Gensokyo Dreams of What Could Be: Chapter 1; Part I
China blue eyes scanned their surroundings. Enveiling the sky, a pink and gold sunset was on the horizon. Alice Margatroid brushed away her flaxen, short hair away from her face, which held a somber expression. Shanghai and Hourai faithfully hovered at the girl's sides. With her leather-clad Grimoire clutched tightly in her hand, Alice nodded at the redheaded gatekeeper, whom, with a wary glower, allowed the lonely puppeteer into the Scarlet Devil Mansion. As she passed the gates, and turned the two brass knobs, she was suddenly deterred
"What brings you here, Margatroid?" demanded the head maid Sakuya. "The young mistress is busy feeding and has no time for your irrelevant and abrupt disturbances," she added as a matter-of-fact.
Alice candidly replied, "I have no qualms or business regarding with your mistress. I come here for a visit to the Voile Library. I must go ask for a book. Curiosity stirs well within my mind, but for now, should be kept secret."
Izayoi raised a brow. "Hm?" This was a queer inquiry for Margatroid. However, the maid did not get herself disturbed. The mistress was calling for pastries alongside her hapless human food and more importantly, his blood. Sakuya had no time to deal with Alice at the moment. Perhaps, later would be a better time. The maid huffed brusquely, "Well, just don't screw anything up and make a huge mess. The fairy maids are already working over-time since Flandre accidentally escaped." Sakuya simply rushed by, empty silver platter in hand.
"Huh." Alice shrugged and pointed her peach colored index finger towards the elaborately decorated staircase. She dashed to them, and assured herself that her beloved dolls were beside her. Then, at a more moderate gait, Alice strolled up three or four long flights of carpeted stairs. "The Persian carpeting and the mahogany carvings are lovely and exquisite, but to be blunt, they're a pain in the ass to climb," she complained.
The two flying dolls silently voiced their compliance with small nods. With a steady but unalarming rate of speed, she walked into the library, purple magic glowing up and opening the doors for her. Alice subconsciously outstretched a hand to a flash of violet light as she squinted her eyes from the sudden change of dim honey lighting to an outburst of electric purple.
In front of the puppeteer, stood the magician and librarian Patchouli Knowledge in only her poofy nightgown and nightcap .Pale alabaster skin glinted with diamond white light from the fading burst of magic. A feathery whisper gently flowed into Alice's ears, widening her bright blue eyes.
"Why do you come here?" asked Patchouli, her hands raised as she used a spell to set a book afloat and flip its pages. She did not seem interested in what Alice had to say-her poker face was just too perfect. Her face looked down at the book intently, blank amethyst eyes staring down, with flaps of dark colored skin circling them, showing signs of many, many sleepless nights.
Alice stammered, uneasy for an uncertain reason, "I would like to borrow a book on magical ventriloquism, please. I need a book about voodoo puppetry, to be specific."
"I see. Normally, I would have instinctively fought you in the style of using danmaku if you were to come in without notifying me first. However, I am too exhausted to do so and you actually asked nicely, unlike that thieving black-white witch. This is why I let you enter this place as often as you like. The book you want is The Sorcery of Animation and Ventriloquism in the Caribbean and Africa. You can find it in the S aisle. Please leave as soon as possible and the book is to be returned in two weeks."
"Thank you!"
Alice managed to stumble into the S aisle after getting lost and being prodded in the right direction by her two dolls and several flying books. She pushed a wooden stool nearby the shelf she wanted to pick a book from. Alice ascended the stool and picked an old, gold-piped book with a green, fuzzy binding. On the front was the title of the book she was looking for, all engraved in gold. "Aha!" Alice crossed her arms, nodded, and gave a half-smile. She ran to the librarian and showed it to her.
"Look, Patchy! I found the book!"
Patchouli put her pale hand on Alice's shoulder from the behind and said, "Good for you. Out you go."
