[ ] “No thank you, miss, I don’t want to leave. Look, I’m sorry that you got hurt, but you were trying to hurt my friends too, you know. I’m staying right here.”

Increasing that courage stat.

[X] “No thank you, miss, I don’t want to leave. Look, I’m sorry that you got hurt, but you were trying to hurt my friends too, you know. I’m staying right here.”

Following our teacher's example with polite resoluteness.

[x]"Why do you have a problem with me? Would you stand idly by as someone hurt your friends? I don't think we're that different."

[X] “No thank you, miss, I don’t want to leave. Look, I’m sorry that you got hurt, but you were trying to hurt my friends too, you know. I’m staying right here.”

This matches her best.

[X] Whisper "No."

[x] Give her the finger.

>>33880

Are we thinking of the same fairy or different ones?

[x] Quick bow; "I'm sorry! I'm sorry for cutting you, and I'm sorry for hitting you with that stick. I was just doing my... I mean I was trying to protect my friends, but I am still very sorry for what you've had to go through because of me. Please don't make me leave, I just want to know more about you."

>I wanted to know just who she was, and what she wanted. And obviously to apologize; I didn’t want any hard feelings between us, I was just… doing my job, I suppose.

I think this covers all the bases. Shouldn't make this all about the job, though. In my mind, Friday cares about her sisters, the residents, and the mansion. Dedication to her job is a result of that.

>>33889

Thing was her first strike against that vampire hunter was more to protect Remilia and trying to do her best to do so.

But your write in sounds a too timid for our Fairy, especially after that confident response she had to if she wanted to come in or not.

>>33880
They're not in Gensokyo yet. And it's too arrogant to be coming from friday.

>>33892
>too timid for our Fairy, especially after that confident response she had to if she wanted to come in or not.

One confident decision compared to five threads of that same timid nature, and now we get to rework her personality? Okay.

[X] “No thank you, miss, I don’t want to leave. Look, I’m sorry that you got hurt, but you were trying to hurt my friends too, you know. I’m staying right here.”

[y] “No thank you, miss, I don’t want to leave. Look, I’m sorry that you got hurt, but you were trying to hurt my friends too, you know. I’m staying right here.”

[X]"I? Troubled you? You stabbed me in the chest, hurt my cousins and killed me. I troubled you?"

And so, Friday learned what revolt is. Something that very few fairies probably ever experienced.

{"No thank you, miss, I don’t want to leave. Look, I’m sorry that you got hurt, but you were trying to hurt my friends too, you know. I’m staying right here."}

>>33896

Her manner might be timid, but when it came time for fight or flight, she fought both times she was in such a situation.

6 votes for “No thank you”
5 separate votes for various write-ins

>>33877 put it best; following Patchouli’s example with polite resoluteness. Writing sporadically over the day.

>>33892
>>33896
>>33901
Between you three you’ve got the gist of it, I think. What I’ve been trying to convey is that while a fairy will in general be very light-hearted in day-to-day matters, they’re very skittish and timid regarding crisis moments and tough decisions, which is what keeps happening to Friday. However, she’s stated many times how she wants to be braver, and most of AFT so far has just been a string of instances where she’s taken a leap of faith and jumped out of her comfort zone. Because of this, she could be poised at any time to do something out of the ordinary as an act of bravery, even if it’s completely stupid and she’s second guessing herself every step of the way.

I’ve basically given you a pseudo-blank check to go wherever you want with the voting options in this story. While I agree that something like >>33886 or >>33880 (deleted now, but it was pretty antagonistic) would be rather out of character for her, it’s not entirely unfeasible that she could do something like that, if only to prove to herself and those around her that she’s not as incompetent as might be expected.

Quick note here, I've realized that this is going to end up being a long update since it's a lot of Patchouli and the vampire hunter talking, and there's really no good place to put a voting option until the conversation is done. I can't get it posted by tonight, but I can get it up tomorrow, and hopefully I'll still be able to do one Friday as well, votes permitting.

Sage for updateless update.

>>33946
So, the next update will be big? Awesomesauce

>>33951
Very big.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“No thank you, miss,” I answered steadfastly. “I don’t want to leave. Look, I’m sorry that you got hurt, but you were trying to hurt my friends too, you know. I’m stay—“

“You’re leaving,” the woman interrupted rudely. “You think I give a damn about what you think? You’re just a puppet dancing on strings. Get out!”

I wrinkled up my face again. Puppet on strings… That one hurt too. In the long run, isn’t that really what each and every one of my kin was doing here? Just following orders? I mean, the only reason I was standing there is because I simply followed the orders to take care of the mansion and the people in it, no matter how loosely I had chosen to interpret them? But I couldn’t let it get to me. I had to stand up for myself; I couldn’t know for sure if Patchouli would, and I actually wanted to stay there.

“I don’t want to get out, miss. I just want to hear—“

“Damn it, witch, throw her out of here or I swear you won’t get another word out of me!”

Patchouli seemed to have her hands full, having to deal with two unruly people instead of one, and out of the corner of my eye I could see her shifting in her seat trying to decide what to do. But I thought I understood it now: she did care about what I thought. And she cared about it so much she didn’t even want to look at me. There was no reason she should get mad at Ms. Knowledge without ever having seen her before; she’d said that herself. This was me, just me.

“No, don’t… Don’t you look at her,” I butted in, putting myself between the two women and forcing the human to look at me. “I know you’re mad at me. At me. But Ms. Paaah, uhh… She, she didn’t do nothing to you! She just wants to talk; talking’s fine, right? It helps people understand each other! Be mad at me, not… not her.”

“You…” She shook with rage, leaning against the chains that I hoped were short enough to keep us both safe. “There, are, no words… I have… To express how much I wish you never existed.”

In the back of my head, had I been paying attention, a little red flag would have waved itself in front of my mind’s eye. It would have told me that I should be… I dunno, falling over and choking or something after she said that. That I should just fade into dust because she believed I should never have existed, and as I’ve said before, belief is everything to us. But, at the time, that was hardly in the forefront of my mind.

“Well, I guess, miss, I’m sorry, because I do exist. And I’m going to keep existing in this room right now, too. And… I’m not trying to be mean or anything, but you can’t really stop me. So… stop, whining, I suppose.”

”Whining?!” It appeared that she hadn’t been straining on those chains quite as much as I’d thought. “You have the bloody gall to tell me to quit whining?! You are nothing but a stupid baby with a vocabulary and sharp teeth, whelp!”

One more blow to my ego I had to sustain. But that baby comment made me remember something from not so long ago. Something I thought I should repeat to this frustrated enemy of mine, as much of a retort as it was proving I actually knew how to speak.

“You know, miss,” I said calmly, brushing away what I thought might have been tears from my eyes, “My teacher, right here? She told something to one of my friends once. She said, that… That she doesn’t teach children. She teaches men and women. And that she’ll treat childish people like the children they are. Now I’m, I guess, I’m not really a woman. But… she’s teaching me stuff. And, you, know I think…” I had to take a deep breath there, for fear I’d lose my nerve in the middle of the next part. “If you’re going to act like a whiney child, I don’t think she wants to talk to you anyways! So I guess… that’s means I’m really the one who’s more grown up, miss.”

The human sat there, still leaning against the chains like she was trying to bite my nose off, as furious as I thought a woman could be (now, of course, I know that a woman’s capacity for fury far exceeds any expectation I will ever have). I took a step back, praying to the stars that I hadn’t ruined everything for Patchouli. She didn’t appear to look mad to me, but her face was always unreadable to me anyways. Even if this ended up getting my neck chopped off, at least I could say I was brave enough to stick it out of my shell.

“…Damn you,” the woman finally said, shaking her head minutely back and forth. “Damn you to hell, girl.” Slumping back onto her pillow, she flopped her manacled wrists back onto her lap, opting to look at them rather than us.

“...Herod… You can call me Natasha Herod,” she mumbled sullenly, still quite angry but seemingly much less full of rage.

“An honor to meet you, Ms. Herod,” the good doctor greeted, bowing her head towards the newly-named human.

“The feeling’s mutual, I’m sure. And it is Missus Herod, to you.”

“My apologies. And I would like to apologize for my student as well; I instructed her to speak only when spoken to, though it appears she has taken some… liberties, with that instruction.” She glanced at me seriously, and a weak smile was really the only thing I could answer back with.

“Stop kissing my arse and just get on with it, Ms. Chalmers. I’m sure I’m not high on your busy-busy priority list today.”

“Perhaps. But that depends entirely on you, Mrs. Herod. It has been some time since a ne’er-do-well such as yourself has been captured without killing themselves first. Quite frankly I have only one simple question for you at this time, though obviously no question is simply answered in a situation like this. Why, Mrs. Herod, do you wish to kill my friend Miss Remilia?”

As simple as that, eh? Seems this would be over pretty quickly, then. Natasha gave a frustrated humpfh. “She’s a vampire. An abomination. A demon that needs to be taken care of before it takes care of others. Do I need a reason?”

Patchouli was not so easily satisfied, it seemed. “Vampire… ‘Vampire’ is the answer to the question of what, not why, Mrs. Herod, and why you hunt is of infinitely greater value than what. I would ask you to ponder harder upon your answer.”

“I don’t need to justify myself to you,” the woman spat back, flashing Ms. Knowledge an acidic glare.

“If you entertain any hopes of leaving this mansion of your own free will, I think you do. Lady Remilia will not be quite as willing to let you go, if her reasons for keeping you here in the first place are rooted where I assume them to be.”

“Puuh. Bloodbank running low, is it?”

The doctor sighed, a barely-detectable smirk appearing on her face for just a few seconds. “She is hardly as uncivilized as all that, Mrs. Herod. No, her reasons for keeping you are much more juvenile. Quite simply, she just wants attention. Attention she has not been getting for quite a number of years now. I am not one to presume her motives, but the simple fact that you are interested at all with her, for ill or for good, seems to have had a powerful effect on her. I ask yet another time, then; why did you come here?”

“Wait, so she’s just an attention whore?” Mrs. Herod laughed. “If she wants attention so damn bad, why don’t she go bite some necks down in London like the Draculina she is? ‘D make my job plenty easier looking for vampires if they all did that, I tell you what.”

“Mrs. Herod, if you are going to be difficult with me, I see no reason why I should not be difficult with you; answer my question.”

“Answer mine.”

At that point, Patchouli flat-out took her glasses off and put them in her chest pocket, finally getting the slightest bit agitated. Her response was cool, but curt. “I asked you first, Natasha.”

The woman raised her eyebrow skeptically, obviously aware of the subtle change in Patchouli’s demeanor, and gave a little nod as if to say “All right then.”

“Mmm… You believe in God, Patricia?” she asked curiously.

“I believe that the existence of God or gods is not unfeasible, though I offer no divine service to any supernatural entity regardless.”

“Lame. What about Satan? Believe in him?”

“My response is the same.”

Natasha pointed to herself resolutely, solidifying her face. “Well, I do. And I hear about these vampires and witches and demons and God knows what else, running about killing and raping and performing rituals and rites. And this house… this proves that I’m right, that you things all exist. But can you tell me where your power comes from? Can you? You can’t. You can’t seriously believe the magic’s just inside everyone who believes in it, can you? You can’t tell me a goddamn thing about where it comes from. Well I can.”

Patchouli’s face grew dark and pensive, the kind of face that a person grows when they start shutting out the world around them and focus only on what’s relevant right then and there. Which, at that exactly time, was Mrs. Natasha Herod, and no one else.

“You imply that magic is satanic in origin?” she asked.

“There’s only two sources of supernatural power, Ms. Patricia. God and Satan. Heaven and Hell. Good and Evil. And God sure as hell isn’t going to grant his power to creatures that’ll end up using it for evil, or even for mediocrity. He didn’t four millennia ago, he didn’t two millennia ago, and he sure isn’t going to now in this hellhole of a world. I’d say that only leaves one source left, and he’s the kind of source that’ll do anything so long as it plunges the world into depravity.”

Patchouli propped her elbows upon her knees and leaned forwards, creating a little shelf for her chin to rest upon. “You are a zealot, then. A holy warrior tasking yourself with the extermination of evil for the glory of your God.”

Natasha gave her a smug little grin. “Will you leave me alone now?”

“Mrs. Herod, I am not a fool. Your fanaticism to the battle of good versus evil was obvious as soon as I was told about your actions over a fortnight ago. And your quick assumptions that I would be satisfied with your shallow answers only reaffirms my hypothesis that you are not nearly as crafty as you believe yourself to be, which may in fact be the reason you were caught. Much of what I would have asked of you I have already surmised using deductive logic. I shall illustrate:”

“You came here during the evening hours of April 11th, which can be confirmed by talking to the fairies who were on night watch at the time. That you climbed the wall rather than enter the gate might ordinarily mean you wished your entry not to be seen, but the fact that you specifically approached the night watch and told them you were a human maid that had gotten lost means you only wished not to be seen by the gate guard. Thus, you are familiar both with the naiveté of the fairies here and of the competence of the gate guard. Contrary to what many of the fairies on staff here believe, however, we have not have a human maid work here for some time.

“Another zealot gave you information about this mansion, Mrs. Herod. We have had a number of assassins try what you have tried in recent years. None have been captured alive save yourself. Many have killed themselves before they failed; some have managed to escape through luck. One of these few has obviously posed as a maid here in the past to discover the mansion’s layout and gauge its residents’ skill, and by escaping has become a boon to any who share her goal of destroying this mansion and all inside, such as yourself. However, her information is old, as her ignorance of our lack of human servants clearly shows.

“It is obvious to me that you are part of a vampire-slaying organization, Mrs. Herod. A true zealot would not run away as our assassins have done, and yet a lukewarm zealot would not kill themselves if they felt capture was unavoidable. By luck you escaped your room last night, yet you chose to flee rather than finish what you had started. Either your captivity broke your zealotry and replaced it with the singular need to survive—which I see by your attitude that it has not—or there was some benefit for others you knew if you could escape back to them.

“I have not told Miss Remilia of your organization yet, of course; my visit here is primarily to confirm my assumptions. She will be delighted to hear of it, of course; as I have said, her desire to inflate her own ego knows few bounds. The knowledge that a band of organized vampire hunters dedicated to specifically killing her, and the fact that such a band still exists in the late 20th century, shall certainly put her in a rather exuberant mood for once. If I have erred at any point in my hypothesis, by all means correct me so that I might revise it. I am a practiced scientist, after all.”

I was dumbfounded. Natasha was dumfounded. Patchouli was… smug?! Such a pile of logic all heaped up on top of each other… I of course couldn’t make a ruddy thing out of it myself. But I could see that, for as many times as Natasha had struck my heart with her words, Patchouli had struck back for me tenfold. Her mouth was agape and her head shaking of its own accord with shock, eyes having lost all remnants of their sharpened glare.

For a time, and then another time, we all just sat there, Natasha reeling from that horrible blow of words and Patchouli with a most uncharacteristic grin on her face. The hunter girl slowly returned to a comprehending state, though she was still extremely weak.

“No… No, how… This can’t be possible… I was careful… Didn’t say a word…”

“I hope I am not wrong in assuming that your reaction means I did not err?” the doctor asked playfully.

Natasha took a long time to respond, and her answer was as dark as pitch. “Perfect. Perfect on all accounts Ms. Chalmers, save for one. There’s no organization anymore… We’re all dead. We were never very strong… five at one time, perhaps… and you drove us to the brink of extinction. Three escaped over ten years. The maid you spoke of just died from cancer last month. The other two committed suicide. I wasn’t escaping to get back to the organization, Ms. Chalmers… I was trying to get back to my son.”

And then it was Patchouli’s turn to take the hit, and to my horror, she took it even worse that Natasha had. The doctor simply, simply and slowly, fell, like an old building, brick by brick until she was kneeling on the ground with her hands blanketing her face. It was the most gradual transition of emotions I’d ever seen, even speaking to you with the knowledge and experience I know now. For the flat-faced Patchouli of all people to be standing on top of the world, smiling like a normal person would, and then to fall down to depths I’d never contemplated… I hope you never have to see what I had to see on that day. I hope that you think long and hard about your answer when the Miss Knowledge in your life asks you if you want to follow her through that door.

“Why…” Patchouli whispered from the floor as a single tear absorbed itself into the carpet. “Why… did they, kill… themselves… I-if I may, ask…”

“Depression,” the Herod-lady responded, still as sullen and dark as before. “They tried to get people to believe their story. No one took them seriously. No one listened. After what they’d been though, and what people called them… death was better. And you were wrong about one more thing, Patricia… I did change during those two weeks. I don’t really ve a damn if you live of die anymore, so long as I can get people to believe that you’re all out there. That’s all I have in life now, that and my son.”

From the ground, the librarian waved her hand away weakly. “Go to your son,” she said weakly. “They won’t believe you.”

Nasasha’s voice suddenly increased in volume. “They have to. After what I’ve seen, what I’ve heard… I’m done more than anyone else ever did in understanding this place! I know the truth now!”

“They won’t believe you.”

“If… If I could bring something back, even get someone to… come with me, maybe…”

“They will never believe you, Natasha.”

“I have to try,” she said finally, emotion coming back to her voice.

Right then and there, Patchouli stood up, wincing every step of the way but pushing me back when I tried to stop her. She raised herself to her full height and stared at the bedridden woman with drying tears on her face.

“I will tell you what will happen if you try, Natasha Herod. You will go to the masses and you will say you have seen wonders beyond this world. You will share with them your excitement and your love and your devotion to that which is beyond comprehension. You will tell them a tale better than the author’s pen can create. And they will raise their eyebrows at you. They will talk behind their backs at you. They will wonder if perhaps you merely want attention. And they will hear, but they will not listen, for they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

“Undaunted, you will go to your friends, your family, your colleges and your trusted advisors. You will share with them your dreams and your hopes, your vision of a new world with that which you have discovered. You will be more cautious with them than with the masses, and will act reserved and intelligent. And they will smirk at you. They will chuckle at you. They will thank you for an entertaining teatime chat. And they will hear, but they will not listen, for they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

“Undaunted still, you will go to your superiors and your professors, your scientists and your researchers, your administrators and your heads of government. You will be cautious still from your past failures. You will give them structured information and evidence, mathematical theorems and philosophical justifications. And they will scowl at you. They will shout at you. They will call you a tragedy and strip you of the ranks you hold dear to yourself. And they will hear, but they will not listen, for they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

“In five years’ time you will return to your home, having traveled the world and having become a different woman than you once were. You will have brought back samples of your story from the four corners of the globe. You will present a convincing hypothesis full of logic and psychology far greater than what you had done in the past. And they will jeer at you. They will heckle you. They will call you a fool and a sideshow caller. And they will hear, but they will not listen, for they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

“In ten years’ time you will return to society again, having steeled your will to pursuing your life’s work for the good of humankind. You will bring them amazing examples and reams of findings confirming your magical proposal. You will have a solid answer to every question they can give you! And they will turn away from you. They will ignore you. They will call you unworthy of their time. And they will hear. But they will not listen. For they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

“And in fifteen years’ time you will give them one more chance. You will bring to them conclusive and irrefutable proof that you are telling the truth! You will show them before their very eyes that magic can and does exist, and that you hold the key if only you could find the door! And they will lock you up. They will call you mad. They will try to destroy what little heart you still have left. And they WILL hear. But they will NOT listen. For they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

Let no one ever tell you otherwise that Doctor Patchouli Knowledge does not know how to express her anger.

She didn’t even bother to wipe the rage-filled tears off her face as she stepped away from Mrs. Herod’s bed. She didn’t even care that I had been in the room the whole time, hearing every word. She didn’t even know that she had just destroyed the perfect image I had of her, so intelligent and sure of herself about anything and everything. That I was not so stupid as to understand that she had just told me her entire life’s story in the span of five minutes.

“You see, Mrs. Nat, you and I suffer from the same problem,” she added as she walked towards the door, turning her head back around one last time. “We were both born a millennium too late.”

And with that, she just walked away without another word, slamming the door behind her and painfully making me realize that she hadn’t told me to follow. And frankly… I didn’t even know if I should.

[ ] So much hate… So much sadness… If there was anything I could do to ease Natasha’s pain, to bridge this gap between us, anything at all… I wanted to do it.
[ ] I needed someone to talk to, I thought. Someone nearby. Sapphire… she was right outside. I just wanted to talk to one of my cousins right now.
[ ] We all needed to be alone sometimes. Natasha probably needed to be. Patchouli definitely needed to be. And I felt like I needed to be too. (Specify a place to be alone at)
[ ] I had to tell someone about this. Sakuya? China? Flandre? Remilia? Someone… Someone who’d understand. (Specify who you have to find)
[ ] But a servant was a servant, and Patchouli needed one no matter how cold and sad she got.

[X] So much hate… So much sadness… If there was anything I could do to ease Natasha’s pain, to bridge this gap between us, anything at all… I wanted to do it.
[X] I had to tell someone about this.
- [X] China was Miss Patchouli's friend, wasn't she? Maybe she would know what to do.

