Significant Changes: one new scene, two old scenes reworked to fit the narrative. Qrow finally enters the picture properly and will be an occasionally appearing character through the rest of the story.

Original chapter length: 1,588
Revisited chapter length: 4,668

"Regular dialogue" [Faunus speech only]

Chapter 27

When the sun came up it was business as usual. Their breakfast was interrupted with a ping on Ruby's scroll. With her aura improving she was sent a file and orders for her upcoming mission. She didn't have time to waste, but someone else in the household had other ideas.

"Ace get down, I have to get this done." Ruby sighed, placing the child back onto the floor as she hunched over the long map on the coffee table. She had a mission assignment coming up and it required plenty of planning. Ruby only got so far as picking up her pen and making another short line on the map when Ace crawled back onto the sofa and began smelling her again.

"Blake, what is she doing?" Ruby asked dryly, not quite sure what had gotten into Ace this morning. She pried the little Faunus off of her for the umpteenth time in the past hour.

"Sniffing you." Blake said simply, looking up from her book as if that were obvious.

"I get that much." Ruby said, rolling her eyes as Ace clawed her way back up the sofa again. "I just don't get why."

Blake placed her bookmark into the pages, closing the tome and setting it aside. This would have come up eventually. When Ace reached a point in her life where discussions like this were going to take place. Unfortunately the time table on these sorts of topics were going to be hurried along now that Ruby couldn't avoid the topic. Someone would have to educate her.

Blake sighed inwardly, fully realizing that there were many things Ruby never knew. Things she would have never needed to encounter, if she never lived a life among Faunus. Sharing a household with an adult was one thing, but Ace was a mere child. She was also learning the Faunus world, experiencing every new sensory detail for the first time. Curiosity had gotten the better of the little one, and Ruby had no idea why.

Well, there was no use hiding it.

"You were in my bed last night, and you haven't taken a shower yet." Blake told her. "You smell like me way more than usual, that's why."

"Uh…" Ruby blinked owlishly, as though the concept hadn't sunk in.

Of course it hadn't. Why would it? Ruby had no idea just what sort of smell she was giving off.

"It's a scent thing." Blake scratched her head awkwardly, finding the explanation hard to come by. She watched the small Faunus trying to figure the matter out for herself. Sniffing at the both of them, Ace was probably confused. Ruby would be nose-blind for the entirety of her life. Unable to understand the communication that could be left behind by smell alone. "You used my hygiene stuff last night, and then you spent all night in bed with me. Ace can smell that…"

"She can smell what, exactly?" Ruby murmured, brows furrowed.

"That our scents have been mixed, and mine is all over you right now." Blake told her. "It's only going to mix more when I eventually start marking you."

"Yeah, about that…" Ruby trailed off, looking down at Ace and then back to Blake. "Is this going to be a common thing? Faunus just sniffing me randomly like this?"

"It's not random, Ruby." Blake said with a small laugh in spite of herself. "Little kids might take an obvious sniff or two, though. Ace will be doing it a lot at first, but she will get used to it eventually."

"Okay…" Ruby trailed off, concern obvious on her face.

"Adults are more subtle about it, but there's not really a way to hide scent marking." Blake told her, the bluntness of it all merely a fact of Faunus life. "If you're marked at all, any Faunus that comes close enough to you will notice it. Faunus don't habitually seek humans as mates. It happens sometimes, but not often. Adults learn to ignore smells that don't directly involve them, but kids are curious. Ace is just trying to understand why you smell so different all of a sudden."

"But, you haven't marked me, have you?"

That was a loaded question. One that needed to be handled with absolute care. She had never needed to explain the matter to a human before. It was awkward to explain to someone who would never need to utilize those deeper messages at all in her life.

