November I

"'Sup, Ray?" Qrow said with a smile.

Raven just greeted him with a nod. There was no need for further introduction between the two of them. As much as they might have abandoned the aspects of themselves that belonged to the tribe upon arriving in Vale, there was no need to throw out the Fire Dust with the Feilong.

"I need your help," Raven asked, getting straight to the point.

"Oh, so the mighty mother comes back begging at long last," Qrow joked. "I knew it was only a matter of time before those words would pass your lips."

Laugh it up, brother. Laugh it up.

Raven had no option but to suck up her pride and endure his minor taunting. He meant no harm, but that didn't mean being mocked, even as plainly as Qrow was mocking, didn't sting her ego a little. If she fought back, though, he might not agree to aid her, and that would be problematic.

I could just look it up on my scroll, but I doubt I'd get as comprehensive an understanding as I would from Qrow's investigation. The downside is that I need to let him have his fun to butter him up. I know that with Summer out of the fight against Salem, brother is overextended as it is, and agreeing to spend his time on me is a bargain that could easily be revoked for the most minor of slight.

"Lemme guess – you need your big strong brother to come out there and be a positive male role model for my niece," Qrow suggested.

Raven shook her head. She'd flown out to the middle of the forest to initiate this scroll call, giving them both a little privacy. If Summer overheard, she might misunderstand, and Raven dared not risk offending her on this subject matter.

It really seemed to stir up an emotional response in her, which is precisely why I want to ask brother more about it.

"Actually, I was hoping to utilize that big brain of yours," Raven said, biting her lips.

Qrow's smile just got wider and wider as he soaked in the low-effort groveling. "Alright, I think that ought to suffice. Whaddaya need, Ray?"

"Information. Cultural knowledge or reasoning about the Valeans."

"Ask away. Maybe I already know."

"Homosexuals. Summer says she is one, and she says this offends parents of children. Why?"

Qrow scratched at his chin and didn't answer immediately, dashing Raven's slim hopes of him already knowing. "Homo-sexuals, with two O's? I've heard of homiesexuals, but not your one. That means people who are the same sex they're born with, right? They don't do the gender changing thing?"

"No, I think it has to do with liking women." Raven ran over what Summer had told her. "But not babies? Summer didn't elaborate, and I think she's a bit touchy about it."

"Liking women?" Qrow adopted a look of genuine bafflement. "Damn, I guess I'm a homosexual."

"You and me both. But for some reason, Summer liking women made the parents she used to babysit for hate her. Can you find out why for me?"

"You worried it's gonna bother you and your Yangling somewhere down the line?" Qrow asked.

Raven shook her head. "Not really. Summer's actually being a real treasure, to the extent that I think she's trying to prove something."

If the whole 'aunt' business is any indication, she's trying to prove how maternal she can be to Qrow so as to bear his spawn, but does her homo-sexual thing mean she's attracted to just women?

Naturally, Raven left any and all suspicions on that topic out of her conversation with the birdly brother in question. "I just wanna know why, more for curiosity's sake. Summer's doing a lot for me, and I think this matters something fierce to her, so I ought to know."

"Being a better partner? Better friend?"

Raven nodded. Qrow was right on the money with the reasoning.

"I'll make some inquiries. I assume…you want Taiyang kept out of the loop?"

Raven nodded. "On as much as possible. On everything, if you can."

Qrow grimaced openly. "Well, it won't be much of a problem there. I mean no offense, but he…he's clamming up when you or the kid come up in conversations. I…I don't think he wants to go back."

If only I could agree with him on that.

Valean or Mistrilian, civilized or bandit, high society Xiao-Long or base Branwen, abandoning one's partner, especially in a time of need like a child's birth, was a betrayal of the highest order. No matter how happy he'd made her in the time before he'd left, Raven would never have even pondered Taiyang's return for even as second if it had only been herself on the line.

But she had Yang to think of. Summer was currently keeping Yang safe, and her selfless love for the baby was a gift from the gods, but Raven was reliant on Summer's favor for her daughter's health and safety.

It doesn't even need to be malicious or negligent. If she had a mission that she can't turn away from…if Qrow calls for help, his life on the line…I lose my lifeline.

Raven paused for a second.

…but Taiyang…is he any different, when I think about it? I'm going about assuming that a father and husband would be a steady source of care for Yang, but he left. If he returns, I'd not be securing any guarantees of protection for my daughter and her well-being. I'd just be trading one part-time benefactor for another, and at least Summer isn't fair-weather.

