Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-67.248.240.148-20170908201845/@comment-26018514-20180321191814

SpiritedDreaming wrote: You know, there is also the option that she fell pregnant while completing her last year of school. She could have only stuck around for a few months after graduating to finish the pregnancy, tie up loose ends and track down where the tribe was at the moment, and then ditched just after giving birth.

Or she stuck around when she and Qrow were first turned into birds and did Ozpin's bidding, joined his crusade, since she 'accepted' the transformation ability... and then used the Tribe as an excuse to run when she got scared. That was basically the culmination of her character in V5; she was scared and ran away, and has been running since.

...

Personally, I'm guessing Pregnancy was her 3rd reason for not leaving, just think about the series of events as we know them:

1.Raven and Qrow were given the mission to learn how to kill huntsman to protect the tribe. 2. STRQ was formed at Beacon 3. STRQ was given special treatment at Beacon and thought very highly of themselves 4. Raven and Qrow were brought in on Ozpin's secret about Salem, a far greater threat to everyone including the tribe 5. Raven and Qrow were voluntarily given their bird powers to combat the threat of Salem 6. STRQ graduated 7. Qrow didn't want to return to the tribe, which gave him the name Qrow because he was a jinx. 8. Yang was born 9. Raven decided Salem could not be defeated.


 * many of these may be out of order or happened simultaneously

From this we can infer that Raven didn't leave immediately after graduation because she was attempting to handle Salem's threat, which in her youth she thought wouldn't take too long, she also failed to leave because Qrow didn't want to return to a bunch of scumbags who thought he was a jinx, while she wanted him to return because the tribe treated her well and she felt she owed them.

Yang likely was conceived in the intervening time and Raven at some point met Salem or decided she was impossible to kill, settling for her initial goal of protecting the tribe from Huntsmen because she couldn't protect them from Salem.