A/N: This story will be told from the alternating perspectives of Ren and Nora. I've also changed the first two chapters in light of the recent season giving us new info.
Nora
Here we were again! I knew it. I've been doing this same quest for months. It was the middle of the night. The moon looked slightly more shattered than usual. I could see the red eyes of Ursai surrounding me from every corner but I could take them down easily. The main problem was Ren. He was absolutely helpless without me. I mean sure, he was a great student, but I was the real fighter in this relationship. Not relationship relationship, but you get what I mean.
Anyway, I ran in the direction of town. I knew I was in the Emerald Forest and the place was crawling with Grim. As long as I could find Ren, he would be alright. It was urgent. I had to save him. I had to help him.
This was me and Ren. Ren and me. Or is it I? Well, whatever. It doesn't matter. Ren was important. He was exciting. The latest adventure was always waiting with him around. He was too exciting, like a whirl of pink bombs.
"Ren! I screamed as I ran. "Ren!" I would've rode on Magnhild but there was nothing to give me a good enough boost and I didn't want to waste bullets. He could hold out for a few minutes. He was weaker than me but Ren wasn't that weak. Know what I mean?
Ren
Here we were again... Nora was having this same dream yet again. It's been going on for nearly a month now without rest. I was getting sick of it, and I'm not sure how she wasn't. Her dreams were too realistic in every sense of the word. Quite often, they're nightmares about losing the things she care about. She'll wake up screaming. When I'm with her, it's not as bad. She'll have dreams like this. She'll have a bit of fun. Tire me out. I'm only here to watch the story progress, maybe help keep the nightmares stay away. It doesn't always work. I try not to sleep most of the time but coffee only gets me so far.
It was the middle of the day. The sun was hot. The air felt dry. Nora remembers every detail incorrectly even though she knows it's a dream and she's the one controlling it. This was all very frustrating. Earlier in the week, I had started to wonder whether or not these were actually my dreams, and I was just pulling Nora into them, but it didn't exactly work that way. I can only enter other people's thoughts and dreams. I can't really do anything to change them. It's a bit of a pain when I've lived with giant groups of people my whole life.
Nora's dreams were very easy to pinpoint. The scenes and events remained the same every time. That was Nora's personality seeping in. She didn't change. Her thoughts and feelings about everything, if left alone would always remain the same. Because of that, I know that there are two Beowolves in the trees right now. I didn't even have to look to know they were there. Everything happens the same way, more or less. She just liked to change the story on her own whims. Maybe add a few extra details.
She seemed to appear in completely different places in every dream even though it was technically the same dream. She acts the same every time. I can hear her now, screaming my name as she runs down the path. In fact, I can see her now, running down the path and screaming my name.
And she's stopped. She must've seen something shiny or interesting in the trees. It was hard to ever hold her attention unless food was involved.
Nora
I couldn't see him. He must be so afraid right now, wondering where his almighty protector was. I had to help him. I had to protect him! I had to—Ooh, a sloth. They were such funny-looking animals. They made so little noise and they had such long hair. All they ever did was eat and sleep and yet, they were so skinny with their flimsy limbs. They were so like Ren. Ren is a sloth, maybe? In fact, this one in particular was particularly Ren-like.
His fur was all black and long. A couple strands were pink. It looked so much like Ren. And because it reminded me of Ren, I remembered Ren! I remembered that he was still in danger, and he needed my help! I turned to keep running but I hadn't needed to run any further, because there he was! Standing right next to me, completely nude except for a towel!
"Nora…"
"Yes, Ren?"
"What are you doing?"
"Talking to this sloth that looks just like you."
Ren
There was in fact, a sloth in front of her surprisingly. However, it didn't actually look like me. It just happened to be wearing my clothes, which was in fact, nothing new. I tended to enter these dreams either fully nude or somewhere close to it. However, she had a decent enough mind to let my clothes be somewhere nearby, probably on top of a tree or in this case, on a poor defenseless animal.
She talked to the sloth as I dressed myself. We had about 2 minutes before the Beowolves attacked, as was customary. They wouldn't move unless the two of us were together. I wish I had a lint roller. The sloth left a lot of fur on my clothes. It felt really itchy.
