Rumia only blinked at Meiling's greeting.
She's the gatekeeper of this mansion, and is friends with the girl who treated me badly. Why would she greet me?
Meiling held out her hand, waving it in front of the girl in a bid to get her attention. When that elicited no response from her little guest, she started moving her hand in a faster waving motion. Still no response.
She's spacing out, alright. With that thought, the red-haired girl attempted to snap her out of her daze with a hard hit to the shoulder.
"H-huh?" was the reply from a staggering Rumia that was still recoiling from the wake-up call by Meiling.
"Good to know that you are still with me." Meiling extended her hand towards Rumia, who grabbed at it with her own hands to pull herself up. "Now that you're back up, would you mind telling me more about yourself? I've introduced myself already; it's common courtesy to respond with a self-introduction of your own, you know."
The girl parted her lips, struggling with an "A-ah. . .uhm…" before closing them firmly.
"Hey, go on. Don't just open and close your mouth without saying a word: it makes me feel like I'm watching a mime," Meiling encouraged.
With a few more seconds of waiting, a reply finally came. "I-I'm Rumia," the young girl managed.
"Go on; Say something about yourself, hmm?"
Meiling watched as the stammering girl's eyes darted from side to side in between hard blinks. It didn't make sense to the gate guard as to why the girl looked so nervous, but she didn't bother to ask anyways.
"Hey, take your time kid. No-one's going to get you for not replying fast enough."
"Ah, uhm," Rumia closed her eyes again in one hard blink before opening it, hoping that inspiration would come to her naturally. Indeed, it did: in the form of the mansion just behind the gate. "What is that place?"
"Well, this is the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Grand, isn't it? It feels just like one of those palaces back where I came from," Meiling stood up and raised her hand, pointing towards the blood-red mansion. She was practically beaming with pride.
"What's so special about it? It's just another huge building, isn't it?" Rumia raised her hand as she asked the question.
"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet!" spoke Meiling with an enthusiastic tune. "You should really visit here sometime, especially during the full moon. When the moonlight shines onto the mansion, it gets all glowy with red," kneeling down, she pointed her index finger at the two scarlet eyes that the blonde girl had before continuing, "as red as those two eyes you have there."
"Really?" Rumia's eyes opened wide for a moment. "That sounds special. Is there anything else about this Mansion?
"Yeah, if you were a guest here that is. There are fairy maids to wait on you and stuff, and the Chief Maid would personally serve you breakfast, lunch and dinner. The lady of this mansion is European, after all. They like to show off their wealth to their guests." The gatekeeper sighed, slumping. "If only I was as lucky as that lady with the fancy parasol – six months ago, she stayed here for a day to have tea with my mistress and was treated like an Empress. Could you believe it? She had multiple fairy maids pouring tea for her, fetching her cup, serving her cake. . . the list goes on."
Receiving multiple "Ooohs" and "Aaaahs" from the captive girl, the gatekeeper smiled. It had been some time since a visitor had come to the mansion, and to have one willing to listen to the stories of a lowly gate guard - it was a one in a million chance. Wanting to entertain herself and her little guest further, she decided to probe her for more questions. "What would you like to know about?
The reply came in the form of a low-pitched growl.
Silence. An awkward, long silence.
Rumia looked at the red-haired girl as she hugged her stomach, cheeks flushed. The gatekeeper started with a stifled laugh which soon turned into a chuckle before it burst into an uncontrollable guffaw.
"Ahahaha. . .! Forgive me f-for lau-laughing," placing her hand over her mouth, she tried to suffocate her convulsion, "but it was really, really funny. Haha. . ."
"Please stop laughing at me, Miss Meiling! I'm just hungry!" An angry protest was soon delivered by the young girl.