No, Raven had been wrong before, that much was certain. She didn't want her 'Tai-Tai' back, and she didn't need him either. It wouldn't be to anyone's benefit; better he stay out there in the fighting where he wished to be and not bother his former family with his mere presence.

And besides, I'd much rather have Summer with me. I may have loved Taiyang more when he was being my husband, but I definitely love Summer more now that she's being my friend.

According to the Valeans (and this was one of the times that Raven expected they might actually know more on the topic), the end of autumn and the onset of winter was actually on a set date based on the rotations of the sun and moon. Raven was pretty sure that the exact date was some time in December, when the stars lined up or something – she never really had a good head for the astrology bullshit her peers had occasionally mentioned, and Beacon didn't bother to teach it in class.

But one thing that the Valeans didn't understand about winter was that the season was not something their star charts and calendars could predict. Regardless of the location of the sun in relation to the moon or how fast Remnant was spinning that month, the winds would blow the way they felt. That frosty chill would set in when it decided, not you.

Raven, as a child of the woods, knew better than to try and control when winter began, but she was adept enough at reading the signs of the seasons to determine that this New Year would be a cold one. The time to start preparing was now.

At least I still live out in the woods. If I were in the city, I'd have no idea what preparations I should start making, but living through harsh winters in the forest is the one thing I know I can be good at.

She'd have to consult Summer, naturally, just to make sure that special considerations were made to keep Yang warm, but perhaps this might be the time Raven got to impress her leader and not the other way around.

Contrary to what some might've believed, bandits weren't foreign to the nature of Dust – it was one of the few scientific fields that they understood practically, though not theoretically. Raven knew how to apply Fire Dust to ensure standing and flowing volumes of water didn't freeze, and she knew that a thin sheen of Ice Dust would actually be better for keeping plants alive when the morning frost came over, and she knew how many trees would need to be chopped down to supplement their existing firewood stores by the side of the house, and she knew how to properly store it to prevent ice ruining the wood, and –

Calm down before you hurt yourself.

Raven barely could. After all of the recent failures, with Yang and with cooking and with finding a job and with so, so many other things, it would be nice to succeed for once.

"Lesson #I," Summer said. "The I represents how I lost count and I'm not going to keep numbering them. And let's be honest, it doesn't really matter how many –"

"Can we forget which number the lesson is and talk about what it's going to be about instead?"

Summer blushed slightly and nodded, quickly looking away from Raven to the left and then to the right when she realized that was where Yang was. "Yep, of course. Lesson # Babies and the Great Outdoors. We'll be going over what Yang can and can't do outside. As you mentioned earlier, Winter is coming in, so we're going to have to talk about that to. This lesson might be split up into multiple sessions."

"Lesson #I, #U, and #We?" Raven joked. For some reason, though, she couldn't get a chuckle out of Summer.

D-Did she somehow overhear me and Qrow talking? Did she bug my scroll?

Wait, is she the bug? Did Ozpin give her the power to transform into a bug?!

Raven would have to make sure not to eat any bugs when she went out flying, lest her partner end up inside of her.

"So, babies…there's no rules about them not going outside." Summer paused and backpedaled. "Well, there're no rules at all, but top medical sources agree that babies can go outside from any age. You just have to be careful. Their immune systems are fragile – that means they can get sick fro–"

"I know what immunity is," Raven said. She might not have understood that alphabet cells or how they stopped you from getting two diseases twice, but once again, the practical aspect of the knowledge was clearer. Once a body fought off a disease, it would be resistant to repeat attacks. Babies, who'd never had diseases but for what their mothers may have passed to them in the womb, had zero defense, making their youths all the more dangerous.

"Great. Good, yeah, good that you…know that." Summer cleared her throat. "Babies, then. It's best to not let them crawl around in the dirt unsupervised, for a lot of reasons – one, they put anything in their mouth they can find and there can be dangers outdoors, two, it's a bother to wash them off if they get muddy, two, there can be all sorts of sharp or hard objects on the floor, three –"

Raven stood up and stopped Summer before the lesson could go on any further. "Sum, are you alright?"

It wasn't often that perfectionist Summer rambled on, and even rarer was it to hear her repeat a number when listing off the many topics on her itemized lists. In all her years of knowing her, Raven could only count maybe two other times it had happened – when Summer had been explaining all of the reasons bandits were vile, wicked scum to Qrow after he'd been found out, and when Summer had been trying to convince Raven not to quit Team Stark nine months…actually, make that ten months ago.

