~Hakurei Shrine~ > Patchouli's Scarlet Library
Weekly Writing Challenge Thread 2 - The Morning After (Deadline December 31st)
FinnKaenbyou:
Week 3 Is Over.
Week 4 Begins!
Alfred F. Jones:
Now modified to be the week 4 Librarian entry instead.
Theme: Dreams.
Rapiemur
She had picked up a book a week ago, and since then had not been able to put it down for more than a few hours at a time. When having a tea break, she read it with one hand. When eating lunch, she had Koakuma read it to her (no good bibliophile, in her eyes, could risk a book being damaged or stained by negligence). When bathing, Koakuma was again the narrator. When sleeping, she slept with it by her side, finger stuck in the book to keep track of what page she was on. For being a lover of books, she could never remember to keep bookmarks nearby. That, and she had a tendency to fall asleep while reading.
Above all, she never put a book down for more than half an hour while she was caught up in reading it.
This was the sort of person Patchouli Knowledge was.
That was how her day began, as well. She woke up, found her page, and read for a few minutes before finally getting out of bed and drinking tea while reading with the book in the other hand. This was the sort of story she liked: engaging and long. Short stories were easy to come by; good short stories less so. But the problem with them was that they ended too quickly, when she wanted to spend more time in that universe.
Then she went off to bathe, and relaxed in the water while listening to Koakuma narrate. She lay in a tub, and Koa sat in a chair, curtained window to the side and Patchouli behind her, and all the while she enjoyed Koakuma's range of voices and temperaments for the characters. Koa had different values than she did, and sometimes liked characters Patchouli didn't, and vice versa; her narration would reflect that. Patchouli had found that while she sometimes disagreed with Koa's take on characters, she would sometimes illuminate different aspects of a character Patchouli hadn't seen yet.
Long dress, comfortable robe. She was off to the library with Koa by her side. Patchouli was still reading, but had long since committed to muscle memory the amount of steps and turns needed to get there without looking.
?Steps? was figurative; she mostly hovered these days.
It was now afternoon; the sun was high in the sky outside. The light would have damaged the books of Voile centuries ago, which is why Patchouli always kept the curtains closed. Or maybe it was that so many years living with two vampires in the house had managed to turn her off to the idea of daylight. Why couldn't it be both?
She sent Koakuma off for tea. (?What will you be having, Patchouli-sama?? ?Some Earl Grey would be nice today, Koakuma. Thank you.?) Alone in the library but for the quiet fairy maids dusting the bookshelves, she drew her book out and opened it up from where her finger marked the paragraph where she'd left off.
She was so absorbed by the story that it took her a few moments to notice her visitor.
It wasn't Marisa. No book was engaging enough to block out the noise of her explosive entrances. Nor was it Koakuma; the tea couldn't be done yet. And it wasn't Sakuya, because she never bothered with stealth when it wasn't around her master, the showoff.
And even though Flandre had recently mastered the art of walking through the mansion calm enough to not destroy things by accident (mostly), it wasn't her, either.
Well, this was unexpected.
?Come in,? she greeted her.
A less trained eye would notice the short vampire's relaxed pose and shudder at the confidence she exuded at every turn. A more trained eye would notice that it was a show.
Patchouli was neither of those. Instead, she was her best friend, and she could sense when Remi was shaken and trying to hide it.
It was in the position of her fingers. Remilia thought her hands and fingers were her most beautiful physical aspect, and she had a hobby of making them flutter or putting them in odd poses. That was when she was truly relaxed and confident, which was upwards of ninety percent of the time.
The other ten percent, her hands were deathly still-- Remilia trying to keep a hold of herself.
Patchouli watched as Remilia walked to her table after so soundlessly closing the door behind her. Her stride was confident, her eyes bright, her hair perfect. Her performance was seamless, except for her unmoving hands.
Remilia walked to her side and stood there for a moment. Patchouli had to tread carefully. She wasn't in any danger, but simple consideration for her friend's pride prevented her from asking her outright what had disturbed her.
