Beta-read by @Vebyast. @Nachtigall probably would've done so, too, but I posted rather than wait for him to wake up. 
AN: I made a thread for Calibration (BAHHSCQ/Sanctioned) since the last update. In other news, I'd very much appreciate feedback for this update; it feels off to me.
~ ~ ~
Queen Administrator expectantly lurked in relatively close proximity to Lefiya Viridis. The elf stared back, apparently clueless as to why Queen Administrator would be silently waiting in Lefiya's room without so much as greeting her.
"...Hi?" Lefiya eventually tried.
"Hello."
Queen Administrator continued staring. Eventually, the non-host seemed to realize what Queen Administrator was waiting for.
"I'm sorry for sneaking up on you?" Lefiya offered, her tone questioning.
"Are you?" Queen Administrator promptly asked.
The pointy-eared human variant hadn't sounded very sure about the apology. Questioning the empowered non-host seemed to make her even less certain of her answer, likely indicating the presence of a socially mandated answer instead of a genuine one.
"...Yes?" Lefiya lied.
"Are you?" Queen Administrator repeated.
The non-host broke under her scrutiny.
"Yes!" Lefiya loudly whined. "Everyone has been making it very clear that I messed up, okay? You don't need to be mean about it!"
"I'm aware," Queen Administrator informed her.
Unnecessary cruelty was an excellent way to make equally unnecessary enemies. Being cruel to a member of Loki's Familia would only have negative effects on QA's reputation; Lefiya was not an enemy. She merely had poor judgment.
"Lili thinks Lady Lefiya thought Queen Administrator was being mean," Lili piped up. "Lili believes it's supposed to be polite to accept an apology the first time it's issued."
Lefiya nodded in apparent agreement. QA ignored the elf and turned to explain her reasoning to someone who was actually
important: Lili.
"She sounded uncertain about her own apology," QA pointed out.
"I was merely verifying that she was genuinely sorry. Lefiya Viridis: I am told that you can help me with the parts of magic necessary for safe spellcasting."
Lefiya blinked and tilted her head slightly.
"Wait, I thought you weren't supposed to have any magic? That was part of the whole Monster Mansion robbery
thing."
"I did not have access to spatial magic," QA misleadingly corrected.
"I do, however, have an approximately fifty-word chant for an unknown support magic. Aiz believed I should learn basic magic control before attempting to use it; the incident which placed me in this state also removed my access to what locals would call 'cantrips' and reset conscious control over magic in general."
Lefiya frowned and glanced at a nearby sheet of parchment. QA was too far away to distinguish detailed contents, but the format indicated that it was some manner of checklist or schedule.
"I'm going on the Expedition in a few days," Lefiya warned, "and learning to cast safely often takes weeks at best. Are you really okay with that?"
Queen Administrator was the primary shard utilized for the calibration, crippling, and deployment of :FATHER:'s portion of her siblings. That arguably gave her more experience with controlling exotic effects than any other shard, with or without an intermediate interface. If humans talents had a range of one to ten, then QA assumed that her own rating would require exponential notation.
Queen Administrator paused as a thought occurred to her. She'd been assuming that humans were merely mistaking her and Host for Spirits, but perhaps Spirits were actually well-disguised siblings? Something to check later.
"I find it highly likely that I will be able to control the necessary energies with relative safety prior to your scheduled departure," QA replied aloud.
Lefiya started to smirk, opened her mouth, and stopped. The non-host wrinkled her nose and dropped the mildly arrogant expression.
"Is this a favor to Aiz or you?" the pointy-eared human asked instead.
Queen Administrator approved of the question. Humans seemed to have a large network of unspoken
'favors' with indeterminate values and compensation. Gathering more information on them could help prevent significant amounts of confusion in the future.
"I don't believe it is either. Captain Riveria said it was to be punishment for sneaking up on an adventurer."
"Vice-captain," Lefiya automatically corrected, then pouted. "And
really? It's not like I did it on purpose!"
"This behavior is exactly why I questioned your contrition," QA observed.
The pointy-eared non-host transitioned from a pout to a full-fledged scowl.
