowhere." Qrow responds.

"I guess that's a fair reason for not wanting to drive." Tai agrees.

"Now come on let's get going." Qrow presses a button on the side of the airship as it opens up to the inside of the ship.

Tai follows as her gets in and closes the door behind him. As Tai does a quick look around he sees some of the rented rifles and fishing poles resting against one of the walls while the other camping supplies were in the back.

"Quit gawking and get over here." Qrow cooly calls Tai over as he gestures towards the cockpit of the airship.

Tai walks over to the drivers seat and sits down. He quickly adjusts the seat for his size then looks over to Qrow. "Alright what do I do?"

Qrow turns over to Tai. "Listen closely, flying is pretty easy once you get used to it. First thing you got to do is start the engine. After that just push the emergency brake handle on your right to turn off the brakes. Then just use the handle to pull down to fly up, up for down, and left and right respectively. Lastly you need to use the gas pedal to actually start moving. Got it?"

"Right... seems simple enough." Tai nervously starts the engine and undo's the brake as he was instructed. After that he begins to step on the gas pedal as he pulls down. The airship starts jerking upwards at a quick rate as the airship is almost facing ninety degrees up.

"Ease up on the handle! You're pulling way too hard." Qrow instructs Tai.

Tai lets up as the airship balances out. "Alright. I think we're good now." Tai looks back over to Qrow. "Now what?"

"Now you turn the handle left to face towards the forests and after you have a clear shot just push your foot on the gas pedal to go forward." Qrow kicks his feet up on the dash board. "Also don't push the gas pedal too hard or you'll just burn through all of our gas."

"Got it." Tai does as he is instructed and the two set off to a smooth flight. As they get moving Tai calms down from his initial nerves as he can finally relax. "So how did you learn to fly?"

"Why do you ask?" Qrow leans his head over as he continues to lounge in his seat.

"Just trying to make small talk." Tai answers back.

Qrow scratches at his chin in thought for a moment. "Back in my tribe I've had to hijack an airship or two for some missions."

Tai looks over to Qrow with some surprise. "Doesn't that imply that you stole it?"

"If the government isn't going to use it then we might as well get some use out of it." Qrow shrugs.

"That's still pretty illegal." Tai responds.

"Listen Tai I didn't come here to talk about morality as I could honestly not give less of a crap about it. You asked me how I learned to fly and I answered. Plain and simple." Qrow becomes slightly irritated.

Tai puts his hands up in mock surrender. "Fine, fine, sorry for hitting a sour spot." The airship begins to dip as Tai quickly pulls it back up.

After that their is a quietness in the air as Tai continues to drive. Tai admires all of the lush green forests they were driving past as he thinks of something else. "It feels so different being the one driving one of these things."

"Tell me about it." Qrow agrees.

Tai mistook that for elaboration as he continues. "Well normally I'm used to taking airships between the kingdoms to get to my tournaments, but I had never given it much thought what it was like for the people who actually do this for a living. I guess that just makes me more appreciative of them."

"Say, how many tournaments have you been in?" Qrow asks as he was curious about it since Tai always seemed to bring them up.

"I've been in..." Tai thinks about it for a moment. "...about thirty two over the past few years. Most of them were pretty fun to participate in. Plus I've been able to fight some pretty tough opponents during those times."

"Followup question: How many of them have you won?"

"I've won first place in about fourteen of them, second in about ten of them, and about third in about seven of them."

Qrow quickly does the math as he looks back over to Tai in surprise. "Geez Tai, I didn't think you were THAT good." Qrow comments.

"Well I was trained by the best trainer around." Tai rubs his head with a free hand as he makes sure not to let go of the handle this time.

"And who would that be, your dad or something?" Qrow more jokingly asks.

"Actually... yes. That's exactly who trained me." Tai states.

"I was just jokin around. I didn't think your dad actually trained you." Qrow responds.

"Yeah, my dad is a pretty cool dude if I'm being honest." Tai then looks a bit more saddened. "I just hope him and my mom aren't too upset with me when I see them again."

"Oh yeah didn't you say you ran away from home?" Qrow recollects.

"Yeeeeeeeeah... Yeah I did." Tai puts his hand up to stop Qrow before he could speak. "However remember I only left because I wanted to get stronger not because we had any problems or anything, but I can't help but feel that they're pretty upset with me for just leaving like I had." Tai looks down at this.

"Just remember to go by and give them a hello every once and a while." Qrow looks away. "You'll never know when the next time you'll see them again."

Tai looks over to Qrow. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I really should swing by every once and a while to check up on them." Tai then decides to ask Qrow about his own family. "So how about your parents? Are your parent cool?"