?Good afternoon, Remi.?
Good afternoon: the indication that Patchouli had some hint of what was going on. It was daylight, and yet Remilia was out of bed. Remi: the nickname that spoke to how deep their bond was.
Remilia reached out and touched the librarian's shoulder, fingers first and then palm. It was a light touch, but with Remilia, no action was insignificant. She had wanted to reassure herself of Patchouli's physical presence. Why?
?I'm still here, Remi,? Patchouli offered.
Remilia's fingers froze, then she dropped her hand to the side, but her fingers weren't nearly as frozen as before.
?I see that now.?
What a curious thing to say.
The mystery grew deeper, and so did Patchouli's worry.
?You're worried about me.?
A simple statement of fact. Patchouli wasn't surprised; after all, if Remilia's tell was her fingers not moving, Remilia would surely have picked up on her own tell after a few decades.
Patchouli's eyes lowered a bit, and her mouth formed a thin line.
?You made me worry.?
Remilia was the more expressive of the two; Patchouli had always had much more muted expressions next to her, and as the head of the house, Remilia had no competitors, so there was no need for a constant poker face. Still, it spoke volumes that Remilia sighed in relief and gave her a smile.
?I'm just so glad you're still here.?
Patchouli could say nothing; she knew that her eyes widening had done all the speaking for her. Remilia, for her part, pulled over the nearest chair and sat about a foot away from her.
?I couldn't sleep,? Remilia said. ?I had a dream.?
?A dream that woke you up in the middle of the day,? Patchouli replied, ?is not an ordinary dream.?
?Heh.? Remi leaned her head down and to the left, letting her hair fall off her shoulder and down the side of her face. ?A nightmare is a type of dream.?
There were so many jokes she could have made then; the lord of the night, the queen of vampires, suffering a nightmare?
But that was for strangers. Patchouli was her best friend. She stayed quiet. Remi had once said that she appreciated having her around just to listen, and listen she would.
?I dreamt... that I woke up one night, and Sakuya wasn't there to greet me.? Remilia laid her hands on the table in front of her, intertwined her fingers together. ?I walked out of my room and down the hall, and there were no fairy maids. I went to Sakuya's quarters, and she wasn't there. I went to Voile, and you weren't there. I went to your room, and you weren't there. I went to Koakuma's room, next to yours, and she wasn't there either.?
Patchouli watched as Remilia's hands steadily turned a paler shade of white.
?I went to the basement. I thought maybe somehow Flan had escaped, or brought all of you down to play with her. Flan wasn't there either. Not even her clothes were there anymore. She was just gone. And so were all of you. It was daylight, but I didn't think anything of walking out without a parasol; it was a dream, it didn't occur to me. Meiling was gone. I flew over to the Misty Lake; those fairies that always play there were gone. I flew towards the human village, and I didn't see a single youkai in the forest, or even birds or animals. I arrived in the human village, and there was no Kamishirasawa Keine to keep me out. There was no one in the streets. No Fujiwara no Mokou running to kick me out, no humans at all to hide in their houses and stare at me in fear.?
It unnerved Patchouli to see such a blank look of uncomprehending horror on Remilia's face as she recounted her dream, as if she were there again in her mind.
?There was just... nothing. The Hourai immortals were gone. The Sanzu was unattended. The Hakurei maiden, gone. The Gate to the Netherworld, unguarded. And so was everyone and everything else.?
She shook her head, closed her eyes.
?All that remained was me, and the wind moving through the trees with no one else but me to hear it.?
Remilia's hands were shaking. Her eyes were still closed.
Since Remilia wasn't looking, she wouldn't be embarrassed by Patchouli putting her hands over Remi's own.
She rested her fingers against the bony vampire's, feeling how cold they were, and stopping them from shaking. She did that for a few moments, then:
?I'm still here, Remi.?
Remilia nodded, eyes still closed, but she turned her hands upward to hold Patchouli's in her own.
?Yes,? she said, ?and I forgot how much I appreciate that until today.?
Patchouli smiled.