"You really are being mean about this," Lefiya complained. "It wasn't one-sided. You scared me, too, when you
threw a knife at me."
Queen Administrator sighed. Despite Lefiya's apology, the non-host still seemed bitter about the reactions she provoked.
"I had originally intended to offer temporary Friend contact permissions to compensate you for your time, but it would appear you'd prefer to remain bitter."
As expected, the implied bribe of fluffy Friend affections was enough to immediately change Lefiya's behavior. Even without QA's usual prediction suites, humans could still be remarkably predictable at times.
"No, no, I can stop, sorry!" the non-host hastily apologized. "But, er, is Lili going to be training with Aiz in the interim…?"
Queen Administrator tilted her head sideways and rotated it diagonally to indicate uncertainty.
"Aiz may be distracted for an indeterminate period of time. If Lili did not have any activities she wished to try pursuing, I believe she would benefit from observing my lessons."
"Lili would?" QA's new pseudo-sibling asked, seemingly surprised. Gauging additional elements of her mood was exceedingly and unnecessarily difficult.
"There is a high probability you will obtain a long spell at some future date," QA informed her.
"My learning methods are unlikely to be easily replicable; if possible, it may be useful for you to learn what you can from my own lessons."
Lefiya opened her mouth, but presumably decided against voicing objections after looking at Queen Administrator's Friends. It was unfortunate that QA had an effective ban on Friend-gifting and a soft upper limit on the number of Friends she could create; if Aiz, Lefiya, and Tiona were representative examples of the city's adventurer population, then QA could've had not only backup Friends, but a
powerful army with only a minimal time and resource expenditure. It was always nice to turn Friends against host-species who thought the allegiance of Friends could be stolen.
"Let's just get started," Lefiya sighed.
~ ~ ~
Lili felt uncertain and alien within the polished wooden floor and plush cushions of Lefiya Viridis's bedroom. The room was the kind of thing Lili's younger self would've
adored, but had never gotten to have. She'd considered herself lucky whenever she found a corner where nobody would kick her for their own amusement. Hestia's home provided the safest place that Lili had ever gotten to sleep inside and a
monarch lived there, so why did someone selfishly unapologetic like Lefiya get a lavish room all to herself? Queen Administrator had to bribe the unrepentant adventurer just to get Lefiya to stop complaining about something that even her own Familia had acknowledged was her fault.
"So, is it true that Hestia has something like Freya's Discerning Eye?" Lefiya was asking.
Lili blinked and tuned back into their conversation. Hearing the rumors of the Hestia Familia had simultaneously become more stressful and more
fun since Lili had joined it.
"I do not know why or how you would reach that conclusion," Queen Administrator claimed.
Lefiya shrugged airily.
"I mean, zero children and suddenly
whoosh. A foreign, Spirit-guarded queen and a Supporter abruptly rescued from a Familia filled with alcoholics. It's pretty blatant, you know?"
So deities have to have the divine version of a skill just to be nice to someone struggling? Because
that made sense.
Then again, QA
had initially chosen Lili because of Cinder Ella and only discovered Lili's intelligence afterward. Lili could understand how people could get it wrong. Still, she didn't know what to say any more than Queen Administrator appeared to.
"It's not exactly a secret at this point," Lefiya failed to reassure them. "She
is practically the Goddess of Family, right? It makes sense that she'd have something related to that."
Lili admitted that was actually relatively reasonable. Totally wrong, but reasonable. She didn't blame Queen Administrator for choosing to just ignore the idea and keep practicing, though.
The Supporter flinched and nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand landed on her shoulder. Lili slowly looked up, her heart in her throat, and only marginally relaxed when she saw the hand belonged to Aiz Wallenstein.
"Come," the Sword Princess said simply.
Lili tried to look plaintively at Queen Administrator. Unfortunately, Lili's mask of happiness seemed to work against her in this instance; the foreign monarch merely smiled creepily, provided an encouraging nod, and went back to staring at the Magic Stone-topped staff granted by Lefiya. The Supporter swallowed and reluctantly moved to follow Aiz. Lili felt she knew what Aiz wanted, and she didn't like it.
