All's Fair in Love and Thievery

A Touhou Project fanfic by Achariyth

Chapter 1: Monday's Child

Monday's child was feeling blue...


Kaguya Houraisan threw open the doors to her private chamber and hurried to a small basin by a full length mirror. She splashed her face and water beaded down her cheeks like tears.

Outside her window, the last revels of the Lunar Festival soaked in moonlight and sake. The songbird youkai choir of Mystia Lorelei and a couple of crow youkai from the mountain had started a rousing rendition of a drinking song whose tune had remained unchanged since her first days on Earth, even if the words hadn't. Proper guests would have left earlier, but the bunny girls hosting the festival always found another bottle, song, or game to keep the festival stretching later into the night.

As the liege of Eternity Manor, Kaguya should have reigned in the courtyard until the last guest departed and the last rabbit passed out. Instead, she huddled next to her open window and cast furtive glances out whenever she thought no one watched. At the edge of the courtyard lights, a resolute young man walked away. Kaguya was glad to see him leave, but not in the presence of the long-eared inaba, even if it was her duty to guide guests through the labyrinthine Bamboo Forest of the Lost.

A shadow passed over her window, blocking the moon. Kaguya yelped and stumbled away from the window into the tangled embrace of the curtains. She thrashed and spun, ensnaring herself tighter into its folds.

The nightingale hall chirped outside her door. Kaguya bit back her shriek and turned until the twisted rat-tail of drapes shrouded her from view. The moon princess bit her lip and waited, straining to hear past the blood rushing in her ears. The off-key warbling from the Drunken Avian Youkai Choir drowned out the song that footsteps made in the singing wooden hall. As she waited, Kaguya couldn't help but cast another look out the window.

Her heart fell. The young man and the moon inaba were gone.

"Princess?"

Kaguya flinched, cowering further behind the taut bundle of curtains. A matronly silhouette hovered outside her door. The moon princess bit back a sigh of relief. At least, it was only Eirin Yagokoro, her seneschal, and not murderous Mokou. Yet the princess stepped into the shadows and prayed to the Unnameable Name of the Moon that her friend would leave her alone.

"What's the matter?" Eirin stepped into the room leaving the raucous singing and drunken dancing behind her.

The moon princess stepped away from the window. "What makes you think something is wrong?"

Eirin's laugh was short and bitter. "I've raised enough fosterlings over the years to know that when a woman runs out of her own party, it's not over nothing. Especially if she's caught hiding behind the drapes. You of all people should remember that." For a moment's breadth, the veil that hid the Sage of the Moon fell away and Eirin shone with reflected light. Kaguya winced as the ethereal woman spoke a name centuries forgotten, known to only her parents and her foster mother. The glory faded and Eirin Yagokoro stood in the room once more.

Like many of the kingdoms of Earth's past, the nobles of the Moon entrusted their children to chosen lords and ladies to educate them in the ways of the court. Not only did the practice expose the children to different ways of administering a demesne, it helped keep peace between the nobles. In many ways, a fosterling differed little from a hostage, except in prestige. For centuries, Duchess Yagokoro was sought after by kings until she provided fosterage to all the princesses of the Moon. At least until the day when Princess Kaguyahime fell from the Moon to the Earth like lightning.

"It's a man, isn't it?"

Kaguya laughed and waved her hand. "I'm not Yorihime. I just had to attend to something I had forgotten about." For the first three years of Yorihime's fosterage, Kaguya had to drag her fellow princess out from the curtains whenever a certain young man so much as looked towards her. It had taken the patience of a saint, but the prince eventually coaxed her from her hiding place and into a wedding dress.

Eirin walked out and stared out the window. "Udonge is back. Would that set your mind at ease?"

"No."

Eirin stared at her liege woman and nodded. "Very well, I shall tell anyone who asks that you have taken ill. A small matter of a weakness of heart. Any idea how long it will take to recover?"

The moon princess sighed and her shoulders fell. "Not soon enough."

Eirin curtsied and walked out the door. But before she left, she called out over her shoulder, "You do realize that you could have told him 'no.'"

The moon princess sighed. "If only it were that easy."

Kaguya waited until the nightingale floor stopped singing before she glided over to an unadorned fusuma room divider. The princess ran a finger along the lacquered wood and cloth panel. She would have preferred the elegance of paper, but cloth held up better against the joyful mayhem that the inaba girls brought every day. The fusuma panel slid away on its rails, revealing a cast iron strongbox swirled with dusty orange.

