Nanoha FanFiction Discussion

[TheShinySword]

Kaon: The best way to handle them is to distract them with a war. ... Who volunteers to instigate one?


*Imagines someone starting a war just to wake up Ixy... probably Subaru*

Page claim! For adorable girls and the zombies that cause issues for them

[NorthernFallout]

Walla: *jumps up and down* I want a share! Body parts! *sparkle eyes*

[Nanya01]

Will there be Zombies with Horse Weiners?

If there was one with a Horse Weiner, then the Zombies would totally win!

(Disgaea Zombies for teh win! XD)

[DezoPenguin]

Originally Posted by itanshi1

If she awakens, so does her army. :/

Offhand, where does it say that? SSX doesn't include that claim; Ix is the source of the Mariage cores (which is why Runessa was sending her Mariages after her, so that the Dark King's army could in fact rise and kill stuff), but there's nothing about her raising up a spontaneous zombie plague...

...though that would be fairly cool.

[itanshi1]

am i mistaken? stereo dramas are so complicating x_x

[DezoPenguin]

Originally Posted by itanshi1

am i mistaken? stereo dramas are so complicating x_x

I think this is where the confusion might come from:

Originally Posted by Nagumo's SSX translation

Ix: Until now… Every time I awoke, Mariage would appear/arise and sally forth to the battlefront/battlefield. Outside the castle was nothing but gray skies, barren land (wasteland) and blood stained seas. I had never seen anything else in the world. I wondered when I would sleep again. When will the age come when I no longer have to kill any more? It was all that I could think of. But, I managed to meet you and realized I was wrong. There are people who would die for themselves only and those who would give their lives for others. The world, that I and my people had brought ruin upon this world so long ago. That this world has become so beautiful again is because of people like you.

But so far as I can tell, she's just lamenting the fact that she's always being used as a weapon (see earlier in Track 14). You'll note that once Ix is rescued and Runessa arrested, no further Mariage go running around breaking stuff, attacking people, etc.

Likewise, it's clear that Ix is shutting down to sleep because there's something wrong with her, not because of any necessity to do so:

Originally Posted by Also thanks to Nagumo

(Subaru: Wha… A coma (lit: sleep of death)? Ix?)
(Mari: We found out this morning. We believe she’s partially function but we don’t have the technology to perform an operation…)
(Subaru: I see…)
(Mari: We think today is the last day she’ll naturally be awake…)
(Subaru: Wha… No…)

Of course, since MGLN is the poster child for "All There In The Manual," there might well be something else out there saying that waking Ix is dangerous, but I don't see that within SSX.

[Rising Dragon]

Originally Posted by Satashi

Sorry, I made it up as I went. I'll do it if enough people want me to, though.

But they'd be teens, of course ^_^

So who wants another Syn/Vivio lemon?

Originally Posted by SulliMike23

A new Syn/Vivio lemon would be nice.

But seriously, have they tried splashing very cold water on Ixa?

I'll second this. =X

[DezoPenguin]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

And... a Shadow short! Lutecia-centric, inspired by a conversation I had with Deathcurse, and pretty much wrote itself when I got back from dinner today. Slight AU from my series, since in this short Lutecia... well, you'll see when you read it.

Spoiler for Borderline:

*snippety snip*

Spoiler for Author's Notes:

1. Ironically enough, I was listening to some very, very strange music while writing this. More specifically, "Jizz In My Pants" and "The Twelve Pains of Christmas". Huh. Wonder how that happened.

2. Incidentally, I do believe that if Lutecia had actually done this in my series, she'd be a much colder, more distant character to her friends than she ultimately is. She wouldn't want them to realize something's wrong, and her guilty concious would tell her to stay away... honestly, I can say that this incarnation of Lutecia would probably never, ever hook up with Vivio. She'd probably slowly distance herself from Erio and Caro, too.

While RadiantBeam thought that this Lutecia wouldn't accept a relationship with Vivio (you'll note that Vivio asked Lutecia out when Lutecia was 19, so that's about a year after "Borderline"), I thought it would be interesting if this took place in the main continuity as deathcurse suggested. So rather than comment on the fic, I wrote a fic response as if that had taken place.

You probably need to have read "Sunrise," though, to get some of the references.

Spoiler for Border Crossing:

It took Vivio nearly five minutes before she felt able to speak.


"Wow!" she breathed, her voice still not quite under control. "Where did you learn to do that, Lutecia?"


The first time they'd made love, the morning after Vivio's eighteenth birthday, it had been sweet and loving. Lutecia had basically let her enthusiastic-though-virginal girlfriend do whatever she'd wanted, all the things she'd wished for, offering gentle guidance when reality didn't quite match up with the things Vivio had read. Their second and third times had been very similar.


This night had been very different.


The older woman had skillfully, expertly built Vivio's passions, her hands and mouth moving on her in a performance choreographed to drive the blonde wild, mounting her urgent need until she was almost out of her mind, then letting things ebb, or allowing her just the slightest surge of release to keep the pressure under control, before finally driving her higher and higher until her mind seemed to explode in a series of soul-shattering climaxes.


Vivio had meant it as a rhetorical question, just another way of saying, "That was awesome!" She was surprised when, after a minute, she got an answer.


"Work."


She was also surprised by the flat, dull tone her girlfriend had used, so different than it had been before.


"Work? You mean, they teach you to--" Vivio began, then cut herself off. "Oh."


Because Lutecia's work was as a Shadow, an agent of the TSAB's covert operations service. The use of sexuality in espionage was so elementary as to be a basic, fundamental strategy. Whether it was gaining information via pillow talk, using an intimate relationship to gain access to people's private quarters, setting a target up for blackmail, passing on false information, building a sense of trust and intimacy in order to better manipulate someone into doing what the agent wanted, or luring them into a vulnerable position for assassination, seduction was a standard part of an agent's repertoire. There was a reason the media portrayed female spies, especially, as sexy and glamorous.


That phrase certainly fits Lutecia, Vivio thought. The sleek, slender beauty had an allure about her that Vivio figured she herself would never master. Her own face and figure, and more importantly her personality, could project sexiness in the in-your-face, direct appeal to the hormones kind of way, but she couldn't add in that air of mystery that a seduction demanded. She could never, for example, pull off the merrywidow and silk stockings Lutecia was wearing with anything like the same effect.


It was funny. Since Lutecia had confessed being a Shadow to her, Vivio had had to ask herself some hard questions about how she felt about loving someone who could do such things as assassination, blackmail, or torture, the allegedly "necessary" evils of covert operations.


She hadn't thought about what in retrospect was the most obvious issue. After all, did she hate Signum or Vita or Zaffy or Cinque or Ix or (she assumed, though she'd never asked) Fate-mama because they'd killed in the past and with far less social justification than Lutecia had. Or Grandpa Shiro, Uncle Kyouya, and Aunt Miyuki?


But she hadn't thought about the idea that Lutecia had almost certainly slept with other people as part of her job. Or, given Lutecia's age and how long they'd been together, that she'd almost certainly done so while the two of them were a couple.


Vivio suddenly realized that she'd let a long time go by since she'd last spoken.


"I can't believe that I didn't think of that until now."


"I didn't want to talk about it," Lutecia said. "We were both so distraught about our feelings when you first found out I was NSIS, and you never really asked too much about the specifics of my work."


"Yeah, but I mean—it's just a job, right?" Vivio was trying to be worldly and mature, and failing badly.


"I...don't want to talk about it now, either," was Lutecia's reply, punctuated when she rolled over, away from Vivio, and broke their skin-to-skin contact.


"I think we have to," Vivio told her.


It got Lutecia to turn and look back at her over her shoulder, at least.


"I don't see why."


"It's kind of important, don't you think?"


"God, you're a Takamachi, all right," Lutecia sighed.


"What's that supposed to mean?"


"That you're going to insist on talking this out no matter what it takes, even if you have to go to ridiculous lengths. You're just like your mother in that respect. She'll talk to her enemies all through a fight and if they don't want to listen, she'll blast them into the ground and keep right on talking." She sat up, then swung her legs off the side of the bed. "Sometimes I think the only reason people fight back at all is just to try to get her to shut up."


Vivio flinched at the way her girlfriend's words bit at her, and her temper started to flare.


Then it stopped, and she smiled.


"Nice try."


"What?"


"I almost didn't notice what you were doing there. Deflecting the topic and hoping to start a fight over something else so you can lead me farther and farther away from the point."


"I—I wasn't--"


She couldn't get the words out, and Vivio knew why. Lutecia couldn't lie to her. Manipulate, yes; deceive, certainly; leave important things unsaid, absolutely; but not to look her in the face and simply, plainly, say things that weren't true.


"Lutecia, I've loved you since I was twelve. Don't you know by now that you can tell me anything?"


"Why?"


"Because that's what love is."


The violet-haired Shadow shook her head, still not looking back at Vivio.


"No, Vivio, I mean, what's the point of talking about it? Talk won't change anything. It won't make the past go away."


She made to get up, but Vivio was faster; her hand snapped tight around Lutecia's wrist.


"That's not true! It can change a lot! If people don't talk to each other, how can they understand each other's feelings?"


"That sounds like something Nanoha would say."


"She's the one who taught it to me. And Fate-mama taught me something else: talking to someone may not be able to change the past, but it can change how the past feels to you now."


