"...Got to be some way out of this place. I can't just be stuck down here until they forget about me. How long am I supposed to hide in this cave?" Seija had been stuck underground for some time, after all, in her self-imposed exile. Even now, there was no escape in sight, no sign of release.
That time had been – so far – five hours since she passed the entrance of the cave, but it was the principle that mattered, in her mind.
"Yes, yes, trapped underground with no hope of seeing the sun. I can hardly imagine your plight." An annoyed grunt from the guest – in as much as such a word could be used from Seija – and a brisk shake of the head.
"You going to be like that the whole time?"
"I considered some sympathy, but I wouldn't want to cause offense." Hearing this, Seija nods slowly, in a grudging concession. At least this strange, sullen woman had a good read on her, for better or worse. Mostly worse, surely. The realisation comes to her a moment later.
"...You can't leave?" The bridgekeeper pales slightly at this. Already, an indiscretion. She had let too much slip. Every word, everything she said of herself, every glimpse of emotion – hope, anger, grief or envy – showed a little hole in her armour. She knew this, of course. She could have been more careful, but it was much too late now. The visitor would know, then, that she had her weaknesses, and all too many of them at that. The price of carelessness.
"No," she answers, with a rare honesty that leaves a foul, bitter taste in her mouth. "No, I cannot. More than that, I don't care." Nothing more than a shrug of disinterest from Seija. That was fortunate, then.
A little while passes in silence. Somewhere above, something shuffles about before being caught by the cavern's many small, shadowy predators, with a muffled squeak that echoes across the damp stone. Then, there is only the steady drip of water, and distant sounds of life drifting up from the city far below. This time, at least, Parsee found herself in the company of someone with as little apparent patience for revelry as herself.
"What do you even have down here, anyway?" Seija asks eventually. You're not one of those weird youkai who don't need to eat, are you? I'm not in the mood for starving." This time, at least, Parsee is quite pleased to answer her bluntly.
"Rats. The small, blind fish that swim in the river. Every thursday, I gather up a few mushrooms, as well."
"Every- how can you tell?"
"There are ways and there are means," she answers confidently, still completely stone-faced. Surely there was no point in a visitor without a joke or two at their expense? ...Still, Seija was quite right. It wouldn't be right for her guest to go hungry for long; there were rules, after all. That they found themselves at the derelict bridge to hell was no grounds for neglecting hospitality.
"Now then, I suppose it's time I set out." As far as she was permitted to go, at least. The closest thing she had to a semblance of a home lay under the bridge, near the water. Some furniture pushed to the margins, a bedroll and a simple, unimpressive rowboat. A scant few keepsakes and possessions, too, kept out of sight. While the amanojaku watches, she slowly pushes the boat out to water, before stepping in, in a motion practiced altogether too many times.
"They make boats down here? Or did you get that from upstairs?"
"Much like the few furnishings this bridge has, I made it myself. I have time here, if nothing else; I do a little work with my hands helps to pass the years. I shouldn't be gone long."
"No, no. I'm coming with you."
"I'm perfectly capable of-"
"Well I'm not in a hurry to sit here for as long as it takes you, just sitting and staring at a rotting bridge. Got room for two in that thing?" Parsee looks over her shoulder and shrugs. There was space enough for three, at least; not because she had expected company when making it, but out of trying to use all the material she had when she first set out to carve the boat years ago. A few moments more, and the two set down the river: A path which abruptly takes a turn into a tunnel.
Cold. Damp. Dark. The underground writ large, in a sense, if it wasn't so claustrophobic. Though by no means unusually tall, Seija finds herself bowing her head and still feeling the occasional brush of stone against her back for almost a minute. Nothing she would have noticed, if not for all the scratches and burns that already made their home there earlier that week.
"One moment, please. ...There." The tunnel opens out into the underground's familiar vastness, curious little lights glittering along the distant ceiling, and far below. A quick glance down is met with a sudden wave of vertigo, and the black-haired youkai quickly looks away, her head spinning. ...There. An island in the distance. That should make for something a little less disorienting to focus on. She has only a moment to find her bearings, pointedly looking away from the massive shapes shifting somewhere in the dark water, before she hears the low groan of shifting rock far above.
"My, what impeccable timing," is all Parsee says, in a tone so dry as to make any possibility of sarcasm completely unreadable. "Starfall in a moment, better to watch than explain. Pass me the wicker basket in the back, if you will, and find something to cover your head with. One of the oars should do."