?I'm not going to leave, Remi. I promise.?
The blue-haired vampire nodded again, the shaking in her hands going away the longer they absorbed Patchouli's warmth.
?I will... hold you to that.?
Patchouli smiled, a bit wider this time, squeezing Remi's hands in her own.
?I haven't left my library in a century. And those are just books, you know??
There was no way Remilia could not have realized what she was really saying.
You're so much more important to me than a library.
?... Thank you, Patchy.?
Remi released Patchouli's hands. Patchouli released hers. Remilia pulled her hands back onto the desk, and the fingers were beginning to twitch once more.
?Now,? she began, ?I have to go visit Flandre and hug her. Then go outside and check on Meiling. And when Sakuya gets back from shopping, I'll make her let me hug her too. And then go back to sleep.?
She hopped off her chair, turned to see Patchouli, smiled. ?Say hi to Koakuma for me, as well.?
?I will.? Patchouli nodded. ?And if you ever have a dream like that again... you can come talk to me about it.?
Remilia laughed, and Patchouli was reassured. ?Certainly.? She turned, waved her hand up in the air as she walked off. ?Now, don't let me ruin your reading or anything. I'd hate to cause trouble for you.?
?What do you mean?? Patchouli asked, confused.
?Are you saying,? Remilia began, half-turning again as she opened the door to leave, ?that you haven't noticed your own nervous tell??
Patchouli shook her head. ?Why, what is it??
Remilia pointed a finger at her desk.
?You stop holding a book in your hands.?
Patchouli looked down at the book that had left her hands without her even realizing it.
She looked back up at Remilia, who grinned at her from the door.
?See ya later, Patchy.?
And then she closed the door behind her, just in time for Koakuma to return with her tea.
-----
She had picked up a book a week ago, and since then had not been able to put it down for more than a few hours at a time. When having a tea break, she read it with one hand. When eating lunch, she had Koakuma read it to her (no good bibliophile, in her eyes, could risk a book being damaged or stained by negligence). When bathing, Koakuma was again the narrator. When sleeping, she slept with it by her side, finger stuck in the book to keep track of what page she was on. For being a lover of books, she could never remember to keep bookmarks nearby. That, and she had a tendency to fall asleep while reading.
Above all, she never put a book down for more than half an hour while she was caught up in reading it.
This was the sort of person Patchouli Knowledge was.
Except, of course, when her best friend needed her.
Esifex:
Ruro, Remi's nightmare scared me ;-;
That's... terrifying.
Can I sleep with you tonight? ;-;
So I wonder - I've suggested several topics, but never wrote for many of them. Would those be fair game for me?
Alfred F. Jones:
--- Quote from: Esifex on June 26, 2012, 05:24:45 AM ---Ruro, Remi's nightmare scared me ;-;
That's... terrifying.
Can I sleep with you tonight? ;-;
--- End quote ---
Nooooooo, it's way too hot here already ;-;
It should scare, though. This past week my hobby has been learning about Christian dominionism and premillenial dispensationalism (since I grew up in an atmosphere with both of those beliefs, more the latter than the former). Of course, one of the horror stories the latter group loves to talk about is the Rapture (hence 'rapiemur', the root word thereof), which was initially popularized in A Thief in the Night and brought back, as though it were a Jewish zombie, in the Left Behind series.
Everyone disappearing and me being left behind was one of my common nightmares as a child. At least now I've managed to get a WWC out of it.
Achariyth:
Amuse-Bouche
Theme: Food
By tradition, late night is the time to do the Devil's work. Most chefs, no strangers to the Inferno, chose to raise hell in the bars and clubs, but tonight, for one night only, Cirno stayed in the Maya Noodle Bar's kitchen. A syringe in hand, a single question consumed the fairy dessert chef:
Will it spherify?
Head Chef Mystia Lorelei introduced the esoteric technique of spherification on her first day in charge of the kitchen. Making her tuna marrow in apricot caviar required dripping a mixture of fruit juice and tasteless alginate into a calcium bath. This created caviar-like beads that squirted apricot into a diner's mouth with each bite. The delightful surprise, along with the mixture of the fruit's sweetness and the savory umami of the marrow, made Mystia's creation a signature dish for the Noodle Bar.