Vivio sat up and pulled Lutecia back against her, slipping her free arm around Lutecia's waist and resting her chin on the older woman's collarbone so their faces were pressed together side-by-side.


"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Lutecia said. Her voice was full of reluctance and misery but with an underlying warmth—that while she really did not want to do this, it still touched her on some level that Vivio would care so much.


"No, I'm not."


"...You're not going to like it."


"Probably not," Vivio agreed. "But we've been over this before."


Lutecia exhaled slowly.


"I suppose we have."


She clenched her fists in the sheets.


"Yes, I've slept with people in the course of missions. There it is. Oh, and yes, a senior female agent did teach me the...'tricks of the trade.'"


"Miranda?"


She shook her head.


"God, I wish. No, Miranda had died before that. They...we...won't use an agent on that kind of mission who isn't of age."


Vivio tried to think about it but couldn't. She simply had no basis for comparison. Even trying to imagine herself having sex with anyone other than Lutecia felt flat and unreal.


"Could you have refused?" she asked.


"Yes. They wouldn't push the unwilling into it, partly from decency but mostly just because it'd put the mission objective at risk. I didn't try to get out of it, though."


"Why not, since you seem so bothered by it?"


"I'd probably have lost my active field agent status if I had. I'd already drawn one bright line about refusing to kill outside of the direct scope of the mission, even when rationality suggested that I should. One scruple is a personality quirk, but when they start adding up...There's not much point in a spy who won't get her hands dirty."


They'd already had the talk about why Lutecia was a Shadow at all, why it had meant so much to her, so Vivio didn't ask her to expand on that answer.


"Is it because you feel like you cheated on me?" she asked instead. "That you didn't want to talk about it—is that why?"


"No."


There was a long pause.


"Mostly not. Some of it is. Do you feel cheated on?"


"Yeah, some," Vivio admitted. Truth ran both ways, after all. "I mean, I've been aching to touch you for years, and you wouldn't because of our ages and all the rest of it, and to hear that someone else has...yeah, it feels bad. But I know it's just a job, too. It's not like those people are boyfriends or girlfriends or something."


Lutecia shivered.


"No, definitely not."


"Lutecia?"


She didn't answer. Then Vivio remembered: mostly not. Or in other words, what was really wrong didn't have anything to do with Vivio or their relationship.


"Was it really awful?" she said softly.


"Sometimes it was," Lutecia said. "The first time...the target, he...had a taste for virgins and, lucky me, we had one one available. You remember, I didn't hit that last growth spurt until I was nineteen, so we did a makeup job and told him I was fourteen." She gave a sickly little smile. "It worked perfectly. While I had him...distracted, I had my wasps take over his personal computer, one he kept isolated from any networks for security's sake, and extract all the data he was hiding."


"I hope you killed him after that," Vivio said fiercely.


Lutecia blinked.


"It wasn't that kind of mission."


"He deserved it, using you that way."


"I was the one using him, Vivio."


Vivio shook her head.


"Lutecia...I know it's only been a week since it happened, but you...you made my first time something wonderful for me. I'd wanted it so badly for a long time, yes, but I was still really nervous. And you were patient and gentle and showed me how to do the things I wanted to when I was too rough or too clumsy or just too ignorant. Every bit of it was loving and incredible and it'll be a beautiful memory for me forever. And that sick bastard stole it from you."


Lutecia gave her a long look.


"You really mean it, don't you? Exactly like that?"


She slipped from Vivio's embrace, but instead of getting off the bed just turned so she could sit cross-legged, facing her girlfriend.


"Of course I do!"


Lutecia shook her head.


"You never stop surprising me, Vivio."


Vivio grinned at her.


"It's a Takamachi thing."


She took Lutecia's hands between hers.


"Go on. Please?"


Lutecia nodded, then took a deep breath.


"I came home, got in the shower, and scrubbed my skin raw. I remember that I had lunch with Caro the next day and had to make up some story about being sunburned."


She shivered.


"Was it always like that?"


Lutecia shook her head.


"No. Sometimes it was, if the target was particularly disgusting in his or her tastes, sometimes it was unpleasant, sometimes I enjoyed myself, and sometimes, most times really, it just...was. But it wasn't doing the job that was the problem. It was afterwards, when it was all over, and I was left with just myself."


She sighed bitterly.


"I spent the first year or so telling myself that it was just a job, that sex was just a physical act that didn't mean anything. I kept repeating it, even to myself, even when I wanted to tear off my skin, because if I'd admitted what I was feeling, I'd..." She shook her head, apparently not wanting to put it into words.


Vivio wasn't sure she wanted to hear the end of the sentence.


"It doesn't matter," Lutecia spared them both. "By the second year, it wasn't a lie anymore. It was a job. I guess it's true, you can get used to anything if you have to," she said with a short, barking laugh.


"By the third year, I remembered that that particular job has a name."


She was gripping Vivio's hands more tightly, her long nails digging into the blonde's skin. Vivio doubted she even realized she was doing it.


"So there you have it. Your girlfriend isn't just a thief, an extortionist, a torturer, and a murderer, she's also a whore."


She looks so stricken, Vivio thought. It didn't matter that Lutecia was a beautiful, elegant young woman nearly as tall as Vivio herself, now. She still seemed like that tiny, broken child she'd been when Erio and Caro had rescued her from Jail Scaglietti.


Maybe in some ways she always had been. After all, it had been what was broken in the girl, the capacity to do things that others shirked from, that had led the Shadows to recruit her in the first place.


"How...how could they use you that way? Knowing what it cost you?"


"I'm good at hiding things," Lutecia said. She smiled gamely and said, "I hid from what I was from you for eight years. If it took that long for me to give up the truth to the person I love the most, then how long do you think it would be before I let co-workers see it?"


"But the Shadows, they know you. I mean, they knew Lutecia, not just Cia."


Lutecia's smile was sad and laced with irony.


"Different lies for different people, Vivio."


She got up out of bed and plucked a soft, fluffy robe off the hook behind the door, slipping it on over her lingerie-clad body and knotting the cord. The action made Vivio realize that she was starting to feel chilled, the sweat evaporating off her overheated body.


"You shouldn't have lied."


Lutecia flinched at the gently chiding tone.


"I couldn't tell you, Vivio. It'd be a serious breach of protocol to tell a civilian"--in this case, meaning non-NSIS, not non-military--"girlfriend about my work. I probably shouldn't have told you when I did, according to the rules; they only let it slide because you're the Director's niece and from all your other connections."


Vivio shook her head.


"No, not me. I understand why you couldn't tell me. Them. The Shadows."


Lutecia started. She hadn't expected that from her. Vivio got out of bed and crossed over to her, cupping her girlfriend's face between her palms.


"You are not a w-whore," she said, blushing as she stumbled over the word. "You are a spy. You did things that you shouldn't have to have done, and other things that there's no justification for anyone to be made to do, but all of it, it was for the sake of protecting people like me. If you'd told them, I'm sure your superiors could have helped you realize that."


"You give us more credit for decency than we've earned."


Vivio snorted.


"I know Uncle Chrono better than that. Forget decency; do you really think he wouldn't protect his only S-rank field agent against herself?" She crushed Lutecia against herself, the thick fleece robe blunting the outlines of her girlfriend's body against her skin. "You always do this. You always take it all on yourself so the rest of us don't have to suffer. You didn't tell Megane what you do so she wouldn't blame herself, you didn't tell your co-workers about your pain, you're always coming back hurt from your missions--"


Softening fabric or not, she didn't miss Lutecia going stiff in her arms.


"Did you think we didn't notice? We all did: Erio, Caro, and I all realized that you'd come back hurt far more often than you should have."


"I—"


"—may be S-rank, but raw defense isn't one of your strengths. And you'd rather take the hit than let someone else be hurt." She softly kissed the top of Lutecia's head. "You shouldn't have tried to carry it yourself. Especially not now that I know about you being a Shadow, so you don't have to keep things secret."


Lutecia looked up at her, meeting Vivio's eyes of her own accord for the first time in a while.


"Vivio, do you really not understand?"


Lutecia stared searchingly into Vivio's eyes, looking for something deep in her gaze. Vivio was genuinely baffled.


"No, I don't!"


Lutecia sighed, then a tiny smile started to play around the corners of her mouth and she shook her head.


"You're my girlfriend, Vivio," she said, "and I'm talking about having sex with other people while I've been dating you."


"...Yeah," Vivio said.


"And you wonder why I've had trouble bringing it up?"


Vivio blushed.


"I was trying not to think about that part. Besides, you said that wasn't the big problem, and you were just so hurt--"


Lutecia laughed.


"What in the name of all that's holy did I ever do to wind up with you?"


"Well, you humored a little kid when she wanted somebody to talk about Belkan history and politics with, you put up with a best friend who was four years younger at an age when four years meant a lot, and you didn't step on said friend's crush when you should have brushed it off, but instead nurtured it sweetly and treated her with love instead of taking advantage of her or kicking her aside. Plus, you did it all while you were keeping a secret that made you feel like you were twisted and corrupt and not worthy to stand next to the rest of us. That might have a little to do with it." Vivio hugged her tightly.


"Look," she continued. "I know you like to keep us safe, that coming home and seeing me, and Megane, and Caro and Erio living our happy and innocent lives let you know there was something worthwhile that you were protecting, so you'd have the strength to go dive back into the darkness, right?"