I doubt either Natasha or Patchouli are going to let us comfort them, and Patchouli seems like the sort of person who deals with emotional pain by ignoring it and sinking into her experiments, which could be dangerous given her health; we need to let someone close to her know that's she's in a bad way.

[X] I had to tell someone about this.
- [X] China was Miss Patchouli's friend, wasn't she? Maybe she would know what to do.

>“I will tell you what will happen if you try, Natasha Herod. You will go to the masses and you will say you have seen wonders beyond this world. You will share with them your excitement and your love and your devotion to that which is beyond comprehension. You will tell them a tale better than the author’s pen can create. And they will raise their eyebrows at you. They will talk behind their backs at you. They will wonder if perhaps you merely want attention. And they will hear, but they will not listen, for they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

>“Undaunted, you will go to your friends, your family, your colleges and your trusted advisors. You will share with them your dreams and your hopes, your vision of a new world with that which you have discovered. You will be more cautious with them than with the masses, and will act reserved and intelligent. And they will smirk at you. They will chuckle at you. They will thank you for an entertaining teatime chat. And they will hear, but they will not listen, for they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

>“Undaunted still, you will go to your superiors and your professors, your scientists and your researchers, your administrators and your heads of government. You will be cautious still from your past failures. You will give them structured information and evidence, mathematical theorems and philosophical justifications. And they will scowl at you. They will shout at you. They will call you a tragedy and strip you of the ranks you hold dear to yourself. And they will hear, but they will not listen, for they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

>“In five years’ time you will return to your home, having traveled the world and having become a different woman than you once were. You will have brought back samples of your story from the four corners of the globe. You will present a convincing hypothesis full of logic and psychology far greater than what you had done in the past. And they will jeer at you. They will heckle you. They will call you a fool and a sideshow caller. And they will hear, but they will not listen, for they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

>“In ten years’ time you will return to society again, having steeled your will to pursuing your life’s work for the good of humankind. You will bring them amazing examples and reams of findings confirming your magical proposal. You will have a solid answer to every question they can give you! And they will turn away from you. They will ignore you. They will call you unworthy of their time. And they will hear. But they will not listen. For they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

>“And in fifteen years’ time you will give them one more chance. You will bring to them conclusive and irrefutable proof that you are telling the truth! You will show them before their very eyes that magic can and does exist, and that you hold the key if only you could find the door! And they will lock you up. They will call you mad. They will try to destroy what little heart you still have left. And they WILL hear. But they will NOT listen. For they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

Damn.

[X] I had to tell someone about this.
- [X] China was Miss Patchouli's friend, wasn't she? Maybe she would know what to do.

Poor Patchy.

[X] I had to tell someone about this.
- [X] China was Miss Patchouli's friend, wasn't she? Maybe she would know what to do.

We need to visit the garden for more Patchouli ;_;

>We were never very strong… five at one time, perhaps
>The maid you spoke of just died from cancer last month.
>The other two committed suicide.
>I wasn’t escaping to get back to the organization, Ms. Chalmers… I was trying to get back to my son.”

5-1-2-1 = 1 left?

>>33988

No, she was just stating that was the biggest it ever was. You don't need to chase after rainbows; Natasha is the only one left.

Well that was interesting... a group of hunters wasting their lives on a pursuit of something that yields nothing. And Patchy giving a a verbal obliteration that's so cold it burns. But it's true and Patchy herself admits that even she's unsuited for this era. I wonder if this will bring up the search for Gensokyo soon or not.

[ℤ] So much hate… So much sadness… If there was anything I could do to ease Natasha’s pain, to bridge this gap between us, anything at all… I wanted to do it.
[ℯ] I had to tell someone about this.
- [~] China was Miss Patchouli's friend, wasn't she? Maybe she would know what to do.

Damn.

That shit was heavy, Tepes. But very well written, and very good.

Be proud.

[x] So much hate… So much sadness… If there was anything I could do to ease Natasha’s pain, to bridge this gap between us, anything at all… I wanted to do it.

Patricia... Patchouli just bare her heart open against an enemy because she saw a kindred spirit. She saw the beginning of her movie and tried to change the end, breaking the perfect image of herself that our MC had... I hope that our local hunter don't make that sacrifice a vain thing.

[x] So much hate… So much sadness… If there was anything I could do to ease Natasha’s pain, to bridge this gap between us, anything at all… I wanted to do it.

[X] I had to tell someone about this.
- [X] China was Miss Patchouli's friend, wasn't she? Maybe she would know what to do.

I don't think we can add anything to what Patchy just said.

[x] So much hate… So much sadness… If there was anything I could do to ease Natasha’s pain, to bridge this gap between us, anything at all… I wanted to do it.

>And they WILL hear. But they will NOT listen. For they have already made up their minds about this sort of thing.

This is the most awesome speech ever written on TH-P (that I have read). That part being used again and again without being losing any impact or meaning, that was just perfect.

[x] So much hate… So much sadness… If there was anything I could do to ease Natasha’s pain, to bridge this gap between us, anything at all… I wanted to do it.

[X] I had to tell someone about this.
- [X] China was Miss Patchouli's friend, wasn't she? Maybe she would know what to do.

Tepes, i am in a complete state of awe here. say people around would call me crazy, but you have a standing ovation otherwise. First Flandre, now Patchy? these characters...... are pretty damm good!

[x] But a servant was a servant, and Patchouli needed one no matter how cold and sad she got.

This writefag is boiling in a giant pot of envy because he can't write something this awesome. Could I get a creativity/talent transfusion?

5 for telling China
4 for staying with Natasha
2 for doing both

While I don’t really have any time to write until Monday, I’m going to call the vote for China right now so that I can plan out the scene while doing mindless university busywork.

I’d also just like to thank all of you who enjoyed this update and told me so. I’m always afraid that whenever I write a big scene like this I’ll get crucified for taking too many liberties with the characters, or that the scene isn’t nearly as moving as it sounds in my head and just ends up as clichéd melodrama. It helps my morale a lot to know my characters are actually working for you.

>>33993
I can only be proud if I know it’s good, and a reader’s approval really is the final word on that. Thank you.

>>34002
I really need to stop getting so lucky with the “best/most awesome” accolades. I probably don’t deserve it. But it’s nice to know I have your approval.

>>34003
I call myself crazy sometimes, so I think we’re even. Flandre, Patchy… Now I’m afraid you people’ll start to get your hopes up about the rest of the characters and I won’t be able to deliver! Not to mention the direction I’ve been planning for Koakuma…

>>34004
I suppose I could give you some advice, maybe…? I’d say first and foremost is care about your characters, if nothing else. Turn them into actual people with emotions who could exist in the real world, not just a set of iconic clothes and catchphrases stuck into the story for the sake of advancing the action. Even if you don’t have a good plot or setting, a solid cast of realistic characters can power just about any work of fiction. I mean, AFT has practically no plot; it’s all just character interaction, but plenty of people seem to like it.

This is quite a bit late, but I think something 'from the mouths of babes' is appropriate here.

[x] The idea of death and with it complete oblivion of one's knowledge is a human quality, and it's also a mistake. The idea is not to attain truth and live it forever; the idea is to create something that will.
-[x] Patchouli has the experience of an individual, but Natasha has a son, does she not? Who, when the entire world labels her a fool, will accept her words as truth, to test them against what the world tells him is truth? Progeny will beget progeny, and with the diligence imparted by the elder generation, remember and disseminate this truth.
-[x] You can't understand what it means to be a mother, but even if it's an apprentice-like relationship that you've had here, surely there is hope for Ms. Natasha's dream.

The fairy doesn't know about Copernicus or Galileo or Newton or Einstein. But she knows that when she has a question, she can find someone who can answer it. That should be proof enough that knowledge is a social entity, rather than being collected and categorized by every individual just for themselves.

>I was trying to get back to my son

Hmm, I think I can see what Tepes has planned.

>>34092
I may just be paranoid, but if I'm seeing what you're seeing, and it's what I think it is, then you're wrong, because that'd be lame and a dick move and nobody likes that.

Or I'm just paranoid and have no idea what you're talking about. Either way, writing now.

And that's a pretty cool post there, >>34071. Might have to take that under consideration.

[x] The idea of death and with it complete oblivion of one's knowledge is a human quality, and it's also a mistake. The idea is not to attain truth and live it forever; the idea is to create something that will.
-[x] Patchouli has the experience of an individual, but Natasha has a son, does she not? Who, when the entire world labels her a fool, will accept her words as truth, to test them against what the world tells him is truth? Progeny will beget progeny, and with the diligence imparted by the elder generation, remember and disseminate this truth.
-[x] You can't understand what it means to be a mother, but even if it's an apprentice-like relationship that you've had here, surely there is hope for Ms. Natasha's dream.
The first parts should be said to Natasha as well.

>>34112

Or maybe I just thought I was seeing what you are seeing, when in reality I am not seeing anything at all and has no idea of what I'm talking about too.

Right now, all I am seeing is an epiletic tree.

But I had to tell someone about this. Sakuya? China? Flandre? Remilia? Someone… Someone who’d understand. I understood enough of what had just happened to know it was important, but I didn’t have the full picture. China… I’d always said that China felt like a mother to us all if we’d ever had one. She always knew how to help us out… She’d know just what to do.

Without Ms. Patchouli’s heartfelt words to occupy the air, I realized just how awkward the situation had become, two mortal enemies mulling about in a room together, too distracted by other things to focus on each other. I glanced at Natasha quickly, but saw she was certainly in no talking mood now, not even to tell me to “shut up and get the hell out!” or something like that.

Should I have told her something? Tried to put the librarian’s words into perspective for her? Perhaps consoled her about her son? Nothing I could say really seemed very proper, not after such depth as Dr. Knowledge had just imparted to us. I gracefully bowed to the woman (she wasn’t paying attention to it at all, of course) and slid out of the room as politely as I could.

After clicking the door shut, Sapphire came up to me and asked, “So… What was that all about? The good doctor just stormed off without a word.”

“I, oh… I’m, not really very sure… I wouldn’t want to spread rumors or nothing,” I replied, not exactly in the mood to talk with a relative stranger at the moment. “I think the prisoner might stop being angry now, though… or she’ll get even angrier real soon.”

“I heard Dr. Knowledge shouting. I’ve never heard her shout before, and I’ve known her for longer than that human has probably been alive. What happened?”

I didn’t want to be rude to a cousin, but at the same time… Well, I wasn’t really sure how much of what Patchouli had said I was allowed to tell people. It felt awfully close to the kind of secrets you keep deep in your heart so you don’t hurt your friend’s feelings. And since I wasn’t really sure if she had wanted me to hear her emote like that in the first place, well…

“She…she got angry because Natasha made her remember that humans don’t believe in magic anymore. Oh, that’s the hunter lady’s name: Natasha. I really don’t know what more to say. You really should ask Ms. Patchouli, I think; not me.”

“Oh…” However much she understood, it looked to me like Sapphire got enough of it to nod her head and let me go about my business, which I was very thankful for. I started getting a little jittery as I walked along the hallways, and I really wasn’t sure how long I’d have lasted by myself with all that information if I wasn’t able to get to China soon.

Patchouli… This was your story? Your entire life? A life of happiness that no one else could believe enough to share with you? And then your heart just sort of withered up like a plant without sunlight after all these years? I couldn’t help but shed a few tears for her. My persecution at the hands of humans seemed so trivial compared to hers. What was a handful of months’ worth of running from the world’s disbelief, compared to decades of fighting against it? My thoughts turned to that little sprig of patchouli in the librarian’s room. Small… Small and alone in a giant room full of things that didn’t care about it one way or the other. But it was still beautiful, sweet-smelling… and it had the lavender as a friend, at the very least.

But then there was Natasha. A Patchouli from before she had turned inwards to her books. A Patchouli with her whole life still ahead of her. And a Patchouli with a son, perhaps the most important difference of them all. I knew enough about mothers to know they’d do anything for their children, and now that Natasha was the only vampire hunter left, who knew how far she would go for him? After all, you humans are lucky like that; you have people in your life who bring you up from the littlest of babies, who teach you everything you need to know. Who’s there to do that for us fairies…?

It took quite longer than I’d have liked to find China in the end. She wasn’t by the gate like I assumed she always was, even though just like Sakuya, the entire grounds were her responsibility. I mean, did Sakuya spend her whole day waiting in front of the entrance hall to greet guests? It’s not like there was every anyone to greet, anyways. But after knocking at the door to her cabin and whizzing over the hedge maze without finding her in any of those dead ends we’d used to train in, I finally spotted her leaning on the bridge over the pond. Such a pretty palette of colors it was, the clear blue pond, white marble bridge, and emerald green uniform of the groundskeeper, splashed with the ruby red of her hair.

I sat down on the bridge railing next to her so I wouldn’t have to keep craning my neck upwards like usual. We exchanged greetings and simple recollections of the past day, China being expressly sorry that I’d had to defend the mansion in such a horribly painful way. That was her job, she said, to deal with threats and danger so that no one else would have to. But even the very strong can’t be everywhere at once, which she calmly conceded to me.

I had to cut the pleasantries short, though; there was a reason I had sought her out. Reminding her that I didn’t really understand the big picture, I carefully told her, to the best of my memory, everything that had happened between Natasha and Patchouli inside that gloomy bedroom. She listened intently, asking me to repeat parts like what Natasha had said about the vampire hunters, her face never really growing past anything than mild concern.

“…and then she just… left,” I finished, my voice growing raspy from all that talking. “She slammed the door and just left. I, I didn’t know who else to go to, China; I’m not even sure if I should be telling you this. I mean, is… was that a secret?”

“Don’t worry, child, don’t worry,” China consoled, stroking my tangled hair. “You were right to tell someone about this. I’ve known about Ms. Patchouli’s past for some time—so does Sakuya and the sisters—though I’d like you to keep it to yourself. As you can see, it’s a rather sore subject for her, and it’s part of the reason she keeps to herself so much. If Remilia hadn’t found her back when she was only in her twenties, who knows how much worse off she’d be now.”

“How, uhh, how long ago was that?” I asked, rather curious to know if the rumors about the librarian’s age was true.

“Oh dear, let’s see…” She tapped her chin with one finger whilst counting on the others. “She was born in, what was it, eighteen ninety-six? Ninety-seven? So Remilia would have found her almost seventy years ago, though if I recall correctly it’d take another thirty before she stopped her world tours.”

“So she really is a hundred years old?”

“Indeed she is, or thereabouts. Her birthday must be coming up soon, I think. Looking pretty good for her age, I daresay; I heard from Remilia she has a Philosopher’s Stone, so as long as she’s careful she shouldn’t be leaving us any time soon, don’t you worry.”

She’d just lost me there. “What’s a Philosophized Stone?”

“Oh, some mystic rock that grants eternal youth, I believe. If humans tell bedtime stories about it, you can bet that Ms. Patchouli’ll probably have it stashed down in that storeroom of hers. But back to that Mrs. Natasha, now… Do you mind if we walk together?”

She lifted me down from the railing, and the two of us began to casually stroll around the lake, though the conversation was hardly of the casual variety.

“You’re certain that she said she was the only vampire hunter left?” China asked me very simply.

“Yeah, real sure. She… That’d been just after Miss Knowledge had just explained all that thinking she’d done, so I don’t think Mrs. Natasha would lie after all that. I thought she looked like the truth would hurt Patchouli more. I… guess it did.”

China’s eyes grew downcast and she shook her head slowly, drawing out a long and languid sigh. “…Remilia won’t be happy to hear that, not after she’s gotten her hopes up. I’ll need to talk to Sakuya about this; excuse me.”

Brushing back her long divided skirts, I saw a small black belt strapped to her thigh with loops for various little tools. A pair of small knives, a ring of various keys, and a small plastic box I assumed was something electronic. China clicked a few buttons on the box, followed by a small beeping before she put it away.

“What was th—“

My naïve question was cut off by the sudden magical appearance of Sakuya, who was wiping off her hands on a towel. Must have been in the middle of washing dishes; one of her sleeves was still all bunched up by the shoulder and her hair was pulled back in a single tail rather than the side-braids she usually wore.

“Will this take long?” Sakuya asked ambiguously, stuffing the towel into an apron pocket.

“I suggest finishing whatever you’re in the middle of first,” China replied matter-of-factly. “This is about the prisoner.”

“Ohh, ahh, yes, right then. Give meeee… ten minutes? I’m still waiting on the water in the kitchen. Might be less. Morning, Friday.”

“Oh, good morning Miss Sakuya.”

“Take all the time you need, Sakuya; it isn’t urgent. But you need to hear it. We’ll be here.”

Sakuya vanished as abruptly as she had come, leaving us to wander around the pond for a bit longer. I far preferred to swim in that rather than the swimming pool we had outside (far too boxy and white to have much fun in), but of course Remilia said that wasn’t proper. It didn’t stop most of us from swimming in it anyways, but… well, you can’t expect us to follow every rule.

After a time we ended up sitting under the gazebo behind the pond, a little island of shade in a pond of green itself. The sun was getting on in the sky, and my cousins had started about their work now, weeding the grass and trimming the hedges, that sort of thing. Not really very fast, or with much commitment, but the fact that we tried to help was enough for Remilia, I think.

[ ] “So, China, I was just wondering, umm…” (write-in or choose below, but only one this time, please)
--( ) “Flandre said something about one of her fairies being a… China-clone, maybe? What’s that supposed to mean?
--( ) “I guess I’m sorry for not listening to you yesterday, during our lesson and all that. It was just so slow, so boring; I can’t learn like that.”
--( ) “Is there anything else I’m allowed to know about Miss Patchouli, since I already know most of it?”
[ ] I probably had questions I could ask China, but they could wait. Right now wasn’t supposed to be about me; it was about Natasha and Patchouli.

[ ] “So, China, I was just wondering, umm…” (write-in or choose below, but only one this time, please)
--( ) “Is there anything else I should know about Miss Patchouli, since I already know most of it?”

Modified it a little bit.
I love the walls, i got two in a day... i'm happy!

[ ] “So, China, I was just wondering, umm…” (write-in or choose below, but only one this time, please)
--( ) “Flandre said something about one of her fairies being a… China-clone, maybe? What’s that supposed to mean? "

Have we chosen a name for our fairy yet? If we haven't, I suggest Fiona to match the Day/Name pattern.

[x] “So, China, I was just wondering, umm…” (write-in or choose below, but only one this time, please)
--(x) “I guess I’m sorry for not listening to you yesterday, during our lesson and all that. It was just so slow, so boring; Fairies can’t learn like that.”
--(x) “Is there anything else I’m allowed to know about Miss Patchouli, since I already know most of it?”
I want my martial artist fairy, but I know it is an impossible request

[x] “So, China, I was just wondering, umm…”
-[x] "Who was with Remilia and Flandre first, Patchouli, Sakuya, or you?"

Prime chance to get a little more background information without being too prying. Did Sakuya and China learn about Patchu from Remilia, or were they here for it? Inquiring minds want to know. Reading back a bit, China is still largely a mystery to us.

[x] “So, China, I was just wondering, umm…” (write-in or choose below, but only one this time, please)
--(x) “Flandre said something about one of her fairies being a… China-clone, maybe? What’s that supposed to mean? "

>>34132
Or Freya, the purported origin of the word "Friday" itself.

[X] “So, China, I was just wondering, umm…” (write-in or choose below, but only one this time, please)
-(X) “Is there anything else I should know about Miss Patchouli, since I already know most of it?”
-(X) "Who was with Remilia and Flandre first, Patchouli, Sakuya, or you?"

Ignore the second question if you must, but it seems like it goes along with the topic and shouldn't take too long to ask.

>>34133
Have you even read the choice you selected? It says choose only ONE.

[x] “So, Meiling, I was just wondering, umm…” (write-in or choose below, but only one this time, please)
--(x) “Is there anything else I’m allowed to know about Miss Patchouli, since I already know most of it?”

[x] “So, China, I was just wondering, umm…”
--(x) “Flandre said something about one of her fairies being a… China-clone, maybe? What’s that supposed to mean? "

3 votes for China-clone
3 votes for Patchouli (one with the "Who was first" add-on)
1 vote for "Who was first"
1 vote for training and Patchouli

I've been waiting for a definitive tiebreaker, but I'd rather not wait any longer. Since >>34133 had Patchouli in the vote, I'll just call it for her and start writing now. I'll try and make this one shorter so I can get it up in just a few hours.

By the way, the reason I wanted only one question here is because this was just something small to pass the time until Sakuya came back; I didn't want you voting for every option, which would delay Sakuya's return an update or two most likely.

>>34162

I figured that much, but I think everyone else over-thought it.

“So, China, I was just wondering, umm… Well, is there anything else I should know about Miss Patchouli, since I already know most of it? I mean, it’d be nice if I’m going to keep helping her while she heals and stuff.”

