Blood Orange

Strife Skoll and his tribe, along with the Hati bandits, were positioned to ambush the next trade convoy heading to Atlas. It was still a day or two away before the transport came, and the bandits were readying everything they needed to hit fast and hard. The Skoll bandit chief oversaw the placement of the Dust launchers that would bombard the escorts and target to bring them down. Seeing that everything was satisfactory so far, Strife decided to retire to his tent.

As the redhead entered his tent, he saw that he had company and asked.

" What is it, my dear daughter?"

It was Strife's daughter Crimson that awaited the Skoll chief. She had short blood red hair and eyes like her father and also inherited his dainty figure, making her seem younger than her age at 12 years old. The petite redhead looked at her father blankly with lifeless eyes and reported.

" Some of the tribe has doubts about striking another convoy headed for Atlas."

Strife went up to his daughter and grabbed her chin as he stroked her lips with his thumb, then ordered with a sadistic smile.

" Names."

Crimson gave no reaction to her father's actions and complied. After naming the ones that got the petite redhead to voice their concerns through her instead of directly going to their chief. Some were from his tribe, while the rest were from the Hati tribe that joined them, and Strife told Crimson after letting go of her.

" Tell them I hear their... advice, but we are already invested in taking down this convoy, so it's too late to change course."

" Understood..."

The Skoll chief then ordered curtly with a pleasant smile gracing his lips.

" Strip."

The petite redhead obeyed without hesitation and revealed her pale body riddled with scars. Strife picked up his thorny whip, and Crimson shuttered at the sight of her father arming himself slightly but maintained a neutral expression, and the Skoll chief asked.

" Tell me, my dear daughter, what is it you should always do?"

" Obey, my chief."

Strife smiled at her as he unfurled his whip and asked.

" And yet, why are you here? I didn't call for you, nor did I feel the need to either."

Crimson kept silent as her father said with a calm tone but sadistic emotion in his eyes.

" You came here because someone other than me sent you, and you should know better."

The Skoll chief carved into his daughter's flesh with his thorn-covered whip, and she cried out as a new wound formed over her torso. Strife then walked over and gently told Crimson with a warm smile.

" My dear daughter, you only obey me. You only need to listen to me. I am the only one who gets to decide for you."

" Yes, chief."

The petite redhead rasped as she didn't even cry. All Crimson's tears were dried up a long time ago, and her father told her.

" So long as you understand, my dear."

Strife took out some ointment and applied it to his daughter's wound with a carefree smile while humming. The father-daughter pair had a twisted and warped relationship that none could understand but themselves. Strife was needlessly cruel and evil underneath his smiling figure, and Crimson had the misfortune of being his daughter. The girl was a husk that only knew the pain and false friendliness of her father and was taught to obey all her short life. The true tragedy of the situation is that the dynamics in their relationship were not unique to them, as those who lived outside the laws of the four kingdoms often had their morals, and bottom lines eroded with time, generation by generation.

***

Yang Xiao Long was in a miserable state as she was grounded indefinitely until otherwise by her father, Taiyang Xiao Long. Her Scroll was confiscated, no sweets of any kind, no TV, forbidden to hang out with her friends outside of school, and the majority of household chores were dumped on her. The blonde girl was currently watering and debugging the garden and sighed as she knew that if she could go back to the past, she would still go to Atlas with the intent of seeing Silva but instead wind up meeting and reconnecting with her birth mother. She didn't regret her actions in the slightest.

Yang finished watering the vegetable garden and started to comb through it to deal with any insects that would harm the produce. The blonde finding a large beetle nearing the eggplants, swatted it away and crushed it under her heel. Taiyang refrained from using pesticides in general and tried to use natural methods of protecting his garden. While Yang didn't mind bugs too much, they still grossed her out, and she hated having to deal with them by hand. Grabbing a slug approaching the tomatoes with a disgusted expression, she threw it out of the garden.

As Yang toiled in the soil, a blackbird, a raven to be precise, dove into the garden and grabbed an odd few insects with its talons. The blonde smiled gratefully at the bird for that little bit of help and continued her work. With Yang working outside, Ruby did the few chores she could do without messing up inside the house. The little reaper organized the photo albums and found some old photos of her mother, Summer Rose.

Ruby felt the old wounds at her mother's disappearance ache in her heart as she saw her a picture of her mother in a costume party, dressed as a knight. The younger Rose stared at the picture and asked as she vainly hoped for an answer that would never come.

" What do you think of Yang's situation with her other mom, mom?"

Ruby was met with silence, and she sighed as her heart clutched in sorrow but continued to work on the photo albums.

***

Qrow Branwen was at a bar doing his usual pastime, getting drunk as a skunk. The bad luck charm had his Scroll out as he waited for something. The bartender brought out an order of dry rub chicken wings and handed them to Qrow.

" Here's your order."

" Thanks."

The reaper went ahead and paid for his wings as he nursed his drink, then picked the biggest piece to start eating. Qrow deboned the wing by holding it in his hand and then yanking out the bone with his teeth. The bad luck charm dropped the bone back into the basket of wings and ate his chicken. This process continued until an alert went off on Qrow's Scroll, and he made a call that he had wanted to make for a while now.

