Author's Note:The timeline of this chapter is somewhere out in Mistral, before Beacon but wayyy later than Kuroyuri. I wrote this with the idea they were 15 and making money by taking on odd jobs involving killing Grimm, and then staying in said towns before setting off again. 15 year old nomads crossed with bounty hunters crossed with huntsman. Yup. And I felt like ending with the idea that Ren also had romantic feelings for her before Beacon but, unlike Nora (who did realize and admit in "Boop" that she was definitely feeling things), he just tried his hardest not to think about it or admit it, even to himself.
She sat cross legged in front of the window, the sunset her only light source as she worked on more grenades. She'd forgotten to do so before their last venture back into the wilderness; They'd already left the small village, in search of a few beowolves that were giving local hunters and fishermen trouble out in the surrounding forest, when she finally remembered her sad lack of explosives.
Of course, the duo had still dispatched them fairly quickly and easily (they'd been doing this for years now, after all) but she still lamented the fact that she hadn't gotten to blow them off the face of Remnant. An undeniable truth of life is that things are simply more fun when big pink explosions are involved.
Thankfully, she didn't need to blow the Grimm up for the villagers to be grateful. Just get rid of them. And most of the time, they'd have other little jobs anyway. Being able to kill Grimm was in high demand out here, and though they weren't paid like licensed huntsmen, at least they made enough lien to pay for shelter, food, and ammunition (sometimes not all at once).
So, now that they were staying in this little inn for the next week, Nora was taking the opportunity to make sure that this time, she'd have the ability to rain death and destruction over Grimm via big pink explosions (the best way to rain death and destruction down on things). Her best friend, however, wasn't thrilled she was handling grenades indoors.
"Come on, Ren!" She whined, having set down the weapons and dramatically flopped onto the bed, next to an exasperated Ren.
He sighed, "How can you be sure you won't accidentally detonate one? At best, you'll start a fire."
Nora scoffed, "I'm like, seventy-five percent sure it won't blow up, and that's basically a hundred."
Ren raised an eyebrow, "You're remarkably terrible at inspiring my confidence in your abilities to both not set off explosives, and comprehend math." He glanced over at her, observing silently that she looked very nice when the sunset caught her hair. Depending on how she moved, the strands would go from coral to copper to golden.
"You're the only person who's ever tried to teach me math, so really, all that means is that you suck at teaching math." Briefly, Nora stuck her tongue out and caught his eyes. He sighed, tearing his gaze away from her face. Which definitely did not look very pretty at the moment. Definitely.
"Besides," she confidently began, "Excluding all the times my calculations have been wrong, my calculations have never been wrong!!"
He pinched the bridge of his nose, spell only slightly broken. "If you blow the room up, I'm not helping you put out the fire."
She smiled, getting back to work on her grenades, "That's okay, I can put the fire out myself when it starts."
Ren nodded tiredly before his eyes widened in alarm, "Wait, when the fire starts?"
Nora blissfully ignored his concern as she slid off the bed and landed on the floor, beginning to load her weapon again.
"Nora, what do you mean when?"
"Can't hear you over the sound of all the Grimm cowering in fear," she fiddled with one of the grenades before shoving it into Magnhild.
"Nora-"
"There, all done!" She set down the fully loaded hammer by the desk, and smiled proudly, hands on her hips.
"Now you don't need to worry about anything catching fire…yet… and we can go to bed!" She paused, beaming. "You love going to bed. Sleeping is like, your third favorite thing, after cooking and me, of course." She added, giving him her best "How can you be mad at something this adorable?" smile.
He regarded her for a moment, "The room better not spontaneously combust."
"I was only slightly rough with the canisters." She said, only half joking. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she hummed something and took the room key off the desk. "I'm going to go grab food from downstairs. If the room catches fire, yell for me."
"Remember to stop, drop and roll~!" She sang as she closed the door behind her.
Ren blinked a few times before sighing deeply and running a hand through his hair. He'd always been patient, slow to anger and annoyance in general; Combined with the fact it was nigh impossible to stay annoyed at Nora (compared to others, who'd be met with slightly irritated silence as opposed to his normal, content silence), he'd never truly argued with her (sometimes, admittedly poorly thought out) plans. Only talked her down from her well-meaning yet incredibly dangerous ideas. She was his best (and only) friend, after all.
Recently, however, he had noticed a slight shift. As to what that shift was, he was trying to figure it out, but lately he'd started noticing little things about her that made his heart beat irregularly or his thought process halt, among other things. Perhaps he was getting sick.
There was another, more likely explanation. One he tried not to dwell on. He couldn't really be sure of anything, not right now, so it was useless thinking on it too long... still, trying not to think about something and actually not thinking about it were two different things. He had maybe a seventy-five percent stake in these… feelings… being anything other than him getting sick.
But then again, to some people, seventy-five is basically a hundred.