"Marisa. Marisa, open the door."

The door to Marisa's cottage was made of heavy, weathered wood, and it barely shook under each blow of Patchouli's fist. Flying here had taken its toll on her, and the pollen-filled Spring air wasn't helping. Already, the exertion of pounding on the door was leaving her breathless, and it hadn't budged.

Patchouli stopped to consider her options. Marisa could be out. In that case... there were other ways to do this. She did have an unlocking cantrip on hand, and it would only be fair turnabout if she were to break into Marisa's house for a change.

Yes, that would do. She frowned in concentration for a moment, then raised one hand to the lock. Shimmering magical circles etching themselves into the air around it, and an electric shiver ran through her body as arcane force gathered...

… and the door swung open before the spell was complete. Marisa stood in the doorway, a bit unlike Patchouli had ever seen her: Hair even more of a mess than usual, and only wearing an undershirt and a pair of puffy white bloomers. The mortal magician yawned and rubbed one eye, while the other struggled to focus on her. "Mmh? Patchy? What's up?"

Patchouli stared in disapproval at the sorry display in front of her. "You were sleeping at four PM," was the first thought to almost reach her lips, but that wasn't important. "... you stole a book from me yesterday. The Librum Tenebris. I want it back."

"Did I...?" Marisa mumbled sleepily, then leaned against the doorframe and scratched her butt. "... ohhh, the black one?"

"Yes. The black one," Patchouli said, with only the slightest bit of scorn to her voice. Leave it to Marisa Kirisame to refer to a book containing eons of hard-earned eldritch secrets as 'the black one.' Without asking, Patchouli stomped past her into the cottage. Or tried to stomp, at least. She was a bit too out of breath to pull it off. 'Shuffled angrily,' maybe.

As soon as she was inside, Patchouli froze. It was the first time that she'd ever seen the inside of Marisa's cottage, and it was... an experience. A shelf next to the door was overfilled with contents—a quick glance found three broken umbrellas, a dull rock that Patchouli recognized as meteorite ore, the wrong half of a broken sword, a cracked clay pot full of willow twig bundles, six dirt-smudged books in a stack, a jar of sand, some kind of hanging vine that had devoured half of the shelves, a burlap sack full of dried mushroom caps, a loose pile of metal shavings, nineteen gray stones with some kind of runes etched on them, a quill that appeared to be stuck to the shelf with dried ink, a slightly rusted metal lunchbox from the outside world, a dusty photograph of somebody's feet, a glass eye, a pile of dried herb bunches, a geode, a loop of ragged violet cloth that was tied in a bow, a single ten-yen coin, a tangled ball of twine, and a busted sewing machine.

And from her vantage point, the entire cottage looked like that. Half the walls had similarly overfilled shelves against them, and other things that looked like walls were just carefully-stacked piles of books, signs, weapons, and who-knew-what-else. She stood agape for a moment, just staring at the mess and weighing the odds of actually finding anything in here, until Marisa closed the door and walked in ahead of her. "I'm just borrowin' it for a bit, you know," she said. "Give it fifty or sixty years, tops, and I'll die and you can have it back."

"I don't care. I need it for my studies this week. Where is it?"

"Jeez, I dunno. Um..." Marisa buried her hand in a nearby pile, then fished out a book and blew off a layer of dust. Not the one, apparently. She looked around the place, scratching the back of her head thoughtfully. "Well, I'm not sure where I put it down. If you can find it, I guess you can take it back."

"How generous of you." Patchouli picked a path through the loose items and inspected one of the walls of books. She was surprised to find that many of them hadn't been stolen from the library. ... those that were, she could come back for later. She wasn't prepared to haul dozens of books back to the mansion right now.

One particularly promising-looking black book peeked over the upper limits of the pile. Patchouli strained up on her tiptoes, then jerked it off of the top of the stack and looked at the cover. Not hers.

"Uh, Patchy..."

