RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC70: Respite (Heroes)--2

Raven had a lot to think about after what had transpired, like what the next move should be.

Clearly, she'd have to wait for Watts to contact them...and they knew the bandits would rather kill their own than allow them to be questioned.

To win against such ruthless opponents seemed more and more impossible without a clear target. And who knew what their numbers really were? The only people who'd know had been killed.

Bribing them seemed unlikely when they were under the spell of the tribe leaders.

Things had gone in circles, and it was exhausting.

Shine's advice, when consulted via letter (that she answered less than 10 hours later, so it must have been important to her to hurry, or perhap the time schism worked to hasten it for once), was to take some space from it for a couple days and let Theo do his part with Watts, while Raven tried to take her mind off of it.

Raven put the letter, which was short, away and shook her head.

Hazel checked in on her later.

While they'd still never called what they were doing dating--at least not to each other, or in anyone's who knew them hearing--they met up nearly every day, when Raven wasn't fully booked with other things, and had gotten very close.

Raven never bothered to explain the relationship to her brother or daughter in detail, but privately she was surprised at how things had worked out. Not the person she'd have thought she'd come to rely on, but somehow, it just clicked. [My feeling about the crack ship. It oddly works, though you'd never see it coming.]

Raven told him what Shine had said, in brief terms, as she usually did.

"She's probably right." Hazel always sided with Shine's advice these days. "There's nothing more to be done on our end till contact is made. Watts can do it, though he is a snake."

"That we knew, but he bit us in the back without us expecting it, still." Raven was still mad about that. "And Cinder of all people figured it out first."

"She knows him better, but I am ashamed I didn't think of it." Hazel rarely used the word ashamed, but he did feel like he should have seen it coming.

"Ah, well, you've not spoken to him since Deliverance Year," Raven said, which was what people called the year of the gods' departure now. "And he'd better hope neither of us pays him a visit over this."

Hazel clenched a fist. "He's a fool, endangering us all. And children also."

"Yes..." Raven didn't like that thought either.

Many of her unpleasant reflections of the past few months had been how many people she'd left just the same as this tribe. But the Grimm stuff was a level she'd never have stooped to, and it was disgusting and frightening at the same time.

"I suppose I should get to the base," she said. "Another day of problems."

"It would be nice if Schnee could come back," Hazel remarked. "This is too much for one person."

"I can hang on till she does, but it'd help if certain people would let me give them some more responsibility," Raven muttered. "Like Zapato. A few years and he could probably do my job, if he was just trained for it. I can't do it forever. We have to think ahead, and right now the new recruits are not even close to being ready for that kind of responsibility. I have no time to work on that though--we need more teachers, and Haven still needs to reopen. That would help the most; that's where most of them should be going to learn about this, since the ones in Vale are likely to stay in Vale now that it's recovering, but what can I do about that? We need a bigger network, but it's not the Council's top priority as long as they have their stupid pet huntsmen."