2351/A Cake For Mother

A Cake For Mother
Date of Scene:	16 January 2017
Location:	Uminari City - Midori-Ya Cafe
Synopsis:	Fate gets a cake for her mom. From Midori-Ya. Nanoha makes the cake. This will surely fix /everything wrong/.
Cast of Characters:	Nanoha Takamachi, Fate T. Waldia

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Nanoha Takamachi has posed:
Midori-Ya is a bakery cafe bordering Uminaru and Mitakihara on one of the commute routes, making it busy at certain parts of the day. It is not any of those times of the day so it is fairly chill right now in the cafe and it's lazy and momma is baking the evenings pastries so they are fresh for the people leaving.

Nanoha Takamachi is busily behind the counter somewhere fighting dust with a broom and in an apron as she is her usual cheerful self at the moment, despite the recent events.

Need to keep it up. Need to keep moving forward, right?

She'll figure out what's happened to Fate. She'll stop the stupid Lost Logia ruining people's lives that's been latching onto people recently.

She needs to. She needs to do both those things.

She opens the broom closet- to put the broom away- which also conviently hides her for the next few seconds it takes for someone to approach the counter before she closes it again with a curt nod. "There!" she says.

Fate T. Waldia has posed:
    "Arf... Do you thi... Nevermind."
    Considering the situation Precia Testarossa had placed them in, asking Arf's opinion on the matter was probably not the best idea. The wolf Familiar would be biased- and with justifiable reasoning, considering the punishment dealt to Fate the last time they had been in the presence of The grand mage. This isn't a matter of 'do you think mother will like a cake' anymore. It's a quiet, although genuine, and considerate plea for forgiveness. "... Wait out here. I'll be back in a few minutes."
    It is on that note that Fate leaves her monstrously gigantic big red dog leashed to a lamp post outside Midori-Ya. This is probably for the best, in spite of her companion's complaints.
    <<Oh you have got to be kidding me, Fate you can't be thinking about that monster hag now can y- hey wait- wait wait what are you doing- YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE ME LEASHED OUT HERE LIKE THIS! OH COME ON!>>
    Sorry, Arf, it has to be this way when you go out as a big dog instead of as a woman. Most stores do not allow dogs. Nevertheless, someone does come up to the counter then and there, scarlet eyes sweeping the racks of varied cakes, sweets, and even Midori-Ya's famous cream puffs. "Hello?"
    That certainly is a familiar voice. Especially when Nanoha comes back into view, Fate freezes in her tracks, staring in rapt silence.

Nanoha Takamachi has posed:
Nanoha Takamachi is in an apron. She works here. SHE WORKS HERE!? Yes. She does Fate.

This is not Fate's day probably.

Yuuno is peeking out the window at the big, red dog with squinted eyes from the top window. Is something up? He doesn't go downstairs to investigate. Instead, Nanoha slowly looks to the right as there is a familar voice saying 'Hello?'.

"Oh..." she says with a blink. "Oh! Hi. Fate-c---" she frowns. "Fate." she says.

Uh oh. She's revoked the -chan. For obvious reasons. She kind of wants to call her mother in and have her handle this. But at the same time- mom is busy and EVERYONE ELSE. Is busy unstressing from examn days.

So it's just her. Here. To handle the order. She takes a deep breath and walks to the till.

"...can I get you anything?" she asks. She is calm and being polite, but her tone is not super inflected in a manner that suggests she's super happy to see Fate. But there's just that hint of a smile.

Fate T. Waldia has posed:
    This was not what Fate had intended. She had heard Midori-Ya was popular and the sweets were good, and that is why she had come in the first place. But somewhere along the line she had missed the memo about just which family actually runs the bakery. Now there's no polite manner of simply escaping. That girl is right there across the counter. In an apron. In an apron that says she works here. And for a long few beats, she's left staring like a doe caught in the path of an oncoming mack truck.
    Outside, Arf was in the process of grumbling and flumping to lay on her belly on the concrete. But the sudden spike in Fate's emotions has her back up, hackles raised. It is probably a good thing Fate left her leashed outside. But a moot point right now.
    The -chan has been revoked. It's this little factoid that pulls her back into the moment, eyes scrunching closed for a beat, a slow breath quickly helping her regain composure, before they open again.
    She can't look Nanoha in the eyes.
    "I'm here for a cake." She answers, soft and a little curtly. Very business-like. It's just business and that's all.

Nanoha Takamachi has posed:
Nanoha Takamachi is keeping polite. She is slowly calming down when Fate makes it clear she wants a cake. A cake? Well. That means she isn't her to nessacrily beat her up. She's a little anxious, admittedly, because well. Now she knows where she works. But. Fate isn't that bad. That she'd attack her home.

Right?

She purses her lips. "Well I can get that!" she says. Slighter smile! "But. What kind of cake? We have a few! and do you want it frosted..? Decorated...?" a pause.

"Who's it for?" she asks. "Things like that are important too." she says softly.

Nanoha is already readying the cake box though. White. With the little etched Midori-ya logo on the top. She's laying parchment paper inside at the bottom.

