(A/N: 3 for 5. I'm going for broke guys!)
XOXO
A slash to her right side. A slash for her left side. A quick stab at her center.
Raven redirected the attacks, wood clashing against wood as she fended off the assault. Despite the lack of results, the attacks didn't cease or so slow, each attack as fast and strong as the one that preceded it, some even managing to go a step beyond. All the same, it didn't take much on her part to render the attacks harmless. Parrying the last blow, she stepped forward, wooden katana pulled back and jabbed it into her attacker's chest.
Talon was sent back but he dug his feet into the ground and gritted his teeth as a faint red glow flickered around him.
Taking to the offensive, she rushed forward. Despite being nearly out of breath and the massive difference in their statures, he managed to throw up a defense, backpedaling as he attempted to block and parry the slashes she rained upon him. Most slipped past, striking his arms and chest. And yet he never dropped his practice blade, yelped, or shed a tear, only focused on doing better against the next.
Talon had come a long way since she started training him. The grip on his weapon was stable, pain wasn't so much of a distraction, and his aura, which had already eclipsed most, including her own in terms of the sheer amount there was, lasted much longer, dulling the blows he couldn't fend off.
Raven's lips twitched upward as he ducked beneath a slash, attempting to come at her from below. A kick, one he barely managed to block, sent him back before he could make good on the attempt.
He had a natural talent for combat. Once his physique grew to match it and he had some real experience under his belt the boy would become a monster of a fighter. That semblance of his would speed that process along.
She'd never been one to enjoy holding back or entertaining those that couldn't keep pace with her, but she'd come to appreciate these daily spars. There was something about watching his rapid improvement that she enjoyed.
Something that had to do with being the boy's mother, she supposed.
A sharp cry filled the backyard, momentarily distracting Talon and allowing her slash to strike him across the chest, sending him to the grassy dirt. Other than a wince, he didn't care in the slightest, dropping his katana and rushing over to steps of the back porch and picking up Yang, calming her. Why didn't Tai just take the loudmouth baby with him to get groceries, Raven couldn't say, but she guessed it was some attempt to get the three of them to bond.
Talon hadn't been like that at her age.
Raven held back a sigh, trying and failing to fight off a growing frown as she watched the two.
A good mother wouldn't compare her children. A good mother wouldn't be standing by as her son, only a few years older than the girl himself, calmed his crying sister. A good mother would've given her children the attention they needed no matter how demanding.
A good mother wouldn't have a favorite.
But she'd never wanted to be a mother in the first place. And she was about as far as it got from a good one.
XOXO
Down in the darkness of their modest home's kitchen, the letter in her hand illuminated by the rays of light from the fragmented moon overhead, Raven curled her hand and crushed the piece of paper in her fist.
The tribe was without a leader, the previous one left dead. They were in disarray, many vying for the open position, but none strong enough to fully unite the group. Life out in the wilds was already dangerous enough; left like that for too long and the entire tribe was likely to be wiped out either by Grimm or huntsmen.
They wanted her and Qrow to return and put all they learned to work.
Qrow couldn't do it. It'd taken him years to get that drinking problem of his on a leash, Summer and Tai playing huge roles in that. If he went back to the tribe, returned to the harsh youth that felt like a lifetime ago, he'd slide back and drink himself into an early grave. He'd always been too soft, too weak, to handle every aspect of life beyond kingdom walls. Not without some kind of crutch.
Leaving the tribe out to dry wasn't an option either.
That left one option.
The light flicked on, banishing the darkness around her.
"Mom?" Talon called out through a yawn.
"Why are you up?" Raven questioned without turning around. She didn't to look at him to know he was half asleep, probably with that same dumb look Tai always had in the earlier hours of the day. He might've inherited her looks but picked up on many of his father's habits. Naturally. Tai spent far more time with the kids than she ever did.
Something she'd tried to change since starting his training and Yang coming along.
"Juice." If she were Tai, he would've tried to be sneakier about it, but Talon didn't bother with a lie, wandering into the kitchen and pulling open the fridge. "Are you okay?" She'd expected him to grab what he was after and head back to sleep but out of the corner of her eyes she could see that he'd stopped to look her way.
Nothing was going her way tonight.
"I'm fine. Get what you wanted and go back to sleep." Raven ordered.
Normally he always did as told but once more, the boy saw fit to surprise her. Fridge abandoned he came over and wrapped his arms around her.
Affection, physical and or otherwise, had never been Raven's thing. And, despite being showered with it by his father, Talon never demanded or cried for any of it from her unlike Yang. And, given how smart the curious boy was at time, she wouldn't be surprised if he refrained from doing so for her sake. That said, recently he never hesitated to do away with that restraint if he thought something was wrong with her, the distance between them before she started his training a thing of the past.
And he was far too good at picking out those times.
After an argument with Tai, something that was becoming more frequent these days. A particularly bad mission. Or when she had to deal with what was feeling like more and more asinine reassurances from Ozpin about their efforts.
And now this fucking letter.
Raven released a heavy exhale and reached down, rubbing his quickly growing mess of jet black hair, tension she'd hadn't even noticed melting away.
She could count the number of times she'd hugged Qrow on a single hand and even those had been after desperate fights for survival in their younger days. She'd lost count of how many times Talon had just decided to surprise her with one.
They still came as surprises, but she never minded them from him.
XOXO
Today was Talon's birthday.
Between Tai, Qrow, Summer, and Yang the boy had been completely tuckered out by the time the sun set. Right now, he was sound asleep in his bed with Yang, needy as always, having cried her way into being tucked in alongside him, their messy hair tangled up together.
Raven hovered over them, fully armored with her katana at her hip.
A good mother wouldn't consider what she was.
The tribe was a brutal place where the weak perished and the strong survived. It was no place for any child. But Talon had what it took, not just to survive, but to thrive in a place like that. She could take him. Properly teach him to survive in this cruel world of theirs without Tai's constant pestering about whether or not Talon should be allowed to choose a normal life.
Talon had already been smart enough to come to the same conclusion as her.
There was nothing normal about denying the true nature of the world. It was a fool's mistake.
Raven reached down running a hand through his hair. Yang shifted, curling closer to him and Raven raised her other hand, running it through the girl's hair as well. After a brief moment of indulgence, she pulled herself away, turning to leave.
She couldn't do that to him.
Had she been a good mother, she'd have stayed here with them, tribe be damned.
Had she been a good mother…
XOXO
(A/N: I know how some of you feel about not wanting Raven to leave, having assumed Talon would've changed her and while he did in a way, her more motherly attempts with Yang so early on a sign of that, I don't think he was really ever in a position to change this. Qrow, everyone, and even us the audience all just see the tribe as murderers and bandits. I can't be convinced they represent something so simple to Raven of all people.
That aside Raven is painfully aware of herself when it comes to motherhood. Really fascinating how social and complicated we humans can be. Something as simple as favoring one person a little more than another can create no end of issues under certain circumstances.
This is also the final chapter of this arc. Always feels good to finish one.
Parting advice, what has been shown is just as important as what hasn't. I typically write my scenes the way I do for a reason.
Now here's the link for anyone looking to read ahead:
patreon .com/ thirdratewriter
Lets hope I finish strong and hit a 5 for 5. We're getting really close to it.)