This was her treasure box, where she kept items too precious to remain in her curio cabinet, including jewelry that she had caught in the inaba girls' hands, letters from emperors and princes of the Moon and the Earth, a drink recipe only used twice in her life, and six treasures that had made her famous throughout the world.

The first of these treasures, a rough-hewn bowl worn smooth by hand and coin, shone with a pale light. If anyone learned of the Enlightened One's begging bowl, Abbess Byakuren would lay siege to Eternity Manor within the hour. She set two silver branches on either side of the bowl, each sprouting gold leaves and abalone shell flowers. To this day, Kaguya could not tell which branch came from Mount Hourai and which had been crafted by Duke Fuhito Fujiwara's silversmiths. The fake branch was a perfect copy, and had almost forced her to the altar.

Kaguya picked up a midnight red pelt and rubbed the silky fur against her cheek. The mink robe was her favorite, and she loved to watch the golden highlights ripple over the fur. She had seen rubies by the cartload in her long life, but no stone gleamed as bright. One of these days, she would wear the delightful robe freely. A pity she could not do so now, since a young man could be so cute when his cheeks matched her robe.

The princess fished a pearlescent cowrie shell the size of her fist out of the bowl. In the days long past, such a shell could buy an entire demesne outright, and its immense virtue in folk magic was heightened from its origin; a swallow's nest. Eirin had her eye on this treasure; she constantly reminded Kaguya that the shell would aid childbirth. The moon princess shuddered and set the shell inside the bowl.

A black pearl the size of an apple filled the princess's hand. Flawlessly round, the opalescent jewel turned shades of blue, red, gold, and green as light played over it. So small compared to the other treasures, it would be child's play to slip it into a young man's pack as he walked by. Kaguya's cheeks burned and she almost dropped her prize. It joined the cowrie in the bowl before Kaguya clutched a sheer gossamer veil, her last resort to escape kings. She was sure that her people on the Moon had forgiven her, but she loved the Earth too much to test that.

"I should have known that you wouldn't keep them in your storehouse."

Kaguya spun around, backing into the strongbox. The princess jumped as the lid thumped shut, still clinging to the Moon-woven cloth in her hands.

Perched in the window just like the shadow of her father had centuries earlier, Lady-in-name-only Mokou Fujiwara smirked and cracked her knuckles. Her father had longed to introduce Kaguya to the little death, but Mokou desired to help the moon princess make a more long-standing arrangement. It had taken deft maneuvering to outwit both. While the vice-chancellor had laughed away the slight of Kaguya's refusal, his daughter had sworn a vendetta that lasted to the present.

The intruder's face was paler than her wisteria-dyed hair. "You're not leaving, are you?" Mokou pointed to the veil.

Kaguya waved away her rival's question. "I was just feeling a little sentimental." She folded the veil and set it on top of the iron strongbox. "The moon festival brings back memories."

Mokou dropped from the windowsill into Kaguya's chambers. Color rushed back into her cheeks. "Like lying to my father?"

The princess stepped away from the strongbox and slid the fusuma divider shut behind her. "For a hundred thousand times in a thousand years, he lied to me first."

Anger and heat crackled off of Mokou as she clenched her teeth and fists. Kaguya slipped a hand behind her back and grabbed the knife tied to her sash. Noblewomen carried one to defend their virtue with a quick cut to the jugular. If Mokou took one step closer, Kaguya would use it on her nemesis's neck instead.

"You never intended to keep your word," Mokou said.

"I don't intend to marry."

"What's it like to be a foresworn oath-breaking liar?"

"What's it like to still be an unbroached child?" Heat waves rolled off of Mokou. Kaguya smiled and kept a firm hold on her knife. "Don't you think that fourteen hundred years is long enough for your little temper tantrum?"

"Don't you think two thousand years is too long to play hard to get?"

The banter wore on, neither witty nor lively, like an ancient play rehearsed a thousand times prior. Kaguya didn't have to think about her next response; like Mokou, she had said all she needed to centuries prior. But Mokou drew a deep breath and wrung the hem of her dress shirt. "I didn't come here to trade deaths."

Kaguya's eyes narrowed as she adjusted the grip on her knife and slid it from her sheath. "That's a first."

