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So it is done: Families
🕑 Added 2023-04-04 13:11:39 +0000 UTCYang struck, her fist blazing forward, but Raven ducked playfully away from her daughter's unsharpened technique before knocking her to the ground with a light punch. Then, as she struck the ground, raising a cloud of dust upward, Raven placed her hand to Yang’s neck in a symbolic gesture, signalling her victory. “You are dead.”
Yang, hearing the same words for the umpteenth time, closed her eyes, then slowly opened them again, shedding the violet-tinged redness that had begun to creep into her eyes, suppressing her Semblance forcefully. “Ugh, fine, I concede.”
Raven waited a second to make sure that her daughter was not thinking of a surprise attack, before shifting her hand to her side, then helped Yang up. With a forceful tug, Yang flew upward in a sharp motion, forcing Yang to work hard to keep her balance from falling again, "It’s four to one, then…”
“Five to zero.” Raven frowned her eyebrows slightly.
“I won a technical victory then! You were the one who said that every victory in combat counts, weren't you? I took your advice!”
Raven frowned a little at the argument, she didn't like losing to anyone, even her own daughter, but she couldn't argue with her argument. Not because it was true, but simply she didn’t want to be a hypocrite. More than once or ten times in the past, Raven had crushed Yang in battle the moment she was distracted by outside factors and uttering those exact words. So to say now that Yang could not consider her victory over Raven a victory would be hypocritical.
And while in many past contexts Raven had not bothered by her hypocrisy, any means used to help her maintain control of the Branwen clan was one she wouldn’t shy away from… At least back when it was still a clan of bandits and not a private army. And Yang was still her daughter at the end of the day. In other words… There’s nothing wrong in indulging her from time to time.
“All right, let's say…” Raven sighed, reluctantly admitting her defeat at the hands of her daughter as well as an opponent half her own age was nothing easy. “Four to one.”
“Hehehe.” Yang cracked a cheeky grin, one resembling Raven's own, causing her to shake her head.
“But don’t count on your opponent's Scroll ringing in the middle of a fight from now on,"
Raven sighed, then frowned, remembering something. "Or Qrow's semblance working on the wrong target again…”
“By the way, will Uncle Qrow be home soon?” Yang shook herself, dusting off any dust from her date with the ground, then looked around, as if expecting Qrow to appear at any moment on the small training ground behind Raven's house. “He promised to buy me a cake…”
At those words, Raven imagined a cake, then frowned. Her relationship with Qrow… Had not been the best of all time. So far, after years of gradually building bridges again, after his move and his interactions with Yang, they still kept their distance from each other for the most part. They mostly only interact on business and meeting most often only when outsiders are the reason they crossed paths, but… He would guess that his sister needed cake too, wouldn't he?
Or would she have to claim half of Yang's cake, which meant Raven would only get half of her well-deserved cake… Well, and for Yang too. It’s for her sake really, what if she becomes fat because she ate too much cake?
Qrow wouldn't get a crumb, though, if he dared not to buy her a cake! And even if he did, only a small slice!
Raven shook her head, jettisoning her thoughts of future sweets aside, the action caused her to glanced at her uniform and sniffed unceremoniously at herself. It was not that battling Yang was so draining for her, however promising the girl was, but the difference between a promising schoolgirl and a professional Hunter, and one of the best in the business, was great.
On the other hand, she had just finished five training sparring sessions, the best of hunters or not, physical exertions for long periods of time still meant that she stunk of sweat. Even if she was used to the smells of an unwashed body, once upon a time, and even if she hadn't become a captain in Glenn's army service, that doesn’t mean she preferred the dirtiness. Besides, giving Qrow a chance to comment about her hygiene was not going to happen for anything in her life.
Yang, repeating her mother's move, sniffed at herself, then instantly made a face of disgust. "I'll shower first.”
Raven only rolled her eyes at her child’s antics. "You have five minutes.”
“On it.” Yang nodded seriously, then, shaking herself off once more, rushed forward in an instant, eager to make the most of her allotted five minutes. After all, Yang knew that Raven didn't throw around threats she wasn't planning to carry out, so she needed to make the most of her allotted time. Her hair deserved the best it could get.
