Nanoha FanFiction Discussion

[BPHaru]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

And in clearing out my backlog at ff.net, Sunder the Gold's review of my latest posting of a gag-fic there (it was the one with Bardiche going into sword-chuck mode) made me think of this little bit, in which I finally begin to understand why Fate is always the guy:

Spoiler for GAR! is Why They Call Her Papa:

"They're so competitive," Nanoha said, chuckling.

"I don't get it," Vita agreed. "I mean, you and I like to go at it hard, but it's about mastering techniques, pushing ourselves to be our best like we do for our students. Those two...they just want to beat each other."

Nanoha beamed.

"I know! It's so cute!"

The two they were talking about as well as watching spar from the training field observation booth, were Fate T. Harlaown and the Knight of the Sword, Signum. The two were friends who'd trust each other with their life in genuine battle, but they'd been rivals for all those years, always trying to outdo one another in combat.

"Twenty bucks says Signum wins."

"Confident in your leader, Vita-chan?"

"Last time Fate went for Sonic Form, Signum pinned her to the training field wall with Sturmfalken."

"Yeah, Signum-san's Bow Form is pretty powerful. But! Fate-chan said that Bardiche came up with an idea to match her, so you're on."

"Bardiche did?"

"Mmn-hm!"

"Oh, hey, looks like we're going to see it."

They'd gotten through the preliminaries, scythe versus sword, lightning against fire, zanber versus serpent-whip, and Signum had combined her sword Laevatein with its sheath to create the lethal silver bow.

"What's Fate doing?"

"I don't know; I'll zoom in on her, and get some audio."

Nanoha manipulated the controls, and they were greeted with the sight of Fate standing on air, her eyes...closed?

"Overdrive," Fate whispered. "Archery Form."

Fate's body shimmered, and in the next instant her Barrier Jacket shifted form. Her long white cape vanished, suddenly replaced with a bright red longcoat, while her hair turned silver like Reinforce's and her skin became a rich bronze.

"Huh? What's that about?" was Vita's comment, and from the way Fate was looking down at herself, she had even less idea what was going on. Nor did Signum, apparently; the wide-angle view showed her with sagging jaw and dumbfounded expression.

Bardiche, however, at least knew what it was up to.

"Riot Zanber."

It loaded a cartridge, then changed into its dual beam-sword form. The hilt rose and fell as three more cartridges were fired off, making all four humans wonder what was about to use up so much mana. In the next instant, a barrier engulfed the two combatants, shifting them to an alternate space-time and out of the audience's ability to view, leaving only Bardiche's voice echoing in their wake.

"Unlimited Blade Works."

Nanoha sighed.

"Raising Heart, have you and Bardiche been borrowing Hayate-chan's anime collection again?"

That was epic, we so need a fanart of this...
I LOL'd at the last line xD
Good job, DezoPenguin~

It's good to hear that our magnificent Sa-nyan will be writing more Vampire!Fate and Dream Wing. I'll be looking forward to them ^^

Cuídense y sigan sonriendo

[NorthernFallout]

Before going off on my yearly 1-week, unstoppable, skiing trip, I thought I would drop a few words (2.30 am, tired, can't think.)

FotR Chapter 11 is drawing to a close. I have most of the plot and it just needs refining and a finish. Might not finish it this year as first planned so it will take a while longer due to exams.

True Lies Chapter 2 is currently inactive. I have ideas but will focus on finishing FotR for the time being.

As some of you might remember I did a fic called "No Escape". While the premise was good and I at least managed to communicate a general feeling, I feel I could have developed it a lot more and make it a mini-story with more refined text and plot.

That's why "No Escape Uncut" will be worked on and probably finished within a few months.
More info, more traps and more gore awaits for those who reads.

So with that, see you on the 5th.

[RadiantBeam]

...

Elise/Nanoha sister fluff pre-BTBR is fun to write. :3

Occurs right after Nanoha comes to live with Elise, after the bond has been established.

Spoiler for Come What May:

“Ne, Onee-sama, are you doing something special for your birthday tomorrow?”

Surprised, Elise glanced at Nanoha. The eleven-year-old had scrambled up onto the bed beside her blonde companion, Kuon cuddled safely in her arms. The young girl was dressed for bed, wearing a shirt much too large for her slim frame and her hair undone. Amused by the child’s antics, Elise ignored the photograph she held in her hand to answer her. “Not really.”

Surprised, Nanoha blinked. “But isn’t that your family?” she asked, adjusting her hold on Kuon to grip Elise’s wrist so she could see the picture she held.

“Yes.” Elise’s voice softened slightly. “That’s my family.” Her lips twitched, and she set the picture on the nightstand facedown.

“I bet you want to see them tomorrow, right?”

“Afraid not. I haven’t been on good terms with my parents for a number of years now.”

Nanoha’s eyes widened; in her arms, Kuon let out a soft squeak. “You… haven’t?” Although she lived in England now, Nanoha was always in contact with her family. Shiro often joked that it was as if she’d never left.

“Let’s just say… when I was about ten, something really bad happened.” Elise glanced down at Nanoha, and this time she managed a slight smile. “My parents like to live as if it never happened, and I can’t accept that it didn’t. We can’t agree on it, even now.” She shrugged. “So, here I am.”

“That’s horrible,” Nanoha whispered, biting her bottom lip. Elise’s eyes softened slightly, and she gently tousled Nanoha’s hair with her hand, causing the girl to look at her in surprise. “Onee-sama?”

“Don’t let it bother you, Nanoha. Fiasse and your family have been looking out for me, and now I’ve got you and Kuon.” She chuckled. “I can’t say I’m lonely.”

For a few minutes Nanoha contemplated this; she surprised Elise as she leaned against the older woman. Even though she didn’t say why, Elise didn’t ask.

“You know what?” Nanoha tilted her head slightly to look up at Elise. “If tomorrow’s your birthday, we should do something to celebrate it. We can call up Fiasse-chan and ask her to come along. That would be fun, right?”

“Yeah.” Elise gently ran her hand through Nanoha’s hair, smiling slightly. “That would be fun.”

Nanoha grinned, and in the dim light of the room her eyes glowed. She rested her cheek against Elise’s arm, sliding her arm through hers in a loose, loving grip, a younger sister reaching out to her older sister. She yawned softly and closed her eyes, and Kuon snuggled happily into her lap.

Elise chuckled quietly. Somehow, she had the feeling she’d be sharing her bed tonight.

“Ne, Onee-sama?” Nanoha’s voice was soft, sleepy.

“Yeah?”

“If something really bad happens…” Nanoha yawned again. “… If you’re willing to accept it, I will too. So you don’t have to be lonely.”

The lump surged into Elise’s throat, hot and thick; she swallowed against the sudden ball of tears and blinked several times as her eyes moistened, a lovely clenching pain making itself known in her chest. Leaning down, she gently brushed her lips against Nanoha’s hair, though she knew now that the young girl was asleep and couldn’t feel the gesture.

“Thank you, Nanoha.” Her voice was ragged with tears she refused to cry and trembled slightly, but she smiled as she felt warm wetness streak her cheeks.

“… Thank you.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I wish I could save you."

- Simple Plan

I messed up the timeline; Fiasse's conflict with the TSAB (which also is linked to Elise) occured fifteen years ago, not ten. So by my math, Elise is currently twenty-five in BTBR, and she would have been ten when "something bad happened".

[Polyisobutene]

I am going to be old and graying before I get to even read half of these fanfictions...there are so many. To start with, the insane little shorts, crack, are awesome. TheShinySword, those shorts are great for a laugh! Besides that, I don't think that the crack wants to be reviewed...but I still give you props for writing something so funny!

On to what I have found so far. Thanks for the warm welcome! I thank XenahortCharybdis for the kindly welcome, as well as Satashi.

I have finished reading the first part of The Zenith Project, and it looks very impressive.

Spoiler for Review for The Zenith Project:

This is very very good. The use of language in this is impressive to say the least. I really liked the narration of it all, the blending of third person and first person was done well, and not overbearingly or in a corny way. The italics are a good way to do that, I have also seen them intergrate that into the third person as well. I think that you made a great choice, the narration style goes better with the italics!

The variation of language is great, I think that you could add to the sentence variation as well to create a stronger passage in the fanfiction. Your complex sentences are great, and you have some very powerful shorter sentences.

As inspiring as the language is, I felt kind of like the characters dialouge was influenced by it. They sounded very witty and astute for almost the whole fanfiction, or cuttingly witty, but the dialouge feels stiff. I think that has to do with the situation, and it flows naturally, but it felt uncomfortable, kind of scripted. The narration is heavy and eats away at some of the ebb and flow of the speaking. I think with all the focus on the narrorator that the dialouge was just leaned on a bit by the same 'voice'.

With that said, I think that this looks really interesting! Having read only the first part I cannot say anything major plotwise...but from the formatting and everything else it looks wonderful.

Originally Posted by XenahortCharybdis

Okay, first off, Allo-Allo to our new member, Mr. Polyisobutene.

Secondly, A BELATED MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL!

I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but be late this time...honest!

Anyway, now. I have just completed the second chapter of

The ZENITH Project

Chapter 1: Where things start as they should, mostly.

Chapter 2: Where important things are conspired in the light of the setting sun.

Spoiler for Part 1:

To predict a man's actions is a thing of simplicity, but to predict his words is the work of a sage.

Conversations were a surprising breed of things. One never knew when they would come knocking at the door; perhaps at a store, at the office, even in one's sleep. And even when one did know, it was hard to adjudge exactly what would be said. Such indeed was drawn from the unpredictability inherent in man, even from one to another, and due to this even the simplest of dialogues, no matter how supposedly scripted or predicted, would be steeped in the realm of the unknown, the random, perhaps even of chaos.

Still, if talking was not simple, emotions were simple. One simply had to choose to act upon them, or suppress them, and act not at all. Of course, there was but still one more thing: What to choose when wishing to act.

And to that, Lieutenant General Erik Hiringa had, fittingly, a simple answer. If it feels good, do it!

"Well, I never...You've gone soft or something, you old geezer?"

Of course, that didn't apply to the various derogatives that the more uncouth would use, for even the "feel good" rule would stand subject to societal norms in all things of less grave importance, and would have to modify itself accordingly. Simple answers, too, had simple taboos in and of themselves.

"Sure as goddamn hell looks like it."

It seemed, though, that the very person he was entertaining, however, had little concern if any at all for the rules.

The old adage holds true for folly, that rules were meant to be broken. Nay, for the wise twist the laws, and not break them, but instead use them to hold sway over them who would.

"You even there with me?! Really, I've never seen you look so relaxed in a long time. Almost like you've got two feet in the grave already instead of one."

His visitor was one Kai Eisenlaufen, recently transferred in from the Intelligence Department into the regular forces as a Tactical Intelligence Officer, and while his words earlier were not anywhere in the reaches of sage verbatim, but the hour was yet too young to rank him one in deed with the aforementioned follies.

And while also they were complete strangers to one another in all practicality, each knew much about the other in theory (for example, how he would know that like some of the people in Intelligence, 'Kai Eisenlaufen' was in all likelihood a false name, given out of necessity, or perhaps named for a trait that the person in question possessed. And as a throwback to an earlier discourse, ), and for men like them, theory was enough where it came to people. All practical purposes could be left to plans and the execution of plans, and that was all. All that was required for this conversation, but a few mere prerequisites.

And also, him losing that accent of his. It's grating on me, as much as I would like to deny that. And if anything, he should stop calling vulgate derivatives of the already unrefined "old man". I'm thirty-something, and I believe that means only nursery school kids get to call me "old man" or anything like that, unless my face should be withered sufficiently for appearances to deceive.

The situation and purports at hand, though, were quite above the level where "a few mere prerequisites" were deigned to be regarded useful. Complaints concerning any misunderstanding of age would have to be subject to the big picture; the concern which was very reason why they were conversing at this point in the secrecy of a private line, after all, and as such, the pleasantries, amusing though they were, would have to come to an end, whether it be for good or ill, abrupt or no.

And in any case, he was Erik Hiringa: a man whose very name meant power, a general in the service of the interplanetary TSAB, and most of all, a man with a purpose, and that purpose alone gave him more than enough reason to smile in spite of himself.

Ha, or so I remind myself, of course.

"More like that's because this is the first image you've seen of me in a long time. Anyway, congratulations on your entering the G-Force, Kai. Your trademark foul mouth aside, it's good to have you here with us, more so since we haven't seen each other in-?"

There was no reply, and they both knew why: Of course they both knew the answer to that question. Five years, seven months, thirteen days, six hours, forty seven minutes and thirty one seconds since last transmission, or so the length of their mutual silence was spelt out quite clearly, in green, holographically projected block letters. It had been meant to be longer, but certain recent events, though, had helped to somewhat...speed the process up a little. Two crazy magi-scientists and a few Lost Logia on, and there had been naught but benefit so far, which was as well as it could get, their unwanted independent action besides.

Still, the signal had been sent quite effectively to Kai that the time for greetings was quite over, and it was now the time to move on to more serious matters: "A man asking the obvious belies an ulterior motive." Or so they used to say, did they not?

His speech pretty much confirmed it, as his tone took on just enough brevity to not be utterly irreverent. "Hmmm. So we're back to business; you the general, and I the intel farmer. Great. Now, on to the daily news-"

It was far from satisfactory, though. "Okay, hold up a moment, Kai...you lost me. Let me make something clear first: Can we have less of this clear-as-mud ramble whenever you give a report? Just give it to me clean and simple, and then we'll have less of a headache each. Thanks."

"Aw, I'm hurt. You don't like my attempts at making your life interesting for once?"

"No, no, not at all: My life is interesting enough without you, and where it isn't, I don't mind silence or disquiet."

"Alright, I'll keep your senile head's job simple in that case. Check this out."

Eisenlaufen proved himself worthy of his role more than any dossier on his career could have with a single tap of his fingers upon his keyboard. The 3-D holographic display unrolled itself as like to a scroll before him, displaying a pre-fab report: while as most reports and paperwork went it was admittedly rather long, it was nonetheless cogently compiled, its contents well ordered, and the language pleasing to the eye (surprisingly).

"My goodness, it doesn't sound like you for the world. How long did this take?"

He shrugged with a rather questionable grin, his wild red hair wafting around slightly as he gesticulated. "Couple of minutes, maybe seven or eight max? It wasn't difficult, I tell you. Not like security around here is worth half the dogshit it's vaunted for anyway-"

"Your language, Kai."

"Alright, I hear you...Anyway, if I may draw your attention to this section..." The clatter of keys could be heard over the commline's sound factor as the de-facto intelligence officer proceeded to speedtype his directions. The on-screeen display scrolled around a little before finally dropping its crosshairs of focus onto a pair of short passages, system notifications both. A final *click*, and they were highlighted as like to neon lights, complete with clear-as-day punched up font size. "Records show that your personal files have been read twice yesterday, once at 0935 hours and the second time at 1052 hours. Each run-through duration lasted no more than 5 minutes each. Quite a short job."

"Mmm. And who has been looking me up?"

The reply was pretty expected. If this is all in the reported-past tense, it means it's in the past. We couldn't prevent its occurence. "I ran a System Scan just a while back...did ID and Activity History Tracing up to backbone level, negative. It's all clean in there, quite professionally done."

"Wow."

"And you didn't bother to even look at it?"

"Ah, was I supposed to? Well, I missed it. Can't you do it?"

"Well, I'm your head of intelligence, and not the head intelligence. So get on with it, you and your brain. Speculate away, since that's all we're left to right now for an ID."

"Alright, alright, now that I know, let's see..." Erik Hiringa leaned back in his seat as he mumbled his thought processes aloud to himself, and perhaps in part to Kai as well. It wasn't all that complicated, only requiring a few strings of thought. "Only a few people would have the skill to get at those trails, and that authority to wipe someone's mainframe without raising any major ruckus...Special Investigations, Intelligence Division, Inspector rank and above, Senior Inspector just to make sure that the Council turns blind eyes all around...quite a bit of experience in political and departmental affairs, and it's someone who knows enough about me to be interested...Senior Inspector...Acous Verossa. He comes to mind first, or so I think."

"Ah. That clown? I hear you knew him in the past."

The flagrancy of the comment was almost laughable, if only it raised from a miry grave things of any sort but of innocuous jest. Knew him? To suggest that I merely knew him, and thereby conspire to rank me with the multitudes who'd just shoot Acous on sight, for that was the gravity of seeing him back in the day...such ignorance. I did not just know him in that merely cursory sense, or I'd be dead now. No indeed, for a lasting relationship, whether antagonistic or no, in those days was no cheap thing, even as it already is not so today.

He spread his arms wide, taking in the conversation, and at the same time making the discussion seem like a matter of the obvious. "And no small role that played in my choice of him as the hacker..."

"Aren't you going to do anything?"

Of course not.

Given the conclusion, it was more than apparent to him now that perhaps the lack of logical complexity was intentional, though the reasons they knew not at all. Perhaps that, too, was intentional...Or I'm thinking too much.

All the same, while this may be something of importance, there is little reason to be hasty.

"For now, no. I can't prove anything at this point, since it's all just in my head right now. The SI would laugh off such a crazy accusation on one of their most respected and senior members, after all, and even more dangerous are the people that he is connected with...it's been said that even the High Council, in their heydey, could not touch Verossa because some of the people with him. I tell you, if they could intimidate the High Council itself, then I don't want to have to stare down their gun barrels, and in general, we should prevent such a situation at all costs. Not until I say so, anyway."

"So until you get done with whatever it is that you need to do, we can't do anything?" Kai sounded genuinely disappointed, and something in his tone of voice that was strangely irksome. The familiarity in it. For someone whom I've never seen in person, he is being rather overly familiar...I wonder how I'm going to deal with this irritant for the rest of his stint here. Still, necessities are necessities. We'll deal with this...eventually.

For now though,

Erik finally found the presence of mind to smile genuinely for the first time in their conversation since it began. There had been a far-from-light presence of haste overmuch in his voice. He could use that, just that little spark, and with it he would attempt to raise up a wildfire.

"Probably, although just to irritate the hasty, I might want to drag it out a bit...why not?"

This'll have to do.

The response was visibly hilarious, a visibly hilarious sign of his success. "You Basta-"

Ooh. I have another call coming.

"-rd-"

*CLICK*

He looked at the caller ID. He recognized it, and rolled his eyes. Second Lieutenant Artix Strommspeiler, of the Ground Forces. Bouncy kind of person. She's been around here some time. One of them Navy admirals assigned her to my end with those mooks from...damn, what was it called, Riot Force Six or something like that?

Anyway...my main complaint: Isn't there a single secretrary on this god-forsaken planet who actually uses a secure line above White Level even when told to?! More speed, less haste, it seems, is the mission statement issued for all time by these modern day ladies-in-waiting.

All the same, it was a priority line. He would have to pick up, whether he wished to or no.

"Yes, Artie?"

The reply was pretty cheery, almost sing-song, but not quite. Artix had always been a person of few enough words. At least someone understands my need for propriety. Ah, the joys of vindication. "It's today's featured appointment~"

Heh. Heck, I only have one appointment today...Who're you kiddin', woman?

Still, a praise or two was not entirely out of order. "Your humor is improving. Not bad, not bad at all...Anyway, patch her through, chop chop."

A brief silence ensued as the signal was cued through. The screen panned out in the darkness, revealing a rather familiar insignia. He was about to hazard a guess at the identity of the one who had wished an audience with him, but then something else happened. The callsign was next to be displayed, and he found himself recognizing it quite easily as being from a private line, one that spoke volumes all on its own.

[Long Arch 000 - Night Seraph]

Now don't we know who this is...

"Hello, this is the Northern Ground Forces Defense Headquarters. How may I help you, madam?"

"It's...me, sir. Could you, um, please lose the persona?" This person was, naturally, Brigadier-General Yagami Hayate, formerly the head of the said Riot Force, and now one of the leading members of the Midchildan Defense Forces, and it was quite clear what errand she was here on. Erik scrolled through his veritably long list of files, and was pleased to see that the second half of Eisenlaufen's job had been effectively, and not to mention pre-emptively done in anticipation of such an event: The file had nestled itself nicely into the motherly folds of his hard drive sectors as of 17:40:23, aptly titled 'Joint Military Exercise_Draft Plan', the namesake of the one (and only one) of the larger events on hand.

He spoke as he sifted through the existing files: It already contained a few details by the Brigadier-General and her people, entered into the system some time ago. Upon slightly closer inspection, they were all scripted of different hands in terms of stylistic expression, minute though the differences were due to the mandatory restrictions placed on official reports of that nature, and while the anonymously credited writers were foreign to him, he could well guess, as many a seasoned examiner could, the presence of the minds that had had these pieces written.

A cursory look at the more pertinent matters. Finding nothing that he had yet to know there, he made a swift return to the conversation.

"Ah, alright, Yagami-san. Anyway, I'm rather pleased to hear from you...I take it that since you have the audacity to waste my time, then you're done with whatever it was that I asked for?"

Interesting. Perhaps I can keep him for a time after all.

"Ha ha...yes, I'm done. When would you like the list of people in the Org Comm sent to you? I currently have it with on hand." She waved said set of files at the screen for him to see.

"Well, unless you want it to be a surprise, I'd much prefer to have it A.S.A.P." Everyone who'd been in the service long enough knew what a Joint Military Exercise would mean for them: For the eager many from all departments involved, it was a time for intensive training and the building up of oneself, one's comrades and charges for the coming chance to prove themselves ready for the very dangers and threats they had in the beginning joined the Bureau for; to protect and to serve, just to shorten it to one idealistic axiom. For the IT department in particular, it was an extraordinarily stressful time, for it was then and only then that the entire simulation network available to the TSAB would be fully linked up to produce as realistic a field of action as possible. It simply had to be better and better every year (in terms of simulating the troublesome logisitcs of a real life situation, or so the official line went), and they were the hardest put to it.

Not everyone knew how busy it could make the men on top, though (possibly because there were from the the beginning very few of them), much less know how distracting it was from his own ideas. Such worrisome things were far too distracting, and as such became even more useless than they were distracting. This meant one thing only for Erik Hiringa: That it should be done, post-haste, preferably with some sharing of work with those who were of good counsel.

Why else would someone else other than me be doing the bulk of the work?

"Not that I don't trust your judgement, though. Actually, scratch that, you can keep it if you really want me to be surprised, I prefer some humours at the table...some of those Ground Force mooks are so stiff I could die."

Hayate chuckled gaysome at that. One of the bright sparks of the TSAB's coming generation, or so they all say. Her star has risen very quickly, admittedly, and all who would wish to surpass her record of success would be hard pressed to their task. Perhaps, given time and space of course, this student shall surpass all masters, or so I myself see with mine limited eyes. Her natural inclination for what Erik had coined 'complexity of thought in simplicity of humor', among her other achievements and merits, had indeed played no small role in his choice of her as his right-hand woman in this endeavour, and even now he was little displeased with the fruits of his judgement.

"Then it must be hard on you, being the only interesting person in Ground Force Defense."

He threw his hands in the air in a sardonic parody of pained exasperation. "And one of its heads, can you believe it? It's a disaster, putting me at the same table with those people. Gah. Anyway, so I take it that you're not, in fact, going to tell me anything till Thursday, are you? There's no need to answer, I assume that your mind is already made up...and so, I'll see you with the rest of the Joint Military Exercise Org Comm in three days time, Conference Room Seven. No need to answer this one either, since my mind is made up as well...Oh, yes. There is one more thing."

"And what might that be?"

"I'd like you all to perhaps discuss a little on what we're going to say at next week's official press conference, also known as 'Tell the Public What they Need to Hear Time'. A list of questions you have sent, but not a list of answers, I see. You expect me to anticipate everything that may or may not occur on the day itself, and tell them all the appropriate white lies as the situation can and will demand?"

The brigadier-general nodded rather seriously. "Well, of course not, sir. However, I do object...a little to your criticism of the itiniary of question: it must be recognized, of course, that the merit of such a list did spare us some trouble in terms of categorizing the possible questions. Still, if that is your request, I'll put it as a sidenote to the meeting agenda. I don't think a brainstorming session would be too difficult a thing to ask of them."

Acquisience and at the same time, a diplomatic aplogetic to criticism. Perhaps I should just put her in charge of the conference. In light of her own status as a semi-celebrity commander, it shouldn't be too much of a problem for her, eh?

"Indeed, that'll be nice, although I was sort of thinking about doing it during the dinner break or something." And it wouldn't be too difficult for them to come up with their own theories while broaching the subject, either. Intelligence was always a double edged sword, and it was therefore always a dangerous, while at the same time a beneficial thing. It was thus a test for those up above to guide it, or let it slide into something altogether less desirable.

"Is that all, sir?"

"Mmm...Let me consider." He evaluated quickly, as he always would, by forming a list of possible topics with which their conversation should be meaningfully extended. Regrettably, he came up short. "I think not. After all, I prefer to keep some surprises handy myself, and as you know, I'm a pretty busy man, got a lot of things to do, and so on and so forth...so I have to make things as quick as possible. Sorry if I couldn't fraternize a little more, but I assume today just isn't the day for you either, is it?"

