Breakfast

Breakfast For Three Beats Breakfast For One

It was strange having someone else around for breakfast. Ever since Serah had moved in with Snow, Lightning had eaten alone. It wasn't pleasant. It was far too quiet and far too still. But things were different now. Fang and Vanille had moved in after awakening from crystal stasis, and breakfast was the very opposite of quiet and still.

"That's my toast, you traitor!" Vanille jabbed her knife at Fang. There was still butter on it. "You can't just take it."

Fang grinned and waved the piece of toast around before she lathered some peanut butter onto it. "It wasn't your toast yet. It was on the extra toast plate, which means that it belongs to whoever gets it first. And I got it before you did."

"Give it back." Vanille swiped at the toast with her knife. The butter slipped off and landed in Fang's cereal.

"Gah!" Fang scooped the butter out of her cereal with her spoon. "Why do you even want the toast? You've had more than enough already. Heck, you've eaten more than I have."

"I'm a growing girl." Vanille made another grab for the toast, and Lightning snuck a piece of Vanille's toast off her plate while she was distracted. "So I need more food than you."

"Growing?" Fang scoffed. "Vanille, you're more than five hundred years all. You've done all the growing you'll ever do."

"Most of that time was in stasis and –" Vanille finally noticed her missing piece of toast. She rounded on Lightning and gaped as the other woman calmly took a big bite out of it. "Hey! Stop eating my toast."

"I'm hungry. And don't forget, I was the one who made all the toast. Technically, all of it belongs to me." Lightning shrugged. "And if you really wanted it, you should haven eaten it instead of yelling so much."

"I was yelling because Fang stole my toast." Vanille glared. "Now, give it back, Lightning."

Lightning raised one eyebrow. "Are you serious? It's in my stomach now. I can't give it back."

"Then make more toast!"

Lightning tossed a loaf of bread at Vanille's head. "Here. Make your own toast."

"You're a tyrant." Vanille stomped into the kitchen to make more toast. She stuck her head back into the dining room and shook her fist at Lightning. "You'll pay for this!"

"Sorry about that." Fang sniggered. "It's like she's a cartoon super villain or something."

"I don't mind." Lightning listened to Vanille bang around in the kitchen. If the redhead stayed there too long, Lightning would have to go check up on her. The absolute last thing she needed was for Vanille to piece a killer robot together out of a few pots and pans and the microwave. "I enjoy the atmosphere."

"You must be crazy." Fang took a sip of her coffee. "But I mean it. If you want us to stop, we will. The two of us have always been a bit strange when it comes to food. I guess it comes from living through the War of Transgression."

"I told you, it's fine. It's more interesting than the morning news." Lightning still watched the morning news and read the newspaper, but there was nothing to stop her enjoying the Fang and Vanille show during commercial breaks.

Vanille came back with her toast and scowled at the two of them before she hunched over it and began to eat.

"Vanille, you're acting like someone is going to steal your food."

"That's funny, Fang, but you already stole my toast once. I won't let you steal it again."

"It wasn't yours yet."

"It was so mine. I already had my knife buttered and everything."

"Get the toast and then butter your knife."

Lightning finished off her coffee. "I'm going to head off to work in a few minutes. Do you guys need a lift?"

Fang made a disgusted sound. "I don't know why we can't drive ourselves around. You've seen me drive. You know I can."

"Fang, you're my friend, which is why I didn't arrest you the first five times I caught you driving without a licence. But both you and Vanille need to get licences before you can drive."

"But we can already drive." Vanille pouted. "Couldn't you, I don't know, take a bribe and just give us our licences?" She waved one hand at Fang. "I'm sure that Fang would totally repay you with kinky sexual favours if you gave us licences."

"Vanille, are you prostituting me for driver's licences?" Fang pulled the redhead into a headlock. "Because that's not something you should be doing."

"Oh come on." Vanille slithered out of Fang's grasp. "As if you'd mind getting kinky with Lightning. I've seen you two sparring. It's about as close as two people can get without actually having sex."

"I told you, we're just friends." Fang looked to Lightning for support. She didn't get any. Lightning already had a deranged sister. Fang could handle her own.

"You've got five minutes to get ready before I leave. Vanille, I know you're working in the research labs today. I'll drop you off there. Fang, I'll drop you off at Sazh's ranch." Lightning ignored the puppy-dog eyes that both women gave her. They could be disturbingly cute when they wanted to be. "Honestly, if you two did a tiny bit of study, you could probably get your licences this weekend."

"Fine. We'll take your tests." Vanille struck a defiant pose. "You can't crush us with you petty laws."

