Chapter 53: Branwen Tribe - One Less Thing to Worry About

Cover Art by Mi Chumi

Word spread throughout Branwen Camp beginning the day before.

The Chief was gonna be making a Big Announcement.

'Big Announcements' could mean any number of things. Some of them were cause for excitement. For example, she might be telling them news that their spies had gotten word of a big trade caravan, or a dust shipment, a discovered weakness in a nearby village's defenses, or a group of settlers moving through the territory Branwen Tribe was currently claiming as their hunting grounds.

Or it might be less pleasant. Such as news that things were getting lean here, or Huntsmen or a local militia had gotten wind of their location and it was time to pull up stake early. That would involve days of carefully disassembling the camp, hiding what couldn't be carried in one of their many caches throughout southern Mistral, and packing everything else on motorcycles, horses, mules, and backs. The worst part of that process was the fact that some of them wouldn't make it to their final destination. Some would be kicked to the back of the pack because they were already a liability to the tribe, left to fend on whatever scraps were dropped by the ones closer to the front. Some would be "relieved of their goods" and left crippled by the trailside because someone sensed weakness.

Some would just lag behind and get picked off by Grimm or even other bandits.

The strong survived. The weak perished.

Mostly.

So when the hour for the announcement came, the camp found its denizens milling around the central bonfire pit in front of Raven's raised platform, with the woman herself standing tall and imperious upon it, red eyes scanning her Tribe. Vernal stood beside her, smirking.

Raven gave Vernal a nod, and the young girl cupped her hands and bellowed across the crowd. "Alright you screwheads, gather round! Chief's got some stuff to say!"

There were a few grumbles. A lot of the older and tougher men and women in the Tribe begrudged Vernal her special status as Raven's 'special project'. Not that that meant she was treated gently at all. If anything, that meant she had to fight harder and be tougher than others her age in the Tribe. If someone wanted to take their frustrations out on Vernal, that was not only allowed, but encouraged.

But what they weren't allowed to do was permanently damage her, or if they valued their ability to keep breathing, kill her. That had been made abundantly clear. Raven wanted Vernal tough and strong, not dead.

Vernal accepted the grumbling with a smug expression. Sticks and stones blah blah fuck you.

"What's the news, Chief?" A seasoned bandit yelled. "We going on a raid?"

Raven locked eyes with him, then resumed scanning the crowd. "Not exactly, Shay. I've been thinking."

"Ooo dangerous." An anonymous voice muttered from the crowd to a few soft snickers. Raven's red eyes narrowed, and Vernal made note of the general area where it had come from. A little snark wasn't cause for disciplining someone. But it might signify something worth handling.

"Branwen Tribe's been doing alright for ourselves, yeah? Everyone fat and happy?" There was a chorus of affirmative yells. "That's right. And to ease your other worry, I can promise that we don't have to pull up stakes any time soon, either." There was another, louder yell, and some raised fists and more than a few relieved looks from some of the individuals and families who would lose out during a relocation. There was especially a knot of the older Tribe members, centered around Visha, who gave each other some nods of reassurance. Most of them were respected members of the Tribe and wouldn't just be left behind, because they possessed skills or knowledge that the Tribe found too useful to do without. Heck, some of the other members would even carry some of their stuff for them. But even so, the trip would be hard on aged limbs and stiff and painful joints. One or two of them might not make it regardless. So, staying put was always preferable for them. And the presence of Visha among them wasn't an accident. In the short time she'd been adopted into Raven's inner circle, thanks to Summer's endorsement and encouragement, she'd become a key voice for the concerns of the older Tribe members to Raven, and they knew it. And Visha had taken to that role like a fish to water. In many ways it had become a reflection of her past status at Evernight as the servant of Selene, a role that had given her status among the other servants before she'd been banished to serve as Summer Rose's caretaker.

"So yeah. We're staying put here for now. And yeah, the Tribe is doing damn well." Her mouth turned down. "But that doesn't mean we can't do even better for ourselves."

That got some hoots. This was sounding better and better.