“Hmm? Oh, well…” My companion thought on that one for a little bit, no doubt piecing together the important things or something like that. “If you’ve been around her even a day you pretty much know what she’s like; all business all the time. She’s a true scientist at heart, always working to learn learn learn about the world. I reckon she’d have revolutionized the world’s technology if she hadn’t gotten so deep into magic and met Remilia. Not that it’s a bad thing, mind, just… Well, you’ve heard what it cost her.”

I nodded. “I can’t imagine what it must be like, to lose everything just because you believe in something no one else does…”

China sighed, not really looking the cheeriest herself. Was something on her mind, I wondered? “I suppose it’s better than losing everything for no reason at all, though… But it hurt her beyond repair. The university she taught at took away her job, her accreditations, even her title of “Doctor”, though in our opinion she’s more than worthy to be called that by us. Had to keep changing her name to keep people from ignoring her on sight, too. Her family stopped believing her one by one; first the extended relatives, then her grandparents, her mother, her husband—“

“She was married?!” I exclaimed.

China nodded matter-of-factly. “She certainly was. A fine man, too, though I only ever met him twice. Patchouli’s studies certainly put a strain on the relationship, though, right from the start; you might say that rather than being married to her work, her work was her secret lover, and in the end he said it was either him or the books; just like in the movies. It was never meant to be, I don’t think, but better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all, they say.”

I pondered hard on that one, though China didn’t really give me much time to collect my thoughts right at that moment. A husband… A family… It felt so strange, so otherworldy a concept inside a mansion with not a male to be found, and no true family to be had save for Remilia and Flandre. I would never have picked Patchouli as the kind of person to get married, but then again, the Patchouli I knew was hardly the Patchouli of yesteryear, and I’d learned from her own mouth how much she’d staked on her life’s work. It would have been nice, I thought, if that Patchouli of the past came back to us, even just for a day…

“Her father, though; I don’t think she’d have ever kept going if it wasn’t for her father,” Miss Meiling continued. “Right up until the day he died he never stopped believing her. He’d been a trader in India, you see; that’s where Patchouli grew up until she came to England to study. You know where India is, don’t you?”

I sort of wobbled my head around a little. “Uhm, ehh… it’s, far away and all deserty, right? I think it’s always below us on a map, I’m pretty sure.”

“Close enough. But it’s a far cry from the kind of country we live in here; Patchouli’s father was no stranger to the unordinary. None of us ever found out if he himself had ever seen true magic outside of what Patchouli had shown him, but... Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. He loved her life no other, though, even when her mother wouldn’t even look at her anymore. Used to leave fresh patchouli flowers on her nightstand so her room would smell nice when she woke up, too; I told you your little gift would do her more good than you expected.”

“I… I didn’t expect, that… Maybe I should give her something else; I mean, if patchouli is her dad’s special flower and all.”

“No, no, let them be; she needs all the reminders of the past she can get. It’s what keeps her sane, I think, remembering that she once had a life like a normal person. I’d have liked a taste of a life like that, myself…”

She trailed off, looking off into the distant hedge maze. Talking about Patchouli’s past only seemed to make China herself more uncomfortable, it seemed. Come to think of it, Patchouli was the first person in the mansion I actually knew anything important about. It was kind of frightening, just a little, to be surrounded by such good people who still could seem like total strangers the closer I got to them.

“The grass is ever greener, Mei,” Sakuya interrupted after popping in randomly, looking a good deal more proper than before. “I’d have liked a taste of your childhood, myself, and who knows, Patches might want mine. But we got what we got, mmm?”

“Good to see you too, Sakuya,” China answered back as she stood up. The two of them greeted each other properly this time, with a quick hug and a playful bout of both of them knocking each other’s headwear askew. “You have time, then?”

“I… guess? You never told me how much you’d need; let me check the schedule quick…”

“Put that thing away, Sakky,” China said as she cupped her hand around Sakuya’s right as she reached for that PDA of hers. “I’ll help you with the wash later; just focus on me right now, okay? Me, Meiling Hong, your friend?”

Sakuya rolled her eyes and sighed, slipping the electronic pad back into her apron. “So, what about that prisoner? I know she woke up; said something, then?”

“Yes, to Patchouli of all people. Seems Remilia was taking the wrong approach; Patches just gave her a few hours of the silent treatment and didn’t have a problem.”

“So what’d she say?”

“Nothing good.” Sakuya’s face fell a little, biting her lip. China continued in a more somber tone. “Remilia was right, Sakuya; all those hunters were connected. Patchouli knew right away, of course, even though we didn’t tell her. But what we got is all there were, Sakuya; this hunter is the last one of her entire group. Might be the last one in the country for all we know.”

Sakuya’s gave a little winking wince as she heard about the hunters’ downfall. “No, no… damn. And we were so sure this time. But, this one… she’s alive and well, isn’t she? Isn’t that what Remilia was going for the entire time?”

“She wanted a prisoner, yes; a prisoner who could tell her how many of them there were. She wanted people who’d believe in her again. Well, she got them… She got them and she lost them. Who knows, maybe she fated them here herself and didn’t take it seriously, maybe this is just a random remnant of Patchouli’s old death threats, maybe they were all friends caught in a dream, I don’t know. But we need to tell her.”

“Wait… now?” The silver-haired maid suddenly got very panicky, face’s color evaporating at a snail’s pace but certainly going somewhere. “B-but, last night… You saw how she was. You, you didn’t get the worst of it…”

China placed a calm hand on Sakuya’s shoulder, looking her in the eyes. Considering the gatekeeper’s height and composure, they nearly looked like mother and child to me standing like that. How sweet… how very sweet.

“Would you rather wait and have her tell us off for hiding it from her?” she asked simply.

Sakuya responded in earnest, but her voice quickly slowly down and grew more timid before fading away altogether. “Yes! YES! I mean, well, maybe… Not really… no… I, don’t, want to be the one that talks…”

“I’ll handle it. But I’m no match for her silver tongue alone; we have to tell her together, all right?”

Sakuya nodded silently, sniffling her nose like she was almost about to cry or something. Honestly, would everyone I met that day have some unknown past trauma I was completely oblivious about? Of course, you could say that about anyone, I suppose. Even me, except this story is my past trauma, more or less.

“I, umm, guess I should probably be getting along somewhere too?” I asked them.

China snapped her fingers, remembering the situation. “Oh, yes, that’s right… Patchouli won’t be wanting to see anyone right now, I expect, and I daren’t have you in the room when we break this news to Remilia. In that case, consider this a day off; you’ve earned it after all you’ve gone through.”

I bowed to them both, certainly happy of some real, legitimate free time for once. “Thank you, thank you very much Miss China; I hope your meeting goes well.”

“Me too,” Sakuya whispered. “Me too.”

“Umm, by the way, you wouldn’t happen to know where any of Flandre’s maids are, would you?” I asked.

“Ahh, yes, that would be nice, wouldn’t it? Well, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday have their rooms on the fourth floor right next to Sakuya’s room. Wednesday’s I’m sure you’ve been to, and Monday is, quite incidentally, the room just to the right of yours. You can check the job board for them if they’re not in their rooms, I expect, though of course Thursday goes wherever she wants, and my dear Sunday will inevitably end up somewhere outside regardless of what she’s told. Beyond that, I believe it’s up to you. Take care, little one.”

I waved the two women goodbye, certainly hoping that Remilia wouldn’t rend them limb from limb or something. I really didn’t claim to know the gravity of the whole vampire hunter situation, myself.

[ ] Fancying some more time with my peers, I headed off to find… (insert one of Flandre’s Seven here)
[ ] I wondered, though… Would it be possible to hear just a little bit of Remilia’s conversation from outside the door?
[ ] But I thought that maybe, just maybe, China was wrong, and Patchouli DID need someone to talk to right then.
[ ] Personally, I fancied some alone time for a while, and figured I’d head to… (insert some place in the mansion)
[ ] Sandbox options usually mean write-ins are a carte blanche.

>Sakuya nodded silently, sniffling her nose like she was almost about to cry or something.
(´・ω・`)

[X] Fancying some more time with my peers, I headed off to find…
- [X] Monday.

Monday was a "scaredy-cat", according to Flandre, and after what's happened today, we could use the morale boost that comes from not being the most timid person in the room.

Besides, we're neighbors! We can have sleepovers and braid each others' hair and stay up all night and it'll be so much fun!

[x] But I thought that maybe, just maybe, China was wrong, and Patchouli DID need someone to talk to right then.
[x]Bring some patchouli & lavender.

[X] Fancying some more time with my peers, I headed off to find…
- [X] Monday.

[X] Fancying some more time with my peers, I headed off to find…
- [X] Monday.

Did we meet monday yet?

[x] I decided to go to the garden and practice the Thai Chi China had taught me in the garden.

After what we've been through, maybe we can understand Meiling's lessons a little better now.

[X] Fancying some more time with my peers, I headed off to find…
- [X] Monday.

[x] I decided to go to the garden and practice the Thai Chi China had taught me in the garden.
Interesting.

[x] I decided to go to the garden and practice the Thai Chi China had taught me in the garden.

What can change the nature of a fairy?

[x] I decided to go to the garden and practice the Thai Chi China had taught me in the garden.

>>34164
[X] I decided to go to the garden and practice the Thai Chi China had taught me in the garden.

This is just quirky enough to try out. Might even run into Sunday in the process.

[x] Fancying some more time with my peers, I headed off to find…
- [x] Monday.

>Thai Chi
>Thai
Ong Bak, Fairy Warrior.

[B] Fancying some more time with my peers, I headed off to find…
- [B] Monday.

>>34183
Friday is... The Protector.

No movie has ever made me physically ache after watching it. After the 80th joint hold that ended in a dislocated something, I was writhing.

>>34188
>The Protector
For some good laughs, google "Terry Yum Goong HQ" and watch the Youtube video. I'd copy the Youtube link, but my phone doesn't copy and paste.

>>34189
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk0kufx74Io

There's the link to the video in question. It's probably not quite as funny if you don't who Terry Bogard is, but even so, you should at least get a chuckle at the Hadoken bit.

>>34192
I disagree. I have no idea who Terry Bogard is, but I found it funny nevertheless. It really has that 2D beat-em-up feel.

Maybe I'm the only one interested in the politics in the background of the mansion, and what has both Meiling and Sakuya so spooked.

[x] Fancying some more time with my peers, I headed off to find…
-[x] Thursday
[x] I wondered, though… Would it be possible to for Thursday to hear a little bit of Remilia’s conversation?

Thursday can change shapes, so she's the obvious option for spying, rather than going alone.

6 for visiting Monday
5 for Tai Chi
1 for visiting Patchouli
1 for eavesdropping via Thursday

I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I think maybe the site went down or something? In either case, I’d started writing the Tai Chi option back when I thought it was winning, but now seems I’ll have to go with Monday instead. Probably won’t be able to get the update out until tomorrow, though; got some old friends coming in from out of town tonight.

Also, just a minor note; be prepared for a decent-sized timeskip coming up in a few updates.

>>34165
So much d’awww~

>>34178
What’s this from? It looks enchanting.

>>34192
There is nothing fatal about Terry Yum’s fury here. I need to watch more of those old movies, and then have China watch them with Friday in the not-so-distant future, showing her in detail why you should never, ever fight like that in real life.

I'm kinda disappointed Anon doesn't want to eavesdrop on Remilia's little talk about the prisoner. There has been little interaction with her, considering the system in the mansion, and this would be a great opportunity to have some more Remi. And maybe discover why Remilia really wants vampire hunters on her tail.

>>34220
I'm interested, but eavesdropping just doesn't seem like it's in Friday's character, and isn't an especially nice thing to do either way. Besides, we'll have plenty of time to piece together the dynamic between Remi and the rest of the mansion when we start helping Sakuya, which I have a sneaking suspicion will be soon after the impending timeskip.

>There is nothing fatal about Terry Yum’s fury here.
Oh you.

But come on, slinging that one dude down the steps was awesome.

Fancying some more time with my peers (now that I had the chance), I headed off to try and find Monday. If I’d recalled, Flandre had called her the “scardey-cat” of the bunch, but then again, that was Flandre’s perspective; I’m sure any fairy that’s not “awesome” would be scared around her, and despite how I’d warmed up to her in just two weeks, the deep lingering sense of caution I had of her remained, and I’m sure I hadn’t seen the worst of it yet. In either case, I thought maybe it’d do both of us some good to get to know each other. Judging by the state of the other five girls, we were probably the most timid of the bunch, and if we couldn’t shake it, at the very least we could take solace in each other’s timidity… is that a word, by the way? I can never be certain when it comes to things like that; I mean, they sound right. But that’s not important right now.

The inside of the mansion had finally started to bustle with activity now that the morning was drawing closer to the afternoon. Fairies everywhere were milling about, mopping and dusting and polishing just like any other day. With so much help you’d think there’d be no need to clean all this much, but as I’ve said before we get distracted easily. I’m sure a diligent human could have done my silver polishing job on that fateful Thursday in two hours when it’d taken me more like nine or ten. I doubt any of us could match a human’s productivity even if we tried—just not our nature—but I doubt any of us resented trying to help where we could.

I chatted with a cousin here and there, helping them take their minds off of the tedium I was so fortunate not to endure that day, but eventually talked my way down to the basement. As I expected, the room to the right of mine was empty, as was my own, but it didn’t hurt to check. Though, since I was there anyways…

The silvery blade slipped out of the bottom of my dresser drawer and into my nervous hands. Untouched and neglected for two weeks, it still didn’t set well with me. I’m not sure if the tingling feeling in my arms was just from nerves, or if there actually was something slightly anti-magical about that knife. I’ve never burned myself holding it or anything like that, you needn’t worry, but… It does make one wonder, being a vampire hunter’s knife and all that.

For being a weapon, I still found it rather beautiful. It was a simple design—just a small dagger with a bright metal handguard shaped to look like a cross, and a few smooth bevels to make gripping it easier—but I think I took solace in the simplicity. The idea of heroes and villains in the stories naming their weapons and glorifying them to the point where the blades seemed to have a life of their own… it never set well with me. It was a weapon, a cold lifeless tool for protecting and hurting and killing. What kind of person would want to turn that sort of thing into beauty and art?

I easily resisted the childish temptation to swish it around and simply dropped it into one of my apron pockets. Just in case, I suppose. Just in case.

As per China’s advice, I decided to check the job board in the maid’s lounge. It was a large room, and very comfortable, though the majority preferred to lounge outside instead. The room had seen its fair share of giant couch forts and pillow fights, though, and I’d never had a dull time participating. Plastered against the length of the long wall was a giant green chalkboard arranged into boxes, each box with one of our room numbers on it. Sticking my finger out I traced the chart around, looking for my own number first so I could find Monday’s.

What’s my number again? Sixty-four? All right, sixty-five, sixty-five… Here we go. “Dust and polish the wood surfaces in the big lounge by the ball room.” Really? That sounds like a lot of wood; I hope her roommates are helping her out. Maybe I could help too…

So it was off to the big east lounge for me, feeling rather odd that, in a matter of speaking, I was doing the exact same thing on my day off that I’d be doing any other day. Especially if I actually started helping her clean. But I suppose the important thing is that it would be my choice, no?

The room’s door was open, but for some reason I decided to knock on it anyways. “Hello? Is anyone there?” I asked. Something in the room squeaked in affirmation, but I couldn’t quite see where it came from at first. It was a rather big room, and there was plenty of furniture to hide behind. It wasn’t until the something blurted out “Y-yes? Hello?” in a high-pitched voice that I finally saw her.

So, this was Monday? My goodness she was so… tiny! I probably couldn’t have been much more than four feet myself, but she couldn’t have been more than even three! She wasn’t short, mind you—all her physical proportions were perfectly normal—she was just as small as could be. She even had to hold the spray bottle she was using in both hands just to keep it from falling. On top of her positively comical size her ear-length hair was a perfectly natural bubblegum pink, the same color as her eyes, and when added on top of her childish oval wings (also a translucent pink), she was perhaps the most perfect example of a storybook fairy I’d ever laid eyes on, and I’d laid eyes on plenty in my lifetime.

“Oh, hello,” I replied cheerfully, waving my hand at the little fairy. “I was just trying to find out… wait, is there anyone else in this room?”

The pink-haired sprite looked up and around the corners and ceiling of the room, as if she’d forgotten whether or not anyone was helping her. “Umm, n-no? I, don’t… think, so. Should there be?”

I scratched my head. “Well, I’m not sure either. Don’t you have any roommates to help you? That’s normally how it goes, I thought?”

“O-oh, no, no I… I don’t have any of those. I think, they, uhh, got lost maybe? Just, one day, I woke up and nobody was there. They probably just found a nicer room, I think…” She had a sad, lost little look in her eyes that just seemed to say she had no idea what was going on. I’m sure if I looked in the mirror back then mine would have had the same look, though I wanted to say it wouldn’t have been quite so pronounced as hers.

“Oh, I’m, well, I’m sorry to hear that. Say, do you need any help? I mean, this is a pretty big room for just one person.”

“Oh, would you?!” Her eyes suddenly sparkled with hope as she clutched the giant spray bottle to her chest. “I just know I’m never going to get this big room all done… I’m, I’m so small, I can’t ever do anything by myself.”

“Heh, well, I’m not much bigger either. Here, let me get that bottle, you look like you’re having trouble with it; maybe you could follow me with a cloth or something?”

“Y-Yeah, that’d be great!” Scurrying around like a mouse she looked for her polishing cloth, and after showing me how far she’d gotten (which wasn’t that far), I started misting down the dusty tables with my little cousin right behind me, my presence giving her new energy as she polished with gusto. Such a cute girl… Why couldn’t my hair have been that pretty?

“Oh, by the way… “ I added, remembering I hadn’t really introduced myself. “I guess I’m Friday. I live in the room right next to yours, I think. Are you Monday?”

The girl’s eyes went wide. “You, you’re… You’re one of hers?! Mistress Flandre’s?! B-but, eep! But you look too... too normal! All the other cousins are so… so different!”

I shrugged and tiled my head. “Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m new; I just started two weeks ago. Or, well, three weeks ago. Not too long ago, at least.”

Monday held her cloth up to her mouth, apparently scared of something. “Do…do I look different? I’ve had to do it for like three months now! I-I don’t wanna turn into someone different!”

Scardey-cat indeed. Fortunately I wasn’t so tactless as the little sister was, and rubbed her on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry; you look wonderful. I wish I looked that nice… look at this ratty hair, I can never get it out of my face!”

“M-maybe you could put it in one-a those, umm, those taileyponys, like Mistress Flandre likes?” Monday suggested timidly.

“I tried! I tried just this morning, and it escaped!”

“Ohh…” Her face turned into a little unsure pout, probably thinking of some way to comfort me. I told her it was no big deal; I’d gotten used to it. Our conversation had stopped our cleaning, so we got back to it, but of course it wasn’t long before we got distracted again.



[ ] Find some things to talk about; my cute conversation starters pale in comparison to yours. Also I can’t think of any right now~

[x] Find some things to talk about; my cute conversation starters pale in comparison to yours. Also I can’t think of any right now~
-[x] "how did you end up one of the seven?" and tell her how you ended up as one of them.
-[x] "Where did you come from? I've noticed some of the others come from different areas"

[x] Find some things to talk about; my cute conversation starters pale in comparison to yours. Also I can’t think of any right now~
-[x] "how did you end up one of the seven?" and tell her how you ended up as one of them.
-[x] "Where did you come from? I've noticed some of the others come from different areas"

M-M-Moe~

Meh, I wanted my Martial Artist fairy. Will we get another chance Tepes?

[x] Find some things to talk about; my cute conversation starters pale in comparison to yours. Also I can’t think of any right now~
-[x] "how did you end up one of the seven?" and tell her how you ended up as one of them.
-[x] "Where did you come from? I've noticed some of the others come from different areas"

>"I think, they, uhh, got lost maybe? Just, one day, I woke up and nobody was there. They probably just found a nicer room, I think…"
Somebody needs to hug this girl ASAP.

[X] Compliment her on her appearance and ask her where she's from.
[X] Ask how she ended up as one of the seven, and tell her about how you did.
[X] Ask her about the rest of the seven, especially Sunday.

[X] Compliment her on her appearance and ask her where she's from.
[X] Ask how she ended up as one of the seven, and tell her about how you did.
[X] Ask her about the rest of the seven, especially Sunday.

Seconded, she really needs a hug.

[x] Compliment her on her appearance and ask her where she's from.
[x] Ask how she ended up as one of the seven, and tell her about how you did.
[x] Ask her about the rest of the seven, especially Sunday.

Poor neglected fairy is neglected.

{X} Compliment her on her appearance and ask her where she's from.
{X} Ask how she ended up as one of the seven, and tell her about how you did.
{X} Ask her about the rest of the seven, especially Sunday.

[x] Compliment her on her appearance and ask her where she's from.
[x] Ask how she ended up as one of the seven, and tell her about how you did.
[x] Ask her about the rest of the seven, especially Sunday.