Lutecia nodded.


"But it's different now. I'm with you, not just 'Cia,' and that means No. More. Secrets." She tapped Lutecia playfully on the nose with her forefinger to punctuate each word. "Besides, you're retired now."


"From the field. Now I'm training other agents to go out and do the kind of things I did, which is worse in some ways."


Vivio laughed, which took Lutecia completely off-guard.


"Who's acting like Nanoha-mama now?"


"What?"


"Well, do you teach your students to do all the things that you insisted on doing and led to your breakdown? Or do you teach them to be responsible and do things the right way even while you can't make yourself do as you say?"


Lutecia flushed bright red.


"Well, I..."


"Thought so." Vivio kissed her, a quick peck on the lips.


"Vivio!" Lutecia exclaimed, then gave it up and giggled. It was so good to hear that, after everything from the last few minutes, that it gave Vivio a serious case of the warm fuzzies. She kissed Lutecia again, soft and lovingly.


"Vivio, would you..."


"Yes?"


"Would you stay for the night?"


"Of course. Just let me call mamas, okay?"


"You might want to put something on, first. They know we're sleeping together, but..."


Vivio blushed again, realizing belatedly that she'd been naked throughout the whole conversation. It just hadn't seemed important enough to notice at the time.


"You always liked sleeping next to me, even when we weren't dating," Vivio remarked, reaching for her shirt.


"That's because," Lutecia admitted softly, apparently trying out the "no secrets" thing, "when you hold me while I sleep, I don't dream."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Vivio's Magical Omake Theater!

Vivio panted for breath, trying to make up the oxygen debt. Spending the night with her girlfriend wasn't just romantic and loving, it also had fringe benefits. An enthusiastic round of morning-after lovemaking didn't happen when she woke up on her own bed, alone.


"Lutecia," she said when she could talk again, "that was incredible."


Her lover blushed.


"Thank you."


"That reminds me. You said that you were training new field agents in the skills needed to be Shadow."


"Uh-huh. Infiltration and stealth, how to bypass security systems, interrogation techniques, psychological manipulation and interaction for dealing with contacts--"


"Seduction?"


Lutecia blushed faintly.


"Um, yes..."


"Well, if you ever need a subject for a class demonstration, I'd be glad to volunteer!"

[deathcurse]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

While RadiantBeam thought that this Lutecia wouldn't accept a relationship with Vivio (you'll note that Vivio asked Lutecia out when Lutecia was 19, so that's about a year after "Borderline"), I thought it would be interesting if this took place in the main continuity as deathcurse suggested. So rather than comment on the fic, I wrote a fic response as if that had taken place.

You probably need to have read "Sunrise," though, to get some of the references.

Spoiler for Border Crossing:

It took Vivio nearly five minutes before she felt able to speak.


"Wow!" she breathed, her voice still not quite under control. "Where did you learn to do that, Lutecia?"


The first time they'd made love, the morning after Vivio's eighteenth birthday, it had been sweet and loving. Lutecia had basically let her enthusiastic-though-virginal girlfriend do whatever she'd wanted, all the things she'd wished for, offering gentle guidance when reality didn't quite match up with the things Vivio had read. Their second and third times had been very similar.


This night had been very different.


The older woman had skillfully, expertly built Vivio's passions, her hands and mouth moving on her in a performance choreographed to drive the blonde wild, mounting her urgent need until she was almost out of her mind, then letting things ebb, or allowing her just the slightest surge of release to keep the pressure under control, before finally driving her higher and higher until her mind seemed to explode in a series of soul-shattering climaxes.


Vivio had meant it as a rhetorical question, just another way of saying, "That was awesome!" She was surprised when, after a minute, she got an answer.


"Work."


She was also surprised by the flat, dull tone her girlfriend had used, so different than it had been before.


"Work? You mean, they teach you to--" Vivio began, then cut herself off. "Oh."


Because Lutecia's work was as a Shadow, an agent of the TSAB's covert operations service. The use of sexuality in espionage was so elementary as to be a basic, fundamental strategy. Whether it was gaining information via pillow talk, using an intimate relationship to gain access to people's private quarters, setting a target up for blackmail, passing on false information, building a sense of trust and intimacy in order to better manipulate someone into doing what the agent wanted, or luring them into a vulnerable position for assassination, seduction was a standard part of an agent's repertoire. There was a reason the media portrayed female spies, especially, as sexy and glamorous.


That phrase certainly fits Lutecia, Vivio thought. The sleek, slender beauty had an allure about her that Vivio figured she herself would never master. Her own face and figure, and more importantly her personality, could project sexiness in the in-your-face, direct appeal to the hormones kind of way, but she couldn't add in that air of mystery that a seduction demanded. She could never, for example, pull off the merrywidow and silk stockings Lutecia was wearing with anything like the same effect.


It was funny. Since Lutecia had confessed being a Shadow to her, Vivio had had to ask herself some hard questions about how she felt about loving someone who could do such things as assassination, blackmail, or torture, the allegedly "necessary" evils of covert operations.


She hadn't thought about what in retrospect was the most obvious issue. After all, did she hate Signum or Vita or Zaffy or Cinque or Ix or (she assumed, though she'd never asked) Fate-mama because they'd killed in the past and with far less social justification than Lutecia had. Or Grandpa Shiro, Uncle Kyouya, and Aunt Miyuki?


But she hadn't thought about the idea that Lutecia had almost certainly slept with other people as part of her job. Or, given Lutecia's age and how long they'd been together, that she'd almost certainly done so while the two of them were a couple.


Vivio suddenly realized that she'd let a long time go by since she'd last spoken.


"I can't believe that I didn't think of that until now."


"I didn't want to talk about it," Lutecia said. "We were both so distraught about our feelings when you first found out I was NSIS, and you never really asked too much about the specifics of my work."


"Yeah, but I mean—it's just a job, right?" Vivio was trying to be worldly and mature, and failing badly.


"I...don't want to talk about it now, either," was Lutecia's reply, punctuated when she rolled over, away from Vivio, and broke their skin-to-skin contact.


"I think we have to," Vivio told her.


It got Lutecia to turn and look back at her over her shoulder, at least.


"I don't see why."


"It's kind of important, don't you think?"


"God, you're a Takamachi, all right," Lutecia sighed.


"What's that supposed to mean?"


"That you're going to insist on talking this out no matter what it takes, even if you have to go to ridiculous lengths. You're just like your mother in that respect. She'll talk to her enemies all through a fight and if they don't want to listen, she'll blast them into the ground and keep right on talking." She sat up, then swung her legs off the side of the bed. "Sometimes I think the only reason people fight back at all is just to try to get her to shut up."


Vivio flinched at the way her girlfriend's words bit at her, and her temper started to flare.


Then it stopped, and she smiled.


"Nice try."


"What?"


"I almost didn't notice what you were doing there. Deflecting the topic and hoping to start a fight over something else so you can lead me farther and farther away from the point."


"I—I wasn't--"


She couldn't get the words out, and Vivio knew why. Lutecia couldn't lie to her. Manipulate, yes; deceive, certainly; leave important things unsaid, absolutely; but not to look her in the face and simply, plainly, say things that weren't true.


"Lutecia, I've loved you since I was twelve. Don't you know by now that you can tell me anything?"


"Why?"


"Because that's what love is."


The violet-haired Shadow shook her head, still not looking back at Vivio.


"No, Vivio, I mean, what's the point of talking about it? Talk won't change anything. It won't make the past go away."


She made to get up, but Vivio was faster; her hand snapped tight around Lutecia's wrist.


"That's not true! It can change a lot! If people don't talk to each other, how can they understand each other's feelings?"


"That sounds like something Nanoha would say."


"She's the one who taught it to me. And Fate-mama taught me something else: talking to someone may not be able to change the past, but it can change how the past feels to you now."


Vivio sat up and pulled Lutecia back against her, slipping her free arm around Lutecia's waist and resting her chin on the older woman's collarbone so their faces were pressed together side-by-side.


"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Lutecia said. Her voice was full of reluctance and misery but with an underlying warmth—that while she really did not want to do this, it still touched her on some level that Vivio would care so much.


"No, I'm not."


"...You're not going to like it."


"Probably not," Vivio agreed. "But we've been over this before."


Lutecia exhaled slowly.


"I suppose we have."


She clenched her fists in the sheets.


"Yes, I've slept with people in the course of missions. There it is. Oh, and yes, a senior female agent did teach me the...'tricks of the trade.'"


"Miranda?"


She shook her head.


"God, I wish. No, Miranda had died before that. They...we...won't use an agent on that kind of mission who isn't of age."


Vivio tried to think about it but couldn't. She simply had no basis for comparison. Even trying to imagine herself having sex with anyone other than Lutecia felt flat and unreal.


"Could you have refused?" she asked.


"Yes. They wouldn't push the unwilling into it, partly from decency but mostly just because it'd put the mission objective at risk. I didn't try to get out of it, though."


"Why not, since you seem so bothered by it?"


"I'd probably have lost my active field agent status if I had. I'd already drawn one bright line about refusing to kill outside of the direct scope of the mission, even when rationality suggested that I should. One scruple is a personality quirk, but when they start adding up...There's not much point in a spy who won't get her hands dirty."


They'd already had the talk about why Lutecia was a Shadow at all, why it had meant so much to her, so Vivio didn't ask her to expand on that answer.


