Chapter 19

Ruby eyed the book open on the table.

"Well?" Qrow almost demanded.

"Hold on, there's a lot to read. Also it's Atlesian, so ex-cuse me for not being a hundred percent fluent."

Ruby turned back and flipped the page over. Truth be told she was pretty fluent, having taken two courses in remedial Atlesian and practicing with her partner every chance she got. It had been a little difficult to practice with Weiss stuck in the future, but it wasn't like she had entirely forgotten. The raven perched on her finger eyed the pages right along with her.

"Okay.. so… magic is… different to a semblance, even though they fundamentally draw on the same power. So… What I can gather from this is that you need to treat magic as if it was a semblance. Even though it's not."

"Summer, it takes years to discover a semblance."

Ruby nodded.

"Yes, or it can happen all at once, like it did with me."

Qrow frowned.

"What, how?"

She held the bird up to her shoulder, where it jumped off and settled itself next to her neck.

"Well, when I was a little girl, I used to playfight a lot with my sister. She was… quite a lot better than me. She was also quite a lot bigger than me, too, but I certainly tried my hardest."

"So?"

"So one day we were out in the forest on my dad's farm, doing some actual fighting practice for class at Signal, and my sister had already unlocked her semblance at this point, much to my annoyance, of course."

Ruby stood up from the little table and crossed the room, past where Tai and Tukson were sitting and enjoying two cups of instant noodles. They were a lot less agitated than Qrow was, and for good reason. Tukson had explained that all magic was reversible, if you knew the right spell. Ruby was just having a little difficulty finding it at the moment. But she was willing to try for Raven's sake.

"My sister had found hers when she was very young, and spent a lot of time as a toddler making little fires all over the house. Dad basically bottle-fed her with a fire extinguisher."

"Does your story have a point, Summer?!"

Ruby rolled her eyes. Tai spoke up before she could issue any expletives at him.

"Hey, man, chill out."

"Chill out!? My sister is a bird!"

"Yeah, and do you see me or Summer panicking?"

"How about you shove that teriyaki bullshit up your ass!"

Tai calmly put his noodle cup down and uncrossed his legs, standing up from the kotatsu and straightening his back. Qrow might have been tall, but he wasn't nearly as massive and cut as the blond-haired mountain of a man. Qrow went quiet really quickly.

"Summer has a plan, as always, so I trust her. Also it's Picante Beef, not teriyaki."

"He's right, I have a plan." she beamed, scratching the bird under its chin.

"I thought so. Now, you were telling us a story?"

Ruby nodded.

"I was, thank you, Tai." she smiled and stepped up to the window, leaning against it for support. "So we were out, one day, a particularly sunny afternoon in August if I remember right, doing some sparing practice. Now, I will be the first to admit I wasn't exactly very good back then, but I was learning."

Tai sat down at the kotatsu again and grabbed his noodles.

"How good was your sister then?"

Ruby chuckled.

"Don't let her hear me say this, but a lot better than me. Anyway, so we're out, enjoying the sunshine, having a brawl, and I'm getting my ass kicked. It's pretty pathetic. I'm down to like, a sliver of aura left, while my sister's fully loaded and ready to punch me into a new dimension. You know, how all siblings are when they fight."

It might not have had the capability, but Ruby could swear she heard the bird on her shoulder chuckle.

"Obviously." Tai said, slurping noodle.

"Yeah, exactly. So my tiny ass is barely standing, ready to throw in the towel, but before I even get the chance to surrender, my sister charges up her semblance, sets herself on fire, and lunges at me with a raised fist, ready to knock my head clean off."

"Oh jeez."

"Yeah, but that's how our dad taught us to fight. Full power, or else what's the point? So, just before that fist inverts my nose into my skull, I thought to myself 'I gotta get out of here'. So I closed my eyes and figured I outta just turn around and run away."

"So then, what, did you die?"

Ruby reached for the window latch and unhooked it, pushing the window open over the street.

