Who: Qrow & various people What: December catch-all When: Throughout December Where: Around town, in memories, Trench Silent Hill, etc [ooc: starters in the comments! if you'd like something specific, pls hit me up on plurk or discord to plot!]
Determined is such a polite word for it. Qrow can't help a snort.
"None taken. Us huntsmen and huntresses...we sure are a certain kind of people."
The kind that risk their necks over and over fighting monsters who thrive on fear and negativity, which can't help but exist in a life painted with blood and danger. It's a vicious circle, an impossible situation even without the unstoppable apocalypse in the mix.
"But maybe she would've waited until she at least had an Aura, you know?"
It's not Yang walking into the Grimm's nest that's alarming; as she is now, he wouldn't even blink twice at it. It's the fact that she did it when she was so small she had to drag Ruby along in a cart behind her, that she went by herself with no Aura or semblance, and if Qrow hadn't been following behind her (at a misfortune-safe distance), she would've been killed there and then.
Paul's compassion hits him strangely, knowing that. He's heard it before, from the man who has since become his lover--that it took strength and courage for him to dig himself out of where he was, regardless of how he ended up there and how long he spent mired in it--but it's still a difficult thing to hear, sometimes, especially from someone he doesn't even really know.
"I mean, I spent over a decade in that place, so I dunno how much credit I can really give myself on that, but at the time ... yeah, fair enough."
He had been so ruined, at that time. Team STRQ was the first place that had ever felt like family, for Qrow. The first (and last) time he remembers having been genuinely happy without reservation, without the stain of grief marring it. He'd found a purpose and a place in the world and he'd thought maybe he could build a life around that, like he could contribute something to the world that mattered.
And then Raven left them with an infant girl and a shattered team and they'd almost put together the shattered pieces in a mosaic that resembled what was lost when Summer was gone too, and then they had nothing left to hold together the pieces with. He and Tai and Yang all mourned on private islands of grief, unable to show their pain to each other nor look too closely at anyone else's, for fear they'd come undone when they couldn't afford to.
Qrow can't begin to remember how many times he'd drank and wept before an empty grave on that cliffside in the dead of night, because it was the only time he could risk it. How often he settled on the bird form because it was easier than to look Yang in the eye knowing that he hadn't been able to stop her mother from leaving and spent years hiding it from her.
Little Ruby stirs in her sleep, maybe affected by some dream, and curls in closer, and Qrow's reminded of what kept him going, but there's something terribly raw about being brought here and reminded of when that grief was fresh, rather than an old aching scar.
"...We never found her body," he admits, suddenly and unprompted. He chooses to blame this on the Mourning, rather than any specific feelings of vulnerability this time and place evokes. "It wasn't a clean thing, all at once. She just went on some mission and never came back."
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"None taken. Us huntsmen and huntresses...we sure are a certain kind of people."
The kind that risk their necks over and over fighting monsters who thrive on fear and negativity, which can't help but exist in a life painted with blood and danger. It's a vicious circle, an impossible situation even without the unstoppable apocalypse in the mix.
"But maybe she would've waited until she at least had an Aura, you know?"
It's not Yang walking into the Grimm's nest that's alarming; as she is now, he wouldn't even blink twice at it. It's the fact that she did it when she was so small she had to drag Ruby along in a cart behind her, that she went by herself with no Aura or semblance, and if Qrow hadn't been following behind her (at a misfortune-safe distance), she would've been killed there and then.
Paul's compassion hits him strangely, knowing that. He's heard it before, from the man who has since become his lover--that it took strength and courage for him to dig himself out of where he was, regardless of how he ended up there and how long he spent mired in it--but it's still a difficult thing to hear, sometimes, especially from someone he doesn't even really know.
"I mean, I spent over a decade in that place, so I dunno how much credit I can really give myself on that, but at the time ... yeah, fair enough."
He had been so ruined, at that time. Team STRQ was the first place that had ever felt like family, for Qrow. The first (and last) time he remembers having been genuinely happy without reservation, without the stain of grief marring it. He'd found a purpose and a place in the world and he'd thought maybe he could build a life around that, like he could contribute something to the world that mattered.
And then Raven left them with an infant girl and a shattered team and they'd almost put together the shattered pieces in a mosaic that resembled what was lost when Summer was gone too, and then they had nothing left to hold together the pieces with. He and Tai and Yang all mourned on private islands of grief, unable to show their pain to each other nor look too closely at anyone else's, for fear they'd come undone when they couldn't afford to.
Qrow can't begin to remember how many times he'd drank and wept before an empty grave on that cliffside in the dead of night, because it was the only time he could risk it. How often he settled on the bird form because it was easier than to look Yang in the eye knowing that he hadn't been able to stop her mother from leaving and spent years hiding it from her.
Little Ruby stirs in her sleep, maybe affected by some dream, and curls in closer, and Qrow's reminded of what kept him going, but there's something terribly raw about being brought here and reminded of when that grief was fresh, rather than an old aching scar.
"...We never found her body," he admits, suddenly and unprompted. He chooses to blame this on the Mourning, rather than any specific feelings of vulnerability this time and place evokes. "It wasn't a clean thing, all at once. She just went on some mission and never came back."