"And what I mean by that," Raven raised her voice and spread her arms wide, encompassing the encampment, "is bigger challenges, and bigger rewards!"

That got even louder cheers, fervent nods and mutual backslapping among the crowd. She was whipping them up into a frenzy. They were ready to hear this latest amazing plan that their boss had cooked up. Raven had led them for almost a decade now, and it had been nothing but a gradually lengthening string of successes and rewards.

That is, if you ignored the weak or unlucky who died in the process, and the wanton destruction and heartbreak they left in their wake. And if the Tribe was good at one thing, it was selective memory.

"Branwen Tribe! The baddest-ass group of fighters this side of Lake Matsu! Are gonna take on Grimm!"

There was a moment where the roar increased, right before the actual words sank in. And then you'd have thought the entire Tribe had been submerged in cold water or strangled nearly simultaneously. A few stranglers who hadn't actually been paying attention to the words kept trying to cheer, wondering why the others had stopped, until a neighbor punched them or got them to shut up some other way.

And then there was silence that stretched out long enough that it should have made Raven uncomfortable.

But there were only a handful of fucking people in Remnant that could make Raven Branwen feel uncomfortable, and none of them were in Mistral at the moment. She stood tall, arms now crossed and a slight smile on her face as she waited for the inevitable.

It was Shay, one of the veterans, that finally broke the silence. "Uh… Raven, er Boss? No disrespect or nothin'." He seemed to be trying to choose his words carefully. "But… Grimm don't got loot."

That broke the dam, and another piped up in support. "No loot. No money. Don't even leave bones!"

"Yeah, and they're tough," a woman complained, fiddling with her weapon as if in memory. "You can't just scare 'em into surrendering."

Raven's smile turned down slightly, as she focused on the last speaker. "You saying you're too weak to deal with a bunch of mindless animals?"

"N—No…" the woman lied, searching for some way to shift the topic, and lighted on the first speaker. "But Shay's right. They don't got loot. How's that gonna give us these bigger rewards, Boss?"

Raven's smile returned, "Good point. They don't. And that's why we're gonna be charging for our services."

A fourth bandit frowned and spoke without engaging his brain. "Charging… the Grimm… for us to kill 'em?"

Raven had known that not all of the tribe were exactly brain trusts. Some of them were as smart as a box of rocks. Those made up for it by being as tough as rocks and having the sort of innate survival instinct that would have made any predator proud.

She sighed. "No, genius. The villages are gonna pay us."

There was another long silence as they tried to process that. And she figured it'd be a few seconds before some of the smarter ones found the flaw in that line of-

"The… uh… villages we're raiding?" the earlier woman asked, slightly hesitantly.

Raven's smile grew, showing a little bit of teeth. "Yep."

A good dozen of the bandits looked at each other. "They're not gonna go for that, are they?" Shay asked. "I mean, as soon as they let us in the gates, we'll just take their shit."

"Not if you wanna keep your organs inside your body, you won't," Raven lilted pleasantly, as if declaring the sky blue and snow cold. That caused some muttering, which Raven ignored this time. So far, it had gone pretty much as she'd expected. Hit them with the crazy idea, then let them try to digest it in pieces as she revealed the whole picture. It would give some of the smarter ones that weren't also the most secure in their position time to chew on it and maybe reduce the number of people she had to kill.

"And besides, at first we're not even gonna fight Grimm. We'll just charge the villages to leave them alone. We'll wait until there's Grimm activity to help with that, and then we'll give them our bill."

A bald bandit with a scar across his nose, one who'd been silent so far, spoke up. "So we're… gonna be… militia?!" The way he said it, the tone, was the way you'd talk about a particularly large dump you'd taken, that someone had then suggested you eat.

"Fuck no. We're no town militia," Raven spat, which saw some of the bandits untense slightly. "What we're gonna be is independent contractors. Mercs. Swords for hire to those who can pay." She scanned the crowd. "Sure, these villages out here ain't rich, but I've learned there's those who'll pay a pretty penny for us to keep the Grimm outta them."

That set off another round of muttering in small knots.

