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Love-Coloured Magic
It was meant to be an easy battle, nothing more than a way to show off and annoy Reimu.
She readied her most trusted spell card and waited for the right moment.
She casted it.
And then…
Nothing happened.
“I don’t understand!” complained Marisa, letting her face fall on top of a stack of books
Patchouli arched an eyebrow.
“Unsurprisingly” she replied, her voice a smooth monotone, despite the amusement that danced in her eyes.
Marisa rose her head to glare at the Weekly Witch.
“You are, like, the worst friend ever. You suck at comforting people”
If anything, Patchouli seemed even more entertained, resting her chin on top of her linked hands.
“Oh? I thought you came here searching for answers, not emotional support”- she countered
The black-white hid her head between her head and mumbled what was probably meant to be some sort of comeback but sounded suspiciously like whining.
Patchouli hit her with the book she was reading.
“Oi! What was that for?!”
“Moping is unbecoming of you” the Unmoving Library chastised “Now, let’s go over what we know”
“I already told you” groused Marisa “I haven’t been able to use my Master Spark ever since the day I was sparring with Reimu. I mean, it was getting a bit…uh…harder to use, a little unstable, but it has never failed me before. And now, no matter what I do it just won’t work. I thought it might be a problem with the mini hakkero but Rinnosuke already looked and it was perfectly fine. I don’t know what to do…”
The Unmoving Library frowned and crossed her arms.
“That is rather unusual. Not unheard of but unusual” she commented, tapping her chin with her index “How did you come up with the spell card?”
“Eh…I stole it from Yuuka years ago”- said Marisa, chuckling uneasily under Patchouli’s unimpressed expression.
“I do not know why I expected any different from you” sighed Patchouli “If you stole it then how did you make it yours?”
The Ordinary Magician pursed her lips-
“Honestly, I don’t know…I was really young and all I thought was how I would love to own her spell card, to be as powerful as that damned youkai, and suddenly I knew. Don’t ask me how, but I knew how to recreate it”
Patchouli’s eyes widened, the purple irises twinkling.
“What is the complete name of your spell card, Marisa?” she asked, her body tensing and trembling.
“Uh, ‘Love Sign: Master Spark’?”
A full smile bloomed on the Weekly Witch’s face.
“I think I have the answer you were looking for”
“What?!” shouted Marisa, pushing herself towards her friend.
“Is merely a theory but…you should always remember what spell cards truly are. They are complex, intimate forms of magic. It is our will and essence condensed into words. And it is our will which powers them. If this spell card is not working then maybe you have strayed from its original intent”
Marisa crossed her arms and shrugged her shoulders.
“That makes sense”
“What were you thinking of, the day it stopped working?”
The image of golden hair, blue eyes and porcelain skin flashed through Marisa’s mind and she blushed.
“Nothing in particular, really. How good it would be to beat Reimu, that’s all”
Patchouli stared at her intently for a few seconds, before sighing and shaking her head
“If you say so”
“Weeell, this has been very educational but if I’m ever going to reverse this I’d better be going”
“Already?”
“Yup” answered the black-white, stressing the ‘p’ “Thanks for everything, Patche! I’ll tell you if I find anything else”
The Unmoving Library waved her hand dismissively and bid her goodbye as she took her broom and prepared herself to fly out one of Voile’s windows.
Marisa hadn't planned to fly back to the Forest of Magic, least of all to Alice’s cottage, but that was were she found herself landing.
She hopped off her broom and walked towards the door, her pulse slowly but steadily quickening the closer she got.
Her knuckles made contact with the wood before she could even think about what she was doing and, soon enough, it opened revealing the doll-like features of the Rainbow Puppeteer.
“You actually knocked” she said in what sounded suspiciously like incredulity
“I do have manners”
“Could’ve fooled me”
“Oi!”
It was easy, Marisa thought, repeating patterns.
Banter was their official language, witty retorts at the ready, waiting on the tips of their tongues.
Conversation flowing as naturally as the tea Alice poured her without asking.
Graciously ignoring whenever their eyes met for too long, if casual touches lingered.
Patterns, in the end, were nothing more than behaviours she kept as a safety blanket. The comfort of the familiar in a world that was continuously spinning out of control.
They kept her relationship with Alice untainted, unthreatened, unchanging.
Because, why would it need to change?
Everything was fine as it was.
And so, she paid no mind to the warmth that spread through her body as soon as she was near the Puppeteer. Thought nothing of her irregular heartbeats and sweaty palms. Didn’t even think of questioning why, whenever something happened, the first person she wanted to tell was Alice.
“Honestly, Marisa, what is bothering you?” the other blonde asked, raising the teacup to her lips in an elegant, fluid motion
“It’s the thing about my Master Spark”
“I remember you saying something about going to the Scarlet Devil Mansion to get help from Patchouli. Did you find anything?”
The black-white opened her mouth and hesitated.
She did find something but, for whatever reason, the idea of telling Alice was uncomfortable.
She would’ve stayed silent but one look at her earnest expression was enough to undo her own restraint.
“Yeah…it might sound silly but Patchouli said that my Master Spark won’t work because I ‘strayed from its original intent’”
Alice tapped the side of her teacup with her fingernail, while she rested her cheek on her other hand, slouching a little to the right.
“It’s not silly” she replied after a moment “It makes a lot of sense, when you think about it. Spell cards are more born than made, after all. It’s a particular memory, purpose or feeling which makes them possible to exist, a particular emotion which fuels it. Take my dolls for example, I can’t use my French dolls for the same spells I use my Shanghai dolls, because each respond to a different sort of intent. Even if both are powered by my magic, the reason for their existence is vastly different”
“Even when you’re the one moving them?”