[x] Compliment her on her appearance and ask her where she's from.
[x] Ask how she ended up as one of the seven, and tell her about how you did.
[x] Ask her about the rest of the seven, especially Sunday.

She's even more new-guy than the new-guy. I'm kind of jealous.

Many apologies for the delay; seems like it's stopped being the beginning of the semester and my professors have stopped being gracious. Updates may be slower for a week or two, but I'll write when I can.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“You really do have nice hair, though,” I continued, lifting up a rack of coasters so I could dust underneath. “Just as pretty as a petunia.”

“Uhh, what’s a… a petuney?”

I tilted my hear at her. “You don’t know what a petunia is?”

“I’m, not, good with words… I just started learning them last year.”

I looked at the little sprite comfortingly and patted her on the head softly; she was even more timid than I’d ever been at my worst. And the more we worked together, dusting out all those tables and shelves, the more I started to feel what kind of fairy she was, simply by virtue of being in her position once upon a time. The way she fumbled with her cloth and the way her clothes were buttoned all wrong… she had to be new to the mansion, probably no more than a year at the longest. But it wasn’t just that; there was something more. The jittery, flickering way she moved, and the lack of basic coordination… If I could only remember where I’d those kinds of things before…

“Hey, Monday… Do you know where you came from?”

“Huh?” She looked at me quizzically. “…Came from?”

“Well, I mean, like us fairies, we all have to start out somewhere. We were nothing, and then… then we’re something. Can you remember anything like that? What’s the farthest back you can remember?”

Monday racked her brain, squeezing her eyes shut and wrinkling up her little face as she no doubt searched for an answer inside the muddle of memories that was a fairy’s past. To tell you the truth, it started to make me wonder about how far back I could remember. My time before the mansion seemed to have no definition, no structure, no beginning or end, nothing but an endless reel of nature you could find on some retrospective television program, I’m sure. Centuries could have seemed like days, or days like centuries; I just couldn’t tell. Must have been a sign that I was at least old enough to forget where I’d come from.

“…O-Orchids,” Monday finally replied, opening her eyes a sliver. “Pink, lots of pink and orchids. I ‘member that word, because Mistress Remilia told me that’s where she found me. I… no, no there wasn’t anything before that.”

Orchids… That would explain her pinkishness. “Do you know how long ago that was?”

Another brain-racking ensued. “I, uhh… I don’t think very long. I don’ ‘member numbers and stuff. But, like… I was there, and the orchids were there, and then Mistress Remilia was there.”

I nodded to her. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything clearer than that—if I were in her position I’d have done no better—but it was enough. The way she described her memory, the way she talked, the way she walked… Monday was a newborn fairy, I was sure of it. In all likelihood she’d never left that field of orchids from the first day of her life; just drifted amongst the flowers until Remilia had picked her up like a lost little puppy.

To me, the revelation was extremely curious. A newborn fairy in this day and age? The very reason why we were all cloistered up in the mansion was because the world had pushed us away. But then… How could a world of apathy and disbelief still have enough magic left in it to create more fairies? Of course Monday wouldn’t know anything about things like that—perhaps none of the residents did—but it gave me hope, that just maybe there was someplace left that still cared, that still believed.

For the moment, though, I tried to put it out of my mind. Thinking about my tenuous existence in this world was hardly a cheerful subject even at the best of times. Finishing the last of the coffee tables, we decided to take a break before tackling the shelves, and sat down on the plush couch far too big for either of us.

“So, umm, how did…” Monday started, twisting her hair and looking confused. “How did you meet, uhm… meet Mistress Flandre?”

I chewed on my lip a little, thinking how best to word it. The knowledge of how young she was played havoc on my choice of words, now; strange how quickly I had switched from the person with the least lingual knowledge in the room to the person with the most, no? “Oh, well, it’s kind of… embarrassing, really. There was this human lady, see? And she was trying to bother Miss Remilia late at night when she didn’t want to be bothered, so I… I sort of stopped her. The Mistress was really happy about that, so she asked me if I was brave enough to look after Miss Flandre once a week. That’s, uhh, that’s about it, I guess.” Yes, I know I’d sugar coated the story more than might have been fair, but dealing with children is a daunting affair, yes?

“Oh… Well, that’s a lot more ‘citing than me. One day Miss Sakuya just told me I was s’posed to go down to this, this dark room every week and, play with this girl there. Nobody…” she sniffled back a timid pout, “nobody told me she’d be so strange… or mean.”

“Mean?” That didn’t sound very right, though I supposed with Flandre anything was possible. “Why’s Miss Flandre mean to you? Sure, she’s real odd, and I can never understand a word she’s saying, but—“

“You can’t understand her either?!” she interrupted, suddenly showing a lot more interest and resolve. “I, I thought I was the only one! All the other different fairies sound like they always know how to talk.”

I scratched my head. “Well, I think they’re a lot older than us or something. Maybe we just need to get used to her, Monday.”

“Oh, you… You can call me Monica if you want. I think that’s what all the other fairies keep calling me, at least. I think it sounds nicer. Do… do you have a different name?”

“I, uhh… I don’t think so,” I answered, hanging my head a little. All the other Seven seemed to have names except me… I really did need to learn how to pronounce Thérèse’s name correctly; it sounded so lovely when she said it. “I’m not really sure how those names work, but nobody told me anything about them. Guess it’s another one-a those things I’ll have to wait for, maybe?”

Monica shrugged. “Maybe.”

I returned our conversation back to its old track. “But still, how is Flandre being mean to you?”

She looked off to the side, sighing. “It’s just, like… she always makes jokes about me being so small, or young, or pink. And then sometimes she treats me weird, like I’m a… a pet, maybe? Is that a good word? Oh, m-maybe I was thinking about a toy, instead. I’m sorry, I’m not good with words. But Mistress Flandre, she’s just… I don’t know.”

I nodded. “That sounds about right, actually: she’s an I-don’t-know. I’ve heard that there’s something wrong with her brain; she doesn’t think like we do. I really don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but… Don’t worry about her. Cousin Tuesday told me that she’s just trying to be funny and just wants attention. I’m pretty sure in her heart she means well.”

“B-but… But her talking makes my ears hurt!”

“Did you ever tell her to stop?”

My little cousin stayed silent for a good five or ten seconds, comprehending the suggestion. Apparently she had not tried to tell her to stop. Then again, in retrospect the last time it was suggested that she “shut up”, bad things happened. But that was just my bad luck., no doubt.

“…N-no, no I, I never said that. But, won’t she… won’t she get mad at me for that? I mean, she’s… she’s bigger than me… and louder…”

Scooching over to her side of the couch, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and hugged her close to me. Nervously she wrapped her tiny arms around my waist, leaning into me like a pillow that actually could care for its restless sleeper. “Shh, Shh, don’t you worry, cousin; don’t you worry about being afraid. Remilia, Flandre, Sakuya, China… they all love each and every one of us. We’re like their children, and they’re here to keep us all safe. You’ve got so many people around you that can help you, Monica. It’s okay. You’re safe here.”

I rocked her back and forth as she snuggled into my lap, stroking that beautiful hair of hers. This feeling, this very real feeling of care and compassion towards someone else… I’d have never done that in the past before. I’d changed; I’d finally started to see people as unique and different, rather than just generic other people. And Monday… I could see myself in this little sprite, this tiny girl in a huge new world. She had it so much worse than I did, and there I was always feeling sorry and confused for myself. Not just here, either. Dr. Patchouli, Miss Sakuya, Lady Flandre… Every day of my new life in that mansion, every chance meeting with someone else began to show me a new lens of reality I’d never been able to focus on before. I’d begun to discover that everyone had problems, no matter how they acted on the outside. But as pessimistic as that sounded, to me it made reality more… well, real. And that I appreciated more than any amount of sugar-coating could ever give me.

Time passed, and the dusting was quickly forgotten as us two little ladies nestled into the luxurious couch. The dull humming of distant fairies sweeping and chattering took on a near dreamlike quality, the sofa creating its own miniscule bubble of a universe for just the two of us. Even when my half-hearing ears registered a faint tapping at the door, it me ages to finally link it to something within the waking world. I pulled my face out of Monica’s hair and looked at the source.

China leaned against the doorpost, a faint smile directed at the precious scene. I waved to her dreamily as she waved back. Seems she’d changed her clothes after her encounter with Remilia, wearing puffy white pants and a pastel green tunic instead. I certainly hoped that didn’t mean it’d gone badly, and her nice emerald uniform had gotten wrecked. Her hair seemed noticeably shorter and more ragged, too; now that couldn’t be a good sign. I was about to ask her frantically what had happened, but the inconsistencies just kept piling up until I was utterly confused. I knew she wasn’t that short before… her red hair was too much cherry and not enough wine… she had turquoise eyes, didn’t she… the face looked a little off, too soft… Waitaminute…?

Wings? Wings.

I wasn’t stupid enough to forget that China did not have a pair of fairy wings on her back. But whoever the newcomer was, she certainly looked amazingly similar to the groundskeeper, almost uncomfortably so. Thursday playing another joke, perhaps? No, no, she’d have probably been both more and less subtle at the same time.

“I, I hope I’m not interrupting…?” the look-a-like whispered softly.

[ ] Silently I motioned over to the resting Monica and gave a courteous shake of my head to the newcomer. Moments like these are so rare… It’s best to savor them.
[ ] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.
[ ] This newcomer looked like she actually had something important to say. Gently I nudged Monica back from her dreamlike state. “Monica~, Monica~… someone’s here to see us.”

[X] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.
[X] Wait, didn't Flandre say Sunday was a "China-clone"?

>>34312
[X] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.

Oh god, the entire update made me HNNNNNNGGGG. And we get to meet Sunday too? This is fantastic.

>Updates may be slower for a week or two, but I'll write when I can.

I'm in despair.

[x] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.

[X] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.
[X] Wait, didn't Flandre say Sunday was a "China-clone"?

[X] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.
[X] Wait, didn't Flandre say Sunday was a "China-clone"?

{Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.}

[x] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.

[x] Wait, didn't Flandre say Sunday was a "China-clone"?

>>34335
Glorious

>>34335

Not so good

[X] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.
[X] Wait, didn't Flandre say Sunday was a "China-clone"?

>>34335
I'd hit it.

>>34335

Square head? I always pictured her with a rounder face, a bit more childish.

>>34335

Square head? I always pictured her with a rounder face, a bit more childish.

[X] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.
[X] Wait, didn't Flandre say Sunday was a "Meiling-clone"?

Meiling + Mini-Meiling = HNGGGGGGG

>Meiling + Mini-Meiling
You... you...

>>34344
DOUBLE CHINA

[X] Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not.
[X] Wait, didn't Flandre say Sunday was a "China-clone"?

Unanimous vote for couch-sitting games. Lucky for you all, I found some time to write after all. I doubt the luck’ll hold, but I’ll take what I can get!

Also, seems I wasn’t in time to catch that Friday picture before it poofed away. It was a nice effort, and much appreciated, though if I were the nitpicking type I could mention things like the lack of “strawgrass blonde”, no freckles, and her face looking too old. But considering how the story art seems to have dried up around here, I’d say any drawings at all are a step in the right direction.

Not exactly sure myself, I simply patted the empty space next to us on the sofa. No harm in having more friends, certainly not. The visitor smiled and silently sat down next to us, being very careful not to disturb Monica and saying not another word. Closer up, I noticed that this fairy didn’t seem to have that sort of mystic, land-far-far-away look to her face that the rest of us tended to have; it felt much more normal and even human-like. Older, too; outwardly she looked not dissimilar to China in age, though of course that meant very little considering China was about five hundred and looked about thirty, or forty on a bad day.

Wait… hadn’t Flandre said something about Miss Sunday being a “China-clone”? I’d never gotten the chance to ask just what exactly that had meant, but it seemed I’d gotten my answer in the end. So, she was the last of the Seven, was she? At least she didn’t seem like the epitome of melancholy like dear Wendy was.

“…Friday?” she whispered softly to me, more to confirm my identity than to ask me a question.

I nodded, responding in an equal whisper. “Mhm… Sunday?”

She gave me a quick thumbs-up, then returned to leaning on the couch, letting the peaceful scene continue. I was unsure if Monica knew Sunday was there or not, but I could tell she was still awake; merely resting, enjoying the company of someone who knew what being a fish out of water felt like. Then again, perhaps for someone as young as her, it was more like she’d never finished learning how to be a fish in the first place, no?

“I like your hair,” Sunday commented out of the blue, pointing to my wavy locks.

“Wh-oh? Ahh, no, it’s not that special…”

Monica wormed around in my lap, rubbing a dreamy haze from her eyes. “Mmmnnn… I-Is tha’ Sunny?”

Sunday inched closer and ruffled the little girl’s pink hair. “Good morning sleepyhead. Glad to see you made a new friend.”

“I-I, unn, I wasn’t sleeping, just… just resting my eyes…”

She crawled back onto the couch itself, the three of us now sitting like peas in a pod. Or, well, half of a pod; that couch was far bigger than it needed to be for pint-sized people like ourselves. Remilia liked her extravagance, I won’t fault her for that. Though it’s always been rather sad that she never has any visitors to enjoy it, and to us it’s pretty much swine before pearls.

Or wait… is that the other way round? I forget.

“Anyways,” Sunday said now that we were both attentive and listening, “reason I’m here is because Flan suddenly got the idea that lunch with all her seven would be cute, so she’s having us round each other all up. Tryin’ to keep it a secret from everyone, I think, but that really depends on just how nosy Sakuya wants to be today.”

“Oh, I… I don’t think Sakuya’s in the mood for something like that today,” I responded bashfully. “It’s a long story, but… yeah.”

Monica perked up. “Lunch? Lunch with, everyfairy? Th-that sounds nice… Do, do I have to cook? ‘Cause I’m no good at that…”

“Nah, nah, it’ll probably be mostly Flan and Tullia doing that. Of course, it is Flan, so don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”

“I… don’t, have any chickens, though…” The little one’s face turned down a bit.

“Wait a minute, Tullia? Who’s Tullia?”

Sunday bopped herself on the head comically. “Ahh, sorry sorry. Tuesday. We call ‘er Tullia, though, or at least some of us do… bah, Wendy, why must you be such a wet blanket…?”

Tullia… Such a lovely name. Monica, Tullia, Wendy, Thérèse (still needed to practice that), Sapphire… who was missing?

“Hey, umm, Sunday? What’s you other name? I mean, besides Sunday?”

“Mmm? Oh, yeah… that…” She seemed rather hesitant to tell me; embarrassed, perhaps? “I’d really rather you just call me Sunny; I like it a lot better.”

“Huh? Why? What’s your full name?”

“Ehh, it’s nothing, it’s nothing… Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

Well of course now I was curious, and there’s nothing to be done about that but keep going. “Come on, you can tell me; it’s not like I’m gonna get mad at you or anything, right?”

She turned away, pulling at her cherry-red hair nervously. Why so shy? It was just a name, and I really didn’t even have one yet. I suppose Friday worked well enough, but after all, like Thérèse had said, it’s more of a rank or something than an actual name. I did wonder when I’d get mine, though…

“…un…da…”

I cocked my head sideways. “What? I didn’t catch that, sorry.”

Sunday game a lamentable sigh and buried the top half of her face in her hands. “…Sunhilda.”

“Ehh? Sunhilda? That’s, umm…”

“… funny,” Monica finished for me, her vacant wide-eyed stare pretty much describing what I was thinking at the moment. “Sunhild’, Sunhild’, Sunny-Sunny Hilda-Hilda~”

“Hey, it was Flandre’s idea!” she retorted defensively. “I told her I didn’t like it, but that just made her call me it more! And everyone else gets nice names like Thérèse or Monica or, umm…” She stared at me, probably just realizing what I already knew. “Hey, what’s your name, anyways?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know; I don’t have a clue how any of that works. Are you supposed to earn it or something?”

“Ahh, never mind,” she said, scratching her head like she wished she hadn’t brought it up in the first place. “Just… don’t spread it around, ‘kay? I think Remilia and Sakuya still don’t know it, and I wanna keep it that way.”

“Fair enough.”

“Sunhilda” (but I guess I’m supposed to call her Sunny after all) stood back up and helped pull us out of the plush void that was the sofa. Walking out of the room I finally noticed the complete disparity in height between us three; I stood about two heads over Monica, and then Sunny had at least another one on me. All we needed was China to get another two heads over her and we’d be a perfect set!

“So, umm, how many of the Seven have you got so far?” I wondered out loud.

“Ahh, well, there’s us three, Wendy’s keeping track of Flan right now, and I already told Tullia before you girls, so it’s just Thérèse and Saphhire, now. I heard Saphy’s being… punished right now, or something, though?”

I exhaled sadly. “Or something… yeah. I don’t think Miss Remilia would let her go after… what happened.”

“Long story?” she surmised succinctly.

“Yeah, kinda. If you want I guess I could tell it at lunch; that way I don’t have to keep saying it over and over.”

“Meh, your call. Well then, I’d better start looking for Thérèse; every time I think I’ve found all her hiding places she finds new ones. I swear she does it to spite us! You two wanna tag along?”

[ ] I shook my head. I’d had enough hiding and seeking for a while; a nice rest and a meal with friends sounded plenty good to me.
[ ] I shrugged again. “Mmm, sure, why not. We can’t start without her, I suppose.”

[X] I shrugged again. “Mmm, sure, why not. We can’t start without her, I suppose.”

[x] I shook my head. I’d had enough hiding and seeking for a while; a nice rest and a meal with friends sounded plenty good to me.
Tired fairy is tired.

[x] I shrugged again. “Mmm, sure, why not. We can’t start without her, I suppose.”

Thursday is love, and the more eyes we have for the job, the better with her.

[X] I shrugged again. “Mmm, sure, why not. We can’t start without her, I suppose.”

[x] I shook my head. I’d had enough hiding and seeking for a while; a nice rest and a meal with friends sounded plenty good to me.

Laaaazy.

>>34350
>everyfairy?
dhfjrsdaafwrfgw
No.

I had enough of that crap to last a lifetime when I read the Redwall books, and it made me twitch violently.

Please tell me you're just missing a space, and that wasn't some kind of politically correct terminology thing.

>>34359
Given that we haven't heard anyone else, including narrator Friday, use a construction like that, I'd chalk it up to Monica's unfamiliarity with words.

[X] I shrugged again. “Mmm, sure, why not. We can’t start without her, I suppose.”

>>34359
If just that gives you problems, then you better avoid The Game.

... I mean the story over in /th/, not... Goddammit it!

[B] I shrugged again. “Mmm, sure, why not. We can’t start without her, I suppose.”

What is "strawgrass blonde" supposed to be, exactly?

>>34397
Like dishwater blonde, but with a different metaphor.

>>34398
That doesn't give me any clue as to what it really looks like.

>>34399
See >>32880:
>“Blonde” in a word, but not even much of that. You’ve heard of dishwater blond, yes? Similar to that, except I’ve sort-of put my own name to it: strawgrass blonde. It’s exactly like it sounds, I suppose; where you’d have mixes of blonde and brown, I have mixes of blonde and green, not unlike looking at a straw-grass field.

>>34400
I have seen that. The Friday drawing had mixes of blonde and green, yet the author said that wasn't it.
Either Tepes needs a better monitor, or I need a better explanation.

>>34401
In retrospect, I never really got a good look at the picture before it went down, so I could just be mistaken. My idea was somewhere in-between alternating blonde/green strands and a gradient; link related (file too big).

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs45/f/2009/161/a/c/Grass_Field_03_by_WingsOfAHero.jpg

Also, >>34360 is right; Monica's just a newbie with the words. I myself hate making up fake words, but when in the context of characters with imperfect grammar I think it's permissible.

Still don't have any time to write yet; maybe WendyWednesday if I'm lucky, but probably more like ThérèseThursday.

>>34404
SapphireSaturday would like to have a word with you about this supposed schedule of yours.

>>34505
Okay, yeah, I dropped the ball on this one. Currently in the middle of a giant design project for college that's eating up all my free time; thought I'd manage to find a few hours here and there to write, but looks like that's not happening for a while. I'm gonna have to put AFT on hold again until the project cools down. It's two weeks until Spring Break, so you'll definitely see some updates there at the very latest.

If only I could be like some of those fortunate people who have money but don't have to go to work or school... sigh.

So, Tepes, I heard Wendy is mexican. How does that make you feel? Is that so?

>>34532
FFFFFFFFFF

Well, I'll be looking forward to that, then.

(Also, feel free to NOT sage important things like this.)

Been quite some time.

You still there?

Still here, just overworked. Probably no update until next week from the way things are shaping out on my end. The delay can't be helped, and nobody wants a writefag who's stressed while writing slice-of-life, I don't expect.

I am the worst updater ever; I can barely even get updates out over SPRING BREAK of all things. Anyways, my schedule's still tight, so no promises other than that I'm doing my best and that my university won't ever care about THP.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I shrugged again. “Mmm, sure, why not. We can’t start without her, I suppose.”

