Part One

I looked up and realized that books surrounded me.

Stacks of them covered my desk. Piles of leather and paper-backed volumes were scattered around the floor of my study. Small leaflets rest in precarious balance on the arms and back of my chair, threatening to fall I breathed in the wrong direction.

Different thicknesses, weights, bindings and script styles. Some had colorful, ornate covers, hand painted landscapes, or portraits meant to represent the book’s content. Others had only printed titles on the spines. There were thick tomes, reference and thesis, dictionary and treatise and lecture. There were lighter books, novels of every genre, booklets of poetry in both the old and new languages.

Books everywhere, with no organization. Books piled upon books, on a foundation of books, topped with a spire of more books. It was untidy.

For one second, I was short of breath. I inhaled deeply, and regretted it. There was a deep itch in my chest, and I coughed hard to clear it. I covered my mouth with the crook of my elbow. I felt the heat and moisture of my breath against my arm. I coughed one last time, then brought my breathing under control.

How unladylike. I was dehydrated. I needed some tea – or better, some wine. I took a breath and called for the help.

“Fairies!” I yelled. “Bring me—”

That was more than my dry lungs could manage. A burning scratch rose into my throat, and I coughed again.

“Fairies!” I yelled again, but was afraid to shout. I gave conscious effort to breathing evenly.

After a silent moment, there came the sound of slippers padding on the stone tile floor. A girl poked her head around the door frame, eyes darting around the room as if checking for traps. She looked up and down, to the corners of my study, before finally looking at me.

“What are you doing here?” I said. My voice held if I spoke at normal volume. “I called for the fairies. You are supposed to be finding À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Have you found the sixth volume?”

The girl stepped in through the door as I spoke. I call her girl, but she is not human. This was an odd breed of youkai, the only one of her kind I have ever known. She is taller than I, pale and slim of figure. She has no wings on her back, neither the wings a fairy nor the wings of a vampire, but she does have a small, entirely useless pair off the sides of her head. These were dark and ribbed like some concept of dragon wings. Their bases were hidden under an uncombed mop of red hair. She wore a flowing dress mostly white and black. As she stood at my study’s door, she continually wrung her hands and looked at the floor. She would not cease fidgeting in my presence.

“N- no, Lady Patchouli,” she said. “I thought, um.... Miss Sakuya called all the fairies upstairs. So I thought I might—”

“Sakuya did what?” I said. I tried to stand, but I was pinned in place. I only then remembered a heavy volume was in my lap. I tried not to look foolish, but failed.

“For the birthday party,” said the youkai girl. “Sakuya said she needed all the help she could get. She told me to stay down here, probably because I’d do more harm than good.” She tried to smile, but did not quite manage it. “I’d be spilling and breaking things. So instead I can help you while the fairies—”

“No!” I said. The youkai girl flinched, as if she were the target of my anger. I hoisted the book off my lap and tried to set it on my armrest. I forgot the pile of leaflets there until too late. The big book had no balance or friction. It fell, landed on the floor with a whump. The leaflets pattered down around it.

“Kuso!” I spat. I stood and looked at the mess surrounding my chair, then decided my study was no less organized than it had been twenty seconds ago. I turned and marched toward the door. I took my folder of spellcards off the desk as I passed.

The youkai girl stood frozen at the door, her hands bunched at her breast. The wings on her head were so tense that they shuddered.

“Come with me, Koa,” I said. I grabbed my brooched nightcap off the hat hook near the door.

“Y- yes, Lady Patchouli,” She stepped aside to let me out of the study. I passed her and headed out into the library. One of my height does not command a menacing presence when merely walking, but I was too frustrated to care.

---

On the chance that whoever now reads this text does not know its author, I will directly state it once: my name is Patchouli Knowledge. I am an elementalist witch, youkai servant, attendant and librarian of Remilia Scarlet. I am of a greater notoriety within Gensokyo than most, so I omit any further self-description. However, most do not know of my assistant. I will spare a few words for her.

Months before this writing, the residents of the Scarlet mansion chanced upon a vagrant youkai. Our door guard, Hong Meiling, challenged the passerby with unnecessary zeal. Hong is an excellent martial artist, and always eager to enact raw brutality. She chased down the poor wandering youkai and beat her half-senseless.

I would normally not give Hong’s behavior a second thought. Many wild fairies try to enter our mansion, usually in the hope of stealing food. Hong is effective at keeping them out, but this particular youkai girl was not a fairy. The first time I saw her, traumatized and covered in bruises, I was intrigued. I had never seen a youkai of her like. I was happy to learn that she could speak and reason on the same level as humans.

