Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Hakurei Shrine~ => Patchouli's Scarlet Library => Topic started by: UnendingEmpire on May 25, 2014, 11:53:45 PM

Title: UE's One-Shot Emporium
Post by: UnendingEmpire on May 25, 2014, 11:53:45 PM
Halloween in Gensokyo. The one day a year where children living in or visiting the Human Village dress up as youkai and go from house to house asking for candy. Even the youkai celebrated it, provided they didn't cause any trouble. While they generally didn't live in the village, there were of course exceptions. In the case of one exception, she had a house and everything. Her lights were off tonight, so that trick-or-treaters would know she wasn't in. Where was this girl? Who was this girl? Her name was Sekibanki, and she'd been asked by the head of the Myouren Temple to pay a visit to help a youkai with matters the dullahan may have been experienced in. That didn't mean she quite understood.

"So..." Trying not to sound like a skeptical ass (skeptical though she may have been) Sekibanki asked, her red capelet covering the lower half of her head as always, "I'm just supposed to teach you how to surprise people?" Sitting across from her was the youkai who needed help, according to Byakuren. Sekibanki found something about her appearance, most likely the attention-absorbing shade of blue, a little irritating. Or maybe that eggplant umbrella next to her was the part she thought was irritating? Whichever part it was, this karakasa was apparently having trouble surprising others, and so Byakuren called in a supposed expert in the field. Why they thought Sekibanki was a surprise expert, she didn't know, but they were giving her and this girl ? Kogasa, was it? ? a meal of curry with rice and an experimental dish from the cook that was composed of chocolate-based curry in a tasty fried bun. It sounded vaguely familiar to the dullahan, but she wasn't going to press the issue, partially because it reminded her of potatoes; her favorite food. Rather, she was just going to enjoy a bite of this so-called curry bun while awaiting Kogasa's answer.

"I can't surprise anybody around here," Kogasa confirmed. "Whenever I try, I just fail and I usually get hurt. So Byakuren said you could help me! Yes, she said a dullahan like you could?"

"SHE KNOWS!?" Sekibanki asked, spewing chocolate and fried bun everywhere. A big smile cracked across Kogasa's face at the look of utter surprise and shock on Sekibanki's.

"You didn't know she knew? She can see past everything; she knew you were a dullahan the instant she saw you pass by here the other day," Kogasa said as if this was the most common fact in history. "Since tonight's Halloween, she said you could help."

"Mmm..." Sekibanki sensed a tricky situation. On one hand, she'd have to put up with this karakasa's crap all night. On the other, Byakuren could have easily blackmailed her with her youkai secret if she refused to help, and with that everybody would lose their trust in her. "I'm not all that great at surprising people," Sekibanki admitted. "The biggest thing I can do right now is detach my head, but it's always been like that." Standing up (and not releasing her curry bun) Sekibanki said "But, I guess if I have to, I have to. I sure hope you've been on a horse before."

"Nope~"

This is gonna be a long night...

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Not much later; Sekibanki's house...

"Not many people get to see the inside," Sekibanki said, opening the door to her house. "I keep some souveniers in here."

"What kind of souven..." Kogasa's jaw dropped. Sekibanki said she kept souveniers here, but to Kogasa, they looked more like war trophies. Most unnerving was the human spine hanging on the back wall, with what looked like a person's lower arm attached to the end to act as a handle or grip of some sort. Among other items were a few skulls that had their tops chopped off so as to stick a candle inside each, a disturbingly well-preserved human head that was lacking a pair of eyes, and the oldest most rotten-looking potato Kogasa had ever seen. The fact that there weren't worms and cockroaches swarming around the thing was a surprise in itself.

"Don't eat the potato," Sekibanki warned. "It's from home, and helps me think of better days."

"C-Can I ask what kind of days those were?"

"Potato famine. Lots of people starved to death. I had a good run until that Patrick guy came in." Pointing to the severed head, the dullahan continued "That guy caught me in the act at some point during the famine, so I had to whip his eyes out. I wanted to mark him as the next one down, but starvation is a very un-bloody way to die, so I didn't have any handy. I guess you could also call it a blood famine? Either way, he got eaten by wolves a week later. I'm just glad I got to save the head. "

"I see...I have one more question."

"Ask away," Sekibanki said, opening what looked like a cabinet with human hands acting as handles. Based on what Kogasa saw, the stuff inside the cabinet ? unlike the potato ? was very fresh and would have looked quite tasty if the fact hadn't crossed the karakasa's mind that she'd have to grip a dead human hand to reach the food.

