Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

         I

         It was a small room, sparsely decorated. An ancient white dresser, an overflowing bookshelf, and a grandfather clock took up one wall, and a pile of faded stuffed animals took up the other. A layer of dust covered everything; the air was thick with it, tinged acrid with mildew and age.  There was an attached bathroom, too—but it was falling apart, since the last time it’d been modernized was when the mansion was still in the outside world.

          Flandre didn’t mind it much, though. She’d long since gotten used to it, in the two hundred years or so she’d been down in the basement of the mansion.  It was mildly unpleasant, but she figured she had it coming ever since she started chasing away the fairy maids.  Only Sakuya had the guts to come down anymore, though Flandre suspected the only reason she ever did was due to Remi's orders.  Not like anyone would want to visit her of their own free will.

          She lay on the four-poster bed face-down, motionless. Her skin was pale, her body thin, almost gaunt; her hair was the color of straw.  Every once in awhile, she’d twitch her sickly wings, listening to the sound her magic crystals made when they crashed together.  She liked to think it resembled a windchime.

          She used to hate her wings.  Most of the other clanmembers used to tease her for them, at least up until Flandre last saw them, long ago.  But how was it her fault they never unfurled?  How was it her fault she was born with wings the texture of tree bark?  Remi never teased her at least.  But instead, she would look at Flandre with that same old pitiful expression, her fully-unfurled, jet-black wings taunting Flandre by their mere existence.

          Flandre rolled onto her back, spreading her own wings out and rubbing the sheets with them as if she was making a snow angel, with her wings as the arms. They had a sense of touch, so she could feel the worn-soft fabric of the quilt underneath them, however faint.

          Flandre glanced over at one of her wings, and ran a finger along one crystal.  Back when she still hated her wings, she started attaching mana catalysts to them—multicolored ones, mimicking the lights the humans would put up during their year-end festivals.  At first, it was only as petty jewelry, nothing more. But eventually, she grew a fondness for her wings, and the rainbow catalysts attached to them.  They were a part of her, after all—her misshapen wings were something no one else had.  Something even Remilia, with all her power and prestige, could never have.

          Of course, Flandre’s catalysts had long since faded to dull shadows of their former selves; their colors, once pure and strong and glowing with energy, grew weaker and darker every year she spent down in the basement.

          But she was okay with that.  They were still beautiful, and still always will be, even if she was the only person in the world who thought so. It was a type of beauty the other vampires could never see, never could see; they always were blinded by all the silver gildings and marble columns and prettied-up lace. 

          In a way, even Remi fell victim to that.  Even she probably thought Flandre's wings were gross, behind those stupid pity-eyes of hers.

          Flandre’s mind wandered to a happy daydream.  One of Remi’s lovely gilded ballrooms, made to mimic the gilded courts of the old vampire order she despised—but set on fire.   And Flandre's floating above lace placemats aflame, those misshapen, skeletal wings stretched out behind her, crystals shining with overwhelming power again as the mansion alarms rise in a screech around her and the court magician’s containment familiars come out of the woodwork... 

          A devilish smile came over her lips.  She bared her vampiric fangs at the ceiling in a silent giggle.  Even if it was in a daydream, Remi’s face was hilarious, all scrunched up and pouty and burning with scarlet envy—

          Then there was a knock at the door.  Three sharp taps.  They were over so quickly that Flandre wondered if she really heard them.

          Flandre listened for the door again, but more intently this time.

          As if meant to confirm, there were another couple knocks.  They were still soft, but a little louder this time, as if whoever was on the other side was growing impatient.

          Flandre hoisted herself up.  She felt her bones creaking, her joints crackling.  Judging by the sounds, she guessed she hadn’t gotten out of bed in about…four days?  Maybe five?  Glancing at the grandfather clock gave naught but the time, so no help there. But wait a second—

          A visitor!

          A twinge of excitement stirred in her chest, as the gravity of a visitor finally registered in her mind. Perhaps it was a vampire hunter? Poised to engage in a bloody, all-out duel to the death, spellcards be damned?  Flandre’s wings flicked in excitement.

          And then the other, less exciting possibilities come rushing through; maybe Remi got in trouble again for making one of the maids faint from blood loss—still, anything!  Anything would be acceptable, just as long as it didn’t make her even more bored than she already was!

          The visitor finally grew tired of knocking, and entered the room.  It was Sakuya.  She took a single step inside the room before bowing gracefully.

          “I beg your pardon, Lady Flandre, but it seems to be somewhat urgent.”

          “Ah...  It’s just you,” Flandre said.  She unceremoniously let herself fall backwards onto her bed.  “Of course it is, who am I kidding?  You’re the only one who comes down here anymore.”

          “The Mistress has requested your presence.”

          “Muuu~  Why?  Did I do something?”

          “We will be having guests.  The Mistress deems them guests of the highest importance, and so, wishes to greet them with all the inhabitants of this mansion.”

          “Oh...great.  That sounds...just great,” Flandre groaned, rolling her eyes so hard her whole head moved with it.  She flopped over with a tinkling sound, and buried her face in the duvet again.  “Tell her I don’t feel well.  Like, I’m super sick or something.”

          Sakuya’s smile trembled, ever so slightly, and she cocked her head.  “I do apologize, but I can not lie to Mistress.”

          Flandre sneered, and lifted her head up to scowl at the wall.  “What does she even want from me anyway?  Just tell her to pretend I don’t exist.  It’d probably be better for her, anyway...”

          “...come now, Lady Flandre, Mistress both loves you and values your presence greatly, and—

          “Pfft!  You’ll defend her to your dying breath, I get it,” Flandre muttered, rolling over and getting off the bed.  She wobbled a bit as she got up onto two feet again. A look of concern shot across Sakuya’s face, and she moved to assist, but Flandre batted her arm away with a scowl.  “Please!  I’m not that fragile. Just haven’t walked in awhile, is all.  I don’t need your help for everything.”

          Flandre’s glare met Sakuya’s eyes for a moment.  Within them, there was just a hint of disappointment, of sadness, and if Flandre looked hard enough in the maid’s deflated smile, she could see the same.  Flandre sighed, then, and rubbed her face with her hands to try to calm the storm brewing within her chest.  Stretched her gangly wings, and flapped them a couple times.

          “You know what, Sakuya...fine.  If it’s just saying hello, whatever.  Here we go again,” Flandre said, taking a wobbly step towards the bathroom, to start the long, arduous process of washing up without being able to touch running water.  “Ask Remi what she wants me to wear.”

          Sakuya smiled, then—some part of Flandre was relieved to see it was a genuine one, instead of a forced one—and she bowed deeply.  “I have taken the liberty of ascertaining that, so If you would follow me to the wardrobe shortly...”

—

          She felt distinctly like a hostage.  Each step up the long spiral staircase up, she felt Sakuya right behind her, walking just out of sight yet just close enough that Flandre could hear each of her footsteps mirroring hers.

          So she wasn’t allowed to even walk up some stupid stairs by herself, great.  She already felt self-conscious from the long dress Sakuya had forced on her.

          To make things worse, she kept stumbling on it; it was just long enough that the front edge of it kept slipping under her shoe, and then her foot would slip and the whole dress would pull down from the front and feel like it was slipping down—ugh.  After a few times of this, her scowl deepened, and she grabbed the front of the dress and lifted it up like a princess running away from a monster.

          Except, in this instance, Sakuya’s the monster—hard to get away from somebody who can stop time.

          Flandre managed to win out against Sakuya’s insistence on the high heels, saying that if she fell because of them, any sort of style points she would’ve had would go right out the window.  Sakuya seemed to buy this, nodding sagely; but that only ended up making her bust out the earrings.

          Were twelve multicolored jangly catalysts not enough?  At this point, they basically count as jewelry, right?  Since she hardly ever actually used them, despite never taking them off her wings...

          But no.  Sakuya insisted.  She threw Remi’s name around through all of this, but Flandre had a sneaking suspicion Remi’s actual orders were to “do whatever you think is right.”  Which generally was the case—not only did Remi trust her enough, but they were on the same wavelength often enough for that...

          The result of that, though—between the long scarlet-and-white evening dress, heavy gold earrings, the elbow-length, white leather gloves that she could already feel her nails poking through, and her hair somehow coaxed into a bun—she felt like an actress straight out of a silent film.  She felt absolutely ridiculous.

          Flandre reached the kitchen still stewing in that discomfort.  At this point, just the newfound awareness that this night was actually getting on gave her enough relief to drop the scowl.  In fact, it was soon replaced with a smile.

          Around her was a scene of pure chaos.  At least a dozen fairy maids were in the kitchen, shouting at each other from across the kitchen, bustling around with pots and pans of food and ingredients; more than a couple were simply running from station to station holding a piece of cutlery up, trying to look important.  Flandre caught a whiff of burnt meat; she happened to glance over at the stoves, only to see a plume of black smoke rising from a pan.  One fairy, ruddy panic painted all over her face, was blowing on it, as it continued to sit on the fire and burn...  A couple other fairies rushed over to help, but only succeeded in making the smoke plume bigger—

          Flandre couldn’t hold it back anymore—she started cackling.  It was made even better by Sakuya’s sudden arrival from the stairwell, and the confusion written all over her face melting to exasperation in an instant.  Just the little sigh she let out...

          “See, Sakuya?  Looks like you have better things to do than babysit me!” Flandre laughed, not even expecting an answer.

          But even Sakuya’s perfect maid persona had a limit.  “...apparently so.  Twas my mistake leaving the kitchen to them, I suppose...” she said, her thin smile barely hiding her clenched jaw.  “Lady Flandre, Mistress has requested your presence in the dining hall.  I trust you can find your way there yourself?”

          “Yeah, sure, whatever.  Good luck herding your cats.”

          A cross expression flickered on Sakuya’s face for a moment, before the screech of a fairy from across the room snapped her out of it, and she turned and ran to mitigate the damages.

          It was quite funny to see the way the fairies made every effort in avoiding her.  Simply walking through an aisle of the kitchen was like parting a wave; they dared not to look at her, even though Flandre could still clearly watch the color drain from their faces.

          Fairies were great fun.  Not particularly useful, but great fun nonetheless.

          She debated puffing out her wings, baring her fangs at them, even charging her crystals a bit, just to see how they’d react...

          But as fun as that idea sounded, she wasn’t in the mood for fights today.  And she was in even less of a mood to get scolded by Remi.  Again.  Alas, she had to leave that fun for another time, and so, she left the chaos in the kitchen to Sakuya.

—

          It took all of five minutes without distractions for Flandre’s mood to sour.  She found herself crossing her arms as she walked, grimacing at the sticky feeling of the leather gloves against her skin and the trail of the dress that was just long enough to catch on her shoe and make her stumble...

          So by the time she even reached the dining hall, she already regretting humoring Remilia’s impulses—usually, when she asked Flandre to help with something, it was with things in her wheelhouse—destroying meteors, perhaps, or testing new containment spells.  Even benign things like danmaku practice or fairy extermination were more up to her speed than greeting guests...

          ...wait.  Sakuya said she’d be greeting guests, yeah, but also that Remilia had ‘requested her presence.’  Sakuya never was the most informal person around, nor the most clear—at least, to those she considered her superiors.  But the way she worded it...something about that sent chills down Flandre’s spine.

          Upon reaching the dining hall, she found only fairies in place of her sister.  And she was quite unenthused to see the utter chaos of the kitchen had extended to the dining hall.  The room was bustling with other fairies rushing around doing other various meaningless tasks, like lining up silverware to ridiculous standards of precision (Remi’s in one of those moods again, she supposed), dusting the giant, two story curtains that spanned both the length and height of the room (windows weren’t much use being uncovered in a vampire’s mansion), or attempting to line up two dozen chairs just right...    

          Fairies were easy to talk to.  Perhaps because of how stupid they were. Perhaps it had something to do with how easy they were to threaten.  Either way, one nice (or unfortunate) thing about fairies was their inability to keep secrets.  So they became Flandre’s main source of information, since all she had to do was glare at a couple fairies and they’d spill their guts.

          Illustrating the point to herself, Flandre stomped over and picked up a squirming fairy by her uniform collar, and politely asked why they were setting up so many places at the table.  The fairy went ghost-white as the blood drained from her face.

          Flandre’s special brand of politeness was characterized by some toothy smiles, fair, but that was no matter.

          “So what’s going on up here?  Where’s Remi?” Flandre said.

          “Uh, umm...  M-mistress just stepped out for a moment to...check the progress of the foyer decorations, umm...”

          “...foyer decorations, hunh?  So the greeting part would happen there, yeah, but...” Flandre said, before she froze, everything sliding together into place all at once in her head.  “Wait, all these chairs—is Remi gonna have a whole dinner party?”

           “Uh...w-well, uh...she told us not...”

          “Not what?  What?” Flandre said, tightening her grip on the fairy, only letting up just on the edge of choking her.

          “A-a dinner party, I think!  I don’t know any more than that, I swear, I swear!”

          Flandre blinked, and let go; the fairy fell into a coughing heap on the floor.  She quickly scrambled backwards and zipped back into the air, quickly rejoining the fold in “working” to prepare the dining room.

          Under the buzz of receding fairy wings, Flandre could hear a set of footsteps approaching outside the main dining hall doors.  As she glanced over, Remilia pushed open the doors and slipped inside.  She didn’t see Flandre immediately, but as soon as she did, her face lit up.

          “Ah, Flan!  You’ve decided to come after all!  Wonderful, just wonderful!” Remilia said.  Flandre only responded with a glare. “And I see I was right in entrusting your dress to Sakuya!”

          “...define fine,” Flandre said, averting her eyes.  Ten seconds in, and Remi was already being annoying.  Not a record, but close.  Flandre’s mood blackened even further when she realized they both wore inverse-colored versions of the same getup.

          “Oh, come now Flan, you look positively beautiful!  Very modern, very stylish.  Do you not agree?” Remilia said, getting closer and fiddling with some of the creases in Flandre’s dress.

          “...the heck do you mean by modern?  A couple of those cigarette extend-y thingies and we’d look like we stepped out of a black-and-white film,” Flandre muttered.  Remilia, unfazed, motioned for her to turn around; Flandre resisted rolling her eyes as she obliged.

          So far, the only good thing about coming to Gensokyo was the lack of cable television—there weren’t any old soap operas for Remilia to inexplicably binge-watch.  Flandre had hoped that the death of cable also meant the death of the silly outfits and forced accents—but apparently not.

           “...well, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!  The 1920s and 30s represent the pinnacle of human fashion, and you’d best appreciate it every once in awhile,” Remilia said.  There was an edge to her voice now.

          “Once in awhile?  Pfft.  Remi, you never even left the ‘20s.”

          Behind her, Remilia only made a little squeaking noise, and flapped her wings once in frustration—hard enough that Flandre felt the gust of wind from them hit her back, some of her power crystals jangling.  There was a sharp inhale, then only a sigh.

          “Well, you could make do with a wardrobe change every once in awhile.  Not like you’re spoilt for choice, either.”

          Flan had tried her best to swallow the annoyance.  To bear it for her sister’s sake. But something about that ticked her off enough that she couldn’t hold her tongue any longer.

          “What’s that supposed to mean?!”  Flandre whirled around.

          Remilia stepped back with practiced grace—so as to not get hit in the face by a flying power crystal.  She’d narrowed her eyes, and the two glared at each other.  “At the very least, this dress is much better than that ratty thing you usually wear!”

          “...it isn’t ratty!  It isn’t ratty, and it’s comfy and warm and unlike this thing I can actually move in it without tripping over myself!” Flandre said.  “Plus, I bet your whole wardrobe you go on about is full of stupid clothes like this!”

           Remilia’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth as if to fire back—but she tensed and swallowed whatever she was going to say.  Perhaps to defuse the situation, maybe salvage a good night out of all of this after all.

          But too bad.  Any hope of that was out the window the moment she started her manipulating game.  Flandre had seen it coming this time, and seeing Remi’s tactics as they are only steeled her rebellion.

          “…not a fan of dressing up as always, I see," Remilia said.

          Flandre wasn’t getting anywhere.  At least, not like this.  So she switched gears. “I’m not a fan of dinner parties either, yet here we are.”

          Remilia froze.  The horror springing to her eyes meant the jig was up.  Flandre’s expression soured further, her grin skirting the line between satisfaction and pain.

          “...who told you?” Remilia said.

          “So you were trying to make me go to another dinner party, aren’t you?!” Flandre blurted out, baring her fangs.  Her voice cracked a little bit—with it, she felt the beginnings of rage pouring into her chest, felt power coursing through her veins and up through her wings, but she held it back.  “...god, I knew it.  I knew you’d try it again...”

          Remilia didn’t say anything at first, only staring at Flandre for a moment, before lowering her head and knitting her brows as if to come up with an excuse.  “I, um...had hoped that, in the heat of the moment, you’d agree to it.  So I had a place at the table set,” she muttered.

          “You’ve been trying that for fifty years—fifty years, Remi!”

          “...when I first saw that Sakuya managed to convince you to dress up, I did think it might be too good to be true...”

          “Yeah—and do you know what she told me?  She told me I had to greet people.  And that’s fine—I’ll stand there in a weird dress so you can look good, I’m fine with that.  It was part of our agreement.  But that’s different to a dinner party, completely different!”

          Remilia sighed.  “But...oh, you know that saying of not judging a lizard by its scales?  It’s been so long since you’ve been to a proper party, Flan.  I promise, it’ll be fun, there’s good food and drink and people...”

          “Yeah.  Fun.  Fun for you.  You can sit there all you want and find endless things to talk about.  What do I have that I want to discuss with anybody?  Nothing.  And then it’ll just be awkward, I’ll go all silent, and...ugh.”

          “...w-well, you don’t know that...!  What’s really the harm in talking to a couple of people, Flan?  Socializing?  Half the reason we came to Gensokyo was for you to—

          “And did I ask you to do that?”

          “Th-that’s not...” Remilia muttered, before taking a deep breath and flicking her wings.  “No.  No, you didn’t.”

          “Exactly.  And if I want food or drinks or whatever, I’ll get Sakuya to bring me down some blood wine or something...”

          Remilia pursed her lips.  “Flan, come now.  Am I really to do everything you ask of me?  Is that all I’m meant to do; my only role in your life, as your sister?  Just do as you say?  If we listened only to you, your teeth would’ve rotted out of your head long ago because you’d simply sit downstairs and subsist on candy and blood wine!”

          “...and steaks too.”

          “Fine, whatever!  Not my point!” Remilia said, giving one final, frustrated sigh before turning away.  “You’ll do what you want anyway, Flan; you always do.”

          “And none of that's my point either!  So listen close: I don’t need your help!  I don’t want your help!  I don’t need or want friends, and I’m perfectly happy sitting in this stupid basement!”

          Only silence hung in the air between them.  Remilia didn’t give so much as a glance back, much less a retort, instead just stomping through the dining room out to the hallway, slamming the heavy door behind her with an earth-shaking thud.

          Silence still reigned for a few more moments, even amongst the fairies, who by this point had all stopped their work and were hiding behind anything they could find.  Flandre was left still staring at the door, her fangs bared at nothing now, wings slowly drooping towards the floor.

Chapter Text

         II

          It’d been an hour, and she still felt bad about it.

          Flandre stood slumped over the third-floor balcony, overlooking the grand foyer, peering down at the massive double-doors that served as the entrance to the mansion.  She was short enough that she could both stand and cross her arms on top of the railing at the same time.  She rested her head on them, looking like an old dog laying half outside of its doghouse.

          The guilt had started a few minutes after she’d marched off from the dining hall, after her self-righteous streak had settled down, and had only grown in the interim.  Yes, the stupid gloves were uncomfortable (which is why there were thrown over a chair in a hallway somewhere), and yes, she felt weird wearing a formal party dress for a change—but did that really warrant actually yelling at Remi?

          Her brain whirled around trying to logic out a legitimate reason for Remi to have been completely in the wrong.  She scowled, hoping to mask her lack of an answer to that question by prolonging her simple annoyance.

          Far below her, Remi paced in straight lines back and forth, chewing on one nail.  Sakuya stood off to one side, her eyes closed, back straight, hands clasped in front of her.  There was no way they hadn’t noticed Flandre—the magic signatures of eighteen power crystals wasn’t the kind of thing you can hide.

          But neither acknowledged her.  And it was just as well.  Flandre would’ve felt even worse if they did.  As it was, Flandre noticed a tinge of disappointment in Remi’s pacing.  Her wings were folded in, their tips drooping a little.  Her voice as she went over last-minute checks with Sakuya, was low, whispery, strained...

          She kept replaying the words in her mind.  How mean they sounded.  How mean she sounded, as she’d said them.  Perhaps the worst thing about it was how Remi didn’t fight back—Flandre and Remilia were at odds pretty often, as sisters often were.  It wasn’t like fights were a rare thing; in fact, a part of Flandre looked forward to their little spats, and she was sure Remi thought the same.  For them, it was a way to blow off steam in a way neither really could with anyone else.

          Who else, besides each other, could take the brunt of a flaming spear to the face, get blown through three walls, and be able to just get up afterwards and hurl back some witty taunt?  It was great fun.

          So when Remi didn’t fight back...  Flandre didn’t realize it in the moment, but now that she had the gift of hindsight—even if Remi did intend to force into a dinner party, the intention...  By the way she just offered the barest of responses, the tone of her voice lowering and her shoulders drooping—all she’d really wanted was for Flandre to come up and have a good time.  Talk to people.  Make friends, maybe.  Learn to talk to people without masks, stop being so solitary all the time...

          You really just want me to be happy, don’t you...?  Flandre thought.  Of course you’d go about it all the wrong ways, but...still.  The intention was there.

          Flandre sighed, and flicked her wings, listening to the soft clinking of her rainbow power crystals.  She felt horrible.  A tense feeling crept up into her chest.  She wanted more than anything to apologize, but that ship had sailed.  An apology wouldn’t let her go back in time by an hour, so what was the point?

          She laughed a little at herself—she still remembered how, years and years ago, she was always eager for Remilia’s approval on everything.  How she’d follow Remi around like a lost puppy whenever she did something even remotely wrong.   Hoping Remi would acknowledge her and stop being mad at her, so everything could just go back to normal already.

          Guess I never really stopped doing that…  Flandre thought.  How pathetic.  How pathetic you are…  She didn’t have a defense for herself—so she only chastised herself even more, for lack of anything else to do.

          The sound of Sakuya opening the great double doors broke Flandre from her stupor.  There was a rush of humidity as nighttime summer wind flooded the foyer, and then just after, her senses were overcome with the scent of magic—it was foreign magic, or at least foreign to her.  There were woodsy scents to it; pine and tree sap and earth—and below those, there was another magic signature of more floral smells.  Lavender, sunny fields, clean, pure streams.

          Two visitors.  That much was immediately apparent.  Their magical signatures were unique too—she could tell the two were related, even before they stepped over the threshold to the foyer, but something about them felt too perfect.  Felt manufactured, trimmed to perfection.

          Of course, Flandre could say the same about Remi’s fashion sense, but that sort of manufactured image still somehow came across as genuine...

          As Flandre had expected, Remi launched into her welcome routine even before the visitors reached the door—always some dramatic pose combined with some one-liner about how she’s the Scarlet Devil (as if that title really meant anything anymore), blah blah blah.  It was kind of goofy, sure, but Flandre always found herself smiling whenever she got to witness Remilia doing it.  In its own way, maybe that was its own sort of cool...

          Soon enough, the two youkai visitors stepped inside, where Flandre could finally see the two of them.  Neither looked up immediately, hopefully content to ignore her—the pinkish youkai was content to shake hands, greeting Remilia properly, even greeting Sakuya.  The greenish one, though, practically hid behind her sister’s back, eyes to the floor.

          ...what grotesque youkai.  Both were the same—humanoid but for a half-lidded third eye hovering over their chests, attached to their bodies by a mass of reddish external veins, the whole ensemble left just flopping around.  Flandre hadn’t ever seen youkai of their type before, though that wasn’t saying much.

          She watched how the new youkai interacted with her sister with narrowed eyes.  She guessed the pinkish one was the elder—she carried herself with surprising dignity, maintaining eye contact yet an easy, almost smug smile.  From the small bits of conversation Flandre could make out from the second floor, her voice was smooth, near monotone in its expression, yet with the inflections of someone who fancied themselves a ruler.  Flandre knew that sort of voice a bit too well.

          She rolled her eyes so hard they hurt afterwards.  And as for the younger sister…

          What a skittish thing.  The younger sister wore a yellow and black dress, long sleeved despite the summer heat, and a wide-brimmed bowler hat, which she obsessively tugged down to obscure her face. She was clearly taller than Pink, yet she kept close behind her the whole time and slouched to make herself smaller.  She hardly spoke a word except for Pink’s smooth attempts to get her to join the conversation, at which point Green would squeak out an answer and return to nervously looking around.

          It was bound to happen—Green finally decided to look up.

          It took a moment for Flandre to realize Green was staring at her.  Flandre felt a pang of awkwardness, and she forced a toothy grin.  The green one winced and broke away quickly.  Flandre winced too.  Maybe Green was the same sort of awkward as her…

          As Flandre watched as Meiling and Patchy’s introducing themselves and joining the happy little group down there, the logistics of walking around with a giant eyeball attached to your chest suddenly struck her.  Who would want to have a giant red third eye hanging from their chest?  Taking baths must be a drag.

          Flandre wasn’t sure what exact power they had, but judging by her sister’s theatrics upon receiving a letter from them, they were pretty high up there.  Despite that, the pink one produced a gift, and handed it to Remilia as she bowed as elegant and graceful a bow as Flandre had ever seen.

          Of course, this left Green unobscured; for a moment, she froze up with this realization, her face reddening, before she realized she was supposed to bow too.  And she bowed so fast she looked more like she was bobbing for apples than doing an actual formal bow.  It gave Flandre a good laugh.

          So they followed Eastern customs—she made a mental note.

          That was the interesting thing about Gensokyo, at least to Flandre—apparently, some youkai were more Western in mannerisms (and originally came from the West), while the rest followed Eastern mannerisms and traditions.  It made sense though—according to Patchy, Gensokyo was made out of an old chunk of Japan, created by youkai to be a place where superstition and fear still ruled over humanity…

          As a creature of the night herself, Flandre could sympathize.

          Down there, the festivities seemed to be moving away from the foyer.  Bits and pieces of conversation floated up from below, gradually growing fainter as they all passed out of Flandre’s view and out into the main hallway.

          Show was over.  She still felt a little guilt gnawing at her, but Flandre got up and stretched and put that thought out of her mind—sulking won’t accomplish anything, after all.  At least Remi seemed happy enough.  Maybe so happy she’d forget all about Flandre, and everything can go back to normal...

          Ha, fat chance.

          And just before she left, Flandre glanced down to the foyer one last time.  She wasn’t sure why she did, or what compelled her, but...  There, three stories below her, was Green.  She was standing in much the same spot as she was, but now looking up at her.

          A white-hot flash of panic ran through Flandre—she’d been discovered.  She wanted to pull back from the balcony immediately and run away, but that three-eyed glare…those three eyes, each softly glowing emerald, and staring at her…peering into them felt like driving a spike through her mind, a fuzzy tension piercing her skull—

          And then it stopped.  Fell away to nonexistence, all at once, as if she’d flicked a light switch back on and the entire room had been plunged into the light.  Flandre blinked, and her eyes readjusted.

          Green had vanished into thin air.

—

          A little while later, Flandre found herself in one of the forward-most hallways of the mansion.  It was the designated “art hall”—the place Remi kept the fruits of the time she spent as an art collector.  Or rather, the time she spent fancying herself an art collector.  She’d ended up with a mix of Enlightenment paintings, classical-style marble statues, and whatever else caught her eye.  So basically, a bunch of gaudy portraits and faded landscapes and naked men posing and flexing for no reason.

          Flandre usually hated the hallway, and so never went down it.  It was just a reminder of all the ugly parts of her sister’s personality—a distillation of all the crap Remi tried to pass for sophistication.

          But tonight, with a lack of anything to really do, since pretty much everyone in the mansion was at Remi’s stupid party—it didn’t seem so bad for some reason.  Maybe it was her boredom talking, but she soon found herself actively seeking it out.

