A/N: For a Tumblr request submitted to rwbyships on tumblr.

Request: Nora Valkyrie/Lie Ren (Renora) "friend-fluff at the Carnival". (Request by topographical-curves on tumblr)

Sloths At The Festival

Summary: Anyone taking a guess would say that Nora had dragged Ren to the Vytal Festival. And they would be right, but that didn't mean he was reluctant.

Note: Remember in my story Hopeful Romantic how I mentioned Ren and Nora at the Festival too? No? Well I did, and here they are.

Most people woke up to an alarm clock, or a similar alarm on their Scroll. Others had a seemingly faultless internal clock that let them awaken on time. Still others were woken by family, friends, or loved ones.

By himself, Lie Ren fell into the second category…but he hadn't woken up alone in over a year.

"Wake up, lazy butt!"

Nora. His own personal—and very noisy—alarm clock. Magenta eyes cracked, then widened suddenly as one hundred thirty-five pounds hit him all at once.

"Oof-"

"C'monnnnn," Nora sat on his stomach, prodding at his cheek. "Get upppp. I made you coffee and everything. The sun's been up for an hour and I wanna get back down to the Festival. We haven't seen the animals yet. Oh! Do you think there'll be llamas?"

"Nora, if the sun had been up for an hour, I would have woken up on my own," Ren corrected her gently.

The next poke was right on his nose. "Boop."

Ren pinched his nose in apparent irritation, but even he felt the smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

Nora slid back as he sat up, but didn't get off him, instead settling herself comfortably in his lap as she handed him the coffee she had promised. Ren didn't bother to sniff or sip at it, instead taking an ordinary, measured gulp. Nora knew well enough by now how he took it. Still positively bouncing with enthusiasm at the potential for llamas, Nora was holding a muffin for him as well, though she still didn't move.

"It's rather difficult to get ready with you sitting on me," Ren observed.

Nora shrugged. "You're not done with breakfast yet, so I don't need to get up. Want me to brush your hair?"

Ren nodded, and Nora leaned past him to grab the hairbrush off their bedside table, reached behind him to pull out his hair tie, and began brushing away, all without ever leaving his lap. There was a comfortable silence in the old routine, and even Jaune didn't comment on it anymore. Ren supposed it might be considered odd for a boy and girl of their age to be so close, considering they were not 'together-together', but Ren had never known anything else. It was just their way.

The first months at Beacon had been slightly awkward—the two of them were no strangers to bunking, but Pyrrha and Jaune were new additions. After several months, though, they were comfortable enough around the others—and perhaps more to the point, Nora had broken her assigned bed jumping on it too much—that they simply begun sharing without anyone batting an eye. Well, Yang across the hall had batted several, but they all knew she didn't mean anything by it.

Stifling a final yawn, Ren leaned forward so that Nora could re-clasp his hair into its usual tail. This done, he placed his hands on her hips and channelled enough Aura to let him lift her off of him. He only shifted her to the side, though, setting her down and swinging his legs out of their bed so he could get ready.

The Vytal Festival was coming to a close at last. The Tourney was finished, the vendors aggressively hawking their final-day sales, the rides on the midway with lines dozens long as residents and tourists alike hoping for a final bit of fun before the next Festival. Still, it was not nearly as packed as on opening day, when it seemed that quite literally everyone and their mother had come out. As it was, there was still quite a crowd, however, and Ren was as grateful as ever for Nora's ebullient presence, which always seemed to part the masses fairly easily.

Ren was quiet by nature, and undoubtedly an introvert, but it would be inaccurate to call him shy. A shy person would never have been able to stand Nora's constant chatter and invasions of personal space, no matter how long they'd known her. It was, he knew, part of why she valued him so highly—why they had been best friends for so many years.

