It occurred to Raven, as STRQ's first year at Beacon passed, that she had no idea what Summer's limits actually were.
Raven was getting a pretty good sense for Summer's baseline. Said baseline was coming up, Raven would grudgingly admit, but not enough to make Summer a threat. For the most part, she continued to do things at her typical level, which drove Raven up a wall. Every so often, though, she would flash something more. She'd move a little faster, or hit a little harder, or write another page for an assignment, or come up with an idea for how the team could move or fight together. It almost always came as a surprise; it almost always was effective.
It amazed Raven how much of a difference it made when Summer tried, which made it all the more frustrating when she didn't.
Raven still had no idea how Ozpin thought this was a positive trait.
It also meant that Raven could never get a handle on Summer's full potential. How could she pin down the girl's max when she never showed it?
Those swooping, crushing attacks from their breakthrough spar- and the breathtaking intimacy afterwards- had been beyond anything Raven had seen from Summer, and that remained the case as the leader sleepwalked through their sparring classes, seemingly unconcerned with her win/loss record. Were those classes her max? Or was there some higher level still that Summer could reach with the right prodding?
Raven wondered what it would take to see Summer at her best.
It wasn't their first-year Huntsman-assisted field mission.
That field mission, which focused on culling grimm encroaching on the rapidly growing Mountain Glenn settlement, went off more-or-less as planned, even with Qrow's semblance crashing their airship during deployment. And dropping them into an underground Deathstalker burrow. And causing Taiyang's backpack straps to snap, dumping their food supplies into a river.
This is fine, Raven had told herself repeatedly through clenched teeth.
Summer must have agreed. She operated at her baseline throughout.
It wasn't their end-of-year sparring final.
Raven knew she and Qrow were excellent fighters; she'd rather expected them to be top of their class. What she didn't anticipate was just how stacked STRQ turned out to be, as fighters and in the classroom both. For as far behind as she and Qrow were in book learning, STRQ had enough different experiences and specialties that they had the whole curriculum covered. Their group study sessions (which quickly transformed into bull sessions) were wonderfully efficient.
And... nice. Raven didn't mind them even when she didn't need them. She didn't know why. When she thought about it, she realized she wouldn't like any of the conclusions she might reach, so she stopped.
(Older Raven knew better, but that left her with an equally vexing problem. She didn't know if her youthful hesitation had been a missed opportunity or a stroke of wisdom.)
If STRQ held their own in academics, they dominated everything to do with combat.
"Team STRQ will be next," announced Professor Bridgestone. Bridgestone had Raven's grudging respect; for someone so generous with her grades and soft in her teaching style, the woman missed nothing that went down in a fight and could dissect a bout with the most critical eye. (Raven refused to acknowledge that Ozpin had correctly pointed this out to her.) More importantly, Bridgestone was sudden death with a Gravity Dust-infused warhammer. She was exactly the sort of threat to the tribe Raven was most keen on understanding.
"At the Headmaster's suggestion," Bridgestone went on with a bit of a frown, "we have decided to escalate your team's challenge. For your end-of-year, you will spar with Team MINT."
That puzzled Raven; from the murmurs breaking out in the gallery, their classmates were equally confused. MINT? They'd never fought MINT before, and Raven was sure they'd sparred with every team in their year.
Her eyes went wide. In their year…?
She looked to Summer, who was looking scared. "That's the top second-year team," Summer whispered. "They're favorites to represent Beacon at Vytal next year!"
That was a lot of expressiveness for Summer. Maybe she actually was frightened. Raven didn't want that. It was a bad look for Summer, and it made Raven nervous.
(Later, she would look back at this and realize how much her relationship with Summer had changed by then. She kept this revelation to herself.)
"The teachers must respect us, then," Raven said, injecting her voice with bravado. "Apparently, none of our classmates are in our league, if they have to bring in ringers just to make us sweat."
Qrow snorted and tried to crack his neck for theatricality's sake. "Wonder what they'll do after we win this one. Maybe it's teachers, next."
