Songs of the Illusionary Veil : Howl
A Touhou Project story by Achariyth
Disclaimer: ZUN owns Touhou, not me.
"'In her house in Mayohiga, dread Yukari lies dreaming,'" Ran Yakumo muttered. She lurked next to her master's four-post bed, shadows hiding both the fox woman and the giant pillow in her hands. Smothering her master now would quiet the jet engine roar howling from the sleeping youkai's mouth by a factor of a thousand. Too bad that the resulting buzz saw whine would still be a hundred thousand times shriller than Yukari's normal pleasant, yet cryptic, speech.
Ran wished she could spend a moment to figure out down to the last digit exactly how much the feather cushion would silence Yukari's snoring. The vixen loved numbers to the point that her master often called her a living computer. With a little coaxing, they could tell her much about the world and how it worked. For instance, she had only ten minutes before Chen woke up to add her own caterwauling to the mix. Sleeping through that cacophonous duet, Ran knew from hard-learned terror, would be impossible.
Unless you were Yukari Yakumo.
The Buddha taught that to desire is to suffer. Limiting desire would end the ceaseless pain of existence. But even the Enlightened One would crave a night of uninterrupted sleep. especially if he had spent the past week stealing little cat naps around the Doomkitten's fits.
The vixen's hands twitched as she crept away from the mountain of ruffles and silk. "Even Reimu would forgive me," she whispered. The cushion dangled from Ran's loose grip until the fox hugged it tight against her body.
Unlike humans and beasts, breathing down would not kill Yukari. Assuming that the blonde youkai would even deign to notice the inconvenience, Ran figured that her master would be 33% likely to just roll over and moan Aya's name. After that, Ran was 100% certain to smother her for real. That left a 67% chance that Yukari would wake up raring for a full-contact pillow fight where she owned all the pillows. Yet no matter how Yukari applied the switch of correction, Chen would sleep away, oblivious. After the ruckus, Ran then could get a few hours sleep, at least until Yukari's feral snore awoke once more to murder all chances of rest. If the vixen acted in the next nine minutes and seventeen seconds...
...sixteen...
...fifteen...
Ran cast her burning bloodshot eyes about for any way to silence that infernal snore. Merely waking Yukari for anything short of Yuyuko's yearly banquet or Reimu and Marisa kicking down the door to Mayohiga would earn the fox a swat or ten.
Some days Ran wished that she had never agreed to become Yukari's familiar, but she'd never step away from the wonderful world of numbers her master had introduced her to.
Her eyes lit on the small portal by the bed. Yukari kept one nearby the bed as a chamber pot. Ran normally wished that her boss would get out of bed and walk to the bathroom like anyone else. Anything for a respite from the rasping snarl belting from Yukari's bedroom. However, her master loved convenience dearly, and Ran suffered on.
"In for a penny," Ran said. Her tails swished behind her and she flashed a toothy predatory smile. She ran towards the bathroom, opening herself up towards her master's power. Warmth flooded through her body, reminding the fox woman of running through fields on a midsummer day.
The vixen burst into the shrine to brass, porcelain, and beauty products. One swift kick spun the dial over the tub, flooding it with cold water. Meanwhile, Ran seized in both hands the portal hovering over the toilet and channeled her master's power into it. It took every bit of the warmth within, but the fox dragged the portal over the tub and pulled it just wide enough for an eternal seventeen year old.
Ran stepped back, watched the water fill the tub, and pursed her lips. Dashing out of the room, she reappeared minutes later, dragging a bag of ice as long and as full as one of her tails. Swinging it around, she smashed the ice against a wall before dumping the bag into the water.
Two minutes and thirty-eight seconds before the Doomkitten's yowl, Ran stood again by her master's bed and gripped the underside of the mattress. Lightning quick calculations told her how hard, how fast, and how high to life. With a minute to spare, and a bright smile on her lips, the kitsune trickster hauled her side of the bed high into the air. Yukari tumbled over the side, and a pleasing splash filled the air.
"RAN!"
And Chen slept on.
Yukari huddled against the porcelain tub, shivering inside a heavy terry cloth robe. Her teeth chattered as she flipped through a phone-book sized manual in her hands, stopping only to wipe sodden blonde strands out of her eyes. "Why is my familiar misbehaving?" Yukari read.
Your Kitsune 9.0 familiar is acting out in an attempt to bring your attention to her needs. The manufacturer recommends that you sit down with your Kitsune 9.0 and work your way through the following questions until you are able to diagnose and correct the underlying need causing her misbehavior.
Yukari scowled, her lips twisting into a moue of disgust as she read on. Flinging the thick book against the wall, she reached for a small pamphlet atop a stack of scattered magazines and books by the toilet. Titled "Familiars for Dummies," this single sheet folded three times had been written by Yuyuko Saigyouji and distilled the ghostly courtesan's wisdom into a series of pithy sayings. Where the Kitsune 9.0 manual had reams of paper devoted to troubleshooting, Yuyuko's philosophy could be reduced to two sentences.
"Equipment that can't work is replaced. Equipment that won't work is abused until it can't or it does," Yukari read aloud through blue lips. The waterlogged youkai grinned and reached through a portal, grabbing a familiar wooden switch.