"I heard that you're up to your old tricks. Since there's no Emperor here for you to lie to, why did you drag your Impossible Requests into the moonlight?"

Kaguya hissed through her teeth. Try as she might, the princess could not keep Eirin or the inaba girls from talking to Mokou. Why should they? The wild child of the Fujiwara clan kept her rage focused solely on Kaguya's person and took great pains to spare others from her wrath. The inaba actually liked her. A single inaba girl barring a path could keep Mokou away. Then again, it only took a single inaba girl to gossip about what had happened in the courtyard during the festival. "Why do you care? Your family isn't involved."

"I won't let you run away from your duty."

"If marriage is the duty of a noblewoman, why are you still a spinster?"

Mokou yelped and chewed on her lip, biting back more than words. Her cheeks matched her pants and her name; scarlet. Turning her cheek, she coughed. "Who are the unlucky men this time?"

"Just one. Yori Motoori."

Mokou whistled through her teeth. "The printer's son with the broad shoulders and the soft hands? You gave him all five?" Her smile turned into a predatory leer as she ran her hands down her sides. "You know, if you don't want him, you could just send him my way."

"NO!"

Kaguya rushed forward and seized Mokou by the lapels. The pale-tressed woman stared at her quivering, wide-eyed rival. Behind the princess, an unsheathed knife thumped into the tatami mat. Kaguya paid it no mind; she couldn't hear anything over the blood rushing in her ears.

The two rivals stood frozen, an image of reflected fear sculpted in alabaster. Finally, with a gentleness she found unfamiliar, Mokou took Kaguya's hands and pried them off of her shirt, finger by finger. "Good night, Princess. Sleep well. I won't kill you in the morning."

Kaguya stood riveted to the tatami mat at her feet while her mouth and her mind struggled to meet. As Mokou climbed up onto the windowsill, the exiled princess finally found her voice. "Where did that come from?"

Mokou crouched on the narrow ledge and looked back over her shoulder. "There isn't anything I can do to you now that compares to what you're doing to yourself." She winced and lifted her foot long enough to pull a lock of hair from under her boot. "All I have to do is sit back and watch."

"Stay out of my life," Kaguya snapped.

"Keep your promises." Mokou leaped out into the courtyard.

Kaguya flourished a spellcard in her hand and dashed towards the window. The slim card shone as she whipped her arm back, but out in the last dregs of the party, the Drunken Avian Youkai Choir clustered around Mokou.

"Show me the way to go home. I'm tired and I want to go to bed." The songbirds tugged on Mokou's arms and dragged her toward the Bamboo Forest of the Lost. Since the moon inaba was out helping another set of guests through the forest, Mokou was the only guide left who could take them home.

The card fizzled in the princess's hand. Mokou wasn't the only one to keep others out of their bloody game. Kaguya reached out and slammed her window shut. Sighing, she shuffled off towards her bed. Hopefully, Eirin hadn't sold the last of her Butterfly Dream Pills to that doll of a puppeteer.


Inside the Suzunaan Lending Bookstore, a pint-sized tempest raged through the bookshelves, shattering the morning calm. Backing away as Kosuzu Motoori leaped on to the counter, Mamizou Futatsuiwa adjusted the leaf barrette in her hair. It would be a disaster if her human guise fell away, especially while the bookseller's daughter stormed about like a Fury.

"…I know that you're familiar with the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter; you're the one who first read it to me." Kosuzu stood on her perch and planted her fists on her hips. The preteen towered above her brother, a broad-shoulder young man busy packing a heavy rucksack. "Yori, look at me!" she shrieked.

Mamizou managed to cover both her visible human ears and her invisible tanuki ones with her hands. Not for the first time since Yori Motoori dropped his bombshell on his family did the disguised tanuki wonder how someone so small could create a shrill, harrowing scream.

Yori rolled his eyes and dropped a heavy journal into his rucksack. "Are you done acting like a child?"

"You know those requests are impossible-"

The bookmaker's son shoved a bundle of clothes into his sack. "They aren't."

"Are you so blinded by this Kaguya that you can't see reason?" Mamizou shook her head. Kosuzu had yet to learn that such words would only stoke Yori's determination. She wasn't about to say anything, however. One wrong word and the tanuki woman might have to gnaw off her leg just to escape the feud.

Yori stood up and glared at his sister. "They aren't impossible. The stone bowl of the Buddha, the Jeweled Branch of Hourai, and the Fire Mink's Robe? Kaguya used them to power her spell cards during that weird moon night a while back."

