Qrow thrummed his fingers against a polished, wooden bar top. He'd been staring at his reflection on a bottle of whiskey, thinking his way through regrets from the prior age. The exercise was futile. With the fall of Vale, there was no decision anyone could have made to change their outcome. An extra hour at the gym? Another pound of canned food? It was irrelevant. In no possible scenario did his old team stay together.

His thoughts strayed farther, and Qrow remembered that in no alternate reality could he and Winter have made things work. He'd been a fool to love her, and she'd been a fool to indulge his romantic overtures. She should have slapped him across the face, recognizing his vagabond spirit. She would've gotten that promotion instead of a week together at the oasis.

Again, none of this mattered. Either way, Vale fell, and Winter became a Specialist, and Qrow became a homeless, regretful drunk thrumming his fingers on a polished, wooden bar.

Qrow broke his gaze away from the bottle and called to the innkeep. "Hey, Rufus."

The dog faunus' ears lifted. "Mister Branwen?"

"This is a really nice place."

"Thank you."

"There were a lot of bars I told myself I'd visit again. In Vale."

Rufus didn't answer. Qrow's tone had shifted, and it wasn't clear who he was speaking to, or if he would finish. Until he did. "This inn is nicer than all of them. Good place." Qrow checked his watch and stood from his stool.

Rufus straightened in alarm. "Mr. Branwen?"

"Just going for a walk, Rufus."

The innkeep dropped his tone, and for the first time, addressed the huntsman as an equal. "How far is this walk, Qrow?"

Qrow chewed the inside of his cheek, then sighed deeply. "I'm coming back, Rufus. I won't tell you to trust my gut feelings, but I just know I'll be back here with you."

He knew that by some arrangement of fate, he was going to roll downhill into this bar and drag everyone with him. Because that's how things always went.

Rufus frowned. "You're going back into that dark place, to look for your niece."

Qrow scratched his unshaven chin. He'd promised to guard this town, and Rufus was privy to that promise. But he wasn't privy to Qrow's gut. And Qrow's gut said things would work out perfectly if he went now and moved fast.

"Yeah," Qrow admitted. "The portal I came through didn't close behind me. Might still be open."

Rufus put his hands on his hips. "I'll remind you that Miss Aqua said you'd get lost and never come back."

"She did say that," Qrow nodded. "But I am coming back."

In the dark place, Qrow rapidly lost all sense of direction. He'd traversed a mountain range, descended a canyon, circled a dormant volcano, and was crossing a vast, obsidian plain when he suddenly found himself on a beach. It felt like a minute's walk.

The places slipped by him at the moment his attention slipped.

Until he'd reached this beach. A sense of permanence lingered on this dark shoreline.

He knelt and raked his fingers through the black sand. It felt like static electricity. He sniffed it, and smelled ash.

Just as before, this place lacked the sensations of reality. It was incomplete, never detailed by a thorough creator- never meant to be experienced.

Farther down the beach, a boulder marked the shore and bore upon it a cloaked man. Qrow stood, and his strides carried him into conversation.

The man on the boulder turned his head Qrow's way, shifting his hood without revealing anything else.

Qrow tipped an imaginary hat, but skipped the rest of his manners. "Hey. Who are you?"

The stranger in the cloak hesitated. Then, when he spoke, answered in a strange whisper that neutered and muffled his voice. "I am no one of importance."

Qrow raised an eyebrow at the effect. "I know a lot of people who aren't important, guy. They don't worry about being recognized."

The stranger chuckled. Whatever disguised his voice stripped his delight from it. "Fine. Would you believe that I was once a king revered for my wisdom?"

"King of what?"

The stranger enunciated, "Radiant Gardens."

"I've heard of it," Qrow grunted.

"Many have. And many more have heard of its ruler. I am Ansem the Wise."

Qrow had never been impressed by status or titles. This social failure had cascaded into a lack of ambition that had probably cost him a life with Winter, or a life with Summer. A life in general. But, again, the intervention of Fate, the fall of great cities, had rendered all points moot.

"You were a King," Qrow nodded, "And now you're a crazy old man who's lost in the darkness."

"A self-imposed exile," Ansem corrected.

Qrow gestured around. "You know how to navigate here?"

"There is no terrain, nor direction as you imagine it. Time and space do not correlate as they ought. One step forward may take you ten steps back."

Qrow thought about it. Ansem was speaking in riddles, but riddles were the facts of fairy tales. And, importantly, Ansem hadn't said navigation was impossible.

"I'm looking for my niece," Qrow specified.

"My sympathies."

Qrow didn't answer.

Ansem offered "Heed my warnings, stranger: Trust not your eyes, do not tread ground that you have seen outside of this place, and do not linger on memories of pain."

