An Insight into the life of the Branwen Leaders
"We need to expand the tribe. We're too few to do anything at the moment - if any kingdom decided we were enough of a nuisance, we'd be wiped out within days."
"But we don't have enough resources to expand the tribe! We're stretching resources already; if we get too many new members, we won't have enough food to feed everyone. And that's not even thinking about the weapons we'll need to get for the new additions, and the training they'll have to go through just to be able to fight off Grimm."
"Enough." Raven sighed, rubbing her temples tiredly as she closed her eyes. Around her, the senior members of her tribe fell silent, something she was eternally grateful for. Gods, she knew she shouldn't have allowed them to cajole her into drinking the previous night. How Qrow managed to drink his weight in alcohol whenever he could, she had no idea. Her hangover was bad enough to prompt her to silently swear to never touch alcohol again. "Let's take a break," Raven murmured after a moment, opening her eyes and glancing around at all of the members of the tribe who were in the tent with her. "We'll get nothing done while we're arguing like this. We'll continue this meeting tomorrow morning."
The tribe members murmured their agreement, all of them getting to their feet and exiting the tent, Raven right behind them. She needed fresh air. And food. And possibly a place to scream out all of her frustrations.
"How did it go?" Asprey, one of the newer members of the tribe, asked Raven the moment the woman exited the tent, grinning brightly as she waited for Raven's answer.
"As well as could be expected, I suppose," Raven shrugged, smirking with amusement when she saw some of the tribe members who she had just been talking with hiss at the bright sunlight outside the tent. Looks like she wasn't the only one nursing a rather tender hangover. Well, serves them right, getting her drunk like that. May their headaches only get worse. "There were some arguments, and nothing was truly getting done, so I rescheduled the meeting for tomorrow. But no one was stabbed, so I'd say the meeting was a success." Raven hesitated a moment, turning to Asprey with narrowed eyes. "Where's Qrow? I thought you two were meant to be on a mission together?"
"Oh yeah, that was easy!" Asprey laughed uneasily, doing her best to shrug off the menacing aura Raven was emitting. The twins were protective of each other, ridiculously so, but until that moment, Asprey hadn't quite realized how dangerous one of them could be if the other was deemed to be in danger. "We got back a couple of minutes ago. Chief Qrow said he didn't want to disturb you...I think he went to the healer?"
Raven hummed her acknowledgement of the younger's words, turning away from Asprey and striding towards where the forge had been set up, not noticing how the younger woman relaxed the moment she was gone.
"Brothers, she is terrifying..." Asprey shook her head slowly, before turning to go and bug the senior members of the tribe for details about what had happened in the meeting. She was curious, damn it!
"QROW!" Raven strode into the healer's tent, wincing as her headache protested against her yelling for her brother. Briefly putting a hand to her forehead, she tried again, lowering her voice do as not to disturb her hangover again. "Qrow! Where are you?"
"Right here, Rae," the young man muttered distractedly, grimacing as the healer cleaned his wound a little more violently than necessary, all the while scolding him quietly about taking unnecessary risks while killing Grimm. "How did the meeting go?"
Raven rolled her eyes, quickly taking a moment to make sure her brother was not too injured. As far as she could see, he was fine, apart from a shallow cut that curled around his side, a wound that aura would heal in a matter of hours. "Well enough. Are you too injured to join me on a walk?"
Qrow waved away her concerns, shaking his head and getting to his feet, ignoring the disgruntled healer as he pulled his shirt over his head and buckled Harbringer's sheath around his waist. "Nah. Some Ursa just had a lucky day, that's all. It's nothing worse than a scratch."
Watching her brother shrug off his injury, Raven couldn't help but sigh. She knew how much it hurt her brother, to have a semblance like his, uncontrollable and always active. It was likely that the Ursa had not gotten lucky, as her brother had said - in fact, Raven would bet her katana that it was, instead, her brother's semblance which had put himself and Asprey into a dangerous position, and her brother's guilt over his semblance which had prompted him to take a blow that would undoubtedly have maimed the younger girl if it had hit her.
Oh, how Raven wished there was a way to make her brother happy. He'd been happy at Beacon, happier than he had been growing up in the tribe, but even at the school, there'd always been a wariness in his eyes, a cautiousness as he waited for his semblance to act up. And while he was certainly still happy, even though they were back at the tribe, she could see that it was taking its toll on him, being unable to control his semblance. She knew that he just wanted to be able to live without always glancing over his shoulder, searching for the bad luck that was sure to follow him. She wanted him to be able to live like that, too.
If she had been able to, Raven would have moved the universe to help her brother live the life he deserved.
"Come." Raven said after a moment, holding her hand out to her brother. "Walk with me. I think we could both use some time to think."
It was not a question. Raven knew her brother better than she knew herself, and she knew that he needed time to think about things, to try and come to terms with what had almost happened before he drowned in the guilt of the misfortune his semblance caused. She also knew that he wouldn't allow himself the time he needed, so she would have to make sure he had an opportunity to think things over.
Offering his sister a small smile, Qrow grabbed her hand, moving it to the crook of his arm as he and Raven stepped out of the tent, ignoring the indignant healer they left behind. He knew what his sister was doing - he knew her just as well as she knew him - and he was grateful for it. She always did take care of him, just as he always took care of her. It was simply the way of the Branwen twins, to look out for each other.
