[Qrow listens to him carefully, seemingly focused on cleaning but Oz can catch the way Qrow's motions have become half-hearted and robotic, how he's hanging on his every word while pretending to be distracted, as he used to when he was young and embarrassed by how much he craved Oz's attention. The situation is different now, with what he seeks to hide being more along the lines of how deeply troubled he is by his new abilities, how desperately he wants to make them of use. Qrow may have a better poker face than he did at seventeen, but he forgets that Ozpin knows him so much longer, by now.]
--How?
[He looks up, perhaps a little more hopefully than he intended to reveal. Reminiscent of the look he'd held back when he was first offered a hint of real magic, to become Ozpin's eyes.]
[ Qrow looks at him with open hope, blood and soap on his hands. For the first time in a long while, Ozpin carefully weighs truth against kindness. He looks back down to the sheen of blood on the floor. ]
I'm afraid it's not quite so simple.
It is... [ And here is the part he so hesitates to say, the matter which must be handled so delicately. ] ...more akin to developing one's Semblance. Learning the boundaries of that power... and gaining some measure of control, however limited. These abilities are a part of ourselves, even if it may be a part we do not fully understand. Like a limb you don't yet know how to use... or a scar whose edges you've not yet felt out.
[ He remembers. The fierce, wound-tight desperation in a gangly teenager as he tried to manage his influence on the world around him— as he tried to keep it bundled in close to his chest and not let the secret slip. ]
Some convey terrible drawbacks. [ He remembers the day Qrow looked up at him, the way he'd uncurled in open shock, when it became clear that Ozpin knew. ] Mine seem to be particularly demanding, as we've discovered. I am still coming to understand that burden. But I trust that I can master it all the same, given enough time.
[For all of Oz's best efforts, there is still a moment where Qrow seems to deflate when Oz says that it is like mastering a Semblance. He is forty-two years old, and he does not have full control over his own. Useless is the word that bubbles up in his mind, and there's a certain sense of exhaustion to it. If he is careful not to go down the path of suspecting his powers cause the events he sees in his visions, then he can at least take solace in the notion that this power isn't hurting anyone, whether or not he has it managed, but he is so tired. He doesn't want to go through this a second time. Through accepting that the powers that reflect his soul are only tied to pain and suffering, and anything he is beyond that is because he is too stubbornly desperate to be needed anyway.
He sighs, after a minute. There's a heaviness to it that Oz may recognize from his own darker moments, that specific one of wondering what the point of so much meaningless effort is, and then ... it would be inaccurate to say it passes, so much as the mood shifts to the other side of that coin -- of getting back up again, to return to the task of uselessly pushing the rock up the hill again, again and again for the rest of existence because there's no other choice but to be crushed by the rock.]
...Guess it figures it wouldn't be that easy. But if anyone can figure it out, it'd be you.
[He goes back to working in silence. Eventually, the spill from the overturned bucket is cleaned up, all the contents returned to appropriate receptacles, door locked from the outside as per Sayo's request. It would be a great time to sit together with cocoa and pretend none of this ever happened. That's what he thought he wanted, at the beginning.
Now his blood just burns underneath his skin with the first tendrils of corruption, itching to be shed, and he wonders if Oz would spill it if he asked.
He doesn't.]
M'gonna go to bed, I think. Been a long night.
[They both know, perhaps, that he's not going to sleep -- or at least not well. But Qrow has always had a bad habit of drawing himself deeper into his own spirals, withdrawing from things and people who could help so as not to drag anyone down with him. Ironically, he's not unlike Oz in that way. At least for right now, he cannot bear to be comforted further and needs some time to lick his wounds in private.]
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no subject
--How?
[He looks up, perhaps a little more hopefully than he intended to reveal. Reminiscent of the look he'd held back when he was first offered a hint of real magic, to become Ozpin's eyes.]
Just...by bleeding?
no subject
I'm afraid it's not quite so simple.
It is... [ And here is the part he so hesitates to say, the matter which must be handled so delicately. ] ...more akin to developing one's Semblance. Learning the boundaries of that power... and gaining some measure of control, however limited. These abilities are a part of ourselves, even if it may be a part we do not fully understand. Like a limb you don't yet know how to use... or a scar whose edges you've not yet felt out.
[ He remembers. The fierce, wound-tight desperation in a gangly teenager as he tried to manage his influence on the world around him— as he tried to keep it bundled in close to his chest and not let the secret slip. ]
Some convey terrible drawbacks. [ He remembers the day Qrow looked up at him, the way he'd uncurled in open shock, when it became clear that Ozpin knew. ] Mine seem to be particularly demanding, as we've discovered. I am still coming to understand that burden. But I trust that I can master it all the same, given enough time.
no subject
He sighs, after a minute. There's a heaviness to it that Oz may recognize from his own darker moments, that specific one of wondering what the point of so much meaningless effort is, and then ... it would be inaccurate to say it passes, so much as the mood shifts to the other side of that coin -- of getting back up again, to return to the task of uselessly pushing the rock up the hill again, again and again for the rest of existence because there's no other choice but to be crushed by the rock.]
...Guess it figures it wouldn't be that easy. But if anyone can figure it out, it'd be you.
[He goes back to working in silence. Eventually, the spill from the overturned bucket is cleaned up, all the contents returned to appropriate receptacles, door locked from the outside as per Sayo's request. It would be a great time to sit together with cocoa and pretend none of this ever happened. That's what he thought he wanted, at the beginning.
Now his blood just burns underneath his skin with the first tendrils of corruption, itching to be shed, and he wonders if Oz would spill it if he asked.
He doesn't.]
M'gonna go to bed, I think. Been a long night.
[They both know, perhaps, that he's not going to sleep -- or at least not well. But Qrow has always had a bad habit of drawing himself deeper into his own spirals, withdrawing from things and people who could help so as not to drag anyone down with him. Ironically, he's not unlike Oz in that way. At least for right now, he cannot bear to be comforted further and needs some time to lick his wounds in private.]