Work Text:
Someone knocked at the door.
Misumaru looked up from her worktable, frowned, then walked over, flicking her fingers to shift her sturdy apron to her more godly “business” regalia. Few people knew where she lived, and most visitors would be looking to commission something from her. She took a moment to brush herself off, then opened the door. “Yes, wh- you!”
A woman with long grey hair stood outside with a grin. “Hey!”
Misumaru flicked her wrist, summoning a spellcard to hand. “You have five seconds to get off my property, Himemushi.”
“Hey hey, as much as I’d like to bash ya, I have something better. Look!” Momoyo pulled out a metal lunch box and popped it open.
“...Is this a joke? Are you trying to taunt me?” Misumaru glared down at the dragon gem sitting inside the box.
“Huh? Oh, no, this is for you. I had an idea, ya see?”
Momoyo held out the box for Misumaru, who hurriedly snatched out the gem- Momoyo’s eyes were glittering too hungrily to believe she'd let it sit there for long. Misumaru examined the gem in a cupped hand, carefully hiding it from Momoyo. “What kind of idea?”
“Welllll, I know ya like to make stuff out of ‘em, ‘cause that's why you get mad any time you bump into me looking for a snack.”
“That, and your preferred mining technique is to riddle the bedrock with so many holes it's a wonder the mountain hasn't collapsed.”
“Eh,” Momoyo waved her hand. “Point is, I thought to myself “Hey, when she makes one of those hook thingies-”
“Magatama.”
“-you don't use the whole thing, right? You cut away bits and put a hole through. So there's gotta be leftovers! And while I prefer a nice crunchy big one, small ones are gonna taste the same.”
Misumaru stared at the Oomukade. “You're… serious about this.”
“Yep!” Momoyo pulled out another lunch box, this covered in condensation. “That wind goddess at the top of the mountain gave me this the other day as a bribe, it's some Outsider treat called “Ice Cream”? You can put stuff on it though, like, flakes and sprinkley things, so I bet dragon gem shards would go great on it!”
Misumaru continued to stare. Momoyo wiggled the box. “I'll share some with you.”
Misumaru sighed, then walked back inside. She shifted back into her work clothes, not looking back as she heard Momoyo follow. “My dragon gem reserves are hidden away and magically locked. You will not be eating them.”
“I know that I couldn't smell any. Plus it's rude, it's your house. Ya wouldn't break into someone else’s house and raid their pantry. Ooh, whats this-”
“Do not !” Misumaru rushed over and yanked away the ingot of black metal Momoyo was licking. “Do you know how difficult it is to get this?”
“My tongue feels numb.”
“It's Cold Iron, special ordered from England! It has peculiar effects on Youkai and you've gotten venom all over it.”
“No I didn't!”
Misumaru grimaced as the paper towel she'd been wiping the ingot off with started smoking. “Just don't touch anything.” She sighed and tossed the paper towel into a bucket of water, then walked over to her work table, pulling out several tools. She pointed to a nearby stool. “Sit. Don't touch anything else.”
“Alright, fine, mom.” Momoyo plopped down and stuck out her tongue. She paused, then poked it with a finger. “Still numb.”
“Careful!”
“Nah, I’m immune to my own venom. ‘S just human that gets me. And human-enough, too, like maids.”
“I meant I don’t want you dribbling even more ven-” Misumaru blinked. “ Maids ?”
“Yeah! One came down to the caves a while back and we had a brawl. Didn't feel like eating her after I won so I took her lunch instead, but she musta already taken a bite.”
“Are you talking about Ms. Izayoi? She’s human.”
“I don’t think regular humans can hold enough knives for an entire vein of iron. Or that timey-wimey thing she was doin’.”
“I…” Misumaru shook her head. “Never mind. Just sit still. You’ll be fine, whatever little you managed to lick off won’t kill you.” She got back to work, setting a small circular saw on the bench, connecting to an axle. An experimental pump with a treadle underneath the table got the saw moving. “Good…” she muttered to herself, before taking out the dragon gem. Momoyo’s eyes lit up, and while she did lean forward, she stayed in her seat.
Misumaru flipped the gem over in her hands, looking over from every angle. “While Magatama have a standard form they follow, they aren't all the same. Some have more pronounced hooks, bigger or smaller- or no- bore holes. Part of it’s a matter of culture shifting, but part of it is learning to find the shape already inside your material.”
“Inside it?” Momoyo asked.
