I found a pair of shorts

[andrewv42]

So there's a few short story threads around, and decided to give it a go myrself. I have free time, I like to write, and I'm (Partially) fearless towards your judgment.

In order to allow this topic to succeed as a pair of shorts, have this.

So here goes.



There was no pride in good music. Not as its caricature interconnected the towering stalks of the bamboo forest. An audience of curious youkai were in attendance, as a party of dryads, poised delicately upon their instruments, exhibited their melodies with gentle enthusiasm. No measure of pride; only equanimity, and pleasure that thrived upon the purity of its tone. A breeze existed, inspiring the leaves into a motion that corresponded with the dryads' song; it's strength was sufficient so as to be relished by those caressed by its touch, but not so strong so as to operate against the flowing expressions.

Four dryads were present, and wholly absorbed in their composure. Seated upon logs, one sat with a harp, one with violin, one with 'cello and the fourth with a fine, poignant oboe. The violin consolidated with the harp in capricious melody that carried upwards with wild and varied convolutions; as though in response, the rhythm of the wind increased in rapidity, until the sensible end to their passage was concluded; a harmonious boom by the 'cello in its virtuous sound.

A pause, and the oboe pursued an excited earnest - an independent earnest, as the others remained respectfully at peace. It carried itself and the entirety of the audience upwards, in accordance to the rising pitch. Beyond the canopy of the forest, their imaginations rose, to a place where gravity had been conquered by ambitious spirit, and where the minds of those attending floated sumptuously for minutes yet. The oboe ceased in its domineering solo, and in following, all the instruments collaborated in a liberating arabesque of song, their voices interwoven.

The instruments persisted in this animated dialogue, many of the youkai attendants poised upon their seats in anticipation. Steadily, the music increased in intensity, the violin conquered by furious passion as its player sawed away; the cello singing in noble correspondence; the harp maintaining the fluidity of their rhythm - the entire orchestra handsomely synthesised in the production of a heaving, soaring melody. Gradually, the end threatened its approach, as the enthusiasm of every instrument heightened further still, inclining upwards as they ascended the penultimate crescendo; a powerful, conclusive end, as was conceivably promised.

As it neared, one certain youkai, placed within a coat that overflowed her miniature form, could not master her ambition, and thrust away with her fingers against her leg, beating the rhythm without concern for others attending. The imperial chord was played, reverberating throughout the forest interior; the pause; and then the final empowering resolution, as logical and as masterful a resolution as any, and with it, the youkai's fist swept down upon her knee, extinguishing her lively tempo. She sighed happily and turned to her neighbour. The words, "Marvelously conducted, was it not?" formed within her gullet, indeed within the provinces of her mouth, but she caught the hostile, disapproving expression and was silenced completely.

A messy form, with rusty coat and dirty appearance, her neighbour responded, her voice a purity that was ponderous contrast to her presentation; "If truly you cannot stifle yourself so that you must beat the measure, let me entreat you so that you may do so in time, and not half a beat ahead." The dryads gathered away their instruments, and there was a general moan of dissatisfaction at their departure; their appearance was rare, and what was less common still were the prime occurrences in which they would play music to a live audience. They would be sorely missed, as they would most certainly vanish for fifty years or more. (Although the youkai who hibernated for the lengths of aeons could not be concerned; they slept whenever they chose, annihilating the consideration of time from their living)

The small youkai did not have a name; not by authority, at least. She was recognised for the colour of her clothes, forever some shade of red or another, as was her coat at present. She considered upon a protection of her dignity through the expression of a retort; but her propensities left her disinclined towards vulgarity, and all she could do was leave with as great a show of disapproval as she could exhibit - for the wind was growing violent.

Towards her residence, she travelled, with sprightly leap imbued into her step; evidently still possessed by the vivacity of the concert, troubled though she was by her neighbour's reprehension. Red, for that was one of her several names - although Pink, Scarlet, Crimson and Maroon were all feasible alternatives - slept, ate, and collected herself within the emptied hollow of a tree. Frequently, she would encounter insects that contrived to share in the hospitality of her residence - she would eat them without compunction, curiously appetised by the notion of live, invertebrate flesh.

Her tree was not very large; it had no necessity to be for as slight and as small a frame as her. Overhead, a second concert begun; an orchestra of thunder that gave announcement to the promise of rain. It was not until Red had employed her magic to shrink the size of her coat into a more manageable volume, and sliding into her tree with great hurry, that the world outside gave way to a plummeting chaos of rain.

The wind beat with a steady persistence upon the surface of her tree, and the hurtling elements prohibited a view of anything beyond a metre. The discordant turmoil of the weather impressed upon the youkai that she was isolated from the rest of the forest; this tree, standing independent in the centre of a small clearing, could perhaps have existed alone in a separate plane of existence, and she indulged in that notion of security. Her shelter now procured one of its many scrupulous conveniences; small creatures, seeking impunity from the thick atmosphere of embattled elements, managed an entrance into her dwelling. Red was conquered by the convulsive impulse of her stomach, and she ate, ignoring the sinful copiousness of flesh that she devoured; the taste was one to relish, after all.

Red cherished her tree for its innumerable providential conveniences. Perhaps above all, it concealed her from the scrutiny of others, as she often spent her days and nights alone within that interior - not exactly possessed by sloth; her constitution naturally left her inclined towards the conservation of energy, and she was no social creature anyway. It was not very recent that she had fled from Eientei, but they were searching for her nonetheless, and she had no intention of making a return; she furiously scorned that wretched location, and all of its connotations, the royalty of the moon be damned. Accustomed to inactivity and the passing of time in thoughtless repose, Red fell asleep, somewhat cradled by the consistency of the rain, and the rhythmic sway of the wind.

[andrewv42]

The pounding of hooves against moistened soil carried through the vicinity of the bamboo forest. Towering vegetable uprisings, with the apparent intention of impaling the skies, stretched to eternity and beyond above, culminating in a botanical explosion of canopy and overhanging foliage. The arrangement of green repelled from the forest interior the affinities of sunshine; although it was in fact approaching noon, the relative atmosphere was one of murk and diaphanous gloom.

Firm upon her horse, Diana rode, her expression suffused with great intensity as she concentrated upon the commandeering of her mount. It was like this that she navigated, possessed by expedition, through the complexity of vegetation; so often was there a disassembled tree, a tumbling arrangement of vegetable matter, or overhanging branch, that represented a perilous threat to the consistency of her speed, and it was only through determined management that she averted their obstruction.

Time passed, and she decelerated, troubled by the insistence of her stomach. She urged her horse into a steady canter, stroking its neck with great affection. Metres distant was a small clearing, which permitted the inwards flood of invasive sunlight - an entity otherwise foreign in that gloom. Tempted by the notion of warmth, she directed the beast toward that area. Upon arrival, evaluation confirmed its single feature; an isolated tree, independent at its centre, and most conceivably hollow.

The shafts of liquid incubation, generously exhibited in plentitude by the sun, were received gratefully by Diana, whose journey had been endlessly cold. She sat upon a region of the tree where it beheld a slope; reliable seating, though a little wet. Bedewed in sunshine, she received nourishment from that warmth, for it conferred a recollection of her intellects - a rediscovery of character. Presently, colour suffused itself into her being, and the pallor of her skin grew more humanly white (As a creature, she was naturally pale; her complexion typically a flawless, ivory purity). From her bag she withdrew a sandwich, the soft bread accommodating copious layers of ham and cultured cheese.

The first meek and somewhat courteous consumption ignited the wolf of her appetite. Throughout her travel, she had remained, for hours, devoted to sustaining a thrilling consistency of pace, forever in abstinence of food. It was ambitious riding that pleasured her extremely. Yet above all she had been deprived of culinary satisfaction; her stomach emptied of fulfillment. As hunger conquered her composition, she ate with increasing lavish.

Finishing her third sandwich, and with her countenance adequately relieved, Diana suddenly recognised the principles of thirst; dominating, impetuous thirst, so that in the impulse of her action of opening her poach, she mishandled the leather container, spilling its contents and brewing mud upon the earthen floor. It was no present disconsolation, for Diana was equipped for a lengthy interval of travel. She allowed the waste no measure of authority in the oppression of her spirits; the implications of misery were often disastrous when impassioned.

The sun was beginning to strengthen nonetheless, and the elevating intensity of heat was depriving the warmth of its relish. Convinced that her energies had been sufficiently restored, she concluded upon the resumption of her journey. Her horse was peculiar in that it was the only creature of its kind in Gensokyo's entirety, and that it was purely indefatigable; it required neither water nor nourishment to receive sustenance. Placing a leg within a stirrup, Diana's thrust aimed to heave her weight upon the beast; but she had not calculated her impetus very correctly - the sun had impeded upon her intellects - and failed to recognise her foot placed within the mud upon which she now slipped. Consequently, she was impelled over her saddle, beyond the horse, and further, until she pummeled into the tree. Immediately, she was out.

[andrewv42]

Red's initial perception of the horse was that of a nightmare; such a creature, previously undiscovered, could only have been the birth child of criminal fantasy. It was therefore without trepidation that she exited her tree, driven by curiosity if not compelling earnest to explore what had represented itself as a dream. She had dwelt, uninterrupted, through the course of Diana's arrival and the subsequence of her fall, and not a measure of disturbance had been cast upon her mind. Red was a creature who, whilst immersed within the provinces of sleep, plunged deep into those submerging depths, fathoms distant from even a connection with reality - no measure of outcry, however great, could arouse her from that stately trance.

Convinced of this fantasy, the notion of the unreal considerably pronounced by the accumulation of fog, she was not surprised at the discovery of a woman of pale skin, and sapphire dress, lying flat against her tree. Turning the body, the woman's face revealed a handsome consolidation of features; not quite the representation of beauty, but it did confer a nobility of appearance - surely a princess! Her proximity to the woman, however, betrayed that she was not quite the motionless figure. Her chest rose and fell steadily with the rhythm of her breath; collaborate that with the warmth - indeed, the silken fabric - of that faultless, pearl-textured skin, and Red grew to distrust the nature of her dream. She grew to doubt whether it was a dream at all.

The confirmation of this suspicion was met with startling horror as the princess opened her eyes, letting foul a great shriek that compelled the horse into a thrashing turmoil of aggression. Red, ecstatic with fear, was possessed by the desire to end what she now interpreted as a nightmare. In her obsessive passion, she threw herself to the ground, and her following unconsciousness extinguished the pandemonium. She had struck herself with such force that, from her present state, she was intractable.

Diana, although pressed with schedule, could not help but to allow an obligation to this girl. Red was carried, cradled softly in Diana's arms, and laid upon her tree with charitable care. As additional consolation to the swelling of compunction in her bosom, Diana excused herself further through the self-confession that this throbbing great headache, oppressing her intellects, disallowed the pursuit of efficient, successful riding - and thus she remained.

Minutes later, Red awoke, blinking twice and then again in response to her sight of the great horse. What reassembly she could do for her intellects entreated her to cautiously and sensibly receive what were now confirmed to be visitors; there was every possibility that this woman had been dispersed by the sentries of Eientei, although the peculiar creature that stood nuzzling the grass was of inconceivable origins.

The odious maturity of Red's thoughts were somewhat contradictory to her movements; she greeted Diana exuberantly; endless apologies for her preliminary indispositions; positively charmed to receive such a guest, and should she choose to remain for dinner?

Diana, whose headache has exasperated since her fall, could only accept; the discourtesy of refusal threatened to provoke frightening implications - and she could scarcely, at present, muster the concentration to ride freely, never mind to encompass and consequently traverse the labyrinthine complexity of this forest.

"Then that is excellent!" Red declared with genuine affection. "Pray be inclined so as to rest; the duties of preparation shall be mine entirely." This was not wholly true; the dinner had in fact been planned weeks ago, and numbers of the local inhabitants were constituent towards the success of its arrangement. It was the variety of confluence that was held in honour of no celebration, nor of very particular occasion, but was a leisurely social convergence, where those attending did so in earnest, if not for the organised conviviality and pleasant atmosphere, then at least for the certainty of food - food in plentiful abundance.

[andrewv42]

Time is a curious entity, to be sure, and how indeed it exerts its influence. On occasion, it collaborates poorly with recollection, and already there were three who had failed to appear at the party, under the excuse of forgetfulness. Their's was a woeful absence, for it was considered a misfortune for an attendant to be deprived of conversational neighbours, and the empty seats of those without the memory to attend were a distress to those who organised the event, and contrived to redetermine the entire seating arrangement so as to adapt to those unpleasant absences. Similarly, time's influence affects the trees, whose ageless consolidation with that deliberate chronological movement rendered them tall, mighty, yet correspondingly withered, for old bark peels easy, and it was within the most ancient regions of the forest that the location for the gathering had been decided.

To some, time was no disassembling movement, or predator upon youth; it was not an inhibition to freedom or a medium in which to be engaged. No - to Red, it was a commodity - a resource - and one in anxious scarcity at that. For although the coloured lanterns hung playfully from interconnected cables; and although the table was faultlessly arranged - candles, glasses, silverware and napkins ordered in perfect trim; and although the food, through endless precaution, had been immaculately perused; the singular, crucial element to a successful ceremony was in shortage - and that was sake.

Naturally, the sakes delivery had been arranged weeks ago; its importance demanded a priority. But the delivery had failed to appear, without comment from the associated authorities, and with local establishments almost totally emptied of stock, Red's face was in a scarlet passion. The absence of this necessary component now threatened a sudden failure.

