It had been a few days after the attack, and Qrow had been driving the kids onwards like soldiers. Though this was both a good thing, and a bad thing. It was good because it kept their mind off what happened, but bad because they were always exhausted and on the verge of collapse.
"Alright kids. We are coming up on a city in a few hours. We will stay a few days, since you two look like you need a rest." Qrow told them both, hiding the fact that he planned to ditch them there on the second day and carry on with his mission to find information about this new figure in the underworld, the 'Queen.'
Lie, or as he is now called, Ren, nodded silently. Lately he had been becoming more quiet due to a mix of fatigue and nightmares. Every night he saw what happened to his village over and over again. But it always seemed to be blurry, and far off.
Meanwhile Nora cheered with enough energy for both of them. "Oh! Will we be sleeping in actual beds? Will we be getting real food? How about some juice? I would love some juice!" She cheered, eyes wide with excitement at the chance to have some kind of normality in her life once again.
Ren couldn't help but smile and laugh a little at his friend's act, and even saw Qrow crack a small smile at the redhead's show of excitement.
"Don't get too excited. I don't exactly carry a fortune of Lien on me." Qrow told the girl, before moving a bit faster towards the village. Though unlike before where the pair of kids would lag behind, they now kept up, they now had a reason to take another step other than to just see the next day.
Soon the trio had arrived at the city. Ren and Nora looked at it with wonder. The wall around it was almost three times as large as their old one, and made of metal instead of wood. It even had men in uniforms walking along it, instead of an older man at the gate, and younger men wandering aimlessly around, wishing for some action.
When they finally got inside, the younger two of the trio's eyes almost flew out of their heads. Kids were playing with balls and hoops in the street, adults were putting wet clothes on the drying lines. Happy banter could be heard from a nearby bar/inn. There was even a man on the side of the street playing a guitar while singing.
"Welcome to Sanctuary. Safest place this side of Vale. There was once a movement to turn this place into the fifth kingdom, but was rejected on the terms of not having a hunter academy and not having a CCT. But they could have easily been built. The real reason is that it's government is a monarchy, lead by a lion faunus." Qrow told the kids, a small hint of anger in his voice. He knew that it was Ironwood that made the other kingdoms say no in fear of another faunus uprising.
If it was a kingdom, it could get bullhead flights out here, if there were bullheads coming out here, faunus wouldn't die in the wilderness on the way here, allowing them to come together and become a threat. At least, that's how Ironwood saw it.
"Whats a faunus?" Nora asked, tilting her head to the side slightly, as well as unknowingly widening her eyes as she asked the question. Qrow couldn't resist answering her, as his nieces did the same thing.
"See that girl with the bunny ears other there?" Qrow asked as he nodded to a small girl playing with a ball, as he knew not to point unless he wanted to raise suspicion. "She is a faunus, someone who has an animal trait. But that doesn't make them any less human than you or me. It just means they are a bit different."
Nora gasped in excitement at the sight of a pair of fluffy bunny ears. "Oh! Oh! Can I have a pair? Please! I would play with them all the time and never let them get lonely!" The young girl pleaded, but before Qrow could even reply, a hand was placed on her shoulder from behind, the hand belonging to Ren.
"Nora, I think you can only have them if you are born with them." The young lad told her, causing Nora to practically deflate before the two males of the group's very eyes. But she perked up instantly again once they started moving towards the bar/inn that the happy banter was coming from.
Only a moment later, the trio had booked two rooms, one for the guys and one for Nora. They had eaten and the kids went to bed early, looking forwards to a good rest. Meanwhile Qrow decided it was safe to start drinking now that the kids had headed off to bed. Come morning, the bar would not have a single drop left.
But as the night drew on, so did the dreams. A few hours after sundown, Ren dreamed a horrid nightmare. It was what happened to his home village, but much worse. Ren didn't get to Nora in time and she was caught by the King Taijitu. It battered away at her, again and again, until all that was left was a bloody mess.
Qrow was attacked by the Goliath that was shot down at the gate, his weapon uneffective against the thick hide of the beast. He was quickly killed by a tusk through his chest.
Ren saw his mother running towards him, so he ran towards her, desperate to at least save his dearest mother. Reaching out for her, they were almost together, when she was suddenly ran through the back with a giant Nevermore feather, and Ren was thrown back, unable to even save his mother from death.
Vision after vision flashed before the young boy's eyes. His brother's death, his father's, and all the workers. Every child that Ren went to school with, and the teachers. Faces that he couldn't put names to, and ones he could, they all died before his eyes, each on as brutal as the last.
Ren awoke with a jump. His face tear stained, and his clothes drenched with sweat. The young boy looked around frantically, trying to connect back to the reality of the world. The dark visions of Grimm and death slowly disappeared back into the darkness from what they came.
For an hour, Ren sat in the fetal position, heads between his knees, whimpering quietly. The emotions that he had been unable to feel at the time of his village being destroyed had all poured out at once, like a dam being opened right before it overflowed.
Eventually he started moving again, if only to find Qrow and Nora, just to make sure they had not died. His soft little feet made no sound on the wooden floor as he exited his room and headed towards the bar.
Peeking around the corner into the bar, Ren saw and heard Qrow singing loudly and drinking with no restraint. Feeling glad that Qrow was alive and well, the young lad moved back to the rooms to go find Nora.
Once he had gotten to his friends room, Ren put his ear to the door and began to listen. He knew better than to walk into a girls room. But instead of hearing Nora's snoring like normal, he heard something that made his heart stop and his blood run cold. It was a soft whimpering and crying.
The young lad took a deep breath to steel his will and opened the door. The slight creak of the door opening caused Nora to jump, and her head snap to the side so she could look at the door.
Ren himself tried to enter the room as quietly as possible, even though Nora knew he was already in the room, and was watching him as he moved towards the bed.
"Nightmares?" The young boy asked, watching the girl as she nodded wordlessly.
In response, he climbed up onto Nora's bed and began to cradle her in his arms. It wasn't just to help his friend feel better, but also to reassure him that she existed, and that the dreams where not reality, and that reality was not the dreams.
"It's alright. We are safe." He cooed to the girl, calming not only her fears, but his own as well.
Soon the pair had fallen to sleep like that, the first of many times. But when morning finally came around, Qrow decided he had to break it to the pair that he was leaving them behind.
When the old man opened the door to Nora's room, he saw the pair cuddled up, just like how his nieces do when they remember what happened to Summer.
"Guess I'm take'n the round trip." Qrow said to himself as he quietly closed the door, already planning the trip back to Vale in his head.
Special thanks to my new mate ODST110 who edited this for me. They also got the creative juices flowing while discussing the fact that Nora and Ren were not freaking out in the first chapter. I had planned to turn this into a two-shot to show this, but I figured that would be months away at least.