This story is an expansion to my previous Nanoha story: When I Think About Flying. It is not strictly a continuation and both can be read independently. The story however is written to fit into the overall timeline, expressions and events of Flying. If you have not read Flying, I do recommend you to take a peek or things may get truly confuzzling.
This piece in particular was born out of the segment in Flying where Fate gives Vivio her account of how she figured Nanoha to be the "one" in her life. I had a lot of wild ideas for Flying and most did not make it into the bulk, which turned out to be a rather good thing. 'Trials' is going to be a collection of the small ideas of events that didn't make it into Flying because, well, it was supposed to be about Fate. What you read here will all be about Vivio. And Lutecia. And a tiny bit of Sora because my girl is cute.
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The Many Trials of Vivio Takamachi-Harlaown
A Nanoha Story
Written by Shigan
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Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.
-Lynda Barry
Part 1.
Vivio Takamachi-Harlaown was troubled.
The fact that she acknowledged this during the heat of a mission instead of staying focused on her task should have rung warning bells somewhere along her battle-attuned psyche, but Vivio was young and youth did have its fallibilities. She hovered high above ground with the others of the support group, guarding the rear as she watched over the strike team's progress. It was well past noon and she could feel the sun shear at her skin from above. This particular bunch of criminals could not have picked a worse day to blow stuff up.
She saw Erio's lean frame dash through the air in a charge that would have made Fate-mama proud. Vivio watched in distracted awe as her foster brother broke through a rune barrier, shattering it in shower of green energy and effectively knocking out two of the enemy's defensive mages. The other TSAB officers followed their point man closely. Lutecia Alphine's serene form trailed behind the others, tracking the team's immediate surroundings with her bugs.
Vivio held back a sigh, frustrated at her own inability to sharpen up and the world in general. Why was she so distracted then? She wished there was an easy answer to it. Partly she admitted, was due to pure ego. She had wanted to be on the strike team where her skills were best put to use, being the student of Vita Smash-until-It-Caves Ironhammer. Instead, they had stuck her on the rear team because of her age and inexperience. She knew those were sensible reasons but it didn't make them any less irksome. None of this however, was what made her mind wander in the face of an honest-to-goodness real battle.
No, Vivio knew what her real problem was and it was ridiculous.
She was fourteen and out of love.
The previous week had been one long disaster of over-the-top drama when she had finally decided to split with her girlfriend of three months and fourteen days. There had been a good deal of tears and wail involved, and she was never any good with that. The worst thing was that Vivio had seriously liked the other girl. Aki was a sweet, apple-faced pianist and very likeable if she only had not belonged to the church. After all, having your girlfriend call you 'your majesty' in stuttering adoration just got too weird to last.
She had really tried, damnit. Somewhere deep inside herself, she had known that Aki could not be the one. There had been no sounds of waves crashing against cliffs when they first met, no special spark of instant attraction or destiny's choir descending from the skies. There had been but the stammering confession of an otherwise quiet schoolmate and a letter in her favourite blue. Vivio, in the true spirit of a Takamachi, hated to just let things go and had decided to give it a shot, which unfortunately in the end misfired. She did not regret the relationship but wished it could have ended better.
Most of all, she wondered why she just couldn't bloody fall in love.
Where was her Scythe of Love damnit, she was already fourteen. Even Sora had a chubby, rose-cheeked boy following her around in school!
For most kids her age, this would seem like no big deal. Vivio knew this. She was young and considered cute. She could look very pretty in a nice dress. She should live it out and have fun instead of mooning after her one true love to come in and scythe her off her feet. Indeed, all her friends told her so and in some small part of her she knew they were probably right. The problem was that none of her friends had to grow up amidst an ongoing epic love story of enemies turning friends turning lovers turning happily-ever-married-still-devastatingly-in-love-couple. None of them had Nanoha Takamachi and Fate T. Harlaown for parents, and so had no idea of what it was to live in a daily set-up and execution of larger-than-life tales such as Helen of Troy and Paris, Anthony and Cleopatra, Pygmalion and Galatea, Abelard and Heloise, Shizuru and Natsuki— Her list of great Earthian sap-o-ramas could go on forever and none would do what went on at home justice!
Her parents could simply not get enough of each other. As a child this had filled Vivio with the security of a loving home, as a teenager it was seriously starting to grain on her nerves. Her parents' tale of cross-dimensional, space traversing soul-mates of destiny (as told by her dear aunt Hayate) had, for as long as she could remember, been her testament and proof of that true love in every sense of the concept did exist and should eventually fall into her lap.
At her ninth birthday, she had literally been bouncing at the prospect that it was finally her turn to meet her future husband or wife. Finally, she would have someone to hug her like Fate-mama hugged Nanoha-mama! She would be kissed until her brains exploded (or so Nanoha-mama said)! Someone would swear to hold her and protect her for the rest of her life! And she would finally know why mamas locked their door when they wanted to be alone!
Predictably, life had not quite planned it like that and hence her current frustration. Her ex-girlfriend she realized was really just a small part of her cheerless, much larger puzzle, and this made Vivio feel awful.
She bit her lower lip while the battle raged on in the city beneath. The resistance had been more formidable than they anticipated and they were having difficulties. Lutecia had activated a rather complex-looking shield spell to encase two of their wounded officers while the meds hurried to the site. Vivio frowned at the older girl's choice as she recognized the runes from Shamal's brief lessons. It was a powerful but unpractical field as it needed the caster to remain stationary for its duration. Lutecia was clearly not a defensive mage.
Things happened very quickly after that.
Two bombs went off in rapid succession, probably planted by the criminals in advance to be detonated after luring the TSAB mages into their blast zones. Vivio watched in muted horror as several of her fellow soldiers was knocked away by the large explosions. Erio's shield went up in a flare of yellow before being engulfed by the smoke.
