He was in a dark forest, and that put Jaune on edge. Forests in dreams always reminded him of Amber and made him think he might be closing in on her killer. The problem was that forests were also stereotypically scary because of the idea that anything could live within them, so as far as nightmares went, they weren't uncommon.

That and schools, for reasons he felt involved childhood trauma or embarrassment.

A forest in a dream also meant there was a high chance of Grimm, monsters of wildlife. It was a pattern he'd seen repeating. School meant high chances of a dream about embarrassment or humiliation; dark basement-like structures with loads of shadows meant killers; forests meant monsters. It wasn't a definite theme, but after being in so many nightmares – and reading up on dreams with Doctor Oobleck – he'd started to notice the themes, and the logic behind them.

If a person dreamed of intense shadows and dark, then it was to create an atmosphere conducive to jump-scares. If a person dreamed of large crowds of people, then it was more likely around them being stuck in front of an audience. If they dreamed of their family home, it was often about childhood trauma. There was logic to dreams if you looked deep enough.

And it was that logic which had Jaune wrapping himself thick in aura and summoning Crocea Mors to his hand. A nightmare in a forest could be of the "I'm lost in the woods" variety, but when most of the forests on Remnant were filled with Grimm, he was willing to bet more money on this being about them.

The ironic thing is that a dream-Grimm could be more dangerous than a real one, Jaune thought, stepping carefully into the forest in search of the dreamer. Their strength is going to be dictated by the imagination of the person having the nightmare, so a Beowolf could be stronger and more vicious here than in the real world. I need to be careful.

It was tempting to expend aura and change the dream to make that easier – either to turn night to day or force half the trees to not exist so the forest would become thinner and easier to look through. That would be expensive with aura, though. And the nightmare might fight back. It was better to try and find the dreamer first, so he trudged through the woods with a more localised approach.

Every few steps, he would stop and pulse out a little aura to clear the mist and reveal everything. Such a technique – aura pulsing – didn't actually exist in the normal world. You could pulse your aura by raising it and dropping it, but it wasn't much use other than as a training exercise Ren had taught him. A way to practice how quick you could grab your aura, and a trick used in combat pre-schools to help children practice it while a teacher would try and distract them.

But here, in a dream, he could make it do whatever he wanted. The normal rules didn't apply. So, when he imagined aura pulsing making a ring of light fan out and dispel the mist, that was what it did. Shadows were illuminated and trees cast long shadows as Jaune turned into a blinking night-light, the kind which would have drawn every moth and insect within a hundred miles if this were real life. And it was still easier on his aura than forcefully transforming this forest into an open meadow so he could see more easily.

"I should mention that to Oobleck," he murmured. "It feels a lot less taxing to change things about myself then it does about the nightmare. I guess that's because I'm not fighting it for control since it isn't the one imagining me in here."

The logic made sense in his head.

Moving on through the trees, it wasn't long before he started noticing signs of movement with each of his "aura pulses". Creatures, ranging from wolves to bears but also birds – a lot of specific detail for someone having a nightmare. Most people didn't bother to imagine the "noise" from what he'd seen. If someone dreamed of an outdoor scene, it'd usually be unnaturally silent, inhabited only by them and whatever nightmarish creatures they'd dreamt up.

Did that mean this was a very important memory, then? Something they remembered all the way down to the little details. Maybe, but it could just have been important to the dream in some way. Whatever the case, the fact he was noticing it all now meant he was getting closer, and it didn't take long to find the dreamer.

A small, orange-haired girl with ratty clothes and wide, blue eyes.

Nora.

Child-Nora.

Cute.

Come to think of it, she might have been the first dream he'd entered, at least as far back as he could remember. He'd been in the dreams of others more than once in some cases, but never twice in Nora's nightmares. The last hadn't even felt like a nightmare – they'd just fought together against a bunch of Grimm. This was much more like one, especially since she was a small child obviously unable to look after herself and lost alone in the forest.

Jaune stepped out from the trees and raised both a hand and his voice. "Hello there. Are you lost?" Nora flinched and backed up against a tree, but only out of shock. Once she saw him, her shoulders slumped, and she let out a harsh breath. "Sorry if I scared you," he said, pausing a small distance away. "I'm a huntsman in these here woods. My name is Jaune. Are you okay?"

"N—Nora," she said, in an adorably shy voice. She was unlike the Nora he called friend. A lot could change in several years though, and he knew Ren and Nora were orphans. They'd grown up fast. "I'm lost," she admitted. "And my friend. He's vanished! Have you—"

"Ren, right?" Jaune interrupted. "Small boy with black hair and pink eyes? He's fine. We found him looking for you a short distance from here. He's been taken to town for hot food and a bath, and I came out here to look for his missing friend."