"No, Taiyang, I did not die."

"Oh."

"What I did do, though, is open my eyes and find myself several hundred feet from where I started, and a trail of rose petals behind me."

"So you can teleport?"

Ruby shrugged.

"Kind of yes, kind of no. I run really really really fast."

"How fast?"

"Obscenely. It actually hurts. But my point was some people discover their semblances in an instant, whereas most of us take a while, like how Qrow spent years being terribly unlucky before he discovered that was actually his semblance."

Tai turned to his partner.

"His semblance is bad luck?"

"Have you not seen all the bad shit that happens to him?"

"I just assumed he was a clumsy idiot."

"Well, he's that too, but you understand what I mean."

Qrow pouted.

"Can you guys, like, not talk about me behind my back while also standing right in front of me?"

Ruby grinned.

"No. So what I'm getting at is that some people take a long time to discover semblances, while some of us just need a little push."

She looked out the window and picked up the bird with her finger.

"What do you mean 'push'?"

"This!"

She gave her wrist a flick, and tossed the bird out the window.

Qrow jumped up.

"Raven!"

He dove for the window, tripping and stumbling through the room and knocking stuff over in his haste. Ruby crossed her arms and looked down at the sidewalk as Qrow slammed into the wall and looked out over the city.

"Well, it was worth a try."

"Raven!"

Ruby shrugged.

"Okay, we'll need a new tactic."

Qrow turned to her and grabbed her by the lapels of her shirt.

"Where's my sister?!"

Ruby stared into his eyes for a second, raising an eyebrow. She looked down at his hands, before glaring back up at him.

"Qrow."

The realization hit him like a bus. He let go and stepped back.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't touch me. And she's down there. On that bench."

She gestured out the window again. Sure enough, there was a very angry looking bird sitting on the little wooden bench, a stare that would melt iron on its little face.

"Oh, thank god."

"No, thank the fact that she has wings. But apparently she can't fly. Only fall with style."

Tai snickered from his end of the room. Qrow looked like he was about to pass out.

"So what do we do?"

"Well, we try something else. I really didn't expect just tossing her out of the window would work, but, you know, I'll never get a chance again to throw her out of a window, so why not take this chance. Hey, Mr. Tukson, do you have any string?"

The man stood up, frowning.

"I should." he turned to a shelf at the back of the room. "What do you need it for?"

"Well, something I found in this book intrigues me." Ruby grabbed the book off the table and rifled through the pages again. "Here."

She held the pages up for them to see. There was a scanning of an ancient Vacuan text, scribbled with drawings of men and women transforming into animals, with one prominent one of a man halfway between being human and being a dragon, writhing in agony.

"So, we don't have access to the actual scriptures and the real versions of these texts, since they are painted tapestries that are like, thirty feet tall and locked in a hermetically sealed vault in Atlas. And you see all the little dots on the page, those are all words, and obviously they're too small to be printed clearly."

"So what now?" Tai asked.

"Well, in lieu of taking a trip to Atlas with a live avian, we have to take the limited printings here and extrapolate from them. Also, this text is in old Vacuan, which is only about forty percent the same as the modern day language, so don't expect any translation app to get it. But from the very minimal amount of Vacuan I can remember…"

She put the book down and leaned over the table, tracing her finger along the characters on the page.

"This… is man, I think, uh this here is either to believe or to know, the characters are drawn very similarly, and this is to be or to become, I'm not quite sure."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, 'man to believe to become' would lead me to think there is some element of belief to this magic. Like… you have to believe… to become the animal." she glanced down at the book. "Maybe it's more like… to become the animal, you must believe that you are. That you are actually that animal, and that's why this guy here seems to be in pain. He got stuck halfway."

Qrow frowned.

"You know that's… kinda what the Headmaster said, too."

"Looks like he was onto something."

"Well, we tried that, I believed I was a bird, and then I hit the ground as a human."

"You didn't believe hard enough, then."

