"Team STRQ shows great promise."
"Ah, yes. Truly one of the best teams of this generation, I must say."
"You are reserved with your compliments," Ulysses noted.
"As you are cryptic with your words," Ozpin returned.
A huff. "Cryptic? 'Tis but an oddity. As there exists this oddity to Miss Rose. I am sure you are fully aware."
"Care to be precise? She has many oddities—"
"In all the years that I have wandered, I have never encountered a person bearing eyes shining bright silver."
A low hum. "Hm, yes, of course. Quite an extremely rare trait."
"Your genetics here are indeed very strange yet not surprising. The Branwen siblings have been shedding feathers in their wake. I have collected enough to make a necklace."
"Is that so?"
A brief chuckle. "I half expect Mister Xiao-Long to start breathing fire out of his sleep. Truly, such wonders so great that they must be kept secret, no?"
Ozpin met Ulysses's heavy stare with his own. "Secrecy exists for a reason, after all."
"As the reasons themselves are secret. I will be seeing to my students now. Good day, Ozpin."
If there was one thing that bonded Raven and Qrow as twins, it was that they could share the same exact thoughts at times. And on this night, out in the rugged, Grimm-infested wilderness miles away from Beacon Academy, surrounded by inept teammates and moronic team leaders, they both stared into the abyss with the exact same thought in mind:
'Fuck this class.'
Make no mistake about it, Raven and Qrow were bonafide bandits. They were born into banditry, they were raised into banditry, and they lived off of banditry until they were sent to Beacon Academy to covertly subvert the biggest threat to their marauding ways. While their upbringing gave them a superior edge in many of the aspects that constituted the life of a Huntsman, truth be told, the Branwen twins were far from the best. Heck, they were a step below the average Huntsman.
Perhaps it was their pride that made them so bitter tonight. Surely, it was not the fact that they had been left to fend for themselves out here in the wilderness for three days now with nary a single hint of help from Professor Ulysses. Concretely, it was not because they had just suffered the worst food poisoning ever from a botched attempt at roasted wildlife. Most definitely, it was not because all their outdoor equipment—tent, portable cooking spit, spare clothes, beddings—were lost in the raging rapids when they were ambushed by an unexpected pack of Grimm. And their sourness was obviously not borne from the fact that they were wet, cold, smelly, itchy, and hungry.
At least everyone else was having it just as bad, if not worse.
Raven and Qrow sat numbly next to each other on the log before the campfire that had kept everyone else warm and at least hopeful. Their natural instinct by then would have been shaking down the nearest person for sustenance—and an excuse to vent out their frustrations. Alas, their cover forced them to squeeze amongst these dumb idiots who thought they knew survival.
Well, neither did the two of them. But they would never admit that, no.
Except to Professor Ulysses, though. Then again, Raven had a strong feeling that the mysterious survivalist knew far more than he let on. That and the fact that he could get so annoyingly cryptic with certain topics. Like nations and couriers.
She could have easily shrugged it off as some kind of vague inside joke among the staff but her gut screamed otherwise. First, Headmaster Ozpin. Now, Professor Ulysses. Beacon Academy sure had its fair share of secrets that shook her to her core by the simple fact that they were so closely guarded and very, very unnervingly abstruse.
Raven could remember the time she caught Ozpin staring at her from behind his mug. He saw right through her, she was sure of it! As far as she knew, neither she nor her dumb brother had given away so much as a hint of who they truly were. Yet, she was damn certain that Ozpin knew. Then there was that scrutinizing eye that Ulysses flashed her shortly after their introductory lectures on survival last week.
Ugh. Two men eying her like a piece of meat. Not exactly disgusting but still downright fucking creepy.
"Ugh, I hate this..."
Raven and Qrow craned their heads, and their dead stares, to Summer. Out of all the things their squeak box of a team leader would say, they never expected her to express such tired pessimism. Probably because this was the first time that they ever heard her say something like this.
"Eh, it ain't that bad, Sum."
The Branwen twins turned their necks to Taiyang who tried his hardest to keep that weakening smile plastered over his face. That and he was still green from vomiting whatever food he had left in his stomach after ingesting the wrong type of bugs earlier in the day.
"Are you sure that's edible?"
Team STRQ shifted in their seats to stare at Gretchen Rainart holding up a poorly sharpened stick upon which was impaled the charred carcass of...what used to be a squirrel. Or at least it looked like a squirrel. Ferret?
"Don't be picky. Better this than nothing at all."
Raven and Qrow collectively rolled their eyes at Glynda Goodwitch's rebuke. Gods, what a bullheaded try-hard. Annoying stuck-up bitch that she was, miss goody four-eyes had a point. There was nothing else left in the way of food and Professor Ulysses, wherever he was right now, had been as helpful as a tape recorder.
"Fbly-fblagh-hegarblehy..."
Everyone continued to tune out the garbled ramblings of the cathartic Bartholomew Oobleck. Mister hundred-words-per-minute continued to dig himself into his own pit of insanity while cradling his empty thermos with the vice grip of a starved lion. His fault for relying heavily so much on coffee that he could barely go three hours without a full cup of it. Amazingly, he had raked in the most kills against the Grimm. A desperate man was indeed a dangerous man when deprived of his caffeine.
"Who's taking up first watch?"
Raven and Qrow sure as hell weren't, that was for sure. Neither of them were in the mood for doing anything right now. They did their best to ignore Sienna Khan even after she—and everyone else in their group of eight—leveled their stares at them.
The twins glared back, too tired and too miserable to even say a single word.
"I call a vote," harped Summer. "We do rotations tonight. Who takes the first watch?"
"I vote for the birds," raised Gretchen.
"Seconded," added Sienna.
"Yep," chirped Taiyang with both his hands raised over his head.
Glynda sighed. And raised her hand. She also raised Bartholomew's hand as well, the poor bastard already convulsing from withdrawal.
The Branwen twins glowered into the fire with a single collective thought in their heads:
'Fuck this class.'
ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: November 19, 2019
LAST EDITED: February 18, 2020
INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 18, 2020