Nora has always considered herself resilient, an optimist, someone who rolls with the punches no matter how bad things get, someone who keeps a smile on her face and tries to see the good in things no matter how bleak things are. Someone who helps the others keep their motivation and keep moving forward when things get tough. But even she is having trouble trying to see the silver lining, the thin sliver of good, in their current situation.
It's not as if these past couple of years have been a walk in the park to begin with. They'd lost Pyrrha, and their school. She'd watched Jaune, their friend and leader, struggle with his grief and guilt while traveling for months to another continent. They'd learned ancient, horrible, disturbing secrets about the world they lived in and its past. They'd witnessed countless deaths and suffering. But somehow, they'd managed to keep moving forward even through all of that, despite how hard it had been.
She's not so sure that they'll all be able to do the same thing this time around. Not when the past couple of days have just felt like a series of crushing blows, kicking them repeatedly when they were already down. First, it'd been the attack on Mantle, then Ironwood's betrayal, Salem's arrival on the scene, and their own narrow escape after they'd been attacked by Neo—and lost the lamp of knowledge. Then they'd had to deal with the worsening situation in Mantle, Salem's attack on Atlas, and in turn Ironwood's decision to attack Mantle. On a lesser scale, she'd also been attempting to deal with the foundations of her relationship with Ren being shaken—one of the most important facets of her understanding of herself—worrying about her teammates while they'd gone their separate ways, and adjusting to the new, permanent scars on her body, a testament to her own recklessness.
And then came the finishing blow: the loss of Jaune, Penny, and the entirety of team RWBY. And Nora isn't sure how they're going to be able to move past this enormous new loss.
Part of her wants to believe that Jaune, Ruby, and her team might not be dead, that they might have somehow, miraculously survived the fall from the bridge and were just trapped somewhere, trying to find their way back. After all, they didn't know for certain what was down there. There's still hope to be had that their friends aren't gone forever.
Oscar had seemed open to the suggestion, offering some insight from Ozpin about how that could certainly be a possibility, and that the path of hope was the best one to travel—but Ren had rejected it outright. Even though she knows that Ren has never been as much of an optimist as she has, the dismissal had still stung—and still hurts, if she's being honest with herself. Despite their conversation back at the Schnee Manor, it felt like the gap between the two of them was only continuing to widen.
All that aside, Nora tries to keep herself from wallowing in her feeling too much. With Jaune and Ruby gone, someone has to keep the hope alive in their little group, even if at times it feels impossible. Ozpin is good at providing suggestions for what they should do, but he's a bit less helpful on the motivation part. And Ren, well—her partner hasn't exactly been a fountain of optimism lately. So it falls on Nora, and she'll try her best, even if there isn't a day that goes by where she doesn't wish that she could ask Jaune or Ruby for advice.
She'll keep the hope alive for all of them, for as long as it takes. And someday, hopefully, she'll get to see her friends again, and things will be okay again, and it'll all have been worth it.
So that's what she'd doing now, helping the city of Vacuo settle in the new influx of refugees from Atlas and Mantle. Even with the broadcast going out, no one in the kingdom had been expecting, let alone prepared for, the entire kingdom of Atlas to collapse (Literally) overnight. They help where they can, finding food and shelter for the refugees and taking down names as they try to reunite friends and families. It's not terribly difficult work, but it keeps her busy, and keeps her from dwelling too much on other things
Nora has her huntress license, after all. Regardless of how she feels, it's her job to help the people of Remnant. Even with everything else that's happened, at least she can still do that.
"Excuse me, dear," says the woman Nora is currently assisting with filling out paperwork. "You're friends with that girl from the broadcast, right? I thought I saw you with her before."
"The girl from the broadcast" is how Ruby has been referred to by people since they've arrived in Vacuo. Ruby would hate it. Nora feels like she's been punched in the gut every time she hears it.
"Uh, yes, I am," Nora replies, trying her best to hide how much it hurts to hear those words. Every time, it's like ripping open the wound.
"Oh, good!" the woman says cheerfully, blithely oblivious to Nora's inner turmoil. "I was just wondering if you could thank her for me. She was helping me and my daughter carry our things back to the shelter the other day, but then she disappeared before we could thank her properly. Such a nice young girl."
Forget ripping open wounds; Nora feels like she can't breathe. "Uh, I—I will," she somehow manages to stammer out around the tightness in her chest. "You—you're absolutely sure that it was the same girl?"
The woman gives her an odd look. "Of course! I'd recognize her anywhere. I've never seen anyone else who has silver eyes like that."
"Just checking," Nora replies absently, forcing herself to breathe again and smile reassuringly at the woman. "I'll definitely thank her for you. Now, let's go over what you've written here to make sure that everything is correct."
Thank the gods that she's the last person on Nora's list for this shift. She feels like if she has to sit on this for too long she'll explode. Once the woman is taken care of, she all but sprints back to Shade Academy, to the dorm room that she, Ren, and Oscar have been sharing.
"I've never seen anyone else who has silver eyes like that." Well, Nora hasn't either. And while she's heard of the phenomenon where after a person dies, you see them everywhere, she's pretty sure that that only happens to people who they were close with—not to complete strangers. For the first time in weeks, she feels a massive surge of hope.
"Ren!" she calls breathlessly, skidding to a halt in the doorway. "Ren, there's something I need to talk to you about! Someone's seen Ruby!"
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