My feet hit the warm metal-feeling floor of the balcony while I was still blinking furiously to try and clear my vision. My arms swung out wildly in search of Fena’s body so I could drag her back out of the sun as soon as possible. A few seconds later my ankle hit something solid and heavy-feeling, tipping me forward as my gut hit an equally solid object that could only be the hard metal railing of the balcony.

When my head registered that I was falling off the world’s most stupidly huge tower, a wordless scream almost left my lips, but it didn’t even have time to fully form before being stolen away by the hood clasp of my new short-cloak pulling tight around my throat, yanking me back harshly from the railing with an accompanying cackle of still rather insane sounding joy that made my heart thump even harder in my chest as the initial adrenaline surge finally caught up with my body and actions.

“Easy there, Han. First step’s a doozy!”

My legs gave out and I collapsed sideways while staring up at Fena in shock. That slowly bled into relief a few moments later and before I knew it tears were in my eyes as I found myself being scooped up into said sunbourne vampire’s arms as she hugged me close, making shushing sounds that I think were somehow intended to help calm me down in the long run.

I almost let her—What was I thinking?

Fena said it herself! She has a problem with impulse control, mostly due to her ‘living in the moment’ as a way to deal with the maddening nature of vampire immortality. What the hell was I thinking, telling her about how the garter worked when anyone with even half a brain could tell the first thing she’d do is to—

“It’s okay, Han. Calm down. Come on, I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t even consider the possibility that you could have messed up in some way, you never do… but I know how you can be about doubting yourself sometimes, so I should have at least heard you out. It’s just—just—”
She trailed off and squeezed me tighter to her chest for a moment or two and I felt her head move up slightly, as if she were trying to see something over my own head that’s currently resting on her shoulder.
“It’s been so long, Han. The sun—it’s so beautiful, and so warm, and so—so—”

As if a switch had been flipped in her head, Fena went from reverent joy to her own bout of crying in seconds, burying her face in my hair and leaving me with little choice but to awkwardly try to maneuver us around so I could offer her a hug at least partly equal to the one she was already giving me.

“I never thought I’d see the sun again, Han. Oh, you wonderful, wonderful little genius! I never thought I’d get to see the sun again because everyone knows vampires can’t—but you—!”

She didn’t finish her thought off but she didn’t really have to in the end, the tight squeeze and tiny little sob of joy she let off a few moments later doing more than enough to assure me that I’d, however unintentionally or unknowingly, done the right thing for once.

…She deserves it, job well done…

“Glad I could help, Fena.”

Her happy little sniffles took on an almost snort-like quality as she obviously tried to hold in a laugh at
my admittedly weak attempt at saying something in response to her sudden outpouring of emotion.

“You do know that you’ve doomed yourself to being my shopping, swimming, and sunbathing buddy
from now on, right Han?”
What? No I haven’t! I didn’t even know Fena liked swimming, let alone sunbathing, and she rarely seems to wear anything but long-sleeved Goth stu—Oh…
“I’m over four-hundred years old and I’ve never owned a bikini, or a cute sundress, or even gone to a nudist beach! I think this little slice of genius from you deserves us both having a complete style overhaul to match my much sunnier disposition... get it,sunnier?”

Apparently, still not worrying about that pesky human need to breath, Fena didn’t even pause between her bad pun and bursting into outright cackles which yet again reminded me far too much of Edith at her worst, a problem made slightly more creepy by the mention of someone being both four-hundred years old and going to a nudist beach, of all places!

“I can’t wait to take you to Rodeo Drive, Han! I’ve only ever been able to get things from there by proxy because all the best designers shut before sundown. Oh! And I need to buy myself a convertible car, too—scratch that—I need to learn how to drive first. Pretty sure my hackney carriage licence is about three-hundred years out of date and doesn’t apply to motor vehicles even if it isn’t, so…”

...Oh, Powers! We’ve created a monster...

=======

“Well, aren’t we an odd duo this morning?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin as a suspiciously haggard looking version of my sister leaned her way out of the still broken doorway leading onto the balcony where I’m currently rather unwillingly sunning myself, at Fena’s request, naturally.

To be fair, aside from being mildly warm and the sun getting in my eyes a little sometimes, I’m not that inconvenienced by her sudden need to be a sun bunny. I’ve spent most of the last half an hour inspecting the right-hand glove of my new accessories to see what exactly its purpose is, outside of making me look slightly eccentric…which is pretty much the exact same thing I would have been doing indoors otherwise, if Fena hadn’t decided that doing Yoga in short-shorts and a bra outside in the sun was something she simply must tick off her bucket list while she can, apparently.

