[X] Everyone decides to go on the Atlas trip.
[X] Learns more weird magic from her Uncle.
Sitting in the forest, Yang waited as her uncle moved around, getting comfortable.
"So." Qrow mused. "Vacation to Atlas, huh? And on a Schnee budget, too."
"Yeah." Yang replied. "It's timed so that we'll be heading off as soon as school ends, and we'll be in Atlas for my birthday."
"Leave it to your father to find an excuse to not have to pay for your birthday present." Qrow noted. "Of all the things for him to learn from my sister, it's the allergy to spending money."
"Says the man who just kinda wanders around, probably sleeps in trees, and spends all his money on booze." Yang pointed out.
"Hey, good beer is expensive." He claimed defensively. "And so is cheap beer in the amounts I drink it in."
"I'm fairly sure that's the cue for dad and Ruby to step out from behind the trees so we can start the intervention." Yang claimed. "As well as all your co-workers."
Qrow made a sure of pulling out a bottle full of a clear liquid, and rubbed it against his face affectionately.
"Don't listen to her, sweetheart." He whispered. "She doesn't understand our love."
"So when's the wedding?" Yang asked. "Do you have something old, new, borrowed and brewed?"
Qrow snorted. "Sorry, can't get the relationship working long enough. There's always an older, t..."
He trailed off.
"Nah, your father would kill me if I made that joke during this year." He sighed. "And I'm not trash so I don't spend all my day working on jokes so I'm not sure how to implement the idea of expensive wines being really old and being worth a lot."
"I'll make a list for you." Yang replied. "Or possibly just link you to an internet page on beer puns since you won't read it either way and I can claim credit without doing anything that way."
"Ah, laziness." Qrow held up his bottle, faking a toast. "To the one thing in your blood worth having."
He moved the bottle forward. "Clink."
And with that, he put the bottle back in his coat.
"So, are you coming to Atlas as well?" Yang asked.
"I'll think about it." Qrow replied. "Might have some work, though. People are wanting me to look into certain things, boss man's telling me that I need to investigate something."
"Well, I suppose you don't need to make a proper decision before the airship leaves." Yang noted. "What with, you know, the whole bird thing."
"I suppose you would've noticed." Qrow noted, taking a drink. "I wasn't exactly subtle when I left the last time we did this, I suppose."
Right, the last time they did this. Where Yang accidentally ended up seeing...
Something. About Qrow's past. Something dying on the ground, someone looked down on him. Too much of it gave Yang a headache, and judging by Qrow's reaction, he didn't want to talk about it.
Pushing it would just make him upset again, and Yang would prefer to actually talk to him this time around.
"But to answer your question, nah." Qrow continued. "Just because I am the flying man doesn't mean I can fly endlessly, and there's a lot of distance between Vale and Atlas. If I wanted to pop by, I'd steal an airship from Ozpin and claim I needed it for work or something. He won't believe me, but he also doesn't really care."
"Ah." Yang nodded. "I see."
"And on that note, lets get going." Qrow noted, leaning back against a rock. "Look to the tree on your right."
Yang did so.
"Now to your left."
Her gaze turned, and as it did so, she realised she was standing in the middle of the dirt road again, with the red sky hanging overhead.
"Okay then." Yang noted, getting to her feet and looking ahead.
She paused, when she noticed that Qrow was still sitting in front of her. Well, not sitting. Flailing around for a moment as the rock behind him disappeared, ending with him slamming into the ground.
"Ow." He complained.
"This is new." Yang noted. "What are you doing here?"
"Gonna give you some pointers if you succeed here." Qrow noted. "Since you're far enough along to see the red sky. Now, don't look at it, and don't think about it. Rule One: The red sky hates you. Don't let it get to you, because it'll try to make you hate it in return. So don't think about the red sky."
"Don't think about the pink elephants?" Yang asked.
"You're gonna think about it either way." Qrow pointed out. "This way, you know that the sky is bad rather than not knowing and being curious. You'll learn not to think about it."
"Alright then." Yang nodded. "Just don't think about getting drunk."
"Don't think, do." Qrow replied, reaching into his coat, before stopping and sighing.
"Alright, let's get started." Qrow continued. "You need to be frustrated for this next part, so..."
He trailed off in though, before coming to a conclusion while clicking his fingers. "Your face is dumb."
"Wow, I didn't realise we were still in kindergarten." Yang joked.
Qrow shrugged. "Well, I tried. Let's do it the boring way, then. I need you to grab your soul and take it out of your chest. Now, this is really difficult because you need to be removing it without opening it to outside influence-"
Yang put a hand on her chest, took a moment to think about the last time she was on the fake dirt road, and pulled out the ball of light again.
"...You're kidding." Qrow replied. "Raven has me kissing a chicken and running around for a month doing odd jobs for her before revealing that none of it was needed to get me in the same state of mind, and you just-"
He stops, and sighs. "Never mind. I'm annoyed now. Let's just move on."
"It's becoming more and more clear that I'm better than you in every way." Yang pointed out.
"Well, I have the superior choice in weapon, so I'll let you have this." Qrow shrugged. "Anyway, you've got your soul. Now, do not touch it. Don't do anything with it. Just hold it there with the hand already holding it and you won't mess anything up."
