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Chapter Text

The Old Country, December 1924

It was the witching hour. That was to say, it was four in the afternoon. The magician of the house was no great believer in witching at unreasonable times of day (something she would, like all devoted magicians, change her opinion on eventually).

She had spent three hours drawing up the circles and containment spells for tonight. Five weeks, counting the research. All her texts suggested that the incantation should be made in a single breath; a pause, they all agreed, could be willfully misinterpreted by any demon worth its salt. Easier said than done, with the magician’s health being what it was, and particularly what it was not.

There was no peal of thunder. There was, echoing throughout the room, no booming voice whatsoever. In the middle of the sevenfold circle she had drawn, a towering plume of smoke, containing a pair of blazing red eyes, entirely failed to materialise.

“I was told,” Patchouli Knowledge said, a touch uncertainly from inside the safety of her own circle, “that there would be brimstone.”

Laughter. It wasn’t mocking, exactly. A laugh with a lot of practice in it, the sort that comes from someone who has heard this a thousand times. She remembered a question she never heard, from the thing in the other circle.

“No. No, the offer is appreciated, but it won’t be necessary,” she replied. “…Likewise to horns.” More laughter. The air had turned brighter, somehow. More saturated. Not filled with colours exactly, more the idea of colour, like the air itself was dreaming of some great painting. She had to shake her head and close her eyes for a little while, to gather her thoughts. She tried to focus on the new inhabitant of the room. Not a demon, not as she knew it. What, then? Her eyes came away with ideas rather than pictures. A meadow, a spring breeze, a mischievous smile and a long, wandering flight.

She could have asked for the demon – easier to think of (him? Her? Them? It?) as a demon for now – to take a more reasonable shape. The books were, on the other hand, very clear on not giving the impression of being confused or otherwise weak.

“Demon. What is your name?” The glass rattled, then melted. There was a long, sharp keening sound that she felt in her bones, and several parts of the floor turned to doves, then roses, and finally puddles of water. The air shimmered, like heat haze, then came back to its place like a rubber band with an audible snap.

Something, she was forced to assume, was lost in translation.

Circles spread in her thoughts, in the air, seven of them slowly coming together. Patchouli remembered the first time she walked into the library, remembered the sunrises of her childhood and the day she ran through the first snow of her life, laughing and tripping over on the slippery ground.

The thing in the circle cleared its throat.

“Let me try that again… first time summoning anyone?” She (judging by the voice, though the magician tried not to assume too much) asked carefully. She picked her words slowly, haltingly, with all the sense of someone trying to remember a foreign language they’ve not used in a long time. “Only, you’re missing a spot of chalk here, and in the spell, instead of ‘by my side’, you said… was that ‘turtle’?”

The room was dead quiet. Whatever Patchouli had summoned, she continued in a philosophical tone. “I could eat you,” she considered, “that’s the sort of thing that happens to clumsy magicians, right?” It was impossible to tell how alarmed Patchouli was by this, not least because she was already as pale as anyone could possibly be.

“Let me just- ah! Much better. It’s so cramped in that circle, you know.” Little lines of what looked like mercury wore through the lines of the sealing circle, forced it open, and crept out. On the other end, she finally looked like something recognizable, Patchouli registered, with a feeling of exhausted relief. A woman dressed in white and black – mostly black - with a red tie and an extensive length of red hair, as well as a conspicuous pair of bat-like wings on her back, and a smaller pair on-

“In all my years, I have never seen a demon with wings on their head,” Patchouli observed, with the odd calm of someone who realised a long time ago that the situation was perfectly out of her control.

“Some of you magicians dreamed up stranger. I just missed the first time, but I think these suit me! Wouldn’t you say so?”

“…You missed?”

“Oh, putting a body together is as difficult as talking, in this place! I don’t know how you can stand it. Don’t give a sculptress coffee grounds and expect marble statues, that’s what I’ve always said.” All amiable smiles after her short spate of complaining, she put her arms around the magician, hefting her bodily out of the circle. Light as a twig. “This is a laboratory, isn’t it? I’m not standing here to talk! While we go, though… what did you call me for?”

Patchouli was almost too startled to answer, and since she was determined to be dead weight, it was just as well that she could not be very much of it. She soon found herself dropped into a chair by her reading table a room away, and let out a belated gasp. Her head was swimming, her vision doubly so. She put a hand to her temple and took several deep breaths.

“I believe we are well past my original goals at this point,” she answered eventually. The demon, meanwhile – she had protested the name a few times, but what else to call her? – was glancing around the vast library, her eyes dancing across the spines of books, embossed titles in English, Italian, German, Arabic, Latin, Hebrew and more. Well. That would definitely let her stretch her wings a little.

“You know what they say. Said, all those years ago. Amicorum omnia communia, or something like that?”

“Between friends, all things are- Yes, quite, but I count only one friend in my acquaintance, and it is not you, so I will share nothing. Since you seem to mean me no harm, I will banish you before you can cause any mischief, just as soon as I find the spell, and that will be that. Are we agreed?”

Her mistake, as Patchouli had come to think of the other occupant of the library, glanced around the room and settled on an open book, then brightened, apparently delighted, as she put her shoes up on the desk. “A familiar! Well. …Oh, do you have any wine while I wait?”

“I don’t drink,” the magician answered tersely.

“You should start. I heard it really takes the edge off an embarrassing mistake.” All she got for that was a glare and a sigh. “So, how long did you want a familiar for?

“Irrelevant. I can scarcely afford to make any bargains from the position I am in now. I can only summon another and…”

“Trade a volunteer away for something you need to keep under lock and key, so it won’t tear you apart? Really?” The magician bristled, but did not argue as such. Only a glare. Relative inexperience (and after all, everyone is inexperienced compared to someone, surely?) had made her a great stickler for procedure. Whatever she had summoned to her laboratory was not, she was beginning to realise, particularly attached to procedure.

“You are bargaining from equal footing,” Patchouli explained. “And so nothing stops you from immediately reaching for whatever your goal is. ‘It is every demon’s first desire above all else to obtain the soul of an unwary mortal, human or otherwise.’ Iohannes Absalom, The Anatomy of a Dream, page twenty-six.” She paused. “…My own translation, which I confess is a work in progress; the original work is much aged,” she added, somewhat self-consciously, and was not best pleased to hear laughter again.

“Oh, it’s really very rude to keep acting like I’m sort of demon, you know. On the other hand, it is funny, or I wouldn’t have made these wings! I’ll try and stick with it, just for you. I don’t want your soul, though! I was never much for souls, and definitely not yours. No offense. Mostly, I just feel like getting away from home for a bit! Interesting times, you know. Let’s see… a year and a day, and all over again once you know you can’t do without me; how does that sound?” It occurred to the magician that the entire conversation and contract might have carried on almost as well without her being in the room.

“Is there some significance to the added day?” Patchouli asked, warily. She was warming very slightly to the idea of at least admitting to some ignorance, and here was, apparently, the right sort of… something to ask.

“Haven’t a clue! It’s traditional, anyway. I think it’s charming, don’t you?” Patchouli was dragging out a large sheepskin scroll she had intended to use on a more traditional class of familiar, with most of a contract already sketched out. The pretend-demon nodded and smiled approvingly. Sheepskin scrolls, in this day and age. Some people are so wonderfully behind the times.

“And can your name, I wonder, be put to letters?” Patchouli asked, looking up.

“You couldn’t handle mine when I told you; more proof that you haven’t a clue! So, sorceress, in your language graceless? If with my name you must meddle, I’ll give no more than ‘little devil’.”