Raven, looking at her child’s hurriedness, smirked, watching someone do her bidding was nice, and Yang had grown up to be quite the obedient daughter… at least in Raven's case. With the others, Yang showed her true character, also inherited from Raven, every time she punched someone that looked down on her, made Raven look at Yang with a smirk, as if she was proud of Yang's accomplishments…
Or maybe she actually was?
Raven stumbled once more on the sudden thought intruding on her mind, an occasion that kept happening more and more as she watched her daughter’s progress. This time was no different, as she watched Yang through one of her portals, she had already climbed into the bathroom and turned on the shower to full blast. Raven had to wrench her gaze away, instead taking one last look at her small training ground, if you could even call the green-cleared area behind her house that. Shaking her last errant thought away, she then also followed suit and then hurried home.
What a strange feeling…
For Raven, when Yang was just a newly born baby, Raven certainly felt love for her daughter. She had given birth to her, fed her, taught her to walk, was even by her side when Yang uttered her first word…
And then she ran away.
The circumstances of her escape then could be called tragic, but not in the sense that Raven was completely innocent of her actions. She was not innocent at all, not to the point that she could simply step into the position of ‘mother’ once again as if nothing had happened, expecting a warm welcome.
Yang didn't even remember her looks or her voice when Raven had first appeared to her, she was just some vague, blurred outlines from a distant, distant past… Neither did Raven recognize her daughter.
When Raven left, Yang was only a year old, she had barely learned to walk, stumbling over her feet every two steps, and knew only two words, ‘mom’ and ‘dad’. At least something close to it, maybe when taken with a large grain of salt, interspersed with a random mush of sounds remotely resembling other words.
When Raven first met Yang again, she was already eleven years old. She had already experienced her first crush, her first grades, half of her wisdom teeth had fallen out, received a scolding from her father for not doing her homework, even got her first fight in the yard… One that is repeated soon after.
Heh, Yang's temper was definitely inherited from me.
The thought that she had missed many of her daughter firsts, soured the smile a tad.
When they were first reunited, Yang didn't know who she was, who this woman that had shown up on her house’s doorstep, likewise Raven didn't know who this girl was. The vague memories the both of them possessed, turned out to have nothing to do with reality.
Raven could feel her heart clenching in pain as her daughter looked at her as if she was a stranger… And it was true in a sense, they didn’t know each other. What exactly had she wanted to run away from then? What could she tell?
Was she running from Yang, from the past, or from the shame of planning to jump out the window before Yang got out of her room and met her gaze?
What could she even say to Yang?
I dumped you because I was intimidated by Ozpin's words and then tried my best to forget you existed until my boss forced me to hang out with my old abandoned team, and I was forced to meet you? Speaking of which, how were your grades at school?
Raven had no experience with children, but even she could tell that saying such a thing would be an expressway of cutting her relationship with her daughter for good.
After their tribe was practically wiped out in the past, when Raven took the reins coincidentally, she had far more problems in front of her than the much-needed skill of talking with children. Or that, when her clan was finally rebuilt, she found herself on Jonathan's radar, and then ‘asked’ to run her bandit clan as a small private army. It was also not the kind of place that sees a large number of children with whom Raven would have interacted.
Anyway, no matter how lacing she was, she’s here now, she’ll learn.
Making her way to the door of her house, still open as Yang didn't bother wasting time closing it, Raven took a step inside the house, closing the door behind her.
Would it be possible to make up for lost time?
Some, yes. You can meet up with an old friend from a decade long ago, expecting to have the same relationship as you had in the past. The time would be spent discussing everything that's happened in your lives, nod at each other in response to all sorts of irrelevant news and part ways again, and then forgetting about the friendship a couple of weeks later completely.
Some missed moments can never be recaptured.
To Yang, Summer was her mother. Of course, thankfully, Yang was already well aware of biology, of the fact that sometimes parents split up, Raven didn't even have to tell her about the birds and bees to explain why she didn’t look like Summer. But in the end, Raven was just a stranger to Yang, one day showing up at her house, claiming to be her mother.
And while Yang wanted to kindle a relationship between them, really wanted to… In the end, they were just strangers to each other, blood kinship provided Raven with nothing more than a reason to start communicating with Yang.
