trans_9 | Do As I Say, And Not As I Do [Closed]

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Do As I Say, And Not As I Do [Closed]

This was a conspiracy. However Sherry and Vivio's respective parents had come to the conclusion that it would be a good idea for them to room together, must've have certainly forgotten how much Sherry disliked being stuck in small rooms with people she barely knew.

And a few words here and there when Sherry went to download a new book or watch a movie in the Media Library didn't count as a long and lasting friendship between children. Be nice, her parents had said.

Well, she hadn't said anything particularly blunt lately, did that count? Sherry rolled over to her side in the dark room and looked at the back of her roommate's head. Their parents had done their final check up on the girls before turning out the lights and going of to do whatever it was adults did once they sent their children away.

"Vivio. Vivio. Are you awake?" Sherry whispered loudly.

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Nanoha let go of Vivio's shoulder so she could do just that, understanding Leon's meaning. "We'll come talk to you after you've had a chance to think about what you two did."

And after they've talked, of course.

Sherry's bangs fell into her eyes, and all for the better if you asked her. It meant that the withering glare her father had laid on her was at least mitigated by them. "Yessir," she mumbled and did her best not to sigh. At least, not loudly.

The girls hurried inside their room and Sherry closed the door behind them with a click that rang sharply of finality. She glanced at Vivio. "It's fine if you blame everything on me; it was my idea, anyway. The less trouble I can mitigate from you is probably for the better." At least Vivio's parents were three times less scary than her father right now.

Sherry ticked off the things her parents were likely to take away from her: she was probably, without a doubt, grounded. Her electronic reader would probably be taken, too. There was definitely going to be a lecture about not sneaking off, since her parents seemed to enjoy The Lecture. Depending on the length of her grounding, she could probably deal with the punishment of having her reader taken away. Sherry flopped back on her bed and stared at the ceiling.

How had they caught them so quickly?

Vivio also let out a small, meekly "Yessir" before following Sherry into their room. Vivio was a lot more scared than Sherry was - she had a bit more at stake than Sherry did at being grounded. Nanoha and Fate could take Sacred Heart away - which pretty much equated to "no magic" - and with her as the Media Library's librarian, she could actually be punished for doing something reckless.

"...no. No, I can't do that, Sherry." Vivio said. "This is my fault just as much as it was yours. I should have done more to stop you... to stop us. I knew this was a bad idea and I should have spoken up before it got this way..."

Meanwhile, back with the parents!

Fate wasn't a stern parent. Not at all. She spoiled her child a bit, was the type to help her stand rather than let her stand on her own, and was generally the parent you'd go to when you want to get away with something.

But even she had to agree that some sort of action needed to be taken with this. Disobeying them was one thing, but disobeying them and attempting to sneak out into an unfamiliar city, on an unfamiliar planet, at night was something completely different.

"So... what are we going to do?"

Yes, Fate was horrible with disciplining. So it's up to the others to think of a suitable punishment. ~~Don't worry, girls, she'll at least make sure they're not too harsh.~~

Leon was good at being the stern parent, or, at the least, he was good at being stern, the whole parent thing was still a work in progress. Though once the girls disappeared to their room he did drop the glare.

Not that he could entirely blame them for wanting to go out. It was their first time off the ship in Who Knows How Long, and on the surface, this place didn't seem that dangerous. But going out, unsupervised, at night, on an alien planet was definitely on the list of things Sherry was clearly Not Allowed To Do.

"Ground them 'til they're thirty." That seemed fair, right?

It sucked that the kids had felt the need to disobey one of the few rules they'd laid down, but Sherry was getting to that point where she was starting to push her boundaries. While Claire was habitually more lenient about boundaries because she herself was a pusher and hating being a hypocrite... she recognized they needed to be in place.

Of course, she was also here to make sure that Leon didn't go overboard with the punishment. She glanced over at him, arching an eyebrow.

"Maybe until the end of the week, and they can't leave the hotel without a parent," she amended, clearing her throat.

Nanoha frowned in thought. On the one hand, she was the stricter of the two, and she didn't quite disagree with Leon's first impulse to ground them for a while. On the other hand... "...we need to be stern, but we also need to remember that we might not get another chance for shore leave for a long time," she pointed out. "It might be a bit too cruel to be too harsh this week."

