Weiss scrambled away from Ruby, who froze with shock. She behaved like a wooden statue, her head slowly cranking towards the man who had intruded on their camp: her own uncle, Qrow Branwen.

He was the spitting image of a professional Huntsman. A black mandilion cape sprouted from the high, open collar of his grey doublet, enshrouding three quarters of his upper body while allowing a peek at his sheathed weapon: a single-edged, knife-hilted saber at his left hip— a messer, and a long one at that. The dark belt it was affixed to hung over loose black pluderhose that tucked into his knee-height boots, and were slashed to reveal vermillion cloth. A thick scar tore across his throat, barely visible above the collar, and he wore a close-trimmed beard that sported some of the grey hairs of age. His hair was black and slicked, and his sallow-pale skin did well to accentuate the fury in his scarlet eyes.

Weiss watched him jerk his sword free, revealing a silvery guard that dipped over his knuckles in a right angle, its blade a contrast of smooth black iron. Weiss quickly dove for the fay saber she'd discarded, the thing finding her hands before she even laid eyes on it.

'So quickly you come crawling back,' the sword jeered. 'Are you two done copulating? Don't ask me for help if not— our proclivities aren't aligned. I'm a sword.'

Weiss managed to keep herself from hissing at the incorrigible thing, and stuck it out towards the Huntsman. "W-w-what are you doing here, huh?" She tried to be intimidating by raising her voice, but it cracked instead.

Qrow glared down his nose at her. Judging by the length of his blade and the width of his stance, she estimated that he would only need to take a couple of steps to reach her with a thrust. When he spoke, his grizzled voice was a hissing snarl. "Just what in the fuck do you think you're doing with my niece, Schnee?"

Weiss' lids strained with how wide her eyes grew. A bright red blush bloomed over her entire face."U-uuh, um, we're, uh, we…" she looked to Ruby for any kind of assistance, but the girl was completely awestruck at her uncle's presence.

"Uncle… Qrow?" Her lips seemed to battle between a scowl and a smile, but her eyes quickly flashed with panic when Weiss cleared her throat. She tried to force an explanation out, stuttering, "W-we— We were… we… we just, uhhhhhh, we were—"

Qrow dramatically threw his sword in its sheath and crossed his arms, a paternal sneer pulling his lips. "Yes, Ruby, I saw what you were doing, but I want to know why you were—" he pinched his face and groaned. "And with a Schnee of all people! Oh gods, this is why I'm here, isn't it?"

Ruby blinked, shaking her head in confusion. "You're— huh?"

Weiss protectively sidled towards the girl, making Qrow's glare sharpen. "I've run away from home," Weiss declared, finally keeping some steadiness in her voice. "Ruby has helped me, more than I can ever repay."

If Weiss had a sheath, she would've respectfully mirrored the Huntsman's move. But alas, she was bereft, so she simply lowered the fay sword and curtsied.

"And if you really are her uncle, then it's a pleasure to meet you."

Qrow blinked, freezing as realization coldly scraped down his spine. He was an idiot, the purest kind— his overprotective instincts had kicked in at the worst possible moment, and he was in too deep to back out now. The Knight Captain was watching, just like he'd instructed. He could feel her hungry gaze raking across the massive target he'd just painted over his own back.

"Ruby," he quietly muttered, his eyes wide and voice thick with fear. "Where's your sister?"

Ruby looked around. "Uh, I'm not sure," she turned to the girl she'd been mashing faces with just moments ago. "Weiss?"

Unlike Ruby, Weiss had actually noticed the man's sudden change in demeanor. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, keeping her gaze firmly on him. "I know where she is," her voice was slow, clear, each syllable over-enunciated.

Qrow briefly shut his eyes with relief. At least the Schnee girl seemed to be catching on. Staring into her eyes, he purposefully twitched his nose. "That's good. So, uh…" He stalled, making a tiny gesture between the two girls. "Ruby, you're…"

Ruby raised her eyebrows, then jumped as she remembered what her uncle had caught her in the midst of. "Oh, y-yeah… Weiss is, uh… me and her are…"

"We're courting," Weiss curtly stated, pulling a deep breath through her nose as suggested by Qrow. Roses were beside her, petrichor was around her, and sharp tobacco poured from the man in front of her. Whoever Ruby's apparent uncle was, he was quite powerful; the scent of his magical prowess was overwhelming.

'There is something else,' her sword whispered into her mind. For the first time, Weiss detected fear in its tone. 'I can feel it, like ants on my skin.'

Weiss focused and drew another breath, trying her best to push down the man's pervasive scent. The tobacco of transformation magic was thick, but she managed to catch what made him so nervous.

A thousand smells crammed into one body, wafting from behind Qrow like he'd lit a mass grave in his wake. Weiss' eyes widened. Ruby's uncle was hunting them, with none other than the Knight Captain in tow. The way Qrow's eyes suddenly sharpened made it clear they had one option.

She needed to take Ruby and run. Damn the horses, damn their supplies, damn Yang and Blake, they needed to run.

Qrow and Weiss stared each other down, leaving Ruby to watch, completely lost. Weiss slowly raised her eyebrows, urging the ice in her soul to swell. Frost seeped from the corners of her lips, puffing through her nostrils with each hastening breath. At the very least, she felt powerful here. Perhaps her soul understood the severity of her situation.

Ruby looked down as Weiss wrapped icy fingers tightly around her wrist. Her gaze turned back to Weiss with fear. She couldn't free herself, not with Weiss' hand like a frozen shackle.

Qrow could almost hear Pyrrha's muscles coiling tight. He gave the heiress a tiny nod.