“The Earth and her stones have been around for longer than humans, and by extension their gods and monsters, have. When we create, we don't work from nothing, but with something with its own history, its own story.” Misumaru opened a drawer and pulled out a jeweler’s loupe and a wax pencil. “You… eat rocks.”
“Sometimes!”
“Have you ever noticed when you bite down, some rocks will break in different ways?”
Momoyo nodded. “Yeah! Some of ‘em come off in layers, some of ‘em melt in your mouth like they’re made of sand, some of ‘em have little inclusions in ‘em, like a kind of rock stew!”
“And of course, different kinds of crystals form in different shapes, with different colors depending on impurities within them. One needs to account for that.”
Momoyo nodded again. “Yeah, different materials, different properties! I get that.”
“Hmm.” Misumaru flipped the stone over a few times, examining it from top to bottom, then started sketching on it with the wax pencil, outlining the shape of a magatama, pausing a few times and scrubbing away wax as she adjusted. Satisfied, she started to pump at the treadle in earnest, setting up her saw to motion.
“Oh! Safety glasses, right?”
“What?” Misumaru turned back to Momoyo.
“Safety glasses. The guy who sharpens my tools wears ‘em so he doesn't get stuff in his eyes.”
“I'm a god .”
“So… you should be setting a good example to mortal artisans?”
Misumaru stared at Momoyo, unable to tell if that was a smirk or an honest smile. Still, she has a point. A small flux of power adjusted her work clothes to include a pair of Outsider-style glasses. “And you-”
“Don't worry, I got this.” Momoyo vanished in a flash of light, replaced by a massive coiled centipede. The chair underneath her groaned, then shattered. The centipede looked down, before somehow managing to blush. “Um… in my defense, technically I'm still sitting?”
Misumaru groaned, as Momoyo scratched her head with a leg. “My bad. I was goin’ for a bit smaller kind of giant, but I probably coulda done smaller? I mean, giant’s relative, suppose I could stick to my humanoid height in length and that'd still be pretty big for a centipede. I can help fix it.”
“No… just… stay there for now.” Misumaru pinched the bridge of her nose, then slid the safety glasses back down over her eyes. “I thought centipedes didn't have eyes.”
“Some do! I can even see color! Apparently it's something that happens after the first time ya take humanoid form, your eyes get used to it and it just sticks even in bug mode.” Momoyo tapped at several jet-black eyespots. “I don't understand it, but it's handy!”
“I imagine so. And I also imagine they're armored if you consider that the equivalent of safety glasses?”
“Yep!”
“Very well then.” Misumaru turned back to her workbench, pumping the treadle into a frenzy. The saw started to whir. Misumaru reached over to turn a knob, grabbing a small hose to dribble water onto the blade, then pressing the rock into it. She could sense Momoyo leaning over her shoulder as she cut, first flattening the sides, then cutting out small chunks of stone until the gem had taken a blocky comma shape. Misumaru took her foot off the treadle, pushing her chair back to hold the gem to the light. Even in an unfinished state the cuts had brought out the dragon gem’s beauty, revealing a bright translucent teal, speckled with dots of light. Momoyo leaned forward, then shifted to humanoid form to gape. “Wow… that's really pretty.”
“And it's making you hungry no doubt.”
“Some, yeah, but not as much as you're thinking.” Momoyo started to get up, before glancing down at the broken chair still under her and wincing.
“The Magatama isn't complete yet, of course. I'll grind it to roundness next.” Misumaru unhooked the saw from the axle, setting the tool aside before she swept the cut gemstone scraps into a bowl. She stared down at them for a moment, then sighed and handed the bowl to Momoyo. “I suppose as promised, here's the extra.”
“Ya did promise,” said Momoyo, though she didn't eat any of them, just staring down. “What do ya normally do with the tailings?”
“If they're large enough I might cut them further. The smallest I typically grind for pigment.”
“What, really? Like Ability Cards?”
“The magic absorbing properties of dragon gems has been known for long before Iizunamaru started trying to make money off other people’s powers. I understand that the earliest prototype Spellcards used dragon gem pigment, before switching to cheaper reagents. Perhaps I should see if Fluffy Ellen is still in Gensokyo, we could…” Misumaru paused from attaching a tool with a large flat grinding disk to the table. “Why are you smirking like that, Himemushi?”