She had first approached the mansion with hopes of finding food and shelter. She is not suited to live in the wild. She was dirty, poorly-dressed, and starving. With my mistress’s permission, I took her on as an assistant. I needed the help keeping track of our library’s inventory, a task too great to delegate to the fairies.

I clothed her, fed her, and facilitated her reading comprehension. She learned quickly enough.

The first time we spoke, I asked her name.

“Uh... n- name?” were the first words she said to me.

“Namae wa?” I said, in case she knew only the old language.

That earned no better reaction. She looked at me in terrified confusion.

“What is your name?” I said.

“I, uh....” She took a moment to gather her words. “I don’t think I have a name. I never call myself anything.”

“Then, for the present, I will refer to you as Koakuma,” I said.

More confusion from the youkai girl. She did not know if I was insulting her.

“Does... that mean something?” she said.

I nodded. “An old language description of your likeness.”

It fit, and she never objected, so her name became Koakuma permanently.

---

She now followed me across the library, her slippers thmp thmping on the cold stone floor. Her dress flowed behind her. Her legs were longer than mine, but she did not dare walk in front of me.

“Where are we going?” she said. We had made it to the library’s heart. We walked over the circle in the floor, the reflective marble etched with the star made of two inverse triangles.

“Upstairs,” I said. I carried my spellcard folder under one arm. With my other hand, I tightened my nightcap. My ponytails swung behind me as I walked.

“To see Sakuya?” said Koa.

“And the mistress, if need be,” I said. “That maid has no right to appropriate my staff, birthday party or no.”

“She didn’t say she planned on keeping them. She just needed their help—”

I stopped mid step, whirled around to face her. My ponytails wrapped around my hips before settling back behind me. Koakuma stepped back, as if the force of my glare were enough to push her.

“Do you justify her behavior?” I said.

Koakuma’s jaw worked up and down, and she folded her arms around herself as if she had become cold. Her jaw quivered.

“I, uh—”

“I thought not.” I turned and kept walking to the library’s exit. I cleared a dozen steps before I realized she was not following me. I looked back over my shoulder, saw her standing on the marble star as though her feet were rooted to it.

“Koa!” I said. “Come!”

“Y- yes!”

She hurried after, slowing to a walk once again behind me.

---

We went up the first flight of stairs to reach the ground floor. The kitchen was on this level, to allow access to the cellar and inbound supplies from outside the mansion. Sakuya would be there.

The kitchen was in chaos. Fairy maids flew in all directions, carrying dishes and food in various stages of preparation. Doors constantly flapped open and closed: cabinets and pantries, the stairs down to the cellar, the double-doors that led up to the dining room. A din of noise threatened to give me a headache. Clattering, shouted orders and requests, flatware and cookware clashed and clanged. I covered my nose at first, unprepared for the mismatch of vegetable, fruit, grain and meat odors all cooking in the same place.

I stood in the kitchen’s entrance from the hallway. Koakuma was at my side.

“Wow,” she said. “I’ve never seen so many fairies in one place.”

“Half of them are mine,” I said.

In the middle of this bedlam was the head maid. Sakuya stood over the island in kitchen’s center. She had a cutting board on the counter, and she pushed a large cleaver through a side of beef. She cut off steak slices, and yelled at the fairies each time the slices stacked up.

“You! Take these! Put them in a cast iron on a low flame. Don’t add oil! They’re fatty enough to render out.” Sakuya glared at another fairy. “You! Take these and rub them down with that spice mix. No, not that, you moron! That’s plain salt! And you, take these! Nestle them in the vegetable fricassee on the bottom stone of the second oven. Don’t light the fire yet! They’ll burn before we’re done with the rest of this.”

Then Sakuya noticed us. She ignored me.

“Koa!” she shouted across the kitchen. “I told you to stay out of here. If you touch a single fork before dinner’s ready, I swear!”

“She is here at my request,” I said.

“Great!” Sakuya’s shoulders worked for each cut of meat. “When my requests counts for something down in the library, then I’ll care about your requests in the kitchen. Until then, you and Koa both leave, please.”

“You violated the agreement to which you allude,” I said.

Sakuya shook her head. “I don’t have time for moonspeak. Koa, translate for me.”

“She’s mad that you took the library’s fairies,” said Koa.

“Talk to the mistress about that!” said Sakuya. “Fat lot of good they’re doing me anyway. They couldn’t knead dough to save the world.”

“I have them trained to dust and organize books,” I said. “Not to endure your abuse up here.”

Sakuya threw her knife down on the cutting board. It bounced and landed on the floor halfway across the room. One fairy ducked out of the way just in time to avoid dismemberment.