“Y-Yeah,” Monica added herself. “And I… I don’t like it when Tuireesesa sneaks up on me! Why’s she always haffa do that?”

“She’s like Flandre, Monica; she thinks she’s just being funny.” I smiled at her, once again glad that I wasn’t the only person who didn’t know how to pronounce Thursday’s real name. I wondered if maybe that was just another one of her jokes, choosing such a tricky name like that? Or more likely she and Flandre had conspired together about it; Thérèse sounded like some obscure name a lady like Flandre would be able to pull out of her tangled brain at a moment’s notice.

Sunny led us outside first, curtly explaining that she simply didn’t feel like having to look through all the rooms inside playing Hide-N’-Seek, or at least not at first. Monica, the precious little girl, had given up on trying to pitter-patter her little legs to keep up with us and had taken to hovering in the air, still holding onto my hand like a balloon string. Together we agreed to split up quickly, Sunny checking the orchard and hedge maze while we took care of the more open places. Of course, Monica didn’t want to look all by herself, and I really hadn’t wanted her to anyways, so together we buzzed about the open lawns, seeing what we could see.

“Hey, Monica, s-slow down a little!” I exclaimed before too long, amazed at how swiftly such a small spite like her could move in the air, and having a devil of a time trying to keep up. “We won’t be able to find anything hidden like Thursday if you go that fast!”

“Oh, but… But flying is so fun! And up here everything looks as little as me!”

I couldn’t fault her for that one even if I’d tried. And she was right; when you’re such a little creature, it really helps to see that the big things around you don’t really look very big if you just see them from a different perspective. Ahh, to be young and free again… But eventually she cut back her speed, and we kept poking about the grounds. No Thérèse hiding in the garden (It’d be so nice to just roll under a bed of flowers and take a nap all day…), no Thérèse bouncing around the sports fields (Where would Mistress Remilia ever find enough full-sized people to play a game of soccer, anyways?), and no Thérèse floating around in the pond (a few not-Thérèse fairies were, though, and it was so awkward asking them if them were her in disguise).

“Ahh, there’s just not a lot of places for her to hide, Monica,” I commented as we sat down for a break on top of the pond-side gazebo. “I bet she’s hiding inside or something.”

“Inside is boring,” Monica stated matter-of-factly. “Tareeseey isn’t boring; I wouldn’t want to be inside if I was like her.”

She had a point, there. “It’s not that boring, though. The mansion is full of all kinds of things to do, like, umm, like…”

“Birdies.”

“What? No, there’s no birds in the mansion; pictures maybe. Do you like birdies?”

“N-No, I mean, look, birdies. Right there, see see?”

My eyes followed Monica’s waggling pointed finger, out over the lawn to… Well, what do you know, there were birdies. A small cloud of them, circling around the top of the clocktower. I must say it took me a little by surprise; not many wild animals ventured onto the grounds, and even fewer actually lived there. A rather pessimistic side of me had ventured a guess once, that normal, regular animals didn’t like the heavily-magical world that our great red wall enclosed. Even birds tended not to fly overhead; I’ve recalled times where a flock of them would purposely shift over to avoid the grounds, even if they seemed a mile high.

“Hmm, I guess you’re right, Monica. Birdies. But what’re they doing around the clocktower? Isn’t that supposed to be for bats?”

She shrugged. “Can we go see them? Maybe if we’re reeeeal quiet they won’t all fly away.”

I really didn’t have any other ideas, and personally I was just waiting for Sunny to fly up and tell us she’d found Thursday in some dead end of the maze somewhere, so I picked myself up and fluttered slowly with my friend up to the peak of the clocktower. The birds hardly seemed to mind at all; they were busy maintaining their little circle-circuit around the steeple. So many colors… I could swear those birds were every color of the rainbow and then some; hardly the common finches and swallows I usually remembered seeing. Beautiful, just beautiful, seeing them swirling about in a tornado of colors. I couldn’t help but lay down on the sloped roof and just watch them twirl above me.

“They’re so… pretty,” Monica said, flitting around in the air with her little winged friends. “Like a rainbow. Are they yours?”

“Who, me? They’re definitely not mine,” I responded.

“Hey, you know, she wasn’t talking to you,” a familiar voice answered back. Thérèse? She tended to do that a lot. “But yes, Mon’, they’re mine. I’m really quite proud of them; you don’t know how hard it’s been to get them flying like this.”

I crawled over to the other side of the tower where, sure enough, Thursday was lounging in the sun, legs crossed and not a care in the world. Amazingly she looked more or less the same as she had at the crack of dawn, though as a very noticeable change, she definitely had no arms.

“Umm, Thursday… you’ve got no arms left.”

She craned her head up to me and flashed me a little smirk. “Ehh, wha? Yes I ‘ave.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “But umm… look.” I pointed at her obvious lack of arms. “See, you, uhh, you really don’t have any arms right now.”

“Bah, ‘tis just…! No, wait…” She trailed off, the rainbow of birds suddenly alighting onto the roof next to her. “No, nevermind, you wouldn’t get that joke anyways. It was set up so nice too… No matter, there’ll always be another day.” I bore witness to another one of Thérèse’s oddities as, one by one, the birds hopped over next to her side and magically melted away into what were now two arms, good as new. Monica made a funny face as she watched the spectacle, but I found it rather interesting, actually.

“Th-That’s… Teary, that was weird,” the little one remarked, face still wincing a little. “D-Don’t do that again like right like in f-front of me like that!”

She rolled her eyes bemusedly. “Could be worse, you know. I could try and turn into some scary monster and then just stalk you for the rest of the day, saying nothing, just standing there… standing there… standing there… standing there-is-A MONSTER RIGHT BEHIND YOU LOOK OUT!!”

Apparently Monica was even faster than she’d shown me before; in no more than a second she’d gone down the tower, across the lawn, and behind the gazebo we’d just come from probably one hundred meters distant, screaming for her life all the way.

“Thérèse!” I shouted angrily, barely comprehending that I’d just then gotten her name right by accident, “Now that was mean! That was something Miss Flandre would do, not us! Aren’t we s’possed to set her an example, so she’ll become a better person?”

I was surprised she could hear me over her tumultuous laughter. “Heheeheehee! Ooh, I can’t believe that actually worked! Haha, yeah, yeah, I know, that was, that was horrible. I’m sorry. Couldn’t resist. You have to admit that was funny, though!”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Ugghh… well, I guess maybe a little bit. You should’ve picked on me instead, though; Monica’s so little, she won’t understand!”

“Oh, and you do?”

“Mmm… good point.”

“Aaaaanyways,” she said, hopping back up and swiveling her arms around to make sure every bird had gotten back to the correct place. Her face actually looked a little ashamed as she made a sudden proposal to me. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, since we never got a chance to really hang out last night, what’s say I make it up to you today? We can hang with China and stuff, or we could see if you might be able to do what I can do or something, eh? The big sister types need to look out for the young ones, after all, and well… I didn’t do such a good job ‘o that last night. Whatdaya say, Fri’, fair?”

[ ] “Well, it sounds lovely, but… Well, Miss Flandre’s having this lunch party, and she wants all of us Seven to come; that’s a good bonding experience too, you know?”
[ ] I gave it some thought. Flandre’s lunch would be nice, but… well, I DID want to hang out with China some more, and Thérèse sounded like she owed me one. I’d see Flandre in two days anyways, right?
[ ] I gave it some thought. Flandre’s lunch would be nice, but… well, learning more about Thérèse’s weird power sounded mighty interesting, and she DID sound like she owed me one. I’d see Flandre in two days anyways, right?

[x] “Well, it sounds lovely, but… Well, Miss Flandre’s having this lunch party, and she wants all of us Seven to come; that’s a good bonding experience too, you know?”

[x] “Well, it sounds lovely, but… Well, Miss Flandre’s having this lunch party, and she wants all of us Seven to come; that’s a good bonding experience too, you know?”

We can always hang around afterwards.

[X] “Well, it sounds lovely, but… Well, Miss Flandre’s having this lunch party, and she wants all of us Seven to come; that’s a good bonding experience too, you know?”
[X] "And don't blame yourself for last night. I was the one who chose to attack that vampire hunter going after Saphire, ill-prepared as I was."

>>34792
>Saphire
Ugh, typo, I meant Sapphire.

[x] “Well, it sounds lovely, but… Well, Miss Flandre’s having this lunch party, and she wants all of us Seven to come; that’s a good bonding experience too, you know?”
[x] "And don't blame yourself for last night. I was the one who chose to attack that vampire hunter going after Sapphire, ill-prepared as I was."

Threse is reminding me of Little Jacob now.


[X] “Well, it sounds lovely, but… Well, Miss Flandre’s having this lunch party, and she wants all of us Seven to come; that’s a good bonding experience too, you know?”

'sides, I don't think it's a good idea to piss off your employer.

>"Bah, ‘tis just a scratch!"
Heh.
[X] “Well, it sounds lovely, but… Well, Miss Flandre’s having this lunch party, and she wants all of us Seven to come; that’s a good bonding experience too, you know?”
[X] "And don't blame yourself for last night. I was the one who chose to attack that vampire hunter going after Saphire, ill-prepared as I was."

[B] “Well, it sounds lovely, but… Well, Miss Flandre’s having this lunch party, and she wants all of us Seven to come; that’s a good bonding experience too, you know?”

7 votes for staying on target, so to speak.

I should be able to get this one out tonight, barring absolute lameness on my part.

>>34801
If that's from GTA, I've never played it, and can only imagine the hijinks Thérèse would pull on the likes of Roman and Nico.

Short update, but I promised I'd get it done tonight. Also, forgot to mention, but don't be afraid to pick things like going with Thérèse. I'm not a horrible author that makes the story sad because you do odd things; the votes are just a chance for you to tell me what you want to see more of in the story. Then again, if it's Flandre you want, I'm more than happy to provide~

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Well, it sounds lovely, but… Well, Miss Flandre’s having this lunch party, and she wants all of us Seven to come; that’s a good bonding experience too, you know?” I felt a little guilty myself, having to turn down such a nice offer of good will, but I suppose you can’t please everyone with everything at the same time, after all.

“Ahh, well if it’s for Flan, don’t worry about it,” she replied optimistically. “I just thought, if you weren’t going to be doing anything else, but you are, and this is prolly a better idea than whatever I’d come up with anyways. Do we need to round up anyone else?”

“Ahh, no, I don’t think so. I mean, there’s us three here, Tuesday and Wendy are already in Flandre’s room, we split up with Sunny to find you out here, and Sapphire’s, umm—“

“—Yeah, I know, Sapphire’s very ‘umm’ right now. She’s not the most exciting person at parties and such anyways; I blame Remi, but that’s just me.” Stepping up to the very tip of the clocktower, she leaning against the ornate lightning rod and peered down into the orchard. For what reason I could hardly guess; it’s not like Sunny would be instantly visible from this distance anyways. Monica had ever so slowly snuck back to us, keeping a wary eye on the “scary monster”, and crept into my lap for security. I hugged her close to me, feeling rather proud that she’d come back of her own accord, and just hoping that I’d be lucky enough not to receive a similar scare like that from Flandre some time in the future.

Thérèse waved us away, assuring us that she’d meet up with Sunny and catch up later, probably not wanting us to have to wait around as well. I didn’t argue; Monica seemed more than ready to go inside and enjoy the security of her other cousins, despite jumping out of Thusday’s frying pan and into Flandre’s fire, so to speak. I held her hand close to mine as we fluttered back down to the grass.

“H-hey, Friday?” my little cousin stammered. “How’d’ya not get all scared when someone like Tiririrese or Flandur or Remiliur gets all scary-like? I feel like, like I’m the only one who does…”

Ahh, this question… It made me realize just how much I’d grown in three short weeks, and yet how far I still had to go. How to answer when I barely knew the answer myself? I patted her on the shoulder comfortingly. “Trust me, Monica, you’re not the only one. There’s tons I don’t understand, and Flandre still scares me in ways I wish I didn’t know she could scare me. I just… well, this all just started because I told myself I wanted to learn more. I wanted to know things I didn’t understand. I wanted to do things I was afraid to do, so that I’d stop being afraid of them. So, I guess… I am still scared. But I try to tell myself that I’m not, so that maybe one day I’ll stop being scared for real.”

Her face seemed just a little downcast at that comment as we started walking down to the basement. “You, you make that sound so easy, Fridee.”

I blushed. “It’s not. Trust me, i-it’s really not.”

“B-but then, how do you do it?! How do I do it?!”

I hated leaving her hanging like that, but that question really make me wonder, how did I manage to do it? What allowed me to fight Miss Natasha, or hug Lady Flandre? I wasn’t anyone special, anyone smart or strong, not like Thursday or Wednesday or any of the other “awesome” fairies.

“You just… do it,” I finally answered, my simple voice echoing in the dark stairwell leading to Flandre’s room. “You just close your eyes and stop listening to your brain and you do something without worrying what’ll happen. Like… During lunch, Monica, in there. Think of something you don’t want to do, and then do it anyways. I’ll be right here, no matter what happens.”

“But, it… it’s scary. I don’t wanna.”

“I know, I know it is. But, if you never do it, you’ll always be scared of it.”

“I’m scared of it now!”

“Maybe after you try it, you won’t be.”

She didn’t answer. Had anything I said gotten through to her? I just hoped with all my heart that I hadn’t confused her even more. Such an idiot, trying to give someone advice when I didn’t really even know which way was up myself!

We reached the bottom of the stairs and I pounded on the thick door. A few anticipatory seconds passed before I heard the sounds of move metal and latches of some kind being lifted. I’ve never really paid much attention to how that door worked, tell you the truth, when it was supposed to be locked or what sides opened from which directions. All I knew is that Lady Flandre was convinced if she wasn’t locked in overnight she’d end up sleepwalking to the moon, blow it up, get back into bed without realizing a thing, and later feel sorry for all the werewolves of London even though their lyrics are still funny.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that some of that is wrong.

I saw Flandre’s red eyes peek out from the crack of the door, but rather than opening it for us she just held it there, watching us both. Monica crept behind me a little, avoiding the ruby gaze.

“Password?”

“Umm… I don’t think there is one,” I replied.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Regardless, the little sister still didn’t open the door any more. Perhaps she was thinking about something? I hoped she managed to come up with something coherent.

“Sooo… As a pie was flying to St. Ives, it hit a man with seventeen wines. Each wine twas’in seven sacks, and also there were seven racks. Each rack was built by seven Ricks, and in their hair was seven ticks. Ticks, tocks, socks, and clocks, how many weren’t going to the docks?”

[ ] “Uhh… one?”
[ ] “S-seventy-seven?”
[ ] “Umm, isn’t this a trick question too?”
[ ] So wait, a riddle? I could do this, I could do this… One man, plus seventeen wines, plus seven men called Rick…
[ ] Just write in something cute and witty that will make for interesting Flandre dialog.

[X] "What docks? Where is St. Ives, anyway? Is that a African or a European pie?"

Hmm, how much of England's geography does Friday know? I've got a responce that could provoke a Monty Python reference, but it requires knowledge that there are two places called St. Ives (only one is on the water).

>>34977
Gah, I've been slowpoked.

[x] There isn't enough information to solve the problem. Clearly, the answer hinges on the flavor of the pie.

>How’d’ya not get all scared when someone like Tiririrese or Flandur or Remiliur gets all scary-like?
>Tiririrese
I had to read this a few times before I was able to hear her say it in my head, at which point my heart exploded.

[x]If Mistess Vampire, blood sucker extraordinaire, doesn't this door unlock, she can go suck a gigantic nose

I'd do a serious response like this but I'm tired. Besides, it'd suck. And be OOC. I think.

>>34978
It's tough for me to say without seeing the question. Because Friday was a wanderer, she's more or less been everywhere in England, but her knowledge of names is limited to what she's overheard in other people's conversations and the scraps she's discovered while at the mansion. Post up your vote idea, and I'll see what I can do.

Also, I think for this vote I might just pick the write-in I like the best, so try not to all gang up on the same option unless you really want it written.

[x] “Umm, isn’t this a trick question too?”

Got nothing witty so ill go with this

>>34993
Okie dokie.

[X] "Is this the St. Ives in Cornwall, or the St. Ives in Cambridgeshire?"

Cambridgeshire is not on the coast.

>>35000
Mmm, sorry, but that's too much of a stretch for Friday. She might know enough to know that there's a city called St. Ives somewhere, or even that there might be two of them if she thought hard enough, but she wouldn't know the regions off the top of her head, not when she's probably assuming it's a mathematical riddle and not a geographic one.

I'm also woefully uninformed about anything Monty Python that isn't the Holy Grail, so I wouldn't do such a reference justice anyways.

>>35001
>assuming it's a mathematical riddle

[x] "Um, is the answer Pie?"

[x] "Um, is the answer Pie?"

[x] "...Or did I?"

>>35003
Pure gold; I'm going to call the vote for this one. Can't guarantee an update tonight, but we'll see where I am in two hours.

>>34980
And now you made me realize just how cute that was. I swear sometimes I don't even know what I'm writing until people tell me I'm writing it. Thank you~

>>35040
Here is a little gift for your nice work.

It's a good thing the deflection won, because there's no clear answer to this riddle, and telling her so would be OOC.

For example, let's assume that we had shoo-fly pie in the sky, on the way to St.Ives; this doesn't mean I've any idea of other things in the skies, on-the-fly, even if, by-the-by, we assume that nothing was not something else in disguise.

'Their' could refer to any number of Ricks, so the whole number may not have been afflicted by tics, and this may or may not include the man who was hit, of course meaning hit by the pies & the flies that were in the skies.

So unless those wines were left at sea, meaning port, there's no reason to think anyone or anything was going to the docks, donning socks, and even then those docks might be for lochs—which isn't 'left at sea' either!

Anyway, I don't think either playing tricks & bringing up Ricks are very good ways to start a conversation—more on the level of popping zits and tossing bricks.


>Can't guarantee an update tonight, but we'll see where I am in two hours.

Hooray!

Too much time playing Double Spoiler, not enough time updating.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Umm, is the answer… pie?” Did I know what I was saying? Not really. But would you have had a better idea at the time?

I saw my lady’s eyes squint skeptically at me. “That’s, a… way better answer than my answer. You’re a… genius?”

“Not at all, Miss Flandre. I just thought… Pie is a sort of number, right?”

“It’s… wow, heehee, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that, hah, ha-ha-hawesome! Oh, wow, I’m gonna—ha ha hohohohumumum!—I’m gonna be on that one all day! Come in, come in; you’re a keeper. Hee hee!”

Flandre pulled the door open sporadically amidst altering modes of laughter, revealing a far more contemporary pair of jean pants and a faded red “hoodied” sweater (I do hope I’m using the right word there; modern slang isn’t quite my “thing”, you might say). Her wings were much smaller today, too, just a thin arc running up her back with the rainbowed diamonds flattened down more like beautiful feathers. It looked far more comfortable than the grandiose things she usually wore, that’s for sure; why didn’t she wear this pair every day, instead? In any case, I was actually quite glad of her dress today; she looked normal, just like some child you’d see in elementary school. Made me feel more comfortable.

“Tullie, Tulip, Tulipia!” she shouted over her shoulder to the kitchenette as she pushed the door shut. Tuesday poked her head out of the door, hair tied back in a white kerchief. “Hey, d’ya know what we need, no, no you don’t, I didn’t tell you yet, now I will, we need a pie today! A pie day for Friday! Flan day for Flandre is too meh, and pies are pies!”

The maid smiled that loving smile I remembered from her. “You’d better not change your mind once I start making it, promise?”

She pondered the question for far longer than would have been necessary. “I… like, pies…?”

Tullia stifled a giggle. “Hmm, all right, what kind?”

I suddenly found myself getting picked up and plopped down like a doll directly in front of Flandre, who then made a big show of pointing to my head and making sure everyone who could possibly see her knew that she was definitely pointing at my head. Talk about getting “put on the spot”… A horrible pun, I know, but you must allow me a little fun once in a while.

“Oh, me? Well, I… I guess a blueberry pie would be nice~” I answered bashfully. I wasn’t used to getting my choice like that very often, but… well, I did like blueberry pie.

“Blueberry it is. Wednesday, dear, could you please put down that thing and help for just a minute or two?”

“No, no-no-no, no she can’t, she’s gettin’ better!” Hoodie-girl leapt across the room and skidded into a pile of pillows in the corner, where Wendy and her were doing… something with a television set. “You, Tullia-dear, don’t know what it’s like having to be the best at everything. I, however, on the other head, contrariwise Tullia-dear… See, I have to sit here all day and twiddle my thumbs because nobody else plays with me ‘cause they don’t understand and don’t want do and I don’t blame them because it’s not something grown women do but I don’t count so there haha no that’s not funny! So when I finally get the Wendy lady no-I-won’t-call-you-by-your-lame-name-you-lame-dame to sit down and play a vid-jie-yah gay-mmeh with me you will not tell her to do something productive!”