Fate T. Waldia has posed:
    This is a pretty bad situation, for other reasons. Though Fate isn't here to go on the attack, if anything, judging from the brief look on her face when she had first seen Nanoha here, Fate didn't even know this was her place of employment-- let alone her home.
    For the most part, she keeps those scarlet eyes downcast, doing her best to find the display items as interesting as possible, rather than let the other girl look her in the face. Not after that last time in the stadium.
    That was shameful.
    But Fate does not let that incident, nor her feelings stand in the way of duty. Duty and cake. She can only see Nanoha's smile from the corner of her gaze, and she doesn't want to look at it dead on. But the girl is asking a bombardment of questions. "... Frosted." She decides. "Vanilla." Going for the safe path there. "Just do something nice." That's for decorations. But there is a hesitant pause when asked WHO it's for. Does she answer? Does she tell her she's asking too many questions and to keep her nose out of things? Fate actually physically tenses where she stands, before quietly deciding to relent.
    "It's for my mother."

Nanoha Takamachi has posed:
Apparently, asking the common things one asks when someone asks to buy a cake is 'asking too many questions and being nosey'. Just 'cakes' don't exist! A Vanilla Frosted Decorated Cake is good enough for her.

For her mother.

Fate's Mother.

The same woman who held Tokyo Hostage after suffering something terrible thanks to another specific group of jerks the same week. 'Mother'. Precia.

This does cause her pause. Still...

Even if her mother was.. evil.

And she wanted to run away from it.

She'd still /love/ her mom. Right?

Nanoha gently aquires a vanilla cake and begins frosting it. In white. White is a perfectly neutral color. She frosts it messily, then she uses a flat edged metal card that mom uses to smooth the cake along the sides. The top begins to get frosted now.

The frosting is a little... angular. She is not perfect. This is not her best talent, but she can frost a cake neatly and make it look pretty.

She does not say a word. Or look at Fate. She just works. On the cake.

It is obvious she is putting her all into it.

Fate T. Waldia has posed:
    It's only when Nanoha finally turns and heads off to deal with fashioning the cake in quesiton that Fate finally looks up. And it's not easy- even looking a tthe girl's back as she gets to work so dilligently.
    She could take this opportunty to escape. She could quietly just turn around and quickly walk out the bakery before Nanoha can look back to her. It would be the easy way out. But it would also be a coward's escape.
    Still, Fate silently considers it, even shifting back on her foot, near ready to turn and take her chance while she can. But she halts. She could easily get a cake from somewhere else... But that would put Nanoha in a situation for making the cake and not selling it, wouldn't it?
    Fate says nothing further. She's already told Nanoha who the cake is for, and if the matter is not pressed, she is more than fine with not answering those unspoken questions.
    Her mother isn't evil. ... Something just happened... Something that changed her. Something that made her sad; and Fate was so very wrong for abandoning her.
    Of course she still loves her mother. That's why she's here in the first place. It isn't for a long few beats before she realizes just how intently she watches the other girl put her all into the simple act of frosting.

Nanoha Takamachi has posed:
Nanoha Takamachi is working diglently on the cake. When you know things, you're able to tailor. Sure. She could give Fate a really boring, white cake with like. Standard rose-flower piped icing across the top and bottom. But.

That doesn't really say anything to the person reciving it. Right?

She tries to remember. She doesn't want to, but she tries to remember the color of her magic. It was...purple..ish? And she dressed in black. Right?

Black and purple are not a pretty color scheme, but Nanoha does her best.

Colors get mixed. Frosting gets whipped. She ends up with two shades of purple and a white. She begins.. dotting the cake with flower. Flower. Flower. Purple. White. Darker purple. It's a little messy and it looks something like a more 'A Ten Year Old Made' version of http://tinyurl.com/hbzod6u.

When it's done-- and it takes a bit- she finally looks back. "About done." she says with a shorter smile.

She gently, and carefully, puts it into the box and closes it, before applying a white sticker to the front to keep it closed.

She approaches the counter and places the box carefully in front of Fate.

"Here." she says. "Oh... right..." she says as she walks to the till and presses a few buttons. She rattles off the price of the cake. It is decent and not out of the world expensive while still being competivly priced- because The elder Takamachis care about that sort of thing.

Fate T. Waldia has posed:
    Fate is silent for the whole process, scarlet eyes half-lidded and watching with an almost silent wonder. If Nanoha hadn't spent all that time clearly training to be a better mage, could she have lived her life doing this? Happy with her family, working a normal job, leading a normal life?
    The kind of thing Fate wanted with her own mother, and Arf.
    She doesn't realize she's clenching her fist, by the time the cake is actually done; in familiar shades dark purples, boxed up, and presented to her. And then the price. This is when she realizes she needs to use her fingers, hand un-balling as she rummages stiffly through her pockets for the correct amount of money. A year in Tokyo has at least taught her the proper amounts for each bill and coin, but with the stiffness of a machine, Fate produces her cash in exchange for the box. And makes the mistake of looking up. There's no missing the haunting look of melancholy in her eyes as she picks up the box and hesitates, unsure for a beat before she settles on what to actually say.
    "... Thank you."
    Before turning for the exit.