“What choice did I have?” Sakuya yelled. She left the meat behind and crossed the kitchen to us. “The mistress interrupts my work to let me know we’re throwing a birthday party. Wonderful. Fabulous. Let’s all celebrate and have a good time. Then she tells me the party is planned to start in two hours! How am I supposed to have a party ready in two hours? You tell me!”

I tightened my hold on my spellcard folder. Koakuma cowered behind me, even though our difference in height offered her no cover.

“I suggest you calm yourself, Sakuya,” I said.

Sakuya’s fists both clenched. Her knuckles were white. She seemed ready to dish out more verbal lashing, but held her tongue. She glanced down at my spellcard folder.

“You calm yourself,” she said. Then she noticed the noise behind her had stopped. The fairies all stared at her with their mouths hanging open, as if waiting for bloodshed. Some had even paused in midair, their wings beating to keep them in place.

Sakuya slowly turned. She gave the fairies what must have been a look that threatened murder.

She took in a deep breath.

“BACK TO WORK!”

The fairies animated in unison. They doubled their efforts, moving faster than they had when I entered.

I turned and headed out the door, stepping past Koakuma.

“With me,” I said.

Koa glanced back into the kitchen once, then followed after me. The kitchen door swung shut behind us. The muffled sound of an angry maid yelling at dozens of fairies fell away.

“You didn’t get your fairies back,” Koa said after falling into step behind me.

“Nor will I, through that method,” I said. “Unless I beat Sakuya into submission.”

Koa gasped.

“Humans are frequently irrational,” I said. “Especially when stressed, which they often are. Even so, she offered advice that I will follow.”

“So, we’re— ”

“We are going to see the mistress, yes.”

---

As it happened, we did not need to look far. The mistress was in the next room, the dining area.

Here, House Scarlet ate its meals together. The blackness of a mid-winter night reigned beyond the windows, but the room itself was well-lit with sparklamps. Fairies put up decorations, arranged a table spread with doilies, and the doorways were festooned with ribbons and bows. Two fairies strung up a banner from chandelier hooks on the ceiling. The mistress stood on a high chair, directing them.

“Spread it out more on the left,” she said, waving that direction. “Good. Now up. Pull it up! There.”

The two fairies’ wings glowed bright with effort, beating like humming birds, their wings buzzing into a blur from rapid movement. At last they hooked their cargo to the ceiling. The fabric banner spread into the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY FLANDRE! in giant red letters.

“Perfect!” said the mistress. She hopped off her chair. “Now you two. Help is needed in the kitchen. I can hear Sakuya screaming, which must mean everything on schedule. Go make sure she doesn’t pop a vein.”

The two fairies dropped several feet at once, relieved of the banner several times their combined weight. They bowed to their mistress and flew across the room to the kitchen’s double doors. The clanking of metal hitting ceramic sounded as the doors opened, then flapped shut.

The mistress watched them go. She caught me in the corner of her eye, turned to face us approaching from the dining room’s far entrance.

Remilia put her hands on her hips. “I was wondering when you’d ascend from the abyss.”

We stepped up near the table. Both Koa and I bowed to our mistress.

“I was intent to attend the celebration punctually,” I said. “In fact, the work of researching my gift to Flandre is what kept me.”

“Research?” said Remilia. “Something bright and shiny is more than enough to please her. What gift for Flandre could involve research?”

“Mistress,” I said, “would it not be best to reveal that at the time of gift-giving?”

“Suit yourself,” said Remilia. “You’d better hurry, whatever it is. China’s done a good job of keeping the birthday girl occupied, but even those two get bored of staring contests and playing Throw the Vampire.”

“Um!” Koakuma spoke up. “I have a present for Flandre too. It’s probably nowhere near as good as anything you two got for her, but I wanted to do at least a little something.”

“That’s nice of you, Koa,” said Remilia. “Now would you two mind lending a hand? I have a dozen tables and four dozen chairs that need reinforcing. You know how rowdy Flandre gets when she’s excited.”

“We will lend our assistance if you require it,” I said. “If I may, another matter first. I interrupted my work on Flandre’s gift to bring a concern to your attention.”

Remilia’s eyes narrowed, a change of expression that only the attentive would notice.

“Regarding my staff,” I said. “They were in the midst of assisting my preparations for the party, but they disappeared. Sakuya spontaneously recruited all the fairies at my disposal. She has them working in the kitchen now, a task to which they are not well suited.”

“I’m aware,” said Remilia. “I ordered it.”

I paused.

“I see,” I said, after a few seconds. “Then I know it was for good reason, but I do have a request. If such workload balancing is necessary, may I be informed of it in advance? So that I may delegate the tasks of managing a library with a reduced available labor.”