"H-heh...Indeed." Hayate glanced to her left ruefully, and upon the paperwork laden side of her desk that came into sight, one of his eyebrows went up, plowing a furrow of surprise through the left side of his face. It seemed that he was closer to the truth than he had earlier expected. "Alright, I won't take up any more of your time, then. Brigadier General Hayate Yagami, out."

Silence again, and a pleasing, soft semi-darkness with it. Erik Hiringa sank back into his arched armchair, feeling his body relax into its comfy folds.

I wonder, Hayate Yagami, what surprises have you in store for me when we do meet again? ...Ah, what difference is that going to make in the long run? Then, perhaps it is time to take a little slack-

*BEEP* [INCOMING CALL: UNKNOWN ID] *BEEP*

-And perhaps not. My break seems not to be in line with some greater will this day...

The fluorescent crimson of an alert made him aware that he had another think coming.

A third call was arriving for him, the third time that pays for all even un-looked for.

But it was no secretrary who had planned this, sorting it conscientiously as one in a list of many appointments and commitments. None of their ilk could, or would have done so, not for something like this.

[CALL LOCATION: RESTRICTED ACCESS, ORDER 7]

This was, however, no mere order of chance either. If anything, as he looked at the flashing words before him with an increasing clarity, he could also increasing only see the falling away of all other possibilities as scales from blind eyes, till he could at last only describe it with the eponymous words, made famous by another from a far off time and land:

...But nonetheless, It's just as I would have planned it.

He took his time to pick up.

"May I ask who this is?"

A voice answered him in what would have been a death-rasp, if not for the undertone of arrogance that it had in its very bearing, so much so that it was almost, in his own context, laughably comical to hear its words drip what would have otherwise been the venom of insane pride. "It is I, General Hiringa."

"Aah. Saluti, mio amico!...come lei è?"

"Mmm...Il suo italiano migliora."

[I]Oh, you don't sound very impressed...[I]

"I have had two years, what would you expect from me? ...Anyway, Signior, down to something of greater pertinence, as I suspect you have as little time for this as I do, if not less. Now, if my memory is loth to fail me, I do remember I had a task for you the last time we met. Have you decided to come settle it with me, nella buona fede?"

A short, sharp laugh was heard on the other end, before a more measured form of speech followed the thus-birthed silence. "If that is what you wish, I have it with me. Il sole è mia sorella, E la luna, mio fratello."

The line went dead.

"...Excellent."

With a snap of his fingers, the lights in the room dimmed to pitch darkness, as all alerts present and future were cowed into sullen silence by the extending tendrils of artificial night. And sitting alone there, brooding as a spider would in his myriad fortress of ensaring thread, Erik Hiringa allowed himself a smile. Not a smile for the showing, to alleviate the girdles of others, but a smile only for oneself, in a flash of foreknowledge, even in small confidence for what was to come.

Very excellent indeed.

Now, may the curtains rise in earnest...

...as the performances begin.

Hayate Yagami, I believe I am looking forward to this evening's premier event as much as you are.

-End of Part 1 out of 3-

NOTE: As per my usual, OC character introductions (Snark Mode) are reserved for such a time as when the chapter is actually over in the first place. Also, I'll probably be replacing these links with the more compact Fanfiction.net Links the moment I actually get the rights to do it, which is some time from now. Oh well But in the meantime, I'll be starting a short project, which is to read almost every fic that I have had sufficient expressed interest in, and write a review on it. No small thing, of course, but I do believe it will be a pretty beneficial thing, supposing that I do my own training in these matters justice XD

And on that note, I end what is likely my longest post in FFT thus far. Hooray for Fon Filia, Hooray for Nanoha.

*cheers in the distance*

Lolwut.

[TheShinySword]

Originally Posted by Polyisobutene

I am going to be old and graying before I get to even read half of these fanfictions...there are so many. To start with, the insane little shorts, crack, are awesome. TheShinySword, those shorts are great for a laugh! Besides that, I don't think that the crack wants to be reviewed...but I still give you props for writing something so funny!

Yes yes please don't review any of my crack or short shorts as for the most part I literally write them on the forum and rarely even read them over course I do have plenty of noncracky things for you to review if you wish

[XenahortCharybdis]

Originally Posted by Polyisobutene

I am going to be old and graying before I get to even read half of these fanfictions...there are so many. To start with, the insane little shorts, crack, are awesome. TheShinySword, those shorts are great for a laugh! Besides that, I don't think that the crack wants to be reviewed...but I still give you props for writing something so funny!

Nah, it doesn't take that long to read them. Just pick some longer fics of sense to read, and then read the crack and humor as you like. It makes life much more relaxing, and much more amusing.

Originally Posted by Polyisobutene

This is very very good. The use of language in this is impressive to say the least. I really liked the narration of it all, the blending of third person and first person was done well, and not overbearingly or in a corny way. The italics are a good way to do that, I have also seen them intergrate that into the third person as well. I think that you made a great choice, the narration style goes better with the italics!

Wait till you sit through chapter after chapter of this, and then if you still say it's great, then I'll consider it my accomplishment. For now, let's just say that 'it's still going well', mmm?

Originally Posted by Polyisobutene

As inspiring as the language is, I felt kind of like the characters dialouge was influenced by it. They sounded very witty and astute for almost the whole fanfiction, or cuttingly witty, but the dialouge feels stiff. I think that has to do with the situation, and it flows naturally, but it felt uncomfortable, kind of scripted. The narration is heavy and eats away at some of the ebb and flow of the speaking. I think with all the focus on the narrorator that the dialouge was just leaned on a bit by the same 'voice'.

Now this is a rather pertinent point. I'm still working on tweaking just how much I want my own vocabulary to engrave itself into people's conversations and their daily speech, although the sensible will only be done sensibly; you won't be seeing me dead writing EloquentSpeech!Vita. Maybe if I write her taking Public Speaking classes, you might see that a couple of chapters later.

Alright, I'm kidding about Vita. She wouldn't be seen dead taking too many of those either, I expect. Also, I have a weak spot for the Babble-on (or Babylon) Syndrome, and that I acknowledge freely. I'm still working on just how long I can afford to have my sentences, and just how much I should leave the talking to just be talking, and then let the reader imagine how they'd say it on their own. Another factor in this is also the fact that most of the OCs introduced (Erik, Ashcroft and Charlotte) are fairly eloquent in nature, the former one because of himself and his position of command, and the latter two because of their relationship, which has more or less shaped the way they talk to each other.

Spoiler for On Scriptedness:

The scriptedness of the text I admit as well (upon re-reading) I attribute somewhat to the mainstay of my prior experience, which is not in essay writing or fiction writing, but rather drama and the art of the mask. In that aspect, I am a believer in the Wildean ideal of the mouthpiece, and I'm still trying to reconcile that with attempting to make the characters round rather than the flat mouthpiece.

You are quite right, also, to point out that this is also because of the business-like fashion in which things are being done right now (at least on one half of the situation), and due to perhaps an excess in interpersonal familiarity in the other half. Acous is overly familiar with Hayate, as is Ash with Charlotte, and so on.

In the case of Erik and Ashcroft, this is because they *are* in fact extremely astute people, but more because as you can see, they are also extremely calculative (and perhaps, although I only hint at it, even very manipulative) people, and more importantly, as you can see by the philosophy and beliefs they espouse in their thoughts, narration and speech, that they are also live relatively free of the shackles of traditional morals and ethics, and as such they are freer to think, more so to plot whatever it is they wish to plot. Hayate, Charlotte and Acous tend to have less "your statements are as I planned" moments, not because they are less smart in that sense, but simply because they don't have the "I must spread my web of lies, plots and plans left right and center" attitude, although Acous also leans just a little on the former side. To shorten it, they are simply more innocent.

That why Charlotte doesn't win as often as Ashcroft does in their arguments, simply because she is not of the mind to think so far ahead. Thinking far ahead in itself, though, is a double-edged sword, and that will *eventually* revealed in later chapters.

"Neither Virtue nor Innocence can defeat Deceit alone, but together, both can and surely will!"

More here

Spoiler for On Hayate and eloquence:

Now, as I think we all are aware of, Hayate is described, although admittedly insufficiently protrayed, as a 'capable leader'. So, for a time I have been pondering: How does one protray an capable leader? As far as I know and am aware, a capable leader is one who inspires positive change in others, and I stress positive, because a person who effective inspires negative change makes a capable tyrant instead.

But how, through mere words, will I protray a fine leader, then?

I quote St. Paul in this (No, I'm not Catholic, but let's just put it that way): "To those under the law, I became like one under the law, though I myself am not under it, so as to win those under the law." Now, this is not "Do as Romans do", but to instead effectively code-switch between eloquence to those to whom eloquence is more powerful, and simplicity where it is superior.

Admittedly, of course, the feeling has been killed somewhat by the fact that Hayate has so far spoken mainly only to Erik and Acous, who are men of equal...intellectual standing, should we say, to her. As can be seen in her speaking to Rein, her tone is somewhat different, and I will also do my best to make it a different matter altogether when she speaks to her friends and the Wolkenritter. Realism bites, but heck, it makes life challenging.

Spoiler for On Erik and Eloquence:

Unfortunately, that's a secret.

Spoiler for On Ash/Charl and Eloquence:

Their relationship is dysfunctional, but nontheless they are close to one another. Most of the 'narrator-spam' in there either describes things they know about one another, or the expression of surprise at things that they have yet to see or realize (or so I tried to make it) about them, which I am using to sort of nail their characters in place for the fic.

Originally Posted by Polyisobutene

With that said, I think that this looks really interesting! Having read only the first part I cannot say anything major plotwise...but from the formatting and everything else it looks wonderful.

Thanks a lot for the review. I appreciate your help in helping me refine my writings as well

Xena

EDIT: The next part of my fic will probably come once at least 3 people have posted following this. It's pretty impolite to incovenience people with a deluge of text and then do it again just one post later. On the other hand, Chapter 2's Part 3 is the shortest of all parts posted thus far, so it shouldn't be too bad. Still, I wait =3

[Hiria]

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

...

Elise/Nanoha sister fluff pre-BTBR is fun to write. :3

Occurs right after Nanoha comes to live with Elise, after the bond has been established.

Spoiler for Come What May:

“Ne, Onee-sama, are you doing something special for your birthday tomorrow?”

Surprised, Elise glanced at Nanoha. The eleven-year-old had scrambled up onto the bed beside her blonde companion, Kuon cuddled safely in her arms. The young girl was dressed for bed, wearing a shirt much too large for her slim frame and her hair undone. Amused by the child’s antics, Elise ignored the photograph she held in her hand to answer her. “Not really.”

Surprised, Nanoha blinked. “But isn’t that your family?” she asked, adjusting her hold on Kuon to grip Elise’s wrist so she could see the picture she held.

“Yes.” Elise’s voice softened slightly. “That’s my family.” Her lips twitched, and she set the picture on the nightstand facedown.

“I bet you want to see them tomorrow, right?”

“Afraid not. I haven’t been on good terms with my parents for a number of years now.”

Nanoha’s eyes widened; in her arms, Kuon let out a soft squeak. “You… haven’t?” Although she lived in England now, Nanoha was always in contact with her family. Shiro often joked that it was as if she’d never left.

“Let’s just say… when I was about ten, something really bad happened.” Elise glanced down at Nanoha, and this time she managed a slight smile. “My parents like to live as if it never happened, and I can’t accept that it didn’t. We can’t agree on it, even now.” She shrugged. “So, here I am.”

“That’s horrible,” Nanoha whispered, biting her bottom lip. Elise’s eyes softened slightly, and she gently tousled Nanoha’s hair with her hand, causing the girl to look at her in surprise. “Onee-sama?”

“Don’t let it bother you, Nanoha. Fiasse and your family have been looking out for me, and now I’ve got you and Kuon.” She chuckled. “I can’t say I’m lonely.”

For a few minutes Nanoha contemplated this; she surprised Elise as she leaned against the older woman. Even though she didn’t say why, Elise didn’t ask.

“You know what?” Nanoha tilted her head slightly to look up at Elise. “If tomorrow’s your birthday, we should do something to celebrate it. We can call up Fiasse-chan and ask her to come along. That would be fun, right?”

“Yeah.” Elise gently ran her hand through Nanoha’s hair, smiling slightly. “That would be fun.”

Nanoha grinned, and in the dim light of the room her eyes glowed. She rested her cheek against Elise’s arm, sliding her arm through hers in a loose, loving grip, a younger sister reaching out to her older sister. She yawned softly and closed her eyes, and Kuon snuggled happily into her lap.

Elise chuckled quietly. Somehow, she had the feeling she’d be sharing her bed tonight.

“Ne, Onee-sama?” Nanoha’s voice was soft, sleepy.

“Yeah?”

“If something really bad happens…” Nanoha yawned again. “… If you’re willing to accept it, I will too. So you don’t have to be lonely.”

The lump surged into Elise’s throat, hot and thick; she swallowed against the sudden ball of tears and blinked several times as her eyes moistened, a lovely clenching pain making itself known in her chest. Leaning down, she gently brushed her lips against Nanoha’s hair, though she knew now that the young girl was asleep and couldn’t feel the gesture.

“Thank you, Nanoha.” Her voice was ragged with tears she refused to cry and trembled slightly, but she smiled as she felt warm wetness streak her cheeks.

“… Thank you.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I wish I could save you."

- Simple Plan

I messed up the timeline; Fiasse's conflict with the TSAB (which also is linked to Elise) occured fifteen years ago, not ten. So by my math, Elise is currently twenty-five in BTBR, and she would have been ten when "something bad happened".

awwww. cute. I love how you show their bond. ^^

[XenahortCharybdis]

Alright, I've been resisting this itch in my hands for long enough. It is what happens when you spend the Christmas-New Year interim completely free and there's not much action

Ready, Aim, Fire Away.

Irreverend Xena's Review of The Gospel of Judas by Tempest Dynasty:

Chapter 1: The Rage Starts Here
Chapter 2: Fiery Eyes of Lunacy

Spoiler for Review:

I get the feeling that the narration of this thing is like some sort of strange imitation through words of anime scenes. You sure you're not writing a storyboard here?

Okay, just kidding.

Firstly, let's address Chapter 1:

The Lay of the Exasperated Ferretboy, which you have insisted to me is not OOC. Okay, firstly, I'd like to speak in defense of the proposition statement, which is that he is in fact, OOC: Firstly, your storyboarding style may or may not have caused this to happen, but Yuuno's descent into madness since his last exit from the Infinity Library is pretty graphic, which gives rise to a somewhat better solution for him, such as maybe taking some breaks every few hours. They help to calm the mind and stay the arrival of lunacy, all the better since they aren't making much progress. Also, his sudden recovery after the swordship news was broken really hyperbolizes too much, if I may coin the term. Not that this is bad, though, it's just that I reckon the idea of Yuuno going all bonkers over his work at the Eternal Library to be a very unlikely thing, unless you'd like to say that he's been in there for a couple of days on end, no break, and has a deadline looming. Then I think it'd be a little more likely that he'd be literally thanking the stars for Chrono's timely arrival. If not, it all feels as contrived as the average lol-wut anime moment.

In short - being pissed with your job is one thing, going Noland over the job is another thing. Yuuno's pretty chill (if a little timid) most of the time, so just...well, yeah. It's the hyperbolic expression, I assure you. Also, I think that the Infinity Library couldn't possibly be in "such a freakin' mess", since the hell, it's an important resource of information nonetheless. Old Gil Graham would only let the Belka section fall into disrepair over his dead body (and the Lotte sister's bodies to boot), after all. But that's a side point, really.

During the Briefing the language was better, since a briefing is...a briefing. What the hell can you say about a briefing? Actually, some stuffs, so here goes.

Have you heard the saying "Don't pretend you have no questions just because you have something else to do later"? It's a response to a muc-overused and pretty sneaky way of cheating your way out of a longer meeting by not asking questions. But this is no boring school talk, or so I gather. If it's all that it's crapped up to be, it's actually pretty risky and dangerous, and not to mention top secret (In this case I assume you're using the Touhou Color Scale of Danger, in which Violet (Yukari Yakumo) is pretty damn dangerous).

As such, I'd like to ask what I think is probably a legitimate question: Why are there no questions? Surely there is some ingenious, foolproof fallback of a Plan B that these brilliant talents of the TSAB can come up with inside the comfort of a ship hall, instead of leaving it for later. Granted, any back-up plans are not going to be terribly useful should the unexpected occur due to lack of intel, but nonetheless, it'll still be of use in the preliminary stages of the operation, and it's better than assuming that 'we'll just blast our way out'. So, yeah, one thing about warfare: There's always a retreat plan in there somewhere, and you'd better talk about it before the mission, and not after you realize that you need extraction.

Then let me address the way the thing was written In All. It's (the narration) pretty much switches around a bit, and aside from the fact I can't feel the 'Chrono' in it as much as I can feel 'Yuuno', my other peeve is that you do tend to switch PoV without much warning. It's handled alright I guess, since I didn't feel that it broke the story up too much.

Next, your descriptives and sentences: They fly around like a drunken Air Force Cadet; the spectrum goes all the way from the irreverent, to the insane (giant sweatdrop on the head?!), to the inscrutable, and I'm afraid it's rather inadequate to make a real solid mood come out, unless of course your intended mood at first was utter insanity, in which case it works in a weird way. In all it tends to sound like seriously extended crack rather than seriously-attempted fic. Of course, I could attribute this to the fact that it's the start of the story (and I see that Chapter 2 seems pretty decent enough in that respect.)

Penultimately, the ending, "Aces, to battle" feels like another one of your shifts. I sort of imagine you as an immortal, floating above the veil of time, speaking those words as you watch them speed off to their hell-bent adventure. It doesn't feel...right, kind of. This happens quite a bit in the chapter, making the story a little awkward at times. The Character PoV can be changed, but the Persona PoV shouldn't be, and especially not at the very end of the chapter. That way, it feels quite a far cry from the resounding exhortation it should be if handled otherwise, it kinda feels like ending on a whimper (if only for the contrary effects of this juxtaposition), if you'll excuse me.

Lastly, your references (you don't have to read this, I'm just being an idiot). They aren't very subtle are they, thoughno problem about that, since we're not all Swifts and Popes here. I like the Dante's Inferno ref, now that one was pretty okay. The rest, I have my doubts about. "Odin's Sphere" sounds like an RPG game with better grammar on the title, the Marines sound like something out of a crazy chase, and the Squad names are quite telling too.

Now Chapter 2:

Okay, it's Less Cracky Now. Consider yourself absolved for at least 40% of my comments concerning cracky writing. I postulate that you were drunk when you wrote the first chapter, and less so when you wrote the second-Okay, that was a joke, the differing situations at hand played a part in making it work too. Still, all the more it makes the scene with Yuuno stick out like a sore thumb, so I'm sorry, I still have to talk about that. Later.

Tactics are generally sound, I'll not nitpick on this too much: Herding Drones is a pretty fair idea, although for learning drones, they're still pretty slow, since herding is also a fairly obvious trick. Still, given the impact of Fate and Signum's charge, it's pretty believable that they can manage it. The mental images it gives me of sheepdogs is just...a tad awkward, though.

What the hell's with What Lies Beneath the relationship between Fate And Chrono? I'm making no stabs yet, but yeah. Slash-wrist-agnst!Chrono is a pretty scary form of Chrono, I'll give you that. The choice of scene is pretty good, though it makes you wonder what our good Admiral did to perpetually regard his hands as being dirty? I like the fact that there was a hint of absurdist detachment coming from Chrono when Fate spoke to him about the Godfather part, although somehow I think it was unintentional, and as such only partial in its effect, thus making his endstate statement "they're filthy...I need to clean them" seem rather disconnected from everything else, rather than Chrono himself being detached from a wider reality. In short, the problem is that Chrono's sudden descent into despair is a bewildering, and not in as good a way as it should've been.

I think that moment could have been milked more if Chrono doesn't sound fine from the start (although it would be wiser to moderate it a little so that it can be misconstrued for something more benign) completely ignored Fate and went on to talk about something completely different, as though he were distracted by something. Then the moment where his deception is revealed is more striking. You build up and then give them hell, instead of giving them hell so suddenly. It gives a "huh?!" feeling instead of a "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, CHRONO?!" feeling otherwise.

Crazy Marines are Crazy Marines. Part 40K, Part Madness, Part Crack, Part Wild and Part Goose, they are unstoppable! Not many complaints there, except that "fall on his ass" is kinda like an unwelcome break in the action. Better said than narrated, that bit.

Comment on Technobabble: "Why don't we have something like this?", Mr. Yuuno? Maybe it's because it takes up a lot of energy, and maybe it's because we've never seen such a powerful shield till now, that's why! I think he'd know why, so he doesn't need to ask. Bummer

And Yuuno at the last part really sounds like a mad scientist, correction: He really does sound like the average mad scientist that gets himself killed at the early stages of a horror/sci-fi movie. And here's another part where I think he seems OOC: Yuuno, as an expert in such ancient relics and archaelogical shit, and as Yuuno, would not likely be so quick to do something as risky as piecing a lost artifact together right in the middle of volatile, hostile territory, I find that quite illogical, in fact. If anything, There's a reason why things are chained up as they are, and anyone should know that: Because they're not supposed to be unchained. If they were in their right mind, they wouldn't even let Yuuno do that. They'd probably dump both halves of the crystal into confinement or something. This isn't even a matter of realism, actually, it's a matter of "How Dumb Can the Ferret Get?" Which is, as he is, not very dumb: Someone who's seen what being funny with ancient artifacts can do 2 times in a row (Season 1, A's) will not be so stupid as to do it himself out of the blue, and in uncharted waters as well.

Overall Comments:

I think I said all I had inspiration to say for now, at least.

The storyline works, but some of the events that lead up to the storyline just don't click with personalities, protocol and things like that that don't seem obvious from the outset, but actually legitimate considerations. The language of the first chapter was quite hard to swallow since it had a kind of insobriety to it, rather than informality (again, I say, informality hash isn't all it's cut out to be), but it seems you're back on track for our usual dose of Dynasty Brand Rage, so I'm not complaining too much.

More stringent grammar checking is needed. Sometimes, it's not that the spelling is bad, but that the grammar is just strange in context, while the sentence would look fine otherwise. And sometimes, the grammar is funny whether in context or not. It doesn't happen too often, but if it happens often enough for one to make a point out of it, then it's best heeded.

~This Review is Also on OCT~

[TerranReaper]

Spoiler for KOTR Chapter 14:

Knights of the Reich: Chapter 14
It had been a while since Nanoha got some quiet time. After her attack on Beowulf, she was ordered by Hayate to get some rest. While at home, she logged onto her computer and checked on a few things. What caught her eyes was the news of Caro, Erio and Lutecia being jailed for sabotage. A news video showed the three being handcuffed and brought away in armored carriers. “What is this? How can those three be jailed for something for something they did not do?” Nanoha asked feeling shocked. She read more about it and the more she read, the more she got confused.

“Terran deep-scan radar offline due to a broken antenna, snapped wires and destroyed component parts. Security cameras show that the three were doing those things…hey, how can this be?” she said while scowling at the news report. Worst thing of all was that no one believed what the three said, not even the Mid-Childan military. One video clip showed him yelling at the police. “I’m innocent! What is wrong with you people?!” Erio shouted to a military police. The police did not care and pushed him into the armored carrier. “Damn, someone is trying to frame those two,” Nanoha muttered. She contacted Fate who was busy eating lunch. She seemed healthier. “Fate, did you see the news?” Nanoha asked her.

Fate nodded grimly. “Yes, I’ve seen. They were framed for something they did not do. I can’t believe the military isn’t helping. Not only that, Nanoha, I heard that the citizens of the Mid-Childan colony are getting hostile. They are burning military buildings and attacking military personals. They want a less military presence and they want the TSAB and Capital Defense Force dead. Terran reinforcements are dropping to zero very quickly and if we don’t stay vigilant, we might as well perish. I think I know why Hayate is so worried nowadays since the anarchists began their conquest,” Fate said. “I have every reason to believe there is a spy in the military not only brainwashing military personals, he is spreading propaganda. Subaru and Teana are on the case and they have agreed to take a look into it,” Fate said.

“But that means infiltrating the Terran base and restricted areas. If we do that, the Terrans might think we’re up to no good. Isn’t there a better way?” Nanoha asked. Fate shook her head. “Griffith Lowran has ordered a check on the Mid-Childan military but the Terran military remained unchecked. So if they won’t check themselves, we’ll check for them. I know it’s wrong but what can we do? If we let them go just like that, who knows what will happen,” Fate said while drinking a cup of water. She wiped her mouth and continued. “Dangerous times, Nanoha. I have faith that the two will get the job done and for the greater good I hope they get what we need. Hopefully we’ll be able to rat out the spy and stop the danger that is raging within the military,” Fate said and she turned off the video transmission.