"And once I've found her," Qrow asked, "How should I get back home?"

Ansem shook his hood. "I exiled myself here to overcome the temptation of returning home. Every road here points towards The End. Every second ticks its way. Even gravity, you will find, bends into its maw at unexpected times. This is the Graveyard of Worlds."

Qrow nodded. He'd memorized the advice, but he'd never heeded any in his life. So there was no point standing here and talking. He offered a wry smile. "Ansem, huh? You were known as The Wise?"

"In a kingdom of fools."

Qrow completed his smile. Ozpin would've loved this guy. "It's like that everywhere, Ansem. I'll leave you to your sorrows."

The first rule Qrow discarded was to not linger on his sorrows.

On a long lost day, he'd walked towards sunset, hiking to that cabin in the woods that Tai and Raven had always dreamed of. When he'd heard the news of Yang's birth, Qrow had been surprised. He'd never taken his sister as the motherly type. It was shortly after that she'd proven him right and left her family alone in that cabin. Then Tai and Summer got together, and Qrow had thought: Good for them, though it stung his heart to lose her forever. They rounded out the family by making Ruby, and then Summer died. And then it really stung to really lose her forever.

No friends, no family, no fortune, no future.

Qrow had kept busy, trying to save the world, but a long stretch of free time made his feet wander until he crested this hill and found Tai's cabin in the woods.

The ocean wasn't visible this far inland, but the wind carried its scent over Vale's cliffs. Two hills behind him was Summer's grave. The flowers there were well-tended.

This house, however, resembled a place for the dead. Qrow stepped onto the porch, and the whole structure creaked as if waking to greet a visitor. No children cheered at his arrival. No sound of Tai coming to investigate. A gentle wind rustled the oak forest.

Qrow keened his senses and sniffed the air. Fresh bread. Tears. The musk of human habitation. A day-old stain of fruit juice on the porch wood.

He pushed the door open, and entered the unlit house. Dining space on his left. A shrine to Summer at the table's head, her wedding smile.

A low wall separated the kitchen. Dishes growing mold in the sink. Two crayon drawings of the family on the fridge. One with Raven, by Yang. The other with Summer, by Ruby.

A bolt of self-awareness struck, like noticing your tongue in your mouth, or remembering to breathe. But Qrow was remembering the heartache he'd learned to ignore. Again, none of this mattered. This place had fallen to the Grimm. There was no perfect arrangement that could have saved this unhappy family.

It all felt so real. What had the crazy king said? Trust not your eyes. Do not tread ground that you have seen outside of this place. Do not linger on memories of pain. But these warnings were irrelevant. Qrow was a creature of habit. He never heeded warnings.

This had been the worst day of his life. In the next moment, he would step forward and see Tai sitting on the kitchen floor, weeping into his hands. Qrow swallowed, and followed his path.

"Tai?" He knelt beside his friend.

Tai sobbed, "I can't do this anymore, Qrow."

"Tai, I'm here buddy."

Tai lifted his face from his hands. The second roughest man in Vale was weeping. For his first wife, for his second, for their children, and for the grand realization that all was futility.

"Qrow? What are you doing here?"

"I, uh…" he shrugged. "I had some spare time, and… I mean… I figured I could come help out around the house, I dunno."

Tai nodded and suppressed his sorrow. "That's, uh… That's awful kind of you, Qrow."

"No. It's nothing."

"Yeah," Tai admitted.

He could've asked why Qrow hadn't had this idea for the last four years. And Qrow could've answered that the shame of his sister's behavior and the pain of losing Summer was too much for him. But instead, they sat quietly together, until Tai admitted something that wasn't implicit.

"I can't do this alone, Qrow."

And Qrow, who was loose with promises, promised him this: "You aren't alone, Tai."

They hugged. It was the first human contact either of them had felt in years. They held each other, and Tai talked about the little things that had fallen apart around the household. How his vitality had waned with his loss of purpose. Qrow reminded him of his duties to Ruby and Yang- that his purpose had changed, not faded.

And so they spoke in the darkness, Qrow rebuilding his friend and the life they'd once had as a team.

The sun was setting when Qrow asked where the girls were.

It was at this late hour that Tai admitted his failing. "They're gone," he whispered. His tears returned. "They were gone when I woke up. Yang left a note- said she was taking Ruby and they were going to find Raven so I wouldn't have to do this alone."

Qrow sprang to his feet and breached the bedrooms. All empty. He ran out onto the porch and instantly felt the chill of night's winds from the ocean. The last rays of light sparkled into hundreds of kilometers of forest.