That was why the day they met was the worst, the amount of words exchanged between mother and daughter could be counted in one hand. All Raven could do then was open and close her mouth like a stranded fish, aware that this was her daughter and yet also a total stranger that she knew nothing about.
Probably, if Taiyang, Summer, or even Qrow had just told her that she wasn't supposed to meet with Yang then, she would have been only too happy about it, returning to the less awkward relations they had before. That is none at all.
In that case, she would have had a reason not to meet with her estranged daughter, an opportunity to shed the weight of responsibility and embarrassment and shame over the years by continuing to pretend that Yang did not exist. Not in her life, not in her world.
But Summer, that Grimm fuckin' Summer… When she had to, that woman was happy to demonstrate the effect of her Semblance, even outside of combat.
That damned, ever-smiling runt with a perpetual innocent smile on her face literally led Raven to Yang by the hand and got them to start talking. Treating her in a way that Raven herself was no longer sure who the kid was supposed to be.
And when, expectedly, that first meeting turned into a disaster, when Raven couldn't find a single point of thing in common with Yang, and Yang awkwardly said goodbye at the end and ran away? Summer made Raven return a week later! With sweets and a present!
And then again! And again! She kept pestering her, even threatening her with Jonathan should she try to run away again.
So it went on week after week, every Saturday when Raven wasn't off on a combat mission, and only that, as any other excuse was bulldozed over, Summer dragged Raven away again and again to meet Yang.
Again and again until it just became simply… The norm. Until it became normal for Raven to visit Summer and Taiyang's family and their daughters every week, until, at some point, Raven found her first common ground with Yang.
As it turned out, Yang had inherited her punchy nature and badass temper from Raven… And also her love of fighting to Taiyang’s daily source of migraine as a Teacher in Signal, having to explain to yet another parents that their children just got beaten black and blue by his daughter.
Yang had inherited her hand-to-hand fighting talent from Taiyang, so at some point during their formal reunion, Raven suggested that Yang should do some sparring. The first fight lasted exactly as long as it took for Raven to swing, her blade sealed in her scabbard knocked Yang down instantly, sending her to the ground, swallowing dust.
The moment Yang fell to the ground like a child that had just gotten her lights rearranged, in fact, it even made Raven freeze for the first moment, staring at Yang’s crumpled figure. Of course her Aura was already activated by this time, even Summer wasn’t so irresponsible as to allow Yang to train without it, but it was still a blow from Raven. A fully trained hunter. And one that she hadn't held back much for, and Yang was still a child, barely having found the first basics of her fighting style.
Then, looking at Yang's figure on the ground, Raven thought for the first time that she… Should have held back.
But Yang, panting menacingly a few times as she fell to the ground, rose to her feet instead of complaining, smirked, and demanded another try. Raven, throwing off her sudden shock, responded to Yang's challenge, and Yang was on the ground again, even faster, if not even harsher than before.
A kick to the legs, one that didn’t even have time to brace for, which is good since it meant that her legs wouldn’t have been broken then, knocked Yang off her feet. And, before Yang could even catch on to the fact that she was knocked down again, Raven was already hovering over her, blade over throat, symbolizing her loss in the fight.
This was repeated in their next sparring session, then the next, and another five more, until at some point…
Raven was beginning to like it.
Not rolling her opponent in dirt, Raven had always liked that, but… Coaching Yang?
Training newcomers to her tribe, and next to her unit, was, for Raven, had always seemed like a boring, thankless chore. Day after day, spar after spar, the same techniques for idiots who couldn't see the signs of an approaching Grimm horde even if they were smacked in the face with a bone mask. She dreaded the boredom of teaching people who could never in their lives distinguish a merchant caravan from a military procession masquerading as one, but in this case it was…
Practically fun.
Yang had adapted quickly to combat and was a diligent student, memorizing Raven's movements and not afraid to try new things in combat, because Raven certainly wouldn't have killed her during a practice sparring session. Not that such experience was amenable to real combat, every mistake was fatal, but at the same time she couldn't help but respect Yang for her cocky willingness to take risks. That kind of conviction Raven quite… respected.