“Fena, you’re looking very—comfortable? —Nice bra by the way, very ‘Vegas stripper on the weekend’. It suits you.”

Nice try at being subtle in your questioning and animosity, Sare. Truly, how you ever lost out on last year’s Daytime Emmy award to that guy who goes around pointing at things in museums instead of actually going out and hunting for them himself will forever remain a mystery!

“And a bright, sunny, happy morning to you too, miscellaneous sibling of the Sun Goddess Hannah whose name I deem not to remember, just as history itself will no doubt do”
…Ouch!…

Apparently giving Fena some relaxing sun time steps up her comeback game somewhat. Even Sarah seems to have been surprised and, dare I say it, slightly hurt by that one!
…What did Fena mean by ‘Sun Goddess’ though?…
Yeah, that’s a point actually. What could she mean by—Oh, no! No, no, no, no! Nuh-uh! De nada!

“I swear to all that’s powerful, Fena, if you start going around telling people I’m a Sun Goddess just because I gave you the world’s best magical sunblock alternative, then I’ll—I’ll—”
Damn it! Why am I always so terrible at making threats up on the spot?

“Hang her off a flagpole in public, buck naked until everyone starts calling her the ‘Moon Goddess’ in response?”

Thanks, Sare! Great input as usual…
…Heh, that’s actually a pretty good one. Showing her butt off—so she’s the ‘Moon’-Goddess…
I got the joke, damn it!

It’s just a terrible pun, and not exactly helpful considering all it seems to have done is get the pair of them glaring at each other like we’re in our teens all over again. I had enough of this territorial crap between them when I was Al and Sarah decided on first meeting that she didn’t like ‘that broody little show-off’ friend of mine. I thought we’d all grown past this sort of thing but, apparently, changing the established dynamic of how Fena gets to live her life was the tipping point to set them both off all over again for some reason!

======

“I can just see you now, having a nice drink by the pool in the sun, maybe a cabana boy or two?”

Oh, we’re already up to underhanded vampire comments. That’s a new low, even by their standards, and it can only get worse from here!

“At least I would know what I’d do with one, even if he was just a midday snack! For all your bravado, even Hannah has more experience with men than you do. If I wasn’t half convinced you were such a closeted lesbian that being surrounded by so many women would drive you crazy, I’d say you’d be right at home in a nunnery most of the time!”

Okay, that does it! I’m calling time on this one. There’s no need to drag my experience with men into this.
…Even if she does kinda have a point…
Shut up brain, you’re not helping.

“Stop it, the pair of you, right now!”

They both turned to fix me with twin mutinous looks of barely controlled anger that I’m pretty sure would have made me back down instantly if I hadn’t faced elder demons in my twenty-five years of life so far.

“Why do you both always fight like this? I thought you’d grown out of this kind of thing years ago—and let’s not even go into that lesbian comment, Fena. I swear, sometimes, watching you both fight is like watching the physical embodiment of pent-up sexual tension given form!”

…That was probably the wrong thing to say…

“Oh, don’t you even try to come at me about sexual tension, little miss ‘I hate stupid John, but I also can’t help myself when I’m around him—he’s just so dreamy’!”
I do not sound like that, Sare!

“She’s got a point. Just how much time do you actually spend wrapped up in John’s aura these days, Han? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were pregnant, just from how much his magic lingers around you on those rare occasions when you’re both apart for more than five minutes at a time.”
Not you too, Fena!

When did it suddenly become ‘pick on Hannah’ time? I was only trying to stop them from arguing for once!
…Abort mission. Let’s get the hell out of here before they decide to start picking on us even more…
Good idea. Great idea!

I don’t like the sun this early in the morning anyway and I was so close to working out this glove a few minutes ago as well…

“I’m going back inside. Screw you both, or screw each other! I don’t care as long as you both stop being so bitchy at some point soon!”

My piece said, I snatched my right-hand glove up from my lap and proceeded to storm back into the tower, in a huff, with only a momentary pause to shoulder barge my way past a still fuming Sarah because she was blocking the doorway and, quite frankly, I was not in the mood for this crap anymore.
…Where’s seven metric tons of bacon when you need it?…

I’m going to make myself a coffee, then sit down and work out this bloody glove if it’s the last thing I bloody do!

======

“Comfortable there, Han?”