A little white lie was forgivable when the "missing Ren" here didn't exist.

This was obviously a nightmare of her being separated from Ren in their escape from whatever killed their families. He knew they'd survived alone thanks to Ren's Semblance, so Nora being cut off from that Semblance in a dangerous forest would make for an obvious nightmare. She must have thought of this many times, asking herself how doomed she'd have been without Ren. Her subconscious mind must have picked up on the cues.

Nora sagged again, smiling in naked relief. "He's safe..."

"He sure is." Safe in Beacon. "And you'll be safe as well. Let's get you out of here, shall we?" He offered a gloved hand, which Nora took far more happily than she might have in real life. Jaune wondered if, even dreaming, she subconsciously recognised him as a friend and trusted him. "Hold my hand and stay close. You'll be okay."

"I heard there are monsters in the forest, Mr Jaune. Will we be safe?"

As long as you don't imagine them ten times worse than they actually are, thought Jaune. Come to think of it, I'd best boost her confidence. If she imagines them weaker because she feels safe with me then that'll be better.

"There are Grimm out here, but they're no challenge for a huntsman like me. Don't you worry. I eat these monsters for breakfast – usually with a side of pancakes. Do you like pancakes?"

"I don't know what a pancake is..."

Jaune almost tripped up. "R—Really? Then I'll have to make you some when we're out of here. They're great. You'll—"

"Ah! Look!"

Nora pointed ahead, crying out in fear, and ducking behind Jaune's legs. He didn't need to follow her finger because a creature he'd never seen before came stalking out the trees. It was a Grimm, that much he could tell from its black body and armoured white plates, but he'd neither seen nor read about the type before. It almost looked like two Grimm – one of them being a horse and the other a mounted rider.

Most Grimm he'd seen – Beowolves, Ursa, Nevermore, Deathstalkers and Boarbatusks – were monstrous counterparts of normal creatures. Wolves, bears, birds, scorpions, and hogs. They made sense, and looked like creatures that could have evolved naturally, even if everyone accepted there wasn't anything "natural" about monsters that turned to smoke after you killed them.

This, though. This was different. Evolution didn't just create cavalry. That was a human invention ages past as a means of making people a whole lot more mobile, and then presumably expanding when people realised you could put heavily armoured dudes on them with weapons and run down those on foot. Seeing a Grimm mimic that was almost like seeing a bird flying through the sky which was a rifle with wings.

Nora clearly imagined this up out of nowhere, right? There's no way something like this can actually exist. It's basically a black knight for crying out loud. It's straight out of a fairytale.

That didn't mean it wasn't dangerous.

In fact, it was probably more dangerous than any Grimm he'd ever faced.

But this creature wasn't the only thing fuelled by imagination here. His body was laying in bed in their dorm, and this form, for lack of a better word, was a construct of aura and imagination. Nothing more and nothing less. Jaune gently nudged Nora away to give himself space and stepped toward the beast.

"Mr Jaune—"

"Don't worry, Nora. This thing?" He snorted, pushing aura to his feet, and imagining himself completely weightless. His thoughts immediately went to Ruby, and he felt some red roses flutter down around his body. Jaune grinned. "It's nothing to a huntsman like me."

He blurred forwards faster than he ever could have in real life, shooting past the rider's left shoulder as he'd seen Ruby do to numerous Grimm in the Emerald Forest. His sword sliced through its neck, decapitating the rider in one go. Again, mimicking Ruby, he hit a tree feet first, crouching to cushion the impact and then kicking off it. The bottom half of the Grimm, the horse, was quick to spin and breathe out solid green mist at him – doubtless poison. Nora's imagination must have been running wild.

Thankfully, his was too. Jaune turned into a storm of petals that fluttered through the poison cloud, and he formed again behind it, cutting through its hind legs and dropping it onto stubby knees. The rider's elongated arms reached for him despite it having no head, but a sweep of Crocea Mors severed those as well, and then Jaune was gone as the creature kicked back with its stumps, turning to a cloud of petals that formed on top of the beast's back.

"Enough of you," he said, punching his sword through the rider's back and out its chest. Both Grimm – or both halves of one Grimm – screamed in pain. As the rider slumped, Jaune backflipped off it with the same grace Blake regularly pulled off, then took Crocea Mors in Weiss' fencing grip and stabbed it three times into the mount's flank. "Hah!"

The Grimm didn't stand a chance. Of course it didn't. He was gated only by his aura and imagination and could break every rule of reality. Jaune walked back over to Nora as the thing fell on its side and faded into mist, and his childish friend stared at him with awe.