Since the juice spheres, like most food, tasted best when served fresh, Mystia gave the tedious job of making them to the newest cooks. It gave then a break between cracking tuna bones for marrow and filleting fish, while giving Mystia a chance to determine which of the new hires had the patience and attention to detail needed to cook professionally. An elegant solution; one that even Keine Kamishirasawa, the more active of the Noodle Bar's two owners, approved of.
And then Mystia had to put the syringes into the hands of fairies.
It wasn't her fault; Kaguya's Bamboo Child restaurant had hired away all the experienced chefs. As the Maya Noodle Bar ballooned in popularity, Mystia had no choice but to promote her two dishwashers, Sunny Milk and Luna Child, to line cooks.
As expected, the fairies' innate curiosity got the better of them. It had started innocently enough when Sunny first made little oranges from orange juice. As long as they limited their playing to juices, Mystia gave the experiments no thought. But when Luna spherified her first batch of coffee, Mystia paid closer attention. Not only did it kick off a minor war between Medicine Melancholy, the newly hired bartender, and Luna over who got each new batch of coffee "beans", it sparked ever more exotic experiments.
Olives, peas, and even milk worked well enough that the head chef was searching for a way to add them to the menu. Water proved to be underwhelming, and the less said about Rumia's fish spheres, the better. Keine even banned all spherified peppers after a bead of ghost pepper juice "mysteriously" ended up in her tea. When a customer left Medicine's unique take on Scotch on the rocks (a fifth of tonic water liberally filled with beads of Scotch) out long enough for the spheres to congeal to the consistency of jellybeans, the three fairies found inspiration for their crowning achievement of spherification:
Sparrow sake.
Giggling, the ice fairy slowly dripped the lemon-infused rice wine that Sunny had prepared earlier into the calcium bath. After the last drops fell into the solution, she scooped the small white candy-like balls out with a net. Allowing each to drip dry, she filled a glass dish with her night's work.
Tiptoeing down the hall, Crino slipped into the management office and set the candy dish down on Mokou Fujiwara's desk. She left with one hand covering her mouth. For as much as Mokou tried to hide it, the phoenix girl had a ravenous sweet tooth. And sparrow sake had a well-known side-effect...
***
"Keep it down," Sunny whispered as Cirno walked down the hall. She pushed the ice fairy against the wall. Next to them, Luna peeked into the manager's office. While it was common for the line cooks to arrive at the Maya Noodle Bar early, Sunny, Luna, and Cirno had beaten all but Mystia, Mokou, and Keine to work. Instead of preparing their mise en place for the day's services, the three fairies sat outside Mokou's office, waiting.
They suppressed giggles as the phoenix girl and co-owner of the restaurant absent-mindedly popped a handful of white candies in her mouth. But the giggles faded as Mokou calmly shuffled a stack of papers on her desk. Using a red feather quill, the owner scratched her signature on the top page. After watching her finish her paperwork for five minutes, the three fairies huddled together in the hall.
"How long until it works?" Cirno asked. She jumped as a hand clamped down on her shoulder.
"There you are," Mystia said. The head chef pointed towards Sunny and Luna, and then towards the kitchen. "You two, get cracking."
"Not the tuna bones again," Sunny wailed as Luna dragged her into the kitchen.
"Good morning, Chef," Cirno said, shrugging her shoulders away from Mystia's hand.
"Spill it."
"I don't know what you are talking about," Cirno stammered. Mystia just glared at the fairy. Sighing, Cirno fluttered up and whispered into Mystia's ear.
***
Two hours into the lunch service, and Mokou couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her. While it didn't raise her hackles like the silence before Kaguya struck, it still made her uncomfortable, like a man's errant eyes. To make things worse, whenever she went into the kitchen, four sets of eyes followed her, expectant. So she hid in her office, working on the paperwork that never seemed to stop.
