There were a lot of things about his life that Qrow didn't like all that much. There were even more things that he didn't like at all, and some things which made him regret having ever been born. A lot of things had made him regret much less.

Blake had come to him to talk to him about Raven two days before. Since the two of them had properly discussed the issue, Qrow didn't know what he was supposed to do with himself. Sure, he had seen Raven recently and the two of them had made some sort of progress together, but not by much. Raven was still a missing piece as far as protecting Vale went, as wrong as it was.

There was a reason that Qrow had gone to report the matter of Raven making an appearance after the fact to Ozpin. There was a reason that he'd spent more and more of his time at the bar when he didn't necessarily need to.

He sat in Junior's bar, having tucked himself away in a back corner with a drink in his hand and absolutely zero desire to get involved in what was going on with anything else. If he sat there in a corner, the odds that anyone would come to bother him were low. He wanted to be alone with his drink, at least until his company showed up. Being around Raven always left him feeling terrible.

And when he felt like that, there was always alcohol.

Where there was alcohol, it was easy to gather friends.

Qrow blocked out the world around him as much as he could and looked over at the bar's entrance when people came in. He saw Ironwood come in, with Glynda in tow and just raised a hand enough to catch one or both of their attention. It was only a moment before Ironwood was leading the way over to him.

James slid into the booth directly across from Qrow, Glynda sliding in at his side but also carefully putting some space between the two of them.

"Hey, Jimmy." Qrow greeted him. "Glynda."

"Qrow." Glynda replied, making herself more comfortable. She eyed his drink warily, so Qrow just took a moment to down what was left of it. "Why did you want for the two of us to come down here?"

"I just wanted to talk." Qrow grumbled. He knew that he could have gone ahead and had this meeting in front of Ozpin, but for some reason it felt inappropriate. What he did know didn't give them all that much to work with when it came to whatever it was that Raven was trying to do. "About some things."

"Qrow-" James said, letting out a sound that was almost a resigned sigh. "You know that if this important, it shouldn't be done in the back of a bar-"

"Yeah, I'll be sure to remember that, Jimmy." Qrow growled at James. "Did it occur to either of you that I might be dealing with something that might be a little more personal than either of you are giving me credit for? Maybe something that's not 100% for work?"

James and Glynda looked at each other, their eyes meeting and gaze holding for a little too long and yeah, that was something that managed to leave Qrow feeling a bit more than just annoyed by the situation. "You know that we don't mean any trouble, Qrow." Glynda said, her voice dropping in volume and her almost sounding calm about it all. "We just want to be sure that-"

"I know how to do my job," Qrow mumbled, frowning at the realization that his drink was empty. He'd have to try and get ahold of Junior to make sure that he could get a second. "I'm just worried about some of the things going on up at the academy."

Qrow cut himself off, realizing that he hadn't exactly found the best way to explain what he was doing there or what he needed. "I've been worrying about Ruby and Yang a lot."

"I don't see why." Glynda said, sitting up straight with her head held high. "Both of them perform exceptionally well in their classes. They're wonderful students."

"It's not that." Qrow said with a grimace. "I've been worrying about those other kids as well. Their teammates."

"All four do well in their classes." Glynda said, her voice quiet like she was sharing a secret. "And when they've been going out into the field, it has always been under your watch or Bart's on one occasion."

James hesitated for a moment, something reading on his face that made it very clear that he didn't know what he was supposed to say. Whatever it was, he didn't let it last for too long and charged ahead.

"All four of those girls are rather capable. I have looked in on some of Miss Schnee's training sessions. We all know that Blake Belladonna is capable, and both Ruby and Yang are exceptionally well ranked for their year." James said, his voice rigid as ever. "And I... understand, worrying about people involved in this life. We've all lost too many people, and we've all seen people lose too many people."

"And-" Qrow started, but was cut off just as quickly as he tried to involve himself again.

"And it isn't unreasonable to worry. But with the exception of their running off for the sake of their teammate, none of them have been in any real danger." James said, rather pointedly letting his volume drop so low that his voice was barely above a whisper. "So what is this really about?"

"One of the other girls-" Qrow paused. "Blake. She came to me the other day asking to talk about some of the things that happened out in the woods. Tracked me down outside of the city gates late the other night."