Lili hadn't heard any orders from Queen Administrator, yet Lady Sable still followed them out of the room. The giant Friend's presence wasn't much comfort when they were against a level
five. Lili was led downstairs and to a medium-sized training room, Lady Sable silently trailing in her wake.
To Lili's surprise, she wasn't handed a sword and immediately attacked upon entering the training room. Instead, Aiz gently lifted her kitten-Friend from between the back of her neck and her hair. Lili couldn't help but feel a little flabbergasted; that was almost exactly where Lili was hiding her own Friend, yet she'd expect a
kitten to be more visible even if it could squeeze into the small gap in Aiz's armor. Queen Administrator really had done too good of a job with making the new Friend match Aiz's hair color.
The little kitten was deposited on the floor before Lady Sable. The two of them looked at each other as though to say
"I don't know either," then simultaneously turned back to Aiz.
"Say hello, Felicity," Aiz encouraged.
The tiny kitten slowly padded toward the massive Friend several hundred times her own volume. Lady Sable sniffed Felicity once before licking the entire upper side of the tiny kitten in one pass. Felicity was pushed down to a sitting position from the force and looked remarkably disgruntled by the action. Lili couldn't blame her; from everything Queen Administrator had said, it seemed as though messes didn't really
stick to Friends. They'd just slowly slide off unless they were attached to something other than the Friend themselves.
Felicity pushed herself upright, huffed indignantly, and turned her back on Lady Sable with a dismissive tail-flick and head held high. The kitten managed to maintain her prideful bearing for all of four steps before Lady Sable decided to resume the kitten's bath and engulfed Felicity with repeated licks, knocking her over once more.
"It's hard to believe she'll grow that big, isn't it?" Aiz quietly asked, smiling.
You haven't seen what they grow from. Entire goblins could grow from Monster Cores smaller than Lili's pinkie finger. With them as a comparison, it was surprising that Friends didn't grow
bigger.
"Lili is surprised Felicity exists at all," Lili said instead. "Why did Lady Aiz tell Lili to come here?"
Lili had a terrible suspicion, but she would prefer to hold on to hope until her expectations were crushed. Meanwhile, Felicity released a plaintive mew and tried to drag herself away from Lady Sable's ministrations, leaving deep grooves in the floor as she went. Aiz hurried to rescue the kitten before answering Lili. Even afterward, the Sword Princess's hands were occupied with absentmindedly petting Felicity's head while the suddenly-happy little Friend pushed into the touch. It really was hard to believe they were artificial creatures; they seemed so... well,
friendly.
"I wanted to see you attack something," Aiz said softly.
Lili felt her lips twitch from the effort of maintaining her happy mask. She'd feared as much. The rumor mill hadn't been very clear beyond saying that training level 1s would make Aiz stronger; it stood to reason that, since Lili was part of Queen Administrator's Familia
anyway, Aiz might think she could double the bonus by doubling the number of pupils. Really, Lili was just a side dish.
"Ah, Lili is afraid that Lady Aiz has gotten the wrong idea," Lili told the adventurer, giggling. "Lili is just a pathetic Supporter who isn't worthy of the Sword Princess's attention. Lili doesn't have the aptitude, strength, or courage to be an adventurer."
The Sword Princess's normally distant expression formed into a small frown.
"Finn would hate to hear you say that," Aiz told Lili in an odd tone, then shook her head. "Nobody is born knowing how to fight. You can even keep the weapon afterward."
Lili swallowed, eyed the weapon racks along the far wall, and slowly nodded. At the worst, she could sell the weapon for tens of thousands of Valis and... and then what? She'd been saving money for so long that she'd all-but forgotten how to spend it. Hestia and Queen Administrator hadn't demanded her stash and likely didn't even know it
existed.
The Supporter walked toward the weaponry and began inspecting it without even paying attention; most of her mind was busy struggling with itself.
Lili could let the Familia acquire better accommodations all on her own. She should wait so the sudden wealth was covered by adventuring, but she could do it. The hard part was convincing herself that she
should. That same money could be used to buy her emergency equipment or even on Magic Stones for her Friend.