And then, Raven was reminded why she had tried to escape the conflict between the two feuding immortals in the first place…
Taiyang had announced that Yang would become a maiden, and Raven suddenly realized that she wasn't just helping Yang become a better Hunter or more prominent sparring partner. No, the stigma of being a maiden meant a brand for life, Yang now didn't just want to learn the abilities of Hunters, she needed them. Simply because her life was now in perpetual danger. Yang required those lessons, which meant Raven…
Was now responsible for ensuring Yang's survival in this world.
There was nothing special about it, probably from a mother's perspective. Once, Yang had needed Raven to survive, too. Raven had spent sleepless nights with Yang, feeding and looking after her as a baby would die otherwise. It was only at that moment that Raven suddenly realized that she was really involved in Yang's life again. That she was really doing something important, something necessary for Yang, even if she was doing it by placing Yang in the mud.
Until one day, she had won.
What did Raven feel at the moment of Yang's victory, even if it was due to an accidental coincidence? Anger. Dislike. Irritation. All the things Raven felt whenever she lost in any confrontation, and at the same time…
Pride, perhaps?
Raven had trained Yang for a long time, however, she was not the only one training Yang, sometimes Raven wanted to stop early, sometimes she just wasn't in the mood, and at some point, she started talking instead.
Tales of training techniques turned into stories of the past, when those techniques had ended in victory, death, or even funny curiosities. And Yang responded by starting to talk about how her lessons with Raven had come in handy at school, or how those had proved useless when she tried getting out of trouble.
The line began to blur at some point, stories about battles turned into stories about their life, and stories about training sparring turned into stories about school. Then Raven's life stories and school stories continued to transform until… They simply talked about random things. No particular meaning, no beginning or end, just… Two people talking to each other. Two not…
Not so random strangers to each other.
And so it went on, week after week, until Raven started coming to the house more often. Not once a week, but twice, and then three, sometimes when she was tired at work, Raven would come back to Taiyang and Summer's house.
She was even going to Yang's school graduation.
Slowly, Raven even started to bond with Ruby. Not as well as with Yang, but good enough, Ruby even worked up the courage today when Raven came to get Yang, and asked her to start teaching her how to fight too. At that moment, Raven felt…
Pride? Joy? Satisfaction?
A feeling that she was doing something with her life, something… Right.
Maybe it was all just a strange hallucination, a phantom sensation, maybe Raven was going crazy… Or maybe…
Things weren't so bad for Raven at the moment?
Raven no longer knew for herself what kind of world she was living in. In a world where she had abandoned her daughter and pretended she didn't exist? A world where she was a divorced mother, making a regular appearance in her daughter's life every few days?
Raven didn't know, but…
Was it so important in the current circumstances?
Closing her eyes, Raven sighed, then felt someone's presence beside her.
“Qrow, if you don't bring me a cake as well, I'll throw you out of the house.” Raven threw a look at her brother that was much colder than their usual family squabbles, to which Qrow only rolled his eyes and pulled a neat cake, clearly for Yang. And a smashed small cupcake, clearly bought at a discount, from behind his back. “All for my dear little sister.”
“You are so…” Raven felt a tick appear on her forehead at the sight as she began preparing to kick Qrow out the door in response to such taunting. Before a sound of the door opening revealed Yang, wrapped in a towel, to the light.
“Raven?” Yang glanced at her birth mother before shifting her gaze to Qrow. “Uncle? What are the two of you doing?”
Raven looked at Qrow and only rolled her eyes, once again his semblance had worked at the most unnecessary moment, saving his hide, before then turning to Yang. “It's okay, Qrow bought us a cake… And a brownie for himself.”
Qrow rolled his eyes, but didn't continue the altercation in front of Yang, a quick glare from her stopping any stupid remarks, allowing Raven to retire to the bathroom for a quick shower.
That idiot knows better to question her parental authority.
***
Summer spread her arms as if preparing for a secret mystical ritual of incredible power, then laughed a thunderous laugh, causing Ruby to throw up her hands, copying her mother, with Taiyang closing his eyes at the duo’s antics. "Okay, okay, I admit, you make the most delicious chocolate chip cookies. Are you satisfied?”
At these words, Summer threw a winning grin, flung her arms out to her sides and then, in a sleight of hand, grabbed the tray of cookies. Only to have, a moment later, the triumph on her face replaced by a startled and pained grimace. The sudden pain caused Summer to momentarily put the tray back and bring her fingers to her lips, blowing, tears almost came to her face after a moment. “They're hot!”