"Is it because you feel like you cheated on me?" she asked instead. "That you didn't want to talk about it—is that why?"


"No."


There was a long pause.


"Mostly not. Some of it is. Do you feel cheated on?"


"Yeah, some," Vivio admitted. Truth ran both ways, after all. "I mean, I've been aching to touch you for years, and you wouldn't because of our ages and all the rest of it, and to hear that someone else has...yeah, it feels bad. But I know it's just a job, too. It's not like those people are boyfriends or girlfriends or something."


Lutecia shivered.


"No, definitely not."


"Lutecia?"


She didn't answer. Then Vivio remembered: mostly not. Or in other words, what was really wrong didn't have anything to do with Vivio or their relationship.


"Was it really awful?" she said softly.


"Sometimes it was," Lutecia said. "The first time...the target, he...had a taste for virgins and, lucky me, we had one one available. You remember, I didn't hit that last growth spurt until I was nineteen, so we did a makeup job and told him I was fourteen." She gave a sickly little smile. "It worked perfectly. While I had him...distracted, I had my wasps take over his personal computer, one he kept isolated from any networks for security's sake, and extract all the data he was hiding."


"I hope you killed him after that," Vivio said fiercely.


Lutecia blinked.


"It wasn't that kind of mission."


"He deserved it, using you that way."


"I was the one using him, Vivio."


Vivio shook her head.


"Lutecia...I know it's only been a week since it happened, but you...you made my first time something wonderful for me. I'd wanted it so badly for a long time, yes, but I was still really nervous. And you were patient and gentle and showed me how to do the things I wanted to when I was too rough or too clumsy or just too ignorant. Every bit of it was loving and incredible and it'll be a beautiful memory for me forever. And that sick bastard stole it from you."


Lutecia gave her a long look.


"You really mean it, don't you? Exactly like that?"


She slipped from Vivio's embrace, but instead of getting off the bed just turned so she could sit cross-legged, facing her girlfriend.


"Of course I do!"


Lutecia shook her head.


"You never stop surprising me, Vivio."


Vivio grinned at her.


"It's a Takamachi thing."


She took Lutecia's hands between hers.


"Go on. Please?"


Lutecia nodded, then took a deep breath.


"I came home, got in the shower, and scrubbed my skin raw. I remember that I had lunch with Caro the next day and had to make up some story about being sunburned."


She shivered.


"Was it always like that?"


Lutecia shook her head.


"No. Sometimes it was, if the target was particularly disgusting in his or her tastes, sometimes it was unpleasant, sometimes I enjoyed myself, and sometimes, most times really, it just...was. But it wasn't doing the job that was the problem. It was afterwards, when it was all over, and I was left with just myself."


She sighed bitterly.


"I spent the first year or so telling myself that it was just a job, that sex was just a physical act that didn't mean anything. I kept repeating it, even to myself, even when I wanted to tear off my skin, because if I'd admitted what I was feeling, I'd..." She shook her head, apparently not wanting to put it into words.


Vivio wasn't sure she wanted to hear the end of the sentence.


"It doesn't matter," Lutecia spared them both. "By the second year, it wasn't a lie anymore. It was a job. I guess it's true, you can get used to anything if you have to," she said with a short, barking laugh.


"By the third year, I remembered that that particular job has a name."


She was gripping Vivio's hands more tightly, her long nails digging into the blonde's skin. Vivio doubted she even realized she was doing it.


"So there you have it. Your girlfriend isn't just a thief, an extortionist, a torturer, and a murderer, she's also a whore."


She looks so stricken, Vivio thought. It didn't matter that Lutecia was a beautiful, elegant young woman nearly as tall as Vivio herself, now. She still seemed like that tiny, broken child she'd been when Erio and Caro had rescued her from Jail Scaglietti.


Maybe in some ways she always had been. After all, it had been what was broken in the girl, the capacity to do things that others shirked from, that had led the Shadows to recruit her in the first place.


"How...how could they use you that way? Knowing what it cost you?"


"I'm good at hiding things," Lutecia said. She smiled gamely and said, "I hid from what I was from you for eight years. If it took that long for me to give up the truth to the person I love the most, then how long do you think it would be before I let co-workers see it?"


"But the Shadows, they know you. I mean, they knew Lutecia, not just Cia."


Lutecia's smile was sad and laced with irony.


"Different lies for different people, Vivio."


She got up out of bed and plucked a soft, fluffy robe off the hook behind the door, slipping it on over her lingerie-clad body and knotting the cord. The action made Vivio realize that she was starting to feel chilled, the sweat evaporating off her overheated body.


"You shouldn't have lied."


Lutecia flinched at the gently chiding tone.


"I couldn't tell you, Vivio. It'd be a serious breach of protocol to tell a civilian"--in this case, meaning non-NSIS, not non-military--"girlfriend about my work. I probably shouldn't have told you when I did, according to the rules; they only let it slide because you're the Director's niece and from all your other connections."


Vivio shook her head.


"No, not me. I understand why you couldn't tell me. Them. The Shadows."


Lutecia started. She hadn't expected that from her. Vivio got out of bed and crossed over to her, cupping her girlfriend's face between her palms.


"You are not a w-whore," she said, blushing as she stumbled over the word. "You are a spy. You did things that you shouldn't have to have done, and other things that there's no justification for anyone to be made to do, but all of it, it was for the sake of protecting people like me. If you'd told them, I'm sure your superiors could have helped you realize that."


"You give us more credit for decency than we've earned."


Vivio snorted.


"I know Uncle Chrono better than that. Forget decency; do you really think he wouldn't protect his only S-rank field agent against herself?" She crushed Lutecia against herself, the thick fleece robe blunting the outlines of her girlfriend's body against her skin. "You always do this. You always take it all on yourself so the rest of us don't have to suffer. You didn't tell Megane what you do so she wouldn't blame herself, you didn't tell your co-workers about your pain, you're always coming back hurt from your missions--"


Softening fabric or not, she didn't miss Lutecia going stiff in her arms.


"Did you think we didn't notice? We all did: Erio, Caro, and I all realized that you'd come back hurt far more often than you should have."


"I—"


"—may be S-rank, but raw defense isn't one of your strengths. And you'd rather take the hit than let someone else be hurt." She softly kissed the top of Lutecia's head. "You shouldn't have tried to carry it yourself. Especially not now that I know about you being a Shadow, so you don't have to keep things secret."


Lutecia looked up at her, meeting Vivio's eyes of her own accord for the first time in a while.


"Vivio, do you really not understand?"


Lutecia stared searchingly into Vivio's eyes, looking for something deep in her gaze. Vivio was genuinely baffled.


"No, I don't!"


Lutecia sighed, then a tiny smile started to play around the corners of her mouth and she shook her head.


"You're my girlfriend, Vivio," she said, "and I'm talking about having sex with other people while I've been dating you."


"...Yeah," Vivio said.


"And you wonder why I've had trouble bringing it up?"


Vivio blushed.


"I was trying not to think about that part. Besides, you said that wasn't the big problem, and you were just so hurt--"


Lutecia laughed.


"What in the name of all that's holy did I ever do to wind up with you?"


"Well, you humored a little kid when she wanted somebody to talk about Belkan history and politics with, you put up with a best friend who was four years younger at an age when four years meant a lot, and you didn't step on said friend's crush when you should have brushed it off, but instead nurtured it sweetly and treated her with love instead of taking advantage of her or kicking her aside. Plus, you did it all while you were keeping a secret that made you feel like you were twisted and corrupt and not worthy to stand next to the rest of us. That might have a little to do with it." Vivio hugged her tightly.


"Look," she continued. "I know you like to keep us safe, that coming home and seeing me, and Megane, and Caro and Erio living our happy and innocent lives let you know there was something worthwhile that you were protecting, so you'd have the strength to go dive back into the darkness, right?"


Lutecia nodded.


"But it's different now. I'm with you, not just 'Cia,' and that means No. More. Secrets." She tapped Lutecia playfully on the nose with her forefinger to punctuate each word. "Besides, you're retired now."


"From the field. Now I'm training other agents to go out and do the kind of things I did, which is worse in some ways."


Vivio laughed, which took Lutecia completely off-guard.


"Who's acting like Nanoha-mama now?"


"What?"


"Well, do you teach your students to do all the things that you insisted on doing and led to your breakdown? Or do you teach them to be responsible and do things the right way even while you can't make yourself do as you say?"


Lutecia flushed bright red.


"Well, I..."


"Thought so." Vivio kissed her, a quick peck on the lips.


"Vivio!" Lutecia exclaimed, then gave it up and giggled. It was so good to hear that, after everything from the last few minutes, that it gave Vivio a serious case of the warm fuzzies. She kissed Lutecia again, soft and lovingly.


"Vivio, would you..."


"Yes?"


"Would you stay for the night?"


"Of course. Just let me call mamas, okay?"


"You might want to put something on, first. They know we're sleeping together, but..."


Vivio blushed again, realizing belatedly that she'd been naked throughout the whole conversation. It just hadn't seemed important enough to notice at the time.


"You always liked sleeping next to me, even when we weren't dating," Vivio remarked, reaching for her shirt.


"That's because," Lutecia admitted softly, apparently trying out the "no secrets" thing, "when you hold me while I sleep, I don't dream."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Vivio's Magical Omake Theater!