Metres away, the administered attendants had converged upon ground outside the location of arrangement, and in portentous density. Their chatter, although gratefully sustained, was beginning to diminish. For many, their minds ran dependently upon their bellies, and, deprived of food, the conquest of appetite was growing apparent, extinguishing the vitality of the crowd.

Awkward Mimsy pummeled her way through the compaction of huddled youkai, with her frequent, "Make a lane there!" eliciting a response of startled yelps and reprehensive remarks. The temperament of those attending was measurably execrable, and she hurried into the dining region with every show of spirit, eager to escape from an unpopular fate in that hungry, bawling crowd. Red greeted her entry with hopeful acknowledgements, but what satisfaction she might have had was not conveyed; "They've none," said Mimsy, the taint of disconsolation present within her tone, "Finished last week, they said; only precious emergency stock, which they couldn't be persuaded to sell - awaiting the harvest, you see."

"Pleasure yourselves!" cried Diana, with the affinities of joy, "For I've sake!" She appeared, with great, thumping barrels of the drink mounted upon her horse. Immediately Red's expression grew suffused with delight - candid delight. "Tell them to come in!" she yelled to Mimsy, who disappeared to attend to the proceeding. "How did you find it; where?" she inquired, amidst the general roar of satisfaction in response to Mimsy's announcement.
 "I consulted a friend," Diana said, "She was disengaged from present duty, and gave her charity."
 "Well, if she is here, then tell her she can join - she has saved us, and entirely deserves the merit of attendance!"
 "Not at all. She is socially disinclined, you see, although she gives you her compliments."

Diana resisted Red's attempts at further pressure - she remained imperviously confidential. There was an arguable falsity to the response, and Red thought she could discern it. For a moment, a flame of suspicion struggled for life within the hollow of her thoughts; could this woman at all be from Eientei? Was this not the procurement of creative magic? But scarcely had the ember been born before it was struck away by an enthusiasm for the event.

Despite the delay, the party was an unusual success. The innumerable starved appetites were so occupied by their food so that the initial eating prevailed over minutes of determined chewing and the swallowing of copious mouthfuls. It was through the satisfaction of their stomachs, and the consequential gratification of appetite, that the guests grew increasingly loquacious. The conversation flowed as steadily and as abundantly as the sake, the delivery of which was universally attributed to faith - to providence, bless the gods - for which the attendants were endlessly thankful.

The dishes were profound and diverse, although their preparation was not wholly without incident. Kratoa, whose experience with butchery imbursed him with the responsibility of the meat, had trolleyed in the appetisers in such an enthusiastic revelry that half its contents flew out in a catastrophe of clashing silver and soaring plates, as a consequence to the volatility of his impetus. It was when, at last, the sumptuous food had been earnestly arranged through the centre of the great table that Diane, somewhat meek with courtesy and a little silent with the hazard of her remark, made to declare, "But I do not eat meat."

The following silence was a cascade of toppling enthusiasm amidst the manifestation of surprise. Red appeared lost for expression, and many others had their mouths contorted into gestures that resembled a silent whistle. Then, a generous charity of laughter conquered them all, bubbling upwards from within the bowels of those whose shock had been so sufficient to have made them seem terrified - although truly, they were not. The amusement flowed in fearless, tickling obsession; croaking, hooting, shouting and sometimes weeping with mirth; some choking upon their humour so that, to preserve them from an ignominious death, they were obliged to lean over and take great gasping intakes of air; others, still, possessed by wild convolutions that induced them to bounce, most energetically, up and down.

Reassurances were proffered all around, and the vegetables were indeed soon to be observed. They were treated as delicately as porcelain, arriving as sculpted arrangements of artistry - a most outrageous elaboration - so that many were first disinclined towards eating, for example, the intricate replica of a temple constituted of carrot, beetroot, onion and leek, for terror of disassembling the beautiful mass. Several of the constructions had most certainly desired hours to be developed.

As delectable as the dishes might have been, however, nobody ate quite so impulsively so as to fill their stomachs in its gross entirety. Always, a measure of space was reserved to accommodate the entry of pudding - the crown of the meal, and as inevitable as the change of seasons. The merciless attack upon food continued proficiently until at last the pudding arrived; piping hit from a scalding oven, enveloped in thick, gleaming sauce. The conversation suddenly diminished, for breaths (For those not already breathless with the effort of eating) were held in anticipation as the portions were served. With infinite relish, the first spoonfuls were eased carefully into mouths, whose resident tongues were positively ecstatic with an impatience to receive, and consequently indulge in, the luxurious pastry.

And then a scholar of celebrated domestic prominence (And a self-dedicated erudite) called out, his emaciated frame somehow commanding an encompassing voice, attending to the ears of all, with great authority. "Stupid with the excellence of this food, I'm afraid I've little to say, but I will announce this: that I know myself to have ascended to the height of civilization so as to have the privilege of pleasuring in this insuperable pudding, bedewed in its unctuous sauce." There were many who approved of this remark, and therefore relished their pudding even more greatly (although there was perilous controversy to the use of the word, "Civilization.") The pudding could perhaps have resembled a jelly, if it had not been so vividly translucent, and so much firmer ?firmer, and more noticeably viscous. Its texture was sallow white, with impurities of brown betraying the presence of a raisin or chocolate.

Pudding was never the end, however, and the chosen location for the party was capacious at best. Following the final consumption, those attending grew to disperse into a number of groups, where conviviality was quietly maintained. Diana, although having raised her glass in response to the courteous acknowledgments of many, she had earned no valuable acquaintance. It had been learned, by several, that she originated from the South; far South, where land embraced the sea, and the sea continued to the borders of Gensokyo; the ethereal divide between this plane of existence and the next. She was not a social creature, and was indisposed towards exhibiting artificial glee when a conversation did not enliven her. The dispersion of the table had thankfully determined the end to social politics, however; indeed, towards the more isolated regions of the party location, interchange was growing increasingly licentious - against a tree, a trio of affectionate youkai were promiscuously thrust against the bosoms of one another, apparently convinced that they were not seen.

Somewhat oppressed by inactivity, and the threatening encroach of boredom, Diana sought the audience of Red, who was already engaged in the gathering of dishes. "What's amiss?" Diane said, "Your complexion is a trifle pink." It was true that the girl's gait was perhaps a little disturbed, although she had not often indulged in drink.
 "Eh, perhaps I have drunk a little - I find that my system disagrees with alcohol - receives it with resentment." She stammered a little, eyes moist.
 "Those beneath the command of sake do not typically relieve themselves through humble activity - such as the clearing away of dishes. You are somewhat diminished, I fear; temperamentally reduced by the hazards of social interchange." She paused, aware that Red was not following; people quickly grew exhausted with Diana's vocabulary - perhaps it was further explanation as to her social inconsistencies.

"Come," she declared at last, "Let me mix you a draught." Noticing Red's initial non-compliance, she felt at first inclined to snatch the girl by the lobe of her ear. Feeling its irascibility, however, she instead made to seize the remainder of the plates, stacking them, directing them to the tables end, and wiping her hands against the cloth of her dress. "Now will you not come? It is gratifying, I do assure you."

Diana's horse had been asleep, cushioned amidst the undergrowth of a climbing abstraction of bamboos. It was loaded with Diana's packages, the contents of which were forever a mystery. From one of such packs, Diana retrieved a phial of clear fluid. She mixed powder into its substance until it grew silvery and viscous, dulcified it with a trifle of relish, and handed it, the mixture now effervescing, to a dispassionate Red. "Will you not drink?"
 "Where is it from?"
 "A gift of a friend."
 "Oh sure, the same friend who gave you the sake? All that sopping sake in great, heaving barrels?" Diane failed to reply, instead stroking the nose of her horse, who was now awake, although reposeful - Red was still not used to the creature.

In time, Diana added, "The brew is an assistance - it rectifies the humours, I do assure you." Red gazed inimically at Diana, as though expecting something more. "Look, I cannot make you trust me; that is a decision of your own. But if you are never to treat me with healthy consideration, then perhaps I should leave. Do you trust me?" Red glanced at the bubbling concoction, immemorially black.
 "No, I do not." Red turned and walked away, throwing the phial against the ground, wincing slightly in response to the shattering glass. Perhaps a component of her was convinced of Diana's allegiance to some conniving entity, and distrusted the draught, which she imagined should annihilate her into a fulminating puddle of fleshy remains. Either way, she could not maintain a candid acquaintance with Diana, and therefore refused to attend to one at all.

The following morning, precious sunlight invaded through the entry to Red's hollow. She turned over, stretching gloriously. Poised precariously upon her finger was a cockroach, visibly startled by the movement. It was hastily consumed, but although it went down with every familiar exultance of succulent flavour, it did not satisfy. In the centre of that clearing, her tree idled in solitude, forever occupied by a single inhabitant - one whose suspicion drove others away.

[andrewv42]

A trifling vestige of night sought a dwelling in the West as dawn was struck into Gensokyo. A shining orange sun ascended and mounted itself upon the shape of the horizon, shattering its confinements of darkness. About it, the sky responded exuberantly to the celestial acquaintance, giving birth to vibrant movements of colour; yellow, proximal to the sun itself, washing into stellar oceans of orange, scarlet, lilac and peach, and then colliding with grey at the height of heaven's culmination. Below, the skies commanded an awakening world; although the shadow of night clung despondently to the forests and mountain silhouettes, birdsong, initially a timid spoken arrangement, grew to sing in confident orchestras.

Their music steadily decreased to concede to the conquest of the cicadas, whose tune rang loud, ascending in correspondence to the climbing sun. It was a cloudless day, and the increasing heat promised to grow oppressive in time. It had rained the previous night, so the air had a certain purity to its fragrance; the scent of dew could be discerned, and visibility was prime. Shining downwards, one particular beam of sun was scattered as it thrust through the entrance to a cave - a rocky hollow whose opening was guarded by woven bracken and shredded thrush.

The splayed fragments of gold fell upon Diana like gleaming sequins - the temptation of morning was plenty to compel her from sleep and away from that vile murk of an interior. She woke, sniffing at the foul stench of the air, and hurried upwards, tripping twice, to push open the wooden guard. Then she inhaled the morning freshness. She breathed with great ecstasy, and then sighed. Behind, her horse Bronwen lay silent - still asleep, and conceivably unaffected by the rancid character of the cave. That vile pungence could not have an identified source, but it was nonetheless execrable, and exhumed most disgracefully from the caves descending abyss.

Fingering within her pack, Diana withdrew the final sandwich. The meat had grown rotten days ago, and had been obliged to be tossed away, so she'd only a measure of cheese and coarse bread to give her nourishment. Her water was gone entirely; perhaps she would have a little more if not for that foolish mishap outside the tree of Red. She remembered Red and her expression bittered, for herself more than any other; what was the purpose to helpful knowledge if it could not be accepted for want of trust? But had Diana been helping at all, or indeed had she exasperated the girl?

The breeze uttered a whisper, but no more, for the wind was low in this day, having been swallowed by the formidable sun. Diana's sandwich was eaten and she awoke her horse. A handsome Arabian mare, Bronwen had today chosen the appropriation of brown. The muddy pallour was standard of the creature ? for although she was capable of gleaming black, or a more conciliating, immaculate white, it was most often that brown was her apparent preference. It did not portray her very vibrantly, but Diana thought it to represent the mare?s customary temperament.

The wooden guard had been manufactured so as to shelter Diana and Bronwen from the night?s storm and accompanying terrors. This was neglectfully kicked aside as Diane mounted and grasped, firmly, the reins. With every degree of command, she set into motion; a delicate canter, at first, but soon accelerating to a lively run, with always an affectionate treatment to her horse.

The human village was not far, and Diana was determined to reach there by lunch, for already she could notice thirst overpowering her intellects. Consequently, it was soon that Bronwen flew at a gallop, the trees hissing by, and the mounted woman concentrated intensely upon the encompassing of the botanical complexity. Whether it was in threading through such meretricious woodland, or commanding the jagged ascents of mountainous territory, Gensokyo was not hospitable land to the sprightliness of a horse. Although this necessarily imbursed Diana with the thrill of occasion in her riding, it did explain how Bronwen?s kind had failed to establish a presence here.

The vegetation now grew interspersed with hazardous quantities of rock, but this was momentary; with Bronwen leaping over a particularly challenging heap, they were enabled into a country that was significantly clearer; the trees significantly less dense. The flaying wind did away with what thirst oppressed them, and the exhilaration increased to a climax that was interrupted by a signpost that was nearly missed; it instructed the direction to the village ? helpful, for this was first that Diana had ventured such a distance north.

It was now more cautiously that they navigated, making certain that they should not deviate from the signposts advice. Within minutes, a buzz of noise grew steadily louder; a tumult of various sounds that collided incompatibly to generate a vibrant pandemonium. Diana filed into the village, which was a scene of general chaos to one unaccustomed to such a dense convergence of humanity. No individual sound could be identified amidst that bustling anarchy; not the cry of shopkeepers advertising their products, nor the hammer of irons, the clash of plates and the perpetual footsteps that characterised the activity. The voices of all were curiously silenced by the greater consistency of clamour, for this was market day and all who had a measure of items to sell expostulated their wares with hoarse enthusiasm, and all those who had a measure of finance to expend were attending to purchase items, much of which was too perilous to acquire alone in the surrounding wilderness.