"Probably not in the way you're thinking…" Blake trailed off slowly. "Ruby, everyone leaves behind a scent, even humans. It's like when Weiss wears perfume, or Yang using that deodorant that smells like citrus before she goes on dates. You do it all the time too, like when you use your semblance and everything smells like roses. That's scent. You know intuitively by those smells who was just passing by the room. Faunus have a keener sense of smell, so for us, scent runs deeper. We communicate with it."

It was hard to describe, and likely for Ruby, harder to decipher. She wasn't quite sure what that look on Ruby's face truly meant. It was a mix of careful contemplation and anxiety. Gunmetal eyes looking over at Ace once again before averting her gaze from both of the Faunus entirely. The map was an easier thing to look at. Her mind tried to unravel the mystery being laid in front of her, but she had difficulty.

Blake rubbed her eyes before shaking her head. "I would mark anything just brushing hands with something. It's not like I can keep all my scent off of you, but I haven't intentionally claimed you, either." Blake said, though she had to admit that the urge was difficult to ignore. "Although, that's probably why Ace is so confused."

"You want to, though, don't you?" Ruby asked, finding her voice unsteadily. "Claim me… Or mark me, or… whatever it is?"

"Hmm, I don't think want is the right word for it." Blake said after a moment to think. "It's more complicated than just wanting to. There's part of it that's simply logic, and part that's primal instinct. I'm not sure where one ends and the other begins. It might be better to say that I feel inclined to do it, like all Faunus do. Mind you, that doesn't exactly mean that I should. Instincts will always be baser in nature, and they're separate from rational action."

"But, you could mark me…if you wanted…without me knowing." Ruby surmised not entirely sure how she felt about that.

"Well, to mark you like that, you'd kind of have to know." Blake said, blushing lightly at the implication. "Actually it would be impossible for you not to know at that point. Marking mates requires us to…" Blake cut herself off looking at Ruby a bit shyly. "See, this is the kind of stuff covered in the marking class for older kids. In order to mark someone as a mate, you have to actually be mating…as in having sex…pheromones would end up mixing on our bodies when we do that, and the result is that other Faunus know you're taken."

"So, how do I smell right now?" Ruby questioned.

That was easier to answer.

"Right now, we're marked as kinfolk. Friendly, and part of the same inner circle." Well, easier until Blake came to another little awkward truth. "Although, I should probably warn you, if we share hygiene products, Faunus are going to know you're dating me. Combining scent is part of Faunus society, particularly when dating. Ace is just confused because she has absolutely no concept of that."

"Oh…" Ruby plucked up her pen in record speed, eyes fixed on the map uncomfortably.

"Yeah…" Blake said under her breath, her tea the ample distraction she needed from the bright red blush growing across Ruby's face.

As much as Blake felt a small level of sympathy for Ruby in regard to Faunus habits, Blake had to admit the same was also true in reverse. She had no idea how humans properly dated one another. There were a few things she could put together based on her plethora of reading material and simple conjecture. The problem came with digging deeper, thinking how to apply that knowledge without making some sort of unfathomable error.

She had been honest about not wanting to hurt Ruby. Yet, she had no idea if her own lack of experience on the matter would be a problem or not.

Her only experience dating humans was with Yang. That was no baseline for a normal relationship. They had a few off handed dates, but they always ended up in the bedroom anyway. Yang was experienced, and knew exactly what she wanted. Sexual gratification came easy to the both of them. It was also long in the past, left behind like so many other youthful idiocies were.

Buried deep in history simply labeled as Beacon, it was a memorable time, surely. A time Blake would never allow herself to forget. However, it also held many little details never to be repeated. Rightfully so, in retrospect.

Still, there was only one person that she could think to call, and she knew she would regret every second of it.

"Soo then, you and Ruby are a thing now?"

"Yes, Yang…" Blake sighed as she rolled her eyes. "If you have to put it that way."

"What other way is there to put it?" Yang asked, feet up on her desk as she leaned back on the legs of the chair. She tilted the scroll in her one hand to face her, while the other acted as a pillow for her head.