Vivio panted for breath, trying to make up the oxygen debt. Spending the night with her girlfriend wasn't just romantic and loving, it also had fringe benefits. An enthusiastic round of morning-after lovemaking didn't happen when she woke up on her own bed, alone.


"Lutecia," she said when she could talk again, "that was incredible."


Her lover blushed.


"Thank you."


"That reminds me. You said that you were training new field agents in the skills needed to be Shadow."


"Uh-huh. Infiltration and stealth, how to bypass security systems, interrogation techniques, psychological manipulation and interaction for dealing with contacts--"


"Seduction?"


Lutecia blushed faintly.


"Um, yes..."


"Well, if you ever need a subject for a class demonstration, I'd be glad to volunteer!"

Amazing fic, Dezo! This is really cool (although the subject matter is sad) to read, since it's something that I've been thinking about ever since RadiantBeam brought up this whole sticky issue....and particularly post-Borderline, I've been wondering what Vivio's reaction would have been to it all.

I really like the small details you put in, like Vivio not knowing exactly what to do and Lutecia would guide her over the rough parts or the complexities of some of Lutecia's speeches...all those little extra details make the story richer and full of more meaning than if it were just pushing through the plot.

Loved reading it!

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

Border Crossing

Brilliant. Particularly Vivio's stark acceptance. She cut pretty quickly through the veil that Lutecia put up. It was actually quite devious.

Also, final line of the omake may have made my week.

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

While RadiantBeam thought that this Lutecia wouldn't accept a relationship with Vivio (you'll note that Vivio asked Lutecia out when Lutecia was 19, so that's about a year after "Borderline"), I thought it would be interesting if this took place in the main continuity as deathcurse suggested. So rather than comment on the fic, I wrote a fic response as if that had taken place.

You probably need to have read "Sunrise," though, to get some of the references.

Spoiler for Border Crossing:

It took Vivio nearly five minutes before she felt able to speak.


"Wow!" she breathed, her voice still not quite under control. "Where did you learn to do that, Lutecia?"


The first time they'd made love, the morning after Vivio's eighteenth birthday, it had been sweet and loving. Lutecia had basically let her enthusiastic-though-virginal girlfriend do whatever she'd wanted, all the things she'd wished for, offering gentle guidance when reality didn't quite match up with the things Vivio had read. Their second and third times had been very similar.


This night had been very different.


The older woman had skillfully, expertly built Vivio's passions, her hands and mouth moving on her in a performance choreographed to drive the blonde wild, mounting her urgent need until she was almost out of her mind, then letting things ebb, or allowing her just the slightest surge of release to keep the pressure under control, before finally driving her higher and higher until her mind seemed to explode in a series of soul-shattering climaxes.


Vivio had meant it as a rhetorical question, just another way of saying, "That was awesome!" She was surprised when, after a minute, she got an answer.


"Work."


She was also surprised by the flat, dull tone her girlfriend had used, so different than it had been before.


"Work? You mean, they teach you to--" Vivio began, then cut herself off. "Oh."


Because Lutecia's work was as a Shadow, an agent of the TSAB's covert operations service. The use of sexuality in espionage was so elementary as to be a basic, fundamental strategy. Whether it was gaining information via pillow talk, using an intimate relationship to gain access to people's private quarters, setting a target up for blackmail, passing on false information, building a sense of trust and intimacy in order to better manipulate someone into doing what the agent wanted, or luring them into a vulnerable position for assassination, seduction was a standard part of an agent's repertoire. There was a reason the media portrayed female spies, especially, as sexy and glamorous.


That phrase certainly fits Lutecia, Vivio thought. The sleek, slender beauty had an allure about her that Vivio figured she herself would never master. Her own face and figure, and more importantly her personality, could project sexiness in the in-your-face, direct appeal to the hormones kind of way, but she couldn't add in that air of mystery that a seduction demanded. She could never, for example, pull off the merrywidow and silk stockings Lutecia was wearing with anything like the same effect.


It was funny. Since Lutecia had confessed being a Shadow to her, Vivio had had to ask herself some hard questions about how she felt about loving someone who could do such things as assassination, blackmail, or torture, the allegedly "necessary" evils of covert operations.


She hadn't thought about what in retrospect was the most obvious issue. After all, did she hate Signum or Vita or Zaffy or Cinque or Ix or (she assumed, though she'd never asked) Fate-mama because they'd killed in the past and with far less social justification than Lutecia had. Or Grandpa Shiro, Uncle Kyouya, and Aunt Miyuki?


But she hadn't thought about the idea that Lutecia had almost certainly slept with other people as part of her job. Or, given Lutecia's age and how long they'd been together, that she'd almost certainly done so while the two of them were a couple.


Vivio suddenly realized that she'd let a long time go by since she'd last spoken.


"I can't believe that I didn't think of that until now."


"I didn't want to talk about it," Lutecia said. "We were both so distraught about our feelings when you first found out I was NSIS, and you never really asked too much about the specifics of my work."


"Yeah, but I mean—it's just a job, right?" Vivio was trying to be worldly and mature, and failing badly.


"I...don't want to talk about it now, either," was Lutecia's reply, punctuated when she rolled over, away from Vivio, and broke their skin-to-skin contact.


"I think we have to," Vivio told her.


It got Lutecia to turn and look back at her over her shoulder, at least.


"I don't see why."


"It's kind of important, don't you think?"


"God, you're a Takamachi, all right," Lutecia sighed.


"What's that supposed to mean?"


"That you're going to insist on talking this out no matter what it takes, even if you have to go to ridiculous lengths. You're just like your mother in that respect. She'll talk to her enemies all through a fight and if they don't want to listen, she'll blast them into the ground and keep right on talking." She sat up, then swung her legs off the side of the bed. "Sometimes I think the only reason people fight back at all is just to try to get her to shut up."


Vivio flinched at the way her girlfriend's words bit at her, and her temper started to flare.


Then it stopped, and she smiled.


"Nice try."


"What?"


"I almost didn't notice what you were doing there. Deflecting the topic and hoping to start a fight over something else so you can lead me farther and farther away from the point."


"I—I wasn't--"


She couldn't get the words out, and Vivio knew why. Lutecia couldn't lie to her. Manipulate, yes; deceive, certainly; leave important things unsaid, absolutely; but not to look her in the face and simply, plainly, say things that weren't true.


"Lutecia, I've loved you since I was twelve. Don't you know by now that you can tell me anything?"


"Why?"


"Because that's what love is."


The violet-haired Shadow shook her head, still not looking back at Vivio.


"No, Vivio, I mean, what's the point of talking about it? Talk won't change anything. It won't make the past go away."


She made to get up, but Vivio was faster; her hand snapped tight around Lutecia's wrist.


"That's not true! It can change a lot! If people don't talk to each other, how can they understand each other's feelings?"


"That sounds like something Nanoha would say."


"She's the one who taught it to me. And Fate-mama taught me something else: talking to someone may not be able to change the past, but it can change how the past feels to you now."


Vivio sat up and pulled Lutecia back against her, slipping her free arm around Lutecia's waist and resting her chin on the older woman's collarbone so their faces were pressed together side-by-side.


"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Lutecia said. Her voice was full of reluctance and misery but with an underlying warmth—that while she really did not want to do this, it still touched her on some level that Vivio would care so much.


"No, I'm not."


"...You're not going to like it."


"Probably not," Vivio agreed. "But we've been over this before."


Lutecia exhaled slowly.


"I suppose we have."


She clenched her fists in the sheets.


"Yes, I've slept with people in the course of missions. There it is. Oh, and yes, a senior female agent did teach me the...'tricks of the trade.'"


"Miranda?"


She shook her head.


"God, I wish. No, Miranda had died before that. They...we...won't use an agent on that kind of mission who isn't of age."


Vivio tried to think about it but couldn't. She simply had no basis for comparison. Even trying to imagine herself having sex with anyone other than Lutecia felt flat and unreal.


"Could you have refused?" she asked.


"Yes. They wouldn't push the unwilling into it, partly from decency but mostly just because it'd put the mission objective at risk. I didn't try to get out of it, though."


"Why not, since you seem so bothered by it?"


"I'd probably have lost my active field agent status if I had. I'd already drawn one bright line about refusing to kill outside of the direct scope of the mission, even when rationality suggested that I should. One scruple is a personality quirk, but when they start adding up...There's not much point in a spy who won't get her hands dirty."


They'd already had the talk about why Lutecia was a Shadow at all, why it had meant so much to her, so Vivio didn't ask her to expand on that answer.


"Is it because you feel like you cheated on me?" she asked instead. "That you didn't want to talk about it—is that why?"


"No."


There was a long pause.


"Mostly not. Some of it is. Do you feel cheated on?"


"Yeah, some," Vivio admitted. Truth ran both ways, after all. "I mean, I've been aching to touch you for years, and you wouldn't because of our ages and all the rest of it, and to hear that someone else has...yeah, it feels bad. But I know it's just a job, too. It's not like those people are boyfriends or girlfriends or something."


Lutecia shivered.


"No, definitely not."


"Lutecia?"


She didn't answer. Then Vivio remembered: mostly not. Or in other words, what was really wrong didn't have anything to do with Vivio or their relationship.


"Was it really awful?" she said softly.