With a swipe of her hand Weiss drained the humid soil, leaving nothing but dry silt as she erected a towering wall of ice between Qrow and the treeline. Pyrrha audibly crashed into the frozen obstacle, but the thick blue wall held strong, too opaque to see the Knight Captain through. With a hard grunt and an extra exertion of her Aura, she willed the icy wall to close its ends together, trapping Pyrrha in a frozen ring.

Weiss was already running past the treeline, dragging Ruby behind her as Qrow's voice followed them. "Run! I'll hold her off for as long as I can, just get out! I'll find Yang and regroup with you!"

Ruby tried to call back with confusion, but Weiss' dead sprint demanded all of her attention, and the heiress' frozen grip on her wrist told her she wasn't going anywhere. She leapt over roots in the dark.

Yang perked up, causing Blake to groan in annoyance. "Yang…"

The Huntress did not move. Her ears pulled back, hoping to catch that sound again.

Steel on steel— no, steel on iron. Someone was here, someone was fighting, and someone was wielding iron. She only knew one person who could fit all three of those criteria simultaneously— Ruby.

Yang pushed Blake's legs aside and scrambled back to her feet, eliciting another frustrated groan from the fay. "Seriously, Yang? What the hell?"

The Huntress quickly replaced her shirt, leaving the laces untied. "You don't hear that? We need to go, now."

"What? Hear what?" Blake readied a scathing refusal, but the sound of clashing metal finally found her long, pointy ears. She flushed an embarrassed purple and began frantically throwing her clothes back on. "The hell is that?"

Yang mantled herself before digging through Blake's myriad knives in search of her own. "It's Ruby," she stated, her voice shaking with worry. "It has to be— someone's found us and Ruby is fighting them."

Blake's eyes widened, the fay stopping midway through putting on her leggings. It couldn't be— they'd tracked her all the way from Vale? How in the hell would they even do that? They'd have to have some much better trackers than Blake expected, either that— yes, she remembered. "Sweet fucking Shepherd…"

Yang turned to the half-naked fay. "What? What is it?"

"It's her," Blake stated, and Yang only looked confused for a second before coming to the same grim realization. "She brought a Huntsman— they tracked me in Vale."

Yang's eyebrows rose sharply, then knit tight with confusion. Hunters were a pretty small group; even if they seldom worked together, they were in tight communication whenever possible. After all, when Grimm are the enemy, the benefit of their collective knowledge significantly outweighed their greed and jealousy.

Yang wasn't stupid— she knew that much; and she was pretty confident she could deduce a list of eligible Huntsmen that they were about to fight against. Knowing who it was would put her at a significant advantage against them, and they would need as many of those as they could hold if Weiss' warnings about Pyrrha were true. Yang considered her options.

It obviously wouldn't be Tai— he should still be blissfully ignorant in Patch, after all— and it probably wasn't her mother, Raven. From what she knew, she'd refuted her vow and taken to banditry.

It certainly wouldn't be Coco or Violet, they said they were moving to Atlas. It could be Ren, but only by the thinnest margin— she doubted he'd want to throw in with the Schnees anyways, the man had never been fond of aristocracy.

Oobleck didn't really take Hunts himself; his Hunter's Vow only remained valid because he worked directly with, in, and around Beacon Academy. She'd never heard of him taking a job in Vale itself.

Cinder was off the table, Yang doubted she was even in Vale anymore. She'd essentially been kidnapped into the Knights Imperiale to serve as their head sorceress, cutting her Huntress training short barely a year after it started.

It certainly wasn't Goodwitch. The forest was still there, after all.

Yang idly handed the now-clothed Blake her knives, her face twisting with confusion, worry, and rage all at once. She had one candidate remaining, and if it wasn't him, then they were fighting the Knight Captain and a Huntsman completely blind. And if her hypothesis was right… she didn't know how to feel about that.

"Qrow," Yang growled, the name passing through her lips almost unbidden.

Blake looked at Yang and nodded, adjusting her knife belt over her tunic. "Uh, yeah… I think that's what she called him. How'd you know?"

Yang blinked. "Oh."

"Yang?" Blake leaned towards her, worried.

Yang ground her teeth together. She was fine. Her stomach wasn't twisting in furious, betrayed knots. Her brain wasn't flailing between enraged, confused, happy, and betrayed. Qrow was here. Her uncle— often more of a father than Tai was, especially to Ruby— was hunting them. With Pyrrha.

One question, above all the others, weighed on the forefront of her mind.

"What kind of idiot is he?" She asked it aloud, as if that would uncover a better answer.

Blake cocked her head as she mantled herself. "Huh?"

"It's my uncle!" She spat. "My uncle is hunting us!"

Blake blinked hard. "Huh?"

"That idiot!" Yang stomped her foot, fingertips sparking as she seethed. "Could you imagine what the fucking proposal must have been like? 'Hunt the four girls who basically drained the garrison of Palace Schnee single handedly. One of them is Weiss Schnee, we don't know about the others. Good luck!'"

Blake started marching towards their campsite, a look of mild concern across her face. "That's what you're concerned about? Not the fact that you have to fight your own family?"

Yang waved her off, residual anger still twisting her features. "It's Qrow. He's clever, and an incredible Huntsman, but I'm pretty great, too. I could probably take him alone, assuming he doesn't want to talk; my daemonfire can far outclass his transformation magic."

Blake wanted to doubt that, but the sheer confidence Yang exuded erased all worries. Of course, the fact that Pyrrha would also be there drew those worries right back up.

Shite.

A/N: title is awful but gf said it and i couldnt not lmao.

good job qrow, you fucked it. confetti.