“That,” said the magician flatly, “is no name at all.”

With an ear-to-ear smile that would shame sharks, the little devil only answered “You’ll have to earn better!”

The Old Country, January 1925

Patchouli Knowledge stepped out of her bedroom, one cold morning, and entered a magician’s library. She had been expecting the library of a sober scholar, and was, naturally, quite alarmed to find this instead. There were black curtains draped all about the library, for one. Hanging silver stars and moons, a stuffed crocodile head, and in a fit of resourcefulness, several apparently very real skulls.

The library was brighter than the day before, as well. That, at least, had an obvious cause: Hundreds of candles. Someone had been very busy indeed. She felt movement behind her, and suddenly, a hat on her head. Perched on top of her other hat, the new one tall, conical and star-studded. Little felt spiders had somehow found their way onto it. Her hand shot out with unusual speed, and…

Caught the sleeve of a squirming little devil, who was trying not to drop a crystal ball held in one hand.

“Demon. What, exactly, is happening here?” She had yet to use her familiar’s name very often, not even the half-mocking one that had been offered to her on the first day. Despite everything, Patchouli – never far from becoming a single, unified clump of old habits – took the exact same route to her chair, and began reading, pausing only to bat a felt spider aside.

“Only what I was ordered to,” the devil – she’d taken to the misnomer by now, with all her little flourishes – answered, looking incredibly pleased with herself. She steadied the crystal ball, nearly put it on the table, then thought better of it, hurrying away from the magician to clear some distance. Was Patchouli particularly annoyed? She never bothered with enough of an expression for anyone to be able to tell, besides the constant air of faint irritation.

“…Ordered? I should think I would remember ordering-” She waved her arm broadly about the room. A black cat brushed past her leg. “All of this.”

“Not you. I thought of it last night, and brought it up with the lady of the mansion; she said it’s just what you need, and I should start right away!” Ah. Remilia. That explained it all. Patchouli placed her head in both hands, and breathed out a long, long sigh. The sort that suggested that she was ready to call the entire day off then and there. She noticed that the mischief-maker herself, meanwhile, looked rather tired, like she had been working at this all night. Well, that was certainly some stripe of dedication.

“Where did this come from, then? This sudden urge to put me in the workshop of a street conjurer. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that I am a scholar, and not some sort of performing charlatan.” After so many reminders every day, it would be a miracle if another was needed; already the little devil had learned that Patchouli valued her image and that of her art – sober, respectable, claiming its place among the modern sciences – almost as much as the library.

“If you can make a demon of me,” she answers primly, “it’s only fair to turn you into a proper magician.” The two clearly had their differences on what that meant, but Patchouli didn’t argue, not outright. Now that it had turned into one of Remilia’s whims, there was no stopping it. Just as she was about to let it slide, her newly added hat slid off and took the original with it, leaving her to notice something as she bent down to pick them up; anyone else might have noticed sooner, of course.

At some point in all this, her hair had turned from a smooth black to pale lilac, matching her robes (which anyone else would have called a dress, or possibly pajamas). She looked up at her familiar, and narrowed her eyes.

“And this?”

“Oh, the same idea, really! It was that or the whole… windswept moor look with the black hair, something like that.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know…” The little devil waved her hands about vaguely. “Gloomy, mysterious, that kind of thing. ‘From my youth upwards, my spirit walk’d not with the souls of men’, et cetra. Tall, dark and- well, never you mind.” She realised, as she talked, that this was all going completely over the magician’s head. Pity. Somewhere partway through, Patchouli had nodded, shrugged, and went back to her studies. Something about her gave the impression of having forgotten not only all about this, but quite possibly her surroundings as well.

Eventually, the little devil wandered off to make some tea. She thought the little trick with the room was funny, at least. A shame the cat didn’t seem to plan on staying. She could, she mused, get used to this place. The other inhabitants, a pair of vampires, were more entertaining than ordinary humans. The contract was especially loose in the freedoms she had, or rather, so long as the work as done, it seemed very rare for Patchouli to trouble herself with caring about anything else in the way of details. The library itself, too, was a sort of perk of the job. There was plenty to browse and interest herself in here, and surprisingly, far from jealously guarding it, Patchouli was only too pleased to have someone taking an interest in the library… or at least, it felt that way.

Yes, she could get used to this life. Another year and a day? Too early to tell, much too early, but it was worth thinking about. She walked off, down the mansion’s many corridors, humming to herself.

Florence, August 1927

The years passed. The familiar became- well, familiar to the magician. She had gone from passing and sorting books to all the things she had been told could not be left to anyone but Patchouli herself. Confidant, assistant in the laboratory, and diligent repairer of old, crumbling texts.

The little devil, on the other hand, had grown strangely fond of Patchouli. Patchouli had her own kind of- she had to admit that the magician has all the charm of a dusty mothball, and no sign of that changing either, but she liked it enough all the same. She had taken to watching over her and caring for her in a hundred unnecessary ways, trying to offset the neglect that only a terminally obsessed scholar could show for themselves.

Today, for once, they found themselves outside the library, a little after sunset, and some distance from the mansion. Patchouli was talking, and the familiar pulled her attention away from the scenery to listen.

“…And to hide our presence, I am employing lunisolar obscuring spells, as shown in Amir Sadik’s Revelations by Starlight, pages eighty-two to eighty-seven. Naturally, since there is a delay in the spell’s shifts between drawing on sunlight and moonlight for its power, I have chosen to leave after dusk to minimise risks. To this I have, as insurance, added a spell to endear ourselves to local spirits of the land, as detailed in Yamaguchi Tatsuhiko’s Confessions of Eight Million Mirrors.” She paused, then added “one of the acquisitions from last weeks, and a welcome one. Eastern spellbooks are all too rare in my collection.”

There was, the devil mused to herself, an odd habit of name-dropping each and every source she drew on in the magician, as if she expected a casual listener to pounce enthusiastically on the mention of a familiar author or title. It never happened. Remilia had no time for these studies, and the familiar busied herself with books she had often heard being referred to as more frivolous.

“Why are we hiding?” She cut in. Patchouli blinked at her a few times, like she had forgotten anyone else was there.

“Oh. Yes, I got ahead of myself. We are here to retrieve some texts I purchased from a private library. Together, we will carry them to an automobile I have prepared, which will then carry the books back to the mansion. Can you drive?”

“…No. Can you?” Somehow she had expected Patchouli to insist on a wagon, or something like that. In practice, she realised, she would be carrying all the books herself, not together.

“I cannot imagine it being particularly complicated. Remember, some of these tomes are quite old. Handle them with all the care you would show for an aged copy in my own library.”

“That doesn’t explain why we need to be invisible. We’re not stealing these, are we?” Patchouli frowned slightly. Quite possibly the most expression she had shown the entire day. She looked down, at first, then answered after some thought.

“I am afraid this is no longer the country of my childhood, for a great many reasons. The original owner of the library, who I purchased them from, has been put under arrest, and I- well, the long and short of it is that Italy has made itself disagreeable to me, as have other parts of Europe; I flatter myself that I am too young to have to endure such stark changes to the familiar places of my earlier days, but so far no one has stopped to ask my opinion. I would prefer to be cautious.”

The door was locked, for all of three seconds. They opened it, and walked into a darkened house. Some of the furniture was broken, but to Patchouli’s relief, the library was untouched. Mostly untouched. Some of the books had been sorted into separate crates, by categories she couldn’t guess at, ready to be moved out. Just as well that she had arrived first, and the house was empty.

