Apologies for the double post (ALSO a sneak peek at the intro)

I accidentally double posted the same chapter TWICE.

My explanation is that I'm trying to follow the new schedule and I just... forgot. Ugh, I'm so embarassed. As I feel bad, have a section that was finished.

Teatime was a special time for the Mistress and the Librarian of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. While most beings would argue that teatime was an afternoon meal, evening at best, a sort of meal between lunch and breakfast, the latter-day version of Brunch. Those same beings would also be remarkably quiet during the morning teatime of Remilia Scarlet, Scarlet Devil of the Mansion, and Patchouli Knowledge, the Unmoving Great Librarian.

For being such as they, teatime was when they said it was, and if it was morning, so be it. They both enjoyed tea, they both enjoyed one another’s company, and their schedules were easy to align between a nocturnal being and a near-permanent night owl, so whenever they had the chance, just the two of them, they would have teatime.

Dressed in their nightwear and nightcap, remarkably similar in attire but differing in color; with a light pink for Remilia and a lavender for Patchouli. For the Vampiric Mistress, this was her casual wear and after the meal, she would be changing into something more befitting. If she felt like it, that is. Remilia was debating on whether or not to simply go back to sleep. Vampires were nocturnal. For the librarian, this was her work, casual, and formal wear. In her opinion, pajamas were very useful and a few enchantments made it so that chemical stains and explosions wouldn’t even harm her. Patchouli felt that sleep was for the weak and was planning on studying and reading until she lost the battle against it. If she were to fall asleep working, it was simply efficient to already be wearing sleepwear at that time.

There was some poetry in the way they sat, the vampire sitting in the shaded half of the room while the librarian read in the lit part, enjoying the sun. The dramatic would swoon at the subtext of a vampire hiding from the light of knowledge or some schlock. The pragmatic would note that the vampire simply hated reforming from dust and the librarian hated sweeping up her friend’s ashes. So the both of them sat in their usual spots on lovely wooden chairs with comfortable cushions. Any vintage collector would gasp as the wear and tear on the Victorian wood, crying and begging to have them properly and preserved, but to those at the Mansion, they were simply parts of their lives.

Having already consumed the main portion of the meal, an excellent english muffin breakfast prepared by Sakuya Izayoi, Perfect and Elegant Maid, the two were now enjoying the tea bit of tea time.

“This is excellent tea,” Remillia remarked as she set her cup down, “There’s  a lovely aftertaste, almost like blood. What is it?”

“Thank you,” Patchouli replied, turning a page, “It’s a rare blend from Makai that Koakuma gave me to celebrate the start of our Contract. Sanguine Sakura, I believe she called it. It comes from a demonic sub-species of the Sakura tree, the Saigyou Ayakashi.”

“Hm,” Remillia hummed, “I recall a myth that these were sakura trees planted on corpses? Human ones? And that is where the color of the infamous petals come from.”

“Indeed,” Patchouli nodded, “It’s really quite strange. Sakura trees have such a gruesome myth associated with their origins, yet humans still flock to see the petals fall. I suppose there’s some blabber about trees cleansing a battlefield, but who knows? Most sakura trees are simply trees, no corpses needed for those petals.”

She flipped a page before continuing her impromptu lecture, “For the truly demonic ones though, the Saigyou Ayakashi absorbs the remaining lifeforce and transitions from photosynthesis to a more carnivorous diet, becoming youkai. There are many kinds, some being passive feeders; having resting places for the enfeebled and weak to lie down and die, while others more active; having traps and lures and even various magicks to draw prey closer. I found some records of some trees uprooting themselves and moving as needed. Diets differ amongst the variations also; some preferring one gender or another, others search for those that had particularly bloody occupations such as warriors and deathseekers or the tree would collect those with particularly mild ones such as youthful innocents or enlightened souls. Some are said to feast on a singular, powerful soul from their conception and a symbiotic relationship is formed between the Saiyou Ayakashi and the soul, with the tree obtaining a steady source of power and the soul evolving into a powerful youkai. As you can imagine, there aren’t many of them left though.”

Taking another sip, Remilia savored the taste, “What did this blend’s tree enjoy then?”

“This one drew upon the mists of Makai to live and was tended to by its ruler’s servants,” Patchouli smiled softly, “So not quite as many humans died in the process of curating the tea. It is Makai though, so I wouldn’t expect the flavor to differ too much from wild Saigyou Ayakashi, what with Makai’s mist drawing forth and condensing eenergy.It’d probably be much more safe with the wild magic already purified actually.”