From my current position, perched atop a cupboard in the spacious kitchen of our current home-away-from-home, I slowly rolled my shoulders in what some people may consider a shrug. It was a movement which importantly didn’t allow either of my glove covered hands to move too far away from my mouth. A rather necessary feat considering the carefully planned mix of dietary supplements, namely coffee and a doughnut, which I happen to be ingesting at this exact moment in order to calm myself down and ignore the almost worrying silence coming from the balcony outside at this point.

“Where’d you get the doughnut from? I didn’t know we had any and room service in the tower is practically non-existent.”

I allowed another tiny shrug loose upon the world with a smirk playing across my lips at the flicker of annoyance it brought to John’s face in return. After allowing myself to enjoy that look for the few fleeting seconds it lasted, I finally decided to give him some form of verbal response, because he was being a good boy and not planning to press the issue unnecessarily, even though it was pretty damned obvious that he wanted to.

“Magic?”

It was not exactly the answer he was looking for, obviously, but certainly the one he should probably have expected me to give, when you consider it tends to be his default teasing answer when I ask him for more information about some new trick he’s learnt and the general bad mood everyone seems to be in at the moment, me included, obviously.

“Fena is outside sun-bathing at the moment by the way, if you’re at all interested?”

Despite everything he would probably have the world believe, John’s eyes went slightly wide in horror at the idea of his reluctant vampire friend having a sunbath. In seconds, that primal, heroic part of him that he tries so hard to pretend doesn’t exist most of the time obviously kicked into high gear far quicker than his actual brain could keep up with, because he practically sprinted towards the broken balcony doors to go save our favorite vampire, all in much the same way that I had a little while ago, without really processing the calm and almost bored tone I’d used to tell him about it in the first place, like the idiot he can be at times.

With a put-upon sigh, I practically slid my way off of the cupboard top I’d been decadently resting on like an overgrown house cat who got the cream and, as sounds of surprise and yelling started filtering in from outside due to John interrupting whatever the hell that sunbourne pair of bickering children outside have been silently up to for the last half an hour, I grabbed a large serving dish along with a tea tray which should do for my current needs.

Part of me was tempted to let off another put-upon sigh, more because it’s shaping up to be one of those days than me actually having any direct reasoning connected to the action itself.

In the end, I allowed myself one final glance around to make sure my latest secret won’t be exposed before I’ve had a proper chance to enjoy using it in winding John up something chronic before continuing on, regardless.

Quickly, I twisted my right arm around so my forearm was angled towards the serving dish and moved my left hand up to tap at the specific set of runes which drunk-Hannah, or possibly drugged-Hannah before her, decided to use as activation switches for the truly genius and important rune system that we installed on my former test-platform safety suit before its untimely demise by way of a stupid bullet, of all things.

It took a few seconds for the runes to tick through themselves, a problem that can happen in some complex rune networks if their creator is careless, but also one that was intentionally put in place this time, for soon to be obvious reasons.

When the internal countdown of the runes finished dealing with itself, a perfectly glazed doughnut appeared out of thin air and rolled onto the serving tray, followed a few seconds later by another one, and another as I held my finger on the trigger to keep deploying enough for everyone while I could. Eventually I had a tray full of assorted doughnuts of varying flavors and styles.

Even I’m not sure how many types of doughnut this runeset on my glove can produce, as far as I know the only reasonable limit to them would be how many I could be bothered to program into it at the time, honestly.

“I’m such a genius sometimes…”

From what I’ve gathered so far, some part of my mind decided that my being hungry back in my realm was a problem which should never be allowed to happen again. Subsequently, drugged-Hannah took my huge, overly complicated and unwieldy ‘food and water replicator’ designs from the satellite and slimmed them down drastically so they could be fitted to a single arm of my suit instead.

In exchange for the compact design of the runes, these new ones are highly limited; seemingly restricted to doughnuts alone, so far, in their ability to replicate things.
…But I’m not exactly complaining at the moment because doughnuts are awesome!…

That all being said, there is one other thing this wonderful miracle glove of mine can do which is of almost equal genius, in my opinion.

My body already knew what was coming and I turned my arm over a little bit while moving my hand into a grasping position as my left hand moved ever so slightly around my arm to hit the second pair of activation runes on my new glove of deliciousness. After yet another few seconds of waiting, a nice biodegradable coffee cup appeared in my hand, steam pouring out of the top and its contents already prepared, just the way I like it.

An evil little smirk came to my face as my eyes cut over to the broken balcony door once more, as if I could see John’s mystified look already, before I placed the cup down on the tea tray beside my doughnut pile and started making even more of them. Enough to make sure everyone can have their fill of Hannah’s marvellously magically manifested magnificence!
…I think we’ve had enough coffee now if we’re into alliteration territory…
No such thing as enough coffee!