"Right…"

"Maybe I should ask Sazh if I could borrow a chocobo." Fang stretched. "Technically, a chocobo isn't a car, so –"

"Actually, you do need a licence to ride a chocobo on public roads."

"Cocoon sucks, you know that, right?" Fang rolled her eye. "Back in my day, all you had to do was tame your own chocobo and you could ride it wherever you wanted."

"Yes, and back in your day, you had walk to school uphill both ways through a blizzard." Lightning patted Fang on the head and then darted into the kitchen before her friend could retaliate. She came back with two lunch bags. "Here, you two. I made you lunch. I don't want either of you dying of starvation after all the trouble we went to getting you out of crystal stasis."

"Cool, lunch." Vanille rummaged through her lunch. She frowned. "Lightning, there's no candy in here."

"Vanille, you're not a child. If you want candy, then buy some. You have more than enough money. What about you, Fang, any complaints?"

"Not really." Fang batted her eyelashes at Lightning. "I'm happy being able to eat something that you slaved so hard to make. You really do care."

"Don't say that, you make it sound weird. And it's not like I slaved over anything. I made you a sandwich and some salad." Lightning flushed. "Sazh told me you forgot to eat lunch yesterday, so I thought I'd save you the trouble."

Fang scratched the back of her head. "Uh, thanks then."

"So are we going now?" Vanille skipped toward the door. "I call shotgun!"

"Hey!" Fang ran after Vanille. "You can't call shotgun like that!"

Lightning chuckled and followed them into the car. It was always nice having such a lively breakfast.

X X X

Breakfast For Two Can Be Awkward For Three

Breakfast was different now that she and Fang were together. So much of it was in the simple things. Before they'd been together, breakfast had been fun. But at the same time, there had always been a certain distance to it, one they maintained precisely because they were just friends.

They weren't just friends anymore.

Lightning would never have come to the breakfast table dressed in nothing more than panties and an old, baggy t-shirt if she and Fang had been just friends. And Fang wouldn't be walking around in a pair of boy-shorts and a tank top if they were just friends. Not that Lightning was complaining. Watching Fang bend down to pull a bowl out of one of the kitchen cabinets was one of the highlights of her morning, along with watching Fang reach up to get a new tin of hot chocolate from a shelf. Fang's tank top would always ride up to expose her flat, toned stomach, one that Lightning had gotten to know very well.

There were other differences too. There was the way that Fang was always happy to press against her from behind as she leaned over to reach a coffee mug, or the way that Fang always gave her wrist a gentle caress with her thumb whenever she passed the honey. And then there was the way that Fang's foot always found it's way to the inside of Lightning's calf under the table.

Even the simple act of watching Fang eat had taken on a new, sensual edge. Up until she'd felt Fang's lips on her skin, she'd never realised how attractive Fang could be eating a slice of toast. The other woman even managed to look sexy while eating cereal. It was – by any objective standard – completely idiotic, but that's how love was, wasn't it? Thankfully, Lightning had yet to actually tell Fang how alluring she was with a pancake in her mouth, so there was that.

Then there were all the little things that they did for each other. Lightning had never considered herself overly romantic, but she had revised that opinion after she'd caught herself drawing a chocolate heart onto one of Fang's pancakes. It made her feel like a teenage girl in the throes of her first crush. But Lightning was anything but a teenage girl, and Fang was the very opposite of a crush.

She and Fang were both in this for the long haul, wherever that road might lead them.

Fang had also never stopped teasing her – in that amused, inexplicably charming way of hers – about the time that she had woken up extra early to make Lightning a special breakfast for their one month anniversary. Lightning had woken up to find the entire kitchen on fire. The microwave had melted into scrap, the stove had been a bonfire, and the breakfast that Fang had made was a charred, black lump.

Lightning had doused the flames and ended up making Fang breakfast. To this day, Fang continued to tease Lightning about what a multi-talented woman she was. Lightning could shoot people, put out fires, and patch up burns. She was like the police, the fire department, and a hospital rolled into one wonderfully attractive, pink-haired package. She had killer legs too.

Fang's excuse for the whole debacle made Lightning want to kiss her, punch her, or roll her eye in exasperation. Fang's excuse: she was just too hot for the kitchen to handle. The words had hardly left Fang's mouth before Lightning rolled her eyes, punched Fang, and then kissed the bruise better.

It was so typical of their relationship. On the upside, the house hadn't burnt down, and Lightning finally had an excuse to remodel the kitchen. Naturally, she made sure to give Fang a long, long lesson on how to use all of the appliances once the remodelling was done. She loved Fang, but if the woman ruined another kitchen, Lightning would murder her.