Tilting her head to one side, Patchouli side-eyed her friend with a small smile, “Still, I thought you might like it for the sanguinic aftertaste.”

“That I do, that I do,” Remilia murmured appreciatively, one pinkie carefully extended as she sipped, “but I imagine the blend is also quite rare. What’s the occasion?”

“Oh, nothing really,” Patchouli replied airily, “Just an odd feeling that certain delicacies are best enjoyed while one still can.”

The thoughts of the recent Incident sprang to mind, of dead sisters and regrets of… Well, it was best not to think of those sorts of things, of what ifs and should haves. As one who saw the various strings of fate and the myriad paths of destiny, Remilia knew how easy possibilities could bring about madness. The vampiric mistress of the manor nevertheless found herself nodding in whole hearted agreement, “True. True.”

The two of them sipped. The Transmission played, but they had long learned to tune it out, shutting it off wholesale with their will and power. Settling down, one secretly enjoyed listening to the Fool while the other simply read, enjoying the quiet company of the other. Almost three centuries they had known one another and quiet had become a quiet part of their friendship

“We never did get time to discuss the aftermath of that day,” Remilia eventually sighed, growing bored of the silence, “Pray tell, how’d you get that unruly mob to calm down during that fortune.”

“Oddly enough,” Patchouli sipped, setting her cup down and turning a page, “It was the fairies that helped. As soon as the Fortune began and Flandre calmed down, three fairies came and gave us gifts.” The librarian smiled wryly, remembering the odd confusion she had at the sudden change of events. “When some bystanders began protesting, the fairies snapped. The loudest was the orange one, I believe. Shouted something along the lines of ‘So they had some family drama. Everybody does. We should be polite and not mention it, idiot.’ They quieted down soon enough and the rest, well, you know how the impromptu dinner party went.“

“Very impromptu,” Remilia sipped, swirling her cup of tea as if it was wine. Patchouli quietly rolled her eyes at the action, “Sakuya truly is a gift.”

“Indeed,” Patchouli turned another page before continuing, ““After the fairies set the precedent, the other visitors began giving out their gifts. I dare say that it was only thanks to them that there was no mob.”

“Do you remember the names of the fairies who started it? I should thank them.”

“I believe they called themselves San-Yousei or Three Fairies of Light. There were two others, a green one and a blue one. I can’t remember their exact names, but I’ll admit the blue one fascinates me. They all do, in their own ways. My fascinations aside, they had three gifts in total for us.”

“Can’t imagine it was much, coming from fairies,” Remilia chuckled.

“You’d be quite wrong,” Patchouli refuted coolly, an odd, slightly manic undertone slipping into her voice, “One gift was a collaborative one of the San-Yousei. A strange fabric made of light. I’m still studying it, but I believe it is made from the light of the sun, moon, and stars.” So saying, she reached a hand into her sleeve, pulling out a shimmering, colorless bolt of cloth.

Remilia frowned, “That seems… oddly complex for fairies.” Reaching out to rub the fabric in her fingers, she hummed appreciatively, enjoying the glossiness of the weave alongside the smoothness of the innate magic, “I do like the feel of it. It seems as if it’d hold enchantments quite well.”

“Considering the three fairies are the embodiments of sun, moon, and stars, it makes an odd amount of sense for them to create this,” Patchouli tugged the fabric back out of her friend’s grasp, quickly secreting it away into her dimensional pocket, continuing, “And it holds magic well. Almost too well. I’ve been using a portion of it to clean up the mess from experiments if I’m honest. Cleans and neutralizes wild magic. Just absolutely astounding.”

Remilia frowned. She had known Patchouli for centuries. While Sakuya was her most loyal servant and one that she trusted without regard or hesitation, Patchouli would be the only one that Remilia would be willing to call her truest peer in the Mansion. Her counsel was always appreciated even when unasked for and contradictory to Remilia’s own desires. To see her erudite friend so taken with these gifts seemed worrisomely out of character for her.

“Are you--” Remilia found herself cut off by Patchouli reaching into her sleeves once more, noisily murmuring to herself. It actually comforted the vampiress to see her friend’s casual disregard for social niceties.

A byzantine aura surrounding her item, Patcho pulled out a simplistic orb with vapors drifting down around it. She beamed as much as one so taken by the dark shelves of her library could and said, “That’s not all though. The blue one gave me this.”