One by one (at Patchouli’s insistence, rather than stacking them), the little devil began to carry the books out. The spell would, apparently, extend to the car. As she worked, Patchouli took each book, and muttered what at first sounded like a spell, but as she soon discovered, were little murmured reassurances, with a sweetness never otherwise heard in the magician’s voice, like soothing a frightened child.

“They can’t… hear you, can they?” She asked, wondering if she should have pretended not to notice.

“I have heard stories in the far east,” she answers, “that every object has a heart and soul. That on abandonment, they live as we do. …It may be incorrect, but I confess it has affected how I see these texts. They must be treated with care, and these are sure to be troubling times to them as well.” The little devil thought back to all the times she had heard curious instructions before; rubbing ointments into the spines of books before rebinding them. Solutions usually left for relieving pain. She hadn’t questioned it in the past, reasoning that the ways of magicians were bound to be quite strange.

She worked quietly for a while, surprised by this streak of unusual tenderness. After a while, a thought hit her, and she raised her head a little, then turned towards Patchouli.

“Do you know other magicians?” Patchouli was quiet, at first, so she continued hauling the books, sorting them into place one by one, so there would be no place for them to slide around during the drive.

“I would say so,” the answer came eventually. “As many as there are authors in my library.”

The familiar looked away, rolled her eyes, and sighed quietly. “Living ones. Ones you talk to.” It seemed unlikely, to her, that Patchouli had worked in complete isolation, shared her art – science, she quickly corrects herself – with no one, never discussed it with another. That no others showed an interest in this collection. Strange and unlikely, but all the signs pointed to it.

“Have you heard,” Patchouli remarked after a few moments, “what they called me, in the days when they called me anything at all?” Her familiar waited politely and quietly, for once. “The magician of Tuscany. The magician of Tuscany.” Boasting? Unusual for her to be so straightforward about it, at least.

“Oh, I think I can catch the gist of it. No one quite like you, right? But I don’t see what that has to do with-“

“In a manner of speaking. I was unmatched. I was, indeed, the only one. I promise you, it is a smaller triumph than you might believe. The answer to your question earlier is ‘no’. Magic, I confess, appears to be a dying craft. Today it is only a private indulgence; I have made my peace with that.” Patchouli did not, her familiar thought, look particularly peaceful at that moment. She decided to drop the subject, load the last few books, and hop into the car. She pushes a small, covered wicker basket towards the other seat.

“And this is?”

“Something to eat! First meal today, right? I don’t want you fainting at the wheel.” Patchouli pulled the cloth back, and examined everything underneath. Black bread, meat, cheese and pickled mushrooms. She pushed the basket back.

“The thought is appreciated, but you know as well as I do that I have performed the necessary enchantments. I have been above the need for food, drink and sleep for six years now.”

“Then why don’t you come down for a little? The air must be thin, that far up. Besides, you might not need it to live, but I’ve seen you go to pieces when you push yourself. Or do I need to feed you by hand?” Patchouli assured her that she did not, gave in, and went through most of the basket surprisingly quickly. Then again, she never cared for wasting time. As she ate, the devil that would be on her shoulder if she could bear the weight spoke up.

“Where to, then?”

“Pardon?”

“We can’t stay here, can we? I’ve heard the talk around the mansion; you’re not the only one in a hurry to leave. We’ll need to… move the mansion, somehow. Can you do that?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ve heard good things about Switzerland.”

“Mm. Quite possibly. I considered England, as well, but my grasp of the language is not what I would like it to be.” Thinking of the assumed name Patchouli lived under, her assistant nodded quietly, and stifled a laugh. Eventually, the magician went for the wheel. She had heard somewhere that it all started there. Several minutes later, she discovered the ignition.

After not too long, worn out from the tiring work, and lulled to sleep by the pace of the car – she suspected a few times that walking might be faster – she slumped back in her chair, and dozed while Patchouli worked their way back home. A little later, her head came to rest against the magician, who did not move her. When they finally arrived late in the night, Patchouli, straining, carried her back into the mansion, and draped a blanket over her.

…Leave? It was a strange thought, but these were very strange times.

Chapter Text

Geneva, January 1929

Something slow and shambling made its way out of Patchouli Knowledge’s bedroom, wheezing and muttering and grasping bookshelves for support. This, the familiar knew well by now, was the magician herself. She always had a habit of ignoring decorum completely (fine enough so far) and wandering straight from her bed to her study desk, wearing a mass of blankets like a colossal bagworm (less ideal). Winter only ever made this worse. Certainly, Patchouli had nothing against Switzerland on the whole. It was hard to tell if she particularly noticed the change of scenery after her first batch of misgivings. On the other hand, the winters were far colder than she was used to.

All things which might have been avoided if she allowed a fireplace in the library (and, given the size of the room, stuck close to it), but that was completely out of the question, and always had been. Instead, her familiar hurried over with a hot water bottle, then a tray with a teacup, then an expression half a step short of completely inappropriate laughter.

They say that familiarity breeds contempt. ‘They’ do, of course, say a great many things, most of it false. The little devil was in no position to guess; after all, she was a familiar, and Patchouli had always shown a certain amount of disdain for most things. Neither was very helpful for her guesswork. What she had learned was that familiarity bred more of the same. Once, she had marveled at the library of this great mansion. Once. Today, it was no less remarkable, but she had to remind herself of that, now and then.

The texts were impressive enough themselves. No end of embossed titles on spines both crumbling and brand new stuck out of the shelves. The sheer thought of how much must be held in all those books was always dizzying. Wooden ladders stood here and there against the shelves. Lamps threw a roughly equal amount of shadows and warm orange light around the rooms, and a few cold white beams came in through the upper windows too. The room’s dark wood and stone greedily drank in all the light, and left little scraps for the carpets. The corridors seemed to stretch on forever, and she knew for herself the truth wasn’t far off.

The bookshelves were their own marvels. Plants, flowers, a thousand mystical creatures and watchful guards, gargoyles and old magicians and entire scenes from unknown stories were all scored into the dark oak, carved in fine, intricate detail. Yes, she reflected. There were worse places to be, and she would do well to appreciate the place a little more.

“And what will it be today?” She had learned, over the years, that small talk was not Patchouli’s strong suit, and that she often preferred to dive into her research the moment she left her bed (or woke up after falling asleep at the desk), without any time to gather her wits. In her own strange way, the magician was a kind of morning person.

“Bodily reinforcement spells, if I can find any. I am not certain anything to suit my needs exists; it is quite possible that the type of magic I am pursuing is inherently a mistake. I will start with a more general reference. Langley’s Prescriptions, if you please.” She looked down at the collection of open books on her table. To her, it was orderly. To anyone who didn’t quite follow her particular order, it might have seemed chaotic: An observation she would have been shocked and more than a little affronted to hear.

She had been reading for almost two minutes when she realized that her familiar had not come back, had not even left yet, and was in fact trying to speak to her. Eventually, she looked up.

“Oh! You noticed. What are you trying to do?” Patchouli looked at her more closely, and sniffed slightly. As was always the case when repairing old books, her familiar smelled of old paper and fresh glue. The unfortunate price of rescuing well-aged texts again and again.

