up had cleared by the time she made it down to the clearing, leaving Qrow standing alone, practicing his katas in the downpour. As she got closer, she realized Summer had been very wrong - Qrow was VERY drunk, as drunk as she'd ever seen him. Gods only knew how he was standing up, let alone moving through the practice forms with such precision... and then he turned, and she saw the look on his face, and knew there was enough rage and despair to overpower nearly any amount of alcohol.
He spoke first.
"So they told you, right? They bought us a Gods. Damned. House!" He punctuated each word with slicing cuts through the air, briefly scattering the raindrops as he did. "Looks nice, too! Way better than those camps we grew up in! And we're gonna give it up and go basically become killers and robbers and assassins for hire to make Grandmother happy, for the good of the tribe, right?" He halted his kata, and stood there, swaying. "At least they're still alive. And at least we had one more good day together."
"I don't want to leave either, Qrow," she said softly.
"THEN DON'T!" He screamed, practically sobbed, lashing out with his sword so that the point came to rest inches from her throat. She swallowed, and looked around, relieved to see that everyone, including Summer, had gone back inside, and that they were entirely alone.
"Play it out," she said, again keeping her voice low. "We don't go back, they send people after us."
"Nobody in the tribe's as good as us, let alone STRQ as a whole. We'd kick their asses."
"Probably, although I'm not sure how much stomach Summer and Tai have for killing actual people, instead of just Grimm. But fine. Then Grandmother comes to get us, and I don't know how to handle that."
"She's just an old woman, Raven..." Qrow began.
"I have never in my life been able to disobey her," Raven interrupted. "Even today, not taking them out, that's been part of me rationalizing that we were just going to do it at a different, better time. Gods, I'd rather not go there just so I don't have to tell her what I failed to do..."
"Then don't!"
"But then she comes here. And she's cruel, and says horrible things about us to Tai and Summer..."
"They won't..."
"And she tells them what we were supposed to do. To them. To other Huntsmen. And maybe they don't believe her, or maybe they accept that we changed our minds, but what if she tells other Huntsmen? What if she tells Ozpin? At the very least, this deal Tai's counting on, that'll fall through, and I have no idea what else Ozpin might do if we stay..."
Now Qrow was silent, swaying slightly.
"Well? You had all the answers a minute ago, what now, Qrow?"
Qrow said nothing for a few seconds, still rocking back and forth, before mumbling. "I've... I've just got this headache, Raven..."
She turned away from him, towards the bar.
"Me too, little brother."
She made it three steps before he called out to her. "NOIR!"
"What?"
"Team NOIR. What happened to them, three months ago. There was an exercise that went bad, Nico and Robin didn't make it back. You can... you can tell Grandmother that was us. We did that. And that we have this... opportunity... to work for Ozpin who's like this... HEAD Huntsman, and we can find out a lot more if she lets us stay on."
She turned back to him and thought for a while, head down. Finally she spoke again. "She might buy that, about NOIR. Letting us stay, I don't know..."
"You... you can turn the tables on her if she has a problem with it. Threaten her. Tell her we'll work WITH Ozpin to help track down the tribe if she doesn't let us stay here. Stand up for yourself for once."
She gripped her weapon at the very thought of pushing back against her Grandmother... but there was a lot to like about Qrow's idea. He was right, the power was hers if she'd just TAKE it, for once...
"We'd have to go back and tell her in person. We might have to fight our way out if it goes bad. Are you ready for that?"
Qrow barked laughter, spat and hoisted his weapon on his shoulder. "You ever have to ask if I'm up for a fight, Raven?"
She looked at him for a while, nearly a minute, standing there nearly fall-down drunk but ready to turn his back on everything they'd known for... what? She wasn't even sure he knew what kind of better life he was chasing, or what she wanted herself. But maybe where they were leaving was bad enough that the destination didn't matter, only the existence of an escape route.
She nodded. "Ok. If you're with me... if you're all pushing for this so hard... then we'll do it. For the team."
She wheeled around and started to stride back to the pub, already calling out for Tai and Summer.
But behind her she heard Qrow mumble, low enough she was sure he was just talking to himself, though unfortunately not quiet enough for her to miss it. "Yeah, but... everything I touch goes to hell, doesn't it?"
She broke her stride for just a moment, but resisted the urge to look back and redoubled her steps, bursting through the door to the bar area, where Tai and Summer were talking softly, heads together. They looked up as she entered.
"We're in."