"Are you saying she did?"

Ruby paused and thought for a moment.

"I'm pretty sure she didn't either. She's still stuck halfway. Just… more halfway than in this history book. She still thinks she's a person, not a bird. That's why she can't fly and why she can understand us when we're talking."

"How the hell do we make her think she's a bird?"

At that moment, Tukson came back into the room with a ball of white wool in his hand.

"You said you needed string? I could only find this, sorry."

Ruby took it from him and turned it over in her hands, spooling some out.

"Simple, Qrow. We make her fly. Mr. Tukson, do you have a license?"

"A Huntsman's license, no."

"No, a driver's license."

"Oh, eh, yeah."

"Great, then you're coming along. C'mon guys, let's go rescue Raven."

She turned and pushed for the door, skipping over the kotatsu with the history book in her arms and the wool stuck in the pocket of her hoodie. She trundled down the narrow, book-covered staircase and wound up back behind the counter of the bookstore, hopping over it with an effortlessly silent leap. She slid her way through the still-empty shop and out onto the sidewalk. She still wasn't quite sure why nobody else was visiting this store, it was a staple of downtown Vale and a great source of literature.

"Okay, where the hell is my bird?"

She looked over to the bench, which was unoccupied. Her heart stopped for a second, before the gently feeling of tapping alerted her to her right boot. She looked down, to see the little black bird angrily pecking away at the cap of her boot, but clearly doing more damage to itself as it couldn't dig through the steel cap. It glared up at her, a piece of her shoelace in its beak. She smiled.

"Oh, hello. Sorry for throwing you out of a window. It was for science. And kinda just 'cause I wanted to."

The bird squawked loudly as she bent over to pick it up, carefully transferring it from her hand to her shoulder again. She winced as she got pecked in the ear.

"Ow!"

It pecked her again.

"Alright, alright, I get it, I deserve this. Now stop pecking me!"

The bird huffed and turned away, turning its chin up. Ruby rolled her eyes and turned back to the store, where the boys had followed her out into the daylight. She gestured to the bird.

"I think she's mad at me."

Tai chuckled. "You threw her out of a window, what did you expect?"

"Do you think she'll break up with me?"

"I would."

Ruby laughed, and tried to scritch the bird under its chin again, receiving a nip on her finger from the sharp beak.

"Ow!" she pulled her hand back and shook it out. "Play nicely! I'm trying to help you."

The bird glared at her. She glared back, ignoring the others as they trudged down the sidewalk and back to her car. She tried not to fight with the irritated corvid as she pulled her keys and the ball of yarn from her hoodie pockets, turning back to her group.

"Here, you drive." she tossed her keys to Tukson, who caught them easily even though they flew wide. "I have an idea, and it's pretty dangerous."

"We're listening." Tai said, crossing his arms.

"Well…" she clambered up the front bumper of her truck, sliding up the hood and shimmying her way to the roof, turning and sitting down against the roof rack. "You know how long Main Street is? It's like, eight kilometres long?"

"Yeah."

"Well, from here to the park it's perfectly straight and fairly well paved, and about two kilometres until it ends abruptly at that hedgerow. It's pretty empty today, so I'm not thinking we're gonna encounter any through-traffic."

Tai frowned.

"So… what's your idea?"

Ruby pulled out a long strand of yarn and tied a little loop in it, big enough to go around the bird's torso.

"Are you about to turn my sister into a kite?!" Qrow demanded.

Ruby just kind of stared at him.

"Yes."

"You can't do that!"

She shrugged.

"The average flying speed of a raven is about ninety kilometres per hour. Not a speed that can be achieved by a twelve-foot fall out of a window, so I figure we should employ some mechanical motive power. Besides, I don't see you coming up with something better."

Qrow gawked at her, his mouth hanging open.

"But- but-"

"No buts. Besides, you read the textbook just as much as I did. She's gotta be a bird to be a bird. Then, once she's a bird, we can work on making her un-bird. Ya get it?"

