A Fae's Emporium 8 (Patreon)

Commissioned by InfiniteChaosRai

A Fae’s Emporium

Chapter 8

-VB-

When Qrow received a package specifically for him at Taiyang’s place, he didn’t know why there would be a package for him. Or why the package was Tai’s place. 

“Tai~!” he greeted his brother-in-law (or better yet, teammate and friend) with a lazy wave of his hand as he walked up to the house. 

Tai greeted him back with a wave of his own and a casual smile. “You look like you’ve gone through some rough patches right here in Patch.”

Qrow lost whatever good mood he had right there and then. 

He forgot that Tai was a dad and being a dad came with dad jokes. That’s where Yang got her horrible taste in puns. Couldn’t be him or … that bitch. When they were young, they would have shanked someone for poor humor. Those were … the not good days. 

“So what’s this about a package?” he asked before looking around. “Where’s Yang and Ruby?”

“They’re at school, obviously.”

“Then why aren’t you at school with them, teach?”

“Hmm? Did you forget again? I don’t have classes on mondays and weekends.”

“... Right. I did forget. So what have you got for me again?”

Suddenly, Tai got uncharacteristically serious. “A package addressed to you. The package was not delivered by Patch’s Postal Posters. It was not delivered by Vast Vale Vatchers. The package smells something fierce, but I can’t seem to open it, even though the outside packaging is just brown packaging paper.”

Qrow froze. 

“That … sounds odd.”

“It is, but strange things have been happening around here for quite a while at this point like how Ruby’s eyes are dimmer or how she got her hands on the ‘meltagun.’”

Qrow nodded slowly. 

The meltagun, as Ruby insisted on calling it, was an engineering marvel. It was also an extremely dangerous, extremely powerful, and utterly monstrous piece of weapon that wasn’t designed with Grimm in mind. 

No.

That weapon had been designed to be used against people. However, no weapons developer came forward to claim it, and those that tried were quickly disproven to be the creator of the meltagun. 

Obviously, neither Patch or Vale had the capability to understand it, so Atlas got involved after Ozpin heard about it. 

And Ozpin was now missing, having gone on a search to find the source of the meltagun.

Qrow had been searching for him since then. Ozpin hasn’t been seen for over a month now, and everyone was getting worried. 

And now this.

“Let’s see the package,” he said as he followed Tai around the house to the backyard hut. 

There, Tai went in and brought the package out and placed it on the table just outside of the hut. 

“This is it.”

Qrow looked down at it. It really did look like a regular package. 

“It looks -.” Then his nose scrunched as a foul smell seeped into his nostrils. “What the fuck?” he muttered with a grimace before turning to Tai. He said it smelled bad, but this was a whole different kind of bad! This was …

It was the smell of a corpse.

“I can’t open it,” Tai shook his head. “Maybe you can, considering it was addressed to you,” he said while gesturing to Qrow’s name marked in black ink on the flat side of the package. “Honestly, I’m scared to try further.”

Qrow looked at Tai for a long while before looking down at the package.

“... I guess I’ll have to,” he grumbled as he reached down, grabbed the edges and -.

Rip.

He looked down in surprise. He looked back up at Tai, who looked at him in surprise.

“It’s just paper.”

Tai reached down and -.

And cut himself on the paper.

“Fuck!” he hissed as he pulled his hand back.

Qrow quickly pulled out a medpack. 

Then Tai froze. “It went through my aura.”

Qrow froze with a half-open medpack before he finished opening. He glanced at the package before helping Tai with the cut on his fingers. They looked like a kitchen knife cut than a paper cut. 

When he finished bandaging Tai’s finger, he turned back to the package. He warily reached out and -.

It was still paper to him.

He continued tearing it apart but tried to keep it all in one piece in case he needed to throw it away. 

(Or use it as a weapon?)

And then the box underneath finally revealed itself. It was a set of two wooden boxes, each with letters taped on top of them.

He untapped the letter that had “READ ME FIRST,” and flipped it open.

As his eyes went over the words he did not recognize, Qrow realized that the longer he stared, the more he understood. Strange scripts that had no meaning to him before suddenly did after a while. 

He blinked.

Suddenly, the whole letter was legible and readable. 

Dear Qrow Branwen,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and company. You are receiving this package as an inheritance of a sort. 

A man named Ozpin entered my shop and negotiated a transaction. In this transaction, he chose an item he could not pay for with any of the items he had on hand, and as such, we arbitrated the transaction to a third party. 

The third party chose to bargain away Ozpin’s life, ending this incarnation of Ozma. I hope you encounter his next incarnation soon. 

As for what he traded, the next letter will explain it to you, but allow me to summarize it just in case you won’t open it out of some emotional turbulance. 

It is a weapon designed to destroy souls, and Ozpin wanted to use it against Salem.

Toodles~!

“...What?” he hurriedly opened the other letter and it explained more in detail about what the bullet was, who Ozpin wanted to use it against, and other details Qrow didn’t care about. Then he opened the boxes. 

The first box had a single bullet sitting on velvet. 

The second…

The second box was bigger on the inside and had Ozpin’s rotting head.