“I don’t understand what good knowing will do for you, but if you insist, I have been hard at work on a new alteration spell: One to turn the body to stone, or perhaps diamond. Unfortunately, I cannot bear the strain as I am now. The weight would crush my bones, whatever form they take. I was able to undo the enchantment before anything more than soreness came of it.” The way she moved made it clear, all the same, that she was in quite some pain. The little devil frowned, and rummaged in her pockets for a small bottle of medicine to hand over; Patchouli needed no small amount of all sorts of medication from day to day, after all. Some days she even remembered to take it.

“Laguardia’s Rebinding,” she told the magician, immediately, and looked incredibly pleased with herself. Patchouli gave her a bemused stare, and not much more at first.

“I understand I have only taught you the spells your work calls for, and I would never disparage Laguardia’s utility as an author, but… that is a bookbinding spell, you do realise? To repair or strengthen the spine of a book-” She soon found herself cut off.

“The exact words of the spell work on the spine of anything, as long as it’s not alive. A book, or…”

“…Or a stone magician!” She clapped her hands together. The scarlet devil’s magician was never much given to expression. Her familiar had scarcely known her to smile before, and thought her someone who seemed to regard her own face as more a nuisance than a tool of expression. Now, Patchouli threw her head back and laughed, grinning from ear to ear.

“Yes, yes, I see it now! Unorthodox, but that will do perfectly. Tell me, where did you see this written? Was there something I skimmed over?”

Looking just as pleased as ever, and now smug as well, her assistant answered “Piccola Diavola, Smarter Than You Think, page one to one. I like to get to the point, sometimes.” Patchouli laughed again, looking every bit as delighted.

“I see that now. Why don’t you have a seat, then? We’ll have all day to discuss your ideas. Believe me when I tell you I’m quite fascinated. Tell me, where did you pick this up? Naturally, you must have some power in your home, but I never took you for a magician.”

“I would have to be a very dull woman to spend years living in a magician’s library and learn no magic, wouldn’t I?”

“I- yes, that is true, you’re quite right. I’m used to being the only one taking an interest in the library, you understand, and- tell me, how long have you been studying?” Her eyes glittered and gleamed and shone with an excitement no one had seen in it in some years; at least, not in company. The fervor she had shown for every experiment, every new book in her collection, now focused on a single person with a giddy energy that seemed like it could not have possible belonged to her.

“Oh, since Florence,” the devil replied airily. She hadn’t since forgotten the wistful tone in the magician’s voice, of having no one to share her trade with, her private obsession. It seemed such a natural thing to do, then.

“…Ah. I- you- well, that is to say…” She listened patiently to the magician’s rare stammering, and smiled. Talking to Patchouli was, sometimes, not a matter of reading behind the lines, but reading what the magician was too clumsy to say at all. For all the fumbling, what she heard now was very clear and simple: 'Thank you'. She winked, told Patchouli it was her pleasure, and smoothly brought them back to other, more comfortable subjects. Research. Sharing in the magician’s lifelong fixation, and walking her, in an admittedly amateurish way, through a conversation she had waited all her life to have.

Later, late in the night when Patchouli’s excitement had finally slowed to a gentle simmer, they pored over her work together, considering refinements on the very same spell she used to bring them to Switzerland, with a sinking feeling that they would need to leave again, sooner or later, offset by the excitement, on Patchouli’s part, of piecing a solution together. She occasionally turned to ask a question or two, and listened intently to the answer. Privately, her assistant doubted that she had much to offer to Patchouli, but the magician was always happy to hear her out all the same.

“I suppose we had better choose somewhere distant this time,” Patchouli mused. “The new world?” For this, she received a puzzled stare, and then an exasperated chuckle.

“The new world? Of course you still call it that, you-” The little devil made a sound like a dry autumn wind stirring dead, dusty leaves, on a cold and particularly dreary morning. Patchouli shrugged, but didn’t bother to deny it.

“Point taken. What would you suggest?” She was far from used to being asked for her opinion, but she rubbed at her eyes, and thought. Something had changed here between them, today. Probably for good. She thought she could get used to it, and quite gladly, too.

Shanghai, April 1931

They chose Shanghai, in the end, most of all owing to the fascination Patchouli and Remilia had held for that corner of the world for some years. There was, of course, a lot to get used to in Shanghai. The language, for one. The family – and the little devil had grown to think of it as a family, in its strange, rambling, dysfunctional sort of way – had taken in two more, as well. Sakuya Izayoi and Hong Meiling, now commonplace sights around the mansion.

The days passed happily enough, with Meiling tending the gardens, Patchouli flitting between her studies and tutoring Flandre, and Sakuya- well, she didn’t claim to understand Sakuya, but the maid was efficient, certainly.

The French Concession was nothing if not luxurious, and sheltered from anyone who might trouble them. There were many who chose this place to hide from unwanted attention, many of them dubious to say the least, and another mansion was scarcely noticed. Equally, there were a great many people who could be snatched off the streets without anyone being the wiser; something which pleased Remilia a great deal.

Shanghai, in short, agreed with them. This, they all realised, had been turned into an excellent country to be a monster in. Here, finally, their journey was at an end. They were home. It was almost an odd feeling, after waiting for the sky to fall every few years, or so it felt ever since leaving (or rather, moving) Remilia’s ancestral home.

The library, too, had grown livelier. New texts were bought up daily for what felt like a pittance, and Meiling was often drawn away from the gate to help in their translation and interpretation. The laboratory was daily filled with fumes, scraps of metal and sawdust, as Patchouli threw herself head first into experimenting with the local brand of alchemy. Once again, she had to be reminded of all the little frivolities of life: Sleep, food, the occasional glass of water, and so on.

…And as for the little devil herself, most of all, she was relieved to see some peace come to everyone else, but she had her own adjustments to make. The nights had grown far longer than they were in Geneva, let alone Italy. Patchouli consulted her daily, more – at least, so she felt – to have someone to talk to than anything else, and she was obliged to dig deep into the library’s stock to make sense of half of it. They would often stay awake well past midnight, caught up in their discussions until the oil in the lamps ran out. Eventually, once they convinced Remilia to finally switch to electric bulbs, even that didn’t stop them, and they would stagger out of the library rubbing at their eyes, exhausted in the small hours of the morning.

Here in the heart of China, they had finally found a home.

Shanghai, May 1946

…Time passed quickly, in quiet days. It was almost like nodding off on a warm, sunny day. Close your eyes for a moment, and the next, everything is dark, as though the entire night crept in the moment it wasn’t being watched, in the space of a blink. In the days to come, they would look back and laugh. Laugh that after all their years, and all the time they spent almost on the run, they thought anything was sure to last forever. Then, quietly, they would stop laughing, so as not to jinx their new home, sure to last forever.

It felt like the country had burst at the seams suddenly, and everything inside it was suddenly getting spat out, including their mansion. It wasn’t anything like that, of course. The French Concession was only a part of one city; they just so happened to rarely leave it. Still, it was all coming unraveled, and they…

Once upon a time, Patchouli mused to herself, it took something special to frighten a magician and a centuries-old vampire. Now, there were others in the mansion, but it seemed to take less. The world wasn’t what it used to be. Remilia, in her usual way, had demanded a solution. She did it with that particular tone that suggested she would be slightly disappointed if there was one; it was a while since she had a good mob gathered outside the door.

Revolution. That was the word she had heard thrown around, time and again. Patchouli herself had little experience in anything outside her library (not that this had ever bothered her). Sakuya held no interest in politics, and Meiling… Meiling had felt out of her element in China for a great many years now. All of them could still feel it, that sense of resentment that was about to boil over into something new that would leave no place for any of them. Remilia alone talked about the times in the past when she had seen this happen, something about her time in France. She assured them all, confident as ever, that they would not care for it. That China as a whole should know better than to consider anything that would inconvenience her. That anything which would inconvenience her, such as being caught up in whatever was to come, was completely unacceptable.