Qrow huffed into his hands.

"This is dangerous and it's not going to work."

"And why didn't you say that before you jumped off a building?" Tai pondered with a smug grin.

"Shut the hell up."

Ruby rolled her eyes.

"Boys, stop being boys. Get in the damn truck. Mr. Tukson? If you will?"

He nodded, but frowned.

"Uh, sure, but… You said ninety?"

"I did."

"This is a sixty zone."

"Well then you'll just have to break the speed limit a little. There needs to be a certain amount of airflow over the wings to provide lift, because of the size of the wing and the weight of the bird. They don't exactly have high lift coefficients, that's why they flap their wings. We need to simulate cruising speed for the bird, which for a raven is somewhere between eighty and ninety-five."

He stammered through his throat.

"N-no, I mean, I get that, but what if the cops see us? Speeding and riding on top of a car are probably very against the law."

"Pfft, those are misdemeanors traffic violations. Besides, there are no cops around here. They're too busy with the damn mob. Besides, we can always say it's a science experiment for a Beacon class, and they'll drop it right away. The law around here doesn't want to overstep Headmaster Pine, since Huntsmen are above the law in this country."

Tukson put his hands up in surrender.

"Alright, you win. Just please don't fall."

"Please, I've jumped speeding trains before, sitting on top of a car will be nothing."

Everyone gave up arguing with her and climbed in, slamming the heavy steel doors of the old truck. With a loud clatter, the engine rattled to life in a cloud of black diesel soot. Ruby lifted the bird onto her finger, who seemed a lot more compliant now that it had gotten over its tossing out the window, and slipped the little yarn loop over its head and down over its wings, snugging it up so it was comfortable.

"Okay, this is gonna seem realy stupid. But you have to trust me, okay?"

The bird looked at her with a dull look. She could tell it didn't quite trust her all the way yet. Ruby sighed.

"Well, trust me or not, we gotta make you back to your usual hotness, because I miss my big titty goth girlfriend. You ready to fly?"

The bird actually rolled its eyes at her. Ruby chuckled.

"Alright. Let's get some air."

She smacked the roof of the truck with her palm, reaching back and grabbing on to the roof rack for stability. The truck shuddered under her as Tukson fought it out of the tight parking space and pulled into the empty lane. With a loud woosh from the engine, they started to accelerate up the street. Ruby's new truck was by no means fast. In fact, the correct word might be 'lethargic', but it was certainly comfortable for roof-sitting.

"Okay, here we go. Get ready."

She spooled out some yarn, holding it loose in her fingers. The truck started to pick up speed along the street, and the wind started to buffet against her face, blowing her hair all over the place. She had to brush her hair out of her mouth and eyes as it whipped around. It was quite unpleasant, actually.

"Put your wings out!"

The bird was hesitant for a moment, before complying. As the drag from its wings caught it, it nearly lifted up and out of her hand before she was able to catch it.

"Shoulders forward!" she gestured with her own, giving a very bad demonstration.

The bird complied, arching its wings forward and settling on her hand much easier and much lighter.

"Roll your shoulders until your body feels light, and keep your wings as flat as you can! Use your tail feathers to adjust your pitch up and down! Think like how a plane flies!"

The bird nodded, spreading its talons and fanning out its tail. The bird was pretty big now that it had its wings out, and she was starting to have a hard time controlling its movement due to the speed they were going. Tukson stuck his head out of the window and yelled up at her.

"That's seventy!"

"Faster! We're almost lifted off!"

"But-!"

"Just go!"

The truck surged forward after a short grumble from the driver, continuing to build speed. She could see the end of the road now, or at least, the hedgerow at the crossroad. It was approaching quickly. Ruby turned to the bird.

"Lift! Lift!"

The bird steadied itself for a moment longer, before adjusting its tail and catching the wind. Her hand went light as the wind over its wings started to lift the bird off of her, with a determined look of focus on its little feathery face. Ruby chuckled as it actually lifted off for a second, before panicking and landing back on her hand with a heavy flutter.

