Chapter Text
Everything had a breaking point. Nora Valkyrie knew that better than most. She also knew that sometimes when you were very lucky, you could control the break. Much like the act of trimming a branch before it became too heavy or scoring glass to fracture at a selected point – sometimes the shatter could be contained and turned to something good. Or at least, something that wouldn’t cost more than you could afford to pay.
It was with this in mind that two weeks after their arrival in Mistral Nora turned herself to the task of breaking her own heart.
After the moments on the airship and later in Jaune’s room with Ren’s hand resting on her shoulder, she thought that perhaps they’d turned a corner. That Ren had finally realized how she felt and was ready to return her feelings. However, after nothing else had happened in either gesture or word, she realized that it had all been in her own head. The battle against the Nuckelavee in Kuroyuri, and their ultimate victory, had been taxing for Ren in a way few things were. Of course he’d turned to her to share his triumph, to receive comfort, to share the mix of despair and jubilation. After all, they’d shared everything for over two thirds of their lives. It was her own problem if she’d made it out to be more.
It was in a moment of clarity during the early hours of morning that she realized if she kept holding on to the idea of them being more than friends, she jeopardized everything else they had between them. Ren might not look to her as a lover, but he was her best friend, her family, her partner, and her soul-mate. The risk of losing Ren entirely was far more painful to entertain than giving up what, ultimately, had been nothing more than a dream. She was aware that the result of pushing for something he didn’t want to give, or pining after him endlessly, would do irreparable damage to the bond between them. Given the choice between a broken heart or shattering her soul, the choice didn’t seem hard at all.
As the first fingers of early morning sun poured into their room in the inn, painting everything in shades of gray with only the faintest hints of color, she allowed herself the indulgence of gazing at Ren lying still asleep in his bed for an endless moment. His face was mostly buried in his bedding, blankets pulled up over one shoulder, with a single bare arm wrapped under his pillow, holding it snug to his face. He slept, as always, on his stomach, and his hair had wrapped itself over his head in such a way that between hair and pillow, only the tip of his nose and his chin stuck out. Nora always thought it looked suffocating, but he’d slept that way as long as she could remember – it was almost as if he hoped he could bury himself far enough into the bed that no one would make him get up. It rarely worked, especially as Nora was an early riser who woke up voraciously hungry and was garbage in the kitchen, but it didn’t stop him from trying.
Reaching out one tentative finger, she tapped the exposed tip of his nose gently, “Boop.”
“Mmpphh,” Ren shifted restlessly, turning just enough to expose one magenta eye that reluctantly opened half-way. “Nora?” His voice was questioning and still rough with sleep.
“Go back to sleep, Renny!” Nora chirped. “I’m going to head out for a run and then go grab some breakfast.”
“Want… ‘ompany?” Ren mumbled, already reburying himself, though Nora knew he’d start the extraction process if she asked.
“Nope, I’m good! No plans today, so I’ll see you when I see you! Don’t rush!”
“Kay.”
Nora quickly grabbed the bag she’d already stocked with clean clothing and bath supplies for after her run, slung it over her shoulder, and let herself out of the room.
In the hall outside of the room, Nora leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she focused on her dream of being in love with Ren, picturing it as a large, pink heart. With small but ruthlessly strong hands she snapped it in two and left it on the floor.
Making sure her pack was secure on her back, she set off down the hall at a jog, heading for the doors that led outside into Mistral. If her chest ached or her eyes watered, she ignored it and told herself it was dust in the air and they should really check the air filters in the inn.
“Oh my god, you really exploded.”
Nora entered the hall that led to the common room several hours later after her shower and run, just in time to hear a familiar voice finishing what was obviously a story. A loud round of laughter followed the proclamation. Nora’s feet sped up almost against her will and she rounded the corner at a run. Sure enough, sitting on a couch near the fireplace, surrounded by a group of familiar faces, sat …
“Fireball!” Nora’s shout had heads swiveling throughout the inn.
“Lightning Bolt!” Yang jumped to her feet as Nora ran faster across the floor, launching herself into the air as soon as she was close enough for Yang to catch her. The taller girl took her weight easily and spun Nora around, both laughing breathlessly before Yang deposited her back on her feet.
