Chapter Text
Nora stood on the steps of the kindergarten she was starting at today. She bounced up and down, the zippers on her backpack jingling as she did.
“Come oooon Mum! Hurry up we’re gonna be late!”
“Nora class starts at 9, its not even 8:15 yet.” Her mother replied fixing the car seat that Nora had almost broken trying to unbuckle herself.
Finally they walked inside together, Nora waited at her Mother’s side as she signed her in before opening the door to her new classroom.
Nora ran inside, swinging her bag off her back and pushing it into one of the cubbies lining the wall. She pulled her lunch box out as well as her sheets carrying both over to their correct places.
As her Mother spoke to her teacher the door opened again revealing a very tired looking Ren. He hadn’t even fully stepped inside before Nora had him wrapped in a bear hug.
“You’d think they hadn’t seen each other in the past 24 hours.” Po laughed as her son tried not to fall over with the extra weight that was suddenly thrown on him.
“Heaven forbid we keep them apart for more than 6 hours!” Nora’s mother laughed.
Po walked towards her, giving her a less lethal hug, “So Iantha, what time did Nora wake you up today?”
“She didn’t even wait for the sun to come up.’ She sighed, ‘If she had it her way we would have camped out in the parking lot. What about you? How many times did you have to wake Ren?”
“I lost count, he fell asleep on the way here to.” She giggled.
The two women watched as Nora helped Ren unpack his things, Nora talking at a mile a minute and Ren trying his hardest to stay awake. Once the children had unpacked they said their good byes. Each child hugging both their own mother and their best friends mother.
The children walked outside to play as their mothers left talking about getting coffee without their kids for once.
The day goes quickly, Ren and Nora play outside in the sandpit until class starts at 9. After a short lesson on the letter C they are allowed to move around between activities. Ren looks around at the many activities before moving towards home corner. There are almost no other children playing in there so he begins pulling out the small cooking utensils and starting to ‘cook’.
“mmm, whatcha cooking there?” Nora says standing on the other side of the little wooden play oven.
Ren smiles at her “Pancakes.”
“I LOVE pancakes!” Nora says bouncing up and down.
“I know, can you find the syrup?”
Nora looks through the cupboards looking for a bottle to use as syrup, finally finding a small babies bottle. “Here you go Ren!”
Ren looks down at the bottle, “Nora that’s not syrup, that’s a baby bottle.”
“Well then I’m gonna feed our baby. Then I find the syrup!” Nora replied picking up a doll from the ground, it wore a checkered red dress and had small cat ears on the top of its head.
“That’s not your baby!’ another girl in their class said as she turned to Nora. ‘It can’t yours, it’s a faunus.”
“So?” Nora gave the other girl a quizzical look.
“You just can’t use that one!’ the girl looked around, picking up another doll, holding it out to Nora. ‘Here, this ones normal.”
Nora was starting to get annoyed now, “No thanks, I like this one.”
“But you can’t have a dumb faunus as a baby! Give it to HER!” the girl shouted pointing to the Rabbit Faunus drawing at the tables.
By now almost every child was staring at the two girls, the few faunus children in the class looked ready to cry, or hit the other girl, Nora knew she was close to doing just that. She dropped the doll as she raised her fist, pulling back ready to swing. However just before she could she felt a hand on her arm.
“Nora, stop.” Ren said quietly, still holding her arm.
That afternoon when Nora’s mother came to pick her up her teacher asked to speak to her.
“Can you believe this? I’m the one getting into trouble when she was the one being so, so rude.” Nora walked back and forth in front of Ren as he sat in the sandpit.
“I didn’t even get to hit her, I should have. Why’d you stop me, she deserved to get hit.’ she looked down at Ren, still filling his bucket up with sand. ‘And all because she was being a big meanie and being mean to our baby, a BABY Ren! You know who’s mean to babies? Bad people that’s who!”
Ren finished filling his bucket and tipped it over to make a castle. “Nora?”
“Yeah Ren?”
“You can’t go around hitting people.”
“Why not?” she crossed her arms in front of her.
“Because you’ll get sent home,’ he smiled at her ‘and I’d miss you.”
As Nora hugged the dark haired boy her mother walked over to them.
“Hey sweetie! Hello Ren, your mum asked me to pick you up. Are you two ready?”
The three of them headed back inside to collect their bags. Just as they were leaving Miss Garnet walked over.
“I almost forgot, I took some photos from our first day.’ She held out two copies of the same photo, Ren with the frying pan and Nora holding the Faunus doll. “Sorry I couldn’t get separate photos these two are just inseparable.”
“Oh I know.” Iantha laughed, taking the photos. “Thankyou.”
As they walked outside Iantha looked down at her daughter, “Your teacher tells me that you were very brave today.”
Nora thought back through the day, when had she been brave? She couldn’t be talking about-
“She said that you told a girl why she shouldn’t be mean to faunus, is that true?”
“Uh, I’m not in trouble?”
“You didn’t hit her?”
“No’ she looked down and mumbled, ‘I wanted to. Ren wouldn’t let me.”
“Well then, thank you Ren. At least I know you can keep Nora out of trouble. Who knows you both might grow up to be a hunter and a huntress.”
“Like you?” Nora said wide eyed looking back and forth between her mother and friend.
“Well like I was, I haven’t fought since oh about 4 years, I’ve had my hands full as it is.” She laughed picking both children up at once. ‘Now who wants ice-cream to celebrate your first day at school?”