What those little knots of muttering didn't notice was that the old men and women of the tribe. The ones that had been gravitating around Visha earlier, had slowly dispersed throughout the Tribe as Raven and some of the objectors had been going back and forth.

Shay had finally had enough. "Dammit, why are we doing this Raven?! Is it because of that one-eyed chick that came through back—" Raven narrowed her eyes, and put her hand on the hilt of Omen, which halted Shay mid-sentence.

"Maybe she had something to do with it. Let's just say that some of the other people I met in the process are the ones that got us the lead on that other source of income." She scanned the crowd again, and met Visha's eyes briefly, getting a nod. "But the real reason is that there's no future in our current business model." She made eye contact with the front ranks one at a time as she began pacing back and forth on the wooden platform. "We're victims of our own success, boys and girls. This is as big, as rich, as we can get." That got expressions of denial. "No, it's true. Right now, the size we are, the easy pickin's will go away. The more successful we are, the more small targets disappear and the harder the big targets get." She shook her head. "That means losing more people, life getting harder again. Then the cycle repeats." She threw her hands up. "You get it?! This is the best things are ever gonna be for the Tribe, and then it'll be harder for years, and then back to this. We're stalled out."

She stopped and surveyed the Tribe. Some of them were getting angry. Some of them were angry at the truth. Some at her for saying it. Some because they thought she was lying. Some because they didn't care about next week or next year.

She'd expected the anger.

But a lot of them looked thoughtful. That she could use. "We need to think bigger. Different, if we want the Tribe to thrive."

"So you're sayin… we're gonna stop lootin'." One of the slower Bandits said, trying to wrap his brain around the concept. He'd not always been that single-minded. A club to the head during a raid three years ago had turned him into a slow-witted but very useful berserker.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of telling any of you that. You can do whatever you want."

Berserker frowned, trying to process that, until his old gram, who happened to be the best seamstress I in the Tribe, leaned in and started whispering in his ear.

It was Shay who replied next to Raven. "Well dammit boss, why didn't you say that before? You made it sound like—"

"But if it's a village under our protection, I'll cut your fucking throat," Raven said with a smile.

Shay paled.

"This is bullshit." A grizzled bandit swore. "You're trying to make us soft. You're gonna ruin the Tribe!"

"Is that so," Raven said, the smile never leaving her face.

"Yeah!" There were mutters of agreement peppered throughout the crowd, but most of them stayed silent. Either smart enough to know better, or waiting to see which way the wind would blow.

"Well, I'm the fucking Chief of Branwen Tribe, and I say this is how you fucking survive!" Her voice rose in volume. "Don't like it?" Raven growled. "You got two choices. You can take whatever you can hold onto and walk, or you can challenge me for leadership. And If you think I give a shit which you pick, you don't know shit about shit."

"Boss, why are you doing this?" Vernal noted with satisfaction that nobody, not one single bandit, stepped up to challenge Raven.

"Maybe I decided I was tired of pissing behind a tree in three feet of snow. Maybe I'd like to not have to worry about going off for a week and coming back to find you fuckers got your asses fragged." Raven glanced over at Vernal, and her voice quieted a little. "Maybe I finally give a shit about the Tribe, for once."

For the first time, a bandit spoke up in support of her. "Not having to scrounge through the winter'd be nice for once," he said. A few of his neighbors gave him a dark look, and he just shrugged. "Jus' sayin'."

But that broke the dam.

"Lost my kid last year, we had that hard freeze," another muttered. "Boss is sayin' we could do different."

"My husband got killed in the last raid…"

"Not have to pack up and move all the time."

"A real smithy."

The comments filtered through the Tribe, some quietly and contemplating. Some more loudly.

"Weak!" Baldy's face was red. His scar standing out white against it. "Can't you bastards see what she's doing?! She wants you to… turn into fucking villagers. Prey! Weaklings!" He spat on the ground. "Soft beds. Full bellies. And next thing you know she'll be telling you that you gotta follow rules!"

To everyone's shock, instead of getting pissed, Raven started laughing at him. "Rules?! Fuck me. You already follow rules, asshole. You want my shit? Or Vernals? You think you can just walk over and take it? You know damn well Branwen Tribe already has rules."