"Whoever told you that was lying," Kosuzu said.

"It was Reimu."

Kosuzu's eyes flashed wide before she coughed and turned up her nose at her brother. "Well it seems like a lot of work for some floozy who stuck her chest out at you."

It was Yori's turn to grow red. It was tough being a breast man in Gensokyo. The entire village knew about the day when he had followed Patchouli Knowledge around after one of the librarian's rare visits to the village. Her friend, Meiling Hong, had tried to scare him away, but he had transferred his puppy love to the more statuesque guardswoman. Mamizou still couldn't fathom the attraction or why human females bothered to keep their mammaries when they weren't nursing, unlike any proper mammal. "It's not like that. Her eyes-"

A mischievous sparkle lit up Kosuzu's eyes while she laughed. "What color are they?"

Yori rolled his eyes. "Dark brown."

"Well..." Kosuzu huffed. The little bookseller glanced over to Mamizou. The disguised tanuki gave a slight nod. "Why her? Why not someone else like Mamizou?" She pointed towards the tanuki.

Mamizou's already strained smile slipped. If she were human, Yori might well be a choice for her mate. The gentle printer certainly made a better match than the longshoremen, roughnecks, and dissidents of her homeland. She'd leave loving human males to the fox maidens, just like a tanuki should. While he would make some lucky human girl a fine match, Yori couldn't compare with the tanuki men of Sado. He didn't have a tail, to begin with. Admitting that, however, would be as disastrous as removing her leaf barrette. Kosuzu still didn't know that Mamizou wasn't human.

"This isn't like those romance novels that you sneak up to your room when Dad's not looking," Yori said.

Mamizou's smile returned. So that's how Kosuzu hid her beloved youkai books. "Love at first sight doesn't happen to everyone."

"It happened to him." Kosuzu pointed at her brother. "Why couldn't he have picked someone I like?"

"I don't recall you ever getting a vote." Yori closed his rucksack and cinched the straps tight. He frowned and tied up the dangling ties and straps. "And it's not like I got much of one either."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll find out when you grow up."

Mamizou shook her head and watched the brother and sister fight. This was her fault. She had noticed that Kosuzu had grown more secretive than usual. Then matchmaking books had appeared in the Suzunaan's shelves. After Kosuzu had started talking about being sisters with Mamizou, the tanuki had discerned the bookseller's plan. She had to entangle him in a relationship before plucky little Kosuzu enacted her matchmaking schemes.

She had tried to steer Yori towards a number of girls at the Lunar Festival, but certain realities kept cropping up. Reimu refused to look at any man until after she had her dowry built up. Alice's insistence on playing with dolls made her seem childish in potential suitors' eyes, even though the girl could have been an exotic model on the Outside. As a maid, Sakuya was too low in status to marry the future head of the Printer's Guild. The noble Lady Akyuu had the opposite problem. No man in the in the village would consider Marisa for anything besides a fling, but all feared the consequences of trying the old Pump and Dump on her. Letty would just kill him outright; snow women like her found most men clingy and obsessed, but hand one a pry bar and she'd swing it like a club. Only Keine had seemed receptive to a young man of modest means but strong potential, but before Mamizou could introduce Yori to her, Kaguya had walked by.

He had been poleaxed the first moment he had seen her. Grace, glamour, and mystery had hooked him when girlish enthusiasm and Mamizou's own worldly sophistication had not. But unlike the other young men rendered mute by her presence, he had walked up and spoke with Kaguya.

Mamizou had watched from a distance, ready with a liter stein to commiserate and a suggestion to court the teacher instead. She had almost spewed her own beer when Kaguya's cheeks had matched her dress. She outright choked on her drink when all five Impossible Requests from the fairy tales returned, spoken by a woman who could not meet her suitor's eyes.

Mamizou recognized what Kaguya was doing; she had used the technique herself. How had Nue indelicately put it? "You must be at least this awesome for my ride." Either the princess wanted to be left alone, or she was holding out for a standard of perfection that the gods would have difficulty matching. In Sado, the tanuki elders would have pulled a woman as picky as Princess Kaguya aside and disabused her of her pretensions. But Kaguya had been indulged since birth.

Yori scooped up the rucksack and slung it over his shoulders. "Tell Mom and Dad that I'm sure I'll see them around. Gensokyo's not that big, after all." He reached out and ruffled his hand through Kosuzu's hair.

