Disclaimer: Touhou belongs to Zun.
D/N: Seriously, why have I been missing for so long?
A/N: Shh, quiet Daiyousei! Nobody's asked that question as of yet, and I- Ohh crap! Uhh... W-well, on with the show!
Early night, Cirno's house, Mima's PoV:
Reimu had long since left, as she mostly was interested in mooching food, and Mystia left as well, after she had been told to pass along that we were going to be busy for awhile, which caused some joy in the sparrow, as it meant less cooking for awhile, before I began the final inspection of our supplies before we would leave for Mt Shiro.
Some might think it foolish to begin the climb at night, but it would benefit Rumia, and I wanted nothing more than to please the friendly little Youkai.
"Mage lights." I had to be sure we had such an important item; we can't simply rely of those that can see in the dark the whole trip, can we?
"Check!" Marisa fetched the twelve balls of moonlight from her hat, showing that she had them.
"Twelve? That seems like an aweful lot..." That would last us a whole 12 days if we used them spareingly.
"Well, I find it easier to make twelve at once, and you can never be too careful when you have no worries over space and the like, da ze." Marisa's words were quite true; if one can be prepared for the worst, why not be?
"One to two bags of holding." A place to keep supplies was rather important, especially as we had a lot of meat to carry. It's good to keep food seperate from the other things, which was why I would preffer two.
Marisa popped off her hat once more, and rumaged through it, eventually pulling forth the tell tale black sack that would be a bag of holding.
"Two bags of holding, ze!" I rose a brow at the answer.
"...Where's the second one?" Marisa proceded to look at me like I was crazy.
"...It's my hat, ze!" Ohh! ...I feel rather stupid now...
Cirno shifted about, sitting on the bed beside Usagi, obviously not sure as to what to do with herself untill we leave.
"Boooored..." Cirno let out a sigh, making her feelings know to the room.
"Well, that's it for my end, and I'm assuming all of that speed dried meat would be your end of the gathering, da ze?" I gave a nod as confirmation.
"Yeah, there's enough there for a whole month, if we ration it, or about ten or fifteen days, if we eat as we please. As such, I'd say that eating as much as we please should be fine, so long as it's just us five.
"I guess we should load the bag and get going, huh? ...Wait, what about a tent of some kind?" While that was a good question, I had that covered.
"Don't worry, I've a spell from my last trip there... It's basically a hardened bubble version of the cold resistance spell, which also serves as a form of shield. I suppose it would be wise to bring a number of sheets from the bed, though... Would that be fine, Cirno?" I turned to the once fairy, who was quite obviously bored out of her mind.
"Ahh, yeah, that's fine..." Cirno seemed to not really be paying attention to the question, but it's not like she said no, so I didn't really mind.
I began to collect some of the sheets that weren't being sat upon, and stuffed them into my pupil's hat; that bottomless hat of hers is rather unique, I'll have to ask her how she did that some time...
"Let's fill up the food bag, and then go wash up a bit, as there's not really going to be much of a chance for that on the mountain. We would need to somehow happen upon a hotspring if we wanted to bathe, and I don't see that happening." Now that I think about it, there's probably only one hotspring on the whole mountain, and it's rather hidden, so the odds are very much against us finding it. The odds of us being able to locate it would probably be about 1,000,000 to 1!
"You three go ahead, we'll be out in a bit, ze." Marisa held open the black sack which was utterly empty.
Cirno happily bounded out the door, while Rumia and Usagi followed at a slower speed, seeing no reason to run.
I couldn't help but smile at how happy the once fairy was, as though the boredom of only a moment ago had been swept away in its entirety.
Usagi's PoV:
I couldn't help but smile at how cute Cirno was when she was as happy as she is right now.
"I love seeing that happy grin of hers..." I accidentally spoke my thought's aloud.
"Is that so~?" Rumia gave me a letcherous grin, which took me a moment to realise what I had said.
"U-umm... N-n-not love as in I l-love her, or anything!" I began to panic, only causing my words to become even more interesting.
"Is that so~?" Rumia's grin was starting to look painfully wide.
"Th-that is so..." My voice was but a whisper, not helping my case at all.
While I was busy defending myself, yet only making things worse, Cirno had already stripped, and had jumped into the lake.
"C-cold!" Yelped the once ice fairy, who still wasn't used to such a switch of sensations.
