A/N: This is actually a fic requested by aliffiphonelinux95, a frequent reviewer of "The Potion Mistress and her idiot." For those of you who haven't read that fic, I tend to feature Lotte and Amanda as my beta pair, after jokingly setting them up in one of the chapters, and then actually shipping it pretty hard. I even wrote a cracky fic a few weeks ago about these two. Anyway, here's the fic!
Amanda was a woman of standards, or so she liked to think. Which was why she was so upset she was spending so much of her time with her damn tryhard carrot-top counterpart, Hannah. She was far below Amanda's usual hang out standards. She didn't even register on the chart, if Amanda was lame enough to make one.
But, well, Misery loved company. And right now, the two of them had the same bone to pick. Ever since Hannah's girlfriend, Barbara, had "come out of the closet" about liking Nightfall(an ironic term to use, since she had a harder time admitting she liked Nightfall than she did asking Hannah out on a date), she had been spending more time hanging out with Lotte, Amanda's girlfriend, and fellow Nightfall fanatic, than she had with her own girlfriend.
Which also meant that Lotte was spending more time squeeing over fanart with Barbara than going out on broom rides with Amanda. Or exchanging fanfiction ideas, rather than going to grab a bite to eat with her girlfriend. In fact, that's exactly how Hannah ended up across from her, picking at her food, as Lotte had canceled on their lunch date to hang out with her new best friend to try and get the newest special edition re-release of volume 320 with a new cover. Lotte already had two copies of that book, but ditched her girlfriend to get one with a different cover? Ugh, fanatics!
"This blows."Amanda took a bite of her food, and threw it back down on her plate. Hannah nodded forlornly, not even looking up from the plate she'd been fiddling with since they got here.
"Ever since Barbara admitted she liked those stupid books, we've been stuck together. It's so frustrating!" Hannah tightened a fist.
"I don't know what you're going on about, you're the one who keeps tagging along with me because you don't want to be alone for more than five minutes. It's not like you had to come with me." Amanda rolled her eyes. "And you better be paying for your own food, I only pay for the people I'm currently exchanging spit with, and you do not fit that bill."
Hannah grimaced at Amanda's choice of words. "I'll have you know I'm perfectly capable of paying for my own meals. I wouldn't accept your charity anyway."
"Psh, just because you come from old money doesn't make you better than me. My parents made it big in America, I just don't feel the urge to show off and act snooty about it every couple minutes." As if to prove her point, she leaned back in her chair and set her feet on the table, earning a look of disgust from the other girl.
"uh, could you please keep your feet off our tables, please? It's very unsanitary." A nervous looking waitress asked as she passed by, earning a scowl from Amanda as she reluctantly complied.
"Okay, so, what we need to do is try and get into this stupid sappy love series like our gals are, right?" Amanda confirmed what Hannah's plan was.
"Right, and to do that, we need to get out hands on some books. Barbara left all of hers at home, since she didn't want us finding out she liked the series. So we'll have to borrow them from Lotte." Hannah suggested.
"ugh, I don't want to get her hopes up. I mean, I'm going to try, and all, since, well, I miss hanging out and stuff, but I'm not putting in the effort to read all of them if I hate the series. If she finds out I even started trying, she'll expect me to read them all." Amanda tripped over her words, hoping she didn't sound too sappy. She had a reputation, she couldn't admit to anyone else she was going to read this crap to get on her girlfriends good side.
"So, what do we do, then? Buy our own copies?" Hannah didn't think that sounded all that hard, and they could just return it if they hated it.
"No way, we'll just nick them from Lotte's room and put it back when we're done." Amanda said confidently, earning a look of disbelief from her not-friend. "What, we're already back at the school, I'm not heading back into town. Besides, Lotte and Barbara are at the bookstore, I don't want to run into them there."
"You know there is more than one bookstore, right?"
"What, really?" Amanda looked in disbelief, "What for? No one reads anymore unless they're nerds." She then knocked on the Red teams door, before cracking it open "No one is doing anything they're not supposed to in here, are they? 'cause I can come back later if you need to finish." She snickered.
"Oh, hi Amanda! Oh, and Hannah? What are you two doing hanging out?" And there was Akko, sitting in a chair in the center of the room, with what looked like a pentagon etched in chalk around her, with Sucy muttering some spells with her wand in one hand and a bottle of fizzing potion in the other. And of course Amanda's comment went over her head. Not being a native English speaker, some of the dirtier jokes or comments Amanda liked to make didn't really compute. Sucy however got it, and snorted.
"We're doing a lot of things that'd get us in trouble, but none that you're thinking of. Maybe later, though." She witch cackled.
Amanda grinned, "We'll, you do you. Or you do Akko, I don't care. Say, where does Lotte keep her books?"
"And what in the world are you two doing?" Hannah added, closing the door behind her.
"I'm helping Akko grow some wings. She thinks they'll help her fly." Sucy monotoned. "Its pretty dangerous transformation magic, since it has to rearrange her bones so her back can support both arms and wings. It'll probably kill her if it fails." Despite how dangerous this was, Sucy didn't seem too concerned. Amanda always liked that about her.
"Sounds kinky. Good luck with that." That just earned another snort from Sucy as she kept on with her work.
"Lotte keeps her books over on that shelf." Akko pointed, before her hand was slapped back down by Sucy who then told her to be still. Amanda strode on over to the shelf, while Hannah nervously edged past the pentagram as the two of them tried looking for the book they needed.