"Oh, you almost had it! Keep trying, keep trying!"

The bird shook out its feathers and got back up on her finger, adjusting the little yarn harness with its beak. It put out its wings again and flared out its tail, preparing itself again. It had a more determined look in its eye now, its little brow furrowed and a more assured posture. Ruby gripped down on the truck's roof rack and pulled herself down, holding the bird gently.

"C'mon! You got this!"

The bird straightened its back, and turned its wings into the wind. Her hand got light as the bird lifted off from it, its little tail working hard to steady itself in the wind. Ruby did her best to keep her body out of the way so she didn't block the wind and make the poor bird fall out of the air. Very slowly, its little talons unhooked from her finger and started to float upwards. Judging by the speed of the streetlamps rushing by, they were just about at ninety kilometres per hour, so just about the cruising speed that the bird needed to maintain stable flight. Ruby cheered.

"Keep it steady! Level out!"

The bird gave a tiny nod, enough to be understood but not enough to disrupt its aerodynamics. And very carefully, it started to lift itself up. Ruby held fast on the yarn connecting her to the bird, making sure the wind didn't carry it away or make it flip over. That would be a disaster. The bird started to gain altitude, and she feed out more yarn to keep it from getting too taught and dragging the bird back in. It was working. The bird was flying. Well, gliding, actually. But it was now up and in the air, under its own wing.

"Yes! Just like that! You're flying like a bird!"

Ruby paused.

"Well, obviously."

She chuckled to herself, staring at the bird. It squawked at her. She frowned, hearing a hint of urgency in its voice. She turned and looked over her shoulder up the road. The hedgerow was only about five hundred feet away. Her eyes widened.

"Oh, shit!"

She leaned over the side and stuck her head in the driver's window at Tukson.

"Last possible second! We're almost flying!"

"We're gonna crash!"

"Just keep going!"

She pulled herself back up, and turned back to the bird.

"I'm going to let go of you in a second! Keep your wings out and just coast! The grass is soft over that hedge, you'll be fine! Get ready!"

The bird nodded again and flexed its tail, gaining more altitude above the roof of the truck. Ruby pulled her pocket knife out of her sweater, opened it, and cut the yarn off from the ball, holding just the short section that connected her to the bird.

"Okay! Three!"

She loosened her grip on the yarn and tightened her grip on the roof rack. The metal groaned under the strain.

"Two!"

The bird narrowed its eyes to keep the wind out, flexing its tail to keep level. Ruby braced herself.

"One."

She let go of the yarn, and banged on the roof of the truck. Tukson took this as the signal, and buried the brake pedal in the carpet, lurching the truck forward and locking the tires. Ruby held on as best she could as the bird sailed overhead and towards the hedge they were now sliding directly at. The truck slid through the intersection without stopping and mounted the sidewalk on the other side, bouncing up and making her lose her grip on the roof rack.

"Shit-!"

She slid off the roof and onto the hood, and bounced forward. She would have fallen off too, if it weren't for a sudden and powerful grip on the sleeve of her hoodie. The truck finally came to a stop, its front bumper pretting against the hedgerow. Ruby coughed and rolled over, seeing Taiyang with his entire torso out the window holding on to her so she didn't fall. She smiled.

"Nice catch."

He let go.

"This was unsafe."

Ruby shrugged.

"Yeah."

She rolled off the hood and landed on her feet as the rest of the boys got out of the truck. She put her hands on her hips and looked back up the road at the two very long black streaks that led back through the intersection.

"Geez, Errol, you put flat spots in my new tires."

"And we still crashed into a hedge. You had me stop way too late."

"You coulda stopped sooner, you know! You didn't have to wait for me!"

"You said-! Ugh! Children!"

Ruby chuckled and turned back to the hedge.

"Yeah. Right. Let's go see if that worked."

