Authors Notes:
Well, my first story going up on here, hope it's not that bad. I wrote this story for an English assignment and thought I should put it up here. It's not that great, I only had about 4 hours to crank this out, but I wanted to see what others thought. It's also full of a bunch of my vocab words; I'm just too lazy to take them out. Please R&R!
It was a warm sunny day, and I was thrilled. Today was Cirno's birthday, and to celebrate, I got her what she thought was the best gift ever, a hot air balloon ride! The humans, because they can't fly, use other ways to get around, and this is one of those ways! It's the coolest one I've ever seen. Anyway, we arrived just after breakfast. They were still in the cumbersome process of unfolding and inflating the balloon. As we watched the humans work on the balloon, I faced a small mental dilemma on whether or not we should help. I asked Wriggle and she said we'd best not get involved. I looked over at Cirno and Rumia, who were throwing rocks with unbridled delight at Daiyousei, and decided not to question it.
After about an hour of watching and questioning, the balloon was ready. We all climbed into the basket, dripping with excitement!
"Oh, this is gonna be so much fun!" Cirno exclaimed with a small sparkle in her eye, "Thank you so much Mystia!"
"See, I told you she'd like it!" I told Wriggle.
"Tsk, whatever," she replied tersely, angry that her gift of some brand new, more powerful spellcards wasn't the big hit of the party. It was then time to take off. The human operating the balloon pulled the lever above our heads, and it made a loud whooshing sound. We then felt the sensation of the balloon rising off the ground. We were in the air. It was the best feeling ever. We could see almost all of Gensokyo. I could see the Scarlet Devil Mansion, the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, even the Human Village. It was so exciting to be in the balloon, I was tempted to commandeer the controls, and fly the balloon to the moon, but when Wriggle noticed what I was doing, she admonished me, saying, "Don't screw this up like you did last time we went on an outing." I thought about that day when we had just fled from the building as it collapsed, remembered the guilt I felt, and decided it was best to just enjoy the balloon ride.
We floated around for a few hours. It was really fun. But then, the wind kicked up. We were blown way off course. I heard a loud ripping sound and noticed a large breach in the top of the balloon. I was freaked out. Wriggle was clinging to the basket, her eyes widened with fear. Cirno and Rumia were glued to each other, cowering in the bottom of the basket; and poor Daiyousei was screaming her head off. With the spasmodic movement of the balloon caught in the whirlwind, I just knew we were screwed. The balloon's erratic descent clouded my judgment and I wasn't able to compensate for the hard landing. At least I think. I don't remember much after I hit my head on something; I don't know what it was.
I was awakened by Wriggle shaking me. My head hurt, a lot. I surveyed the debris around us, looking to see if there was anything salvageable from this disaster. Daiyousei was still shaking uncontrollably, Rumia was lolling her head around, and Cirno made me feel the worst.
"This has been the worstest birthday ever! Thanks a lot, Mystia!" I could tell she was mentally beheading me.
I noticed that the human wasn't with us; I wonder what happened to him. But that wasn't our biggest problem; we were lost. We were okay, but lost. We wandered around the forest for a little bit, but then Rumia noticed a tantalizing smell-the smell of cooking meat. We followed the smell until we came across what seemed to be a small, but comely village.
"Wow!" Daiyousei exclaimed with awe, "This is amazing!"
"I bet the folks back home will think we're the awesomest people ever for finding this!" Cirno convinced herself. I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to think. We just found probably the biggest archeological find in Gensokyo history. We'd be famous for something else besides causing mischief and grief for others.
"Uh, I'll be back," Rumia piped up, "I'm gonna go find that smell."
"Wait, Rumia!" I yelled back, "We need to…" She was already gone. "…stick together."
"We should probably go get her," Daiyousei said, "She could get in trouble." So we followed her to what seemed like town hall or something. We found out that this was where the smell was coming from. We walked inside, and I thought I heard voices. I followed the sound until I came to a set of double doors. The others had caught up to me as I entered the room.
"…have gotten ourselves into a muddle. Any ideas? Yes,"
"We could make scarecrows that look like us, so they attack them instead of us. Plus, we could fill them with poison so they die."
"OK, there's a good one…" The person at the stand glanced at us. I froze. "We will adjourn for a thirty minute recess. Gather your ideas and go get some of that food." The people in the room all stood up and headed out. When they had left, the girl at the podium motioned us up to her. We all slowly approached.
"Hello, I'm Rin Satsuki, current leader of this village. Who are you? How'd you get here?" She seemed just as curious as we were. I took the initiative.
"I'm Mystia Lorelei, and these are my friends, Cirno, Daiyousei, Rumia, and Wriggle Nightbug. Our balloon crashed just outside your village," I hoped I seemed friendly enough.
"So, these are your kids?" Rin asked.
"What? No!" I felt insulted. I'd never have kids like them. They're great friends, but I couldn't take care of them every day, "What made you think that?"
"Aren't their surnames Nightbug?"
"What? Oh, no. Cirno, Daiyousei, and Rumia don't have surnames,"
"Oh, sorry!" Rin flushed with embarrassment.
"No, no problem," this was going nowhere, so I decided to change the subject, "So what was all that about scarecrows?"
She told us about how their village of Kirin was somewhat under siege by groups of feral youkai, who would sneak in during the night and kidnap their own. They have little defense and are a peaceful race who don't harm other creatures. She told us that they have tried many ways to resolve this issue, but nothing was working.
"… So that's that. You're the first people to walk into our village in a long time who have mind enough to know how to form sentences."
"Glad to know we're civilized. Can we help?"
"Well, if you have any idea on how to get rid of feral youkai, I'm all ears."
We thought hard. I couldn't think of anything. Build a wall around the village? Nope. Send a scouting party. Yeah right. But it was right then Cirno spoke up.
"I know! What if we fix the hot air balloon, fly it up in the middle of the night, and use it to scare them away!" We all looked at her disdainfully.
Wriggle spoke, "Cirno, that is by far the…"
"…best idea EVER!" Rin finished for her. We looked at her bewildered.
"What? How's that gonna work?" I asked.
"Hot air balloons float in the air, are really big, and make a loud noise while lighting themselves up. It'd be perfect for scaring them away!" Wriggle was really skeptical at first. I thought it made sense.
"Let's try it!" I pronounced. We all lead Rin back to the crash site. It took a few hours, but thankfully the balloon was easy to repair. We even painted a scary face on it that would hopefully scare them good. Night was approaching fast. We got it up in the air just in time. The youkai started their nightly raid. But this time, we were prepared. Right as soon as we saw them enter the streets, we lit her up. The effect was instantaneous. They all immediately froze in sheer terror of this alien object now guarding the village. I even heard them shouting, "The Gods are angry!" or "This land is cursed!" and stuff like that. It was great! Rin and the whole village were extremely grateful for our help and Rin gave us directions back to the lake. We in return, let them have the balloon just in case. But one thing I liked the most was what Cirno said when we got back.
"Mystia, thanks for the bestest birthday ever!"