She had been one of very few other teenagers in the area, and so they drifted together half by curiosity and half by expectation. Her family's settlement fell consistently within their range, and so it became one more way to mark the seasons: each year, without fail, he would meet the intensely focused blonde girl and hear about her dreams. From ten years old, she could lay them out as a tidy set of steps, a series of hurdles she would conquer. He had no doubt that she could. His own aspirations didn't make for nearly as interesting storytelling: he rather enjoyed gathering stories, and he could hold his own as well as anyone needed to, out past the Kingdom walls— but neither seemed to promise much of a career. It was difficult to believe in such long-term things as a career, living as they did. If he was to have a future, it was likely to be a humble one.
Then the King arrived.
It all happened very quickly, after that. Ozpin did not try very hard to resist the call; he loved his family, but the forest held little else for him. And the King told such incredible stories.
Early on, Beacon was all he'd hoped it would be. It was grand and towering and magnificent, all white stone spires and the glow of pride. (Even then, he couldn't tell whose pride it was.) Most of his professors bowed when they met him, which left Ozpin flushed and awkward and the King profoundly amused. Whenever they watched him fight, he internally cringed at every stumble, every clumsy parry and moment of missed footwork. In the classroom, he leaned into the threads of memory until he could answer any question without the fumbling beat of pause. He leaned into the steady tones of the King, until it was hard to find the difference in their voices, except that one was young and afraid.
He grew used to taking tea with the headmaster and being asked for thoughts on team assignments. He grew used to discussing chess. He learned that the King was afraid, too, and now young was the only difference left to him.
The first year was the hardest. It was nice, sometimes, to have the team: Alva was an incredible warrior, Keppel earnestly good, and Argent sharp and capable. More often, it was lonely. He watched them bicker; he led them through missions; he gently dismissed their prying curiosity and concern as he vanished more and more to the headmaster's office. He pressed hard at the threads of memory, every time he-or-the-King lurched with unnamed emotion to see Argent's silver eyes, until he understood. And still he told them nothing.
The King wanted to see who they would become. And Ozpin— he was afraid. The expectant eyes of professors made for pressure enough. It was... a sort of reprieve, to be thought of as a fellow teenager, albeit a strange one. Even if they thought him oddly apart from it all, on some level they had to think of him as one of them. They weren't watching him and seeing chess moves. They weren't watching him and measuring him against the man who'd worn the crown.
It didn't matter, in the end. He is their leader. They still look to him for orders; they are still pieces on the board, even if they don't know the shape of the game. (No one, he came to learn, really knows the shape of the game.) They are more than worthy, in the eyes of him and the King, and they are to be his new generation.
So he tells them a little. He tells them enough. They look at him with the awe and devotion of knights to a king, and now there is nowhere left for him to pretend to be a teenager. He learns to speak like the King, or as the King, or in the place of the King, until the hesitation blurs away. He spends fewer nights curled in on himself, harried and exhausted, feeling smothered in the King's colors; he thinks of them as their colors, and it hurts a little less. He stops trying to peel apart whose thoughts are whose. He stops wondering which of them keeps pouring cocoa. It doesn't matter; they like sweets.
When he sees her step onto campus at the start of their third year, he does not know what to feel, or which of them is feeling it.
He avoids her. Difficult to say which of them that is, too. He'd liked her when he was sixteen and merely Ozpin; now, she is a liability and a reminder. The King will not say as much, but he dislikes loose ends, or maybe fears them. And Ozpin knows that he's different now, perhaps unrecognizable. He— he's come to terms with it.
It's easier to come to terms with it when there isn't someone looking at him like he's wrong. Like there's something else he could've been. He is guilty and restless and miserable with it, and he avoids her twice as fervently.
But she's driven. He's always known that. The day she catches him alone is inevitable, and it draws them up midstep with a little thrill of dread. They'd curse internally, if they were the sort for it. (They aren't; Ozpin cannot even bring himself to say By the Brothers anymore.) They— but mostly the King— think, wryly, This will be interesting.
Maybe she sees the little flinch in his shoulders, the hesitation. Maybe she sees the flash of just-Ozpin in his eyes, when he turns, nervous for the barest instant before distance rushes back in like a tide.
Glynda doesn't actually have a specific approach in mind as she closes the gap between the two of them. She has an abundance of questions and a dearth of answers, but no real understanding of the situation beyond 'something has changed'. No one in Ozpin's community had any idea what prompted him to suddenly leave, and no one in the school (no one that Glynda can ask, at any rate) seems to know anything about his life prior to enrollment at all. The only hints at anything resembling the person she'd known before are in rumors from his freshman year. They sound accurate to what she remembers, but the stories are scattered and she knows that rumors may be all they actually are.
So she's not sure where to start, but then she sees that little flinch, that sudden distance in his gaze, and half a dozen other brief interactions with him spring to mind - alongside, more importantly, all the interactions they haven't had. At times it had felt like everyone except her has had some sort extended interaction or conversation with him. Now she wonders if that might not be true, rather than just some sort of paranoid flight of fancy. Because that tiny flinch might not be much of a reaction, but it imparts some very important information to Glynda. This isn't someone that simply hasn't happened to interact with her much, but someone that actively doesn't want to interact with her.
The realization hurts. They may not have been close, but they had been friends, and for him to simply disappear without a word had been upsetting already. If she were alone she might have taken a few moments to process that hurt before proceeding. But now, with Ozpin right here in front of her, she decides that she doesn't have time for that. There's a task to complete, which means everything else can wait.