His sister shrieked and batted at his hand. "I hate it when you do that."

"I know. Mind the store for me; I won't be gone long." Yori looked at the shelves and his eyes narrowed. "And don't use this as an excuse to make the romance section any larger. It's already half the store."

"Don't expect your sports manga section to be here when you get back."

"I expect I'll have other concerns. Later, sis." The little bell on the door jingled as he stepped outside. Kosuzu rushed to the window and waved frantically. Yori turned and waved once before starting his journey with his head held high.

Through the glass in the door, Mamizou watched Yori walk down the road and shook her head. She slipped back into the Suzunaan's shelves.

Kosuzu climbed out of the store's window and dropped in front of Mamizou. "How long have you been pining for Yori?" She looked up at her idol, starry-eyed.

Mamizou fixed a smile on her face. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"There's no need for secrets between us girls," Kosuzu said. Mamizou bit back a laugh; she knew that Kosuzu was sheltered, but if she believed that, the book seller needed to get out from her beloved books more often. "So when did you know he was the One?"

"You might want to lay off the romance novels."

"I only keep them around for Lady Akyuu's 'research.'" Kosuzu giggled and grabbed Mamizou's hand, dragging the older woman towards a table. A steaming teapot sat it the corner, surrounded by simple earthenware mugs. "For situations like this one, I have my great-grandmother's matchmaking journals."

A chill ran down Mamizou's spine. "Really, there's no need." She suddenly realized where Kosuzu's love for youkai books came from. Mamizou hoped those journals didn't have the same power as Kosuzu's normal faire. The last thing she needed was for some ancient busybody to reach out from the page for one last triumph.

"Don't worry." Kosuzu pushed her friend into a chair and poured tea into the cups. She had none of the elegance or ceremony of Lady Akyuu or even Reimu; Kosuzu's training in the traditional feminine arts had been delayed by the needs of her family's business. "Yori will stop chasing his floozy as soon as he realizes I'm right. In the meantime, we'll plan. Great-grandmother recommended lots of time together with little else to do."

That sounded like a recipe to make children to Mamizou's ears, not a marriage, but she hid her thoughts behind a practiced smile. As Kosuzu detailed increasingly complicated and implausible schemes, Mamizou's pulse quickened. The arms of the bookseller's trap were closing faster than she had realized.


Ran Yakumo sat in the middle of a field of red and white flowers and endured the luxury of a morning's silence. On most mornings in Mayohiga, Yukari's snores or Chen's caterwauling interrupted the fox woman's meditations. Out in the field, the devout fox maiden should have found it easier to concentrate. But as the breeze swirled through the fur on her tails, Ran could not detach from the world around her. It was a two part silence, or so the latent poet thought of it. Beneath the normal quiet lay the patient skin-crawling silence of a woman waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She put the odds of trouble at a certain one hundred percent. Chen had slipped away during the Lunar Festival. Ran could have summoned her at any time, but dealing with a surly Doomkitten was almost always more trouble than letting her run wild. Until Chen dragged trouble back home to Mayohiga, the fox would practice her breathing meditations and seek serenity in the morning light. Maybe she would finally let go of the dread teasing her mind.

The vixen closed her eyes just enough to block out the distractions flying through the field but not enough to tempt sleep. She slowed her breathing and concentrated on the moment. An easy four-count breathing pattern spiraled into complex calculations including the width of the Sanzu River and the depth of the Avici hell before the cares of the world sloughed away.

"Let me go!"

Ran's eyes snapped open and her silky tails swished through the flowers. For a moment, she saw two specks against the horizon but after she rubbed her eyes, only one remained. The grey blur drew closer in a twirling mass of mewling until two mouse ears poked out. Ran shook her head. Not this again.

"In the name of Bishamonten and Avatara Toramaru, release me."

The vixen pursed her lips into a moue of distaste. Not only would Ran have to chant the proper sutras and leave offerings with Abbess Hijiri to settle the disharmony between fellow Buddhists, she'd have to pick up Avatara Shou Toramaru's bar tab for the night. To Abbess Hijiri's stern disapproval, the tiger woman's taste for top-shelf liquor was only exceeded by her capacity to put it away.

"Look what the cat dragged in." Chen pranced in front of Ran, holding high a grey mouse girl taller than the Doomkitten. The mouse squirmed and thrashed in the kitten's arms. "Isn't she perfect?"