So, it wasn't at all unusual for Lightning and Fang to make eyes at each other over breakfast, especially not on a weekend morning when neither of them had to worry about work. There was only one problem, and it had red hair, green eyes, and a half-eaten pancake.

"You know, guys, I'm still here." Vanille did her best to ignore the game of footsies going on under the table, but it was much harder to ignore all the starry-eyed looks being exchanged over it. Seriously, she could practically see the sparkles and rainbows whenever Lightning and Fang looked at each other. If they ever found the time to go frolicking through a flowery meadow, she might actually throw up. "If you're going to have eye sex, at least wait until I'm gone."

Fang continued having copious amounts of eye sex with Lightning. "You're jealous."

"Of course I am." Vanille threw her hands up into the air. "You and Lightning are having extremely frequent bouts of awesome sex and –"

"How do you even know that it's extremely frequent?" Lightning glared. "Are you spying on us?"

"I don't have to spy. You two don't know the meaning of privacy. First there was the kitchen – I make food there! And don't even get me started on the couch – I had to get that thing properly cleaned before I could even sit on it again. But, yeah, you two can get pretty loud." Vanille's lips curled. "You might even be the reason that the neighbourhood kids think that our house is haunted."

Lightning's jaw dropped. "Please tell me that you're joking."

"Nope. And think of things from my point of view. Whenever I meet someone that I'd like to have awesome sex with, you two go into overprotective psycho mode. And you're not the only ones." Vanille got up to pace. "Do you know what happened to my last boyfriend? His car died because someone riddled it with arrows. Who even uses arrows anymore?"

"I'm sure it was some kind of coincidence." Lightning tried to keep a straight face.

"Don't give me that crap. It was Serah." Vanille sank back into her chair. "At this rate, I'm never going to meet anyone. Either that, or I'll finally find someone you guys can't bully. I guess Sazh is pretty nice –"

"You are not going to have sex with Sazh!" Fang's words came out in more of a shriek than a yell.

"See? That's what I'm talking about. But of course I'm not going to have sex with Sazh. He was just an example. He's more like an, I don't know, awesome uncle or something." Vanille scowled. "So that's why you two need to save all the romance until I'm out of the house. It's so saccharine that I'm already developing cavities. Ask my dentists, he'll tell you!"

Fang and Lightning decided to humour Vanille and leave the whole kissing thing until after she left the house. Once she was gone, it was back upstairs. After all, she and Serah would be out shopping for hours – and Lightning and Fang could put those hours to very good use.

It was only years later when Vanille and Hope fell in love that Fang realised that her sister had finally found somehow that they couldn't scare off. Of course, that didn't stop her from spearing him – but only a little, she didn't actually want to kill him, just make him squirm.

X X X

Breakfast For Four Can Be A Battlefield

An observer watching breakfast in the Yun-Farron household could have been forgiven for thinking that it was actually some form of advanced training in warfare for children.

"That's my pancake." Diana raised her fork with as much menace as her small frame would allow. Her blue eyes blazed with righteous indignation. "I saw it first."

"No, you didn't. I watched mom make it, so it's mine." Averia raised her fork. Her green eyes shone with the kind of absolute certainty that only an older sibling could ever feel. "So, I'm going to eat it."

Diana tried to snag the pancake, but a quick parry from Averia pushed her fork out of the way. Nearby, Lightning and Fang watched the skirmish with an emotion they'd become intimately familiar with over the years: parental amusement.

It was Sunday. On Saturday, Diana had won the skirmish over a piece of toast thanks to a combination of stealth and subterfuge: she'd pointed to the window and yelled something about Averia's pot plant dying before sneaking the last piece of toast onto her plate. Averia wasn't about to fall for the same kind of trick again, so Diana was left with no choice but to unleash her full power.

"Ultimate Fork Attack: Fork of Pancake Stealing Unstoppable Doom!" Diana screamed.

It was so utterly ridiculous – and stupid although Diana would insist that it was stupidly brilliant – that all Averia could do was stare. Diana had shouted with such utter conviction that Averia had expected some kind of energy beam to skewer the pancake. Naturally, nothing of the sort happened. Diana was still a few years away from doing anything even remotely magical.

In any case, Diana's fork sped toward the pancake.

"Not so fast." Averia grit her teeth. Two could play at Diana's game. And there was a tiny part of her that maybe – just maybe – wanted to try yelling something like that too. "Ultimate Fork Defence: Fork of Pancake Protecting Unbreakable Shield!"