"I don't know..." Blake trailed, a hint of aggravation in her tone. "Something more respectable, such as in a relationship, or seeing each other..."

Yang snickered. "Not that you haven't seen it all before."

"Yang, damn it." Blake rolled her eyes. "I thought we were going to have an actual conversation about this."

"What do you want me to do, Blake, give you the 'hurt Ruby and die' speech? We both know it doesn't work like that, especially not for you guys." From the visual feed, Yang could see Ace guarding a long slender box. "Uh, Blake, is that the cling wrap?"

"The tinfoil box." Blake said as she looked over her shoulder. Ace was protecting her treasure mercilessly. "It's empty, and I pulled off the mental that was on the outside. She's been obsessed with it ever since I let her have it. Now back to what we were talking about before, stop being a pain in the butt."

"It's fine with me." Yang laughed as she popped herself back upright with a thud. "I don't care that you're dating Ruby, you have my blessing and all that jazz obviously... This is going to be so much fun."

"Yang!"

"Alright, alright, and I swear I won't tease the crap out of my little sister." Yang finished. "Are you happy now?"

"Slightly appeased, yes." Blake murmured. "That doesn't answer my question, though."

"Okay, look, I'll level with you…outside from the obvious physical things, there isn't anything the two of you haven't done together already that a couple wouldn't do…right?"

"I suppose…"

"So, then, been there done that, have the t-shirt, right?" Yang continued. "Just, you know, take it slow with her. I can't really give you advice beyond that. I mean, I never really put a lot of thought into dating. If it was fun, I did it. If it wasn't, I didn't go with that person again. I mean, you know things always end up in the sack for me… Uh, maybe just test the waters a little?"

Blake let loose a long suffering sigh. "When I brought up the matter of being delicate about intimacy, I wasn't asking for sex tips."

"I'd hope to god not!" Yang interjected. "I meant go slow dating her, I wasn't talking about doing...that..."

"Knowing your brain, who knew what the heck you were thinking?" Blake's only comfort in all of it was Yang's deeply disturbed expression. She decided to simply spell it out to avoid any more awkwardness. "Yang...do you remember Beacon…whenever you and I tried to get a moment of peace, and then someone would barge in on us?"

Yang chuckled then. "Oh...oh okay...can't find a little you-two time with Ace around, huh?"

"One could say that." Blake said as her ears curled a bit in her shyness, she had something she wanted to ask Yang directly, but it was still awkward. "We were lucky enough to have last night to ourselves, but Ace has a nose and her curiosity is a little too off-putting to Ruby. She's been following Ruby around all day."

"What'd she do, get in-between you two while you were canoodling or something?"

"No, thank god." Blake said while rolling her eyes. "She's sniffing at us a lot more than usual. Ruby's obviously uncomfortable with Ace having any sort of sensory input of the situation. Even if she's too little to fully understand what her nose is telling her."

"Yeah, no shit. I'd be uncomfortable too if I were her...no offense."

"None taken." Blake brushed off simply. "However, that's kind of the point I'm trying to make. I don't think Ruby would be all that fond of you knowing what exactly we get up to, either. It would mean a lot to me if we reconsidered sleeping arrangements around the house. Ruby stayed in my bed with me last night. It's a trend I don't want to break, but I know she's not going to want to share the bed with me if you're in the room."

"Honestly, kind of don't want to see that either. Might be innocent now, sure as hell isn't going to be later." A somewhat disgusted look crossed Yang's face even considering it. "Right, so, to save us all the mental scarring, maybe just move my shit in with Weiss, and I'll bunk with her." Yang said after some thought. "We bunk here as it is, so why not at home too, right?"

"But is she okay with that?" Blake asked. "It's everyone's house, not just mine and Ruby's."

"I'll ask."

"Please don't bellow…" Too late, her ears flattened back preemptively.

"Weiss!"