After a shrug and an eye-roll, Tullia returned to her lunch preparations, leaving me and Monica to observe the room and it’s two rather occupied occupants. Seems Flandre’d moved most of the normal furniture to the sides of the room, making way for a large round coffee table and firm cushions instead of seats, eight to be exact. I looked at the set table in lament… Sapphire wouldn’t get to join us, all because of me. I’d forgotten to apologize to Thursday properly, too; had to remember to do that once she came back, regardless of how much she said she didn’t care.

“Umm, that… what’s all that you’re doing?” Monica asked, inching over to the television set.

“I have been told that we are being entertained through technology,” Wendy answered in classic, no-nonsense Wendy style.

“That’s… no… really… lame… answer…” Flandre’s rebuttal was staggered and slow, her attention obviously centered on other things, such as poking that remote controller thing in her hands. “See, I get… move to this little girl… big-sleeves claw-girl, yeah…? That’s me… okay, not, really, but—Noyoudont! Come on, gong gong gong!—So I’m fighting… umm, umm, Wendy, fighting her… not really, y’see… She gets, wolf-guy… And it’s fun, see?”

I squinted at the screen and puzzled over it. It looked like a cartoon show to me, and definitely not one I understood; strange-looking characters running around and punching each other in strange-looking ways far too fast for me to make anything out of. These were the “video games” that every kid loved? I didn’t really see why, it just looked like a movie without any words to me, and where was the fun in that?

“Ooo, so, so you’re like jumping ‘em around with those button things?” Monica asked, inching a little closer. “Looks like magic. Oh, no, watch out little wolfman! That weird girl has a spiky ball!”

Content that Monica might have found something new to try, I let the three of them be for the moment. My ears perked up at the sound of another knock at the door, but by the time I’d walked over to answer it the portal swung open by itself, allowing entrance to one Sunhilda Sunday and Thérèse Thursday. They both gave me a cheerful wave and hello.

“Umm, but… how did you get in?” I wondered aloud. “I didn’t open the door or anything.”

“I has a key,” Thérèse responded, twirling the metal trinket around one of her fingers.

“Aren’t you supposed to give that back to Sakuya or something? I thought it was a really important rule.”

“She’s got one; this is mine.”

“You get your own key?!”

Sunny ruffled my perpetually-ruffled hair, smirking. “E’yup. Work hard enough and you’ll get you own, too. Not like it really means much, but it saves time, and Sakuya hates running around more than she has to, and when she’s happy, we’re all happy.”

“So what’d we miss?” Thursday asked, eyeing the lunch table.

“Oh, well, Tullia is making lunch, I think—oh, and a pie too—and Wendy, Monica and Flandre are over there playing a video game or something. I don’t really understand it. But, umm, that’s about it, I just got here two minutes ago myself.”

“Wait, Monica? Video games?!” Sunny yelled motheringly to Flandre, lost cause though it was. “Flandre, you stop polluting that girl’s head with that garbage this instant!”

Amazingly, she answered back. Rudely. “You…! You only say that because…! Because you can’t even play Tetris on the slowest speed! Stop… distracting me, I’m winning!”

“You’re losing! At life!”

When Flandre stopped responding to Sunny’s jabs, she gave up in a huff and retreated to the kitchen. “Keep an eye out on Monica; video games’ll catch ‘em young and never let them go,” she added, glaring at Flandre’s sweater hood.

[ ] With everyone else occupied, now was a perfect time to get to know Thérèse better, and give her that apology.
[ ] Not wanted to be some kind of freeloader, I offered to join the cooks; for moral support, if nothing else.
[ ] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look. (Also specify who you’d want to play a game with, and just for kicks, what game. If it’s reasonable, I’ll make it work)

>[ ] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look. (Also specify who you’d want to play a game with, and just for kicks, what game. If it’s reasonable, I’ll make it work)
I so want to vote for this just to see Friday get terribly flustered at whatever she tries, but I'll need some time to pick an appropriate game first. For reference purposes, we're currently in Summer of '96, correct?


>>35060
...I have no idea what I'm reading, yet I feel my day has been enhanced by it. Have a PC-98 Marisa.

>>35063 and I'm done, sort of. Here goes:

[x] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look.

Play with:
[x] Monica, she looks intrigued and if we're both new it should be fair, right?

What game:
Right, so I have no ideas what games you may have played back then, Tepes, and I fear picking something you never touched would just make unnecessary work for you. So I'm just going to dump a short list of titles that should have been available around that time in Europe, and you can pick out what you're most comfortable writing.

As for my fellow anons, please pitch in and help give an idea of whether we want to entertain, frustrate, or outright traumatize our fairies with this vote.

Game list:
[ ] Super Mario Kart
[ ] Killer Instinct
[ ] Super Bomberman / Mega Bomberman (4 player!)
[ ] ClayFighter/ClayFighter 2: Judgement Clay
[ ] F-Zero
[ ] Sonic 3
[ ] Mortal Kombat (1-3)
[ ] Pocky & Rocky 2
[ ] Earthworm Jim

Ok, I'll admit that that last one doesn't have multiplayer, but I goddamn loved that series.

[X] With everyone else occupied, now was a perfect time to get to know Thérèse better, and give her that apology.

We probably won't get another chance to talk to her alone once the party is in full swing.

[x] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look.
[x] Mario Kart

Don't know if this means plain ol' Mario Kart or the N64 version, but...

>Game list:

Nostalgia bomb straight to my heart. My first instinct was Gran Turismo, shortly followed by Golden Eye, but those were later releases than what I think the story might be, so Mario Kart is still a safe bet. Upon reflection, something kid safe like Mario Kart seems good for Monday.

>>35067
On the contrary, we'll probably be able to catch her as everyone is leaving, since it's not either of our days with Flandre, whereas this may be our only chance at video games.

[X] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look.
[X] The Lost Vikings

I'd rather the game be a co-op, slow-paced one, to give Friday a chance at enjoying herself. Although:

[ ] Toejam and Earl

If only to see if it's possible to blow out Flan's pop-culture references circuit.

All right, I suppose I should give a couple of pointers; I sort of rushed getting this update out and didn’t consider the video game vote too well.

Please remember that it’s currently late April of 1996 in the story (I believe April 30 is the official date). Because the mansion—and more specifically Flandre—is fairly isolated, she won’t be able to get any games or systems until several weeks after the European release, unless she’s extremely adamant about the game and begs Sakuya to get it the day of. An example of this would be the fact that she was playing Darkstalkers 2 last update (since Hsien-Ko was her character). DS2 I believe wasn’t released until September 1996 in Europe, but it was released by February 1996 in the U.S.

The Nintendo 64 was released in March 1997 in Europe, and June of 1996 in Japan. Therefore, Flandre cannot possibly have an N64. The Playstation was released September 1995, and the Sega Saturn in July 1995, so they’re fair game, but remember to check the release dates on games! You can expect her to have most popular consoles before this, but not obscure ones.

Don’t worry about if I’m familiar with the game or not; I can research enough to get through the update if I don’t know it, just don’t expect any suave dialog about the game. After all, it’s not about the game, it’s about having fun with the people you love~

In regards to the Mario Kart vote, can anyone tell me if that game in the SNES has 4-player function with a multitap? I forget. If not, you folks that voted please specify who you want to play with!

And sorry; I never played Toe Jam and Earl.

Fuck yeah, Darkstalkers.

I have no vote yet; I'm too busy enjoying this.

>>35071
No multi-tap for Super Mario Kart, I mentioned it on Bomberman because it's pretty much the only game I could think of that used it.

>[X] The Lost Vikings
The dialogue in that game still makes me laugh to this day, but I fear poor Friday's brain would explode about half-way through the Egyptian levels. I approve.

...Though I still think traumatizing them with gore (Mortal Kombat / Killer Instinct) or sheer wtf (ClayFighter) would make for a highly entertaining update.

...What? We could just blame it on Flandre.

[x] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look.
[x] Bomberman
-[x] Monday and the other other remaining fairies.

Bomberman the great equalizer, even little Monica can do well in this once she got the basics down. I have so many good memories of 4p Super Bomberman.

>>35075
I'd rather not traumatize the fairies if I could help it. Flan'll be doing plenty of that along the way.

[x] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look.
-[x] NES
--[x] Double Dragon.

Man, I loved that game.

[x] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look.
[x] Bomberman
-[x] Monday and the other other remaining fairies.

[x] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look.
[x] Super Mario Cart
-[x] Monday and the other other remaining fairies.

I would have preferred Mario Paint or Kirby Superstar, but this is good too.

>>35087
>Kirby Superstar
This was one of the first games I thought of, too. Sadly, it would not have been released yet.

>Mario Paint
...You know, I get the feeling that several of the fairies would absolutely adore this game. Since I never made an actual vote for which game to play, I'll throw my chips in with this.

[x] Mario Paint


Also, I'd like to reiterate that Super Mario Kart was NOT compatible with the multitap. So unless Tepes feels like stretching the truth a little, that game is limited to two players.

For reference purposes, here's the list of games that actually were compatible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNES_Multitap
And now I'll refrain from cluttering up the thread with this any further. Though this has been a fun nostalgia attack.

>Mario Paint

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OvJEMU2Zpk

[x] I did wonder, though… was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look.
[x] Bomberman (Super Bomberman 2)
-[x] Monday and the other other remaining fairies.

I also thought of Lemmings but that's the most cutthroat son-of-a-bitch 2-player game ever.

Status update: not good, again. Final semester project is kicking me pretty hard, and I in my selfishness keep accidentally playing Double Spoiler in my free time instead of writing. I have a little free time tonight, but probably not enough to get an update out, and if I can't you probably won't see one until Sunday.

I can't wait for summer...

>>35266
How're things? This Sunday, maybe?

>>35571

Once again, things are not good. My final design project is murdering me something fierce, and I simply don't have any time to write these days. I can't give you an estimate as to when I'll be able to come back, but I promise that I will.

>>35638

That's OK. Do your shit. Readers will abide.

How is it looking now Tepes?

You are still out there right?

I'm always out here. Hardly a day goes by when I don't think of this story, and I know my mind won't really be at peace unless I finish it someday. I gave you all that promise, and I intend to see it through.

Final projects continue to bear down harder than ever, and now finals are just around the corner too. A few more weeks and I'll be done with college for another summer. Writing will start afterwards, and I can only hope my search for a summer job doesn't put a gigantic dent in my free time.

My… my semester project’s finally over. F-finals, they’re, they’re done. I… I-I…

I’M FREE! SCHOOL IS OUT!

I can’t apologize enough for dropping this story so many times since I started almost a year ago. But now I’m ready to pick up the Non-Adventures of Friday and the Funky Bunch once again! My intent is to really try and pick up the update speed and get this story to a satisfying ending before the summer’s out, and unless I get a job with a horrible commute, I’ll be committed enough to make that happen.

I’m pretty sure Bomberman won the vote, so we’ll just go with that. Writing during the car ride tomorrow, and should have it up later tomorrow evening. In the meantime have three nice things~

1) This picture.

2) The most beautiful U. N. Owen Was Her remix I’ve ever heard (very loosely translates to “Little Sister of the Devil's Extremely Destructive Frenzied Tune for Four Pianos”):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9HjGn0T20

3) What happens if Flandre loses (not really):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V65dtKOk2Y

>The most beautiful U. N. Owen Was Her remix I’ve ever heard
Sounds good

>>36214
This is the greatest news.

Despite that cryptic warning, I did wonder …Was I really afraid of something Monica wasn’t? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give that television another look, and tiptoed back over their quietly. Wendy and Flandre were still playing that strange fighting game, but it looked like two different people were fighting now. Exactly was what that, some sort of… zombie with a chainsaw, and a weird vampire lady with a jetpack? It still looked as confusing as ever, though for some reason I thought I recognized the vampire from somewhere.

The little one seemed to be having a better time understanding things than I was in any case, pointing to the battlers on the screen and ooo-ing in awe at the flashing colors. I knelt down a little behind her and tried to get into it myself.

“Hey, Monica,” I whispered, “do you understand what’s going on over there?”

“I, oh, what?” She distractedly looked at me, rubbing her eyes. “Umm, well, it’s-a, it’s a game, isn’t it? And I think that, uhh, Missus Flandre has—“

“Miss!” the vampire lady without a jetpack yelled back.

“Oh, yeah yeah! Miss Flandre, she’s movin’ around the, that lady-girl, whatsername? Morr, uh, Morrih, Morr-ih-gahn? Yeah, and Wendy, she’s usi—“

“Wednesday.”

“Hey, stop innerupting! She’s using that funny guy, umm, ‘L-Lord Rhap-torr’; that’s right, right? And they, well—“

“Zabel Zarock!”

“Flandre, please! Fridee’s asking me a quesshon! And, and when they press the clicky buttons, then they do stuff! See Fridee, watch!”

And so I watched, as much as someone who didn’t understand video games could watch. Over time it began to make an odd kind of sense. The cross-shaped button on the left side seemed to make the figures on the screen move left and right, while the circle ones with the symbols made them punch and kick. Why Flandre seemed so intent on throttling the very life out of her controller with every attack was beyond me; perhaps pushing the buttons harder made her jetpack-girl stronger? In the future she’d swear up and down to me that it was the truth, but these days I still tend to doubt it. Not that I know a thing more about electronics now than I knew then, but… well, I know more about Lady Flandre, at the least.

I took a quick look around the room, hoping that I wasn’t being overly antisocial just clustering around the television set like that. Sunny and Tullia were still busy making lunch in the kitchenette, chattering away in that all-too-common kitchenspeak I’d heard a hundred times before. Thérèse seemed to have just hid away in a little corner for herself next to the bookcase, practicing the oddest sort of fighting techniques I’d ever seen. Using her unique talent to reshape her body as she pleased, her form changed with every attack, arms growing longer or shorter in mid-punch, hands now a set of knife-bladed claws, now like a golem’s fists, and back to the petit hands of a girl again. Even her wings became a weapon, curving and flatting themselves into shining contours that must have been as sharp as a razor. It was really quite frightening to watch, and more so to imagine her using it against a flesh and blood foe, but there was a hidden beauty in it, just like the way water can take any form, from peaceful to deadly.

Wiggling myself closer to the entranced Monica, I asked her quietly, “Do… Would you like to play that, Monica?”

She stuttered, clearly not expecting anyone to talk to her out of the blue. “O-Oh! Wha, what?”

“A video game. Did you want to play one?”

“Oh, I, well…” She blushed as her voice trailed off. “I mean, I’ve never… played one, before…”

“Well, you sure seem to know a lot more about it than me. Why don’t you give it a try?”

“I… I wouldn’t want to be a big bother… I mean, Miss Flandre and Miss Wendy are playing right now. And this funny-punch game, it looks too hard for me.”

”I can heeeaaar you, you knooowww~” the vampire cooed ominously, craning her neck back to look at us both with an upside down grin, red hood hanging limply from her shoulders. Honestly now, did she really need to butt into other people’s conversations like that? And how? She had just been devoting every ounce of attention and strength to mashing those buttons like a woodpecker.

“Ahheep, milady!” The little sprite suddenly toppled over in shock, seemingly blown down by the woman’s words. “Iwasjust, just talking, just talking!”

”Would you like to plaaaay with meeeee~?” she asked even more ominously as she spun her head around to look at Monica properly, a deranged smile on her face.

She bit her lip nervously, looking back and forth from Flandre to myself. I tried as best I could to give her a silent but sure nod; this seemed like as good an opportunity as any to get her to try something new and exciting. Truthfully, I wasn’t too sure about that look on the mistress’ face, but… how bad could a video game be?

“No, n-no,” she started before catching my reassuring gaze, “no… no problem, Flandre-milady! I’d, I’d uhh, really like to try! But, umm, maybe an easier game, to start?” She definitely looked nervous answering directly, but at least she was trying, no?

Our mistress turned her ruby gaze to me now, twirling an enticing finger in my direction. “Little Friiidaaay wants to play toooo~?”

Me? “Me, Miss Flandre? Well, I, uhh, I mean, I’m not very… good, with electric things, y’know.”

”Friday doesn’t want to play with Flandre?”

That voice… If it hadn’t been so completely dripping in honey I’d have had a real reason to be scared for certain. The way Lady Flandre could just worm her way under your skin in an instant, make you feel uncomfortable all over without even trying… You always had to expect the unexpected with her, and I’d perhaps gotten off too easy for my first few weeks.

“I, of course I’ll play!” I recovered immediately, putting a smile on my face. “I mean, if Monica can do it, so can I!”

And in an instant Flandre was back to her normal lackadaisical outlook on life, throwing up her hands and shouting “Wahoo!” like a child. She quickly snapped off the television mid-game (not that Wendy seemed to care one way or the other) and started pulling at a horrible tangle of cords, plastic boxes, and funny-shaped controllers, rambling away like the Flandre we all knew and loved. I wondered if maybe she could have applied that mysterious “system” to this mess here? Or… maybe she already had?

“Yeah yeah, Vampire Hunter’s-a great game, so many fun characters, ya’know? Gots plenty a’ girls, too, not like boring ‘ol Streeeet Fiiighter. Oh, ohohoh-oh-oh! Vampire Savior! Vampire-Savior’s-coming-out-next-year-I-gotta-get-it-Sakuya’s-gotta-get-it-for-me!! Lilith, lil’ lil’ Lilith, I can’t believe Morrigan’s got a sister! An’ Beretta-Girl too! Ohmahgod, I can’t wait!” She flailed her arms around cutesy-like, her eyes positively sparkling. Hadn’t she said the name Lilith once before? I strained my mind, but just couldn’t pick out where it’d come from.

“Arr-Pee-Gees. Rocket-Propelled Games. ‘Cause, you know, everything’s better with explosions! Ya know what Arr-Pee-Gees had? The Ssness. I mean, Eff-Eff-Five, Eff-Eff-Six, Chrono Awesome, Secret of Manawesome, Awesomebound… you get to fight a god before he’s even a god! You what else the Ssness had? A multitap! You know what else had the multitap? Super Bomberman! It means it’s super, and there’s a man! With [i]bombs! Everything’s better with explosions!”

Amidst her video game ecstasy she had finally pulled out four oval-like controllers and flung one in each of us fairies’ general directions. I tried holding it in my hands, tried to get the feel of it. Plastic… rubber… metal… My hands instinctively shirked away from the lifeless thing, but I held on anyways. It’s okay, Friday… It’s not an evil thing… This is the future, this is the new world… If you live in the new world, you have to try new things…

I noticed as Flandre finally plugged everything into everything else and sat next to us three that our four controllers were plugged into a sort of… head? Yes, it definitely looked to me like a squarish head with a yellow face and big eyes.

“Hey, Flandre? What’s that, that head-control thingy?”

“Eyeh? What to the what controls of feedback loops?”

I pointed to the odd head thing, confused. Flandre shrugged.

“Oh, that. That’s a Bomberman. He’s awesome. ‘Splodes stuff up, like me, except not like me.”

“But… what’re our controllers doing there?”

She stared at me blankly, as if I was asking a stupid question. Maybe it was stupid; I couldn’t really tell. Slowly, too slow to tell until you were paying attention, she tilted her head to the side.

“I killed him.”

“W-Wait… what?” Now that made no sense at all.

She grinned slyly. “Yeah, I killed him. I killed Bomberman. I stole his bombs and I stuffed them down his throat and then he blew up. Blood rain, blood rain, warm-n’ nice-n’ full’a spice~ An’ then I took his head and I sucked out all his brainses and stuffed him full of wires, and now he plays fun games for me all day~ He doesn’t mind, ‘cause he’s dead, see? No mind to mind me anymore, hee hee~”

By this point she’d started crawling towards me, our hands practically touching and she showing no signs of stopping. Her eyes burned madly, boring uneasy holes into my own. What… what was going on? That, that was all just a joke… right? That “Bomberman” person, he was just a make-believe video game person, right?

…Right?

“I could kill you too, you know?” She licked her lips seductively, shining with saliva and just barely exposing those white-white teeth of hers. “Do you want me to? It’d be so eeeeeaaasy~ I can see you… aaaaall of you. You can’t close your Eye to meeeee; there you are, little Eye~ Oh, such a cute little Eye, aren’t you? Who’s a cute little Eye~? Oohh, have you been poked out before? That’s so saaaad. I bet it hurt, didn’t it, yes it did. I don’t hurt people; she hurts people. One little poof, and then… poof~ All gone, all better. And then I can suck your brains out and stuff you with fluff, and you’ll be a cute little pillow for me, and you can sing me to sleep eeeevery niiiight~”

She’d completely crawled over me now, her slight weight forcing my ever slighter weight into the soft scarlet carpet, legs of steel pinning me to the spot. With one hand she pressed against my chest just enough for me to feel pain, and with the other she gently caressed my check, running her fingers through my rat’s nest of hair like water, causing me to wince with every knot of resistance she plowed through.

