Lucky that you got away with not seeing it, then, huh.
[He can't help it; the spiteful words slip out of his tongue before he even thinks about them. Ozpin knows perhaps as well as anyone that almost without exception, jokes about luck like this are reserved for the deepest, most profound bitterness. He can't help but feel angry at the excuse. After all, he'd hidden the truth of his Semblance from his nieces for seventeen years, but he'd never pretended that he'd hidden it for a noble reason. He couldn't bear to tell them because he feared the potential for rejection. He'd feared seeing the girls look at him with the same eyes the tribe always had. It was for himself, nothing more or less.
I intended to bear it so that no one else would have to. The words ring in his head. This conversation is disorienting in the way that he can never seem to feel certain of his feelings. One moment he's angry, the next his heart aches like it's splitting apart right down the middle. Still others, he's sapped of the ability to feel anything at all, exhaustion dragging at his heels as the weight of his wasted life crashes over him.
A few more drops fall to the ground by Ozpin's feet, and he doesn't look up, doesn't raise an arm to wipe his face. Even though the evidence is right there, he can't bear to show that much of his heart to this man, not while it's still bleeding so freely.
He digs his nails into the meat of his palms, leaving two sets of angry red half-moons there.]
...Did you ever think that maybe I'd want to bear it? You knew who I was, too. I know you did.
[On some level, he and Raven had probably both realized it early on, that Ozpin was onto them. It's just that by the time they did, they'd loved him too much to care. Even Raven had, once upon a time...in those halcyon days when STRQ was still whole, when their smiles lit up the picture he still keeps on his person nearly two decades later.]
You turned a cursed, murderous bandit into a Huntsman. You gave me a place in the world, and every day that went by, all I wanted was to become someone worthy of the title.
[Someone like Summer, like Tai...like Ruby. Someone who had come to Beacon Academy because defending the defenseless was their life's calling.]
I wanted to become the person you saw in me. And you're gonna stand there and act like you didn't tell me for my own good, when you know you would've just used me until my life was spent and then moved on to lie to the next sucker who needed something to believe in.
[Finally, finally, Qrow raises his gaze. There's something hard in them, despite the pain and fondness that still traitorously mingle there.]
no subject
[He can't help it; the spiteful words slip out of his tongue before he even thinks about them. Ozpin knows perhaps as well as anyone that almost without exception, jokes about luck like this are reserved for the deepest, most profound bitterness. He can't help but feel angry at the excuse. After all, he'd hidden the truth of his Semblance from his nieces for seventeen years, but he'd never pretended that he'd hidden it for a noble reason. He couldn't bear to tell them because he feared the potential for rejection. He'd feared seeing the girls look at him with the same eyes the tribe always had. It was for himself, nothing more or less.
I intended to bear it so that no one else would have to. The words ring in his head. This conversation is disorienting in the way that he can never seem to feel certain of his feelings. One moment he's angry, the next his heart aches like it's splitting apart right down the middle. Still others, he's sapped of the ability to feel anything at all, exhaustion dragging at his heels as the weight of his wasted life crashes over him.
A few more drops fall to the ground by Ozpin's feet, and he doesn't look up, doesn't raise an arm to wipe his face. Even though the evidence is right there, he can't bear to show that much of his heart to this man, not while it's still bleeding so freely.
He digs his nails into the meat of his palms, leaving two sets of angry red half-moons there.]
...Did you ever think that maybe I'd want to bear it? You knew who I was, too. I know you did.
[On some level, he and Raven had probably both realized it early on, that Ozpin was onto them. It's just that by the time they did, they'd loved him too much to care. Even Raven had, once upon a time...in those halcyon days when STRQ was still whole, when their smiles lit up the picture he still keeps on his person nearly two decades later.]
You turned a cursed, murderous bandit into a Huntsman. You gave me a place in the world, and every day that went by, all I wanted was to become someone worthy of the title.
[Someone like Summer, like Tai...like Ruby. Someone who had come to Beacon Academy because defending the defenseless was their life's calling.]
I wanted to become the person you saw in me. And you're gonna stand there and act like you didn't tell me for my own good, when you know you would've just used me until my life was spent and then moved on to lie to the next sucker who needed something to believe in.
[Finally, finally, Qrow raises his gaze. There's something hard in them, despite the pain and fondness that still traitorously mingle there.]
Don't ever lie to me again, Ozpin.