…Fine—Stupid question, but if we made this, why didn’t we use it?—Back in the realm when we were starving and crazy, I mean?…

I didn’t use it back then, simply because—because—

Oh—Ooh! Powers damn you, drugged-Hannah! You are such an idiot!

======

“What’s all the yelling abo—where the hell did those doughnuts come from?”

I couldn’t even bring myself to smile at John’s sudden veer off in conversation as he noticed my doughnut pile, let alone look him in the eye and smirk mysteriously as I’d originally planned to do, because I was far too busy beating my head against the kitchen counter top in frustration at just how bloody stupid I could be while not fully in control of my actions.

I created endless food! I created endless coffee!... and I then completely missed connecting the fact that I’d made them with the fact that I desperately needed them at the time!

That’s it! No more drugs, no more alcohol! I obviously can’t be trusted with either of them even if they can lead to my creating amazing things with runes in the process.

…How will we make breakthroughs without them, though?…

I’ll find a way! I’ll take up—take up—take up bloody meditation for all it matters. Anything, rather than facing the possibility of being that smart and yet that dumb at the same time ever again!

“Ooh, doughnuts and free coffee? You call room service or something, Han?”

The far too cheerful sound of my sister, who’d apparently gotten over whatever issues she had with Fena earlier in my absence, was just a little bit more than I felt like I could take right now. After a moment’s hesitation, I settled for one final bang of my head before raising a single tired hand into the air to offer her a thumbs-up of approval on the unasked but implied question she’d posed about her stealing some of my delicious bounty.

“I’m going to go wake up Eris. Can someone make sure the AMS girls are up and Pauly’s lot are ready to go? We’ve got a stupid country to save, as soon as they send some gopher over to tell us when and where I need to be to sign a stupid bit of paper in a load of stupid people’s places, so a load of other stupid people don’t try to steal our country from our stupid people—”

I didn’t actually wait for someone to answer, not really caring if they did anything or not, as my mind kept chewing over what little I remember of the time I lost in my Realm, and all those hours of mind-numbing hunger in between potion doses that I could have fixed with barely a thought, apparently!

======

“Eris, sweetie, time to get up.”

A rumbled, barely human sounding grumble from the bed we’d all slept on last night was my only response at first. A sound which had some stupid part of my mind stating clearly that she was ‘just like her mother’ in the mornings, just like it always seems to do whenever she makes those funny noises she does while waking up.

Eventually, when she didn’t so much as move a few seconds later I decided to sweeten the deal just a little bit, simply because I could.

“We have doughnuts, and if you don’t hurry, then they will all get eaten—even the pink one with sprinkles you like so much.”
A second grumble started from the bed, only to cut short as my words obviously registered in her little head at last.

Seemingly without a transition in-between, Eris went from spread-eagle on the bed to rushing towards me somewhat staggeringly in order to snatch the promised doughnut before it disappeared. I really doubt they have gone completely yet, considering I made sure there were at least seven of them on the pile for her while I was making them, even if the doughnuts do seem to come out in random flavors from what I’ve seen so far.

“Thank’ Mo’mmy”

A little hand brushed against mine as Eris half-stumbled, half-shuffled her way out to her waiting doughnutty treat of choice, making me feel slightly warm and happy all the same just from the contact alone wh—

It took a few seconds for my brain to pick up what she’d actually said in her half-awake state, but the moment it did register with all it could potentially mean for my quest to restore her memories of me in general I found my knees going a little weak as I practically collapsed onto the bed in an awkward sitting position with surprise obvious on my face for anyone to see, if I wasn’t alone at the moment.

“She called me ‘Mommy’?”
…Don’t overthink it…

B-but she called me it, and she’s half-awake! Her subconscious must still remember in some instinctive way, who I am to her and she just—just—
…Don’t overthink it! It was a fluke, work on getting her memories back properly, and then you can start celebrating…
R-right—yeah, that’s right. Just a fluke, a really, really nice fluke—for the few seconds I got to enjoy it, at least.

“She called me ‘Mommy’.”

======

“You okay, Han?”

My head jerked up and my hands quickly followed, awkwardly brushing stupid over-emotional tears from my eyes, like the damning evidence that they are against any lie I might try to feed my questioner in the next few seconds.

“Yeah, I’m fine, John-Boy. What’s going on? I figured you’d be busy stuffing your face at the moment or something.”
He cocked his head to the side and squinted his eyes down a little bit to show me that he really wasn’t buying what I was trying to sell at the moment.
“Oh, don’t give me that look. I’m fine. What’s going on?”

