RWBY Through Worlds

75: As Long

"No." Winter squared her shoulders. "I'm going to inspect the whole thing."

"I wouldn't inspect it too closely," Qrow said.

The smell from the street outside the place was enough to prove his words were wise.

The door was kind of rusty and creaked when Qrow opened it.

The scene wasn't anything that new to him--a lot of shady looking people around.

Winter, following, thought at first it was horrid...but then she thought, all in all, it could have been worse. She should just pretend it was like Mantle--granted, it had been ages since she'd actually worked in Mantle directly, and she hadn't interacted with that many people when she had, but, as long as no one started any altercations, she was fine.

Qrow seriously thought she'd leave as soon as she stepped inside, but when that didn't happen, he shrugged and headed toward the counter.

The person behind it looked up at him with a wary expression.

"Eh, Qrow?" One of the men sitting at the counter looked up. "Qrow Branwen? No freaking way."

Qrow recognized the person as one he'd met a few times in Vacuo... He thought he knew Theo too.

"Oh, hey," he said. Maybe this would be easier than he thought.

"I started to think you'd died along with the rest of Beacon," the fellow, Big Mac was his name, said. "Hey, Cody, give this man a whiskey. Bottom shelf."

"Actually, that's fine. I'm not thirsty," Qrow said...not that it wasn't tempting...

He could just feel Winter's eyes boring into his back though.

Come to think of it, she hadn't followed him. What was she doing?

The answer to that was Winter hadn't followed because she'd been interrupted by someone who was sitting by the door, who looked her up and down and whistled.

"That's some fancy outfit," they said.

A rough looking woman stepped closer too.

"That's not just an outfit," she said, looking Winter up and down also. "That's an uniform."

Winter thought she really should have changed her outfit a little before doing this...oops.

Oh well, nothing to do but act indifferent.

She held her chin high and pretended they weren't there.

Big mistake.

"Aren't you from Atlas?" said the woman.

Winter made no answer.

Second big mistake.

"She asked you a question," the fellow who was sitting by the door said.

"Hey, I'm talking to you, b----." The woman snapped her fingers in front of Winter's face.

Winter gave her a cold look. "Step aside," she said.

"It's an Atlesian all right," the woman said. "Ain't no one else around here have that kind of lip. What brings you to this little POS bar. Felt like slumming it?"

Winter could feel more people in the room looking at the commotion.

Uh oh.

Might be to just get out now--no, that would look even more suspicious.

"It's none of your business," she said instead.

"They rush to put on airs," the man said, standing up, "considering they're trespassing on our turf. Hey, don't you know you gotta pay a fine to do that, if you're from outside the kingdom?"