“You… y-you’re joking, r-right Miss Flandre?” I stammered nervously, frantically trying to understand the difference between playful sarcasm and… something different. Where was everyone else? Wendy? Monica? Thérèse? Where did you go? Why could I only see this, this little “girl” no matter where I looked?

She lowered her face towards mine, folding both her arms across my collarbone and drawing her head so close I couldn’t raise mine without hitting hers. Madness… her eyes were pure, pure and sweet and innocent, but they were mad. She heard me, but she… she couldn’t understand. Those luminous red orbs looked at me and through me at the same time, starting at not just my eyes but my Eye as well. What an “Eye” was I barely even comprehended at the time, but I knew beyond any doubt that she was looking at it.

She smiled, pearly pointed teeth just barely jutting out from her upper lip. “Joking… hee hee heeheeheheeeee~ Am I?”

And then several things happened all at the same time. I felt my insides twitch, as if poked by some kind of magic stick. Flandre’s body ceased to pin me down, or even be anywhere near me at all. Monica squealed in surprise. Wendy inhaled sharply. Thérèse appeared seemingly out of nowhere to pin Flandre against the wall instead. Sunny and Tullia poked their heads out of the kitchenette, the platinum-blonde fairy still holding a mixing bowl, looks of confusion and dread on their faces. As soon as I got a hold my bearings, I like everyone else in the room focused on the pair at the edge of the room.

Thérèse… her form… For once, she was normal, as normal as me or any other fairy you’d find around the mansion. Gone were the extravagant feathers, the clawed digits and the beautiful locks. From the hair on her head to the dress on her shoulders, her skin, her eyes, her wings, her fingernails, everything was white, pale… blank.

“Look at me, Flan, look at me.” Thérèse’s voice had lost all playfulness and all detachment. Right then, in that instant, she cared with every piece of her soul. “Come back. Come back to us. You are in the real world. You are Flandre, sister of Remilia, who loves you very much. There is only one of you. The voices are inside your head. They are not other people. You are not a murderer. You are not a monster. The castle was not your fault. You are not beyond all hope. You are with people who care about you. You are with people who will not hurt you. Come back, Flandre, come back!”

Flandre did not struggle, nor move, nor shout; she had instantly become a doll. The two of them looked back and forth into each other’s eyes, white into red, and red into white, and the most haunting thing about it was that for all the white in Thursday’s eyes, despite the fact that there wasn’t a speck of color in them but the pupils themselves, Flandre’s looked infinitely more dead. The room was as silent as the grave, but deeper into the earth than any grave need be. All fear and discomfort I might have felt seemed to drain away in an instant, replaced by this overwhelming sense of pity… pity and sadness.

Had I been alone, had it just been me in that room, it would have taken me months, even years to get over what had just transpired. But to see Thérèse standing there, speaking life and reason into a body that suddenly looked so lifeless… I understood, and what I understood was that I didn’t understand. I had not one clue what went on inside Flandre’s head. Did she hear voices that didn’t exist? Did she see people that weren’t there? Could she even tell the difference between the real world and the dream world? I didn’t know, but I knew that when a soul can’t even be granted those simple certainties in life… pity is the only thing you can feel for them.

“I… Iuhhh…” Flandre finally moaned, tears leaking out of her eyes as she blinked them away. “I’m, I’m… all right. I’m okay. I, I lost myself, but I’m… I’m fine. I’m fine, everyone, it’s… it’s, okay. I know that, that this… this world, this one’s real… that, that one… wasn’t.” She looked to be having an immensely difficult time stringing words together, as if each simple syllable was the result of a hard-fought battle. She looked at no one in particular, but she didn’t seem to be focusing on anything imaginary, at the very least.

“Flandre… Flandre, you’re sure?” Thérèse asked softly, holding her by the shoulders. “Look at me, can you see me? Do you know who I am?”

The crying vampire silently nodded her head. “Tuh, Tear… Thérèse.”

The white fairy nodded back, letting her friend go. Flandre took a few uncertain steps, looking around the room as everyone looked back at her with heartfelt eyes.

“Sss… Sunhilda,” she said, pointed a wobbly finger to Sunny. China’s double bowed her head, a barely-noticeable smile on her face. “And… and, Tullia.”

She turned to the three of us, still seated around the now-forgotten video game. To each one of us she pointed, slowly but surely. “Wuh… Wendy. M-M-Monica.”

Upon me she stopped, and my heart stopped with her. I… I didn’t have a name yet…

“F… F…”


[ ] Unto our dearest heroine… grant her a name.


Author’s Note: The name must start with an F, and should sound vaguely like “Friday”. Not a straight-up vote, as I’ll probably just pick the one I like best unless popular opinion visibly flows one way. Bomberman next update; I just got a little sidetracked, and felt that Friday needed a little reality check.

[x] Francesca

Nice to see you back.

[x]Frida
or
[x]Fiona

and its great to see you back Tepes

[X] Fredesvinda

Hooray!

[x]Fiona
I like it.

[x] Freija
Adaptation of Freja, Norse Goddess of love.

I could've chosen Freida (wise judge) since it sounds so much like Friday, but I wanted a rocket-propelled game reference.

[X] Frideswide

Combination of "peace" and "strong".

[X]Fiona or Flonne

[x]Fiona

[x] Friday.

Friday is already a good name. You can trust a someone named Friday. I point to Dragnet and Robinson Crusoe.

>>36279
I have to admit, it would be worth it just to hear her at some point say "Just the facts, Flan."

[B] Fiona

[X] Freya
But barring that,
[X] Fiona
is fine too.

[ ] Frisca
[x] Fiona

[x] Francesca

We will be tanned and have delicious striped panties.

{Freija}

All right then. Won’t be writing until this evening, so I’ll just take some time to show the tally and share my opinion:

Fiona x 7
Freija/Freya x 3
Francesca x 2
Frida
Fredesvinda
Frideswide
Flonne
Friday

Obviously Fiona’s winning by a landslide, but (in my opinion) it might be just a little too far away from the root “Friday” for my liking; the beginning sound of “Frrr” is quite distinctive, and Fiona lacks it. I definitely like Freija/Freya, with my only little nitpick being that our protagonist is hardly a Norse Goddess. Francesca’s a nice one too (though I don’t understand the striped panties reference; someone care to explain?). Frida’s a little too plain, Fredesvinda and Frideswide aren’t the kind of naming curses Flan would bestow out of the blue (Sunhilda is an inside joke, and the rest have normal enough names), and Flonne’s just too close to “Flandre” for comfort.

I appreciate the attachment to plain-ol’ Friday, but at the end of the day Thérèse is right; the day names are just titles, cold and common. In giving her a real name, Flandre is acknowledging that she’s more than just a dime-a-dozen fairy to her. I’ll tell you right here that there have been a number of “day fairies” over the decades that quit before receiving a true name from Flan.

Between Freija and Francesca I really can’t decide. Provided there’s no mass revolt for me discounting Fiona as an option, would you all mind voting again?

[ ] Freija
[ ] Francesca
[ ] Please only vote for Fiona if you absolutely can’t stand the above two

Also, sorry for that italics snafu in the middle of the update; I normally manage to catch those right after posting, and now it’s too late.

[x] Friday
it's already good

>(though I don’t understand the striped panties reference; someone care to explain?)
IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE, NOBODY WEARS PANTS. It's a Strike Witches reference; pic is Francesca Lucchini.

[X] Freija
Although I prefer "Freya" for the spelling.

[X] Francesca
Sounds good.

[X] Francesca
Because you can say it with silly accents.

[x] Francesca

[X] Francesca

[X] Francesca

Doesn't really strike me as a name for a fairy, but it will do.

[x] Freya

[X] Freija

[x] Francesca

[m] Francesca

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday#Etymology
>The name Friday comes from the Old English frīgedæg, meaning the "day of Frige"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frige
>Frijjō is the reconstructed name or epithet of a hypothesized Common Germanic love goddess giving rise to both Frigg and Freyja.

{Frigg} {Freyja}

[x] Freija
Although, like that guy said, Freya looks better.

[x] Francesca

[ ] Freija/Freya

Francesca is not fairy like, at all. It also doesn't sound cool, and it's too normal, not mystic enough (remember Gensokyo is a land of myths and legends; mythological creatures need mythological names!).

>>36316
Pssst... this is before the SDM was moved to Gensokyo. Also, only a small fraction of Touhous have names based on mythology. None of them live in the SDM.

[x]Francesca

>>36317
>Implying there's no precedent for mythology-based names in the SDM
Gungnir and Laevateinn would like a word with you.

>>36321
I said characters, not weapons.

>>36317

Well, the vampires are French, and probably were humans. Sakuya and Patchouli are human too(or used to be, anyway). China is a country.

But Friday? Nope, Friday was never 'normal'.
Also:
>I definitely like Freija/Freya

Seems Tepes likes this one the most, so why not?

Oh my god. Couldn't get to the site from work, took a long walk, and when I get home and I finally see this. Best surprise ever. It's so good to see you back Tepes.

[x] Freija

[x] Francesca
>Well, the vampires are French
baseless fact

Well, the vote's currently 10 Francescas to 7 Fre(j)yas. I do sort of like Freya more, but it's not enough to force the decision against the majority, and Francesca's got its own charm too. Besides, I realized that at the end of the day, does Friday herself really care what she's named? They're both lovely names, and the most important thing here is that Flandre cares about her as more than just a name.

So I'm just going to go by the tried-and-true method of majority rules here. Please try not to dwell on it too much, Freja-voters. It's a silly thing to worry about.

In any case, my internet connection's too sporadic to trust posting an update tonight (don't even know if this post will get through), so you'll get it tomorrow morning instead.

>>36332
Right.
They could also be Belgian.

“Fran… Francesca. I, I remember now… you were, going to be Francesca.”

I looked back at her, wonder in my eyes, soon followed by tears. Fran…cesca? Was that, was that my name? I… I had a name?!

“You… Flandre, is… that my, name?” I asked, quiet as a mouse.

Her eyes strained hard to focus into mine, no longer the fires of madness; only a dull, cool red, full of leaking tears. She jerkily nodded her head. “I’m, I, I’m sor-ry. I didn’t mean, to… This is, this is the best I, can do…”

“It’s… it’s a beautiful name, my Lady. Thank you… thank you so very much.”

She wiped her eyes, hand shaking so badly that she hardly managed to even brush the tears away. I thought she might have tried to walk up and place the hand on my shoulder, but mid-reach she just ended up looking at the palm of it, and backed away into the corner again.

“I don’t, I… I don’t think, that I should, be playing with any of you… right now,” she said, sliding down and hugging her knees into her chest. “I need, to, to calm down… for a little, for a while. Don’t, no, don’t be… sad. I’m all, all right. I’m fine. Just, just… fine.”

Slowly the mood of the room grew less tense, our bodies no longer motionless like blocks of stone. Sunny and Tullia exchanged a few quiet words with Flandre before going back into the kitchen, though there was much less chatter from them both afterwards. Thérèse kept a close eye on the vampire for a while, sitting next to her without saying a word. Bit by bit color and form returned to the shapeshifting fairy, blooming into shades of blue with a flowing gown and hair, looking not too much different from a pillar of living water. She eventually came to sit back down with us “kids”, who really didn’t know what to say or do at that point.

“Sorry you had to see that,” she whispered simply, grabbing a seat cushion for herself. “I don’t like to have to lose myself that badly, but… the occasion called for it.”

“It’s, no, it’s okay, Theresa,” I replied, twirling my hair nervously.

“Whaht…” Monica squeaked, “what, what happened to, to Miss Flandray? Was she gonna…”

The aqua-girl patted her shoulder calmly. “Shh, don’t worry about that. Miss Flandre just had a little accident, girls, but she’s all right now. Don’t you worry about it. We all make mistakes, you know? Hers are just… a little stranger, if you’re not used to them.”

“B-but, she was gonna…! Gonna kill…!”

“No,” Thérèse answered sharply, putting a silencing finger to Monica’s lips. “Don’t you think that. She can’t hurt us, Monica. Doctor Patchouli, or Sakuya, or Miss China, or even Mistress Remilia; she could hurt them, if she wasn’t careful. And that’s why she’s down here, and not up there: she’s afraid of herself. Sometimes… sometimes she just doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not.” Her face fell, growing somber and her voice dropping to naught but a whisper. “She… might kill her own family, and might not even know she had until it was too late…”

“But us… she can’t kill us. We can’t die, Monica. We’re the only ones here who don’t need to be afraid of her. We can take care of her, better than anyone else can. And that’s why she needs us, all of us. She doesn’t have to be afraid of herself if we don’t need to be afraid of her.” She moved her finger from the pink fairy’s lips to under her chin, propping it up. “All you need to do is keep that pretty little smile on your face, and don’t ever worry about what might happen. You understand?”

Monica sniffled back a fearful tear and nodded slightly, trying to turn the corners of her mouth upwards against her timid heart. I tried to do the same, with not much better results.

“Hey, come on, I know you can do better than that! Let’s see a biiiiig laughing smile!” Thérèse pounced on the little girl, tickling her all over and eliciting giggling squeals from both parties. Wendy just sort of stared at them, a disapproving look on her face.

“N-no, doh-ho-he-hee~! Don’t! Tiirrese-se-se-hee-hee-hee! Wah, tha-ha-hat’s not fair~! Your-hor-hor b-bigger than me-he-hee-hee-hee!”

“You’re only as little as you feel, Monny!” Miss Tickles answered back, now tangled in a sea of video cords. “And little ones know how to squirm away easier, don’t they~?”

As if taking this advice immediately to heart, Monica quickly squirted out of the mess and fluttered around in the air before hiding on top of a shelf, leaving Thérèse to amusingly untangle herself from the technological mess she’d rolled into. I swear that she must have just oozed herself straight through some of that tangle, but she did it so deftly it was hard to tell one way or another. After cooling down a little Monica crept back to us, and Thérèse handed us those oval controllers again.

“Really, Terese?” I asked, looking at her skeptically. “After all this you still want to play a video game?”

“I’m not gonna let a little thing like the scary past stop me from teaching you girls about the scary future! Right, Flan?”

“Cuhm weet hurr eef you wahnt to leiv!” the girl in the corner answered, in some horrible mockery of an accent I couldn’t understand. Was it supposed to be a joke? Whatever the case, the two had a mutual understanding, and before long all four of us were sitting in front of a screen with cheerful colors and malformed little men with square heads and a little pom-pom on their hats.

And bombs. Lots of bombs.

“Teare, how’s this s’posed to work?” Monica whined, poking buttons randomly.

She smiled. “Oh, real simple! The left arrows buttons walk ya’ around. This one here drops a bomb. All you have to do is run away from the bombs, and blow up everything else! It’s easy! And fun!”

“B-but, what about all these other ones?!”

“Don’t worry about those, all you need is bombs! Lots of bombs! Ready? No? Too bad, let’s go!”

And so it began. To the best of my understanding, the battle ended when only one person didn’t get blown up, and I was pretty sure you wanted to be that person. And to my immediate understanding, you couldn’t jump over a bomb. Predictably, Monica and I spent the first five or ten games sitting around like fools after blowing ourselves up instantly, while Thérèse danced her little character around Wendy’s before inevitably getting blown up herself. Once she and I eventually discovered which way was up, the game became… intriguing:

“Help! I’m stuck! I’m gonna get blowed up!”

“I believe there is an option to kick your bombs, Cousin Friday.”

“Wendy, I don’ know how to do that! Aaaah, no, I’m dead again!”

“Wheeeeeee~ I’m running so faaast! Oops, I hit a wall again.”

“How’d you get that many Fire-Ups so fast, Wendy?!”

“I picked them up, Thursday. Wednesday.”

“Ooo, my bomb says P! What’s that do? WAAHH! It blewed me up!”

“Haha, Full-Fire now, Wendy! I’m comin’ for yah! Pow!”

“A double-edged sword cuts both ways, cousin. Those who play with fire get burned.”

…And the next game:

“I don’t understand! Why do these blocks all look funny?”

“Coooool, my bomb blew up the other bomb and it blew up the other bomb!”

“This is called a chain reaction, cousin.”

“Kick, kick, kick~”

“Wah, I can use three bombs at a time now?! What just happened?”

“Coooool, my bombs are like, made ‘a rubber now!”

“Punch, punch, punch~”

“No, it’s bounce, bounce, bounce!”

“Ahh, a skull! I bet the skull is a bad thing! The-Reese, is it a bad thing?”

“Kick~ Punch~ It’s all in… Oh, what? Yeah, skulls’re bad for you.”

…And the next game:

“Stop jumping! Why can you jump, that’s not fair!”

“Press Y! Press Y!”

“But I can’t find Y!”

“It’s the one that looks like a Y!”

“I blow ‘em up, but they grow back! That’s not fair!”

“Ahh, I can’t stop! I’m stuck! Heeelllp!”

“You must look before you leap, cousin.”

“Yeah, maybe this arena was a bad idea…”

…And the next game:

“All right, I can do this! I’m gonna win one!”

“Whah! But Fridee, I wanna win one too!”

“Hey, remember, she’s got a name now! Yay for Francesca~”

“That’s a hard name! Why do you all have hard names? Fransseehh, Frahhncessk, Franceblehbleh…”

“Friday is an appropriate name. It is established, and trustworthy.”

“Ahhww, you shut up, Wendy-lady! I’ma ‘splode you up!”

“I think it’s lovely. Really, I’m just happy I have one now.”

“Ahh, Franky, stop chasing me, I don’ wanna dieee!”

“…Franky? But you’re beating me! You’re a lot better than me at this, Monica!”

“No I’m not, I keep dyin’!”

“Hey, you keep arguing like that and I’ll ‘splode you up too! Gah, Wendy! Where’d your bomb come from?!”

“From my foot, cousin, with which I kicked it towards you.”

Needless to say, it was an enjoyable experience for us all, despite the utter failure of skill I was at the game. Monica managed to catch on quite a lot quicker than me, and though she never ended up winning a game, she was second place more than once. I must say I was surprised at Wendy’s skill; she beat Thérèse more often than not, though it never seemed like she took any battle very seriously. Perhaps that’s the point of a video game, though? If so, maybe Wendy was the big loser after all…

[ ] I felt kind of bad, leaving all the cooking to just Tullia and Sunny, though. I thought that maybe they could use some help?
[ ] Lunch was probably coming pretty soon, but maybe there was time to strike up a conversation with one of the post-gaming fairies?
--( ) (Specify who you’ll focus on; obviously the other two will chime in a little. Post a discussion topic if you want, too)
[ ] That silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings.
[ ] Some write-in pertaining to something in the room? (I don’t know, just an idea)

[X] That silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings.

We better check on Flandre. She wanted this party, but she's not having any fun right now.

[X] That silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings.

{That silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings.}

Changing vote from >>36358 to this

[X] That silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings.
[X]...but also maybe see Monica as well. 'birds of a feather' and all.

>"Kick~ Punch~ It’s all in…"
JAOOOOOO

[X] That silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings.
[X] I felt kind of bad, leaving all the cooking to just Tullia and Sunny, though. I thought that maybe they could use some help?

>“I believe there is an option to kick your bombs, Cousin Friday.”

FRIDAY, MAH CAHZIN!

[X] That silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings.

>Please try not to dwell on it too much, Freja-voters. It's a silly thing to worry about.

I was going to do a troll post with lot of swearing and the like, but I don't want to turn a AFT's thread into shit.
>>36332
>>36334

Or, maybe they could be portuguese.

[x] That silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings.

>>36376
Is Remilia a common Portugeuse name?

An easy count; unanimous vote for talking to Flandre. I'll write some tonight, then probably get the update out in the morning.

>>36376
Aww, really? How sweet of you~ Thanks; I really do appreciate your consideration. Everything goes smoother when we don't sweat the small stuff.

>>36332
>>36334
>>36376
>>36386
Amazingly enough, Remilia is not a French name; it's Italian. The variant "Emilia" has some Portuguese roots, but in general Remilia-esque names are either Italian or Romanian in origin.

"Flandre" and its more prominent root "Flanders" have combined French, Belgian, and Dutch roots, as there is actually a region of Europe called Flanders, which once consisted of territory from all three countries. I believe the region is completely within modern-day Belgium now.

In any case, it's really not worth it to try and determine their origins and past from their names alone, especially considering that even in the early 1500's there probably wasn't a law starting you must name your child in conformance with your country. I realize there's a certain propriety involved, but quite frankly that might be going a little far into things, and at the end of the day could just be hand-waived with "Vampires don't care about what human culture thinks."

I'll tell you all that I do have an origin story written up for the sisters, as well as a timeline of their lives. However, I've been tweaking it here and there to try and integrate some real-world history into it, just for extra flavor and depth. After all, Count Dracula was hardly Vlad III of Wallachia, but that doesn't mean there wasn't at least some basis in fact.

Still, it's fun to think about, no?

[x] That silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings.

