And this is my latest attempt.
Hopefully, I actually carry this all the way to this end.
Thanks goes to Achariyth1 for running through this.
Happy Lunar New Year people.
Seiga was bored.
And that was a rather rare state given her...condition. When you live forever, patience follows quickly. Immortality needs a new mindset, one that encourages headlong runs into death and long ignorance of time.
Why she was bored, the hermit noted, was more pertinent.
Simply, she had little to do. Seiga's purpose in life was to advance her interests and Gensokyo hasn't been kind to her in that regard. Not that it was kind to begin with but the conditions here weren't the easiest to spread a new religion. A pair of heavily entrenched religions and 3 different factions were already around when the Taoists awoke from their slumber.
Granted, she had several almost successes but almost don't really count.
While the whole debacle from the recent religious battles did gained a few converts, the numbers was too few to support themselves. And a more aggressive approach may fall flat against the remaining population, who for reasons of devout belief or practicality, have already sided themselves.
Still, she decided that it wasn't all that different from when she first arrived on the shores of this land. Back then, it was just like this, two different beliefs pitted against each other, with her the upstart new herald.
Until she found Miko.
Converting the crown prince took some time and a wide array of her best flattery. In the end though, the cascade effect that she had hoped happen didn't, hence her current situation.
Back to square one.
And the crown prince seemed rather wary of her presence now. Seiga could hardly blame her. Her long rest meant that Miko earned a fresh perspective. That perspective led her to adopt a rather laid back lifestyle, something not conductive to gaining followers.
Living as someone's pawn during her mortal life could do that to people.
At least she got Yoshika, the hermit noted. Her cute underling,was dutiful and adorably slow in more ways then one. The hermit had seen parts of Yoshika's original personality surface when she wasn't under her control and mulled allowing it to appear under her control. It could add definitely some extra interaction to the Jiang Shi.
And activity in her life, the hermit added to herself, as she prodded a random knife, the result of her last attempt to allay boredom.
In an attempt to keep her busy, Seiga worked on what she called a 'return' service. Others might simplify it as being a thief but thieves rarely sell the thing they stole to the people who sold it in the first place. Surprisingly, that didn't pan out for her, the humans being rather unwilling to buy what she had. Youkai amusement and human morality rarely mixed well.
And so she was left with random pieces of whatever she had found in her abode. She could return whatever she taken to their original owners but that would be undoing whatever she done. How boring would that be. And of course, she got nothing to do afterwards.
The hermit sighed deeply. She could follow the usual route of random mischief that humans subscribe to Youkai in general. She could definitely fulfill all the criteria.
Seiga snorted. Look at her, reduced to common nuisance.
Perhaps she could go wonder around for a while, the hermit concluded. It was better than cocooning herself at home.
Grabbing her magic hairpin, the hermit sliced apart the floor below her and dove into the tunnel. The tunnel closed behind her with a lack of trace.
Cirno cradled the cup of shaved ice as she flew for home.
Once in a while, when she isn't proving her strength, the Strongest partakes in a mission to help those who need the Strongest. Maybe a rampaging horde of her kind or a rampant Red-White. And of course, at the end of every mission is a well-earned award.
The ice fairy knew she would enjoy this bowl of ice very well.
Meiling smiled as she watched Cirno fly back home. Fairies thought as young as they look and this one was no different, even with her relatively stronger powers and intelligence.
It was a simple task to ask the fairy to apply her powers. All Meiling had to do was make it a challenge for Cirno to answer the challenge with a burst of her powers, freezing the once hot cup of sweet tea into a frozen block. Then, it was a simple matter to smash the block into something resembling shaved ice and hold it with cups.
Savoring the taste of frozen sweetness, the gate guard happily spooned it off her cup with her finger and licked it. While the mansion was proficient in providing its staff with comforts, sometimes a little variety was needed.
"You could have just asked."
The gate guard spun at the remark, eyes wide, muscle memory bracing for a dull blade.
All she got was a wounded smile, as Sakuya watched her reaction slowly dissipate.
"But it is good to see you awake," the chief maid said.
"E-hehe. I wanted something cold." Meiling stuttered.
"Indeed," her superior noted as a knife appeared in her hand. The gate guard flinched and braced for the cold bite of metal.
When nothing happened yet again, she looked up to see Sakuya licking off some shaved ice on her knife. Meiling glanced down to see a perfect knife shaped grove in the ice.
" I think I got a new dessert for Milady, " the chief maid noted. "Keep up the good work." She quipped and disappeared.
Meiling paused as she realized that she wasn't stabbed. With a grin, the gate guard returned to finishing the cup.
Cirno hummed tunelessly as she set the cup on a table. The fairy flew around her surprisingly clean home as she looked for a spoon, none too concerned at the temperature.
All fairies had some sort of home which they slept. The Strongest knew that three of her former mortal enemies(and now allies) stayed together in a tree behind a Hakurei shrine. Her particular home was actually quite recently built, having been once destroyed by said allies.
