heh heh
The idea was too good to pass up.
I won't let this go uncompleted.
Part 1
Sanae propped her elbows on the table and laced her fingers together. ?Hm?so, what brings you all the way to the surface, Parsee? Actually, it?s nice to see that you were able to leave the bridge.? She wears a rather unsuspecting and unknowing smile, which just makes Parsee want to explain her situation all the more.
?Well, lately?I?ve just been having nothing but nightmares.? She paused to catch her sleeve, which had just slipped off her shoulder. ?I figured, since this was kind of your domain you could do something to help me. Since, y?know, I like sleeping without interruption.?
?Hmmm?? Sanae stared at the clearly sleep-deprived girl sitting across the table from her. She briefly wondered why she didn?t just go to Eientei instead and get the Butterfly Dream Pill; after all, the Bamboo Forest was much closer to the entrance to the Underground, but she wasn?t complaining.
That was when an idea popped into her head. ?I know! How about a dreamcatcher??
?Eh?? Parsee blinked. ?That?s kind of a normal solution, don?t you think??
?Not just any normal solution!? Sanae slapped her palms down on the tabletop, causing Parsee to jump in surprise. ?I?ll personally bless the dreamcatcher for you, so as long as it?s with you, you won?t have to worry about having nightmares anymore!?
Parsee couldn?t help but smile a little in relief. ?Thanks.?
?Oh, but I don?t have any on me right now. I?ll have to make one from scratch.?
Parsee felt her heart sink like a stone. ?How long will that take??
?To make it? Twenty minutes, tops. It?ll take much longer to get all the materials I need, though.? Sanae drummed her fingertips on the table. ?Um?Let?s see?if there?s anything you want to put on the dreamcatcher, you?ll have to get it to me as soon as possible.?
Parsee immediately thought back to the Seeing Stone, which was in the pocket of one of her dresses miles and miles beneath the Earth?s crust, and decided against it. It was too precious to be attached to anything.
Parsee shook her head. ?No, I don?t have anything.?
?Really? Well, in the meantime, do you want your fortune a charm or something? A charm won?t last as long as a dreamcatcher, though??
~
??And that?s the situation.?
Parsee was now back underground, sitting at her table in her own house. She held out a crumpled slip of paper to the kitsune sitting at the table with her, digging into a plate of fried tofu.
?I thought you?d have been through with those by now,? Ran mused, and set down her chopsticks to take the paper. ?Catastrophe?? She squinted at the kanji written upon the fortune, as if she couldn?t believe what she was reading.
?Yeah. I need to do something about this.? Parsee shivered and drew her knees to her chest. ?After we agreed on making a dreamcatcher, Sanae told me all these stories about lucid dreams she had, so that gave me an idea.?
?And that would be?? Ran set the fortune down on the table and continued eating.
Parsee reached into her pocket and pulled out a small wooden tablet in the shape of a rectangle. There was a red ribbon looped through the hole drilled through the top, and there was an inscription written on it in ink:
明晰夢
Ran stared at the charm and blinked. ?I?m afraid you?ll have to be more specific than that.?
?Oh. Remember Wingly??
?Yes, you showed me the picture you drew of her. What about her??
?She?s there every time I have a nightmare, so I was thinking if I beat her up in a dream, she?d stop bothering me. Can?t do that consciously, though?? Parsee dangled the charm absentmindedly and sighed. ?I got this in hopes that I?d have a lucid dream, although I wonder if I should?ve just asked Sanae to bless me or something. Y?know??
?I think I see what you?re getting at,? Ran said. ?If you get rid of the source of your problems, you?ll finally have some piece of mind.?
?Exactly.?
There was a lull in the conversation during which Ran finished off the rest of her food. ?Are you sure you won?t eat anything??
?I don?t have an appetite.?
Ran frowned a little as she watched Parsee turn the charm over in her hands, and reluctantly went to the kitchen to put the dishes in the sink. Gensokyo was vast. The Earth was vast. The insides of the gaps Yukari-sama used for teleportation were vast. Dreams were probably even vaster, and Parsee was going to look through them just to find one girl. It was impossible no matter how she looked at it. Ran glanced back at Parsee, who was still sitting in the living room, staring at the charm with a dull expression and dark circles under her eyes. Even if it was going to be a dream, would the hashihime really be up to the task?
Suddenly, Ran had an idea.
~
Parsee was lounging around on the floor, holding a shiny green can and swirling it around, listening to its contents slosh against the sides. Yuugi had dropped by earlier and gave her the drink, saying that it was commonly used in the Outside World to ease upset stomachs. Parsee had no idea how she got her hands on this, but it was fizzy, non-alcoholic, and surprisingly good, so she didn?t even care.
She sat up and brought the can to her lips, ready to take another sip, but then she heard the door knocking. A number of people ran through Parsee?s mind as potential visitors at this hour, and she sighed and set the can down on the table. Reluctantly standing up, she headed to the front door and opened it a crack. When she saw Ran standing at her doorstep with a drawstring bag in her hands, she was completely caught off guard.
?Ran??
?If it?s not too much trouble, may I spend the night?? She sure didn?t beat around the bush.
?Spend the night? Why??
Ran swished her tails around. ?Well, I was doing some thinking??
~
Parsee watched absentmindedly as Ran set up a spare futon on the floor. The kitsune smoothed out the covers and then took a seat, fluffing the pillow. Those nine tails of hers looked so soooft?
?Hm?? Ran glanced over her shoulder as she felt a sudden weight on her tails, and saw that the Parsee had leaned against them, and was now dozing away. Ran sighed a little, but smiled and curled up on her side, taking care not to disturb the hashihime. Before long, she too would fall into the abyss of sleep.