Nanoha let out a sigh and looked at the calendar. It was Christmas and it has been a while since she celebrated it. “Maybe I can set up the Christmas tree and cook us some turkey. Vivio…oh yeah, she was captured. This is the worst Christmas ever,” she grumbled. Just then, Yuuno came in with a plastic bag of things. “Ah, there you are. I’ve bought a turkey and some presents for this Christmas,” Yuuno said happily. Nanoha stared at him and started to cry. “Eh, what’s the matter?” Yuuno asked. “You idiot, how could you be in a Christmas mood when so much strife is happening?!” Nanoha yelled at him and cried aloud. Yuuno scratched his head. “What do you mean?” he asked. “How can you celebrate when so much fights are going on and Vivio is missing?!” Nanoha yelled again.

“Oh, that. Umm, look, I’m sorry that I acted ignorant but take it easy. They have a reason for kidnapping Vivio and Karyl and I’m sure they won’t kill them. They’re safe and I can guarantee you that. For now, let us prey that Vivio and Karyl will make a safe return,” Yuuno said. Nanoha looked at the pack of turkey and wiped her tears. “I just don’t have the mood for Christmas, Yuuno Scrya. Perhaps we can celebrate it next year…if the riot doesn’t persist that long,” she said. “Yes, perhaps so. But…what do I do with the turkey?” he asked. “Let’s just store it for dinner,” Nanoha suggested in a low tone. That night, she saw snow falling and on the streets below, she saw Terran soldiers singing Christmas carols happily.

They seemed so care-free, so happy even in these critical times. The Mid-Childan citizens joined the choir and sang along. No signs of anarchists’ activity. “Ah, at least there is this small blessing. Good to see that the Mid-Childan and Terrans got along well,” she said with a wry smile. Somehow, it reminded her of her youth days. Nanoha used to join the choir along with Alisa and Tsuzuka. They caroled the whole night long and they had such fun. If only she could return to Earth and do this again. Then, there came a knock on her bed room door. “Nanoha, are you in there?” a voice came from the other side of the door. “Miyuki?” Nanoha called out? The door opened and her sister came in.

“There is a caroling going on down there. Why don’t you go join them?” Miyuki asked while putting her hand on Nanoha’s shoulder. Nanoha looked out the window again and sighed out loud. “I’m not in the mood, not when there is danger in every corner,” Nanoha sulked. Miyuki smiled and messed Nanoha’s hair. “You really remind me of your younger self. C’mon, stop being a baby. I’m sure your daughter will return safely. With Captain Lance on the job, I’m confident he will get it done. He has been through hundreds of rescue missions ranging from disaster rescue operations to hostage securing missions. High Command doesn’t send him to Iraq for nothing,” Miyuki said. Nanoha was silent. “I guess you need some time to think about it. Don’t worry; I’ll leave you to your thoughts. If you need Kyoya or me, we’ll be at the Terran Command Centre. There is something about General Alphonse that isn’t right since the discovery of Angel Heart,” Miyuki said before she exited the door.

“Something different about Alphonse since the discovery of Angel Heart…could it really be a shape-shifting ability that the anarchists might be using…like the one Due used. Wait, no known criminals have the ability as Due does. She is the only known one who can shape-shift. If that really happens, does that mean that the anarchists have attempted to clone her dead body?” Nanoha asked herself. It seemed incredulous but then again…it might be possible. She attempted to contact Hayate but there was only static. “Maybe she is asleep. I should contact her tomorrow,” Nanoha said. She yawned and went to bed, not bothering to turn off the lights.

The next morning, Nanoha got up early and she went to look for Hayate. She was in her office reading some reports and filing them. “Ah Nanoha, you’re just the person I’m looking for. You see, I’ve been examining the tube that Vita brought back from the rescue mission. It’s very…I can’t really put it in words. I think the anarchists are cloning dead bodies of criminals and allies alike. Guess what is in the tube that Vita recovered,” Hayate asked Nanoha. Nanoha scratched her head and shrugged. “A body?” Nanoha answered. “Yes but it’s the body of the original Fate Testarossa,” Hayate said grimly. Nanoha gasped. “You mean that body in the tube is Alicia Testarossa?! How can this be?! I thought the tube was destroyed along with Prescia when the Garden of Time collapsed,” Nanoha said. Hayate nodded her head and looked through some papers. “Yes but the tube somehow survived. The body is well preserved but impossible to revive so I think that they took some DNA samples and made a live clone of Alicia. According to tank driver Raoul Closeau, he gave a description of how this…Construct looked like. The looks of Construct and Alicia are a 90% match, except for the untied hair and taller body build,” Hayate said.

“This is insane. Mid-Childa banned this kind of practice but still, some people wanted to do such atrocities,” Nanoha said angrily. “Yes I know and with this recently dug grave,” Hayate said and opened a holopic of a dug grave. “I suspect more bodies are dug up to be cloned. Mostly powerful people who died,” Hayate continued. Nanoha had cold sweat running down her cheeks. That was Due’s grave and her body was missing as well. Her hunch came true. “Nanoha, I was expecting you to come tell me about your little hunch. Your hunch, unfortunately, proved to be correct. Due has the ability to shape-shift and the clone might be the cause behind the current problems. General Alphonse might not be the General Alphonse that aided Big Al. Instead, I believe it is a clone of Due doing the job,” Hayate said.

Vita woke up from her coma after recovering from the wounds inflicted during the battle with Arin. She saw that no one was in the ward so she got up and got dressed. Just as she was about to leave, Shamal grabbed her shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going, Vita?” Shamal asked. Vita pushed her hand away and headed for the door. “Stop being in my way, I want to go beat up that Arin,” Vita said. Just then, a pain lanced through her abdomen and she doubled over in pain with tears in her eyes. “You haven’t fully recovered and you want to return to battle? Strict orders state that you need at least a week of rest and now it’s only the fourth day. Stay in your bed,” Shamal warned. “Save your breath Shamal, I only have one thing in mind and that is to rip Arin into pieces,” Vita said angrily.

“Stay in bed or I’ll make you eat my cooking,” Shamal said while holding a pot of bubbling goo. Vita stopped in her tracks and turned around. “I hate you,” she said with narrow eyes. Just then, Altier came in with a bouquet of flowers. “For you, Vita. Nice to see that you are healthy,” he said with a charming smile. Vita took the flowers and placed them in a vase. “Thanks but I have a job to do,” Vita said. Altier patted her head and stepped closer. “Really, what kind of job?” he asked. Vita sensed something dark about him and backed away. Just then, the ward door swung open violently and 3 Terran soldiers burst in with guns pointed at Altier.

“Stay where you are, Altier! You’re coming with us or we’ll shoot! By orders from Rear Admiral Hayate, you’re under arrest!” the soldier with black armor shouted out. Altier smiled evilly at them and laughed. “So she found out. I guess Hayate isn’t a fool after all, considering someone who uses the Book of Darkness. Well, I guess I have no choice but to turn myself in,” he said with a dark smile. Suddenly, he took out his device and activated it. “Vita, get out of here and warn the TSAB! I and the Terrans will hold him off!” Shamal said. She created a shield and blocked the soldiers from being attacked while the soldiers fired at Altier. “Go!” the soldier yelled.

Ah, it's great to be back from Penang.

[XenahortCharybdis]

Ah, so there, I lurked long enough to find a KOTR post, although the downside is that I'll have to churn out ONE review for FOURTEEN chapters...or else I'll do some extra organization work to cover for the trouble it'll cause me

@TerranReaper: That picture is pretty fine (though the side-view masked man and the aircraft leaves much to be desired), by the way, and if it's yours, then all the more you're making me curse the fact that I haven't drawn a THING since I finished my Zenith group pic. Maybe I will for one of my later chapers...maybe...

Zenith's Chapter 2 Part 3

Chapter 1: Where things start as they should. Um, mostly.

Chapter 2: Where important things are conspired in the light of the setting sun.
Part 1 of 3
Part 2 of 3

Spoiler for Part 3 - The one that was Shortened:

Hayate was somewhat bemused to find that she was not the first person to make it to the meeting place.

Now, isn't this rather funny. Given the fact that I took time off just to come back here early, it’s somehow a little disappointing to find that my place as host has been usurped even before the meeting was allowed to begin!

I mean, who on earth would break into a house in which he could gain free access to just a while later?

Everything looked normal, at least from the outside, just as it had been left. No apparent point of entry, no signs of surveillance even of the least sort, absolutely nothing...save a rather mysterious aroma that wafted out through a suspiciously, partially open window, a sure sign that something interesting was cooking on the inside of the house.

It smells rather good too...Alright, I was wrong: looks like the culprit just got hungry.

Rather absently, she strolled lightly over to the window, and found two faces, one female and the other barely qualifying as male, staring back at her almost as detachedly. Almost immediately, she was much taken by the mystifying disparity betwixt the two, though she was met with two ostensibly similar smiles: Indeed, both expressions were so, but while one bore within it an inner warmth as a true greeting should have, the other had, or so she perceived for a moment, but only ice in his eyes of dark red glinting, as the draught of some unknown malevolence came forth chill from his countenance.

Talk about ‘seeming fairer and feeling fouler.’

She was meeting the gaze of one Ashcroft Ravenholm, and they both knew it.

That mysterious smile spread over his face as it thawed out, the cold feeling petering out weakly as her insight of impression faded into her mind’s void. "Why, hello there, General Yagami - ‘Tis a fine evening for a fine meal, no?"

She smiled back, quite a few notches less enigmatically.

"Why, hello there yourself, Housebreaker Ravenholm."

His face did not change even in the slightest; if anything, he was more than encouraged to retaliate in kind. "Nice change of rank. I take that to be a promotion. Also, I note with some displeasure that you were about to take me for a woman."

"True enough, but not terribly funny." She winced. Acous didn't quite tell me that his humor was so sharp. He also hadn’t made mention of the fact that his junior could cook, although perhaps that, at least for the moment, made her next move a more convenient affair. "Care if I join you for a meal?"

Ashcroft shrugged, aloof and unmoved, although there was perhaps just a hint, a sliver of interest flashing over his eyes as he looked her over, a mere sweep in a spectrum of gazes.

"Why not? You might want to wait a bit though, since I’m cooking for more than just two. We have other guests, don't we?"

"Yes, we do. Hmmm...I have an idea. How about we make dinner...together, in that case?"

And the smile was no longer so strange.

"Come on in then. We have much to discuss, now and later."

================================================== ==================

The universe.

A vast expanse of emptiness, complexity in chaos incarnate…dotted with an intricate pattern of abstract spirals and clouds, galaxies of great beauty and splendor. Within them, trillions and trillions of solid rock surfaces teem with life, evolving, metamorphosing, adding its own personal entry into the encyclopedia of existence that makes everyone and everything save itself look small, pathetic.

A whole kaleidoscope of myriad shapes, engraved into the black void which holds them all in a stone-cast embrace, suspending them in a fragile, transient balance.

So wide and unfathomable its measurements that even in these centuries of travel, we have yet to see it all and learn it all. We are even a long ways off from fully understanding ourselves, let alone attempting to understand the universe, even as it keeps on changing.

A lone figure stood in tranquil repose, enshrouded by pitch darkness, illuminated only by the faint lights of space, and small glowing threads that lined the floor in an arcane pattern which shimmered in the night of space.

Moreover, much else has changed since I have last stepped into these halls for one of those walks that I used to take all those ages ago other than the shape of the starry host. Many things have come to pass, good and evil alike: the Successors have come a long way since their introduction to this universe, and they that we once created now rule the dimensions in our absence. They have made almost everything that we had made ours in the past theirs to own, save perhaps a few things. They even have their own intergalactic government these days…impressive for beings who were meant to be subservient to us and us only.

We created them, we gave them much of what they have, for our own purposes…purports and devices to which they are still wholly foreign and ignorant of, perhaps thankfully so.

And now, we have need of them. We all do, one way or another.

Ah, but thinking that we own them like this…is that not arrogance?

…

Fine then. We are arrogant. So what?

His face, illuminated by the distant lights of a thousand stars, was immaculately constituted like that of a porcelain doll, marked only by soft black strokes below his cheekbone and forehead, and his eyes looked straight into the distance, the spark of ambition shining through his wavy, long cobalt hair. They seemed almost to quiver in expectant trepidation as he strode through the endless hallways, sliding through them noiselessly as an ethereal sprite, a bodiless wraith.

Reaching the end of the expansive walkway, he lifted a bare hand tinged with blue, and pressed the heart of his palm onto a soft pad that released a burst of warping blue light upon first contact.

A metallic, vaguely female voice called out to him, devoid of emotion or character, its mechanical intonation echoing through the empty arches of the great hall.

[Hail, Scara of the “Arcus Civitas”. Your rank, please.]

Countless times have I performed this standard ops procedure…sometimes I wonder why we never changed the AI in here. Perhaps he was right about me, that I am the centre of stagnancy, a quagmire for progress. The ageless face tilted slightly as he introduced himself.

“Aurea of the Celaestrale Scara, and Capitol of the ‘Arcus Civitas’.”

The resident artificial intelligence paused briefly, as she always did, brooding over the validity of his reply. Reaching a rapid decision, she belted out a more informal answer, having duly recognized him as the captain of the said ship.

[Indeed, Capitol. You are most welcome. I see you have yet to lose your lack of proficiency in speech.]

He smirked at the slightly condescending undertones to that remark. “Well, that’s better than you, Sarael. You sound as boring as you were when I first became Capitol of this little ship.”

[Correction. Firstly, a Gram Terre - class ship is not “little”, and secondly, I only sound boring because you never had the thought to make it anyway otherwise.]

“But that’s because I need someone who’s more boring than me on this ship, Sara.”

Sarael was not amused, and it showed. [That is not a good excuse, coming from you. There is no one else here in this ship anymore.]

The young Aurea sighed. “Well, today’s an exception, isn’t it?”

[Perhaps,] Sarael pressed home her point, undeterred. [But that does not excuse your generalization. Not by a long shot. You will have to do better than that next time, will you not?]

Raising both hands in mock surrender, he conceded the point. One couldn’t always win, even against other people, let alone against a computer that could almost ‘think’ for itself at times. Still, there was always something that gnawed at him, pleaded with him to continue the argument, as though denying having been checked by a mere machine. He effected to laugh at himself, to laugh at this remnant of his old pride. [I]‘I have long denied myself these things. Why should this one be the exception to the rule?’

“Alright, alright, you win, okay? Now open the door.”

[Give me a good reason to.]

This gave the Aurea some pause, although not in irritation, but rather in nostalgic silence.

Now this is a surprise, though it’s difficult to determine if this is a bad thing or not. I can’t seem to remember the last time Sara actually got up the computerized version of nerve to scold me, or argue at all. Not since those days, when he was around and would debate with her for hours on end on matters of both grave importance and impertinent whimsicality, much to massive wastage of time. But those days were fun… His eyes grew distant and softer even as he looked back on fonder times…

[Smiling already? I see that it is likely that you have my answer with you, although I spy from the constitution of your face a possibility that you may be feeling nostalgic.]

“That’s not any business of yours. And anyway, I’m going to be late for that meeting, so if you would let me in, I would be very thankful.”

[Ah. Coming clean at least, now are we? Fair enough, you may now enter.] The AI sounded almost triumphant, having at last obtained her victory.

Well, she’ll have all the time she needs to savor it. This meeting is going to be a most long one, as are most meetings of this level of importance As a matter of fact, I reckon this could even take days, given those naggers in the Consul. What I would give to be rid of them, just for once, I really have no idea.

“Anyway, thank you.”

[You are most welcome.]

The biometric pad split into two parts. The sigiled carvings shifted sinuously into position, glowing with a much brighter light than before, as a single warp point, phased in before him in all of its cobalt, shimmering glory, growing rapidly to the size of a single man, just enough for him to enter with little excess.

The mage waved at the empty hall, addressing the AI in a gesture of farewell. “I’ll be going now. See you later, Sarael.”

[You sound as though I will be lonely without you.]

He shrugged even as he put half of his body into the gateway, suspending his body in dimensional limbo between the hallway and the area beyond.

“Not as though you will or anything like that.”

[Indeed. Fare you well, then.]

The rest of him disappeared behind, leaving only the blue ripples behind him, and simultaneously phasing him in, wrapped similar wisps of dimension bending energy on the other side of the sealed gate. Floating lightly above the ground, he landed gently on both feet, his long cowl fluttering lightly as its billowing form trapped the air below.

“You are early, for once.” An altogether different voice boomed outwards at him with an air of authority. The Aurea looked up, wearing now a more grave expression, acknowledging the presence of the new speaker, and also preparing himself for the task at hand. Walking through a small walkway, and arrived at an ornate, nigh opulent table, one which in the distant past had been used for meetings of councils and commanders, but now was holding seat to only 2.

Touching a seat lightly with an absent look, his speech nonetheless reflected his mild annoyance. “I know. You must be pleased that your incessant, insufferable rambling has paid off somehow.”

The AI seemed nearly elated. “But of course.”

He shook his head, and muttered something unintelligible about the difference between levels of artificial intelligence, and something about understanding sarcasm, before shifting his mind back to his original thoughts and reflections, even as he unconsciously touched the objects in and around the table with surprisingly gentleness and emotion in his eyes, as though greeting old friends in those inanimate objects.

“And I’m really sorry to desecrate your moment of nostalgia, sir, but your guest has arrived. As a matter of fact, he is already here.”

That was rather…quick.

“Hello there. I was hoping that computerized butler of yours would get down to mentioning us eventually. It was taking quite a long time.”

The Aurea whirled around, his eyes tracing the path his ears blazed, finally dropping his visual crosshairs on the shadowed outline of the speaker. Duly noticing his host’s enlightenment to his till then undetected presence, the figure strode out, earning a raised eyebrow with the sight of something altogether inhuman.

Or rather, it looks living, but feels dead. I wonder how he was able to get past me, really. It shouldn’t have been that easy…did he simply erase his entire aura? Not bad…for a Successor.

The face of the young boy standing before him was far too perfect to be real, his face a plastic mask, and his enigmatic smile a deliberate crease. He was dressed in a simple grey tunic with little adornment, but there was a mysterious pride his eyes that cast a regal air about him.

“And you might be, sir?” The Eternal cocked his head lightly, gesturing towards his visitor. The boy did not smile, or make any action that resembled a display of greeting. He simply gazed steadily in the general direction of forwards with his pair of clear sapphire eyes, a hauntingly void in expression evident in him. His arms hung loosely by his sides, and his head barely moved as he introduced himself with a vaguely loosened jaw, the only part of him that seemed any less tense and artificial.

“I am Olivier. I am much pleased to meet your acquaintance this day, Master Zarakiya Justi.”

“I am surprised to hear that you know my name.”

He was given no answer to this, but only another enigma. But it was only to be expected that such a thing would happen. Preliminary greetings were always matters concerned with many surprises. “I know many things.”

“Also…I remember that you said, ‘us’, Master Olivier.”

“Indeed, I did say so.” As if on cue, another figure strode out from within Olivier’s shadow at those words. From the build, it was clearly a grown man, one draped from head to toe in a rather dull hooded robe, which in turn contrasted sharply with his only visible edifice of artistry: An elaborate ceremonial mask bespeaking much Oriental influence in its hues of operatic red, white and black, and that betrayed no expression of its wearer but that which was also woven into and beneath its varnish. Over his back was slung also his only, but nonetheless evident, show of hazard: A single long rifle of a pure black stock, which an eagle’s wing painted in gun-silver upon its handle.

The young boy who called himself Olivier gestured briefly to the newcomer, breaking the stiff feel about him momentarily before resuming his initial state. “Master Zarakiya, this is Zang. Zang, Master Zarakiya Justi.”

The masked man made no sign, but nodded his head gravely.

“And now, to business.”

~End of Part 3 of 3~

[Dusk_]

It's been forever since I've posted anything here...well, at least I'm still writing, right?

The first few chapters of Moving On are up on FF.net, if anyone needs a refresher . This chapter should be there soon too.

Spoiler for Moving On - 3:

The television screen flickered at a slow, steady pace, the flashing images of the shows barely remaining long enough to get a brief glimpse at the content. Watching from the sofa, sprawled across it lazily, Reinforce stared at the TV with a bored expression on her face, wondering why midday broadcasts always had to be so lame. Of course, it could’ve been her lamenting the lack of Hollywood style eye-candy – American television really had spoiled her, in that regard.

“Well, this is a great weekend, isn’t it?” she asked sarcastically. Noting the lack of response, she pulled her head up slightly to look at the carpet in front of her, and noticed that her temperamental cat had already gotten fed up and left.

“Traitor,” she accused, and flopped back down on the sofa.

It was just past one on a quiet Sunday, and the teenager found herself trying to stay occupied as she, once again, babysat the apartment alone. Her parents had both left just after lunch, having some sort of conference to go to. She couldn’t remember what it was about, since she’d only been half-listening at the time, and to be perfectly honest she was interested enough to have bothered to find out. Whatever the case, she’d basically been left to her own devices for the next several hours. All her homework had been finished the previous day, and she didn’t know the city well enough to want to go anywhere, so she’d naturally plopped down on the couch to veg out.

Still, there was only so much boredom that Reinforce could take, and after flipping through a few more channels she finally pushed the power button on the remote, and watched the screen fade to black. Lifting herself up to a sitting position, she yawned softly, a hand raising to cover her mouth, while the other patted the back of her head haphazardly, trying to smooth her hair back down.

“Maybe I’ll just read,” she thought, standing up and turning to the far corner of the room, where a small pile of cardboard boxes lay stacked. It had only been just over a week since her family had moved into the apartment, and thus they hadn’t finished unpacking everything yet. Most of their necessities, like clothes and cooking utensils, had already been emptied out, but the majority of odds and ends remained packed until someone wanted to get at them. Luckily her family was very organized when it came to packing their belongings, so searching through them was a lot less tedious than it could have been.

Finding the right container, she pulled it open, and started sifting through the contents. There were a fair number of encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and other such texts, but she was sure there were a couple of novels she hadn’t read through yet. Digging through the box, she started to pull out several books, trying to searcher deeper down, but stopped when her fingers closed on an old photo album.

“Couldn’t hurt to look,” she mused, a little curious. It was fun sometimes, just going back and looking at the old memories. Dropping to the floor, she sat down and propped the album up against her knees, opening to the first page. She smiled gleefully at the first few pictures, seeing her dad in a trim, black suit and her mom in a pure-white gown. They had gotten married before she’d be born, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the photos anyway. She flipped through page after page, occasionally pausing when a particular image caught her eye. It was a fairly normal photo album, with pictures of friends and family with bright smiling faces, and Reinforce got an occasional laugh when saw a familiar face that looked many years younger. When she came across a picture of her mother with a small baby bump, she immediately became attentive and jumped past several pages at once, and then burst into giggles when she saw the tiny, newborn child that was herself. Skipping a few more pages, she watched herself growing up through the still images, sometimes on her own, sometimes with her parents, and mostly smiling that blissful smile only a child could wear.

On a whim, she turned to the back of the album, looking at the last page. One of the last pictures was a group shot, and Reinforce spotted herself amongst a crowd of toddlers, smiling brightly at the camera. How young was she then? She was probably in Kindergarten, but maybe preschool. She tried to remember as she studied the face of the other children in the picture, but only had a vague sense of nostalgia. As she scanned the photo, she noticed another girl who had an arm wrapped around her own. Had they been friends? She couldn’t even remember a name. Briefly, she wondered how long that friendship had lasted, before it had become just another photo.

Shutting the book tight, the silver-haired girl stood up and tossed it back into the box, feeling much more morose than when she’d first started looking through the past. Deciding that she needed some fresh air, she started to walk away, leaving the slight mess of unpacked books behind her.

“I’m going out for a bit!” she called out to her cat, not entirely sure if the pet had heard her. As she reached the entryway, though, Agito was already sitting in front of the door, looking up expectantly.

“You could’ve just asked if you wanted to go outside,” Reinforce said sternly as she slipped on her shoes and pulled a jacket on, and then opened the front door. The cat swiftly slinked out of the apartment, the girl following closely behind.

Moving On
Chapter 3 – Interlude

Wheeling herself casually down the sidewalk, Hayate enjoyed the sunny, yet chilly, Sunday afternoon. Walking beside her at a brisk pace, her pink-haired guardian wore a much more stoic expression on her face. Sundays were relaxed at the Yagami residence, with the entire family usually home. Without much else to do, the middle schooler had decided to make a trip to library to find a few books she had wanted to read, and predictably the eldest member of the family had chosen to accompany her.

“Hey, Signum?”

“What is it?”

“What do I do when someone’s avoiding me?”