Qrow simply looks over to Tai with a blank look on his face. "Tai, my parents are dead. I wouldn't really know if they were cool or not."

Tai suddenly feels bad for asking. "Damn... Sorry for asking."

"Nah it's fine. My parents have been dead for a while. It doesn't really bother me all that much anymore." Qrow waves off.

Tai hesitates before he asks his next question. "If you don't mind me asking, and I completely understand if you don't want to talk about it, but how long have they been gone?"

Qrow thinks about it for a moment. "Well according to the people in my tribe my mother died during child birth to Raven and me. The tribe doesn't exactly have the most up to date medical equipment as is and we can't go to any normal hospitals as we are kind of infamous in Anima. Combined with the fact that my mom had to give birth to two children instead of just one it really came as no surprise when her body couldn't handle it." Qrow pauses for a moment. "As for my dad... well... he died on a mission when me and Raven were about four years old. I can still vaguely remember what he looked like, but outside of that I don't really remember anything about him." Qrow shrugs.

Tai looks over to Qrow in confusion. "You seem... rather chill about both of your parents being gone. More than I would be at least."

"The way I view it is that you can't miss what you didn't know." Qrow shrugs. "Plus me and Raven still had our grandparents so that's something at least."

"Were they at least cool?" Tai asks hopefully.

"Eh... they can be assholes at times, but I'd say I'm glad to have them around." Qrow responds.

"That's good to hear at least." Tai looks over the hills and sees a nice clearing. "Hey I think that might be a good place to park."

Qrow sits back in his seat normally as he looks down. "Yeah that looks good enough. Go for it."

"Qrow... you have to teach me how to park this thing." Tai states.

Qrow slaps his head in realization. "Ah I knew I was forgetting something. Alright listen up parking the airship is pretty easy. All you have to do is take your foot off the gas pedal when you find a good place to park. If you're moving too fast then you can use the brake that is in the middle."

Tai steps down on the brake as the airship suddenly jolts. "Whoa their Tai! Not so sudden. Next time you got to be more gentle when you brake."

"Right, sorry about that." Tai rubs the back of his head. "What next?"

The next thing you're gonna want to do is push the control forward-" Qrow quickly puts his hand out. "BUT, only a little bit. If you do it too much we'll start nose diving and we'll end up crashing instead."

Tai pushes the handle forward as the airship begins to descend. Once the airship safely lands on the ground Tai almost turns the engine off before Qrow stops him. "Wait. Before you turn the airship off make sure to put on the emergency brake on the right side first. We don't need our ship rolling away in the middle of the night."

"Makes sense." Tai puts the emergency brake on then turns the engine off as he turns to Qrow with a bright smile on his face. "Thanks buddy. This was the first time I've ever driven an airship and I have to admit, it was pretty fun."

Qrow gives a thumbs up as he get out of his seat. "Good to hear. Now come on. We've got a campsite to set up."

Tai gets up and follows after Qrow as Qrow opens up the door of the airship. Tai goes into the back of the airship and pulls out what looks to be the tent that they were going to set up as he leaves the airship to follow Qrow. When Tai leaves he realizes that the sun is already setting as he sees Qrow already collecting nearby stones to build for a campfire pit. Tai begins setting up their tent as he wonders out loud. "Hey Qrow? What are we going to eat tonight?"

As Qrow continues to build the pit for their campfire he responds while continuing to work. "Nothing tonight."

Tai looks over to Qrow in confusion and was a little upset at hearing that. "Aren't you hungry though?"

Qrow gets up and admires his handiwork as he looks over to Tai. "Yes I am a bit hungry, but that's the difference between a good hunt and a great hunt."

As Tai is still messing with the tent he continues. "You're gonna have to elaborate what you mean buddy."

Qrow has already walked back into the airship and has returned with an axe in hand as he continues. "Think about it. We'll be getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to begin our hunt. The hungrier we are the all the more satisfying it will be to bag some game to cook and eat."

"Essentially making our kill taste all the better." Tai finishes.

"Exactly." Qrow points out. Qrow then walks over to a tree and sizes it up before he gets to chopping it. "Plus I don't know about you, but I've gone several days at a time without eating and your body eventually gets used to it."

Tai looks over to Qrow with concern. "Did your tribe neglect you or something?"

Qrow continues to chop away at the tree as he speaks between chops. "Nah the tribe always fed us whenever we were around. Its just that sometimes your missions lead you super far away from any villages so you kind of have to learn to just tough it out sometimes. That's the one positive thing I will give my older sister, whenever we went on those missions and we only had a limited amount of food she would always made me eat first."