Sometimes, when she looked up, she swore she saw little fairy heads duck behind the doorway. One of them even had bird wings. But whenever she got up to look, the hall was empty.
She'd talk to Keine about it after the lunch service was over. Mokou sighed, and chewed on another of the sweet white candies from her dish.
***
A white sake sphere rolled along the metal counter of Cirno's dessert station. The ice fairy shook her head and flicked another across the surface. "I thought you said this would work."
"I thought it would," the sunlight fairy said in between bites of the staff "gruel". Traditionally served between the lunch and dinner rushes, the more appetizing than its name meal usually featured the trinity of chicken, pasta or rice, and salad. Out of deference to Mystia's sensibilities, the Noodle Bar served fish instead. "Mystia said it wouldn't take much."
"Just for the record, I had nothing to do with this," Mystia said, holding out her plate so that Wriggle Nightbug could scoop an extra helping of rice onto it.
"Maybe Mokou's just a lush," Luna said, sipping at her coffee mug. She scowled at the empty cup before filling it up again from a nearby coffeepot.
"Or maybe you fairies are just lightweights," Keine said, appearing behind Sunny. She frowned and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. The fairies jumped at the sound of her voice, spilling bins and silverware. Only Luna's heroic effort saved her coffee from the same fate. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," the three fairies said together. Each stared up at Keine with all the feigned innocence of a misbehaving child.
"You've been shadowing Mokou all day. Did you think that I wouldn't notice?" Keine scolded. "Mystia!"
The head chef looked up from her meal. "Yes?" she mumbled between bites.
"Do you-?"
"Look out!" Sanae Kochiya shrieked. The waitress dove into the kitchen, rolling until she collided with a reach-in refrigerator.
Hurricane Mokou swept through the kitchen. Twirling like a dervish, the phoenix girl danced lightly on her feet. Her long floor-length hair whipped out, ripping pots, pans, bins, and anything not nailed down from walls and racks. The cooks ducked out of the way of the flying curtain of pale hair. Still spinning, Mokou picked Keine up off the ground in a bear hug, and twirled the were-hakutaku in the air. Setting her friend down, the phoenix girl stopped spinning long enough to sing, "Keine, let's go dancing tonight."
Red-faced and trying to hide her smile, Keine caught her breath. "Whatever you gave her, I want on the menu tonight!" An arm snaked around the were-hakutaku's waist, and Hurricane Mokou swept her away.
The room stood still for the briefest of moments before breaking out into uncontrollable giggling. But as the merriment faded, Mystia gathered a mixing bowl and a whisk and shoved them into Cirno's hands. "Start. Cooking," she hissed at the wide-eyed ice fairy.
***
Out in the dining room, Sanae stopped to wait on her next table. Hiding frustration behind a polite smile, she looked Marisa Kirisame in the eyes. It seemed like every night that the witch showed up at the Noodle Bar with a new suitor and a new little black dress. "Would you like dessert?"
"Do you have something different?" Marisa asked, not looking up from staring into her date's eyes.
Sanae smiled grew wider, lest she scream aloud. At least Marisa's dates tended to be generous tippers, otherwise she would have left this table for Star Sapphire to serve. "In fact, the kitchen just rolled out something new a few minutes ago. It's a berry-flavored cereal milk panna cotta with a lemon and spherified sparrow sake sauce."
"Is it light?" Marisa asked. She shimmied in her seat. "I want to be able to dance all night."
Sanae closed her eyes, and relished the memory of the single bite Mystia and Cirno had allowed her. Light, creamy, and clean, the tart lemon pleasantly contrasting with the cereal milk custard's sweetness; the waitress swore that the dessert, like most of the restaurant's food, was wasted on the customers. Then there was the reason why Mystia had only allowed the wait staff a single bite each; those delightful jelly-like bites of sake. Of course, Cirno would use the only sake that made people dance uncontrollably whenever they drank it. Sanae smiled at Marisa for the first time with any mirth. "I guarantee you'll be on your feet well into the morning."