Zafira blinked when he was served a veritable tower of fluffy and soft-looking pancakes, dripping with sweet syrup from an unidentifiable source, decorated with a small marshmallow on top. To his right, he saw another tower, this one having pancakes decorated with chocolate chips and in turn covered in melted chocolate that was clearly freshly melted, but already starting to dry. To his left, he gazed in wonder at the unidentifiable, yet delicious-smelling fruit pancakes, which had so many things tossed in them that his nose was starting to lose track.
"Since you were the first one to wake up, you get to be my taste tester! So go on, try them all and tell me what you think!" Naruko said, smiling widely.
Well… when asked like that, he couldn't really say no, could he?
He'd risk ruining her good mood and missing the opportunity. Thankfully, she'd prepared some really bitter and strong coffee. Apparently, somewhere down the line, she'd realized she'd been going too sweet, since there were also a few visible coffee-flavored pancakes. Well… sitting there and just staring dumbfounded at the veritable modern-city mockup that the kitchen table had become would probably not be productive at all.
So Zafira took a fork, a knife and his own determination to tackle on this, most mighty of opponents.
Shamal sighed. "You ate too much, of course your tummy hurts," she said, rolling her eyes as Zafira whined. He'd turned into his dog form on the basis that it had a better chance at getting healed out of pity. Large or small, he could always pull off a puppy dog's eyes. "You'll be fine with a little rest for your stomach to settle. What were you eating, anyway? You don't usually stuff yourself this much…"
All of a sudden, their shared mistress walked into the room. "Oh! Shamal, you're awake! Come over for breakfast!"
Shamal shrugged. "Mistress woke up early, I guess," she muttered. Zafira looked at her for a moment, but she ignored him. "Very well, mistress, just a moment."
"Zafira, can you get Signum and Vita when you come back down?" Naruko asked. "I'll go get washed up."
Only then did Shamal notice that her mistress was covered in a yellowish substance. At least, her arms up to her elbows and her apron were. There was also a bit of it on her face and hair.
Zafira nodded. "I shall," he said, solemnly, almost as if being ordered to go into a suicide mission.
Naruko grinned and left, heading towards the bathroom.
"… That's odd. Mistress is usually a very good cook. Did she mess up..?" Shamal asked.
"Actually, it's the total opposite. Her food is delicious, as usual… in fact, it's a bit… too good," Zafira admitted. "I… over indulged," he admitted, sheepishly. It was a most odd thing to hear. "Mistress seems to have woken up very early. She spent the entirety of the last hour or so just making pancakes of all sorts, from her own account. She made… quite a lot."
"Oh dear…" Shamal muttered, frowning to herself. "That good?"
"Even better…" Zafira admitted. "You'd better hurry. If you know Vita, you know there'll be none left if she gets there before you… And a good thing about being able to go back and forth in my forms is that it consumes a great deal of energy… which opens up my stomach…"
Naruko blinked and shook her head, taking a deep breath. She dipped her hands into the gathered water in front of her before bringing them to her face and wiping at it energetically. She removed her hands and released her breath. She brought her face up and looked at herself in the mirror. Ruby red eyes met her gaze, but when she blinked, they were back to the usual sapphire blue that her eyes normally were. "There's batter everywhere… I think I'll have to take a bath," Naruko muttered to herself. "Hm… after breakfast!"
Content with her choice, Naruko pulled the stopper from the sink, allowing the water to drain.
"I wonder how everyone's enjoying breakfast?" she muttered to herself as she used a nearby towel to dry her face.
Vita burped. "I can't… eat anymore…" she muttered, waving her fork like a dying man waves his sword. "But… double chocolate chips and cookie dough… bwahh… Why must you taunt me… so?"
"That's getting a bit dramatic," Signum stated, drinking a cup of the super bitter coffee Naruko had made to counteract the sweetness of breakfast. She had to admit, even that was a surprising step in the right direction. The contrast in flavors brought both up magnificently, and it made it really easy to enjoy her mistress' cooking efforts without gaining a distaste for all things sweet.
Shamal giggled a bit as she watched Vita trying to push more pancakes down her gullet. "Really, though, if all of us end up with a stomach ache… that'd be bad."
"Would it, really?" Signum asked, smirking a little. "Is a stomach ache from being too full not the sign of a happy and carefree life..?"
"You're the last person I'd expect to hear that sentence from," Zafira admitted, looking at her somewhat oddly.
"… Truth be told, I do not relish the life of a warrior. These days… these days we spend solely as a family, are the ones I cherish the most. Is that so strange, coming from me?" Signum asked, somewhat concerned by the image that the other knights held of her.
"Not really," Vita commented, yawning as she did. "We're all the same, am I right?"
"Truly, yes," Zafira admitted. "I am a Guardian Beast, my sole task in life is to protect and serve my master, and my life has been spent fighting endlessly, and yet…"
Shamal smiled warmly. "Nobody asked us what we wished for. Nobody provided us with this kind of environment before…" she mused, looking at her own cup of coffee, only slightly sweetened at all, and even then, only by the addition of a little milk. "Nobody treated us as… family… before."