The older woman suddenly looked concerned, her eyebrows arching in confusion. “I’m sorry Hayate, I didn’t intend to ignore you -”

The girl couldn’t help herself, and burst into giggles. When she actually thought about it, Signum probably wasn’t the best person to discuss personal problems with; she tended to be a little too serious and prone to misunderstandings when it came to emotional issues. “No, no, it’s nothing like that.”

“Ah. Well, I can offer my advice if I’m able.”

“No, it’s fine. It was just an idle question,” Hayate answered. It was true too, because the query had mostly been intended for herself. It had been several days since she had spoken with the transfer student, ever since the girl had made her feelings clear. The brunette had tried a few times to start up a conversation again, whether it was during or after school, but for the most part she had been brushed aside with only a single word of acknowledgment. After those failed attempts, she had stopped trying – although she had no intention of backing down so easily.

To be honest, Hayate wasn’t sure why she was so intent on talking with the new girl, or why she was so stubborn despite being blatantly pushed away. Maybe if Ein-san had shown signs that she disliked her, and genuinely didn’t want to talk to her, she might have given up. Every time they’d talked, though, the silver-haired girl had seemed welcoming. A little hesitant maybe, and a little nervous, but it had felt like she’d enjoyed those scant few moments. Besides that, there seemed to be something more to the cold front that the girl showed to the world, something that felt a little lonely.

“Is everything all right, Hayate?” Signum asked, and the girl brought her head out of the clouds.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she answered cheerfully. Maybe her troubles were really nothing, and it was just her ego seeing things that weren’t really there. “You know, you didn’t have to come with me, I’m just going to the library.”

“Shamal had asked me to get some things from the grocery store, so it was convenient.”

Hayate giggled a little; the excuse seemed likely, at the very least. They continued on in a pleasant silence, neither having more to say. The trip was short and uneventful, and one that the middle schooler was well-acquainted with. When they arrived at the library, the two parted ways, Signum having a few more blocks to travel.

“See you at home then,” Hayate said, giving a slight wave.

“Don’t stay out too long,” the older woman advised, and headed on her way. With that, Hayate entered the library through the automatic doors, immediately heading for the fiction section. It would be nice if life could be more like a story, where she could just continue on knowing that every problem would be resolved in the end. Things were never that easy though, and she supposed that was part of the whole allure to books, the escape to simplicity.

She searched through her favourite authors first, but moved on to skimming through the shelves when nothing new was found. Occasionally she’d spot a cover or a title that drew her interest, and stopped to read the descriptions. It was in the middle of one such inspection, about ten minutes after she’d arrived, that a voice called to her in greeting.

“Hayate-chan!” came the pleasant tone of a young girl. Looking up from the book in her hand, Hayate broke out a smile as she saw the person addressing her.

“Tsukimura-san!” she answered back, greeting the purple-haired girl in front of her, “I haven’t seen you here in a while.”

“I haven’t had a chance to come here,” the girl replied. To call the two friends would be generous, as they met and spoke to one another infrequently; a better description would be acquaintances with similar interests. Tsukimura Suzuka was the same age as Hayate, but attended a different middle school. She frequented the library often, nearly as much as the brunette, and as a result the two had bumped into each other on several occasions. After many coincidental meetings they started talking, and ended up getting along well, because of their mutually amicable personalities.

“I see you’re still into those fantasy stories,” Suzuka teased, pointing to the novel in Hayate’s hand, depicting a sword-wielding knight fighting a dragon. The brunette playfully stuck her tongue out in response.

“And I imagine that you’re looking for another cheesy romance novel?” she teased back in retort. The purple-haired girl huffed and haughtily turned her head away.

“There’s nothing cheesy about them,” she said in mock indignation. Hayate giggled, which broke the girl from her acting as she smiled. A book catching her eye, she reached up and pulled the paperback off the shelf, glancing over the back cover.

“I suppose they really aren’t that different from your stories, though,” Suzuka said idly, “It’d be a little much for love to always fall into place so nicely.”

“Funny you say that, because I was thinking the same thing a few seconds ago,” Hayate said, which the other girl raised an eyebrow to. “Not about love, just problems not having such easy solutions. Although…maybe your books would help me a little more than mine. All these stories teach you are that some gallant knight will charge in every time a girl’s in trouble.”

Laughing lightly at the brunette’s musings, Suzuka slipped the book in her hand back into its space, finding it uninteresting.

“So, is it problems with a friend?” she asked, pulling out another book.

“Not exactly a friend,” Hayate answered, putting her own novel back and searching for another, “Just someone that I want to talk to.”

“My, and you said this wasn’t about love,” Suzuka teased, noting the forlorn tone in the other girl’s voice. “Unrequited crushes are so difficult.”

“Mou!” the brunette huffed, her cheeks puffing slightly as she glared at her companion. “It’s not like that! There’s this new girl at my school…”

“Mysterious transfer student, always good for a ‘love at first sight’ theme,” the purple-haired girl commented.

Hayate glared again, and Suzuka giggled, but started to listen to her seriously.

“I guess she is a little mysterious, though. All week she was avoiding everyone in the class, and barely said a word to anyone. I think I managed to talk to her the most, and that’s only because I was pushy about it. Then she just came right out and told me to leave her alone.”

“Maybe she just likes her solitude? There are some people like that, you know.”

“I’ve thought that too,” Hayate said, pausing. “But then, sometimes she looks…lonely, I guess.”

“Ah, so she’s a dishonest one then,” Suzuka said, sounding thoughtful.

“Another of your clichéd story characters?”

“Nope, this time it’s from personal experience,” the purple-haired girl answered, grinning. “One of my best friends, actually. She’s not very good at saying what she really feels, and ends up acting moody instead.”

“So what do you do?” Hayate asked.

“Sometimes she just needs someone to listen to her, and sometimes she needs a good scolding. Once you get to know a person, you learn to read their little quirks.”

“Mou, that doesn’t help at all,” Hayate whined, “The whole problem is that I want to get to know her.”

“Well…” Suzuka started, thinking earnestly, “If there’s one thing I know about you, Hayate, it’s that you’re someone who takes things into her own hands regardless of what anyone else wants.”

-----

Reinforce had spent her afternoon aimlessly wandering around the neighbourhood, walking from street to street with no real purpose in mind. Agito had disappeared almost as soon as they had left the apartment, to wherever cats usually go, so the middle schooler had ended up being a solo tourist for several hours. She’d wandered around some stores, took a peek into a few restaurants, and generally looked for anything of interest. She couldn’t really say that there was anything special about the city; in all honesty it felt fairly generic, no different than other places she’d seen. It wasn’t quiet enough to be considered a small-town area, and not loud enough to be considered a city. It was quaint, with an odd sense of normality.

Her expectations hadn’t really been high in the first place, but she still felt a little disappointed. Maybe she was just disillusioned with absorbing a new culture, or something. Whatever the case, she’d managed to waste her entire afternoon doing nothing at all, and it was almost six o’clock. Finally deciding to call it quits and go home, she turned a block, only to have her attention drawn to a small shop on the corner across the street, bearing “Midori-ya” written in large, bold lines.

Red eyes scanning the exterior of the store, the middle schooler felt a little curious. It looked like a fairly normal bakery and café, but somehow it seemed to stand out from the rest of the street. Maybe it was the flashy decorations, or perhaps the lack of colour from the neighbouring buildings. It looked to be empty from the outside, which wasn’t that unusual, considering the time. Letting her curiosity get the best of her, she quickly glanced down the street for cars, and then approached the storefront.

As she pushed the front door open, a small chime tinkled, and a woman with long, light-brown hair and a warm smile looked up from behind the till.

“Welcome,” she said, and Reinforce felt vaguely uncomfortable at the sudden attention.

“Um…hi,” the girl replied, wondering it would be best to leave after all.

“We were just closing up, but -” the woman started, but the silver-haired girl cut her off, bowing her head slightly as she turned in the doorway.

“I’m sorry, I’ll just be going then -”

“Don’t be silly! Come in, come in,” the lady interrupted insistently, inviting the girl in. Reinforce hesitated, but then reluctantly stepped into the café. There was a nice aroma in the air; a blend of something like cinnamon, bread and cocoa. It gave the place a sort of homely atmosphere, like what Reinforce pictured a family kitchen to be like. Approaching some of the display cases, she peered through the glass, looking at a variety of cakes and pastries.

“Is this your first time here? I’m normally quite good at remembering faces,” the woman inquired as she bustled around the circular tables, wiping them spotless.

“My family just moved here,” the girl answered, bending down to have a closer look at some fruit tarts.

“Oh? Then I suppose you’re our new neighbours!” the lady said gleefully, and Reinforce heard some shuffling and footsteps behind her. “Come over and have a seat.”

Turning around, the girl saw the storeowner sitting at one of the tables, motioning her over, with a plate of chocolate chip cookies placed in front of her.

“I couldn’t, I don’t want to impose or anything…” she trailed off, but the woman beckoned more insistently.

“I insist. It’s always nice to get to know new people, after all.”

Reinforce could tell that “no” wouldn’t be accepted, and demurely stepped forward to take a seat opposite the lady. The cookies were pushed towards her with an inviting smile, and she hesitantly took one, taking a small nibble.

“This is good!” she said, her eyes widening a little. Realizing that the comment could be taken the wrong way, she ducked her head a little in apology. “I mean…thank you, ma’am.”

“My, so polite. You can call me Momoko,” the storeowner said brightly.

“Momoko…san?” the girl repeated. She wasn’t quite used to adding the suffixes, and it still felt a little awkward.

“So, I imagine it’s hard to change schools right in the middle of a term. Are you in middle school?”

“Yes, second year. I was fourteen a month ago, in December,” she answered. She didn’t mind talking with adults that much. Sometimes they were curious, like Momoko was, but in the end it was really just small talk that never meant anything more than chitchat.

“Really? I have a daughter your age; maybe you’ve met her already?” Momoko said. Reinforce mentally winced – so much for idle small talk. “But then, I suppose her school isn’t close by. Her name is Nanoha.”

“I don’t recognize the name,” Reinforce answered, a little relieved.

“Well that’s a shame. She’s staying a friend’s place tonight, unfortunately, or I could introduce you to her.”

“Maybe another time,” the girl said, though she didn’t really plan on following up on that.

“But you seem like a nice girl, I’m sure you’ve already made plenty of friends.”

The middle schooler just nodded, taking another bite from her cookie. Absently she glanced down at the watch on her wrist, and saw it was almost six. Seeing an opportunity to leave, she swallowed her mouthful quickly.

“I’m sorry, I should get going now,” she stated, bowing her head apologetically. Momoko glanced at the time herself, and seemed a bit surprised.

“It is awfully late, isn’t it? Here, let me box these cookies up for you,” she said, and quickly got up, moving to package up the baked treats.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” Reinforce said, but a small cardboard box was already thrust towards her.

“I insist. Think of it like a housewarming present,” Momoko said, beaming, and the girl awkwardly accepted the gift.

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t catch your name,” the storeowner mentioned casually.

“It’s…um…Reinforce,” the student answered reluctantly.

“Well, feel free to stop by any time, Reinforce-san.”

Nodding and waving goodbye, the girl slipped out of the bakery, the door chiming lightly as she left.

-----

“I’m home!” Hayate called as she opened the front door and entered. Signum appeared in the hallway from the living room, looking like she’d been home a while ago.

“Did you have any trouble?” the older woman inquired.

“Not at all,” the brunette answered cheerfully, “I just bumped into a friend, and we ended up talking for a while.”

“Ah, that’s good –“

“Save me Hayate!” a panicked voice cried out, and the girl barely had time to turn her head before a small, red-haired object clung on to her with a tight grip. Though surprised at first, she quickly took it in good-humour, laughing light-heartedly.

“What’s the matter, Vita?” she asked, and then laughed again when the small face looked up at her with a quivering pout and watery eyes. “What’s got you so scared -?”

“Is that you, Hayate?” a voice called from the kitchen, and the girl suddenly felt a sense of foreboding, “Dinner’s going to be ready soon.”

“Signum…” Hayate said with an accusing tone in her voice.

“…yes?” the older woman asked hesitantly.

“Is Shamal cooking?”

Signum turned her head to look away, sheepishly scratching her cheek. Hayate looked back down at the girl, who was still clinging desperately to her and looked to be on the verge of tears. She shook her head lightly, making the child’s pout grow deeper.

“Sorry Vita, I don’t even think I can help myself.”

And thanks to markesellus for betaing .

[Satashi]

Spoiler for Previously:

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.50:

Vivio pushed up her glasses lightly on her nose and began flipping through the papers in front of herself. “Okay let's see... Here,” She showed Syn a sheet and scooted closer to her. “Right here, this is my basic 'will do' list. It says...well, what I'm comfortable with doing. I can edit it once or twice during my contract but this really outlines my upcoming work. The less I have on here, the less money I will bring in. I need to be lenient with it.”

Syn nodded and looked at the list and the check marks next to the words. “Um, what's this mean?” She pointed and got a small giggle along with the answer. “Oh, okay...” she fidgeted in her seat.

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“... A little but not bad. I'm just... you know, saying that my girlfriend will be doing this stuff. It's kind of weird more than being upset.”

Vivio nodded in understanding. “Would you feel more comfortable with it if you saw me doing it?” She got blinked at. “I have my videos, I can show them to you. You watched a few didn't you?”

“Just your solo scenes and webcam recordings.” Syn gave her a light lopsided smile. “I'm comfortable with it, just still weird to me. Anyway, let's see... Strip clubs?”

“Like I was at the other night.”

“... Okay, what's 'advertising' consist of?”

“Being recorded using things for new items or wearing something for a photo shoot. Like if a company released a new line of fetish clothing they would ask me to model in it. That will more than likely be a sex scene that's photographed, just so you know.”

“You're okay with that?”

Vivio shrugged. “Part of the job. No difference in that and being filmed in video.”

“Okay, I guess that's true...What's this mean?” She pointed to another line.

“I said no, so don't worry about it.” Vivio stuck out her tongue and got a giggle.

“You're so calm and easy going about this...”

“I hope you will be later on as well.”

“... What's away 'entertaining'?”

“If I go on the road somewhere to meet some important people, I would 'service' them sexually.”

“Is that legal?”

“That's why it's called servicing. It implied bringing them drinks, talking, entertaining and the like, but you really know what it means.”

“Basically it means they'll send you to seal deals? You're okay with that?”

“I will entertain them, it doesn't mean I will do sexual things. If I'm advertising a new sex toy and they want to watch me use it, I don't mind. I'll say no if I don't want to do something... I'll probably be wearing nothing or sexy lingerie though. That okay?”

“Well, I trust your judgment...” Her words trailed off as she thought about what she just said. “Yeah... Yeah, you know what?”

“What?”

“I trust you.” Syn handed the papers back to Vivio. “Do what you do, I'll support you.”

Vivio looked at her for a few moments before she leaned forward and hugged her. “That's the best thing you could say to me.” She got and amused pat on the back and squeezed her one more time before pulling away. “Well then, is there anything you want to ask about?”

“What's different about this and what you do now?”

“Basically more work. I will go around promoting things, do more videos, guest star on other company's videos, and the like. I've already got almost three hundred subscribers to my webpage now, it went up dramatically since my last video.”

Syn nodded and could tell that her girlfriend was proud. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. Ohhhh, so much to think about now.” Vivio quickly began flipping through the contents of the folder and signing her name to them. “I can't wait to get started!”

“You can't wait to have sex?”

Vivio stuck out her tongue. “Let me see your computer.” The request gained her Syn's laptop after a few moments of waiting for it to be brought to her. “Here, this is your user name and password to my website. I'll save it for you.”

Syn shook her head. “Why do I need that, I have the real thing here.” She wrapped her arms around Vivio and looked over her shoulder at the page. This time she didn't feel her stomach turn but instead felt a small sense of satisfaction that her girlfriend was doing so well in her life all of a sudden. “Hey...” Her arms tightened lightly and she nipped at Vivio's neck. “How about you give me some time right now?”

“Three hundred dollars for the first hour.” Vivio told her casually while closing the laptop. “Just kidding.” She kissed Syn's cheek. “Later, I need to do something first.”

“What?” The blue haired one frowned when Vivio stood up.

“Clean your apartment, it's a mess in here.” She went to the kitchen area and lifted up a plate laying on the counter, grimacing as long stands of left over food stuck it to the platter underneath it. “Where are your cleaning supplies?”

“Don't I have a say in this?” Syn countered her.

“No.” Vivio smiled and looked over at the girl walking to her. “Mou, Syn, you're still so touchy.” She blushed as hands slipped under her shirt and body made her take a few steps backwards to lean against the wall. “Ngghhnn... Let me clean first.”

“I'm jealous,” Syn whispered to her, trying to get the girl's pants unbuttoned. “They get to see you do their wildest dreams and all I got was a lap dance that drove me crazy all night long.”

“Mou, okay...” Vivio grabbed Syn's shoulders and pushed her back until she fell down onto her bed. “But we do it my way.” She smirked and turned on Syn's radio. The station was changed until she found a suitable song to dance to and she smiled at her eager looking girlfriend. “This is a special case, because I'm happy.” She informed her as her hips swayed to the music. “But since I'm working on my time off, you have to as well.”

“What do you mean?” Syn watched the blond move.

“You're cooking me dinner.” Slowly she pulled off her shirt and dropped it onto the floor to show a simple white bra. Syn's hands went up to touch her but were quickly and gently slapped away. “No touching until I say you can.” A cat like grin spread over her face as her already unbuttoned pants fell to the floor to show white stockings, garter belt, and panties. One hand went up behind her head and the other rested on her hip to pose. “Like?”

“Very.” Very breathed out as she was straddled and rubbed on. “Can I touch...?”

Vivio breathed into Syn's ear and spoke into it huskily, suddenly grinding her body against hers. “No...” She licked her earlobe and sucked on it, pinning Syn's hands to the bed.

~**~

Syn answered her phone quickly, flipping it open so the ring tone wouldn't wake up the girl sleeping on her bed. Although her treat had lasted the better part of half an hour, she felt rather flustered that she wasn't allowed to touch her not even once during it but at the same time knew that Vivio was just teasing her. “Hi mom,” she greeted the phone contently. “Hm? I'm not doing anything... No, Vivio is taking a nap, she stayed up really late. I'll have to talk quietly.” She paused and sat down next to her girlfriend, who was sleeping peacefully. “Thanksgiving? Sure I'll come. Never pass up free food that you don't have to cook... I don't think she is doing anything, no.” Syn smiled fondly. “I'd love to invite her to come over to meet you and dad.” Her hands threaded through the blond's hair and she had to repress a giggle when the girl didn't even stir from the motion. “Who else is going to be there?” Syn pulled the covers over Vivio's body so she wouldn't catch a cold. “Oh, some important people? Sounds neat, I'd like to meet them. What division are they in?” Syn smiled down at her girlfriend while listening. “Sixth mobile Division, what a bland name.” She laughed softly. “Go ahead and make plans for us to be there, I'll invite her when she wakes up.”

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.51:

~**~

Vivio slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes, inhaling a pleasant scent through her nose. Syn had her back turned to the girl and was busy cooking, humming to herself as she stirred the contents of something that Vivio couldn't see. Red and green eyes looked around to find her earlier disregarded clothing during her lap dance and put them on as quietly as she could to avoid the embarrassment of having Syn see her naked again. Once covered she walked to the kitchen area and was smiled at. "Hey," Vivio yawned out the word before wrapping her arms around her girlfriend from behind. "How long did I sleep?"

"Almost three hours." Syn put a cover on her skillet and leaned back against Vivio's chest. "Hey, what are you doing for thanksgiving?"

"I have a shoot tonight for my webpage, but I can set it to automatically update on the day itself so nothing really."

"A Thanksgiving special?" Syn almost laughed. "What, are they going to stuff you or something?"

"Yes, with turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, salad-" She stopped her joking when Syn did start laughing at her. "But really, it's nothing big, shouldn't take more than an hour to shoot it."

"What are you going to do?"

"Want to come watch?" Vivio hugged her. "It may be a bit much, but you can meet some of my friends before we do the shoot."

"I'll go meet your friends, I don't know about watching." Syn patted Vivio's hands. "I'll watch the recording of it with you okay?"

"That's fine, you can stay in my dressing room while we shoot it, I have a TV in there." Vivio nodded to herself. "Oh, why did you ask anyway?"

"My mom and dad want to meet you." Syn gripped the skillet in front of herself with one hand and took the lid off with the other so she could flip the contents around. "I'd really like it if you came to my home for Thanksgiving?"

"Oh wow... okay, I'm a bit nervous though... who will be there? Am I going to meet all of your family?"

"No, just my parents and a few higher-ups from their work that they are friends with. Something about a gathering of friends that they haven't seen in a while and all that. I won't know them either so we can just stick together off to the side."

"Okay, that's good." Vivio kissed Syn's cheek. "When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow, so we can drive down there and be in time for dinner, then thanksgiving day after, stay that night, and come back. Is that too long?"

"No, I can go a while without updating my page since I'm doing that one tonight." She smiled happily. "I'm looking forward to it."

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio Pt.52:

~**~

Syn looked around nervously as she was handed a guest ID card to walk around the studio with Vivio. "I feel weird," She whispered to her friend once they were away from the receptionist. "It's like everyone who looks at me wants to bend me over a table and go to town on me."

"As fun as that would be to watch, don't worry about it."

"Wait," Syn cut her off. "You'd like to see that?"

"Hm? Yes, that would be rather erotic." She stuck out her tongue at her friend, not positive if Syn was sure if she was serious or not. "But really, everyone here is professional. They don't need to skirt chase, their job is to have sex." She waved at some of her friends who were walking from a set.

Syn was still looking at her from the corner of her eyes. "Okay, if you say so... It's still a little creepy. Gah, I'm sorry that was rude."

"Syn doesn't think before speaking, I'm used to it by now." Vivio elbowed her playfully before opening the door that had her name on it. "Here's my dressing room. Short tour, there's my couch, my vanity, my shower, and my clothes."

The blue haired girl whistled lightly. "It's huge." The single room was indeed big enough for everything mentioned and still be comfortable to lounge in. "They treat everyone really nice here, huh?"

"Well, the normal ranked people don't have rooms, they just come here, do their thing, and leave."

"So since you're a star you have a room?"

"Well, I have paper work to do and-"

"Whoa, you have paperwork?" Syn blinked.

Vivio looked offended. "Of course! I'm under contract labor, I have to do all my own taxes, sign forms of release for the recordings, schedule my filmings, talk to people, sometimes we have employee cookouts so people gather in my dressing room to hang out in-"

"Okay, I get it." Syn rolled her eyes. "Forgive me for not knowing."

"Well that's why I asked you here." Vivio sniffed at her and crossed her arms.

"Yeah..." Syn sighed. "Sorry, it's just weird knowing that you're about to go and have sex with someone. I'm okay with it, but it's still a little awkward." Before she could go on a knock at their door made them pause. Vivio bid them to come in and before Syn could react, a small child ran past her and hugged Vivio's legs.

"Vivio!" The girl greeted happily as she was holstered up to be balanced on the older woman's hips.

Vivio smiled at the small red haired girl. "Why hello there, Lina."

"Lina!" a new voice coming into the room made everyone look to see a blond haired girl with crystal blue eyes. "Don't run off like that, and use your manors."

Lina pouted slightly. "Yes Mama."

Vivio walked over to the woman and grinned. "Hey Krissy, how're you?"

"Great, we're about to go to Mark's parent's for thanksgiving."

Vivio smiled and pulled Syn over to her with her free hand. "that sounds really wonderful Krissy, I'm going to my girlfriend's place this year. Syn, meet Krisslanza. Krissy, meet Syn."

Syn nodded at her. "Nice to meet you."

"Oh, Syn!" Krisslanza smiled brightly. "Vivio has told us so much about you, it's great to finally meet you!" The blue haired girl blinked. "Oh you are quite a cute little thing! Way to go Vivio!"

"Krissy!" Vivio scolded her, blushing brightly. "Don't tell her that, it's embarrassing." She glanced at Syn lightly and then averted her eyes. Lina decided that she wanted down at that moment so Vivio sat her down onto her feet.

"Hey everyone," A new voice made them look at the door once again, this time seeing a guy.

Krisslanza giggled. "Honey, meet Syn, she's the girl Vivio rants about being head over heels in love with all the time."

"KRISSY!"

Syn felt her lips turn up slightly and nodded at the man walking over to them as he reached down to pick up his daughter and smile brightly at the child. "Nice to meet you."

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.53:

Vivio stood closer to Syn to introduce them. "Syn, this is Mark, he's the one I'm going to be filming with today."

"Oh." Syn nodded again and watched Mark talking with his daughter.

Krisslanza nodded to confirm it before turning to Vivio again. "Vivio, would you mind if I watched after Lina in your dressing room? The day care is closed for the thanksgiving weekend already and I need to get back to my job soon, I'm on my dinner break."

"Sure! Syn is going to be in here too so you can get to know each other." She looked at the still open door when someone poked his head in to speak with them.