Another creak and a rumble follows, and then, all around the boat – just as much as inside it – it begins to rain. Pieces of the ceiling, all that glitters and a great deal that does not, strike water and wood alike. Pieces of what might be gems, odd husks and carapaces, granite and thin slivers of blunted metal. The many lights of the cavern, save for those that fly out of the way, all fall from the ceiling, splashing murky water everywhere. A few land on Parsee, but she doesn't particularly seem to notice, or if she does, she shows no sign of it, holding out her basket to catch what she can.
"That should be the last of it," she says with a slight sigh of relief after the hail dies down, almost a minute later.
"That was supposed to be stars?"
"Something of a local custom. The name's stuck, I'm afraid. A quicker, easier and more harrowing alternative to mining, I suppose, with enough determination to be pragmatic about the whole affair."
"You know what doesn't fall on you back on the surface?" The horned youkai mutters irritably. "The goddamn sky."
"Is that right? I'm afraid I've quite forgotten."
"And I'm meant to get used to it?"
"Heavens, no. By all means, complain to your heart's content. Still, you may have some trouble convincing the ground to cooperate." She passes a fishing rod – already baited with something not entirely unlike a worm - to Seija after putting the basket away, filled with both what might be precious and what is undoubtedly not.
"Am I supposed to-"
"No, but I imagine you would prefer it to staring out at the lake until I finish."
"...Yeah, alright. You got me there."
Whatever the massive, writhing shapes at the bottom of the lake may be, they show no interest in moving higher, to the amanojaku's relief, though she might never admit it. The waters are gentle, placid and, judging by the growing pile next to Parsee – the less said of the strange things she was dredging up, the better – apparently bountiful. A few minutes pass in the closest thing to amicable silence that the two might allow, but eventually Parsee breaks the quiet.
"...Just why are you hiding down here to begin with? I heard about the unpleasant business with that floating castle eventually, of course, but that was a little while ago, wasn't it?" A little wince from Seija, then. A sore point? The thought alone is immediately reassuring to the bridge princess, after her mistake earlier. Some small weakness to latch onto, then, if it came to that; just knowing of one brought her a little peace.
"Revolution doesn't exactly make you popular, you know."
"Of course, of course. A maligned idealist, I'm sure. I assume their patience for you ran out eventually?"
"...Sure, that's about right. Ran me out of town. Even tried to break the spellcard rules against me. Idiots, really. Two can play at that, you know? Like trying to fleece a card sharp. D'you have cards in whatever foreign cave you're-"
"Persia, and yes, but I rather doubt you would recognise the rules."
"Well, anyway, turns out they've still got enough muscle at the end of the day that I have to stay out of sight for a bit. Figured no one would care if I come down here for a bit."
"And as usual, the despised are swept tidily away into this corner of Gensokyo, out of sight and out of mind. How strangely familiar." Parsee's remark garners an almost suspicious squinting look from Seija, as she tugs absent-mindedly at the line.
"What, that's it? Just 'fair enough, seen it before'? From the little I'd heard about you, I thought you were going to be 'oh, woe am I' and ranting about how much you envy me for whatever you can think of. Holding off till you've got a good cue, is that it?"
"...My pettiness is rater exaggerated, you'll find, and my reputation unkind. Surely you can relate?"
A little shrug, and a flick of her wrist to bring up her latest catch: Empty air. With a grunt of annoyance, she casts the line back into the water. "Guess so. ...So why'd you take me in, anyway? No one else did. I thought anyone who'd have me would be... y'know."
"Yes?"
"Well, nicer, mostly. Friendlier, that sort of thing. What's going on with you?"
Because a moment of knowing I can be better than you – you or anyone at all – through my offer is worth all the risk you can bring to my door. Because I need the sound of another voice to finally make the bridge quiet again. Because you could take what you wanted to begin with, helpless as I am, and I can only try to give it away with some dignity.
And besides, hospitality meant all the world back in the old country.
Unpalatable shreds of honesty race through her thoughts as she scrabbles for a suitable lie. Try as she might, even in her more blatant lies – the ones she kept to herself for fear no one else would believe them – she couldn't pin the blame on anything as simple as kindness.
"It's like finding a kitten abandoned at the side of the road," the bridgekeeper answers, a finger to her chin and a thoughtful frown on her face. "I suppose I should consider that I may have a soft spot for miserable, bedraggled, unsightly things." Not so much as a flicker in her expression, for all of that.
"...You always this annoying?"
"When given the opportunity, certainly. For now, I think it's time we went back. This should be quite enough for a day or two." The boat turns, ever so ponderously, and begins to coast towards the same tunnel it entered through.
"Persia?"