“When did you get here? How did you get here? How long have you been here? Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?” Nora fired off the questions rapidly, not pausing for her friend to respond or to breath. “I’ve missed you so much! This has been the craziest nine months of my life, and that’s saying a lot! I can’t believe you’re here! How long are you staying? Are you going to make Ruby go back home? I hope you don’t, she’s been….”
“Woah, slow down there, short-stack.” Yang held up a hand, laughing.
“Yeah, give her a chance to answer one question before you ask another,” Qrow added, also chuckling. “How much sugar have you had this morning, Nora? No, don’t answer that. You should say hello to the rest of your friends here too.”
With a concerted effort, Nora stopped the questions that were still dying to tumble from her brain and into her mouth to look around at the group. Yang was standing before an empty spot on one of the inn’s couches, obviously vacated when she saw Nora arrive. Seated beside Yang’s vacated cushion was a tall, dark-skinned young man with golden eyes and green hair. In a large chair perpendicular to the couch, a familiar blue-haired boy sat, laughter in his eyes and a smile on his lips. Perched on the arm of his chair was a redhead - green-eyes sparkling and a jacket draped over one shoulder. Qrow sat in another chair opposite them, long-legs extended before him, one foot propped on a coffee table, and Oscar, the newest member of their little party, was sitting on a wooden stool he’d obviously pulled over from one of the nearby tables. The couch and chairs made a pseudo U shape, facing the inn’s sole fireplace which was not lit currently as the day was warm and the light streaming in from the windows was bright.
“Neptune! Sage! Scarlet!” Nora bounced on her toes in excitement, hands clasped together in front of her. “It’s great to see you! What are you doing here?!?!”
“We live here.” Sage said solemnly.
“He doesn’t mean here-here.” Scarlet chimed in. “Not like in the inn, here. But here. Mistral.”
“We heard you were in town, so we thought we’d stop by, and we just happened to get here right after Yang,” Neptune finished.
“But where’s Sun?”
“Ahem, he’s… um, … well, to be honest, we’re not quite sure.” Neptune rubbed the back of his head and looked off to the side.
“He ran off chasing pussy,” Scarlet smirked.
“Scarlet.” Sage’s voice was scolding.
“He went after Blake.” Yang stated dryly, settling back down on the couch.
“That’s what I said!” Scarlet insisted. “Blake’s a cat faunus, right?”
There was a collective series of groans from the group.
“Anyway…” Neptune drawled, shooting Scarlet a look from the corner of his eyes, “it’s good to see you, Nora.”
“Where are Jaune and Ruby?” Nora asked as she noticed her two friends missing from the gathering.
“They went to the skydocks to see if any news came in with the last airship,” Qrow explained. “They made plans to go last night and Jaune thought it was still important.”
“I decided to stay here,” Yang added. “After what happened at the Vytal Festival, I’m still not the most popular person some places in Mistral.”
“We know that was all bullshit,” Neptune exclaimed.
“Unfortunately, not everyone feels we’re the most reliable of witnesses,” Scarlet rolled his eyes. “It seems we have a bit of a ‘reputation’.”
“Yeah, just my luck to get saddled with a bunch of losers like you guys,” Sage quipped. “My reputation was sterling before I teamed up with you.”
“Oh, we’re the losers,” Scarlet sneered. “I seem to remember you got knocked out of the match in about twenty seconds.”
“We said we weren’t going to talk about that!”
“Well if the shoe fits….”
“C’mon guys,” Neptune interrupted the escalating argument. “Not in front of the cute girls! Stay cool!” He flashed Nora a grin.
Nora laughed, “Don’t stop on my account. I need to go find some breakfast.”
“I’ll come with you,” Yang said hopping up. “We’ll leave you boys to fight it out amongst yourselves.” She winked at the group and joined Nora heading towards the dining area.
“Looking for some pancakes?”
“Nah, just planning to see if they have some fruit or something.” Nora sighed. Reaching into her backpack she pulled out a small pad of paper and a pen she’d snagged from one of the end tables in her room earlier and added a hash mark to the page. There were already several on the paper.