But as Bronwen ploughed through that density of throbbing flesh, the voices of those closest grew a little silent; a strange creature ? magnificent; curious; horrific ? had arrived mounting a woman of uncommon elegance. Although the attraction of the horse?s entrance could not at all have stifled the greater energy of the crowd, there were many who were obliged to turn, so that perhaps over a hundred gazing eyes were fixed upon the beast in belittling scrutiny. The whole grew more tyrannical as it collaborated with the sun, who shone with an endless persistence, the intensity of the rays now intolerable.

Diana?s gut had been possessed by hunger these past few minutes and more, and so her intellects were concentrated more upon the discovery of lodgings rather than attending to the curious interest of those around. She sought with furious determination, but travellers were infrequent ? the village was very much an independent affair, and although it was often to betray a certain liveliness, all people to be seen were local inhabitants. Any travellers at all were youkai who did not typically require beddings. Encountering the realisation of her futility, Diana decided instead to discover a restaurant; with this, she was more successful.

The establishment was without a stable; although it was not required due to Bronwen?s enduring perseverance. A sign hung above the entrance; The Grapes. The corresponding fruit hung in poor illustration adjacent to this title. Whatever the outward propensities, Diana entered, leaving her horse to the mercy of the crowd. Too tired to speak, she approached the counter and ordered, without considering, from what menu there was, for the options were few; soups, noodles, dumplings, but all in minimal variety.

Meanwhile, a general rumour traversed the crowd. It was by no means coherent, for the majority of words were caught through unintentional eavesdroppers, who caught the whisper that a horse ? no, a Pegasus ? a creature of mythology, had entered. Although there was little consistency, the communication was made, and those succeeding to comprehend leaped upwards to snatch a glimpse of the beast as it lay idle outside a restaurant so that an undulating ripple of movement could be discerned, travelling upwards to the village school.

Spiralling complexities of serrations coated the exterior of the building, provoking the impression of an architectural marvel. But a more assertive examination could discern the patterns inconsistency and consequent lack of coherence; that the illusion of an arabesque was feigned entirely. Kamishirasawa Keine was an audience magnificently delayed, as the message was required to be exchanged between innumerable hands, or perhaps mouths, before at last it was represented to her ears. Although the classrooms had been dismissed for the summer, she necessarily remained in the building with a quantity of adequate caretakers, so as to preserve, secure, and above all exploit the opportunities of the school. 

Intellectually, the teacher Keine was disassembled ? her wits scattered awry ? for there were varying descriptions as to the beast that had arrived. Some declared that it had a sextuplet arrangement of legs, and others swore that they had witnessed wings of great expanse; swore by the name of their family; but most could only stammer an incoherence in response to Keine?s inquiries.

With not the possibility of a clear, determined image of the creature, Keine deigned to gain an impression of it herself. She hurried down the street, somehow managing the curious headwear that she wore upon her hair, until The Grapes bore into view. Below, she saw the horse, and could have appeared humoured as to the ubiquitous misconception of the village if not for the convergence of a circle that enclosed upon the beast. A woman was there, whose clothes, somewhat blue, might have appeared glamorous if not for their unctuous coat of filth, and she fought desperately with outstretched hands and a bawling voice to suppress the united encroach.

Keine desired no further encouragement. Shutting her eyes, she plunged deep into the provinces of her soul; beyond the boundaries of her conscience and to the greatest depths of the mind; to the fundamental regions of thought. There, she arrived at the core of energy that empowered human magic. She impelled that energy into action ? into throbbing, vibrating shockwaves of action that pulsed throughout her mind until a palpitating rhythm was all she could perceive.

And then, concentrating the bulk of her attention into her being, she swelled the cavity of her soul into an opening; a gaping maw that consumed a tremendous volume of history. The flow of past occurrence, both written and non-discerned, thrust into her capacities and occupied them whole. The activity steadily diminished until only slim quantities could enter. And then, Keine sealed the opening, correspondingly giving ease to her magical tempest. It was complete. The human village had been hidden.

[andrewv42]

Diana had been startled by the disappearance of the village. Although she was aware of the capabilities of the history-eater, no measure of precognition could prepare her mind against the sudden inexistence of such a number of people. What had been the village area had grown to a featureless expansion of void, ending abruptly to give way to a solid wall of vegetation that represented the surrounding forest. The nothingness upon which she tread exhibited a slight effervescence, indicating a magical interaction. Without shelter, the sun weighed tremendously upon her, its heavenly conviction accompanied by untiring cicadas, whose tune deliberately persisted without end. The characteristics of summer enveloped Diana and her horse as Keine made her staggering approach.

"Please, to the forest," Keine said, "There is no simplicity in containing the histories of so many." She wheezed a little after completing her second sentence, and retrieved a leather pouch from beneath her dress, from which she drank with greedy intensity. The fluid was evidently gratifying. Diana licked her lips; parchment dry in that summer inferno.

The shade was by all means a relief; although Bronwen could make no passionate expression, being a horse of indefatigable properties, and consequently impervious to elemental fury, the two women most certainly could. They keeled over, consuming great volumes of hot air, their breathing accompanying their shared consumption from the leather pouch.

Keine seated herself upon a rock. "Forgive me if I do not attend," she said before shutting her eyes. Motionlessly, she appeared to meditate, mastering some inner fulmination as the human village steadily regained its shape - amorphously, at first, for the structures and necessary objects were initially represented by bulbous pillars of magic, gleaming bright in that immortal sun. Fluid representations of blood pooled on the ground, only to be configured by an imperceptible hand into human frames; lively human frames, whose sudden energy induced them to move. Instantaneously, the magic vanished; the spires, roofs and embellishments of the various buildings had been restored, corresponding with a spontaneous eruption of noise; the customary village clamour. It was impeccably exact.

"Now," began Keine, "From your lack of intrigue, I judge that you've a notion as to who I am; but who are you?"
"Diana."
"Of course; your complexion; your caricature; your name - it all handsomely corresponds. I take it you are from the maritime settlements of the south?" Diana nodded, without the capability to command a more significant role in this interrogative exchange. "Of course, and your accompanying beast is a horse - a creature from beyond the border, and towards the notion of which our villagers necessarily hold no acquaintance. Touching upon that subject, under circumstances of greater preference I would apologise, but you entered the village at your own hazard, entirely knowledgeable as to the anomalous nature of your beast. It would have been more sagacious by far if you had tethered the creature outside the village and entered in solitude, averting the subsequent scrutiny. But admonition aside; I should ask as to why you are here, and as to the means through which you gained possession of your animal companion?"

"I confess that it is not upon utilitarian grounds that I might explain my travel. Perhaps I've a want of sense, after all. My community to the south subsists upon the local fisheries, and are consequently engaged, with great frequency, in the management of boats and the preparation of seafood. Although my parents had prospered from the sea, I'd taken no interest in the articles of sailing, for you see I suffered from the seasickness, and despised getting wet. Incompatible with the sea and consequently incompatible with the people, I grew separated from social processes; there was little to say when I?d an intolerance towards that which generally interested the locals. I remained home, forever within reach of books ? my grandfather was a collector of bibliographies, do you see ? and read endlessly. I'm not sure as to whether I can be grateful for that providence, but I nevertheless received a considerable excess of knowledge concerning history, manufacture, and most eminently, apothecary remedies. It was in time that, from a friend, I received my horse; Bronwen...?
?Pray explain as to the identity of this friend??
?Alas, I should prefer our acquaintance to be preserved as confidential. So, as you see, I had received a horse, towards whom I developed an affection, at an age when my women counterparts were being married off, often strategically to men of significant proportions. It was tedious, as for months I could scarcely convince Bronwen to accept the bulk of my weight; and never at all had I the pleasure of confidence in another human, for by then I?d grown to become an uncommon village entity, whose appearance was rare even on market days. Horses had been the focus of a naturalist?s journal of mine, however, and in time I grew to love her, particularly as I?d discovered a passion in the sport of riding.?

?Bronwen was always hidden, for I feared the nature of the village?s response ? I?d no intention of rendering the settlement incommodious as a result of social disaffection towards me. Upon the death of my parents, there was nobody to concern for my extended disappearances, as often I would spent nights in camping, with Bronwen as my accompaniment, forever attached to the exhilaration of riding. Within weeks, however, I had grown totally familiar with the surrounding provinces; the forest grew bland. There was no longer quite the thrill of adventure in my ? or perhaps I should say our ? pursuits. Boredom threatened to set in.?
?Aye, and indeed the tides of inertia are intolerable to endure, for they erode the constitution of the mind and disassemble our intellectual proficiencies.?
?Perhaps; I certainly felt as though my mind, if not my frame, would collapse with that dreadful stagnancy pervading my days; that at last I had encountered that famous entity that is age...?
?By all means, the affinity of decay ? of unctuous debility.?
?And so I set off, with provisions for travel and a determination to explore. So I am here, perhaps a month since my departure; no, alas, I am poor in the estimation of time ? perhaps it was only two fortnights. I found the adventure, the sustained expedition, and the frequency of new encounters to be a profound rectification. Oh how I felt myself to prosper, for that riding, the endless intensity of it, was by all means a decided euphory. I declare that there is little to supersede the thrust of the wind, that heroic immensity of speed, the-?

A bout of cheering erupted from the village centre.
?It must be two, for it is now that the village entertainers contrive to appear. Come; I am afraid you must leave Bronwen here, but she is by all means safe. I conceive that you are famished; your gait exhibits the propensities of emaciation. I?ve food aplenty in my house.? It was a trial for Diana to have faith in Keine?s reassurances, but in her considerations she was made to recollect the resentful flagrance of Red?s distrust, and it was in doing so that she conceded to follow.

[andrewv42]

The geology of south Gensokyo was predominantly of obstinate metamorphic rock. It did not shine in response to the suns effulgent radiance, which occupied a sky of fathomless blue. No matter the light, it always showed grey. The soil that it procured was typically incommodious towards the more delicate of vegetable uprisings; what shrubbery had contrived to colonise the pebbled beaches and vast ascending cliff faces was of a coarse and adaptable species, whose leaves were so tough so as to be motionless in the strength of that breeze. It spiked deliberately from beneath what fissures it could find in the rocky floors, thriving in correspondence to towering pines - poignant botanical pillars who rose with the ambition to impale the sky above. The blue of the sky was a featureless consistency, the one variation being the necessary darkness observed if one was to gaze directly up that melted deliberately into the softer displays of white in the horizons encounter.

"The sea!" cried a child's voice, and indeed the sea it was. The fluid swells racing in earnest towards rock that met the hurtling water in crashing embrace. A boy sat, poised upon the height of a cliff, drawing breath with mighty force as he recovered from the arduous climb. He contemplated the ocean as though the entity was new; as though the sempiternity of blue that only ceased at the horizon had been improbable until now that he had seen it. Although in fact he had shared an acquaintance with the sea since birth, he exhibited his mirth nonetheless, laughing cheerfully as he assisted his brother James in his ponderous climb.

"Oh please, Joseph, you do not have to do that," the boy groaned, neglecting the proffered hand so as to depend upon the agile properties of his youth. James was in fact famous for his agility, but only for its improficiencies, which were often cataclysmically great. Many a time had the boy required the utility of a thrust from his younger brother when dangling from narrow protrusions by the breadth of his fingers. Joseph was certainly at a physical advantage when at a climb, for, in addition to his height, his limbs were as pliable as cloth, and encompassed the most perplexing of ascents through a calculative dexterous exertion.

The ocean in its immensity lay below them, with transient fissures of gloss amalgamating fluidly, each a reflection of sun. The two brothers sat adjacent; Joseph, peculiarly taller than his elder James. They were perhaps a thousand feet from the ocean directly below, and the platform upon which they sat protruded so excessively that a drop must necessarily carry faultlessly into the sea, with not a collision. Neither of the brothers deigned to challenge that vertiginous descent - no playful edging over the side, nor perilous extension of limbs. They merely sat, absorbing the purity of the scene; the faultless colours, the prodigious clarity, and above all the blessed breeze.

"Immaculate," whispered Joseph, with scarcely a breath. James glared at him quizzically and inquired;
"What is, 'Immaculate?'"
"I had heard Diana mention it at market the previous day. It means to describe a perfection; faultlessness beyond perception." James digested his brother's vocabulary, not adapted to being received by a child, before making his continuation; an evidently calculated continuation.
"You've an affection for that girl, haven't you? Still yet, I do not see the perfection in your immaculacy." James described the odious rip currents tearing outwards in hurtling tempests of foam from the shallower shores, and perceived the heat to be a trifle high; the breeze a trifle inconsistent. "But then, perhaps, what you see is changed by what you think." Joseph returned both expression and gaze that James had given him earlier.

A glimmer of canvas fluttered upon the horizon, but then vanished beneath the crest of sea. Moments later, a sail was confirmed; a double masted xebec, prospering from the energetic breeze. The wind at the brother's displacement, however, capered to grow despondent, confirming James' suspicions. Coughing in its throes of death, it puffed with irregularity before disappearing altogether, the sun tyrannically hot. Within minutes, the same misfortune befell the sailing xebec, whose crew fought to master the peculiar caprice before their activity was stifled by the ensuing calm. The temperatures now caused the sight of the of the decks to ripple in its intensity; a smooth corrugation of colours that interspersed fluidly with the ocean's blue.

"It is hot."
"Then let us go."