“An ice sculpture?” Remilia leaned in and frowned, it was a… what was the word? A chibi rendition of a face with a ribbon tied at the back of the head. Gray in color and still wisping vapors, Remilia reached out to poke it, “It’s… rather simplistic. Just a… face? A cartoonish one at that.”

“An everlasting one,” Patchouli corrected, quickly pulling away the sculpture from Remilia’s examining finger, “Do not touch it with your basic finger, it is solid hydrogen.”

Trusting her friend to have good reason to not indulge her curiosity, Remilia nevertheless raised an eyebrow in question.

“If you were to touch it, instantaneous frostbite would be the least of your worries,“ Patchouli sighed, once more annoyed at her friend’s disinterest in the sciences of the world, “Its natural form is a gas, and it is possible to cool it to a liquid, but it is near impossible to force it into a solid. Even then, that typically has to be compressed with exceeding amounts of pressure.” Cradling the orb in between her hands, carefully not touching it, Patchouli murmured, less to Remillia and more to herself, “The blue fairy simply cupped her hands and focused. Absolutely astounding.”

Remilia took a bracing sip of her tea. She remembered the last time Patchouli acted like this. They had to rebuild a wing of the mansion after Patchouli’s… experiments.“...You seem a bit… manic now.”

Her head jerked up and cocked slightly to the side, Patchouli calmly stated, “If I could get my hands on her ability, who knows what discoveries I could make? Heat and expansion is the current state of the universe, but with her ability to cool and condense, what could I do to upend the status quo? What could I do? What materials can I form that were considered impossible?” Jerking her hands up and bringing the statue in question to prominence, Patchouli’s calm voice was an unsettling mismatch to her manic movements, “This statue is still solid since last I met her! Is it permanent? Is it temporary? I dare not test it lest it breaks because of it, but I burn with curiosity.” Floating the statue in one hand, Patchouli used the other to reach into her sleeve to bring out the cloth once more, “And the fabric! I want more of it. It’s so useful in keeping my laboratory clean and free of magical contaminants. Did you know that it wipes an area neutral? Makes it so that it aligns to none of the celestial elements. I have a new possible baseline to redo old experiments to, and who knows what I will discover from old research. I could create a new foundation, better than the old one.”

Remilia was carefully frozen mid-sip. Patchouli was a dear friend to her, but.. It was best not to draw her attention when she was in the middle of a breakthrough. Or a breakdown. Both were messy occasions.

“I am only realizing now that fairies are fascinating things,” Patchouli sighed with forlorn curiosity, “Not youkai, not spirit, but nature manifested and with an ego. Are they truly foolish or is it that instinct is enough for them? A magician specializing in the ice and cold would need to study for centuries, possibly millenia to recreate even a cubic millimeter of this frozen hydrogen that the blue one made with simple play. If a fairy can embody celestial concepts, if a fairy can embody thee concept of cold, what does the green one embody!? What powers does she hold? There are so many things I do not know and I must know. I will have to study this.”

“...I shall leave you to it then,” Remilia carefully deflected, quickly changing it from tracks less likely to induce such an episode, “And the third gift?”

As if a flip switched, Patchouli returned to her book with a sigh, “The third gift holds no interest to me, but I suppose you would appreciate the potential a bit more.”

Biting back a sigh of relief, Remilia idly asked, “What is it?” Hopefully nothing that would start another episode.

“An IOU for one free session of the Transmission, topic of our choosing.”

A smile worked its way up to Remilia’s cheeks. What a… useful debt to have from one of the most prominent up and rising players of Gensokyo. So many… possibilities opened up with the ability to force all of Gensokyo to listen to the words of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, even if it was only for a day. What an excellent gift to hold for a scarlet, rainy day.

Remilia sipped her tea before an odd thought occurred to her “...Hm, then the fairies’ mysterious leader would be the Fool.”

“Indeed.”

“...It feels as if everything with this Fool is going to be odd.”

“Indeed,” Patchouli turned a page, touching her tea for the first time. It had long gone cold, but her tongue was like a cat’s tongue, so cold tea suited her just fine, “Still, I’m sure he won’t do much else. While he certainly has influence on lesser minds, he will not be able to touch the Mansion in any meaningful way. Especially now that we know how to silence him.”

“Indeed,” Remilia parroted, finding amusement in parroting her friend, “A simple touch of will, you said?”

