Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27158424-20180206005022/@comment-34633327-20180206030809

Sentry 616 wrote: He said he'd catch up, but I don't think they expected him to be gone that long.

Unfortunately, we don't really know how long he was gone, just estimations. The Best Estimation is a few months, since he left after her soon after Beacon Fell, which was in the fall, and showed up at Haven when the semester was about to start, unless the schools start at different times, he arrived in the spring. Assuming Remnants Seasonal Calender is similar to our own, and that they were at the tail end of fall considering the little time skip before RWBY left turned it to Winter, at the first day of Winter being December 21st and the First official Day of Spring being March 3rd, we can assume he was only gone for around 3-4 months.

In retrospect, Merry's initial declaration of 6-8 months would have never worked considering this info.