"Sometimes it was," Lutecia said. "The first time...the target, he...had a taste for virgins and, lucky me, we had one one available. You remember, I didn't hit that last growth spurt until I was nineteen, so we did a makeup job and told him I was fourteen." She gave a sickly little smile. "It worked perfectly. While I had him...distracted, I had my wasps take over his personal computer, one he kept isolated from any networks for security's sake, and extract all the data he was hiding."


"I hope you killed him after that," Vivio said fiercely.


Lutecia blinked.


"It wasn't that kind of mission."


"He deserved it, using you that way."


"I was the one using him, Vivio."


Vivio shook her head.


"Lutecia...I know it's only been a week since it happened, but you...you made my first time something wonderful for me. I'd wanted it so badly for a long time, yes, but I was still really nervous. And you were patient and gentle and showed me how to do the things I wanted to when I was too rough or too clumsy or just too ignorant. Every bit of it was loving and incredible and it'll be a beautiful memory for me forever. And that sick bastard stole it from you."


Lutecia gave her a long look.


"You really mean it, don't you? Exactly like that?"


She slipped from Vivio's embrace, but instead of getting off the bed just turned so she could sit cross-legged, facing her girlfriend.


"Of course I do!"


Lutecia shook her head.


"You never stop surprising me, Vivio."


Vivio grinned at her.


"It's a Takamachi thing."


She took Lutecia's hands between hers.


"Go on. Please?"


Lutecia nodded, then took a deep breath.


"I came home, got in the shower, and scrubbed my skin raw. I remember that I had lunch with Caro the next day and had to make up some story about being sunburned."


She shivered.


"Was it always like that?"


Lutecia shook her head.


"No. Sometimes it was, if the target was particularly disgusting in his or her tastes, sometimes it was unpleasant, sometimes I enjoyed myself, and sometimes, most times really, it just...was. But it wasn't doing the job that was the problem. It was afterwards, when it was all over, and I was left with just myself."


She sighed bitterly.


"I spent the first year or so telling myself that it was just a job, that sex was just a physical act that didn't mean anything. I kept repeating it, even to myself, even when I wanted to tear off my skin, because if I'd admitted what I was feeling, I'd..." She shook her head, apparently not wanting to put it into words.


Vivio wasn't sure she wanted to hear the end of the sentence.


"It doesn't matter," Lutecia spared them both. "By the second year, it wasn't a lie anymore. It was a job. I guess it's true, you can get used to anything if you have to," she said with a short, barking laugh.


"By the third year, I remembered that that particular job has a name."


She was gripping Vivio's hands more tightly, her long nails digging into the blonde's skin. Vivio doubted she even realized she was doing it.


"So there you have it. Your girlfriend isn't just a thief, an extortionist, a torturer, and a murderer, she's also a whore."


She looks so stricken, Vivio thought. It didn't matter that Lutecia was a beautiful, elegant young woman nearly as tall as Vivio herself, now. She still seemed like that tiny, broken child she'd been when Erio and Caro had rescued her from Jail Scaglietti.


Maybe in some ways she always had been. After all, it had been what was broken in the girl, the capacity to do things that others shirked from, that had led the Shadows to recruit her in the first place.


"How...how could they use you that way? Knowing what it cost you?"


"I'm good at hiding things," Lutecia said. She smiled gamely and said, "I hid from what I was from you for eight years. If it took that long for me to give up the truth to the person I love the most, then how long do you think it would be before I let co-workers see it?"


"But the Shadows, they know you. I mean, they knew Lutecia, not just Cia."


Lutecia's smile was sad and laced with irony.


"Different lies for different people, Vivio."


She got up out of bed and plucked a soft, fluffy robe off the hook behind the door, slipping it on over her lingerie-clad body and knotting the cord. The action made Vivio realize that she was starting to feel chilled, the sweat evaporating off her overheated body.


"You shouldn't have lied."


Lutecia flinched at the gently chiding tone.


"I couldn't tell you, Vivio. It'd be a serious breach of protocol to tell a civilian"--in this case, meaning non-NSIS, not non-military--"girlfriend about my work. I probably shouldn't have told you when I did, according to the rules; they only let it slide because you're the Director's niece and from all your other connections."


Vivio shook her head.


"No, not me. I understand why you couldn't tell me. Them. The Shadows."


Lutecia started. She hadn't expected that from her. Vivio got out of bed and crossed over to her, cupping her girlfriend's face between her palms.


"You are not a w-whore," she said, blushing as she stumbled over the word. "You are a spy. You did things that you shouldn't have to have done, and other things that there's no justification for anyone to be made to do, but all of it, it was for the sake of protecting people like me. If you'd told them, I'm sure your superiors could have helped you realize that."


"You give us more credit for decency than we've earned."


Vivio snorted.


"I know Uncle Chrono better than that. Forget decency; do you really think he wouldn't protect his only S-rank field agent against herself?" She crushed Lutecia against herself, the thick fleece robe blunting the outlines of her girlfriend's body against her skin. "You always do this. You always take it all on yourself so the rest of us don't have to suffer. You didn't tell Megane what you do so she wouldn't blame herself, you didn't tell your co-workers about your pain, you're always coming back hurt from your missions--"


Softening fabric or not, she didn't miss Lutecia going stiff in her arms.


"Did you think we didn't notice? We all did: Erio, Caro, and I all realized that you'd come back hurt far more often than you should have."


"I—"


"—may be S-rank, but raw defense isn't one of your strengths. And you'd rather take the hit than let someone else be hurt." She softly kissed the top of Lutecia's head. "You shouldn't have tried to carry it yourself. Especially not now that I know about you being a Shadow, so you don't have to keep things secret."


Lutecia looked up at her, meeting Vivio's eyes of her own accord for the first time in a while.


"Vivio, do you really not understand?"


Lutecia stared searchingly into Vivio's eyes, looking for something deep in her gaze. Vivio was genuinely baffled.


"No, I don't!"


Lutecia sighed, then a tiny smile started to play around the corners of her mouth and she shook her head.


"You're my girlfriend, Vivio," she said, "and I'm talking about having sex with other people while I've been dating you."


"...Yeah," Vivio said.


"And you wonder why I've had trouble bringing it up?"


Vivio blushed.


"I was trying not to think about that part. Besides, you said that wasn't the big problem, and you were just so hurt--"


Lutecia laughed.


"What in the name of all that's holy did I ever do to wind up with you?"


"Well, you humored a little kid when she wanted somebody to talk about Belkan history and politics with, you put up with a best friend who was four years younger at an age when four years meant a lot, and you didn't step on said friend's crush when you should have brushed it off, but instead nurtured it sweetly and treated her with love instead of taking advantage of her or kicking her aside. Plus, you did it all while you were keeping a secret that made you feel like you were twisted and corrupt and not worthy to stand next to the rest of us. That might have a little to do with it." Vivio hugged her tightly.


"Look," she continued. "I know you like to keep us safe, that coming home and seeing me, and Megane, and Caro and Erio living our happy and innocent lives let you know there was something worthwhile that you were protecting, so you'd have the strength to go dive back into the darkness, right?"


Lutecia nodded.


"But it's different now. I'm with you, not just 'Cia,' and that means No. More. Secrets." She tapped Lutecia playfully on the nose with her forefinger to punctuate each word. "Besides, you're retired now."


"From the field. Now I'm training other agents to go out and do the kind of things I did, which is worse in some ways."


Vivio laughed, which took Lutecia completely off-guard.


"Who's acting like Nanoha-mama now?"


"What?"


"Well, do you teach your students to do all the things that you insisted on doing and led to your breakdown? Or do you teach them to be responsible and do things the right way even while you can't make yourself do as you say?"


Lutecia flushed bright red.


"Well, I..."


"Thought so." Vivio kissed her, a quick peck on the lips.


"Vivio!" Lutecia exclaimed, then gave it up and giggled. It was so good to hear that, after everything from the last few minutes, that it gave Vivio a serious case of the warm fuzzies. She kissed Lutecia again, soft and lovingly.


"Vivio, would you..."


"Yes?"


"Would you stay for the night?"


"Of course. Just let me call mamas, okay?"


"You might want to put something on, first. They know we're sleeping together, but..."


Vivio blushed again, realizing belatedly that she'd been naked throughout the whole conversation. It just hadn't seemed important enough to notice at the time.


"You always liked sleeping next to me, even when we weren't dating," Vivio remarked, reaching for her shirt.


"That's because," Lutecia admitted softly, apparently trying out the "no secrets" thing, "when you hold me while I sleep, I don't dream."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Vivio's Magical Omake Theater!

Vivio panted for breath, trying to make up the oxygen debt. Spending the night with her girlfriend wasn't just romantic and loving, it also had fringe benefits. An enthusiastic round of morning-after lovemaking didn't happen when she woke up on her own bed, alone.


"Lutecia," she said when she could talk again, "that was incredible."


Her lover blushed.


"Thank you."


"That reminds me. You said that you were training new field agents in the skills needed to be Shadow."


"Uh-huh. Infiltration and stealth, how to bypass security systems, interrogation techniques, psychological manipulation and interaction for dealing with contacts--"


"Seduction?"


Lutecia blushed faintly.


"Um, yes..."


"Well, if you ever need a subject for a class demonstration, I'd be glad to volunteer!"

Baha, the last line of the omake killed me. XD I recognize that joke too!

I think this is the first time I've genuinely wished I could go back and change the canon of my series, or make it so Lutecia lied when she told Vivio she didn't do that kind of stuff; but that would be a negative change, and I honestly didn't know if Lutecia would cross that line in my world.