In her library, Patchouli had all the magicians of the ages to work with, to consult, to draw solutions from. She found, by now, that she preferred to have one on hand – even one that kept claiming to be no real magician – than any of the teachers in the library she often went to. ...Well, maybe two. Langley’s Prescriptions had never failed her, either. Still, she called for her- familiar, assistant, colleague, friend? The dividing lines had wrapped themselves up in a strange tangle a long time ago.

“I heard. Where are we going this time?” The little devil opened with that remark, and a sort of half-smile. The kind to go with a joke that can quickly be taken back if it turns out, in the end, to be far from a joke. Exactly what she does, in this case, when the answer she gets from Patchouli is a sigh and a frown.

“We’ve run away enough times already, wouldn’t you agree?” And one time across what felt like all the world, at that. No, they had enough already, and it was getting harder to find anywhere to run to. On the other hand, what else could they do?

Patchouli received a shrug, a frown and a look of curiosity all at once. “And just after we got the spell smoothed out, too. Don’t you think it’s a waste not to hop around the world a few more times?” That gets a little smirk out of the magician, at least. That, or it’s an ordinary smile that she still needs to practice before it looks right.

“Honestly, yes, I do think so. Not enough to try again, naturally. No, I have another approach in mind.” Patchouli leafed through Prescriptions, then thought, and finally rattled off a list of books to fetch. “…And while you’re there, we will need Dr. Bocaccio’s obscuring spell. The lunar variant, if you please. You’ll find it on An Unkindness of Ravens, page seventy-two.”

Not ‘I’, we. Oh, she’d worked with Patchouli a very long time, by now, but it was still hard not to feel a twinge of pride at that. That, and recognizing the books immediately, putting the pieces together…

“You haven’t asked for those since Florence,” she remarked to the magician. Their little adventure in the abandoned library, years ago. Patchouli nodded. An invisibility spell. What an odd choice. When she came back with an armful of books (riddled with bookmarks every few pages, in the mess of colours that only an anything-will-do attitude of improvisation could achieve), she put the question to the magician.

“Oh, yes, an invisibility spell. That is certainly one way to put it. It will put the mansion, as it were, out of sight and out of mind. Light and eyes will glide over it and never think to notice it. During the night, the natural darkness will deflect the attentions of any passers-by. During the day, I may be able to employ the moon to deceive the sunlight. In short, the mansion will go unnoticed. The beauty of it is, of course, that this will be a permanent solution until such a time as we are free to emerge from hiding.”

Hiding. It’s not quite something either of them liked the sound of, but it beat running away a third time. Enough was enough. The little devil never hesitated, never thought twice about settling in to do her part in stitching this spell together, piece by piece. After all, this was her home as well, wasn’t it?

Besides, enough really was enough. Why let a little thing like a revolution send them packing one more time?

Chapter Text

Shanghai, July 1982

People will, it has been observed, eventually adjust to anything. For a recluse and a vampire, keeping themselves mostly hidden from the eyes of the world was no great difference or challenge. For Meiling, it was a little more trying, but she had felt Shanghai grow more distant by the day for a very long time now. For Sakuya… who could ever tell what she was thinking?

Many, many years had passed in the privacy of the hidden mansion; for Patchouli, she reflected years later, it was no small portion of her life. She wondered at times if she had particularly missed out in hiding herself from the world, but in moments of honesty she was forced to admit that it probably made no great difference in her life. Still they had watched, and waited for the right moment to emerge into a changing world they recognized. They never found one, in nearly thirty years. Over time, their secretive life became the norm. It was, in a way, a little like waiting for someone else to finish speaking so as not to interrupt, and eventually realizing the conversation had moved on entirely. Just where and what was this place, this city they called home? The question became harder to answer with every passing year.

Life wasn’t all dreary disappointments for the little devil, though. She had learned to read Patchouli like a book: The cover would misinform, and the first read would reveal only the tip of the iceberg. Each time through, she would uncover something subtle that she had missed before, a secret smile or some unexpectedly bright corner. Each time, she would find a new surprise under the dust, buried in a jumble of words, and appreciate what she saw all the more.

Today, what she saw was the magician slumped over a desk, looking exhausted after calling her in. Patchouli looked up with bleary, and unusually troubled eyes, occasionally glancing towards a closed book and then looking away, as though it somehow offended her. Eventually, she picked her voice up from wherever she had left it, a little quiet, a little hoarse, a little worse for wear.

“I have felt… faint, recently. Light-headed? No, that isn’t quite the word for it,” she explained, a little unhelpfully. Trying to lighten the air, the little devil winked, smiled, and reassured her that this was a perfectly natural reaction; one, in fact, that she almost expected when she walked into a room, but it didn’t particularly convince either of them. She sat down, and watched Patchouli cautiously.

“Stretched thin. Uncertain. Out of place. Surely you can feel it as well?” The magician continues.

“You did summon me away from my home, of course I feel out of place,” the familiar retorted. They both know perfectly well, though, that this has felt like a second home to her for many years by now. She had felt it, but had put it down to a cold or some spell of dizziness; why? She had never had much experience with either, but how else to explain it?

“Yesterday, I made a visit to purchase a book that passed here from outside the country, the first magical text I have added to my library for some time. Our library, I should say,” she corrected herself, a little self-consciously. “It was only a pittance, as the owner was convinced it had no use. He told me quite plainly that he did not believe in magic, that it was at best as substantial as a fear of standing under ladders, and at worst something done behind dingy yellow curtains to part the gullible from their spare coins. I was, I admit, flustered enough to consider telling him just what I was, to demonstrate somehow, but…”

“But?”

Patchouli turned quiet. She was never particularly given to expression, that was ordinary enough. What was less ordinary was seeing her trying to clumsily hide something, to keep her thoughts from creeping into her face. After a while, she finally decided to answer. Anyone who had known her for long was used to the extended silences, while the magician’s thoughts drifted, or she tried to pick the right words. This particular silence, though, was a more uncomfortable one.

“I found myself agreeing with barely any hesitation, and I kept that impression until I came home and met Remilia.” She paused, and finally frowned a little. “…A great deal has changed, and once upon a time, I might have had a part in the sort of thought that has overtaken the world. I am not certain that there is still a place for us anywhere. If this kept itself to the opinions of others, that would be bearable, but I cannot shake the feeling that at this rate, we will all-” She waves her hand through the air. “Fade away, or something of the sort.”

The little devil, who was in no mood to be devilish any longer, put her hand on Patchouli’s shoulder and squeezed it carefully. They knew, of course. They hadn’t known what to think of it at first, hadn’t realised quite what it was for the longest time, but it was impossible to deny. This wasn’t new, and only recently thrown in their faces to the point that they were forced to pay attention to it. She had been brought here. The others had lived their lives, year after year, in a world that was suddenly not theirs, in a world which insisted they were a flight of fancy at most. There was still just enough of the outsider in her to keep her from guessing just how Patchouli felt, and she was glad for it.

"I have always thought of myself as a woman of reason and good sense. I have, as you know, always striven against empty superstition. Now, I find the world has decided that I am exactly such a superstition. ...Certainly the irony is not lost on me, but I find it difficult to appreciate. Still…” She forced a smile. It was a little thin, but when wasn’t it? It was enough for her to see an uneasy smile in return, and that was something.

