A/N: Well, um, hi! I didn't expect this to get attention. It's just an odd little story. Expect a little OOCness. I interpret Raven a little awkwardly right now, and also she's a small child. How AU is this? Well... we'll get there... maybe. Not sure it matters yet. And kory, I don't know if there will be much of any fanservice here, just really uberclose friendship because NanoFate is flipping everywhere in the series.

2-Baking

The living room was a mess, but Miss Nanoha didn't seem to mind. She didn't seem to be angry about anything to do with her, so Raven kept her questions to herself.

Raven knew something was bothering Miss Nanoha. Her aura seemed erratic, like it was trying to do something but only succeeded in making her stomach squirm. Poor Miss Nanoha. She wanted to be nice, she supposed, but to be nice to demons was dangerous. They could hurt people real easy. And she had already cracked something.

But was that the problem? Because she couldn't be nice? True, her daughter being a demon had never stopped her mother from being nice, but far away, but that was more out of obligation than anything else, she had thought. Wasn't it? Be nice because she's your daughter and then she won't set the chapel on fire?

That didn't seem to be the case with Miss Nanoha. She seemed to be trying to be nice for the sake of being nice. So was Vivio, but Vivio was small, like Raven herself, and probably didn't know any better.

Though a lot of her denied it, she hoped Vivio would never know better.

"Ooh, Rae-chan that one came out great!"

She flushed, and then winced at her own embarrassment. She shouldn't be getting so emotional over that. It was just praise and just Vivio being happy.

But it made her happy, and… why did it do that?

There was a soft whoosh near her ear and Raven flinched, looking up to see a red jewel floating just by her right ear. [Hello] it said, glowing as the mechanical female voice resounded. Raven felt the tight reins on her control slip and power lashed out towards the jewel-

Only for it to pass harmlessly through it and vanish.

"Raising Heart!" Vivio cried, either having not noticed or not worried. "You startled her!"

[My apologies.]

Raven wanted to say something, but what was she supposed to say? There were very few gems in her old home that actually did anything without prompting, and were as such under the labeling 'very dangerous', like her.

"Um…"

"That's Raising Heart," Vivio supplied, seeing her mother entering the room and waving a small hand at the bauble. "We have Magical Devices to channel our power into here. Raising Heart belongs to Mama."

[That's right.]

The girl nodded, wondering if Vivio needed to draw breath when she talked. Deciding that, since there were little bursts of happiness coming from her body, she likely didn't. Slowly, she reached to touch the red jewel with her finger. "It's warm," she noted.

[That is because of the magic you gave me. You have potential to be a User.]

Raven mentally filed those words away under "confusing terminology" as Miss Nanoha returned to the room. "It looks like my partner's taken a liking to you," she said, smiling. These two smiled very easily. Everyone warned her against that at home… which this place was not. Maybe it was a dream.

No, if it was a dream. If it was, her father would have destroyed it by now and made her cry and scream and break things. She hated to dream.

She quietly pressed the cookie cutter down once more and nodded at the redheaded woman. Her smile only softened and Raven hid a flinch.

Somehow, the fact that she thought it was real made it so much worse.

"Neh, Rae-chan, would it be all right if we took you to get your magic examined soon?"

Raven looked up. Mild suspicion rose in the back of her mind. People never asked her things. They told her to do them, or bad things would happen. Or was she remembering incorrectly?"Why would you do that?"

Nanoha hummed. "Well, when I found out about magic, apparently I made a bang." Vivio giggled. "And you seem to have pretty good control-"

No I don't, she thought.

"But, if the Bureau gets it looked at, we can take measures to help you live normally, without overstraining yourself."

Raven dropped the cookie cutter, not even able to wince at the thump it made on the carpet. The part of her expecting Azar's scoldings reproached her for such easy slips of control but the rest was in deep shock. "Normal?" she repeated.

Nanoha did not laugh, and she wasn't sure if that made things better or worse. "Of course!"

"Yep!" Vivio smiled and somehow that brought her heartbeat down. "I have to get checked out once in a while to make sure my magic levels and physical health are okay. It really doesn't hurt a bit! And the sisters at the Church are so nice!"

Raven wanted to ask if they were like Azar… or like the kind mother who visited her once in a while. She would guess, if they treated them with high regard, they were like neither, but she doubted they knew who Azar was anyway, or where Azarath was.

But all of that was less important than the earlier words. "I… could live normally? Without…" Without always meditating and being mocked for it? Without having to sit by herself on benches and watch everyone else live? Without people flinching every time they saw her face?

"Yes," Nanoha assured. "And within our family, if you would like."

She didn't know why she was crying.