"Guys, set two is ready. Eyes, please change into your outfit, it's on your vanity." With that the man left them once more to continue his rounds.

Mark waved at them after swapping his daughter back to her mother once more. "I'll see you then, Eyes." He left the three girls as well and closed the door behind him.

Vivio walked to her vanity and opened the box, pulling out a black skirt and a matching 'buisness woman' top. "Seems like I'm going for the secretary look today." She began changing clothes while Syn watched her curiously. "Are you positive you don't want to watch, Honey?"

Syn shook her head. "No thank you. You go do your thing and I'll be here when you get back." Vivio finished changing and hung up her casual clothes. On the way out she kissed Syn's cheek and smiled at her one last time before hurrying out of the room. Once the door was closed again the blue haired girl looked over at the mother/daughter combo sitting in front of the now turned on Television. "So, you known Vivio a while?"

Krisslanza nodded and left the channel on something her daughter would like. "I met her a few years ago while I was waiting on Mark to finish a scene. I was talking about how hard one of my college classes was after the shoot and she overheard me. After a while she offered her help with it because she seemed to know a lot about the subject. After that we ate lunch together and really hit it off. Poor thing was so scared about her new job and didn't know anything about it so I kind of explained how it worked. Although I'm not into the business, my husband is so I knew enough."

"Was it hard for you to accept it all?" Syn sat down next to her and looked down at the quiet child watching cartoons. "Sorry this must be weird."

"Oh no, you're going through the same thing I did." Krisslanza smiled at her happily. "No, it was really hard at first. But you have to separate work from home. I'm sure Vivio has talked to you about that?" She got a nod. "Mark loves me more than anyone else in the world." She fondly touched her wedding band. "His work doesn't mean anything, it's just what he does. Same with Vivio. Did you know she refused to work for almost a month when you two broke up?"

Syn flinched. "Really?"

"Mmhmm, she came to work to try to but she ended up staying in her dressing room crying. I talked to her a while to help her through it and she eventually got better. You have no idea how much she talks about you. Can't shut her up."

Syn felt a small smile tug at her lips. "That's interesting, what does she say?"

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.54:

"How much you mean to her, the way you cook, how you always hug on her. That kind of thing."

Syn grinned at hearing that. "That's not too bad, I was worried she'd talk about our love life."

"Not Vivio, she's too reserved. Believe me, her friends pestered about it for a long time last time we all went out for a while. She was glowing red and just told them that you were really loving."

Syn felt her cheeks color slightly and looked away for a moment, eying the small child giggling at the television screen. "It's weird..."

"What is?"

"This is so different than what I thought, even after talking to her about it so much. I thought I knew everything there was about it, but I just keep learning more... I mean, you brought your child here to stay in Vivio's room while your husband is having sex with her right now. While they're doing that, we're talking as if we didn't just meet for the first time." She smiled softly. "I'm really relieved. Everything is just as she said it was. She loves me... this is just work."

"Mmhmm. A really weird concept, but once it clicks, it's simple." Krisslanza leaned back in the chair. "I wonder if they're almost done."

"Already!?" Syn looked at the clock and realized that they had been talking for almost two hours. Sure enough, just as she was about to comment on how fast the time went by, the door to the room opened and a messy Vivio walked in. Looking at her, Syn gaped at the sight. Her girlfriend was covered from head to foot with what looked like smeared mashed potatoes, corn, dressing, stuffing, bread crumbs, gravy, turkey, and egg salad. "What in the world happened to you!?"

Vivio gave her best grin ever. "I got stuffed."

Spoiler for Pornstar!Vivio pt.55:

~**~

"So what time are we going to leave tomorrow?" Vivio asked as she zipped her suitcase. After checking to make sure she had her laptop as well, she looked over at Syn and handed her the lighter bag to carry when she offered.

"Five in the morning. It takes a while to get there." Syn sighed out. "I'll have to fill up half way there." The two walked down the hallway together and took the elevator down to the lobby. "I'm glad you're going to be there to talk to me."

Vivio nodded and paused a moment to check her mail at the front desk. After getting a few envelopes, she walked with Syn and got into her car. "Let's see... most of this is just job offers and request... and bills. Open this for me please?" She offered Syn a letter. "do you mind if we swing by my bank before we go to your house?"

"No problem," Syn paused. "Wait, this isn't yours, this is addressed to someone named Hayate."

"That's my middle name." Vivio told her absently. All my bills and my apartment is under that name."

"Do you go by your middle name? to help prevent people from bothering you about your job?"

"Uh... Kind of." Vivio shook her head. "It's just... I don't know, I'd rather use that instead of my first name. I guess you could say it's so people won't be able to get my address."

Syn smirked. "You're paranoid. You've shown my many things you've done and I've never once seen anything but 'Eyes' on it." She thought about it a moment. "Hey, will anyone start bothering me?"

"I don't say your name at all, just that you're my girlfriend. Everyone at work respects that so I don't think anyone will know who you are unless you just come out and say that you're dating me."

"I don't really mind. Besides, I'm dating a popular porn star... that's kind of neat in a bizzare way. I can say I'm dating a star. Even if she has a weird job."

"It's not weird!" she pouted at Syn and stuck out her bottom lip cutely. "I told you, we were actually going to eat all that food on the set before people started throwing it around to have fun. It was just a fun shoot, not something we really do."

"Sure." Syn laughed and turned off to go into vivio's bank. "Okay then, Hayate, go make your deposit, I'm sitting in the car where it's warm."

"Meanie." The girl stuck out her tongue. "and I was going to buy you dinner too for letting me stay at your place." Syn opened her mouth to try and make it up but the blond was already out of the car, grinning at her before she jogged to the bank door. As soon as she got there she slipped and slid along some ice before reaching to grab the door handle to steady herself. Unfortunately for her, the door opened inward just as she was about to grasp it and she ended up falling forward, half inside and half outside of the building. 'I swear, that girl is cursed or something to make me keep falling on my ass." She was helped to her feet slowly and grinned shyly as the guy stared at her with wide eyes before asking for an autograph a picture with her.

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.56:

~**~

Vivio groaned low in her throat as a sudden beeping sound interrupted her dream of eating a life sized marshmallow. Movement came in her arms when Syn pulled away lightly to lazily reach out and slam her hand down on the offending alarm clock. As the body moved, Vivio found a mouthful of Syn's hair being pulled from her. Coughing slightly, she reached up and ran her hand down between teh back of Syn's head and her mouth,pulling the rest of the strands away from herself. Before long, soft snoring sounds came again and she realized that her girlfriend had gone back to sleep with one arm still laying on the dresser on top of the now silent clock. Although tempted to sleep again, the blond slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes with one hand while shaking Syn slightly with the other. "Get up," she mumbled groggily.

Syn made an annoyed sound but still sat up as well, staring with blank eyes at the blankets around their waists. Vivio crawled around her to get out of the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. The lights made the one still in bed hold up a hand to block it from blinding her. She allowed herself a few more moments to wake up before finally getting out of bed and picking up yesterday's bluejeans to pull up her legs. The button was fastened and her extra long nightshirt with the words "This is my sexy lingerie" on it was tossed on the floor to cover the part of her carpet she could see. After raiding a drawer she put on a baby blue colored bra and fastened it just as Vivio came back into the main room of her apartment.

Vivio, now seemingly fully awake now, gave her girlfriend a peck to the cheek before she began changing into her clothes. "You know," the blond spoke softly as if to not disturb the quiet of the peaceful morning. "Waking up along with someone is really really nice."

"You said that before," Syn yawned when she tried to speak. "But yes, I think so too... you should stay with me more often."

Vivio tied the string on the front of her khaki pants and nodded. "You're welcome to stay with me too, when we get back in a few days. Where do your parents live anyway? I didn't even think to ask."

"A few miles from the capital." She paused a moment. "I wonder if Daddy knows your job."

Vivio grinned. "This is going to be interesting." She looked at her girlfriend a moment and then picked up her suitcase. "Ready?"

"Ready." Syn got her duffel bag and her car keys. "Let's go then."

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.57:

~**~

Six hours and three minutes into the trip, Syn finally pulled over into a small home-town restaurant parking lot and quickly got out of her car. Vivio followed suit and the two stretched widely before hunching over and popping their backs. "Please," the blond spoke around a groan while walking to the building. "Tell me we're almost there."

"Half way." Syn smiled as best she could when her girlfriend groaned loudly. "I never said it would be fast."

"If you didn't drive like a little old granny-"

"I was going twenty over the speed limit!" Syn stopped her complaining when a peppy ring tone made Vivio reach into her pocket to pull out her phone.

"... It's my boss," She spoke up, confused. "I wonder what he's calling for..." With a push of her button she brought the phone to her ear and stood next to the entrance. "Hello?" She listened for a few moments silently while looking at Syn. "Eh? I'm.. about sixish hours from home, I'm going to my girlfriend's home for thanksgiving.... Huh? No, no I can't." Her legs began to pace around while listening. "I can't, I'm with my girlfriend for the holiday... Yes, I'm sure. I gave a notice and everything." Her cheeks puffed out. "I'm sorry. I'll do something after the holidays... Okay.... Yeah.... you too." She flipped her phone shut and answered Syn's unasked question. "He wanted me to dance at a club."

"Oh." Syn shook her head lightly. "Are you sure you can turn down the job? After your contract?"

"I gave notice I wouldn't be available. I'm with you right now." She pushed Syn lightly into the building to escape the chill of the blowing wind. "I'm scheduling all my work around you if I can. I don't want us to be one of the couples that work different hours and never see each other." She smiled and shyly kissed the girl on the cheek when she was beamed at. "Anyway, lets get some food and get back going. I want to be there so we can stay out of that tiny car."

"It's not tiny!" Syn defended her ride indignantly with a playful glare.

~**~

"Are we there yet?" Vivio asked softly while sliding her seat back so she could bend over forward and stretch.

Syn tried to keep her eyes on the road instead of the girl bending over. "How can you do that?"

"What?"

"Bend in half."

"I stretch every day before and after I work out, of course I can bend in half."

Syn glanced over at her side ways. "Can you.... you know?"

Vivio smirked. "Are we there yet?" She winked at her girlfriend, who turned a dark red.

"Yeah, almost... This is my hometown here."

The blond looked out the window and took in the community. Small town atmosphere but still seemed to look newer than most country towns. "No wonder you have an accent."

"I ain't go no accent!" Syn growled darkly. "Snippity uptown girl."

Red and green eyes tried to absorb it all. couples walking down the street together holding hands, others walking their pets and even a few people who waved at her when they noticed she was looking. "Seems really nice."

"Mom wanted me to have lots of friends and have a good life after she settled down from the big city. They moved here a little before I was born... My old school is up here on the left." Her words trailed when she saw Vivio's happy expression as she got to see where she had grown up. 'That girl's so weird.'

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.58:

Turning back to Syn, Vivio stretched out once more and rubbed her legs. "You live in town?" She watched with interest as they turned down a road and into a small community. "Down here?"

"Right here." The blue haired one pulled into a driveway and parked. Both of them gratefully got out of the car and stretched out again before walking. "This is why I don't come home that often."

Nodding, Vivio walked to the back of the vehicle and took the offered bags from her girlfriend. "Thank you." Turning to the front door, she saw an older version of Syn walking over to them. The same color blue hair flowed out behind her and crystal eyes accepted her warmly. After the mother and daughter had a long hug they turned to her and she bowed polity to them."Nice to meet you, My name is Vivio Takamachi."

"Elena Virage." The mother gave the younger girl a hug much to her surprise. "You are a cutie. Way to go Syn."

"Mom!" Syn blushed darkly. "Don't start in on me, I just got here."

Elena laughed lightly and welcomed the girls into her home. "honey, come here, the girls just arrived!"

Vivio nervously rubbed her hands together and waited for Syn's father to come to them as her mother took their bags to Syn's bedroom. As the man turned the corner, Vivio's eyes went wide for a brief moment before blushing darkly.

"Dad, this is Vivio, Vivio meet..." She slowed down and looked between both of them. "What, have you two met or something before?"

Vivio coughed. "Uh yeah... we met once... when I was working at a club." She got softer when Elena came back into the room. "Awkwaaaaaard."

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio Pt.59:

“So,” Syn spoke up with her arms crossed. “You two have met before.”

Vivio shook her head. “It's not what you think. We just talked to each other.”

Syn's father, Kaith, nodded his head. “I was when my group returned from a successful mission. I haven't seen them in a long time and to celebrate the win they all went to a club. I went with them, not knowing where they were going to go, and ended up being at a strip club.”

Elena hummed to herself, looking between Vivio and her husband. “Vivio, what did you do while there?”

The blond smiled lamely. “I know it won't be very believable: I was assigned to his room but he told me he was married and asked if we could just talk... we ended up discussing politics and the how way that the T.S.A.B was heading wasn't as clear as it should be...”

Although Syn looked as if she didn't buy the story for a moment, Elena took the opportunity to give her husband a hug. “I'm sorry I ever doubted you honey!” She cooed at him happily. “I was so shocked when you told me where they took you!”

The daughter of the group blinked before looking back over at her girlfriend. “So you just talked to each other?”

A nod. “Mmn. I remembered him because we spent almost three hours just chatting. It's not very often that you get to have an intelligent conversation at a place like that. I suppose he remembered me because I wasn't what he expected?” She tilted her head to the side curiously.

Kaith smiled at her an put a hand onto her shoulder. “You are a rare girl indeed. Putting aside your job, you tried to make a stranger comfortable. I can accept that is your job if Syn does.” He looked at his little girl questioningly and got a confirmation. “So, Vivio was it? It's a pleasure to meet you again.”

Syn scratched her head and used her free hand to place upon her hip. 'This is one interesting day... I don't know if I could handle knowing my girlfriend gave my father a lap dance...' A full body shiver coursed through her before she excused herself to get their things from the car. Vivio followed quickly and stood next to her as the remaining luggage was taken out. “I almost fainted when I heard that,” the taller girl spoke up while giving Vivio something to carry. “I was gonna be sick”

“You? I was going to scream when I realized that you and your mother knew I had been in a room to service him. I still can't believe this, oh lord, what if he had paid me?” Bringing a palm to her face, she gave a sigh mixed with a growl. “I'm still so embarrassed. He saw me at work!”

“At least he doesn't have your pornos.” Syn closed the trunk and began walking back to the door. “Just the thought... ugh, I lost my appetite.”

“Better here than at the dinner table.” She followed her friend through the house while looking around. “So this is where you grew up, huh?” She hesitated a moment so she could take a step back to see a baby picture of Syn naked in a small kiddie pool. “you were so cute!” Turning to her friend, she smirked. “Whatever happened?”

“No looking at my pictures!” The girl got behind her friend and nudged her along. “Bedroom. Now.”

Vivio giggled to herself and looked around the room she had been forced into. “Very nice.”

“They changed it when I moved out.” Suitcases were placed on the floor in favor of walking around to inspect everything. “I haven't been here in about three or four months now.” A teddy bear was picked up off a shelf and smiled at. “First time I've ever taken someone to meet my family. I hope you enjoy it here.”

“I'm sure I will.”

~**~

“So, Vivio.” Elena began conversation after everyone had been seated to eat dinner together. “Tell us a little about yourself?”

“What would you like to know?” She testingly tried a bite of her food before looking at it with new interest.

“A little about your job and what you do when not at it?” The mother offered a place to start.

Having expected it, the girl ignored the furiously blushing girlfriend and began. “I'm an adult entertainer, as you know. I do everything from guest appearances at clubs, like when I met Kaith-san, to bars and video stores to increase my fan base. My main job is running a web page as well as releasing movies. I generally work about ten to fifteen hours a week, including takes and updating. When I'm not doing that, I'm traveling around to visit places to try and get new fans.”

Both the parents hummed at this but Elena kept going. “So, is Syn one of your satisfied subscribers?”

Syn coughed loudly around the spoon in her mouth before grabbing a napkin to hold to her lips and nose, eyes scrunched together in pain as if she had just snorted some of the hot soup up her nose. Ignoring her girlfriend, Vivio simply smiled and replied. “No, she's very shy when it comes to watching me. I normally have to ask her to view things with me.” A pleasant tone was in her voice, enjoying the easy-going attitude of the mother and the gasping daughter across from her. Waiting for her to calm down at try to take another careful bit of soup, Vivio went on. “I do want to get her to do the camera work for me though.” Just as she planned, another gasp and chocking sound came.

Elena beamed at the guest in her home. “Oh, how sweet! You two must be very close.”

“Yes ma'am!” Vivio closed her eyes and smiled brightly. “She's taken a few pictures of me, I'll show you on the website later!”

“VIVIO!” Syn shrieked.

“Oh my, how wonderful!” Elena cooed happily. “I'd love to see them.”

“MOM!” Syn yelped in disbelief, eyes wide.

“Yes, yes.” The blond continued. “I'll give you a free subscription!” This time she had to giggle as she was pulled back towards Syn. Harsh whispered demands not to do so were whispered into her ear, but Vivio only looked up at her and reached to thread her fingers through the blue strands. “I won't show her, if you let me fix your hair tomorrow?”

Elena gasped happily. “Oh, you play with her hair too?”

“Yes, yes!” The woman and girl clasped each other's hands. “Her hair is so poseable! I love putting it in twin tails!”

“And braiding part of it down her back!”

“Yes!”

Syn leaned back in her seat and covered her eyes with her hand. “Dad, make them stop...” Much to the girl's horror, the bonding of her mother and girlfriend continued past dinner. Only a few short minutes passed by before she found herself sitting in a chair with her hair being fussed over by two star struck females. Small repressed whimpers escaped her lips as her locks were pulled and clipped into place before being removed, braided, and re-clipped in different areas. Before long she found her nails being done by her mother and -much to her secret delight- her feet being massaged and toenails painted by Vivio. Her father, who normally helped her in these situations, was left helpless by the combined wrath of the new friendship formed between the two girls at Syn's expense. Another hour passed before the torture from her mother and girlfriend was over and she was able to finally collapse onto her bed to rest. “No more...” She whined sleepily.

Vivio bent over to pick up her laptop case and sat on the bed next to her with a grin. “I like your mom.” She was growled at half heartedly. “Really, I told you that your hair was awesome. Besides, you were squirming when I did your feet.”

“Shut up, that's embarrassing.” Syn hmphed at her and was about to roll over to pretend to ignore the girl but stopped when she noticed Vivio typing. “What are you doing?”

“I have my computer set to auto upload the file on my webpage but I forgot that I need internet access to allow it to do so. Can I jack into yours here?”

“Yes.” Syn brought up her hand. “Arika, allow my friend access please.” A monitor came in front of her hand and she typed a few things onto it. “There, you should be set. It'll register your computer.”

“M2D?” Vivio asked with a small twinge of sadness in her voice. “Been so long since I used that.... anyway!” She shook her head and began to type some more. “There, I'll tell it to update now... Oh wow, my chat room is packed.”

Syn pondered this. “Horny people on before thanksgiving. How sad.”

“Aw, don't be like that. Some of them are just lonely.”

“In a sex chat room?”

“Touché. But really, there are a few people here who are regulars. They don't ask for me to do things, they just talk with me. I'd go as far to call them friends. I can't give them any favoritism though, because that's not really professional. Instead, I give them my other email address that isn't my personal one but isn't a work one. We talk just like normal people.”

Syn moved to put a pillow under her head, resting her cheek on it and closing her eyes. “How many are like that?”

“Five or so.”

“How many are in that chat room?”

“Sixty, it's the limit. Otherwise it gets so clustered nobody would be able to hold a conversation.”

“So there are fifty-five horny people.” She smirked when her butt was slapped. “Are you going to talk to them?”

“No, I'm a guest in someone's house.” Vivio mused while inspecting her site to ensure that the video was up. “I just need to tell them the video is there.”

“Go ahead and chat.” Syn yawned lazily. “I'm going to fall asleep at any moment anyway.” She forced herself up to go to her suitcase in favor of something to change into. “Want your bed clothes?”

“Um..... Yeah.” Vivio grinned at her. “I'm going to give them a little show to make up for not talking with them.” She adjusted her web camera and giggled.

Syn rolled her eyes but still moved to the other wide of the room so she wouldn't get caught changing before sitting on the bed to enjoy the strip tease herself. 'I guess this has it's benefits...' She blushed darkly as underwear was tossed on her face.

How's that for a long update Almost finished ^_^ tomorrow is the big dayfor them~

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by Satashi

PornStar!Vivio Pt.59

Spoiler for Some slight glitches:

I was when my group returned from a successful mission.

I think that should be "It was..."

I can accept that is your job if Syn does.

You can drop "that is"

A pleasant tone was in her voice, enjoying the easy-going attitude of the mother and the gasping daughter across from her.

I suggest starting with "There was a pleasant tone..." then changing "enjoying" to "she enjoyed" because, as it is, it sounds like it's the tone that's enjoying those things instead of Vivio.

another gasp and chocking sound came

"Choking" only one c.

moved to the other wide of the room

"other side".

Other than those, wonderful chapter! The family interactions are classic you.

I remembered him because we spent almost three hours just chatting.

Not sure if this is actually possible, based on her schedule at the "Peaches" place, wouldn't she have some more performances on the main stage in less time than that?

I don't know if I could handle knowing my girlfriend gave my father a lap dance...

Two things here. Starting with, he didn't see Vivio perform on the main stage before being tossed into a private room by his friends? Not an impossible situation if you juggle the timing.
That leads to the second, you should change it to "...I can handle..." if he did and "...I could have handled..." if he didn't.
If he did, then Vivio might have had to give the family a private show, so that she doesn't leave Elena out.

“I haven't been here in about three or four months now.”

More than that, I think. Based on earlier chapters, I get the impression that she hadn't been home in months when she first met Vivio, and she certainly hadn't been home since.

I won't show her, if you let me fix your hair tomorrow?

Ah, but they didn't wait till tomorrow. Or are they going to go at it again tomorrow?

Almost finished ^_^ tomorrow is the big day for them~

The end is in sight, eh? It's been quite a ride.

[Raging Heart]

Originally Posted by Satashi

Spoiler for Previously:

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.50:

Vivio pushed up her glasses lightly on her nose and began flipping through the papers in front of herself. “Okay let's see... Here,” She showed Syn a sheet and scooted closer to her. “Right here, this is my basic 'will do' list. It says...well, what I'm comfortable with doing. I can edit it once or twice during my contract but this really outlines my upcoming work. The less I have on here, the less money I will bring in. I need to be lenient with it.”

Syn nodded and looked at the list and the check marks next to the words. “Um, what's this mean?” She pointed and got a small giggle along with the answer. “Oh, okay...” she fidgeted in her seat.

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“... A little but not bad. I'm just... you know, saying that my girlfriend will be doing this stuff. It's kind of weird more than being upset.”

Vivio nodded in understanding. “Would you feel more comfortable with it if you saw me doing it?” She got blinked at. “I have my videos, I can show them to you. You watched a few didn't you?”

“Just your solo scenes and webcam recordings.” Syn gave her a light lopsided smile. “I'm comfortable with it, just still weird to me. Anyway, let's see... Strip clubs?”

“Like I was at the other night.”

“... Okay, what's 'advertising' consist of?”

“Being recorded using things for new items or wearing something for a photo shoot. Like if a company released a new line of fetish clothing they would ask me to model in it. That will more than likely be a sex scene that's photographed, just so you know.”

“You're okay with that?”

Vivio shrugged. “Part of the job. No difference in that and being filmed in video.”

“Okay, I guess that's true...What's this mean?” She pointed to another line.

“I said no, so don't worry about it.” Vivio stuck out her tongue and got a giggle.

“You're so calm and easy going about this...”

“I hope you will be later on as well.”

“... What's away 'entertaining'?”

“If I go on the road somewhere to meet some important people, I would 'service' them sexually.”

“Is that legal?”

“That's why it's called servicing. It implied bringing them drinks, talking, entertaining and the like, but you really know what it means.”

“Basically it means they'll send you to seal deals? You're okay with that?”

“I will entertain them, it doesn't mean I will do sexual things. If I'm advertising a new sex toy and they want to watch me use it, I don't mind. I'll say no if I don't want to do something... I'll probably be wearing nothing or sexy lingerie though. That okay?”

“Well, I trust your judgment...” Her words trailed off as she thought about what she just said. “Yeah... Yeah, you know what?”

“What?”

“I trust you.” Syn handed the papers back to Vivio. “Do what you do, I'll support you.”

Vivio looked at her for a few moments before she leaned forward and hugged her. “That's the best thing you could say to me.” She got and amused pat on the back and squeezed her one more time before pulling away. “Well then, is there anything you want to ask about?”

“What's different about this and what you do now?”

“Basically more work. I will go around promoting things, do more videos, guest star on other company's videos, and the like. I've already got almost three hundred subscribers to my webpage now, it went up dramatically since my last video.”

Syn nodded and could tell that her girlfriend was proud. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. Ohhhh, so much to think about now.” Vivio quickly began flipping through the contents of the folder and signing her name to them. “I can't wait to get started!”