"O-oh, k-kay," the redhead managed, trying to be as coherent as possible while restraining her giggling. She reached a hand into her pocket, fishing out a sandwich wrapped in an unknown, clear material. Pulling off the clear wrap, the gate guard broke the sandwich into two and offered a half to the short blonde. "Here, my apology for being insensitive. I haven't eaten yet, so I'm taking half of the sandwich. You can have the other half: this is the standard-issue sandwich that I've been receiving as the workplace meal for being employed here. It's made by the chief maid. Unlike the fairy maids, she can actually cook, so it's marginally more delicious than what you'd think two slices of bread with egg and ham would be."
Chomp, nom, om. In three large bites, the sandwich was wolfed down and ceased to exist in the world. To a hungry girl who hadn't eaten from dusk till afternoon, the sandwich tasted heavenly. The ham was soft and tender and the scrambled eggs were not overcooked nor runny; It was as good as the gate guard had put it. The only thing that prevented Rumia from giving what she ingested a perfect score was the aftertaste of what seemed like rust.
Rust?
Rumia paused at the thought, turning to Meiling who was in mid-bite. Lowering her half-eaten half-sandwich, she lowered her eyes to the girl.
"What? You're not going to tell me that you want my piece of sandwich too."
The answer was a fervent shake of head. "There's rust in the bread. My tongue feels funny."
"Oh, that taste," the gate keeper raised her sandwich to finish off the last bit before continuing. "Well, the taste has been there for quite a bit now, ever since the Scarlet Mist appeared. Apparently the mist that my Mistress released was used to block out light, but it also leaves a rust-like blood taste in the food it comes into contact with. I got used to it since about five months ago, so it doesn't really affect me much."
It was only now that Rumia noticed the floating red particles in the air.
Scarlet Mist? I think I remember Miss Mokou's friend with that weird hat talking about that.
Stumbling upon another topic to talk about, Rumia asked, "Who caused this mist?"
"Well, I know it's my Lady's doing. However, I really don't know much about this matter. Maybe Lady Patchouli, Sakuya and Lady Remilia would know.
"Patchouli? Remilia? Who are they?" the girl probed deeper.
The gatekeeper stood up, walked off and came back with two metallic contraptions. Opening it up, she settled her young guest onto its seat before continuing.
"Sit tight now, this could be a long story. . ."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Radio silence had been the standard for the past ten minutes that Marisa had been riding on her broom. The sound of the wind wasn't exactly entertaining, and no-one responded to the random questions she threw out. Stealing a glance at the three girls behind her, she noticed killer stares being directed from Reimu and Minoriko towards Alice. The puppeteer returned the favour, sending daggers back with her icy glare. The monochrome magician knew better than to trifle with the girls in this silent but violent warfare and evacuated from the battlefield, looking back towards the front.
I mean, what's up with these girls? It's like they are trying to use their stares to kill each other or something.
Realising that they had reached the Misty Lake, she attempted - for the umpteenth time - to defuse the situation by saying something.
"We are now at altitude 50 metres above ground. The weather at our destination is going to be perpetually misty, and the temperature is going to be as low as twenty degrees celsius. Thank you for travelling with Broom Air and it has been a pleasure serving you ladies."
Silence.
Marisa felt as if the surrounding air had condensed into a giant block and crashed onto her shoulders. She felt stupid, embarrassed and afraid as she realised that her puny attempt to act like an idiot with her little skit had only served to make the trio behind her stare at each other more intently, with an even more penetrating gaze fit to bore holes in rocks. There was no away around that.
Reimu was first to touch down, with Minoriko landing soon after. Alice simply loosened her grip on the broom and fell as she manipulated her dolls with quick swipes of her hands to cushion her fall. Marisa recited a chant, and the broom lost its powers of flight instantaneously, resulting in the monochrome witch falling about two meters through the air. Reimu and Minoriko were able to establish eye contact while the puppeteer turned away from the two, facing Marisa.
"So, what do we do now?"
The witch replied with a laid-back voice, "We should just stick together and search this area. I mean," Marisa raised her broom and swept it through the air, as if to prove her point, "it's all mist around here, every dead tree looks the same and the scenery just seems to tile itself over and over again ad infinitum."