[andrewv42]

The human village, although typically of thickly peopled thoroughfares that were fenced by terraced structures of homes and businesses and the like, did bear a handsome repertoire of avenues, whose capacious, cobbled lanes advanced in accompaniment to a stretch of flowers, all diligently maintained. It was upon one of such lanes that Keine's house - or rather establishment, for there were bookselling stalls arranged out front - was displaced. "I endeavour to educate, do you see," she explained to Diana upon reaching the entrance. She wedged a key into the lock, and turned ferociously, wholly to dissatisfaction. Appearing awfully disused, she fingered through an arrangement of accessories conjured from her bosom, before announcing a successful discovery with beaming cheer, with which she led Diana into her house.

Minutes earlier, a pair of children had tumbled through this same door, thundering upwards through the house's staircase arrangement; chaotic steps the sound of thudding bricks - hundreds of bricks. "Oh sir! Sir!" they cried, shouted and screamed, arriving upon Joseph seated at a desk; a man of twenty years, with hair unsuitably white. "Which the mistress has said you've a visitor, and begs that you may shave, brush and wash, so as not to be indisposed."
"Indeed?" Joseph uttered with paramount disinterest.
"She says it is a person you may know," said the one, a girl of stubborn hair, fought into a catastrophic ponytail.
"Which it is a woman from the south; she is a Diamond."
"Oh no, it was Diana," the girl announced, aiming to conquer the subordinate volume of her companion, shooting an acrimonious glare at him whilst doing so, and then the two of them in unison; "And the mistress gifted to us coins, sir, two whole coins!" holding the two whole coins exultantly to the ceiling, the communication only successful for that display, as the children's coherence was dreadfully ruptured with glee. Joseph considered a little; Diana was a woman with whom he had shared a village years ago, but by no means were they significant acquaintance. He did not judge the encounter to be of consequence, but some imperceptible psychological movement, the apparition of long-deceased emotion, conduced his words; "Well I suppose I'd better be ready. I shall proceed to the barber's for a clean shave." With this, he drew a hand over his beard, long in accumulation, as men will so often do.

The children fairly hooted with joy, their merriment made better by the success of that with which they had been tasked. Hurrying down the avenue, the two youngsters trailing in his wake with his purse, for the man was so very forgetful in the articles of finances, Joseph occupied himself with recollection of his home; of the ocean's infinity; of the exuberance in climbing; of his uncle's merciless savagery. A swell of nausea begot him.

It was with nausea that he was treated to a shave, remarkably close, and imbursed with the charity of a new wig, emerging from the barber's wholly renewed. The children, who encountered him outside, scrutinised the change precariously, with eyes like saucers. At last, they, together, made their expression; "You have changed your hair," forgetting the courtesy of, "Sir," in so doing. Joseph let himself a chuckle and remarked, "Oh dear no, it is only a wig, do you see?" and he dismounted the headpiece to expose the shaven scalp beneath. Immediately, both children overflowed with sobbing tears.

Leaving them with another coin - another whole coin the gentleman be blessed - he directed himself to the house. Wigs were not at all the local fashion, but Joseph admitted to a discomfort in revealing the bear flesh of his head. Through extensive bargaining and at last a settlement upon exorbitant fees, the man had succeeded in an arrangement with the barber to supply him with wigs when necessity demanded. This continued no matter how protrusive he did appear; a mound of silver hair amidst an ocean of plebeians donning black.

He proceeded to the backdoor, decided upon the advantages in a formal entrance through the front, and entered the household, his breath all the while heavy with anticipation.

The sitting room was by all means brightened by Diana?s effulgence of complexion. The two women knelt, as was local custom, upon an elegantly timbered floor, with a table between them. The atmosphere was not visibly talkative, for Diana was wholly absorbed in a meal, her stomach delightfully churning the food that flooded in. Keine was first to notice Joseph?s entrance and exhibited what smiles her face had the capacity to contort.

?I?d expected you to be longer,? she said, ?So Diana has not been told. But I pray that you are not indisposed, as I had feared?? Joseph bowed and brushed his coat, clueless as to how to speak. It was typical for households to receive guests in whole familial gatherings; but at present, this building was occupied by only two residents, for Keine lived in solitude, renting a room so as not to waste the space of her building.

?I felt that it should be interesting to unite the two of you,? Keine said, ?I?d only been able to guess Diana?s origins after all I?d been told of the southern settlements by Joseph.? The man seated himself between the two women, searching for his glasses which he swore he had left within his pocket. ?So naturally I?d predicted a certain conviviality; do you not have topics upon which to speak?? Neither did, for both had exited that region for its odiums, and were apprehensive in bringing memory to surface.

A portrait of bamboo decorated the wall; the emerald stalks climbed upwards to culminate in a spiralling configuration, beside which a calligrapher had painted characters of the highest elegance. Diana hungered endlessly, the noise of her chewing being ambitious and all-pervasive. A lonely cloud descended beneath the sun, the motion momentarily darkening that interior, before, with significant delay, light resumed its filtered entrance. There spun fragments of sunshine ? truly motes of dust, but rendered gold as they swum awash in that column of brilliance.

[andrewv42]

"I conceived you might let me the sight of your horse," said Joseph. It was breakfast and the suns angle flooded the sitting room with warmth. "If at all you're to stay, then it'd be best to do so in activity," for it had been concluded that Diana should remain a week in rejuvenation - a necessary parenthesis in her travel so as to nurture her levied spirit.
"Well, by all means," swallowing fried pastry, "Although I should like it in the evening, when the breeze is with relish, and the sun, less hot."
"Then perhaps the appointment should be prescribed to the hour of four, beyond noon?"
"Certainly."
"Then I shall be here for it."

The sun, dipping lower into the west, fell steadily orange, the sky painted to imitate its texture. A pale sickle of a moon hung small beside a distant mountain - the first ambassador of night. Keine had deliberately reconfigured her schedule so as to legalise her attendance, for she longed to see Diana ride, and thus the three of them proceeded to the forest edge where Bronwen was seen to be tethered. "Diana, have you at all a notion of where you are to journey next?" Joseph asked. Diana flung her head, the silken fabric of her hair shaping the wind.
"I've no certainty, but the villagers often speak of great adventure to be had in the Youkai Mountain." Joseph and Keine shared an inimical expression, and Diana, perceiving the exchange, laughed heartily and exclaimed, "But really, I do not know. I should have contented myself to ride aimlessly, but now that my stay here has given the opportunity to reflect, I assert that there is a tedium to so much haste and expedition if it does not correspond with the pursuit of an objective. I cannot imagine myself riding endlessly, without destination; it does not impress upon me as being meaningful, and I'm certain that it should wear me down in time."
"Well, I pray that you shouldn't object to living here?" proffered Keine, "My house has room aplenty."
"Aye, but the notion of settling down is tormenting. I desire an adventure; one that is not propensely fatal. But without another horse in all of Gensokyo, and not a measure of knowledge in magic, I could never at all courage the more formidable youkai infestations, but for those that my speed presently outruns."

The trio arrived, and today Bronwen positively sparkled in a coat of white - the change from brown being recognised by Keine with contained interest. Diana stroked the nose of the beast and kissed her, then said, "I confess that I have been running out at every morning so as to indulge in the pleasantry of a brief ride. I could not survive two days without Bronwen - not at all." The two spectators maintained a distance, non-enthused by the prospect of being perhaps eaten or otherwise brutalised by this creature of preternaturality. Joseph held his nose to the stench of the animal, and adjusted his spectacles, eying cautiously the powerful hooves as Diana mounted.

In receiving the weight, Bronwen drew a caper, tossing her head whilst uttering snorts, but was steadily induced into a calm. Diana was poised faultlessly, her back a slender a curve; gown overflowing the leather saddle with regal quantity. "I trust that neither of you is an authority in riding," she exlaimed, suffused with vivacity, "So I will not tire you with details."

Immediately, they were away, a perpetual rhythm of hooves as rider and mount contrived to vanish into the forest. An eruption of startled birds followed to announce Bronwen as she encompassed the height of a log through a calculated pounce, Diana's posture all the while holding with celestial perfection. Her frame moved in fluid correspondence to the horse's leaps, by all means integrated into the body of the beast; receiving, effortlessly, the force of every step, and of every perilous surge. They threaded amidst the trees, sometimes scarcely an apparition as their shape was concealed by a downfall of foliage, at others, remarkably flagrant as Bronwen's surface deflected the solar effulgence.

The sun exhibited its dying lustre, no longer a palpable entity but a crimson gash coating the horizons silhouette. From where the horse could be seen, powering through a thick, but nonetheless traversable vegetable arrangement, birds would take to the sky, calling out in great alarm. The rhythm of hoof beats heightened to the climax of its tempo, the thudding an accelerating persistence of horse against ground. At times, the white of the horse could be chanceably discerned, but they fleeted at such a pace that above all the most perceptible element of their movement was the noise of their rapidity.

Stars had made to glitter in the east upon Diana's return, with Bronwen showing never a gasp, never at all an image of fatigue. Joseph immediately made his applause, enthusiastically pounding his hands as he exclaimed, "By all means well done; never before was there such gallantry," all the while to the accompaniment of Keine's insuppressible mirth, inundating her character and prohibiting her speech. It was with energy that they proceeded to attend to the satisfaction of their stomachs, the lively beating of the hooves still in conquest of their minds. The moon above observed with silence; a shallow ivory dish.

[andrewv42]

The moon had contrived to vanish upon the following market day. The night before had been sightlessly black; all celestial artifacts concealed by swathes of cloud that remained throughout sunrise, agreeing only to disseminate well into the morning. Diana and Jacob descended through the streets, collecting groceries whose purchase they had been trusted with by an immovable Keine. The schoolteacher declared that her engagements disallowed her the duty, and it was with all the authority of mistress of the household that she spirited the pair away. Not that they should object; the arrival of cloud had coincided with a gratifying wind that rendered the day's propensity by all means pleasurable.

Diana, navigating the arrangement of stalls whose products were devotedly promoted, attempted a diagnosis of the ethos of the village - that is to say, how it had been influenced by Keine's consumption of its history. No conviviality existed to discuss the arrival of the horse the previous week, and Diana was never at all connoted with the mythical. It was as though the crowd had lost its information as to the occurrence - that the horse and its entrance had not occurred at all - and Diana treated this as a peculiar component of Keine's power, whether deliberately or accidentally applied.

Although the pair had been encouraged into the marketplace together, it was only Joseph who was sufficiently committed, for the man bartered, bargained and ensured that the products he received were not of execrable quality, all to the audience of a dispassionate Diana. Steadily, the man grew less convinced of the woman's worth, and his irascibility increased as arguments with grocers were fervently pursued. The marketplace itself was by no means deficient of resources. This particular region, proferring vegetable specimens of innumerable variety, boasted pumpkins, watermelons, apples, grapes, in addition to the fundamental necessity of rice; a grain in permanent abundance. But despite the lustrous diversity of fruits, Diana exhibited no measure of concentration - not an ounce of discernible interest. She was prevalently reserved, and her non-participation impressed upon Joseph the notion that she was luggage.

Presently, the man negotiated with a particularly obstinate trader who resisted concession to Joseph's demands - he declared that his peaches should only be sold at fixed price - no adjustment through bargain was to be given countenance. Joseph perceived a tug at his coat; he turned and at first did not conclude upon its consequence, but immediately, Diana's absence was to be seen. The man conceived to have heard the woman cry, "Pickpockets! Thieves!" but it was scarcely articulate through the market's pandemonium.

Joseph felt his pocket and did not feel the reassuring bulge. Further exploration confirmed that his purse had indeed been snatched away, and immediately the man abandoned his diplomacy with the trader. He judged a clear canal amidst the stifling ocean of people and hurried through, squeezing between the more voluminous of obstructions with great exertion. Often he was reproached, treading upon toes, boots, shoes and skirts, possessed as it were by anxiety to retrieve Diana and his money. Many an explorative glance was thrust into alleys, stalls and interiors, until at last Diana's familiar determination could be heard, shrieking with indignation.

It was in fact Jacob's misperception to have associated the shriek with so composed a woman as Diana, although his suspicions were confirmed - she was indeed present. The outcry had in fact erupted from the mouths of children; there were the girl and boy that had accompanied Jacob on the day of Diana's arrival, both convulsive with tears. It was no challenge to collect the situation.

Diana turned on her heel, her sapphire dress coating the air and shaping into a cone as she spun. She presented Jacob with his purse; a little grubby, but deprived of not a scrap of linen. "Oh please, sir," the children cried, "We know you is a good man; which we couldn't see you in that there crowd," pointing. "Oh please, do not punish!" Both were obnoxiously caked in grime.
"Tell me, dears," said Jacob solicitously, "What at all have you done with the coins that I had given you?" Neither made to reply. "Were they at all taken from you? Was this here crime a restitution?" Silence. Only puzzlement at Jacob's final word. "Well, come then. Perhaps I should feed and wash you."

The feeding was undertaken within a restaurant, whose shelter was superfluous against a sun, presently concealed behind a rapid accumulation of cloud. Upon the journey to the house, the breeze grew increasingly alacritous. Keine fastidiously refused to be of charity, however, obstructing the household entrance. In her resolution, her volume appeared to multiply; a woman not ordinarily tall was now frightfully formidable. "If at all I was to allow them, by tomorrow I should have the whole shooting-match of the village poverty upon my doorstep, craving my assistance. I am sorry, but I cannot service you."