"Well?" Jaune sheathed his weapon. "How was that?"

"That was so cool!" she gushed. "Mr Jaune is amazing. Wow!" Nora raced over to hug his legs. "I want to be like you when I grow up!"

"Heh." Jaune flushed at the praise despite it coming from a child. "That was pretty cool, huh?" He petted her hair, then noticed there was blood on her hand. "Hm. What's this?" He took her wrist gently and Nora let him. When he turned her hand over, there was a nasty cut on the palm of her hand. "Did the Grimm get you?"

"I... I don't think so." Nora looked down on the small injury perplexedly. It was only a little cut, probably from a branch or thorn. "I think it was there before. Um. I can't remember."

"Well, how about I take care of it for you?" He held her hand open and rubbed his thumb over the cut, then imagined the skin closing. He felt the faint trickle of his aura as he changed this one little thing about the dream.

Weirdly, it took more aura than the whole fight had. He could actually feel the drain.

But when he took away his thumb, the wound was sealed and Nora was gobsmacked.

"Whaaaaa—!?"

"It's my Semblance," he lied. He'd already shown, or suggested, that his Semblance was Ruby's, but this was just a dream and Nora was too amazed to really notice. "You have nothing to worry about, Nora. Not only am I strong enough to take care of any Grimm we come across, I can also make sure nothing hurts you." He rubbed her shaggy hair. "So, don't be afraid, okay? There's nothing in these woods that can get to you now I'm here."

Her smile almost split her face in two. "Mmh!" she agreed. "You're amazing, Mr Arc!"

"I think you're amazing for having made it out here alone on your own, Nora." And doubly amazing hat she and Ren had succeeded, found safety, and then become the huntsmen they were now. "Now, let's get you to safety, shall we? It's about time we united you with Ren. He's probably worried sick about you."

"Mm'kay! And then I can try those pancake things?"

"I'll make you a whole bunch myself."

But he knew it wouldn't happen because he could see the white light shining over the sky indicating the dream was coming to an end. As dreams went, it was probably one of the more calming ones he'd been in of late. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He'd always rather have a nice one like rather than one where he had to relive or discover someone else's trauma.

I guess I owe Nora some pancakes now. I'll make her some come weekend.

/-/

Nora Valkyrie blinked sleep out of her eyes and found herself staring at the ceiling of their dorm. Everyone else was asleep, and thankfully a lot more quietly than she'd heard from other dorms. Yang was a snorer, and sometimes she heard snores coming through the wall from their own neighbour. Pyrrha, Jaune and Ren were all quiet sleepers – with Jaune just being a bit restless in a tossing and turning way. It still never woke anyone up.

Drawing a deep breath through her nose, Nora released it the same way, closing her eyes again and wondering on the odd nightmare that hadn't turned out to be a nightmare. It wasn't the first time she'd relived her and Ren's escape from Kuroyuri, nor the first time she'd had a nightmare about what could have happened if Ren had left her, or she'd gotten lost. Those kinds of "what if" scenarios always haunted her because Ren saving her had been such a fluke.

They hadn't been friends, and they hadn't even really known one another. He'd just been another kid in Kuroyuri, and he'd bumped into and saved her when it fell because she'd been there. It was just as possible for her to have been on the other side of the city, or to have run away earlier when the Grimm attacked, and then they'd have never met and she'd have surely died. It hadn't worked that way, obviously, but you couldn't tell your nightmares to stop dragging up old memories. That was what they did.

It was an old thing by now. Almost every nightmare she had was about Kuroyuri, what happened there, or what happened immediately after. Nora quietly shifted the bedsheets aside and padded out of bed toward the bathroom. On the way, she noticed Jaune rolling over and bunching his sheets around him and felt a soft – almost embarrassing – smile take over her face.

It was probably weird that she'd dreamed of him saving her. He'd laugh at her, and Pyrrha would probably give her looks for a day or two. Funnily enough, Jaune's own girlfriend – Yang, of all people – would find it the funniest. To Nora, it was just mildly embarrassing and a bit weird. It was Ren she had a not-so-secret crush on, so she'd have expected him to be her knight in shining armour. The Jaune in her dreams hadn't even really been someone she'd fallen in love with. He'd been cool, but more in a big-brother kind of way.

Or that incredible, older role model you looked up to way. He'd really looked like a hero, and he'd slain the Nucklelavee with ease. And with moves that weren't really his, but it was a dream, so it didn't make sense.

I guess you can be kinda cool sometimes, Jauney, she thought. Not always, but every now and then he'd do something impressive like stand up to Cardin to protect another student or come out of nowhere and apologise to Weiss for all the things he'd done. He was a dork most of the time, and pretty weak for the rest, but there was definitely some steel under there. Maybe diamonds, too.