          Usually, there weren’t people standing around in this hallway actually admiring the artworks.  Usually it was just arguing fairies armed with feather dusters.  But for whatever reason—Green was here.  Flandre almost fell over the moment she turned the corner—but she decided it best to simply swallow that surprise and focus on walking.  It’s not like she had to talk to her.

          Ugh, what, does Remi think I can’t talk to people?  That I don’t have friends?  How dare she even insinuate such a thing!  I can make friends just fine, just watch me!

          Flandre steeled her nerves and awkwardly sidled up beside Green.

          She was peering up at a particularly large painting of a fox-hunt.  In the background, there were half a dozen men with muskets, straddling wild, muscled horses.  Smoke from their muskets hung heavy around them, mixing with steam from the horses’ snouts...  In the foreground, there were a couple of foxes running away, eyes widened and mouths agape.

          “So you like this stuff, h-hunh?  I thought my sister was the only one…” Flandre blurted out, cracking a trembling smile.  It was much harder to talk to people when they’re not trying to fight you.  Because then you couldn’t get away with pretending to be a manga character.

          Green practically jumped out of her skin, before compulsively tugging her bowler hat down over her face.  Flandre gave her an extra step of space.  Maybe this was a mistake after all...?

          Even though Flandre half-expected her to run away, Green squeaked out a reply.  “Y-yes…I like them very much…” she said, trailing off as if she was stopping herself from saying something else.

          Inside, Flandre was already celebrating—Yes, yes!  This is how conversations start, right?  This is what you’re supposed to do, right?!  Wait, no, I know how this is supposed to work…  I-it’s a back and forth, right, so…

          Flandre gazed up to the painting too.  Maybe if someone other than her stuck-up sister could like these things, she’d missed something.

          A moment later, Flandre’s enthusiasm evaporated.  She quickly decided that no, she hadn’t missed anything.  The painting was still just as gaudy, and just as boring.  Evidently, this person was crazy. 

          Even worse, now Flandre had nothing to say back.  She felt her breath tightening again, felt the tension pooling in her head—

          Green stirred, and pulled her hat tighter over her face.

          “Um…the composition is good,” Green offered, moving closer and pointing at one of the horses.  “I mean, the artist draws the eye to the horses immediately, then the men…then, following the men’s eyes, you notice the expression of the foxes themselves…yet the anatomy of the men and the horses is so detailed, so accurate, yet the rendering is a good example of…I suppose, it’s late Romantic period?” she paused, as if seeking confirmation.  As if Flandre had any idea what she was going on about.

          So Flandre nodded sagely, praying Green would keep talking.  She had no idea how that girl saw anything by hiding under her hat, but whatever—her monologue gave Flandre time to think of something to say.

          “A-and…the dynamism to the poses and expressions…this artist really tried a lot, and accomplished his goals, I think,” Green squeaked out.

          “Y-yeah, ahaha!  He…sure did!” Flandre said, and the conversation died.

          In the silence that followed, Flandre actually looked up at the painting again, trying to remember everything Green had said.  And she was right, at least Flandre thought so—the different layers began to pop out at her; she began to notice the wild glint in the horse’s eyes…  Flandre’s eye caught those of the foxes’, and she unconsciously grimaced.  She didn’t really care one way or another about fox hunting, but the way it was portrayed was a little…gross.

          “A-ah, but of course, the subject matter is really what makes it interesting…” Green abruptly said, shifting her hat brim up so as to actually see.  “If I’m correct on the timing…this painting is especially interesting in its portrayal of fox hunting…”

          Flandre’s eyes darted to Green, not expecting her to actually move.  Beneath the hat, there was a flash of light turquoise hair, a trace of a smile…

          “In many of this painting’s contemporaries, everything’s beautiful, right?  Everything’s portrayed with beauty and power, as if they’re endorsing the hunt.  The men are perfectly postured, tall and rigid, their horses tensed and controlled and solid, purebred colors…the dogs are all disciplined and taut…  But the men are not the source of Romanticism in this painting, though it might look like that at first glance…” the girl continued, on and on, as if some spirit had suddenly possessed her words.

          Flandre looked back up.  Green, again, was right—there was no beauty in this painting, or at least no beauty in the traditional sense.  The horses were wildly bucking, the men wore grotesque grimaces and their hair was plastered to their heads with sweat.  The foxes were mid-leap, disheveled, mouths and eyes wide…

          “Whoever painted this wanted the viewer to see the hunt as he thought it—barbaric.”

          Somehow, with that, everything clicked.  Flandre’s mind churned, rushing through everything Green had said—the grotesque beauty of it, the Romanticism of its ugliness; she saw it all, now.  Somehow.

          Green gave a nervous laugh and scratched behind her head.  “I mean, of course, this could be a much later replica, made in a time when general attitudes towards fox hunting were changing, but…I want to believe it was original.  A rhapsody of a man caught in a world he didn’t believe in…it is rather romantic, wouldn’t you say?” she said, turning to Flandre and tipping her hat up so her face was finally exposed for the first time.

          Flandre only stared back at her, silent and dumbfounded.

          A flash of realization came over Green’s face, and she yelped and pulled the hat down again.

          A laugh—part incredulous, part unnerved—started in Flandre’s throat.  She understood what Green was saying scarily well now, but admitting to it felt like a breach of her pride, somehow.  “So you like it that much, hunh?”

          “I’m…I am so sorry, I mean…Sis always says I talk too much, so I uh…”

          “Hey, I asked.  God, if you like these stuffy old things this much, I wish I could just give them to you.  Sis only keeps them around cuz she thinks they make her seem more sophisticated or something…”

          “Your…sister?  These are your sister’s?”

          “This whole mansion is.  Remi’s all about appearances, as you can see.  I’m the farthest thing from that though, pfft—all this stuff bores me to tears.”

          Green’s gaze falls.  “…maybe you just haven’t found any you like yet?”

          Flandre laughed a little.  “Remi’s collected a lot of art over the years.  If I liked any of it, I’d have told you.”

          “Oh.”  Green’s excitement deflated further, and she went back to looking at the painting.  Somehow, Flandre felt the same pang of guilt rushing through her as when she’d dropped the bombshell on Remi earlier.  Whatever confidence she’d built up over the course of the conversation crashed and burned.

          Flandre debated simply saying goodbye and leaving Green to her own devices.  And once she did, that would be that.  She’d fulfilled her conversation quota for today easily.  The conversation had reached its natural end, right?  It was a natural impasse…

          But she noticed Green moving her head to peer at another part of the same painting.  And Flandre caught her face in profile just then, as she gazed lovingly at an exquisitely painted tree with a beautiful smile over her face, curling a lock of her hair around her index finger absentmindedly…

          This was probably it, she realized.  Probably all the interaction she’d ever have with the satori girl.  And it’d end all because of her pride.

          Was this something she really wanted to end now?

          “Wh-what’s your name, by the way?” Flandre said, blurting something out despite herself.  “I, um, just realized that we never introduced ourselves, y’know…”

          What looked like every muscle in Green’s body tensed up then, as she slowly turned back around.  A pang of guilt shot up Flandre’s spine.  “I mean, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine,” she said, quickly putting up her hands, “I’m Flandre Scarlet.  I’m, um, not much for parties, so…aha.  Maybe you could already tell?  Or you’re the same way too?”

          Green’s eyes went wide and flickered up to Flandre’s face.  Even her reddish third eye, floating gently in front of her chest, widened and studied Flandre.  It was a little unnerving, but she supposed her vampiric fangs and blood-red eyes were also pretty unnerving from Green’s point-of-view, so she tried to ignore it.

          Soon enough, Green’s gaze fell and she slumped over again, holding her hands to her chest.  “Uh…m-my name is Komeiji.  Pleased to…make your acquaintance.”

          “Is that your family or your given name?  I’m not from around here originally, y’know, so I never can tell…”

          “Family.  It’s my family name, so my full name is Komeiji Koishi…”

          With that, Flandre went on autopilot again, and before she realized what she was doing, she stuck out her hand.  “In that case, n-nice to meet you, Koishi!”

          Koishi’s face turned beet red in an instant, and she pulled her hat down over her eyes.  She didn’t take Flandre’s hand, and time seemed to freeze for a moment, leaving Flandre’s mind racing as the realization of what she just did hit her.  Oh god, no, she uses Eastern customs, she doesn’t handshake, she doesn’t even know how to maybe but I went on autopilot and used her first name and everything—

          Koishi gingerly took Flandre’s hand, and let herself be pulled along in the most lopsided handshake Flandre had ever experienced.  And yet, for all of its awkwardness, Koishi raised her eyes and finally met Flandre’s gaze—and she smiled.  A wisp of a smile, gentle, yet clear as day.

          “O-oh yeah, um…  You like all this art stuff, right?”  Flandre suddenly found the words spilling from her mouth, but started stammering instead.  Before she made a complete and utter fool of herself, or at least moreso than she already did, Flandre averted her gaze and shut her eyes.

          Koishi didn’t answer right away, but she took up Flandre’s hand in both of hers and lightly squeezed, the gentle warmth of her touch Flandre’s only proof of her existence.

          “You seem to…  W-we have a lot more of it in the West wing, you know…” Flandre said.  In her mind’s eye, Flandre indulged herself by imagining Koishi’s reaction.  Another smile, maybe a demure blush across her cheeks.  “A-and there are sculptures and other paintings and stuff.  You’d probably, um, like it too.”

          Koishi’s hands slipped away from Flandre’s.  There was only silence as Koishi pulled them back.  Childish fantasies kept flooding Flandre’s head, each passing in fractions of seconds.  But they were powerful enough to drown out that silence, and to spur Flandre on.

          It had to have been two, maybe three seconds at maximum, before Flandre had steeled her nerves enough to open her eyes and speak.  “S-so, would you like to go with—"

          Yet when she opened her eyes, Koishi was gone yet again.

Chapter Text

          III

          Satori had always considered herself a patient person.

          She had to be, after all.  Decades uncountable she’d spent being the adult, between the two of them.  The protector.  The provider.  When they were still on the Outside, she was the one who stole bread crusts from bakeries, who pumped well-water till her hands were cracked and sore, and when the humans would show up at midnight waving around their pitch torches and silver swords—well, Satori always was the one who slept with one eye open.

          Her role had changed, since coming to the relative safety of Gensokyo.  Sure, such things were a given—they’d made it out.  They were in a better place.  Even trapped in a Former Hell stinking of rot, they’d attained some semblance of stability.

          Pity, then, that Koishi seemed to appreciate none of it.

          The disappearing acts were constant.  It felt like every other week she was coming home covered in mud and bruises and blood and reeking of alcohol, excuses and apologies falling from her lips like a summer rain, all while going on and on about some new childish infatuation of hers—it drove Satori mad.  And with that came an utter refusal to develop her powers beyond only their most basic—except when they suited her wandering, of course. 

          It’s not like her condition made a difference worth a damn to her, not really—she’d sit there and practice her perception-blocking magic until she was blue in the face, just so she could sneak out of Chireiden and wander off into the night.

          Even Koishi’s more endearing qualities had begun to grate on Satori’s nerves now.  Koishi was the sort of person to sit there swearing up and down ‘that oni was only forced to bully me by her friends’, and ‘I saw her heart, she didn’t really want to hurt me’, in between winces as Orin cleaned her wounds with medical alcohol.

          Koishi was a sweet girl.  And a childish one—and that tendency of hers to bare her heart to others at the drop of a hat—once upon a time, a time when the hope of things was all that sustained them, Satori had found it cute.  Something precious, something to be protected.  A little flame of innocence of the sort Satori herself had given up long, long ago.

          But recently, Satori caught herself wishing for that little flame to be snuffed out—and she felt enormously guilty for it, but guilt doesn’t change the truth.  When would Koishi truly grow up?  When would be the breaking point?  Just how much better would things be, if Koishi would just toughen up a little, see things as they are?

          These were the sorts of thoughts that occupied Satori’s idle mind, now, in the utter silence consuming the back of the carriage.  They’d left the vampire mansion some time ago, though well after it’d grown dark—it was high time, anyway.  Dinner had long since finished.  Koishi had been off wandering around somewhere, no doubt on the cusp of getting herself in trouble.  So Satori summoned Koishi back, and they bid their farewells.

          But now, the atmosphere in the carriage had turned frigid.  They were almost to the Underground now, with hardly a word spoken.

          Satori cleared her throat.

          “Well, Koishi, that was a lovely dinner, wasn’t it?  Especially considering it was essentially human cuisine underneath,” Satori said, breaking that detestable silence.  “I am very thankful they kept their blood wine to themselves though, I’m not quite that adventurous!”

          Koishi didn’t say anything.  She just stared out the window at the darkened forest passing slowly by, pulled forward by the steady tmp-tmp of horse hooves on dirt.  Her face was blank, slack, as it always seemed to be nowadays.

          “You know, that dish the maid prepared for me was very good,” Satori continued, “I believe it was some sort of Outside World seafood dish, was it not?  One wonders where on earth that maid found good fish here in Gensokyo?  …ah, I haven’t had proper seafood since the kurofune carracks still visited Nagasaki…  Oh, those were…well, not great times, Koishi, but certainly better than—”

          “What are you doing?” Koishi muttered.

          “Simply making conversation.”

          “But you’re not doing that.  You’re doing what you always do.”

          “And what would that be, Koishi?” Satori said, and there was a pause.  “Of course, if you’d prefer—we could be having a very different conversation right now.”

          A silence fell over them once again, thicker than before—a choking silence, one that Satori tried to fill by working her jaw, resettling in her seat, counting the number of stitches on the velvet brocade lining of the carriage.  Fine then.

          “Care to tell me why you disappeared during dinner, Koishi?”

          Koishi didn’t answer.

          “It’s very rude, you know.  And very untrustworthy.”

          Koishi still didn’t answer.  Just kept gazing out the window at the passing scenery.

          “Koishi.”

          “…what?”

          “I’ve told you a thousand times.  You are just as much a part of this family as I, thus it is also up to you to—“

          “It’s fine!” Koishi said.  “It’s fine.  None of them noticed.”

          Satori’s eye twitched.  She held a breath tight at the bottom of her chest for a moment, trying to make sure her words would come out as she wanted them to.  “Well, since you’ve obviously thought all this through, please do explain to me why that magician’s gaze followed you out of the room.”

          Koishi said nothing.

          “Are you even listening to me?”

          Satori expected some admission of guilt to show on Koishi’s face then, even in her silence—it came in the form of a scowl, one Satori only saw because it was reflected in the window.  “The magician doesn’t matter,” Koishi said.

          “Yet the magician does matter.  Quite a lot, in fact.”

          “You just hate that you couldn’t read her mind.”

          “No, I hate that you continue to jeopardize our mission to indulge your flights of fancy,” Satori said.  “Besides, it seems that magician is the only one among them able to use such obscene magic.  We’ll be keeping tabs on her.”

          Koishi snorted dryly.  “Right.  Right, yes, let’s just spy on all our new allies.  That’ll really convince them that we’re trustworthy.”

          “Well, it’s not like they’re going to know!  Besides—keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, as they say.”

          “…but they welcomed us,” Koishi muttered.

          “Hmm?”

          “They welcomed us, Satori.  They welcomed us with open arms, greeted us as the rulers of the Underground, they allowed us to dine with them at their table—

          “A table you left, remember?  Oh, don’t go getting all misty-eyed at me, Koishi—”

          “They had nothing but good intentions!” Koishi said, turning away from the windowsill to face Satori now.  Within those green eyes lay a flicker of determination, a fire Satori hadn’t quite seen before.  “I read their hearts, Satori, and I know you don’t like to hear this, but I—"

          “And yet it’s all you do,” Satori said, rolling her eyes.  “Intentions, intentions—that’s all you talk about.  How many times must I tell you?  The emotions of the heart are merely an afterimage of the manifested thought; mixing the two up is a great way to end up with your head stuck atop a pike.”

          Koishi’s eyes narrowed at that.  She laid back in her seat then with a sigh, gazing up at the burgundy headliner, and stretching out her feet, seemingly thinking something through in her mind.

          “This isn’t the Outside anymore,” Koishi muttered.  When she got no response, she spoke again.  “This isn’t the Outside anymore, Satori.  We made it out.”

          “What’s all this talk of ‘we’?” Satori snapped, felt her head throb—but she reigned herself in.  Regained control.  “So you’re saying you prefer living in a Former Hell?  After all this time, you’re perfectly fine with it?”

          Koishi’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment, before shaking her head.  “Look, what are we even still fighting for, Satori?  We have food, water, shelter, wealth, even servants—and you’re still not satisfied?  You want more?”

          Satori wrinkled her nose.  “And you think they wouldn’t do exactly the same thing, if they were in our position?  Those oh-so-well-intentioned mansion-folk?  Just like them, we are royalty, Koishi—"

          “Former royalty!  We’re former royalty, just as much as our Hell is a Former Hell!” Koishi shot back.  “And we masquerade around like that, all so you can go on and on about trustworthiness, and I can sit there for two hours grimacing as you lie through your teeth!”

          Satori swallowed hard.  “None of it was a lie.  Acting, perhaps, but that’s hardly a lie,” Satori said diplomatically.  After all, she was such a patient person. 

          “And in what universe is acting not itself a lie?” Koishi said, her voice strained near to cracking.  “They were kind to us!  They gave us their food and their wine and their time a-and now you can only think of them as enemies, as pawns in another one of your stupid plots?!  How can you thi-i-nk that’s okay?!”

          There it was.  The voice crack.

          “A-and all I’m saying is, we don’t have to do this,” Koishi continued after it became clear Satori had no response.  “We already burned bridges with all the others, sure, but why don’t we just try and develop a normal friendship with the Scarlets?!  Th-their hearts are good, their intentions are too, so I know there’s another way…”

          Satori was a patient person.  She prided herself in that.  Which is why, even as her headache worsened, her blood pressure rose until she could feel her heartbeat, she stayed composed.  But she stayed silent.

          After all, Koishi was on the back foot now, ready to buckle under the pressure—

          “Oh, but right…  You’re too stupid to figure out something different, aren’t you?” Koishi hissed, crossing her arms and leaning back into the sofa.  “Sorry, I forgot you can’t do anything anymore without that fake star god whispering in your ear all the time…”

          Koishi seemed to realize her mistake immediately.  Her face went through a pinwheel of emotions—from embarrassment to anger to grief.  And she began to mouth little apologies while hunching down and looking up at Satori.

          And all of a sudden, Satori became newly aware of herself too—how her nails dug into her clenched fists, how her muscles began to ache from gritted teeth, how her external veins now bulged and throbbed, creaking like rubber balloons—

          Satori was a patient person. 

          But that patience had worn rather thin.

          She sucked in a breath, held it taut and steel-like at the bottom of her stomach, her head throbbing something awful—and she finally spoke.

          “Ah, I see…  It’s that blonde vampire, isn’t it?” Satori said, her head smoothly turning to face Koishi.  “That’s what’s got you so uppity tonight.”

          Koishi’s eyes widened.  “Wh-wha…?”

          “Now Koishi, do you remember what happens to a satori who gets involved with a non-satori?” she muttered, three eyes staring Koishi down all at once.  “If you know everything about her, yet she knows nothing about you…  I’d tell you how that ends, but I suppose you’d know a little better than I do, hmmm…?”

          Koishi trembled at that, a whimper escaping her lips—and the ghost of a smirk appeared on Satori’s lips.  Koishi shied away from Satori, then, pressing herself into the very corner of the carriage seats, as far away from Satori as she could get.

          But Satori only scooted ever closer.  Ever closer, those eyes boring right into Koishi’s heart.

          “Koishi, you know as well as I do—that girl is nothing but a quilt of negative emotions.  Guilt and shame and anxiety and powerlessness, all an endless static in her mind.  Oh, but she’s so pretty, her wings are so shiny, her face is so cute…" Satori said in a sing-song tone, mocking Koishi’s very tone of voice.

          She didn’t even need to read Koishi’s mind to do that much.

          “S-stop!  Stop it!” Koishi suddenly blurted out, squeezing her eyes shut and shoving Satori away hard enough that she toppled over across the carriage seats.  And by the time Satori got up again, Koishi sat scrunched into the corner, a growing look of horror on her face.  “S-Satori, I-I-I’m sorry, I—"

          Satori turned and balled Koishi’s collar up in her fists and shoved her back against the mahogany-trimmed carriage window, digging Koishi’s back into the wood—Koishi let out a panicked gasp, but she did not resist.  Satori pinned her there, forearms-to-chest, glaring at her, yet Koishi made no other sound.  She didn’t squirm.  She didn’t try and break free.  Because she knew, deep down to her very soul—she was too weak.  Satori could shred through Koishi’s psionic barriers in an instant, fingers reaching into her very soul, and there was nothing Koishi could do to stop her.  So Koishi just squeezed her eyes shut, pinned against floral molding that bruised her back with each bump, whimpering out apologies, waiting for that third eye to open wide, bathe her in a pinkish flickering light—

          And then Satori let go.

          Koishi doubled over in a heap on the sofa, burying her face in her arms and lap, her entire body trembling with every shallow, rapid breath.

          Satori returned to her original position on the carriage seat, sighing as if Koishi had just abruptly broken down in a fit of hysteria.  “Oh, quit being so pathetic.  Tell me, why didn’t you stop me?”

          Koishi didn’t answer.

          Satori elbowed Koishi in the shoulder.  “Why didn’t you simply stop me, Koishi?”

          “I…  I can’t…” Koishi mumbled out, in between breaths.

          “And who’s fault is that, hmm?  Certainly not mine.”  And when Koishi didn’t answer, Satori grunted, rolling all three eyes at once.  “How pathetic.  A satori bearing royal blood left sniveling and groveling in a corner.  Have you learned nothing?”

          Koishi’s breathing had slowed by now, until the car returned to silence.  A silence loud and deep enough that all Satori could hear was her own heart banging away in her ears.

          “Of course you haven’t,” Satori said. “Of course you haven’t, Koishi, because I’ve been around to make it all so easy for you.”

          Silence.

          “Tell me, Koishi, do you remember what it’s like to be hunted?”

          Silence.

          “Perhaps you don’t.  Perhaps you don’t remember much before Nagasaki, perhaps you forgot.  Perhaps you don’t remember me waking you up in the middle of the night, dragging you to your feet, humans encircling us from every which way—perhaps you don’t remember what it was like to get too comfortable, too used to things, until suddenly you awake in the middle of the night to torches, to blades, to spears; their dirty mouths spitting and cursing you—no, you don’t remember any of that, do you?”

          Silence.

          “What does it matter about intentions?  What does it matter if a human has a good heart or not, if they snuck you bread crusts two days before, if they sought help from the wrong person about you, if the guilt of it is eating them alive within—what does it matter, when the tines of their pitchfork are sharpened all the same?”

          Silence.

          “The only predictor of a person’s behavior is their thoughts, Koishi,” Satori said, her voice softening then, becoming almost maternal in its affectations.

          Koishi still sat there motionless.  Silent.

          Satori smiled as warmly as she could manage, even though Koishi couldn’t exactly see it—she gently put a hand to Koishi’s back.  Koishi flinched, but held still again as Satori sighed, rubbing her back right where the wood had dug into it.

          “I know…  I know it’s hard on you, Koishi.  But you must understand where I’m coming from, don’t you?”

          Silence.

          “These…these feelings you have for that vampire girl.  For your own sake, Koishi, don’t mistake them for love again.  They are nothing but a…an infatuation.  A primal, physiological attraction.  It is something to be controlled.”

          Silence.

          “And I know…  I know that sometimes, I’m hard on you too.  But I’m at my wits end, really—I ask so little of you, yet in return I try to give you the best life I possibly can.”

          Silence.

          “So just trust me.  Trust your big sister.  Hold out for me, okay?  And trust that I will find you a wonderful bride.  A satori bride.”

          Silence.

          “For one day, we will return from whence we came, and you will have what I did not.  So remember that hope, Koishi, remember it and cling to it—that hope will sustain you through your darkest times.”

          The stagecoach shuddered and came to a halt.  For the first time since the surface, Satori blinked and looked towards the windows.  The windows of the coach were bathed in a soft blue—the color of the giant lightcrystals that illuminated Former Hell.  A little slider inset into the front wall rattled open, and Orin’s face appeared in the gap.

          “We’re home, Satori-sama,” she whispered, unable to so much as meet Satori’s eyes.  Her feline ears lay pressed flat to her head.  “If there’s anything else—”

          She was interrupted by the slam of the coach door.  It was hard enough that Orin jumped; hard enough that Satori could feel the wind hit the side of her face.  Only Orin and Satori remained in the stagecoach, now.

          Satori took a breath, and tried to regain some measure of composure as she sunk back into her seat.  “You’re dismissed, Orin,” Satori said, managing a weak smile.  “So you can go inside and wash up.  Thank you for fetching us.”

          Orin’s eyes met Satori’s for a moment, as if searching for something to say.  But she was not a mind reader, so she could find nothing.  She shut the slider.

          Satori felt Orin dismount, felt her go around to the front to unhitch the horses, heard her lead them away and back to their stable.  And Satori was left all alone, with only silence to fill the aching void inside her chest.

—

          The door to the Scarlet Devil Mansion’s library opened by a hair, creaking horribly as it did so—beneath that was a sound halfway between a groan and a swear.  It was a huge door, more than thrice the size of Flandre herself.  And while usually raw strength wasn’t a problem for her, this door’s wards always messed with her augmentation magic.

          Made her wonder how Patchy ever got in at all.  Maybe she had magic to dispel the wards?  Seemed tedious, at any rate.  After a while of trying to open it normally, Flandre sighed and resigned herself with the usual way.  And after bit of a running start, bolstered by a couple of jangly wing-flaps, Flandre rammed into the door with her shoulder just enough for her to slip inside.  Success!

          Flandre liked the library, enough to hang out in it whenever she got bored of the basement.  She’d thought about why she liked it so much once, and it was probably the smell of it—it was a heavy, old smell.  Warm and heavy enough that it felt more like a worn, nostalgic quilt than a bunch of stuffy grimoires.

          Great place to try to forget things.

          Walking amongst the shelves, she wondered how many of these books she’d actually read.  Probably most of the non-grimoire ones, over the course of her life.  Unlike Remi—hah, what a child!  Always reading comics instead of real books!

          Flandre wandered further on into the library and came across Patchy’s desk.

          “Good evening, Miss Flandre,” Patchy said in a monotone.  She didn’t look up from her book.  Though Flandre didn’t really expect her to.

          Flandre gave her a flick of her wind-chime wings as a response.

          She went and pored over Patchy’s return cart.  The library devils must not have taken it yet, because it was piled high with grimoires in various languages.  Flandre frowned, and started picking through them.

          Now, Flandre prided herself on being able to read multiple languages.  At last count, she could read all the Romance languages, Classical Latin, most Germanic or Germanic-derived languages, various dialects of Chinese, Japanese (which made immigrating to Gensokyo much, much easier), Korean, a bit of Egyptian…  After all, what else did she have to do other than idly study random things? 

          But these…these were complete gibberish.  Usually, runes made some sort of sense to her, because runes really are just pictograms representing magical concepts, and since she knew the concepts already everything just fell into place.  Most of these she couldn’t make heads or tails of. 

          But that wasn’t the real reason for her trip, anyway.

          After some more groaning, she found a rather innocent-looking storybook written in Middle-English and took it.  She soon plopped down in a chair right beside Patchy’s great oak desk.  Patchy stiffened up as she did so.

          “Wow, you’ve really been studying, hunh?”

          “…when am I not?” Patchouli said.  Again, her voice was monotone—but it always was.  “That last escape attempt put me on the back foot.  So I’ll return in kind…next time.”

          “Hah, I knew you wouldn’t expect the transmutation spell, I knew it!  I almost got you!” Flandre said.  For a moment, she thought she went a little overboard, but she forced that thought out of her mind.

          “Suppose so,” Patchy said, yawning a little.  “But we can’t be having that any longer—I have a reputation as a court magician to keep, you see.”

          “And I have a reputation to keep too—that of the devil’s little sister!” Flandre cackled.  She swore she saw some semblance of a smile on Patchy’s face too.  That made Flandre’s smile a little more genuine today.

          There were very few people in this world she ever talked to, and even fewer she wanted to talk to.  Patchy was usually one of the latter, though today…

          While Remi was more than a match for her physically and offensively, Patchy was really the only person who could give Flandre a run for her money when it came to magic.  Well, on the days her anemia wasn’t flaring up.  Or her asthma wasn’t throwing her into coughing fits.  Or when she didn’t pull some sort of muscle just by standing up.