Her ears were ringing, and she grit her teeth. "Sometimes, I really, really I hate you."

"About to hate me even more, Blakey, but I promise you'll love me again soon enough." Yang winked.

"What do you want now?" Weiss sighed a moment later as she came into view, hands on her hips in exasperation.

"Ruby and Blake are on the verge of fucking and-"

"Stop!" Weiss ordered, palm firmly planted over Yang's mouth. "Not another word, Xiao Long. Don't even finish that sentence. If you do, I'll freeze your mouth closed, understood?" Her friend nodded. Weiss very slowly moved her hand, as if she didn't trust Yang to keep quiet. "Now would either one of you like to try that again?"

"Certainly-" Yang said before Weiss cut her off.

"Without being crass." She ordered, wagging a finger. "I meant what I said about freezing your mouth shut."

"Right…" Yang nodded. "Well, to put it least crassly, Nora owes us fifty lien each, and Pyrrha and I had a side bet, so now she's got to throw down."

"Oh my god! You made betting pools." Blake said, one hand hiding her face. "Yang, you complete ass…"

"I promised not to tease Ruby. I never said I wasn't going to harass the hell out of you." Yang grinned, not at all remorseful about the dual blushes painting her friend's cheeks. Blake out of mortification, and Weiss for being so scandalized at the thoughts turning around in her head. She turned back to Weiss. "Wasn't exactly kidding though, they're together-together, as Nora would say."

"And you needed to tell me this right now, in the middle of our shift?" Weiss shot back.

"Err, well, I mean, not trying to be gross but sex is only a matter of time." Yang shrugged. "It makes sense to give them the same room. Then we don't have to deal with it, right? I was thinking I could bunk with you."

"Yes, well when you put it that way…" Weiss said, clearing her throat. "Blake you have my blessing to switch out Ruby's things for Yang's. Now then, I propose that we forget this conversation ever happened."

Blake also swallowed down her own embarrassment. "Agreed." She said solemnly. "Right, Yang?"

"Yeah, yeah…I hear you Blakey." Yang said with a small smirk. "But as both your ex-girlfriend and Ruby's big sister, I still get to drive you nuts."

Qrow found himself looking down at an empty glass.

There was no more reason to avoid the matter. He knew that. He'd been putting it off for far too long, but scrounging up the effort to make himself presentable was no easy task. Qrow stuffed his hands into his pockets. Traversing the landscape had done him no good. Raven was still dead, and life was moving on without her.

As a man, he had two choices. Own up to the loss and accept it, or go find another bottle to drown in.

It was a battle he'd found himself fighting more than once over the news of Raven's passing. The facts unchanging no matter how many times he blacked out from his stupor. He would only to wake and find the same obituary glaring at him in the face. He liked to think he was a master at accepting loss. It wasn't the first person in his life that had left him behind, but, it was the first time he lost a sibling.

The only time he ever would.

That spoke to him. It squeeze his heart in the way that Summer's loss never could. Hers had been painful, too. He didn't have the luxury to truly mourn back then. With her legacy left behind and two small girls in need of care, Qrow couldn't bring himself to fully cope with Summer's loss. He never allowed himself to do that. Taiyang was broken enough for the both of them, unable to look after his daughters, let alone himself. Qrow had stepped up then, in a haze of booze and a scrap of prayer, trying to cobble the family back together into some sort of recognizable form.

He never could figure out if he managed to accomplish that or not.

Taiyang finally got himself clean, took over the role of a father once again. Things went on, for better and worse, and time began to soothe away the ailing hearts of two little girls who were far too good for this world. That they grew older into would-be huntresses was Taiyang's worst nightmare come to life, and that had come with its own set of troubles, but as a family they made it through.

The same could not be said this time around.

History had not just repeated, it had contorted into an absolute hell. Raven's death was nothing like Summer's, and the child she left behind was no bearer to the family legacy at all. Not this time. What she left behind was nothing more than the whispers of a ghost, and a child who no-one knew about until it was too late. She hadn't given them a gift born of love, she had saddled them with forced responsibility.

