Qrow had always considered himself unlucky. One might consider this preposterous, after all, he was born the heir to the throne of a kingdom, with incredible innate genetic power and many women across the world dreamed of one day wedding him due to his handsomeness and wealth. However, it was exactly this 'luck' that he considered to be a curse. Most tattoos of the marked granted the individuals immense magical powers, his sister could teleport herself or anything else anywhere in the world on a whim so long as she knew where they were and what the destination looked like. His father could mould the earth to his will, capable breaking mountains and creating new ones if he so wished and even his distant cousin, Robin, could create storms large enough to level small towns.
All this power may make them seem untouchable, immortal, maybe even god-like and yet they all fell short at the hands of something so simple that had manifested itself in him. Luck. Simply put his tattoo extracted all of the luck of those around him and gave it to him. To a scientist this may seem preposterous, after all surely luck was not something that could be affected as then it would seem to become too intentional to be called luck, and yet it was true. Qrow could play Russian Roulette for thousands of rounds with only one slot in the revolver being empty and each and every time the gun would click with the sound of the empty chamber. Even if the gun was to have no empty slots something else would intervene; the gun would jam, the bullet would be a dud with no gunpowder even going so far as misfiring and breaking completely in the last persons hand. This 'luck', however, came at a price. Everyone else.
Everyone around him would lose their 'luck' and by extension incur heavy misfortune. In the case of the Russian Roulette game, the whole table, bar him, would be dead on their first attempt regardless of the odds. Learning to fight or work as a boy had been tough; his teachers would fumble and fail due to 'bad luck' and as such even as a complete novice he had managed to best his teachers regardless of the effort he put in. His father had tried to personally tutor him in combat, but as he moved to control the earth a water pipe beneath him burst and forced him out of the arena, giving Qrow the victory by ring out. Even in court he could guess as to whether someone was lying to him, and he would always guess correctly.
He had learned to control his power since then, at least to an extent. It was hard to control something you didn't fully understand after all. However, he could never truly suppress it, often the result was a large quantity of minor slip-ups from those around him, servants would drop drinks and plates of food, people would forget minor details or trip over things that would otherwise be very obvious and easy to avoid.
Why would he consider this unlucky? Didn't this make him just more 'god-like' than even his family, if fate itself was on his side? The answer was simple, he was bored and, though he was loath to admit it, lonely. Never once had he come across a true challenge, never once guessed wrong, lost a fight or even gone without something he wanted. That is until she came into his life.
Summer Rose had been the one time in his life where he had felt truly free. His father had added her to his personal bodyguards one evening and, like always, he originally thought nothing of it. She was pretty, stunning even, but he had seen many women that looked just as good. One time he returned home drunk, very drunk, but even then, not once did he trip over something nor did her bump into any walls or knock anything off the counters. He had been going through a bit of an existential crisis for the last few months and had come home in this state often. Summer had seen this and decided to watch over him when he went out that night, he had eventually noticed her less than stealthy stalking and decided, in his drunken state, to take out his frustrations on her. One short argument later she had talked him into a spar to see if he was as untouchable as he seemed to think he was.
The next morning, he woke in his bed with sore muscles, a black eye, a fractured wrist and the world's worst hangover, or at least he hoped it was. It had completely turned his world upside down; not only was he not as immortal as he originally thought but Summer had kicked his ass without a scratch on her. It was wonderful, it was amazing, she was amazing and as they hung around more and more, he noticed that, whilst she was around, his actions began to actually have consequences in the real sense of the word.
He sighed, if only it had lasted.
Miltia was at her limit; the last few hours of her life had been possibly the worst, save for her eleventh birthday when she had been 'owned' by Apep. She had been running a double shift at the club in order to make sure that Ruby had control over her mark and didn't kill someone at the club, only to have some blonde bitch come bust into the club and start chatting her and her sister up, SIMULTANEOUSLY! Needless to say, they quickly shot down her advances and tried to brush her off. They had no luck with their endeavour however and she constantly tried to woo them with her, admittedly good, looks and money; it was at this point they realised she was a Xiao-Long.
Miltia had her faults, but she was at least honest and in hindsight she and Melanie may have sharpened their tongues to daggers at the declaration of her last name a little too well. However, the blonde had seemed to take it in stride and continuously harass the two as they tried to go about their business. Melanie had quickly grown tired and eventually snapped and began slandering the royals and the Xiao-Longs. Junior had seen the scene about to break out and tried to interpose, immediately realising who the blonde was. However, after failing to defuse the situation he had received a point-blank fireball to the stomach which had sent him flying into a nearby table. The rest was history.