Particularly interesting (for me) is that after reading this, in the context of my series, I can see just why Vivio is so good for Lutecia. She doesn't let Lutecia lie to herself or be too hard on herself; she cuts right through the veils and gets the truth out of her, comforts her, and supports her. Funny how I never notice that when I'm actually writing it out myself, and then I notice it in your work.

I liked the little detail of Vivio calling Lutecia by her full name, too. It's really a small thing in context to the fic, but it carries so much meaning when you realize that it's Vivio's way of showing that she's accepted all of Lutecia's sides, and not just "Cia".

So yeah. I loved it. Don't mind me, I'm just basking in the afterglow of the awesomness...

[DezoPenguin]

@deathcurse/spawnofthejudge/RadiantBeam: Thank you very much for all the high praise!

One question: was it sufficiently obvious that Lutecia--more subconsciously than out of any real, thought-out plan--wanted this particular conversation to happen right from the start? That is, that she lacked the courage to come out and confess everything to Vivio, but that she basically laid things out on a silver platter for her to pick up on, knowing that Vivio, being Vivio, would drag everything out into the light? I deliberately left the discussion of that out of the story because Lulu doesn't yet realize what she was doing, and Vivio wouldn't have picked up on it, but I wondered if what was supposed to be subtext there got across...

Oh, and RB, remember that...

Spoiler for On the subject of lies...:

"Hey, wait a minute, I thought you told me that you never slept with your targets!" Vivio yelped.

"I never stayed the whole night! We didn't sleep!" Lutecia protested.

"...I've heard of lying by omission, but that's just ridiculous."

"I'm sorry; I just...couldn't bring myself to tell you. I was so afraid that you'd hate me for being a Shadow; I was sure that you would if I also said that I'd...been...with someone else while we were dating, even if it was for work."

"Nice try, but you're going to have to do more than apologize to make up for this one."

Lutecia sighed.

"...What can I do to make this right?"

Vivio brightened.

"Well, I found these in the third drawer of your dresser while I was looking for a robe, and I was hoping you'd show me how they work?"

Lutecia turned beet red.

OK, back to watching The Dresden Files with my wife!

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

One question: was it sufficiently obvious that Lutecia--more subconsciously than out of any real, thought-out plan--wanted this particular conversation to happen right from the start? That is, that she lacked the courage to come out and confess everything to Vivio, but that she basically laid things out on a silver platter for her to pick up on, knowing that Vivio, being Vivio, would drag everything out into the light? I deliberately left the discussion of that out of the story because Lulu doesn't yet realize what she was doing, and Vivio wouldn't have picked up on it, but I wondered if what was supposed to be subtext there got across...

I got it. The whole way Lutecia set it up was like she was hoping Vivio would ask her about it before she had to explain it herself, and it worked.

Oh, and RB, remember that...

Spoiler for On the subject of lies...:

"Hey, wait a minute, I thought you told me that you never slept with your targets!" Vivio yelped.

"I never stayed the whole night! We didn't sleep!" Lutecia protested.

"...I've heard of lying by omission, but that's just ridiculous."

"I'm sorry; I just...couldn't bring myself to tell you. I was so afraid that you'd hate me for being a Shadow; I was sure that you would if I also said that I'd...been...with someone else while we were dating, even if it was for work."

"Nice try, but you're going to have to do more than apologize to make up for this one."

Lutecia sighed.

"...What can I do to make this right?"

Vivio brightened.

"Well, I found these in the third drawer of your dresser while I was looking for a robe, and I was hoping you'd show me how they work?"

Lutecia turned beet red.

...

Dammit, Dezo!

[deathcurse]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

@deathcurse/spawnofthejudge/RadiantBeam: Thank you very much for all the high praise!

One question: was it sufficiently obvious that Lutecia--more subconsciously than out of any real, thought-out plan--wanted this particular conversation to happen right from the start? That is, that she lacked the courage to come out and confess everything to Vivio, but that she basically laid things out on a silver platter for her to pick up on, knowing that Vivio, being Vivio, would drag everything out into the light? I deliberately left the discussion of that out of the story because Lulu doesn't yet realize what she was doing, and Vivio wouldn't have picked up on it, but I wondered if what was supposed to be subtext there got across...

I found it fairly obvious. That's not the kind of statement that you drop right after expressing your love through sex with your significant other (I'm having a field day applying my psychology knowledge to Lutecia's behaviour )

Oh, and RB, remember that...

Spoiler for On the subject of lies...:

"Hey, wait a minute, I thought you told me that you never slept with your targets!" Vivio yelped.

"I never stayed the whole night! We didn't sleep!" Lutecia protested.

"...I've heard of lying by omission, but that's just ridiculous."

"I'm sorry; I just...couldn't bring myself to tell you. I was so afraid that you'd hate me for being a Shadow; I was sure that you would if I also said that I'd...been...with someone else while we were dating, even if it was for work."

"Nice try, but you're going to have to do more than apologize to make up for this one."

Lutecia sighed.

"...What can I do to make this right?"

Vivio brightened.

"Well, I found these in the third drawer of your dresser while I was looking for a robe, and I was hoping you'd show me how they work?"

Lutecia turned beet red.

OK, back to watching The Dresden Files with my wife!

.... I second that!

[Alavon]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

Oh, and RB, remember that...

Spoiler for On the subject of lies...:

"Hey, wait a minute, I thought you told me that you never slept with your targets!" Vivio yelped.

"I never stayed the whole night! We didn't sleep!" Lutecia protested.

"...I've heard of lying by omission, but that's just ridiculous."

"I'm sorry; I just...couldn't bring myself to tell you. I was so afraid that you'd hate me for being a Shadow; I was sure that you would if I also said that I'd...been...with someone else while we were dating, even if it was for work."

"Nice try, but you're going to have to do more than apologize to make up for this one."

Lutecia sighed.

"...What can I do to make this right?"

Vivio brightened.

"Well, I found these in the third drawer of your dresser while I was looking for a robe, and I was hoping you'd show me how they work?"

Lutecia turned beet red.

*spurts out soda...literally*

D-Dezo...y-you're too...much....

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by deathcurse

(I'm having a field day applying my psychology knowledge to Lutecia's behaviour )

Wanna run some of it by me? I'm quite curious.

[D2]

If I may intrude, I have something I want to show you:

Spoiler for Everybody Was...:

Teana Lanster was annoyed. For over a week now, she was looking forward to this particular weekend since it was her designated vacation time, allowing her to get peace and quiet from her rambunctious partner, Subaru, and to recover from Nanoha's daily beatings. However, someone from Riot Force 6 thought it amusing to let command know about a potential relic case that was hidden on Cranagen's west side. Alas, what was supposed to be Teana's relaxing Saturday was now spent in a derelict factory of sorts, searching for what amounted to a modestly small box.

"Waa, it's so scary in here Tea," pouted Subaru, as she stared at the corroding walls and various rusting components that filled the cavernous hall. Teana narrowed her eyes as she scanned the various niches of the factory, unable to shake the sense that they were being watched. After walking around for a bit more, Subaru suddenly perked up and said,

"I think I see it!" Teana wrenched her head in the direction of Subaru's fingers, and lo and behold, there sat a box that fit the description that was given to the pair at headquarters.

Now, Subaru thought she was the only cyborg that saw the case.

[Music Starts, legions of drones appear and block the way between the Stars and the Relic case.] She was not. [More drones block the exits and surround the pair.]

"I never knew there were so many!" Gasped Teana.

"So let it begin," nodded Subaru.

Both Teana and Subaru readied their devices and formed their barrier jackets as they took in their surroundings and formed an action plan, mentally trading plans between themselves. For several seconds, there was a tense standoff, until...

[0:25 seconds in the video] "HYAAAA!"

With a resounding yell, Subaru leaped at the nearest drone and evidently took it by surprise as it tore apart under a revolver knuckle without any sign of an AMF. Not waiting for an invitation, Teana charged Cross Mirage, took aim at a drone and fired. The two worked in tandem, Subaru throwing herself at the drones that she set her eyes upon, using a combination of Revolver Knuckles and her physical abilities to tear the drones apart. Teana used her device to snipe targets from a distance, and used simple illusions to distract both the drones acting on her and the drones that tried to sneak up behind Subaru. Teana was keeping an eye on her partner darting between several drones at once when a beam of light narrowly missed her shoulder and hit the ceiling above. Ducking her head from the debris, she had lost sight of the offending drone by the time she leapt on to a precipice to get a better view.

"Hmm, if came from straight behind me while I was on the ground floor, now it should be-" While she was still scanning the room, a flash of movement caught her eyes,
"-beneath me?"

Her eyes widened as she had to leap into the open air in order to avoid the second beam the drone fired from a ledge beneath where she was standing. Knowing that the drone would try and snipe her as she fell past, Teana charged up Cross Mirage as she started to fall. When Teana fell to eye level with the drone, Teana fired, and was relieved as her shot while upside down, free falling, and all, perfectly intercepted the beam fired by the drone. Teana was slightly blown back by the impact, needing to hastily twist her body in order to soften her impact on the concrete floor. Hissing in pain, Teana steeled herself and forced her body in a position to face the drone she had just fallen past and fired another shot in the general vicinity, providing her cover fire in order to seek shelter and regain her bearings. Teana took the opportunity to check herself and catch her breath, then leapt back into the action. Although Subaru was holding her own, destroying several drones, she knew that the two had to have some back up, as they were starting to become fatigued. At that moment, it seemed their prayers were answered, as Erio crashed in through a window, and Caro managed to ride in on Fredrick through a cavernous hole in the ceiling.