As soon as they stepped forward to the shelf, which from afar looked to contain only a small handful of books, things got a bit trippy. Apparently Lotte had enchanted her shelf to be able to contain all the books she wanted it too, even though it was a rather small, modest shelf. What looked like 5 or 6 books quickly became a long, ever expanding list that took up both red heads sight. As Amanda looked right or left, the books scrolled past, almost like when she would use Croix's tablets to go through a lit of songs, only it was activated by sight and it went horizontal, instead of vertical. And with real objects.
This was some really creative spell usage, Amanda was actually really impressed.
"This is making my head hurt." Hannah muttered, eyes trying to follow each of the books as they seemingly flew past, making Amanda wonder if the girl was even seeing the same books as she was, or if the spell affected them each personally. After all, Amanda hadn't moved her eyes, so her list of books wasn't moving. But here Hannah was looking seasick.
Out of pity, Amanda clamped her hand around Hannah's eyes, and focused on the bookshelf. Lotte was a pretty organized person, so all these volumes were probably ordered by name and number. She was currently looking at her history text book, so that must mean she was in the H's, right? Looking to her right, the books began to fly past, making Amanda wonder just where they went to when they flew off the shelf, seemingly vanishing into thing air. She stopped in the N's, but found she'd gone too far, landing somewhere in the middle of the Nightfall series and so edged back a few dozen books, until she came across Nightfall, volume 1.
Snatching it from the shelf, she then made to leave, only to be stopped by Akko. Well, Akko's voice, since she still wasn't allowed to move from her chair. "Wait, you can't just take one of Lotte's books! You need to ask her if you can borrow it!"
Amanda cringed, "Look, Akko, she doesn't need to know. I'll bring it back later, okay?"
While she was trying to persuade Akko, Sucy snatched the book from Amanda's hands. "Why do you want to read Nightfall, anyway?"
Hannah snatched the book back. "Because Barbara and Lotte keep hanging out with each other instead of us!"
"Hannah!" Amanda groaned, "Not cool. I didn't need to explain that, you're making me look like a loser or something."
"Just read it in here." Akko suggested. "I've never read it before, either, so now I'm interested! And Sucy can join us!"
"How about I don't?"
"Come on, Suce, get into the reading spirit!" She made to get up and move, only to be stopped by the potion mistress.
"Do you want these wings or not?" Sucy poked Akko's belly with the end of her wand, making Akko fall back into her seat.
Akko looked sheepish, and turned to the two redheads. "Mind reading it out loud for me?"
Amanda closed the book, disgruntlement and annoyance written all over her face. "This is a waste of time." She groaned.
Akko pouted, her new wings flapping sadly as Sucy ran a feather brush through them. "Oh, come on, I was actually enjoying that! I liked all the voices you gave the characters!"
Hannah also looked a little disappointed. "I was also kind of enjoying it. Sure, it was cheesy, and cliche, but the time travel was interesting! And I can totally relate to Belle, and Edgar sounds really charming." She got a few funny looks for that, "W-well, you know, for a vampire."
"What do you think, Sucy?" Akko asked, reaching over her own head, and tapping the violet haired witch on the tp of her own. Sucy popped out her earplugs. "What? Did it finally stop?"
Amanda sighed, and handed the book over to Hannah. "You can read it, then. But I guess it's hopeless for me. I'll just become irrelevant as Lotte moves on with her Nightfall loving life."
"Why don't you just go with her and Barbara?" Sucy asked, annoyed that the two red heads were still in her room.
"What?" Amanda looked confused.
"She was going to pick up the book, not force you to go over ever detail of the story with her. Why didn't you just go shopping with your girlfriend?"
Amanda blinked. "Uh..."
"What's stopping you from keeping her company? You afraid it'll make you look stupid being around someone who likes Nightfall so much?" Sucy asked, her eyes looking mean.
Akko caught on, "Yeah, are you trying to say Lotte is dumb for liking this and you can't be seen with her when she wants to pick up a book, or see the movie, or go to a convention?"
"What, no way! I love Lotte, just because she likes this stupid stuff doesn't mean I think she's a loser, or something!" Amanda sputtered. "Look, I'll just get out of your hair. I-I'm going to go find Lotte, and we'll... hang out... and do something Nightfall related. Yeah, that'll show you! I'll even buy her that dumb new edition she wanted!"
Amanda then stood up, and marched out of the room, leaving Akko, Sucy and Hannah behind. "Well, aren't you going to go, too?" Akko asked the remaining redhead.
"No, I think I'll stay. I want to see what happens with Belle next!" Hannah cracked open the book again, prompting Akko to say. "Oh, do you think you can do the same voices Amanda did?"
Sucy rolled her eyes, and put her earplugs back in. At least Akko's wings turned out nice. Once they were nice and preened they'd have to see if they could fly.
Running a hand gently over them, she grinned. No matter if Akko achieved flight or not, Amanda was right, these were kinda kinky.
A/N: That bookshelf was inspired by my ipod. You have a list of songs, then with a scroll of your thumb, those items disappear off the screen, on are replaced by new songs. But the previous list of songs still exists, even if they can't fit on screen anymore. So imagine a bookshelf like that. One you can scroll through, and anything not on the shelf in front of you just isn't visible. It's "off screen" but still there, somewhere. I'd kill for one of those shelves. I need 4, actually. One for my books, another for manga, a third for games, and lastly, for movies.