>>36388
We could discuss forever where exactly Remilia was born and where she got her name from.
But i think it would be more interesting where she actually spent all those centuries. Many people seem to think that she spent much time in France but i am not so sure.

But that silly “Cuhm weet hurr!” comment must have meant Flandre was getting better again, and I wondered if I shouldn’t talk to her properly? Clearly she’d been shaken up by her “accident”, and it might be nice for her to know I didn’t have any hard feelings. After all, I had ended up being her target, and without Thérèse’s intervention, perhaps she might have actually gone “all the way”. I knew from Sakuya just what it was she was capable of, and that odd little twitch I’d experienced had felt rather ominous indeed…

Excusing myself politely from the group, I crept softly up to the deposed video-gamer, who by then had slung her hood up and over her head, and was trying to disappear into it. Her fingers twitched and twiddled nervously around the end of her long tail of hair, and I could still hear a sporadic sniffling from inside the hoodie.

I sat down cross-legged in front of her, making just enough noise for her to know I was there, but saying nothing else. It was a scary feeling, willingly going back to the person who’d almost blown me apart a half-hour ago, and it took plenty of willpower for me to remember Cousin Thursday’s words:

”We’re the only ones here who don’t need to be afraid of her. We can take care of her, better than anyone else can. And that’s why she needs us…”

Predictably, Flandre didn’t look up or raise her hoodie when she asked me, “You… are okay, right?”

I nodded. “I’m fine, Flandre. I was scared, but… Thérèse talked to us, and I’m, I guess I’m not so scared any more.”

She nodded back. “Yeah, yeah… Thérèse, she does that, does that a-lot-tah. Good, good friend… she’s so nice to me, understand me good… I mean, well. Yes, got to, have to, use proper grammar… I’m not a child… no excuses.” There was a brief pause where neither of us said anything, and then she continued. “You know, I… I taught her, I taught her, everything she knows, really? Yeah, real… real good friends. I, told her everything I know, so that, when I, I forget… she can tell me. She’s really, kinda like, like another me, you know? A real me, not… not like the fake mes. Except… well, she’s not, broken. I’m… I’m, broken.”

I tried to console her. “Flandre, you’re… you’re not broken. You’re just—“

”Yes I am,” she interrupted, finally poking her distraught eyes out of the cavern of her hood. “Not-broken people have control over their brain-mouth filter. Not-broken people know the difference between a pat and a shove. Not-broken people don’t talk back to the voices in their head! Not… N-Not-broken people, don’t… joke about killing somebody they love. They don’t… kill them, neither. I’m broken, F-Francesca. Please… Believe that, if, if you don’t believe anything else, that I ever say. Don’t… don’t let me, break you too…”

I saw her imploring gaze, and I knew she was right, even though it was such an awful thing to be right about. No matter how sweet she could be, and no matter how much comfort she somehow managed to give in her own twisted way, there was something wrong with her. And the worst part about it all was that she knew it, and couldn’t do a thing about it. They say that those who call themselves insane are not really insane at all, and those who are actually insane will never call themselves as such. A Catch-Twenty-Two, I believe it’s called. Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

If only real people actually conformed to what “they” say…

But I crept closer to her, refusing to let that be the simple end of it. I dared not touch her—not so soon—but I placed my palm on the ground right next to hers, trying to look her in the eyes.

“You can’t break me, Flandre. I’m… I’m a fairy, and fairies don’t die. I got killed, just last night, but I’m still here. I’m not… not as afraid of it, anymore. I don’t, don’t have to be afraid of you. So… don’t you be afraid of yourself, either.”

She sniffled away tears again, shaking her head. “Minds break… Hearts break… Souls break… Even fairies can’t fix those, Francé. You don’t, know, what you don’t know yet.”

“N-No, no I… I don’t. I don’t, know what your life is like; I don’t know what it’s like to be… broken. But… I can still love the parts of you that aren’t broken, can’t I?”

Flandre stared at me, confused for a moment. Then, as the words managed to weave their way through the tangled recessed of her mind, her tear-streaked frown slowly worked itself into the tiniest of grins, and she nodded her head twice. “Aye… you could do that.”

She finally managed to bring herself out of the corner, leaning carefully towards me with increasingly-outstretched hands. It was certainly the most awkward of hugs I’d ever experienced; it must have taken a full minute for her to eventually wrap her arms around my back, being overly cautious and gentle to the point where I felt like I was made of a paper-thin crystal shell, that would break at the slightest pressure. Her little red hoodie brushed against my ear, rough with age and dozens of trips though the washing machine.

“Th, Thanks… I, I’m sorry. I, owe you one.”

“I forgive you, Flan.”

She let go of me, her face rapidly improving in composure as she wiped the tears from her face properly this time. “I’m… I’m hungry. It can be being food and eat now, please and thank you?”

“Table’s set and waiting for you, girls” Tullia responded kindly, who’d been watching the entire hug from behind my back.

“Excuse me, I’m four hundred and eighty-eight, which is a bunch of a lot years older than you, you girl… fairy… person… bad insult… thing!”

Her brain’s return to its “snark” setting notwithstanding, we got up and sat down at the round table, myself between Monica and Tullia. Lady Remilia would have positively balked at the simplicity of the meal: it was just some kind of potato-based casserole with dinner rolls and a fruit salad, severed on dishes that weren’t exactly plastic but weren’t exactly ceramic either, and had no ornamentation. They did look like there were very difficult to break, though.

Flandre clinked the edge of her champagne glass full of milk (so glad Remilia couldn’t see this) with her spoon, getting the room’s attention.

“So, ummm… hi. I’m Flandre. Wanna thank everyone for coming to my party, especially those of you who weren’t invited; you know who you are, kay.” I looked around the room, as did a few others, but of course saw no one but the seven of us, who had obviously all been invited. She continued. “I’d say things that are things and also inspiring, but they’ll end up just being inside jokes and references to movies you haven’t seen and games you haven’t played, which is neither inspiring nor things, so I won’t do that. That’s also a lie. For great justice, I shall tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they will know my name is the Lord, when I was almost a Flan sandwich. It’s fine if you don’t clap for that, because it was terrible, and I feel terrible for saying it. That’s also a lie; no I don’t.”

An awkward silence followed, eventually broken by a light clap from Sunny with the tips of her fingers, and Thérèse quietly shouting “Booooo, you suck, get off the stage, etcetera.”

“So yeah, uhhh, hecklers aside—you know who you are, kay—Remi gets mad when I don’t say thanks, but I’m no good at it out loud, with people who hafta understand me and stuff and stuff. You got no idea what I’m talkin’ ‘bout, soooo… Anybody wanna say thank you for stuff?”

Yet another awkward silence followed as we made sense of Flandre’s words. It seemed to me like she wanted someone to say a… some kind of thanks for the food, or something? Was that supposed to be something religious? Religion wasn’t really one of those things I understood very well, more just because no one had ever bothered to tell me much about it, except perhaps Dr. Patchouli the day before, and that was a whole other story.

[ ] But I thought, if she was asking, I might as well give it a shot. Better down here with friends than at some well-to-do with Remilia in the future.
[ ] I was a little unsure of myself about it, to tell you the truth. I thought maybe, if someone else went first, it’d be a little easier for me to say something.
[ ] I knew I’d just make a mess of the words, so I politely kept silent and let someone else take the floor.

[x] I was a little unsure of myself about it, to tell you the truth. I thought maybe, if someone else went first, it’d be a little easier for me to say something.

[x] I was a little unsure of myself about it, to tell you the truth. I thought maybe, if someone else went first, it’d be a little easier for me to say something.

[x] But I thought, if she was asking, I might as well give it a shot. Better down here with friends than at some well-to-do with Remilia in the future.

[X] But I thought, if she was asking, I might as well give it a shot. Better down here with friends than at some well-to-do with Remilia in the future.

Wasn't our fairy supposed to be working on becoming more brave?

[X] But I thought, if she was asking, I might as well give it a shot. Better down here with friends than at some well-to-do with Remilia in the future.

>>36416
Yeah but I do see the remark about Remilia to be a bit overly scathing in light of what she's done for Fran.

[x] I was a little unsure of myself about it, to tell you the truth. I thought maybe, if someone else went first, it’d be a little easier for me to say something.

Lets not push to hard here.

>>36421
It's not saying anything particularly bad about Remilia; just that there's going to be a bit more emphasis on propriety when she's around than there is with just Flandre and the fairies.

[X] But I thought, if she was asking, I might as well give it a shot. Better down here with friends than at some well-to-do with Remilia in the future.

Nearly voted for waiting for someone else, just to be sure our FreyaFrancesca doesn't offend anyone's religious sensibilities, but saying grace really isn't that difficult no matter who you worship.

[x] But I thought, if she was asking, I might as well give it a shot. Better down here with friends than at some well-to-do with Remilia in the future.
Brave fairy is brave.

5 votes to 3 in favor of saying a little something. Writing now, and by now I actually do mean now.

>>36405
I think people just say France because of the supposed beautiful and romantic image it conjures up in the mind. However, there’s no basis for such a claim, and all we know for certain is the European nationality of the sisters’ names and that their mansion was built in a Western/European style. Hooray for the ever-unspecific ZUN.

Considering that there’s no real information about their past, please realize that whatever backstory about them I come up with can neither be confirmed, nor denied. This story is just one interpretation of what their past might have been. It’s meant to entertain, not to instruct, “lol canon”, etcetera.

>>36423
You are correct in regards to the Remilia comment.
>FreyaFrancesca
This better not become commonplace, lest I officially name her “Fry” so that everyone is unhappy, including me. “Small-fry” jokes will abound, and Flandre will be in anguish that Futurama won’t exist for three more years.

Yes that’s a joke.

But I thought, if she was asking, I might as well give it a shot. Better down here with friends than at some well-to-do with Remilia in the future, right? I softly cleared my throat and raised my hand.

“I… I’ll say something, Miss Flandre,” I answered, a little embarrassed. “I, uhh, don’t really know much about it, but I guess, I can at least try.”

She nodded. “The floor’s mine, then, because it’s my room. Or maybe Remi’s, but I’m her sister so it’s actually our house~, in the middle of our street~; our house, in the middle of our—sentence that I need to finish and didn’t yet. You can say stuff now.”

One by one the girls and women around the table quit their whispering and moving about, showing different levels of reverence. Some bowed their heads, others just closed their eyes, and Wendy just sort of stared vaguely in my direction with a dull and pensive look on her face. Standing up, I swallowed down the lump in my throat and actually considered what in the heavens I was supposed to say.

What was I supposed to say? I had not a single clue as to what gods or goddesses or who knows what else the vampire sisters worshiped, or even if they worshiped nothing at all and merely said a table thanks out of habit. That Mistress Remilia would “get mad” for forgetting to do so suggested that she was more religious than her sister, or at the very least more proprietary (which was obviously true), but that still told me woefully little. Once again I really had no choice but to simply try and poorly emulate the things I had seen in the past, and attempt to offended no higher power at the same time.

“Well, umm… I’m, uhh, I’m thankful for this food; it looks really nice and delicious. And, I guess, I’m thankful for all my new friends. I mean, I’ve never really had friends before, so that’s… that’s nice. And I’m… hummmm… Oh! I’m, I’m thankful for my new name! Because some people don’t even get names, so I’m really, really glad I actually have one. And, oh, what else… Ummm, maybe, I wish that Ms. Patchouli would cheer up? She’s really sad right now, and stuff. I guess… I guess, that’s it for now. Am I, do I say like ‘Amen’ now? I’ve never done this before…”

One or two of them nodded in conformation and whispered “You’re fine”, so I sat back down, blushing. That… wasn’t so bad, was it? It actually felt kind of nice, saying the things I was thankful for out loud. I wondered if I should start making a list so I wouldn’t forget them. Flandre remained noticeably free of inane comments, which I found rather interesting.

Meandering conversations began again as we passed the serving dishes around the table and spooned out our portions. The food was nothing awe-inspiring, but in the end it was really little more than an excuse for us to all meet each other and have a little fun as whatever kind of crazy “team” we were.

“So… Francesca?” Tullia commented rhetorically, looking at me. “A lovely name indeed, I must say. I’m quite surprised you earned it so quickly.”

“Earn? But I, I didn’t do anything. I just sort of… hung around, I guess.”

“Considering who we all hang with, that’s generally enough,” responded Sunny, motioning to me with a dinner roll. “You’d be surprised how many Fridays we’ve gone through in the last few years; never seemed to find one that stuck, and certainly not one who adapted as quickly as you.”

“Yeah, it was a real hard choice,” Flandre commented, assumedly to herself considering her gaze was towards the ceiling. “Francesca was a nice one, but I was wondering, maybe Freya? It’s got that free-spirited nature vibe to it or whatever, plus its Norse, an’ that’s pretty cool. I keep on thinking that it’s lay, vay, tee, in, but then she says that it’s lava, tain, and I can’t remember how he said it, because seriously, I was what, seven when he gave it to me? Can’t expect me to remember that, kay? Kay. No I didn’t steal it. But then I thought, ‘Hey wait, Francesca means free in Latin, so that’s pretty cool. We’ll go with that one.’ Also there’s like a million different ways to purposely mispronounce it, so I can keep doing it and they won’t catch on because they think I don’t know what the hell I’m saying. Do I? More like I don’t know what I’m saying and what I’m not. Is this thing on?”

For the most part we just tried to talk around her, which worked well enough for people like Monica and I.

“Okay, so wait, wait wait wait,” Sunny continued mid-conversation, talking to Thérèse, “So she was a vampire hunter, or just some wacko?”

“Little’a column A, little’a column B. She railed on Sapphire pretty hard, that’s for sure; surprised she was well enough to stand guard today. Still not sure why Remilia’s keeping her.”

“Wait, what are you guys talkin’ about?” Monica wondered aloud. Sunny gave her a steadying hand.

“Ahh, just gossip. Sapphire caught a human outside the walls all loaded up with silver and weapons and things, of something like that. Don’t you worry about it; that’s for people like Remilia and Sakuya to sort out. Thérèse knows more than I do.”

“Ahh, well actually,” she restored, scratching her hair, “Francey probably knows just as much as me; she was in the middle of it all, and she’s been running errands for Patches all morning. Might’ve picked up something, maybe?”

I suddenly found a good amount of the table starting to look at me, something I didn’t really know how to feel about.


[ ] I certainly didn’t want to be a gossip, not when I had so little perspective on the big picture, that was for certain. I did my best to dodge the issue so as not to make their confusion worse.
[ ] But there was no real harm in telling them basically what I’d told Saphhire just an hour or two before, was there? It’d ease their curiosity, at least.
[ ] It felt a little rewarding, though, to be recognized for things I’d done or seen. And maybe as a group we could sort out the pieces between Patchouli, Remilia, and the mysterious Natasha Herod. This was a secret lunch anyways; perhaps what happened in Flandre’s room could stay in Flandre’s room?
[ ] Well, if I was the center of attention, I didn’t want to disappoint. I figured I might as well tell them what I had to share from start to finish. I was the new kid in town, so to speak, and this was a good chance to set the record straight amongst us all.



Author's Note - Shorter update, I know; might try and offset it with another short one tonight.

[x] But there was no real harm in telling them basically what I’d told Saphhire just an hour or two before, was there? It’d ease their curiosity, at least.

[x] But there was no real harm in telling them basically what I’d told Saphhire just an hour or two before, was there? It’d ease their curiosity, at least.

I'll wait until Flandre shows interest in checking that out, no need to burden the other fairies with it now.

[X] It felt a little rewarding, though, to be recognized for things I’d done or seen. And maybe as a group we could sort out the pieces between Patchouli, Remilia, and the mysterious Natasha Herod. This was a secret lunch anyways; perhaps what happened in Flandre’s room could stay in Flandre’s room?

As it says. Its rewarding to be actually recognised for our deeds.

[x] But there was no real harm in telling them basically what I’d told Saphhire just an hour or two before, was there? It’d ease their curiosity, at least.
Telling them the basics will suffice. The details should stay in a need-to-know basis.

[x] But there was no real harm in telling them basically what I’d told Saphhire just an hour or two before, was there? It’d ease their curiosity, at least.

okay

{It felt a little rewarding, though, to be recognized for things I’d done or seen. And maybe as a group we could sort out the pieces between Patchouli, Remilia, and the mysterious Natasha Herod. This was a secret lunch anyways; perhaps what happened in Flandre’s room could stay in Flandre’s room?}

[X] It felt a little rewarding, though, to be recognized for things I’d done or seen. And maybe as a group we could sort out the pieces between Patchouli, Remilia, and the mysterious Natasha Herod. This was a secret lunch anyways; perhaps what happened in Flandre’s room could stay in Flandre’s room?

We didn't really tell Sapphire much of anything, it was more like passing the buck to Patchouli.

[X] But there was no real harm in telling them basically what I’d told Sapphire just an hour or two before, was there? It’d ease their curiosity, at least.

>>36453
Okay, okay, I'm done; just had to get one last one in. The reference in the latest update was more than I was hoping for, anyway; thanks for that.

Hey, Tepes?
I've told you that your Flandre is awesome before, but I don't think you really understand how awesome she is.

Thank you.

Nobody has, can, or will ever write one better.

[X] It felt a little rewarding, though, to be recognized for things I’d done or seen. And maybe as a group we could sort out the pieces between Patchouli, Remilia, and the mysterious Natasha Herod. This was a secret lunch anyways; perhaps what happened in Flandre’s room could stay in Flandre’s room?

Its like a meeting of the league of supervillains.

A close vote, but it ends up at 5 votes to 4 for keeping things on a need-to-know basis. One of these days I just know that the underdog vote will come back and win the race. Don't give up, people; I believe in you! Anyways, writing at a vague point which may or may not be now.

>>36483
I try; Flandre is a reference machine. At times I feel like I'm using her inappropriately just to slide in pop culture references that aren't really funny and detract from the story, but then I realize, "Hey, it's Flandre. She purposely avoids contact with the real world so she doesn't accidentally break it. Why shouldn't her head be full of movies, books, and video games? It's not like she's got much else to do down there year after year."

>>36512
[francesca]
Th-Thank you... I, I mean, it's... I try, I just wanted ta' make you all a nice story, and stuff... I didn't know you'd all like it so much! I really... really appreciate it.
[/francesca]

Ahh yes, just an important note here. I will be doing a timeskip several months ahead after this next update. I gave you a heads-up a number of updates ago, but you’ve probably forgotten by now. It’s the same reason as the other timeskips I’ve used so far, really. I could write forever about each and every day Francesca lives through, and each would be enjoyable and establish her character further, but simply speaking I don’t have enough time to do that without making this a three million word long story, and oftentimes the only thing that can give a person better understanding about the world is time. So for the good of the story and the good of Francesca, I really do need to keep moving. Plus I think we all know there’s still someone missing from the mansion~

Personally I find large and sudden timeskips jarring myself, but I’ve yet to find a very elegant way to move through days or weeks quickly without cheapening individual scenes. If anyone has a problem with timeskips and/or knows of a clever way to avoid them while still moving ahead in time, by all means let me know. And also, don’t worry; Francesca will provide cover narration to explain what happens during the skip; more on that with the next update.

I’ll pseudo-sage-bomb this thread and make a new one once I’m ready with the next update, since we’re only a few away from 250 anyways. Nothing major; just a few misc. posts to bring us to autosage.

>>36535
You don't need to, we're already in autosage.

>>36537
Well fine, I guess you won't be getting this picture from me anymore then, will you?

>>36539
that reminds me will your story explain how Patchouli goes from stuff like sweaters to her now classic outfit?

>>36540
Don't need to; I can explain it right now. Pick one or more of the following explanations as they do or do not convince you:

1) She doesn't wear the same thing every day. The "classic" outfit is just what she happened to be wearing during the few times ZUN drew her.
2) As most humans usually do, Patchouli adapts to her surroundings and the customs of said surroundings. She's currently in a modern world and thus wears modern clothes. Upon entering Gensokyo, she would be in a fantasy world and wear more fantastical clothes.
3) ZUN likes fancy dresses way too much.
4) I don't like fancy dresses as much as ZUN does.
5) The classic outfit is something she hasn’t bought/made/been given yet.
6) That outfit has some kind of special meaning to her, and she only wears it on certain occasions.
7a) Variety is the spice of life, and I like being original.
7b) You like it when I'm original, too.
8) Patchouli is a practical-thinking woman of SCIENCE! science. Poofy sleeves and long gowns would get in the way of her experiments.
9) It’s a derivative fan-made work of fiction (a.k.a. “fanfic”). I’m allowed artistic liberties.
10) Contemporary Patchy looks nice~

>>36544
I never said I was complaining about it; just curious.

>10) Contemporary Patchy looks nice~

So true.

>>36544
11) It's a moriya shrine conspiracy.
12) A shady drug made her allergic to silk.
13) Yukari modified the boundaries of good fashion sense.

>>36544
Patchy also has good taste in vehicles.