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Rain battered the top of my umbrella as I moved through the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, each step creating an audible “splish splash” while my feet sunk into the muddy ground. To most people, the bamboo forest would be an endless maze of emerald and brown, a cage trapping lost souls until they me their inevitable demise at the hands of dehydration or insanity.
As for me, I've practiced the routes of this places hundreds of times during my time working as a student as a student of the former lunar sage, Eirin Yagokoro, or “The Brain of the Moon” as some people view her as. Several months ago, I sought out Eientei in pursuit of medicine and astronomy, hoping that Lady Eirin would be intrigued by my presence enough to take me under her wing.
Naturally, my efforts were in vain. At least initially, as Eirin proved to be a very busy individual, and she wasn’t intrigued by my presence in the slightest. So instead, I turned to the rogue moon rabbit, Reisen Inaba, in hopes that she would be willing to teach me. To my surprise, she was open to the idea. But I would need to help her with medicine selling and herb gathering. As a result, I would spend most of my days navigating the bamboo forest I currently find myself in. At first, I would get lost constantly. That phoenix lady had to help guide me multiple times, much to my embarrassment in the face of constant navigational failure.
Eventually, I learned to use the position of the stars to judge my current positioning in the forest, which would guide me through the labyrinthine patterns of the trees. With enough practice, I could treat the constellations like arrows pointing my towards herbs or forest exists, greatly increasing my efficiency in the evening. As a result, Lady Eirin was quickly intrigued by my determination and unique talents, which would result in Lady Eirin tutoring me directly. Today, I was searching for various herbs like normal. Of course, there were the basics, like garlic and turmeric, but there were also exotic flowers like nightshade, which I always thought were toxic, but Eirin requested them for use in antidote creation.
While I was carefully gathering nightshade petals, I noticed that the surrounding ar
Unfortunately, I miss whatever she was about to say, as I’m suddenly brought back to the dream world. More specifically, I’m brought to that passageway Doremy told me about.
“Aw man, those two were actually really cool…” I say to myself with a sigh before starting to walk alongside the passageway again, anticipating Doremy’s return. However, instead of Doremy, I encounter a woman with long orange hair, a black hat, a blackorange dress, and 7 tails(?) Made entirely of purple fire emerging from her back. As I approach, an overwhelming feeling of dread washes over me. Whoever this woman is, she’s bad news.
“Heya.” The woman says calmly, almost too calmly.
“Hi…?”
“You’ve been busy, huh?”
“Yeah, you could say that. Who are you, by the way? I’m Eric.”
“My name is Junko.”
“Nice. So are you like, a friend of Doremy, or…”
“Incorrect.”
“Huh. Then what are you?”
“Much more than you comprehend. All that matters is that I am here to set you straight.”
“What are you talking about? If you’re referring to my trip to the moon, then I’ll have you know that everything turned out fine. The Watatsuki’s are actually really nice once you get to know them!” I say with a wide smile.
The woman’s eye twitches. “Is that so?”
“Yeah! You should visit them sometime! Well, assuming you’re dreaming. They aren’t really a fan of earthlings, you see.” “I’m well aware.” The woman says through gritted teeth.
“Oh, sorry. It’s just that I’ve never gotten a chance to share an experience like this before. So forgive my excitement.”
“I don’t mind. Unfortunately, that trip will be your first and only.”
“What are you talking about? Once Lady Eirin hears about how well my trip went, she might make this a regular occurrence. I could even be a benefactor for the moon! Wouldn’t that be interesting?”
“I CANNOT ALLOW THAT!” The woman suddenly snaps, her voice echoing throughout the entire dream world with enough force to almost knock me over.
“Ah! W-Wha-?!”
The woman steps forward and reaches out to grab me by my shirts collar and y
The sun shone brightly over Eientei.
Earth rabbits went about their daily chores throughout the courtyard. Some carried baskets of freshly washed laundry; others swept the stone paths, while a few chatted with one another as they worked. It was an ordinary, peaceful afternoon.
Well... mostly.
Near one corner of the courtyard, two rabbits wrestled over a basket of laundry as though it were a pot of gold.
"Let go! I got it first!"
"I was here first!"
Neither rabbit was willing to admit defeat.
They pulled.
One rabbit gained a little ground.
The next tug erased all of it.