The screams and the gunfire started at the same time. Something very fast and very hot graced her left cheek just before Vivio threw up her own shield, shutting out a torrent of magical projectiles that tore through their ranks. She felt something warm trickle down her face but did not pay it any closer attention.
The rear team broke into action all at once. Two of their defensive mages dived into the smoke, casting their best shield spells while the shooters opened cover fire. Vivio's small troupe of fledgling mages watched in shocked silence as the mayhem devolved into open, all-out combat. They positioned themselves in formation around the shooter mages, providing them with basic defence. The targets had obviously run out of options and gone for the last and worst of solutions.
Vivio took a deep breath and let the adrenaline take over. She felt her focus return as reality settled in, her previous woes forgotten and drowned in the sounds of imminent battle. She wasn't Vita prize student for nothing.
Another barrage of high energy projectiles smashed into the TSAB mages below. Vivio could see Erio's shield crackle under the pressure, once, twice, before it went out and was momentarily replaced by another's shield. Being unable to see through the thick dust, her heart grew sick in worry. One of the magic-loaded missiles rammed into a building beside the strike team's position, tearing the building apart as if it was wet paper, blowing enormous pieces of debris everywhere while their people dived for cover.
Then, she saw it.
Lutecia Alphine had not moved. The young woman had held her spell stubbornly through the waves of gunfire, covering the two mages who lied motionlessly on the ground while the meds tended to them desperately. Her shield however had reached its limits and was flashing in and out of existence. She did not seem to notice the huge wall of concrete that had topped and was slowly beginning to fall towards her, or perhaps she did, but was refusing to budge.
Vivio did not have time to think but exploded into action. Yelling at a fellow mage to cover for her, she broke formation and plunged through the air, faster and faster, accelerating her descent as much as she dared until the wind was a howl in her ears.
She shouted something. Lutecia heard her. Vivio flew through her spell, landing beside the older girl while she felt something zing her barrier jacket from behind. She cringed at a sudden stab of pain.
"Sacred Heart! Panserschild!" Vivio cried as her device burst with her magic, adding her own defensive spell to Lutecia's depleted one.
The older girl looked past exhaustion when she arrived, having spent too much time conserving a spell beyond her field of mastery. She cast Vivio a grateful look, then extended her hands and poured another wave of her magic into the spell.
"Hold me up! I mustn't move!" Lutecia's strained voice reached her through the cracking of energy. Another explosion sent the ground shaking, almost knocking Vivio off her feet. The other girl however remained impossible still, giving her shield her complete and utter attention at the danger of her own life.
Vivio had seen dedication and duty before, but this was her first time seeing sacrifice. What carried Lutecia's thin arms was neither the will to excel nor the raw strength of a prodigy but the young woman's refusal to give in to defeat. She gritted her teeth and held on, quietly and patiently while the meds worked to stabilize her fellow officers, refusing to let their demise become an expense to her weakness.
It was as heartbreaking as it was grieving. Lutecia could barely stand. Her limbs trembled as trickles of blood escaped her nostrils and covered her thin lips. Only her eyes remained steadfastly clear and focused. Vivio could watch no more as she rushed to her side, throwing her arms around Lutecia to support and hold her up while hoping her own spell would be strong enough.
Everything that followed happened in seconds.
The wall of debris crashed into them like a great wave, impacting upon their shields and making both girls cringe beneath its massive weight. Their shields quivered at the sheer magnitude of force while Lutecia's purple and Vivio's white interweaved and strengthened each other, pushing the rain of steel and concrete aside in the midst of raging gunfire. Somewhere far, far away, Erio called an order. Vivio could barely breathe as she near carried Lutecia's weight in her arms, feeling the drain of her magical and physical strengths alike. She tipped her head back and looked up at the older girl, feeling her slim body tremble in fatigue while the dust settled around them.
Lutecia met her eyes, and for a moment Vivio forgot everything else. The older girl's lips curled in a serene, delicate smile, which no doubt would have been radiant if not for the blood that freely flowed from her nose and ears.
"Hold the shield." She whispered. Vivio felt the warmth of the other's blood splatter upon her face as the older girl's breath rattled. She looked so calm, Vivio thought, despite her ravaged appearance. Then with a sigh of relief, Lutecia went limp in her arms and the seal of purple was no more.
Vivio held the shield. She could do little more while her fellow TSAB officers cleaned up the rest of the battle. She watched them defeat and arrest the criminals and saw her squad of fledgling mages join the battle without her. She couldn't have cared less. All that mattered was the warm body of Lutecia Alphine in her arms and the task the other had entrusted her to finish. It was a mission with little glory but Vivio clutched her duty like the dying clung to life, weaving her magic into a white impregnable wall no fire would be able to breach. She did this until the battle went silent and help arrived, she watched the meds finally carry Lutecia away.
She had held the shield.
On the journey back, Vivio sat beside the older girl's cot where she lay asleep. She used her drinking water to carefully wash Lutecia's face and hair clean of blood, then clasped her hand around the others in hesitant shyness. It was a small gesture, but it was what she could do to honour the others courage. All her troubles about destined true loves and other girly fancies seemed suddenly very far away and unimportant.
Many years later, Vivio would remember that she had heard no heavenly choirs or strikes of lightning announcing their meeting. All she had been aware of was the muffled sounds of their copter and Lutecia's peaceful, tender breathing.
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A/N: Sora is my OC from Flying. The expression Scythe of Love: ditto. If you think this is confusing, you need to read Flying first.
Anyway, I hope you like my stab at the Lutecia x Vivio pairing! And yes, there is no better way to start of an life-long love than nosebleeding all over her face. xDD