          Secretly, Flandre wondered if most of the problem was just her penchant for sniffing dusty, moldy books all day—of course, she’d never actually voice it unless she was trying to pick a big old fight.  Point was, vampires can handle doing that.  Human bodies can’t—they’re too frail to go without sunlight and fresh air for long.  Perhaps that’s why Patchy earned Flandre’s respect—she’d managed to get as powerful as she is with such a frail body, just by sheer force of will…  Besides, the respect was mutual, at least as of late—Patchy recognized Flandre’s prowess in magic, and sometimes even mentored her in some of the higher-level spells.  There was some respect there…

          And it was because of that respect that Flandre could trust Patchy not to pass any of this on. 

          “…hey, we had a dinner party a couple of nights ago, right?  Or rather, Remi did?” Flandre said.

          “Yes.  I was told you’d attend, but I suppose that plan fell through again?”

          “O-oh, yeah…” Flandre said, waving it off as best she could.

          “You know, I’d thought it was rather strange when Remilia mentioned it.  I’d have tried to talk her out of it, but she’d worked herself up into one of those moods.”

          Flandre knew all too well what mood Patchy was talking about.  “Well, I appreciate the sentiment.  …at least I wasn’t imagining things.”

          “Hmm?”

          Flandre made a show of glancing about the room, before leaning in with a whisper.  “Umm…don’t tell Remi this.  Or Sakuya.  Or the fairies for that matter, ‘cause they’re complete blabbermouths.”

          Patchy’s brows furrowed; she duly noted her page number and closed her book, putting it to the side.  “Okay.”

          “What sort of youkai were our guests?”

          “Hmm…  I was wondering that as well.  Suppose I should’ve seen your interest coming, but anyway…” Her tone was so deadpan that she almost sounded annoyed.  But she was actually far from it—the little twinkle in her eye was plain to see as she leafed through the papers on her desk.  It wasn’t often someone was genuinely interested in her non-magical research. 

          “Satori, I believe they were called,” Patchy finally said, after producing a sheaf of papers bound by an Outside World binder clip.

          “Satori?”

          “An extremely rare sort of youkai, long extinct on the Outside.  On the Outside, they’re generally depicted as monkey-like in appearance, with a third eye residing in the forehead that they use to trick and eat travelers.  I suppose inside Gensokyo, that third eye has migrated externally, and is now attached via large veins.”

          “Hmph.  So that’s all you have about them?”

          “Well, it would’ve been rude to ask,” Patchy muttered, her eyes scanning her pages of notes at unnerving speed.  “But let’s see…”

          “N-no, like, what abilities do they have?”

          “Hold on, hold on.  I believe I did some research on their species just before they arrived.  Now, I do believe they have some sort of cloaking ability, if that’s what you mean?”

          “Cloaking?  Like invisibility?

          “Invisibility, intangibility, transparency, perception blocking—all different versions of the same party trick, really.  You know, it must be quite a convenient power to have.  If, for instance, you were bored to tears at…say, a dinner…  You could simply rise and walk out without anyone noticing.  Anyone except for me, of course,” Patchy smirked, taking a sip of her coffee, still leafing through her notes.

          Flandre felt her chest begin to tighten.  She had to force herself to breathe.  “Were there any others?  Any other abilities that you know of?” she blurted out after a few minutes of staring at Patchy leafing through pages in silence.

          Patchy’s brow furrowed for a moment—Flandre’s heart sunk into the pit of her stomach.  “Well, I suppose they can also read minds,” Patchy said.  “But surely you knew that already?”

—

          Flandre hardly remembered the rest of the conversation.  She was sure it happened; surely there was more fake banter and laughter and maybe even a polite goodbye, but all of it was a nervous blur to her now.

          It was the scraping of her wingtips against the bricks of the basement stairwell that finally grounded her, snapped her back to reality.  She was down at the bottom now, just in front of the heavy iron door leading to the rest of the basement.  Massively overbuilt and braced with steel, it was more at home on a dreadnought battleship than in the basement of a Western-style mansion.  Yet she knew, as strong as it seemed, she could drive her hand through it as a human could a piece of paper.

          Flandre stared at it for a moment.  She shut her eyes and slipped inside her own room, to keep from bursting into tears.

          As the door closed behind her, she slumped down against it.  She drew her wings and knees inwards to herself, and with one hand she replenished the magical seal on the doorway—the only thing that’d actually keep anyone out or in.  A rush of air jetted across her back and the smell of damp earth tickled her nose as a glowing purple rune appeared inset into the door.  Normally, the feeling of locking magic was comforting to her; the smell of earth was freeing in its sturdiness, in its protection.  She could always rely on that feeling to calm her whenever she’d start panicking.

          But this time, it didn’t work.  The magic was broken, the security destroyed.

          She still felt like she was choking.  Still, there was an infuriating tightness deep in her chest, like a spring coiled up and crushed together, waiting to pop.  She was breathing too fast; the air around her felt sharp against her nose now as her breaths grew shallower and faster.

          So all she could do was wish it would stop.  Pray it would stop, to whatever god her sister believed in.  Hoped beyond hope that the feeling rising in her stomach now would stop.  But it didn’t.  The tightness crawled down her arms, up into her forehead.  The hackles on the back of her neck rose, and she felt sweats rushing down her entire body.  She dug her nails into her palms to bear it, and when that didn’t work, she bit her lip with her fangs, the little spike of pain just enough to claw back some presence of mind.

          “Breathe…” she muttered to herself.  And when her voice came out as only a shaky whisper, she got angry at herself.  “Breathe!  Breathe, you stupid—”

          And right on that word, she froze, dared not move again.  Because she knew, knew from hundreds of years of experience, that if she moved a muscle she would throw up.  She knew this kind of nausea, knew it all too well.  A sickly, cold, sharp kind of nausea that made her stomach feel like a bottomless pit.

          And it infuriated her.  She hated it.  All of it, from the dizziness, the fuzzy head, the stone weighing down her stomach, the cold sweat over her body, sure—but she hated that nausea the most.  Hated it so much that she spent her life avoiding it.  Yet here it was, ripping her guts out.  And so, all that nausea and panic flashed to white-hot anger.

          She could’ve just stayed down here.  No, she should’ve stayed down here; she should’ve stayed in bed staring at the tacky popcorn ceiling forever.  Even if she did keep replaying that stupid conversation over and over in her mind, it was better than this!  Why did she even care that much?  That she’d panic over it?  What was wrong with her body that she’d panic over something as stupid as a conversation?  It wasn’t like she hadn’t been rude before.  Or hurt people before, said mean things.  Or taunted people to their face.  She’d even insulted people before, fought them, blown up half the mansion and laughed about it afterwards—so why was this one stupid, awkward conversation any different?

          But Flandre felt her memory begin to shift the longer she kept replaying it.  In her mind, each of Koishi’s facial expressions had warped, somehow—that pretty smile now only seemed like the embodiment of disgust.  Flandre could only hear pity in her laugh, condescension in her voice…  Flandre knew full well it was happening, that her mind and body were conspiring to twist her memory against her.  But she couldn’t stop it.

          And then a realization hit her like a pile of bricks.

          “…a mind reader.  That girl was reading my mind the whole time…” Flandre muttered, pressing her palms against her eyes so hard she could see rainbows.  If Koishi knew everything running through Flandre’s head, and that was her reaction—all of those expressions of pity, of condescension, of disgust were reactions to Flandre herself.  The very core of her warranted all of it.  Her skin broke out in goosebumps, as a violent shiver ran through her body. 

          Now, replaying everything through her head again and again, the last pieces of rational thought broke down in her mind.  And as she thought more and more, and her mind went round in circles, a strained growl started in her throat.  It built and built into half-growl half-whine, until she was almost shouting, letting all the frustration and anger she had fuel her scream.

          Until she ran out of breath, and her growl petered out into a sob.

          “Flan…?”  A voice cut through the cacophony of her mind, and all the many voices in her head silenced at once.  Flandre jumped a little, turning back towards the door, pinpricks rushing down her back.  “Are you…  N-no, Flandre, are you alright?” the voice continued.

          It was Remilia.  Her voice was muffled, since she was on the other side of both a battleship door and a locking spell.  Flandre shuddered a little as she heard Remilia try to budge the door—thankfully, she gave up quickly.

          “I’m fine,” Flandre said, shoulders slumped, her eyes glazed over.  Her voice came out in a low monotone.

          “Flan, are you…are you really okay?  I heard from Patchy that something happened, and I came down…” Remilia muttered.  A trace of a snarl showed on Flandre’s lips.  Traitor.

          “I told you, I’m fine.  What do you want?” she said.  The nausea began flooding her senses again—she held back a gag, tried to keep the sound caught in her throat.

          “But you’re not!  Flan, I can hear it in your voice!”

          Flandre stiffened.  But she stayed silent.

          “Is this still about the other day?” Remilia sighed through the door.  “If…If so, I’m sorry—but you must understand where I’m coming from, Flan…!  The party fiasco wasn’t the best idea, and I’ll admit that—but you must understand, I’m at my wit’s end!”

          Remilia paused, giving Flandre a chance to speak.  Flandre said nothing, and sat wired to the spot, clutching the hem of her dress in her hands and staring at her shoes.  What was there to say?  They’d been wasting breath on it for decades by now.

          “Flandre, please…  You spend all day and all night cooped up in there…  You never come out; you hardly ever talk to any of us—"

          “I talk with Patchy.  And Sakuya, when she brings dinner.  And you, sometimes.”

          “I can count on one hand the times you’ve properly talked to each of us in the last two months!  Please…Flandre, we’re not in that kind of place anymore…”

          “I know,” Flandre said.  By now, the feeling in the pit of her stomach had become numb.  Numb, like her head, her hands, her body.  “I know we aren’t.”

          “…Flandre, I’m…sorry.”

          “…I know.  Now leave me alone already.”

          Remilia lingered by the door for a few more moments after that, before taking the long, slow walk back upstairs.  And Flandre leaned back against the door, pulled her knees up to her chest again, and clamped her mouth shut so as to not make another sound.

Chapter Text

          III.S

          Koishi awoke alone, in a darkened room, to the muffled sound of fireworks and faraway cheers.  She’d awoken to stuffy heat, the bluish-white blare of Former Hell’s lightcrystals streaming in through the cracks of the blackout curtains, the lingering smell of stale rose perfume mixed with age, with sweat, with damp, humid earth.

          And now it overwhelmed her all at once.

          Awake, she was bound to the eye again.  It lay against her chest, humming with life, its reddish veins coiled around her limbs and torso.  As she shifted and rolled out of bed, the veins that had inevitably gotten trapped beneath her body unkinked, and they ached. 

          As soon as she was up, she went and checked the lock on the door from her suite out to the hallway.  An unconscious habit.

          The door was still locked.  Koishi was still alone.

          Koishi turned and wandered back to the window, drawing up the blackout curtains.  Her bedroom was on the top story of Chireiden’s main façade—it stuck out of the rock of the cavern of Former Hell, itself built on an outcropping overlooking the entirety of the oni city.  Once an ever-present icon of repression and control for the lost souls of Former Hell, once Satori gained control of the mansion from the Yama’s administration, and the oni gained control of their city and began building their grand pagoda skyscrapers, the Western-style stained-glass architecture of Chireiden became anachronous, almost.  Gaudy.  Trite.

          And now, Koishi peeked out a corner of that out-of-place façade, a window all her own.  The shouts and drunken jeers of partying oni filtered up from the city; the smell of fried street food and wood smoke and gunpowder stuck in her nose.  She lingered there for a few moments, leaning over the threshold of the window, watching the little specks of people moving about in throngs, the dots of paper lanterns painting the streets orange, the warm afterglow of the crowds in the wake of the fireworks show.

          A whole city of people—yet none for her.

          She chuffed, smirked dryly.  What a selfish thought.  Not like she was owed anything, after all.

          And Koishi yanked the window shut.  And she turned and retreated to the bathroom, dipping inside and slamming the door and locking that too, her fingers lingering on the handle in the pitch black, just for the sense of safety—the comfort of being completely and utterly alone in the dark.

          Nobody knew where she was, nobody knew she was awake.  There was nobody to read her mind, nobody’s mind to read.  It was comforting, in a way.  The only thing she found comfort in any more.

          Koishi snapped her fingers—and the wall sconce above the mirror came alight, the magical flame within it setting a sickly, yellowish tint to the room.  Much like the rest of Chireiden, it was a European-style bathroom—marble tiles, a bathtub with brass fittings, hot and cold taps, a mirrored vanity.

          Koishi hardly recognized herself in the mirror.

          The bags under her human eyes had grown deeper since she’d seen herself last.  Darker.  Lower, so that now only a flash of her green eyes remained, half-lidded and ringed by nights spent awake, days spent asleep.

          The third eye looked the same as it always had, though.  Of course it did—it was magical, and thus not bound by whatever factors affected the human part of her.  It never had to carefully cultivate a mask of makeup and manners.  It never showed fear, never showed anxiety, even as it bubbled up just under the surface. 

          More and more, she thought of the eye as something set apart from her.  Something different, something disparate.  A parasite maybe, leeching from her human form in some uneasy symbiosis.  Trying in vain to convince her that it was part of her, part of whatever “Koishi” really was; one with a consciousness of its own inexpressible but for the intangible will it surely exerted over her.

          It was ever present.  A reminder, always tangible, of what she was—a humanoid satori youkai.  A human, yet a youkai—a human with the ability to read minds and hearts.  Something she never wanted to be.  Something that she woke up and simply was.

          Even now, even amidst all this tangle of thoughts, it remained unaffected.  It floated there, in its passivity showing its superiority—even though it was useless as an eye.  The eye’s iris was heavily cataracted; peering into it revealed a shadow of a jet-black iris beneath a milky film, nearing opaque.  If she concentrated as hard as she could, Koishi could see through it, but to the same degree one can see through a piece of beach glass.

          According to her sister, the cataract was there because of an underdeveloped ability.  Even though she could read minds just fine, no—it wasn’t some genetic thing, something she was born with, or because of an injury—it was Koishi’s fault.  It was Koishi’s fault, for not delving into others’ thoughts deep enough.  Not training her psychic abilities enough.  It was Koishi’s fault that she didn’t have the same hypnotic abilities as her sister, that she was more comfortable reading others’ emotions rather than the depths of their minds.

          Oh, but worry not—ability development will surely reverse the cataracting.  You’re not trying hard enough; just try harder.

          Satori had said that to her long ago; it was meant to be comforting.  Motivating.

          You’ll feel better, your ability will function better. 

          Unconsciously, Koishi’s hands crept up her nightgown as she stared.  Her hands gently wrapped around the eye, cupping it in her hands and feeling its little flutters and hums of life, the pulses of blood rushing through it, in and out through the reddish tendrils.

          You’ll get better if you just try harder.

          What would happen, Koishi wondered, if she simply closed her fingers right now?  In one quick motion.  With all her strength, all her useless youkai strength.

          Would it hurt?

          Would it resist?

          Or would it simply squeeze out through her fingers like soft, bloody cheese?

          And suddenly she doubled over—screeching pain sawed through her head, like standing too close to an electric amplifier in feedback.  Her hands flew away from her third eye and to the edge of the countertop, as everything tensed and churned inside of her, and she dry heaved into the sink.

          She drew back, catching her own icy glare in the mirror as she spat stomach acid from the back of her throat.

          Ha.

          That just proved it, didn’t it?

          The eye was something separate.  It wasn’t a part of her, nor she a part of it—it did not control her.  After all, if Koishi and the eye were one and the same, why did the eye have a self-defense mechanism?

          And Koishi kept holding her own gaze in the mirror.  A pained smile rose to her face, as she straightened her back.  As she held on to whatever dignity she had left.

          Satori was right after all.  There was something wrong with her.  Something fundamentally wrong, something she couldn’t smother in makeup and bowler hats and lies.  Something different about her…

          Koishi couldn’t bear to look at herself in the mirror any longer.  She crumpled over the sink, her eyes staring at the drain.

          The ramen shop owner in the Human Village, with her veiny, skilled hands.  The wolf youkai in the Forest of Magic, running wild and free.  The oni bartender in the Former Capital, with her easy, warm smile.  All past loves of hers—no, not loves!  Mere mutual infatuations.  And what did Koishi look like, from their eyes?  What did Koishi have to offer?  A girl grafted to a giant eye—an eye staring at them, watching them, poised to uncover the darkest depths of their hearts if they let their mind so much as wander, let their guard down just once, just once—

          Koishi sucked in a breath until her head hurt, trying to keep from crying again.

          …Satori was right. 

          Relationships between satori and non-satori could never hope to work.

          Koishi drew open the vanity drawer, dug around in the back of it.  Within it was a sewing kit.  Small, made of blue, plastic scuffed opaque from spending years on the forest floor.  It was a relic from the Outside World, forgotten by the humans there.  She’d seen it one day at a little shop outside the Forest of Magic, where she’d been drawn to it.  Once it was useful to somebody; now it was left, forgotten, no more interesting or memorable than a pebble at the side of the road.

          If only she, too, could become like that.

          There was set of sewing needles and a few spools of heavy, black thread.  And her eyes immediately went to the last of the needles, the largest.  As long as her index finger, thick enough that she had to put some strength into it to bend it.  It was curved; the type of needle used to sew two halves of fabric together.

          And she glanced back in the mirror, to the third eye floating there, eyelids half closed, that inky-black pupil feeling like it was staring at her, reading her mind, her own human soul—and all she felt for that eye was hatred, burning in the depths of her heart.

          If she couldn’t destroy it with her own hands, what if she could close it?  Render it sightless, behind its reddish lid—how would that feel?  Even if she couldn’t rip it from herself, she could scoop out the part of her that she despised.

          After all, there was nothing wrong with her, was there?  It was only this.  This accursed eye hanging from her.

          And now, it seemed the perfect solution—stitch the eye shut.  Stitch it shut, lock it away, so it could never see anything ever again.  So she’d never have to think about it again.  Never have to think about any of this ever again.

          And Koishi threaded the needle with the thickest thread she had, held the trembling needlepoint up to her eye—and she hesitated.

          In that hesitation, she realized something.

          Every mutual infatuation she’d had, every failure she’d had—they’d already known what a satori was.  They knew what Koishi was, what she was capable of.  All those infatuations crashed and burned precisely because they knew what Koishi could do.

          But that vampire…she didn’t know what a satori was.  Usually, it’s easy to tell—their thoughts change.  Their thoughts become more erratic, panicked, guarded.  Their hearts become colder, more restricted, more focused on holding their secrets than Koishi herself.

          But this vampire didn’t do any of that.  Flandre didn’t know.

          …well, did Koishi have an obligation to tell her? 

          But of course, assuming Koishi could see her again, and anything did happen between them, Koishi would be building an entire relationship based upon a lie.  No, not a lie exactly—something that simply didn’t need to be said.  But if her and that vampire did get into a relationship, surely it would come up?  If by accident, a slip-up, or one of her family members telling her, or maybe she’d just figure it out…

          But even if she did…

          A seed began to germinate in the back of Koishi’s mind, then.

          One final gamble, on the glimpse of hope that now ran through her mind.  She was drunk on the thought that, for once, someone didn’t know—and that meant that, whether met with acceptance or rejection, Flandre’s judgement would be based upon Koishi herself.

          Not the eye; the eye wasn’t her.

          Koishi herself.

          She broke from her stupor just long enough to be whisked back to reality.  Back to the dim, yellowish bathroom, the half-filled running sink, and the curved needle in her hand.  A shiver ran through her body, and she dropped the needle on the vanity; she scrambled trying to pick it back up, yelping as it pricked her finger; she snapped it back into the case and threw it into the drawer.

          And Koishi flicked cold water over her burning face, burying herself in her hands, trying to focus on the cold on her skin.

          She couldn’t go through with it.  Not yet.

          Not until every last ember of hope within herself had been trampled by reality.

          There, alone in her bathroom and drunk off her newfound hope, Koishi made a promise to herself—one last time.  She would give in to her feelings one last time, before she locked her curse away once and for all.

Chapter Text

          IV

          In the gloomy basement of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, below a near-endless spiral staircase descending into the Earth, locked away behind two great battleship doors warded with scarlet magic, in a grand underground hall dimly lit by magical candelabras—Flandre stood ready to enter her waking dream.

          She’d done much of the preparation already—she closed her spellbook with a dull whump and threw it in the middle of a crude magic circle burnt into the blood-red carpet before her.  Her tongue still ached from twisting incantations; complex as they were, they were comforting in their familiarity.

          Flandre stood still as the grimoire before her hummed with power; she closed her eyes as the book rose and hung in mid-air, flipping through its pages by itself and belching greenish smoke that soon enveloped the room.

          At first, her nose wrinkled at the smell of powerful magic—the smoke smelled sour, of sulphur and vinegar, like the forward alcohol burn of the strongest wines.  But she relaxed, inhaled, invited it into her lungs.  And it soon eased, giving way to softer scents—wood, rain, frankincense.  And then, within those scents Flandre could feel the magic linking with her very senses; the hints of the mechanical constituents of the waking dream—the itch of a sunburn, the bitter taste of dandelion sap—and she opened her eyes.

          Flandre now stood atop the Eastern guard tower of a castle.  It was her castle—she was its Mistress.  A female mistress in what was meant to be her homeland, 14^th century-ish Belgium—supposedly a recreation of a battle her mother went through long, long ago.  Supposedly.

          Flandre glanced down at herself, to complete the illusion.  She was indeed wearing a 14^th century steel cuirass over a thin, ivory gambeson; her wings, jangly power crystals and all, poked through holes in the backplate.  Atop her head was a pointed helmet with a feather atop it, which she took off and promptly hurled off the guard tower.

          Gathering below, on a rise just beyond the moat, was an army—four thousand men strong, most divisions armed with spears, flanked on either side by heavy cavalry.  At the front, knights clad in full plate European plate armor, glinting dull in the failing light.  Beyond them, off in the distance, a storm was brewing—dark, evil rainclouds, threatening to shower her in running water.  Instant death to a lesser vampire, but torture for Flandre.

          Then the smell of burning pitch—the air was thick with it, the sound of balls of fire whizzing through the air and crashing into the ground like meteorites.  Every few moments, the whole castle would shudder with each solid shot pounding the North side wall.  She watched the defenders’ unsteady legs wobble with each shot.

          Flandre knew the timings of each shot by heart.

          She glanced behind her—the main keep was pulverized, a crumbled mess of stone.  The stables were on fire.  Some were frantically drawing water from the well, trying to put it out.  Trying to corral the escaped horses galloping about the inner walls.  Men were arming themselves from whatever they could dig out of the rubble of the armory, bent swords and spearheads lashed to twigs.  Broken shields, dented helms.  Fear twisted their faces.

          A hellish scene.  It was comforting in its familiarity, like a tragic fairy tale she’d read over and over since her childhood.

          Suddenly, a shout came from below.  Flandre put her boot on one of the lows in the battlement and peered over the edge.

          Presently a leader had emerged from the mass of men gathered below.  He was tall, well-built, clad in armor that shone brilliantly even in overcast, perched atop a pure white horse.  He wore the haughtiest grin of them all—even though Flandre could see his upper lip wavering just a little.  A living caricature.

          And as he dismounted his loyal steed, he drew his sword with a shiiing even Flandre could hear, before pointing the tip up at her.

          “Consider this your end, vampire!” he shouted with all his breath.  A thousand men bellowed their agreement behind him.  “Tonight, we shall end your reign of terror, free all of Britannia from your influence, and take what’s rightfully ours!”  Cue another mass of jeering.

          Flandre took a breath, leaned forward, and slipped right back into her role.

          “Is that so, my dear hero?” she sneered from her stone tower.  “And what of mine is rightfully yours, anyway?  I seem to have forgotten~”

          The hero’s face twisted at that; he shouted even louder.  “You…!  You dare to play games with us?!  Give my princess back to me, and you may yet live without knowing the taste of the Divine upon your flesh!”

          “Hah, you slaughter half my garrison and expect me to give you back your sweet little princess without a second thought?” Flandre replied, rolling her eyes.  “Don’t make me laugh, human filth.  You’re lucky I haven’t turned her into a shriveled corpse yet.”

          The thought of that clearly got to him, judging by the trembling of his upper lip, the wavering of his sword.  “You’re surrounded by four thousand—give up!  Give up, or face complete annihilation!” the hero shouted, a growl to his voice now.

          “Whaaat?  Oh, I hadn’t noticed all you lot—whatever shall I do…?!  Oh, I’m positively quaking in my boots…!”

          And the Hero’s face darkened—he glared up at Flandre through gritted teeth.  “You had your chance, devil.  You and all you stand for will perish this evening—you will die forgotten, with the crest of Abernathy burnt into your chest!”

          The tip of the Hero’s sword began to spark then—magic flowed through it, and there was a slight electrical whine as white ball-lightning appeared inches from the sword’s tip.  A rousing cheer ran through the crowd of men behind them, as they readied their arms.  In the distance, behind them, the cannons were being loaded, the archers stood at the ready—the final attack was about to begin.

          And all Flandre could do was smile.

          “Fine then, humans—prepare yourselves!”

          Flandre conjured a paper talisman between two fingers.  She raised it skywards, as the runes written upon it began to glow a faint red.

          “Taboo Sign: ‘Flames of Salem’s Stakes!’” Flandre roared, her bellow loud enough that all the hero’s men covered their ears, that the castle and the very ground beneath her shook with power overwhelming. 

          With her declaration, the talisman shriveled and turned to ash.

          And she lifted her arms up to the gray skies—two candleflames lit at the tips of her index fingers, before flaring up and setting her forearms alight like a match to alcohol.  Her arms were clothed in fire from claw to elbow, waves of flame radiating backwards and wisping into the air behind her.

          And in that moment—she was free.  Nothing else mattered now.  Not the conflicting thoughts flitting about her head, not the crushing void within her chest.  Not the mind-reading girl, not the prospect of hundreds more years alone.  Not a lonely death, curled up in a four-poster bed in a basement—the overwhelming power her accursed birthright had gifted her now flowed free.

          Flandre’s red magic alighted upon phantom conduits, charging her rainbow catalysts to sparking and feeding her flames as they grew hotter, hotter—with this power, she was no longer the scared little girl in the basement.  She was rightful heir to the Order of Scarlet, Seventh Lord of Chateau Flammendracht—and she was the villain.

          She liked that.  It was easier that way.

          “Hah, you think I’ll be intimidated by your petty witchcraft?  Come and face me!” the hero shouted again—yet he couldn’t generate near as much volume as before.

          Looking down at him again, pooling her magic in her fiery claws, Flandre almost felt bad for him.  Almost.

          Before the Hero could blink, Flandre slammed into the ground next to him.  He flinched, but reacted—he swung his sparking longsword hard enough to cleave through a horse.

          But it caught no horse, only Flandre’s hat as she ducked it; after slicing it in twain, the Hero caught only air.  A flicker of confusion crossed his face.

          And Flandre drove a flaming claw into the hero’s chest.  She cut through his thick, shining plate armor like a bear crushing bone, and her scarlet claws ripped into his chest, through his heart.

          The heat cauterized the wound at once.  There was no blood.  No sound besides the crackling and spitting of flames, and then a cry of confusion rising in chorus all around them.

          The Hero stood frozen, for a moment.  His holy sword slipped from his fingers; it spun off harmlessly to the side.  His expression was one of mild confusion, perhaps of simple disbelief.  Yet he clearly saw Flandre’s arm pierce his chest, clearly knew it—he opened his mouth as if to say something, grasped Flandre’s arm as if to pull her out of him—and his body gave way.  She withdrew her arm as she felt him start to go limp, and he crumpled into the mud, with no breath left with which to speak.

          3,999 left.

          The roar of grief and rage around her as he fell was deafening.  They descended upon her at once—all at once.

          One of his closer subordinates took a swing at her with a pike.  She swung, blew a jet of fire through him, and he dropped into the mud, nameless, faceless.  3,998.

          Two more came for her.  They were still on their horses.  She turned on them and leapt, sliced with her claws—both fell apart, cut to ribbons.  3,996.