That made Raven apprehensive. She'd come to Beacon to learn to kill Huntresses of Bridgestone's caliber, not give them a chance to kill her before she was ready.
Something within her prickled at the thought. She would not relish fighting Bridgestone, someday after she'd returned to the tribe. She hoped she wouldn't have to. Not just because Bridgestone was a force of destruction, either.
She didn't like that feeling.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, let's get through this fight first," Summer said to Qrow. Her face had gone even again, and her eyes had returned to their usual cool, detached aspect. There it was. That was what Raven needed from Summer.
So that Summer wouldn't be an anchor, Raven reminded herself angrily. She needed Summer's head in the game so Raven wouldn't have to waste time protecting her and could focus on her own fight instead. Simple practicality, of course.
She almost believed herself.
She vaguely heard the clapping and hollering from the gallery as their opponents came onto the stage. She tuned it out to focus on the threat. Team MINT was moving in matched pairs: a larger boy-girl pair Raven mentally tagged as Em and Aye, and a pair of smaller boys she tagged as En and Tee. She hadn't seen them before, except maybe as anonymous faces in the school's common areas. Looking at them for combat-readiness was different altogether.
Even as her mind slipped into cataloguing their potential opponents, she heard Summer doing the same thing aloud, barely audible: "Broadsword on the left, lots of muscle behind it… the girl looks like the shield to his sword, she's got armor… don't see any weapons in the middle, but I bet he's either a skirmisher or fire support… tonfas on the right."
"The middle guy's ranged—looks like throwing weapons," Raven corrected. "Probably with a semblance backing them up."
"Okay," said Summer, still barely vocalizing. "Standard formation, Taiyang holding the middle. Qrow, you have sword-guy. Raven, tonfas. Listen for my calls."
It made some sense to Raven. Her speed against the fastest enemy weapons, Qrow matching large weapon to large weapon, immovable Taiyang as their rock—and Summer at the back, barely engaged.
Typical.
She spent a few seconds sizing up her prospective opponent—Tee, as she called him in her head. From the way Tee was eying her in kind, the engagement was set.
"…and the match will follow tournament rules, ending with low aura, ring-out, or submission," Professor Bridgestone was concluding. "You will begin on my mark."
Raven dropped her left hand to take hold of Omen's sheathe, spinning the rotor idly, making the enemy wonder. She felt more than saw her teammates tensing, ready to spring into the fight—other than Summer, who was as much a void as ever.
"Begin!"
Raven bent into a lunge and shot forth, drawing Omen with her favorite metal blade as she went.
Her full-strength strike was stopped cold on the back of two tonfas.
She stepped back, withdrawing her blade to stab true, but heard a whistling sound, starting from behind Tee and coming around to her right—
She was able to deflect the projectile in time, but in that moment of distraction, Tee stepped inside her guard and hammered at her with a tonfa.
Raven rolled with the blow, spinning out to disengage before planting and lunging back in. Tee was attacking, too—they met awkwardly in the middle, in a clinch both their bodies pressed into, like bumbling novices.
The whistling came again. Raven looked, trying to catch a glimpse of what she knew was coming, and when she spotted the blur of metal coming for her she tried to break the clinch to block, only Tee was pressing on her and keeping her pinned—
A spray of bullets knocked the projectiles out of the air.
Raven spared a glance behind her. Summer was standing with her automatic rifle at the ready, sighting down it as if it were a much lighter firearm. It could maybe do the counterfire job, but it was not suited for it.
Tee drew Raven's attention back by sagging out of the clinch, drawing Raven forward out of her balance, and delivering a stern short-range smack. Raven hit him with a kick to knock him backwards before attacking again.
Once more they met in the middle. As this developed into a pattern, Raven started to realize how poor a matchup this was for her. Both her and Tee's were aggressive, attacking styles, but when both sides attacked, it brought the range of the encounter in, and Tee's smaller and faster weapons were better suited for point-blank melees.
He was also good, much better than most Kingdom-raised softies. Most of the flashiness and excess had been excised from his moves; what was left were direct, effective strikes with no wasted motion. Raven could beat him, sure, but it would be a slugfest. Raven hated slugfests.