She's flustered, but I can't for the life of me think of any reasons why. We're doing routine lesson on how to handle Yang, the kind of thing we do daily. In fact, now that I've handed out my half-empty resumes to basically everyone on Patch, I'm spending a lot more time at home doing these kinds of lessons – probably an extra hour or two every day.

"I'm nothing, Ray. I'm handling it."

Raven raised an eyebrow at that. She didn't need to say that if there was an 'it' for Summer to be handling, it couldn't be nothing.

Again, she's tripping up over her own words. Is this going to be a problem?

"We can postpone –"

"No!" Summer shouted. Wincing, she reached down, grabbed her dress to straighten it out, and stared at their feet. "No. There's no need to…no need for that. I can be professional."

"What, has the old homosexualism kicked in and you're too enamored with Yang to focus?" Raven joked.

"NO!"

Summer nearly screamed this time, enough that Raven actually took a step back in alarm and instinctively reaching for the missing sheath that would've carried the missing Omen. She was only ever used to Summer, her calm and collected leader, breaking out her big girl voice when a real threat was present.

Summer covered her mouth with one hand and let out a whine. "M-Maybe we should…I think…I need a little time. Alone."

"Okay," Raven said. "I'll take Yang inside to her crib, then."

"I'll go with you," Summer offered.

Raven just shrugged, ignoring the fact that Summer was openly contradicting herself. If she changed her mind so rapidly about wanting to be alone, who was Raven to deny her? She'd already done more than anyone could have asked of her, so if she wanted a little break to collect herself or whatever she needed to do, that was fine by Raven.

It's not like we need to go over Lesson #I today or something. The cold is showing signs of setting in, signs that I'm accustomed to seeing, but they're early warning signs. It won't be a little while until we actually need to prepare.

Preparation would also probably include buying some winter clothing for herself and her child. She'd come to Patch in January of this year, and she'd been so despondent and antipathetic to everything except Taiyang that she'd basically not set foot outside until spring, and even then she'd only done the minimal effort.

Still, Raven did have to wonder why Summer was so upset. She usually knew better than to take an obvious joke – Raven had said it with a grin across her face – seriously, so it couldn't have been the homo thing.

Maybe it was Raven talking about postponing the lesson? Or maybe this lesson itself was the source of her distress?

She seemed bothered from the very moment I saw her. Does Summer have some sort of issue to taking babies outside?

If so, why? What was outside that Summer hated so?

It could have been the cold. It was getting nippy, and maybe Summer enjoyed her namesake season more for its warmth.

It could have been the dirt. Summer always hated dirt, filth, mud, or anything that might disturb the perfectly ordered neatness that she exuded into the world around her.

It could have been the sight of Vale out in the distance through the trees, tugging longingly at summer's heartstrings and calling her back. She'd not promised to stay forever, but it would have been impossible to not feel some remorse by this point. As Raven had traded her entire life in the city for a cabin with Taiyang, Summer had done that same bargain but in exchange for only a sobby baby and an equally frail former housewife. It couldn't have been worth it, partner or not.

It also could have been the Grimm. Summer knew they were out there, and she knew that the fight against them was ongoing. Doubtless, Summer longed for the bygone days of the past where she'd been able to relish in the victory of cutting down Beowolves by the thousands, of seeing hordes of monsters facing down a single huntress and realizing who was the stronger of the two of them. Surely Summer was itching to see more action that a pointless domestic life on an island in the middle of nowhere, forced to watch the world from afar as it went on without her. Summer must've regretted her choice to come here and sit idly and clean diapers and cook dinners and go shopping and look for a job when the prospect of swinging her sword and achieving that satisfying, dominant feeling of fulfillment that came with lopping off the heads of ten Grimm in one swing was still out there, the same feeling that had pulled Taiyang away from this selfsame cabin and back into Ozpin's outstretched arms where he felt he belonged.

Rather, the prospect of swinging her axe, because Summer uses an axe, not a sword like me.

Yeah. That must've been what was bothering Summer.

Author's Notes

This is a role reversal, with Taiyang and Raven switching places. However, it wouldn't be Raven if she's content with domestic pursuits, no questions asked. At her core, she's still the same character with the same flight risks.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!