Taiyang, holding back a sigh, only rolled his eyes. “Of course they're hot, that's why I’m using oven mitts!”
“Mom, are you all right?!” Ruby, the ever hyperactive child that she is, instantly changed her expression from one of triumphant anticipation to one of dismay as she rushed over to Summer’s side. But Summer, acting as the overgrown child that she is, quickly turned her grimace into a wide smile for Ruby. “It’s all right, I was just surprised!”
Taiyang nodded at that, too, not the least bit surprised, Summer, no matter how old she appears, was still a child at heart, perhaps one that’s younger than Ruby herself. Burning her fingers on a hot tray was no big deal to her, but to do it in her moment of triumph, proving to Taiyang, who had never actually argued with her about it, that she makes the best cookies… Yeah, that would definitely elicit some tears, or even outright crying.
In fact, it seems that she was about to cry, when Summer saw Ruby’s worried look, and then she immediately cheered up, ruffling the diminutive Ruby’s hair, to her annoyance. Because of course, the ‘big’ Ruby wouldn’t like it to have her hair ruffled, and so in ‘revenge’, she turned around and ran to the cookie tray, picking up one of the now much cooler cookies. “The first cookie is mine!”
“No, it’s mine!” Ruby indignantly cried out. “I helped! And you ate half the chocolate chips!”
Summer had nothing to say to that, so she had to retreat under Ruby's pressure with a sigh. “Ok, but the second cookie is mine! Taiyang you can get the third!”
Tayang didn't even bother to insert a comment about how he didn't like sweets at all and left all the cookies to the girls in the house anyway. He'd only learned how to make cookies for the rest of them, and he didn't argue that he was doing worse than Summer! Summer in general was hard to beat on the field of cooking, besides, even if for some reason Taiyang could do it, he clearly wouldn't. Summer would pout and walk around like that for a week afterward.
And while Summer couldn’t hold a grudge to save her life, a week of silent stares from Summer wouldn't please Taiyang at all.
Especially since, then, they would both miss at least two or three ‘opportunities’ when the girls were at school, and Taiyang wasn't planning on risking such a thing for a pointless competition.
Ruby, convinced that victory had been given to her, instantly took the chance, grabbing the cookie and nibbling at it with a happy look on her face. It was as if by eating the cookie before everybody else, she had skipped over all the religious trials and reached the promised paradise directly. Then again, considering that it was a strawberry chocolate chip cookie, all of Ruby’s favorites, perhaps Taiyang wasn't so far off from his estimation in this case.
Summer, though, after waiting for a moment for Ruby to eat her cookie, snatched another for herself. And like daughter and mother, the same resplendent emotion spreads instantly on Summer’s face.
Taiyang, however, wasn't even planning on tasting the results, just looking at Ruby and Summer already made his teeth ache from all the sweetness. As the two cookie addicts reached for another cookie on the tray, Taiyang decided to pull on the brakes before the two gluttons would finish off the tray.
“Remember to save some for Yang!”
“Sure thing!” Ruby nodded, as much as she liked cookies, she liked Yang more. “Oh, maybe we should save some more for Aunt Raven? In case she's staying over tonight!”
Hearing this remark thrown with childlike directness, Taiyang looked away for a moment, before finding Summer glancing up to give him a supportive smile and pulling a smile on his face as well. “Yeah, sure, save some for her too…”
Raven, huh… Thinking of his ex-wife, with whom Taiyang wasn't even officially divorced, who had left him with Yang in her arms and came back into his life years later… As expected, it’s still quite awkward for him to think about her.
Did Taiyang have questions, quips, occasions for conflict with her? Oh yes, hundreds, at one point in time Taiyang, thinking of Raven, had stopped remembering that she was his family, his wife, his lover, his teammate, or even his girlfriend altogether. Perhaps it was even a little embarrassing to say, but when Raven had just run away, for the first six months he had thought it was all some strange fever dream that had nothing to do with reality.
That he was about to wake up, that Raven would be there, that everything would be all right.
Then he sank into sadness, he blamed himself for Raven running away from him, Summer, Ozpin, the whole world. Maybe once, in the depths of his sorrows, he even blamed Yang for Raven running away, maybe the baby was the problem? Perhaps he himself had failed in the role of father? Had Qrow pushed her away? Perhaps something else… On and on.
