The Knights of Grimm - Act 4 - Whispers of Arkhonex

Chapter 4 - Motherless

Qrow

The Branwen Huntsman stands with his head pressed to the hilt of his sword, right in front of the body bag that carries his best friend. Zipped up and ready for the funeral, which will only begin once they get Ruby back. Tears trickle down from his eyes as he holds the hilt of his sword tight...

Why?

Why him? He was always the best of us...he was there during Summer's darkest days, helped Raven and I get out of the Bandit Tribe...

He never blamed Raven for leaving.

He raised two girls, one of which was not even his own.

Why?

Why was it him, and not me?

Anger overcomes him, cocktailing his sorrow into fury and he takes his sword and with a yell he slashes the blade straight through one of the curtains in the library where they are being held for the time being. He immediately grabs one of the bookshelves and he pulls with all his might, taking all that pent up anger in his body out on the inanimate objects around him. The huge stack of books topples over with a heavy crash and smashes against the ground.

Qrow lets out a roar of rage, throwing his sword onto the ground, panting with teary eyes, pressing his hand against the wall to keep his balance. He fights the heartbreak as best he can, until he hears a familiar set of cries down the hallway from him. He turns when he hears her voice...a voice he has not heard crying for a very long time.

Raven.

He walks up the stairs to see her sat down in the corner with her arms hugging her knees as she sobs uncontrollably, her Bandits that survived Vir Nominis Umbra's attack walk around the outer perimeter, and even they are scared too. They lost twenty soldiers in a couple seconds from an entity that did not even look at them as he wiped them out. He just walked right past them all, letting them all fall dead to the ground.

Qrow approaches his sister and he crouches down beside her, and she lifts her head, face wet with tears as she stares up to her twin brother. Just like when they killed their first ever victims that night when their parents were murdered by those Traffickers that attacked and raided their home. Before being taken in by the Tribe that would later become the Branwen Tribe after the death of its former leader.

Qrow looks at his sister and she sniffles, before trying to breathe leads to her crying again, burying her head in her knees. Qrow reaches out to her and presses his hand to her shoulder. "Raven...I'm – I'm so sorry..." He softly says to her, closing his own tear eyes at the loss of their closest surviving friend.

Because now they are all that remains of Team S.T.R.Q.

Just the Branwen Twins.

And the sad thing is, deep down Raven had a feeling it would end this way. The two Hunters that have semblances that revolve around luck, and the ones that would live would be them. And not the ones that they care for most in the entire world. Both of them have lost someone that they love so deeply now, and the feeling has not changed one bit. A combination of sorrow and anger combined into one.

That feeling – is called grief.

Her shoulders bounce up and down as she cries and Qrow slumps down beside her with a thud, and he reaches into his coat pocket to grab his flask. But he feels nothing, remembering that he vowed to quit drinking after the destruction of the Volcanic Chain Isles...but it is times like this...that make him drink.

So then he can forget it ever happened in the first place.

Then he comes out with a heartbreaking statement, one that even Raven knows cannot be true. "It's like Summer all over again...he's dead because of me." Qrow growls with anger at himself, clenching his hand into a fist with rage, tensing his muscles when he just thinks of Vir Nominis Umbra, the face of the Soothsayer.