Consequently, Joseph elicited a flowing expenditure of cash for the purchase of a tub, water - scalding hot, soap, sponge, and a fresh, although admittedly coarse, new change of clothes. The youngsters were stripped and scrubbed, Diana affably compliant all throughout. In time, the process was complete and the youngsters hurried away, their memories infused with the communication that they should seek Joseph if at all there was trouble - his residence was known to them, if necessity should surface.

"I can only conceive that you found my providence agreeable," the man said to Diana, returning home with groceries in hand at last. "I often grow afraid that my propensities are intolerable - that others are naturally disaffected by my tendencies."
"I thought your action to be a nuisance," Diana conveyed somewhat sternly. But she added with conciliation, "But by all means, I agreed to your tendencies; heartily agreed. It was a handsome kindness, and with faith, those children should be less inclined towards criminality."
"Well, I suppose that was my intention." They departed at the foot of the staircase - Diana to her room, and Joseph to his - with an anomalous pressure of hands that the man received with measurable alarm.

It was in his diary that he wrote that evening, "But it is peculiar, the perseverance of strong emotion. I'd conceived my passion for the woman to have dissipated with the onset of my departure from Lanrwst, but it was within that instance upon our return - that fatal connection of hands - that the energy of its flame revived with the most staggering vivacity." During this time, Diana was engaged in a conflagration of her own. She ignited a match and held it to a candle, bringing the flame to the sitting room where she contrived to consult with an exultant Keine - exultant, that is, for she had succeeded in the conquest of her schedule.
"I have been meaning to ask you, but until now, indecision had conduced my delay."
"To you, I am receptive," Keine responded, adequately attentive, and her expression the manifestation of candour.
"Do you at all picture me capable..." Keine waited patiently for the apprehension to lapse. "Do you at all conceive that I could learn magic?"

Outside, it began to rain.

[andrewv42]

Hooray for frequent updates.


"Before I should give an assertive answer to that," said Keine, "I will first pronounce the necessities that are to be understood.

"Magic is not a textbook strategy that one learns through imitation. Education in magic distinguishes itself from others in that it relies dependently upon a cultivation of the student's, and not the teacher's, method. The energy that is magic persists in varying concentrations amongst all; it is ultimately what allows the employment of spellcards - danmaku attacks that feature the manipulation of that energy so as to conduce heat, light and movement. Although we've all a sphere of that energy within us, it will extensively differ in size, shape, and above all fabric. The process in which that energy is touched is by no means similar from person to person. Always the result of a magical exploitation is to be different, for it is the incongruence between souls that informs our peerless, peerless identity in this subject. It is my magical propensity, for example, that confers the consumption of history - a movement inimitable by all else.

"So, do you see, while I may by all means aspire to encourage your magical energy, the bulk of the intensity weighs upon the student, and never the instructor." Keine left for the kitchen, and returned with a pot of tea. She poured two steaming cups, the diaphanous silk of vapour seething hot, wholly incorporated with the sumptuous herbal scent. "Of course, as a magical course is intensified to exercise and fulfill the capacities of the student, I will never, as an academic authority, ask as to your reasoning behind the exploration of magic."

An owl settled in a tree no great distance from the house. Through the drumming downpour, the rain perceptibly having increased, its modest hooting could be perceived - equanimous; reposeful. Diana impulsively devoured her tea so as to dispel the onset of drowsiness. "I take it that you are at ease with a position as my tutor?"
"By all means - but you will desire a method in which to pay for your fees. I've already surrendered the guest room free of charge, and am disobliged towards further expenditure for the acquisition of naught."
"Right..."
"Let me tell you this; a caretaker of the school library has announced herself as sick. She will not work for two weeks; you may substitute her until you discover a more suitable occupation. I am confident of Joseph's utility, here."

Half an hour later, Diana crept from the house, fortified against wind and rain by the burden of a coat. She proceeded to Bronwen's tether, and there mounted and rode, earnest to experience the certain divinity of ploughing through a storm. It was soon that she was obliged to stop, however, for navigation was nearly impossible with the visibility so low, and the sky so fathomlessly black. She kissed her horse and, returning to the village, perceived the rain to have tripled in intensity; now an unctuous flood of water, so thick that fresh air became scarce. She clutched the loose ends of her coat and hurried home, to its amenable dryness, her coat no longer adequate resistance against the warm fluid density that now invaded her clothes.

Out of the shadows emerged a shape, donning an overflowing leather cloak, softly glistening with moisture. "Your money, or your life," and a dagger was procured, the cold of its blade pressed firm against Diana's flesh. The woman acted impetuously, seizing the wrist of the thief and twisting his arm, inducing him to gasp. The man then doubled over as he received a blow to the stomach, going down with a pulverising kick to both head and limb.

Diana recovered herself and suddenly pitied the motionless collapse. She examined it, removing the mask which hid the criminal identity. His face, regrettably diminished, did not respond as she evaluated his breathing and movement of eye. "Come now, this will not do." Diana searched anxiously for the correct procedure to make. She flung the man's arm over her shoulder and bore his weight as best she could, tugging him back towards the household.

There, she did not settle him indoors, respecting the policies of Keine communicated earlier. Instead, a chair was brought out and displaced beneath a shelter, and it was there that the unconscious man was sat.

Diana was not even remotely fatigued; she had underestimated the ferocity of the tea. Within the kitchen, she mixed together a beaten egg to a measure of milk, improved with the juice of peach. The man was already considerably aware upon Diana's return outdoors, the rain a furious, beating incessancy. Evidently debilitated, but nonetheless blinking, Diana fed him with a spoon; emaciated lips scarcely receiving the concocted nutrition. Carefully, and deliberately she did so, accommodating her pace to that of one recently injured. Progressively, he increased in strength, until was restored enough to recognise the insuperable inclination to be asleep. Diana left him to his rest, washing up and retiring herself.

By sunrise, the man had fled, a dirty handkerchief with scribbled message being his only remnant. Whatever the communication had been was unintelligible, for in the night, the wind had capered into the West, hurtling water against the household no matter the defiance of established shelter. The same rain had yet to decide upon a cessation, the perpetuous downpour striking the roof of the house with indefatigable persistence. It was to this irregular percussion that Keine announced, "I believe we have at last received the summer rain. I conceive that this should continue for a week or more."

Diana struggled with a soggy dumpling at her breakfast plate. The troublesome artifice was at last secured between the breadth of her chopsticks, and had been poised to enter her mouth, but upon the very threshold of success, a domineering Keine bawled into her ear and threw before her a quantity of books. The dumpling plummeted, to collide upon and spoil the fabric of Diana's night clothes. Her despair was given no time to fester; "If at all you're to learn magic," Keine announced, "Then there's a tremendous amount of theory to commit to memory. You will begin upon the completion of your meal."
"Tyranny and oppression," was Diana's dispassionate response, declared in an undertone, "Tyranny and oppression."

[andrewv42]

Keine was wholly at ease as she spectated Joseph's game of checkers with Naworu, the local apothecary. This was Keine's day of leisure; a lazy day in which she was freed of obligation, and one whose inclusion into lifestyle she recommended, declaring that, "It convinces us of greater substance to living, beyond expedition and endeavour." There had been no action on the checkerboard for minutes, until at last Naworu conducted a movement of attack that confounded his opponent. The apothecary leaned back, without reluctance in exhibiting his triumph; savouring the palpable agony of Joseph as he fought to disentangle himself from this sudden perplexity.

"It is a wonder that games of competition should not centuries ago have been abolished," said Keine, "Checkers informs the victory of one to accompany the distress of another. It conspires towards indecent social acrimony that taints the moral features; even I grow discreditably irascible upon defeat, and so forfeit my attendance from competitive daily processes, including the activity of games, so as to preserve an equanimity." Keine had the ambition to pronounce the importance of equanimity and a healthy moral discipline, but the players were not attending, and she was obliged to stifle her flow.

Joseph's strategy came as a horrid revelation as he manoeuvred to entrap Naworu's formation; the old man's aggression had wrung his neck into a noose, and below fell a plummeting drop, commanded only by time in which Joseph might execute his crippled foe. "But perhaps there are esteemed advantages to both victory and defeat," pondered Keine, and she pursued the propensities of this muse, unconcerned for the game.

All this while, the tumbling rain had continued indifferently; a fluid downpour, whose shape was shed by the persimmon tree beneath which they sheltered. A mist had settled during midnight, and had not contrived to disappear since; the accompanying vapour of grey blanketed and shaped the air. Keine disappeared into this fog, the swathes swallowing her form, and returned with a plate of sesame balls. The mens' appreciation to this was acknowledged through approving nods, and the murmurs of satisfied hunger. Neither reserved a measure of focus for Keine, however, and the woman, losing interest, made to depart.

Endlessly, the rain fell, movements within time being deprived of their distinction. Throughout day, the weather was featureless; tearing water falling through mist that did not choose to part, the endlessness promising eternity beyond age. It did impel a certain comfort - the comfort of a confinement to infinity. By light, Diana's work was pursued, intertwined with devoted study taking place by dark, the phases of day of night the only scruple the epoch made to show. Else, the days were invariable; Keine possessed by preparations, for the school semester was soon scheduled to begin, and Joseph spending long hours confined to his study.

"What does he do there, at all?" Diana would ask, but Keine could only shrug, careless as to how the man managed his rent. If ever the same question was to be recited to the ears of Joseph, always and always would he determine a method of evasion. Although, upon occasion, the words, "Papers," and, "Clients," could be successfully divulged, the secret was fastidiously kept; a secret embedded into the mind of Diana through the ceaseless percussion of rain.

Diana was soon obliged to relinquish her sapphire dress, much to her anguish. But the material alone fetched a handsome sum of wealth, and when woven into so elegant an attire, the tailor fairly delighted in his purchase. The coins were exchanged, the man disappearing to attend to his sudden luxury, and the woman departing to spend her new funds on her fees. The expense of Keine's tutorship and bibliographies were by all means profuse, and the formidable tolls exacted from Diana more than her meagre occupation could dispense. Requiring an outgoing dress, however, Joseph arranged for her a trifling loan that allowed for the purchase of top and shirt that together were believed to suit the woman magnificently. Although it could not contest with her previous possession, the shining black of its cloth consolidated finely with Diana's features; particularly that dark velvet stream of hair. Indeed, now that contrast was present, the lustre of her eyes, originally blue, was vigorously improved, so that, like gems, those pupils did make to shine.

In the sitting room, she committed herself to one of her many new books; the Aphidine Perplexity. "Is it good at all?" Joseph asked in passing, his objective being the kitchen and its associate of food.
"Apparently, the study of magic is a science, a mathematical pursuit, a historic evaluation, and a literary venture. By being every variety of subject, it is consequently none; magic is academically absurd, and yet it may be studied - hence the Aphidine Perplexity." Perceiving Joseph's stupid gaze, she sighed. "I suppose it is not quite good at all."

There were instances when uprisings of fluid would churn the streets into mud, thick and frothing, and hours would pass until the waters should decline. However, this recession - this most gratifying recession - did not occur upon guarantee. Several, maintained upon a soil of low capacity and supplied by an endless resource of rain, flowed excessively, without a thought of diminishing. These would evolve into village cesspools, their substance finding way to contaminate a number of water supplies. Disease thrived, and the attention of medicos and apothecaries soon reached to an insufferable height of demand. In time, Naworu discontinued his exchanges with Joseph, and now the man was left sadly disengaged, reduced to solitude beneath that persimmon tree.

Although rain fell in plenty, its water was a warm, unctuous filth, whose consumption could not be given countenance. Those of ample wealth took to the consumption of beer and sake, but the poor were confined to the infected water, whose supply was arriving without end.

Again it was market day, the streets curiously bare, and the noise composed almost entirely of falling rain - conviviality was meaningfully suppressed. Kept dry by an umbrella, Joseph encountered, to his alarm, the girl and boy who had taken to stealing his purse. They were laid down in an alley where the mud ran glutinously thick, and he noticed as to their absence of breath; their faces, deathly pale, exhibited no movement; no life. The man was startlingly affected, and could have cried, but perhaps it was the universal anguish, shared by those who sustained similar fates, that impressed upon him a reality of greater dimensions, extinguishing his passion. The children, by tomorrow, should be buried without ceremony - two souls of inconsequence driven away by the vulgar proliferations of malady.

And it was on that day in which the two corpses were carried to a grave site that a peculiar change was to perceived. No one had awoken to the shattering orchestra of rain, that dinning entity. A glance above, and relieved expressions were shared to confirm their preservation. It had stopped raining. The sky was still a pillowed ceiling of cloud, but with dry hair and dry boots, Keine could confidently enter the household, without fear of distributing mess. On that evening, she said to Diana, "It would be best for you to undergo an exposure to magic before we apply your knowledge to practice. Should you like to come youkai hunting?" Diana was not in countenance to decline. "Then come. You may take your horse."

[andrewv42]

Keine's pronouncing of, "You may take your horse," was wholly courteous, for it was a certainty that Diana should do so - she need not have been blessed with permission to have considered her animal companion. And there was Bronwen, in splendid appearance as she gleamed in obsidian black, imitating the piceous texture of Diana's dress. The notion of youkai hunting had convinced Diana that a considerable party should be involved, so she was surprised at its absence. Only an additional man to the group of Keine, Diana and Bronwen had contrived to accompany them. "But perhaps it would have been a trifle ostentatious," she thought, in reference to her conception. "Perhaps it would have been absurd to presume upon an immense human gathering, accompanied or rather led by a quantity of dogs, savage with hunger."