She hated losing more. She redoubled her efforts. If technique was a bust, she could always win with sheer savagery.
Breaking from another close encounter, Raven backpedaled into a pirouette spin. Tee dodged backwards and planted for a lunge—
And a glaive stroke coming down stopped the lunge before it started.
"Switch!" Summer called as a follow-up thrust forced Tee to disengage fully. "Raven, up!"
Summer raised her glaive and cocked it back over her shoulder until it was parallel to the ground behind her. Raven knew this drill, knew the move Summer was trying for—they'd rehearsed it enough, after all—but for a moment she still hesitated.
Summer was mouthing 'up' again when Raven committed. She wouldn't be the one holding the team back for lack of daring.
She leapt up and onto the glaive's haft, a miracle of balance made mundane by practice. With a grunt of exertion, Summer swung.
Raven was thrown into the air, over Tee's surprised face, beyond where Taiyang and his foe were trading body blows, directly at MINT's shocked, projectile-throwing leader. She could see the moment En changed targets to throw at her, but she was quicker on the draw. She aimed her sheathe in his direction and ejected a fire blade at him. As usual, fire made for great dazzle; his aim spoiled, En held his weapons a beat too long, and then Raven was in his face.
This was Raven's sort of fight. En wanted no part of a close encounter with Raven's sword and tried to flee, but Raven pursued lustily. She afforded her foe no space or respite. On the few occasions he had room to throw something at her, she was able to deflect easily and gain a step or two in the bargain. It was only a matter of time until she closed fully and pummeled—
"Carrion!"
Summer's voice. The girl had some lungs, when she cared to use them.
Raven swore. If she could just have a moment more, she could win…
But no, she had to play nice, or Ozpin would whine.
With a growl she came to a stop, visualized, and swung her sword to slice open a portal. The red-and-black reality-tear hung in the air; a matching one, she knew, had appeared next to Qrow. She waited exactly one beat, then fired an ice blade through the portal.
From off to the side was a shout of surprise from the 'm' in MINT.
Now maybe, maybe Qrow could capitalize on the opening she'd created at Summer's order. Why Summer insisted on using Raven as support when she was so clearly the best fighter of the bunch, the one the others should be supporting, was—
Her eye caught on the projectiles as they approached. Her sword sang. Two more deflections, although one was a narrow thing.
With a bit of breathing room, En was able to chuck a stream of projectiles Raven's way. She deflected most—one or two slipped through and nibbled at her aura—but defending herself wouldn't help her close. Could she outlast him? How many of these things was he carrying?!
"Roadkill!" Summer again!
Roaring her frustration, Raven ducked her shoulder to soak the next projectile on muscle and Aura and fired back with a lightning blade (mentally updating her inventory). That broke En's rhythm for a moment, and in that moment, Raven cut open another portal, this one person-sized.
She visualized what was happening on the other end. Em, having been stung by a shot coming out of a portal before, would turn to defend when he saw a new portal opening, giving Qrow a chance to land a clean hit—
Right on schedule, Em stumbled out of the portal in front of Raven, knocked through by Qrow, dazed and disoriented and with a chunk out of his aura.
Two projectiles from En hit his teammate; Raven hit the staggered, bewildered, luckless Em with three strokes of her sword before a horn sounded to stop her.
"…and there's the first fighter down," came Bridgestone's distant voice, but Raven wasn't listening, wasn't allowing anything to shake her focus. En had stopped throwing (too late) and was hesitating with his teammate in the way. Raven nimbly ducked around the defeated fighter and was upon En in a moment.
This time, he didn't escape. She pressed her advantage until the horn pulled her off. She gave En a derisive huff before turning her back on him.
She could see Summer and Qrow tormenting the tonfa user, who was at the mercy of two weapons specializing in zone control; that fight was in the bag. (Of course Qrow, that softie, had gone to bail out the weakest fighter on STRQ.) That left Taiyang and the last member of MINT, the larger girl. The two were grappling, straining and grunting against each other with neither yielding much ground.