Nora
The sloth was just awfully cute. He had such tiny eyes and a crazy huge body. And look at those tiny paws, and his sharp claws! Oh, I just wanted to squish him to death. However, as Ren put his clothes on, I noticed that the sloth didn't look as much like him as I'd thought. He just had the same quiet demeanor. Yeah, Ren had the attitude of this sloth!
As I moved to touch it, the sloth disappeared. The earth was shaking. Something was coming from the trees. I turned and saw them. Dozens of Ursa surrounded us on all sides. They were a varying degree of shapes and sizes. Now that Ren and I were together, they would be no match. We would take them down with ease.
I was right of course. They were down in a matter of minutes. We dragged two of them to town and had a weaponssmith who looked a lot like Pyrrha skin them. It was glorious, the pelt was all soft and fluffy. I almost didn't want to sell them myself. But we had to! The temptation of the lien was just too great! We had to. There were boatloads of lien and a melon castle. There would be pancakes. There would be PANCAKES! Without lien, how could Ren buy groceries to make pancakes?
Ren
The two Beowolves dived from the trees. They were immensely large, but I knew they'd be relatively weak. For one thing, this was a dream. For another, they were only large because Nora expected me to skin them and sell them as rugs.
We each took one although either of us could've finished them off without much of a problem. Nora liked to pretend that she believed we were equal, but she was stronger than me in terms of raw power. She knew it, I knew it, and she knew I knew she knew it. I dragged both bodies back to town, one in each hand. Nora would've helped had she not been so fascinated by everything around her: shiny things, pink things, nude little old ladies on occasion.
When we reached town, Pyrrha was waiting for us to skin the Beowolves. I'd asked her about this before, but it wasn't actually Pyrrha. I hadn't pulled her into the dream on accident or anything. Nora just didn't have many friends and she wasn't any good with faces. All the people in her dream looked like something out of a Mistrel story book unless we really needed to talk to them about something. Then they looked like one of our team members. Imagine a low budget film.
In any case, I skinned the Beowolves and we traded them with Jaune for a paper boat holding a few lien and about 3 melons. She's standing on tops of the melons as we speak.
"Ahahahaha! I'm Queen of the castle. I'm queen of the castle!"
Nora
I was looking over the land. I traded the Ursa-skinned rugs for a boatload of lien and a castle. I was the queen of this melon castle. All this town and its melons belonged to me. I smiled upon my kingdom, gracing them with my divine love and happiness. Yes, my kingdom of melons would be a lovely place.
From where I was standing I could see Ren talking to the Ursa rug trader who looked a little like Jaune. My smile slackened just a bit. We would wake up in a few minutes and this dream would be over. It would be morning and that would mean that another 24 hours passed. Another day had come and gone. The next dream might not be as nice. He might not be there to keep the nightmares away.
These adventures with him were fun, he never got sick of them or of me. In all my years of being his friend, he had never once told me I was annoying or to go away.
I looked forward to these dreams every night, even more than a late night snack of pancakes. Which are always delicious. It was a little more time in the day that I could spend with him. Ren was good at everything. He was smart, handsome, and a good cook. He would make a great wife someday for some lucky person out there, and he would leave me behind. Me, his best friend, would be left behind.
From the time we were babies at the hospital he was next to me. He sat next to me in Signal. He sleeps next to me here at Beacon, but how long will that last? He won't be with me forever. In four years, we'll all graduate. He'll be a great Hunstman, and I'll just be me. I'll still be the same, silly, hyperactive Nora.
Ren
Her smile was bright. She looked small standing on two melons and had the third one under her arm. That was her castle. She was a simple girl, didn't need much in life. Food mostly, but not much else. Simple Nora, I don't think anyone else would call her that. The people and buildings in town were disappearing. Soon it would just be me and her, and the melons in a white expanse.
She always thought of us as meeting at birth. Two babies in the same cradle or something like that. It wasn't. I met her at the orphanage when we were 3 or 4. I didn't even talk to her the first couple years I knew her. It was an accident, actually. Two rejects that nobody wanted. I try not to think about it. Whenever I do, it's just a blanket of white. Actually, that's all I see right now.
This was the signal. It was that time again. The dream was about to end. Any minute now, I'd wake up in my own bed with her face pressed up to mine, screaming that it was morning and that we had classes or training or something like that. I'd ignore her for a while and then she'd follow me to wherever I wanted to go. She was like my shadow. I could always rely on her to be nearby and to help me when I needed it. She was stable like one too. My little pink shadow.