James' eyes seemed to widen, and Glynda also seemed surprised by the revelation.

Qrow looked on as the two of them exchanged a look and he noticed that that seemed to have made them both nervous, in their own ways. Glynda let out a breath that seemed to have been held and pushed her blonde bangs back from her face, while James' right hand seemed to ball into a fist, at least slightly.

"What did she want to talk to you about?" Glynda asked, keeping her voice relatively quiet. "For a student to have snuck out like that-"

"Yeah, I know." Qrow mumbled. He's going to need another drink if they're going to have this conversation. The best thing for any of them would have been to just go ahead and order a round, but that depended at least slight on whether or not James would want to drink that night. "She wanted to talk to me about something that she had a run in with out there."

"Grimm?" James asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He didn't look at Qrow, instead choosing to look over his shoulder to check that nobody else was there. "Or something else?"

"Bandits." Qrow said, and he watched the way that Glynda and James both sat back a little bit over the revelation. "Specifically, Branwen tribe bandits."

There was silence at their table, despite the fact that there were people in the bar, and there was music playing over the loudspeakers.

At least Qrow could be confident that he had both James and Glynda's attention on this little matter. "Specifically, she had a run in with my sister. Apparently not all that much happened. I don't think we're going to have to worry about a raid, but-"

"But that's still rather... alarming news." Glynda said, her voice softer than it had been in a long time. Qrow sometimes forgot that she was real and human, and that she genuinely cared for the people around her. He figured that being away from the academies helped out at least a little bit on that front. "Did anything happen with her?"

"No." Qrow mumbled. "Apparently they talked a bit and Raven tried to make sure Blake made it back to school. Asked a few weird questions."

James reached for his scroll, already swiping to a map of Vale so that he could make some plans. Qrow wouldn't have been surprised to know that James needed to check in on some of his own men. Specialists were sure to be creeping around the forest at that point.

He swallowed hard, and Qrow leaned in so that he could get a better view of what James was doing. The general rolled his eyes and expanded his Scroll to its biggest size before lying it down on the table between the three of them. On the map, there were small symbols, which Qrow realized were upside down letters on it. Definitely people that had been sent to patrol.

The giant grimm's location had been marked, and in red was the spawning pool that they had located. Leave it to James to be comprehensive about every single detail if he got the chance to be.

The prick.

"Qrow-" James said, his voice still low in volume. "Do you think that you could pinpoint where that tribe is staying?" He turned the scroll so that Qrow could look at it directly now, and Qrow frowned because looking at a landscape from overhead as a bird and looking at one from a map somehow managed to be completely different.

But, if there was anything that Qrow could take some comfort in it was that James hadn't mentioned the tribe as his tribe. It was a sign of sorts that James understood that it was complicated, and that was about all that Qrow could hope for from the general. Especially when the guy's position meant that he should look at bandits a bit more harshly than he did.

"I can try." He grumbled. "But you need to realize that they don't exactly like to stay in the same place all the time."

"We understand that." Glynda sighed. "But we're going to need to know whatever we can if it will help."

"Yeah," Qrow grumbled as he resisted a rather serious urge to roll his eyes. It wasn't like Glynda or James were trying to smother him, and it was true that they needed all of the information that they could get. He just didn't want to be talked to like he had no idea what was going on. But he looked down at the map on the scroll, blinking and taking in all of the information that had been brought in.

He started at the city of Vale and began to trace his trail outwards, farther and farther until he reached a place deep in the forest by the river. He remembered it perfectly, and took the moment to mark it on the map before passing it back to James. "I can't promise that's up to date. At all. Bandits don't exactly like staying in one place."

"I understand." James replied, taking a glance at the location and raising an eyebrow. Whatever was going on in his head, Qrow didn't exactly know, but James probably knew something that he didn't. "We'll do what we can with this."

There was quiet. Qrow took a deep breath once the scroll was tucked back away and raised a hand so that he could wave Junior over to where he was. Junior stood by the bar, his head high. He saw Qrow and nodded, murmuring something to one of his employees before walking over to join them. Qrow watched him check a pocket on his vest for something, and smirked.