"WHAT THE HELL KIND OF COLLECTION IS THIS!?"

The karakasa's sudden shouting resulted in a jump from the dullahan, enough so that she dropped the three carrots in her hand and her head, which hit the floor with a distinct thud. Sekibanki heard Kogasa scream, and promptly replied with a "Shut up!" Once the inside of the macabre house was silent again, Sekibanki's head said, while her body was feeling around on the floor for the last piece, "Like I said, they're souveniers. You know, from doing dullahan work?"

"And what kind of work lets you take home these things as souveniers?"

"Death work," the redhead suggested like it was such an obvious fact as she located and reattached her head. "A dullahan rides their horse to the spot where a human is supposed to die, and when we finally stop to call their name, they die immediately. The whip on the wall and the horse outside came with the job, and I collected the other assorted body parts from people who got maimed as part of their death. Do you really know nothing about us?"

"..."

"It just so happens that I caught word of a battle to the death that's supposed to happen tonight. Perhaps I can show you what a dullahan does, if you'd like."

"But, the gates..." Kogasa referred to the gates around the Human Village's walls. Once the sun came down, the gates were locked, even if it didn't quite stop people from flying over the walls. It was a practical security measure, but altogether ineffective.

"Locks aren't going to stop me...they aren't made of gold, right?"

"No. Why?"

"Don't ask. Just follow me," Sekibanki said, grabbing three more carrots from the cabinet and closing it. Before opening the back door of her house, she pointed in the direction of the whip made from the human spine, and said "And grab my whip. I'd ask if you had a bucket of blood handy, but you strike me as the type to only collect blood from somebody's nose."

"Huh?" Kogasa had no idea what her not-advisor was talking about. So far, that was about the norm, but when somebody, owning a severed head whose eyes had been taken out by a whip made from a human spine, tells you to do something...you do it. No telling if Kogasa would lose her eyes if she said no, so the karakasa would nervously do what she was told tonight. As she picked up the whip and shook in the fact that it was a person's spine once, Sekibanki fired another casual-sounding question her way.

"How much do you know about horses?"

"Erm...they like carrots, right? People tend not to carry umbrellas on horseback, you know? So I don't know much about them. Horses are a little before my time anyway; I come from a time with cars and trains." Not that she was made into a particularly happy time, but that's a story for another day.

"Outsiders these days." Opening the door, Sekibanki said "Just follow me. I'm sure the poor thing is hungry."

"Hm?"

"My horse." Pointing outside the door into a small fenced backyard, Sekibanki pointed to a huge black horse that had to be at least the dullahan's height. Very fine red mane, very intense red eyes, and extremely muscular. The horse looked like it could kick down the gates to the Human Village, or bite a person's hand off.

"That's...quite a horse, I guess?" To be honest, Kogasa was terrified that she'd be riding on the back of that thing. It looked more like it would kill her than let her ride it, not to mention that ? as she'd said ? Kogasa came from an era where horses were starting to get outdated. Had it been a train, Kogasa would hop aboard in no time, or even something among the earliest cars, but not a monster horse like the one Sekibanki owned. "It doesn't look like a girl's kind of horse, to be honest."

"Were you expecting a pretty pink unicorn?"

"Well, I guess next to all this other stuff, the horse is kind of normal? Just forget I mentioned it!" Handing Sekibanki her spine whip, Kogasa followed her eerie host out the back door to see the horse up close. There was a light brown saddle hanging on a post in the back corner of this fenced-in area, but it didn't look to be from any human parts. That in itself was curious to Kogasa. Unable to know not when to ask a question, the curious karakasa pointed to the saddle and asked "What's that made of?"

"Horse hide."

"I see...wait, what?" Wasn't it for a horse? Why make it from horse hide? In the theme of Sekibanki's other things, it made a little bit of sense, but not much.

"You ask a lot of questions. I remember once in France, that could get your head chopped off. Just shut up and feed her these carrots," Sekibanki said, holding the carrots out to Kogasa. "Make sure you toss them to her instead of handing them over normally," she warned as she lifted the horse-hide saddle off the fencepost. "She'll bite your hand off otherwise if you're not me."

"N-Nice horse..." CHOMP! "MY FINGER!"
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One mounting up later; Human Village...

"You said you've never been on horseback?"

"Cars were starting to become the way to get around when I was still an umbrell-"

"HYAH!"