He fixed me with that same almost stern look for a few more seconds but evidently decided that I wasn’t going to spill what had happened any time soon, judging by the shake of his head he offered a few moments later, at least.

“You’ve been in here for almost twenty minutes now, Han. The messenger just came to tell us we have less than an hour before the ceremony starts, so I volunteered to come tell you.”
My eyes winced down in annoyance without my conscious input and by the time I realised I was doing it John had already noticed, making any attempts at hiding that giveaway a bit redundant, honestly.
“You sure you’re okay?”

I offered him a weak glare and pushed myself up to a standing position, as if it would prove that I’m fine to him in some way despite the fact he knows me far too well to be fooled by anything I could say at the moment.

“I think I preferred when you couldn’t lie to me about your feelings...”

My glare went up a notch and I folded my arms across my chest defiantly at the fact that he’d even dare to make a comment like that to me right now. I’m not exactly in the mood for his twisted sense of humor or his weirdness!

“I think I preferred you when you were just stalking me instead of actually caring—”

Even to my ears, that comeback was nonsensical at best but he started it so I had to say something or else I would have just snapped instead and start crying again, before telling him about how stupidly I’d reacted to stupid Eris calling me her stupid Mommy, because she wasn’t really awake enough to know she was doing it, and that it hit home way too much for me because I’m just stupid, stupid, stu—

“Come here, ya daft cow. You need a hug and I’m not taking no for an answer!”

As he’d said, he didn’t accept my gentle head-shake of rejection in the slightest. Seconds later he’d pulled me into his arms for a physically and magically encompassing hug which part of me really didn’t want to admit I desperately needed right now.

“Stupid John—”

Despite my words, and quite a few parts of my brain telling me not to, I found my hands fisting onto John’s stale-smelling shirt as more tears came from my stupid leaky eyes yet again. Some detached part of me decided to point out that this was precisely the sort of thing Sarah and Fena had been warning me about earlier, but it was quickly drowned out by the part of me that missed my daughter and needed some comforting right about now.

...Stupid John...

======

“How is everything going in here, I have your outfit for today, Hannah-dear. I decided to go with more of a form-fitting aesthetic this time considering the position you will be in to—Oh?—Sorry I interrupted!”

With a forceful jerk, I pulled away from John and guiltily shoved him none-too-gently away from me with so much force that the poor idiot fell sideways onto the bed in his obvious surprise. I didn’t have time to apologise to him though unfortunately, my attention more fixated on damage control with Rosemary and what she just seemed to think she saw us doing.

“Sorry, Rose. I just had something in my eye and John was helping me get it out.”

She really didn’t look convinced in the slightest by that open lie from me, but she also seemed far too amused by what she thinks she caught us doing to make an issue of it, luckily.

“That’s okay, Hannah-dear. As I was saying, with your new dress, I took some inspirations from Chinese and Spanish cultures this time to create an outfit I feel should hopefully give the right impression to our most important foreign guests today without being as restrictive and uncomfortable as your dress from yesterday.”

She finished her commentary off with a slightly apologetic-looking pout, apparently because she’s finally realised that she helped railroad me into wearing that stupid dress last night. That expression didn’t last long enough to stop her offering me up a bundle of cloth which is apparently going to be my outfit for the day, but I’m at least glad that she recognizes now that I really wasn’t comfortable in that dress!

If nothing else, just the fact that we may have an understanding in place for later is something, considering she seems to now hold rank over my outfit choices in her partly joking entourage-position as my fashion consultant.

“I’ll leave you to get ready. We’re on a timer now so please don’t take too long getting ready, okay?”

The significant look she gave me after that, along with the cheeky wink that followed it really wasn’t something I needed right about now. That being said, at least she left the room after giving them both, even if she did giggle to herself slightly as she pulled the door shut behind her just to really rub the misunderstanding in that little bit more.

“Chinese and Spanish? Now, this is an outfit I need to see you shimmy your way into.”
…And like that, he’s lost the right to be in this room while we’re getting changed…

Yeah, h—he never had that right to start with, damn it!

“Get out of here before I zap you in the balls so much you’ll be able to wear it instead, Arti.”

He winced and actually took a step away from me in obvious fear of my mighty lighting mage rage. Slowly he rose his hands up in a sign of submission and with a gentle nod of his head he left me to get on with things at last.
…An ironically low blow, bringing up ‘Arti’ like that?…
Shut up Brain!

Now, let’s see what fun little challenge of fashion and decency I’ve got to contend with today, shall we?