Back and forth they went, each tug undoing the last as neither was willing to let go.
Eventually, both rabbits slumped onto the ground, still clinging to opposite sides of the basket. They were too exhausted to keep pulling, yet far too stubborn to admit defeat.
A third rabbit happened to be sweeping nearby.
She glanced at the exhausted pair.
Then at the basket.
Reisen moved quickly through Eientei.
The corridors immediately outside Eirin’s room were quiet.
Her footsteps tapped against the wooden floor as she passed closed doors and adjoining rooms, occasionally glancing through an open doorway.
Nobody.
She continued farther.
One of her ears had mostly straightened again. The other still bent awkwardly near the top.
Reisen reached another corridor and slowed.
Somewhere ahead came a faint, repetitive sound.
Snip.
A pause.
Snip. Snip.
Then voices.
“No, the ears need to be longer.”
“They are long.”
“They look like horns.”
Tewi Inaba was half sprawled across the ground, surrounded by considerably more board games than she remembered agreeing to play.
A crooked pile of boxes had formed to her left. Another sat to her right, several of them still open with cards, boards and loose pieces scattered around them.
Clownpiece was already working on another.
She sat in front of Tewi with her attention fixed entirely on the pieces spread across the ground, apparently unaware that the rabbit beside her was more spent than a full magazine of bullets.
Her hands moved quickly and methodically from one piece to the next.
Pick one up.
Set it down.
Reach for another.
Her brows scrunched together in concentration as she worked, moving with the kind of determination that suggested she wanted the pieces to assemble themselves if she went fast enough.
Tewi wasn't watching.
Her eyes had wandered past Clownpiece and toward the distant lunar horizon.
She stared across the pale emptiness, searching for anything moving against it.
Reisen.
Kaguya.
Eirin.
The pale lunar landscape stretched beneath the empty sky.
Tewi lay flat on her back on the ground, her hands tucked behind her head.
Her eyes were half open.
She'd had fun.
A lot more fun than she had expected to have after being carried all the way to the Moon without anyone bothering to tell her why.
But now she was tired.
And as she stared upward, her thoughts had started drifting back to Eientei.
Her ears lowered slightly.
She wondered what Reisen was doing right now.
Nearby, Clownpiece was putting away the board games.
Or trying to.
Several boxes were scattered around her, some already half closed while others still had pieces lying around them.
Clownpiece grabbed a handful of pieces and dropped them into one of the boxes.
They didn't fit.
She frowned and pushed them down with both hands.
The morning sun cast long, golden strings of light that wrapped around the Human Village in a veil of amber and honey, providing a warm greeting for a new day in the wondrous land of illusions. Within the shielded walls of the village rests a utopia for anyone who wanted a simple life in a chaotic world, where they could settle down and maintain the balance of Gensokyo without realizing their impact.
For me, this was the perfect time of day for gardening, not because of the light, but because of the morning dew. I knelt in my modest garden, a small plot behind my home, and carefully harvested coneflowers with gloved hands. The plant provides immune system benefits on it’s own, but when combined with morning dew, it can also lower body temperatures, which is helpful for fevers or hot days.
My name is Eric, and I was often considered an anomaly in the Human Village. While most humans in Gensokyo farmed or ran general markets, I have been dedicating my life to the study of medicine. Obviously, I was no miracle worker, so I couldn’t just wave my hands and instantly cure everyone. However, it served as a fun hobby for me to partake in, and it proved to be effective when sold at the local markets.
During my medicinal research, I also happened to pick up a hobby of cooking along the way. I’m aware that cooking and medicine are different, but I’ve also noticed that they have a surprising amount of overlap; both involved ingredient management and brewing techniques, albeit with a different definition of “brewing” for each hobby. My cooking wasn’t anything special though, I mostly just made basic meat-based dinners to fuel my body for the mornings where I’d work in the gardens. I’m ashamed to admit that I have a huge sweet tooth though, so I would occasionally treat myself to a fruit cobbler that I taught myself to make.
With that being said, I gathered up some sage, coneflowers, and ginger into my bag amd walked into my home; where I would get to work in the kitchen: grinding up roots with a mortar and pestle, and steeping the leaves in a small pot of water. Compared to the advanced medicines Reisen sold when she visited the village, my medicines were rather humble: balm for
>>29375
I do not expect you to rewrite this entire thing, perhaps I should have been more clear but all of my advice about how I think this work could have been improved is meant to help you evaluate it so you can take that into account for future works.