The twins had only managed to push past their crushing defeat due to the panic that had filled them as they awoke to Bart trying and failing to stem the bleeding from Junior. They were now pacing angrily and restlessly outside of the emergency unit that Junior had been put into. Joy had come to try and fix the wound, but no matter how much she healed the fire seemed only to reignite and create the wound anew. She had still tried for the best part of an hour as the ambulance arrived and honestly, she was likely the only reason he had made it this far, but he wasn't out yet. Joy was now lying unconscious in one of the private lounges in the club with her brother tending to her needs. However, what was annoying the red clad twin the most was her sisters infernal rambling and panicking.
"I mean what if they…" Melanie was cut off as the door to the operating room opened slowly and out stepped the best doctor at Beacon Academy and supposedly all of Vale. Annabelle Peach was a friend of Bart's, one of the few he had outside the club and one of only two from the academy. She stood at an average height of five foot seven and was wearing the typical scrubs of a surgeon. However, that is where her 'averageness' ended, she had light brown skin suggesting she hadn't been born in Vale and instead heralded from Vacuo which had a much hotter climate. She also had brown eyes that seemed black until someone got uncomfortably close to notice the slight hue change from pupil to iris, but most odd however, was the hot pink hair that sat comfortably beneath her scrub cap and peeked out from the sides slightly as she left the room. Miltia couldn't tell if her hair was dyed or natural, medical technology had allowed people to alter the root colour of their hair for years and as such had allowed for some odd colours for babies to be born with.
Miltia and Melanie immediately stood at attention as the doctor slowly and carefully approached, the pace the doctor used and the fact that she had yet to look them in the eye filled them with dread as she approached. She finally looked up to them, her nearly black eyes betraying nothing of her results, until her shoulders seemed to slouch. Melanie quickly grew tired of waiting and decided to push the doctor.
"Is he going to be okay?" the twin basically blurted her question only her sympathy for the doctor keeping her rushing emotions in check. Doctor Peach pulled her scrub mask off slowly and hesitated before replying, seeming to search for the right thing to say. She seemed to settle on an answer and looked up to deliver it.
"It depends on what you mean by okay…" she breathed in and tiredly rubbed her fingers on the bridge of her nose. "How you managed to get into a brawl with a Branwen, I will never know, but luckily he seems like he'll pull through." The twins immediately brighten and let out a breath they had been holding but were halted as the doctor raised her hand. "I would not define him as 'okay' though. He hasn't woken up in the last twenty-six hours, nor does he show signs of doing so anytime soon, though if you want my personal opinion, he will do so within the next few days once his blood flow and respiratory system can patch up what it can. Which leads me to the bad news; we cannot find a way to extinguish the fire that was burning him repeatedly." The Twins seemed confused and so she continued on without pausing.
"The Prince informed me that the Branwen child's powers allow her to make flames that burn until it's intended target is completely consumed and seem inextinguishable. Using this information, I tried to isolate the burning flesh and remove it so that the wounds could finally close. However, the table he was sent flying into splintered into his wound and some of the fire began to cling to the wooden splinters as it burned. These splinters have somehow made their way into his heart, likely from him trying to stand after being hit. Trying to remove them without killing him is an impossible task; even if we manage to remove the splinters there is a chance the fire will come into contact with something highly important like the coronary artery and kill him." Melanie's eyes widened as the doctor continued.
"Luckily the remaining fire is nought but embers and so by administering a drug we can keep it at bay. This drug will thicken the cell walls of his heart cells meaning that the fire will constantly have to burn more flesh in order to reach anything vital. However, this is only a temporary fix and I have no doubt that within a few months' time the fire will start to outpace the drug." Doctor Peach swallowed thickly as she considered her next words, the twins hanging on to her sentence like a lifeline. "When that time arrives… his time will be limited." Neither of the twins moved, neither said a word, simply quivering in quiet rage and sorrow as tears began to dampen the edges of their eyes and their make up began to mar. Miltia recovered first a steely defiance entering her gaze.
"But the blonde can call it off right? She can extinguish the flames?" For a moment both twins looked hopefully at the doctor whose heart tore slightly as she beheld the spark of will in their eyes slowly dwindle as she replied, hesitating to immediately break the news.
"I am afraid this isn't the case." The spark sputtered and died. "We asked the prince if she could, but it appears that she simply gives the flames purpose, she cannot change that purpose after initially issuing it." The walls that held back the dread and negativity from the twins cracked and splintered almost audibly as they replayed the doctor's message over and over again in their heads, then they snapped and the damn broke. The waiting room went up in sobbing and no one thought it wise to interrupt the twins as they grieved.
They didn't hear the chuckle that faded quietly into the night, punctuated by the light clicking of metal capped shoes on the tiled floor. Nor did they see the cigar burning itself to embers, half crushed on the floor.