Ran scowled at the mouse girl. A diviner, if the oversized dowsing rods on the girl's back weren't for show, yet the vixen could sense another power inside. "She might be too much for you. Maybe I should take care of her."

The mouse girl froze at the sight of the stern fox. A sputtering shriek keened from her lips. Chen covered her ears and dropped her prize. But before the mouse could dash away, Ran leapt forward and grabbed her shoulders.

The mouse spun around. "I'm sure I taste horrible. You want the girls down at the village. They spend all day gorging on corn. I'm sure they'd taste better. I warn you, if you eat me, you'll be calling a mess of trouble down on your heads." She froze again and shrank away from the fox.

Ran stopped smiling, or at least hid her teeth behind upturned lips. "I'm not going to eat you. I prefer poultry."

"And fried tofu." Chen tackled the mouse around her waist, jolting her free from Ran's grasp. Both cat and mouse staggered through the flowers. "Can I keep her?"

The mouse tore at the kitten's hands. "I'm not a pet."

Ran massaged her eyes and groaned. "She wants a familiar, not a pet."

"And a familiar for her as well." Chen snuggled her cheek against her captive's. "Just like Ran."

The mouse toppled over, pulling Chen down with her. Pursing her lips, Ran hurried over to the trembling pile of limbs and tails. She reached down, but stopped when she heard laughter. The little mouse wiped her eyes and pushed against the cat on her back.

"Let her up, Chen." Ran knelt in front of the mouse. "What's so funny?"

"I am Avatara Toramaru's servant. Your friend has good taste, but she'll need to look elsewhere." The grey girl squirmed in her seat. Her tail rippled and twitched as she tugged at Chen's two-handed grip. "Let me go."

"Show our guest the proper courtesy," Ran said.

"I did bring her to meet you," Chen said. Ran turned and leveled a glare at her familiar. The Doomkitten sighed and let the mouseling go. "Alright."

A grey blur dashed through the red and white flowers. The Doomkitten bounded after her, hot on the mouse girl's heels.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ran held out a thumb against her middle finger. With a single snap, the fox maiden could summon Chen back, even if it meant dealing with a moody Doomkitten pouting for the rest of the day.

"I'm going to make a deal with Avatara Toramaru. If that doesn't work, maybe Mousey has a sister," Chen yelled over her shoulder.

Not for the first time since Yukari had given her permission to take a familiar, Ran wished she had chosen a dog instead. She lowered her arm and watched grey and orange streak out of sight. At least she could console herself that Avatara Toramaru loved quality liquor. Not only did it make matching shots with the insatiable tiger bearable, it made waking up the next morning easier. And she really believed that those grapes in that old fox's fable were actually sour, too.

Ran sat back down and closed her eyes until they were slits once more. It took focus to pare away the jumbled cloud of thoughts now that Chen had added a fresh layer of complications, but the fox managed it by concentrating on her breathing. For fifteen minutes, the vixen's world condensed into the coolness of air rushing in through her nose, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, the prickly sweetness of flowers in bloom, and the dusty char of ash. "What do you want?"

A shadow fell in front of Ran's eyes. "I want to talk to you."

Ran opened her eyes. Lady Mokou Fujiwara stood in front of her, blocking out the sun. "'Desire leads to suffering,'" the vixen quoted.

The pale-tressed immortal laughed. "Good. I'm looking to spread a little of both around."

Lady Ran Yakumo unfolded to her full height, her golden tails crowned around her like a fiery aura. "We will not be dragged back into your murderous games." Granted, the fiery phoenix girl had been the victim when Kaguya had tricked Reimu and Yukari into trying to kill her during the Moon incident. While the immortal had gotten better, it was common knowledge that she lived for payback.

"If I wanted her blood, I could have had it forty times today." Mokou knelt down and picked a small bouquet. "My family owes her a debt. A wedding, to be precise."

"I fail to see how that is Lady Yakumo's concern." Ran turned up her nose and walked away.

"I think it might be yours." Mokou arranged the flowers into a crown and slipped it on her head. "How odd that a beast like you would be a follower of the Enlightened One."

"Odder still that one higher on the Scala Natura would not. Good day, Lady Mokou."