Junior got there and leaned in towards the table. "What is it?" he asked, like he was expecting for them to be there for the usual reason that anyone went to him or needed to talk to him.

"Some drinks would be nice." Qrow said with a shrug. "You know what I want. These two-" James and Glynda looked at each other before James spoke up and rambled off a drink order and Glynda simply asked for a glass of wine.

"Got it." Junior said, having scribbled it all down before tucking his little notepad back away. He looked among the three of them suspiciously. "Was there anything else?"

Qrow hesitated, because he couldn't be sure that anything that they were dealing with was something which Junior could help with. But he thought of something that he could go ahead and say, so Qrow charged ahead. "I wanted to thank you for telling that kid where to find me."

"It's no problem." Junior said, his voice suspiciously calm. "She came in looking for you and I didn't want to turn her away. But you might want to keep an eye on her. She's been in a few times now."

And that, more than anything else, was the sign that they needed to start paying attention. Qrow blinked and shifted in his seat, leaning over towards Junior while Glynda and James did the same. Having ensure that they were safe to talk, Junior continued.

"When she came in she and I got to talking. She was asking questions about the White Fang, but I don't-" He paused, head picking up to look over at the door and make sure that they weren't being listened in on. "I don't know the full story. But it sounds like she might know something."

"That's... impossible." Glynda said, her voice soft as she looked among the rest of them. "She's registered to Beacon Academy as being a human, unless-"

"It wouldn't have been the first time that someone had lied on their registration forms." James spoke up, his voice soft and almost consoling. "But if she hasn't given anyone any reason to worry, then it may be for the best to let her continue with her studies."

Qrow paused, mulling the words over in his head as certain events from the last mission he'd lead RWBY on clicked into place, in different places than they had before. Blake had heard something out in the forest, but she had gotten defensive when she'd been asked about it.

It made sense, even if Qrow didn't know all of the details.

They sat in silence, all mulling it over. Qrow sighed and looked up at Junior. "If she comes in again, call me. Especially if she's looking for information on that."

"Understood." Junior answered before hurrying off to make their drinks.

Once they were alone, Glynda spoke, barely above a whisper.

"She registered under the name Belladonna. I'd considered it a coincidence because it isn't as though people don't share names, but-"

James seemed hesitant. "We need to talk to Ozpin about this."

"Yeah, probably." Qrow muttered, and he really wasn't happy about it at all. "But if we're going to tell Ozpin anything, we need to talk to the kid first."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Glynda asked, sounding a bit unsure. "If the girl came here and is trying to live under cover, then going to her and showing that it isn't working may not work. It could have the effect of making her feel like she needs to run."

"Yeah," Qrow mumbled. He ended up raking a hand through his hair, a little too roughly. It hurt a little bit, too much of a tug at the roots of his hair. "But we can't just go and tell Ozpin that this is happening with the kid not knowing."

James hesitated, thinking hard on something clearly. He took in a deep breath. "It's possible that the best thing that we could do is attempt to reach out to the Chieftain in Menagerie." He said, but he didn't exactly sound happy about it. Of course, if he were the leader of any sort of kingdom and suddenly had the general of Atlas knocking on his door, Qrow wouldn't have been happy either. "But that may be a step which needs to be taken later."

"Not until I've talked to the kid." Qrow reasserted to the group. "I think that I'm the one at Beacon that she trusts the most, so it's probably for the best that I'm the one to go there."

"Right." Glynda said quietly. "Please, Qrow- Don't blow this."

Qrow felt something in him which wanted to react to that or get defensive. When it came to others, and to people that knew about his semblance, he could never trust that he wasn't going to find himself getting thrown out for it. He didn't know ehther that was what Glynda was trying to do, but he still felt that thing that told him that he needed to bolt.

"I'm not going to try." Qrow growled back at her.

Junior approached their table again, his tray carrying a few glasses. He began to serve the drinks, and once they were all calm, it was time to get started.

He made sure to get everything on the table, and then just as quick as he'd arrived, Junior was gone.

Qrow picked up his drink and took a sip of his drink. "I don't like how any of this is going."

James drank from his own, looking far away. Like he almost didn't know how to be there anymore. "Neither do I."

