"OIIII!" A loud shout came from the distance, almost blending in with the sound of waves washing up next to the young girl in the water. "Oi! Over there, in the pink hat! Shit, are you dead?" Now the girl knew the voice was calling for her.
What seemed like hours ago, Remilia Scarlet had been flying peacefully over the ocean. She had snuck out, leaving her poor maid only a note, saying she always wondered what the ocean air smelled like. Now, she sat in her upturned parasol, floating on water, with as much of her small, pale body tucked under her hat and dress as possible. Sunlight crept up on the little vampires face when the waves spun her to face the sun, and it was all Remilia could do to turn her back to it as fast as possible. There was seemingly no land or ships on he horizon. But still, the voice called from behind her.
She ran into a small fairy, to whom she had asked for directions to the nearest island. The blue haired child told her that when someone is lost, the fairies had stunned their sense of direction. After a brief battle, Remilia fell fast toward the salt water. The ice fairy had shot an icicle straight through the other's bat-like wing easily, since Remilia was carrying a parasol in her hand and could not fight properly. After proclaiming that she was the strongest, and she had won, the blue child flew off, leaving the vampire stranded. "Hey! Can you hear me? Wave, shout, or hell, even shootat me if you can hear me, kiddo!"
As Remilia paddled herself in a small circle, she saw a large ship gliding up toward her. "How in the name of Kanako-" "Oi! Are you alright? You're bleeding like Hell's devil came and bit you in the ass!"
The annoyingly crude and mocking voice came from a girl atop the bow of the ship. One foot was in the ship, as he other was on the railing. The ship came to a slow stop right next to Remilia- who felt very small compared to it. "I can hear you, and my wound is just fine," she answered calmly. "You could have said so in the first place, for goodness sake," the sailor laughed. "Anyway, I'm gonna help you take care of that wing of yours." Before Remilia could deny help, the sailor was already reaching over the side of the ship, waiting for Remilia to take her hands. The princess slowly set her white palm in the strange girl's, and was hoisted up onto the deck. She watched the remains of her parasol sink in the blue. "So, kiddo, have you got a name?" "First," Remilia commanded, glaring right up at the taller kid, "I'll have you know I'm a vampire. I need shade, before I die." "Holy ghost! A real vamp!" The sailor bent down slightly and grinned in the lavender haired child's face. Her eyes reminded Remilia of the ocean she had just been saved from; a calm teal, but not as shallow as one might first see. "Well," the girl said as she took off her sailor hat and bowed. "I'm sure as hell honored to have you on the Holy Palaquin." She grinned as she led Remilia into the ship's bathroom, where the sun rays could not harm her, and she could clean the wing.
"So, little vampire child, do you happen to have a real name-" Remilia pointed directly at the sailor, her sharp fingernail almost slicing her nose. "You tell me your name first, as well as your species, age, captain, objective, and where you came from." "Shit! Calm down, kiddo! I'm not a creep! My name's Murasa. Murasa Minamitsu. I'm a-" "Halt. Why did you say your surname first?" Minamitsu blinked as the bossy child. "Anyway, I'm a ghost, I'm immortal, I sail around because I fucking can, and I'm from east of here." Remilia thought for a moment. "You never said who your captain was, Minamitsu. And why the surname first?" "Well, haha!" Minamitsu's black waves of hair bounced as she laughed. "Because I am the captain! And that's Captain Murasa to you, squirt!"
"You? Captain?" "That's right, kid! So, who are you?" Murasa motioned for the vampire to rest on a tall stool. "I am Princess Remilia Scarlet. I am a vampire, I'm also immortal, and I flew out to see the ocean. I come from Scarlet Devil Manor, in Gensokyo." Murasa took a damp rag and began to wipe off the dried blood from the wing. "Ah," she said, amusement clear in her voice. "They always come for the oceans, I tells ya. Then shit hits the fan and they lose their way. Promise you, though, I can get you home."
Remilia winced as she dabbed the wound with some alcohol. "Well thank you, but I can fly home myself."
The captain sighed and stepped in front of the stool, staring at the younger girl. "No, you can't. See, these damned oceans are disorienting. Once you think you know the way back- bam. The sun sets, and you follow he damn stars. But shit, when the sun comes back up, and it turns it's back on you, either you risk flying backwards to block it from your face, or you fly back here. I've been stranded out in the rough waters before, so fuck me if I don't know what it's like."
Somewhere through the whole speech, the captain had began to loom over the cowering vampire. Remilia imagined herself in that position and shivered. Murasa's loud, smartass voice had lowered to a deep, warning tone, as if daring her to press farther. Slowly, Remilia swallowed and sat back up straight, forcing the taller to back up. "I understand." "Great. So I'll sail you home, kiddo." The pale child watched as the sailor pressed a gauze bandage over the wound. In the middle of the gauze was a little anchor with the initials H.P. for the ship's name. "There you go, kiddo." "Captain Murasa, stop calling me a kid." "Alright... Rem."