          On and on it went.  More and more were cut down, run through, men fed to the meat grinder, simulated lives disappearing in flashes of claws and jets of flame and beams of weaponized light.  Flandre cut swathes through their ranks, her body acting and reacting fast enough that it felt like she was hardly in control of it, like it was moving on its own.  With its precision, her body felt mechanical yet still organic—like a rusted machine springing back to life after years of inactivity.

          Yet it wasn’t nearly as cathartic as she’d hoped.

          And so, as she killed, and killed, and killed—she grew more and more frustrated.

          Being able to truly use her powers, even just a fraction of them, felt good.  Satisfying, even, on some unconscious, basal level.  But true catharsis?  No.

          Where, then, did that catharsis lie?  Did it lie in the chests of these men, ripped and torn apart all around her?  In the rivulets of blood under foot, as the meadow ran scarlet?  Maybe it was just around the corner, then; if she turned, if she really put her power into the swing—

          As she summoned Laevateinn and killed three with one strike, she certainly felt something else.  She did feel a giddy sense of satisfaction.  A sweet delusion of self-importance, one she could lose herself in.  A fragile pride—both in her abilities and in her namesake; fledgling, after having been ground into the dirt for so long.

          But that wasn’t catharsis, not quite; none of those feelings were.

          And as she realized that, each movement, each kill—they felt more and more meaningless.  The illusion of the magical dream was lost, shattered like a mirror at her feet.  This dream, borne of magic and heritage, that felt so real moments before—it grated her nerves.  Was that her heart rushing blood to her throbbing head, or piped in war drums to make this all feel climactic?  It was like she was a child again, ripping her toys apart in order to feel something. 

          Was this what she had to do to feel anything anymore?  Lose herself in mindless entertainment, in simulated murder?

          Flandre had been lost in thought for so long that she didn’t notice one of the soldiers sneaking up behind her.  She only noticed him when his twelve-pound steel axehead ricocheted off her skull and sent her to the ground.  It was a damn good hit, one that dulled the axehead into a hammer and turned the handle to splinters, and made her flame enchantments flicker off like turning off the gas on a lantern.

          As she lay, clutching her head and restarting her thoughts, trying to shake the stars out from her vision, the axeman sunk his knee into her gut, kneeling on her and punching with everything he had.  But each punch barely registered to her, even at his full power.

          And as she regained her senses, she caught his fists and threw him off her with legs and arms.  He toppled back over onto his back, on the ground, clutching one of the hands Flandre accidentally crushed in her grip.

          As Flandre rose, and stood over him, her heart was racing, her vision still felt fuzzy, her reserves of power were finally starting to wane.

          “You…you’re a monster…” the nameless axeman blubbered.

          Flandre hesitated for a moment, even as she held the charged mass of energy in her hand.  And she looked down at the nameless, faceless, simulated warrior—

          And she said nothing, as she blew him away.

          2,341.

          Flandre straightened, looking out over the battlefield and the fleeing humans army in the distance, and beheld what her power had brought her.  Victory yet again, in a meaningless death game, exemplified by the piles of corpses surrounding her.

          She felt nothing.

          And she looked down at her hands, blackened from the blood burnt to her skin, her ivory-white gambeson stained with splatters of virtual blood—the world around her flickered.  A moment later, the grass, the corpses, her armor, the battlefield itself—all of it shut out of existence like a light switch.

          Flandre was back in the darkened basement again, the only remnant was the greenish smoke as the grimoire off-gassed, sulphur tinged with hydrochloric acid sticking in her nose.  She stared blankly at the grimoire, as it settled on the floor, closing itself.

          Flandre was alone, yet again.

          And at that moment, still in the twilight between wake and sleep, Flandre heard a faint knock on the battleship door.

—

          Flandre didn’t answer at first—who could possibly be knocking?  Patchy and her familiars reek of magic—not her.  It could be Sakuya, but she’d know better than to try and contact Flandre past all those wards.  So that leaves—

          “God, Remi, I already told you—"

          “Umm, h-hello?  Is somebody in there?” came a muffled voice from the other side.  Between the defensive wards and a foot of steel, Flandre strained to make out each word.  But the voice—it lacked the breathy, clipped perfection of Sakuya’s.  Or the showy accent of Remi’s.

          It was someone new.

          This time, Flandre felt a chill run up her back, a hole open up in the pit of her stomach.  Felt the first pangs of fear as it ran through her body—hatred, hatred—and Flandre rose and came closer to the door, putting her ear to it and straining, straining—

          “Ahh…I swore there was something about basements…isn’t this the only one...?  Ah, but those wards…” came a small voice on the other side of the door.

          Flandre recognized it instantly.

          It was the mind-reader girl.  Koishi.

          Flandre threw herself back from the door, panic dizzying her vision.  She wasn’t expecting this, could’ve never expected this.  Her breath was hitching—but at least she knew how to handle that, so she tamped down the knot in her throat, forced herself to breathe.  A thousand contradictory feelings ran through her head—panic, first and foremost.  Surprise.  Fear, anxiety, annoyance—all the negative emotions were there, but above all, Flandre was happy.  Even as she felt like melting into a puddle on the floor from the spike of anxiety, she felt a strange warm giddiness flooding her chest, manifest only in her wingtips skittering across the floor drawing loose, sloppy circles around her.

          Because it was another chance.  Probably the last one she would ever get.

          Flandre raised a hand.  The warding runes over the door appeared in response, glowing purple.  She held out her hand to them, siphoning their power, coalescing their breakpoints into an eye in her hand—and she hesitated, as the first sobering thought ran through her mind.

          Koishi only came back because Remi told her to, didn’t she?

          That intoxicating giddiness that had run through Flandre—it all soured in an instant.  All that happiness now felt so stupid, so childish all at once.  But Flandre tried to put it out of her mind, and crushed the eye anyway.  The wards dispelled; the door unlocked.

          “Th-the wards…?” the person on the other side of the door said, their fretting suddenly audible.  “Where did they—"

          “What do you want?” Flandre yelled out.

          There was only stunned silence from the other side of the door.  Flandre knew it—she could recognize awkward silence pretty well by now—and so she took a few steps back and plopped onto the floor, staring up at the door.  Waiting.

          She squeezed her shaking hands between her thighs, controlling her breathing as best she could, even as her heart still thrummed away in her ears.  “I already know it’s you,” Flandre growled with as much breath as she could manage.  “So come in if you want.”

          And sure enough—the battleship door opened, and she appeared.

          It was indeed the satori girl—Koishi.  She poked her head in first, her eyes to the floor, and suddenly, they flicked up to meet Flandre’s.  And they each held one another’s gaze for a moment, as if surprised it’d come to this, that the two of them would ever see one another again.

          Koishi’s eyes were beautiful.

          Her eyes practically shone—caught in the dim light of the candelabra overhead, her human eyes reflected a soft, greenish swirl.  Like that of the jade pendant Meiling gave Flandre long ago, when the gatekeeper was still concerned with placating the Little Sister—and suddenly Flandre remembered the hours spent laying in her bed, holding the little dragon pendant up to the light of the moon and peering in to the jade, trying to see beyond the swirls, imagining something impossibly beautiful there, just beyond what she could see with her own eyes—

          And Koishi broke eye contact first, and partly retreated behind the door again.  It took Flandre a split-second to realize this; she shook her head, trying to shake the lightning bolts from her mind.

          That pendant was long gone.  Destroyed, like most things, in the coup.

          Koishi had evidently steeled her nerves by this point, since she soon barreled back into the room with a terrified squeak, yanking the battleship door with all the ferocity of a weak human in a horror movie—it slam-shut so hard it broke Flandre from her trance.

          Koishi…was a little paler than Flandre remembered.  Disheveled.  Gloomy.  Her clothes had changed too—she now wore a wrinkled yellowish blouse, with sleeves long enough that they flopped about when she moved, bunching up around her fists.  Her skirt seemed tired too; its two-tone green floral pattern seemed worn down by sun and sea-spray.  Flandre was hardly in the best shape of her life, but Koishi looked like a wreck.

          Koishi’s head jerked up to look at Flandre, and terror suddenly came over her face, and she started noticeably shivering—

          “Well?” Flandre said.

          “I’m, um…I want to apologize!” Koishi blurted out, before dipping into a stiff bow.

          “What’s there to apologize for?”  There was a little waver in Flandre’s voice she couldn’t hide.  She kicked herself for it.

          “Wh-what?  But I—”

          Flandre’s eyes narrowed.  “What are you apologizing for, Koishi?”

          Koishi’s gaze fell again, and she pulled down the brim of her hat to cover her face.  She couldn’t bear to meet Flandre’s eyes again—what, out of fear?

          How fitting.

          “Are you apologizing for running away?” Flandre said, twirling a tuft of hair in her fingers.  “Or apologizing for talking to me in the first place?”

          “Umm, umm…”

          Flandre smirked.  “Or did my sister tell you to?”

          “None of that’s true!” Koishi blurted out, lifting her hat so that those shining green eyes were looking at her again, so that Flandre could see them again.  And in their jade swirls, Flandre could see something behind them, within them; within Koishi’s eyes was some conviction, some rare determination Flandre didn’t know such an airhead was even capable of possessing.

          So maybe Flandre was right all along…

          “…so you know what I’m getting at.  You really can read my mind, hunh?”

          Koishi froze up then.  And Flandre had to watch the moment all of Koishi’s determination crumbled—those shining eyes dulled, and all the ferocity of that one denial had softened, evaporated.  As if all of Koishi herself had been riding on that one moment. 

          “N-no, I mean…I’m sorry for running away, not th-that…” Koishi muttered, quietened.  Dulled.

          It pained Flandre inside, to watch that light fade.

          “W-well, I can’t blame you.  How much did Remi pay you, anyway?  Haha…all that money, and you still couldn’t bear talking to me,” Flandre said, laughing to tamp down her feelings into the pit of her stomach, “Eh, but if I had to talk to some weirdo shut-in hiding in a basement, I’d run away too.  Can’t blame you.”

          “N-no, no…  I’m telling you, i-it wasn’t like that, m-m-my sister was calling me—”

          “Shut up already!” Flandre spat.  Koishi went silent with a squeak; Flandre drew up a leg, hugging it to her chest.  “Here’s what you’ll do.  Tell Remi you talked to me.  I’ll tell her the same.  And you can take your stupid money and get out of here.”

          Koishi didn’t say anything—there was nothing to say.  What, was she going to deny it again?  So she just leaned heavy against the door, creasing her hat from clutching it to her chest.

          “And I’ll tell you this, Koishi.  Same thing I told my sister.  I don’t want friends.  I don’t need friends.  And above all, I don’t need your pity.  I don’t know why you’re back here today—either she paid you, or you’re pitying me like everyone else in this stupid mansion—but either way, you can leave,” Flandre said, her words coming out a little more forcefully than she meant them to.  And her gaze fell to the floor as she hugged her knees tighter to her chest, her misshapen wings curling around her body.  “Let me just be the monster in the basement, okay?”

          And all of a sudden, Koishi’s face turned an odd shade of scarlet—even as a flickering, insincere grin came to her face, even as she nodded her head a little bit in agreement, in resignation.  And she nodded her head more, as her cheeks grew rosy.  Her lip quivered a little, she started squeezing her eyes shut, pressing her hands against them and muttering half-hearted apologies.

          And a moment later, it all broke.  Koishi sunk to her knees, her hat partly crumpled in her lap, and she cried into her balled-up sleeves.  She kept apologizing all the while, until her throat was too choked with sobs to control her voice, so instead she tried to be as quiet as possible.

          Frankly, Flandre was expecting a lot of things. 

          A bombastic reaction, sure.  Crocodile tears, maybe.  But this?  No, Flandre was expecting something more like what she thought Gensokyo was known for—an admission of guilt as summoning signs appeared around her, a challenge written in danmaku, delivered with a haughty, selfish smirk.  After all, this was Gensokyo—everybody was in it for themselves, all only out for their own interests.  Surely, Koishi was only here for money.  Only here because Remi asked her to.  No, told her to.  Bribed her to.  There was no way…no way she’d actually have wanted to come see Flandre, of all people…

          Flandre didn’t know this girl.  They’d only ever met once before, and outside of that one stupid, awkward interaction that Koishi had run away from, neither of them had any reason to continue talking to one another.  For whatever reason she did, it didn’t matter—neither of them knew each other, not really. 

          So why did this feel like a stake through the heart?

          Flandre drew her legs up closer to her chest, gnawing absent-mindedly on a knee.  “Oi!  Why are you crying?” Flandre said, her tone breathy.

          “Oh, I knew it…I knew I should’ve stayed, I blew it…” Koishi blubbered, “I had one chance, a single chance…and I blew it again…”  And as those words left her mouth, she trailed off into more meaningless apologies—she knew Flandre had no clue what she was talking about.

          Soon enough, Koishi seemed to regain some measure of control over herself.  She started choking back her own sobs, tamped her breathing down.  And she even started to tone down her whimpering, mercifully.

          But when she opened her eyes, Flandre could plainly see how different they were.  The light behind those swirls of jade—gone.  That flash of determination within her—long gone, tamped down to nothingness.  And now, below her tears, Koishi now wore a smile—even, calm, symmetrical.  Empty.

          And that, above all, unnerved Flandre the most.

          “H-hey…” Flandre muttered, twisting a lock of hair.  Thinking.  “D-don’t cry, okay…”

          A shiver ran down Flandre’s spine as Koishi glanced up at her again, eyes glazed and matte like that of a dead fish.  As that awful smile burned itself further and further into her face, even as the tears kept coming.

          “St-stop it!  God, you’re making me cry too, just looking at you!” Flandre blurted out, without even really knowing what she was saying.  And she got up, without even really knowing what she was doing.  And she went and knelt down right in front of Koishi, her heart in her throat, taking up one of Koishi’s hands and holding it between hers. 

          “Okay, listen to me,” Flandre said, in as soothing a voice as she could manage.  “Please, listen to me, Koishi…”

          Koishi’s eyes went as wide as dinnerplates.  But she didn’t pull away from Flandre’s touch, didn’t wince away.

          “Don’t run away.  Please.  Don’t run away again.”  And Flandre tightened her grip, pulled Koishi to her feet.  “Listen to me.  You’re a satori, so you know what I’m thinking, right?  You can read my intentions, I guess, so…you can trust me.  I don’t have to spell it out.”

          “I’m sorry,” Koishi blurted out then, and she started off again like a looped tape.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so—”

          “Stop!  Just shut up already!” Flandre hissed.  Koishi winced, and for a moment looked almost like she’d gotten slapped, but Flandre kept her gaze on Koishi, kept her focus on her, kept holding her hand.  “I-it’s okay…  Please, just…follow me.”

          Flandre dragged Koishi away from the battleship door.  Across the dimly lit hall, past the grimoire of fantasies forgotten on the carpet, snaking through the granite columns, all the way to the door to Flandre’s room.  Flandre felt one last, sharp pang of anxiety as she threw open the door, but she tamped it down harder, sharper than she ever had before. 

          Because she this time, she had a purpose.

          Flandre half-led, half-flung Koishi inside her room, slamming the door shut behind them.  This was the part she was nervous about.  Because she had to take her eyes away from Koishi for this part, had to let go of her hand.

          Flandre had asked for Koishi’s trust; now, Flandre had to trust her.

          Flandre let go of Koishi’s hand at once, like ripping off a bandage—she turned without meeting Koishi’s eyes again, without dragging her around any further.  And she went over to the pile of stuffed animals in the corner of her room and started digging through it frantically, flinging stuffed animals about the room with a determination that may not have quite matched the situation.

          Finally, she found the one she wanted; a big bluish-white dolphin plushie.  She gave it a test squeeze—even though its fur was worn, the fuzz a little flat and the color a little bleached, it still always stayed fluffy.

          She half-expected Koishi to have vanished again, by the time she turned around.

          But this time, Flandre turned to see Koishi sitting on her bed, staring at her hands in her lap but otherwise waiting peacefully for her to finish, the ghost of a smile on her lips.  And as Flandre came over, and Koishi noticed the stuffed animal, her face lit up again, her eyes shining their brilliant green.

          Flandre felt liquid heat spreading through her face as she pushed the stuffed animal into Koishi’s arms.  “H-here!  Cry into this, if you want…  When I’m sad, it’s the only way I know how to deal with it, okay?” Flandre said, plopping down next to Koishi on the bed.  “His name is Moby, if you care.  Like the whale from the book.”

          Koishi had already buried her face in Moby’s fuzz.

          “Aah, I mean—I know he’s not actually a whale, he’s totally a dolphin.  But, um, he was originally bluer than this, a-and when he was younger, his name was Pochi.  I’ve had him a really long time, so he’s a little faded, but, uh…”

          And Koishi resurfaced just then, with a big, giddy grin on her face, melting into Moby’s warm fur.  “Hehehe, Mobyyyy~” she sighed, her tears finally dry.

Chapter Text

          V

          Neither had spoken in awhile.

          There wasn’t any other furniture in the room, so the two of them were now sitting on Flandre’s bed.  Koishi was leaning against one of the posters, still snuggling Moby and sniffling occasionally, whereas Flandre was up against the headboard with the covers drawn, picking at her scarlet manicure.  They were as far away from each other as they could possibly be while still remaining on the same bed, locked in some sort of fragile symbiosis. 

          Apart, yet together, in their silence.  In their passivity. 

          Knowing they’d just shown each other, near-complete strangers, parts of themselves they couldn’t take back.

          …what was Flandre supposed to say?  She felt awful for Koishi, so she wracked her brain to think of something to say.  Something, anything she could do to help…

          Are you okay?  No, Koishi could say—wrong question.  How are you doing?  Not well, comes Koishi’s obvious answer—another wrong question.  Is it anything I can help with?  No, of course not—wrong.  I understand.  No, you don’t—wrong!  I’m sorry you feel this way.  I know/I’m sorry too/shut up, shut up, just shut up already—

          Questions, and their inevitable answers, bounced back and forth through Flandre’s head like ping-pong balls.

          A chip broke off her manicure.  She grumbled a little, picked off the fleck of nail polish, and flicked it off the bed.

          Anything I say…can be shut down so easily, Flandre reminded herself, her head buzzing. One sentence is all it would take…  One misunderstood sentence, one bad answer…and it’s over.  She’ll run away, and that’s it.  I’ll never be able to help her.

          Besides, asking things like that in this situation, no matter her intentions—wouldn’t it just be patronizing?  Wouldn’t it be presumptuous?  Condescending?  Insulting?  Flandre didn’t mean it that way, but heaven forbid that’s how it came across…

          Flandre knew all too well what happens when the wrong questions get asked at the wrong times, in the wrong tone of voice.  That’s how the wrong answers come out—the dismissive answers, the mean answers, the answers that brush off, that cover up, that harden a mask even further.  The sort of answers Flandre herself gives out on the regular.

          …is this how it felt to be on the other side?

          Flandre kept stealing glances at Koishi’s face whenever she felt safe to.  Koishi’s emotions were unreadable now—she was just laying there with her chin resting on Moby, staring off into space.  She seemed to be doing a bit better—the thousand-yard-stare had been replaced by a look of blank, quiet, contentment…  Though Flandre never was particularly good at reading people’s emotions in the first place.

          Maybe that was a mask, maybe it wasn’t.  But Flandre knew—from one “not-alright” person to another, that no matter how much she wanted to, Flandre couldn’t just wave her hands and make Koishi’s problems disappear.  Realizing that…stung.

          …maybe there never really were any right questions in the first place.

          She steeled her nerves and forced herself to speak, mumbling through a bitten lip.  “S-so, umm…did it help a little bit?  Th-the plushie, I mean.”  She cringed just listening to the words tumble from her mouth, and at once all the anxiety came rushing back into her throat, choking her out of anything more.  But they’d come out already, and she looked to Koishi…

          Koishi’s face looked a little different now.  A little more relaxed.  Not happy, really, but not sad.  She just sat still, her chin resting on Moby’s back, still spacing out.  Her third eye, floated gently in the air beside her, seemingly at peace.

          “…mm-hmm,” Koishi said, letting out a sigh…before turning to Flandre and giving a smile—as pained as it looked, it seemed real.

          With just that look, Flandre felt a strange rush run through her and zip into her brain—some weird mix of she didn’t run away immediately and I actually helped somebody.  The feeling lingered even as Koishi’s eyes fell back to the bed, even as Koishi sat there lost in thought, rolling a tuft of Moby’s fuzz between her fingers.

          And then, against all odds, Koishi spoke again.  “It’s so funny how something as simple as hugging a stuffed animal can help this much…  You were right!” Koishi said, an edge of amusement in her voice.

          You could’ve hugged me instead…  The thought rushed to Flandre’s mind in an instant, and she instantly tamped it down.  The impulse scared her a little bit, considering just how fast it shot into her brain, but thankfully she had the good sense not to blurt it out loud.  Instead, Flandre just nodded and thanked Koishi, eye twitching, hoping nothing showed on her face.

          Koishi paused her hair twirling.  For a second, Flandre thought Koishi had noticed; but then Koishi just smiled again at something unseen, and flopped back down into Moby’s fluff once more.  “Anyway, yeah, Flandre…thanks for asking,” she said, a little louder this time.

          A tidal wave of relief flooded Flandre’s chest, taking up more brainpower than she could spare at the moment—so she gave an awkward double-hand-wave and a stuttered “I’m glad”, before going back to picking at her manicure.

          A few moments passed, and the silence returned again.

          Ughhh, I’m making this so much more awkward than it needs to be!  Flandre thought, her eyes wandered the room—the flaking gold leaf of the grandfather clock-face, the lone floor lamp in the corner giving off a yellowish glow—as she started chewing on the tip of her nail instead. 

          Wh-what’s wrong with me?  Why am I blanking so bad?  I’m totally supposed to start a conversation now, right?  Th-that’s what someone normal would do, that’s what I should do…  Maybe it’d help…  Flandre’s fang, hard as steel, scratched off some of her manicure.  She had to spit it out on her finger rather ungracefully—something that hardly helped her image as of now. 

          I’m such an idiot… Flandre hissed at herself as her thoughts spiraled downwards.  I want her to stay so bad, but…surely she has places to be, not just sitting in this basement with me, of all people…  And why would she even talk with me anyway?  Some weirdo basement-dwelling freak—

          “So, do you like fish?” Koishi asked, out of the blue.

          Flandre blinked.  “Wh-what?”

          “A question.  Do you like fish?” Koishi replied, one cheek squished against Moby’s back.  “Or the ocean, I guess.”

          “…what do you even mean by that?”

          “It means whatever you want it to mean!”

          “…eh?  Eh?”

          Koishi then did something near unthinkable to Flandre—she pouted a bit, puffing out her cheeks and groaning.  “Okaaaay, guess I have to spell it out to you!” Koishi said.  She hoisted herself up so she was sitting cross legged, and summarily plopped Moby in her lap, petting him like a big blue cat.

          “It was just a guess," Koishi said.  "Like, I know you liked Moby Dick a lot, right?  And you knew Moby’s a dolphin, not a whale!  So if you care about the difference that much, I just thought you might like the ocean or something."

          Wait, Koishi was giving her a chance!  “Umm, well, y-yes…  I do like fish!  Well, Moby’s not really a fish, I really like whales, and orcas, a-and dolphins, and, and—well, I was just reading this recent study we had in the library about using TV cameras to tell the difference between social behaviors and true self-awareness in dolphin mirror tests, since a bunch of scientists think dolphins actually can pass—wait, wh-what’s so funny?!”

          Koishi was just softly giggling at her, but somehow…it meant the world to Flandre.  That this girl, just a few minutes ago looking like everything was falling apart—that she was now smiling, laughing.  Even if it was a bit at her expense, it was the sweetest sound Flandre could think of.

          “Oh, nothing, nothing…  I was just thinking, ‘hunh, that’s an awfully specific thing to suddenly get all serious about’, but like I’m one to talk.  I ramble on and on about art all the time!”

          “U-uh, well…”  Flandre had completely lost her train of thought.  Her eyes flickered back and forth from the bedsheets to Koishi.  If Koishi had saved her once…

          Koishi gave a little knowing exhale from her nose.  “But yeah, no, the ocean’s really beautiful…” Koishi said, the glaze of memory overtaking her eyes, “Me and my sister once lived in a house by the sea.  It was a really long time ago now, but wow did Sis hate the smell of the sea in the morning!  I still kinda miss it, though.  And sometimes in the mornings, when all the humans had their ships lined up at the docks and were unloading them—if you were sneaky enough and fast enough, you could usually snatch a couple fish without ‘em noticing!”

          And now Flandre had completely run out of things to talk about.  “Umm…  Ah…w-well, I’m sure that was fun, yeah…”

          “Ah.”  Koishi broke from her reverie, blinking.  “Does the ocean count as running water?”

          “N-no, it’s not that, it’s more like…”  Flandre said, giving a hesitant little flick of her wings.  “I’ve…never actually seen the ocean.  Just read about it.  Or heard about it.”

          “…what?!” Koishi blurted out, scooting a little closer to Flandre.  “You’re a vampire, right?  Like a youkai?  But you’ve never seen the ocean?”

          “Not expressly, no,” Flandre grimaced, curling her wings partly around herself in embarrassment.

          Koishi continued with her look of disbelief for a moment more, before switching gears and sinking her elbow into Moby with her hand to her chin.  She looked like that one thinking statue guy, only instead of sitting on a stone, she was sitting on a bed with her elbow on top of a big stuffed animal…  Flandre didn’t know if that last part ruined the effect or improved it.

          “Ah, I got it!” Koishi said. 

          Flandre could practically see the lightbulb going off inside her head.

          “I’ll take you to the ocean, Flandre!” Koishi cheered, a big happy smile on her face, sudden boundless energy radiating off her in waves.  She even struck a little half-pose, with one finger up in the air like one of those human cheerleaders from the Outside.

          And before Flandre could even get a word in, Koishi had crawled over to her and started talking in her face a mile-a-minute: “It’ll be so great!  We’ll go there and take it easy, and I’ll bring some beach chairs and drinks and snacks and stuff—oh, maybe we can even go fishing!  Do you like fishing?  Have you even gone fishing before?  Oh, but we don’t have rods, so maybe your sister has a fishing rod we could borrow—"

          “Wait, wait, wait!  Hold it, there’s no ocean in Gensokyo!”

          Koishi froze.  “Ah.”

          “Wait, I am right, aren’t I…?” Flandre muttered.

          But Koishi bounced back even quicker this time.  “Okay, new plan!  There’s a big salty lake in Former Hell, so if you squint really hard and don’t look up it kinda looks like the ocean, and there’s even fish in it—"

          “H-Hell?!  There’s a former one of those?!” Flandre blurted out, before shaking her head and raising her palms for mercy.  “Wait, Koishi, wait!  Just stop for a minute, okay?”

          Instantly, Koishi deflated.  “You don’t wanna go with me?” she mumbled.

          “It’s not that, it’s just…”  Ignoring for a second the logistics of planning a trip with someone she’d basically just met, Flandre couldn’t just…string her along.  She couldn’t just dodge it.  Koishi would have to know at some point, and even though the mere thought of making Koishi deflate like that again put a knife through her heart and twisted it, there wasn’t really a way around it.  So Flandre just put her head in her palms, gathering whatever courage she could even muster…

          “I don’t want to leave,” Flandre mumbled.

          “Hunh?  What do you mean?”

          “I don’t wanna leave my room.  Out there, in the main hall of the basement, with all the stone—that’s fine.  But I don’t wanna go past that too much.”

          “…oh.”  Koishi’s face visibly fell after that, which hurt.  But what hurt even more was the awful smile that came over her face—it wasn’t as deep or as violent as the one from before, but it carried the same sort of rejection, the same horrible resignation as that one had.

          “L-look, um, it’s really not that I don’t want to go with you, it’s just…” Flandre started saying, before she ran out of things to say that didn’t make what she’d said seem like even more of a lie.  What reason did Koishi have to believe her?  From the outside looking in, it was stupid!  What reason could she possibly have for not wanting to leave her room?  Anybody in their right mind would want to escape this place, this gloomy basement.  Especially after being down here for hundreds of years…

          Flandre never lied to anybody about it. 

          She just never gave them the whole truth.  It was easier that way—she didn’t ever have to worry about anybody dismissing her, or telling her how stupid and lazy she was.  It was just…easier.

