Disclaimer: This belongs to the powers that be, obviously. Cover art belongs to JumpinJammies over at deviant art. She's got some pretty hilarious and cute stuff, 10/10 recommend. Her link is also on my profile.

Dedicated to Monty Oum and all of those that carry a torch.

I Will Not Scatter

Chapter 1

No Sleep

….

"The last spring maiden must have trusted you a great deal before she died. I bet that was a mistake."

Oh? No. No, that wasn't it.

….

Secluded in her tent, the smell of tea, leather and campfire smoke heavy in the air, Raven sat nursing a migraine. She got them frequently, often before a storm or after using her Semblance to visit her daughter; or on the anniversary of her becoming the spring maiden. Tonight was two for the price of one, apparently, as her headache had immediately blossomed after she'd gone to visit Yang. It had made trailing after the yellow motorcycle difficult, and listening to her daughter joyfully wreck the nightclub legitimately painful. She had portaled back to Anima in an extremely disgruntled state, and stayed awake all through the day until now.

She took a sip of tea. The candle light was dim, but every now and then she'd glance at it wrong and it was like a laser to the back of her brain. Grimacing, she shuffled some maps and raid plans into an orderly pile, before something fluttered to the floor. She paused briefly before picking the photo up with alabaster fingers.

It was their team photo, a little faded from the years. Red eyes roved over familiar faces. Finally, they came to rest on the white hood of the woman leaning against the tree.

She could say she didn't know why she kept the photo, but then she would be lying; and with as much lying as Raven Branwen did, she didn't like to believe she lied to herself. Much. She knew why she kept the damn thing.

Sighing in resignation, she placed the photo safely in a drawer and considered sleep. Sleep, however, would not likely consider her any time soon. So instead, she would go flying.

Shifting into her bird form was actually quite pleasant, and flight was something she enjoyed deeply. It had become such a fundamental part of her existence, such a liberating aspect; if it ever came down to having to choose between keeping her maiden powers or keeping her bird form, she knew she'd pick the latter every time.

With practiced ease, she slipped into her second skin and took off out the back of the tent and over the encampment walls. It was dark. Moonrise wouldn't be for another hour. Heedless of the night, she flew higher, cold air clearing her senses and calming the pain in her skull.

She wasn't planning on any direction or destination. She just wanted to leave things behind, if only for a little while. However, memories didn't care about gravity or how fast you flew. Those bastards would always find her; and find her they did, soaring over the treetops and breathing in the familiar scent of pine and flowers.

Her slight body was shaking, blue eyes wide as she stared at the red blade erupting from her chest. She was practically a child still, coughing bloody spittle, with tears running rivers through the dirt on her face-

Raven swooped down, landing on a branch and flapping aggressively, as if to clear the air of the images. Of course, that didn't work. She croaked irritably. Emotions had always been the bane of her. Even as she sullenly eyed the form of an Ursa lumbering below, they kept buzzing about her mind, making nuisances of themselves.

The Grimm growled, scratching at the ground. If left to its own devices, it would probably run into the camp's perimeter guards. Grateful for a distraction, Raven fluttered behind it, up high into the branches before shifting back and letting herself fall down onto its spine; her sword pierced its neck precisely. With a groan, it slumped to the ground, having never known what had hit it.

She sniffed contemptuously, flying away moments later and leaving behind only a smoking corpse. Yes, passions were dangerous. They could turn even the most skilled strategist into a reckless fool in a heartbeat.

The irony was not lost on her that her daughter was practically the embodiment of passion. That girl used her temper to win her battles instead of her head, for better and for worse. Not that she hadn't been guilty of that herself, especially when she was younger. She just wished the girl would learn to use her Semblance instead of letting it use her. Raven of all people should know what that can lead to; of what kind of life that can lead to.

Regardless, her daughter thrived on expression, on passion, on light; and she wasn't the only person she'd known to draw strength from such things, but it was in a fundamentally different way. Summer had been passionate too; or compassionate, rather. When they had first become partners that day in the woods, the girl had been happy, hopeful, and absolutely determined that they would get along.

