[Hey, ow? Ouch. That one actually quiets Qrow a little, because that's how he felt a couple of years ago, when Oz first came back into his life in Deerington after having fucked off for months when he was needed the most. Forgiveness is a deliberate choice he made, yes, and he is the sort of person who can never truly stop caring about someone who has earned his devotion, whether or not that's good for him. But even as he can grasp the grains of truth in Fiddleford's words--at the same time, he also remembers how they got here. He remembers that he'd needed reason to be able to trust Oz in the future, and the wizard had come through and kept his promises.
He remembers what Oz sacrificed to do so, and what he'd said when Qrow had released him from one of them, putting to bed any last lingering doubts. He doesn't regret forgiving him, because he feels solid in that even now--but even so it'd also taken an acceptance of the fact that he couldn't expect Oz to unlearn millennia of bad habits overnight. Ironically, it's as Fiddleford says--some frustration over the man's distant avoidant bullshit is inevitable, because he is someone Qrow loves. He had realized only a couple months into their reunion that he was so angry because he was unable to simply sever that connection and let it go.
(Distantly, it strikes him that this conversation has gone deeper than he'd meant it to already, without his even noticing. Well fucking played, Dorothea.)
He closes his eyes, taking a careful breath.]
It's not that you're wrong, but ... with Oz, it's more complicated than that. He wasn't always immortal, you know. He didn't even end up that way by any fault of his own.
[He has slightly overplayed his hand, here; he can no longer tell the story while keeping Ozpin's name out of it, as he usually does. In deference to protecting the man's privacy, he skips over that part of the explanation entirely.]
But it fucks with someone, being the only one who'll survive until the end of the world. To be reborn over and over into new lives of people who'll die around you in a few decades at best. Especially when you're the only one who can keep the world from ending in the first place.
[He shakes his head.]
Like I said, you're not wrong. But those things he 'should' be able to do...s'like a guy with a broken leg having to climb up the stairs to his apartment every day 'cause someone fucked up the elevator beyond repair.
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He remembers what Oz sacrificed to do so, and what he'd said when Qrow had released him from one of them, putting to bed any last lingering doubts. He doesn't regret forgiving him, because he feels solid in that even now--but even so it'd also taken an acceptance of the fact that he couldn't expect Oz to unlearn millennia of bad habits overnight. Ironically, it's as Fiddleford says--some frustration over the man's distant avoidant bullshit is inevitable, because he is someone Qrow loves. He had realized only a couple months into their reunion that he was so angry because he was unable to simply sever that connection and let it go.
(Distantly, it strikes him that this conversation has gone deeper than he'd meant it to already, without his even noticing. Well fucking played, Dorothea.)
He closes his eyes, taking a careful breath.]
It's not that you're wrong, but ... with Oz, it's more complicated than that. He wasn't always immortal, you know. He didn't even end up that way by any fault of his own.
[He has slightly overplayed his hand, here; he can no longer tell the story while keeping Ozpin's name out of it, as he usually does. In deference to protecting the man's privacy, he skips over that part of the explanation entirely.]
But it fucks with someone, being the only one who'll survive until the end of the world. To be reborn over and over into new lives of people who'll die around you in a few decades at best. Especially when you're the only one who can keep the world from ending in the first place.
[He shakes his head.]
Like I said, you're not wrong. But those things he 'should' be able to do...s'like a guy with a broken leg having to climb up the stairs to his apartment every day 'cause someone fucked up the elevator beyond repair.