"How do you do it?" Sieg asked plaintively as he all but collapsed into the chair facing hers in Chaldea's cafeteria.

Marie Antoinette assumed an expression of perplexity. "It?" she repeated.

"It," the former homunculus said as though offering confirmation.

She blinked. "Well, despite my very warm regard for our master, only with my husband." Then she glared at one of the nearby walls. "And definitely not with any Swedish aristocrats, no matter what the stinking Rose of Versailles would have you believe!"

"No, no, not that," Sieg clarified after a moment of purest horror. "I mean ... you've made friends with Sanson, and you were already friends with Mozart and D'Eon ... and none of them can stand each other, but they get along for your sake. And meanwhile -" He paused and looked over his shoulder.

Marie looked that way as well, and saw that Astolfo and Jeanne were into hour four of their staring contest, faintly radiating mutual dislike and a subtle pressure that had taken over roughly a quarter of the cafeteria.

"Ah," she said, nodding. "That it. I'm sorry, Sieg, I really don't have any words of wisdom for you. What you have with those two is very different from my friendships. My only advice is to treat them both as kindly as you can, and hope they will learn from your example. Which is somewhat ironic, given that our dear saint is trying to do that very thing with her Alter, but that's how these things go, I suppose."

"I see," Sieg sighed. "Well, thank you for listening to my complaints, anyway." He smiled warmly at her.

"You're very welcome," she said, with an equally warm smile back.

Strangely, at that very moment, one of the eyes of both Jeanne and Astolfo slooooowly moved to take in this sight, then snapped back to stare at its opposite number. A silent communication ensued, a consensus was reached, and a stare was broken as the two of them stood up, walked over to either side of Sieg, smiled - though not quite as warmly - at Marie, and picked Sieg up and carried him out of the cafeteria before he realized what was happening.

"Or you could try that," Marie said after a moment. "That might work too."

OMAKE, by OverMaster

Master then approached, sporting a strained expression as Kiyohime and Tamamo bickered once again in the background. "On that subject," Master said uneasily, "perhaps I could use your perspective on -"

"I'm so sorry," Marie delicately said with the greatest of sympathies. "For that, there are no solutions, I'm afraid."