But wouldn't she be just the same as the adventurers if she was so selfish? She already would've had to spend that money on escaping the Soma Familia. It wasn't fair that Loki's loud, selfish, inconsiderate Familia should get to have nice things while Hestia lived in a little basement. Admittedly, Lili did feel oddly fond of the idea of an underground lair. It was easier to defend and several parts of her simply enjoyed the idea of making an impenetrable fortress of a home. She should still keep some in reserve for an emergency, but donating the rest to the Familia should work, shouldn't it? Hestia didn't seem like the sort to be financially irresponsible the moment an opportunity was provided.
All too soon, Lili was left silently staring at a nearby training dummy with the bared steel of a pallum-resized shortsword in hand. She couldn't do anything more than that. If she really had to fight, the pallum would normally just put a crossbow bolt through a monster's eye and start running during the brief time it took them to adjust. She didn't really know much else about fighting; everything she'd ever learned was born of desperation and didn't look very impressive at all. And really, it was a
training dummy. How was she supposed to know what direction attacks would come from if it didn't have attacks? She stabbed things when they came too close. She didn't go to them so they could stab
her.
"You don't need to overthink it," Aiz quietly encouraged. "Anything is fine."
Lili didn't believe her. You didn't try to gather that kind of information unless you were assessing someone's skills, and Lili was only good at constant evasion and aiming with a crossbow. Crossbows were too slow and high-maintenance for a full adventurer, and her style of dodging with the occasional slash would tire her out before she managed to kill more than a monster or two. It wouldn't work.
Then again, Lili didn't
want the attention of a selfish adventurer even if Aiz was a bit too ditzy to easily loathe. Failure would be fine. The Supporter warily walked up to the dummy, raised the blade, and yanked it into a diagonal slash. The scraping attack only served to remind her of how
small she was compared to humans and most monsters. No wonder Finn Deimne was supposed to prefer a spear taller than he was; at least he could aim for the throat without getting too close.
"Try a spear," Aiz suggested, apparently thinking the same thing.
Lili imagined trying to use one with a filled backpack and shook her head. The shaft would just bang into things and get in the way.
"Lili is a Supporter," she reiterated, pointedly bouncing her backpack. "Lili can't just put a full backpack down when there's a fight. Lili should be scrambling away from battles, not participating in them."
Aiz looked past Lili and examined the backpack as though she'd completely forgotten it existed.
"Full?" the Sword Princess questioned.
Lili hesitated for barely a second before deciding to answer. Artel Assist might make people stop wondering why Lili had been chosen. Besides, Soma already knew about the skill; there wasn't much point in trying to keep it a secret.
"Lili has a Supporter's skill that boosts her Abilities as she carries heavy burdens," Lili told her, giggling again. "Lili is sorry to disappoint Lady Aiz, but Lili's base Strength is as low as it normally is for pallum."
Aiz tilted her head to one side, her eyes fixed on the backpack that would far outweigh Lili herself when filled.
"You don't tip over?" Aiz asked.
Right on cue, Felicity rolled onto her back and deigned to allow Aiz to pet her belly. The adventurer in question paused and looked down at her Friend with apparent surprise before complying. Lili took the opportunity to answer anyway.
"Lili would be an even worse Supporter if she did," Lili chirped. "Besides, don't adventurers also get steadier as their Strength increases?"
Aiz didn't answer. In fact, Lili hadn't even managed to finish speaking when the Sword Princess began walking away. Lili's reflexive resentment barely even had time to form when Aiz grabbed a maul with a head the size of
Lili's head and began walking back. The Supporter's brain hiccuped. Aiz couldn't possibly be serious, could she?
She was. The Sword Princess stopped before Lili and wordlessly offered the hammer-like weapon, her gaze expectant. Years of experience weren't enough to let Lili conceal her incredulity. Handing a
strength-dependent weapon to a
pallum, one of the physically weakest demihuman races of all? It was utterly absurd.
When Lili didn't move to take it, Aiz gently set the oversized weapon down and nodded to Lili.
"Getting weights," the adventurer shortly told her, then began to jog away.
Lili didn't watch the Sword Princess go. Her gaze was all-but stuck to the maul as she struggled to think of a way she could possibly use it. The very idea was just
wrong.