She rolled out her shoulder and climbed back up onto the hood, standing up to see over the hedgerow. There was a noticeable dent in the top edge of the square-cut hedge, where what looked like some body had hit it and recently. She stared into the bushes on the other side of the hedge. They too had a fairly big indentation right in the middle.

"Guys, I think we got something."

"What's that?" Tai asked.

"Well… Let's see if we can find a way into this park. Tai, come up here and gimme a boost."

He climbed up onto the hood as well, being careful to not put a size fourteen dent in the middle. He turned and linked his fingers together to make a step, and squatted down. Ruby grabbed his shoulders and put her right boot into his hands.

"You ready?"

"Toss me."

"Kay, on three. One. Two. Hup-"

She pushed off his hand as he lifted, sending her high into the air with an elegant flip. She made sure she twisted enough so that her feet were facing down, and landed in the foliage on the park side of the hedgerow, gracefully superhero-landing with her right knee down. The hedges on this side of the park were all about waist-deep, neatly trimmed square encircling the entire park like a neat border. She sniffled, as the pollen from the shrubbery was filling her sinuses at an alarming rate.

"C'mon over, guys."

She put her hands on her sips and looked around, seeing a few spots of damage in the hedge, trying to scan for what looked like a person-sized mark. Taiyang landed next to her, in a similarly smooth fashion, followed by Qrow, who landed on his face. With a short roar, Tukson came sailing over the hedge as well, no doubt having put his faunus half's acrobatic expertise to good use.

"Okay, good, we're all here." Ruby chuffed, grinning. "Now, we're looking for a bird, who will now likely be all bird, and will probably try and fly away."

"How the hell are we supposed to catch her, then?" Qrow coughed, brushing himself off.

Ruby puzzled, scratching her head.

"You - you know, I hadn't quite thought that far ahead."

"Oh my god." he held his head in his hands. "This was a stupid thing to do. Why the hell did we have to listen to the headmaster. Why the hell did we have to try to learn magic."

"Now, now, calm down."

"How do you expect me to be calm!" Qrow shouted. "My sister could be stuck as a bird, for fuck's sake!"

Ruby chuckled.

"What do you care, you don't even like your sister that much."

"Buh-wh-th- that doesn't matter, she's still my sister! And if she's a bird, what the hell am I gonna do?!"

"Well, if she truly is stuck, we'll take her on a trip to see someone who also knows transformation magic, and they'll be more likely to get her un-birded. Okay?"

Tukson leaned over and lowered his voice.

"Sienna will not want to see you, just to let you know."

Ruby turned a look at him.

"Errol." She said calmly, throwing him off-guard. "I don't care what she wants. I'll get her assistance whether she likes it or not. She's in no position to deny me. White Fang affiliation or not."

"Uh-"

"Errol. If it comes down to it, it won't be a polite request, either. Now, everybody, fan out. And find Raven."

With a trio of shivers down their spines, the boys spread out and trudged through the thick brush in search of the missing woman. Ruby sighed deeply, and pulled out her phone, flipping the screen open and thumbing through her contacts. She stopped on Raven and tapped on the call button, bringing her phone up to her ear. It beeped softly and the ring tone came through the earpiece.

"Okay, her phone's ringing. But I can't hear it around me."

She hung up and looked back down at her screen, flipping it sideways and pressing the button for video call. The screen flashed a few times before connecting, showing a video feed of the sky, clear and blue. She frowned and looked up. There were clouds over the city, as usual. She chewed on her finger for a second, staring at the sky on her phone.

"Is her phone back at school?"

She pondered. Due to the elevation of Beacon Academy compared to the city of Vale, there was rarely cloud cover at the school. Ruby frowned and put her hand over her stomach, right about where Raven would keep her phone in her coat. She scratched her head.

"If her phone is at school, that means her coat is at school… does that mean…"

A groan alerted her to a spot in the bushes a few feet away. Her head snapped around like a radar dish, her neck straightening.