Qrow continues to chop the tree as Tai looks over to Qrow with a little bit of surprise. "Wait you mean that Raven, THE Raven, actually cares?"

Qrow chuckles at that. "I know pretty crazy right? She would always make the excuse of 'you need to eat so you can be strong for the mission.' but frankly I think that deep down she does care at least a little." Qrow chops the tree enough for it to start to fall over. As Qrow moves out of the way of the tree his bad luck decides to flare up as a branch that was on the tree smacks him in the back of the head as the tree falls down. "Shit!" Qrow curses as his aura flares up to begin healing that area as he rubs the back of his head.

Tai looks over to Qrow in concern as he was just about done setting the tent up. "Hey you good over there?"

"Yeah... I'm good. This damn tree didn't like the fact I cut it down so it smacked the shit out of me on its way down." Qrow continues to rub the spot on the back of his head.

"Sucks to be you I guess." Tai says as he finishes setting up the tent.

"I'll let you deal with cutting up the tree. I'm gonna go furnish the tent." Qrow responds as he walks towards Tai with the axe.

"Switching jobs eh?" Tai shrugs. "Sounds good to me."

"Being the muscle of the group is more of your thing anyway." Qrow hands the axe to Tai as he makes his way back into the airship.

As Tai makes his way over to the fallen over tree and begins to chop away at it he thinks back to what Qrow said earlier. 'It looks like there's still so much I don't know about you Raven. I am glad to know that she must care at least a little bit about things other than power. The question is how do I help her open up to everyone more?'


There is a lull in the conversation as Qrow sets up the sleeping bags in the tent along with an electronic lantern for some needed light as it was already dark. As Qrow leaves the tent to go look for Tai he finds him still chopping away at the wood. Qrow calls out to him as he holds the lantern up. "Hey are you almost done? It's already dark out and we've got an early day tomorrow."

Tai turns around as he waves Qrow off. "Yeah just give me a minute. I still have a few left to chop. " Tai turns back around and continues his work.

Qrow walks up to provide light for Tai as he finishes chopping the last few logs to use tomorrow. Tai wipes his brow of sweat as he looks back towards Qrow as he slings the axe over his shoulder. "Alright. I think I'm done."

"Good, now come on we've got a bright and early day tomorrow." Qrow gestures for Tai to hurry up. While Qrow enters the tent, Tai goes back to the airship to put the axe away before returning to the tent as well. As Tai enters Qrow is already in his sleeping bag with the lantern still on. After Tai gets in his own sleeping bag Qrow turns off the lantern. As the two begin to drift asleep they hear a howling in the distance.

Tai goes on high alert as he sits up in his sleeping bag. "Was that a Grimm?" He quickly whispers out.

"Not likely. I can tell that's the sound of an actual wolf and not a Grimm. They sound similar, but I can tell the difference." Qrow tiredly responds.

Tai calms down as he lays back in his sleeping bag. "If you say so." Tai then thought of something. "What if we encounter any Grimm out here? We didn't bring our weapons on this trip."

"We'll be fine. Our rifles should be enough if push comes to shove. Plus if I remember correctly Raven said something about you tearing an Ursa Minor in half with your bare hands back during initiation so I think you'll be fine if you are caught unarmed."

Tai rubs the back of his head in embarrassment. "She told you guys about that?"

"Yep. You have fricken gorilla strength Tai." Qrow states.

"Thanks? I guess?" Tai doesn't know how to respond to that.

"So do you want to talk about anything else?" Tai asks.

"No. We have an early day tomorrow, just let me sleep already." Qrow annoyedly remarks.

"Fine, fine, I'll let you rest." Tai tries to sleep as well. "Goodnight Qrow."

Qrow doesn't say anything as they both fall asleep. This was going to be one long weekend.

to be continued...

Authors Notes: Chapter nine complete. This came out a little earlier than usual because I'm going on vacation starting tomorrow and I don't know if I'll have the time to write over the next few days. I decided that it was better to delay an unstarted chapter ten than to delay an almost done chapter nine. So next chapter will take a little longer than usual to come out since I may not be able to work on chapter ten for a few days. I won't lie to you all, I had to do quite a bit of work today just to get this chapter out before I left, so I'm a little tired after finishing this chapter. Overall it was definitely worth it though. Anyways thank you all for reading and leaving reviews. I'm glad to see that people actually read my story and it does make me happy. It makes me even happier to read reviews as well. Anyways with all of that being said this is Exile Mansion signing off.