Darkness had effortlessly descended; the cotton clouds had at one moment been lit, and all of a sudden in delicate embrace against night, as though it was the impulse of nature to have disengaged the sun. Presently, the cicadas who had populated Gensokyo this last age and more grew silent, their enthusiasm dowsed by the disappearance of light. That degradation of sound allowed for a personality of nature to be heard that was novel to their senses; a tranquil, sensitive personality, of melodious temperament. The cicadas' recession had provoked the alarm of the nocturnal birds and creatures of the night, singing loud as though in panic to the suns unannounced departure. The avian tempest was soon to decline, so that the restful sound of crickets could be heard, punctured by the occasional whooping cry of some anomalous, distant beast. That, and the movement of air, sighing through trees at repose.

"Why do we hunt the youkai?" whispered Diana, apprehensive to talking loud amidst this peace.
"Well," began Keine, at a similar tone, but hastily disavowed by their third companion, whose superceding cry worked to shatter the precious quiet.
"It is to remind them of their subordinance," he had said, unable to continue amidst the avalanche of birds, soaring in chaos from branches, twigs and leaves whilst chattering most violently. In response to this, Bronwen drew a caper, tossing about, succeeding only to further mortify the fleeing creatures.

"As I said," repeated the man, guarded by rusty coat and a flow of hair that poured to his shoulders, "It is to remind them of their subordinance." The activity of the forest had died away, and once again the atmosphere was of a severe, fragile calm. "We only do so on occasion, but we must assert that they acknowledge us. That is to say, they see us for who we are so that at no point the village should be overwhelmed. We aim to conduce fear, protecting the village from the permanence of the youkai threat."
"I apologise," said Diana meekly, "I do not believe I had caught your name."
"I am called Shinji. But those with perspicacity in magic refer to me as the Black Hand." He rolled up his sleeves, emphatically displaying his hands coated in leather, blacker than the night before them. "But perhaps you are unimpressed," and the gloves flew off, exposing an annihilated skin; crimson, corrugated and cracking where moisture was deficient. Conceivably the result of a burn. Shinji replaced his gloves, looking eminently pleased.
"I do not hope this man is conceited," Diana thought, distinguishing that expression as one to represent vanity. "And by the gods, do I know vanity," and she was briefly sickened by recollection of her home.

"Diana," said Keine, at last free to speak with liberty. "Know that one typically embattles youkai through fight or flight."
"And she intends it most literally; one does in fact engage a youkai whilst suspended in air!" Shinji choked with amusement, but noticing the non-attendance of his audience, he contrived to do away with all flippancy.
"As a novice, you will need to be brisk to avoid encounters. I do not have to explain the manner in which you are to do so, but do not threaten yourself without necessity; contrive not to engage a hostile youkai, or any youkai at all, for that matter. This path is infamous for the disappearance of humans; the prey of the creatures within this region. Understand that your presence is to expose yourself to magic, accustoming your fibres to its entity, and not to assist in the movement of hunting."
"Very well."
"Diana, I do not mean to convey that I distrust you, but it is important that you protect yourself. Act intelligently and adhere to my guidance."
"By all means," this said with candid deference.

"In about ten minutes," Shinji announced, "The youkai should awaken. Take flight the very moment we command it, and do not stop for even a scruple." The breeze momentarily strengthened, briefly spraying them with moisture; leftover rainwater spirited from vegetable surfaces. The whooping howl repeated itself once. Then all grew silent; even the air, unconscionably still - the world plunged into paralysis.

The youkai emerged, each singularly peculiar in appearance. Ears, beaks, webbed feet and feathered arms were attached in grotesque or sometimes artful arrangements to many, many forms. There did not appear a distinct basis for their design, except that they should remain perceptibly humanoid. Upon recognising Keine and Shinji, the majority immediately took to departure, for the creatures understood the presence of these humans to be connected to violence. Those of the courage, curiosity or sheer imbecility to remain were immediately attacked. Diana had scarcely caught the movement of projectiles following the crackling upon Keine?s fists. Within an instant, a retaliation was performed; a relatively disorganised retaliation of danmaku; aquamarine spheres, shining hot, emanating forth to illustrate an arabesque of a pattern. The order was given to run. 

Diana kicked her horse into action with ferocity previously unknown to her, launching through the trees. All about, she was accompanied by the hooting, cackling and above all igniting pandemonium of the youkai menace. Scourging forth, she perceived a small clearing, and in riding through it, she snatched a backwards glance, taking in the stabbing pillars of light that appeared with every attack; the forest torn to pieces by the interweaving orbs.

She returned focus to her riding, but was routed by a youkai formation that repelled her towards a thick region of forest. The elevation grew to decline, so that often they would leap, carried forward by impetus, Diana delighting in that speed. She turned her head again to calculate her distance from the fight. The effulgent magic was farther away than she had hoped. Upon reassuming her posture, she was suddenly met by a youkai, dropping down and wearing the head of a beetle. ?Human!? its sinister intent woven into that echoing hiss. Bronwen reared, screaming dreadfully and capering to the side. Diana drove her towards the fighting. Behind, it could be perceived the youkai?s rapacious pursuit, the creature howling perniciously.

Bullets, a resplendent constellation, encircled her and made to enclose, but before panic could at all manifest, they were drawn away harmlessly, as though absorbed by some consuming force. The darkness hid the action so that no assertive detail could be made, but its general course could at least be discerned by the endless projectile exchange. An audible explosion would announce the release of an enmeshment of bullets, strung into a net, somersaulting towards a target by enigmatic compulsion, only to be dodged or deflected by similar arcane strategy. Visibly, Keine and Shinji were advancing against the youkai horde, hammering it back. Judging from the sheer diversity of colour being shot, each youkai would only produce a handful of attacks before either being defeated, or forced into a retreat.

Unbelievably, the birds were growing severely loquacious, the chatter overpowering the crackling noise of battle. The animal chorus was insufferable ? a cruel chaos of shrieking birds ? by the time an immensity of them flowed from the dark of the forest, blanketing the scene of action so that not even the splendour of magic could be perceived. Diana, confident that she had evaded her pursuer, approached the avian body with tentative step. The creatures snapped reprehensively at her attempts to go near. The barrier that they composed was insurmountable. Until these birds should choose to part, she was to be separated from her crew. She did not feel distress at her exposure, for the youkai did seem to have retreated; save, of course, for what sinister force should inhabit the black avian sphere.

[andrewv42]

For Keine, the tremendous quantity of birds and its sudden onset was no stupefaction. She knew what it signified. What confounded her was its action, however - the bird's formation of a hollow sphere, imprisoning Shinji and Keine, was wholly anomalous. In the centre of the hollow, a sparrow flew, to transform into what appeared a synthesis between that creature and human form. She was visibly young - she bore a child's complexion that permanently expressed the avid insipience of youth, and her features had encountered failure in the appropriation of age. The atramentous wings that furnished her rear, however, communicated a mysticism beyond age - a wisdom, if not. But perhaps she was more human than she was bird.

"At last," she declared, and then, "Have you any food?"
"Mystia! Do away with your feint; you know what we are capable of." Shinji growled as he said this, his tune imbued with confidence. "Do you not remember me?" He tossed away his gloves, exposing the incarcerated flesh, rotting beneath. It was presumably rotting, at least, for Shinji in fact maintained the hands and their fiery gift with due diligence. It was now that his affection for them appeared, as he massaged a cream onto their surface.
"Oh do shut up with your words! You use that cream when you are to fight. I know that for I know you. We've battled before!" She drew upon a hidden energy, and then procured a quantity of bullets, effulgent green, arranged linearly and poised to be released. "If you've an intention to fight, then be direct with it! I'm awfully peckish, after all."

She hooted and let fly her danmaku attack, reconfiguring her assault with every offensive so as to ensure no easy evasion. Wave upon wave of emerald projectiles, their arrangement distinctly different with each succession. As the bullets soared, the birds wailed maniacally, crying out in maddening orchestra.
"You are wasting our time!" said Keine, threatening, "We did not arrive to contend with you!" She pound her hands together, separating them to conjure energy that sculpted fulminating orbs. "Spell card attack; Masakado Crisis!" Shooting forth from her spheres arrived a slender network of projectiles. Each was no larger than a rice grain, but their perplexity succeeded in confounding that aggressive sparrow, rendering her vulnerable to Shinji's attack.

The man was conceivably simple in his uses of magic, for, like all previous attacks, this was a very direct delivery of power. With his gloves dismembered from their natural positions upon his hands, he leaped forward, teeth gritted and fists outstretched, the flesh of his hands fervently consumed in an orange blaze. He struck into Mystia, the explosive impact roaring loud; an inferno, lavishing the air that it licked, streaming in his wake. Keine could have emplaced a palm to her head at this tactless, tactless brutality, but for all his want of enterprise, Shinji was a valuable commodity when engaged in battle, no matter his methods.

Mystia received the blow resiliently, and took to the air following this takedown. She commanded the birds as she did so, singing in loud, chippering chorus, the piercing melody holding authority over her fellow creatures. The massive entity disseminated into a multitude of singular streams, each composed of perhaps fifty clamouring birds. They encircled their prey, dancing with macabre intent and calculating their flight most exactly, so that it was in trim formation that they descended. Keine commanded her familiars, weaving them into a barrier that coated her form. Simultaneously, a shower of projectiles spewed forth to intercept the avian horde in its flight. Shinji had taken to cowardice, deriving protection from Keine and her intricate network of bullets, each resplendent in their glow, in spite of their fatal properties.

"It is a pity that you cannot gift a sparrow a simple amenity. I haven't a choice now but to thieve it from you." Mystia staggered backwards, as though possessed by demonic impulse, and then threw her head back, mouth shaping a song that resonated throughout the forest interior. It struck, stun, pierced and then deafened the hearing of her two opponents, the loss of sense somewhat grateful as it did away with the pain of the sparrow's cry. This coincided immediately with what appeared to be a swelling of the darkness; the encroach of the shadow of the night. The two humans, sensually crippled, were now to avoid a fresh barrage of bullets.

It was at this time that Diana felt Bronwen relinquish her equanimity - discipline totally shunned. The woman gazed at the engrossing exchange, and in doing so she perceived her horse to grow restless, capering to and fro with accelerated breath. The beast had contrived to change her complexion to a deep, shadowy scarlet; anomalous and new, not previously worn. It was when in consideration as to whether or not she should worry that Diana felt her horse to surge forward, against all elicited command, towards the sparrow.

Mystia was peppering her targets with lengths of danmaku, they being consumed by a blinding purple vapour. The horse's flesh seethed with increasing heat as she sped to her approach, her texture now a frightfully sinister red. The sparrow was afloat, conceivably beyond a land animals grasp, but it was upon leaping skywards that Bronwen sprouted wings - great feathered expanses of wings, springing from her shoulders. She shed - literally shed - her coat of red in a primordial explosion of radiance, the previous skin vanishing below as the beast made to take flight. She repelled every trifle of light to exhibit an effulgence unknown to even mythological conception, nevermind the eyes of men. The night shrunk away to escape from what could only be a celestial interference - the day of judgment - the forests entirety in a breathless consternation; not even a worm contrived to wriggle.

Bronwen, absurdly transformed, soared into the sparrow, hooves crushing the delicate child's flesh and what fractious skeleton was housed beneath. Mystia plummeted, pounding against a tree before descending to hit a rock, Bronwen landing effortlessly nearby.

It demanded a tremendous physical and moral effort for Diana to reassert command over her creature. The preternatural release had possessed Bronwen beyond reason, but the attachment between rider and horse was far too strong to be neglected. Diana fought, and succeeded in discouraging Bronwen's frenzy, the animal seconds away from pulverising the sparrow in her dilapidation.

"Well," said Keine, "I believe we've an entirely new prodigy to investigate."
"And I should think the insidious youkai to have been dictated a new horror - a new amazement that should assert their impotence for months yet."
"Diana," Keine beckoned, "Bring your beast over here and let us examine her." Bronwen tossed her head at this command, evidently displeased at having been neglected for a mere beast - a plebeian creature. Keine was in the temperament to be both percipient of this, and generous, and with a certain amusement she added, "And I do hope Your Regal Eminence should join too," and that conveyed the intended satisfaction.

[andrewv42]

Bronwen's wings, however effulgent, were soon to disappear; a sudden overnight recession so that Diana's morning acquaintance with the beast discovered a very typical horse. Their vanishing was perhaps a greater astonishment than their initial apparency. Following the sight of her horse - mutually unchanged from the shape a horse was naturally calculated to assume - Diana searched her mind for recollection of having fallen asleep prior to the previous nights hunt. She attempted proof that Bronwen's status as a pegasus, now wholly extinct, had been the correspondent of fantasy.

She approached the standing creature, who was breathing audibly, that assertive rhythm a noble comfort to the woman's straiin. "Have you not a confession to make, Bronwen?" she whispered, stroking the nose of the horse. "Do not at all you have a remark?" But the beast did not exhibit comprehension, and snorted cheerfully as she kissed it, sighing with reprehension. "Then perhaps I'm to challenge a certain madness, if not Keine should provide me comfort." She chose not to ride that morning, the sun a youthful blaze to the horizons east. She was measurably frightened of this creature - no longer confident as to its identity, presuming an underlying mutation of terrifying extremity - frightened that a resplendent feathered pair should again sprout without announcement; or perhaps, more abhorrently, that this should not occur at all - that Diana's intellects should suffer further dismemberment upon being convinced that she was indeed misperceiving a dream for actuality.