Boring.
Raven sauntered up behind the girl, laid her sword on the girl's shoulder, and tapped to get her attention. "It's over. Submit."
The girl started, sighed, and dropped, her hands raised. The horn sounded in acknowledgement.
Taiyang caught Raven's eye and grinned. "I was having fun, you spoilsport."
"Don't play with your food," Raven said sourly. ("Rude," protested the girl, but Raven paid no heed to weaklings.)
"Then give me something else to eat," Taiyang said daringly.
Raven scowled. She thumbed the rotor for Omen's sheathe. "I have a whole buffet right here."
"Oh, gods," said the defeated girl, walking away from them. "Just screw already."
Raven's mouth dropped in surprise and outrage, but she found herself unable to speak. Taiyang's grin, which she'd expected to be incorrigible and insufferable, looked softer instead. She didn't know how to deal with that.
One final horn blast sounded, this one longer than the others. Raven knew the outcome without looking at the scoreboard. The enthusiastic screaming from the gallery was another clue. Shaking her head to set her hair swaying, Raven sheathed her sword with broader, showier motions than necessary, glowing beneath the lights and the attention.
By the tribe's orders, they weren't supposed to get this much attention, certainly not attention from people they might have to kill someday…
Raven couldn't help herself. It felt too good. Being acknowledged for being strong, for being the best—she could get drunk on that.
"And the winners… Team STRQ," said Bridgestone, her tone somewhat less than professional. "Salute your opponents. As usual, each team will write a breakdown of their opponents' actions in the spar, due two days hence after everyone's seen the film. Well fought, everyone!"
Not everyone, Raven thought acidly. Some members of the team had barely been involved. Others had carried more than their weight to make up the difference. She was sure of this.
She was right.
She was wrong about who belonged in each of those categories.
It was a week after the end-of-semester spar. The after-action reports had been submitted to Bridgestone, who turned them around with dizzying speed, marked up with added commentary or corrections. Per her policy, everyone involved got the composite report of select observations from each individual's write-up.
If you wanted to understand all that happened in a fight, Bridgestone always said to them, you had to get all the perspectives on it. What the winners and losers saw as important was usually quite different, and only both perspectives together gave the whole picture.
Raven had been struggling with this idea for some time. The idea that the opinions of losers could be valuable cut against her beliefs. Bridgestone had chipped away at Raven's defenses, bit by bit… right up until now.
Because there was no way any of these losers could be right about this.
The biggest advantage of Team STRQ was its team leader's control of the flow of battle…
No, Raven thought with gritted teeth. Its biggest advantage was Raven's ability to win her one-on-ones while still contributing to the other fights!
…rescuing Raven from a poor matchup and providing her with an advantageous one…
No, Raven thought again. She would have won. She wasn't some weakling who could only win certain fights. She could beat any student Beacon threw at her. She could!
Not that she could deny she was better at hounding ranged fighters than battering through tonfa-guy, that was true, but still…
Raven skimmed further down the report as her temper rose.
…Summer was able to maintain her situational awareness in a way the enemy team leader could not. That allowed her to time STRQ's team attacks when she knew both parts of the team could support them, maximizing their impact while minimizing their risk…
Raven shoved herself away, stood up, and walked around in her fury. She did not come here to listen to some randos (and her own teammates) beatify a weakling!
Summer hadn't even won her fight! She hadn't inflicted much damage at all! She'd just stalled him out, kept him busy, while she watched the fight and let other people do the heavy lifting. Distance and control, like always, staying at her baseline level. And look where that got her!
It got her victory and adulation for that victory, a quieter part of Raven whispered.
And that, more than anything she'd seen or read, gave Raven pause.
Whatever it was that Summer had, other people thought it was good. Other people approved. Other people thought of it as strength.
They were wrong, sure… but did that matter?
If Bridgestone thought Summer was stronger than Raven, that was as good as if she actually was. Wasn't it?