          And with that in her heart, Flandre looked back to Koishi, half-expecting to see her already checked-out.  Ready to misunderstand her, leave with naught but a shrug, never to come back—

          But instead, she found Koishi lost in thought yet again.

          Koishi noticed Flandre staring at her, and gave a non-committal shrug.  “I get it.  No, I mean, I actually understand...”

          “…eh?”

          "Look, just lemme think…” Koishi said.

          Another lightbulb.  And Koishi turned back to Flandre with a magnetic confidence, the beginnings of a sly grin on her lips.  “Flandre, the first time we saw each other—that was in the foyer, right?  And after that was somewhere in the hallways?”

          Flandre grimaced, before letting out a long sigh.  “I mean, sometimes I go upstairs…  Only for special occasions, though.  Like, I was actually supposed to go to that dinner party you went to, but I chickened out at the last minute.”

          “Hm.  Okay…” Koishi said, nodding her head, the warmth of her trademark smile returning with each bob—and she came even closer to Flandre, leaning in and taking up her hands and gazing at her with those excited swirly eyes.  “Well, I for one think this counts as a special occasion!”

          “…eh?”

—

          Soon enough, they were walking together down the endless interior halls of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, vaguely towards the West wing.  They were in that limbo space of the mansion, past the commonly used halls, where the halls were all the same featureless, doorless corridors with beige hotel-ish wallpaper and deep, maroon carpeting, lit only by the flicker of magical candelabras.

          Back here, navigating properly was tricky.  Sakuya once tried to explain how it all worked, but even Flandre couldn’t understand.  Something about extra dimensions and non-Euclidian geometry.  But the gist of it was to treat the Mansion as if it were alive, a living, breathing thing—something that could sense your intentions and soul, and judge you accordingly…

          For Remi or Sakuya or even Patchy, its paths were short, pleasant, and cordial.

          To humans, it was ruthless.  Any human trying to enter the interior rooms of the Mansion, or heaven forbid the inner sanctums, would be left to wander in closed, beige hallways in circles for the rest of eternity—or until they died of thirst, whichever came first.

          Perhaps that was the reason why it felt like Flandre’s heart was about to explode in her chest—in a way, she wished it would, just so the whole thing would be over with.

          She felt, deep in her heart, she was doing something wrong. 

          Her skin crawled and her mouth was dry just thinking about it; something very bad when you knew the only thing standing between you and your destination was a magical Mansion staring at you with a thousand eyes…  Not that there was something wrong with that expressly, but…she just hoped she wouldn’t be misunderstood.  She only ever wanted to show Koishi the West wing…

          Rationalizing it—as she was prone to doing—Flandre had no reason to feel uncomfortable.  It was her mansion just as much as it was Remi’s, and the Mansion was perfectly cordial during her occasional visits to Patchy’s.  But still, walking this way without any escort, of (basically) her own accord, for no other reason than ‘she just wanted to’...  It felt weird.

          Though, now that she thought about it more, a lot of things she did were because ‘she just wanted to’…  Ah, the joys of rationalization.

          Thankfully, no one was in the kitchen when her and Koishi came up.  She expected to get swarmed by a thousand fairies the moment she opened the kitchen door, but there were none in sight.  Though, then again, there wasn’t a reason for anybody to be in this particular kitchen—it was the middle of the night, right in the middle of Flandre’s two meals of the day.  More surprisingly, they didn’t even run into Sakuya, even when they were travelling along the outer, more stable halls.  There were a couple fairies dusting picture frames and such, but they ran away in fear before they had a chance to notice Koishi.

          So really, she didn’t have a reason to be anxious.  Nobody had noticed them, and she was well within her rights.  But then again, that’s how anxiety was—Flandre never had a reason to be anxious, she just was.

          Of course, if Koishi was somehow aware of the dangers, she wasn’t showing it.  She seemed like she was having a great time, just bouncing along next to Flandre.  Like, literally bouncing.  It was kind of insane—at the drop of a hat, she’d summoned an incredible amount of energy out of nowhere.  Flandre envied her, in a way.  With just half of that energy, Flandre could probably take over the whole of Gensokyo…

          “…you sure bounce back quick,” Flandre said, just to break the silence.

          “Hmm?  Oh, I guess so!” Koishi replied.  “Well, I’ve been wanting to see this place ever since you mentioned it, ehehe…  Come to think of it, are we there yet?”

          They turned a corner, Flandre blinked, and the hallway ended in a set of double doors.  “Hmm.  Guess we are.  Funny how that works, isn’t it?”

          They were unmarked, and looked rather normal—but Flandre knew this Mansion well enough to notice the extra bit of ornamentation added on top of them. 

          Probably the right doors.

          “Alright, so I think this is it…” Flandre muttered, sending out a little thank-you prayer in her head to the Mansion.  She felt a little wobble in the Mansion’s background mana field—a tip of the hat, maybe? 

          And after enough stalling, Flandre opened the doors.

          The entrance hall of the West wing was an exhibit unto itself.  It struck her as cathedral-like, both in grandeur and proportion—three stories tall, the ceiling ribbed by fifty-foot steel arches, supported by pillars of limestone thick as her head.  It even smelled like a church—warm, old, a little musty yet still somehow inviting.  Mahogany benches with decadent maroon cushioning flanked the main floor, sitting atop big tiles of shining white marble.  Every available surface, limestone pillars to wrought-iron second-floor railings, dripped with excess.

          The back wall was taken up by a grand double-wide staircase, bannisters of gleaming marble thicker than her torso—it lead up to a mezzanine, before splitting in two.  The mezzanine wasn’t immune to the decorations, no—in fact, it held perhaps the gaudiest thing of all: a statue.  Flandre groaned; she already knew who it was of.

          But crucially, it was deserted.  Nobody to enjoy this room except for them.

          Koishi seemed immediately taken by it all—she let out a little gasp before pushing past Flandre, out into the hall. 

          Perhaps the most concerning thing were the giant skylights set into the ceiling.  Flandre winced unconsciously just looking at their rays of light, but something was wrong.  It was the middle of the night; there wouldn't be any natural light out even if she stepped outside.  Then it clicked.  They were artificial skylights, colored to resemble daylight.  Just so Remi could see her masterpiece properly...

          And so, Flandre just happened to be watching when Koishi wandered out into the center of the floor, just under the skylight…  And began to spin.

          Koishi, so taken with everything around her, began to whirl around, her face lit up with such sudden wonder that for a moment Flandre couldn’t even imagine it ever being any other way.

          Koishi stumbled a couple times, but with a laugh and a snort she threw her arms up and finally found her footing, and she could drink in every carving, every surface, every inch that caught her eye to her heart’s content.  In that moment, Koishi became a dancer—the marble her stage, the skylight her spotlight, and as she twirled the veins of her third eye seemed to puff out a little bit; her faded skirt hiked up a little bit past her knees, and it fluttered, the little frills catching the air so her skirt fanned out around her; and after a few moments, Koishi threw her head back and laughed, and in that moment she was beautiful—the loose curls of her hair bouncing, shining in that spotlight, the slightest blush of her cheeks, the soft curve of her chin down to her neck, the way her shoulders jumped as her laugh faded to snickers, as she covered her mouth with a hand, her lithe movements growing smoother, slower—

          And then it was over.

          Flandre blinked, crashing back to reality, as Koishi came to a rest with a flourish of her skirt.  She soon trotted back over, seemingly realizing she'd left Flandre by the door.

          Flandre wished Koishi could keep dancing forever, just like that.

          “Guess you like it, hunh?” Flandre said first, tamping her feelings down as best she could.

          “Flan, Flan!  This place is amazing!” Koishi grabbed Flandre’s hands and started shaking her arms near out of their sockets.  “Your sister built this?!  Your sister built a whole Beaux-Arts style museum in your house?!”

          “Uhhh…  Guess so, yeah…”  If only Koishi would start dancing again...

          If Flandre’s deadpan reaction affected Koishi at all, she sure as heck wasn’t showing it.  “How did your sister do all this?!  Where’d she get all the materials, and the architects, and the…the inspiration?!” she said, before some switch clicked in her mind and she grew weirdly introspective.  “Oh, well I guess it isn’t fully Beaux-Arts, because there are some neoclassical and even French classicism motifs in there, particularly in the arabesques and railings—ah!  M-my point is—we have nothing like this at Chireiden, nothing!”

          “Look, you’re gonna have to ask Remi about all that stuff…”

          Koishi seemed to deflate for a moment, before giving Flandre some puppy-dog eyes, as if to say, ‘please tell me something, anything’.

          “Okay, okay, you want my guess?  Our magician synthesizes it all from dirt or something, and Sakuya builds it with help from the fairy maids…” Flandre said.  “Besides, it’s not that special…”

          “Wh-what do you mean this isn’t special?!” Koishi said, grabbing Flandre’s shoulders.  “There’s literally nothing like this in all of Japan, and certainly not in Gensokyo!”

          “Go to Europe, then.  You'll bump into another one of these things every five feet.”

          “Y-you've been to Europe?!”

          “Koishi, I'm European…!  Isn't it obvious?” Flandre sighed, pushing past Koishi towards the main stairs, flicking her wings to signal she wasn’t about to play 20 Questions.  “Look, as far as I'm concerned, all this fancy stuff can stay in Europe.  I’ve seen enough of it to last a whole lifetime, and I’ve already had, like, three.”

          Koishi followed along, mock pouting.  “C’mon, Flannnn~  The arabesques on those pillars are so pretty...  And the iron beams!  And the skylights!  Maaaan, the only Western thing we have at home is some stained glass…”

          “At least there’s a point to stained glass.  Half of this stuff is just excess for the sake of it.  Like, I’d much rather look at a nice panel of stained glass that tells a story than—wait," Flandre said, stopping in her tracks at the foot of the mezzanine.  "What’d you just call me?”

          “…Flan?”

          “Flan.”

          “Flan!” Koishi repeated, a big smile on her face.  “I’ve decided that’s what I’m gonna call you…  Oh!  Um.  I-if you don’t mind, that is, ehehe…”  Koishi seemed to deflate at even the mere idea of Flandre disliking the name.

          “I mean, I don’t really mind.  Call me whatever you want, I guess.”

          “Oh, good!" Koishi said, clapping her hands softly.  "I thought it was a great nickname—short and cute.  It fits you really well!”

          Flandre felt a twinge in her chest from that one.  She felt her face reddening, and suddenly she found those floor tiles super interesting—

          Wait.  “H-hey, did you just call me short?!”

          Koishi didn’t give an answer to that, instead just running away and up the stairs, cackling like a kid who got caught for pulling a prank.

          “…why are you like this?” Flandre muttered to herself, suppressing a chuckle.

          By the time Flandre had trudged up the stairs, Koishi was apparently off the subject, as her attention had been taken by the massive bronze statue on the mezzanine.  Koishi flitted about it with silent interest.

          Flandre sighed.

          It was indeed a statue of Remilia.  Thrice life size, a dark, worn bronze, eternally still and standing at attention.  Clad in plate armor, scratched and dented; the statue even held a bronze Gungnir, tip to the air, pommel to the ground.  The statue was a replica, a sightless, colorless replica…

          A testament to Remilia's final victory.

          Even without the colors, a rush of memories overtook Flandre, and suddenly she pictured Remilia as she once was—standing in shining armor of silver alloy, its mirror-like plates smeared opaque with scarlet blood, Gungnir poised and held in front of her and dripping with flame, pointed towards that final victory.  But even though she won, clad in her own weakness...  She forgot...surely, it was so long...yes, Remilia simply forgot...

          No.  No, we're not...we're not doing that.  Not in front of Koishi.

          She had to scream at herself in her own head, before her thoughts ran away from her,before they spiralled out of her control—Flandre looked away and poked her lip with her fang, the little pinprick bringing her mind back to focus.  She’d been down memory lane too many times before in her head, and she wasn’t about to let her own stupidity drag Koishi down even more.  Not in front of Koishi, Flandre repeated.  Don't you slip, don't you dare let anything slip...

          Things are different now, Flandre told herself, assured herself.  We won.  Get over it.

          But then, as she stood next to Koishi, Flandre heard something.  Something barely a whisper, something so light she had to strain to hear it.  She only seemed to catch the tail end…

          “…did you already forget?” Koishi seemed to whisper.  “Is it just not that important to you…?”

          “Wh-what?  What?” Flandre blurted out.  Flandre whirled towards Koishi, who similarly jumped.  They suddenly looked at each other in seemingly mutual confusion.

          “What, Flan?  Is everything okay?” Koishi said.

          Flandre blinked at her for a few moments, before narrowing her eyes.  “What did you just say?  Was it at me?”

          “Hunh?”  Koishi’s eyes seemed to widen for a moment, before they seemed to double down on their confusion.  Koishi simply shook her head.  “I didn’t say anything…?  This statue’s really cool, though!  Do you know who it’s of?”

          Looking at her, searching her face yet finding nothing, Flandre’s brain flailed around in a thousand different directions.  Does she know?  N-no, she totally didn’t say anything, I just hallucinated again, or, or—

          And suddenly, Koishi leaned in and poked Flandre’s nose.

          Flandre’s thoughts shattered again as she squeaked and jumped back clutching her nose, instinctively hugging herself with her jangly wings.

          “You’re in your head too much, Flan,” Koishi chirped.  “Now, c’mon.  I wanna go see some art!”

Chapter Text

          VI

          Did you already forget…? 

          Surely, if Koishi had really said that, she’d be showing some sign of being bothered by it, right?  Flandre had no idea what she could’ve possibly forgotten about, but maybe it just wasn’t important enough to be worth remembering?

          Either way, Flandre wasn’t going to ask. 

          But Koishi didn’t seem bothered by it much either.  Maybe Flandre really had been hearing things after all?  But now she was curious, so she was left just stealing glances at Koishi’s face as they slowly wandered up the stairs to the second-floor galleries, like some sort of weirdo.

          What could it possibly be?  That thing, that one forgotten thing…  Over and over the question roiled her brain.  Had Koishi noticed something about Flandre she disliked?  Was she regretting agreeing to come along?  Was she not having fun?  No, that’s not possible, she’s smiling—and besides, she would’ve just left already if she didn’t want to be here!  Flandre tried to tell herself that, but that didn’t stop the cogs from turning in her head, nor from the first licks of anxiety from creeping up in her chest again.

          All of this to say—Flandre didn’t notice they’d reached the top step. 

          She put up one foot too high, and she came down with all her weight on the worn-slick sole of her flat, and she looked down at her foot just as it slid out from under her, and then she was falling—

          And suddenly there was a hand under her arm. 

          Right under the puff sleeve of her dress, a hand, gently holding her up.

          With a twitch of her wings she gave an embarrassed squeak and righted herself at the top of the stairs, whirling around, as a string of apologies fell from her mouth and anxious heat pooled in the front of her head—

          Their eyes met, yet again, and Koishi smiled.

          The two of them held other’s gaze for a moment, then two, then longer, and suddenly it all felt so different, so strange; just the slight lingering afterimage of Koishi’s hand on her arm felt so strange now, as if burned into her skin; now snapshots of Koishi’s dance fluttered through her head, rendered warmer, sweeter through memory.  Koishi broke away first into a silent chuckle, her smile growing wide enough to flash a little snaggletooth as she laughed, and suddenly Flandre was transfixed anew—transfixed by this little hidden island of imperfection within Koishi. 

          Only one wayward tooth, yet somehow, Flandre was captivated all the more.

          Koishi didn’t say a word, not a word.  She just motioned for Flandre’s hand—and when Flandre was too dazed to give it to her immediately, she just stepped forward and ran her own hand down Flandre’s arm, slowly, starting from the spot in which Koishi had held her up all the way down to Flandre’s hand.

          And together they walked into the upstairs gallery hand-in-hand.

          Past the grand hall lay the galleries—miles and miles of them, all interconnected, all the functionally the same.  Each rectangular with bland, whitewashed walls, lit by the same daylight-toned artificial skylights, floors of light, neutral birchwood.  Cold, severe, endless rooms—the rooms themselves weren’t particularly inviting.

          But they weren’t there for the rooms.

          For the two of them were surrounded by an endless archive of human expression, and they had it all to themselves.

          The first room, right off the main hall, held Greco-Roman era art—thickly muscled men, faces sharp in silent, frozen exertion; reclining women, their models long dead and gone.  Bronzes of all sorts, rhapsodies in fresco, at once pious yet lavish, reveling in their maximalism.  It seemed the Romans had adorned every surface with one of their many gods—old gods, dead gods, young gods, living gods; the magic of some still came through, old and frail and reeking of age, the magic of gods left forgotten, faithless yet clinging on to life by a scribble on a pot, or a wide-eyed relief, or a single, moss-pitted idol.  Beings that were not of Gensokyo, whose names held no power nor presence here—beings who, perhaps in another world, would still hold a life of their very own.

          Immediately, Koishi was off like a shot, dragging Flandre along.  She ran up to the nearest statue, one of Venus, and gazed up at it lovingly, chattering away about something or another.  Something-something about an old god on life support, one only ever worshipped in history books.

          It was here, surrounded by statues, Flandre felt strangest of all.

          Only a few weeks ago, none of this would’ve meant anything to her.  She wouldn’t have cared at all.  Heck, even yesterday, she wouldn’t have cared.  But now…

          …no.  Even now, she didn’t really care.  She saw nothing in these statues or these frescoes.  Nothing for her, anyway.  She liked books.  Stories.  Poems.  Facts, sometimes.  Art was nice—pretty, even—but too romantic, too pithy.  She’d always thought art was for the Remis of the world, those too caught up in sending a message to actually enjoy it for its own sake.  Pretty, but pointless.

          But now, Flandre turned to Koishi and saw that sparkle in her eyes, felt the vestiges of Koishi’s touch on her skin, and she got the feeling like maybe she understood things a little better.  So Flandre listened, she listened to Koishi as best she possibly could, tamping down thoughts of things forgotten, letting them stay forgotten.

          Maybe forgetting wasn’t so bad.

—

          “Flan, Flan!  Come here, look at this!  Isn’t it pretty?”

          “…right.”

          Frankly, Flandre had no idea what she was looking at.

          She could certainly describe it. And, well, it was a painting.  In it, a throng of people gathered around a ridiculously detailed tree in the foreground, while a couple of cherubs flitted about above their heads; even more were climbing the sails of a strange ship in the background…

          “It’s…really something, Koi…” Flandre said, wingtips drooping.  “I mean, it’s really pretty.”  Not technically a lie.

          “So it’s definitely early, definitely Watteau…  It’s using his later composition style, but the colors are more muted and I swear some of the poses are different.  But this is definitely Pilgrimage to Cythera…  Wait, did he even make a fourth version?  Or is it a study?”

          Flandre gave Koishi a side-eye glance.  “A fourth?  He made four of them?”

          “W-well, I thought there were only three, but I guess not…  Okay, but no—lemme tell you the story, cuz it’s a good one, okay!  Because it’s this series that practically defined Rocaille as a genre—okay, maybe more like helped but that’s not my point . . . ”

          If there was one thing Flandre had learned over the last couple hours, it was that Koishi was very good at keeping herself busy.  Not unlike Flandre herself—Flandre was, out of necessity, a master at finding things to do with herself.  Not a bad skill to have, all things considered.

          …actually, now that she thought about it, they did share quite a few similarities?  Koishi was obviously the sort to ramble on about things she liked—so was Flandre.  But Flandre usually got that impulse out by rambling to her stuffed animals (or to Sakuya, built-in captive audience there), so she mostly held it in around other people.  Plus, like Flandre, Koishi seemed to have an oblivious streak—for someone as perceptive as her, you’d think she’d notice Flandre’s eyes glazing over on the fourteenth minute of an explanation about the history of flower motifs in Western art.

          “. . . and so he kept procrastinating this one stupid painting for years, even though everyone knew he was super talented and totally could do it, but . . .”

          But then it occurred to her—maybe Koishi didn’t have an outlet for that at home.  She’d already said once that her sister didn’t let her talk much…  What sort of sister—

          No.  Don’t think about it.  Only happy thoughts, tonight.  Flandre thought, with a new sense of resolve.  For Koishi.

          Besides, even if the topics Koishi rambled about were kind of boring (Flandre preferred gloomy haunted castles to French rose gardens), that wasn’t necessarily bad.  Because Flandre got to watch that cute sparkle in her eye as she talked a mile a minute—that was its own reward.  So usually, Flandre just ended up listening to the whole thing anyway.

          “…and instead of rejecting him, they just made up a whole new genre for him!” Koishi gushed.  “Isn’t that cool!  Being so good at something they make up a new category for your work?!  Especially something that later became an integral part of the whole Rocaille aesthetic for the next 30 years!”

          “W-wait…that whole aesthetic of people lazing around outside in rose gardens and stuff was started by Watteau?  …Fête galante, right?  That’s what you said?”

          “Yeah, Flan!  You really were listening!” Koishi giggled.

          “Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm!” Flandre said, looking not-a-bit smug.

          Just then, Koishi’s eyes began to wander off the canvas in front of them, and from across the room she spied another painting off on the other side of the room.  “Ooh, Flan, is that what I think it is?” she chirped, and she was off like a dog after a squirrel.

          Flandre broke into a sigh, and started slowly wandering after her with her hands tucked behind her back, her wings neatly folded behind her.  Koishi, at her most energetic, felt more like a cartoon character than a person sometimes…

          But that was okay.  Here, that was okay.

          As Flandre ambled after her, she let her mind wander too—and her attention turned from the paintings back to the museum surrounding them.

          The room around them was still the same as it was a few hours ago—austere white walls, the smell of age and lemon floor cleaner, the artificial daylight lamps above their heads.  They’d spent this entire time walking from one plain gallery to another, the only differences between them being the rooms’ contents.  From one room to the next, stoic Greek marbles turned to pious Renaissance statues, maximalist Roman frescoes to austere Realist scenes, minimalist American photography to lavish Baroque paintings—each new room garnered a new giggle from Koishi.  Which meant Flandre bore witness to more adorable breathless monologues, more racing around looking at things, more floppy sleeve flapping.  Flandre loved the museum just as much as Koishi did—though for quite different reasons.

          So, all was well. Except for one thing. One tiny thing bugged her—Flandre had no idea how it all worked.

          And Flandre liked to know things.  There was a certain comfort, a certain power in knowing things—knowing something meant it couldn’t surprise you anymore.

          And there was definitely something more here, hidden beneath acres of whitewashed drywall.  Flandre could feel the otherworldly complexity of the magic making this place function—there was a feeling of tension in the air, a feeling of power.  She could feel the hum of a vast web of runes just beneath the marble tiles, feel the intense magical field running behind the very walls—tensed as if they were muscles, hidden, yet pulled taut under the skin.  What else but a curation algorithm would throw this much processing power around?

          A curation algorithm was at the heart of all this, sure—but what about the rest?  In this case, the museum bit was only the front-end—behind it, maybe embedded in the walls—were a series of teleport interfaces to handle placement of the art as they moved from room to room.  The curation algorithm itself just pulled from Remi’s private collection (something that only ballooned in size with the move to Gensokyo). 

          And boom.  Bob’s your uncle.  Infinite museum.

          Flandre flicked her jangly wings in self-satisfaction for figuring it all out.  Of course, all of this is much easier said than done.

          Any algorithm on scale of this museum would take a ridiculous amount of magic power, and magic prowess, to accomplish.  The heart of the Mansion may have provided the power, and maybe Sakuya provided the design and idea, but the underlying handiwork was surely Patchy’s. 

          From one witch to another—this place was pretty impressive.  Patchy was smarter than Flandre gave her credit for.

          But really, though—creating an automatic curation algorithm solely in runes and chalk lines must’ve been painstaking.  Dozens of runic sensors, all working in tandem, feeding the algorithm dozens of information streams at once: they probably had to measure fluctuations in blood pressure, heart rate, brain waves, respiration rate, minute fluctuations in a person’s mana field—the possibilities were endless.

          Maybe it could even read your mind!

          Flandre laughed to herself.  Surely, if there was a way compose a rune that your read your mind, Patchy would’ve thought of it.  It wasn’t that far off from what the mansion did anyway—the mansion’s automagical hallways primarily functioned by reading your intentions, as long as you kept them in your conscious mind.  Maybe Patchy lifted some of the same forms from the old auto-hallway constructs?

          Honestly, it felt like everything in this stupid mansion read her mind nowadays.  For a long time, it was just the hallways, but ever since the move Patchy seemed to become newly obsessed with automation of things that really didn’t need to be automated.  Things like lamps that would turn themselves on for convenience’s sake, faucets that would run the bath for you at a certain time of day—annoying stuff.  But it’s not like Flandre really thought about it all that much.

          What was the mansion gonna do, tell her off for reading too many trashy horror novels?  If it tried, she’d just crush it in her fist and be done with the whole thing.

          Running with that theory, that the curation algorithm was somehow reading their minds—it all made a lot more sense.  Maybe it was just reading Koishi’s mind (which Flandre was more than fine with), and that’s how it was creating all these rooms.  That was probably the best use for the magic she could think of; it felt like they were pioneers, venturing off into an artistic free-for-all, guided forward by the mansion’s occult hand.  Cool, if ultimately pointless, stuff.

          Speaking of—where was Koishi, anyway?

          Flandre blinked back to reality.  Flandre had gotten pretty far away from Koishi, as it seemed—Koishi was off on the other side of the room.  She was motionless, entranced anew by another painting—eyes wide as saucers, arms splayed out to her sides like an excitable kid again.

          And suddenly, looking at Koishi just enjoying herself, Flandre couldn’t help but feel like she was doing this “art museum” thing a bit…wrong.  Leave it to Flandre to walk around an art museum of infinite possibilities while not looking at art and instead analyzing the thaumaturgical makeup of the museum’s various magical trickeries.  Talk about enjoying the moment.

          Well, whatever.

          Flandre let out a yawn, stretched her arms and her wings (wing cramps were a special kind of suck), and sidled over to Koishi, ready and waiting for yet another monologue about 18^th century French court ethics or something.

          Instead, all she got was silence.

          “Koishi?  You okay?” Flandre said, tapping Koishi on the shoulder.

          Koishi jumped a little.  She stole a quick glance at Flandre, who saw straight through her—Koishi was blushing.  Blushing, and trying to hide it.

          “What’s got you so speechless, hunh?” Flandre laughed.  “You’ve been staring at this one painting for, like, five minutes.”

          Flandre properly looked up, then, and she too fell silent.

          It was only two people this time.  A man and a woman, surrounded by pink rosebushes not-quite-in-bloom—the man, crouching atop a garden wall next to his ladder, staying low and staring offscreen; the woman kneeling on a patch of grass, arm outstretched and body frozen.  It was a furtive meeting, passionate and quick, yet seemingly interrupted by someone else—the man looks about ready to dive off the back wall, the woman ready to get up and push him off the damn wall if he doesn’t leave.

          Above them stood a statue of Venus, holding back Cupid from firing his bow down at them…

          “Umm…  This isn’t…  This is by Fragonard, one of the great masters of Rococo…” Koishi mumbled.  “Th-the original painting wasn’t like this, uhm, the bushes aren’t super defined in this one so maybe it’s some sort of color draft…”

          Flandre could feel heat pooling her face now.  “Oh yeah?  That’s Cupid, and that’s Venus?”

          “Mhmm,” Koishi said, her gaze slowly falling to her shoes.  She looked a little flustered.  A little scared, again.

          Flandre scooted a little closer to Koishi, sparks dancing along the back of her skull.  “So, what’s it about?” she said.

          “W-well, it’s the second in a series of paintings for a lady named Madame du Barry.  A-and she had a lot of power, you know, she was the maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XV, so she was a big deal…”

          “Uh-huh…” Flandre said, drawing closer still to Koishi.

          “And she had this series of paintings commissioned for her villa, called The Progress of Love, by one of the greatest painters of the time…  But she didn’t accept them.  Maybe they weren’t the same style as her villa, or maybe just didn’t like them…”

          “Hunh.  It’s a series,” Flandre said.  “So which one in the series is this?”

          “Uhm, well…  This is the second one, The Meeting—she turns him away in the first one.  They don’t see each other for awhile, not until this one where they meet in secret.”

          “So why do you think she let him see her again?”  Flandre’s response was immediate.

          Koishi paused for a moment.  “Maybe, after she turned him away, she kept thinking about him,” she said, her voice lower, smoother, “She kept thinking about him until the reasons why she turned him away in the first place suddenly seemed so trivial in comparison.”

