wanderer's lullaby

The vast majority of the next day proved to be quiet for Winter. Apparently the girls had called into school for the day off and Taiyang had done the same with work. She saw neither hide no hair of Qrow or Yang as the pair stayed holed up in the girls’ room. She didn’t see anything of Taiyang either. Nor of Summer. Raven flitted around the house, bringing people their meals or sitting outside. Ruby mainly stayed curled up in the living room, playing those rhythm game things whenever she checked on her. She opted to alternate between inside and outside much of the day. She worked with the birds and Ein. Building a basic vocabulary with the animals was definitely going to be a challenge. It was going to be easier with Ein. She could recognise the Atlassian words more easily than the Branwae ones. Learning the language would probably make it easier, but Qrow had already dissuaded her. Plus, there were no formal materials to learn the obscure language and she wasn’t sure how well Qrow or Raven would be able to teach her… Regardless, she would still learn how Mono and Kiyay spoke. She wanted to be able to understand them. It would make life so much easier. She had also worked with them to teach some basic words in Valian: hello, goodbye, come, go, fly… It wasn’t a huge vocabulary, but it was a start. She really hadn’t been able to commit any of the birds’ sounds to heart quite yet though… In due time. In due time. As it rolled around to evening, though, she frowned. She still didn’t have keys. With everything having hit in a whirlwind, it made sense Taiyang hadn’t been able to get her any made yet. With her working, she needed a set… “Oh, don’t worry about it too much.” The comment came from Raven who sat in a chair. She didn’t look from the book she was reading. “I’ll be up, so don’t worry. Go out and do what you need to for work. I’ll go get some keys made for you tomorrow that you aren’t waiting on Taiyang.” Winter gave a small nod. “Okay. Thank you.” Why was Raven staying up? It seemed odd. Everyone else in the house would be asleep or getting ready for bed, yet she was staying up. Then again, could she really complain too much? The key issue was solved. Hopefully she would be fine to rely on the woman… People were so prone to forget or simply not do things. Promises meant so little to most people… She grabbed the flashlight and Ein took off with her into the night. Was she ever glad she had brought Hylocereus tonight. Grimm practically formed a bubble around the house, a strict perimeter that they hovered around. Granted, they were babies—they hadn’t the slightest trace of white armor that denoted older Grimm. Even Ein could dispatch them with claws and teeth. It only took one swipe of Hylocereus’ blade to deploy them. Thankfully, it didn’t take make much to scatter them either. Stupid beasts… They were drawn in by the suffering in the household. Yet they seemed aware enough to not to not actually approach the house. She couldn’t say she was upset by that. With that done, she headed toward the general store. She kept herself busy by running through more vocabulary with Ein. It felt so good to speak Atlassian again… She missed speaking her mother tongue so much… It was yet another thing taken from her on exile from Atlas… She arrived at the store and got her directions from Trina. She wasn’t surprised to see Sarah again. The girl smiled brilliantly at Winter who offered a faint nod. “Good evening, Miss Sarah.” No reason to be rude about it. Sarah seemed to be warming up to her even if the same wasn’t true on her end.There was nothing to really bind the two of them together like her and Coco. “Well, good evening, Miss Winter! It’s good to see you again!” She certainly was quite…chipper tonight. What was causing this uptick in mood? It was unusual to see anybody go through such drastic shifts in persona… Then again, Qrow certainly could leave her with a bit of whiplash. “You certainly seem quite happy tonight. Did something happen?” It was an obvious thing to comment on. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too personal. Then again, most people were usually willing to talk about what made them joyous in her experience. “Oh, I got some new equipment to do casting so that means I can do more! I’m real excited to have more to work with! I have a craft show this weekend, so I can hopefully make some more money!” It must be nice to be able to look forward to something… The only thing she had to look forward to personally as work and dealing with the birds… Her life was empty, but she’d never needed to fill in. She’d had ten hours of daily study while at Schnee manor. She’d trained with the Ace Ops after getting out. Then boot. Then work. Now… Nothing. She couldn’t wait to get her work visa. Hopefully the general’s good word would be enough to get it pushed through faster. She hated having so much free time. “Plus, I can’t wait for you to talk to Maw. The thought of seeing those birds…” Sarah gave a dreamy sigh. Hopefully things would go well there… She really did. Sarah had talked about marriage, but she couldn’t see there was more out there. Growing up in small communities really did lead to small minds. She wished she could teach Sarah a bit, but she barely knew anything. Furniture, the ideas behind manning, and she was starting to understand the principles of weight management… “Is there a specific time you’d like me to come over to talk to her?” Might as well get that out of the way. “As of now, I’m fairly free most of the time.” Her only things to do were train, work on the bike, and work with the birds and Ein. There was nothing to do until she could get out into the city. Hopefully it wouldn’t take her too much longer to get the bike down. She’d made decent progress with it today in small sessions… “You wanna come to dinner tomorrow? We usually eat around six after I get home from school and Maw’s home from work.” “If you can give me your address, I should be able to find my way.” The island was at least still on a grid layout and she had tracking apps for directions. She should probably bring Kiyay or Mono with her… Mono would probably be better frankly. She was calmer and less liable to explode should she see colors or something and familiar. Kiyay had freaked out when seeing Sarah’s bad. That would be a bad demonstration for ‘Maw’ on how safe birds couldbe. Mono really was her best bet at convincing the woman that no harm would come to her daughter if she volunteered with birds of prey. There was one thing she would need to test with Mono, though… Winter took the burner out and opened it to the notes app. Sarah quickly saved it, then Winter tucked it away again. “I really do appreciate it, Miss WInter. I’ve never much left Patch, so if