Fork met fork again, and Averia quickly used her butter knife to flip the pancake onto her plate as Diana struggled to regain the advantage.

"Ah!" Diana pointed at Averia's knife. "You can't use your knife. That's totally cheating." She reached over and clutched at Lightning's arm. "That's against the rules, mom! You saw, right? Averia cheated!"

"What rules?" Lightning asked. The girls had, with Claire, developed an overly elaborate and frankly ridiculous set of rules about what constituted fair play in everything from who got the last piece of chocolate to who got to sit where on the couch.

Although Lightning hadn't yet grasped the brilliance of the girls' rules, Fang had – sort of. In truth, she'd asked Vanille, and the redhead had handed her a two-hundred-page-long pamphlet detailing her observations on the rules the girls had. Apparently, Diana had been generous enough to fill Vanille in on the details as part of her duties as Vanille's number one minion.

"I don't think your sister broke the rules," Fang said. "You both used your forks, but you used your special move first. You also won yesterday, plus you're wearing an orange shirt and it's exactly 9:35 AM – so it's okay for Averia to use her knife."

Averia cheered. "Yeah, I told you it was okay."

To Lightning's amazement, Diana agreed. Was that how the rules worked? Maybe she should read that pamphlet. "I guess." She turned away. "But since mom hasn't finished the crossword yet, I can do this – Surprise Attack #5: Pancake Stealing Fork of Super Surprise!"

But Averia was ready, yanking her plate out of her sister's reach. "Hah! I knew you were going to do that."

With her attempts at a frontal assault and a surprise attack vanquished, Diana turned to a familiar backup tactic. She pouted.

"Please," Diana begged. "I'm little, so I need more food."

"That's not going to work," Fang said. "Vanille tried the same thing on me."

"Diana, you've eaten more than I have. It's like you have a bottomless pit for a stomach." Averia shook her head. "Do you want me to starve to death?"

"Nobody is going to starve to death." Lightning sighed. "And your sister is right, Diana. I honestly don't know where all that food you eat goes."

"Well, she is pretty energetic." Fang chuckled. "She doesn't walk anywhere. She skips, she runs, or she climbs."

"I repeat: nobody is going to starve to death."

But after another minute of pouting, followed by a minute of fake crying, Averia relented. "Fine, you can have a piece." She cut off a third of her pancake and held her plate out so that Diana could get it. Naturally, Diana ignored the smaller piece and went straight for the bigger one.

"Thanks!" Diana happily moved two thirds of Averia's pancake onto her plate.

A pause.

A scowl.

A roar.

"Give that back! You were supposed to get the smaller bit!"

"But you didn't say that. You just said I could have a piece." Diana backed away from the table, her pancake held away from Averia.

"I didn't say anything because it was obvious."

"If it was obvious, I would have known."

"Grargh!"

Lightning watched as her two daughters, both highly intelligent children, turned on each other like rabid honey badgers. Halfway through the skirmish, she managed to steal both pieces of pancake and add them to her plate. She was finishing the last of them when the girls finally realised what had happened.

"Mom! No!" Diana dropped to her knees in abject horror. "Why?"

"Give it back, mom!" Averia scowled.

"No, I've already eaten it."

There was a knock on the door. It was Vanille.

"Hey, guys…" Diana catapulted into Vanille's middle. "What?"

"Help us, Aunt Vanille! My mom stole my pancake."

"It was my pancake, Diana."

Vanille sighed sympathetically and patted both girls on the head. "I'm sorry girls, but your mom is kind of a food-stealing monster. Why, she used to steal my toast all the time."

Lightning chuckled. Ah, those were some good times. "I suppose we can make a few more pancakes since your Aunt Vanille is here." She paused. "But they're all mine."

"Mom!"

"Fine, fine. You all get an extra one, and I guess your aunt can have some too."

X X X

Omake #1: She Has To Get It From Somewhere

"Can I have a piece of your pancake?" Vanille asked Fang.

"You already ate yours?" Fang sighed and cut off a quarter of her pancake. "Here, have a piece."

Vanille reached over and gleefully took the bigger piece. "Thanks."

Fang stared and then stared some more. "Gah! Lightning, do something!"

"I'm your girlfriend, not your mother. You two work it out. Besides, you never told her which piece to take."

"But –"

Vanille nodded. "See, it's totally your fault. Hmm… that was a pretty good trick. I need to pass it down to my children or something. Or maybe I could pass it down to my minion."

"Vanille, give up on the whole minion thing." Fang tried to steal her pancake back, but to no avail. "Where will you even find a minion?"

"I don't know yet. But I'll find one. I have a good feeling about it."