“I am,” Patchouli continued, “as you know, particularly clumsy in emotional matters.” That got her a slightly more genuine smile, almost a laugh. Oh yes, they both knew. “I do not, as it happens, know how to be properly miserable. Instead, I have been hard at work. I have found something promising in news from Japan; a sort of artificial otherworld, as theorized in Anatomy of a Dream, made with some foresight as a refuge for exactly this sort of situation. With a few years, I may be able to adjust our old spell of transportation to bring the mansion there. …In a sense, of course, we will no longer be real, no longer be much more than a dream. It is a price to pay; I will not call it small.”

That was not the conclusion her familiar was expecting. Eyes wide, she leaned in and listened to the magician, too stunned to reply. Japan? A world within a world, a hideaway for everything the world forgot? That was not where she expected to ever find herself; she hardly even knew of the idea as more than a wild theory. Patchouli coughed a little – she always did when she talked so much – and kept going without any room for a reply.

“There is, however, one small problem. In the haze of recent days, I seem to have misplaced your contract. I found it earlier today, but as much renewed as it has been over the years, the sheepskin is aged and fragile.” She held up a raggedy thing that used to be a scroll and all its writing, now riddled with holes, tears, and… most of the writing, certainly the important parts, had been outright burned. What was left was useless, magically or otherwise, and barely looked like anything at all.

“In other words, your time as a familiar is at an end. I will make my own arrangements, in time, and that may be just as well. You, on the other hand, are dismissed. Free to leave. There is nothing,” she continued, belabouring the point, “to keep you here a second longer."

“You could make another,” the little devil – suddenly cut loose – very reasonably pointed out, “we’ve changed and renewed it so many times, does it really matter what happens to the scroll we wrote on?” Patchouli only shook her head, adamantly.

“While you have certainly learned fast, I am still the summoner here, and that is something you have never touched on. Believe me when I say that there is no remaking the contract.” …Ah. The burns were recent, too. They couldn’t have been made more than a few minutes before she came into the room. She had learned to read Patchouli like a book, but today, anyone could have seen what was happening. Patchouli had drawn the line at bringing her to-

“Koakuma,” she told the magician, suddenly.

“What?”

“When in Rome, right? I’ll need a name in Japanese. Koakuma will do; it’s tradition, after all!” She started to warm to the idea, though just as much of it was her own effort to cram as much enthusiasm into the next few minutes as she could. Patchouli’s eyes widened, and the magician shook her head.

“I’ve already told you that-”

“Then you can’t stop me, can you?” Koakuma – who had been the little devil and sometimes Piccola Diavola, who had been a terribly strange sound and feeling Patchouli had never quite forgotten – smiled a manic smile, and put her arm around the stunned magician. “Besides, what would you do without me?” She never quite found out. Patchouli looked up at her, with a relieved, exhausted smile, with that familiar look of searching for her words.

“I would have missed you,” she finally said. Koakuma had been ready for many things. Even that, coming from someone else, but from Patchouli, it was too unexpected. She turned her head, stared at the floor, and felt her ears burning. Not much more than a dream? Well, she couldn’t quite deny that… but she could think of worse ones.

Gensokyo, February 1991

It was no mean feat to cross over into another world, even after all the mansion’s inhabitants had been convinced that this was their best option. On the other hand, they had years to prepare, and the two magicians didn’t lack for skill. That, at least, was what Patchouli sometimes called them – how playful it was, if at all, Koakuma could never tell, but it always struck her as a little ridiculous. Doubly so in a world that was sure to have its own proper magicians, rather than assistants who tried to make for good conversation and got carried away.

They made it. Once they were ready to move, it was just a matter of making the last little push, of making sure they were completely forgotten, rather than in the haphazard, half-believed winding ways that people were sure to take. After a few years, their careful work came to an end, and they were…

Whatever, and wherever they were now.

Old habits died hard. They still watched and waited from a more or less hidden vantage point, but this time, they had the occasional cautious visitor or question, and nothing else. They kept to themselves, but unlike Shanghai, did nothing to hide themselves. Here, they learned, they were home in another way. Frustratingly so, to Remilia. They belonged here, in a sense. All the strange things of the outside world did, everything curious and unbelievable and bizarre and dangerous had a place in Gensokyo, and so, as long as they kept to themselves, they drew no attention.

That wouldn’t do for Remilia, who was, after a few months, already growing tired of this. Hiding was one thing, making a grand appearance and barely being noticed was another. The mansion, if anything, drew more attention for being foreign than for being inhabited by a vampire. Koakuma had half-considered taking bets on when Remilia would start some trouble just for the sake of it, then did away with the idea. Patchouli knew Remilia too well, Sakuya would put a stop to it, and Flandre was out of the question for a lot of reasons. Maybe Meiling would take her up on it.

As for Koakuma herself-

“Koakuma? I’ll be over the next hill, when you’re ready,” Patchouli called out, gasping for breath. She had been distracted, for a moment. Patchouli had insisted on a lengthy tour of as much of Gensokyo as she could reasonably walk across, not long after arriving. That came as no surprise to Koakuma, who had seen these trips every time they came to somewhere new. Patchouli had given a long, rambling explanation once, on the importance of a magician who deals in the elements to know the local land well – making introductions, in a sense – but the fact that she felt the need to give exhaustively detailed academic explanations for taking a walk had said a great deal more.

Except it wasn’t a walk, exactly.

“Why don’t we sit down under that tree while you rest?” She suggested hurriedly, guiding Patchouli to a patch of soft moss on the ground. The magician was… her usual self, in this. She saw something to do and saw no point in wasting any time. She moved almost entirely in hurried, purposeful little sprints, that broke down into gasps and little breaks as soon as her body gave out. Over and over and over. She could fly, but what good would that do when the entire point was to be close to the earth?

It did, at least, give Koakuma time to admire the scenery, and admire it she did. There was something strange about Gensokyo, something old and wonderful. The grass looked like no one had ever walked on it. The water was crystal clear, and the air felt as though it had never been breathed. This wasn’t the past, exactly, not a place that was ever quite real. It was a memory through rose-coloured glasses, made into an entire world. Someone’s idea of how it all used to be, someone who loved this place dearly. She felt herself becoming nostalgic for a place she had never even visited before, giddy with the thought of exploring this strange and incredible place.

“It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it?” She commented eventually, to the now slightly recovered magician.

“Hmm?”

“Gensokyo, I mean.”

“Ah, is it? That is fortunate. I’m sure Meiling will be very pleased.” She paused, and thought it over. “I will take your word for it, of course. I was never much of a judge.” She nodded approvingly, all the same, and Koakuma didn’t so much as bother to stifle her laugh.

They had a lot to learn, in this place. She hadn’t followed as familiar, she wasn’t being much of a devil any more, and the smallest pretense of being some kind of summoned servant, or anything like what she was first brought to the library to be, nearly- nearly seventy years ago. Had it been so long already? Well, of course it had. Most of Patchouli’s life by far and a good portion of hers. Still, putting the years into a number was always a strange feeling. All those years, and now- well, now they would need to put words to what they were, and make sense of it all over again, after they had taken all the jumbled and cluttered lines and thrown them out entirely.

Well, they had time to decide on that. A lot of time. For now, she stood up, and held out an arm, pulling Patchouli up. They would walk hand in hand, for once. Slowly, now, without those little minute-long sprints. They had time for that, too.