So you can stay in this room, Rem. It's pretty damn nice, I mean, I used to use it back before I died-" Before Murasa could finish, Remilia was already jumping and bouncing on the mattress "I used to do that, too!" Remilia landed on the bed in a sitting position. "Captain, where are the other crewmen?" The sailor looked around. "Nazrin and Shou usually stay with Hijiri, and Hijiri said she was going to her temple for a visit home. So I guess they're all back there. Kogasa and Nue are probably hiding..." Remilia's crimson eyes sparked curiosity. "Oh? A temple?" "Yeah," Murasa smiled, sitting next to the vampire. "Hijiri Byakuren is a monk." "Then why does she stay on your ship?" Murasa was taken off guard by the sudden question, and took her hat off. "Because it's her ship. She was the one that returned it to me from the ocean, and..." She trailed off, fingering the anchor emblem on the cap. "She saved you?" The ghost looked up at Remilia, who was suddenly honest. "Y-yeah. But since this is a ghost ship, only a ghost can be captain... This was my ship when I was alive." The captain flopped backwards onto the bed, swinging her legs off the side. Remilia laid on her stomach, her chin in her frail hands. "So that's how you make it up to her?" "Yeah. I don't really like taking about this shit, though."
Another tidal wave bashed the girl's small frame against the guardrail. "Mom! Dad!" She frantically looked around the wheel, but the captain and his wife was no where to be found.
The ship had taken a wrong turn and had ran right into a storm.
The young sailor pushed her black hair behind her ear and climbed her way through the wind to the wheel of the boat. "If you guys won't save us..." She said sternly as she pushed against the wooden handles, "Then I will!" The ship was turning around, and she was sure she could steer it back out of the storm.
"L-Long live... The Holy Palaquin...!"
With one final shove of the wheel, the boat spun back to the direction it had came. Pushing forward, the young girl kept the wood still in her grasp. "L-Long live-"
To her right, an unexpected wave rose high above the boat's roof. As lightning struck somewhere near, she screamed. The wave crashed down, breaking the bow right in half. The anchor broke off the roof and toppled right on top of her, dragging her downwards into the raging waters.
After complete darkness, she opened her eyes in the water to watch the last of the Holy Palaquin on the surface break apart. The young sailor scrambled to the night air. "Mom! Dad!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. Using whatever strength she had, she climbed onto a crate and gazed around. There were no other bodies she could see, save for a small girl with black hair in the distance. Looking down at herself, she realized she wasn't herself, but just a ship ghost.
"Wh-what the hell?" Her own body sunk down into the dark liquid surrounding her, and she sat on the crate. She paddled the water until she reached a small sailor cap, and thought of the baby brother she was supposed to have.
The ghost set the hat on her head and sighed. She was stranded on the ocean surface for eternity, with her ship's remains under her.
If a ship sailed near her remains, she feared they'd find her body and take her away from the Holy Palaquin. "No way!" She'd scream, "The Holy Palaquin and it's ghost captain shall never be separated!"
As the fear of losing her place, and the anger at humanity for ignoring her grew, so did the waves around the foreign ship. She'd hear multiple screams, and watch as the tides would cast the same shadowy fate over them as they did to her.
Eventually, the ghost captain realized that she was the one causing the shipwrecks. But that didn't stop her.
She felt her power build up as humans began to fear her.
One ship supposedly held an elder monk upon it, who was sent to exorcise the captain. However, no one screamed as the boat sank, as another just followed behind it. Just as she was about to sink that... She recognized it.
"Long live the Holy Palaquin, isn't that right?" The girl turned to see the monk, floating above the water. "This is what you've been waiting for. See, I'd sail this myself, but it seems there's rumors of an anchor that doesn't stay upon the hook. Therefore, for my ghost ship, I need a special captain."
The ghost stared at the woman. Was this an offer? After all the people she'd drowned, it was an offer for safety? The captain took the girl's hand.
"Like hell I'm special! I'll steer us to safety, just you wait!"
"What about you?" Remilia tensed slightly. "This is going to sound crazy, but... It was my maid." Murasa turned her head to stare up at the child, who was gazing out a window at the sea wistfully.
"A long time ago, my parents gave birth to me and my sister. But we were hunted by the yokais because we were human. My mom and dad traded our souls for us to survive and we..." Remilia shook her head. Murasa rolled onto her stomach and stroked the smaller's hair softly. "You were turned into vampires." Remilia nodded. "Flandre, my sister, began staying locked in her room all day. Eventually my parents went in her room to ask what was wrong and... They never came out."