"Raven?"

There was another groan. She saw what looked like a person-sized dent in the shrubbery about twenty feet to her right, right about where the groan had come from. She pocketed her phone and trudged forward, stepping carefully through the dense bushes so she wouldn't roll her ankle or trip forward.

"Rae? Is that you over there?"

"Ughh."

"Oh, shit." She turned back to the boys. "Guys, I found her! Come over here! I have good news!"

She almost jumped forward at the squashed shrubbery, pushing through with more haste. Just as she approached the clearing where the complaining was coming from, she caught sight of a very disheveled head of long black hair, slowly rising upward. There was no mistaking it. It was her partner.

"Rae!" She cheered, leaping forward.

Of course, in her excitement, she failed to notice two very important things. The first was a gnarled root sticking out of the ground, hidden by the leaves and branches of the shrubs, which seemed to reach out and grab her by the ankle, causing her to fall flat on her face just inside the small clearing. The second, and far more important of the two important things, was that the realization of her partner's current state had just entered her brain as she had reached her. It had finally put together the facts about the video of the sky and the teachings from the history book. So as she pulled her nose out of the dirt and looked up at her partner, she was met with a very unfortunate sight.

"OH my god!" she almost yelped, scrunching up her eyes and stumbling to her feet, trying not to look. "Holy fuck, Rae, are you alright?"

The woman at her feet seemed incredibly out of it. Which was to be expected of someone who had been an entirely different species of animal in the last three hours. Ruby rushed to her side and pulled her upright to a seated position, careful to keep her knees up and closed.

"Taiyang! Qrow! Don't come any closer just yet!"

There was a commotion from over where she had left the boys.

"Why not?!" Qrow yelled back.

Ruby stuck her head up out of the bush and smirked back at him.

"She's very naked."

Their faces went white for a moment. Qrow was quick to recover.

"But she's alive?"

"Yes, very much so. Now, just gimme a second, I gotta cover her shame."

She crouched back down and focussed on Raven, who finally turned to look at her. Her eyes fluttered for a second, adjusting to the light.

"Summer?"

Ruby tried not to giggle.

"Raven, it's me. I'm gonna ask you a series of questions, do your best to answer them for me."

"Uh… Okay…"

"What is your full name?"

"Raven Branwen."

Ruby nodded.

"What is your date of birth?"

"June first, nineteen eighty-one."

"Okay, and where are you located right now?"

Raven blinked a few times, and looked around her surroundings.

"Is this Capitol Park?"

"It is." Ruby winced. "You weren't supposed to answer that with a question, so you might be a little concussed. Do you know how you got here?"

"Uh…" she struggled through her thoughts. "Did you throw me off the roof of a car?"

"Alright, you have some memory of it. Let me give you the low-down. You turned into a-"

"Holy fuck! Why am I naked!"

The poor girl quickly scuttled backwards and covered her breasts in her arms, and tried desperately to hide herself. It was a little difficult to hide all of it, Ruby noticed, just by the sheer volume of woman Raven's six-foot-two body took up. She did her best to not look.

"As I was saying, you turned into a bird, specifically a raven or associated raven-like corvid when you jumped off the Beacon tower. And I would guess that since your bird body is significantly smaller than your human body, uh, you slipped out of your clothes when you turned."

Raven's mouth hung open.

"I turned into a bird? It worked?"

Ruby nodded and looked back to her friend.

"Looks like it. Do you remember anything else?"

Raven pondered. Then frowned.

"You threw me out a window. You bitch!"

"I was just trying something. I'm sorry. I won't do it again."

"You better not. And stop looking at me, I don't want you to see me naked!"

Ruby chuckled, but complied, holding a hand up in front of her eyes.

"A little late for that, since when I found you, I got a pretty good look straight up your baby-maker."

"S-Summer. Don't say that." Raven pouted, her face turning a very harsh shade of pink.