And he was her second-bestest boy-friend in the world, so nothing else mattered. Maybe even her best boy-friend if she could convince Ren to become her actual boyfriend. Nora blushed and forced herself into the bathroom, clicking the light softly so she didn't wake them up. Weird or not, the Jaune in her dream had turned her nightmare on its head and made it not a nightmare – though he'd promised her pancakes and not delivered, so she'd have to demand that of Jaune.

It was only fair.

Giggling at her own joke, Nora splashed some cold water on her hands and then her face before she noticed something off. Yesterday, in combat class, she'd had a nasty interaction with Ruby's scythe which had her being told off by Miss Goodwitch for trying to catch it with her hand. Aura or no, it was still a bladed object and she'd cut herself. Jaune had been excused from said class due to his screwy aura issues and hadn't seen it, but Ren and Pyrrha had given her a telling off, and Ruby had looked so utterly guilty that Nora had felt just awful.

"It's healed..." Nora held up her hand and turned it over. Sure, aura could make things heal faster, but this had gone from nasty cut that should have taken a week to recover from, to smooth skin unblemished without even a simple scar. "What on Remnant... How is it better already? I didn't do anything."

Heck, she even had cream from the nurse that she was meant to be applying for the following few days to ward off any infection. Nora checked her other hand, just to make sure she hadn't brain-farted and gotten her hands wrong due to it being so early in the morning, but nope – her other hand was fine, too.

Was this still a dream?

Most people pinched themselves. Nora licked her finger and stuck it in the electrical socket in the wall meant for hairdryers and male teammates capable of growing bears, unlike smooth-faced Ren and Jaune.

Zzzzzzt!

The charge rushed up her body, not hurting her, but shaking her to sudden wakefulness like caffeine injected straight into her veins. She'd never been more awake than what she was now, and yet the evidence was still there.

Her wound had healed.

The cool Jaune in my dream said he'd healed it for me...

Nora stared down at unmarked skin.

Jauney...? Did you...? But how...?

She poked her head back, but her teammate was fast asleep, and she didn't want to wake him up. He'd been saying his aura was messed up for a while now, and a lot of those problems happened when he was asleep. When they were all asleep. A few nights ago, he'd woken up bleeding from a terrifying cut on his neck.

And now she'd woken up with a cut removed from her hand.

It didn't feel possible that he'd somehow retroactively taken a wound off her before she even had it, but there was definitely some connection there. Nora was spirited and excitable, but she wasn't dumb, and it wasn't hard to see that Jaune's Semblance, or his aura, or whatever it was, seemed to be most active at nighttime.

Whatever it did, and whether he knew what it did or not, she couldn't shake the idea he'd healed her. Unable to ignore it, she crept back into the room and over to his bed. She wouldn't wake him, but she activated his scroll and flipped through his password. Jaune really needed to not use 1-2-3-4 for his log-in, but she wasn't going to be the one to tell him that. It wasn't like she was going to go through his texts or anything anyway. Instead, she activated his aura readings and held it close enough to the bare skin of his neck to get a reading.

He was at 79% aura.

And Jaune had been given a pass on combat class due to his aura issues, and Pyrrha was also refusing to spar with him for the same reason. There was no reason he should be at anything less than 100% aura, and she was sure he'd gone to sleep with that, which meant he'd used aura sometime within the last few hours.

He'd used aura, and she'd had her nasty cut healed.

Jaune had healed her.

That had to be it.

Nora scowled.

Stupid Jauney! You're meant to be looking after your aura and not hurting yourself! It was just a little cut. She wanted to wake him up and tell him to not be so stupid, but, as she watched him, his aura ticked to 80%, which meant it was recovering. That was enough to have her quietly put his scroll down and let him sleep. You're lucky I'm such a generous teammate, buster. And maybe it's unconscious. He's fast asleep, so it's not like he's in control of it.

Maybe that was the issue. Maybe Jaune was automatically or unknowingly spending his aura, and he couldn't control it. Nora felt the urge to go wake up Doctor Oobleck and demand to know what he'd been told, but Jaune obviously wanted to keep it private.

Ugh. Why is this all so complicated?

For now, she'd let it be, but she'd keep an eye on him. Jaune was her friend, one of her bestest friends, and she wasn't going to let him hurt himself on her behalf. Or on anyone's behalf. But she'd keep watch and try and figure out more about this new Semblance of his. If he was trying to learn it, then it was the least she could do.

And she was sure Jaune would be fine with it!

Uh-oh. Nora is on the case, and Jaune's Semblance can cause more than just harm.