"WaitwaitslowthisthingdownI'mgonnafalloffanddie!" Tightly gripping the dullahan sitting in front of her on a horse-hide saddle on horseback (yo dawg, I heard you like horses) to avoid falling off, Kogasa watched the scenery fly by around her. It was kind of like a car. But faster (faster than Great Depression-era cars, at least) and without any roof or walls. The whole world passing by wasn't blocked off by a car door; it was right in her face. The wind in the face, those subtle bounces a person had since a horse galloped, the whole equine experience. It was horrifying; sudden turns all over the place. "Do you even know where you're going!?"

"Of course I know," Sekibanki said in a raised voice of excitement. "I'm a dullahan! You'd have to be crazy to not be scared of us!" The two were closing in on the gates fast now. At the speed they were moving, they could probably just bust a hole right through the gates, but Sekibanki had other plans. "Hold on," she said. "I haven't done this in a while, so if I mess up we'll be charging through those gates."

"But those things are reinforced! You can't just-"

"OPEN!" From the dangerously short distance to the gates, Kogasa and Sekibanki both could hear the sounds of a large lock popping open, followed immediately by the gates before them swinging wide open just in time to let them pass. They weren't in the crowded spaces of the Human Village anymore, where one needed master reflexes just to avoid running somebody over. Now space was all that surrounded them, accompanied by a night sky, the scenery of Gensokyo's forests, and the movement of a horse. It was straight from a storybook.

"And they all live happily ever after, of course~!"

"Hm?"

"Oh, nothing."

"A karakasa's stomach is filled when they surprise somebody, right? After we watch that battle to the death, you should approach the winner. Or the loser." Dullahan horses were very fast indeed. Gensokyo seemed to pass by like a blur, nothing stopping the black steed as it went on. If there was a gate, it just swung open. If there was a forest fire, the flames parted. Nothing would stop a dullahan.

"I wish I could go around like this. Not worrying about locks or other things stopping me. Is it fun, living like this?"

"A dullahan's work is never really done. Every day, countless humans die, and since I'm the only dullahan in Gensokyo, the task falls to me to take each one to his grave. It's peaceful here, and danmaku rules make my work much easier. Only two people have died this past month. I believe you'll find yourself quite starved after hearing this, but there's no battle to the death tonight. Actually, I simply wanted you to ride this horse with me."

"!" Kogasa's entire face went a deep red. "Wh-What? Just...horseback riding?"

"Just horseback riding. In my time, there are few better ways to spend an evening with somebody you like than taking them on a moonlit ride on your horse."

"S-So, but B-Byakuren..."

"She lied through her teeth. We discussed it the day I passed your temple; I saw you in the graveyard and concluded that since I certainly have no chance of settling down with a fellow child of Ireland, it'd be good to meet a nice youkai who could use a helping hand herself. Byakuren pointed me to you, and we devised a plan to get you on my horse tonight."

"On Halloween night?"

"It's the best night of the year. I'm sure an umbrella ghost will appreciate it just as much as a messenger of death." Pointing out to the scenery the two saw from the stopped horse, Sekibanki asked "Are you still upset for having come out here?"

"Wawawa...this scenery..." If riding on horseback was out of a storybook, the scene Sekibanki brought her to was the best literature in history. It could only be described in the most general terms possible to avoid ruining the beauty of the night. The trees in Gensokyo that gave in halfway across the horizon to bamboo stalks, the stars that filled the sky, and the uncannily luminous full moon hanging right above it all. "Thank you for bringing me out here, Sekibanki."

"I owe it to you, for being in that graveyard at the time I saw you. Were it not for that, I'd be in my house right now, giving out candies to children who try to be like us." Reaching into a pouch on the horse's saddle, Sekibanki pulled out a brown paper sack. Opening it up, the dullahan put both her hands in, and each emerged with a brown round object. Holding one out to Kogasa, she said "Here, have a potato."

"Thank you."

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Initially published on FanFiction, this was a Halloween special a few months ago, but there's not too much Halloween-y about it besides it taking place on Halloween, to be totally honest.  Even though she's listed as a rokurokukubi (or was it nukekubi?) I like Sekibanki best as a dullahan.  They're badass creatures of Irish myth, and it makes Seki feel like she's way more awesome than she may actually be.  Plus, it lets me give her a creepy abode with dismembered body parts as furniture.  There's another story where somebody enters her house, but that's a story for another day.

...get it?  Cuz...it's a story?  Never mind =.=