She walked home, the air caressing the breadth of her neck; a fresh, soothing breeze, the sky a hazy green. A moon fought for recognition amidst the disorder of cloud in conflict above; a moderate white that gleamed with innocence, in desperate evasion of extinguishment. The mountains were distinctly arranged, despite the vapour that clung to the land. Amongst these was her objective, the Youkai Mountain. Beyond this, across tremendous distance was Gensokyo's boundary, upon which resided its keeper, her name now spoken in Diana's anguish; "Oh Yukari, what at all have you given me? A horse, forsooth! What a distasteful equivocality."

A thrust of the breeze enlivened the flow of her hair, so that it momentarily soared, as though it bore wings of its own. The reviving movement was one Diana ordinarily would have cherished, if not its flaying properties did not debilitate her so in its reminiscence of the nights memories. "Perhaps I should hasten; a bed is what I need. A bed would be marvelous."

She hastened, sighted home, located a bed and scoured into it, irrespective towards a change of clothes. There she flung in restless turmoil, throughout morning, striving in vain towards sleep. She was aroused by a Keine in visible irritation. "And here you are, in neglect of known duty; abstinent from obligation: oh for shame!" and immediately books were tossed to Diana. Every half hour Keine would step in, ensuring, with fastidious enterprise, that her didacticism was received to ample result. She would not countenance the slightest absence from study; the slightest measure of slack, for she hoped for practical training to commence a month into the school semester, which was to begin the day after the full moon.

So the study continued, with book upon scriptures upon book, Keine's zeal prohibiting the onset of distraction. Although officially, the summers end was in scheduled approach, the days were execrably hot. The rains culmination and subsequent vanishing of cloud imposed upon the sun no inhibition, so that scalding, tyrannical effulgence was at liberty to oppress whenever leisure allowed it, which was by all means frequent. Although there was not quite the threat of drought, water was not in abundance, the summer rains having not offered a clean, worthy supply. And detached Diana grew from Bronwen, memory of her horse spirited away by the necessity for expedition in her studies, the beast scarcely entreated to her thoughts. Keine's presence only diminished upon the start of the school semester - and even then, when present at home, her ambition contrived not to dwindle.

Being kept at it by her tutor, Diana could not have prevented herself from noticing the disappearance of Keine the day prior to the school semesters start. The one detail that characterised that night was the full moon, a blooming respledency, ponderously distinct amidst the transparent sky. Diana was contemplating the rise of Arcturus, somewhat veiled by the competition of its neighbours; stars battling to be most conspicuous upon the nights tapestry; when she recalled knowledge of the history-eater's bearing of a certain affliction, the containment of which grew insufferable in the height of the moons display.

The peculiarity of Keine's absence could not be prevalently ordained, and within a day Diana's incarceration resurrected in correspondence to the immutable teacher. The day bore on, the monotony a laborious anguish. Never once was the work so intolerable so as to conduce a despair, but there was shock exhibited by Joseph upon receiving knowledge of Diana's confinement. "I had not imagined humans to be so preserved," he wrote to his diary, "To be so commodious to such pain, such conceivably unendurable pain. I grow measurably convinced of this woman's moral force, my estimation of her exemplified very greatly: and to think that she should toil beneath these extremes. There must certainly be a driving conviction, a fueling energy, that empowers her. It is certainly not Keine, bawling incessantly into Diana's ears with each turn of the clock, and the summer atmosphere feels as though it is as the height of its oppression, although calendars conceive it to be autumn. If it is neither teacher, nor climate, that motivates that celestial resolve of hers, then what is it?"

The conviviality of children now accompanied their days, the semester bringing with it mornings and evenings populated by students, companionably converged to traverse the village, exhibiting mirth along the way. This mirth was spoken, whispered and cried, not often in response to civilised witticisms, Joseph observed, but having been provoked by humorous imbecility, tempting amusement. The man did not admire children, who could perhaps have been a species distant from his own. He often positioned his wrist to address to that commodious ally, a sheet of paper, once writing fervently, "I find it unconscionable that one is presumed to bear love for the child generation; to cherish posterity; when their insensible, insipient propensities are a civil indecency, and of no affectionate worth. I would not dare estimate society as being horrendous for making what is, conceivably, an erroneous assumption of moral gait; perhaps it is the individual that stands to receive injury from reprehension - that the united opinions of many do conquer the singular perceptions of one. But I do not surprise myself at this self-discovery, and my guilt does not succeed to be dispelled through the usual prompt of excuse. It is wholly expected of one who is conditionally disinclined towards publically desired normality and social proceedings. Additional indispositions to that which I presently possess are certainly probable, and it does not astonish me to have succeeded in the identification of another."

The fatal day had arrived; Diana, immerged in study, was disavowed from this pursuit in a movement that Keine had computed to be received as an alleviation - one of gratifying properties. But the student did not at all appear relieved upon Keine's dismemberment of The Aphidine Perplexity from her studious peruse. Keine bore the inimical exchange, and said, "You've several hours to whet yourself and prepare. Have a swallow of sake and defer to good temperaments, then meet me by Bronwen's tether at evening."

[andrewv42]

Keine arranged her headpiece so that it stood symmetrically upon her hair, and then spoke with a teacher's authority; "Tempting magic occurs through journey into the isolated recesses of the mind, beyond thought and propensity and the principles of perception, to a province where one encounters the soul in its highest purity. When perceived, it is a lustrous orb of throbbing energy representing the fuel of magic."

Jacob idled as the lecture was ordained, originally an audience overflowing with enthusiasm to witness the release of magic. With decaying interest, he took to the identification of birds; a flight of eagles encircled hidden prey perhaps two leagues distant, occasionally venturing upon expeditious dives - plummeting descents to snatch up what target they had made to determine, contentedly soaring away with catch in hand (Or talon, for the matter of birds).

"It is not performed easily, and haste plays no part. You are to be left here, beside Bronwen, for two weeks until the necessary discovery should occur. All throughout, Joseph shall be my advocate." At this, the man swiveled upon his axis and exhibited dread. "Alas, I have not the freedom of schedule to allow for my attendance - a teacher's profession is prolifically exacting. Joseph's assistance is a necessity." To relax the man's visible distress, she added, "Consider this; that I will relieve you of your rent for the full duration that you are to spend with her. Now, Diana, you've companions, a sizeable erudition, and scriptures in good quantity. I leave you to search for your method towards magic."

"Have you at all a clue as to what you are to do?" conferred Joseph, "She did not seem to leave you in great armament; specification not countenanced."
"Oh, by all means; Kanako's Principles offer a number of meditative tasks." It was to one of these which she now set herself to, crossing her legs and posturing herself so as to assume a lotus position. The sun hung loosely amidst a scattering of clouds, the trees tinged with brown where the onset of Autumn had grown boldest.
"Well, this is eventful," Joseph said, arranging himself into a position that favoured the sight of his falcons.

"Diana's perseverance continues to impress," wrote Joseph, the girth of his diary temperamentally reassuring beneath his arm. "Transcending all sensible estimation. She had survived the brutality of Keine and her pernicious tyranny only to be poised in faultless posture beneath this agonising sun. The woman assures me that there is purpose to this, but purpose or no, tenacity can only be prescribed as her principle propensity, and I've still only to guess as to what actually empowers her so. Within her, there is, irrefutably, a tremendous moral will to succeed; such that to assume her passions to be light would be tenuous, if not grossly indelicate, nevermind incorrect."

The end to each day corresponded with Joseph's description of Diana's movements to a percipient Keine. The teacher patiently encompassed the man's conventions so as to determine an image, clear of fault, of her student's progress. Diana slept and ate in her position, inseparable from her condemnation. She did not wash. Every morning saw her re-assumption of the lotus posture, an hour of which would then see her meld into a new variety of distinct and often precarious shape, each calculated towards a purported spiritual stimulation. The extravagance left Joseph aghast.

"And now she exhibits sweat in ineffable profuse," Joseph wrote, "Displaying an underlying anguish as she nears the objective of her search. Her breath has grown sporadic - eyelids frequent to exhibit turbidity - wholly suggestive of an inner torment which she must alone move to dispel. Conceivably, it is against hidden demons that she struggles, but one such as myself who views from a mere observational perspective can only be left to presume."

And there she wrestled, and on the fifteenth day Keine warned of her approach. It was not until sunset that she attended, but she did so with inimitable gait; exhuming displeasure. "Has she not at all exhibited result? That is, a preferable result?"
"Nay, she does not stir; conceivably trapped by a conflict of the intellects."
"Listen, Joseph, and make not to scatter your wits. Do not give yourself to presumption and its affinitive perils, do you hear? You've no knowledge as to her struggle."
"Yes, ma'am."

He reserved himself in Keine's audience, never vocal but for when she departed, saying, "To inform if ever she should awaken," to which he replied with his acknowledgments. Diana's dress, astronomically black, grew animated with the strengthening of the wind. The sun's eminent rays poised, as though apprehensive towards the final descent, upon a horizon vibrant with Anatolian dusk. At last the decisive plunge was made, immerging the world into night, and in response a quantity of birds grew to chatter. Joseph lit himself a blaze, conceiving Keine's command to disallow him his return to the home and its corresponding bed; a civilised bed, oh the temptation. Here again, he made to write, "Keine was not in good countenance. It occurs to me that Diana has underperformed - by all means inestimable. Beyond two weeks, and she remains in her pose, conceivably lost in the fathoms of the mind." He placed a pot of tea on to his fire and made to pause. He gazed at the stars in their infancy, the night indeed premature, and then added, "But I have faith in her yet," and the diary was closed.

[andrewv42]

A nuthatch, of cinnamon breast with streak of silver at its crown, took to the sky, in innate calculation of breeze and expedition in its flight. Below, Gensokyo's south was presented as a litter of nucleated pine, disappearing, through a threshold of vertiginous cliff, into the sea; this stretched on to the horizon; a taut, faultless line. Clasped within its beak, the bird held a seed to the tree of hazel, the creature possessing it diligently so as to prohibit the catastrophe of its fall. The autumn had arrived, and Gensokyo was not a region in which migration was a plausible pursuit, and so its animal residents hadn't option but to endure winter; and for its endurance, the accumulation of food was high necessity. As conscientious as the bird was towards its catch, it had no concern for the weakening sun, diminishing in temperature by the day, nor the promise of overcast, represented by cloud in increase upon the horizons crest. No, the animal did not concern for the meretricious, and, through spiraling descent, landed upon a branch to the audience of a child Joseph. The boy was wholly suffused with delight at witnessing the passerines splendour of gait.

A staccato of hopping was the creature's movement down, traversing the length of the tree until it encountered a crevice in its trunk. In this, it situated the hazelnut. There, it made a contemplative pause, as though to consider whether the meal was to be eaten now, or saved for later. The choice that it concluded upon was the former. It accurately poised its form, and so convoluted, hacking upon the immovable nut, this done with repetition until the piece was chiseled into fragments. And there it ate, oblivious as to the scrutiny of the child below.

"Joseph!" yelled his brother James, the sound perishing the equanimity of the bird and inducing it to flee. Joseph turned to face the running boy, not inimically as would be supposed; he had not had such vivid sight of a nuthatch before; as he was not intent to challenge fate for more than what he had already been provided; a present charity that left him eminently pleased. "The sun has reached the height of Distal Peak; we should go so we do not miss mother's appointment." And so the sun was, causing the pair to hurry home, embracing rapidity.

Through the forest, thick with pine and that coarse, disagreeable shrub, and sliding down a beaten path. And there lay their house; a modest cottage, a mere stretch of a distance from Lanrwst. It bore a roof of thatch, supported by walls the complexion of snow. Exuberant with the speed of their movement, they cried upon entrance, "We're home, dad: home!" to which the intended audience made not to respond. It was not until the door had been shut, and shoes organised away that their father murmured an indistinct, "Hello," visibly reluctant and perhaps a trifle regretful; certainly disenchanted.

The kitchen elicited a fragrance of chicken that pervaded the household, and the brothers, with ignited appetite, journeyed there so as to investigate that sumptuous scent. This investigation procured mother, with hand upon belly, swollen with accommodation towards a child; five months begotten. "Here you are, my lovelies," she hailed, with an exercise of enthusiasm, and upon witnessing them peering into the pot, "It is a lobscouse; which the market hadn't beef, and so I purchased a chicken. Pray, does not Salamander desire your mathematical write-ups tomorrow?" They each nodded gravely. "Then you'd best scurry off to their completion; dinner is a commitment of the woman, and not boys."

Joseph did not care for numbers, and performed egregiously in arithmetic methods. He had failed in the learning of multiplication tables, and could not grasp the fundamentals of surds, nevermind trigonometry; and algebra was another affair entirely, dreaded to the extent that it was superstitiously left untouched. This plight was reversed for his brother James, however, who was gifted in these articles, and was Salamander's delight. The brothers set to their work, the one with disgust and evident difficulty, and the other with sublime devotion.

Salamander was the grandfather of a neighbour's daughter, Diana, and was of unconscionably great age, the corresponding experience lending him vast, vast measures of erudition.