Her enthusiasm had run off other playmates for years, her parents had confided to his one time, years ago, when they thought he and Nora weren't listening. Then again, they never realized that Nora was quite sneaky, and rather adept at going unnoticed when she wanted to. She just usually didn't feel the need. She had declared early on that she wanted to be a mighty Huntress, and even if Ren hadn't planned to become a Huntsman anyway, he would have followed her through combat school. His magenta eyes and quiet demeanor had also left Ren without many friends as a child, until this pink-clad firework rocketed into his life and never left.

Ren was pulled from his musings as Nora seized his hand and began dragging him toward the petting zoo. He allowed it, though he raised an eyebrow when she glanced back.

"You were lagging behind!" she giggled, tugging harder.

No, he hadn't been, but it was another old excuse for them to hold hands, a relic of the times when they were made fun of for it as kids. It didn't make a lot of sense to Ren, but then, most quote-unquote 'normal' interactions between other people didn't seem to. He had seen pairs of self-professed 'best friends' who seemed shy or downright scared to so much as brush shoulders; seen them at each other's throats mere months later. He just didn't get it. What sort of 'best friends' were those? Schoolyard insults or no, Ren would much rather have what he had with Nora—an understanding that went beyond words, a knowledge that whatever jokes they may have about being (or not being) 'together-together', they were still undeniably together.

Frankly, it was probably just as well that the sentiment was unspoken. He had a feeling that Nora's squeals would shatter glass for miles around if he ever tried to put the understanding he felt into words.

"Nora," he said, and she paused, looking back. Ren tilted his head at the tent beside them. "There are animals in this one."

Nora's eyes rose to the sign, which she had clearly not read. Exotic Menagerie Menagerie. Ren gave her hand a pull of his own, and she stumbled. He smirked at the pout she gave him as they went in.

Nora gave a huge, dramatic gasp almost at once, and Ren instinctively reinforced his fingers with Aura an instant before Nora crushed them in excitement. "Ren!" she breathed. "They have a capybara!"

"I noticed," he said. Capybaras were easily Nora's second-favorite animal, coming in just above llamas and just below sloths. While llamas weren't uncommon on Vytal, at least nearer to Vacuo, it was the first time either of them had seen more than a picture of a capybara, and the pressure Nora was exerting on Ren's hand told him that the giant rodent had lived up to her expectations.

He stepped forward, and the animal shuffled over to him, sniffing curiously. It was tied to a post by a harness around its chest, which he supposed was kinder than leaving it in a cage, and there were piles of grasses around that must have been its food. He knelt, scooped some up, and passed it to Nora. She held it out, and the oversized cavy waddled up to eat from her hand. Nora was clearly doing her best to muffle her squeaks of delight, but the capybara kept looking up at her curiously.

In the end, Ren had to drag Nora away, knowing that she would stay in the Menagerie Menagerie all day if left to her own devices, but equally certain that she would be upset at not seeing any other animals. No sooner had he stepped outside, though, than Nora suddenly released his hand. Before he could even look around, though, she had leaped up onto his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

"You know, you could always just ask for a piggyback ride," he told her, once he had regained his balance.

Nora giggled, and squeezed for a moment with her legs, prompting him to support them with his arms. "Why is it called a piggyback ride?" she wondered aloud, not dignifying his comment with a response. She leaned her head on his shoulder and mumbled. "I feel more like a sloth."

Ren's lips twitched. "A slothback ride, then," he agreed. "Where do you want to go next?"

Nora raised an arm slowly, and pointed with three curved fingers, like a sloth's claws. "Bhhrrrra…"

Ren set off at once in the indicated direction.

"I still don't think that's what a sloth sounds like."

A/N: Well look who's finally back. Have a great big pile of my Team Sloth headcanon. Yes, they totally share a bed and hold hands and brush each other's hair and sit on each other's laps and it's still platonic and beautiful and perfect. Why not? Why a capybara? Again, why not!? Capybaras are awesome and you won't convince me that Nora wouldn't love them. Final scene comes from a piece of fanart that I've seen somewhere.