Remilia’s eyes glowed, brightening and dulling like embers blown upon.

“Your request contains an incorrect premise,” she said.

My brow bunched. “Does it?”

“The fairies in this mansion are my staff,” said Remilia. “All of them.”

For the first time in one minute, I recalled that Koa stood beside me. Her hands were bunched to her chest, and she was so rigid that a stiff breeze might knock her over. It was as if she emoted the feeling of tension that I could not.

I looked back to my mistress.

“I understand.” I turned, and motioned for Koa to follow me. “I will return to the library and complete my preparations.”

“Your preparations are comple,” said Remilia. “Mine, on the other hand, are sorely behind. You and Koa will help me.”

I stopped, dropping both feet to the floor. It took a moderate effort of will to show no outward signs that I was dissatisfied with my mistress’s order. I did not allow myself to sigh, or snort, or moan, or even my shoulders to slouch.

“As you wish, Mistress.”

---

As it happened, assisting in the dining room was less tedious than I feared. When Remilia mentioned that the tables and chairs were to be reinforced, her intended meaning differed from what Gensokyo’s commoners would understand.

To the short-lived humans who work as farmers, carpenters and smiths, to reinforce furniture means to nail additional material to it: building crossing support bars between a stool’s legs, or adding feet to a table for better balance. These operations change the object into something heavier, bulkier, and uglier. This is an unacceptable treatment for the furnishings of the Scarlet Mansion.

Though carved, smoothed and stained, our tables and chairs are mere wood. Preparing our dining area for Flandre’s natal day destruction is a task to which I am suited. Wood is one of the five elements of Eastern canon.

I lay my hand on the surface of a tabletop, close my eyes and speak hushed words of the old language. Ambient energies are organized by my will. They rush to the table, infusing and surrounding the wood. The fiber of long-dead plant matter is strengthened as if part of a healthy ironwood tree. This spell was first intended for fortifying armaments of war, when poor villagers had no means of defending themselves but shoddily-carved bokken and wooden body plates.

A smile tugged at my lips. Defending the mistress’s furniture against the most rambunctious of our housemates was, doubtless, the most severe of all struggles in which this wood-strengthening spell had been used.

The party was soon ready to commence. Koakuma had helped the fairies add place settings and a center piece to our table. The work matched her well, as it involved minimum opportunity for dropping, knocking over, or breaking things out of clumsiness.

My mistress took my attention upon returning to the dining room.

“Dinner’s just about done,” said Remilia, walking toward me. “You probably noticed the ever-lessening sounds of apocalypse from kitchen.”

She stepped past me, looking side to side, inspected each table she passed. I walked after her. My mistress is a potent magician, moreso than even myself. Her magician’s senses could detect the quality of my reinforcement spell on the furniture.

“The aroma suggests that Sakuya has done fine work.” Hunger pains tugged at my insides. “However, I have intended to inquire after the meaning of this occasion. This is our first organized celebration since the...,” I searched for a good word, and realized there was none. “...events of this most recent summer. Yet the date chosen for this celebration seems both impulsive and arbitrary.”

Remilia stopped, turned to face me. “It is. What’s your point?”

“Is today truly Flandre’s birthday?”

The question caught her off guard, and she blinked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never celebrated it before. But it seems right to throw a party in the dead of winter. Don’t you agree?”

“I suppose so,” I said. “Especially since neglecting the turning of the new year, as we were busy with Flandre’s recovery.”

“That’s why,” she said. “I wanted our human friends to come as well, but I doubt they would have accepted invitations.”

I held my spellcard folder to my chest.

“The witch and the shrine maiden?” I said. “Friends is not the first word I would use to describe our relationship to them.”

Remilia shook her head. “I wish it weren’t so, though you’re probably right.”

As if Remilia’s words were a stage cue, the doors on the far side of the room burst open. Everyone turned to see what had caused the noise.

“Help!” said Hong Meiling, staggering into the dining room. Her clothes were torn, hanging off her body in shreds. Too much of her obscenely-shaped body showed to maintain any level of modesty, but that seemed the least of her concerns.

“China!” Remilia yelled across the room. “How many times have I told you not to walk around the house naked?”

“It wasn’t me!” said Meiling, leaning her weight against a table. “She’s coming!”

One need not guess to whom she was referring.

“I’m hungry!” came the yell from behind Meiling. The voice is difficult to describe. It is most accurate to imagine a combination of a child screaming for its mother and an earthquake tearing gashes in the earth.