Marisa's urgent tone made Patchouli look up, just in time to see the wall of books collapse toward her. Fortunately, she'd been in plenty of fights since moving to Gensokyo, and self protection was instinct by now. Before she even really realized what was going on, her hand whipped up, and a protective barrier formed in front of her.

The wave of books crashed down against the barrier and tumbled around it on both sides. The thick layer of dust that had been clinging to them rose into the air, filling the room with a brown-grey cloud, and the pair hurried toward the door, coughing too violently to speak. Marisa flung it open, while Patchouli tripped on something and stumbled the last few steps before flopping to the ground outside.

"Hehe. Whew! I haven't had that happen in a while," Marisa said with a laugh as she waved some dust away from her face and took a breath of fresh air. Only once she'd gotten her own breath back did she notice that Patchouli was still hunched over on the ground, coughing even more violently and straining for air. "... er, are you okay?"

Patchouli raised her head and struggled to speak in between the coughs, then managed to gasp, "A-asthma."

Being helped to her feet and carried back into the house by Marisa easily ranked as one of the most embarrassing moments of Patchouli's long and accomplished life. The human led her into the bedroom and lowered her to the messy bed, and Patchouli slumped down on her side. The exertion of the ten-meter walk was enough to leave her breathing in short, wheezing gasps.

Marisa shifted from foot to foot anxiously, totally uncertain what she was supposed to do in this kind of situation. "Uh. Do you need some... water, or... whatever?"

"N-no." Back at the mansion, Patchouli had several remedies on hand for this sort of thing, everything from medication imported from the outside world to drugs purchased from Eientei. Not that it did her any good now. She wasn't about to send Marisa to retrieve some unless the attack got worse. She was indebted enough to the thief as it was.

"Okaaaay. Well. Uh." Marisa thought for a moment, then opened the window above the bed to let a little more fresh air in. "I'll just... let you catch your breath for a while. I'll check in on ya in a bit."

Patchouli closed her eyes with a grumble and tried to just focus on her breathing. She could hear Marisa walk out of the room and ease the door shut, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Even laying down like this, she still felt lightheaded... this one could take a while to pass.

Outside, Patchouli could hear Marisa rummaging through the piles of her belongings. Probably looking for the book. It was always like this. Marisa would sneak past Meiling, dispel magical wards that must have taken her weeks to decipher, and duel Sakuya, all to steal a single book, but as soon as Patchouli confronted her about it, the girl would hand it over with only a token resistance.

It was annoying. Or... frustrating. Infuriating. It seemed like a game to Marisa, just like everything else. Patchouli knew that she had talent. Anybody who could control all ten separate arcane foci needed for that spellcard she was shamelessly calling Non-Directional Laser these days was obviously talented with magic, but she still approached it like a child playing with toys. She would steal a new spell or casting technique, produce half a dozen variations of it in a single day, and then move on to the next thing, never stopping to analyze her findings or fine-tune her results or... it made Patchouli's head hurt just thinking about it, and she forced herself to focus on something else.

Her brooding was interrupted by Marisa peeking her head in the door. "Feeling better?"

"Slightly." Patchouli's breath still rattled in her chest, and she went into a brief coughing fit from speaking.

"Nifty. I figured I should peek in to make sure you hadn't, you know. Died or anything."

"Mmh."

"So, uh..." Marisa rubbed at the back of her head. "Is there anything you need?"

"No."

"Well, I'm gonna have some tea. Want some?"

Patchouli took a moment to consider this... and to catch her breath, since three words was still a bit more than her lungs could handle. She got the feeling that if she said no again, Marisa would just keep offering accommodations until she accepted something. "... okay."

"Great, great, it'll be just a second." Marisa felt along the wall until she found a peg by the door, where the mini-Hakkero was hanging by a leather strap, then tugged it off and walked back out. Patchouli could hear her rummaging around again, and when she returned, she was carrying a slightly battered kettle in one hand and a teapot in the other. She pushed a small pile of knickknacks aside to make room on top of her dresser, then adjusted the mini-Hakkero, sat it down, and rested the kettle on top of it.