“Soooo… It’s okay for you to dig up dragon gems and make stuff out of ‘em, but when me or Iizunamaru or Tenkyuu do-”
“The difference is scale. I dig up a few gems and make a few magatama out of them. I don’t turn the mountain to swiss cheese with my digging, I don’t take a stable if decentralized barter economy and try to create a currency no one wants, and I don’t enable the forces of hell to buy out Gensokyo so they can play mafia in it. ”
“I… don’t think we were trying to do that last part? And didn’t the Shrine Maiden deal with that? Heard somethin’ about her and a big boss-of-bosses Oni. An’ I heard one of the hell gang guys was part dragon so worse came to worse I coulda eaten ‘em and saved the day!”
“I'm sure we would all have loved to see that,” said Misumaru, dryly. “What do you even do with the gems you eat? Do you actually metabolize them?”
“Me…tabolize?”
“Does your body actually use the gems you eat? Or do they just come out the other end?”
“Oh! No, I don't crap ‘em out. I checked after Iizunamaru’s fox asked.”
“I don't want to know.”
“I sniffed them.”
“I said I don't want to know!”
“Though, the sniffer doesn't really work all the time, I can't smell Ability Cards even though those’re made with ‘em. Can barely smell the thing you're makin’ too.”
“Really? Hmm.” Misumaru flipped the incomplete magatama over in her hand. “I suppose that the more they’re processed, the less they register as “dragon” to you? Did you feel any inclination to eat the Hakurei Orb when Lady Hakurei fought you?”
“Nope. That thing radiates pain , and besides I was busy fighting her! It was great, ya know? I should fight her again! Ooh! What if you and I teamed up against her this time, insteada you given’ her cards?”
“Let's finish this first.” Misumaru sat back down, setting the circular grinding wheel flush with the worktable’s axle, and giving the treadle a pump. “You know, based on the physical properties of these gemstones, it might be more accurate to refer to it as a form of apatite-”
“Tryin’ a get me to stop bein’ hungry by getting technical? Won’t work, a dragon gem’s a dragon gem.” Momoyo gave a shrug. “Besides, I’ve got an appetite for apatite.”
“...seriously?”
“Puns are fun!”
Misumaru sighed, but internally she chuckled a bit. “Let’s just get back to work.” She adjusted her safety glasses, and started up the grinding wheel. “We’ll smooth this out. A few passes with progressively finer grits.”
“Does it have to be all rounded?” Momoyo asked. “Like, I’ve seen other gems, where they’re cut with all kindsa flat bits.”
“Facets?”
“Yeah! I like how those look.”
Misumaru considered, then shrugged. “I suppose we can try. This is a sort of collaborative creation.” She dribbled some water on the grinding wheel, and got to work, pressing the gem against the spinning abrasive. Slowly facets formed, flat planes and angles approximating the normal rounded form of a Magatama. A small cone-shaped bore finished things, with Misumaru drilling out a pentagonal hole in the middle of the comma-shaped gem. Cut and polished, the gem sparkled as Misumaru stepped back from her worktable and held it up to the light.
“Hey, that’s pretty good!” Momoyo stepped forward, leaning over Misumaru’s shoulder to look at it. Her eyes glittered, though not with hunger. “Can I?”
Misumaru started to hand over the gem, then frowned. “Hold on.” She pressed the gem against her lips, closing her eyes and focusing. A moment later she handed it over. “All yours.”
“Cool.” Momoyo held the magatama, flipping it over in her hands, running a finger over the edges. “This is really neat. Seeing it made and all.” She tilted her head. “Hmm… maybe you’re right- I should be more careful when mining, if I eat all the gems I’m gonna be hungry later, and even someone as cool as me can make a mistake if I tunnel wrong-” Momoyo shook herself, then set the gem on the table. Misumaru covered her mouth to hide a smirk. “What’d you do? It’s almost like you’re lecturing me without bein’ there!”
“I just imprinted a bit of myself onto the magatama. As a reminder, when you go mining again.”
“You!” Momoyo coughed, then laughed. “So ya can bug me even then, huh? While you’re off making cool stuff up here on the surface?” She shook her head but smiled.
Misumaru went to work cleaning up her work table, sweeping scraps and coolant water dirty with powdered gem into a bowl. “The rest of the gem, as promised. For your ice cream.”
“Yeah,” agreed Momoyo. She pulled out the still condensation-covered box. “Hey, Misumaru? This was fun.”
“Surprisingly, yes. It felt good to have someone watch, destroyed chair aside.”
“Yeah…” Momoyo rubbed the back of her head. “Hey… if I dug up some other stones, do you think we could do this again? Maybe teach me how to make ‘em?”
Misumaru smiled. “Perhaps we can.”
“Great! And then we can team up and make a cool combo spellcard or somethin’!”
Misumaru shook her head but chuckled regardless.