How long had they talked? An hour? And how long before that had the girls left? How far could they get in a day?

Qrow ran, following first the trail, then the tracks of a toy wagon. Yang knew enough to bring supplies for her quest. Its weight disturbed the packed dust. She didn't know enough to stick to the trail, though. Qrow followed her disturbances through the brush, branches whipping his face as he tried to follow the mystical routes meant for children.

And as he proceeded, so grew in his gut that sour feeling of all things associated with the maidens. The twinge of magic. Yang had followed her heart and fallen into the realm of a fairy tale. Qrow's tracking skills failed him here. The signs of Yang's passage stopped, and so did he, wetting his nose and peering through the twilight as he panted.

He cursed her stupidity, wandering into a place she didn't know, abandoning her responsibilities. He shook his head. It really ran in the family.

So how to follow Yang? The light was fading, the magic was changing, and so the paths were shifting. Soon, he would lose her. All skill and instinct was failing him. Then the moment of twilight came, the brief instant where day and night coexisted.

Adrenaline and open mindedness lent acuity to his ears, and a voice from beyond the grave reached him.

Summer was standing in the brush, just a few meters away, cupping her hands to be heard.

"QROW!"

He saw her ghost only faintly, when the last light shimmered through her form. She pointed emphatically, and he ran on faith alone. A gust of wind stirred the trees until the whole forest sounded like crashing ocean waves. The cold crept onto his extremities and slowly tangled its grip around him.

Ears buffeted by sound and eyes blinded by darkness, he followed only his nose, Summer's rose petals leading him to a clearing.

Yang lay on the ground, a little wagon overturned, Ruby crying in her blanket.

Over them loomed a monster.

Qrow roared into battle. He'd never been cautious, he'd never heeded advice, and he'd never been lucky. As a direct consequence, he knew how to fight.

The monster was darker than the night, its many red eyes flowing around its body to find him. The sound of ocean waves pitched to a swell, and his heartbeat thrummed in his ears.

Qrow's aural might and practiced footwork brought him around its attacks and through its guard. His greatsword's strikes were brutal slices reminiscent of a hammer toss.

He slashed; it reared back with its bone chest gaping.

Heave and ho, and its carapace shattered.

Then through and fro, and the monster's roar acknowledged pain and peril.

Qrow engaged his weapon's transformation. Clockwork in the hilt unwound all the tension of the sword's anima. Pommel became stave, and the blade warped into a form for reaping. His aura ignited the scythe's cutting edge.

Swish, swish. And a huntsman's work was done.

Only this ever brought him satisfaction.

Qrow panted and groaned from the exertion. The effort taxed his wind and strained his sinews. Ruby faded from his mind, and thus her crying and her presence halted. The sound of wind in the trees- in fact, the wind and the trees were gone.

Gone was five-year-old-Yang.

But in her place sat the teenager he'd sent off to Beacon Academy. Her morose glare, the prosthetic arm she'd earned defending Vale, her torn up pajamas.

Yang looked at him listlessly. "Hey, Uncle Qrow."

Qrow folded up his weapon and replaced the greatsword on his back, then knelt beside her. "What are you doing here, Yang?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. Waiting to die, I guess?"

"Here? Really?"

Yang mumbled, "Why not?"

This wasn't a memory. This had never happened before. And the thought occurred to Qrow that this wasn't an illusion. He reached out and poked her.

She squinted at him, and poked him back.

"Huh," he grunted.

"Huh yourself."

"Where are we right now, Yang?"

"I dunno."

"What does it look like to you?"

She looked around, scowling at her own personal hell. "The Great Hall at Beacon. During the battle." Her cheeks flinched, her eyes reddened, and she admitted, "I thought… I thought if I wait here… Blake might come back." And then she rested her head in her hand, hiding her face in shame. "Doesn't really matter where I wait, though. Not for Blake. Not for Mom. Not for Death. Everywhere sucks. Everything sucks. It's all the same."

Instinct sounded an alarm in Qrow. His heart had lead him to his niece, and now his heart was leading him back to that whiskey bottle on the shelf. And it was telling him to move quickly. He had to spur her into action. He lifted half a smile. "All the same, huh? Just wait till you see this shithole Inn I found."

She lifted her head unhappily. "Does it suck, too?"

"Oh yeah. The beer is warm. The waitress is this big hairy dog faunus. They've got one room and we're not in it. The town's never had a CCT connection. Most of them can't read. They think handwashing is something you do to your ass. Oh, and, uh… Jaune's there."

Yang giggled. It was a giggle of despair. "Why are you taking me there?"

Qrow grinned reassuringly. "We're gonna build you back up from rock bottom, babe."

He lifted her, and they started the short walk home.