“You can't wait to have sex?”

Vivio stuck out her tongue. “Let me see your computer.” The request gained her Syn's laptop after a few moments of waiting for it to be brought to her. “Here, this is your user name and password to my website. I'll save it for you.”

Syn shook her head. “Why do I need that, I have the real thing here.” She wrapped her arms around Vivio and looked over her shoulder at the page. This time she didn't feel her stomach turn but instead felt a small sense of satisfaction that her girlfriend was doing so well in her life all of a sudden. “Hey...” Her arms tightened lightly and she nipped at Vivio's neck. “How about you give me some time right now?”

“Three hundred dollars for the first hour.” Vivio told her casually while closing the laptop. “Just kidding.” She kissed Syn's cheek. “Later, I need to do something first.”

“What?” The blue haired one frowned when Vivio stood up.

“Clean your apartment, it's a mess in here.” She went to the kitchen area and lifted up a plate laying on the counter, grimacing as long stands of left over food stuck it to the platter underneath it. “Where are your cleaning supplies?”

“Don't I have a say in this?” Syn countered her.

“No.” Vivio smiled and looked over at the girl walking to her. “Mou, Syn, you're still so touchy.” She blushed as hands slipped under her shirt and body made her take a few steps backwards to lean against the wall. “Ngghhnn... Let me clean first.”

“I'm jealous,” Syn whispered to her, trying to get the girl's pants unbuttoned. “They get to see you do their wildest dreams and all I got was a lap dance that drove me crazy all night long.”

“Mou, okay...” Vivio grabbed Syn's shoulders and pushed her back until she fell down onto her bed. “But we do it my way.” She smirked and turned on Syn's radio. The station was changed until she found a suitable song to dance to and she smiled at her eager looking girlfriend. “This is a special case, because I'm happy.” She informed her as her hips swayed to the music. “But since I'm working on my time off, you have to as well.”

“What do you mean?” Syn watched the blond move.

“You're cooking me dinner.” Slowly she pulled off her shirt and dropped it onto the floor to show a simple white bra. Syn's hands went up to touch her but were quickly and gently slapped away. “No touching until I say you can.” A cat like grin spread over her face as her already unbuttoned pants fell to the floor to show white stockings, garter belt, and panties. One hand went up behind her head and the other rested on her hip to pose. “Like?”

“Very.” Very breathed out as she was straddled and rubbed on. “Can I touch...?”

Vivio breathed into Syn's ear and spoke into it huskily, suddenly grinding her body against hers. “No...” She licked her earlobe and sucked on it, pinning Syn's hands to the bed.

~**~

Syn answered her phone quickly, flipping it open so the ring tone wouldn't wake up the girl sleeping on her bed. Although her treat had lasted the better part of half an hour, she felt rather flustered that she wasn't allowed to touch her not even once during it but at the same time knew that Vivio was just teasing her. “Hi mom,” she greeted the phone contently. “Hm? I'm not doing anything... No, Vivio is taking a nap, she stayed up really late. I'll have to talk quietly.” She paused and sat down next to her girlfriend, who was sleeping peacefully. “Thanksgiving? Sure I'll come. Never pass up free food that you don't have to cook... I don't think she is doing anything, no.” Syn smiled fondly. “I'd love to invite her to come over to meet you and dad.” Her hands threaded through the blond's hair and she had to repress a giggle when the girl didn't even stir from the motion. “Who else is going to be there?” Syn pulled the covers over Vivio's body so she wouldn't catch a cold. “Oh, some important people? Sounds neat, I'd like to meet them. What division are they in?” Syn smiled down at her girlfriend while listening. “Sixth mobile Division, what a bland name.” She laughed softly. “Go ahead and make plans for us to be there, I'll invite her when she wakes up.”

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.51:

~**~

Vivio slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes, inhaling a pleasant scent through her nose. Syn had her back turned to the girl and was busy cooking, humming to herself as she stirred the contents of something that Vivio couldn't see. Red and green eyes looked around to find her earlier disregarded clothing during her lap dance and put them on as quietly as she could to avoid the embarrassment of having Syn see her naked again. Once covered she walked to the kitchen area and was smiled at. "Hey," Vivio yawned out the word before wrapping her arms around her girlfriend from behind. "How long did I sleep?"

"Almost three hours." Syn put a cover on her skillet and leaned back against Vivio's chest. "Hey, what are you doing for thanksgiving?"

"I have a shoot tonight for my webpage, but I can set it to automatically update on the day itself so nothing really."

"A Thanksgiving special?" Syn almost laughed. "What, are they going to stuff you or something?"

"Yes, with turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, salad-" She stopped her joking when Syn did start laughing at her. "But really, it's nothing big, shouldn't take more than an hour to shoot it."

"What are you going to do?"

"Want to come watch?" Vivio hugged her. "It may be a bit much, but you can meet some of my friends before we do the shoot."

"I'll go meet your friends, I don't know about watching." Syn patted Vivio's hands. "I'll watch the recording of it with you okay?"

"That's fine, you can stay in my dressing room while we shoot it, I have a TV in there." Vivio nodded to herself. "Oh, why did you ask anyway?"

"My mom and dad want to meet you." Syn gripped the skillet in front of herself with one hand and took the lid off with the other so she could flip the contents around. "I'd really like it if you came to my home for Thanksgiving?"

"Oh wow... okay, I'm a bit nervous though... who will be there? Am I going to meet all of your family?"

"No, just my parents and a few higher-ups from their work that they are friends with. Something about a gathering of friends that they haven't seen in a while and all that. I won't know them either so we can just stick together off to the side."

"Okay, that's good." Vivio kissed Syn's cheek. "When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow, so we can drive down there and be in time for dinner, then thanksgiving day after, stay that night, and come back. Is that too long?"

"No, I can go a while without updating my page since I'm doing that one tonight." She smiled happily. "I'm looking forward to it."

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio Pt.52:

~**~

Syn looked around nervously as she was handed a guest ID card to walk around the studio with Vivio. "I feel weird," She whispered to her friend once they were away from the receptionist. "It's like everyone who looks at me wants to bend me over a table and go to town on me."

"As fun as that would be to watch, don't worry about it."

"Wait," Syn cut her off. "You'd like to see that?"

"Hm? Yes, that would be rather erotic." She stuck out her tongue at her friend, not positive if Syn was sure if she was serious or not. "But really, everyone here is professional. They don't need to skirt chase, their job is to have sex." She waved at some of her friends who were walking from a set.

Syn was still looking at her from the corner of her eyes. "Okay, if you say so... It's still a little creepy. Gah, I'm sorry that was rude."

"Syn doesn't think before speaking, I'm used to it by now." Vivio elbowed her playfully before opening the door that had her name on it. "Here's my dressing room. Short tour, there's my couch, my vanity, my shower, and my clothes."

The blue haired girl whistled lightly. "It's huge." The single room was indeed big enough for everything mentioned and still be comfortable to lounge in. "They treat everyone really nice here, huh?"

"Well, the normal ranked people don't have rooms, they just come here, do their thing, and leave."

"So since you're a star you have a room?"

"Well, I have paper work to do and-"

"Whoa, you have paperwork?" Syn blinked.

Vivio looked offended. "Of course! I'm under contract labor, I have to do all my own taxes, sign forms of release for the recordings, schedule my filmings, talk to people, sometimes we have employee cookouts so people gather in my dressing room to hang out in-"

"Okay, I get it." Syn rolled her eyes. "Forgive me for not knowing."

"Well that's why I asked you here." Vivio sniffed at her and crossed her arms.

"Yeah..." Syn sighed. "Sorry, it's just weird knowing that you're about to go and have sex with someone. I'm okay with it, but it's still a little awkward." Before she could go on a knock at their door made them pause. Vivio bid them to come in and before Syn could react, a small child ran past her and hugged Vivio's legs.

"Vivio!" The girl greeted happily as she was holstered up to be balanced on the older woman's hips.

Vivio smiled at the small red haired girl. "Why hello there, Lina."

"Lina!" a new voice coming into the room made everyone look to see a blond haired girl with crystal blue eyes. "Don't run off like that, and use your manors."

Lina pouted slightly. "Yes Mama."

Vivio walked over to the woman and grinned. "Hey Krissy, how're you?"

"Great, we're about to go to Mark's parent's for thanksgiving."

Vivio smiled and pulled Syn over to her with her free hand. "that sounds really wonderful Krissy, I'm going to my girlfriend's place this year. Syn, meet Krisslanza. Krissy, meet Syn."

Syn nodded at her. "Nice to meet you."

"Oh, Syn!" Krisslanza smiled brightly. "Vivio has told us so much about you, it's great to finally meet you!" The blue haired girl blinked. "Oh you are quite a cute little thing! Way to go Vivio!"

"Krissy!" Vivio scolded her, blushing brightly. "Don't tell her that, it's embarrassing." She glanced at Syn lightly and then averted her eyes. Lina decided that she wanted down at that moment so Vivio sat her down onto her feet.

"Hey everyone," A new voice made them look at the door once again, this time seeing a guy.

Krisslanza giggled. "Honey, meet Syn, she's the girl Vivio rants about being head over heels in love with all the time."

"KRISSY!"

Syn felt her lips turn up slightly and nodded at the man walking over to them as he reached down to pick up his daughter and smile brightly at the child. "Nice to meet you."

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.53:

Vivio stood closer to Syn to introduce them. "Syn, this is Mark, he's the one I'm going to be filming with today."

"Oh." Syn nodded again and watched Mark talking with his daughter.

Krisslanza nodded to confirm it before turning to Vivio again. "Vivio, would you mind if I watched after Lina in your dressing room? The day care is closed for the thanksgiving weekend already and I need to get back to my job soon, I'm on my dinner break."

"Sure! Syn is going to be in here too so you can get to know each other." She looked at the still open door when someone poked his head in to speak with them.

"Guys, set two is ready. Eyes, please change into your outfit, it's on your vanity." With that the man left them once more to continue his rounds.

Mark waved at them after swapping his daughter back to her mother once more. "I'll see you then, Eyes." He left the three girls as well and closed the door behind him.

Vivio walked to her vanity and opened the box, pulling out a black skirt and a matching 'buisness woman' top. "Seems like I'm going for the secretary look today." She began changing clothes while Syn watched her curiously. "Are you positive you don't want to watch, Honey?"

Syn shook her head. "No thank you. You go do your thing and I'll be here when you get back." Vivio finished changing and hung up her casual clothes. On the way out she kissed Syn's cheek and smiled at her one last time before hurrying out of the room. Once the door was closed again the blue haired girl looked over at the mother/daughter combo sitting in front of the now turned on Television. "So, you known Vivio a while?"

Krisslanza nodded and left the channel on something her daughter would like. "I met her a few years ago while I was waiting on Mark to finish a scene. I was talking about how hard one of my college classes was after the shoot and she overheard me. After a while she offered her help with it because she seemed to know a lot about the subject. After that we ate lunch together and really hit it off. Poor thing was so scared about her new job and didn't know anything about it so I kind of explained how it worked. Although I'm not into the business, my husband is so I knew enough."

"Was it hard for you to accept it all?" Syn sat down next to her and looked down at the quiet child watching cartoons. "Sorry this must be weird."

"Oh no, you're going through the same thing I did." Krisslanza smiled at her happily. "No, it was really hard at first. But you have to separate work from home. I'm sure Vivio has talked to you about that?" She got a nod. "Mark loves me more than anyone else in the world." She fondly touched her wedding band. "His work doesn't mean anything, it's just what he does. Same with Vivio. Did you know she refused to work for almost a month when you two broke up?"

Syn flinched. "Really?"

"Mmhmm, she came to work to try to but she ended up staying in her dressing room crying. I talked to her a while to help her through it and she eventually got better. You have no idea how much she talks about you. Can't shut her up."

Syn felt a small smile tug at her lips. "That's interesting, what does she say?"

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.54:

"How much you mean to her, the way you cook, how you always hug on her. That kind of thing."

Syn grinned at hearing that. "That's not too bad, I was worried she'd talk about our love life."

"Not Vivio, she's too reserved. Believe me, her friends pestered about it for a long time last time we all went out for a while. She was glowing red and just told them that you were really loving."

Syn felt her cheeks color slightly and looked away for a moment, eying the small child giggling at the television screen. "It's weird..."

"What is?"

"This is so different than what I thought, even after talking to her about it so much. I thought I knew everything there was about it, but I just keep learning more... I mean, you brought your child here to stay in Vivio's room while your husband is having sex with her right now. While they're doing that, we're talking as if we didn't just meet for the first time." She smiled softly. "I'm really relieved. Everything is just as she said it was. She loves me... this is just work."

"Mmhmm. A really weird concept, but once it clicks, it's simple." Krisslanza leaned back in the chair. "I wonder if they're almost done."

"Already!?" Syn looked at the clock and realized that they had been talking for almost two hours. Sure enough, just as she was about to comment on how fast the time went by, the door to the room opened and a messy Vivio walked in. Looking at her, Syn gaped at the sight. Her girlfriend was covered from head to foot with what looked like smeared mashed potatoes, corn, dressing, stuffing, bread crumbs, gravy, turkey, and egg salad. "What in the world happened to you!?"

Vivio gave her best grin ever. "I got stuffed."

Spoiler for Pornstar!Vivio pt.55:

~**~

"So what time are we going to leave tomorrow?" Vivio asked as she zipped her suitcase. After checking to make sure she had her laptop as well, she looked over at Syn and handed her the lighter bag to carry when she offered.

"Five in the morning. It takes a while to get there." Syn sighed out. "I'll have to fill up half way there." The two walked down the hallway together and took the elevator down to the lobby. "I'm glad you're going to be there to talk to me."

Vivio nodded and paused a moment to check her mail at the front desk. After getting a few envelopes, she walked with Syn and got into her car. "Let's see... most of this is just job offers and request... and bills. Open this for me please?" She offered Syn a letter. "do you mind if we swing by my bank before we go to your house?"

"No problem," Syn paused. "Wait, this isn't yours, this is addressed to someone named Hayate."

"That's my middle name." Vivio told her absently. All my bills and my apartment is under that name."

"Do you go by your middle name? to help prevent people from bothering you about your job?"

"Uh... Kind of." Vivio shook her head. "It's just... I don't know, I'd rather use that instead of my first name. I guess you could say it's so people won't be able to get my address."

Syn smirked. "You're paranoid. You've shown my many things you've done and I've never once seen anything but 'Eyes' on it." She thought about it a moment. "Hey, will anyone start bothering me?"

"I don't say your name at all, just that you're my girlfriend. Everyone at work respects that so I don't think anyone will know who you are unless you just come out and say that you're dating me."

"I don't really mind. Besides, I'm dating a popular porn star... that's kind of neat in a bizzare way. I can say I'm dating a star. Even if she has a weird job."

"It's not weird!" she pouted at Syn and stuck out her bottom lip cutely. "I told you, we were actually going to eat all that food on the set before people started throwing it around to have fun. It was just a fun shoot, not something we really do."

"Sure." Syn laughed and turned off to go into vivio's bank. "Okay then, Hayate, go make your deposit, I'm sitting in the car where it's warm."

"Meanie." The girl stuck out her tongue. "and I was going to buy you dinner too for letting me stay at your place." Syn opened her mouth to try and make it up but the blond was already out of the car, grinning at her before she jogged to the bank door. As soon as she got there she slipped and slid along some ice before reaching to grab the door handle to steady herself. Unfortunately for her, the door opened inward just as she was about to grasp it and she ended up falling forward, half inside and half outside of the building. 'I swear, that girl is cursed or something to make me keep falling on my ass." She was helped to her feet slowly and grinned shyly as the guy stared at her with wide eyes before asking for an autograph a picture with her.

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.56:

~**~

Vivio groaned low in her throat as a sudden beeping sound interrupted her dream of eating a life sized marshmallow. Movement came in her arms when Syn pulled away lightly to lazily reach out and slam her hand down on the offending alarm clock. As the body moved, Vivio found a mouthful of Syn's hair being pulled from her. Coughing slightly, she reached up and ran her hand down between teh back of Syn's head and her mouth,pulling the rest of the strands away from herself. Before long, soft snoring sounds came again and she realized that her girlfriend had gone back to sleep with one arm still laying on the dresser on top of the now silent clock. Although tempted to sleep again, the blond slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes with one hand while shaking Syn slightly with the other. "Get up," she mumbled groggily.

Syn made an annoyed sound but still sat up as well, staring with blank eyes at the blankets around their waists. Vivio crawled around her to get out of the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. The lights made the one still in bed hold up a hand to block it from blinding her. She allowed herself a few more moments to wake up before finally getting out of bed and picking up yesterday's bluejeans to pull up her legs. The button was fastened and her extra long nightshirt with the words "This is my sexy lingerie" on it was tossed on the floor to cover the part of her carpet she could see. After raiding a drawer she put on a baby blue colored bra and fastened it just as Vivio came back into the main room of her apartment.

Vivio, now seemingly fully awake now, gave her girlfriend a peck to the cheek before she began changing into her clothes. "You know," the blond spoke softly as if to not disturb the quiet of the peaceful morning. "Waking up along with someone is really really nice."

"You said that before," Syn yawned when she tried to speak. "But yes, I think so too... you should stay with me more often."

Vivio tied the string on the front of her khaki pants and nodded. "You're welcome to stay with me too, when we get back in a few days. Where do your parents live anyway? I didn't even think to ask."

"A few miles from the capital." She paused a moment. "I wonder if Daddy knows your job."

Vivio grinned. "This is going to be interesting." She looked at her girlfriend a moment and then picked up her suitcase. "Ready?"

"Ready." Syn got her duffel bag and her car keys. "Let's go then."

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.57:

~**~

Six hours and three minutes into the trip, Syn finally pulled over into a small home-town restaurant parking lot and quickly got out of her car. Vivio followed suit and the two stretched widely before hunching over and popping their backs. "Please," the blond spoke around a groan while walking to the building. "Tell me we're almost there."

"Half way." Syn smiled as best she could when her girlfriend groaned loudly. "I never said it would be fast."

"If you didn't drive like a little old granny-"

"I was going twenty over the speed limit!" Syn stopped her complaining when a peppy ring tone made Vivio reach into her pocket to pull out her phone.

"... It's my boss," She spoke up, confused. "I wonder what he's calling for..." With a push of her button she brought the phone to her ear and stood next to the entrance. "Hello?" She listened for a few moments silently while looking at Syn. "Eh? I'm.. about sixish hours from home, I'm going to my girlfriend's home for thanksgiving.... Huh? No, no I can't." Her legs began to pace around while listening. "I can't, I'm with my girlfriend for the holiday... Yes, I'm sure. I gave a notice and everything." Her cheeks puffed out. "I'm sorry. I'll do something after the holidays... Okay.... Yeah.... you too." She flipped her phone shut and answered Syn's unasked question. "He wanted me to dance at a club."

"Oh." Syn shook her head lightly. "Are you sure you can turn down the job? After your contract?"

"I gave notice I wouldn't be available. I'm with you right now." She pushed Syn lightly into the building to escape the chill of the blowing wind. "I'm scheduling all my work around you if I can. I don't want us to be one of the couples that work different hours and never see each other." She smiled and shyly kissed the girl on the cheek when she was beamed at. "Anyway, lets get some food and get back going. I want to be there so we can stay out of that tiny car."

"It's not tiny!" Syn defended her ride indignantly with a playful glare.

~**~

"Are we there yet?" Vivio asked softly while sliding her seat back so she could bend over forward and stretch.

Syn tried to keep her eyes on the road instead of the girl bending over. "How can you do that?"

"What?"

"Bend in half."

"I stretch every day before and after I work out, of course I can bend in half."

Syn glanced over at her side ways. "Can you.... you know?"

Vivio smirked. "Are we there yet?" She winked at her girlfriend, who turned a dark red.

"Yeah, almost... This is my hometown here."

The blond looked out the window and took in the community. Small town atmosphere but still seemed to look newer than most country towns. "No wonder you have an accent."

"I ain't go no accent!" Syn growled darkly. "Snippity uptown girl."

Red and green eyes tried to absorb it all. couples walking down the street together holding hands, others walking their pets and even a few people who waved at her when they noticed she was looking. "Seems really nice."

"Mom wanted me to have lots of friends and have a good life after she settled down from the big city. They moved here a little before I was born... My old school is up here on the left." Her words trailed when she saw Vivio's happy expression as she got to see where she had grown up. 'That girl's so weird.'

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.58:

Turning back to Syn, Vivio stretched out once more and rubbed her legs. "You live in town?" She watched with interest as they turned down a road and into a small community. "Down here?"

"Right here." The blue haired one pulled into a driveway and parked. Both of them gratefully got out of the car and stretched out again before walking. "This is why I don't come home that often."

Nodding, Vivio walked to the back of the vehicle and took the offered bags from her girlfriend. "Thank you." Turning to the front door, she saw an older version of Syn walking over to them. The same color blue hair flowed out behind her and crystal eyes accepted her warmly. After the mother and daughter had a long hug they turned to her and she bowed polity to them."Nice to meet you, My name is Vivio Takamachi."

"Elena Virage." The mother gave the younger girl a hug much to her surprise. "You are a cutie. Way to go Syn."

"Mom!" Syn blushed darkly. "Don't start in on me, I just got here."

Elena laughed lightly and welcomed the girls into her home. "honey, come here, the girls just arrived!"

Vivio nervously rubbed her hands together and waited for Syn's father to come to them as her mother took their bags to Syn's bedroom. As the man turned the corner, Vivio's eyes went wide for a brief moment before blushing darkly.

"Dad, this is Vivio, Vivio meet..." She slowed down and looked between both of them. "What, have you two met or something before?"

Vivio coughed. "Uh yeah... we met once... when I was working at a club." She got softer when Elena came back into the room. "Awkwaaaaaard."

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio Pt.59:

“So,” Syn spoke up with her arms crossed. “You two have met before.”

Vivio shook her head. “It's not what you think. We just talked to each other.”

Syn's father, Kaith, nodded his head. “I was when my group returned from a successful mission. I haven't seen them in a long time and to celebrate the win they all went to a club. I went with them, not knowing where they were going to go, and ended up being at a strip club.”

Elena hummed to herself, looking between Vivio and her husband. “Vivio, what did you do while there?”

The blond smiled lamely. “I know it won't be very believable: I was assigned to his room but he told me he was married and asked if we could just talk... we ended up discussing politics and the how way that the T.S.A.B was heading wasn't as clear as it should be...”

Although Syn looked as if she didn't buy the story for a moment, Elena took the opportunity to give her husband a hug. “I'm sorry I ever doubted you honey!” She cooed at him happily. “I was so shocked when you told me where they took you!”

The daughter of the group blinked before looking back over at her girlfriend. “So you just talked to each other?”

A nod. “Mmn. I remembered him because we spent almost three hours just chatting. It's not very often that you get to have an intelligent conversation at a place like that. I suppose he remembered me because I wasn't what he expected?” She tilted her head to the side curiously.

Kaith smiled at her an put a hand onto her shoulder. “You are a rare girl indeed. Putting aside your job, you tried to make a stranger comfortable. I can accept that is your job if Syn does.” He looked at his little girl questioningly and got a confirmation. “So, Vivio was it? It's a pleasure to meet you again.”

Syn scratched her head and used her free hand to place upon her hip. 'This is one interesting day... I don't know if I could handle knowing my girlfriend gave my father a lap dance...' A full body shiver coursed through her before she excused herself to get their things from the car. Vivio followed quickly and stood next to her as the remaining luggage was taken out. “I almost fainted when I heard that,” the taller girl spoke up while giving Vivio something to carry. “I was gonna be sick”

“You? I was going to scream when I realized that you and your mother knew I had been in a room to service him. I still can't believe this, oh lord, what if he had paid me?” Bringing a palm to her face, she gave a sigh mixed with a growl. “I'm still so embarrassed. He saw me at work!”

“At least he doesn't have your pornos.” Syn closed the trunk and began walking back to the door. “Just the thought... ugh, I lost my appetite.”

“Better here than at the dinner table.” She followed her friend through the house while looking around. “So this is where you grew up, huh?” She hesitated a moment so she could take a step back to see a baby picture of Syn naked in a small kiddie pool. “you were so cute!” Turning to her friend, she smirked. “Whatever happened?”

“No looking at my pictures!” The girl got behind her friend and nudged her along. “Bedroom. Now.”

Vivio giggled to herself and looked around the room she had been forced into. “Very nice.”

“They changed it when I moved out.” Suitcases were placed on the floor in favor of walking around to inspect everything. “I haven't been here in about three or four months now.” A teddy bear was picked up off a shelf and smiled at. “First time I've ever taken someone to meet my family. I hope you enjoy it here.”

“I'm sure I will.”

~**~

“So, Vivio.” Elena began conversation after everyone had been seated to eat dinner together. “Tell us a little about yourself?”