“What’s that?” Yang asked curiously.
“Re… um, someone suggested that if you want to accomplish something, it’s good to keep track of your progress,” Nora explained cheerfully, pausing briefly to make another hash mark. “I’m trying to stop thinking about something, so every time I do, I make a mark! Then, tomorrow, I can try to make less marks, and less the day after that and so on….”
“Someone, huh?” Yang said skeptically.
“Yup! So, anyway, are you going to tell me how you got here and what you’ve been up to for the last half a year since we snagged Rubes?”
Yang eagerly launched into the story of training with Taiyang, learning to use her new arm (“SO COOL!!! CAN I TOUCH IT?”), booking passage from Vale to Mistral, and then riding Bumblebee from the coast to the city (“I especially liked all the modifications you guys made to the signs… heh.”) While Yang talked, Nora flagged down a waitress and managed to talk her into providing a couple of pieces of fruit and a cup of coffee (doctored with syrup and milk) that Nora could carry back to their other friends. By the time the errand was complete and they rejoined the group, Yang was finishing up her story.
Yang flopped back down on the couch and Nora eyed the others trying to figure out where to sit. Surprisingly, it was Neptune who picked up on her quandary.
“Hey, you can sit next to me! This is a big chair!” Shooting out an elbow, he knocked Scarlet off the arm of his seat and onto the floor.
“What the hell!” Scarlet shrieked as he tumbled down. “Dude, not cool!”
“Oh, like you wouldn’t have done it to me if there was a girl available to sit with you instead,” Neptune smirked.
Scarlet rolled his eyes and blew out a huff of air up through his bangs, “Fine. But now where am I supposed to sit?”
Neptune shrugged and scooted over in the large chair. He patted the spot next to him and Nora plopped down laughing. “I could have just brought over another stool like Oscar, you know?” She sat her coffee down on the small table beside the chair and took a large bite out of her apple. Scarlet was still muttering darkly under his breath from his new spot on the floor.
“Oh, stop complaining,” Sage said sternly. Bending over he scooped Scarlet off the floor and sat back down with Scarlet on his lap. “There, now you have somewhere to sit!”
Scarlet sputtered, his face turning almost as red as his hair, while Yang laughed.
“Oh my god, you guys are so cute! I didn’t realize you were ‘partners’,” her emphasis was heavy on the word which was drawn out into a drawl. The air quotes didn’t help either.
“Goddamnit!!” Scarlet screeched, hopping up. “I hate you Sage. And I hate you too, Neptune. I should have gone with Sun!”
“Yeah, yeah, you know you like it,” Neptune laughed. Scarlet glared at him and stomped over to a nearby table to grab a stool.
“If by like, you mean, ‘daydream about killing you all while you sleep’, you’re absolutely right.”
“It’s good to know you’re dreaming about me, Scarlet,” Sage smirked. “I guess that means we’re on for Saturday?”
Scarlet’s face turned redder, but he muttered, “You know we are,” before turning away and studiously picking at a button on his jacket.
“Ah, young love…” Qrow sighed. “Well, as much as I’d like to stay and watch this drama unfold, Oscar and I have some business it’s about time we attended to at Haven. We’ll see you kids later!” Qrow stood up and stretched before glancing at Oscar who obediently hopped off his stool.
“Yeah, I guess it’s time to go. I’ll see you later. It was nice to meet you, Scarlet, Sage, Neptune, Yang,” Oscar nodded at each person in turn.
Qrow pulled out his flask and took a deep swig before shaking it with a slight frown then putting it back in a pocket. “C’mon pipsqueak, let’s go.”
The group was quiet for a moment as they followed Qrow and Oscar’s progress from the seating area to the front door. More sunlight streamed into the already bright room from the door for a moment, then disappeared again as the door swung shut behind the pair.
Scarlet walked over to Qrow’s recently vacated chair and flung himself into the seat, back against one arm, legs slung over the other, and settled his hands behind his head.