“Of course. Marisa, magic is will. You need to focus it into something for it to work. Your Master Spark, is a Love Sign, isn’t it? So if you lost sight of that original love, be it because you don’t feel it anymore or your idea of love has changed, then it stands to reason that the tie between the words and your magic has been cut”
“It’s just a theory, though. Patche could be wrong”
“Indeed” agreed Alice sitting up and stretching a little, a small sigh of contentment escaping her lips
“You’re thinking of something, aren’t you?” asked the Ordinary Magician taking a large gulp of tea and standing as well
“We should test Patchouli’s theory” said the Puppeteer walking towards the door that led to her backyard
“And how do you propose we do that?”
Alice stopped beside the doorframe and smirked, eyes flashing.
“How do you think”?
No matter the circumstances, Marisa was a sore loser.
The rules had been quite simple: they would spar a little, but Marisa could only use her ‘Love Sign’ spell cards, to see if Patchouli had been right in her assessment of the problem.
Danmaku battles with Alice, whether serious or for mere fun, were always a treat.
But on those occasions, she had been able to counterattack and now, watching the Puppeteer’s still intact dolls floating about her, she could only feel resentment.
“Stop gloating” she pouted
“I’m not gloating. Though it is a bit funny to see you so worked up after just a few unsuccessful shots”
“A few? Alice, I have TEN ‘Love Sign’ spell cards and none of them even scratched you. Do you know what that means?”
“It means that Patchouli was right. And we both knew that was the most likely outcome of our experiment”
The black-white didn’t answer, opting for landing again and sulking under the shade of Alice’s house.
The other blond heaved a sigh and followed her, landing beside her a few moments after.
“I don’t know what to do” mumbled Marisa
The Puppeteer took her hand in hers, holding it loosely.
“Depends on what you want to do” commented Alice, caressing her knuckles with a feather-light touch “You have as many ‘Magic Sign’ and ‘Star Sign’ spells in your half-stolen repertoire. You don’t have to depend on your ‘Love Sign’ spell cards if you don’t want to. You could simply forget about them. Or even make new ones. But if you want to keep the ones you already have, then…you’ll have to give some thought about the ‘love’ that made them possible in the first place”
They stayed in silence for a few moments, feeling the light spring breeze that passed through the Forest of Magic, bringing forth the scent of flowers blooming in the distance.
“Power”
Alice didn’t turn to look at her but she squeezed her hand as a sign that she was listening.
“It’s always been my goal, you know? To become as powerful as I can. That was the reason I left my home and went to Mima in the first place. That’s the one thing that has guided me through all these years. My thirst, my love for power”
The Puppeteer tightened her hold, almost painfully so.
“And now?” she asked, voice scarcely above a whisper
Marisa risked a glance at Alice’s face, barely catching the image of wide blue eyes, bright and vulnerable. It lasted no more than a second, but that alone was overwhelming.
She disentangled her hand and crossed her arms, refusing to look at the other blonde again.
“I don’t know”
It was an innocent enough question.
But it kept pestering her, like a ringing bell that she couldn’t ignore.
She went back to the Scarlet Devil Mansion to tell Patchouli about her findings and Alice’s question, to which she received the Weekly Witch’s patented ‘how-can-you-be-this-dense’ look that did nothing to unruffle her metaphorical feathers. And no matter how much she insisted, the Unmoving Library refused to tell her anything else aside from “You already know the answer, you obtuse witch”.
She visited Reimu, told her about her dilemma. The red-white simply laughed at her, insisting that Marisa couldn’t possibly be so oblivious but one look at the Ordinary Magician’s troubled expression sobered her up. She ended up trying to get Marisa to notice what was right in front of her with no results.
In the end, no matter who she asked, no one would tell her anything useful, insisting that she already knew what she needed.
There was someone she hadn’t asked though.
The idea of even suggesting the subject wreaked havoc on her body as if her veins were filled with burning ice, nerves alight with electricity, her legs jittery, her stomach twisting in knots and her head feeling dizzy.
It was a tough choice.
But…
The core of her magic was at stake, she thought desperately, even if the medicine would, most likely, be worse than the illness.
She steeled herself, posture straight and determined, the glint of stubbornness back in her eyes.
Avoiding trouble, giving up, was nothing like her after all.
Having avoided Alice for at least a week, it was surprisingly easy to approach her and hand her a letter, asking her to meet her at the little clearing in the Forest of Magic where they usually went for picking ingredients.
She would deny it if asked, but once she got back to her own house she had to stop to catch her breath, the frantic beating of her heart making it almost impossible to breathe.
Without pausing to think about the utter, complete madness of what she was going to do, she rode her broom and flew towards the center of the Forest of Magic.
And she’s there
And she’s undeniably enchanting
Disarmingly charming under the night sky
The sole colourful thing in a world tinted by silver
She raises her head, looks at her
And there’s nothing else to do
But fall into her welcoming arms
And even more welcoming mouth
Searching with lips and tongue
For the faint traces of moonlight in her teeth
For the words she keeps to herself like another one of her spells
It feels a lot like sinking and drowning
A lot like falling from the sky, ready for pain and death, but surviving
Broken into pieces to be put together again, stitched whole by the strings she conjures from her fingers as naturally as she breathes
Magic has always been a part of themselves, just like this feeling they keep in the space between
Never saying enough but showing way too much
Alice’s long, delicate fingers tangle themselves in her hair
Her hands find their space on her waist
Her own magic flares
A myriad of tiny lights appearing without conscious prompting
They separate and she takes the time to look at Alice’s flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, surrounded by the miniature cascade of stars her magic has willed into existence
And then, Alice smiles
And she knows, without a single doubt
That she has found her answer