          Without a word, Flandre came even closer still, close enough that her puff sleeve brushed Koishi’s shoulder, close enough that Flandre could feel Koishi’s very presence buzzing on her skin.

          “And maybe she regretted turning him away,” Koishi said.  “Maybe she regretted it so much that she couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again, never being able to glimpse what could’ve been,” Koishi whispered.  “And maybe she was so happy when they saw each other again that she felt her heart was going to explode.”

          “Hehe…” Flandre giggled under her breath.  “Maybe he felt that way too.  Maybe he couldn’t stop thinking about her either, no matter how hard he tried, so he was left just thinking round and round in circles convinced he’d blown his one and only chance to talk to her.”

          “Maybe she couldn’t believe her ears when, even after all that, he still helped her when she needed it.”

          “He was just happy he got the chance to help her in the first place.”

          “And maybe they don’t know very much about each other.”

          “But they’ll learn soon enough.”

          “And maybe they’re not supposed to be seeing each other.”

          “So they’ll see each other in secret.”

          “And maybe they like being together so much that nothing else really matters anymore,” Koishi whispered.

          “Yeah,” Flandre said.  “Nothing else really matters anymore.”

          They fell silent, then, gazing up at the painting before them.  Slowly, gently, Flandre curled her arm around Koishi’s, that newfound electric warmth dancing across her skin.  Flandre then slipped into Koishi’s hand, teasing apart her fingers and filling the spaces with her own until they stood side-by-side holding hands, intertwined in just that small way.       

          Koishi didn’t stop her.  Didn’t move away.  Koishi didn’t even seem to breathe as Flandre did it—neither did Flandre, for that matter, as if something as fragile as a breath could break the parts of themselves they’d let slip, and the feelings they now shared.

          Flandre didn’t move any further than that.  Didn’t press any further than that hand-clasp.  But they stayed like that for a long, long time.

—

          Flandre wished these moments would last forever. 

          That they could just keep wandering the museum, talking and laughing and infodumping each other and looking at weird art and carrying jokes on way too long, in that precious time where there was an infinite number of little things to notice, of ways to get closer to one another.  When time seemed so long; when the dawn seemed so far away.

          Koishi, when she was lost in thought, liked to curl a lock of her hair around her finger.  Koishi, when Flandre made her laugh really hard, did this weird sharp, snorting sort of inhale, that only ever seemed to make both of them laugh harder.  Koishi, when she had something to say, poked this one spot on Flandre’s shoulder, as if it were the only place she knew she was allowed to touch.  Koishi, when she’d start teasing Flandre about something or another, always gave this special, lopsided grin, letting just the tip of her snaggletooth poke out between her lips as if to say, “just joking”.

          And it felt effortless, all so effortless—as automatic as stolen glances, bitten lips, the brush of their fingers together as they walked.  Long, looping conversations about nothing—about the sort of foods they liked, the books they liked, the art they liked, the sort of loves they liked, in art or music or books or otherwise—talking to Koishi felt so effortless.

          Because Koishi listened.  Even when Flandre rambled on about some weird fact she’d read in a book somewhere, Koishi was always listening.  Making little comments or laughing sometimes just to show she was still there, still paying attention.  And when they hit on something neither could talk about, and there was a moment of awkward silence—Koishi would just do something goofy and just blow past that awkwardness as if it was never even there.

          Flandre never knew just how fun a simple conversation could be.  How fun it could be, even when they were just sharing little bits and pieces of themselves, wandering through galleries aimlessly.  Because, even though they were where they were—maybe it wasn’t just about the art after all.

          Flandre found herself dumbfounded by this girl, who’d only a little while ago seemed so different—so vulnerable and broken, yet now was here excitedly telling her all about how Arthurian legend influenced the culture of 14th century Burgundy.  She may as well have been a completely different person.

          Flandre couldn’t remember exactly when the moment was—the moment she first felt that twinge in her chest.  Maybe it was with those first stilted attempts at conversation back in her room, or it was the image of Koishi dancing in the center of that room, or it was when Koishi caught her on the stairs, or when they stood in front of that Fragonard painting holding hands—or even way back then, what felt like years ago, upon seeing that first sparkle in Koishi’s eyes when she was looking at the fox hunt.  She couldn’t remember.

          But there wasn’t any doubt anymore.  She knew what it was.

          And she refused to admit it.  As if giving it a label would somehow diminish that feeling, kill the sanctity of it, the purity of it; as if giving it a label would limit the sudden, wild, impossible feelings welling up in her chest.

—

          Alas—all good things must come to an end.

          The two of them had found their way out of the infinite museums, and were now hanging over the ornate iron railing of the second story hall.  Koishi stood staring blankly off into the empty air of the grand hall, all three eyes half-lidded and droopy.  She wasn’t used to staying up all night.

          Truthfully, Flandre was scared.  Scared that whatever fragile, nameless thing that they had shared tonight would be gone come morn, turned to a puff of smoke with the light of the sun.  So, for now, she just came a little closer to Koishi and touched her arm again, searing that last little bit of Koishi’s warmth into her brain so she could never forget.

          “So you…you have a long walk home?” Flandre muttered.  Her mind was whirling for something to say, something else to say that would keep Koishi here with her forever.  But she couldn’t come up with anything else, not anything that seemed important enough.

          “Not that long.  A half hour.”

          “Sounds long to me…” Flandre replied.  “Though I guess everything sounds long to me.  I can’t even imagine a half hour of just walking.”

          “Hehe.  It can be nice, especially in the morning as the sun’s coming up.  You get this chill from the wind, and all the birds are singing their morning songs, and you smell the dew in the grass…” Koishi said, trailing off as if trying to convince herself just as much as Flandre.

          “…are you sure you don’t want to stay over?”

          Koishi went silent for a little while.

          “No, it’s okay,” she said.  “My sister doesn’t like me being out this late.  If I don’t come home, she’ll find out for sure.”

          “Oh,” Flandre said, slumping down a little and resting her chin on her arms, held up by the railing.  “…is your sister nice, at least?”

          “I have nothing to complain about.”

          “Ah.”  Somehow, that felt like a lie too.  In her silence, Flandre could practically feel the words jumbled up behind Koishi’s pursed lips, all there just beneath the surface…  So she didn’t push further. 

          Sooner would Flandre let the two of them fall into silence than push further.

          “Hey, Flan…?” Koishi said out of the blue.  “Can I ask you something?”

          Flandre blinked back to reality.  “Sure.”

          “You didn’t see anything today you really liked, did you?”

          Flandre froze.  Oh no.

          “I-I mean, some of those Rocaille paintings were pretty cool…  Like the one with the guy visiting his forbidden love out in his garden, yeah!  That one really sticks out,” she said.  “A-and not just because of the, y’know, the thing afterwards.”

          Koishi rolled her eyes at that and giggled.  “No, dumb-dumb, I mean things you like on your own!  Not things you like just because I like them,” Koishi said, turning her head towards Flandre with her cheek resting on her hand.

          She was smiling, but her eyes looked as if they could bore into Flandre’s very soul.

          Flandre could feel heat rising to her cheeks, something that only made her more flustered.  “…guess I just prefer gloomier stuff, I dunno…?”

          “Hmm…”  Koishi’s smile dropped, and she turned her head to look out over the railing again.  Flandre felt a burst of cold chills run up her spine.

          Hmm?!  Flandre shivered.  What does ‘hmm’ mean?!  “N-n-no, I-I mean, it’s not like I didn’t have a fun time,” Flandre said.  “I had a great time, uh, with you…  So I’m happy to do it all again, if you want…”

          “No, no, that’s really not what I’m asking…” Koishi said, chewing on her lip.  “Lemme try this a different way.”

          “Wh-what else could you possibly be asking?!” Flandre whined.  “I’m stupid, remember, so you gotta explain things a little better…”

          “Flan.”  With that one word, a little playful smile suddenly came over Koishi’s face, even as the tone of her voice turned as serious as Flandre had ever heard it.  “Earlier, when I was crying, and you helped me…  You could’ve just shooed me away, or just thrown me out, but instead you showed me the most wonderful museum and spent so much time with me, even though you’d probably rather have spent your evening doing anything else.  So I guess my question is…why?”

          “Why what?!” Flandre squeaked.  “How could I ever have thrown you out looking like that?!”

          “You looked like you were going to for awhile there.”

          “Y-yeah, before you started crying!  Even I’m not that much of a monster…”

          “Aww, c’mon.  You’re not a monster at all.”

          “Am too!  I’m the devil’s little sister, you know?!” Flandre said, pumping her arms, flexing non-existent muscles.  “It’s much more impressive when I turn my flame magic on, I swear.”

          Koishi just giggled at her, to her face.  “Suuuure.  I believe you.”

          “Hey, don’t you tempt fate!” Flandre hissed.  “I’ll have you know—back in our prime, me and my sister were feared all across the land!  We could walk into castles and wipe out whole garrisons of men just by ourselves!  The Scarlets were invincible, you know?”

          “Well, if you’re such a hardened monster, Flan, why concern yourself with someone…like me?” Koishi said, her voice faltering on the last two words.

          Flandre blinked, staring at Koishi for a second before speaking.  “Why wouldn’t I?” Flandre said.  “Unless,” her gaze suddenly sharpening, “you wanted me to just leave you there, crying your eyes out and looking like death warmed over?  Even us monsters have standards, you know.”

          Koishi didn’t answer immediately. 

          Instead, her grin only widened, and broke into a low chuckle.  She hung over the railing, leaning over it and laughing like she was letting out a breath held so long it hurt.

          “Wh-what?  What’s so funny?!” Flandre whined.

          “No way…  No way, you actually forgot…” Koishi muttered between laughs and breaths.  “What sort of person could…?”

          “There that is again!  So you really did say it that one time—what’d I forget?  What could I possibly be forgetting?!”

          “Not telling!  You’ll have to figure that one out on your own, Flan!” Koishi said, gently patting the pinkish third eye floating in front of her chest.

          “Muuuu~” Flandre felt that heat rising in her cheeks again, getting the distinct impression she was being made fun of.  “W-well, why are you concerning yourself with someone like me?” Flandre blurted out, as harshly as she could manage with her squeaky voice.  “Why are you spending your time showing me all this stuff I can’t appreciate?  Why are you spending your time with me, of all people?  I’m sure you have tons more friends, people who are way easier to talk to about this stuff than stupid-stupid dumb-dumb me!”

           “Oh yeah?  You wanna know why I’m concerning myself with you?” Koishi said, her voice low, even.  “Well, I guess I have to be blunt about it, since even after everything we did tonight you still don’t seem to get it…” Koishi said, straightening and turning to face Flandre.

          Flandre only watched her do it, every part of her body suddenly frozen in rapt attention, peering into Koishi’s emerald eyes.  Koishi suddenly came closer, just a little closer, throwing her arms over Flandre’s shoulders and leaning in closer still.

          And she got closer until she had filled Flandre’s vision, until she was the only Flandre could see, now Koishi was leaning down and in and over her so Flandre could feel the little curls of Koishi’s breath on her cheeks—

          “I like you too.”

          Koishi’s very voice sent shivers down Flandre’s spine.  Low yet pointed, those four little words sunk into Flandre’s heart, vibrating through her spine until it hit her head, and all of a sudden she felt heat pooling in her cheeks and she felt naked, so naked now that she couldn’t hold it in anymore—her only recourse was to bury her face in her hands, like an ostrich under the sand.

          Koishi, for her piece, broke away blushing like a maniac too, apologies spilling from her lips between breaths.  She even stepped a ways back from the railing, twirling on her heel with all the sudden, athletic grace of a dancer.

          “What are you…  What are you doing…?” Flandre said, her voice small and muffled from hiding behind her hands.  “You’re the real idiot here…”

          Koishi just giggled again.  “Sorry, sorry—I didn’t mean to be so gloomy before.  But maybe you like me better that way, who knows~!  Betcha didn’t think this’d happen when you helped me, hunh?”

          “Yeah, what a…what a night…”  Flandre finally felt herself calming down now, hissing a little through her teeth to try and drown out the sound of blood rushing through her head.  She couldn’t think; her head was filled with warm fuzz.

          “But more to the point—I want you to have fun, too!” Koishi said, clasping her hands behind her back, swaying in time to invisible music.  “If you don’t like something, or you’re not having fun, I want you to say so!”

          “Mmph…”

          “And that’s why I think, next time, we should try and do something that you like to do,” Koishi said.  “Whatever you want, I’ll go along with it!  Since you went along with me!  Deal?”

          Flandre peered out from between the cracks of her fingers.  Koishi had stuck out her hand.

          Flandre didn’t take it.  Only stared down at it.

          “Uhm…  Next time?”

          “Well, unless you don’t wanna, I guess…?” Koishi said, cocking her head with her finger up to her lips, looking as if the idea of “no next time” hadn’t even really occurred to her. 

          But another moment passed in silence between them.  Then two, then three.  Koishi’s smile faltered for the first time.  Just for a moment, until she seemed to realize it and had to put effort into maintaining it.

          Flandre’s heart couldn’t bear seeing that.  She had to speak.  Force something out, some sort of word out that would set things straight, make that thumping in her chest quiet down so she could think—

          “N-no, it’s just…  It’s just, this is so…sudden?” Flandre mumbled.  “S-sudden, yeah, that’s it…”  Flandre slid her hands down from her reddened face, and soon they were down at the lace of her undershirt, picking at the knots with the tips of her nails.

          Koishi retracted her hand.  She, too, held her hands at her waist, rubbing one of the cords of her third eye between her fingers.

          “I think I…I think I understand things now.  Uhm…  Look, it’s not you, it’s really not—” Flandre started, before realizing that’s exactly what people said when they were turning someone down, and she really, really didn’t want to do that—

          Her words choked her, but Flandre kept going.  “B-but I can’t give you…give you the answer you deserve right now.  I just…can’t?”

          Koishi stayed silent.

          Flandre felt herself beginning to panic.  She couldn’t mess this up.  She couldn’t mess this up—anything else, sure, but not this.  And she already was, she knew she was.  Because when she glanced up at Koishi, looking up from the floor into her shining emerald eyes—right behind their sparkling green was that thousand-yard-stare again, she knew it, even though Koishi was trying to hide it from her, trying to still smile—

          “Three days!” Flandre blurted out.

          “Hunh?”

          “Give me three days!  That’s all I need, I promise!” Flandre said, her words coming out so fast as to blend together into one breathless jumble.

          “What are you—”

          “Please!”  Flandre said, squeezing her eyes shut, clapping her hands together and breaking into a deep bow.  “I really liked spending time with you tonight, Koishi, and I really want to see you again!  S-so please, can you come back the same time you did tonight?”

          Koishi just blinked at her, confusion crossing her face.  “Uhm…sure?  I don’t mind at—"

          Oh god, no, I’m bowing like this to a Japanese person, what am I doing, the thought came racing through Flandre’s head.  So she got up and darted forward and took up Koishi’s hands and held them between her own, getting up as close as she dared and peered into Koishi’s eyes, hoping, praying that Koishi wouldn’t misunderstand her, wouldn’t misunderstand her and leave for good—

          “Please come back.  I want to show you…I want to you to see me.  For real, this time, so please…” Flandre said, peering right up into those sparkling, emerald eyes.  “And then, at the end of it all, if you still feel the same way…  I can give you my answer.”

          They stood like that for a moment more, face to face, eyes to eyes, both silent.

          Each beat of Flandre’s heart felt like its own little eternity.

          But then, Koishi smiled, and she nodded, and all the panic in Flandre’s heart washed away in a blissful, warm wave.

          “Of course, Flan.  I’ll come back,” Koishi said.  “I promise.”

—

          How was it possible to feel this way?

          Flandre couldn’t understand it.

          Laying here in the pitch-black of her room, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, still sleepless hours after what should’ve been her bedtime—her brain was still spinning its wheels, trying to parse what she was feeling.  Trying to process it into something that made sense.

          She hadn’t bothered doing much of anything after getting back to her room, after seeing Koishi off.  Flandre distinctly remembered barging through the door, throwing her hat across the room like a frisbee, shutting the lights, and collapsing backwards onto her bed.

          She laid there for a long time, in silence—no, it was a retreat back to silence, a silence that seemed so deafening now that she’d experienced the opposite.  Her entire body felt like jelly, her limbs numb and sparkly, her chest and neck was a pool of sweat, but her heart was still firing a 21-gun salute in her head.   

          Flandre glanced at the grandfather clock—almost 5 in the morning.  It was probably past sunrise right now.  She pictured the salmon-streaked sky, the greenery, the cool, dewy wind blowing along the road…

          Koishi would be walking home right about now.  Flandre had no idea if she was close to home yet or not, or even where her home was—but she hoped Koishi didn’t have a long walk home.  And for a moment, she pictured Koishi there in her daydream, walking by the side of the road with her hand out, white wildflowers brushing along her fingertips, all smiles—

          Flandre caught herself smiling along with the Koishi in her dream.

          It felt like whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see now was Koishi—Koishi’s lithe, graceful dance, her little airy giggle, the curve of her neck peeking through when she flipped her hair back, the way she pet her eye or curled her hair when she was thinking or nervous, the way she walked, the way she talked, the look in her sparkly eyes when she said the words “I like you”—

          Flandre couldn’t contain herself anymore.  Suddenly a wave of energy came over her body, and she grabbed a pillow and squealed and laughing into it, kicking her legs against the bed.

          It’s not like she didn’t know what it was.

          She was a little naïve, but she wasn’t stupid.  She’d read more than enough sappy romance books to know what it was supposed to feel like.  She’d tried to keep it unlabelled it in her head; afraid that the sanctity, the purity, the enormity of what she felt would somehow be done a disservice, somehow diminished by just the comparison.  But now, wrapped in the comforting darkness and silence of that room, she could only think of it as one thing.

          It was love.

          Flandre Scarlet was in love. 

          She’d been alive for 524 years—never did she think she could ever fall in love.  Sure, 495 of those had been spent in a basement of some description, so not much opportunity for it.  But then again, it’s not like she’d never interacted with people outside of her family before, it’s just... 

          When she’d read about it in books, read about what love felt like, what it did to a person—she’d always be so captivated by it.  And then she’d finish the book and she’d sit there and laugh, laugh at the stupidity of it, at the irrationality of it all the while swearing it would never happen to her.  That it could never happen to her.  There was no one on the face of this Earth she could truly love.

          Maybe that always was just a defense mechanism. 

          Maybe she’d resigned herself to the fact that she’d never experience it.  That she’d just ruin it for herself, or that her brain would find a way to ruin it for her.

          Maybe it was easier for her to accept the possibility of never feeling love if she convinced herself that she never wanted it in the first place.

          After that last thought, Flandre started laughing at herself.  Leave it to her to lay there in the throes of love, analyzing her feelings instead of just letting herself feel.  She’d waited so long for this; what was wrong with just basking in it?

          …because for so long, analysis was all she had.

          For so long, analyzing things, knowing things, making sense of things—it was all she had.  Even when, deep down, she knew how senseless, how pointless everything really was—she clung to that idea.  That, if she just got a little smarter, understood things a little more, understood herself a little bit more—she’d be able to do something about it.  And she wouldn’t feel so powerless anymore.

          Maybe that, too, was another lie she told herself.

          Flandre was calming down, now.  Now that she was back in her element, back in full control—laying in her bed, alone, cloaked in dark and silence.  Her head was no longer throbbing, and her body no longer felt quite so gelatinous—it was just replaced by fatigue.  An all encompassing, fuzzy fatigue.  Even her eyes finally began to droop, as evidently her body couldn’t take being awake anymore.

          She couldn’t sleep like this, though.  She still wore her full outfit—soft and luxurious and comfy, yes.  Restrictive and tight and bunching up around her limbs as she slept, also yes.  She peeled off her vest and her skirt and left her undershirt unbuttoned at least, throwing them in a pile at the foot of her bed, groaning as she got back into bed.  She was, as usual, trying to reach a compromise between being far enough under the duvet to feel safe enough to properly sleep, while also leaving room for all of her limbs to move around (truly an art), when one final thought popped into her head.

          Just what was I forgetting, anyway?

          She never did get an answer, now that she thought about it.  Back at Remi’s gaudy statue, when Koishi whispered something under her breath—well, Flandre definitely didn’t hallucinate it, since Koishi mentioned the same thing again just before she confessed.  Flandre was obviously too preoccupied with other things to press the issue further, though.

          Flandre let her mind keep working through it as she settled down, as she fussed with her wings so the crystals didn’t scratch her back, finally getting into the perfect position to fall asleep in—

          Before she suddenly sat bolt upright, staring wild-eyed out into the dark.

          “She’s a mind reader!” Flandre squeaked out, her voice warbling and breaking.  “Oh my god she read my mind that whole time!”  She immediately buried her head in her hands, rubbing her eyes with her palms so hard they hurt.

          There’s no way. 

          There’s no way I forgot that.  No way I forgot something as basic as that!  I even told her, god I even told her I knew, back when I was just preoccupied on getting her to not run away at the sight of me…  In other words, Koishi knew Flandre knew.  And that’s why Koishi was confused—she was confused that Flandre forgot something like that.

          Oh god, no…  Should I not have forgotten?  Was I supposed to specifically remember that?  Ugh, what an idiot, an idiot!  Flandre thought.  And then another horrifying realization came to her mind—as Flandre was going around with all those fuzzy clouds in her head, looking at Koishi with stars in her eyes, melting and blushing and falling over herself every other second—oh, how stupid I must’ve sounded!  What were you even trying to do—pretend to be some delicate maiden or something?  Who are you fooling?!

          Flandre let out a long, low whine.

          Koishi knew the whole time.

          It all made sense now.  So much sense.  The way Koishi lead conversations; how she always seemed to know what to say.  The stares and the lingering touches.  Letting Flandre, effectively one step from a complete stranger, hug her arm.  Even Koishi’s confession—it was too quick.  A normal person would have waited, totally would’ve waited until they’d seen each other a little more first—but Koishi didn’t, all because she knew she wasn’t going to be turned down.

          Flandre rolled around on her bed, wings a jangly, tangled mess, whining her voice hoarse.  Her mind ran around in embarrassed, panicked circles—what, am I supposed to just forget this?!  Just greet Koishi in three days and pretend nothing happened?  How am I even going to look her in the eye?  And even then, the moment she sees me I’ll get nervous and remember everything and then she’ll know I know she knows and it’ll all be a big mess again—

          And then another realization popped into her head.

          Koishi had confessed to her. 

          Not the other way around.

          That meant that, even if Koishi was reading Flandre’s mind the entire time, she still liked Flandre enough to stay with her, talk with her, get in close at the very end and say the words “I like you” right to her face—

          And all of a sudden, all the panic and embarrassment welling up in her chest seemed to flash to steam, giving way to a whole other kind of weird, wing-flapping giddiness bubbling up from deep within her.  Because no matter how much it tried, her mind couldn’t twist the words “I like you” into an insult.

          Koishi...likes me.

          Flandre plopped back into her pillows, a big melty grin spreading across her face.  She flipped about and pushed her face under the pillows, relishing the cool side of the pillow on her hopelessly blushing cheek, all her words and analysis pointless in the face of Koishi liking her, genuinely liking her—her words turned a mush, an assortment of whines and squeaks.

          As she wriggled around the pillow, Flandre felt something brush her shoulder.  Something that wasn’t a pillow.

          Grumbling a little, Flandre groped for it—until her hand closed around Moby’s worn-white velvet tail.  She let go a little squeak of joy as she quickly snatched him up and pulled him against her chest, hugging him tighter than usual.

          …roses.  Flandre smelled roses, ever-so-faintly.

          She thought she was hallucinating; she stirred a little bit, sticking her nose out from the covers and sniffing the air, then back under the covers to check—nope.  Wasn’t hallucinating.  It was Moby. Moby smelled like roses, somehow—if ever so faintly.

          In her last, fleeting moments of consciousness before she drifted off to sleep, Flandre remembered—it was the same way Koishi smelled.  Koishi must’ve been wearing rose perfume today…

          Koishi had been hugging Moby a lot, after all, so some of her perfume must’ve rubbed off on him.

          It was…comforting.

          And in that moment, cloaked in memories of Koishi’s smile and the smell of Koishi’s perfume, Flandre learned what it was like to feel truly happy.

Chapter Text

          VI.S

          The night was over, the warmth was fading, and Koishi was still awake.

          She stood at the Easternmost terminus of the Human Village, cloaked in twilight.  Beneath her boots was one of the avenues that, despite being made of nothing but hard-packed dirt, splintered off from the main thoroughfares of the Village and let out into Gensokyo proper. 

          It was strange.  Behind her, humanity crowded every square inch of the roadside—shops, restaurants, taverns, a handful of alleyways leading to ancient homes—but in front of her, past this gate, all of it just…stopped.  Past the threshold, the roadside gave way to long, flat meadows of nothing but tall grasses and wildflowers.

          The road itself stretched straight on for a kilometer or two, before curving and forking at a shallow grove.  The right fork—the Hakurei shrine.  The left fork—a cave entrance that, if squeezed through, would eventually lead her back home.  Back to Hell.

          But her feet wouldn’t move.

          She gazed back up at the gate, squinting at it.  It was old, simple—of the style called kabuki-mon.  Two pillars and one thick, massive crossbeam to span the whole road.  It had been painted at one point—a brilliant shade of vermillion, like the torii of Shinto shrines—but now the only remnant of that now was a few flecks of paint sticking to the inside of the gray, weathered hardwood.

          Koishi’s eyes fell back to the road still stretching on ahead of her.  The first light of the sun was already visible on the horizon—a pinkish rim of light sitting just above the tops of the trees.

          She really should be hurrying, now.  Running.  Sprinting, maybe.  But instead, all she could seem to do was stand here, motionless.

          In a way, going home now felt like giving up.  Acknowledging that the greatest night of her life was now over, and there was nothing to do but slink back home.  Nothing to do but curl up on her bed with her clothes still on, pretending to sleep until Orin came and woke her.  Nothing to do but to brew a pot of coffee, black as mud, and suck it down until she felt sick to her stomach, just to feign functionality enough to keep Satori from prying her brain open.  As the days following these late nights usually went.

          How pointless, it all suddenly seemed.

          It was a special sort of pointless, one that stung more than bit: just how fleeting, how fragile was that swell of warmth in her chest?  All that warmth, all that happiness she felt being with Flandre—for all the enormity of her feelings then, now, more than anything, she was just scared.  Scared of forgetting the feeling of Flandre’s touch on her hand.  Scared of it all going back to zero.

          For all Koishi knew, that was the last time.

          For all she knew, in this three-day interim, Flandre would suddenly remember that Koishi was a disgusting mind-reader, and Koishi would only be greeted by flashing claws and vampiric teeth—in three days, maybe Flandre would come to her senses.

          Koishi’s heart wouldn’t be able to take that.

          Even all the way back in the Museum, as they were bidding their goodbyes for the night—there always was that little kernel of doubt buried deep inside her chest.  As if she couldn’t really believe she could be so happy.  Surrounded by warmth, she tried not to notice it, but when Flandre didn’t confess back even though Koishi knew for sure she felt the same—

          Shut up…  She didn’t reject you, Koishi hissed at herself.

          But why didn’t she just say it back?  Why?

          You came on too strong.  That’s it.  You always do.

          The kernel cracked, sprouted.  But that’s even worse!  Now…  Now I’m just some weirdo, rushing in and talking her up and confessing way, way too quick!

          Koishi yelped and buried her face in her hands.  What am I doing?!  What did I think was going to happen?  Some sort of fairy tale romance or something?!  We’ve only seen each other twice, and even though we had a really great time it’s not like we know each other or anything—she still doesn’t even realize I was reading her mind!  And I had the gall to tease her about it too—

          As Koishi’s brain kicked into high gear, with anxieties and self-insults and second-guesses buzzing about her head like a cloud of gnats, she felt that warmth in her heart beginning to leak through her fingers—

          She sucked in a breath, holding it until her head felt like it was about to burst.

          …three days.

          You’ve already waited two hundred years, what’s three more days?

          Koishi set her jaw, rubbed her palms against her human eyes.

          Everything was fine.

          Just put the mask back on for three more days.  Wear it, don’t let it slip, and you can see your beloved Flandre again…  Just stop procrastinating, get home, don’t make any mistakes and everything will be fine.