"That's different. Those are rules that make sense! Take what you can. The strong survive!" He objected.

"And the weak die. Even if you didn't want them to," Raven finished for him. "Are you strong?"

He thumped his chest. "I am. Two dozen raids. The best pickings."

"Can you take me?" His mouth snapped shut. There was an increase in muttering throughout the group. "You fucking know you can't. So you're not strong. You're weak. I can cut you down right now, and you can't do a fucking thing about it." Raven leered. "If that was the rule that made sense, why don't I do it, smart man? Why do I put up with you eating and shitting good food that I could be eating?" She glared at him for a second, then her eyes roved across the Tribe again. "Why the fuck do I put up with any of you?"

One of the smart ones, the woman who'd lost her husband, spoke up. "You need us."

Raven locked eyes with her. "What'd your husband do when we weren't raiding?"

The woman looked around, suddenly nervous. "Leatherwork."

"Seems there was more than one reason to keep his weak ass around, huh? It's a shame he's dead, innit?" That got more frowns of contemplation, and Raven raised her voice again. "The fucking point is, we've been fooling ourselves. The strong survive, the weak die… unless we decide we need them." She drawled the last part. "And then we protect their asses. But that means the first part is bullshit, eh? Look around you. We've been here for six months. We've got cookfires. There's a fucking guy hauling around an anvil. My tent has a wooden floor. We've got a medic. You've got the old ones watching your kids while we're out raiding," she sneered. "Branwen tribe is already a fucking village, just with different rules. You're fooling yourself if you think otherwise."

Raven wasn't sure when she had realized that. Probably years before. But it hadn't mattered, because what was the point of changing?

But now. Now Summer was back, and Raven was building ties with Team STRQ again. She had… family again. Old times were creeping into her brain, making her look at people like Visha and Vernal differently than she otherwise would have.

The idea of coming back from visiting Summer and finding the Tribe a ruin, finding Vernal and Visha's bodies torn apart by Grimm… it had that same ache as when Summer had disappeared. It wasn't a feeling she cared to remember or experience again.

The old Raven would have fixed that by dumping Visha in the nearest village, or out in the snow, just to prove that Raven Fucking Branwen didn't give a shit about anyone but herself. Or she'd have honed Vernal into a tool, and not given a shit what happened to that tool once it served its purpose.

But old Raven died when Summer didn't.

And new Raven wasn't fucking weak. She just wasn't stupid.

"I don't wanna live in no fucking village." Baldy said, throwing down the mug he'd been holding. "Soft! Weak!"

"Then don't. Get your shit and go." He just stood there blinking at her. "Do I look like I'm laughing? Did I fucking stutter? Get the fuck out of my Tribe. Do whatever the hell you want." She drew Omen and several people in the front ranks eased back. "But I meant what I said earlier. If you leave, and then come sniffing around a village we're protecting, you won't have to worry about rules, because you'll be dead."

Baldy was practically foaming at the mouth. "Ain't nobody gonna challenge her?! She's killing the tribe!"

"Ain't nobody got a death wish," another Bandit muttered.

"I'm with Raven," a woman said. She had three kids huddled around her knees. "I want my kids to grow up." There were many who muttered or voiced assent. But not everyone.

"That's all I have to say," Raven finished. "For now, it's business as usual. I'll be sending out word to the nearby villages to negotiate… fees. If you're planning to ditch, just grab your shit and go. No need to kiss me goodbye. Fuck off and good riddance." She turned her back and walked into her tent, leaving the stunned, thoughtful, and in some cases seething Tribe to do what it did best.

Survive.

Later that night, a dozen shadowy figures converged on Raven's tent. Two of them were Aura users, among the toughest in the Tribe. They'd had an easy life here, at the top of the pyramid. Well, as near the top as one could get with Raven alive.

They'd decided to fix that. They'd gathered the ones they knew they could trust. The ones who would lose the most with this new direction she'd proposed. The only one they'd not been able to recruit had been Baldy. To everyone's surprise, he'd apparently pulled up stakes and taken off on his own instead. It was a shame, because he'd have been a deadly fighter on their side.