“And the desire to ignore him. Even a simpleton could turn it off. Simply focus on something else,” Patchouli held her book up to demonstrate how she was ignoring the fool through focusing on her reading, “He truly is no problem, Remilia.”

Patchouli was still disappointed with her solution. It had been… astoundingly easy to learn how to silence the fool. Simply having the desire to not listen or simply focusing intently on something else was enough to cut the Transmission from reaching. Quite strange since those early broadcasts seemed nigh inescapable, but perhaps it was something subconscious then. Idle curiosity latching on and never letting go.

Patchouli was better than that though and had long trained herself out of such things, and was actively ignoring the current Transmission with a small, but prideful grin. The method wouldn’t work for people with a lack of will or desire to not listen, but they didn’t matter. Anyone with even the slightest bit of will could easily suppress the Transmission and shut it off. It was so simple that it was a wonder anyone even listened to the Fool now.

Whether it was an oversight by the Fool or not, it did not matter, and Patchouli didn’t plan on listening to the nonsense ever again.

...Except for the fortunes. Flandre was right about those being ‘fun’.

Still, Patchouli found herself mildly surprised at the uncertainty her friend had as Remilia drawled, “If you’re certain…”

Snapping her book closed, Patchouli grabbed a long-cold scone and bit into it with a small bit of spite, “I am.”

Was it a bit petty for the Librarian to be annoyed at reasonable doubt? Perhaps, but  Patchouli prided herself in her knowledge. She had discovered how to silence the Transmission, therefore the Transmission was no longer a problem. No need for any doubt.

Remilia met her glare with a dispassionate one of her own, silently challenging her. Patchouli took another bite of her scone, settling herself for a staredown. It had been a while since they had a challenge of wills. This one would prove to be--

The door slammed open, and the lusty voice of Koakuma, Patchouli’s Little Devil Assistant shouted,  “Madame Patchouli!”

A demon of temptation and lust, she served as Patchouli’s assistant in the library and all things literature. Perhaps she was once a succubus, and indeed, some old habits slipped through, but her mannerism had become quite professional over the centuries. Dressed conservatively in a black dress-suit with a white undershirt and wearing a long, red necktie over her prominent bosom, she looked scuffed and exhausted with her wings, both sets of wings; a pair on the side of her head and a pair on the back, drooping. Beads of sweat caused fabric and skin and membrane to cling together as she attempted to stand at attention..

And not in a particularly sensual way as would befit a succubus. More of a businesswoman who had sprinted several kilometers to an important meeting because she had missed her train kind of way.

Not breaking eye contact with Remilia, Patchouli sighed with annoyance, “Yes?”

There was a series of wheezes before the devil finally gasped out, still panting,“There’s a group of people. *hoo* Lots of people. *haaa* A mob, *wheeze* you could say,” there was a long intake of breath before she breathed out quickly, “Outside. Waiting. Oh, it is hard to breathe.”

Keeping her glare steady, Patchouli didn’t bother to look at Koakuma’s disturbance, “And this concerns me why?”

“Want to borrow books *hiiieeee*,” Koakuma choked out, leaning against the doorway, long scarlet hair plastered to her forehead, “ *wheeze* Because the Library is open.”

Snapping off the staredown, Patchouli didn’t care about the forfeit as she snapped, “What!? It has not nor ever will be open to the public! Who told them that!?”

SInking to her knees, Koakuma answered, “The Fool. Transmission. Unofficial-- *HOOOO* opening.” Slapping hands on both sides of the wall, Koakuma rested her cheek against the cool wood of the doorway, moaning, “Makai’s mist~! Why is it so hard to breathe right now? Why did I run up the stairs? So many stairs  *kaf* I fly. *euf* I teleport. *Wheeze* “Why’d I run?”

Ignoring her slowly dying assistant, Patchouli stomped past her into the hallway. Koakuma was simply being dramatic, and if she did die, Patchouli would merely summon her back again. “Come along, we have intruders to evict!”

Holding up a finger, Koakuma placed her forehead against the wall and slowly breathed, “I’m fine. Just need a--” she coughed, “Moment.” She collapsed, body prone to the floor and snuffled mournfully into the maroon marble floor.

Annoyingly, Remilia called out as Patchouli descended to deal with the mob, “And you said the Transmission would not be a problem.”

“The Transmission is not, idiocy is a constant one,” Patchouli corrected. Face schooling into a scowl, she muttered to herself, “But I will solve both of them myself if I have to.”