As the sun set on another lonesome day, the young devil princess sighed as she sat in bed. She had banished he younger sister to her room in the tower for almost 500 years. After what she saw was left of her parents...
Surely she had lost her mind, the princess thought to herself. Surely it was mental sickness from learning of her immortality. Or he hunger had finally set in. That was a possibility, since all the human servants had run away.
As the young vampire sat in thought, she heard screaming and marching outside her large manor. Looking out her bedroom window, she gazed upon hundreds of human, fairy and yokai marching with torches and crosses. Her parents had explained to her many times the things that could hurt her, and the mob seemed to have all of them.
The princess ran up the stairs to the tower and slammed the door open just as the mob bashed her front gates open. Inside, a young blonde girl cowered in the corner. "Oh... It's okay..." The Scarlet Devil hugged her sister and waited for the angry citizens to march up to her and her almost psychotic sibling.
The mob eventually crashed down the door of the tower and cornered the girls, screaming at them. Word had spread of the younger one's murderous nature to their parents, and they didn't want anyone else in danger.
The first two men in the large group grabbed the blonde and held her by her hair.
She screamed and choked back tears, but the mob burned her hair in the back and ripped her wings off.
They threw her to the wall, and with a dull thud, the younger moved no more.
The Scarlet Devil screamed for her life, screamed for her sister, and screamed for anyone to help them.
As the mob raised a final wooden stake to lunge into the devil's heart, time seemed to freeze. As quick as it stopped, time moved again as the devil fell to the floor with the mob. When the princess finally opened her eyes again, each member of the gang had a knife straight through the heart, as if own their wooden stake had pierced them. Standing in the middle of the mess, was one of the maids from her manor.
The silver haired heroine turned and smiled, offering a hand to help the princess up.
Her sister had been cleaned up and bandaged, and the remaining blonde hair that was not singed off was tied into a ponytail at the side of her head. The Devil princess herself had recovered slowly from he mental images. The single maid that remained was the one that always snuck extra sugar into the princess' tea, or made sure there was always a book she had not read in her library.
The maid had hired a human gatekeeper, who took her job seriously though lazily, and some fairies from nearby to help clean. Her sister was safe in the manor and not just her room, and she had constructed her own wings out of jewels she found in her parents' room. A magician girl moved into their library to study, and with her she brought a summon demon to help keep the library organized.
Life was even better than when her parents were alive, thought the vampire princess. The maid tucked her into her bed and kissed her forehead. She promised that she had unlimited time for the princess, and would do anything for her.
That's all the princess wanted to hear.
By the time Remilia had finished telling her story, she was half asleep. Murasa picked her up and undressed her, taking one of her own old nightgowns and slipping it over the vampires small body. She murmured as she laid the princess down in the bed, "You'll be home before you know it..." Tucking her into the bed, the captain bent down and kissed Remilia gently on the forehead.
When Remilia Scarlet awoke, the sun shined harmlessly through her stained glass windows. "Captain? Captain Murasa?" She sat up to her maid standing in the door way. "Who, milady?" "Sakuya..." Sakuya brushed her mistress' lavender hair as she told a wonderful story of a ghost ship with a haunting captain and a monk. "Sounds like a wonderful dream you had, milady." "Oh no," Remilia shook her head, "Sakuya, it wasn't a dream! I know it wasn't! There has to be something to prove that it's true!" "Well, I dowant an explanation to this." The silver haired maid adjusted some of the wraps around the vampire's injured wing. "Yes! See this proves it!" Remilia began peeling and unwinding the gauze, remembering the little anchor bandage the captain put on her wing. "See, Sakuya! She put this on!"
When the final piece of gauze fell off her wing, a little piece of paper slipped out from above anchor bandage. "Captain Murasa put it there, I swear!" Sakuya studied the design, before sighing. "There's just no denying you, is there?" When she saw the note, the maid sat on the edge of the bed. "What's it say, milady?"
Remilia smiled as she shook her head. "Did you know you're goddamn lucky to have saved me, Sakuya?"
"Hey kiddo,
Just thought I'd say your mansion is fucking huge! Tell that pretty little maid of yours she's goddamn lucky to work under you, because you've got a good head on your shoulders. Also, tell that maniac sister of yours that if she ever comes across a human named Hijiri, to leave her be, haha! Shit, I'll miss you, Rem, even if you only stayed aboard a few hours. If you ever need anyone to talk to, I've got unlimited time for the princess, and hell, I'd do anything for you! So be strong, little vamp, and remember to watch your back. Because who knows? I might just be there. If you're ever lost at sea, Rem, just call. And make sure I know you're alive, goddamnit! Don't ever scare me like that again!"
See ya in the waves,
Cpt. Murasa.
P.S.: Byakuren, Shou, and Nazrin all say "Hello", and Kogasa says "Boo!"