"And so there we were...surrounded by Ursa..."

Ren stared at Nora impassively for a prolonged moment before shaking his head and moving his attention to cutting his pancakes. He'd interrupted her for over a month...might as well see where she would go with this if unburdened by Ren's factual input.

Pyrrha looked oddly invested in Nora's story, leaning forwards and resting her chin on her intertwined fingers, her elbows on the table. Jaune didn't seem to notice, and simply ate his pancakes happily, both from the undeniable elite pancakes that Ren had made, and from the fact that today was going to be an easy one for him and his team.

Since nearly the entirety of the students attending Beacon, as well as the professors,had left for their missions, and Team JNPR still had a week to wait before they could visit a nearby town to shadow a sheriff, they had no commitments. No classes, no required combat training, and no putting yourself in immediate danger of a Beowolf's claws.

Jaune was particularly happy with that last bit.

"Thousands of them!" Nora shouted, standing up and slamming her hands down on the table, startling absolutely nobody on her team, though they all did raise an eyebrow at the amount of Ursa.

"Thousands?" Jaune asked through a mouthful of pancake. Ren looked at him and shook his head, as if to say, 'Just let it happen'.

"Thousands I say!" Nora declared, throwing her arms to the sky. "All of them were riding on the back of Nevermores, and those Nevermores were carrying Deathstalkers in their claws!"

Pyrrha focused on what Nora had said as hard as she could, trying to envision the ridiculous sight as vividly as possible. The individual hairs of the thousands of Ursa, each feather of the Nevermores, each of the eyes of the Deathstalkers, and every detail in between. It was complicated and required a lot of concentration to create a perfect mental picture in her mind, something Pyrrha needed more than anything at the moment, what with the object of her newfound affections sitting directly to the right of her.

"Pyrrha, are you feeling alright?"

Pyrrha blinked, bringing herself back into reality, and instinctively turned her head to the source of the voice: Ren. With his attention away from Nora's story, for the most part, he had noticed the look of intense focus on Pyrrha's face, and was searching her face with a vaguely concerned look written on his own.

While Pyrrha was happy that Jaune hadn't been the one to call her out, that happiness flew out the window as she felt his eyes on her. Just out of the corner of her eye, on the edge of her peripherals, she could see that Ren's observation had caught Jaune's attention. She started picking at her pancake, trying to seem casual. Before she could prepare an excuse, however, Jaune spoke up.

"Cut her some slack, Ren," Jaune said, waving his fork dismissively. "She was training since five in the morning. If I'd gotten as far on the practice rounds as she had, I'd be pretty out of it too."

Ren opened his mouth as if to say that her look hadn't been one of exhaustion or disinterest, and rather one of focus, but then he glanced at Pyrrha.

Pyrrha, to the untrained eye, looked as if nothing was the matter with her. But to Ren, her emotions were laid out clearly on her face, and evident in her body language. Her lips were just slightly curled into her mouth, her eyes gravitated away from Jaune whenever possible, her arms had left the table and were now crossed over her chest, she was shifting in her seat, and she was leaning just slightly away backwards, away from the table.

Pyrrha didn't want to be called out on her behavior. It would force her to have a conversation about just why she was acting like she was; a conversation that could lead to her saying something or her teammates finding something out that she would rather keep to herself. At least, that's what Ren had picked up on. Just what she was hiding was as clear to him as mud. The only idea he had as to what her behavior pertained to Jaune in some way or another.

If she really was just tired, she wouldn't be worried about people talking about how tired she was. Ren could decide to pursue this topic and force Pyrrha to confront it, or at the very least for her to come up with some excuse, or...

Ren frowned lightly and shrugged before turning to Nora.

"You were saying?" he asked blandly. Nora smiled widely, jumping right back into her story.

"So, the Nevermores dropped the Deathstalkers down, and they started to chase us, and then the Ursas started jumping off the Nevermores to dive bomb us, and then the..." Nora went on without stopping for breath, her entire body moving animatedly and hyperactively as she wove her tale. Pyrrha let out a nearly imperceptible sigh of relief. She listened intently to Nora's story for a minute or two before glancing idly at Ren.

He was staring directly into her eyes, his pink irises burning into her soul. Pyrrha felt a cold hand wrap around her heart before Ren looked back to his pancakes as if nothing had happened. But Pyrrha knew better than to assume that they had just caught eyes coincidentally.

Ren was onto her.

A/N: Short chapter, sorry about that, tired, longer chapter tomorrow, maybe, I dunno, gonna sleep now.