I'm posting here. If I should instead post at the wiki, please tell me.
Also, the endings don't quite match up. This is intentional.
===
Patchouli
===
The first time you were aware of Her was when She carved Her name on you.
Then again, such a statement is perhaps unwarranted. Such a translation of a concept to a society as short-lived as humanity loses much of its nuance. Besides, you have realized in retrospect that Her influence began earlier in time; a series of gentle nudges toward your inevitable meeting, soft caresses when you were in pain, the occasional pang that reminded you of your path when you strayed. Perhaps She was there when you were born, guiding you through the carnage that was your cradle.
However, the appearance of those crimson lines was undeniably the start of your relationship in absentia. For more than a century, She has dominated your thought.
And tonight, you are going to meet Her in the flesh.
==
You meet and find yourselves surprisingly different. When you speak of fate, she simply laughs. She cannot answer any of your questions at the time of your arrival but finds the answers piecemeal later. Yet despite Her insistence of Her own freedom, she considers herself stalwart and immobile against the flow of time, but you see clearly that She is touched... no... blessed by the capacity for change. Every day She disproves Her own immutability with Her growth, every iota of gained strength a triumph over congenital feebleness, every datum learned in spite of the point in time in which She existed as nothing.
You too are a challenge to Her view. She was first incredulous and later annoyed to find that you learned only slowly. You help Her understand that your spontaneity is ultimately an expression of order and stability, a time-invariant Markov chain far less mutable than even dead lore that must pass through changing minds.
When She heads to war, or any semblance of it, you are there beside Her, watching Her wrath so unlike your own, Her dignified and grandiose fury bearing down on Her foes. When She conducts Her studies, you are there, carrying out Her exact instructions even when it screams against your instincts, not just because you (rightfully) fear the costs of failure but because you trust Her with all of your being. When She sleeps, you stand a silent vigil outside her door, unlike Her other servant,
who She trusts with Her body and invites in whenever She decides to sleep.
or Her dear friend, or said friend's servant.
You understand that, regardless of your feelings towards Her, She is under no obligation to reciprocate. Therefore, it is to your great surprise that, exactly 3650 days after your first meeting, She invites you into her room.
===
===
Ending 1
===
You enter with trepidation. The air is charged with tension, and each step is heavier than the last. Most of your attention is directed towards putting one foot in front of the other as your vision swims; were you more attentive, you might have noted the shifting space of the room. After five trembling paces, you find yourself no farther from the ajar door.
The door that you guarded zealously. The gateway to the domain of your Mistress. You did not leave the door open.
You undergo rapid displacement; your location has been changed without acceleration. In your moment of confusion, you find your flaccid limbs tied to a table.
"Be gentle, Sakuya. Every cc of tissue is precious."
Your Mistress looms over you. She holds a small knife in her hands and suspends an array of implements with her magic.
You open your mouth to speak. She reaches inside and cuts out your tongue. You are temporarily in danger of drowning in your own blood, but your treacherous reflexes force you to drink.
"Alright. Let's start with the epithelial tissue. The subcutaneous fat can be dealt with later."
+++
You black out from pain halfway through the skinning procedure. However, you manage to regain consciousness in time to witness your dismemberment. The constant pain is simply a distant haze now, but you witness your Mistress at Her best: meticulously examining the object of her interest. Currently, the fortunate item in question is your left lung.
+++
You do not quite fall unconscious during the next procedure.You are painfully aware as the rotary saw chews through your spine and skull, counting the beats of your heart as it flops like a misshapen fish in its container. You are awake as you are finally stripped of sight and hearing, the other senses rendered useless by injury or background stimulation. The complex magic that your Mistress uses to splay your nerves onto pages of your own skin registers as strange flashes of experience; red with a side of angularity surges through, leaving a wake of paranoia and eat. Your thought remains undimmed as, in some fit of cosmic irony, your flayed brain is bound in a tome woven of your own flesh.
+++
Patchouli smiled faintly at dinner. Remilia's curiosity was piqued. The librarian's good moods had been rare recently. However, a more pressing question took precedent.
"What happened to that new familiar of yours, Patchouli?"
"Oh, the contract expired."
"Really?"
Patchouli takes out the book hidden in her sleeve.
"Don't worry. It left this as something to remember it by.
===
===
Ending 2
===
The air is heavy with fate as you enter. This one event will be the culmination of your life; a destiny not to be deferred. The fear of having strayed haunted you earlier; you know now that your worry was for naught.
She waits at Her desk, an image of perfection. She stands as you near, entering your embrace.
The arc traced out by one of Her fountain pens is equally perfect, sinking soundlessly into Her neck. She gurgles helplessly as you drag her into the library. Her other familiar is nowhere to be seen.
You wait until Her death before beginning. Though many defenses remain, the library is now vulnerable. You break open a phial of tetrahedral phosphorus and watch both Unmoving Great Libraries of magic consumed by mundane flame. Through the pyre the liar may escape the ire and the quagmire of repatriation.
===
===
Ending 3
===
You enter nervously, mulling over the development. Rather, mulling is what you wish you were doing; your are instead possessed by a maniac intensity, fretting and doubting. You must and must not continue.
She is waiting inside, quill and quill-knife readied. You begin unbuttoning the shirt lent to you. After a few fumbles, the buttons yield. Patchouli is unfazed.
The knife is expertly drawn down your sternum, small flicks separating the myriad layers of tissue. Skin separates into sheets the consistency of damp rice paper with the lubrication of liquefying subcutaneous fat. At this moment, you are literally Patchouli's book.
Upon those sheets are miles of flowing script; the first layer details the time you spent with Her while the second details your birth. The layer below that is a chronicle of your parents. As layer after layer peel away, the records become more fragmented and less coherent. At the tenth, you requested that She stop reading aloud; now at the fifteenth, you suspect that She is shivering.
By the twentieth, Her hands shake to the point where the knife becomes useless. She grasps the layer and pulls outward. Before you black out, you hear Her whisper,
In Car...
+++
You do not know how long you were unconscious, or whether you lost consciousness at all, for that matter. You have lost sensation in your eyelids and cannot see. A faint *crunching* sensation rattles through your...
Wait...
You attempt to move your arms to no avail. Your internal senses are muted and your psychosomatic map is suddenly missing. One arm seems to map to a rectangle while the fingers on the other form not five but one surface.
Suddenly, you are assaulted by burning lights. You manage to dodge a column of said light (how do I know? what happened to my body?) and begin to panic when a number spherical flares appear. You lash out in their general direction and the spheres fade. The column disappears. You are left alone for a few days.
+++
Later, the column of light returns, stronger than ever. The flare makes your skin crackle on first miss; the next shot is a hit. A soft *snap* accompanies some minor pain where your spine and shin might have been.
A moment later, a void, some inexplicably horrifying spot of darkness within the darkness that dominates your sight neared. Pain lances through your body in confusing patterns; tissue is wounded in strange zig-zag patterns that skips earlier layers. You realize that you no longer have a ribcage when a third flare sizzles through your lungs.
"Die"
A fourth flare tears through your ankle and torso. You begin to realize that your current body is radically different than your original. You note that you are inappropriately calm despite the fact that you do not recall how to move.
"Thanks for the meal."
Hands grab you and pull. A sea of eyes stare at you, watching you fade into oblivion.