Raven had been equally determined that they in fact would not get along at all. If she could have left her tied to a tree that first day, she probably would have; but Ozpin had been watching, so she'd done her best to resist. She had certainly not seen Summer's gods honest love of people, of complete strangers, to be a strength.

The wind was picking up, tugging at her feathers as she wove through the trees. She could smell rain, and beneath it, all the secrets of the forest. Even as she felt her headache growing once more, she kept flying, beating the air fiercely.

"If you could be anything in the world, what would you be? Other than a huntress?"

"What does that matter?"

"Come on, it's fun to dream! What would you be?"

She could smell ozone. Overhead, thunder rolled, slowly building.

"I'll go first! I think I'd own…a traveling bakery!"

"A what?"

"A traveling bakery! I'd visit every kingdom in the world, and just, bake a bunch of cakes. And meet all sorts of people."

She saw the first fork of lightening crack across the sky, illuminating the forest floor in silver for just a moment. Rain was starting to fall, whispering in the leaves all around her; like the sighs of the dead.

"That…would be suitable for you, I guess."

"You wanted to say that's stupid, didn't you?"

"I didn't though."

"I know, it's such an improvement!"

"Pfft. Don't push it."

"Aww, little grumpy birb."

Lightning struck an old oak off to the right, drawn by her power. She let the wind push up under her wings and burst through the canopy.

Below she could hear Beowolves howling, running from the storm. The forest opened up into a grassy clearing, and beneath her the pack burst from the shadows; they clawed across the ground on all fours, desperate to escape the bursts of lightening that split the air.

She saw the cloak first, of course. It was still perfectly, annoyingly white, but for a stain; like a splash of too red wine. Everything in that moment stopped, as if time had snagged on the impossibility, the sheer audacity-

The head of the pack stumbled, sending clumps of dirt and grass flying as a bolt of lightning snaked to the ground and struck him down. Then the one behind him fell. Then the one after that. She hovered in the air, dark wings keeping her afloat as the wind circled the clearing, faster and faster.

On this same day, nearly a decade ago, Qrow had told her that Ozpin had asked Summer to go after the spring maiden. Naturally, Summer had said yes, just as Ozpin knew she would; dangle the opportunity to help a wounded child in front of Summer Rose, and she would already be gone. She just couldn't resist; and children loved her. Raven should know.

She saw Yang's head of wild yellow hair bobbing through the tall grass, trying to be subtle and failing. There was nothing subtle about her daughter. She was light, laughter, joy, and fire; as if all those things Raven had spent her life controlling in herself had simply compressed into a single point of existence and escaped beyond her that day in the birthing bed. She would have never believed she could have created something so beautiful.

"Now where could Yang have gone?!" exclaimed Summer, smiling brightly. She was very pointedly not looking at Yang, who was trying to sneak up on her. However, her wolf ears were flicking back automatically towards Yang's stifled giggles.

"Ruby, do you see your sister? Where'd she go?!"

Ruby swung from her mother's arms, laughing joyfully. The babe was still too young to walk, and had her mother's eyes. Hearing Summer call their children sisters struck a chord in her whose music was wild and strange.

Yang had decided now was the moment to strike apparently, and with a war cry pounced from her 'hiding' place.

"Raaaa!"

"Oh no! She's got us!"

Her daughter tackled her partner's leg and Summer made a show of falling in defeat, cradling Ruby safely against her, as Yang laughed in triumph.

The Beowolves were nearly all gone, save for one: a gnarly old brute whose plating and size placed him a full meter taller than the others. He didn't flee as his compatriots had, instead choosing to stand and howl defiantly at nature's wrath. A veritable cyclone swirled about the clearing, ripping up branches and small trees, the smoking corpses of the monster's brethren. She focused on the Grimm below, freezing its snarling body completely in ice; with a decisive beat of her wings, a bolt cracked down from the heavens and shattered it explosively. She let another bolt strike the ground, followed by another, and another.