"One of the first to arrive in Japan from there, if I'm not mistaken. By way of Ayutthaya for a portion of my life."
The crackling bonfire, fed with near-petrified twigs and some curiously flammable, long-lasting moss-like substance, casts a bare minimum of warmth over the two, and a flickering orange-red light. Only Seija shivers. Something aquatic and mercifully unidentifiable is mounted on a number of skewers, gently roasting over the flames, while the two bite into their portions, the guest showing no small amount of skepticism at first.
Periodically, for decorum's sake, they move back to the granite chairs and table rather than crouching by the fire or sitting on the bare earth. It was some of the little furniture this place had, and as with so much of what she had to her name, Parsee had made it herself over the years. Somehow, every little flaw and imperfection in her work seemed terribly, humiliatingly clear with someone else present.
"Then that'd make you... hunnerd, two, three..." She holds up four fingers and then shakes her head. "...Eesh. Well, 'least you've got your charming pers- Ah, hell, I don't know what to tell you, Green. You might be a lost cause."
"How fortunate, then," comes the reply – it might have been flinty, were it particularly any colder than her usual unreadable tone - "that I find myself in similar company."
"Yeah, lucky you." She takes another bite and grimaces. "Gah, this one's... blech. I tell you, you should get some good, honest food rather than... whatever this is. Heard you get traders down here now and then, try a quick grab-and-wring next time one comes by. Good eating on one of those, you know?"
"I'm afraid that's rather out of the question. I can't do anything of the sort."
"You won't."
"...It's an academic difference, surely," comes Parsee's strained reply.
"Seen eyes like that before, you know. Only they're usually on someone younger than you."
"If this is about the colour again," she answers wearily, "I can promise you I've heard enough jokes to last me for-"
"Come on, you know better than that. Look around you! This place is a mess. You live in a cave and keep everything you've got under a rotted bridge! Even then, you've got to keep it clean, spotless, perfect. 'Cause you gotta have something, right? If you don't have standards you're just an animal. You won't grab anyone off the bridge, either, 'cause you're not a monster, are you?"
"...Is there a point to all this raving of yours?"
"You've been a youkai for a damn sight longer than I have. You've been down here longer than I've been alive! But oh, you're still human, yes ma'am. You've got your fangs and claws – even if they're too small to be good for anything – but you won't even act the part! 'Cause you might live under a bridge and have big ol' glowing eyes, but you're better than them – than all those other youkai – is that it? Because you've been human, and you can't bring yourself to let it go."
"...Not in so many words. I wouldn't aspire to superiority." Of course not. It was beyond her, except as a comforting seconds-long delusion. Envy walked hand in hand with inferiority, she could never be otherwise. ...Humanity. The youkai had a point, of course, but surely she could be excused for a little indulgence, when she had so few keepsakes to her name?
"Not while anyone can hear?"
A long sigh, as the skewer is calmly laid back into the fire, half-eaten, with an air of exhausted resignation. If only this was even close to her most trying encounter that week. She looks at the amanojaku's face – grinning confidently, all but crowing in triumph – and slowly shakes her head.
"You're a particularly uncomfortable sort of company, aren't you? What exactly was the point of all this?"
"Eh." Seija shrugs, suddenly noncommittal. "Thought it might be the little push it takes to make you crack. I've seen rocks less calm than you, you know?" That, at least, was something to be pleased with. She had seen nothing yet, and that was all but cause for celebration.
"Well, I'm afraid you've failed," Parsee replies, her tone matter of fact again, flat and quite far from the momentary slip of a minute ago.
"Yep, looks it."
"...Are you quite finished?"
"For now."
"...Good." And always, there was an order to occasions like this, a certain way to treat a guest. "Tea?" She offers after a moment. Seija meets her with a nod and a look of mild surprise. Presumably, she expected nothing of the sort down here, and rightly so.
"Don't think I'll ever get used to this place," she mumbles eventually.
"With enough time, anything is possible."
"...So you'd call this a home? This place, with all its wriggling, glowing stuff, the falling rocks and sticking little blind things from the lake in the fire?"
"Certainly not," she concedes after a moment. "A prison where I happen to live, at most."
"I'm sick of it after a couple hours. You call this living?"
"In polite company, at least."
"Never really thought of myself as polite."
Quiet, for a while. Eventually, the whistle of the claywork kettle cuts in, only to be quickly silenced, its contents poured out into two cups to produce what is, if not strictly tea, then at least water that something had been steeped in.
"Yes, it is rather dismal, isn't it?"
Too much to say, of course. But it was a weight off her shoulders in some small, strange way.