"I would just like to point out, in case you haven't noticed, that I cannot work with those two over there. If you insist on going together, I shall take my leave: I have a search party of more than thirty with me anyways. My dolls get along with me far better than I would get along with them." The puppeteer raised her hand majestically, and out of nowhere came a whole legion of the same dolls dressed in a European-styled black-and-white doll dress. The blue threads of magic became visible, each seemingly linking the many dolls her fingers. With another sweep, all the dolls promptly disappeared from sight.
Alice's actions drove the point home for Marisa. "Well, alright. We'll split into two teams, one consisting of Reimu and Minoriko and another consisting of me and you. Would that satisfy you, Miss-I-cannot-work-with-others?"
The puppeteer replied dryly, "Very much so, thank you oh-kind-soul." Changing her tone of voice, she continued, "However, to prevent those two fools from getting lost in this maze of wood and water, let me propose that each of us carry one of my many dolls. Since each is connected by a thread of magic to my fingers, they're able to find their way back to me or lead me to any of you at any time. In times of emergency, these dolls can also be used as messenger dolls or even for firepower support in a pinch, so they are highly versatile for helping out the weak like you people." Muttering a few magical incantations, three dolls appeared. However, these dolls were not dressed in the same black-white scheme the other ones had, but rather in red dresses.
"These are renaissance dolls. I've given them a different dress scheme for easy differentiation. These are specialized in collecting information and have worse combat abilities when compared to my normal dolls. They will follow you around as long as you are appointed as the person to be tracked." Flicking her fingers, it seemed as though the dolls were pushed by an invisible force, with one landing in front of Minoriko, another in front of Reimu and a third in front of Marisa.
"Now that it is settled, I suppose we shall be going our seperate ways. You two search the North of the lake, while I'll search the Southern side with Marisa. We'll meet in the middle of Misty lake once we are done."
The two groups of girls soon moved in opposite directions. While Marisa and Minoriko started looking around for evidence and perhaps the culprit, the counterparts of the witch and myriad god turned around. Keeping each other in range of their vision, Reimu and Alice exchanged steely glares fit to freeze the air between them.
Make one false move, Reimu, and I'll make sure that your corpse will not be whole
Try anything funny on me, witch, and I will make sure that you are sealed for all eternity.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Hey, Alice," Marisa lifted her hand to pull down her hat further, blocking out the intense glare of the afternoon sun, "I'm pretty sure I've seen this clearing at least three times now."
"How'd you know if we've been here?"
Marisa bent down to point at the ground, not bothering to speak. A pink ribbon laid there..
"Right, so you left a marker here," Alice forced, keeping her usual smirk. Her conversation partner saw through the facade immediately, however did not tear through the false front that she was putting on.
"I'm sure we're still on the right track though, so there's no need to worry aboutgetting lost."
Marisa lifted a finger, "The fact that you even added the word 'lost' to your dictionary, Alice, completely your credibility."
". . ."
Wordless, the puppeteer simply looked into her friend's eyes.
"You could be less. . . blunt about it," was what Alice was able to come up with after Marisa's remark. "To be honest, I have no idea why we cannot walk out of this area. It doesn't make snse. My dolls are reporting that they cannot 'see' anything, even after I verified the mana feedback from the dolls to be fine. I'm sure that something is behind-"
"Spare me the details, Alice. In short, we are lost, and we have no idea how to get out of here.
Alice's response came quickly, "Well, we still have to option to use flight. There's nothing stopping us from trying to find our way out from above."
"True. Let me do it, then."
Picking up the ribbon and reattaching it to her hat, Marisa then held out the broom. Closing her eyes and concentrating her thoughts on the image of a floating broom, she started to mutter various incantations as the broom started to leave her hands. She heaved herself onto it and snapped her fingers.
"Stay here and wait for my good news."
Alice watched as her companion rode into the air, disappearing by the edge of the sky.
What should I do right now? Maybe I should. . .