That particular attack led the Strongest to prove herself in the Great Fairy War. She even managed to face off against the black-white and win, a feat that few can boast.
Kept at a fatal temperature by her mere presence and it's material, the snow house was a white anomaly in the greenery around the lake. Cirno had concentrated quite the amount of her power into her house to keep it up.
It also repelled all the usual small creatures. For the Strongest, it was a confirmation of her power, since nothing small dared to attack her in her home.
The idea that it was simply too cold for anything small to enter willingly never occurred to her.
The Strongest hummed again as she rummaged through her drawers. Dai-chan once showed her the benefits of a spoon and how much more she could enjoy with the utensil then a finger. Eagerly pushing aside what she didn't need, the fairy awaited cleaning the spoon of ice with her tongue.
And then she paused, as she checked the drawer once more. The spoon was missing.
In the future, when this particular event was examined, the majority conclusion was that it was a rare bout of Cirno thinking combined with poor timing that brought on the following events.
The Strongest paused as her mind arrived at the best answer, for a fairy at least. There could only be one reason for her missing spoon.
Someone sought to deny her reward.
Cirno snarled. No one had dared to wrong her since the Great Fairy War. The air turned into wisps around her as her hand clenched.
"I will find you!" She screeched into the air. "I will find you, wherever you are, and I will defeat you, just like I defeated the Black-White."
A pity someone heard it.
Seiga paused as she heard the words.
The yell had come out of nowhere and was incredibly faint. She could easily tell from the magical signature it was a fairy.
And such a boast was easily like a fairy, her knowledge told her.
The combination of childish mind and immortality meant that the beings were simply children. As such, they regarded everything like children. Winning to that fairy probably meant the human witch walking away.
A Youkai wouldn't even think making such a claim.
Still, it wasn't worth any interest. That fairy would probably forget her words before the hours was over. Her childish mind would latch on to something else.
As the hermit returned to tunneling through the ground, she paused.
A certain sense was tingling. The same sense that appeared when she first laid her eyes on Miko.
Fairies were poor converts, if you actually convert one in the first place. They would scramble whatever was taught to them. So that was off the list. But who said anything about conversion?
Fairies were, in a certain sense , insane. They would openly challenge who cross their path, get defeated, revive and start over again. Even if they won, they would simply challenge the next one until they were defeated.
They were nothing more than irritants and sources of amusement, if futile action was funny to a person.
Seiga had no doubt that even if she helped the fairy along her way, she wouldn't be able to do much. She was a fairy after all.
But at least, the hermit decided, it would be an answer to her boredom.
Turning to the fairy, the hermit prepared her best voice. One way or another, this would be fun.
"I agree."
The voice, out of nowhere, made Cirno start. Summoning an array of ice Danmaku, the ice fairy scanned the room.
"Please don't feel threatened. I'm here to help you."
The Strongest scanned again for the voice, creating more Danmaku.
"Where are you?" The fairy hissed.
"If I wanted to attack you, I wouldn't have spoke, would it?" The voice answered amusedly.
The Strongest stopped as she pondered the logic. Deciding that it made sense, the fairy straightened out of the stance, dissipating the Danmaku.
"What do you want?" Cirno questioned.
Seiga smiled. "I am a Voice of justice. I am here to help you."
"How do I know you aren't the enemy?"
The question made Seiga pause. That question wasn't something she expected from a fairy. It was...intelligent.
"Again, if I were, would I talk to you?"
Now a normal person might say yes to that question. But Cirno was a fairy and her earlier question was the limit of her thinking.
"Ok! So how will you help me Voice?" The ice fairy proclaimed.
Seiga smiled. She had the fairy. "I may not know your enemy but I am willing to help you. A helping Voice, to push you along."
And to keep you focused, the hermit thought. If she could keep the fairy squarely on target, she should run amok well enough.
And that gave her an idea.
"Before we search for your enemy, perhaps a title is in order?" The hermit proposed.
"I have one. The Strongest!"
How...fairy-like. Seiga considered. But it didn't fit into the idea that she has.
"Such a title isn't going to really bring the kind of power we are looking for. It needs some sort of...symbolism."
Symbo-what? Cirno wondered. She liked the Strongest. It was after all the Strongest. What else would she need?
"I'm thinking of something else. Something that would bring the magnitude of this incident."
Mag-what? The fairy thought. This voice were using words that made her head spin. The Strongest focused on that last word.
"Incident? Only the Red-White can use that." She said. Incidents only happened when the Red-White said so, the fairy thought.
"Oh really? And who said so? An incident is when something is wrong, not when someone says so. Isn't your problem an incident?" Seiga prodded.
Cirno shook her head as she thought about those words. It made sense and the fairy couldn't disagree to it.
"So what will be the Strongest's new title?"
Seiga smiled wide. This was shaping up to be rather entertaining.
"How about...The Ice Maiden?"