"Look, how 'bout this, I'll lend you my sweater, we'll find you a pair of pants, and then we can get back to school and tear a strip out of the headmaster for his bad advice on magic, okay?"

"Uhm… okay… just, don't look at me, please. Not until I'm covered. Where are the boys, are they far enough away?"

Ruby pulled her sweater off over her head, revealing her sports bra underneath, and tossed it to her nude partner.

"Don't worry about it, you'll be fine. Here, put this on."

"Okay…"

Ruby stood up and turned back to the boys, who had politely not moved any closer. Qrow seemed to balk at the fact she had popped back up in effectively her underwear, but since this was the top she wore to the gym with Taiyang, he didn't mind. She scanned them up and down quickly, doing size measurements in her head.

"Tai, uh, I need your pants."

He blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Taiyang." She smiled. "I'm probably not going to say this very often in my life, but it's necessary right now. I need you to take your pants off for me."

His face hung in that state between astonished and confused for a few more seconds before his brain caught up and let him speak.

"Uh, juh- uh, yeah."

He was quick to fiddle with his belt and pants button, pulling the belt free and almost jumping out of his pants like they were on fire. Ruby gestured with her hand, and he was quick to toss them over to her. She knelt back down with Raven and handed her the pilfered pants.

"Here, this should do. They're long enough for you, at least."

"Th-thanks."

Ruby gave her some privacy and turned away, listening to the sound of rustling denim and the clinking of the copper belt buckle. After what felt like long enough, Ruby turned back and dug her knees into the ground, eyeing her partner. The sweater didn't fit so well, since it was a women's small and Raven wore a large most of the time, so it clung to her chest like a tube sock. At least it covered her. And Tai's pants weren't exactly conducive to her wide hips, but at least they were the right length, ending a hair above her heel. The boot-cut ends of the jeans almost covered her entire feet, actually. It looked a little silly.

"There. That better?"

"Uh, I guess. Feels weird not wearing underpants, though. Especially in someone else's pants."

"Taiyang's pants."

"Yeah, that's not any better."

"Hey, we spent all that effort trying to get you into them, you can at least say thank you."

"I'm not exactly certain this is the time for that kind of humour, Summer." Raven said, cheeks turning pink again.

"It's always time for that kind of humour. Now, can you stand?"

Raven shuffled around on her butt for a moment, stretching out her legs.

"I hope so. I mean, I still have feeling in them. Wait, hang on."

"S'a matter?"

"Which way to my legs bend again?"

Ruby sighed into her hand.

"Forward. Knees forward."

"Okay, just making sure. Fuck, how long was I a bird for?"

"Like three hours."

"Fuck."

Ruby chuckled and stood up, extending a hand for Raven to grab. With a solid yank, she pulled her partner to her feet, where she wobbled for a second. Ruby was quick to swoop in and fold herself under Raven's arm to keep her upright. She turned her around to face the boys.

"Hey, look who I found!"

All of the worry washed from their faces as she pulled Raven through the shrubbery and back to the group of them. Qrow especially seemed the most relieved, trudging forward to pick his sister up under her other arm.

"Holy shit, Rae, we're not doing that again."

"The hell are you talking about, of course we are." she bit back, flicking her hair in his face. "We have to get it right, right?"

"But- you were stuck as a bird!"

Raven chuckled.

"Temporary setback. Right, Mere?"

"Uh, that's up to you, Rae. I'm not gonna tell you to jump off a building again."

"Oh yeah, right, I did do that." she said, biting her lip. "Let's get out of here. I feel dirty and like I gotta bite my own feathers off."

Ruby smiled up at her partner as they hobbled her out of the bushes and onto the gravel path.

"Well, we'll get you home, get you cleaned up, and we'll go have a talk with the headmaster, alright?"

"Okay, that sounds like a good idea. Just, you know, don't throw me out of any more windows."

"Yeah, I can't promise you that." she said with a smirk.

Raven just rolled her eyes.