          Having finally convinced herself, Koishi rubbed her eyes and forced a smile and once again looked forward to the road ahead, even taking a step towards the threshold—

          Only for her blood to run cold.

          With the warmth of the newly-risen sun.

          It hung low in the sky, just above the tops of the trees, its golden light filtering through the leaves, turning the whole treeline into a brilliant blur of oranges and pinks and greens.  Yet through the beauty of the dawn all she could feel was a nauseous dread crouching deep in her stomach.

          Koishi was too late.

          Satori was a youkai of routine.  She kept a grandfather clock in her room, just like Flan did, but Satori kept hers tuned to the rising and setting of the sun itself.  At sunrise, it would chime, resounding all throughout Chireiden just so that, even far underground, Satori could remember what it was like to wake up with the sun.

          And that meant, right about now…

          Satori would wake up and realize Koishi wasn’t home.

          Satori would know.

          Suddenly, the entire cacophony within Koishi’s head started up again, but worse, so much worse—a firestorm of insults swirling, a thousand eyes suddenly upon her, hissing at her, degrading her.  The skin on the back of her neck prickled, her stomach churned, a chill ran up her body—physiological reaction—yet she was frozen in place, staring ahead, outwardly emotionless as her thoughts turned to whispers, whispers in Satori’s voice—

          I told you, you foolish child, I told you.  But did you listen to me?  Did you listen to your big sister, hmm?  Now you know, so you never have to—

          Koishi used to cry.  She used to cry, to make it stop.  But then that stopped working, so she stopped crying.  Koishi learned that early on—not to cry.

          You neglect everything else so you can go party all night, show zero respect to me or this household, and this is what happens, you useless—

          Koishi used to try and argue.  If she could win, she could make it stop.  But no matter how she tried to defend herself, tried to explain things—Koishi could never find the right words, the words that would make it stop.

          Do you have any idea how much I’ve sacrificed for you?  If it was anyone else, you’d still be out there, frozen solid without even a chance at—

          Whenever she tried, she would just be picked apart.  Koishi’s words, her thoughts, her mind—would be cracked open and twisted around and turned upon her.

          Listen, Koishi, I wanted to talk to you…

          And then, when it was all done, and Satori thought Koishi had suffered enough—the apologies would come out.  And the apologies were the worst.

          I’m sorry.  I know I’ve said some…some bad things to you in the past.

          From those, Koishi learned something else.

          But, ah, I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind, you know?  I wasn’t myself, and you also know there’s not much I can do about that—

          How simple it was.  Frown when she was supposed to be sad.  Apologize when she was supposed to apologize.  And forgive when she was supposed to forgive.

          And all things considered, you really do have it easy compared—

          From Satori, Koishi learned to wear her own face like a mask.  Wear it like a mask she’d put on when she had to pretend that apologies still meant something after the thousandth time—

          Yes, yes, it’s okay…  I’m not mad.

          Like a mask, to pretend the insults never affected her.

          Of course.  I love you too, Koishi…

          Like a mask, to pretend everything was okay.

          Now come here.  Give me a hug…

          A mask so good that Koishi could convince even herself that there was nothing behind it.  That the mask was her face, her true face; that she understood what she was doing wrong, that the swirl within her heart didn’t exist, and there was nothing buried beneath, waiting to pop—

          But that mask is broken now, isn’t it?

          Koishi blinked back to her senses.  Suddenly the dawn, the dewy summer breeze, the village around her, the massive, weathered gate—it all came rushing back to her at once.  She lingered no longer, instead looking around.  She found a tavern only a building or two down, one of the last before the gate.

          She went to the door, trying it.

          It wouldn’t budge.  Locked.

          Without hesitation, she put her fist through the lock, bloodying her knuckles and scraping her wrist, the purple augmentation magic surrounding her hand stinging the wounds like hydrogen peroxide.

          And who broke that mask?

          It was a small tavern, but still enough for a few dozen humans—a bunch of tables and chairs sticky to the touch, kitschy knickknacks and stained wood everywhere, the smell of tobacco and stale beer, and enough alcohol on shelves along the back wall to kill an oni.

          Was it you?

          She scrambled over the bar, limbs flailing, muddy boots scraping the countertop.  But she wasn’t trying to be graceful, not anymore.  Soon she was poking through the liquor bottles, looking for something she knew the name of.

          Or her?

          Sweet potato shochu.

          A rather plain bottle, half empty, but it’d do.  She picked it up, took out the cork, and sniffed it—it may as well have been pure gasoline, for all she knew.  She didn’t like alcohol—she hated it.  She hated the taste of it, the acidity, the burn, the feeling of it fumigating her nostrils.

          But now she stared at the open bottle, sliding down into a crouch behind the bar, rolling the weight between her hands, staring down at the liquid poison inside.

          The longer she stared at it, the louder the whispers became.  Swirling in her head, taunting her, laughing at her, insulting her, all with Satori’s voice—

          Oh, how weak you are.

          Koishi squeezed the bottle between her shaking hands and upturned it into her mouth.  Her throat reacted the moment the burning liquid reached it, and she spluttered, spilling some of it down her chin; the sweetness of the shochu was the only thing keeping her from spitting it all back up at once. 

          But she downed what was left in the bottle in one long chug.

          She doubled over, coughing—it burned her throat, burned her lips, burned her nose…  She sucked in air; even that tasted poisonous.

          All she wanted was to feel warm again.

          She squeezed her eyes shut, tossing the empty bottle to the side, letting it shatter.  Still the whispers tormented her, though they grew quieter.  Taunting her.  Mocking her.  Innumerable little taunts, the words like barbs sticking in her skin.

          All she wanted was to be happy.

          She sucked in a trembling breath, wiping the fire from her lips with the back of her sleeve, and she rocked as she waited.  Back and forth.  Back and forth, as the shochu churned in the pit of her stomach, and she wanted to throw up, but she kept swallowing whatever came back up into her mouth.  But even without her mask, as broken as she was, she did not cry. 

          Even without her mask, she was strong.

          And then, suddenly, she felt something.

          Warmth.  The slightest, tiniest little bit of it—warmth.

          And there, crouching on the floor in that dingy Human Village tavern, doubled over and sick to her stomach, the whispers finally began to fade.  From deep within her, memories began to bubble up to the surface to replace them, eating the voices until only one thing was left in her head—a certain vampire girl.

          Flandre, staring with her eyes glazed over but still trying her best to listen.

          Flandre, and her beautiful Christmas-light wings that jingled when she laughed.

          Flandre, interleaving her slender fingers in Koishi’s, all without saying a word.

          Koishi opened her eyes again, only to find her vision swimming, blurring, diffuse.  Her stomach felt like it was generating enough heat to power Former Hell, and by the time she clambered back over the bar and out onto the dirt road, the summer sun was shining down upon her, and she was finally ready to run through that gate—

          All on its own, her body began to move.

          All alone, Koishi began to dance.  Unseen to any passersby, she danced in the middle of the road to the rhythm of her heartbeat pounding away in her head.  Her skirt fluttering around her, her movements lithe and graceful, as if her mind was unattached to her body and she was cloaked in warmth and happiness and freedom—

          And as she pirouetted around, she opened her eyes to find her vision twisting in her head, with that alcoholic buzz multiplying her memory of Flandre’s warmth, she stopped and turned towards the gate and she gazed at that big ball of fire in the sky and she shouted at the top of her lungs—

          “To hell with it all!”

          And Koishi finally ran through that threshold, all by herself; with her arms outstretched into the air and laughing like a maniac, as if just by moving she could become even warmer.

          Before she knew it, she was halfway down the road, running towards Hell with the summer breeze whipping around her, a wood-burning stove for a stomach, and a big dopey smile on her face.

          She drunkenly hummed to herself the melody to a lullaby she long forgot the words to, until finally she felt herself wobbling too much and she wandered off the road aways into a field of bright, white wildflowers.

          Koishi’s legs gave out then, and she let herself fall onto her back amongst the flowers, and even though she felt even more nauseous, at least she was warm.  For the first time, with that alcohol in her belly and the sun on her face and Flandre’s touch on her fingers and that little memory replaying in her head of Flandre saying come back in three days—Koishi felt so, so warm.

          Just before she fell asleep amongst the flowers, she opened her eyes again to look up at the blurry, pinkish sky.

          It would be worse for her when she finally did return to Chireiden. 

          Worse than ever before.  Koishi would stumble into the mansion later than ever, hungover and probably smelling of alcohol and dirt and covered in white flower petals—she was a mess.  Koishi was a mess, always was; maybe a little more than usual today.

          Her mask was broken now, too.

          It lay shattered, shattered in a million pieces, on the floor of the Scarlet Devil Mansion’s basement.  After decades of wearing it, wearing it until it was rendered yellowed with age and flimsy with cracks—it finally broke.

          And now, thinking back to that moment, just yesterday night—she didn’t care that it was broken.  That she had no way to defend herself anymore.

          She replayed that scene in her head for the dozenth time.

          There she was, just as broken as her mask.  Apologies falling from her mouth like water.  For that broken mask, for not being strong enough to hold it together.  For letting show what was underneath it.  For letting show that ungrateful, disrespectful, useless, foolish satori underneath that mask—Koishi herself.

          And Flandre?

          Flandre just told her to shut up.

          Koishi laughed to herself—maybe it came across a little blunter in memory than it did in person, but the fact remained!  Her eyelids slipped closed, then, and she surrendered herself to her own drunkenness.

          Now, with her eyes closed, only one image came to mind.  One memory, impossibly warm and precious to her, more than she could ever describe—

          It was of Flandre, kneeling in front of Koishi that first time, taking up Koishi’s hands in hers—the feeling of Flandre’s hands, pale-white and soft and warm—and staring right at her with those beautiful, piercing scarlet eyes, and telling her it was okay.  Telling Koishi to follow her, just follow her, and she would make everything okay again.

          And Koishi believed her.

          Satori, no matter how hard she tried, couldn’t give her happiness.  Not real happiness, anyway.  Just some fleeting, placative happiness; a fragile one, built on fear and debt and broken dreams.

          For the first time, in that basement, Koishi had tasted real happiness.

          It lay only a couple of miles down the road, within a big, gloomy basement, in the arms of a vampire girl with jangly rainbow wings.

Chapter Text

          VII

          After walking for hours, she collapsed into the snow. 

          All she wore was a summer robe.  Ceremonial, emblazoned with the pattern of her mother’s mother, thin and porous. Her socks were soaked through, and her feet had swelled, newly numb to the cold.

          In her right hand, she still gripped the fishing knife—the handle, turned slick with blood, had frozen her fingers to the wood, welding them into a fist.

          In her left arm, she held a bundle of elmcloth, old and dark and age-soft.

          When she fell, the bundle landed upon her forearm and slipped from her arms onto the forest floor.  It made no sound.  She let out a whimper and scrambled to retrieve it—she clutched it back up in her arms, holding her breath tight in her lungs, lest that escape her grip too.  She rolled onto her knees then—frozen in a moment of heartrending silence, and as a moment passed and the wind kicked up, she held the bundle against her chest, trying to shield it from the ashen snow-spray with her own body.  Amidst the wail of the wind through the black trees, she closed her human eyes and pressed her mouth to the bundle and whispered—even if this is the end, someone in this world loved you.  Even as blind as you are, as weak as you are, someone cared about you—

          This was what happened when Satori Komeiji tried to do the right thing.

          —another moment passed, then two, then three; still she kept her eyes closed, only able to see through her third eye now, image blurry and weatherbeaten, but still the bundle was as limp as it always was—or was it limper than before?  And then tens of moments passed, minute hopes piling up on top of one another, and still the wind wouldn’t die down, nor would the bundle stir, surrounding it now was only that black stillness of death, and now her third eye was pulsing with panicked blood like the thorax of an insect overturned, still straining to peer through the darkness beyond the trees, and then the wind began to screech as the ash froze to hail and her third eye was pelted, it blurred and dimmed, and finally her last window to the world around her squeezed shut—

          —and Satori’s eyes snapped open to a room awash in royal blue.

          She awoke with a shout, unconsciously stifled into a grunt as she pulled herself upright in her bed.  Her breath was ragged, her body sticky with sweat, the tendrils of her third eye stiffened and engorged with rushing blood, veins fit to burst.

          Her breaths stabilized, but the pressure in her head didn’t—suddenly there came thunderous gong, the very power of it shaking her chest.  She winced away from the noise, grimacing—in one corner of her room lay a longcase alarm clock.  Hewn of hardwood and wrought iron, it was a rudimentary British-design: oversized, ugly, with an overcomplicated double-mechanism requiring daily winding.  Every day, it was set to chime with the sunrise.

          So she would never forget.

          She raised a trembling hand, then closed it into a fist—the clock shuddered and fell silent mid-chime.  She let out a sigh and fell back into her bed, pulling the comforter up over herself again.

          Calm.

          Deep breaths.

          In through the nose, out through the mouth. 

          In and out.

          Let the thoughts flow through like a stream.

          In and out.

          A simple physiological reaction.  Nothing more, nothing less.

          And like that, she calmed herself down.  Alone, just as she’d done so many times before.  Even with her head pounding, even barely awake, she was in control enough of herself for that.  She even prided herself on that: her sense of self-control.  After all, what use was a satori who could not control their mind? 

          Such a thing was equivalent to death.

          For the mind was the satori’s greatest gift.

          That’s what she told herself as she laid in her bed alone, in her small, simple room at a non-descript corner of Chireiden, awash in the royal blue glow of those infernal lightcrystals, heart exploding in her chest as she stifled every sound she made.  That’s what she told herself, kept repeating to herself over and over in her mind, as she stared up at the paint chips on the ceiling with all three eyes wide open.

—

          In a meadow not too far away from the entrance to the Underground—a flat plain gently warmed by the mid-morning sun and seasoned by the distant thrum of humanity all sequestered sweetly in their little cage—a certain twin-tailed kasha was cheerily pushing along an empty corpse cart.

          Orin had gotten a bit of a late start to her morning routine; the sun had been up for a good few hours now.  If it was the old days, when she still had the whole of the Hell of Blazing Fires to feed, she’d have been up at sunup running about the overworld searching for good corpses…  Nowadays, though, with the damned moved out, the oni moved in (altogether a group uncaring about temperature) and the Fires mostly inactive, the corpse load needed for heating was much lighter.  All she was responsible for now was a tiny section of it, left active by the Yama—juuuuust enough to heat all of Chireiden till the paint melted off the walls.  Or her Mistress stopped complaining about drafts.  Whichever came first.

          Not usually too many corpses here, considering how close it was to the Human Village—but really, she just wanted to enjoy a nice bit of sun before spending all day poking around the backwoods for the odd tanuki corpse.  If it were up to her, she’d stop her cart here and slack off a bit.  Maybe curl up among the wildflowers for a nice mid-morning nap…

          Now, Orin prided herself on her nose.  Not the appearance of it or anything (Okuu did think it was cute, but then again, she wasn't much of a judge; Okuu once said that Orin’s feline eyes reminded her of lemons—in both shape and color.  How romantic), but how finely attuned it was.  Orin’s nose was perfectly-suited to corpse-hunting—she could catch a whiff of rot ten miles downwind on a good day, carry home the corpse in question, and still be able to tell the difference between a daisy and a petunia.  Thus, when strolling through the meadow this fine morning, she picked up something else on the breeze besides the honeysuckle and sunshine: alcohol.  Sour, acrid, almost bitter—the scent of old alcohol laid interwoven through the fragrance of a Gensokyoan meadow.

          Orin also happened to pride her ability to sniff out trouble.

          She grimaced at the scent, stopping the cart by the road and glancing around.  She recognized it was coming from a certain direction, so she followed the scent—until, amidst the olive greens of stems and whites of wildflower petals, she noticed a flash of yellow.

          She drew closer.  She recognized a bolt of cloth first, then a wrinkled yellow blouse, a green skirt faded in the sun—

          It was her Mistress’s little sister, curled up amidst the flowers and sleeping peacefully—she slept with her arm propping up her head, a big dopey grin on her face and a drool spot on her long sleeve where she’d been nibbling it in her sleep.

          “Looks like you had a fun night, hunh?” Orin giggled to herself as she came over and crouched down next to Koishi.  Koishi didn’t even stir—she always did sleep like a rock. 

          Orin’s lips curled into a feline grin, looking at her—even as disheveled as she was, it was just so rare to see this girl genuinely smile.  Sure, she faked it all the time, but it’s not like you could fake a smile in your sleep…

          Koishi seemed to stir then, for a moment—the exposed loops of her third eye’s veins undulated like octopodal tentacles, stiffening and relaxing like long, slow heartbeats—and a troubled expression came over her face.

          “It’s okay, it’s okay…” Orin purred, gently ruffling Koishi’s fluffy, mint-green hair.  “I ain’t gonna rat you out.  If she reads my mind, well—not much I can do about that.  But at least we can get you cleaned up beforehand, eh?”

          In her sleep, Koishi sniffed, and mumbled something indecipherable to Orin, and she promptly began chewing unconsciously on her sleeves again.

          “Really, kiddo?  That’s what you use ‘em for?” Orin muttered after a pause, hopping to her feet right into a stretch of her whole upper back—important, when you’re about to carry something heavy.  She never did know how Koishi stood wearing long sleeves all the time, especially in Former Hell.  But now she knew!  Orin snickered to herself—oh, these latest findings would be a riot when she finally woke up, ha!

          “Alright, upsy-daisy…” Orin said in a sing-song voice as she put her hands under Koishi’s armpits and lifted her up—Koishi was a little heavier than your average starved corpse, sure, but that was hardly a problem.  “There we go!” she muttered as she shifted Koishi into a princess carry, bringing her back to the corpse cart—it worked as a wheelbarrow in a pinch.

          Legs in first, knees bent, torso in next, back facing her—Koishi didn’t even wake up while Orin set her down in the cart.  She just kept on chewing on her sleeve with that big, drunken grin on her face, pulling them away from her hands a little bit, all the while mumbling something or another about rainbow wings.

          As Orin turned the cart for the Underground, setting off jogging to bring it up to a good clip—ugh, she really did reek of alcohol.  Really was a good job Orin found her first, not some other youkai.  Or, worse, Satori—at least Orin had the decency to give her a bath before trying to pry the details out of her.  And probably meal too—hangovers really weren’t much fun (as both her and Okuu could attest to), and after staying out drinking enough to fall asleep in a field, the poor girl would probably be starving. 

          Either way, this was definitely not a Satori situation—she was good with dealing a great many things, but dealing with her sister wasn’t one of them.  Ideally, Satori’d never find out—hiding things from mind readers was tricky business, but usually it involved having the memory of a goldfish and getting really busy at work all of a sudden. 

          Of course, all bets were off if they ran into Okuu on the way home.  Orin grimaced at the thought—not probable, considering Okuu was on mail duty today (so hopefully that involved a delivery far, far away from here), but crazier coincidences have certainly happened.  Especially lately.

          Maybe, for Koishi’s sake (and, by proxy, Orin’s), Satori just wouldn’t find out this time around?  Well, it was certainly possible.  Yeah.

          Hopefully.

—

          That morning, Satori Komeiji took her breakfast in another room—a particular top-floor window with a terrific view.  It served a welcome escape from her stuffy windowless affair; if she didn’t know better, and she didn’t give herself said room, she would’ve likened her own bedchamber to that of a nun’s lodgings at an abbey.

          Ancient.  Unchanging.  Stifling.  She always thought discomfort as character-building, and had not yet been proven wrong.  Though would that not mean the opposite was true?  Her fingers trembled at the thought.

          Her current room was a bit more…pleasant, at least superficially.  A wonderful view of her kingdom, from blue cavern wall to blue cavern wall—everywhere the lightcrystals touched, it was hers.  Even up here, the air was still blanketed with the scent of humid under-earth, but with a distinct tinge of rose perfume.  Or…lavender, perhaps?  She never did care much for aromachology.

          Her eye thrummed.  In her hands, she cradled a plain metal goblet shaped like something akin to a wine glass—she sniffed and took a sip.

          Within the goblet was not wine.  Wine, like all alcohol, only dulled the senses.  It was a useless escape—for fools, for the feeble-minded who tremble in the face of their problems instead of ever thinking to solve them.

          No, the goblet was filled with coffee.  Poured hot, now tepid, the vestiges of its faded warmth leeching through the metal to warm her palms.  The taste itself was nostalgic—jet-black and oily and bitter as burnt tobacco, each sip left a sour oil coating the inside of her mouth.  It reminded her of her first sips of the stuff, lapped up from the bottom of pots kept in the galleys of the Dejima kurofune—those black ships full of men wearing strange clothes, speaking strange tongues, thinking strange thoughts.

          Her fingers really were trembling something awful.

          She downed the rest of her coffee, feeling it slide down her throat and into her stomach where it huddled there, acridity fermenting into acrimony.  She gripped the goblet, turned, and slammed the window shut, before drawing the thick drapes closed again in one violent motion.

          She was plunged into darkness—a darkness so thick that three eyes, open wide, could not cut through it.  For a moment, she lost herself in that darkness.  In that deprivation of sight, of sound—

          —in this she heard the rustling of snowy branches, the silence of the mountains, the crunch of newly packed field-snow under her waterlogged socks, then suddenly a girl’s shriek—then the shouts of men, the tinny shing of human swords being drawn, the clank of imported armor-scales, the whimper of the human girl and the jangle of her chains, the thrum of Satori’s twin hearts beating as one for the first time—then whipping wind thick and smooth past her ears, running snow-blind on frozen feet, tendrils reaching from her back and fanning out, each barbed like spearheads, then the feeling of puncturing flesh and crunching bone, the warmth of the spray and the pull of sudden dead weight, crushed iron exoskeletons and chests and limbs crumpled and shattered like an insect’s legs, then a guttural, vicious screech erupting from her throat as she realized she was victorious, a lone heartbeat pounding within her head and nothing else, now that the snow and ice and wind and pain and hunt and hunger had reduced her to nothing but a common forest youkai, and then the feast—

          —and then she flipped on the light-switch.

          Presently, a lamp blinked on overhead, bathing the walls of Koishi’s study with a maple yellow light as she turned back towards the now lit-up room.  Late last decade, Satori had a few rooms of the mansion fitted with these blasted electric lights—somewhere in a corner of the mansion lay an electric generator imported from the Animal Realm: a big, burping ugly thing of paint-scratched metal, skulking in a corner, kept fed with souls and oil.  Ever since then, the kappa had been bugging her for maintenance, for a bigger, better one.  As Koishi was the only one in the mansion who seemed to use the lights, though, Satori hardly saw the point.  Satori, of course, preferred the old-fashioned lamps—sure, they reeked of gas when on, but the piping was already installed and moreover, the light they produced was natural.   Exotic filament lamps (whose ability to produce is subject to the whims of the oil kami) do not a good, long-term solution make…

          Does it matter, though, what lights this room?  Of course not—what sense is there, lighting a galleria of the greatest pieces of art youkai-kind have ever seen, if there’s no one to view them?  Now, whenever she entered this room, all Satori could think of was what could be.  This room, so full yet so soul-crushingly empty, and its sickly yellow electric light.

          Lavish drapes hung down over the windows; lilacs in plaster adorned the crown mouldings—it was a massive room, richly decorated: mahogany furnishings shining with richly-made urushi lacquer, a deep Rambouillet-wool carpet dyed a dark myrtle, a double-height coffered ceiling serving as the keystone of a wallpaper of pink roses set to a background of Paris green, hand-made to mimic the finest brocade tapestries—this was the master bedroom of Chireiden.  Envy of all the Underground, Satori christened it upon completion—a symbol within a symbol.  A symbol of power, of wealth, of intelligence—everything they were told they were not.  Vestments, hidden within a room rather than in a handspun robe.  Echoes of a power, ultimate in scope and scale, such that none dared to stand against it—wasted, worthless, dashed upon the rocks, all because a certain stupid, childish girl preferred chasing pretty women around to accepting that which was hers by birthright.

          Misery loves company, as they say.  Even rulers are vulnerable to that—so, is it better to lose the right hand, or the head?

—

          Satori Komeiji always was attracted to broken things.

          When she was still a girl, pale and newly-Bloomed with knobby knees and gaunt cheekbones that stuck out from her sullen face and piercing blue eyes sharp as the white-cap cut rock of the valleys of Hida—when she was a girl, Satori only ever liked broken things. 

          She could have whatever she wanted—she was royalty, but moreover she was a good child.  Quiet, sickly, obedient.  When strange men from the North still paraded through the court with the words ‘Empire’ and ‘victory’ still upon their lips, they would bring her all sorts of things.  Some games, which she threw away.  Food, which she refused.  And dolls—mostly dolls, handcrafted by the finest of artisans, dressed in richly patterned robes and sporting delicate limbs and demure smiles.

          Satori hated those dolls.

          When she was well, she would go for walks amidst the small huts surrounding the family court, her hair bed-mussed and tangled, her weak ankles wrapped tight in imported bandages, and a carved walking stick grasped in her little fingers.  And sometimes she’d find old dolls, ones thrown away and trampled upon and mired in the mud, so that they’d sink further and further into the ground until they were but human-shaped silhouettes; they were perfect facsimiles masquerading as human.

          Satori loved those dolls.

          And when she wasn’t well, when she was bedridden with Bloom-sickness, when her legs would buckle and her stomach would return food and her mind throbbed rather than thought, she would play with her old dolls.

          She’d sit up in her bed and fix them; she’d scrub the mud from them with stolen soap shavings, fix their broken bodies with lashes of reed, sew them new robes of barkcloth with a sigil of her own, cut their matted hair short and stiff just like her own—she’d sit on her bed, making up little stories for them in her head.  Ones with happy endings, ones where the old dolls could prove their worth one more time.

          They were the heroes of their own stories.  The perfect ones, polite and demure and long-haired and not-sick, they were the villains. 

          And in Satori’s stories, the heroes always won.

—

          By the late morning, Satori had moved to her study (really the only place in the house she allowed herself the luxury befitting her position), and taken up her seat at her beloved desk—an acre of richly lacquered mahogany inlaid with mother-of-pearl along the edges curved about her.  Upon it was her ever-present metal goblet upon a cork coaster, a small fetish of an eight-pointed star with a marble base, a green-hooded desk lamp (not on) and a bronzed chain, and piles upon piles of books.  There were dozens of the things: some as thick as three of her slender fingers, others were glorified pamphlets; some immaculate, dark, and glossy, others with cracked spines and cloth bindings worn to the cardboard quick; some volumes of scholarly encyclopedias all horribly out of date, others no more than sensationalist travelogues exploiting the exotic.  Open before her was one of her tried-and-true time sinks.

          The cover was a brilliant black leather, grained and aged, the binding millimeters thick and embossed in golden Cyrillic lettering, the pages a wonderous yellowed India paper.  The book was the quality of a Soviet archival copy, detailing the oral traditions of the natives of Sakhalin, a large Soviet island off the coast of Hokkaido—or however much still existed concurrent with the USSR.

          It, like most things in Gensokyo, had long since passed into fantasy.

          Satori, of course, had already read it.  Tens of times, cover to cover, scouring every single word.  Front to back, back to front.  By now she could probably recite the whole of it from memory.  She’d even tried some wilder methods of analysis: feeding the text through an indexing assistant (really just a run-of-the-mill magic algorithm) to pick out interesting words or phrases, studying the beginning paragraphs of rather climactic passages to see if they divulge their succeeding contents (again, useless; myths don't exactly use topic sentences), performing divination magic upon it (involving dowsing rods and a mouse; what a waste of money that was), or even writing out the first letters of every sentence of a particularly strange-looking passage in hopes of finding some secret message (combing for acrostics was one of the bigger long-shots she’d taken).  Every single legend, every myth, every story, accounting for possible mistranslations and dubious wording—she was driving herself nutty, all to one end.

          To find a living population of satori—to find more like her.

          But now, she looked down at that beautiful book, trying to parse each line, and her eyes were moving and skipping to the next line but nothing registered, and she kept reading and rereading to try and get something to stick but nothing would—

          "Pointless—it's pointless going back to this, I tell you!" Satori grumbled, slamming the archival book shut and sinking back in her chair.  "I've been through this damned thing maybe a thousand times; there's nothing to be gained from the thousand-and-first!" she shouted, as if volume alone would convince herself of her own words.