It was a staggering notion, one that took the ground out from under Raven's intellectual feet. She didn't know how to grapple with it.
She vowed she'd find out.
In the end, Team MINT was one of the teams chosen to represent Beacon at the Vytal Tournament.
So was STRQ.
This left Raven torn. The Branwen twins were operating under false names, but that cover wasn't guaranteed to hold. The scrutiny that came with Tournament entry put their infiltration at risk. Didn't Qrow remember that this was a secret mission, that they had cover to maintain?
When Raven and Qrow eventually returned to the tribe, they would fight Huntsmen, sooner or later. That was the whole reason they were at Beacon in the first place. The last thing the Branwen Tribe needed was tape of their trump cards' fighting styles and capabilities available to everyone on the planet! By that standard, fighting in the Tournament was suicide. No, Raven was far too pragmatic for that.
On the other hand…
It felt good to show off. It felt better for everyone to know exactly how strong and dangerous she was. Raven, to her chagrin, was deeply enjoying the fame and infamy STRQ was accruing around campus. She knew she was supposed to be laying low, and she'd deliberately tanked quizzes trying to suppress her grades and reduce her profile, but more and more she couldn't help herself. It was fun to be awesome.
Maybe notoriety could be a better shield than anonymity.
They compromised. STRQ competed in the Tournament, but the twins only participated in the team round, and Raven abstained from using her semblance. (Qrow's was active, not that anyone but the Branwens knew that.) After easily mopping the arena floor with their round one opponents, STRQ sent Summer and Taiyang to the doubles round.
Raven was sure that would be the end of things, that without the Branwens carrying them STRQ's run was up. To her astonishment, Summer and Taiyang just survived their doubles match. Taiyang even won his first singles match before bowing out in the semifinals. (The tournament was eventually won by a different Beacon student, a fourth-year girl with the silliest weapon and the most overpowered semblance Raven had ever seen. Raven resolved never to cross Glynda Goodwitch if she could help it.)
All of STRQ was called to be present for the after-bout interview (though Summer clearly would have been impossible to keep away). Raven went, good-natured despite herself. On one level, she felt like she should have derided Taiyang as a loser. She, certainly, would have won his bout if she'd competed. Yet she couldn't feel that derisive towards him. He had fought valiantly and well, and he hadn't lost by much, and against a hard opponent. He was certainly taking the loss with dignity and grace, a trait she also normally despised, but which seemed to suit Taiyang, somehow.
A good loser. That's what he was.
"You're smiling," Summer whispered.
"Am not," Raven hissed with a reflexive scowl.
"You were."
"Was not."
"You…"
"Hey, kids, shut it," whispered Qrow, jerking his head at the rolling cameras that, thankfully, were focusing on Taiyang. Summer radiated more shame than Raven felt, and both refocused in time to hear Taiyang's next response.
"…really have to credit my team for getting me this far," Taiyang said with an aw-shucks vibe Raven knew to be totally genuine. Taiyang didn't have a duplicitous bone in his body, and cruelty was beyond him. The tribe would have eaten him alive. "They're the reason I had this opportunity, so if anyone should be recognized, it's them."
Raven felt the smile growing, felt the pride welling up. That was right, she knew. That was good. By "them" and "they" he meant her, of course.
"Especially Summer," Taiyang went on, expression brighter and smile wider than before. "She did great in the doubles round, and she was in charge of prepping me for the singles. She coached me and helped me strategize so I knew how to handle it. I wouldn't have had a chance without her!"
It was like a volcano had erupted in Raven's chest. Her pride transmuted directly to fury.
Summer again!
Raven's head snapped to the side to see how Summer was reacting. Summer had pulled her hood over her head and was bashfully shrinking away, but underneath, a brilliant blush had flooded her face, and a pleased smile had appeared.
Raven didn't notice anything that was said in the rest of the interview. Her blood was pounding too loudly in her ears for her to hear anything, and the red around the edges of her vision clouded her sight.
It was only after boys and girls split up to go to their respective locker rooms that Raven found her chance. She cornered Summer, grabbed her by the clasp of her hood, and shoved her back against the wall.