Alice beamed and beckoned for Hourai and Shanghai to accompany her once more. "Come on!" She led her dolls out of the Voile Library and down the steps, with the voodoo book in her left hand, and her Grimoire in her right. She and her dolls exited the mansion and happily marched toward her humble abode.
Alice now held both books in her left hand and used the right hand to wipe the beads of sweat off her forehead. "It was so easy to get the book! I guess it was because I was being nicer than Marisa-san. And, they were probably very busy," she stated, while noting Sakuya and Patchouli from before. "But, phew! I was so nervous before! Usually, they're not very friendly to visitors. Actually, they still weren't but they were much more lenient, still!"
Being dolls, Shanghai and Hourai could not reply. They simply hovered and nudged her towards their home in the forest. "Oh, right!" Alice scurried into her home, Hourai and Shanghai following after the girl.
Immediately, when she managed to enter her house, alongside her two dolls, she put her books down on the living room's table and opened the window in order to cool herself down, being sweaty and overheated from running so much.
On the coat hanger there was a witch's hat. "So Marisa's here?" thought Alice. She commanded Shanghai and Hourai to check up stairs while she checked downstairs. In the magician's house, there was no one there but the owner and her dolls. "So she's not here." Alice went back into her bedroom so she could finish her latest dolls.
Taking a silver case with velvety covering on the inside, Alice plopped herself down on the quilt of her bed, it was decorated with geometric patterns colored a rather pretty dusk rose. She then got up and used twine handles to drag a light cedar wooden chest near the end of her bed.
Opening it, she took an adorable, stitched, voodoo copy of Marisa, with the proper black-white hat and dress. "This is the last one, I guess…" Alice murmured softly. She opened up her silver case, revealing that it was a sewing kit and took out a needle and some white thread. Alice incorporated the pearly-white gossamer beautifully with the finishing touches, the small silken sleeves of Marisa's dress. She gently laid the voodoo on her bed. Beside it, she herself laid on the bed, kicking her legs in boredom once she was finished repairing the doll. She peered at the chest near the foot of her bed and sighed in reminiscence.
"I made these dolls long ago for just play. They were ordinary dolls, just of the citizens of Gensokyo. But, recently, I learned that such dolls can be used for voodoo! I remember that voodoo can be used to kill and control people from another book I borrowed; I returned that just a month ago. However, I would never want to kill anyone. It would be fun to see how I could manipulate people though. So, I got the book for voodoo."
It was why she got the spell book, after all.
Alice took her Grimoire by the time Shanghai and Hourai returned from upstairs. They hovered, gave a little curtsy and silently signaled that Marisa wasn't there. She went into the living room of her house and took the book she had recently borrowed, and returned to her bedroom. She opened up to the Table of Contents, then proceeded to the thirteenth page. Alice took out all of the dolls in the chest and laid them in a circle, with her standing in the middle. She began to chant a few words, creating a green magic circle with ancient Western symbols and seemed as if she was casting a spell card:
"Surge et animatum, et possidebunt Gensokyo Psyche!"
The dolls faintly glowed the same green and for a few seconds, hovered in the air before falling down. Alice heard her stomach rumble. She didn't notice but before, and now, she was hungry from running to and from the SDM Mansion to her home. Alice carefully placed the enchanted dolls in the chest and locked it up tight. She left for the kitchen to cut an apple for herself. She rinsed the cut slices and put them on a small china plate and slowly walked back to her room.
Suddenly, her hair blew into her surprised face as a blur of black and white passed by. The sound of shattering glass was loud and very close. When Alice turned to the coat-hanger, Marisa's witch hat was gone.
She sprinted into her bedroom, but it was already too late. The wooden chest was gone. How Marisa chose what she wanted to steal, Alice didn't know. She just put down her plate of apple slices on her bureau, and with a furious scowl, clenched her fist tightly.
All the while, Alice heard an alto voice echoing throughout her house.