Been busy with Nanowrimo until now. Technically it ends tonight, but I'm not gonna be able to complete in time anyways so whatever. Wanted a change of pace anyways.

Very very very short excerpt. Honestly doesn't deserve its own chapter, but it's a complete enough passage in itself so I didn't see any point of delaying its upload.

More often than not, Qrow Branwen tended to overthink things. Ever since he could remember, he'd hurt many people's feelings simply because he was much too suspicious of them for seemingly no reason, or at least, no good reason. Aside from a few people who truly earned his trust, he could never let his guard down and as a result he closed himself off from a majority of the world.

It was a bad habit of his and he acknowledged that, but he had no intention of changing it any time soon. Especially as a Huntsman who primarily worked alone in rougher territories, his suspicious nature had already saved him from a knife in the back a countless number of times. The only time he would "fix" his tendency to overthink things was when he decided that life wasn't worth living any more.

He peered over the edge of the cliff, looking down between the tree canopy below. His eyes followed the occasional glimpses of the red cape that he could see through the trees, indicating that one of his primary reasons to live was on the move, but he couldn't stop his attention from drifting to the accompanying glimpses of golden hair.

A new element. The brats picked up an injured civilian at Shion. Or so it seemed like that at the surface. Qrow's eyes narrowed.

While he didn't seen what had happened to the village beforehand, he inspected the wreckage after the brats had left. He wasn't able to figure out much about how the village had been destroyed, but whatever disaster had befallen it, it was very thorough. Not a single building with its walls intact, not a single set of footprints that didn't lead to a face-down body, not a single trace of life left.

None except for the boy, of course.

A civilian, young, alone, weaponless. He had been the sole survivor of whatever had attacked the village. Qrow had never been a believer of good luck since he'd unlocked his semblance, but if a person survived a Grimm attack when a trained Huntsman couldn't… well that was just a bit too optimistic to think that was just luck, wasn't it?

Unfortunately, it seemed like "too optimistic" was a perfect way to describe Ruby and her friends. While there was no blatant hostility from the new kid, it seemed like they were all getting along very well, which was enough to set off a million alarms in Qrow's mind. What kind of civilian would have the leisure of being so friendly after such a traumatic incident? Admittedly, Qrow rarely had reason to interact with an auraless civilian or people in general, but that didn't mean he didn't know how they worked. Many civilians them were safe and happy as long as they had Huntsmen to protect them, and they were used to that lifestyle. While Shion wasn't quite on the same scale as a large city like Vale, it had walls and it had a handful of Huntsmen. That was quite enough for Qrow to easily bet that only a few civilians in that village had ever seen a Grimm before, with even less having been attacked by one.

So why was this kid so unperturbed? Here he was. Alone with a handful of strangers, walking through a dense forest, full of cover for nasty monsters to be hiding, having lost his home, his family, his friends, his entire life as he knew it. Why was the kid taking everything in stride?

While Qrow was fully aware that he was a chronic pessimist, he also felt like his suspicion was completely justified in this case. Even so, it wasn't like he could swoop down there and shake the kid down himself. All he could do was watch for any shifty moves and stay close.

Qrow let out an explosive sigh. He heard a low growl below him and looked down in mild surprise, but simply shrugged and pushed his sword a bit deeper into the dying Ursa that he was standing on. "Sorry, buddy," he said, casually kicking away the large claw that swung weakly at him. "I was thinking about something else. Didn't mean to ignore you."

Qrow didn't use any more strength, but lazily leaned forward onto sword, letting his body weight push it slowly through the Ursa's body, finally stopping once the hilt of his sword stopped him from driving the sword further into the gargantuan Ursa's chest.

As its body slowly started to evaporate into black smoke, Qrow reached into his coat to retrieve the small flask that he carried around with him. He shook it once to find that it was half-empty. It only took a second for him to decide that it should be completely empty. He unscrewed the top and held the flask upside down over his mouth.

He felt the Ursa's body start to crumble away unevenly beneath his feet, but he continued to drink. Even as his footing gave away from underneath him, he reached out with his free hand to grab his sword, and slid forwards, off the Ursa and off the cliff. As he fell, he screwed the lid back onto the flask with one hand and stowed it back into his pocket.

He hoped that the kids would get to the next village quickly. The sooner they were rid of that anomaly, the better he would sleep. A booze refill wouldn't hurt either.

I wonder if Qrow has multiple flasks or if he makes a pit stop to refill every day to a nearby village using bird mode in order to satiate his alcoholic tendencies.