"Rae?" squeaked the smaller girl. "What's this-?"
"You just think you're so damn special, don't you?" Raven growled.
"You're scaring me, Rae," said Summer in a small voice.
"Good. You should be scared. You should fear me."
"But we're teammates," Summer protested. "We're supposed to be on the same side."
"Never," Raven shot back. "You and I have never been on the same side. We never have been, and we never will be."
"That's not true, though," Summer said. "Think of all the times we've had each other's backs, like with the goliath, or…"
Against her will, Raven remembered that incident. She and Summer had combined to slay a monster that should have been out of their league, even as their Huntsman instructor told them to fall back; the two had struck as one, like they shared a mind, like they knew below thought how the other would move and act, and they'd executed team attacks and synchronized strikes without any cues to devastating effect—
Raven realized she didn't want to hear anything else Summer had to say.
She'd gotten too close. This team-ness had gone too far. That was why this hurt so much. That was why she was so scared.
"Shut up!" she said, voice cracking.
"Where's this coming from, Rae?" Summer asked gently. "What's really going on here?"
"I said shut up!" Raven said, and she balled up a fist to punch Summer's mouth closed.
It was like she'd punched a steel girder. Raven blinked, and saw that Summer had caught Raven's oncoming fist, and stopped it so cold Summer's hand hadn't swayed back.
"No," said Summer, and like a switch had been thrown there was no trace of girlishness or timidity. The silver in her eyes flashed like a blade. "I don't care how bad your temper is, we're not doing this."
She threw Raven's hand aside. It shouldn't have been possible. Raven was stronger, and they both knew it.
Summer wasn't that strong. She never had been. Until this moment.
Raven released her grip on Summer's clothes and stepped back. She felt something, a sub-sonic hum, a subtle pressure emanating from Summer like a solar wind. It reminded her of the tingle on her skin before a lightning storm, or the creaking of thin ice, or the click of a safety disengaging.
Danger, her instincts screamed.
She'd never thought that about Summer before. She didn't know how to cope with that, how to process it—how to grapple with the idea of someone who'd lost twenty-three spars in a row somehow being a mortal threat.
She never had figured out Summer's max.
"S-sorry," Raven stuttered, less because she was sorry than because it was the quickest way to blunt Summer's advance. She swallowed her mortification with some effort, and doubled down. "I'm sorry, you're right, I went way too far."
"Yeah, you did," Summer said sharply, but her face softened ever so slightly. Raven felt some of the pressure lift. "If you wanted to be enemies, congratulations, you made great progress on that goal just now. I just don't know why you wanted that. It's sure not what I wanted."
Raven burned with shame. She didn't know where that emotion came from. Was it because Summer's words came too close to the truth of Raven's mission to become a counter-Huntress? Was it because Summer and Raven would have to end up on opposite sides, some day?
Was it because she knew her words would hurt a Summer who had only ever offered goodwill?
Was it because she was throwing that goodwill away?
Raven didn't know. She also didn't know how to play defense. What she did know was that she resented the fear. Even the idea that Summer could make her feel fear and hurt made her furious.
Intimacy was vulnerability. It was the surrender of power. She wouldn't let Summer have that power over her, dammit. And if Summer wanted to play rough, Raven could play rough.
"I'm taking Tai away from you," she blurted.
That instantly killed the hard look on Summer's face. Summer cycled through reactions quickly—embarrassment, denial, anger, others too numerous and hard to name—before settling on something guarded. "Is that what this is about? You want Tai, and you think he belongs to me?"
"I saw how you looked at him during the press conference," Raven replied. She'd always been an expert at pressing an advantage home. She went for the kill. "I heard how he talked about you. You really liked that. You want him. Well, I'm going to take him from you."
"That's not how it works, though," said Summer, squirming. "He's not mine to keep."
Raven snorted. "With that attitude, you've already lost."
"He gets a choice," Summer said as her voice faded.
"I'm going to make the choice easy for him," Raven declared.