Signum smiled. The stoic knight often guarded her expression, and seldom let the truth of her feelings show through. Oh, one couldn't call her unexpressive at all, but she was still a rather subdued individual, when it came to expressing her emotions. It was telling, then, that she could offer so much with such a small smile, barely an upturning of her lips. Yet, as she closed her eyes and took a deep whiff of the rich smell of her coffee, Signum offered her fellow knights more emotion in that single expression than she ever had her enemies with anything else. "Yesterday… we learned of something very shocking. This might be a threat to our mistress' life…" Signum muttered, her smile dropping as the topic changed.
"You don't have to speak," Shamal said, nodding at her.
"We already know," Zafira added, adding his own nod.
Vita clenched her free hand and brought it up, looking intently at her fist. "With our hands… with our power… we'll save her. From anything and everything that presents a threat… even if that threat… is the book of Darkness itself!"
Since Naruko came into the kitchen shortly after, however, all further conversation in that direction was promptly killed, as the newly formed whirlwind known as Naruko swept through the room. None of the four knew how, but she had shortly extracted from each of them a promise to be present to help her with that night's dinner and dessert. The whirlwind left as quickly as it'd swung by, dragging them as it did, in a direction all of them knew well. The biggest bathroom in the house received a lot of use, after all…
In contrast to the carefree atmosphere in the Uzumaki household, up in orbit things were much different. The Briefing room of the Asura was not filled to bursting, but it wasn't particularly empty, either. While most operatives were still planetside, just in case, the more… involved members of the operation had all gathered to discuss the situation. This led to a rather… interesting bunch being present.
"If she works, at all, like a Jinchuuriki, then extraction of her tenant would kill her," Jiraiya said, simply. "As you might have guessed, I can do it," he added, but his frown gave no doubts about what his opinion on such a course of action would be.
"We can't do that," Nanoha said, a frown on her face.
"I agree," Lindy said, taking a sip from her tea. It was more sugar than tea, and as such Nanoha had refused to call it such, but to Lindy tea was tea, no matter how sweet she wanted it. "As it is, we should observe the situation…"
Chrono nodded, in clear understanding. "If this is how Mr. Jiraiya explained, then… there's a possibility she might be enough of a seal for the Defense Program."
However, this made Yuuno frown. "Using a human as a seal is… not right," he said.
Everyone expected Jiraiya to react harshly to the perceived insult to his culture, which did it regularly, but instead, he seemed to nod in agreement. "It's a last resort."
"So… if you want to observe the situation…" Fate mused. "That's why you insisted on visiting again, right?" she asked, absent mindedly patting Arf, who'd taken the form of a puppy, on the back of her head, causing her to whine in delight.
"Correct," Lindy confirmed, offering Fate an encouraging smile of approval. "At this point, we've managed to reach a truce with the Wolkenritter. Negotiations have gone very well. However, it remains to be seen how the situation will develop… It might change still…"
Jiraiya nodded. "I seriously hope it doesn't… Even if it's not the optimal result…"
"For the time being, it's acceptable," Lindy said, frowning. "When it comes down to it, if she can manage to hold the Defense Program in check and prevent it from ever breaking out to cause destruction… then that would be enough. It'd give us sixty, maybe more, years to come up with an alternate solution."
"This operation has run a little… longer than I expected it to, and less combat focused," Chrono admitted out of the blue, "I am… surprisingly glad for it's mostly peaceful route," he added. "But even so… I can't help but feel like everything's going too well. Like… I don't know, like everything is just gearing up to an even larger storm. I've had cases like this… where everything seems to be going swimmingly…"
"Let's hope the pattern doesn't keep," Lindy said.
"Admiral… I request permission to join the group that will visit today," Nanoha said, bowing towards Lindy.
"Hm… That's unnecessary. The people who will accompany me are already decided. We'll all go. I already sent Signum the specifications of our party and they have already agreed to host us all," Lindy explained with a smile. "We've proved our peaceful intentions, after all…"
"This is probably either a gesture of good will on their part," Chrono mused, "or, based on what you've told me, their mistress making an unilateral decision and forcing her knights to go along with it."
"Forcing is a harsh word," Jiraiya commented, grinning. "You can't force someone who doesn't refuse you, after all…" he added.
Nanoha sighed. "It's such a weird relationship… I can tell that they care for each other very much, but… Naruko-chan behaves so strangely with her knights…"
"It's a long story. I only know it from an outsider's perspective, but… to put it simply, Naruko didn't used to be like this with them. It's a behavior that she developed from her efforts to keep them in line… and no, it's not because they went out to hurt other people or anything of the sort…"
"Well… we have time until our turn on the simulator comes up," Nanoha said, smiling at Fate. "So…"
"Heh. I'm a world-renowned storyteller, little lady," Jiraiya said, grinning. "So, let me tell you the story of our little Princess of the Night Sky…"