Gensokyo, August 2002

Koakuma lay sprawled across the bed of one of the little rooms – one Patchouli had used many years ago - to the side of the great library, much the worse for wear. There was a sort of law of the land even in this place, they had learned, and she wore red and white and left very little behind. It was, Koakuma reasoned to herself, probably for the best that they hadn’t covered the sun up with a permanent, bright red mist. Privately, she suspected that Remilia might have known full well this was coming, and was itching for a chance to play the villain for the first time in a while.

Well, they were alive – the Scarlets excepted – and Patchouli had her share of fun putting the spell together over the past few months. She had too, really; Patchouli had a sort of infectious enthusiasm that no one would suspect of her in a million years. On the other hand… she couldn’t feel her legs, face or arms. That was probably for the best too.

The door opened, and Patchouli walked inside, looking… more like a bandaged woman and less like a mummy, compared to the day before. She sat down at the foot of the bed, and looked down. “You’ve been busy,” she commented quietly. Koakuma resisted the urge to nod. That wouldn’t have done her much good.

“I heard you ran out to the shrine just yesterday, raving incoherently and demanding to duel the shrine maiden.” Koakuma looked away, embarrassed, mumbling something about Patchouli being hurt, and not wanting to let anyone get away with it. Patchouli pointed out, quite calmly, that she wasn’t the one too battered to pull herself out of bed. Slowly, the details of the night before started to come back, piece by piece. Cursing up a storm on the way out, for one. At least she remembered to take some precautions around Flandre; that is, she counted on Flandre not recognising any Akkadian.

“…And I remember you walking to the shrine in the middle of the night to carry me back,” Koakuma recalled, a little smile making its way onto her face. Patchouli just shrugged.

“Well, naturally. You weren’t in any condition to come back by yourself, and I couldn’t very well leave you out all night.” They both knew perfectly well that anyone else from the mansion could have done it, and without someone as frail as Patchouli carrying her home. They both knew it, so why mention it at all? Koakuma tried to point, then winced and gave up on that idea. Patchouli carefully pulls the blanket back over her, and by then, she forgot all about what she was trying to show in the first place.

“On the bright side,” Koakuma said after a little while, “at least now we know Gensokyo has other magicians, right? You’ve always wanted that.” She managed a grin despite everything, and propped herself up against a shelf near the makeshift mattress. The mansion had finally made itself more obvious, too. More known. That should keep things interesting, dragging them out of their hermitage. She was a little tired of hiding, but hadn’t planned to put a stop to it quite like this.

“I suppose so,” Patchouli answered dismissively. “One is impulsive, reckless and boorish. The other is so far apart from anything I practice that we would benefit from each other’s learning as much as that of a fishmonger.” Koakuma managed a puzzled look, that Patchouli eventually noticed. A lucky break; expressions didn’t often go far with the magician.

“Something about dolls and souls and so forth, as far as I can tell. I can’t speak for you, but I was brought up to believe that the latter, at least, was something best left to clergy, rather than a magician. …Of course, I was also brought up not to consort with vampires and strange spirits. Happily, only some of my childhood lessons have taken root. No, I think I already have good company inside this library; why look for more?”

For a while, they stayed there, hand in hand with Patchouli moving to a stool beside the bed. Too tired to say much of anything, too content despite the past few days to find anything to say in the first place. Eventually, though, Koakuma managed to gesture to a small bundle not far away, wrapped up in brown paper.

“This isn’t really how I imagined it going, or any of the last few days, but since you’re here… Patchouli, why don’t you open that up? It’s for you.” Patchouli, a little puzzled, did so. Inside, no surprise with the bundle’s shape, was a book. Commandments to Sky and Rain, something of an infamous book; this would have probably been a first edition if it had much of a print run at all. They had talked about it a few times before; a useful book, definitely, assuming the reader is willing to sit through occasional incoherent rants, long eccentric tangents, and the author claiming to be the north wind. It was also something missing from Patchouli’s library. The magician’s face lit up, though not quite immediately; she had to let shock have its turn first, for a few seconds.

“Where did you-”

“I’m not telling you.” Well, actually, it had come through the barrier at one of its thinner points, but that was much less interesting.

“That’s… well, that’s very kind of you, though I can’t imagine what the occasion would be.” Koakuma laughed, and immediately broke into a coughing fit. So much for that. She settles for shaking her head slowly, and smiling to herself.

"Your... hundredth birthday?"

“Ah. Is it, now? How time flies.” Well, she hadn’t expected Patchouli to be sentimental over that sort of thing anyway. The truth was that she found the book a few months ago and kept it for what felt like a good time. Patchouli took the book into her hands, and moved back to the side of the bed.

“I don’t see either of us going to the library today,” Patchouli continued, completely ignoring how she had just come from there not long before. Koakuma didn’t bother to point it out; she was happy enough to have a quiet day together, and they weren’t about to have it anywhere else.

“Would you like to read it together?” Patchouli asked eventually. She hadn’t thought of that, but now that she heard it suggested, she smiled and nodded. Patchouli opened the book, started to read…

And lasted about twenty minutes at most. Now that they were relaxed for once, the last few days caught up with them all at once. Very soon, the two were leaning against each other, fast asleep in the quiet, dim warmth of the room.

Elsewhere, May 2003

It wasn’t completely unheard of for Patchouli to open portals in the laboratory these days; Koakuma did make the odd visit home. She couldn’t call it homesickness any more. She had lived in the mansion too long not to think of it as home, and besides, something about Gensokyo made it difficult to feel nostalgia or longing for any other place.

She had to admit that she didn’t know the first thing about opening the way. What she did know all about was the world on the other side of it, and Patchouli would need someone to show her around: After all, for the first time, she was invited for the trip; the magician being who she was, she showed no real interest before, and Koakuma had never thought to ask, but this time, she agreed immediately.

The other side could have been anything. Would have been anything Koakuma or anyone else set their mind to. This wasn’t anything like Gensokyo, or even Earth, where magic was grudgingly handed out, drop by drop. This was a place that had never quite remembered to draw a fence around imagination, or remember the little things, like what is real and what is not, or what it is itself.

What it was, Koakuma had often thought to herself, was normal. Years later, after a very long time in the mansion, she had learned to think of it as impressionable instead. She stepped through, and thought to herself that a boat might do very nicely to carry them… oh, somewhere. Her shoes landed on the wood of a moored gondola, tethered to- nothing. She frowned, and imagined a pier as well. Something from good, solid stone.

She wouldn’t have minded that sort of thing, when she was younger. The boat held in place just fine, after all.

Patchouli stepped into the gondola as well, and looked around her. Up, down (but not into water, not anything like water) and to the sides. They weren’t on anything, exactly; it was a little like floating. In every direction, there was nothing at all, and everything that might be. It was like the world, when the eyes and ears asked it what should be found there, only shrugged, and answered with an endless ‘maybe’. Nothing but possibility, that might take cues from her if she thought too much on what should be there.

A gondola, Koakuma had decided, ought to sail on something. At least for Patchouli’s comfort, she arranged for a river. Then, soon after, she realised that Patchouli wasn’t paying attention, but staring over the side of the ship instead, watching… everything, even if it made her eyes water to focus on it. Koakuma knew that look very well. Taking notes. Fascinated. She smiled, and gave in to a little flight of fancy. The gondola drifted along on a stream of pages now, carrying them downstream; she didn’t feel like rowing any more. Patchouli didn’t seem to notice. She put her arm around Patchouli’s shoulders, and nearly flinched from surprise when the magician did just the same. Patchouli didn’t think much of it, or didn’t seem to, but she was always hard to read.