"You're avoiding me." There's a slight bit of wonder in her voice - the answer is so obvious now that she can't believe she missed it before - but for the most part her tone and expression are comprised of stubborn, uncompromising irritation. "Why?"
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lovingly dumps 1000 words of backstory hc
She had been one of very few other teenagers in the area, and so they drifted together half by curiosity and half by expectation. Her family's settlement fell consistently within their range, and so it became one more way to mark the seasons: each year, without fail, he would meet the intensely focused blonde girl and hear about her dreams. From ten years old, she could lay them out as a tidy set of steps, a series of hurdles she would conquer. He had no doubt that she could. His own aspirations didn't make for nearly as interesting storytelling: he rather enjoyed gathering stories, and he could hold his own as well as anyone needed to, out past the Kingdom walls— but neither seemed to promise much of a career. It was difficult to believe in such long-term things as a career, living as they did. If he was to have a future, it was likely to be a humble one.
Then the King arrived.
It all happened very quickly, after that. Ozpin did not try very hard to resist the call; he loved his family, but the forest held little else for him. And the King told such incredible stories.
Early on, Beacon was all he'd hoped it would be. It was grand and towering and magnificent, all white stone spires and the glow of pride. (Even then, he couldn't tell whose pride it was.) Most of his professors bowed when they met him, which left Ozpin flushed and awkward and the King profoundly amused. Whenever they watched him fight, he internally cringed at every stumble, every clumsy parry and moment of missed footwork. In the classroom, he leaned into the threads of memory until he could answer any question without the fumbling beat of pause. He leaned into the steady tones of the King, until it was hard to find the difference in their voices, except that one was young and afraid.
He grew used to taking tea with the headmaster and being asked for thoughts on team assignments. He grew used to discussing chess. He learned that the King was afraid, too, and now young was the only difference left to him.
The first year was the hardest. It was nice, sometimes, to have the team: Alva was an incredible warrior, Keppel earnestly good, and Argent sharp and capable. More often, it was lonely. He watched them bicker; he led them through missions; he gently dismissed their prying curiosity and concern as he vanished more and more to the headmaster's office. He pressed hard at the threads of memory, every time he-or-the-King lurched with unnamed emotion to see Argent's silver eyes, until he understood. And still he told them nothing.
The King wanted to see who they would become. And Ozpin— he was afraid. The expectant eyes of professors made for pressure enough. It was... a sort of reprieve, to be thought of as a fellow teenager, albeit a strange one. Even if they thought him oddly apart from it all, on some level they had to think of him as one of them. They weren't watching him and seeing chess moves. They weren't watching him and measuring him against the man who'd worn the crown.
It didn't matter, in the end. He is their leader. They still look to him for orders; they are still pieces on the board, even if they don't know the shape of the game. (No one, he came to learn, really knows the shape of the game.) They are more than worthy, in the eyes of him and the King, and they are to be his new generation.
So he tells them a little. He tells them enough. They look at him with the awe and devotion of knights to a king, and now there is nowhere left for him to pretend to be a teenager. He learns to speak like the King, or as the King, or in the place of the King, until the hesitation blurs away. He spends fewer nights curled in on himself, harried and exhausted, feeling smothered in the King's colors; he thinks of them as their colors, and it hurts a little less. He stops trying to peel apart whose thoughts are whose. He stops wondering which of them keeps pouring cocoa. It doesn't matter; they like sweets.
When he sees her step onto campus at the start of their third year, he does not know what to feel, or which of them is feeling it.
He avoids her. Difficult to say which of them that is, too. He'd liked her when he was sixteen and merely Ozpin; now, she is a liability and a reminder. The King will not say as much, but he dislikes loose ends, or maybe fears them. And Ozpin knows that he's different now, perhaps unrecognizable. He— he's come to terms with it.
It's easier to come to terms with it when there isn't someone looking at him like he's wrong. Like there's something else he could've been. He is guilty and restless and miserable with it, and he avoids her twice as fervently.
But she's driven. He's always known that. The day she catches him alone is inevitable, and it draws them up midstep with a little thrill of dread. They'd curse internally, if they were the sort for it. (They aren't; Ozpin cannot even bring himself to say By the Brothers anymore.) They— but mostly the King— think, wryly, This will be interesting.
Maybe she sees the little flinch in his shoulders, the hesitation. Maybe she sees the flash of just-Ozpin in his eyes, when he turns, nervous for the barest instant before distance rushes back in like a tide.
"Yes, Glynda?"
no subject
So she's not sure where to start, but then she sees that little flinch, that sudden distance in his gaze, and half a dozen other brief interactions with him spring to mind - alongside, more importantly, all the interactions they haven't had. At times it had felt like everyone except her has had some sort extended interaction or conversation with him. Now she wonders if that might not be true, rather than just some sort of paranoid flight of fancy. Because that tiny flinch might not be much of a reaction, but it imparts some very important information to Glynda. This isn't someone that simply hasn't happened to interact with her much, but someone that actively doesn't want to interact with her.
The realization hurts. They may not have been close, but they had been friends, and for him to simply disappear without a word had been upsetting already. If she were alone she might have taken a few moments to process that hurt before proceeding. But now, with Ozpin right here in front of her, she decides that she doesn't have time for that. There's a task to complete, which means everything else can wait.
"You're avoiding me." There's a slight bit of wonder in her voice - the answer is so obvious now that she can't believe she missed it before - but for the most part her tone and expression are comprised of stubborn, uncompromising irritation. "Why?"