“What would you like to know?” She testingly tried a bite of her food before looking at it with new interest.

“A little about your job and what you do when not at it?” The mother offered a place to start.

Having expected it, the girl ignored the furiously blushing girlfriend and began. “I'm an adult entertainer, as you know. I do everything from guest appearances at clubs, like when I met Kaith-san, to bars and video stores to increase my fan base. My main job is running a web page as well as releasing movies. I generally work about ten to fifteen hours a week, including takes and updating. When I'm not doing that, I'm traveling around to visit places to try and get new fans.”

Both the parents hummed at this but Elena kept going. “So, is Syn one of your satisfied subscribers?”

Syn coughed loudly around the spoon in her mouth before grabbing a napkin to hold to her lips and nose, eyes scrunched together in pain as if she had just snorted some of the hot soup up her nose. Ignoring her girlfriend, Vivio simply smiled and replied. “No, she's very shy when it comes to watching me. I normally have to ask her to view things with me.” A pleasant tone was in her voice, enjoying the easy-going attitude of the mother and the gasping daughter across from her. Waiting for her to calm down at try to take another careful bit of soup, Vivio went on. “I do want to get her to do the camera work for me though.” Just as she planned, another gasp and chocking sound came.

Elena beamed at the guest in her home. “Oh, how sweet! You two must be very close.”

“Yes ma'am!” Vivio closed her eyes and smiled brightly. “She's taken a few pictures of me, I'll show you on the website later!”

“VIVIO!” Syn shrieked.

“Oh my, how wonderful!” Elena cooed happily. “I'd love to see them.”

“MOM!” Syn yelped in disbelief, eyes wide.

“Yes, yes.” The blond continued. “I'll give you a free subscription!” This time she had to giggle as she was pulled back towards Syn. Harsh whispered demands not to do so were whispered into her ear, but Vivio only looked up at her and reached to thread her fingers through the blue strands. “I won't show her, if you let me fix your hair tomorrow?”

Elena gasped happily. “Oh, you play with her hair too?”

“Yes, yes!” The woman and girl clasped each other's hands. “Her hair is so poseable! I love putting it in twin tails!”

“And braiding part of it down her back!”

“Yes!”

Syn leaned back in her seat and covered her eyes with her hand. “Dad, make them stop...” Much to the girl's horror, the bonding of her mother and girlfriend continued past dinner. Only a few short minutes passed by before she found herself sitting in a chair with her hair being fussed over by two star struck females. Small repressed whimpers escaped her lips as her locks were pulled and clipped into place before being removed, braided, and re-clipped in different areas. Before long she found her nails being done by her mother and -much to her secret delight- her feet being massaged and toenails painted by Vivio. Her father, who normally helped her in these situations, was left helpless by the combined wrath of the new friendship formed between the two girls at Syn's expense. Another hour passed before the torture from her mother and girlfriend was over and she was able to finally collapse onto her bed to rest. “No more...” She whined sleepily.

Vivio bent over to pick up her laptop case and sat on the bed next to her with a grin. “I like your mom.” She was growled at half heartedly. “Really, I told you that your hair was awesome. Besides, you were squirming when I did your feet.”

“Shut up, that's embarrassing.” Syn hmphed at her and was about to roll over to pretend to ignore the girl but stopped when she noticed Vivio typing. “What are you doing?”

“I have my computer set to auto upload the file on my webpage but I forgot that I need internet access to allow it to do so. Can I jack into yours here?”

“Yes.” Syn brought up her hand. “Arika, allow my friend access please.” A monitor came in front of her hand and she typed a few things onto it. “There, you should be set. It'll register your computer.”

“M2D?” Vivio asked with a small twinge of sadness in her voice. “Been so long since I used that.... anyway!” She shook her head and began to type some more. “There, I'll tell it to update now... Oh wow, my chat room is packed.”

Syn pondered this. “Horny people on before thanksgiving. How sad.”

“Aw, don't be like that. Some of them are just lonely.”

“In a sex chat room?”

“Touché. But really, there are a few people here who are regulars. They don't ask for me to do things, they just talk with me. I'd go as far to call them friends. I can't give them any favoritism though, because that's not really professional. Instead, I give them my other email address that isn't my personal one but isn't a work one. We talk just like normal people.”

Syn moved to put a pillow under her head, resting her cheek on it and closing her eyes. “How many are like that?”

“Five or so.”

“How many are in that chat room?”

“Sixty, it's the limit. Otherwise it gets so clustered nobody would be able to hold a conversation.”

“So there are fifty-five horny people.” She smirked when her butt was slapped. “Are you going to talk to them?”

“No, I'm a guest in someone's house.” Vivio mused while inspecting her site to ensure that the video was up. “I just need to tell them the video is there.”

“Go ahead and chat.” Syn yawned lazily. “I'm going to fall asleep at any moment anyway.” She forced herself up to go to her suitcase in favor of something to change into. “Want your bed clothes?”

“Um..... Yeah.” Vivio grinned at her. “I'm going to give them a little show to make up for not talking with them.” She adjusted her web camera and giggled.

Syn rolled her eyes but still moved to the other wide of the room so she wouldn't get caught changing before sitting on the bed to enjoy the strip tease herself. 'I guess this has it's benefits...' She blushed darkly as underwear was tossed on her face.

How's that for a long update Almost finished ^_^ tomorrow is the big dayfor them~

nicely done, i can't wait then.

[Satashi]

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.60:

Vivio groggily opened one of her eyes and looked across the room with hazed vision. The covers were pulled up mostly to her nose, making it hard to see much else besides the empty spot next to her where Syn used to be. Slowly she made herself move to a sitting position and rubbed her eyes with her left hand to try and clear them. Now with a little more focus, she sniffed and rolled out of the warmth that the blankets offered her in exchange to get her clothes for the day. Her suitcase was opened and a pair of nice looking jeans were pulled up before a green sweater covered her top. Now dressed, the girl yawned loudly and looked over at the clock to see how early it was. What met her eyes, however, was that it was already a little past eleven in the morning. With a small gasp she quickly left the room and walked down the unfamiliar halls before reaching the stairs to descend into the bottom floor. The sound of laughter made Vivio turn to the left and enter into the kitchen area to find both Syn and her mother playfully talking together while they prepared what seemed to be an insanely large meal. The younger of the girls noticed her and turned to face her girlfriend with an amused look. “Morning, Bed-head. Sleep well?”

The blond quickly moved her hands to her hair to finger comb it as best she could. “You should have woken me up,” she complained softly when Syn was close enough.

“Vacations are meant to be slept in.” Syn replied simply.

With a small blush, Vivio allowed Syn to gently push her to the table to sit down. “Not when I'm a guest in someone else's home.” Despite the complaint, she soon found a cup of a steaming pinkish liquid placed in front of her. “What's this?”

“Whastle.”

“What's that?”

Elena answered this time as she reached into a cabinet to get some spices down. “It's a hot drink, kind of sweet, kind of tangy. It'll warm you up really good.”

The Christmas eyed girl in the room took the offer and slowly brought it up to her lips to smell it. A light wisp of cinnamon greeted her along with a scent that she couldn't place but seemed good enough to try out. After a small sip of it she licked her lips and drank once more. “It is really good.”

“Told'ja.” Syn's accented voice made Vivio smile again, once more bringing the cup to her mouth and inhaling the fragrance while drinking. The warmth was pleasant going down and her nose cleared up, making her temporarily forget that she had been sniffing the past little while. “So,” Syn continued when she was back into the kitchen. “When will everyone be here?”

“Between now and an hour I suppose.” Elena heard the beeping from her probe thermometer go off and she raised her hand to bring up a monitor to check the temperature of their turkey. “It's done Syn, could you take it out please?” The smaller one nodded and looked around a moment before finding the potholders to protect her hands. The oven door was opened and an audible gasp came from Vivio when the large bird was placed on a setting point on the counter top. The mother stepped to the side to allow Vivio a chance to inspect it closer, mouth open in awe. “We have having a lot of people over,” the older woman told her guest with an amused tone. “Some of them are bringing side dishes and a large country style ham. Not to mention cakes and pies and dinner rolls. Make sure to eat your fill okay?”

“Yes ma'am.” Vivio nodded to her and moved out of the way again. “Is there anything I can do?” Her question was cut off as the doorbell rang out.

“Syn, be a dear and get that,” Elena told her daughter with a nudge. “They may need help carrying in some food.”

“Come on, Vi.” Syn pulled her friend along with her. “I don't know these people either so I'll feel better if you're with me.”

Vivio laughed and clasped her hands behind her back as Syn opened the door. “Welcome!” She greeted cheerfully, only to be greeted with silence. The small pause made Syn look questioningly at the little red headed female standing at the door. Turning her eyes to Vivio, she felt a small pain in her chest at the sudden fearful look on her girlfriend's face. “Vi...ta?”

Spoiler for after reading:

I have lots more written after this, but I wanted to post this part right now, just so you don't forget who you're dealing with >: D!!!!

[Sassy_Bread]

Originally Posted by Satashi

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.60:

Vivio groggily opened one of her eyes and looked across the room with hazed vision. The covers were pulled up mostly to her nose, making it hard to see much else besides the empty spot next to her where Syn used to be. Slowly she made herself move to a sitting position and rubbed her eyes with her left hand to try and clear them. Now with a little more focus, she sniffed and rolled out of the warmth that the blankets offered her in exchange to get her clothes for the day. Her suitcase was opened and a pair of nice looking jeans were pulled up before a green sweater covered her top. Now dressed, the girl yawned loudly and looked over at the clock to see how early it was. What met her eyes, however, was that it was already a little past eleven in the morning. With a small gasp she quickly left the room and walked down the unfamiliar halls before reaching the stairs to descend into the bottom floor. The sound of laughter made Vivio turn to the left and enter into the kitchen area to find both Syn and her mother playfully talking together while they prepared what seemed to be an insanely large meal. The younger of the girls noticed her and turned to face her girlfriend with an amused look. “Morning, Bed-head. Sleep well?”

The blond quickly moved her hands to her hair to finger comb it as best she could. “You should have woken me up,” she complained softly when Syn was close enough.

“Vacations are meant to be slept in.” Syn replied simply.

With a small blush, Vivio allowed Syn to gently push her to the table to sit down. “Not when I'm a guest in someone else's home.” Despite the complaint, she soon found a cup of a steaming pinkish liquid placed in front of her. “What's this?”

“Whastle.”

“What's that?”

Elena answered this time as she reached into a cabinet to get some spices down. “It's a hot drink, kind of sweet, kind of tangy. It'll warm you up really good.”

The Christmas eyed girl in the room took the offer and slowly brought it up to her lips to smell it. A light wisp of cinnamon greeted her along with a scent that she couldn't place but seemed good enough to try out. After a small sip of it she licked her lips and drank once more. “It is really good.”

“Told'ja.” Syn's accented voice made Vivio smile again, once more bringing the cup to her mouth and inhaling the fragrance while drinking. The warmth was pleasant going down and her nose cleared up, making her temporarily forget that she had been sniffing the past little while. “So,” Syn continued when she was back into the kitchen. “When will everyone be here?”

“Between now and an hour I suppose.” Elena heard the beeping from her probe thermometer go off and she raised her hand to bring up a monitor to check the temperature of their turkey. “It's done Syn, could you take it out please?” The smaller one nodded and looked around a moment before finding the potholders to protect her hands. The oven door was opened and an audible gasp came from Vivio when the large bird was placed on a setting point on the counter top. The mother stepped to the side to allow Vivio a chance to inspect it closer, mouth open in awe. “We have having a lot of people over,” the older woman told her guest with an amused tone. “Some of them are bringing side dishes and a large country style ham. Not to mention cakes and pies and dinner rolls. Make sure to eat your fill okay?”

“Yes ma'am.” Vivio nodded to her and moved out of the way again. “Is there anything I can do?” Her question was cut off as the doorbell rang out.

“Syn, be a dear and get that,” Elena told her daughter with a nudge. “They may need help carrying in some food.”

“Come on, Vi.” Syn pulled her friend along with her. “I don't know these people either so I'll feel better if you're with me.”

Vivio laughed and clasped her hands behind her back as Syn opened the door. “Welcome!” She greeted cheerfully, only to be greeted with silence. The small pause made Syn look questioningly at the little red headed female standing at the door. Turning her eyes to Vivio, she felt a small pain in her chest at the sudden fearful look on her girlfriend's face. “Vi...ta?”

Spoiler for after reading:

I have lots more written after this, but I wanted to post this part right now, just so you don't forget who you're dealing with >: D!!!!

Oh man...it's been a while I read PS! Vivio. Can somebody give me a recap of what went on after the two girls made up? I couldn't read everything because of college work and finals.

Btw....hmmm, is this taking place on Thanksgiving? Or on Christmas? The turkey makes me think of Thanksgiving...so...
Just wondering... >_>

[Kaix]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

@Satashi: Good to hear you'll have more time next week! Better to hear there'll be more V!F and "Synergy" once PS!V is wrapped up...

@Shiny: *zeroes in on any mention of Magical Babysitter Zaffy* *comes in for another pass on mention of RebelS*

And in clearing out my backlog at ff.net, Sunder the Gold's review of my latest posting of a gag-fic there (it was the one with Bardiche going into sword-chuck mode) made me think of this little bit, in which I finally begin to understand why Fate is always the guy:

Spoiler for GAR! is Why They Call Her Papa:

"They're so competitive," Nanoha said, chuckling.

"I don't get it," Vita agreed. "I mean, you and I like to go at it hard, but it's about mastering techniques, pushing ourselves to be our best like we do for our students. Those two...they just want to beat each other."

Nanoha beamed.

"I know! It's so cute!"

The two they were talking about as well as watching spar from the training field observation booth, were Fate T. Harlaown and the Knight of the Sword, Signum. The two were friends who'd trust each other with their life in genuine battle, but they'd been rivals for all those years, always trying to outdo one another in combat.

"Twenty bucks says Signum wins."

"Confident in your leader, Vita-chan?"

"Last time Fate went for Sonic Form, Signum pinned her to the training field wall with Sturmfalken."

"Yeah, Signum-san's Bow Form is pretty powerful. But! Fate-chan said that Bardiche came up with an idea to match her, so you're on."

"Bardiche did?"

"Mmn-hm!"

"Oh, hey, looks like we're going to see it."

They'd gotten through the preliminaries, scythe versus sword, lightning against fire, zanber versus serpent-whip, and Signum had combined her sword Laevatein with its sheath to create the lethal silver bow.

"What's Fate doing?"

"I don't know; I'll zoom in on her, and get some audio."

Nanoha manipulated the controls, and they were greeted with the sight of Fate standing on air, her eyes...closed?

"Overdrive," Fate whispered. "Archery Form."

Fate's body shimmered, and in the next instant her Barrier Jacket shifted form. Her long white cape vanished, suddenly replaced with a bright red longcoat, while her hair turned silver like Reinforce's and her skin became a rich bronze.

"Huh? What's that about?" was Vita's comment, and from the way Fate was looking down at herself, she had even less idea what was going on. Nor did Signum, apparently; the wide-angle view showed her with sagging jaw and dumbfounded expression.

Bardiche, however, at least knew what it was up to.

"Riot Zanber."

It loaded a cartridge, then changed into its dual beam-sword form. The hilt rose and fell as three more cartridges were fired off, making all four humans wonder what was about to use up so much mana. In the next instant, a barrier engulfed the two combatants, shifting them to an alternate space-time and out of the audience's ability to view, leaving only Bardiche's voice echoing in their wake.

"Unlimited Blade Works."

Nanoha sighed.

"Raising Heart, have you and Bardiche been borrowing Hayate-chan's anime collection again?"

That was awesome beyond awesome! Bardiche sure picked an epic model to imitate.

Originally Posted by TheShinySword

Quick Crack time

Spoiler for Oh noes! Trouble! What will Vivio do?:

It was end game time. Being stuck in an alley with only one exit was never a good thing in Vivio's opinion but when there were three very large mages coming closer by the minute and your device was about to shatter into a million pieces a very bad thing became the absolute worst thing possible.

[You gonna use it or what Vi] Falling Soul knew as well as Vivio did that it was time for that.

The sixteen year old gulped. She wasn't sure her trump card would work. To be honest testing it would have been a good idea. Vivio took a deep breathe. But this wasn't the time to doubt.

They got closer. There was no more time, the clock had ticked the last second and the next would be Vivio's last unless she acted now. Vivio raised her arm high up into the sky and let loose her ultimate weapon.

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPP
MEEEEEEEE
ZAFFYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

A few seconds passed with nothing but stunned looks being plastered on her opponents' faces. Then out of the air like a anvil being dropped by a cartoon coyote a giant man with fluffy ears and a tail slammed onto the ground.

“Oh shi-” was all her opponent had time to get out before he was crushed into a pulp by an overprotective wolfman.

"Success!" Vivio cheered before tossing her fluffy guardian a Zaffy snack.

~~~

Urg, Vivio felt like pounding her head against her desk. The test was impossible. How was she supposed to know what the answer was.

She leaned to the left and right. To her misfortune her neighbors were doing a good job of hiding their papers from her wandering eyes. What was a girl like her to do? Even if she guessed she had absolutely no idea what the answers were.

[There's always that] How wise he was.

Vivio raised her arm up, a rare occurance in class. She breathed in and let loose.

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPP
MEEEEEEEE
ZAFFYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

There was complete silence before the sound of shattering glass took over. The wolfman stood in full glory, in the middle of Vivio's classroom.

Vivio looked at her teacher with a grin that read, there's nothing about familiars helping out in the rules.

"Vivio... I thought you were in trouble..." Zafira looked down in confusion at his young charge.

"Oh but I am! I don't know what the answer is!"

"..."

Vivio tossed Zafira a Zaffy snack.

"87."

~~~

"Oh no!" Vivio gasped. "I can't get this jar open." She struggled with the pickle jar. "Guess it's that time again..."

[Is that a good idea...]

With a gulp of air and a hand in the air Vivio yelled,

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPP
MEEEEEEEE
ZAFFYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”

Zafira burst through the ceiling. "Vivio what's the-..."

Vivio thrust out the pickle jar grinning. "Help?"

"Vivio," the wolfman growled warningly.

Vivio merely tossed a Zaffy snack and handed over the jar.

A sigh could be heard along with munching and jar opening.

Zaffy! Zaffy! Tasukete Zaffy!

The snacks... This sure brought a good laugh.

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

...

Elise/Nanoha sister fluff pre-BTBR is fun to write. :3

Occurs right after Nanoha comes to live with Elise, after the bond has been established.

Spoiler for Come What May:

“Ne, Onee-sama, are you doing something special for your birthday tomorrow?”

Surprised, Elise glanced at Nanoha. The eleven-year-old had scrambled up onto the bed beside her blonde companion, Kuon cuddled safely in her arms. The young girl was dressed for bed, wearing a shirt much too large for her slim frame and her hair undone. Amused by the child’s antics, Elise ignored the photograph she held in her hand to answer her. “Not really.”

Surprised, Nanoha blinked. “But isn’t that your family?” she asked, adjusting her hold on Kuon to grip Elise’s wrist so she could see the picture she held.

“Yes.” Elise’s voice softened slightly. “That’s my family.” Her lips twitched, and she set the picture on the nightstand facedown.

“I bet you want to see them tomorrow, right?”

“Afraid not. I haven’t been on good terms with my parents for a number of years now.”

Nanoha’s eyes widened; in her arms, Kuon let out a soft squeak. “You… haven’t?” Although she lived in England now, Nanoha was always in contact with her family. Shiro often joked that it was as if she’d never left.

“Let’s just say… when I was about ten, something really bad happened.” Elise glanced down at Nanoha, and this time she managed a slight smile. “My parents like to live as if it never happened, and I can’t accept that it didn’t. We can’t agree on it, even now.” She shrugged. “So, here I am.”

“That’s horrible,” Nanoha whispered, biting her bottom lip. Elise’s eyes softened slightly, and she gently tousled Nanoha’s hair with her hand, causing the girl to look at her in surprise. “Onee-sama?”

“Don’t let it bother you, Nanoha. Fiasse and your family have been looking out for me, and now I’ve got you and Kuon.” She chuckled. “I can’t say I’m lonely.”

For a few minutes Nanoha contemplated this; she surprised Elise as she leaned against the older woman. Even though she didn’t say why, Elise didn’t ask.

“You know what?” Nanoha tilted her head slightly to look up at Elise. “If tomorrow’s your birthday, we should do something to celebrate it. We can call up Fiasse-chan and ask her to come along. That would be fun, right?”

“Yeah.” Elise gently ran her hand through Nanoha’s hair, smiling slightly. “That would be fun.”

Nanoha grinned, and in the dim light of the room her eyes glowed. She rested her cheek against Elise’s arm, sliding her arm through hers in a loose, loving grip, a younger sister reaching out to her older sister. She yawned softly and closed her eyes, and Kuon snuggled happily into her lap.

Elise chuckled quietly. Somehow, she had the feeling she’d be sharing her bed tonight.

“Ne, Onee-sama?” Nanoha’s voice was soft, sleepy.

“Yeah?”

“If something really bad happens…” Nanoha yawned again. “… If you’re willing to accept it, I will too. So you don’t have to be lonely.”

The lump surged into Elise’s throat, hot and thick; she swallowed against the sudden ball of tears and blinked several times as her eyes moistened, a lovely clenching pain making itself known in her chest. Leaning down, she gently brushed her lips against Nanoha’s hair, though she knew now that the young girl was asleep and couldn’t feel the gesture.

“Thank you, Nanoha.” Her voice was ragged with tears she refused to cry and trembled slightly, but she smiled as she felt warm wetness streak her cheeks.

“… Thank you.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I wish I could save you."

- Simple Plan

I messed up the timeline; Fiasse's conflict with the TSAB (which also is linked to Elise) occured fifteen years ago, not ten. So by my math, Elise is currently twenty-five in BTBR, and she would have been ten when "something bad happened".

I think I have only one word: Awww. Even more great bonding between Nanoha and Elise.

Originally Posted by Dusk_

It's been forever since I've posted anything here...well, at least I'm still writing, right?

The first few chapters of Moving On are up on FF.net, if anyone needs a refresher . This chapter should be there soon too.

Spoiler for Moving On - 3:

The television screen flickered at a slow, steady pace, the flashing images of the shows barely remaining long enough to get a brief glimpse at the content. Watching from the sofa, sprawled across it lazily, Reinforce stared at the TV with a bored expression on her face, wondering why midday broadcasts always had to be so lame. Of course, it could’ve been her lamenting the lack of Hollywood style eye-candy – American television really had spoiled her, in that regard.

“Well, this is a great weekend, isn’t it?” she asked sarcastically. Noting the lack of response, she pulled her head up slightly to look at the carpet in front of her, and noticed that her temperamental cat had already gotten fed up and left.

“Traitor,” she accused, and flopped back down on the sofa.

It was just past one on a quiet Sunday, and the teenager found herself trying to stay occupied as she, once again, babysat the apartment alone. Her parents had both left just after lunch, having some sort of conference to go to. She couldn’t remember what it was about, since she’d only been half-listening at the time, and to be perfectly honest she was interested enough to have bothered to find out. Whatever the case, she’d basically been left to her own devices for the next several hours. All her homework had been finished the previous day, and she didn’t know the city well enough to want to go anywhere, so she’d naturally plopped down on the couch to veg out.

Still, there was only so much boredom that Reinforce could take, and after flipping through a few more channels she finally pushed the power button on the remote, and watched the screen fade to black. Lifting herself up to a sitting position, she yawned softly, a hand raising to cover her mouth, while the other patted the back of her head haphazardly, trying to smooth her hair back down.

“Maybe I’ll just read,” she thought, standing up and turning to the far corner of the room, where a small pile of cardboard boxes lay stacked. It had only been just over a week since her family had moved into the apartment, and thus they hadn’t finished unpacking everything yet. Most of their necessities, like clothes and cooking utensils, had already been emptied out, but the majority of odds and ends remained packed until someone wanted to get at them. Luckily her family was very organized when it came to packing their belongings, so searching through them was a lot less tedious than it could have been.

Finding the right container, she pulled it open, and started sifting through the contents. There were a fair number of encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and other such texts, but she was sure there were a couple of novels she hadn’t read through yet. Digging through the box, she started to pull out several books, trying to searcher deeper down, but stopped when her fingers closed on an old photo album.

“Couldn’t hurt to look,” she mused, a little curious. It was fun sometimes, just going back and looking at the old memories. Dropping to the floor, she sat down and propped the album up against her knees, opening to the first page. She smiled gleefully at the first few pictures, seeing her dad in a trim, black suit and her mom in a pure-white gown. They had gotten married before she’d be born, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the photos anyway. She flipped through page after page, occasionally pausing when a particular image caught her eye. It was a fairly normal photo album, with pictures of friends and family with bright smiling faces, and Reinforce got an occasional laugh when saw a familiar face that looked many years younger. When she came across a picture of her mother with a small baby bump, she immediately became attentive and jumped past several pages at once, and then burst into giggles when she saw the tiny, newborn child that was herself. Skipping a few more pages, she watched herself growing up through the still images, sometimes on her own, sometimes with her parents, and mostly smiling that blissful smile only a child could wear.