X X X

Omake #2: Some Things Never Change

"Give back my sandwich!"

Averia dodged a swipe of her sister's gun blade and flipped up onto the wall. The obstacle course was one of her favourite things about the New Bodhum Guardian Corps facility. It made stealing her sister's food much more interesting.

"If you wanted it, you should have eaten it while you had the chance." Averia unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite out of it. Ah, peanut butter and strawberry jam. Delicious.

"Don't eat it!" Diana waved her gun blade around and squeezed off a few rounds. She was using blanks, of course. Her parents would have strangled her if she'd actually shot Averia. But she could still bash her older sister over the head with her gun blade. "It's mine."

"I'm your commanding officer. Your sandwich is thus my sandwich." Averia hopped off the wall and then spun around another one of Diana's attacks. Her sister might have gotten taller than her, but Averia was still faster. Plus, Diana was letting her temper get the better of her.

"That's not how it works and you know it! Besides, we're not on duty now." Diana lunged at her sister again, but Averia's gun spear came up to parry the blow. "I'll tell mother you stole my sandwich!"

"Diana, we're not kids anymore. You can hardly just –"

"Sergeant Yun-Farron, are you bullying your little sister again?"

Averia froze.

"Well, are you?" General Lightning Yun-Farron took a moment to savour her daughter's expression of absolute horror. Ah, teasing the kids never got old.

"Uh, maybe."

"Maybe, what?"

"Maybe, ma'am."

"That's better." Lightning smirked. "Now, give your sister back her sandwich."

"Yes, ma'am."

Averia handed Diana's sandwich back. The younger woman snickered and made a show of eating it. Averia's eye twitched. She waited until their mother had left before she "accidentally" pushed Diana into one of the big puddles of mud that dotted the obstacle course.

Diana emerged from the puddle with a growl, and it took all of three seconds before she and her sister were locked in pitched combat. To an outsider, it would have seemed terrifying. They exchanged blows at a thunderous pace. A swipe of Averia's spear launched Diana into a wooden obstacle, a solid kick to the gut hurled Averia back before she could press her advantage. To the two sisters, however, it was par for the course. They did this almost every other day.

Naturally, Claire chose that exact moment to lead some of the newest recruits past. The new recruits stared.

"Are they trying to kill each other?" one of them asked.

Claire chuckled as Averia's spear shifted into a more whip-like form. The weapon coiled around Diana and tossed her into the air. Diana twisted in mid-air to meet her sister's next attack – a powerful downward strike that sent her plummeting back toward the ground.

"Nope. They're just playing around."

"Playing around?"

"Yes, if they were trying to kill each other, there would probably be more explosions."

X X X

Author's Notes

As always, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

Breakfast has always been one of my favourite meals. When I was younger, my mother used to make pancakes on the weekends, and there would always be a skirmish between my sister and me for who would get the last one (somehow, it never occurred to us that our parents should be involved in this…). When my younger brother was born, he too joined the epic struggle over the last pancake.

I also have some experiences with silly or nonsensical rules. When my sister and I were younger, we had this game. I won't go into the details, but at some point, it degenerated into us slapping each other (yes, we were idiots). We were having immense fun until our mother walked in and gave us a look. It was a look that only a parent could give. It was the I-love-my-children-but-they-are-idiots look. Oh well, my sister and I just kept slapping each other.

But going back to the chapter – I wanted to show how much breakfast can mean and how it can change over the years. Lightning has breakfast three times in this chapter, once with Fang as a friend, once with Fang as a girlfriend, and a third time with Fang as a wife. Funnily enough, Vanille somehow managed to squirm her way into all three breakfasts (that wasn't on purpose). Oh well, Vanille always was one of my favourite characters. I know I didn't include it in this chapter, but can you imagine how a breakfast including the entire extended family would be like (i.e., including the Yun-Farrons, the Villiers, the Dia-Estheims, and the Kaztroys)? Madness, absolute madness.

I also write original fiction. Most of my original stuff is fantasy. If you like fantasy with plenty of atmosphere, action, and strong female characters, check out The Last Huntress, I'm sure you'll love it. If you're in the mood for fantasy with a more 'old-fashioned' feel, then take a look at The Burning Mountains. You can find links to everything in my profile.

I've also released my newest original story, Durendal. It runs to ~80,000 words, making it the first novel-length original story that I've made available to the public! It's a coming-of-age story and a Western with elements of science fiction. If you've enjoyed my other stories, I know you'll love this one. You can find links to it in my profile. If you want a paranormal Western with a good sense of humour, you might want to check out The Gunslinger and the Necromancer.

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.