“What are you guys up to while you’re here?” he asked curiously, crossing one leg over the other and idly kicking one foot in the air while the other braced on the arm of the chair.
“Oh,” Nora hesitated, not sure how much of their mission Qrow would want to reveal. “I think Qrow wants to meet with a few people at Haven.”
Neptune nodded. “That makes sense, without Professor Ozpin around and that dragon frozen on top of the tower, they probably need to talk to the other Headmasters to figure out what to do with all the students from Beacon. Maybe you guys can start coming to Haven with us!” He winked at Nora and slung an arm around the back of the chair behind her shoulders. “Haven could stand a little new blood.”
“In other words, some girls who haven’t already shot Neptune down,” Sage added.
Neptune grinned at Sage, “Girls don’t shoot me down.”
“He’s right,” Scarlet sighed. “For whatever reason, the female populace seems to find his cheesy lines, obviously dyed hair, lack of dancing skill, and inexplicable fear of water to be attractive.”
“He is pretty cute,” Yang laughed. “Have you heard about the adorable way he clung to my arm when we had to go to Junior’s nightclub looking for information?”
“No!” Sage leaned towards Yang looking delighted. “Please, share!”
Yang launched into the story, starting from when Sun and Neptune crashed into team RWBY’s dorm room while Neptune protested and was shushed by his teammates.
Nora finished her apple and started in on the orange, letting the conversation flow around her, oblivious to the concerned looks Yang was shooting her way. She would have rather have had pancakes or maybe waffles, but right now they reminded her too strongly of Ren. She idly wondered where he was right now and when he was going to join them. With a small sigh, she pulled out her notepad and made another hash mark. Not thinking about Ren was hard and she wasn’t very good at it. She found that she was caught between wishing Ren was with her and being glad he wasn’t around. She always enjoyed spending time with him, but right now she felt a bit raw and wasn’t entirely sure she could keep her sadness out of her eyes and voice. At least not enough that Ren wouldn’t notice. The trouble with falling in love, and then trying to fall out of love, with your best friend was that they were the most likely to notice when something was wrong. Of course, he never seemed to have noticed how she felt to start with, so maybe this wouldn’t be any different.
“So what do you say, Nora?” Neptune leaned close and asked.
Nora started slightly, “I’m sorry, I tuned out for a minute. Say about what?”
“Coming to the end of semester party with us tomorrow night,” Scarlet explained. “Yang won’t go because she’s concerned about making trouble, but you could totally go.”
“Yeah, and Ruby, Ren, and Jaune are welcome to come as well,” Sage added.
“Yeah, sure!” Nora tried to make her voice bright enthusiastic. “Count me in. I hope someone’s bringing snacks!”
“Yay!” Neptune cheered, throwing his arms in the air. “This is going to be so much fun!” He threw his arm around Nora and gave her a quick side hug. Nora laughed and leaned against him for a moment. Maybe a party would be fun – at the very least it would be distracting.
Neptune held out his scroll, “Put your contact info in and I’ll message you with the place and time. The local network in the city still works most of the time.”
Nora took the scroll and quickly punched in her contact information. Seconds later, her own scroll pinged with Neptune’s message.
“Sweet, looks like we’re all set!” Neptune said happily.
During the exchange, Nora and Neptune had shifted in the chair and were now facing each other, knees brushing while the rest of their bodies were angled towards the back corners of the seat. It was actually slightly easier and made talking more feasible than sitting side by side. Sage, Yang, and Scarlet had begun discussing different video games and were debating where they might be able to find a system with a large enough screen for all of them to play.
“Do you have your trident with you?” Nora asked curiously.
“No, why?”
“I wanted to look at it – I noticed at the tournament that you used an electrical discharge. Was that part of the weapon or your semblance?” Nora leaned forward eagerly. “It’s rare to find someone else who uses electricity regularly.”
“I kind of noticed that was your thing,” Neptune smiled. “It’s not my semblance, I use dust to add the electrical component into my trident. I can swap it out for other things, but electricity is my favorite honestly.” Neptune pulled his scroll back out and flipped through the screens quickly. “Here’s the blueprint I used when I was building it.”