At table, talk flowed happily between the boys, at ease over their lobscouse and bread. Occasionally, their mother would involve herself, congratulating Joseph at once upon his mention of the nuthatch. The father would only prose to his wife, however, prevailingly detached from connection with his children; he always had been. The stew was eaten, and a custard pudding, devoured with thrice the previous incentive, was served and then cleaned away. Father retreated to a book, exhibiting his classic introversion, and the brothers were set to sleep.

The following month, a trip to market was conferred. "It is your duty as a father to teach your children the village principles," the wife had said, "Although James could never at all be cheated for his money, there are dishonest folk to still contend with, and the boys must understand how to evaluate the quality of a purchase." The man glanced at the bulb of his wife's stomach, and sighed, uttering his concession.

There, he traversed the aisles of goods, arranged upon stalls, advertised, of course, by the formidable roars of their keepers. The father had his children by his hands; Joseph to the left, and James, right - done by duty more than through affection. A thorough seaman, his arms exhibited heroic girth - a characteristic for which their mother lusted.

Upon arrival at a dropping staircase, he asserted the children's appreciation for excitement, and allowed their impetuous run to the bottom of the descent to the blacksmith's below. James was forever clumsy around slopes, however, steepness forsooth, and was a child of poor command over balance. A miscalculation of step propelled him downwards, tumbling with many a collision of head and limb upon stone. The boy was briefly unconscious, and upon waking, he lifted his arm, shrieking at the grotesque presentation of flexibility; a fracture of its fore rendered his hand inactive, and it hung with a hideous curve marking the premature joint - it was a malformation that mortified their father.

The man had been sluggish in his reaction - it was in fact Joseph that had left to seek aid. He returned home in a state of bewilderment, passively communicating to his wife the nature of their child's injury, and the boy's location at the village infirmary. She departed in a rush. He did not visit James; not when an amputation was decided, nor at all during the deliberate, tentative recovery of the anguished soul. The man was startlingly neglected, the procedures conceivably too enterprising, and the worry conceivably too great to concern him.

He sat alone in an empty household, contemplating the wine that he drank with frequency, and cultivating reticence in that emptiness.

Three weeks, and at last a reunion of family. Sallow complexion had begotten James, and the boy's face was heavy with misery His father scarcely desired to make this observation, however, embracing his wife and Joseph with positive concern. He rejected his eldest sun, deprived of the courage to gaze upon a horror of his own devise; of his own brutal, sinister, pernicious endeavour, no matter its attempted categorisation as mistake. It was whilst immerged in this self-torment that his wife leaked a profuse quantity of fluid and encountered labour. "But Mr. Gills had not appointed it until the new moon!" he had cried, pertinacious towards the tyranny of fate.
"Well, clearly it is happening now!! Get him over here!"

Mr. Gills, the village physician, attended with admirable haste, and so the procedures of birth were performed.

[andrewv42]

Dr. Gills cleansed his rasor beneath water, examining the smoothness of flesh about his chin, freshly shaven. Satisfied, he stowed his equipment away, and set himself to the writing of his report, to be distributed in next months journal of medicine.

"The patient, Jillian Herapath, in matrimony with John Herapath, delivered child three weeks prior to the scheduled event. The creature shooting forth from the woman, with unlikely speed attributed mostly to its contemptible size, was a specimen beyond accuracy of description. The principles of medicine, however, oblige me to attempt it, and so I shall, although I make no claim to literary primacy.

"The flesh of the child was of blood in texture, exhibiting purple in indeterminate regions of skin. The skin was like an egg shell, that shattered to form scales upon the child's attempt at movement; the bleeding would not successfully coagulate. Eyes could not be identified but for flaccid pores where eyes should have been. There was evidence of two nostrils, but no nose. Ears were absent in their entirety. The creature did not appear percipient towards touch, and would never cry, living perhaps two hours before a pulse was beyond recognition.

"Never before have I witnessed such malformation - nor yet upon such an unconscionable extreme. Upon death, the medical nurse asked if I should desire it to be tossed away, as opposed to the ceremonial disposal through way of the morgue. Without animation, the child appeared more as a model of clay than anything at all human - that is to say, biologically human.

"Joanna Herapath was to be her intended name. I have mixed draughts of opiatic tinctures, with additions of hellebore, so as to ease the parents' distress." Dr. Gills read this all through, and shook his head. No, it should have to be written again, with emphasis upon technicality as opposed to sentiment; he'd a purpose to fulfill, and that was not of a theatric. He shut his writing book and dowsed the candles of the room, pursuing sleep.

Two weeks after the birth and death of Joanna, the Herapath family had scarcely a household to attend to. John had departed, with not a word and never a promise of return, conceivably to seek refuge at sea, where the ocean's immensity was presumed to be solicitous. The mother's anguish could be heard and felt all throughout - literally felt. Although it was frequent that she should weep, she had now taken to the beating of her children, at times without provocation. The woman's grief hung unctuously throughout the house.

Perhaps a change of heart had then induced her to organise a camping trip. Upon representing this to her children, they could not bring themselves to refuse a woman who they now perceived as a tyrant.

It was when in the purchase of supplies for this trip that she was desired to hold a baby - a favour for a friend, of course. Again, they stood outside the unlucky blacksmith's, the friend perusing throughout the establishment, too afraid to introduce the noxious vapours to her child. Jillian Herapath was not in countenance to handle it with the required delicacy, and so it was transferred to the arms of Joseph, who cradled it tentatively. It was with sudden impulse, however, that his mother then spun round, shrieking as she procured a knife and plunged it deep into the head of the baby. The carcass was torn from Joseph; now flushing tears; and smashed against the pavement - brain matter erupting from the mangled skull. The family fled before the act could be discovered.

Immediately, the camping trip was pursued, the children blind with their sobbing. Confusion rendered them pliable to a mother who hurried them home to forage the supplies, and they proceeded into the forest. Perhaps half a mile of dreadful terrain, and there they established tent. Above, the crash of thunder was made, the sound reverberating through the mass of the heavens. "I'm cold," uttered Joseph. His mother nodded, and said, with meekness in her tone, "James: pray fetch a measure of wood. We shall make a fire, and with faith, the trees will protect it against rain."

The tent, which was of sheepskin material, smelled unpleasant, and was so shallow that the mother and child within sat embracing their knees, listening for thunder; in fractious rumble. "Mother," Joseph made hazard to ask, "Why... why did you do it?" About her knees, her grip was seen to tighten. The thunder grew louder. "Was it because of dad?" Her breath was perhaps the loudest feature to that interior, though, audible above the crackling skies.
"It is all the fault of James," she said at last. "Your father was very particular towards a rejection of that boy. James corrupted your father's countenance, weakening the man's soul and mutilating his seed so that I should give birth to a demon. James tormented his mind, driving him to leave when the family required him most."

A slight turbulence against the tent, and then the rain came to plummet. The world beyond their trifling refuge was but a shattering din of fluid. "Do you know who I hate... dear Joseph? Beyond the cowardice of your father, the treachery of fate; the sinister intentions of the foul gods? It is James. I hate him." The boy's footsteps plodded through mud to arrive at the tent.

"Mother, it is raining; please let me in!" all this time, she had been taking string, securing the hooks that sealed the entrance of the tent. She fastened them tightly and made not to reply. "Mother, please it is cold outside!" The weight of his fist could be heard beating against the tent; a thudding bass amidst the treble of the rain.
"Won't you let him in?" Joseph cried, and when he sought to unravel the strings, he was beaten; face, stomach and leg subject to the brutal hatred of his mother; an anguished mother, sobbing beyond command.

Even when James made to collapse the structure of the tent, the opening would not part. And while the sheepskin layer kept warm and dry the two inhabitants within, the stranded child was left to the mercy of the elements. With the coming of morning, the cadaver of James was face-down in a depth of mud. He had collapsed with the onset of weakness, and then drowned in that hapless immobility, the biting chill of the rain pouring thick.

Joseph was too stunned to make a sound, his consternation being his only state whilst led back to Lanrwst. His mother did not speak at all; not through the journey, and not when seized by village authority upon her return - a gruesome silence. In three days, she was hanged, to an audience of villagers sickened more by the crime than the method of punishment. In addition to the murder of the baby, the loss of James had been associated with the woman's malevolence.

Joseph was offered to be adopted, although few could countenance a child shaken by trauma, with the blood of a criminal in his composition. The following week, he was accepted to participate in the annual caravan to the far northern village, and from that instance, his conscious mind contrived to forget the ill history of Lanrwst.

[andrewv42]

A vaporous accumulation moulded the shape of an elephant, gazing forward with furious eyes. The elephant hovered in the centre of what was conceivably a crypt, an impalpable glow rendering the cobbled structure a nacreous green. It was scarcely light, but was adequate to allow sight to Diana, getting up so as to evaluate this surrounding. Thirteen doors, each a formidable cube of stone, littered the opposing wall. She traveled to the first. Delicately, she brushed her fingers against its surface - ancient with dust.

"Now you are here."
"Who are you?" Diana exclaimed, spasmodically twisting her head to search about.
"I am your wisdom," sounded the response - a voice of ineffable character, perhaps best described as many personalities melding into one another.
"What?" She had realised the elephant had turned to face her, the manifestation invariably shaped by the shifting, diaphanous mist.
"I am your purity of thought; your faultless judgment; your sagacity; your intellectual splendour. I am your wisdom."

She had retreated against the wall so that her form was shrunken against its surface. She perceived that the elephant should advance, although truly it gave no motion; scarcely animated but for the variations of its mist. Beside her, the great stone door slid open, grinding coarsely against its mechanism as it revealed atramentous shadow beyond.

"The wall is an illusion, and so are the doors," warned the elephant. "It represents the mind's tendency to self-deceit. Your are deceiving yourself, Diana." Diana was enraptured by the enormous blackness.
"Then how am I to encompass self-deceit?"
"I do not know."
"But you are my wisdom, are you not?"
"Indeed, I am your wisdom: I know only as much as you."

Diana collapsed her posture and crouched before the shadow. "A deception aims to conceal truth," she thought; "To recognise deception for its falsity, one must discover that truth. But how to discover it when inhibited by deceit?"
A hooting laughter sprouted into the hall. "Why, plough right into it of course, ha ha ha!" The voice had evolved in personality, speaking now with great humour.
"How does it come of you to say so, when the revelation does not similarly birth within me? Are you not my wisdom - is our knowledge not shared?"

"Your will is not your own," was said at an insidious pitch, and the elephant sought to disseminate; ligaments of vapour, like a transparent cloth, rupturing the creature and causing it to vanish. The gaping void stood before her, like the hungering maw of death. Some measure of fear - perhaps it was a scruple of her sanity - implored against her entrance: but the force was scarcely audible in that sanctuary of her mind.

A step into the doorway, and immediately the illusion shattered - an enormous crash that preceded her descent through vacant abyss. Falling and falling, racing darkness the only perception - not even friction to stimulate touch - and she splashed into a pool of fluid. The liquid was smooth, but its piceous texture encouraged its resemblance of swamp water. Again, a minor glow, scarcely perceptible, allowed for a minimum of sight.

"This is your creativity," sounded wisdom, now an old woman with the authority of great age. "Within its depths lie the fisheries of inspiration. It is an endless reservoir of idea and conceptualisation; all pre-determined so as to be seized in time of necessity."
"So I have triumphed deceit; what now?"
"Now? You've an eternity in which to locate the imagination that will guide you to the soul. Innumerable figments lie below; have speed," and again the wisdom vanished without announcement.

It was at this instance that Diana awoke in her first return towards reality - that is to say, physical reality. With each day, she would do so, taking nourishment in her waking, before returning to the fathoms of her mind. Various meditative postures were given trial, but each did not appear to do much other than change the voice of her wisdom. Every time it would receive her; an immaterial companion that simulated between talk and sudden silence capriciously. Diana would dive, curiously percipient as to navigation in that water, in spite of the sightless black. Her hands would automatically envelope an item, very often amorphous, and the idea would recite itself with staggering audacity - words spiriting through her mind.

She had perhaps encountered several a prosperous conception, that should have earned her a measure of fame if carried out. Such a quantity was introduced, however, with she so diligent towards her objective, that not a detail could be accurately recalled with reasonable clarity.

On the tenth day, she realised the exhaustion of her time, and then attempted an increase of speed, but this was to no success. On the twelfth, she concluded to remain longer in that pool, and to dive deeper , possessed with an incentive for discovery.

Again, the featureless dark flowing past, as her depth grew to increase. At times, she would be in conversation with her wisdom, but the majority of her action was in the assessment of her encountered ideas. She plunged deeper, pressure mounting upon her ears; a dangerous pressure, wisdom would advise. The concepts' peculiarity would multiply in correspondence to her depth; at the greatest extremes, chancing upon the murderous notions of some forbidden human identity. It was at these tremendous depths that she triumphed. Of course, the knowledge was hers all throughout; she'd only needed to acquaint it with conscience.

Racing to the surface of the pool, she applied it into practice. At last, the cell of purity stood before her; a resplendent orb, containing her soul. She made towards a tentative approach, extending fingers to brush softly against the curvature of that surface. It grew remarkably effulgent in response to this, a throbbing now perceptible beneath the silence. She gasped with wonder; hands clasped to mouth.

Wisdom gave her merit; an orchestra of voices declaring in unity, "Now, dear, you're a being of magic." She opened her eyes to a flood of sunshine; light a forgotten entity. This world was ponderously silent, however; as though a catastrophe had occurred. Perhaps indeed, there was no calamity superior to a disaffected Keine, staring with acrimony at Diana; savagery imbued into that gaze.