"What if they have to go out with a parent, but we hold off on the grounding until we're back on the ship?" She looked at Leon. "And then it can be for as long as we think we need."

"That sounds fair," Fate said. "It really would be too cruel to keep them from enjoying the free time we were given. Like Nanoha said, we might not get another shore leave for a long time..."

Plus, the girls would ~~probably~~ most likely be incredibly upset or mad at their parents if they were confined to the hotel for the rest of their stay, and Fate was sure the others didn't want that.

Nanoha glanced sidelong at Fate. "But," she interjected. "They still need to understand why what they did was wrong. This doesn't mean they get out of a talking-to."

Feh, you women and your being 'reasonable.' It's not as if he suggested drop-kicking them out of a window.

Leon gave a bit of a look as the punishment got progressively lighter to virtually non-existent, but he rolled with it. He never really had to punish Sherry before this, and punishing her while punishing someone else's kid along with her was awkward territory, so he didn't push.

Instead he looked at his watch. "We should let them stew for five more minutes before we go in." And they needed a gameplan for when they faced their kids.

"Good cop, bad cop?"

"Probably the best way to handle it, yeah." Claire exhaled, tilting her head to the side a little. She almost thought having to go back on the ship after this would be punishment enough, but Sherry had oddly always coped better with living on a space ship than most of the adults. The type of punishments that would work for some likely wouldn't, on her.

Grounding her from TV, for example, would likely be completely pointless.

"I think that's best," Nanoha agreed, looking at the other three. "So... Leon and me first?" After all, there was no way that Fate could possibly 'bad cop.' Nanoha knew that all too well.

"Yeah, you two should probably go first." Fate agreed. "I'm sure they've sweated enough. Might as well get the Bad Cop bit over with."

Yeeeah, there's no way Fate's playing the bad cop in all this.

"Yeah, we'll go first." Not that Claire couldn't be a scary as hell Bad Cop when she wanted to be, but Leon had a feeling she would probably be more amused by this situation than pissed off by it.

He looked at Nanoha. "Anger would be too over-the-top by now, so how about severe disappointment?" He wanted to break out the right lineface for this.

"I think that sounds about right," Nanoha nodded. "'We're not mad, we're just disappointed,' right? A lot of times kids think that's worse."

"Oh no, we're still mad," he corrected, "but more disappointed than angry." He was still mad, at any rate, but disappointment would be more effective here. And they needed to drill it into the girls heads that their little stunt was A Very Bad Idea.

"Shall we?"

She nodded again. "It's a plan, then. I'll follow your lead, Leon."

Nanoha moved toward the door where the two girls were waiting.

Leon nodded, took a second to put his game-face on (the rarely used lineface #22) then knocked on the girls door. He didn't wait for them to answer, though, opening it up with a spare keycard seconds later.

"Girls." Time to face the music.

Vivio jumped slightly at the fact that Leon had went and opened their door. She could see BOTH of their parents there.

This was it. They were dead.

"Y...Yes, sir?" Vivio said, lowering her head in shame.

Oh boy. She hadn't seen that lineface before. And there were days where she and her father communicated in only linefaces.

"Daddy." This was going to hurt, she was pretty sure.

Nanoha closed the door behind them, just staying quiet for the moment. Her lineface wasn't nearly as well-practiced as Leon's was, anyway.

Leon made a disapproving noise and held up a finger, his way of indicating that the girls were not allowed to talk anymore. He then pointed to the edge of the bed.

"Sit," he told them, then sat down in a chair across from them.

And said nothing.

He just looked them both, with that same expression. One which said I'm very disappointed in you better than words ever could.

And sit Vivio did.

At this point, a Buster 3 Starlight Breaker sounded like a GOOD thing.

Sherry shifted and sat down at the end of the bed, picking at the hem of her dress. Leon's lineface would probably have a better effect if she looked at it, she knew. But it was bad enough she could feel it boring into her head like some kind of weaponized emotion.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind (likely the part that hatched her escape plan to begin with), there was a hastily muffled series of sarcastic comments. She felt bad, and looked at Vivio through her bangs. Sorry, she mouthed.

Like Leon, Nanoha said nothing, moving to lean up against the dresser and crossing her arms in front of her chest - she just stared down at the girls.

While her lineface wasn't quite so practiced, as a military instructor she did have one hell of a disappointed stare.

Do As I Say, And Not As I Do [Closed]

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