Mokou stamped after Ran in those heavy boots that the disgraced noblewoman turned forest scout favored almost as much as those ridiculous pants she wore. "You know, I've often wondered why you haven't made an attempt to get it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I thought you had seen it. Or didn't your master tell you about it?"

"Speak plainly or take your leave."

"The Buddha's stone bowl."

Ran stopped and doubled over, shaking with laughter. "You came all this way to speak of fairy tales."

"Take care. What you call fairy tales, I call my life." A blast of hot air rolled off of the prickly noble.

"O Venerable Great-Grandmother," Ran smiled and her voice took on the sing-song lilt of her master at play. She brought her hands together until the flowing sleeves hid both and bowed to Mokou. "Certainly your own great-grandmother wasn't even a twinkle in her ancestor's eye when the Enlightened One sat under his tree." The vixen slipped spell cards into her palms.

"If you were around when Kaguya was making her stupid demands, she would have called for your fur instead of that fire mink's."

Ran's smile vanished. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"

"No."

"Then, if you'd excuse me, I do." The kitsune familiar turned away.

Mokou threw back her head and laughed. "You've been housebroken. I'd hoped to find a mastermind trickster, not a tamed Inari fox."

Ran growled and crushed the spell cards in her hands. She wanted to wrap her hands around Mokou's throat and feel the crunch of bones in her teeth. Even in her rightful form, much was demanded of a thousand year old fox, but more when she was in human guise. No vixen with nine tails could afford to run around like a troublesome kit just weaned from her mother. The Enlightened One's breathing exercises forced down the baying kit within.

"You're good." Mokou whistled and planted her hands on her hips. "But you still feel it. The veneer of culture only hides it, but the beast wants to be free."

Ran's eyes narrowed and she snorted a quick breath. "How would you know?"

"Beasts aren't the only ones who go feral." A shadow fell across the ancient noblewomen's face. "Let the trickster run free, and you can have the Buddha's bowl. I need a mastermind; this will require subtlety and I'm only good at direct."

"I suppose you want the Fire Mink's Robe?"

"I want her Lunar Veil. A treasure for the kid, her veil for me, and the bowl for you."

Ran stared at her and sniffed. Mokou hid it well, but even the firebrand couldn't cover her smell. "If we're going to be partners, shouldn't you level with me?'

"I meant it when I said that I owe Kaguya a wedding. There's a young man that she's laid her Impossible Requests upon. I just want to level the playing field and make sure she cannot escape. Maybe I'll give the veil to you as a bonus. I don't care either way just as long as Kaguya doesn't have it."

"What do I get?" Chen popped up between Ran and Mokou. The immortal phoenix girl shrank away from the bouncing Doomkitten.

"Nothing," Ran snapped. She grabbed her familiar's shoulders and pulled her close. "I thought you were chasing your friend."

Chen looked straight up into Ran's eyes. "Mousey ran really fast, so I was going to have a cat to cat talk with Avatara Toramaru, but I saw Miss Mokou heading towards you. I wanted to make sure she didn't try to hurt you." Her tails lashed out and flicked the hem of Ran's robe. "But she wouldn't if she's offering you a bowl. I don't understand why; you're already Auntie Yukari's-"

Rolling her eyes, Ran slid her hand over her kitten's mouth, but she only muffled the stream of questions.

Mokou smiled and scratched the Doomkitten's ears. "So are you a pampered Inari fox or a kitsune?"

The Doomkitten squirmed out of Ran's grasp. "She's a kitsune!" Ran clamped her hand over Chen's mouth again.

Mokou pulled her hand away. "Really? I thought I had found a shrinemaiden's pet." Her eyes went wide with the same feigned innocence that Ran saw on Yukari's face when her master tried to be clever. "Reimu would be thrilled. Inari's blessing would mean so much for her shrine."

Ran bit her lip. She was not like her wastrel sister who sat in shrines and played as goddesses for food offerings. Inevitably, the proud fox maidens became simple pets, indistinguishable from the skulking curs begging for table scraps. Yet the light yoke Yukari had set on her shoulders felt like the jeweled collar of the Inari foxes. Obedience might be a familiar's source of strength, but the wild kit deep within howled to be set free. Despite desire and suffering, sometimes the beast had to slip its leash.

"I'll do it." Underneath Ran's hand, Chen bounced and squealed. "But Chen stays out of it." To Mokou's visible amusement and Ran's longsuffering exasperation, the Doomkitten pouted and grumbled underneath Ran's hand.