Qrow groaned.

Blake groaned.

"I welcome death," Qrow claimed, monotone. "Anything is better than this gods-forsaken forest."

Blake monotonously sawed through her umpteenth vine. It seeped warm, sticky sap that got all over her hands and encrusted her palm to the hilt. It was unbearable. "For once, we are in agreement."

Qrow let out a dead whoop of celebration. "I'm so hungry," he added, whining.

Blake snorted. "We're surrounded by food, idiot. Just do what you did last time."

The Huntsman crinkled his nose, but instead of outright rejecting her (as Blake expected), he asked, "You want any?"

Blake forced herself to say no. Her kind may have better resistance to the sap's allure, but they weren't immune— especiallywith that initial helping Qrow had supplied her slumbering mouth. There was an undeniable craving deep in her chest, which she intended to fervently deny whenever possible. She'd seen what it does to people.

She didn't watch Qrow imbibe, not just because she knew it'd tempt her, but because she had to keep furiously sawing at vines lest their progress be lost.

Blake winced when he audibly suppressed a groan of relief, but she was quickly pushed aside as Qrow took the lead. His arms were blades again, and the energy of his step worried her. "Qrow? Did you overindulge?"

He turned to her. His eyes were misted pink, but not nearly as bad as Weiss' had been. "A tiny bit," he admitted with visibly pinked teeth. "But I'm not—"

He looked beyond Blake, his pupils overblowing before he shook his head.

"I'm only seeing some hallucinations. I'm quite conscious, I think."

Blake stared suspiciously. "Some? Like what?"

Qrow shot her a glare before going back to slicing vines. "I didn't ask you what you saw," he accused.

"Do you want to know?" Blake offered.

"Not at all," Qrow answered with a scoff. "I'm sure it was something egregious and graphic, and I'm even more certain that it centered around my niece."

"Egregious?" Blake repeated. "Is it because we're both—"

Qrow barked a loud, harsh laugh. "No. I know you fay have… differing ways."

"And what about your other niece?"

The Huntsman shrugged, though it was hard to tell with how much he was swinging his bone-blades. "I always knew Ruby wouldn't be like everyone else. I'm just glad she found someone who tries, the fact that she managed to capture a princess' heart is all the more impressive."

Blake caught his voice— even beyond the gruffness, the man was exceedingly proud, as if Ruby were his own daughter. "You seem to really care for them," Blake pointed out. "Don't you have children of your own?"

Qrow stopped cutting. His head turned left and right as if he were conducting a small argument with himself before he returned to the vines. "No, I… no."

Blake approached a little more closely and softened her voice— he didn't sound completely closed off, as if the sap were easing him into things he normally wouldn't speak on. "Did you?" she dared.

Qrow gave her a side eye, but he didn't stop cutting. "No. I can't have children."

Blake recoiled. "Can't? You don't strike me as the celibate type."

This time he shot her a withering glare. "I'm not."

"Ah, so you're a eunuch?" Blake supplied— with genuine somberness, as if she were truly mourning for his loss. "My condolences, your faith shames us all."

Qrow slowed in his cutting so he could glare more fully, but Blake caught the slight quiver of his lips. He was trying not to smile. "I'm not a bloody eunuch," Qrow claimed.

"What is it then?"

Qrow's burgeoning grin died. He went back to chopping. Blake worried that she'd fully shut him up, but after a few long minutes of silence he said, "My, er… magic. Transformation. It can change your insides on its own; it's like soul-shifting, but more random."

Blake suddenly felt very guilty. "Oh. I'm sorry. Your own magic—"

"Took my virility, yes," Qrow casually stated, following up with, "I also cannot eat poultry meats, I have become overly sensitive to spice, and I actually like wine now."

He was trying to be funny to divert from how much the admittance hurt— Blake had seen that pain cross his face before he hid it, but she indulged him, offering a small laugh that seemed to ease his tension. "And that's why you like them so much?"

Qrow cocked his head at her, but his eyes didn't quite affix to where she was. "Who?"