They'd watched carefully as she'd stayed up late drinking, celebrating how she'd cowed the Tribe with her bullshit plans. They'd catch her by surprise. Cut her throat in her sleep, then take care of that old woman and that little bitch Vernal afterward.

And then they'd kick out every weakling that had voice approval of her stupid changes.

The Tribe would live on as it had.

Strong. Simple. Savage.

From inside the tent, the sound of Raven snoring could be clearly heard. That meant her Aura was down. Without it, she was just another body waiting to be bled out.

Ordinarily, the Tribe wouldn't accept a change in leadership by assassination. It would have been seen as weak, cowardly, and the Tribe would have banded together to kill the assassins, because no Tribe could survive if the leaders were afraid to turn their backs.

But this was different. Raven was trying to kill the Tribe. That made it self-defense. The Tribe would accept it or die.

Shay slowly peeled back the tent flap, giving a clear view of Raven splayed face-down across her bed, thick black hair hiding her face.

The sound of four arrows thunking wetly deep into flesh was very very satisfying as the others charged forward. Within moments, they'd sunk blades deeply into Raven's body before the ringleader, armed with an axe, cut off her head for good measure.

Best not to take any chances with a fighter as deadly as Raven Branwen. Hell, they might even burn the remains for good measure.

And then they stood there panting and staring at each other wide-eyed.

They'd done it, and Raven never even had the chance to make a sound.

The next target was Vernal.

. . .

Something unsettling slowly crept up Shay's spine.

Wait, Shay thought as the feeling spread. How's Raven still snoring with no fucking head?

"Guys…"

"You fuckers are goddam stupid," Raven said behind them, Omen already drawn from its sheathe. "And that's why you were never fit to lead."

The Branwen Civil war was short and bloody, and the losers had no mourners. They'd broken the rules and taken their shot. The consequences were on their asses. Morning found their bodies hung from trees just outside the camp. Well… the parts that were in large enough chunks to be hung once Omen was done with them.

Visha had served her well. "No one notices an old woman, and people say things around us old folks that they wouldn't around someone else. And old Visha knows how to keep her mouth shut." Shed promised earlier in the day. "You'll have off of us with one foot in the grave on your side, I can promise that."

"You're not dead yet, Visha." Raven said with a smile.

Vernal had piped up next. "Those assholes won't wait, specially if you look like you've been celebrating."

"We'll be ready. Who's our volunteer?"

Baldy was the first to go. They'd then carefully packed up his stuff in the night and stashed it to make it look like he'd left of his own choice. He missed the conspirators' meeting as a result, on account of being dead and dressed up in Raven's clothes and a wig.

One less asshole to worry about.

Over the next two days, the Tribe lost a dozen members, most of them in two packs, as any remaining dissenters took note of what happened if you tried to push back, and couldn't accept the new reality.

They'd be watched. Left alone, but watched.

As long as they stayed out of Branwen Tribe's business.

[A/N] Thanks to recent reviewers DragonL0RD and AtomicR4y. Yes we now understand why Alexander Nikos is unlikable from the prior chapter. You'll like him less in a future chapter. Regarding the name Port Combat School, don't think I haven't considered the potential for some fun times if we name it that and a certain Beacon Professor, lol. Grok, sorry i can't control FFN's craziness when it comes to notifications, I don't understand them either.

Another fun chapter to write (though a little shorter). I mean... like she said... she's not weak, but she isn't stupid either. Long Live Branwen Tribe!

I'd like to take the opportunity to plug another author's story over on AO3. It starts off sounding like a crackfic, but fast turns into more of a "fun but serious" post V9 introspective. Really enjoying it. I Wanted to Call Him Daddy, Not Father! by Deferonz

Summary: Ever since returning from the Ever After, Jaune has begun to feel oddly left out of his friends' conversations. The things they discuss as recent were decades ago for him, and they can't seem to grasp that. One night, while going to a bar to try and de-stress, He finds companionship in an unlikely place: Weiss' mom!?