Above Gensokyo
"I was tired of my lady~
We'd been together too long~
Like a worn out recording~
Of a favorite song~
So while she lay there sleeping~
I read the paper in bed~
And in the personal columns~
There was this letter I read..."
Just a few seconds after taking off from the grounds of the Hakurei Shrine, Marisa suddenly activated her music-playing device and started singing along to the first song playing from it. Reimu, not understanding the lyrics (in the literal sense, as the translation spell doesn't seem to work on song lyrics), rolled her eyes as she flew next to the witch.
"Heh, never expected to hear The Pina Colada Song in this land of fantasy..." Yumemi said as she heard the song through the earphones she gave the Guardians.
"I've got just about everything in here!" Marisa stopped singing to respond to the professor. "AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, The Bee Gees, No Doubt, Electric Light Orchestra... ya name it!"
Yumemi is heard chuckling at that. "Everything, huh?" She then said. "How do you know about the names of those artists, anyway?"
"My mom told me about them when she gave me her music player." Marisa casually answered.
"Your mom?" Chiyuri asked.
"Yep." Marisa continued. "And she used to tell me these kickass stories too! My favorite being Guardians of the Galaxy, which is about-"
"-A bunch of outlaws led by a guy named Peter Quill, who calls himself Star-Lord." Yumemi interrupted, and finished the sentence for the witch. "I know. I watched the movies..."
"I know its a movie, and that it has a sequel. It's also where I came up with the team name for the Guardians of the Sanctuary." Marisa said. "I've got the DVDs of them, and the 37 other movies they share a universe with." She added. "Wanna watch Black Widow at my place after we're done with this Incident?"
"Wish I could, but we've got some things to do." Chiyuri politely declined.
"This is an important conversation right now?" Reimu interrupted the conversation that she doesn't understand a word of.
Awkward silence came right after that statement by the shrine maiden.
"Maybe not..." Marisa then broke the silence. "It was just a chit-chat..."
Reimu rolled her eyebrows as she continued on her way toward the invisible portal in the sky.
"Say, is it me, or has it just got a whole lot colder?" Marisa suddenly asked.
"It's probably just the wind." Reimu said as she adjusted her scarf.
"And probably just you gaining altitude." Yumemi added. "It tends to get colder the higher you go in the sky."
"I still have a bad feelin' bout this..." Marisa shrugged.
Shaking her feelings, the witch then produced a water bottle from her hyperspace-enchanted hat, and took a sip from it...
Or rather, she tried to take a sip from it.
No water came out of the bottle.
"What the...?" Wondering what was going on, Marisa stuck a finger into the bottle, and found that the finger didn't even go halfway in before hitting something solid. She then removed her finger and looked into the bottle.
The water is completely frozen solid.
"Hey, uh," Marisa pressed her fingers against her earphone. "How high do you hafta get before the water in your bottle turns to ice?"
There was a bit of silence for a few seconds, presumably because Yumemi and/or Chiyuri are verifying the relevant information.
"High enough that there's no air to speak of..." Yumemi then answered, with dread in her tone. "And you're nowhere near that high..."
"So you're sayin' that this shouldn't be possible?" Marisa asked for clarification, as she put her water bottle away.
"Not unless magic or superpowers are involved..." Chiyuri stated.
"She is right..." Reimu suddenly said as she stopped ascending and held out the Sacred Hakurei Gohei in a defensive stance. "I can sense something or someone close by..."
"Be really careful, you two." Yumemi warned. "This one seems to be packing a l-"
The transmission was interrupted by a loud screech that is followed by a brief buzz before going completely silent.
"Professor, ya still there?" Marisa tried to raise Yumemi. "Anyone?" She tried to raise Chiyuri and Ruukoto as well.
Still no response.
"I think we're all on our own right now..." Reimu stated.
Marisa groaned. "Darn it." She cursed as she un-holstered her twin revolvers.
The two could feel the air getting colder, despite there being no wind at the moment. They scanned their surroundings for any signs of anything or anyone odd.
"Whatever, or whoever you are, show yourself!" Marisa impatiently called out.
"My, my. You're one feisty little girl, are you~?" Came a reply from out of nowhere.
That voice sent chills down the spines of Reimu and Marisa.
Reimu tightened her grip on the Sacred Hakurei Gohei. "You must be a Youkai. So why don't you reveal yourself and face me, like a real Youkai would?" She dared the voice.
"You've got guts, girl~" The voice commented. "Very well, as you wish~"
All of a sudden, gusts of wind blew in from multiple directions, all carrying significant amount of snow with them. The snow gathered in one spot, and swirled around that spot like a miniature whirlwind that grew in size as more snow are added to it. The whirlwind of snow continued to grow until it exploded all of a sudden.
Where the whirlwind of snow was, there is now a woman with lavender eyes and snow white hair, clad in a blue and white dress with trousers underneath the skirt. She also wore a white cap, and a nearly transparent cape that billowed in the remnants of the gust that formed her body.
The Snow Maiden That Prowled Winter
Letitia Whiterock
"My name is Letitia Whiterock, and it is in my nature as a spirit of winter to tease people who gets lost during winter." The woman introduced herself with a smirk.
"A Yuki-Onna...?" Reimu took note.
"A what?" Marisa asked Reimu for clarification.
"A Yuki-Onna, a type of Youkai that only appears in winter, seducing lost people with their beauty before freezing them to death." Reimu explained for Marisa.
"No no no..." Letitia shushed. "I don't seduce people or freeze them to death. That is an incorrect stereotype."
"Well, I can't see how you're gonna seduce anyone, since ya looked kinda fat." Marisa snarked.
Letitia, however, didn't seem to take that statement too well, as the smile disappeared from her lips, replaced by a frown.
"D-did you just called me fat?"
Reimu turned to shoot Marisa a glare. "Really...?"
...
Hakurei Shrine
"Reimu, Marisa, you still read me?" Yumemi repeated for the fifth time after the signal had abruptly cut off.
"We're not getting any signal, professor." Chiyuri pointed out, as she gestured at the screen that currently displayed the text "NO SIGNAL" in bright red on it. "For now, we can only cross our fingers..."
Yumemi set the communicator down, and sighed. "So much for being immune to interference." She then complained. The redheaded professor then turned toward Chiyuri. "Do we have any strawberries or strawberry-flavored snacks with us right now?"
Chiyuri sighed. "It's either researching magic or eating strawberries for you, professor..." She stated. "And no, we don't have any right now..."
Yumemi groaned.
I haven't abandoned this yet!
Well, that Writer's Block was a really tough one to deal with. But now that it's been dealt with, I can get back to updating Young Maiden's Chronicles as usual. However, I'm still blank on what to write for Mystical Knowledge, so it's put on hiatus until further notice.
"And that, as they say, is that..."
Afterwords end here.