This is a public image board, and you asked, on discord, for people to read and give feedback. I have given feedback to the best of my ability.
I understand if you do not want to continue this line of conversation further and will not pursue it.
I understand what you mean, and I do appreciate the feedback I have been given. It's just that when I'm faced with a lot of negativity, it begins to feel frustrating.
I have no intention to come across as gatekeeping or demanding.
(Author's Note: This is the original version of Lunatic Benefactor. I posted the remake first because I thought it was better, but apparently it's not good in the eyes of those who have read it. So here's the original version to see if people like it better, I guess. This is still just meant to be a nonseries oneshot that I thought was a fun idea.)
The air in Eientei was always thick with the scent of herbs, yet was always completely silent outside of the soft sounds of movement inside. For a place hidden within the depths of The Bamboo Forest of the Lost, it felt less like a clinic and more of a liminal space inside of its own pocket dimension. A fact that was only made more apparent by the facility's non-euclidean geometry and looping hallways that once sent a group of incident resolvers directly to space. But for now, it was simply a small consultation room where I rested on a small cushion across from the silver-haired pharmacist, Eirin Yagokoro. A porcelain cup of green tea was cooling in my hands while an open notebook full of scrawled notes on various compounds and tinctures, a testament to my peculiar hobby: a fascination with the medicines of this hidden world.
Eirin, her expression an eternal mask of gentle, knowing serenity, had been a patient teacher throughout my journey. We had been discussing the effects of sleeping medication on those with severe insomnia, while I listened with rapt attention. Despite Gensokyo being known for its chaotic incidents and danmaku battles, I always found a profound peace in Eirin’s clinical methodology.
As our conversation lulled, I noticed Eirin’s gaze drifted towards a nearby window, looking up past the bamboo stalks and at up at the sky, where the afternoon was beginning to hint at the moons ghostly silhouette. It was a rare break in her composure that showed a fleeting glimpse that held nothing but remorse.
“Is something the matter, Miss Eirin?” I asked, putting my pen down for a moment.
She turned back, her serene smile returning, but it was softer than usual. “My apologies, I was merely lost in thought. We were discussing methods of sleeping, and it reminded me of a time not so long ago at all, wher
The moon's horizon was breathtaking, a perfectly calm ocean without a single gust of wind to create waves. Above me, the sky was a velvet blackness filled with a vast sea of stars, and floating above the ocean, casting a perfect reflection of itself, was the green and blue gem I originated from. It was so much more vibrant than any photograph, a spinning marble of life against the empty, silent void.
Regardless, everything around me was something I never could’ve expected. Of course, there was the ocean that stretched out into the horizon, and there was also a forest of peach trees looming over me. But most importantly of all, was what stood before me when I fully turned around. It was the massive, reinforced gates of an enclosed city that looked like it came straight out of a sci-fi novel. Everything looked like it was constructed for maximum efficiency, with not a single abnormality in sight. No wind blew, and no sound dares disturb that unmatched purity of this place.
Of course, my arrival had not gone unnoticed. Two figures stood beneath the gates, as if they were waiting for my arrival. Both woman were wearing regal outfits with a presence so immense it felt like a physical pressure in a nonexistent atmosphere.
The first to move was the one with long, flowing hair the color of a sandy beach and eyes like molten gold. She wore a beautiful dark violet dress with a single strap over her left shoulder, layered over a white long-sleeved blouse. At her waist was a loose belt with a gold, mirror-shaped buckle, and topping her head was a white, widebrimmed bonnet tied with a cheerful red ribbon. Her expression wasn’t one of alarm, but of pure, childlike curiosity.
Her sister stood alongside her, her posture rigid with authority. Her light purple hair was tied into a ponytail with a yellow ribbon, and her brown eyes were sharp, analytical, and devoid of her sister’s warmth. She wore a matching dark red dress, but with the strap on the right, over the white short-sleeved blouse. Her belt was identical, but the buckle was a gold, sword-shaped ornament. Her hand rested on the hilt of a katana that gleamed in the moonlight.
“A visitor.” Toyohime announced, her voice light