I can do something in the city, it’d be great.” How sad. Then again, Winter had never really had much chance to explore anywhere herself. She got Atlas Academy and the various bases around the continent and that was about it. She couldhave gone into the cities. It didn’t feel safe, though… It was simply easier to stay where she didn’t it feel like she had to look over her shoulder every two seconds. “I will admit I don’t have any experience in Vale. I only arrived a few days ago. But I’ll be learning to use the public transit system. Is there some reason you aren’t allowed to…?” Again, she couldn’t help but ask. Small communities did tend to stick together, but this felt…extreme. As far as she knew, Vale was fairly safe unlike Mantle. Why keep her restricted to the island? It made no sense. Parents truly were their child’s worst enemy. Sarah looking away made her realise she’d hit another sore point unintentionally. Damn it. She kept blundering with the poor girl. First her father, now this. “…My older brother got caught in some gang crossfire a few years ago. And I don’t mean Brandon. Henry went out into the city all the time and thathappened. It was right before Maw was going to let me go into the city by myself.” That…made some sort of sense, she supposed. The mother had lost two important people to her and wanted to protect her youngest. She doubt much bad happened on the island other than petty dramas. It was so small and out of the way nobody would care about it. And with only about four hundred people… “I see… I apologise for bringing up bad memories,” she replied softly. This…complicated things quite a lot. She would probably be the same if she lost Weiss… Maybe she could look into crime statistics for the area… Then again, would that reallybe consolation for a grieving mother? But Winter herself was highly trained. He didn’t have a Huntress license but she’d had her application to carry Hylocereus approved. (That had been relatively painless as far as paperwork went, at least.) She could keep the girl relatively safe, so if they could go to Star of Hope together… “I think I know how to talk to your mother. Would you ask Brandon if he’d be willing to spar with me tomorrow?” That would also go along way in helping convince the mother. She was only at the age to enter Beacon yet Brandon had graduated. If she could keep toe to toe with him or even beat him, that would hopefully help prove she could keep Sarah safe. Though it did feel frivolous to offer such protections in a city as safe as Vale. But some people enjoyed strangling their children to cut off their potential. “Why I shore can. He’ll probably be more than glad to! But do you think you can keep up against him? He’s a Beacon graduate…” Atlas might have had the best funded of all the schools, but even Winter knew Beacon still tended to turn out the best graduates.Atlas was brutal and unrelenting. It was structured and regimented. Beacon…was none of that. She’d studied the four academies to know which to send Weiss to and Beacon seemed to be the best choice… She might be limited to military experience but… “I was trained by Atlas’ best intensively. The Ace Operatives and General Ironwood trained me personally.” It was hard to not be a little offended but she kept her tone neutral. “I was MajorSchnee before my…retirement.” To get there in only two years was no small feat. She’d fought tooth and nail to get there on her own merits. She probably could’ve made it to colonel fast too, but that had been completely cut off to her now. “Ah…” The lack of anything in Sarah’s tone made it clear she didn’t understand the gravity of Winter’s assertions. Nobody outside of the military probably did… Everyone in Atlas knew the Ace Ops. Even the most lay person understood how high up pin the food chain they were. But outside of that framework, apparently nobody really knew them… “As their name suggests, the Ace Operatives are the best unit. They were hand picked by General Ironwood for their abilities. Do you know anything about the Vytal Festival?” She had trained with them a lot during those early days. Admittedly, she didn’t know a lot about their history. Like most Atlassians, they kept it relatively under wraps. But this was knowledge anybody could look up… She’d been curious so she’d looked into their history. Sarah blinked. “Not a whole lot. Just that it’s a festival held for Hunter students every two years. Brandon didn’t participate while he was at Beacon, but we did go watch one of them when it was here in Vale.” Of course she didn’t know. Most people weren’t interested in the formalities of anything outside of when it was. “Well, the prize for winning is getting to skip a year in your schooling at the Academy if you’re a first or second year. Mostly third and fourth years win, though. The four original Ace Ops won as first years.” Would that impress on Sarah how good they were? Then again, most people didn’t understand the strengths of Hunter Academy students. Trying to get civilians to understand physical strength could be so beyond difficult. “I see.” Yeah, trying to get her to understand was an exercise in futility. There really was no point. If she could, she could get Sarah’s mother to understand how well she’d been trained. But if Sarah didn’t understand, the older woman likely wouldn’t be able to. All she could do was rely on what she could show the woman once she went to dinner. Holy Father, this was so obnoxious. SHe really wished she could rely on her history to show her capabilities… “How strong would you say Brandon is?” She wasn’t sure if Sarah would understand or not. “Do you know what his uar grading is or where he graduated in terms of his class?” If she knew either of those, Winter would have a better idea of what she was dealing with. Granted, graduation wasn’t the most reliable metric either… It did balance combat ability and academics. He would need to be good in both to rate high. He might be good in one and not the other for all she knew. “Um.” Yeah, that was about what she was expecting too. She sighed internally. Civilians really could be next to useless in certain matters. She wished she had more reliable metrics to pull on for this. “Never mind. What sort of foods do you like to eat?” Sarah started replying to that rather eagerly. Winter only half paid attention to that while they stocked. The girl certainly did know a lot about cooking… At least she’d found something to ask about if she wanted the time filled. Eventually, they finished stock and Winter bid Sarah a good night. She looked at Ein and clicked the flashlight on. “Shall we go then, boy?” The dog gave a tired nod of his head. They set off into the darkness, the baying of the Grimm a faint memory by the time they returned to house.