~ ~ ~
As expected, Queen Administrator was able to corral the local human power without any problems and within three hours. All it did was follow Host's veins and QA knew where all of those were. The rest was simply a matter of maintaining focus and Queen Administrator had more than enough experience devoting all her focus to achieving a single objective.
"You are
relearning how to do this, aren't you?" Lefiya eventually demanded. "Or have a skill? Nobody is supposed to learn this quickly."
Queen Administrator bobbed her head in a quick nod and smiled at the pointy-eared human.
"May I use my spell on you to determine its properties?" Queen Administrator requested.
The response was both immediate and disappointing: a head-rotation of refusal.
"Absolutely not," Lefiya declined firmly. "Always test new Falna-granted spells somewhere you won't miss. Even the supporting ones can do things like cover people in flaming armor. I am
not letting you incinerate my bedroom."
The non-host hopped out of her seat and began briskly walking away, waving for Queen Administrator to follow her. The shard-turned-human ordered Sir Kara to follow with a whispered command and moved to follow herself.
~ ~ ~
Lili coughed and used one hand to wave floating particles of pulverized straw and wood away from her mouth. Her other hand still gripped the maul she'd destroyed the straw dummy with. Aiz's polite clapping wasn't helping her feel any better about the feat; even if it
had somehow worked, a maul-wielding pallum remained an utterly absurd idea and one likely to draw the attention Lili wanted none of.
"We could try a battleaxe next," Aiz suggested brightly.
The Sword Princess seemed utterly oblivious when Lili finally broke character and gave her an aggrieved look. Even if that might actually work, Lili was not a
dwarf. What was next, suggesting that the Supporter wear heavy armor?
…Merciless gods. She's going to do that, isn't she?
~ ~ ~
For some reason, Host's memories seemed to want Queen Administrator to hold the end of the staff before their face and pace in place as the shard finally began their chant. QA ignored the urges; she'd been missing having abilities other than Friendmaking and didn't want to mess up the first test by attempting something strange. Something strange happened
anyway, though. Lefiya Viridis didn't show any signs of noticing something odd, but QA suspected that she'd heard Host's voice singing some of the lines instead of her own. It didn't interfere with the casting.
"You may feel you're far too slow,
Or would die from just one blow."
"They would love to let you go;
They would love to see you grow.
They are stuck in Heaven, though."
"They can only let you know:"
"'You are not alone below.'"
Upon completion of the spell, thin cords of dim golden light formed a ring around Queen Administrator and snaked toward the two subjects of QA's spell: Lefiya Viridis and Sir Kara. The effect did not appear to be visible to others; both Sir Kara and Lefiya were oblivious until the cords actually connected to them. QA could identify the exact moment of synchronization due to her abrupt awareness of their presence. She'd known where they were before, but now she
knew. She didn't need to see or hear Sir Kara to know he was to her left flank with his paws resting on cold stone. Similarly, QA didn't need to look at Lefiya to know that the non-host was neither injured nor particularly exhausted. A little sleepy, perhaps, but nothing more.
"Your chant is unusually rhythmic," Lefiya noted aloud. "Easy to follow, too. The effect, though…"
The pointy-haired non-host closed her eyes and turned away, her expression thoughtful.
"Could you please move a body part or raise fingers or something?" Lefiya requested. "Don't tell me what it is."
Queen Administrator obligingly raised three and a half of Host's fingers. She'd meant to do four, but Host didn't seem to want to keep her smallest finger lowered without also dragging down the adjacent digit.
"Three fully raised and one halfway," Lefiya said confidently, then darted out of the room without waiting for a response. Queen Administrator could feel the pointy-eared non-host walking through the hall beyond until Lefiya slowed to a stop. The non-host then easily pointed back at Host despite the solid wall between them; if the cords didn't care about intervening objects, why should those they linked?
"This actually has potential," Lefiya called.
Queen Administrator concurred. In addition to the supplementary awareness, she thought she might be able to empower allies by sending magic down the threads. QA didn't intend to test that around an ally of dubious reliability, though. There were the obvious applications for allies, of course, but offensive uses existed as well. If she targeted enemies with it, she would know
exactly where their eyes were and could aim accordingly.