Yang was briefly grateful that she'd picked it up on an angle that hid the bit she'd kinda manipulated last time she was here, so Qrow couldn't yell at his, since it was apparently not a thing she was supposed to do.
"Here's how this works." Qrow continued. "There's two different things you could progress from here. There's usually an order, but we'll do it the other way in case there's time to do this in Atlas."
Standing up, Qrow pulled a script out of his coat, quickly read through it, muttering himself. "Uh huh. Uh huh. Yep. Hm. That'll be problematic..."
Sighing, he put it away. "Well, word of warning, next time we do this and we get to the fun part, it's not gonna be fun. The proper procedure requires pushing your Semblance to the limit, and given what yours is, that'll probably mean you need to hit yourself in the face a bit."
"Are you sure this isn't another one of those things you were told that were blatant lies meant to frustrate you?" Yang asked. "Or just for an excuse to punch you in the face?"
"Nah." Qrow shrugged. "I just had to sit around in a cave for thirteen days in my case. It differs from Semblance to Semblance."
It occurred to Yang that she didn't know what Qrow's Semblance was, but she decided that it was another thing he would have mentioned if he wanted her to know, so let the thought escape her mind.
"Now, what you'll want to do here." Qrow continued. "Is kinda expand your soul ball a bit. You know when you did the thing where you touched someone and saw a memory?"
Yang nodded.
"Now do that with everything here without touching anything." Qrow pointed out.
"...Do the thing where I touch something, but without touching anything." Yang pointed out.
Qrow tapped his forehead, and the area around him warped to include a beach chair, which he laid down on and closed his eyes. "Have fun figuring it out."
Yang looked at her soul, then at Qrow.
...This was supposed to be one of those things where she needs to be frustrated to make it work, wasn't it?
Growling to herself, Yang closed her eyes and imagined she was surrounded with trees and animals. Like the stories of the princesses, who would sing and call a bunch of animals to their side with birds helping them get into a dress or however the stories went.
She was touching everything without touching anything but everything without anything everything without anything every-
For crying out loud, how hard would it have for Qrow to at least give her some pointers? He was enjoying this, he admitted it when he was first doing this that he was doing this just to enjoy watching her jump through all the old hoops, the jerk. And then there was that hateful red sky which was laughing at her for not managing to pull it off, the sky was a jerk as well.
Well, screw them, she was going to do this somehow and then she was going to punch Qrow for being a jerk about it and she was going to-
the woman leaving as she rubbed and hid the back of her arm the bird feeding the smaller birds a worm the big room being sealed leaving ***** unconscious within the dog sniffing and learning the smells the man punching a wooden dummy in a circle of dirt the blood hitting the grass as the woman coughed the rabbit watching the black beast prowling and then shying away from the suddenly shine of sun against steel the song the girl sang as she laid on the ground and looked into the sky the-
Recoiling from the sudden rush of information which she could barely comprehend, Yang looked forward with a buzzing sound echoing through her ears, and noticed Qrow's worried expression.
"Did I do that wrong?" Yang asked.
"No, no, you did that right." Qrow confirmed. "I just forgot that I was nearby. You saw a memory of mine, in there. Want to make sure it's not something you shouldn't have seen."
Yang frowned, as she shook her head.
"I barely remember any of it." Yang confessed. "It all happened all at once, so it was a bunch of flickering images. It was like... You know that movie with that guy who lost his memory and was trying to get it back, and whenever he remembered something there was that montage of one frame images? And how there was people pointing out that you can see the plot twist for like a second? It was like that, kinda. I think?"
Qrow sighed, and relaxed. "Good. I'll explain what it was one day, if I'm allowed to, but even if you are allowed to know one day, it's a few decades off."
"Can I have a hint?" Yang asked.
"No." Qrow replied, the tone of his voice making it clear that he wasn't joking.
So that was something he actually cared about, then.
"Sorry, sorry." Yang sighed. "So, what did we do there?"
"Remember how I had to do a sort of soul resonance thing to get you in here?" Qrow asked, as he clicked his fingers and suddenly the two of them were sitting back in the forest, Qrow leaning against a rock. "And how it needed trees and stuff that your soul has had time to familiarise yourself with, so it'd work?"
"That was some way to get around that?" Yang asked.
"Pretty much." Qrow replied. "It was basically opening up certain paths with your soul, so your soul could reach out to grab at things in a way that'll make the trees and animals accept your soul and pull it off. So you can get back to dreamland whenever you want, as long as you remember something about what you were thinking at the time.
"And if that thing was punching you in the face?" Yang asked.
"Then I'm going to get very upset every time you enter dreamland and I notice how happy you are at the idea." Qrow sighed. "Honestly, what is it about handsome faces like mine that makes me so punchable?"
"It's more the personality." Yang pointed out.
Qrow sighed. "Ah. Terrible taste. I see."
Yang rolled her eyes as she stood up, stretching in the process. "Anyway, I should get home before dad worries."
"Go ahead." Qrow replied, yawning a bit. "See you later."
"Bye."
One step closing to becoming birds, Yang goes through the last few days of school in relative boredom, while the competition is announced and time passes for everyone to put their names into the draw. But she'll have time before she has to go catch the airship, and the news at the time does bring up the raffle, but also focuses on events in-
[X] Mistral
[X] Vacuo