Glynda nodded wordlessly.

Cinder had been alerted to Emerald dropping her semblance with the feeling of a tap on her arm when the three of them had stopped to camp for the night. It wasn't like being with Watts, Hazel, and Tyrian. There was something about being around people that were actually kind that was... interesting.

Which almost made it harder for her to focus on the job that they had ahead of them.

Amber was fixing a fire, and Cinder watched as she poked at it. If she'd wanted to, she could have gone ahead and tried to just light it herself. But if they were meant to keep their abilities in the dark from Amber, that wasn't such a good idea.

"Hey-" Amber said, her eyes bright and soft. "You two are going to be okay, right?"

"We should be." Cinder answered. "Thank you for helping us."

"It's really no problem." Amber said, smiling and standing up once she was sure that the fire was going right. She stretched and took a walk over towards her horse, removing a few things from its saddlebag. She gave the animal a gentle pat on the shoulder before approaching the fire again. "I do really want to make sure that you can find your teammates before we get to Haven."

"And we appreciate it." Cinder said calmly. "I don't know that we could have gotten that far without your help."

"Well, I'm happy to help." Amber said once she had the fire going and food cooking for the three of them to share. "You two should really be more careful in the future though. Student teams shouldn't be getting into so much trouble out in the field. Or straying so far from the academies."

"We didn't look for it." Emerald said with a shrug, like that explained everything.

"I believe you." Amber sighed, and she looked a little bit exhausted by the mention of it. "When it comes to bandits, there really isn't much of anything that you can do. You hope that you're strong enough to beat them and if you aren't, you hope it doesn't get worse. They don't exactly play by any rules, you know?"

"Right." Cinder said, glancing over at Emerald. The two of them were going to need to come up with some sort of cover story if they were going to make all of this work out. There wasn't much that either of them could do alone though. And Emerald couldn't be expected to carry the whole operation with her semblance.

The problem was that without a good way to contact the others, there was only so much that the two of them would be able to do. When Watts, Tyrian, or Hazel came for them, it was going to be an ordeal in itself.

Because Cinder couldn't expect that they weren't going to be left in a situation where they weren't caught by surprise.

But now that things were going well, Amber dropped into a seat across from the two of them, looking mostly happy and glad to have company for a night.

"So," Amber started, stretching out and making herself a bit more comfortable in her spot. "You two are students at the academy?"

"We are." Cinder says, thinking fast back to her own time at Haven. It hadn't been long, but she had been there more than long enough for her to have been assigned to a team. "We're half of team CLER." She explained, borrowing a name from one of the upperclassman teams at the academy. "We lost sight of our teammates Raleigh and Lorelei during the attack."

"Oh." Amber said, frowning. "That's terrible."

"Thanks." Cinder sighed. "I just don't know if we'll find them alive."

"Neither do I." Emerald said, hunching forward a bit in the spot where she was sitting. "Going back alone would be..."

"Bad." Cinder finished for her.

"Well, I guess it's good that I found you then." Amber sighed.

"What about you?" Emerald asked, blinking. "I mean, did you go to the academy?"

Amber sat up straight, eyes widening in some surprise. "Oh-" She started, swallowing. "I did. I mean, I went to Beacon Academy, but when I graduated I decided to come back out to Mistral. Home is where the heart is and all of that."

"Right." Cinder said.

"Yeah." Amber said, expression suddenly soft. "I like it out here."

To be honest, Cinder was at least a little bit curious about Amber. There was a lot about her that she just didn't know, and while she was interested-

It wasn't wise for her to get too involved, Cinder decided. If she was going to be involved in Amber's eventual death, then the last thing that she needed to do was get attached at all. But she also knew that she was going to need to be able to play along at least a bit.

"I grew up here in Mistral." Cinder said, keeping her voice down. "I've lived here my entire life."

"I have too." Emerald said, blinking and looking over at Cinder with something akin to surprise on her face. "It's... nice. I guess."

"Yeah, well-" Amber said, blinking and stirring a pot that she'd laid out on her fire. "My mother was from here originally, but she'd gone to Beacon for her own reasons. After she and my father got married they moved back to Mistral and raised me in the kingdom."