They would, Koakuma realised, need somewhere to land. A meadow? Yes, a meadow would be good. Flowers? Well, why not? After that, she pragmatically decides to add a bench, since Patchouli can only stand or walk for so long. She spent a while considering what sort of flowers to put on the meadow, painfully aware that Patchouli probably wouldn’t pay them a moment’s notice.

Roses, she decided, were too common, and anyway, she didn’t trust herself to make them completely without any bothersome thorns. Lilies? Embarrassingly trite and unimaginative. She decides, eventually, on lilacs; it matches Patchouli, if not her (though privately, she had started to realise that Patchouli had found one comfortable dress and decided to wear it – or near-identical ones like it – for the rest of her life).

With the details decided, she gave a gentle push to the place at the end of the river, a casual suggestion, and the meadow was there, almost exactly like she imagined it. It might even last a full day. “Patchouli?” She gave a gentle nudge. “We’re here.”

Patchouli stood up and blinked a few times, looking around, like she hadn’t actually expected the gondola ride to actually go anywhere. By the time they stepped off the boat, it was already gone; another can always be made for the way back. Patchouli stepped through the meadow gingerly, led by Koakuma, walking slowly until she reached the bench, and immediately sat down. Patchouli made an odd noise, once or twice, and Koakuma turned towards her, curious. Then, on the third try…

The words, if they were words, sounded like a first impression of meadows and spring breezes, mischievous smiles in the dark, and long flights under a warm, gentle sun. The sounds took a turn eventually, and lilacs turned to roses – so much for that – to doves, to sparkling clear water replacing the soft earth. The air looked like it was shaking, trembling for just a few seconds. Koakuma watched in complete shock, then broke into an enormous smile.

“How long have you been practicing that?” It was the only place she ever expected to hear her real name, but always from someone else.

“Oh, long enough. Long enough,” Patchouli answered, and gave her own small, quiet smile. They sat there for a while, hand in hand, looking over the meadow and, now and then, at each other. Koakuma plucked a flower from the meadow, held it up, and it began to sing. Some things were easier to say when she didn’t have to do it herself.

So it sang. Patchouli didn’t understand the words, exactly, but she knew what the sounds meant all the same, felt what they meant, a familiar feeling in all the years around Koakuma. It was a song that showed long nights in dusty, quiet rooms, hours-long conversations by candle and lamplight day after day. A song about forgetting the hours and days drifting past, and digging through layers of dust and stone-faced stoicism for the little hard-earned laughs and unexpected smiles. The warm feeling of calm and reassurance, and a peaceful happiness in finding someone all but tucked away out of sight. Someone to relax with at the end of every day, someone the world could hardly be imagined without, a quiet to come back to again and again. Something, too, that went a little past an ordinary fondness, which Patchouli recognised but couldn’t quite put her finger on. All of it wrapped around… a name?

Then, slowly, it hit her. It wasn’t a song at all, not quite. It felt like minutes, but everything she heard and felt came to her inside of a few seconds at most. It was… well, it was more of a nickname. For her. She was a little surprised, then decided after a second that the occasion called for more than a little, and instead chose to be shocked; she had never thought of herself like that before, not even once. If she were anyone else, she might have been flustered, too, but she could only go so far.

“…Really?” Koakuma smiled, and nodded. “Well,” Patchouli answered slowly, carefully, “I admit, I share… some of that. Though, er, not all, of course. Some of it wouldn’t work at all for you; we’re very different, after all,” she explained hurriedly, stumbling over words, the way she always did, the rare few times she found herself in unfamiliar territory. Koakuma smiled, nodded, and waited patiently, quietly relieved that she had, at least, put clumsy, ordinary words aside this time, and made sure to explain it in a way that would get through to Patchouli.

“I- obviously, I’m flattered, but you realise I know very little about, well…” she waves her hands around vaguely. “Romantic matters and so on.” Koakuma felt relieved, hearing that. Good, that much got through. Then Patchouli shook her head. “Let alone returning what you said to me. I… that is, since you know so much more, surely it would be best for you to make sense of this?”

Koakuma stared, then had to stop herself from laughing. Patchouli wanted her to decide? Eventually she shook her head, squeezed the pale hand in hers a little tighter, and… waited, patiently, for a second time. That hit a block when Patchouli chose to do the same, expecting something. Koakuma, then, gently asked her how she felt, and promised there wasn’t any need to answer right now.

“We’ve hardly left each other’s sides for almost eighty years.”

“…True, but that wasn’t the question.” She waited for a second, and asked if Patchouli would prefer to put this off.

“I’ve almost never found anyone I could talk to the way I can with you,” Patchouli continued thoughtfully, like she was thinking aloud to herself, fidgeting and tapping her feet against the grass. “And I can’t very well imagine anything else, not even… not even when we were ready to move to Gensokyo. …Ah. That wasn’t the question either, was it? I suppose the answer is…” She frowned in concentration, and then nodded.

“...Yes, I think so. That must be what it is; if not, then it’s a similar word. I do love you as well, in-” she hesitated, and for once, looked a little embarrassed. “In my own strange way, as little as I understand of any of this, but I would never know how to show it.” Still, she looked up, and smiled in a nervous but happy sort of way.

“I could do that for both of us,” Koakuma suggested, much more relaxed.

“That would be best, wouldn’t it? If you waited for me…” She waved a hand through the air, and gave a dry little laugh. “Well, I think you know what to expect.” Koakuma nodded, smiled, and leaned in to give her a kiss; just a small one, so she wouldn’t be out of breath. Patchouli froze like a deer in the headlights, stock-still until they were finished, then watched her curiously.

“Er, was that… right? Are you finished?” Koakuma giggled and nodded. “Only, I wasn’t quite sure what to do, and I’m almost certain it wouldn’t be right to interrupt this sort of thing-” Koakuma gently shushed her and gave her a careful hug, like she thought Patchouli was particularly brittle.

“There’s time to learn, and if you don’t…” Koakuma smiled. “Then that works just as well. Smaller steps for now, that’s probably best. Would you like to go back?” After all, it might be too much excitement for Patchouli in one day, she thought to herself. Getting back to somewhere familiar might be good.

“A little longer.” Patchouli leant against the bench, and thought. Then she spoke up again. “Does this… change anything?” Koakuma thought about this, for a while. About today. About what it meant. Then, she stopped thinking about it at all; the answer was simpler than all that. She shrugged.

“Would you like it to?”

“I’m not sure. After so many years, it’s hard to imagine anything else, but…” Patchouli trailed off, thinking to herself, looking uncertain. It occurred to Koakuma, then, that it didn’t particularly matter what they called it, or what words they put to this in the end, what familiar shapes they tried to force it into. What they had was a quiet, shared happiness; they knew that well enough. Words and shapes for it might come eventually, or they might not. Did it really matter?

“You know,” Koakuma began, “we have a long time to decide.” Patchouli nodded, and brought her into a clumsy, but firm hug, not quite noticing Koakuma’s calm suddenly turn into a dark blush and a surprised expression for a few seconds.

“Shall we go back?” Patchouli asked, and they made their way to a fresh gondola, just the same as the one before. What they had was strange to anyone else, but they had always loved strange things. What they had was unfamiliar to each of them in a different way, but they had always been only too happy to learn. Just then, if either of them had been asked just what they were, they would have known the answer right away.

They were happy.