Part 2
Somewhere in the Dream World, there was surreal world where the sky was black and the daytime sky would forever resemble a sunrise, cycling for eternity between night and dawn, never quite becoming day. Tiny white dots covered the sky, creating countless constellations and glittering clusters in the sky. The sky loomed over the unkempt, weed-choked grass below that swayed in the perpetual wind. It was an unending, unchanging world that never experienced any changes in weather, and the only two living things there did not stray far from the huge glass dome right at the center of it all.
The glass dome was framed like a jigsaw puzzle, each peace an elaborate mosaic of an even that happened in the past. It had long since become outdated, but the lightshow that was cast when the sun rose or set was breathtaking. Of course, the floor was also made of glass.
Sitting on the floor of the dome was a girl with a red ribbon in her golden hair, her pinkish-white skirt bunched up around her as she sat with her legs and hands pressed to the cold floor. Her feathery white wings were folded slightly around her shoulders, which shook with every whispery laugh. The girl was staring down at a spot in the glass, watching a dream start to unfold. She reached over and smoothed the reflective surface as if it was a piece of fabric, and it expanded. It felt a bit tacky, like glue that wasn?t finished drying yet. When she slipped her fingers into it, however, they slid in as easily as water.
Once the reflective surface was properly adjusted for maximum viewing pleasure, Gengetsu crossed her arms around herself and let her laughter echo throughout the vast space she was in.
She couldn?t quite pinpoint why exactly, but watching a girl with nine huge, fluffy fox tails force herself from the doors of a subway was just too damn funny. It reminded her of the time she watched someone dream about rush hour traffic in Cairo, when all the cars were squeezed together and trying to round a corner in one honking, metal mass.
When the fox girl finally pulled herself free, she stumbled into the crowd, accidentally knocking over a few unlucky passerbys. Gengetsu clutched her sides and guffawed loudly, almost missing the sight of another girl with pointed ears, jumping up and down as she waved to the fox girl.
When Gengetsu saw this, she suddenly remembered something and leaned forward towards the reflective surface, letting her hair and forehead brush against the surface. She contemplated leaning forward even more and careening into the dream entirely, but she decided against it. She was more content with watching, for now.
~
?Ran! Over here!? Parsee tried to stay standing in one place as she called out to the kitsune, who had just managed to get out of the train they were in. There was a huge crowd around them of human men and women, all wearing strange clothing that made Ran and Parsee stick out like sore thumbs. Strangely enough, however, no one even seemed to spare them a second glance.
Ran, on the other hand, seemed to be more accustomed to this, even if she had trouble with the doors. Her tails gave her a wider girth than if she didn?t have them, and therefore picked her way through the crowd easily and reached out to grab Parsee?s hand. Even if there wouldn?t be a problem finding one or the other in this crowd, getting separated wasn?t the preferable course of action.
?Where are we?? Parsee shouted over the din as she and Ran made haste through the crowd. Ahead of them was a tunnel, seemingly made of rock but very smooth and giving way to a set of perfectly smooth stairs.
?We?re in a subway station!?
?What?s that??
?It?s where humans?oh, this is going to have to wait until we get out of here.? Ran sighed in frustration as she half-dragged Parsee through the crowd of strangely-clothed humans until they were on the stairs. Only then were the two able to let go of each other?s hand.
?Phew?As I was saying, this is one of the many places where humans go to transport themselves around. We just ?woke up? on one of the trains that they ride in.?
?They can?t fly? Sucks for them.? Parsee shrugged and started hopping up the stairs. ?It looks like there?s something nicer up there!?
The tunnel, oddly enough, kept going at a perfect angle until it gave way to an opening leading to the outside.
When Parsee finally cleared the stairs and got to this point, she stared up in awe at her surroundings.
It was quite different from what she was used to; all the times she had broken out from the Underground to go to the surface, she was always met with quiet and calm, surrounded by trees and grass and not what she was looking at. The ground was still very hard here, and in place of trees there were tall metal structures stretching higher and higher. Judging by the black sky, it was obviously night, but there were no stars to be found. Instead, thousands of tiny lights were coming from the metal structures, lampposts on the streets, and even from the people themselves. Except for the sky, the place was overflowing with light.
Not to mention sound, of course. Parsee?s eardrums were being assaulted from all directions by a cacophony of noise, loud music and talking and the roar of boxy devices zipping past on the street ahead. Her ears drooped, overwhelmed.
Ran?s ears had also flattened against her head as she watched the scene in wonder. ?I?ve never actually been in a city,? she mused. ?It?s even more incredible being here than having it described to you.?
?City, huh?? Parsee stared at her surroundings some more, dazed, before shaking her head once. ?Anyway, we have to find Wingly.?
?I highly doubt we?ll be able to find her in a city this size.? Ran furrowed her brow in thought. ?Even youkai have control of their dreams if they?re lucid.?
?So, we can do whatever we want, right??
?To an extent.?
?Maybe there're clues or something? I mean, we could try reality warping right now if we wanted to...?
?Hmmmm??
Ran and Parsee paused to think, both of them wishing that it would be quiet for just a moment so they could hear their thoughts.
That was when a woman passed by, her red, red hair a stark contrast among the sea of black and brown in the crowd. Even her clothes stood out: flowing robes the same color as her hair. She walked down the street with purpose, and disappeared around a corner.
Parsee and Ran looked at each other, until the former broke the silence.
?Close enough.?
And then they took off after her.