" Raven, we need to talk!"

" What is it, little brother?"

The reaper rolled his eyes and retorted.

" We are twins!"

" Still first, baby brother."

Qrow decided to stop this ancient argument of theirs that they had had since they could first talk.

" Look, Raven, seriously, we need to talk, face to face."

The bad luck charm was met with silence for a moment or two until the former bandit stated with a tone that you could tell she was smirking on the other side of the call.

" You know, Qrow, you have never taken me anywhere nice for a meal."

Qrow frowned as he knew his sister wouldn't say this out of the blue and that she was demanding a price for her appearance. He groaned in annoyance but agreed.

" Fine, take your payment in blood but get over here already!"

The next moment a red portal appeared in the bar, and Raven came over. She looked around with mild disappointment and said to her brother.

" Qrow, if this is your definition of "nice," then we need to work on your standards."

" We aren't eating here."

Qrow got up after paying for his bar tab, and his sister followed him. The bad luck charm led his sister to another bar, but one of a higher class than the previous one. Qrow entered after showing his Huntsmen license to the greeter, and soon, the twins found themselves in a wine cellar with a table just for them. The reaper asked irritably.

" This "nice" enough for you?"

" It will do."

Raven responded casually as she took her seat and looked at the menu. Qrow already knew what he wanted and didn't look at the menu. Soon a waiter appeared and asked what they wanted.

" For the wine, something young and harsh with bittersweet undertones and a herbed cheese platter."

" Earl Grey tea for me with a wine to compliment it and a cold cherry tomato pasta."

With Qrow and Raven's respective orders in place, the reaper asked his sister bluntly.

" So, what made you decide to reconnect with your daughter?"

" Do you want the long story or the short one?"

Raven asked back as she wondered what she should hold back from her brother, as the former bandit still has a few secrets she wants to keep hidden for the time being. Qrow answered as their drinks arrived.

" I ain't going nowhere for the time being."

Raven sighed, then said.

" Long story it is then."

The former bandit explained herself after adding a bit of her wine to her tea.

" Let me start on why I decided to wash my hands of Ozpin and his circle. It began with a simple recon mission in the Land of Darkness; now, as you know, brother, our bird forms made us harder to detect for Grimm, but I decided to test how far I could go without getting caught. I managed to enter Salem's castle with little to no trouble and get all the way to her throne room undetected."

Raven took a sip of her tea, and Qrow listened with rapt attention as this was the first he was hearing this and didn't even touch his wine.

" Seeing Salem, alone, with her guard down, I felt like I could end this conflict for good between her and Ozpin. So, I assassinated her and cut off her head."

"No way!"

The reaper said in disbelief, but the former bandit's expression turned Grimm as she told him what happened next and decided that her brother should finally know the truth.

" As I reveled in my achievement, I noticed something strange. Salem's head turned into smoke, and I saw her restore herself as if she didn't die. So I cut her again and again until I realized something. It's not that Ozpin didn't want to deal with Salem once and for all; it's that he couldn't. The Queen is immortal, Qrow."

Qrow was stunned at this news and wanted to deny it, but Raven presented a solid argument that confirmed what she knew.

" Ozpin has had over a thousand years, maybe even longer, to deal with Salem. He knew where her base of operations was but, aside from some recon, never did anything. You know that James would've brought the full might of Atlas onto Salem if Ozpin hadn't deterred him in the past from doing so and that the Sword of Destruction could've killed her if it was possible in the first place."

" But, Oz, he..."

Qrow tried to refute his sister but had no counter-argument, and Raven gave him the reason why she didn't tell him in the past.

" I didn't tell you before because I knew that you were far happier working with Ozpin than being with the tribe as he gave you purpose beyond your misfortune. I kept quiet because it didn't matter to me if Ozpin kept up his pointless shadow war for all of eternity or at least until recently."

While these revelations still had the reaper shaken to his core, he felt curious at his sister's change of heart.

" What happened?"

Raven lied through her teeth for some of what she said, but most of it was true.

" Silva managed to convince me to let him leave the tribe, and he somehow got in contact with the Spring Maiden and had her open the Vault under Haven without anyone being the wiser. He brought me along when he used the Lamp of Knowledge to know all the ways to defeat Salem and have her no longer be a threat. Some of the solutions were so simple that it struck me that Ozpin was, is a fool of the highest order. After learning that Salem is not unbeatable, going back to the tribe, managing it, seemed pointless now."

Their food arrived, and Raven took a few bites of her pasta as Qrow just sat looking dazed, then finally asked after getting a bit of his composure back.

" So what is snowball up to?"

" For now, he will settle his debts to James and give Salem his undivided attention so that things will end, one way or another."

Qrow breathed out a big sigh and opened his wine to get drunk after learning everything from his sister. The siblings enjoyed their meal together despite their complicated feeling, and Qrow drunkily decided after downing his second bottle.

" You, know what?! Unless Oz absolutely needs me, I am going to give Ruby and Yang my undivided attention until they graduate from Beacon or where ever!"

" You do that, little brother."

The dusty old crow drunkenly retorted and started their old argument for argument's sake.

" We are Twins!"