It wasn't fair, none of it was.

Qrow tried to find peace with it, tried to square away bitter memories and painful realizations. He turned to scripture, and when that failed him, he dove to the archives of history. Anything, everything, to find some measure of peace. There was nothing soothing in any of it.

Only the bottle, and the few hours that it numbed his mind enough to sleep away from grief.

He wanted something better than this. Better than all of it, but to do that he'd need to choose the other option. So, in spite of every urge he had to just pour another shot, he dumped a pile of lien on the bar instead. Then he hobbled out into the streets, making his way along, his cloudy thoughts raining in his mind.

Cat Faunus were prone to fear. Young ones were easily startled, and new things were very, very intimidating. As curious as young ones could be, they were also easily spooked by strange and new situations. With sensitive little noses and acute hearing, even the most adventuresome Faunus child normally wasn't keen to stray too far away from the safety of their parents. Children also had a mind to be aggressive in their fear, particularly to strangers that they'd never met before.

So, enter in Qrow. A boorish, crude, loud man. He reeked of booze, and had a propensity to ruffle up someone's hair as a form of affection. It amounted to a recipe for one very upset little girl.

The man that smelled kin was the furthest from it that Ace had ever experienced. The once pleasant and overjoyed greeting turned sour. Ace snarled from under the sofa, peeking out from the space between Blake's legs to hiss and spit in Qrow's general direction. Then she began cowering back behind her protector's legs again as soon as Qrow moved even the slightest bit.

"What the hell was that for?" Qrow asked, looking at his newly mauled hand as it began to heal. He brushed the droplet of blood on his pants, numbly considering just how sharp her little teeth were. "Damn, kid's as bitchy as her mother."

"It's her ears." Blake said with a glower, shooting daggers with her eyes. He meant well, there was no evil, racist, or harmful intention in the act itself. He greeted Ruby the same way in her younger years, and Blake knew that. Still, she couldn't help but feel a pang of annoyance all the same. "You can't just squash them down and jostle them with your hand like that, it hurts."

"Wish someone would have told me." He shrugged, plopping himself down in the armchair.

"You would have known if you would have come here sooner." Blake growled, uncaring that the rumble carried into her words. She was too angry at him to care. Too frustrated with the way he had gone missing to mind that her eyes were beginning to slit in her anger. So few people could push her into such a rage, but if anyone deserved that wrath turned on him, it was this man. "Where in the hell have you been?!"

"Old man Oz had me on a mission."

Of course. A perfect excuse, but she refused to heed it. "Don't give me that Ozpin spiel, I'm not buying it."

"Honestly, it was Ozpin." Qrow replied. "Raven pronounced dead? Couldn't believe it until I saw it. Even then, I had to look into it. You don't kill a person like her and come out of it unscathed." The man groused, still no closer to wrapping his head around the fact that his sister was dead and gone. He's spent too many months at the bottom of the bottle, soul searching for answers that would never come. "That's like trying to take down one of you kids. Someone might win one day, but not without getting their ass kicked first."

"That's real nice." Blake told him, anger leaking into her voice. Dry, and unrelenting as she eyed him. "Meanwhile, Ruby and Yang were having a breakdown, and Weiss and I were powerless to help. Now you show up, and Ruby's not even here right now."

"Blake, ease the hell up. You know just as well as I do. Some shit just isn't meant to be taken at face value." He rubbed his face, the desire for a stiff drink nearly consuming him once more. "I had to be sure she was really gone."

"She's gone… Trust me…"

"Yeah, but I had to be sure." Qrow muttered between his teeth. "Needed to sort it all out. I had to be sure that she didn't fake it to cover her tracks. Even more than that, I needed to make sure whatever the hell it was ended there. That there weren't bigger things headed after Yang, or Ruby, or that one."