A blur of rainbow-colored light charged into the dining room. It kicked Meiling in the rear, bucking her forward like scarecrow hit with a battering ram. She flopped face-down on the table with a smack! The table was unharmed, thanks to my enchantment, but Meiling herself was not so fortunate. Her center of mass pulled her off the table and she slithered to the floor. There she lay like a broken toy.

Remilia looked back at me. “Gravity spell! Now!”

I opened my spellcard book to the last page, held it open to my mistress. She yanked a piece of paper out, then turned and dashed toward the source of the rainbow light.

Where Meiling had been a moment ago, there stood Flandre Scarlet. Her wings, iron bars and prism shards, overpowered the room’s sparklamps. In one hand she held a long, curved rod of dark steel, tipped with spade-shaped spikes on either end: the artifact Lævateinn. She wielded it like a baton, twirling it through her fingers. Her eyes burned bright red.

“Enough stupid games!” she yelled. “I’m hungry! Why are you people keeping me from the food?”

Flandre’s entrance had an effect like a drop of soap to particles floating on the surface tension of water. Fairies rushed away from her. Koakuma ducked under the nearest chair, what little cover it gave her, and cowered there. The only one moving toward Flandre was her elder sister, Mistress Remilia. She held the spellcard up, yelled its incantation.

“Gravity sign: Atlas Girth!”

Her casting was carefully timed. After she began shouting the card’s name, but before she had finished, she had leaped onto a table and jumped off. She was airborne for one second, and on a collision course with her younger sister. Flandre held up Lævateinn as if to bat Remilia away. The spellcard fired.

Many magic spells emit light, some in complex ways, mixing colors in strobing patterns that dazzle the eye. Atlas Girth is an exception to this, as the spell emits no light. It absorbs.

One instant, Remilia was in air and ready to tackle Flandre as a vampire missile. The next instant, my mistress was gone, and a detached black splotch was all that could be seen where she had been. I imagine the heard of an astronomical black hole would appear the same, a floating oil slick that bent light around its edges. The apparition hit Flandre, and with much more than Remilia’s full weight.

The black hole dragged Flandre to the floor, behind the table and out of my sight. I could still see the effects of the spell; the wall and doorway beyond appeared warped as if made of jelly and sagging downward.

Sakuya was suddenly at my side. Her instantaneous movement had long since ceased to surprise me. She looked exhausted, as I could better see in the light of the dining room. Her hair was uncombed and there were dark circles under her eyes.

“Are they at it again?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “This is their sisterly ritual.”

“All the same.” Sakuya folded her arms. “I wish they wouldn’t fight so much.”

“Fight is not a correct verb to describe this activity. I would use defy, dominate, and submit.”

“One of these days, I’m going understand what you’re talking about.”

I nodded to the far side of the room. “Easier to show than to tell.”

---

Sakuya and I crossed the dining room. She stopped along the way to pick up fallen decorations. I surveyed the floor just before the doorway, where Meiling lay with an unnaturally-deep concave bend in her lower back. A few feet away, Remilia had Flandre pinned. The black hole visually effect was gone, but the spell was still in force.

“You must learn to control your temper!” said Remilia, arms and legs trembling. She had both hands clamped on Flandre’s arms, and her knees squeezed Flandre’s thighs to the floor. Lævateinn was still gripped in Flandre’s right hand, but the staff was harmless if she couldn’t lift it.

Ordinarily, one of the Scarlet sisters pinning the other would not keep the victim from moving. They are far stronger than their size and appearance would suggest, but their strength is unnatural. They have no weight to match; either one weighs only as much as a young human girl.

The spellcard, of course, gave Remilia an advantage. Atlas Girth increases the caster’s weight fifteenfold.

“Get off me, Remi!” said Flandre. “China kept distracting me all day because she wants me to starve or something!”

“No she doesn’t, and that’s no excuse to go dislocating vertebrae,” said Remilia. “Look around. You might realize why she was distracting you.”

“All I can see is your big Remi face!” Flandre spat up at her sister.

Remilia moved her head to the side, and gave Flandre a view of the banner hanging off the ceiling.

“Hey!” said Flandre. “Why’s my name on that thing?”

“We’re celebrating your birthday today.”

Flandre’s eyes grew wide. “Really? For me?”

“We wouldn’t celebrate your birthday for anyone else,” said Remilia. “That is, so long as you behave.”

“Sure!” said Flandre. “So... what’s a birthday?”

Silence. I had to bite my lips between my front teeth. Two tables away, Sakuya put a palm to her face.

“It’s when the whole family gets together and eats a lot,” said Remilia.

“Oh,” said Flandre. “How’s that different from normal?”

“You get presents.”

“Ah! I see now!” Flandre wiggled under her sister. “Please let me up. I promise to be good.”