RWBY Through Worlds

73: Just One Mistake

Compared to the excitement of the other division, the CCT tower squad might have been tame.

At least at first.

Whitley was a little nervous about being in on the more dangerous side of the action here in Vacuo, and Willow seemed antsy about it too.

Qrow thought overseeing things would be dull for him--he was probably wrong about that.

Winter, finally feeling a bit more normal, after nearly two days of not doing too much physically to strain herself, just wished she was on the field. But she wondered how Shine's chat with the prisoners went.

"Think she'll pull it off?" Qrow must have read her thoughts.

"I don't know," Winter said. "She has...done many things I didn't think she'd do. Still, that man is...impossible."

"Well, so is my sister, and somehow she's still here." Qrow looked somber.

That topic was still awkward.

Winter didn't want to think about the Bandit Camp... She shivered without meaning to.

"Well, they were killers and thieves." Qrow guessed that time also.

"Still," Winter said.

That was all she really needed to say to make her point.

"Well, the older ones probably knew their number would be up," Qrow remarked flatly. "But there were kids there--didn't have anywhere else to go, probably. That's kind of the part that's...not fair."

"The whole thing isn't fair." Winter didn't mean to get angry, but she did anyway. "I'm aware that they were scoundrels, but they certainly were not worse than those witches! It was simply a display of power, and that is an abomination on their part."

"All right, don't get all worked up." Qrow was afraid she'd draw attention. "Yeah, it's messed up. But it's not surprising."

"Isn't this a bit backwards?" Winter asked. "It seems to me I'm not the one who should be angry about this."

"Out of the long list of things to be pissed about," Qrow said, "I'm not sure that's at the top of it for me. We lost Beacon, Haven, and Atlas in the last year. The Bandit Camp is a drop in the bucket compared to that. It bites that Raven is stuck with us now, and it was a waste, but anger about it right now doesn't help anything."

Well, he'd sure changed his tune from the last few days.

"So when it's not in your interest, it doesn't matter?" Winter said coldly.

"Why do you care? You have absolutely no reason to care about them," Qrow said. "Didn't they kidnap your sister anyway?"

That was news to Winter.

"What?" she said.

"Nevermind." Qrow realized his mistake. "I'm just saying, it's not like it's your problem. Why don't you focus on what is?"

"I do," Winter said pointedly.

Qrow rolled his eyes.

"I'm just not above looking at someone else's misfortune with some amount of...awareness," Winter said carefully. "After all...the death toll was far less in Haven and Atlas at least...so it's a...sizable tragedy."

"This your attempt at being sympathetic?" Qrow asked.

That miffed Winter so much she sunk into sullen silence.

If he was going to be that much of an ass about it, she wasn't going to go out of her way to try to express concern about it! Why did she think this was a good idea anyway?