Blake grew worried. "Your nieces, Ruby and Yang."

The Huntsman had a dramatic moment of realization, followed by a vigorous nod of his head. "Oh yes, I love those little bastards—" he blinked at his own words. "Not literal bastards, I don't think. I never asked if Summer was married."

Blake raised her eyebrows. Qrow unwittingly turned back to the vines and kept cutting. She decided to push her luck— no matter how wrong it felt to exploit this intoxicated man, she'd find the answer to that nagging question of Ruby's lineage. "Why didn't you?"

Qrow shrugged easily. "We were all Hunters, busy ones— especially her. I think she saw it as an act of penance."

"Penance? For what?"

The Huntsman huffed out a humorless chuckle. "Why do you think?"

Blake's mind ground to a halt. She thumbed through her memories, searching for something a fay could regret. By the time she concocted an answer, she worried Qrow's mind would've drifted. "The war?" she guessed, though she couldn't figure out how a fay war hero would end up with medius kids.

Qrow's head shifted towards her, just a tiny bit— just enough for one of his cinnabar eyes to flicker in her direction. "Yeah," he said obviously. "Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't find out earlier— shit, I think I spied on her once."

She hadn't expected to be right, so it took her a moment to cover up the look of surprise. "She was in the war?"

Qrow snorted as if she'd said something truly hilarious. "She was in the war? No shit she was in the war. She was—" Qrow inhaled sharply and shook his head. Slowly, he turned to give her a sharp side eye. "Close. Very close, fay, but low. You're just taking advantage of my inebriation now?"

Blake had the grace to flush purple and take a few steps back. "Sorry, couldn't help myself."

"Yes you could," was Qrow's retort, though not as angry as Blake expected. "But you did it anyway because you have no respect for me."

Blake said nothing.

"I understand, you know. It's not just you, it's a very fay thing— you don't respect us because our lives are like blinks to you people. We only have enough time to do one thing, if even that, before we die. It's embarrassing," Qrow decried with a wave of his arm-blade. "It's shameful!"

Blake maintained her silence.

"It's rather hypocritical actually," Qrow claimed. "You fay uphold your lifespans so loftily above us, taunting us, while simultaneously mocking what we have managed in our scant little lives— which is usually quite a fucking bit! I've known fay that boasted about lazing in a forest, purposefully contributing nothing for decades! Centuries! Just because they can!"

Blake scowled, but let him rant. He was sapped, and she didn't want to piss him off with those giant bone-swords coming out of his arms.

Qrow gave her a look through one eye, but it failed to find her properly— he was going distant again. "But when you fall in love with a human?" Qrow whistled like the idea was funny. "Oh, you go crazy. Start fretting over every damn day, worrying you haven't done enough, finally worrying about the mark you left behind— the things you've done, the things that scream so much louder and so much longer than 'I loved a human.'"

Now Blake wished she had interrupted him, because his pontificating left an open pit where her stomach should be.

Qrow sighed. "That's what she told me, at least."

"Who?" Blake asked before she could stop herself.

Qrow looked at her like she was dumb. "Aelia."

Blake's veins filled with ice. "Wh-who?"

Qrow looked at her— slightly past her, actually— then went back to cutting the vines. "Sorry, Summer. I don't know why you still insist on calling her that."

"Er, right," Blake stammered through a cough.

Qrow looked (almost) in her direction. "Cali? You alright?"

Being called by her mother's name, shortly after learning all that, was enough to kill Blake ten times over, but she managed to keep herself from spontaneously combusting through pure dumb luck. Blake swallowed the thousand 'fuck's that nearly shot past her lips and managed to mutter, "Y-yes. Of course."

Qrow dutifully nodded. He turned up his nose and took a deep breath as he split myriad vines before him. "We're getting close to the edge," he claimed. "I can smell it."

Blake said nothing. Her feet were leaden with revelation, and when Qrow turned finally to look, his red eyes found her properly. Upon seeing her face, they widened.