Arm in arm, the twins strolled through the camp, greeting the members of their tribe as they passed but never stopping long enough to be drawn into conversation. The tribe, understanding that the twins needed to think, kept their distance from the siblings, only greeting them with waves or, in one or two cases, with a few words, before allowing the twin chieftans of the tribe to pass by. A few times, children tumbled across Qrow and Raven's path, engaged in games like chase or monster hunter.
"Hey there, pipsqueak," Qrow murmured on one of these occasions, letting go of Raven's arm to crouch in front of a young girl who had fallen a bit too hard, and was now frowning at her bloodied knee. "You alright?"
"Blood's ugly," the girl grimaced, trying to clean her knee with the sleeve of her top. "I don't like it."
"Well then, how about we just fix this?"
Watching Qrow rip a piece of fabric from the bottom of his shirt and wrap it around the girl's knee to hide the 'ugly' blood, Raven couldn't help but smile. It had been hard, leaving Beacon to return to the tribe. It had been even harder for Qrow than it was for her, because Beacon had been where he had first felt truly accepted, where he had people who had accepted him wholeheartedly, even with his semblance. But now, seeing her brother interacting with the tribe, watching as he ruffled the young girl's hair and sent her off with a grin, Raven knew that they'd made the right choice. The tribe was where they were meant to be, not Beacon.
"What are you smiling about?" Qrow snickered as he walked back to his sister, looping his arm through hers once again. "Who died? Not Asprey I hope, I like that kid..."
"Funny," Raven deadpanned, rolling her eyes at her brother. "If you insist upon knowing, I was thinking about the tribe. It's...it's good to be back. I'm glad that we didn't take Ozpin up on his offer."
Qrow nodded slightly, nails digging bloodied crescents into the palms of his hands as he glanced away from his sister, doing his best to control the visceral fury that rose within him when he remembered how the Headmaster had tried to trick them, had tried to trap them in Beacon and keep them as pawns in a war that Ozpin himself had helped start.
We are safe, Qrow reminded himself, trying not to think about everything that might have happened had they agreed to Ozpin's offer, trying not to imagine if he'd had to see Raven die because of another man's war. We are safe, and we are with the tribe, and we will never need to speak to Ozpin again.
It helped, a bit. But he still felt sick as he imagined Raven, or Summer, or Taiyang, dying.
"Yeah." Qrow eventually managed to say, the words biting and harsh, although Raven knew that the harsh nature of her brother's voice was not directed at her, but rather at the man who could have cost them their lives. "I'm glad we're here too." Then Qrow glanced at his twin, words becoming more mischievous as a wry grin settled onto his face. "Besides, imagine if I'd left you to run the tribe all by yourself. You would have murdered your way across the continent several times over. You should count yourself lucky I'm here to act as your moral compass."
Seeing Raven's unamused glower, Qrow snickered, slinging an arm around his sister and pulling her close to him, easily blocking the elbow she tried to hit his ribs with.
"Qrow..." Raven growled. Undoubtedly, a threat would have followed immediately after she said that, had one of the tribe members not run up to them at that very second.
"Chiefs Branwen! The scouting mission sent word ahead - they've taken two prisoners. A Hunter and a Huntress...they're demanding to speak to you."
The Branwen twins glanced at each other, easily slipping back into their roles as joint chiefs of the Branwen tribe. Ever so slightly, Qrow tilted his head to the side, nonverbally asking his twin if she wanted to take the lead on this one. Just as discreetly, Raven dipped her chin once, pulling away from her brother and striding away after giving the tribe member instructions to bring the prisoners to her tent, Qrow falling into step right behind her. Raven was glad to have him there - she could deal with anything that happened easily, if she needed to, but there was a safety in knowing that if she ever got caught by surprise, Qrow would never let anything happen to her.
(She'd never let anyone harm Qrow either, of course. That went without saying. Anyone who tried anything with her brother when he wasn't able to defend himself lost a hand, if they were lucky, and Raven was in a good mood. Their life, if she was not.)
"Who do you think it is?" Raven murmured under her breath, knowing that Qrow would be able to hear her.
"I don't know," Qrow answered just as quietly, idly double checking the Harbringer was still in its sheath. He hoped that there would not be trouble, but he was well aware that even an unarmed huntsmen or huntress could be dangerous, and refused to allow the prisoners the scouts would be bringing in to harm his sister or his tribe. "If we're lucky? Someone with no ill intentions. But with me around? It's probably Glynda, with James, here to kill us for daring to desert the scheming asshole that they call a Headmaster."
Although she slapped his arm for his deprecating remark about the bad luck that followed him wherever he went, Raven couldn't protest the fact that with her brother's semblance, it was quite likely that the huntsman and huntress would not be friendly. She was glad that Qrow had made it a habit to keep Harbringer on him at all times - if everything went to shit, it was good to know that her brother would easily be able to put a stop to any trouble.
"Alright," Raven sighed, she and her twin walking into her tent to await the prisoners. "Let's hope this goes well."
"With me around? Never." There was a pause, then Qrow yelped. "Raven, stop hitting me! I'm just being truthful!"