On a whim, she turned to the back of the album, looking at the last page. One of the last pictures was a group shot, and Reinforce spotted herself amongst a crowd of toddlers, smiling brightly at the camera. How young was she then? She was probably in Kindergarten, but maybe preschool. She tried to remember as she studied the face of the other children in the picture, but only had a vague sense of nostalgia. As she scanned the photo, she noticed another girl who had an arm wrapped around her own. Had they been friends? She couldn’t even remember a name. Briefly, she wondered how long that friendship had lasted, before it had become just another photo.

Shutting the book tight, the silver-haired girl stood up and tossed it back into the box, feeling much more morose than when she’d first started looking through the past. Deciding that she needed some fresh air, she started to walk away, leaving the slight mess of unpacked books behind her.

“I’m going out for a bit!” she called out to her cat, not entirely sure if the pet had heard her. As she reached the entryway, though, Agito was already sitting in front of the door, looking up expectantly.

“You could’ve just asked if you wanted to go outside,” Reinforce said sternly as she slipped on her shoes and pulled a jacket on, and then opened the front door. The cat swiftly slinked out of the apartment, the girl following closely behind.

Moving On
Chapter 3 – Interlude

Wheeling herself casually down the sidewalk, Hayate enjoyed the sunny, yet chilly, Sunday afternoon. Walking beside her at a brisk pace, her pink-haired guardian wore a much more stoic expression on her face. Sundays were relaxed at the Yagami residence, with the entire family usually home. Without much else to do, the middle schooler had decided to make a trip to library to find a few books she had wanted to read, and predictably the eldest member of the family had chosen to accompany her.

“Hey, Signum?”

“What is it?”

“What do I do when someone’s avoiding me?”

The older woman suddenly looked concerned, her eyebrows arching in confusion. “I’m sorry Hayate, I didn’t intend to ignore you -”

The girl couldn’t help herself, and burst into giggles. When she actually thought about it, Signum probably wasn’t the best person to discuss personal problems with; she tended to be a little too serious and prone to misunderstandings when it came to emotional issues. “No, no, it’s nothing like that.”

“Ah. Well, I can offer my advice if I’m able.”

“No, it’s fine. It was just an idle question,” Hayate answered. It was true too, because the query had mostly been intended for herself. It had been several days since she had spoken with the transfer student, ever since the girl had made her feelings clear. The brunette had tried a few times to start up a conversation again, whether it was during or after school, but for the most part she had been brushed aside with only a single word of acknowledgment. After those failed attempts, she had stopped trying – although she had no intention of backing down so easily.

To be honest, Hayate wasn’t sure why she was so intent on talking with the new girl, or why she was so stubborn despite being blatantly pushed away. Maybe if Ein-san had shown signs that she disliked her, and genuinely didn’t want to talk to her, she might have given up. Every time they’d talked, though, the silver-haired girl had seemed welcoming. A little hesitant maybe, and a little nervous, but it had felt like she’d enjoyed those scant few moments. Besides that, there seemed to be something more to the cold front that the girl showed to the world, something that felt a little lonely.

“Is everything all right, Hayate?” Signum asked, and the girl brought her head out of the clouds.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she answered cheerfully. Maybe her troubles were really nothing, and it was just her ego seeing things that weren’t really there. “You know, you didn’t have to come with me, I’m just going to the library.”

“Shamal had asked me to get some things from the grocery store, so it was convenient.”

Hayate giggled a little; the excuse seemed likely, at the very least. They continued on in a pleasant silence, neither having more to say. The trip was short and uneventful, and one that the middle schooler was well-acquainted with. When they arrived at the library, the two parted ways, Signum having a few more blocks to travel.

“See you at home then,” Hayate said, giving a slight wave.

“Don’t stay out too long,” the older woman advised, and headed on her way. With that, Hayate entered the library through the automatic doors, immediately heading for the fiction section. It would be nice if life could be more like a story, where she could just continue on knowing that every problem would be resolved in the end. Things were never that easy though, and she supposed that was part of the whole allure to books, the escape to simplicity.

She searched through her favourite authors first, but moved on to skimming through the shelves when nothing new was found. Occasionally she’d spot a cover or a title that drew her interest, and stopped to read the descriptions. It was in the middle of one such inspection, about ten minutes after she’d arrived, that a voice called to her in greeting.

“Hayate-chan!” came the pleasant tone of a young girl. Looking up from the book in her hand, Hayate broke out a smile as she saw the person addressing her.

“Tsukimura-san!” she answered back, greeting the purple-haired girl in front of her, “I haven’t seen you here in a while.”

“I haven’t had a chance to come here,” the girl replied. To call the two friends would be generous, as they met and spoke to one another infrequently; a better description would be acquaintances with similar interests. Tsukimura Suzuka was the same age as Hayate, but attended a different middle school. She frequented the library often, nearly as much as the brunette, and as a result the two had bumped into each other on several occasions. After many coincidental meetings they started talking, and ended up getting along well, because of their mutually amicable personalities.

“I see you’re still into those fantasy stories,” Suzuka teased, pointing to the novel in Hayate’s hand, depicting a sword-wielding knight fighting a dragon. The brunette playfully stuck her tongue out in response.

“And I imagine that you’re looking for another cheesy romance novel?” she teased back in retort. The purple-haired girl huffed and haughtily turned her head away.

“There’s nothing cheesy about them,” she said in mock indignation. Hayate giggled, which broke the girl from her acting as she smiled. A book catching her eye, she reached up and pulled the paperback off the shelf, glancing over the back cover.

“I suppose they really aren’t that different from your stories, though,” Suzuka said idly, “It’d be a little much for love to always fall into place so nicely.”

“Funny you say that, because I was thinking the same thing a few seconds ago,” Hayate said, which the other girl raised an eyebrow to. “Not about love, just problems not having such easy solutions. Although…maybe your books would help me a little more than mine. All these stories teach you are that some gallant knight will charge in every time a girl’s in trouble.”

Laughing lightly at the brunette’s musings, Suzuka slipped the book in her hand back into its space, finding it uninteresting.

“So, is it problems with a friend?” she asked, pulling out another book.

“Not exactly a friend,” Hayate answered, putting her own novel back and searching for another, “Just someone that I want to talk to.”

“My, and you said this wasn’t about love,” Suzuka teased, noting the forlorn tone in the other girl’s voice. “Unrequited crushes are so difficult.”

“Mou!” the brunette huffed, her cheeks puffing slightly as she glared at her companion. “It’s not like that! There’s this new girl at my school…”

“Mysterious transfer student, always good for a ‘love at first sight’ theme,” the purple-haired girl commented.

Hayate glared again, and Suzuka giggled, but started to listen to her seriously.

“I guess she is a little mysterious, though. All week she was avoiding everyone in the class, and barely said a word to anyone. I think I managed to talk to her the most, and that’s only because I was pushy about it. Then she just came right out and told me to leave her alone.”

“Maybe she just likes her solitude? There are some people like that, you know.”

“I’ve thought that too,” Hayate said, pausing. “But then, sometimes she looks…lonely, I guess.”

“Ah, so she’s a dishonest one then,” Suzuka said, sounding thoughtful.

“Another of your clichéd story characters?”

“Nope, this time it’s from personal experience,” the purple-haired girl answered, grinning. “One of my best friends, actually. She’s not very good at saying what she really feels, and ends up acting moody instead.”

“So what do you do?” Hayate asked.

“Sometimes she just needs someone to listen to her, and sometimes she needs a good scolding. Once you get to know a person, you learn to read their little quirks.”

“Mou, that doesn’t help at all,” Hayate whined, “The whole problem is that I want to get to know her.”

“Well…” Suzuka started, thinking earnestly, “If there’s one thing I know about you, Hayate, it’s that you’re someone who takes things into her own hands regardless of what anyone else wants.”

-----

Reinforce had spent her afternoon aimlessly wandering around the neighbourhood, walking from street to street with no real purpose in mind. Agito had disappeared almost as soon as they had left the apartment, to wherever cats usually go, so the middle schooler had ended up being a solo tourist for several hours. She’d wandered around some stores, took a peek into a few restaurants, and generally looked for anything of interest. She couldn’t really say that there was anything special about the city; in all honesty it felt fairly generic, no different than other places she’d seen. It wasn’t quiet enough to be considered a small-town area, and not loud enough to be considered a city. It was quaint, with an odd sense of normality.

Her expectations hadn’t really been high in the first place, but she still felt a little disappointed. Maybe she was just disillusioned with absorbing a new culture, or something. Whatever the case, she’d managed to waste her entire afternoon doing nothing at all, and it was almost six o’clock. Finally deciding to call it quits and go home, she turned a block, only to have her attention drawn to a small shop on the corner across the street, bearing “Midori-ya” written in large, bold lines.

Red eyes scanning the exterior of the store, the middle schooler felt a little curious. It looked like a fairly normal bakery and café, but somehow it seemed to stand out from the rest of the street. Maybe it was the flashy decorations, or perhaps the lack of colour from the neighbouring buildings. It looked to be empty from the outside, which wasn’t that unusual, considering the time. Letting her curiosity get the best of her, she quickly glanced down the street for cars, and then approached the storefront.

As she pushed the front door open, a small chime tinkled, and a woman with long, light-brown hair and a warm smile looked up from behind the till.

“Welcome,” she said, and Reinforce felt vaguely uncomfortable at the sudden attention.

“Um…hi,” the girl replied, wondering it would be best to leave after all.

“We were just closing up, but -” the woman started, but the silver-haired girl cut her off, bowing her head slightly as she turned in the doorway.

“I’m sorry, I’ll just be going then -”

“Don’t be silly! Come in, come in,” the lady interrupted insistently, inviting the girl in. Reinforce hesitated, but then reluctantly stepped into the café. There was a nice aroma in the air; a blend of something like cinnamon, bread and cocoa. It gave the place a sort of homely atmosphere, like what Reinforce pictured a family kitchen to be like. Approaching some of the display cases, she peered through the glass, looking at a variety of cakes and pastries.

“Is this your first time here? I’m normally quite good at remembering faces,” the woman inquired as she bustled around the circular tables, wiping them spotless.

“My family just moved here,” the girl answered, bending down to have a closer look at some fruit tarts.

“Oh? Then I suppose you’re our new neighbours!” the lady said gleefully, and Reinforce heard some shuffling and footsteps behind her. “Come over and have a seat.”

Turning around, the girl saw the storeowner sitting at one of the tables, motioning her over, with a plate of chocolate chip cookies placed in front of her.

“I couldn’t, I don’t want to impose or anything…” she trailed off, but the woman beckoned more insistently.

“I insist. It’s always nice to get to know new people, after all.”

Reinforce could tell that “no” wouldn’t be accepted, and demurely stepped forward to take a seat opposite the lady. The cookies were pushed towards her with an inviting smile, and she hesitantly took one, taking a small nibble.

“This is good!” she said, her eyes widening a little. Realizing that the comment could be taken the wrong way, she ducked her head a little in apology. “I mean…thank you, ma’am.”

“My, so polite. You can call me Momoko,” the storeowner said brightly.

“Momoko…san?” the girl repeated. She wasn’t quite used to adding the suffixes, and it still felt a little awkward.

“So, I imagine it’s hard to change schools right in the middle of a term. Are you in middle school?”

“Yes, second year. I was fourteen a month ago, in December,” she answered. She didn’t mind talking with adults that much. Sometimes they were curious, like Momoko was, but in the end it was really just small talk that never meant anything more than chitchat.

“Really? I have a daughter your age; maybe you’ve met her already?” Momoko said. Reinforce mentally winced – so much for idle small talk. “But then, I suppose her school isn’t close by. Her name is Nanoha.”

“I don’t recognize the name,” Reinforce answered, a little relieved.

“Well that’s a shame. She’s staying a friend’s place tonight, unfortunately, or I could introduce you to her.”

“Maybe another time,” the girl said, though she didn’t really plan on following up on that.

“But you seem like a nice girl, I’m sure you’ve already made plenty of friends.”

The middle schooler just nodded, taking another bite from her cookie. Absently she glanced down at the watch on her wrist, and saw it was almost six. Seeing an opportunity to leave, she swallowed her mouthful quickly.

“I’m sorry, I should get going now,” she stated, bowing her head apologetically. Momoko glanced at the time herself, and seemed a bit surprised.

“It is awfully late, isn’t it? Here, let me box these cookies up for you,” she said, and quickly got up, moving to package up the baked treats.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” Reinforce said, but a small cardboard box was already thrust towards her.

“I insist. Think of it like a housewarming present,” Momoko said, beaming, and the girl awkwardly accepted the gift.

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t catch your name,” the storeowner mentioned casually.

“It’s…um…Reinforce,” the student answered reluctantly.

“Well, feel free to stop by any time, Reinforce-san.”

Nodding and waving goodbye, the girl slipped out of the bakery, the door chiming lightly as she left.

-----

“I’m home!” Hayate called as she opened the front door and entered. Signum appeared in the hallway from the living room, looking like she’d been home a while ago.

“Did you have any trouble?” the older woman inquired.

“Not at all,” the brunette answered cheerfully, “I just bumped into a friend, and we ended up talking for a while.”

“Ah, that’s good –“

“Save me Hayate!” a panicked voice cried out, and the girl barely had time to turn her head before a small, red-haired object clung on to her with a tight grip. Though surprised at first, she quickly took it in good-humour, laughing light-heartedly.

“What’s the matter, Vita?” she asked, and then laughed again when the small face looked up at her with a quivering pout and watery eyes. “What’s got you so scared -?”

“Is that you, Hayate?” a voice called from the kitchen, and the girl suddenly felt a sense of foreboding, “Dinner’s going to be ready soon.”

“Signum…” Hayate said with an accusing tone in her voice.

“…yes?” the older woman asked hesitantly.

“Is Shamal cooking?”

Signum turned her head to look away, sheepishly scratching her cheek. Hayate looked back down at the girl, who was still clinging desperately to her and looked to be on the verge of tears. She shook her head lightly, making the child’s pout grow deeper.

“Sorry Vita, I don’t even think I can help myself.”

And thanks to markesellus for betaing .

By the way it was going, it seemed sure that Hayate and Reinforce would meet eventually, but it seems their plans were different. It's interesting to see Reinforce meeting some more people, Momoko especially. The introduction of these other characters brought quite a surprise. Shamal's cooking strikes again.

Originally Posted by Satashi

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.60:

Vivio groggily opened one of her eyes and looked across the room with hazed vision. The covers were pulled up mostly to her nose, making it hard to see much else besides the empty spot next to her where Syn used to be. Slowly she made herself move to a sitting position and rubbed her eyes with her left hand to try and clear them. Now with a little more focus, she sniffed and rolled out of the warmth that the blankets offered her in exchange to get her clothes for the day. Her suitcase was opened and a pair of nice looking jeans were pulled up before a green sweater covered her top. Now dressed, the girl yawned loudly and looked over at the clock to see how early it was. What met her eyes, however, was that it was already a little past eleven in the morning. With a small gasp she quickly left the room and walked down the unfamiliar halls before reaching the stairs to descend into the bottom floor. The sound of laughter made Vivio turn to the left and enter into the kitchen area to find both Syn and her mother playfully talking together while they prepared what seemed to be an insanely large meal. The younger of the girls noticed her and turned to face her girlfriend with an amused look. “Morning, Bed-head. Sleep well?”

The blond quickly moved her hands to her hair to finger comb it as best she could. “You should have woken me up,” she complained softly when Syn was close enough.

“Vacations are meant to be slept in.” Syn replied simply.

With a small blush, Vivio allowed Syn to gently push her to the table to sit down. “Not when I'm a guest in someone else's home.” Despite the complaint, she soon found a cup of a steaming pinkish liquid placed in front of her. “What's this?”

“Whastle.”

“What's that?”

Elena answered this time as she reached into a cabinet to get some spices down. “It's a hot drink, kind of sweet, kind of tangy. It'll warm you up really good.”

The Christmas eyed girl in the room took the offer and slowly brought it up to her lips to smell it. A light wisp of cinnamon greeted her along with a scent that she couldn't place but seemed good enough to try out. After a small sip of it she licked her lips and drank once more. “It is really good.”

“Told'ja.” Syn's accented voice made Vivio smile again, once more bringing the cup to her mouth and inhaling the fragrance while drinking. The warmth was pleasant going down and her nose cleared up, making her temporarily forget that she had been sniffing the past little while. “So,” Syn continued when she was back into the kitchen. “When will everyone be here?”

“Between now and an hour I suppose.” Elena heard the beeping from her probe thermometer go off and she raised her hand to bring up a monitor to check the temperature of their turkey. “It's done Syn, could you take it out please?” The smaller one nodded and looked around a moment before finding the potholders to protect her hands. The oven door was opened and an audible gasp came from Vivio when the large bird was placed on a setting point on the counter top. The mother stepped to the side to allow Vivio a chance to inspect it closer, mouth open in awe. “We have having a lot of people over,” the older woman told her guest with an amused tone. “Some of them are bringing side dishes and a large country style ham. Not to mention cakes and pies and dinner rolls. Make sure to eat your fill okay?”

“Yes ma'am.” Vivio nodded to her and moved out of the way again. “Is there anything I can do?” Her question was cut off as the doorbell rang out.

“Syn, be a dear and get that,” Elena told her daughter with a nudge. “They may need help carrying in some food.”

“Come on, Vi.” Syn pulled her friend along with her. “I don't know these people either so I'll feel better if you're with me.”

Vivio laughed and clasped her hands behind her back as Syn opened the door. “Welcome!” She greeted cheerfully, only to be greeted with silence. The small pause made Syn look questioningly at the little red headed female standing at the door. Turning her eyes to Vivio, she felt a small pain in her chest at the sudden fearful look on her girlfriend's face. “Vi...ta?”

Spoiler for after reading:

I have lots more written after this, but I wanted to post this part right now, just so you don't forget who you're dealing with >: D!!!!

A cruel reminder of how evil cliffhangers can be.


Happy New Year everyone!

[Satashi]

Semi off topic here........

I've been requested to give the Whasil recipe found in both my Christmas story and my thanksgiving one for PS!V....sooooooo here it is ^^

Spoiler for Drinks recipes:

Ingredients:

1/2 gal. Apple Cider
2 cups pineapple juice
2 cups orange juice (use low pulp or no pulp)
2 cups water
1/2 cup red hots (yes, the candy)
3 sticks cinnamon (yes, STICKS, not the powder. You can find them with all the other spices)
Sugar to taste. More if you want it sweeter, less if you don't :3

Step 1.) Combine all ingredients in a large pot
Step 2.) Boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

If it's your first time, you can add your sugar when it's close to being done and taste then add more if you want to. Needless to say, this makes a good bit, so if you have a crock pot, use it. Drink hot, and yes you can reheat it.

And while I'm at it, I'll share one of my favorite hot drinks:

Spice Tea:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup instant tea
2 and 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups Tang
2 small pouches of Kool-Aid lemonade
2 tsp. Cinnamon (powder this time)
1 tsp. ground cloves (also found with the spices if you've never used them before.)

Steps:

1.) combine all ingredients into a sealable container.
2.) shake it!

To drink:
My grandmother says 2 tsp. for 6 oz water...... I say 1 and a half tablespoons for an 8oz drink. More/less depending on how strong you want it. REALLY good for fighting off the cold and if you have a cold, this'll clear you up and make you all warm and cozy.

[DezoPenguin]

Originally Posted by BPHaru

That was epic, we so need a fanart of this...

Actually, Archer!Fate fanart would be pretty cool to see, at that...

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

...

Elise/Nanoha sister fluff pre-BTBR is fun to write. :3

Occurs right after Nanoha comes to live with Elise, after the bond has been established.

Spoiler for Come What May:

*snip*

Awwww! So sweet!

Originally Posted by TheShinySword

Yes yes please don't review any of my crack or short shorts as for the most part I literally write them on the forum and rarely even read them over course I do have plenty of noncracky things for you to review if you wish

I'd say that for crack, there are only two questions that need to be answered in a review:

1. Did it make you laugh? (Yes? No? I was too offended to think of laughing?)
2. How hard? (A little chuckle? Milk came out my nose?)

Originally Posted by Satashi

[/spoiler][/spoiler]

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio Pt.59:

*snip*

How's that for a long update Almost finished ^_^ tomorrow is the big dayfor them~

You know, I think Syn would have felt more comfortable if her dad really had been a "fan" and the resulting debate had kept Elena and Vivio from double-team Barbie-dolling her...

Originally Posted by Satashi

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.60:

*snip*

Eeeeeeeevil New Year's cliffhanger! Can't wait to see how this goes down; you traditionally do very well with emotional blow-ups, whether angry, grieving, or tender.

Originally Posted by Satashi

Semi off topic here........

I've been requested to give the Whasil recipe found in both my Christmas story and my thanksgiving one for PS!V....sooooooo here it is ^^

[/spoiler]

Actually, the tea recipe sounds pretty good... So I gather it's called "Whasil" instead of "Wassail" because it's a Mid-Childan beverage?

Edit: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[Advent000]

Originally Posted by Satashi

Spoiler for PornStar!Vivio pt.60:

Vivio groggily opened one of her eyes and looked across the room with hazed vision. The covers were pulled up mostly to her nose, making it hard to see much else besides the empty spot next to her where Syn used to be. Slowly she made herself move to a sitting position and rubbed her eyes with her left hand to try and clear them. Now with a little more focus, she sniffed and rolled out of the warmth that the blankets offered her in exchange to get her clothes for the day. Her suitcase was opened and a pair of nice looking jeans were pulled up before a green sweater covered her top. Now dressed, the girl yawned loudly and looked over at the clock to see how early it was. What met her eyes, however, was that it was already a little past eleven in the morning. With a small gasp she quickly left the room and walked down the unfamiliar halls before reaching the stairs to descend into the bottom floor. The sound of laughter made Vivio turn to the left and enter into the kitchen area to find both Syn and her mother playfully talking together while they prepared what seemed to be an insanely large meal. The younger of the girls noticed her and turned to face her girlfriend with an amused look. “Morning, Bed-head. Sleep well?”

The blond quickly moved her hands to her hair to finger comb it as best she could. “You should have woken me up,” she complained softly when Syn was close enough.

“Vacations are meant to be slept in.” Syn replied simply.

With a small blush, Vivio allowed Syn to gently push her to the table to sit down. “Not when I'm a guest in someone else's home.” Despite the complaint, she soon found a cup of a steaming pinkish liquid placed in front of her. “What's this?”

“Whastle.”

“What's that?”

Elena answered this time as she reached into a cabinet to get some spices down. “It's a hot drink, kind of sweet, kind of tangy. It'll warm you up really good.”

The Christmas eyed girl in the room took the offer and slowly brought it up to her lips to smell it. A light wisp of cinnamon greeted her along with a scent that she couldn't place but seemed good enough to try out. After a small sip of it she licked her lips and drank once more. “It is really good.”

“Told'ja.” Syn's accented voice made Vivio smile again, once more bringing the cup to her mouth and inhaling the fragrance while drinking. The warmth was pleasant going down and her nose cleared up, making her temporarily forget that she had been sniffing the past little while. “So,” Syn continued when she was back into the kitchen. “When will everyone be here?”

“Between now and an hour I suppose.” Elena heard the beeping from her probe thermometer go off and she raised her hand to bring up a monitor to check the temperature of their turkey. “It's done Syn, could you take it out please?” The smaller one nodded and looked around a moment before finding the potholders to protect her hands. The oven door was opened and an audible gasp came from Vivio when the large bird was placed on a setting point on the counter top. The mother stepped to the side to allow Vivio a chance to inspect it closer, mouth open in awe. “We have having a lot of people over,” the older woman told her guest with an amused tone. “Some of them are bringing side dishes and a large country style ham. Not to mention cakes and pies and dinner rolls. Make sure to eat your fill okay?”

“Yes ma'am.” Vivio nodded to her and moved out of the way again. “Is there anything I can do?” Her question was cut off as the doorbell rang out.

“Syn, be a dear and get that,” Elena told her daughter with a nudge. “They may need help carrying in some food.”

“Come on, Vi.” Syn pulled her friend along with her. “I don't know these people either so I'll feel better if you're with me.”

Vivio laughed and clasped her hands behind her back as Syn opened the door. “Welcome!” She greeted cheerfully, only to be greeted with silence. The small pause made Syn look questioningly at the little red headed female standing at the door. Turning her eyes to Vivio, she felt a small pain in her chest at the sudden fearful look on her girlfriend's face. “Vi...ta?”

Spoiler for after reading:

I have lots more written after this, but I wanted to post this part right now, just so you don't forget who you're dealing with >: D!!!!

So, she meets Vita first.