"We're sorry we took so long, we just got word from headquarters so we came as soon as we could!" Caro shouted as Fredrick launched a fireball at a drone. Subaru only had time to send partial greetings before a much bigger drone that had seemingly been blending into the background decided to get into the action, sending multiple beams randomly firing across the facility.

"Here comes the big boss!" Yelled Erio as he aimed Strata at the behemoth. For several minutes, the giant drone attracted the majority of the attention from the 4 mages, all of them alternating attacks on the larger drone while taking pot shots at the smaller drones remaining. After another well placed shot by Cross Mirage, the slight AMF on the large drone faltered, and Subaru took that opportunity to rush toward it. Dodging an errant beam, Subaru charged Revolver Knuckle and yelled,

"Divine Buster!" As she uppercut the bottom of the drone. Subaru clenched her teeth and forced her arm harder into the drone's tough armor. As she was reaching the upper limits of her strength, Subaru was finally rewarded with a cracking of the armor, and the entire case of the drone was suddenly marred with a spider web of cracks.

"Now!" Subaru called as she jumped away from the drone, leaving it open for the finishing shot from the other 3.

"Thunder Rage!"
"Phantom Blazer!"
"Friedrich Shoot!"

The three simultaneous attacks poured into the large drone, and it finally exploded under the combined pressure. After finishing the last of the remaining drones, the four exhausted but content mages made it back to Riot Force 6, relic case in hand. As the group caught sight of the instructors talking out of earshot, Erio, who was carrying the case, started to trot at an accelerated speed toward them. Before he made it far though, Subaru laid a hand on Erio's shoulder and stopped him.

"Is something wrong?" Erio asked as he turned to look at Subaru, and found she had her hand held up in a high-five gesture. As Erio curiously raised his hand to accept the request, Subaru's facial expression suddenly turned maniacal.

"BETRAYAL FIVE!"

As a horrified Caro and shocked Teana looked on, Subaru roughly shoved Erio on the chest, sending him tumbling toward the ground, as she yanked the case from his hand and started running toward her beloved Nanoha...

"Tea?" With a start, Teana woke up from her dream and found herself back on the couch she had apparently dozed off in, with her 3 friends curiously staring at her, the flat screen TV in front of them now blank. She groggily apologized for falling asleep, and finally set her eyes on the relic case that had been recovered without incident earlier that afternoon, laying on the adjacent coffee table.

"Nanoha-sensei just returned from her meeting, so we can give the relic case to her now," Erio told the group, and picked up the case. As he turned to leave, he felt a finger tap his shoulder. Turning around, he was met by the grinning face of Subaru with her right hand held beside her head.

"Betrayal Five!"

Erio went sprawling to the floor, Subaru picked up the relic case and raced down the hall outside the Riot Force 6 Rec. room, her distant yells of,

"Nanoha -sensei!, Nanoha sensei!, I've got your suitcase!" echoing back inside.

As Nanoha's distant praise of Subaru started streaming into the room, with Caro frantically tending to a disgruntled Erio, Teana could only stare and think to herself,

"You know, I totally saw that coming."

She chose this moment to glance at the disk of the TV show they were evidently watching when she fell asleep, and it said:

Scrubs Season 5, episode 3: My Day At the Races.

[deathcurse]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

Wanna run some of it by me? I'm quite curious.

Well, most obviously in "Border Crossing" Lutecia made a Freudian slip when she told Vivio that she learned how to do that at work. Even if she consciously didn't want to ever mention that to Vivio, her unconscious wanted to and so it came out.

Haven't learned that much in depth stuff about psychoanalysis, since my classes focus more on abnormal behaviour (although Lutecia's got a lot of those!) and neuropsychology (so unless you wanted me to talk about her brain chemistry? ). Suffice to say, Lutecia's got a lot of problems.....

[Nijiru]

@Dezo: Awesome stuff to cheer me up after doing half of a language midterm. And yes, I want to give them both hugs.

[Alavon]

The revised version of part 1 of 4 (1/4) from Animal Instincts: Chapter 2

Previous:

Animal Instincts: Preface
Animal Instincts: Chapter 1: The Girl from the City

Spoiler for Part 1 of 4 (1/4) of Animal Instincts: Chapter 2:

Animal Instincts

By:
Alavon

Chapter 2:
Melancholy Voices from Distant Memories

The misty night reigned down upon all of the Alaskan wilderness, sharing it's throne with the bronze hue moon which gave the snow below my boots a bright, silvery and copper look. A howl pierced the silent night, its mournful cry echoing throughout the distant land. I felt a soft breeze brushed past and caught some of the snowflakes that was swirling around slowly in the cold air. It was a real pity that Nanoha was in a deep slumber on my back and wasn't awake to see the spectacular beauty that was surrounding us.

My log cabin was a thirty minute walk from the main town of Kiulk and Nanoha, bless her, was completely exhausted to walk the journey so here I am, carrying her on my back. Even though I'm still shaken from my ordeal not long ago, Nanoha being here with me made everything feel...all right.

She really was indeed warm to the touch.

Was it okay to feel like this?

Do I have the right to feel like this?

Is this feeling real or is it just...longing?

Since I was arguing with myself, I didn't notice that in the far distant was my destination. My legs once again did the thinking for me. Noticing it myself a minute later, I began to walk a little faster, or as fast as Nanoha's weight and the hard snow beneath allowed me to. Ignoring my rapid heartbeat and gasps of breath, I climbed on top of a fallen log and, carefully that I wouldn't wake Nanoha up from her nap, arrived at my 'home'.

Home.

What an interesting word.

My log cabin was not big but it was well kept; I definitely made sure of that. The previous owners and those before them were driven out by the towns people all throughout Kiulks history when Alaska was incorporated into the 'Union'. I guess, over the years, they couldn't handle the silent treatment. So this part of Kiulk is called, “Intruders Zone” and was was completely ignored.

That was fine by me; I was used to being ignored much to the townsfolk's annoyance.

Taking out my keys from my pocket, I climbed the steps of my porch and was about to insert the key into the keyhole when out of the blue, a loud howl erupted into the night....and...it sounded near...

I gulped.

The howl then turned to barks and this time, Nanoha woke up from the noises.

“Wha-what's going on?” she yawned, climbing down from my back.

“She's coming,” I answered, frantically trying to open the door to no avail; my hands were too cold. “And I was out all day!” Nanoha raised an eyebrow, a bemused look appearing on her sleepy face as she watch my fight with door.

“Who's coming?”

And on cue, my mixed-breed husky appeared from the woods and jumped on top of me, sending me flying down the steps and on to the snow. She then began to lick my face continuously, a whine escaping her throat.

“N-no! Arf! Down girl, Down!” I yelled sternly but she just ignored me and continued on with her playful assault.

Nanoha, who at first was worried that Arf was a stray animal, began to giggle. She jumped off from the porch and walked up to me and Arf. She smiled widely and said,”She's beautiful...”

“Oh, she's beautiful alright.” I growled, finally standing up. “That is until she goes into heat!”

Nanoha blushed a deep scarlet and averted her eyes from mine. Sensing that I might have said something insulting, I quickly added,”I was joking.”

Nanoha shook her head very quickly but still did not make eye contact with me. I was starting to panic; me and my stupid mouth! I was about to say something when Arf walked up to Nanoha and began to sniff her. Nanoha kneeled down and began to pat Arf, who was enjoying the attention from someone other than me.

“Aren't you a gorgeous animal?” cooed Nanoha, hugging Arf. Arf barked happily and licked Nanoha's cheeks. Nanoha giggled. “You really are very polite. Your owner trained you well.”

I decided not to say anything at that moment; Nanoha looked too happy for me to make another mistake. Besides, just watching her was enough. After a few minutes passed by, I checked my watch; it was 10:47pm.

It was this late already?

“Uh, Nanoha?” I said, tentatively. Nanoha hummed to show that she was listening. “Why don't we go inside? It's getting really chilly out now.”

Nanoha looked up at me, smiled and...my heart skipped a beat.

What's happening to me?

“Okay,” she said, standing up.

After I calmed Arf down which took a great deal of time, I returned back to the porch with the key. After inserting it in the lock, I gave it a quick turn and the door swung open. As soon as the door was open, Arf rush right past me and began to bark much to Nanoha's amusement. I turned on the light and said to her nervously,”Well, this is where I live.”

Nanoha, after peeking behind my shoulder, smiled widely and stepped right into my home, looking around like a child arriving in a toy shop for the first time.

I was really glad that I'm a neat freak.

My living room and kitchen were in the same room with the hearth pretty much separating them. My bedroom was just above the living room on the right, a spiraling oak wood staircase leading to the exposed room which held the only expensive item other than my boat; a plasma T.V. My dwelling was small in Kiulk's standard but it was comfortable and that's what counts.

The only thing I regret before leaving to fish this morning was not putting away all the fishing rods that was lying all over the living room at this very moment.

Spoiler for Author's Notes:

This is all for ch. 2 until next Thursday. The completed chapter will be posted then.