It was a topic so uninteresting that Cinder almost wished she was back with Watts, Tyrian, and Hazel. None of them would have rambled on about their families.

"So you're just a huntress then?" Cinder asked, looking up at Amber. "Shouldn't you be travelling with a team?"

Amber's face screwed up a little bit, her expression far away for just a moment before she shrugged her shoulders and allowed herself to move forward in the discussion. "I haven't had much of a need for a team in a while. There isn't usually much of a threat aside from bandits out here. Usually I just spend time making sure that people get from town to town safely. It's not very interesting, but I like it."

"Like you're doing for us now." Emerald said, in a certain tone of definite feigned cheerfulness. "So this shouldn't be any trouble."

"No," Amber laughed. "Not really. I've been doing this for long enough that I think that I can handle myself just fine."

Cinder looked over at Emerald, looking for some sort of cue from her partner that the two of them could use. She didn't quite know what they were doing, especially when they couldn't contact the people that were following after them. Watts, Hazel, and Tyrian had to be making plans or something. They had to be keeping an eye out for them in whatever way was possible.

"We'll get back to Haven." Amber said, still smiling widely. "You have my word."

"Thank you." Emerald sighed. She curled up a little bit beside Cinder, while Cinder just made herself as comfortable as she could manage. "I think right now we're both just tired though."

"I can't blame you." Amber sighed. "You two should rest once we eat."

"What about you?" Cinder asked, cocking her head to the side and looking for something from the woman. Amber blinked and looked back down at the food that she was cooking before speaking up again.

Amber reached for the three small bowls that she'd gotten out of her saddlebags when she'd last gone over to her horse. Cinder watched as she began to spoon food into each of them, just cooked and rehydrated rations that would be enough to carry the three of them over for a day or two.

"I figured that you two were going to need to rest, and if there are bandits out here, someone will need to keep watch." Amber explained, like there was nothing wrong. Like she was completely clueless as to what was going on.

It was a sign that things couldn't have gone any better for them.

"I can keep watch." Cinder offered, locking her eyes with Amber. "It's the least that I could do if we're going to be travelling with you."

"Are you sure?" Amber asked, offering Cinder the first of the bowls. "You know that if you're hurt-"

"I know." Cinder sighed. "But I think that I'm going to be fine."

"Right." Amber shrugged. "If you insist, then I won't fight you on it."

"Thank you," Cinder said, just as she began to finally eat her meal. It wasn't anything special, and it was truly some of the blandest cooking that she'd ever tasted. At least when Hazel did things with their trail rations, he tried to do something with them. Although, he'd probably been cooking them for most his life at that point.

But Cinder ate the meal anyways, and when the time came for all of them to rest she went off to keep watch. There was a good spot for her by one of the trees near their camp, and Cinder decided to place herself for the time being.

Amber went to bed, and Cinder feigned it, if the way that she was there nearly an hour after she had gone to bed at Cinder's side was any indication.

"What do you think, ma'am?" Emerald asked, her voice quiet and her looking back towards the camp nervously. "Are we sure that-"

"I don't know." Cinder replied, her voice quiet. She couldn't risk accidentally waking Amber up, since this was probably going to be their only good chance to make strategy plans for some time. "Have you heard anything from Hazel or Watts?"

"I... was going to ask you that." Emerald admitted, sounding sad. "Since you've been working with them longer."

"Right." Cinder said. She knew that she still had her scroll in her bag, but hadn't gotten a chance to check it. Not when she and Emerald had been needing to play along as though they'd both been injured. "I'll see whether or not we have before morning."

"And... what about this lie that we're keeping up?" Emerald asked, and she looked just as nervous as Cinder felt. They both knew that there was something was wrong, and there was no way that they could dodge it. Not as things were. "Because if you need me to-"

"We'll travel with her for a bit." Cinder instructed, blinking back at the camp. "In two days, we'll make it seem as though we've found our teammates."

"And?"

"And hopefully while you create the illusion, Watts, Tyrian, and Hazel will be able to attack."

"Right." Emerald said, her voice quiet and face sunk. "I don't like any of this."

Cinder was silent for a long time, a thousand thoughts and feelings flitting through her all at once.

"I know."