My guess is the spring Maiden DID run off and come into Raven's custody and that Raven wasn't always the spring maiden. That'd be a bit too hard to cover if she was under the watchful eye of Oz the entire time, wouldn't it? My theory is the spring maiden was there and with Raven's tribe but something happened to her and she died and Raven inherited the power. Maybe the Maiden was around Yang's age too for EXTRA SPICY DRAMA™
Yeah, that’s the theory that makes the most sense to me.
Raven being the Spring Maiden before she left Yang doesn’t make sense because Qrow asks her about the Spring Maiden in a roundabout way and even says “I wasn’t talking about you” (lol he turned out to be so wrong). And the adults always talk about the Spring Maiden in a way that clearly indicates she’s a separate person from Raven.
I wonder about the last Spring Maiden being around Yang’s age though. That happened “over a decade ago,” so if she were Yang’s age she would have been like, 7 or 8. Which is both funny, because how did a bunch of hunters manage to let a tiny child run away from them, and really sad, because you can’t just put all this responsibility on a tiny child.