"Her name is Ace."

"Yeah, yeah…I know…"

"Qrow, this is serious." Blake frowned then, sighing. "This is your niece…your flesh and blood, and where's Taiyang been? I kept calling him and calling him, and he wouldn't answer. I finally gave up. Yang and Ruby did too. You don't want to know what I think about that."

"He's in the bottle…" Qrow said quietly. "It's worse than when summer died. Whenever the girls show up, he just bolts out the back and hides in the woods behind the house. Found him passed out that way a few times. Jackass could have gotten himself killed."

"He what?" Blake nearly hissed.

"Ya heard me." Qrow bit out. "Tai loved Raven… He loved her more than she ever really deserved. I know her distance from Yang is unforgiveable, but she had her reasons. Damn it, I never understood them myself, but she was fighting her own personal war. Something we couldn't help her with. She shut all of us out." Qrow didn't make excuses for it. He hated her for it too. "She pushed us away, but Tai loved her in spite of all that. Summer loved her too, and god damn it, my sister loved them. Thing is, kid, in Raven's head that wasn't good enough."

"Qrow, focus…" Blake snapped. "What do you mean, Taiyang is in the bottle?"

"Like I just said. He waited for Raven to come home. Instead she went off and fucked another man and had his baby, and then she died. He waited for her, all for nothing." Qrow said, his words so full of anger that they were cold, quiet, and empty. "Tai doesn't deal well with pain. He did the only thing he knew how to do. He had a drink. One leads to another, and another. You know how the story goes. He's a recovering drunk who fell off the wagon, and there's no reason for him to get his ass back on it this time."

"He does too have a reason, Yang and Ruby need him."

"No they don't, kid."

"Yes they do!"

"Blake, they're not babies." Qrow said softly his tone harsh, but fair. "They haven't needed him in a long time, not like he needs to be needed to stay clean and sober. He hasn't come here because he's afraid to see the little squirt. Yang and Ruby have hearts that go on for miles, full of love and acceptance, but Taiyang isn't like that. Break a man too much, and he forgets how to love, and nurture, and care for another."

"That isn't an excuse."

"No, it's a damn good reason." Qrow shot back.

"I don't see how it could be.

"Asking a man to find love in his soul for another man's child isn't an easy thing to ask. At least not when, as he says it, 'it could have been his'." Qrow chided darkly. "It might have been one thing if Raven had brought the baby back with her. Maybe then, he could have accepted the fact that she wasn't as faithful to him as he and Summer were to her. Problem is, Raven's death, that finality and no goodbye…" Qrow trailed off, running a hand over his head as he cursed under his breath. "That was the final straw that broke him."

"Then why not at least tell that to Yang?"

"He's in too much pain to articulate anything. Yang looks at this kid and sees a baby sister, but Taiyang is afraid he's going to see betrayal…" Qrow knew that feeling too well. "Hell, I felt the same way." Qrow shook his head. He didn't expect Blake to understand. He hoped she never did. "It's why I kept my distance for so long. Why I didn't want to come around while Ruby and Yang were here. If I looked at that kiddo and felt nothing but hate towards her, I couldn't bear it if Ruby or Yang saw me like that."

"And how do you feel about her now?"

"Indifferent."

"Qrow…" Blake sighed. "She's your niece."

"Nah." He murmured under his breath. "Just a kid. No big deal."

"It's huge deal!"

"It's the same way I felt when they shoved Yang in my arms the first time. I'd just gotten back from a mission, and she was about a week old. Her eyes were still that glassy baby blue...hadn't changed yet. I get her in my arms and she takes the biggest shit known to man, all up the back and out the diaper. Raven, the naturally charming woman she was, laughed her ass off." At this, he pulled out his flask and took a large gulp.

He looked down at Ace, sighing. "I better go. Tell Ruby and Yang I'll be stopping by in-between missions, but that Tai needs time."