Nora leaned close and studied the image. “This is amazing! Did you design it yourself?”
“Yeah, if you look here,” Neptune pointed to an area on the handle, “You can see where I add the dust cartridges and this piece here,” he moved his finger to another section, zooming in to enlarge it, “lets me pick when to apply the effect and whether it’s in rifle mode or trident.”
Nora continued to ask questions which Neptune gladly answered, and for a few minutes Ren was driven entirely from her mind. At least until…
“Nora?” Ren’s voice said, a question clear in the tone. Nora visibly jumped having been engrossed in her conversation deeply enough she hadn’t noticed him approach. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, hey, Renny!” Nora heard herself laugh nervously and inwardly winced. Well, that was awkward and not at all the way to make it seem like everything was normal. “Neptune was showing me the design for his trident. It’s reallycool,hebuiltithimself. Helikeselectricityforhismainattack,eventhough itcanuseothertypesofdusttoo.Infact…”
“Guess who!” Yang trilled, reaching around and covering Ren’s eyes from behind, effectively interrupting Nora’s rapidly deteriorating explanation.
“Yang, it hasn’t been THAT long.” Ren said solemnly. “I still recognize your voice.”
“Nothing ever gets by you!” Yang laughed. She dropped her hand and moved around to stand beside Nora and Neptune’s chair. “Good to see you!” She lightly punched Ren in the shoulder. He winced and rubbed his arm while narrowing his eyes at her. Then he laughed softly.
“It’s good to see you, Yang. Things haven’t been the same without you and the rest of team RWBY.”
“Long time, no see, Ren!” Neptune exclaimed. “We’ve been wondering where you were, everyone else came down ages ago. But don’t worry, I’ve been taking good care of Nora for you!”
A frown flitted across Ren’s face so fast Nora wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t imagine it.
“Do you want some tea, Ren?” Nora asked. “I can go grab some, I think I saw they have the herbal blend you like.”
“That’s okay,” Ren demurred. “I actually promised Qrow I’d head over to the library when I got up this morning. He asked me to look into a few things for him.”
“Ugh, who wants to go to the library when we aren’t even in classes?” Yang groaned. “Hey, Nora – why don’t we go find a good place to spar for the afternoon? The weather’s nice and I’d like to stretch out the kinks from riding for so long. You guys in?” Yang threw a look at team SSN.
Sage glanced at his scroll, “Actually, we’ve got to get going. We have a couple of classes to finish up this afternoon. Time to pack it in, boys.”
Neptune and Scarlet both groaned and climbed to their feet. “I don’t see why they keep giving us assignments on the day before break,” Scarlet groused.
“I know, right?” Sage said in a voice heavy with sarcasm. “It’s almost like they’re trying to teach us something. It’s dreadful.”
“Cheer up, Scarlet,” Neptune said, clapping a hand on Scarlet’s shoulder. “At least Sun isn’t going to get us detention on the last day again.”
“Every cloud has a silver lining I suppose,” Scarlet sighed. “We’ll see you guys tomorrow. Let Nept know if Ruby and Jaune want to come along.”
“Come along to what?” Ren asked.
“Oh, right! We’re having an end of semester party tomorrow,” Neptune explained. “You want to come? Nora already said she’d go.”
“I don’t know,” Ren said quietly. “We’ll see.”
“Well, the more the merrier! Hope to see you! Do you want to tag along with us now? We can drop you by the library,” Neptune offered.
“Actually, that would be helpful. Thank you. Nora, do you need anything before I go?” Ren asked, glancing at his partner.
“Nope, I’m good! Sounds like Yang and I will be busy this afternoon. Catch you at dinner?” Nora rocked back and forth on her toes, hoping her agitation wasn’t clear.
“Okay,” Ren agreed. “See you then.”
Team SSN led the way out of the inn, with Ren falling in behind, Scarlet and Neptune chatting animatedly with periodic comments from Sage and Ren. Nora withdrew her notebook again and marked several new hashes on the page, almost savagely.
“Well, let’s go see where we can find to spar,” Yang said. “And when I beat you, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on.”