It took Patchouli a moment to realize what she was seeing. The mini-Hakkero, a magical reactor of near-infinite potential, something that could drive her own research for years... and Marisa was using it to boil water. It was like the girl was trying to infuriate her.

Once everything had been mixed and steeped, Marisa strained the tea and poured the contents into two mismatched cups, a normal yunomi and a chipped porcelain teacup. The teacup, she kept for herself, while she sat the yunomi on the nightstand next to the bed. Patchouli pushed herself upward, and was pleased to find that she could sit without becoming entirely light-headed, although it still left her slightly hunched-over and taking short, shallow breaths.

"How often does this kinda thing happen?"

"Once every..." Patchouli paused and took a wheezing breath. "... every few weeks."

"Huh. That sucks."

Marisa propped herself against the wall, and the two sat in companionable silence as they drank. Patchouli was half-expecting to taste... mushroom, or a potion, or some other unwholesome addition, but was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a simple green tea. The warmth seemed to help her breathing a little, at least.

Patchouli was the one to finally break the silence. "Why do you steal books?"

It was a short enough question, but started another brief coughing fit, and Marisa eyed her worriedly. "I already told ya, I'm just borrowing 'em."

"'Borrow,' then."

"Hmm." Marisa shrugged. "I've gotta get them somewhere, don't I? The bookstores in the village have a pretty crappy selection... except Suzunaan, but you know."

"If you had asked to borrow them, I might have said yes. Even when we first met..." Patchouli trailed off as dizziness threatened to overtake her, and forced herself to pace her words a little more carefully. "... you were a... promising magical student."

"What, you're saying you would've taken me on as your apprentice if I'd asked? I would've drove you crazy in the first week."

"... perhaps." Patchouli sat her now-empty cup aside and slid down on the bed a little more. "But you did not ask."

The silence returned. Marisa took several minutes to finish up her own cup, then sat it aside and hefted herself up to sit on the dresser. Surprisingly enough, the furniture supported her weight without protest. "Well... maybe, I don't really wanna learn right from somebody else anyway. I wanna figure out how stuff works by myself."

"... it would take you longer than a mortal lifetime to master the..." Patchouli took a strained, wheezing breath. She knew that she should really just stop talking, but this somehow felt important. "... concepts of magic... like that."

"'Master the concepts of magic,' huh?" Marisa laughed and pulled her shirt up to scratch at her stomach. "I didn't know I was planning to do that. Is this the 'you should become a youkai magician' talk? I already got it from Alice, y'know."

"What?"

"Eh, you know. She keeps saying I should start doing all the research for the rituals to become a youkai magician."

"... do you not intend to?"

"Nah." Marisa leaned back on the dresser and pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged on it. "I've seen how you n' Alice live. All that studying and stuff. Magic's fun, but I've got other things to do too. You know. Drinking, youkai hunting, dates, treasure hunting, exploring... I'm gonna do all of it." She grinned. "You guys act like you want to live just to explore magic, and that's pretty neat, but I wanna... I dunno. I'm busy enough being me right now. Besides, I like being healthy. If I messed with all those crazy poisons you guys experiment with, I'd be too sick to do all the other stuff I want."

Patchouli... did have to admit that she didn't used to have such debilitating asthma attacks before she'd started using carbon black as a reagent. But still. "You intend to allow yourself to die, then."

"I guess it'll happen, huh? But I'm not gonna worry too much about it."

Patchouli felt dizziness overtake her again, although this time, it had nothing to do with her breath. For somebody with Marisa's talent to allow herself to die so easily... it was just another example of her squandering her skills, although in an even more severe fashion than Patchouli had realized. Everything, everything else, was a symptom of this, Marisa's deranged intention to allow herself to die.

… there were tears in Patchouli's eyes, and she wasn't sure why, but they had nothing to do with her asthma.

She couldn't let Marisa see her like that, and rolled onto her side to make it harder to see her face. "I would... find it preferable if you didn't."