And so it went on until Summer approached him for the first time. If it hadn't been for Summer, who knows how far this unfolding spiral of accusations and hatred for the world would have taken him.
Oh yes, Taiyang was furious with Raven.
How many training dummies had he broken at school and in his house, imagining Raven in place of the dummy? How many days, weeks, months had this hatred choked him, interspersed with hatred of everything around him, of himself, of Ozpin, of his team.
But Summer had held out her hand to him, when Taiyang really needed it. First there was talking, then Summer started showing up at his house, helping him with Yang, and then…
They were married, with Ruby on the way, now Taiyang had two daughters and a second wife. Well, two wives, one who’s very estranged, the divorce papers had never been signed.
Had he worked through his injuries, gotten rid of all the unspoken words and unexpressed emotions towards Raven, was there a final end to his epic with his ex-wife…
No. No, there wasn't.
His memories and thoughts about Raven just… Faded away, slowly erased from his memory. At first, he stopped thinking about her constantly, then she faded into the background altogether, giving way to the minutiae of life, and then gradually became a memory, one tinged with pain.
The memory of Raven running away, abandoning her child and husband, mingled with the image of Raven, the teammate who always came to his aid with her cold gaze and rude comment thrown to the wind. Eventually, these memories just dissolved into his mind, ceased to mean anything and were simply forgotten…
Until Raven Branwen suddenly and unexpectedly came back into his life.
The funny thing was that it wasn't a triumphant return, some big event, it wasn't even a formal meeting or anything like that. It was just that, back from Vacuo, Summer had dropped, among her excited retelling of the Grimm she killed, that Raven Branwen was quite alive, and living her life quite routinely. Not quite ordinary in terms of her occupation, having become the head of a small private army in the service of either Glenn or Menagerie, but quite ordinary in terms of life itself.
Taiyang simply regarded information about her ex-wife as passing minutiae, Summer would excitedly talk about how Raven was doing something…
And somehow, on her own, Summer suggested inviting Raven home, all the more so when Yang had heard about her birth mother. And somehow, completely by accident…
Taiyang agreed, and Raven came to their house, just like that.
Once, then a second and a third, and some more, and Taiyang…
He didn't really know how he was supposed to react to it.
Raven Branwen, who had left his life so suddenly and without even a parting word, just as suddenly returned to his life, as if nothing had ever happened. No years gone by, no spiral of depression, no life turned upside down several times over.
Raven Branwen just came home, just started hanging out with Yang, with Taiyang, with Summer, and even, for a bit, she started hanging out with Ruby and Qrow. An occasion that became even more common when they moved to Glenn, not because of Raven, but because of something between Summer, Ozpin and Jonathan… As far as he knew, and he preferred not to know, unless it endangered anyone she cared about.
Taiyang refused to get involved in that quagmire.
Perhaps he should’ve cared more.
Now Yang was a maiden, and he was forced to dive into the underside of this world.
Taiyang was once against it, and now… Now he wasn't, not that he has a choice in the matter, not for him at least.
The people Taiyang cares about are involved in that world. How could he refuse to learn the one when now it was not only about his team, but also about his daughter?
Maybe that was the point, maybe that was why Raven's appearance didn't lead to any grand meeting, a momentous occasion? Because Raven Branwen had once again simply faded into the background of other events and knowledge? Salem, the maidens, the relics, even Ozpin, the person he thought he could trust.
Taiyang Xiao-Long was a middle-aged man, not at all in his prime anymore, but still very far from old age, still at the peak of his power. He had lived through a lot and that made him a fairly balanced and calm man.
And yet he could not, when he looked in the mirror, tell himself that he was a seasoned adult and a balanced Hunter. There was so much he did not know about himself, back when’s he’s still an active hunter with team STRQ, still the same now.
What his current life meant, Yang, the maidens, Raven, Summer, Ozpin he doesn’t know.
And more importantly, should it have meant anything at all?
Taiyang didn't know the answer to that.
But what he did know for sure was that no matter how strange his life would turn in the future, at least now he had things he could always cling to. His daughters, his wife, his job at Glenn Hunter Preparatory School…
And no matter what happened in his life, he would never stray from that path.