          "And this thing...  Oh, this thing..." she said, sitting up to snatch a small cloth-bound travelogue from the pile, thumbing through it with a scowl reserved only for the most detestable variety of human—the liar.  “Days, weeks, wasted!  Taken for a ride by some stuffy Englishman—he’d not seen bloody Stonehenge, much less Kazakhstan!

          “Exactly how can you purport to be an expert in Kazakh folklore without having ever set foot on the mainland?  There’s a reason history forgot you, you infantile buffoon,” taking the book in one hand and hurling it across her study; it clattered against a wood-paneled wall and disappeared behind a chair.

          "...laugh all you want.  I don't see you offering up any bright ideas," she addressed the air around her.  "By all means, go ahead."

          The air said nothing back.  Silence, as it were.

          “Well, whatever…  What a wretched activity scholarship is, when you're permanently a hundred years out of date...  No wonder all anybody does here is drink,” Satori said, taking up her metal goblet of tepid, sour coffee in one hand, holding it much like a wine glass.  “…yes, yes, I know, I know—no, no, what's this about an 'I told you so'?  You pooh-poohed only the author in question, not Kazakhstan itself.  You must admit, it’s an interesting thought…  Okay, fine, yes, you may have it for that cretin, but the fact of the matter is that it’s perfectly reasonable for a small band of them to have set out West for lands unknown—we were an adventurous and daring people, as a general rule—and, hemmed in by Siberia and the Mongolian steppe, we might have eventually made it within range of Kazakhstan.  Entirely possible.  I won’t let you pooh-pooh that notion too; I simply won’t.”

          “Now, that Englishman…” Satori said, a wry grin on her face, “we can both agree he was a clown.”  Satori glanced down at her goblet, and swirled the oily, sour liquid inside before draining the rest in one go, letting out a monstrous sigh.

          “…go.  Go back to extorting humans of their sheep, or whatever it is you all do,” Satori mumbled, upturning the goblet again so every last drip could drip into her mouth.

          Just then, Satori thought she felt the air within the room change—a subtle change, barely distinct enough to be noticed.  Truly, it took a distinguished sense to even recognize anything had changed at all, but she, the most powerful satori to ever walk the Earth—even without the use of her ultimate ability, she alone was able to discern it.

          Now alone in her cavernous study, she replaced her goblet with a smirk and shoved herself away from the desk, sinking back into her plush executive’s chair once again, gazing up at the ceiling, gradually letting the past flicker before her eyes.

          Satori did not remember her kingdom.

          She did not remember her court.

          She remembered the smell of warm juniperberry tea, made in pots to soothe the throat come first frost.  She remembered, in flashes, multicolored silk brocades and the brushes of skillful fingers as her servants dressed her, and the feeling of the fabric against her skin.  She remembered their voices, their creole tongue she only ever half-understood, now forever lost to her fantasy.  Were they satori too?

          She did not remember her mother's face.

          She did not remember what her mother looked like—she did not remember whether her mother was tall or beautiful, but that was how Satori liked to picture her.  Tall and beautiful with long black hair the color of riverstone, with sad eyes and a sad smile, perfect in their sadness.  The truth had long since passed into fantasy.

          She remembered the feeling of being held by her mother—on the night after her Blooming, and her first night with the Sickness, Satori laid motionless upon her bed, eyes wide with sudden sentience, the air around her new body a miasma of blight and decay such that not even the servants dared touch her, each breath like inhaling a thousand needles, the slow, steady tha-thump of her double-heart vibrating her limbs with the force of its beating, and then a crack of light, shadows upon the wall, and she shut her eyes—and then, the bed shifted, and someone knelt next to her and pulled her up into an embrace.  Skin to her newborn, rotting skin, reverse-putrefaction tinged with the scent of elmwood, warmth leaching into her cold muscles; she remembered crying at her monstrousness, for her worthlessness, borne out of shame—but still her mother embraced her.  She did not remember how long it lasted, but she remembered it, and she remembered that by sunup her mother was gone.  The servants did not touch her for another two months.

          And she remembered the feeling of mud on her bare feet, of burning muscles, aching bones, of the way her screams tore her own throat as she watched a figure on horseback, perhaps her mother, perhaps not, recede down the lane and around the bend, forever an unanswered question.  Sometimes she remembered that her mother was dead—or was that a wish?

          Perhaps having hope was crueler than having none at all.

          It wasn't hope, though, that filled her when she awoke in the morning after the snowstorm, covered in a blanket of ashen snow, her eye itching from the snowflakes, the elmcloth bundle still beneath her, still gently breathing.  It was many things, but none of them were hope.

          Those first few weeks in the wilds—the weeks before the feast—were the hardest.  She soon found her way out of the forest, and up into the mountains.  Not knowing the way down, she would wander meandering trails, hugging cliff faces, sheltering underneath overhangs, in caves and crags—anything to silence the wind whipping past her frost-nipped ears.

          Whenever she had to break to sleep, she would lay the baby down her lap, gently unwrapping the barkcloth—for the most part, the baby would be asleep.  And she would draw the tendrils of her eye from under her robe, and she would wrap it in them, keeping the baby alive with the warmth of the blood of her curse.

          Her sister, at that time, was nameless.  It had no name, nor gender, really, for it had not Bloomed.  Thus, Koishi looked as all satori infants do—a small monkey.  A monkey with a third eye within its forehead, the only evidence of its satori-birthright.  Most of them looked rather the same, to Satori—being mewling, puking simian infants.  The infant that would become Koishi, however, (or rather the little thing that would become Koishi), could be told apart by its eye—a third eye so cloudy, so atrophied, so cataracted, that it was a wonder the baby was even alive.

          And even though Satori felt no affection for the little alien creature—this creature that was not hers, did not sound or look like her—when it was awake, she would smile to it, speak gently to it, let it grasp her fingers as it made animalistic cooing noises, warm snow in her hands so it could drink, its eye wide and rolling in its head at the pace of the sightless, a frenetic, shocked sort of nystagmus, and she would rock it back and forth in her lap and whisper songs to it, her voice a breathy mumble hardly raised against the wind because it was all she could give, and she sang songs she knew, songs she didn’t know, songs she remembered but her lips didn’t, but still she would mouth in bumbling glissandos the songs of her old nurses, sung to her while they changed the bandages around her legs when they were still rotting from the Sickness and she could hardly bear the pain; the meaning of the lyrics in their human/youkai creole was already lost to time and snow now, and all she could produce was an awkward mimicry of their tongue, but she would sit there, singing still, hoping the sound of her voice was somehow soothing, somehow warm, as theirs always was to her.

          And when it went to sleep Satori would sit and stare out the mouth of her shelter, out to the sheer precipice never more than a few steps away, and would wonder what it was like at the bottom of it—she would sit and stare and wonder, night after night, while she did her duty, and maybe the baby could read her mind in those moments, maybe it couldn’t, but still she loved it as best she knew, as best she could, until—

          She was torn from her reverie by a few hesitant pecks—beak against glass—and a muffled squawk.  It was just as well—reminiscence is rather addicting.

          Satori opened one eye without sitting up.  With a flick of the wrist, she opened one of a row of pivot windows built atop the stained glass.  Originally designed for ventilation, their sizing proved a happy convenience—even the most muscular of mail-birds could squeeze through the gaps, complete with their usual burden of letters, forms, paperclips, cicada shells, etc.

          Presently a massive hell raven, sleek and powerfully built, swept through the opening and alighted upon Satori’s desk with an envelope in its beak.  Satori accepted its delivery with a tired smile.

          It was a smallish envelope, made of heavy lavender paper.  Upon its reverse was a wax seal, stamped with the seal of Yakumo.

          Before she could open it, however, a mildly indignant squawk caught her attention once more.  Upon her desk still stood the jet-black hell raven, feathers and chest puffed, staring at her with one beady crimson eye.

          Where’s my reward?  she thought.  Raventongue was a little different from human speech, but her tone was something analogous to a pout.  Didn’t I do good, Satori-sama?

          Satori melted, giggling a little bit as she responded only by patting her lap.

          The hell raven cawed and leapt into Satori’s lap, landing against her stomach hard enough for Satori to let out an audible oof.  Instantly, the letter was forgotten, shoved away in a desk drawer while Satori sat up in her chair and bent over the raven in her lap, running her fingers down the bird’s back and under her chin, all while the raven in question shut its eyes and made little flappy coos of happiness.

          “Yes, yes, you did very well, Okuu,” Satori replied, turning her attention to the crook of the hell raven’s wing—more blissful thrums ensued, with Okuu even spreading her wingspan a bit to facilitate the whole process.  “It’s always a pleasure when you’re on mail duty.  …goodness, look how big and strong you’ve become!”

          Really, you think so?! Okuu said, pushing her head out from under Satori’s thumb to gaze up lovingly at her.  Orin just said the same thing, yay—I saw her on my way up here!  I’ve made sure to eat well, like you told me, and I’ve been doing laps of the Underground every day—without fail, Satori-sama! Okuu thought, her only outward expression being a trill and another beady-eyed stare.

          To a non-satori, this bird would look like the picture of evil, bloodlust incarnate, capable of razing entire towns to the ground—in actuality, the only thing she was capable of razing is the granary.  But she was earnest, reliable, and above all loyal to the end, so she had long been one of Satori’s favorites.

          “That’s wonderful, Okuu…  And how are your lessons coming along?  Orin’s treating you well, I hope?”

          Really good!  Just the other day, she taught me a cool mana-splitting trick—I can stay in human form for like, five whole hours now!  And I can even pronounce a few words!  It’s kinda cold as a human, though, cuz you don’t have many feathers…  Oh, how I wish the Blazing Hell was still on, but if I was a human I’d probably get a sunburn…  How do you stay so pale, Satori-sama?  Oh, right, I can even pronounce a few words!  I’ll show you sometime!  Though whenever it’s just me and Orin, she speaks for me…  Suddenly, there was something stemming the stream—for a split-second, there was a rosier thought tugging at the edge of Okuu’s mind, but it seemed to vanish as quickly as it came, overwritten simply with an image of Orin’s smile (probably a drunken one, but Satori could ignore that).  A-and Orin…  Orin’s super nice…yeah!

          Satori simply giggled and patted the raven again.  Okuu thought she was keeping the whole affair a secret…  Poor thing.  Keeping secrets was a pointless activity in the presence of a satori.  But some secrets needed to be kept, at least until they were ready to see the light of day.

          Besides, not acknowledging something didn’t mean Satori didn’t know about it.

          Then, a lightbulb seemed to go off in Okuu’s little bird-brain.  Oh yeah, Satori-sama!  I also had something else I was supposed to tell you, I think!

          Satori, now on autopilot, continued petting Okuu in long, broad strokes down the length of her back.  “Hmm?  What is it?”

          Orin found Koishi-sama and brought her back—I saw them on my way up here!  And yeah, I think Orin wanted me to tell you…

          Satori’s hand paused mid-stroke.

          Wait…  Or was it not to tell you?  Hrrrrmm…

—     

          A fingernail, then the thumb, went through the fragile eggshell.  With a crunch, then a slow shatter, and the egg was torn in two, and the golden yolk landed in the ceramic bowl with a watery plop.

          With a whisk, Orin incorporated the eggs together, her twin-tails whirling and swaying in rhythm to her practiced mixing.  With a little water, and some salt and pepper from the grinders, the whole mixture seemed to be coming together now.  She gave a satisfied little hum as she worked, filling the servant kitchen of Chireiden with a lilt full of good cheer.

          Truth be told, Orin was a bit proud of herself—she'd gotten Koishi home mostly-successfully, even considering the run-in with Okuu (it sure seemed like she understood the meaning of the words 'don't tell Satori-sama', anyway).  And it's not like Satori would think to check the servant areas; she had no reason to come down this far.

          Orin turned to the burner beside her, flipped on the gas, and lit the flame with her fingertips; for a split-second the flame jetted high.  Soon butter was sizzling away in a pan.  Then came the egg mixture, perfectly sized to fill the bottom edge-to-edge.

          It was not a big kitchen, nor was it a luxurious one—but it was one of the warmest rooms in the mansion, both in decor and in temperature, being located a bit closer to the geothermal vents than the main quarters.  Now, by the standards of the rest of the mostly-Victorian mansion, the kitchen itself looked downright modern (and perhaps a little out-of-place in Gensokyo, but Orin liked that about it).  It was a small, old galley-type; originally it was a kitchen for the servants to prepare their own meals, so it was a tad more sparsely furnished than the main staff kitchens.  But that still meant she got a gas range, an oven, an icebox (there was an old fridge, too; Orin had been pestering Satori forever to hook that up to the diesel generator used for the lights, though), white-painted vintage cabinetry, and a lovely little breakfast nook, bursting with homeliness—big, yellow-stained windowpanes (to neutralize some of the blue Former Hell light) overlooking a couple stories above ground level, a white formica-topped round table, and an aquamarine-colored vinyl wraparound booth seat.  Which, currently, was filled by a rather sad-looking satori.

          Koishi was...well, she was awake, but barely.  She sat in the very center of the booth, shoulders slumped, hands cupped around a little mug of warmed miso soup, eyes half-lidded and dazed, stuck gazing at the formica; her hat was next to her, her hair was mussed up and tangled with grass-seed heads and white flower petals.  Her blouse and skirt were full of grass stains, and her sleeves were still a little wet.  In short, the poor thing had seen better days.

          "Must be one wicked hangover you got there, hunh?" Orin laughed as the omelette finished; she thought for a moment, before adding a couple more turns of salt just as it began to set.  Some cheese, a fold, and it was done—she couldn't help a self-satisfied little purr as she plated it, still steaming, and brought it over.  She promptly plopped down in a standalone chair opposite Koishi, putting her elbows up on the table.

          Koishi's human eyes glanced up at her, upturned and looking remarkably similar to a lost puppy.  "Is it that obvious?" she mumbled, her voice restrained to a whisper.

          Orin gave a ginger half-smile, reaching across the table to pluck some of the seed heads from her hair; Koishi just kind of let her do it.  "Kiddo, you reek of alcohol.  Anybody with a nose would know."

          Koishi wasn't a kid.  Nor was Orin her mother.  Hell, going solely by years-spent-as-a-human, Orin wasn't even much older than her.  But somehow, it felt right.  Does making omelettes for hungover people make you their mother?  (Probably not.)

          Now Koishi's eyes were focused on the omelette before her.

          "C'mon.  Eat up, it's okay."  Koishi's eyes flicked from the omelette to Orin and back.  Don't be shy about it, either—and don't forget about your soup.

          "...I'm not very hungry."

          "It'll help, kiddo, c'mon.  The food'll calm your stomach, and all that salt'll help you feel better, too," Orin went on, picking out the last of the flower petals from Koishi's hair.  "Want some catsup?  Made it fresh the other day."

          Koishi cracked a little smile at that, but shook her head; she gingerly put her mug of soup on the table beside her, taking a little sip of it before picking up her fork.  "Mushroom ketchup is gross."

          And with that, she slid a piece of the omelette into her mouth—and her eyes lit up.  She made a fluttery little hum of happiness as she chewed, pressing her lips to the back of her fork-hand—demurely, almost, as if there was any way the poor thing could be composed right now.

          At that, Koishi's eyes sharpened.  Something of a smirk came to her lips as she cut off a second, much larger piece of her omelette.  "Oi.  It's just a habit," she muttered, before shoving a rather grossly oversized chunk of omelette into her mouth, as if out of spite.

          Orin returned the smile, her tails flicking in satisfaction.  She always liked cooking for people, hungover or not—though it wasn't everyday that her cooking was able to help someone so much.  One thing, though—oi?  When did you start saying oi?

          Koishi froze, for just a split-second mid-chew—and her eyes turned down to the plate for a moment, just the hint of a flush showing on her cheeks.

          Oh?  Orin's lips curled into a feline smirk at that—she leaned in closer, flicking her tails.  What's with that reaction, hmmm?

          "D-did you know ketchup is banned in Paris?" Koishi replied, turning her head away, all of a sudden looking embarrassed.  "I-it's too strong, bowls over all the flavors..."

          Yes.  Yes, I did know.  From you, saying it a million times, like, whenever there's a ketchup bottle in a ten meter radius—now tell me.  What.  Is up.

          "S-so there's this girl I like..."

          "Oh, really now?!" Orin blurted, losing herself in a tailspin of giggles.  "C'mon, Koishi, I know you well enough to know when you're head over heels again."

          "A-again...?" Koishi mumbled, her face a similar shade as the magma boiling underneath Former Hell.  "In any case, y-you didn't think about it at all until now, though..."

          "C'mon, I'm the head servant to two ultra-powerful mind-readers—don't you think I'd have learned a little thought control by now?" she laughed.  Just don't tell your sister; it's pretty tricky to keep hidden, Orin thought with a wink.  And what's she like?

          Koishi thought for a moment, probably weighing things up in her mind; all the while, Orin simply rested her chin on her clasped hands, giving that trademark felicitous grin.  Presently, Koishi took a rather confident draught of her soup (presumably to steel her nerves, but from Orin's perspective it looked kinda funny), and began.

          "Well, she's super cute, that's just first off,” Koishi said, taking another bite of the omelette absent-mindedly, “she’s uhm, kinda pale and thin cuz she doesn’t seem to get out much, but she’s soooo pretty all dressed up, like with her hair up and her makeup done and her nails, she looks like one of my old bisque dolls!  Oh, but she’s also super pretty even just regular—at least, I think this last time she was wearing, like, this fluffy scarlet dress and a mob cap, right, and literally just a little foundation and that was it and she was that pretty—waaaait, was she?  Hmm.  Cuz then, maybe she just is that pale normally.  As I said, I don’t think she gets out much. . .”

          Oh no.

          ". . . and like, yeah, she's super awkward at first, and maybe little braggy,” Koishi rambled on between mouthfuls of egg, “but inside she’s such a sweetheart!  I’m thinking she’s just lonely maybe, and a bit of a scaredy-cat with people, cuz yesterday she really wanted to tell me to leave in like this mean way cuz, y’know, she was scared, and she couldn’t bring herself to do it, but she was so much happier by the end that she had someone to talk to!  Oh, and did I tell you about her rainbow wings?  They’re so cool, Orin, they’re like these little crystals attached to. . .”

          Oh no.

          ". . . and she really likes plushies too; she has like a mountain of them—she has a big dolphin one she named Moby, because his fur is all white cuz he's old and stuff, just like the book!” Koishi said, having polished off the omelette she unconsciously turned to the soup now, “oh, but she knows the Moby from the book isn't a dolphin, she just thinks it's funny—wait, did I tell you she loves reading, too?  I dunno exactly what kinda books she's into; probably stuff about the ocean or sea animals I think, but we didn't really talk about—"

          "K-Koishi-sama!" Orin blurted out.  Koishi stopped mid-word, blinking and cocking her head at Orin as if to say, 'why'd you stop me?'

          "Koishi-sama...  How long have you known this girl?"  Please no.

          Koishi froze again.  A series of blinks meant she knew exactly what Orin was hinting at, and she didn't exactly like it.

          "Uhm, well we first met at that, uhm...  That party, hosted by her sister.  The one you picked us up from."

          "Koishi-sama, that was like, three weeks ago."

          "Oh.  W-well—"

          "Three weeks!  Koishi-sama, is this actually—"

          "W-w-we liked each other even when we first met!  It was only for a few minutes back then, but still!  Y-you don't understand; I can read her heart, and I read it back then so I knew she liked me back...  And so when I went over yesterday—"

          "So a day?  You've only really known her for a day?"

          Koishi's face scrunched up into a mixture of panic and embarrassment, little tears springing to her eyes as she balled up her fists and hopped up and down in her seat.  "N-no, no!  L-listen to me, just listen..."

          Orin pursed her lips for a moment, before slowly drawing a breath in and out.  Calm...  Physiological reaction, just like Satori-sama always says...  On one hand, this all is moving very much too fast, as it usually does—but then again, it's not like there's been any sort of confession yet, so...

          She opened one eye.  Koishi had that slightly-guilty wet-cat pleading look written all over her face.  And she did eat her whole omelette and like, half of her soup.

          "Listen..." Koishi mumbled, and upon noticing that Orin wasn't stopping her anymore, she continued: "S-she's different, I know it.  I not only know it—I promise it," she said.  She seemed to be fighting with herself for a moment, before her words took on a forced edge, "even though she knew what I am, she...she talked to me first.  O-or maybe it never mattered to her in the first place, I don't know—how could she forget, if it ever did?  Is it...it is something so trivial to her that it doesn't matter.  My mind reading doesn't matter to her."

          "Koishi-sama..."  They all say that at first, don't they?

          At this point, it did actually seem like Koishi was about to cry.  Orin stood up and sat down at the edge of the booth, close enough to pull Koishi into a loose hug, but just far enough away that Koishi could turn away if she wanted to, but close enough for her arms to reach—Koishi didn't move at all, not even when Orin tried to hug her.

          "I'm sorry...  Koishi-sama, I'm so sorry.  I-I didn't mean that—"

          "I-it's okay...  It's okay.  I'm okay," Koishi mumbled, without so much as meeting Orin's eyes.  Upon her face was a look of quiet, jaw-set determination—eyebrows knit, three eyes running through the remains of her omelette, her jaw muscles working, working, as she contemplated something—

          "It's gonna be okay," Koishi muttered, putting some force into the words as if to drill them into her skull, "I know it will...  I know it...  Know..."  And then she blinked, and seemed to sense something approaching, her eyes raising and widening out towards the kitchen proper, and in that split-second Orin's ear caught the sound of footsteps, fast approaching.

          She glanced over to the doorway of the kitchen just in time to watch the handle turn, the door open—and there was a moment there, when Satori had shoved the door open but seemed to hold it still, half-wide, and upon her face was a mixture of shock and confusion, and both of them were staring at her and she stared back, and for that moment everything seemed calm, controllable—

          And then Satori stepped through the doorway, that first step seeming to age her nearly two hundred years, so that by the second step, she was so slumped she could no longer meet their eyes.

          Orin jumped up first, perhaps more on instinct than sense—she covered the distance in two paces and then was at Satori's shoulder, taking her by the arm.

          "S-Satori-sama!  Don't worry, we were just—"

          Satori turned to her and, before Orin could react, took her shoulder and shoved her to the side.  Orin's words died in her throat, just as they did in her mind.

          In an instant the meagre amount of force in the shove disappeared, Satori's gaze turned downwards again, and Orin let her pass without a word.  Satori's knees began to wobble as she reached the chair opposite Koishi, sitting down as if her body was suddenly nothing but dead-weight.

          The two sisters looked at each other, from across the table.  Satori ran her eyes over the miso soup, the empty plate, and then up to Koishi—as it did so, Satori's face slackened, her eyes closed, and her breathing kicked up, almost to the point of hyperventilating, and when a tuft of hair fell in her face she took both her hands and started pushing it away, pushing her short hair back and away from her face with her hands, faster and harder, raking her scalp with her nails until with one final grunt she put her head down.  Forehead to the formica, elbows to her ears, her trembling fingers intertwined, clutching the back of her head.

          The silence in that room was complete and total.

          "Hope is a cruel thing," she mumbled, barely loud enough to be heard.

          Satori then filled the silence with a bitter chuckle, a gasping, strained laugh.  "I've given you everything I have, Koishi, do you know that?  I've given everything I have to give.  I have given up everything for you—my home, my clan, my memory—because I believed it to be right.

          "Why did I do the right thing?" Satori said, letting the question hang in the air.  "Was it out of piety?  Was it out of love?  Were you simply an investment; a dream for a future that for me would never come to pass?  Or was it a mere whim, an impulse borne of some vague rosy memory?  I don't know, Koishi, I don't know why I did it, I don't remember anymore!  Hah-hah! With each passing day away from the sun, I am losing my memory too!"

          Satori sucked in a wavering breath, her fingernails digging into the back of her scalp.  "There is no future in this body of mine.  There never was, and I've made my peace with it.  But I can never escape it. I look in the mirror now, I see this miserable Sickness-scarred wretch staring back at me, and all I can see is the past—and in you, I see a future that will never exist.”

          Koishi tried to say something, then—she opened her mouth, but not a sound came forth.  As she did so, Satori set her jaw and stood up.  Orin did not move as Satori turned and went away, rubbing her eyes with the inside of her sleeve.

          Koishi, too, rose and took two wavering steps after her sister, but then she stopped.  Her hand flew to her mouth.  A violent gag overtook her body then, and she threw everything up.

—

          Orin leaned against the wall next to the closed bathroom door.  She heard the tap run for a moment, then cease.

          “Leave me alone,” came the voice from inside.

          Orin didn’t respond.

          “I know you’re still there.  Leave me alone.”

          “No.”

          “What do you mean, no?”

          “Even if it’s an order, I’m not leaving you alone.”

          “Worried about me doing something?”

          “…I’m worried about you fainting and cracking your head open.  That’s what I’m worried about.”

          “That’s not how this works.  That’s not how any of this works."

          “I don’t care,” Orin said.  “Are you cleaning out your cuts?”

          “What cuts?”

          “You had a few on your hands.  I noticed when I picked you up.”

          “Must’ve gotten them when the sake bottle broke.”

          “Clean them out.  With warm water.”

          “You’re not my mother.”

          “Clean them out, please.”

          There was a pause.  Then, the tap started again.

          A moment later, there was a muffled yelp of pain, followed by the rush of air through teeth.

          “Warm water, not hot.  Hot burns more.”

          “I know, I know!”

          “Are you sure you don’t want help?”

          “No, I don’t want your help!” Koishi hissed through the door.  There was a pause, and then a weaker: “No, no…  It’s fine, it’s okay.”

          “Did it get on your clothes?”

          “What?”

          “The vomit.”

          A pause.

          “Open the door a crack and throw your clothes out here.  I’ll take them when I leave,” Orin said.  “My eyes are closed.”

          Orin closed her eyes.  The sound of the tap running got momentarily a little louder as the door opened, the balled-up clothes landed in a heap on the floor, and the door shut again.

          Orin opened her eyes.  She picked up Koishi’s blouse and held it up.  It was stained all the way down the front.  She folded it loosely over the stained part and threw it back onto the little pile.

          “Why are you still here?” Koishi asked.

          “Because you need somebody to be not-mad at you right now,” Orin replied.  “Besides, you didn’t really do anything wrong.”

          Silence.

          “…you know this is gonna be over one day, right?” Orin said.  “Someday, it’ll be over, we’ll all be happy somehow and this’ll all be a crappy memory, so far in the past that we’ll barely remember how it felt.”

          “…I’ll remember.”

          “That’s why I said barely,” Orin said.  “It never really goes away.  Gets better, but never really goes away.”

          “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

          “Would you rather I lied?  …the last thing you need now is me lying to you.”

          Silence.

          “You know your sister loves you, right?”

          “…I know.”

          “Sometimes people do things they don’t mean to because they’re so desperate to do the right thing,” Orin said, smiling ruefully.  “Because they love us.”

          “I know,” Koishi said.  “I know that too.”

          “She only wants the best for—”

          “I said I know,” Koishi hissed.  A pause, then: “It’s never gonna end, is it?  That love.”

          Silence.  Between the both of them now.

          There was another sharp inhale of pain from inside the bathroom, accompanied by the sound of tap water deflecting off of something held underneath.

          “Why are you still here?” Koishi said.

          “Because.  I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

          “Pfft, so that’s what this is about?  Something you’re doing out of honor, hunh?  It’s just how you’re honoring your agreement with my sister?  The…the ride back, the omelette, even this…  I bet that if we hadn’t gotten caught, you were gonna turn me in right afterwards anyway.”

          “You know that isn’t true…” Orin said.  “C’mon.  Read my mind and tell me all that again.”

          Silence.

          “How are you feeling?” Orin asked.

          “Head hurts, but I’m not dizzy anymore.  Not gonna vomit, either.”

          “Great.”

          Silence.

          Orin tried to think up something else to say.  Something that’d make all of this better, that’d make all of this mean something.  But she couldn’t, and perhaps nobody could, so the moment passed with everything else unspoken.

          “Thank you for the omelette,” Koishi said as Orin bent and wadded up Koishi’s grass-stained skirt and soiled blouse.  “It was…really good.”

          “I’m glad,” Orin replied.  “Make sure that when you get out, you change in to your pajamas and go straight to bed, okay?”

          “Okay.”