"What, if I didn't die?" Marisa chuckled. "Well, I guess I could always change my mind sometime later. But that's the plan for now. I don't really know if I want the immortality thing, though. … the way I see it, you youkai magicians can live practically forever, right? So compared to that, a normal human livin' seventy or eighty years... that's nothin'. It's the blink of an eye.

"Like your lifespan, compared to a normal human's... it's like my lifespan, compared to that." She pointed at the sunbeam coming down from the window. The gentle circulation of air around the room was making the occasional leftover particle of dust float through it, each one catching the light for an instant before disappearing. "The dust, I mean. It disappears so fast, you forget it's even there. … I don't wanna be like that, living a kazillion years while all the normal people around me keep dying so fast."

Patchouli was surprised by hearing something almost thoughtful-sounding from Marisa, even if she still had a total lack of eloquence. She wasn't sure how to respond, but the witch continued anyway. "I guess that means I'm stuck as the dust, huh?" she asked with a laugh. "But if I'm only gonna be around for a second or two from your perspective, I'm gonna try to be the brightest damn piece of dust in the whole room while I'm around."

"That is... almost admirable."

"And when you breathe in the dust and have an asthma attack, that's like, that's when I'm stealin' your books and stuff, and—"

"... you are pushing the metaphor past its breaking point."

"Hehe, sorry. Got carried away."

Patchouli slowly pushed herself up to sitting again and dabbed her eyes dry, with her head hanged so Marisa hopefully couldn't get a clear look at them. She could breathe well enough to hold a conversation now, at least. "I don't think the metaphor is accurate to begin with, though."

"Huh? How d'you mean?"

"About human lives being so short that an immortal doesn't even notice them. I've read the memoirs of many immortal magicians from..." Patchouli was breathing rather more easily now, but still had to stop mid-sentence to take a deep breath. "... from the outside world. It is not uncommon for them to have their lives greatly impacted by mortals, even after millennia of living."

"Huh."

Patchouli stared at the rumpled bedsheets in front of her. She was still struggling to come to grips with the realization that she'd be sad if Marisa died. Crying over this, this book thief. This mortal that she'd known for a fraction of her lifespan. … this promising magician, the most alive person she'd ever met, the only regular social contact she'd had outside of Remilia and Sakuya in decades. It suddenly felt like there were a dozen things she needed to say to her, and she didn't even know how to put words to most of them.

But she knew how to start. "For example, I am... r-reasonably certain that I will never forget you." Patchouli's voice cracked toward the end of the sentence, making her cough a few more times.

Thankfully, Marisa seemed oblivious that there was anything else going on. "Heh, well, thanks. Oh! And I found your book." She gave it an underhanded toss, and it landed on the bed in front of Patchouli with a bounce. "Go ahead and take it back with ya."

Patchouli stared at the book for a moment. She had almost forgotten why she'd come here. "... thank you."

"Heh, no problem." As Marisa spoke, she walked around the bed and picked up her clothes off the floor, then started pulling her dress on. "You look like you're getting better, so I guess I'll leave you alone. You can show yourself out, right? I've gotta run some errands in the village today, and I, uh, kinda overslept."

And now she was leaving. Patchouli needed more time to gather her scattered thoughts anyway, but she was suddenly aware that she had to say something else, something to get her another chance to talk to the girl soon. Marisa tugged her hat down onto her head and stepped toward the door, until Patchouli raised a hand to stop her. "I should warn you that... I will be removing all of the protective wards on the library tonight, so that I may re-cast them. If you break in, I will have no choice but to fight you myself. I will not go easy on you." She'd just sort of blurted it out, but that worked. … she could remove the wards easily enough.

"No wards?" Marisa struggled to hide a growing grin, and mostly failed. "Getting sloppy in your old age, huh?"

"Perhaps I am."

"Well, I'll keep that in mind. See ya!" With a chuckle, Marisa tilted her hat in farewell, then snatched her brook up and walked out of the cottage. Now left alone, Patchouli picked up her book, then took a deep breath. Her chest still felt a little tight, but she'd be okay for the flight home as long as she paced herself. And she needed to leave immediately... she had a guest coming tonight, and she needed to get ready.