Lie Ren had seen a lot of stuff in the short amount of time he spent in the wild of Anima.
From Grimm the likes of which have never been recorded properly to monsters in human skin that would prey on their own kind for Lien or sometimes, their base desires.
But nothing had ever prepared him for what he saw in front of him.
Because there was no way anyone could call what he was seeing normal.
"….Are we going in there?"
The timid voice from over his shoulder made him realize that Nora had awakened from her nap on his back.
And the source of their stupefaction happened to be the strange and shabby log cabin that looked like it was held together with hopes and dreams and its equally strange inhabitant, a strange boy that was their age with a missing left arm, simply continued trying to chop the wood with his only arm.
In the few months that Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie spent in the wilds of Anima since Kuroyuri fell, they had never seen such a thing.
But Ren had no choice but to approach the place, seeking shelter.
Normally, Ren would never trust a stranger, even if they were his age, thanks to what he had seen on the streets of Mistral and many other settlements. But his fear of losing the only family he had left overrode his caution.
Slowly, the two children approached the lone boy in shabby and old clothes in the forest.
What they did not expect was that a single snap of a branch on the ground alerted the blond-haired boy of their presence.
Gone was the clumsy attempt at cutting wood with an axe too big for him. In the place of a naïve boy, they found a survivor, staring in their direction, seeking a threat that would not appear.
The axe, which was too large for him to wield, was thrown to the ground. Instead, the boy took a basic boxing stance as his white Aura flared to protect himself.
It was only when the boy spotted Ren, frozen on the spot and pale as a sheet at the clearly hostile blond, that the boy slowly relaxed his stance and stared awkwardly at the other two children.
"….Do you want something to eat?"
The awkward atmosphere became even more awkward at the question. Both boys were unable to come up with a way to break the ice.
Thankfully, they had a Valkyrie, who despite her illness, was very much willing to talk in the place of her friend.
"What do you have to eat? And how did you build this house? With only one arm? And how do you survive in the middle of the forest? And why are you in the forest in the first place-"
"Nora, one question at a time. Sorry about her, she is very excitable."
Ren tried very hard not to show his emotions. He was not as capable as Nora when it came to masking emotions under a false cheer, just like she was doing now.
"That's ok. Do you guys want to come in?"
"…We would love to. I am Lie Ren, you can call me Ren. This is Nora."
"I am Jaune Arc, you can call me Jaune."
"So she just has a regular fever?"
"It appears so, I have a few herbs here that I foraged for before, just in case. I have experienced such illness many times before and it is nothing too serious."
Jaune pulled back his long blond hair and cleaned his face with a rag made from a strip of cloth torn from his pants while looking through a makeshift chest made from wood, looking for the herbs that he found before.
Jaune was no doctor and neither was he an expert, but he was fairly certain that Nora was only suffering from a common illness thanks to his experience as the fourth oldest child in the family and having to look after the younger girls.
While thinking about his dead family did cause his heart to ache, he had already learned to suppress those emotions in the past year that he spent living in this unnamed forest, avoiding beasts and Grimm alike.
As Ren and Nora huddled together near the flames, he ground up the herbs in the bowls that he carved out of stone thanks to his Aura amplifying his physical prowess.
He had seen his mother prepare the medicine using the same kind of herbs he was using many times, so he was very familiar with the process.
Soon enough, he had a bowl of soup that was made up of herbs and some meat that he got by hunting the animals in the forest.
"…Thank you, for doing this for us."
Nora did not say anything but nodded shyly from Ren's side as she leaned into Ren for warmth.
Jaune gave a bitter smile as he said what his mother used to say.
"Strangers are just friends you haven't met."
"…..That is a stupid statement. The adults will take advantage of you if that is how you show yourselves to them."
"Then let them. But the moment they try to, they will find that it is not naivety that is the source of my words."
At that moment, Ren saw the baby blue eyes of the blond harden into chips of ice, sending a shiver down his spine.
Of course, Nora saw none of that and was instead ensnared by the words of the blond and started talking non-stop, much to Ren's chagrin and Jaune's amusement.
In the shadows that were illuminated by the flames, the three children talked until they were tired and finally slept under the shabby roof. Nora slowly crawled between Ren and Jaune in her sleep, showing how much the reserved girl had come to trust Jaune in such a short time, something that was only possible for children like them. Likewise, Jaune felt the warmth of another human for the first time in over a year, allowing him to get proper sleep after a long time. Ren, on the other hand, while still skeptical of Jaune, was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt since he had helped ease Nora's pain.
And so, a friendship that would last a lifetime was forged.