Summer took a deep breath. She seemed smaller than ever, like she was shrinking beneath her cloak. "So that's why you were going to punch me. You wanted to fight me for Tai."
No, Raven wanted to say—but it was safer to let Summer think that.
On reflection, Raven wasn't even sure Summer was wrong.
"That's what dogs do," Summer said. "I won't." She blinked, and her eyes seemed even brighter than before. Raven wondered why.
"Your loss," she said, more callously than she felt.
"Just promise me one thing," Summer went on, blinking frequently. "Promise me you're not doing this just to hurt me. Promise me you'll actually take care of him. Make me that promise, and I'll get out of your way."
Raven felt a surge of wicked triumph. "Here's a hint: you can't set terms after you give away your leverage."
She turned her back on the smaller girl as a song of victory played in her soul.
It faded with every step.
It was gone altogether before she'd returned to their dorm.
Poor Taiyang never knew what hit him.
Inside of a week, he and Raven were officially dating.
After two weeks, they were periodically kicking an amused Qrow and pained Summer out of the dorm, or else scouting out secluded spots on Beacon's grounds to get up to the same thing.
It was a tempestuous affair, on and off and on and off, different every day in every way but intensity. Raven would go from despising how soft he was to melting into his warmth on a daily basis. Their blow-ups became the stuff of campus legend. Their reconciliations were blurs of tears and passion.
Through it all, Summer watched, and waited. She listened when Raven would talk about it—whether she was gushing over Taiyang's latest romantic gesture or excoriating him for being such a loser—but she never asserted herself. She never swooped in to catch Taiyang on the rebound, when Raven knew in her heart she would have poached Taiyang in an instant. It had to be hurting her; even Raven had enough empathy to know that watching all of this was tearing Summer up. She maintained her stance, though, that she was happy when her teammates were happy.
Raven had to assume Summer was doing the same for Taiyang. Raven knew all-too-well that Qrow wasn't up to the task of being anyone's therapy bird.
(Which was the only reason she was willing to be so intimate with Summer, her younger self had insisted. Availability, nothing else. Younger Raven was a liar.)
All of this taught Raven two things. One was the bitter realization that getting what she wanted didn't always make her happy. The other was a glimmer of what people meant when they talked about Summer's strength.
She put it to the test near the end of their second year, when Ozpin (without explication) pulled in the members of Team STRQ for individual interviews. Raven found the process torturous. Ozpin's questions started off innocently enough—how was your year? What classes did you enjoy?—before veering into hypotheticals and questions about Huntsmen ethics. Seeing as banditry didn't accord with Huntsmen ethics, Raven had to tread very carefully. Trying to guess the sort of answer Ozpin wanted to hear, then sell it as if Raven actually believed it… this was a type of combat Raven was still learning.
Finally, after thirty minutes of verbal dental surgery, Ozpin seemed satisfied and moved to wrap things up. "Do you have any questions for me?"
It took Raven a bit to remember her question, and then longer to wrap her head around it; the last thing she wanted was for it to get scrambled on the way out of her mouth. "When you talk about 'strength', do you actually mean 'endurance'? Like, the ability to withstand suffering?"
Ozpin's mouth gave a pleased little quirk, and his eyes twinkled. "You are starting to approach the truth."
Raven frowned. "'Starting to approach'? Is that a way of saying I'm not close at all?"
"It means you're on the right track," Ozpin said generously.
Raven's frustration welled up anew. "Why don't you just say what you mean? If you have some idea of what strength means, why not just tell me? Why all this song-and-dance routine?"
The headmaster's smile was much larger now. "Because, my student, this is a school. Not to delve too deeply into educational theory, but if you want a lesson to stick, it's not enough to simply tell. You must allow the student to discover the answer for themselves."
"That's laziness," she said, her temper disabling her filter.
"That response shows you still don't understand." His tone was firmer, and he followed by standing. "I hope you understand more the next time we speak."
She did not protest her dismissal; she was eager to get away from him.
And, after all of that, she still didn't know Summer Rose's maximum potential.
Next time: Qrow