Yes, Ozpin would have obviously chosen Summer to retrieve his precious maiden. Normally Raven wouldn't have involved herself, as it wasn't her business; she'd really no longer had the right to insert herself into Summer or Tai's lives, after everything. That and at the time, she hadn't thought it was safe for her to, either; for herself, or for them.

But that day Qrow's words had disturbed something in the back of her mind, the way he spoke about the runaway; about how unstable she'd become under the pressure, how she had lashed out at her teachers before running. Her instincts hadn't let her rest. Until finally, in a fit of dread, she'd made a decision. She'd used her Semblance to go to the woman who had been the mother to her child, arriving just in time to feel her die.

She felt the bond she'd formed with Summer all those years ago at Beacon sever, sudden and violent, as if a piece of her body had been ripped from her. Raven had fallen from the sky, unable to comprehend what had happened; no, she knew, but she couldn't actually comprehend, and had struck the ground in human form.

The wind was dying down, as Raven landed in the field of destruction she had wrought. If anyone was watching, they wouldn't have understood what they had seen; as if the gods had simply decided to say, no, you are a mistake, and smote the Beowolves from existence. As if they would ever make themselves so useful. Her migraine was beginning to fade, slowly, as she strutted over the scorched soil.

The body, Summer's body, was laying on the grass, sunlight dappling the forest floor about her. If not for the red stain, she could have believed she was napping. Raven had moved towards her as if through water, the world lacking any sense of cohesion. She could hear a distressed voice nearby, but wasn't really listening to it.

She knelt by the corpse of her partner, hesitantly pulling the hood back. Summer's eyes were still open, the silver globes that were always so full of impossible, beautiful things having dimmed to sullied gray; with shaking fingers she had closed them. The moments between shutting Summer's eyes for the last time, and burying her sword in a frightened teenager's chest, were a haze she still couldn't fully recall.

Raven came to a stop, staring at a cluster of crimson flowers that had somehow been spared by her onslaught. She shifted almost unconsciously, and sat cross legged before them, her sword in her lap. Red like roses…

She could say she wasn't surprised that her partner's compassion had gotten her killed, but then she would be lying to herself again. At the time it happened, it had shocked her on a cellular level. She understood something so unfair could happen; but when it had, it felt like a betrayal of everything she had told herself she didn't believe in.

She had always considered herself understanding of the nature of the world they lived in. Her intellect, her cunning, all of it informed her that that was just the way reality worked. Life was not fair, and did not play by the rules.

Summer's death was disgustingly logical. Salem's victory was depressingly inevitable. Ozpin's machinations were ultimately pointless and uncaring of the vast trail of dead they left behind; yet none of that had mattered when she had looked upon the body of someone she loved and couldn't comprehend that that person was no longer there.

"If you could be anything-"

The clouds overhead were beginning to clear, whispering away before the light of the shattered moon. The ashen field caught its rays and glowed softly.

That moment where Raven had lost herself to grief had doomed her to a life she had sacrificed so much to avoid; just an instant, a shower of blood, and suddenly everything was at risk. Salem would find her again, eventually, if Ozpin didn't first. Her tribe, and her family, would never truly be safe. All because she had lost control, for a single moment, over someone who was already gone. She smiled grimly. To this day, she still couldn't bring herself to regret any of it.

"What would you be?"

She picked one of the flowers and held it in her palm. The day was coming, all too swiftly, where she would have to play the game once more; and when that moment came, she would have no choice but to win, no matter how she felt.

"Sooo? C'mon, I'm not tricking you, silly."

"Anything at all?"

"Yes."

"I'd be powerful. And I'd be free."

Summer looked at her, with curious silver eyes.

"Aren't you already?

She let the flower fall from her palm to the ground and stood, sheathing her sword with a deft snap. Taking a breath, she clenched her trembling fingers, and took to the skies again. Sleep was not going to consider her at all tonight.