"Well, yeah... It's getting close to winter, and it's night, so the water's going to be a bit cold..." Rumia spoke the obvious, which wasn't so obvious to the fairy. Cirno had never had to pay attention to such things, unless it was summer, or maybe spring.
"...I m-miss f-f-feeling cold the right w-way." Cirno pouted as best as she could, while her teeth chattered away. As she had always felt cold as a good thing, she had absolutly no cold resistance as a human.
I began to remove my clothes, having a great deal of trouble with getting anything that had wing holes off. I'm not even sure how one gets wings through such tiny holes!
The now fully stripped Rumia noticed my plight, so she began to give me a bit of help.
"Here, let me help you with that..." She found there to be a few well hidden buttons between the wing holes, which I didn't even know were there, as Sakuya had helped me get dressed after big sister Remi forced me to take a bath, as it was unbecoming of a Scarlet to smell as I had. Needless to say, the water felt quite odd, as it's one of a Vampire's weaknesses.
I felt the back of her wrist brush against the very base of my wing, right where it was connected to my body, and I couldn't help but jump at the sudden sensation.
Rumia, now curious about how I would react to a more direct touch, gripped the base of my wing as gentle as can be, before twisting her hand with a quick motion.
I suddenly saw stars, and fell to my knees, quivering at that surge of... Well, I wouldn't call it pleasure, but it was a very strong sensation.
"P-p-please stop th-that..." My voice came out a bit weak, as through I had been suddenly winded by the odd sensation.
"Fiiine..." Rumia relented, not wanting to annoy her friend too much. Plus, I said please! It's rare that Rumia was given requests with any form of polite speach to them, unless it was a human begging for their life. Usagi was neither human, nor begging for her life, so it was rather refreshing.
With the buttons undone, I easily removed my borrowed vest, putting it on top the neatly folded pile of my borrowed skirt, and odd poofy underwear, which reminds me of Yukari's Shikigami's hat.
The under-shirt was far easier, as it simply had one large hole that both wings stuck through, so I got that off with little assistance.
It felt nice to have the cool night air drift across my skin, which gave me goose bumps, aswell as a far more noticable reaction, but everybody else was having that exact same reaction, so nobody was about to tease the other over it.
As soon as Rumia and I had joined Cirno in the frigid water, we could tell why she had yelped as she had, as the water was ice cold.
"C-cold!" Rumia and I yelped as we surfaced.
"T-told y-ya." Cirno grinned at us, with an expression that shouted 'I win!'.
Mima's PoV:
Wewh... That was heavier than I expected!
We had finally finished packing the meat, taking far more effort than I had expected; had I known that it would be this difficult to lift, I'd have had Rumia assist me instead of Marisa!
"Well, lets get going... I could realy use a bath after all that lifting..." I spoke mostly to myself, but Marisa nodded in agreement.
"You ain't kidding, ze! That was a lot of meat!" Marisa never was very good at lifting heavy things, or even medium weight things, and hadn't grown any better at it over the past ten years since I had vanished from her life.
We made our way outside, where there were the forms of two Youkai, and a human, swimming about while their teeth chattered.
"Ahh, that's right... I guess the water would be a bit cold this time of the year, huh...?" Such things like seasons always did slip my mind.
"Guess I'll get to make use of my cold resistance spells a bit early, ze!" Marisa began to grin, before making lightning fast hand gestures, and pointing at us one after another.
With every time she pointed, the coldness of the water seemingly vanished from whoever she was pointing at.
First Cirno suddenly felt fine, then Rumia, and finally, Usagi.
Soon, I felt the bit of nip in the air fade away, as Marisa had cast her spell on me, and then, with one final gesture, she had defeated the cold air's power over herself, too.
"There we go, ze!" And with that, she quickly stripped, and jumped into the lake, just as shameless as one would expect of the ordinary witch.
Unlike my Pupil, I was far more calm about such things, so I simply walked into the water, that is, after stripping.
"Thank you, Blank-white!" The three that were once suffering in the water cried out in unison, giving her a hug each.
"Z-ze! ? L-let go!" She felt a total of six hard little pink nubs pressing against her, and it made her feel rather uncomfortable.
The struggling went on for a few minute, before the girl finaly gave in, allowing herself to be hugged. Marisa couldn't help but question if she was losing her edge, as she would usually have dodged such things with ease. ...That seems like reason enough to become a Youkai as soon as can be, as dieing would suck a bit.
A/N: And with that, my missed day is made up!