It has been sixteen years since I took this position. Four generations of Makers passed by since then, and now it is time for me as well. I loved every day of serving my Lady, my nation, and all of you. All these years will stay with me till the day I am put to rest!

-Isabelle 'IF' Fontaine

"See you tomorrow!"

"Stay safe, Liz!"

Elisabeth waved her best friends goodbye and adjusted the straps of her backpack; the choir had just let out and she was positively starving, same as every Wednesday since the beginning of the school year.

At thirteen years old, the young Planeptunian was in her last year of middle school. While Elisabeth did look forward to her new school with both cheer and anxiety ever more often, right now she focussed on getting home.

The transparent energy fields criss-crossing all over Planeptune's capital city of Nicos would make this easier, but she had yet to find absolute trust in her sense of direction. The city was huge and grew in three dimensions with how tall the various skyscrapers were; parkour runners made their ways over various buildings in various styles, tempting Elisabeth to join them. She had the magical aptitude and reserves to fly and cushion a potential fall.

However, she also promised her mother not to do this without knowing the proper techniques.

Yet, as most teenagers do, she ignored that and darted forward on the sparsely used walkway; wind rushed ahead of her and quite intentionally flipped an older girl's skirt, to an indignant squawk.

"Sorry!"

She was not sorry, but apologising was important to her nonetheless. Not that whoever she just embarassed could actually catch her at the speed she was darting by.

At the next staircase down, Elisabeth pushed her feet up with a bit of applied magic and took the railing like a step. These were the only areas with a protective field pretending people from just walking or jumping off the invisible force. There were a few shouts, but everyone calmed down once she did not fall but rather continued to hop from one platform of barely visible, swirling air to the next.

Her chocolate brown hair waved in the wind, normally reaching to the small of her back in a slightly messy ponytail, and lilac eyes gleamed with excitement; when her feet came to rest on a flat roof, she let go of her magic and allowed well-trained muscles to carry her until it was time to jump, courtesy of her mother's insistence to exercise for half an hour every day.

Her heart beat heavily and adrenaline surged through her veins as she cleared dozens of metres deep descents without trouble, cheating around her body's limitations with magic where necessary. Elisabeth had a blast, wholly unconcerned about her fluttering skirt due to the speed she was moving at.

Had she also noticed the rather familiar purplette running adjacent to her as she whooped and cheered, she would have fretted about the lecture sure to await her at home. Though in this case, as it was Neptune and not Nepgear who came across her, Elisabeth was saved by a fellow troublemaker's sympathy and silence.

::

Greeting her neighbours was a bit of a chore, but she did it with a smile anyway; her house was already in sight, a rather conservative two-storey building a bit away from the main road. As usual, their garden was the most vibrant in the entire neighbourhood; the reason for that being Elisabeth's mother, who diligently pulled weeds when the young teen walked through the front gate. Gardening had remained a steady hobby even into her retirement, the practice receiving great amounts of time.

The slight squeak of metal on metal alerted her and with a final pull, another weed went into a halfway filled bucket. Green eyes went to meet Elisabeth's lilac and the two soon smiled at each other.

"There you are. How was the choir?" It was a similar question every Wednesday, though mother and daughter waved at each other in greeting at the same time.

Isabelle Fontaine did not appear like a woman of fifty years, even for a Planeptunian. She aged gracefully, appearing more as if she were in her mid-thirties at most. Though one could normally not see it under the sundresses she took to wearing since before her daughter was born, the shirt and shorts she wore for yardwork made it rather obvious that her body still retained a good bit of muscle.

Elisabeth Fontaine had inherited Isabelle's soft features, but not her height. Though she still hoped for a growth spurt, chances were that she would stay more than a head shorter than her mother. Their eyes were not the same colour either, but they shared their rather slender builds; at least in Elisabeth's opinion. She did not know that her mother only began to fill out somewhat a short while before giving birth.

"Same old, same old. I'm in the running for the solo piece, though," the daughter could not help but brag. She took pride in her clear soprano voice, especially after the tutoring she got from her mother's old friends.

Isabelle's smile widened and she only took a moment to take off her heavy gloves, then hugged Elisabeth. "That's great news, sweetie!" The child squirmed a little, but a proper embrace from her mother was inescapable; even though she cheekily called the older Fontaine a granny from time to time, she knew full well who was the stronger and faster one of the two.

Not that she minded it too much. "Mhm," she mumbled into the hug, embarassed about potentially being seen like that. "But I don't have it in the bag yet. What's for lunch?"

"Hm? Oh, right, I forgot the time." Isabelle's arms loosened and she ushered her daughter inside without hesitation. "We're having pork today. Do you want noodles or potatoes to go with it?"

"What about rice?"

"We just had rice yesterday, silly. Now pick one." Isabelle cheerfully grinned at her daughter as the door closed behind them. "And 'both' is not an acceptable answer."

Remembering the last time she tried to give that response, Elisabeth could not help but giggle; Isabelle's chuckling followed right after, drowned out by the younger Fontaine's response: "Then I'll take noodles."

"Heh, alright. I will get to it in a moment." Isabelle hurriedly marched on, secretly berating herself for having forgotten the time and not having lunch ready by this point. She was pulled out of it by her daughter's attempted teasing, though.

"Shouldn't you take a bath first, mom?" Elisabeth gave her a telling look, seeing that even though the older brunette had dusted herself off after standing earlier, she still brought crumbs of soft, halfway dried earth into the house. A testament to her state of distraction, as she normally kept the inside clean of such dirt.

Isabelle weighed her options for a moment, then sized up her daughter. "I'll go and wipe myself down, no eating sweets while I'm not looking." She knew the child was growing and hungry, but she still tried her best to be strict where she felt she needed to be.

Elisabeth saluted her mockingly and scampered off with an "Aye aye, ma'am", leaving a grinning Isabelle to get a wet towel for herself. The day would continue like that, with the daughter washing up as well while her mother was busy and the two eating lunch together once it was done.

Elisabeth had no second parent, much to the confusion of basically any new acquaintance. She only had her mother, and not even Isabelle knew exactly who her other mother were; the only ones aware were Purple Heart, Purple Sister, and the woman herself. No one had broken the silence yet, though they would if Elisabeth desired it in the future.

So far, she had felt no need to know. It was only the two of them, but they were as happy as they could be. And so it would remain.